Welcome to the Morgan ferry which crosses the Murray River in South Australia.

While we wait, let’s have a chat.

About new housing.

Chapters

1. What I want

2. Parties involved

3. Jobs

4. Hurdles to change

5. Disaster Camps

6. A housing shopping list

7. Local Council to-do list

1.

What I want.

Thousands of blocks of land opened up for development in Chaffey, South Australia

Each block to be one quarter acre in size, which is about 4000 square metres per block.

We have all the land we need and more. All flat infertile land.

I want 12,000 house blocks of this size.

Which means I need about 6 angry farmers with 600 acres each.

That’s it.

We could set each one up in six different council areas in Chaffey, about 2000 blocks of land in each area.

2.

Parties involved.

Angry people who have the burning energy needed for change.

Six angry farmers who may be thinking of retirement, but their only asset is the farm, and prices for their land are not good.

Six angry local councils who need more ratepayers to keep services, and to stop constant rate increases.

12,000 angry people who want a piece of Australia to call their own.

And a ton of local businesses who want more people in their areas.

3.

Jobs.

What about jobs?

Australia is out of builders and has thousands of people needing housing.

One problem will fix the other.

We will give owners of these blocks of land five years to build.

The owners will become builders.

They will learn about septic systems, off grid solutions of all sorts, they will know how to use IBC containers for water supplies, about deep cycle batteries and camping tools.

It’s all there on YouTube, let’s use it.

4.

Hurdles to change.

Change is difficult, difficult to plan for.

Change is also constant and happens regardless of any plan.

But if we want something, and that, to me is an Australia we can be proud of.

Then people have to feel like they are part of our community, our towns, our States and our nation.

Owning land is how we do that.

Not everyone will want that. Banks for instance, which make more profit with ever-increasing house prices. And there are many more that think keeping our pyramid scheme going is fantastic.

We are starting to see the signs that this built-in homelessness is not a good thing.

Change, it’s said that people are against it, yes, and for good reason. Change may not work, it’s a risk. Also, suggesting change is taken as a criticism. If you point out that a local council has had no growth for 40 years, the members of that council take it personally. Like they will this comment. :)

Change is upon us though. All up and down the Murray River. People live on the riverbanks, from Blanchetown, Morgan, Cadell, to Waikerie, I see them. Living in their tents and going to their jobs.

This is not the Australia I signed up for.

I want to change this change.

5.

Disaster Camps.

Disasters are our foreshadowings, our warnings.

The Murray River flooded in 2022-2023.

Many houses along the river have not been restored and it’s now 2026.

Where did all those people go?

As another part of this plan, I would like governments to set up disaster housing.

Housing built much like worker’s camps.

If it’s good enough for workers it’s good enough.

Rentals for these places could pay for the entire cost of running the camp.

There is one thing for sure, we will need these areas of housing. We know that because we can see insurance costs are rising, making areas uninsurable.

Here in Chaffey we have space for those temporary (think one or two years emergency accomodation) camps.

6.

A Housing Shopping List.

A quarter acre block at $5000 (this is more dollar per acre than current prices for this farmland)

A portable toilet solution at $5000 (Portaloos are well under that price range)

A solar power setup at $20,000

An internet setup at $5000

A water setup (shower, laundry, drinking supply) at $20,000

A very basic setup for $55,000

Add in roadbase to a main road at some $10,000

That leaves $35,000 for a house, here is one from China, which is under $30,000 including transport.

The central glass door section is where the two sides unfold from.

The roofs out to the sides are the walls of the box when the house is being transported.

You lift them up and then the rest unfolds out from inside the central third of the box.

The central section is the size of a shipping container. They can be built to Australian standards and can be found all up and down the Murray River.

Here is a guide…

https://www.engineeringonline.com.au/chinese-fold-out-container-homes-in-australia-the-ultimate-buyers-builders-guide/

Given all this we are starting to see housing available at under $100,000

7.

Local Council To-Do List.

