If it was me, I would go in, dressed smart casual, be on time, polite, own up to the issue, say sorry I forgot to get it renewed and I hadn’t realized it needed doing, inform the judge of any mitigating circumstances that might have distracted you and ask that because it’s your first offence if they could be lenient as there were no other aggravating factors (speeding, drunk, crashed car with injuries rtc).

Was the car or truck in pretty good condition ?. It’s what I’d try if all indications are you are an otherwise legal and safe driver. I’m not asking for you to answer to me, but they seem relevant to a judge. I hope things work out ok for you.

The only other thing I could think of is if someone could be a character witness but the court might not want to hear them.

Maybe you have a good reason to ask for the fine to be waived if you have sick kids etc, or have been saving for a worthwhile cause and this would be a major setback or a penalty like losing your license would make you unable to work or look after kids.

If you are pleasant and don’t make things harder then they might have discretion to adjust the penalty and decide to do so. But the law might also be written so the judge has no say in the penalty or a minimum penalty is required.

I know of some drivers over here if they have an established safe driving record they can write and ask for a speeding fine to be reviewed and possibly waived (if it was just a few kms over, cant see it work gor 30km/h+ over).

I think there’s also been a few cases where people who would otherwise have their license suspended over here get an exemption for work etc.

It wouldn’t be all I’d eat, but lamingtons for dessert would be nice.

Lamingtons: a cake cut into cubes and coated with chocolate sauce and then coated with coconut. May be sliced in half to be joined by a later of cream.

Thank you.

You have a point of merging the Senate into the House.

I’m a fan of Australia’s federal voting system. We have a house of Representatives where the country is divided into 151 regions by geography of roughly the same number of people. One in Sydney is a few suburbs, the one in the south of northern Territory is almost the whole territory excluding Darwin.

Then there’s the Senate, where each State gets to elect twelve(six every 3 years[1]) Senators. Territories (Australian Capital Territory & Northern Territory) elect Two Sentors every election.

Everyone in the state gets a say in who represents them as Senators and allows minor parties to get representation as only 16% of the total vote is needed to get a seat. (The Greens typically get 1-2 of seats in each State)

So for areas with geographic issues get to have a say (rural people vote for the National party who represent farmers interest).

And there’s the occasional independent who gets in too and some other minor parties.

The other major difference is we have optional fully preferential voting. You can nominate anyone running in your seat as your first preference on voting day and you give everyone on your ballot a number from 1 to however many. When the Australian Electoral Comission counts the votes if the person you put first is eliminated from the count (they only get 175 votes from the 110,000 who cast a ballot), then your voting slip still counts and your vote transfers to your second choice.

Also we have compulsory* voting here. If you are enrolled, you are required to vote and will get a small fine if you don’t. *You might think all politicians are bastards and cast an unfilled ballot paper into the box, but you have had your ability to have a say. I’ll also note that people may take the time in the polling booth to draw a penis on their slip which isn’t illegal and doesn’t invalidate the vote a long as the intention for who is being voted for is clear. There are also prepoll stations and an option to postal vote exists.

We also have a tradition of voters getting a “Democracy Sausage” after voting. It’s common that voting stations (elections held on Saturdays) are schools and local clubs have barbecues and sell cakes etc as part of fundraising.

In summary, I like out two house system as the Senate allows minor parties to get representation where they wouldn’t otherwise if we just had the House of Representatives. [1] we sometimes have double disillusion elections where the government has the options to call one if they keep passing legislation in the house and the Senate keeps rejecting it and in that case all seats are vacated and the states elect 12 Senators, but it’s not normal.

Ive put a few to birding before , they’ve helped when i didn’t know what some birds were. I think i’ll go there first.

I saw a few that walk. I took a step down to get the photo and was reluctant to step closer as it appeared to be getting its back up and looking for a fight. I wasn’t going to press the issue as i just saw a baby water dragons close by.

Yeah I think Lemmy is still in the early stages and hope people are open to bending some rules. I have a photo os some Tawny Frogmouths that I might ask to post to Superbowl even though they’re not owls.

Thanks, i just cross posted it there. I checked their rules and they do have some exceptions. I dont know whether the Water Dragons are considered lizards, and im not an expert but i have posted several images to birding after someone else suggested there too.

The Landlady was also a niece (or daughter?) In The mand with a golden gun and she fought outside the dojo as bond was escaping.

Well, Cardboards out for one. And cardboard derivatives.

This inspired me to do some photoshopping.

I would use it as a network attached storage / media player running Linux.

It doesn’t have to be always on, and having copies of photos or important documents would give peace of mind.

Debian, Ubuntu and the raspberry pi os (they have an installer for normal computers, not just pi’s) would be distributions I’d consider with the pi os at the top of the list.

This comic was posted on Lemmy recently.