Cranky Queenslander

I think it’s fair to say the federal Labor government have over the 12-18 months, lost all credibility they had as a progressive socialist government. They have consistently professed a desire to redistribute the countries riches more equitably to those lower down the societal ladder, but the evidence is now pouring to disprove that.

Labor’s Building the Education Revolution program is providing ample evidence that Labor is pouring money in the union dominated construction sector by approving construction at massively inflated prices.

The Herald Sun reports on one such example, brought to light by the school’s principal, who must have had the silly idea he could save a whopping $140,000 by getting the work done by contractors other than those appointed by the government.

Interestingly, this is the same school where the principal earlier this year refused to allow the feds to fund a $3 million gym, because the school already had one!

I wish more school principals had the guts to check what was going on at their schools and call the government out for the complete waste of money it is perpetrating. The real irony here is the kids it claims will get a better education because of it will certainly need one, because they’ll be paying back the debt for years to come.

Not a Queensland tale but one I thought I should comment on; This story in the Courier Mail today; A boy drowns while on a school excursion.

Here are my thoughts;

His father Laupule said he had told the school his son was to be excluded from school trips.
“He was not a strong swimmer and we did not encourage him going in the water,” Mr Levi said.

Parents around Australia should think long and hard about that. Why could the boy not swim? Was it because his parents “excluded” him from everything so he never learned? Sounds like a case of over protective parenting costing the poor boy his life.

THE parents of a Tasmanian student who drowned say they had no idea he had been going on a school excursion.

Seriously? How could they not? I would love to see some investigation of this claim, it seems pretty far fetched on the face of it.

It’s a tragedy to be sure, but the facts presented seem a little unusual.

I’m a little late to this party, but the double standard here made it impossible to let it go; Back in September Jo-Ann Miller decided to take aim at Springfield Land Corporation in a speech she gave about a piece of legislation called the Sustainable Planning Bill 2009.

It makes me wonder when a politician says something like this;

“The biggest issue that was brought to my attention was in relation to planning decisions and the naming of parks being accountable to the community”

Really? That is the BIGGEST issue? I would think if that is the big ticket complaint of Springfield residents, then they are doing pretty well.

But lets look at the real double standard here;

My understanding is that the community has not seen the final plans for this parkland and that the people of Springfield Lakes are outraged that the parkland is to be named the ‘Robelle Domain Parkland’, because it has been named after a developer and his wife and it actuallymakes no sense.

What about  Jo-Ann Miller Drive in Collingwood Park?  We people buying blocks on that street given the chance to object to the naming of it? Surely if politians can have things named for themselves, then the developers responsible for building an entire town like Springfield should be able to stamp their name on something for posterity?

Make sure you click through to the google maps view of J0-Ann Miller Drive; Have a look around and you’ll see she’s not the only one to feel the need to get stuff named after herself. I don’t mind the ones named for former prime ministers around the same area, but sitting members should get on with leaving a legacy so that after they have left parliament, someone can decide their contribution was great enough to have streets, parks or bridges named for them.

James McCullough over at CityBeat Blog brings us a little gossip about a couple of lads getting into a punch up at Suncorp.

On the one hand, this is just scurrilous gossip which probably should have been kept in house.

On the other hand, the two protagonists were told to stay home for 2 weeks as punishment for their indiscretion, but were still paid during those 2 weeks!

I guess if their boss had shown the guts to actually punish them for such behaviour in the workplace (by, lets say, giving them a 2 week UNPAID holiday instead), we’d have a union picket line outside Suncorp the very next day.

At the very least they should have been force to pay for some anger management training instead of an extra 2 weeks holiday this year; I wonder if other blokes at big companies like Suncorp might figure getting into a bit of biff just before Christmas might be a good way to get some free holiday time to spend with the family?

The release this week of the game “Modern Warfare 2” has once again shown how poor the system of classification for such things is in Australia;

At the mature end of the spectrum, the Office of Film & Literature Classification has only two options; Stamp the game suitable for 15+, or ban it completely.

Obviously, games like Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead, while full of gore and adult themes, are not so bad that they need banning altogether.

The ABC’s Sarah Collerton has a good piece on the topic, hitting the nail right on the head; We need an R 18+ classification. As far back as 2005, Bond University released a study showing that 88% of Australians supported the introduction of such a classification for games. With all that support, you’d wonder why it hasn’t happened;

The Problem

Turns out this guy is the problem. South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. His theory is by not having an R rating, anything that might have been rated R gets banned and the kids are safe. WRONG! Turns out anything that should have been rated R gets a fresh coat of paint (or in the case of MW2, gets nothing at all), and is slapped with a M15+ rating, and the kids ALL GET TO PLAY IT.

I would suggest everyone click on Michael’s smiling face, which will lead you to his parliamentary website, from which you should bombard his inbox with requests to pull his finger out and fix this!

I am of course referring to the mother of the 12 year old girl who recently gave birth to a son after falling pregnant to her 15 year old boyfriend.

I think the morals of this case are self evident; A 12 year old is not sufficiently mature to  make decisions about their sexuality, and thus it is incumbent upon the parents to make those decisions for them.

Having said that, it beggars belief that a 12 year old would even consider sleeping with her boyfriend; That fact alone calls into question the moral quality of the mother, who provided such a poor quality role model as to point her young daughter in this direction.

And we should spare a thought for the father, who is is reported to have contacted authorities seeking intervention when he learned his ex partner was allowing this sort of thing to go on. He has been quite resilient in the face of such things, and should be applauded for trying to do the right thing in the first place, and trying to help and support his daughter after the fact;

Perhaps it’s time to look at the law’s regarding such things, and consider if we need to toughen some of them up. Should we not hold the 15 year old responsible for violating such a young girl, and charge him with rape? Should we not hold her mother responsible, and charge her with child abuse and neglect?