True Colours

So now the Brits have taken their bat and ball and gone home.

David Cameron’s hissy fit has demonstrated very clearly the core values of the Tories in the UK, and their allegiance to the financial smart arses in the City.

Suddenly the drivers of both the European crisis and its precursor and origin, the GFC are laid bare.

Through Cameron’s reaction, unbridled greed, deregulation and the political power exerted by the big end of town are blatantly obvious. Scratch a Tory, even lightly, and you’ll find an eye for the main chance.

The following comment by a certain John Bruce on the Politics and Policy website puts it well (I’ve bolded a couple of paragraphs. Do yourself a favour and read them twice) -

The EU has the power to legislate in its own interest. We have excluded ourselves from its number in order to 'protect' our banking sector which, bailouts included, has not advanced the cause of civilisation, decency, success or sustainability in the UK since the Big Bang.

Indeed, its greed has so infected the financial life of the UK that it has cost us 40% of the manufacturing Industry which once earnt the country its living. A bank's profit is another's loss. It is an industry which actually 'makes' nothing and facilitates very little - and nothing in absence of extortionate cost.

Not only has its 'fast big buck culture' avoided all investment in manufacturing for export for the last 30 years of decline, but it has done so simply to line its own pockets with never a thought to the reality that it profited at the expense of those it put out of work; those not directly involved in the Financial Services Industry. So save in the bloated City the Country is now in a perilously week condition. Yet none of this was necessary.

It is and has always been perfectly possible to manufacture in the West in successful competition with the Tiger Economies. The Germans have grown and now they own our industrial 'crown jewels'. Toyota, Honda and a host of other firms manufacture in the UK for global export from the UK. Pilkingtons is a huge UK success.

So why have we lost manufacturing for export and the basis of a successful economy? It is easy to blame the Unions of the day - yet today we do have successful manufacturing, so something else has been at work.

In a nutshell 'banking' (and hedge and private equity funds to handle the casino cash) has bred an investment industry which would no more look at any 'front end loaded, long term, slow return investment' than fly to the Moon.

Gone were the 170 years of 3% on investment being an acceptable return on which the industrial revolution was built. What we have come to be all about is 5 years quick in and out with swag of cash - and tough on what's left. So the only successful people in manufacturing have been careful companies with strong enough balance sheets to fully automate when needed to become, or remain competitive.

The terrible thing is that the banking and financial sector 'wealth' has been not creative in any sense, save in impoverishing the pension funds and ordinary investors to whom sub prime and an ever growing pile of 'junk' has been peddled for decades.

Indeed, there is not one ' fund' open to the ordinary citizen that has actually delivered a profit, fees met, tax paid and inflation adjusted, for decades. Indeed, the FSI is an industry whose existence is almost entirely parasitical. And it has near killed its host UKPlc.

The reductio ad absurdum of the position Cameron has now engineered is that, having bet the farm on the City, when, in fact, the regulation comes from Brussels. We have no control. And whatever control we did not have is even less now! - The EU will not now legislate to favour the UK's interests in advance of its own. The enlarged role of the ECB and the acute need for growth in the EU will leach away City activity and with it the only worthwhile products, tax and 1.3 m jobs. Even if the position were that Cameron had got what it was naive to ask for, the realty is that banking is already on the move in shifting its axis East.

The real problem however is this. 55% of our exports that do earn 'Adam Smith' National wealth earnings from abroad, in the continued absence of a sufficiency of which we will default, are to the EU. That market is already under attack from the USA and Far East. By isolating ourselves to protect what is perceived by the other 26 as really rather more than over selfish national interest we have lost purchase in this market place.

The 26, being highly interdependent in the task of recovering out of a collective Sovereign Debt Problem, will act collectively to trade where they can obtain best advantage. That means not simply a lot more production in export replacement, to our disadvantage, but much more trade with China who - given the access - will help financially. Something we can't do.

If you’re a self-funded retiree like me, read the second bolded section.

Occupy Wall Street? - those well meaning bods are far too soft on the Masters of the Universe  - Tarring and feathering is more fitting for the amoral smart arses and maybe a month or two cutting cane at Innisfail in the middle of the wet season, or better still, six months in an Infantry section wandering through old minefields in say, Cambodia.

Fleet Vehicles

Fleet vehicle front tyre

Fleet vehicles are different.

