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Well they couldn't really say "Here LIES Donald Trump", because he's been doing that all his life.

Just to let you know there is no AI on the site, there is only NI

Thanks Peter. Will try to drop in from time to time to make sure you're all behaving yourselves. I've tried to cut down on screen time but it's easier said than done. Have been co-administering an inyourfacebook group so that's taken a bit of effort and tended to drag oneself back online. So all good, still breathing in and breathing out and wearing my trousers the right way round.

Many years ago I use to follow F1 quit heavily however having nearly all races in the middle of the night whilst also going to work I lost interest as I became sleep deprived however last year I renewed my interest in F1 being able to watch all races, through Kayo, and not being able to work. The other thing is having a great Australian kid in Oscar Piastri representing Australia to the world driving a Mclaren has been great to watch, becoming an Australian hero to all of us that are into F1. Anyway I imagined what it would be like to Australia if Oscar's car in the Melbourne Grand Prix was painted in the iconic Australian Green and Gold. What a marketing success it would be. So I created a mock up of one:

Tonight, at midnight, lift your left leg up off the ground. That way you’ll be starting the new year off on the right foot.

Have been going through the process of scanning some old photos into digital form. I don't know what film format these are; Red would know. It's whatever type of compact camera one would have had in 1988. A couple of photos for onetrack as it's sort of over his way in a roundabout fashion. Unloading at Legune Station, 1988. Legune is in the Territory up near the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf but is accessed via Kununarra and then up through the Ord scheme farmland. I remember well that horrible trip. I flew to Alice Springs and picked up the truck and machine and drove it from there all the way to Legune in hot weather with 55mph diffs and no lining inside the cab roof, just bare metal. For anyone who hasn't driven a B model, there's not much room between your head and the roof so it was certainly cooking the melon. To get anywhere soon, I had to push the foot down and with a very heavy throttle spring, the right foot was numb most of the way. One saving grace is that it didn't have 48mph diffs. That would have been too cruel. The plan was to go back to Alice springs and bring the second machine up, but fortunately they found someone else to drop it off at Katherine, so the second trip was only from Legune to Katherine and return. The tractors were stick shift D7Gs with manual angle blade, rippers and scrub canopy, about 27 tonne in weight. The float was a side load float that swivelled sideways and you could pin it solid but nobody ever did. It didn't sway much out on the road unless you really cranked it around a tight bend. Not the sort of thing you do in a B model anyway. To end load it you needed a big bank or ramp as it had full size 20" wheels on the back, and was only done if loading graders. I learned to side load with this same truck and float four years earlier when the leader of our pack led us across a Quinyambie Station track on a trip from Toowoomba to Frome Downs. He wasn't the world's best navigator. The track was passable for single trailers but had too many sandy dune crossings for doubles. Not high dunes, but just raw sand with no clay on the dune crossings. We had a 375 V8 R model Mack with a dozer on a float, and a second hay hauling trailer carrying a grader hooked on behind, and it got stuck on almost every dune for about 140 klm of the trip. He would drive until he got stuck, then I'd pull up behind him in the old B model with the single float and dozer, unload the dozer, then tow him over the dune, reload the dozer, then follow on to the next dune and do it all again. From memory it took about three days and I side loaded and unloaded that machine about a million times. I'd never side loaded before that trip. The old B model with the quad box was good in the sand dune country. You never get stuck for a gear in one of those. Just rattle the sticks round and round and it will always drop into a gear somewhere. At Legune The camera catching the blade as it's about to topple over. This is the second machine (with new tracks) Retirement is good; there are some things I miss but I don't miss the flies and getting up at 4am..

In USA a far right influence group called Turning Point Was started up by Charlie Kirk & Bill Montgomery They promoted open gun ownership & anti vax Covid conspiracy. Kirk died by gun violence Montgomery died of Covid. The dildo of consequences seldom arrives lubricated.

