Category Archives: Commentary

Sometimes I have an opinion on something right out of left field. In fact, I have a lot of opinions right out of left field. I have to express them and you’ll find them all here.

Hands off our super? But no one is putting their hands on our super.

February 10, 2013

ETA: Below I mention that interest is paid. To clarify, the ATO pays the account holder interest when an unclaimed amount is claimed.

This week I received an email from a family member asking me to sign a petition about superannuation. It isn’t a subject matter that I would normally be asked to look at but I thought that if they were convinced there was an issues that I should look into it. I’m not one to go and randomly sign petitions so I thought I should at least go and look into this a bit further.

The petition I was asked to sign is on a website called “Hands off my super!” I haven’t linked the site because I don’t want them to get any sort of ‘Google-fu’ from me linking to them.

One issue raised is regarding superannuation amounts held by temporary foreign workers who have worked in Australia. From their website:

Two years ago the federal government made a small change to the superannuation rules. It ordered the Australian Taxation Office to seize the balances of all funds from temporary foreign workers who had left Australia.

The Australian Financial Review reported it this way at the time:

Budget to grab $800m from super funds…After the initial payment in June, super funds will be required to hand over their obligations from temporary residents twice a year, in April and October.

This gave the government an $800 million free money windfall — with more coming twice a year, every year.

Of course what the AFR didn’t mention is that this superannuation can be claimed AT ANY TIME by the worker by contacting the Australian Tax Office and putting in a request to receive their unpaid super. You can read it for yourself at the ATO website.They are taxed on this money, but it certainly isn’t gobbled up by the government to be kept forever.

The website then tries to link the first issue with the government taking away unclaimed superannuation amounts and claiming it for themselves. Because if it happens to foreign workers, then of course “ordinary hard-working Australians” are going to suffer at the hands of the government too. Again from the website:

You might think this doesn’t have much to do with you, but it does.

You see in the latest mid-year financial review on October 22nd 2012, Australian Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan revealed another change to the rules governing ‘lost super’.

The old rule was that super was only considered ‘lost’ if the super fund hadn’t been able to contact the member for five years and if the balance was less than $200.

But the new definition of ‘lost super’ is if the fund can’t contact the member for one year, and it now covers balances up to $2,000.

According to the proposed rule change, if an account balance falls under this new definition, the super fund will take possession of this money, and forward it to the government.

So as you can see, the government are just trying to rake in money left, right and center. Or are they? Well the facts are actually a little different to what is presented on the website.

It is true that the government has changed the rules for forwarding of unclaimed superannuation amounts to them. Unclaimed superannuation will be forwarded to them sooner and for smaller amounts. But what the website doesn’t tell you is that anyone with lost super can claim it AT ANY TIME. Don’t believe me? Read it for yourself. It also doesn’t mention that from 1 July 2013 interest will be paid on the amounts held by the government. It also doesn’t mention that by having the amounts transferred to the ATO, the superannuation fund can no longer charge fees on that super.

So the outcome is that the super is retained by the government, managed by the ATO, interest is paid when it is claimed by the taxpayer and no fees or charges are payable. What exactly is the issue with this?

The email then went on to talk about the changes to the concessional cap for super contributions and taxing superannuation returns for those on incomes above $300,000 a year. I looked at the website for “Hands off my Super” and there is nothing there about this. But I’ll look at this too, but just in brief.

In 2008/2009 the concessional cap for super contributions was lowered from $50,000 to $25,000. It normally goes up with indexation but it was frozen until 2014/2015. If you or your employer contribute to your super, you are taxed on that. For all amounts under $25,000 you are taxed a concessional tax rate of 15%. Put more than $25,000 into your super and that part gets taxed at a higher rate, currently 31.5%. This is still far less than the marginal tax rate of 45%, and therefore to me (the untrained person off the street) superannuation still seems like a good investment.

The idea of taxing super returns for those on incomes above $300,000 a year is also based on the same principle as the current taxation system for earnings. If you earn more, you pay more tax. It isn’t even a solid policy yet, but the article mentioned in the email mentions a possibility of taxing them 30% instead of 15%. Still way below the marginal tax rate.

