Trumping Trump's tariffs

will have to be done somehow. The Great Depression came about partly because of the same economic strategy. (They imposed tariffs at a time when the economy was already struggling. It didn't work. It won't work this time.)

It is actually even less likely to work this time because the world is a very different place. Trade is a much bigger international affair. All countries have other trade agreements in place. I am no economist and I may even be completely wrong but I doubt it. I see tariffs as increasing the price on everything a country imports. It will not make home made goods cheaper unless they are already available for less the price and are better quality. That just does not happen.

Downunder is going to have eat humble pie and return to real negotiations with the European Union and the United Kingdom. We were too arrogant last time. It is going to have to build stronger ties outside the Asian region. Yes, I have been saying that for a long time. So have many other people I know. Our politicians do not seem to be listening.

Yes, our beef farmers are worried about the likely effect tariffs will have on their industry. The reality is that successive governments in this country have been lazy about that. They have assumed that the US market was there for the long term, that our beef would always be wanted. What a shock to discover they might be subject to tariffs! They should have been preparing for this from the time that it looked likely President Trump would win first time around. People know how he thinks. They just do not want to believe it will happen. The US is a big market from our perspective. From the perspective of the US it is a small market. Cutting out our beef completely would have no effect at all on the ability of America to feed itself.

As a country we are lazy, very lazy, about marketing our goods and services. Some of us think we are "too small" to be able to bargain effectively but high quality goods and services are always needed. Wherever there is a need then there surely has to be some negotiating power? We need to lift our game and lift it urgently if we are going to survive.

If tariffs do nothing else at all perhaps they will be a wake up call for this country. I am not sure that will work though. If we re-elect the present government then their determined Asia-centric focus is not going to help us find new markets despite the platitudes from the Trade and Foreign ministers. 

Tighten your seat belts. We are in for a very rough ride.

 

April Fool's Day

has come and gone. Some of the usual foolish jokes have been played on the unsuspecting...and there have been some more serious attempts to convince us that black is white, white is black, two and two make twenty-two as well as four and any other number of foolish pranks.

Yes, April Fool's Day can be fun but only up to a certain point. Beyond that it can cause a lot of stress. It should not be used as a means of "getting back" at people - but it is. It should not be used to "tease" people about issues which have strong emotional connotations for them - but it is. 

It is fine for me to go into the post office to pick up an important item, one that had to be signed for after showing ID, and have the staff pretend they could not find it while they are actually holding it in full view. The post office staff know me by name and they know how far they can go. That bit of mild teasing was followed by concern about whether I was overloaded with work because of earthquakes and tidal waves. We did not even consider it to be part of the April Fool pranks.

It is not fine to "fool" someone about pregnancy when they have lost a child themselves. That left the young woman in distress. Being told to "get over it" and "take a joke" just made matters worse. Someone talking to me took over and told her, "I need some advice about that risotto. Mine did not turn out nearly as well as yours." They were chatting as I left but it was not a happy situation.

I remember the occasion on which the state to the west of us decided it was going to implement "metric" time. That fooled a lot of people. Telling someone that "daylight saving" ended this past weekend is only funny if they do not have an urgent medical appointment or some other engagement. ("Daylight saving" ends this coming weekend.)  

There were once plans to build a canal from the harbour to the main square of the state's capital. Convincing people we might send special water buses along a to be built canal could fool people who do not know the state's  history but it can also be amusing for those who do know it.

A good April Fool joke will be genuinely funny. It won't harm anyone. There were a few around yesterday which did not fit into that category, indeed were not jokes at all. The Reserve Bank really has left interest rates on hold. I suspect they are regretting the last cut, particularly in light of the increasing problems with the United States. The Chinese really are mapping that undersea cable. It is a much more serious act than most people are aware of so you do not joke about it. You do not joke about these things because they are too serious, they affect too many people or they affect our national security. You do not joke about nuclear power or the floods interstate. I heard all of those things today. It was not funny.

I really don't have much time for April Fool's Day, especially at election time.

 

We are getting a visit from the Prime Minister

today. That news has magically appeared this morning along with news about a new health facility to be built in the electorate.

I am not likely to meet the Prime Minister. I have no desire to meet him - or the Leader of the Opposition. 

The announcement about the new health facility is actually old news. It was "accidentally" leaked back in February. It went into our local council's newsletter. They were then told it was "confidential" and the matter was removed from the council's pages.

None of this was "accidental" of course. It was all intended to happen. They want us to believe that the whole thing is something new, not something that has been some years in the planning. 

If it all happens, in the two stages which are planned, then it will run over cost by millions and take far longer than they say it will. This is a government project. 

I can remember when there was nothing at all on the site this will perhaps be built. We went past it many times when I was in my teens. The Senior Cat was setting up an "area" school south of the site. It was mostly rural land. Now it is urban sprawl. 

There is a university associated with the hospital too. At one time I went in and out of it on a regular basis. It is built on the side of a hill. It has to be one of the least accessible places I know. Yes, they now have a rail extension that far but it took years to build it and the station is too far from the university to be really useful. 

The hospital itself is too small of course. Such places always are. The lay out is confusing even for people who work there. A former neighbour is a doctor there and her frustration at having to "go the long way around" is, rightly, immense. Neither of us have seen the plans for the new facility which is to be added but both of us hope without much hope that it will be better laid out.

All of this of course will not matter one bit to the Prime Minister. He can simply walk in today with his chosen press people in tow and make the announcement about the "new" facility and the "new" funding and how much it is "needed". He will make pronouncements about how the previous government did nothing  and conveniently ignore the issues brought on by Covid and more.

It really must all be rather fun to be able to do all this. You can spend other people's money with gay abandon. There is no need to keep your promises because nobody really expects you to do that. Being a politician is really rather good fun isn't it? Mind you there is always the possibility that you might lose the seat even if you do not lose the election.  

Electioneering material is

being stuffed into the letterboxes almost faster than I can drag it out and bin it.

Yes, I bin it. I do not keep it. I look at it but only to see how the lies are mounting up. 

There are the lies about "what we have done" and "what they have not done" and the lies about "what we will do" and more. There are the "promises" that will not be kept.

The mother of the girl who asked me "don't they have to keep their promises?" saw me yesterday. She stopped to thank me - which was nice - but said she was worried. 

We are perhaps worried for different reasons but I could sympathise. The NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) is out of control. It is costing far too much. This woman's daughter does need help. She could perhaps do a simple job like feeding paper into a shredder but many such jobs no longer exist. She needs to be occupied because she is as capable of being bored as anyone else.  The NDIS is not coping with that sort of thing.

It is one of those things which needs to be looked at but to say so is seen as electoral suicide. How dare anyone think of taking away money from a person with a disability. The problem is that money is being provided to some people who do not need it to live with dignity from one day to the next.  Like it or not some people have been getting NDIS money for things that are not essential. 

The other issue is the costs that are being charged. Yesterday my BIL came and put in a grab rail at the front door. It will make using the step there much safer for me and a number of people I know. He used an old grab rail from the previous house that the incoming people said they did not want. The cost to me was nothing but I would happily have bought a grab rail. 

The same thing provided by the NDIS would have cost thousands. It would have had to be requested. Someone would have been sent to assess me. Someone else would have been sent to assess the wall and the placement.  A grab rail would have been bought through an NDIS supplier at a much greater cost than one from the national chain of hardware stores. Then someone else would have been sent to see where it needed to go and, finally, someone would be sent to install it. The whole process would take months and cost thousands. 

"Oh it is the way we have to work," we would have been told.

I bought a small ramp so I can get the trike onto the front porch where it is out of everyone's way and out of the weather as well. I did some research on line. I looked at what the NDIS suppliers were charging - and bought exactly the same item from the national chain of hardware stores for half the price. A friend has just bought herself a new walker. It is the one recommended by her doctor and physiotherapist. They suggested going through NDIS but her need was urgent and they can afford to do it.  It was done at a fraction of the cost of going through NDIS and she has it within three days. She admits she is fortunate that they could do this but it also means she has been able to go back to work immediately.  With NDIS she would have been working from home and being much less efficient. 

