iGavin Hooper🐏

[Noel Whittaker @NoelWhittaker]

Don't miss my column in the national press today on the proposed testamentary trust tax changes.
First they came for your investments. Now they're coming for your children and grandchildren. Families who have done the right thing for decades could find far more of their inheritance ending up in Canberra's coffers.
Read the column and decide for yourself.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@WestWXWatchers And the rainfall totals are already starting to decline for here. Might be another non event for the area's that need it.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@floyds63 @WestWXWatchers @weather_wa I'll believe it when I tip it out of the rain gauge

[Andrew Whitelaw @WheatWatcher]

Diesel Imports to Australia, comparison to previous year

April: 106%
May: 95%
June: 77%
July: 4%

[Noel Whittaker @NoelWhittaker]

🚨 Tax specialists have uncovered a sleeper clause in the federal budget bill designed to quietly inflate investor tax bills — and it's a rort. The bill which passed the lower house yesterday, introduces a mandatory "loss-ordering" mechanism for the first time in Australian tax history. Instead of cherry-picking how losses offset gains, investors will now be forced to burn through their oldest gains first — stripping away the 50% CGT discount and leaving newer gains fully exposed to the punishing new cost-base indexation regime from July 1, 2027.
Say you bought shares in 2018 and again in 2024. You sell both at a gain, but you also have losses to offset. Previously, you'd apply those losses to your 2018 gains first — which already qualify for the 50% CGT discount, meaning less of them are taxable anyway. Under the new rules, you're forced to do exactly that — exhausting the discounted gains first and leaving your 2024 gains fully exposed to the new, harsher indexation rules.
You end up paying more. This isn't an oversight. It's a deliberate revenue grab buried in fine print

[WAFarmersGrains @WAFarmersGrains]

An issue not well understood in this area is that US litigation funders are actively operating to influence research & lobbying both in the US and in other countries like Australia to support their own paraquat claims. #compromisedscience

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@trout_86 Yes. Could seriously dent their production capacity in the medium to long term. Also was told in Canada a couple of years ago their glaciers will be gone in about 50 years I think it was. They feed the Great Lakes and then a lot of the US river systems.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

Something I've thought about a few times. The number of new pivots going up each time I've been to the Midwest over the last 30 odd years is quite amazing. It obviously can't continue as it currently does.

[Defund the USDA 2.0 @Dusty3080467325]

Maybe we can no longer afford to grow $4 corn in the west ??

In case you missed the biggest news that was lost to the circus that is our government, the USGS has released data showing that America's underground aquifer storing water is officially drying up.

Spanning approximately 174,000 square miles across eight states from South Dakota to Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer (High Plains Aquifer) is the lifeblood of American agriculture, providing roughly 30% of all groundwater used for U.S. irrigation.

However, the aquifer faces an existential crisis as massive agricultural extraction severely outpaces natural replenishment from rainfall. In some heavily farmed regions like the Texas High Plains, water levels have plunged by up to 80 meters (262 feet), leaving parts of the reservoir entirely depleted and threatening the long-term viability of the region's farming communities.

The consequences of this groundwater collapse extend far beyond localized dry wells.

The Ogallala sustains a massive $35+ billion agricultural economy, and as the water table drops, farmers are hit with skyrocketing extraction costs and dwindling crop yields.

This critical situation is not isolated; California’s Central Valley Aquifer, another vital agricultural engine, is suffering from similar severe, long-term depletion. Without aggressive water management and a shift toward sustainable farming practices, the depletion of these non-renewable resources risks destabilizing the nation's food supply and transforming once-fertile plains back into arid dust bowls.

source: USGS

[Karen Braun @kannbwx]

🇺🇸Initial health ratings for U.S. corn and soybeans landed below market expectations.

🌽Corn - 67% good/excellent, lowest starting score since 2019. Iowa leads at 82% g/e.

🌱Soybeans - 66% good/excellent, lowest since 2023. Ohio ranks last among major states at 46% g/e.

[daisymay4263 🌼🌼🌼 @daisymay4263]

The NSW and Albanese governments have been urged to come clean over who paid for a pizza dinner for the ISIS brides and their children after they returned to Sydney, as outrage grows over their 'VIP treatment'. 

The cohort of four women and six children arrived at Sydney Airport on May 26 and were greeted by officials from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice.

Officials are believed to have conducted an almost three-hour health assessment on the group before police assisted them to a line of waiting cars.

AFP officers were then seen shielding the women and children from cameras by forming a line in front of the vehicles.

Media later spotted the women at a nearby hotel, where pizza boxes were delivered to reception as riot police stood guard outside. 

A federal government source told the Daily Telegraph it was 'ridiculous' the group had received 'VIP treatment' on their arrival.

'It sets a precedent that you can willingly travel to and come back with a red carpet rolled out for you from a side exit,' they said.

Speaking on claims the ISIS-linked cohort were fed pizza, a police source said they 'got fed and we didn't'.

Pressure is mounting for the NSW and federal governments to disclose who paid for the pizza dinner.

Federal Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam demanded answers from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government. 

'The federal government still tries to argue that it has done nothing to help these women and children,' he said.

'As if passports, consular assistance, identity checks, transport, police arrangements, health checks, accommodation and other special privileges – including upon their arrival in Australia – have somehow all materialised by magic.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@Mistadamage Once again the reality of "unintended consequences" possibly raises it's head.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@HoolyMcg @Mistadamage Good point

[Neil Schirmer @neilschirmer]

Perfect👌

[Satoshi Wolf @SatoshiWolf]

My wife's dad is an old school Wog.

Hard working. Loves his family. Frugal. All round great bloke.

He worked 3 jobs when my wife was born and stayed at one of the companies for 43 years.

He has one investment property, the house my wife was born in, and their family home in an affluent area.

He has enough money to do whatever he wants but he's a tightass. Unbelievably tight.

I've spoken to him about it many times and he says all his life he followed a plan, built wealth, a great life for his family and has a simple goal to pass it down to his kids and grandkids.

We told him for years to enjoy his life's work. That's what we want. Fly business class. Go to expensive restaurants often. Buy whatever gadgets you want. Just enjoy it!

Nope. He is deadset he is passing on his accumulated wealth to his kids and grandkids.

Now it seems Labor will be taking a big cut of his life's work. In the spirit of "intergenerational fairness".

The confiscated wealth will be used to pay the ever expanding political class, send it overseas to things that have nothing to do with him, support free loaders and an NDIS program littered with fraud and waste.

Tall poppies will tell me why should he be able to accumulate wealth and pass it to his kids when they can't.

Well, try spending more than 40 years of your life working, saving and investing to give your family a head start in life.

Like every parent should do for their children.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@HoolyMcg @andrewdunx @ipaddockapps @westaustralian Yep. I think you might be right.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@floyds63 @MeredithGuthr15 @DPIRDbroadacre Not holding my breath.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@andrewdunx @ipaddockapps @westaustralian Yep. Something people tend to forget too. Will it happen again. Probably. When, who knows.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

@Tedthekelpie @ipaddockapps @westaustralian They moonlight as BOM weather forecasters too.

[iGavin Hooper🐏 @GavinHooper70]

Well, another none event rainfallwise here. Forecast at least 5mm. Got a massive 0.4mm.