Not sure but I recently found there are satellites monitoring for hotspots you can look at to see if there are fires nearby: https://firenorth.org.au/nafi3/

Click on “South QLD” in the sidebar then zoom in on the map. It’s quite eye opening how many fires are burning across the state at any one time.

What you ask for and what you present to the people are two very different things though. The Uluru Statement may well be what is requested, but when you put it to the people to vote, you need to remove as much ambiguity as possible and flesh out the practicalities in much more detail. That doesn’t mean diverging from the Uluru Statement, it just means providing more detail on how those requests are actually going to be met.

For me, it’s the difference between describing your dream home to a friend vs getting the blueprints back from a qualified engineer. If you build off the high-level description you’re probably going to be disappointed, but if you sign off on the blueprints before construction starts you’ll know exactly what you’re going to get - no surprises.

All the government had to do was flesh out the processes and procedures in more detail and instead of us now arguing Yes vs No, we’d instead be assuming Yes and arguing about the various implementation details instead. Such a lost opportunity.

It really boils down to will Australia recognise them and listen to them?

I would suggest avoiding statements like this, because it makes people in the No group more certain they should vote No. It’s because the majority of No voters want to recognise First Nations people but they disagree with the way the current proposal has been put forward. It’s exactly the same as the referendum on Australian’s independence - even people who wanted independence had to vote against it because they weren’t happy with the way it was going to be implemented.

Telling No voters they don’t want to recognise First Nations people when they actually do, makes them feel like the Yes crowd doesn’t understand their concerns, and doesn’t see the problems that might arise. So it makes No voters even more certain that they need to vote No, in order to save everyone from problems they think the Yes crowd hasn’t seen. Maybe that’s untrue, but I feel it necessary to point out that in order to convince people to alter their opinion, you need to understand where they’re coming from so you can provide reassurance about whatever it is that worries them. If you don’t understand what your opponent’s concerns are, you will end up putting forward arguments that are not persuasive and you will have no hope of changing their minds.

To answer your final question, yes I want to recognise First Nations individuals, yes I want to listen to them, but no I don’t want it made permanent in the constitution until I have seen it making a difference in the real world first. I don’t care what changes anyone wants to make to the constitution - it could be free money for all white males like me - it should not be changed until we have tried it first and are 100% sure that it is going to work and isn’t going to introduce any unforeseen problems.

Show me the Voice working for two years and all the positive differences it’s making in everyday people’s lives and I will gladly vote Yes to make it part of the constitution. Until then I’m afraid it’s a No - nothing to do with First Nations people, and everything to do with being given an incomplete picture of what’s going to happen.

I can’t argue with your reasoning there. But I would like to think that if it actually worked, at least a future government could hold the referendum to make it permanent and everyone would know exactly what they’re getting, because they’d already seen how it was going to work. There’s too much uncertainty around at the moment to convince most No people to change their mind, so I think the Yes crowd are facing an uphill battle.

One of the problems I see with the Yes arguments are that they often claim some part of the Voice will work in a certain way, so there’s no need for alarm, but the problem is the No crowd can see it going wrong ten different ways and there aren’t any reassurances coming from the Yes side showing how none of those problems could happen. The Yes side seems too focused on the one way things might work if everyone plays by the rules and nobody does anything bad, but it means they aren’t addressing the No concerns about people taking advantage of the system, as politicians typically do. So without actually addressing those issues they’re going to have a hard time changing the minds of the No people I think. It might be possible but they’d have to change tactics.

I do find it interesting and somewhat ironic how between the two of us, the same things are causing us to vote differently - specifically the permanent nature of the legislation, and that we are both hearing convincing points from people we respect.

Well I plan on voting no, because I disagree with the idea of making something permanent before you’ve demonstrated that it works. There are countless programmes and departments and taskforces that have been set up over the years that were supposed to help Aboriginals and apparently none of those seem to have worked, so it makes me very sceptical that the Voice is going to be any different. Many in the Yes crowd keep insisting that this will solve problems of the programmes in the past, but I haven’t yet seen anything that listed out specific points of why each of those programmes failed, and what the Voice does differently to avoid falling into the same traps.

