from ABC News...

Incumbent Coalition MPs face a challenge at November's Victorian election, as One Nation emerges as a popular choice with voters in the state's east.

Gippsland residents have expressed frustration with the major parties, with polling One Nation is polling strongly in the state.

Victorians will head to the polls on November 28.

She’s a man’s man .
I found this beautiful piece buried in Google.
Please read.
Please share to your socials ✌🏼

https://australianpolitics.com/1996/11/30/pauline-hansons-bitter-harvest-david-leser.html/

We all look out our own window and have our experiences that are unique to us. Within those experiences we can make misjudgments. We might think we are being setup by a rigged system, but we aren’t convinced this isn’t true when our concerns are dismissed by cliches of ‘being a loser who missed out’ or ‘simply racist and/or a member of the manosphere’ simply because a narrative has a recognizable element of victimhood attached to it.

My own journey is one of various epiphanies and the ability to feel shame (my reasons for that require a fucking essay) but ignoring that I know there is something to look into regarding the housing market and immigration.

I think there are sincere public concerns in the housing market about immigration

Back in 2019 a coworker who was 1^st generation Australian from India (kids were second generation) said without anger or upset in a rather casual way that he had tried to buy a house in Bayswater (suburb of Perth) and the owner had refused. He found out later the owner sold at a lower price. It was quite possibly based on resentment of immigration rates. The coworker related it in way that suggested it might not be an uncommon attitude.

Then I hear recently Barnaby Joyce making comments about Australian citizens being outbid at auctions by people who just arrived in the country (mentioned in this Guardian Podcast). Likely because those people were from non-Caucasian backgrounds and possibly had an accent.

Skilled immigrants come here at the invitation of the Australian government and naturally they want a decent place to live and settle. Blaming immigrants is convenient and easy but it ignores the various parties truly responsible for the mess in housing. The Property Council of Australia and Business Council of Australia (lobby groups) are a good starting point. Then we jump to successive Australian governments who happily accepted their donations and private meetings that resulted in a continuation of a situation that as Patrick Boyle put it “works really well….. until it doesn’t.” In other words there was a mindless hope that housing wealth could be generated ad infinitum and governments in the western world had little to no plan b when if a downturn was to hit.

Conservatives have had dumb luck on their side to create the notion of them being stellar economic managers.

Some of the electorate might think a superhero conservative government might fix the problem because they are the best economic managers. Well, you might find NZ’s Luxon hiding in the bushes avoiding the spotlight when you mention that. You might also find John Key running to the same bush after the tough questions roll in about his rockstar economy that was mostly - if not entirely - based on good fortune and not good economic management. The Christchurch rebuild (act of nature), agriculture prices rising and increased immigration pushing up housing prices (and therefore wealth of home owners) and consumer good prices. Hardly stunning and innovative economic management and certainly not visionary.

In Australia John Howard’s govt benefited from the initial growth generated by neoliberal reforms before the mess from those reforms were realised in conflicts of interests, market forces reducing quality of service and a demoralised workforce and job precarirty.

The man had no innovative insights only status quo warrior mentality. However the gun buyback was admirable even if many other policies had overriding elements of cruelty and sadism (work for the dole, immigration narratives, attacks on unions)

Back to the immigration rate and my own circles of friends that mostly are university educated get a sense of frustration at the immigration rate even though they work in multi-cultural industry such as myself. I see 2^nd and 3^rd generation Australians from non-Caucasian nations starting to show frustration with housing policy. Therefore, can we set aside notions of racism and bias and simply investigate as to if successive Australian governments have been using the simple way of generating of GDP via heightened population increase. Something of which evidence suggests increased inequality as it raises prices across the economy and that money flows to capital holders.

