Just Sayin'

I’m a tad conflicted or maybe I’m vexed, I concede I might even be confused or, shockingly, naïve.

Here I sit writing this blog in a (arguably) democratic country with all the rights and freedoms that entitles me to. I am free to say what I like within reason, write what I think within legal boundaries and do whatever takes my fancy as long as the government and law makers deem it to be ok. Balance that with some of my fellow citizens (of the country and the world) who are less well treated, national security and operational matters being invoked to deny me my right to know some things, including why I might be deemed a security threat, and life is pretty damned good. My main complaint day to day at the moment is disgusting humidity and rising prices.

So why am I vexed?

Freedom of speech is troubling me. I stand with the people who were murdered in Paris last week. I declare solidarity with the staff of Charlie Hebdo and I fall down weeping when I think of those killed in the Hyper Cacher supermarket.

And yet I don’t feel Je Suis Charlie. Mostly.

I have a general philosophy that it is unacceptable to rubbish, make fun of or denigrate someone’s religious beliefs. I am a Christian of the Catholic variety and my faith is rock solid. I have significant concerns about the ‘management’ of the organisation that facilitates the practice of my beliefs but I am grown up enough to separate the two. I know what I believe and it carries me through my life and the way I choose to live it. I constantly question my beliefs and I even sometimes have doubts about God (oh boy do I have questions) BUT I have never lost faith even in the darkest, saddest and cruelest times.

I am amused by atheists (seriously they are hilarious) and I am amazed by how many commentators, Tweeters, Bloggers etc can’t seem to differentiate between religion and individuals. Responsibility always belongs with the person rather than the religion and yet the sweeping generalisers go for the faith rather than the faithful. Odd?

Satire when done well (perhaps code for when I enjoy it) is one of my favorite forms of humour. It pricks pretension, it puts politicians on notice, it can make us think differently, is simply clever and it shatters assumptions.

Satire when done badly is offensive for the sake of it, a play thing for the smart arses and often puerile.

Cartoons can be simply funny and that is their raison d’etre. Others celebrate superheroes and yet others are social commentary. Gary Larson, Michael Leunig, Ron Tanberg, Kathy Wilcox and others can capture a million thoughts in a single frame cartoon.

Charlie Hebdo is not my cup of tea. I suspect it is an equal opportunity offender, it doesn’t care who or what it targets, it exists to take the piss and show how hilarious it is…in its own mind.  It’s a bit tiresome frankly and is probably more at home in an undergraduate magazine than a high street publication.  

Having said that I can see no reason why it ought be banned, even vilified. And I sure as hell see absolutely no justification for ten good, honest people working for the rag to be slaughtered by a pair of murderers defiling the beautiful religion and prophet whose name they dare to proclaim as theirs. These filthy creeps died in shame with the stain of blasphemy to Islam and Muslims which they dared to hijack to commit horror. May they rot wherever they are.

I found the cover of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo affecting, amusing and moving.  It wasn’t satire, it was just right.  I can’t speak to the suggestion it is offensive for the depiction of the prophet I sense though that he would be shedding a tear for what was done in his name and I find that hard to see as offensive.

Having these conflicting views, I struggle when people talk about freedom of speech because sometimes it allows hatefulness. I am vexed though in that limiting speech allows bad stuff to happen. It turns down the lights a bit, the curtains are drawn a fraction, the shutters start to descend. Governments can get away with all sorts of things, corporates can play merry hell, the extremes on both sides of politics can party with our paranoias and our basic access to information can be diminished to what someone else deems ‘appropriate’. That’s before we consider what we can write, say or seek to debate. Or make fun of.

There is no doubt there’s a lot of hideous stuff on the internet, mindless banality on chat sites, excruciating pomposity on blogs (sorry) and hatefulness in the streets. I just think that I would rather it be there for me to see, challenge, or be offended by than have it hidden away. I have a right to be offended, I have a right to be amused and outraged and challenged for my opinions. The other side to that is that others have a right to do all that to me. Yes, even the haters. I can even cope with the stupidity of an anti vaccination advocate doing speaking engagements, or someone like David Irving sprouting his ridiculous bile and Richard Dawkins is welcome anytime to give me a good laugh and remind me why smiling is so much more preferable to scowling. Of course I'd rather the atheist cult be represented by the brilliant mind of Stephen Fry than the grumpiness and sarcasm of Dawkins. Oh Stephen, such a brain and yet so baffling. 