Local councils approve building and planning in Australia.

In South Australia those responsibilities were absorbed into PlanSA, which is a State level organisation meant to decrease the diversity of rules that each local council created.

It was not unusual to have to wait 6 to 9 months for a shed plan to be approved.

A simple shed.

Local councils may have indeed moved on, but guess which stories people tell about local councils.

They tell the horror stories.

I want local councils to defer judgement.

To give a five year deferment.

To tell new landowners, we will see you in five years.

And along the way help those landowners build their dreams.

Because, it means money.

Local councils will make money from new ratepayers.

More money, and happy ratepayers.

Those are good things.

We grow up in a nest, then fly the nest then take up nesting of our own.

That’s an internal urge.

We can see that in surprising ways.

Let’s talk games. Online games have housing. You can log in and play games that allow you to create virtual homes.

The Sims is the main example. World of Warcraft created that ability in 2025. Animal Crossing. Minecraft. Fallout. Skyrim. Stardew Valley. Valheim. Star Wars Galaxies. Are a few examples of online games which feature housing as a component of the gameplay.

Why?

It’s a substitute for housing. It’s a roleplay of housing. A cosplay.

But there are other substitutions.

YouTube allows us to watch people wander the wilderness and make a small survival cabin using nothing but a few tools. And a video camera.

The lottery is a tool of the imagination that allows us to dream of maybe owning a house, one day.

Online we can see people making tiny homes, or sneaking around doing “stealth camping” hoping to live unsurveiled.

We have the urge to own a place of our own. That urge has to be met in one form or another.

The math is fairly simple, we need six farmers with 600 acres each. That’s enough land to sell 12,000 blocks of one quarter acre each.

Remember them? The quarter acre blocks we had as kids.

Shrinkflation. Smaller dreams for our children.

Anyhow, those are easy numbers, what will be difficult are the opponents to creating housing.

There will be a few.

Let’s create the teams.

On the one hand are the homeless; I include those who rent or have a mortgage on this side. If you rent, the landlord can end your house at any time. If you pay a mortgage the bank can end your house at any time. Effectively renting or mortgage is being homeless.

On the other hand. Let’s count who makes money from the current system.

Banks. They seem to do alright out of ever-increasing mortgages.

Real estate agents. They work on commission.

Real estate mortgage brokers.

Real estate advertisers. There are instances of vertical integration of some businesses in advertising, mortgage creation and online sales.

Anyone with a percentage take on housing. Land sales tax is run by the State Government, goes from 0.5 to 2.4%.

NIMBY. People who think a creation of supply will lower their house value. People who think that newer blocks will mean lower quality people.

So, that’s just to get us started. There are many highly motivated people who do not want more housing. It will cost them money.

We will have to work out way through those hurdles as they arise.

Thank you

I want to build 12,000 houses in Chaffey. Chaffey is the seat I will contest in the March election in South Australia.

Cheers

Jakob Gamertsfelder

We all know the game of Monopoly.

The game of Monotony.

It’s the cautionary tale of what happens when landlordism prevails.

Landlordism is the concept of making money by doing nothing.

You take a bunch of money and buy a piece of real estate, then wait.

Relying on those around you to invest into the nearby real estate, and thus making your real estate worth more, by association, and nothing else.

Henry George is the advocate of taxing the value of land as it is improved by public works spending.

In Australia we have decided that land is more valuable than any other investment in the world. Returns on housing in Australia can easily exceed 17% in a year. With Capital Gains Tax relief, and negative gearing bonuses thrown in. And a rental return of over 10%. Which isn’t really necessary, as leaving your properties empty dries up supply and you get a boost on the capital value on your empty properties.

There is a price to pay for that.

Australia is finding that out now. Domestic violence does not go down. Crime does not go down. The birth rate does. Because no young couple wants to live in a pyramid scheme.

