This is my blog on all things we might consider unfair, biased or otherwise, and the occassional rant. I'm sick of the 'general media' and its bullshit sensationalised stories. Gone is decent journalism, and we have to put up with spelling errors, bad grammar and a load of other crap from the junior journos they hire.
Warning: This blog is NOT moderated. Your comments will go on-line immediately. Make sure your comments are legal and will not make you liable for prosecution and/or civil action.
As many people know, Australia is in the midst of a trade war with China - in particular, the Chinese Communist Party.
It's a situation of David against Goliath, and China knows that. We have more to lose than China,
The Chinese president/dictator Xi Jinping, has Australia by the short and curlies and he is using all the excuses under the sun to ban certain items of trade from being exported to China.
As usual, the Australian government is grovelling and playing the part of the naughty boy being punished. Well, I say FUCK THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY, And lets face it, it's a well known fact that even the Chinese people hate their government. The people are FORCED to LOVE their government. They're not free to love or hate like we are in Australia.
Australians are fighting back though by deliberately choosing to boycott Chinese made items, which, let's face it, are usually shit quality anyway. And to this end, we are choosing to boycott wineries which have partial of full Chinese ownership. The purported list of wineries is as such. I have not vetted the list, and have taken it as "verbatum":-
South Australia:
Auswan Creek (Barossa) 包括以下品牌, Peacock Series, Blue Lobster, Inspire Estate,
Red Deer Station, Finders and Seekers, Linwood Estate, EI8HT Basket, Auskoala,
Burge Family Wine (Barossa), Château Yaldara (Barossa), Cimicky (Barossa),
Green Dragon (Barossa), Greenock Creek (Barossa), Hemera Estate formerly Ross Estate (Barossa),
Max’s Vineyard (Barossa), Reis Creek (Barossa), 1847 Wine (Barossa), Kilikanoon (Clare Valley),
It has been mentioned about the Australian workers that may suffer because of a boycott, but, the Chinese government/dictatorship doesn't care about all the workers that'll lose their jobs. You have to fight fire with fire.
If Morrison had any balls, he'd be slapping import duties on everything Chinese made coming into Australia.
If you intend to take up the Fetch TV offer from any ISP as part of a package, it's worthwhile to take the ISP to task over what happens to the Set Top Box if you leave the ISP in the future.
Some ISP's I believe, effectively "rent" you the Set Top Box and if you move from the ISP, the Set Top Box has to be returned. Fair enough.
Some ISP's make you purchase the Fetch Set Top Box outright (I know iiNet does), and then you purchase and stream whatever "channel package" you want from Fetch TV.
What the ISP's don't tell you is that the Fetch Set Top Box is loaded with "branded" firmware, that for all intents and purposes will only work with that ISP.
In addition to the confusion, is that you can buy retail versions of the Fetch Set Top Box from retailers such as JB HiFi, Harvey Norman etc and open an account with Fetch TV directly, and then you're not "tied" to any ISP.
Fetch TV also stated to a friend of mine, that they make it "abundantly clear" that they do not reload new firmware onto Set Top Boxes issued to an ISP for resale. Fetch TV were then taken to task to show on their website where they make this "abundantly clear", and they ignored it and never returned the email. My friend and I went through everything on the website, and couldn't find anything that relates to them advising that they will not reload new firmware onto a set top box purchased from an ISP. We searched around the start of March 2018, so there may have been something added since then. It's all a bit sneaky, and end Fetch users don't really know where they stand until they close their account with the internet provider only to find they can't move their Fetch set top box to any other Fetch provider, or deal direct with Fetch TV.
This is where you need to be careful.
According to the Fetch TV people, their attitude is "If you buy a set top box through an internet provider, and you leave that internet provider, then pretty much you have a useless set top box that won't connect to any other internet provider (that provides the Fetch TV service).
Fetch TV did advise that they are looking at ways of people being able to use their Fetch TV Set Top Box between different internet providers that offer the Fetch TV service. This was some time ago, and as far as I'm aware, nothing has happened on this front.
To me, Fetch TV's business model is wrong and self defeating. At least when you buy a Foxtel set top box, you know you're stuck with Foxtel. When you buy a Fetch TV set top box through your internet provider, no-one tells you that you are now locked into that provider for life, and Fetch appear to have themselves locked into contracts with resellers whereby they can't deal direct with the end user, even if the end user is no longer with the original company they bought the box from.
You'll also see Fetch TV television ads, which aids confusion, and in my opinion, offers the Fetch TV service, but never advises that dealing direct with Fetch themselves is not available to people who purchase their box through an internet retailer such as iiNet, DoDo, Adam Internet, Optus etc.