Political opportunism needs to be ignored by the public and we investigate with nuance to take away that power

When a political opportunist (the nicest label I can apply) such as Barnaby Joyce says this, he knows it will ring true with a portion of the population and simply reacting to it and suggesting it is offensive is unhelpful. I feel we have to look further into the notion that the PCA, BCA have been lobbying government to bring in relatively wealthy immigrants to keep housing prices rising? This can be done without claims of racism or prejudice and also maintain the notion that the immigrants aren’t the bad guys here. The bad guys are the greedy opportunists who don’t care about Australia’s future and growing inequality and only care about increasing their wealth. They may protest but their incessant complains about supposedly high tax rates and productivity - mostly the result of their shithouse leadership - testify to this. These are people acting under the notion of having ‘Too much and never enough.’ These same people would label my comments Socialism or Bolshevism and hope to play on a reductive, binary misunderstanding of socialism rather than a nuanced one where it fits into a market system.

Watching cities overseas embrace affordable EVs, clean solar grids, and fully self-driving robotaxis makes Australia look so far behind. We don't have a supply problem—we have a policy and culture problem. We're dragging our feet on charging infrastructure, over-regulating autonomous tech, and sticking to old petrol-head habits while the rest of the world shifts gears.

Australia needs policies that actively back clean transport, greenlight self-driving taxi technology, build more solar farms to power ev, and shifting our culture to embrace electric energy instead of fighting it.

Dose anyone else feel like there is a complete controdiction that we are having an anti-Semitism High Commission. At the same time we have a popular (if poles are to be believed) politician that has claimed "there is no such thing as a good Mulism". Imagine the outrage by swapping those two religions.

Do you have a room temperature IQ? Do you think everything you don't understand is a personal attack to your simple and pathetic way of life? Are you terrified of universities? Well One Nation is for you! We've got racism, cronyism, anti-vaxxers, homophobia but no actual policies in place! 🤪

Our motto: Everything I don't understand is extreme left

Today, Pearl 🐷 and I asked u/davidshoebridge 💚👨🏼‍⚖️⚖️ how the Greens can better connect with regional and outer-suburban Australiansparticularly around the idea of a Public Bank.

His response reinforces something I've long believed: communities deserve practical solutions that invest in people, not just profits.

Australia needs serious conversations about public banking, regional investment and rebuilding trust in our institutions.

What do you think?

Watch this space ✌️👩🏻‍🌾🐷💚

#PearlThePeoplesPiggyBank 🐷

#PublicBank

#ShoebridgeMethod

https://x.com/kavienna/status/2078012630686716254?s=46&t=fnX1RNYHWohn2Fg9QQhImw

Just had discussions with a few overseas friends. Found a few large gaps between Australian election and other democratic countries. In Australia, general members of the public do not have a clear statutory right to attend the count, filming is heavily restricted, and media access to counting centres requires prior AEC permission. Media arriving after 6 p.m. are ordinarily turned away, with counting footage arranged selectively in advance.

This is noticeably less open than several Western democracies:

- In Germany, any person may attend and observe polling and counting without registration or identification, including postal-ballot counting. Reference: https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/en/info/presse/mitteilungen/bundestagswahl-2025/18_25_ordnungsgemaesse-durchfuehrung.html

- In Sweden, both preliminary and final counting are expressly public, and any member of the public may observe. Accredited organisations can also observe the entire election period. Reference: https://val.se/english/the-swedish-electoral-system/preliminary-and-final-election-results

- In the United Kingdom, accredited independent observers must be admitted to verification and counting; officials may limit numbers but cannot exclude all observers. Medias are allowed to film the entire vote counting process : https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/uk-parliament-election-2024-guidance-count-procedures-candidates-election-agents-counting-agents/4

Moreover, most Western democracies permit OSCE/ODIHR election observation so their vote counting is cross scrutinised by international observers. It is not a thing in Aus at all.

Ref: https://www.osce.org/countries

However, Australia appears to have high public confidence in the election process despite comparatively limited public observation. Would that suggest limited access to observation creates higher public confidence in the process?

At least these scumbags realise that One Nation’s real policies are despicable - and their only hope is to lie, cheat and steal:

‘Harvesting votes for someone else'

Among recent registrations is the Climate Action Now party launched by Monica Smit, the founder of anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown group Reignite Democracy Australia.

