cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/54459152

Me_irl

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/33395211

* provided you have decently well functioning public service, and it's not a country with high levels of corruption.

I hold the belief that things being equal there is almost no situation in which privatisation of public services has ever been a positive for the average person.

However, I'm keen to hear arguments, examples or studies where privatisation has gone well [1], and has been a net positive to society, and could not have been performed by the government.

I don't believe there are such examples, and I believe (with too many real world examples to list) that privatisation always leads to enshittification and budget blow outs eventually because private companies exist to maximise profits.

This community (!aussocialism@aussie.zone) does not delete comments that disagree with socialism, so you're very much encouraged to share your views respectfully.

[1] for countries that have some level of democracy at that point in history i.e. I'm not really interested in the example of China becoming capitalist, 1. because Chinese "socialism" was never control of society by the workers, and was (and still is) a top-down hierarchical dictatorship - which had a ruling class determined by party position, and now also determined by wealth. No wonder that things were being run so poorly before they decided to be capitalist. Dictatorships don't usually breed very good conditions for sensible management. 2. They still have most core government services being administered by government departments.

* provided you have decently well functioning public service, and it's not a country with high levels of corruption.

I hold the belief that things being equal there is almost no situation in which privatisation of public services has ever been a positive for the average person.

However, I'm keen to hear arguments, examples or studies where privatisation has gone well [1], and has been a net positive to society, and could not have been performed by the government.

I don't believe there are such examples, and I believe (with too many real world examples to list) that privatisation always leads to enshittification and budget blow outs eventually because private companies exist to maximise profits.

This community (!aussocialism@aussie.zone) does not delete comments that disagree with socialism, so you're very much encouraged to share your views respectfully.

[1] for countries that have some level of democracy at that point in history i.e. I'm not really interested in the example of China becoming capitalist, 1. because Chinese "socialism" was never control of society by the workers, and was (and still is) a top-down hierarchical dictatorship - which had a ruling class determined by party position, and now also determined by wealth. No wonder that things were being run so poorly before they decided to be capitalist. Dictatorships don't usually breed very good conditions for sensible management. 2. They still have most core government services being administered by government departments.

Cross-posted to AustralianPolitics: https://aussie.zone/post/33395217

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/31075060

Perhaps the one silver lining to US imperialism, is that more people will want better public transport

Perhaps the one silver lining to US imperialism, is that more people will want better public transport

We have a mixed system in our federal parliament. We have a lower house made up of 150 preferential, winner-takes-all electorates, and an upper house of multi-member electorates for each state and territory elected Hare–Clark proportional representation.

My topic of discussion today is whether we would benefit from altering the lower house, and what way would you alter it (or not).

I'm personally not a fan of making the lower house as proportional as the upper house, as many government functions are legislated to be controlled by government ministers, which necessitates the lower house forming a governing coalition. This is made much harder under high levels of proportional representation (see Tasmania & many european countries).

I'm only not a fan because I think the general public doesn't like seeing slow moving government. I actually think it's fine.

However, I personally think a pragmatic change would be to increase the lower house MPs by 50% from 150 to 225, and then have 75 electorates of 3 members each.

This way, you retain the local representation, while removing "safe" seats that parties ignore, as it's likely at least one member is in doubt every election.

Keen to hear people's ideas, and pet proposals.

(Note, I am not a political scholar so won't have used the most correct jargon.)

My commentary:

By my understanding, the only tools the RBA have to control inflation are: setting interest rates, and quantitative tightening (and conversely easing).

Surely, there must be more regulatory powers we could give them. Understandably, many inflationary controlling functions should remain legislative/departmental, but the bank can act decisively and quickly, so SOME extra powers are in order, in my opinion, so they don't constantly resort to ONLY increasing mortgages and therefore rent as well, every single time.

Just spit-balling here: variable tax rates (income and corporate). Since taxation is so damn unpopular (not to me, tax is necessary to have a functioning society under capitalism), it would make some sense to give regulatory power to alter taxation rates (within a legislated range) to the independent RBA. Let them take the flak for increasing the top tax bracket rate by 3% or something.

What are your opinions/ideas about the RBA?

(Sorry if against community rules, but there weren't any in the side bar)

The "big switch" has ended up being a lot less big than originally promised. I'm really happy we now have a turn up and go service - or at least every 10 minutes - on the lines going through the Metro Tunnel (the Munnel), but feels really silly we haven't brought more drivers on board to run services at least every 10 minutes across the network, and upped all bus routes to the same frequency.

There's a great map that Taitset made showing sections of the metro network which could already do 10 minute running.

My mum, who's in her late 60s, told me of growing up in [European city]. She interchanged 2 times between 2 trains and a bus on her way too highschool. Her and her friends didn't like the bus because it only came every 10 minutes. In the 1970s.

It's a bit embarrassing to me how bad our frequency is, given our massive population.

It would be great if we could convince our government or MPs holding the balance of power at the next state election to invest in a larger workforce to achieve the frequency PTV needs to thrive.

Keen to hear others thoughts on the "Big Switch".

P.S. I've talked to multiple colleagues who live on the lines who literally didn't know about the "Big Switch" until I told them about it, 2 days beforehand.

Cross-posted to !melbourne@aussie.zone

• https://aussie.zone/post/29742121

X-Posted to:

• !melbourne@aussie.zone

I dunno what rules we want to have in this community, but thought I'd kick things off by this article I read, which forbodes 2026. A year (I suspect) that the centre right Labor governments and right wing LNP governments clamp down on political speech.

I wonder how long before the new federal hate speech laws are used to silence left wing

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/22987236

I'm wondering whether I'll have to wait a long time after royal accent for the new penalty rates bill [1] to enjoy not having to work 40 hours a week (and finally be able to work a standard 38).

From what I can tell, the bill only requires the Fair Work Commission to make/update awards such that you must be paid overtime, meaning the professional employees award won't be valid anymore (where they don't have to unless you earn less than 1.25x of minimum wage).

I'm wondering what your opinion/guess is (not legal advice) on whether we'll need to wait for the award to be updated, or can just go to our employers and say: hey, I'm working 38 hours unless you want to pay me overtime.

I was part of my union, but since engineers are barely in the union, being part of a Professionals Australia (the union for my industry) was kind of a waste of time, and I tried many times to get in touch with their organiser team to push membership in my company to not avail.

Since then I let it lapse because I thought they were doing a pretty bad job, since you can't have solidarity by yourself. In any case, that's why I can't ask them

[1] Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025:

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=LEGISLATION;id=legislation%2Fbills%2Fr7335_first-reps%2F0001;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbills%2Fr7335_first-reps%2F0000%22;rec=0

This is not yet law.

Ammends this act: [2] Fair Work Act 2009: https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2009A00028/latest/text

Edit just for the good people in this community: mission accomplished folks! Not sure what did it, perhaps the railway was successful in their legal challenges, but only the real listings remain as far as I can tell! (Checked today 2025.08.09)

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/20546632

Friends, please help me report multiple scam listings for Puffing Billy on Google maps "located" in the CBD/South Melbourne.

Location 1 CBD: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fxVNa5w4SbZ7V1Qi9

Location 2 South Melbourne: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YB7w8NzmbtMJbdmf7

These, for those who know, are obviously not real. And include a bunch of AI generated photos (plus photos from people who didn't realise the postings were not the real ones)

The locations link to a fake puffing billy websites selling "discounted tickets" (putting a markup on the tickets, or stealing personal information, do doubt).

I've tried repeatedly to suggest an edit to have them removed, the CBD listing was briefly taken down, but somehow the scammer has had it reinstated.

The one in South Melbourne keeps being rejected by the Google moderator.

Please leave negative reviews on these listings based on your own assessment and opinion. If you come to the same obvious conclusion, please use the keywords "scam" so that google highlights this to people looking at the reviews.

Please suggest an edit > place is closed or not here > and choose one of the following:

1. Doesn't exist here
2. Duplicate of another location (make sure you don't select the other fraudulent location, only none of the above if the one from Belgrave doesn't appear)
3. Offensive, harmful or misleading

Hoping the number of reports will help it be reviewed by someone who isn't just looking at the age of the postings and the number of reviews.