Nath

@Nath@aussie.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do Australia's petrol prices compare globally?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Having worked petrol retail through my late teens/early 20’s, I can assure you that people have no idea how much of our society depends on diesel.

  Electricity, too: Ten days without power would be almost enough to send us to the Iron Age. It’s scary when you think about it, you could seriously cripple any modern nation by attacking just those two vectors of infrastructure and they’re both pretty soft targets in terms of the damage you could do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australia’s new physical activity guidelines won’t shift the needle – here are 4 better ideas⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Not only is it possible, there are hundreds of examples we can learn from. It’s been done over and over in Europe to astonishing success. That could be us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Record January migration intake⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  This article claims to cite the ABS, but the ABS has a very different story: abs.gov.au/…/annual-net-overseas-migration-falls-…

  Overseas migration added 306,000 people to Australia’s population in the 2024-25 financial year, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

  Jenny Dobak, ABS head of migration statistics, said: ‘Net overseas migration dropped by 124,000 people in 2024-25, falling for the second year in a row since the financial year high of 538,000 people in 2022-23.

  ‘The change in net overseas migration was driven by both a 14 per cent decrease in migrant arrivals, particularly temporary visa holders, and a 13 per cent increase in migrant departures.

  ‘While net overseas migration is not currently at the level seen prior to the pandemic, this year’s overseas migration figures are the closest to pre-COVID-19 figures since annual net overseas migration peaked in September quarter 2023.

  ‘Migrant arrivals in 2024-25 were only 3 per cent higher than in 2018-19, but migrant departures remained 15 per cent lower than they were in 2018-19.’

  The irony is: Most people’s jimmies would not have been rustled even if this article hadn’t been full of shit. Go back a few generations and almost all of us are migrants.

• Man charged with traffic offences after child allegedly detected drivingwww.police.nsw.gov.au ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨australia@aussie.zone⁩ | ⁨2⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Richest super balances to be taxed at higher rates after Greens agree to back Labor plan⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The top 1% of earners pay roughly 40-45% of all income tax.

  That’s not true, though it’s a common misconception. To account for 40% of all income tax, you’d need to incorporate the top 5% of earners. Top 1% vs. top 5% doesn’t sound significant, but it truly is. Someone in the top 1% makes roughly twice the amount someone in the top 5% makes. We’re actually talking about different things and the same things all at the same time. It’s confusing, but bear with me and I’ll hopefully get us onto the same page.

  Income streams are logarithmic in nature. This is why we always talk about “median salary” when discussing the topic. If we use the “average” salary (mean), then that would come out to roughly $106,000. However, if you are earning this amount, you’re in the top 25% of earners in Australia. The median salary sits at around $68,000. That number amazes me, since our rent alone is $41,600. I have no clue how people are surviving on the median, let alone half the nation on less than that.

  Someone in the top 20% is making $128,000.
  Someone in the top 10% is making $165,000. Not a massive jump in salary, this seems reasonable.
  Someone in the top 5% is making $195,000. Again, that’s only a $30k jump to account for a decent chunk of the population. Someone in the top 1% is making $385,000. Roughly double the amount for someone in the top 5%. To speak to your point, their increase in take-home pay is only about $100,700, because yes - they pay 45% tax.
  Someone in the top 0.5% is making over $550,000.

  Now that we have these numbers out of the way, here’s why we’re talking about different things: Someone in the top 0.5% of earners still likely doesn’t have $3m in super. Or if they do, it’s just barely.

  Someone in this salary bracket doesn’t hit it at 20. They usually hit it in their late 40’s to 50’s. At that point, they only have 20ish years of work left before they retire. If we assume our top earner is depositing $50,000 into their super fund at 5% growth, it’ll take them 28+ years to attain $3m. They just don’t have time to get to the point where they are affected by this policy. Or if they are super lucky and have managed to attain say $3.1m, they’re only taxed 30% on the earnings of $100k - not the earnings of the remaining $3m.