You've been warned.
As it currently stands at 31/1/2019, buy a Fetch Set Top Box through a Fetch enabled internet service provider, and you'll have a dead set top box if you leave that provider. Fetch TV will refuse to deal with you, so you have an expensive door stop.
I received word lately of a complaint with AUSSIESIM and they have shown themselves to be some of the worst business people in Australia. At least in relation to customer service.
AussieSIM is a business offering overseas SIM cards that enables you to keep your current number overseas and they offer quite competitive rates for calls, SMS etc. That is if you can get your SIM cards to work, or even activate.
A quick Google search shows a woeful track record of unhappy customers, and virtually non existent customer service.
Before you jump the gun, and say "Well for every 1 disgruntled customer they had, the have 20 happy customers." That may be so, but I can personally vouch for their woeful service. Well actually no service at all, apart from taking your money whilst knowing full well that you can't validate or activate your SIM Cards. They are aware they have a problem with SIM activation, but are still happy to take your money. Is that fraud?
I know of a personally of a recent case where a person bought multiple SIM CARDS well ahead of going overseas, and to date, they've been unable to activate their SIM Cards for use. They are just about to go overseas, and AussieSim won't return phone calls, emails and are unreachable by phone. They have a recorded message that just runs you around in circles. They don't answer the phone, and instead have a message saying they are so busy they'll call you back within an hour. They don't. You press any option, SALES, SUPPORT or RETAIL, and it all leads to the same answering message. they are just too busy answering other calls to answer your particular call. Their phone number is 1300 333 440 or the international SUPPORT number being 61 (0)2 8076 2276, which gives you exactly the same message as if you phone the 1300 number. I personally rang them at 11:02 Adelaide time on Wednesday which is just after 8:30am Perth time. I left a support message. Lets see if they call back as the message said they would. Just out of curiosity, I decided to spend a bit of time calling AussieSim around 8-10 times today, I didn't leave any messages, just called to see if anyone actually answered. You think you're going to be lucky after you press the number for whatever service you need, it starts ringing, then the dreaded answering machine drops in saying 'Our staff are busy serving other people, for all support related issues, please go to aussiesim.com.au and lodge a support message'' ... where of course, they don't get back to you.
They are listed as being at Level 1, 91 Hay Street, Subiaco, WA, which according to Google is this place:
AussieSim, you should be ashamed of yourselves, worst organisation I have ever had to deal with, all you do is lie, I called you almost every day while I was in New Zealand regarding my Call Forwarding number which never worked for the entire 2 weeks all you kept saying was it will be rectified and we will call you back, not once did I receive a call from you. If you are travelling OS, purchase a local sim in the country you are in. For New Zealand, my wife purchased a 2Degrees sim for $20, 200 minutes to call Aus, unlimited SMS to Aus, 500meg data, for $10 more you can get an extra 1gig of data
The above complaint is from 2015, and it's plainly obvious that things haven't improved.
Here's another complaint from 2014... you can see a pattern happening here I feel.
4.Re: AUSSIE SIM Travel sim Experience
11 October 2014, 13:26
Very similar experience recently on Trip to Canada and Alaska. Aussie Sim is a complete circus. Instructions given when purchasing conflict with written instructions that come with the sim, which then further conflict with instructions on their website. They don't have a clue what they're doing. The settings they instructed for use in Canada and USA were completely wrong (only got to the bottom of this after several lengthy online chat sessions with a girl in Australia who was really trying to be helpful). Then when finally got the settings sorted, found they no longer have "arrangements" with the nominated Canadian provider and had to go back to chat again to sort that out. Complete (and very frustrating) fiasco. These guys are driving without a license. Avoid at all costs
I had also had a recent bad experience. Found it exceptionally convoluted and user unfriendly. Was using it as an emergency back up and when my flight was delayed by 10hours requiring contacting home was unable to make a phone call. I was travelling with my disabled sister which added a difficulty factor and chatted online with AussieSim and could not resolve the problem. They kept instructing me to remove sim card - do this and that and reboot all of which was too difficult to do in the circumstances (mid car travel). Don't suppose I'll ever see the $25 credit (funny how topping up credit works smoothly). In the end they were rude and unhelpful. Will never use again and advise others to avoid it.
DO NOT buy Aussie Sim Travel sim cards - their whole set up is a rip off! We bought 2 cards for our last o/s trip as their rates seemed a lot cheaper than getting roaming on our phones and we could forward numbers on our phones BUT the credits we had to repeatedly put on our phones ran out much faster than the calls we made and we were never able to contact anyone about this. My partner had put $50 dollars on his call forwarding and got an email 2 weeks later to say it had expired - without ever using it! AVOID!