They are driven without reference to tyre pressures, coolant levels and disc pad condition.

They don’t require washing, vacuuming or cleaning of any kind.

They come fully equipped with empty chip packets, coffee spills on the centre console, and dried nasal effluvia on the dash and steering wheel.

When collected from the fleet garage, they always have just enough fuel to get out into the street, but not quite enough to make the service station one block away.

The spare tyres usually have 5psi or less, and the wheel brace and/or jack is always missing.

The fuel card is often expired, is the wrong one for the vehicle, or has been absent mindedly left in the previous driver’s wallet or purse.

Any diesel fleet vehicle that isn’t an SUV has been misfueled at least once.

If it hasn’t it will be.

The front tyres (most are front driven these days) are almost always bald or showing beads or canvass – the rears almost always pristine. The spare (if it isn’t one of those 80kmh wheelbarrow wheels) will also be pristine.

Centre consoles often contain HRT tabs, used tissues or well waxed ear swabs.

The rego sticker is usually peeling off, or attached with sticky tape after a windscreen replacement. Every fleet car windscreen has at least one major chip, usually directly in your eye line.

Any CD left in the player is always head banging rock or C & W.

Still, they cost a lot less to run than your own car, and driving them beats walking.

Been driving fleet cars for 5 years since I "retired". It's getting to me......

One of many virtues

The right truck

My bride tells me that patience is not my most noteworthy virtue.

She should know, as we’ve been married for thirty four years.

I reckon that’s changed with advancing years. My evidence for this statement resides in recent experience with an e-bay purchase.

I bought this item (a hardtop for our MX5) on 25^th August. I was probably a bit lucky to snaffle it, as they’re as rare as hens’ teeth and fiendishly expensive when new ($3000+).

I got this one for a third of that, so I was feeling pretty chuffed.

Problem was getting it from Melbourne to Toowoomba.

I was warned by the wise (members of local MX5 clubs) that these things don’t travel well. Simply loading it into a truck as is would be seriously tempting the courier Gods.

OK I thought – no problem – I’ll drive down to Melbourne, clip it on, and drive it home. This would combine a nice drive in the country with shipping the goods north. I’m always looking for excuses to drive this thing all day.

Unfortunately, the seller broke the bad news that it was lacking the vital parts (“Frankenstein” bolts and striker plates) that would attach it to my car. There are about 20 different combinations of hardtops and MX5s, despite the fact that only three models exist (NA, NB and NC), and the only way to be sure was to view the car and the hardtop together.

I wasn’t going to risk buying parts sight unseen, driving to Melbourne, and then finding that it wouldn’t fit because I didn’t have the right combination of parts.

Plan B was to get a crate made in Melbourne, ask my obliging vendor to pack the hardtop inside, and freight it north.

I found a crew in Melbourne, who knocked up crates, and gave them the dimensions. They fabricated a crate for $137 which was reasonable. I didn’t realise how reasonable until I saw the crate for the first time today.

It's sturdy

There seemed to be an interminable delay in getting it picked up from the vendors place in Melbourne – about ten days actually. I kept hearing that they “don’t have the right truck”. The couriers work alone, so if they’re shifting anything substantial they need a truck with a hoist.

Did I say “substantial”?

This crate would be proof against nuclear attack, and probably weighed four times as much as the hardtop.

Anyhow, it arrived today, after a further 24 hour delay getting it from the depot in Toowoomba to our place because (wait for it) they “didn’t have the right truck”.

It's nearly as big as the car

The hardtop fits. I know that because I’ve already tried it on, carefully avoiding the temptation to take it for a run with only the front clips engaged.

I figure that after waiting four months, another week or two sourcing the attachment parts won’t be a problem. It’s in good nick – although I might get it sprayed to match the MX5. It’s black – too hot in this climate.

Waiting for the attachments and the paint job is no hassle.

I’m patient now. Even my bride says so.

Update

Black or silver?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  It looks OK fitted.

NDIS - What's That?

Years ago I read an article by a couple of disability workers in the USA. From memory, Katz and Katz – a husband and wife team.

Unfortunately, with the passage of time and five house moves intervening, I’ve lost the original journal.

I remember the content well.

Put simply, it points that the greatest predictor of quality of life is autonomy. Autonomy has become the preferred term describing that combination of freedom and independence that enables any individual to control their environment and activity.