Often of course (as in the current resurgence of debate in Australia about the loathsome proposed changes to S18c), the argument about freedom if speech has more to do with power than freedoms. Who stands to gain when freedom of speech or the press is limited? Who is left to be 'heard' and who is silenced? This privileged white guy doing a blog will keep plodding along. Despite his hand wringing the hideous Andrew Bolt or the purse lipped Alan Jones and their ilk will be just fine...we ought to worry most about who won't.

And, as always, we just have to be better.
 

We Have Nothing To Fear...Nothing

‘There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.’ - Andre Gide

 

I was listening in on a chat yesterday where the two people were talking about the number of air tragedies in 2014. I was surprised when one of the women said ‘you wouldn’t get me on a plane again, they just aren’t safe anymore. Thus Air Asia business just makes it worse. No, I’ll stay at home or only go anywhere by train from now on”. 

It’s funny what drives our fears isn’t it? Sometimes it’s something that goes back to our childhood – a spider that seemed gigantic when we were three stays with us throughout our lives and no matter the size of the spider it always ‘appears’ gigantic and menacing as an adult, being thrown in the air by our favorite uncle when we were 4 stays in our mind and returns whenever we are high up somewhere etc etc. All irrational and easy to beat but often it’s as though we can’t quite let go.

So here’s a bit of myth busting for you:

·         3.2 BILLION (that’s 3,2000,000,000) people flew last year

·         1340 people were killed in a plane crash

·         1972 was the highest recorded number of air deaths – over 3000

·         The war years (1940s mostly) naturally had the highest number of crashes and proportionate number of deaths (ie less flights, less ‘souls’ on board per place)

·         Approx 1.24 million people die on roads worldwide each year (one person every 25 seconds)

·         1.5 million people die from diarrhoea annually worldwide

·         7.3 million people die from cardiac related illness

·         6.2 million people die from brain attacks (strokes)

·         Approx 6 million people die from tobacco related illness each year (some of these would be included in cardiac and stroke figures)

·         Between 200,00 and 500,000 die from influenza annually (hard to be definite as many influenza deaths are classified as lung infections, fevers etc)

While the last year seems to have been one disaster after another perception is not reality (rarely is – observe politics). There are risks in travelling by air, mainly ‘economy class flu’, DVT or flying bags from overhead lockers. But the risk is far greater every time we get in a car, cross a road, smoke a cigarette, eat some fatty food or sit next to someone with the flu. In fact we are probably better off flying everywhere than almost any other form of public transport.

Letting fear rule our lives or even determining our level of enjoyment is a folly and gets in the way of us experiencing life and it’s possibilities. It is usually irrational and more often ill informed. There is no doubt that the media and governments have a vested interest (and in the media’s case a market) to fuel fear. Radicals and ratbags, commentators and crackpots pounce on it and we often react without thinking, researching, asking questions, wondering ‘is there one more thing to this story that I need to know?’ We sadly rely on others to make our decisions for us, to ‘tell’ us what we need to know, to form our opinions and define our ‘shoulds’, 140 characters become our whole argument. The unique human gifts of critical thinking, free choice and reason are slowly shrivelling away because hey who needs those when someone else can decide everything for us? In this climate secrecy grows, facts are subsumed, national security and operational matters are trotted out to deny transparency and fear thrives.

There is always something to think about.

If only we would.

Terry's Bon Bon On His Blog Blog

Compliments of the Season to you all and many thanks for your support in 2014.

 

Lament for the Lindt Cafe

It started out as a perfect day in Sydney. People were getting ready for the work day, Christmas shoppers were grabbing a coffee to have some energy for their day and tourists were on their way to or from the Opera House and Circular Quay, maybe planning out their day of sightseeing. Martin Place and the Lindt Café were a refuge in the ‘moment before’.

The moment came around 9.45 on a Monday and for three people there would be no more Mondays or any other days. They had seen their last birthday, they would never need buy another Christmas present, and there would be no more weddings to attend, no more holidays to enjoy. Their moment had come and now it was gone with them.

Just engaging in the mundane suddenly became deadly.

It’s hard to fathom what goes through a seemingly twisted mind. It’s hard to contain one’s rage, even our prejudices or fears and it’s impossible to filter our sadness.