Edited: 18 June 2017, 07:16
The above snippets are all from Trip Advisor. I didn't even bother to look at all the other sites with complaints. And, do you know what else, I didn't see one single post where people actually posted something good about AussieSim. In Google Reviews ... every single comment was to warn people to steer clear of them. In Trip Advisor, every single comment was a warning to other people to steer clear of them as well. Why isn't there any good comments?
It's now 4:58pm here in Adelaide and I left my message this morning at what, 11:02am, and so far, no call back, and I suspect, I won't get a call back.
I have no problems with a company if they're upfront and honest with people. If AussieSim are experiencing problems with SIM card validations/activations, state the problem on your website BEFORE people spend money to get a SIM card they invariably can't use. To take peoples money knowing you're unable to provide that service is tantamount to criminal activity.
The company has also had variations in the past, including AUSSIESIM, ZIPT, ROAMEASY, ROAMEZY, ROAMEZE and ZIPTEL.
Here is an extract from a website that gives free company information:
Aussiesim Pty Ltd is a limited by shares Australian proprietary company. Located at WA 6008 since 2015-12-02 the company is, as the updated on 2015-12-02 ABN database shows, registered. The company has been registered for Goods & Services Tax since 2012-08-07. Known company numbers for Aussiesim Pty Ltd are as follows: ACN - 147227683, Australian Business Number - 58147227683. Aussiesim Pty Ltd has been the company name since 2011-12-13. Roameze is an example of a business name Aussiesim Pty Ltd used. The complete list includes 5 business names. Roameze was the company's business name from 2014-03-19 until 2014-08-22. Other business names include Roameasy (from 2014-03-19 to 2014-08-25) and Ziptel (from 2014-03-19 to 2014-06-07). This Australian proprietary company was previously located in WA 6005 (from 2014-09-17 to 2015-12-02), WA 6005 (from 2012-07-01 to 2014-09-17). We found 7 trademarks that reference this company. 2012-06-19 is the date the documents needed to start the registration process of trademark no 1496224 were submitted. This trademark is categorised as "composite" and its application status is "never registered, live". Other company trademarks include trademark number 1499594, application status "never registered, live";trademark number 1546987, application status: "never registered, live".
As you can see they've jumped from business name to business name. Invariably companies do this because the business name ends up with such a bad reputation, it's time to shut it down and create a new one.
You've been warned. All the information I've reported is freely available on the internet for you to make your own decisions.
Oh, and by the way, it's now 8:51am Thursday 19th, and still no phone call back.
I know in future, that I'll be researching any Travel SIM Card companies properly. There's nothing to stop AussieSim closing it's doors and re-opening under a new business name, new website etc, and starting the whole thing off again.
This story starts with a tax and the fact that power companies have been allowed to invoice you for it, even though they do not necessarily pay it. It is a story, largely untold, about why power prices are still high despite the axing of the carbon tax – certainly much higher than they were five years ago.
Energy analyst Bruce Mountain uncovered this tax issue when he realised the South Australian Power Networks (SAPN) had been allowed by the regulator to factor $414 million of company taxes into its pricing structures for 2011- 2015.
This seemed at odds with the fact that SAPN’s financial documents disclosed no tax paid, instead reportinga $4.2 million tax credit for 2011 to 2013.
For Mountain, an engineer, chartered accountant and economist with more than two decades’ experience in advising governments, regulators and companies on energy policy, this raises an intriguing question.
He posed the question in a presentation to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER): “So, how much tax has SAPN actually paid, and how does this compare to what it has been allowed to recover from electricity users?”
It’s a question that SAPN itself cannot answer. Spokesman Paul Roberts says: “As a partnership, SAPN does not have a corporate tax liability. That’s a matter for the partners.”
So, Mountain dug a little deeper. The SAPN is 51 per cent owned by two companies that both belong to the Cheung Kong Group of companies. Owned by a Hong Kong-based billionaire, these companies are conveniently incorporated in tax haven, the Bahamas.
The remaining 49 per cent is owned by Spark Infrastructure, which also has an interest in Victoria Power Networks. Due to a variety of factors, including accelerated depreciation and losses, Spark is also not currently paying tax on income from its SAPN assets.
It would seem the $414 million that SAPN is allowed by the Australian Energy Regulator to charge customers to cover its income tax bill from 2011 to 2015 may be providing a windfall gain to shareholders at consumers’ expense. “I think there has to be explanation for any sizeable difference between what consumers are paying and what the Tax Office is receiving,” says Mountain.
