thegoodwills.com

Men who cook and do housework LOL

As I have just returned from 10 days in New Zealand on sorry business, today I’m reposting a piece from 2018 when my best half broke her wrist and I became chief cook and bottlewasher. Normal transmission will resume next week.

This topic would not have raised an eyelash in my Dad’s era, a generation of men who did not cook or do housework. Many men of my vintage grew up in households where duties were strictly demarcated along gender lines: Dad went to work and paid the bills; Mum stayed home and did all the housework and cooking; knitting, sewing, mending – shall I go on?

We kids had chores to do – washing up, drying, putting away, feeding the chooks, collecting the eggs and so on. Dad would come home on pay day and hand his pay packet to Mum. Later on she’d give Dad an ‘allowance’ for his smokes, haircuts and the like.

Mums from this era did more than cook and keep house; they managed to harvest a lot of the household food, swapping eggs for freshly-caught fish and turning a peach tree harvest into 20 jars of preserves, for example. There were always vegies in the garden (brussel sprouts, yum), and in the pantry multiple jars of homemade marmalade, jams, chutneys, pickled onions and so on. There’s no end to one woman’s ingenuity when making a working man’s pay last a family of five.

When we came home from school there was usually something in the oven – scones, bread, biscuits. The house smelled good and Mum was nearly always there. Dinner times were a bit regimented. Dad would get up about 5 (he worked nights so had an afternoon nap) and sit in his favourite chair reading the newspaper until dinner was served at 6. It wasn’t quite the pipe and slippers routine, but close to it.

Decades later, as a result of living alone or in share houses and with women who had at least read the Female Eunuch, I evolved into what is sometimes called a ‘SNAG’.

There are a lot of us around now – some do all the cooking, bake cakes and make preserves.

If you’ve been paying attention, She Who is Ambidextrous broke her right wrist six weeks ago and although she had the plaster off last week, she’s showing little inclination to oust me from my new-found kingdom.

“Like the song says, I can’t do without my Kitchen Man,” she jested, while covertly supervising the preparation of the leg of lamb. (I used a slow cooker, first searing the joint to keep the flavours in, inserting a couple of cloves of garlic and later added potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato and onion).

This was my second attempt at a lamb roast. The first one was (we both agreed), a little dry. The recipe said cook on low for 10 hours so that’s what I did. I’m only now finding out, after six weeks of being chief cook and rice cooker washer, recipes are only meant to be a guide.

I’ll be the first to admit it takes a bit of gumption to invade the kitchen of a classy cook, although of late SWIA was showing signs of taking a break. I’m sure she did not mean that literally.

My contributions in the kitchen prior to the fracture included sausages and mash, home-made pizzas or pies and vegies for footie nights and the occasional spaghetti bolognaise.

I had precious few disasters during my tour as camp cook and one or two meals (chicken stir fry and a beef curry), drew compliments from the resident chef.

Readers will know I do other chores around the house: vacuuming, laundry, ironing and outside chores like pulling the wheelie bins up a 97m driveway or emptying the Bokashi bucket (don’t ask).

Men who do their share are usually visible (like the young hipster I saw with a baby strapped to his front and a toddler clutching his ankle, navigating a trolley down the organic foods aisle and carefully reading labels).

Such a sight could lull you into thinking 21^st century men had moved on and now do their share of unpaid domestic work. Well, not really.

The invisible ones surfaced in 2016 Census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – one in four men who said they did no housework at all. The Census estimated that Australian women spend between five and 14 hours per week doing ‘household work’ while men on average spend five hours. This work is mainly defined as including cooking and housework. Many more hours (up to 30 per week), are spent on unpaid household tasks like laundry, child care and shopping.

Dr Leah Ruppanner, senior lecturer in Sociology at University of Melbourne, suggests women still spend twice as much time on housework as men.

Writing for The Conversation, Dr Ruppanner said Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed Australian working women spend on average 25 hours a week doing housework (in addition to the 36.4 hours spent in full-time employment.

Men working full-time spent 15 hours a week doing housework, on top of their 40 hour week. The data was drawn from a massive but infrequent ABS Time Use Study, last completed in 2006. That data showed women to be doing the greater share of cooking and cleaning up, laundry and clothes care, child care and shopping.

The one area where men prevailed was home maintenance, with time equally divided when it came to household management and grounds and animal care.

Dr Ruppanner said women shoulder the time-intensive and routine tasks such as cooking, laundry and dishes. They are more likely to do the less enjoyable tasks (cleaning toilets and showers). The men are most often found doing periodic tasks like washing the car, mowing the lawns or changing light bulbs.

She said the solution was to bring men into the process as equal housework sharers, not ‘helpers’.

“It also means not penalising men for ‘not doing it right’.

“Cleaning the house is a skill men can learn one toilet bowl at a time.”

A 2015 OECD report on unpaid work showed that Australia was relatively high up the list of gender imbalance. The study interpreted unpaid work as including housework, shopping, child and adult care duties, volunteering and other unpaid work.

Australian women completed 5 hours and 11 minutes per day with men lagging behind (just under three hours), which put us in fourth position in a poll where you’d rather be at the bottom.

The pack was clearly led by Mexico, where women spent six hours and 23 minutes a day doing unpaid work. Mexican men put in just two hours and 17 minutes. The gender gap was closest in Sweden, with women and men sharing domestic duties on a more equitable basis (3.26/2.45 hours).

Japanese, Korean and Indian men devoted the least time to domestic work (under 1 hour per day), while at the other end of the scale Danish fellas put in three hours and six minutes.

Meanwhile in Australia, this Aussie househusband is off to make a Shepherd’s Pie from the remains of the lamb and left-over vegies. Sorry, no, you’re not invited.

(Post Shepherd’s pie – and quite satisfactory it was – SWIA)

Who’d be a teacher, eh

By Bob Wilson and guest writer Lyn Nuttall

Apart from sharing my life with a teacher in the 1970s and much later spending a couple of years on a high school P&C, teaching is not really on my radar.

Image Gerd Altman www.pixabay.com

But it should be, with the teaching profession in tatters, if you follow the global headlines. First there is the teacher shortage, a situation worsening by the year, as teachers take the flight path and leave the fight to others.

As matters stand in May 2023, teachers are holding rolling strikes in the UK and New Zealand, with sporadic strikes in Australian states. In June last year, NSW state school and private school teachers collectively went on strike, primarily over wages and conditions. That was unprecedented.

The issues are many and varied but focus on unsatisfactory wages, over-work, a dearth of resources and in Australia, the much-hated National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). Introduced in 2008 for years 3, 5, 7 and 9, NAPLAN is the only nation-wide assessment of students’ literacy and numeracy skills. The tests, held over nine days, started this year on March 15.

Studies into NAPLAN since its introduction in 2008 have suggested that there is an overall negative impact on curriculum and wellbeing from the testing. Dulfer, Polesel and Rice, (2012) surveyed over 8,000 teachers nationally across primary and secondary contexts. It identified that despite ACARA* suggesting the need only for familiarisation with the test, 30% of the teachers in NAPLAN years reported practising the test three to four times in the two weeks before implementation. This amplified children’s self-doubt and added to the pressures of an already crowded curriculum.