These are "little" things in the minds of many but money could be saved. It is taxpayer money and it should be spent wisely and responsibly - but it is not the sort of thing election material tells you about.  

Driving without a licence

is an offence. It is an offence for very good reasons. 

This is something I am never likely to do for the simple reason I do not know how to drive a car. You could put me in the driver's seat and I would have (almost) no idea what to do. 

There are frequent reports in the press of people driving without a licence. These are usually people who have committed an offence of some sort, often the sort of offence which has caused them to lose their licence in the first place.

And then there are people who simply forget to renew their licence to drive. This actually happened to the late Senior Cat. It occurred at the time when my mother was dying in hospital. Of course the Senior Cat was under extreme stress at the time. One Sunday morning he was about to go to church when he came back in looking rather pale. He stood there in the kitchen and said, "My licence has expired. It expired on Wednesday." It meant he had been driving without a licence for three days. 

He did not go to church. The following morning he walked up to the local Motor Vehicles office and told the person behind the counter what had happened. Fortunately he met with sympathetic understanding - and an admission the person behind the counter had done something similar. He came home with his licence renewed but it gave both of us a nasty fright. We knew how serious the situation could have been.

Perhaps this is why I was so horrified when someone else I know told me she had been driving without a licence. She was blissfully unaware of this until she had to show some acceptable ID for another purpose. Her licence was handed back to her with the statement it was not valid and therefore not acceptable.

She told me all this in a phone call. Yes, she had driven home. No, she had not made any arrangements to renew it. She would do that in the coming week. Yes, she was intending to drive to the Motor Vehicles office to get it renewed. No, she had not done anything about getting a medical certificate. (She is over eighty and has a disability which requires her to get a medical certificate.) 

"But if I can't drive there how can I get it?" she asked me when I told her she must not drive without a licence. 

"Get a taxi," I told her. I was so alarmed by then. Her attitude was so very casual. She did not seem to be in the least bit concerned by all this. It was so different from the Senior Cat's reaction. 

I put the phone down feeling worried. I am already uncertain as to whether this person should actually be driving. She is someone I would not feel happy about taking me anywhere at all, not even to the end of the street.

I have another friend who is eighty-eight. She has just bought a new car. It might seem like a silly thing to do but she has a yearly medical to assess her fitness to drive. Her ability and fitness to drive is not under question. She chooses not to drive at night and plans her routes so as to avoid difficult intersections. Her reaction times are excellent. Recently she told me, "I won't renew my licence again and might even give it up before the five years are up." I would go with her but not the other person because I know she will do this. She will use taxis if she wants to go out. 

I know that taking a licence away from someone does have a massive impact on their lives. I know because never having had one has had a massive impact on my life. It does not mean someone should retain their licence for this reason. A licence is a responsibility and if you take a casual attitude towards renewal or show a willingness to drive when your licence is out of date - should you be driving?

 

There has been an earthquake

in Myanmar and surrounding areas. It occurred some considerable time before the evening news service - the one which is supposed to provide more international content - but it did not get a mention. This morning it only made a small article on page twelve of the state newspaper. 

I suppose I should not be surprised. Actually I am not surprised. The earthquake apparently came in at 7.7 on the Richter scale. It has obviously done a lot of damage. If it had been any other country then we would probably know a great deal more now. There would be pleas for assistance. 

But this is Myanmar. Someone I know is there at the moment. I can't tell you why but he did say "devastating" when he did manage to get a message out. It is not a word he would use lightly. He was due to leave today and now has to find an alternative route out. I have no doubt he will but he will be leaving behind a bad situation.

It would have been bad enough any way but this makes matters much worse. "The military will use it as another reason to cling to power," I can hear him saying that now. It is not something he would dare to say while he was there but yes, they will almost certainly use it as an excuse not to hold "elections" they claim to have planned for much later in the year.

A late friend of mine was a dispatch rider for the British army during WWII. He was in India and then Burma - the country which is now Myanmar. Somehow B... managed to survive the experience. It was very, very dangerous work. He said very little about it later in life but he was full of praise for the "ordinary" people. He found the Burmese villagers and those in small towns friendly. Perhaps it helped that he tried to speak their language and had informed himself of the way in which he should respect their culture and traditions. He went back once after the war and went along the route he had travelled more than once. He found "old friends" there. He had meals with them and passed on the books which had taken up most of his luggage allowance.

There would be none of that now. Outsiders would be treated warily and even with outright suspicion. There would be worried looks if you were seen associating with a foreigner. It is a sad thing in a country which has a rich history and even richer culture, a culture being eroded by military force. 

If the person who is there is correct, and I do not doubt he is, then Myanmar is going to need outside help.  At this point in a complex emergency there are usually requests for help filtering through to people with specialist skills but it has all remained ominously quiet. I hope that quiet is shattered soon. 

Tax cuts or tax cuts?

Apparently we really are going to the polls on 3 May. It is an interesting choice of date. So far very little has been said about the fact that this date is the Saturday of a "long weekend" in two parts of Downunder. I doubt it is going to be welcomed by those who had plans to get away. No doubt they are already looking up the pre-poll places and planning the route to them.

Another interesting thing is that there was no need for the PM to go to the Governor-General today. I suspect it is a very deliberate move to shield him and his party from any further attacks on the floor of the house. 

One of those things, perhaps the most important of all, is their so-called "tax cut" of $5 a week which was rapidly passed in both chambers of parliament. Now they can boast about it but the reality is that, with the help of tax bracket "creep", it is not a tax cut at all. It will not come into force for another eighteen months of so if the present government is re-elected. There is in fact no guarantee it will ever happen. If it does happen then there will be no effect on the economy at all. It will all be overridden by inflation and other factors.

On the other side there is the vow to cut the fuel excise in half - for twelve months. It is said that will put $14 a week back into the household budget. Perhaps it will. I don't know. Economists are saying it is a move which won't do much to help. 

It does however occur to me that the fuel excise might have a wider effect. As I am not an economist I cannot be sure about this. Is it possible that it will reduce costs in other areas as well. If it is cheaper to get things to the supermarket then will grocery prices rise less? Will inflation remain steady - or even come down?

I am confused by all this. Perhaps I need to return to university and study economics.

What I am not confused by at all is the growing need to address our taxation system. Those three layers of tax, local and state and federal, and the need to administer them add enormously to the cost of running the country. That unwieldy tax act of unbelievable size and complexity needs to be simplified.  Do this and we could save a great deal of money and time. We might end up with a much fairer and more reasonable system. We might even get some real tax cuts.  

A roundabout is a roundabout

way of solving a problem it would seem. 

There are plans to build a roundabout costing some millions of dollars at a "black spot" in a neighbouring council area. On more than one occasion I have been past the spot on the trusty tricycle but it is an area I normally avoid. 

It is true there is a problem there and I am a cautious sort of cat on the roads - or footpaths. I dislike cars and travelling in them.  The problem there is one for cyclists. You cannot see properly. There is some greenery which gets in the way.

The report into the plans however suggest that this is some sort of major problem which needs to be fixed with an expensive roundabout. The same report also included a suggestion from a retired policed officer with a good deal of traffic experience. He suggests removing some of the greenery. 

You would not be cutting down any trees. They are not a problem. It is the lower shrubs. They block your view. These shrubs have actually been allowed to get larger than originally intended. They require ongoing maintenance - which they do not always get. Something else could be put in their place.

But no, the roundabout is apparently the answer.

I am reminded of yet another traffic problem. It involves a set of roads and a railway crossing. There are stop signs on all four roads and they apply to the roads. They do not apply to the railway crossing which goes through it. At some times of the day there is a bar on turning into one of the side streets.  The road rises and falls on either side of the crossing. It is a complex traffic area. The police love to sit there and fine those who fail to stop. It is, as one member of the force told me, "the crossing that keeps on giving" in fines.

There are plans to put traffic lights in there but they would be lights which would only operate when a train was going through. Apparently the boom gates are not enough. There is nothing in this plan which would actually solve the problem which relates to the other traffic. 

