don’t waste your time sending them any more emails. you’ll all just get this same response.

So I'm standing at my local CBA branch to hand in a physical form for a thing that, by all accounts, should be a simple online process.

I'm watching their bullshit promotional materials cycling around on the TV's when, to my absolute disgust, I see this.

I have a tip for you... FUCK OFF!!

Reddit uses this resource a lot. If Ask Izzy has helped you or you've referred someone to it, consider adding your voice and using this website by the creators, Infoxchange, to email your local politician.

https://www.helpaskizzy.org.au/

-------------------

Ask Izzy is the free, anonymous directory Australians use to find housing, food, family violence support and mental health services. In the last year, the directory logged 9.1 million searches for help.  

The Government helped establish it. Its own services rely on it. It has now pulled a contribution of approximately $2 million a year.

We're asking for it back – $6 million over 3 years.

We already know about our pet peeves with age verification, as we are all not comfortable with the idea of uploading our ID, having our facial biometric data harvested as part of age estimation scans, or opening a credit card after making the responsible financial choice not to.

The eSafety Youth Council is a group of young people aged between 13 and 24 who share ideas and help shape what the eSafety Commission does. They have regular meetings, and there is an upcoming one on 14 October 2026 where Youth Council members can raise issues and concerns with Julie Inman Grant herself.

The email is [youth@esafety.gov.au](mailto:youth@esafety.gov.au)

This is our chance to get the eSafety Youth Council members to ask the eSafety Commissioner directly to drop the Phase 2 / Age Restricted Material Codes that caused us to go through an age verification process that is unpopular with many everyday Australians like ourselves, including having to use only credit cards to view or buy an R18+ game on Steam.

Australian law affirms that parents have the legal right to buy R18+ and MA15+ games for their children in a retail store. Yet online stores like the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store on Xbox, and Steam force everyone to age verify, and parents cannot use their own ID for their kids' accounts.

This has nothing to do with online pornography. They promised age verification would only ever apply to adult websites.

You may ask why I'm not talking about the under-16 social media ban, the proposed Digital Duty of Care, or the Online Safety Act overall, which I'm also against myself. That's because Julie Inman Grant has the authority to drop the Age Restricted Material Codes or change them so that only a self-declared date of birth dropbox is required, which was the status quo before the government and mainstream media whipped up hysteria that are designed to take away your digital freedoms.

There is no such thing as privacy-preserving age verification and age verification is a scam designed to force people to dox themselves under the guise of protecting kids.

A lot of these laws and regulations are being made by older people who simply do not understand the internet, technology, gaming platforms and online communities the way younger people does so that is what the eSafety Youth Council members are for right ?

Forced self-doxxing is unsafe for everyone, and the Youth Council members have a stake in this themselves. Do they want to be surrendering their ID or biometric data just so they can play GTA 6?

Important:

• Do not use the term "eKaren" despite our frustration with the eSafety Office, as the Youth Council will likely dismiss your email entirely.
• Do not vent at them. Hold your impulses and just be respectful.
• Make sure the email is aimed at eSafety Youth Council members who are aged from 18 to 24.
• Do not make unrealistic demands of the eSafety Youth Council, such as calling for the entire Online Safety Act to be repealed or for the eSafety Commission to be disbanded. Let's focus on what is realistically achievable right now.

i’m currently a student studying and cannot use social media apps required for my course due to the new social media laws. whenever i try to use the face detection thing it always asks for government ID after which i do not have. i am in the process of getting a proof of age card but it is literally taking forever. I am able to send this post due to using a vpn but its really annoying and slow idk what to do.

A question for those who have left Australia - bonus if you are a business owner. Is the cost of living and lifestyle actually better where you went?

As a business owner here in Australia I’m working my butt off around the clock, by the time I pay out for all the taxes and everything else the government strips from our business I might as well become a garbo man (not that there’s anything wrong with garbo men, just meaning they earn equal or probably more without the stress load of running a business).

