Cranky Queenslander

Its a good thing that todays strike action by Queensland Teachers was averted at the 11th hour. A good thing because the half a million government school students can go to school and continue to work hard at getting a decent education, which they richly deserve.

It’s a crying shame that the Teachers Union in Queensland feels that strike action is warranted. They, and every other union, should realise that in this day and age, there is virtually no good reason to go on strike. Strikes should be reserved for dangerous, life threatening circumstances, such as a mine operator cutting corners and putting miners at risk.

Workers should never be allowed to strike just because they want a pay rise. Workers such as teachers, nurses, ambo’s, police, fire fighters, should especially realise that they hold a position with a great deal of responsibility, and they should keep getting on with the job.

I was thinking about doing some basic analysis of teachers pay and the governments offer, but after reading a QTU bulletin on the subject, I saw that the argument has degenerating into a battle of statistics and selective reporting, so its pointless going down that road;

Better to look at the simple facts; The government has offered a pay rise of 12.5% in a time of world wide recession. Nurses were happy to grab that same 12.5% recently, realising that such a huge pay rise was to snapped up in this climate. Why doesn’t the QTU think thats good enough?

The QTU’s own publication shows that senior teachers in Queensland earn about $70,000 a year. 12.5% more brings that close to $80,000, which is way above the average wage, and a pretty bloody good wicket if you ask me.

So thats my opinion; I wait with baited breath for the comments from unionists deriding me. 🙂

With the recent death of Antonio Galeano, the mainstream press are once again promoting the idea that tasers are bad and should not be carried by Queensland Police.

The facts of this most recent case are yet to be fully confirmed, but there are suggestions that in this case the offender was subdued, handcuffed and had been talking to police before his health deteriorated and he passed away;

There is also the suggestion that the man was suicidal, had failed within 48 hours of the incident to kill himself and was in fact attempting to have the police end his life by confronting them.

As far as this case goes, I hope the police involved are cleared of any wrong doing; They have a tough job, and the sad fact is that from time to time, things are going to go pear shaped, and we shouldn’t be blaming the police for doing their best to deal with these things.

As for tasers, it is my firm belief that if we are better off giving our police the choice of using them; Lets be realistic, if a madman is weilding a weapon, and the police shoot him, he’s likely to be dead; If they can taser him, he’s likely to be alive.

Perhaps I’m missing something, feel free to leave a comment if you feel differently about tasers.

I’ve neglected this blog for a while, but in the interests of stopping the neglect, am now about to attempt to upgrade wordpress to the latest version; Once I do that of course, upgrading in future will be easier now that WordPress has built in auto upgrading;

Anyway, just thought I’d post this in case the site blows up 🙂

Update: Well, it blew up. So I’ve removed it all and started again, should be back to normal shortly.

Update2: Okay, I think thats more or less back to normal, now to go and find some stuff to be cranky about 🙂

News from the ABC that the ACTU have decided not only to start a campaign for “workers rights”, but they are wasting large sums of union members money to do so.

I guess if union members want to spend money on glossy TV commercials, that’s there business, but I would have thought unions like the ACTU would have learned by now that they should spend their members dues on things that help their members, not hinder their future.

When are they going to learn that if you make it nearly impossible to fire somebody, it also in turn makes it almost impossible to hire them?

If an employer doesn’t want an employee, they should be allowed to fire them. The reason should not matter. Employee’s do not have a right their job. They do have a right to be paid and treated fairly, but at the end of the day, their employer is parting with their cash, and should be allowed to choose not to.

In the fullness of time, people will figure this out, and we’ll eventually change the government… perhaps next time, everyone will not have such short memories.

Yes folks, I got a speeding ticket. On Christmas Day. This event proved to me without a shadow of a doubt that our masters, who we keep voting in, do not have our wellbeing at heart.

If the government wanted to improve our lives, it would instruct police on days like Christmas Day to pull over motorists and caution them, only booking the ones driving like madmen, which I saw plenty of on the way home.

If the government was serious about road safety, it would fix the roads. Instead, it places a single 80klm sign on a lonely stretch of 100klm highway, changing back to 100klms barely a kilometre further down the road, and simply waits until a schmuck like me misses the sign, and gets nailed.

Never mind that I spent the entire holiday break searching for speed limit signs and setting the cruise control. Never mind that I was passed countless times by actual SPEEDING motorists. Never mind that I was almost killed when a bus driver decided to change lanes over the top of a car I was following (thankfully, I leave a safe gap, and had enough time to slow down).

Oh, and never mind the fact that I was pulled over in a clearly signed 100klm zone, and told I was speeding. If you are going to pull these sneaky tactics, at least have me booked in the 80 zone you claim I was speeding through!

So I hope our government overlords had a festive Christmas, with their chauffer driven cars and tax payer funded champagne breakfasts. The rest of us continue to do it tough.

Merry Christmas to all my readers, all 2 of you! I promise to make more of an effort in 2009 to bring you quality rants. In the mean time, don’t imbibe too heavily, and see you all safe and sound in 2009!

Check out Joe Ludwig’s media statement regarding the alleged stellar effort of the Child Support Agency in making parents cough up for the welfare of their children.

Joe, you are so far out of touch with reality it’s a joke! Sure, a large number of parents have been robbed blind by the CSA, and that’s nothing to be happy about, but you also forget about all the parents who dodge their responsibilities all together by hiding their income!

This is one of the few issues I believe would benefit from a proper, in depth inquiry, as a better system must be found to address these two key problems in the current system;

Firstly, the amount of child support payable should NOT be adjusted based on the parents income. A child of a worker at Big W does not deserve to be treated as less valuable than that of a rich executive. It’s time to set a standard for the minimum level of acceptable care, value that, and make the parents pay that amount.

We also need to solve the problem of parents dodging their responsibilities; Once we have a fixed amount of support calculated, we demand that all parents pay it, regardless of their income. If they want to play hide and seek with their income, force them to do it for the rest of their lives by keeping track of the debt, indexing it for inflation and adding interest to it. Instead of waiting until their kids are 18 and then living the good life, these people will be forced to pay.

I’d go one step further too; Forth those parents who apparently cannot be bothered to generate the income required, the CSA should pay the custodial parent the money, which might motivate it’s staff to more properly investigate how it is that the non custodial parent has plasma TV’s, Playstations 3’s and other luxuries, but no income to pay child support!

Seems our esteemed leader Mr Rudd is searching far and wide for ways to make our lives just that little bit more miserable, and right before Christmas, has found a great one.

Plans are afoot, as noted in the Courier Mail, to force landlords to retain tenants against their will. Basically, once you rent a house to someone, you’ll be stuck with them.

Currently, landlords are generally entitled to give notice to their tenant to vacate the premises, but Mr Rudd believes this is causing homelessness. Apparently, if you evict someone from your home, they can’t find another one.

It’s about time the Labor party stopped meddling in Australians every day affairs. If a citizen owns a house, they should be free to rent it, or not to rent it, as they see fit. It is, after all, their house!

I often find interesting reads over at Violent Acres, and this recent post is no exception. If you can get past the profanity thrown in here and there, it makes a great point. I’ve always liked the writing style over there, pulling no punches and telling it how it is. Let me know what you think.

Brisbane Airport Corporation is a very greedy company. You only have to look at the millions of dollars profit it is raking in from every direction, watch it sell off airport land to the highest bidder, and go there to pickup a loved one to feel the sting of the BAC profit machine.

While I have no problem paying to park in the car park when I am taking people to the airport, I have a problem paying to pick them up.

When they are flying out, I like to go into the airport and see them off at the gate; I like to enjoy an overpriced coffee and slice of cake with them while we wait for the boarding call. I don’t mind helping the BAC make money while this happens.

But when I am there to pickup someone who is flying in, I just want them to phone me when they have their bags, and drive round to the pickup point, have them jump in, and we go.

I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling, but the BAC wants to sting us all for some parking dollars.

They could do something to meet us halfway though. How about creating a small area, about the size of the Kingsford Smith Memorial site. Setup two or three rows of angled car spaces, such that a car can pull in from one side and pull straight out the other; Set this up for people like me who want to sit in our cars for 10 minutes until our passengers are ready.

Now, why not charge $1 for the privilege?  Have a cash only machine on the boomgate that lifts it to let you in for a buck. I’d be happy with that.