Working from home

should not be a "right". It may be something some people can be fortunate enough to negotiate but it should not be a right enshrined in law. 

It would be patently unfair to do this...and so it is what the government in a neighbouring state is trying to do. That news has been in the media over the past few days. It is there this morning in an article by one of the columnists. 

The columnist has raised the issue by saying one of his mates owns a furniture business. When attempting to employ new people apparently questions are being asked about whether they can "work from home". How can you work from home if you are supposed to be selling a sofa or a kitchen table and chairs in a showroom? 

Teachers, members of the medical professions, emergency service personnel, carers in nursing homes, cleaners, transport workers and shop assistants are just some of the people who obviously cannot work from home. Why then should anyone else have the "right" to work from home? What makes them so special?

Yes, I know the arguments about it allowing some people to care for their families as well. I know the arguments about dropping the kids off at school and picking them up later. I know the arguments about "saving money" and not needing to spend time travelling to and from work.

I also know from actual observation that some people abuse the privilege. They meet someone for "coffee" in the shopping centre. Oh they have their laptop out. They pretend to be "working" but in reality it is a nice little social interlude. 

"I suppose I had better go and do some work," one such WFH person told me yesterday. He had wandered in to the shopping centre in search of coffee and a bun after dropping the kids off at school and going to the gym. It was well after ten in the morning. My morning had begun late too - the meeting didn't start until 5:30am - and I had done almost two more hours on top of that. I had been to the library as well. I am supposedly "retired" so perhaps I am allowed to be a little lazy...or maybe not. I grabbed the things I needed and left again because I need to get something done before I go to a funeral this afternoon. As I pedalled off I saw him walking slowly across the car park. His car was probably parked there. 

There are people who really do work when they WFH of course. They are the rare and disciplined people who have strict routines. They do not get distracted. Their roles allow it but they will still go into their workplace at regular times. They are available when needed. They are not picking the kids up from school or having coffee with a friend or doing their weekly shop on work time. 

Yesterday a friend called me and asked, "Cat can the kids come to you for an hour or so after school? It's my day off but I have been called in to a meeting and I need to see what is going on. I should be back a bit after four."

Yes, they could. They go to the local primary school. The older one will walk the younger one safely here. They will do any homework at the table. I will give them a snack and drink if they need it. They will read or draw until their mother picks them up. Attending a meeting on her day off is not unusual. She is a busy hospital doctor. I am happy to help because she cannot WFH. Her patients are in a hospital bed. It was also her day off and she was working.

"If you can work from home like that someone else can do your job from an even more remote location," she told me of the gym goer when she came to get her two. She had one of those "one of my patients has just died" looks I know all too well. It is inevitable in her area. You can't do her sort of work by staying at home. She hugged me and went off making plans with her two boys to make a favourite meal for their father. He will eat it when he gets home from his long shift at a different hospital. WFH is something they will never do but they will be catching up on the "paperwork" after the boys are in bed tonight.   

The abortion bill

failed in the Lower House last night. It had been presented in the upper house of our state parliament by one of those members of parliament I call "single issue" members.  

Let me try and explain that. They are people who go into parliament with one issue that is of extreme importance to them. Getting elected in order to deal with that issue has been the most important thing to them. They recognise that other things will need to be dealt with but they will do everything they can to get their issue dealt with before anything else.

These people do not usually make the best members of parliament. They inevitably forget they are there to represent the people who elected them. Those who elected them may have elected them for other reasons entirely, often because they are members of a political party the elector "always" and unthinkingly supports.

In this instance the member has not even stayed with the party she stood for at election time. She has moved to another party, one which supported her bill.

I have never had to face the abortion issue at a personal level. I do know people who have and I know it is an issue surrounded by intense debate. My personal feeling, as far as I believe I can have one, is that it is an issue that is best left for the woman who is pregnant to discuss with those she chooses. The decision should be hers. The idea that parliament can legislate a blanket decision in one way or the other is something I find disturbing.

It will be interesting to see what is said in the media over the next few days. Will the outcome be largely ignored? Will those who voted for the bill be interviewed? Will they be criticised? Will the activists make another attempt? 

It is likely the supporters of the bill will not go away quietly. They have stirred up public opinion. They will be expressing forms of righteous anger at the outcome. That there are many other issues to be dealt with in parliament will be of little importance to them. Failure is not an option for people with such strongly held beliefs. For them this is not democracy at work. They will see it as a failure of democracy. 

This is an issue which stirs up public debate but for many people there is no "right" or "wrong" here. There is no room for debate. The view they hold is the only possible one.  There can be no possibility of "agreeing to disagree". 

It all reminds me of too many other issues right now...or perhaps I am just wrong about everything.  

 

I was told of two deaths

yesterday. 

The first was of one of the regular dog walkers. I had actually known of her much longer than that. Her mother was a teacher in a school with which I was associated. It was obvious this woman was the cause of some anxiety even as a teenager.  She was "scatty", forever "getting into strife". I heard many tales about her. 

Somehow she married and had a child. The marriage did not last. The child, now an adult, mothered her own mother. She checked every day.  

She ended up living in the house her mother had lived in. It was on my regular bike route at the time. I knew, and still know, the people who live opposite that house. The husband had to sort out more than one issue with water, with electricity, with something falling down and more. Her three barking dogs were an irritation to the entire neighbourhood.  She would spend hours walking them. In summer she would put them all in her battered little car and they would head off to the beach.  Eventually there were two dogs and then just one.

I sorted out some minor legal issues for her more than once. "Because you know about these things Cat. I don't. Things confuse me." They did too. She was not trying to be helpless. She really was incompetent. You could tell her to do something and then watch her struggle to do it in the way she had been told. Left and right confused her of course but up and down did too. 

I saw her last week. She was tying her dog up next to the place I park my trike. We spoke to each other. I thought she seemed even vaguer than usual, a little slower too. She was several years younger than I am but, as someone else my age remarked that day, "She looks so much older but she is so accident prone."

I was told she had walked the dog one last time in the rain. Then she went home and lay down on the bed and did not get up again. It was a shock for her daughter but I suspect it might also be a relief. She was a responsibility for all of us but, somehow, we will miss her.

The other death was of a woman much closer in age to the Senior Cat, ten years younger perhaps at the time. I met her once when I was about eight. She was the daughter of Brother Cat's second grade teacher. For some reason we were visiting the teacher at home and she happened to be there. 

Even then she was an organised person. Her parents had a wonderful garden and she had another such garden. How she found time to do it is a mystery to most people. She had a career in nursing. She married and had three children. One of the children is profoundly deaf. Her husband was badly injured in an accident and it left him with a brain injury and unable to work. She carried on and became involved in several arboreal projects as well. 

When my mother died she kept up contact with the Senior Cat. She would appear occasionally with something from her garden. He would respond in kind. We had invitations to her home. She was there at his funeral and talked positively of his garden. 

It was only her own ill health in the last few years which meant she moved out of her home reluctantly. Several months back someone else brought her to see me. We had a wonderful morning tea full of silly and amusing stories and reminisces. 

I was quite literally about to finish sending an email to organise a visit to her when the email appeared telling me of her death. I scrapped the email and sent another off to someone else. Did they need food for the refreshments after the funeral? The response came back later in the day. No, they don't. She had already organised for caterers to deal with it. Only the tea and coffee need to be dealt with and that would be enough.  It was typical of her thoughtfulness and her ability to organise. The church will be full.

They were two such different people. I went to bed last night wondering how the first person would have turned out if the second person had been her mother. 

What is the point of travelling

if you only want the sort of food you could get at home?

In the hope of some useful hints I have been following a "travel" page. On that page this morning there was someone asking if it was okay to bring her "snacks" with her. Her argument was that it would be good to have some "familiar" food. This was particularly so if she was feeling tired or concerned about the food around her. The list of things she wanted to take sounded enough to feed her while she was there.

