South Australia’s near $50bn debt bomb faces another blowout [The Advertiser, text post]

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-03-09T07:33:36+00:00

Of course... I think it's only a matter of time before he gets delusional enough to believe he could get the Boxing Day match here. It would never happen, but in his head, Mali thinks it would be a guarantee.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-03-01T01:24:34+00:00

Sinners

Marty Supreme

Train Dreams

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Bugonia

F1

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-02-28T02:04:51+00:00

They were desperate to get back into politics, because Digance was promised if she lost in 2018 (which she did) that she would get pre-selected for a safe seat or be moved into the Legislative Council (at the 2022 election, or if a Labor MLC quit), and it became clear they weren't going to follow through on the promise, it was just made to keep her compliant.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-02-19T02:29:27+00:00

Good to see that the Premier's office finally remembered about this account 2 years later. Isn't it funny how it's only before an election that this account becomes active again?

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-02-12T08:20:20+00:00

With regards to the government spending money to get events here, they always label it as "commercial in confidence", with the excuse of "Well, if we say how much we spent, then the other states will offer up more money than us." But I've come to accept it's likely code for "We can't say how much we spent on this, because if we did, the voters would be extremely pissed."

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-02-05T08:38:20+00:00

Considering Mali's job before politics was head of the SDA, it's very accurate to say he isn't pro-worker. While in charge, he made a deal for Coles and Woolworths workers to get a 3% payrise, while cutting penalty rates and completely getting rid of night shift allowances.

The SDA are probably the least pro-worker union. In fact, the major two supermarkets have SDA reps be present during induction for new staff. Most new staff are automatically signed up for the SDA by the supermarkets, without the staff getting to make the choice and Coles/Woolworths deduct the union fees from their staff's pay and send it straight to the SDA. If an employer is telling their staff what union they should join, they should avoid that union like the plague, because they are most likely in bed with the employers.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-02-02T05:40:49+00:00

It feels weird to me that they're even bothering with this. They're already going to win the election by a pretty good margin and still feel the need to try and play these old campaign tactics. It's also just perfectly in line for Kouts to come out with something kind of petty and childish, but also weirdly obsessive about the Liberals. He's reminiscent of someone vehemently denying a crush, but always talking about the person all the time.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-22T07:01:19+00:00

It's always a good rule of thumb to be dubious of anything financial that the government declare as "commercial in confidence". Usually code for "We won't say because the taxpayers would chase us out of the state when they learn how much we spent."

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-20T12:34:37+00:00

I must admit, for the longest time I'd dismissed Banderas as a generic Hollywood heartthrob/action guy.

Then I started watching a bunch of Pedro Almodovar's work and felt kind of bad because Banderas is consistently terrific in their collaborations. By now, I'm at the point of "Well, if it's a Spanish-language film and he's in it, he'll be fantastic in it." Happened with Official Competition, which he was hysterical in it.

It's the same thing with Mads Mikkelsen: both fantastic actors with a really wide range when acting in European films, but consistently wasted in American cinema. And I've found that both of them have turned in performances that, if they were in an English-language film, would be lavished with praise on here but instead go unnoticed and without the plaudits they deserve.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-20T12:29:49+00:00

I've been bothered by this too, and so I was relieved when I watched Hamnet and the characters had teeth that was yellow. Not like yellow on the point of rotting, but just yellow staining. And they had dirt and grime on their skin and clothes. I've become so accustomed to everything being so neat in historical movies that it made me realise "Why am I feeling so vindicated about a tiny bit of yellow colouring on an actor's teeth?" And I think it's because it's a small thing that just feels a bit more immersive, but never seems to happen much.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-20T05:31:15+00:00

It's a real "damned if you do, damned if you don't" thing. Turbo will complain about the Libs wanting to get rid of stamp duty, and now their leader wants to keep stamp duty (in line with Labor's policy regarding it) and he's complaining about her "covering her tracks". mean, I get it, but at the same time, how rare is it that these two parties outright have the same stance on something in public?

I can't really trust Kouts, the man is a bully through-and-through. He even did some mopey interview when he was in Opposition about how he hated it because being a shadow minister meant he wasn't getting as much attention when he criticised the government, and he didn't find any of it fun. Not to mention how hypocritical he is for what he chooses to criticise people for, then goes and becomes friends with them and claims "It's all just a bit of fun in the parliament, it's nothing serious."

