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Referendums and why they often fail

referendums-fail-free speech — Photo: (Ed: this is not Peter Dutton, says She who says Yes (in this instance)

You’d have to give the Internet prize this week to the wag who posted a photo of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (against a background of jubilant Australian soccer players).

“Peter Dutton needs more details before he will support the Matildas,” the satirical headline read.

The Matildas meme most accurately portrays the intransigence of the Opposition Leader’s approach to the Voice referendum, saying No because he doesn’t have enough ‘detail’.

Mr Dutton, perhaps unfairly, has been tagged the poster boy for the No vote. There are many others and some far more to the right than the LNP Leader and that’s saying something. But as a friend said during a discussion last week, those who say they are going to vote No cannot mount any form of rational argument as to why.

The Voice is a national vote to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia. The advisory body would give advice to the Australian Parliament and Government on matters that affect the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

On the face of it, you’d have to wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, in 1967, 91% of Australians voted to change the Constitution so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population. As such, the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. At the time, the thinking was that if Australians did not pass this referendum, we would be viewed as a Pariah state, as South Africa was at the time.

As of 2023, 44 nationwide referendums have been held, only eight of which have been carried. Since multiple referendum questions are often asked on the same ballot, there have only been 19 separate occasions that the Australian people have gone to the polls to vote on constitutional amendments, eight of which of which were concurrent with a federal election. There have also been three plebiscites (two on conscription and one on the national song), and one postal survey (on same-sex marriage). Australians have rejected most proposals for constitutional amendments. As Prime Minister Robertt Menzies said in 1951, “The truth of the matter is that to get an affirmative vote from the Australian people on a referendum proposal is one of the labours of Hercules.”

The sticking point with referendums is that to be passed they need to return a majority in each State, not just a majority nationally. (Votes from those in the ACT and Northern Territory count as part of the national vote.)

Of the 44 referendums which have been held, there have been five instances where a ‘yes’ vote was achieved on a national basis but failed to win because some States voted against. Some issues arise again and again.

Votes on whether or not to adopt daylight saving time have been held in three States. Daylight saving (where clocks are wound back one hour for the summer months) is now observed in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory. Daylight saving is not observed in Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia.

In WA a referendum was held on 16 May 2009, the fourth such proposal put to Western Australian voters. The 2009 vote followed a three-year trial period.

After trialing daylight saving in Queensland for three years, a referendum in 1992 resulted in a 54.5% ‘no’ vote. Popular myth is that the referendum failed because ‘people out west’ feared it would fade their curtains.

In 1977, a plebiscite was held to vote for a national song. The choices included Waltzing Matilda, Song of Australia and God Save the Queen (the latter garnered only 18.78% of the vote). The dirge we now call our National Anthem topped the poll with 43.29% of the popular vote and was enshrined as the anthem.

After the Voice referendum is run and won or lost, Australians may not have an appetite for another. But surely at some stage we will be allowed to vote for I Am, You Are, We are Australian, which was not a choice in 1977, primarily because Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton had not written it yet.

And, although Prime Minister Albanese says now is not an appropriate time to revive the Republic debate, we do note the appointment in May 2022 of Matt Thistlewaite as Assistant Minister for the Republic, among his several ministerial appointments.

On the latest Voice polls, six of 11 are showing a ‘No’ result. This is being widely construed as a sign the referendum will fail. What the polling does not take into account is that nobody under 42 has ever voted in a referendum (the last one being the failed Republican vote in 1999). Are we game to take a gamble on which way Australia’s 4.6 million Generation Zers might vote? And how many of them are voting for the first time?

The outcome of referendums has been notoriously difficult. In the lead up to the 1999 Republican referendum, the proposition was looking like a shoo-in. But there was too much difference of opinion amongst Republican factions about how a president would be elected.

In 1916, then Prime Minister Billy Hughes was reportedly ‘devastated’ when the government’s push for conscription failed. Despite Australians not being obliged to vote in those days, the turnout was high and the vote was narrowly defeated. Perhaps it was due to the complexity of the question, which did not explicitly mention conscription.

Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service, for the term of this war, outside the Commonwealth, as it has now with regard to military service within the Commonwealth?

The reference to existing military service meant the requirement for compulsory military service within Australia for all men aged between 18 and 60 (in existence since 1911).

No-one seems to be overly worried about the cost of the referendum, a figure for which has been reported as high as $169 million. If you’ll forgive a rather loose calculation, on that basis Australia has spent more than $7.5 billion on referendums, only eight of which have been won.

We both decided this weekend to throw our hat into the ring, so to speak, posting selfies wearing a Yes cap from the 1999 campaign. If you are going to vote Yes it is obvious why – you have empathy for indigenous people and the hand they have been dealt and want to stop future governments from undoing all the good work that has previously been done.

The Australian Financial Review summarised the reasons why people may vote No.

“…understanding and awareness of the Voice remains poor as the Yes campaign struggles to convince undecided voters to vote for the Voice. Polling shows many Australians still don’t understand what the Voice means, or they are concerned that it risks dividing Australians or giving Indigenous people special rights.”

After they helped write the constitution at the end of the 19^th century, Sir John Quick and Sir Robert Garran sought to make sure future generations understood safeguards that would allow the document to be changed only in precise circumstances. Referendums were designed with a double majority needed, in order “to prevent change being made in haste or by stealth”.

If you are still confused about what those ‘special rights’ might be or not be, here’s some intelligent thoughts on what Albanese hopes to achieve:

And (to be fair), here’s both sides of the legal debate, including a belief it will erode a fundamental principle of democracy – equality of citizenship.

(Ed: I’m constrained to say I completely disagree with the implied notion that Indigenous people already have ‘equality of citizenship’.)

Where social housing meets the working poor

social-housing-working-poor — Graph supplied by the Grattan Institute

I suppose you have been waiting for me to wax eloquent about the Federal Government’s $10 billion housing plan and why don’t they get on with it?

Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote for The Greens, who seem to think their role in government is to block legislation just because they can. The Greens MPs in Parliament want the Federal Government to freeze rentals for two years. This seems to be predicated on some naïve proposition that the Labor Premiers buddy up with the Feds and persuade the others to fall in line.

What part of States Rights do they not understand? As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rightly says, the Federal Government could not impose a nation-wide freeze on rentals even if it wanted to. The mechanism for such a move lies with the respective State and Territory governments. I can’t imagine that telling the landlords (and developers) in their constituencies that they can’t raise rents for two years would help State or Territory government re-election chances next time round. Having said that, the Australian Capital Territory has implemented a rent ‘cap’ so anything’s possible.

The Bill, which stalled through lack of support in June, has been tabled again this week although not much has changed. There is talk (at chat show level) of a double dissolution – that is, Mr Albanese will go early to the people and let them decide. Unlikely.

