My Email to Westpac's Group Executive, Retail and Business Banking

Westpac is Australia's largest bank in terms of Market Capitalisation. Recently, Westpac slugged its customers by lifting their variable home loan interest rates by 45 basis points, even though the RBA only lifted rates by 25 basis points.

I wrote an email to Mr. Peter Hanlon, its Group Executive stating my displeasure and intentions to go elsewhere if their rates remained unjustifiably high. I suggest those that have a home loan with Westpac do something similar to put pressure on them to be fair to their customers.

Here's what I wrote:

Dear Mr Hanlon,

Thank you for your letter to us dated 4 December re: Westpac’s Recent Rate Change.

Whilst it is commendable for you to take the time to explain the bank’s excessive and in my opinion unwarranted rate hike above the RBA rate hike, I cannot but feel that the bank’s need to justify its actions appear insincere and merely justifying the unjustifiable. It is a fact that other banks have not hiked their rates as much as Westpac. It is either they are doing something right or Westpac is doing something wrong, as they face similar global conditions and funding costs as Westpac does.

I have given your letter due consideration and have read your carefully worded statements carefully but I have not been able to satisfy myself that your reasons for the excessive rate hike is legitimate or believable. For example you say “We’ve absorbed a significant amount of these extra costs, but the current conditions require us to act independently of the RBA”, yet your bank is still exceeding the market’s expectations by achieving billions of dollars worth of profit every year. Banking competition in Australia have taken a bad hit after the GFC and banks are strategizing to take advantage of this unfortunate climate to fatten their bottom lines at the expense of the hard working families, many of whom struggle to put a roof over their heads with home loan mortgages being their single biggest expense. By taking this step, Westpac has undoubtedly condemned some families to a bleak future, some may even lose their homes because of Westpac. Westpac should take the high road and be honest with their customers and admit the real reason for hiking their rates so excessively is to make more profit, at least then it would be respected for being honest.

Westpac has callously taken the Australian public for fools and I for one have had enough. I will be on the look out for a better deal if Westpac’s variable rates are not lowered and continue to remain higher than the other banks. One thing is for sure, this episode will make me wary of taking another home loan with Westpac in the future and I’m sure this is one thing you did not want to hear from a once loyal Westpac customer.

Yours Sincerely,

Damien Ng
Former Loyal customer of Westpac

The Danger of Not Understanding English

I got this from the "Malaysia Today" website today.



"While there are those who feel that Malaysians should uphold the National Language and not transact business in the language of the Colonial Masters, it is also dangerous if Malays do not speak a word of English as the photograph below demonstrates"

Reply to Various Comments on PDRM Allows Mob Justice

Recently I posted a video on my blog which showed the capture of a couple of alledged criminals by a crowd of people and finally the police arrived to bring the alledged criminals into custody. In the process, these alledged criminals were bashed by a mob of onlookers, even though by that time the alledged criminals were securely apprehended by the police. One thug even using a hammer aimed at the head of the man. My gripe was with the police who instead of taking control of the situation seemed overwhelmed with it all and did not stop the mob from attacking the alledged criminals.

The comments received from this post was nothing short of staggering. While I was disgusted with the level of violence these thugs accorded the alledged criminals, many comments applauded the "heros" for taking the law into their own hands and said that the criminals deserved the pulping that they were given, overlooking the fact that these were alledged criminals and have not been found guilty of any crime yet let alone the bashing of a human being using a hammer is attempted murder. Not realising that taking the law into their own hands, being judge, jury and executioneer have far reaching consequences if left unchecked in a civilised society.

Some comments indicated that I did not know the "real" situation in Malaysia because I was sitting on my moral high perch in Perth and living in an idealistic world, not knowing that I've lived most of my life in Malaysia, seen violent crime first hand and suffered the injustices from the lack of police action several times. Well at least I'm not accused of having low morals.

Some comments called me a "coward" without saying why. All I have to say to those is that a coward is a person who bashes a defenceless person who posed no threat at all while being apprehended by the police. Malaysians are good to talk and criticize but when it is time to walk their talk, they can't do it. These are the real cowards who walk away from helping someone who find themselves being in a violent confrontation but magically find the guts to bash the perpetrator in when they get apprehended, pose no threat whatsoever and outnumber them 20-1. Sure real brave.

It is also common and evident from the comments that some Malaysians cannot have a disagreement/ argument without childish name calling and profanities. Their mental maturity and irrational arguments especially when putting it in writing unfortunately do not reflect that of a civil and progressive society.

Anyway back to the crux of the matter and here is my reply:

1. If as some comments say the law is too slack, then the law has to be changed. The people, NGOs, opposition party and so on have to put pressure on the government to change the laws to toughen up on crime. This is hapening in many other countries and laws are changed everyday. Taking the law into your own hands is not the answer and have far reaching social consequences if out of control. If left unchecked and mob behaviour is encourage then it could come to a stage where your neighbour bashes your head in with a hammer if you block his car in or he doesn't like your face. Don't laugh, I've seen people come to blows because of car parking problems.
2. If the government cannot provide basic law and order, then the government needs to be replaced. It's easy to say that the police are not doing their job, close a blind eye etc. etc. but the people can do something about it (apart from bashing defenceless people). They can put pressure on their local ADUN, get the press's attention and vote in elections but many prefer to sit on their arses and suggest violence as a retaliation because they know no better or are just inherently and outwardly violent but are inwardly real cowards. They only talk tough and write profanities but when put to the real test, like helping out a person being mugged, most Malaysians will chicken out.
3. Everyone gets their day in court and cannot be judged guilty without having their basic human right to defend themselves. People who know me well know I'm very much into victim's rights as opposed to the criminals rights but the very least is that they should have their day in court. How many people on the scene or commenting on this blog actually saw the crime being committed. I won't hesitate to guess very few. The problem with mob rule happens due to the fact that these alledged criminals have been judged to be guilty by the mob, even though the majority of them did not see what hapened.
4. Human rights must be accorded to all people, alledged criminals as well. Once they are found guilty by a judge or a jury then it's fair to say that some of those rights will be removed. Even Jeffrey Dahmer, the most notorious serial killer had his day in court.

In all, the comments received on this blog rather surprised me but has shown me a few things.

1. Some Malaysians still have very narrow minded and childish views especially when making comments. They get very personal and criticise the author and bring his family in the fray instead of sticking to the topic at hand.
2. Some Malaysians talk rather gung ho with profanity laced language but very few are like that in a real life situation preferring to instead hide behind the veil of anonymous in cyberspace feeling braver that way.
3. Some Malaysians are very uncivilised and know only one way to solve a growing problem. They get frustrated and suggest violence (or at least they say that they will) instead of putting pressure on the powers that be to provide better law and order in the country. They talk and criticize a lot but actually do nothing to contribute to the society they live in.

Anyway enough said and I'm actually very dissappointed with seeing the feedback from the posted video. If Malaysia is going to be a developed nation by the year 2020, a lot of things need to change (read: "Malaysia 2020 Where Art Thou" on the previous post) not least the backward and uncivilised mentality of some of it's people.

PDRM Allows Mob Justice

For those who do not know PDRM is the acronym for Polis Diraja Malaysia, and if you still do not know it is the Malaysian police force. I think this video explains itself, nothing less than a sickening act of violence against a couple of robbers right under the noses of the police who allow it all to happen. What a fantastic police force we have. How are we suppose to feel safe when we have these kind of police working for us?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYxj93jGJsY

Enjoy and I hope you're not watching and having a meal at the same time.

Malaysia 2020 Where Art Thou?

How is it that the man who holds the country’s top post, a post that demands the most ethical and integral a person to occupy can so far avoid scrutiny against a very serious charge of murder?

Ever since the days of our much loved 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia and Malaysia’s longest serving dictator, Mahathir Mohammad, we have been touting the idea of a Malaysia being a developed nation by the year 2020. That’s just over 10 years away, a very short time. Let’s see, 10 years is like how long my daughter has been on this planet. She was born in the year 1999 and it’s now 2009 and unfortunately nothing much has changed to make Malaysia a developed nation in this past 10 years. How is it then that Malaysia and its esteemed leaders still think this goal is achievable in the next 10 years when we have hardly made any progress in the last 10 years?

On my recent trip back to Malaysia I noticed nothing much had changed over the years. Here are just 10 reasons why I think Malaysia will struggle to achieve developed nation status by the year 2020:

1) Malaysia’s public transportation is still in utter shambles. The buses are never on time, the services are mediocre to say the least, taxi drivers are still ripping off passengers under the noses of the authorities, usually at world renowned landmarks like the Petronas Twin towers and the international airport. The rail system usually cannot cope with the demand and experience frequent downtimes due to a lack of proper maintenance. It is also inadequate and proposals to extend it to more populated areas like Subang and Cheras have not come to fruition despite years of talking (usually during election time).

