For decades, the loudest voices in planning were saying "No." We started YIMBY Melbourne to say "Yes." The Guardian credits that shift with driving a "planning policy revolution." Proof that when you show up with evidence & optimism, you can change policy!

On leave til Monday but again asking why politicians, government agencies and journalists are continuing to post on a site that has weaponised nudifying people, including children. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The United States is a rogue actor throwing the world into disarray. It hosts war criminal Netanyahu, sanctions ICC and European officials, launches strikes around the world, and now kidnaps foreign leaders. Western allies need to stop it if they truly believe in human rights and international law.

Areas that were downzoned saw increases in their white population shares (or slower loss of white population) and concentrated wealth compared to non-downzoned areas.

The good news just keeps on coming

We could build 67,000 extra homes a year & see rents fall 12% in a decade. How? By fixing our land use planning systems. ✍️Brendan Coates inflectionpoints.work/articles/pla...

Tech giant Meta is not only failing to block scam ads but is knowingly taking billions from scammers each year, according to leaked internal audits that found the company is feeding users 15 billion scam ads per day – and even more to those that click on one. Read more ia.acs.org.au/article/2025...

Infrastructure Victoria is clear—better connected and safer cycling infrastructure is needed to support more Victorians to ride.

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

this is how it’s enforced www.pedestrian.tv/news/centrel...

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...

ChatGPT advised a suicidal young woman on how to take her own life, telling her "If you choose death, I'm with you - till the end, without judging."

What happened, @nytimes.com? Why not stand by your original headline? Because it’s absolutely an accurate representation of this trash conversation. To publish this at all should be a fireable offense - but to publish it as women’s rights are being decimated is deeply immoral, bordering on evil

#Melbourne trams spend a huge amount of their time just waiting for traffic lights. Traffic light priority would mean faster trips, more competitive travel times, and even enable more frequent tram services with the current fleet.

"People with a disability and Indigenous Australians are overrepresented in the data. About 33% of all suspensions affected those with a disability, and at least 26% of all suspensions affected First Nations people."

If you're in need of positive and rather wholesome news, there's a high school teacher named Bryan who took a ton of freely licensed celebrity headshots at the New York Film Festival last month for Wikipedia, and I truly can't believe how drastic the upgrade is for some articles (thread)

Victoria's new Planning Amendment Bill offers a glimpse of a future where our planning system says "yes" rather than "no" as the default. But this future is at risk if it does secure the crossbench's support. Join us next Thursday for an emergency letter-writing workshop!

No one will remember anything Linda Reynolds did in politics, but we will remember this forever. What a piece of sh#t.

I can’t stress enough that if you’re writing anything longer than a couple of paragraphs, spend time thinking about formatting, layout, readability and design. The amount of work it takes to get to “compelling and professional advocacy” from “unhinged rant” is ten minutes of using a style sheet.

De Brouwer made the exact same argument two years ago after the Robodebt Royal Commission report was delivered. This is how I treated it in Mean Streak: "Grow up."

It gets worse. The Deloitte report suspected of using AI contains a fake quote and erroneous citations to one of the leading cases on Robodebt. www.afr.com//companies/p...

Official trailer for SBS' soon to be released docu-drama 'The People vs. Robodebt' featuring Jenny Miller, Deanna Amato and many others. www.sbs.com.au/aboutus/2025...

i don't want to pick nits with the analogy but i personally would like rules for flying cars to come before they hit our roads (skies?) rather than after

Exclusive: “Systemic failures” in software have left outsourced employment services on the brink of collapse and the government “significantly constrained” in its ability to legally defend mutual obligation requirements, a leaked report reveals. satpa.pe/6BF4WkX

A new paper highlights that while countries like Australia have seen construction productivity fall, NZ saw a boom in the 2010s. Their secret? Zoning reform. By allowing more medium-density housing in cities like Auckland, they supercharged their construction sector

Last week, I got an email from Microsoft. It told me I’d be paying 46% more for my Office subscription, starting next month. But when I tried to cancel, it offered me the same price I was already paying — without the generative AI features I never asked for in the first place.

Waiting for a tram home tonight? Melbourne has the least frequent evening tram services in Australia. #MoreServicesNow

“Hi everyone, I just need to be clear my priority is revoking access as quickly as possible for this participant.” Rick Morton on how the NDIA chief responded to a disability advocate wrongly accused of "rorting" on talkback radio. http://satpa.pe/Tv43WWz

Matt Turnbull, Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing - after the Microsoft layoffs - suggesting on Linkedin that may maybe people who have been let go should turn to AI for help. He seriously thought posting this would be a good idea.

After more than four years and over 1,300 submissions, Australia's first Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry has handed down its final report, calling for major reform.

Shoutout to the time Voyager played Stay Gold in Brunswick and absolutely crushed it. So good to see them putting out new music again after a brutal couple of years. Wishing Danny all the best in his recovery. Full series available at www.deviantart.com/banjoeskimo/gallery

I hope the Lattouf decision gives other board members decision makers around the country serious pause in the future. Political opinions are still legal in this country. Facts and criticism about horrific human rights violations should be supported, not punished.

We don’t need to wait for the Aukus submarines (not that they’ll ever be delivered) to question our sovereignty. It’s happening already. www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politic...

Over the weekend, various planners praised New South Wales' use of floor area ratio (FAR) as a planning tool. This is deeply troubling, because everything we care about should tell us that Sydney’s planning system is far from a model—rather, it's a cautionary tale.

Jobseeker's infamous policy that penalises jobseekers for not going to interviews or applying for jobs has been quietly collapsing, reports Ben Eltham.

Today's front page: "Exclusive: PBS listings frozen over Trump’s executive order". https://trib.al/9YjpoC4

Good day to everyone except the senior management at Electronic Arts: aftermath.site/dragon-age-the...

Community consultation models are broken. They give a megaphone to older, time-rich residents while locking out younger, time-poor voices. The result is a political system tilted toward short-term thinking and against long-term progress.

Finally got around to editing my photos from last year's Thailand trip! Full series available here: www.deviantart.com/banjoeskimo/gallery

Some senior public servants responsible for their agency's adoption of AI do not have the specialised skillset to fully understand the technology and rely on "public sector gossip" to understand the rapid pace of technological development: report www.canberratimes.com.au/story/898505...

Happy Pride y’all 🧱

Youth homelessness is one of the clearest signs of a broken housing system. Lives are derailed nation-wide just as they’re getting started, and yet the way we fund social housing makes it harder to help. Let’s talk about why 🧵 www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

Extremely telling clip with Crusoe Energy's CEO talking about data centre development. "there's no way it's going to get to 100% carbon-free power production to power all of the AI infrastructure" Just saying out loud what the companies say internally. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhIJ...

Services Australia releases AI and automation strategy ia.acs.org.au/article/2025...

Was doing some research looking through old election campaign speeches, and if you really want proof that racism was a bedrock of the foundation of Australia, go have a gander at Alfred Deakin's 1903 speech electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/190...

Techbros out here rebranding buses.

a good day to remember that women in leadership is not inherently progressive or good for women 💅🏻 we should be interested in dismantling the hierarchies that patriarchy uses, not cheering on those who aim to climb up its ladder of injustices xoxo

applying for jobs again

Not only is this true, there are 33 whole-ass mentions of this in the script and each one is freaking hilarious whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...

it's jolting how little AI skepticism has reached the general public. i've had many acquaintances ask whether i use AI for research and seem shocked when i tell them it's completely useless for that purpose. my wife recently told her colleagues about hallucinations and it was news to all of them.