  So, like I said: We’re talking about different things. The top 0.5% earners are not the same as the top 0.5% super fund holders. The top 0.5% super fund holders are not getting there from regular income. They are rich. They probably don’t work, because they don’t need to. They probably don’t pay much income tax, because they don’t need to work. You probably pay more income tax than these people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Richest super balances to be taxed at higher rates after Greens agree to back Labor plan⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This article is discussing a tax on earnings in super funds above $3m.

  I think that people who are earning more than my annual salary just from growth in the value on their pile of cash should be charged tax on that growth.

  They can afford it better than any of us, and I’m always amazed at people who think this is a bad thing.

  None of the present changes apply to your examples.

  Perhaps that’s the answer to my question: people criticise this tax because they worry it’ll affect them?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Richest super balances to be taxed at higher rates after Greens agree to back Labor plan⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you honestly think that 0.5% of the population are responsible for 50% of the nation’s income tax? That’s hysterical.

  We aren’t talking about doctors and lawyers and successful salespeople. Those peasants on their measly half-million annual salaries are not putting enough away to be affected by this law.

  In point of fact, these people are rich enough to employ wealth managers and accountants to manage their tax affairs. Retainers who every tax loophole to minimise the tax they pay. You’d be surprised how little as a percentage of their income they are paying the ATO.

  We’re talking about people who are putting over $100k per year into their super funds. They are not moving in the same circles as you and me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Richest super balances to be taxed at higher rates after Greens agree to back Labor plan⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  With $3m in super, you could draw $100k/year and assuming 5% growth you’d have over $3.5m after 10 years:

  Year,Starting Balance,Withdrawal,Interest Earned (5%),Year-End Balance  
  1,"$3,000,000","−$100,000","+$145,000","$3,045,000"  
  2,"$3,045,000","−$100,000","+$147,250","$3,092,250"  
  3,"$3,092,250","−$100,000","+$149,613","$3,141,863"  
  4,"$3,141,863","−$100,000","+$152,093","$3,193,956"  
  5,"$3,193,956","−$100,000","+$154,698","$3,248,653"  
  6,"$3,248,653","−$100,000","+$157,433","$3,306,086"  
  7,"$3,306,086","−$100,000","+$160,304","$3,366,390"  
  8,"$3,366,390","−$100,000","+$163,320","$3,429,710"  
  9,"$3,429,710","−$100,000","+$166,485","$3,496,195"  
  10,"$3,496,195","−$100,000","+$169,810","$3,566,005"  
  

  “But $100k won’t be enough in ten years!” I hear you say. Ok, let’s give ourselves a 10% pay-rise every 10 years.

  Year Range,Annual Withdrawal,Year-End Balance (End of Decade)  
  Years 1–10,"$100,000.00","$3,566,005"  
  Years 11–20,"$110,000.00","$4,355,900"  
  Years 21–30,"$121,000.00","$5,497,281"  
  Years 31–40,"$133,100.00","$7,196,668"  
  

  With a starting fund of $3m, and a 10% payrise every decade, after 40 years we have over $7m in our super fund. As I said, I really wish I had this problem!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Another is shaping the norms of a community and what is acceptable.

  This is incorrect. The community shapes itself. The community is lovely. We are not it’s shapers.

  You’ve been here about as long as the instance has existed. In the almost three years we’ve been at this, have you ever seen us shaping discussion? Who the hell am I to dictate to everyone what the norm is, anyway? I’m just some guy on the Internet.

  I was reluctant to remove a reported post on /c/worldnews the other day, despite it being in clear violation of the sidebar rules.

  One neat thing about Lemmy is moderation is all transparent. The modlog is just down there on the bottom of every page. You’ll see that just about all the accounts I ban are for spam with a smattering of troll accounts. We are accountable to the users and not some secret group manipulating discussion out of sight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Richest super balances to be taxed at higher rates after Greens agree to back Labor plan⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I have no idea why every news article on this matter makes it sound like everyone should be against these changes. Superannuation has for decades been a near place to dump surplus salary to get it taxed at a lower income tax rate.

