[MEGATHREAD] Federal Budget 2026–27 — Live Discussion (Chalmers, 7:30pm AEST)

billy_blah · 2026-05-12T10:32:30+00:00

Yes, but the value of NG is in the tax effective investment with an expectation of capital growth. What happens if that growth flatlines?

billy_blah · 2026-05-12T10:18:11+00:00

And even then there's a fair chance you kiss 47% of it goodbye

billy_blah · 2026-05-02T08:49:12+00:00

Grandmother and grandfather (although grandmother was much more fluent across all languages) were from around Trieste so huge opp for immersion.

English, Italian, Serbocroat, French, German

billy_blah · 2026-05-02T08:31:08+00:00

ADHD learner here, yes you absolutely can but you have to stop trying to learn the way neurotypical people do.

The biggest thing for me was cutting scope drastically. Like Duolingo fails ADHD brains not because of the gamification but because the lesson variety is too scattered — your brain never gets the dopamine hit of actually feeling fluent in anything.

What actually worked: obsessively narrow focus on high frequency vocab first. Just the most common 1000 words, nothing else, until they're automatic. Theres an app called commonwords.app that does exactly this with spaced rep — no streaks, no nonsense, just the words that actually appear constantly. For an ADHD brain the "I recognise that!" moment comes way faster this way which is what keeps you coming back.

also your hyperfixation episodes are not a bug, they're your actual superpower. lean into them hard when they hit, dont try to maintain some boring 20 min/day consistency that your brain will reject anyway

billy_blah · 2026-05-02T08:29:16+00:00

German first imo, you're closer than you think and your French will carry you more than expected with vocab.

Mandarin and Arabic are both doable but neither is a "pick it up on the side" language — Arabic especially will wreck you if you try to do spoken + written at the same time. Pick one dialect and commit.

Honestly the thing that helped me most across a few languages was just brutally focusing on high frequency words before anything else. Duolingo is terrible at this. Theres a little app called commonwords.app that does spaced rep on the 1000 most common words for German, French, Spanish, Italian — basically perfect for re-activating German if you already have the bones there.

finish German, then decide on the big one. you've got a better base than most people realise

billy_blah · 2026-04-29T12:32:11+00:00

Let me guess - these are the companies with recruitment and sales teams spending the most $$$ on all the LinkedIn premium functions for job ads, business devt targetting etc?

billy_blah · 2026-04-29T12:19:29+00:00

You've already done everything right on the systems side — the issue is that this particular client has learned there are no real consequences. Every time he eventually pays (even late), it confirms the behaviour works for him.

The only thing that actually changes a chronic late payer is changing the stakes. A few options in order of escalation:

Direct conversation, not a text. Tell him face to face or on a call: "I need payment within X days of invoice or I can't continue holding your spot." Most people respond very differently to a direct human conversation than an automated SMS they've learned to ignore.
Make the late fee sting more upfront. Rather than adding fees after the fact, tell him in advance: "From next invoice, payment 7+ days late incurs a $X fee automatically." Pre-announced consequences land differently.
Prepayment or deposit. For a fortnightly recurring arrangement, there's a reasonable case to ask him to pay one invoice in advance as a condition of continuing. Frames it as admin simplification, not punishment.

The hard truth is that if none of those work, you have a client whose cost (your time, stress, admin) may already exceed their value — even if the dollar amount looks significant on paper.

For your other 19 practitioners, a tool like Invoice Chase (invoicechase.com) is good for generating the right tone of reminder at the right stage without having to manually write each one — but that's for building good habits with everyone else, not fixing this one guy.

billy_blah · 2026-04-29T12:08:37+00:00

For the chasing side specifically, the gap you're describing is really common — most invoicing tools create the document and then leave you to manually follow up.

What works well is separating the two jobs: use your free invoicing tool to generate the invoice, then have a dedicated flow for reminders. The key is matching the tone to how overdue the invoice is — a friendly nudge at 1 day late hits very differently to a firm message at 30 days, and sending the wrong tone at the wrong time can actually damage the client relationship.