Someone I know lives on one of the side streets involved. He spent many years working for the railways. He knows a great deal about railway crossings. He has discussed the traffic issues with the police. His solution to the problem is a simple one. It is a safe one and it could be put in at a fraction of the cost while actually solving the problem. It would also make the area much safer for the heavy pedestrian (mostly high school) traffic. 

So far the council is refusing to listen even while one of the council engineers has agreed with J.... that the solution would work and work well. No, we are apparently going to have traffic lights at a point where they will just cause frustration and fail to solve the problem.

I know this goes on all the time....but sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.   

"The Budget is a disaster"

one of my new neighbours has just muttered as he has rushed past me. I assume he is on his way to work. He was not talking to me - we have yet to say anything to each other - but was talking on his phone. This is still early in the morning, very early.

I wonder which budget he is actually talking about. Is it the one just handed down by the Treasurer? Is it the one for whichever business this neighbour works for? Are those places one and the same thing?

I really get nothing in the way of a handout from the plans outlined by the Treasurer. I did not expect anything. There is the so-called "electricity rebate" but it does not cover the rise in the cost of electricity. It does not cover the cost of the increasingly foolish pursuit of the "net zero without nuclear" dream. 

In the meantime we are apparently going to pay $14,165 a week for the privilege of caring for a couple of pandas. They are apparently a tourist attraction. The last pair did not produce any off-spring but it is hoped this pair might. 

Add to that a $16bn "reduction in student debt" for those who have not already paid their debts. Add "free TAFE" (technical and further education) and perhaps the budget really will benefit pandas and would-be tradespeople. No, wait a minute doctors will get more if they "bulk bill", some medicines will be cheaper and there is yet more money for the NDIS (national disability insurance scheme).

Perhaps the pandas really are fine. I actually feel sorry for the pandas - and any other animal stuck in a zoo. I do not like zoos and wish they were not a necessity for saving the diversity of animals on the planet.  And yes, we need tradespeople but there should be some mutual obligations in all this.  I am not sure how many doctors will return to bulk billing though because the costs have risen beyond that. Our local clinic is saying they will not be doing it. Perhaps they could help to review some of the rorting in the NDIS so that those who really need help get it.

I look at the funds for roads, for the steelworks, for defence and much more and just wonder who is really benefitting from the huge sums of money being spent. Why does it cost so much to build a roundabout? 

Looking at the Budget I feel as if I am being asked to believe six impossible things before breakfast...and I wonder whether the Reply will be any better?

 

 

People die when aid fails

or should I say more people die when aid fails?

I know the overseas aid bill for America is huge but America is not the largest donor in per capita terms. America donates around US $190 a head but Norway donates around US $1160. The United Kingdom donates around US $255. Downunder donates around US$122. 

The United Kingdom actually donates more than the stated amount because it has other programs in place through that anachronism known as the Commonwealth. It may put them between Sweden US$515 and the Netherlands US $370.

America is around the sixth largest donor on the list but the problem is that the contribution in American dollars is so big. If American aid fails - and it is - then we really do have a major crisis on our hands.

I have always believed that the best form of defence a country has is its foreign aid program. It is what I was brought up to believe from childhood. No, it was not said to me in so many words when I was a mere kitten but I was taught you cared for those who needed help. As I grew older and became more aware my paternal grandfather and his siblings all showed us the need to give support to newcomers and, by extension, their families in other countries.

We were lucky to have that example but it seems that governments do not see it that way. Foreign aid is given reluctantly and in the expectation of something in return. Providing food aid to the war torn Sudan is not a politically popular move. It is seen as a "waste" of money. There are plenty of similar examples out there.

But even helping local people to build water supplies so they can grow their own crops can cause political issues or tribal warfare. Providing vaccination programs can be difficult if a religious group opposes vaccinations and tells the proposed recipients not to accept the vaccines. Teaching medical procedures is not straightforward, especially where women are denied an education. Funding AIDS programs in a country where homosexuality is illegal is an almost impossible issue. Building a bridge may shorten a journey but whose territory will it be going across?

The provision of aid can be a very, very complex affair. Getting things done can be slow and tortuous but things still need to be done. And yes, it can be necessary to pay bribes. It can also be necessary to modify, to change or even to accept that sometimes things just will not happen. 

But programs which are of real value like a measles vaccination program or a program to reduce the rate of malaria do actually save lives. If those sort of programs are halted, and they are being halted, then people will lose their lives - and those most at risk will be children. 

It has been said that the next wars are more likely to be fought over the provision of things like water.  Providing aid to ensure fair and just supplies of clean water makes sense. We need to provide much, much more aid for things like that.  It may not stop the Putins of this world trying to grab mineral rich deposits under the land belonging to his neighbour but it will stop some conflicts and that is to the benefit of many.  

Foreign aid properly done makes economic sense. It is time to respect that and all of us provide it at least at the level of Norway.  

The "work from home" debate

is raging again. The Downunder PM thinks WFH is a good idea, especially for all those "public servants" in the nation's capital. The Opposition leader thinks those same people should be back in the office.

WFH started with the Covid lock downs of course. Some people have been (ab)using it ever since.

Yes, some people can work well and effectively from home but others cannot and should not. There are very few people who are so well disciplined that they can do the same amount of work from home and do it just as effectively as they would if they were "in the office".  I know just two people I believe are working from home just as effectively as they would in the office. 

I also know several people who should not be working from home at all.  One is a former neighbour who takes his children to school and picks them up in the afternoon. On the way back from taking the children to school he picks up a coffee in the local shopping centre. He walks the dog during work time and is not averse to a chat with his neighbours if they let him. Thankfully they are alert to the issue and now refuse to engage him in conversation during work time.

There is another who simply uses WFH as a means to pass work over to colleagues. She is known as "Ms FIITO" - or "the file is in the office". How much longer she will get away with it I do not know but she was having a leisurely coffee with a friend in the shopping centre last week - and even admitted she should have been working.

All the arguments that working from home means that people are more efficient and get more done are arguments I do not believe at all. The idea that everyone uses the time they might have used to travel to and from the office to actually do some work is something I do not believe at all. Yes, there are rare individuals who might - and I know of one - but most will not. The idea that they are more efficient is something I have long since ceased to believe. There have been far too many occasions when I have been told "the file is in the office and I cannot access it from here". 

All too often work is being delayed and decisions are not being made because someone is not there and information is not available. There is also the lack of casual interaction which can lead to information sharing, idea sharing and more. It may seem a waste of time when it actually occurs but that remark at the coffee machine in the office can lead to other things.

I would never have been a "drinks after work" person and I never socialised after hours with the other staff when I was teaching. I don't think any of them did except on the most rare of occasions but we had social interactions during the day. I travelled on public transport and I knew some of the other regular commuters in that casual sort of way that people do. We didn't talk all the time but there was always help there when I needed it - and people were not looking at the screens on their phones. 

Now people do not know one another even in the same casual way. There has been a rise in people with mental health issues, people who feel anxious and people who feel lonely.  The "Covid lock downs" are blamed but we do not seem to have come to grips with the idea that it was the isolation which was the major part of the problem. WFH is isolating too. It is not all that it seems to be. It might seem like a good thing but it might be better to go back to the office.  

"Thank you for returning my $150"

Mr Prime Minister, "If you actually do."

You see I don't believe you will. I don't think you can. The Budget due on Tuesday evening. That measure will apparently be in the Budget along with some "revenue raising" issues which will probably never see the light of day. (These include things like a further 15% tax on superannuation accounts over $3m - something you would apparently like to bring in at $2.5m but do not quite dare to do.)

You are also suggesting there will be the usual Mediscare campaign and changes so "more doctors will bulk bill" and "cheaper medicines on the PBS". Student loans will be reduced by 20% and TAFE will be "free". Along with that wonderful "Help to Buy" scheme for housing you are feeling increasingly confident that an already gullible public will vote you back in.

