pintpot

It stays in the fund.....so it *should* grow......but it might not ;-)

I used to be in favour of the theory of compulsory voting......I thought it would mean everyone was engaged to some extent and would therefore care more, therefore you'd get better service from politicians .....the evidence, however, suggests otherwise A citizen friend of mine (ex Saffer) actually thinks compulsory voting makes them worse - because everyone goes to the polling station, it means there is a greater propensity to register protest votes and try and kick the incumbents up the posterior, therefore it promotes negative campaigning and politicians being obsessed with focus groups, soundbites and populist short termist policies at the expense of anything resembling a programme or vision for how the country ought to be in 10 years+. Looking at the current sorry shower and the way they behave (last week's budget being a typical example) I'd say he has a point

I haven't seen any change in High Wycombe, if you want to even up the balance a bit (outlaws live 4 miles away now after 30 years in the town itself, so we go there a lot) There have always been tons of immigrants there since the 1960s My mother in law would agree with Andy I think, so that's 2-1 My father in law wouldn't. 2-2 in extra time :wink:

Honestly not fussed about voting in the UK - I don't live there at the moment I didn't feel the need to vote - our pursue voting - in the past when I lived abroad, either

I must add that last winter in the UK (2010-2011) was ridicuously cold at times....Came out one morning in January and though "Blummin' 'eck, not felt cold like this since Sweden", fired up the car and it told me the outside temp was -15C. So yeah, very much Swedish temperatures Still lovely and warm inside, mind :wink:

I think you acclimatise quite quickly, so long as you have clothing sorted I can put up with any temperature outside TBH (lived in Sweden for 3 years with temps down to -25C, worked in Russia & Kazakstan with temps down to -40C, done a lot of skiing etc) provided your clothing is all right. It's being cold inside I can't abide, as you might have guessed from other threads :wink: Anything below 18C in a house gets on my wick......and 21C is about the coldest water I want to swim in I recall being thrown in a lake by my ex's dad (mad Finn) after he'd smashed the ice off it, so the water would have been just above 0C. I didn't enjoy the experience :cry:

Not AIB as in the insulating/fireproofing material you'd get in boiler rooms in the UK - this is more like a flat version of asbestos cement sheeting like the corrugated cladding you'd get on cheap UK industrial buildings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibro http://therenovatorstv.com.au/the-fibro-cottage.htm

Nah, you'll know it as asbestos cement. Top quality stuff, in use here right up to the mid 80s for resi buildings. Hard to believe, eh? :biglaugh: EDIT: Agree about insulated render as a decent semi-fix if renovating an old place though. It's probably windows here that need the most attention. Lots of big single glazed windows out there with aluminium frames....seen plenty of gaps between window frames and walls as well EDIT 2: Don't get me started on the damp-proofing ;-)

I've got no problem with timber framing or timber clad houses and it's perfectly possible to build them with very high insulation standards. I lived in Sweden for 3 years where the houses, unsurprisingly, were all made from timber. Also unsurprisingly in a country where winter temps will get down to -25C and generally stick below -5C for 3 months even during the day, they were toasty warm. Also extremely economical to heat. Purely because their standards of insulation and construction (airtightness in particular) were so high, and triple glazing is the norm. Swedish summers also get warm, not so hot as Australia but warmer and more consistent than the UK because it is a more continental climate. Never any problem with houses getting too hot, because insulation works to keep a house cool as well as warm Skimpy insulation and air-tightness is just down to custom and practice, there's no good reason for it. You don't need "ventilation" (aka draughtiness) to combat damp either, if you design and build the thing properly

I thought they were in Brisbane? I'll allow "subtropical" - but still plenty of cool nights AFAIK

That may be the case in warmer parts of Oz. In Sydney there are cool and cold nights requiring heating for 4+ months of the year - yet the majority of houses are single skin - even new ones - and dreadfully insulated. Every person in my office, without fail, Pom, Oz, Austrian, mentions the issues except for the one individual who has built his own house - and he did it because he wasn't satisfied with build quality standards available from builders We workin the construction industry fwiw so do have some idea of what we're talking about. Perhaps it makes us more sensitive to it, I dunno It's not comparable to saying "what no aircon" in the UK at all