So no, I won’t be signing the petition. Firstly, the facts surrounding the petition are wrong. The other issues raised are a) not part of the petition and b) seem like a fair and reasonable way of deciding who pays for what in the 21st Century. I don’t like paying taxes and I will pay as little as I have to. On the other hand, taxes allow the government (no matter which party they are from) to run the country and provide services to people. Governments will never be profit making enterprises; this is why governments perform those services and not corporations.


Thoughts on School

January 30, 2013

I initially posted this on Facebook the other day but felt it was important enough to share here.

I look back on school as being some great times, although I did suffer at the hands of bullies. And then I think about how I never knew any LGBTIQ people at school, and how unlikely it is that out of all the people I went to school with no one wasn’t LGBTIQ.

School was a hostile place to be different. Coming out would have been really hard for anyone to do. And it is a personal thing – not everyone needs to be told. Perhaps it was just never talked about. I just wonder how many of the people I knew were hiding their true selves trying to get through and fit in without getting hurt (physically or emotionally).

I wonder how many people were destroyed at school because someone wanted to feel cool, or act cool, or look cool. I wonder if these people look back and realise the pain they caused.

I don’t know if much has changed when it comes to being at school and being different, whether that is sexuality, gender, race or size. I guess I can only keep pushing those around me to reconsider their points of view and hope they do the same. The more adults who have shifts in their thinking, the more kids who will be brought up with this changed thinking.


Bullying – It’s also for adults

July 18, 2012

In March 2011 I wrote a guest piece for DISCOURSE. I discussed how I was bullied as a child. It had a big effect on my life and there are still times where this bullying causes me to react in strange ways. One example is, even after being together for more than seven years, if Natalie puts a hand up towards me quickly I will flinch and cower, waiting to be hit. Even if the movement isn’t even the slightest bit like a punch. It’s just a split second, but long enough to be noticed.

It is these scars that have turned me into who I am. I am not particularly comfortable with asserting myself, and particularly with men. I am sensitive to personal comments and criticism, and my first reaction to any corrective action is to think that it is an attack and try to defend myself. I sit down and imagine how situations are likely to unfold, thinking about the worst things that could happen even if they aren’t likely or even plausible. There’s more but that would require quite a bit more self-analysis that I’m prepared to undertake in one sitting, I’m afraid.

Childhood bullying is something that is on the radar these days and instead of just letting it happen, there are strategies to try and identify the situations and deal with them. Yet bullying isn’t confined to just kids.

anti-bullying book display

by annavanna (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Bullying can (and does) occur between adults as well. Workplaces, social groups, clubs, friendship groups, social media and even personal relationships are places where bullies can strut their ‘stuff’. Sometimes the bullies are kids who grew up as bullies, never got in trouble and just thought it was how things worked. Sometimes those who are bullied feel that in order to get on top of the bullies, they have to become a bully too. I don’t even know if people realise if they have been (or are currently) a bully because if they thought their actions were wrong they wouldn’t do them in the first place. Perhaps that’s just a misguided thought.

I was talking to a friend a few days ago who reminded me about the impact that bullying has, even on adults. It brought me back to my old post from last year and meditate over how much bullying really does have a long term effect on the person who is bullied. In my case, me. It made me realise that even once you’re a bit older and a bit wiser, there are still bullies waiting for you. It’s harder to identify them sometimes than it was in the playground, but they are there waiting for their next target.

As a person who was bullied, I ask just a few simple things. If you see bullying, step in if safe to do so. If not, tell someone about it. If you know a bully, call them out on their action. If you are standing by as they act without intervening if safe to do so, or you don’t tell someone, then I believe this makes you just as bad. It doesn’t matter if it is in a workplace, in the street, in a bar, at home, with friends, with family, with your partner. By all means, don’t put yourself in danger. But if you can do something, please do.

No one deserves to be bullied. No one.


People shouldn’t have to die to get here

June 22, 2012

I’m feeling a little conflicted. I firstly want to state that I’m not an expert on the question of refugees, asylum seekers or ‘boat people’. If I get something wrong, please point it out to me.

I hate the fact that people risk their lives to travel in boats that are rarely seaworthy, are overcrowded, with little food or water and a shambles of a crew to come to Australia to apply for asylum or refugee status. More often than not, people die trying to get here.

The thing about our country that is different to so many is that we don’t have any land borders, so people can’t just walk up to the gate and ask to come in to be protected from persecution. A lot of our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region are either not signatories to the appropriate charters or do not treat refugees and asylum seekers very well, so you can understand why they want to come here.

So how do we get to these people before they get on the boats and put themselves at risk (for very good reasons)?

I don’t know. I don’t have answers. It’s just a question that’s rummaging around in my head and I needed to put it out there.

Australia is a large nation and we can very well afford to assist those who need it. As an aside, I have to wonder how it can be considered cost effective to keep people in mandatory detention when they could be released into the community to work and live until their claims are fully assessed once any issues of security are answered.

I do agree with the concept of ‘stopping the boats’ but only in the sense that we should provide another way for these people to have their claims heard. They shouldn’t have to risk their lives to get the chance to be listened to, assessed and then come to Australia as refugees/asylum seekers (or not if assessed otherwise).

I really want the boats to stop. The people on them should have better options made available to them so that they don’t have to take that massive risk of death just to get to safety. If there were better options, I’m sure they would take them.

This is probably an overly simplistic view. I don’t often speak or write about this issue because it is something that I haven’t had a lot of exposure to. I just hate the stories of people drowning to get to safety. It shouldn’t happen. They should have better options. And as a signatory to the charter of human rights and refugees, we should be providing those better options now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.


Unborn Again: How do you fill your “God-shaped hole”?

January 2, 2012

18/07/2012 – Six months later and I feel a whole lot different about this these days. No, I didn’t crawl back to Jesus or anything. I identified that was just feeling a bit shit. Therefore comments are now closed and no further discussion will be entered into. I would pull it down, but I don’t believe in removing the past as it helps create your future. – Nick

You can understand the peace and comfort that comes from being religious. The idea that at the end of the life on this planet that you can then go on and live an eternal life of peace and happiness is so inviting. I was a born-again Christian for many years from around the age of 8 or 9, and not because my parents were religious or church people. I attended church because I wanted to, and I thought that what they said sounded good and true.

Maybe it was the idea that someone was looking out for me. There was a person/energy/spirit that was with me to give me guidance and to keep me safe. Every night I would pray, and if I ever forgot I wouldn’t fall asleep as easily. I could make amends anything I had done wrong, ask for protection and care for friends and family, and it felt good.

Death has always scared me and it does even today. The fact that when I died I would go to heaven and live an everlasting life was a great comfort to me. It took a bit of the worry away from the concept of being dead.

From around the age of 16, I drifted away from the church. It was because I started working Sundays and I couldn’t make it to church every week. I was still a Christian, but I just didn’t go to church. I did some Work for the Dole when I was 22 at a Christian organisation, and I realised that I still had an interest in Christianity. I ended up not going to their church because I got a job in Brisbane instead but I knew that it was still inside me. It had just been dormant.

After a while I guess I didn’t really care as much any more. I was probably agnostic more than anything. There were still this core belief system about a god, a heaven and spirituality, but it didn’t really come into my life very much. I then met Natalie.

Natalie challenged the very core of my belief system with the concept that there is no god. That there is nothing out there and this is it. I went through so much torment and agony and working through the concepts and the information almost broke me mentally. Even if I didn’t care much about God and Christianity, it was still a core part of my system of living. It was still a crux that I could rely on.

I eventually accepted that the concept that there is a god is illogical and that the only thing that made sense was Atheism. I consider myself “unborn again”, but I certainly respect the rights of those who want to believe their own set of religious beliefs. It isn’t my place to convert people; I only really discuss it if someone asks.

Today I’ve come to realise that I miss it. I miss the idea of there being a god out there to protect me and care for me. I miss the idea that at the end of this life there will be something more waiting for me. I miss the concept that there is someone or something who cares for us and looks after us. I miss having a god to look upon and believe in and a religious structure that provided friendship and support.

