Yesterday I attended my Doctor for annual medical check to keep my driver's licence. (I passed).
During my time with Dr he advised me that the NSW Govt has indicated to him that he will now have to pay RMS to utilise the forms required to be filled in on-line. He was unaware of the cost as it was handled by the "Practice manager". There is now longer the option to fill in a paper version of the form.
Even if this "cost" is merely cents, it is an extra burden that must be borne by GP's that bulk bill.
Time for change of Government, methinks.
__________________
Possum; AKA:- Ali El-Aziz Mohamed Gundawiathan
Sent from my imperial66 typewriter using carrier pigeon, message sticks and smoke signals.
I would have thought the present government would be more sympathetic to saving Medicare than the opposition, as I was under the impression that opposition are more in favor of the American user pays type system which we seem to be heading towards with the lack of bulk billing surgeries. please correct me if i am mistaken
-- Edited by dogbox on Saturday 15th of February 2025 09:46:49 AM
Yes, it's an outrageous impost, and when the inevitable rebellion ensues, I'll be keeping a close eye on the new government as it immediately overturns this travesty.
__________________
"No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full."
Most cannot afford a house and have ridiculous rent prices to pay - many for a lifetime of "dead money".
Massive child care fees.
School fees, both public and private that are rising sharply.
Then there is the medical "crisis".
In my country town, it is a two month wait for a Dr's appointment at a surgery that has now closed it's books.
I am just lucky I have three highly skilled specialists, one a professor who monitor my blood results every month or so (used to be monthly, now every six to eight weeks).
Then the new generation have to adjust to the perils of Cryptocurrency and the looming spectre of A.I.
It was quite small. It had no carpets, no curtains, no air conditioning, only partly painted, no washing machine, second hand furniture, no garden, no outside paths,......
.... because we could not afford those things. They came later as we could afford them.
It was quite small. It had no carpets, no curtains, no air conditioning, only partly painted, no washing machine, second hand furniture, no garden, no outside paths,......
.... because we could not afford those things. They came later as we could afford them.
Cheers,
Peter
Absolutely Peter, nowdays they want to start off with everything we worked our buts off for.
It was quite small. It had no carpets, no curtains, no air conditioning, only partly painted, no washing machine, second hand furniture, no garden, no outside paths,......
.... because we could not afford those things. They came later as we could afford them.
Cheers,
Peter
similar story here we had to move out of the suburb we lived in an move to the outer suburbs (the sticks back then) just to be able to get the banks to lend us enough to get on the property ladder, worked 60 to 80 hours a week, one old car, then along came 14-15% interest rates, still managed to survive
Yep the same Peter & Margaret. Didn't even have a washing machine let alone a dryer. TV on HP. Empty lounge. Hubby built dining table and buffet and the kitchen table. Sat in bean bags. We had a house that was it. It was out in the sticks, no mail deliveries (mail box down on the corner) and a gravel road. Target hill Road in Salisbury Heights. We were happy with that.
-- Edited by msg on Saturday 15th of February 2025 01:08:51 PM
-- Edited by msg on Saturday 15th of February 2025 01:12:48 PM
Yes, back in those halcyon days it was much different to today's market. The cost of a house compared to an annual income was only a fraction of the same comparison in today's economic climate.
The population was about ten to twelve million less than todays and also housing was not a means of investment and capital growth as it has now become.
Two different scenarios that are not comparable. It was pretty easy to save a deposit of 10%, plenty of jobs, extra ones if you wanted one. Even though interest rates got a bit high the actual amount of the mortgage was nowhere near what they are today.
It has now become a case of either borrowing from the bank of mum and dad or waiting for them to shuffle off. Pretty sad really.
Yes, back in those halcyon days it was much different to today's market. The cost of a house compared to an annual income was only a fraction of the same comparison in today's economic climate.
The population was about ten to twelve million less than todays and also housing was not a means of investment and capital growth as it has now become.
Two different scenarios that are not comparable. It was pretty easy to save a deposit of 10%, plenty of jobs, extra ones if you wanted one. Even though interest rates got a bit high the actual amount of the mortgage was nowhere near what they are today.
It has now become a case of either borrowing from the bank of mum and dad or waiting for them to shuffle off. Pretty sad really.
sound like the excuses my grand kids keep telling me. all my kids managed to get into the property market but the grand kids do not seem to have any motivation to make the required sacrifices. i use to work long hours an the deposit was not that easy to come by
did we get off track or did we get off track from OP
It is not an excuse Dogbox. It is called reality. My first home cost me about $30K and I was earning about $20K per annum. I needed to save 3K and I had a mortgage of $27K over 25 years. My house was located on the coast about 100 kilometres from Sydney.
Today that same house would be worth more than 1 million. To be granted a loan one would need at least 40% of that and a household income of about $200K. Try saving the 40% whilst paying astronomical amounts of rent.
I know it is so nice and smug to whine about how tough we did things back in the day. I didn't have student debt. In those days the Government gave out scholarships to attend university and there were no fees to pay. Jobs were everywhere. I had two or three at any one time when I was a student. In fact, I was earning more per week when I was a student than for the first three years when I commenced full time work after graduating.
