Jumpingmanjim posted:

quote:

Another win for uber.. can parked near cricket field, had ball smash windscreen, taxi driver retaliates by driving onto our pitch mid game! Cops removed car.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Henry Ergas is a big responsibility for a 12 year old.

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slackbastard shared Majdi Fal's post.
2 hrs ·

"SHOCKING NEWS FROM UWA.

This morning, around 12.20 pm, I was getting ready to do my regular prayers at The University of Western Australia Mosque. As soon as I opened the toilet's door, I found a dead pig's head inside. The toilet is a traditional Turkish toilet used mostly by Muslims for their ablution before performing their prayers.

Needless to say, if this happened at a university, then THINGS ARE ESCALATING. Please report any suspicious incidents or people you see for the well being of our entire community."

BlitzkriegOfColour posted:

Somebody help me with my medical condition. Are there any doctors who post here? I have Albomania even though I know he's the only non-shitlord politician in the party and one man can't do anything by himself.

I guess what I'm saying here is CHOO CHOO! Albo for dictator supreme.

Kommando posted:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12033696/Paralysed-Opec-pleads-for-allies-as-oil-price-crumbles.html

crude oil has dropped from $110 to 40 per barrel. OPEC is continuing to supply and there are tankers on sea with no buyers.
on land storage is full in several places.

can someone with more financial knowledge provide some commentary.

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NOTICE OF A DATA MATCHING PROGRAM
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will acquire details of real property transactions for the period 20 September 1985 to 30 June 2017 from the following sources:

New South Wales Office of State Revenue

New South Wales Department of Finance & Services

Land & Property Information

New South Wales Office of Fair Trading

Rental Bond Board

Victorian State Revenue Office

Residential Tenancies Bond Authority

Consumer Affairs Victoria

Australian Capital Territory Environment & Planning Directorate

Australian Capital Territory Office of Regulatory Services (Land Titles Office)

(Northern) Territory Revenue Office

Northern Territory
Department of Lands, Planning and the Environment

Queensland Office of State Revenue

Queensland Residential Tenancies Authority

Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water & Environment

Tasmanian State Revenue Office

Tasmanian Department of Justice

Revenue SA

South Australian Department of Planning, Transport & Infrastructure

Land Services Group

Western Australian Office of State Revenue

Western Australian Land Information authority (Landgate)

Valuation details

It is estimated the total number of records that will be obtained is:

Rental bond authorities – approximately 1 million records for each year
Revenue and land title offices –approximately 30 million records for each year
Based on current data holdings it is estimated that records relating to 11.3 million individuals will be matched.

The purpose of this data matching program is to ensure that taxpayers are correctly meeting taxation and
other program obligations administered by the ATO in relation to their dealings with real property. These
obligations include registration, lodgment, reporting and payment responsibilities.
The objectives are to obtain intelligence about the acquisition and disposal of real property and identify risks and trends of
non-compliance across the broader compliance program identify a range of compliance
activities appropriate to address risks with real property transactions by taxpayers work with real property intermediaries to obtain an understanding of the risks and issues, as well as trends of non-complianc egain support and input into compliance strategies to minimise future risk to revenue
promote voluntary compliance and strengthen community confidence in the integrity of the tax system by publicising the outcomes of the data matching program ensure compliance with registration, lodgment, correct reporting and payment of taxation and superannuation obligations.

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Almost 20pc of Melbourne's investor-owned homes empty

The number of empty houses and apartments in Melbourne is much higher than traditional estimates, with as many as one-fifth of all investor-owned properties lying empty, according to a study of water usage by think tank Prosper Australia.

Victoria leads the country in terms of new housing approvals and planning authorities gave the tick to 70,472 new dwellings in the 12 months to October – more than half of them apartments – but the Prosper figures indicate that while local and offshore investors are hungry for properties, they are not necessarily making those homes usable housing stock.

"There is an oversupply of housing that's not being used," said Catherine Cashmore, Prosper President and author of the report. "When the Victorian government talks about the need to build more housing to bring down prices, that strategy isn't working. We don't have anything to ensure those homes are being utilised. It doesn't matter whether they're foreign owned or investor owned the economic cost to us is enormous."

