Daggart,

I am all in favour of communities, collectives and not for profit organisations. Just not compulsory ones. Once membership becomes compulsory such organisations quickly lose their way.

Regards,
Terje

Terje wrote : "I am all in favour of communities..."

According to yesterdays Newspoll, which is consistent with every poll which has been taken on the issue of privatisation in recent years, 70% of the Australian public say that they want, AS A COMMUNITY, to run their own telecommunications service, which they now own and have paid dearly for, through their parliamentary representatives and keep it out of the hands of greedy investors who have shown that they don't give a damn about any customers except those who have lots of money.

They are being ignored, because this Government has bought, using our money, the votes of people (and not just Barnaby Joyce) who were elected to parliament promising their electors that they would oppose the sale.

The last time I checked, we were still supposed to be a democracy. What kind of a Government, in a democracy, ignores the wishes of 70% of its citizens?

Anyone out there who wants to help us to do something about this, and not just take it lying down, please get in touch with us at :

http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com

and, also, please check out the page,

http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/whatyoucando.html

Personally I don't want to own any of Telstra. However if the other 70% of Australians do then I don't wish to stop them.

I would have been just as happy if they handed out shares to Aussie Citizens rather than selling the thing.

In any case this is a long way of the topic of whether relative measures of poverty are truely meaningful. I continue to assert that its stupid to try and measure progress in any meaningful sence using a poverty measure that merely relates to the number of people in a given income percentile

Terje wrote : "Personally I don't want to own any of Telstra. However if the other 70% of Australians do then I don't wish to stop them."

This is an evasion. The government is intent on selling property which belongs to the Australian people, without their consent. Do you think it would be acceptable for a used car dealer to be allowed to sell your car for you without your consent, or for a real estate agent to be able to sell your house on your behalf without your consent?

Terje wrote : "I would have been just as happy if they handed out shares to Aussie Citizens rather than selling the thing."

And what do you think that would achieved by all the bureaucracy, paperwork and expense entailed in giving shares to each and every Australian citizen (although admittedly it would be fairer than what the Government is now trying to bring about)? Would such a scraps of paper make Telstra, as a whole, any more valuable to the public? Do you think that, also, shares for Australia Post be handed out, as well as shares for Medibank private? for the Snowy Mountain Hydro scheme? for all our roads, our schools, our universities, our libraries, our dams and water treatment plants, hospitals and national parks?

Don't you think that 20,000,000 Australians have more important things to do with their time than to be stuffing around with yet dozens more of the necessary scraps of paper?

Terje wrote "I continue to assert that it's stupid to try and measure progress in any meaningful sense using a poverty measure that merely relates to the number of people in a given income percentile."

The GDP measure, itself, is seriously flawed as has been demonstrated, so of course any poverty measure based on it must be meaningless, whether or not we use the method described.

The point is that, I believe that many hard-working Australians deserve a lot, lot better than what they get today, as documented in "Dirt Cheap". This includes unskilled as well as skilled occupations : cleaners, chid care workers, couriers, labourers, delivery drivers, retail workers, junk mail delivery,telemarketers etc, etc.

If they are truly so much better of today than they were 30 years ago as Peter Saunders maintains, then I hate to think what it would have been like back then.

Saunder's argument against relative measures of poverty is only a barely disguised rationale for his agenda, now largely being enacted by this Government, that can only increase the poverty of both welfare recipients and the working poor.

Under the social welfare 'reforms', many people who would previously have been entitled to disability benefits or supporting mother's benefits will, instead, get the significantly lower unemployment benefits, and be obliged to compete with Australia's current working poor for the inadequate number of jobs out there.

If the IR so-called 'reforms', long argued for by Saunders, become law, then their wages and conditions will spiral down towards third world levels.

That is the real issue behind this debate.

To The Usual Suspect, you say "someone eats crap and smokes -not my problem ". yuk !
Fair enough if you don't care about the society you live in .
What if you decided to help your son's [bottom of the ladder]reserve side footy team to a "flag" at the start of the season and had to work at getting them fit ? would you ? probably no . Too hard !
Our society is like a footy team - if the club coaches and trainers don't care and see indifference in the president , your team suffers and no matter what their aspirations, will stay at the bottom of the ladder !