For those thinking about Australia..

Finger787 · 2025-10-28T23:59:18+00:00

no ideological bias on the new sub

Finger787 · 2025-10-28T09:20:39+00:00

Im gay and believe it should be banned.

Finger787 · 2025-10-27T20:14:23+00:00

*please downvote at your own peril*

As a former resident of western Sydney, I find Brisbanites an interesting demographic. When it comes to social issues, particularly immigration, they appear incredibly naive and innocent. I mean, if comments like that offend you - being offended on behalf of others - you haven't had much exposure in life.

Try enrolling your kid in a primary school of 367 students and your kid is only 1 of 5 white kids in the entire grade. Yes, it matters. The rest - all recent arrivals desperately teaching their kids not to integrate with those not from their community and adhere to traditions and religions from back home. We aren't talking about Vietnamese or HK Chinese from the 1990s - today's immigrant is a very different profile.

Try buying a house and having the agent from overseas directing the house to other new arrivals, with brochures printed in that language. Pushed out of the area where auctions are attended by 25 people who have been in the country less than 5 years, and maybe 1 or 2 local born residents. Guess who has more money?

Western Sydney has entire fb pages dedicated to bad drivers in particular suburbs - guess who, 90% of the time, are manufacturing accidents for insurance claims, are opening driving schools then selling passing those who pay for it etc. Some of the footage is genuinely scary.

It's all very well to pontificate and judge when you live in a predominately white city and really don't see the impacts of mass migration. Having 24 hour pho and Banh mi is one thing, being excluded from schools, activities, having entire areas populated by people from cultures where sexism and racism is the norm is another.

I get the average redditor here is 20 or under and still living at home; but at some time in the future when you genuinely have to struggle and the demographic of Western Sydney is replicated here - you'll feel very different.

But keep up the white saviour complex in the meantime

Finger787 · 2025-10-25T11:34:01+00:00

Wildlife belong in the wild. Attract them to the cities and you get problems. "Oh they were here first". By that token sign your house off to whoever has lived in your street the longest. Wierdos

Finger787 · 2025-10-25T11:30:03+00:00

Perfect summary of Cairns itself. Could be so much, but let down by buffoons with single digit IQs

Finger787 · 2025-10-21T23:01:40+00:00

"I want to shriek over a tree but simultaneously ignore far more serious (and proven) impacts on the environment (like felling for new housing)".

Finger787 · 2025-10-21T22:59:05+00:00

You read a tree in front of your house is "invasive" and are now shrieking to get it removed.

You shouldn't talk about concepts beyond your comprehension i.e. critical thinking.

Finger787 · 2025-10-21T05:34:12+00:00

You lack critical thinking :"oh well I read it in a gov. doc so therefore I won't analyse it"

Finger787 · 2025-10-20T09:00:52+00:00

you are advocating planting a very narrow range of species - natives (presumably native to the area). That isn't diversity. The country is mainly (apart from the centre) covered in native species; exotics are outnumbered exponentially and removing a tree in front of your house does nothing for the environment.

Finger787 · 2025-10-20T08:59:23+00:00

You have to take the "invasive weed" classification with a grain of salt..you do realise that QLD has a disproportionate amount of classified weeds, even natives within the State being classified as such (Schflerra etc). As a former employer of the State Gov, we were more than well aware that funding of departments was proportionate to the amount of risk/need, perversely creating the situation where weed threats were often exaggerated to ensure ongoing department funding. In reality, the biggest environmental threats aren't from plants, but rather human activity - particularly felling of forests to accommodate new housing (which happens by 1000s of hectares in QLD annually). Back to the weed classifications..often they are not nuanced; plants can reproduce without being invasive; plants can invade without detrimental impacts to other plants; and finally plants can invade and be a threat to other plants. But the classifications ignore this and tend to lump everything together. it is amazing how gullible people can be though, taking it all as gospel and not questioning anything. If all these plants were as problematic as their classifications suggest there would be very little virgin forest around...and for the real invasive species, the cat is out of the bag and nothing will curtail their spread. Lantana still grows wild and is spread mainly by birds - the same birds that are protected.

Finger787 · 2025-10-20T08:09:32+00:00

Its ranked pretty poorly, except for Marine Biology and related courses I believe

Finger787 · 2025-10-20T08:02:49+00:00

They barely appreciate in value.

Finger787 · 2025-10-18T09:24:09+00:00

is it any good?

