MisterFrog
@MisterFrog@aussie.zone
- Comment on Victorian election to decide future of Melbourne wholesale market 1 day ago:
This is such a braindead proposal I’m surprised they’re just coming out and saying it.
- Comment on The future of aussie.zone... 1 day ago:
Seems to work just fine for Wikipedia, one of the most used sites on the internet.
I don’t agree with your gut feeling on this. Even a much much larger instance like .world doesn’t have ads.
The whole idea of Lemmy is to be unenshittified Reddit. The second we puts ads on here, what even is the point?
Donations is very sustainable for non-profit driven websites that aren’t too bandwidth or storage heavy, in my view. We just need to prompt users a little more, and create ways to easily have automatic regular transactions.
- Comment on The future of aussie.zone... 1 day ago:
With the traffic we get, probably really wouldn’t make a dent. I think we could very comfortably afford no ads, provided calls for donations go out more regularly so we don’t forget.
- Comment on The future of aussie.zone... 1 day ago:
@lodion@aussie.zone mate, this community has been a godsend for me. Thank you so much for setting it up and keeping it running while you had the space for it in your life.
It’s been such a joy to feel like I have an extra set of friends to shoot this shit with online, make jokes, make political arguments, nerd out with and generally have a gab.
Wishing you all the best mate, and thanks again.
- Comment on When a tobacco shop opened next door, a Melbourne couple’s dream cafe went up in smoke: ‘It felt like a warzone’ 1 week ago:
The firebombing is not about government crackdown, it’s probably a protection racket, or extortion.
A lot of “legal” tobacco shops also sell illegal tobacco.
- Comment on Victorian Labor withdraws attack on RAFFWU ahead of election 1 week ago:
Hopefully they’ve actually given up and they’re not just retooling it or hoping for a more favourable crossbench.
Unfortunately, doubtful :(
Seems par for the course for the Labor party
- Comment on Politicians keep talking about immigration. Voters keep talking about their bills 2 weeks ago:
It’s almost like the ruling class all over the world want us to blame each other instead of the obvious culprits, them extracting wealth from us…
- Comment on So Close And Yet So Far 2 weeks ago:
Melbourne local here - you would be 100% correct. News crews sometimes go down there during a big storm because someone’s gonna try it lol
- Comment on Queensland issued 'please explain' amid row over NDIS replacement 3 weeks ago:
There are no good guys in this story (fed Labor vs QLD LNP)
The NDIS seems like a joke. When will we learn that privatisated contracting out of public services is stupid?
Fed Labor: “Let’s just cut the funding, that’s a good trick!”
Apparently not for some time yet.
- Submitted 5 weeks ago to melbourne@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Come support striking workers tonight at 6PM: Arts Centre Melbourne workers escalate campaign with 24-hour stop work actionwww.meaa.org ↗Submitted 5 weeks ago to melbourne@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Startup Harrison.ai lays off Australian staff, pivots to US after $32m government investment 1 month ago:
So we’re getting that invested money back now, right?.. Right?
- Comment on Labor vows to listen to voters after One Nation's historic WA upset 1 month ago:
We could raise slightly more revenue from tax on future projects but gas is on the decline anyway and Australian gas isn’t that profitable
Hard disagree. The political capital wouldn’t be that high, practically everyone wants this, even bloody one nation have signalled support for it (not that they’d actually do it), the vast majority of the population is for it. Putting aside ripping up contracts, we absolutely can and should put in tax reform on gas exports at a minimum.
The claim that Gas isn’t that profitable is absurd, just read the company’s own financial reports…
Here’s links to 3 of them: …org.au/…/they-profit-we-pay-the-price-gas-giants…
since Labor already spent all of the 2025-2028 political capital on reforming negative gearing
My good gentleperson what? They hold a massive majority in parliament, and could easily get way more through with the help of the Greens* if they were actually gonna pass something left wing. Negative gearing has ruffled some feathers, but let’s be extremely clear, Labor has to date made zero radical reform since 2022. The HAFF and the Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates Bill are just two examples of this. Nice sounding, but when you dig into the details, do really do what they say on the tin.