I just don’t understand why it wasn’t introduced in a temporary capacity so we could all see how it was going to work first, putting everyone’s concerns to rest, and then if it proves successful I wouldn’t have any issue voting yes to make it permanent. It’s the whole fear of the unknown thing for me - what if it just makes things worse? One of the Yes arguments is that if they made the Voice legislatively instead of via a referendum, a future government might undo it, but that’s the whole idea - if it turns out to be another failed attempt added to the pile then we can undo it and try something else. But if it is shown to work THEN we have the referendum to make it stick, I think at that time most Australians would be happy to vote yes as they would know exactly what they are voting for. I think it was incredibly silly of the government to hold the referendum so prematurely, and I think they have probably shot themselves in the foot by doing so.

Sure there are plenty of bigots out there who will vote no because of race, but the majority of people I talk to about it are voting no because they’re concerned that it’s going to create new problems without solving the existing ones first, and that it won’t make one bit of difference to those who need it most. Concerns that could’ve been easily addressed with a trial run first.

So while I have no ill feelings towards anyone who intends to vote yes, and I think they are well-intentioned and are making the noble choice, I think the government has handled the whole thing poorly and they need to come back with a better plan instead of the half-arsed proposal they put forward this time. It really is straight out of Utopia - make the big announcement first and let someone else worry about whether it will actually work or not.

I was going to suggest something disposable, like a garbage bag, newspaper, or an old teatowel or length of fabric held together with a peg or tied in a knot. Might not look great but you can throw it away once you arrive. But then I guess the problem is you can’t use it for the trip home again? I wonder whether you could stash normal clothing somewhere out of the way, e.g. at a train station or hidden in a garden somewhere. Maybe it’ll still be there later when you return? Not sure what time you would be heading home again or if you would use public transport for that, but I’d be surprised if those sorts of indecency laws were enforced late at night, it seems more like a daylight hours thing.

Does anyone know what was happening on Hermanns Rd last night off the Warrego Highway around 6:30pm? (Between Hatton Vale and Minden.) Approaching from the west there was the smell of smoke in the air and there were a lot of emergency vehicles parked on Hermanns Rd including ambulances and fire engines.

That headline confused me, I thought the Salvation Army had been given the job of managing the housing strategy and they were being fired for corruption!

No argument there, BUT it’s not just as simple as building more houses. It’s no use building a bunch of affordable houses out at Toowoomba if all the jobs are still in Brisbane, as people still need to live near where they work. There are already plenty of affordable places to live, they are just too far for most people to commute. And nobody really likes the idea of knocking down houses close to Brisbane and replacing them with towering apartment blocks - the traffic is already bad enough as-is.

With more companies pushing for employees to come back to the office, I do wonder whether some sort of tax incentive to encourage remote work would be better. If a company received a financial incentive for each employee who lived more than 100 km from their base of operations, not only would that make it easier for people who cannot work remotely (e.g. peak hour traffic wouldn’t be so bad) but it might help revitalise some of these country towns that are suffering from dwindling populations.

The AirBnB is already “taxed” when it’s empty because the owner still has to pay rates, loan interest, body corp, etc. so they are already losing money if nobody is there. They would appear to be popular enough that that ‘tax’ is still a better deal than putting the place up for long term rent.

With the recent rule changes limiting rent increases but interest rates still so high, a short term rental is now probably more attractive to a property owner than a long term rental as far as covering the costs of owning the property.

If you want fewer AirBnBs and more rentals available, make it more attractive for property owners to provide long term rents, don’t put them all off like they are doing now by making it such a hassle to make a place available for rent.

It’s true that in some Chinese cultures cheating the system is how things are done, but this doesn’t apply to other Asian cultures. Japanese people for example are very respectful of others and culturally are much less likely to bend the rules when compared to natural born Australians, so you can’t really lump them all into one bucket as there are huge differences between them.

