• In short: Families are making significant savings on their grocery bills by forming small shopping co-ops.

• Cooperative business structures account for less than 1 per cent of the supermarket sector in Australia.

• What's next? The peak body for co-ops is calling for more government support for the business model.

• In short: Two Russian-born Australians have been charged with spying offences, the first time the new laws have been used.

• The couple allegedly conspired to send sensitive Australian Defence Force material to Russian authorities.

• What's next? Police say further spying charges could be laid as Operation BURGAZADA continues.

🚔

I told the truth about the Australian Defence Force’s unethical, harmful and highly politicised leadership which fostered a culture of impunity in Afghanistan. As my team and I continue to fight these unjust criminal charges, I am asking for your support!

You can support David's appeal here: https://chuffed.org/project/davidmcbride

(Edit) More information:

David McBride sent to prison | The West Report https://michaelwest.com.au/david-mcbride-sent-to-prison-the-west-report/

What Fate for David McBride? - with lawyer Eddie Lloyd | Consortium News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czj540q8YDQ

Michael West interviews McBride - https://michaelwest.com.au/david-mcbride-full-interview/

video by BoyBoy https://youtu.be/sYt4CxFfQUU?si=P_E2FLkKYMKRbHRT

video by friendlyjordies https://youtu.be/jdYYIVoCvsM?si=Nhc2Uxnj0kadKUIu

[Article] Afghan war crimes whistleblower David McBride sentenced to prison, by Michael West | May 14, 2024 https://michaelwest.com.au/whistleblower-david-mcbride-sentenced-to-jail/

Hello! Please don't damage other stuff on the aussie flag unless they are destructive, and if they are try to reach agreement.

The germans have agreed to take the top left until the stem of the union jack and NOT more, don't damage it

There is some pixel art, go behind it.

Arsenal will make their logo bottom right, it will not cover any stars.

there will likely be more, please allow it. we can't cover everything with a flag, it blocks others from using the canvas

[post by randomvis]

I'm going to cop flak for this— but I don't care.

I don't even care if I ruin this pub favourite. The truth is more important.

This has gnawed away at me ever since I sat eating a chicken parmi and realized my son's kid's meal, nuggets + chips + salad and sauce is just a miniaturized concept. Rather, the parmi is just the 'adultified' version of the nuggets. You can @ me if you want to argue about the nuances about additional mozzarella, the difference between the sauces or even the number of nuggets versus the size of parmi, but I won't respond. You and I both know now you are eating a kids meal and you need to grow up.

One thing remains constant, crumbed chicken, sauce, chips and salad.

You can't run from it, you are eating a kids meal dressed in an adult's name.

The links for the aussie flag templates and chat:

Template

Aussie flag Matrix

The links for canvas groups:

[email protected]

Aussie Flag Canvas Matrix

Last Canvas Timelapse

Last Canvas end:

Australia's government cybersecurity agency on Tuesday accused a China-backed hacker group of stealing passwords and usernames from two unnamed Australian networks in 2022, adding that the group remained a threat.

A joint report led by the Australian Cyber Security Centre said the hackers, named APT40, had conducted malicious cyber operations for China's Ministry of State Security, the main agency overlooking foreign intelligence.

"The activity and techniques overlap with the groups tracked as Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) 40," said the report, which included inputs from lead cyber security agencies for the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Germany.

China's embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Tip of the iceberg when it comes to examining the corruption of land ownership in Australia. It's hardly talked about. The linked article doesn't even talk about it.

The public as a whole (and traditional owners) should be the only financial beneficiaries of rezoning.

I suspect private maximisation of rezoning profits is the reason behind why urban developments here are almost universally that awful single-story no-greenspace roof-to-roof packed suburban hellscape.

Job cuts continue across the empire as the business model dies a slow death.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/24630642 [email protected]

Highlights

• This study investigates why specialist physician fees vary.
• We consider variation between patients, physicians, specialties, and other factors.
• We find variation between physicians dominates other sources.
• Contrary to common beliefs, patient factors account for little of the variation.
• Our results inform policy to improve price transparency in specialist care market.

More context:

Although Australia has a publicly funded health system that provides universal health coverage, about 44 % of the population holds private health insurance. Specialist physician fees in the private sector are unregulated; physicians can charge any price they want, subject to market forces.

We find that patient risk factors account for a small portion of the variance in fees and out-of-pocket payments

Physician-specific variation, responsible for much of the variation in total fees and OOP payments, could include physician characteristics that patients value, such as bedside manner, experience or reputation, or factors related to physicians’ circumstances or preferences. A key physician-level factor that may drive the variation is the perception of quality or skill differences between physicians. This perception can come from either consumers or physicians themselves about their quality or skill levels in comparison to other physicians in the physician's local market. [...] which can lead to large price variation and non-transparency of fees.

Recommendations

The government, private health insurers and physicians themselves could all play a more active role than they currently do. The government, for example, could mandate the disclosure of price and quality information for all procedures that receive government subsidies, insurers could provide incentives for the disclosure of such information, and physicians could change their referral practice to give preferences to other physicians who are willing to be transparent about their prices and quality.

Spoilers: no.

Australia’s long-standing modern record in the ‘5 Prime Ministers Ashes’ has come to an end, after Kier Starmer won the UK election overnight.

Many believed Australia’s modern-era feat of installing five Prime Ministers in five years and two months – set in 2015 – would never be beaten. But in a stunning performance, Britain smashed the record, achieving the coveted PM Quintuple in four years, eleven months and ten days.

Some are now questioning Rishi Sunak’s unusual decision to call an early election, suggesting he may have been trying to influence the result of the 5 Prime Ministers Ashes. “It does beg the question, did he have money on Britain winning it?” one insider asked. “Why else would he have gone so early? It looks obvious now. If he’d waited a few more months, the record would’ve stayed with Australia. But he wanted to win it”.

Bruce Lehrmann has been committed to stand trial on rape charges.

The 29-year-old faces two counts of rape, alleged to have occurred in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, in October 2021.

Magistrate Marc Howden found sufficient grounds to commit the former Liberal Party staffer to trial on Thursday, rejecting his argument that he had “no case to answer”, two-and-a-half weeks after the complainant gave her evidence and was cross-examined in closed court.

“In my view, when considering the evidence as a whole, it is sufficient at this stage for me to reach a conclusion that a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could return a verdict of guilty,” Howden said.

The trial will now be heard at the Toowoomba district court at a date to be set.

Prior to Howden’s decision a packed courtroom heard facts agreed upon by Lehrmann’s barrister, Andrew Hoare KC, and prosecutor Nicole Friedewald, relating to the night and morning following 9 October 2021.

It was agreed Lehrmann and the complainant, who cannot legally be named, met at a strip club after both had been drinking alcohol and the complainant had taken cocaine. The pair went on to take cocaine together and in the early hours of the morning took a taxi to a Toowoomba home where they engaged in consensual sex.

However, the complainant then claims she awoke to find Lehrmann on top of and penetrating her without a condom, despite her having insisted upon contraception during their earlier consensual encounter.

She alleges she pulled her body away and told him to “stop what you are doing” but that he instead climbed back on top of her saying “it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok”, continuing the unwanted sex before ejaculating inside her.

After messaging her friends about the alleged assault on November 6, the complainant first went to police 20 days later.

Friedewald told the court the complainant, as was “not uncommon” in cases of sexual assault, took some time to “come to terms with what had happened to her”, citing a message to her friend in which she said was “starting to feel really shit” and “hadn’t really processed what had happened” or admitted it to herself.

“I just feel so shameful,” the complainant wrote to her friends. “Who is going to believe me?”