(* I am not a Greens supporter)
As for Labor being corrupt. Have they been personally enriching themselves? Taking bribes? No.
Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald? Not to mention, that simply getting cushy jobs from companies that JUST HAPPENED to lobby you, and donate to your campaign is corruption. Again, not legally, but it is still a lower, real form of corruption, that influences our elected reps decisions, and the list of MPs who do this is so long I’d be here all day researching all the names.
You call it “doing politics” but clear eyed leftists see $10,000 a head fund-raisers for what they are: corruption. (Even if this isn’t legally corruption).
I take nothing back, it’s appalling, and the fact WA Labor would run a former gas lobbyist in Secret Harbour is a great example of where the party’s priorities lie.
“The game is unfair, the LNP and One Nation take corporate money so we also have to do it!!!” Or, you know, we could change the game so that we as a country aren’t beholden to corporate/billionaire interests… (Spoiler: they don’t want to, or pretend we can’t because the Labor party are pro-capitalism)
Labor always dresses everything up as necessary, and for the greater good. Given Labor’s record, such a defense makes no sense. Labor party pays lip service to being for the workers, and then turns around and take away the right to strike with the ACTU and attempts to crush competition of any union not in their pocket (regarding RAFFWU and the absolutely dog-shite SDA, and the Vic govs bill to outlaw them).
The Labor party are not for the greater good of the majority of the population mate.
Let’s tax the gas. If gas companies want to leave? Great, let’s do it ourselves and be like sane countries that nationalised their natural resources, and keep all the profits.
Neo-liberalism hasn’t worked, when is the Labor Party (who brought neo-liberalism in) gonna wake up and realise it?
- Comment on Comedian’s visa sabotaged, war crimes suspects cheered through 1 month ago:
Our voting system is nothing like the Americans. Hence people should abandon the Labor party and strengthen others by getting active there instead, all while preferercing Labor above the Liberals and One Nation.
Liberals and One Nation only have space because how pathetic the Labor Party is at providing a viable left-wing alternative that people are actually excited for. People are swayed by One Nation because they’re material conditions have worsened, which is the culmination of decades of neo-liberalism ushered in large part by the Labor Party.
I’ll say it again, left wing people should abandon the Labor party because it’s been going this way for decades.
Join a party who shares your values.
We don’t have first past the post, so your point makes no sense.
- Comment on Labor vows to listen to voters after One Nation's historic WA upset 1 month ago:
We have resources. Would we lose some international investment? Maybe. But time and time again modest tax reform doesn’t lead to capital flight in the way capitalists claim.
And even if we don’t want to rip up contracts (though we should when they’re clearly unfair), there’s no excuse for not progressively instituting new tax and royalties settings as they expire.
And yet, the Labor government won’t, because they’re corrupt and bought by the gas industry (not in a legal sense, but in reality).
- Comment on Labor vows to listen to voters after One Nation's historic WA upset 1 month ago:
If the contracts are a complete rort then I say we scrap 'em. Be the sovereign risk the investors should have taken into account investing into such an unfair arrangement…
Or even given some nominal compensation where they are made whole, accounting for inflation, but not profit.
These are our own resources we’re talking about. Legal arguments are a cop out when the law is set up to favour private property at the expense of the rest of us.
We most certainly can scrap bullshit contracts, signed by politicians who then go on to be employed by those same companies. It may not legally be corruption, but it is corruption.
We have 100% moral cover to tell these companies to get fucked, and we should do it.
What are they gonna do? Stop investing in extracting our gas resources and paying hardly any tax or royalties on it? OH NoOoOoOoOoO. What ever shall we do‽‽‽
- Comment on Comedian’s visa sabotaged, war crimes suspects cheered through 1 month ago:
100%. The Labor party is beyond reform and people who identify as left-wing really ought to abandon it en masse for parties that actually represent their values.
There’s literally no downside to leaving the Labor party for another party.