Katz and Katz maintained that there is a direct negative correlation between quality of life and dependency. If you have to depend on someone else (a carer for example) to allow you to live an active life, by definition your quality of life is poor.

If I want to (for example) go to the shops and need to wait for someone else to take me, I am dependent on that other person. My quality of life depends on that other person’s generosity and availability.

Given that 5% of the Australian population is classified as having a disability, this problem of dependency affects over 1 million. With the rapidly aging demographic in this country, this proportion will only increase.

It is a significant issue, and effects more people, day to day, than other hot button issues such as the Carbon Tax, boat people and the perils of minority government.

There is a political dimension to this, relating to the push for a National Disability Insurance Scheme, which generally has bipartisan support, but when was the last time you saw it on the front pages of any newspaper or first item on the evening TV news?

It’s just not sexy. It doesn’t have heroes and villains, and there’s no oppositional behaviour around it, so the media largely leaves it alone.

There is an item today about the sad and shameful situation in our national treatment of people with a disability in comparison to other OECD countries, but I’ll bet you pounds to peanuts that it won’t become the topic of conversation on blogs or talk back radio.

 An extract from the news report -

The report said 45 per cent of people in Australia with disabilities lived in or near poverty and Australia had been ranked 27th out of 27 OECD countries for relative poverty risk. Australia ranked 21st out of OECD countries for the provision of job opportunities for the disabled, with just 31 per cent of people with disabilities in employment.

It says a lot about our national political dialogue, and most of what it says is pretty disgusting.

By the way, I think I know why Price Waterhouse actually bothered with the study. One of the people driving it is a quadriplegic.

Says it all really.

What was all that about?

6879 came this way last year

 53900 overstayers (currently) came this way

The news that refugees will begin to be released into the community hopefully marks the end of a deplorable episode in recent Australian history.

The phenomenon of both major parties toadying to the basest xenophobic instincts in our national psyche has been wrecked by the legal system.

The wierdness in this comes from the fact that our refugee intake makes up less than 2% of total immigration. Why the fuss about 2%?

It would be great if the shock jocks got just as excited about the 5% of 20 million Australians (born here) with disabilities and their carers living as third class citizens as they do about the 6700 from the boats. Why isn't a National Disabilities Insurance scheme, (which would make a real difference to one million people) as important as the issue of  a relative trickle of unauthorised arrivals? When was the last time you heard Ray Hadley or Alan Jones foaming at the mouth about people with disabilities?

We’re back where we were before Tampa and the Pacific Solution.

From here on in, people arriving unlawfully by boat will be treated in the same way as those coming by plane and unlawfully overstaying.

The irony in all this is that it took Australian law, rather than Australian politics to restore sanity on this issue.

It has to be the best argument for the separation of powers I’ve seen in a long time. In effect, it represents the High Court saying to the Australian government “Wake up to yourselves”, or as my Millennial daughter is fond of saying “Get real!”

Howard’s draconian and retroactive Border Protection Bill 2001 has finally been relegated to that chapter of our national history where other totalitarian legislation such as (for example) the May 1965 amendments to the Defence Act can be found.

If you believe the rabid Right we’ll now see riot and revolution on our streets, boat people driving around in brand new Commodores, and burqa wearing and Sharia law compulsory.

Maybe if none of these catastrophes actually eventuate, we’ll see an end to the hysteria.

But then again, maybe not. The only thing that sells more newspapers than fear and xenophobia is steamy sex stories.

Putting in the Slipper

Peter Slipper is the most recent in a list of Queensland pollies who has demonstrated an eye for the main chance.

He follows in the time-honoured tradition of such notables as Vince Gair, Mal Colston and Pat Field to name a few.

The outrage of his Coalition colleagues is a bit lame (and hypocritical) when this history is considered. Such indignation obviously has a great deal to do with whether or not the coup has been engineered by someone on your side and who ultimately benefits, rather than the morality or otherwise of the activity.

Put simply, the belief seems to be that if we did it, it’s OK, but if the other side carried it off it’s mean and nasty.

It could be argued that this situation would not have eventuated if Abbott hadn’t refused to pair the Speaker and Deputy Speaker. Refusing the pair as an act of petty political spite put the ALP one vote down. It's come back to bite him on the bum.

Having said that, the fact that Peter Slipper is involved, comes as no surprise, based on what I know of him.

