Yes, you can go to work

and no you will not get that cushy "disability support pension" you had your eye on. You will not endlessly get the "unemployment benefit" either. 

I know someone who has just gleefully informed me that they will be "pension age" in a few weeks. "That means I won't have to worry about all those stupid courses they kept sending me on," he told me.

This man has managed to avoid work almost all his life. He has had occasionally had a few months work here or there or elsewhere. He left school without any qualifications. He "injured" himself at the only job he ever got - on the production line in a factory. He was on a disability support pension for a while after that, then a part pension when he was told he was able to work for some hours per week. He has been sent on one low level course after another. He managed not to complete any of them so he remained unqualified. He was sent to "volunteer" at a charity shop and, although the manager is one of the most patient people I know, he was asked to leave. Now he will get a full pension with rent assistance. He will spend his days "watching the telly", playing cards and drinking with a mate who is in much the same position as himself.  It surely is a wasted life but he does not see it this way.

I cannot help contrasting him with the disabled woman who works in a local business. She is also on a disability support pension and she struggles to cope with her role at times but it is something she does with a real sense of being useful. It might just be for a few hours a week but she knows she needs that work. Her workmates are alert to her needs and will give her a little extra time when she needs it. "But you could just get the pension," is something people have discovered you do not say to her.

Yes, it might be a matter of personality and attitude. That said I still see no reason why the first person should be in a position to "work the system" when the second person does everything to avoid it. 

I am therefore increasingly concerned by the increasing numbers of children accessing NDIS payments. Some of them will genuinely need help but do we really have a country in which ten percent of boys and around seven percent of girls need to do this? Something has gone wrong somewhere. 

What is going to happen to these children when they leave school? If they had something they did not really need and had it for nothing at school are they going to expect the same as adults?  It may be that some of them will...and that won't be good for any of us.   

Too many people?

There was a much larger than usual inflow of people than usual into Downunder over the last twelve months. Now there are demands to reduce migration.

Downunder was made what it is today on migrants and this was not just the first settlers.  They may have done the initial hard work, some of them reluctantly, but they were followed by others. There are people who like to acknowledge their ancestors came here as convicts, others who like to acknowledge their more recent ancestors came here after WWI and then more still after WWII. Then, when policy changed and more Asians were allowed to live here we had an influx of Vietnamese and smaller groups from countries like Cambodia, Tibet, Nepal and the like. Even more recently we have had people from Africa, often people who have been through extreme trauma before arriving here.

It has changed this country and most would say it has changed it for the better. There is a great deal made out of saying things like it is the most successful multi-cultural country in the world.  

Now though questions are being asked. How many more people can we accept? There are genuine concerns about this. It may look to the rest of the world as if we have vast spaces which could be filled and that we should be taking in ever increasing numbers. We can't do that.  

We can't do it because we don't have the resources to do it. Water is a huge problem in this country. It is a problem now and it will be an even greater problem in the future. It is probably the biggest problem of all. 

There are other problems too. People need to be housed and fed. We need the infrastructure which will allow this to happen, which will allow people to move around, receive an education and medical services, which will give them employment and so much more. The city I live in has a dire shortage of housing. It is being hampered by planning regulations and the belief that everyone has the right to a single dwelling unit on their own plot of land. Nobody wants to live next to a "high rise" - even one that is just three or four levels high. This is happening while we have people living in cars, in tents in the parklands and on the street.

We need to change our expectations about how we are going to live in the future. I need ground floor accommodation or a very reliable lift because climbing stairs will eventually be beyond me. It doesn't mean I am also going to be lucky enough to end my life in a place where nobody is living above me. I will need to be even more quiet and thoughtful of my neighbours in such a place. Others do not want to face such restrictions.

I thought of this when I read an "indigenous" group is trying to prevent a housing development going ahead because it is on "their land" and it has "cultural significance" and it will "disturb" their ancestors. They want open spaces to be retained not for the benefit of all but for themselves. There are already areas we cannot enter in this country and they are determined there will be more. It will be interesting to see who wins this "battle". It may well be that there are already too many people. 

I came close to being killed yesterday

and no, I am not exaggerating. I was on the road. I had no choice but to be pedalling my trusty trike on the road. The footpath was blocked by a tradesman's vehicle. 

On the other side of the road there were three of those enormous vehicles that pump concrete into building sites and a pump across that footpath. That hazard also had to be avoided.

