Australian Politics
Love thy neighbour? What to do when you can’t stand who’s next door
It's generally good advice below but having a dog in a small unit is generally unfortunate, including for the dog.
When it comes to loud music I have a better idea than any mentioned below. I once had some young people move in next door and they liked their music loud. I called on them and asked them to tone it down. I also mentioned smilingly that we both had equal rights about playing music.
When nothing changed, I dealt with it promptly. I put my HiFi speakers on the window sill nearest to them and promptly played Janacek's Sinfonietta through them -- loudly. Within minutes the kids came streaming out of the house and into their cars. They couldn't stand it.
The Sinfonietta is brass-heavy avant garde classical music which to most people sounds like scratching your finger-nails on a blackboard . Even some classical music fans don't like it. But I do. It was a very simple lesson in human diversity that some young people needed to learn.
I must mention some day how I dealt kindly with an incessantly-barking dog. I am a psychologist and ever since Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, psychologists have modified animal behaviour
When Sabrina Damiano bought her first home – a one-bedroom apartment in Sydney’s eastern suburbs – the possibility of not getting along with her neighbours didn’t cross her mind.
“I’ve rented for the last 10 years and never had any issues,” she says. “When I moved in, I even went around and introduced myself with cupcakes and cookies.”
But just over a month later, Damiano received a breach notice saying her dog, Rufus – a 15-year-old pug-cross-maltese with dementia – was disturbing the peace by "occasionally" barking.
Damiano says she took every measure to improve the situation. She got Rufus new medication, worked from home more frequently, and hired a dog-sitter when she had to leave the house. But the breach notices kept coming. Now, the case may go to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
“Things got really nasty,” she says. “They stuck the rude finger up at me. They threatened to call the RSPCA … They took my washing off the [communal] line.”
After less than a year Damiano’s situation became so toxic that she decided to sell her apartment.
Whether faced with seemingly unreasonable complaints, or suffering at the hands of someone who blasts music at 4am every weeknight, neighbour disputes have arguably become part and parcel of community living.
According to a Relationships Australia survey conducted in 2019, over 60 per cent of women and 68 per cent of men said they had experienced conflict with neighbours.
“I’m seeing a rise in noise complaints in strata [including apartments],” says strata lawyer Amanda Farmer.
“More people are living in strata, many different types of people, like families with kids, multi-generational families, those with pets, people who are adding value by renovating … But then you also have more people working from home, so it’s the perfect storm.”
Talk it out
Let’s say your neighbour blasts the trombone at 2am every Wednesday. If this interferes with your household’s sleep (and you feel safe enough to do so), etiquette expert Amanda King recommends calmly and respectfully approaching them to communicate how the issue affects you.
“If you begin with an aggressive reaction, you may only be met with more aggression, and the issue escalates,” Sydney-based King says. “Make sure to treat your neighbour with courtesy and respect and listen to what they have to say. Keep a record of all contact you have regarding the problem.”
Face-to-face is always preferable as it comes across as more sincere, King says. However, if this isn’t possible, a carefully worded letter would suffice.
It’s possible to get ahead of any issues by establishing a positive dynamic with your neighbours from the beginning, says Sydney-based social etiquette expert Anna Musson.
“Getting along with neighbours is a thermostat for your life. We should get to know who lives near us and build a community, whether for our own loneliness, neighbourhood security or to build that sense of belonging. When we know who’s crying, whose dog is barking, who’s building a deck, it reduces how annoying we find that sound.”
Mediate
If tension persists, it’s often possible to resolve the dispute by inviting a knowledgeable and impartial third party to the conversation, says strata and community titles lawyer Allison Benson.
However, official mediation is the next step. “Owning a property in a strata or community title scheme is like a marriage, a long-term relationship with the other lot owners. It’s generally to everyone’s benefit to try to resolve the matter before it gets to the litigation stage.”
Most mediation services are free, such as via NSW Fair Trading and Community Justice Centres. Elsewhere, the Dispute Settlement Centre of Victoria also offers free mediation; however, matters referred by VCAT are generally prioritised due to high demand.
Tribunal: a worst-case scenario?
Legal action is generally considered a last resort, Benson says, as it’s time-consuming, expensive and stressful. If your case does end up before a tribunal or court, she strongly recommends seeking legal advice.