I don't disagree, but ironically, prrivate enterprise is subject to much stricter rules than the government - and those rules are provided by the government - usually through tax disincentives, but also now conduct rules, etc. So unless private enterprise want to pay through the nose and the individuals through FBT, they have a much more sparlingly set of allowable expenses then your MPs (this is why the APS won't accept gifts - as well as the conduct rules. You will not believe the rules I had to navigate to accept a vendor dontaing £50 to an authorised charity in my name - in the end I asked them to donate it in their name - I don't need the accolade - and the rules are similar in Australia). The decision to travel is different to the cost of travel. The question of whether deliveing a 6 minute speech was value for money is not the same question as whether the cost of the travel and allowable expenses is accceptable or not. The minister won't usually unilaterally decide to trot off to the UN and make a speech; it will be done in consultation with the cabinet/PM office because there will be some political objective. Was it literally jump off the plane, walk in, give a 6 minute speech, walk out and jump on a plane back? Or was there some sort of unofficial meetings taking place. We tend to look at these things in isolation, but often there are tactics in play to reach an objective - one of the many battles to win the war. Even if it were literally off the plane, speak, on the plane and nothing else, it may have been part of some tactics to demonstrate to allies or partners a commitment to further negotiate for the benefit. It will all depend on the objective and whether or not that contibuted to/achieved the objective. Those questions will determine whether the trip - regardless of the cost, which has to include the minister and their staffers' time that could be spent doing something else productive was value for money. But once it is decided a trip is requied, then the quetion of cost/allowable expenses of the trip being excessive comes into play. Apart from obviosuly excessive cases, that is a subjective matter of judgement. I personally didn't think the $100K (was it) for Wells to go to NY with however many staffers given the nature of the work, etc was excessive Yes, it could have been cheaper, but these are not jollies and they should be afforded the facilities that allows them to be effective working in almost diametrcially opposed timezones where they don't have the luxury of time to adjust for jet lag. On the assertion that they are paid enough for their families, I have two points to make. Firstly when pollies have to suffer the lurks of the job - harassment, houding by the press, public admonishment, threats to life, etc,. we all say that is part and parcel of the job, they knew it before they entered it, and we have no sympathy. The perks are also part and parcel of the job - so why are we criticising them for utilising them? Maybe if you can't take your family with you, on the salary you can get, it may dissuade those that have a modicum of competence and you will only be left with the SFMs of the world. Of course we know most pollies at the top aren't the best, but to be honest, compared to the last lot, I will take these ones any day. Secondly, to you or I, $400K is a lot of money. But don't forget, these are really CEOs of large national organisations. If we are going to compare the expenses to large national private enterprises, how much do CEOs of equivlnet sized with equivalent responsibilites in the private side earn? Maybe we should just bump up ministers' salaries accordingly and not let their families travel be on the public purse? As I recall the APS scoundrel who was in charge of one of the government department (Human Services, I think) at the time of Robodebt was on something like $900K/year... And that person reports to a minister! If that were private enterprise, the minister would be earaning more than the officer reporting to them - normally. Sincerely, Devil's Advocate, Esq.

Oh that we should do the same.

Great news! Norway has a solution to the present international jitters. But it might not be welcomed by the major media industry. (Due to stealing a lot of media hysteria.)

It's too late! The e-Horse has volted.

been talking about it for as long as the Epstein files have been in the headlines

The main problem with recycling EV batteries in Australia is that there have not been enough of them to warrant the creation of a recycling plant. This will of course change as more EVs are added to the Australian vehicle fleet. The early recycling plants in the US (there are a number of good You tube videos) have proven that almost all of the critical minerals are recyclable. We just do not have the volume at this stage & that is all lithium based batteries able to be recycled. At this stage old EV batteries are still quite valuable for use as home or commercial energy storage but there are few available & mostly they are from early BMW or Nissan Leaf EVs as well as those recovered from crashed EVs. I imagine the federal and state governments battery subsidies will have the effect of reducing the value of these as well. Once an EV battery gets to about 70% of its original storage capacity, it still has many years of home storage left even though no longer useful in the EV. Add to that the fact that EV batteries are lasting considerably longer than original predictions. I have done just over 35,000km in my 2023 MG4 & battery health is still showing 100% The good thing about all of this is that batteries have a circular life with 96% of materials being recovered during recycling. Compare that to fossil fuels which are used once & then they are gone.

