Just heard on the ABC news that the contract for the tracing App has gone to a US company when there are probably many local companies capable. Who can we send an email to, to send the message we won't use it unless this contract is awarded locally.
WTF is wrong with these bureaucrats?

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bobajob said..
Just heard on the ABC news that the contract for the tracing App has gone to a US company when there are probably many local companies capable. Who can we send an email to, to send the message we won't use it unless this contract is awarded locally.
WTF is wrong with these bureaucrats?

Lots

yep lots ....

Pauline Hanson has issued a please explain to the Prime Minister over the sale of a historic pastoral property to a Chinese business tycoon.The One Nation leader shared the Herald Sun's
April 15 article on the sale of Mawallok Estate in western Victoria to the largest exporter of Australian wool, Qingnan Wen, with the caption: "Dear Prime Minister, why did you allow this sale through?""The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) appear to have approved the sale of one of Australia's most historic pastoral holdings," Ms Hanson posted."It's the first time the property has been publicly sold in more than 170 years. The buyer is an offshore Chinese billionaire. Cranky? You bet I am!"

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bazz61 said..
yep lots ....

Pauline Hanson has issued a please explain to the Prime Minister over the sale of a historic pastoral property to a Chinese business tycoon.The One Nation leader shared the Herald Sun's
April 15 article on the sale of Mawallok Estate in western Victoria to the largest exporter of Australian wool, Qingnan Wen, with the caption: "Dear Prime Minister, why did you allow this sale through?""The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) appear to have approved the sale of one of Australia's most historic pastoral holdings," Ms Hanson posted."It's the first time the property has been publicly sold in more than 170 years. The buyer is an offshore Chinese billionaire. Cranky? You bet I am!"

That's a truckin disgrace . Chinese Virus screws us all and then they profit from it

Outraged. They can shove their app.

And to think I was inclined to download it for the public good.

We really do need to make changes in decision making in this country. This would be a good place to start.

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Gboots said..

bazz61 said..
yep lots ....

Pauline Hanson has issued a please explain to the Prime Minister over the sale of a historic pastoral property to a Chinese business tycoon.The One Nation leader shared the Herald Sun's
April 15 article on the sale of Mawallok Estate in western Victoria to the largest exporter of Australian wool, Qingnan Wen, with the caption: "Dear Prime Minister, why did you allow this sale through?""The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) appear to have approved the sale of one of Australia's most historic pastoral holdings," Ms Hanson posted."It's the first time the property has been publicly sold in more than 170 years. The buyer is an offshore Chinese billionaire. Cranky? You bet I am!"

That's a truckin disgrace . Chinese Virus screws us all and then they profit from it

Mawallok estate is listed as sold 23 Dec 19 so well before covid19. Knowing that area reasonably well, it will have made somewhere between $5000 and $6000 per acre. Bloody hard to raise that capital from Australian investors. Very few large holdings within 100km to the south and west of there have been sold to private investors/ farmers in the last 6 years, mainly US funds some UK money and some Chinese, that should be noted where in and out in under 3 years, nearly doubling their money in that time.
However many of the funds that had been buying in the area now say it is to expensive and are looking elsewhere to add to their portfolios. This farm is in prime cereal growing country with the potential to yield up to 4T of wheat to the acre but would grow fantastic wool too! Pauline probably doesn't realise how much of the Western District is owned by non Australians and hasn't been for generations

I read the article on the ABC this morning, not only is it offshore and therefore open to the foreign countries laws = not as secure as we're told. The ministers involved won't answer questions as to why no Australian companies were invited to even tender, on the tender by invite only contract.

And the say they are being open and transparent.... Pfffft ... wondering why people don't trust the pricks!

Politicians around the world are fixed on Chinese capital for a very long time. Would be like getting a long time drug addicted clean of the bad habits...wont happen soon.

That's a great call Tequila, both blue and red teams have been getting drunk on that capital for years. The Chinese are an important trading partner, but this has exposed how we have allowed ourselves to become addicted to cheap consumer goods. The problem starts with the everyday Australian and his choices.

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Neumo said..

Mawallok estate is listed as sold 23 Dec 19 so well before covid19. Knowing that area reasonably well, it will have made somewhere between $5000 and $6000 per acre. Bloody hard to raise that capital from Australian investors. Very few large holdings within 100km to the south and west of there have been sold to private investors/ farmers in the last 6 years, mainly US funds some UK money and some Chinese, that should be noted where in and out in under 3 years, nearly doubling their money in that time.
However many of the funds that had been buying in the area now say it is to expensive and are looking elsewhere to add to their portfolios. This farm is in prime cereal growing country with the potential to yield up to 4T of wheat to the acre but would grow fantastic wool too! Pauline probably doesn't realise how much of the Western District is owned by non Australians and hasn't been for generations

Lots of people bring this sort of foriegn purchase up. I am struggling with what the issue is though...

