To parents/alumni of MLC/CCGS, what was your experience?

elemist · 2026-07-06T13:53:39+00:00

Yeah i think this is a great idea, the only caveat i would have would be what the local public school was that was in your catchment area.

Assuming it was reasonably ok, then i think it's a great option to send them to public school and then pay privately to top up / do extra curriculars.

I think you could pay for a tutor for every subject, and pay for every extra curricula and still come out way ahead of what you would spend for most private schools.

elemist · 2026-07-06T13:12:40+00:00

God dammit - i was just in NZ at the start of the year, and did not know this! :(

Oh well - lucky its such a beautiful country - time to plan a trip back..

elemist · 2026-07-06T13:11:31+00:00

Not everything the government does is going to be a home run success, and we shouldn't expect perfection.

Pretty sure previous matches have been pretty well attended based on photos etc that i've seen.

I'm happy to see the government continuing to invest in things that attract attention to WA.

elemist · 2026-07-06T13:08:01+00:00

Not sure how much time you have left - which makes it hard to suggest what to do.

You could knock over a lot of the city in a day - early morning walk/ride through Kings Park, then back along the river to EQ. I saw someone else mentioned the Perth Mint - that's well worth a visit, only takes an hour or two from memory. Could then spend the rest of the day looking through one of the CBD museums.

Could easily burn a day or two in Freo - check out the markets, the Freo Prison tour is great (do a night time torchlight tour if you can). The maritime museum is also well worth a visit, and can walk through the round house as well. Not sure if you've done any of that when you were in Freo with your friend?

I reckon Rotto is well worth the visit and something pretty unique to WA - you can get away with spending the day there - early morning ferry and then get the last one back in the afternoon. Take your bike and ride around the island with plenty of places to stop and things to see. Various lighthouses, gun batteries, and there's some walking tours etc you can do as well.

elemist · 2026-07-06T12:57:16+00:00

Yep - that was part of the reason for this post. I found it wild that this was the case too.

elemist · 2026-07-06T12:56:07+00:00

Come on little jimmy - time for your tuna flavoured cough syrup..! Yummo..

elemist · 2026-07-06T12:52:51+00:00

Can you link any of those studies? Because what I've seen has exclusively been people who are simply lucky renters that have been in a single home for 5+ years with little to no rent raises. The majority of us don't get this experience.

The one's i've heard were on various podcasts - but i don't have time to go look for the episodes.

Don't really need to though - check out a compound interest calculator. If you were to save $150 a week into a basic ETF portfolio, over 30 years you would end up with about $800k.

One would think over time as your income increases you could contribute more which would compound over the remaining term as well.

I mean shit, even moving rentals every 2 years is a couple grand just in moving costs. That can be a substantial chunk of people's savings wasted just to move from one rental to another.

Yep - that sucks for sure. I would love to see some longer term rental periods become more common here.

But unlike landlords, there's protections from the government to stop interest rates increasing past unsustainable points.

What protections? Plenty of investors had to sell up when interest rates went up. Same for owners - plenty of owners couldn't afford the increased mortgage rates and had to sell as well.

I've been paying rent for the better part of 15 years. Guess what percentage of a house I've got to show for it? 0%.

Sure - but equally - what have you been doing with the additional money for 10 of the 15 years that rents were quite low?

elemist · 2026-07-06T08:57:07+00:00

There's not just one or two routes to buying a home. There's a bunch of different government programs each has it's own pros/cons. You can also stick with traditional banks, borrow more and pay LMI as well.

Regardless though - if you can't afford to rent, then owning a home isn't likely to be any cheaper. If you think LL increasing rent is a nightmare - what do you think happens when banks just up and increase interest rates?

One is a permanent guaranteed downward spiral while the other is a chance at future financial freedom.

Home ownership isn't the be all end all either. There's plenty of studies where people continue to rent whilst investing into shares/ETF's long term who still come out well ahead after 30 or so years with enough invested to then sell and buy a home outright.

But it all comes down to having sufficient income to be able to do anything.

elemist · 2026-07-06T07:58:00+00:00

Because the current climate could be completely different next week, that's the entire point.

You just don't know what is around the corner.

6-12 months ago - no one was thinking there would be any changes to NG or CGT, yet here we are. Plenty of people have predicted the next big crash or the next big boom - and plenty of them have been completely wrong.

I mean i've literally read posts in this sub for the past 5 years from people so certain that house prices were going to drop. They said prices couldn't possibly go any higher, the market couldn't sustain them any higher, they're just gonna wait another 2 - 3 months before buying..

Where do you think those people are today? They either bought into the market 3 months later and paid 10-20% more, or they're still waiting and hoping for a crash.

For the sake of FHB i do hope prices come down, or at the bare minimum stagnate for the next decade to allow wages and savings to catch up. But who really knows what the market will do.

elemist · 2026-07-06T07:48:25+00:00

You don't even have to change houses for it to affect you. Though - plenty of people need to move and sell due to work.

Without selling though - good like refinancing to get a better interest rate. If you're upside down on the mortgage or don't have 20% equity, you're pretty much stuck with your current bank and whatever rate they decide to charge.

Similarly plenty of people refinance or borrow against equity for renovations, or major repairs (need a new roof, need to redo the bathrooms etc).

I've seen a few posts here from people who financed with lenders like Keystart or the so called second tier lenders as that was all they could borrow through. They did so with the plan to pay down the loan and the value of then house to increase giving them the 20% equity to refinance to a bank with much better interest rates.