A Senate inquiry was established to assess the effectiveness of NAPLAN. One submission probably sums up the major issues for many teachers.

“NAPLAN is not effective because it only provides teachers, parents and students with a very limited view of a student’s learning and capabilities at school. It breaks the basic rules and concept of valid assessment. The test results do not tell teachers, who do their job, and care about each of the students they teach, anything more than they already know about their students and how they are doing in their learning.”

The submission, from a teacher in Western Australia, observed that test results often cause low self-esteem in very young students. These students do not have the level of maturity to place the assessment in the right perspective, he wrote. This causes stress and anxiety to students who already know that they struggle at school.

NAPLAN and funding shortages in State schools could be identified as some of the reasons for dire forecasts that up to 70% of Australian teachers could quit. Unions, doing what they do best, reduce the issues to numbers, focussing on wages and conditions.

Dr Fiona Longmuir of Monash University says the shortage of teachers in Australia and other countries and education itself was exacerbated during the Covid-19 years.

“Teacher numbers and resourcing, unequal access and outcomes, and widespread student disillusionment, disengagement and mental ill-health aren’t new – but have been blatantly exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic. How we respond now will be crucial for future generations,”

Dr Longmuir, a lecturer in education leadership at Monash, said teacher shortages have reached critical levels in the US, UK, Australia, Europe and Africa.

“The supply and demand of teachers, particularly in ‘hard-to-staff’ locations, continues to be an issue, and was heightened over the pandemic due to a lack of effective policy solutions.”

Dr Longmuir said the expectations of teachers’ performance had increased over time, as schools increased their reliance on standardised tests.

Joshua Fullard of the University of Warwick (UK) surveyed 300 teachers to assess what would encourage them to stay in the profession.

He asked how likely they might be to leave teaching in a number of different scenarios, such as a salary increase or an increase or decrease in their working hours.

“My findings show that policies related to reducing teacher working hours and improving the quality of school leaders would be effective. I also found that increasing teachers’ salaries would reduce their intentions of leaving. However, only a large pay rise – over 10% – is likely to have a significant effect.”

Professor Fullard’s research showed that school leaders played a particularly important role in teachers’ decision to leave the profession.

“I found that an improvement in senior leadership quality would have a greater impact on teacher intentions than a 5% pay rise.”

The main problem in all countries seemed to be excessive working hours and workloads. Problem students and discipline gets a mention, as does the lack of respect for teachers at all levels. As for over-work, teachers reported working an average of around 52 hours a week during term time. Prof Fullard found that a five-hour-a-week reduction in working hours would have a similar effect on teacher retention as a 10% pay rise. In Australia, primary and secondary teachers work about 45 hours a week, higher than the international average.

What I found interesting, enquiring into the state of the teaching profession, is that little to nothing is said about or on behalf of children.

FOMM reader and sometime contributor Lyn Nuttall was a primary school teacher for 33 1/3 years – “just like the LPs”.

He retired aged 60 and, though disconnected from the classroom since 2010, recently wrote this piece of whimsy which lightens the topic and perhaps reminds us of teachers who made a difference to our lives:

What’s the matter with “kids”?

As the song from Bye Bye Birdie went (1960), without the quotation marks.

I’ve never minded calling children “kids”. It’s a friendly sounding word with no historical baggage as an epithet. To my mind, its connotations are positive.

Over the years I’ve occasionally met someone who objected along the lines of, “They’re not baby goats, they’re children,” but that’s like chiding a French speaker for using the endearment mon chou: “He’s not a green leafy vegetable…” There are many colloquialisms that sprang from figurative speech, and we don’t insist on users being literal.

In many contexts, of course “children” sounds better. “Student” has replaced “pupil” which seems to have gone out of fashion, and it does suggest 1950s officialese. In Queensland, pupil-free days became student-free days at some point.

Teachers have various ways of addressing a class: “people”, “guys”, “folks”. Some of these sound better coming from a teacher seated on a reversed chair. I once heard an able student referred to as a “good little unit” but the small-school principal who said that was a bit unhinged.

I used to slip facetiously into “peanuts”, “bananas”, “ladies and gentlemen”, “ladles and jellybeans”. Context was everything. When I first started teaching you would hear some old-timers using “youse” but that’s rare these days.

Long before gender neutrality became the norm I gave up “girls and boys” and would say, “Good morning everyone,” probably influenced by the broadcaster Karl Haas’s “Hello everyone”. I hated hearing a class chanting “good morning” in reply, so in later years I would dispense with a greeting and say something like, “Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” or just jump in and start talking about whatever needed our attention. The sky didn’t fall in.

One novel variation I heard came from a parent who worked for the RAAF. When he was President of the Parents & Citizens Association, he talked to the school assembly one morning and referred throughout to children as “personnel”. Force of habit.

Thanks, Lyn, for that piece of humorous nostalgia. Ed.

BTW, I used to address my class of ‘B2E2 Industrial Boys’ as ‘Gentlemen’, in the hope that they would respond as such. It actually worked quite well. Ed

* The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority

The cost of having a say in world politics

cost-global-politics — Sydney Opera House, venue for the cancelled Quad. Image by Patty Jansen www.pixabay.com

On the eve of what was to be Australia’s first time as host of the Quad meeting, let’s reflect on the proposed cost – some $23 million according to Budget papers. It is understood more than 20% of the budget was allocated to the Federal Police, to ensure the security of invited dignitaries.

The planned Quad meeting, with the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US to be arriving in Sydney, was scrapped after President Biden cancelled owing to ongoing debt ceiling negotiations at home.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Albanese continued with plans to host an official visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Modi arrived in Australia on Monday, with his arrival in Sydney causing great excitement in the suburb known as ‘Little India”. Coincidence or not, SBS reported this week that after a community appeal, the suburb of Harris Park is to be officially known as Little India.

A high proportion of Sydney’s 188,000-strong Indian population live in or around Harris Park. On Tuesday night, Mr Modi attended a rally of 20,000 at Qudos Bank Arena in western Sydney. Modi is a polarising figure, though, both here and at home. Indian Muslim community groups have already declared they do not welcome the visit, citing human rights violations against minority groups in India.

This is Prime Minister Modi’s first visit to Australia since 2014. His two-day stay will include holding talks with Mr Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. I should point out Modi came to Australia via Papua New Guinea, where he met with Pacific Islands leaders.

The Australian Financial Review said Mr Modi and Mr Albanese are expected to build on a communiqué issued after the first annual leaders’ summit in New Delhi in March (which Mr Alabanese attended).

There will be talks on economic co-operation, Australia’s status as a critical minerals supplier, and India’s opportunities for low-cost manufacturing in green technology. Defence co-operation will also be on the agenda, with Australia preparing to host India’s naval war games.

So that’s India covered. What about the other Quad members?

The Quad is a strategic security dialogue amongst Australia, India, Japan and the US, maintained by talks with member countries. One could argue that much of this business could have been done at last week’s G7, the big brother of international talk-fests.

I don’t usually watch the ABC’s Sunday Morning political talk show, ‘Insiders’, but on occasions come in at the end for Mike Bowers’ entertaining ‘Talking Pictures’.