I could understand this if you were going to a country where the culture and food were very different. My parents went to China with a couple who took food for the entire trip because they did not trust the available cuisine. (This was almost forty years ago. I trust things are different now.) My parents tried the local cuisine.They liked some of it but not all of it. They took the advice of the tour guide though and saw it as part of the experience.

I have not travelled to any place with a wildly different cuisine but I ate Chinese style in Singapore because that is what my friend cooks. (In the supermarket where we bought a little food for breakfast we might have been shopping at the local supermarket here. The brands and packaging were identical.) I have eaten Korean food with Korean friends. I have eaten Japanese sushi with caution because of the vinegar (and had, sadly, to curtail the experience). I have eaten Indonesian and Malaysian food cooked by students I was tutoring. I have tried all sorts of cheeses and sausages and breads in Europe. I have tried (and rejected) haggis. I am not fond of meat. I would be cautious in some places but only because I do have a couple of genuine allergies.  I like to explore within those boundaries if cleanliness is part of the experience.

Food exploration should be one of the pleasures of life if we are fortunate enough to go on the journey,  

Last year Middle Cat and I travelled with one "emergency" food item each. That was on the advice of the travel agent who booked our tickets. There was a chance we would be delayed for several hours between planes. Yes, there would be food at the airport but it would be expensive and not what either of us would want to eat when flying.  In the end we did not need it but it was 50gms each of security I suppose. I ate very little on the plane. The lovely hostess was a bit concerned but I did not need it - just give me enough liquid please, preferably water or juice.

Of course I was thoroughly familiar with British food. Put me in a supermarket there and most things are familiar even now. They are often the same brand. The names of most things are the same. If I want something "different" or "local" I know I am going to have to look for it. There is plenty to be found. 

I came home with two packets of what my BIL called "birdseed biscuits" (seeded crackers to those of you in the USA) and that was simply because there is nothing quite like that here. 

The four Palestinian Activists

just sent to prison in England were not sentenced as "terrorists". They were sentenced based on the damage they had done to both people and property. In sentencing the judge took into account the reason for their offending and "terrorism" was perhaps mentioned but it was not how a finding of guilt came about.

There were a great many comments in my Twitter feed about the situation. Some were in sympathy with those who have gone to prison. Others felt they had received a fair sentence. Still more would have liked the sentences handed down to be far longer. Almost all of them failed to understand how the sentences were decided. Perhaps the media could have done a better job of explaining - but that would involve using words the protestors and their supporters would find offensive. 

My view? If you want to protest then do not break the law. There is no point in breaking the law. It is not going to gain you any sympathy. There are better ways of protesting. 

There are also better ways of getting things changed.

I have no sympathy with those who head off in a "flotilla" to challenge a naval blockade. It might be a feel good exercise that gets a lot of publicity but not all of that has been positive. The "protestors" were putting their lives at risk. (No, it was not from the navy which blocked them.) Yes, their views might get some air time but in reality they are not going to change the situation by doing that. 

Do you want to change something you see as wrong? Mobilise a lot of people to write to your members of parliament or send letters to the media. Do not buy the products of a company you think is breaking the law. Ask others to do the same.  Get public figures on side. Ask them for an interview if you know they sympathise. 

It is hard work. The "feel good" adrenaline fix is not there. It is just hard slog. It probably will not achieve rapid results. It may not achieve the desired result at all - but protesting in a way that breaks the law is even less likely to achieve results. People believe it will of course. It may even seem that it has but the reality is that behind those protests are a lot of ordinary people who have protested in a law abiding way.  Those with the ultimate power to do something will listen to them first.

So someone donates $200m towards

housing returned servicemen, men too old and frail to work...and people are complaining. 

The same person has just donated another plane to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. That makes two now...and people are complaining. 

That comes on top of around $800m in tax last year...which does not take into account all the other expenses of employing the people who also work for the companies which raised the money to pay the taxes.

Apparently it is wrong to be "rich", the "billionaire" sort of rich. No, I am not talking about the world's first "trillionaire". There is a funny little red line under that one. I am not sure that sort of money is the sort anyone understands, not even the person who is apparently "that person". 

No, the person in question is a fairly ordinary sort of billionaire. They had a great start having inherited from "daddy's company" but most of it since then has come from hard work. It has come from the hard work of themselves and other people.  This does not make them popular. 

I have often wondered what I would do with a great deal of money. A "millionaire" was a rarity when I was a childhood. I most certainly did not know anyone who was a millionaire. Inflation has changed that. I sometimes wonder what the millionaires of my childhood did with their wealth but I do not remember people talking about it much. I suspect that any generosity on their part was done more quietly. There was no social media for others to talk about it.

It is the comments by others that have irritated me in the past few days. Someone said the donor of the $200m "probably spends more on lunch" and that it was "probably tax deductible". The returned servicemen's organisation saw that donation very differently. They were grateful for it. The donor will have seen that it goes where it needs to go too. That is how they have become as wealthy as they are.

No, I do not envy that ultra-wealthy person. I suspect life if actually very difficult for them. They would be working many hours a week. They know the decisions they make affect the employment of the thousands of people they employ and ripple outwards into the community. The plane they donated to the flying doctor service might well be used by one of their employees in an emergency. There are other programs they fund for the same sorts of reasons. In part these are business decisions. They have taken on huge responsibilities. I would not want to take on those responsibilities.

I wonder whether those criticising the donations being made think the life of a billionaire is simply long "business" lunches and dinners?  

School assemblies

as I knew them are a thing of the past.

For me it meant the entire school lining up in rows - under the watchful eyes of our teachers. We did this outside of course. Our schools did not have "gyms" or "halls". Most schools did not even have any sort of sound equipment beyond a microphone.

School assemblies were held on Fridays unless there was something special to be announced or some sort of special event. On Fridays however we lined up, "stood up straight" and we went ahead with the words about being "proud" and "saluting the flag" and honouring the monarch of the day. We sang the old national anthem and a song about our country. 

It never made me feel proud or pleased. I found the whole ritual rather dull. I thought of other things even as I mouthed the words. I suspect many other children felt the same way. It was just something we did. Yes, I have mentioned this elsewhere.

The topic came up in the paper this week. We had a young columnist asking about the new national anthem. Apparently it is not sung in some schools because of "cultural sensitivities".  These are not just indigenous sensitivities either. These are the sensitivities of newer immigrants to this country. 

S.... called in yesterday and we were talking about it. Her two grandchildren have assemblies but they are not assemblies as we knew them. Her grandchildren have been required to walk around a ceremonial fire of some sort. They have been required to put their hands on the ground and chant "always was, always will be aboriginal land". They have been required to write "sorry" letters to aboriginal people following assemblies in which they are told they are living on "stolen" land.

From talking with other parents and grandparents in many schools this sort of thing is apparently not unusual. It follows on what is being taught in classrooms...and that is what the curriculum requires.

"So, how are they supposed to learn to be proud of their country?" S... asked me. It's an interesting question.

The national anthem changed while I was living outside the country. I never had a chance to have my say. If I had been here I would have campaigned against the present anthem. As I have said more than once it sounds like a "dirge". There were alternatives but I suspect the vote was rigged in favour of what the Prime Minister of the day decided.  

I wonder if a more singable alternative would have made any difference. Would more people know it, would they sing it? 

The reality is that almost everyone I know only know the first few words of the current national anthem. We have long since lost any interest in reciting words about being "proud". The country we knew is very different from the current we know now. 

Change can be good but I wonder what the very young would think if they had to do what we did...and how do they feel about what they are required to do.    

Unfit to ever work again?

There is more than one story about someone who has been declared "unfit" to work and, once compensation has been granted, returned to work. There is actually a name for this - "compensation neurosis". It has been the subject of some research too. 

The topic came under "discussion" again yesterday when it was announced that someone who received a very large sum in compensation, then became bankrupt, is back at work in a role where bankruptcy should disqualify them.

Downunderites will probably know who I am talking about. It raises all sorts of questions, not least questions about the original sum paid out. Not one person I know believes this situation should ever have arisen.