Currently a young couple in Australia, if they want to buy the average house of $1 million or so, need to earn $250,000 per year. They will need to earn that for decades, and without a divorce, or loss of work. And probably no kids.

Landlords are winning, in what many call our Australian housing crisis.

It is not a crisis, it’s a disaster.

I want to build 12,000 homes in South Australia.

In the seat of Chaffey. I will be running in the state election in March.

We can change things.

Thank you.

People. People are, like customers in business, the greatest impediment to politics.

There’s a variety of reasons.

People don’t like change. That’s the mantra.

But we can look at that more closely and see there is some truth in that.

If you come in sweeping change like the old proverbial new broom, then people take that as a criticism of what they had done.

Plus change may not work. Plus it will take resources and time

Usually the need to prevent change is also helped by zero measurement of any progress. For example, you can measure how well your committees do. Measure agenda items completed over time. You want some done and dusted every month, or two. If nothing happens there, then your committee is set up to waste time. Fulfill some token consultative process or other.

So, be prepared for enmity if you want change. Bound to happen.

If you ask a local council to invoke change, it will be unlikely to happen. Not just for the aforementioned reasons but also it’s politics. Many local councils have allegiances to the broader party political system, and would rather fight each other over that, than actually do good in the world.

Other factors with local councils are, they are all fully employed, if you want change, then there is no time or labor available. To fulfill change, something else would have to go. Which means be prepared to play handball, where everyone suggests another place for you to go.

Local councils exist in a different world, separate from ratepayers, this isolation stems from needful things, like wanting to keep things confidential. Say if a business wanted to open up another petrol station. That’s how it begins. Then throw in a few grumpy ratepayers on Facebook. And the local council starts becoming separate from the community. It’s the council employees, and the councilors with a few good ratepayers; against the world. No council would ever say that, heavens no. They just do it.

Plus the whole hiring process for local council executives. Outsiders in the main from the local community. But insiders to the local council employment world. Local councils seem to poach employees from each other. So the thinking tends to be rigid, set along predetermined lines.

Which leads to things like super councils; bigger is best. That leads to the typical stodgy growth and decline of bureaucracy. For example, the Mid Murray Council in South Australia has flat-lined over the years of its existence. No growth since 1997. That’s a fair time in which to notice a lack of growth, and still do nothing.

It’s not the only regional council like that. And nobody can be blamed, it’s a systemic issue. Anyone put into that system plays by the rules of that system, and you get zero growth.

First we need two things; anger and imagination.

Anger is definitely extant in the political landscape. Imagination too, but mostly on how our pains are the fault of outsiders.

I want to build 12,000 homes in the Seat of Chaffey. Vote for me in the South Australian election during March.

It can be done. We did it before. We had squatters, and settlers, the Greenaway system, the 10 pound Poms, and we helped returned services members with land in places like Cadell.

We can do it again. We are the only impediment.

Jakob Gamertsfelder

Housing related YouTube.

We could start with the channel “Primitive Technology”, which shows a man making things in silence. His own things, his own house. Using primitive technology.

Or perhaps “Living Big in a Tiny House”, people trying to find shelter they can afford.

Or perhaps “Don’t Get Caught” one of the channels with a focus on stealth camping. In which people disguise their vehicles as something else so that nobody thinks they are camping in it. Quite popular to avoid local councils kicking you out.

Or we could perhaps find a slightly more disturbing posts from Shitrentals.org

All of these have Australian content, or are mostly Australian.

What do they show?

What’s the underlying concept?

I tend to feel some disquiet over the topics. People sneaking around trying to find houses, trying to find places to stay. In Australia.

We are better than that.

One party, Labor, promised housing in their “Homes for Australia” plan. 1,200,000 houses over five years. Starting from mid-2024. In the last election (May 2025) Labor won in a landslide. Their opponents, Liberal, seemed to want to copy MAGA, and that may have been the determining cause of their defeat, but also, it could have been that they ignored housing as an issue altogether.

When all you have to do is watch YouTube.

