The election campaign is getting nasty,

very nasty. 

I have to return the Senior Cat's postal voting pack next week. I wish he was here to use it because by far the best candidate is not likely to win.  He knew about her and spoke enthusiastically about her. He didn't tell me how he wanted to vote but I have no doubt that she would have been number one on his ballot paper.

Inevitably such things were being discussed before a meeting I had to attend. When I mentioned that I was going to return the voting pack someone turned to me and said, "Why didn't you use it? Nobody would have known. We could have had another vote for ...."

I almost got up and left. Perhaps I should have done. The very notion that I would be prepared to use a vote to which I am not entitled made me very, very angry. I am all too aware that the votes of vulnerable people can be "stolen" by others. It is one reason why I have spent time with some of those vulnerable people trying to ensure that they vote according to their wishes. I may not like "the person with the red hair" or "that one because he looks nice" or "she's pretty" or some other equally, to me, strange reason but it is their vote and they have the right to choose. If they insist on invalidating their vote by not having me fill out the ballot paper correctly then that is their affair too. I can do no more than explain the process and do my utmost not to influence them.

But this person seemed to think it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I think others present agreed with her. They would have used the vote and then informed the Electoral Commission that the person was deceased. That the person was deceased before the papers were even delivered would have been beside the point as far as they were concerned. If questioned I am sure they would have found a way of saying, "It wasn't me. I didn't do that."

Then there was the assumption that I would have used the vote for a particular candidate. I suppose I should have expected it from that particular person. Her politics are far left. She has been campaigning fiercely and for weeks for her candidate of choice. That anyone would choose not to vote for her candidate of choice infuriates her. How could anyone not choose this person? 

I found myself getting increasingly uncomfortable. Tactics were discussed - ways of "getting the message across". 

"Of course it's a lie but that's the way it is done. They don't deserve anything but lies being told to them," I was told, "Most people never know the difference. We tell them what we want them to hear and they believe it."

This is all too likely to be true.

The meeting started. I said very little. At the end of it I spoke quietly to the woman who chairs the group and told her I would not be coming back. She tried to argue with me but I told her what had happened and how I felt I could not work with people who held those views. She sighed and told me she felt the same concerns as I did.

"I don't want to lose your input. Give it some thought over the weekend," she told me, "Let me know on Monday."

I won't change my mind. I will be quietly prowling off.  There are other perfectly legitimate ways of working on the problems we were working on. It might take a bit more work on my part but I think the outcomes might be better.

So "women" don't exist?

I am feeling - bewildered?...confused?....puzzled? I am certainly feeling more than a little annoyed. I might even be feeling downright angry.

It seems one of the major political parties in this country has removed all reference to "mothers" and "pregnancy" and "breastfeeding" from their policy documents. "Mothers" are now just "people".

This is the policy of the party which, if opinion polls are correct, will almost certainly win the election. It is the sort of extreme language that is doing far more harm than good.

I have news for the Labor party (yes Labor without the "u"). "Women" are not just "people". 

Women are the 51% of the population who are responsible for the continuation of the human race. Like the females in the rest of the animal kingdom they are the ones who become pregnant. They are the ones who carry children and give birth. They are the ones who risk their own lives to do this - and ensure the continuation of human life. So far men have not been shown to be able to do this. So far nobody has been able to show that a baby can be born and carried full term in a test tube.

Women matter! 

What is more, like it or not, women are still the primary caregivers. Men cannot breastfeed. They might be able to mix milk formula and give an infant a bottle but the reality is that women do most of that too. Women are still the primary carers of infants, of small children, of the sick, of the elderly, and of others in need. In the home they still do most of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child minding. Some men may do a little more now but women still do the most. Women work much longer hours for lower pay - and often for no pay at all.

But Labor says women no longer exist. They are simply "people". Labor is not prepared to acknowledge that women have any sort of special or unique role in society - a role men simply cannot fill. 

Labor likes to say it is more committed to "equality", that it has more women involved than the other major party. Is that so? To me "equality" would begin with acknowledging the existence of "women" and their role - that 49% of people would not exist without them. 

