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Revenge is sweet

Two years. That’s how long since a man I used to call my friend ghosted me. At first I was upset. I thought I had done something wrong. I examined my behaviour for months and months, always coming back to the inescapable fact that a person who used to contact me to catch up had ceased doing so. For no reason I could see. Well, not entirely. Two years ago I was full of enthusiasm for my art career. After 50 years doing other things I was finally getting back to what I had originally, in my youth, wanted to do. Make art. My friend and I went to a movie. I got a call on my phone and had to leave the theatre and it was something I couldn’t ignore. I couldn’t put this person off. It’s like that sometimes. When I had finished my call, not wanting to disturb other patrons, I left the theatre. I had to pick up some prints from my print shop not far from the cinema anyway. And the movie was dull. So it’s been two years. I don’t want you to feel sorry for someone as inconsequential as me, that’s...
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Recent posts

Getting solar panels installed - Two

A technician came around on the last day of spring to scope out the installation site, he went up a ladder to peer at the roof, went down to the basement to see where the inverter would go, and went into the light well to check out where the cabling for the electrics would be put to bring the power down from the roof to the garage. On 4 December Think Renewable called me briefly to set a day for installation, and this was organised to be done on 2 January. By the middle of the month I was optimistic the installation would go ahead due to the generally dry weather we’d been having.  To help keep a cap on my energy spend I signed up for two AGL savings events. This is where they ask you if you want to be part of their effort to keep power consumption low during a peak period. Usually this is at around 6.30pm when people are at home together using appliances. For one event I got the $5 credit to go toward reducing my next electricity bill. On 2 January the installers came with two veh...
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Getting solar panels installed - One

I finally bit the bullet and commissioned a company to put in solar panels. A guy came around canvassing households and I got to talking with him. Later he got another guy to come and go through the numbers, explain the process. After that I signed a contract and the company Think Renewables called me to organise a site visit by the installer.  They’ve consulted with Ausgrid about voltage and the installer comes next week to survey the house. This is where I am in the process, and it’s not going to cost me anything at the outset. What happens is that the government pays a subsidy to the company on my behalf and then I pay a monthly fee to Think Renewables’ money handler named Plenti by putting money in my transaction account, which they debit. The guy who came around to get the sale is named Charlie and he’s a Brit. He carefully described how my quarterly electricity bill will be reduced after installing the system. He also said that it would be double the cost if I got a battery, ...
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Rent controls will cause higher rents

It started in Queensland with the ability of landlords to raise rents just once a year. This is bad enough because it’ll lead to bigger jumps as landlords try to anticipate the market. Why would you move if you have to pay for transport? But the Greens have been pushing for rent control for a long time. If Albanese introduces the same measure in other states, especially Sydney and Melbourne, the problem of high rents will just get worse for renters there. Then if you put a cap on rents that the government decides more and more landlords – who are already getting out of the market – will sell their properties because owning a property as an investment will become more unattractive. The upshot all this regulation will cause is fewer rental properties. It’s already a margin call owning a property as an investment, there are other ways for people to place their funds than in bricks and mortar. When Covid hit many landlords went backwards as rents tumbled. Then came inflation and high...
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Super tax policy is the ALP's stalking horse

Albanese is getting ready to increase taxes other than those on superannuation. Super is his stalking horse, he's softening up the electorate and seeing how voters in NSW behave this month in the state poll. The NSW election is a referendum on Labor's federal Super policy. If ALP win in NSW he'll make further tax policy announcements, going back on the policies regarding capital gains tax and negative gearing that he took to last federal election. The Guardian reported in a headline that the ALP isn’t planning to change capital gains policy with regards to the family home. BUT he will change the ALP policy with regard to a second or third property etc. It’s on the cards if the Guardian is saying this because the Guardian is a staunch leftwing paper that supports more redistribution. Labor is getting ready to Venezuela the economy. Even a death tax won’t be off the table. I listened to a popular economic correspondent that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) often ...
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Queensland and its frontier problem

Why wasn’t I surprised when an ex-school principal took part in a military-style exercise shooting and killing three people? Guns have always been a part of the frontier. Queensland is still a frontier state. Don’t talk to me about the driving, the unwillingness to use vehicle indicators to signal when your car is going to turn, the high-speed pursuit-like behaviour on the Bruce Highway north of Brisbane, the tendency of people living in the north of the state (a state which is the size of Alaska) to refer to people living in the southeast as “Mexicans”. Julian Assange grew up in the north, he wrote the book on distrusting the authorities, and is still languishing in prison because of his radical ideas. Queensland has a frontier problem. Nathaniel Train might’ve worked in NSW but it was a remote part of that state, and it was just a short distance across the border in Queensland where he found his apotheosis, the solution to all his problems, and of the problem of living alongside othe...
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China's acceptance of Albanese shouldn't surprise

When the Chinese government said that the relationship with Australia should be “cherished” I immediately thought about Gough Whitlam’s visit to Beijing in the 70s. No media have pointed out the connection but this is not surprising as I’m quite old, older than most practicing mainstream journalists, and my referents are naturally different. I belong to a generation that is fast fading into obscurity, a kind of elder. But as the traditional welcome to country that presages most public gatherings tells us we should at least pay our respects to elders even if we don’t do what they say. China doesn’t have a functioning public sphere, although WeChat does some work in this respect, and so it needs countries like Australia to fill the gap where corruption and unhappiness reside in its extensive population. We need to remember what our predecessors have done as their example can help us to navigate the rocky passes of the present. Gough Whitlam’s momentous visit is significant because it cam...
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