It is a corner I cannot avoid and one I am always particularly cautious about. I looked both ways went down the closest driveway and planned to move back on to the footpath after I had navigated past the tradesman's vehicle. It was all perfectly reasonable and it should have been safe. I was even halfway to my destination when someone came around the corner far too quickly. He was doing more than the speed limit. He was clearly ignoring the notices which had been placed informing people work was taking place.  

Next thing I found myself in the gutter. No, I was not injured. There was no damage to the trike. I managed to swerve just in time and wobbled off instead. 

Instead of stopping to see if I had come to any harm the driver yelled, "You stupid f.... spastic bitch! Get off the f.... road."  He then sped on. Two of the workmen came over to make sure I was all right. Neither had managed to get his number plate and neither had I.

I wish I could say I saw the driver a little later, preferably being held up by the police as they wait in one of their preferred locations to nab people who fail to stop at a nearby stop sign. No, there was nobody there. 

One of the problems with this incident however is that I did not hear the car behind me until it was almost too late. It was one of the new electric vehicles. Yes, they may be much quieter. It may seem nice in our noise polluted cities to have these allegedly green dream machines. It is nice they do not pollute the atmosphere with carbon emissions or noise emissions but it is also dangerous if you are not aware. Had the driver been going at even no more than the speed limit it would have been much safer for everyone at any time.When he was breaking the speed limit in the circumstances around him it was dangerous. He got away with it so he will almost try again - and blame me. 

I thanked the workmen and pedalled cautiously on. I reached the library and had to sit there for a moment before going in. When I went in I must still have looked a bit shaken because one of the staff asked, "Are you okay Cat?" That question actually made me feel much better.   

Children do not need to know

about bestiality or any number of other things it now seems they are being confronted with in school.

Two things prompt me to write this, or perhaps three. The first is the report in this morning's paper of a "respectful relationships" session held at a state school in which bestiality was talked about along side with LGBTQIA+ relationships. Parents were not even informed the session was taking place - but students had to attend it. The second is a report I had from a child of my acquaintance that he was punished when he described a child he did not know to his teacher. "I said he had hair that was like the colour of a carrot and she told me I was very rude and we deserved it if he wasn't being nice but I didn't say it to him. I said it to her because I didn't know his name." 

Like being told the Easter Bunny does not exist it seems that there are issues of which I am not aware but that young people need to be taught.  Let it be said here that if I was the head of a school I would not be running any sort of "respectful relationships" sessions without the consent of the parents, indeed I would not be running any at all unless I was required to do just that. The reason for this would be that I would expect children to respect each other and the other people in their lives.  

If a child came to me and reported a serious incident involving another child and described the child as having carrot coloured hair I would say, "I can understand why you are describing him in that way but it isn't considered to be very polite. Let's find out what his name is before we talk to him." 

Am I wrong in suggesting that making an issue of these things is making matters worse?  We have a situation here where someone who is apparently the "e-safety Commissioner" is taking Elon Musk to court because his X or Twitter platform allowed someone in Canada to make a negative comment about someone here. The person here took exception to the comment and complained. X has blocked the comment here in compliance with the law but that apparently was not good enough. X is now challenging it and, while I think far more needs to be done about bullying and hate speech on social media, I hope X wins.  The comment in question is critical but it does not fit the definition of hate speech and the person who complained has caused far more harm than the person who made it (and who continues to advocate for the safety of children). Simply being a person with a particular characteristic does not give you the right to be offended by all statements about your status. It becomes an offense when it is done with malicious intent or an intention to do actual harm. It does not make you immune from criticism.  Children do not need to be taught that some groups with a particular status or characteristic are more deserving of respect than others. They simply need to be taught about respect.

Food is used as a weapon

of war - and it is a very effective one.

I was talking to someone yesterday. It was just after the death of the aid workers in Gaza had been confirmed. We both felt upset but the person I was talking with was far more shocked than I was.  

"But their vehicle was marked as aid. They were delivering food. It is what everyone keeps talking about. They keep saying they need a ceasefire to do it. All they have to do then is open the border and let them in or just drop it from the air."

I took a deep breath and wondered if there was any point in trying to explain. It is not that simple.

Hamas is using food as a weapon. Hamas controls the distribution of food. Aid agencies do not control the distribution of food in Gaza or anywhere else. They can only negotiate the distribution of food and even that is uncertain.

The distribution of food in complex humanitarian emergencies (and the situation in Gaza is a complex humanitarian emergency) is not a simple matter of "everyone line up and you will get a fair share". It depends on all sorts of things. I have lost count of how many times I have been asked to help aid workers try and communicate food distribution information. I have also lost count of how many times I have been told something went wrong.