I’ve never really filled that hole in my life with anything else. I have to face the fact that when I die, I’m dead and there ain’t much more to life than that. I don’t have the comforting concept that there is something else helping me and guiding me. I have to face the big, dark world on my own and sometimes it just sucks.

So what is the point of this ramble? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s that I wish religion could be true, but I know it isn’t. The make believe that is the Christian religion would be wonderful if it was true. But it isn’t. None of that is. And yet I feel a need for something. Some sort of spirituality or something. It’s hard to explain.

I’m not looking to be converted. What I’m interested to know, I guess, is how do atheists fill that “god-shaped hole” as (I think) Richard Dawkins put it quite nicely?


On bodies and such

December 23, 2011

I originally posted this on Tumblr. But I thought it might be a bit tl;dr for over there.

I am a cis-gendered hetro man. I have been known to see a lady in passing and notice that they have fantastic eyes, or great hair, or a nice body. I’ve been known to think to myself “mmm, nice x”. X could be hair, eyes, butt, smile, boobs, or something else.

I like to think of myself as a “progressive man of the world”, whatever that means. I would like to think that I’m a feminist, at least in training. And yet I’m still out there noticing women and going “mmm, nice x”.

When I catch myself, I feel a little guilty on the inside. On the other side of the coin, I figure that it is natural to notice people around you and to find some features of a person attractive. I think it would be totally awful to wolf whistle or cat call or whatever anyone, or to stare at someone and make them uncomfortable. Basically I wouldn’t want to be a creep.

So that leaves me with the thought that perhaps even seeing someone and thinking that they look nice could be considered creepy. Where’s the line? The obvious line to me is at least taking any action that makes someone uncomfortable. But is there a line that is even earlier than that – is thinking that someone is attractive, or a feature of their body is nice, crossing the line?

Just the stuff that goes through my head from time to time, that’s all.


BMI is crap. Let it go already.

September 5, 2011

Trigger Warning: Discussion of eating disorders and a mention of Alex Perry.

Fashion is not my thing. I’m no where near being a fashionista. However something caught my eye in the paper today.

There is an article today on the Courier-Mail Online about how Alex Perry is being a douche bag again. Since most of us know this already, I’m going to skip over it and talk about the last part of the article.

Certainly, the criticism of Moone’s body size stands in contrast to the decision by Melbourne Spring Fashion Week organisers to only use models with a healthy BMI on this year’s runways.

Models will be vetted by casting agents to ensure they are not too thin before they are signed up.

You might be surprised to find that I have an issue with this.

As a fat activist, I have been on record time and time again talking about how the BMI is not a good guide of health. The BMI does nothing to tell you the health (or ill health) of a person. It tells you the ratio of weight to height squared, and that’s about it. It is as if humans were designed to have the same height to weight ratio, but I don’t see how this can be so. I therefore have a issue with BMI being used to decide whether a model is ‘healthy’ enough to be on the catwalk.

I’m not a model so I don’t know what it is like to be in the fashion industry. From what I read, there is a lot of pressure to be a certain size and shape to make it. I have all kinds of issues with that. I read about models who are starving themselves to fit the mould of what the industry thinks is acceptable and it is really disgusting that people think they need to go as far as having eating disorders to maintain this ‘ideal size’. Yet excluding models because they don’t fit the BMI classification of ‘healthy’ is a bit rich as well.

I read a few months ago the story of Cody Young, a Queenslander who is making it big in international modelling. One of her shoots recently was for TOPSHOP and a British tabloid published claims that she was “danger to anorexics”. Cody came out swinging and talked about what it was like growing up being a young, tall and slim woman.

Throughout my entire childhood I was called anorexic and people would ask if I was bulimic. And it was really hard sometimes for me to deal with as I have always been this way .

The article doesn’t talk about her BMI but it would be interesting to see if she is considered ‘healthy’ by the BMI scale. Would she end up excluded even if in her own words “naturally skinny”?

I don’t want people to judge me based on my BMI. I don’t think anyone should be judged based on their BMI. This focus on a number meaning anything is just crazy crap. What we should do is somehow take the pressure of models to be this mythical perfect size. Perhaps then their beauty would shine through without them feeling they need to starve themselves or worse.


