Sunday, August 28, 2005
Life's changes and society's ills
I've been thinking about my Dad a bit lately. He died when he was the age I am now. At the time, I thought he was old and wasn't surprised to hear he'd died. That fact strikes me as unbelievable now that I am the same age. I'm not old - in fact I'm so not old that I worry about the future, about how I'm going to live in my 'old age' for maybe the next 20 - 30 years.
My Dad was a very witty man. He was gentle, easygoing, lovable and loved by many people, not only his family and close friends but people he met in business or in the street, people he went out of his way to help. He had a whole store of old Australian 'sayings'and someone who read my recent blog entry where I said I'd been 'flat out like a lizard drinking' reminded me of a few of them. Well I've just remembered another one 'crook as Rookwood' which is how I feel today. Rookwood being a famous Sydney cemetery. I don't think I'm for the cemetery yet, I just have a virus that's making me feel like death and has been since last Tuesday. Although, as an aside, I must mention that I think Dad's epithet was a little more complex than that, I think when he said 'crook as Rookwood' he often meant a person who was 'a crook' (a dishonest person or criminal), rather than 'crook' (sick). I think my virus reached its peak yesterday, at least I hope so. I want to be well for next Friday when I go on holidays to visit my family. That's a problem with living so far away, you have to book plane fares a long way in advance to get a reasonable price, then, if you happen to be 'crook' or if something else intervenes, it's not easy to change the dates. Anyway I'm looking forward to my holiday and seeing my beautiful grandchildren again.
I'm not sure how much you'll hear from me for a while. I'm going on from Sydney to Canberra to work on a project for 6 weeks, and my work server won't allow access to blogsites, so if I get a chance I'll update, if not, then you might all have to do without me for a while.
and now, sliding seemlessly from the personal to the political I've got a few other things on my mind...
Our Prime Minister, John Howard (who has just won some American award for being a great and good friend of the United States - for that read George Bush's acolyte) has managed (through the total idiocy of the Australian voting public)to get himself a virtual monopoly on our Government by obtaining a majority in both houses is busy pushing through a raft of 'labour reforms' that will see average workers' rights and entitlements whittled away and everyone in Australia forced to negotiate 'individual contracts' rather than being entitled to 'award wages' - you can imagine how fair that will be to all us cannon-fodder workers out here - fine for the the overpaid heads of corporations and their minions. At the same time he's talking about new tax reforms - not as you may expect to assist low-paid workers or young families who are in what is now called the 'middle income' bracket (way more than I earn) at $70,000 to $125,000 (I could wear this one because many of them have 3 or 4 young children and the cost of bringing up kids and building for the future in this country now with schooling, mortgage and health costs is astronomical) - oh no, Johnny is talking about cutting the top tax rate the one that kicks in after $125,000- talk about blatant self-interest. Who is this going to benefit? Why Johnny and his cronies and the top managers of corporations who contribute to his political party. And while I'm on my political hobbyhorse, I saw a play last week about David Hicks's (he's an Aussie accused of being an 'unlawful combatant' in Afghanistan)incarceration in Guantanamo Bay. Whatever the rights and wrongs of what David Hicks has done the attitude of the American Government in keeping him locked up in a cage for 3 years awaiting a military trial (he wasn't even charged with anything for God knows how long - like years)is disgusting and not worthy of a 'freedom-loving people' but even worse is the Australian Government's reaction to this injustice. Have they been protesting to their great and good friend Mr Bush and asking for fair treatment for their citizen? Have they made any attempt to have him repatriated to Australia? No and No! And apparently there are nationals of 19 countries being held this way by the management of the 'land of the brave and the home of the free'... and of those countries, 18 have complained/made representations/ attempted to get fair treatment for their citizens. Guess which country is the only one that has not?... you got it...Australia!
Then there's our Government's 'anti terrorist campaign' or as GWB calls it 'the war on terr...'. We are being warned to 'report anything suspicious' to 'be alert AND ALARMED'. What does that mean 'report anything suspicious'? That kind of thinking makes people nervous and causes racial divide. What happened to the country that welcomed migrants from every land and where they all became "OZtrailian". That kind of thinking caused me to look sideways at the young man of middle eastern appearance, carrying a backpack and reading the Koran who sat next to me on a recent plane flight...and that's not right and not fair...it's not right to make us feel scared of shadows and it's not right to place ethnic parameters on what we should be alert for...
Just 20-30 years ago in this country you could see a doctor for free - all the charges came out of a thing called the Medibank Levy - a percentage charge taken from your income, a form of tax. Now you have to pay $50 out of your pocket and then take the receipt to the Medicare office and get back about $25 - that's ok if you are working and single but imagine you're the mother of 4 kids and they all get bronchitis or asthma (God forbid anything worse or long-running), the doctor doesn't get them all in and dose the lot of them for one fee any more, oh no, it costs you $50 for each one, plus medicines which used to cost $2 on the subsidised medicine list and now cost about $12 or $15 or something - so far we are looking at abour $300 and a whole morning off work for mum who has to sit with her sick children for anything up to an hour waiting for the Doctor to deign to keep his 'appointment' with her. Oh yes and a 'standard' appointment is no longer than 10 minutes. How the hell can doctors diagnose and write out a treatment in 10 minutes - it's just not realistic - but that's what our system of payments to doctors dictates.