Labor’s promised 1,200,000 houses was never going to happen on time, we all knew that, but at least someone said something about the housing disaster in Australia.

I remain convinced that housing is how to win at Australian politics. And we all know the groups which will provide the main impediments, I will write about that another day.

Anyhow, I want to help, so much so that I have put my money down and will go about and talk to people.

About building 12,000 homes in Chaffey.

Chaffey is a House of Assembly seat in South Australia, the election is in March 2026.

Wish me luck :)

Thank you

Jakob

Those who tear houses down.

We’ve seen them before, back in the French Revolution.

We saw it with MAGA. They brought the house down.

On the surface the issue is puzzling. Why would the greatest nation on Earth, need to be made great again.

Just doesn’t make sense.

Until you go to the USA and see the disparity. The utter abject poverty.

Right alongside shiny foreign cars.

Obviously the leadership of MAGA had no interest in fixing that disparity, because they haven’t. But they knew to use the anger.

The anger caused by a lack of sharing.

America is a rich country but the wealth is very much up the top. Everyone knows that, and it causes a subservience in those trying to climb higher, and a rebelliousness in those who hate that faux imperial palace vibe.

So, what can one do against a rorted system. You can vote the wreckers in.

MAGA did not get voted in to fix things and make things better, that’s not their mandate, their whole voiced policy was hatred. Which is why they got the votes.

Effectively the Republican Party is over. And maybe its mirror, the Democratic Party will go too.

The wreckers are outsiders, or at least, seen as such. Bernie Sanders could be viewed that way. He too would wreck things, but not in an angry way.

But people are angry, they want anger vented.

So, we will see the wreckers, the MAGA, the Reform, the One Nation, etc. continue to form, until the anger is satisfied.

And what is the root cause of the anger? It’s the lack of sharing. The austerity for poor people and gobsmacking lavish wealth for a handful.

Just like the Court of the French King.

Some will use the anger, but the anger will also use them. There is no way to build something new when one is in wrecking mode.

We see this with the pain caused to the UK by Brexit.

We see this with the pain the USA will go through with its MAGA policies.

We need builders. Not wreckers.

Thank you,

Jakob Gamertsfelder

I’ll be nominating for the South Australian House of Assembly election in March. Seat of Chaffey.

I want to build 12,000 houses.

Thanks again.

Need at least two parties to do that.

And we tend to get two parties, both intertwined with each other, but with disparate aims.

For examples; Labor and Liberal in Australia, Republican and Democrat in the USA, Tory and Labour in the UK.

Two separate entrenched groups waging war on each other in the war for resources to fix what they each see as different problems.

Why does it boil down to two?

My theory is that we find the answer in our sports. We watch teams cooperating as players to compete against another team cooperating with each other.

It’s how I see politics. One team with an emphasis favoring competition, and the other favoring cooperation, but both cooperating among themselves to out-compete the other.

The whole conversation over wings illustrates this. Not chicken wings, but political wings. The word “wing” itself shows that one way of thinking is part of a flying whole.

Hopefully.

We could try and encapsulate the wings, each to its own emphasis.

The left wing tends to cooperative endeavor. The right wing tends to competitive.

Both have equal validity. Both win and lose in various situations.

However, as you may notice, the whole emphasis on team approaches to politics is the lack of critique, and just the obsession. Support one team unto death. No matter what happens.

Which is a huge weakness. If you support one team forever, then that team never has to do anything for you. Why would they? Also the other team will never do anything for you, because you will never support them even if they made you wealthy.

Which is why marginal seats are the best place to live. Political parties fight over your attentions.

Another weakness is outside players. For instance a media empire may vary its support, playing both political parties against each other, both parties promising support to the media empire.

Another weakness is being too long in power. Both parties tend to mirror each other and that can lead to ten years or more in power for either party. They tend to forget those outsiders called “voters”. In Australia that means anyone outside the “Canberra Bubble”. This is something that happens to everyone. Too long with the same faces, playing the same games, and knowing the same names, it all leads to stagnation.

