You Am I posted:

Now I have the vision of the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch playing in my head.

"Confess. CONFESS!"

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

the inner city lefties are winning this one.

quote:

Late-night truce delivers royalties deal to Adani The Australian12:00AM May 26, 2017 MICHAEL MCKENNA ReporterBrisbane SARAH ELKS Queensland political reporter Brisbane

Indian energy giant Adani will be offered a reworked royalties deal at a discounted rate during the early years of coal production at its $16.5 billion Carmichael coalmine, after a meeting of senior Queensland cabinet ministers last night. A compromise was struck ­between Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her deputy, Jackie Trad, on the deal that will be used as a template to lure other resources companies into the state’s burgeoning ­Galilee and Surat basins and the northwest minerals province. The Australian understands Adani will be given the cut-price flat rate for up to six years — understood to be several million dollars a year — but it will be eventually required to pay the ­entire amount of deferred royalties owed to taxpayers for coal ­extracted at its proposed Galilee Basin mine.

Adani will have to pay interest on the delayed amount.

The final touches were being added to the arrangement at a cabinet budget review committee meeting last night before being presented to the full cabinet. The Premier said a formal submission would be made to cabinet on Monday, but The Australian understands ministers could meet as early as today. “I’m very keen to open up a number of provinces in Queensland, including the Surat (and) Galilee and also the northwest minerals province, because we recognise there’s high unemployment in regional Queensland,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “(We’ve) been working late into the night because at the end of the day, this is about people’s futures and about guaranteeing we’ll have more and more jobs being opened up in ­regional Queensland.”

The factional fight over a royalties deal for Adani has dominated this parliamentary sitting and split Ms Palaszczuk’s cabinet.

The Indian conglomerate indefinitely postponed its final ­investment decision — scheduled for Monday — after cabinet ­deferred a decision on royalties last Monday. The opposition has targeted Ms Palaszczuk’s leadership and pointed the finger at left faction ministers — led by Ms Trad — for the delay. “What a week of division, dumb-heatedness and ­disaster from a do-nothing government,” Liberal National Party leader Tim Nicholls told parliament. “How can the business community, especially those next-wave resource companies with potentially billions of dollars of investment for Queensland, have any faith in a shambolic approach by a government that cannot even govern itself? After what they have seen this week, how can Queenslanders have any faith that this resurgent deal can even be honoured?”

The Townsville-based Minister Assisting the Premier on North Queensland, and left member, Cora­lee O’Rourke was challenged in parliament yesterday to declare her full support for the Carmichael coalmine project. “I thoroughly support the Adani project, and the jobs that it will bring,” Ms O’Rourke said. Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill, a member of the ALP, was furious this week at the delay and urged the government to sort out the disagreement so much-needed jobs could be created. It is understood that once the final investment decision is made, pre-construction works such as landclearing and surveys can begin at the Galilee Basin site. The major activity will not start until after Adani has secured finance and reached financial close on the project. Ms Palaszczuk’s caucus and candidates for the next state election will meet in Brisbane today for a party briefing on the major redistribution of the Queensland electoral map, which will be gazetted today.

quote:

David Hicks’ estranged partner gets PhD for bizarre paper comparing terrorist bombers ... to bees EXCLUSIVE: KYLAR LOUSSIKIAN, The Daily Telegraph May 26, 2017 12:00am

Subscriber only

THE estranged partner of former Guantánamo Bay detainee David Hicks has claimed bee stings are more dangerous than terrorist attacks in a bizarre thesis for Wollongong University. The lack of a “war on bees” proves tough counter-terrorism laws are simply political acts, according to the PhD thesis written by human rights activist Aloysia Brooks. The 360-page essay also takes aim at the ABC, News Corp Australia and the St James Ethics Centre for backing torture. And it claims the federal government has a “pro-torture ideology”. “Although evidence clearly demonstrates that state terrorism causes many more deaths than non-state terrorism does, terrorist acts perpetrated by the state are given far less attention in the mainstream media,” Dr Brooks writes. “More people die in car accidents, from domestic murders and bee stings in Australia than terrorist attacks. One could hardly imagine a war on bees occurring any time soon, and therefore, it can be concluded, that the counter-terrorism laws have been largely politically driven, rather than as a result of the need for legislation against new criminal acts.”

The PhD was awarded through Wollongong’s humanities department.

