Victorian Politics

[wayneL]

Melbourne CBD is for young people.
City is pumping every night. I find it surprising how quickly it has expanded and I am used to it. Heaps of rooftop bars, restaurants and big crowds even on a Wednesday. Only going to get more popular.

They built a large rooftop bar near my work ( cnr Exhibition and Bourke) and the noise at night is amazing.

Hedonism<>happiness/contentedness.

But but I do agree it is good fun at the time

 

[sptrawler]

TBH as city's go I really liked Melbourne and driving around was relatively easy and the Vic's are good drivers a plus is you can buy good coffee there.

I agree, I've always thought it had more character than Sydney, must admit being a young bloke from Kalgoorlie in the early 70's riding a motorbike through there was a bit hair raising, go left to turn right really freaked me out.

 

[sptrawler]

Australia is going 'Mad".

Authorities are trying to figure out how best to safeguard public safety at The Pillars in Victoria, with the local council and lifesaving club discussing their options.​

Locals and Instagram tourists warned over dangerous 'trend' at Aussie swimming spot

In the last two weeks three swimmers have suffered serious injuries – and local authorities say something needs to change.

au.news.yahoo.com

A lifesaving club is pleading with people to stop jumping from rocks at a popular swimming spot after three separate incidents involving serious injuries have occurred in the last two weeks

 

[mullokintyre]

Australia is going 'Mad".

Authorities are trying to figure out how best to safeguard public safety at The Pillars in Victoria, with the local council and lifesaving club discussing their options.​

Locals and Instagram tourists warned over dangerous 'trend' at Aussie swimming spot

In the last two weeks three swimmers have suffered serious injuries – and local authorities say something needs to change.

au.news.yahoo.com

A lifesaving club is pleading with people to stop jumping from rocks at a popular swimming spot after three separate incidents involving serious injuries have occurred in the last two weeks

When I was a kid we jumped off those rocks on many occasions.
I don't recall there being hundreds of people then, maybe 15 at most even in summer.
It wasn't that easy to access , we road our bikes down there.
There were probably kids injured back then, but there were kids injured doing lotsa things.
Mick

 

[mullokintyre]

Just when we thought that after all the bad publicity , Royal Commissions, party purges and political grandstanding, that Branch stacking had been killed off, it seems to have reared its ugly head in State Labour ranks.
From Evil Murdoch press

It is particularly dissappointing that once again it revolves around ethnic groupings, in this case the Indian community.
Micki

 

[sptrawler]

Just when we thought that after all the bad publicity , Royal Commissions, party purges and political grandstanding, that Branch stacking had been killed off, it seems to have reared its ugly head in State Labour ranks.
From Evil Murdoch press

It is particularly dissappointing that once again it revolves around ethnic groupings, in this case the Indian community.
Micki

They are great at networking, check out Perth airport, it wont be a lot of years before a high percentage of politicians are from an ethnic background as their percentage of the population grows.
Not to say that is a bad thing, diversity is important and Australians are generally not very politically motivated and tend to be somewhat apathetic.
This has been the case for a long time and could be seen in the union movement, with a very high proportion of reps being from a U.K background.

 

[mullokintyre]

From the Australian

Unless I am very much mistaken, it is an offence to leave your car unsecured (i.e. unlocked with the keys inside ).
From Car Expert

I guess being a Victorian Judge, he will not feel the wrath of Vitoria's finest.

Mick

 

[farmerge]

From the Australian
View attachment 169827
Unless I am very much mistaken, it is an offence to leave your car unsecured (i.e. unlocked with the keys inside ).
From Car Expert
View attachment 169828
I guess being a Victorian Judge, he will not feel the wrath of Vitoria's finest.

Mick

@mullokintyre Nah Mick just another tax payer funded set of wheels so the d*ckhead can do it all over again.

 

[mullokintyre]

In another piece of political bungling, it seems that not one single person will be charged ocer the Nikola Gobbo scandal.
And it has cost Victorian taxpayers $20 million to come to this farcical conclusion.
From Evil Murdoch Press

The Lawyer X unit established to probe potential criminal conduct by police cost Victorian taxpayers about $20m before it was abolished last week.
The Office of Special Investigator, which collapsed last year after the state’s top prosecutor rejected its briefs of evidence, ceased operations last Friday.

State Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes’ office has confirmed the cost of running the OSI, which was led by former High Court Geoffrey Nettle KC, during its two-year life was $20m.