Mike and a guest cartoonist go through their selection of the best political cartoons for the week. Not surprisingly, David Pope’s detailed drawings often feature, as do the works of Cathy Wilcox, Peter Broelman, Jon Kudelka among others.

David Pope’s cheeky depiction of US president Joe Biden swiping a maxxed-out credit card tells the story of President Joe cancelling his proposed attendance of the Quad in Australia.

Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese caught up last week at the G7, another expensive talk fest, both for the host country (Japan) and the countries sending delegations. This year, the G7 was held in Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities obliterated by a US-delivered atomic bomb in August 1945.

Biden and Albanese reportedly held close talks at the G7 about climate change. Albanese has been quoted as saying that action on climate change was “the entry fee to credibility in the Indo-Pacific”.

The US president said in turn that the two nations were launching a new joint initiative to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

By that, as The Guardian reported, Biden meant building more “resilient critical mineral supply chains”.

Biden said action on climate and clean energy would be another central pillar of the Australia-US alliance. He said he looked forward to hosting Mr Albanese for a State visit in Washington DC later this year.

That’s all very well, but that will also mean another (expensive) international VIP trip for the PM and a team of hand-picked Ministers and advisers.

As we can tell by the tabling of former PM Scott Morrison‘s travel expenses in his first year in office (2019), it’s a costly business.

SBS News did a bit of digging (they submitted Freedom of Information requests), to publish a report in November 2019.

Scott Morrison served as Australian Prime Minister from August 2018 until May 2022. SBS found that Mr Morrison racked up more than $1.3 million in travel costs. He made 12 international trips, visiting 17 nations, in the first 12 months since he had taken office in August 2018.

It is hard to argue that an Australian PM and indeed senior Ministers should not travel to other countries for diplomacy, negotiations and photo opportunities. Our is a vast, isolated continent surrounded by water and many hours’ distance from even our nearest neighbours.

But when you consider the proliferation of international meetings and conventions on climate change, security, the economy, peace and stability, the five-star hotel chains and limo hire companies must be doing OK.

When the G7 was held in Cornwall in 2021, the cost to British taxpayers was put at 70 million pounds ($A131,112m). It’s more difficult to establish what the G7 cost Japan. Al Jazeera reported Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to ‘send a strong message’ about the need for a world without nuclear weapons, hence using Hiroshima as the host city.

It’s interesting to think how much money was saved during the first 18 months of the Covid lockdown. Conferences and meetings were universally held over internet portals such as Zoom, where the biggest expenses were cyber security and bandwidth.

Michelle Grattan had a bit to say about politicians and travel last year. By June 2022, Mr Albanese had visited Indonesia, took part in a Quad meeting in Japan, was about to attend a NATO summit in Madrid, and, despite some internal advice to the contrary, visited war-torn Ukraine. Not to be thwarted, Albanese also visited Paris, at a time when the Australian government was in ‘mauvaise odeur’ over Scott Morrison’s decision to cancel a submarine contract with France.

Grattan defended the right of a PM to visit foreign shores.

“International conferences give an opportunity for the new PM to meet multiple leaders, gather information and signal continuities and change (for example on climate policy) in Australia’s national priorities.

By she added that a newly-elected Prime Minister must be careful in deciding how much foreign travel to undertake. In mid-2022, ordinary Australians were finding the rising cost of living a challenge. The situation has worsened in mid-2023.

“At some point, being away too much stirs criticism,” Grattan wrote.

Despite the cost of staging global conferences, the Group of Seven agreed upon strong moves against Russia, including sanctions and export controls.

Still to come this year, the G20 in New Delhi (September) and the climate change summit, COP28 (Expo City, Dubai) in November. Somewhere in amongstall that, the PM and his troops would do well to stay home and work on the most important (domestic) issue of all – the Voice to Parliament referendum.

As The Conversation observed earlier in May, the latest polls suggest 54% Yes and 46% No. (Come on, Queensland, come on, come on. Ed)

Much work to be done at home.

Fred Smith + The Goodwills, Nambour June 18

Dear Friends of The Goodwills,

If you are within cooee of Nambour on Sunday June 18 what better way to spend an afternoon that a concert with celebrated songwriter Fred Smith and a reunion with The Goodwills.

Fred will be launching his new CD ‘Look,” a departure from his material about Afghanistan. Fred says it is about “the ordinary stuff of our lives and the world we live in: the speed of modern life, love, isolation, and the internet in a world that seems to be lurching forward by a rolling series of crisis.”

The Goodwills Trio are the support act for this concert at Nambour’s Black Box Theatre. Bob and Laurel and fiddle player Helen Rowe will present some of Bob’s songs arranged for three-part harmony. Maleny people will remember our long-running series of house concerts at Maleny. Fred performed there three times before his popularity necessitated a move to the RSL!

Sunday Folk organiser Karen Law tells us bookings are being made even at this early stage. A booking link is included below.

Sunday Folk is at the Black Box Theatre, 80 Howard Street, Nambour. Tickets are $25/$23 and children under 18 – $18.

Book here:

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1055423…&

The great digital photo conundrum

digital-photo-dilemma — View from the Window in Le Gras“, the world’s first photograph. This is a colourised version of the 1826 original by Jonnychiwa – Wikimedia, CC.

It was a long overdue computer overhaul that brought to my attention we had a combined database of images (jpeg files) totaling more than 100,000. Gee willikers as they used to say in the 1950s sit-coms, to express amazement (today expressed as WTF or Holy F*** Batman, etc).

Gee willikers is described in the Urban Dictionary and elsewhere as a ‘minced oath’ – like the perfect gentleman turning a forming curse into Jeepers, Jings or Cripes.

All which has little to do with the discussion we are about to have – except, what the whillikers are we to do with a database of 100,000 digital photos?

The quantity is not so surprising when researchers* estimate that people in the US take on average 20 photos per day (Asia-Pacific 15 per day).

She Who Took Most of Ours (SWTMOO) swears there is a lot of doubling up in there, while sorting photos into years, topics and other identifiers.

We have both had computers, digital phones and cameras for the past 20 years. On that basis, it’s only 5000 photos a year, or 2500 each, on average. As you can see by the research, we came out just below average (14 photos per day).

As we all know, though, only two or three of a set of photographs taken on any one day will be keepers. So why not just delete the other 24 there and then? Those 40 or 50 mobile phone shots of the eclipse, nearly all of which were duds.

I came to this audit of our digital baggage while setting up SWTMOO’s new computer. While reinstalling backups from the old, failed computer, I decided to store only photos from 2018 onwards in the default Pictures folder. Then began the process of locating and moving pre-2018 digital photos from various portable hard drives (including my own collection on another PC).

This is when you run into the folders within folders trap and the occasional folder unhelpfully named ‘Photos’ or ’Folder’.( I plead ‘not guilty’ to that one. Ed) Many of these photos are from our travels around Australia and also overseas, although the latter seems like a long time ago now.

Did I mention we also have a cupboard stacked with photo albums from the pre-digital era? We are children of the WWII era where photos were scarce mementos of hard times, romance and childhood. Just as people today can lose their photo collections to floods, bushfires and other catastrophes, so too our war-era parents lost family photos in the Blitz.

