One issue which has been vividly revealed by the current crisis in Aged Care, is the underpayment of carers in private Aged Care Homes (ACH), which are controlled by the Federal government.
Mostly, but not exclusively women, these staff have largely been inadequately trained for pandemic conditions resulting from COVID-19, and expected to work on a basis that has necessitated their working in more than one ACH.
Recipe for disaster when a long promised pandemic hits an ill-prepared system!
The glaring need for loss of income to be compensated for, if a worker has to self-isolate with no sick pay, was only evident to the government way down the track. How blind can you be and still claim to be competent?
DIRECTING these organisations in what they should do, and providing extra funds, without having any adequate over-sighting of whether the instructions are followed and the funds properly spent, highlights the nonsense which is small governments.
I bet the shareholders are happy!
We now have a situation with far more people seeking work than can ever hope to find a placement, and the government is looking for ways to help businesses pay lower wages and reduce conditions!
Paradoxically we are also being urged to get back to work and help the economy recover!
Unlike those in the top tax bracket, who are on a promise of a tax cut, most people are spending all they dare in order to try to survive, and they are, in many cases not succeeding.
Everyone is living in suspense, not knowing when or where the infection will next occur, dreading the day when they will be expected to start paying rent or the mortgage – if they have been fortunate enough to have been allowed a moratorium on payments – and the government is constantly changing plans to meet circumstances, so raising stress levels.
Face facts.
- Do we know if there will ever be an effective vaccine? – NO.
- Do we know how soon we might know for sure? – NO.
- Has the government any plans to persuade those with wealth to invest, to do so, in enterprises which will provide jobs and boost the economy? – Who knows, because they are making no announcements on the issue.
- Will we soon hear about this issue? – See the last answer.
- If Job Keeper and Job Seeker are going to be reduced, and the moratorium mentioned above ceases, how does the government expect people with no job to cope? – See the last answer.
What we NEED is a commitment from the government on the lines of a universal basic income.
That way people know they can feed and clothe themselves and, if they have one, their family, until they can find a job.
And the vast majority of people are NOT bludgers and feel a sense of self-respect when they can support themselves without assistance.
Between the ATO and Centrelink, the government has more than enough information available to be able to come up with plans for appropriate means-tested payment levels.
One frustrating thing in all this is the government’s incapacity to understand that normal is something we must now create.
Everything has changed.
We have to adapt to a new world order or go to the wall.
This is not a short-term problem, it is a long term crisis which we need to use well if we are to survive.
Even more frustrating is awareness that those whose wealth could contribute to solving many problems, include among their ranks many who have fought, tooth and nail, against paying a cent more tax than they have to, while still availing themselves of all the facilities and services which have been provided by tax payers!
Morrison is sitting pretty – at least until the next election – with a more than adequate income, a roof over his family’s heads, ability to take a holiday and enjoy life for brief spells, so he appears to be one of two things: the first is – someone totally lacking in empathy and compassion – which is bad enough – while the second is – an out and out sadist, getting pleasure from other people’s pain!
How do you see yourself, Mr Morrison, and do you sleep well at night????
I end as always – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
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Sadly the rising number of COVID-19 deaths in Aged Care Homes has starkly exposed the underlying money-grubbing attitudes of both government and private centre managements. I am advised that private ACH managements screamed for and received government funding for staff PPE … and poured those funds straight into their profit line without purchasing the PPE for staff.
I am waiting for a group of disgruntled surviving family members to raise a class action separately against a private ACH profiteer and a government ACH to expose the uncaring, unon-empathetic, inappropriate management strategies of the Aged Care system.
Good one RJ. NEC, the record seems to show that Covid19 deaths in government operated ACH’s are much lower than in the privates, yet another indictment of privatisation, exacerbated by allowing foreign companies without aged care expertise to buy and run them. Add in the progressive running down of regulatory capacity (see NDIS) and there is no wonder this disaster has happened. That it is down to the LNP government is purely ideological. See also private hospitals. This is an area ripe for the Opposition to sink the boot, but will they?
Conservatism, the putrid pox of political perverts, has allowed a situation, outlined here, where investors, many of them foreign and probably unaware and unsympathetic, can cash in on generous offers in a wedon’twanttoknowreally industry, the repulsed old buggers last days, on the presumption they can run a prifitable plantation, use barely trained staff, offer that staff low takeitorleaveit wages and conditions, and hope to sail through years of profit extraction if nothing buggers the racket. All Wrong!! THEY, the imperious takers and gougers, are not prepared to do their duty if it gets tough, and have no actual expertise to improvise. Clearly, The Conservatives in Canberra got on well enough with similar retards in NSW, but probably have no personal links, and never tried to forge them, with Victorian government officials in relevant areas. Why don’t we outsource and defuse and downgrade and privatise more? Cheap foreigners could run our military, health, policing, treasury, borders, and why not? If local conservatives get a cut, a share, Beauty! It works in mining and banking where foreigners actually own and run most areas, to the permanent detriment and decline of the Nation. Let’s just Yankify profit and real control using foreigners from other continents, other oceans. Go CHEAP, go NASTY…Conservatives are traitors always to nations, societies, communities, sections, because they are greedy, selfish individuals.
