Hammer government

Relief at Gate 6

I GREW up in Tassie but now live in NSW. There have been many wonderful improvements to Hobart airport but the seating is not one of them. I don’t know how the elderly and tired mums and dads with young families cope, let alone the rest of us. Designed with no care for the human body, this is where artistic ‘value’ becomes heartless, pompous and impractical. Because many flights were cancelled due to mainland weather, I got to observe how it is for people having to wait for hours. The row of backless logs with carved out bottoms in the arrivals and departures area may work in an art gallery, but they are the most primitive and thoughtless airport seating I have seen. People were mostly hunched over on the hard wood benches with no support.

In the gate lounges where the hard wooden ribbed seats etches their pattern into your body, a lady was using extra clothing to protect herself. Oh relief, when by chance I discovered Gate 6, the older part of the airport where the old seating had not been removed — slightly padded comfortable seats for the three hours I waited because of flight cancellations. People first, not art, can still be beautiful. IT always seems the fault of the ambulance service. Why do news reports not hammer at the Government about lack of staff and beds in the RHH. If there were enough, ambulances would leave their patients and get back on the road for the next job. Are they waiting for people to die before something is done? It’s time for government to step up and take responsibility, not keep on blathering about operational matters. It’s time for the Health Minister to spend 24 hours in the Emergency Department to feel what it is like for hospital and ambulance staff.

Now that’s gross

ASK a young person what “gross” means and they will most likely say something yuck and disgusting. Ask them what “nett” means they will most likely say, something you get caught in. These words are at the centre of all the hassles and stress Centrelink is causing by asking people to refund thousands of dollars. When asked to report earnings to Centrelink these young people in all honesty tell the wages they received. They don’t realise they have to say the gross amount. They wouldn’t know the gross amount. Years later, they are being asked to produce pay slips, bank statements, proof of wages etc. In some cases this is paperwork from five years ago. In many cases it can’t be provided, so they have to pay up or are put in the hands of debt collectors. They are asked to make up the amount they owe between gross payment and nett.

There were reports of a drop in people claiming payments. This isn’t because they have found work, it’s because “once bitten, twice shy”! Who would trust Centrelink again? Centrelink wins. It gets its pound of flesh from people unable to produce paperwork and saves money not having to pay people too afraid to register again.

Piddling share

ONE could be forgiven on reading Peter Boyer’s comments on the Pacific island forum that Australia’s carbon emissions are a major contributor to a catastrophic future (Talking Point, August 20). Australia’s share of global emissions is a piddling 1.3 per cent compared to China’s 30 per cent. If “the most conservative sea-level estimate is a rise of half a metre to a metre by 2100”, Australia’s share will be 6.5-13mm; China’s will be 150-300mm.

If the temperature rise is to be kept to 1.5 degrees, Australia’s share will be 0.0195 of degree, compared to China’s 0.45. Peter says “the Tuvalu meeting has primed Pacific island nations to move out of Australia’s orbit and into the lap of China”. More fool them if they do, they will learn the error of their ways.