War-time refugees driven out of their homes left everything except what they could carry. Photography was an expensive hobby in those days. If you are going through great-grandma’s things and can only find a handful of creased box brownie snaps, that is fairly typical. Formal portraits from the world wars that survived offer few clues to the people who inherited them. No-one thought to write on the back (in pencil, even) just who is in the photo.

Not that photo hoarding is a new thing – check out the street photographer Vivian Maier, a reclusive character who died unrecognized in 2009. A Wikipedia entry described how Maier took more than 150,000 photographs during her lifetime, most in the 1940s and 1950s. These unbidden images of people and architecture in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles were unpublished until after her death. A collector acquired some of Maier’s photos in 2007, while others found Maier’s prints and undeveloped negatives in boxes and suitcases. Her photographs were first published on the Internet in July 2008, Let that be a lesson to you, SWTMOO.

Most of the equipment Maeir used is the stuff of museums now, as camera sales dwindle and smart phone trade soars.

As Matic Broz writes in Photutorial.com, * the proliferation of smart phone cameras and the rapid improvement in technology dominates the digital photo scene. In 2020, 82% of digital photos were taken by smart phones and that is expected to rise to 92.5% in 2023.

If you still have a digital camera (as we both do), you are in a dwindling minority of people who prefer, like professional photographers, to shoot images with digital or analog cameras and interchangeable lenses.

The convenience of the smart phone/camera is that most people have it with them all the time, like a wallet or watch.

Whatever brand of smart phone you can afford will do the trick and then some. The latest Apple Iphone, for example, has a 12 megapixel main camera and a 12mp wide angle camera. All the same, you can buy a digital camera for under $300 which will have a 20mp lense and probably a 30mm zoom as well.

In a world where there are 12 trillion photographs in existence and a myriad of ways to distribute them, who would actually pay staff photographers to take them? Newsrooms across the nation and electronic media in general have pared down their in-house photographic units accordingly. Staffers have been replaced by freelancers, photo sharing sites like flickr.com, and online agencies which either sell or give away digital images. Not to mention the keen amateurs who send their sunrise/sunset/storm phone snaps to the TV weather people.

According to Photutorial.com,* which seems to be the portal that keeps statistics on this topic, 1.81 trillion photos are taken worldwide every year. By 2030, this will have grown to 2.3 trillion photos every year.

The average user has around 2,100 photos on a smartphone in 2023. Apple smartphone users have 2,400, while Android users have 1,900. (My Samsung cheap ‘smart’ phone seemingly refuses to delete photos until it’s damn well good and ready, despite my varous attempts. Ed)

Even though the global pandemic reduced the number of images taken by 25% in 2020 and 20% in 2021, the growth of digital images has continued unabated. And why not? It’s cheap, available and social media makes it easy to share images with friends and family.

The major issue with digital imagery is its ephemeral nature. One of my long-term readers has been keeping a hard copy family photo album for a long while now. All of those Facebook photos of baby’s first steps, toddler’s first tantrum, first day at Kindie etc, all carefully copied to a flash drive. There are places which have DIY photo kiosks where you can select, crop and request images and come back an hour later and collect the still warm prints. The cost is nothing in the scheme of things. The big question is, do the young parents of today’s generation want hard copy photo albums of those precious moments?

“Mum, I shared it on Insta – didn’t you get it?”

The trap for those who accumulate vast numbers of digital photos and videos is the storage space they take up. At a rough guess our 100,000 photos consume close to 500GB of data, video considerably more. If you store data in the ‘cloud,’ be it a cluster of cumulus owned by Apple, Google, Microsoft or competitors like Dropbox, you may be enjoying a ‘free’ account now. Be aware that fees apply once you pass whatever limit has been set by your cloud provider.

The wonder of digital imagery is the ability to scan old photos and keep them on a hard drive (above the 2022 flood level). Here’s a scan of a ‘selfie’ from 1984, just to prove the point. No idea at all where the original colour print is. The sign says (left) swimming allowed (right) swimming prohibited. Kiwis, eh!

Bare bones budget for jobseekers

Just as well the Commonwealth Government Budget wasn’t tabled last week – that would have been too much of a mixed message.

A nation’s budget is all about redistribution of wealth, a concept worth keeping in mind at a time when £100 million of British taxpayers’ money was spent on an unnecessary coronation pageant.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, Prince Charles became King by default on September 8, 2022, on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. There was no pressing reason to stage a mediaeval pageant, however splendidly well done.

This week, the media’s attention swung back to the King’s southern hemisphere colony, as Treasurer Jim Chalmer presented his budget.

So much had been flagged already that one does have to question is there a critical reason for the media embargo till 7.30pm on Tuesday.

As I started writing this on Tuesday morning, much of the Budget’s headline measures had already been revealed. This included a $15 billion spend on cost-of-living relief; $1.5 billion of it in electricity bill relief for 5.5 million households and 1 million small businesses. I should point out that this is from an ABC article published on Tuesday morning. The ABC’s business reporters Ian Verrender and Gareth Hutchens were all over it.

One of the other measures flagged earlier aimed to change the dispensing rules at pharmacies. Australians will be able to buy two months’ worth of medicines on a single prescription, with the change affecting more than 300 common medicines. This overrides the current rule that only 30 days’ supply of medicine can be applied to one prescription.

The ABC and other media outlets also seemed confident, ahead of the Budget, that Chalmers would produce a surplus and indeed he did. You can’t please everyone, though. Greens leader Adam Bandt said the government had prioritised delivering a ($4.5 billion) surplus over supporting people in poverty.

“Labor’s second budget is a betrayal of people who were promised that no one would be left behind,” he said in a tweet on social media.

Other leaked or pre-announced budget measures included cheaper child care and a (long overdue) pay rise for aged care workers. Welfare recipients received higher payments, but nowhere near the level asked for by lobbyists.

The Budget is a document which sets out how taxes paid by Australian businesses and individuals will be spent. It is a massive number, equating to 29% of GDP. In 2021-2022, $683 billion was raised in taxes across all levels of government. This was 15.2% higher than the previous year. A table prepared by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows an upward trajectory for taxation revenue. The slight blip in 2019-2020 was due to disruption to employment by the onset of Covid-19 and its attendant lockdowns. Total tax revenue includes all Commonwealth, State and Territory taxes, GST, those indirect taxes that still exist and excises imposed on alcohol, tobacco and fuel.

The cost-of-living package is one thing, but the government has been under enormous pressure to raise the level of unemployment benefit. The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) last month presented a detailed brief to Treasurer Jim Chalmers. A former Commonwealth Treasury head, Ken Henry, appeared on television as the ACOSS brief’s anointed spokesman. In a call to raise the level of NewStart and Youth Allowance, ACOSS said some 750,000 people in communities across Australia live on unemployment and student payments that do not cover the cost of housing, food, transport and healthcare.

The single rate of Newstart is (or was) less than $40 per day and living on Newstart and Youth Allowance presents the biggest risk to living in poverty. ACOSS wanted the rate raised to within 90% of the aged pension, so were almost certain to be disappointed.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, ACOSS said 80% of people receiving JobSeeker payments have been receiving the benefit for more than 12 months. The same research found that seven in ten people on income support were eating less or reporting difficulty getting medicine or care. In December 2022, Anglicare found that there were 15 Jobseekers competing for each entry-level role.