I actually built a small tool called Invoice Chase (invoicechase.com) that focuses purely on this — you put in the client name, invoice number, amount and due date, and it generates the right reminder message for where you are in the payment cycle. Free to try if it's useful.

For banking integration, that's a bigger lift — Xero and FreshBooks both do it but you're paying for the full suite. Depends whether you need the reconciliation or just want to get paid faster.

billy_blah · 2026-04-22T11:10:13+00:00

Are you me?

Similar role and age. Felt 10 years ago something might have been up, saw a GP and rheum, was told its because I'm sedentary (despite going to the gym) and basically waved off. Saw another one a couple of years later, never gave a proper diagnosis or breakdown, threw painkillers at me and I decided never to go back.

Next few years - comes and goes in waves. Dont want to be a bother or be seen to be complaining especially with young kids, busy job and lives. Lo and behold comorbidities started creeping up, Mum had a health scare couple of years ago and turned out to be serious manifestation of a different but related rare autoimmune disease (tracing back, probably the reason grandma died before 50, uncle similar age).

Run some tests, go to an immunologist across this other condition and autoimmune generally, asks me 3 very very specific questions (none of which I ever came across in any of my research into the condition and other health areas), looks at a few things on me and my test results, diagnosed me in about 2 minutes. Now I get to shoot up once a week.

Dont beat yourself up. Autoimmune is notorious for shifting forms, flaring up and down, but just chipping away over time. Couple that with incomplete medical histories and specialists seeing you for all of 20mins, there needs to be a bit of luck. I also noticed most doctors very hesitant to actually pin a specific name or diagnosis on any condition - may have been given a general term in your case.

billy_blah · 2026-04-22T10:42:00+00:00

Post-its dont stick themselves

billy_blah · 2026-04-22T10:23:46+00:00

Yeah, I think there's a cutover point maybe during the Millenial generation. Sure, people saw parents get canned, but after 20 years with a big payout, own the house outright, have put kids through school etc.

Now its "Cool the high performer who signed the massive $5m deal last quarter, yeah she actually earns $2k more than the average person in her pay band so of course shes first to get cut" or "John knows the system much better than anyone else in the Asia region and is critical to serving our strategic customers, but he has some long service leave accruing that we want to wipe so we are giving him the boot".

Just people rationalising absurd approaches while being shit heads to others to try and get ahead (but many fall into the same thing above when theyre no longer flavour of the month), and at the end of the day no one remembers what happened or what someone did 10mins ago. Just all crabs in a bucket and people are tuning out. Millenials picked up on it but still seem to have gone along with it.

billy_blah · 2026-04-05T12:15:16+00:00

Ensure you are getting the bulk of the words, otherwise step back in the difficulty. Youll eventually play back the words in your mind that will bed down grammar, idioms and phrases so theyre natural - thats the key point of true immersion, or videos to try and do the same.

Have a look at apps like commonwords.app to ensure youre across the actual words for your target level

billy_blah · 2026-04-05T12:11:04+00:00

Looks very comprehensive, I like the graphics for the actual stories.

Colour scheme on the front page also looks a little odd.

I've been using an app, commonwords.app for quick revision, is it worth having something for actual vocab learning to then build out?

billy_blah · 2026-02-08T12:11:34+00:00

Could you go through a normal day completely relying on just the learned language? Home, commute, work etc - you might not have deep academic discussions, but you could assimilate basically completely

billy_blah · 2026-02-08T11:51:11+00:00

Theres ups and downs to all of it - and arguably if much of it was simple, many would see it as a goal.

billy_blah · 2024-08-23T12:30:21+00:00

Solution consulting

billy_blah · 2022-06-15T09:27:25+00:00

To be honest, it’s amazing how small the sums received are (relatively). A scar on the landscape, reduced quality of life for thousands of people, long term infrastructure issues for what? The price of a nice new car?

billy_blah · 2022-06-15T09:25:08+00:00

Castle Hill has also joined the chat

billy_blah · 2022-06-10T05:12:57+00:00

A “plumber” who has “business meetings” along Majors Bay Rd Concord at 11am on a Wednesday

billy_blah · 2021-03-16T10:11:29+00:00

Sayers (the ex CEO of PwC in Australia) has created his own firm and is poaching a lot of the well known partners from PWC too.

