AJ Sadauskas

https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/@aj

Australian urban planning, public transport, politics, retrocomputing, and tech nerd. Recovering journo. Cat parent. Part-time miserable grump.

Cities for people, not cars! Tech for people, not investors!

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Last Notes

2026-06-12 02:24:16 UTC

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I for one am looking forward to hearing more from this Nirvana-influenced three-piece high school band from Newcastle 😊
#ausmusic #music #rock

2026-06-03 09:35:49 UTC

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Residents returned after the developer spent around $31 million on repairs: https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/residents-return-opal-tower-sydney

2026-05-25 12:57:01 UTC

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Aside from the Town Hall and the Leigh Memorial Church, pretty much everything in that block between Macquarie St, the train line, Church St, and Smith St got bulldozed.
So all the old Council buildings around Civic Place.
They replaced them with a new pedestrian town square, office towers, and a new library building called PHIVE.
(When I've mentioned Parramatta Square, or the bus sculpture or the pink sculpture, that's the new town square.)
As for the new PHIVE building, I thought I had a good photo of it in Pixelfed but it seems not?
Anyway, here's what the new library building looks like:
https://pixelfed.social/p/ajsadauskas/955049801892183450
https://pixelfed.social/p/ajsadauskas/816593228220511225

2026-05-22 23:36:47 UTC

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Just curious, given you mentioned your dad was into local history. Did he choose that house because it was designed by James Houison? Or was that just a happy coincidence?

2026-05-22 08:58:20 UTC

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You remember correctly! There's an oak tree nearby where Lady Fitzroy's carriage overturned.
And for other folks reading this, here's the story:
"This monument was unveiled on Centenary Day (Australia Day) 26 January 1888 in remembrance of the accidental death on 7 December 1847 of Lady Mary Fitzroy aged 57 years, wife of the then governor of NSW Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy. Lady Fitzroy, born 1790, was the eldest child of Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond.
"In August 1846 Fitzroy replaced Sir George Gipps as Governor of NSW. The Fitzroy family moved into Government House at Parramatta in April 1847 following extensive renovations to the building by James Houison.
...
"The much anticipated happy occasion of attending a wedding in Sydney soon turned to tragedy. The Governor and Lady Fitzroy accompanied by aide-de-camp Lieutenant Charles Masters had set out from Government House and were travelling down the long tree-lined driveway towards the Macquarie Street entrance to the Domain.
"The four horses pulling the carriage were reportedly already skittish before leaving the stables and rather than being well trained carriage horses, were spirited and easily startled young blood stock. Shortly after leaving the house the pace of the horses surged and when nearing the Macquarie Street gateway, the horses bolted they galloped out into the street coming to a halt some distance away near the corner of Church and George Street. The carriage was overturned and the occupants were thrown violently to the ground. Lady Fitzroy and Lieutenant Masters died shortly after as a result of their injuries, however Governor Fitzroy suffered only minor wounds."
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/blog/2016/12/22/the-monument-to-lady-fitzroy-parramatta-park
Sidenote: Old Government House in Parramatta Park is where Australia's early colonial governors lived, including Arthur Philip, William Bligh, and Lachlan Macquarie.
Governor Fitzroy was the last one. He moved out after the accident.
So for a brief period, Parramatta was /arguably/ Australia's colonial capital.

2026-05-09 11:06:19 UTC

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Ah okay. I remember we stopped in Gundagai a number of times during road trips when I was a kid.
But it was usually at the roadhouse near the dog on the tuckerbox.
I vaguely remember that one was fairly dated when I was a kid (not /that/ long ago 😁), and I don't imagine it would have seen much updating since then...

2026-05-09 04:44:03 UTC

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Is that the tuckerbox one, or is that a different one?

2026-05-01 06:36:38 UTC

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It's definitely much better as a public square than a public road.
And you should definitely come up to Parra sometime to see how much it's changed 😊

2026-04-12 11:16:37 UTC

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And Iran /did/ accept the terms.
Then America's ally decided to break those terms by blowing up half of Lebanon.

2026-04-10 10:38:34 UTC

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I was thinking it's more for the court of public opinion, rather than a criminal court?
It wouldn't surprise me if yet another scandal is about to break.
Perhaps a phone call from Ronan Farrow? Or Gloria Allred? Or someone reported something to s foreign law enforcement agency?

2026-04-10 09:40:59 UTC

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That, or something especially bad is about to come out in the next few days, and she's making her statement now ahead of the lawsuit (or whatever).

2026-04-10 09:37:22 UTC

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IKR! Forget showbags, I want to buy everything in the arts & crafts pavilion! 😹

2026-04-09 12:17:28 UTC

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Honestly, I hadn't been to the show in years.
And I'd totally forgotten just how good the food expo, and the arts and crafts competitions are. Lots of tasty food and plenty of amazing work on display!