There are a few things to note about the Housing Australia Future Fund. For one thing it’s not a new idea. The $10 billion fund was an election promise, which means its formation goes back well before 2020. We already had a Future Fund (which primarily invests in the share market and in commercial property). The Labor Government’s plan to co-opt this fund into investing in the volatile housing market has made it a target for the Coalition and dissident independents.

One of the issues as I see it is the Bill has been designed as an economic/financial policy instrument. Given the size and severity of the housing problem in this country (affordability, rental housing shortages and homelessness), it should have been designed foremost as social policy, letting the numbers take care of themselves, as numbers do.

The Greens are not alone in their critique of the Albanese government’s housing policy. Numerous housing advocates say that despite the size of the Housing Australia Future Fund, it will scarcely touch the sides of the problem. The legislation promises 30,000 new social and affordable houses in the first five years. Once the fund starts generating returns, more social and affordable projects can be started. And as Housing (and Homelessness) Minister Julie Collins added, this will include 4,000 homes for women and children affected by family and domestic violence, or older women at risk of homelessness.

That’s all very well, but numerous reports concur that the current social housing need is for more than 100,000 dwellings. A report by the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) showed that Australia is facing a shortfall of 104,000 houses in the next five years. This is brought about primarily because the construction industry can’t keep up with demand. Then there are mitigating factors like rising interest rates and the ever-increasing cost of raw materials.

This glum forecast came at a time (April) when rental vacancy rates in every capital city in Australia were at or below 1% (Ed: and likewise in regional cities and towns). Bad weather in 2022 added to the woes of builders; some of whom closed their doors, leaving home buyers with half-finished dwellings and cost over-runs.

The NHFIC is forecasting 1.8 million new households over the next decade, with just 148,500 new dwellings added this financial year. The total will drop to 127,500 in 2024-25, with the biggest drop in apartments and multi-density dwellings (40% down on levels experienced in late 2010).

In 2021, the Grattan Institute took a futuristic look at how we could build 100,000 social housing dwellings by 2040. As you can see by the table above, this would depend entirely on State and Territory government assigning matching contributions.

Grattan Institute economic policy director Brendan Coates wrote:

“If matched state funding was forthcoming, the Future Fund could provide 6,000 social homes a year – enough to stabilise the social housing share of the total housing stock. It would double the total social housing build to 48,000 new homes by 2030, and 108,000 by 2040.”

Four Corners should do an investigation on what exactly is meant by the terms ‘social, affordable and community housing’ and who benefits. Once upon a time there was just public housing. It was owned by the government and traditionally leased to people who were on government pensions and unlikely or unable to find paid work. The rental for people in these circumstances was traditionally struck at 25% of income. The Department of Human Services also calculates rent assistance for people in this category. Now, however, we have public/private partnerships which develop ‘affordable’ or ‘community housing’ properties. While the rents charged to these properties still look attractive (to those in the private market), it can represent up to 40% of disability or aged pension income. The properties are typically built new by private developers on land bought or provided by the relevant Government (or Council). These projects are financed by investors, so even though the housing provider may be a ‘not for profit’, the profit motive is inherent, whereas with public housing it is not.

Whatever the Federal Government and its State and Territory counterparts are going to do about social housing, they’d best get on with it. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has estimated that the need for future social housing will be 1.1 million dwellings by 2037.

The 2021 Census recorded there were almost 350,000 social housing dwellings across Australia (just under 4% of the number of all households), at the end of June 2021.

AHURI recently reported there were 165,000 applicants on the waiting lists for public housing, more than 40,000 applicants for community housing and just over 12,000 applicants for State owned and managed Indigenous housing.

“If we add together all the households on the waiting list and those already in social housing, we find that over half a million (close to 565,000, or just over 6%), Australian households were living in, or had requested to live in, a form of social housing.”

All that aside, there is the ever-growing cohort of ‘working poor’ – Australian families where one or both parents have jobs. But their household income can’t keep up with high private market rentals and the cost of living in general. Not to mention the 1.8 million Australian households Roy Morgan Research says are at risk of mortgage stress.

No quick fixes in sight although the CFMEU (one of the country’s last robust unions), wants the government to impose a Super Profits tax on the top echelon of companies.

The Guardian reported that CFMEU says a super profits tax of 40% of excess profits would ‘comfortably’ cover the cost of building more than 750,000 new social and affordable homes.

The CFMEU revealed this bold plan last week at the National Press Club, tabling a commissioned report by Oxford Economics. The report assumed that a permanent 40% tax on excess profits on companies with over $100m annual turnover, would raise an average $29bn a year, enough to fund the construction of 53,000 new homes each year.

Yep, that’ll happen.

There’s no business like jazz business

show-business-jazz — Jazz singer Ethel Merman Wikipedia CC

Given that a lot of my Facebook friends are musicians (and jazz musicians at that), you could get into an endless debate about who is or was the best. Moreover, one could have a lengthy dialogue about what is jazz and is it the same as blues?

It’s not hard to find lists of the top jazz singers of the 20^th century. Pundits frequently put Louise Armstrong on top of the list, closely followed by Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole. Female jazz singer lists are usually topped by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone (Ed: what about Joni, eh?)

I cannot go past Nina Simone. Ironically, Nina was a precocious piano player who was told by the owner of the club where she was engaged that she had to sing as well. Whoever that person was (he wanted two for the price of one), unwittingly gave the world one of the best song interpreters of modern times.

A few of the songs Simone made famous (I Put a Spell on you, God bless the Child, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood) were rocked up and recycled in the 1960s and 1970s by bands like The Animals, the Alan Price Set, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Blood Sweat and Tears.

Technically speaking, you’d say Simone was a blues singer, much as you could argue the same for Billie Holiday (who wrote God Bless the Child) and Bessie Smith. Yet you will frequently find them lumped in with the jazz genre.

What brought this topic to mind was a gig our versatile choir has this morning at Warwick’s Jumpers and Jazz festival, a two-week extravaganza featuring live music, yarn-bombed trees, art exhibitions, car rallies and more.

Jazz bands and performers who sign up for Jumpers and Jazz cover a wide gamut of the genre. In the main street, where residents are offered free entertainment, the standard is always high. In 2021, we hosted Brisbane’s hot young gypsy jazz band, Cigany Weaver, most of them Conservatorium graduates and stunningly talented. I feel fortunate to know a few of these young musicians, but compared with their vast musical knowledge and technical expertise I am but a mere strummer.

The brand of original jazz Cigany Weaver play arguable belongs the Manouche genre. Each year there is an Oz Manouche festival in Brisbane. Gypsy jazz is of the style made famous by Django Reinhardt. (Ed: ex-Shadows guitarist and WA resident Hank B Marvin is a devotee of gypsy jazz and often attends this festival,)

A Manouche band typically sets up a solid tempo while the virtuoso instrumentalists in the band take solo turns. Improvisation is the key to this sometimes wild music. The soloists often take the song and its melody far away from its core and somehow (I don’t know how), the band eventually manages to pick up the tune again and play out the refrain.

