Interesting stuff

To anyone with any doubt about the Murdochs two prime ministers now have come out and stated the obvious.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/16/malcolm-turnbull-...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/turnbull-book-scott-morrison-leak...

Yawn...nothing worse than washed up PM's or position leaders putting out books or having opinions on issues in the media.

Clearly you dont become PM or get to a high level of politics without liking to be in the spotlight and clearly they miss the attention once their time is up.

"A. No, blow in. It was some dude called Shatner's Bassoon that recommended the book Economix."

Are you taking the piss out of yourself?

Obviously this was one of your other names,

Pupkin
Factcum
Shatner's Bassoon
Talking turkey

Did i miss any?

Seriously though, why would anyone change their profile name every year?

If you forget your password surely, there is password recovery.

If not send Stunet and email, im sure he would help out.

Blowin and Sypkan knew it was him again from day one, i was actually sucked in for a few weeks as he seemed to change behaviour to some extent.

Funny thing is i should have known just from the profile pic and name. quite a clear pattern.

More ex-PM speaking out? Saying things they never dared while in power?

It's like ex-CTers hopping on twins and experimental boards after their contest career is done.

"These boards are really good," they say, as if imparting a wisdom the crowd has always known.

Do it when it counts or STFU.

Credit to Bill Shorten for at least speaking out when the stakes were high.

Too true Stu!

How's the ring to that, hip, hop, clap.

The Chaser sum it up perfectly: "Turnbull releases book without any spine."

Haha that's up there with Keatings"poor little desiccated coconut" call on John Howard

I've been riding twinnies almost exclusively for the last 4 years, but not too keen on keels or twins w/ a stabiliser

Wasn't John Howard's post-PM rewrite of history Lazarus Rising (a play on his other reference as "Lazarus with a triple bypass") number one on the best sellers list for weeks!?

Anyway, I always liked John Winston Howard being referred to as the "unflushable turd".

Speaking of which...

"[Indo Dreaming], check out how people use the threads on here. They run the full gamut. Some rant, some rave, some abuse, inform, reflect, entertain, lie, question, seek knowledge, seek to give knowledge, make connections, seek to make connections. And all done hastily, or not." - Talking Turkey.

Left a few things out there. Pedagogical experiment...urine extraction...writing exercises and/or lazy creative outlet.

Endless list really...

As it should be?

Yes the Chaser today is gold.

The one and only thing I want to hear from Turnbull is the detail on the deals he had to do with his own party and the Nationals to get the job ie how he sold out his own principles and handed his arse to the LNP’s powerbrokers. For one we know Joyce insisted on getting the water ministry and we all know how badly that ended. Also I want Turnbull to say how and what he promised with energy / environment policy.

There was a kookaburra that used to always go for a toy snake in the backyard when we were kids.
It'd swoop down, grab the thing then spend around 15 minutes bashing it against the gumtree. Of course, cos it was rubber, it'd keep twitching so the kooka thought it was still alive.
Bash-Bash-Bash. Pause... {twitch}. Bash-Bash-Bash, etc.
Eventually it'd give up and drop the thing back on the lawn.

Must have tried it dozens of times.

Haha, classic! Seen them do the same with banana peels out my yard, though maybe they're trying to break the banana into more eatable portions?

yeah, that's what the kookaburras are doing, soften and break up the snake so they can eat it.

it's traditional to hang a snake over a gate for the kookaburras to get whenever you kill one.

It’s a shame to kill snakes. Just move them or let them be

yeah, it's morally wrong to kill any and all animals...be they a snake, sheep, cow or pig.
but if you've got a brown snake hanging around the house there aren't too many good options. all you can do is make sure there are no dripping taps to attract them in the first place. all other snakes are fine. you want red bellies, they eat the browns.

well, i have no experience with taipans. are they super aggressive like browns? are they attracted to dwellings?

more aggro.

browns aren't as aggro as their reputation makes out.

shy and timid if left alone.