I emailed Spacey, Says he's well, but not wise. Says he can't log in at all. Didn't explain why.

This 1982 photo shows the Simpson Desert the driest I've ever seen it. The only vegetation visible from the air was the shrubs and trees, no grass to be seen. The drought broke the following year with a lot of flooding. The photo is taken from a Cherokee Six just entering the Simpson from the east en route from Windorah to Alice Springs. Everything went ok until halfway across when the alternator died and the battery went flat, so no radio or instruments, just the compass. We landed on the strip at Ringwood Station on the western edge of the desert, and luckily the station owner was home to see us come in. He drove over and picked up the pilot so he could use the station radio to call Alice Springs airport to clear a space for us to fly into there, being pre satellite days when the stations relied on HF radio for communications. We got to stay overnight in Alice waiting on the new alternator to be fitted, then on to Bililuna in W.A. the next day. Another surprise there on landing - the client (Shell if my memory is correct) had given the crew three days off as the Halls Creek annual races were on. We took off again to Halls Creek which took us straight past the Wolfe Creek crater, so that was a good sight from the air. It was a memorable trip for different reasons. When the battery went dead over the Simpson, it really got us thinking how little preparation we had in regard to survival gear if we had to put down in a dune corridor. We didn't even have near enough water required to stay on the ground any length of time. As a comparison of seasons, I took these photos with a digital compact camera in the Simpson in 2010 after an extended wet period. Most of the green you can see is grass and herbage that burns off with hot, dry conditions. It was very different to the other deserts I've been in which have more permanent vegetation in the dune corridors, and much more spinifex. Edit: Just as a post script, it wasn't far from where these three photos were taken that I came across an old survey marker peg that was the site of Geosurveys Base Camp #1 from Reg Spriggs' first motorised crossing of the desert in 1962.

There's a DIY kit for everything.....

Season's greetings to all 🍾

I recently installed a new system as when we bought the property it had 8 x 175 watt panels approx 20 years old & the best out put I was getting in the middle of the day in Spring was about 950 watts. Each new panel is rated at 440 watts but are bi-facial so also generate from reflected light from the roof below. I have 20 panels arranged in 7 East facing, 6 North facing & 7 West facing on my Garage & Shed roofs at approximately 15 degrees of tilt. Total theoretical maximum generation 8.8 kW. Also installed is a 10kWh hybrid inverter and an 18.64 kWh battery. Installation was on 24 November 2025. Results to date are astounding. Heat hasn't made much difference as far as I can tell. We have had numerous days in the mid 30s & a few high 30s. The maximum generation has been 10 kW from a theoretical 8.8kW. Documentation states Up to 15% more from the reflected light to the under side of the panel so that is almost what has been achieved. There is considerable skepticism as to bi-facial effectiveness but my system proves it works as specified. Not only that, I haven't used any grid power at all & have had air conditioning on most of the time with everything in the house electric (except the gas BBQ & solar hot water). I have also charged my EV & 80 volt zero turn mower from the system. The total cost was $11,600.00 & I reckon 4-5 years payback. Anyone with a reasonable rooftop solar system should take advantage of the battery subsidies on offer. Our battery has never depleted below 60% overnight so a large battery (more than 15 kWh) is likely to be overkill for most people. The Federal subsidy scheme has been so successful that the $3.2 billion, expected to last till 2030 is half gone already & the scheme is being modified as installers were encouraging huge batteries (up to 50kWh) not up to 15kW that they were expecting. This was due to the subsidy being based on $ per kWh & a big battery could be installed for way less per kWh than a small one. All I am paying now is the daily supply charge. Some retailers are now charging over $2.00 a day for this. If all goes well over the next year I may pull the plug on the grid entirely.