It’s unimaginable what friends and family went through while watching the rolling TV coverage or standing near the scene. It’s even less imaginable to know the anxiety and terror of those inside. 

Is there moral equivalence anywhere here? We condemn someone for choosing a murderous terror to espouse his views but our condemnation requires us to espouse our own and promote them thus as superior. Odd at best.

I think it’s pointless to label what happened as terrorism; that almost legitimises,in its demonising, an act of murder and a hideous crime as something that has as much weight as September 11 and other terrorist acts. But I fear in my criticism I am also adding to the culture of making these acts a contest of tragedy.

Similarly to call what was done ‘evil’ lets him off too lightly.  It gives an excuse when none ought to be given. Labelling an act as 'evil' means they don't have to be responsible nor that their actions were a choice. He committed murder as I said, he chose and acted and exploited fear, and he committed an intentional, terrible, terrifying and ghastly cold act. That’s what he did.

And let’s be clear he did not do one single thing as a Muslim. He dishonours the peaceful, caring and beautiful faith that is Islam. He was a cleric sure but that did not inform his actions. Murderous and hateful intent did and that was informed by a mental imbalance and a warped view of his place in the world.

Martin Place is a peaceful and pleasant place to rest amidst the hubbub and fast pace of the Sydney CBD. Sadly it now has a place in the sadder history of that beautiful city.

Today is another day and we stop and reflect, mourn, and sip a coffee.  We wish Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson could join us. RIP.

#illridewithyou

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”    ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

A Need to Read

I like newspapers and magazines. I mean ‘real’ newspapers and mags, the physical type. I have problems with looking at text on screen and absorbing the information contained therein. It’s one of the reasons I like to turn pages of paper in a book rather than a collection of text on a device. I think a book is perfect for reading so I don’t ‘get’ why I would use a Kindull, a Hobo or whatever. I have tried but I don’t absorb the story or the content as well as I do when I ‘bury’ myself in a book. Odd perhaps but there you go.

I also like to leaf through a newspaper to have the stories laid out in front of me across a page, ordered and neat, ads placed out of the way or nicely breaking up the lay out of the page. I even like the occasional battle getting the pages to turn over without getting all messed up. My Saturday ritual has been for about 40 years to get up, shower, walk to the milk bar and buy The Age then read through it over a slow breakfast.

I don’t mind checking out headline stories on line but if I want to read a feature piece or a lot of stories I have to have a physical paper. I notice I am distracted far more easily reading something on line than if I read a paper which is interesting isn’t it?

It has been alarming to see how quickly newspapers and (to a lesser extent) newspaper have become diminished and are disappearing.   The Herald Sun seems to be doing better than the quality paper but it is a cut and paste paper in many ways with a few pages of local, freshly sourced content and the hideous sweeping generalisations of the adversarial Andrew Bolt plus some acidic Sydneysiders in their opinion pieces.  Fairfax on the other hand seems to have simply decided to let The Age wither away and the business model is to direct readers to online ‘services’ but hasn’t ensured advertising rates reflect the costs of providing content. Fairfax outsourced things like photo content, sub editors (well who knows if they even exist anymore), even printing. The Age is an amalgam of product from New Zealand, regional centres and probably Nauru. The wonderful Age printing works complex out on the Tullamarine airport only about a decade old will now lie empty. The historic Age building in Spencer Street has been demolished (I hear the old printing presses were still in the basement abandoned). The quality has gone, the content has reduced and they just sat back and let it happen and operated on the mantra ‘it’s a changing world’. Sales dropped but readership really didn’t. It wasn’t readers who have killed the Age, it’s the business model and letting advertising dollars slip away.  Duh.

Where does it leave journalists? There are a few, very few investigative journalists, McKenzie and Baker at the Age for instance, and they do a great job. The rest though have become reactive rather than going out and finding stories. Resources and numbers dictate that’s the way it will be from now on. There are reductions in bureaus so stories are sourced from other agencies and that can be fraught with inaccuracies or manipulations which once published become the ‘truth’. To fill pages the temptation is to grab a story from on line sources or ‘stories for sale’ banks. Sometimes they are badly written, sometimes they are simply dodgy but always they are depriving another journalist of an income and the readers from getting real news, stories that have been worked through, edited and are consistent with the values of a masthead. And of course if the tenor of content is a reflection of the newspaper’s owner or a particular political bias the credibility is surely affected. A paper isn’t necessarily playing the boss’s tune directly but if it’s taking its content from other paper’s in that boss’s stable then it will be arguably homogenous. It’s really a shame.

