Smoking Kills, well so our Government tells us.  I believe the same can be said about DDT (this is banned) and various other chemicals (which are also banned).  So why then does our government allow Smoking?

Oh I know it is because of the $5.5 Billion it raises in taxes from the industry each year.

The Cancer Council of Western Australia   (Report author Professor Helen Lapsley)  October 21, 2009, put the economic contribution of the tobacco industry at about $1 billion a year and the estimated social costs of smoking at $31 billion.  “This report provides the evidence that there would be few, if any negative economic consequences in further measures to curb tobacco use in Australia”

So at this stage it is reasonable to assume that one hand of the Government makes $5.5 Billion (the hand that can make laws), the other hands of the Government spend over $31 Billion cleaning up the mess.

This mess would include Health Departments due to the well documented adverse effects of smoking on human beings, by the way this would include the Children of smokers.  It would also include the Council expenses of cleaning up water ways and streets after irresponsible smokers (this would be all, because smoking kills, and they still do it) throw their rubbish on the ground.  The list goes on, and on and on.

Passive Smoking, a polite way of saying Attempted Murder, after all Smoking Kills.

The Victoria state government is now thinking of bring in legislation to prevent smoking in cars with Children, this is good but it does not protect the children when they go home.  The government has already bought in legislation saying you cant smoke in a building at work or undercover at a train station.  What this means is that we can no longer walk down the foot path without being inundated with smoke, now we are all passive smokers.

Can you believe it that it is illegal to buy smokes for children, BUT it is not illegal for children to smoke.

Summary:-

1. Smoking Kills
2. The Government makes $5.5 Billion and loses at least $30 Billion a year
3. Passive smoking
   1. No smoking in buildings, in cars (with children).  Well done!
   2. Why is the government not protecting the children at home?
   3. What about the pedestrians on the street?
   4. When is the government going to show some spine and stop trying to profit from the death of its people
   5. Why are kids allowed to smoke?
   6. Even if they ignore everything above

Our current education System was designed in the late 18^th Century (the start of the Industrial Revolution) to create employees.  It worked well in the 19^th Century, it didn’t work in the later half of the 20^th Century and is totally inappropriate for the 21^st Century.  It still produces employees, the only issue is that employees do not last a lifetime any longer.

We need an education system to take us into the unknown future.  A great video on this is “Did You Know 2008”.

In my day at school we were never to:-

• Copy someone’s work
• Never  get other people to do your work

Well both of these have gone out the window, with the introduction of the Internet and the rapid accumulation of knowledge.  We can’t waste our time reinventing knowledge, we have to leverage off others work, rapidly, and take it the next step.  How can our current education System cope with this?  It just can’t.

Our kids are smarter than their teachers, purely because they are more capable of learning at a younger age and they are exposed to more information at their informative years, the teachers can’t possibly keep up.  If this is the case, you can the teachers come up with ways of teaching their students?

We have Years 1 – 12 at school, are these really relevant these days?  We got id of our technical colleges, when really all schools should be technical colleges, specialising in different fields of study.  It would be a precursor to University.

I personally try and keep up with my education by attending seminars a number of times a month, learning and leveraging off practicing experts in their field.

A Trainer/Coach called Jamie McIntyre wrote a book entitled “What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had”

Which puts this very well.

In all honesty I do not have the answers to this particular problem, and would welcome any input on the subject.  I know it is not working (I have an 11 year old son myself) but I seriously do not know the magic answer.

If you have the answers let me know.

Over the last 10 years or so I have noticed that Australia has been refining its Legal System, our Justice System has all but gone.

We have a legal system where a Judge will say that a 9 year old girl invited 4 men to have sex with her.  A guy with martial arts experience and DoJo and dummy at home, that kicks someone in the head and kills them, goes to jail, gets out and does it again and gets off with a good behaviour bond.

The list of injustices goes on and on and on.

So how do we find ourselves in this position?  Is it political correctness gone insane?  Is it that we have Judges that have no concept about what public standards are?  Is it that our Politicians just do not have the guts to bring the Judges into line.

We need focus on Justice not Legal, after all we only have a legal system to ensure that Justice is upheld.  If this is the case, then we just have to keep our eye on the ball and focus on Justice.

Week nights on TV they have Border Control, Police on Patrol shows which show drunk drivers getting off with little fines, drug traffickers getting off on good behaviour bonds, etc…   What is this teaching our teenagers and children?  It teaches them that there a few if any consequences for their actions.

