MisterFrog
@MisterFrog@aussie.zone
- Comment on Productivity summit ends with treasurer signalling tax reforms 4 weeks ago:
Not raise, but bring up to levels road users were previously paying.
Road maintenance doesn’t stop being required just because you’ve stopped burning oil.
Road users should pay to use the road.
- Comment on Could living in smaller houses redefine the Australian Dream and help fix the housing crisis? 4 weeks ago:
Indeed, this would require quality builds to change people’s minds. Which would cut into the developer’s profits
I live in a pretty decent one myself though. I love it
- Comment on Could living in smaller houses redefine the Australian Dream and help fix the housing crisis? 4 weeks ago:
This. We keep pretending like there are no solutions.
There are no solutions that won’t affect the bottom line of someone rorting the system
People are allergic to apartments despite it being a great option for many, many people
- Comment on Age verification fun 4 weeks ago:
They don’t need to know, they want to know to make more profit, and daring you to unsubscribe.
We live in the Wild-West age of the internet where companies get away with anything they like
- Comment on Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate whether energy retailers are misleading consumers with plans that promise savings yet actually provide poor value 5 weeks ago:
Can we all agree that energy retailers are a collosal waste of time?
They provide literally no value.
Bring back government run energy distribution and retail. What is the fucking point?
- Comment on More AZ issues 19/8/25 5 weeks ago:
Dang, perhaps time to start singapore.zone? (I jest, it’s unfortunate that a few bad actors ruin it for everyone)
- Comment on Qantas fined $90m for illegally sacking ground staff as judge describes airline as ‘the wrong kind of sorry’ 5 weeks ago:
“It will send a message to Qantas and other well-resourced employers that not only will they face potentially significant penalties for the breach of the Act, but those penalties will be provided to trade unions to resource [them] to fulfil their statutory roles as enforcers of the Act,” he said.
This guy is a good man. A good man indeed.
- Comment on What if Australia were Ukraine? Trump and Putin prove our strategy to trust the US is a roll of the dice 5 weeks ago:
Some say this already happened with Whitlam, given the CIA’s comments about Kerr being “their man”.
We’ll probably never know for sure, but I would bet there would be regime change done here if we ever decide to stop allowing our resources to be plundered by US (and other) companies
- Comment on Australia, why are you still obsessed with freeways – when they’re driving us away from net zero? 5 weeks ago:
Between the two, cars grant autonomy outside public planning for individuals to still be individuals to get between families and economy between remote to remote and metro to remote even when there’s no feasible public transport.
This is a planning failure. This middle used to be farmland not that long ago.
Cars really ought not be the primary mode of transport in built up areas. They ought to primarily be for moving house, emergency services, disabled people, and people in rural areas.
But so, so, so much of our cities are geared towards cars, and this is because suburbs were built further and further out, instead of densifying our neighbourhoods like we should have.
It’s also just generally a problem of capitalism, and privatisation. More modern high rises are far worse quality (in Victoria at least) than ones built before the 90s (for their time). Kennet really fucked us on that one by removing government surveyors (the conflict of interest with privately contracted surveyors is so obvious, and it’s lead to terrible quality)
The average Joe has been screwed into long commutes, in cars, because of bad planning.
- Comment on Albanese is crying poor, but we’re losing billions a year from untaxed gas 5 weeks ago:
I’m just saying, there are options. Quite a decent amount really, by international standards. And some are pretty decent, just none perfect.
I just think the notion that there are no options of political candidates who would tax the oligarchs, isn’t true.
You asked what party could you vote for to tax them? I provided them. You said the preferences flow to Labor. And I said, well yeah, that’s the way the system works!
I feel like you’re shifting the goal posts here.
I do agree with you that things are largely cooked, though, and share your frustration that we don’t just grow some balls and tax companies and individuals like we once did.
I too look forward to a future where the people treat the government as their collective will, and not a force to be resisted and mistrusted, so we can get on with improving the material lives of all of us.
Hope this message finds you at the end of a relaxing weekend, if you had the pleasure of having it off work.
- Comment on Albanese is crying poor, but we’re losing billions a year from untaxed gas 5 weeks ago:
The preferences flow to Labor because you (and others) preferenced them above the Liberals and other candidates at high enough rates for them to be declared the winner.
The system is working exactly as intended, and while not perfect, is probably one of the best in the world. The parties you voted for didn’t gain enough votes to win, so your vote went to the next preference.
It’s important to note, you preferencing parties that didn’t win doesn’t do nothing.