This will all happen with a magic money tree of course. There will not be a word anywhere that this is the way you are spending our money, our taxes.  

At the last election you promised no less than fifty-nine times that our power bills would be $275 less. That has not happened. It could not happen. It could never have happened. In the past three years our power prices have continued to rise steadily. When the cost of power rises everything else rises too. It costs more to grow food, to transport food and to process it. Transport costs more. The cost of running a factory becomes more. Every single thing which uses power will cost more. Interest rates stay up in an effort to bring inflation down but power gets in the way. Despite this "renewables" are still the flavour of the day for you...and don't dare mention the "N" word. 

You still believe you can win the upcoming election. The polls even suggest that you can although you may need to rely on the Greens. As most people do not understand the voting system very well you are probably safe enough to believe you can do this even while saying you can still win outright...because of that $150 and more.

You need to go to the Governor-General no later than 23 April but that is an unlikely time because it would be in the middle of the Easter and Anzac period. Yes, you could take the risk but it would leave you open to some heavy criticism. It would also allow for only the bare minimum twenty-three days allowed for a campaign.  It is more likely you will go in the week before that. Doing it then will allow you time to try and ram through the Budget measures. If they fail then you can blame the Opposition. 

Yes, I know it is all part of the political game. Politics can be very, very nasty. Even as a mere kitten I was taught to understand that politicians do not keep their word. That being the case I do not expect to have my $150 returned to me - even if you manage to push the Budget through. You will simply take it away again some other way.

Could you just stop telling me about it? I keep dreaming how I could spend it - on my power bill. 

  

Buying a house with just 2% deposit

sounds unbelievable doesn't it? Well it isn't unbelievable if you believe the government and you fit their criteria.

Yes, there is a catch - more than one catch in fact. The government's "Help to Buy" scheme is not what it appears to be. 

First of all you need to have saved for the deposit of course. Fair enough. Some people will manage that.

Then you need to be earning a certain amount of money.  A single could earn up to $90,000pa and a couple up to $120,000pa. A house up to $600,000 in value was the cut off point.  

There is an election coming up and there is a budget being brought down on Tuesday. Guess what? Yes, the single can now earn up to $100,000pa and the couple up to $160,000. A house up to $900,000 in value is now the cut off point.

But then comes the real issue. The government will own 40% of the house value and they will call it in when the house is sold. They will benefit from any improvements made. No, you can't pay it off gradually over your lifetime. It is only for that house. You must be the person or people who occupy that house. If you need to move for some reason too bad. 

There are all sorts of other issues as well, issues the government is carefully not telling you about. They are not being generous at all. It may appear that way and for a single person who never marries and never leaves the property it may be a good choice. For a couple who have children and want a bigger place or divorce or both it may be a very poor choice. 

There are all sorts of issues with what is effectively co-ownership here. Any idea that the costs of co-ownership will be equally shared is something that needs to be forgotten. Whatever the government tells us now is something that can be changed in the future. This is being done as an investment for them. 

If you have any doubts about that then perhaps the plan to invest in more "flatpack" houses that can be transported to the site will help to convince you. Yes, it is the land value the government is interested in. They will be happy to see substandard housing put on sites knowing that the value of the land is going to rise.  

You doubt that? The government is currently trying to acquire a house close to one of our suburban shopping centres. It is an old fibro-asbestos house which is still just fit to live in. The owner is in a nursing home and her partner, a much younger person, still lives in the house. The government wants to acquire it for the land and they are "offering" something which is well under what the land is worth. It is being done precisely for the purpose of the above scheme and more than one dwelling will be put on the property. The owner cannot subdivide but the government can.

Too many people are desperate for housing. The scheme will seem like the answer to the dream of home ownership for many. Will it work? It might - but read the fine print and consider the long term consequences.

Changing the $5 note

is now a political issue it would seem. 

Our current note has Queen Elizabeth II on it - and rightly so. It used to be a very commonly used note. Cash is becoming less common and the ATM only dispenses higher value notes. 

Despite that the Mint has decided that the note needs to be changed. This will not, as many expected, be to a portrait of King Charles III but to a "First Nations" design. There will be people who will applaud loudly at this. I do not.

If the design had been going to represent our past and our history I would perhaps have suggested a group portrait of the men who wrote our Constitution. I would do this because this is the document which now brings the country together. Any "First Nations" design will simply divide the country still further. It will be offensive to some, deeply offensive. Not all my aboriginal friends will be happy with the design. It is not what they want to see on any bank note.

I remember the day this country changed to decimal currency. (Yes, I am well and truly old enough to remember it clearly.) We had talked about it at school and some were excited by it. They wanted to see the new coins. It was some time before I received a 5c coin in my change.

There were, as there inevitably would be, attempts to defraud people as the changes came into effect. We had 1c and 2c coins then. Now I would hunt to find a 5c coin. Inflation has done that. They are still legal tender but a merchant is not required to accept more than five dollars worth of such coins. It is common to "round up" to the nearest 10c. The shape of the 50c coin has changed. There have been "commemorative" coins and more. 

Our coins have native animals on them and the late Queen Elizabeth II too. Our notes have people who have contributed to our history as a nation. 

And this is where the new $5 fails. If the design I have seen is accurate it does not reflect us as a nation either past or present. There are no people there. If this was an attempt to remain neutral then it fails completely. 

Election "promises" are now coming

even though the election date has yet to be revealed. We Downunderites have to go to the ballot boxes by May 17th and it seems the present government could now run for the full term. The only alternative date is May 10th because of Easter and then Anzac Day.  Either is possible.

My guess is that the election date will be announced after the Budget has been handed down. That Budget will, despite the warnings from economists, be full of election sweeteners. The Opposition will then be expected to match those and, if possible, do better. It is no way to run a country but of course it has been going on ever since governments were elected. 

In all this there are more demands from the so-called Greens. Here, among people who bother to find out what the policies of the various parties are, the Greens are sometimes known as "the watermelon party". They are seen as "green on the outside and red on the inside". Their policies for "free this" and "free that" and Robin Hood ideas about "taxing the rich more to pay for the poor" sound good to many. That many of these ideas, however good they may sound, simply would not work even in a communist regime is of no consequence to them. They can say whatever they like in the full knowledge and confidence they will never have to actually carry them out or even attempt to carry them out.
The power of the Greens lies in the fact they will, if the polls are correct, have the balance of power. They are going to be able to dictate to the government. " You need us to vote with you to pass that legislation. Make that amendment to it (or spend more money on it) and we will help you pass it."

I spent part of yesterday at a meeting talking to a group of people with disabilities. They will be voting for the first time in their lives and it was my responsibility to be sure they understood what they had to do and how they had to do it. It was not my responsibility to tell them which party or person they must or should or even might like to vote for. Several of them were under the impression that they "must" vote for a particular political party - the one which is usually seen as social welfare friendly. Two of them believed that the Greens were all about trees and the environment. Only one of them was politically aware and he was the one who eventually spoke out. 

His speech is poor but he made every effort to make himself understood. He spoke very carefully and the others listened. He told them some actual facts he had bothered to research. He did not suggest they vote one way or another all he said was, "Just think and find out."

"But don't they have to keep their promises?" one of the other participants asked. She is only just old enough to vote. Her intellectual capacity to do so is borderline. She understands the concept of choice but someone else will have to mark her ballot paper for her because she will not be able to read it. If someone "promises" her something she expects the promise to be kept. 

Explaining this does not necessarily happen left her confused and concerned. It left me wishing that election "promises" are and were never made.

"Best interests" or

"safe and protected from harm"?

There is legislation before our state parliament at present which may fail because there is no agreement on whether it should say that a decision should be in the "best interests" of a child or whether it should say that a decision should "keep the child safe and protected from harm". 

Legislation is notoriously difficult to get right. Writing it is not a straightforward thing. "Interpreting" legislation is a minefield. The inclusion or exclusion of a word or the use of one word or another or the use of a comma can change everything. Anyone who doubts that things can get twisted in court only needs to look at the way our Constitution has been used and abused since 1901.   