We had a very easy ride. These young people do it tough and mainly through the greed of our generation.
Wives income could not be used as household income either. We still had to be able to meet the repayments of no more than 40% of income.
Household income of $200k would not be unachievable today. Except, all the concreting, driveways all the interior furnishings are expected to be there and included in the loan. We did without all those extras rather than add them to the loan which is a common thing today. Perhaps there could be quite a lot of pruning done to the houses so the loans will not be so large.
The interest rates today are a steal. Oh, if only we had those types of rates back then.
Oh by the way, we never even considered travelling overseas. We had to wait until we were well in our 40's or retired. Today it's the done thing and seen as a right.
Greed? Not the ordinary person that's for sure. It is the same people we are struggling with now. Large national companies, international companies and overseas buyers outbidding everyone for housing.
I am so sick of this argument and getting blamed for all the ills.
dmax i would have considered you well off, my first house cost nearly 30k and i was earning <10k p/a, $274 per month repayments a big jump from the $160 per month rent. no first home owners grant , no stamp duty reprieve no nothing
Total tripe. I started on poor money and had saved my deposit within about two years. Interest rates on my mortgage went from 7.5% to about 12%. That was a a rise of about $20 per week. About the cost of four hamburgers at the time.
I travelled overseas in my first few years after graduating. This was financed from my part time jobs. I came back, started work and then saved the deposit. I was single and bought the house by myself.
Nothing like what these poor buggers are up against today. some people just look for extreme cases of wanting too much and then apply it to every young person.
They are a great generation. Heaps smarter than what ours ever was.
Going back to the original post, I thought I'd point out that if the RMS is imposing a fee then that is at the State Govt level.
I'm very surprised not to have seen anything in the media about the fee. Normally something like that would garner a lot of complaints from GPs and others affected.
According to Google AI there is no charge, NSW RMS no mention of a charge. Drivers license medical certificate is electronic unless the Dr can't access online, then a paper form will be sent. That would mean a new appointment.
Maybe the OP can verify at the RMS when he goes to renew his license?
I am renewing my drivers licence later this week.
A bit nervous, eyes and new glasses more than anything.
See how that goes.
On the housing issue. About 5 or 6 years ago I reckon the equation was around break even on the degree of hardship comparing our era to the present in terms of home ownership.
Mind you when comparing era's 's, it has bones in it.
A little like comparing Oranges to Apples.
I don't for the life of me understand why "foreign aliens" can own houses and property in Australia????
Next door to me sold recently, initially a $1 shelf company, Chinese owned was going to build high rise flats.
It took us about ten years to nip that ridiculous plan in the bud.
Brainless.
They didn't ever inspect the site. There was a lot of that going on in Parramatta, Bankstown etc and just overseas investor madness with no respect for the Aussie way of life.
It has recently been bought by other imports now, they are planning a similar, out dancing with the pixies scheme.
Now all the other neighbours and I have to deal with this new scheme that would be doomed to financial failure in a small country town.
When one looks at around $2,800 to $3,500 per square metre to build their fairytale townhouses, it is sheer madness in a country town with little employment.
Good luck.....
I think that in the present day the poor b*ggers are up against it more than we were.
We all have a story about our first home battles.
It was a struggle to get into the market 50 years ago and with no help from family. No leg up then.
My argument is that every city needs Bunnings employees and checkout chicks.
So if he is on 58 grand at Bunnings and the spouse is part time on 40 grand, with kids, then where in that equation is a home in Sydney for a million bucks?
Buckley's is where.
Times have changed - at our golf presentation night last night, my table couldn't believe as a bank officer aged 17 as the no 3 teller I had a Colt 45 with three rounds in it in my tellers box....
According to Google AI there is no charge, NSW RMS no mention of a charge. Driver's license medical certificate is electronic unless the Dr can't access online, then a paper form will be sent. That would mean a new appointment.
Maybe the OP can verify at the RMS when he goes to renew his license?
There was no charge to me for access by Dr. There are no longer any paper forms being generated by RMS. This is verifiable by the letter I was sent from RMS advising me that I had two weeks to attend Dr.
Dr. did show me on his computer that there were several forms that NSW doctors are being charged for access to.
Google was not my reference source.
-- Edited by Possum3 on Monday 17th of February 2025 10:51:45 AM
__________________
Possum; AKA:- Ali El-Aziz Mohamed Gundawiathan
Sent from my imperial66 typewriter using carrier pigeon, message sticks and smoke signals.
Total tripe. I started on poor money and had saved my deposit within about two years. Interest rates on my mortgage went from 7.5% to about 12%. That was a a rise of about $20 per week. About the cost of four hamburgers at the time.
I travelled overseas in my first few years after graduating. This was financed from my part time jobs. I came back, started work and then saved the deposit. I was single and bought the house by myself.
Nothing like what these poor buggers are up against today. some people just look for extreme cases of wanting too much and then apply it to every young person.
They are a great generation. Heaps smarter than what ours ever was.