Point is literally crawling with them and bites are few and far between.

Rubber snakes in fruit trees are meant to be good at keeping possums away.

We are regularly visited by a family group of up to 7 kookaburras in search of a feed. It's interesting to note how they seemingly tolerate and co-operate with past generations unlike magpies where the alpha male chases each years young away before the spring ... but if you ever find a tree full of pushed out magpie fledglings its sheer joy. 50 - 100 young magpies all in one tree all singing to impress.

speaking of possums, the walk the other night saw a beaut little possum crawling over the street on an electricity wire. With the main streetlight behind us, we watched. Then a shadow came up above and behind us, and it was another, larger possum. It looked at us for a bit and then kept going, excellent balance on the electricity wire.
"Look, that one's got a pouch," I said
"That's its nutsack." the Ms replied. Ever the country girl, very blunt.

So watch out for a particularly well endowed possum on the surf coast.

geez, that must make walking around the point a bit scary. good to know they aren't too aggressive. i've thrown my board in the air with surprise when i trod on a tiger snake at bermagui. snake seemed just as shocked.
i've had a brown snake up on it's tail, like a cartoon snake, chasing me out of a shed. i won't go anywhere near them, no matter how big a stick or bore of shot gun i have.

VJ, re your interest in comic events - a book I just finished that may well interest you is 'The Edge of Memory: Ancient stories, oral tradition and the post-glacial world' by Patrick Nunn. Patrick is a Professor (geography) at University of the Sunshine Coast.

mainly focused on Indigenous Australian's stories of changing sea levels, but also touches on other major 'events' worldwide and ancient culture's documenting of these through oral traditions.

a bit cumbersome at times, but very interesting and insightful.

enjoy, if you havent already

Snakes! old mate as a vet breeds them for a university. He says Copperheads don't hibernate at all and will generally bite from the ankles down. Tigers can leap so they can bite from the waist down. Now your Eastern Brown are to be avoided at all costs because they will do that tail thing Chook mentions above and they can therefore bite from the shoulder down. Blacks like Copperheads are pretty laid back. I see so many these days on my mtb, only one that scared the crap out of me was a Tiger on a dirt trail that leaped in the air and across my path from just a few feet away. Big, fat and angry, its strips all flared up. About to take a piss in some long grass once, only to look down between my legs to see a Black looking up at me - reckon I was a splash away from being bitten.

The most snakes ive ever seen was at Fraser Island, lived there for a few years, i was just mostly doing groundsman work for a resort and told to kill any snakes i saw, i killed quite few snakes and a few different species, even saw one of those death adders but by the time i went to grab a shovel it was gone.

I had the freakiest experience one day, i saw a head and tail sticking out from under a building so slammed a shovel down hard on both bits thinking it was one snake and as soon as i did it another head came flying towards me, yep it was two snakes and a tricky situation that took me about 15 minutes to sort out.

BTW. I was also given a sling shot on my first day and told to shot at any Dingos that hung around, i did it once but felt bad.

isn't Fraser all national park?

Ah snake stories eh,well was watching the surf one day at a headland nearby and was so engrossed in the view i didnt see the brown snake come out of the long grass and check me out,only reason i know is that i thought i had a grasshopper or similar on my foot so a kicked it off and when i looked down it was the last 3 inches of a browns tail .......lucky i hadnt moved......another one was a big red bellied black and i crossed paths and i just saw the red out of the corner of my eye but i was pretty much right next to it and he was reared up in striking pose .Lucky i had a steamer on and my board so when he went me ...3 times ....i just kept jumping ...big bastard probably 5-6ft....but he was as scared as i was and ended up going between my legs and away from the idot jumping in the air ..but what else do ya do ....split second decision.

"isn't Fraser all national park?"

Yeah about 99.9% there is a few little residential areas though Eurong/Erurong second valley, Happy Valley and Orchid beach about 40 houses in each mostly holiday houses and there is also a few resorts.

