Budget, Ingress

To say the least, the first Federal budget of the LNP government has not been well-received at all as polling figures indicate. The anger has spilled out into the streets as well with over ten thousand protesting in Melbourne. I visited said protest for a short time and ran into 17catherines and discussed the health implications in particular and the proposed health research budget (which, contrary to my concerns, does not seem to be a publically funded slush fund for monopoly profits from intellectual property). A good strategic political analysis is provided by crazyjane13 on The Conscience Vote. For his part Tristan Ewans gives an overview at LeftFocus. State governments, largely conservative controlled, are not happy with being wedged into supporting an increase to the GST. Secularists and professional counsellers will be unhappy with the re-establishment of a chapliancy model at schools.

On a completely different subject, the weekend was included the day of the Ingress anomaly in Melbourne, Auckland, and Brisbane. Apart from the pre-anomaly events I turned up to the pre-game meeting at Parliament House (group photo). For the actual event I was convening the LUV Beginners meeting (excellent talk by Wen Lin), so took an auxillary role of recharging volatile portals and updating faction members in the hangout channel. Two aspects where particularly impressive; firstly the Enlightenment won the anomaly both overall and for Melbourne - the latter particularly impressive because we've often been outgunned at a ratio of several to one in preceeding months with the Resistance commanding more players and more players at higher levels. The second item was a big, beautiful green field that appeared just before the start of play. That was impressive enough; it was only after I zoomed out that I saw the extent - the largest field ever created in Ingress history.