Beam me up Scotty

I’m not really a believer in reincarnation, but if I did I would want to come back with better financial and economic nous – oh, and an additional 4 inches so that my height and weight were finally a match.

And, I have to confer that I have not yet received my copy of the national Commission of Audit so that I can write with true authority about the proposal that a select group of business interests are suggesting for our future as a nation. So I am for the moment dependent on the intelligence I can gain from vicarious sources on which to form an opinion. I was tempted to say the intelligence I can get from the local press, but I pulled myself up!

I know Joe Hockey says this is not the budget, but I can’t help but think that the current government has turned on its head the adage: under promise and over deliver.  We have had nothing but daily leaks, tweets, squeaks and psssts about all the possible/likely/expected/anticipated/proposed/ manoeuvres that this government will adopt to create a budget that they can claim will pull us out of a seemingly manufactured crisis.

If you look at what international economists are saying, Australia is in an excellent position. Sure, we need to be secure for the future, but what appears to be happening is scaremongering to prepare us for the bitter pill that Joe will no doubt be delivering to us all in the near future. And  why?  Because having campaigned on the basis that  there was a financial crisis there is an imperative to create one.

I’m appalled at Tony Shepherd’s comments in response to the audit report,  that public servants, many of whom stand to lose their jobs, should not think in terms of my job, but think in terms of my country. Spoken like a true bean counter and every chief financial officer and treasury official I have ever encountered.  I’m sorry, but that’s a bit like telling a homeless person not to worry about sleeping out in the freezing cold with no food because on average people across Australia are in a warm bed and have just had a good lamb roast.  

From my high school economics there are two things you have to do in a budget:

1. Secure an income

2. Spend within your means.

Now, as a country there are a number of ways to secure an income and one of those is to put an appropriate level of tax onto the profits derived by companies from resources that belong to us all – especially those that come out of the ground. I concede there is a need for incentives to invest and make a profit, but there is also an ethical need to return to the country appropriate profits from the minerals and wealth that is being raped from it.

You can also increase you income by reducing spending – not on social welfare and community services, but on needless or badly thought out activity like: buying orange boats to tow back legitimate refugees; purchasing large and expensive fighter planes when drones are probably the way of the future;  ditching the whole notion of paid parental leave; scrapping the counselling hand out to engaged couples;  abandoning the repeal of sensible legislation and the costs that come with it and its associated inquiries; travelling to sporting events and weddings on parliamentary allowances; restricting access to parliamentarians pensions until age 70…. Need I go on?

 Instead what is being bandied about attacks our very livelihood and future. All because Joe Hockey thinks we have been in an age of entitlement. Well, Joe, let me tell you. I have worked for 45 years, making a contribution to our society through my taxes and effort. If in my latter years I need to be supported through health care and services, then I think I have more than paid my dues.

I suspect that come budget night we will have been so battered by the worst case scenarios that whatever is handed down will be received with: At least it could have been worse.

But I’m sorry. That’s just not good enough. 

And don’t get me started on when a levy is not a tax – oh, of course, I remember I have to use the core promise argument.

I have a confession.

Yesterday I was polled!

Question: Does that mean I will have to change the name of my blog?

  

Answer: No.  I just have to insert some UWS’s (Understood Abbot Words).

Just like he said: We will stop (telling you about) the boats

My blog will now say:   Nobody polls me (about the particular matters I wish to comment on at this point in time)

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Art Work of the week

I've been knitting beanies for Beaniefest in Alice Springs. One of my friends suggests that if Joe makes me work until I am 70, that this can be my new job. That will get me less than $7 a hour, before tax and before GST.   Do you reckon I can live on that Joe?

 

 

Phatic noise

It is my habit to turn on the radio as soon as I rise in the mornings. When I was in full time work it was always local ABC – listening for anything that would divert our attentions from the defined day’s work.  In semi-retirement I switched to Radio National breathing a sign that I would no longer be bombarded with the minutiae of stories about un-mowed school ovals, closed gates, school students being refused service at the local shops, or yet another debate about dress code.

RN  gives me a good sweep of national and international events – but I am seriously considering cutting the broadcast for the next five weeks and simply reverting to reading the news on my phone, or hanging out in a cave somewhere that  has no electricity or internet service– at least there I can avoid the burgeoning diatribe that is shaping up as election campaigning.

All that shouting, pontificating, name calling, jingoistic, phatic noise that does nothing but obfuscate the landscape,  is just more than I can bear at 6:30 in the morning. Oh for the squawking birds that fly in and out of the neighbour’s gum tree making an unbelievable racket.

And if I cut off the radio, I am certain I still won’t be polled. The tally this end is that my teenage granddaughter has been polled twice in the last few weeks – even though she is ineligible to vote, and my friend has clocked up two opportunities to have her say.  Ok: the ABC did invite me to contribute to their online poll Vote Compass, but that hardly counts as it was a request to the whole nation- or anyone who was watching the telly at the time!