 

Yes, we did have a car industry

once upon a time. It was quite a while ago now.

As a child I remember occasionally being in the "traffic jam" that occurred at the changeover of shifts at the Holden plant  on the main road from the port into the city. The Senior Cat always tried to avoid those times because it was, back then, very busy. Now I suppose it would be considered part of the normal traffic - except that it is daily traffic, not the car plant.

The car plant there went a very long time ago. The car plants south and north of the city have gone too. I can still remember the local sign used by the deaf to describe that someone worked at one of those places. 

Long before that I can remember my paternal grandfather making suits for the managers in those places. Grandpa would bring home scraps of the real leather they used for the seats. He would cut the scraps into small coin purses, punch holes around the edges and thread them with yet more fine leather strips. They were then given to charities as fund raisers. I know someone who still uses one for her keys.

I wonder what my grandfather would make of the demise of the car industry here. Somehow I doubt it would surprise him. He was always aware of what he called "disgraceful waste" - even the leather scraps were considered to be that. 

Back then union membership was compulsory in the car industry. It was compulsory in a number of other places as well. There was nothing like the Administrative Appeals Tribunal or the Fair Work Commission. You relied on the union for the next pay rise and issues of  unfair dismissal. 

There is no car industry here now. It never really paid its way. It was a drain on the taxpayers for years. Union demands for ever increasing pay and conditions did not help. By the time they were realised what was happening and tried to save it by shedding some of the over blown workforce, bringing in "efficiency measures" and taking a pay cut it was simply too late. Yes, it put thousands of people out of work - some of them very skilled people.

Producing cars is not cheap. Cars are very complex things. They require all sorts of skills. These skills are usually repetitive - so much so that much of it can be done by robots. Was it Fiat that had the almost completely automated factory in Italy? (I may be wrong about that.)

Yesterday someone tried to tell me that it was entirely the fault of the present government's predecessors that the car industry failed here. They tried to claim that the present opposition party could have saved it. The reality is that, even by spending billions, they could not have done that.  Much cheaper cars were being made in other places. 

The same is unfortunately true of other industries here. We lost a lot of wool industry work - scouring, spinning and weaving all went. We had some of the very best in the world but we priced ourselves out of the market.

The present opposition is trying to tell us that we can return to those halcyon days of genuine high levels of employment. We can't of course. To do that people would have to accept genuine pay cuts and a lower standard of living. We are living beyond our means now and attempts to lower expectations are not working. 

Another person listening to the conversation we were having suddenly asked, "I wonder what would happen if everyone took a ten percent pay cut."

I wonder too - would even a five percent cut actually leave us better off? It sounds like a contradiction but it might help.

 

Roe v Wade is the case

which protected the constitutional right of a woman to have an abortion without excessive interference by government in the United States. The decision did not give an absolute right to abortion but it was enough to allow some women the right to choose to end a pregnancy within the first trimester or in some circumstances after that. 

The decision was considered to be a turning point in constitutional law in the United States and it has influenced the way in which abortions have been conducted in other countries as well. It is a decision which we were taught about in law school here. It has influenced abortion law making here and in many other places.

If the news this morning is correct there is going to be a seismic shift in the law in the United States with the now very conservative Supreme Court getting ready to overturn the decision. In turn that is likely to influence the decision making with respect to abortion in many other places.

I have no children of my own. I have never been pregnant. I won't pretend to understand what some women must go through. All that to me is beside the point anyway. What I have seen is enough to suggest to me that there are times when abortion must be allowed. 

Middle Cat went through pregnancy twice. On each occasion she was not merely uncomfortable but physically sick every day. When her father-in-law suggested they try for more children Middle Cat, backed by her husband, told him, "You have them." Despite the odds they had two healthy children and they were not going to risk Middle Cat's life by having another child. Would they have considered an abortion in that first trimester? I don't know. What I do know is that it may have become necessary later - if the other two children were to have a mother.

