Australia Inc. has spoken again.
There’s no chance any government will actually aim to lower dwelling prices in real terms.(goal of cutting back net migration).
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Keep thinking about housing. If the governments really cared about supply:
I’d like to see a federal government program to triple construction of on campus accomodation for international students. It’s fine to have plenty of overseas students - just house them. And Unis and their grounds are federally owned.
At a state level I really like Bus Depots for building affordable housing, they are in incredible locations here in Sydney and I don’t
understand why the government sells/builds property in the airspace above them.
For anyone who knows Sydney there’s bus depots at Centennial Park(edge cliff and then at Randwick), at Burwood and Leichardt in the inner west, Willoughby and Brookvale in the north.
Pop apartments above the buses.
Not only do you have an automatic transport hub you could house the essential workers who drive them as well as vulnerable people who need them.
Might write a short letter to my federal/state MP.
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He’s shown strong leadership along with Nova Peris and NSW Premier Chris Minns. All have stood up for the Jewish community and their efforts are greatly appreciated.
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Have you read this entire document ?
Bottom line is that very few of us will abide by Government control of our heating, cooling, pool pumps and EV charging without a huge farking fight. Easy to set standards and regulations, but to get people to comply will be interesting. The cost of replacing all these items in your home would run into many $1000s of dollars, and while I am sure clever engineers will make a device that has some algorithm to control power to these existing appliances, no matter what this report says cost of install and control would be high. Our next home will be totally independent of the grid, as we are being totally ripped off currently with charges for power and gas.
Good opinion piece in todays Age and some very good Letters to Editor as well.
### Opinion
# More than one community, this was an attack on Melbourne’s multicultural fabric
A few months ago, my family started attending a Melbourne synagogue regularly on Saturday mornings in preparation for my daughter’s bat mitzvah.
The bat mitzvah is a Jewish coming-of-age ritual when 12-year-old girls reach symbolic adulthood, according to the Jewish faith.
My family’s Jewishness is largely secular – defined by song, food and speaking the Yiddish language. But to mark her bat mitzvah, my daughter was eager to learn to read from the Torah and sing the ancient melodies and words as our people have done for thousands of years.
Before she stepped up to the Torah on her bat mitzvah day just a few weeks ago, a friend who is a scholar in Jewish mysticism offered her two pieces of advice: have fun, and above all, be loud.
Her performance was indeed loud, spirited and flawless, filling me with such pride (or “naches” as we would say in Yiddish), that since then, my family has continued going to synagogue on Saturday mornings.
On Friday, even as I was reporting on the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea, I struggled to believe that anyone in Australia would so brazenly target a place of peaceful prayer. The fact that there were people inside at the time of the attack makes it all the more sickening.
In the course of my reporting I called Rabbi Noam Sendor, who leads a separate congregation in Caulfield, looking for comment. I asked him if he thought the attack had created a mood of reluctance among his congregants about attending his Sabbath services.
“On the contrary,” he said almost before I’d even finished the question. “Unequivocally, it’s defiance.”
It was in this spirit that I went back to my own synagogue at the weekend, walking down the street publicly wearing my yarmulke, which identifies me as a Jew.
The synagogue I attend is lay-led, meaning there is no rabbi officiating the service. And unlike most other orthodox congregations, where only males read from the Torah, in our congregation men and women participate equally. This communal nature of my synagogue raises the likelihood that anyone might get dragged into fulfilling some of the many Sabbath rituals without prior warning.
Inside that Addas Israel Synagogue following the attack,
On Saturday, it was my turn for Hagbah – holding the Torah scroll after the reading is complete. In preparation for the Torah scroll to be placed safely back in its ark, my daughter again sang the prayers she had learned months earlier, while my son dressed it in its cover. As this was happening, I started to wonder about the condition of the Torah scrolls that were kept in the Adass Israel synagogue.
Although I had never set foot inside, I knew the Adass Israel building well from the outside. I have lived in Ripponlea for about six years now, and often walked my dog around there hoping to overhear a few words of Yiddish from the congregants who would regularly mill outside.
On Saturday morning, I clutched the Torah scroll to my chest while its substantial heaviness weighed on the wooden handles propped on my legs. I thought about how the Adass Israel community might have wanted to do little more than what I was doing at that moment – joining in the weekly ritual of the Sabbath service, surrounded by family and community.
These scrolls hold our creation stories: Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Moses leading his people to freedom from slavery in Egypt. These narratives all come from the Torah. They are Jewish stories, yes, but they belong to everyone too.
While the firebombing on Friday targeted the Adass Israel congregation specifically, it felt to me that this was an attack on the Jewish community more broadly. But even more than that, it felt that this was an attack on the identity of Victoria, and its multicultural fabric.
Currently, it’s impossible to know what the exact intentions of those who firebombed the Adass Israel synagogue were. Whether it was to protest the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, meant as an act of hate against Jews, or something else entirely remains unclear.
But if those attackers hoped to deter us from practising our faith and culture, it simply will not work. For me, it has had the opposite effect. Antisemitism is an ancient hatred. Yet, Jews have shown for thousands of years that persecution and violence always fails – regardless of its severity.
This attack has made me feel more determined to practice my Jewishness openly. On this past Sabbath, I held my Jewish identity closer. I was determined to follow my daughter’s example, and the advice from my friend, to be loud about it, too. Every Jew in Australia has the right do just that.
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I dunno if you want to be totally independent.
If you have 2 x tesla power walls, you can send power back to the grid during peak demand and get paid a lot for it, can in NsW anyway.
Old mate Richard ings (asada) now renewable energy promoter.
https://x.com/ringsau/status/1864893350551470389?s=46
Extra 10,000 Australians becoming homeless each month, up 22% in three years, report says
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Except advice we are being given is that excess power will not be paid for in the future, and current rates will continue to drop.
If Community Batteries where installed, then I might reconsider, but currently we get very little solar rebate and the supply charges are nearly 20% of the cost.
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They don’t know who did it or their motive. It’s premature to label it as anything.
It’s most likely a hate crime/act of terror, but we don’t know yet.
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After Chris Minns initial misstep not stopping that mob from marching to the Opera House in that faithful night of infamy, he’s been the best Premier in the country in denouncing antisemitism and trying to be proactive in preventing it’s repercussions. He’s been one of the stronger leaders.
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Why do you continue to misrepresent the facts on that peaceful march?
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I don’t. It was an embarrassment for this country. We see it differently.
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It wasn’t a protest it was a celebration of the death of Jews in Israel. Even Penny Wong condemned it.
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A peaceful march that celebrated a terrostist attack?
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There was the event at Lakemba, separate from the Opera House march
Response to the rise in anti Semitic behaviours is fast becoming a key election issue.
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People have picked their sides (even the Left and right), and are playing this like some political football. It’s tit for tat.
The violence is a disgrace. The bombing and killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians is a disgrace. It is not ok to be killing innocent people, ever.
Both Netanyahu and Hamas need to be held to account, for bringing innocent people into the cross fire.
I’m glad the Goverment has changed their stance
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Correct 
. True. It’s perpetuating a narrative of a weak leader who’s slow in reacting to the situation around him. Cost of living, now antisemitism.
Attorney General Dreyfus says let’s leave it to the police as to the description whether it’s a terrorist attack.
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