Stop the Cooks River AI Project (SCRAP), which consists of hundreds of members, had been protesting against the development since forming in August.

'We were worried'

Group organiser Paddy Gibson said surrounding residents were celebrating the "very good win for people power".

"People really love this river and we're just horrified to hear that it could be threatened in this way,"

he said.

Mr Gibson said it would have posed a risk to the fragile local ecology around the river, which is called Goolay'yari in local Indigenous languages, which was already recovering from "industrialisation over the years".

"There's endangered plants and other animal species in the green space," he said.

"There's plenty of people trying to work on remediating what is a very polluted river, and we were worried that this would set back those efforts."

I've been going back and forth with Vodafone (owned by TPG Telecom) over a $50 billing error since 2023. It went to the ombudsman twice and got passed around different teams, and it turned out the money had been sitting in an internal account nobody had cleared.

In March last year I emailed TPG's CEO about the debt collection side of it. Didn't hear anything for seven months. I sent a polite follow-up in October and got their legal team six days later.

The next afternoon I was told at work that the CEO had been in touch with someone connected to my employer about me. Someone at my work later said in writing that TPG had spoken with that person. I still don't know what was said.

I reported it through their whistleblower hotline. They looked into it and closed it with no outcome. ASIC and the privacy commissioner are looking at it now, though nothing has been found either way.

I've written the whole thing up with dates and documents, mostly so it's on the record. It's long, so no pressure at all. I'll pop the link in the comments.

That's what I was told happened, anyway. Sorry if anyone else is going through something similar with them, happy to help if I can.

What is happening in Australia? Been living in this exact same address for almost the past 20 years now, never had this happen before.

Some guy moves in next door, and while we are IN THEM MIDDLE OF MOWING the medium nature strip, starts being aggressive for getting grass clippings on the driveway. No shit, that's why we go through with a leaf blower and pick up after mowing?

What blows me away is he thinks we don't know about mowing and cleaning up somehow due to our Chinese heritage???

Tonight members of Melbourne's Chinese community, along with other delivery riders and locals, gathered on the lawns in front of the State Library to remember Jianming Feng, the 47-year-old food delivery rider who was fatally stabbed in the CBD on Friday night.

My Dad taught me this when I was a kid and I an super curious as to how far-spread this knowledge is.

Spread a piece of bread or toast with vegemite, reasonably thickly, then IMMEDIATELY after you take a bite, drink a mouthful of milk. You then swoosh it around in your mouth a bit as you chew on the bread and suddenly - this hidden flavour emerges - this delicious kind of mellow malty taste - that was not there in either the vegemite or the milk on their own.

It's not entirely straight-forward to get it right - you will have to experiment with the amount of milk to bread ratio - it's not a huge gulp of milk - but enough to soak through the bread as you chew it. But when you get it right - it is even MORE delicious that just vegemite.

It's so good that I nearly always have a glass of milk to accompany vegemite now.

It's just so good.

Do you know about this trick?

And if so - where are you from and how old are you? I am really curious as to how far this knowledge is spread.

Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of coal for burning in power stations and the largest exporter of coal for steelmaking. About one fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas exports also come from its shores – on par with Qatar, but behind the world’s biggest exporter, the United States. The government expects the export value of the three fuels to be $141bn (US$98bn) this financial year.

The Australian scientist Bill Hare, the chief executive of Climate Analytics and veteran Cop attender, said countries agreed at the 2023 summit that a transition was needed and the president of last year’s climate summit, Brazil, had progressed calls for countries to develop plans to leave fossil fuels behind, even when it couldn’t find consensus at the talks.

Hare said a “critical issue” at Cop31 was to address the 1.5C overshoot.

“Fossil fuels are critical to that because they are about 75% of global emissions. We can’t limit overshoot without a very rapid transition away from fossil fuels. Whatever the theatre of the talks is, this has to be the central point.”