I've enjoyed having my 10 year old Canon EOS 700D working again. Sometimes the phone camera just isn't enough. I misplaced the Canon battery charger and had been looking for it on and off for about 18 months, so that's how long the camera has sat idle. I was about to buy one on eBay when I finally found the charger (in the most obvious place). Here's a couple of pics of the birdy friends hanging out at the verandah bird bath. First one is three Butcher Bird fledglings. It's a family of five this year; mum and dad Butcher Birds are very proud. Second one is a Blue-faced Honeyeater. Lens is a Canon EFS 55-250mm.. I'm not much of a photographer, just point and click, but I do like to keep it on the manual focus setting instead of full auto.

Nev, Your going to be 68, celebrate that and enjoy dyslexia.

Goats Pine for their owners, and can be very upset. when left alone. They are good at eating blackberry bushes. I suppose My Dexta Tractor is able to mow when the slasher is attached to it, That's one of the reasons I bought it second hand in 1973. I've had the exhaust Manifold soaking in degreaser for about a week to remove the Internal carbon deposits. Not far off firing it up. It holds only 5 litres of coolant. Like all such jobs you spend about 5 times what you expected to on it and it's been very hot in the Place where I'm working on it. Kitchen Stove just being replaced at the Moment, right on the deadline for Xmas EVE. I had great difficulty getting it. My pet Blue Tongue has deserted Me. My beautiful Howard Rotary Hoe has a new Owner. It's practically Never had a spanner on it. Never Monstered or left out in the weather. Happy Xmas everyone. I might Make 86 in 10 days. The trouble with that is the majority of my contacts/ Friend s and relatives have Passed on. . Cheers. Nev

You may have noticed that over the last 7 days, I have added 27 aircraft profiles in the AP site. I had a few problems with the last one, screwing up the photos and having to do a number of edits to the basic profile. Wherever possible, I include 5 photos on each profile, header and gallery. That may require searching through up to 100 thumbnail images for each aircraft, selecting the best ones to illustrate the aircraft. I try to select different angles and illustrations of features such as cabin access, folding wings, etc. I expand the thumbnail to the full size uploaded to get the best quality image and download that into a folder, one folder for each category - 3 axis, GA single engine, etc. With 1968 profiles completed, and a few more in preparation, that means about 10,000 images. However, a lot of these are far from acceptable. Most are too large, and a few are too small. I standardise all photos to an aspect ratio of 16:9, and a width of 750 pixels. ie., 750x422 pixels in size. This requires resizing and cropping. I am amazed at how badly exposed some photos are, very dark, detail in places like under wing indistinguishable, and if taking off in front of bushes or hedges, the background is a sold block of black. There are often odd items which distract from the image, such as tiedown ropes dropped on the ground, ropes and balustrades around the aircraft which I clone out of the photo. The original image is saved to an Originals subfolder attached to each category folder on my external hard drive. Therefore at least 20,000 images, just for the AP site. Here are a few examples from the last lot. They have been further reduced to 400 pixels wide, originals first, edited second.

My good friend Chatty gave me the following answer: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance argues that the deepest satisfaction in life comes from caring engagement with what we do, rather than from chasing abstract goals or rigid ideologies: by reconciling the “classical” mindset (logic, analysis, technology) with the “romantic” mindset (intuition, aesthetics, immediate experience), Robert Pirsig proposes that Quality—an unnameable but real sense of what is good—arises when we pay attentive, responsible care to both our inner lives and the practical tasks before us, whether maintaining a motorcycle or living thoughtfully in the modern world.

Make sure the oil hasn't spread onto the flywheel and coil. Take the engine cowling off and clean the outside surface of the flywheel and magnet and the section of the coil that sits close to the flywheel. Use some emery cloth to clean up the flywheel outer surface and check the coil to flywheel gap. Install a new spark plug (90% of starting problems). Use some "Carburettor & Throttle Body Cleaner" (spray can) to clean out the carburettor passageways. No sorry, all that above is made-up BS. What actually happened is, you killed the little hamster inside the engine that makes it go, when you tipped it over and left it. You need a new engine hamster.

