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Aussies LVII


Stubby

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Curse you sh_wulf for posting that link :devil: (hawt shoes by the way) !

I clicked on it . . . started browsing and now have serious lemmings for these boots . . .

See my PM :devil:

thanks to all of you for the lovely thoughts when I 'm well it's good, but more than 2 weeks I get down

Lucky I've still be able to work

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Can't say I'm surprised :lol:.

Fuck off, we don't want you here (read: yes of course. Food, booze and excellent company guaranteed).

ETA: Rinzy is coming to Sydney in early July! Eyelesbarrow is coming to Sydney in mid-July! More meets in the pipeline folks.

Sounds good man, looking forward to it!

And keep me up to date with the july meets, always up for a drink :)

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any cricket fans here? can you believe ellyse perry's been told to quit cricket by her soccer club, or get lost? unbelievable. i dont know much about soccer, but she's an excellent cricketer, and would probably be a big loss for either sport. hopefully she can move to some other club and keep playing both sports.

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any cricket fans here? can you believe ellyse perry's been told to quit cricket by her soccer club, or get lost? unbelievable. i dont know much about soccer, but she's an excellent cricketer, and would probably be a big loss for either sport. hopefully she can move to some other club and keep playing both sports.

There are a bunch of cricket tragics supporters that post on the topic over in the entertainment forum. ;)

But the situation is not that unusual. Blokes playing top-flight football in the past managed to play shield or even test cricket at the same time - such as Mick Malone. Even Craig Bradley forced himself into the Victorian shield team towards the end of his football career. But nowadays they are forced to choose one or the other. Training regimes for football mean the majority of the cricket season is taken up by pre-season work. Added to that prospect of injury and team officials get nervous. When Nic Natanui played in a social basketball game earlier this year the Eagles staff had kittens.

But I agree that it is a shitty situation.

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Well considering I chose basketball over footy you could be right, ohh and over cricket despite having a nice yorker for bowling and a decent batting ability.

These days I doubt I could do much for any of them

I am still not bad with a sword though

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I expect corruption, ego, lies, promises etc. But running for the door is just so damn...juvenile. It's like..how the hell did this person get into such a position of power?

It would be humiliating to have him as a prime minister. I still think Libs are using him to run negative campaign against Labor to damage Gillard and will ditch him before election and pick a better, more positive candidate.

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Yes, maybe we will also get unicorns and pixie dust that will let us fly. :P

Though to be fair, I think we are fairly well represented. While we don't always get exactly what we want, we tend to head towards the right direction. Mining tax is an example, while it was watered down a bit, we still have it now, and it is better than nothing. Carbon tax is another one, most people, I would think, care for the environment one way or the other, and despite Australia being a small fry in terms of carbon emission on the world stage (although we are one of the worst per capita), we will soon have a carbon scheme in place nationally. We have good healthcare, education, and moderately decent infrastructure. Our regulations are usually well aimed, in most industries, and tend to work pretty effectively.

So while I bitch about the politicians a lot, I think the nation is run fairly well. Even if Liberal party were to win next election, I still think we will mostly be okay. I don't have a lot against the party itself, I just can't stand Tony Abbott. I can only hope the Libs see sense and ditch this loser. But unfortunately, Labor is making things easy for him.

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Err fairly well represented?

How do you figure that?

A couple of examples first and foremost the one that really pisses me off. There has become a recent trend for people to make the gov responsible for training of skilled personnel yet this is the responsability of the employer and always has been. For some inexplicable reason the current gov is happy to go along with these claims. IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE TAXPAYER TO PAY FOR THE TRAINING OF ELECTRICIANS ETC FOR BIG BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Free tertiary education for those who pass the required levels is something totally different but even then contracts can be written to ensure that they do not just take from the taxpayer and then piss off overseas.

Next is the issue of leadership within the major parties, the public would much prefer Rudd and Turnbull but the major parties have no regard at all for what the public want, in other words THEY DO NOT RESPECT DEMOCRACY.

