Bruce Tuncks

All the stuff in this debate is good in that it illustrates well how true democracy is impossible or at least very difficult to achieve. BUT there is a big gulf between what we have here and what they have in Russia. ( In Russia, many contributors to this debate would be jailed ). Personally, I like how the Swiss have lots more referenda than we do. I want to see the public decide on things like the sugar tax, and I reckon the fact that we are not given the chance to have a say weakens our claim to democracy, but again I say that most of the world is far worse. To what extent should the oligarchs among us be able to shout out their messages and influence fools? I can think of ways to slow this down, as I am sure most contributors to this forum could do too.

I hate the idea of changing whitefeller things to black names. Sydney, for example, is a whitefeller thing . It was built entirely without black help. Uluru, on the other hand, is ok to change as it was not constructed by whites. Mind you, it is white tourists who make the place a money-generator, but this is not changed by the name.

Is there a third world country that is democratic? I reckon that even if there is one, it would be rendered small numerically by the dictatorships. ( AND there would need to be women's rights and an independent judiciary to be a proper democracy ).

And practise... the first times I used a ladder to get on the roof of a house I was building were terrifying, but in time I got used to it. BUT remember harry schnieder? He survived being a german soldier in WW2 but nearly died when he fell off a ladder.

There sure is a good case to be made that teaching critical thinking is useful. Jerry Atrick has made a good case for this. Unfortunately, the problem of what to do with those who enrolled but don't have the ability to think critically has stopped this. There are some vocations which require any degree to get into.... police for example. This is because they have found that you can otherwise employ an illiterate. In the 1960's, the requirement was for "passing year 9 " and I personally think that they have kept a fairly level bar. Yep, I reckon that a degree these days is about equal to a year 9 pass way back then.

It was MUCH harder to get an apprenticeship in the 1990's and correctly so... The apprenticeship was a much better meal-ticket.

Your memory will depend on how old you are. I was the last of the civil engineers who were in great demand in the 1960's. They were lucky to get taxi-driving jobs in the 1990's. Only medical graduates have hung on in recent years. Tertiary places succumbed to managerialism and this caused standards to drop badly. The new directors were mainly concerned with the money the institution got from selling degrees. There was a scandal when Flinders University was caught giving 2 week " courses" in english to chinese students. They of course learned nothing in those 2 weeks, but I bet the subsequent lecturers all got into trouble if they failed them.

In Hawaii, the state flag has a union jack plus the US stripes. Apparently, it was the union Jack after Cook "took possession" of the islands and the local chief was uninterested in flags. He thought Cook was just a guest who he could have eaten if he chose. Anyway, the union jack flew there for years until a sealing-boat stopped one day and the chief was told that he was flying" the enemies' flag". Still uninterested in flags, the new chief obligingly added the stripes. Personally, I reckon those Hawaiians are smart.

Not so different here PMC. It was my first time going, and I went to support the council etc who put the thing on. ( the correct day too! ) .We finished up in the bowls clubrooms because of the weather forecast. There were plenty of 40 -ish people there.

It was about the only time me and Malcolm Fraser really agreed. I would have loved to have a song about a thieving swagman as our National Anthem. Instead we got some nonsense about "golden soil and wealth for toil" which proves that the author was a rich Sydney suburbanite who knew nothing about farming. Or overpopulation either.

The guy giving the Australia Day speech at Edenhope didn't know.

Here's one for OME... The original tune of "waltzing Matilda" was a recruiting song for the Marlbro wars. " Who'll come a-soldiering for Marlbro with me" True or false?

And what about the banning of an undersea pipeline in the Timor sea " because it would disturb the repose of the Rainbow Serpent?"

Here's an example of why I dislike Woke people.... They want us to NOT climb up rocky hills . I see why a calorie-deprived folk should have such a taboo, but it's totally unfair to ask silly whitefellows to do this too. Yes, the Grampians and now parts of mt Arapiles are included in their silly taboo ideas.

The lame old woman just couldn't keep up with the more able-bodied tribesmen.

I personally will be really hostile to the idea of giving billions to the abos to " buy" Australia. I reckon I own it as much or more than a younger black.

My understanding was that the first whites were seen by the blacks as a resource to help them fight their real enemies, that is the other tribes. There could have easily been a "treaty" formed between the first fleeters and any local abos they could find, in fact there was between John Batman in what is now Melbourne. They could only catch up with a lame old woman, but instead of killing her, they gave her mirrors and blankets and a bit of paper asking her to sell them Victoria. She signed ok, and the batman lot were sorely upset when the govt, then based in Sydney, refused to honour the sale.

Electric bikes are wonderful things! I really recommend you try one out onetrack. You can exercise as much or as little as you like as long as you don't go so far as to flatten the battery.

My understanding is that the 2 places were deliberately mis-named from the start, in what may be the world's first real-estate scam.

But you can't get around land tax, without saying that you didn't own it. So the roomful of tax books would be replaced with a single A4 sheet. This would alone put thousands of tax accountants in search of an honest living.

Could they find a way around your tax, onetrack? There was a party which once got a few seats in NZ which pointed out that the ONLY thing you needed to tax was land. You could not deny owning the stuff and you can pass on most costs to the productive user . It never got a try.

I liked the way that the negro was arrested.

According to the "fatal shore" book the local aborigines didn't even look up from their oyster-gathering as the fleet went by. This was noted by more than one of the passengers. Some invasion, thinks I. Well not up there with d-day huh.

Does anybody remember what the seven taxes were? I think that land tax was one.

Well it sure sucked me in..... I guess I'm a sucker huh? I actually believed it when they said that the GST would reduce my tax bill! Hewson was there saying GST stood for "Goodbye Seven Taxes ". A guy I knew was more realistic.... "nahhh", said he, "it will turn out to be just another tax"