Two men walk into a pet shop in Dingle, they walk over to the bird section and Gerry says to Joe, 'Dat's dem.' The owner comes over and asks if he can help them. 'Yeah, we'll take four of dem dere little budgies in dat cage up dere,' says Gerry. The owner puts the budgies in a cardboard box. Joe and Gerry pay for the birds, leave the shop and get into Gerry's truck to drive to the top of the Connor Pass. At the Connor Pass , Gerry looks down at the 1000 foot drop and says, 'Dis looks like a grand place.' He takes two birds out of the box, puts one on each shoulder and jumps off the cliff. Joe watches as the budgies fly off and Gerry falls all the way to the bottom, killing himself stone dead! Looking down at the remains of his best pal, Joe shakes his head and says, 'Fook dat. Dis budgie jumping is too fook'n dangerous for me!'

Venezuela's current production is only about one million barrels per day, which is a drop in the bucket and certainly won't bother China very much. Estimates are that to get it up to even 1.5m bpd would cost about $7 billion and take 2 years. Chevron is the only major US producer with a significant footprint in the country, and Trump can't simply order other US producers to move into a politically unstable country and spend billions of dollars ramping up production as he claims, even if they are led by his cronies. At the end of the day they have turn a profit for their shareholders, and even if Venezuela is sitting on 303 billion barrels of oil, which the US doesn't own anyway, time is not on Donald's side in getting his hands on it in his political lifetime. At the end of the day, they may have Maduro in jail but not much else to show for their efforts.

Sometimes I do wonder about people's ability to think logically. We have yet to buy a replacement for the written off mini. It is really my partner's car and she flatly refuses to drive a manual. Which is a pain in the UK, because most cars - even luxury ones - that are sold are manual. So, after fruitlessly searching for a replacement for her that was in budget and auto, I took a look at some EV cars - as they are all "autos". Used car sellers here work a bit dfifferently to Aus (at least when I last purchased a used car in Aus, which was admittedly about 20 years ago). If you know what you want, you can buy online unseen from a reputable seller and if you're not entirely happy with it whtin 2 weeks or something like 1000 miles, they will refund you in full and take the car back. In addition, most offer 12 month warranties under similar terms to new car warranties. And of course, if the car they sell you has a balance of a new car warranty, that transfers to you (as long as the previous owner/s have kept to the terms of the warranty) and they will make up the difference if the balance of the new car warranty is less than the 12 months. There is also statutory protections as well that the larger used car dealers adhere to without resistance because they work on a model to stack them high and kiss them good bye. They don't make much on the sale of a car, but on the finance. They don't much like cash buyers, but to ensure they get the volume, they do a lot to preserve their reputation. Some of these are not venturing into making the used EV purchase a virtually risk free proces as they see a big market of better value cars and better demand. So I was looking at autotrader.co.uk for cars with bettter than 250 mile range. I selected a few, of which the MG ZS 72.x KW was one, and checked out the ads. The reputable dealers have RAC or AA battery tests performed. Fore about £9K, I was looking at 2021 - 2023 models of varying mileage, but averaging arount 30k miles (50k kms). So much for 10% degradation per year of the battery - most were showing 98 - 99% of life left in them, and the lowest was about 96%. I did some research and, ironically, apart from the mini, the real world ranges were not far off the claimed range - probably on average 10% less than claimed range. The batter checks also stated claimed range and provided estimated real world ranges at 0 degrees c ambient temperature and 25 degrees C ambient temperatures. At zero degrees, it was about 25% less range than at 25 degrees. OK, for the cars I was looking at, and taking into account the decreased range at motorway speeds, I should still be able to get to London without needing a charge and have some in reserve. Sticking it on a charger overnight would have me right tor the trip home and assuming it would be 0 - 100% charge. cost me about £35 - half that of the Volvo and about 2/3 that of the now dead mini. Not to mention the generally lower servicing costs, less to go wrong and therfore more reliability, etc. it sounds like a no-brainer - especialliy when you consider partner's driving - glorified shopping trolley and occasional run to pick up the daughter - on A roads as she doesn't do motorways/highways. So, even then, her range will normally be longer than the average. So, I decided to broach with her the subject of getting an EV. I was met with a resounding "no" at every turn. But no logical argument to say why not. Just "I want a petrol car..." I was flabbergasted.. Why? Eve3rything she read was about EV fires and lack of infrastructure. Also, when we sell this house, she may end up in a mid-terrace house with no guarantee she can park outside to connect the car to charge. OK.. the infrastrcutre down here is not what it is in London. But there is good infrastructure. First the chances she won'[t have a driveway are pretty low. But even on that assumption, I explained the area she was looking at has a public charging point and there is no petrol station for about 10 miles or so heading towards Exeter. So, it would be easier for her if she was low on fuel to get the battery topped up than petrol in her car. Then she said she would use it only hopefully once evry couple of weeks and the battery woudl discharge.. I could have put any number of stats in front of her to say that it would take anything from 6 months to a year to discharge a 72kw/h battery not in use.. and that she could expect the lead acid battery to discharge enough to make the car unuseable loing before that. Still she wasn't having a bar of it. Oh well, she will have to live with it and the costs. But the research I did made EVs even more compelling to me than they were beforehand. [Edit] I forgot to mention, most of the batteries still have 5 years of warranty left and a lot of the cars still had 2 - 3 years of warranty left, too.. Don't get that with the petrol cars of the same age.

