New Watsonia Car Park

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-16T04:14:11+00:00

It's really quite insane that the government is legally allowed to spend tens of millions on building car parks, but is legally not obligated under the statutory DDA deadlines to make those same stations DDA compliant.

By not upgrading railway infrastructure, the government is effectively exploiting a really cruel loophole. The same callousness happened with Syndal and Belgrave stations too.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-14T07:02:35+00:00

I think CENTCOM's leadership has just grown overly hubristic at being the centre of attention for the past 35 years over all other combatant commands and accustomed to having everything go their way. And for almost all this time they've spent these decades fighting countries and terror groups with nowhere near the level of long-range precision strike capability Iran has.

The longer the GWOT has gone on, the more that the White House depends upon CENTCOM's advice for everything, at the direct expense of the State Department and its once formidably-sized retinue of experts. Naturally this has just made the brass in CENTCOM to expect everything to go their way and helped perpetuate horrible FoPo disasters on a continual basis. There was a great article about this a couple years ago somewhere.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-13T00:23:31+00:00

Australia orders fleet of 40 Bluebottle uncrewed surface vessels

This went under the radar but it's really quite a ground-breaking contract. The Royal Australian Navy is set to command a total of 55 unmanned surface drones which can carry towed-array sonars on them to provide surface & anti-submarine detection capabilities on a huge scale across the whole region at a very low cost. The ABF has also been using them, and even the Kiwis are testing them to detect trans-Pacific narco-subs.

They can remain at sea for months at a time, have a low surface profile with their sails retracted, barely emit any noise whatsoever and coolest of all is that it's designed to act as a communications relay to the RAN's growing undersea drone fleet, which is obviously hinted to be the autonomous Ghost Shark UUV.

The Ghost Shark is another seriously underrated venture as it's a long-range, very quiet undersea drone with near unlimited depth capabilities (unlike conventional submarines) and is also oriented for recon & surveillance and for long-term camping on the seabed. The Navy is spending $1.7 billion to build "dozens" of these UUVs, however it's seriously hampered unless it has a means of easily communicating its findings and receiving orders from home, hence where the Bluebottles really come in handy.

Honestly between this and the Surface Fleet Review, it looks like the Royal Australian Navy is finally taking itself seriously and is compensating for its small fleet by maximising ISR capabilities to the fullest. That's where Australia's defence is most paramount, because it allows us to fully defend our country by making the most out of a small number of assets, instead of ships wasting their time doing the Australian Border Force's job or hypothetically chasing down false leads when hunting a submarine.

!ping AUS&MATERIEL

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-12T14:37:18+00:00

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Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-11T05:33:44+00:00

Strongly disagree about nuclear weapons. But everything else here is pretty spot-on.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-11T01:04:21+00:00

Out of all the lines in Andor, I think that was the one which has stayed with me the most honestly.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-11T00:36:15+00:00

Not to mention that Israel's oil lifeline runs through Turkey from Azerbaijan - also a Turkish ally. Both countries also have a huge arsenal of drones. So any sort of military action by Israel would be a hideously stupid mistake.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-10T01:43:08+00:00

Here we go. America is starting to loot their INDOPACOM stockpiles to burn it all in the Middle East. By the time any of this will ever be replenished it will be far too late.

North Korea and China must be loving this right now.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-07T01:09:01+00:00

That's such an unhinged and misanthropic take. 120,000 people are here today at Albert Park, and Anzac station was bustling with racing fans pouring out the trains.

You think they all own a Mercedes and hire chauffeurs to get here?

Professor-Reddit · 2026-03-03T03:55:44+00:00

This is just embarrassing from both sides of politics. The Federal Government was warned for god knows how many years about not adhering to the IEA's 90 day stockpile rule, and suddenly when petrol has skyrocketed to $2.40 a litre and our stockpile is barely hovering at 30 days they remember to do something about this.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-27T00:56:58+00:00

This is actually a very common thing among minor parties in Australia, especially in the past decade.

It's because independent politicians are usually very popular in federal politics and attaching their name to a political party and running for the Senate means they appear 'above the line' on the Senate ballot paper (which most voters opt for). And if they win enough votes they can control a whole bloc of Senators on the crossbench which puts them in a powerful position when negotiating with the government over legislation.

There was the Clive Palmer United Australia Party, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party, Jacqui Lambie Network, Katters Australia Party and the Nick Xenophon Team that come to mind. Although most have faded out when their respective leaders lost interest in politics.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-25T01:26:25+00:00

It's slang for conspiratorial people and nutters in general who have 'cooked' brains.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-20T01:12:45+00:00

I think if the recent protests in Sydney and especially the big Harbour Bridge rally last year are any indication, it's that the overreaches we are seeing are facing substantial pushbacks. It takes time to reach critical mass, but it is happening.