- Your first preference receives funding from the AEC, allowing them to campaign next time and otherwise be a force on issues you care about
This is particularly important as you only receive funding if you receive at least 4% of the vote in the electorate (which I personally think is too high a threshold and should pay out at lower numbers than that). So make sure you preference your favourite first.
- It does signal to those who won what the electorate wants. There’s a reason our parties are somewhat moderate, even the Liberals, because our voting system leads to candidates with the broadest appeal winning. The major party vote is at an all time low, and I would be surprised if this doesn’t change Australian politics for the better (as long as though minor parties aren’t One Nation, lol)
Now, in practice, it’s not working perfectly. But really, we keep electing Labor (and historically more so the LNP) because people keep preferencing them, not because the voting system doesn’t work well. It works great.
The voting system isn’t at fault there, it’s that we have a corporate media landscape, mostly owned by a far right foreign national (Murdoch), and lobbying like crazy.
What we can be hopeful for, though, is that we’re not handicapped in our voting system.
I get you, it feels like you can make little difference, but it’s not the voting system that’s to blame for this.
- Comment on Albanese is crying poor, but we’re losing billions a year from untaxed gas 5 weeks ago:
While not many options, there are some you could have preferenced above Labor. Though, I will grant none are perfect options. Voting further left does put pressure on all parties to adopt more left-leaning policies.
Christ, when the Tasmanian Liberal party went to the state election proposing a government owned and operated insurance company I was shocked, but very pleased to see.
What makes me super hopeful about the federal Libs demise is pushing politics further to the left.
You could preference (opinions based on my vibes)
- The Greens Despite being kinda bad at politics, and filled with champaign socialists to some degree, they do broadly support taxing corporations more, to fund more public investment and programs
- Victorian Socialists (apparently they are expanding federally for the next election) Probably filled with many idealists who would end up being uncompromising, which would not be great. But the more left wing parliamentarians we have, the further left we drive Australian politics in general
- Independent candidates who run on a left leaning platform
There are a couple of other minor parties with vaguely left wing platforms.
All one need do though, in my opinion, is preference all the right wing parties below the others.
I don’t like the Greens, because there’s no perfect political party, and it’s run undemocratically, top-down, but I still recommend voting for them above Labor because it lights a fire under Labor’s arse, and maybe, eventually, they’ll get rid of thr Labor Right faction which is a stupid oxymoron*.
Victorian (Australian?) Socialists have a much more democratic party constitution, for what it’s worth.
*(I am not super well-versed with the Labor factional system because I’m not a member of any political party)
- Comment on Meet the AI vegans: They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a point 1 month ago:
Recycling: waste vegans.
The Germans are probably upset with this comparison
What for a nonsense. Do these other countries not sort their waste or what? Do they not know about efficiency? Next thing you’re going to tell me they don’t sort their white, green and brown glass separately.
- Comment on Antoinette Lattouf's unlawful sacking exposed the power of lobbying on the Australian media 1 month ago:
Thanks for the response. Yeah I should probably also emphasise that I have a soft-spot for the ABC and criticise it’s current state out of love.
I just am a bit sad that not much as really happened in the last 10 years to improve it (structurally), in my opinion.
I am still glad, as you mention, that we at least have one large news source outside the corporate media.
- Comment on Should big tech be allowed to mine Australians’ text and data to train AI? The Productivity Commission is considering it 1 month ago:
I thought employment rate has been at record lows these last couple years?
We are in a service economy, which hasn’t been as exposed to mechanical automation. You think there are still going to be as many jobs in the service industry of we automate it all? You think the market gives two shits about human dignity and keeping us employed?
We’re already shipping as many service jobs as we can to cheaper places. You think this doesn’t have an effect on our future employment prospects?
If you take out housing payments/rents as they’re due to the housing crisis that’s definitely not true
Are you hearing yourself?
If you’re on 2 incomes and struggling with a paid off house you’re doing something wrong
This is such a brain-dead, out of touch take.
How exactly are people, who don’t own a home, supposed to get to that point? With piles, and piles of debt, for houses that have gone up, way, way, way beyond inflation.
If they have no relatives who already own property, they are even more truly fucked.
I moved out of home in 2016. I worked 2 days a week on the weekend while studying. I did not apply for Centrelink and managed to get by because I managed to find a pretty cheap place to rent.
This shit is not possible today. And even in 2016 rent was already starting to become expensive I just got lucky.
Housing is THE problem of our generation.
