Monthly Archives: February 2014

Retire at 70 – pig’s arse!

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Oh my God.

I am so glad I could testify on a pile of whatever religious books you care to name that I did not vote for the parties running the country right now.  These bunch of lunatics, yes it’s time for strong words kiddies, are now telling us that we need to work to age 70 before we can gracefully retire.  Well then, allow me to say the following on behalf of all working Australians that are not in love with their jobs, which I imagine is a hell of a lot of us.

“Get stuffed Joe.”

This is the same government that is committed to “lowering taxes”.  So in return for them lowering taxes, I get to work an extra 3 years?  Hey Joe, put my taxes UP.  Yes, UP.  Here is my layman’s view of what out tax system should look like.

Since I process payrolls for a living I have a bit of an idea on how much people pay in tax.  People on low incomes, and I work for a Group Training Employer so I know all about that since I pay 550 apprentices and trainees each week, get little to no tax deducted, which is as it should be.  I still say the Tax Free Threshold cuts in a bit low but it’s a decent start.  But working in payrolls I have had to complete returns to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for years and years and they come up with great numbers like what the Average Wage is in this country.  So why is it Joe that people earning obscene, and yes that is a fully appropriate term here, amounts of money that they never, at any stage, pay 50% of it in tax?  So let us start a new tax scale right now.

$0 – $42000 per annum = tax rate of 0

$42001 to $60000 per annum = tax rate of 25%

$60001 to $90000 per annum = tax rate of 38%

$90001 to $150000 per annum = tax rate of 45%

$150001 plus per annum = tax rate of 60%

Why that number?  That ladies and gentlemen is DOUBLE the average Australian weekly wage as determined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as of November 2013 and can be found at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/6302.0~Nov+2013~Main+Features~Key+Figures?OpenDocument

Next we wipe out all of these stupid things that the mega-wealthy can claim in on their tax returns.  Film Australia grants, tax losses on investments and all the other complete bollocks that I have to skip through when I do the tax for myself, my wife and my father.  What should be a five minute job to do our taxes takes almost an hour each by the time you run through all the dribble that people can claim back on their tax.  Hell, I had a meeting with a Salary Packaging specialist who advised me to put my car in my wife’s name, lease it to my employer and claim all of my running costs as a tax deduction.  He also suggested some of my higher paid colleagues should eat out a lot and claim expenses as the tax differential between it being fringe benefits versus PAYG was favourable and could save us thousands,  Not that any of it is legitimate “entertainment” expenses as part of our work – no, it’s a way to “legally” dodge the tax system.  Can it all.  All of it.  Get rid of negative gearing, fringe benefits, all the crap that I end up paying for so that people wealthier than me can get benefits from the tax system.

If all of that garbage was gone, and we had NOT have sold assets that were profitable such as Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank, NSW State Lotteries, etc, then the government would have legitimate income streams.

But no, let’s dig a multi-billion dollar hole in our budget and give the average Australian a $10 dollar a week tax cut.  YOU IDIOTS – WE DON’T WANT PIDDLING LITTLE TAX CUTS – WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO EDUCATE OUR KIDS AT STATE SCHOOLS, WE WANT TO GO TO A DOCTOR AND NOT PAY $65 TO BE TOLD WE HAVE THE FLU AND NEED TO STAY HOME AND HERE IS A MEDICAL CERTIFICATE.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg of what I could write there.

How.  Hard.  Can.  It.  Be.

Ah, yes. The Media

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This week the biggest headline of all is that of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby being released from prison in Indonesia.  Schapelle has to stay in Indonesia as she is effectively on parole, for a further 3 years I think.  During this time she will apparently stay with family based there.  Fine.  I think a 3 minute news story would have been sufficient for that.  Oh nooooo.  Let’s have a reporter from every network effectively camped at the front of the prison to see her come out.  Let’s have a cameraman waiting at the Parole Office where she needs to sign her parole documentation.  And don’t forget to stake out her family member’s surf shop or whatever it is.  And we must report on the bidding war for the first interview as well.  Reportedly $3M is what she may get for that interview.  And it is with the Seven network as she wanted to snub the Nine network for showing a movie based on her story.  My apologies for the next line to Schapelle and her family and friends but seriously, who the hell cares?  Why should the reporting about this be at saturation point?  Note the earlier bolded bit – convicted.  Not alleged, convicted.  So is the news so dull at the moment that we need saturation coverage of the parole of an Australian prisoner in another country?  Perhaps it is.

