The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Who do you trust? > Comments

Who do you trust? : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 8/11/2007

Advance Australia fairly, advance Australia squarely,

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All
High interest rates!? You must be joking- 6.75% is pretty good compared to up to 19% during the Hawke and Keating years! And lets not forget the unemployment figures! Howard has it at 4.1% as opposed to Keating at @10%!!
Then this deceit issue-it seems Howard is constantly called a liar. But Rudd is so busy trying to spin Gillard, Swann, Garrett and McLennan that nobody has any idea what he actually stands for! At least Johnny is a leader.Rudd is running a campaign based on deceit if ever there was one!
Seriously, some of you have lost site of reality. We have never had it better! Rich or poor, we are are doing very well indeed.
The funny thing is, it won’t be the Howard voters who feel it most if Rudd and his incompetent bunch of ‘stand for nothing’ parliamentarians get in. It will be lower income ALP voters. So don’t expect sympathy!
Posted by wre, Thursday, 8 November 2007 10:29:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
John I liked your article.

Poor fella, my country!

Not sure that KRudd in power will be any different to Howard.
Posted by billie, Thursday, 8 November 2007 10:34:58 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Skills Shortage won't take five years to fix. Much can be re-adjusted by demanding MORE ACCOUNTABLITY through the Centerlink's JOB-Net servicing administration framework.

A "no wrong door" business approach (delivering - integrated hands-on), targeting authentic action with a focus on barriers, will emancipate many, who wish to re-enter the work-force.

Having interviewed many and having my own case to expose, I tell you it is the inefficacious ability of service providers to inter-face and ID the actions (problems solve) the resources required, for those already skilled, to find work.

Many skilled have become the TOO HARD BASKET. Resented for our ability or intelligence. We encounter discrimination unintentionally because there is a lack of Human-Resource.

Often we are more qualified than the case manager, and the case managers are overwrought by the demand to do something constructive, for developing/engaging on a futures pathway. These people I have found, are many under-trained themselves.

It feels like touch window data-processing wrapped with invisibleness. It is in the statistics. If not shadowed by government, then by the "chain-of-contracts" set-up to solve the demand.

I lobbied HARD for a five-fold employment support package to come to Cooktown, Cape York.

However; PSP is TOTALLY wasted, NO resources. Training (low-skills) is beginning (this week) with CHR, but (given my expertise) I am still (ignored) standing, outside the loop. (Expats and fly-in always win the inhouse-contracts). NEIS they say is here, but I don't see it. AND, having almost tendered to run it as an NGO locally, I was forced tp back-off, once I did a "risk analysis" and found I'd have NO follow-up services to offer successful applicants, after they completed the course, which would/could/might set them up to FAIL.

Authencity and Accountablity is everything. Here it is about being culturally sensitive and savy, as well as MICRO - REAL.

Millions od Dollars have come into this Shire but much has failed, breaking hearts and produces the apathy.

Thank You John Tomlinson, YES this election is about TRUST.

I TRUST it is about having the ability and full-blown soundness to "Do the RIGHT THING".

http://www.miacat.com
.
Posted by miacat, Thursday, 8 November 2007 11:16:25 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I am so sick and tired of affluent white Australia winging about interest rates and how its going to effect them after borrowing so much money. These same people gave Howard the mandate at the last election and now they are reapping the rewards for their greed, and from what we have seen of the other bloke he dosn't look like a rocket scientist either.

Look I bought my first house during the Hawk/Keating government and it was a dump that was when interest rates was around 17%, my wife and I ate toast most days and drove a bomb and both of us had several jobs that we used to pay the house off.

We didn't get any first home handouts or any other form of assistance, and we payed off our house early and then bought a business. So it shouldn't matter who is in government if you just work hard and spend only when neccessary and delay having children ( we waited 15 years)then it should work out fine.
Posted by Yindin, Thursday, 8 November 2007 12:08:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yindin, I'm with you on this one.

When I bought my first house my wife stayed at home to raise the children and I managed to earn enough to support us all. When she did eventually go back to work, it mainly was to get some extra cash for luxuries. Part of this period was during the dreaded "17%" period, when it was hard but not impossible.
If I was to buy the same house today, despite my increased income, my wife would have to work full-time and we would have no children.

I also recall the "dole-bludger" scapegoating and the deliberate social division created in those days and the subsequent "National Reconciliation" that followed. Typical Tory strategy.

This is progress? Are we really better off or have we become like the frog in the saucepan slowly coming to the boil?

