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Superannuation (Super) was started to free Australia from the ever rising costs of pensions.
Instead of someone existing on a tiny little pension after retirement they'd become a member of a super fund and when they retire they have more money available to them.
Before they retire they regularly contribute money to the fund and their money is invested by the fund where there is likely to be a high return providing the fund member with more money upon retirement.
There are calls to force super funds to be invested in building the infrastructure.
If the economy was booming then the super funds would invest more in the country.
Super funds exist solely for the benefit of workers to fund their retirement and must have the freedom to invest where the return is the highest, not be stifled by the someones ambitions of looking good at someone else's expense.
And that's the key point, the funds are solely there for the fund members, superannuation has no obligations outside of those members, it certainly isn't a special reserve fund that someone just has to work out the secret for getting their hands on it.
I don't want less of a return on my future security just because someone wanted something built to make themselves look good.
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Thursday, 24 January 2008
Saturday, 5 January 2008
The Road Toll
I could ask myself why we even have a high road toll to begin with. After all there are better roads always being built, more traffic lights and roundabouts, safer cars and the peachy wonderful caring times we live in.
I didn't ask myself because I believe I already know the answer and that is no matter how good the infrastructure is bad drivers will undermine the best of efforts and cause carnage. Often I will see bad driving and I wonder how it is that the road toll isn't higher. Someone of my former acquaintance would always tailgate other vehicles, sms while driving, drive too fast through car parks, ignore the signs in the car park such as the no entry signs and ignore you when you shouted warnings.
This person once crashed into the back of some one that they were tailgating and apparently blamed the other driver for stopping suddenly. When it was mentioned to the tailgater that they were supposed to leave sufficient space for such a situation the tailgater just ignored it and continued with their same driving habits.
A colleague of mine told me that when they were recently driving long distance they were nearly hit by a careless driver, they were on a winding stretch of two lane terrace highway. He noticed some headlights briefly appear behind a semi trailer coming the other way. Although there was an unbroken line between the lanes and there wasn't much room for him to pull over due to the guard rail at the edge of the road he got out of his lane as much as he could just in time to see the semi coming around the blind curve and the headlights from behind the semi now overtaking the semi on the blind curve. If my colleague hadn't noticed the headlights up ahead and moved over he could have been wiped out all because someone couldn't be bothered to obey the road rules.
And really, just everybody obeying the road rules is all it would take to reduce the road toll.
I didn't ask myself because I believe I already know the answer and that is no matter how good the infrastructure is bad drivers will undermine the best of efforts and cause carnage. Often I will see bad driving and I wonder how it is that the road toll isn't higher. Someone of my former acquaintance would always tailgate other vehicles, sms while driving, drive too fast through car parks, ignore the signs in the car park such as the no entry signs and ignore you when you shouted warnings.
This person once crashed into the back of some one that they were tailgating and apparently blamed the other driver for stopping suddenly. When it was mentioned to the tailgater that they were supposed to leave sufficient space for such a situation the tailgater just ignored it and continued with their same driving habits.
A colleague of mine told me that when they were recently driving long distance they were nearly hit by a careless driver, they were on a winding stretch of two lane terrace highway. He noticed some headlights briefly appear behind a semi trailer coming the other way. Although there was an unbroken line between the lanes and there wasn't much room for him to pull over due to the guard rail at the edge of the road he got out of his lane as much as he could just in time to see the semi coming around the blind curve and the headlights from behind the semi now overtaking the semi on the blind curve. If my colleague hadn't noticed the headlights up ahead and moved over he could have been wiped out all because someone couldn't be bothered to obey the road rules.
And really, just everybody obeying the road rules is all it would take to reduce the road toll.
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Halloween And Beyond
"In recent years, there have been reports of people with twisted minds putting razor blades and poison in taffy apples and Halloween candy. It is no longer safe to let your child eat treats that come from strangers." –Ann Landers
It’s never safe to let your children eat anything given to them by a stranger, I decided to do some research to see if children have been victims of confectionary tampering at Halloween. Apart from some people using Halloween poisonings to cover their own crimes and schemes it looks like “only” 5 children have died from eating tampered Halloween lollies.
That’s 5 children too many.
In one case reported on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoned_candy_scare a father used Halloween as a cover to murder his child for the life insurance by giving him cyanide laced lollies. The father then gave out poisoned lollies to other children to try and cover his crime so there’s an example of children being endangered by tainted lollies.
Whatever the motivation behind the poisonings it’s still the child on the receiving end of the poisoning, not a nice place to be. Saying its all someone else’s fault for giving out poisoned lollies doesn’t help the affected child.