  Under the superannuation tax changes, the concessional tax rate on earnings for balances between $3m and $10m will double from 15% to 30%.

  Balances above $10m will be subject to a new, higher 40% rate.

  Most of us are not affected by these changes. I truly, genuinely wish I were affected.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s good to see, but as of right now the Nazi’s explicit mask-off comment is still up, and they are still not prevented from commenting further in the future.

  Which you’re clearly good with, since your screen-capped version of the comment is also still up. The purpose of moderation is to prevent people from being exposed abhorrent content, spam, unsolicited nudity, scams and other harmful content. I’m reluctant to step into discussions that are clearly between actual humans as a general rule, unless they are being abusive or derailing threads. I could also count on my fingers the number of human user accounts I’ve needed to actually ban from the site. Whatever a power-tripping mod is, I am not.

  The next time you think a comment should be removed, I would recommend that you don’t go out of your way to be sure more people see it as you report it. As things stand, I see more value in this moment as a learning point. Yours is still the only report that particular comment received. The truly offensive stuff, I can be pinged by half a dozen reports within 30 minutes of the comment being posted. I also remain unconvinced that the user who made that comment would self-identify as a Nazi. Zionist, sure - though that is apparent more from other comments than this example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I get every report about every community on the instance, even if I’m not listed on the Community. They come as notifications to my phone. It’s pretty rare for any report to take longer than an hour or so to be looked at.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Lebensraum is a relatively infamous policy, and one which neo-Nazis like the NSN explicitly invoke.

  Sorry. While I readily acknowledge that I don’t hang out in those circles, nor really scrutinise their rhetoric, I have honestly never heard that phrase before. In English or German. This does paint the comment in a brighter light, and I probably would have been more inclined to remove it had I been familiar with the term.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We’re missing a bit of information here. I got your report, went to the thread to get the context.

  Firstly, I saw that you had literally screen-capped the comment in question and included it in a new reply. So, removing the comment would have achieved nothing - it would have still been there.
  Secondly, the comment was Zionistic in nature, which while especially unpopular in nature is not against instance rules.
  Thirdly, I wasn’t aware that the comment in question was similar to something Nazis said. I don’t even know if the user who made the comment knew that. So, leaving it there and letting downvotes do their thing allowed for education as well.
  Lastly, the comment was in the Australian Politics community - which is intentionally the lightest-touch moderated community because there’s a difference between political discussion where parties disagree quite vehemently and an outright echo-chamber. If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?

  To answer your question: No, we don’t allow Nazis here. It is literally one of the questions we ask on the application screen. “Nazi talking points” is not on its own a good metric of what is acceptable today. We basically have a whole community in support of Reichsnaturschutzgesetz. I don’t especially take issue with Tierschutz, either. One of the reasons the Third Reich gained actual popular support was some of their early policies were in fact in the best interest of the German people. There is still a Kindergeld today, though giving full credit to the Nazis to that one wouldn’t really be genuine. It is fair to say they supported this policy. So I guess our stance on “literal Nazi talking points” will boil down to other factors and get taken on a case-by-case basis.

  Finally: If there’s a user you genuinely don’t wish to see around here any longer, you can hit the little down arrow on any of their comments and block them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's causing the Greek yoghurt shortage in Australian supermarkets?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We’re usually pretty immune to these sorts of shortages, because WA grows so much of its foods locally.

  I noticed Aldi had no yoghurt for a bit, but there has been plenty of local supplier stocks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨40% of teenage boys believe women lie about domestic and sexual violence: new research⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So far as I know, nothing (legally). She wasn’t on trial. Something may have happened to her later, but I don’t think so. I think I’d have heard if it had.

