International student intake as a ratio of housing supply is the main issue. If dwellings were being built at the same rate of international student intake, then affordability or vacancy would not be a problem.
Look up your local universities (they're all non-profit organisations with financials reported in the ACNC) and realise just how much their business model has become funded by international students. Here's a few examples:
University of Melbourne: 69% of tuition fee revenues comes from intl students
University of Queensland: 70% of tuition fee revenues comes from intl students
The universities also receive government funding, pay no income tax (because they are "nonprofit"), and don't need to contribute anything to the housing problem that they are feeding. It's time for them to help carry the burden - they should either provide housing or help pay for it.
No, you need to read the remarks again. Paragraphs like this one do not support your interpretation at all.
The US is saying that China's economic trajectory has been too optimistic in the past and that the US needs to focus on domestic improvements, force China to play by the rules, and then facilitate the US becoming the leader.
I wouldn't call it propaganda or even news - it's just theories at this stage.
What we can speculate about is motive to deceive. Russia has been incurring some notable losses from Ukrainian anti-air defences recently, so there would be a motive from the Russian side to portray those anti-air defences as either ineffective or untrustworthy so as to try and sway public opinion about its use.
Claiming that POWs were onboard the plane aligns with that motive but it also raises questions such as:
- The plane was reportedly shot down after taking off from Belgorod, so if it was carrying POWs away from Belgorod, what was the intended destination? It doesn't seem logical that Russia would fly from Belgorod into Ukraine (unless they were stupid or taking the risk).
- Why not transport POWs to Ukraine by road or rail, given that Kharkiv is only a 90 min drive away?
There are some reports that the plane had arrived from Iran and was departing Belgorod in a north-easterly direction.
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1750122712805319034
Plenty of weaponry and drone instructors are coming from Iran...
If you have management that tries to push for a return, give them this article from Microsoft and request a discussion of its many points.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work-is-just-work
WFH, particularly in 2020-2021, was the opportunity for managers to learn how to effectively manage remotely, using metrics and good planning practices. Those who failed to do so should be the ones questioned as to why they should remain as managers.
I would love to see the overlap between the courses taught and the recognised skills gaps that we have in Australia (referenced as the basis for why we import so much overseas skilled labour). According to the migration reporting, chefs are the third highest skillset imported, so I would think that cooking classes would be a useful course for jobseekers...
https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-stats/files/report-migration-program-2022-23.pdf
A reasonable explanation is in this thread: https://twitter.com/BlakeMMurdoch/status/1728160700965523736
Basically, COVID causes a similar immune deficiency to that of HIV. This deficiency weakens the body's response to other illnesses, making infections like RSV or pneumonia more severe or more frequent. We see this effect more commonly in children because children have a lower vaccination rate than adults.
A big difference, however, is that houses in the 80s were 3-4 times the average income. Now that ratio is about 10x.
Younger generations always need to work harder than older people, yes, but the major difference is that working hard these days doesn't provide the same rewards that it once did.
You can use this tool to compare: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Australia&country2=United+States
My cinema down the street costs $18.50 for an adult.
Seems to be a logical choice, particularly when the universities are moving away from hiring staff based on merit. The unis will end up with a bunch of underqualified lecturers teaching to the only students able to afford the degrees (international students).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562
Hamas currently hold 73 seats of the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, voted in by the Palestinian people.
I've lived overseas and I disagree.
Australia is no more racist than some other developed and developing nations, and there are countries with more racism than Australia.
Travel to different cities in the US and notice how neighbourhoods are subtlety segregated by race.
Talk to any European about their thoughts on gypsies.
Ask Japanese about their thoughts on Koreans.
Look up the usage of the word "keling" in south east asian cultures.
What we have in Australia is perhaps a more overt style of referring to cultures or differences, but the barriers to integrate with Australian culture is much lower than other countries. For some migrants that have come from cultures where they had a racial privilege (e.g. caste systems), it could now be confronting to them that their standing in Australia is lowered and equalised.
The way that we establish social bonds (banter, joking around, jabs, insults etc) can also be confusing to foreigners and be perceived as racist, but it's an old UK way of establishing camaraderie by proving that you can dish out an insult but also take it as well. Like stand-up comedy material, this method is being tamed as time goes on.
One final indicator of racial division is the level of mixed marriages. If it was a serious problem, we would see low levels of marriages between different countries of origin. In the EU, the rate of mixed marriages is about 8% (1 in 12). In Australia, the rate is 3.5x larger at 29%.
If it is not an additional layer of bureaucracy, where I can find information that explains which minister or government body that the Voice will make representations towards? Will it direct representation to the existing NIAA or will it replace this government agency?
When explaining the concept to my parents and grandparents, it has been challenging to convince them that this is not just ATSIC 2.0. Their concerns are that the corruption that occurred within that former organisation will be harder to control as the organisation would now have a constitutional shield to protect against criticism or accountability.
I doubt it. The whole "representation" part seems over-hyped. It's being promoted almost as if it will be a dedicated seat in parliament. The more likely outcome that it will just end up being a committee that reports into the existing NIAA structure and we don't end up seeing anything more impactful than what the NIAA is currently delivering.
If the Voice goes ahead, we can look forward to it running into the usual government bureaucracy, leading to disappointment once it becomes clear that government legislation doesn't solve issues that are occurring at the local, community level.
These are the design principles from the working group: https://voice.gov.au/about-voice/voice-principles
The 272-page final report from the co-design working group has all of the minute detail about how they engaged with the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) to design the Voice proposal, including recommendations on how it should operate: https://voice.gov.au/sites/default/files/resource/download/indigenous-voice-co-design-process-final-report_1.pdf
The report, which includes 17 recommendations: https://cacyp.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CACYP_Preliminary-Report-2023.pdf
As for the causes:
Want to know what the ballot paper will look like? Check it out here: https://aec.gov.au/referendums/vote/completing-the-ballot-paper.html
The text under A Proposed Law will read:
To alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?
I did my postal vote the other day and that was all that they give you, so just remember that you're expected to do all of your research and decision making before you get to the ballot box.
It's a poorly designed chart, likely published this way so that it confuses the average reader and hides how bad the numbers actually are.
If you add up the year-on-year budget performance, the Jan-Aug 2023 budget performance is about 2.6 trillion rubles WORSE than last year.
The reporting tries to cover up these bad numbers by focusing on the surplus in June 2023 - the highest result since March 2021. However, the June result would not offset the deficit experienced in April 2023, let alone the Jan and Feb deficits.
There's even a hilarious typo in the news story where the author has stated "800 trillion" instead of the actual "800 billion" result, plus they mixed up the months - the 800B was in June, not August. They really should run these numbers past an analyst before printing the story, but I expect disinformation is the real goal.
And it didn't just go extinct by luck. It's a good case study of how to control and/or eliminate a virus (e.g. COVID):
"The rapid and global implementation of social distancing measures, masking, and the profound early reduction in international travel resulted in a substantial reduction in flu transmission."
We shouldn't concede that the public has to pay more to fix this problem. We just need to pressure our government representatives to prioritise funding for education above that of other areas.
The average teacher makes $84,810 per year.
It is estimated that there are 307,041 full time teachers.
This equates to a full teacher salary budget of $26B. We know that education is managed at the state level, but let's just experiment with a scenario whereby the federal government decides to provide a funding boost to salaries. Giving all teachers a 25% pay rise would cost $6.5B per year.
How much was the 2023 budget surplus just recently announced by the government? $22B.
So, the government could have covered a 25% pay increase to all teachers in Australia, using a third of the surplus that they realised in this year's budget.
Ok, that's for one year, but what about future years, you might ask...
Well, how about we take some of the funding from the scrapping of Stage 3 tax cuts. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that the cost of the Stage 3 tax cuts will be $313B over a decade ($31.3B per year). Those tax cuts could even be watered down so that they don't impact lower incomes. The top 20% of income earners in the country receive 73% of the benefit from those tax cuts.
Let's only have tax cuts for the bottom 80% of income earners. That would still give us $22.8B per year in extra budget that we allocate to education. It's that simple.