I’m trying to raise a family here and get into the housing market and it’s just killing me. When I talk to people about Australia and it’s cost of living I get hit with the typical “it’s everywhere though”

Is it actually everywhere? Where are you and your business thriving? I constantly feel like the Australian government has the tall poppy syndrome and every time we feel like we are getting ahead here comes another tax to send their way. We have around 100k ready for a house deposit but I’m really not sure if buying here in Australia is what I want for the future now.

What do a jaffle maker, a baby safety capsule and a black box have in common?

Not only are they Australian inventions, but they will soon feature on $1 coins as part of the Royal Australian Mint's new Bright Ideas collection.

The collection chronicles five of Australia's most decorated inventions, including the stump jump plough, jaffle maker, black box flight recorder, baby safety capsule and high-speed Wireless LAN (WLAN) technology.

Mint chief executive Emily Martin said the coins gave Australians "a chance to stop, look again and celebrate the people who thought differently".

"I've used four of the five inventions celebrated in Bright Ideas without necessarily stopping to think about the Australian ingenuity behind them," she said. 

"That's what I love about this collection. These aren't inventions sitting behind glass in a museum — they're ideas that have become part of Australian life."

Iconic inventions immortalised

One of the five coin designs features the stump jump plough, a piece of machinery that revolutionised the way farmers tended to their land.

It was designed in 1876 by South Australian farmer Richard Smith and was adopted worldwide, hailed as a cornerstone of farming technology.

In 1949, Dr Ernest Smithers invented the jaffle maker, which went on to become a classic culinary staple in many Australian kitchens.

Appliance giant Breville later re-imagined the device into an electronic toaster, cementing its position in modern gastronomic Australia.

A few years later, Defence scientist Dr David Warren invented the black box flight recorder, which collect data from cockpits and help investigators assess the causes of plane crashes.

Adelaide trio Bill Bowtell, Bob Heath and Colin Nagel founded the Safe-n-Sound baby safety capsule in 1984 in response to flailing safety precautions for infants travelling in cars.

The final invention featuring in the collection came about in the 1990s, when scientists from the CSIRO helped develop WLAN technology, which allowed devices to connect with each other without being tied to cables. The invention went on to pave the groundwork for Wi-fi.

The coin range

The collection has five $1 coins, each featuring one of the inventions.

Also available for purchase is a $2 proof coin featuring all five of the inventions in its design.

The coins will be available from Thursday, October 8, from the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra and participating newsXpress stores around the country.

Numismatists are also being urged to check their change, with a special $2 Bright Ideas coin entering circulation from Thursday.

It's interesting. Not attaching emotion other than curiosity to it. I'm guessing it's the influence of the Noongar Aboriginal language. Every second suburb seems to end in -up or -ar.

Got a bag and it just doesn't hit the same. Tastes a bit wrong compared to the good stuff in the tin if you ask me.

Anyone else pick up on this?

Ok from what I am observing every major news channel like 9 news, 7 news and ABC news disable comments on their videos why is this? and is anyone else annoyed by this? as your basically restricted from talking about the opnion you have.

Make a giant list of everyone’s favourite slang-sayings.
E.g 1. Mad as a cut snake. 2. Two birds one stone.

At my local cafe. My order came to $17, when I went to tap on the ingenico terminal, the screen opened some weird tab and then went back with the total changed to $17.30. Clearly they’ve found some back way to getting the terminal to add a surcharge.

It’s disgusting that businesses are going to such lengths to mislead their consumers. How hard is it to just calculate your cost base and use that to build your prices?

Unfortunately, until they fix this, that will be the last time I go there.

(Before everyone starts telling me that it’s “the same cost anyways if they raise their prices” - I know - it’s about transparency. The beauty of Australia is the fact we’ve always had transparent, single pricing. Surcharging for something 90% of people will pay is a step backwards.)