I know a man in this district who believed that his mother was "rather old" when she gave birth. It was only when the woman he believed was his mother died that he discovered his "sister" was actually his mother.  She has made no secret of the fact that, given the opportunity, she would have had an abortion. When he discovered the situation his "sister" told him this and that she wanted nothing more to do with him. The consequences of all this for him have been so severe that he has told me more than once, "I wish she'd had the b.... abortion and then I would not be going through this."

There is another woman I know who was raped by a stranger on her way home from work.  It was a particularly vicious rape that left her lying there injured for some time. The act caused the break up of her marriage and the end of her career as a teacher.  She was forced to go through with the pregnancy and "encouraged" to keep the baby. The result has been catastrophic for both of them. Would she have had an abortion had it been available? "In a heart beat," she once told me. 

It is not for me to say whether abortion is "right" or "wrong" or whether it is right under some circumstances and not under others. What I do believe though is that there is no easy answer. "Right to life" advocates may hold all life sacred but do we also need to look at the quality of life for those involved? If we insist on the mother going through with the pregnancy do we also have the right to insist on her caring for the child or do we allow adoption? 

Are we also going to put the lives of some women at risk by encouraging "back street" abortions? Do we ban those professionals who help from practice?

Overturning Roe v Wade is not going to solve problems. It is going to create even more problems - in many places. 

School lunches,

 particularly "healthy" and "politically correct" lunches, are not something I need to worry about.

I was in the library yesterday. There was a mother I know in there at the same time. It was her "day off" and she was searching the cook books. When she saw me she gave me one of those harassed looks and said, "I need ideas for school lunches. Apparently I am not providing the right sort any more."

"The decent wholegrain sandwich isn't good enough any more?" I asked. I know she somehow finds time to make their bread. Her children help. The family bought a bread machine about this time two years ago. Unlike some families it has had a lot of use.

"Apparently not," she said grimly, "And no, it isn't coming from J... or S... this is coming from the school. They sent home some "guidelines" as to what is acceptable. Lunch boxes will be checked."

What in the heck is going on? Yes, I am aware that there is genuine concern about what some children are eating but when a good whole grain sandwich is not acceptable then there is something very wrong. 

"I mean really Cat they get ham or cheese or egg or tuna or something like that in it. I give them things like carrot and celery sticks, a couple of biscuits and a piece of fruit. I shove in something for recess. J... eats three rounds of bread - double decker sandwiches. He's shooting up and he is very active."

J.... is as thin as a whip and S... (a girl) is not much better.  I would have thought their lunches were both healthy and sensible but apparently they are no longer acceptable. 

Her children go to a state school in a fairly affluent area. The "lunch" policy has apparently come about as some sort of agreement between the teachers and the school's parent association. There are some quite radical parents on that who have been keen to impose a "correct" policy with respect to many things. To give you some idea Christmas was cancelled last year because it was deemed likely to offend but the children were taught about Ramadan this year. (My own view is that, if we are going to teach children about religious festivals, they need to know about both - and others as well.)

The mother I was talking to sighed and put a book about "Bento" lunch boxes back on the shelf. 

"I'll just have to take a stand. I don't suppose you happen to know any dieticians do you?"

Actually I do. The person in question is retired but I phoned her last night and put her in touch with the mother. It will be interesting to see what happens next but the dietician seemed to think that, for an active child, a wholegrain sandwich with a sensible filling was perfectly acceptable.

Homes for 10,000 families?

This is the latest election "promise" being made by the current Opposition.  It is perhaps one of the worst yet. 

I went to look at their website. Yes, the policy is there but read on. It is for regional Downunder only.

That might not seem like a bad thing but is that where housing is most needed? And what do they mean by "regional"? I am sure they would find a way of avoiding a small country town without too many growth prospects.

There are upper limits on the price of the housing too. Fair enough as this is supposed to be for people who would otherwise not be able to obtain a house at all. The problem is that housing of a reasonable standard may not be available for that price. The would be buyer has to have at least 5% of the purchase price saved and the government would apparently put in "up to 15%". Note those words "up to". How many buyers would be eligible for that? Not too many I suspect. These buyers still have to be able to get a bank loan and many of them would not qualify. Will banks really want to take the risk even with a greater deposit? I doubt it. The idea that some buyers will save up to $32,000 in mortgage insurance is simply nonsense. On the website it actually states that, for this state, the "saving" is likely to be only around $10,400.  Mortgage insurance will simply rise - for everyone. 

