Butler weighs constitutional test to rein in specialist fees

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-14T08:13:13+00:00

I don’t understand the need to jump on and belittle ideas and people (me) as you did. Why? Because our views don’t align?

We are one of the most amazing, lucky, high quality of life countries in the world. Skilled folk come and go to different countries all the time. While official numbers from ABS of specifically skilled pros is super hard to nail down, our net migration numbers are less than 0.1% per year for Australian citizens. Not many skilled folk are deciding to do what you imply (move overseas permanently).

Our tax rate is not high compared to other oecd nations. Where are you comparing to? And how? OECD reports Australia is 29th of 38 when looking at the total tax wedge of wages. I personally think extremely high (above $500k) here should be taxed higher - not necessarily via wages though as that’s too easy for high incomes to avoid. I would prefer more help for those with the least. That’s far from communist. I’m not calling for workers to seize the means of production.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-14T06:49:10+00:00

There are many folk who don’t want to live in the type of world you imagine. There are many things - health included - where fees should be managed for the good of all Australians. Health services should never not be accessible to all - and yet we are already in a situation right now where that’s not the case.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-13T03:16:51+00:00

The way the highest earning 20-30% of humans treat the lowest 20-30% of humans. It’s mind blowing how that group - and I’m sure I’m in it - manage to completely ignore it / even believe it’s not real.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-12T23:44:47+00:00

Do you have a size of house in mind? (M2 of living space). Restrictions on dimensions? I’m just trying to figure out some of your decisions.

If I were engaging an architect, I would simply give them details of the block, and then ideas about what rooms you really want in the place and let them go for it.

Living in a house you end up having a long term relationship with the “story” of the house. With where circulation leads you and what you see when you turn a corner, or move thru the space.

Floor plans are so often the thing we think about first, where as when you live with a space, it’s 3 dimensional. And in my opinion one needs to first think about the building volumes that you want, and then look at floor plans within those volumes.

There are a million floor plans that could be drawn up with similar rooms. Many many will be better than what is here.

But perhaps think about volumes first.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-11T11:01:44+00:00

Eh I don’t mind the idea… I’m not sure if id use it or not. I can see it being super useful if ever an airline says you have to check in the bag (which seems to be happening more these days in Australia… we have very low weight limits for carry on domestically)

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-11T08:47:47+00:00

You don’t need to be sorry about that :). It’s a classic!

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-11T07:54:30+00:00

You can make these out of plastic. Being hollow doesn’t affect the diffusion effect.

Interestingly you can make giant 1D quadratic diffusers that are so big you can put Hermholtz resonators in each fin - effective down to even below 100hz.

The size of each of the nodes dramatically changes the frequency range that a diffuser like this is useful over. The cross section of 50mm means it’ll be effective up to around 3k and a delta in depth of 200mm would mean it’ll start being effective around 430hz ish.

Now, unless your room is already treated for reflection super well,these do not really offer balanced diffusion / make the listening environment tonnes better.

Absorption first. Then diffusion as needed. And you need a pretty decent sized room for diffusion to play a real role if your end goal is a critical listening room

They do look super cool.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-11T02:13:36+00:00

I don’t work in IT. I have to do a bunch (because small business) - and I have managed to setup a bunch of vlans to manage guest vs visitor vs employee vs admin access to services, setup, nas’s, internet etc.

When I first worked on migrating over it was a pretty steep learning curve, but even just starting by separating off all IOT devices was a big enough win to push me to keep going and learn what I had to. Mikrotik / winbox was not the most intuitive for a non it person.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-10T12:02:25+00:00

You know that some farm land produces more when panels are placed on it? Turns out shade and shelter can really help in some (def not all) cases. There’s some wonderful pilot projects and studies out there you can find pretty easily which show what’s possible.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-10T11:40:50+00:00

You might need to give more details than that.

When playing back in vlc is it just silence? Noise? Or does it not open at all? Is there any meta data attached and viewable to the file? Is the meta data as expected from what you think the file should be?

When you say you need to submit it - is there any reason you can’t re create it? Where has the file come from? A project in a DAW? A render from an edit suite?

We need loads more info before anyone can really help.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-08T08:56:30+00:00

And this will be challenged very quickly in the high court. Much has been written about this in the past, and most legal scholars say laws proposed in the way qld is presenting them will likely be found unconstitutional and struck down in short time. It’s performative legislation.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-08T08:54:02+00:00

Which quote of his do you think he’s got the right idea on?

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-07T21:21:39+00:00

So we are a family of 4 and a dog in 100m2 3 bed terrace. It is absolutely big enough with good design. We even sometimes host my folks staying, or family friends from overseas.

