A World Turned Upside Down: Australian News

Wanderfound · November 25, 2020, 9:22pm

Yup.

The most efficient versions of vehicle models offered in Australia are considerably less efficient than similar vehicles in other markets.

Australia could increasingly become a dumping ground for the world’s least efficient vehicles with sub-par emissions performance, given our lack of fuel efficiency standards. This leaves us on a dangerous path towards not only higher vehicle emissions, but also higher fuel costs for passenger travel and freight.

Australia has attempted to impose CO₂ or fuel efficiency standards on light vehicles several times over the past 20 years, but without success. While the federal government was committed to addressing this issue in 2015, four years later we are still yet to hear when – or even if – mandatory fuel efficiency standards will ever be introduced.

RAvery · November 25, 2020, 10:06pm

So the Road Warrior is something of a documentary.

Wanderfound · November 26, 2020, 6:47am

Go to Andamooka and you can see it in person.

Literally at the end of the road, out past the uranium mining towns. Kinda like a much rougher version of Coober Pedy.

They don’t have a local cop; they have a locum who visits once a month or so. When he does, the population of the town drops noticeably as all of the local outlaws scatter into the desert.

—

All of the opal mining towns (Andamooka, Coober Pedy, Lightning Ridge) have abnormally high missing persons rates. They tend to attract folks who don’t play nicely with others, and it’s just too easy to whack someone over the head with a shovel and push them down a mineshaft.

Wanderfound · November 28, 2020, 7:33am

jerwin · December 3, 2020, 11:45pm

can you provide any insight into “paul murray”, of sky news? He seems very prone to conspiracy theorizing on behalf of Trump and the right wing.

Wanderfound · December 4, 2020, 2:23am

Sky News in Oz = Murdoch’s far-right propaganda channel. Somewhere between Fox and Brietbart.

The entire network consists of deranged ratbags.

RAvery · December 10, 2020, 12:46am

I don’t how this is possible, but…

Wanderfound · December 14, 2020, 11:59am

Wanderfound · January 12, 2021, 5:40am

At the start of the pandemic, Australians were told lockdown was a vital measure to protect the healthcare system. Outpatient specialist clinic appointments were at first deferred, and then moved to telehealth. Mask mandates, working from home, curfews, movement restrictions and border closures all promptly came into force. All to protect the health system, right?

Yet last week, footage showed 24 ambulances ramped at Royal Adelaide Hospital, with patients waiting hours on stretchers to be triaged. South Australia currently has a grand total of 15 cases of COVID-19.

Western Australia had 1700 hours of ambulance ramping in August 2020, compared to 500 hours in August 2015. WA also has 15 active cases of COVID-19. And in mid-December, Ambulance Victoria called a code red, with over 100 people waiting for ambulances. In July 2020, two people had fatal cardiac arrests in ambulances ramped outside Victorian hospitals. Victoria currently has 38 active cases of COVID-19.

ERs aren’t clogged because of COVID-19 patients - they are overflowing because of chronically ill people who can’t access timely, quality, affordable treatment in the public outpatient specialist clinic system. And while lockdown has exacerbated the problems plaguing outpatient systems across the country, the issues were there long before the pandemic.

There is no reason to be smug.

Wanderfound · January 16, 2021, 8:25am

Wanderfound · January 16, 2021, 11:39am

Wanderfound · January 17, 2021, 9:23pm

—

She’s talking about reporters from the ABC. Specifically, this one:

Both Ferguson and her partner (Tony Jones) have a long history of this sort of shit. Do it enough times, and it isn’t just incompetence; it’s collaboration.

Wanderfound · January 22, 2021, 1:09am

Wanderfound · January 24, 2021, 4:48am

Context for furriners:

Margaret Court was an Australian tennis star in the 1960’s and 70’s. She’s also an extreme right fundamentalist who has spent decades ranting about Satanic lesbians infiltrating women’s tennis.

Pretty much every time we get a conservative government, she is showered in honours and awards, ostensibly for services to sport but actually for services to bigotry.

It happened again this year, but unusually received some minor pushback from a few ALP politicians.

Anyway:

Wanderfound · January 24, 2021, 12:21pm

Wanderfound · January 25, 2021, 4:27am

Wanderfound · January 25, 2021, 6:05am

Thread re: the NDIS.

Wanderfound · January 25, 2021, 9:02am

Wanderfound · January 26, 2021, 1:22am

It’s Invasion Day again.

—

An annual celebration of genocide and plunder is utterly fucked.
No, moving that celebration to a different day does not significantly improve it.

—

Wanderfound · January 26, 2021, 1:50am