There’s an old saying, ‘The whole world’s going crazy!’
Well, when I look around me at how politics has gone lately, I’m inclined to agree and not think it is mere hyperbole.
You just have to look at a few recent examples from around the globe to see what I mean.
Let’s start with the most ridiculous first.
‘Swaziland media had reported Monday that the police had banned women from wearing miniskirts & midriff-revealing tops, saying they were provoking rape.’ With an example given of one woman who was told by her, male, boss to go home from work and get changed after wearing a ‘mini skirt’ to work, which was 1cm above the knee!
What is it about ‘a sense of proportion’, ‘being reasonable’, self-control & keeping it in their pants, that these men do not understand? Why the overweening urge to control women because they can’t control themselves?
It’s just crazy to think that women have to be blamed, again, in the 21st century, for what men might do to them.
Luckily, in this instance, sanity has prevailed in the government of Swaziland, and a spokesman has said that, “Government has not deliberated and taken any position to that effect in recent times or any other time, nor has it ordered the arrest of anyone wearing a mini skirt.” He said, “The National Constitution of the Kingdom of Swaziland(2005) protected the freedom and rights of women in the country such that no custom may be imposed on them in which they were in conscience opposed.”
Still, it was a close-run thing, and it’s not to say that there aren’t many governments now around the world who aren’t reimposing paternalistic and stiflingly authoritarian controls over the women in their society. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and possibly Egypt now too, to name just a few. Plus, if you’re Homosexual in Uganda, forget about being ‘Out Loud and Proud’.
From The Guardian of November 26:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/26/uganda-anti-homosexuality-bill
However, as a gay Ugandan blogger sardonically points out:
‘In fact, if you re-read your anthropology, [Madame Speaker], you will find that homosexuality was tolerated before the White Man came to Africa with his Bible-that foremost foreign import that our detractors love to subjectively, but liberally, quote from.’
http://sebaspace.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/a-letter-to-rebeccakadaga-from-a-supportive-gay-ugandan/
However, what is most interesting here is that this Bill has links back into the vaulting ambitions of the powerful and ambitious men & women of America who make up the Religious Right.
That is, the same Religious Right who are waging a Christian Crusade to take back control of women’s bodies again, on behalf of the males who run the powerful organisations which make up the Religious Right, the Conservative women who facilitate their zealotry, and the political parties, mainly of the Right, through which they seek to express themselves & imprint their agenda upon the national psyche. And which leads to outbreaks of craziness such as this in America recently:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/hobby-lobby-will-defy-federal-requirement-p
‘Hobby Lobby Will Defy ACA Requirement for Free Contraception’
Though it’s not really ‘free contraception’ but a requirement under the US’s ‘Affordable Care Act'(‘Obamacare’) that an employee’s Health Insurance payments, taken out of their wages by the employer, must include coverage for contraception in the plan the employer uses.
However, owners of the Hobby Lobby Group do not want to comply with that mandate because THEY are devout Christians. Even though, to refuse to comply, opens them up to fines of up to $1.3 million/day.
Just crazy stuff. However, the Religious Right have deep pockets and they have obviously decided on the fight they want to pick with the President, his ‘Affordable Care Act’ and the mandate to provide contraception coverage in the Health Insurance Plans for employees.
But it’s delusional and offensive for the following reasons:
- why should any employer seek to control the sexual health of their employees?
- Since when did contraception, the Pill, essentially, become ‘an abortion-inducing drug’, as these over-bearing religious zealots are trying to claim?
- And as one of their commenters so cleverly put it-
Stupid Git — 12/29/12 10:06am
I’m sure these same people would have no problem with CEO’s from companies like PIMCO and Ethan Allen telling employees what they can and can’t do based on their Islamic beliefs, right? I’m sure this isn’t just another case of the Christian Persecution Complex because they can’t live in the theocracy of their dreams. In fact, let’s make exceptions for all employer’s religious ideals:
If you work for a Jehovah’s Witness: no blood transfusions will be covered.
