In case anyone else needs a cleanse from the news cycle, here’s one that worked for me. Morning walk with Cedric and Myrtle on the tidal flats. I think it’s their new favourite place.

Agree. At a minimum it would have been better to fine him at the maximum level. The fines issued were around 1/7 of the potential maximum.

A luxury beef giant's cattle died of thirst. Regulators were told later The lack of investigation into deaths at the $700 million beef business has been described as "completely unacceptable" by a legal expert who argued industry had captured government regulators.

QLD GOV CHOOSES NOT TO INVESTIGATE MASS CATTLE THIRST DEATHS 🐄

"Internal Queensland government documents obtained by the ABC under Right to Information laws have revealed the decision not to probe the thirst deaths of more than 100 AACo cattle."

abc.net.au/news/2026-04...

#AusPol #Animals #QldPol

Is anyone else finding it really disconcerting to see a war playing out on social media? The unhinged threats, the "ceasefires" for stock market gains, the lack of respect for humanity and human life. There are no good wars but a modicum of respect for human life should be a baseline requirement.

This is happening so much. On the ABC Radio the other day they were basically just interviewing their bureau chiefs from different areas for each story. Not experts or people with lived experience, just their employees in different areas. Are experts unwilling to talk to them?

Image taken from a truth social post where Donald Trump has said quote "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!! Open the f'ing (he used the full word) Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!!! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. Trump". The quoted Truth Social Post includes the other Truth Social elements including their logo and a login screen to verify its authenticity.

#auspol I'm unsure how we can continue to be allied with a nation that allows this. Because this is horrific. Appallingly horrific for anyone but this is the leader of a nation treating the destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilians as a joke and mocking their religion.

The thing that I've always wondered about Noah's Ark is what about all the feed that you need. We're talking hundreds of tonnes of hay and grain plus fruits, vegetables, meat for the carnivores etc. Where did they store it all? Did they have extras to be eaten by the carnivores?

There is the Catalogue of Life but it only lists about 1.5 billion of the estimated 7 billion species of plants, fungi and animals.

www.catalogueoflife.org

I don't understand how the homecare system isn't operated fully publicly, even better if it was part of the hospital system. Keeping elderly people in their own homes has so many benefits for their health and yet decisions like this make it so hard for them.

AI will tell you Australia’s fuel reserve is in the US. But is that even true? Australia does not have a government-backed stockpile, experts say, and even if we did still store oil in the US, it would not be much

We sold it in 2022 per this article:

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Is anyone else wondering how #auspol will react now that the Catholic faith is also under fire in this ongoing fiasco?

The Pope made reasonable comments which the US appears to have taken poorly and Israel blocked a Good Friday service.

Prepped the vegie garden today for winter crops. It felt a tad necessary this year.

I did the per kilo conversions on them and the “tuna slices” for cats and was appalled. Mine is quite happy with the cheap normal tuna as a treat and if you blend tuna or chicken with a bit of stock you can make a passable copy of the tube treats.

I wondered if it was like the sheep where they’ll stash lambs somewhere really warm to reduce calories lost to heating so they can use more for growth. The bumper rimu fruiting probably negates that this year though.

Do you think it’s to keep Nora warmer thus reduce the amount of food needed? The crater offers wind protection and warmth as there are some cold fronts coming.

Iran's closure of the Strait was 100% foreseeable as a consequence of them being, under International Law, illegally attacked; including, the targeted bombing of a school.

This is not an Iran-induced problem, this is a US/Israel problem. Far out #auspol do better.

Does anyone else think that Trump appointed women to positions (Bondi/Noem) just so that he could fire them and then, at a future point, declare the "incompetence of women" as a reason to limit voting and other rights? Women, generally, are subjugated in Project 2025's world view.

The small rescue team from Animals Lebanon heads into Beirut's southern suburbs, struck almost daily by Israeli aircraft, looking for trapped animals.

The NGO says its teams have rescued 241 animals from those suburbs and south Lebanon since the start of the Middle East war.

#auspol Not a good look to have news dropping on Good Friday that the SAS are being sent to the Middle East. Really not good. Makes that National Address a bit hollow.

Unless they're going in there to help Lebanon retain their sovereignty or something similar, we are on the wrong side of history.

The better question is why is he getting a “right of reply” outside of the election cycle? Partisanship doesn’t help in a time of uncertainty

Very true. That address from your leader was nuts. Still not sure why you'd want to return people to the Stone Age and equally admitting you're engaging in war crimes on international TV was a choice.

We are quite lucky that we get bland, coherent speeches.

#auspol I 100% want the Strait of Hormuz reopened but in the midst of the focus on economic issues could the 35 nations maybe take a few minutes to discuss the blatant human rights abuses and war crimes?

Again, if it's wrong when Russia does it, it's also wrong if the US and Israel do it.

It baffles me that he talks about "the right to have a punt" as Queenslanders have lost the right to say "from the river to the sea" or any derivative of that (or apparently draw watermelon slices anywhere).

There is no enshrined "right to have a punt" but we do have freedom of political discourse.

Chapter 4 Treason Chapter 4 Treason Treason Assisting a country or organisation to engage in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Forces Assisting the enemy 4.1 ...

Unfortunately treason is a really narrow offence (there's a good summary here www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...)

We unfortunately don't have a good standard to hold Parliamentarians to, we rely on elections to reflect the standards we expect and most people don't look at how their reps behave.

#auspol Israel has now said that they will wipe out Lebanese houses within the country of Lebanon. I mean, that's a statement that they will be conducting a war crime. It's a war crime to deliberately attack civilians and civilian objects.

Can we criticise them now?

#auspol Canberra is in the ADST Timezone so Babet, unironically, called for a big, beautiful wall to be built around Australia.

#auspol Maybe we don’t let PHON talk about vaccines when they don’t understand what they’re talking about and the ethical implications. Far out.

Also, talking about first preference percentages is misleading.

I’d say always not great. The history of Zionism and the inherent classism and racism meant they never saw outsiders or even their own “lower classes” as fully fledged people worthy of respect. Implementing Hitler-esque legal frameworks against Palestinians is horrendous.

This is what gets to me as well. Israel is explicitly using the same tactics as Hitler and yet the other nations just basically shrug it off. We all know what they’re doing is wrong and abhorrent, why can nobody stand up to them?

Kitchen Cabinet was the worst example of this. "Oh, he's not too bad, he makes a great curry" whilst the same person is locking up children and preventing them from accessing medical care. The banality of evil is not commonly understood. Humanizing those who do awful deeds never benefits victims.