Census 2011 – Let’s use religion to scare the Christmas carols off you

August 9, 2011

I’ve seen this on Facebook a few times and it really gets my goat.

AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST
DO NOT LEAVE THE “RELIGION” SECTION BLANK. BE SURE TO AT LEAST TICK CHRISTIAN (OR YOUR OWN FAITH).
1,000,000 MUSLIMS WILL TICK THEIR BOX.
10,000,000 AUSTRALIANS WILL LEAVE IT BLANK THEN WONDER WHY CHRISTMAS CAROLS ARE BEING BANNED IN SCHOOLS!
PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
IT’S NOT ABOUT RELIGION, IT’S ABOUT KEEPING OUR WAY OF LIFE .

I wonder what would happen if the following was sent out:

AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST
DO NOT LEAVE THE “RELIGION” SECTION BLANK. BE SURE TO AT LEAST TICK MUSLIM (OR YOUR OWN FAITH).
1,000,000 CHRISTIANS WILL TICK THEIR BOX.
10,000,000 AUSTRALIANS WILL LEAVE IT BLANK THEN WONDER WHY RAMADAN IS BEING BANNED IN SCHOOLS!
PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
IT’S NOT ABOUT RELIGION, IT’S ABOUT KEEPING OUR WAY OF LIFE .

I can imagine the uproar.

What I would prefer to see is this:

AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST
IT WOULD BE GOOD IF YOU COULD FILL IN THE RELIGION SECTION AS THIS WILL GIVE THE GOVERNMENT A TRUE PICTURE OF RELIGION WITHIN AUSTRALIA. TICK NO RELIGION IF YOU ARE NOT RELIGIOUS
BUT SINCE WE LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY, IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO FILL THAT SECTION IN THEN THAT’S OK TOO.

I’m glad to see that there is still room for the use of religion to scare people into doing what you want. Which is what this is all about. *sigh*


Freedom and challenges – working from home

July 19, 2011

March last year saw a big change in my life. I went from being a public servant to working in the private sector. I went from being a leader of a team of around 13 people to working from home by myself, with my boss working from his home and their boss working as part of a larger team in another state. I went from having structure to having freedom. It’s been great and it’s had its challenges.

I always had a dream of working from home. I never thought that it would be realised, or at least thought that I would have to work for myself to make it happened. So when the chance to switch from public sector finance to working in IT (my dream) and do it from home, I didn’t hesitate. Well, I did have to think long and hard because I was making such a big change, but the pros far outweighed any cons.

So quite some time on, I have had some great times and some challenging times with this new setup. I thought I might talk about them since I know there are others who may be considering the change of working from home. It is something to really think carefully about, as it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

Firstly, there isn’t the same sort of structure that going to work day in, day out forced me to have. There is no commute to the office to put a definite break between work and home. I have to somehow switch my brain onto work mode in order to focus on the tasks for the day. It is very easy to be sitting at the computer and think “I know, I’ll go put a load of washing on.”

Now in my view there is nothing inherently wrong with that. As long as I manage my time well and you don’t try and bill for my load of washing, it can be a great benefit. It can become a problem though if I then think “oh, I could do a little bit of washing up” or I see some rubbish on the floor and tidy the lounge room up. Soon that five minute break is up to two hours and you’ve got yourself a long night of work ahead to catch up.

Another thing I struggle with is that it can be easy to be distracted by non-work things. If the computer you use for work is also the computer you use for other things, this means you can wander off and be doing something and feeling productive, only to find you you’ve just wasted 45 minutes on a Facebook debate or something else without even realising it. Worst still is that you can be constantly available to your colleagues if you leave your instant messaging client open or outlook open. And it can be temping to finish off a little bit of work if you have left it open by accident. Now have two logins on my computer – one for my work stuff and the other for my personal stuff. There are plans for me to get a work computer in the future and I can use a KVM switch to change between the two. That will be even better.