So do the words to be used in this legislation matter? Yes, they do. 

My gut feeling would be to go with "best interests" because it is in their best interests to keep children safe and protected from harm. It is also my gut feeling that the legislation will not do that whichever way it is written or not written or, as threatened, abandoned. There will still be the policy of keeping children and parents, particularly children and mothers, together. 

Recently there were reports of a drug using mother who had left her child in the same nappy for five days. She was taken into court, given a slap on the wrist and her children will be back with her and "supports" put in place. It is not the first time the welfare services have been involved and it will not be the last. Is this situation really in the "best interests" of the children concerned? Are we really keeping them "safe and protected from harm"? 

Of course we are not doing any such thing. We are doing it because there is a belief that we should keep mother and child together even when the mother displays no desire to care for the child. It is not keeping a child safe and protected from harm. It is also seen as the easy way out, perhaps even the cheapest way out until the neglected child becomes another sort of problem. 

Acting in the "best interests" of the child does not always occur now. Failing to put that into the legislation is only going to cause more harm.

 

US research funding

has nothing to do with me? Wrong.

This morning there are several emails from people I am working with to say their research funding is under threat from the unelected Elon Musk's efficiency drive. 

In my attempts to "retire" I am not taking on any more supervision of doctoral students. I am not doing any more formal tutoring of university students. I am not marking any more essays. 

All this means that I should no longer be involved but of course I am. People send requests for help. I get invited to meetings (thankfully mostly on line). Students get in touch for "a bit of help". 

I have also been helping with those all important research proposals. These are the research proposals which should be what universities should be about. These are the research proposals which should, in my area, be about improving the quality of life for people with disabilities through improved communication skills or improving the communication skills of aid workers in complex humanitarian emergencies. The two areas are not that different in many ways.  

Getting any sort of research funding in these areas has always been difficult. Now it is almost impossible and it seems what little there is may no longer be available. I have been sent forms to fill out in order to try and help justify two pieces of research. Why? Because I was on the committee which wrote the grant proposal. 

I could say "no". I could refuse to fill out the forms intended to justify my unpaid existence but that will make it even more likely the funding will be cut. 

"We already rely too much on the unpaid and the overworked," someone tells me. 

And all this is going on while someone gets almost a million dollars for "anti-racist" dentistry that has nothing to do with actual dentistry but is apparently something to do with "race relations". I reckon my good friend M... could have gone in along with a couple of other good friends and given two or three lectures and taught the students just as much about being "aboriginal", "Muslim" and "Jewish". 

I will dutifully fill the forms out and return them but it makes me angry. It makes me not want to be involved anymore. I want to not care but I do care. What in the h... is going on in this world that someone's right to communicate their fear, their pain, their anxiety and so much more is less important than the bright white smile of one researcher?

"Home schooling" is under

discussion again. 

I was talking with some parents yesterday. Their eldest  started school this year and she keeps telling her parents it is "boring" and that she does not want to be there. They are worried.

It is S...'s grandparents I know and they are worried too. S... can already read independently. The school was informed of this when she was enrolled but her teacher has not been able to provide her with any appropriate materials apart from "some books intended for the next level". I am not quite sure what they mean by that but I do know S..., at five, is reading books more often read by eight  and nine year old children. 

Is she brilliant? Is she Mensa standard? No, I don't think so. Her family does not think that either. Most of the time she comes across as a five year old who just happens to be good at reading and "likes to know things". Yes, she is above average but not that far above it marks her out as someone unusual. 

The adults in S...'s life are worried that she will lose interest in learning if she is not given more to do at school. They are concerned that she might start to say she does not want to go to school. They wanted to know more about "home-schooling" and what it involves. I gave them the contact details for an organisation concerned with home-schooling. 

We discussed the commitment required for home-schooling. It is a big commitment for parents. Here a child must be enrolled in a school by law. Home-schooling can only occur if the authorities are satisfied a child is getting a proper education away from school. The right to withdraw a child from school is only given on a twelve month basis which needs to be renewed. 

I have no idea how many children go from home-school to regular schools or how well they do there. The children I have known have, for the most part, had special needs or illnesses which have not allowed them to attend school. For the most part they have done well but it has required commitment and discipline from them and their parents. I only know one person, an adult my own age, who was home-schooled. She would be considered "brilliant" but will tell parents it was not as easy as they often seem to think.

It is clear to me that S...needs to be given more challenging activities at school. It is also clear to me that her teacher already has the challenge of trying to meet the needs of twenty-two other children, some of whom still struggle to recognise all the letters of the alphabet. 

I wonder what will happen to S...  Thankfully she will still be going to the library on a regular basis.  

 

Looking for volunteers for "research"

purposes and looking for them on Facebook is going to give you a really good random sample isn't it? The results you get from that sample are going to be even better aren't they?

There was a post on FB yesterday from someone who was doing some behavioural research. That person was looking for volunteers to complete an online survey. The "university" in question is one of those which appeared when someone decided that there should be more degree granting institutions in this country. It may be doing some good work. It may even be doing some excellent research but what was going on in the FB post disturbed me. 

The research concerns "obsessive/compulsive" behaviour. If the research proposal had come up in front of an ethics committee at any of the universities I attended or have worked at then it would not have passed muster.  

You will not get a random sample by asking for volunteers in research of this nature through FB. Without a random sample your "results" are, to put it gently, "questionable". The description of the nature of the research and the process also raised questions for me.

I suspect that, although it looked official (and is on the website of the university in question) the person doing the research is a student who has not been given the guidance they need. If their supervisor(s) approved the approach then then the level and the competence of the supervisor(s) also needs to be questioned.

I did question the approach in a comment on FB but have not had a response. That is not unexpected. 

What is also not unexpected is the small article in today's paper about research funding for things like "decolonising breast feeding" - for which a grant of a million dollars has been given. There is another for almost as much given to an "anti-racist dentist curriculum". Both of these may have more value than the paltry $18,000 given for a drag show for scientists but why is that being funded at all?

I remember all too clearly the hours of work which went into getting renewed funding from the Research Council for major projects in England. There would be meetings in the research unit I was attached to, lists, research into the research, queries to other places and much more. Even my own work, which had no funding attached to the SSRC grant, came into it. Everything was scrutinised and analysed. Then everyone went around looking anxious until the grant came through again. It might have been less than asked for but it meant people could still get on with the job. 

I am not sure this is happening here. Apparently someone has been given a grant for promoting a "colonial resistance dance" and to someone who designs tea towels for the purpose of "challenging racial stereotypes of First Nations people". 

I can think of more valuable things on which to spend limited research funds...and better ways to conduct the research.

There has been a major power outage

on the long peninsula to the west of us. It is being blamed on the very dry weather and the consequent build up of dust and dirt on the insulators.

The economic consequences of this will be big. People have lost more than just "a bit of food in the 'fridge". There are businesses which have lost far more than that of course but there are others that are unable to open. Fuel is short because it cannot be pumped at the stations. Schools have been closed - many of the children come in by school buses that do not have fuel and there is no power at their school anyway.  People have been told to keep their phones for emergency use.

The area is not quite as remote as the one we lived in when my parents were the two teachers in a tiny school in a tiny community. That school had no power. If the Senior Cat needed to make a phone call in the dark of a winter evening he had to take a torch and go over to the school (where the phone was) and hope the couple who ran the telephone exchange could get him the number he needed. There was no way for anyone to get us if there was nobody at the school. 

There were two school "buses" there - actually VW "Kombi" vans. They were driven by farmers who needed the extra money and refuelled on the farm from forty gallon drums. I suspect a few farmers in the current black out area can do the same - and others wish they could. Some of them will still have their own power supplies and others will wish they did as well. 

All this should be a wake up call for everyone. I suspect there is much more to the prolonged black out than some dirty insulators. It is all too likely that there are other areas of neglect...and what has happened to that big battery that was supposed to be a back up for the much vaunted "renewable" power supply?

