This is was my thought also, countries like Australia and the USA have the capacity to easily be food independent but “The Market” rewards monoculture of a few crops.

The achievement of Guyana is interesting none the less.

Yeah, a different way to achieve a similar goal that has been bipartisan policy for a decade. I’d forgotten it exists tbh.

This is ridiculous, there are reasons we don’t give unchecked power to single individuals.

I have to admit I don’t follow state politics closely, do they have the numbers to push this rubbish through?

Yeah, it makes sense. I thought it was interesting though as Australia has been copping heat about exporting these, turns out it was never really a choice.

u/elwexo over on the alien site did some digging

TL;DR It’s a land development matter, basically mining sand in an apparently environmentally sensitive area, which one of the other councillors has a financial interest in (they appear to have abstained from the vote). It was narrowly (4-3) passed.

From the minutes:

Item 9.1.2: That council pursuant to Schedule 2, Part 9, Clause 68(2)(b) of the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Regulations 2015 and the provisions of the Shire of Donnybrook Balingup Local Planning Scheme No. 7 (LPS7), approves the Development Application P25035 Industry-Extractive (Sand) at Lot 10 Donnybrook Boyup Brook, Yabberup subject to the following conditions and advice:
[several pages of notes]

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Libs splitting, I wouldn’t be against Labor splitting, maybe Centrist Labor and Social Democratic Labor.

Let’s see how much support those neoliberal cranks on the right when they have to defend holding back progress to the electorate rather than pushing their weight around in caucus.

So, a chunk of the “Labor” party don’t support the right of labour to democratic representation.

All of this it true, I live in SW WA and it’s not quite so bad, a lot of people are scaling back herbicide use and optimising with rotational grazing etc. but even the most responsible land owners use literal tonnes of super phosphate, and that’s just the grazers, the vineyards, avocados, stone fruit etc all use huge volumes of herbicides, pesticides, fertiliser.

Our family farm is relatively responsible and as I take over more management I’ll be pushing a more restorative model but I have a lucrative second income. Our immediate neighbour runs a ridiculous stocking rate with his cattle and they are skinny cattle grazing on stubble, the crazy thing is that colesworth have begun penalising ‘overweight’ cattle so on average he gets a higher price per kilo than a farmer treating their animals humanely.

Industrial farming is a disaster. Small holdings are less extractive, less exploitative, and produce more calories per hectare. You can make a reasonable income on a small holding too, you just need to be able to buy the land, and if you’re not a millionaire or have family land that isn’t happening.

Yeah, I’m not overly impressed with the “world first” aspect here, workers insurance and minimum wage seem very mid 20thC type achievements, but it is good to finaly see this loophole closing, and led by a union.

I’m hugely sympathetic to this.

Definitely anyone charging a fee to the patient, whether GP, or allied health, or specialist, should be getting nothing from Medicare. I also agree that public GP clinics ought to be a thing.

That said, given that there is not likely going to be a fundamental change in our model anytime soon, this is a good policy within our current framework.

If your GP “accidentally” selects the PBS code for ATSI it is covered by PBS, some GPs won’t do that on principal, on the other hand some GPs aren’t jerks.

If you let your GP know you’re struggling and ask if there is any way you could get it on PBS you might be surprised.

Edit, read further down, this is only for mag aspartate as far as I’m aware

1000 apologies, I read this, then read about the Pauline Hanson discrimination act stuff, then came back and got them confused. The cancellation of visas is always an option for any reason for the minister, I kind of think a committee or something would be better. I still think it’s worth throwing the book at Nazis in every instance where they can’t be ignored.

Let’s deconstruct this.

This fellow was behaving in a way that is against our stated national values, is threatening to citizens and other residents of this country, and is against the law.

He is now facing the predictable legal consequences of breaking the law, ie had he consulted a lawyer or even looked into it himself beforehand he would’ve known that this would be the likely outcome.

You’re now inferring from this that legitimate political speech may be curtailed in the future despite there being no legal mechanism for this to happen.

Many on the far left like to claim that liberals will always defend the rights of fascists to be fascists, that’s sometimes unfair but this kind of nonsense is how liberals get that reputation. (‘Small l’ liberals of course)

Yeah, a lot of good cardiology and vascular work gets done at the mount hospital in Perth, it’s not that they’re literally useless all the time. Just most of the time.

It is absurd the Medicare doesn’t cover dental. I see a patient once or twice a month delaying dental care because of cost.

I kind of understand the government being cautious about controversial reforms but the libs had literally nothing to say about the recent GP bulk billing changes as it’s just popular. Medicare covering dental care and increasing school funding to meet Gonski targets are almost opposition proof.

Incidentally I am a doctor and I don’t have insurance. I don’t wear glasses, I don’t play sports that ruin my joints and I’m not getting pregnant. There is literally no benefit. On top of which, when I was a junior doctor it wasn’t uncommon for us to have a private patient transferred to the public system when the private physician realised they were actually sick and not just a pay day, the public system treats sick patients, the private system has nice carpet and nurses that smile. We need to remove Medicare payments to private providers and invest properly into public healthcare.

Sorry for the tangentially related rant.

I absolutely love this. I was at a volly firefighter training the other week and just about everyone gravitates to the big map on the wall. Walking on a ground map is an awesome idea.

Today’s West is trying to make out this is somehow a bad thing…

It seems like there is a push from within the party to make this happen which is a great sign.

🤞

Unfortunately it seems to have been taken down. Not sure what happened there. If it shows up again I’ll repost it

Yeah, the headline should’ve been “1/3 of Australians don’t understand what corruption is”