Marty_d

So... the USA has a bill of rights? Not sure it's worth doing then...

Something tells me this is made up. "Seamore" Naval Hospital?

That would be Clive.

Or the US president.

Gina and Clive are the Tubby Trump Twins. Dogey Dutton sings from the same songbook. My vote will go to people diametrically opposite to all of them.

Is there a lot of talk about government waste, or is it just public service-bashing from Dutton's team? I'll tell you what waste is. It's conservative governments getting rid of public service jobs, then paying far more money to labour hire companies to provide temporary staff (who don't get paid as well) to do the work of the public servants they replace.

If you judge a person by the company they keep, then check out who Dutton's best bud and paymaster is hanging out with. Just to join the dots: - Dutton wants to be PM - Dutton's party gets a huge amount of funding from Gina - Dutton and Gina are friends - Gina has previously made statements like working people should be paid $2 a day - Gina hangs out with Trump mega supporters - Trump has laid off thousands of public servants - Dutton wants to lay off thousands of public servants Blind Freddy can see that if you vote for Dutton, you're voting for the same craziness that's killing democracy in the US right now. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/31/a-female-donald-trump-how-gina-rinehart-is-pushing-trumps-message-australia-ntwnfb

You're a class act, aren't you. Do you go about pissing off the locals everywhere you go? You'd be popular.

I'd never be so crass as to put on any political hat while visiting another country. The war ended 50 years ago. I didn't discuss WW2 while in Germany, I don't see any reason to discuss the American war in Vietnam.

"For the church"? "Pour le Bistrot" would be more accurate I reckon

Nope - Vietnam. Probably the last family holiday overseas with all the kids.

Yep. Head injury on a kid... Seen very quickly. Chest pains in 50yo man... Seen very quickly. Our doctors and nurses do a brilliant job in the vast majority of cases. They are committed and usually work far more hours than they should, as they're understaffed - because states want to spend money on a football stadium (insert your state's white elephant here) instead of funding, training and paying health professionals properly.

Me too, we'll be overseas on the 3rd.

Stay strong OME. None of them are princes.

GON, you can have your two super teams. To pay for them, the GST will double and the Age pension halved. Happy?

Well, ultimately it's up to each of us how we use our vote. I will do my best to vote for good people, or in their absence, the least objectionable.

I think you're getting a bit rubbery with the truth there Nev. Czech your facts...

Bs

Not voting at all doesn't send any signal. And these days any winning party claims a mandate. They don't care that you disengage from the process, as long as you don't vote for their opposition. Voting for minor parties or independents definitely gets their attention, because then they have to negotiate with the cross bench to get anything done.

It's pretty simple. Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, you just start from the back, giving the last vote to the person/party you find most objectionable, working upwards til you give your first choice to the person or party you find least objectionable. Even if you can't find anyone who aligns fully with your views, if you vote that way you're ensuring those you like least are put last.

I disagree. If we don't participate in the process then we're as bad as all those idiots in the US who didn't vote to stop Trump.

New Zealanders are basically Australians. Deporting them is kind of like sending a Victorian back home from Tassie.

That stretch of road between Huonville and Geeveston is lovely for a bike. Even better (on a fine day) is continuing on to Dover. As long as there's no caravans in front of you.

I don't know, 1100 Virago is pretty classic too!

It's seriously scary what he's doing to the US democracy. Several people here have described his behaviour as "Mafia-like" and it's not a bad description, although, also as previously mentioned, even the Mafia have their own twisted code of honour where he has none at all. I don't think that the leaders of countries like ours truly understand what's going on here. I think Trump has plans for there to be 3 spheres of influence in the future - USA, Russia and China. Europe isn't part of his calculation and neither are middle countries like ours. He wants to basically carve up the world like the old time empires (think England, Portugal and Spain) did. Some countries to be taken over directly by this trio - he's already made quite clear he wants Greenland and Canada, for a start - Russia would like not only Ukraine but then the other ex-soviet countries, and then, who knows - parts of Western Europe? And China of course will start with Taiwan and then maybe proceed southward in the Pacific. Any countries not directly taken over will be treated as lesser partners, always on the worse end of any trade deal and subject to any whim of Emperor Trump. We cannot treat the USA as a "special ally" any more. We are not under their protection, if someone invaded us they are under no obligation whatsoever to protect us and wouldn't unless it suited their interests. And watching what he's doing with Ukraine, he'd probably want all our uranium or rare earth minerals in return for "stopping" the war by giving the aggressor whatever they wanted.