Bruce Tuncks

Sort of right Jerry. Trachoma is sure on the decline, which is good news. But the basic proposition still stands.... getting rid of the disease means getting rid of abo "culture" to the extent that the culture stops you washing your face. IF health equality is one of the looked for things to come out of the Voice then this is the sort of thing which must be addressed head on.

England more or less started WW1 ( 60%, germany 30% ) and before starting the war, it was the richest country by far in the world. I reckon they were treated well by the USA. WW2 was a sort of continuation of WW1.

People float too. they bloat when they start to rot. This is why the mafia weigh you down. I dunno how long you float for, it would not be for ages.

All it would take to destroy the theory of evolution would be a fossilized rabbit in pre-cambrian sediments. Alas for the theists, such a thing has NEVER been found.

The thing is that the trachoma germs live in the face oils and from they they can attack the eye. The disease is not treatable but it is very preventable.(Chlamidia Trachomitis is the germ ) Yes, I guess it is possible to over-wash the face, but the once a day thing is not over-washing.

I would use suspension from school as a punishment for bad behaviour. At first this punishment would be seen as a blessing but in time school would be seen as a privilege. And I would dock the parent's "school money" while they were suspended.

On re-reading the above, it occurs to me to point out that not washing your face is endemic to desert aborigines. How could they possibly have a culture of face-washing? Just think why you wash yours.... i bet your mother made you

The word "siddown" was coined by the abos, not by me. Personally, I have no objection to making it apply to any pension at all, and I would make the turning up with a washed face family something non-racist too. You could exempt the reliable ones after a time at the discretion of the testers. I reckon that John Howard did an awful thing when he introduced the "basics card" on racial grounds. We knew a retired senior diabetes nurse, a teetotaller, who had to jump through hoops to get her pension, while white alcoholic ferals did not have anything the same. It was awful.

When I was a schoolkid, there was a dumb kid who did not pass into year 2 with the rest of us. When I lived in Gawler( 1980's) our next-doors had a retarded kid who GRADUATED year 12 without being able to read. So the standards sure dropped. I think the teachers discovered that the easiest way to get rid of a retard was to pass him on.

I hate the argument that " whitefeller rubbish" is ok to drop anywhere, and every time I hear the warning " there are images of dead people" I think of the most common note, the $50. Look at one and you will not only see a dead person, you will see a dead blackfellow! I wait patiently to hear of a case where $50 notes have been refused by abos. And I bet that their apologists ( pretend blackfellows) have some doubletalk prepared around this. Actually, I would add "picking up the rubbish " to "washing your face" before you got your siddown money.

BUT with a "one size fits all" budget, what can you do?.... It would be great if all kids could have help like Octave . In the meantime, its sad but true that we just reduce the smart kids.

I agree with self determination for sure old K, and I hope that we will see more of it in the future regardless of the voice vote. One reason to vote "no" is that,around here, the only tangible results of aboriginal power has been to stop whitefellers from climbing in the Grampians and mt Arapiles, plus the awful thing about stopping the twin road to Melbourne. ( who pays for the road accidents which would have been stopped by the big road? ) But, I have to say, the only dry places I know of are in the NT and under the control of the abos themselves. ( One downside effect of this is that the alcoholics have moved to Alice Springs from where they give the whole race a bad name. I personally don't blame the abos themselves for this) Here's what I would do... I would create a black police force just for the abos. Yes, it is a bit apartheid, but it worked well with the tangentjeri lot and I reckon it was a great idea.

And Nev, the pension is meant to spare us the sight of starving old people as we try and use the streets. My Auntie Pat did better than that, she paid for private medical insurance and football club membership as well. I reckon that if you own your own home then the pension is not too bad. And I reckon that downsizing houses should be encouraged if the oldy no longer needs to commute.

I would put the 99% tax rate at about 5 million dollars. This would ensure that Joyce and that banker both paid a lot more than they have done. Incidentally, Space, the payout of some banker got me to not pay money into a bank-managed fund. They had just paid a banker a golden handshake of 20 million, and I realized that it could have been 200 million with the same background laws.

"Productive" is the cause of my dissatisfaction with the abos. There are some workers among them, but in the main they are not contributors. So yes, they are getting something for nothing. The fact that we have oligarchs in our society is a poor argument... I personally would tax Joyce and other over-paid types much more than they are. As well as the super-rich, especially those who did it with inherited money. To say that we condone the implied corruption is not correct. And I would use some of their money to pay for more anti-corruption measures, and the abos would be treated just the same as the rest of us. That is, pretty good if you can't afford necessities and health stuff.

well said nev. I personally will support Albanese in the future even if I vote no to the voice. The only reason I would vote "yes" is to avoid hurting those abos who are working hard for a yes vote.

Come to think of it, is not DNA stuff able to separate out ethnicity? I read of it being used to determine the origin of the Kelpie dog. ( 5% dingo. I would have guessed a lot more)

I object to the thought that the voice is restricted to racial lines, yet there is nothing to stop pseudo-blacks from being appointed. Yep, appointed because of the difficulty in legally defining who is indigenous and who not. So some people who are more than 50% white will be declared blacks for the purpose of the voice. I will be amazed if this gets up.... mind you, I have a history of being wrong.

thx Octave. Interesting how attitudes changed huh. I would like us to have a LOT more referendums here. 1. increased tax on oligarchs 2. sugar tax 3.Fossil fuels tax ( but i have to say that dick smith was correct in saying oldies should not vote on climate-change things) I could add more, but what's the point? We only have this "voice" thing which doesn't really interest me.

When was that spacey? Last time I was there, they didn't even have 6pm closing that I recall.

I remember the referendum, where we chose to stay with the "god save lizzy windsor/battenburg" instead of "waltzing matilda". Gosh I would have loved to be a citizen of a country that had a catchy tune about a sheep-stealing suicidal swaggy for a national anthem. Alas the "no" vote prevailed. The other referendum I voted in I lost too... it was the republic one. I wouldn't have minded losing that so much except that Tony Abbott lied and played the fools so well that they didn't know what they were doing. I wonder to this day if Turnbull was a fool or a liar for his part in the loss.

AND, OME, I had no idea you had any more powers than the rest of us. I reckon you have been doing a great job.... keep it up please. As far as the Aborigines are concerned, I reckon they have a few good things in their culture and lots of bad things. Things like towns and cities and supermarkets and money are all whitefeller things and I for one don't want them given away for nothing much, just to satisfy some politically-correct fat white ladies who I suspect are more interested in sabotaging our society than they are in uplifting the Abos. I return to trachoma, and note that nobody has replied about this. Yet health is one of the "equality" demands!

Having grown up surrounded by Aborigines I respectfully have to disagree with you jerry. In no way were they ever a "nation" and I never heard of them being so described until lately. Apparently, there was a nation in the Mississippi valley in the US, but by the time the first settlers arrived they were reduced to a remnant population which could put only a dozen or so braves into a fight instead of thousands. It was smallpox which did this, and the whites had no idea that it had happened. I dunno if something similar happened here in Australia, but I don't think so. Yes, trade did take place, as did communication. Apparently Stuart found that the Aborigines near Katherine called his rifles "musquats" even though these had not been used for over a hundred years since the first fleet. If there were not some interaction between tribes, they would have suffered more from inbreeding than they actually did.

Yep, comedy would be the hardest ask for AI for sure.

I reckon it is completely reasonable for a person deciding how to vote to be influenced by the method of appointing people to the voice.