2026-03-04 05:30:12 UTC

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The one that really gets me is when kids these days say ass or asshole, instead of arse or arsehole.
Especially if you're going to use it as an insult, the r in arse sounds so much more guttural.
Whereas ass sounds like perhaps they need a little more fibre in their diet.
Say it out loud.
'You're a bloody arsehole, mate.'
'You're an asshole!'
Hear the difference?

2026-03-02 12:21:23 UTC

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Do you know any of the history behind it? Was it always a Lebanese cathedral? It's a very unique building!

2026-02-04 11:28:43 UTC

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You could also potentially put the factories for prefab kit homes in places like Newcastle and the LaTrobe Valley in Victoria.
As the coal power plants are phased out, you'd transfer the boilermakers and fitters & turners to new jobs building kit homes.

2026-01-19 03:58:33 UTC

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It's also polling by News Corp.
Both the mining bosses, led by Gina and Kerry Stokes (who owns Seven and wants to buy BlueScope), and the Murdochs have decided One Nation is legitimate.
(Well, at least until Hastie and the far-right factions take over the Liberal Party. But that's another story.)
It wouldn't surprise me if there's some push polling happening.
The Teal voters that used to be the Turnbull faction were only around 7% of the primary vote nationally st the last federal election.
But.
They're concentrated on the Lower North Shore, eastern suburbs of Sydney, and Inner southeast/eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
They don't need a huge share of the national primary vote to flip 100-year Liberal seats in tree-lined suburbs.

2026-01-18 05:16:05 UTC

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The ceiling of the car park probably would have been below the 100 year flood line. And given how quickly floodwaters can rise, it's lucky no-one ever drowned.

2026-01-13 10:04:21 UTC

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I remember when Peter Malinauskas was first elected as the Premier of South Australia.
People would incorrectly assume he was Greek, and I would correct them about how he's actually Lithuanian.
The funny thing is, the longer he's been in office, the less bad I feel about people mistakenly thinking he's Greek.

2026-01-05 05:25:05 UTC

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Unfortunately I'm back in Sydney now, but I will check it out next time I'm in Melbourne 😊

2026-01-04 01:11:35 UTC

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There'll also be many articles and comments from people who couldn't explain who "Hugo Chavez" was or what the "Bolivarian Revolution" or who Simón Bolívar was without Wikipedia or ChatGPT.
Despite this, they will present themselves as experts on Venezuela and Latin America.
There will be much conflation. Remember how, before the Afghan War, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were basically conflated into a single entity?
Well, the same will happen with the FARC guerillas in Colombia and the (former) Maduro-led government in Venezuela.
The power of FARC will be grossly overstated. (FARC were running drugs from New Mexico to Maine!) Inconvenient facts, like US backing for their rivals the AUC (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/19/colombia-paramilitary-salvatore-mancuso-auc-death-squads) will be omitted.
AUC paramilitaries allegedly being paid off to kill unionised workers at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Colombia? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co. ) Yeah, if you're lucky, there might be a reference to it in a Mother Jones article.
Most previous examples of when the US attempted or succeeded in intervening in foreign countries for leadership change will be avoided. As will the mixed results of these efforts in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Libya, Afghanistan, and many others.
You probably won't read names like Mosaddegh, Allende, or Sukarno in most articles.
Likewise, mentions of oil will be strenuously avoided.
And there will be a lot of false binaries presented.
Anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly support America's leadership coup will be presented as being a supporter of the worst that FARC and Maduro will be accused of.
Even if their point is "maybe countries abducting each other's leaders isn't a great precedent for America to set". Or "I'm not sure this is a fair trial".
Or "there's a fundamental hypocrisy in the US on the one hand stating the Venezuelan regime was so awful that military intervention was needed, while simultaneously mass-deporting Venezuelans who had fled that sand regime".
Which will lead to a lot of critical counter-articles beginning with "Maduro was a bad guy, but..."

2025-12-20 07:33:53 UTC

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Sounds like a nightmare! Hopefully they can stay away from the fumes, and get home safely soon.

2025-12-19 09:10:14 UTC

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Nawww thankk youuu 💖
And I was thinking of taking a photo to compare the same spit today, but all you'd see is Westfield 😂

2025-12-17 12:24:57 UTC

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Nothing too serious I hope?
And the old hospital building is still standing (well, one of them), although it's now mostly used for small clinics of various kinds...

2025-12-09 11:06:31 UTC

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I made the mistake of going down to the old one on a weekend at lunchtime.
I eventually got a table.
Which I shared with a stallholder on his lunch break (he had a canned tuna from Woolies). And another couple. And their baby. And several seagulls. And an ibis.