Dropping food parcels from the air sounds easy but it is one of the most inefficient means of sending in food aid. What doesn't get lost or damaged in the process will get picked up by the strongest, the most able and the most powerful. They will then decide who gets what is available. Many people will miss out. Those who do get some of what is available will owe a debt. It will not be a debt to the aid agencies involved. It will be a debt to those who have the food. 

Getting food through border crossings is no easier although it may be a little more certain. In the instance of Gaza the Israeli army can try and prevent more weapons and more ammunition entering Gaza by inspecting what goes in. That is still far from certain. It is time consuming and expensive. Aid does not flow freely through any crossing. Opening up more crossings won't prevent those problems.

The other big problem once the aid is in is the way in which it is distributed. No, the aid agencies do not have control over that. In this case Hamas does. They know where they want the aid to go. It may look as if the aid agencies are in control. It may sound as if they are in control. They are not in control. If Hamas does not want any food aid to be distributed at certain points then they will prevent it.  At those points they will, despite all appearances, be the ones to decide who gets aid.  Those who accept aid from agencies are in debt to Hamas. They will do as Hamas wants, as Hamas decides. This debt will last long after any "ceasefire" is over.  It does not matter how hard aid agencies try to control the situation they simply cannot do it. 

If you are parents and your children our starving then you will do as those really in power order - do it in order to try and save your children. Food is a weapon of war. 

April Fools' Day jokes are only

jokes if they are genuinely funny and do not harm other people. 

I actually avoided hearing or seeing anything yesterday. I hibernated. It was a relief. This morning I caught up.

There have been some funny ones in the past...like a neighbouring state announcing they were going to divide time into ten New Hours instead of the current twenty-four.  This time around the "pickle flavoured lamingtons" are amusing. 

What I find less amusing is the claim that a drone with a 250ml cup of water can put out a fire in the hills and that there are plans to build a monorail between two heavily populated areas of the city. Perhaps they are funny to some but, to me, they make fun of serious problems. 

The Senior Cat, who loved telling jokes and all sorts of genuine humour, never encouraged such "jokes" at school. I cannot remember our teachers trying any on us. It is unlikely they were told not to do it. They just did not see the need to do it.

Now I wonder if "April Fools' Day" is less popular than it might once have been because some have had their "fun" by making fun of issues which have actually harmed some people. If you have experienced a bush fire then jokes about them do not seem particularly funny. 

It was funny when my mother told a neighbour that we had just bought a second new car. We had actually bought a new to us car some weeks before. Mum had managed to get her grandsons a model of the same type of car. Mum had J... convinced for a short time and then they both laughed. 

That was not the case when someone else I know told someone she had just had a baby and appeared to be carrying one wrapped in a cotton blanket. The "baby" was one of those "reborn" dolls which I detest. The problem with this was the fact that someone she was about to proudly display this to had just lost a baby in the last stages of her pregnancy and this woman knew it. To say it was insensitive and "not funny" would be an understatement. 

It makes me wonder what "humour" actually is. I do know it is not about making fun of people in ways which exploits their weaknesses or distress.  I am happy to leave the "jokes" to other people. 

A bone marrow transplant is for life

if it is successful. 

I don't know that much about them but I do know they are an important, indeed vital, part of modern medicine. I have grappled to understand them and the vocabulary which surrounds them to help medical professionals do aid work. I have heard doctors and researchers talk about the need for them.

At the back of my mind at all times has been the thought of the patients who need them. This morning's paper really brought the need for such transplants home.  A family here has young twin boys, their only children, and both the children need bone marrow transplants to survive. The boys have something called "hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis" or "HLH" for short.  It is an inflammatory disease and very, very painful. 

The family and their medical team are looking for a donor, a donor who matches the needs of their boys. They only need one donor because the boys are "identical" twins.  Obviously the point of the story is to try and find a healthy, matching donor - one between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. I hope they do...and that is all I can really do. I am too old to go in and say, "Am I a match?" I don't have millions to donate to research about that and so many other things.  

And then I started thinking about other things. This is a story in the paper, a paper a lot of people will not read. The word needs to be spread. Doctors need to start talking to patients who could be potential donors. The media needs to do more to inform the general population about how to go about registering and what is involved. Employers need to tell their staff, "If you are a potential donor then you get paid time off to donate." The government needs to do much more about widening the potential donor register. 

All those things are not that expensive in themselves. The process to save two young lives is much, much more expensive but it is also something we cannot put a price on.

If you are reading this then, wherever you live, please put the word out to the healthy young. It may not save the life of these twins, although hopefully it might, but it may save other lives.  

  hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH)