Random News Stories

[stui magpie]

Well the state governments love the high house prices as they mint it with stamp duty

[think positive]

Is it sydney and Melbourne still with the over inflated stamp duty? It’s disgusting

Not sure how you fix the housing situation. More government housing? Problem is people abuse it, both when they don’t need it and the way they treat it. There are a fair few pockets of all rental areas around Truganina and it’s an absolute dump, scary in fact. There is a creek you just don’t cross!

Not so much the home owner grant, as the reduction in stamp duty on your first home. Live in it for a year and under a certain amount pay nothing. My daughter saved $32 grand.

[pietillidie]

Another problem with housing as an inflated faux market, which it is for a low-risk asset, is the outsized drain on people's intellects. Instead of learning something productive, every second chancer reckons he's a real estate guru because the nation rewards him for focusing on driving up housing prices miles above sensible competitive market returns instead of learning something useful (accounting, data analysis, programming, management, TV production, visual design, whatever).

It's not even creative speculation. E.g., let's say you get a tech bubble in something like cryptocurrency technology, you know at least some seriously powerful technology will come of it. Maybe it turns out a fad and sinks into the mud, but the skills and technologies built will simply be ported elsewhere, while the investors understood the risk.

And saying this doesn't eliminate the need for housing, construction and infrastructure. Housing simply needs to be costed in relation to its asset class.

[pietillidie]

Not so much the home owner grant, as the reduction in stamp duty on your first home. Live in it for a year and under a certain amount pay nothing. My daughter saved $32 grand.

She has to grab that, for sure, and she's only being reasonable. The problem here is not individuals doing what they have to. The problem is your daughter saved 32 grand on something artificially inflated as an asset class way beyond that 32 grand.

Far better she simply paid 100 grand less because the asset was sensibly priced to start with.

[think positive]

True, got it at the right time though just before the market exploded in the area! Plus the work we have done to it it’s worth at least $50k more and she hasn’t had it a year! And at least she’s in the market!

[stui magpie]

The Governments religious Discrimination Bill is currently before Federal Parliament

This is a balanced (IMO) legal view.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/the- ... 59uwm.html

I haven't read the bill, I have read a few articles with opposing views so some parts of the bill I like in principle and others I don't in principle.

I like this quote from the article

As the Religious Freedom Report said: “Australia does not get to choose, for example, between protecting religious freedom and providing for equality before the law. It must do both under its international obligations.”

We don't have a constitutional right to free speech. This bill if enacted would give people/organisations the rights to say what they want if that is part of their genuine religious beliefs, but if by saying those things it causes harm to others, that's where the conflict between different laws happens.

The Bill has barely got through the Lib/Nats internal process with several moderates dissenting, I expect Labor to pass it in the house but seek amendments in the Senate

[pietillidie]

Koalas now on the endangered list? Honestly, the record in Australia is appalling. Sure, there's the peculiar disease factor, but this status so late in the game means there was an aeon to make it not so. And the fires were to a great extent part of the whole carelessness. Appalling custodianship of nature.

Is it more a pre-emptive move or are the sirens really sounding that loudly? Or perhaps both?

[Pies4shaw]

50% drop in QLD numbers since 2001 (I think it was 2001 - I was listening to this on RN as I was travelling between estates) and 62% in NSW. According to the report, there has been a Federal legal obligation for the 3 jurisdictions to put a “recovery plan” in place since about 2012 and they’ve just failed.

[think positive]

the council that burnt a heap of them alive or bulldozed them a year or so ago should all get tied to a tree and have the same thing done to them

its so fricken disgusting

[think positive]

the council that burnt a heap of them alive or bulldozed them a year or so ago should all get tied to a tree and have the same thing done to them

its so fricken disgusting

[pietillidie]

Imagine feverishly clinging to the Union Jack as if your life depends on it, but letting the koala slip to endangered status. What sort of confused value system is that?

Australian politics in a nutshell. Or a gum nut, perhaps.

[think positive]

i really dont think anyone is clinging to the union jack anymore. the monachy should end with the queen,

[pietillidie]

^Good point. Has there been talk to that end?

[stui magpie]

The Republican movement is a disjointed mess. The Queen is the only thing keeping many monarchists focused, but the republicans can't agree on a model or process to get there so neither major party will touch that divisive issue with a barge pole.

[#26]

This bloke Graham Potter was arrested today after being on the run for over a decade I always wonder what people in his situation do for money. It's not like he could've applied for Centrink payments or got a job.

https://www.news.com.au/national/crime/ ... cf1a40?amp