It's also not a matter of "who do you trust". It's a matter of forgiving-and-forgetting all the past lies, deceptions and assett-stripping and actually rewarding the culprits who did it by re-electing them and not being surprised when they go even further next time.
Posted by wobbles, Thursday, 8 November 2007 12:54:48 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A timely and very important article, Tom!

Meantime, I must say that I'm absolutely flabbergasted that media commentators haven't picked up on the patent disingenuity of Joe Hockey and the Workplace Authority in relation to AWA stats.

I have today raised this issue via various media outlets - for reasons which should become apparent from the comments below:-

For several weeks now, I have been waiting for someone in the media to challenge Joe Hockey (and the Workplace Authority), for cynically peddling old and irrelevant AWA figures - with obvious intent to confound and mislead.

Even Wayne Swan didn't take up the opportunity to challenge Joe Hockey's claims when they were presented to him on Lateline last night (see http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2007/11/07/2084781.htm?site=elections/federal/2007 or http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2084781.htm ).


Nor did Julia Gillard when she debated Joe Hockey on the 7:30 Report previously (see http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2023895.htm ) - nor any time since!


After the following seemingly untenable article extract was posted by an infamous Liberal Party hack, on the Yahoo Politics message boards in early October (at http://au.messages.yahoo.com/news/politics/62442 ), I checked for the relevant Workplace Authority stats posted at the links below:-

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22535943-5005962,00.html

THE Federal Government's Workplace Authority has released figures showing workers on Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA) earn more on average than those on awards or collective agreements.

The data's release comes just days after a stoush between senior government ministers and academics who did a study which found the opposite for low-skilled workers.

The study by Sydney University academics found low-skilled workers on AWAs earned on average $106 a week less than those on collective agreements.

Senior academics from the university are threatening legal action after Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey questioned the study's credibility because it was partly funded by unions.

The workplace agreement data to September 30, 2007, released today, showed workers on AWAs had average weekly total cash earnings (AWTE) of $963.70.

This was 12.2 per cent higher than workers on collective agreements and 96.2 per cent higher than workers on awards, the figures showed.

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/news/researchStatistics.asp

(contd next post).
Posted by Astromyrtus, Thursday, 8 November 2007 1:02:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
(Contd. from previous post)

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/news/researchStatistics.asp

AWA earnings data from ABS Employee Earnings and Hours Survey (May 2006):

Average weekly total cash earnings (AWTE) of AWA employees: $963.70

Compared to AWTE of federal registered collective agreement employees:
+12.2%

Compared to AWTE of award only employees:
+96.2%


http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/docs/news/FactSheets/factsheet_monthly_aug07.pdf

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/docs/news/FactSheets/factsheet_monthly_sep07.pdf


At the time, I noticed that they were:

1. Not actual Workplace Authority figures - but re-published ABS Survey data.

2. From May 2006 and therefore only 2 months into the WorkChoices era.

3. Mostly (if not almost exclusively) related to Pre-WorkChoices AWA's.

4. Not differentiated in any way - neither by pre/post-WorkChoices, gender, job, industry, &/nor region, etc.

5. Therefore largely - if not totally - irrelevant to AWA's being 'negotiated' in the deregulated WorkChoices regime.


More recently, I noted the cumulative WorkChoices AWA stats on this page - especially the as shown on the graph entitled, 'Monthly graph of employee coverage by agreement type:4'

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/NEWS/researchStatistics_quarterly.asp

Clearly, the ABS Survey contained very little (if any) AWA data under the WorkChoices regime. Yet, both the ALP and the media are letting Joe Hockey, the Workplace Authority and the Liberal Coalition get away with their deceptive and dishonest AWA charade!


Meantime, I note that the October monthly Workplace Authority stats were due to for release on 5 November 2007 (also per http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/NEWS/researchStatistics.asp ) - and therefore that they are now 3 days overdue!

I also note the Govt's and Workplace Authority's ongoing refusal to publish real AWA data for due and proper public and academic scrutiny!


SO, OUT OF SHEER FRUSTRATION AND DISMAY, I ASK:

WHY IS NOBODY HAMMERING JOE HOCKEY ON THIS!?
Posted by Astromyrtus, Thursday, 8 November 2007 1:03:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I TRUST JESUS of NAZARETH.

Now.. call it as you like 'GB's hijacking the thread'.. rubbish I say.