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Taxpayers already pay for training. Unless you think University etc does not count as training? The idea is that government makes back more than enough in taxes once these people are trainined and have well paying job, to offset the money that goes into training them. And in many industries this is quite evident (egnineering for example, from personal experience). There is no reason this cannot be true for electricians or other tradies. They pay taxes too, and earn big bucks to boot!

For example, manufacturing sector is struggling, and chances are it will never trully recover fully. So the sector will have to adapt and survive in parts where it can compete (i.e. high end manufacturing) and will have to cut back on places where it cannot compete. But there are a lot of skilled personnel there, and retraining them would be beneficial to Australia. If you don't retrain them, they either go overseas, so no tax from them, or they stay here and go on the dole, which cost tax payer money. Surely it would be more effective to retrain them so that their skills could be utilised elsewhere, such as on the booming industries (mining for example)?

Hoping for a private market solution is a pipe dream, as shown by Rinehart's new deal for migrant workers for the new mine. For private industries, it is probably always cheaper to import skilled workers from overseas who work on the same industry than to train local workers to a suitable level. After all, mining already drains alot of resources from other sectors with its big money, so chances are that all mining-relevant skilled people are already working in mining industries.

As for the leadership and what the public wants, remember, alot of people are mostly idiots who change their mind every other week as media bombards them with shocking titles. Today they want Rudd, tomorrow they will wish for Gillard again, and the week after they might want Abbott. The important thing is that the country is in a stable path and things are getting done. While Labor sure seems unstable internally, they have gotten some things done (mining tax and carbon scheme being the two big one). I don't give two toss about the leadership as long as things are progressing. The reason Tony bothers me is because all he has done is trashtalk without putting some alternate ideas on the table. Plus he doesn't believe in climate change, and that bothers me so damn much! Who knows maybe if/when he wins he might even make a decent prime minister, but so far he has been very dissapointing.

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Hoping for a private market solution is a pipe dream, as shown by Rinehart's new deal for migrant workers for the new mine. For private industries, it is probably always cheaper to import skilled workers from overseas who work on the same industry than to train local workers to a suitable level. After all, mining already drains alot of resources from other sectors with its big money, so chances are that all mining-relevant skilled people are already working in mining industries.

Also, almost all Eastern staters who have those skills and are looking for work aren't going to be young mobile types, they'll be older and likely have a family - hence they're not going to be keen on leaping into the Pilbara rental market or going FIFO.

Foreigners, on the other hand have no idea what they're missing when they land in the desert hell-hole that is WA.

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"As for the leadership and what the public wants, remember, alot of people are mostly idiots who change their mind every other week as media bombards them with shocking titles. Today they want Rudd, tomorrow they will wish for Gillard again, and the week after they might want Abbott. The important thing is that the country is in a stable path and things are getting done. While Labor sure seems unstable internally, they have gotten some things done (mining tax and carbon scheme being the two big one). I don't give two toss about the leadership as long as things are progressing. The reason Tony bothers me is because all he has done is trashtalk without putting some alternate ideas on the table. Plus he doesn't believe in climate change, and that bothers me so damn much! Who knows maybe if/when he wins he might even make a decent prime minister, but so far he has been very dissapointing."

I see so because most people are idiots we throw democracy away? You either abide by democratic rule or you don't, you don't get to be put in power by it and then ignore it.

Carbon Tax hmmm ok just what exactly is that doing?

Mining Tax well that could be a good thing but rather than doing it just as a mining tax how about it be done as an extraordinary profits tax? After all that is what it is supposed to be about. That I would call good governing but at this point there is a good case for nullification of the tax due to it's discriminatory nature.

Private sector solution? not asking for that just asking for them to pay their own way instead of trying to get anything and everything they can from the Gov/taxpayer.

Universities, apart from the fact that I already mentioned that was a different situation your forgetting HECS fees, yes slightly subsidized for citisens but not that much and the move is now under way to drop even that small subsidy.

The main problem is that once trained a tradesman then goes elsewhere for much bigger bucks, that is reasonable but it would be fairer if the apprenticeship contract was similar to that done by the armed forces where there is a minimum period after training where you must work for the training company.