But.  And to me it is a big but.  There was a great hoo-haa when David Hicks was released from Guantanamo Bay about how he could not sell his story as he was a convicted terrorist.  Now my point of view here pretty much coincides with that of his father Terry in that only thing he should have been convicted of was stupidity in being where he was, when he was.  One day I’ll read the book he wrote and see his side of the story, but the extensive amount I read during his trial added up to being convicted of wandering around and talking to bad people.  Ridiculous.  But now that I have derailed myself yet again, let me make my main point.  He was not allowed to sell his story like Schapelle Corby was.  He gets locked up in GB for years with no recourse to anything, is allegedly tortured, sent to trial (ha!) and convicted in what I would call legal absentia (meaning “look guys I’ll admit to anything if I can go home“).  Surely he has a hell of a story to tell.  Schapelle gets caught at an airport with a bag loaded with drugs, goes through a media circus where her every move outside her cell is documented by the media frenzy, including the trial, appeals and the whole lot.  We’ve seen and heard all of it other than her time in a cell.  And her story is worth $3M to a TV network and David is told to shut up?

Say what?

We’ve all heard about media bias and countless conspiracy theories that have been spread through the media about politicians, actors, musicians, sportspeople, bikies and many more.  It just rams home to me why I watch the small amount of news that I do, and why I graze the news sites that I do so I can avoid the fluff that poses as news today.  Bieber, Miley Cyrus, reality TV shows, how wonderful the current [insert relevant sport] team is now.  It drives me bonkers.  Honestly.  I sit back and read the Science literature I have available to me.  I listen to podcasts that interest me on Space Science, Physics and the like.  I play computer games.  And I take less and less interest in what actually goes on around me.  I used to be a voracious news watcher and reader.  Used to read 2 newspapers, cover-to-cover, every weekday in my early teens,  Used to watch the news every night with my parents as a kid at school.  And then watch a Current Affair, which wasn’t about dodgy tradies and which shampoo works the best then.  It was actually, wait for it, journalism.  But that is almost dead now.  Well it certainly is if you only watch commercial free-to-air TV.  And it is a shame.

The media killed my interest in the media.  Almost poetic isn’t it.

Damn it’s hot

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Yep, it has been rather stupidly hot this summer in Central Western NSW. So hot in fact I have only mowed the lawn three times in the last 2 months. Normally it is a weekly event, but it just isn’t needed. In fact what appears to some to be a bit of laziness in not mowing is actually me using the knowledge I gained of how to conserve soil moisture. It is really simple and I’ll give you a hint.

Don’t let the soil get hot.

It really is that easy. By letting your grass be a bit longer, even if it has undesirable species (for you) in it like dandalions and paspalum, you keep the top layer of the soil cooler. If none of the soil is exposed to sunlight at all then you are winning the battle. And I refuse to water the grass, unlike some who are mental enough to water it during the day when it is 35 degrees outside (cough, nearby neighbours, cough). My grass gets watered when it rains. By leaving it a little longer and mulching any cuttings straight back onto the ground while mowing I conserve some of what is about. My yard hardly looks like an Irish paddock, other then the lush green strip I attack weekly with a whipper snipper (grass that has roots down into an old septic trench that gets overflow from the rainwater tank), but there are still plenty of green bits out there. My trees that need mulching have a good layer of pea straw about the bases to conserve moisture on shaded patches of bare ground, and all in all it ain’t anywhere near as bad as it could be. Most of the nasty weeds have been taken out over the course of some years (no caltrop at all this year – YAY!) with only a bit of Khaki Weed left fortunately. So much for the plants, what are we expecting next?

And so, the upcoming 6 day forecast.

Sunday 19 – 39
Monday 20 – 40
Tuesday 19 – 38
Wednesday 17 – 37
Thursday 17 – 36
Friday 20 – 36

Long term average maximum for February – 31.7 – and amazingly that weather station has only kept temperature records since 1998. Rainfall records to 1952 but no temp data. And since the mid 90’s we are reliably informed that temperatures have been gradually rising with the climate change spectre hanging over us, and it is STILL way above that short time average.

The other piece of data of interest is this. Number of February days on average above 35 degrees here is 7.1. Hmmm. It’s the 8th, and 5 days already have been above 35. One was actually exactly 35 and I didn’t include it. We had one day below average, at 31.0, so a whopping 0.7 degrees below average. And now the next 6 look like being above 35 as well.

What I know is electricity usage is sky high during these times. Water usage tends to go up overall, but in my house it’s about the same. This kind of prolonged heat causes stress to plants, animals, humans, infrastructure and our society itself. And without getting too political, my science training and my evaluation of the evidence presented thus far at fora like the IPCC, the UN, the Royal Society, and elsewhere is the heat is going to become more common and more extreme events will occur. And we need to get on to that. But it costs $, and we all know that is more precious than anything else, that mighty $. I say bullcrap. Well I actually say a lot more than that but I am keeping this G rated. So we need to get on to it. NOW.

In the meantime though, damn it’s hot.