“The longer people remain on income support, the harder it is to transition back into paid work,” the letter said.

ACOSS chief executive officer, Dr Cassandra Goldie, said post-Budget that while the $20 per week pay rise was welcome, it did not go far enough.

“The (increase) to JobSeeker and related payments is well below the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee’s findings. The committee said that it needs to rise by at least $128 a week to ensure people can cover the basics.”

ACOSS and others are right to complain. Australia has the lowest rate of unemployment payment in the OECD. One in four people on Newstart have only a partial capacity to work because of illness or disability.

The ABC’s business reporter Gareth Hutchens wrote an intriguing analysis in May 2021 about the ‘full employment’ policies of governments prior to the 1970s. Then followed a policy aimed at creating a permanent pool of unemployed as a means of promoting economic growth and making Australia more globally competitive. Along with rising unemployment came a political ploy to blame the victim. The term ‘dole bludger’ emerged, first used by Liberal MP Bert Kelly, a pioneer of “New Right” political ideas. But the phrase was also promoted by Clyde Cameron, minister for labour in Gough Whitlam’s Labor government (1972-1975).

As unemployment soared in the mid-1970s, being without a job was recast as the fault of workers for being ‘too lazy’. There was much debate about the need for ‘overly generous’ income support. (Anyone who has ever been on it would dispute its ‘overgenerosity’. Ed)

Policymakers from the early 1980s started using an unemployment rate of 5% as a deliberate policy tool.

“How could everyone be expected to find a job,” Hutchens wrote. “There haven’t been enough jobs to go around, by design.”

Now, almost 50 years later, the long-term unemployed are still being victimised over a deliberate policy to keep them out of work.

If I may hark back to a FOMM from 2018 when we speculated about what one could do were one made King for a Day:

King Bob decreed: “I’d single out the dysfunctional tax and welfare systems and propose the following reforms:

Introduction of a universal basic income for all adults: $25k a year, indexed, no strings attached. Adults are free to earn money over and above the $25k but will be taxed on a sliding scale to the maximum rate for anyone earning more than, say, $100k.

In my Kingdom, all forms of social welfare would be replaced by a new regime, overseen by the Office of Financial and Social Opportunity and Incentivisation (NOOFASOI). The office would oversee payment of the UBI and iron out the inevitable wrinkles in a new and untested system.”

In the real world, countries as diverse as Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, the US, Canada, New Zealand, Holland, Iceland, India and Brazil are either talking about a UBI or trialling it in one form or another. In 2016, the Parliament of Australia published this comprehensive yet concise policy paper by Don Henry, for those who want to find out more.

While I leave you to make of that what you will, I’ll be delving into the 997-page Budget, seeing what’s in it for me. As we all do.

Coronation, what coronation?

How well I remember the coronation of Princess Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953. Then resident in Scotland, I was four years and seven months old and had just finished reading Das Kapital and was moving on to The Condition of the Working Class in England. I had also asked for Stories,Tales and Fables by the Marquis de Sade but faither said ‘Nae bairn should be reading that’ and offered instead ‘Noddy on the Runaway Train’.

Memories can be unreliable, as we know, certainly for people of my age, recounting the glory days of bygone youth. Just don’t ask me what I had for breakfast yesterday.

But I digress, as the world awaits tomorrow’s pageant involving the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Charles officially ascended to the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth. eight months ago. Now the official ceremony begins, just as many of us ask, will this ancient ritual then finally be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Charles has requested a lower-key affair than his mother’s coronation. For example, the guest list is capped at 2000 dignitaries, well below the 8000+ who attended Lizzie’s crowning at Westminster Abbey in 1953.

There’s a goodly scattering of Australians and expats among the invitees; including, of course, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese and the Governor-General, David Hurley. I should observe that the invitation goes to whoever is Head of State at the time, so it could just as easily have been that back bench bloke.

Mr Albanese was then asked to nominate a certain number of Australians and expats to attend. No doubt Dame Edna Everage would have been on the list, had she and her alter-ego not so recently died.

Rock singer Nick Cave’s fans were perplexed by his decision to accept the invitation. It should be noted that Cave, though Australian, has not lived here since 1980 and usually resides in England.

On his quirky blog, The Red Right Hand Files, Cave answered fans who wanted to know if the young Nick Cave would have been so inclined.

Cave answered that the young Nick Cave, like so many younger selves, was ‘young and mostly demented’. Cave, who says he is no monarchist, nor a republican, is nevertheless fascinated by the royals.

“I guess what I am trying to say is that, beyond the interminable but necessary debates about the abolition of the monarchy, I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals,” he wrote in his blog.

Cave is not listed as one of the performers at the ‘Coronation Concert’ to be held in the grounds of Windsor Castle the day after the ceremony. Lead performers include Kate Perry, Lionel Ritchie, Take That and Andrea Bocelli. The Coronation Choir, whose members include refugee choirs, NHS choirs, LGBTQ+ choirs, and deaf signing choirs, will also perform. Ten thousand tickets were issued free via public ballot. We’ll get to watch it free via the BBC, which is producing and broadcasting the concert on Sunday.

Rolling Stone, while delving into the Nick Cave controversy, named musicians who were reportedly asked to perform but declined, including Sir Elton John, Harry Styles, Adele and Robbie Williams. Gone are the days, it seems, of being ‘commanded’ to perform.

Australia’s entertainment world will be well represented at the coronation ceremony, with invitees including ballet dancer Leanne Benjamin, soprano Yvonne Kelly and comedian Adam Hills.

The Prime Minister’s selection includes indigenous artist Wiradjuri, and expats British gallery owner Jasmine Coe, Barbican Centre CEO Claire Spencer, NHS nurse Emily Regan and Oxford vaccinologist Merryn Voysey.

The Australian Financial Review reported that Mr Albanese and UK High Commissioner Stephen Smith this week hosted a function for the Australian group at the envoy’s Kensington residence. Smith, if you’ll recall, served as a Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments from 1993 to 2013.

Charles and Camilla have invited foreign royals to Saturday’s ceremony, as reported by People magazine. They include Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia, and Monaco’s Princess Charlene and Prince Albert.

After much speculation to the contrary, it is confirmed that Charles’s sons, Princes Harry and William, will attend.

Our friends in the folk music world may be pleased (or displeased) to see the motif of the Green Man used in the official invitation (see above) by heraldic illustrator Andrew Jamieson. The Royals interpret this as “The Green Man (being) an ancient figure from British folklore, symbolic of spring and rebirth, to celebrate the new reign”. We’ll take that as a win.

While Buckingham Palace is talking up the Coronation as an income-producing tourism event, economists are dubious. Bloomberg’s Tom Rees notes that the extra bank holiday is set to drag down what otherwise may be gathering momentum in the UK economy.

Forecasters warned that the additional day off on May 8 will help trigger a 0.7% slide in GDP in May and could tip the economy into a minor contraction in the second quarter.