Announcing the establishment of the OSI in June 2021, Ms Symes described the unit delivering on a key finding of the royal commission into the Lawyer X scandal in which gang war lawyer Nicola Gobbo was recruited by police to spy on her own clients.

Ms Symes described the OSI as an “important step forward” in restoring confidence in the justice system. “We’re getting on with the work of restoring the integrity of the justice system by implementing the royal commission’s recommendations – ensuring our justice system has Victorians’ confidence and trust,” she said.

But the government didn’t arm the OSI with the power to unilaterally lay criminal charges, and Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd refused to lay charges on the OSI’s behalf.

The dispute sparked a legal stoush between Mr Nettle and Ms Judd and triggered the collapse of the OSI.

“I had concluded that the chances of the director approving Charlie (an OSI investigation into multiple police officers) or any other charges that OSI might submit were now effectively nil, which made it a waste of time and money for OSI to persist,” Mr Nettle said in a special report tabled in parliament last June.

Senior legal figures say the impact of the scandal is still being felt in Victoria’s criminal justice system almost 10 years after the Lawyer X story emerged.

Former chief crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert KC launched a scathing attack on the failure to lay charges over the scandal.

“Gobbo, despite her willingness to plead guilty, was never charged. Senior members of the Victoria Police hierarchy have never been charged,” Mr Silbert said.

“Millions of dollars of taxpayer money has been wasted and nobody seems to care. The reputation of Victoria Police, once the nation’s finest, has been trashed. There is now an aura of corruption enveloping the whole of Victoria’s criminal justice system.”

Judd was, not surprisingly, appointed by labour as the first female to hold that position.
It should also be noted that Kerri Judd also declined to issue any prosecutons over the shambolic COVID quarantine bungle that was supposedly examined by worksafe Victoria. ( Moment of truth in Quarantine fiasco )
One thing you can always rely on is that politicians put people in positions of authority and power precisely so that authority and power is not used on them.
I wonder if the new all singing all dancing Commission against Corruption will be allowed to look into it, or is that asking too much?
Mick

 

[farmerge]

In another piece of political bungling, it seems that not one single person will be charged ocer the Nikola Gobbo scandal.
And it has cost Victorian taxpayers $20 million to come to this farcical conclusion.
From Evil Murdoch Press




Judd was, not surprisingly, appointed by labour as the first female to hold that position.
It should also be noted that Kerri Judd also declined to issue any prosecutons over the shambolic COVID quarantine bungle that was supposedly examined by worksafe Victoria. ( Moment of truth in Quarantine fiasco )
One thing you can always rely on is that politicians put people in positions of authority and power precisely so that authority and power is not used on them.
I wonder if the new all singing all dancing Commission against Corruption will be allowed to look into it, or is that asking too much?
Mick

Could this be a case of the old school tie brigade looking after its own

 

[wayneL]

Pesutto is on the nose and cannot win, unless Labor spectacularly screw up even more.

It looks as though the egregious Pesutto is toast.

 

[sptrawler]

Things are getting shaky in Victoria by the sound of it, big infrastructure projects and a small tax base is coming to a head.

Secret recording reveals sense of budget crisis in Victorian hospitals

Bed and ward closures, reducing elective surgery, cancelling breast screenings and even closing special-care cots were all openly discussed as possibilities to save money.

www.theage.com.au

A secretly recorded meeting of executives from some of the state’s biggest hospital networks has revealed the sense of crisis felt inside the system as it faces its greatest financial shock in 30 years.

Draft budgets provided this month by the Allan government to the state’s 76 separate public hospital networks lay bare the challenge facing the public health system.

The state’s largest network, Monash Health, has been asked to carve about $200 million out of its operating expenses.
At a meeting this month, the possibility of bed closures, shutting entire wards, reducing elective surgery, cancelling breast screening and even closing special-care cots used to treat critically sick babies was openly discussed.

“The whole system is going to tank,” one administrator told the meeting.

Councils pitch flexible rates to tackle ‘alarming’ funding woes

Struggling councils say services will be cut and infrastructure will deteriorate if they don’t have more say over rate rises.

www.theage.com.au

Cash-strapped Victorian councils say they will be forced to let roads deteriorate, sell off assets and ditch aged care and kindergarten services unless the state government loosens its grip over how much they can increase rates.
The peak body for councils wants to move to a “multi-year approach”, giving councils a rate cap over four years instead of one – and the ability to charge more in one year and less the next.

 

[moXJO]

Things are getting shaky in Victoria by the sound of it, big infrastructure projects and a small tax base is coming to head.

Secret recording reveals sense of budget crisis in Victorian hospitals

Bed and ward closures, reducing elective surgery, cancelling breast screenings and even closing special-care cots were all openly discussed as possibilities to save money.

www.theage.com.au

A secretly recorded meeting of executives from some of the state’s biggest hospital networks has revealed the sense of crisis felt inside the system as it faces its greatest financial shock in 30 years.

Draft budgets provided this month by the Allan government to the state’s 76 separate public hospital networks lay bare the challenge facing the public health system.

The state’s largest network, Monash Health, has been asked to carve about $200 million out of its operating expenses.
At a meeting this month, the possibility of bed closures, shutting entire wards, reducing elective surgery, cancelling breast screening and even closing special-care cots used to treat critically sick babies was openly discussed.

“The whole system is going to tank,” one administrator told the meeting.

Councils pitch flexible rates to tackle ‘alarming’ funding woes

Struggling councils say services will be cut and infrastructure will deteriorate if they don’t have more say over rate rises.

www.theage.com.au

Cash-strapped Victorian councils say they will be forced to let roads deteriorate, sell off assets and ditch aged care and kindergarten services unless the state government loosens its grip over how much they can increase rates.
The peak body for councils wants to move to a “multi-year approach”, giving councils a rate cap over four years instead of one – and the ability to charge more in one year and less the next.

Dan Andrew worshippers can't hear you.

 

[wayneL]

Holy crap

 

[Smurf1976]

Holy crap

View attachment 179796

Now I'm old enough to remember all too well that ~1993 was regarded as an outright crisis at the time. It left a trail of wreckage in Victoria across the economy, and brought significant effects to other states, SA and Tas most notably, as they too were affected by the overall situation in Victoria.

It's also not totally to blame but it's one of the reasons for the energy mess today. It was the trigger and justification for selling off the state-owned assets. Trouble being that along with the assets being sold, so too all planning for the future was disbanded in practice - trades training, energy resource planning, generation construction, it all went and doing so sowed the seeds for many of today's problems, not least because the feds looking at Victoria's debt reduction pressured other states to do the same.

As for the situation now, well holy ****. There's already nothing left to sell, at least 30 years ago the state did actually own some valuable assets. Today that debt is underpinned by little more than taxation revenue alone.

 

[Knobby22]

Now I'm old enough to remember all too well that ~1993 was regarded as an outright crisis at the time. It left a trail of wreckage in Victoria across the economy, and brought significant effects to other states, SA and Tas most notably, as they too were affected by the overall situation in Victoria.

It's also not totally to blame but it's one of the reasons for the energy mess today. It was the trigger and justification for selling off the state-owned assets. Trouble being that along with the assets being sold, so too all planning for the future was disbanded in practice - trades training, energy resource planning, generation construction, it all went and doing so sowed the seeds for many of today's problems, not least because the feds looking at Victoria's debt reduction pressured other states to do the same.

As for the situation now, well holy ****. There's already nothing left to sell, at least 30 years ago the state did actually own some valuable assets. Today that debt is underpinned by little more than taxation revenue alone.

I remember that crisis. It was a mess.

It is unfortunate that the government didn't change at the last election. In normal times it would have but the opposition could not get their act together.

The Libs now have John Pesutto back and will likely win the next one but that is some time away. He appears to be a very capable leader.

Two of the three biggest infrastructure projects will be finished next year but the third is only half was through. Another project still in its early stages, the outer ring rail project which needs to be cancelled. I don't know why this hasn't occurred already considering the financial situation.

They will be flush with cash in the future, but we have to get through this massive infrastructure build.

 

[Knobby22]

Just want to add, the really big mistake was the Commonwealth Games. They are still building parts of it as they promised the communities involved.

I do think that the government finances can be put back in order but a change of government would help that greatly.

 

[mullokintyre]

I would not care much for the politics of the IPA, but unless their maths are incorrect or fudged, it hardly paints Victoria in a positive light.

Mick

 

[sptrawler]

I would not care much for the politics of the IPA, but unless their maths are incorrect or fudged, it hardly paints Victoria in a positive light.

View attachment 180286
Mick

Yet Dan will hit legendary status in a few generations.

Don't forget, he wasn't voted out, he walked.

Strange cattle Victorians.

 

[IFocus]

Yet Dan will hit legendary status in a few generations.

Don't forget, he wasn't voted out, he walked.

Strange cattle Victorians.

Should have just locked the border like WA and carried on as for the IPA always thought they were totally imparcial and am sure that report will be objective and balanced.