The two login thing works on two levels. Firstly, the moment I login to my work account, I’m at work. It is a little reminder to myself that now is the time for working. At the end of the day it is awesome to logout of that account and back into my normal account and feel like I’ve left all my work behind. Secondly, having two accounts means that I have two different sets of skype and IM contacts, and so people know if I’m at work or not and how available I am. It really helps with that.

Something I’ve had to force myself to do sometimes is to remember to have breaks. I’ve also had to force myself sometimes to return from that break. But on the other hand, it can be good when work is getting the better of you to just walk out for an hour and watch some TV or go to the shops and grab a coffee, knowing that you can come back later and work on it. You aren’t restricted to the work hours that an office locks you into. If you are awake at 12am and want to get some work done, it’s great. It means I can have some time off at some other point and still be on my way to my targets for the week. If I have an appointment during the day,  I can go do that and still get work done later, or get up earlier and get it done.

I still struggle with structuring my work day though I think I have improved. What I would love to know is how you go about being productive, even if you aren’t working from home? What things do you do to know that you are still on track with your work? How do you lock out distractions? Are you lucky enough to work from home and want to share your story? Please, get in touch because I’d love to hear from you.

Ultimately I love working from home. It is allowing me to move from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and not have to worry about a daily commute. It allows me flexibility and autonomy. It has challenges and responsibilities that go with it, but I think they are well worth it at the end of the day. Could you do it? Have you, or do you, work from home? Let me know below.

 


Law and Order: SVU taught me something last night…

July 15, 2011

Trigger warning: talk of rape and violence against women

I watched an episode of Law and Order: SVU last night that dealt with some really tough issues. Actually I was working and went out to the lounge for a smoke break and ended up watching the last 15 minutes because I couldn’t look away.

The story was of a young lady who was raped by a knife wielding bandit. The story went that a lady had come across the scene and fought off the attacker and then slipped away into the world to hide. She was an illegal immigrant who had come to the US from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As the story went on, she went on to talk about how rape is used as a weapon of war. The character was raped by soldiers and watched her five year old daughter be raped as well. She watched her daughter take six days to die from her injuries and was cast out by her husband because of the shame she now brought onto him.

She then went to a refugee camp, and was eventually beaten, raped repeatedly and forced into marriage by one of the sides in the conflict. She finally escaped to America as an illegal immigrant.

During the rest of the show she testified to the grand jury, and in one scene talked about what happened to her and how she could identify the act of rape so readily. She was then locked up by immigration, released thanks to the help of the Assistant District Attorney and then testified to see the attacker locked up. She was so overjoyed that she was responsible for seeing a rapist locked up.

At the end of the show she was offered residency but decided to go back to the Congo and take the fight up against the rape and attacks on women. The Assistant District Attorney ended up taking leave to work at the UN to look into victims of gender-based war crimes.

I realise that it is just a TV show, yet I know that there is some basis for the story. The character’s story might not be that of one person, but the stories of many people melded together. The fact that rape is used as a weapon of war is not disputed and I’m sure there are stories far worse than that presented in this fictional TV show that do not get heard about.

What shocked me is that when the leading female characters were talking through the awful things that had happened to this woman, it was mentioned that rape and gender-based war crimes were not an acceptable reason to apply for asylum. This seems disgraceful. A quick Google search seems to tell me that this situation is still not clear and that it can often be a case by case thing.

I’m really thankful that this was presented in such a format. I mean, I was aware that rape is an issue when civil war and unrest occurs. But to have this graphic account of the horror that this character had gone through placed in front of me just made me angry and upset. I was angry because I knew that this story, although fiction was believable and that many women are out there who are being tortured and wounded through gender-based war crimes. It made me upset that it was a fictional program that brought it into the lounge rooms of millions of people.

I would have expected to have heard more about this sort of thing in the news, or in documentaries. Perhaps I don’t watch the right things. It just seems abhorrent that there are people out there being denied help and asylum because the system doesn’t recognise these crimes as being worthy of it.

I don’t have the answers. I don’t have the ability to go there and stop these things. I can talk about them. I can be one voice in the crowd. The crowd which can grow stronger and louder only if we talk about these things.


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