It is time to be rid of "net zero"

and a great many other "fashionable" things.

I know it is not going to make me popular saying that. It isn't because I do not believe the climate is changing or that some of that change is caused by human activities. It is because I believe that "net zero" is more about money and control than it is about saving the planet from destruction. It is also about laziness.  Too many people do not want to do the hard work and too many more do not want to give up their comfortable lifestyles with the cars and the air conditioning and all the power hungry modern conveniences.

I met the "would be a member of parliament" for the neighbouring electorate in our local shopping centre yesterday. He was a surprise in that he is a very small man in the physical sense, no taller than I am. He was chatting to people and spoke to me as I was about to prowl past. "You're the one who writes the letters to the paper," he said. Someone must have told him. It is hard to be anonymous if you are a short cat wearing a bicycle helmet. 

We spoke for a moment. He gave me one of the inevitable shopping bags with his name printed on it. I will use it to pack something into at some point but probably turn the bag inside out. We talked about net zero too. He wanted to know what I thought. The party is still dithering over this at federal level. Their coalition partners have had the courage to dump it. 

I was honest. I said I thought the policy should be dumped but there needs to be something in its place. There needs to be something which says, "We are serious about the environment and intend to do something about it." We need to embrace nuclear power - even if it ends up being more expensive. We need research into "fusion" power on an industrial scale, not just poorly funded university research. We need massive planting programs and more. It could be done and it could be done as political policy but it needs to be sold.

I think the "would be member" was a bit surprised. Someone came up to harass him about something else. I went off to the chemist thinking about a potential letter to the editor .  

How can you make a treaty

with your own citizens? It seems the government of a neighbouring state has gone ahead and done just that - and done it against the wishes of voters and advice from some constitutional lawyers.

This is the same state which now requires at least one major hospital to treat indigenous people before all other citizens - not on the basis of need but on the basis of their self-declared "aboriginality". Where will they go next?  Will there be "reparations" and "land seizures" as some have claimed?

There are major and legitimate concerns about these things. That it divides citizens by race is bad enough but there are unanswered questions about how far this "treaty" will affect many other areas of life. 

What sort of "treaty" is it in fact? Only our federal government has the power to sign a treaty.  If this was an actual treaty it would mean those who claim to be aboriginal would need to give up their passports, their right to all present government payments, their right to vote and more. None of that is going to happen.

This government has acted against the clearly stated wishes of the people of the state. They rejected the "Voice to Parliament" in the referendum. Now the state government is bringing in the same thing but at a state level and perhaps with increased powers. They are "investing" millions in this.

I would be happy to see millions invested if I believed there would be better outcomes for people who are genuinely disadvantaged but history has shown it does not work that way. The outcomes are rarely advantageous for anyone apart from those at the top. These moves have shown over and over again that money is simply wasted. 

Someone I know was praising the move to me last night and hoping this state will shortly follow. As he was doing so I was looking at the person being interviewed. His partner was looking at the person being interviewed. We looked at each other. We did not need to say anything but we were both aware that you could pass that person in the street and have no idea they are "aboriginal".

Is it racist of me to believe that someone with just one great-great grandparent or perhaps even great-great-great grandparent is no more aboriginal than they are of some other heritage? Are they really that disadvantaged? Why aren't they English, Irish, Dutch or Chinese?

A friend who speaks some Pitjantjatjara was appalled when I told her that being "aboriginal" allowed you priority treatment at the hospital in that state. "But that's racist," she told me.  

Obviously there are people who do not see it that way. Is it time to review our ideas about who is actually aboriginal perhaps? 

The strange shirts worn by leaders at

APEC summits and beyond in order for the "family" photo to be taken should have been raised when the Downunder Prime Minister wore "that t-shirt" the other day.

I know nothing about "Joy Division". The article in the paper really left me no wiser...apart from the fact that it was apparently a "group" of some sort. Well, groups get odd names and, if the source of this name is correct, then it is also nasty. Why would you name any group after women forced into prostitution?  I will leave my comments on that there.

What puzzled me was why the Prime Minister was wearing that sort of t-shirt at all? Why wear something like that in public? 

I know there will be people who will say, "so what?" but it is something I found slightly strange. An ordinary plain polo shirt would not have bothered me. I have seen more than one leader dressed that way. Work clothes would not bother me. A former leader in an open neck shirt with a beer in hand, another with fire fighting gear on, a third in a work shirt and old hat, a fourth in jeans and a plain t-shirt. All those things, from both sides of the political divide, seem to be acceptable but not the t-shirt.

Other people have commented on the t-shirt in question. They have said things like "childish", "teenage", "inappropriate", "a bit odd" and "not what you would expect from a Prime Minister". I was left simply puzzled. It just seems odd to me.

Then I thought of those shirts and other garments worn by leaders for the "family photo". I have quite liked some of the shirts and other garments but the people in them often look faintly ridiculous. They are garments they are not ever likely to wear again. Are they languishing in wardrobes? Have they been given away? The Downunder raincoats might be quite useful I suppose - if you live in a cool enough climate where it actually rains. The very traditional Korean mumu though, or the batik shirts in Malaysia?

I wonder what would happen if the group consisted of women rather than men? I suspect they would have a "family" photo in their own clothes.   

So there won't be an interest rate cut?

Apparently the inflation rate is too high to have an interest rate cut. I suppose that makes sense. 

There will be a lot of mortgage holders who will be disappointed on Tuesday if our Reserve Bank does not cut the interest rate by yet another 0.25%.  I have heard people say they are "relying" on it.  That seems rather foolish to me.

I also wonder whether anyone will realise that the nice little hand out people got to pay their electricity bills has something to do with it. That nice little hand out kept quite a lot of things artificially low while the government boasted about the way the push for renewable power was going to save the economy and make us a world leader in both renewable power and manufacturing.

It is not going to happen. 

I am on a very low income but I could have managed without the hand out. Many people I know could have managed without the hand out. Yes, it was nice to have but I did not need it. I am careful with my money and will go on being careful. Yes, my power bill was up but it was not as high as it could have been. I was cautious about using the heating but there were times when it was essential to use some power for that. I will be even more cautious about using the cooling from the same system in summer but not everyone can do that.

Now I am wondering how many people went out and bought something they did not really need or simply went on buying their "coffee" because the extra seemed to be there. Was inflation fuelled by this? No, that would only have been a very small part of the equation. I only need to look at prices in the supermarket to realise that many things are noticeably higher in price - and often noticeably smaller with it. A little while back I bought the ingredients for the fruit cakes I give my cousin and Middle Cat at Christmastime. The cost, even when "on special", was almost thirty per cent higher than it was last year. Basics like milk and bread are much higher. We have a potato shortage at present and there were some in the supermarket for more than seven dollars a kilo. Nobody can afford those sort of prices. 

A friend is coming for lunch today. It is a fairly regular event. She always insists on bringing her own sandwich - a result of unexpectedly staying one day when she happened to have her own sandwich with her. I would be more than happy to provide the sandwich but she prefers to feel "independent". I will make her multiple mugs of tea but there are people I know who would struggle to do that - or they will do it and then drink water for a couple of days because the price of tea and the power to boil the water is too high.

This week I bought some new sheets - having put a rear paw through one of the old ones. I hesitated over this - one set or two? I bought two sets because I could and because they were labelled as "half price". They are not half price of course. The store will still be making a profit but I wonder how much they paid for them if they can apparently afford to do this. Now I hope I will not need to buy sheets for a very long time and I am grateful I could afford to buy two sets. Have I added to the inflation figures? Hmmmm...

Will the lack of an interest rate cut actually reduce inflation? I think it might take more than that. I do not envy the Reserve Bank board members their decision making process.  

"The power lines have to go somewhere!"

There is a lead story in this morning's paper about the massive new power lines which will be needed to carry our "renewable" energy in and out of the city. Predictably it is also about the farmers who will lose some of their land so that the lines can go across them. The article says farmers will be "compensated" but will they?

Of course they won't be compensated. They will get an inadequate one off payment. It will be at the lowest possible rate the government can get away with and it will be paid to farmers out of our taxes - and their taxes. 

Yes, we need power. The lines are always going to have to go somewhere.  The problem is the plans for these are across prime farming land. We have already lost far too much farming land. 

One possible route is across the farming land in the area in which I was born. It is difficult to imagine the true extent of the likely harm the monstrous pylons will do. It will not simply be that the land around each pylon is no longer able to be used. The pylons have to be put there in the first place. It will be at least one year of cropping which will be destroyed by this process and then less land available every year.  There can be no compensation adequate for that. 

The person who has just spoken to me about this in the very early morning quiet just shrugged. He has never lived in a rural area. He clearly thinks his power is a simple mater of flicking a switch. It isn't like that at all.  

The town is dying because

people are no longer coming in to it to shop or wander the main street.  This is the complaint from someone who owns a small business in a small country town in the hills behind me.  