2) Traffic on the roads seems to be getting worse, especially during rainy days where you can be caught in a jam for hours before getting to your destination. The government have not been able to build sufficient roads which are toll free for the masses to use. What roads that have been built using private/ public companies are charged heavy toll fees and are under utilised. The drainage system on most roads has not been improved and it’s not uncommon during heavy downpours to have sampans (boats) on the roads in addition to the cars. The road rage bullies are also all over the roads and as usual think that the roads belong to them and no other. There is little chance of these bullies getting caught by the authorities either or nothing a RM50 note won’t be able to “solve”.

3) Malaysia is still using manual toll collectors instead of scanners or readers to deduct the toll monies. The automation or a lack of automation of such straightforward processes like toll collection reflects a lack of technology, lack of willingness to use the available technology or it could be a matter of keeping these people employed in the highly skilled job of putting their hand out to collect coins or a combination of these. Whatever it is, having people at toll booths to manually collect coins are the distinct characteristics of a third world nation and not a developed one.

4) The scourge of illegal workers loitering around our greatest landmarks like Bukit Bintang and KLCC has made these places dangerous especially late at night. The Malaysian authorities do not seem to have the resolve to address this issue satisfactorily.

5) Crime in Malaysia has worsened over years. From triads to illegal gambling dens to snatch thefts, not a day goes by without a headline or two highlighting the worsening crime conditions in Malaysia. Imagine what hasn’t been reported. The Home Minister mentioned that crime has worsened because of the public’s demonization of the police. Can we not blame the public for being pessimistic that the crime situation is not going to get any better in Malaysia if we have goons like that in charge? It is also widely rumoured that the Malaysian police force is in cahoots with the triad bosses dealing in illegal activities. The link goes all the way to the top, the Chief Inspector of Police. The Malaysian police are also perceived by a vast amount of the Malaysian population to be a tool of the government to stifle dissent and to put political opponents in jail. Anyone blowing the whistle against government corruption will be interrogated and harassed by the police instead of them focusing on the alleged perpetrators of the crime.

6) The country is still corrupt, from our politicians to our police and even our lawyers and judges. What is more worrying is that as a country Malaysia have fallen 9 places in the corruption index from last year. Whatever happened to the drive by the police to rid their officers of corruption by getting them to wear a badge saying “no to corruption”? Just symbolic without any conviction, one would guess.

7) Malaysia still practices institutional discrimination where “bumiputras” are accorded preferential treatment in business, education, housing, politics and banking to name a few. For example, a multi millionaire “bumiputra” will get a 7% discount on housing when a less financially accomplished non-bumiputra cannot. There are many universities in the country that reserve places to majority Malays, placing hardly any relevance to grades or academic accomplishments. Needless to say, as these students were gifted their places in their universities, they are less able to fulfil the requirements of the real working world so employers are reluctant to hire these graduates when they come out. Those who missed out on a place because of the colour of their skin are forced to go to foreign universities. Very few bother to come back.

8) Malaysia’s per capita GDP is in the region of $7,000. Most developed nations are close to $30,000. In a stumbling bumbling statement to the media, Malaysia’s Prime Minister mentioned his intention to grow Malaysia’s per capita income by 9% per year to more than double to $17,000. Many have rubbished this as the country is only growing between 3%-6% in recent years and Malaysia will have to achieve China like growth for the next ten years to realise this unrealistic goal. In a later retraction, Najib mentioned it was more like 6% and that there was some miscommunication in the media. By the year 2020 most developed nations will be approaching $50,000 per capita income.

9) The Malaysian press and the judiciary have been seen to be siding with the government. From selective reporting to self censorship, only “good news” about the government is reported and “bad news” kept hush hush. Of course any bad news about the opposition parties and their members are prominently broadcasted. The top circulated English, Malay and Chinese newspapers in Malaysia are all government owned. It’s hence not surprising that it’s news and it trustworthiness will fail to meet any country’s minimum standards of journalism bar a few like Burma and Zimbabwe. The judiciary is no better, siding with the government to persecute political opponents, hence eliminating them as threats. With the help of draconian laws like the Internal Security act, the Official Secrets Act, Sedition Act, Criminal Defamation, Printing and Publisher’s Act and a host of other outdated and suppressive laws, the judiciary has been successful in bringing this once unflappable pillar of justice to the prejudiced and corrupt institution it is today.

10) Malaysia’s Prime Minister has been repeatedly implicated in the murder of his alleged Mongolian lover and until now, neither the police, nor the courts or the parliament has had the resolve and conviction to get to the bottom of this. Any thoughts of linking the Prime Minister to this murder have been briskly addressed by the government machinery by threats of jail or violence against the instigators. How is it that the man who holds the country’s top post, a post that demands the most ethical and integral a person to occupy can so far avoid scrutiny against a very serious charge of murder? In most developed nations, the top man cannot even have an outstanding parking fine. As they say in Malaysia, “Malaysia Boleh!”

To be able to achieve developed nation status, you cannot just build tall buildings and tolled roads. It’s also not about breaking the Guiness Book of Records for baking the longest pizza or spending millions of ringgit of tax payer’s money to tag along with the Russian astronauts to space. It’s about the maturity of the nation in its legislature, executive, judiciary, infrastructure, public services, social services and people. This maturity is in the form of financial, integrity, social, moral and behaviour. It’s not about building a building but maintaining it as well, so generations of people can enjoy using it. It’s not about holding elections once every five years and proclaiming to the world that Malaysia is a democratic country. It’s about having an impartial election commission, free and fair press, freedom of information and freedom of expression. This unfortunately is where Malaysia is left wanting and unfortunately it hasn’t changed much in the last ten years.

Politicians Screwing Around with our Future

Monday’s Four Corners program was about how Australia’s opposition Liberal party were struggling to keep it’s party members united on the Emission Trading Scheme proposed by the government. The government require the support of the opposition in parliament to pass the law which would see Australian businesses heavily taxed for emitting carbon pollution into the atmosphere.

The problem within the Liberal/ National party is that many amongst them are climate change sceptics and do not believe in the science of global warming. In an obvious political agenda, they have labelled these scientists “Global Warming Alarmist”. They argue that global warming is not real and that Australia’s businesses will suffer unnecessarily and no improvement to the environment will be evident.

From the show, let me list down 2 reasons why I think it is the Liberal/ National party that are playing political games and couldn’t give a hoot about the environment we live in.

• Nick Minchin (a senior Liberal front bencher and leader of the house for the opposition party) mentioned that during 2007 general election, the Liberal party supported a comprehensive ETS because of the public backlash that demanded it. Now, they might not support a comprehensive ETS proposed by the government because the public demand for it has somewhat abated or subsided from the highs of the 2007 general election. This shows the Liberal party do not form policies based on any principles but on where the support and votes can be found. One day here, next day there.
• When Barnaby Joyce (Senior member of the National party) was asked what he thought about the carbon credits which would put money back into the pockets of farmers when they practiced good farming methods which reduced the carbon impact, he gave a flurffy answer which poked fun at the question. The question is plain and simple and a darn good one. One of the main premises by the Liberal/ National coalition against the ETS was that it was going to economically impact the farmers and here we have a serious question put forward to a senior coalition member and one of the main instigators against the government’s scheme that refuted this argument and he could hardly provide an answer let alone a credible one

The opposition are doing nothing but playing politics here. They refute the evidence provided by credible scientist as though they were scientist themselves but their true motives are to appease their constituents for their short term benefit but unfortunately to the long term detriment of our environment.

What we should do is to find out if Global warming is legitimate or a scam as professed by opposition people like Barnaby Joyce. I mean it should not be too hard, just get the data from the meteorological department and if the average temperature has gone up then that is evidence of global warming. If it hasn’t, then global warming is a hoax and the likes of Barnaby Joyce are right. This should put an end to the global warming true or false debate and allow our feared politicians to get on to do the right thing and serve the people instead of the utter waste of time and resources we’re seeing currently, debating an issue they are not motivated and have never been motivated to solve due to the political impact.

Hey Hey It's History

How come it is that a 6 year old kid can know right from wrong and the highly paid executives from Channel 9 did not have a clue? I’m referring to the skit performed on the “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” show during their reunion show not long ago.

In the skit, a bunch of morons painted their faces black and pretended to be the Jackson Five. They called themselves the ‘Jackson Jive’ in the skit. To compound the severity of their misguided judgement, one of the celebrity judges just happened to be American music legend Harry Connick Jr. who gave the performance a score of zero, deservedly so. Harry mentioned during the telecast that if this was aired in America, “:Hey Hey It’s Saturday” would become “Hey Hey It’s History” which I found quite amusing but plainfully true.