2025-12-09 10:34:15 UTC

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It's definitely a big upgrade on the old one. Hopefully, it has more seating as well, including some indoor seating.
(Nothing against seagulls, but I like them better when they don't try stealing my chips! 😆)

2025-12-09 08:56:38 UTC

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That's the one over the river in Parra Park, near Parra/Commbank Stadium and the flying fox colony. Not quite as far as the wisteria garden.
So he rode quite a distance on a sunny day!

2025-12-08 10:12:11 UTC

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Just to be clear, I totally agree some unions do stand up for progressive social causes.
(Full disclosure: I'm involved in and a member of one that does.)
And some others? From the outside, they perhaps seem to be a bit less enthusiastic about the idea...

2025-12-08 08:35:32 UTC

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I think there's a lesson in that for today's union leaders in standing up for causes beyond industrial relations.

2025-11-30 12:18:10 UTC

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I'm all for the Pemmulwuy Memorial Cultural Heritage Centre being opened in Parramatta.
As for Bsludarri's story, I did link to it 🙂
The short version is he tried to be friends with Arthur Philip, and stayed at Old Government House in Parramatta.
He helped guide some British settlers on an expedition to the Hawkesbury.
He fetched food for the settlers, and they then didn't let him eat it.
Upon returning to Parramatta, Arthur Philip encouraged him to trade fish.
So he built a bark canoe. The settlers trashed it.
He speared a settler, in line with Dharug customary law.
So Arthur Philip banned him from the Parramatta settlement and ordered him to be shot on site.
He died, possibly from a disease the colonists had bought to Australia.
Here are the pertinent bits, and note this us from Parramatta City Council's highly sanitised official account:
"By early 1791 Baludarri had befriended Phillip, and the Governor’s diary entries of the time indicate a genuine affection for the young man. In April of that year Baludarri and Colbee (a Gadigal man) assisted the Governor’s overland journey of exploration from Parramatta to the Hawkesbury. Baludarri and Colbee acted as interpreters with other Aboriginal people they encountered along the journey, whose “dialect was different, but allowed communication.”
...
"Towards the end of the expedition, Baludarri began to yearn to return home. Baludarri also refused to retrieve from the water a duck that had been shot, as he had tired of fetching food for the Europeans which was not subsequently shared with him and Colbee.
...
"Upon returning from the expedition, Baludarri lived at Phillip’s Parramatta residence and was encouraged by the Governor to develop a fish trade with the settlers at Parramatta.
...
"The fish Baludarri could provide would certainly have been a significant boost to the food supplies of the new European settlement at Parramatta, which was surviving at subsistence levels, and particularly lacking in regular sources of protein. Baludarri built a new bark canoe and began bringing his catch into the township of Parramatta, where he bartered the fish in exchange for food and other goods.
...
"According to Aboriginal customary law, retribution was Baludarri’s duty, and in due course he speared a convict who had strayed from the Parramatta settlement.[18] On hearing of the spearing, Phillip, reacting with severity, ordered that Baludarri be outlawed from the colony, and shot on sight.[19] Enraged by this harsh treatment, and denied his livelihood, Baludarri was forced out to the peripheries of the settlement. He was occasionally sighted around the Parramatta township in the months that followed, and attempts were made to capture or shoot him, but Baludarri escaped each time.
...
"In December 1791, Baludarri became gravely ill following the sudden onset of a “high fever”.
...
"On hearing of Baludarri’s illness, Governor Phillip revoked his outlawing of the young man. At Phillip’s request, Baludarri was found and carried to Sydney Hospital and treated by the Governor’s doctor. The medical care failed to revive Baludarri, and he succumbed to the illness a few days later.[24] Baludarri’s exact age when he died is not known, although, according to Flynn he was a young man, “probably a teenager”."
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/research-topics/aboriginal/baludarri-significant-figure-in-parramatta-history

2025-11-30 06:36:44 UTC

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They've done a really great job of doing it up. It's now basically continuous walking and cycling paths all the way to Parramatta Park 😊

2025-11-29 04:42:16 UTC

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The thing about the misuse of fulsome is it often ironically ends up back at the correct usage.
The corporate spin doctor promises a "fulsome report following the investigation", thinking "fulsome" means full.
The investigation turns out to be half-arsed, with excessive praise for aspects of management's conduct in the final report.
In other words, a /fulsome/ report. Just not in the way the spin doctor intended.

2025-11-02 10:40:55 UTC

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I'll post some photos from inside tomorrow 😊
But it's free entry (or at least it was the day I went), so if you're ever in the neighbourhood then Elizabeth Farm and Hambledon Cottage are definitely worth a visit.
As for the area just the other side of the river from there... It's changed a bit in recent times...