So what I’d like is to see policy: in black and white, that I can print out and read and that doesn’t come with continual dissection, commentary, and opinion pieces that assume I am too thick to make up my own mind. And I want a quiet peaceful place in which to read it; and a cohort of informed friends who are prepared to discuss what we think of it all, and which, if any, benefits the future of our country rather than the future of a political party.

I’ve been doing some polling of my own  lately, talking to amazing young people about how they contribute to their communities and what they get from the experience. The honesty of their conversation, the delight they display about doing something for others, the intelligence and reflection in their responses, their capacity to cogently articulate their views and commitments,  and their integrity, are mind blowing.  

I remember why I loved being a teacher.

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Art Work of the Week 

One of those squawking birds

Kioloa Tweet. Acrylic on canvas

Rootin' for who?

I started this blog with an intent that is recorded in its name. I was frustrated with reading about how the polls were saying this or the polls were saying that. And I couldn’t remember a time when I was ever polled for any sort of political position in my whole life.

 I was similarly frustrated with the growingly obvious fact that as I aged I became part of a disappearing , but increasingly larger group of the population whose needs were being ignored or grossly stereotyped by twenty something political advisers and Gen Y advertising genii.

Recently I thought I would join the online survey community whose opinions are being sought about a range of matters.  I got one request to participate, but when I filled in the first question: Which age category do you fit?  the screen went blank and re-emerged with a dismissive message that they already had enough people from that group thank you very much. In four months I haven’t had another request to contribute.

I’ve decided I am either ahead of, or behind the times. I‘ve been searching for green boots for the last three winter seasons. No luck. I have just started to look for a new house only to find that if I had started my search two months ago I could have got what I wanted, where I wanted for the price I was prepared to pay. 

And I lived in Sydney’s West in the 70’s and 80’s before it was seen as the bell weather area for political parties. The irony there is that when I started teaching and lived in a converted single garage in Rooty Hill which was still without sewerage attachment to many houses,  no one even knew where it was, let alone cared about what the locals thought. No Julia or her precedecessors walked the streets, met with important locals, or spent the night holed up in a Rooty Hill Motel so that they could get the feel of the electorate. 

I refuse to buy the Daily Telegraph after it did a number on Mount Druitt High School many years ago and. I have to acknowledge I had taught there and felt that a great injustice had been done to the students and teachers of the place. However, I accidentally come across bits of the Telegraph on line and today I’m reading that Julia is in trouble, that her sleepover in Rooty Hill did more harm than good and the party will move on her leadership in the next two weeks.

….mummm….. dejuvu Julia.

On the other hand Tony has a plan – not just a visit!. 

There’s a slogan for the election: Tony the show pony; the man with the plan. 

He will cut the cost of living by abolishing the carbon tax, take the pressure off police through the use of CCTV in crime hotspots, sort out transport problems and address environmental issues. 

And yes, he is a changed man, he has really learnt and many of the ideological positions he held before this election really started to loom large he has now changed his mind on – truly, rooly cross my heart. He has rolled out the wife, the daughters and now the gay sister to convince us he surely is a sensitive, lovable 21^st century man of the people. 

Look at me ladies…obviously the speedos  haven’t done  the trick up to now.

So, where does that leave us?  I know what: somebody poll me where I live in the national capital having lived in Western Sydney, the North Coast of NSW and its south west. 

Here’s my advice to all political aspirants and parties:

• Get advisors who have life experience not just party and educational know-how – stop the arrogant navel gazing.
• Plan for the long term, not just for the four year political cycle – which really means we get about 2 years worth of short sighted activity based on potential personal political outcomes – ie, will I get elected next time if I do this?
• Be careful about campaigning only to the 1.6m people in one part of the country – there are millions more out here who are rapidly losing patience.
• LEAD.
• Read the definition of democracy: government of the people, by the people, for the people. We are watching you and expect more than sledging and name calling. It’s just not cricket.
• Cut the crap. Forget the weasel words, answer the question with truth and honesty based on the knowledge that any action that is being discussed has a strong ethical foundation.
•  Look for the connections and don’t think we are too dumb to understand them ; if we support wars in other countries  refugees will result. They will expect to have somewhere safe to go as a result of our actions.  John Donne told you in 1624 never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
• And finally for the Canberrans amongst us, remember when you talk about cutting the public service you are talking about getting rid of the jobs of Australian citizens equally entitled to a living as the factory worker, the fish and chip shop hand and the builder.

There, that should give you a starting point for policy.

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This week's Art Work 

A little light relief from the political rambling painted from photograps taken during my recent visit

Happy New Year Singapore. Acrylic on paper 220x350 mm