My view and thoughts on everything!

The Abbott government has a huge issue that it needs to resolve. In fact, it is really two issues. The first is to try and convince the Palmer United Party senators (with Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiasts Party in tow) and other independent senators to pass a hugely controversial budget. The second is to sell this ‘austerity’ type budget to the electorate. So far the Government has not succeeded with either of these issues.  Even if the bills pass the Senate, and therefore becomes law, it is expected that there would still be a lot of hostility from the public. How can the government turn this around and effectively sell the specifics of the budget to an already sceptical electorate? If we look at it another way, how did the Government dig this huge ‘hole’ for themselves in the first place?  To answer this it is best to look at a couple of sporting analogies. With the FIFA World Cup breathing down our necks, I thought it would be best to start with an analogy of the fo

There has been a lot of debate recently over the Australian Government’s decision to look at amending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.   The amendments proposed include removing the provisions making it unlawful to “offend, insult or humiliate” based on a person’s race.   This would be replaced with a new clause that bans racial vilification.   In brief, a large number of Australian’s feel that the proposed changes will, in effect, allow people to be more racist to others. Since the debate about section 18C has started there has been a couple of incidents, most particularly in multi-cultural Ryde, where a poster was displayed with the words “No more Asians.   It’s not the face of Australia.   We speak English.   Save our Aussie culture”. Under the proposed amendments a number of migrant groups fear that they will incur more racist incidences like this one. Before I move on, I would point out that every country has elements of racism.   This can be along the lines

It has been a while since my last blog, so I thought I had better rectify this! So much has happened over the past few months that it is hard to know where to start.  However, I would like to start with a topic that touches every one of us and that is "Respect".  In particular social media respect. As human beings we can be very self-opinionated.  On the whole, this is an admirable quality.  If we didn't sometimes challenge each other, authorities or our beliefs then the world would be a much more boring and backward thinking place. However, we need to show respect to others when we are using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.  People use social media for a variety of reasons from keeping in contact with family and friends, sharing interests, following 'celebrities' and also to share opinions on a number of topics. In the old days (pre-internet) a lot of conversations would take place in the tea room or at the water cooler at work.  In re