This is a brief outline of how I see the team sports of politics. Something I am paying more attention to now that I will nominate in the South Australian election in March 2026. For the Seat of Chaffey, I want to build 12,000 houses.

Thank you

Jakob Gamertsfelder

Anger lets us change things, mostly because of broken expectations.

Anger in politics is a thing, some politicians need it, some need to create hate with it, some to create change

Anger at an unfair thing can easily be turned into hate against some group of people. Preferably a group of people nobody knows or is likely to meet. An anonymous other.

That anger and hate can go both ways. Which is good for both groups, it helps bind people together against a common foe.

The categories we can put people in are infinite. But it helps to keep it visual, and the other group unknown.

At the party level we can have (in Australia) Liberals hating Labor. Theoretically Liberals in Australia are the supporters of wealth and business, and Labor is the party of the worker. That’s not true any more, both seem to have lost what they stood for.

Which causes anger.

Liberals promised hard work in business as the road to wealth.

Labor promised hard work for business as the road to satisfaction.

Neither works any more.

For those who don’t know, Liberals in Australia, are conservative. Lately the name seems to be causing them some difficulty as everyone in certain conservative media denigrates liberals, while at the same time advocating for Liberal values.

The difference, when speaking, is to say small L liberal, or large L.

Still, it appears to me to be a problematic branding issue.

So, if we want to channel anger, use it, in this team based game of politics, how do we?

What is hurting people?

Broken expectations.

What are the expectations that people could assume in Australia?

Housing. A house, a home, a shelter. A place to belong, and a place to belong in.

Instead, we don’t have that any more.

Couples sitting at the kitchen table, can’t pay rent, can never get a mortgage, struggle with their bills, then struggle with each other.

The temptation to do crime, the temptation to do violence, and the decision to never have children.

All angry decisions.

Which has cause Australia to be a pyramid scheme.

Every landlord, and there are not as many as one might think, gets easier access to money than first home buyers.

There is a source of anger.

Politics is moving in to win votes by providing easy answers. Someone to blame.

In most cases it will be immigrants. Immigrants will be to blame for all the woes of Australians. Proven guaranteed vote winner. Because of anger.

There will not be any solutions, but there will be a target for anger.

Anger has other examples, for example Australia had a national referendum about a Voice to Parliament for indigenous people. This got rejected. There was, and is, plenty of anger still about because despite the rejection some State and Federal systems are still pushing ahead with the idea.

Bad idea. The easiest way to counter the idea is that Australian indigenous people make up some 3% of the population, and make up some 4% of the politicians. They would seem to be well represented. Australians seem to realise that.

But again, this is just another example of how, by finding one group to fight against, one can bind others together.

Much like Liberal and Labor both fight each other, and did for decades, but cooperatively. Able to keep other parties out of office as a result. One of those other parties is called One Nation. Their leader Pauline Hanson spent some 11 weeks in jail in 2003, for electoral fraud. Spun a certain way, she as the outsider, against the establishment. One could find some anger in that story to drive One Nation with.

I myself am angry. But an independent anger of my own. And it’s balanced by a peaceful contentment with my life.

Until I see all the people living along the Murray River, in their cars, tents, pods, caravans, getting up in the morning, going off to work.

Then, I feel anger.

And the local council comes along to move them on, because they spoil the view for tourists, and the lower the value of houses for the lucky few to have them.

We see political movements, MAGA in the USA, Reform in the UK. Both driven primarily by anger. Misguided but useful anger.

Anger. It’s an energy, coming to a voting booth near you. Can we use it to create good change. Yep, we sure can.

Will we?

Not sure.

By the way I’m running in the South Australian election in March. Seat of Chaffey in the House of Assembly.

I want 12,000 homes built. I have a plan. A part of which is pictured.

Vote for me if you want that to happen.

Thank you.