We have youths going out getting drunk and beating each other, stabbing each other or glassing each other at night clubs and in the streets.  They have no regard for human life and they get off.  These people have no right in normal society, they belong in an environment more suitable to their lifestyle.  If they choose to behave out side or normal acceptable society boundaries then they need to be taken out of society until they can learn how to behave.

Tonight we have a school kid arrested for being a drug pusher at a private school.  Justice for that school society would involve taking that person out of the environment.  Now the problem with any vacuum is that things expand to consuming the space.  In other words someone will take his place.   We need to follow up this justice with penalties for his customers, and education for the environment.  I suspect that the education will come down to the Judge giving him a small fine, and a year of probation.

In Summary:-

1. Justice is our ambition, the Legal system is the facility to achieve this ambition
2. We need our Judges to conform to society standards
3. We need out Politicians to have some gust and make a stand on Justice
4. We need to set examples and have education for our children and youths
5. We need to through out our soft touch legal system and introduce Justice (and I don’t mean stoning)

Well anybody that has worked for the State or Federal Government has come towards the end of Financial Year and found that they have money to spend. Funny Money.

This is money that has been budgeted for in the previous year and the project has not come to fruition, as a result there is spare money. So what do public servants do? Spend it and spend it fast.

Why you may ask, why not save the money or roll it over to the next year, well the answer that EVERY Public Servant that I have ever worked with or known gives is:-

“If I don’t spend it then my budget will be cut next year”.

So where do they get this idea from? They get it from all their predecessors, their colleagues and their Government mentors before them.

So what really happens if they don’t spend their budget? Well who knows I don’t know anyone that has done that. There has always been last minute technology purchases, courses and the like.

OK lets try a novel concept, again lets try rewarding people to change their behaviour rather than penalising them. How about if they don’t use their budget and they achieve their Key Performance Indicators, they are rewarded? After all we want the objectives fulfilled, why waste the money out of irrational fear of being penalised professionally.

Lets give the Public Servants that achieve their goals a reward, a Christmas bonus of 1% of their budget surplus. This would go down the line, to the lowest level Manager/Supervisor. This is a performance based reward for saving money and still achieving Departmental goals.

I personally have worked for Government Departments where we have decommissioned offices and left $100,000 worth of servers in the buildings for the building owners, so we did not have to retrieve $3,300,000 worth of equipment which would be counted in our departments assets when we were audited.
This is ludicrous. I always wonder how often it happens.

In Summary:-
1. Get rid of Funny Money and bring some common sense to the Public Service
2. Promote good business practice within the Government
3. Reward Public Services that run their business well
4. Save Government money, so we as a nation can achieve more.

Well there is no doubt that there are a very small minority of people out there that spend their lives trying to rort the system and spend their life on unemployment benefits while the rest of us work.

You can not make people work, what you can do is make it their problem and not ours, let them exercise their rights and make a choice, but that choice has consequences. The consequences would be the loss of benefits.

Unemployment benefits are their for employees that need it, we now have the governments statistically rigged rate (now that is a whole other story) of 5.8%. That is pretty low really compared with the rest of the world. We pay our taxes for just such an event that we may need Government support. That is our right.

An abuse of this right is if we as employees knock back work or do not make every effort to get a job. I have found that jobs attract jobs, if you don;t have a job it is hard to find one, if you have one, you can generally have quite a few. So the technique is to get a job, not knock them back.
If you can;t find a job in 3 months you probably don;t have the skills to find one. If you can;t find a job in 6 months then you are not trying. At this point unemployment benefits cut in half. After 9 months they should be revoked totally. Only if you are working for 1 year after that does the clock start again, otherwise you go back to half benefits, or none at all.

We need to give people the tools and motivation to ensure that they are contributing to their own well being and upkeep.

There are so many benefits to being employed, on a personal and emotional level, we need to assist these people with their lives. Again you can;t help people that don;t want help, they have to help themselves. We can only give motivation and support.