The E-horse was a marketing failure. Owners had difficulty plugging in a charger.

I simply pointed out that the recycling industry is tooling up to provide recycling. There have been lots of doomsday sadsacks claiming that EV's are a pollution problem. It looks like the EV has a more profitable recycling lifecycle than piston powered vehicles.

Philosophy for beginners....

Your best typo yet... "untittingly" 😆

Here's a random thought... Happy new year everyone.. Hope it is a good one!

Mary & Joseph were going to name him Jerry. Just as the scribe started to write, Mary stubbed her toe. Christmas Adam comes before Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve isn't happy.

I like looking through my dad’s old photos, that same square format, often on that embossed texture type material. he had a lifetime of travelling the outback shearing from the age of 19. There are shots of a bunch of is mates and him drinking flagons crossing the Nullarbor for the first time, looked dirt still then, in a Hillman hunter sports sedan. there are shearing sheds in the middle Queensland and many places I remember him describing to me as a child looking through the albums. i kept these when I lost him as I found them more precious than the physical goods he had. I will sit down and show my grandson through them when he is old enough to understand what they are. is their anyone on the forum who was a shearer in the 60’s and 70’s or around the big shearing properties back then?

Burial at sea for me, straight into a shark would be best. Spend the bucks on a boat ride and party.

Another one to ponder

Here's a clever post from FB supposedly written by a US soldier, going by the photo that was attached to it. I’m the guy wearing the black Burberry jacket that you tried to mug the other night. You pulled a knife on me and my girlfriend, demanding I hand over my jacket, and also asked for her purse and earrings. I hope you come across this message because there are a few things I want to clear up. First off, I’m really sorry for the embarrassment you must’ve felt. I didn’t expect you to literally crap your pants when I pulled out my pistol after you took my jacket. I mean, it wasn’t that cold, and I had the jacket on for a reason. You see, my girlfriend had just bought me that Kimber Custom Model 1911 .45 ACP pistol for my birthday, and we had picked up a shoulder holster for it that same night. It’s a pretty intimidating weapon when pointed at your head, isn’t it? I can only imagine how unpleasant it was walking away from me especially barefoot after I made you leave your shoes, wallet, and cell phone behind. I figured without those, you wouldn’t be able to call for backup or run to get help to mug us again. After that, I called your mom yeah, she’s listed as “Momma” in your phone and explained the situation. Then I went to fill up my gas tank, using your credit card. I wasn’t the only one filling up, though I also took care of four other people’s tanks at the gas station, including the guy with the motor home who was super grateful after I filled up 153 gallons for him. I ended up giving your shoes to a homeless guy outside Vinnie Van Go Go’s, along with all the cash from your wallet. That definitely made his day. Oh, and I tossed your wallet into the big “pimp mobile” parked at the curb, after smashing the windshield, side window, and keying the whole driver’s side of the car. Had to make it memorable, you know? Earlier, I made a few phone calls two to the DA’s office and one to the FBI. I mentioned President Obama as a possible target, and the FBI agent I spoke to seemed pretty serious. We had a nice, long chat (guess he was tracing your number, etc.). Look, I should apologize for not just killing you, but honestly, I think what I did is a far more fitting punishment for your crime. You can reflect on your choices while dealing with all the issues I’ve just handed you. And remember, next time you try something like this, you might not be so lucky. Best of luck sorting things out.