“A range of international studies . . . reveal higher rates of infection in for profit aged care homes and those with fewer nurses. Surprise, surprise, greed is universal. Dan Andrews said government run nursing homes, which have about 5400 beds, had six cases — about 0.1 percent. Non government homes with 47,000 beds, a rate of 4 percent. Victoria and Qld have mandated staffing ratios for nurses — in Victoria one nurse for every seven residents in the morning, one for eight in the afternoon and one for fifteen at night. Also require an additional nurse in charge during morning and afternoon shifts. The privately run have no legislated staff ratios.”
RC29 suggests a possible line of attack by the opposition. What fucking opposition? We’ve already had that fucknuckle Fitzgibbon suggesting they will follow the ruling crime syndicate in their plans for gas exploration and use. Fuck me, where’s the drovers dog when you need him.
Agree with Vicking Duk all his points?yes I despair Fitzgibbon backing coal & Gas big boys programmes needing to expand! cannot believe a Labor man go rogue like this? my conclusion is he is frightened losing his seat votes by miners in area! We are fighting against a development 850gas wells by Santos they want in Pilliga Forest near Narrabri will be expanded to 1000 then their grand plan eventually 4000 wells from QLD border to Scone via Coonamble Coonabaraban Dubbo Mudge All prime country like Narrabri Area all dependent on Artesian basin underground water supply! if damaged in PILLIGA Forest replenishment area (Santos can give no guarantee for its safety?) All this vast area have no other water option! Now another mine Vickery expansion NSW has granted! Bringing total to 7large mines? amazing last few years nothing in mines in area between Gunnedah & Narrabri all close proximity to Namoi river Mining Companies who prepared to pay whatever it costs to obtain water from the Namoi? leaving generational farmers with no water rights enjoyed sometimes generations ownership land! as no farmer can compete with big miners? money is nothing for something they wish to obtain! after Namoi went dry they too are using Artesian bores for supply been charged numerous times illegal practices with water? This Joel Fitzgibbon backing? Time he got out Labor see how he goes Independent? Disgrace to Labor his views. Looking after big boys not people! Cannot hide behind few mine workers this also lives many in areas I have mentioned enviroment future food supplies from richest farm lands in Australia if gas wells allowed like draft board everywhere inNW area!
I don’t like Fitzgibbon, but to rubbish him for supporting the industries that employ workers is silly. Labour parties were established to support workers and their livelihoods and Fitzgibbon is, obviously, an old-style labour/labor polly
I deplored the re-election of the Coalition, and have railed against Browns caravan and the part it played in it. But if I were a labor voter with a clutch of kids and only one industry that was likely to employ me, I’d vote for anyone who advocate the continuation of that industry unless there was an immediate, viable employment alternative.
Trump was elected on the same premise – false as it was.
joel must be up late at night with nev
this to the both of you vile pillagers, vandals, and serial traitors to our sacred Planet Earth
Thee art like a toad ugly venemous. Thee backward voices are to utter foul speeches and to detract. Most notable cowards. Infinite and endless liars. Hourly promise breakers. Owners of no one good quality. A pox upon the earth.
Your line Rosemary is Adapt to a New World Order… Theirs not ours. Where we toil for the Benefit of the rich, who trickle down the gruel for us to survive on. Without the luxurys we have become accustomed to. While they have everything and more. But that world will end for them as well, as the poor die out and they are left with no slaves to make them rich.
Robin Alexander,
You have detailed much of the problems arising from mining/fracking. Obviously Fitzgibbon is caught in a cleft stick and fearing for his seat.
There are people fearing about what to do. Governments are afraid of protest and opposition, especially from people who do not live near where the problems are.
Then there are the concerned farmers who have formed their Lock the Gate attempt tp protect themselves from the people who wish to go underground on agricultural land.
We only have to look at the massive holes in the ground to see that rehabilitation is going to be a hugely expensive problem if ever rehabilitation is attempted at all. More likely it is just going to be left to erode over time.
That failure to rehabilitate can cause its own problems, the land no longer useful for
agriculture.
There have been mines which have poisoned water in them which kills flocks of bird.
And of course there are the humans who are affected by the sounds of extraction, the dust and the toxic elements in the air and on the ground…
If it is coal we are talking about, there is the heating of the planet and the results of that whether we burn it or it is burnt by others overseas.
But money is what it is all about. It is what is claimed as the purpose of it all, even claiming it is to raise nations out of poverty.
But what is claimed as the driver of modern civilisation is fast in decline and will leave stranded assets to be bitterly mourned as we pursue greener alternatives.
Even Adani has established itself in Oz with reduced impact – and is pursuing renewables as well. India will not import coal after 2024.
When the mine closes and the owners move away, so too does the money
Well, really makes perfect sense, doesn’t it, to promote the jobs and industries that are killing the planet, let’s keep the gas flowing, frack some more, dig more coal just to keep a destructive way of life. Where are the jobs? Try renewables, try hydrogen, etc., to me it is beyond silly to support any crime syndicate masquerading as a political party that refuses to take the threat of climate change seriously. It is a crime against humanity and all life on this planet. Fuck labor, fuck lnp. Different shits from the same arsehole.
The so called pandemic will be nothing but a minor footnote in history, the deranged response though will have people scratching their heads that countries could be so demented they would trash themselves over something as trivial as a corona virus, these viruses are always around without this brainless nonsense.
Marilyn, try telling that to the people who have died of COVID-19. Try telling that to my stepdaughter who is a front line doctor fighting to keep people alive.
If you think this is all a big pantomime then that’s good and fine, but the rest of us want to tread through this carefully.
The ‘inexplicable’ decision to empty the plague ship is easily explained.
Somebody’s mate wanted to go home…
Facile, n’est-ce pas?