My husband has a spinal cord injury (so now disabled) since last April. Didn't qualify for DSP but he has NDIS funding (thank goodness). No point in applying for jobseeker as my (very modest) income is apparently too much for it to be worth all the hassle. So we live off my income. 🫠

ladies and gentlemen, the future of australian higher education

how is the partner income test enforced you ask? welcome to the fucking form. it’s not just sex tho, they’ll also scrutinise whether you eat together, share the washing and so on. www.pedestrian.tv/news/centrel...

this is one of the most insane policies people are subjected to in Australia if you're in a couple, your partner's income is used to assess *your* eligibility for dole, disability, etc. if your partner makes a basic wage, *you* can't get help it's designed to keep victims in abusive relationships

I thought Starmer was going to fund public services by increasing productivity and growth? As I (and others) said, that’s supply sider cope and delusion.

“The destruction of U.S.A.I.D. [caused] public man-made death. And the cruelty and lethality will only grow as the Administration expands its rollback of public-health advances to the homeland.” www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 failed to pass the Senate this session following a healthy dose of luck and community opposition to last-minute Labor amendments to legislate an extraordinary expansion of police powers. 👇

*also carers. I am a full time carer for my mum who has dementia and partner earns too much for me to qualify for (even a part) carers pension

It is a peculiar quirk of the Australian social security system that when given the option to either engage with Centrelink for the disability support pension, or work to death for slightly better yet still poverty level wages, many women will choose the non-centrelink option, and try to hug it

I've long criticised the dehumanising and patriarchal partner income test embedded everywhere in the Australian welfare state. The tax on love really does hurt families, and has a real impact on relationship formation or termination. www.reddit.com/r/Centrelink...

Much to critique about psychiatry and pharma, but many critics go too far and smear medication. This risks great harm - reluctance to take medication by those who really need it. Kanye’s downward spiral after refusing mood stabilisers is tragic but not uncommon. x.com/Kurrco/statu...

what might establish misconduct? clear hallucinations, fake references. objective, demonstrable fabrication: whether AI or not. check references against sources. if that is too weak, and you have zero tolerance for AI, you must abandon any external and non-invigilated assessment. simple as that

aggressive advertising of so-called AI detection apps (themselves AI) to educators. misleading implies that they're conclusive, while flattering markers' prejudices. no your instinct plus an AI tool don't "confirm" anything.

The social media ban will usher in a golden age of forums and blogging, an internet renaissance

i’m against abundance, i favour shortage and scarcity

Two growing tax loopholes that are exploited by the rich – and how to plug the leaks - @thepointau.bsky.social thepoint.com.au/explainers/2...

I loathe “child-free.” We use “-free” not neutrally, but to mark the absence of something bad or contaminating: sugar-free, chemical-free, usually in a consumer choice context. Basically frames children as pollutant commodities.

I love the thing of “‘my most unpopular opinion is…” when stating an opinion very popular with the target audience

That a meaningless % AI number generated by a so-called AI detector model, a black box which is is unverified in efficacy and known for false positives, should carry ANY significant weight in a formal investigation is goofy. Clown stuff from universities.

the universal definition rich: those who are richer than me

A hard rain is going to fall on unis using (bogus) AI detection tools, the results of which are themselves AI slop, to presume students’ guilty of cheating. Then reverse burden of proof and demand students prove their innocence. Sensing class actions, Robodebt 2.0. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

instrumental arg for humanities in modern economy

End all funding every single private employment services provider. Salt the earth so those in change of them never get any public money ever again - run them out of the country. Get rid of mutual obligations Bring back the CES Raise the fricken rate Ain’t hard.

schools are so paranoid about the heat these days. because woke. (actually probably due to the air conditioning industrial complex)

I wonder if part of it is meeting bloat. Remote meetings as the norm has meant every waking moment is filled with meetings, so people just eat whenever.

never heard these but they’re the most perfect poetic statement of the Australian spirit

dissing people for not understanding econ101 is usually dumb, but it's fair and apt in the case of Sussan Ley

working from home seems to have accelerated the collapse of norms relating to not eating at your desk. but at least at work people would usually not eat in a meeting. now people happily munch away on camera and audio... sorry that's gross!

left post-truth discourse: how popular it was to declare Kirk’s killer a groyper, despite zero evidence. even eminent academic historian! now watching it with hasan piker who’s been caught out unequivocally lying and simply changes his story (2-3 times now), while declaring any critics crazy nazis

To be clear, it is the official position of the Australian Government that Work for the Dole is the only mandatory activity in the employment services system. Everything else those providers have forced you to do? You consented to this, according to the Australian Government.

Setting aside the Strangelovesque implications of a top general getting “advice” from Fancy Autocomplete, if General Taylor has shared classified with ChatGPT, he should be investigated and charged. futurism.com/future-socie...

Lunch time. I could buy this lunch for 40,000 people for the cost of this report nobody has written nor read, commissioned and then buried in the desperate thrashing of a department bargaining with the reality of what they've done to hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients.

Reject the postmodernist tale of postdoctoral horror! If you don't see your friends among the ranks of professors after their thesis defence, it was because they were immediately raptured and are now enjoying their immortality in the parnassian fields behind the sun.

in general, fiction should not exceed 250 pages

overhead a gen z convo in Newtown last night: "who's heard of the smashing pumpkins?"

Attlee taught Labour to walk, now he watches on as they fly

"Turn around or you're going to get the dog."

there is no love like the Australian boomer male’s love of spraying herbicide

looking for home office colour laser printer (but mostly black and white) only basic requirements: 1) modest maintainance and refill costs 2) no constant paper jams 3) easy & intuitive to use (no mysterious error messages, constant catch 22 frustration etc) would appreciate options

“I’ll declare war on you if you don’t give me the peace prize” is an incredible bit

Here's my primer on Americans: they're weird, and usually think they are the only country in the world.

We're meant to have these things called the Australian Federal Police and also the National Anti-Corruption Commission who are both certainly authorised to act in the scenario where a government department is recovering >$3.5m a year in fraud without even really actively looking.

all Americans have "taxation is theft" brain from birth, they helplessly fall into it unless actively concentrating

drinking is tanking among young people. thinking informally about this for a moment I think if, specifically, the ratio of dangerous drinking to non-dangerous drinking is falling (and I don’t know it is), it would be a case for cutting tax news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2025/10...

I’m not a punitive person but Aus uni administrators belong in prison

uncle Freddie & his hardboiled gritty realism to scare the youths straight. it’s such a tedious schitck here, he says people who suicide do it for status elevation, and thus tells readers not to suicide because their friends will laugh and mock their death open.substack.com/pub/freddied...

Australia Brain would do this with vigorous household income means testing seamlessly merging into an income contingent loan, which would allow us all to wax lyrical about its efficiency, whilst reducing net-benefit to human welfare by about 90 cents in the dollar. Oi Oi Oi!

find someone who validates you like chatgpt validates you

ICE is out of control in Chicago. Now just tossing tear gas canisters out of the car in the middle of one of our neighborhoods as kids are walking home from school, people out going grocery shopping. chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10...