In London there are still about nine newspapers published daily and selling well, Hong Kong has three or four, New Zealand has a couple, the States are still strong and throughout Europe every country seems to be far better served than Australia and are still loyal to the ‘daily rags’. Interestingly media ownership is usually much more diverse in the countries where newspapers continue to do well. I doubt that sales are soaring anywhere but it seems they are maintaining levels. 

I suspect the Herald Sun will survive, the Australian will become a weekly and the Age will be published as a ‘digest’ one day through the week with a Weekend Age.

I shan’t abandon newspapers or my Saturday ritual. I will even occasionally read the Herald Sun and the Oz. I will continue to worry about journalists and their jobs.

But I just wonder if one day in the future a whole swag of people think to themselves ‘I think I’ll go back to buying a newspaper’ and there aren’t any there? Vinyl records are being sold again (and at a crazy expensive price), physical book sales increased last year (even a few new bookshops opened), there are several ‘phone only’ mobile phones available and ‘old fashioned’ sandwich shops are becoming popular.

Have to go now, the cryptic crossword awaits and then the cartoons.

We're unbalanced

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a passionate advocate for work-life balance. In fact some might say I’m tiresome about it. Well, my defence is that it is really something I believe in because I am concerned about the effect of imbalance on people’s psychology, general health and appreciation of the gift that life is, not to mention how fleeting our time on Earth is.

Yesterday was Go Home On Time Day and I guess it says something that we have to even think about having such a day. In fact, shame on all of us.

Australians continue to work large amounts of unpaid overtime and these ‘donated’ hours added up to 58.8 million hours, which based on the average income adds up to almost $110 billion. If these hours were paid and allocated to Australians looking for work the unemployment rate could be zero.

In 2010 Australians were on average working 2.5 hours more a week than they would have liked. Only one-in-five workers reported they were working the hours they would like to. Unsurprisingly, the desire for fewer hours was stronger amongst people working long hours, whereas part-time workers indicated they would like to work more hours.

The general desire for more work by some and less work by others highlights the need to balance the distribution of work hours across the labor force. Of course this means that women are often the ones who feel stress because they ‘have’ to get home to care for their kids, to avoid high after school care fees etc and men feel stress because they assume the ‘worker’ role and are more inclined to stay at work longer. This is a concern for continuing gender stereotyping as well as being at home with the family becomes an ok choice rather than a responsibility. How did we get to the point where our children became second in importance to our employer? Is that the sign of an evolved species? Seriously?

There is some research to suggest that working as little as two hours extra a week can be indicators for obesity, hypertension and heart disease as well as the obvious anxiety disorders and stress related illnesses such as depression. And of course just the fact of sitting in a chair for long periods has obvious ill effects, muscular skeletally at least.

The other concern is that it doesn’t take long for something such as ‘donated’ working hours becomes part of the culture of the workforce and indeed companies. ‘Working back’ quickly goes from a request or ‘chipping in’ to an expectation. Feelings of guilt start if you leave while the rest of your colleagues are working on (no matter you might have completed your day’s work or have great time management skills). It can be difficult for general staff but also hard for managers who don’t want to be ‘seen’ to be leaving on time while the worker bees are slaving away. Mind you hopefully it means they are fulfilling one of their key roles as a manager, being a role model.

Almost as a consequence of the above it has become ‘normal’ to check our work emails at home or almost addictively peeking at our work material on our phones or tablets on the train home or while eating dinner. I live by the maxim that when I walk out the door my work day is finished and doesn’t start again until I walk in the door the next day. My time is my time not my employer’s, why does this seem ‘odd’ or outrageous to even say that?

Let’s face it few of us work for a charity, so to be brutal why do we ‘donate’ hours to quite wealthy corporations? If we want to be so altruistic how about working those five or ten hours at an organization that could actually use us? Australians work three times more hours of unpaid overtime than they volunteer to community organisations. If we are doing long hours which could be done by two people within contracted hours then damn it employ another person and do something positive for the economy and the community. Sometimes I think we have a need to be martyrs and I ponder on what generates that in 2014.

