Friday 29th of March 2024

aussie day — bangers, bbq, beer, booze, bogans, bozos, mozzie bites, beanies and bludgers... with a touch of hollywood...

aussie day

Australia Day: Past, present and future

Wesley Enoch 

Noel Pearson says there are three narratives that make Australia – the story of the longest continuous living culture on Earth; the tale of the British colonial project and the institutions that have helped shaped our society; and the narrative of the most successful multi-ethnic, multicultural nation on the planet.

 

Claire G. Coleman 

Bloody Australia Day

When I wrote my debut novel, Terra Nullius, back in 2015, I couldn’t have imagined it would lead to January becoming a month during which I cannot breathe. It is January when I am busiest. While kids are on school holidays, and their parents …

 

Read more:

 

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion

hanging on to the apron...

Why do a growing number of people mark Australia Day by going to church?

It seems a novel preference to attending a barbecue, citizenship ceremony or even a political rally. But this practice can be traced back decades to the same period, and even to the same people, as the first Aboriginal Day of Mourning.

Church attendance on Australia Day points to the complex relationships between Christianity, colonialism and race — relationships that are still being debated today.

'Aboriginal Sunday' 

On January 26, 1938, Yorta Yorta man William Cooper and others held a protest meeting to coincide with public celebrations of the sesquicentenary of European settlement.

The group demanded "full citizenship rights and equality" for Aboriginal people.

In the aftermath, Cooper called on the Christian churches to observe "Aborigines Sunday" around that time every year. The idea was endorsed by the National Missionary Council and implemented in several denominations from 1940.

During the 1950s, the observance of "Aborigines Sunday" shifted from late January to early July. With government support, the event developed into NAIDOC Week.

The church elements lapsed, but not because the legacies of colonialism and Christianity had been uncoupled from one another.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/christians-unpacking-baggage-colo...

 

 

Gus:

While religious beliefs rely on hammering stupidity with repeats, sciences rely on the observations of change. Slowly as it should (possibly a bit faster if you wish) sciences are replacing the "moral" delusion/deception of beliefs with better and less hypocritical decision-making that should make us see clearly and accept changes, including the finality of our life in the evolution of this little planet.

Sciences can appear as less joyful as a Sunday hymn, but in fact sciences are far more exciting and truthful. In regard to the date, a "Scummo/Cook reenactment of Matthews Flinders" is an abomination of celebrating an invasion. Yet on the return of the "Endeavour", (yuk — buzzfeed) we could have an Aboriginal Sunday Celebration away from the fatal shore...

 

Gus is a rabid atheist.

a touch of davos in the snow jobs...

 

...

A full decade after the global financial crisis revealed so vividly how great inequality had become and how dangerous it could be, you would think that Davos regulars might have already started to address this issue.

They have not. Despite the tumult of the past decade, despite the rise of Trump and his ilk and the shock of Brexit, and despite the barrels of analysts’ ink being spilt over the concerns of inequality, a Bloomberg News analysis of the fortunes of a dozen Davos attendees found that they had soared by a combined $175 billion since 2009. Meanwhile, a report from Oxfam on Monday revealed that the poorest half of the world saw its wealth fall by 11 per cent last year.

These facts alone were enough to prompt one Bloomberg commentator to issue a warning to the Davos regulars that the backlash they inexplicably dodged a decade ago was now on its way.

As Australia twitches awake from its (horrifyingly hot) summer torpor, it is not hard to think that the view from this end of the world is not quite so bad. Populism is afoot in Australian politics, but it remains in check. Fault lines are visible but not unbridgeable.

In part this is because Australia benefits from political mechanisms that favour centrism over extremism. In part it is due to the the good luck and good management that have seen our economy grow unchecked since 1991. And in part it is due to the fact that in Australia the benefits of globalisation have been better redistributed – particularly via public health and education – than they have in comparable economies.

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/davos-global-disruption-inequality-and-t...

 

Though the Australian Liberals (ULTRA-CONservatives) are doing everything they can to destroy PUBLIC health, PUBLIC education and PUBLIC whatever on all PUBLIC fronts, including PUBLIC transport, the Australian system has fared a bit better because of UNIONS, LABOR and HISTORY with leaders like Whitlam who created Medicare and free University education (which as since been killed off by ULTRA-CONservatives)... As well our ULTRA-CONservative commercial media is reasonably counter-balanced by the ABC and SBS — without which this country would be the pits of sexism, racism and other uglyisms... But the ULTRA-CONservatives have been trying hard to destroy the ABC and SBS by lying and by cutting budgets... So how long can we hold up against the assaults of the ULTRA-CONservatives forces that live day to day to destroy fairness and equality by fostering elitism — presently the elitism of rich bozo boganism, considering the elitism of rich dudes had to go "easy, since it has been tamed a bit by a Royal Commission into banking.

Meanwhile people like Soros are the pits of contradicted hypocrisy — "supporting the left" as long as it's the child of greedy capitalism...

you've dropped your trousers: you're not alone...

If you felt a bit poorer at the end of last year, you're not alone — Australian households dropped a lazy quarter of a trillion dollars in wealth in the three months leading up to New Year's Day.

Key points:
  • In real terms, Australian households lost $170b on their properties and $140bni n shares in the fourth quarter last year
  • Household debt as a per centage of household income spiked to a new high of almost 200pc
  • The "wealth effect" has hit residential property hard with related sectors now starting to shed jobs.


According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, household wealth fell $257.6 billion in the fourth quarter as the housing and equity markets tanked.

The 2.1 per cent fall in household wealth is the largest since 2011 and follows a 0.1 per cent in the previous quarter.

In real terms, taking into account inflation, the news was even glummer with wealth down more than $310 billion — made of $170 billion in real holding losses on land and dwellings and $140 billion on financial assets.

While eye-watering in size, the losses were not surprising given housing market retreat was accelerating (the fourth quarter house price index dropped 2.4 per cent) and the ASX tumbled around 10 per cent over the quarter.

"Household wealth per capita decreased $10,198.10 to $404,319.80, following a $2,263.70 fall in household wealth in the previous quarter," the ABS said.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-28/australian-household-wealth-down-...

 

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