Why ? well of all the people who have strutted their stuff on the stage of human history, our Lord not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.. all the way to the Cross.

If our politicians.. on all sides, took Him to heart.. His word and deed.... then we would not even have this thread. Because each of us, like Zacchaeus would be saying "Lord... those I have defrauded, I repay them 4 fold" From top to bottom of our social structure.

I trust that only a person walking close the the Lord Jesus Christ, "Walking in the Spirit" as the jargon goes, (but it is also a reality) will have a conscience suffiently sharp to steer them away from the many pitfalls of 'political self interest' which of course, is merely an extension of our own 'personal self interest'.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Thursday, 8 November 2007 1:35:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tom's timely article prompts the following question:

what legislation of national benefit has the Coalition government passed in the past 11 years?

This has me intrigued and I do hope that fellow onliners will join me.

My suggestions are the gun law restrictions and making the Reserve Bank independent.

Any other suggestions?
Posted by Seneca, Thursday, 8 November 2007 5:25:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There ain't anybody who doesn't trust Jesus, I mean after all, the Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus who is also named Isa in Qur'an, are the exact same person. (although whoever it was that ran off to France after Mary Magdalene after faking a crucifixion surely must be the source of the confusion in the fallacy of more than one Jesus.

However, my purpose here was not especially to compliment your trusting the right guy, but rather to comment on the comment left by billie, who is not sure that life under the modern labour party will be any different to life under the modern liberal-national co-alition.

Perhaps it won't, but that will much more likely be the case if we all start to feel sorry for ourselves in light of that possiblity before it even begins.

In fact, most decent minded Australians are quite probably beginning to seriously think about what sorts of pressures we will need to be putting on the labour party, so as to ensure that the change is a really definative change for the better, and that on into the future we continue to enable a conscious improvement of Australian life.

Who do we trust? Well we can't trust anybody unless we can trust ourselves to work at holding one another accountible within every democratic process, and also those less democratic.
Posted by Curaezipirid, Thursday, 8 November 2007 6:01:22 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Who do you trust?

Better to ask, what do you trust?

I trust self interest, save for commendable historical exceptions, self interest is always in there trying hard. That is human nature.

The political conundrum is how to put self interest and public interest in some kind of alignment. One, negative, way is to prevent, or at least diminish misalignments by having rules and regulations against excessive self interest - laws against cartels for example. But how can we do it positively as well? How can we increase the idea that the best self fulfillment is in promoting the public good? (That a great contribution to society is to pay a lot of taxfor example)

I would like to hear more appeal to the instincts of commonwealth and public good, and fewer appeals to personal advantage, but the politicians have it right, self interest is supreme, and we have not solved the basic problem of aligning individual interests with common good. We can do it within the family sometimes with a bit of give and take, but extending it further beyond clan seems to be beyond us yet. I am slightly in sympathy with the yearning of Boaz, but I think the solution is more within social science rather than religious territory.
Posted by Fencepost, Thursday, 8 November 2007 6:21:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Reconciling self-interest with public-interest is really easy actually. Just try a decent dose of shame.

Reality hits home with every self decent family who have children who are gradually becoming interactive with the public social domain.

I mean, it doesn't hurt to give birth for nothing you know. Its the gentle reminder that we are fully culpable for our children's experiences. Factually verifiable in discourse with women about their childbirth experiences. Labour seems not to progress when the mind attempts to escape the reality of responsible motherhood; labour progresses more smoothly and with heightened release of endorphins, when the mother accepts the social expense of motherhood. But most clinical professional witnesses are as afraid of these facts as most first time mothers are. And there is something to be said for just letting it happen rather than trying to rub it in.
Posted by Curaezipirid, Thursday, 8 November 2007 7:17:02 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Does Howard still trust his favourite overseas mate after this?

Iraq War now turned Turtle?

A war now needing philosophers much more than Generals or politicians.

We who have followed the war so close, now have visions of a Saddam sardonically smiling in his coffin, and of a fully alive bin-Laden joyously chuckling in his beard.

All because George Bush has now set his sights on Iran, believing those Shias whom he had shown sympathy to for so long for having lost hundreds of thousands of their peoples to a murderous Saddam, now Bush has his generals casting them aside.

Aside right now because those same Iraqi born Shias are related to Iran - thus for Bush and Cheney and quite possibly our Johnny Howard, just so much more fodder for the shock and awe diplomatic missile massage, and indeed possibly nuclear fodder for the coming war against America’s real enemy, Iran, the far bigger Iraqi nation that had made fools of the Americans so much since the end of WW2.