If you work for a Christian Scientist: No modern medicine at all.
If you work for a Scientologist: No psychiatric coverage.Did I miss any?
Finally, where will it end? Because these religious control freaks never stop at one success. They always want to keep pushing the envelope further. Pushing back against the hard-fought gains that women, minorities & the LGBTI community have made.
You only have to look around the world, as I have shown, with only a few examples, to see where they may take us if we don’t push back.
Which leads me to the Australian leg of our world tour, because I read the other day that Australia’s own religious extremists, ‘The Catch the Fire Ministries’, have started their own political party.
You wouldn’t read about it, a Sri Lankan immigrant to Australia ‘has launched a new Australian political party opposed to multiculturalism’!
However, he says it’s not a racist party it’s just Anti-Muslim(apparently he thinks Muslims are demons), and has a strongly pro-Christian ideology. Goodness knows what he thinks about godless Atheists! But he thinks it’s OK to want to impose his beliefs on government, and to prevent others from attempting to do the same, via government.
Which, of course, brings me to our Alternative Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Another deeply religious individual.
It’s why I can’t help wondering, when I reflect upon all these other religious ideologues from around the world & in our own country, just what would Tony Abbott try to impose on Australia & Australians as PM of our country?
He says he won’t impose his religious beliefs on the nation, but he just won’t be able to help himself I believe. Already there are examples, too numerous to list here, from his time as a Minister & Senior member of John Howard’s Government, and since as Opposition Leader, which have demonstrated that Tony Abbott’s belief is that his core religious values are the ‘right’ ones, therefore right for the country.
This is why I thought it important to lay out just a few examples of where this type of thinking is taking the world of politics, and the world in general, at the moment, and thus why I think it is so important to defeat Tony Abbott at the next election in 2013.
I want Australia to be an island of sanity in a sea of political madness which is threatening to swamp us.
President Obama’s re-election has provided a bulwark, and Australia needs to join him in the fight against the sort of people who think it’s factually accurate to build theme parks which have humans riding dinosaurs, Fred Flintstone-style. We just can’t let Post-Enlightenment reality be subsumed by cartoon Christian craziness, with all the evil undertones that come with it.
As a scientist, I cannot.
As American, Pulitzer Prize-winning author & MIT Professor, Junot Diaz, put it so succinctly about the Republican Party(but the same goes for all political parties like them):
“The current GOP is ‘a shelter for a lot of messed-up & toxic paradigms’.”
And, might I add, these parties are a shelter for a lot of toxic & messed-up individuals.
They must be prevented from poisoning the political well here in Australia too.
And Professor Diaz puts it so well, encapsulating what I have been trying to put into words here, when he says:
“And what is happening to communities, is not racist but specifically white supremacist oppression.”
Except, I might add, that the 21st century ‘white supremacists’ have co-opted a lot of people like Danny Nahliah, who definitely aren’t White, but who have evolved a sort of symbiotic power relationship with the ‘Middle Aged Conservative Old White Guys’, based around their religious zealotry and the defined benefits riding on their coat-tails brings to them. They’ve sniffed the wind and they know which way it is blowing.
But again Junot has a neat explanation for this:
“The racial system that has sort of got this planet under a grip, a racial system that begins with the concept of coloniality, the racial system that sort of operates, whether it’s the Dominican Republic or the United States(or Uganda, Swaziland or Australia), isn’t called racism, technically, it’s called white supremacy”, he said. “We don’t like to call it white supremacy, because folks get real, like, iffy. They’re like ‘argh’. But technically, it’s that…So whether it’s the privilege of money, the privilege of gender. I mean try to get boys to talk about misogyny & patriarchy. Boys don’t want to talk about that. Why? Well, because, ‘Darn, if I talk about that, that’s a threat to my privilege’.”
And that’s why Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s ‘Misogyny Speech’ was so powerful and one of the most important speeches given by any politician around the world this year. It spoke directly to these themes, and she said it directly to the man who is the embodiment of White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Privilege and Misogyny in Australia today. Tony Abbott.
