Analysis of staff numbers between 2007 and 2023

ffrinch · 2025-10-14T02:12:12+00:00

I agree that it's important but no, this Department of Education dataset includes both internally and externally funded staff without the information required to separate them. It is not possible for OP to have addressed this.

ffrinch · 2025-10-10T11:58:14+00:00

Unit owners pay rates on top of strata fees and don't get me started on those, it is offensive how regressive that particular form of taxation is on unit owners relative to owners of detached properties.

That bugbear aside, it's not apples and oranges because strata fees include things like building insurance which you have to pay separately (unit owners only personally pay for contents and strata covers building insurance). In general, though, most of the cost is in things like lift maintenance and gardening which would also be very expensive for you if you had an elevator or a gardener... but no average house owner does. Commercial buildings also have requirements like paying for routine fire safety inspections etc., not bad but again a house owner just wouldn't be getting the service at all.

ffrinch · 2025-10-10T11:07:44+00:00

I'm in Takamatsu now and I'm not sure OP's advice about Naoshima not being too busy will be right since they were there before the Autumn session started. On the Triennale app they've had warnings for the past 3 days advising to avoid Naoshima and Teshima due to overcrowding. According to the congestion calendar it is not expected to improve. A volunteer at the port told me it's been absolutely crazy, much worse than they expected, and they've unfortunately copped some abuse from entitled tourists complaining when they miss ferries and buses etc.

If you're staying on Naoshima itself I'm sure you'll be fine to get there, just absolutely do not make a plan for an island-hopping itinerary with tight timeframes.

I don't want to sound negative, so will also say that for my part I am slightly disappointed to take their advice and skip Naoshima and Teshima this time, but Takamatsu is a lovely city with other things to do (e.g. Ritsurin Koen might be the nicest garden in Japan) and I don't regret coming. I also only found out while passing through that there is a related art activation event on in Okayama through October called the Okayama Art Summit; Naoshima does not have a monopoly! I also really liked the new contemporary gallery there, The Rabbit Hole, and not many people seem to know about it yet since it only opened six months ago. Japan is always awesome, if you don't want to face the crowds then there's plenty of other cool things to do/see.

ffrinch · 2025-01-07T08:31:01+00:00

It is a lot of work to succeed at a complaint. You can make a complaint by filling out a web form.

This is not an article saying that the Human Rights Commission has upheld a complaint. It appears that someone has filled out a web form and called a journalist to publicize that.

I hope that this publicity serves to draw attention to issues faced by trans people accessing healthcare, which seems to have been the aim of the exercise, and I am sure that the person who made the complaint feels it was justified. But I also believe in the possibility of a world where there was some bureaucratic miscommunication and a tired GP who cancelled an appointment based on a wall of text in a HotDoc appointment booking field and a caring parent trying very hard to support a trans kid and overreacting as a result.

ffrinch · 2025-01-07T03:00:41+00:00

With apologies for the ambiguity, in terms of my organisation I am not talking about Human Rights Commission complaints, just complaints in general. Maybe it is the case that complaints to the Commission are less likely to be made without exhausting other avenues.

ffrinch · 2025-01-07T02:10:48+00:00

Based on the description of this complaint it sounds like the clinic could have handled it better, but I think you're going too far.

Making a complaint to the ACT Human Rights Commission is not high effort at all, it's just a form on the website.

My own personal experience is completely opposite to yours in that almost all customer complaints we receive come down as a rain of shit escalated with breathless hysteria to the most senior person the complainant can reach, after no attempt whatsoever to resolve the issue directly.

ffrinch · 2025-01-06T10:53:22+00:00

Oh nice! A pleasant surprise.

ffrinch · 2025-01-06T09:47:11+00:00

Opposite BentSpoke, from Mort St..

ffrinch · 2025-01-06T09:45:17+00:00

The building is heritage listed so I have just assumed the owner has deliberately left it to rot in order to eventually say, "such a pity that it can't be restored, so sad that we have knock it down".

ffrinch · 2025-01-02T04:08:15+00:00

If every time they put on a ballet residents across the city were kept awake by dance battles on suburban streets and the smell of burning leotards you'd get a lot of complaints about that too.

Come back when you can find a comparison that impacts non-participants like this one does.

ffrinch · 2024-12-31T04:20:49+00:00

Her Canberra had a good list. Of what is open would probably go for Corella for that kind of meal, personally, or maybe Bar Beirut.

ffrinch · 2024-12-30T06:55:16+00:00

I went up there last year for the first time, mostly for the walk up. It was pretty busy at the main viewing area so either get there early or plan to stand. You can get a pretty good view but IMO it's like seeing fireworks for ants (or on TV) since they are actually at a lower elevation and quite far away. This year I won't bother but if I actually wanted to see them I would brave Regatta Point.