Getting back to the oriinal idea of this thread - the governmental knee-jerk to firearm possession, it is becoming obvious that governments have been resting on the laurels of the original gun buy-back and the laws made in the late 1990s. That was thirty years ago. Are you still using the mobile brick phone you had back then? Are you still using dial-up ADSL? BY the same token, firearms have developed a lot in that time, but the classification of them for licensing purposes has not. I was watching a video about the point of the failure of firearms classification to keep pace with firearm development. As with all laws and regulations, the devil is in the definition. Let's look at teh shotguns used at Bondi. How was it that they, in particular, are legal under the classification system? The types of firearms permitted in Category A, the most commonly held licence, are: Air rifles; Rimfire rifles (other than self-loading); Shotguns (other than pump action, lever action or self-loading), and Shotgun/rimfire combinations. The type of interest from Bondi is the Shotguns (other than pump action, lever action or self-loading. One thinks of the break action shotgun, single or double barrel. We see pump action shotguns in movies and news videos from the USA, so we are aware of how they are operated. Lever action shotguns operate in a similar way to what we see as rifles in cowboy movies. Self-loading means that a fresh round is loaded by using the recoil from the round fired before the round to be loaded. However, firearm manufacturers developed another means of rapid reloading from a magazine using a loading lever similar to the idea of a bolt action rifle. This is the type of shotgun used at Bondi. As of that date, bolt action shotguns were Category A and legal to own. I believe that these have a 6-round magazine + 1 in the spout. To see what I'm talking about, watch this video from the 17:00 to 20:00 time marks. The problem with any knee-jerk response and regulations made on the fly will have consequences that firstly will financially affect firearms owners and later affect lawful activities such as feral animal control. Feral animals such as pigs, foxes, deer etc are becoming a greater problem because landowners are denying permission to recreational hunters to shoot on their properties. And yes I know all about tthe horror stories of idiot shooters. While it is good to hear politicians on both sides joining together to attack the problem, one must encourage them to keep at it, but not make flash in the pan decisions.

There was no co-ordination between the States licencing authorities for decades, due to parochial interests, and "jurisdictional claims and interests". Then, in late January 2006, a rapist/double murderer, who raped and murdered two sisters, one after the other in Melbourne, stole one of the womens cars and took off to the North of Australia. The murderer was intercepted on a lonely section of the NW Coastal Hwy, many kms from Karratha, about 3 days after the murders, by a lone police officer, Sgt Gray, who was looking for him, for driving off without paying for fuel. The murderer (a giant of a man) jumped out of the stolen car and launched a massive king hit attack on the policeman, breaking 13 bones in his face in the one hit. The policeman went down, but came back up again, and the murderer came at him again. The policeman drew his firearm and killed the murderer on the spot, with one accurate shot (he just happened to be a firearms trainer in the W.A. Police). But for over 6 hrs, no-one knew who the murderer was, who the car belonged to, and what the murderer had done. This was all due to a lack of a national database of vehicle registrations and a lack of information-sharing between State Police forces. Within a very short time after this disturbing event, a national database of vehicle registrations was initiated, accessible to any police officer anywhere in Australia, and other important information-sharing on fleeing felons and violent crimes was established. If it took just one murderous attack on a lone police officer in the Outback to galvanise the States into action to produce real-time violent crime information-sharing, and a vehicle registration database to be set up - then I'm sure Australia's worst terrorist attack on our soil, should ensure that everything that is needed, to standardise firearms laws and requirements across Australia, and to set up a national database of firearm owners, and those on terrorism watch, is rapidly carried out.