THE PUB 
Children of family friends who live in regional Victoria, have had to move to Melbourne to work.
You are not listening victoria. There is not a lot of ‘work out there’ when you reach a certain age, as countless studies have proven. I was made redundant at the age of 51, and although I was lucky enough to find a job quickly, it scared me witless. And there of thousands of others not so lucky.
To pretend there are jobs out there for all who want to work, or that the Centrelink system is anything other than a complete nightmare is disingenuous in the extreme.
fess @10.12
Excellent point.
People who are unemployed but own their own house (albeit paying a mortgage) could perhaps also consider subletting one of their rooms to help pay for their bills.
ACOSS woman says (of challenges for Macklin to live on $35/day): “you can’t replicate that experience if you’re a senior member of government”.
But a non-govt MP can?
Honestly. Stuntt!!!
The government cant say that you cant live on Newstart, can they?
About sole parents and Newstart.
Here is some information on what assistance sole parents will receive under the new changes –
http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink/parenting-payment/changes-to-parenting-payment
The situation is not as drastic as the OM would have us believe. The government has legislated to allow special provisions for sole parents on Newstart. The current base rate of Newstart for a single parent with a dependent child is $533.00 a fortnight. To that you add rent assistance, pharmaceutical allowance, telephone allowance, later this year the clean energy supplement and if applicable an annual education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement.
Single parents will also get a pensioner concession card, help with child care and more.
I’m getting a bit fed up with all the ‘what will the poor single mums do’ crap that’s all over everything. OM journos are weeping buckets of crocodile tears about the plight of poor families having to exist on Newstart. This rubbish is being pedddled by the very same people who a couple of years ago had not one kind word to say about single parents. This same mob howled about them being bludgers who were given small fortunes to just loaf around and have babies. How things have changed. It must be the possiblity of a bit of Gillard-government-bashing that has brought on this Road to Damascus-like conversion.
I’ve been a single parent on welfare, many years ago, I know how tough it is, but a sole parent payment has always been meant as short-term support. It was never meant to be a life-style choice or to provide an income for many years, but too many people have seen it as a career choice and they know how to manipulate the system. I’ve seen too many women ;’accidentally’ become pregnant at strategic times just to allow them to keep on getting parenting payments. That manipulation will still go on, but perhaps the changes will make young women think again before they opt for that life.
The whole thing is meant to get young women back into education and into work. Eight years is plenty of time for a single mother to finish a high school education and go on to a TAFE diploma or certificate, or a uni degree, or work experience, or to get into part-time work with a goal of making it full-time. There is no excuse for sitting around at home having a baby every couple of years just to keep the welfare money coming in. The seemingly harsh changes to sole parent payments are meant to break the cycle we seem to be stuck in – girls leaving school far too young to have kids simply because they see that as a way to get paid for doing very little and then watching their daughters adopt the same life style.
Dan
[However I don’t have the expense of needing a fancy wardrobe. In summer my work outfit is a t-shirt and shorts. in winter, it’s a long sleeved shirt and jeans. Footwear is optional in both seasons. I also shave when I can be bothered and sleep when I want to, rather than having a 8/8/8 day.]
This is a similar experience to mine – and you don’t drive as much, you don’t buy coffee/lunch, you’re not asked to chuck in for a birthday thing every second day as well.
The expenses drop away once you’re not leaving the house every morning to go to work.
How was Macklin supposed to answer that question?
According the the 2011 census, the unemployment rate for Victoria is 5.4%
In Greensborough it is 3.6%
But in Moe the unemployment rate is 11.9%, in Morwell it is 12.1%. Further out Traralgon has 5.9%, while both Trafalgar and Warragul have an unemployment rate of 5.3% and Sale sits on 5.4%
Our local paper, the Latrobe Valley Express, in the December 27 edition, carried 14 job advertisements (admittedly over the Christmas period and will, hopefully, pick up later in January).