Research also shows us that the more hours one works, especially if we don’t want to be doing it, the less productive we are, our instincts diminish proportionately and our critical thinking is affected. The key is to use the extra hours for tidying up, completing tasks, reading rather than reviewing, starting a new project or anything forensic.

We often blame the lack of time, indeed it’s almost a mantra these days that ‘I never have enough time to fit it all in’. I frankly and loudly scoff at this notion. It is a simple, scientific fact that you have as much time as there is time, no more no less. We have the same 24 hours we always had. What happens is we choose to cram more into those hours. Look time is in our control, it does not control us. Grab that control back and decide ‘I can only do what I can do and let the cards fall where they may’. Again if it means asking for help or more staff then take some responsibility for your own well-being and ask for it. If you aren’t listened to then why would you work for/with someone like that?

Finally, life is a precious gift and given to we lucky few. It is also very fleeting and tragically for many even more fleeting. MH17 have a few hundred people on it who have taught us that tomorrow is not a guarantee for anyone; so do we really want to spend precious hours of life working extra and unpaid hours? What lunacy is that? ‘If I put in the hard yards today it will all pay off in the years to come. The family will thank me when I have a better job and a bit of money in the bank’…such arrogance. Why wouldn’t you want to be grabbing every minute you can to experience life, look at the world around us, cherish, hold, listen to, talk to, love our children, family and friends?

So there it is.

In the end it’s all up to you to decide on the life you believe you ought to be living, the life you ‘deserve’. No one else writes our ‘rule book’, no one is ‘helpless’ and I hope no one gives up their work life balance willingly or unthinkingly.

Take care of yourselves and each other

“If you slave away every day at a job you hate and come home drained and frustrated, what is that teaching your kids?”  ― Alexander Kjerulf, Happy Hour is 9 to 5

A Towering Legend

“…there is every reason why Australia, wealthy and well-endowed, in many respects incomparably so, should be giving a lead to other nations in the equality of opportunities and the quality of the opportunities we make for our own citizens and in the help we can give to others. Twenty years ago, Australia was indeed a pioneer and a leader; now we lag behind. It is not for lack of resources; it has been for lack of resourcefulness on the part of a national leadership, bogged down in its own past, shackled by the dogmas of an outdated, doctrinaire philosophy.” – Gough Whitlam election speech 1969

 

November 11^th 1975 was a hot day and I awaited my father getting home from work so I could, somewhat gleefully, announce to him that ‘Kerr sacked Whitlam’. After a couple of weeks of posturing and stalemate the unelected Governor General had downed a few brandies and sacked the popularly elected Prime Minister. Dad was gutted and a little fearful ‘this could lead to a civil war’. I was not and continue to not be against the dismissal, I felt a circuit breaker was needed and, if the Government would not go to the electorate, this was seen as the ‘best’ option. Over the years I have come to doubt the motivations of the GG and am suspicious of the mechanics behind it. I sometimes think if not for the fact that the wrong man was given the job of Governor General or if our country was enlightened enough not to have a Governor General then things might have been quite different.

Gough Whitlam was a visionary and a man with a strong enough sense of self and his country to deliver his vision. It is remarkable that he was Prime Minister for less than three years and yet did so much. Suddenly a country that had been a bit worn out and maybe under dim lights suddenly found an extra light switch and a good strong cuppa and woke up in the light. We’d seen off Menzies (a bit like having had grandpa staying at your place for years and suddenly moved off to a nursing home in another state), then Harold Holt went for a swim after sin and along came Gorton who offered a spark but voted himself out to give us Billy McMahon and the writing was on the urinal wall…

