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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, registered political parties receive a dollar amount for every legal first-preference vote they receive once they pass the 4% minimum. The per-vote rate is indexed to inflation and, at the 2022 election, was $2.914.

    Currently, the rate sits at $3.35 per eligible vote. Under the government’s proposed changes, the rate would rise to $5. On top of that, registered parties would receive another $30,000 per MP and $15,000 per senator in “administrative” funding.

    I can see how $5 per first-preference vote is a lot. Perhaps a scale for $5 for the first 20% of the votes and then $3 per vote after that?

    I don’t see how this change punishes anyone, however. It’s a raise for everyone. If your complaint is basically ‘those guys get more money because they get more votes’, my response becomes ‘then, do something to make people want to vote for you and not those guys’.

    Before anyone says that’s not easy to do, I agree. How do we solve that? The Green party has been going for 40 years. They have never held government and show no sign of holding government in the next 20 years. The Teal candidates came out of nowhere in the last 10 years and and did very well in the last election - but they had financial assistance beyond AEC funding.






  • The problem basically boils down to a design feature (or flaw) in the original Lemmy code. The different instances update each other transaction by transaction. Each lemmy.world upvote, post, comment etc is sent to the other instances one by one. Because lemmy.world is in Finland and Aussie.zone is in Sydney, that takes about a quarter of a second.

    Lemmy devs never pictured a situation where one instance would get so big that they couldn’t update everyone in a timely manner. Basically, lemmy.world generates more than four upvotes, comments, posts etc per second. So it took until this afternoon for me to see your comment.

    The latest version of Lemmy code allows instances to open more than one stream of updates. When/if lemmy.world upgrades to that version, they’ll be able to open several channels to update the other instances.


  • We do use Medibank. In a family of four, I’ve maxed out my Physio for the year (first time), my kid has spent a chunk on orthodontics, my wife got glasses and osteo care. It’s borderline on whether we use enough to justify our premiums - probably not this year. But we did have one year with a few surgeries that made me happy the insurance was there.

    Edit: oh! And our dental visits, I forgot!

    If it were just me, my own use of private insurance would not have justified the premium I’ve been paying all these years. But I’m probably close to breaking even over the past 15 years or so with my wife and kids added to the mix.


  • Aren’t we responding with ‘Enough about the bloody US election, already’? I was sick of the whole circus several weeks ago. Now, it’s supposedly over and we’re still getting articles about the whole stupid thing. I stay out of /All because it’s full of US politics.

    This much noise about any other election, even our own, would be thought of as weird. But the Internet goes on and on and on about the US one. Yes, there are some ramifications for the rest of the world on how they vote. No, I’d have no problem with a few articles discussing it. But this wall-to-wall saturation for six months has left me feeling utterly sick of the whole thing.

    As to AUKUS, I don’t even know what it gives us that our alliances of the past half-century already provide. It’s not like those relationships are in danger, no matter who sits in the White House/No. 10 Downing/Canberra.






  • Puretone - Addicted to Bass

    Ooh! Josh Abrahams!! There’s also The Joker from the Hackers soundtrack - which was one of the biggest albums of whatever year that movie happened in. That album is still great, to be honest. Side note: That’s something that’s a bit lost in today’s streaming world. The soundtrack albums to movies are often not on the streaming sites and are at risk of being forgotten.



  • I’m all about showcasing local talent. I love most of the bands in the list. But don’t call it the “best Australian songs of the 90s” if you’re going to leave out so many of the best songs of the 90s.

    I loved Ratcat, but I’d have selected That ain’t bad. Frente’s Accidentally Kelly Street and Custard with Funky again to really introduce a new generation to their music (because Dave’s voice is really recognisable to the kids in this track).



  • Some classics in this list. Such a list can’t exist without people pointing out who was missed, though. This reads like a top 50 of what JJJ had on high rotation. It’s missing several acts that were bigger than most of the names on this list. Off the top of my head (and only in the order I think of them), there’s:

    • Madison Avenue - Don’t Call Me Baby
    • Taxiride - Get Set / Everywhere you Go
    • Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply / Affirmation / To the Moon & Back / I Knew I loved you
    • John Farnham - Chain Reaction / That’s Freedom / Every Time You Cry - Plus his duets with Barnsy. Speaking of…
    • Jimmy Barnes - When Something is Wrong with my Baby (with Farnsy) / Stone Cold
    • Kate Cebrano - Pash (Can’t count the Jesus Christ Superstar album, unfortunately)
    • Tina Arena - Chains
    • Wendy Matthews - The Day You Went Away / Friday’s Child
    • Black Sorrows - Harley and Rose / Ain’t Love the Strangest Thing / The Chosen Ones / Hold On To Me
    • Icehouse - Miss Divine
    • Hunters & Collectors - Holy Grail (Yes, the AFL flogged it to death, but it was still huge)
    • Human Nature - Tellin’ Everbody / Got It Goin’ On / Wishes
    • Merril Bainbridge - Mouth / Under the Water

    How some of these names were left off the list is beyond me. Savage Garden are one of the only Australian Bands who have managed more than a single hit in the US charts. Farnsy and Barnsy are Australian staples. Even with some of the acts they did get right, I’d have picked different songs.

    In the making of this list, I learned that Torn by Natalie Imbruglia and The Horses by Daryl Braithwaite are covers and don’t count. Also, an honorable mention to The Waifs and John Butler Trio who were pretty popular around the Perth pub scene of the 90s, but didn’t really crack the national consciousness until 2000 or later. This shocked me, I’m normally behind the trends, but I liked these bands before they were charting. Does that make me a hipster?



  • Immigration and asylum seekers have been politicized my whole life. When I was little, it was “wogs” - though which nationality that referred to was confusing. It was originally Italians and Greeks after World war 2, but later evolved to Lebanese. Then it was the Vietnamese/Asians. Then it was Middle Eastern / Arab nations. I think we’re still hearing about Sudanese gangs yeah?

    It’s an unending cycle that has showed no signs of going away. Ned Kelly resorted to crime because of being discriminated against for being Irish. Yes, Mr. Howard absolutely tapped into that cycle with the Tampa incident, but he didn’t start the fire. It was always burning like the world’s been turning.


  • This thread is a product of our collective ages. Billy McMahon is pretty universally thought of as the worst PM ever, but we’re too young to remember him first-hand. A rich guy, I think he still holds the record for longest time in parliament. He was probably gay, but persecuted LGBT+ people.

    Laurie Oakes: [he was] “devious, nasty, dishonest - he lied all the time and stole things”. He tells a story where McMahon tried to steal (clearly labelled) radio station gear after an interview, claiming to own it.

    Robert Menzies: “the most characterless man who was ever prime minister of Australia – a dreadful little man

    John McEwan almost succeeded in keeping McMahon out of the PM spot, by absolutely refusing to work with him. McMahon couldn’t get party leadership until after McEwan retired. Gough Witlam reportedly called him a “notorious homosexual” and a “cunt” in a story told by McMahon - who complained that he “couldn’t be both”.

    Challenge for anyone here: Google him and see if you can find anyone with something nice to say about him. The quotes you’ll find about him are honestly hysterical. 😃