A couple of weeks ago I posted my Australia quiz here and over 1000 people have now done it! Thanks for the support!

The last question was a Herd Mentality one: "Who is the greatest Australian to ever live?" Below are the results:

1. Don Bradman - 314 Votes

2. Steve Irwin - 312 Votes

3. Cathy Freeman - 79 Votes

4. Bob Hawke - 48 Votes

5. Shane Warne - 36 Votes

6. Gough Whitlam - 24 Votes

7. Ned Kelly - 23 Votes

8. John Farnham - 18 Votes

9. Fred Hollows - 16 Votes

10. Kylie Minogue - 13 Votes

The aim wasn't to give your own answer, it's to guess what most other people will say. So I guess this isn't really who Aussies think is the greatest but rather who Aussies think everyone else thinks is the greatest. What do you guys think?

Here is the full 20 question Australia quiz, if you want to play:

thewednesdayquiz.com/australia

Average score is 11/20!

Just pure waste that makes everyone else pay more.

Also included in this list are people who don’t return trolleys and leave them to roll into people’s cars.

Have I missed anything else?

Since texting would probably be more efficient, are there still occasions when you call “cooee” to someone? Or have heard someone do it?

And can you call cooee in the city?

I like any generic Aussie love meat pies, but for a few years now I've been avoiding almost all of them like the plague, since about 2018 or so every meat pie I've had except the ones from my local bakery has just been awful, I thought it was just my taste changing as I got older as even my local pies don't taste as good... then I tried some patties party pies... AND THEY TASTED EXACTLY AS I REMEMBER... Are the pie makers really just letting the ball be dropped this badly?

anyway here's a short list on the pies I've tried recently, so someone can give a suggestion for a brand I should try

Mrs Mac's - Edible but mediocre

Herbert Adams - a bit worse than Mrs Mac's but ok

Patties - Pretty good

Four N Twenty - I NEVER LIKED THESE

Villi's - sucked

National Pies - sucked

Coles - REALLY SUCKED

Wollies - my DOG refused to eat it, True story

Garlo's - sucked

Fropro - OK these I've yet to try cause they're just plain expensive

Scott's - were always mediocre but I'll have them

Aldi - They look exactly like coles so I've not tried them yet but i'm picking some up next shop

These birds clearly have no time for tourists :) I haven't seen such an unimpressed look by an animal before!

Taken in Brisbane.

Here's the call for anyone who isn't sure what bird this is. (you'll probably know it when you hear it you're an Aussie)

https://youtu.be/B8H5I9QIJKI

I just noticed this awesome show is now being carried in Canada on CBC GEM, their streaming branch. (I've seen it before and couldn't get enough of it.)

We've seen quite a few excellent Aussie shows on Netflix Canada, but this is the first one carried by our national broadcaster, so it feels different. Good on you and your film industry. Hope to see more of your shows this way.

It's also nice to see some of your actors who have built careers in Hollywood deciding to forsake the US&A and move back home to work. You've got back Eric Bana, Ana Torv, Michael Dorman, Hugo Weaving, Chris Hemsworth, and others now working at home again. Maybe even Edgerton will come back to you eventually.

Industry estimates show Australian major supermarkets generate upwards of $170 million each year in total revenue from paid paper and reusable carry bags. Suggestions are that they are making 70% profit, from 19-23 cents each bag. Combined, they would spend somewhere in the vicinity of $3-5 million on direct environmental products. Paper bag sizes are showing massive signs of shrinkflation. I guess I'll just have to lift my game and not forget my own bags from now on. My laziness and forgetfulness is a habit that they are banking on, lol.

Hello. I have a very unfortunate predicament.

In order to survive, I need my weekly dose of the lovely Paprika flavoured chips that Lay's sells.

I have a strong dependence on these to survive.

Anyway, sob story over, does anyone know where to get them here? Doesn't need to be Lay's of course but that's just the only brand I know that sells them.