Here’s a nifty little site. To find your home suburb stats, click on the letter of the alphabet your suburb begins with, search for the name, then click on your suburb.
http://localstats.qpzm.com.au/stats/vic
Jenny Macklin should simply have said the truth: :Yes, it’s a challenge to be on the dole. That’s why we really stress the necessity to find work or to study in order to improve your life in the long term.
I agree with Bushfire that it is the hoops you have to jump through which are the most destructive. If only they could agree that a person is either of an age that is unlikely to find work, or lives in an area with fewer employment opportunities, there would be less stress attached.
Thank goodness I’ve never had to apply. The conditions and reports for the pension are quite stressful enough.
My solution has always been to reinvent myself by study or to reduce living expenses to match income, sometimes by moving house.
Confidence on one’s ability to survive always helps, too. Once depression sets in it’s a downward spiral.
if un employment was up around 10 percent one would agree.
check the us version,
i think it cuts out completley, at a given time
i say that would be a torie
verserion,
thank your lucky stars u are not living in the u s or uk
activley look for work gives one more self esteem than sitting at home
having said that i feel older people should have different considerations
but then these days one can draw on their super.
even people on age pension have to paydown some of their super to themselves and then they lose some pension
otherwise why put the super scheme in,
so suggest any one reading this, adds to their super payments for futue
insurance for themselves.
We could always go to the source http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink/newstart-allowance/income-and-assets-test
Bushfire at 9.34
From where I sit the entire content of that AFR piece is: “The bloody cheek of them! Thinking they can win!”
Yeah it is pretty weak, derivative, unimaginative, non-analytical bit of prose, with scant reference to factual reality, that the AFR specialises in these days. As someone noted well the other day, the AFR panders to its readers, it does not challenge then
The best thing about Pamela Williams’ articles is she luxuriates in her title of “editor-at-large”, as meaningless (almost) as the parliamentary “sketch writer” (whatever that actually means). Like a bunch of courtiers at the Byzantine court, squabbling about precedence as the hordes are over-topping the walls of Constantinople.
lizzie i agree
as i said saw some mums smoking using mobile phone
the point being this is costly]
and chatting babies crying in prams,.
my first thought was for the babies and their future
this why they must be made seek an education
mixing with people and getting out there is good,
i sometimes drive past gov. housing and see young woman sitting on door steps i think they look so bored
fast foward, 40 years for these girls, the children have left and they are stuck on some awful pension with not future
those day s must be gone,, it the babies and the future children that we must consider the cycle should be broken where possibe
yes the pension form s one fill s is very stressfull.
well i found it so,
must say the staff where very good
one should take themselves to centre link though and see what the staff deal with every day.
it was an eye opener for me
Urgent advice to Labor. Someone must set out the truth and not let media get away with doomsday stuff. QUICKLY. The usual suspects (including Greens) are running away with it already.
Hear! Hear! leone!
All this confected outrage over an adjustment to the rate of payment that Single Mothers receive to align them with the same rate that Single Mothers with kids >8 years old, is, as you say, just a convenient hook to hang some more Gillard government bashing on.
Do Working Mothers get a government payment to stay at home with their young children until they are 8 years old? I don’t think so.
Kezza2
As i am from the Greensborough locality, it would explain why my experience is different from others.
gigilene – Ted Baillieu Premier of Victoria has slashed TAFE places by 80% AND is raising study fees in community learning centres up to $14,500 per annum.
Ted Baillieu expects the private vocational colleges to pick up the slack. The private vocational training college in Bendigo has been caught falisfying building licence certifications for its apprentices.
With our current policy of warehousing surplus labour in endless training programs there is a very real possibility of completing training that won’t get you a job but will increase your indebtedness.
gigilene: I note your suggestion about having boarders, rendered more difficult by the marked drop in overseas students studying in Australia.
I think have seen the trailer for Rummel’s plumbing and home maintenance business?
