zero_gravitas

"People who believe system is failing have less faith in system"

I know it's the headline writer, who I think isn't usually the author of the article (I don't know how The Conversation does it, though), and much less still is it reflective of worth of the study, but these kinds of headlines still annoy me. Maybe they're written to annoy people, I don't know.

The headline isn't even accurate. The question asked in the survey isn't about whether respondents think inequality is high, but whether they think income distribution is fair (the exact wording is: "How fair do you think income distribution is in Australia?").

Department of Home Affairs Strengthening Democracy Taskforce

This is a slightly terrifying phrase. I still associate Home Affairs so strongly with Dutton - as the mega-portfolio that was created to placate him - that it's hard not to read 'Strengthening Democracy Taskforce' in the same way as American war-mongering rhetoric of 'SPREADING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY'.

This impression is not helped by this bit of double-speak later in the article 😂:

The Department of Home Affairs’ 2024 Strengthening Democracy report describes Australia’s democratic resilience as “strong, but vulnerable”.

This suggests Australia’s satisfaction with democracy is at risk. It may erode further if voters think the major parties aren’t sufficiently responsive to the economic pressures they are under.

Not to defend the state of our 'democracy', but I feel compelled to point out that thanks to preferential voting we can vote for parties other than the major parties. Unfortunately many of the minor parties are also in favour of policies that would increase inequality, but the Greens consistently campaign on reducing inequality. I suppose a lot of people who might be roughly characterised as 'right-wing populists' and against status-quo neoliberalism would find the Greens unpalatable, though. Do we need a party that's like the Greens but with One Nation's aesthetics or something?

Banning everyone under 16 from using YouTube really is the peak of stupidity amongst this bullshit.

Non-AMP link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-07/labor-backs-social-media-age-minimum-16-years/104571186

I'd recommend browsing the Lexicanum wiki: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page

For books, a common recommendation for starting with the setting is the Eisenhorn trilogy (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Eisenhorn_(Novel_Series)). Another common recommendation is reading the first few books of the Gaunts Ghosts series (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Gaunt%27s_Ghosts_(Novel_Series)).

The lore in this meme (the Razing of Monarchia) is covered in the Horus Heresy novels. If you wanted to jump straight in with the Heresy series it's generally recommended you read the first five of them^, then branch out into whichever subseries interest you.

^ Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein, Fulgrim

Well, it's at least preferable for them to be spending their time propagandising to Americans than to Australians, right?

Haha, holy shit, what a damning excerpt! Thanks for saving me some time.

That'd rely on tenants reporting their evictions to the tentants' union, and most people aren't engaged with the tenants' union, and even among those who are, relying on tenants reporting would probably be a bit spotty.

If the government is serious about enforcement, I think the logical thing would be for the bond authority to track it. They could be required to log the reason when the bond is claimed, and then their system would flag it if another bond was lodged for the address within the specified period.

If the government doesn't implement a real system for enforcement, though, then yeah, some system through the tenants' union would be better than nothing.

In Victoria, renters can challenge a rent increase "if they believe the increase is higher than the market range"

See: https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing/renting/rent-bond-bills-and-condition-reports/rent/challenging-rent-increases-or-high-rent

I assume, like with many renter protections, it's a pain in the arse to actually do in practice, but it's there, so they can't just double your rent in one go to force you out.

Also, rent can only be increased once every 12 months in Vic, so landleeches may need to wait months before they can increase the rent by any amount at all.

Not that I doubt there will be some dodgy workarounds. I suspect landlords might try to abuse the "if the owner is moving back in" exemption, because even if there's strong provisions - e.g. the property can't be advertised again for at least 12 months - it still requires someone to be paying enough attention to notice and report any violations.

Thanks for cross-posting - I don't think enough Australians know about this. I think I'm fairly well-informed relative to the whole Australian voting population, and I only became aware of the possibility of 'tactical' voting in our system couple of months back.

I get that there's reasons some people want detached, single-title housing, but they could still have that if they built double-storey housing, achieve better density than this, and not make the suburb a hellscape.

She explained Sturgeon had "somewhat unconventional and unorthodox views", but had not been diagnosed with or hospitalised for mental health conditions, and no psychological report was presented.

Yeah, I think the court should have ordered some kind of evaluation...