"And then they become Mrs. The Missus misses the point even more than she did before marriage!!"

Ah, A cheeky Lord Ludwig I see.

signed
The Marquess of Mission Beach,
aka The Missus (incognito alias)

What goes hand-in-hand with this practise are salutations:

- Her Majesty
- His Honour
- Reverend
- His Holiness

Very few physicians are conferred doctors. However surgeons with the same two Bachelor degrees and usuallly a Fellowship and post-grad diploma choose remain Mr., seemingly spoken slowly, Mmi Ster, in remembrance of Barbers of Olde.

Only, in the past few decades Australian have vets and dentists referres to themselves doctors, as distinct from a scholarly conferred doctors, wherein written communication to an academic, according to proper protocol, to a PhD who is a professor is,“Most Learned Sir/Madam,” and a non-professorial PhD is merely, “Very Learned Sir/Madam”.

Most physicians introduce themselves as, “Hello, I am Dr Jones and you are Mr/Ms…?” Im my expereience, most people who actually have a conferred “doctorate,” refer to themselves by their first name then second name.

Dr Oliver Smith PhD is a tautology and should not be used. The German’s concatenate titles; Herr Professor Doctor.

Professional titles do not appear on licenses unless you are a Judge, say Justice Fed Jones. I wonder why? Relatedly, Courts too have their hierarchies with Mr/Ms Registrar at or near the bottom.

A former colleague of mine was once in a bad car accident. When he regained consciousness in hospital, the nursing staff deferentially referred to him as Dr Anderson, presumably having gleaned his title from identification in his wallet.

After some time, one of the deferential nurses asked him where he had gained his medical qualifications. His disdainful response:

"Medical qualifications? I'm a real doctor - I have a PhD!"

He was apparently treated even better after that.

We refer to members of parliament as "Honourable"....which I presume was borrowed from the English aristocracy.

Can anyone enlighten me a little more on this one...Lord Ludwig, Marquess?

I have no problem honouring the profession or the position, but of course the person concerned remains obliged to earn that respect.

Ex CJ's storytelling, "Medical qualifications? I'm a real doctor - I have a PhD!"

I am sure that pompous statement would have exposed him as a pretentious git to busy nursing professionals who were merely trying to be polite to him. What he should have known (and some education and sensitivity could have helped), is that the title is determined by usage and the nurses' understanding of the title was correct

so back to OP question of does a govt dept need to know your gender [and if not, offend Privacy Act], here is a lay explanation of Aged Pension test from Noel Whittaker [ie interpreting Social Security Act]

"A couple is aged 68 and 66 and the husband has $400,000 in his account-based pension fund. His life expectancy is 15.48 years. The exempt amount for Centrelink purposes is calculated by dividing the account balance by his life expectancy, which in this case is $25,840. Consequently, the first $25,840 of his account-based pension income is not assessed for the income test."

now Noel does not say the husband is the one 68 but the table confirms that, so a bit "sexist" [pronking word there] for starters Noel. But what if wife was the "dominant" one [and yes "dominent is IN the act but not defined] hence as I said in orig post "what tangled webs we weave.."?

it might appear we would then divide by 18.7 or so [ie the legislation has not yet STOPPED women living longer than men]. But hey we just got all PC with "same sex partners" [yes, a pronk] and that could be 2 lesbians, and a public servant is thinking he can tell 2 women which is the more "dominant"

and the water gets even more murky when a pensioner changes gender, like the Act is silent as to the former gender or the new one.

so to program my Little Ozzie Pensioner System at www.lopsystem.com I simply became PC [very rare for me] and gave the user the option to state their gender if they wish but tied all the algorithms to the male tables.

I thought that "fair" as women will soon join US at 65 retirement age, ie we didn't join them at 60 back in 1994

so whether or not Centrelink algorithms get into such complexity is anyone's guess but AFAICS they just do the PC bit same as me [but can't see why needed under Tax Laws]