It will be the second time in a year that royal events have weighed on growth, but analysis suggests the impact of those events is declining.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that extra tourism and spending in pubs, (which are allowed to stay open later over the weekend), will provide a £337 million boost to the economy.

Britain’s GDP was down 0.1% in the three months through September, after an extra day off at the end of the period for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

There has been inevitable criticism of the cost of the coronation (upwards of £100 million). It comes at a time when Britons are battling a cost of living spiral (inflation of 10%), a nurses’ strike for higher wages and other dramas.

Despite a budget dramatically lower than the equivalent spent in 1953, there is still the largesse of the gold carriage.

After the coronation, the couple will take part in the Coronation Procession, seated in the Gold State Coach. The coach is 260 years old and used at every coronation since William IV in 1831. According to Yahoo News, which should know, the coach was commissioned in 1762 for a then cost of £7,562. Today it is worth over £3.5m.

Comparisons are odious, I know, but last year the Trussell Trust, which administers Britain’s biggest food bank, spent £7.5m, £4.5m more than in the previous year, replenishing food bank stocks for the needy. The Guardian explained that this is due to food donations from individuals and local charity food drives failing to keep pace with demand.

The coronation is undoubtedly an historic occasion and should be rightfully observed as such, even as members of the Commonwealth such as Australia may soon consider a referendum on whether we should become a Republic. Charles had reportedly asked that the coronation budget be a modest one, in light of tough economic times. Not that Charles will have to put his hand in his purse* – the coronation is funded by the British taxpayer.

As British songwriter Leon Rosselson said in his sarcastic 1979 song, On her Silver Jubilee:

‘Oh, the magic of the monarchy, the mystery sublime
Growing gracefully and effortlessly richer all the time’.

*King Charles inherited $500 million in assets from his mother and is overseer of a vast portfolio worth $46 billion. (Forbes magazine).

Anzac Day and a load of firewood

Light Horse representatives at Leslie Park, Warwick

Light Horse Regiment representatives, Warwick, Qld. Photo by Laurel Wilson

The firewood guy wanted to deliver a ute load to our house on Tuesday. “But it’s Anzac Day,” I said. He replied: “It’s just another day to me, mate.”

I was musing about this (while stacking firewood).

I’m guessing he would be a Millennial (born between 1982 and 1994). The oldest of this cohort would have been nine years old when George Bush Snr authorised the invasion of Iraq in 1990-1991 (the Gulf War). They’d have been 21 when George Jnr launched the immoral ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ invasion of Iraq in 2003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

Millennials missed Vietnam by decades and have been raised in an era where conflicts and civil wars are daily fare on mainstream and social media. The post-Vietnam conflicts have given rise to an anti-war polemic, given voice to by songwriters including Jackson Browne (Lives in the Balance):

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interests run.

Anzac Day was once solely to remember the fallen from World War 1 (1914-1918), which ended 108 years ago. It has been broadened to embrace the returned and fallen soldiers of all conflicts.

There were hundreds of school children among the thousands who attended Warwick’s Anzac Day parade and service in Leslie Park (photo above).

Their parents, we have to assume, are Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980. Old enough to have been aware of Vietnam and the divisive nature of the war and our involvement in it.

I have no argument with schools sending delegates to the Anzac Day commemoration and the laying of wreaths. In many small towns, schools attend dawn services and a speech is given by a senior student.

Taking half a day once a year to think about the 103,021 Australians who have died in all armed conflicts is the least we can do. It’s also a day to honour the returned servicemen of WWII, who number fewer every year.

In 2014 songwriter Eric Bogle told his hometown newspaper AdelaideToday why he was no longer performing ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’. In the 1970s, when Bogle wrote this song, Anzac Day looked as if it was on its way out. The song emerged at the time when anti-Vietnam war sentiment was at its peak and the RSL was on the nose. Hence one of the closing lines “Someday no-one will march there at all.”

I wasn’t around in the WWI era, so I can only rely on historical accounts to emphasise the nationalistic fervour of the times, when those who did not go to war had white feathers put in their letterboxes. There were conscientious objectors in WWI and WWII. They were society’s pariahs in those days and were often jailed for the duration of the war.

The jailing of conscientious objectors was less common during the Vietnam War, but there were those who, for personal reasons, chose not to engage in warfare and death. Vietnam instead gave rise to an emerging peace movement, particularly in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. In short, the Woodstock generation did not want any part of a war where our troops were being sent on spurious grounds.

One of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s first policy decisions was to scrap conscription and complete the withdrawal of Australian troops in Vietnam. Subsequent to this decision, conscientious objectors were released from Australian jails.

I bring you this potted history only to make the point that Australia’s involvement in international conflicts since Vietnam (1955-1975) has been politically contentious. This was no more evident than when hundreds of thousands of Australians took to the street to protest PM John Howard’s decision to send troops to Iraq in 2003. Many people believed this was an illegal war and that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had a despot for a leader, but special services could have taken care of that without involving Australia in an unpopular war that solved nothing.

Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan began in 2001 when Prime Minister John Howard committed military personnel after the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Howard invoked Article VI of the ANZUS Treaty – the only time the Treaty has been invoked, to justify our involvement.

That was by no means the end of it – from 2006 to 2013 Australian troops worked alongside Dutch and US soldiers in Uruzgan Province. 26,000 Australian military personnel were engaged in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. By the end of the Uruzgan mission in 2013, Australia had lost 40 men in southern Afghanistan.

As diplomat and songwriter Fred Smith recounted in a song when leaving Afghanistan: “40 good men in the ground and we’re going home”.

Australia has spent $7.5 billion on the Afghanistan exercise, with, it must be said, ongoing support from both the ALP and the Coalition. The effort is looking wasted now, since the Taliban over-ran the country in August 2021. Fred Smith is currently touring a show, “The Sparrows of Kabul”, which updates the Afghanistan story and describes the tense days in August when Australia evacuated 4,100 Afghan civilians.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook43p/adfafghanistan#:~:text=Australia%20first%20committed%20military%20personnel,the%20Treaty%20has%20been%20invoked

Anzac Day respects Australian soldiers, sailors, airforce and navy personnel who have been involved in 28 wars and conflicts, either as allies or peacekeepers. These include conflicts close to home – East Timor, Bougainville, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands.

This fascinating Wikipedia entry covers Australia’s military involvement from the Boer War (1899-1902) through to our debated involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and the ongoing war against ISIL. This entry is unique, in that it also covers the military involvement of Colonial troops in the ‘dispersal’ of Aborigines and dispossession of land from 1799 to 1901.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Australia

Professor Robin Prior of the University of South Australia, commenting on a survey, said the Australian public would decide upon Anzac Day’s relevance.

“Ordinary Australians made Anzac Day what it is, and public opinion will probably determine its demise sooner rather than later.”

A poll taken in 2021 showed that 58% of Australians intended to go to a ceremony or march on April 25, 2021. South Australia recorded the lowest number (44%). The research also showed a growing number believe the Anzac story is losing its relevance. The poll was taken while many Australians were avoiding crowded places while Covid was running rampant.

The survey of more than a thousand people found that although almost all agree Anzac Day is well respected, a third hold the view that its significance is being forgotten.

