John McRae

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

Technically true.. no red button. But you don't need one when the jet is on a digital leash. 80 Sqn might write our mission data, but they do it in a lab on U.S. soil. If the U.S. can tear up an FTA for leverage, they can just as easily pause the ODIN server handshakes. ​If we fly a mission the U.S. opposes or get on the wrong side of Trump, they don't need to fly to Williamtown. They just pause the automated "Priority 1" parts from the global pool. High-intensity ops would ground the fleet in weeks. ​This is why the NBN spend despite the mismanagement is justified. It’s the difference between a subscription air force and a sovereign network. If you don't own the data pipes and the source code, you're just a high tech vassal. No data, no parts, no fly.

@johnvadr @bluewavedream There is no "Killswitch" in the f35's I don't know where you're getting your information from

Albanese Government spends $3.8 billion dollars to connect 622,000 homes to NBN. A Starlink set up for the same number of homes is $12 million. The Albanese Government is as stupid as it gets.

Today is the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. There is no place for racism, hate or Islamophobia in Australia. Not today. Not ever.

@MrRexPatrick @JEChalmers Sth Korea has already triggered it's emergency response. Rationing more than likely.

We currently have 25/26 days of diesel/petrol stockpiles purchased pre-conflict. Prices should not go up immediately. @JEChalmers should issue the ACCC a direction under s95ZE of the Competition & Consumers Act to monitor fuel industry pricing. 1/2 #auspol abc.net.au/news/2026-03-0…

@ajthompson13 She's not welcome. Think she forgets she locked out 150k kiwis living in Sydney at the time including pensioners. She also blamed NSW as the source. Hope your well.

Jacinda Ardern & her family are but one of tens of thousands of families that have fled the largely foreign owned NZ economy which keeps falling in the list of developed countries GDP per capita 37th (Australia 21st) 670,000 NZ born people now live in Australia 🇦🇺

I wonder how many major party strategists remember their Plato? 🏛️ The Republic warns that when a "protector" [Labor] stifles free speech, and "oligarchs" [Liberals] prioritise LNG & special interests over the people, the "stung" masses look for a new champion. 30% primary. The decay is right on schedule. 📉🇦🇺 The only cure? A foundational return to secular, equal justice for all—not just the "sacred" or the "corporate" few. ⚖️

🚨 NEW: NSW (state) voting intention 🟧 ONP: 30% (+28) 🟥 ALP: 25% (-12) 🟦 L/NP: 19% (-16) 🟩 GRN: 12.5% (+2.5) ⬜️ IND: 11% (+2) ⬛️ OTH: 2.5% (-4.5) Roy Morgan | 16-19 Feb | n=2108 | +/- 2023 election

I disagree on the ‘exploitation’ angle. My family research into the George Green deeds and NSW/NZ archives shows a different reality: Ngāi Tahu were highly entrepreneuria but they were deals of necessity where land was traded strategically to fund the maritime and defense needs of the South. I don't believe for a second the value of land was unknown—that was just a Crown argument used to squash deals like Green's so they could take the land from Māori themselves, then flipped to suit a counter narrative. When George Green landed in 1838, he dealt directly with these leaders. My ancestor Kahuti and his daughter Motoitoi (who married Driver) were part of this world where both sides agreed to their terms. The fact that my ancestor Richard Driver's crew were attacked for trespassing when he landed in 1839 proves that land boundaries were fiercely understood and enforced. The chiefs weren’t 'tricked'; savvy leaders like Tūhawaiki and Tōpi Pātuki sailed to Sydney in 1838 to deal as sovereign equals. They sold millions of acres to fund an 'investment' in arms—money reinvested into muskets, gunpowder, and even uniforms for Tūhawaiki's 20-man bodyguard. This provided the deterrence needed to halt northern incursions, proven by retaliatory expeditions like the one at Tuturau. The Waitangi Tribunal’s BG paper touches on these sales, but the original deeds tell a story the Treaty docs miss: a direct alliance the Crown only ‘struck down’ through the Land Claims Ordinance 1841 to establish a resale monopoly. In my family's case, the George Green Land Claims Settlement Act 1870 was the final tool used to officially extinguish those independent alliances and fold them into the Crown's singular legal system. I am proud of both sides of this history—the entrepreneurial pioneers and the strategic iwi leaders. I don't disagree for a minute that wrongs should be righted, but if a line is not drawn, it will never end. While I believe the Treaty should be honoured, it needs to be closed off once settlements are reached. I doubt many elders would agree with my interpretation, but deep family research tells a story the official documents often miss but the documents exist when you connect the threads. It’s personal for me, as the Green and Driver/Motoitoi lines eventually married, uniting both sides of these deals in my own tree, they were allies and became whānau.