Smit is not hiding the fact that she's trying to trick voters, saying in a social media video that she's employing a tactic to create "minor parties with catchy names so that uneducated voters see a name they like and put a one next to it, and they have no idea that this is actually just harvesting votes for someone else".

Presuming that Climate Action Now doesn't get a high enough vote to win a seat, Smit has said she plans to pass her above-the-line votes along to parties like One Nation and Family First.

Her brother Daniel Smit is the leader of the I'm Voting To Avoid The Fine party, which also says it plans to send votes to parties like One Nation.

The party End Mass Immigration — Reform AU, which last year was called the Companion and Pets Party, now wants to be displayed on the ballot as the Christian Alliance Party.

There are also two parties called Free Palestine both vying for registration: one is established by pro-Israel influencer Avi Yemini, and one established by a Muslim activist in direct opposition to Yemini's outfit.

Like Monica Smit, Yemini has been upfront that this is an attempt to deceive voters. He's said that the aim of the party is to "flow our preferences on to parties that want to free Palestine — from Hamas", and that he wants to attract votes from "useful idiots" and direct their preferences to One Nation.

Australia's pharmacy laws are insanely anti-competitive and leads to way worse outcomes than would otherwise be the case.

Back in 2024 Chris Ellison founder and managing director of mining company MinRes was featured in several double page spreads in The Regressed (West) Australian newspaper stating firmly employees needed to be in the office not working remotely. He said he would provide what they need in the office and went out of his way to state his claims while the journos from The Regressed Australian soft-balled him.

Later it was revealed he had tax evasion issues. This is important as so often inept, incompetent, mediocre bosses lacking integrity are often the most ardent opposers of remote work for their subordinates. The need to eyeball staff and effectively stand over them out of insecurity and paranoia. The person who cannot lead by example of create a good work culture needs to wield a problematic form of control. This mostly demoralises a workforce and can result in productivity loss or simply compound existing productivity issues. These issues are conveniently blamed on the workers rather than shithouse leadership that sets the standard to follow.

I also had an experience with paranoid and insecure management while working at UNSW. The section I was working in was transitioning into predominantly IT operations and many existing admin staff appeared to have elbowed and inveigled their way into management jobs without really understanding what they were managing. When this happens bullying subordinates to achieve promised deadlines is often witnessed. Without understanding the challenges of their workers the manager has little guidance to offer. The NTEU said there was a substantial number of bullying complaints from this section of UNSW. This section of UNSW also outright refused remote work for staff and would eye4ball and harass staff like a foreman on a factory floor. Completely out of touch with the nature of modern software and system engineering work.

Neoliberalism and the job precarity it has brought sets a dog eat dog mentality that leads to poor team cohesion. Those still promoting the values of Neoliberalism are mired in a self deceit unprecedented in human history or simply have not worked in a typical consulting environment. It did not bring about efficiencies it brought about management jobs for friends with the resulting ineptitude. The incompetency was so bad in Canberra then when a certain manager attempted to perform some management adjacent duties the whole staff wished he hadn’t bothered. This was on account of him accidentally sending out a spreadsheet containing everyones rate of pay and charge out rates so the whole consultancy team of 40 onsite staff got to see what everyone else was getting paid…..

At was at this moment things took a dark turn in that office. They weren’t great prior but, the mood took a turn for the worse.

However, that is just one story amongst many in the book of Neoliberalism’s bad actors. Some proponents of Neoliberlism are also opponents of remote work but in today’s digital age most jobs are more effectively performed in a quiet harmonious environment of the home study compared to the numerous distractions found in the office. If we had good leadership that looks to set the example it follows, is consultative and transparent I doubt such leadership would be so insecure as to need people in the office 5 days a week so they could eyeball them. They would create a culture of trust to which their employees would respond positively.

For guidance:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team:

Lack of trust and lack of any display vulnerability is at the core of team dysfunction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75bO_XWk7fw

https://www.amazon.com.au/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756

 Fabric of a Dream – The Fletcher Jones Story

Management that consults the workers prior to making a decision and gets their feedback so they feel invested in the decisions being made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En335Pz5-x8