It's easier emigrate than to build.

Batman the cat's death, and the subsequent failure of Activ8's internet service has put a damper on my posting.

Barbs and I went out to the block on the weekend and cut 6 tanks of brush-cutting. I work out the area we need to clear is around half an acre. Which is amazing large, a plant at a time. My Chainsaw is acting up, and alas the parts I ordered were the wrong ones.

On the council wrestling for the building permit - I still need to do my Owner builder's test, and then get a white card (which is like a white feather but different) for construction safety. I must admit to having a problem with the Owner builder piece of total drekk. Summary: we will make this difficult and unpleasant so you borrow money from our friends the banks, and support our friends the professional architects, builders, plumbers, and electricians. We will tell you repeatedly how dumb and what a bad idea this is. Most of it is as relevant to the rural guy building his own home as Astrophysics is to digging ditches.

The paperwork, and requirements for this... Well the paperwork is going to be a more than I had to have to emigrate. The costs are hugely more - for something that will make the govt and council long term money! It is going to cost so much - most of it completely without situational justification. In migration context - You're immigrating from Luxemburg... where is your military record! No we can't let you in without a military record. We need to check for atrocities. Yes the country has an army of 10 who stand guard in pretty uniforms and haven't been to war in a couple of centuries... but we must have that record...

The Australian government wants to limit migrants to those who will help the country and fit here - it should be hard. The opposite is true for home ownership - they should want (and do benefit from) as many people owning their own, and not paying the bank rent as possible. So why is the latter harder than the former, and deliberately forcing the people who can least afford it to borrow?