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Over months of filming and 60 on-camera interviews for the ABC's landmark political docuseries Nemesis, the free character assessments between former Coalition colleagues fly thick and fast. But as well as the blue language and invective, there are also moments of remorse and regret.

Watch the first episode of the ABC's political docuseries Nemesis on Monday at 8pm on ABC TV and iview.

Some choice quotes:

What [Barnaby Joyce] says next, referring to Turnbull, stuns me. Let's just say it's a four-letter word, connected to another four-letter word.

In one interview, Turnbull is called a "turd" by one of his former supporters.

For his part, the former prime minister recounts being told to "f*** off" by his predecessor Tony Abbott.

The last Coalition prime minister Scott Morrison is labelled "smug" and an "arrogant arsehole" during an interview with one of his former backbenchers.

 

ANU economist Ben Phillips ran the government's proposed stage 3 tweaks through his PolicyMod simulator to weigh up the winners and losers.

He finds about 6.2 million households will benefit from the Albanese government's changes, while just 1.1 million households will lose out compared to the tax laws passed under the Coalition.

The government's gamble is that nearly six-to-one winners to losers presents pretty good odds for the widespread financial benefits to outweigh the cost of a broken promise.

 

What are the new stage 3 tax cut brackets?

Here's how the proposed plan looks at a glance:

  • Earn up to $18,200pay no tax

  • Pay a 16 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $18,201-$45,000

  • Pay a 30 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $45,001-$135,000

  • Pay a 37 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $135,001 — $190,000

  • Pay a 45 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned above $190,000

What were they going to be?

Here's what the previous plan looked like at a glance:

  • Earn up to $18,200pay no tax

  • Pay a 19 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $18,201-$45,000

  • Pay a 30 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned between $45,001-$200,000

  • Pay a 45 per cent tax rate on each dollar earned above $200,000

 

COVID-19 was detected in Australia four years ago today.

 

The government will halve the stage 3 tax cuts for the highest earners and use the money to deliver an $804 tax cut across the board.

The prime minister will tell press club the reversal was motivated by changing economic circumstances.

 
  • Cabinet documents from 2003 have been unsealed [by the National Archives of Australia, after the documents' confidentiality period expired].
  • The documents reveal some of the high-level discussions of the government, including on the Iraq War.
  • Much of the deliberations on the war have been kept secret, despite the then-defence minister supporting their release.
 

We asked them:

  • Do you believe the government you currently serve is doing enough to combat domestic violence? (For government MPs)

  • What would you like to see the Albanese government do about this issue? (For opposition MPs)

  • What active steps have you taken in your communities to help address women dying at the hands of their partners?

  • What kind of cultural change do you think would help make a difference in your communities?

Just 20 out of the 92 MPs responded by the original publication time and only ten had answered the questions asked.

Once followed up, 25 responded and 21 answered questions.

 
  • Airbnb misled Australian customers by charging them in US dollars when they made a booking.

  • The short-stay accommodation provider has been fined $15 million for breaching consumer law, and will pay $400,000 towards the ACCC's costs.

  • Airbnb will also spend about $15 million to compensate more than 63,000 affected customers.

 

Several Westpac Bank customers are experiencing outages using their phone and online banking.

The bank has acknowledged they are aware of the issue in a statement.

The issue is also impacting St George customers, which is owned by Westpac Bank

Westpac also owns Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, BT and RAMS.

Reports about the exact scope of the outage currently differ wildly. Some outlets saying "thousands" some saying "millions", some saying "intermittent", some not.


Edit: literally while I was confirming the scope, apparently service started being restored.

Online and phone banking has been restored to most Westpac Bank customers after an outage that lasted a number of hours.

 

Chemist Warehouse has struck a deal with Sigma Healthcare to create the biggest pharmacy company in Australia [...] a company with a value in excess of $8.8 billion.

It also makes Sigma Healthcare a substantially bigger player in the market. Right now, Sigma has a market capitalisation of $810 million — but the deal grows its value by almost 11 times.

But it's not only the monetary value of the company that makes this such a big deal — it would also make it one of the top 100 companies listed on the ASX.

The merger will create three tiers of pharmacy that won't compete with each other: the big box discount (Chemist Warehouse), the full service (Amcal, My Chemist) and the discount (Discount Drug Stores).


Notes on edited titleMy title options were:

  • Chemist Warehouse may be a discount pharmacy, but it's agreed to a merger worth $8.8 billion
  • What does the Chemist Warehouse merger with Sigma Healthcare mean for the pharmacy giant?

So I edited it for a more descriptive one lol.

 

(The article isn't that long, but its content is hard to summarize without significant information loss.)

 

Temporary migration has jumped sharply over the past year — largely driven by foreign students — leading to a record intake. This was previously described as a post-COVID 19 influx of returning foreign students, but the ABC understands the government believes this is more than a one-off surge.

As part of the new migration strategy — which has already been signed off by cabinet and follows months of consultation with the higher education sector, business groups and other stakeholders — steps will be taken to cut the intake of foreign students entering low-quality courses.

The ABC understands the government will not cap the number of foreign students allowed in but will crack down on low-quality training providers and limit opportunities for student visas to be used as a backdoor for low-skilled workers to stay in Australia.

The new strategy will also involve new efforts to retain the best-performing students in Australia and new pathways to attract more high-skilled permanent migrants.

"People are coming here, enrolling in courses that don't really add substantially to either their skills base or to the national interest here," Mr Albanese said.


Coverage from SBS has a bit more background on the "why" for those interested.

Edit: ABC has some followup coverage of its own, mostly on the "what".

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I've never seen the stats before and 8% seems really high?? Is there some subset of Australia that tips all the time that I rarely see?

Edit: nvm, the stat is confusing as other commenter pointed out.

The number of payments with tips has remained stable throughout the last year with 0.52% of payments throughout the hospitality sector including a tip in August 2023, according to Lightspeed.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Given that they remind readers what brands an Android phone phone could be, I don't think the article is aimed at many aussie zoners.

I guess they're trying to drive home that the scammer isn't coming at you with a poorly worded email riddled with typos here - the overlay can look legitimate (even if in some cases it still has typos lol). Probably would've been a bit much for them to cover every banking interface tbf.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's weird - seems like a pretty big viewerbase to (basically) ignore. I guess it does make collabs more challenging when there's 3 timezone groups to deal with, but that seems like a weak reason to leave so much on the table so there's gotta be something else there right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

What the fuck, was not expecting more EN debuts o_O I kinda though starsEN wasn't getting enough engagement to support another gen yet but maybe Cover thinks they can pull it off?

P.s. link no worky: https://holostars.hololivepro.com/en/news/20231116-02-2/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

I tried to make a glow-in-the-dark (Towa-in-the-dark) pun for the title but couldn't figure something out that read naturally :(

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

I imagine Holo Indie will be beneficial mostly for games / devs without brand recognition, which HoloCure is certainly not lacking anymore.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Full episode on YT for anyone interested in checking it out!

Edit: and here on ABC itself.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Idk, fish friend I guess!? We need a fubuki lore expert

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Warning:

This visual novel features themes of violence, suicide, murder and cannibalism.

Don't threaten me with a good time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

It didn't seem worth posting separately, but I thought this clip of Korone going over to Okayu's place after they realised that they needed to use local (not online) multiplayer was cute!

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