Spoken by a person who has not the slightest knowledge of policing. 1. the guy seems he did your jobs for you Prior to Sunday, all the local police command would have known about the event at Bondi Beach was that it would be occuring, and there would be a crowd, as well as the usual numbers enjoying the beach. No doubt extra police were engaged for general crowd control as would be normal for any large gathering. Refer to the gathering of people to march across the Harbour Bridge for political purpose earlier this year. Given the anonimity of the shooters, who could have known beforehand whart the shooters were planning? In rostering police for duty on that day, the first requirement of the commander would be to have staff to meet those day-to-day calls for service. I would imaging that a lot of the police at Bondi Beach were supernumerary. In other words, they were police who otherwise would have been on regular days off and were offered a bit of overtime. It takes time for the situation to be identified and this information relayed through radio communication channels to commanders for orders to be created, delivered and acted upon. Even if specialist SWAT police were on standby, it would have taken some time for them to reach the scene. 2. seems he did your jobs for you During the shooting the police present would have been occupied with locating the shooters. It is a big area with many high rise buildings surrounding it. Do yu tnk that you could positivley locate a shooter's position in the shock and awe of an unexpected attack. Just consider what would be going through your mind if you were witness to a motor vehicle collision. What would be your first positive action? 3. wth then don't they send marksmen out with rifles, The police rostered for duty at the event would have been all on foot, moving about amongst the crowd to deal with minor incidents. A police command is not supplied with unlimited motor vehicles. Vehicles attached to the local command would normally be kept availale for the normal general police duties, like domestics, shoplifters, motor vehicle collsions etc. The press reports show lots of police vehicles ate teh scene, but thos pictures would have been taken in the aftermath of teh actual shootings. 4. wth don't the cops have rifles in their car You watch too many American TV shows and movies. Policing in Australia is not approached on a Wild West basis. That's because the public does not have a gun culture. How many people do you kow who do not have a firearm? Many, many more than those who do. There is no need for police performing typical day-to-day duties to have access to rifles. In my career, I only discharged my hand gun three times - once to euthanise a kangaroo at the request of a distressed lady who had hit it with her car; another time to euthanise at the request of the owner a horse which had disemboweled itself in a steel fence post, and a third time I took a pot shot at a fox. 5. be trained with them as well as useless pee shooters I have doubts that you have ever received firearms training, because a statement like that indicates that you have no experience in either simulated firearms training nor actual combat firarms training. One day per year to do a refresher course on the use of a pistol does not make a person a Dead-eye Dick. Likewise, the effectiv use of a rifle is far more complicated. Perhaps GON can tell us how long it took a Nasho to qualify to use a rifle. 6. And still it goes on. Remember the Lindt Cafe seige? The investigation and Coroner's Inquest into that took a very long time. How would you cope with the mental stress of being involved in something like that? Don't forget that the police at Bondi at the time of the shootings would have been junior police with not many years' experience. How would you cope with a traumatic situation of being in a field of fire without knowing where the firing was coming from, and seeing the dead and wounded laying bleeding around you? All I can say is, do not make statements such as you have until you have walked a mile in the shoes of someone who has.

I think he took the gun when the shooter had emptied the magazine, so he wouldn't have been able to. Pity he didn't smack him in the head with the butt though. Still, damn good job and I hope Mr El-Ahmed is given our highest medal.

I wouldn't be a politician for the 4 or 5 hundred grand a year they get. Their lives are not their own and they have little time for their families. Taking the family to a sports event when you are the sports minister is OK with me as she has long periods of time away from them. The trip to the UN was an absolute must as Australia is the first in the world to impose a social media ban for under 16s & she championed it and needed to get this across to other nations who are trying to do the same. To me it promotes Australia as being at the forefront of a caring society not at the bottom of the pit like the US where the only thing that matters is the billionaires getting even richer. At their level of importance and the personal sacrifices they have to make plus having to be places at short notice means flying first class is totally justified and what I expect. Like everyone she made the choice to get in to politics but it is unforgiving and brutal. Put any of the armchair warriors who whinge about everything in their position and the tune will change pretty rapidly