Australia

A worthy recipient of Australian of the year and a great warrior in the fight against the beast that is MND ( also known as ALS)

Speed kills. It’s the message that we’ve had driven home for decades by law enforcement and the government. But it’s time to have a serious discussion about speed limits in Australia without the hysterics and put some cold, hard facts into the debate.

In short:

Police are investigating a vandalism attack on 20 bronze statues of Australian prime ministers in Ballarat.

The heads from the busts of former Labor leaders Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating were severed and stolen.

What's next?

The sculptor who created the busts says plaster moulds are available to recreate the statues.

"A provocative act by former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has stolen the limelight – again – at a morning tea with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for recipients of the 2025 awards.

The 2021 winner wore a “F*** Murdoch” T-shirt when she was greeted by Mr Albanese and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, at The Lodge in Canberra on Saturday.

The PM and Ms Haydon smiled and greeted Ms Tame, but there was no visible reaction to the incendiary statement on her shirt." https://michaelwest.com.au/from-side-eye-to-show-stopper-as-tame-stuns-pm/

I thought this bit made an excellent point

non archived link

It was around this time in 2020 that the US was helping Australian firefighters with a catastrophic surge of blazes during what became known as their Black Summer. If the same thing happens this year, both governments will be in an impossible situation.

Maybe not this year but one year soon this WILL happen. We voters aren't taking any of this seriously, so neither are our politicians... be prepared.

After literally going through Black Summer (fire all around us), we moved to a place of zero bushfire risk in rural Tasmania. Even smoke triggers my partner who fought in those fires for 4 months, no pay. Hard to pay the bills

I guess what we need is nuclear submarines /s

What is going on in Sydney??

A childcare centre in Sydney was set alight early morning on Tuesday and antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall, authorities said, the latest in a spate of attacks in Australia targeting the Jewish community.

The childcare centre, located near a Jewish school and synagogue in the city's east, suffered extensive damage but there were no reports of injuries in the attack which occurred around 1 a.m. (1400 GMT, Monday), police said.

It was the second antisemitic attack on property in four days in Sydney, and comes amid a spate of similar crimes targeting the Jewish community in Australia's most-populous city.

Perhaps a bit off topic, but I just learnt that apparently Australia Post accepts requests from landlords/body corporates to have parcel lockers installed (and they can be restricted to just people that live in the building)!

It's also free of charge to the building owner(s)/body corporates, and maintenance/installation/site surveying is all handled and managed by Australia Post.

Obviously, having one of these installed in a private building for residents/workers would be contingent on your landlord and/or owners corporation/body corporates giving a shit, having space, and being willing to install one, but if anybody here has such sway, I'd strongly suggest seeing if you can make it happen.

Parcel lockers are very convenient, and if you aren't home for deliveries that require signatures or can't be left, they'll also often put them inside a parcel locker instead of taking them to a post office

(Yeah, I realise the percentage of people on aussie.zone who own an entire apartment building is probably quite low, but I'd hazard a guess that a few people either own apartments (so can badger the owners corporation), or rent (so can badger the landlord), assuming the LL/OC would care. But since it doesn't require any installation or maintenance costs, and can be restricted to just building residents, so wouldn't raise a security concern, I don't see why anybody would be vehemently opposed to it)

In short:

Regional and rural Australians say their ability to make phone calls has dramatically reduced since the 3G network was switched off in October.

Telstra and Optus shut down 3G to boost the 4G and 5G networks, claiming customer coverage would benefit as a result.

What's next:

The federal government says there may be a need for regulatory intervention if the situation does not improve.

whereas in America it's really bad.

Good evening, #mastoart #mastophoto

This is #ThrowbackThursday #travelphotography #fotografie #photography

#roentare
#photographyisart
#photooftheday
#pictureoftheday
#potd
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#nature
#naturephotography
#longexposure
#ballarat
#australia
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#landscape
#landscapephotography

@Roentare
@australia

You can find the original here

https://roentare.zenfolio.com/p484774275/e1088862f

A rare Sun-skirting comet will be visible from the southern hemisphere this week as it flies past Earth for the first time in around 100,000 years.

Post some pics Lemmy Aus users as they come in!

A $10 billion cyclone and flood reinsurance pool was set up in 2022, in a bid to bring down home and business insurance premiums in northern Australia

The big question that really needs answering is: How do we move people away from areas that are disaster prone?"

The former shows why the latter is impossible. Quite the opposite of encouraging people to move away, it allows people and local authorities to be lackadaisical about climate enhanced risk.

This segues to another recent article

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-14/queensland-severe-heatwave-weather-storms/104813982

The air conditioner is going 24/7," she said. . "The last two years it's been a hell of a lot hotter," she said.

Yes, once again the former making it worse. Those that can't afford AC (6-7 billion or so around the workd?) can just die ?

It's seems that's all we do, make it worse.

We need to be aware of the malign influence our own billionaires have overseas.

Murdoch family falls under this idea as well, and I'm sure plenty more. Even Macquarie bank needs a kicking for how they've treated british water.

We need to begin holding our own accountable, economically or criminally, especially when their actions undermine the democratic will of our closest allies. What weakens our allies weakens us. These people are messing with Australia's National Security and our ability to rely on stable and unified partners.

I'd expect the security services to at minimum have a strong, quiet word with Ms Rinehart about her conduct here.

I live in a set of flats in Melbourne. Not inner city, but not that far out of it. My flat is semi detached, and I share a wall with one neighbour. The other neighbours has a freestanding house. All the other flats on this block are eligible to request the upgrade to FTTP, except mine.

When I entered my address into the FTTP upgrade page, it said that I can't be upgraded under this program, but may eligible under and MDU upgrade for strata managed buildings. But the thing is, neither mine nor any of the other flats actually have a strata.

I'm not sure whether they've made a mistake and just assumed that I have a strata, or they're being difficult about it for some reason. In either case, it's weird that they would assume I am the only flat on the block that's in a strata. My FTTC isn't actually that bad, it's been relatively stable, and I am able to get the full 100mbps down I pay for. But I do quite often fully saturate my connection.

Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions? I do only rent, so I could maybe badger the property manager or landlord to sort it out themselves. But they're older and obviously don't really have any reason to care about the internet speeds I can receive.

Or is it probably just going to be a waiting game until they hopefully figure themselves out? I would've just emailed them and asked, but I found it quite difficult to actually find a phone number or email, as they really want to push all contact to be done via an RSP, who I did try, but they just seemed really confused and told me they don't offer FTTP upgrades and I'd need to look elsewhere.

According to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia has enforced autonomous sanctions since 2011 in response to the Assad regime's "deeply disturbing and unacceptable use of violence against its people".

These sanctions prohibit the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of arms and technology related to energy power plants to Syria and also make it illegal to import certain fuel and oil products, among other trade restrictions.

Several persons are also sanctioned, meaning it is prohibited to directly or indirectly make an asset available to them.

I hope shit posting is allowed in this sub.