Here is a thought. The present government plans to establish a
merchant marine industry by purchasing a number of ships.
Most ships are crewed by Phillipinoes.
Their pay rates are usually less than pay rates in the flagged country shore workers.
We might be able to offer a scheme to Island countries to employ
islanders on our ships at rates as good or better than they could
get at home. It could tighten the connections between Australia and
the Pacific Islands.
Worth examining such a scheme ?

Yes Bazz. everybody else is doing it and having our own merchant fleet is long overdue! most modern ships need just a few crew members to operate the vessel.

The biggest cost is diesel fuel. And a big black hole to pour money into. Whereas, if were nuclear powered the fuel would cost less. But even more so if that nuclear option was MSR thorium!

Just 8 grams of thorium contains enough recoverable energy to power your house and car for a century. The cost of mining and refining that 8 gram fraction around 100 dollars. And that is just 1 dollar a year.

As for a ship, we'd likely need a couple of kilos for a similar outcome? TBC.
Alan B.

AC

Free speech is an anathema to Democratic freedom.

Opinions are cheap; a bit like eating peanuts from a jar. Individually, the peanuts taste great, but the raw ingredient is sourced from Chinese farms with marginal environmental oversight and using dodgy farm chemicals, processed and packaged by cheap Chinese labour and exported under a free trade agreement. Dodgy value!

So, like the Chinese imported peanuts; free speech is presented as the end product, looking acceptable and designed to fool you into believing your security in food sources, is attended to by your own Governments food import safety regulations, but now carrying a baggage of conditions which water down the original intentions of the necessary rules: So similarly, your Democratic rights are reduced to a mirage.
Who listens?
Certainly not a Politician.

Globalisation is a failure. Welcome aboard the good ship “ Catastrophe”, and wish hard and long that you have no need for a spare part for your vehicle you so rely upon for transport to work, in order to pay your huge mortgage payments, the success of which swings on your job, and the success of that job swings on reaching the destination on time every time! Good luck from here on!

As Ukraine has lost the war of independence and looks into a dim future beside a pissed-off Russian neighbour, so has Australia lost the war with China before it begins. By the “short and curlies “ fits!

Back to your valueless free speech and legitimate unheard complaints. The reason your are ignored by the those who should listen, but think they have no need to, due to your totally insignificant view (to them), being outside a ten trillion dollar real estate market as being the one and only significant channel marker, I think this situation will not change for the better anytime soon.

Dan.

Opinions...
If you control peoples input, then you also control their output
Which then begs the question, are your opinions really yours?

Globalisation is a failure.
- Well, maybe it depends on which parts of it.
There's positive's and negatives to most things.
Global trade for example has helped to raise many peoples standard of living.

Just think how much better off we might be as a country, if there wasn't this agenda to 'GET AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES' and we spent all the money we're already wasting on silly agendas, on fool proofed systems that actually benefit us?

Nation-building? Our leaders seem hell-bent on nation-destruction.

We have a system that creates problem kids, underachievers and mentally ill, then we spend all our money trying to manage the problems that we created.

- Then there's too many snouts in the trough making bank from managing all these problems and are invested in the status quo, rather than people creating better systems (actual change for the better) that would see the money better spent and alleviate said problems.

We've got base-level standards of healthcare and education
But if we don't figure out a sustainable system to pay for it those benefits will continue decay.

We're on a downward slope by every measure in my opinion.
And the sad part of it all is, we really could do better than this.

"Australia's highest priority" is China, which has had a warship spying and prowling off Western Australian in the run up to the election. A Labor victory could see them entering the port of Darwin, which they have leased for 99 years. The greatest threat to Australia hasn't been an election issue for either of ouf piss-poor political parties.

Yes, A.C. The whole thing needs reform from top to bottom, starting with the dithering jelly backs who will promise anything to anyone or sell the national heritage just to stay in power.
We will get the parliament we deserve. Why? Because most voters don't give any thought to how they vote and for who as we sleepwalk toward becoming another Tibet?

What we need is a new Labor party that are more than union controlled puppets, doing as the string jerkers decide?

Candidates need to be cross examined by those who vote rather than a few self important media presenters. Something like Q+A minus the presenter's longwinded contributions and over abundant control?

We need tax reform to ensure every dollar earned here or local profit is taxed at no less than 15%.

And given no reconcillation, no need to fork over tax compliance costs and a saving to the bottom line of around 7%. And 15% is 2% more than the top transfer to the ATO in actual dollars of 13% with some paying in actual dollars as little as 4% with around 40% paying no company tax to anyone!

Second reform is in energy which needs to transition to nuclear yesterday! The current energy bill is crippling our debt ravaged economy as is the extreme capitalism that is the sole benificary!

We need to keep capitalism but as cooperative capitalism. Which keeps our money here working for us, where one dollar does the work of around seven!

Something PNG should adopt instead of always looking to Oz for handouts?