And even if there were no or very few Halloween poisonings there can still be other potential consequences such as children accepting lollies from strangers at other times of the year, given children’s logic and simple desire for lollies, if it’s ok at Halloween there must be other times it’s ok.
That it’s never ok and there are no exceptions is what we need to teach.
It’s never safe to let your children eat anything given to them by a stranger, I decided to do some research to see if children have been victims of confectionary tampering at Halloween. Apart from some people using Halloween poisonings to cover their own crimes and schemes it looks like “only” 5 children have died from eating tampered Halloween lollies.
That’s 5 children too many.
In one case reported on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoned_candy_scare a father used Halloween as a cover to murder his child for the life insurance by giving him cyanide laced lollies. The father then gave out poisoned lollies to other children to try and cover his crime so there’s an example of children being endangered by tainted lollies.
Whatever the motivation behind the poisonings it’s still the child on the receiving end of the poisoning, not a nice place to be. Saying its all someone else’s fault for giving out poisoned lollies doesn’t help the affected child.
And even if there were no or very few Halloween poisonings there can still be other potential consequences such as children accepting lollies from strangers at other times of the year, given children’s logic and simple desire for lollies, if it’s ok at Halloween there must be other times it’s ok.
That it’s never ok and there are no exceptions is what we need to teach.
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Halloween
Halloween is over and done with for another year, this American tradition has been working its way into Australia for at least the last 10 years, maybe more and it now has a solid foothold in this country.
I have a problem with it.
When I say that some of the people that I’ve spoken to interrupt to say I don’t like it because it’s an American tradition and it has no place in this country.
Thankfully though most people let me finish speaking before adding their opinions.
Whether you interrupt me or you don’t, either way you find out my objections to Halloween lie in the fact it encourages children to do the very thing we should be teaching them not to do. We should be teaching them not to accept lollies from strangers, we should be teaching them to stay away from strangers to begin with.
Halloween teaches children to approach strangers then it teaches them to accept lollies from strangers.
We used to be taught at school to stay away from strangers and parents should be teaching it as well. It is not a rule of convenience that you can ignore whenever it suits you.
Some parents accompany their children but that doesn’t actually prevent people from tampering with lollies before they give them out and as good as forensic science is once a child has eaten something its origin is difficult to trace especially if they’ve been to a few houses.
It’s better if they aren’t put in that position to begin with.
And one good way to avoid that is by keeping children away from strangers all year round.
I have a problem with it.
When I say that some of the people that I’ve spoken to interrupt to say I don’t like it because it’s an American tradition and it has no place in this country.
Thankfully though most people let me finish speaking before adding their opinions.
Whether you interrupt me or you don’t, either way you find out my objections to Halloween lie in the fact it encourages children to do the very thing we should be teaching them not to do. We should be teaching them not to accept lollies from strangers, we should be teaching them to stay away from strangers to begin with.
Halloween teaches children to approach strangers then it teaches them to accept lollies from strangers.
We used to be taught at school to stay away from strangers and parents should be teaching it as well. It is not a rule of convenience that you can ignore whenever it suits you.
Some parents accompany their children but that doesn’t actually prevent people from tampering with lollies before they give them out and as good as forensic science is once a child has eaten something its origin is difficult to trace especially if they’ve been to a few houses.
It’s better if they aren’t put in that position to begin with.
And one good way to avoid that is by keeping children away from strangers all year round.
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Choice
There’s a law in place that essentially lets you get away with murder so long as you have an excuse. It doesn’t have to be a good excuse, any excuse will do.
People lose their temper and attack someone and get away with it, people attack someone and state they didn’t know striking their victim would kill them. People take drugs and attack people and claim it’s not their fault because they were under the influence of the drugs that they chose to take. People get drunk and attack people and claim it’s not their fault because they were under the influence of alcohol that they chose to drink.
Then they are let off without punishment or the charge is downgraded and they serve less time.
Meanwhile their victims are dead and they are dead because someone has taken their life. Families lose a member because someone else didn’t want to control themself.
If you can’t control your temper get some help.
You don’t need to know that striking someone may kill them because you are not supposed to be striking people in the first place.
If drugs affect your behaviour and prevent you from controlling yourself then don’t take drugs. It is not your right to take drugs if your drug taking will adversely affect others. Many drugs are also illegal.
If alcohol affects your behaviour and prevent you from controlling yourself then don’t drink. It is not your right to drink if your drinking will adversely affect others
Other people are not there to suffer the adverse affects of actions that were the result your choices.