“What’s interesting is whether as we get further and further away from the world wars, that trend will continue,” Prof Prior said.

https://www.zenger.news/2021/04/20/australias-anzac-story-being-forgotten-survey-shows/

Romain Fathi of Flinders University found that the number of Australians attending Anzac Day dawn services fell by 70% between 2015 and 2019.

Anzac Day dawn services were cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, but attendance had started to erode well before the pandemic, he wrote in ‘The Conversation’. Fathi’s research looked at changing patterns in the commemoration of Anzac Day overseas and at Australian dawn services. The biggest decline in crowd numbers was at Gallipoli itself, where numbers fell from 10,000 in 2015 (the centenary year) to 1,434 in 2019.

https://theconversation.com/crowds-at-dawn-services-have-plummeted-in-recent-years-its-time-to-reinvent-anzac-day-157313

And yet 2023 commemoration services in Sydney and Melbourne reportedly drew big crowds, as well as in Brisbane, where rain did not deter people from attending.

I’m leaving the last word on this topic to the late great songwriter John Prine, from Hello in There:

“ We lost Davy in the Korean war
And I still don’t know what for, don’t matter any more.”

The future of battery recycling

Electric cars changing the recycled battery story – www.pixabay.com

Friday on My Mind – The future for recycled batteries

Luckily, the no-name brand batteries worked and the magnetic light above the stove once again works – but only until the batteries expire.

We are all of us dependent to one degree or another on the efficient workings of batteries, be it in our car or cars, caravans (the ones that draw energy from solar panels) or the many different types of batteries used in our many household devices.

One thing we older people notice (and grumble about) is that batteries don’t last as long as they once did. Not so long ago, it was typical to buy a car battery with a two-year warranty and it would probably last five years. We all know someone with a sad bad battery story.

In the future, we will all rely more heavily on batteries than we ever did before. As the world heads towards the transition from fossil fuels, batteries will play a critical role in sustaining green energy such as solar panels and wind farms.

A recent article in Nature flags the most important issue in this transition – the far-from sustainable end of life process attached to conventional batteries. A panel of leading global experts contributed to the Nature article, which looked at how energy technology development can integrate sustainability principles.

We should all know about rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. They have already revolutionised portable electronics. We all have at least a dozen lithium-ion batteries of one type or another running household devices.

That includes laptop computers, tablets, mobile phones, cameras, hearing aids (with chargers), clocks, power tools and all manner of electronic gizmos. Lithium-ion batteries will become critical in the future via decarbonisation of transport, enabling battery-powered electric vehicles.

But as usual, the world is not quite ready to cope with exponential market growth. Nature’s panellists agree this will lead to a sustainability problem. Other challenges include the scarcity of raw materials required for battery chemistry.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00876-x

There are places where you can leave dead batteries to be recycled or disposed of in a responsible manner. The Battery World franchise, for example, provides a drop-off facility for all types of batteries and so do Aldi, Officeworks, Bunnings and more.

As we’d know, town and city transfer stations have long provided a collection point for used lead-acid batteries, and many garages participate in the scheme.

Most recycle stations collect exhausted single-use alkaline batteries which, until the mid-1990s, contained mercury. These batteries too can be dropped at a recycling collection station. These batteries are a substantial problem if they end up in landfill. It’s not just the toxic chemicals that leach in the ground, used batteries pose a considerable fire risk. This is why we are now asked to tape the terminals. (News to me. Ed.)

There is an ongoing education programme to teach people how best to dispose of lead-acid batteries as well as a national network of collection stations. But the bigger problem is the proliferation of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) and other types of rechargeable batteries.

There are new laws now to enforce the considered storage and disposal of so-called ‘button’ or ‘coin’ batteries, after fatalities involving small children.The smart advice is to wrap these batteries in Sellotape and keep them in a jar for when you next go to an LIB recycling station.

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) says only 10% of Australia’s lithium-ion battery waste was recycled in 2021, compared with 99% of lead acid battery waste. Mind you, this is quite an improvement on Australia’s record from five years ago (less than 2%). We’ll need to keep up the effort, though. Lithium-ion battery waste is growing by 20% per year and could exceed 136,000 tonnes by 2036.

If recycled, 95% of lithium-ion battery components can be turned into new batteries or used in other industries, the CSIRO says.

The national science agency completed a major report in 2020 on the long-term potential for recycling and re-use of LIBs (lithium-ion batteries) (Ed trying hard not to make sarcastic remarks about the other sort of Libs.). As things stand, Australia’s economy is losing between $603 million and $3.1 billion by not fully utilising the value associated with battery metals and materials due to “poor LIB collection rates, offshore recycling and landfilling of the LIB battery waste.”

Australia is playing catch-up when you look at what’s going on in other jurisdictions, where manufacturers are forced to reclaim exhausted batteries.

https://www.batteryrecycling.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Battery-regulations-final.pdf

Depending on the type of battery, waste streams may consist of various heavy metals and toxic compounds, including hazardous metals such as mercury, lead, nickel and cadmium.
The most common battery types being recycled are lead acid (LAB), nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and alkaline batteries. Unfortunately, the re-cycling method used with lead acid batteries is not compatible for recovery of materials from lithium-ion batteries.

Australia has a national battery recycling scheme called B-Cycle. This program has partnered with approximately 100 organisations across Australia to provide recycling drop-off points for the public.

https://bcycle.com.au/

For example, Aldi supermarkets offer a free battery recycling service at all their Australian stores. All brands of AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries (both rechargeable and non-rechargeable) are accepted. Simply drop your used batteries into the dedicated bins in store.

Dumping lithium-ion batteries and their equivalent in landfill creates a long-term toxicity problem. Batteries can take 100 years to break down; and when they do, the heavy metals used in manufacture linger on in the soil.

Perth-based Envirostream is one company poised to benefit from the push to recycle LIBs, a relatively new industry in Australia. Publicly listed Lithium Australia is the parent company of Envirostream which also has a plant in Victoria. The West Australian reported that Victoria’s Environmental Protection Agency has granted Lithium Australia a 99-year operating licence. The agreement allowed Envirostream to continue processing up to 500 million tonnes of lithium and specified electronic waste a year at its Campbelltown premises. Envirostream also has a deal with Bunnings to collect spent batteries from all its Australian stores and selected stores in New Zealand.

That is more or less the state of play in Australia’s push to recycle lithium batteries. We can all play our part. For some years, I’ve been using rechargeable batteries whenever possible. There’s a small capital outlay at the start – say $50 for a battery charger and a set of AA batteries. Thereafter, we use solar-generated power to recharge batteries to operate devices like cameras, digital recorders, mouse and keyboard and so on. The batteries will (or should) last for years. If you take this approach, then your household is taking partial control of the battery waste problem. Rechargeable batteries don’t last forever, however, and they also should be recycled via collection stations.

Meanwhile, I’m relieved to know that my zinc air hearing aid batteries are considered to be non-hazardous. Nevertheless, they typically last for a week or 10 days and there is no commercial recycling solution. Also, they belong to the button/coin category of battery which could easily be swallowed by a child (or a dog). One of my peers has a sophisticated set of hearing aids which can be programmed to interact with a smart phone. They come with a charging station for (yes, you guessed it) rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Which is more harmful to the environment?