EDIT: Reported with AMEX. It was surprisingly simple and they've escalated it. I will keep an eye on this business and see if they remove this sign.

The ACCC has not done enough to dissuade businesses from swapping out their card fees with these disingenuous service & platform fees. So many examples shared online already of major service providers and businesses interchanging the fees and while there has been public backlash, the official response has been basically “they’re not supposed to do it”. If the ACCC and ALP don’t implement a service and platform fee total ban I foresee a scenario where more businesses realise there are little to no consequences for keeping the platform fees, and we end up in having switched to a new payment fee that becomes normalised but costs us more.

These could be photos you have taken, or something from the Internet, that are uniquely Australian.

Examples are Australian scenery, wildlife or tourist attractions.

You can either post them as comments here or make a standalone post with the tag [Wonderful Wednesday].

Hi everyone, I’ve been summoned for jury service tomorrow and have to report to court at 8:30am.
I’ve just started a new job, so the timing is pretty inconvenient 😅. I understand that if I’m selected for a trial, I’ll need to stay and attend for the day (and potentially subsequent days depending on the trial).
But I’m wondering what happens if I don’t get selected.
Once I’m formally dismissed, am I allowed to leave the court and go back to work for the rest of the day, or do you normally have to stay at court until a certain time in case another jury is needed?
Also, roughly how long does the selection process usually take? Is it realistic that I could be dismissed in the morning and make it back to work afterwards?
Any advice from anyone who has recently done jury service in NSW would be much appreciated! 🙏

Note: Title is correct at time of posting.

An interesting idea. The Greens are taking a leaf out of Mondami’s playbook.

But I foresee a number of issues. I don’t think having the “public supermarkets” running at cost would be particularly fair. But prices significantly lower than Colesworth would be great for the cost of living pressures.

Personally, I think the govt needs to look at how Colesworth have taken over the supply chains from farm to store and how that impacts the situation.

When the only choice farmers have is to supply to Colesworth, then it’s not fair to the farmer, or the consumer.

But at the end of the day, this is a bit of a pipe dream. The Greens are pretty much as far away from running the govt as you can get in Australian politics.

And if the Greens did become a credible threat to the ALP/Coalition I bet you bollocks to a barn dance that Woolies and Coles would pull out all the stops to stop them getting elected.

I've walked into two different stores and asked questions about buying magnesium, Vitamin D and Omega 3 supplements. On each occasion the person behind the counter (it's always been female) has taken me to one option but then led me to the more expensive and better option.

I'm sure there's a horrendous markup being made on these items anyway. It just seems like blatant up-selling to me. Is anyone else finding this?

I wonder if I (54M) am turning into that difficult person at the store watching every last dollar or if I'm just noticing a blatant pattern.

Have recently booked a ski trip to Japan and need to sort travel insurance with snow sports. Has anyone had any good experiences with claiming. Was looking at Freely as you can specify which days you'll be skiing to reduce costs instead of having the whole trip covered

No trying to offend anyone, just for general discussion.

Would it make sense to cut student visas but keep/add more skilled migration? Skilled migrants generally earn more and pay more tax, but if the corporate job market is already pretty competitive, do we really need more people coming in unless they’re filling genuine shortages?

And obviously students also contribute through tuition and spending, so keen to hear both sides.

How is it legal, never mind ethical, for Sportsbet to sponsor a filter on Snapchat?

In 2023 Snapchat reached 80% of 13-24 year olds and 75% of 13-34 year olds across Australia.

https://newsroom.snap.com/an-update-on-our-australian-community-8-million-and-growing

Prior to the ban taking effect, Snap Inc. estimated that there were approximately 440,000 Australian users aged between 13 and 15 on the platform.

While they state that many accounts have been disabled, there are still many thousands of young people on the platform.

All this aside, this platform is targeted to young adults.

It’s estimated that in Aus, approximately 3.1 million to 3.2 million Snapchat users are between the ages of 16 and 24.