What was more interesting to me was when this was aired on TV and instantly my 6 year old daughter saw something amiss and remarked “How rude!” I realised it too and I bet half of Australia did as well. The same skit was done by the same bunch of goons ten years ago but unfortunately these guys were trapped in a time warp and forgot to move on with the times. In this day and age, doing a racially sensitive skit like this? My bet is any other form or future reunions of this otherwise popular show will now never come to fruition because of this stupid blunder. Common sense guys?

More reaction to the skit on the link below:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv-radio/articles/2009/10/08/1254701089809.html

The 2009 US Open, Del Porto and Serena Williams

Congratulations to Juan Martin Del Porto, the new US Open Champion for 2009. At just 20, he has beaten Roger Federer who last lost a US Open match five years ago. The reign of the king came to an end when Del Porto magnificently outplayed and out gunned Federer in five breathtaking sets. Maybe we have a real challenger on our hands to put in a good fight against the Nadal/ Federer domination of world tennis. By the way, en-route to winning the US Open, Del Porto also beat Rafael Nadal.

Today’s blog however is not about Del Porto’s historic victory though. My blog is rarely about success! Today’s blog is about the shameful performance of Serena Williams at the US Open, and I’m not talking about the quality of her tennis. During her semi-finals match, she experienced an out of character mind explosion when she was foot faulted by a lines person and started abusing and threatening the lines woman with profanity laced-tirade which John Mc Enroe would have been proud of. Serena raised the racquet to the lines person's face and swung it in such a threatening manner that after the match the lines person said she felt genuinely threatened by Serena’s gestures.

The shameful part of the whole saga is not that Serena lost her composure and her cool. It’s not that her outburst led to her disqualification and semi-final loss to Kim Clijsters. It’s the fact that she found people’s reaction to her on court behaviour as funny and somewhat quizzical, like “what are you guys so uptight about?” Serena failed to understand the severity of her actions and chose to treat it as a joke, as if she did nothing wrong and it was a whole lot of misunderstanding. One day later she held a press conference to finally apologise to the lines person and said something to the effect that she wanted to hug her. Now if you want quizzical, not many things beat that kind of talk. I’m afraid Serena, you’re going to have to practice a bit more on delivering your apologies to make it more believable.

Weird as her apology was, one would have been led to believe she had learnt her lesson but to me her apology was as insincere as I’ve ever seen any apology to be and she only did it after a wrath of public opinion criticising her for her indifferent attitude towards the whole thing. There was talk about the irreparable damage this would do to her reputation and possibly affecting her relationship with her sponsors. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it. I think Serena forced herself to apologise because of the potential damage this would have had on her commercial endorsements, which is why the apology came out so seemingly difficult and awkward and painful for all to see, much like talking on the phone while pooping a big one. But then again, are we surprised at all? Think back on my previous blog about stinking celebrity behaviours and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Read it here:

http://damien-crankyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/04/shocking-celebrity-behaviour.html

These guys are too good to do any wrong and when they do, they poop out an apology as difficult as it may be and think that would be the end of that until their agents tell them to go into damage control. So an apology such as that offered by Serena Williams should be given the treatment it deserves, disregarded and discarded into the insincere, meaningless dumpster.

Brother Lawrenec Dead at 91 - He will Be Missed and Remembered by all Johanians!

Cheer cheer and courage display

All ye Johannians join in the lay

Send a volley of cheer on high

Shake down the thunder from the sky

What though the odds be great or small

Dear ol' St John's will win over all

While her loyal sons are marching

Onward to Victory

St John's!!

Those are the lyrics of the St. John’s school song that brother Lawrence Spitzig wrote all those years ago which is still being sung until today. Brother Lawrence was a director twice at St John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur, once from 1955 till 1961 and once from 1979 till 1983, a great contributor to education in Malaysia and a kind and generous human being who put all else before himself. He was conferred a Datukship by the King this year for his dedication and achievements to education in Malaysia over the last six decades. He died yesterday at Assunta Hospital, Petaling Jaya, aged 91.

Ask any Johanian who Brother Lawrence is and if they don’t know then they’re probably lying that they’re a Johanian. I come from a family of Johanians. I was a Johanian, my brother was a Johanian, my dad taught in St. John’s and my grand uncle was a former director of St. John’s. We all knew, loved and respected Brother Lawrence for who he was and what he achieved for the school.

I had the great opportunity to have met Brother Lawrence Spitzig when I was a student at St. John’s Institution and when he was still working at the school. In the later years during his retirement I still met up with Brother Lawrence through my grand uncle, also a Brother at St. John’s. I remember my grand uncle always telling me how Brother Lawrence always loved the cookies and chocolates we bought for the Brothers. Simple things like cookies and chocolates made their day. When I had the chance to personally speak with Brother Lawrence, he was always so excited to tell me about his work with the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak. I recall my amazement with his energy and enthusiasm to the cause while he was well into his late 80s. But then I think that’s what made Brother Lawrence tick, his love for helping others.

For those interested, there will be a funeral service for Brother Lawrence at SJI Cathedral tomorrow at 10.00am. Cheers Brother Lawrence, you will be missed and remembered by all Johanians forever! Fide Et Labore!

Climate Change - Who Cares What the Rest of the World are Doing, We Should Act Now

I don’t profess to be overly knowledgeable about the goings on and off about our environmental policies or the proposed ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) where industries are taxed for polluting the environment but what I do know are useless politicians when I see them.

The government have put up an ETS that has been blocked in the parliament by the opposition Liberal party who claim that industries like the coal industry will lose thousands of jobs because of this. Call me a fool but I thought we were going away from dirty industries and into cleaner green industries like solar and wind power industries? Why are we trying to protect the coal industries? They should be slowly fading away as we try to set up policies to encourage investments and job creation into cleaner industries. I’m sure the coal industry will be able to survive. It’s just a fact of life that certain industries fade away and new ones are created. It’s been happening over time and it will continue to happen till the time of our great great great grand children, there’s no denying this fact. The government will now have to wait another 3 months to propose an amended bill to the parliament.

The Liberal party also question why Australia which emit slightly above 1% of the world’s pollution has to come up with an ETS now that would supposedly put Australian jobs at risk when the US, China, India and other major polluters have not committed to any set reduction in their CO2 emissions. Any attempt to reduce CO2 emissions on Australia’s part would be futile and irresponsible to Australia’s economy if the rest of the world do not play ball. The government have countered by saying Australia being one of the largest polluters in the world per capita needs to show leadership and lead from the front in an issue where everybody is waiting to see what the others are doing first before committing to anything.

While on the surface the Liberal party’s stand on this issue sounds right and the government’s ETS may need a little more work to get right, it is better than dragging our feet and doing nothing at all which is what the Libs are doing and we can only come up with one conclusion and that is, they are climate change sceptics who would do anything to not to deal with the real issues of climate change as they don’t believe it is real enough to ‘jeopardise’ Australian jobs. The Liberal party firstly need to be united as a party and acknowledge that climate change is indeed real and not pussy foot around the issue. For the survival of the generations after us, we need to act and we need to act now. Australia should lead and lead from the front if necessary. If you believe in Global warming, what difference does it make if you pass the bill now or later? What difference does it make what the rest of the world does, if you believe that Global warming is real and we do the right thing to cut our pollution. Is the Liberal party saying that if the rest of the world does not cut emissions as much as Australia would like it to, then it would follow suit or stretch out negotiations further? It’s under these circumstances and under these kinds of leadership that nothing gets done and important issues never get resolved.

The world has no choice but to do the right thing. John Howard paid the ultimate price by losing his job and his electorate with his reluctance to believe that climate change was real until the end when it was already too late. Australia should not wait but to act now and act decisively. Does the Liberal party even know how many real jobs would be lost and how many real jobs would be created with the introduction of this ETS? It’s easy to say that jobs would be lost but where are the details? On the flip side, what are the consequences of not acting? What are they waiting for? If we are to have cleaner energy, the coal industry will need to be cut down in size sooner or later anyway, so why not sooner? I’m afraid the plethora of excuses spewing out from the mouths of the Liberal party members on this issue are unpalatable and hopefully they will pay the ultimate price once again when Kevin Rudd calls for a double dissolution election, get his ETS through and render the Libs useless and send them into the political wilderness until a time when they can learn to be more useful.

Kyle Sandilands a Crude Radio Shock Jock Who Needs to Dissappear!

