When Hamas attacked Israel on the 7th of October I knew this was going to be big. I knew Gaza was going to be flattened in the fight against Hamas. This has been a long time coming, Israeli intelligence was aware of the Gaza tunnels and the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. The Israeli military was caught unaware on the 7th of October 2023 and was humiliated by the sheer scale of the attack.

But why does Israel need to win this conflict? Really, Israel cannot afford to lose any conflict otherwise they face annihilation, but why is this more important? There was no way Israel was ever going to let Hamas get away with this attack on its sovereignty. We all know Iran is behind this conflict, their ideology has infected other nations and enslaved their populations.

So why is this important? This action is funded and coordinated by Tehran, they are funding and supplying Hamas with weapons, they are funding and supplying Hezbollah, and they support the Houthis as well. There are minimal water pipes in Gaza, they have been dug up to use as short-range missile casings.

All the construction funding was spent on tunnels and military infrastructure. We know tunnels are connected to hospitals, schools and mosques. The IDF has to eradicate the fighters in these tunnels, they will eventually flood these tunnels once the last hostages are recovered and fill them in. There will be no Palestinian state until this terrorist infrastructure is dismantled, why would Israel pull out now so the infrastructure can be resurrected and used to attack Israel again?

The Hamas leadership lived in Qatar and not in Gaza, that is pretty much right. This tells you something, they do not want to live with the same restrictions as the Palestinian people. Despite the pain they bring on the people of Gaza, they seem to be living well with their families. So I need to get up on the leadership of Hamas as coming from Australia, we are far away from all this fighting and I need to learn who is the real upper leadership of Hamas.

Ismail Haniyeh was the leader of Hamas, previously imprisoned by Israel in 1989 after a Palestinian uprising, After three years in prison, he was exiled to an area known as no-man’s land between Lebanon and Israel. What I have learnt about the leadership of Hamas is their hatred of Israel, they want the total annihilation of Israel and they are willing to sacrifice the lives of the Palestinians living in Gaza to achieve their means.

So when Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July 2024, this was no loss to anyone. Whilst Hamas blames an Israeli airstrike on his apartment, this claim is not proven. An explosive device may have been smuggled in and set in his guest room and detonated when they knew he was in the apartment is a likely scenario. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran claim Haniyeh was assassinated by a projectile fired from a short range launcher, what is known is Haniyeh is no longer the leader of Hamas

They are collateral damage to them, their lives mean so little to them. Instead of using the Iranian and other Islamic funding to build Gaza into a great city, instead they built tunnels, constructed fortifications and stockpiled weapons to attack Israel. The October 7 attacks left Israel no options, they were forced into battle to rescue their hostages, this left Israel with no option.

The liberation of Gaza and the rescue of the remaining hostages has not occurred yet, so Hamas will delay handing over the final hostages because they know when that happens, they lose their leverage and lose their control. They are happy to fight to the last Palestinian, the longer they hang on, the more they believe they are winning.

I had never heard of the term sovereign citizen until I watched a Four Corners episode I saved on YouTube on Monday night. They are investigative reporters on the long-running documentary television show on Australia’s leading investigative journalism tv show.

These conspiracy theorists who believe they are not bound by the laws of the country. They are setting up their own courts, and have sheriffs who are supposed to enforce rulings. Their courts have convicted a Prime Minister, sentenced state Premiers, and ruled on other cases, none are enforceable though so I really miss the point, seems like play time to me.

So when I switched on the six o’clock news on Tuesday and learned that two police officers had been shot and killed by a so-called sovereign citizen in country Victoria, I was a little shocked. The accused, Dezi Freeman, was still on the run at time of writing. Clearly the guy is a nutter, he launched a private prosecution of former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews he accused of treason. These anti-vaxxers have anti-police tendencies, clog up local courts with vexatious claims and trivial matters.

From the internet age, we see right-wing radical movements that have gained popularity worldwide being imported to Australia. They refuse to licence vehicles, pay insurance, hold valid driver’s licences, fines and other societal requirements. Then there are the firearms, the police executing a firearms prohibition order when they were fired upon. From this warped ideology, we now have a number of dead and wounded police officers as a result of this idiot’s instability.

The Kerch Bridge has been hit again by Ukrainian forces, somehow those sneaky Ukrainians were able to infiltrate Russian defences and plant explosives against the pillars of the Kerch Bridge. Even better, it appears Ukraine hacked Russian CCTV to gain footage of the explosion.