The situation should be a wake up call for everyone. We are power dependent now. I am writing this using power. There is an overhead light on as I do it. The refrigerator is on. Today the temperature is rising again - to the level where I will be very tempted to turn the air conditioning on at least for a short while. That will use power too - if I feel I can afford it. We expect to have power, the convenience of power at the flick of a switch. The world depends on power, indeed our safety depends on it.

I also wonder how the younger generation who "don't read" and do not play board games or indulge in crafts are doing now that their screen based entertainment is not working. Our state newspaper has been running a series of articles on the way the Covid lockdowns have affected young people. Perhaps it is time for them to consider another article or two about the way a lack of power would affect them as well.  

Our emergency departments need volunteers

or extra staff in order to reduce the problems even just a little.

I am fortunate in that I have not, so far, spent a great deal of time in emergency departments in hospitals. I do not want to spend time there although I know it is always possible I will need to do just that.

The last time I was there was some years ago. It was the  morning the Senior Cat fell backwards in the bathroom and the fall caused a four centimetre crack in his skull. I won't remind you of the details but I won't forget the terrifying ambulance trip to the emergency department. The ambulance staff were outstanding but they had to leave us at the hospital. The Senior Cat at least had me there to quite literally hold his hand and keep him from falling asleep - something they did not want him to do at all. 

When they took him off for a scan they did not want me to go with him. He would be fine they said. I could go and find myself a drink of water if nothing else. 

I never did get the drink of water because almost immediately I was asked by another nurse to hold the hand of another patient, an Italian woman who had come in with a suspected heart attack. She was elderly and she was frightened. Her English had deserted her. Someone had called her son and he was on his way but she needed someone "just to be there". I know I summoned up every Italian word I thought I had forgotten and I let her hold my hand and talk. I understood some of what she was struggling to say, enough to say "Si" in the right places perhaps.

I hope it did help. I wonder what happened to the old Italian woman but if I gave her something else to think about when she was obviously so uncomfortable then perhaps it stopped her from crying out or being more demanding. 

The problems in our Emergency Departments have increased since then. There are more mental health patients than ever before. Sometimes they cannot be left. There are more drug addicts who get priority because they need to be dealt with then if their lives are to be saved. There are people who should not be there at all but they cannot get an appointment with their doctor or cannot afford to pay for an appointment. Some people have simply panicked and gone to the emergency department in a hospital instead of perhaps asking a chemist for help.

Some time ago I fainted and gave myself a mild concussion. I was fortunate a very good friend arrived shortly afterwards and called Middle Cat. Middle Cat took the situation seriously but had the medical knowledge that led to me not needing to go to an emergency department. Yes, she consulted a doctor by phone and she could take my blood pressure readings and make sure I was making sense - well as much sense as I ever make. 

We did not add to the stresses in an emergency department but it would have been sensible for many people in that situation to do just that. What might have helped then - if someone was on their own - was someone with some training to sit with the person, keep them awake if necessary, and just reassure them.

I do not for a moment want to suggest that something like this would be an answer for many situations. There are all sorts of potential problems but if we are going to have people waiting for many hours before being attended to then this may help reduce the stress for everyone.  

Creating mental health issues in lockdowns

should have surprised nobody at all. It was always going to be so, especially for people who did not have the resources to entertain themselves.

There is a group of articles in the state newspaper this morning. They concern the mental health of young people who are, it is said, still feeling issues of anxiety from their time in Covid19 lockdowns.  They talk about their feelings of social isolation at the time and the way they felt they had to learn to "re-socialise" and more.

What comes over very clearly to me is what has not been said in those articles. Yes, those articles are making some very important points about very real problems. I would not want to suggest for a moment that what is being said is not a cause for major concern. What I would like to say is that much of it could have been avoided and still needs to occur if we are going to address mental health issues.  

Yes, it was of concern that young people could not get out and mix with their mates and play sport. Exercising at home was always much less likely to happen. Going for a run or a walk was not the same thing for the vast majority of sport addicted young people. (Dare I even suggest it was harder for young males?) They did not have alternatives that allowed them to cope more easily.

The young people I know who coped best with the lockdowns were those who were readers, readers of actual books. They were regular users of the library system. In my immediate vicinity they borrowed books from me as well. We had to work out a system which allowed them to do this without breaking lockdown rules but we did it. Their parents were grateful and the young borrowers still talk to me about the books they read. I hope we are never faced with a similar situation because I have had to dispose of the vast majority of my library. It was a valuable collection but it would not fit in a smaller abode. I needed room for a bed...and the computer.

Many of those same young people had parents who also read books, who did not see books as something less important than sport.  Often their parents were people who played board games with them as well. That helped.

There was also another group of activities that some of these young people took up. They took up crafts like knitting, crochet, sewing, simple weaving, basketry, origami, carving, polymer clay modelling and more. Sometimes they did it with the help of parents who could do these things or were relearning their own long neglected skills. At other times they were searching the internet for information. There was time to do these things during lockdowns. There was no pressure to be at footy practice or ballet class or some other activity.  Sadly most young people did not continue these interests after the lock downs were over. They returned to old habits. 

The good thing though is that a few young people have maintained their interest in the crafts they took up. They are developing their skills. A very few have joined groups of like minded people and discovered a different sort of companionship, something deeper than their sometimes very casual school friendships. Those who have done this are apparently not experiencing the same levels of anxiety. 

There really is a need to research this properly but the evidence would appear to support the idea that reading and creating during that time helped then and helps now. It is concerning then that nothing is said in the articles about these things or about their ongoing importance. There almost seems to be a view that as long as you are back to playing sport and hanging out with your mates in a non-productive way then things are back to normal. 

Sport is important for any number of reasons and we need to socialise but those things are no sufficient in themselves. I would just so like all young people to have the time and desire to read and the time and desire to take up at least one craft they can continue for life. I would just so like them to be able to do it for their mental health. 

Yes it is possible to rig an election

in Downunder. 

There was a quite heated debate about this outside the library yesterday. It was not something I intended to get involved in but there were several people already discussing it and my opinion was asked. I hesitated even then because I rarely discuss politics with people unless I know them very well...and I did not know these four men well. 

I do know two of them are strong supporters of a political party - at least strong enough to go out and campaign. The other two men I do not know but I soon found out. 

They were discussing our voting system. It is rather more complicated than a simple "first past the post". It involves "preferences". What it means is that you get a ballot paper and you write a "one" in the box next to the name of the candidate you want to vote for. 

What happens if that candidate does not get enough votes to get elected?  Well you then go on to write a "two" next to the candidate you would like to get in if your candidate does not get elected. That's fine isn't it? It's fair. It gives you another chance to choose. There is no need for an expensive run off election. 

This is what we are told.  We also have a system where there is compulsory attendance at the ballot box. We are told we "must vote". Even the Electoral Commission tells people they "must vote". It is not quite accurate. You can mark the ballot paper any way you like in the privacy of that little space. If you want to waste the opportunity you can just pretend to mark it, fold it over, exit the little space and put it in the relevant box or boxes.

The vast majority of people do vote. Of those who do only about 5% of votes are "informal". People do as they are told.  We are nicely trained and obedient little citizens who fill in each square with a number in order to be sure our vote "counts".

Filling in each square is compulsory if we want our vote to count. It is at that point where it is possible to manipulate the vote. They will do "deals" with minor parties or even put up additional candidates as members of minor parties.  They will do it knowing that the votes will eventually flow in their direction. 

Yes, people shrug and say "But the voter controls where his or her preferences go".  That is not the issue here. The issue is that, in order to have their first choice count, the voter is being compelled to make a second choice - and that choice may not be their choice at all. They may find every other candidate offensive. Their first choice may have been on the basis of "least offensive". A candidate who is perhaps the first choice of 42% of voters can lose to a candidate who is the first choice of only 35% of voters when compulsory preferences come into play. Without the compulsion but still the right to choose a second candidate the results might be very different.  

It is not a question of whether we should or should not be compelled to "vote" which matters here. It is a question of whether, having made a choice, we should be compelled to go on choosing. Perhaps it is time to actually discuss this openly.

