🤦‍♂️

Very much agree with you. Trams and metros fulfill different functions.

The “crazy” take in my opinion was equating keeping the tram system with not building metros, that trams “clog up the road”, and the dubious claims Musk could actually provide boring at ludicrously low cost.

Don’t get me wrong, the costs involved with building metros in the anglosphere are not in step with the rest of the world, but colour me sceptical about anything to do with musk, given all the quality issues with Tesla.

Strongly agree with first dog on the moon.

My take is the contradiction with the Green’s is that they are are pro-capitalism (or at least, not anti-capitalism). We’ll never fix the climate crisis under capitalism (or at least, far too late).

Carbon credits are a scam, and the fact the Green’s fell for it (or at least, many of the parliamentarians) is very damning.

We can tinker with capitalism all we like, at the end of the day, the profit motive reigns above all else, and that motive is in contradiction with what’s best for the working class or the environment a huge amount of the time.

Wishful thinking on my part, but I hope that last panel can one day include “Socialists”

• https://victoriansocialists.org.au/
• https://nswsocialists.org.au/
• https://queenslandsocialists.org.au/
• https://sasocialists.org.au/
• https://wa.socialists.org.au/
• https://canberrasocialists.org.au/
• https://tas.socialists.org.au/
• https://ntsocialists.org.au/

The average speed is from being slowed down due to traffic and non-priority signalling.

You, and Alan, clearly have no idea what the tram system in Melbourne is like.

He presents no reliable argument for why “trams […] clog up the roads”, nor why trams are a mistake to have kept.

He conflates the fact Melbourne didn’t build more metro lines (which we absolutely should have, and should do now) with keeping the tram network.

It’s pro-car nonsense.

Cars clog up the roads and slow down trams, not the other way around.

Thankfully Melbourne kept its tram network, sadly, it did not build enough trains.

Yeah absolutely, there are so many low-cost opportunities to better connect the tram network (routes 3, 5 and 67 should all be slightly extended to connect with the train network for example).

As well as changing existing tram routes to have tram-only lanes, so they don’t get slowed down by traffic.

Further, all traffic lights trams go through should be changed for tram priority to reduce time wasted at lights.

And the quality of the track needs to be somewhat improved to allow for high tram speeds (trams can go like 70-80km/h, and do so in sections where they can, like the St Kilda line. But in many places they don’t.

Basically, there’s a lot of not that expensive (compared to heavy rail) changes we could make if we wanted to. But instead we spend billions building more lanes, which will never fix traffic.

He’s not right about trams being a mistake though.

Saying “we shouldn’t have kept our trams and just built more metros” is silly. We should have done both, and not given over so much of our roads to car traffic. We should definitely not cancel SRL, and the changes the premier is pushing through to it are very stupid also.

Alan Kohler said that trams clog up the roads, which is an objectively stupid thing to say if you listen to any town planners.

The whole reason trams are slow IS BECAUSE OF CARS, and the fact that trams don’t have priority signalling. Cars are clogging up the roads, not trams.

The only solution to traffic is providing viable alternatives to driving, and trams play a great part in that. Obviously they can’t replace the role of trains, but they serve their own function of street-level transport much better than busses. We need trains AND trams.

Here’s a great video on why trams are great https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw

Alan Kohler should stick in his lane of finance only, unless he actually wants to read about how public transport works…

Labor making legislation and pretending it’s something else? Nahhhhhhh couldn’t possibly be them

And water is wet :(

Sports Rorts 2.0

How was this not a thing before?

So we’re getting that invested money back now, right?.. Right?

The secretaries board – made up of the heads of government departments and chaired by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet boss, Steven Kennedy

The people who are asking for this are partisans, not regular employees of departments.

The people they seek to protect don’t need protecting. You’ll notice that this isn’t coming from CPSU members, it’s coming from the bosses.

I also think this is part of their job too (if they’re somewhere that’s on livestream), the alternative: making parliament less transparent, just isn’t something I think we can live with.

Defamation is already able to be sued for.

Honestly, good. The current system is ridicuous and this is bringing light to that.

Dentists actively lobby against this (or at least the industry body has previous), but dentistry must come under the public system.

While we’re at it, let’s dismantle the stupid private-subsidy system we have under Medicare while we’re at it and create a fully public and universal healthcare system, thanks!

inb4 “dentists will leave”: not it we pay internationally competitive salaries, which we can definitely afford as a wealthy nation.

Abolish private health.

Yeah, also, unless the voters don’t understand the voting system, why would a ideological greens voter put Labor first, when they can just preference them second?

Tactical voting isn’t really much of a thing in Australia, in my opinion and unless someone has strong evidence that people are doing this, it’s very a tall claim to say people are leaving the Greens for Labor to protect against One Nation.

Our voting system is nothing like the Americans. Hence people should abandon the Labor party and strengthen others by getting active there instead, all while preferencing Labor above the Liberals and One Nation.

Liberals and One Nation only have space because how pathetic the Labor Party is at providing a viable left-wing alternative that people are actually excited for. People are swayed by One Nation because their material conditions have worsened, which is the culmination of decades of neo-liberalism ushered in large part by the Labor Party.

I’ll say it again, left wing people should abandon the Labor party because it’s been going this way for decades.

Join a party who shares your values.

We don’t have first past the post, so your point makes no sense.

We have resources. Would we lose some international investment? Maybe. But time and time again modest tax reform doesn’t lead to capital flight in the way capitalists claim.

And even if we don’t want to rip up contracts (though we should when they’re clearly unfair), there’s no excuse for not progressively instituting new tax and royalties settings as they expire.

And yet, the Labor government won’t, because they’re corrupt and bought by the gas industry (not in a legal sense, but in reality).

If the contracts are a complete rort then I say we scrap 'em. Be the sovereign risk the investors should have taken into account investing into such an unfair arrangement…

Or even given some nominal compensation where they are made whole, accounting for inflation, but not profit.

These are our own resources we’re talking about. Legal arguments are a cop out when the law is set up to favour private property at the expense of the rest of us.

We most certainly can scrap bullshit contracts, signed by politicians who then go on to be employed by those same companies. It may not legally be corruption, but it is corruption.

We have 100% moral cover to tell these companies to get fucked, and we should do it.

What are they gonna do? Stop investing in extracting our gas resources and paying hardly any tax or royalties on it? OH NoOoOoOoOoO. What ever shall we do‽‽‽