Very few Asians are refugees. A refugee is someone who escapes their homeland because their life is in danger, and is allowed to settle in a new country without meeting the normal requirements for citizenship. International students paying for a plane ticket and going back home a few years later when they’re finished studying don’t even come close to the definition of refugee. Have you gone through a university campus carpark recently? There are so many Asian students driving BMWs and other expensive cars because their families are rich, and that’s why they are able to study abroad. Why would they want to live here when back home their family is powerful and politically connected?

While they are here they pay GST and other taxes just like everyone else. Again, just look at COVID when the annual influx of international students stopped - companies went bust and white Australians lost their jobs because there weren’t enough people coming into the country and buying their stuff.

True refugees may well be a drain on society while they get back on their feet, but Asians sure don’t count in that. I’d be interested to know where you got the stats showing how many refugees are Asian? I can’t find any stats on refugees, only on which countries migrants come from and that says this year the most came from India, followed by China, New Zealand and the UK.

What other cultures would you prefer on our streets instead of Asians? I guess you’d rather we change the law to allow burqas and mandate all food be halal as per Islamic law, so we can get more Muslims in to replace all the Asians? No thanks, I like the fact that whatever country Asian people are from, they are happy to follow the laws we have and not try to change them.

Sydney has many more Asians than Brisbane if that’s what you’re asking? I don’t think many are refugees though, most seem to be international students here to study. That’s why you see a lot of younger people but far fewer older people.

As far as people moving here permanently, if you follow what China has done in Hong Kong, it’s awful. Those people are welcome here as far as I’m concerned. Most of them would return home in an instant if the Chinese government left and things went back the way they were, so you can’t blame them for escaping a bad situation.

There are plenty worse cultures that could be filling up our streets. At least most Asian cultures are generally courteous and encourage you to get a job, work hard, and ultimately pay taxes that benefit us all. They also don’t try to change our laws or force us to accept their religious ideas either as some other cultures do. It could be much worse than having Asians here believe me.

It’s the ones who don’t work and just leech off society that bother me, and most of the ones who do that were born here. (Like the guy that carjacked the taxi the other day, we certainly don’t need people like that in our society.)

Traditionally the prices are supposed to double every seven years but thanks to the GFC in 2008 there was a huge reset and prices in many Brisbane areas have only recently started moving again after COVID. But that means there’s a lot of “catching up” to do, so everyone is expecting a sudden jump where the prices go up much quicker than normal. Couple that with the upcoming Olympics and it’s easy to see why some people are predicting a massive increase in house prices.

It’s just a shame so many employers want employees back in the office for jobs where remote work is easily doable. Imagine if all those office workers could live and work remotely out in country towns where they are desperate for more people to keep the town running, freeing up inner city housing and making it much more affordable for those people whose jobs cannot be done remotely. Not to mention cutting down on peak hour traffic. It seems like a win/win but no, managers have begun to realise how unnecessary they are so we can’t have that, everyone has to fill up the roads commuting and live close to the city to keep house prices high, even when it’s completely unnecessary.

It certainly is for tenants, you’re way better off financially to buy if you can. But that can be difficult for a lot of people, either because they just don’t earn enough or because they do earn enough but they don’t want to sacrifice their lifestyle today for financial security tomorrow.

I can certainly see both sides of the argument. If you’re an introvert and you aren’t going to go out drinking all weekend anyway then it makes sense to save that money for your own house, but if you’re an extrovert and you’d be depressed if you never went out on weekends, well what’s the point of spending years in misery saving for a house that you’re never going to spend much time in anyway once you have it?

Yes I’m getting subsidised assets partly funded by other people’s labour, and in return I’m providing them with a place to stay they couldn’t otherwise afford. I’m not forcing them to rent from me, they are free to live somewhere else if they don’t like what I’m offering.

I wouldn’t have offered the place to rent if there was no chance of making money off it, why else would I sacrifice my time and money if I wasn’t going to get anything in return? That would make no sense. Maybe some people put up a spare room for rent out of the goodness of their hearts, but for the vast majority it’s a business. You put in some time and money and you hope to get a payoff at the end of it. Why is that so controversial?

There’s no weaselling about it - you rent out a property to get a tenant to help pay off your debt, that’s how it works. Are you paying $200+/week from your salary to random people to help them out with their rent? No? What makes you think a landlord would want to do the same?