For those unfamiliar, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O are radio disc jokeys on Australian radio 2Day FM. Their audience comprise primarily of the teen audience. Now Kyle is also a judge on Australian idol and Jackie an entertainer who has hosted several other shows on Australian TV. The radio program they host is a vile, disgusting and crude show that panders to the sick minds of their audience who find amusing and entertaining every cruel and embarassing joke that befall the unknowing guests that appear on the show. Now to be fair, the audience is not really to blame as I remember way back when I was 17 myself and wouldn't mind having a chuckle or two at others misfortunes, but Kyle Sandilands, Jackie O and their producers at the radio station should know better. They have targeted a segment of the population who don't know better and have made up their content to suit the off taste, off limits mentality of the pimpled faced, testosterone filled teenagers of our society.

Gone are the days when arrogance, cruelty and laughing at others expense can be tolerated by modern society and the events of the recent past has taught us that being crude and vile for a laugh is just not on. A joke not only has to be funny but it cannot get out of hand by being overly offensive. Obviously, playing a funny sketch at the expense of dying kids is a definite no no, a mistake the Chaser's team learnt the hard way. The plug on their award winning comedy The Chaser's War on Everything has since been pulled by the TV station due to their distasteful sketch which created a furioous uproar amongst the community.

Just an example of the kind of nasty jokes Kyle and Jackie O's radio show plays on the airwaves is best described by a recent show. In the show, Kyle and Jackie O were to reunite a girl from Cambodia who lives in Australia with her niece who lives in the US. The auntie and niece have not seen each other since being separated while young after fleeing Cambodia's regime as refugees. After having flown 15 hours from the US to Australia, the girls were told of the 'catch' which was that the niece was to stand behind one of three doors and the auntie needed to pick the door the niece was standing behind, otherwise they would be sending the niece back to the US straight away, no meeting at all. Having heard this, the obvious anguish and anxiousness was plain for all to see which was what the radio hosts wanted to happen. When the auntie picked the wrong door, they told the pair that the niece would be sent home which left the girls crying with agonizing pain shown for the world or at least Kyle and Jacki O's audience to see. Kyle then went on to say that he would 'allow' them to see each other if they begged and the biggest grovel fest imaginable was bestowed upon King Kyle and he eventually 'granted' them a much deserved meeting. The sick and twisted part was that they had always intended for the girls to meet each other but the charade Kyle played to get the girls into a state of utter torment was just a cheap and vile exploitation of the girls to get a reaction which was deemed 'good entertaintment'.

The straw that broke the camel's back though was when Kyle and Jackie got a mother to question her 14 year old daughter who was hooked up to a lie detector about her sex life on their radio show. The mother was wrong in the first place to take part in this silly stunt but the events that followed took a turn for the worse when the girl admitted on live radio that she had been raped when she was 12. The mother knew about it and it was unforgivable for her to agree to such a degrading stunt, especially as there was obvious pain and shame felt by the daughter while on the air. Instead of pulling the plug on the horrendous skit, all Kyle could do was to say whether there were any other incidences apart from that one. Helloooo Kyle!! Where are your marbles? Is there not an iorta of decency in this trenchant vitriolic person for him not to ask himself if this was just not appropriate radio to be asking a 14 year old girl about her sex life and being raped? This girl was already showing signs of distress due to having to relive her traumatic rape while just a child and here is Kyle Sandilands trying to find out more about other incidences.

The 2Day FM came out soon after and apologised unreservedly but Kyle Sandilands refused to admit any wrongdoing. Not only was it wrong to do a show like that, there is also talk about a criminal element which child protection services and the police were looking into. Kyle Sandilands is an arrogant, opinionated and egotistical person to put it mildly. His favourite pastime is to be funny at other people's expense and makes no apologies for it. This can be seen during his frequent performances as a judge on Australian idol. He thinks he's funny but it's usually at other people's expense and the sad thing is a lot of people laugh and think he's funny. The events of recent days however, have made a lot of people think whether these kinds of jokes and in fact a person like Kyle is what society want in their living rooms and in their car radio's everyday. Kyle has found out the hard way and the answer unfortunately for him is "NO". Sponsors have pulled the plug on his radio show, he's been given a leave of absence on his own radio show and Australian Idol has sacked him as a judge. Well there you go Kyle, it doesn't pay to be nasty. I just hope that this would be the last we talk about Kyle Sandilands the repulsive and cruel broadcaster and hope he fades away into oblivion never to be seen or heard of again.

Read how Media Watch saw this: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2644599.htm

CHINA GETS INCENSED AUSTRALIA DUCKS FOR COVER

In the past couple of weeks we have seen how when China fumes, Australia ducks for cover. I'm referring to the controversy surrounding the jailing of Chinese Australian Stern Hu, the head of Rio Tinto's operations in China along with three Rio Tinto colleagues who happen to be Chinese Nationals. They were accused by China of bribery and corruption in obtaining 'state secrets'. What are 'state secrets'. Well, that in itself is a state secret.

Australia's Foreign Minister had to resort to scouring Chinese news websites to get updates on the fate of Stern Hu and the most senior Chinese official he managed to get clarification from apparently was a junior minister in the foreign department. The opposition have been demanding that Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pick up the phone and speak to his counterpart, the 'Even Sterner Hu', China's president Hu Jin Tao. Kevin Rudd has so far refused citing 'quiet diplomacy' as the way to go. The opposition have pointed out that Kevin Rudd's self proclaimed 'special relationship' he has with China as worthless.

It's been more than three weeks and Stern Hu lingers in a China jail awaiting charges. It must be noted that so far no charges have been laid, making it difficult for the Australian authorities to make sense or further commentary on this issue without risking offending Australia's largest trade partner. Australian's have to know that if you visit or do business in a foreign country, then you abide by the laws of that country. In this perspective it is hard for the Rudd government to push for the release of Mr Hu because of the lack of information on what laws have been broken. Rio Tinto have issued a strong worded statement rubbishing the allegations by the Chinese Authorities and proclaiming to be steadfast in support of their employees.

The interesting point to this whole saga is this. Even at the face of such blatant abuse of the human rights of an Australian citizen, the Australian government has chosen 'quiet diplomacy' which to me means weakness and even as unsophisticated my anaylsis is of the whole situation, is it that far from the truth? Of course Australia is showing weakness, what other observations can we make? Under intense pressure to do more, Kevin Rudd came out and stated in his press conference that the way China handled this investigation 'would be watched and judged by the whole world'. How would this make a difference, considering the world has been watching China abuse Tibet for decades and this doesn't seem to be affecting much the way China conducts itself. Moreover, coming from Australia, a country that is dominated in the economic relationship with China this 'warning' must surely be mute as far as the Chinese are concerned. Sure enough twenty four hours later, a Chinese Government spokesman came out guns ablaze asking Australia to butt out if it knew what was good for it. The US, in support of Australia and maybe having gone through this many times before thought it be helpful to help out it's 'younger brother' by asking China to conduct investigations in a fair and transparent manner without further delay.

To see Australia limp through this speaks volumes for the economic dependance Australia has on the Chinese and their demand for Australia's mining resources, mainly iron ore. Australia's numbness in dealing with what on the surface appears to be a human rights issue is surprising but I would ask anyone willing to condemn so willingly to take a step back and understand the 'other issues' that may be affected by pushing the boundaries with the Chinese Authorities on the Stern Hu issue. Yes, you would like to think that Australians would sleep in a tent first before letting one of it's own linger in prison without trial but unfortunately life is not as clear cut as that. Analyst on both sides of the economic spectrum have so accurately surmized, Australia needs China more than China needs Australia. Protecting the econmic prosperity of Australia's other 24 million and their future generations may have something to do with.

MICHAEL JACKSON - Legend or Whacko...my thoughts.

26th of June would be a day that I would never forget till the day I die. Just like the time when Elvis and Princess Diana died, it was one of those 'where were you' moments. Unless you've been living under a rock the last couple of weeks, you would undoubtedly know that that was the day that Michael Jackson collapsed in his rented LA mansion from a massive heart attack and died. He died at around 3pm LA time (about 6 am Perth time) but I only heard about it at about 10am. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing as not only was Michael Jackson the King of Pop, he was also relatively young at just 50 years old.

My first friend on Facebook posted MJ's death on their page at around 4pm (LA time). That's impressive considering I only heard about it at 10am, some four hours after the fact! Since then, facebook, myspace and other social networking websites had been inundated with messages of condolences to arguably the greatest entertainer the world had ever seen. As they say, you never know how much you miss something/someone until you've lost it/ them.

