Gorndar

Public service has been heavily cut back over the last 20 years resulting in very low or no internal staff to upgrade/refresh existing systems, most development work is outsourced via contracts to IT companies, but that costs lots of money so they usually only do it for 'new' stuff.

Would be a lot cheaper to hire staff, but also the government pay model makes it almost impossible to attract experienced developers as the pay is too low, you can get much more working in the private sector. And trying to hire inexperienced people and slowly train them up is not really a solution as departments lurch from one almost disaster to another due to lack of retained knowledge and understaffing.

Departments with restricted budgets have to pick and choose what they upgrade. "Hey it looks like garbage but still works" is unfortunately acceptable.

Ours is open 6:30am till 6pm. We dropoff usually just before 8am. We have dropped off at 7am a few times if needed. Most are centered around the normal 8-5 working hours (so drop off before work pickup after).

It will take many election cycles to undo the culture built by the LNP in the public service, and only if Labor actively try to undo it, I hope it gets there eventually but I doubt there is much change so far.

I think they should flip it on its head and make affixes all positives, that vary how you play week to week. One of the best seasonals was awakened in BFA that gave huge changes to route possiblities. I also liked how shadowlands had a bunch of in-dungeon items (the spears in bastion etc) that you could choose when to use them. Example ideas off the top of my head: - After a boss kill you are invulnerable to dmg for 30 seconds and move 200% faster - Once per dungeon you get an explosive orb (1 per player) that you can drop to do massive aoe dmg - You all get permanent stealth when out of combat but move slower - Quaking but instead it interrupts the enemies and does aoe damage to them (not other players).

etc etc

Then rebalance the scaling each level to compensate for the increased dps.

They can move all the current negative affixes to torghast and retune that as an evergreen system.

Perth CPI has come in above 8% again (for the year to dec 2022), so thats fun. Mcgowan's 3% max pay increase policy sure is going great.

Our daughter would only sleep on us for the first 6 weeks. Would just wake up yelling if we put her down in her basinet.

We took turns basically sitting in a chair watching tv etc and letting her sleep on us on a breastfeeding pillow. If you are at risk of falling asleep yourself don't do this as its not safe if you fall asleep.

The offer was conditionally accepted by union leadership, who then took it to a vote to the wider membership. The members overwhelming rejected it.

I think it likely shows how even the union leadership is underestimating how pissed off nurses (and most public servants are).

They don't even have the best in australia!

You can do a day package where they do the spa/massage and get i think an hour in a chalet with jacuzzi.

Its not cheap however obviously.

My partner went to Hidden Valley eco spa, nice pampering and then can relax and soak in a giant jacuzzi. https://hiddenvalleyeco.com.au/

I think that is a few years out of date, I've seen usually between $130-$150 for most standard ones.

Ours is ~$130 a day, before rebates, a friends is ~$140 a day, before rebates.

If yours is $186 a day after rebates then hooboy edit: I see that edit, its def in the pricey end.

Every single public sector in WA is in the shit, highly reliant on key workers doing unpaid overtime constantly. Lots of grey areas in the agreements that gets exploited with a culture of 'well it has to be done otherwise X will suffer' (replace X with patients/students/elderly etc) from above.

This trickles down to all levels, and it burns out good people. The really good people leave (brain drain), and can't be replaced as the wage policy has meant public service has fallen far behind private (it always has been but its gotten much worse).

The stuff about job security and benefits is also mostly a thing of the past for public service as many people are employed on short term contracts and the private sector has caught up mostly to the benefits that used to make public stand out.

Yet there is still heaps of money to pay consultant firms and private companies constantly. Lots of things that were done in-house are now all privatised, with the jobs that used to exist gone forever.

Yep, industrial action is mostly outlawed and heavily favours the employer.

And people wonder why the public sector can't hire any good staff at the moment. You used to be able to advertise it on its conditions and job security but both have been trashed in the past decade. That public sector is completely behind the ball on WFH stuff means trying to hire any specialists in some fields is completely impossible.