When large sums of compensation have been awarded to people then arrangements are often made for its use. There will be a trust fund set up. The money awarded can only be used for certain purposes. It is not there to provide additional luxuries but to compensate the person for what they have lost. 

It is of course what should have happened to the more than two million dollars given to the person who was under discussion. Other advice should have been given too - and there should have been ways of ensuring it was adhered to so as to prevent the subsequent issues arising.

The rules around bankruptcy are clear too. That the "employer" in question believes it can bypass those rules is a clear indication they are using the appointment for political purposes. The original compensation was paid for the same purpose. This is no way suggests that the alleged incident did not occur. It is not something that has ever been decided in a court of law. The payment was made without such a decision ever being made. It was a sum of money most people in that situation will never see, indeed most will see no money at all.

There are questions which need to be asked here. I can understand why so many people were questioning and criticising events around the issue yesterday. There will be more people doing it today. 

It could have been avoided if someone had taken charge and ensured the compensation had been invested and used as intended.   

 

"No space in special education units"

and no "specialist classes" available so your child is going to have to go into a "mainstream" class. He might be twelve and not able to count to twenty or have difficulty in going to the toilet alone but he will be just fine in the mainstream classroom.

This is not an NDIS issue. It is an education issue for all students. The article in this morning's paper is saying what most people have known all along. Some children need to be educated in a setting outside the "mainstream". What is more some of them will do well there.

I had a long and very happy association with a school for cerebral palsied children. It was a very good school. For years after it closed the students got back together for an annual reunion and invited me to come along as well. No, I was not a student there but I was part of "the gang". I had helped to run the Guide group and that was enough. I went in and out and I still have friends I made there.

I remember writing a letter to the national newspaper talking about the academic successes of the students and their ability to mix with the rest of the community. The abilities of individual students varied widely of course but overall they were encouraged, indeed required, to make the best they could of themselves. The school had given them an excellent education and the ability to mix with the rest of the community. 

Some years ago I had to go to a funeral for one of the students. There were two well known politicians and several other public figures at it. M... had made his mark on the community. He had held down a job in the "morgue" of a newspaper and been very active in community affairs. 

Later I spoke at another gathering to farewell another student. He had obtained a doctorate in mathematics. He worked at a university and published research papers. We had corresponded over the years, came together at another university and spent hours in discussions about a wide range of topics. He was proud of his old school and how it had encouraged him to move on when he was ready. His body let him down in the end but he always said he would not have achieved his academic successes without the early years at his "special" school.

That school produced more than one severely physically disabled student who went on to higher education and obtained a degree. It had a class for students with a hearing loss. 

I am so tired of having to argue that "special" schools are just that - special. The school I knew so well provided physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupation therapy on the same grounds as the classrooms. The  teachers were specialist teachers. 

Asking a general trained teacher with a class of twenty four or more other students to know and understand the learning difficulties of even a "bright" child with cerebral palsy is not the best thing for the child or the teacher. All the arguments about "socialisation" and "integration" can sound good but in reality they do not hold up. They might appear to hold up. It is no doubt "nice" for the parents to believe their child is going to an ordinary everyday school "like everyone else" but a really good special school can be even better if it makes demands of the child in a supportive environment.

We did no favours when this state did away with the "special" schools and the less able children now in the mainstream are not always doing as well as they might - far from it. Those who advocated for "inclusion" and "mainstreaming" did the authorities a favour of course. It is cheaper, much cheaper, to have a child in the mainstream with some "assistance". That it might mean they do not reach their full potential is seen as a problem for their family, not the rest of us.  

 

Can you "revive" a language

which has no current speakers and no written past?

There is a short article in this morning's paper about someone who is claiming to be doing that. She claims to speak two of the fifty or so indigenous languages which were spoken here before white settlement and to speak them "fluently".  There are four of those languages she claims are "strong" and another eight are "fragile" - meaning they are spoken only by the old. There are eleven more she claims are being revived through "historical resources".

I have written elsewhere about this. I want to know what it is this woman believes she is saving. That she is well meaning and determined I have absolutely no doubt. I also have no doubt she is mistaken if she believes what she is reviving is a language which was once spoken.  

There are a number of reasons for my doubts about her claim. These languages were spoken by very small groups of people. The population prior to white settlement was tiny. The speakers of these languages had no means of transport. They travelled by foot They did not go far. There was no written language. Nothing has been left behind in the form of manuscripts. Their vocabulary was limited to the world around them. It did not take long for these languages to become so corrupted that what was "saved" even at the time was essentially a different language. The information gathered at the time was not done for the purpose of "saving" a language or a culture. It was often done with the purpose of converting "heathens" to Christianity. Some information was never shared. 

What are we actually saving? What are we "reviving"? Is it really possible to teach young indigenous people these languages of the past and expect them to use them and pass them on to the next generation? What is the value of doing that in this context? Who benefits?

When we lose a language we lose a unique way of thinking, of seeing the world around us and understanding it. That's important to acknowledge but we also need to acknowledge that this has already happened in some places. Nothing is going to change that.  

 

 

The rise of "One Nation" is

hardly surprising but it seems the present government and opposition is surprised by it. Surely they could see it coming?

I can never see myself voting for One Nation but I can see why the popularity of that particular political party is rising. It is almost inevitable it will. Their "policies" are just what many people want to hear, what thirty percent of the population want to hear. 

One Nation now has a seat in the lower house of our federal parliament. It may have many more come election time unless the government and opposition manage to inform voters about what is actually possible. If One Nation managed to get enough seats to form government... well that is a nightmare scenario. 

They could not actually govern using their policies - go and look at them. They would not work.

But - and this is surely important - the reason for the party's dramatic rise in popularity is because they are saying what many people want to hear. It is this other parties need to be listening to and working on so voters understand what is possible. 

Someone who apparently reads this blog recently left a comment which criticised me for my apparent support for a cut in numbers of people coming into this country. As she, rightly, pointed out her mother received good care from people coming in and showing willing to do that work. I can say the same for the Senior Cat and many others I know. Too many people born here see it as demeaning. They won't do it. 

I know that attitude all too well. I also understand why it might be seen that way. The conditions are often very poor. The pay is atrocious. Those who do the work are often treated with extreme disrespect. At the same time nobody wants to do the work. 

We need people who are willing to do the work. We also need to provide good working conditions and pay them well. We fall down at that point. It does not mean we can accept anyone as a migrant into this country just because they will do the work. 

There is a letter in this morning's paper where someone has finally been able to question "multiculturalism" and whether it is even what migrants want. Yes, some of them come here hoping to live a better version of the lives they have left behind. They do not want to integrate or change. They want life here to be like life at "home" just rather better. They want the rest of us to change to accommodate them rather than change themselves.  When they are told they do not need to change or adapt or integrate then we have a divided society which leads to the rise of the likes of "One Nation"...and that will divide us still further.  

   

"Fix the edubabble" - the curriculum?

I mentioned the "national curriculum" recently didn't I?  It appears again in this morning's paper. It appears alongside those who have been given "honours" for the King's Birthday - which we, oddly, celebrate today with a public holiday.

One of those so honoured is Terry Tao, mathematician. Terry went to school with cousins of mine. They thought he was "odd but nice". He was much younger than them of course, about seven years younger by my reckoning...and in the same year level for maths.

I did not like maths at school. I am no mathematician. I managed to get through "statistics" at university. I had to look up the formula for something recently because it is years since I used it - but at least I knew where to look and, once I had found it, what to do. Perhaps I am one of the lucky ones. Still, I prefer languages to sciences. 

This morning's report is more than a "we need to get back to basics" sort of report. There is a strong element of "we need to be rid of some of the garbage" in it. 

School was not "exciting" and it was often not very "interesting" for me. I expect it was the same for most children. We went to school because we had to go to school. Once there we worked because we were expected to work. We were taught to read, to write, to do arithmetic. We were taught about plants, about animals, about explorers and other countries.  We painted and cut paper and threw balls to one another. At the end of it we were not considered to be "educated" but to have the foundation on which to get an education. There was no mention of politics or sex education or "feelings" or "race" or other religions. Those things were taught at home, if they were taught at all. 

