HalfEarthMedic

As Australia grapples with a supermarket monopoly, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hopes the expansion of this Emirati "hypermarket" might bring in some competition.

Colesworth vs Lulu?

Australia is likely to experience more intense and extreme climate hazards — in some cases where people and places haven't experienced them before.

The Redfern Park speech contained some words which should be engraved on the footpaths outside the homes of every Australian who voted “No” in the Voice Referendum of 2023.

If it isn't reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and remarkable harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the First Australians, the people to whom the most injustice has been done.

...the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us, the non-Aboriginal Australians.

It begins, I think, with an act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.

We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things could be done to us.

With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask, how would I feel if this were done to me?

As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded us all.

It is not only about closing branches, or sacking workers, or making efficiency improvements through the use of clever algorithms, such as artificial intelligence. This is about one of the pillars of the community, our banks – which provide jobs and safeguard our savings, and help small businesses start and succeed – abandoning their traditional role of serving the community to become profit machines.

I'm posting this mainly to remind everyone member owned banks exist

• P&N/BCU
• VicBank
• Great Southern Bank
• Police Bank
• Bank Australia
• People First Bank and quite a few others

I have nothing but praise for the customer service of P&N. Services and rates are comparable if not better than the big banks.

Corporate banks have boars elected by investors and are motivated to skim as much of your money as possible. Member elected boards are elected by you and are motivated to provide a good service.

Australia’s school funding system is unfair and inefficient, entrenching inequality. The article calls for a new model where all schools are publicly funded without fees.

Australia now has one of the most socially segregated school systems. More than 80% of students from disadvantaged families attend public schools, compared with just 12% in Catholic schools and 8% in independent schools.

Thirty years later, the negative consequences of this model are clear. It is seriously undermining our public school system, dividing communities and costing far more than it needs to. It entrenches inequality, yet survives because every reform attempt meets fierce resistance.

Yet there was little difference in educational outcomes such as VCE results and NAPLAN scores. Admittedly, these are not the only desirable outcomes — Carey may offer more extra-curricular activities — but questions arise about the relative efficiency of the two schools, as well as whether parents are truly getting value for money.

Countries that perform better on international tests — such as Canada, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand — offer choice within a publicly funded system. Schools may have distinct features, but they cannot charge fees. This keeps performance gaps smaller and prevents segregation by class.

Australia could adopt a similar model. Both levels of government would develop a common formula, based on a revised SRS[Schooling Resource Standard], to fully fund all schools – government and non-government. Schools could retain their ethos but would not be allowed to charge fees. Most private schools already receive close to or above 80% of the SRS, so the additional cost would be less than many assume.

Such reform would not abolish choice; it would simply make choice affordable and equitable. As in the UK and Canada, only a small minority of schools would remain outside the system.

The whole article is worth reading but this caught my eye.

The Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association (AMCA) said that without suspected adverse events being published and investigated it was hard to draw conclusions about the safety of medicinal cannabis products.

If the only organisation representing cannabis prescribers is unwilling to comment on safety what does that say about the state of the industry?

Public schools have long been under-funded for the learning challenges they face. In 2024, they were only funded at an average of 88% of their Schooling Resource Standard across Australia. By contrast, private schools were over-funded on average at 104% of their SRS.

The prime minister and education minister promised that the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement will fully fund public schools by 2034. This has already proved to be a false promise. New bilateral funding agreements with the New South Wales, Queensland, South Australian, Western Australian and Tasmanian Governments reveal that public schools will not be funded at 100% of their SRS by 2034 despite a significant planned boost in funding over the decade.

[D]espite the anti-immigration rhetoric allegedly being a response to the housing crisis, immigration is not one of the top ten causes of the housing shortage either.

[A]mong the red ensigns and Nazi regalia, there was not one protest sign about the housing crisis. The racist chanting and violence against people of colour was not a protest about the cost-of-living crisis. It was just racism and it was racism that tended towards the exclusionist idea of a White Australia.

Article suggests gender quotas and scholarships. Has anyone considered treating, and paying, teachers like the vital professionals they are?

An interesting take on Albo's leadership.

I would tend to think he has been over cautious since the referendum, glacial movement on the middle east and a failure to so anything meaningful on housing.

Maybe slow and cautious is the way we get real reform. Infuriating but effective?

[T] he poor design of the resource rent tax has meant little or no money has been collected. According to Treasury, “to date not a single LNG plant has paid any petroleum resource rent tax and many are not expected to pay any significant amounts until the 2030s.

Nor do the big multinational exporters of gas — including Exxon, Shell and Chevron — seem to pay much company tax. The Australian Taxation Office has labelled the oil and gas industry “systematic non-payers” of tax.