- Comment on IDF soldiers heading to Australia to compete in the Sydney Marathon 1 month ago:
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm.
The IDF is a terrorist organisation, and I’m glad the media machine has failed to convince the majority of Australians that what they’re doing isn’t a genocide.
I hope people heckle the shit out of them, and shame the event organisers for not uninviting them.
Also, fuck the NSW Police, violent arseholes (as a group).
And especially, fuck the NSW Labor Party for being repressive of political speech, just because they don’t like it.
- Comment on Suburban Rail Loop to find $2b in savings through station changes 1 month ago:
Makes the whole project much less worth it though. Building a train line without interchange defeats the purpose
This is a really, really stupid idea
- Submitted 1 month ago to melbourne@aussie.zone | 7 comments
- Comment on Whistleblower David McBride Released on Parole 2 months ago:
Ah righto, thanks for that clarification, definitely went over my head!
- Comment on Whistleblower David McBride Released on Parole 2 months ago:
Not really sure this addresses the above comment.
- Comment on Whistleblower David McBride Released on Parole 2 months ago:
Justice David Mossop, you should be ashamed of yourself blocking evidence.
David McBride should never have been tried.
National security as a justification for covering up war crimes… One could imagine, to protect higher-ups.
What a joke.
Really sad to hear McBride got cancer :(
- Submitted 2 months ago to melbourne@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Leggo's, Coles and Aldi selling Chinese tomatoes as 'Australian' and 'Italian' in products, forensic testing finds 2 months ago:
Absolutely. Though I don’t believe that particular legal precedent exists in Australia (I am not a lawyer).
Completely agree though, that these consequences are too lax, and are just the cost of doing business…
- Comment on Does Albanese's idea for more Australian oil supplies stack up? 2 months ago:
If only we hadn’t bloody allowed the ones we already had to be closed… They should have been forcibly nationalised at a fair (low) price if they wanted to close up shop.
Especially the refinery owned by Viva Energy in Geelong should have been nationalised, not had their profits guaranteed…
I say all this as someone who doesn’t drive, and I thinks we should get off oil ASAP. We can’t just flip the switch and have everything grind to a halt.
But building a NEW refinery? Are you serious?
- Comment on Leggo's, Coles and Aldi selling Chinese tomatoes as 'Australian' and 'Italian' in products, forensic testing finds 2 months ago:
In my opinion, the maximum fines courts can impose are too low, and even then, judges too often don’t award the maximum fines :(
If a company has a net worth over a certain amount, I reckon a jury should get final say. The class interests of judges are too different to the common person in our current society
- Comment on Beaten, robbed and driven out: violent demonstrations target immigrants in South Africa 2 months ago:
The common denominator is capitalism and growing inequality.
- Comment on Can the Liberal Party recover? | 7.30 2 months ago:
Even if we don’t get rid of capitalism (my preference), I honestly think if we at least reverted to: infrasture should be publically owned, constructed (with direct employment, not private contracts), and maintained, we’d save a bunch of money, have better quality infrastructure, and provide stable employment to a bunch more people.
Though, there is serious restructuring to do to government departments. My suggestion? Make department leadership elected by the workers (they’d still be beholden to the government, but it means that you’d have fewer “manager” types at the reigns who don’t actually have a clue).
And, as forementioned, the route problem here is capitalism.
- Comment on Can the Liberal Party recover? | 7.30 2 months ago:
Yes Angus, I agree we should stop corporate handouts.
Where you’re bring very disingenuous is your plan for “small” government.
- There’s no such thing, you only will have an outsourced government
- A small government only results in privatisation, increasing the cost to the community in having to pay for profits
I mean, look me in the eye and saying transurban hasn’t caused massive loss for motorists and businesses, rather than paying tolls to the state.
Tell me that paying private energy retailers profits is better than what we had with the Victorian SEC.
Tell me that shopping around for private healthcare, private disability care, is good for the people?
Utter bullshit, but yes I agree, go let private businesses be private. We shouldn’t be giving them any public money.
Not that you believe that, given that we are no change to corporate handouts under LNP governments.