I don’t think you understand how the whole idea of rentals work. It’s not some magic supply of free housing, it’s ordinary everyday people like you and me who scrimp and save in the hope of getting a long term payoff that makes up for all the sacrifice.

I don’t think it sucks to be me, I think it sucks to be a tenant renting at the moment as the supply start to dry up and rents increase beyond what they can afford, thanks to poor government policy inadvertently making renting more expensive than it should be.

I definitely want them, as I’m hoping it will make house prices go up!

I have four rental properties I want to sell because I’m sick of the government interfering even though I try to do the right thing by my tenants (in the 15 years I’ve had rentals I’ve never kicked anyone out or taken any bond money, all my tenants left because their job moved or they got married and needed a bigger place). It really annoys me that one arm of the government puts up interest rates to take money out of people’s pockets, yet the other arm says no no you can’t pass those increases on to tenants, you can’t take money out of their pockets! Like make up your mind, either take the money fairly from everyone or take it from nobody! I’m just waiting for the house prices to go up enough that I can break even when I sell (so I can pay the loans off in full) - if I sold today I’d still have a debt of around $100k to pay off - no thanks.

Apparently I’m not alone, a lot of other landlords are also planning to sell in the coming year so it looks like rents are only going to go up as fewer properties are available for rent. So ironic that a policy was hastily brought in to try to limit rising rents but it will end up making the problem worse, but I guess that’s normal for government.

It will be nice not to have to subsidise people’s rent any more though. At the moment I’m paying around 30% of the rent out of my pocket on top of the rent paid by the tenants in order to meet the bank loan repayments, and that’s on top of the loan repayments for my own place (a tiny one-bedroom unit) so the majority of my salary (and rental income) just goes to the bank. That was the deal going into it though so it comes as no surprise, and I wouldn’t mind so much except most of my tenants seem to have way more money than I do, driving cars that are less than five years old and all I can afford is a 13 year old ex-taxi. One of my tenants is in the same unit complex as me so we’re almost neighbours, and they love getting Uber Eats delivered all the time while I’m instead frequenting Coco’s at Annerley to buy all the cheap stuff with expired best-before dates just to save a few bucks.

Maybe once I’ve sold I should start renting instead, tenants seem to have way more disposable cash than landlords do!

I thought you meant the bogans, get rid of them and the big dumb ute problem will solve itself with nobody to buy them

The video is showing as private now. I guess if you could use a YouTube video downloader while it’s (I presume) streaming you might be able to keep it and perhaps re-upload it to another channel so it can remain public?

I lived in Yeronga without a car for 10 years. I hardly ever used public transport either (mostly because it was so inconvenient it was a whole day trip if you ever wanted to go anywhere). But I could do it because I was comfortable walking a lot. It was a 10 minute walk each way to get groceries, a 45 minute walk (4 km) to where I worked (so no gym membership needed), and being an introvert I didn’t enjoy going out on weekends so that made it easy. The walk home from work was past the shops so I’d just buy a little (at least as much as I could carry) every 2-3 days on the way home from work, so I rarely had to make a specific trip to the shops.

If you’re an extrovert and you have to be out in public all the time, the other advice here about living near good public transport connections is wise, but if you’re an introvert it’s probably beneficial to live within walking distance (or at least a short public transport trip) from where you work, and not too far from some grocery shops. That way food and work is taken care of.

I will admit though, after finally getting a car it’s much nicer to be able to pop down to Bunnings to get something and be home again 30 minutes later, instead of having to set aside a whole day for the journey, or order it online and have to wait a week or two for it to arrive. I guess if you can afford it then a taxi or Uber could be another option, but if you do that too much then it won’t take long before it’s cheaper to own a car.

I ended up buying a cheap ~8 year old ex-taxi hybrid, which only gets driven once or twice a week so uses hardly any fuel (around $200/year) so the overall cost ended up being much less than I expected. It has made me a lot lazier though as I will drive the two minutes to the shops instead of walking for 10, so with WFH also reducing the amount of walking I’m doing I have put on quite a bit of weight (20 kg) so going without a car and having to do so much walking was certainly much better for my physical health.