So many issues that it is hard to prioritise
The following list of issues is in no way implying an order of priority when it comes to dealing with them, nor is the list necessarily complete, but each entry highlights the extent to which the Coalition government is failing to improve life for those in most need of help:
- Climate change
- Respect for women
- Realistic support for those damaged by government policies
- COVID-19
- Superannuation increases
- NDIS
- The housing market
- The increasingly wealthy
And there are assuredly many others that readers might want to add but let us just take a look at the ones above.
Climate change is being accepted as a reality by the majority of people but the urgent need for action is being supported by too few who are in a position to actual develop the necessary processes..
Every day that goes by, without realistic efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, is a day which increases the likelihood that future generations will find their world less comfortable than they realistically are entitled to expect.
Death rates will increase, medical resources will be in heavy demand, and many current occupations will become impossible to follow because of local climate changes and shortage of relevant resources.
Respect for women is abysmally low at present, and has been exacerbated by misplaced blame. Men and women are all people, whose bodies are designed to fulfill different purposes, who have different hormones affecting their behaviours, yet who need those differences – and their accompanying similarities – to ensure survival of the species.
Because education about sexuality has been distorted by pornography and the refusal of too many adults to approach the issue in an intelligent way, we now have arrived at a situation where immature adults are behaving irresponsibly.
Having treated the environment with a level of irresponsibility, which has resulted in a massive loss of species, it seems we are now working just as hard to destroy our own species.
In the middle of writing this, I watched the ABC discussion with Kate Ellis, which left me feeling pretty sick at the significant effect on this country of the people we elect to lead us!
Realistic support for those damaged by government’s actions in the pandemic has not been made available because the Coalition government policies refuse to acknowledge that the current, massive and global disruption of business and commerce has been caused by the government itself.
While the actual plans made to try to limit spread of the COVID-19 virus were good, the government has sought to get back to a ‘normal’ which is not, in fact, possible in a world which is anything but normal.
The initial policies were predicated on the assumption that, once the fight against the corona virus was won, then the special policies were no longer required.
But Australia is well ahead of most of the world, and international business cannot yet begin to return to ‘normal’ because the virus is far from under control in most of the world.
In consequence, many businesses have no hope of getting going again for some, unknown, time to come. And it is positively insane to punish business owners and their employees because they cannot find work to do!
Add to the loss of JobKeeper, the reintroduction of payment of delayed rent and mortgage payments, for people who – as of Monday 29/03/21 – no longer have any income from a job, and we shall rapidly descend into a massive soup kitchen with homelessness becoming more severe by the day.
And we really need that money which was paid to big businesses which went into extra dividends for shareholders!
COVID-19 is far from being beaten. It may never be, if the present model, of wealthy countries buying up supplies of vaccine, and failing to share them with poorer countries, is to continue.
As a country which is an island, and therefore has control over its borders, Australia has been able to take great strides in reducing the level of community transmission, but the vaccination program here still has a long was to go before we reach an appropriate level.
We rely on a level of vaccination which we have not yet reached – I am 85 and have yet to be offered vaccination, although for me it is not urgent as I am in the NT, which (to date) has been COVID free – and the government’s tendency to set hard timelines in a fluid situation does not bode well for the future.
Superannuation increases need to continue if today’s young people are to have any hope of a reasonable retirement.
That, of course, assumes that they do not have to wait too long before they can find a job, and can be vaccinated against COVID-19!
How can the national government take the attitude to superannuation that it does, when former MPs have a better superannuation scheme that the vast majority of workers???
NDIS is rapidly changing from the promised dream to going down the same path as those seeking work have experienced.
The government pays people to establish a business to help people, but does not listen to the needs of those needing the help
So the ones being paid by the government to do a job, in circumstances which severely limits their ability to do so in a meaningful way, will end up fine, while those needing the help, will be highly unlikely to get what they need.
Promises were made – and those promises MUST be honoured!
The housing market is firing up again – causing prices to rise in such a way, that those most in need of accommodation, will be highly unlikely to be able to find it.
Housing is the most urgent issue, after climate change, for the national government, but the current one fobs it off to the states and territories.
Public housing in in short supply and management of it is in dire straits, so what are we waiting for?
The increasingly wealthy continue to get richer, because once you have enough money to save, your can invest it to grow.
So why do we not have a wealth tax brought in – at the same time as donations to political parties are barred?
There is so much that could be done, or done better.
So much discussion and consultation with experts – not snake oil salesmen – which should be done.
BUT – we have a government whose leader IS a snake oil salesman, none of whose members have the guts to displace him – all while Australia slides further and further away from its status as the Lucky Country!
And all the above is ignoring external pressures like China’s global ambitions!