We had no television, let alone the internet or videos on phones. I read as many books as I could find. There must have been other children like me and we all grew up. Many of us went on to get better "educated" as apprentices or as students at colleges and universities. We survived without bars on the campus or the demand to do extra "politically correct" units as compulsory parts of the course we had chosen to do. 

Our knowledge of the world has expanded since then. It has sizzled and bubbled and risen over the top and then down the sides at a rate with which nobody can manage to keep up.

Looking at it that way I would have thought that knowing the basics really well would be essential. It is surely like me knowing my basic maths so well I can look up the formula I needed and then use it. Yes, I have to know about the formula and how to use it but I cannot do that until I know the basics. I need to know that two and two make four here and know it instantly.  I need to know my basic number facts before I learn how to "code" to use a computer.  I need to be able to read well to do this. I need to know how to find and understand the meaning of words which are new to me. 

Is this about more than "the basics"? I think it is. It is about knowing them so well they are the deep foundations on which the rest of our knowledge is built. Learning these may not be fun and it may not be interesting but it is essential. It is about learning to work, not about being entertained at school.  I suspect those who have written the most recent report are correct - and that they will be ignored. 

  

Reaching 112yrs of age

is not something most of us will achieve. The woman who was celebrating that extraordinary milestone was the subject of an article in yesterday's paper. 

Her advice on how to do it was "take an interest" - in life. 

I thought about people I have met who have reached, or almost reached, the century.  How did they manage it? Was it taking an interest in life?

Our much loved, indeed adored, Senior Cat was close to the century. He might have made it but felt he'd "had enough". He told us this. He didn't want the fuss that might have come with waiting a few more months for that marker. Up until then though he certainly took an interest in life, in other people and the world around him.

My godfather did reach that far. He was also keenly interested in other people. "Tell me..." he would say and then listen carefully despite his hearing loss. It was always an extra effort for him.

I knew someone who was a hundred and three. She only moved into aged care for a short time - and was not impressed. Her children had insisted. It might have been kinder to leave her where she was. With a little help from the neighbours she was doing very well on her own. One of the boys next door is doing his final year at university courtesy of her tuition in mathematics. Interested in life? Interested in young people? Yes, very much so.

Occasionally I have reason to go into one of the local nursing homes. The residents who are intellectually able soon seem to become less able. There is little, if anything, to challenge them. They do not want "bingo", "community singing", "concerts", old films or simplified church services.  The books on the shelves of the "library" are "romance" or "westerns" and I am told to "get me a good crime yarn Cat" or "can you get that new biography?" 

I will be dropping in to one such place today with the order of knitting wool which arrived yesterday. The boy who delivered it knew what it was as I had asked him to look out for it. He was fascinated by the idea that someone who is five times his age is still taking an interest in life. 

"Would she knit me a football beanie?" His team apparently has no commercial merchandise available.

"She will teach you to knit one for yourself," I told him. He did not look at all sure about that idea. He is much more interested in computer games. I do not see those as the same sort of "taking an interest". Perhaps that is the problem.  

Taxes do not always work

the way they are seemingly intended to work. 

The UK government has apparently added VAT (our GST) to their "public" (private) school woes. What has happened is possibly the reverse of what has been intended - or apparently intended. Pupils are leaving those schools and going to state schools. Every time they do I am told the taxpayer has to fork out another £8,600 for another student. They would not be getting that back in VAT.

So, why did they do it? 

The same issue comes up regularly in Downunder. There are complaints about "funding private education", about the way it gives "wealthy" families "advantages". 

The reality is different. If every student who now attends a fee paying school went to a state school the actual tax burden would be higher on everyone.  It is cheaper for the government to provide some of the education funds to the fee paying school system. It does not stop the complaints but the government is trying to find a balance between getting students where they want them and keeping taxpayers happy. 

Governments like to have students under their control. It is why we have things like "the national curriculum". It is why there are demands to teach certain topics and how they must be taught. Fee paying schools cannot ignore the national curriculum but they can teach it in other ways and with other emphases. The same applies to "home schooling". In this state your "homeschool" family is monitored for that very reason. Is your child being taught what the state demands? 

  The same ideas also apply to the recent tax changes. They are not designed to make it easier for young people to own their first home. The changes to items like the "capital gains tax" are not aimed at young people at all. They are being applied to houses bought before 1985. Economists, who generally know something about the consequences of these things, are saying there will now be many more people who find they owe more than the "asset" they are paying off is actually worth - what is known as "negative equity". 

Why has the government made the changes? It is not actually going to solve their revenue problem but it will give them greater control over the revenue they are getting. People will move into the forms of investment the government prefers.

All this has been carefully explained to me. I do not pretend to understand "big" economics. I do know that the cost of everything has gone up so quickly that what I am being told about "intergenerational equity" is wrong. Perhaps someone can explain if it is supposed to work differently?   

A diagnosis of cancer

has come as no surprise to me. No, not for me so far but for a more distant cousin.

He has been a smoker, a heavy smoker until recent years. He "cut back" to twelve a day and then six a day but could never quite give the habit up. Now he is paying the price.

The first warning came a couple of years ago. He had a cancer growing under a finger nail. They removed it and part of his finger as well. 

Then, late last year, it was "prostate cancer". Oh it was not aggressive and it was "treatable".  Well yes, perhaps it is or was. I know other men with similar problems. One was diagnosed about eight years ago, had surgery and is "just fine". 

More recently other problems have developed for my cousin. His wife phoned me early last evening and said, "He's been diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer. They did a scan and it is in his hip and thigh bones as well."

He is currently enduring a month of radiotherapy. How much good this will do they have no idea. He is considered to be "too old" for surgery to remove his bladder. As the cancer has already apparently metastasized  I wonder about this.

It has come at a time when there is a government advertisement I see between the two parts of the news service I watch. It is an advertisement designed to encourage people to give up smoking. It tells people that smoking can cause "eleven different types of cancer". Bladder cancer is mentioned in it. 

I wonder if the advertising has any effect. I wonder if my cousin has seen it and, if he has, what his thoughts are about it. I wonder if he wishes he had never begun to smoke.

The Senior Cat, like the vast majority of men his age, smoked. It was a habit they took up during the war. The Senior Cat was never a heavy smoker. It would be the occasional cigarette here or there but he quit entirely when I was kitten in early primary school. He saw something on the desk of one of his lecturers at university. The lecturer concerned had been diagnosed with lung cancer. That was enough for the Senior Cat. He went over to eating peppermints instead. Never a fat man the little weight he put on was probably a good thing.  

I have never even tried to smoke a cigarette but it has not made me immune from the consequences of smoking. In my lifetime I have had to endure the second hand smoke of other people's addiction. While I genuinely believed the school library should always be open at lunch time I was also relieved I did not have to endure the smoke laden atmosphere. When there were staff meetings at university I would sit as close as I could to the always open window. My good friend A... would insist on it being open. We did not smoke. No female member of staff did. It was the men. 

"You don't think it is going to happen to you," one of the professors told us when he had to tell us that another one had been diagnosed with cancer. These were intelligent people but tobacco addiction is hard to kick, very hard.

Middle Cat and Brother Cat do not smoke. Their children do not smoke and their grandchildren had better not even think about it or their parents will have more than something to say. Most people I know do not smoke now. Some did but they have stopped. It has been hard but they have done it. Anyone who does smoke knows to stay well away from me. I will cough and sneeze and I feel as if I am choking on their smoke. Where is the pleasure in that?

I am so grateful I never felt the temptation to try. It may not stop me getting a cancer diagnosis at some point but at least I will know that it has not been directly caused by a decision I made to smoke. I just wish my cousin had made the same decision. 

We have a new member of the judiciary

and she has moved straight from being a member of parliament across to that position. She retired from politics at the state election.  She is now an associate judge in the Supreme Court on a salary of over $400,000 a year.

This alarms me. We are supposed to have a system of "separation of powers" in this country. 