For our part, East Street Singers, the acapella group we rehearse with on Thursday nights, are doing an eclectic mix – from Bill Bailey and Chattanooga Choo Choo to the Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields ballad, The Way You Look Tonight.

The song comes from a 1936 movie, Jazz Time, but in this innovative version from 1991, Steve Tyrell and orchestra interpreted the song as a soundtrack to a compilation video featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (singing) and dancing.

The Way you Look Tonight was originally performed by Astaire, someone I always knew of as a dancer, but he could also sing and play piano at the same time (although there is no record of him doing all three simultaneously).

Breaking this song down to four vocal parts is another exercise altogether. I do so admire the arrangers who took on these classic compositions by the old pros and re-invent them for an unaccompanied choir. In this case, William C Stickles arranged it for SATB (choir shorthand for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass).

Stickles, a pianist, composer, arranger and teacher, died in 1971, aged 89. If you think about that for a moment, he’d have been in his 50s when The Way You Look Tonight was first published. US-educated, Stickles studied in Europe for seven years and worked with Isadore Braggiotti, a voice teacher in Florence, for five years. I gleaned this much from a 1971 obituary in the New York Times. Stickles was prolific and left a vast library of choral arrangements. He is best known for the choral arrangement of the Lord’s Prayer. In his twilight years he arranged many of the songs from West Side Story.

This of course is information of interest only to (a) those who are required to learn the arrangements and (b) people who like to trace things back to source. There is also giving credit where it is due.

You could say with some surety that many of today’s jazz singers, including Sinatra-influenced crooners Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jnr and Mark Tremonti, steeped themselves in the aural history of jazz. You can hear a lot of Frank’s phrasing in their voices and (if watching video), see it in the way they move. Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. When we were rehearsing jazz songs at choir a few weeks back, the name Ethel Merman came up. We were rehearsing Gershwin’s I got Rhythm, the song which made Ethel Merman a star. The alto to my right and I immediately began trying to imitate Ethel’s brassy, emphatic way of singing.

Ethel was known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and leading roles in musical comedy stage performances. So far as I know, no-one has managed to carve a career out of trying to sound like Ethel. She had a loud voice and excellent enunciation. You will hear it in your head if you think about Anything Goes, Hello Dolly and There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954). An old school singer from Queens, New Jersey, Ethel forged a career on the stage, in an era where in musical comedy you had to be heard at the back of the theatre. Ethel tried to imitate vocal styles of stars of the times (Sophie Tucker, Fanny Bryce), but found it hard to disguise her inimitable voice.

If you didn’t know, TNBLSB was in the musical Annie Get Your Gun and was a massive hit, primarily because it is reprised four times during the show (“let’s go on with the show”). In the songwriting world, we call this kind of song an ‘earworm’. Sorry about that.

Further reading: Just as I formed the idea for today’s blog I found one from two years ago which delved into the history of the 5/4 time signature (‘Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh’).* Despite the esoteric topic, it is quite entertaining!

*Andrew Lloyd Webber

Concussion and the slow demise of contact sport

contact-sport-concussion — Image: John Hain, www.pixabay.com

As you might know, one of my unlikely ‘hobbies’ is watching rugby league games on television. It’s as exciting as things get around here, especially if your team is winning. Once or twice a year we go to a live game (at least $100 admission for two).

The technology used to televise contact sport has led to a level of live scrutiny the game has never known before. Back in the day you could tackle someone and give him a ‘facial” (mashing your forearm into his face), and if the referee didn’t see it, you got away with an unsporting, illegal ‘dog act’.

The advent of The Bunker (a small team of referees armed with the technology to forensically replay on-field incidents), has changed the game forever. There is only one referee, and he/she can’t be in all places at once. That is why the Bunker alerted the referee to an incident last week where Parramatta Eels forward Reagan Campbell-Gillard slid his knees into the back of Titans hooker Chris Randall (who was already on the ground). It didn’t look good and the player on the ground was in apparent agony.

Campbell-Gillard was sent to the ‘Sin Bin’ and later suspended for four weeks over a grade three dangerous contact charge.

Repeated replays of such incidents prompt mothers (and fathers) around Australia to say, ‘no son of mine is playing that brutal sport.’ Then they sign them up for under-12s soccer, even though 22% of injuries in the round ball game are concussions.

Australia can’t be too far away from a class action brought by former contact sport players for whom repeated head injuries have left a legacy. There have been a few individual cases brought in Australia. Former Newcastle Knights winger James McManus eventually settled out of court after suing the National Rugby League (NRL).

One does wonder how much longer contact sports like rugby league and rugby union can be justified when there is so much evidence to show what repeated head trauma can do to an individual.

Research published in the British Medical Journal canvassed the extent of head injuries/concussions and the risk of under-reporting. The research found that 17.2% of Australian rugby league players suffered a concussion in the previous two years and did not report it to the coaching team or medical staff. About 22% of NRL first grade players admitted to not reporting at least one concussion during the 2018 and 2019 seasons. The most common reason was the player ‘not wanting to be ruled out of the game or training session’ (57.7%) and ‘not wanting to let down the coaches or teammates’ (23.1%).

Rugby league has changed immeasurably since I first started watching the game in the 1980s. Many rule changes occurred, technology worked its way into the game and now, it seems, an entire game is played with player welfare a priority. Back in the day, players commonly used their shoulders to tackle an opponent, usually resulting in the foresaid opponent being concussed and having to leave the field. Players who led with their shoulders inevitably spent time off the field having shoulder reconstructions. Even now, when shoulders are much less utilised than they were, it is not unusual to find a player in his mid-20s who has had two or even three reconstructions.

The shoulder charge is not the only banned ‘tackle’. There is the crusher tackle, the hip drop, third man in and any tackle involving contact with the head. The latter usually ends with a player being sent to the ‘sin bin’. This means the team is a man down for 10 minutes. This commonly leads to the good teams putting on 10 or even 20 points in the period where they have a numerical advantage.

You’d have to ask why rugby league players persist with high contact tackles which sports administrators have agreed are dangerous. At times it seems malicious. True, you might get sent off for 10 minutes, but the bloke you tackled into oblivion is going off for an HIA (head injury assessment) and will not return to the field. The player in the sin bin, perversely, is allowed to return to the field.

Since the tightening of concussion rules in 2016 a few players have retired prematurely because of repeated concussions or ‘head knocks’ as they were once known.

Many instances of high contact are accidental, such as head clashes (at times with your own teammate’s head). Others come from fatigue – the opponent has already beaten you, but you instinctively throw your tired arms up and hit him around the throat, chin, and head.

