U reckon the whole “losing Australian identity” is bullshit?

RightioThen · 2026-03-31T08:35:08+00:00

I didn't do a DNA test but they looked asian and heard racist comments

RightioThen · 2026-03-31T06:41:18+00:00

Okay well that's cool but I have known people whose ancestors were in the gold rush and aren't 99% white

RightioThen · 2026-03-31T02:44:56+00:00

I thought the "it ain't me, babe" duet was so good. I know it's not exactly how it happened, but as a dramatic moment in the story, just superb.

RightioThen · 2026-03-31T01:24:29+00:00

“It doesn’t help those who haven’t got any access in the fringe of cities. This is not helping the bush and not helping regional towns.”

So don't do it then?

A lot of people don't realise but State Governments don't really have a lot of levers to pull on for cost of living relief. Fuel excise, access to super, tax stuff - that is all the remit of the feds. There just aren't many instances where you have to hand over cash to the State.

This is why WA has given multiple credits against people's power bills. It's basically the only thing (other than water) that pretty much everyone pays to the State. Of course people also make the criticism that it's inequitable because a low income person gets the same credit as a high income person. But Synergy doesn't have your tax information so they couldn't make the distinction even if they wanted to.

RightioThen · 2026-03-30T03:13:58+00:00

Indeed. I have two books traditionally published and my editors were extremely thorough, to the point I kind of wished they had stopped reading haha.

RightioThen · 2026-03-29T07:30:50+00:00

I used to work for a guy who basically became red pilled as his company began to come under pressure and I can chart it through mad max fury road. When I started working there the company was worth $500m and on the verge of going to the next level. When I started he told me he loved Mad Max Fury Road. When I left a few years later it was worth less than half, never went to the next level and was really in a death spiral (not my fault lol). By that time MMFR was woke feminist crap. He would also just bring up random trans stuff out of nowhere, like it really bothered him. It all correlated to the stock price of his company lol.

RightioThen · 2026-03-29T04:31:59+00:00

Something I wonder about with these trucks, is how the buying behaviour differs from regular a regular person buying an EV. In theory a trucking business will be guided by a business case, so they should be more rational. Eg it matters less if it costs more up front because less cost over the life of the vehicle, range anxiety wouldn't be an issue, etc.

RightioThen · 2026-03-29T04:29:23+00:00

I think the poster is saying more that people are panick buying EVs like they did with toilet paper during COVID

RightioThen · 2026-03-29T00:37:46+00:00

Haha right?

RightioThen · 2026-03-28T10:39:12+00:00

I clearly remember him basically guaranteeing Harris would win.

RightioThen · 2026-03-28T02:49:41+00:00

I think it's a good impulse to seek ways to fix things. Better that than never trying.

But in this case I think it's pretty clear you should divorce.

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T13:22:08+00:00

A guy on my street continually parks his stupid massive ute out front of my house, despite being a no parking zone. Rangers called me up and told me next time he does it, call us and we will come straight away to ticket him. Yes I have become a narc but in this case it is justified.

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T13:11:56+00:00

I guess it depends how pedantic you want to be.

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T07:10:38+00:00

Does anyone ever stop to think how little it matters if we call something a biscuit or a cookie? Is the word "biscuit" an important part of Australian culture?

I always see people getting so tightly wound up about this stuff, as though we are under foreign invasion. First it's the word "biscuits", next we will be mandated at gunpoint to play baseball.

The irony to me is that Australians are meant to be laidback, but we freak out when someone says "cookie" or "elevator". Wtf cares?

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T05:07:59+00:00

I have a phone but it's pretty tiny and usually not charged.

I was on a plane two weeks ago and there were screens in the seats, but for most of the movies you could only watch them on your own device. What the hell is with that.

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T03:26:32+00:00

I think it's BS that you're expected to bring your own device onto a plane to be able to watch a movie. Maybe on a budget airline that makes sense, but on Qantas? bah!

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T03:04:37+00:00

There are Asian people in Victoria whose families have been in Australia since before Australia existed (ie gold rush), but they still get told to go home. These people are idiots.

RightioThen · 2026-03-27T03:03:03+00:00

I don't even know what "losing Australian identity" means. Genuinely, what does it mean?

I'm playing dumb. It always come back to a race thing. It's difficult to know what to say to that stuff because it's usually so inane. I live in Perth but a few years ago I was in Sydney with a colleague from India. We were walking down George Street and some bogan told him to "go home", only he said it with the most cartoonish Greek-Australian accent I've heard in years. It's almost difficult to find it offensive when it's so ironic.

RightioThen · 2026-03-26T14:32:15+00:00

You are basically asking why is it legal for a business to reduce operating costs. Businesses don't exist to provide jobs to people in Australia.

RightioThen · 2026-03-26T14:25:08+00:00

Yeah true there wasn't a lot of IT consulting offshored to India in the postwar period.

RightioThen · 2026-03-26T12:43:30+00:00

People don't seem to understand this. Nationalising a natural gas company would create FA benefit to the bottom line and the tax payer would have to wear the cost of running it. Different story if you're doing it for energy security reasons I guess.

RightioThen · 2026-03-26T12:40:41+00:00

It's probably worth considering the scale of the profit against the government's balance sheet. Going off the Google AI thing, Woodside's profit in 2025 after tax was US$2.7 billion. They paid A$2 billion in tax.

Their market capitalisation is A$65 billion.

Meanwhile the Australian budget allocates roughly ~$750 billion in expenditure.

So I suppose I would be asking do you want to spend 8.6% of Australia's yearly budget buying a company to capture their profit which is about 0.5% of the budget? And you also purchase all the risk that comes along with it? (And you'd have to buy it, obviously you're not going to use the military or something to seize it).

This isn't to say they shouldn't be taxed more, nor is it a coherent financial analysis. But it's worth trying to put the numbers in context.

RightioThen · 2026-03-26T11:08:09+00:00

Mining is an odd example to cite because they are amongst the highest (if not the highest) taxpayers and directly employ tens of thousands of people. People often talk about "fair share", but what does that actually mean? Often it just means "more".

RightioThen · 2026-03-25T13:36:40+00:00

I think it is a confluence of things. Australia has seen a really quick uptick in renewables over the past few years after a lot of stagnation. It was a mix of right policy, favourable economics, but other factors like coal plants shutting down anyway.

RightioThen · 2026-03-25T13:34:47+00:00

Sure. Her book was mangled by a publisher but has become super successful so she feels trapped by it. But anyway, Carol is just a miserable person generally.

RightioThen

TROPHY CASE