You know what I mean don't you? The system which separates the government from the administration of law. It has not happened here. I am absolutely certain this woman would have known that she was going to be appointed to the judiciary before she "retired". The government had almost certainly worked out she would be considered "surplus to requirements" in parliament so they found a way of moving her to a position where she will be sympathetic to whatever else they have planned.

It might work I suppose. 

It has been tried before in this country and it will be tried again. There have been appointments to the High Court which have very definitely been political appointments. To the credit of the judiciary they have often produced results the appointees (or those appointing them) did not want. 

A member of the High Court also went on to be one of the best Governors-General this country has ever had. He worked successfully with two strikingly different governments. More than once he informed a government something could not be done. As a law student I, like many other students at the time, met him and liked him. He was a known thorn in the side of some senior public servants. It is what he should have been too. 

I wonder how this woman will work. How will she feel if the law informs her she needs to go against the wishes of her former colleagues? 

The courts are there for us to test the law. They are there to apply it.  They are not there to do the bidding of the government.  

School buses are an essential

part of the life of many rural students here. They also serve other purposes.

I tried explaining this to someone yesterday. He apparently comes from a very wealthy enclave in a large American city. Students there apparently get taken to school by their parents in much the same way that students get taken by their parents and grandparents here. It was not something he knew much about.

He had asked me because one of the big yellow school buses had appeared outside one of our local shopping centres. He wanted to know about it. There was a well behaved group heading into the local cinema complex and they had obviously come on the bus.

It brought back memories of those buses. The Senior Cat was once the head of the school with the most bus runs in the state. They were also the longest bus runs. One started at seven in the morning and finished at around five at night. Two more of the destinations were not much shorter. 

The buses travelled across unsealed roads. They stopped at the rural mail boxes where the farm started. The farm house would often be another three or four miles away. More than one of the children would then need to walk home or, if they were lucky, there would be a vehicle of some sort sitting there and they would ride home. One boy began to drive an adapted "Mini" at seven. The distance to the house was simply too far and nobody could come to get him. 

The buses were never the Senior Cat's direct responsibility. His eyesight issues meant he could not have the "commercial" or "heavy goods" licence to drive a school bus. The buses were the responsibility of his deputy.  The buses were driven by the teachers. It was a very long day for them and for the children at the end of the runs.

There were no mobile phones then. Even the "land lines" were patchy. You could be miles away from one too. If the bus broke down or had a flat tyre you had to hope that someone might come along the same road or that the nearest farm house was not too far away.  If there were very senior boys on the bus then you might be able to fix something with their help. There was one "spare" bus at the school and the deputy might be able to drive out and collect the children and bring them into school. It was a constant worry. It is probably still a constant worry. 

At the previous school I had travelled on those buses once a week. We had to go to another school for "woodwork" and "domestic science". These subjects were a compulsory part of the curriculum but these were mostly farm students who knew more about woodwork, metalwork, cooking and sewing than their teachers. We endured the journey down the twenty-two tight bends in the hill and hoped the bus would not break down. I always felt ill. 

I never envied the students who needed to travel on those buses every day. The older students would try to do their homework because there would be farm chores waiting when they arrived home. The younger students would often fall asleep and be carried off the bus by older siblings or a waiting parent.

The service was, rightly, free. It is still free. The buses were not supposed to carry other passengers or parcels but in reality they did. It was sometimes essential. When the mail van needed a part that had to come from the city the school buses left the mail at the same places the students were left. Other people would collect theirs from the box at the gate. They would have been alerted by the family whose box it was. 

There was no internet. The phone service worked on a "party" line and the whole system only worked because people knew one another and worked together.

The stranger who had asked me the question looked disbelieving when I told him all of this.

"Did you get a bus like that when you started school?" he wanted to know. 

I shook my head. "I rode my tricycle. It was only a mile and half."

"But someone went with you?"

"Not after the first week."

He looked shocked. "They wouldn't let you do that now."

No, they would not - but I am glad they did then.  

 

"We should just get rid of them"

I was told yesterday. 

In between the heavy showers someone was out there "clearing up the mess the trees leave". He was not a happy man at all. 

There are some lovely street trees around here. There are not nearly enough in my view. This man thought there were too many. 

I know this man by sight, not name. I know his wife in the same way. She is one of those meek women who does as she is told. He's a bully. No, he has never hit her but I suspect he abuses her in ways neither of them recognise. 

He likes everything to be absolutely neat and orderly. Their "garden" is mostly paving with a patch of lawn and some rose bushes pruned to within an inch of their lives. I have never seen the back garden but I would guess it is more paving and a little lawn. He has complained to the neighbours about their trees.

The trees he was complaining about though are two street trees. They are both London plane trees and they are genuinely lovely trees. So what if they drop their leaves for winter? In summer they are home to a lot of bird life. As I pedal past on a hot day it is noticeably cooler under those trees. More than once I have seen older people just stopping for a moment or two beneath them. Young children race around them. One of the local boys climbed one last summer. It was not done out of mischief but to rescue a small kite belonging to a much younger child. A mother and child were picking up leaves and counting a couple of days ago. A friend who "scrapbooks" searched among the leaves for "that perfect leaf". 

Most people probably go past without noticing anything in particular but they would notice if the trees were not there. The idea of simply "getting rid of them" is not something I ever want to contemplate. 

I have been advocating for more trees for almost as long as I can remember. They make a vast difference to the urban landscape. We could cease all the "global warming" discussions if we planted enough trees and other greenery. Yes, it has to be right sort of tree, the right sort of greenery but once it is there it makes a difference. It can make ten or more degrees of difference on a hot day. We use less power to cool ourselves when there are trees there. 

We need more trees. The power demands of the AI centres mean we will need even more trees than before. The idea of getting rid of perfectly healthy and very useful trees just because they drop some leaves frightens me.  I pedalled on without comment.   

There is transport chaos this morning

and the weather is very damp with it. 

The news is telling us that two of our train lines have been closed because someone has been hit at a junction. There are no "substitute" buses available. People have been told to catch the regular buses. 

I am concerned for the person who has been hit. I am concerned for the person who hit them too. I will always be concerned because, years ago now, I had a conversation with a train driver who had hit a child. The child did not survive. There was no fault on the train driver's part. You simply cannot stop a train when a child, fooling around, falls off the platform in front of you as you are pulling in. The driver was completely exonerated and still felt responsible. He almost gave up driving at the time and, years later, the incident still caused him deep anguish. He had gone back to work but never drove that route again.

I wonder what will happen this time. It is not the sort of thing most people will think about I suppose. They will, for the most part, be annoyed their morning commute has been disrupted.

I used that line recently. I actually caught the return train at the station where the incident occurred. There is a major road leading to and from the city to the port area no more than two hundred metres away. Buses travel along that road but there would need to be additional buses. Those buses already on the route do not travel half empty in peak hour. They are already carrying maximum loads. The "advice" to use them is not going to be a great deal of help to most people.  

Not even all the buses are running. There are two routes that come in this direction. One does a loop around the city. The other goes to a seaside suburb and then loops further around.  They cannot go where they need to go either. 

Add in the road works and another "incident" and the chaos has increased to a level rarely seen. People in this city and surrounding suburbs are not used to this. The long commutes of people who live in some other cities are something some people simply are not used to and not prepared to tolerate.    

That said the disruption could have been minimised. There should be a plan in place to deal with such a contingency. We do not have a big rail network. 

I am fortunate, very fortunate. There was a message this morning informing me "Meeting cancelled". I am very glad not to be going out into all the chaos.  

"Would you want to go caving?"

was the question being asked me in the supermarket yesterday. There were two men discussing the attempts to rescue the men stuck in a cave system in Laos. 

One of these two men apparently knew the man from this state who had gone to help with the rescue. Neither man knew much about "caving" but neither wanted to do it. 

I hope they did not realise how much even the question made me feel shaky. I do not like very small, dark spaces. The idea of being in dark, wet, cold place where you can barely move and there is rough rock around you is the stuff of nightmares. Why do people want to do it?