  Of course: everyone who knew her knew about the whole case and its outcome. It would be an inaccurate statement to say she faced no consequences at all. Everyone - male and female alike, was furious with her. And I expect the story follows her around 20 years later whenever anyone Google’s her.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨40% of teenage boys believe women lie about domestic and sexual violence: new research⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The full paper would give better context of that statement. It’s quite accessible and worth reading. The thing that is consistent across all studies, nations and decades is that false accusations are rare.

  It turns out this is actually a fairly difficult topic to accurately measure if for no other reason that a lot of cases (Particularly earlier ones) boil down to ‘he said, she said’. Then there is the matter that lots of sexual assault cases go unreported - or are dropped for assorted reasons. Unreported assaults are a huge factor among certain cultural groups.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨40% of teenage boys believe women lie about domestic and sexual violence: new research⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Holy engagement bait, Batman! What a terrible headline.

  Yes, it is a fact that women lie about domestic and sexual violence. I’ve seen first-hand a family seriously impacted by a false accusation. The son was detained in prison for a year, the parents took out a mortgage on their home to defend the case and finally the girl admitted in court that she fabricated the whole thing. The son was acquitted. These cases happen. Here’s a fairly broad paper on the matter discussing several deeper studies spanning several countries including Australia, Canada and the UK.

  Among the seven studies that attempted some degree of scrutiny of police classifications and/or applied a definition of false reporting at least similar to that of the IACP, the rate of false reporting, given the many sources of potential variation in findings, is relatively consistent:

  • 2.1% (Heenan & Murray, 2006)
  • 2.5% (Kelly et al., 2005)
  • 3.0% (McCahill et al., 1979)
  • 5.9% (the present study)
  • 6.8% (Lonsway & Archambault, 2008)
  • 8.3% (Grace et al., 1992)
  • 10.3% (Clark & Lewis, 1977)
  • 10.9% (Harris & Grace, 1999)

  With that out of the way, let’s move on to the elephant in the room:

  IN OVER 90% OF CASES, THE RAPES WERE CREDIBLE! FALSE ACCUSATIONS ARE THE EXCEPTION!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are you on track to retire comfortably? Australia's new super benchmark released⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, but I’m closer than I expected to be (within $20k for my age bracket). I can probably make that much up in my remaining work years.

  My wife’s super on the other hand is going to suck. She took about a decade off to be a stay at home mother when the kids were little and is going to put her well behind. The system doesn’t treat parents who do this well. Let’s face it: 90% of the time, it’s women who are career hobbled by parenthood and super pauses.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three Australian millionaires say the nation’s super-rich should face higher taxes⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  $500 million purely in sales of software he wrote alone? That would be a feat for sure.

  Initially, it was him and his wife, yes. Though they now have a decent sized company with a few hundred employees. I didn’t realise his venture had gotten so big until this thread and I googled him today. Before you get all angry that he’s “profiting off those people’s work”, ask whether those people are better off for working for him or if he should keep all the work and wealth to himself.

  The part that’s wrong isn’t doing well and making money, it’s advocating against taxing corporations way more than we are, lobbying for loopholes, and engaging in rent seeking behaviour. Which is extremely, extremely common. Having some kind of cap on how much wealth you can amass seems sensible to me.

  I haven’t heard of him doing any of those things. Of course I moved to the other side of the country and no longer move in the same circles as he does. He still has a reputation in IT circles for being a chill bloke, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three Australian millionaires say the nation’s super-rich should face higher taxes⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A former work colleague of mine might. He’s well over half-way there at least and still gaining.

  He quit his job and wrote some software that is used all over the world. If you make a thing and enough people buy it, you get rich. In his case, very rich. He didn’t inherit his wealth. He didn’t start out already a millionaire. His wealth is not coming from being a parasite on society. He isn’t taking resources or hoarding land. He’ll be the first to tell you he is monumentally lucky, but I also can’t see anything he’s doing that’s wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three Australian millionaires say the nation’s super-rich should face higher taxes⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That was called the “Mining tax” and it’s mere proposal killed the Kevin07 movement before Mr Rudd finished his first term. All for the measly cost of a ~$20 Million smear campaign blitz. Bargain!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Not delivering any Aukus nuclear submarines to Australia explored as option in US congressional report⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Frankly, because Australia has things that the USA does not have and really needs. Australia is a stable and reliable political friend in a region of the globe that is close enough to the antipode of mainland USA. Our proximity and unused land affords our US allies with space and privacy to operate with relative comfort. Their bases in Australia also have much shorter logistic chains to operate compared with other remote locales like islands as well.

  The USA would be impacted militarily if they lost Australia as an ally. Not irrevocably, they’d get by. But it would cost them a lot more than the simple civility and respect it takes to maintain their relationship with Australia.

  Neither nations really needs the other. Our partnership has been convenient for both of us, and it really would be a shame for both nations if that partnership were to lapse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Parents are paying $2500 to falsify vaccine records. It’s endangering babies like Riley⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m struggling to believe there’s such a thing as an “anti-vax doctor”. That’s a classic oxymoron.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm trying to identity a dinosaur theme park/attraction on the Gold Coast in the 80s⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I grew up on the Gold Coast in the 80s. I have no memory of such a place, sorry.

  I’ll grant that we were poor and not exactly visiting the theme parks every week, but I’m fairly certain I got to them all at least once.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨no pride in genocide⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  His mission was to observe the transit of Venus. The expedition was scientific in nature first and foremost.

  You’re speaking of the secret instructions issued to him by the Admiralty to locate the fabled southern continent and hopefully claim it for England. Tasman by this stage had found NZ and I think Van Diemans Land. Yes he found the east coast of Australia and “claimed” it for England. It was all in vain though, the distances were way too far for anything to come of it. To Cook at the time, it was a side trip.

  There were two parliamentary inquiries submitted to the British parliament in 1779 and 1785 recommending colonisation of New Holland, but even then: well after Cook’s death, such an expedition was seen as too expensive.

  Then the English learned that the French were preparing to colonise and it was suddenly a British priority to get to Australia.

  I don’t see how anything to do with the colonisation had anything to do with Captain Cook. You could swap Cook out for any other ship’s captain who was taking the scientists to see Venus and the rest of the expedition plays out much the same. Cook didn’t colonise Australia. He encountered the Guugu Yimithirr people in Northern Queensland and tried to treat with the peacefully - mostly succeeding. He certainly didn’t set about killing them all.

  Arthur Philip should be the person people direct their ire at. But he doesn’t have a statue in Melbourne. King George III would be another candidate that made sense. Only George III also doesn’t have a statue in Melbourne.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨no pride in genocide⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Captain Cook had nothing to do with the colony. He died in 1779 - years before the settlers arrived. While agreeing with the sentiment that the arrival of Europeans is not cause for celebration, Cook had always been a dumb target for protesting Jan 26.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Melbourne goes from among the most to least expensive capital cities⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Southbank had residential high-rise buildings that were at least 60% empty ten years ago - and that’s being generous. It seemed like they were nearly empty. From the outside at 8 pm, there were barely any lights on to indicate the presence of people in there.

  They were owned by people overseas and kept in pristine condition to maintain a higher value. Is that still going on?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My petty gripe: a large flat white is an oxymoron – a bastardisation of the drink Australia gave the world⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Insert “That’s bait” meme here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Exclusive: pro-Israel campaign seeks removal of Palestinian DJ from WOMADelaide⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this. Whoever sent this has clearly never been to a WOMAD festival, because that crowd is not likely to appreciate someone trying to influence the lineup.

  I can’t think of anything the better the writers of this letter could have done to Streisand Effect that crowd into seeking out some DJ that might otherwise have been one act among several.