So an overseas company brings large amounts of capital into Australia to buy a commercial venture. Thats a lot of capital invested into our economy, plus relevent sale and transfer taxes. Usually it is at a price significantly higher than can be offered locally.

The land is still here, they can't take it home. They have to employ local labour, adhere to local management and environmental regulations, pay local taxes adn levies, use local suppliers etc etc etc.

Whats it matter who owns it??? If it was one of our own mega rich they just shovel thier profits offshore anyway....Whats the downside? Is it a racist thing??

Don't download it. It's full of holes and extremely poorly designed. Check the arguments in Whirlpool. It seriously is a piece of crap software.

Boss tried to compel us to down load it the other day.


i find some of the conspiracy theories about what it's really for quite amusing.


i find people who believe our government to be squeaky clean and imply "they'd never ever ever use it for anything other than it's intended purpose not in a million years" to be equally amusing.


I think Sco Mo must've had one of his babysitters whisper in his ear the other day. He's wisely shyed away from the idea of making it compulsory.

I've downloaded the App. I don't give a s#it who's looking over my shoulder. I believe we need to get the economy working again. People need to get back to work. Need to stop the increase in domestic violence due to Isolation. Need to stop the increase in child abuse due to isolation. If I get Covid 19 then the health guys will want to trace who I've been in contact with, then this App will certainly help. How the f84k do I list the people I pass in the supermarket. This App will also help me from possibly getting Covid19 if potential carries can be identified before I come in contact with them.

Seems a win win situation to me. Bring it on. It sounds like a good thing for the greater good and I give up nothing. (unless I were to start believing all the conspiracy theories and other Dumb F#$kery)

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NorthernKitesAUS said..
Don't download it. It's full of holes and extremely poorly designed. Check the arguments in Whirlpool. It seriously is a piece of crap software.

Really? Name one hole. I assume you mean a security hole?

Once you've registered your name, phone number and post code, your app is given a hashed opaque token that has no personal information in it to store on your phone.

It then stores the date, hash tokens and bluetooth signal strength of any other nearby app user on your phone.

After 21 days your phone deletes that information.

I think I can "hack" more personal info out of your seabreeze profile and kite for sale ads.

If you're thinking about them strong arming you to show that you have the app before you go out, so what? Nobody cares about your precious battery life on your $1000 phone when people are dying.

Slightly off topic:
What I did hear, from ICU staff planning at the beginning of this pandemic when nobody was sure if the hospitals would be full, if your contact tracing came out that you were having a party with 30 of your mates, got covid and needed a ventilator- you're on the bottom of the list. Actual protocols written down for priorities.

Wow ..................... an offshore data centre might have your name and telephone number, it's an outrage!

........................... oh hang on, most telemarketing companies probably already have this .....................

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Ninjury said..

NorthernKitesAUS said..
Don't download it. It's full of holes and extremely poorly designed. Check the arguments in Whirlpool. It seriously is a piece of crap software.

Really? Name one hole. I assume you mean a security hole?

Once you've registered your name, phone number and post code, your app is given a hashed opaque token that has no personal information in it to store on your phone.

It then stores the date, hash tokens and bluetooth signal strength of any other nearby app user on your phone.

After 21 days your phone deletes that information.

I think I can "hack" more personal info out of your seabreeze profile and kite for sale ads.

If you're thinking about them strong arming you to show that you have the app before you go out, so what? Nobody cares about your precious battery life on your $1000 phone when people are dying.

Slightly off topic:
What I did hear, from ICU staff planning at the beginning of this pandemic when nobody was sure if the hospitals would be full, if your contact tracing came out that you were having a party with 30 of your mates, got covid and needed a ventilator- you're on the bottom of the list. Actual protocols written down for priorities.

I don't understand this myself, why people are tieing themselves up in knots worried about the security of something, that most don't even understand. Its a temporary thing, with the potential to get us back to work and back to close to normal, and people are umming and aaghing about things that no one gives a crap about.

Someone thinks that the govt really care about where they were on Tuesday last week? Who cares. Its not as if this is a society of thieves stealing from each other and that we need to track each other.

If this was brought in when there wasn't a pandemic I would question it, but now?? Seriously, there are some selfish people out there.

I'm all for it FN, but I don't think it will be temporary. It will never be compulsory to sign up, but I reckon it will become part of everyday life.

