Shouts From Down Under

Red and blue don't make a rainbow, do they Putler?

We live in a country here - Australia - that is bent on control of every facet of our lives. It makes me see red sometimes, in everything.

Red is the colour representing heat (hot water taps), poison (red-back spiders), danger (blood), lack of progress (stop sign).



http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=36414#.U2dXtfmSxIE

All is not bleak. The Gillard Government's most successful and admirable policies for reducing unemployment is its commitment to developing workforce skills and linking them to Australia's burgeoning skills shortages — long-term thinking which should reap benefits in years to come.

One particularly bright outcome is the number of people from disadvantaged communities who are now in higher education. Another successful but desperately under-funded scheme has been wage subsidies for employers to hire the disabled and long-term unemployed.

This skills commitment shows that the ALP values decent work, not just jobs; though in positing productivity as the path to prosperity the Gillard Government is certainly more Reagan than Keynes. Their key message seems to be that the market remains king.

In this way, the ALP offers a tepid version of welfare policy already offered by the conservative parties; choice, responsibility and liberalism rather than equality, rights and justice, all tinged with pragmatism, mottos, realpolitik and the sense that nobody has yet conceived a viable alternative to neo-liberalism.

Luke Williams is a freelance journalist who is studying law at Monash University in Melbourne.

http://www.aph.gov.au/ee

This is all old news I suppose. I don't profess to understand politics.

But, I'm a nobody who is unemployed, has a rusty out of date trade, and now too old to be considered employable. I'm supposed to be keen on looking for work, training in some useless course, and be happy to do some menial slave labour community work.

I may not understand much about the environment either. But I'm out of a job now because of a lot of false science, and the irresponsible overspending and over borrowing of a set of people with no clue.

And I'm obviously not a fan of this lot, hence the colour coordination of photos.

I'm not really saying anything in this blog, am I, but I do wonder about the left wing stance of this out of power (and funds) government, and why everything (well some important things) are the same or similar colour and even design as this left wing's original mother country.

It seems ironic, especially with the current situation overseas, that we even have signage here similar to the Russian Flag.

Sparky