The people that are found to be rorting the system, should be prosecuted. Garnishing their wages is a futile exercise, given that they may never earn anything. This leaves only 2 solutions, 1 imprisonment, 2 community services. I would much prefer that they pay back their illegal gains in 30% community service until the funds are returned. The 30% would be equivalent to 12 hours a week, based on a 40 hour week. If they do not perform the 12 hours a week community service then the only other choice would be to serve it in custody (weekend detention)

In summary:-
1. There are jobs there for those that really want them.
2. Unemployment benefits are there to be used, not abused.
3. Reduce and Cut benefits after 6/9 months of unemployment
4. Rorters payback money, do community service or weekend detention
5. Everyone has the right to make choices for them selves, you just have to be prepared to live with them.

Right now there is a boat load of ex Sri Lankans , docked in Indonesia, that were rescued by Australia Customs. The majority of whom have admitted to having lived in Indonesia for the last 5 years. Now that the Australian Government immigration policies have softened, they have taken the opportunity to pay tens of thousands of dollars each to illegally migrate to Australia.

Now these are people that left Sri Lanka before the turmoil over the last few years. These are people that have passed by 34 other countries to get to Australia. The have lived in another country for 5 years, and have not developed businesses or a life in the community in that time frame. Given this, why would you expect that if they came to Australia, they would be beneficial parts of society?

In the 5 years they have been in Indonesia, they have had plenty of time to apply to become immigrants, they choose not to, they choose to jump the queue and come anyway.

They have committed a crime against Australia before they even get to Australian land. This should be enough for them to automatically be rejected. They have now hijacked a rescue vessel, refusing to get off. They are now black mailing Australia, that if they are not allowed to come to Australia then they will starve themselves. Sri Lanka has already provided intelligence that some of them are known criminals.

How many more crimes are they going to be allowed to commit before they are physically ejected from the Customs vessel?

These ex Sri Lankans make the legitimate refugees look bad.

Australia should be taking refugees, we should be accepting immigrants, but this boat load are criminals in their own country and Australia. We should not be accepting them, our penal colony days are over, we live in the greatest country. People that want to come to this country should treat it with respect. These attempted illegal immigrants / blackmailers do not deserve to be part of this country.

A friend who is a nurse asked me for my thoughts on this, so here it comes.

Currently the Health System in every State & Territory have pretty much the same problems. This instantly says that it is not s State based problem it is a Federal problem. The Federal Government has to take over as step 1.

Step 2. Private practices have to be setup in Public hospital Emergency Departments. This will allow a person with full Health Insurance to be able to get ER help without having to wait for hours in the waiting room. It will also be a nice revenue stream for the Public hospital.

Step 3. Full fees need to be setup for things like Sex Changes, IVF for “bad parents”, IVF for gay couples.
Step 4. Bring back the volunteers into the Hospitals. They can assist with many different things, there by relieving the paid staff and allowing them to work in more effective areas.

The Health System should not be privatised, we never want to end up like the USA.

On the subject of medical staff wages, a federal system will give greater control of wages, because there will not be the Union line of “We are the lowest paid nurses in Australia” because they will all be paid the same.

Importing Expertise. I think experience has shown us that more checks have to be done on applicants; they should also be tested when they arrive.
What can we do about training more staff here in Australia? We seriously need to investigate why we are not getting enough medical staff trained in Australia, the Clever Country.

Doctor’s hours have come into the media on occasions, I agree it is silly that they are working more than 12 hour shifts, I would not want someone with my life in their hands that is virtually over the legal limit of 0.05 due to fatigue. This is just wrong and we need to do whatever we have to, to fix this. More staff, more suitably qualified staff.

How do you achieve all this? Money!
The Medicare levy needs to be raised to 3%

In Summary:-
1. The State System is not working
2. Private ER practices within Public Hospitals
3. Full Fees for certain surgical procedures, and certain demographics
4. Volunteers
5. Import more Expertise , Train more Australian staff
6. Limit consecutive hours to 12
7. Increase the Medicare Levy to 3%

In the Land Down Under with our abundant sunlight, and we do so little with it.
In Victoria we give enormous subsides to the dirty black and brown coal industry each year. Lets take half of that subside and give it back to the consumers in the same fashion as the Water Tank industry (previously discussed).

By encouraging people to have Solar Panels on their roofs by the use of taxation benefits and rates penalties we could more than keep pace with domestic use.
It would encourage employment, manufacturing of the solar panels etc along with the increase in Electricians and apprenticeships. With the ongoing maintenance required by the systems, this will provide ongoing employment.
Solar Panels proportional to the building size and the occupancy should be made compulsory for all new buildings.