Jakob

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Letter to the Editor

I only read local newspapers. It's about people I know. I don't have a TV. I got tired of the two voices that dominate Australian media. And the four voices that rule the entire media world. I want something that's relevant to me. When information is controlled by so few, and those few only have money in view, then you end up with whatever lunacy is happening in the USA. Where people have been taught to hate because they turned people into things. Things called illegals. Yet every raid against illegals is always on workplaces. On workers. People. Owned media isn't free, it's the opposite of freeing. The ABC is a recognition of that. That's not where I want to be either. I have found places that are free. You can too.

Creating a community with 2,500 new landowners on 500 hectares, where each landowner pays rates, can be achieved by strategically subdividing the land into individual plots. Here’s a breakdown of how this could be approached to balance lot size, land use efficiency, and amenities while maintaining appeal for individual landowners.

1. Residential Lots (350-400 hectares)

• Average Lot Size: To accommodate 2,500 landowners, each lot could be approximately 1,000-1,500 square meters (0.1-0.15 hectares). This is manageable for single-family homes while still creating individual ownership.

• Subdivision Plan:

  • Standard Lots: Around 2,000 lots of approximately 1,000 square meters each for detached single-family homes.

  • Smaller Lots or Duplex Options: 500 lots could be allocated for duplexes, townhouses, or smaller homes, providing options for those seeking lower maintenance or more affordable properties.

• Layout: Design a grid or curvilinear layout with roads and infrastructure providing easy access to each plot.

2. Community Facilities and Amenities (50 hectares)

• Community Centers and Clubhouses: 5-10 hectares for community gathering spaces, providing amenities like meeting rooms, event spaces, and fitness areas.

• Parks and Playgrounds: 10-15 hectares for small neighborhood parks, playgrounds, and picnic areas scattered throughout the residential areas.

• Commercial and Retail Spaces: 10-15 hectares to support local businesses, shops, and services, such as cafes, groceries, and small professional offices.

• Education and Healthcare: 5-10 hectares for a small school and health clinic, enhancing self-sufficiency within the community.

3. Green Spaces and Recreational Areas (30-40 hectares)

• Neighborhood Parks: Develop green spaces of 1-2 hectares each, distributed across the community so that all residents are within walking distance of a park.

• Community Garden Plots: Designate 5-10 hectares for community gardens, where residents can grow vegetables and flowers, fostering a community spirit.

• Nature Reserves: 10-15 hectares for natural conservation areas with walking trails, preserving biodiversity and providing recreational spaces.

4. Transportation and Infrastructure (40-50 hectares)

• Roads and Pathways: 30-40 hectares for a network of streets, bike paths, and walkways that link residential areas with community amenities and green spaces.

• Parking Facilities: 2-5 hectares for shared parking near commercial areas and community facilities, reducing the need for on-street parking and maintaining a tidy environment.

• Utility Infrastructure: 5 hectares for essential services like water treatment, electricity substations, and waste management.

5. Agricultural and Sustainability Initiatives (20-30 hectares)

• Community Farming: 10-15 hectares for small-scale agriculture, providing food and possibly income sources for the community. This land could be collectively owned or managed.

• Renewable Energy: 5-10 hectares for solar panels or wind turbines, generating energy for community facilities and potentially reducing rates.

6. Future Development and Expansion (10-20 hectares)

• Reserve some land for future expansion of residential plots, additional amenities, or facilities that may be needed as the community grows.

• These areas could also accommodate flexible spaces for new projects, based on evolving community needs.

Key Benefits of this Model:

• Rates from All Landowners: By ensuring each plot has an owner paying rates, the council would generate steady revenue.

• Variety of Lot Sizes and Options: This appeals to different demographics, from single homeowners to small families or retirees.

• Balanced Density and Community Appeal: Maintaining a semi-rural feel while providing adequate density ensures that services are financially viable and accessible to residents.

This design would achieve the goal of creating 2,500 new landowners on 500 hectares, generating sustainable rate revenue while offering diverse and appealing living options.

