Australia

Humans have a magnificent brain, one that even while at rest churns through more information in 30 seconds than the Hubble space telescope has processed in thirty years. In fact the brain absorbs so much data it also has to decide which is relevant and which to ignore, a feature that makes us terrible witnesses.

On 27 November 2024, the Australian House of Representatives passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, a law ostensibly designed to protect children from the harms of social media. While the stated intention behind the bill is widely supported, the way it has been introduced and debated (or arguably not debated) raises serious concerns about democratic transparency, proportionality, and the erosion of online freedoms for all Australians.

Online Safety or Overreach? Concerns About the Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024

Although Church of England clergy arrived with the first fleet and were appointed to manage social policy in Australia, including ongoing settlement via immigration, the Church of England seemed to concentrate less on independently building its own congregations and institutions than the Catholic Church.

Outfits like the Grattan Institute argue that Australia needs to maintain a high immigration policy to maximise productivity growth.  Their analysis consistently overlooks the empirical evidence showing that Australia’s productivity growth declined as immigration surged.

Victorian Government has had thousands of koalas shot from helicopters in the wake of bushfires in Budj Bim National Park, the excuse being to end the suffering of injured animals. But koalas  stand in the way of  the government programs all over Australia of forced human population growth and expansion. The usual excuse of 'culling to prevent suffering' does not stand the test of truth or morality.

11am-1pm, 12 July 2025 Event by 

We publish the joint statement here. Unfortunately these two bodies, in our opinion, whilst obviously well-meaning, have entirely neglected the demand side of the equation. They are comforting the property developers' agenda of densification when they should be pointing out that this is an abuse of power that depends on a false narrative confining all discussion to the 'supply' side.

In housing markets today, the rise of rent-to-buy schemes purports to offer new opportunities for potential homeowners. These schemes portray an apparently promising pathway for the many individuals who cannot qualify for traditional mortgages in Australia's outrageously overpriced market, allowing them to rent a property with the option to purchase it later.

In The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia (2011), Bill Gammage argues that Aboriginal Australians shaped the continent’s vegetation landscape through firestick farming, a sophisticated practice of deliberate, low-intensity burns to create open, park-like grasslands and resource-rich environments, challenging the notion of a “natural” pre-European landscape [11].

Grassroots advocacy group, Australians for Mental Health (AfMH) is calling for urgent and significant reform following a damning assessment found the national plan to improve mental health and prevent suicide is “not fit for purpose.”

The Productivity Commission’s interim report released today found the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement is “fundamentally flawed” with objectives too broad to be measurable and no clear path to meaningful reform.

I wrote to Sydney Water in 2021 on this [predictable] looming vital shortage, but received no response at all from Sydney Water, despite their promotion of themselves as concerned about sustainable water use and costs. The letter is published below.  The response was nil; complete disinterest.  Read into that what you will.

In a sequel to the Victorian Inquiry into planning Amendments VC257, VC267 and VC274, today 18 June 2025, Dave Davis (Liberal) put a motion requiring the Victorian State Government provide within three weeks very important documents required of it by the Inquiry Committee.[1] These documents would reveal the basis, actors, and rationale behind drastic cha

"Down Under Reform" on Facebook has issued a challenge.

Humane World for Animals: A migrating humpback whale is entangled in a shark net off Greenmount Beach at Coolangatta, Gold Coast, marking the first entanglement of the whale migration season.  The trauma this whale is experiencing is on the Crisafulli Government’s head for ignoring scientific advice to remove shark nets for the winter. Even if freed from the net, there is every chance the whale will die from exhaustion and trauma.

There is another protest in Sydney for Zero Immigration Until Housing Affordability is Restored on Saturday 12 July at Sydney Town Hall - see Facebook event. 

A predictably appalling article from Nicholas Reece, City of Melbourne Lord Mayor, and a seasoned career growth enthusiast, has found a cozy spot in Australia's legacy press.

 Saturday 14 June - 10.30am to 12.30pm. The future of Planning Democracy. Majorca Room, City Library (not the State Library!), 253 Flinders Lane Melbourne. Click on the image to read Report No. 46. 

A few weeks ago, cross-benchers got together with the Liberals to conduct an inquiry into the legitimacy of State Labor Government Victoria's new planning laws that underpin the authoritarian creation of massive new 'activity centres,' infilling, hyper-densification, and removal of residents' rights to affect and discuss and dispute what happens where they live.  The Inquiry found

I was not the only one sitting up late last night, writing to various members of the Victorian Legislative Council.  There are about 55 neighborhood groups, many councils and other bodies, all trying to stop what is going ahead. They have been involved in this battle for a long time.  In the absence of any reasonable information and consultation, neighborhood groups have been writing and distributing their own information about what Planning is about to do.

This report came out today in the Legislative Council, Victoria.  Non-Labor members of the Committee criticised the amendments for failing to consult the community as they are required to by law, and found that they contain little or nothing that would provide the much-claimed affordable housing, and failed on environmental counts.  The full report is here: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/49a10f/globalassets/tabled-paper-documents/tabled-paper-9164/

Gerard Renick of the People First Party Thank all those who supported his campaign. Currently, the Australian electoral Commission tally room shows that he now has 35.26% of the quota necessary for him to win one of the 6 Senate seats being contested in this half-Senate election. To be returned as Senator, he needs to gain another 64.74% of the total of Queensland Senate votes through the allocation of preferences from candidates with fewer votes than him.

All Australian mainstream media outlets push the idea that we must have rapid population growth in Australia and that this must be sourced by increasing rates of immigration. Whilst the mass media never shuts up about this, they are very repressive about any contrary opinion, although people are really angry about the increasingly obvious costs in all this, and they seek ways to express themselves.

Click on the image to read Report No. 46. 

Australia’s top spy wrote to the CIA asking to keep secret details of an investigation into phone calls made to the US Embassy in Canberra about an assassination plot before President John F. Kennedy was killed, newly declassified files have revealed. Australia’s top spy wrote to the CIA asking to keep secret details of an investigation into phone calls made to the US Embassy in Canberra about an assassination plot before President John F. Kennedy was killed, newly declassified files have revealed.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) is calling for the public’s help in its investigation into the suspected mass poisoning of hundreds of native Corella birds across multiple Newcastle suburbs, including Hamilton, Carrington, Waratah, Broadmeadow, Lambton, and near Newcastle University. The EPA received initial reports on Monday 17 March 2025 of 14 sick and dead birds in Hamilton but by midday reports had escalated to hundreds of affected birds in Carrington and surrounding areas.

Non è solo in Victoria, o nel NSW, o in Australia Meridionale, o in Australia Occidentale, o nel Territorio del Nord. I Centri di Attività e la densificazione vengono spinti in ogni parte dell'Australia. E la decentralizzazione non è la risposta; anche le città di campagna sono costrette ad accogliere nuovi insediamenti densi. E non siamo solo noi umani a essere colpiti.