Capt.Whorebags posted:

You'd probably get away with doing WWII re-enactments dressed as a member of the Afrika Korps because you thought Rommel was a military genius, but I'd recommend staying home for the Waffen SS club nights.

Electric Wrigglies posted:

I agree you would probably get away with it but I think it would be ill-advised to dress up in any German (or Italian or Japanese) uniform. Agreed that it is much worse to have the Gestapo dress gear on but the days of running amok as a youth and it not being stored for use later on against you is over.

I have mates that cleaned up their social media of pictures of them smoking. It was not a big deal at all 10 years ago to be a smoker but in another twenty or thirty, it might be a hit in electoral/job chances as being so dumb as to smoke when in uni or whatever.

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

You don't get brownie points just because you weren't popular enough to get invited to parties when you were young.

Laserface posted:

Vapes are basically everywhere. It's acceptable. Smoking is only on the way out because of the cost.

Electric Wrigglies posted:

huh, I thought there was a hate on them. Bad example then.

Next one is pure breed pets, something that is likely from a breeder as opposed to an animal rescue bitsa (unless it is a service dog in which case there is a very good reason blind dogs are specifically bred).

Electric Wrigglies posted:

huh, I thought there was a hate on them. Bad example then.

Next one is pure breed pets, something that is likely from a breeder as opposed to an animal rescue bitsa (unless it is a service dog in which case there is a very good reason blind dogs are specifically bred).

ShoeFly posted:

This was Perrottet’s own party. There’s no evidence anyone else was there (apart from his mother).

Electric Wrigglies posted:

I agree you would probably get away with it but I think it would be ill-advised to dress up in any German (or Italian or Japanese) uniform. Agreed that it is much worse to have the Gestapo dress gear on but the days of running amok as a youth and it not being stored for use later on against you is over.

I have mates that cleaned up their social media of pictures of them smoking. It was not a big deal at all 10 years ago to be a smoker but in another twenty or thirty, it might be a hit in electoral/job chances as being so dumb as to smoke when in uni or whatever.

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

This is ironic, because...

you know who hated smoking?

Hitler and the actual Gestapo.

Electric Wrigglies posted:

huh, I thought there was a hate on them. Bad example then.

Next one is pure breed pets, something that is likely from a breeder as opposed to an animal rescue bitsa (unless it is a service dog in which case there is a very good reason blind dogs are specifically bred).

Cable Guy posted:

Do you generate these yourself or do you source them from somewhere...? You may have answered this question in a previous iteration of the thread, but I'd love to know more. (You can link to a post if you've explained it before)

Urcher posted:

I wrote some python scripts that scrape the Auspol thread, compare the words from this month to last month, and spit out a list of words and sizes. Then I plug it in to https://www.wordclouds.com/ to make the picture.

Cable Guy posted:

Oh it's just us then...? I thought it might have been media wide. Nice job though.

Urcher posted:

Thanks.

Auspol is special. It's just us.

Comstar posted:

Whelp. After getting a fever for 2 days, turns out I need an operation immediately or I could die very quickly.

Thank god for Medicare and our health system. I might have been lucky but once at the ER I was seen immediately, triaged, and had the op in 4 hours. Not out of woods yet but it’s going ok so far. The staff are all amazing, patient, professional and caring.


I pity those in the US who would be bankrupted doing this.

Capt.Whorebags posted:

Our health system is miles ahead of others but it's still roulette if you rock up to an ED in a regional or rural hospital.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

SecretOfSteel posted:

quote:

Queensland and Victoria have no plans to replace stamp duty with a New South Wales-style annual tax, despite experts saying a change in policy would help more young people buy their own homes sooner.

From this week, first home buyers in NSW can choose between paying stamp duty or an annual land tax on properties up to $1.5m.

Under the initiative, first home owners will instead pay an annual fee of $400 plus 0.3% of the property’s land value.

They will also continue to be eligible for a stamp duty exemption on existing properties valued up to $650,000 under the state’s first home buyer assistance scheme.

