quote:

Anglicare Australia is concerned that holiday letting is creating "proxy resort towns" in regional Australia and adding further stress to the housing crisis.
This week the charity released its Rental Affordability Snapshot, which examined all the private rentals available in Australia over a weekend in March.
The report found a marked drop in availability of properties in Ballina, Byron Bay and Tweed Heads, as people took their houses out of the rental market and advertised them on short-term holiday websites.

quote:

"For the French gastronomy, for the French winery," Mr Macron replied, before thanking the Prime Minister for the "perfect organisation" of the trip.
"I want to thank you for your welcome — thank you, and your delicious wife," he said.
"Thanks to you and Lucy, thanks to you very much, Mr Prime Minister."

quote:

Hopes of reaching a consensus on a new quad bike safety regime have been dashed following the resignation of the manufacturer's representatives from a Federal Government advisory committee.
"The deck was stacked, and not in our favour," said Scott Kebschull, a US vehicle expert nominated by quad bike manufacturers to be on the panel.
The body representing manufacturers, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), and Mr Kebschull were appointed to a technical reference group to advise government on the best way to introduce a quad bike safety rating system.
They have now both resigned in protest after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) proposed major changes to improve quad bike safety, including a star-rating system, crush protection devices and mandatory minimum performance standards.
"The ACCC has reached a conclusion in advance, they've made up their minds and are not open to considering other points of view," Mr Kebschull told 7.30.
The FCAI said the ACCC proposal amounted to "experimenting with the public" and could do more harm than good.
The proposed safety star-rating system for quad bikes was largely based on work done by researchers at the University of New South Wales' Transport And Road Safety Unit (TARS).
But the FCAI argues the research is flawed, and accuses the ACCC of "a biased process" because it funds part of the work.
"It seems to be a conflict of interest for a government agency to fund a third party to perform a task, then be the adjudicator of the quality and suitability of that work," the FCAI said in its response to the ACCC's quad bike safety consultation regulation impact statement.
"The FCAI believes that [Assistant Treasurer] Minister Michael Sukkar, whose responsibility it will be to review the regulation impact statement, may be misled."

quote:

A family is outraged after Taiwanese flags were painted over by council on children's artwork on a bull statue erected along Rockhampton's Riverbank.
Students from various schools in Rockhampton, in central Queensland, were asked to paint six bull statues as part of a joint initiative by Rockhampton Regional Council and Beef Australia for this week's biggest cattle industry event in the country.
One of those bulls was painted with barramundi-shaped flags by students at North Rockhampton High School.
Taiwan-born siblings, Amber Jun Xie and Iu Ting Xie, painted their country's flag on the bull's body.
Stepfather Lawrence Downing said his children had done "a great job".
"They were asked to paint their culture," he said.
The bull was picked up by council officers on April 30.
Just days ago, it was erected along Rockhampton's Riverbank for this week's Beef Australia.
The plaque reads: "This bull celebrates the cultural diversity of the Rockhampton community".
But the student's two Taiwanese flags — one painted on the front leg and another on the rear of the other side of the statue — had been painted over.

The council's department, Advance Rockhampton, has taken the blame for covering up the bull's Taiwanese flags.
"Advance Rockhampton made a decision to change one bull statue on display in Quay Street in line with the Australian Government's approach of adhering to the one-China policy," general manager Tony Cullen said.
The People's Republic of China claims Taiwan as its territory, however Taiwan operates like a separate country with its own constitution, parliament, and currency.
The Australian Government does not display Taiwanese flags, however there is no federal directive to state or local governments about what they should do.
In recent years, China has emerged as increasingly important for Australia's beef industry and is one of its biggest export destinations.
"We highly value the relationship with all of our international trading partners and the opportunities they present for our region," Mr Cullen said.
"The school was contacted prior to the changes being made."

Anidav posted:

Facebook added up votes and down votes to news stories comments sections once again proving that tech companies are lazy hacks who outsourced comment moderation... To commenters.

This has caused people to down vote comments they disagree with until the comment automatically becomes hidden Lmao.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/01/facebook-downvote-nz-australia/

quote:

A concrete slab used by local children for handball in a small Brisbane park has been ripped up just months after it was laid, all because some local residents complained about the noise.
The park, located in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village in Brisbane's north, is popular with primary school-aged children who live in nearby high-rise apartments, and the smooth concrete surface has been a welcome addition to their playtime.
But Brisbane City Council (BCC) said the slab was never intended to be used for handball and was to be moved to another park following the complaints.

hooman posted:

Spoke too soon!


