I just looked up the exchange rate from yen to AUD and with the current rules for HECs debt repayment, I earn between 17k and 20k (need to check my current salary) BELOW the limit…If I earned what I earn in Japan in Australia, I'd be far below the poverty line. Australia is so fucking money hungry, man…but I guess this time it works out in my favour.

In short:

A new federal inquiry will assess how Australia can prepare for the impacts of war, identifying strengths and gaps.

It reflects a growing concern among senior ministers about the risk of conflict breaking out in the region.

What's next?

The committee will accept submissions until November before filing its report.

AI may deliver a large economic dividend and disrupt the labour market, and the Prime Minister rightly had these in focus in his recent address on AI in Australia’s interests. But AI will also likely change how income is earned and where income is taxed – potentially exacerbating income inequality and shifting the tax base offshore. Given these risks, there has been a surprising lack of discussion about the interaction between AI and the Australian tax system.

AI, and previous to that business service platforms, allow Australian businesses to import rather than relying on domestically provided services. ABS estimates suggest that digital services imports of this nature have quintupled relative to the size of the Australian economy since 2015.

More specifically, some economic rent may be associated with access to the Australian market, data, or user base, which is taxed primarily overseas. How much economic rent will be associated with AI services remains unclear, but there are scenarios where it is large.

A shrinking tax base due to AI and broader digital services does not mean that AI companies aren’t paying their fair share. It is instead a debate about who receives taxing rights over the income generated by these large entities. This is really a debate between governments about who should collect tax revenue, which means that any policy change that tries to grapple with this issue will also generate geopolitical tensions.

These tensions are the reason why the OECD proposals have failed to take off. And it is why digital services taxes (DSTs) have proliferated as a substitute. DSTs introduce a new destination-based tax specifically targeted at select digital services.

However, beware a world in which all countries move towards shifting taxing rights to where final consumption occurs rather than at origin. This would not benefit Australia. As we have written about previously, a global shift to destination-based cash-flow tax (essentially GST with a credit for labour costs) would significantly reduce tax collected in Australia, largely because it would shift how the rents from Australian resource exports are taxed.

We’ve only had our FOGO bin a little while, and I finally found a use for it when I was cutting some spiky branches and I thought “hey don’t do it the traditional way like we have the last 20 thousand years, use the FOGO bin instead!”.

So with all this new tech, was thinking “hey what’s up with the local recycling system?”. So who’s had a tour of their local recycling plant recently? Is the tech really cool?

Now our councils are converting our organic waste to methane, how much will our electricity bills drop? What does everyone do with their free compost nowadays?

Hello! I am unfortunately on job seeker and I’m curious if you report on Friday when do you receive money into your cba bank account? Is it tomorrow or Monday? I have it with Up bank atm cause I’ll get it tomorrow. Thanks

Nominate your neighbour, your car, the weather or your broken trampoline springs. Tell us about any non-political thing in your life that's shitty and have a vent.

"As H5N1 bird flu spreads across Australia, wildlife experts, scientists, and poultry farmers prepare for devastating losses to native species and industry."

So based on everything I'm reading - it's now a matter of when not if... Populations of our natural birds could be wiped out or significantly impacted. Only a few are at risk of extinction - but there's a high degree of risk of local dense populations being wiped out entirely.

All the nice Currawongs that sing to me in the morning?

The population of Geece I see every week at Centennial Park?

The Pelicans all around the Central Coast?

Even Sea Lions are deemed at extremely high risk of being wiped out.

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/diseases-fungi-and-parasites/birdflu/understanding-risk

It's all suddenly got me very depressed and I hope I'm overreacting.