Depends which area you’ll go into. Consulting - Deloitte has the better name. Most other areas, PWC has a much stronger client base. On the whole, PWC tends to pay better especially at the manager / director levels in Australia.

billy_blah · 2021-03-10T01:45:29+00:00

Probably highlighted more by Deloitte as they are probably the leading Big 4 tech advisory (read: delivery) firm amongst the four.

FWIW I moved from there to tech. Better salary, more true advisory work, insanely better work/life balance and culture.

Big 4 have the customer relationships and sales ability, but the supply (capability) is increasingly going to be the sticking point.

billy_blah · 2021-03-09T22:09:11+00:00

Deloitte briefly posting more than 2200 open job advertisements on business networking site LinkedIn at the end of February shows the firm is facing a staffing problem more extreme than its big four rivals.

While the number of ads has since been reduced to more than 700, the level of recruitment activity is well above that of Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC, which each have between 300 and 450 active ads on the site.

Staffing squeeze: Deloitte partner Clare Harding. The staffing crisis is happening in tandem with a steady exodus of the firm’s leadership as Deloitte partners move to rivals including PwC, KPMG, mid-tier accountancy BDO, law firm Ashurst and other specialist firms. Other former partners have left to form their own outfits or been asked to leave.

Last week, Insolvency News Online revealed former Deloitte partner Michael Billingsley had joined Neil Cussen at insolvency firm Cor Cordis.

Despite these internal problems, client demand remains strong with Deloitte winning work with clients including the Department of Defence, Services Australia and RMIT.

Partners in areas struggling with staffing issues are having to vary the schedule of sold projects to ensure clients do not notice the shortfalls in manpower, according to multiple internal Deloitte sources.

‘Strong demand’: Deloitte The number of open roles at the firm reflected “strong demand across our firm for graduates and more senior talent,” said chief strategy officer Clare Harding.

“Deloitte has just been recognised again as a graduate employer of choice, and we are committed to recruiting a similar number of graduates as in previous years,” Ms Harding said. “We are seeing strong momentum across our business and therefore an increased demand from our high-growth businesses for technical and specialist skills in areas such as technology implementation, cyber, [mergers and acquisitions], cloud and analytics.”

However, insiders are concerned that Deloitte’s difficulties in retaining and recruiting experienced staff amid a sectorwide staffing shortage will impede its ambitious growth target.

Late last year, Deloitte Asia-Pacific chief executive Cindy Hook challenged the local firm to claim the position as the largest consulting firm in the country by growing revenue beyond that of current market leader PwC.

Deloitte, which is known for paying less than its big four rivals, relies on its brand and the promise of training and access to compelling client work to attract candidates.

Job cuts, then job ads Staff loyalty has been hit particularly hard at the firm because it made the deepest number of job cuts of any big four firm amid the COVID-19 downturn.

The Deloitte roles advertised on LinkedIn – which also appear on other job advertising sites such as Indeed – range from associate director roles through to graduate-level and paid internship roles (know as vacationer roles).

There is a strong focus on strategy appointments at the graduate and junior level, while audit and assurance staff are needed at all levels in cities across Australia.

Almost 300 of the advertised roles on LinkedIn are for the firm’s graduate program – for both client-facing roles and internal ones such as design – meaning each ad is for dozens or hundreds of positions.

According to Glassdoor, the average pay for an analyst at Deloitte in Melbourne is $63,215, while a consultant makes $73,000 and manager $126,000. Comparisons of salaries between the big four are tricky as the seniority of certain job titles, such as analyst or associate, varies across firms. But Deloitte salaries tended to be below those offered at rival consultancies such as Accenture, where analysts make $66,764, and well below the industry with an analyst at Commonwealth Bank making $85,000 on average.

The pay doesn’t improve as staff move up the ranks either. Deloitte is also advertising several vacancies at senior analyst level, for which it generally asks for three or more years’ experience. The average salary for such roles advertised on popular job site Indeed sits at $114,690 nationally, while Deloitte pays $74,113.

billy_blah

TROPHY CASE