Banjo,

"The poverty line (measured as 50% of median income) is $A457 per week for a single adult."

Statistics are great, aren't they. Imagine, $457 means poverty, and $550 'New Start/Job-seeker' (pre-Covid) is regarded as insufficient (seeming genuinely so), Aged Care rather better from all accounts, Parental Allowances may help a bit, or throw in some rental assistance, healthcare benefits and maybe some travelling allowances, and it appears we may not indeed be 'The Lucky Country'. What do ya reckon?

Please forgive me if I'm not reading the situation correctly.
I'm just not seeing all the poverty, though I'm sure there are many who are not able to do everything they'd like to, or have, for themselves or their kids, and I'm sorry for that, but are they all doing all they could (within their limitations) to make do or to get ahead? A bit of part-time casual here or there?

NDIS, Medicare, not enough social housing for sure (and I wish the PM would choose to do something about this, to invigorate the economy, instead of $25k for first-time builders or owner-occupier 'renovators'), but we are really in dire straits, aren't we.

However, I accept that I must be delusional in suggesting that maybe there wouldn't be so many refugees and displaced people running into trouble all over the place if something more had been done (and would be done) to relieve and hopefully avert/obviate the roots of disruption and hostility in their home countries.

After all it's a devil-take-the-hindmost world today, isn't it. Everyone afraid of losing power, means, and self-determination.

Still, charity begins at home.
(TBC)

Cont'd:

Banjo,

Who would have imagined that the 'Arab Spring' of people merely seeking better governance and a better deal could have sparked such incredible responses - Egypt, Libya, Syria - and the birth of ISIS? And we have the resurgence of the Taliban, and Iraq in a mess.

So, what exactly has warfare in the Middle East achieved?

A UN Special Rapporteur may have identified Aus as wanting in regard to material inequality, and even race relations, but then the UN is hardly truly representative of anything much these days - given its latest approval of China's new National Security Law, or its responses to Bashar Al Assad, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Maduro, Bolsonaro or even Netanyahu regarding his intentions regarding the West Bank.

Starving millions, TB still prevalent (but no vaccine for some), Covid running rampant throughout the world (and particularly the Third World), and yet we must focus on so many underprivileged, doing it tough in Aus. Blimey.

Oops, sorry Banjo, I see Job Seeker is $550 per fortnight (pre-Covid), so not very grand at all - and certainly needing revision, upwards.

Still, I guess everything is relative, but, with other additives regarding rental allowance, healthcare services, ..., maybe things are not as bleak as at first sight.

Comparisons? I leave this to my previous comments regarding some others comparatively doing it very tough indeed, and with little resolution in sight.

Dear Banjo,

Please tell us what you think those root causes are that foster hate, violence and fanaticism.

Dear David F.,

American Nobel laureate in Physics (2004), David J.
Gross, said many of the major problems in today's world
such as racism, bigotry, fanaticism, and threats to the
environment are caused by the sheer ignorance of people.

He pointed out that there are many problems and dangers:

1) Inequalities that exist - in and among nations.
2) Danger of fanaticism.
3) Persistence of useless war and violence.
4) The threats to the environment and health of our planet.

The cause of many of these problems he says is sheer ignorance.
The ignorance of science that could solve many of the world's
problems, the ignorance of basic facts, the ignorance of
other cultures that promote fanatical nationalism.

Gross made it quite clear that as possessors of knowledge
of the 21st century, one should take the responsibility to
strive to dispel this ignorance.

He also stressed that believing the wrong things or the
illusion of knowledge is far worse than the ignorance.

The reason that the fundamentalists are dangerous is not so
much that they are ignorant but that they are certain that
they possess the absolute truth.

It is this certainty that can lead to repression, bigotry,
racism, and fanaticism, Gross added

I sort of agree with Huntington "It is a human to hate".

While I acknowledge that there are some people who almost completely rise above squabbles, like my Mrs, i think most of us will find things to complain about in a very serious tone/way.

With regard to life and the struggle to achieve and prosper, life is a very competitive space.

I dont think ignorance explains much at all with regard to understanding the complexity and competitiveness of humanity