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"As for the leadership and what the public wants, remember, alot of people are mostly idiots who change their mind every other week as media bombards them with shocking titles. Today they want Rudd, tomorrow they will wish for Gillard again, and the week after they might want Abbott. The important thing is that the country is in a stable path and things are getting done. While Labor sure seems unstable internally, they have gotten some things done (mining tax and carbon scheme being the two big one). I don't give two toss about the leadership as long as things are progressing. The reason Tony bothers me is because all he has done is trashtalk without putting some alternate ideas on the table. Plus he doesn't believe in climate change, and that bothers me so damn much! Who knows maybe if/when he wins he might even make a decent prime minister, but so far he has been very dissapointing."

I see so because most people are idiots we throw democracy away? You either abide by democratic rule or you don't, you don't get to be put in power by it and then ignore it.

Carbon Tax hmmm ok just what exactly is that doing?

People didn't vote for Kevin Rudd, people voted for Labor. Just because people don't like Gillard as much as they did Rudd doesn't mean democratic process was undermined. As far as I am concerned, we are following democratic process. Labor got enough votes (with other independants) to form parliament, where exactly has the democratic process been undermined?

The carbon scheme puts a price on carbon and applies to all big polluters (mining, power, some water companies etc). So when you emit carbon you pay money for it. Lots of electricity generation company has already started introducing solar power onto existing coal power plants to offset their emission, and to make the plants more efficient. So it is already working to encourage green technology being implemented for power generation.

Mining Tax well that could be a good thing but rather than doing it just as a mining tax how about it be done as an extraordinary profits tax? After all that is what it is supposed to be about. That I would call good governing but at this point there is a good case for nullification of the tax due to it's discriminatory nature.

Other companies simply do not have high enough profit to go under the proposed mining super profit tax. Also, the reason it does not, and should not, apply to other companies is because mineral is the property of all Australians, mining companies merely dig it out and sell it. So imposing extra tax from their super profits is reasonable as the country should benefit more from our own mineral sale instead of the few mining magnate or shareholders of mining companies. The same cannot be said of banks or manufacturing or a lot of other industries.

Uh, do you mean nullification of all tax or the mining super tax?

Private sector solution? not asking for that just asking for them to pay their own way instead of trying to get anything and everything they can from the Gov/taxpayer.

Universities, apart from the fact that I already mentioned that was a different situation your forgetting HECS fees, yes slightly subsidized for citisens but not that much and the move is now under way to drop even that small subsidy.

The main problem is that once trained a tradesman then goes elsewhere for much bigger bucks, that is reasonable but it would be fairer if the apprenticeship contract was similar to that done by the armed forces where there is a minimum period after training where you must work for the training company.

Most comapanies already have policies where if they pay for your training, such as Masters or other courses, you have to pay back the cost of the course if you leave the company within x-year after completion of the course. So what you suggest is already in place. The problem isn't with that, its that most of the time you need skilled workers now not a couple of years from now. Which is why Australia has such a high skilled migration (even outside of the mining sector). It is not necessarily the money that causes the biggest issue, it is the time to train workers.

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My opinion is that this is the first hung parliament in decades and the pollies are still working out how to make it work.

I for one hope we continue to have these sorts of governments because we will (hopefully) be more cooperative and all.

Lots of other countries have minority governments- and not all are basketcases ( eg Italy and Israel to name two of the latter)

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Noticed there was some politics being discussed here, just thought I'd throw in a little opinion:

Why does it seem like our parliament is a complete joke? Everyday it's just more pointless bickering over nonsense points of contention, or overly hyperbolic and dramatised claims like: "This government is the worst at...Australia has ever seen!" or "This opposition is the worst at...Australia has ever seen!"

Or like the Abbott running for the door, how much does that remind you of some child's game? These are the worst 2 candidates for prime minister ever, if I could vote I have no idea what I would do because I honestly don't care and there is hardly any difference anyway.

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