The NRL, the professional body which administers the game, has in recent years initiated a range of measures designed to protect players from repeated head injuries.

Any contact with the head, be it an accidental head clash, a careless or deliberate high tackle or the unconscious player’s head hitting the ground is reviewed. The Bunker can intervene and order a player off the field to be assessed by an independent doctor.

Typically, the injured player goes off for a mandatory 15-minute HIA. The player may pass the test and return to the match, but more often if it is graded category two or three the game is over for that player. If the contact is deemed serious he may be banned from playing for several weeks.

Some players seem prone to head injuries and in recent years there have been plenty of premature retirements. In the UK, law firms are leading two court challenges, one against World Rugby and another against the promoters of rugby league in England. In all there are some 350 former players involved, all alleging that the sports’ governing bodies failed to protect them from concussion and non-concussion injuries. They allege that these injuries caused various disorders including early onset dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.

Despite an older study reporting that 23.2% of parents discouraged their children from playing rugby league, about 480,000 Australian adults, juniors and school children are engaged in the sport.

Speaking of school children (about 30,000 are involved in school programs every year), many will have reached adulthood thinking that sports betting is all part of the game. Sports betting has been legal in Australia since 1983. Lately there is much talk about placing constraints on the industry’s saturation advertising. So far the controversy has led to preposterous warnings after sports betting ads about the dangers of gambling addiction.

Gambling ads are a genuine issue given that NRL games were watched by 119 million viewers cumulatively over the 2022 season, an average of 620,000 viewers per game. The 53% increase in viewers on Channel Nine is reflected in a similar rise on Foxtel, with most games attracting 50,000 to 60,000 viewers.

The choice of betting types is large and varied. Punters can bet on the outcome of league games with novelty bets thrown in: first (and last) try scorer and in big games, man of the match, exact score, and exact winning margin. You cannot yet bet on which player will go off for an HIA, or which player will be sin binned, but never say never.

Australians have bet on stranger things.

More reading https://www.aans.org/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-Treatments/Sports-related-Head-Injury

War mongers and interjections from ex PMs

war-mongers-ex-PMs — Bushmaster on patrol in Iraq 2008, Australian War Museum CC

Why is the media so enthralled with the utterances of ex-Prime Ministers, namely Paul Keating, John Howard or Kevin Rudd? Keating has been critical in recent months of the current government (his lot, I remind you) about defence issues.

Keating first lashed out at the Albanese Government in March over the nuclear submarine announcement. He described the $368 billion arrangement to buy nuclear submarines through the AUKUS defence pact as “the worst international decision by a Labor government since Billy Hughes tried to introduce conscription.” Strong words.

Keating used the National Press Club in Canberra to criticise Labor for its “incompetence” in backing the decision to sign up to AUKUS while in opposition. At the same time, Keating attacked policy decisions by defence minister Richard Marles and Foreign Affairs minister Penny Wong as “seriously unwise”, accusing them of allowing defence interests to trump diplomacy.

As it turned out, he was baying into an empty chamber, as veteran sleuth Brian Toohey discovered. The US (a key member of the AUKUS triumvirate) has said it cannot now sell three to five used Virginia class nuclear submarines to Australia, as Toohey related in the public policy journal, Pearls and Irritations.

Toohey wrote that the chief of US Naval operations Admiral Michael Gilday was recently reported from Washington as saying the US shipyards are only producing subs at a rate of about 1.2 a year. A minimum of two a year is needed to fill the US Navy’s own requirements. Until then, Gilday said, “We’re not going to be in a position to sell any to the Australians.”

“If Albanese were genuinely a good friend of America,” Toohey wrote, he would say ‘we don’t want to deprive you of any nuclear submarines, so we’ll buy readily available conventional subs that serve our needs’.

Toohey added, “Instead of grabbing this chance to get out of an impossible commitment, he behaves as if everything is still on track.”

The veteran journalist and author (he’s 79) broke numerous stories about national security and politics in his heyday, regularly receiving leaks that enraged and embarrassed politicians.

\The submarine deal is not the most recent example of ex-PM Keating getting stuck into his own party.

As The Guardian’s Paul Karp reported this week, Keating labelled the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, a “supreme fool” for wanting to increase NATO’s ties with Asia. Keating’s comments coincided with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s travels to Germany and the NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania. (NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.)

This state visit produced announcements about Australia’s material support for Ukraine via the donation of 30 Australian-made Bushmasters. Known in military parlance as Protected Mobility Vehicle or Infantry Mobility Vehicle, the Bushmaster is an Australian-built four-wheel drive armoured vehicle. ($2.45 million each).

Mr Albanese also confirmed on Monday that the German Army would buy 100 Australian-built Rheinmetall Boxer armoured vehicles. In case you did not know, this is something the Queensland government should be crowing about as the Boxers will be manufactured at Rheinmetall’s plant in Ipswich, near Brisbane. (The German company owns 64% of this joint venture – just thought you should know that.)

The Prime Minister’s announcements this week are yet another sign he and his executive team are well capable of making big decisions and acting upon them, despite criticism from the left and right. From my perspective, the Labor government seems to be a good deal more ‘hawkish’ than some of its predecessors. Then again, the top echelons of government in Canberra are no doubt privy to daily security briefings which could be prompting the escalating defence strategies.

Not the least there is China’s increasing economic and diplomatic push into the Asia Pacific, namely the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea.

Keating has been a strident critic of the Albanese government’s apparent strategy to prepare for possible aggression from China. He would prefer, I suppose, closed-door diplomacy.

Paul Keating, I’ll remind you, was infamous in his political career for an ability to deliver invective-laden tirades that inevitably drew headlines.

But who cares what Paul Keating thinks about anything? He had his day at the Despatch Box.

There’s a reason the likes of Rudd, Howard and Keating are ex-Prime Ministers. The people – that’s you and me and Freddie next door, not to mention their own party – got sick of them and voted them out. Brilliant, motivated and influential as they once were, they are not the least bit relevant now.

In tackling this topic, about which I know little, I relied on some expert research from the policy wonks who write for Pearls and Irritations (recommended), the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and a defence blog which recently took a similar position on interjections by former PMs.

As Stephen Kuper wrote in DefenceConnect,

“Our world has changed significantly since the 1990s — gone are the heady days of elated optimism in the aftermath of the collapse of Lenin and Stalin’s “evil empire”,[ in its place] the global information super highway, a truly global economy responsible for lifting hundreds of millions, if not billions out of abject poverty, yet it seems, someone has forgotten to tell former prime minister Paul Keating.”

It is worth noting (from another source) that Australia’s Defence spending under the Keating government (1991-1996), was slightly above or below 2% of GDP, which is the financial benchmark for ensuring the country can be independently protected from aggression.

Defence spending was between 3% and 4% of GDP during the Vietnam war and has peaked above 2% at various times, including the 1980s when the world was in a relatively benign state.