@johnvadr @Ewenr Indeed I have the maps The Tribunal agrees Māori leaders acted knowingly and strategically The disagreement is over whether the Crown’s intervention was protective necessity or opportunistic expropriation

92% of Maori land was sold legally. 4% was taken for Maori starting a war.

Land was purchased pre treaty as well and the crown struck down deals that costs both sides post treaty. I've been enjoying researching the deals done by George Green and Hone Tūhawaiki’s in the Sth Island between 1838-40. the deeds identify other consenting chiefs who were instrumental in these deals, including Toby Patrick (Tōpi Pātuki), Auroa, John White, and Tyros. This group of leaders represented the collective authority of the southern iwi at the peak of their commercial engagement with European shipbuilders, golden pioneers, sealers and whalers. The chiefs signed the deals in Sydney in 1838. Pity they didn't stand my family own most the South island and one stage. Georges grand son married into Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Māmoe once he put roots down in NZ. Tūhawaiki’s and George stood by there deals it was the crown that spoiled the deals. Post treaty the screwed both sides.

@Ewenr The sales contracts promised schools, hospitals, retention of one tenth for Maori ownership, areas set aside for fishing, foodgathering So they sold cheaply Then the Crown reneged on all the promises

@KobieThatcher Actually, the "forefathers" would have not been surprised, many Muslim Lascars crewed the very ships that founded Sydney and Australia. Furthermore, Macassan Muslims had already been trading with Indigenous Australians for over a century before the First Fleet arrived.

Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺 Imagine what our nation's forefathers would think if they could see Hyde Park today. Foreigners treating our oldest public park like an open-air mosque.

@PhidMcAwesome Good son, great father. :)

Thankful for the decision to move back to Aotearoa today. Dad was rushed to hospital yesterday afternoon, so hoofed it to Taranaki to be here for him and mum. This was the whole point

@CollinRugg Legend

NEW: 13-year-old Australian boy swims for four hours in cold and dangerous waters to save his mom and siblings who were swept into the ocean, says God is who got him to shore. The family was on kayaks & paddleboards when they were swept about 2.5 miles out to sea. After a conversation with his mother, Austin Appelbee decided he would swim back to shore to find help. Appelbee says he prayed throughout the four-hour swim and told God he would get baptized if he made it out alive. "I don't think it was actually me [swimming]... It was God the whole time. I kept on praying, kept on praying. I said to God, 'I'll get baptized.'" "The waves are massive, and I have no life jacket on… I just kept thinking 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming,'" he said. "And then I finally made it to shore, and I hit the bottom of the beach, and I just collapsed." Appelbee says when he got to shore, he had to sprint for about a mile to find help. According to AP, the family drifted 9 miles from Quindalup and spent 10 hours in the water. When he reached the shore, Appelbee alerted authorities, who then sent out a helicopter to find his mom, 12-year-old brother, and 8-year-old sister. Austin's mother, Joanne Appelbee, said one of the hardest decisions of her life was sending her son to shore. "One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was to say to Austin: 'Try and get to shore and get some help. This could get really serious really quickly,'" she said. What a remarkable kid. Video: 7 News.

@sussanley Address LNG prices and we will stop importing inflation, govt wont need to hire so many unproductive roles.

Labor’s inflationary spending is leaving Australians behind. Home ownership feels unachievable, bills are rising, and many of us are forced to work harder just to get by. We must create an Australia that rewards hard work, lowers inflation, and empowers its citizens. That’s the Australia I’m working to build.

