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Nich Hills

@nichhills.bsky.social

69 followers 93 following 954 posts

Husband, father, Anglican, retired tax and environmental professional. Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri country.

Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Noes!!

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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My primary school taught me: 1. The British Empire was always right, Opium Wars not withstanding 2. Indigenous Tasmanians were extinct. Is everything I learned wrong?

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Good point. The Tories went through five leaders in the last five years. Patterns and trends suggest they'll go through three leaders in the next five years.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Sinn Fein? Looking forward to see them throw their weight around Westminster. No. Wait.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Correction, you have a Foreign Secretary (smart, humane) who once told the truth. The job starts today.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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My heresy: While the Inflation Reduction Act is creating much needed reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, its industrial policy and protectionist approach makes it achieve its goals at an unnecessary cost. (Mark's heresy is way cooler.)

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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And when the midwesterners get it wrong, won't we feel smug. Um, wait.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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In Australia we go troppo in the wet season or, in southern climes, summer. Which is why, now, I'm as sane as I'll ever be.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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In fairness, and wintertime. 🙂

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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*GST-inclusive

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Reposted by Nich Hills

Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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True. Although in Australia price tags show the GS-inclusive price. My understanding is that US price tags mostly exclude sales tax, which you get to discover at the check-out.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Rich elite mass hysteria. How many times have we seen it before.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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The good news is, if in the early days of the 2nd Trump administration, nuclear war breaks out between the USA and NATO, there will be large parts of Donald's agenda that never get carried out.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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I prefer to see these rules as more of a guide.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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The best bit about the passage of time is that it only happens one day at a time. The worst bit? When you suddenly look back.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Trump is a rapist, a racist, a liar, a fraudster, a golpista, a narcissist and a sociopath. Trump caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths during the Covid pandemic. I'd criticism Trump some more but it is now too late for him to drop out of the race.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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You make it sound like that's illogical, from the billionaires' point of view. They have their bolt-holes in New Zealand.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Not you, John, you're a different sort of North American.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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You frit Americans! "We can't change candidates now, there's only 5 months to go!" In 1983, the Australian Labor Party replaced Bill Haydon, a fine candidate, with Bob Hawke, a stronger candidate 31 days before the election. Hawke won and became Prime Minister.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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It is the job of a lobbyist to point to a valuable property - an agency, or a forest, or an oil lease - and say, "Please give this to us for free. We'll look after it. We'll create jobs." And it is in the nature of an elected official to say, "Yes."

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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As is only right and proper. How can the Chair of the 1922 Committee act in the best interests of the Party if the rules stand in the way?

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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An unexpected but should-have-been-expected consequence of defunding the NGO?

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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The Australian Constitution explicitly gives the High Court the power to decide constitutional questions, as well as being the final court of appeal. And yet we hear very little from the Court.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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I had to google BBotE. Apparently it comes from Funranium Labs.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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2/ A quasi-autonomous non-government agency cannot be directed by the government to adopt a policy friendly posture, they can only be persuaded. Among a government’s tools of persuasion is the power of the purse. Hence the ‘quasi’.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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1/ So just as incoming governments have choke points – constitution hurdles to get legislation exacted – and constraints around resource available to implement policies, there are also qangos.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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"We'll not see it's like again"? We saw its like again only 27 years ago.

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Midsummer NYC's avatar Midsummer NYC @midsummernyc.bsky.social
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It was refreshing to hear the Tories not only concede the election but they also made mention re. the transfer of power and democracy

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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A very Canadian joke but a joke nonetheless.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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*than BritGov 4 /4 (the Texas Nation Guard vs US Army in Operation Jade Helm 15.) I reckon a federal system, of itself, may be a choke point but I may be thinking of a non-US example.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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3/4 In theory this is complicated by FedGov having only powers in the Constitution, and everything else devolving to the states, who are poorer even that BritGov. In practice the Feds can operate in the state’s spaces (raising the drinking age to 21) and the states can operate in the Federal space

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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2/4 Now the lack of funds in the UK may be a choke point. Especially as the incoming government has virtuously promised neither to borrow nor raise taxes. This contrasts with US FedGov who can always seem to find funds for whatever as long as both parties agree.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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1/4 Ah Carlos, I see now when you write, in your commendably concise way, ‘fewer choke points’, you didn’t mean fewer legislative choke points (although that nice Mr Krugman may have done) but you were considering the entire Policy-Law-Administration triangle. Good on you!

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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True. Other such figures of parody are Alexander 'Boris' Johnson and Nigel Farage.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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John, you seem to have reinvented the game Mornington Crescent.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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The exit poll suggests Conservatives shedding votes to both Reform and Liberal Democrats.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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First Tory to be elected of several.

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Malcolm Quinn's avatar Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social
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Boris Johnson drove out the liberal conservatives and now his puny legatees are jealous of Reform.

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Nich Hills's avatar Nich Hills @nichhills.bsky.social
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Really? In the US there's HoR, Senate, POTUS and SCOTUS. In the UK there's Commons. Lords? Hardly. King? No. And if the UK has an equivalent of SCOTUS it keeps a low profile.

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