A total 82,724 properties used less than 50 litres per day – the equivalent of a dripping tap and far less than a single person's daily usage – suggesting they were effectively unoccupied, the data from retailers City West Water, South East Water and Yarra Valley Water shows.

Night light: apartments being deliberately kept vacant don't add to the country's stock of available housing, Prosper Australia says.

That's equivalent to 4.8 per cent of greater Melbourne's total housing stock and 18.9 per cent of all investor-owned housing stock.

As many as 24,872 properties consumed no water at all, making them clearly unoccupied.

The number of vacant properties leapt 28 per cent last year, according to Prosper's Speculative Vacancies report, now in its eighth year. The think tank advocates for broad-based land taxes to raise the cost of holding land unproductively, as well as for an end to stamp duty, which it says impedes the market for land transactions.

"Capital gains are a much more powerful market motive than earning mere rents," says Karl Fitzgerald, Prosper project director. "That's why the tax game needs to change."

The idea has support.

"Should there perhaps be some kind of differential land tax that changes people's incentives?" said independent economist Saul Eslake. "I have some sympathy with that view."

It's not clear how much of the vacant housing stock is foreign-owned and how much is locally owned. However, the Melbourne CBD – which has drawn much investment from overseas buyers – had the largest number of vacancies, with just over 1100 – 6.7 per cent of its 16,632 homes – using no water at all. Almost 15 per cent – 2478 properties – consumed less than 50 litres per day.

The student-heavy areas of Carlton and Carlton South had the highest ratio of empty homes with 7.6 per cent, or 597, of their total 7837 homes using zero water.

Melbourne's hidden vacancies will become visible if the property market slows.

"When we get a downturn in housing markets it does lead people to sell their properties or rent them out to the market, that's when these vacancies will become visible," Ms Cashmore said.

Starshark posted:

Guess the writer, no reading the spoiler until you guess.

IF you want to understand why the liberal, democratic Western world is losing ground to the ideology of Islamic extremists look no further than the weak-kneed responses of the NSW and federal governments to a convicted criminal who refuses to obey the directions of its court officers.

In NSW an accused person must stand to hear the charge and respond with a guilty or not guilty plea, and it is protocol to stand when a judge enters or leaves but for more than a year now Milad Bin Ahmad-Shah al-Ahmadzai, 25, has refused to stand in court before at least four judges claiming that he is “not at the behest of any authority other than Islam”.

He has also refused directions to kneel during a routine security process when prison officers enter his cell at NSW’s Supermax prison facility. The failure of the NSW government to take decisive action demonstrates the weakness endemic to Western nations that have pandered to extremist members of one religious minority — Islam — despite assurances from many self-appointed Islamic community leaders that there is nothing in Islam that prevents its followers from honouring the laws of their host nations.

From Sweden to Australia, apologists for Islam have capitulated to a nauseating political correctness which has seen Christian-based culture demeaned and imagined Islamic sensitivities embraced.

Merry Christmas — about as inoffensive a greeting as it can get — is shunned and replaced by the saccharine Happy Holidays.

At schools, Easter Bonnet parades for children are banned because some toddler might want to know what Easter is, if he or she can get over their fascination with funny hats.

In Sydney, students at Christian schools are regularly bussed to mosques so they can “learn” about Islam but there is no two-way traffic. Islamic students are forbidden to study the Bible or learn about Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism.

And this is what the West is doing to its own children. This doesn’t address the Islamist propaganda being pumped out by extremist imams and mullahs pimping for IS and other death cults.

It took this month’s Paris shootings and bombings to get the French and Belgian governments to react to a problem which they have been aware of for years.

That both European capitals have no-go areas has never been kept secret but no action was ever taken to enforce the laws of either France or Belgium in their Muslim-dominated bainlieues until the Paris riots of 2005, when nearly 9000 cars were burnt over a 20-day period.

Despite tougher laws requiring immigrants seeking residency permits or citizenship to learn French and integrate, with a crackdown on fraudulent marriage, anti-racism groups claimed that greater scrutiny of immigrants would only create more racism.