It rates along with climbing Mt Everest or rowing across the Pacific in a rubber dinghy for me. I will never do any of these things. I would not want to do them even if I had the physical capacity to do them.

My parents took us on a caravan trip to the neighbouring state one year. It was not quite a holiday. The Senior Cat had a two day conference at the other end. Mum was checking out the then boarding school for the children of Christian Scientists. She wanted us to go there. We did not want to go but, if the money had been there, my brother and I would have been dispatched to it. Fortunately the idea never came to anything. I think we really would have run away if she had succeeded. 

Perhaps it was that visit and the awareness of a certain tension between our parents that made the trip to the caves more stressful. There had been no argument. They did not argue. I suppose the Senior Cat knew there was no real likelihood of us being sent off to any boarding school in another state. The money simply would not be there. Mum's parents had no money and nobody else was going to pay for it. Mum got as far as the deposit for me and no further. She must have paid for it herself. I remember seeing the uniform list that was sent. Perhaps the association with that memory is part of the next.

On the way back we took it slowly towing a tiny caravan. We came along the coastline and then inland slightly. There was the "Blue Lake" and then, a bit further along, there were the caves. In those days you could just go in and out with a local person to show you. The caves were nothing like the caves the men were trapped in but they are still caves. They are dark and damp and all the stalactites and stalagmites in the world did not make it "beautiful" for me. I hated it. Mum insisted I went on into it, that I walked (or stumbled) around it. She gave us all a lesson on how they were formed and why they were so significant. I hated every minute of it. I was just told, "Don't be so silly. If you don't stop behaving like that now I will..." I cannot remember what the proposed punishment was. I was probably too frightened by then.

My brother backed me. I remember him saying, "It was horrible in there. I don't ever want to be a cave man." 

I have no doubt my mother genuinely believed she was providing us with an experience that we would appreciate. She had visited the caves as a child and apparently enjoyed the experience. That any of us might not feel the same way almost certainly would have surprised her. 

I remember the wonderful sensation of coming outside again. The sky was a solid blue. The air was warm. It was a different sort of quiet. I could hear the birds. There were all sorts of colours around me again. It felt so much safer. 

We went on to the place where we would be spending the night. I watched the road and counted fence posts and tried not to think of the caves. Mum was still rather cross with us. We were told we did not appreciate how lucky we were. Perhaps we did not - or perhaps we did.

That evening Mum sent my brother and me off to the shower block of the caravan park. She could see us from where we had to go I suppose. It was growing dark by then but that did not bother us. I can remember my brother saying, "I am never never never going in another cave." I could only fervently agree.  

 

The "APY" lands

or. more accurately, the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, are a vast area of land in this state on which a sparse but diverse group of "indigenous" people live.

They have been variously run by this group and that group and this organisation and that organisation over many years. Millions upon millions of dollars  have been poured into programs designed to assist those involved. Nothing has worked.

Recently the government stepped in again, took over the administration, and appointed yet another person to try and sort out the issues surrounding domestic violence, child neglect, housing, health, employment and more. Yesterday my good friend M... told me the new "manager", just six months into the job, had been "sacked" by the "board" which is supposed to be responsible. They claim they had the right to do this because there had been fifty-five complaints levelled against him. He claims he has been trying to prevent the unauthorised use of public money intended for the people who are intended to benefit from it.

M... knows a great deal more about this sort of thing than I do and he is of the opinion the manager has uncovered more than one thing the board would like to remain hidden. This sort of problem is nothing new. It is not just poor management but a multitude of other things too. 

Years ago now an indigenous woman I knew was awarded a large sum in compensation following a road accident. The money was intended to be used to turn a small home for her into an accessible one in which she could live independently. She was hoping to be able to go back to work as a result of this. Her legal team was helping. 

They did not take into account her extended, very extended, family. They descended. They arrived at the house. She had housing? Of course she had to share it. She had money? They wanted a share. This was how things worked if you are indigenous. You are expected to "share" any "good fortune".  

The reverse is not true. Her very extended family had no intention of helping her. They simply moved in. She came to a meeting about other issues in absolute despair. How was she going to make them leave so that she could actually use the house? The police could do nothing. A court order would simply be ignored. 

What happened in the end was something which should not have needed to happen. She asked the Public Trustee to take care of the money she had been awarded so that she had no control over it herself. Then her government based employer moved in and transferred her from the country region she lived in to the city where she was moved into a tiny but accessible unit. She went back to work but the move was made at the cost of her ties to her family. How dare she keep the compensation to herself? This was family. She was supposed to look after them.

When I have told people this they simply do not believe me. It is the same when other people who knew her do the same. Others simply do not want to believe this is "how things work", that ideas about "sharing" are not the same as most of us have been brought up to believe. 

This is the sort of thing that administrators in the APY lands and elsewhere are up against. Nobody is willing to question such ideas because they are considered to be "cultural". If money is being misused in the APY lands then this is not the way they see it. It will be considered reasonable by some. It is there. It is to be used. If some benefit more than others then it is because they have some sort of status or power within their community. They do not see this as wrong. It is simply the way things are intended to be. 

Administering money in the APY lands according to our values is something which would harm what is left of their languages, their cultural practices and their community. How do you manage that?   

Victimhood is wonderful

if you can get people to side with you and tell you how awful it is that people "hate" you for being "A" or "X" or "something". It gets you so much attention. People feel sorry for you. They tell you that. You might even get some money for  your "hurt" feelings.

I had a good friend here yesterday. She was upset because someone had just said something very nasty to her. Yes, she was hurt but she is also a sensible person.

I know her well enough to leave her to make her own cup of tea while I went on line to see if the book she wanted was available on any second-hand site. I found the book. I asked if she was prepared to pay what the seller was asking and ordered the book. She wanted to pay me there and then. I told her no. 

"I trust you," I told her. I do trust her. She will pick up ten cents and look around to see if someone has dropped it. If there is nobody around she will put it in the charity box. She is that sort of person.

We sat at the table for a bit and talked. She has family in Israel and family in Ukraine. Her children were born here. They have never been to either place. They are not likely to go at present.

"I am not sure they will ever go," she told me sadly. "I would like for them to see but not to live. This is the best country for them."

And for her? It is so much harder. She will not see her home countries again. Her accent tells everyone she is an incomer. She and her late husband worked eighty hour weeks in the business her two sons now run. They never made themselves out to be "victims" when they came with no more than the clothes they were wearing. The problem is that she is Jewish and that is apparently some sort of sin. It is an even greater sin because they succeeded, through hard work, in owning a successful business. Her house is "nice". It is in a "good area". For anyone else this would be "success" but she is Jewish and it is somehow "wrong". Why? 

I know there is a stronger "antisemitism" movement here than many people want to recognise. There are people I know who have surprised me at their views. When I have tried to tell them that by no means all Jews, especially Jews here, support what the Israeli government is doing they just shrug and tell me "they are all the same" and "they feel entitled". Really? 

The person who came to see me yesterday is Jewish but she had just finished her regular time in a Christian charity shop which does a great deal to support Muslim refugees.  The person who berated her was of a different faith who sees themselves as a victim because they could not have something for nothing.  

Think about that.

Men can get pregnant?

 I am reeling from this. Really? Is it actually possible? This is seismic!

According to our "Sex Discrimination Commissioner" this is possible and biological men need to be protected from "potential discrimination" because of it. 

Like Senator Cash I obviously missed out on a vital lesson or two at school. I had no idea it was possible for men to become pregnant and be the victims of potential discrimination because of it. 

No, this is not a joke. I heard the verbal exchange.  

I have had dealings with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in the past. These have been in relation to disability discrimination. I have found HREOC of little help but they have not stooped to this level of absurdity. 

There is plenty out there in the media about this story. It has "gone viral" as they say. I leave it up to you to chase the story. I have better things to do with my time than listen to Dr Cody repeat this sort of nonsense.

Actually I need to catch up on what did not get done yesterday because the trike had a front wheel flat. I was stuck waiting for an and a half for an Access Cab to get it to the bike shop. The driver was very nice about it. The bike shop man was even nicer because he said, "I'll do it straightaway. I know you need it." 

