SurfcoastWombat

Everyone has the right to have a voice, or do they?  I used to have a Twitter account and was having a harmless discussion with a stranger, but unknown to me she had forwarded what I considered a harmless tweet to another person who then tweeted me saying: “what’s your problem – get a life you stupid f…..g c..t”.  I didn’t respond and closed my account immediately thereby losing an avenue to have a voice.  He won and I lost.

I grew up in what I believed was a democracy and have always believed in democratic values but now I am starting to change my mind.  Today’s social media platforms have not only given a voice to people that don’t deserve it, but also unprecedented power that is fraught with danger.

I returned to Singapore a few years ago to attend a reunion promoted by the then Singapore government to thank the Australian Communications people who had helped Singapore during the struggle with Indonesia in the early 1960s.  Our last function was afternoon tea at Raffles with a talk by the then Australian Defence Attaché.  He told us that his father was a proud Queenslander and saw no reason to leave Queensland let alone Australia!  But he ended up in Singapore one day with his wife to enjoy their grandchildren.  One day the attaché found his father sitting wistfully on the balcony deep in thought.  “What’s up, Dad” he asked.  His father looked at him and said, “Imagine what Lee Kuan Yew could have done for Australia”.

            I was a huge fan of Lee Kuan Yew.  He thought he was democratic but in my mind, he was a benevolent dictator.  Singapore today is a better place because of him.

When Covid first reared its ugly head and the Prime Minister established the national cabinet, many thought that was exactly the right thing to do and it immediately gave us hope.  Scott Morrison and Dan Andrews were suddenly good friends.  But it didn’t last long before selfish political ambitions took over destroying the harmony that we needed so much to have happen.  All the Premiers did a fantastic job in bringing the virus under control only for the badly managed vaccine rollout – a federal responsibility – to plunge us into a series of lockdowns.  Victoria suffered a dreadful time but managed to eventually get the State back to near normal life, despite the Prime Minister together with the Treasurer and the Minister for Health, both in Victorian electorates, praising New South Wales’s gold standard approach and criticising Dan Andrews for not following NSW.

Now that NSW is in trouble, all three are suddenly very quiet.

Because Victoria is a Labor State, there was no way that the NSW Premier was going to follow what Dan Andrews did and go early and go hard into lockdown and now they are in serious trouble. But the fault really lies with the Prime Minister.  The States have certain responsibilities and so does the federal government but this is not the time for federal Liberal cabinet ministers to wave their arms and say – that is a State responsibility nor should any Premier be saying that a certain situation is a federal responsibility. This is a time to show real leadership and take control of the national government and demand that all States work as one.  It might need emergency laws passed to do so but it should have been done. Then in the event of a fresh breakout, all States would be singing to the same tune.  And NSW wouldn’t be in such dire straits and Victoria would not have plunged into another lockdown because of three recalcitrant removalists.

When Covid first reared its ugly head and the Prime Minister established the national cabinet, many thought that was exactly the right thing to do and it immediately gave us hope.  Scott Morrison and Dan Andrews were suddenly good friends.  But it didn’t last long before selfish political ambitions took over destroying the harmony that we needed so much to have happen.  All the Premiers did a fantastic job in bringing the virus under control only for the badly managed vaccine rollout – a federal responsibility – to plunge us into a series of lockdowns.  Victoria suffered a dreadful time but managed to eventually get the State back to near normal life, despite the Prime Minister together with the Treasurer and the Minister for Health, both in Victorian electorates, praising New South Wales’s gold standard approach and criticising Dan Andrews for not following NSW.

Now that NSW is in trouble, all three are suddenly very quiet.

Because Victoria is a Labor State, there was no way that the NSW Premier was going to follow what Dan Andrews did and go early and go hard into lockdown and now they are in serious trouble. But the fault really lies with the Prime Minister.  The States have certain responsibilities and so does the federal government but this is not the time for federal Liberal cabinet ministers to wave their arms and say – that is a State responsibility nor should any Premier be saying that a certain situation is a federal responsibility. This is a time to show real leadership and take control of the national government and demand that all States work as one.  It might need emergency laws passed to do so but it should have been done. Then in the event of a fresh breakout, all States would be singing to the same tune.  And NSW wouldn’t be in such dire straits and Victoria would not have plunged into another lockdown because of three recalcitrant removalists.

When Covid first reared its ugly head and the Prime Minister established the national cabinet, many thought that was exactly the right thing to do and it immediately gave us hope.  Scott Morrison and Dan Andrews were suddenly good friends.  But it didn’t last long before selfish political ambitions took over destroying the harmony that we needed so much to have happen.  All the Premiers did a fantastic job in bringing the virus under control only for the badly managed vaccine rollout – a federal responsibility – to plunge us into a series of lockdowns.  Victoria suffered a dreadful time but managed to eventually get the State back to near normal life, despite the Prime Minister together with the Treasurer and the Minister for Health, both in Victorian electorates, praising New South Wales’s gold standard approach and criticising Dan Andrews for not following NSW.

Now that NSW is in trouble, all three are suddenly very quiet.