Marcus Hellyer of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute wrote a two-part report in 2019 about the reasoning behind (and the flaws) of working on 2% of GDP. As he observed, GDP rises and falls, and any number of global crises can interfere with this way of calculating defence budgets. For example, former PM Kevin Rudd’s stimulus-spending during the Global Financial Crisis put a serious kink in the defence spending supply hose.

“As official predictions for GDP growth change, the Defence Department’s future funding changes,” Hellyer wrote. He argued that defence spending based on 2% of GDP was likely to fall short of the fixed-funding line presented in a 2016 defence white paper.

“If a future government sticks to 2% of GDP rather than the white paper line, the Defence Department would take a substantial funding cut.”

The strategic risk arises with what defence calls its ‘future force’, much of which will not be delivered until 2030. It is probably already unaffordable under the white paper’s funding model.

Australian Budget papers reveal a funding shortfall with the 2023-2024 defence budget ($54.9 billion), projected to be $5 billion short.

If I may editorialise now, that’s a serious problem for any Australian politician trying to wear big boots to a global foreign policy conference. While Albanese, Marles and Wong have been shoring up alliances with the US, UK, Japan and now, it seems, Germany, most strategic analysts agree that Australian needs to become more self-reliant (with the added financial burden that implies).

I was digging around looking for a quote about peace to finish this uneasy essay on a positive note and found one from an unlikely source.

“Peace is not absence of conflict; it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” – Ronald Reagan.

Yep, he said it.

The Goodwills and The Jar at The BUg July 25

Fred-Smith-Goodwills-Support — The Goodwills Trio opening show for Fred Smith June 18, Nambour. Photo by Rob Mackay.

We’d no sooner finished our opening set for Fred Smith at Nambour on June 18 when along came an email inviting us to perform at The BUg in July. The Goodwills Trio is the original Goodwills (Bob and Laurel Wilson, original songs, guitar and vocals) plus Helen Rowe on fiddle and vocals.

The New Farm Bowls Club is one of our favourite venues for folk-flavoured music. There’s a good stage, a great sound man, you can order meals and if you want to natter to your mates you can go into the other bar. Perfect arrangement.

The BUg (Brisbane Unplugged Gigs) has been operating under that banner at this venue every Tuesday for many years. All styles of music have had their turn up on that stage, from the full-on Irish song and dance band, Murphy’s Pigs, to solo singer-songwriters.

We (The Goodwills Trio) will perform a set of Bob’s original songs and perhaps a surprise cover (or two). Fiddler and singer Helen Rowe complements and sometimes re-invents our arrangements worked out as a duo over many years. Laurel usually takes lead and if not, then it will be Bob’s ‘wonderful reedy tenor,’ as a reviewer once put it. Bob’s songs such as ‘When Whitlam took his turn at the Wheel’ and the two songs about New Zealand are almost certain to get an airing. Since Giardinetto’s is still down in the Valley, it seems the right place to sing ‘Big Country Town’. And, as Bob rashly promised (on social media), he will be doing a solo spot with his quirky song about a red shirt and a girl in a black dress (‘Dead Man’s Shirt’).

If you are interested, this song was covered by country singer Kalesti Butler on her album Airborne.

The Jar, a high-energy four-piece led by John Logan, will be quite a contrast to our folksy harmonies. As described in the Folk Rag, The Jar play traditional and contemporary Irish, Scottish and Australian music with the occasional pop classic thrown in.

Doors open at 7.00 pm. The music starts with three blackboard acts, followed by The Goodwills (8:15pm), and then The Jar. Admission is $10. New Farm Bowls Club, Brunswick Street opposite New Farm Park.

Time to befriend an indigenous person

NAIDOC-Week-Yes-Nawa — Musician Kevin Bennett

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this blog may contain references to deceased persons.

Reading an online ABC story about Ash Barty and her newly-born baby, I was struck by two things. The first was that the story had clearly been assembled with no direct input from Barty. Since retiring from championship tennis last year, Ash has made it fairly clear she values her private life. All the same, she’s famous enough that a declaration (to friends) on social media was appropriated by deadline-hungry online media. The story was compiled from what old journalists used to call ‘the cuts’, meaning file stories, social media comment (and responses) and a photo of Ash on her wedding day (supplied).

The second thing about this shallow news story was that nowhere in the text was Ash identified as an indigenous person. You’d think that in NAIDOC week, that would be a given.

NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginals and Islanders Day Observance Committee (originally dubbed National Aborigines Day Observance Committee).

The ABC could at least have tried to contact Ash, perhaps in the guise of preparing a NAIDOC week story. The time-honoured protocols of mainstream journalism should at least contain the disclaimer – the ABC made attempts to contact Ash Barty for comment but was unsuccessful.

The most interesting thing about the newly-born son (Hayden) of Ash Barty and husband Garry Kissick is that he is now part of the Barty extended family.

Through her great-grandmother, Ash Barty is a member of the Ngarigo people, the Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and north-eastern Victoria. Despite being declared Australia’s Person of the Year in 2022, Ashleigh Barty is entitled to her private life, so I will now move on to NAIDOC.

This is a week of observance during which indigenous people can feel free to celebrate their origins. White fellas can use the time to reflect on their attitudes to indigenous folk, hopefully in a positive way. It is probably fair to say (and feel free to let me know if you think this is a generalisation), most white people who are not in some way inter-married, know few indigenous people and fewer still can actually say they have an Aboriginal friend.

She Who Is Going to Canada Soon has been making attempts to meet First Nations people in our home town, with limited success. Her attempts to make eye contact and say Hi will on occasion elicit a shy smile or a nod. (Of course, it’s just possible we already have Indigenous acquaintances, as not everyone chooses to mention their ethnicity. Ed)

It’s probably no wonder that so many Indigenous people are reluctant to engage with ‘white’ Australians If I was an Aboriginal person living in this country I’d probably not want to make eye contact with white people either.Ed

This is a reference to the shocking periods in this country’s history when European settlers squatted on land once used by Aboriginal tribes for hunting, food-gathering and sacred ceremonies. From this arose seldom-mentioned Frontier Wars and the gradual marginalisation of indigenous Australians

We got chatting to a young person in Brisbane recently who we discovered has Aboriginal ancestry, though it was not obvious to us. We found this out because she was visibly upset by an overtly racist comment made in her workplace by a customer.

The comment was not addressed to the young person, but it was gratuitous enough to make her angry and upset.

The young person revealed that her grandmother was one of the Stolen Generation. This refers to a shameful period in Australia’s history (mid-1800s to 1969), when Aboriginal children were removed from their parents and adopted by (usually) well-intentioned white people. This tawdry period in Australia’s colonial past was best summed up by the late songwriter, Archie Roach:

Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away
Took the children away
The children away
Snatched from their mother’s breast
Said this is for the best
Took them away.

