Quotes of the Week

"All billionaires want the same thing – a world that works for them. For many, this means a world in which they are scarcely taxed and scarcely regulated; where labour is cheap and the planet can be used as a dustbin; where they can flit between tax havens and secrecy regimes, using the Earth’s surface as a speculative gaming board, extracting profits and dumping costs. The world that works for them works against us.” [Journalist George Monbiot writing in The Guardian on 3 July 2019]

"Scott Morrison loves “quiet Australians”. The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government especially loves quiet charities, quiet scientists, quiet environmentalists, quiet journalists, quiet human rights commissioners, quiet workers in quiet unions and a quiet public broadcaster. It will burn for anyone who stays quiet – and threaten to burn down anyone who raises their voice.” [Pastor Brad Chilcott writing in , 8 July 2019]

It’s said to be only gossip, but ... where there’s smoke there’s fire

CBD in Friday’s Herald carried this piece.

Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald’s CBD

Australian society in 2019

It seems when it comes to personal wealth only the poor admit the truth of their financial situation.

Those who are financially well-off in Australia apparently refuse to recognise their good fortune.

This rather strange state of affairs was very obvious during the 2019 federal election campaign.

Last month the national public broadcaster asked its online readers to guess where they stood on the income scale and this was the result.....

ABC News, 2 July 2019:

The interactive divided people into 13 income bands, corresponding to the bands in the Australian Bureau of Statistics' data.

People were asked to estimate which bracket they sat in, and were then asked to enter their weekly take-home pay.

After removing certain outliers with outlandish responses (we're looking at you, Mr or Ms $1 trillion a week) there was a marked difference between those in the top and bottom halves of the income distribution when it came to estimating their place.

Respondents in the top seven brackets (earning more than $800 per week) fared far worse at guessing their place than those in the bottom six brackets. In fact, our lower-earning respondents were 2.6 times better at estimating their place than their higher-earning counterparts…….

But it was those in the third-highest bracket — earning between $1,750 and $2,000 per week — who fared the worst at estimating their position.

Only 2.85 per cent of respondents in this bracket correctly identified their place and the average guess was 3.2 brackets lower than reality.

If you watch just one TV program this week make it this one

ABC TV on Wednesday night provided yet another fantastic episode of Ahn’s Brush With Fame. If you missed it catch up with it when it’s replayed on Sunday 14 June at 5.30pm, otherwise see it on ABC iView here.



In this week’s episode:

Anh invites ground-breaking singer/songwriter Archie Roach to the studio to tell his story as a member of the Stolen Generation. He shares how music and soulmate Ruby saved him from a life of anger on the streets.

Credit: ABC TV

Something to think about

Credit: Wilcox

Maybe misdemeanours

Grafton’s Daily Examiner has been very creative in recent times with the introduction of a new feature that’s being displayed on its website.
The average reader will not have the luxury of seeing all the details in the new regular section because it’s hidden by the paper’s paywall - only subscribers get to see it. Subscribers can scroll down the online page and see a heading like this one.

Really, does the local paper have so many slow news days that it thinks it’s on a winner with its latest “innovation”.
A contributor to the paper’s letter section has expressed an opinion about the paper’s strategy(see below).

Concern over court lists

I am distressed to see The Daily Examiner listing people going to court each day.

I think this is not appropriate. These people are facing up to situations that will be addressed by the court. They do not need or deserve to be named and shamed in public, without any context.

There are many reasons people end up in court. I don’t think it’s appropriate that merely for attending a court hearing they are named in the newspaper. Fine if their issue becomes newsworthy. But the mere fact of them appearing is not sufficient to justify public interest. In fact it could be severely damaging.

Fiona Hardie, Tullymorgan

Perhaps the paper could examine a couple of other topics to more gainfully occupy their journalists’ time. A couple that spring to mind are waiting times at the A&E departments of local hospitals and supermarket checkouts.

Source: The Daily Examiner, July 9, 2019, print edition and webpage

Credit to my mate Elwyn, who doesn’t miss a trick, for providing a heads up for this post.

Valdman’s take on tailgating

Credit: Valdman in The Advertiser (Adelaide), July 8, 2019