$20 would have been half a days pay for me $5 dollars would have bought 3 kids meals + 2 big mac meals at macca's . so maybe we lived in different worlds , i do not think i said it would be easy for the young people to day to get on the housing ladder, but a lot do by finding ways to make it happen. houses would not be worth what they are if people were not paying the price? overseas investors only represent 3% of ownership /buyers
solution build more houses, go bush how long did it take to make Canberra a viable city? why are so many builders going into liquidation ?
It is only 2 or 3% because they get around it by using a real estate agent in an urban environment that IS a (new) Australian resident using a battery of $1 shelf companies.
So in fact that figure is likely to be much higher as a certain group of foreign owners can find a workaround to our weak rules.
I also wonder if the dodgy mob that owned the property next to me ever kicked the can for Capital Gains Tax.
I would think not.
By implementing some sort of transfer pricing mechanism they would also dodge paying Aussie taxes one would suspect.
Which in turn wrecks our rural locality, fills an el cheapo slum with "people on govt benefits" and then the "investors" then also don't contribute to our tax system.
Win, Win, Win for the "non"-foreign investors.
It is a great scheme when you take into account our Govt Rent Assistance Scheme.
75 cents in the dollar for every dollar over $149 per fortnight with a cut-off at $430.60 (per F/N).
Its on the cards there will be plenty of houses for sale in Whyalla.
Whyalla Steel Works has been put into receivership by the Premier of South Australia, Airbus will be there tomorrow proberly throw billions of dollars to keep it going.
rmoor, At one stage, my job here was moved to Sydney leaving me the decision to stay here with no job or move. There is no way at the time I could afford a house in Sydney. So I had to go job hunting. Sydney has always been too expensive to buy housing and I would have been moving with a very good salary.
Sydney prices are crazy.
Out of range now to so many.
I sympathize with you to have had to make such a decision.
The job hunting option was the best one.
Not only is the joint over-priced but there are many crime and social issues now in parts of Sydney.
I went there in 1980 to 1987 to play sport initially.
Ended up studying from 1983 to 1987 and then exited the joint pronto.
It was good experience but my wife was like a canary in a cage and I struggled with urban life a bit too.
In that whole time we were renting as house prices were largely out of range then.
The rate cut this week from 4.35 to 4.1 is miniscule. Those of us back in the days of 16 to 17 % and farmers copping 22 - 23% were terrible.
I always felt 10% was a good cost of money for both borrower and lender?
I don't see the point in reducing interest rates to the dangerous low levels they were before.
The "paint yourself into a corner" rate level??
Not everyone in this broad land earns 200 grand a year.
I feel really sorry for the rank and file battlers doing "normal" jobs trying to battle through the mortgage jungle.
A mate told me yesterday of one young fella from our region paying rent of $2,500 a week in Sydney.
Would be earning it, but geez it is a big chunk out of the paypacket.
Rents in our rural region now span $400 to $600 and there wouldn't be too many jobs around that would allow for that level of rent.
I often wonder, where does this house price spiral stop, if ever?
I renewed my NSW driver's licence this morning.
No hassles, five minutes in and out.
Mind you there was not the requirement for me to have a medical test.
I just googled the requirements and see that over age 75 in NSW a medical test is required and at 85 a physical driving exam.
So I now have another five years to run on the new licence.
I guess though they will restrict me as I age to one or two years when the new five year licence expires?
There was an older couple in there whinging about the difficulty with all the online requirements now.
I am OK with most of the online apps but there are older people from out in the bush that are not computer literate at all and battle with all this.
My great fear is A.I. Reckon that will progress at a rate of knots and the likelihood of us getting a human on the phone in the future is decreasing rapidly.
I am currently still sitting on the phone listening to Tax Office music waiting for a bloke I have to ask to repeat EVERY sentence at least once or twice as his accent is so difficult to pick up.
My request is SO simple, a child could do it, why do I have to wait on music for ten minutes?
I sympathize with you to have had to make such a decision.
The job hunting option was the best one.
Not only is the joint over-priced but there are many crime and social issues now in parts of Sydney.
I went there in 1980 to 1987 to play sport initially.
Ended up studying from 1983 to 1987 and then exited the joint pronto.
It was good experience but my wife was like a canary in a cage and I struggled with urban life a bit too.
In that whole time we were renting as house prices were largely out of range then.
The rate cut this week from 4.35 to 4.1 is miniscule. Those of us back in the days of 16 to 17 % and farmers copping 22 - 23% were terrible.
I always felt 10% was a good cost of money for both borrower and lender?
I don't see the point in reducing interest rates to the dangerous low levels they were before.
The "paint yourself into a corner" rate level??
Not everyone in this broad land earns 200 grand a year.
I feel really sorry for the rank and file battlers doing "normal" jobs trying to battle through the mortgage jungle.
A mate told me yesterday of one young fella from our region paying rent of $2,500 a week in Sydney.
Would be earning it, but geez it is a big chunk out of the paypacket.
Rents in our rural region now span $400 to $600 and there wouldn't be too many jobs around that would allow for that level of rent.
I often wonder, where does this house price spiral stop, if ever?
lots of places in nsw for under $500,000 but you have to move a fair way out of sydney, in this day and age of working from home could open up a lot of options for young people thinking outside the box