We all breathe in a little conspiracy. If there was a dust mask to avoid them, it would lead to another theory of conspiracy.

How I deal with all these wonderful imaginings is to leave them alone. There is no pony to win.

How I think this exuberant explosion of theory began was as part of a hybrid war. From the war the US had with the Soviets. From possible hot war to real Cold War.

As Nikita Khrushchev said in 1956: “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within”.

And 30 years later, a Yuri Bezmenov talked about how Russia’s plan was still proceeding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Bezmenov

Interview.

The main point is. Demoralization. Anything which can destroy hope must be pursued.

So, the dumbing down of education, of sciences, the glorification of violences in a society, all of these things have been furthered by an enemy of the US for decades.

The timeframe is the thing; long term. And soon enough we get people thinking the Earth is flat and that the evil Americans didn’t land on the moon. And that home schooling is the best. And that automatic machine guns should be in every home. That vaccines are evil. That chemtrails are worse. That “they” will get us all. And all the other malarkey.

If you hear a theory that makes you despair, that’s what it is meant to do.

Ignore them. You can even ignore this conspiracy theory. :)

Everything arises from our desire for love. Even the bad stuff; when we try to fulfill that desire by inappropriate means. How do we know what love is, what connecting with others is like? We learn that from what we see. Even our puppet shows. Puppet shows like Disney cartoons, like Bluey cartoons, like Sesame Street.

We like these puppets, pictures and muppets, because we cannot be ist. There is no racist, sexist, ageist, ableist. How can we be against a blue dog, or a yellow bird?

I guess we can still be stupidist. And laugh at a fat, balding, failing, emotionally insecure, stupid yellow man in The Simpsons. Homer’s Odyssey. Perhaps that’s a clue to how malicious we are. The creators of The Simpsons must be doing something right with their insight to have success for over 30 years.

But what else do we see?

When we look at Sesame Street, are we learning that dressing up in fluffy outfits is rewarding? That not just owning the plushies and other merchandise, but by becoming Elmo in Times Square is rewarding.

Is Sesame Street the reason we have furries? People who have fursonas, their avatar in communities of similarly minded people.

Children grow up seeing furry characters being hugged and not ever having drama. These furry monsters never have to go to the toilet, they never have sex, they never eat, their greatest drama may be an overwhelming desire to monster cookies.

These children, these television viewers, grow up.

And join us on the world stage, with their own puppet show beliefs. Which is fine, we all have some ridiculous beliefs. Internal contradiction may be our most identifiable common trait as humans, and I have no qualm myself in using coping escape mechanisms.

Some of us desire love and think having big muscles will obtain it. Or big cars, or big money, or big words, or big TVs, or big apples. We are all equal in our crazy need for love. Furries just need a big suit.

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In Morgan there is a worker camp being built.  $10,000,000 to build, $1,000,000 of that will be spent on removing it in 2 years.  The camp will accommodate 176 workers on the $200,000,000 interconnecter project that connects SA to the power networks of the east coast.  I think this is an opportunity.  Instead of dismantling it, keep part of it.  The infrastructure of power, water, septic, and internet will be all done.  It would be a shame to throw it away, as well as take the housing.  We need to find a way to get DownerGroup to consider keeping it.  To do that we have to persuade DownerGroup that it could be good for them too. Normal accommodation is in short supply, try renting anywhere in the Riverlands.  But we also need accommodation for flood victims and soon enough bushfires will add to the lack of housing supply.  Which means if we can chat to Housing SA or related quangos then a feasible solution can be found.  We could go further afield and host Ukrainian refugees there, and DownerGroup might benefit from that by gaining rebuilding contracts in Ukraine.  All I do know for sure is that we only have 2 years.  Or at most 10 meetings of the Mid Murray Council to make something better happen

