Gricks out of FINPAC
AFTER 40 years of service to the financial services industry in Townsville, Andrew Gricks has retired after the sale of FINPAC Financial Advice to Altitude Wealth Management.
Mr Gricks started his career in 1968 when he joined the Bank of NSW before commencing the North Queensland branch of Bain and Company, at the time one of the largest stockbroking firms in Australia.
In 1983 he established FINPAC, operating under his own Australian Financial Services Licence providing tax and wealth planning advice.
Mr Gricks said there had been approaches to sell the business by other financial planning firms but that it was not until he and his wife Tricia met Dennis Di Bartolo and Mark Tyrell from Altitude Wealth Management that they felt their values and culture aligned.
“Most of our clients are extremely close friends of ours,” Mr Gricks said.
“It was, therefore, really important for Tricia and I that whoever purchased the business had strong values, a client-centric focus and operated their own Australian Financial Licence.
“Dennis Di Bartolo and Mark Tyrell are both quality advisers and men who are well qualified but more importantly trusted and respected.”
Altitude Wealth Management was established by founding partner Mr Di Bartolo in 2007 before Mr Tyrell became a partner in 2017.
Altitude Wealth Management’s managing partner Mr Di Bartolo said they were extremely excited by the opportunity that purchasing FINPAC presented.
“Our team is very focused on providing quality financial advice and services to the people of North Queensland following a decade of upheaval in the industry,” Mr Di Bartolo said.
“We wish Andrew and Tricia all the best in retirement.”
Mr Gricks has been very active in the community serving as North Queensland chairman of the Defence Reserves Support Council for five years and chairman of the Townsville Thuringowa Development Board for two terms.
He is also a past president of the North Queensland Club and was a member of several local rotary clubs for 36 years, having been presented with a Paul Harris Fellow award.
ONE in three calls to Kids Helpline are going unanswered as the nation is in the grip of a major youth mental health crisis.
Even though a one-off government funding boost allowed the free counselling service to hire an extra 85 counsellors – it still can’t cope with demand.
The service is dealing with 7500 contacts a week as young people struggle with anxiety, social isolation and the fallout from school closures and other COVID-19 restrictions.
It comes as desperate parents are reporting a sixmonth wait to get their teenagers into psychiatrists.
Some psychiatrists are charging booking fees of $150 to manage demand.
Headspace told News Corp Australia in December its service had wait times of between 10 and 20 days for people waiting for their first intake session.
Last week News Corp Australia revealed there had been a 25 per cent increase in children aged 17 and under presenting to NSW emergency departments with self-harm – or 12,817 visits last year.
Another investigation found one in every 33 children, including preschoolers, is
taking antidepressant medication, as concerns mount the drugs could be driving up youth suicide rates.
Doctors said they are prescribing the pills, which are not approved for use in teens, because adolescents can’t get access to psychologists or other mental health care.
The head of adolescent psychiatry at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry (RANZCP) Dr Paul Robertson has said numbers of child psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health workers needed to double to meet demand.
“We acknowledge that on any given day it can be one third of all contacts who do not get responded to at the initial point. We do know however that young people do try again, as they advise of such,” Kids Helpline CEO Tracy Adams said.
More and more young people (15 per cent more) were using the service’s WebChat option and counselling on that platform took two to three times longer because there were delays while young people and the counsellor typed back and forth, she said.
The average wait time on Webchat for answered contacts for January 2021 was 23 minutes and the number of answered Webchat contacts had increased by 20 per cent.
“We acknowledge that young people may experience wait times at peak times, which may be in the vicinity of 40-50 minutes,” Ms Adams said.
The country’s only free 24/7 phone and online counselling service for young people received a $4 million funding boost during COVID-19 that is due to run out in June as it is desperately seeking an extension in the May budget.
The extra funding allowed the service to respond to 30 per cent more children over the past six months than for the same period last year.
Kids Helpline has made enhancements to Webchat, including ‘ Active Queue Support’ where contacts are informed of their position in the Webchat queue and the availability of their regular counsellor, Ms Adams said.
MONTAIGNE has fired up the lasers and glitter guns with her poptastic new song Technicolour in her quest to win the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.
The avant-garde pop artist is optimistic the show will go on in May and that she will perform the song on the
Eurovision stage in the Netherlands.
Montaigne is premiering the “hyperpop” song live at the Sydney Mardi Gras. It falls into the “pop music with a message” Eurovision category with its lyrics serving as a call to arms to come together for change.
“I love sci-fi, anime and video games-related content and, for me, the song could be the anthem for a vigilante group of queer, young women … who go to take down tech billionaires,” she says. “So, the lasers (in the lyrics) are a nod to them having cool, futuristic, superhero weapons.”
Last year’s Eurovision was cancelled due to the pandemic.
YANGON: At least 38 people have died in the bloodiest day of the Myanmar crisis, as the military junta continues to defy growing international condemnation of its coup with a sickeningly violent crackdown on protesters.
The US said it was “appalled and revulsed” by the latest use of deadly force by police and troops, who have shot and killed more than 50 people in recent weeks.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since February 1 when the military ousted and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ending the nation’s decade-long experiment with democracy and sparking daily mass protests.
In response, Western na
tions including the US and Britain have hit the generals with repeated sanctions.
But the junta has so far ignored the global condemnation, responding to the uprising by ramping up its use of lethal violence.
“Only today, 38 people died,” UN envoy to Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener said on Wednesday.
“Today was the bloodiest day since the coup happened,” she noted, without providing any further details.
She called for the UN to take “very strong measures” against the generals, adding that in her conversations with them they had dismissed the threat of sanctions.
US State Department
spokesman Ned Price said: “We call on all countries to speak with one voice to condemn the brutal violence by the Burmese military against its own people.”
He said the US, which has already imposed sanctions on the junta leaders, was looking at further actions.
Earlier, media reports recorded at least 17 deaths across Myanmar, with Monywa in the central Sagaing region registering at least seven, according to a doctor.
Medics also said they saw two other individuals being dragged away by security forces but could not confirm if they had died.
On the outskirts of the commercial hub of Yangon, at
least six demonstrators died, according to a rescue worker and local journalist, as protesters blocked major roads.
The demonstrators pasted printouts of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing’s face on the ground to slow down security forces, who will avoid standing on the portraits.
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, two demonstrators were killed, a doctor confirmed, adding that one of the victims aged 19 was shot in the head.
Another 19-year-old protester died after being shot in Salin. “They shouldn’t have used such lethal force against the peaceful protesters,” said his friend Min Pyae Phyo, through tears.
“I won’t forget and forgive them the rest of my life.”
And a demonstration in Myingyan turned deadly when security forces fired against protesters carrying homemade shields emblazoned with the three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance.
Several medics confirmed one young man was gunned down in cold blood.
Local media in northern Kachin state also reported similar scenes of violence.
Monitoring groups estimate more than 1200 people have been arrested since the coup, with about 900 still behind bars or facing charges. But the real number is likely far higher, with reports of 1300 arrests on Sunday alone.