“You need to understand not just your legal rights and obligations but what’s required during the litigation process. I’ve seen many people with good claims fail because they didn’t understand what they needed to prove or the time limits that may apply to their claim.”
During a tribunal, it will be up to the complainant to prove their peace was unfairly disturbed, Farmer says. This is a rather subjective process, which largely depends on the amount of verifiable evidence each neighbour recorded throughout the dispute.
The Protection of the Environment Operations (Noise Control) Regulation will govern most neighbourhood noise, including the use of air conditioners and musical instruments. It sets out timeframes for noisy activities and their duration.
Defining “unreasonable noise”
This will depend on it’s volume and intensity, what type of noise it is, time and place, its duration and its frequency.
When to let it go
Not every grievance is worth the battle. As the Australian population grows and apartment living booms, noise and other minor annoyances are almost inevitable.
“People are all around you,” Farmer says. “You have to come to terms with this if you’re going to live in these spaces. Noise also travels in older buildings in Australia. So, you must temper expectations.”
If something is only mildly annoying and relatively infrequent, such as a Saturday night party or someone leaving their bin in the parking bay, Benson says it’s probably best to ignore it and preserve the relationship.
President of the Australian Psychological Society, Dr Catriona Davis-McCabe, says though you can’t control how you feel about something, you can control your response.
“Not letting go and moving on from small things that annoy you compounds over time, making your life harder and less enjoyable than it needs to be. Remember that you only have a finite amount of mental capacity to deal with stress each day, so it’s better to save it for the most important issues you’re facing.”
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So-called security guards
Most security personnel in Australia aren't armed and industry experts say current rules mean they "don't stand a chance" against attackers with dangerous weapons.
What's next? Security guards say they should be allowed to be armed, but some worry that would mean "going down a pretty dangerous road".
The horrific stabbing deaths of six people at a busy shopping centre in Sydney on the weekend has sent shockwaves across the nation.
Two victims — including one of the deceased, Faraz Tahir — were security guards.
It comes two months after the fatal stabbing of a 70-year-old grandmother at a shopping centre in Ipswich, Queensland.
In February, a 30-year-old security guard died after allegedly being punched in the head outside a pub in Sydney's south.
Now, there's debate about whether security guards have enough protection and powers to keep themselves, and the public, safe across the country.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and Scentre Group, the company that operates Westfield shopping centres, have both flagged reviewing the measures in place around security personnel.
But for some security guards, it's too little too late — and they say lives could have been saved on the weekend if policy settings were different.
They're the people we expect to keep us safe in public spaces, but most security personnel in Australia aren't armed.
The award rate for security officers in Australia is about $25 an hour, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman.
And while they may look like law enforcement in some ways, security consultant Scott Taylor said they were not given the same tools to protect themselves and others in the face of danger.
"We have the same powers of arrest and use of force guidelines as any general citizen," the founder of Praesidium Risk and Resilience said.
Essentially, unarmed security guards can prevent you from entering certain places, remove you from a premises, make a citizen's arrest and use force if reasonable and necessary.
"[The general public] don't think of them as ... first responders to incidents, offering first aid, jumping in and going towards situations while others go the opposite way," Mr Taylor said.
Mr Taylor said he had long been advocating for security guards to be armed with capsicum sprays, stab-proof vests, batons and handcuffs.
"They're often going around with a small first aid kit, a torch and a radio," he said.
"For unarmed security personnel to be dealing with someone with an edged weapon like that ... sadly they had nothing else at their disposal — they don't stand a chance."
Samuel*, a security manager with more than 17 years experience in the industry, said people didn't understand the limitations placed on security guards.
He said Mr Tahir's death could have been prevented if he had proper protective gear.
"[He] did not have to lose his life ... no-one should have had to lose their lives over that."
Another security guard, Felix*, said greater access to stab-proof vests would better protect security guards against stabbings.
He said some employers didn't like security guards wearing extra protective equipment because it made them look unfriendly.
"A lot of clients want security to appear more as a friendly concierge. They get their panties in a twist that we look too intimidating or tactical. They believe it leaves their patrons with an uneasy feeling."