Now if HREOC could be as sensible and efficient as the man in the bike shop we might get somewhere.   

Voting in local council elections

closes on November 11 this year. The process begins much earlier than that. 

We need to be on the electoral roll for the council by the 31st of July and nominations need to be in by the 8th of September. Information about the candidates will come a little later.

I am wondering if our current Mayor will stand again. It is almost certain she will. In the past she has tried to use her position as Mayor as a springboard into a seat on North Terrace - the location of the state government. It did not succeed. She has had to satisfy herself with being the president of the state's local government organisation instead. 

It is still a rather powerful position. Being Mayor is quite a powerful position too. It is particularly so in an area where people are can afford to be "environmentally conscious" and concerned with issues which are not the direct concern of local government. 

Under the leadership of our current Mayor there has been a dramatic shift to the left. Concerns about "rates, roads and rubbish" have given away to other concerns. Money has been spent on

(1) renaming areas with what are said to be the names used by local tribes and

(2) running classes in what is said to be the local indigenous language and

(3) sessions on how to play a didgeridoo and

(4) classes in traditional basketry.

All these were "indigenous" initiatives which, along with the proposed donation to the Voice to Parliament referendum, have been intended to bring about some sort of "reconciliation". The renaming of areas has been expensive and there is no evidence that the names being used are correct. People find them difficult to remember. The library complex in the hills is consistently referred to by the name of the suburb, not the indigenous name. The supposed local indigenous language is a modern invention built out of what was believed to be used by a small group of plains people before white settlement. The languages spoken in the hills behind me were not the same. The didgeridoo was not known here. It comes from an entirely different part of the country. Traditional basketry comes from an area more than one hundred kilometres away and well outside the council area. All these things cost money, money collected from rates, but they sound good.

The Mayor has also claimed credit for the solar power initiatives and the battery scheme. It has cost taxpayers a great deal but is said to be in line with claims about climate change and the moves to net zero. It is the sort of move which is popular among those with two incomes and children at school. Our Mayor also went off to the climate change conference in South America at our expense. 

These are just a few of the things for which the Mayor has managed to get councillors to vote. I have no doubt we will hear more about these "initiatives" and how "successful" they have been. 

I saw the previous Mayor in the shopping centre a short while back. He doesn't think he will try again. He has failed to win back the position twice now. He knows he is up against a powerful cohort of the Mayor's supporters. They tend to be left wing zealots. They will tell us that "roads, rates and rubbish" are important but they believe that "educating" people about "indigenous culture" and "the environment" are more important. Their streets are being repaved and their footpaths are being repaired. When the community bus does not run through lack of volunteers to drive it then the elderly can "get a taxi". They have views about the proposed housing development on the land owned by the organisation which runs sheltered employment. For them it is simply a matter of those who live there now finding rental accommodation "somewhere else". 

Our country is outrageously over governed. We do not need pseudo-indigenous names and activities. We need help for the intellectually disabled who will have nowhere to go in the area they know. We do not need to rename roads. We need roads without potholes.                                                                                                                

 

 

"Open discussion and the respectful sharing of ideas"

are what universities are about if the quote from a deputy vice-chancellor of one of our local universities is correct.

I beg to differ. This is not what our local universities are about. They may have been once but they are no longer. 

The deputy vice-chancellor in question was speaking about an upcoming "Festival of Democracy and Human Rights". It should be an event to applaud. What it would appear to be is something quite different. 

If the reports are to be believed this event is apparently an attempt to provide an "antidote" to the "far right" through prescribing "trade union membership". The organisers are apparently concerned that one in four voters voted for the "far right" One Nation party in the state's Legislative Council. They like to forget there was nowhere near this percentage of voters in the lower house who were voting for the same party.

I imagine their concern is more that there is polling to suggest that One Nation voters could bring about a seismic shift at the next national election and suddenly be a serious opposition. Yes, polling suggests that. More people are openly suggesting they will vote for One Nation. 

What the government and the current Opposition are not doing is addressing the reasons there is growing support for One Nation. Much of the support is around the demand for lower levels of migration, a different tax structure and the "net zero" debate as well as a different approach to housing, health and small business.

The government is not listening to any of this. The Opposition is apparently not prepared to change their policies. The media keeps suggesting that the fiery red head who leads One Nation is some sort of dangerous renegade, another Trumpian. 

The reaction and the claim by the vice-chancellor interests me because I am well aware that there are real issues with "open discussion" at universities here. There is little "respectful sharing of ideas" in many areas. Students are not free to argue alternative views if they want to pass. I talk to students. I read their essays.

"Do you believe this?" I will ask them, "Or are you just regurgitating an idea you have been given?"

"It's what we have to say," I am told. Or, "It's what the lecturer told us." 

This is what university is now about? Follow the "correct" version if you want to pass?

Across the way from me is a mature age student in his final year. He is no fool. He had a responsible role in industry before the business he was in went into liquidation and, along with many others, he found himself unemployed and unemployable. He is working to change that but he finds himself having to write one thing while he believes another. He started out trying to raise opposing points of view in his area (counselling) and found that, while he was being given a pass mark it was just that. When he provided the acceptable answers he was given distinctions. He wondered if there was something wrong with his previous work. Yes, there was. He was not following the acceptable way of thinking. 

This man is old enough, mature enough and experienced enough to realise what is being done. He will go through the last year of his course without "rocking the boat" in order to get the piece of paper he needs. After that he can apply commonsense and world experience to whatever role he manages to get. Younger students cannot do that. They are captured. They are impressionable.

I suspect universities have always been something like this but there are other factors now at work. "Open discussion" is "the wrong sort of social media" now. The "respectful sharing of ideas" is not possible when the law moves in and prevents anything which might "harm" someone.  It doesn't happen when you get marked down for having an alternative view, or for even just raising an alternative view.

We need genuine open discussion done with genuine respect. It isn't happening here. I just hope there is more of it elsewhere.  

The growing rise of One Nation

here and Reform in the UK is causing alarm among the more "traditional" parties in politics.

"One Nation is dangerous," I was told yesterday. This came from a resident in these units who apparently has strong political views. I listened. I said nothing. I was thinking about psychology, not politics. Why do we "believe" things?

As children we believe in Father Christmas or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the "tooth fairy" or participate in "Elf on the Shelf" or something equally unlikely. I knew full well who "Father Christmas" was at age three but I also knew it was wise to "believe" in it and not say anything to those children who did believe. I now wonder whether there were not a few more children like me. Country children know milk does not simply come in a bottle or calves from holes in the ground so why should they believe in Santa Claus? They have other "magic" right around them. 

When I was small other things were magical too. They were rare. We did not have doors which slid open. I remember the first time we came across one and my brother insisted on going through it three times. We thought travelling in a lift (elevator to you North Americans) was fun. They were often operated by a man in uniform. We thought it would be a fascinating job to do that all day! 

There were traffic lights and pedestrian lights - both unheard of out in the rural areas we lived in - and the way "the Man in Blue" site worked at the railway station so you knew where to go and catch your train. (There was no Platform 9 and 3/4.)

I thought of all these things and more, of how I believed not so much in them but in the magic of them.  Watching people interact with them was fascinating. 

Perhaps now it is the same for many adults. There is a fascination with the new politics of One Nation. People want something different. For some it is perhaps a return to the past, to a time when things seemed more certain. For others there is a desire to believe in something akin to Father Christmas and the tooth fairy.  

Dual citizenship is a

surely a curious idea. How can you have allegiance to more than one country?

It has come up in relation to migration and government benefits recently but it is something I have often come across when talking with people who are migrants. Some of them want "citizenship" of this country and others do not. For some it is a matter of not being able to hold dual citizenship and for others it is something they simply do not feel strongly about. There are other reasons too for not wanting to become a citizen but I will leave it at that.