Mr Hicks married Dr Brooks in 2009, but the couple were estranged by last year. In another section it says “the reality is that there is no global war … the attacks on the United States in 2001 have been used as an excuse to shamelessly invade other countries.” The university said the views of the thesis were Dr Brooks’. “(The thesis) looked in depth at the experiences of four Australian citizens, one of whom was the candidate’s spouse,” a spokesman said. “It is not unusual for academics to research areas of close personal interest, or even on occasion to include their own experiences or those of close associates.” Mr Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, charged with providing material support for terrorism, and spent six years in Guantanamo. He pleaded guilty in a deal which sent him back to Australia, but a US military court later reversed the verdict after finding it couldn’t pursue that charge before 2006. St James Ethics Centre director Simon Longstaff disputed comments attributed to him in the thesis by Dr Brooks, and he would be “one of the last people to promote or defend torture”. Dr Brooks also reprinted personal communications from Mr Hicks accusing Australian Story producer Helen Grasswill of lying and attempting personal gain. Dr Brooks, pictured with Mr Hicks, says the attacks on the United States in 2001 have been used as an excuse to shamelessly invade other countries.

The saga of David Hicks.

“All Helen could do was tell me she wanted a Walkley (journalism award) for the story and that she thought she was qualified to write a book about me,” Dr Brooks wrote, citing notes from Mr Hicks. But Ms Grasswill, already a Walkley Award-winning journalist, told The Daily Telegraph not only was her story “accurate, fair and balanced” but Dr Brooks played a key role in working with Mr Hicks at the time of the interview. “There’s no question that she was a player (in everything he did), not an impartial academic observer and analyser,” she said. Australian Story never suggested Mr Hicks had been treated fairly when detained at Guantánamo Bay. Another journalist targeted by the ­thesis, who did not want to be named, described comments about them in the thesis as “bullshit” and “totally false”.

Mr Hicks married Dr Brooks in 2009, but the couple were estranged by last year.

Dr Brooks was supervised at Wollongong by Brian Martin, who gained notoriety after overseeing another thesis which claimed the World Health Organisation was colluding with pharmaceutical companies to spruik vaccines. Another of Professor Martin’s students was Michael Primero, who has been associated with “truth in health science” journal Medical Veritas, which claims the Rockefeller Foundation is trying to control consciousness. Neither Dr Brooks nor Professor Martin responded to requests for comment.

quote:

Australia’s great housing affordability crisis is nothing but “horseshit”, according to a property analyst.

Speaking at an industry lunch in Brisbane on Wednesday, Propertyology managing director Simon Pressley told the audience how inaccurate the constant hype around the affordability crisis was, arguing the whole debate focuses only on Sydney and completely ignored the rest of the country.

“Let’s be honest, the housing affordability ‘crisis’ is Sydney-centric. Sydney has issues, there’s no denying that – but that’s nothing new. It’s been the most expensive city in the country for the last five or six decades,” he says.

“The majority of Australia remains affordable to property buyers. Fifty-six per cent of local government areas throughout Australia have median house prices of $400,000 or below.

“The problem with all these policies and proposals that get bandied about looking to cure the housing affordability “crisis” is this: it doesn’t apply to most of the country.

“We need to look outside of Sydney and have a conversation about the rest of Australia. [We] buy affordable properties under $500,000 in locations over Australia every day, including houses for $350,000 to $400,000 in capitals such as Brisbane and Hobart, as well as in vibrant regional cities with thriving economies.”

Mr Pressley says he was noticing a trend among some young buyers who are “rentvesting”, where they invest in another location – one which they can afford – and continue renting where they actually want to live.

Two young women who have done just that are Sarah Collison, a 31-year-old Sydney biologist, and Sam Douglas, a 25-year-old client liaison coordinator from Brisbane.

Ms Collison owns two properties in regional towns but rents in a Sydney suburb close to her job; her two properties pay for themselves and she still has money left over to save.

“It takes hard work and discipline but I wouldn’t say I’m deprived,” she says. “I think a lot of young people in Sydney look at the house prices and give up before they even get started.

“By looking at housing outside of Sydney, I’m able to pay my rent, still save money and the houses I have are increasing in value.”

Ms Douglas, along with her partner, also owns two properties in regional centres and is looking at buying her third within the next year. The couple originally looked at buying in Wavell Heights, where they lived, but simply couldn’t afford the $700,000 to $800,000 price tag.

“This way we still get to live where we want but we’re growing our money through property,” she says.

“I still go out and have smashed avocado on toast every weekend; I absolutely love it.”

Mr Pressley says Ms Douglas and Ms Collison are cases in point of young Australians cutting through the “horseshit” and taking responsibility for their futures. He says wannabe property owners striving to “afford” to buy in Sydney should be careful what they wish for.

“While we encourage all Australians to work on getting a foothold in the property market, does one really want to saddle themselves to an $800,000 mortgage for a $1 million property at the top of growth cycle and interest rates likely to trend north?” he says.