Re: Newspaper business models/advertising
The link has some really good charts.
Emma Gardner of the Economist Group presents a visual look back at digital publishing in 2012. No visual struck me more than the graph below showing the extent of devastation to newspaper print ad sales since 2006: $20 billion in annual revenue, down the drain. In that time, digital ad growth has erased only 2% of the losses. How dreadful…
And if it continues its pathetic rate of growth, four things will happen.
First, many papers will erect pay-walls to beg for online subscribers.
Second, many newspapers will discover their content is not distinguishing enough to justify digital subscribers and the pay-walls will flop.
Third, many newspapers will continue to face newsroom and frequency cuts (e.g. going to three days a week).
Fourth, many newspapers will die. They won’t die because Google attacked and killed them. They’ll die because newspapers have always been an indirect cross-subsidy of soft-news advertising paying for hard-news journalism. Online search simply offers a more direct way to advertisers to reach those soft-news readers.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-scariest-thing-about-the-newspaper-business-isnt-prints-decline-its-digitals-growth/266482/
Important Info:
Tom Cummings @cyenne40
At least one of the Macklin/Dole petitions going around was started by the NSW Tea Party. Be careful what you sign.
Expand
“How was Macklin supposed to answer that question?”
If many of the countless things wrong with the Centrelink system had been fixed on her watch she probably wouldn’t have to. But Labor has generally been gutless on Centrelink reform in five years in office. About the only thing I find to be said in their favour on the issue is that they have not pursued making it worse with the same zeal as Howard.
bushfirebill is right – I’ve had quite a deal of experience with the system in the past, eg as a partner of someone who is studying, and I find it appalling and disgraceful on almost every level. The base payment rates, modest as they are, are about the least worst thing about it. I take particular offence at the assumption that any time I earn more than some ridiculously small sum (think last time it was about $850/fortnight) then I will spend most of the excess supporting my partner and therefore her rate can be cut. Never mind if I might want to save that money so that if my line of work (which pays well per hour but is specialised) is struck by a severe downturn, I can get through that without going near Centrelink myself.
I’d like to see Macklin try living the full Centrelink experience for a while – not just the rate but the stigma, the bureaucracy, the hoop-jumping, the time wasting, the incompetence, the applying for jobs you know you will not get, etc. If she can’t she shouldn’t imply that she could.
there are ways , when i was a tw manager i helped many young
mum get in to party plan, some where very successful
just two months ago i was at a professional for an appointment.
a young woman in her 40 s said, ‘ hello, i have alwasy wanted to see you againn,” o looked rather stunned, she said’ have you forgotten how you gave me some of your own parties and helped me get started]
when you retired, she went on to say i was so inspirted by the things that i achieved in t w i went on to study,’ ended up with big cuddles for each other, it made me rather teary and proud.
so you see it can be done i ask about baby, o she said he now jst about to finish yr 12 he hoping to get in to medicine
true story
well i hate to burst your bubbles but joe
public would rather think its a good idea
ive been around the traps a lot in my life sadly there is not much
sympathy of single mums
Was it Howard who privatised the system? (I’d hate to blame him unnecessarily – 👿 ) I remember that there were many ripoffs by the “welfare business” at that time.
billie
Earlier this morning you aked what we thought about hysterectomies for disabled girls. This is an issue close to my heart because a friend of mine (she passed away a few years ago) went though a lengthy court battle to allow her intellectually disabled daughter to have a hysterectomy.
Here is the court judgement, it will give some idea of the problems many families face when dealing with this issue.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FamCA/1992/19.html
Comments in the article you linked like this one really make me angry.
‘The executive director of Women with Disabilities Australia, Carolyn Frohmader, said options such as family planning and menstrual management were not being explored because the sexuality of young women with disabilities was not widely accepted.’