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15 comments
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Kaye
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Peter F
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Kerri
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Keitha Granville
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Gangstas Paradise
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Gangstas Paradise
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Canguro
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Terence Mills
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Gangstas Paradise
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Gangstas Paradise
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Michael Taylor
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Kerri
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Max Gross
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B Sullivan
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Kronomex
Return to home pageIndependant media is vital in Australia there are a myriad of ways we get information these days
I believe we have a duty to sift through the choices. Murdoch press is poison to our way of democracy.
“We don’t want to see women rise only on the basis of (men) doing worse”. He cannot see that this is the reason that a majority of men get into positions of power, particularly in politics. I realise I’m stating the bleeding obvious.. but clearly not all see it as I do.
When your elected PM is a marketing man who won his campaign on marketing himself alone you get a huge policy void and performative responses made on the run. Morrison has claimed to be listening but has handballed the “women’s” issues back to his women. That’s it. Done and dusted. He has no intention of being involved in any women’s issues let alone understanding them. He stated he didn’t want to see gender segregation and then created a “women’s” ministry complete with its own “women’s PM”. On election night Scottyfrommarketing stated he has always believed in “miracles”. And the problem with “miracles” is no one can really explain how they happened or work out how to repeat them. In the meantime his smiling buffoon apprentice who made the mistake of $60 billion that he is yet to admit to, is sharpening his dagger for the inevitable leadership challenge when the elected reps realise they are headed for oblivion. However, having said that, I would not put it past Australian voters to re-elect this hopeless, careless, witless bunch of idiots back in to power.
I feel terribly sad for the younger people of today. I am retired, I have somewhere to live and I know where my next meal will be coming from. I cannot imagine the stress of being without those basics of life. How can we even talk about being a civilised country when children are homeless and hungry, when elderly folk are abused and neglected, when the disabled are treated like 10th class citizens and the place in which we live is trashed and burned and used up without a thought?
We need a government with a fire in its belly to make things right. Is it Labor? The fire is missing.
The good ship “Australia” currently has covid-19 splashing the gunwales while Debt (remember how bad that was when Labor was in govt, well now its 3 times bigger & only the last third is due to Covid) is sloshing inside the life rafts.
With Morrison playing the stormy petrel and getting overwhelmed by events way beyond his capacity is it any wonder “Australia” is slowing and the course ahead is completely fog bound.
I too feel sorrow for the current generation.
From todays Crikey :
“As Crikey detailed yesterday:
• Linda “lying cow” Reynolds moves to Government Services and the NDIS and has been replaced at Defence by Peter “not a monster” Dutton
• Michaelia “too busy to speak with AFP re: possible crimes by her own office” Cash will become attorney-general and minister for industrial relations
• Porter, whose litigation against the ABC created a potential conflict of interest in his role as attorney-general, is demoted to the Industry portfolio
• Stuart “where do we begin” Robert will take Cash’s portfolio of Employment.
• Karen Andrews moves from Industry to Home Affairs
• Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price retains her job and, after a hilarious stint at Environment pre-2019 election, returns to cabinet
• Superannuation Minister Jane Hume, who recently failed to push domestic violence survivors to tap into their super, will take on a role of “Women’s Economic Security” on a women’s taskforce
• Social Services Minister Anne Ruston, who saw thousands return to poverty after briefly doubling the JobSeeker rate, will take on the role of “Women’s Safety”
• Marise Payne will remain minister for women — an office that, as Crikey has tracked, has yet to issue a single media statement over 2021’s parliamentary scandals — and will be in Morrison’s words “effectively the prime minister” of Hume and Ruston’s taskforce
• Payne will be joined by far-right Queensland senator and prominent critic of abortion rights and the “transgender agenda” — which, editor’s note, largely consists of “existing” — Amanda Stoker as an assistant minister.”
And there is so much more that can be added to that list.
Keitha, Gangsta… 220 years is all it took for whitey to trash this country. What’s the estimated length of the indigenous people’s tenure… 60,000 or more years? How good is that? Scotty’s clueless of course, but he’s not alone amid the ships of fools (remember the GFC of 2008… a function of America’s smartest & brightest (but not wisest)? Broadness of vision is noticeably absent from the public discourse these days, whether from within the bureaucratic sector, or political, or the commentariat (media generally); so while the ship sinks the tendency is to look the other way, Titanic-like, with the orchestra fiddling mournfully on the tilting deck as the panic sets in. And bipartisan politics hasn’t worked too well, eh? Democracy’s fine, more or less, but yoked to the capitalism ethic it’s a poisonous combination; profit-driven, extractive, environmentally destructive, dog-eat-dog ‘Darwinian’ competitiveness, winners the grinners and losers forced to beg for a bowl of soup. I’m aware of the Greenpeace slogan; Think Globally, Act Locally, but I fear that even that fine sentiment is impotent in the face of the looming disasters that global capitalism has gifted mankind in the Age of Oil with its GW consequences. Gaia will survive, whether we do is moot. I feel the same as you’ve both said, future generations will find it far more difficult than the current generation of (aged) folk. These days when I see young mothers with their infants I’m inevitably reminded that those babes will inherit this awful legacy we’re leaving them. Sad, And awful also, the environmental costs…. the SIxth Extinction, mammals going, plants too, insectageddon, loss of most of the planet’s glaciers and the on costs of those melts, the opportunistic potential for global famines due to commodity crop (wheat, rice, corn) failures as a function of bacterial and fungal diseases for which the agrochemical industry have no solutions, not to mention loss of soil fertility as a function of massive overuse of chemical fertilisers and the consequent acidification and loss of the soil biota, along with the criminal destruction of natural habitat on a global scale. We were nature’s grandest creation, her most successful experiment in life seeking to know itself most intimately, but there’s something seriously wrong with our psychological makeup and that fatal flaw has been our specie’s Achille’s heel. The good Lord must be kicking himself, that he so screwed up when he put together the blueprint for Homo sapiens (and I give Linnaeus a B- for his taxonomic reference of us being ‘wise’)
True story, my wife and I went to our local Woolies this morning. We were told we could not enter without a mask. I said OK can we buy a mask and the lady said they don’t have any in stock.