To address housing affordability concerns in our biggest capital cities, Pressley suggests scrapping stamp duty on all properties for anyone relocating from an expensive city to a more affordable one and encouraging baby boomers via incentives to relocate from expensive cities to affordable cities.

He also suggests marketing campaigns promoting the liveability of regional areas. “Plenty of Sydney or Melbourne residents have an image in their head of ‘regional Australia’, which includes dusty mines, a remote farm area with no amenities, and no jobs. Their perception is not the reality – we know because we are buying property in some of these locations,” he says.

"[b posted:

Uber for buses? The inner west might soon find out what that means[/b] [SMH]"]
Bus passengers in Sydney's inner west may be able to summon smaller vehicles to pick them up on demand, according to Andrew Constance's vision for a franchised bus operation in the area.

But the bus union has rubbished the idea, saying on-demand buses are a fanciful notion for the inner city.

In the two years since Mr Constance assumed the Transport Minister's job from Gladys Berejiklian, he has been an enthusiast for using technological change to overhaul transport services.

The minister legalised the use of ride-sharing services such as UberX in 2015. And now that he has embarked on his first major industrial relations battle in the job – a face-off with inner west bus drivers that has already triggered a day's strike – he is keen to open up public transport to new ways of doing things.

"Bus companies themselves can play in the ride-sharing space, start running small mini-buses around, on-demand services," Mr Constance said this week.

A fortnight ago he announced that buses in the inner west, currently run by the government-owned State Transit, would be "franchised" to a private operator.

The minister said the government would talk to the market over the next month or so, and then seek requests from private operators.

"Out of that I want to see innovation come into it," Mr Constance said. "I want to see how we can use technology, particularly in some of those smaller areas and smaller suburbs, where you might be able to run some on-demand services and how they can link into the broader network."

Under the government's model, the state will own buses and depots, and be responsible for timetables and fares. But Mr Constance said the bus fleet could be complemented by smaller vehicles. These would not run down the main corridors in the inner west, such as Parramatta Road, but potentially on smaller suburban streets.

The secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union's bus division, Chris Preston, dismissed Mr Constance's idea.

"He is fanciful if he thinks he's going to be able to create this Uber-style transportation for buses," Mr Preston said.

He said councils in Sydney's north already ran loop buses and these often ran with few passengers.

"Whenever you don't have somebody in your bus and you are driving and your wheels are moving, that is an expense," Mr Preston said.

"If he thinks he can run a network on demand and it is going to make money, and it is not going to be a burden for the taxpayer, he's laughable."

Corinne Mulley, professor of public transport at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at Sydney University, said there was scope for innovation in bus services in Sydney.

Professor Mulley said route changes could work in the inner west if they were complemented by higher frequencies on major routes.

"My view would be that places like Burwood might have small vehicles that take people to Parramatta Road where they would interchange to a core service. This could increase the frequency for people who live in Burwood," she said.

"It could work as an innovation if the network planning was restructured."

This type of change would require bus passengers to interchange between services. The overseas experience, Professor Mulley said, was that passengers accepted interchanging if it was easy and quick.

But she was sceptical about the use of mini-buses. "This was trialled in the UK following deregulation and while it upped the frequency, operators found that minibuses were not as reliable or cost effective."

Meanwhile Infrastructure Australia, the federal advisory body, released a report on Friday arguing that "franchising" more bus and train services could save NSW about $9 billion by 2040.

Mr Constance said a new operator should be in place in the inner west by July 2018.

AFR posted:

Handing operation of all of Australia's public bus and rail systems over to the private sector could save state governments as much as $15.5 billion by 2040, giving them funds to reinvest back into public transport, a new report from Infrastructure Australia says.

JBP posted:

Propertyology.

Lid posted:

http://www.propertyology.com.au?wvideo=tzscmlsymm

Bogan King posted:

AFR posted:

Handing operation of all of Australia's public bus and rail systems over to the private sector could save state governments as much as $15.5 billion by 2040, giving them funds to reinvest back into public transport, a new report from Infrastructure Australia says.

quote:

Careers Australia goes into voluntary administration after being denied access to new VET scheme 7.30 By Michael Atkin Updated about 10 hours ago

One of Australia's largest vocational education providers, Careers Australia, has been placed into voluntary administration with up to 1,000 staff members stood down immediately without pay. Classes have also been cancelled for 15,000 students at 13 campuses across the country. Late on Thursday night, voluntary administrators David McEvoy and Martin Ford of PPB Advisory sent a letter to all staff which has been obtained by the ABC's 7.30 program. "We do not currently have sufficient funds available to meet payroll and other costs which would allow us to continue trading the Group on a 'business as usual' basis," the letter read. "Accordingly, we hereby confirm you are stood down effective 25 May 2017 whilst we undertake an urgent assessment of the Group." Students were sent a text message at 10:45pm which reads, "All activities of Careers Australia Group are suspended. No classes, no workplaces effective immediately. Further information will be provided."

