Masks are the new fashion

I wear a mask whenever I come within two metres of another person. If you come within two metres of another person, you should be wearing a mask.

People are infectious with the virus for four days before symptoms appear. The most common transmission occurs not from surfaces or hands, but from breathing. It surprises me that more in my local community are not wearing masks – in other countries, it is default behaviour to wear a mask even if you have no symptoms. Given that there are now projections for 50,000 to die in Australia, you could save a life by wearing a mask.

A four day incubation period with no symptoms. Any mask is better than no mask. Act as if you have the virus.

March 15, 2020November 3, 2020

Coronavirus and social media

The way that news is propagated to the public has changed.

Before social media

Before social media, important government announcements in Australia were efficiently transmitted via:

two newspapers in each city; and
five television channels in each city.

The situation now

Now, a large proportion of the public’s primary source of news is via social media channels. News-related posts are mixed in amongst posts about cats and selfies.

This makes it more difficult during crisis situations for government to communicate a consistent message to the public. There is no consistent timing for social media posts to appear in a user’s feed, so it can happen that news stories can be out of sequence in a user’s news feed, resulting in misinformation and confusion.

What needs to happen?

In future, government should legislate so that in a crisis:

Government posts are mandated as highest priority across the main social media used in Australia; and
Mandated SMS text messaging should be used for official government information.

February 25, 2020November 12, 2021

Planning

Links

Planning document search

(requires PLN reference number)

Planning application search

(requires PLN reference number)

Flowchart

I’ve put together a draft guide on the council planning process. Please don’t hold me to the complete accuracy of it. I’ve just done it to try to explain the quite complex process when residents object to a planning application.

Note that many times council refuses an application, yet the application is approved by VCAT, examples:

Each time council defends its decision to refuse at VCAT, it costs around $10K in legal fees.

Overshadowing

The September Equinox is the measure that is used in Victoria (ResCode) to determine overshadowing impacts in residential areas. It is used as it represents the ‘middle point’, between the worst case shadow scenario (winter) and the best case shadow scenario (summer).

February 23, 2020November 3, 2020

Postal vs attendance voting

Postal voting

All voters receive a ballot paper through the mail. They are required to complete the declaration and return their vote through the mail.

Easier for mobility-impaired voters.

Is $200K cheaper, more money can be spent in the community.

Easier for multicultural English-challenged voters. They have day rather than minutes to seek advice and help from family and friends

Increased window to vote. Some voters forget to return their voting papers.

More likelihood of “dummy” candidates being used to direct preferences to main candidates. This has been mitigated somewhat by candidate preference lists no longer included in the vote pack.

Public perception that votes are easier to manipulate than attendance elections.

Attendance voting

All voters are required to attend a polling booth on the election data. Other options are early voting (aka pre-poll), or voters can apply for a postal vote.

More likely to be person-to-person contact. Candidate might be at polling booth (note that there are around 9 voting booths per ward).

Local schools can run fundraising BBQs on election day, colloquially known as democracy sausage.

More difficult for genuine grass-roots community candidates to run a campaign. Newer candidates find it hard to staff around 7 polling booths from 8am to 6pm on polling day.

Some voters feel intimidated by having to “run the gauntlet” of people handing them how-to-vote cards outside the polling booth.

Waste of paper. A lot of paper is used for candidates’ how-to-vote cards.

Voters have to stand in queues on a Saturday.

Voters generally make a quick decision after receiving how-to-vote cards from candidates.

Bad weather.

References

Councillor’s voting volte face

Crs opt for ballot box vote

Greater Dandenong attendance vote to cost more than $200,000

Election information

Note

The information presented on this website does not represent a final position. All viewpoints will be considered up to the point where a final decision is made.

January 2, 2020November 3, 2020

Keep clear markings

I received this response from VicRoads regarding generally how Keep Clear markings are implemented:

It should be noted that ‘Keep Clear’ markings are primarily used to minimise delays to through traffic on arterial roads caused by vehicles queuing to turn right onto a side road. Where right-turning vehicles are able to wait safely in a dedicated turning lane, as is this case, they do not obstruct the flow of through traffic and hence Keep Clear is not considered necessary at this location. These markings are not intended to enable motorists from side roads to turn into the main road.