If we were able to create 50% of our domestic energy from Solar, how much of a difference would that make in the reduction of black coal necessary for power?
Would we then be able to introduce the same type of system for industry (warehouses, factories etc…)?

Electricity prices are going to go up with the scarcity of fossil fuels, the extra cost of reducing green house gases and the like. We can provide a way to reduce these costs by the full introduction of solar panels. We can have the public pumping electricity back into the grid.

Yes the Government does and has had a solar energy rebate program for 2% of properties, not investment properties and not companies. Now are we serious or not? This should be introduced for everyone. Let’s started to hit some of our environment objectives, and in doing so we may even achieve some economic ones.

We can’t just talk about these environmental objectives, we need to commit to achieving them. We can’t control the world we can only control ourselves. Let’s not wait for the world let’s do what is right, and let the world follow.

In summary:-
1. Introduce compulsory Solar Panels on all houses
2. Use the Tax & Rates system to encourage people and businesses
3. No exclusions to the rebate program
4. Reduce black/brown coal consumption immediately
5. Increase manufacturing, increase employment, increase apprenticeships.
6. Lets do the right thing, and do it now.

How can this be?

We are charged so little by the Government for our drinking water, yet we are happy to pay so much for bottled drinking water.  About 3000% more.

We should be using water tanks at home.
Properties are taxed each year on the “Capital Improved Value” of the property, well if a property has a water tank, this Capital Improved Value should be adjusted accordingly to show appreciation for your effors in assisting with our Water Crisis.

Tax the properties more than do not have water tanks, based on a certain tank size per population density of the land.

The Government should be further encouraging the proliferation of water tanks by providing a 40% subsidy on tanks for a 2 year period.

These tanks need to be connected to the house, for flushing the toilet, showers, gardens and the like.
Keep the “town water” for drinking, cooking and any extra requirements if the tanks empty (not for the garden though).

With the MONSTROUS introduction of these tanks, this is going to create employment and increase the economy.
There is going to be a greater need for plumbers, plumbing apprentices, electricians (to install the pumps).  This is going to increase employment, reduce unemployment and reduce CentreLink payments.

These tanks are going to wear over time, maintenance is going to be required.  This is going to keep the industry going over time.

If we were to have a tank for every household, how much water could we save.  How much money could we save on putting in Government water infrastructure (this could be used for the subsidies).

You would have to expect that this would allow our dams and rivers to revive themselves while we do the responsible things and use the resources we have available.

Would we be able to postpone further Water Treatment Plants and more Desalination Plants, if we were self sufficient and responsible for our own non critical water needs?

In Summary:-
1.    Every household gets a tank, if not they get taxed
2.    Government subsidies for 2 years, to kick start the industry
3.    Increase employment, and more apprentices
4.    Connect all tanks to the house
5.    Households save money, now and into the future
6.    Postpone (for decades) further major water infrastructure projects.

Lets be water self sufficient and improve the economy.

In Victoria we have worsening crime.
We have drunks, with no respect for the Police, we have bashings, racial incidents and any number of smaller but just as dangerous crimes.

We currently out source our revenue raising law enforcement, ie: speed cameras.
I am not against this type of revenue raising, after all in theory only the guilty get fined.
We have laws for a reason, right now the police are in a position where they are having to choose or have “blitzes” on crimes, rather than enforcing all the laws.

Why do we have laws, have law enforcement officers and then be put in a position to choose if we enforce them?
Why do we have the laws in the first place then? Lets just get rid of the laws we are not going to enforce. Save confusion.

In all seriousness, we have laws for a reason, they are there to protect the wider community or the individual. Our government has gone to a lot of trouble (at some stage in history) to create these laws, so they really should be enforced.

We do not have the resources to enforce our laws.

The only solution is to increase employment and double our Police force.

This would do so many things:-
1. Provide public confidence
2. Provide greater police presence
3. Enforce our current laws, in our commercial world this would also generate revenue (on a Police per capita basis they would generate a lot more per year than they would cost, so therefore they would be cash flow positive and self funding)
4. Reduce Crime, what a novel idea
5. Reduce car accidents, by doing the simple things and ensuring that drivers are driving well and cars are roadworthy.
6. Reduce night crimes, such as bashings, etc in the city, by having a dramatically increased police presence.
7 etc….. What can you think of?

So in summary
* Double the police force
* Enforce the laws
* Be cash flow positive
* Have a better society

Why would you not do it?