Political leanings all over the shop. Nationalist, Alt-Left, Communitarian or old school Social Democrat. Take your pick. Hobby: yelling at clouds.
Adelaide. South Australia
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Australia should read this article with considerable discomfort.
The headline “Nicotine isn’t dangerous” is too absolute. Nicotine is addictive, has physiological effects and is inappropriate for children. But the article’s central distinction is essential: nicotine is not the principal cause of the cancers, emphysema and other devastating diseases associated with smoking. Combustion is.
Yet Australian regulation appears almost inverted according to risk.
The most dangerous nicotine product the combustible cigarette remains readily available through ordinary retailers. Adults seeking non-combustible alternatives face a pharmacy-only system, restricted flavours and limited participating outlets. Nicotine pouches now have no lawful consumer pathway at all.
We have made smoke easy to purchase and safer nicotine difficult to obtain, then expressed surprise when an illicit market filled the gap.
The consequences are no longer theoretical. ABS experimental estimates suggest total nicotine consumption increased almost 40% between 2017 and 2025, with illicit sources accounting for 80% in 2025. Suppressing legal supply has not eliminated demand; it has changed who supplies it.
None of this requires pretending nicotine is harmless. It requires recognising that different nicotine products carry profoundly different risks.
A rational public-health system would regulate according to those risks: strict age controls, responsible marketing, enforceable product standards and honest communication combined with practical adult access to products capable of replacing cigarettes.
When cigarettes are easier to buy than their lower-risk substitutes, regulation has lost sight of the harm it was supposed to reduce.
Smoking is bad for you. Nicotine isn't—but politicians keep trying to ban it. reason.com/2026/10/01/smokin…
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The remarkable tale of the Ukrainian/Russian/Omani/Indian pilot/copilot and the Israeli plumber/pilot/cabin crew/reserve pilot and the miracle of the impenetrable locked door/opened with a foot and the open door/cabin stormed by passengers/plumber etc
Phew I’m exhausted.
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Wouldn’t it be nice to see Anthony Albanese visiting homeless campsites and seeing what government neglect has left citizens of Australia dealing with as they struggle to simply survive. #RaiseTheRate 550 people employed at Bell Bay smelter boosted by $200m. #auspol #HousingNow
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Remember when people argued with a straight face that this was not representative of how a lot of people approached the issue?
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For years, the Coalition left loopholes open and transparency too weak. Labor is fixing that. Now a record share of big companies are paying income tax. ministers.treasury.gov.au/mi… #auspol
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Mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto were the largest contributors to Australia’s $87.5 billion corporate tax haul from large businesses. ebx.sh/aT9rup
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The largest companies that reported zero corporate income tax in the ATO’s 2024–25 transparency data (entities with $100 million-plus in Australian income) included several well-known names, mostly citing accounting losses, prior-year losses, or large deductions for infrastructure and operations. About 27% of the 4,299 entities in the report paid no tax. theguardian.com
The highest-revenue examples were:
• Singtel (Optus parent): more than $8.3 billion in total income and $0 tax. The company attributed this to infrastructure investment and operating expenses. theguardian.com
• JBS Global Meat Holdings: more than $4.8 billion in revenue and $0 tax (a recurring pattern for the Brazilian-owned meat processor). theguardian.com
• Mineral Resources: $4.8 billion in revenue and $0 tax. crikey.com.au
• Transurban: nearly $2.9 billion in revenue, $2.6 million in taxable income and $0 tax payable. The toll-road operator has paid no corporate tax for a decade. crikey.com.au
• Microsoft’s Australian datacentre business: $2.3 billion in revenue and $0 taxable income. (Microsoft’s separate software business paid $160.6 million on $9.2 billion of revenue.) theguardian.com
• Fonterra: more than $2.4 billion in income and $0 tax. theguardian.com
• News Australia Holdings (News Corp): $1.89 billion in revenue, more than $300 million in profit and $0 tax — its tenth consecutive year of paying nothing. crikey.com.au
• Sony Australia: $1.6 billion in revenue and $0 tax. theguardian.com
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MISSED IT BY THAAAAT MUCH
The collapse in the legal tobacco market is happening faster than forecasters can keep up with
Budget numbers released this week showed a $200m shortfall in tobacco tax
But that shortfall occurred across just nine weeks – the difference between a forecast that would have used start-of-May actuals to estimate end-of-June numbers
For those keeping score, that says Treasury got those nine weeks of tobacco tax collections wrong by almost 30%
At a time when our political debate is choking over whether to cut tobacco tax, this is your reminder that we are
(1) debating over cuts to something disappearing before our very eyes, and
(2) rapidly running out of time to reverse the stranglehold that organised crime has grabbed over a river of gold
History will slap its forehead at our stupidity
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The government says education providers trying to circumvent new restrictions on foreign students taking up management diploma will face consequences ebx.sh/dDT40D
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While indisputably respected and qualified for the job, the optics for the government are poor: a plum New York post is going to the woman who has shaped the Murdoch heir’s career more than anyone bar his 95-year-old father. trib.al/iBAwolL
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Housing in Australia is really tough.