'A dangerous road'
Though it would require additional regulation, training, and likely, pay, Mr Taylor said it was time to give security guards better access to things like batons, protective equipment and capsicum sprays.
He said going so far as to arm security guards with guns, like they do in the United States, was not the solution.
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10,000 Sign Petition to Re-Open Mountain Track Closed Due to Indigenous Claim
These claims are mostly just Leftist mischief making
Almost 10,000 people have signed a petition to re-open the summit track of New South Wales’ (NSW) Mount Warning (Wollumbin), which has been closed to the general population by local indigenous guardians since 2020.
The 1,156-metre eroded shield volcano in the Northern Rivers region of the Tweed Coast is a popular destination for hikers and nature enthusiasts, and there is evidence of indigenous habitation over the past 6,000 years.
Aboriginals believe it is the place where their creator spirit Nguthungulli, ascended to the sky. Before the ban, 120,000 visitors annually would frequent the mountain’s summit track and its surroundings.
In 2020, the mountain was closed due to COVID protocols but was kept shut post-pandemic by safety concerns and by the Wollumbin Consultative Group, a consortium of Aboriginal elders from the Bundjalung people.
They requested that visitors, including women of indigenous heritage, refrain from climbing it out of respect for their beliefs, saying their presence would negatively impact its cultural significance.
However, NSW Libertarian Party MP John Ruddick has raised a petition to have the mountain reopened to the public and is approaching the 10,000 signatures required to instigate a parliamentary debate.
MP Doubts Cultural Significance
Mr. Ruddick has been vocal over what he views as the “hocus pocus” inventions of “left-wing extremists” who want to sow the seeds of racial division by keeping the mountain off limits to anyone except male members of the Wollumbin people.
He said he doubted evidence existed that the site was culturally significant to the Bundjalung, and believed the exclusion of park users was a result of extremists exploiting the situation for political gain.
“I don’t believe it is the Aboriginal version of Jerusalem or Mecca or St Peters,” Mr. Ruddick told the Daily Mail on Friday. “I am convinced these claims are recent inventions of white left-wing extremists who are exploiting Aborigines and I don’t believe there is any documentary evidence for them.
“If it was sacred, of course, we respect those holy sites and we don’t want to upset people if they have genuine belief in a spiritual thing.”
Mr. Ruddick said the extremists “don’t care about the negative impacts that will have on the Aboriginal people. This is just a tool left-wing white academics use to make Australians feel bad about themselves.”
He compared the current argument with Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, which closed its summit to public use in 2019.
“That’s why we have to push back now because it started with Uluru and now there is this and there will just be more and more. And it’s not helping the Aboriginal people, it is actually making things worse,” he said.
“It means the white academics have got in the ears of some them and the others say this is BS and we are going to publicly call it out as BS. It happens every single time and that shows you how much credibility there is that it is a sacred site.
“Up until this century, there’s not one document from the 19th century or the 20th century of Aborigines saying, ‘This is a sacred mountain, you are not allowed to climb here.’”
Despite the ban being supported by the state government, the Wollumbin Consultative Group’s legitimacy to enforce it was questioned by other Aboriginal groups, and in-fighting occurred between the group and the Ngarakbal Githabul and Yoocum Yoocum people—who disputed their claim.
“Aborigines are not a monolith, there is always conflict among the local Aborigines,” Mr Ruddick said.
Petition Gathers Steam
The petition is sponsored, along with Mr. Ruddick, by Marc Hendrickx, who in 2023, wrote a book titled “A Guide to Climbing Mount Warning: the fight for awe and wonder.”
The petition, which has reached 9,972 signatures by publication time, calls for the reopening of Mt Warning’s summit track so it can be “enjoyed by all, regardless of race or gender.”
https://www2.theepochtimes.com/world/petition-to-re-open-mt-warning-approaches-10000-names-5629117
************************************************"Low cost" renewable energy is an impossible dream
The amusing claim that wind and sunshine are "free" still sounds relevant to some. But converting wind and sunshine into electricity and and delivering it to peple's homes is VERY costly. Coal is free too -- until you start digging it out of the ground
The pre-eminent figure in political economy at Sydney during Albanese’s time at university was red-ragger Ted Wheelwright. Never a fan of the invisible hand, Wheelwright believed in something called “balanced economic development” while disparaging the role of multinational companies and foreign investment. He was a true believer in government intervention and big government, both key convictions of Albanese.