Why did this man on foot so maliciously collide with our innocent police car!

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN posted:

You'd have never heard about it. They've probably being doing it for years but now camera phones are everywhere. They'll make it illegal to film cops with them soon enough.

quote:

Former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer has been arrested after allegedly breaching his bail conditions.
Mehajer, 31, was arrested at Sydney's Bankstown Police Station at 10:00am this morning.
It is alleged Mehajer used two mobile phones, in breach of his bail conditions.
He faced Bankstown Local Court today where he was refused bail and is due to face court again on June 6.

quote:

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has warned Australia to be wary of Chinese interference in domestic political decision making.
"I think Australians need to be for Australians, Americans need to be for Americans, and whether it's Russia in a secret way interfering with our election and producing more than 3,500 ads to try to confuse our electorate, to try to damage me, or the Chinese looking to try to influence policy, we should say no," she told 7.30.
"I don't care what side of the political aisle you might be on, in either Australia or the United States. We have an interest in making sure that decisions that are made by our governments are not the result of some kind of influence pedalling by a foreign power."

Cartoon posted:

Is four working age?

Brown Paper Bag posted:

https://twitter.com/rob_stott/status/995880343885398016?s=21

quote:

A large foreign-owned mine planned for prime agricultural land in the NSW Hunter Valley could cause the Bylong River and local creeks to "dry up", according to an assessment by the NSW Water Office obtained under freedom of information laws.
A series of stark warnings from government water experts, including that the mine would salinate the aquifer beyond limits of current policy for at least a century, appear to have either not been communicated to the Department of Planning and Environment, or ignored by it, because the project has been recommended to proceed.
The documents were requested under NSW FOI laws by a company owned by the family of disgraced former Labor power-broker Eddie Obeid, but made their way to anti-coal group Lock The Gate.
The company, Locaway Pty Ltd, owns a farm in the Bylong Valley, which has the largest water entitlement in the area.
That water entitlement was itself also the subject of investigations by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), after it heard Eddie Obeid senior, then a member of the NSW Upper House, had called bureaucrats in relation to their allocation of water.
The company said it sought the documents in order to protect those water entitlements.
Local residents and Lock The Gate said regardless of their origin, the documents showed the Department of Planning should reject the mining application.
"We would like to see it not to go ahead. It's just crazy really," Warwick Pearse, a local farmer who is part of the Bylong Valley Protection Alliance, said.

South Korean company Kepco is planning to build a series of open-cut and underground mines, to produce up to 6.5 million tonnes of coal each year for export to Korea for electricity generation.
The company claimed the project would directly employ an average of about 290 people over the life of the mine.
In order to get the licences for the amount of water needed to run the mine, Kepco had to buy up thousands of hectares of land.
Among its purchases were historic homes, thoroughbred studs, strategic farmland and the local school.
Locals said those purchases left the community as a shadow of its former self, with many residents leaving the area.
They also quelled any opposition to the mine, with the purchases reportedly including gag-clauses.

The NSW Office of Water was previously in the Department of Primary Industry, but was moved to the Department of Industry following an inquiry triggered by ABC Four Corners program on allegations of water theft in the Murray Darling river system.
The flow of information between the NSW Water Office and the Department of Planning and the attention the department paid to the expert advice is what is being questioned.
Documents from the NSW Office of Water suggest if Kepco uses all the water it is licensed to, the river could "dry up".
But in recommending the mine be approved, the Department of Planning said Kepco's water modelling was peer-reviewed by experts, including the NSW Water Office.
A spokesman for Kepco told the ABC the Department of Planning had "confirmed the veracity of the technical work" the company had provided and that the creeks and streams within the project's catchment "currently regularly experience zero flow".
The Department of Planning concluded the project was "unlikely to significantly affect groundwater and surface water resources, water users or the environment".
But that conclusion was in stark contrast to advice the NSW Water Office provided to the Department of Planning, revealed in the documents.
Emails between NSW Water Office staff noted all modelled scenarios "would potentially result in significant sections of the Bylong River ceasing to flow" and identified the drying-up of the river and surrounding creeks as "the main risk to the environment".
The Department of Industry said it passed on all concerns to the Department of Planning and made them public in its submission to the mine's planning application.
Even though documents reveal the NSW Water Office had information the river and surrounding creeks could "dry up", it was not mentioned in the submission to the Department of Planning.
It also did not mention the specific salinity issues raised by Kepco.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Industry said the project was subject to a lengthy assessment process and there were "multiple stages that allow for issues raised to be addressed".
The Department of Planning said in finalising its assessment it would "consider all relevant information and advice including the most up to date advice from NSW Land and Water against applicable NSW Government policy relating to all potential impacts, including water resources".