At its height, Careers Australia was raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for expensive training courses. But a series of investigations by 7.30 revealed the company was targeting vulnerable students using door-to-door sales brokers offering so-called free computers as inducements to sign up. When that sales tactic was banned by the Federal Government, Careers Australia allegedly moved to telemarketing, online competitions spruiking free iPads, and employment websites to obtain people's contact details without their knowledge. The company denied that people were unaware they were passing on their personal information or that it was engaged in cold calling.

The voluntary administrators are David McEvoy and Martin Ford of PPB Advisory.

Careers Australia excluded from new VET scheme

Last month, in a major blow the Federal Government denied the provider access to its new vocational education scheme because of its poor track record, which included the company admitting to breaking consumer law. 7.30 understands Careers Australia appealed the decision but its appeal was rejected, prompting the collapse. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Careers Australia employee said they were furious. "I'm angry for the staff who have worked so hard, but especially for the students who don't know what's going to happen to them," the employee said. "It was awful having to tell them the news today."

In a statement, the Federal Education Department said it stood by its decision to refuse Careers Australia's access to the new education scheme based on concerns over the provider's financial performance, governance and poor student outcomes. The Department advises concerned students to continue studying as normal until the administrators make a final decision about the future of the business. 'We've been misled,' says employee. The employee accused senior management of keeping the financial woes secret from staff. "We were told it was business as usual at every meeting before this. That's been the company line," the employee said. "[But] we've been misled. Somebody knew this was coming and they didn't give us any warning." The staff member claimed they were told by Careers Australia it was up to administrators to decide whether they continued to have jobs, and they should continue to come in to work as normal. "That's what they're feeding us, but it's a pile of rubbish that it's business as usual, I won't be doing that," the employee said.

In a statement, Careers Australia blamed the Federal Government crackdown on the sector for its financial crisis.

"Regrettably, due to a number of changes in the education sector, we have had to appoint voluntary administrators. We are very disappointed that the business has had to make this decision, particularly for the 1,000 staff and 15,000 students affected."

Students can contact Careers Australia's Tuition Assurance provider TAFE Directors Australia on 02 9217 3180 or the Department on 1800 020 108.

starkebn posted:

What was so wrong with TAFE that couldn't be fixed?

Bogan King posted:

Lizard Combatant posted:

Hey thread. I 100% checked out of Australian politics/news 3 months ago. Feels great.

Is human arrowroot biscuit Bill Shorten still labor leader by default?

ABC posted:

Accused Bourke St driver Dimitrious Gargasoulas tells court 'illuminati' caused breakdown

A driver charged over Melbourne's deadly Bourke Street tragedy has made another series of outbursts in court while facing other charges, blaming recent events on the "illuminati".

Dimitrious Gargasoulas appeared from custody by video link in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday morning on unrelated driving and other charges.

He is separately charged with killing six people and injuring dozens by driving his car through busy lunchtime crowds along Bourke Street.

The court today heard that his defence lawyer was still waiting on evidence from the prosecution, as some files were being "utilised by the homicide squad".

Psychological advice will be sought on his ability to enter a plea.

The 26-year-old was twice stopped from interrupting the proceedings before managing to embark on another rant.

Gargasoulas told the court he was "very saddened" by what had happened but his actions were under the control of others.

"I was under extreme stress, which caused me to have a mental breakdown," he said.

"It's not fair, your honour, life is being controlled by the Government.

Gargasoulas posted:

"I'm very saddened by everything that's happened, but it's due to the illuminati."

Both his lawyer and the magistrate urged Gargasoulas to stop talking and the video link was quickly turned off.

At the last hearing, he declared himself the "saviour" and said "Did you know the Muslim faith is the correct faith according to the whole world? And I am not guilty".

The case was adjourned until July for a further mention hearing when he will again appear by video link.

Lizard Combatant posted:

Hey thread. I 100% checked out of Australian politics/news 3 months ago. Feels great.

Is human arrowroot biscuit Bill Shorten still labor leader by default?

thatbastardken posted:

no come back, we've got some great greens candidates!

thatbastardken posted:

no come back, we've got some great greens candidates!

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

get ready

Lizard Combatant posted:

What you reckon folks, Ranga or Gootongue or Gooanna?

hooman posted:

Bogg