I’ve managed to get “on the property ladder” but we’re quickly pulling it up behind us for many, many people.
And the fact you think corporations, who clearly do not have humanity’s best interest at heart, will actually drive real wage growth, with AI, is frankly hilarious.
- Comment on Should big tech be allowed to mine Australians’ text and data to train AI? The Productivity Commission is considering it 1 month ago:
I think you’re forgetting we live under capitalism, every job that can be removed, will be removed.
Automation will only end up being a net positive for society if we radically alter our economic system.
Automation to this level is not the same as industrialisation or the motormobile, we’re not creating nearly enough jobs to offset those that would be lost in the process.
All at a time at which 2 incomes barely covers living expenses for many people, where 1 used to cover a house, a wife and 3 kids.
$4,300 extra over 10 years? Press X to doubt AI will have anything to do with it.
- Comment on Antoinette Lattouf's unlawful sacking exposed the power of lobbying on the Australian media 1 month ago:
Until we remove the levers of funding from the government of the day (currently via passing the budget), stop government Ministers from having powers to direct the ABC on matters of national interest (Section 78 of the ABC Act), and make the organisation run democratically, it’s never going to stop being soft on the government of the day, nor be able to actually stand up to corporations or lobby groups.
GetUp’s campaign on saving the ABC was such a joke to me because they kept saying “save the ABC, save the ABC” and only talking about protesting budget cuts, which is incredibly short-sighted.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that organisations are much less likely to bite the hand that feeds it.
The ABC has been plagued with allegations of bias for years, and because they’re not really independent, they kow-tow way too often.
Never forget what they did to David McBride.
I think it’s time to link ABC funding to inflation or something via the constitution or some other more concrete mechanism than simply legislation, and make all employees have a say in the running of the organisation. A workers coop that just so happens to be a government organisation (obviously with checks to ensure they can still have funding revoked if the org goes completely off the rails, and that they can’t just decide, hmmm, let’s just not hire new people and share the funding between a smaller group of employees. I doubt this would with democratisation, though)
- Comment on Survey of Income and Housing results will not be released | ABS 1 month ago:
Yes, but also this would be a huge scandal which would no doubt come out.
As much as this is a pretty big fuck up, I have decent trust in the integrity of the vast majority of public servants. (Not to say that information isn’t ever massaged or suppressed in the public service, just that a conspiracy of this magnitude would not stay quiet).
Give it a couple of months. If it really is a conspiracy, I bet we’ll find out.
- Comment on Australian taxpayers on the hook to pay Chevron more than $500 million to clean up oil wells 1 month ago:
Something something, rules based order, something something ruining our reputation.
But honestly, we need to get legislation in place to stop governments making such plainly terrible deals in the first place.
If it’s not profitable, but has to get built, that’s just screaming government should built and control it.
Why we keep subsidising hugely profitable companies is beyond me.
And where old contract terms are unfair, we ought to grow some balls and say: we’re reneging on this as a sovereign entity, because the terms were unfair, and oil and gas companies have lobbied like crazy to make them happen.
We should make these past injustices against Australia, right.
Try let the Americans coup us, at least it’ll be overt
- Comment on The secret deal behind the teenage social media ban 1 month ago:
I’m not against regulation, without regulation is how we’ve ended up with Facebook Analytica and everyone and their dog collecting mountains of personal information to sell.
Just that they went and decided on this nebulous age verification instead of actual privacy protection we’re sorely lacking in this country (online)
- Comment on The secret deal behind the teenage social media ban 1 month ago:
It’s honestly a travesty we got this before an Australian version of the GDPR…
- Comment on Illicit tobacco is 'out in the open' but what is the best way to deal with it? 2 months ago:
Yeah, we’ve dropped the ball. You actually need to do some enforcement to make this work, seems like that’s hardly being done. And increases in enforcement would pay for itself.
Making something annoying to do definitely is a winning strategy.
It’s not even criminal to use a VPN in China, but they are banned and make it very difficult use, you just accept your fate that they don’t really work anymore. It’s still possible to circumvent the Great Firewall, but requires way more effort than before. Most people just don’t, even those with a desire to.
Just that for our purposes, it’s for something worthwhile (In my opinion. Smoking is dumb, and as stated in another comment, someone’s “freedom” to do it isn’t convincing if you want to live in a social democracy.)
- Comment on Illicit tobacco is 'out in the open' but what is the best way to deal with it? 2 months ago:
Licencing seems like a good first step (that, I find it mindboggling didn’t already exist).
