OT : Australian Census madness re motorbikes

[Zeuk in Oz]

All of Oz miust fill in a census on Tuesday night, August the 8th.

Question 54 on the Census which we are all expected to complete on the night of 8th August asks the usual 'how many vehicles were housed on your premises on the night of 8 August' and goes on to state that motorcycles are not included. WHY NOT?

Amazing !

"The MCC of NSW and the MRA are onto this and I understand the letters pages in the various media publications will contain some pointed questions about the deliberate ommission."

"In light of the Victorian governments blatant anti-bike bias, and the raising of licencing costs in South Australia (The Level 1 course for a learner’s permit increases from $90 to $290, and the Level 2 course for a provisional licence increase from $79 to $255 as of July 1), there is clearly an agenda to push motorcycling off the planning and infrastructure radar, and this at a time of booming bike and scooter sales to combat congestion and petrol price gouging" wrote one correspondent.

Makes you think !

[HDhandyman]

*sets down coffee cup to investigate contents of screen more carefully*

that's stunning for me to hear. Really, I never imagined a Gov. could have so much universal bias toward motorcycles.----don't know really what else to say.....Just can't even believe that it's an issue....especially with all that open space.

Can you share more with us (across the ponds) about the bias?

[Yiorgos]

Must be because CityLink tollway cameras can't charge motorbikes due to the absense of a licence plate on the front (is this still the case?) :D

[Bimmerman]

"All of Oz must fill in a census on Tuesday night, August the 8th."

Dont forget to put down "Jedi Master" as your religion! :)

[GJPinAU]

I won't be home til late on Tuesday night (out trolling the streets on my pushy). Might have to fill it in at Maccas during coffee break.:D

[Yiorgos]

I'll be in the audience of the TV show Rove Live, so I'm not sure how I'll be filling it out...

[Paul in NZ]

that is amazing isnt it.I mean motorcycles and push bikes will be the vehicles of choice before too long for most of us

[Zeuk in Oz]

that is amazing isnt it.I mean motorcycles and push bikes will be the vehicles of choice before too long for most of us
That and Shank's pony ! :D

[mattyb]

I'm half thinking of not to fill it in this time, I mean it's supposed to be about stats so they can plan where to spend and what kind of infrastraucture to develop and research, etc. They already know where to spend they just dont want to. we already know theres to many folks here and not enough freely available water. I just feel like writing across mine stop ripping us off all the fkn time. take the NSW petrol tax and the tunnel stuff ups. talk about misdirected funds. and on top of this they'll maintain the department of stats staffing levels for another 10- years just reading and collating the data they receive from this census.

if they really wanted to know the answers to all the friggin questions they would only need to go through their own records and cross match them. immigration, department of Births deaths marriages,vehicle sales + registration, tax department etc.

The census does nothing other than keep over paid academics in jobs until they can get a fat payout for misconduct of one kind or another and the fact that if you do not fill it out you are liable to be prosecuted blah blah blah **** i really dont want to tell you how i really feel.

[Zeuk in Oz]

Don't hold back ! Tell us what you really think ! :D

I couldn't agree more, by the way. Our best, most fertile area west of Sydney, the Cumberland Plain, is now wall to wall housing.

Despite its massive population explosion, Sydney hasn't had any increase in its water storage capacity for 40 years.

Go figure ! Over-demand wouldn't have anything to do with our water shortage, would it ?

There is only one dairy farm left in my area whereas there used to be 8.

What a mess !

Who needs agriculture when you can grow houses instead ?

[mattyb]

sorry for the hijack mate! i feel better now. got the e34 back today

[genphreak]

sorry for the hijack mate! i feel better now. got the e34 back todayGood news Matty. I bet she is (just like) a new girl!

Keener? Goes longer and harder, rides more smoothly... I could go on... :D

But that'd be OT. Back to you points about the Census: I dare say you are right about it being an excercise in wasteful research. It is great for anyone into Research and Statistics.

But unfortuantely we know the Government cannot be trusted; AFAIAC they can go jump.

The big problem is that all the info they collect is stored in a giant honeypot with inadequate safeguards and managed, accessed and controlled by untrustworthy people. Anyone that can gain access (via IPod or network or the myriad of ways possible) can cross reference the entries and match them to names even if they 'don't collect names' or whatever other ******** it is that they 'say' will prevent the information they collect from being used against us- when in fact, they collect the lot and keep it on hand so that they can do just that.

Even Corporations (and orgnaised crime) know if they can't get access legally by paying the Australian Bureau of Statistics, or their local member, they can do so with influence or force (hacking and/or at worst social engineering their way to it)

There is no sane reason to help Big Brother in such phishing excercies- if they cared about knowing wtf was going on, they'd be doing a much better job on 1/10th of the information they already have, but don't bother using. The last thing they would do is database our personal info and Biometric measurements so THEY can authenticate us and 'manage' our information:

What they would do is provide everybody with their own encrypted card/RSA key which could store our particular public/private keys so that we could WE could verify our identity to anywone that needed to do so and keep our information private. Not one member of our society wants Mossad, the CIA, GRU, or organised Crime- let alone all the other untrustworthy hooligans out there (such as unrepresentative politicians and bureaucrats) and hackers in third world lawless countries gaining access to their personal information.

It is high time governments used technology (such as PGP) on our behalf, rather than continuously misues, or abuse it.

Whether you think this is the first step to being taken away to Labour Camp... or are just mindful of your own privacy and freedom, either way you cannot let yourself in for the dangers the 2006 Census entails.

First they came for the hackers. But I never did anything illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for the pornographers. But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for the anonymous remailers. But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for the encryption users. But I could never figure out how to work pgp5 anyway, so I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me. And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

~Alara Rogers (Aleph Press)

If *you* don't take the precautions to protect yourself... Who will? (http://www.privacyinternational.org/)

[Zeuk in Oz]

Wow !

All I wanted to do was to alert you all to the bias against motorbikes ! :)

Thanks Nick - I think I understood that.

What you are telling us is that those of us who are not Jewish should put Jewish in our religion question to make up for all the Jews who don't ? :D

Edit : Point of clarification. The previous statement is not intended to be anti-semitic. I just wanted to choose a religion that has suffered so much persecution over the years that it would not be surprising if people of the Jewish faith do not declare their religion in a census.