France’s failure to stand up for its own culture and ensure that immigrants assimilate is reflected in a recent ICM poll which reported that 16 per cent of French citizens have a positive view of Islamic State, rising to 27 per cent among 18-24 year olds.

As Toby Young noted in The Spectator magazine: “That is more than a quarter of all French 18-24 year olds who think it’s just fine to behead aid workers, throw homosexuals off buildings and sexually enslave 12-year-old girls.”

Australian governments, which have emphasised multiculturalism over multiracialism have ensured our society will be as fragmented, with some cultures refusing to assimilate and actively encouraging young people to ­ignore Australian laws.

The case of the convicted criminal al-Ahmadzai is a glaring example of the failure of the state to administer the law equally.

Instead of treating his refusal to obey the law within our courts and the regulations that govern our prisons as acts of contempt that should have been immediately punished, the NSW government, through Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton and the prison system via Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin, has proceeded down the same policy path which has so demonstratively failed European nations.

Al-Ahmadzai began his standing boycott before District Court Judge Ian McClintock in May last year, when he sat as he pleaded guilty to threatening to “slit” the throat and crack the neck of an ASIO officer.

Last November 26 he refused to stand to be arraigned in front of Judge Colefax for aggravated break and enter. And at his District Court trial on that charge in September he again refused to stand, this time for Judge Jane Culver.

It is a year since Judge Colefax referred al-Ahmadzai’s actions to the Attorney-General for investigation for a possible charge of contempt but the state showed its weakness and has taken no action.

Crown Prosecutor Craig Everson said the Attorney-General determined to take no action beyond that of the referral for possible action.

Ms Upton denies that, saying she had asked her legal advisers for “options” on how to deal with al-Ahmadzai and her spokesman later said it was the Solicitor-General, and not the Attorney-General, who had decided that there were no grounds for contempt proceedings.

This is buck-passing of the most egregious sort. It cedes power to criminals.

Avoiding confrontation to shield the extremist minority has only one outcome — the monstrous Paris option.

Show some spine and stand up for our own laws.


Piers Fatterman

quote:

Wanted: Lecturer seeks help online to mark tertiary assignments

Students have long been able to cheat by buying their essays online but now, it seems, lecturers are getting in on the outsourcing act.

It appears that a lecturer from Port Melbourne has outsourced his academic marking through a global freelance website called Elance.

The lecturer, who refers to himself as "David", has paid $600 to a Brisbane-based media business, PrintBiz Media, for the marking of 140 3000-word assignments.

He provided a marking guide, or "rubric", and an assignment overview, and broke nearly every rule in the book on student privacy by offering to supply a "complete list of students" to the marker.

He requests the marker sign a confidentiality agreement, "as the assignments contain student intellectual property"..

"I am a lecturer at a university and need help marking assignments," he says in the advertisement posted a few months ago.

"There are 140 assignments in total, averaging about 15 pages in length and 3000 words of content. I am looking for someone to mark each assignment against the provided rubric as well as write some feedback for each student."

It is unclear which university the lecturer works for but it appears he teaches a subject in business.

It is not unusual for academics to seek a third party to grade their students' work. This is especially common with honours papers.

But in these cases, the assessors have been vetted and approved by the university.

The media business chosen to advertise for the marking job, Elance, specialises in copy writing, marketing, social media services, website design and academic writing, but it has no apparent skills or qualifications in teaching or marking, according to its website.

National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) president Jeannie Rea said she was not aware of other examples of academics privately contracting markers but said she would not be surprised if some had resorted to such measures to deal with their increasing workload.

A recent NTEU report showed more than half of academics are working more than 50 hours a week.

"Universities have massively increased their number of students without any equivalent increase in staff," Ms Rea said.

"That people would try to find ways around their situation doesn't surprise me. I hope they wouldn't do it, as it is a breach of their students' privacy … I still think it is an unusual thing to happen."

Andrew Norton, a higher education policy expert with the Grattan Institute, said privately contracting a freelancer to mark an assignment was new territory.

