Before the union movement employers could pay what they like. Employers could pay just enough to keep workers from starving, and the workers had to take it. There was great social inequality, and there still is. However, there is much less. A worker can retire with some dignity because of superannuation. Education is no longer just for the rich and religious as there is a public system open for all. Medicaid assures one that medical care is available for all. I am 93 today and am quite healthy. Part of it is due to my genes and to my life style. Part of it is due to the excellent medical care I have received in Australia.

Last year my wife had a fall and two neurosurgical interventions were necessary. Her medical care and her stay in a rehabilitation facility were supplied by the government. If we had been living in many other countries she would be dead or our resources would be so depleted that we would be spending the rest of our lives in poverty.

I appreciate the ABC and SBS. They provide commentary and documentaries of a nature the commercial networks do not supply.

In online opinion many see the Left as an enemy. The Left is rambunctious. The Left doesn’t respect authority. The Left makes a fuss. The Left demonstrates against social injustice. The Left protests wars. I appreciate the Left for making Australia a great place to live.

Dear David,

Happy Birthday to you today. May you continue to live a
happy and a healthy life. I have also experienced a vast
variety of health problems - and am grateful for the medical
attention that I was given. We've always had private medical
insurance - and that also has helped a great deal.

I think all of us should be grateful for what our governments
have done for us. We criticise and complain - but we have to
admit that despite everything Australia is a happier place
than many other countries. We should count our blessing and
stress what unites us rather than what divides us.

I hope your wife is still writing?

Dear David,

My husband, an architect, worked with a David
Fisher in the 1980s in Melbourne.

Any relation to you?

He would be about the right age to be your son
or nephew.

Happy birth day David and good afternoon Foxy.
The left, even the greens, are our conscience, they pull our trouser leg and remind us people matter.
What is the purpose of an economy if it needs to leave most.many/any one behind?
Is it evil to think caring for those who can not care for them selves is the best way to travel.
Why has generations of the right, while being in associations that are unions, tried to convince us a lower living standard for those that produce the wealth is needed.
good subject thank you

congratulations on reaching 93 David f. May you and your wife have many more blessed years. Obviously we are never going to agree on ideology. Capitalism certainly feeds greed while the early 'left' did much to give people a fair wage. Nowadays people on the left are often in very overpaid Government jobs where they virtue signal to anyone who knows that marxism is putried. abc presenters are among the worst. They ask others how much they earn wanting to hide their own overpaid tax payer funded salaries. The left have created a massive 'swamp' in Government, univerisites and even among corporate Australia.

“Medicaid” is presumably Medicare; and it doesn't help a lot unless you have access to a bulk-billing GP. And you must have private hospital insurance or you could wait months or years for elective surgery. Right and proper that is too. Your wife must have been treated as an emergency, or you wouldn't have her now. Please do not say that her care was provided by the government. It was provided by taxpayers.

You “appreciate” the Left because you are of the Left. But it is not the Left that “makes Australia a great place to live”. It is the enterprising Right that collects and organises the benefits you enjoy. But, as what passes for conservatism is now moving to the Left, we will all be on the bones of our arses very soon. You are fortunate to he 93. You will miss what is to come.