Just following the successful Ukrainian raid on the Russian bomber fleet, those sneaky Ukrainians are at it again embarrassing the Russian military hierarchy. Better known as the The Security Service of Ukraine [SBU] now mostly conducts counter- espionage activities against intelligence services. The SBU has intercepted encrypted Russian phone calls and successfully targeted Russian generals and high ranking officials.

The SBU tracks down Russian spies, Russian collaborators and infiltrators and whilst has been successful lately, this was not always the case as the SBU had themselves been infiltrated by Russian agents. This was brought to light after the 2024 Russian invasion and occupation of Crimea; there were further embarrassments for the SBU in the following years. Since the 2022 Russian annexation of Crimea, the SBU has been better organised and functioning in an aggressive manner.

This time, ordnance was placed at the footings of the Crimean Bridge, according to reports approximately 1100 kg of explosives was placed at the underwater supports of the bridge. This occurred over a period of a couple of months and totally caught the Russians unaware. Whilst the explosion failed to take down the Kerch Bridge, it makes the Russians nervous and they will be worried about the next operation. I am waiting for the next SBU operation to be reported, you can be sure someing is currently being planned and implemented, we are just waiting for the plan to be executed.

My social life had been spanked, so here I was two years out of a relationship sitting by myself at a licenced restaurant on the waterfront sipping a Riesling waiting for my half dozen Thai oysters to come. The Riesling was not that great, but I am not complaining, more an observation of what was turning out to be a mediocre lifestyle. I had a rickety table that was fixed with a folded beer coaster, at least that was the easy part to rectify, the rest will be more difficult, but I reckon I am up for the challenge.

I had taken on a mortgage three years earlier on a three year fixed interest loan, my loan was about to mature in another four months, so I was saving hard to roll the mortgage over for another three years to align with my proposed retirement date. My plan was to pay half the mortgage off in three years leaving three years at the half mortgage. I had made some nice moves, I purchased the property just before the property boom and interest rate hikes.

I had timed my entry into the market perfectly, I had foreseen the interest rate hikes, I expected the rises into my second year, six months into my first year and the rises began – laughing. Then the property boom struck, the rises for townhouses I have noted are not progressive but jump on decade based data and this was the time. The former property owner actually sold for a loss, within a year I saw a 35% property price increase and 65% rent increase in three years.

So was my lack of social life worth it? I believe so, my lack of overseas travel hurts, but I can holiday at home. For my retirement planning, I have another fours of fulltime work, so the mortgage should be closed out with a year to spare and it is time to have fun again. My job is well paid, the people are some of the nastiest people you would ever have the misfortune to work with so I am maximising my time at the place that pays well in the city before I walk out with a sizable retirement benefit.

The property, despite the initial pain, will assist in my retirement plans living part time in the Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam. Yeah, I will be walking out half a year after I turn sixty, I have to work half a year to June 30 for the tax benefits, so that is fine as you are in countdown mode and start to sign out mentally. Yeah, I will be cherishing that time and I am looking forward to the next couple of years. So the boredom I am experiencing now should be returned in the next couple of years as long as I stay healthy.

What I have learned with more than two decades of employment in the state government is managers actually have less power than they think. Yet, this important fact doesn’t stop them abusing what power they do have. In people-centric organisations, the purpose of the department is to provide a service or product to the public utilising the knowledge and skills of the team, this is normally at a subsidised price.

What these managers fail to realise is they are not in business, yet they seem to think they are. They are a service provider and their role is to provide a service to the community using taxpayers funds – the taxpayer pays their inflated salaries. These inflated salaries do not attract the top talent either, I see lots of career bureaucrats. These managers have an obligation to utilise taxpayer funds in a manner that serves the public and to not enrich themselves or their cronies. This is not just an ethical obligation, this is written into the Public Sector Act – this is law.

Many managers treat this as an inconvenience instead exploiting their position to enrich their personal power base. This generally involves rewarding those who do not present a challenge to their authority, they will promote those who pose no threats to their dominance as they now owe their master their total loyalty. In private organisations, the emphasis is to identify the most motivated talent and develop these individuals to best harness their abilities to generate value for the business – this is sadly not the case in government organisations.

Liza Harvey destroyed the Liberal Party in Western Australia, Lisa was the former leader of the Liberal Party after two term Premier Colin Barnett lost the 2017 election. Liza was the Opposition Leader as the Liberal Party began their four-year term in opposition. Liza was interviewed on the news as leader of the opposition party, her job was to rebuild the Liberal Party after two terms in government.

During the covid pandemic, the then Premier of Western Australia did a pretty decent job of shutting the borders in Western Australia. The community intention was clear, they supported Mark McGowan in closing the borders and calling for lockdowns to keep covid out of Western Australia. This was a successful strategy, Western Australia was largely covid free. When covid did get in, the suppression of the virus transmission was crushed immediately and we did not get massive infections of vulnerable people.

The Austŕalian Labor Party won the 2021 election in a landslide, that was inevitable after Liza Harvey The Liberal Party were annihilated, left with just two seats in the Legislative Assembly. This was largely due to the efforts of Liza, a political party needed to read the community’s concerns, instead Liza wanted to open borders when the community clearly indicated otherwise.

What the Liberal Party needed to do was return to the levels of representation after the defeat of the two term Barnett government. That is a disaster, Liza was forced to resign the leadership and no one wanted to take over. This opened an opportunity for young hopeful Zac Kircup who lacked the prerequisite leadership abilities, the Liberal Party knew they were going to lose and he campaigned in a manner that only offered weakness and indecisiveness. Former leader Liza Harvey lost her seat and opposition leader Zac Kircup was also trundled out of parliament.

I was spending a rainy Sunday indoors, I could have gone out but was happy flicking through my computer. I had some Simon Sinek on YouTube when some workplace bullying videos appeared, one had a whiteboard behind with a list of points. The video really didn’t work through the list, so I thought I would work through the list.

1. Smear campaigns.
2. False accusations.
3. Sabotage.
4. Playing the victim.
5. Stonewalling.
6. Weaponising colleagues and superiors.
7. Scapegoating.

A smear campaign is a premeditated effort to undermine the credibility, reputation and character of the person being attacked. In my workplace, this involved staff leaking information [including misinformation] to damage the standing of the person targeted. This leaking caused irreparable damage to the individual, absolutely undermining his reputation in the workplace. If enough people in the group are leaking confidential information, then the people creating the misinformation campaign tend to have a degree of authority.

I have seen the devastating effects of false accusations levelled against an individual, this was a collaborative effort waged by an individual bequeathed a undeserved prime role, all he had to do to maintain that position was rat everyone out. He used that office and the authority bestowed in that role for self-preservation and self-indulgence.

The act of sabotage in a business setting undermines not only the targeted individual, it undermines the organisational in general. The management needs to display the required leadership to actually control the direction of the workplace, the management needs to use the authority they hold to ensure all staff are treated equally.

When it all goes wrong and the truth comes out, accusers can be expert at playing the victim. They present themselves as the ones falsely wronged and unfairly treated to elicit sympathy, to influence outcomes and to avoid accountability. Playing the victim is a form of learned helplessness, this is almost a comical performance when the situation has been turned and the individual finds themselves facing scrutiny for their actions.

Weaponising colleagues is an interesting proposition when discussing workplace bullying, this includes spreading false rumours to undermine the credibility competence in an attempt to get someone fired. Likewise, they create a toxic atmosphere that they control, this includes malicious gossip in an attempt to make individuals or a group of individuals resign.

Scapegoating is the act of blaming an individual for something bad that someone else did. There are four basic types of scapegoating, that is 1) axe grinding [grievance], 2) patsy [blamed], 3) framing [false implication] and 4) reckoning [avenging and punishing]. So when I identify the tactics used, it is easier to call out in the workplace and apply remedial actions.

In order to develop a diversified investment portfolio, fixed interest, namely in the form of bonds normally fulfills the diversification requirement. For most industry linked or managed superannuation portfolios, you would expect to see around 10% of asset allocation in government bonds.

The bond market isn’t as straightforward as many think, the bond market is large though and whilst I have learned about the bond market, I do not have the access to the market to purchase bonds. The advantage of bonds as a regular investment income generally providing greater investor certainty than share dividends with repayment of the initial investment on maturity. This is a low risk strategy to seek capital preservation, this is an excellent investment during turbulent times. 

If a manager is telling you, or a group of you, that his [or her] leadership team is providing you with leadership, then you need to think very hard about what you are being sold.

Firstly, if they feel the need to tell you they are providing you with this highly-questionable interpretation of leadership, then you need to question their interpretation. The first question I ask is, exactly what leadership model are you applying here? The responses are typically comical, I have never received an answer with a comprehensive model applied. They just cannot answer the question because they do not know, they know the term leadership is fashionable and that is about it.

Based on my experiences, these so-called [and self-promoted] leadership teams are nothing more than self-elected, self-indulgent and noticeably self-preservation groups. This is based on an application of cronyism and favouritism masquerading as teamwork but are really self-serving obstacles to productivity and efficiency. From what I have directly witnessed, this is a cohort of people engaged in self-promotion with the sole task of getting out of work. I see people in positions with measurable duties, these people are no longer frontline staff engaged in non-aligned activities related to their actual job description.