Government spending is only half the story. The bigger difference is energy, Australia imports LNG-linked gas pricing into electricity, keeping power bills and CPI sticky. That forces the Reserve Bank of Australia to stay tighter than peers. You can’t explain Australia’s outlier rates without energy policy. Australia needs to treat energy like national security. Our emergency fuel reserves are a recipe for disaster.

We are the only developed economy where interest rates are rising. Recent rate moves by central banks: 🇺🇸 US ⬇️ ⬇️ 🇬🇧 UK ⬇️ ⬇️ 🇪🇺 Eurozone ⬇️ ⬇️ 🇨🇦 Canada ⬇️ ⬇️ 🇳🇿 NZ ⬇️ ⬇️ 🇸🇪 Sweden ⬇️ ⬇️ 🇨🇭 Switzerland ⬇️ ⬇️ ‼️ 🇦🇺 Australia ⬆️ Why? Out-of-control government spending.

Happy Australia Day. Respect to my forebears, and to the Traditional Custodians of the land, past and present, in New South Wales and the South Island of New Zealand, including my Ngāi Tahu whakapapa. From the Second Fleet Neptune (1790) and Third Fleet Britannia (1791), to early NSW↔NZ trade and settlement — including intermarriage with Ngāi Tahu when New Zealand was still administered from New South Wales, prior to the Treaty of Waitangi (1840). The family line includes convicts and soldiers of the New South Wales Corps (later the 102nd Regiment), whalers, traders, moonshiners, land grants and purchases, Native Land Court battles, coups and insurrections — and the brutal frontier realities of early colonial life, including the Hawkesbury–Nepean Wars (1795–1816), where First Nations peoples fiercely resisted dispossession and defended their land. On the New Zealand side, frontier lives intersected early: Richard Driver, Otago Harbour’s first pilot and a stranded whaler, married Motoitoi, daughter of Kāi Tahu chief Kahuti, and later piloted my Highland family line into Otago — alongside the wider Sydney Green/Bates story. Worlds meeting at the edge of the known world. These were hard and often brutal times. As golden pioneers, they showed real fortitude on real frontiers — and, despite everything, welcomed new settlers from all corners of the world and many faiths, seeking a new life. 235 years on, the family loop carries on — back and forth across the Tasman, generation after generation. Happy Australia Day.

Education is the primary nation-building tool, yet Australia funds faith-based schooling that entrenches identity silos and then expects unity to appear at 18 , it's division by design. It’s so distorted that parents “convert” on paper just to get into a good school, and kids can reach adulthood with minimal real exposure to each other. Politicians reach for easy “tough” fixes that erode civil liberties, but if we want a stable multicultural society we need one law for all, a properly funded public system, and a phased end to faith school subsidies and religious tax privilege.. rebuilding unity where it forms: a shared, secular civic education core for every child.

'Bondi attack shows why we should rewrite immigration policy, not civil liberties' afr.com/politics/feder…

@AlboMP Your actions were heroic, selfless, and inspiring. A true Australian hero. Thank you also to our emergency services and the Sydneysiders who stepped up.

Ahmed, you are an Australian hero. You put yourself at risk to save others, running towards danger on Bondi Beach and disarming a terrorist. In the worst of times, we see the best of Australians. And that's exactly what we saw on Sunday night. On behalf of every Australian, I say thank you.

Government set to ban podcast equipment

Over 60 ban on Social Media in Australia. youtu.be/qrPM1WSGpIw?si…

@ausvstheagenda youtube.com/watch?v=ZxRB5q…

Nice. I don’t disagree with your position, and the esafety commissioner is definitely overstepping, but the irony is obvious. The United States has spent decades asserting global jurisdiction over foreign companies just because they are reachable online. It’s rare to sign any serious agreement without FTC, OFAC, SEC, CLOUD Act considerations, and their broader jurisdictional overreach baked in. But when Australia runs the same play the reply is, “Your laws don’t apply here.” It will be interesting to see who they choose to test enforcement against, because there is only so much they will spend chasing cases. And it will be interesting to see Trump push back against GDPR and the DSA, given he’s taken the gloves off with the EU now.

A client got their first letter from Australian eSafety. This was our reply. The US government was copied.