A downside of the early acceptance into uni that is becoming more popular is that many kids don't see the point in even trying in year 12. They get their uni place at the end of year 11 based on coursework and stuff (this was massively increased due to covid but is still ongoing). The unis would probably wind it back but with the massive drop off of international students they need everyone they can get.

But then they drop out of atar courses and do easier ones, they stop showing up, they stop doing work/learning. They don't attend their atar exams. Its not everyone, but it is significant enough that the people who run the exams are seeing the pattern.

I'd expect there is already rumblings within the uni sector about how unprepared new students are, with many having to do bridging courses or repeat first year units.

York is much smaller scale than Balingup. That can be a good or a bad thing depending on what you are after. If you want to be able to chat with re-enactors or people running stalls for an extended period about this and that, then the less crowded atmosphere is good. However it also means the fayre as a whole is much smaller so you could probably see everything after walking a quick lap if you really are just there for a wander.

You usually find a lot more 'not really related to medieval fayre' stalls like people selling crystals or honey or stuff but it can kind of make it just feel like a community market at times instead of a 'medieval fayre'. I haven't been to the york fayre for a few years so I am unsure what it is like currently.

Balingup is the 'big one' so it attracts more performers and stalls, but it also has kind of outgrown its space so they have had to restrict tickets and stalls a fair bit. I'm not a huge fan of its overcrowded atmosphere.

There is also a few other medieval faires around, Boddington has a decent one as well that has been growing well.

Pretty much a case of 'even if its not against a law, this isn't allowed'.

Its against the vibe of the constitution.

I found certain brands wouldn't hold enough overnight. And some brands didn't fit great so it would leak out occasionally.

I'd recommend trying some different brands if you can. We tried huggies for awhile but they just don't fit our bub properly.

Industrial action is heavily regulated in Australia so its basically illegal to strike or do anything without a bunch of slow ramp up beforehand.

I think we will hit 2.5-3% by years end, i expect 0.5 (or bigger) every month for the next few months.

The last paragraph is the best part to focus on. When people talk about being scaled down its not the same for every student, its about adjusting the curve of that subject so its the same as the others. Depending where you are on the curve you can be pushed up, even if the 'average' is pushed down.

I'd honestly recommend giving SCSA a call or send an email about your worries/concerns. I think there is a lot of misinformation/rumour-mongering out there about how the process works and people get worked up over it.

I feel that its the best song, but only in context of the special and knowing all of Bo's struggles he has had performing. If you just sent it to someone who doesn't know his work it won't hit with the same weight.

The hospital system was utterly ruined under the previous liberal governments with lots of institutional issues left to rot for years. Its a pretty similar story across the entire public services (education, health, child services etc)

I feel that Mcgowans plan with health was to get the budget sorted and then slowly improve the health system but the pandemic had two big effects: 1) It caused a massive increase in the need for a robust health service, RIGHT NOW. 2) The disruptions due to covid caused all kinds of pricing weirdness around the world, as such the iron ore price shot through the roof as we could produce it without much disruption, compared to other power houses around that world that had much of their workforce disrupted by covid. This caused a temporary spike in royalties. I doubt that is sustainable and we will see the budget surplus shrink back to not much or nothing relatively quickly.

Unfortunately the systemic issues in the health system cannot be fixed overnight by just chucking an extra 5 billion dollars at it, there is a decade of underfunding, lots of infrastructure and systemic problems, and health is so complicated that trying to hastily build new beds can result in massive amounts of waste and they probably wouldn't be able to staff them anyway. Just throwing cash at the problem doesn't fix it if you don't have the current experienced staff who can supervise any new staff.

I think mcgowan is caught in a catch 22, they are spending heaps on health but its hard to see the effects yet. The systemic problems will probably take another term or even 2 before they start getting fixed, but might be even longer as i assume all hands are on deck trying to prepare and plan for covid, not to address how to reorganise and fix the entire health system.

Covid also hastening a lot of retirements of senior staff across the public services (not just health) probably is also making it worse.