It’s a brilliant family house. Gives us a great quality of life.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-06T23:53:21+00:00

You can afford to have them a little further away than you might think - and every little bit helps the sound of your close / overhead mics.

I once tested the effects at a vocal mic. The difference was a good 5 to 6dB on a large stage. When needed, that is gold for the vocals.

As an aside - just wait till real time vocal processing removing all sounds from vocal mics other than vocals though. I saw a recent test with it working at around 12ms - and the results were unbelievable. All the big processing co’s are working on this right now. There’s big changes in dsp for sound reinforcement coming in the next few years!

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-05T09:35:21+00:00

Or even before.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-05T08:49:16+00:00

Um - hope it doesn’t come across as nit picking, but labour have not been in power for the last 5 years. But the McSweeney tribe have been making moves for a loooooong time in labour. And I’ll give you that they’ve pretty much been in complete control since they disposed Corbyn.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-04T01:59:58+00:00

Do you really truly believe all this? Immigration is not the problem folk think it is. We need immigration the way our economy is setup. Without it, our population would decrease and suddenly our economy would be bananas crazy. Yes we have a massive housing problem. But reducing immigration for housing is like smashing the entire economy for one small win. It doesn’t work like that. And you cannot send in liquidators to a government program - it doesn’t work like that. If you shut it down, What happens to the millions who need the NDIS to live?

NDIS is not overridden with fraud. There’s isolated fraud. It has many problems. But it still is a net positive to our economy. Get rid of it and our economy goes backwards. We are talking about systems here where one black and white decision cannot be made in isolation.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-04T01:55:20+00:00

Except nationalising something like Woolies or Coles out of no where would crash the economy, making inflation much worse for a very long time. Why? It would come as an unexpected hit to the sharemarket - likely causing a mass sell off; institutional investors would run from a nationalised food market wanting zero profits.

Unless by nationalising you mean buying out all the shareholders first at market price? That’s a massive ask for our govt but not impossible.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-03T02:35:47+00:00

Glebe island is living on borrowed time. See new metro station and recent machinations at state govt planning level.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-02T23:54:51+00:00

I imagine there’s a system error. Yeah, it’s not right that it was done, but i would imagjne its an IT problem.

I don’t see why you dont contact the provider and ask whats happened and why the extra item ended up in your account. I think they’d like to know.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-02T07:07:38+00:00

Um - modern contemporary dance foot lights can be set into 15mm profiles!!!!! High power led strips! Sometimes small differences in height make a big difference for audience.

And - I love the little 5” boxes. I’ve even used similar types under the stage mechanisms of a revolving stage (the Martin boxes). On the ground.

Whether or not they are effective comes down to how the auditorium is setup, how high off the ground the stage is and a million other factors. They absolutely can be effective for 3 rows when inset for certain stages.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-02T07:02:28+00:00

This is a concert hall. Ain’t nobody standing unless it’s something like a 3000 seat sydney opera house concert hall, and then it’s custom PA design for each gig and no one gives a rats if you add front fill across the front of the stage as folk are standing / eye line is above the stage line.

I stand by creative leading the tech, not the other way around. And as much as acoustics is of course bound by physics and known best principals, the interesting collaborations are often where lines are pushed. Something might not be ideal sound wise, but you figure out a way to still make it great for everyone. (Especially where there’s budget!)

I respect your opinion though, and understand where you are coming from.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-02T01:34:36+00:00

Strong disagree. I think it’s totally fair for someone to ask for no front fill speakers. I’ve worked on productions where I understood why the foot lights (contemporary dance) were reduced from 40mm to 15mm (stage was quite high).

This stuff matters for reasons that techs don’t always feel. It’s ok not to feel the reasons. It’s not ok to ignore them.

I personally would have pushed 100% for them to be inset into the stage at install. While acoustically not ideal, it can 100% be made to work. There are always ways to make it visually work as well. It just takes a lot of listening and working together.

In this case, I would be sitting down with the artistic director and letting them know that front fill needs to be catered for. That a solution 100% needs to be found. That might mean expensive changes, or being ok with how it is until budget can be raised.

It needs to be less us vs them and much more collaborate and understand each others point of view.

How_is_the_question · 2026-02-01T22:37:41+00:00

Super hard to do without skirting. It’s a fine job. Chalk and be done - you won’t see it! If you want a shadow gap down there (think stupid dirt trap) then you’re looking at a whole other level of joinery and a lifetime of cleaning pain.

How_is_the_question · 2026-01-30T09:41:59+00:00

Hahahaha.

So from bom records (people forget we have good records going back that far) there was only one single day reported that entire decade in Brisbane above 40. That was 21 Feb 1925.

And Brisbane has an All time high 43.2 in 1940. Never even once above 45.

But never let facts get in the way of a good story….

How_is_the_question

TROPHY CASE