So you want to get on a plane and fly to Melbourne .................. well you'll have to be using the App for 14 days prior to boarding the flight. You want to go the cinema or see a concert and be in close proximity to others ............... same story

Can you see where this is heading FN? And I don't have a problem with it, I reckon given the gravity of the situation, the people who don't use the App are just new age anti-vaxxers.

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Paddles B'mere said..
I'm all for it FN, but I don't think it will be temporary. It will never be compulsory to sign up, but I reckon it will become part of everyday life.

So you want to get on a plane and fly to Melbourne .................. well you'll have to be using the App for 14 days prior to boarding the flight. You want to go the cinema or see a concert and be in close proximity to others ............... same story

Can you see where this is heading FN? And I don't have a problem with it, I reckon given the gravity of the situation, the people who don't use the App are just new age anti-vaxxers.

What's the alternative? Not jump on a plane to Melbourne? Not want to go to a cinema or concert?

Its hardly a big deal and not a hard choice. If you want to opt out of those, you can. People are carrying on like their information is important to someone. Most people are boring and no one would care about their visits to the shops.

I am a bit surprised to be honest how many people think that they are so important that they have information that is important to someone.

People who are otherwise intelligent will be telling themselves "there are no cases around here, so there is no need for me to bother", which is clearly missing the point.

Yeah FN, the alternative may be that ONLY app users may end up being able to gain access to large gatherings where they can be made secure (like concerts, club facilities, aeroplanes, cruise ships etc) as this may end up being the only way that a service provider can show that they have attempted to protect their patrons from a known virus.

My app seems to be draining my battery a bit

Are you sure it's not from live streaming church services Tony?

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TonyAbbott said..
My app seems to be draining my battery a bit

how far are you from a charger? my house has a few, as does my car... where have you been going?

They should just mandatory chip us all and be done with it.

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petermac33 said..
They should just mandatory chip us all and be done with it.

I still think they should throw anti-vaxxers at the virus and see if vaccines really work, or more likely if the lack of vaccines causes deaths in people that are not vaccinated.

Pretty funny the people who are up in arms about this app, that happily use Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Tik Tok, Google search, gmail, google maps etc.

Have any of you ever actually read the Facebook Messenger user agreement? Originally , it give Facebook permission to use virtually everything on your phone - the camera and the microphone at any time, whether you were using messenger at the time. Plus it could scan your texts, know your location. If you were really concerned about your privacy you wouldn't be using these apps, and you wouldn't be too concerned about an app that simply stores anonymised tokens for phones that are in its proximity for longer that a specified period of time.

I can understand that if you were a drug dealer you might be a bit paranoid about this app, but for everyone else, naah

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FormulaNova said..

TonyAbbott said..
My app seems to be draining my battery a bit

how far are you from a charger? my house has a few, as does my car... where have you been going?

Hillsong does not have many phone chargers

Maybe I can get a government grant to fix that, for covid safety reasons

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TonyAbbott said..

FormulaNova said..

TonyAbbott said..
My app seems to be draining my battery a bit

how far are you from a charger? my house has a few, as does my car... where have you been going?

Hillsong does not have many phone chargers

Maybe I can get a government grant to fix that, for covid safety reasons

The government will go through a rigorous application process to ensure that your request for a grant has been considered equitably. As a result, you will find that it has been pre-approved for last month, and they are due to install the USB connections tomorrow.

So I've read that it's useless on the iPhone because apple stop apps from using Bluetooth while running in the background. This means it only works when you've got it open looking at it!

Considering probably half the population have iPhones, it's a pretty major problem.

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stoff said..
So I've read that it's useless on the iPhone because apple stop apps from using Bluetooth while running in the background. This means it only works when you've got it open looking at it!

Considering probably half the population have iPhones, it's a pretty major problem.

Apple doesn't keep all apps from running in the background, just the vast majority of them. So an app that is designed to take a VOIP call such as WhatsApp is kept alive in the background so that it can pick up incoming calls.

Normally Apple severely restricts what can run in the background and what services an app can access as it can affect battery life, but it is within their power to allow an app to do so. Whether or not they have in this case I don't know, but it is one reason that the contact tracking app that Apple has in development will work properly, they will have all the access to the phone's resources that they need.

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stoff said..
So I've read that it's useless on the iPhone because apple stop apps from using Bluetooth while running in the background. This means it only works when you've got it open looking at it!

Considering probably half the population have iPhones, it's a pretty major problem.

Is this another case of Dumb F#$kery being spread on social media. I looked on the Gov web site dated 1st May and it say the App runs in the background.

www.health.gov.au/resources/apps-and-tools/covidsafe-app/covidsafe-help

My iPhone consistently gets messages from the app to please ensure my Bluetooth is on to work .... but it is on.