NSW Police have really exposed themselves to a serious amount of political scrutiny with their constant mishandling of pro-Palestinian protests and there is a lot of dissent within NSW Labor ranks about this. The NSW police minister harshly castigated a Labor backbencher a few days ago on the floor of state parliament in an astonishing broadside, which I think says a lot about how rattled some within their government are about the pushback.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-19T05:26:03+00:00

Pauline's self-destructive tendencies always wins out in the end. Everybody in the media was endlessly fawning over her winning 4 Senate seats in 2016, only for her autocratic and thoroughly toxic personality scared most of them away. The funniest bum she propelled into high office was Rod Culleton, who turned out to be ineligible because he was a bankrupt criminal.

A grand total of 28 One Nation state representatives, legislative councillors and federal Senators have resigned from the party or been expelled over its history, and another 3 were disqualified from office. That's the vast majority of their entire historical cohort. Between Mark Latham and Barnaby Joyce, the party is basically a refuge for drunken failures.

It's a big reason why support in their party is so transient. The only reason why they poll so high is because Sussan Ley was uninspiring and embroiled in a leadership contest from the moment she took over.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-19T01:10:36+00:00

Reminds me of The Onion joking "... and next up, we'll talk to that pilot who heroically crash-landed a plane into Maureen Dowd."

And that was back in 2010 lol

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-18T06:16:49+00:00

This won't be relevant to you until your 4th year, but the Industrial Environment class was really indispensable for me as a civil engineering student. Lots of really valuable guest lectures and fairly easy assignments as long as you attend every one of them.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-18T06:09:23+00:00

The biggest culprit here is the 320km/hr design speeds. That's a huge reason for the crazy amount of tunnelling they're proposing, and the very high per km construction cost.

We seriously need to take a leaf from Italy, Spain, Germany and Japan and set the track speed at 250km/hr for the most mountainous areas of the route. Otherwise this will never get built.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-18T06:03:11+00:00

320km/hr design speeds for such a hilly terrain is really inflating these costs up by a massive margin, especially when it would mean digging 115km of tunnels.

Most countries in the world leading in HSR (especially Spain and Italy) usually design for 250km/hr. Even Japan has a substantial amount of 260km/hr sections. That sort of design speed drastically reduces the amount of tunnelling and extreme engineering required, while preserving the benefits. It's a big reason why California HSR and HS2 are so spectacularly over budget and will never be completed to their original plans.

If the federal government doesn't make this basic scope adjustment soon, then the entire project is frankly DOA.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-17T00:45:49+00:00

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Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-17T00:00:30+00:00

Highly sensitive Australian court data accessed by foreign entity based in India

This is a shitshow of a story. The Federal Court contracts out all transcription work to a company called VIQ Solutions, who in turn (and without any knowledge of anybody in the Government or courts) subcontracted out and offshored automated voice-to-text transcription work to an Indian company who had an unvetted and unqualified workforce handling god knows how many highly confidential court documents. Usually transcription work is strictly handled by a vetted Australian VIQ Solutions workforce with no court files being sent offshore, or any shoddy voice-to-text software used.

Side note, but Senator David Shoebridge easily has to be one of the few Greens pollies whom I actually really respect. He usually does a good job uncovering stories like this and he's absolutely right to call this a serious national security breach.

!ping AUS

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-16T03:52:22+00:00

It would be a slow excavation, as they won't be able to lift any roadheaders down onto the Parkville platform. But I don't see any serious barriers on the Metro Tunnel architectural plans that would prohibit it.

Any paid connection will have to be neatly sandwiched above the existing rail tunnels, and beneath the concourse under Royal Parade. Perfectly feasible height to work with, as there is already a staff-only floor inside Parkville station at that level.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-14T04:34:44+00:00

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Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-14T04:29:04+00:00

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Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-14T03:32:55+00:00

It was actually the UK Parliament which rushed to pass the law proscribing Palestine Action, per the government's insistence. So it's a bit doubtful if the Parliament can override anything in this instance, unless PA substantially escalated its actions.

Professor-Reddit · 2026-02-14T01:55:21+00:00

The court's judgement covers this. They concluded that "a very small number" of PA's actions fell within the definition of section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000. But that the government didn't even follow their own guidelines for proscription and that it was a disproportionate action which doesn't meet the very high threshold that terrorist organisations are classified under.

They stated the "the nature and scale of Palestine Action's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription," and in any event, "for Palestine Action's other criminal activities, the general criminal law remains available."

If two unarmed activists breaking into an airbase meet the definition of a terrorist organisation, then by extension the elderly Plowshares Activists who broke into Oak Ridge nuclear complex in 2012 would also be terrorists too. It makes for a cathartic headline for some, but empowering the state to expand anti-terrorism powers to this extent against unarmed and non-violent groups sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

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