When it comes to preferences they go to the parties/candidates in the order that you number them. Others can suggest where you send your preferences (how to vote cards being the typical method) but ultimately it's up to you.

For the house of reps if a third party doesn't win the seat you will ultimately end up voting for Labour or Liberals, because you have to number all the boxes. You'll have to decide which you like more (or least) and number accordingly. In the senate you can potentially exhaust your vote before reaching the majors (assuming you reach the minimum numbering before getting to them) but unless you truly believe both majors are the same I'd advise including them.

If you vote above the line in the senate your preferences follow party lines as you have numbered them (i.e. preferences will count towards the candidates for the first party you number, then the second and so forth). You still control what parties you're voting for and what order.

It was always a shame watching the old timber bridges get replaced with the comparatively soulless concrete designs, nice to see that some are escaping that treatment.

Something that was touched upon in the article but I think worthwhile enough to mention specifically is we should have a greater ability to manufacture essential materials ourselves - this would not be strictly defence spending but is definitely adjacent to it. Things like fuel are an obvious one here but there's plenty of basics we don't make on shore. As an example I'm thinking of the shortage of saline solution that got into the news a while back - that's something very commonly used and literally just salt mixed with water, but we rely on importing it...

It looks like you should be able to undo the pivot bolt nut, tap out the bolt, and slide out the blade. The hardest part will be undoing that nut as you've only got a flathead slot for purchase on the other side and the nut's likely rusted in place along with the end of the bolt appearing to be peened over a bit (either deliberately or through being banged against stuff over the years).

The easiest way may be to simply sharpen the blade in place, I would expect there to be just enough room to slide a file in to sharpen the blade as you move it inwards.

If you do have to remove the blade put some penetrating fluid on the bolt threads and let it sit overnight before trying to undo it (ATF and acetone mixed 50:50 works well or buy one of the commercial sprays).

Once you've got to the point of reassembly how tight you want to go will depend on whether you've got something fixed at the pivot point acting as a spacer. You might find the bolt is stepped with the threaded end being slightly smaller, or potentially a bush around the bolt. In this case you can tighten the nut firmly as the bolt or spacer will maintain the distance between the two plates.

If there is nothing to maintain the spacing between the side plates you can't tighten the nut right up as it'll push the plates into the blade and stop it moving. In this case tighten the nut gently until the blade is moving freely with little free play side to side, and you will want to use thread locker on the threads or peen the end threads over to prevent the nut coming undone again otherwise it'll likely work its way off over time.

Make good handling a desirable attribute again and it'll naturally drive an uptake of lower and lighter cars. Things like raising speed limits to suit modern cars/tyres, actually repairing roads properly, and helping boost motorsport rather than actively discouraging the development of tracks would help.

I looked into volunteering for the local SES once (when I was looking for stuff to do with my life after uni) and they turned me down, so actually accepting people who are interested is something that might help with their numbers.

The gender pay gap is not about “equal pay for equal work”

Indeed, it seems to be primarily about making rage bait headlines.

Women work less hours on average, with considerably more working part time and those who work full time working less hours than men overall (so less overtime pay). What are you going to do to fix that gap, force women to work more? Between that and less women choosing to work in various higher paid and more physical/dangerous jobs (e.g. trades, mining) it's no wonder there's a difference.

I use my fingers like a normal person. The only problem I have with these is the occasional time when the tab shears off completely as you flip it up and you're left contemplating whether to stab something into the groove or dig out the can opener...

Indeed, so now both the roads and cars are a lot safer I would be very happy to increase speed limits - particularly on highways and country roads. The idea that speed is the root of all evil however has been pushed enough that an unfortunate amount of people believe it, as can be seen by how this post has been dogpiled with downvotes despite the article presenting a quite sensible view. I even got several downvotes elsewhere in the thead for pointing out that cars are actually safer now than in the 70s, as if that was somehow a contentious point of view.

I could live with that tradeoff, but I'd have to see the regional speeds raised first because I don't believe that would actually happen given how risk-averse our governments are. Instead regional roads keep getting their speed limits lowered and any suggestion of raising them raises cries of outrage - typically from people who aren't even in the area and who get scared driving on roads without streetlights.

Sounds like there was quite a few people after the tickets given the article says all 990 tickets got snapped up in less than 24 hours, I'm impressed that that many people both knew it was happening and were enthusiastic enough to head out to see it (guessing the gardens sent out an email about it and social media posts etc).

Was the smell as powerful as these articles always say it is?

I didn't realise the Botanic Gardens had one of these, wonder if now they know it's viable they'll put it in a more public area (given how much interest that one in Sydney gets each time it pops out).

Baby red bellies are indeed pretty cute, can confirm as I got to hold a live one in a jar once when I was a kid (some other kids caught it and were showing it off). Would definitely prefer they be cute somewhere that's not my backyard though...

That is unfortunately true, for example I find it sadly impressive that one has a decent chance of getting classified info simply by starting an argument on the War Thunder forums...

I'm not familiar with them, though I did just have a quick browse of wikipedia and their privacy page. From that minimal impression I'd rate their online service as better than DeepSeek (they do claim your data is not used for training, stored in Sweden, encrypted, and deleted after 30 days) but ultimately it's still got the same problem as other providers in that you have to just believe they'll actually follow what they say they do. For use with your own personal info this might be an acceptable risk if the company seems reputable otherwise, on the other end of the scale for anything security classified it'd be way too much risk.

You'd have to be mad to put important information into any AI model unless you're hosting it locally and know it isn't sending info anywhere (the latter being the hard part to verify). All of the online AI services really should be blocked if departments/companies are taking security seriously.

We don't do them anywhere near as much as America does but since I believe you're around Brisbane I can pretty much guarantee you've driven on concrete roads (it'd be a lot less likely if you lived in Woop Woop). Look for it on primary routes that get a lot of heavy vehicle traffic - for example head south on the Pacific Highway and you'll find large sections of concrete.

My point was that if you're writing an article talking about how much Australians spend on cycling/walking infrastructure you should at least mention that federal numbers are not the whole picture and that federal is not the level of government that is going to cover most of said infrastructure. Omitting this smacks of the author just looking for a low number to draw attention/outrage.

Why are they focussing on federal funding only? I would expect federal funding to go largely to the sorts of roads which are important on a broad scale but less desirable for cycling or walking - freeways, highways, major arterial roads, and so forth. State and local government are the levels I would expect to find the majority of cycling and walking investment, it seems odd that these are omitted.

Yes, it's not the easiest space to find other uses for. I could see some options for it on Saturdays as a bookable space for displays or events that can come up and down quickly (e.g. it would make a nice space for a car club to show off their vehicles) but not much is coming to mind for weekday activities.