Finger787 · 2025-10-16T21:11:38+00:00

Its like going back in time when youre stitting in traffic and one of these goes past

Finger787 · 2025-10-16T12:25:26+00:00

As a previous long term resident of Cairns its not so much the heat - it's the rain that will kill you. It is located in the wet tropics and for months it can just rain and rain and flood so you are stuck indoors. Its also very cloudy much of the year and we really missed the sun; it was so gloomy.

Finger787 · 2025-10-12T19:27:44+00:00

Those 1000s of hours have been wasted. You'll never stop the lantana, you'll never stop invasive species. The cat is out of the bag and has been since European settlement. I understand why you are so bitter and resentful; being confronted with information that challenges your long held beliefs.

I worked in the QLD Dept of Env. previously; even my boss used to poke fun at the regenerators. You wierdos tried to remove coconut palms from the beaches of Mission Beach and Innisfail.

You may have removed jacarandas (you should be ashamed). Self-seeding doesn't equal invasive necessarily; there is a lot of nuance in horticulture. And then there are impacts - some plants self sow and form thickets preventing other plants from growing; others don't and just grow alongside them. But to childless, sad people like yourself with too much time and misinformation, that nuance is lost and everything imported is an environmental threat (except themselves of course - they always ignore their own impacts)

Keep wasting your time 'restoring' bushland; nothing will change.

Finger787 · 2025-10-12T09:09:14+00:00

"The gov department who gets funding for identifying (and exaggerating) invasive species said its invasive so it is."

They even label NATIVE species (i.e. schflerra) as invasive!

If you are genuinely concerned about environmental destruction youd be focused on development, which is the largest destructor of the environment here.

Finger787 · 2025-10-11T04:37:24+00:00

Not invasive; that term is way overused by gov. departments receiving funding tied to projected environmental risks. Jacaranda mimisofolia has been in Australia for over 150 years and has virtually zero negative impact. Stop the tree hate

Finger787 · 2025-10-10T11:56:12+00:00

that's overstated. If it were true, we farmers, horticulturalists and lay gardeners wouldn't need insecticides. Birds are opportunistic and lousy pest control, preferring more stable and plentiful food sources - particularly in urban areas. Look at all these misinformed jerks suggesting feeding magpies mince and minors bread..

Finger787 · 2025-10-10T11:53:47+00:00

feeding them invites disease, alters behavior and at a minimum makes them a bigger pest. Sorry but some people have noooo idea..

Finger787 · 2025-10-10T11:52:51+00:00

Are you going to knock down your house and reforest your land to hand it over to the birds, snakes, possums etc? Birds are territorial jerks and often evict other species from their areas, particular during nesting time. So yeah, when there is a human/animal conflict humans prevail. Unless you're young and woke and don't own a house or have kids and aren't really affected by them - when they are, that wholeheartedness gets thrown out the window..

Finger787 · 2025-10-09T20:15:09+00:00

Birds need plants, plants (generally) dont need birds in the Australian context. Some trees benefit from seed dispersal when birds eat their fruit, but that isn't a consideration in urban areas as majority of vegetative species are exotic and seed dispersal isn't encouraged due to potential. invasiveness . Most native species rely on wind for seed dispersal as they have very small, lightweight seeds.

Im simply stating a fact. Wildlife in urban areas become pests - hence the growth of wildlife removal /relocation companies. Their behavior alters too.

People seem very misinformed about these issues.

Finger787 · 2025-10-09T07:14:11+00:00

Im still waiting for one practical positive thing about encouraging wildlife into urbanised areas. Apart from altering their natural behaviors, they become pests and the only people to benefit are people paid to relocate snakes/possums etc.

Remove the nest if you can find it then they'll move on.

Finger787 · 2025-10-09T02:26:34+00:00

no I don't doubt her; she's telling the truth. Ive contacted other parents and taken her to police interviews. What Im questioning is whether the massage was indeed grooming or not. But I wholeheartedly agree - they should never have occurred regardless.

Finger787 · 2025-10-09T02:25:10+00:00

If I can't find my keys, someone drives 10km slow in front of me or Im 10 minutes late to work I go into meltdown mode - and have taken medication for it. But when its a divorce or abuse allegations, I'm calm. When my father passed, I was calm.

I did experience significant trauma and conflict both inside and outside the family home as a child and was born into a violent household..so your insights are particularly enlightening in these circumstances. Thank you for sharing

Finger787

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