That was how MJ's life was. From his early teens till about his thirties, he was adored by his millions of fans for his extroadinary musical talents to the later parts of his life where he was dogged with controversies like allegations of child molestation to weird behaviour bordering on lunacy. Some of his weird behaviours included a strange relationship he had with his pet monkey, changing the colour of his skin and his unorthodox marriages to Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe to name just a few.

In 2003, when I saw Martin Basheer's interview with MJ in the documentary "Living with Michael Jackson", I have to admit I was thinking that MJ was as whacko as anyone living on this earth could be and that he was plain lying to many of Martin's questions, especially about coming out into the open about his marriages (more specifically the marriage arrangement he had with Debbie Rowe) and his skin problems he allegedly blames for his skin changing to white. He also said that he had no more than 2 plastice surgeries in his entire life and only on his nose, despite being put to him that his face has actually changed in shape and structure from when he was younger. I remember at the time I just couldn't take him seriously.

I'm not sure if it's the fact that MJ has passed away or that I'm a better more understanding person now, but I saw the 2003 interview again and my perception of the man completely changed from one of scepticism back in 2003 to one of an innocent even naive man being manipulated by Martin Basheer and by the media in general his whole life. I felt sorry even for what I saw was a man, who was accorded the status of the King of Pop, the best entertainer the world has ever seen but still had the innocence of a young MJ. You felt he did not know how to deal or respond to the plethora of media representatives who wanted to see him fall from his high perch. In a clever move though MJ used his own crew to film Martin while Martin interviewed and fimed him. It showed how Martin was heaping praise towards MJ's love for his kids while later in the produced documentary questioned MJ's ability to be a responsible father. It showed Martin to be a manipulative journalist who would do anything to get the story to represent what he would think to be a 'good story'.

Now the stuff he said about his skin and his marriages still sounded as evasive and dishonest as it did in 2003 but instead of thinking this man is a blatant liar, I just thought this was a man like any other who was backed into a corner who did not want to reveal everything he knew about these subjects being forced into stumbling for an answer due to his inexperience in dealing with a manipulative tough interviewer like Martin Basheer. So what if he changed his skin colour? So what if he had 100 plastic surgeries instead of the two that he admitted to? So what? Who is Martin to make it like MJ was doing something wrong if he admitted to it? So what if MJ lied? He never wanted to reveal too much about these subjects in the first place but instead of not answering the questions, he tried to answer and in doing so appeared evasive and dishonest.

The facts are he like you and me has the basic human right to choose what he wants to do as far as altering his looks are concerned. His marriages were so unconventional but only because he was Michael Jackson, every aspect, every angle of it has been put under the media microscope and questions about his 'manhood' has been made into an issue. MJ was without a doubt a lover of children and if he wanted children without the sex, then so what. It's no secret and MJ had admitted it himself, he feels uncomfortable in an intimate situation with women. Why should it be an issue to anyone if he wanted to artificially inseminate a woman to have his kids? It happens everyday but because it's MJ and sensationalizing the story to make him look like some sort of wierdo sells stories and toppling MJ from his high perch would also sell more stories, the media have been grilling every aspect of MJ's 'unorthodox' marriages hoping to dig up dirt that would show him to be a whacko. What he had done was not conventional, I'll admit that but neither was it wrong.

"Living with Michael Jackson" was the documentary that saw the beginning of the end for MJ. The district attorney took the story about MJ sharing his bed with a young boy named Gavin Artizo (see pic below) to inititate criminal proceedings against MJ. He never recovered from that.







One of the main reasons MJ was mired in such high controversy till the day he died was without a doubt due to the allegations of child molestation and as everybody knows a paedophile is two rungs below a rapist turn serial killer in the most hated ratings. However, the allegations were never proven despite millions being spent by the LA District Attorney to leave 'no stone unturned' in trying to nail MJ to the wall. My despise for celebrities getting away with no good is known. I've made strong opinions against OJ Simpson, Phil Spectre and a host of other celebrities getting away with no good including murder because of their money being able to buy the best lawyers to defend them. In MJ's case though, nobody really knows what happened except MJ and the child involved. The DA does not know, MJ's lawyer do not know, you and I do not know. What I do know though, is that in LA extortion cases are plenty. Because MJ was such a huge star, it made him a huge target too. In all of these cases, it was the parents who were mounting the attacks on MJ and many of them had been proven gold diggers. MJ had not done himself any favours previously when he paid one of his accusers an alledged $30 million to "leave him alone". The two edge sword saw him looking guilty like he had something to hide and left a dangerous precedent for future extortion attempts by other kid's and their parents by making himslef look like an easy target. He finally learnt his lesson and went to court to fight the battle and was finally exonerated by the courts. MJ though was the eventual loser as his life had never been the same since. He'd had to sell his home, go to Dubai to escape the mounting pandemonium his life was putting on his young family and in essence heading towards a path of no return.

I feel MJ was a hugely misunderstood person. I feel the media had made him look like a weird, whacko paedophilia maniac and many, me included bought it but from his passing we now see that the people who knew him best have only the best of things to say about him, about his genius, his passion and most of all about his love for his family, friends and fans. After considerable reflection about the man and his life, I believe he had an extreme love for children and his kindness was taken advantage of by the low life gold diggers hoping to strike it rich by extorting his money. As MJ's brother so succintly put it during his memorial..."Maybe now Michael, they will leave you alone..."

Budget Airlines A True Rip Off!!

Geez, we're half way through June and this is my first posting for the month. Either I've been pretty busy with my life or I'm running out of things to complain about. The former seems more plausible and the latter would be a nice to have but hardly reality as far as my whinging ways are concerned. Let's see, we've had the crookish banks raising interest rates again even though the Reserve Bank had not done so. Some of these banks have been caught out holding their office functions in plush hotels like the Sheraton and some even taking staff to overseas luxury trips for meetings as if all the hotels in Australia were fully booked out. We've had oil companies colluding with one another to 'fix' the prices at the bowser and we've had Madonna bribing her way in Malawi, finally getting what she wants with her adoption application by 'donating' $16 million to the orphanages of Malawi and getting a resultant favourable ruling on her case to adopt. Money does indeed make the world go round.

Well I won't be writing about any of those annoying things but something else that has been bugging me for the last couple of weeks. I'm talking about the budget airlines who on the surface appear cheap but use unethical ways to get more money off their unsuspecting customers. Notwithstanding the numerous 'delays' and flight cancellations, I'm referring to something more sinister and morally wrong. I'm referring to a premeditated attempt by the budget airlines to cheat their customers during the booking process.

During the booking process (on their website), one 'Air Asia' will prompt the customer if they want to buy travel insurance? There is an option to click on 'ok' and 'cancel'. Now here is where the dodgy part comes in. If you click on 'ok', you would have declined to buy the insurance and if you clicked 'cancel' you would have agreed to buy the insurance. Obviously, Air Asia have worked out that there would be more people NOT wanting to take on the insurance and would click 'cancel' than there would be people wanting to take it on by clicking 'ok'. So they just reverse the meaning of each button to get more clicks, hence more sales. Although, they have a notice to state that by clicking 'cancel' you would want insurance and by clicking 'ok' you would not want insurance, it can be easily missed if you went about clicking fairly quickly and did not read all the words that appeared on the computer screen. The deceit here is blatantly obvious by using reverse intent. They do not care if you really wanted/ needed insurance or not but aim to deceive to maximize revenue for themselves. Their unethical attempt here to deceive and maximize revenue is nothing short of cheating!

Take one Tiger Airways where you would need to pay a fee of $5 per passenger per sector for using your credit card. This would mean for a family of four travelling from Perth to KL would have to pay $80 for the previledge of using your credit card (there are 2 sectors from Perth to KL for one passenger one way and 4 sectors two ways, 4 passengers return hence would be 16 sectors). Now in Australia it is illegal for businesses to charge customers for using their credit cards if they have no other payment options. However, Tiger has got around this 'little inconvenience' by giving passengers the option to pay via a debit card. We can only guess how many people have taken on that offer. You might as well have a payment option using a Mc Donald's card! You'll probably have more people who have that than a debit card! Now that is $80 for the priviledge of using a credit card!!! I've paid $5, or even $10, but $80 is like saying, they haven't charged you enough on your ticket and this is just another way to make up for the cheap ticket. That's $80 pure profit for nothing!!! No service, no valued added, nothing!!!