Even today, people in their 50s and 60s are discovering or tracing back their ancestry and those who have the opportunity to spread the story do just that. Alt-country songwriter Kevin Bennett not so recently traced his family and now writes songs depicting or satirising that era. Check out his song Spaghetti Western and its reference to a ‘stolen land’. Bennett also referred to intermarriage in Goulburn Valley Woman.

“She said she was a Goulburn Valley woman, she felt connected to the land; Her mother was a flame-haired Irish lass, her father was a Yorta Yorta man.”

The ABC this week interviewed songwriters Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody, who did more to raise awareness than most with their seminal song ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’. I first met Kev at a folk club in Toowoomba and was also aware that he was (like me) one of the mature age students studying at the university. Kev played guitar in a local bush band and on occasions would sing one of his own songs. I had no idea he was indigenous until the night he sang a song about someone being ‘zipped up in black skin’.

“This is a song about my Uncle,” he said, launching into Jack Deelin. Carmody released his debut album in 1988, the Bicentennial year. Along with indigenous bands Yothu Yindi and compadres including Gurrumul, Tiddas, Kutcha Edwards and others, Kev Carmody was at the forefront of raising awareness of indigenous culture and the injustices of the past.

The injustices and inequalities (which still exist) include a mortality rate 1.6 times greater than non-indigenous, chronic health problems, inadequate housing and over-representation among jail populations.

Over time, this led to the Apology by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2007 and the emergence of some now ubiquitous traditions. One is the warning at the start of this blog. This accords with the Aboriginal custom of not referring to the departed by name, unless special permission has been given. Then there is the acknowledgment of country which has become universal.

My attempts at befriending Aboriginal people stall on innate shyness and I suspect it is a two-way street. A fellow sometimes busks outside the IGA in town. He sings, plays guitar and harmonica and is not half-bad. I was tempted to sidle up and join in on the harmony to “Down on the corner, out on the street, Willie and the Poor boys etc.” Opportunity lost.

I remember visiting Derby in Western Australia and seeing the ancient Boab ‘Prison’ tree and reading the bleak history of the region. While the story of that hollow tree used as a temporary prison is said to be a myth, the Boab was a staging post and Aboriginal prisoners were chained to nearby trees. These are stark images which remind us of how European settlers mistreated the original inhabitants. But as is often the case, the historic records are often disputed, many because they were never written down.

It’s not that much different to the Highland Clearances, where my descendants were pushed off their land so the English aristocracy could run their sheep and lay claim to whisky production. The same applies to other colonial conquests around the world, although the mistreatment of Aborigines and Native Americans stand out as egregious examples.

The way I see it on this particular Friday is that come the referendum, we should all be saying ‘yes’.nawa.

Cashing in on the cashless society

While the world’s media was trying to get a handle on Russia and Ukraine, my counter-cyclical approach was to investigate the move towards a cashless society.

Retailers and banks have been (stealthily), moving away from having their shop assistants and tellers handle cash. Maybe it was already happening, but the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the push by retailers in particular, to insist on people using a debit card to pay for goods and services. The rational was to slow the spread of germs, although one might be aghast at the results of swabbing an ATM keypad or EFTPOS machine.

A majority of Australians (55%) now has become used to internet banking, electronic bill paying and using debit or credit cards to buy goods and services.

In 2022, the Reserve Bank issued a technical bulletin about the use of and distribution of cash in Australia. The Bank’s Consumer Payments Survey (CPS) showed that the share of total retail payments made in cash fell from 69% in 2007 to 27% in 2019. The results from the 2022 study will be published later this year.

The RBA used multiple surveys to explain the rapidly declining use of cash in Australian society. The Online Banknotes Survey (OBS), commissioned by the RBA, asked individuals about their cash use behaviour. In 2022, cash was used by 25% of respondents in their most recent transaction. Debit and credit cards remain the most popular payment method, although electronic options such as tapping with smartphones or watches are becoming more prevalent.

“The survey points to a permanent shift in payment behaviour for a significant proportion of the population; 39% of respondents said they have been using cash less often since the pandemic began. Those on lower incomes were more likely to have used cash for transactions and consider themselves high cash users.

On Sunday the host of Australia all Over, Ian McNamara, read out a letter from a listener who had taken a cache of cash to a bank branch. She was told the coins (in bags) could not be accepted as ‘we are a cashless bank’”.

“The world’s going to hell in a hand basket,” Macca opined, citing a phrase originating in mediaeval times.

The cashless bank issue was also canvassed by talkback radio 3AW, after a listener emailed to describe his run-in at a bank branch.

ANZ Victoria and Tasmania general manager Cameron Home confirmed in a statement to the radio station that “a small number” of branches “no longer handle cash at the counter”.

“At these branches cash and cheque deposits and cash withdrawals continue to be possible through a smart ATM and coin deposit machines.”

The ANZ spokesman did not quantity the number of branches refusing to take cash at the counter.

This trend poses a quandary for those of us who traditionally save coins. My pink piggy bank had reached the stage where there was no more room for the coins that accumulate like used tissues in the pockets of jeans and jackets. Many people have a piggy bank, an old cigar tin or biscuit barrel in which they throw their loose change. Nobody wants to keep $20 of loose change in their wallets, purses, handbags or pockets.

So, many of us have this habit, particularly if we are children of depression-era parents, of savings coins then banking them once the amount makes it worth the effort.

She Who Also Hoards Cash routinely throws $1 and $2 coins in a tin. Come Christmas she will count said cash, bank it, then use the $200 or so to buy ‘Christmas plonk’.

This week I laboriously counted and separated the cash into the correct denominations (in plastic bank bags).

All banks have scales and machines which can quickly and accurately confirm that a bag indeed contains $50 in $2 coins (or $7.80 in 20c pieces). Some branches can tip a mixed bag of cash into a machine which will automatically sort and count the cash in a matter of seconds.

I decided to spend an hour or so with a practical demonstration of how one fares trying to deposit $160 in coins at a bank branch. Our family bank (Suncorp) was closed – 9.30 – 2.00pm Monday to Friday). Did you know Suncorp had sold its banking business to ANZ Ltd? (No. Ed)

I then went to the Warwick Credit Union and the teller deposited the coins with no fuss at all. As part of the exercise, I learned that many banks now expect small business customers to deposit cash via a “Smart ATM”. I can only wonder how this will go with people who operate cash-only businesses (markets, busking, CD sales and so on).

The deep flaw in the concept of a cashless society is what happens when the technology (which relies on electricity and technology that works 24/7) fails. Almost on cue, we had an Australian banking example when some Commonwealth Bank customers were unable to log in to their accounts online.

The bank apologised to its customers after a major glitch left them unable to make purchases with their bank cards or access their accounts.