But here’s the thing: while the Prime Minister may sadly remember a lot of what he was taught all those years ago – he probably doesn’t sign up to the evils of foreign investment like Wheelwright did – he failed to come to grips with some ironclad laws of economics. These include the fact that price results from the interaction of supply and demand and that there is a difference between marginal and average costs.
I mention this because of his incorrect assertion that “investment in renewables will lead to cheaper power, because that’s what every economist tells us”.
Not this little black duck, aka an economist, I’m afraid. Virtually all my pals in the economics profession also take the view that renewable energy as a source of 24/7 power is actually more expensive than other sources after accounting for overbuild, additional transmission, the need for back-up/storage and frequency and voltage controls. By the way, economists need their friends in the engineering profession to get to the bottom of the issue.
It’s worth going through the issues because our Prime Minister needs to come to his senses: if he really believes renewable energy is cheaper power, we are heading for the economic rocks and quite quickly.
The most common (but deficient) way of looking at this issue is using levelised cost of electricity according to the source of generation. This is done for many countries but actually falls into the trap of confusing marginal and average costs. Marginal costs are the additional costs of generating an extra unit whereas average costs are the total costs divided by all the units generated.
LCOE takes into account the cost of installation as well as the expected lifetime of the asset. (Wind and solar last half as long as coal and nuclear). A key variable is the capacity factor of the different sources: nuclear has the highest and wind and solar the lowest (around 25 to 33 per cent).
By rights, extended wind droughts and cloudy periods should be taken into account but this rarely occurs. The cost of the feeder stock is then added – which is zero in the case of wind and solar, and meaningful in other cases
The end result is the net present value of electricity generation over the lifetime of the asset in question. Note here that the results are highly assumption-dependent and relate only to wholesale electricity costs, which make up less than one-third of retail costs in the National Electricity Market.
The reality is that LCOE estimates don’t tell us very much because we need electricity 24/7 and wind and solar, by definition, cannot provide this. Moreover, because wind and solar are decentralised assets, they require very expensive and substantial transmission lines to connect to the grid.
These lines have to be paid for and are becoming increasingly expensive to build. There is also a great deal of local resistance to their construction. In addition, ancillary services – frequency and voltage control – have to be paid for. The point here is that when you consider the issue in a holistic way, electricity generation dominated by renewable energy cannot provide the 24/7 power we need or offer affordable prices.
We only need to look at the countries that have pushed a great deal of renewable energy – leaving hydro to one side – into their systems through regulation and subsidies – think Denmark, Germany, the UK and the states of California and South Australia. They all have very high electricity prices with their attendant problems for households and businesses.
It might even pique the interest of our Prime Minister to observe Victoria, which is currently subsidising two brown coal-fired electricity plants having embarked on a headlong campaign to promote renewable energy installations across the state as well as offshore. Astonishingly, its government has also rejected the use of gas; gas peaking plants are the best fit with renewables.
If renewable energy really is cheaper, why would it be necessary to subsidise the investors? And if renewable energy is the best form of electricity generation, how is it the case that two coal plants are now being incentivised to continue? The Eraring plant in NSW is next in line.
The reality is that pushing renewable energy into the system undermines the business models of 24/7 coal-fired generators, but these generators become crucial to pick up the inevitable slack created by the intermittency of wind and solar. Expensive batteries can make a bit of difference but only for short periods. The number of large-scale batteries we would need to firm wind and solar renders this route completely impractical.
In other words, it’s not good economics, notwithstanding the naive view of the Prime Minister. It is also unacceptable to simply expect those in rural and regional communities to bear the external costs of having these installations littered in their backyards.
Over time, it is easy to predict that the owners of the last standing reliable plants will be able to hold the federal and state governments to ransom, thereby driving up electricity prices even further. It’s a perfectly rational business response.
You wouldn’t buy a fridge that only works a third of the time or a stove that only works a third of the time. But we are expected to believe renewable energy is the route to cheaper electricity and economic prosperity. Albanese’s assertion that “climate action is good for our economy” is simply not borne out by the figures.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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