Another Tiger Airways scam is with regards to baggage. Taking the example of the above family of four travelling from Perth to KL would have to pay a whopping $160 for 15kg baggage allowance each. That's a huge addition to the cost of the flights, considering the ticket itself is not much more than the cost of the baggage. You do not have the option to choose which sectors you want baggage and which you don't. For example you can't have the option to have baggage from Perth to Singapore and not have baggage from Singapore to KL. Once you click yes on the option, they apply it to all your sectors in effect multiplying $10 by all the sectors on your booking (16 for a family of 4 travelling from Perth to KL), even though you may not want to have baggage on certain sectors. You have to choose to have it all or none at all but most people are somewhere in between. Adding to their perfect form of unethical predatory behaviour, if you noticed that you had added the baggage option and chose to undo the choice, it would allow you to choose the 'No Baggage' option but guess what, the price of the baggage option still remains in the final price. If you did not check this you would have thought that the costs of baggage would have dissappeared since you unpicked that option. You needed to do some fancy clicking before the initial baggage pricing went away. Just another way to cheat you unknowingly.

With all the desperate attempts of the budget airlines to rip you off any which way possible, you probably need to ask the question, are budget airlines actually cheap? With all the additions and all, does it actually work out cheaper? Sadly, the answer to that question is still 'yes' which is probably why people still go back to the budget airlines to be further treated as suckers and continue their unending cycle of budget airline complaining.

Well there you have it. My gripe about Budget airlines and only about the booking process. Don't get me started about customer service, lost baggage, flight postponement, cancellation and 'we only have Maggi Mee left sir' and a host of other 'cost cutting strategies' budget airlines use to make more money.

Malaysia's Sedition Act - A Law which Should Never Be In Existence

When I saw a status change the other day from my Facebook friend Uncle Lim Kit Siang, supreme leader of the Democratic Action Party that the police was after him, I had to dig deeper as to why a beacon of Malaysian politics for four decades was being sought after by our 'esteemed' Malaysian Police force for an alledged crime against the Malaysian government. I managed to read a news update from the Malaysian Insider website that the police wanted to question Uncle Lim for his political speech during campaigning a couple of days ago linking Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to the political impasse in the state of Perak. It was later discovered that the people who made the police report that led to the police wanting a statement from Uncle Lim was none other than the police themsleves. Now, since when did police take political sides? However, if you've been a follower of Malaysian politics over the years, you'd be naive to think that the Malaysian police was anything but impartial.

The authorities are considering charging Uncle Lim for Sedition for linking Najib to the political crisis in Perak in his speech. You can imagine my reaction like most rational, logical, like minded people who heard of this news was little short of shock and disbelief. What business has the Malaysian police got to do poking their noses into political speeches in the middle of a political campaign? Is speaking the truth deserved of being charged for a crime and thrown into jail? If they were lies, then why not sue Uncle Lim for defamation? I went back further and found out that the crime of Sedition was more common than I originally thought.

In the US, the Sedition Act of 1918 was enacted by President Woodrow Wilson during the time of war to quell dissent against the US government at a time where harmony from within was crucial in winning the war. This act however was later challenged in court and the Freedom of Speech guaranteed by the First Amendment made this act no longer constitutional. Before that in 1798, it was also in existence in some form or other while the US was under threat of war from France. Fast forward about two hundred years at a time of peace in Malaysia and not a day goes by since Najib had taken over the helms of the highest office in Malaysia that he hasn't used this draconian law to intimidate and put his political opponents out of action. In fact he has used both the Sedition Act and the Internal Security Act to quell dissent and protect his battered reputation precipitated by his links to the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya and the 2002 Submarine scandal while he was Malaysia's Defence Minister.

All this talk of Sedition being a crime beggared belief especially when the definition of the word was less than clear and led me to investigate further what the exact meaning of Sedition meant. The Thesaurus' definition of 'Sedition' is varied but the few I found even relevant to the possible 'crime' that took place are:
rebellion
Synonyms:
agitation, defiance, disobedience, dissent, insubordination, insurgence, insurgency, insurrection, mutiny, revolt, revolution, treason, uprising

In other words, if the government found you to be rebellious and disobeying, they can charge you for Sedition and throw you in jail! Does this mean if a bill is tabled in parliament and the opposition lawmakers thwarted the government proposal by opposing the bill, they are guilty of sedition as they have defied the government? Does this mean you cannot dissent against the government? Would this make Malaysia on par with Burma, Fiji and Zimbabwe? Does this mean you cannot show insubordination towards the government? This would certainly make Malaysia rank below Thailand, Indonesia and the Phillipines in democratic principles. Does this mean you cannot agitate the Malaysian Government? This would certainly make Malaysia the laughing stock of the international community. Malaysians must surely realise the longer these laws are in placed to be used and abused by the ruling elite, Freedom of Expression would be just that, an 'expression'.

Some Things in Australia Just Ain't Right

Well the week has not ended just yet but already I feel that this is one of the longer weeks, with negotiations with debtors, a late night debate with friends about how to live our lives, an intense discussion about monopoly in the market place and the company I work for coming down hard on employee expenses part of the highlights so far. I’m worn out already but I guess I can count my lucky stars I did not experience a repeat of the disaster I had last week. Read it here if you missed it: http://damien-crankyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/05/another-bad-week-to-complain-about.html

I also received a link to an article written by Alexander Downer, former foreign minister of Australia which I thought was quite brilliant, though I would have preferred for him to say it while he was in high office instead of out of it but the reality of modern politics would have rendered that political suicide. It was titled "Idiot Aussies: Grow Up and Take Responsibility. Read it here: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,25531441-5006703,00.html. I thought he stated his points plainly and bluntly and that they were valid as far as I was concerned. He basically wrote that while he was the foreign minister of Australia he had to be responsible for Australians travelling abroad and while that was ok if they faced extreme unavoidable circumstances (e.g. the Bali bombings), he questioned why those who travelled and ignored the travel advisory and at the same time being dumb and irresponsible demanded that the Australian government ‘bail them out’? He gave the example of a mother who wanted him to rescue her son who was trapped in the hurricane Katrina disaster while many Americans died in the tragedy. What could he do, he questioned. Fly a helicopter all the way from Australia to America and pick her son up while leaving the Americans behind? I can’t help but agree with Alexander Downer as Australians are famous for expecting the government to do everything for them. Retrenched from your job? Government’s fault! Economic Crisis? Government’s fault, never mind the whole world experiencing the Global economic crisis not seen since the days of the Great Depression. Pensioners not enough money? Government’s fault! Never mind they only had 40 years to save up for their retirement.

Take the recent example of a mom who went to Thailand and was put in prison for stealing a bar mat. While I think that going to prison for stealing a bar mat was harsh, the reality is that it is the law of the country and for the life of me can’t understand why Australians travelling abroad don’t believe that the laws of the foreign country apply to them and they expect the Australian government to rescue them from their stupidity and irresponsibility every time they get into trouble. While the Thai governor went out of his way to apologise (although there was no need to) and pay her fine, instead of saying thank you publicly she had the gall to say that she would not return to Thailand, ever! Our bad Aussie manners overseas never seem to amaze me. You can go back further to Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine all asking the Australian government to do more, although they were found guilty of being drug couriers and are the scum of the earth.

I also had a discussion on the way large Australian companies are slowly monopolising our markets and the Australian government do not seem to want to get serious about curbing this predatory behaviour of our largest companies. In retail we have two mammoth companies like Coles and Woolies who are dominating not only the supermarkets but also the petrol outlets. They will drop their prices, ruin their competition and when they are out of business increase their prices once again. They also come up with their brand of products and deliberately raise the prices of the other brands, making consumers buy their brand and making the other brands slowly fade from the shelves. They will then raise their prices and the consumer once again will have to pay higher prices.

How about those oil companies like Caltex and Shell. When come the long weekend (like the one coming up this weekend), then price will magically go up by twenty cents a litre! And if you can believe them, they put it down to the normal price cycle. But why always a long weekend or a normal weekend and not a week day? Because more people fill up on the weekends than they do on the weekdays. Take for example Caltex is selling petrol at $1.10 a litre and so is Shell. If Caltex raises their price to $1.29 and one day later so too does Shell, this is an unwritten, unspoken complicit price fixing which happens all the time in Australia and should be deemed illegal. I’m not sure about Australia but if this happened in America, the CEO of both companies would be spending time in jail. Here in Australia, there has been a lot of rhetoric by the government and the petrol watchdog but the results so far have been wanting to say the least. What makes me even more incensed is that the government can and should act but are not doing so as they are probably making more money than anyone else on this.

How about the banks? If you wanted to ruffle any feathers amongst Australians, you just mention the money grubbing banks and you almost always get a vile response. Anything from bullies to crooks and I tend to agree. They have gotten so big that they have merged with or bought out all their smaller competitors to the point that we’re left with just four major players in the banking sector. Recently the Reserve Bank dropped interest rates by 0.25% and one bank decided to not pass on any of that to their customers, meaning the 0.25% interest rate drop by the Reserve Bank was to go straight to their bottom lines. The reason for the Reserve Bank to drop interest rates was to stimulate the economy but this bank chose to be greedy and keep it all for themselves. While many companies have felt the full brunt of the recent economic downturn, the banks are still making their customary billions of dollars in profit and they still give us their age old excuse of ‘higher international funding’ to justify not passing on the rate cuts.