Customers received error messages when trying to use the NetBank online banking service and the CommBank mobile app.

It’s not the first example (for any bank or business for that matter) finding that their ‘smart’ apps can and do fail.

As dedicated readers may recall, we spent a week marooned in a regional town in New Zealand without mobile phones, internet or ATMs. Good thing the hire car had a full tank, eh! The town was cut off from the world in the aftermath of a catastrophic cyclone. A small supermarket near where we were staying had fired up its generator and served customers on the basis of ‘cash is king.’ EFTPOS payments were possible, but only after a long wait in a queue.Despite these occasional ‘hiccups,’ the banking industry seems determined to introduce labour-saving technology, even if it sends their customers to hell in a hand basket.

A survey by RFI global asked merchants what their future intentions were towards accepting cash. The data suggest that half of merchants that accepted cash in April 2022 planned on actively discouraging cash payments or displaying signage to that effect at some point in the future. Those merchants that plan to move away from accepting cash were more likely to have higher turnover and be in metropolitan areas. The pandemic appears to have influenced some merchants’ plans to dissuade cash use, with hygiene concerns around cash handling as the most prominent reason. The risk of theft and the cost of sourcing cash are other reasons.

Meanwhile, the traditional source of cash for so many Australians (automatic teller machines or ATMS), is in decline. Since 2016, when ATM numbers peaked at 8,000, 25% have closed. Most of these closures have been ATMs owned by authorised deposit-taking institutions. Some of these ADIs, as they are known, will charge you a fee of up to $3.00 to make a withdrawal.

The latter is yet another argument I have against the banking system in general. Banks charge fees for almost every aspect of banking, be it in person or via internet banking. Virtually all merchants charge a fee when you use a credit card to make purchases (e.g, $5.90 added to a return ticket to NZ). Many banks charge a monthly fee for maintaining business and even personal accounts. Moreover, these fees increase over time.

It could be a mistake to ascribe the tap and go trend on Millennials or Generation Z.

I was at a choir reunion last month when an elegant 70-something woman, having ordered a pizza, leaned over towards the EFTPOS machine and waved her smart watch at it. Ka-ching!

More reading: what can go wrong will go wrong

Refugees leave Nauru (at last)

refugees-nauru-global-crisis — Shinkiari refugee camp in Pakistan David Mark www.pixabay.com

One hopes the headline is not a jinx, like headlines pre-empting the Federal Government’s $2 billion investment in social housing. The Government is having trouble getting the legislation through the house and we ought to be asking why.

We should also be asking what is happening with Australia’s human logjam of refugees awaiting decisions on their future. As you probably gathered, it is Refugee Week in Australia. We will be doing our bit on Sunday with a Welcome Walk in Warwick, itself declared a Refugee Welcome Zone a few years ago.

The Guardian published a story late last week that suggested the Federal Government would finally take the remaining 12 refugees held on Nauru Island and re-locate them to the Australian mainland.

Cue a song I wrote in late 2018 when there was a concerted campaign to remove minors and people needing medical assistance from Nauru. The title ‘Get the Kids off Nauru’ may have dated, but the mere fact there are still refugees in offshore detention shows that not much has changed. And this article does not even mention Manus Island.

Even if all refugees are removed from Nauru by June 30, as is widely suspected, the Australian Government will reportedly retain the ‘capacity’ to continue using the remote island for offshore detention.

The Guardian cited intel from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) and Refugee Action Coalition which has been monitoring the inflow of refugees to Brisbane; most of them moving to hotel detention. Most are expected to be given bridging visas and encouraged to work. That’s a subtle change to common practices since the Howard government saw the opportunity to create offshore processing in 2001, in the wake of the discredited ‘children overboard’ Tampa affair.

Over the ensuing years, the public has mostly been in the dark about what went on in Nauru. In 2014, the Nauruan Government was asking news organisations to pay $8,000 per journalist for a three-month visa. If the application was rejected, the payment was non-refundable.

The newly elected Rudd government stopped offshore processing in 2007, after reports filtered out via humanitarian groups about abuses, overcrowding, and a shortage of potable water. Not that Labor proved to be the panacea, re-introducing offshore processing in 2012. The right and left of politics have long played ducks and drakes with the lives of people shunted from their homelands by war, famine, religious persecution and/or terrorism.

A week or two away from the 2022 election, the soon-to-be outgoing Coalition Government quickly moved to close a controversial hotel detention centre in downtown Melbourne,. Refugees were the least of former PM Scott Morrison’s problems, but it was an egregious move to deflect attention from other issues.

Offshore processing is one aspect of Australia’s policies about refugees and asylum seekers. Onshore, the prevailing wisdom has been to lock ‘them’ away. As of April 30, 2023, there were 1,128 people in closed detention and another 319 in community detention. Of the people in closed detention, 168 are there because they came to Australia by boat, seeking asylum. On the basis of what it costs to keep one person in jail, closed detention is costing taxpayers at least $45 million a year.*

Conservative governments have been apt to describe boat arrivals as “illegals” when in law the term is “irregular”. Such attempts are often doomed to failure as the boats are intercepted by Australian or Indonesia border forces and turned back. Some sink and people drown – we seldom hear about that. As a ‘champagne socialist’, it pains me to report that the seed of this treatment of refugees was sown by a Labor Government.

In 1992, Paul Keating’s government introduced mandatory detention for any non-citizen who arrived in Australia without an appropriate visa. Keating changed the law from a limit of 273 days to indefinite detention. This meant that non-citizens without a valid visa, suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorised arrival, could be held in indefinite detention until their case and status was heard and resolved.

The policy (it was meant to be temporary), is regarded as controversial and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations. However, subsequent governments of all creeds have upheld indefinite detention and the High Court decreed that it was constitutional.

The two largest onshore detention centres are Villawood in NSW (441 detainees) and Yongah Hill in WA (248).

The important number in these statistics compiled by the Refugee Council of Australia is the average time spent in closed detention (two years and five days), with another 259 people spending more than two years in community detention.

Australia is also responsible for 1,367 children in the community on bridging visas and 95 children held in community detention.

These numbers are miniscule in the global scheme of things, with 108 million people forcibly displaced as of December 31, 2022. Of these, 28 million were assessed to be refugees by the UNHCR and another 5.4 million judged to be asylum seekers.

As the war in Ukraine continues unabated, as Iran bubbles and boils and people in feudal African countries are hunted like rabbits, we here in Warwick are doing our bit to improve the lot of five people.

Our local refugee support group applied to be part of the Federal Government’s CRISP refugee sponsorship scheme. The latter encourages local community groups to sponsor a family to settle in rural Australia. Thanks to our generous community, we raised more than $10,000 and were gifted a houseful of furniture. So it was that a family of five from Pakistan arrived at Brisbane airport in mid-May. We are responsible for their welfare for the next 12 months. A month later, the family are settling into their new abode; adapting to Warwick’s cold nights after living in a Sri Lankan refugee camp. The daughters are enrolled in local schools and the parents have been getting out and about. It is a challenging but rewarding way to turn abstract concerns into real action.