I popped over to the pharmacy opposite and a staff member told me you can’t enter without a mask. I said can I buy some masks. She said we don’t sell them, but we will give you one if you buy something. I said OK I’ll buy a packet of masks. She said no, you must buy something else.
I grabbed a box of tissues and paid for them and she reluctantly gave me two masks.
So much comedic material but it’s getting a bit weird isn’t it ?
Comment from The Shovel
Is this why the Morrison govt is so quiet on the military takeover of Myanmar :
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/03/30/adani-denies-myanmar-military/
“Adani Group denies engaging with Myanmar’s military leadership, video says otherwise ”
While the rest of the democratic world takes economic action against the military chiefs Morrison takes action against Brisbane.
Morrison should just F/O and let Premier Anna continue doing the great job she has been doing against Covid-19.
It isn’t all that difficult to carry a mask in your bag or car and if you carry a shoulder bag then a mask in there is no great difficulty.
After more than 12 months of Covid-19 …….. excuses are wearing a bit thin.
Surgical masks are selling cheap here in northern Victoria, Terry. The chemist had packs of ten for $10.
I leave a mask behind my sun visor in the car. But my car is full of disposable masks because every time I go to the Austin, twice a month, they make me don a fresh mask from their supply. 🤷🏼♀️
A mask is only effective if worn correctly. Also, disposable masks should not be worn over and over again. Reusable masks should be washed after use. I live on the Far South Coast NSW but recently returned from three weeks visiting fam and friends in Melbourne. Masks are supposedly mandatory on all public transport there and most people do the right thing. But many do not. Some wear masks on their chins or under their noses. Some don’t even bother. I saw no policing of masks wearing whatsoever. Good luck with that!
Hey Canguro
The earliest evidence of homo sapiens was found in Morocco in North Africa and is dated at 300,000 years old. Today homo sapiens are the only race of humans still extant. The brand new science of Genetics with its recent mapping of the human genome informs us that every human being alive today belongs to that same race, be they black, white or what ever colour or shape you use to describe them. There are no exceptions.
Homo sapiens first arrived in Australia at least 60,000 years ago possibly earlier. There are middens dating back 120,000 years that might have been made by humans, but so far this hasn’t been proved.
We don’t know if Australia has been continuously occupied since then. We do know that the earliest known rock paintings in Australia reveal a completely different culture to that of later humans in Australia. What happened to those earlier people we do not know. Perhaps they just died out after a millennium or two, or were displaced by new arrivals. 45,000 years is a long time and recorded history is barely 6,000 years old, so it is not inconceivable that they and their descendants could have spent thousands of years wandering across the planet and they may even have been the first homo sapiens to inhabit Britain as it was freed from the last ice age.
We do know that the presence of humans in Australia coincides with the extinction of Australia’s mega fauna which were also subjected to the pressure of gradual climate change as the continent slowly got warmer and drier. We also know that the once lush vegetation and its ecosystem was further pressured into extinction by human burning. Ancient humans had no more regard for environmental destruction or climate change than modern humans.
For the last couple of centuries homo sapiens in Australia have had access to more than just fire and stone axes and now the entire continent is in a state of complete environmental collapse. It wasn’t whitey who trashed it. It was homo sapiens. Australia Day on 26th January, marks the end of the Stone Age in Australia and an acceleration of environmental destruction through advanced technology. The human behavior is the same as it ever was, every where.
Consider. Homo Sapiens first settled in New Zealand 800 years ago. Before the Dutch homo sapiens arrived there four centuries later the largest bird in world, the Moa was extinct.
B Sullivan April 1, 2021 at 3:42 am
“The earliest evidence of homo sapiens is alive and well and is now heading the Department of Defence…”
I just couldn’t resist it.