Lastly, it was discovered this week that Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal opposition leader was worth a whopping $175 million dollars. When confronted by the media, he was almost apologetic and shies to admit it and gave a decrepit response like the figures were plucked from the sky and is not accurate. He may be right but if anything the figures were conservative as these were his known assets only. Anyway if this happened in the US people would be asking ‘geez how’d ya do it pal? Let me in on ya secret’. In Australia however, the tall poppy syndrome is still alive and kicking and if you had $175 million, then you’re sure to have screwed someone on the way to amassing this fortune. Being brilliant and hard working would almost never be the first thought on their minds. Malcolm would probably argue that being known for his wealth would make him be perceived as not as in touch with the battlers as needed. Who knows?

Another Bad Week to Complain About!

If you have been following my blog, my first entry in May was about my top ten worst gripes in life. I have since been told that some of them on the list would not even make it on other people’s top one hundred gripes in life. After thinking for awhile and re-visiting what I wrote, I must admit albeit reluctantly that I was a bit too petty with my list. I do stand by my list, though which only means that I’m a petty guy.

Anyway, today’s entry is more of the same pettiness. It’s about the blaringly idiotic, incompetent and unreasonable behaviour of people we deal with in our everyday life, except that in my case it all happened to me last week.

The first incident was when I noticed a charge of $84 towards my credit card for child care services. Now, we are regular users of child care and I usually do not question nor go to too much detail with their charges. When they automatically charge the costs to my credit card I usually accept and pay it, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb as I knew I had not booked child care services for this term. This one was an easy one to solve, so I thought.

I called the child care to enquire about the irregularity and I was promptly told they would investigate and get back to me. Two days later, to my utter surprise and disgust, the accountant from the child care called me up and told me that there were further irregularities on my account and the computer actually shows that I owed them in excess of a thousand dollars. She gave some feeble excuse about their old system not being very good and she is new taking over the previous accountant etc. etc. but never once conceded that they stuffed up nor offered an apology. She told me she would tidy up our account and e-mail me the details (or bill) and I would then have to pay up. The mistakes apparently had been occurring since the very first day we had been using their services. Now what further complicates things is the tie in between the government rebates/ family tax office and the child care billings which is going to cause unnecessary nightmares for all involved. So, because I had queried the $84 charge, I am confronted with a billing mistake in excess of one thousand dollars, which I owe. I’m expecting the statement next week and they’re going to get a surprise when I tell them that I need as long to pay back the amount owing as the time in which the mistake has been going on. How incompetent can they be? Year two maths at most.

Second incident was yesterday when I was sending the kids to school. We drove up to our usual ‘drop off’ area and while approaching the spot, I noticed two cop-like men standing close to the entrance of the school. My first thought was that the school was so dedicated to the safety and protection of the children that they engaged security during the early drop off times. But then from the rear view mirror I saw one of the men take out his little digital camera and snapped a picture of the car. I was then told that the area that I had been dropping my kids off for the last 3 years is a ‘no standing’ area and a fine of $50 was on the way. It was then that I knew those men were the mean council rangers going about giving fines willy nilly to raise revenue for the council and not security men as I had initially thought.

I asked my daughter Kathleen, who is a school councillor to try to find out from the vice principal if she knew about the rangers outside. We pretty much concluded after her talk with the vice principal that the school had called the ‘authorities’ to harass parents and issue fines. Now, I’m upset about this not because I got a fine. I’m upset not because the rule of law does not apply to me. When I took a closer look, there was in fact a ‘no standing’ sign there and I was indeed breaking the law, and so too were loads of other parents. What I was upset about was the school did not have a designated ‘drop off zone’ and the area which we normally dropped the kids off was the closest to the school. No parent would like to drop their kids off far away from the school entrance, where the kids will have to navigate the dangers on the roads like 4 WD vehicles and weirdos looking to harm our young and vulnerable. Surely, we would drop them off as close as possible. Furthermore, for the last three years using that entrance to drop the kids off, we’ve never had a safety or congestion problem of any notice. Why would the school have a need to call in the rangers and cause this unnecessary rift between the school and the parents is beyond me. The school needs to educate instead of using heavy handed tactics to harass by calling in the ‘authorities’ to issue fines when they themselves have not got their act together by providing the proper designated drop off spots.

The last incident happened at work where we have a parking problem. Too many cars not enough parking spots….sound familiar? I’ve received numerous fines just by parking my car on the roadside to go to work. To avoid the fines, people normally park in the office car park but you could be blocked in as there are not enough spaces for everyone. Anyway, that was what I did yesterday and I was blocked in by someone. When it was then time to go home, this car was still blocking me. I then proceeded to call the number that was left on the windscreen but the business card was thrown on the car dashboard in such a way that the view of the person’s mobile number was obstructed by the corner of the windscreen. I then proceeded to call the land line number on the business card twice but there was no answer. While I was doing all this the rain was pouring down on me. I then proceeded to ask the reception to try to get in contact with this person. She managed to find a mobile number for the car, called it three times and left three urgent messages and after 15 minutes still no one turned up. I then managed to track down the person who had his mobile phone on his table but was sitting around another colleague’s table having a ‘chat’. I then proceeded to explain to the guy that he was blocking me in and the inconvenience he had caused and that he should answer his phone and put his business card on his car dashboard in plain view so people could see the number and he just ignored me. He rushed to his car, drove it to another spot, went back to what he was doing and did not utter a word of regret or apology. He gave me the impression that he felt I had interrupted his ‘social chat’ with his mate and that I was the one inconveniencing him. Not only was the incident annoying the resultant attitude and behaviour of this idiot was even worse.

So beware pricks and idiots are everywhere, especially this close to me. My apologies to all as this is another one of my whinging entries but I feel a little better now that I’ve got it out in the open.

Perth Votes 'NO' to Daylight Savings - the DATA show they should have voted 'YES'

Well then, the results of the Daylight Savings referendum is in and Perth has voted a resounding 'No' to daylight savings 55% against and 45% for. I believe this is the fourth referendum where the daylight savings bill has been blocked. For the life of me I can't understand why Perth continue to have this backward, self defeatist attitude towards an issue long adopted by others around the world as logical and beneficial. Look at how we view Sunday shopping, extended retail hours, high rise development etc. etc.

Now almost every man and his dog in Perth has an opinion on daylight savings and it ranges from the effects daylight savings have on the stock market, on cows, on children, on crime, on road accidents etc etc. I heard it all. Most are illogical arguments but that's what an emotive subject can do to you. You spew crap just to win an argument you feel you must win. Well I'm no different, though I would like to stick to more scientific facts. Here's my take on this.

Now like a respectable writer, I did some research on this via a meteorological website and found the following data for the summer months of Dec- March.

Month Sun rise Sun set (add one hour if daylight savings applied)
Dec 5.04 19.18
Jan 6.25 20.26
Feb 6.54 20.06
Mar 7.16 19.35

and winter months:

Month Sun rise Sun set
Jun 7.14 17.19
July 7.15 17.19
Aug 6.53 17.49

The above times are sun rise and sun set times for the summer and winter months. Note, March is not an official summer month but would be included as a daylight savings month in the referendum, though some say if daylight savings were adopted, they would move to have it removed. Also the times stated are data taken for the fifteenth day of every month e.g. 15 Jan, 15 Feb etc. and lastly, the times shown above are non daylight savings times and you would need to add one hour to the summer months if daylight savings were to apply.

The reason why I went through the trouble to get this data is because as they say the numbers never lie (but people do). From the data above, it is plain and obvious, we have more sunlight during summer and less sunlight during winter and I believe our clocks should reflect this.

Let's take a look at the sunrise times. During the summer months, apart from March the sunrise times are anywhere between 2 hours plus to 20 minutes earlier than the winter months. Those that argue that if daylight savings applied, they would be running in the dark! What the data shows us, is even if one hour was added to the summer times shown, they would not be too far off the winter months sunrise times, so they should be complaining about running in the dark in the winter months as well. By adopting daylight savings, this effectively maintains the status quo. Imagine if there was no daylight savings as shown in the times above, the sun would rise at 5.04 (for December)! Most would be sleeping at this time and those saying they would be running in the dark are just kidding themselves. In fact, some nocturnal beings would be turning in for the night at this time. So my view is that there is no point of having daylight at a time when most people are in bed sleeping. If you want to use the children argument, then you could argue that the sunlight would wake your children up and they in turn will wake you up at 5 in the morning! Great! Who wouldn't like to wake up at 5 in the morning.

