On wrong track with race

THE start of a big event season is wonderful for Townsville.

I don’t think I’ve seen such a great line- up of things to do, particularly with Festival 2018 over the coming days.

This is mostly thanks to the Commonwealth Games and the State Government which to their credit has sought to share the joy by funding events in at least some of Queensland’s major centres, including Townsville.

And let’s face it, we need some cheering up here.

These past few years – even the past decade for some – have been slim pickings.

While undoubtedly there are rays of hope on the horizon, many business people tell me times remain tough for them.

Some construction- related businesses even say they are yet to turn a sale this year.

Residential dwelling approvals give some guide.

They’ve fallen a long, long way from 150 a month in 2013 to less than 50 a month in recent times.

That’s a big loss of jobs and cash in the economy.

Business confidence in Townsville recently came crashing back into negative territory after the re- election of the Labor State government as people swallowed its anti- Adani stance and the likelihood that Adani’s big coal and rail project now might not proceed.

Then there’s the reports of all the new jobs – either those that have arrived or some which, tantalisingly, are just about to come.

Latest official jobs data – if you are prepared to accept the ’ estimates’ – indicate almost 12,000 more people have work in the Townsville region than there were about a year ago.

What those 12,000 people are doing is debatable but the suggestion is almost half are working in the accommodation and food sector; that is burger joints, cafes, restaurants, pubs, lodging houses and hotels.

You would have to think much of that work will be part time.

The people in these roles will be struggling to pay their bills.

It is wonderful we have something to celebrate but so much more is needed.

Now more than ever we need our leaders to lead. IT’S 50 years since American civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated and it gives us pause about how far from his famous dream we have moved.

He wanted a world where a person was judged by the content of the character not the colour of their skin.

But sadly in 2018, here in Australia, not a week goes by where some apparently well meaning bureaucrat goes out of their way to emphasise race.

In NSW they decided this week to open special parts of hospital waiting rooms that were just for Aboriginal people. The theory is, if they had a safe cultural space they would wait longer for treatment instead of leaving a hospital before they were seen by a doctor. But that’s not how an emergency department works.

The wait is directly linked to how urgent your medical needs are.

Dividing people by race in a public space is counter to everything we believe about being an open and equal country. Your need for medical help should be the sole determinate of how long and where you wait.

What sort of signal are you

Dividing people by race in a public space is counter to everything we believe about being an open and equal country

sending to a kid if they are told to wait somewhere else? COMMONWEALTH Bank customers were left without access to their money for much of Tuesday this week as a “glitch” crashed their internet banking, eftpos and debit card systems.

It’s not the first time it’s happened to the CBA and has hit all major banks in the past six months. Yet, nothing happens. No fines, no feefree weeks, nothing.

In the past decade we’ve gone from carrying cash to trusting that we can tap and go almost anywhere.

But just like when the power goes out through no fault of our own, there are real consequences when the banks fail us like this. Businesses, who need EFTPOS machines to keep their tills turning over, should in the very least be compensated when the system goes down.

Banks make billions in profit, yet this keeps happening. Why? What’s the backup and what are we going to do to make them lift their game?

It’s often too hard to move your home loan, but maybe we should reward banks who take these shutdowns seriously by opening a new account somewhere else and put your pay in there. NOTHING is going to save Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull from failing his own test of losing 30 Newspolls in a row to Labor.

We all know nothing will happen when he does, he will keep his job for now. But the day can’t pass without him being held accountable for his own failings to inspire and fill Australians with confidence about his leadership.

Turnbull’s defenders will say he’s failed because his internal critics have never given him a crack and people like me in the media pounce on the smallest issue.

But the truth is when he got the job he flew higher than most prime ministers in the polls, yet he squandered that good will to make big decisions, and when it came to things like the GST he simply gave up the fight before it even started.

Now, there is every chance he could find a way to win the next election. But that’s only going to happen if he finds a way to convince the more than a million former Coalition voters who bolted because the party did what Labor did, dumped PMs, and have stayed away because Turnbull seems to lack the fight on cultural issues best exemplified by the Left’s long march through the institutions.