The women in that particular group are not intellectually disabled, they are unable to comprehend the problems facing girls with intellectual disabilities and their families. I’ve worked with young women with very high support needs, including my firend’s daughter. We became friends trhough my involvement with the disability service her daughter attended. It is definitely possible to teach many (not all) young women with intellectual disabilites to manage their periods and to ensure they have birth control. It is possible for many young women with intellectual disabilities to have children, but it is usually impossible for them to raise those children without a lot of help from others. I’m not going to begin on the problems that can ocur when women and their partners who have disabilities that are genetic in origin pass on those problems to their children.
It’s a very delicate issue, there’s no one solution and it can’t all be swept away with sweeping generalisations about ‘options’.
Well, to be fair, the Centrelink experience does seem to have improved in the last few years.
As a casual teacher who gets the occasional spot of contract work, I’ve been on and off it for a few years now.
The waits on the phone are definitely shorter, the reporting mechanisms are far easier and more efficient and I’m not being asked to turn up to interviews without making an appointment – a true nightmare. (You couldn’t make an appointment in advance, but had to turn up on the day. If they’d run out of appointment slots, then you had to turn up on another day. Took me three attempts, each time driving 50 minutes, standing in a queue for at least half an hour, to be told that I’d arrived too late that day to get one – in the end, had to arrive at 8 am, queue outside the unopened office, and got one at 11).
Now it’s either a definite time and date or they ring you.
Small changes, but they do make a difference.
Now, the job network providers are the real nasties! In my son’s case, he has never had an appointment start on time, and on a couple of occasions has been sent home and asked to come back another day because they were running behind time. And they lecture him about his clothes and hair etc (which he wouldn’t mind, except he sees old school mates of his in the waiting room in shorts and Tshirts while he’s there in office wear).
o come on . if you earn more you payMORE tax\\if you earn more
you get less pension,
the child endowment payment i think are to muc h we got preciious little and i never thought i should get more,
the baby bonus un heard of
what a pac of whingers, to an and see how you get on in the USA or UK now and also with a abbott gov,
i amazed at this reacation.
for god sake grow up all of you
no body starves here, we grow our own vegies we have chooks
and friuit trees the only thing ive bought at the supermaket of late is diary products. and i make my own ice cream can make two litres for the cost of 600 mil cream and full cream milk and two eggs
i make my bread costs about 45 cents a loaf
when our son was at uni he had to ring centre link every monday fortnight to say what his part time job at earned him and his youth allownes was paid in a accordance to that.
that was in the howard years.
thanks Leonetwo
there is no wait on the phone if you take the trouble to get a pin number
you use the voice mail to them and they phone you back
i think its a wonderful service try being on a call centre all day and see what abiuse you would get but most answer the phone with a cheery voice.
the people who help you get on pension here any way are very good at their jobs
any way ive got bread to make
Well said kevinbonham. Unfortunately the ALP is not perfect and this is one area where we would be entitled to expect a lot more. It’s a disgrace, but one in which the powers that be have decided there are not a lot of votes.
And of course there’ll be crocodile tears, just like with asylum seekers. It’s like complaining that the sky is blue, or that Murdoch’s always against us. Labor needs to deal with these things as they arrive and be far more pro-active and assertive for a change.
Peter Brent @mumbletwits
Stunt month. Groan. MT @KerrieYaxley The Greens Adam Bandt is going to try living on dole for a week & he’s invited JM to join him
Totally agree.
vic
Interesting stats when you drill down into them. And thanks for taking the message on board.
I was interested in the median rental in Greensborough $307 compared with Moe $140, with twice as many renting in Motown as opposed to Greensborough.
I just don’t know what can be done to attract business to the Latrobe Valley. It still hasn’t recovered from privatisation of the SEC.
Just over 2 years ago Colin Barnett said you don’t need airconditioners in Perth.
Wonder what he thinks now after the heatwave?
dont you love leonie says like it is,,, wish you could say that on talk back
look the young woman like c tomma is not complaining
take that example of a wonderful mum and giver of love to her two boys
it the ladies in c omma position, i feel for,
not the very young ones these days., the pill is available i know thats harsh but is a reality
spinebill – Yes, Howard.