What’s that? You’ll have to speak up!

https://www.qld.gov.au/law/your-rights/consumer-rights-complaints-and-scams/product-safety-for-consumers/safety-advice-and-warnings/around-the-home/button-batteries

The Voice – try and understand it

*Uluru – A symbol of Aboriginal spirituality- Photo Laurel Wilson 2008*

That’s the problem when the media over-simplifies complex issues and frames them as four-word headlines. Perhaps it was an ill-conceived monicker from the start. Then there’s that popular song by John Farnham which has assumed anthem-like status – “You’re the Voice, try and understand it.”

Whatever they want to call it, allowing Australia’s first people to have a say in how they are governed is surely in the national interest. As we prepare in 2023 to change Australia’s constitution to ensure black fellas have a say, it seems absurd that anyone would oppose the idea.

It’s not that long ago we had a ‘White Australia’ policy and successive governments since have struggled to deal with indigenous people in an equitable way. Our recent past is littered with stories of neglect, mismanagement and outright racism. The voluminous Black Deaths in Custody report finalised in 1991 made 339 recommendations, few of which have been implemented.

Most involved procedures for black persons in custody, liaison with Aboriginal groups and police education. There have been 540 black deaths in custody since the report was concluded. In 2021-2022 there were 24 indigenous deaths in custody, well above the long-term average.

https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/deaths-custody-australia

In the 1980s and 1990s indigenous songwriters Kev Carmody and Archie Roach and indigenous bands like Yothu Yindi gave voice to the many grievances of Aboriginal people. A few academics kept kicking over the issues so many others tried hard to bury. The trenchant criticism of Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu is one example of how badly the “No” vote wants to supress any re-interpretation of white fella history.

We’re not the only nation to marginalise and mistreat our indigenous peoples. But per capita we stand out in the crowd. We may have got past the nanny state stupidity of the Stolen Children era, but in more recent times (2007) John Howard introduced the Intervention to once again interfere in the rights of Indigenous people to manage their own affairs. Nevertheless, Howard went to the 2007 election promising to hold a referendum on constitutional recognition.

Kevin Rudd won that election and in February 2008 delivered an apology in Federal Parliament for the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians. In the speech he committed to closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage and made a statement of recognition.

In 2008, six ambitious targets were set to address the disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians in life expectancy, child mortality, education and employment. While some of these targets have been met, Indigenous people still have a lower life expectancy than non-indigenous.

Since then, there has been bi-partisan support for advances like the 2013 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill.

Two years later,Liberal MP Ken Wyatt tabled a report, with support from the Government, Labor and the Greens, on progress towards a referendum on Indigenous recognition in the constitution. Then followed a summit with 40 of the nation’s most influential Indigenous representatives. A Referendum Council formed at that time travelled to 12 different locations around Australia and met with over 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives. The meetings resulted in a consensus document on constitutional recognition, the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

http://www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/History_7_Reconciliation.html

Now, after 16 years of lead-up work, the Labor Government led by Anthony Albanese has started work on its key election promise to give Aboriginal people a seat at the table.

On April 5, after months of fence-sitting, Opposition leader Peter Dutton said that the Liberal party would not support what he described as “the Prime Minister’s Canberra Voice”. (Can’t you just hear the dog whistle. Ed.)

The sticking point is the Coalition wants to remove the clause that says indigenous people can make direct representations to executive government.

Mr Dutton’s statement makes it clear that while the Liberals are saying ‘yes’ to constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians, it is only on their terms. The Coalition’s policy proposes that constitutional recognition be split from practical outcomes. The Liberals would instead legislate to establish local and regional Voices.

The Liberals, marginalised in Parliament and seemingly cast out into the political wilderness, are in no position to promise the Aboriginal people anything. Already, five Liberal MPs are advocating a conscience vote and there have been key defections, including this week’s shock resignation from the Liberal’s shadow cabinet by Shadow Attorney-General Julian Leeser.

Leeser, who was also Shadow minister for Aboriginal Affairs, revealed on Tuesday he was quitting the front bench to concentrate on the ‘Yes’ vote. This compounded the Liberals’ woes, after losing the safe Liberal seat of Aston to Labor in a by-election on April 1. Then followed the resignation of former MP Ken Wyatt, stating that he was quitting the party because of his opposition to the party’s position on the Voice.

It is worth recounting that Nationals MP Andrew Gee resigned in November 2022 when the Nats said they would oppose the Voice. Gee, now an Independent, cited his intention to back the Voice.

Meanwhile, Tasmania’s Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff has said he will support Anthony Albanese’s Voice proposal, as will Tasmanian Liberal Bridget Archer. While Mr Dutton’s statement binds his front benchers to follow the party line, back benchers are free to vote as they see fit.

Putting all that aside, what do Indigenous people think about the Voice, or did we forget to ask them? Since ‘Invasion Day’ in January, some indigenous people have made it clear that Labor’s Voice does not go far enough. Some disagree with the Uluru Statement from the Heart and there has been a mixed response to former Greens senator Lidia Thorpe’s opposition to the Voice. While Peter Dutton “wants a fight” as acting PM Penny Wong said this week, elder statesman Noel Pearson calmly says his people will “take the high road”.

But can any one document (framed by constitutional lawyers) speak for the diverse wishes of 250 separate Aboriginal clans or tribes?

Academic Kelly Menzel writes that Indigenous people have been burned before in past attempts and campaigns to have Indigenous people included in the Constitution.

One example is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)), an Indigenous national advisory body to the Australian government. ATSIC had limited executive powers and was abolished by the Howard government in 2004 . At the time, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner William Jonas condemned the the move, stating the government:

“Seeks to ensure that the government will only have to deal with Indigenous peoples on its own terms and without any reference to the aspirations and goals of Indigenous peoples.”

Prof Menzel, Associate Dean Education, Gnibi College, Southern Cross University, says indigenous people need better clarity around what the Voice actually means.

“What we have seen happen to (Lidia Thorpe) in speaking out about the Voice has made it difficult for mob to write and speak publicly on it if they oppose it.

“We risk being dismissed or attacked by both non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples.”

https://theconversation.com/for-a-lot-of-first-nations-peoples-debates-around-the-voice-to-parliament-are-not-about-a-simple-yes-or-no-199766

The constitutional referendum, to be held between October and December, needs a majority of yes votes in a majority of States and Territories. Polls so far indicate the ‘Yes’ lobby needs to do a lot of work in Western Australia and Queensland.

The more serious issue is that of the 44 referendums held in Australia’s history, only eight were passed. All of those had bipartisan support.

I assume I’m preaching to the converted here, but it behoves us all to at the very least understand what the constitution is and how it works.

(Ironically, when I was teaching in the early 70’s, the only students to study Citizenship Education were those deemed to be ‘too dumb’ to learn Geography. Ed)

https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/the-australian-constitution/the-australian-constitution-in-focus/

https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-liberal-partys-voice-policy-stack-up-against-the-proposed-referendum-203352

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-06/noel-pearson-says-dutton-betrayed-country-in-rejecting-voice/102194904