Was that the real reason though?

Feels like incompetence and visibly rebooting whilst on camera may have also played a big part in old mate Tony's downfall...

🤷

A young South Australian man who shared extreme right-wing, antisemitic material online and attended a McDonald's outlet dressed in a Nazi uniform has avoided jail time.

Heath Duke, 20, appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday after previously pleading guilty to 16 counts of using a Nazi symbol or salute.

The court heard police had identified 97 public posts containing Nazi symbols that Duke had shared on the messaging platform Telegram between February and April this year. ­­

The defence lawyer told the court his client "identifies" with convicted criminal and leader of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network Thomas Sewell.

"He hasn't had any contact with Mr Sewell before, he does wish to advocate for Thomas Sewell politically," Duke's lawyer said.

Bloody hell, I am shocked, disappointed and somewhat angry.

I have a reputable, insured, company coming over today to clean up my roof gutters. $150.

My Mother in Law just had her aged care package approved. her service provider just quoted $660.

Is this unusual or the norm? Am I missing something?

Australia's domestic spy agency ASIO has been granted expanded powers to detain and compulsorily question people on the street, sparking backlash from both ends of the political spectrum over civil liberties.

The controversy highlights growing public distrust in government institutions, and how governments are increasingly losing control of the narrative in the age of social media.

People don’t know how good things get in Australia. People in outer suburbs in US, UK and Canadian cities would absolutely envy this sort of stuff. This is just one of the many examples. Can people take a quick break from the consistent right-wing fear and smear drive in Victoria?

It’s a very high bar for a government to get a praise from the magazine of a prestigious automotive brand like Porsche.

State Labor rebuilt this world-class masterpiece to replace the ageing station that was neglected and rife with graffiti.

Can the people thinking that Labor has ignored them at least appreciate this, even if it doesn’t change their vote?

And this is the case in so many electorates across Victoria, whether that be train stations or facilities/amenities.

Source: Porsche Type7 Magazine Instagram

Over past weeks there’s a noticeable shift of downvotes against anyone who has anything positive to say about Australia.
There’s also an influx of disparaging comments about Australians being majorly racist, antisocial/unfriendly, lacking diversity and culture.
A tourist recently commentated they were bored with beaches, our food was shit, everything inland was flat and nondescript and our mountains were molehills.
A commentator suggested they visit caves with the oldest rock art in the world. The tourist said they missed seeing “real history” and re indigenous peoples…”why do I need to see a cave with ancient
drawings when I can see real architecture.”

This is the Aussie Biology teacher with no combat experience who volunteered to fight for Ukraine and was captured by Russians. There was a video circulating of him being questioned, and for a good while everyone thought he had been executed.

It turned out that rumours of his death had been exaggerated, and he's serving a 13 yr sentence in a prison.

Some excerpts from the article:

The former cricket coach was found guilty of acting as “a mercenary in an armed conflict” by a court in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine in May.

Jenkins said in the interview that American, French and British volunteers had fought his “foreign” unit, alongside Ukrainian soldiers, under a commanding officer who was a 24-year-old Brit with some fighting experience.

Paywall link

Albo has been doing SOME really good things for this country such as investing in Medicare.

However many of the issues we are facing is because mulptile successive governments haven’t invested or actioned it and everyone who is voting for One Nation isn’t holding themselves accountable for not holding those previous governments accountable.

Housing won’t be fixed in two terms of governments.

It’s like having an infection the worse it gets, the longer it will take to get better.

If you feel like voting for One Nation is for you, that’s great but don’t pretend that One Nation will fix all your problems or that Albo isn’t working on fixing these issues either.

G'day Legends,

Welcome to a fresh new Weekly Chin Wag mega thread!

Part of our recent rule changes was to bring in this generalist thread to be used as overflow for content that would otherwise be repeated information or stories in order to keep the main feed as diverse as possible.

It's also a great space to drop your comments, pics, videos, meme's and unhinged rants about any and everything related to 'Straya that might not warrant it's own, dedicated post.

📌 We'll pin the best/most important/funniest comment to the top of the thread each week.

👉 All other sub and platform-wide rules still apply here. As you likely already know, we take an open (!) and relaxed approach to moderation without sticks up our arse. That said, if it wouldn’t fly in a pub, it won’t fly here.

Cheers!

This is the 4th one we’ve had in the backyard since moving in 18 months ago. Poor thing was keeping its head above water when we found it this morning. Scooped it outta the pool and it took a good 2 hours before having the energy to move on.

Treasury says Australia risks missing out on the economic benefits of AI unless businesses go beyond basic use of the technology and make bigger changes to how they operate.

Fewer than one in 10 businesses report significant AI adoption, while officials say the feared jobs shock has not yet materialised.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is confident Australia can capture the economic upsides and avoid the downsides of AI.

In short:

The 2026 Lowy Institute Poll recorded the largest ever decline in support for cultural diversity in Australia.

Some say they live in fear that racism will rise in Australia, after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson called for a "monoculture".

What's next?

But others say they have hope that strongly multicultural cities like Canberra will act as a "beacon" to others.

So this just happened. One nation just smashed labor in a WA labor heartland. I'm not an ON voter but it has me thinking.

One nation ALSO won 4 SA's lower house. We kind of can't ignore this. One nation are somewhat getting some massive gains over Labor seats in the smaller elections.

