Thank you but we’ll take that as a comment.

Love the Jimny, yeah sometimes you get to ruts and think “did a Sherman tank just drive through here?”

I’ve heard about the y62 getting better economy than the 200 series LC a few times now in some scenarios. Shows you how far petrols have come and the improvements in autos.

The new 250 I can’t rap my head around it. You would really have to not like the V6 Everest, and the 150 was a fantastic platform from stock for most people.

Not gonna deny, but people often misrepresent SUVs. Take away the full-sized Land Cruisers, they are almost always more fuel efficient, much more reliable and easier to drive.

My EF Ford falcon when I was on my Ps was 5m long, had no ABS, no airbags and had a 4L engine that averaged 16-18L/100km around town. My mother in law’s new RAV4 has an engine half the size, hybrid, and gets 5L/100km. It has back up cameras, and sensors all round.

As for duel cabs and wannabe overlanders, yes, I hate them as much as the next person. They are truly a master of none and don’t even fit in the garage. Toyota’s like “fuck it let’s charge $100k for something we designed in the 80s”, and boomers flock to it like flies to shit. I’ve driven one which was so heavy and full of mods it needed it’s Gross Vehicle Mass rating upgraded (costs about $5k), thus having heavy rock hard suspension. It drove as if it had no suspension and was an absolute slug.

It’s expensive to develop a car in general because of ever increasing safety and tech requirements. It’s probably $10k of safety equipment per car. That’s part of the reason why the Yaris is $30k right now. The days of mass producing a small car on razor thin margins is incredibly risky and offers little reward.

The other thing is a change in consumer demand. People will happily fork out more for larger vehicles, and some will fork out tonnes for off-road based cars. These can offer very healthy margins.

There’s is also cleaver marketing, in that in large parts of Australia, you “must” have a big 4wd. I have driven my Suzuki all around Australia can safely say you don’t need a 4wd unless you plan on going off-road.

1.6m people voted for the Greens first preference this election, more than the all the Nats and LNP (Qld) combined. That’s the reality of concentrations of demographics in various areas.

It’s not all doom and gloom, tseat of Ryan is a good example of a competitive minor party taking advantage of 2nd place to win. The Greens don’t need to get the most preferences necessarily, just more than labor. If the coalition gets 35% first preference, and Labor have 28%, they don’t need 35, they need 28. Labor’s second preferences get distributed ideally to the Greens and hopefully, they overtake the liberals in a 2pp. Didn’t work for Adam Bandt, but I think we all got caught surprised at just how bad the Liberals did.

I think what the media and Gina get confused with Trump is that sure he’s right wing, but he portrays himself as an outsider and anti establishment. He says “the system is rigged”, and calls out the hypocrisy of career politicians who take the status quo for granted. That really gets traction with disenfranchised people.

I would say though that Trump is the exception to the norm. Candidates typically don’t win through campaigning for austerity, and they don’t win through surrounding themselves with smooth brained billionaires. Trump won, but at the same time, the Democrats lost badly. I don’t see Albo making that mistake.

13 people in the ballot is a bit excessive. Should be less than 10. But hate to say it but that area considered or primarily older and slower folk. A better ballot has 5 or 6 candidates. Stop giving the oldies more opportunities to screw up.

I’m literally voting in 90 minutes at an early voting centre when the polls open, and they still don’t have a policy on climate or even defense spending. You can’t be serious right?

Good luck man. Being in the job seeking grind is soul crushing. People forget how slow, painful and dehumanizing it can be. Silly tests, multiple interviews and referees.

Remember you are more experienced than you are one day ago. Add this current contract to your resume and continue seeking.

Why would the RBA cut interest rates if inflation and unemployment are fine? No one promised it’ll go back to like 1%.

They are brilliant. Those little NPR light rigids are much easier to drive than people realise. Available with an automated manual, good turning circle and great visibility. Sure at 100kmh they are pretty loud and bumpy (the little 3L 4cylinder at 2800rpm), but if your in say Melbourne or Sydney, most driving is 80kmh and below. If you do a lot of highway, the 5.2L 4 cylinder goes well with a 6 speed and much more aggressive engine breaking.

Don’t get me wrong generally I see labour policies favourably. I vote prodominantly green for context. What irks me is that it’s party first, public second. With a razor thin majority, they water down policies to not rock the boat in WA or in coal mining towns. I get it, and their strategists have a job to do, but it alienates inner city voters. As the federal government they have a big megaphone, but they run away and put things in the too hard basket. The media play that negative gearing or stable house prices is political suicide and they fall for it.

What is the Labor party, it lacks identity, and it feels like they are running on just not being Dutton. That’s a losing strategy.

Give some ear plugs to the whales

They are selling right hand drive converted Yank Tanks in Australia. They are double the price after shipping, rhd conversion and making them compliant. They don’t fit on our roads at all and are very restricted with payload and towing because of car licence weight restrictions. To tow more you need a truck license (light rigid).

They also have no spare parts here in Aus. Plenty of “overlanders” spending $25k to get it towed out of the outback, back to a major city and get parts flown in from Detroit. They are too heavy and wear out components on the dirt. They are built for highway only

If you want a “truck” in Aus, you buy an Isuzu or Mitsubishi cab-over truck which is like US$35,000 with a tray or box.

I’m calling it Labor won’t run in Griffith and Brisbane, let it go to Liberal and hope they can catch up in outer suburban seats. The majors simply cannot stomach forming a coalition with the Greens, even if they that means losing.

It’s kinda a game how much can you leave in your trolley when you press the pay button.

There’s an economic trade-off for everything. It’s not that we can’t have it happen, but roads like the Hume Highway and Pacific Highway will need to be completely redone with a widespread flattening of the road, gentler corners, constant surveillance of kangaroos and wombats on the road and a massive road maintenance workforce who can rapidly fix entire sections of the road.

This will require raising taxes or diverting funds, not worth it, especially when you have a road network that is at least 10 times the size of Germany, and with a quarter of the population.

As a motoring enthusiast, I love to go fast, but there’s a number of problems:

• a faster speed limit will not result in more cars per minute on a given road. As speeds increase, cars have to be more spread out.

• by no means are Australian roads are in a condition for ultra high speed limits. Our way of fixing pot holes is very touch and go. We have bumbs and undulations. On the Autobahn, they replace the entire tarmac, not just fill in a hole.

• a lot of our car fleet is not safe or designed to go 130kmh. A lot of older 4wds with big tyres, these were never designed to go fast. They have tiny brakes. In Germany a roadworthy is massive, and older cars are taken off the road.

• a faster speed will result in more CO2 emissions. Cars (especially SUVs), get worse fuel mileage above 100kmh as wind drag becomes a greater burden. EVs get exponentially worse range at high speeds.

• a lot of our car fleet tows caravans. That are not designed for that speeds.

• in NSW were their L platers can’t go faster than 90, this will be a massive speed differential.

• we have unique hazards such as wildlife and unlit highways that makes fast driving extremely dangerous.

• faster driving leads to more lethal crashes, especially in poor weather.

Door dasher in Australia here: after about 500 completed orders, I can say I’ve been tipped once, by this old lady like A$5.

Tipping is stupid. I’m not incentivised to do anything better. The app would just give everyone crappier orders if everyone tipped.