The hills behind me are littered with small "towns" like the one in question. They are really villages, indeed some of them might be labelled "hamlets" they are so small.

Most of them consist of some sort of main shopping strip with a few streets branching off at the sides. There might be a supermarket of some sort, perhaps a chemist, a cafe or two, and the "gift" shop or the mini art gallery. Tucked into this there might be a medical centre with reduced hours, one or two might have a "playground" for children next to a church and the cemetery which is a reminder of things past. There might be a "green" with dying grass and a war memorial to the men who went and did not come back.  If you are lucky there might still be a decrepit "community hall" of some sort.

There is one such town which is a tourist attraction - if you believe the advertising. Yes, it has a history of German settlement in the late 1800's and some "quaint" cottages but little else apart from the shops designed to entice tourists. I have been there and have no desire to return.

Many of the people who actually live there commute down the freeway into the city for work. Some will drop their children off at school along the way. At weekends there is sport but not much else to keep you entertained. 

If you want a quiet lifestyle then yes they can be lovely places to live in but I know you will do your serious shopping elsewhere. Those quaint little shops are not for you. They are there for "tourists". They sell things you do not need every day of the week, if you need them at all. The occasional "art and craft" exhibition or event is not going to keep local businesses alive.

I have no idea what the answer is and I doubt the locals know either. The little place I was born in is now a larger country town. It is not in the hills but it is a similar sort of area. Some of those who live there commute to the city to work. They expect all the amenities of city living and, for the most part, they can get these. At the same time they now believe they are "living in the country". 

No, they are not "living in the country" at all. They are living in semi-rural suburbs. Such places can be just as lonely as suburban living and those who really live and work there are being stifled by you who believe they have nothing to offer.  

"I want to do a PhD!"

One of the students for whom I have occasionally read an essay was standing there outside the library. He was saying this to several other students and they were all laughing.

It is that time of the year again here. The students will be faced with external exams, exams set not by their teachers but an external authority. They will be marked by other people. The future careers of these students will, for the greater part, depend on their results this time around.  Will they get an "ATAR" high enough to get into their chosen courses?

I have watched some of these students since they started their secondary school years and one or two even earlier than that. I don't envy them as I might once have envied them. The world has changed too much for that.

The little group saw me of course and one of them said, "J... reckons he wants to do a Project Half Done."  I have heard and seen that before. It's a joke but a joke with a serious side. I have told more than one of them how some doctoral studies never reach completion, indeed how some undergraduates never finish. 

This little group will probably finish their undergraduate degrees in things like computing, engineering and physics. They are about as motivated to succeed as any other student I know.  

Will they go on to do doctorates? I have no idea. It is possible one or two of them might do further study. They will probably need to do it in order to even get jobs of the sort they believe they want. Doctorates might be in the mix but, if they are, I wonder what they be about. It is unlikely I would understand the topics in sciences like physics. 

What I do understand is that there are doctorates being done which are of dubious value and likely of no interest to anyone else. How much value is there in "a participatory audiovisual exploration of haunting in Palestine"?  Apparently "ghosts are more than symbolic" and someone is being paid a student grant to do this. Someone else is doing a doctorate on the architecture of Chinese temples of a certain period (I have forgotten which period) and someone else is looking at "Animals as builders: Exploring animal buildings as sites of agency, rights, and politics". The first and last of these examples come from an article in the Spectator. The middle one comes from an article about research grants here. It is one of the less embarrassing research topics being funded.

I am not sure how these topics get funded. There must be people who are passionate about such things but where are they? I have colleagues who are struggling to even get permission from "ethics" committees to do what seems to be basic research into issues of communication between doctors and patients in hospitals. Another of my colleagues has just had a request for permission knocked back. It was to do some work on ways in which increased capacity to communicate will led to greater participation among migrant women from a particular cultural group. Perhaps I am wrong but I think these things have some value for all concerned. 

Getting a doctorate was once considered a real achievement. You worked very hard for it. There would be nobody around you who understood what you were doing. It was the nature of a doctorate. A person with a doctorate was respected for their academic achievement. The right to use the title "doctor" was considered to be something special. Now a range of people use the title in their daily professions but some have done no more than what amounts to an undergraduate degree in some form of alternative medicine. It is little wonder that using the title "doctor", unless you are actually a member of the mainstream medical profession, is considered showing off by many here.

And perhaps there are too many "projects half done" out there. We need to rethink the whole business...or perhaps we could do what the Italians do and call someone with an actual doctorate "doctor doctor"?