Because Victoria is a Labor State, there was no way that the NSW Premier was going to follow what Dan Andrews did and go early and go hard into lockdown and now they are in serious trouble. But the fault really lies with the Prime Minister.  The States have certain responsibilities and so does the federal government but this is not the time for federal Liberal cabinet ministers to wave their arms and say – that is a State responsibility nor should any Premier be saying that a certain situation is a federal responsibility. This is a time to show real leadership and take control of the national government and demand that all States work as one.  It might need emergency laws passed to do so but it should have been done. Then in the event of a fresh breakout, all States would be singing to the same tune.  And NSW wouldn’t be in such dire straits and Victoria would not have plunged into another lockdown because of three recalcitrant removalists.

I wonder how much thought went into the latest federal government ad campaign to encourage us to vaccinate.  Many  young children have already suffered enough stress so far during this pandemic and images of a lady struggling to breathe are only going to further affect their mental well-being.  And I am certain that there are many like me who have the remote ready to mute the television when the mostly banal ads come on, or get up and get a drink, or go to the little room.  This campaign is another poorly thought out waste of taxpayers’ money.

“What’s in a name” asks Jeremy Browne (The Age 13/7).  I totally agree.  Life would be so much easier if we all had ID cards.  We can’t use the driver’s licence because not everyone drives but why not consider possibly scrapping the driver’s licence and issuing a form of ID card to everybody – say when they turn 16 or 18 maybe.  Space could be reserved for driver’s licence details.  As the meerkats say – simples!

I feel so sorry for Saka, the teenager who missed the crucial penalty in the European Championship shootout.  He will never forget and many English people will never let him forget.  He will be booed and jeered in public and it will affect his mental health.  Soccer is an International sport played by over 250 million people in more than 200 countries.  It’s time to find a better solution than this absurd penalty shootout farce.  He’s lucky he lives in England – in some countries his life would be in danger.

There are, of course, two sides to every story, and I have heard plenty from listening to and reading about Julia Banks (in The Age).  I haven’t heard anything of substance from “the other side”, only insignificant comments, typical throwaway lines we have come to expect from our politicians.  I would love to see a meeting between Scott Morrison and Julia Banks chaired by someone like Stan Grant.  But sadly that will never happen.  Scott knows it could cost him the next election.  When highly regarded and competent women like Julia Banks are hounded out of Canberra, it is Australia’s loss.  Scott Morrison got rid of the best Prime Minister the Liberal Coalition has had for decades – Malcolm Turnbull – and then Julie Bishop and now another woman who has Prime Minister potential.  All for his own personal desires.  We deserve better than this.

                  

@TwistedTailsPugs  · Just for fun

Yes Judith Morrison (“A most galling rising”, The Age , 29/6), or is it a lowering?  Australian federal politics has lowered the bar yet again and even the best limbo dancer will struggle to slide under.  But imagine if Lucy Turnbull was the Prime Minister.  They say that behind every successful man is a smart woman.  Her husband Malcolm was the best Liberal leader during my time.  What a partnership that could be.  And even I would be able to limbo under the bar!

(and some of my friends ‘would love to see that’!)

The success of our tackling the pandemic from day 1 was down to the State Premiers, all of them, while the Federal government played politics.  The vaccine rollout was the Federal government’s responsibility and they have failed  miserably.  Now Covid has raised its ugly head again and things look grim.  But very little is coming out of Canberra.  Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt were very vocal in their criticism of Victoria during the big lockdown and at the same time praising New South Wales’s gold standard.  But now that New South Wales is in the hotseat, their silence is deafening.  We deserve better than this.  Canberra shouldn’t be playing politics with human lives.

There are many reasons why people suffer from mental health issues. As well as helping people cope with their issues, we need to look at the causes and see how they can be addressed.  In discussions I have had with numerous people including a doctor, one potential cause in the future, if not now, is advertising.  It seems we can’t do anything today without advertising poking its ugly head into our brains.  We are constantly bombarded with ads whenever we watch anything on television, especially sport.  Post-game press conferences the same. We ring a company and get a recorded message saying the call is important etc and then we have to listen to a constant barrage of advertising for several minutes.  Reading articles online is a pain as they constantly dance about the page, mainly to distract you so you see the ads.  Harvey Norman started its current ad campaign with full page ads that could be removed and thrown out.  They woke up to that and are placing full page ads so that the reverse side of the page is not an ad but articles such as sport. The advertising companies need to take some responsibility before it becomes more serious.  If I can get annoyed when making a phone call to the point that I want to throw the phone across the room – that’s a serious issue for me and I am sure that I am not that unique to be alone.  And I have no doubt that the advertising companies are looking at further ways to expand how they bombard us with ads.  Time to act now.

Thomas Jefferson once said that the government you elect is the government you deserve.  I can accept that if we had a meaningful choice of candidates to choose from but we rarely do.  Looking back over the past 25 years, if asked who I would have voted for if asked to vote for who should be Prime Minister, the only candidate would have been Malcolm Turnbull, but he was continually obstructed by Tony Abbott, and then knifed in the back by Scott Morrison, the last candidates I would have voted for.  Why is it that people who could be desirable political leaders that we could be proud of, don’t put their hands up?