Only 60 people live on the Island though, crap waves but amazing fishing and beautiful place.

You surf much on the island id? Sharkie hey?

I've surfed Waddy Point and it was very average, didn't feel like the sand would ever really want to form a defined bank. But I reckon it would have its day, same with the other headland.
Yeah you feel pretty exposed, the Michael Docherty death at another island with a similar setup is never far from your mind.

I surfed as much as i could but the beach is rarely any good as just too long and straight, bank outside is super far out over a very deep channel and goes fat before you even finish the drop and the inside bank is just a shore break that if you are lucky you can fit in one turn.

Up north at waddy point has the best chance of a wave but it was a fair drive and can only do it at low tide, surfed it a few times but never got very good like Andy says just never has a defined bank, looks like it should be a great set up but super rare for it to peel very far without it sectioning for 50 metres or so, i did see it really good one day right on the inside but off course didnt have my board.

Yeah super sharky on average id see a shark every month mostly when fishing but also seen them when surfing and when paddling from kayak, even seen i think bull sharks come in with white water and almost beach themselves getting sand crabs.

Fishing wise its an amazing place though not just beach fishing, but there is reefs offshore that rarely ever get fished as far from anywhere, you can only fish them when totally flat and beach launch and the creeks on the other side of the island receive little fishing pressure often get a good feed of mud crabs.

My father in law had been going to Fraser on fishing trips since the 50’s. and when I told him once I’d been swimming and bodysurfing there he just said it would best that I didn’t do that again. Soon after I found out that Vic Hislop had caught a few White Sharks around that area over the years.

Sounds epic for the fishing, not so much the surfing.

Remember standing up on Indian Head watching the sharks just cruising up and down the gutters. The tailor fishermen looked like they were tempting fate walking out to their waist, but surfing really didn’t look an option

Little bit of DI and Noosa in this excerpt from Bob Evans' 'Ride a White Horse'.

Thanks for the book tip GreenJam, I'll have a look :)

& housing...

https://www.domain.com.au/news/confidence-in-australian-property-market-...

now confidence 'aint prices...

Link from that page is another article about the sale of NSW government property.

“Interestingly, the most competitive buyers in my market are those with offshore capital as they have a 15 per cent buffer to the local market due to the low Australian dollar and subsequent exchange rate. These buyers will continue to be active in the months to come.”

Time to sell the farm

https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/nsw-government-offloads-pyr...

Talking about islands, how's the latest Surfing World?

FFS.

Hang on, is this the Babs effect?!

The 60’s felt further back in time in the 80’s than they do now. Weird

"now confidence 'aint prices..."

I've been having a few squizzes.

Prices haven't dropped a cent.

Full steam ahead on all the housing estates around here.

Maybe things will come off the boil, surely?

What do you see VJ?

You would expect it will take some time for prices to fall 3 to 6 months for a proper fall, makes sense if they do it's just part of the natural cycle.

Remember we have had about 28 years of economic growth good times prices rise, bad times they re-adjust some what.

But obviously banks, government, homeowners dont want prices to fall.

homeowners won't suffer, as long as they don't need to sell and interest rates remain low, which they will for a very, very long time.

The change would be primarily psychological: seeing it as a family home and shelter instead of primary form of wealth/asset.

Which is what houses have been for most of Australias history. Places to live and raise families.

“My prediction ......a house in Ballina worth $750K will be selling for sub $400K within 18 months.“

That’s wholesale societal collapse territory. If we get to that stage I think we might have bigger things to worry about.
I really can’t see it.
Maybe a dip of 50k.

Like you say, the government will do anything to prop up the market, waive quarantine for immigrants, you name it.

“Even a single year without migration could unleash an economic and social catastrophe”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/a...

I've got an open mind about it.

But ScoMo is on the record as saying that the levers will be fully opened up to pro growth policies once the corona virus dies down.

It could easily come roaring back if the migration spigot gets opened right up.

depends.

we'll see.