While you will get the fine notice you shouldn't have to pay it - there is an option to reply with a reason why you shouldn't be fined and being overseas at the time would count as a legit excuse.

Fernwood, a women only gym, is allowed to exist.

Because there are sections of the law which allow exemption from the gender discrimination section for various reasons, and they have successfully argued that there are benefits to having a women only gym which are important enough to deserve an exemption (to provide substantive equality). They also only allow women patrons, so men are not charged for a service that is not equally provided.

I don’t really see it as problematic for a discriminated class to seek to foster a space free from those who perpetuate that discrimination

Neither do many other people, which is why such examples as Fernwood have received exemptions from the law and why there is a specific exemption in the laws for both female and male only clubs.

I don’t think it sets a precedent for protected classes to be discriminated against as “art” because men aren’t a class that needs protecting

Allowing discrimination based on gender without substantiating the businesses eligibility for an exemption under the law absolutely would set a precedent for the courts. While you may agree with this particular case of discrimination it is not a good idea to open an opportunity for more discrimination in the future - keep in mind it may not always be the type you agree with.

Good. I think the other option - setting a precedent allowing businesses to skirt discrimination laws by claiming their behaviour was art - would have been a rather poor decision.

The ABC now likes to do clickbait style headlines like that to try and grab attention, it's a trend that annoys me. They also often rotate through options including a more traditional headline depending on what device you use and what time you access it - currently the headline is showing for me as "Electric car sales in Australia's outer suburbs take off as commuters pocket 'ridiculous' savings", which while still a bit hyped up is more informative.

The train itself isn't really the slow part for the XPT, it's supposed to be able to run up to 160km/h. Knowing that only made it more annoying though when sitting in one chugging along at ~80k (or even slower when hot) up and down the north coast line - like most of our lines that track just wasn't good enough for it to go faster.

If he truly believed it was a good thing he should have just legislated it to start off with. That way you have the benefits of such a body sooner, and if people can see something in action and actually working to close the gap they would be more inclined to allow it into the Constitution in a later referendum (and even if the later referendum fails you still have both the body and the work they have done).

Edit: To be clearer, it is possible to both legislate a voice and have a referendum on it while a party is in government, particularly since it is rare for a government to only get a single term.

Is the referendum literally just to ask whether the constitution should recognise the First Peoples of Australia?

It was actually about whether the constitution should be changed to say there shall be a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, and that this body "may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples". Purely symbolic recognition would have had a much better chance of getting in IMO.

ABC just called it as defeated, all over before WA even got to start counting...

It's a very small pencil, possibly even smaller than last election.

Not sure myself that it actually is smaller or why sausages are absent from the picture.

It's a real show of how much road safety discussion is fixated on lowering speed limits when you've just talked about how significant numbers of people are now not wearing seatbelts and the topic you move straight into is decreasing speed limits and driving more slowly instead of how to increase the number of people wearing seatbelts...

Looking south along the Brindabellas at Mt Coree: https://aussie.zone/post/2470343

I'd be happy to reduce the amount of times I have to deal with providing multiple forms of ID, particularly the insanity of having to get copies certified for places that then expect you to email a image of said copies (therefore defeating the whole point of a certified copy).

I am dubious that a digital ID will actually end up making things easier though, I give it pretty good odds that it'll just be an additional hoop to jump through. I also have reservations about what happens when the digital IDs are compromised, because that'll happen at some point no matter how secure the system is claimed to be.

Edit: Relevant XKCD