A year ago today, we opened up the 5% deposit program to all first home buyers.
Since then, more than 100,000 people have used it to get the keys to their first home.
There is so much more work to do to make housing more affordable for Australians.
But we are making real progress on a problem that has been decades in the making.
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With Labor's national Left more united than at any other stage in its modern history, it has become clear that the faction’s pick to succeed Albanese – whenever that moment arrives – will be Health Minister Mark Butler. Jason Koutsoukis reports. trib.al/uqCd4TP
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You can preside over the NDIS crime scene and introduce the largest government sponsored boost to organised crime in Australian history (the anti-tobacco campaign)
And still be the Left faction’s preferred choice to be PM.
Jim Cairns, Tom Uren, Doug Cameron, Mick Young, Clyde Cameron were standard bearers.
How far they have fallen.
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An Egyptian born Dentist, under the guise of a mandatory skin check, told a young woman to remove her clothes and lie naked on a dental chair before touching her breasts and genitals, she told Downing Centre District Court
62 year old Maged Fouad Farag allegedly assaulted multiple victims
Shocking. Why do we keep importing doctors? And making it harder and harder for Australians to study medicine?
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Senator Mehreen Faruqi has cried foul after losing the Greens leadership election to David Shoebridge, demanding an immediate change to the voting system.
news24.com.au/politics/austr…
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The fact that my own city now has among the most expensive housing in the world is an utter disgrace. We are no Silicon Valley or global financial centre - we don't even have a car industry any longer. Successive governments have destroyed economic equality in South Australia -
Adelaide houses are unaffordable less than London, New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles. Adelaide homes sell for a medium multiple of 11.2 times the household income . In 1987 the medium for Australian houses sat at 2.8 times income . In 2026 that multiple hit a whopping 11.2 !
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State & Local governments have relied on their cut from rising house prices to fund their budgets.
Easier than having to think productively if you have a safety net like that to protect you.
And if this was all was at the expense of future generations? What did they care?
There’s no financial clawback for a politician’s errors.
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How this has changed over time
Reliance on stamp duty has grown substantially over recent decades due to rising property prices (bracket creep under progressive rates), higher transaction volumes in boom periods, and limited indexation of thresholds in some states. It is highly volatile—surging in housing booms and falling sharply when sales volumes or prices drop.
• Longer-term trend (2000s–2010s): Stamp duty rose from roughly 10–15% of own-source revenue in earlier periods to peaks near or above 20% in NSW and Victoria during strong markets. National own-source share was around 13.5% in 2018–19 and 16–17% in the mid-2010s before some softening.
• 2015–19: NSW ~16–18%, Victoria ~18–22%, SA ~12–15% of own-source revenue (varying with market cycles).
• 2020–23 boom: Shares rose further. NSW stamp duty hit record levels (e.g., ~$9.6–9.7 billion), contributing over 20% of state/local tax revenue in peak years; Victoria and others followed. National stamp duty revenue reached records (e.g., ~$24 billion in one year, later higher).
• Post-2022/23 softening: Declines in transaction volumes and price growth led to write-downs. NSW and Victoria have faced multi-billion-dollar downward revisions in forecasts. Shares remain elevated relative to history but are more volatile and under pressure. Overall property-related taxes (including land tax) are forecast around 16–19% of total revenue in NSW/Victoria and ~8% in SA in the mid-to-late 2020s.
Key drivers of change:
• Strong house price growth + progressive rate scales = automatic revenue growth (“bracket creep”).
• Market cycles: High turnover and prices boost collections; downturns (higher rates, lower volumes) cut them sharply.
• Policy: Some states (e.g., ACT long-term shift to land tax; limited SA concessions for seniors/new homes) have tried to reduce reliance. NSW and Victoria remain the most dependent. Foreign-buyer surcharges have added revenue in recent years.
• Compared with other taxes: Stamp duty has become one of the largest single state taxes (often rivaling or exceeding payroll tax in NSW/Victoria during peaks), while other traditional stamp duties (e.g., on financial transactions) were largely abolished.
In short, NSW and Victoria derive a significantly higher share of their budgets from real-estate transaction fees (mainly stamp duty) than SA—roughly 18–23% of own-source revenue vs ~15%, or ~9–10% vs lower single digits of total revenue in recent data. This reliance has increased over the past 15–20 years but fluctuates with the property market and is now a recognised vulnerability in state budgets. Exact percentages vary year-to-year with housing activity; the most precise figures come from annual CGC assessments and state budget papers.