The Department of Planning also stated "groundwater quality is not expected to be significantly affected, given the relatively modest salinities of overburden and waste materials".
However, minutes of a meeting between Kepco's consultants and the NSW Water Office revealed there could be an 11 per cent increase of salinity in the groundwater, which it noted was "greater than the Aquifer Interference Policy threshold" for 100 years after mining ceased.
Georgina Woods from Lock the Gate said the documents raised questions that needed answering.
"These documents show that the impact of the Bylong coal mine on the water on the Bylong Valley have been underestimated by the Department of Planning quite dramatically," she said.

The Obeids declined requests for an interview, but lawyers representing their company said they were seeking "to do all things legally available to protect the 865 megalitres of [water] licenses" attached to their Cherrydale Park property.
The statement said the documents showed Kepco's mine would likely not have enough water for their own operations, let alone to supply other properties with water too.
"It will not be physically possible as Kepco Bylong will pump the aquifer dry," the statement said.
"Locaway also questions whether these documents were provided to the Planning Assessment Commission when it conducted a review and public hearing in relation to the Bylong Coal Project in May 2017.
"Locaway will continue to do all things legally available to it in order to protect its property and water rights."
The Obeid's had themselves sought to develop the Mt Penny coal mine in the area, but that was scuttled following corruption findings by ICAC.

quote:

Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Tuesday announced an overhaul of electoral funding laws, which would more than halve the amount of money unions and other third parties are allowed to spend on state elections.
Under current laws, the amount that third parties can spend on election campaigns is capped at $1.2 million each, but the legislation proposes to slash that to about $500,000.
The move is part of a broader package of measures, which the Premier said was aimed at reducing corruption and undue influence in elections.

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Last year Craig Campbell, a relief teacher at a Baptist school in Western Australia, had his employment terminated after students at the school found out he was in a same-sex relationship.
Christian Schools Australia, and Adventist Schools Australia, two peak bodies representing religious schools teaching around 80,000 Australian students, have argued that schools should continue to be allowed to do this, even if they receive government funding.
In a submission to the Philip Ruddock–led review on religious freedom, the two bodies say discrimination law should take into consideration competing rights, and be changed to acknowledge competing rights, and that discrimination by religious bodies is "differentiation" not "discrimination".
In its submission to the Ruddock review, Christian Schools Australia pointed to this report and said that allowing teachers to live so-called double lives, where they hide their sexual orientation in the school, was not acceptable.
"From a school’s perspective, leading such a 'double life' undermines the fundamental duty of fidelity and good faith that employees owe to an employer," CSA said. "Duplicity and deceit regarding such foundational matters are not in anybody’s interests and are not sustainable."
The groups argue that legislation should be passed to "shield education funding" as part of the protections demanded in light of same-sex marriage passing into law last year. There is a push for religious organisations that discriminate against LGBT people to not receive public funding, or not be the preferred government contractor.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

quote:

Former employees of celebrity chef Shannon Bennett say their share of tip money was regularly confiscated by managers — for breakages, being late to work, or getting answers wrong in a so-called "tip test".

quote:

"Whistleblowers within the Department report that the footage of the 'powder out of place' — including footage of the head of the security branch notoriously tasting an unidentified white powder — was deleted early," Senator Kitching said.
"If this is the case, perhaps the Department can explain why this particular day of all days was the one instance in the past 18 months where footage has been deleted earlier than is normal.

quote:

Five men interrupted an evening mass at the Anglican Parish of Gosford on Saturday, in what the church's Archdeacon of the Central Coast, Father Rod Bower, has labeled an act of terrorism.
Bower explained that midway through his 6pm mass on Saturday evening the group of five men, one of whom was dressed as Jesus and another as a Roman soldier, stormed into the small church holding a whip, a megaphone, and a sword that was later revealed to be fake.
"I didn't know it was fake, though," said Bower, "and neither did any parishioners."
The men – who appear to be linked to the small, right-wing, stunt group Cooks Convicts – later uploaded footage of the incident to Facebook. The footage shows a half-full room reacting in shock to the men's arrival, with some screaming in fear.

quote:

The head of Parliament House's security branch has admitted he might have said he would "burn the security division to the ground and start again with other people".
Graeme Anderson made the extraordinary admission while being questioned in a Senate Estimates committee today.
He said he "apparently" might have made those comments and described it as "[sounding like] something I might have said".

...

Senator Kitching put the claim to Mr Anderson that on a number of times he had said: "I'll burn this security division to the ground and start again."
He said he did not recall making the statement but, if he had, he was not referring to people but instead the issues that "need correcting within security branch".
Labor's Senate leader Penny Wong indicated she thought security staff would have regarded the remark about burning the division to the ground as a threat.
Mr Anderson said it was not intended that way.

quote:

Sources say that the Department of Parliamentary Services is intimidating whistleblower staff for speaking to BuzzFeed News, following our story last week that revealed officers were not trained and not equipped to do their jobs.

...

Following BuzzFeed News' story, sources say senior figures in the security branch of the department are scrambling to find the whistleblowers who spoke out about their safety concerns and punish them.
Officers have been told that anyone responsible for providing information to the media will face criminal charges for speaking out.
One officer said the department is "persecuting" staff for publicly airing their safety concerns. "They've completely mishandled the situation, and could have an effect on people's lives."
Officers are frightened and consoling each other, afraid supervisors could use the story as an excuse to fire staff they don't like.
The department has also been spreading false rumours about the author of the stories, telling officers that BuzzFeed News staff have been interviewed by authorities about our sources. This is untrue.

...

The secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services Rob Stefanic has accused the whistleblower staff of leaking "security classified information" and said he is in the process of hunting down the officers who have spoken out.
"These leaks by certain DPS officers certainly represent spills of security classified information," he said.

Zenithe posted:

quote:

Pauline Hanson's decision to walk away from a deal with the Federal Government to cut the corporate tax rate has frustrated the Coalition, to put it mildly.
Her reversal struck a death knell for the Coalition's economic centrepiece, leaving the Government with a budget crafted around a policy that can't be realised.
It has also sparked chatter amongst some Coalition backbenchers wondering just what to do about the Senate impasse.
A controversial approach is being quietly discussed: splitting the election process and sending senators to the polls — but not members of the House of Representatives.

quote:

Anglicare looked at 66,424 properties advertised for rent on March 24, analysing the rental prices against the amounts available under those payments. Housing is generally deemed to be ‘affordable’ if it costs no more than 30 percent of a household’s income. Under that criteria, there were only two affordable properties in the country for someone on Youth Allowance, and just three for a Newstart recipient; only 413 for a single person with two kids on the parenting payment; 406 for someone on the disability pension; and just 2700 properties out of 66,000 were affordable for someone on the aged pension.

quote:

Australia has 16 extra billionaires this year, taking the total to a record 76, with carboard and recycling magnate Anthony Pratt again topping the list of the nation's wealthiest.
The nation's richest 200 people, as calculated by the Financial Review, held a record $283 billion in wealth, up 21 per cent on last year.
It took a personal fortune of $387 million to make the list this year, up significantly from $341 million last year.
But the average wealth of Australia's 200 richest people was $1.41 billion.

...

The top five industries in which the nation's wealthiest 200 primarily made their fortunes are property (51), retail (22), investment (20), resources (18) and financial services (16).

quote:

During the debate, Christian Democrat reverend Fred Nile claimed a nearby abortion clinic had a plumbing problem when its sewerage pipes were blocked by "baby body parts".
"They had to get the plumbers in to find out what was blocking the sewerage pipes and you'll be disgusted to know it was baby body parts, little arms, little legs, parts of bodies of babies that had been aborted," Nile said.