Since the daylight hours are longer during summer, I say take full advantage and shift it to the more productive evenings where quality time is hard to come by after work. Nowadays, when people are working from dusk to dawn, adding an additional one hour of sunlight in the evenings would do wonders. Quality time spent with the family outdoors and outdoor works around the house can be done even after work if daylight savings were adopted. Those finishing work in the late evenings and taking public transport could get a safer passage home as they find their journey home under the security of daylight. Whatever the reason, the effect is having more hours to do more outdoor activities in the evenings, whatever they may be.

Anyway, I'll keep my article short, as Perth has voted and it's too late to make anykind of stance right now. We might have to wait another few decades before the mindset of Perth changes and progress with the times. I hope I'll be around to see it, but I won't hold my breath.

My Top Ten Worst Gripes in Life!

I thought today we will change the pace a bit and do away with the current affairs type important issues and rant a bit and list the top ten worst gripes I have about anything and everything in life. I like to complain and abuse and what better way to do it than on my blog. Well here they are, my top ten worst gripes in life:

1. Idiots Jumping Queues: This has got to be one of my worst gripes in life. Imagine queueing up for a long time and suddenly a person who thinks that the universal laws of life do not apply to them and just jumps your queue. How aggravating is that but surprisingly many accept it as a part of life, but not me! I will go out of my way to refuse a car that I know is deliberately jumping my queue. I will give a person an unhealthy stare and tell them off, if they've jump queue in a supermarket, like I once told a woman who jumped right in front of me. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that because she had been waiting too long in her line, she had the 'right' to jump to another line that was faster. I told her she was a lunatic and asked her to get back to her line. The rest of the folks behind us just smiled and gave me an approving look.
2. Bad Drivers: This one kills me especially when I'm in a hurry. People who know me well, know I can get a bit impatient, especially on the road, but I tell you some of these bad drivers are worse bad drivers than I am impatient. I'm talking about drivers who talk on their mobile phones while their cars sway left and right at 30km/h, drivers that do not signal and think the people behind them are mind readers, drivers that go too slow, drivers who speed up when you're trying to overtake them, drivers who back into parking spots when there is a long queue of cars behind them, drivers who do not remain in their lanes, and as mentioned in gripe number one, drivers who jump queues. I've had it up to here with bad drivers!
3. People who complain too much. They would complain about anything and everything, big or small. My water is too cold, too hot, my airplane seat is not an aisle seat, it's not a window seat, my food came with the wrong type of noodle etc etc. and their complaining never aim to get their grouse fixed but eminates from a love of complaining and feeling better by making the recepient feel bad. What these chronic complainers do not realise is that life is short and every moment spent complaining is a moment of their precious life lost.
4. Budget Airlines: I've included this because I have used budget airlines a few times and unfortunately more times than not my experience has been horrible. No doubts, the prices are cheap but you'll find yourself paying for it in other ways. We got our flights changed for no apparent reason but suspected it was because they could not fill their flights and cancelled one of the three flights that day. This caused us to miss a day's itenerary and a hotel booking. I tried to call and email them but they were not contactable/ reacheable. Once my money was taken, there was no way of getting any service after that. You couldn't talk to them and you wouldn't get a reason as to why they stuffed up your holiday and guess what, they covered themselves well in their terms and conditions of sale. So you're stuffed and there is no recourse available. Budget airlines tickets are not flexible, once bought not refundable or changeable. Tickets are point to point which means that if you had a connecting flight and your budget airline flight to that destination is delayed, you'll then miss your connecting flight and there is nothing you can do about it. This means you may have to stay overnight for your connecting flight in case of any delays (which is quite common with budget airlines) and you will incur additional costs like hotels, taxi, food and your time! Another scam I encountered on the budget airline website was an offer of insurance where if you clicked on 'cancel' as opposed to 'ok' you would have accepted to buy the insurance unknowingly. By reading the notes properly, it said if you clicked 'cancel' it means you want the insurance. Now this is an outright scam! (which I fell for). I can guarantee you will pay in so many different ways with these budget airlines. As far as I'm concerened, its not cheap, as you are paying for what it's worth. You're paying a lower price because the product is a lower quality but they advertise it as cheap, which it is not.
5. On Sale Items that are Expired: This one happened to me a few times in the grocery shops. You see some items 'on offer' and you purchase them thinking you have just bought a bargain just to find out that you have to eat all the instant noodles by the same afternoon! I like instant noodles but eating 5 packs in the one afternoon is even beyond me! Of course this also applies to buying cars (that are lemons), electrical items etc. etc. I think the premise is that no one likes being taken for a ride. Anyway look out for those 'bargains' especially in those smaller type shops. The saying 'There's No free lunch' has never been truer in this instance.
6. Frustration with my Telco: Once you sign up with a Telco, more often than not they lock you in for a period of 12 or 24 months and if you decide to leave will have to 'buy out' your contract for the remaining period. This condition of locking people in for long periods of time reeks of unfairness but what do you do when most of the Telcos impose the same terms and the industry competition watchdog do nothing. Their strategy is to lock you in and if you don't like the service after that, you're stuffed. You can call their 'customer service' people but they are there only to frustrate you. They read from a pre-prepared script and have no sincerety whatsoever to genuinely help solve your problem. If you had a serious technical problem that the Telco knew about, they will pretend that they didn't know and play the charade by leading you to nowhere, asking you to 'try' this and try that, asking you to take some 'data' and call them back next week, passing your problem to the 'technical experts' who will then call you back, but they won't, telling you they will send your 'report' to be 'analysed', saying they will send a technician over to your area's exchange etc. etc. I once had a problem with a 24 month mobile broadband contract which was just not working (literally). It took me months of wasting my time complaining to the Telco before I was fed up and took it to the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman who ruled in my favour. I felt very strongly that the Telco knew that their product was just no good and were using delaying tactics in the hope I would give up and accept the fault. From now on, any future problems will be referred straight to the TIO and i won't be wasting my time with the Telco.
7. Overcharged Bill: This happens to me and many other people, many of whom do not even realise it. What's worse is if this was done deliberately, which of course is very hard to prove, but if it happens to you in the same shop, relatively frequently, then you can pretty much conclude that there was a high chance it was deliberate! Unfortunately, most time when I find out I've been overcharged it's normally too late as I have long left the shop and most times already back home. It's not about the money but the principle. Nobody likes to be cheated!
8. Rude People in the Service Industry: When you go out to have a meal, you normally want the outing to be a pleasant one, but service staff nowadays have just lost the passion for their work. It shows when they are rude, they're abrupt, they think they are doing you a favour by waiting on you, they get your order wrong and they get upset when you bring it up with them. I'm not sure if they realise that the customers are paying their wages! If they don't like to deal with people, then shouldn't be working in the service industry.
9. Selfish People Not Giving Up their Seats for the Elderly: Its easy to give up your seat to the elderly, handicapped or pregnant women, however, if you see how some of these people 'hang on' to their seats (on buses, trains etc.) you would think it was a massive sacrifice to do so. What is the big deal to have to stand up for 10-20 minutes so that a much more needy person could sit down? Is it so absurd to expect them to do so?
10. Women who Want Total Equality to Prove a Point: Now when a woman wants to be totally equal to a man, what does this mean? Does she want to open the car door for the man? Does she want to foot the dinner bill everytime they go out? Does she want to carry the heavy grocery bags? I'm not a sexist but let's face it, man and women are created differently, genetically and to a certain extend socially and that's just a part of life. Women need to accept that and excel in what they are good at and not compete with men. Some women have to compete with men in the men's domain to 'prove' to people that they are just as good. Unfortunately, in a large sample over a longer period of time, history has told us that it's just not achievable, no matter how much these women want to believe they are equal. If you take the best men's basketball team on the planet and the best women's basketball team on the planet, I'll bet my bottom dollar that the women's basketball team will never in a hundred years be able to beat the men's team. Men's dominance in the workforce, has never been challenged in hundred years of history, though women have made some inroads in the last 30 years. The natural balance of life though may be showing us a plateau of this progression. I'm afraid that's just a part of life. Men and women are created unequal. A man cannot breast feed, so if he wanted to be 'equal' here, it's just not possible. Enough said, before I get myself further into trouble, but I hope you get my point. We want men to be the best they can and women to be the best they can too but neither have to compete in the other's traditional domain of dominance to prove anything to anyone.

So there you go, my top ten worst gripes in life in no particular order. Have a good day!