Posted on

Leaders who lie

It’s sad that we no longer have any ability as a community to hold our leaders accountable for their words or promises. Take our current Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and his current decision to spend $38 million dollars on an advertising campaign supporting his new resources company taxation. Quite apart from the fact that the application of simple logic would tell any thinking human being that the expenditure is immoral …

He was asked in 2007 if he would resign if he had not delivered this system within his first term.

Mr Rudd replied: “In terms of establishing the office of the auditor-general with clear-cut guidelines to whom every television campaign is submitted for approval before that television campaign is implemented, you have my absolute, 100 per cent guarantee that that will occur.

“One hundred per cent guarantee and each one of you here can hold me accountable for that.”

But two months ago the auditor-general was sidelined from the job.

Somehow, when you have achieved power the phrase “one hundred percent guarantee” actually means, well nothing I guess!

Anyone got any idea how we can elect honest persons to be our leaders, and failing that, how do we force them to remain honest, or depart? As far as I am aware Rudd hasn’t even felt the need to explain his change of heart.

Unfortunately, those who aspire to power seem to be the ones who know that those over whom they exercise power are totally apathetic.

Posted on

Is it unreasonable to expect telco gouging to be stopped?

Verizon gouging victimA colleague, knowing that I had recently fallen foul of yet another telco for thousands of dollars of “excess usage charges”, sent me “this link(Another Telco rort)”:http://j.mp/cXGqiP, presumably thinking it might make me feel better.

Instead, it prompted me to recall that this is the fourth time a telco (a different one each time) has gouged, or attempted to, gouge me.

I am unable to use the services of one large Australian Telco because, even though they do not attempt to collect it, they retain a record of a debt in their system. So, if I attempt to sign up for a new service, they accept my application subject to the payment of an eight year old $14,000 debt.

Another luckily collapsed under the weight of its rich and powerful promoters while suing me for thousands in excess usage.

Yet another continued to charge me $500 per month for services which were available from other vendors, and to their new customers, for about $90 per month. In this case I was an early adopter of a new service and ended up paying several thousand dollars more than the provider charged later signups for the same service. They hid behind their “contract” to insist on payment.
Continue reading “Is it unreasonable to expect telco gouging to be stopped?”

Posted on

Storm in a Teacup?

I know it is just a game, and I know I have more important things to do than post this blog entry. But, I can’t help wondering what it is that I am missing about the ginormous kerfuffle encompassing Victoria and the NRL.

According to the official Storm website there are 36 players on the NRL squad. In the absence of any better information I will assume that this number is not unusual. So, what is the magnitude and significance of the overpayments?

Continue reading “Storm in a Teacup?”

Posted on

Do we really still need saints?

The following started as a short Facebook update after I satisfied myself that most tweets about Mary MacKillop were negative. But, it kept on growing so it’s ended up here…

is pleased to report that a totally informal check of today’s tweets on MacKillop’s sainthood shows close to 100% comment on the irrelevancy and pure stupidity of an institution that would have us believe that they have proof that an unidentified woman was cured of lung cancer as a result of her prayers to a dead nun.
Frankly, it is embarrassing to just repeat their claim … one can only assume that everyone involved in this crap, from the Pope down, are required to check-in their brains when they pick up their robes.
Importantly, the scorn and derision is aimed at the institution, not the person. I suspect that Mary MacKillop would be as embarrassed by the todo and the sycophantic “reporting” as the authors of todays tweets.
And another thing… Should it concern us that the one man whose decisions will affect us more than any other actually aligns himself with the morons who accepted this “proof”. To make matters worse, Rudd is perfectly comfortable with taking advantage of the “saint’s” profile for his crass personal gain.
I’m pleased to report that a totally informal check of today’s tweets on MacKillop’s sainthood shows close to 100% comment on the irrelevancy and pure stupidity of an institution that would have us believe that they have proof that an unidentified woman was cured of lung cancer as a result of her prayers to a dead nun.
Frankly, it is embarrassing to just repeat their claim … one can only assume that everyone involved in this crap, from the Pope down, are required to check-in their brains when they pick up their robes.
Importantly, the scorn and derision on Twitter is aimed at the institution, not the person. I suspect that Mary MacKillop would be as embarrassed by the todo and the related sycophantic “reporting” as the authors of todays tweets.
And another thing… Should it concern us that the one man whose decisions will affect us more than any other actually aligns himself with the morons who accepted this “proof”. And, to make matters worse, Kevin Rudd is perfectly comfortable with taking advantage of the “saint’s” profile for his crass personal gain.
Posted on

Is it only me who is confused?

I have been debating with myself whether or not to make this post, ever since the announcement of the Royal Commission into the Victorian bushfires was announced. Each time it was mentioned I was sure I heard a figure of $40 million being the cost of the enquiry. No, I thought, I must have misheard the figure — maybe it was actually $4 million.

So now I am confused. Why, because it appears that the Victorian government has allocated $10 million to aid the 7000+ victims of the bushfires (something less than $1,500 per head),  but four times that amount to find out why they are victims.

The royal commissioner will have about $100,000 per day to spend during his enquiry. Some quick arithmetic gives the result that the commissioner could employ about 500 people earning average weekly earnings for this amount. On the other hand, most royal commission money is paid to lawyers. If there were 100 lawyers involved in the enquiry, there would be $400,000 per head available to them.

It also crosses my mind that governments are generally very quick to announce royal commissions, but notoriously slow at adopting any recommendations they might make. If we are to spend $40 million on an enquiry it had better be good enough for every last recommendation or suggestion to be adopted without any question from the government at the time.

So, is it only me who is confused?

Posted on

No to Australian Bank “Disloyalty” ATM Fees

Australian Banks are apparently not making enough profits so have announced new ATM fees including a “disloyalty” fee for using another bank’s ATM machine. The new fees means that we could be paying $5.00 for a visit to an ATM! Read more about the plans here.

This has to represent all that is bad about our banking system and the way that banks are taking advantage of technology. Firstly, how can anyone suggest that we do not suffer under an evil cartel. The bank leaders in Australia could form a synchronised swimming team and not even have to practice before winning gold at the Olympics. Secondly, can you imagine any bank having the gall to require their tellers to demand $5.00 from customers before serving them? Unfortunately, it’s easy to rip an estimated $200 million per year from customers when it’s done by a machine!

OK, maybe their synchronised actions do not qualify as a cartel in the legal sense, but I’m sure that Joe Citizen wold be unimpressed by arguments that it is pure coincidence that the banks all raise and lower interest and fees by remarkably similar amounts, generally within hours of each other.

Anyway, inspired by a campaign against a stupid copyright law change in New Zealand which has seen the Twitter trend #blackout reach Number One spot, I’m launching #disloyalty to see if we can send a message to any banks considering this unfair fee.

At the time of the launch, a search of recent tweets referring to the disloyalty fee found just one result from @sdipietr

And another thing, I’d love to hear an explanation from from St George (Westpac) why a credit card charge in a shop is reflected in my account balance in real time, but the reversal of the same transaction – 5 minutes later, same credit card, same eftpos machine, same computer system, same everything except the direction of the money flow –  takes 3 or 4 days to be reflected in my balance.

Posted on

Totally Incomprehensible

Remains of the Narbethong Sawmill BusinessFor the last four days since the horrific fires in country Victoria, we have been exposed to amazing stories of tragedy, bravery, selfless contributions, and horror. We have seen grown men and women reduced to tears, and even political leaders unable to retain their composure in the face of the enormity of the disaster. Australians from all walks of life have unselfishly committed time, money and anything else they can spare to try to mitigate the effects on those who have been directly affected by the fires. Contributions and condolences have come from all parts of the globe.

So it beggars the imagination to hear the reports tonight that a member of the Victorian Police Force apparently felt that the owner of the Narbethong timber business who had lost everything in the fires, and and whose son is still missing, had not quite suffered enough. It is simply impossible to understand what this Police Officer was thinking when he issued an on the spot fine for driving a vehicle without number plates.

This officer  should be immediately publicly named by the Commissioner of Police and summarily dismissed as being a individual totally unsuited to the role of a guardian of society. This lunacy cannot possibly be tolerated or condoned in any way by any rational thinking human being.

The only “good” thing about this situation is that a commercial  news channel was prepared to broadcast details of the event so that we could all hear about it. However, they did not go as far as to name the Police Officer involved even though the name was in their possession at the time of the report.

Now something has to be done about it. And in a public forum, not behind closed doors.

Posted on

A Tragedy … Twice Over

Over Easter there was a tragic level crossing accident in Victoria which resulted in loss of life.

Afterwards, it was explained that it was “too expensive” to install boom gates (supposed to cost $500,000) so it is up to us to drive more carefully.

How stupid are we? TAC happily spends *MILLIONS* of our premiums on advertising and sponsors a football competition (the AFl’s TAC Cup).

Just a fraction of the money wasted on advertising or paying for young men to chase a ball around a paddock could have saved the lives so tragically lost.