As a child at school I was required to "salute the flag". This ceremony happened every Friday morning at "assembly". The whole school would be lined up in the schoolyard. We faced the flag (lowered and raised every day by "flag monitors") and repeated the "I am an.... I love my country...and so on." 

I have no idea what other children thought but the way we often had to repeat it more than once "to say it as if you actually mean it" was something I quite simply found of no interest at all. I had no sense of any pride in my country. It is unlikely I understood what it meant at age four when I started school. At age fourteen (and we still did it) it was simply embarrassing. I reached a point where I was mouthing the words but not actually saying them. All these years later nothing has changed. I have no sense of being a citizen of this country. I feel no sense of "national pride". For me the "national anthem" is like a dirge. 

I shock people when I say this. "But how can you feel like that?" they ask me. They often go on to tell me "it is the best country in the world" and how "lucky" I am to live here. Is it a good country to live in? Yes, it is. It is an exceptionally good country in many ways but, like the Senior Cat, I am also aware of a sense of "isolation". Migration from other countries has not changed that. "Multiculturalism" has not changed that. It may be that those things have even increased my sense of isolation. In recent years it has become much harder. All too often I am being told I am living on "stolen" land, that my Celtic heritage is not something to even be acknowledged, that other ethnic groups can celebrate the national days of the countries they (or their ancestors) come from but I cannot. 

The world is an extraordinary place. The diversity is so great nobody can hope to understand it. I do not want to be restricted to the idea that one country with a tiny population on a large land mass is more important than anything else. I do not want to believe that my allegiance should be to that and that alone.  Is that wrong? 

  

So cows know their humans?

In one of those odd little coincidences there is a small filler in the paper this morning about some research which observed that cows spend longer looking at people they do not know. Yesterday I was talking to a former dairy farmer and we were agreeing that his cows knew him.

Of course they do. I have no doubt about this at all. I lived in a dairying district as a child. The cows knew the people who milked them. There were occasional complaints about cow behaviour if someone else had to come in and do the milking. There would also be mention of misbehaviour if the cows objected to the type of music being played while they were being milked. (Cows prefer classical sorts of music. How do I know? Observation. Talking to dairy farmers.) 

We know dogs know the humans who are important to them. Why should it be any different for cows? Cats know. Sheep know. Goats know. I have observed it in all these animals. I have observed it in an alpaca too.

Middle Cat occasionally has to feed the cats belonging to her sons. She will need to do it in a few days time. One cat in particular will actively seek extra attention. He "does not like to be left". We give him human emotions when we say this but to assume they are incapable of emotion is surely wrong? He will settle only after being given attention. Does he "know" Middle Cat? Of course he does.

My late uncle had a dog who would hide under the table after being clipped for the summer. It never happened at any other time. Why? Was it "embarrassment" over appearance? That seems unlikely but trauma over the experience of being clipped is a possibility perhaps? That still suggests an ability to experience an emotion humans know. 

I often talk to dogs. They will be tied up outside the shopping centre. Sometimes they will be very close to where I park my trike. Of course I could ignore them but it would be unwise to do that. If they look at me I will look back. I need to make a judgment about how friendly they are likely to be and how carefully I need to move around them. Do some of them know me? Of course they do. I have occasionally met them when they are out on a walk. On more than one occasion another human in their household has expressed surprise that "their" dog should know me. I explain and sometimes they still look surprised. 

I am not surprised at all. I expect the dog will know me. The idea that animals take no interest in humans apart from being a source of food is ridiculous. Of course they are interested, interested in their own way and for their own purposes. If I spoke to cows on a regular basis I would expect them to know me if I knew them. 

What they "think" about me of course is something else altogether.  

 

"Why don't you get a motor on it?"

I had to answer that question again yesterday. It is a question I have had to answer many times when people look at my tricycle. 

"I need the exercise," I tell them. There is often a puzzled look and someone, almost always the male of the species, will tell me that a bicycle engine does not mean "no exercise".

"But then I could not take it on the train," I tell them. This is met with more puzzled looks. 

I think I understand what they are getting at. They see bikes and, by extension, my trike as something to be used occasionally. They ride "for pleasure". They will look on a ten or twenty or thirty kilometre ride as something done as entertainment.

I pedal because I must. I do not own a car. I do not know how to drive. I have never had a licence. If I want to go to the library, the supermarket, the post office or the surgery I need to pedal there. It is too far to walk. 

If it comes to the point where I cannot pedal then I will perhaps have to consider one of those little motorised ride on "scooters" that have become popular. The Senior Cat had one. Middle Cat has it now. They are not a substitute for the convenience of a car but they do extend the social life of many people. 

I came out of the library one day and found my little vehicle on its side. There was a man there looking earnestly at it. "Is this yours? I would have asked but I didn't know who it belonged to and..."

He was building a trike for his disabled son and wanted to know how mine was built. I let him take photographs of what was puzzling him. 

There are other people who want to know where I bought it, what it cost and how easy it is to ride. The local bicycle shop owes me commission on several sales - or should.

"I saw your bike outside. I knew you were around somewhere," is something which has been said to me more than once. That has advantages and disadvantages. There are times when I just want to be able to get things done, not indulge in conversation with someone who disagrees with something I said in a "letter to the editor".

I get wet when it rains and it is sometimes rather cold but at least it does not snow here.  I know I need to pedal on regardless and, when people ask if it is hard to ride, I tell them, "No, it runs on bananas."

It is a response which usually brings at least a smile - and that makes my day.  

 

  

Thanks to Emma Darwin I came across

something called "Goodhart's Law" yesterday. It is something I had not heard of before but Emma found it interesting and it left me pondering it too.

Put simply it is stated as "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." One of the examples given by the internet when I looked it up was how the Soviets once measured the output of a nail factory by the total weight of the nails produced. The factory then produced a smaller number of very heavy and unusable nails to meet the required quota. As this was not working those in charge switched the goal to the number of nails produced. This resulted in factories making millions of tiny and equally useless nails. 

It is an easy to understand example that makes sense to me. It is the way humans will work if they can. I suspect most of us are naturally lazy unless we see some benefit for ourselves.

But Goodhart's Law also works in other ways. We probably would not even see it as being relevant to things like housing or discrimination measures but it might be.

Buying a second house (or more) and then renting it out has been a means of bringing in money for centuries, for as long as people have had houses. Not everyone can afford to do it but those that do are providing a service for those who need a roof over their heads. Yes, I know there are "greedy" landlords out there. I know there are landlords who are renting out sub-standard accommodation for inflated prices. We hear about them all the time. 

There are also landlords, and I suspect they are the majority, who keep the property in good repair and charge a fair rent. They do it because it makes economic sense to do it. This is the way they do not make a loss and may make a small profit. There are people who do it because they see it as the way they will not need to be dependent on a government pension. It makes sense that they should not be penalised for doing this. Recent government changes will penalise them. It might not be to the same degree that future landlords would be penalised but there is still a penalty there. It is going to reduce the number of dwellings available to rent - in a serious housing shortage.

It also makes sense to try and ensure that there are measures in place to ensure that other people will be able to own their own homes if they wish to do so. It makes sense not to put obstacles in the way of home ownership if this is what people want. 

There are also measures which should not be undertaken in order to achieve these goals. It is those measures which the present government is now pursuing. They sound good. Of course they sound good but the reality is that they are not good. 

That person with their "own new build home" on a five percent deposit actually owes more than they will ever be able to pay back. The government effectively owns the home and has restricted their ability to move anywhere else because of the way the scheme is set up.  In an age where many people need to be flexible and change employers in order to keep working this presents problems. There will be other issues later too.  I know of one person who had to continue renting because he knows he could be transferred interstate at any time. The scheme does not help him at all. There are many more people like him. 

In another area there is the law which was intended to ensure there was no sexual discrimination. It was changed to give "rights" to a tiny group of individuals and has now ended up giving rights to nobody at all. 

There are laws around agriculture which were brought in to increase yields and now harm the environment but are still in place. There is the environmental damage done so we can "save the planet from global warming".

It all sounds good but perhaps we should just have a "law of unintended consequences"?