As many people in Australia are now technically becoming millionaires through residential housing ownership. Although they have an expensive asset, they cannot use that to generate an income unless they rent out rooms, this is something that most families do not wish to do and this is understandable. A millionaire in investable assets is the definition for me, this is difficult for most individuals and families as their income is poured into their mortgage.

Ok, so what is the difference? Well, I consider a net invested millionaire is a million dollars in investments that excludes the primary residence. This excludes liabilities such as vehicles, boats, motor bikes, jet ski, holiday homes, furniture, whitegoods, computer equipment, home entertainment, and other non-income producing belongings.

The depreciation on vehicles, whitegoods, computers and home entertainment technology is high, they just lose money and whilst they produce lifestyle experiences, they are not income producing. Absolutely we need these belongings, they provide recreation and lifestyle options that make life worthwhile. What is the benefit if someone stops working early and just sits around the house watching daytime television? There has to be lifestyle advantages here, taking a boat out fishing, diving, or out on the course golfing. Whatever you like to do, you should be doing it.

A million dollars in assets that develops an income stream and provides capital growth. An investment property differs as it produces an income stream and capital growth that an investor can live on should they retire [or semi-retire]. Commercial property can be held by individual investors and held in self managed superannuation funds. The problem we have now is there are caps on superannuation holdings, this may be better to be held in a family trust or company structure.

So absolutely this includes industry, private and self managed superannuation funds as they produce growth and an income for the fund holder for retirement. Yes, they must wait until they are 60 years old to access their retirement fund, this is an income producing asset though. This is the problem with superannuation though, you must wait until at least age 60 before you can access these funds.

Likewise, shares, bonds and precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum, private equity, hedge funds, exchange traded funds, and currencies. This could also include commodities that are traded on exchanges such as grains, livestock and meat, coffee, cocoa, frozen orange juice concentrate, oil, gas and forest products that can produce growth or rent.

I was fairly surprised when I learned that I was still able to purchase the Dunlop KT-26 running shoe from large discount retailers such as Big W and Target. Released in the 1970s, the KT-26 was the running/sports shoe that everyone wanted. I had the shoes as a teenager so there was a degree of nostalgia here.

I was informed by a work colleague on site where to purchase these runners, so I trundled off to the shops to purchase a couple of pairs. One pair was for sports that included running and cycling, the second pair was for casual attire around the camp and travel to and from site. The KT-26 sports shoe had plenty of features back then including a cushion sole with pretty decent grip. They had insoles to support the arches, that was unheard of back then.

I get annoyed at work when I hear the term from ex-military personnel talking about serving your country. If you commit to twenty years, this is a career and not service per se. If you were called up for national service, or the draft for Americans then you are serving your country; this is because you did not sign up voluntarily.

Many nations have compulsory military service, normally for a period of two years full-time with intermittent training for shorter periods thereafter. I understand many people sign up voluntarily for active service and get sent overseas to fight and there are many reasons for that. After 9/11, Americans signed up in droves because their country was attacked. I suggest this is significantly different to joining the military in Australia because the Americans knew they were to be sent overseas to fight in Afghanistan and later Iraq. 

I work with a bunch of ex-army guys who have done their twenty years and are now eligible for a military pension. They made a conscious decision to join the military and to stay for twenty years collecting their pension when their time was completed. I attended a less than academically orientated high school with a cadet corps attached, I like others attended cadet training with many of my class mates moving into the army.

This was in the mid to late 1980s with Australia slowly recovering from the 1982/83 recession. Youth unemployment was high and there wasn’t many opportunities available to school leavers. I was lucky enough to gain an apprenticeship, many were not as lucky as me and many of my school mates signed up to four years army duty because they were getting paid.

Reading a Greg Sheridan article, I will lift a line from his writing. “The battle of ideas should be ferocious, the battle of people should be civil and decent and full of human regard.” To use a sporting parlance, play the ball and not the man. There are certain parameters that should be off limits, this is a member’s families and personal issues. When US president Donald Trump mocked a disabled person at a press conference, he should have been pulled aside and told to pull his head in by a member of his entourage. Instead, none of his team said anything and let him get away with it.

Ok, so what is Greg trying to say here? There is a basic left wing/right wing view of the political spectrum where the left-wing Australian Labor Party and the right-wing Liberal Party engage in ideological battles. Within the two major parties are factions that may be centralist, left-socialist and right-conservative within each party. Both major parties form coalitions with minor parties to form government or opposition alliances in parliament. We have learned through multiple elections, the party that strays either too far left, or too far right from the centralist ideals pays with a heavy loss.

