Carlton Supporters Club

Previous to recent events Thailands fuel prices were pretty much in synch with Australian prices per lt.
Thai daily wage is about 300 baht a day (Aud$13), remind me about our cost of living crisis please…

I read an article in the last 2 or 3 days that stated our petrol prices and petrol taxes are among the lowest compared to other countries with similar economies.

According to Taco, Iran "gave us a present, and the present arrived today. It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money.  I'm not going to tell you what the present is, but it was a very significant prize."

He then revealed “They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid, and we're going to let you have eight boats (sic) of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago, and they'll sail up tomorrow.”

He provided more clarification, "They said, to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. I guess they were right, and they were real, and I think they were Pakistani-flagged... It ended up being 10 boats."  He said that the two additional boats sent by Iran were "to apologise for something they said."

Unfortunately, shipping data for the Strait of Hormuz shows that five vessels have passed through the Strait since 23 March. Not ten, not eight, just five. And none of them are headed to the USA. Three are sailing to India, one is going to China, and the fifth is destined for Singapore.

If you're going to tell porkies, it's best if you don't embellish the story as you go and it's essential that they're not easily fact-checked.

With that in mind, cast your mind back to 4 March when Taco announced that the US International Development Finance Corporation would offer insurance “at a very reasonable price” for tankers and other ships in the Persian Gulf. He also said, “if necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible”.  And, with his trademark caps lock, posted on social media, “No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD.”

It must be difficult to be the Bone Spurs in Chief of a complex military campaign with global implications when you have trouble understanding anything more complicated than a real estate transaction and find it hard to know what's real and what's imaginary.

Quote from: tonyo – on March 27, 2026, 05:04:46 pm

It's worth reading about (and there's a few good articles) what cutting the fuel excise now would do.  The net effect would be to send inflation northward at an alarming rate, and lead to far greater pain for a much longer time.  Economic times now are very different to those that prevailed when the excise was cut during Covid.

Of course, that doesn't stop opportunistic populist w***ers like Hanson, Joyce et al who claim that it shows the Government doesn't care about struggling Australians.  Cheap punchlines with little or no credibility in terms of actual decision-making. 
  

Medium to Long term maybe but short term which it would be in this case imho I don't agree and it would have a deflationary effect by lowering transport costs which in turn should reduce items like supermarket goods. Treasurer Chalmers is planning on cutting the exemptions for EVs with regards FBT and import tariffs plus introduce a EV road users tax which should send EV sales plummeting and Motorists back to ICE vehicles and continuing demand for petrol which given events in Iran he might want to rethink.

Quote from: DJC – on March 27, 2026, 02:59:21 pm

I'm not sure that it's quite so clear cut, and that's why I don't think that a hierarchy is appropriate.

It's estimated that at least 10% and probably as much as 25% of the Scandinavian population were slaves during the Viking age and the vast majority of those captured by the Vikings were sold on to slave traders from the Middle East.  Mitochondrial DNA studies of the Icelandic population indicate that more than 60% of the initial colonising female population were Gaelic and most likely slaves.  Then there's the Arab or Trans-Saharan slave trade that endured from the 7th to the 20th century and involved the enslavement of an estimated 9M Africans in the Middle East.

I don't want to get caught up in this jockeying for pole position in the Suffering F1. I feel quite comfortable with the reading I've done and I'll leave it there. Trying to compete wrt who suffered the most does the cause more harm than good, and ends up a kind of self-cannibalism, that dilutes the message rather than keeping it sharp and focussed.

Whether they named this or something else is of secondary importance. If the final aims of this process are achieved, it creates momentum, precedent and potential for others to follow. Future groups will be able to analyze what worked, what did not etc., and be in a better position as a result. It could also splinter off into related histories, such as our own First Nations peoples, who whilst not enslaved as such, have suffered immensely, certainly deserve a lot more than they have received thus far.