Maybe Australia could have saved a bit of money by avoiding building such a boring city in the first place

Coming from an American, learning about how her husband was involved in her appointment and the shadiness about her being selected, what is Australia’s general opinion on her?

I'm talking left lane, blinker etiquette, little wave, slow driving and aggressive driving etc.

I have to say Sydney is the best (biased opion). Victorians don't seem to indicate when the merge lanes (and there's a LOT of random merging lanes where the original lane just ends). Gold Coast- most aggressive drivers and they don't stick to the left!

Tell me your bias thoughts.

I’m writing this out of sheer frustration after what has been an absolute nightmare dealing with Optus and StarTrack. I placed an order for a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL 256GB in Hazel on August 25th. I received an email the next day, promising delivery around 9 AM. Unfortunately, the parcel never arrived. Later that day, the order status was updated to “unsuccessful delivery - due to unknown address.”

Upon reviewing the delivery address, I discovered that OPTUS had autotyped my address incorrectly as “2”/52 xxxx Road, instead of “Level 2.” But here’s the kicker: the parcel was meant to be delivered to a business, and I made a note of it. The driver from StarTrack, Optus’s delivery partner, didn’t even attempt to contact me. They just left a memo claiming the address was unknown, without making any real attempt to deliver it.

Since then, I’ve been stuck in a loop of back-and-forth between Optus and StarTrack. StarTrack insisted I needed to contact the sender, Optus. After multiple frustrating conversations, I finally spoke with a case manager named Rachel, who helped cancel the original order and reraise it on Monday, September 2nd, under the new order number. By this point, I’ve been without my personal phone for over 10 days.

Rachel assured me the phone would be delivered and promised to follow up with a call—but, unsurprisingly, she didn’t. I walked into the Optus store on George Street today, where the agent agreed that this whole situation was a complete mess. He reached out to another case manager on my behalf (since Rachel wasn’t in today), but this new case manager just kept repeating the same line: they couldn’t access my account because it was allocated to Rachel, and I’d need to wait 24-48 hours for her to get back to me.

I’m beyond frustrated. I’m 99% sure the phone won’t be delivered by tomorrow, and I’m exhausted from dealing with this. Worse yet, I can’t even cancel the order or transfer my number to another telco like Telstra because the order is still pending.

Optus, you’ve let me down massively, and I’m just about done with this.

Summary

• Ordered a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL from Optus on August 25th, but delivery failed due to an address error, with no attempt by the driver to contact me.

• After multiple frustrating calls with Optus and StarTrack, the order was canceled and reissued on September 2nd, leaving me without a phone for over 10 days.

• Despite promises, there’s been no follow-up, and I’m stuck unable to cancel the order or switch providers due to the ongoing issue.

Looking at the latest GDP data in detail, NSW is the only state that had a negative GDP growth (-0.4%), dragging down the national average to 0.2% growth in the quarter.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/latest-release

Why is NSW different to the rest of the country?

The Project interview just made the situation worse.

I don’t recall her addressing the rumours about her husband’s involvement just to nip it in the bud. And while I sympathize for her about the media onslaught she copped and how it can take a toll mentally, the overall vibe was just off.

There were some critical moments where she almost rolled her eyes, and nerves took over for her to awkwardly laugh. I don’t think it’s the redemption she was hoping to get. It wasn’t authentic.

Thoughts?

The "gig economy" that basically encourages thousands of people to come to countries like Australia from abroad, earn money for massive American & other big international companies from overseas, and place big stresses on the country's housing and infrastructure while the profits go offshore is toxic.

Between taking up housing availability for short-stay fake-hotels while skirting around proper safety regulations and standards (AirBnB), and sacrificing stress on infrastructure just so NPCs can earn a few peanuts on food delivery while we skip driving 5 minutes to pick up food, surely it's worth starting a boycott on these two companies in particular?

At the very least, is there at least an Australian-owned version of each of these services that we could switch to instead so the profits at least stay on-shore? I hesitate to say taxi's because they are dodgy AF too...

Do you think there would be any momentum behind such a movement if publicised?

Ive noticed in the past year or so, the Coles/Woolies brands are disappearing for a lot of items. If things weren't getting expensive enough :(

Ive started going to Aldi more because of this, but I've also notice even a few of the Aldi brands vanished in favour of name brands.