The tax issue is particularly interesting considering another of Mountain’s findings. His research suggests that SAPN is generating much higher profit per connection from its customers than the United Kingdom Power Networks, also part-owned by the Cheung Kong Group.
Mountain calculates, in a submission to a senate committee, that SAPN had pre-tax profits for 2012-13 of $381 per connection, compared with $102 per connection for UK Power Networks.
The SAPN does have a response to this claim. When Mountain first raised the comparison, it objected. Then it commissioned its own research from economic consultant HoustonKemp in an apparent bid to debunk Mountain’s findings.
Roberts won’t release that report but says it shows, essentially, that Mountain is comparing apples and oranges and that his findings would be “misleading to the average residential customer”.
Mountain stands by his figures, which he says apply to all connections – not just residential – and urges SAPN to release the HoustonKemp report.
The sensitivity around this shows what a hot-button issue power pricing is in Australia.
Now that the carbon tax is gone, attention is falling on other factors pushing up power prices, including the role of the AER in approving pricing regimens and whether the networks that generate and distribute power have been inflating their costs, resulting in overcharging of customers.
A spokeswoman for the regulator confirms the tax allowance it factors in to its calculation of power prices has nothing to do with the networks’ actual tax bill.
“An allowance for tax is set consistent with tax law and applies the statutory income tax rate of 30 per cent to estimate the tax allowance,” she says. “Tax consolidation laws may permit some businesses to average tax liabilities across company structures. Consistent with setting tax in accordance with the statutory rate, we do not take account of these more complex tax structures in the revenue determinations of individual businesses.”
This is part of a “benchmarking” approach taken by the AER that also applies to other costs incurred by network companies, such as operating and capital costs. Essentially, the AER works out what would be reasonable costs for a hypothetical network to incur, adapts these to the size of the actual networks and allows them to be passed on to customers. It does not reflect their actual costs.
The rationale for such an approach is that it promotes efficiency by giving networks an incentive to perform better than the benchmark.
It’s hard to see, though, why this reasoning should apply to the calculation of tax expenses, unless tax minimisation is viewed as a mark of efficiency, which would be a peculiar argument from a public policy perspective.
Even more bizarre is that the state government-owned networks, which are not required to pay income tax to the Commonwealth government, are still able to factor the tax allowance, calculated at the 30 per cent rate, into their pricing structures.
The taxation anomaly that has been identified by Mountain has also been raised by agricultural groups, which are heavy energy users, in a submission to the senate inquiry. After campaigning for the removal of the carbon tax, these groups, led by the National Irrigators’ Council, now acknowledge that other factors have had an even bigger influence on rising power prices.
The steep growth in electricity prices in recent years played right into the Coalition’s political narrative about the carbon tax. Remember it was going to push the price of a Sunday roast to $100 and leave pensioners struggling to pay their bills?
That latter claim was aired in parliament in October 2012, when Tony Abbott brandishing a bill from an 82-year-old pensioner, claimed the $800 increase in one bill was 70 per cent due to the carbon tax.
In fact, the carbon tax was only ever responsible for an increase of about 9 per cent in power prices, so its removal has not reversed recent price rises, with electricity bills almost doubling in some states in the past five years.
The bigger story is one that was well charted by journalist Jess Hill in The Monthly in July 2014. “Since 2009, the electricity networks that own and manage our ‘poles and wires’ have quietly spent $45 billion on the most expensive project this country has ever seen,” she wrote.
“Allowed to run virtually unchecked, they’ve spent vast sums on infrastructure we don’t need, and have charged it all to us, with an additional fee attached. The spending was approved by a federal regulator, and yet the federal government didn’t even note it until it was well under way.”
Essentially, growth in demand forecast by the power companies to justify charging consumers for spending on new poles and wires has never materialised.
The “gold-plating” argument goes that power networks had incentives to build extensive new infrastructure because the regulator allowed them to charge consumers for a much higher cost of capital than they actually incurred.
Even the state-owned network companies, in New South Wales and Queensland, were allowed to factor in to their pricing an interest rate on debt that would have been high in a commercial context and was well above the discounted rate that they were able to secure on their borrowings from state treasuries.
Privatisation is now off the table in Queensland, following the Liberal National Party’s shock election loss, but as the NSW government prepares to sell its networks, it is worth noting that, through higher power prices, consumers have subsidised the expansion of their asset base.
State governments have overseen the rises in power prices through their control of the Australian Energy Market Commission, which writes the rules the Australian Energy Regulator enforces.
