That does make it sound better, but that change was already a more than a decade overdue

Here’s the part most Australians don’t know. For years, our petrol would have been illegal in almost every country we’d consider a peer. Europe hit 10ppm sulphur limits back in 2009. The United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, China, even India all got there before us.

Global consultancy Stratas Advisors ranked Australia’s fuel quality 85th in the world. We sat between Argentina and Tanzania. A 2017 Commonwealth review put us 70th globally and dead last among the 35 OECD countries.

And what are we going back to?

Air pollution causes approximately 5,000 premature deaths in Australia each year. Vehicle emissions account for a significant chunk of that figure. Research from the University of Melbourne and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare linked dirty fuel directly to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and asthma. Emerging studies suggest connections to Alzheimer’s, dementia, and ADHD.

The annual health cost? Around $17.8 billion, with another $4.5 billion in welfare losses and lost productivity. That exceeds the national burden of obesity.

The International Council on Clean Transportation estimated that proper fuel standards could reduce premature deaths from vehicle emissions by up to 75 per cent. For years, Australian policymakers had that research sitting on their desks.

Similar level to “improve housing availability by freezing housing standards”. Hurts the same people it purports to help.

This predates the ai bubble. There used to be a really common “plagiarism detector” (something like CheckMeIn?] that would generate a “similarity score” with a database of literature. Institutions were welcome to set their own thresholds of what they considered too similar. I hit the threshold multiple times in completely original works by using language that was simply too literary or formal in nature.

Mind I had been accused of plagiarism by teachers prior to those tools for much the same reason based only on vibes, so maybe that was a step up, since students could use it ahead of time.

There was a news story around that time of somebody getting taken through disciplinary action due to getting close to 100% similarity on the tool - eventually to discover that their own essays had Venn included in the database.

I’ve hung out with swans heaps in Australia and they’ve been almost entirely chill bros who will take food if offered but won’t harass you for it. I wonder if different species have different demeanours, like how Canada geese are known for being especially aggressive.

The Software Engineering Stackexchange has a broader remit than Stackovrrflow, but still has the requirement that questions are not purely opinion based

I’d be surprised if they did, but curious what good you see in it?

Albanese labelled Tame “difficult” during a rapid-fire game, where he was asked to give one-word responses to a list of well-known figures at the Future Victoria conference in Melbourne on Wednesday.

I’m not sure I believe his retraction, but a politician agreeing to participate in such a game is, frankly, incredibly foolish.

I’ve always thought this fence was the most symbolic “fuck you” from the government to the people of Australia. I can’t believe it’s been ten years, I’ve barely heard anyone mention it since it went up.

You got me hopeful that there was new political conversation about it.

Utopia sure did, because of this (Wikipedia):

High-speed rail in Australia has been under investigation since the early 1980s.[1][2] Every federal government since this time has investigated the feasibility of constructing high-speed rail with speeds above 200 km/h, but to date nothing has ever gone beyond the detailed planning stage.

I’ll believe it when I see it

Agreed, absolute numbers are not a useful comparison

The requirement to prove you can safely drive a car in order to use a much safer vehicle is bizarre. Given that it’s not listed under the AMAQ recommendations, I assume that one came from the Royal Automobile Club. It seems a bit strange that the automobile club was included at all given that the originating incident had no cars involved.

This bit at the end seems important

According to the Department of Transport and Main Roads’ annual crash report, 307 lives were lost in 284 crashes in Queensland in 2025, the highest road toll in the state in 16 years.

This included 129 car driver fatalities and 44 passenger deaths, while “personal mobility devices” – which covers e-scooters – saw the fewest fatalities, with eight deaths. There were 38 pedestrians, 50 truck driver, 75 motorcycle/moped rider and pillion and 13 bicycle or ebike rider and pillion fatalities.

In the six months to 30 June last year, 1,455 drivers were hospitalised after a crash while 105 personal mobility device users were hospitalised with injuries.

Can you recommend any panniers or features to look for?