It’s one of these things that logically you know must happen occasionally (and I’ve even seen pictures of it) but still doesn’t seem right.

I am impressed the shark got it out again and didn’t end up with a permanent internal echidna spine collection.

The American inspired variety of sovereign citizen is enough, I don’t think we really need our own special version of the idea.

Fernwood, a women only gym, is allowed to exist.

Because there are sections of the law which allow exemption from the gender discrimination section for various reasons, and they have successfully argued that there are benefits to having a women only gym which are important enough to deserve an exemption (to provide substantive equality). They also only allow women patrons, so men are not charged for a service that is not equally provided.

I don’t really see it as problematic for a discriminated class to seek to foster a space free from those who perpetuate that discrimination

Neither do many other people, which is why such examples as Fernwood have received exemptions from the law and why there is a specific exemption for both female and male only clubs.

I don’t think it sets a precedent for protected classes to be discriminated against as “art” because men aren’t a class that needs protecting

Allowing discrimination based on gender without substantiating the businesses eligibility for an exemption under the law absolutely would set a precedent for the courts. While you may agree with this particular case of discrimination it is not a good idea to open an opportunity for more discrimination in the future - keep in mind it may not always be the type you agree with.

Good. I think the other option - setting a precedent allowing businesses to skirt discrimination laws by claiming their behaviour was art - would have been a rather poor decision.

That’s an expensive way to learn the difference between a hi cube and a standard container…

Impressed at the strength of that beam - to do that to a container (and the twist locks) would take a solid whack.

It is political - there are a variety of people who are against modern Australia’s British colonial roots, ranging the gamut from those who want all European influence gone and the remaining people to revert back to a romanticised view of the Stone Age to those who (more realistically) want more Indigenous influence upon our current system. Somewhere along that line is where the writers of this would fall, the ‘colony’ they want to fall would either refers to all European practises and institutions or some more abstract view of European influence over our society.

The ABC now likes to do clickbait style headlines like that to try and grab attention, it’s a trend that annoys me. They also often rotate through options including a more traditional headline depending on what device you use and what time you access it - currently the headline is showing for me as “Electric car sales in Australia’s outer suburbs take off as commuters pocket ‘ridiculous’ savings”, which while still a bit hyped up is more informative.

It certainly makes things harder than they should be IMO, I’ve always thought it should be more along the lines of just proving you are who you say you are instead of chasing parents etc.

If you were born post '86 your Australian birth certificate is not considered sufficient proof of you being an Australian citizen (not sure on the reason for that year being the cutoff), so if you’re going for the natural born Australian line of proof you would then need to prove you had a parent who was a citizen at the time of your birth. It doesn’t necessarily need to be your parent’s birth certificate, a passport from before your birth would also count (as would the certificate you get when becoming a citizen if they weren’t born here).

At least though my generation only has to go back one step to prove citizenship. It’s going to be harder work for the growing number of people who have parents born after '86 and will therefore have to go back to their grandparents birth certificates if their parents didn’t get a passport or citizenship certificate before they were born.

Once you’ve got a birth certificate sorted I would recommend going a bit further with the document hunt - assuming you were born after 1986. If you ever need to prove you’re a citizen (which you may for some jobs) and you were born post '86 you’ll also need to track down a copy of a parent’s Australian birth certificate or other proof of their Australian citizenship before your birth. You’ll also need this proof of citizenship if you want a passport in the future so it’s worth tracking down.

I’m only guessing really but I think they should be ok if the digital copies could be considered the original. For example I would expect that a printout of a digital bank statement would be something that you could get certified as you can pull up your bank website/app and display the ‘original’, but you might run into issues trying to convince someone that a photo of a card counts as it’s clearly not the original form.

British white people have never

As long as you forget about the Irish, the Welsh, and (to a lesser extent IIRC) the Scots - all of whom are white and British.

Plenty of people could do with some sun given the high rates of vitamin D deficiency, getting kids into some outdoor activities would help there.

Changing to a motor which wasn’t originally offered in that model of vehicle definitely needs certification, at least in NSW (other states might be more lenient).

Whenever I see stuff like this I wonder how on earth they managed to get someone to sign off on the engineering certificate. Then again it does say he’s worked in engineering of some varieties so maybe he can self certify.

Quite a lot of people nowadays - at least not at a fluent level. I know I’ve gotten worse at it over time due to rarely requiring to read much of other people’s handwriting or handwrite myself, to the point where even in the reasonably clear example in the article I had to stop and consider a few words. Without experience reading cursive it’s noticeably harder to comprehend compared to printed text, and we’ve now had a whole generation grow up in a world where pretty much everything they read was printed (and usually on a screen at that) rather than handwritten.

I would say most do but some don’t, and with those that do the level of uniform required varies.

My primary school didn’t require uniforms for regular days, though they did have what was called the sports uniform shirt which they preferred kids to wear if away from the school (generally used for sports carnivals with other local schools).

My high school did require uniforms but only really cared about enforcing the uniform shirt and some variety of closed shoe.

The school my youngest sister did years 11-12 at didn’t require uniforms at all, though they probably did care about closed shoes due to safety in science classes etc.

Not a fan of the golden wattle design, it looks like what you’d get if BP asked someone to design them a new flag and do a bit of creative writing to make it sound good.

The Eureka flag could have been a good option in the past but I feel it’s a bit too associated with either unions or cookers these days to be accepted by everyone (would prefer if the cookers gave up on it and left it to the unions).

Modifying the Eureka flag is an idea which I think has a bit of potential but the Great Southern Flag just throws too much at it. Maybe just turning it green and gold and making the stars seven pointed instead of eight would work better.

I kind of like this other design which I found in an image search for alternative flags - fairly simple design (drawable by kids if you’re prepared to put up with wonky kangaroos) using generally recognisable and neutral symbols and I think it looks alright.

The train itself isn’t really the slow part for the XPT, it’s supposed to be able to run up to 160km/h. Knowing that only made it more annoying though when sitting in one chugging along at ~80k (or even slower when hot) up and down the north coast line - like most of our lines that track just wasn’t good enough for it to go faster.