Certainly many of us had clapped our hands when the Iranians had held the US Embassy captive for over a year, and again when after eight years on from 1981, the Shia Iranians had defeated Saddam’s not so gallant Sunni Iraqis, even after Donald Rumsfeld had been advising them for years.

All looking like America’s own fault, because at the time the public was not sure whether the US was fighting a Cold War battle, or just the same old Anglophilic imperial one for hegemon and contraband - now so much about oil.

Fact is, that none of us liked Saddam and even far less like bin Laden, but now we are truly shocked with a madcap report from the New York Times about American troops near Baghdad calling in helicopter gunships preventing Iraqi government Shiite soldiers from rounding up Sunni insurgents, formerly called Saddam's front-line troops.

Wonder now if Howard would know which sides which, or what plans he has with his American ally?
Posted by bushbred, Friday, 9 November 2007 12:21:55 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi Curaezipirid.

I note your interesting comment:

>>Reconciling self-interest with public-interest is really easy actually. Just try a decent dose of shame.<<

And there is the problem.

As long as we have self interest dictating our political choice, 'shame' is quite relative.

For example, Kevin Reynolds in WA considers it a shame that Rudd has 'abandoned labor values' kind of thing.. He feels it is a shame NOT to be clawing more and more money and privilege out of the 'boss class' and redistributing it to the 'worker class'......

I presume the Coalition would regard anything which reduces 'private' enterprise as a 'shame'....

This is why I made the point about Jesus. He never lived or spoke with his own carnal interest in mind, but with the interest of the salvation of humanity.
Yes.. he did mention his unique relationship to the Father, which is quite appropriate considering its reality.

But His primary goal and objective, was the reconciliation of humanity to the Almighty. It follows logically, that if mankind is properly reconciled, forgiven, renewed, then we will seek the common good rather than selfish well being at the deliberate and unust expense of others.

Sometimes so much damage has been done by one group to another (European vs Indigenous) that no amount of hand wringing or verbal gesture can ever restore things to how they were. The only thing left is for both groups to reach out to each other and genuinely seek racial and historical reconciliation with the best interests of all parties in mind.

Those interests as I see it are 'Food, Shelter, Security, dignified relationships, acceptance' each of which then translate into many other specifics.

Your mention of the Davinci Code like theories :) was a bit of a laugh this early in the morning, after all..that author conceded it was an invention of his own mind.

SPIN. Swan says "Under Howard interest rates reached 22%" "Costello says "They were never higher than 13%" and they are both right. This tells us something eh :)
Posted by BOAZ_David, Friday, 9 November 2007 7:15:03 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What’s Howard’s Future now in the Middle East?

Iraq War turned Turtle?

A war now needing philosophers more than Generals or politicians.

We who have followed the war so close, now have visions of a Saddam sardonically smiling in his coffin, and of a fully alive bin-Laden joyously chuckling in his beard.

All because George Bush has now set his sights on Iran, believing those Shias whom he had shown sympathy to for so long for having lost hundreds of thousands of their peoples to a murderous Saddam, now Bush has his generals casting them aside.

Aside right now because those same Iraqi born Shias are related to Iran - thus for Bush and Cheney and quite possibly our Johnny Howard, just so much more fodder for the shock and awe diplomatic missile massage, and indeed possibly nuclear fodder for the coming war against America’s real enemy, Iran, the far bigger Iraqi nation that had made real fools of the Americans more than once since the end of WW2.

Certainly many of us had clapped our hands when the Iranians had held the US Embassy captive for over a year, and again when after eight years on from 1981, the Shia Iranians had defeated Saddam’s not so gallant Sunni Iraqis, even after Donald Rumsfeld had been advising them for years. All looking like America’s own fault, because at the time the public was not sure whether the US was fighting a Cold War battle, or just the same old Anglophilic imperial one for hegemon and contraband - now so much about oil.

Fact is, that none of us liked Saddam and even far less like bin Laden, but now we are truly shocked with a madcap report from the New York Times about American troops near Baghdad calling in helicopter gunships preventing Iraqi government Shiite soldiers from rounding up Sunni insurgents, very likely remnants of Saddam’s front-line troops.

Wonder now in Iraq which sides which, and reckon it might be a good time for Rudd to ask Howard what plans he has now there with his best pal American mate?
Posted by bushbred, Friday, 9 November 2007 12:02:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy