I have a second cheap second hand phone for work only purposes.

My employer has their device attestation set to only allow intune / Microsoft products to sign in if you are running stock android. Graphene nogo.

When it comes to digital rights we have slowly been heading towards fascist dystopia.

I first stated paying attention when Rudd / Conroy tried to filter the internet. Although IIRC mobile phone Know Your Customer came in post sept 2001.

Since then it's just been a frog in a pot. Meta data retention, assistance and access, identify and disrupt now the hand your ID to every fucking site/app bullshit posing as a kids social media ban.

It's always been about the ability to silence dissent.

Fuck our politicians. Enjoying saying that while I can. Probably won't be long before saying that will get your internet cut off.

I'm so glad that capturing everything with photos / videos and uploading to socials wasn't a thing in the early 2000s when I was going to clubs and electronic music festivals. Reach for the lasers safe as fuck.

Vehicles with a front height that's above the average adults waist height should be given automatic zero stars for vulnerable road user protection rating.

Anything with a zero rating should be restricted from being driven while on probation. They should also attract a special extra registration fee.

The fact that at the moment some high fronted child crushers can get 5 stars is a damming indictment of ANCAP.

They also banned adults from big social media who don't want to comply with what ever data harvesting / govt spying mandate that will be implemented.

For me it was Howard. He was really effective at furthering many neo liberal economic policies to fuck over anyone not born in to wealth. Sure some of the more recent PMS have been more embarrassing and stupid (scummo, abbot) but Howard was an absolute arsehole.

He brought in the capital gains tax discount for real estate which when combined with the existing negative gearing policy was/is a major contributor driving investors to real estate thus making property become unaffordable. Not to mention it's just so unfair inequitable. Why the fuck should a person who buys existing houses pay less tax on money gained from that than someone who actually produces something of value does on their income?

He was the political equivalent of the FIFO miner spending all his cash on a Malloo, jet ski and glass BBQ party. Howard pissed the early - mid 2000s mining boom proceeds up the wall on middle class welfare. Instead we could have had a future fund like Norway. To be fair every politician we have had since has either been too corrupt or scared to attempt anything like that.

Howard also realised he could fuck over unions by bringing in masses of extra workers via record immigration in order to lower wages. (Added Bonus this increased demand on real estate too) He won't be remembered for that on immigration, instead he will be remembered for his "boat people" rhetoric. It was like a magicians distraction, look at these bad immigrants, meanwhile opening the floodgate for "good" immigrants.

He sold telecom setting our internet tech back at least a decade.

He dragged us in to the middle east wars like a good little lapdog for George dubbya.

He started the erosion of Medicare to please his private health fund donors.

As a millennial, not born in to 1% wealth, Howard and the liberal parties message to me has always been "go fuck yourself". I will never put liberal anywhere but the bottom of the ballot. Potato head might be fantasising about winning the votes of the working class by paying lip service to some issues we face and then campaigning against social issues we don't care about. I don't think that many of us are so foolish to think that the liberals will ever be anything but the party for the elite. Even then they are only the party for the honest elite, that wear their arseholery as a badge of honour. The other elites have the teals.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2024/mar/26/blaming-john-howard-is-easy-but-his-government-helped-shape-the-world-we-live-in-now-and-for-future-generations

Anyone know why this bullshit is being allowed by govt?

How did voice over LTE end up needing carrier software approval on top of having the right hardware?

Is this telcos writing legislation for yet another ignorant communications minister?

All I see is limited consumer choice, generation of completely unnecessary e-waste and a giant "fuck off" sign to international tourists.

Australians expect to be able to punish their vehicles over harsh terrain and have it come back in one piece.

Oh please. The most off road the majority of dual cabs get is mounting kerbs in a drive through.

my guess would be old.reddit disappearing.

Not having all the silly teenager / young adult bits of their lives documented in videos for all to see.

Maybe we need a car that is low and wedge shaped, like something from battlebots. When cars high off the ground run in to it they will be guaranteed to roll.

That's why we call those type of "bike lanes" a murder strip.

Have them where I live too.

31°57'30"S 115°54'16"E