2025-10-30 04:33:36 UTC

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Really interesting discussion.
Yes, there's definitely a significant section of the Jewish community in Australia that supports Netanyahu.
But it's not universal.
This is purely anecdotal, but just from my personal experience, some of the most consistently vocal critics of Israel have been Jewish (or of Jewish descent).
That includes public figures like Antony Loewenstein.
But that also includes the man who was attacked at a pro-Palestine rally last year. I knew him more than 20 years ago when we were at uni, and he was very pro-Palestine even back then: https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/heated-scenes-near-caulfield-synagogue-as-police-separate-protesters-20241125-p5ktbj.html
And then aside from the strongly pro-Israel and pro-Palestine folks, there seems to be a "middle" group.
Think about how there's many Americans who identify with the USA but don't support Trump.
Well, in a similar way, there are Jewish people who identify with Israel, but to varying degrees don't necessarily agree with everything the government is doing.
And that includes some quite prominent public figures who I've heard privately express some reservations over the years.
Now, the breakdown is unclear.
Obviously, some sections of that community get more airtime than others.
But certainly Jewish people in Australia are far from unanimous in their support of Israel.

2025-10-25 01:21:00 UTC

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So I decided to look it up, because the David Jones move to Westfield happened before I moved to Sydney.
https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/blog/2013/12/19/australias-retail-history-the-david-jones-building-parramatta
The short version is that David Jones moved into Westfield Parramatta in '96, during one of its extensions.
The former David Jones store building hung around for a few more years as offices and shops. But was eventually bulldozed and replaced with an apartment tower and a hotel.
And you're right about the former DJs car park being most of the new Powerhouse site.

2025-10-24 11:46:38 UTC

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I went through Google Streetview with the date set to 2020 to grab photos of what was there before they began building.
The big loss is Willow Grove.
There's also the St George's terrace buildings, but they're being preserved and restored as part of the Powerhouse facade at street level.
Then there's some tired old shops that were home to a massage parlour before they met the wrecking ball and won't be missed.
There's also an old red brick building and open air carpark that few will miss.
And they had a multistorey brutalist concrete car park right up near the river, which was an eyesore and needed to go.
https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/fileserver/01F7Z9N32BK120W7P9PERCP98E/attachment/original/01K8B04VZR8G27SK6DSWWYN2JA.png
https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/fileserver/01F7Z9N32BK120W7P9PERCP98E/attachment/original/01K8B04W0H0RWTM7ZJCHZJCCWW.png
https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/fileserver/01F7Z9N32BK120W7P9PERCP98E/attachment/original/01K8B04WJPDZ59SK9277N1ZKZD.png
https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/fileserver/01F7Z9N32BK120W7P9PERCP98E/attachment/original/01K8B04WJXZHQFSC1DCT02RCDA.png
https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/fileserver/01F7Z9N32BK120W7P9PERCP98E/attachment/original/01K8B0SV7Q5X50VMHQ70CY2VV6.png

2025-10-24 10:36:19 UTC

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There was a 19th Century house called Willow Grove, which is unfortunately no more. It stood on part of the Powerhouse site: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-10/willow-grove-wont-be-rebuilt-nsw-government/102837152

2025-10-24 08:02:16 UTC

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Here's the Philip St end of Horwood Pl as of a couple of weeks ago, looking in the direction of the river: https://pixelfed.social/p/ajsadauskas/880367104112936121
And these are from the Church St bridge, facing east: https://pixelfed.social/p/ajsadauskas/844872414598680265

2025-10-24 07:36:18 UTC

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Powerhouse will be at the corner of Philip and Smith Streets, between Smith St and the river.
Horwood Place will be closed to traffic and become a new pedestrianised street called Civic Link.
As I understand it, the big multistorey car park between Horwood Pl and Church St will act as the main parking lot for the Parra Powerhouse.

2025-10-12 10:06:26 UTC

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To be fair, I took the photo right near the front of the hall next to St John's, at the far side of the garden around the church.
And I zoomed out to get as much in the two photos as I could.
So it's a lot further back than you'd normally see the tien hall...

2025-09-23 10:09:07 UTC

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I'll update the original post (I probably should have included it in there).
But it's at The Shed Café, on the ground floor of the Skye Suites building, at the corner of Macquarie & Marsden Streets, in Parramatta.

2025-08-21 12:02:27 UTC

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To be fair, most of the path around the dam/lake is a narrow rocky dirt bushwalking track.
And then it's just the corner with the public access road that they've done up into a park with a café, picnic benches, barbecues, lawns, paddle boats, paved paths, and parking.
But most of it is still preserved remnant bushland 😊

2025-08-21 09:48:59 UTC

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You should have shared your guess 😊
And, depending on which side of North Rocks Rd, quite possibly just over your back fence (or across the street)?