Gough gave us so much. Universal health care (Medibank/Medicare) and suddenly anyone who was sick no longer had to juggle their bills to afford lifesaving care, no longer died of cancer because they simply didn’t have the money for surgery and ‘minor’ viruses spread far less because you could go to a GP and get treatment relatively cheaply (in those days you were out of pocket about $2). ‘Free’ university education meant that, regardless of income, regardless of ‘class’, regardless of where you lived and if you had the desire and ability you could go to University. GPs, lawyers, psychiatrists and even politicians we have today are all thanks to their privilege of free university education. The Family Law Act was introduced giving ‘no blame’ divorce and many people stifled and subsumed in loveless relationships could now get on with their lives. I have philosophical problems with easy divorce (although truthfully I’d be happier if it was much harder to get married) but no one should be entrapped in sadness by any law. Land rights gave our first Australians hope. The Trade Practices Act brought shonky businesses and misleading advertising to account. He even brought many of us in from outdoor toilets with sewerage being introduced to many (most) places. We threw away the British Imperial Honour system (memo Mr Abbott that was 40 years ago!!!) and gained a new National Anthem but not quite a republic but FM radio grew out of Whitlam legislation. And Legal Aid opened the doors for many more to at least get a look in to our Legal mysteries and miseries. All this while ending conscription, giving the vote to 18 year olds, being the first Western leader to go to China and shaking hands with Mao and accelerating the withdrawal of troops in Vietnam. And all this (plus more) in less than three years.

These were things that mattered and I don’t know why they don’t matter as much anymore.

There were dumb, stupid, dangerous mistakes also. Borrowing money from shady regimes, obscenely high inflation, a blowout in the public service numbers and the married Treasurer having a ‘close’ relationship with his PA were not the mark of a government that had a solid hold on the reins.  And ultimately it burnt out and had to go.

Gough and his government changed the way we saw politics and parliament.  His mantra was ‘equality of opportunity’; now why isn’t that on our coat of arms, why isn’t that our abiding philosophy, our (God help me) vision statement?  

He was a great man, a one off; he had an incredible wit, god he was funny, and a huge brain. I saw him in person twice and he was a huge bloke who taught me what charisma is, I’ve only experienced that a handful of times and it is rare but palpable when you experience it.

He was a good man and he did good things. This country is all the better for his being Prime Minister. He wasn’t the best, he was too human for that but he did what he could, it was probably his best and what more can we ask of anyone, especially our leaders.

98 years is indeed a lifetime but it seems it was time for him to go.

My sympathies to his family, his admirers, friends and colleagues.

Thanks comrades

The Hard Goodbye

I’m not great at grieving, I’m actually not sure if anyone is. In an ideal world we’d be shocked then sad then maybe reflective and finally move on. Of course that would be to eliminate loss, emptiness, bewilderment, regret and the whole package of other things which everybody deals with differently when someone we love or have simply known passes away. Death and grieving is something, at least in the West, we have no manual or handbook to fall back on. We only have our hearts and our emotions and they are never great teachers although are our first responders.

On Wednesday I heard of the death of an old friend, a former work colleague from over 20 years ago; a funny, warm, sweet man who I have nothing but fond memories of. He was getting ready for work, stepped out of his shower and just died. Gone.

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken. There’s a pain goes on and on…”  

Only a few hours later 293 people were on a plane from Amsterdam, some returning from holidays, some planning to head home or onto further adventures and some coming to Melbourne for the AIDS conference. As they thought about what inflight movie they’d watch, popped to the loo, flicked through the airline flight magazine, chatted to a neighbour or their family a couple of missiles hit their plane and they plunged to their death. Gone.

I was moved by the words of The Netherland’s Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans at the UN Security Council:

“Since Thursday, I’ve been thinking how horrible the final moments of their lives must have been, when they knew the plane was going down. Did they lock hands with their loved ones? Did they hold their children close to their hearts? Did they look each other in the eyes, one final time, in a wordless goodbye? We will never know.

The demise of almost 200 of my compatriots has left a hole in the heart of the Dutch nation. It has caused grief, anger and despair. Grief for the loss of loved ones, anger for the outrage of the downing of a civilian airplane and despair after witnessing the excruciatingly slow process of securing the crash site and recovering the remains of the victims.

Images of children’s toys being tossed around, luggage being opened or passports, including passports of children being shown, are turning our grief and mourning into anger… We demand dignity for the victims and the multitudes who mourn their loss.”

I am not at all interested in the angst people are expressing over the contamination of the crash scene, it’s just too bad and too ghastly but it is what it is. We can’t expect people who are going about the pointless business of armed conflict to have a sudden rush of morality and decency when they shoot down a passenger plane ‘by mistake’.

