From time to time I will attempt to produce a broad-brush outline of what voters on the NSW North Coast are discussing in the months preceding the 2010 federal election.
Here is the first post in this series.
The Daily Examiner letters to the editor, 28 & 30 January 2010
Fair work farce
ON January 1, the new Fair Work legislation came into effect. This brainchild of the Federal Labor Government can be best described as having as many holes as a Swiss cheese.
The simple question 'does an employee have a right of reply to their employer and how is it done?' has necessitated some eight hours plus of telephone calls in this week only and more than 12 hours prior to Christmas.
So, here's the summary: If you have been dismissed from employment you call Fair Work Australia and they help you fill out the forms. If you have lodged a complaint form, you contact the Fair Work Ombudsman by phone and an investigating officer from Coffs Harbour will deal with your matter.
By the way, there is an office in Coffs Harbour, but no contact phone number.
If you are unfortunate enough to be at the stage of asking questions about what you can or can't do, you are referred to a website (bad luck if you don't have a computer).
Not on the website? Never mind, get legal advice. Free legal advice is available from Legal Aid (Coffs Harbour) or, if that's not practical, how about you phone a Sydney legal firm (no 13 or 1800 numbers here) between the hours of 12.30 - 2.00pm and 4 -5pm Tuesdays and 4 -5pm Thursdays.
Then you get the engaged signal and wait in a queue while phone companies are charging you by the second.
This is not a reflection on the legal firm - they are excellent. It is a very poor reflection on the fools who engineered Fair Work Australia and have absolutely no work experience in the real world.
So, after a considerable amount of time wasting and contributing to fattening phone companies' profits, nobody is any the wiser except that legal advice is required.
Now isn't that wonderful system for those in their first jobs, those whose work hours don't allow them to make these calls or travel to seek legal aid - if they qualify - or better still, don't have/can't use the internet?
A call placed with the relevant federal minister's office today was met with a vague sounding person who made assurances a technical person would return calls. As if.
This farcical arrangement helps nobody. Those employed know very little, if anything, and can't/won't help. Stonewalling is a good description. However, very in-depth statistical analysis is extracted.
Good on you Julia Gillard and Team Rudd - one up for the workers of Australia that your party is supposed to help. Note to Rudd: you can't do a 30 second media grab on Sunrise with this crock.
For those who are wondering, your hard-earned taxes paid for this crock. You might want to remember that if you're on the receiving end of 'you will need to seek legal advice about that'.
ANNE HUNTER, Grafton
Number crunch
IN reply to Anne Hunter (DE 28/1/10). Anne, it's great to see that you don't let facts get in the way of a good rant and rave.
Firstly, you claim inconvenience in trying to reach some local offices for workplace relations.
Well try looking for the direct Grafton number for other government offices like the ATO, Centrelink or the RTA. Guess what? They don't exist, why? So that they don't have people like you ringing them up and wasting their time all in the name of whoever sits on the Opposition bench.
I wonder whether these numbers disappeared whilst Howard was in power?
No, they couldn't have, John wouldn't do that to his National Party buddies from out on the prairie.
You then claim that the phone companies are billing you by the second for calling 1800 and 1300 numbers, Anne guess what, 1800 is free and 1300 is 30c untimed.
Now I hope you aren't silly enough to call these numbers from a mobile Anne, actually, maybe you are.
But that wouldn't be your fault, no way, it would in some way be the fault of anyone other than the Liberals.
Maybe you should stand for the local seat again?
Surely an accountant would be a National Party star?
You would hold your head high in Parliament amongst your bulldozer driving, cotton picking, pig shooting National Party mates.
S. GORMAN, Grafton
Tweed Daily News letters to the editor, 26 & 28 January 2010
Euthanasia not a matter for politics
NATION-wide polls conducted over the past 20 years show an increasing proportion of adult Australians want choice in end-of-life decisions.
We want to be able to request physician-assisted dying should suffering become intolerable. Politicians refuse to listen to their constituents on this matter.
An ex-politician told me that correspondence to parliamentarians is dealt with by a secretary/underling and the politician often doesn't see the request for support. How dare an elected member of Parliament ignore the very people who put him/her there!
We are sometimes told that this request is against their (the politician's) religion and they would not support such a bill should it come before Parliament. We are not interested in their personal views: we want them to accept the wishes of their constituents and support a bill giving patients control over their own life/death.
