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Headline today in UK says "heatwave to continue through October." It's 20-22 degrees. Maybe, "lovely weather to continue through October " doesn't sell the papers

It's divisive and promotes a "them and us" attitude. Just how many voices are needed?!!!!!! The whole bloody fiasco infers that Aboriginals don't have a voice. I could list all the advisory bodies, Aboriginal Pollies, health /intiiatives proposed in the past BY Aboriginals blah blah blah but I don't have a whole day to spare. As the judge said.................."it's a No from me"............and I've been Labour/Socialist all my life but misguided good intentions will be Labours eventual downfall.

BREAKING: Hunter Biden, Ashley Biden and Joe Biden were just found to have lied on bank and insurance applications. Their businesses will now be dissolved. Forbes also estimated that Biden got over $5.4m from China while president. Oh, oops silly me. That was the Trumps: Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Former President Donald Trump. Meanwhile the GOP is trying feverishly to find business wrongdoings by Joe Biden, of which I have yet to see any. Their worst piece of evidence is that Hunter, who was living with parents at the time, used his parents address to receive a bank wire to his own account.

All my recent (since Covid) offshore grants for permanent visas have been with a one year from grant first entry date, regardless of the dates of police or medical checks.

Actually you have described racial discrimination. The voice does treat people differently based on their race and does introduce race into the constitution if this proposal if passed. Although very unlikely to pass now as Australians en masse have come to realise what it is about. I think it is fair to call it racism.

Hi All, Phew sorry for the long one.. I was wondering if anyone else has been having the same issues. I lived in Sydney for the past 6.5 years. Once I had obtained citizenship I was desperate to move back to the UK to be closer to friends and family. I was so homesick for them all, parts of British culture and being in a familiar place again. Issue is - I now feel homesick for Australia. I feel like I can't settle in the UK because I don't feel English enough but I also can't settle in Australia because I don't feel Australian enough. I feel like I will always have a pull for both countries and have a sense of homesickness. I almost sometimes have regret for even going there in the first place as I'd never be in this situation. Mostly all of my friends I made in Sydney over the years have returned to the UK and don't have any interest in returning. I think all of the above combined with the fact is the quality of life in the UK vs Aus is staggeringly different. Aus is just better in terms of cost of living/wages ratio. I know there are lots of amazing places in the UK but you can't fault Aussie nature. I just worry I made a mistake in returning on a more perm basis. I came to the UK for 10 weeks last year and I was heart broken to leave. I returned to Sydney with an action plan with my husband for us to get our citizenship and return to the UK. We have done just that, we have returned, we have moved a few hours from home as that is where we obtained jobs and its all starting again I suppose. I've recently found out I am pregnant and this bit is the weirdest for me - I'd always said I can't have a family in Aus as all our family and friends are in the UK but now I am pregnant I feel like the UK isn't a great place to bring up children and I feel like I am taking the chance away from our future children to grow up in Aus. I know I shouldn't make any decisions while pregnant . I know we can't make any decisions on going back in the next year as I will be pregnant and then freshly postpartum. But how long do you sit on these feelings for? How realistic would it be to have the best of both? 6 months here /6 months there? That's fine if its just you but not fair on children. I think I just needed to sound board on a community of people who most likely have gone through all the same emotions over the years. Being an expat creates a beautiful life with amazing experiences, but it comes with some hard decisions on the back of it. Thanks all if you read this far!

Headed to Hobart to escape the Aussie chase ball final. The best little little pub in Hobart that has no telly screens, had their normal Saturday afternoon music session and their usual excellent beer. Bliss.

If a sausage doesn't curl up it's wrong.

What a shame that some vandal chopped down the Sycamore Gap tree in the UK

The pinnacle of Aussie BBQ! Helped a mate out for their Bunnings Sausage Sizzle. It was perfect weather, sliced 20kg of onions and cooked god knows how many of kilos of sausage! Made over $2.5k profit for their charity

Listened to a podcast the other day about that, and they reckon he kept winning due too the opposition being so bad. Dont know how true that is

It's not only the white population who will be voting. There are many thousands from the sub continent, the middle east, China and Africa. It's not a a wholly white voting Australian public. As far as the so called white population is concerned, I know plenty who are voting YES. It's nobody's business who is voting for what.

I engaged migration agent @paulhand to advise and guide me through my options and the process. It was really helpful. I was also trying to get the timing just right - finding that sweet spot where the visa would arrive before I needed it, but late enough that I wouldn't have to ever get into the RRV situation. Paul gave me a really thought provoking piece of advice - right now you are in great health and your visa application is going to sail through, but it's a reality that as we get older, our risk of health conditions increases and if you are unlucky enough to get one that disqualifies your application, then that's it. I duly got on it straight away. RRV is much easier to deal with than a declined application.

What a glowing recomendation…

The Biden Distraction Impeachment hearing yesterday was cringe inducing. One by one each of the Repulicans had to state that after 5 years of investigation, not one of them was bringing a single piece of first hand evidence. Not one solitary witness who can attest to witnessing the president committing a crime. Their very first witness says "no, there wasn't an impeachable offence" 5 years. Zero. They're going to shut down the government for this nonsense. The difficulty that will cause the country is immense. Why do Republicans hate the American people so much?

I see what you mean but I've never liked eating meat simply because I don't like it. Really can't stand the smell of beef, pork and especially lamb. Used to eat chicken but not fussed about that so haven't eaten it for years. I was brought up on a farm so was used to seeing the animals shipped off to market or slaughter. My grandmother lived in a market town and the slaughter house was not far from her house. I was always very upset about the noise coming from there so from a very young age stopped eating meat all together. I am the only one in the family who chose not to eat meat. When we were kids my siblings thought nothing of plucking the feathers and pulling the guts out of a freshly killed chook Dad would bring into the house. I'd run off to vomit .............. Ugh! The smell. Never bothered anybody else.

Ah, another one of your crackpot tinfoil hatted mates. "Yes, whatever you say Simmo."

No you were not a lone voice. I joined thousands of protestors marching in protest against the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago (in Sydney). I'm sure the same thing was happening all over the place.

As I thought, you haven't even read the pamphlet Not my claim champ: https://www.aec.gov.au/referendums/files/pamphlet/your-official-yes-no-referendum-pamphlet.pdf Try reading it, then you truthfully claim you've "DYOR"

Even for you this is quite the reach. Don't worry, I'm here to help anchor you back to reality You absolutely were not a lone voice opposing the action in Iraq. Even in the first year international polls never scored more than 11% support. It's fine for you to be a supporter of Russia, that's your right. But you can't re-write history. Ukraine wanted closer ties to the EU and NATO. Russia did not want that so annexed Crimean Peninsula, backing pro-Russian separatists for 8 years before invading.

Beautiful

Why are so many indigenous against it ?

When Betoota isn't funny you should be worried...

Here's an excerpt from my grant letter. Perhaps others vary, but I don't know why they would The expectation is that you become a citizen before you visa expires. One of the qualifying criteria is 4 years of residency. After the five years I can still stay in Australia, even if I am not yet a citizen, but if I want to leave the country, then in order to get back in I'd need an RRV. If a person has substantial ties to Australia (job, house, family) it's trivial. You can explore the detail of all this at https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/.