willedoo

The government is saying there is, the opposition says they're fudging the figures, usual BS politics. The premier is from North Queensland so he has a good understanding of the problems in Townsville which is one of the worst spots. The previous premier was born and bred in Brisbane and did a PhD on the trade union movement, so he's in that bubble and good luck to him. People are just glad there's some adults in the room now.

David Crisafulli is a very good politician. He's a bit like the South Australian premier in that he's skilled in making political things not sound political, and a very good people person as well. His team is competent enough, but the premier is the glue that holds it together.

Jerry, happier than what they were before GST I meant. There'll always be one state or another screaming it's not fair.

I think the states are a lot happier with it. There's still a few arguments over shares and fairness, but they don't have to grovel to Canberra as much as pre GST days.

I think it was centrifugal force I learnt that day.

I learnt about force and momentum and all that stuff at an early age when I went flying off the running board of the old Maple Leaf Chev, straight into a big patch of bullheads. I never did tell anyone I purposely let go to see if I could ride it round a corner without hanging on.

Probably the only place the Coalition, or in our case the LNP is doing well is here in Queensland. They're a popular government and polling suggests they're weathering the One Nation storm well. State labor doesn't look to have much chance of returning for a long time yet. None of that's unusual as Queensland quite often goes against the national trend, and state and national issues here are always clearly defined. It's quite normal for us to have a Labor state government and no chance for them in a federal election, and the same the opposite way around at times.

You'll know Labor is concerned about about voter base erosion if they start talking about One Nation and not the Coalition. If Labor loses a fair bit of the blue collar vote, some might go to One Nation. But if they get tired of that, they might walk past the Coalition on the way back and stop there for a while. Either way, it's no time for the true believers to be gloating. I don't think they are, they seem to be taking a bit of notice of what's happening lately.

I was looking through the SA poll figures so far and the Libs have copped it from all sides, losing a possible four seats to Labor, possible three to independants, one likely and two possible lost to One Nation.

ome, did you read that or have you tried it?

I don't remember whether they said PAYG tax would be decreased or not, someone here might know. The original deal was supposed to do away with certain state taxes like stamp duty, but the states reneged on that crying broke and we ended up with GST and stamp duty. We ended up paying GST on a lot of extra things, but a lot of things previously had the 22% general sales tax rate so it probably balanced out.

Due to the high primary vote they got, the party picks up a fairly good pay packet helped by South Australia's new electoral rules. Most political donations were banned, but the dollar rate for votes received by parties has increased. I don't know One Nation's state/national branch financial sharing, but they should be a bit more cashed up for the Victorian by-election and the state election later on.

Jerry, it already has got way out of hand where I live. It's not just 10 or 20 kids hooning around town, there's dozens of them all over town causing problems in the afternoon after school. It's bad in the whole district, but my local town gets singled out in the press as being the most troublesome standout area. I think it's to do with the geopraphy and layout of the town and where the school is sited. It makes it easy for the kids to roar around and not get caught. What's brought it to a head lately is the number of deaths and injuries to riders and pedestrians. The police don't have the resources to be chasing them all over town every afternoon, it's only a small local station.

With this one, if you took the pedals off, you could call it an electric motorbike. A pedal E-Bike I think it's called.

I think that's why they are restricting under 16's. Regulations are already there to stop them from modifying the speeds, but no amount of regulation stops it. It doesn't work proactively in the case of kids, so at the moment all the police can do is act reactively after the offence.