It’s not like the same level of enforcement is needed continuously.
I kinda do think shutting down and charging shop owners would be enough to massively curb the trade. It wouldn’t stop it, but suddenly it becomes more of a pain to buy.
Currently shops are doing this in the open. How hard would it be, honestly, to make a tip line (internet form), have a small team of inspectors go around, charge and shut people down? It kinda feels like this isn’t even being done.
And if funding is the problem, well, it kinda pays for itself.
Gotta make it juuuust enough of a pain that you either quit, or are willing to pay the extortionate excise.
Can’t really argue with the results, we massively curbed smoking in this country until vapes showed up.
- Comment on Driver who killed a father and injured his 6 year old son sent 44 Snapchat messages while driving 100km/h before fatal crash 2 months ago:
One of your neighbours sounds eminently reasonable
- Comment on Driver who killed a father and injured his 6 year old son sent 44 Snapchat messages while driving 100km/h before fatal crash 2 months ago:
but as long as these loopholes exist, there must be an alternative
The current alternative is pretty funny, if you live in a council who’s really strict about parking.
It’s really hilarious when people park like wankers in Melbourne CBD because there’s an online form you can fill out to sick the parking inspectors on them really quickly depending how busy they are.
I’ve done it multiple times to people parking in the car-share dedicated spots. It’s always Teslas, BMWs, Mercedes.
Though, now we’ve had this conversation, I’ll keep an eye out for oversized car parking too.
Them when they get the fine: wHaT dO tHeY eXpEcT mE tO Do?
Buy literally any other ute/van that easily fits in the spots.
I’m a bastard haha, I can’t wait.
Why I think we should do literally nothing to accommodate this ridiculous vehicles, accommodation is a precedent they will come to expect and feel entitled to.
People already feel entitled to large roads, and right of way for cars. Let’s not give them a single mm.
That said, it is amusing driving through certain housing estates where there is one normal-sized car in the driveway; which is being blocked in by the Dodge Ram that is too big to fit in the driveway.
I suppose they’re doing their best haha
- Comment on Illicit tobacco is 'out in the open' but what is the best way to deal with it? 2 months ago:
Nah. Until vaping took off, smoking rates plummeted.
Smells a lot better in this country compared to the ones they smoke in.
Ugh. (I do empathise with people who’ve picked up the habit, but not those who advocate for it)
Say what you will, the taxes worked, and have without a doubt saved us a tonne in avoided medical costs from all the people who gave up or never started smoking in the first place.
People talk as if a black market existing somehow negates the benefits of smoking reductions.
If it’s black market, it’s still more of a hassle to buy. Unless it’s really out of control. In which case the answer is blaringly obvious.
Law enforcement.
- Comment on Driver who killed a father and injured his 6 year old son sent 44 Snapchat messages while driving 100km/h before fatal crash 2 months ago:
I vote we don’t do that because it’s taking up valuable space that creates urban sprawl. We already have dedicated truck parking (as in, actual trucks, not oversized utes & SUVs) in places where they’re needed for deliveries.
Utes have fit in regular parking spots for decades. We should just say - no, these oversize utes/SUVs just can’t be bought.
Have you ever wondered why you even need a car to pop to the shops?
Because we’ve designed our cities around cars. (Unless you live in the CBD or other dense pockets in this country where you can literally just go downstairs. Weekly shop? What’s that?).
Let’s not have them park anywhere (in my opinion).
Make them buy a real vehicle, not one for emotional support.
- Comment on Driver who killed a father and injured his 6 year old son sent 44 Snapchat messages while driving 100km/h before fatal crash 2 months ago:
You simply don’t understand why most people in this country are against the death penalty.
I’m not defending his actions whatsoever, even want to see his sentence extended.
If you’d like to actually read my position as to why I, and most of this country (though perhaps not for the same reasons as me) are against the death penalty, you will see you’re being a bit dishonest by saying I’m defending him.
You’ve literally just repeated the same thing twice.
And it looks like you don’t want to actually engage in an honest defence as to why society should have the death penalty.
- Comment on ‘Sheer luck’: how German backpacker Carolina Wilga was found after 11 nights lost in dense Australian outback 2 months ago:
I think they need this exactly wording. The swear words in particular would hopefully make it sink in
- Comment on Driver who killed a father and injured his 6 year old son sent 44 Snapchat messages while driving 100km/h before fatal crash 2 months ago:
☹️ this does not spark joy
As much as we’re not the US, it saddens me how much we permit cars to rule over our cities