Most walls here don't have cavities. Single skin masonry or timber framed is the norm - if you're lucky enough not to have a crappy fibro box :wink:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/job-statistics-cant-beat-word-on-the-street-20120511-1yhwn.html

I do remember living like that......as a kid in Sheffield in the 1970s. Ice on the inside of the windows, two rooms only ever got warm in the winter (front room with the fire in, kitchen with the coal stove and the back boiler for hot water). Other than that, it was electric bar fires that you weren't allowed to use cos they cost too much. Cold walls because they didn't have any insulation, ditto little insulation in the loft Then I remember everyone putting in gas c/h, decent loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and the rest of it, so by about 1985 pretty much everyone had a much more cosy house and a more economical method of warming it up. I guess we got complacent though and sort of expected that as a norm. It's a bit of a shock to the system coming to a country where insulation seems to be a dirty word Still, eh? Jumpers for goalposts, mmmmm :biggrin:

Look on the bright side - it's like a 1970s theme park......draughty & chilly houses, cars in lurid purple/green colours (shame there's no vinyl roofs though), carpet in shopping centres, beer that tastes like Double Diamond, mullets worn without irony..... .....and cheap petrol and full employment :wink:

Depends on the sector. Building is pretty slow, especially commercial. Odd because from a developer's PoV, there's a shortage of some types of office accom in the CBD and especially things like hotel space. Suspect it is because of finance issues and nobody wanting to compete with the Barangaroo behemoth. Resi building not booming but looks steady........it's not really my area but just going on what I see. Mostly serviced by SMEs which probably have local employees and subbies all lined up There's a lot of work in infrastructure though, and a ton in the pipeline. Some very substantial rail schemes on the rise towards peak with others winding down, and some massive schemes in the pipeline for next year and the 5 or 6 years beyond. Roads also quite busy (plus a load of work further afield in NSW), as is telecoms and utility work. Water and power generation not doing anything What does he do?

^Agreed

Mods Can I give an extra "like" to Fiona for getting rid of that horrible clashy font/colour combo please? Thanks Gok Wan :-)

Nah. Give as good as you get. Do it with a smile on your face and have a laugh with it. Piece of cake. EDIT: Posted this before seeing the posts above and generally agree with them, I haven't come across hardly anyone who says this sort of stuff and means it

Be fair, even in boom times Edinburgh is a dump, so they have a point. It's just an endless flat sprawl of bungalows with really expensive beer. And they put a curious mixture of sulphuric acid and earwax on their fish suppers. What's to like? Still, play your cards right and you might be able to pick up a few unwanted trams for a song. Sydney might be in the market for them, this could be the start of a blossoming career in business

The "Slipper" issue isn't for me about whether or not he is guilty of the current allegations - it is about the naked and cynical manoevring by Gillard to put him in the speaker's chair in the first place, in order to give Labor 2 more votes in parliament. A tawdry little deal that has now come unstuck as he is as dodgy as everyone said he was Thomson? I'm struggling to think of another democracy where he'd not have been forced to resign his position as an MP by now. In most countries you don't need to be convicted of a crime, the media and political pressure becomes overwhelming.....and if you've used union credit cards to pay for hookers (and it seems 99% certain he was the one using the cards, the excuses are extremely thin) and been caught out, then you don't need to be convicted of that. In the UK he would have been forced out of parliament weeks ago

Tax is federal, so no difference between states; but I think you are misreading the definition of "resident for tax purposes". 457 holders are, in general, tax residents so the same rates apply as for all others

Like I said, I wouldn't know, but whilst it may be made in the UK they are 100% convinced it's not the same recipe

My wife and sister in law swear it's not the same (in a similar way to Cadbury's chocolate here not being the same), and get it sent from the UK I wouldn't have a clue personally - disgusting stuff, the devil's earwax

Yeah, they are. But it's easy to get confused by the ATO website