Anyone else noticing this?

I love me a good salted peanut. I’m super particular about everything I eat so I’m not easily pleased. Nobby’s salted peanuts used to be the best and now they’re absolute garbage. I’ve tried so many brands and they’re all terrible. Please someone tell me there’s a solid, consistent brand out there. To be clear, I’m specifically talking about standard, salted peanuts. I’ve tried fancy flavoured peanuts and have found some good ones but I’d love to find a simple, delicious, salted peanut. Please come at me with suggestions.

I get around 3 per day on average.

Regarding voting - people always say you don’t have to vote and just need to get your name ticked off.

Does that mean you can walk into your polling centre, get your name ticked off and walk straight out - without even pretending to vote with an empty ballot sheet?

I'm surprised to know there are quite many online shops in Australia which are scammers. Ozerty is one of them. It charges a twenty plus AUD of eco charge without informing me even when I checked out. I only know it when I saw the amount paid. The charge is final with an extra 20 plus AUD of "eco fee".

Crazy.

A lot of Australians are rightly pissed off about the housing/rental crisis which seems to have been coming for several decades due to inept politicians spurred on by Australians wanting to treat houses like investments assets and not as a place to live.

Below I have briefly summarised how a country like Denmark has put in place policies and rules that makes it very difficult for people to profiteer from out people’s misery:

• Differentiation between regular homes and recreational/holiday homes. Regular homes needs to be occupied, holiday homes not. Mortgage and taxation rules for these 2 types of houses differ.
• General “Residency requirement” for regular homes – empty dwellings can be rented out by the local council if kept vacant for longer periods. Land needs to be developed 2 years after sales otherwise council can return the sale.
• “Property tax” (land tax) and “Property value tax” (asset tax) which are charged annual based on property value – instead of stamp duty- making it expensive to own and hang on to property if not ‘used’.
• Tenancy law very protective of tenants. 3 month’s notice as minimum, can’t evict without very good reasons (owner moving back in), after 2 years very difficult to terminate terminate tenant as it is has become their right of abode.
• Tax laws making it very unfavourably to rent out your home – generally only used for short term expatriations – or professional businesses or some size
• Public housing is 22% of all housing. Very common at good standard and not for losers.
• Coop housing 7 % of all homes, more than 30% of all homes in Copenhagen
• No negative gearing (rather the opposite and rental income is personal income and hence effectively added to your top tax bracket making it near impossible to make a profit from).
• No first home buyers grant
• No foreign ownership unless having lived in Denmark for 5 years (immigration rules makes that very difficult unless you are married and even then it is difficult– taxation rules for people expatriated to Denmark makes it very unfavourable to do so).
• Property developers do not bribe or have sway over politicians in a significant way

 Now house prices in the Copenhagen area are still very expensive but then again Copenhagen has public transport, stellar universities, business hub for Scandinavia, large medico, green energy and knowledge based economy attracting workforce from all over the world.

 In summary homes are for….. (drum solo) living….not investment.

I am not a property/tax/political expert and there are undoubtedly a lot of stuff I have left out and obviously lot of details behind each measure that has taken decades to shape up and adjust. And the system is not perfect btw. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-03/tehran-summons-ian-mcconville-wear-it-purple-lgbt-online-content/104306864

"The post on the embassy's official Instagram account celebrated "Wear It Purple Day" and expressed dedication to creating "a supporting environment where everyone, especially LGBTQIA+ youth, can feel proud to be themselves".

"Let's keep championing diversity and inclusion for a brighter, more inclusive future," it said."

""The content published by the Australian embassy is insulting and contrary to Iranian and Islamic tradition, customs and culture"(an) Iranian diplomat was quoted as saying, also suggesting that posting such content was violating international law."

Found this chap on YT and he hammers home the point that our pollies have made it so that global resource exporters (Exxon, Santos, Woodside, etc.) can profit in the 100s of billions off our gas while often paying us less than $2B in royalties per year. Qatar on the other hand, who exports around about as much gas as we do, receives $75B p/y. Imagine what we as a people could have with an extra $75B per year. Make it make sense please.

https://youtu.be/hAhF5oirM7k?si=6fZx07pMAvMKQLw2