"There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a third party marking essays … it could actually be better in some ways because it could remove any conflict of interest that might exist. But the issue for me here is an organisation who doesn't have any relevant qualifications or ability, is doing the marking.

"The process of engaging them was clearly wrong and this should be done through the university."

Most Australian universities do not outsource their marking to third party companies but a growing number of universities internationally are outsourcing grading, using businesses such Virtual-TA, MeritTrac and Blackboard.

quote:

Doors blockaded as NUS conference erupts in fracas
The National Union of Students’ annual national conference has fallen into disarray on its third day, culminating in a physical scuffle where a member of Student Unity (Labor right) aggressively shoved a rival delegate as she attempted to blockade the exit from the conference floor.

Video footage of the Student Unity delegate Martin Zanolla, who is representing the University of Wollongong, shows him charging into a crowd of students gathered near the door and hurling aside Sarah Garnham, a member of the Socialist Alternative faction.

Zanolla, visibly enraged, is then pulled back by members of his faction as others from Socialist Alternative rush to intervene.

The disagreement stemmed from a debate sparked by Student Unity member* Fahad Ali when he spoke to a “Solidarity with the Palestinians” motion.

Although he supported the Palestinian struggle, he believed the motion belonged in the “unionism” section of the policy book instead of the “ethnocultural” chapter being discussed.

Members of Socialist Alternative then began shouting insults, with calls of “racist” and “Zionist scumbag” heard on the conference floor.

Approximately ten minutes of continuous chanting from Socialist Alternative then made it impossible for Palestinian student, Tarek Muhtaseb, of the Liberal student faction to speak to the motion. This eventually prompted the entire Student Unity contingent to leave the room in protest.

Socialist Alternative members formed a human blockade across the exit as Zanolla entered the fray, with several others caught in the crossfire.

Earlier in the morning, the entire National Labor Students (Labor left) faction walked out in protest in response to a disagreement on the proposed date of a nation-wide education demonstration in 2016.

Chanting, drinking and incoherent speeches have characterised the past three days of national conference. Despite the chaos, the national conference has so far allowed discussion on policies affirming NUS’ stance against university restructuring, queer homelessness, and in support for smaller and regional campuses.

The conference is due to wrap up on Thursday. You can follow the live-blog here.

*A previous version of this article described Fahad Ali as a delegate of Student Unity. He is in fact just a member.

SynthOrange posted:

'Pell unable to attend sex abuse inquiry due to 'heart condition''

Yeah it seems to be missing.

TheIllestVillain posted:

Kebabs for breakfast lunch and tea

quote:

12 year old child detected driving at 122kmh

A 12 year old girl has been detected driving at 122kmh on Illawarra Main Road in the State’s north.

On Saturday night at 10.37pm, police detected a speeding vehicle travelling at 122km/h on Illawarra Road.

The vehicle was intercepted on Youl Road, Perth, and police were shocked to discover the driver was a 12 year old girl.

A 21 year old man and a 16 year old girl were passengers in the vehicle.

The girl was charged and bailed for false name and driving offences.

Sgt Phil Summers, of Deloraine Police, said that more than half of all fatalities occur on country roads.

“This is a terrible example of a flagrant disregard for safety not only of the driver, but all other road users. This incident could very well have ended in tragedy,” Sgt Summers said.

“This is a timely reminder to the public on the dangers of speed over the Christmas period and the manner in which instances such as this will be treated by Tasmania Police who will be out in force over the festive period.”

Cleretic posted:

I think the bus I took home from uni was themed all-year-round after privatisation.

It was never on time, always overcrowded, the seats were terrible and the ticket prices were always pointlessly expensive.

freebooter posted:

Actually isn't there a fairly well known brans still operating on Howard era Workchoices poo poo which means their employees don't get penalty rates? Bunnings or something? It was a household name.

Mithranderp posted:

Turntbull.

Gorilla Salad posted:

So what's the rationale behind trying to strip the working poor of their penalty hours, but pretending that emergency services and the like will be untouched?

adamantium|wang posted:

versus

Solemn Sloth posted:

Can we extradite Jamie Briggs to China?

Anidav posted:

Hong Kong is Chinese clay.