They split up the CES into Centrelink and Employment National.
In the first year of operation Employment National paid a dividend of $400m.
This upset the fibs to no end – so it was arranged that they get zero contracts for Year 2.
Thanks denese. 🙂 I try my best. We never have Maccas but I think that’s a plus! My boys are learning how to cook cheap, healthy meals. Another plus!
Anyway, it’s not a matter on whether you can live on $35/day but how you live on $35/day.
If Adam Bandt tries to live his normal lifestyle on $35/day, of course he won’t be able to. However, given time he would learn how to cope. Anyway, as has been said earlier, it’s not a flat $35/day if you are a Single Mum with kids. There’s all sorts of Allowances tacked on to the base rate that add to the take out sum.
Talking of the “I’ll live on the dolw for a week” stunts reminds me of those silly TV programs in which a family is “sent back” to live 100/200 years ago. Just so that viewers can preen themselves as to how lucky they are now, and weren’t the “old days” terrible.
The chosen family are plonked back into the past with apparently none of the knowledge or skills that people grew up with then. They panic when they have to keep a stove going for cooking. The kids don’t know how to chop wood. They don’t know how to amuse themselves without their techology… It’s so stupid to pretend it’s a serious trial.
Same goes for a family suddenly on a reduced income. They don’t necessarily have the skills to survive comfortably. Not their fault, just the way it is.
Please, Denese/my say, when armageddon/climate change really hits, hang on to your homemaking skills so that you can teach them to all the younger ones who won’t know how to cope. 🙂
RE: US “Fiscal Cliff”
House Republicans abandoned their effort to add spending cuts to the Senate’s budget legislation and one member predicted the measure will be passed tonight.
Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole said he expects the House to pass the Senate bill unchanged with a “substantial” bipartisan vote. The House Rules Committee scheduled an 8:10 p.m. meeting to set the parameters for the vote.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-01/house-republicans-said-to-plan-two-options-on-u-s-budget-bill.html
John Quiggan commentary on this topic is at
http://johnquiggin.com/2013/01/01/could-jenny-macklin-live-on-the-dole/#comments
Kezza2
My locality has a high proportion of tradies, teachers, nurses, accountants etc.
Perhaps J Macklin could come out and rephrase her answer. I’m forever surprised at experienced MPs’ superficial answers when they shoud be so used to gotchas. This question: “Could you live on the dole?” has been asked so many times, and still J M couldn’t find a more appropriate answer.
Spinebill,
Not just “homemaking” skills, either – but all those DIY skills like changing a car tyre, changing a washer, replacing a fuse, knowing how to use a screwdriver as opposed to a hammer … all skills along with the food growing/preparation, shelter and clothing ones that for so many people (and not just young ‘uns) that have gone by the board.
These knowledge bases are so important. Not just for armageddon and other catastrophes, but in order to live sustainably and sensibly and within one’s income, even if it is small. Yet we have for way too long been quite happy to acquiesce in the deskilling of society. After all, it’s to the huge benefit of one particular group … now, I wonder which that might be?
margo kingston @margokingston1
ABBOTT SLUSH NEWS: @AusElectoralCom didn’t refer him to AFP because it ‘never formed a view’ on possible criminality. http://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/australians_for_honest_politics …
Happy New Year all from a PB seldom contributor. Very nervous about 2013. It will end either fantastic or horrific. Here’s hoping it’s fantastic.
As for living on the dole, of course Macklin could, just like many 100s of others do every day. She might not like having to do it, but if it was her only means of staying alive she would do it out of necessity. It may not be easy, nobody is saying it is, but it is certainly possible.
denese
You are right about attitude towards single mums and those that are on the dole for years. You only need to watch ACA and Today Tonight
gigilene:
Exactly. It always amazes me too when they get caught out, but it does happen. It’s largely a symptom of gotcha journalism.