There are plenty of avenues of help available to people if they have problems.
You do not have the right to take your problems out on other people.
People lose their temper and attack someone and get away with it, people attack someone and state they didn’t know striking their victim would kill them. People take drugs and attack people and claim it’s not their fault because they were under the influence of the drugs that they chose to take. People get drunk and attack people and claim it’s not their fault because they were under the influence of alcohol that they chose to drink.
Then they are let off without punishment or the charge is downgraded and they serve less time.
Meanwhile their victims are dead and they are dead because someone has taken their life. Families lose a member because someone else didn’t want to control themself.
If you can’t control your temper get some help.
You don’t need to know that striking someone may kill them because you are not supposed to be striking people in the first place.
If drugs affect your behaviour and prevent you from controlling yourself then don’t take drugs. It is not your right to take drugs if your drug taking will adversely affect others. Many drugs are also illegal.
If alcohol affects your behaviour and prevent you from controlling yourself then don’t drink. It is not your right to drink if your drinking will adversely affect others
Other people are not there to suffer the adverse affects of actions that were the result your choices.
There are plenty of avenues of help available to people if they have problems.
You do not have the right to take your problems out on other people.
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Self-Defence
Hot on the heels of the corporal punishment debate are some stories of other perceptions regarding punishment and how with other perceptions the boundaries of punishment, violence, right and wrong etc are blurred and how some see punishment as violence and therefore wrong and how self-defence can also be seen by some in the same way.
Where the boundaries are blurred the possible consequences of not punishing wrong doers are often overlooked followed by an outright denial of any actual consequences that occur.
One of these consequences is bullying, someone told me about their son who was attacked by a bully at school and in turn fought back which stopped the bully in his tracks and prevented further attacks. This parent then received a call from a teacher condemning the sons self defence from the bully by saying in a self-righteous manner that violence is never an answer. The parent countered by asking was her son supposed to just stand there and let the bully attack him and when confronted with this question the teacher hung up.
Some people like the teacher will get a self righteous attitude and feel they don’t have to justify their position because they feel they are on the higher moral ground and don’t have answer to anyone as what they are saying is the be all and end all of the argument.
It’s very easy for that teacher and others of that mindset to take that stance because they are not the ones being attacked, feeling pain and humiliation and they are not the ones whose education suffers. They are too busy feeling morally superior while allowing others to suffer from bullying just so they can cling to the flawed reasoning that self-defence is violence and therefore wrong.
Self-defence is not violence; it is a response to being attacked. The bully is the violent one and the other person is the victim. Stop the bully and you stop the violence.
Bullying can have long-term effects on the lives of their victims. If you make someone feel bad all the time they often won’t reach their potential because they can’t see it themselves anymore. Someone who may have made anywhere from a modest to an outstanding living can find themselves going nowhere, all because they were bullied and didn’t stand up for themselves or weren’t allowed to.
And yes, there are all sorts of support/therapy services available for victims but not everyone can find them and the reality is people would be better off if they weren’t put in a position where they need these services.
Where the boundaries are blurred the possible consequences of not punishing wrong doers are often overlooked followed by an outright denial of any actual consequences that occur.
One of these consequences is bullying, someone told me about their son who was attacked by a bully at school and in turn fought back which stopped the bully in his tracks and prevented further attacks. This parent then received a call from a teacher condemning the sons self defence from the bully by saying in a self-righteous manner that violence is never an answer. The parent countered by asking was her son supposed to just stand there and let the bully attack him and when confronted with this question the teacher hung up.
Some people like the teacher will get a self righteous attitude and feel they don’t have to justify their position because they feel they are on the higher moral ground and don’t have answer to anyone as what they are saying is the be all and end all of the argument.
It’s very easy for that teacher and others of that mindset to take that stance because they are not the ones being attacked, feeling pain and humiliation and they are not the ones whose education suffers. They are too busy feeling morally superior while allowing others to suffer from bullying just so they can cling to the flawed reasoning that self-defence is violence and therefore wrong.
Self-defence is not violence; it is a response to being attacked. The bully is the violent one and the other person is the victim. Stop the bully and you stop the violence.
Bullying can have long-term effects on the lives of their victims. If you make someone feel bad all the time they often won’t reach their potential because they can’t see it themselves anymore. Someone who may have made anywhere from a modest to an outstanding living can find themselves going nowhere, all because they were bullied and didn’t stand up for themselves or weren’t allowed to.
And yes, there are all sorts of support/therapy services available for victims but not everyone can find them and the reality is people would be better off if they weren’t put in a position where they need these services.
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