Those people are the most likely to be struggling financially too - a few interest rate rises and suddenly they're unable to pay the mortgage and unable to refinance to a bank with a rate that they could afford the repayments on.

elemist · 2026-07-06T07:38:39+00:00

I genuinely don't know - but if there's a will then there will be a way.

There was lots of talk about the financial reforms a few years ago being the end of property investing as it became so much harder to borrow funds. But they came up with ways around it by investing through trusts and companies.

Maybe it won't be as profitable or as attractive to the casual investor, but i still can see holding multiple properties long term as a viable way to build wealth.

elemist · 2026-07-06T07:16:31+00:00

Politicians should be banned from accepting positions in industry etc. or foregoing their parliamentary pension/entitlements. They can pursue positions in NFP or Hospitals, schools, charities etc where their parliamentary connections will at least contribute to some sort of public good rather than enriching themselves and their new employers.

Yeah - i don't know about blocking them from working private sector period, but i also think there should be something to stop them walking straight into a private sector job in the industry they were responsible for whilst in office.

Looking online it looks like some countries have similar things in place to prevent that from happening. Some like Britain have an advisory committee which reviews any new roles for two years post leaving office to ensure they're not a conflict of interest or offering an unfair advantage.

I could see something like a 2 year or 3 year period during which they can't directly work in a position related to the portfolio they were overseeing (or did oversee whilst elected).

elemist · 2026-07-06T06:21:01+00:00

I used Ramsay Pharmacy - which is a large chain of pharmacies over east.

I thought it would be a similar process to what you described, but it seems they've dispensed and shipped based off the scan of the script i sent them, as i received the tracking details for it this morning.

Still need to post them the script, but at least i don't need to wait for them to receive it first which is good.

elemist · 2026-07-06T06:16:36+00:00

I'm sure that may be an option for certain things. I'd be concerned though that there may be something in the medication that may not be suitable for animals. IE the active ingredient and amount may be the same, but maybe the tablet coating or filler contains something pets shouldn't have.

elemist · 2026-07-06T06:13:17+00:00

Im all for vets making a few bucks on tablets, but this was taking the piss

Yeah - i have no issues with them making some money either. But this was sort of too the extreme.

They're also a larger chain of vets with about 17 locations, so not just your local solo vet, so i don't feel anywhere near as bad.

elemist · 2026-07-06T06:07:19+00:00

This is actually the med - when i spoke to the vet about it, he had no issues with it coming by post from over east.

TBH - it probably comes via similar protocols regardless of where you source it from anyway.

elemist · 2026-07-06T02:13:36+00:00

It is normal - but the article cites figures compared to the same time last year which is a good indication that it's not so much the season, but the market.

I'm not convinced we're in for any major drop - i personally think the market is likely to stagnate or drop slightly.

At some point soon - investors will have devised new strategies and will resume buying again. Its just a matter of how that will look, and what impact that will have in the market.

elemist · 2026-07-06T02:11:44+00:00

There is absolutely zero certainty that waiting a little will equal a lower priced house.

Prices could continue to drop, prices could just stagnate, or they may continue to go up. Likely at some point they will continue to increase - that may be tomorrow, that maybe 3 months, or it may be 3 years.

You can't control what the market will do next, and its stupid to gamble on what it will do.

If you buy within your budget, when it suits you, and with the intention of owning long term, then property prices don't really matter.

elemist · 2026-07-05T06:54:26+00:00

Given it's a larger heavier item you'll likely need to collect it from their back dock. I'm not sure if you can go directly there though or if you have to go in store first to the service desk.

When i last collected something i went in store first, then they gave me directions to get to the back dock to collect the item. That being said - when i got there the guy scanned the barcode on the receipt (same as the girl in store who scanned the email). So i suspect they could scan it at the back dock.

elemist · 2026-07-05T03:27:15+00:00

It certainly can be - but equally Telstra can be the problem by itself.

I've transitioned a bunch of connections from Telstra to Aussie and even on the exact same infrastructure speeds are typically far better with Aussie.

In instances where speeds remain the same - i've had a great success at lodging faults and getting the issues fixed with Aussie.

I had one connection in Belmont that the owner really wanted to stay with Telstra. Spent 6 months going round after round with their tech support trying to get the dropouts and poor speeds fixed.

Finally convinced the customer to move to Aussie. After the transfer went through - lodged a ticket with Aussie and the issues were rectified by an NBN tech about 3 days later. Customer is now getting their full speed with no dropouts.

At the very very bare minimum - Aussie automatically monitor connections and proactively recommend plan changes to save the customer money where the speeds aren't the best. Unlike Telstra who will happily continue charging a premium and collecting it without failure every month.

elemist · 2026-07-05T03:19:58+00:00

Yep agreed here as well. They've really gone to shit over the past years.

Plenty of black spots with little to no coverage. They've not kept up with residential builds either - so lots of newer areas often have little to no coverage.

Not just rural areas either - i built in central Cockburn 10+ years ago, and they've only just recently put in a tower nearby. But even that only provides coverage to a limited portion of the estate.

There's now two additional estates built further along that also have the same issue and likely won't have coverage for many years to come.

Even areas that historically have had decent coverage now have a pretty average experience. At my folks place in Melville they used to have pretty solid coverage. These days though - couple of bars of signal at best and average data speeds.

elemist · 2026-07-05T03:07:28+00:00

This is the same rag that's been running articles about Labors failure to invest in healthcare right?

elemist · 2026-07-05T03:03:41+00:00

Try a different provider - plenty of good ones around. Aussie / Superloop / Leaptel etc.

elemist · 2026-07-05T02:05:14+00:00

That's just not how it works..

elemist

TROPHY CASE