My concern is for the return of the citizens who were murdered to their families and friends and in to the warmth and sad welcome of their nations. From Amsterdam to Adelaide, from Kuala Lumpur to Quebec and all other cities that have lost someone just give them one last act of respect. I’m pretty sure we know who did it and how they did it. We know Putin is  being loose with the truth about who's responsible and while Russia has the gas that supplies a fair whack of Europe and much of Kensington in London is ‘owned’ by Russian millionaires there’ll lots of fancy words and furrowed brows from some leaders but not a lot more.

And so today strangers are bound together, some look across a room expecting to see someone who will never be there again, some will call to a child who will never respond, some will wonder what their parent would think about…only to never know. The why will never be answered, the how maybe. There will be anger, sometimes at a God that ironically many won’t really have believed in, even at the dead themselves but most certainly and appropriately at the murderers. Does time heal or does it just move it to that place where memories reside, waiting to return when we least expect it? It is fascinating where the reminders reside and when the sadness surfaces. It might be a song, it might be an expression, it might be a passage in a book, it might be the briefest glance at someone who you think is the one you lost. Grief is breathtaking in its sinister ability to just not let go.

I hadn’t seen my friend for many years and yes I regret that today. But I also had enough memories of him and reminders of the laughs, the lunches and a weekend in Launceston to make my heart sag a little and to flatten my spirits when I heard he’d died.

 
When someone dies it hurts as much as it matters, as much as it is worth; it is never futile because it just wouldn’t be if it didn’t matter. There is pain in grief but pain shows you have not forgotten and is proof of love – it matters.

Those who lost someone on MH17 and those of us who are confounded, maddened and sad by the crash will always remember what happened on Thursday over the skies of the Ukraine. Our history has been changed in a moment, our world has gasped and we will never know in what ways the world would have benefited from those we have lost. As our tears are shed or as we stop to think about them, and us, we grieve in the way that gets us to tomorrow and beyond.

“Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.”

Take care and be kind to each other.

(The two lyrics used are from ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’ from ‘Les Miserables’ -Herbert Kretzmer, Claude Michel Schonberg, Alain Albert Boublil)

We Just Want a 'Fair Go'

I studied economics at school and did quite well but to be honest my understanding of the subject today is about as strong as my understanding of the mating habits of the Andalusian Kwok kwok bird ie zero.

However it doesn’t so much require strong economics knowledge but a sense of equity and the Australian concept of a ‘fair go’ to know that there is something wrong with the Federal Budget and the philosophy behind some of it.

Firstly, it is clear there is a need to tighten spending by the Government and, I think, increase revenue. I think (as do most economists)we are far from in the middle of a ‘budget emergency’ and I am not an advocate for surpluses as a necessity for a healthy, caring and courageous society. My concern is always, and above all else, what sort of country do we want this to be. I believe the social economy, the spiritual health and the community quotient is what ought to be the goal of our citizens and politicians. With care, forward thinking and an acceptance of nothing less than compassion for all I believe this will be a wonderful country for everyone, not the least those who currently find it tough and are likely to find it even tougher if the budget goes through as presented.

I think the Government has actually misread the electorate badly and that is what has fired the discontent and negativity around the measures being planned. Australians by and large can cop a bit of a kick occasionally if they feel they can afford it. What they won’t cop is a kick being given to someone already doing it too hard, the already disadvantaged, our older citizens or those in genuine need on benefits. It goes against our values and the fabric of the country; it is what defines the concept of a ’fair go’. Also we have matured as nation from the days when the ‘dole bludger’ mentality/myth was a popular war cry or dog whistle. Most of us know or have had personal experience of Centrelink and the dole so we know how hard it is to ‘live’ on an allowance that is in fact below the poverty line. I certainly know that fear of going to the letterbox fearing what bill might be in there and deciding if I’ll have my noodles for tea that night or go without just to keep the gas on for another month.

I have a scenario in my head about extending the pension age to 70. Old Bob has worked all his life in manual labor. He is proud of living the way he was raised as the principal breadwinner, feeding his family all his working life and taking sustenance from the fact that the house he lives in, the car he drives, the holidays they go on, the education the kids had, enabling his wife to study and do volunteer work and the lifestyle they could afford all were due to his working for many decades. At 62 his factory goes out of business and he is suddenly unemployed. No redundancy because it turns out his bosses weren’t all that flash at accounting. Bob’s back is pretty buggered and no one wants to really employ a bloke who will only give them 8 years and might have a fair bit of sick leave. So here we have a bloke on benefits for 8 years until he can get the aged pension, slowly deteriorating physically and his self-esteem slipping because he no longer feels of worth or able to do what he thinks is important to the way he sees himself – work and bring in a proper income. Multiply this story by many and we have new burdens on the health system, the welfare system and the psyche of communities. PLUS we add the burden of GP co-payments, higher prescription fees plus benefits not being indexed appropriately.