The Energy Users Association of Australia, in its submission to the senate committee, recommends a regulatory overhaul to make the network companies accountable for their investment in assets that may never be needed.
“In essence, the key question being asked by the committee is – who should bear the costs of poor investment decisions?” the submission says.
“The current regulatory rules require consumers to bear those costs through excessive electricity prices. Consumers and other stakeholders believe that the costs should be borne by the businesses who made those decisions – as applies to all other sectors of the Australian economy.”
Yet there is little political will to tackle the factors that have been most significant in driving up power bills. And anyway, the government is preoccupied with another sort of power right now, as Abbott fights to keep his job. The Greens-instigated senate inquiry, which starts hearings this month, will air the arguments, but the Abbott government has shown no interest in changing its narrative that it has vanquished the carbon tax, relieving pressure on electricity prices.
Treasurer Joe Hockey once more invoked the spectre of the carbon tax as he responded this week to the Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates by 25 basis points, to a record low of 2.25 per cent.
“By removing the price on carbon – by getting rid of the carbon tax, we have got electricity prices to come down, we’ve taken upward pressure on inflation out of the equation and we are actually now giving people real relief in their household bills,” Hockey said on Tuesday.
If the government were genuine about reducing power prices, it would turn its attention to the regulatory anomalies that have really pushed them higher.
I have been reading a story about the short life of Kyle Sears.
Pretty much, Kyle came out as being gay, fled to Ballarat, and commenced a relationship with an older guy he met on-line.
Kyle also suffered mental health problems, and according to reports had a strong history with child protection. This in itself should be ringing alarm bells.
Based on the limited reporting of the case, this is my take on what COULD HAVE happened. I am open to alternative theories.
Kyle had a rough upbringing, and traumatic early childhood. This could have helped lay the foundations of what is considered his mental condition. In January of 2013, Kyle's father found out Kyle was gay. Shortly after, Kyle fled Adelaide to live with an older man he met on-line.
What was the outcome of his father finding out his son was gay? Was the Father furious and homophobic towards Kyle? I ask the question nobody else has asked yet? else what would cause Kyle to flee his home state and go and live with someone he hardly knew? Kyle's actions seem to indicate there is more to him leaving home, than just a whim. If his Father was homophobic, that'd be a good reason for Kyle to flee, wouldn't it?
The coroner fears Kyle was being groomed by the older man. If a relationship existed between Kyle and the older man, Wayne Shefferle, why does it have to be grooming? The (simplified) legal definition of grooming is one of breaking down the barriers of a child, for sexual gratification by the older person. It seems to me, that Kyle had none of these barriers. It appears he entered into a "relationship" of his own will. If this is true, and events happened like this, then there is no case to answer to grooming a child. And in reality, when you boil it down, how different is it to Hugh Hefner, an old old man, running around with 25 year old women? Why is this not grooming?
Leaving the legalities of this case aside, why do authorities have a problem understanding that a 16 year old kid could have a "crush", a "love" or whatever you want to call it, for an older person? I mean, for god's sake, I've even seem films where young female students have "crushes" on a much older male teacher. My point is that it's socially acceptable for this to be portrayed in film, but not in real life. Maybe Kyle had a crush on Shefferle? And this relationship appears to have blossomed whereby the pair were (apparently) seen kissing by a neighbour. It hardly seems possible that Kyle is being forced into this, maybe it's exactly what he wanted?
Counsel, Anna Robertson, assisting the trial into Kyle's death, has said at best the relationship between the pair was detrimental and at worst, involved the older man grooming Kyle for sexual servitude. Is this the best a counsel can come up with? To me, throwaway comments like this just show how little some legal practitioners know about the real world. They think about everything on a legal level, rather than knowing if the relationship would be detrimental or not. It also sounds good to a court to make these stupid comments when they can't be backed up with hard evidence. For all she knows, the relationship might have had a good stabilising effect on Kyle, If this were the case, is this not a good thing? A relationship that is illegal in the eyes of the law, but does good for two people?
The legal system seems to thinks that kids these days are just dumb and stupid, but a lot more goes on in their heads than you think. My nieces and nephews tell me stuff that I'd never consider when I was their age. They know what they want and it can be a less in age than someone like Kyle. The law doesn't see it this way, and so it shouldn't, but lets not run an older man's life into the ground before all the facts are established. And, in this case, the facts can't be fully established because one person is dead, so legal practitioners should not be making assumptions, like Anna Robertson has done.
Either way, I hope Kyle is in a better place. No child, whether, black, white, gay, straight, deserves to be bought up in an abusive nasty environment. Can you really blame them for running away to try and have a better life?