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This is an unusually confident interpretation of evidence that is considerably less certain than the language suggests.
Nobody needs to argue that children should vape. Young people who do not smoke should not be encouraged to use nicotine, and respiratory symptoms and nicotine dependence deserve serious attention.
But saying the evidence is now “irrefutable” and that vaping makes young people develop mental-health disorders or start smoking goes well beyond what much of this research can establish.
The authors’ own systematic review says the most consistent mental-health and respiratory findings came from large cross-sectional studies. Those studies can demonstrate association. They cannot tell us whether vaping caused depression, anxiety or panic disorder, whether young people with those conditions were more likely to vape in the first place, or whether common underlying factors contributed to both.
The same problem applies to the gateway claim. Young people who vape are undoubtedly more likely to smoke later, but longitudinal association does not automatically establish a causal pathway from vaping to smoking. Reviews of this literature have identified substantial confounding, attrition and publication bias, and a 2026 umbrella review rated the certainty of the gateway evidence as very low.
More awkwardly, natural experiments examining what actually happens when governments restrict vaping increasingly point toward substitution. A recent synthesis of 11 such studies concluded that greater e-cigarette availability was associated with lower youth cigarette smoking.
That does not make youth vaping desirable.
It means reality is more complicated than “vaping leads to smoking”.
For some young people the association may reflect shared susceptibility. For some, vaping may precede smoking. For others, vaping may substitute for cigarettes. All of those pathways can exist simultaneously.
Public health should protect children without pretending uncertainty has disappeared.
“Associated with” is not the same as “caused by”.
“Contains a hazardous chemical” is not the same as “causes disease at real-world exposure”.
And “young people who vape are more likely to smoke later” is not, by itself, proof that vaping made them smoke.
When an article begins with uncertainty and ends with certainty, the science deserves a closer look.
Use of e-cigarettes makes it more likely that young people will experience mental-health disorders and take up smoking. Governments must act
go.nature.com/4dZ5y9G
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A group that funnels corporate donations to US politicians is making a big push to highlight shortcomings of Australia’s social media ban, to halt copycat laws. ebx.sh/BZmBNy
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African tries to break into a home with a terrified young woman in Cranbourne, Melbourne & Police decided not to attend.
The family found him, cornered him, called Police again & hours later they were still waiting for Police.
I’m not aware if they even bothered to show up.
I hear this same story over & over every week. This also happened to a friend of my mine with a baby.
You need to understand that you are ON YOUR OWN.
The Government does NOT CARE.
Police stations all across the country state have closed or are open very limited hours now during the worst crime crisis we’ve ever had.
You need to be prepared to protect yourself & your family & organise your community to look out for one another.
This will only get worse as these people receive bail then reoffend & the Government continues to mass import these violent people.
Think it won’t happen to you?
That’s what people I speak to everyday thought too.
You need to wake up!
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Migrants are sending billions overseas. What does it mean for Australia's economy? - SBS News
Many migrants send money back home feeling responsibility to ensure their families are okay. Their governments are failing them, and ours is failing us. #auspol apple.news/AMXhZ_qizQL6W6cUE…
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That’s absolutely rubbish when it comes to large wealth buying large swathes with intent to reduce competition. Some say Coles and Woolworths do this. How close are Aldi’s to those? Hmmm how much competition are they really adding? Just a reduction in jobs, service and product.
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Remember in 2013 when Rudd promised that unlawful boat arrivals"will never be settled in Australia"?
Labor has now quietly granted 30,000+ permanent visas to those exact Rudd-Gillard-Rudd boat arrivals (blowing past the 19,000 advertised).
The kicker is, time on temporary visas counts, meaning fast tracked citizenship is happening now.
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For boat arrivals whose claims were decided in 2008–13, the grant rate was about 92 per cent. Under the later “fast-track” process used for the legacy caseload, recognition rates were lower but still a clear majority: typically 65–70 per cent of TPV and SHEV applicants were found to be refugees. refugeecouncil.org.au
Home Affairs snapshots of that cohort tell the same story. Of a group of roughly 30–32,000 people, around 20,000 hold or have held a protection-related visa (first TPV/SHEV, then Resolution of Status). The refused, cancelled or expired group is much smaller, in the order of 7,000. The people Labor later put on permanent visas were, in the main, people the Department had already accepted needed protection. They were not a majority of failed claimants. homeaffairs.gov.au
So the pre-2013 boat cohort was not mostly rejected. Most who received a decision were recognised as refugees; Abbott then kept those recognised people on temporary visas, and Labor later made those visas permanent.
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