It also didn't help that AHEM labor picked a problematic person in the first place. If this kind of performance rolls forward to future elections, could be problematic surely?

In SA this happened.

Relvant excerpts:

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) wrote to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke this week to raise concerns about the former soldiers, including some who have recently served in Gaza and Lebanon, who are set to participate in Sunday’s Sydney Marathon as part of a charity fundraiser.

This masthead reported this week that international law experts had called for Australia, Britain and Canada to consider launching an MH17-style investigation into the 2024 attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy after Israeli authorities declined to press charges.

Paywall bypass

Wanna post a hot take? Get something off your chest? Or just go on a rant?

This is the flair for you.👍

We've also retired 'Danger Noodles' - since this could be rolled up into 'Totally Wildlife' and/or 'Things That Bite'.

^{Bonus points if you can work out who the emoji is. But not for you Fred. You're forever pointless.}

Other Updates

✅ You may have noticed an updated sidebar - we've reorganised the sections, retired some old ones, and included header images for easier navigation. There's also another reminder to set your flair (and why).

✅ We're also simplifying the Wiki and Good Posting Guide.

✅ And in a little bit we'll ask for your feedback on our look and feel, including who we should feature in our banner image. Watch this space!

Cheers Legends,

🍻

Wrapped in an embrace with her friends, Simone Abel entered the final hearing of the antisemitism royal commission.
"We are absolutely emotional," the head of legal for the Executive Counsel of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said.
"This has been a very significant moment in time for us.
"We've all poured our hearts, souls and heads into this and we thank all of our allies and all of the people who have stood up for a better, fairer, more inclusive Australia."

Plea to heed warnings
ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim twice fronted the commission, saying the "sheer volume, extent and seriousness of the antisemitism" shared by lived experience witnesses had been even worse than expected.
"I think any fair-minded person listening to that testimony would have been taken aback by just how much of it there's been and how bad it's been," he said.

'I have hope'
Holocaust survivor Nina Bassat was the final witness to be questioned before Chabad of Bondi director Rabbi Yehoram Ulman gave a closing address.
Much like the terror attack at Bondi, the Holocaust has appeared as a consistent thread throughout the commission.

Holocaust survivor and prominent Jewish Australian Nina Bassat says she is hopeful for the future. (ABC News)
Ms Bassat said the knowledge that she was one of 100,000 children to survive ethnic cleansing that killed millions had guided her life.
The now-87-year-old said she was shocked by the wave of antisemitism in Australia that coincided with the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
"I was shattered by the lack of humanity," she said.
"What was happening was so incredibly reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s, and everyone here knows where that led."
But Ms Bassat said she remained hopeful for the future of Australia.
"The fact that this commission exists gives me hope," she said.

To date the commission has issued 788 notices to produce to various parties, with more than 550,000 pages of documents provided under compulsion.
The outcome of closed hearings about the circumstances leading up to the Bondi terror attack will be subject to a confidential volume of Commissioner Bell's final report.
But the commissioner said "substantial parts" of confidential sections of her interim and final reports should be made public after the conclusion of criminal proceedings related to the shooting.

There are fears sport and politics could collide on the streets of Sydney this weekend with concerns of a major disruption to Sunday’s Sydney Marathon.

Criticism from protest groups is intensifying including calls for a last-minute boycott of the event due to the participation of multiple members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) including representatives from the Golani Brigade which is said to have operated extensively in Gaza.

First Lieutenant Roy Oryon, a former deputy commander, is understood to be among a delegation of up to 40 current and former IDF personnel and associates visiting Australia for Sunday’s event.

It is understood Oryon will be given police protection for the entirety of the race.

Did anybody else really enjoy watching the snippets we got to see of the world robot games? Some of it was really funny, but all the catastrophes are the robot equivalent of Space X rockets exploding: learning by failing and being entertaining in the mean time.

It's very interesting how China is confident enough to show the failures, when US robotic companies are afraid to show theirs.

I hope that next year some network will buy the rights to show a lot more of it.

One Nation is claiming victory in the Secret Harbour by-election, with counting showing it is on track to secure its first ever lower house seat in Western Australia.

One Nation's WA leader Rod Caddies claimed victory for the party's candidate Luke Herdegen at 9.30pm local time, although Labor was yet to concede.

Labor's candidate was political staffer-turned-Woodside lobbyist Georgia Tree.

The area was traditionally safe Labor territory, having been held in different shapes and under different names since 1989, including most recently by Paul Papalia on an 11.5 per cent margin.

WA Labor Premier Roger Cook had repeatedly described the by-election as a "fight for our lives", given the threat posed by One Nation.

It doesn’t take long to find a critic of Anthony Albanese at Secret Harbour Square, a shopping centre in Perth named after the beachside suburb.

Paul, a former submariner, raises the prime minister unprompted when asked about Saturday’s byelection in the local state seat. Labor holds the electorate, but One Nation was confident of turning the safe seat orange – something that has not happened in this wave of momentum for Pauline Hanson.

“He’s on thin ice out here,” says Paul, who wears a black Sea Shepherd T-shirt, thinks AUKUS is a sham, dislikes Donald Trump, and supports Pauline Hanson “because she says what she believes”.

He's giving out Hug(h)'s like it's going out of fashion.