I suspect we still live in the 'lucky country', that it's still easier to make ends meet and have a reasonable quality of life here than anywhere else in the world, but bloody hell, it's going to hell in a handbasket pretty damn quickly and I can't understand why this has happened... how did it all change and please, can we have our caring, inclusive, nurturing society back again... PLEASE?
My Dad was a very witty man. He was gentle, easygoing, lovable and loved by many people, not only his family and close friends but people he met in business or in the street, people he went out of his way to help. He had a whole store of old Australian 'sayings'and someone who read my recent blog entry where I said I'd been 'flat out like a lizard drinking' reminded me of a few of them. Well I've just remembered another one 'crook as Rookwood' which is how I feel today. Rookwood being a famous Sydney cemetery. I don't think I'm for the cemetery yet, I just have a virus that's making me feel like death and has been since last Tuesday. Although, as an aside, I must mention that I think Dad's epithet was a little more complex than that, I think when he said 'crook as Rookwood' he often meant a person who was 'a crook' (a dishonest person or criminal), rather than 'crook' (sick). I think my virus reached its peak yesterday, at least I hope so. I want to be well for next Friday when I go on holidays to visit my family. That's a problem with living so far away, you have to book plane fares a long way in advance to get a reasonable price, then, if you happen to be 'crook' or if something else intervenes, it's not easy to change the dates. Anyway I'm looking forward to my holiday and seeing my beautiful grandchildren again.
I'm not sure how much you'll hear from me for a while. I'm going on from Sydney to Canberra to work on a project for 6 weeks, and my work server won't allow access to blogsites, so if I get a chance I'll update, if not, then you might all have to do without me for a while.
and now, sliding seemlessly from the personal to the political I've got a few other things on my mind...
Our Prime Minister, John Howard (who has just won some American award for being a great and good friend of the United States - for that read George Bush's acolyte) has managed (through the total idiocy of the Australian voting public)to get himself a virtual monopoly on our Government by obtaining a majority in both houses is busy pushing through a raft of 'labour reforms' that will see average workers' rights and entitlements whittled away and everyone in Australia forced to negotiate 'individual contracts' rather than being entitled to 'award wages' - you can imagine how fair that will be to all us cannon-fodder workers out here - fine for the the overpaid heads of corporations and their minions. At the same time he's talking about new tax reforms - not as you may expect to assist low-paid workers or young families who are in what is now called the 'middle income' bracket (way more than I earn) at $70,000 to $125,000 (I could wear this one because many of them have 3 or 4 young children and the cost of bringing up kids and building for the future in this country now with schooling, mortgage and health costs is astronomical) - oh no, Johnny is talking about cutting the top tax rate the one that kicks in after $125,000- talk about blatant self-interest. Who is this going to benefit? Why Johnny and his cronies and the top managers of corporations who contribute to his political party. And while I'm on my political hobbyhorse, I saw a play last week about David Hicks's (he's an Aussie accused of being an 'unlawful combatant' in Afghanistan)incarceration in Guantanamo Bay. Whatever the rights and wrongs of what David Hicks has done the attitude of the American Government in keeping him locked up in a cage for 3 years awaiting a military trial (he wasn't even charged with anything for God knows how long - like years)is disgusting and not worthy of a 'freedom-loving people' but even worse is the Australian Government's reaction to this injustice. Have they been protesting to their great and good friend Mr Bush and asking for fair treatment for their citizen? Have they made any attempt to have him repatriated to Australia? No and No! And apparently there are nationals of 19 countries being held this way by the management of the 'land of the brave and the home of the free'... and of those countries, 18 have complained/made representations/ attempted to get fair treatment for their citizens. Guess which country is the only one that has not?... you got it...Australia!
Then there's our Government's 'anti terrorist campaign' or as GWB calls it 'the war on terr...'. We are being warned to 'report anything suspicious' to 'be alert AND ALARMED'. What does that mean 'report anything suspicious'? That kind of thinking makes people nervous and causes racial divide. What happened to the country that welcomed migrants from every land and where they all became "OZtrailian". That kind of thinking caused me to look sideways at the young man of middle eastern appearance, carrying a backpack and reading the Koran who sat next to me on a recent plane flight...and that's not right and not fair...it's not right to make us feel scared of shadows and it's not right to place ethnic parameters on what we should be alert for...
Just 20-30 years ago in this country you could see a doctor for free - all the charges came out of a thing called the Medibank Levy - a percentage charge taken from your income, a form of tax. Now you have to pay $50 out of your pocket and then take the receipt to the Medicare office and get back about $25 - that's ok if you are working and single but imagine you're the mother of 4 kids and they all get bronchitis or asthma (God forbid anything worse or long-running), the doctor doesn't get them all in and dose the lot of them for one fee any more, oh no, it costs you $50 for each one, plus medicines which used to cost $2 on the subsidised medicine list and now cost about $12 or $15 or something - so far we are looking at abour $300 and a whole morning off work for mum who has to sit with her sick children for anything up to an hour waiting for the Doctor to deign to keep his 'appointment' with her. Oh yes and a 'standard' appointment is no longer than 10 minutes. How the hell can doctors diagnose and write out a treatment in 10 minutes - it's just not realistic - but that's what our system of payments to doctors dictates.
I suspect we still live in the 'lucky country', that it's still easier to make ends meet and have a reasonable quality of life here than anywhere else in the world, but bloody hell, it's going to hell in a handbasket pretty damn quickly and I can't understand why this has happened... how did it all change and please, can we have our caring, inclusive, nurturing society back again... PLEASE?
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