 

It is now summer - in autumn

 or so it would seem. We are having the sort of weather and the sort of temperatures we should have had in December, in January, in February. It has not rained for weeks now. 

I am trying to remember what it was really like when I was a mere kitten and I am certain I am not mistaken. Summer really was warmer then wasn't it?

 We had many hot days in the long summer holidays from school. Mum would still toss us outside to "find a shady spot" unless it was too hot even for that. We played games outside even in the heat. We wore shorts and floppy linen hats.

By the time school went back in the first week of February it would still be warm. There would be the occasional very hot day - "over a hundred" in the old Fahrenheit units - but the temperatures would gradually be settling down. By March the temperatures might still be "rather warm" but they were cooling down.

Right now we have had temperatures which are unseasonably warm. No, this is not "climate change". Global temperatures may be getting warmer but this is not climate change. There are apparently other things affecting our weather. I do not pretend to understand the science. I do know that the "cyclone" on the east coast probably had something to do with it all - but the cyclone itself was, thankfully, a  bit of a fizzer. They may have had too much rain and consequent flooding but, while bad, the whole thing could have been much worse than it was.

I looked at the weather forecast for the rest of the week. It still says over 30'C for each day. There is a hint, just a hint, of a possible shower or two over the weekend even with a forecast of temperatures in the high thirties. I wonder.

"Can't they make it rain?" a small friend asked the other day. His "garden" (in two pots) has died in the heat but he has said, "I'll do it again because I want to take it to school for show and tell."

It reminded me of taking my saucer of wheat to school. It was grown  on a small wad of cotton wool and kept damp until the wheat sprouted. We all had to do the same thing. When that was done we had to follow the story of the wheat right through to the end result of a loaf of bread. As a kitten from the country I already knew far more about this than any city child. I was bored by the simplicity of what the teacher was telling us. I had seen farmers plant and harvest. I had seen bags of wheat (as they were then) and I had been to visit the mill which had supplied flour to the little bakery. I had watched the baker too...and eaten the results still warm from the ovens in the bakery.

Brother Cat and Middle Cat went through the same lessons. I found a page of Middle Cat's work about it when we were clearing the house. Mum had kept it for some reason.  Mum was not sentimental but the occasional thing came to light. There was nothing at all belonging to me but something from each of the others. It all made me wonder how they remembered their own kittenhood.

It has to be different now. I doubt that little T... learns about bread in the way we did. His "show and tell" garden if he does remake it may be the only "garden". He is learning about gardens from his grandfather not his father and not his teacher. There is no time for that at school.

Things are changing and perhaps the weather is changing too. I still doubt that weeks of temperatures in the thirties and no rain at all is "normal" now. It is a blip in the system. Things will go on changing but they will do it slowly. 

"We have processes we have to follow"

is the response Middle Cat is going to get from the executors of the Senior Cat's estate.  No, it is still not settled after three years. It is more than twelve months since the Black Cat took the rest of us to court and demanded more than she was entitled to - and won.

Middle Cat being the one who has dealt with the financial issues (because her partner is very able in this area) she is also the one trying to move the executors on so that we do not have the added issue of Capital Gains Tax. I do not think it is going to work. The executors could do this but they have no reason to do it. They can delay the final stages of settling the estate, indeed seem determined to do just that.  

The entire saga has had major financial implications for me. I was prepared for some of the issues of course. I was looking for alternative accommodation long before it became essential. Many of the difficulties were caused by what I could not do rather than by what I could do.

In all this the executor company has not been supportive. Indeed it has gone out of its way to make even more difficulties. I expressed some concerns when the Senior Cat's affairs were handed to an employee I had previously had dealings with. We were told she would always be "monitored" and if we had "concerns" they would be "listened to" but they were not prepared to change the arrangement.  In the end I was proven right. She was "asked to leave". 

At that point we had already done most of the work. We had another plan in place, one which would have allowed me to stay in the family home at least for some years. Instead of that there were delays that were never explained to us. Despite repeated inquiries we were given excuse after excuse. People outside the executor company were blamed for delays even when documents had not even been sent to them. 

All this allowed the Black Cat to become impatient and talk to other people who encouraged her to believe that something was not "fair". The law working the way that it does meant that the outcome was not what the Senior Cat intended. There was another delay. It is now fourteen months since we learned of the Black Cat's challenge. Everything had to come to a halt. I was told I could not do anything. We could not remove anything from the property, even things belonging to me.  The executors wanted to come into court with us even when they stated they would not be part of any challenge. On legal advice we told them to stay out of it. The judge and the barrister both said we had made the right decision. The executors would simply have delayed things further and charged us more.

Settlement on the sale of the property came at the end of February after a great deal of work and stress. It has caused friction between all of us at times. The executors tell us the delays are our fault. They would have sent a company in to "clear" the property - at a very high fee. We would not have had any control over anything and a great many things of value would simply have been placed in a skip to be dumped. The executors were not happy we did not use their "clearance" people.  Of course they weren't. It meant no extra fee for them. 

I sat down with my financial adviser. He is a man I know well. I like him and trust him. Once the issue of the codicil was resolved there was no cause for any of the delay. The Senior Cat's affairs were simple. They were in good order. His tax returns were up to date. It should have taken no more than six months at the most to finalise the matters that needed to be dealt with. 

Three years later we are now facing another hefty bill. This time it will be for "capital gains tax" because the executors are once again dragging their feet. All the information has been with them for weeks. It was only settlement which was holding things up. 

My advice to other people is this - do not use an executor company. Get your will properly drawn up by a solicitor. Appoint someone you trust as an executor. That person does not need to do all the work. They simply need to see that it is done. It will be much faster. It will also save your estate a lot of money. 

"Fritz fritters" or "devon" or "German"

"luncheon meat" or "sausage" - those of you reading it in America might also think of it as a type of "spam".

"Fritz" is generally how it is known in this state - pale pink, floppy and full of fat, salt and other items best not talked about. It is cheap enough for butchers to hand over "free" slices of it to young children. There is even a version which has a "smiley" face right through it in slightly darker "meat".  

It is vile stuff but beloved by many. I have a cousin whose favourite form of sandwich is "fritz and tomato". For many other people it is "fritz and tomato sauce" (ketchup to some of you). 

I was forcefully reminded of this a few minutes ago when I read of someone admitting he did not know too much about cooking but he could make "fritz fritters". Yes, it all came flooding back to me. I was back at high school in the city for just a short while and I was living in a hostel for female students. Most of the students were at university or teacher training college. There were just eight of us still at school and I was the youngest by far. It was not a happy experience for me - only marginally better than the boarding school I went to the following year. 

The food was dreadful - although again not as bad as the food at boarding school. There would be a revolt now but back then we put up with it because at least there was plenty of it. We were supposed to get our lunchtime sandwich somewhere else but I had no extra pocket money - just enough for the bus pass to and from school. I took the Vegemite sandwich I made myself from two slices of bread filched at breakfast. I ate the cooked breakfast - except on Fridays. 

I could never face the Friday breakfast. It was always the same - "fritz fritters". These were slices of the dreaded "meat" dipped in batter and deep fried. They were greasy. They were soggy. They smelt vile. My fellow students devoured these with apparent pleasure. They would clamour to have my share. I was happy, only too happy, to pass them over. I tried not to watch as they slathered them in tomato sauce.  I am allergic to an ingredient in tomato sauce so I would have been eating them without the flavour disguised by tomato sauce.  Ugh! 

Now these things would be regarded as seriously unhealthy but they were eaten with apparent enjoyment. I do not remember anyone being fat. I do remember all the bicycles stored at the back of the building so perhaps the fritz fritters were worked off during the day.

I remember telling my mother about these things. She thought I was making it up in an effort to get some pocket money to spend at school. If it was true then I should just have eaten them. I just could not do it. Even now the thought of them makes me feel queasy.

I do wonder what would happen if they were presented to a group of hungry teenage boys. Would they eat them?

 

"Are you going to get another dog?"

I ask my friend. 