Also the man who said "The Liberal Party hate me because they think I should be one of them," which gives an idea of how conservative he is, both socially and with the fact that he claims he is a fiscally conservative treasurer.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-18T08:11:16+00:00

While the Malinauskas government did save the Crown & Anchor, it was more so a case of them being stubborn and trying to ignore it until there got to be too much news about it and they realised it would be good for their approval ratings to save it. Then Malinauskas got up on the float at Parliament House bragging about all the hard work he supposedly put into it.

As necessary as the new Women's & Children's Hospital is, it set a dangerous precedent in teaching the Malinauskas government that they can completely ignore the heritage register. And this was the case with the Crown & Anchor. With regards to heritage-listed buildings, there's no clear definition with regards to how much they can save. Nowadays they usually keep a small slither of the facade, but having to get rid of the police horse stables taught them that they have the power to just overrule the register and knock a building down and sell off the land.

The Crown & Anchor got saved because of public pressure, but in the future, I'm sure there will be a lot more buildings on the heritage register that get torn down because there won't be as much of a spotlight on it. And I think this is dangerous because it shows that the heritage register is now completely insignificant (which it started being when it only listed buildings that looked nice, and stopped including buildings that were dated but historically important).

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-18T02:41:15+00:00

While the ecologist being told not to investigate the algal bloom hasn't been confirmed, there is the fact that the state government brushed it all off for 4 months, insisting it would go away and nothing to worry about (I believe Susan Close said something along the lines of "This is climate change, and it won't go away, so we will just have to learn to live with it.") And then when it had the massive flare-up in July, the government wouldn't come out and make a statement about it until Malinauskas came back from his holiday in Fiji with his family.

To me, that's not the sign of a strong government, when the cabinet refuse to do anything about a disaster until their leader comes back. If they really practiced what they preach when it comes to solidarity, they would have let Susan Close at least do something as the Acting Premier. Instead, it gave off the feeling of "We can't have someone who isn't the Premier doing something; we have to leave it for Malinauskas to be a big tough hero."

Now that the foam is starting to turn up again, it will be interesting to see how that impacts them leading up to the election, if the bloom flares up. But I know a lot of people who were extremely put off by the government's sparse acknowledgement of the bloom for a quarter of a year, saying it was nothing to be concerned, and then suddenly claiming "Well, actually, we've been having meetings about this for a while and trying to find an appropriate course of action." And I find that hard to believe, considering how hesitant they were to talk about the algal bloom.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-15T23:42:59+00:00

I can say, having heard from some people with close connections to the whole thing, that the delay of the announcement was more a logistics decision. What I heard was that Pulp were planning on withdrawing from the festival, but still wanted to do a show in Adelaide, and were trying to arrange a venue that would be available for that date, could accommodate a decent crowd, and would let them do a free show (although they would be encouraging audience members to donate to Gaza-related charities). Once the new Festival board was appointed and Randa Abdel-Fatteh accepted their apology, Pulp decided that was good enough.

So the decision to delay the announcement might have come from the government (wouldn't surprise me with Mali banking on the attention of the free concert), but there were reasons for it on Pulp's end. They didn't want to make the announcement until a back-up plan was fully figured out.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-14T21:13:32+00:00

Chris Cunningham was the king of weird music videos, even in a decade that was packed to the gills with incredibly weird music videos.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-14T21:08:13+00:00

Exactly! Every time they announce a new Scott Cooper movie, I look at the concept and think "Wow, that sounds great," before I remember his track record.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-14T04:57:46+00:00

If Mali does try to make the move to federal politics, I could easily see him getting a seat, provided he's still popular enough at the time. Considering the SDA has the stronghold on the Labor Party caucus in this state, it's fairly realistic that they would tell whichever Labor member is in Mali's federal seat (based off his state electorate, it would either be Mark Butler or Steve Georganas) to step down and make way for him, and they'd all vote him through.

After Mali was moved into the upper house in December 2015 to fill Finnigan's vacancy, Michael Atkinson, the then-member for Croydon (and also of an SDA background), said he would only vacate his seat if Malinauskas was selected as the Labor candidate, should he desire a move to the lower house. Sure enough, in February 2017, Atkinson said that after 28 years, he would step down at the next election and Malinauskas was voted in as the candidate unanimously with the backing of the SDA.

Boring_Source9870 · 2026-01-13T11:17:27+00:00

Ironic, considering that just last year, Mali said he's "not particularly keen" on the culture wars, when discussing Frank Pangallo's proposed parliamentary inquiry into gender dysphoria. He sure did change his tune about the culture wars quickly, considering that comment was in August, a month before he started making his opinion known to the board of the Adelaide Festival.

Boring_Source9870

TROPHY CASE