I believe we need to have a robust political debate free from personal attacks and/or character assassination. The discussion needs to centre on facts, not individuals. Even if you follow a certain political party, an individual might not agree with all of their policies, or you may agree with the policies of a rival paty. Lets face it, the political party you align personal values to owes you nothing, you really should vote based on the policy that party puts forward during the election campaign.

I suggest the political divide should be a battle of ideas on a variety of issues, both major parties have their strengths and weaknesses as well as perceived strengths and weaknesses in their ideology. There should be civil debate in parliament, individuals should not attack the individual and instead debate their respective policies. All too often, this breaks down and we witness a slanging match on television or radio where politicians act like teenagers arguing. The discussion needs to stay on point and never get personal, it rarely does though and they should be held accountable.

Watching climate activist Greta Thunberg carry on in front of the camera was laughable. The attempt to bypass the Israeli blockade of Gaza is embarrassing, naturally Israel will have a naval blockade, it would be absolutely negligent of them to allow Hamas to be replenished and rearmed by naval means.

Dubbed the selfie cruise, Greta and her activest friends only had a minimal load of aid, this was a publicity cruise knowing full well they would be stopped, boarded and brought to Israel. What Greta and her friends had hoped to achieve was worldwide outrage as the ship was boarded by Israeli commandos.

Instead, Greta and crew were brought to Israel, processed and deported. Greta was offered the opportunity to view the footage of the Hamas terrorists storming the border on October 7, killing people, engaging in rape, torture and murder she instead declined to watch the bodycam footage of captured and killed terrorists. Why see the truth about the terrorists she idolises?

So, whilst Greta claimed to be a hostage of Israel, they deported her, put her on a flight back to Europe and sat her in front of the toilet. Given Greta’s views on airline travel and climate activism, this was the ultimate insult, how dare they…Then to further play up for the cameras, Greta held her arms behind her back as she disembarked the flight in order to deceive the media to lead them to report that she was handcuffed. This was a fabrication, Greta knows how to manipulate the media, that much is clear.

We all know Donald Trump has no strategy, no consistency and no direction. Trump went from telling Volodymyr Zelensky he had no cards, to he could win the war and claim all the territory back and back to having to cede territory to Russia. Trump’s lack of vision and haphazard approach leads to reactive efforts and a lack of cohesion. Imagine actually having to work in the Trump Administration, he changes his mind frequently and has no actual policy, it would be exhausting.

So now that Donald Trump has had a phone call with Vladimir Putin, the White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky was never going to go well. Trump typically changes his tune based on who he spoke to last, so even though Zelensky met with Trump in Washington, a two hour phone call and chance of a meeting with Putin in Budapest has Trump salivating again. Trump wants to use the Presidency for personal enhancement again, to be the centre of the negotiations whilst lacking genuine negotiating abilities.

Putin has been making Trump look stupid, we finally started to see Trump working this out, Trump was getting played. Now Putin wants to have another meeting with Trump, so his fragile ego wants to be massaged on the world stage in a highly promoted meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. So the Europeans will need to go on another charm offensive to get Trump back on track, clearly he has a limited intellect and a short attention span. Trump went from Ukraine winning territory back and getting Tomahawk missiles to freezing the invasion where it is, cede territory and Russia gaining control of the Donbas region.

Whilst still a little subjective, a high net worth individual [HNWI] in Australia is typically defined as someone with total [net] assets of greater than $5,000,000 AUD. This could include investable assets that are greater than $2,000,000 AUD that excludes the family home [primary residence]. A global report by real estate consultancy Frank Knight states $1,000,000 USD [$1,555,000 AUD] net worth, but to get into the top 1% of high net worth Australians requires about $7,500,000 AUD.

This then begs the question, since the median house price is around $1,000,000 AUD in Australia, there are plenty of millionaires in Australia. When we get to net assets, most home loans are around 30 years, so most families pay off the family home close to age 60. This then gives the average family five to seven years to build some superannuation based on the projected retirement age. Yes, these families have assets under their control exceeding $1,000,000, their net worth is significantly less.

For a comfortable retirement, the average Australian, or Australian couple generally use their superannuation that is supplemented with the age pension. That means Australians need to wait until they are 67 before they can retire, that hurts. We have many people that have purchased rental properties [or multiple rental properties], have share accounts, crypto currency accounts, bonds and fixed interest investments. Then we have business owners [including farmers] who have sizable assets and corporate high flyers with high disposable incomes who have investment accounts that tend to hold assets.

Age Balance
25 $26,000
30 $66,500
35 $111,500
40 $168,000
45 $226,000
50 $296,000
55 $377,000
60 $469,000
65 $571,000

So for many, their superannuation is their second largest asset behind the family home. With the superannuation levy increasing to 12%, this will really be important in the future for families as younger Australians have the ability to save higher balances earlier. Baby boomers were pretty much without superannuation in their early work years. Likewise, Gen X began working with no superannuation and then began with lower contributions starting at 3%, moving to 6% then to 9% for most of their working life.

Here is a great song way back from 1980, we loved that song as it had a catchy tune and excellent film clip. I was 11 back when that song came out, I did not know the real meaning of the song until much later in life – much later.

I was working in a dive centre in about 2004, we had a large Japanese clientele and this song was normally played between dives. It was one of the boat surface interval songs, our Japanese clients loved it, the catchy tune and they could all make out the words of “I think I am turning Japanese, I really think so” and were all happy.

As the dive instructor on the boat, I have my group of dive students and one of the women asked me, do you know the meaning of the song? I had to say I did not, she told me to carefully listen to the words and explained to me it was about masturbation. As she pointed out the lines as the song played, it totally dawned on me, she was absolutely right. So after 24 years, she set me straight, this quirky song had a hidden meaning and I was oblivious to it all this time.

So I deal with some pretty incorrigible family members. They are the cousins of my father and have a long history of being arseholes. Held in contempt within the family, the anti-Chris and Rosemongrel display not only display highly narcissistic tendencies, they are self-centred. They frequently act with psychic irrelevance to other family members – not just us.

These are the names they are known as throughout the family. Without giving too many family secrets away, their surname might not be right, and their behaviour is anything but right. They have a reputation of poor behaviour within the family. We are talking about actions leading to legal action here, legal action they have previously lost.

I would rather not use the term bullying, but this is becoming a common term now. I don’t like the term bullying as we are adults, they gang up and use standover tactics. They gang up on individuals and steamroll them, it isn’t pretty. They are used to people folding under the intense pressure they inflict, they have no remorse and have no principles and ethics – they are just horrible people.

What they are not used to is people standing up to them. So I have come in to turn this situation around, they just don’t know what to do now. They don’t work, their trust fund has pretty much supported them their whole life. Their father was a brilliant businessman, his nous never rubbed off on them, they certainly never learnt leadership skills.

This was not the result Fremantle wanted, their form had fallen off late in the season and they were losing games they should have been winning. Sure, they had injuries but every team has injuries deep into the season, this is a tight competition and even a slight dip in form is the difference between winning and losing.

Lining up in the midfield was Geelong’s Patrick Dangerfield and Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe, both veterans, both outstanding players and both nearing the end of their respective careers. In a head-to-head battle down in Adelaide back in 2015, Fyfe went head to head with Dangerfield. That time, the Fremantle Dockers were victorious against a very good Adelaide Crows outfit by 11 points. Nat Fyfe came away with three Brownlow votes and Patrick Dangerfield was awarded two votes. We all witnessed a football spectacle where the best two players lined up on each other and played an attacking brand of football.

This time around, Patrick Dangerfield was playing for Geelong and Fyfe was still at Fremantle. Dangerfield transferred from Adelaide at the end of the 2015 season and is now the captain of Geelong since 2023. Fyfe has had a brilliant career with two Brownlow medals and Dangerfield winning the Brownlow medal in 2016. Patrick Dangerfield was a member of the Geelong premiership team of 2022 and has 8 All-Australian team selections. This was not a head-to-head clash like in 2015 where Fyfe v Dangerfield were left to play attacking football, it was a good game nonetheless.

Fyfe finished with 17 disposals with 6 kicks and 11 handballs, with no marks and no handballs. Dangerfield was better with 20 disposals consisting of 16 kicks, 4 handballs, 3 marks and 3 tackles. Dangerfield scored a goal and two behinds, so whilst they did not go head-to-head like in 2015, they did spend some limited time on each other. Patrick Dangerfield at 34 years old had a big impact on the game and was ultimately the difference between the teams. Even with Dangerfield missing a goal from a goal square brain fade where Patrick tried to kick the ball from the ground instead of gathering it up, he had an outstanding game and apart from a laugh, this was a brilliant game.