I first met him in 1984 as the newly-elected National Party member for Longman. There have been some boundary changes and renaming of electorates since then, but Slipper had been a constant in this part of the world.

At that time I was principal of a special school to the North of Brisbane which was on the border of four electorates, two state and two federal. Consequently, I saw a great deal of Slipper (and the other pollies, two Labor, and two National Party) at school functions such as fetes and award nights.

One of these pollies, a state Labor member and an ex-wrestler named Joe Kruger, actually made an official complaint against me to the then Regional Director because I didn’t acknowledge him from the podium at a school function.

Silly bugger phoned me the morning before and told me he couldn’t make it because he had a prior commitment. He then turned up late and didn’t let me know he was there, so I didn’t mention him. He actually mistook me for my predecessor as principal who was a Liberal supporter with political ambitions of his own.

I was young and innocent back then.

Slipper was visibly uneasy in the presence of kids with disabilities, but worked hard at making a name for himself as a supporter of the school. My bride, who has a knack with accurate assessments of character, intimated that she found him “flakey”. You’d have to ask her exactly what that means.

He’s actually High Church Anglican, which goes some of the way towards explaining his friendship with Rudd, who is of similar persuasion.

One thing that this situation reinforces is that federal pollies from south of the border completely misunderstand the way Queensland works. Abbott’s attempts to have the Queensland LNP machine go easy on Slipper obviously cut no ice at all.

Queenslanders have a knack of listening to advice from Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra (take your pick) and then doing exactly the opposite.

People from the south are called BFCs, BFSs or BFMs* here.

The collective term is “Mexicans”.

*Bastards from…….

Sad and Shocking

The news this morning that the fire in the Quakers Hill nursing home was deliberately lit is both sad and shocking.

It’s alleged that an individual who worked there as a nurse has set the building alight in two places in the early hours of yesterday morning. He has been charged and is in police custody.

If he is indeed the culprit – and he is innocent until proved guilty, we have the ghastly phenomenon of a person employed to care for helpless vulnerable people responsible for burning them to death in their beds. It doesn’t bear thinking about…..

This tragedy reminded me of time spent in similar institutions for vulnerable people.

For eighteen years as a special school principal in various places across the state, I had the responsibility of ensuring safety for the children in these schools, who were also generally speaking, helpless and vulnerable. It was a responsibility I took very seriously, and I remember feeling a sense of relief when, upon retirement, I handed the keys of my last school to my successor. These days I still work in schools, but am not burdened with that overall responsibility. It feels great to be on the campus of a school without that consideration.

During those eighteen years, only once did a fire start during school. This was at my last school in Toowoomba, and fortunately it happened on a Pupil-Free Day when only staff and visitors were present.

One of these visitors was a parent, a mum, whom I was interviewing as she enrolled her daughter at the beginning of the school year.

During this interview (at about 10.30am), a face appeared at the door of my office. It belonged to a new teacher who had started only the day before. She looked a bit tense, and I straightaway interrupted to interview and excused myself to see what she was on about.

This teacher blurted out “There’s a fire in my classroom!”

I told my Registrar (who had also appeared at the door of my office with a fearsome look directed at the teacher who had broken the cardinal rule of interrupting the Principal when interviewing a parent) to sound the fire alarm.

The half dozen buildings on the campus were quickly evacuated, and when it was clear everyone was safe, and the firies had been notified, with the Janitor I carefully approached the classroom in question with extinguisher in hand. I was later given a severe talking to by the firies by the way, for doing this.

There was no obvious fire, but a strong electrical burning smell was everywhere, and there were wisps of black smoke coming from the ceiling.

The firies arrived, and quickly discovered that a transformer had lunched itself in the ceiling. The electrics in this building were always dodgy.

Subsequently, the whole building was rewired to avoid a reoccurrence, and things got back to normal.

Fire drills were always an issue in a school were a large proportion of the enrolment lacked the capacity to get themselves out of harm’s way, so we had to come up with novel solutions to develop a drill that would work.

Every able-bodied person available (Janitor, office staff, Cleaners, Guidance Officer, Therapists etc) had designated classrooms to which they headed ASAP to assist in evacuating kids in wheelchairs and walking frames. Essentially these were the classes were the kids were unable physically to get out by themselves.

We got it down to 1 minute 30 seconds as I remember.

I’m glad we never had to do it in the dark as was the case in Sydney. My heart goes out to both victims and rescuers.