Having said that, volunteers who get involved with refugee and asylum seeker support groups often suffer from ‘empathy fatigue’. Then there is the perpetual quest for donations to keep much needed support going.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre was last year at risk of having to close because of a shortage of funds. The Melbourne-based charity said donations were down 45% since re-opening in mid-2022 after the pandemic. In any given year, more than 7,000 people seeking asylum approach the ASRC for essential services including food, housing, medical care, and legal help. Good to see that the organisation’s annual telethon on World Refugee Day (June 20) raised $1.34 million.

This story is not just about refugees and asylum seekers. The Federal Government has for years struggled with the ongoing problem of non-citizens overstaying their visas. The Canberra Times reported in 2017 that more than 64,000 people were in Australia illegally, after overstaying work and tourist visas. The Federal Government estimated as many as 12,000 have been here for more than 20 years.

For certain the population of refugees in ‘closed detention’ would include overstayers who have been picked up one way or the other. People who come to Australia on a tourist or working visa and overstay by 28 days or more face deportation and a three-year ban on being issued with another Australia visa.

A good start with Nauru, but surely it is time to sort this mess out and restore Australia’s reputation of a fair go for all.

Footnote: These are my personal opinions and not those of the community refugee support group to which I belong

based on the estimated annual cost ($40,000) of keeping one person in prison (in Queensland)

In the event of something happening to me

Nothing quite focuses the mind on mortality more than a family bereavement. It’s been a long time between our family’s episodes of sorry business. However, I headed to New Zealand on pure instinct, arriving in time to support my sister as she said goodbye to her husband of 62 years. They say that 95 is a ‘good innings’, but it is no less hard for the family when the time comes.

The manner in which one can choose to shuffle off has changed appreciably since 1991 when our Dad died. So many people now are eschewing the formal funeral/wake process in favour of simplicity, affordability and privacy.

But first we need to be prepared, and statistics show that only 40% of Australians have a Will.

She Who Has a Plan has been ‘encouraging’ me to make an Advanced Health Care Directive. She has progressed her own, but it is still not completed. Apparently, you (a) need a doctor to sign off that you are competent and (b) wish to make a compelling argument for not wanting to lie incapacitated in an aged care home for years after a catastrophic stroke.

My next older sister (also a widow) has moved closer to her family as she approaches 80. The recent events led us to talk about not much else than ‘what if’. She has ‘The Folder’ tucked away in a place where her kids can find it. In such a folder – and we all should have one – there’s the Power of Attorney, a copy of the Will and the AHCD (sometimes known as a living will). Some even leave cash for a wake!

As I discovered quite a few months ago now, the age of technology adds more complexity to ‘getting one’s affairs in order’. In our case, SWHAP pays the bills, interacts with Centrelink (sigh. Ed) and plans around things we need to do to the house, car and caravan. I look after our self-managed super fund, the music business (such as it is), technology, lawns, firewood, feeding the dog and cleaning up the kitchen.

I guess at a pinch I could sort out the bills – there is a spreadsheet after all. As for the SMSF, that is a a different challenge. SMSF Trustees deal with a dozen different organisations and the responsibility for stuffing things up falls on them. I also administer two websites and our online music business with its links to streaming services. Not to mention having to report songwriting royalties to Centrelink.

I started work on my (incomplete) Estate document in October 2022. If I were to pop my clogs suddenly, SWHAP would at least have access to all the accounts and websites you need when maintaining a SMSF portfolio (Ed: you changed the bloody passwords again, didn’t you).

As I hinted earlier, we should all have a Will and, even if you do, they probably need to be reviewed. Like, I left everything to my kids and then I met Vera!

Comparison website finder.com.au did a survey last year of 1054 participants, 60% of whom did not have a will. That’s 12 million Australian adults who have no estate plan. Were they to die today, their estate would be locked up interminably, tagged as intestate. If you die without a Will or it is invalid, your next of kin will have to make an application to the Supreme Court.

The law then decides who gets the estate (your assets). This is done with no regard to what you or anyone in your family wanted or thought they were going to get. Vera versus the kids – not a great scenario.

It doesn’t cost much in the scheme of things to have a lawyer draw up a will. Or you can buy a DIY kit from a reputable newsagent.

Even if you have a will, it will not be settled until probate. In the meantime, your spouse’s bank accounts will be frozen.

My point about Wills is that you would not want your loved ones to struggle with your slackness when they are consumed by grief.

At this point, if what I’ve written so far has galvanised you to action, we should all stipulate what is to happen to our mortal remains once we have died. These days almost 75% of us want to be cremated, which is simple enough. You can pay to put the ashes in a memorial wall in the cemetery, take them home in an urn or scatter them at the departed’s favourite fishing spot.

Remember that scene from The Big Lebowski?

What we most commonly call ‘the arrangements’ should be handled by a professional undertaker. There are many options today for a ‘simple’ funeral/cremation and it is likely to cost far less than a traditional funeral service with a burial. More people now are opting for a direct cremation.

A blog by Anton Brown Funerals in Brisbane set down some of the most recent trends in funerals. The big change has been the switch to live streaming of funerals (36%). That is, close family and friends are probably present but the extended family and friends who couldn’t make it can watch live or later. This evolved from the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, forcing the funeral industry to adapt.

One thing I did not know is that 50% of Australians are likely to be in hospital at the time of their death; 32% are likely to be in an aged care or respite facility and 15% are likely to die at home. Most funerals (85%) are conducted on a spontaneous basis while 15% are pre-planned. I know people in this latter category who have not only pre-planned, but pre-paid. Whether or not the next of kin will be called upon to read Mum or Dad’s self-penned eulogy is a matter of conjecture.

Meanwhile, I have made an appointment for a check up, will look into the living will and finish the Estate document (which should go into The Folder). My sister says The Folder should be bright and visible – tie a bow around it, even.

As a report by Inside Ageing observed, death affects almost all Australians over the age of 35, with 95% of all respondents having attended a funeral, and 60% being involved in a funeral arrangement.

That trend is expected to grow, as the 4.2 million Australians aged 65 and over increases from 16% of our population to between 21% and 23% by 2066. Increasingly, this cohort are going to be baby boomers with views and attitudes shaped by the Summer of Love. You can read all about it here.

If you’d rather laugh about death, try Billy Connolly’s 2014 series, The Big Sendoff, where he explores death and funerals around the world. The series was made after Connolly discovered he had Parkinson’s. It is a far from morbid, illuminating look at attitudes about death. (Try Apple TV).

The last word goes to Billy, who once said: “I’d hate to have been born and died and nobody noticed.”