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When I was younger September was my preferred time of year.  Spring.  Nowadays Autumn is my favourite; that time from March to May.  My preference probably changed because of my age, I'm well into my autumnal years now.  This Autumn has been nigh on perfect.  Blue sky, white cloud, sun, cooling temperatures, but not too cool.  Perfect outdoors weather, except we cannot, because we are stuck indoors; like people in that Alanis Morrisette song.  While we are stuck inside though we can start planning for going outdoors.  Now is probably the best time to get started on that forward thinking because sometime next year we should have a vaccine, mass testing will be something we can do, and our supply lines should have reworked themselves to cope with the changes in demand.  What are some of the things we could be thinking about?  Perhaps reworking our distribution systems so that they have more flexibility in times of change, perhaps increasing our manufacturing flexibility so that we can open up new supplies of needed goods as times change. Perhaps work out backup plans for tourist towns that get caught out by fires, floods and plagues.  Small towns and regional areas have an opportunity to look forward, and land on their feet by the end of this year.   But we should be talking right now about what new solutions may present themselves from our newest difficulties.  Should the SA companies making toilet paper also branch out to make paper masks and gowns?  Should tourist towns try to add another string to their bow?  Seasons change and tell us everything changes, we should be thinking about making some changes of our own.  Right now there are questions we should ask so we have plans for the start of next year.  We don't want to be in 2021 looking back on today with 2020 hindsight

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Math is how we tell the future.  Let's do some.  Our federal government wants to build 1.2 million houses over the next 5 years.  240,000 per year.  Mainly because they want to add over 200,000 permanent visas per year, and some 7 million temporary visas; like they did in 2022-23.  Ok, so we need to build 240,000 houses per year throughout Australia.  There are 537 local councils in Australia.  That means each council needs to build 447 houses per year.  Is your local council up to that?  Have you tried to get any sort of building approval done in your local area?  Did the council give you an answer within a day?  Because with 447 houses per year per council, each council needs to get more than one house approved per day.  Does your local council do that?   My local council is Mid Murray Council.  Currently one area in Mid Murray Council, Brenda Park, has a 96% vacancy rate.  Mainly because of the inundation of the Murray River in 2022.  Two years ago.  Rebuilds are still ongoing.  That's just to replace what we had; not to grow.  Even if you have a transcendent mayor, like our Simone Bailey, that is not enough to conquer math.  Because we don't have enough people to unlock 447 houses per year.  In town planners alone there is an Australia wide shortage.  Regional councils are the key to a win though, we have the land available, if not the will.  The good thing about math though is that it lets us set a goal.  Let's set 500 houses per year per local council.  Setting the goal is the only way to achieve it, so thank you to mathematics.  Come join me on this glorious hill, we may even get planning permission.. 

The 27th August 2021 is a long time ago; half a world war and a third of a plague away.  It was on that day that Michelle Etheridge had a story printed in The Advertiser.  "Council rebuked over poor practices."  It concerned a police investigation into Mid Murray Council on poor administration and accounting practices.  The Independent Commission Against Corruption found at the time that allegations of corruption were unsubstantiated, partly due to poor administration and accounting practices.  Training was to be provided on these governance issues so that Mid Murray Council would achieve legislative requirements in the future.  So, by now, these issues in the long distant past are all fixed now.  These sorts of things happen in every organisation.  Every group of people in an organisation will tend to deviate as they search to find the best, or easiest, way to achieve things.  If you have ever worked in a large organisation you can see that happen almost immediately.  Every shift will start to perform tasks not quite the way the manual says they should be done.  This can be a good thing, as people search for and create best practice methods.  It can also lead to a messy disorganisation.  For local councils there is also the issue of being disconnected from the community.  The people who run the council might never have lived in the area or know any people there.  The aspirations of council employees might tend to push the council into areas that highlight resumes as employees take another step in their career path.  The boring work of keeping boxes ticked might be left alone too long.  Perhaps a scheduled check of administrative practices would be helpful.  Not just to catch negative anomalies but also to find the diamonds in the rough that lead to a better local council

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