Physician-assisted dying should be a matter between the patient and his/her medical team, not the personal beliefs of politicians, church or conservative medicos.
What must electors do to make our politicians listen to 80 per cent of adult Australians who want legislation changed?
Electors must let the politicians know that they are angry at this neglect of their wishes.
Other countries have had compassionate legislation for over a decade which works well and is not abused. Legislation will prevent some of the horrific suicides which now occur when desperate sufferers take matters into their own hands and leave behind ghastly memories for their loved ones.
June Henderson, DWDQ Secretary
Nobody's business but your own
JUNE Henderson is spot on (TDN 26/01).
What we adults do, or allow others to do, to our own bodies is our own business.
It is no business of politicians or priests or other fascists, who should learn to mind their own.
Personal autonomy or self- sovereignty is the name of the game they don't want us to play, because it is the prerequisite for true love, ie, living by God's golden rule, which scares them weeless when we do.
Doug Ogilvie, Bilambil
The Northern Star letters to the editor 13 & 29 January 2010
Bishop's climate message confused
THE Northern Star reported Bishop Jarrett's newsworthy Christmas homily on climate change (NS, 24/12: "Changing climate of Christmas sermons").
It said, in precis ... as stewards of creation we must act responsibly towards the Earth. Future generations will suffer unless we act, but we can't agree how. Actions driven by fear are suspect, and often more blind than reasonable. On climate change we can do nothing anyhow; God alone can rescue things. Natural laws are the common platform that can unite nations; by respecting those laws we enable God to act.
I may be missing some theological nuances, but this is a rather confusing message.
The only systematic, public account of natural laws able to attract global assent across cultures and religions is what science has progressively revealed since its beginnings and which it continues to supplement and refine.
Few scientific positions have ever been so comprehensively studied and agreed to as the consensus on climate change.
Since scientific knowledge reveals natural laws, surely we most fully obey God when we base our relationship with nature on that knowledge, not out of fear but through faith in reason and evidence.
Thus becoming 'good stewards' we enable the 'higher spiritual power' to intervene through us.
Whereas the 'faith and reason' that 'balance in harmony' in the 'Judaeo-Christian revelation' may assist personal salvation they self-evidentially do not operate in the planet's interests.
The Western world's devastating industrial exploitation of the planet has been driven and validated by the 'if we mess things up God will fix them' mentality of redemptionist beliefs.
So, since natural laws are central to global consensus and action, the bishop might tell us how he acted to help get a right outcome at Copenhagen.
Did he:
- Lobby our PM to make Australia's international position 100 per cent consistent with scientific knowledge and predictions?
- Urge the faithful to do their best to influence conference outcomes, e.g., by attending protests and rallies and petitioning Heads of Government to listen to what the science says?
- Entreat the Catholic Leader of the Opposition to embrace policies consistent with those the Holy Father advanced for the 2009 World Day of Peace, in declaring that climate change threatens the rights to life, food, health and peace for all, and that protecting the environment is 'the duty of every person'?
LEE ANDRESEN, Ballina.
Letter praised
I would just like to say that Lee Andresen's 'evolution' letter (NS 20/01) was the best letter, on any subject, that I have read for years.
Erudite, to the point, concise, and ultimately convincing. Ten points, Lee Andresen.
COLIN THORNTON, Coorabell
Climate scienceDR GARTH Paltridge has been one of our most eminent climate scientists for 40 years.He was chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, and was involved with the World Meteorological Organisation that set up the World Climate Program in the 1970s. He was working with the National Climate Office in the US at the time the UN formed the IPCC in the late 1980s. For 12 years before his retirement in 2002, he directed the Institute for Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania and was CEO of the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre, studying the role of the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean in climate change. So he is more qualified than most to write the book on climate change called The Climate Caper. Some of his quotes make interesting reading: 'Increasing CO{-2} will certainly lead to higher temperatures than would have occurred otherwise', 'other things happen that can feed back on surface temperatures. Some of them amplify and some of them reduce any change caused by an increase of CO{-2}'. He says one of the great myths about global warming is that the science is settled and explains how many scientists worldwide have been coerced into supporting the IPCC and their computer models, by research funding needs and their need to eat. Those supporting the global warming theory get more money, but critics are ostracised. The science is not settled.
KEN MACDONALD, Lennox Head
KEN MACDONALD, Lennox Head
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