Subway : Ripoff

An Australian Subway business recently changed ownership.

Under the previous arrangement, with a discount card :

a six inch chicken fillet sub with a drink was worth $4.95 (acceptable)

under new management :

the same meal is worth $ 6.25 (NOT acceptable!!)

and increase of 26 %

RIP OFF !!!

There are MANY more classic examples how products have increased from 25 -50 % from one year to the next, BUT the government still insists that the rate of inflation is at 3-4%.

That's right, they also include the cost of a e.g. locomotive in this calculation.

A must have on ANYONES shopping list !!!

Fears solar rebate may be axed

A rebate for solar panels is proving so popular there are concerns it could be axed or cut back.

Households earning less than $100,000 qualify for an $8,000 rebate from the federal government if they install roof-top solar panels to generate electricity.

But an extraordinary surge in applications has led to Climate Change Minister Penny Wong refusing to guarantee the rebate has a future.

She won't even say if the rebate will be offered in three months' time.

The government is receiving 30 times as many applications for the rebate as it had budgeted for, a budget estimates hearing was told on Tuesday.

Cheaper panels, special deals and concern about climate change are seeing more than 1,000 applications lodged each week.

The government had only budgeted for 6,000 installations for the entire financial year.

In this year's budget, the government controversially decided to means-test the rebate to reduce demand.

Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham told Tuesday's hearing he was concerned the government would take further steps to restrict the rebate as the applications flooded in.

Ross Carter from the government's Renewable Energy Efficiency Division said the government would meet demand for now.

"Future support for the solar industry would be considered in the context of the national energy efficiency strategy, and the government's response to the (emissions trading) green paper," he told the hearing.

Senator Wong repeatedly batted away questions about how long the rebate would continue for.

She would not guarantee the rebate would still be in place in January, or for the full financial year.

Senator Birmingham said the hedging was concerning.

"It's irresponsible," he said.

"It is creating a lot of uncertainty in the (solar) industry."

He said there was a mad rush for solar panels because people were worried about the rebate's future.

Senator Birmingham said he feared the government would axe the rebate, reduce its value, or drop the income threshold for the means test.

Bureaucrats told the hearing they received just over 1,000 applications for the rebate each week, and about 200-300 installation reports.

They said there appeared to be a bottleneck, which could be caused by the industry - and the government - struggling to keep up with demand.

The average solar panel installation cost $14,600, not including the rebate, and is a relatively small 1.22 kilowatt system.

aap 21 Oct 2008

The rebate is a JOKE, as is the 1.22 kw system.

IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO POWER AN AVERAGE HOUSE.

see : http://corpau.blogspot.com/2008/08/solar-going-green-good-for-your-green.html

YET HEAPS OF PEOPLE BOUGHT IT.... JUST LIKE THE CRAPPY iphone !

Gold Coast police 'make up warrants'

Queensland Police officers have been accused of regularly using illegal search warrants to raid innocent people's homes.

The Seven Network on Monday reported that whistleblower detectives claimed officers on the Gold Coast regularly made up evidence to obtain warrants.

The subsequent raids were allegedly used to further the careers of senior management, the network claimed.

The detectives, who asked for their identities to remain secret, also claimed corruption watchdog the Crime and Misconduct Commission had failed to investigate numerous complaints about the alleged illegally obtained warrants.

One detective told the network that illegal warrants had been used in hundreds of raids on the Gold Coast in the last five years.

"This is a major corruption scandal," he told Seven News.

"Specific evidence is required for a search warrant application but on many occasions on the Gold Coast ... that information is simply made up."

He claimed officers routinely drove around public carparks to pick up random licence plate numbers to use in search warrant applications.

"It is done for the purpose of arrest figures and obtaining numbers of search warrants," he said.

Another officer accused senior management of organising "raid days" where warrants applications were "dumped" on officers desks.

"If you didn't have details for 25 warrants then you had to make up addresses and grounds for warrants," he told the network.

"It is a rat's nest. Really good police offices are being made to act illegally."

He claimed police used justices of the peace, who would not read the grounds before signing, to take out the warrants.

A third officer, a former Gold Coast detective, told the network that the "dodgy" warrants were generated to get "keep figures up".

"The grounds of the warrants would not be correct but basically everyone knew you had to meet monthly total of raids and warrants or you would never get a detective's appointment," he said.

"You had to get seven arrests a month to justify yourself. We would have raid days at least once a month were you would have to have warrants.

"Everyone did it. Everyone knew it was wrong but everyone knew you had to get the figures up," he said.

The network claimed the allegations had been referred to the Police Ethical Standards Command 18 months ago but the investigation by police was still unfinished.

aap 20 Oct 2008.