Random News Stories

[What'sinaname]

^ The system is a failure. We, as a country, want to waste money on a pointless referendum, a future referendum pushing for a republic and flying 2 RAAF jets for the PM and Environment Minister to make a announcement that could easily have been done as a memo from the PMs office.

So acknowledging that the system is a failure, we need to stop importing more problems.

[stui magpie]

^

Nah, we need to do our bit by bringing in refugees, we just need to be smarter about how we help them settle.

Just putting them in a house and expecting them to pick everything up by osmosis just doesn't work. Coming from a war torn country and/or refugee camp gives them zero understanding of how a first world country works. They need to be supported and have things explained to them.

The comment I made earlier about them not knowing how to access services comes from practical experience with a recent employer. A council out Sth East had been running Kindergartens and decided to get out of it and put it out for tender. My employer was the successful one.

In the communication around setting things up, it was revealed that the council had observed a very low take up rate of Kinder in the migrant community and had only just recently figured out that not only didn't most of them know the service was available, they didn't know what Kinder was. It wasn't part of their culture. So their kids were starting school way behind all the other kids who'd done 2 years of Kinder, not to mention the missing socialisation.

People who spent childhood in refugee camps have no concept of what support services might be available to them, let alone how to access them. So don't stop bringing them in, just do it better. If that means we reduce the number slightly to provide a better experience for those that come in, then so be it.

[pietillidie]

I'm sure more is going on overall, but I chanced my arm with The Aged and ABC to see if anything interesting is happening over there, but the news was comfortingly mundane. That's likely a good thing because it means you lot live amidst less hysteria.

The article which caught my eye was this one on VFL/Waverley Park, over the road from which I spent my teenage years: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-04/waverley-vfl-afl-park-stadium-twenty-five-years-tasmania/103608408

I used to catch redfin in the lake, no less, while the dirt/mud around the lake contained huge scrub worms, which I used to dig up to take on fishing trips.

Is Waverley Gardens shopping centre still on the other side of the freeway? It was dodgy even in its heyday, but I did see a lot of movies there. Okay, just checked on Google Maps. Crikey, it is still there. Has it improved, or is it still dodgy?

[What'sinaname]

[stui magpie]

^

Bring back National Service? 12 months compulsory when you turn 18 (and have finished high school)?

don't have a major objection but would like to see a compelling argument as to why.

What benefit to the country, apart from teaching lots of people how to use firearms? I don't buy the argument that it teaches discipline, you'll need a better argument than that.

[David]

We once had an early-twentysomething Swedish girl stay with us who'd done her compulsory military service and whose boyfriend was off serving in the Swedish army. It was an interesting conversation for me because she was very feminist, very left wing yet seemed perfectly at ease with the whole thing. I suppose if you're a Swedish soldier you're more likely to be drafted in to peacekeeping roles at most and otherwise not have to do all that much, so it's very different to doing compulsory national service in, say, Israel, where you might well end up having to shoot people, and maybe Australia's a bit like that too given how often we get involved in America's wars.

Ironically it's often the neutral countries like Sweden that do stuff like this, under the principle that everyone needs to be able to take up arms to defend the country at a moment's notice. I'm not sure if that applies here.

An important question to ask is, even if we could argue that national service is good for people individually, are there really going to be enough military and military-adjacent jobs for a million (or however many 18-year-olds there are in the country) people to do at any one point in time, and enough infrastructure to be built around it? Personally it just seems like a massive white elephant to me in service of an idealised view of discipline, order, etc. that might well take away from equally valuable experiences high school graduates could be having travelling, studying and/or working. So it'd take a lot to convince me too.

[pietillidie]

^There is also that much to be done in so many different areas, whether be managing environments (including drought- and fire-prone areas); keeping environs clean, tidy and safe; facilitating species protection/recovery and bolstering biodiversity; supporting the disabled, elderly and poor; providing services in remote areas; helping with staff shortages in industries with stubborn shortfalls, etc., there is a hell of a lot that young people can productively do right now to both contribute and develop in all kinds of areas.

Perhaps that could be used to earn financial credit for even simultaneous study.

[David]

Good point – any functional national service concept can go way beyond the military. And an incentive scheme makes more sense to me than making it mandatory.

[stui magpie]

[What'sinaname]

Another kids on bail (for the sixth time) steals a car and crashes into another injuring a 5 year old.

If the kid was born here, lock him up, if he is a refugee, then send him back.

[Magpietothemax]

[stui magpie]

^

FFS, have a Bex and a good lie down. 2 different things.

[Magpietothemax]

[think positive]

[What'sinaname]