When all the restrictions on the scheme are taken into account there are very few people who will actually qualify. (Remember, they still have to be able to access a bank loan.) They may well find that they are required to pay a higher rate of interest because they are people the bank might have previously turned down because they have not shown evidence of having the necessary deposit.

And then there is what happens when someone needs to move on. Our workforce is much more mobile than it used to be. Selling the house may or may not be a problem. If it is sold though what happens next? These people will not be eligible for another "first home" grant somewhere else. The government will want their money back - rightly so. But there was something not on the website and that is that the scheme would also demand a hefty share of any of the profit. That could well leave someone many thousands of dollars worse off. 

I queried this from someone very senior who should know about such things. His response was, "We are still working out the details." Really? 

This is a scheme which they spruiked as being costed at $375m - but the fine print on the page says it would not start until January 2023 and that "to the end of 2024-25" would cost $12.1m. 

I suppose there are cheap tents.

Labor’s Regional First Home Buyer Support Scheme

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing Australia.

Labor’s Regional First Home Buyer Support Scheme

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing Australia.

Labor’s Regional First Home Buyer Support Scheme

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing Australia.

Labor’s Regional First Home Buyer Support Scheme

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing Australia.

Labor’s Regional First Home Buyer Support Scheme

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing Australia.

There is no High Commissioner

to the United Kingdom at present. This should be a matter of considerable concern.

Normally a short extension would be granted during an election campaign but apparently this has not occurred.  Labor must be very confident of winning the election and being able to choose their own candidate. They will have put considerable pressure on the government not to even extend the commission. 

There are names being bandied around as to the likely candidates for the position - at least on the Labor side. A former state Premier and two former Prime Ministers lead the pack. All of them would be very political appointments indeed, especially the latter two. On the other side there is a suggestion that the job could go to someone who loses their seat at the upcoming election. Anything is possible.

It is considered a plum post, one of the best available. Some consider it better than a posting to Washington. It certainly outstrips Beijing. There are also many people who think it would be a "great" job. 

I am not so sure. I spent four years living in Downunder's capital. I did it at a time when the Senior Cat's cousin was still very, very influential in the foreign affairs of this country.  B... and his wife P... were very supportive of me and my efforts to get the United Nations to do something. 

One way in which they did this was to invite me to dinners at their home. They had to entertain frequently. They were both very, very good at it. Years of experience and postings overseas helped of course but they still had to work at it. All that apparently effortless entertaining was actually very hard work.

P... would phone me, "Cat, we are having a dinner. We need someone to even up the numbers...and there are people coming you need to meet."

B...'s secretary would phone me,"Are you free on.... because your cousin has to entertain.... and he suggests you might find it useful...."

There were variations on those phone calls. There were "drinks" at various places.  B... and P... were supporting my efforts to get the United Nations to agree to something. They knew and B.... had told me how the UN worked and what I needed to do. 

I met people. I met a lot of people. Some of them were interesting and some of them were interested in what I was working on - others simply pretended to be interested. I learned to listen. Asking the right questions and listening to the answers was very important. I learned to talk to people concisely and how to engage their attention in the first few seconds of conversation. I discovered the importance of preparing for such apparently social meetings beforehand.

There was a lot more to all this. I was extraordinarily fortunate to be given the opportunity to meet so many often high ranking people. But it was also hard work. I was doing my degree in law and tutoring to keep myself as well as trying to get that all important idea accepted.  I was working long hours. All of that seemed hard at the time but in reality I was not working any harder than B.... or even P... They were constantly working. There was no such thing as an "ordinary" week for them - or even just an ordinary day. Anything could happen at any time. P... always had to be ready for unexpected visitors - sometimes just for "drinks" at other times for meals. They had to be aware of customs around the world, of dietary restrictions, of current conditions in and the political relations of the countries of those they were entertaining. There were language barriers and much more. It is not a role in which you can play partisan politics.

Former politicians don't always make the best ambassadors.