But the state’s Labor opposition has vowed to scrap the scheme if elected in March, replacing it with a policy to abolish stamp duty on homes worth up to $800,000 and provide a reduced rate on homes of up to $1m.

Some experts say the NSW government’s program is a step in the right direction and have urged other Australian jurisdictions to consider a similar approach, dubbing stamp duty a “terrible” and “inefficient” tax.

But Queensland and Victorian governments have held firm, saying they are not considering either of the schemes.

“The Queensland government has no plans to adopt either of these initiatives,” a spokesperson for the state’s treasurer, Cameron Dick, said.

A Victorian government spokesperson said it currently offers “a range of initiatives” to help people “get into their own home sooner”.

This includes no stamp duty for first home buyers on properties worth $600,000 or less, with a reduced rate charged for properties worth up to $750,000. It also offers grants of $10,000 in Melbourne and $20,000 in regional Victoria for new builds and runs a shared-equity scheme that reduces the required deposit for homebuyers to 5%.

Prof John Quiggin, an economist at the University of Queensland, said stamp duty is a “terrible tax that is already riddled with exemptions and concessions”.

He said NSW’s program makes the housing market play more smoothly “in the sense that you don’t have this huge cost when you’re trying to move house”.

Quiggin said the issue should not be “a political hot potato” and a broader approach regarding stamp duty needs to be mapped out on a national level.

He said this would avoid political reluctance from states like Queensland, which was stung by its failed attempts to increase land tax for interstate landlords.

“Undoubtedly the Queensland government has been badly burned by the previous land tax episode when they tried to close the multistate loophole and got no support from NSW or Victoria,” Quiggin said.

“If you look at the political attack [the NSW opposition leader] Chris Minns is waging, it’s not party political. Any change like this can be made scary.”

The managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Dr Michael Fotheringham, said stamp duty can hinder people from entering the property market.

“[Stamp duty] adds to the cost of entry and what ends up happening is people’s borrowing rises to meet that cost,” Dr Fotheringham said.

The Victorian opposition and the Greens are also calling for stamp duty reform.

“With the housing affordability crisis getting worse, the Greens want to see a proper debate in Victoria about how we can replace stamp duty with land tax to make housing more affordable,” the Greens leader, Samantha Ratnam, said.

“The ACT and NSW are already making the shift to land tax, which is much fairer.”

However, the housing spokesperson for the Greens in Queensland, Amy MacMahon, said the policies of the major parties in NSW “are just tinkering at the edges”.

“Instead of what looks to be an ineffective first home buyer incentive, our communities need bold measures that prioritise housing Queenslanders, not the profits of property investors,” MacMahon said.

The Victorian Liberals’ home ownership and housing affordability spokesperson, Jess Wilson, said she was pleased to see other states “explore reforms aimed at giving people greater opportunity to buy their own homes” and urged Victorian to follow suit.

“All options are on the table to reverse the decline in home ownership and ensure young Victorians have the same opportunities and benefits that previous generations have enjoyed,” Wilson said.

quote:

New South Wales Labor has pledged to eliminate stamp duty for first home buyers purchasing properties worth up to $800,000 if it wins the March state election, in a bid to counter the Perrottet government’s tax changes.

Labor’s proposal, announced on Monday, would also apply a concession rate to homebuyers paying between $800,000 and $1m for their first property.

The party saying the changes would result in 95% of all first home buyers in the state paying no tax or a reduced rate on their home.

freebooter posted:

I'm in favour of this in general as a better-than-nothing approach, but it shits me that we view it all through the prism of first homebuyers, of some 1950s notion of newlyweds moving into their forever house in the suburbs at age 25. Go ahead and tax the hell out of landlords, but most people are going to be moving around multiple times in their life, and owner-occupiers should not be obliged to find a spare $30,000+ to give the state government every time just for the privilege of doing so.

The Lord Bude posted:

Jim Molan is dead.

Non Compos Mentis posted:

Was he a piece of poo poo?