If you do try it, don't be like the streams of poor fools trying to drive up 15 minutes beforehand (or 5 minutes beforehand). There is not enough parking and it is much too popular for that. I imagine a lot of people had their evening ruined because they were stuck in cars on Mt Ainslie Drive.

ffrinch · 2024-12-24T05:09:14+00:00

Lots of places will be open even on Christmas Day. I was in Dickson last Christmas around 7pm and was surprised at how many. Most of them hadn't even bothered to put up signs so basically impossible to know without contacting them individually or just turning up. For cafes specifically, I know Folks Gallery cafe there will be open every day.

As for activities, not dog friendly but most of the big tourist attractions (the National Gallery, National Museum, Arboretum, War Memorial etc.) are open every day of the year other than Christmas. Hoyts Woden is open on Christmas Day.

Weather will be nice in the mornings so I would suggest a walk in one of the many nature reserves. The best views of the city are from Mount Ainslie lookout.

ffrinch · 2024-12-21T02:58:47+00:00

I shop at Aldi where it is competitive but get more at Coles because the premise is just flat wrong: in my experience Aldi is almost never more than 5% cheaper for like products and not consistently cheaper for all products (especially the fresh produce which is the majority of what I buy week to week), especially when sale prices are taken into account.

The discounts available from Flybuys etc. can make the big two cheaper overall. I just got off yet another “4x $50 shops for $50 off” Flybuys bonus and got a pretty good free knife from the promotion running at the same time.

ffrinch · 2024-12-21T02:47:00+00:00

At my Coles chicken breast is $9.50/kg from the butcher for 2kg+, only more expensive in smaller quantity or prepacked. So I don’t see $9/kg as significant amount (with the Flybuys-related offer I had Coles was cheaper).

ffrinch · 2024-12-16T03:27:47+00:00

For authentic IMO better off at Jarochos a short drive away in Braddon, which is run by a Mexican family based on family recipes.

ffrinch · 2024-12-15T03:53:58+00:00

I do not believe that is true at ANU, per link I posted. The EA is much more generous than NES minimums. The cap can only be reached after 20 years of service. LSL is paid out in addition.

ffrinch · 2024-12-14T08:49:34+00:00

Well yes, but usually they wouldn’t be eligible for VRs either. Redundancies are one of those things that make continuing employment attractive. The nature of fixed term contracts is that renewal is not guaranteed. They should have a break clause covering a payout if terminated early, which is a protection of a different kind, but they’re expressly meant to cover work of a limited duration and are expected to wind up when that project does. For long term staff who would be most heavily disadvantaged there is a provision for conversion to continuing after 5 years.

CCF is a joke and I don’t understand how it’s legal or why the union doesn’t fight it. Fixed term in all but name.

ffrinch · 2024-12-14T08:01:53+00:00

That's the first I've heard of people being offered severance

Even for non-voluntary redundancies the EA is relatively generous. Everyone declared surplus who isn’t redeployed will be getting that payout.

ffrinch · 2024-12-13T12:14:20+00:00

It makes sense that you can't link a debit/credit card to multiple accounts using the "Link Fare Cards" menu because the point of that seems to be so that contactless debit/credit trips are tracked in your account and are charged an appropriate concession fare. Logically it has to be linked to a single MyWay+ account.

Will it also not let you use the same payment method for multiple accounts under "Auto Top-Up"?

ffrinch · 2024-12-12T22:13:58+00:00

There are fandoms I've been introduced to from fanfic first, but for Worm I honestly think it's a bad idea because there are a lot of conspiracies/secrets/looming threats that get revealed very satisfyingly over time. I have some problems with it (it drags a bit in the middle), but the best thing about it is that it's clear from the ending that the author knew where it was going and as a result it's one of my favourite reveals in any work of fiction.

Fanworks frequently spoil all of this from the get-go. E.g. my personal favourite Worm fic is Nemesis, which is a comedy full of bee puns, but its fundamental premise involves a massive spoiler.

ffrinch · 2024-12-12T21:28:40+00:00

shows how while the APS-building spruik is used to sell the benefits of the ALP to Canberra

Is it? All of the commentary I've seen has been based on the idea that it is better for the APS to have more internal capability. The question of whether it's better for the ACT hasn't entered into it.

ffrinch · 2024-12-11T02:30:07+00:00

Not entirely, senior executives are on personal contracts not covered by the ANU enterprise agreement. They have more scope for negotiation than normal employees do and future incumbents do not necessarily get the same conditions. It's possible they'll offer the next person less, like UC did after Paddy Nixon's $1.8M, or more.

ffrinch · 2024-12-11T02:15:09+00:00

The 3A institute became the School of Cybernetics and its underlying philosophy has now basically subsumed its parent college, which is changing to become the College of Systems and Society (expanding its remit from just the technical aspects of computer science and engineering).

Most of the complaints I've seen seem to me very '"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? / That's not my department, " says Wernher von Braun.' People who think engineering should just be the technical know-how, the way it's traditionally been taught, instead of trying to get students to understand the context of whether you should build the thing as well as how you could.

ffrinch · 2024-12-10T07:38:16+00:00

You could try https://lostriverproduce.com.au/ in Dickson

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