This is a country where 660,000 people are registered as unemployed, many people working just a few hours a week and others who don’t register at all or just give up don’t figure in that number. It is said that 12½ % of the population currently live below the poverty line. This is what I call an emergency.

I fear the reality of life does not match the concept of the policies of this government; I don’t believe they understand that not all children have parents or family at all, let alone those for whom it is not safe to live with. To then mandate that a person under 30 ‘should’ live with their families while they look for a job or learn something for six months without payment is frankly callous. If you’ve just finished a four or six year Uni course why the heck would you want to then go and ‘learn’ something else? If you have been knocked around a bit because you had problems learning or studying for whatever reason what would that do to your esteem to then be turned away from getting a benefit and penalised for not undertaking some learning? These are the realities not the Pollyanna-esque version of life these Parliamentarians seem to have. And heaven forbid they should get sick from anxiety or stress and have to find the means to pay the $7 Joe-payment.

All of us are also painfully aware that any costs that increase as a result of the budget are not the only increases we have to contend with. In the last few months there has been increases in car registration, public transport fares, utilities, private health insurance, petrol and (disastrously for Melburnians) coffee – and have you seen the cost of lamb recently! Again a reality that the government doesn’t seem to understand when they talk about small imposts and inconvenience and hard to swallow when they trot out a line like ‘we know this will be hard for some people’ not to mention the tiresome, macho (remind me how many women are in cabinet again?)sloganeering of ‘share the load… doing the heavy lifting’ etc. I think we all know about toting the bales already.

Life and lives are complex, nuanced and varied and sensitive legislators and caring administrators need to adapt to that not the other way around.

So here’s the thing. The government has lost the ‘we are not breaking promises’ line so give it up and cop it sweet, you lied, we were fooled and you should be ashamed so please stop treating us like fools. You have now diminished the image of politicians even further than you and the now Opposition did during the minority term. That, Mr Abbot, Mr Pyne, Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd is a shame on you and I don’t know how the mistrust we now have can ever be overcome but on your own heads be it. 

It is hard too to imagine how the pollies can argue the concept of hard times in the economy, pushing the disadvantaged further down, charging a co-payment at the doctors, making tertiary education a product rather than a right (something that is to be available to those who are capable of paying  rather than to all who are capable of studying), raising the pension age etc while paying billions for second rate and unnecessary fighter jets (where’s the threat to the country coming from exactly?)and reducing funds to our world recognised research body, the CSIRO (well suited to undertake the much heralded and guilt driven medical research). On the co-payment I’m a bit confused by the way; we were told it was necessary because, well everyone should pay for medical care and we simply couldn’t afford to go on with Medicare as it was unless there was the co-payment. THEN out comes the budget and we find the bloody money isn’t going to Medicare at all but mostly to this amorphous ‘medical research’ fund…what the? The rebate to doctors will drop apparently and there will be extra administration costs to them for the tax so I suspect it will only be a matter of time before ALL doctors charges rise. I did a calculation that if my GP puts up fees by $7 and combined with the rise in prescriptions I would be out of pocket about $1200 a year.

Now we sit back and rake in the billions from the poor and the middle classes, a few pennies (temporarily) from the well off and the rich while abolishing the carbon charge and the mining tax – does that make sense. Of course if Labour had got the mining tax right we would have been reaping a fortune from the Billion dollars A WEEK the mining companies are procuring from OUR (as in all of us) resources.  Imagine if we’d got (or they’d had the community spirit to offer)ten or twenty billion in revenue from the mining boom each year, and we should have.

In the end, it is indeed the end of the age of entitlement, sadly many of foolishly thought we were entitled to feel safe and cared for or about.

I remember the mantra before the election – the Coalition would stop the boats, scrap the carbon tax and bring the budget back under control.

I never expected they also meant ‘we’ll kill the fair go’.

Pity…at least the economy will be strong.

Got to run, off to Aldi to stock up on instant noodles.