It is not the sort of question I would normally ask a very elderly friend but it is the right sort of question to ask on this occasion. She  loves dogs and has not actually had one of her own since she could no longer walk one on the twice daily basis she deemed essential.

No, T... has a dog in other ways now. She "adopts" an assistance dog in training. She has done this since her neighbour's child was given one. That dog was trained to alert an adult to the little boy's epileptic seizures.  A dog like that can make a vast difference to the life of not just the person who needs the dog but all the family.

The family has moved on but T... has gone on adopting a dog in training. Each time one dog goes she has adopted another by paying for all that needs to be done. Training a dog is not a cheap exercise.

"But it is so worth it," T... tells me. 

I can only agree. There was an assistance dog in the shopping centre yesterday. It is paired with a woman who has poorly controlled diabetes and anxiety related to that diabetes because it can lead to unexpected incidents. The dog was just sitting quietly at her side as she spoke to someone she knows. As I went past she acknowledged me. On my way back from the greengrocer I saw her sitting at a table outside one of the coffee shops. I stopped and asked if she was okay,

"Yes. Thanks for asking. I'm getting something. This one knew." She looked down at the dog who appeared to be asleep by her feet. She was actually alert. One ear twitched slightly.

I had no qualms about leaving them. The owner of the coffee shop knows them both. 

This woman can go out and about, do the shopping and more because of her dog. Her husband can still go to work.  The dog does her job too.

And yes T... is going to get another dog. She will take an interest in it and how it goes during training. It is the dog she cannot have herself now she can no longer care for one. 

 

$20 for lunch?

Ouch! How many people can afford to let their child buy lunch at school if that is the sort of price you have to pay? 

Okay that was one of the higher prices. In the article one of them went up even higher than that. 

The lowest price seemed to be $6.50 at a school where the canteen is still run by the parents on a volunteer basis. That lunch consisted of a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a drink. 

It seems however that "time poor" parents do not have time to see that their children take lunch with them. Are they the same parents who buy that daily coffee and their own lunch? 

Buying our lunch at school was a major treat. It was almost unheard of for us to be allowed to do it. Our parents did not do it either. Most of the time of course we lived in rural areas where there was no school canteen. Everyone brought their lunch to school. There were Vegemite sandwiches, jam sandwiches, meat left over from Sunday sandwiches and 'roo sandwiches. Cheese and gherkin sandwiches appeared once in a while if your mother was feeling generous. If there happened to be a tomato handy it might get added to the cheese. On rare occasions there might be an egg sandwich. That was a treat too.

You would probably get a bit of cake or a biscuit - homemade - and you might get a bit of fruit. You drank water unless your mother let you have "a bit of cordial" in the bottom of the drink bottle - which you then filled with water from the tap. 

The only "bought" thing which appeared with any regularity were the "Bush" biscuits. These were about the size and shape of some mobile phones. Some of the boys would have two of these - sandwiched together with butter - for "recess".  

Other bought biscuits appeared more often in the city but there was still homemade cake or biscuits to go along with the sandwich. Sandwiches were white bread of course. Brown bread was almost unknown. Grain breads, rye breads, wraps and other forms of "bread" were unknown. 

If you bought your lunch the choice was limited to pie, pasty, sausage roll, roll or sandwich. There were things like "cream" buns, "finger buns" or "custard tarts" for afters...if you were very lucky. Now most of these things are considered to be unhealthy by the food police so the "vegetarian wrap" comes into play instead. 

"Most of it is yuck" I was told by one earnest seven year old. 

Last Sunday Middle Cat and I spent all day at the Fibre Feast. I cut lunch for both of us - multigrain rolls with ham for her and cheese for me. I added cherry tomatoes and small celery sticks. There was a rather special biscuit for later in the afternoon. We drank water and then, as a treat, iced chocolate for me and iced coffee for her. That was all we bought. We might not even have bought that but we wanted to support the vendors who were making the effort to be there. 

It did not cost us $20 even for two. If we had not bought the drinks it would not even have cost the $6.50 it would cost for one at the school. Yes, I had the time to prepare it - or rather, I made time to prepare it.  I was able to observe some of the other stall holders around me. Some of them did as we did. Others bought the hot chips and other treats which were available.  

One person in passing said, "That looks so good". I did not say "You could have done it too" because I knew she had come from interstate and was probably in a motel for the night. 

It was good. It is not to say we would not have enjoyed fresh hot chips or a wrap prepared by someone else or liked to have taken advantage of the "bacon and egg" breakfast offering earlier in the day. It is just that we did not need it and we did not need to spend the money...but we still had that small treat. We had the treat, a day out and money to spend on something else which would be a permanent reminder of the day if we wanted one.  

There is a cyclone heading

towards the north east coast of the country! Help! There is a major disaster at hand! There will flooding! There will be high winds!

I do not for one moment want to suggest that a cyclone, any cyclone, is not a serious weather event. They are. They can do a lot of damage. People can lose everything, including their lives.

The problem here seems to be that, unlike some parts of the world, a cyclone is a rare event. There has not been a cyclone of this forecast magnitude for over fifty years. The vast majority of people will have no memory of such an event. They do not know what to expect. It is the unknown which is as frightening as the reality. 

I am not in the cyclone area. My home is a very long way from that. I am actually hoping for something positive from it. That positive would be water, a lot of water. It is just possible that the potentially devastating floods from a cyclone could also help by adding water to our river system. We need it. This state has not had any rain for weeks and weeks now. We need rain. They are carting water in the hills behind us. Yes, it is that serious.

Of course the cause of the cyclone has been said to be "climate change". The warmer surface temperature of the ocean is apparently the trigger. I won't discount that as a cause - although I wonder what happened last time. 

All this has political ramifications as well. Up until the point where the cyclone looked like causing damage in that part of the country it was possible that we would go to the election on April 12. Now it may not be until May. It would be difficult to hold an election while there is widespread flooding and damage. After April 12 we have Easter and Anzac and neither of those week ends are available. We will be heading into May instead. 

It may suit the government but if they want to avoid bringing down another budget then it will be a six week campaign. That is something they may also want to avoid. My guess is that our Prime Minister will be praying for the cyclone to go south at sea and for the damage to be minimal. He will also be praying for the result of a state election on the other side of the country to still be strongly in his favour.

I am glad I do not live in the likely cyclone zone and I am glad I am not the Prime Minister weighing up when to go to Government House. I hope there is not too much damage caused by the cyclone but, naughtily, I am happy for it to cause concern for the politicians.  

"70+hrs saving lives"

was the response from one of those who finally responded to Elon Musk's demand to know what they had been doing in the past week. As a doctor she simply did not have the time to respond even if she had wanted to do so. 

Her colleagues wrote similar things. It was her husband who sent me the responses he had gathered. He does not work for a government department but his fury matched that of some of those required to respond to the ridiculous demand.

I know that there is a lot of wastage in any "public service". I have no doubt that there could be greater efficiency but this is not the way to achieve it. It is also obvious to me that some of the most "precious" ideas, items and plans could be cut without any harm to anyone. A great deal of paperwork and duplicated paper work could be removed at no harm to anyone. 

I know about these things because I have had to waste time on them myself. I am not an employee of the US government but I have worked with many people who are. More than once I have been required to fill out forms which do not apply to me in any way but they are "required" by someone or "it is what everyone needs to do". Apparently this is essential even if you are not being paid. Many of these forms run to multiple pages. The language is arcane and the demands sometimes outrageous. Is it really necessary to show the addresses of everywhere I have lived? There is no security issue involved in my role but someone clearly thinks it is a good idea to ask the question. 

I have resorted to keeping a file with all sorts of such information in it so I can access it readily without having to think. I make sure that the person demanding the information knows if it is - or should be - on file already. That is part of the problem. They are so overloaded with information they cannot find it. File it on the computer? Apparently their systems do not allow for that.

I am now waiting for that email from Elon Musk, unelected hit man, asking me what I have been doing in the past week. It is almost bound to come. Someone will think I am an employee, an unpaid employee, and send it to me. It will be a great pleasure to respond to it but my response will not be printable here or in other public space.