Grateful
I am so grateful to the young woman who gave me a back-issue of Green Left in the Queen Street Mall just now. I would have bought the most recent copy, but I only have $1.65 so far until "pay-day" next Wednesday.
I went into the Hilton to write this to you after I read a few articles — already I am 20c richer, someone having dropped it under a table! (Being human I looked to see if more had been dropped, but no!)
It is refreshing to see that young people have the courage to form independent opinion and speak up.
There is so much in this edition (19th July) which "rings a bell" with me.
Good luck and keep being yourselves.
Brisbane
User-pays
The undermining of Medicare continues. In a recent speech, AMA President Kerryn Phelps raised the spectre of charging patients without a Healthcare card over $20 to see a GP.
User-pays for medical services targets people who are already disadvantaged by illness. Moreover, a lower income and worse health tend to go together.
The brilliant solution advocated by conservatives to these problems is voluntary private insurance. Never mind that patients can be left with significant out-of-pocket expenses. Never mind that premiums can be high because young healthy people generally don't insure. Never mind the administrative inefficiencies. Never mind that a millionaire and someone on the minimum wage face the same premium to purchase the same cover.
Medicare is broadly based on contributions according to ability to pay and distribution according to medical need. It should be extended to include dentistry, not rolled back.
Rydalmere
Whose obligation?
Before we get carried away with Messrs Howard and Costello's hyperbole on the recent .3% fall in unemployment, mostly only part-time jobs, we should not forget that the statistics still record a massive 610,000 without any paid work at all, and some researchers say that the number is nearer double that.
So about 1,000,000 are sidelined from the full life that the rest of us have, with the government's main response being tightening their shabby little gospel of "mutual obligation" against the victims.
But what about society's obligation towards brothers and sisters in distress, and deep human concern for those sidelined, that they might find it possible to again enter the world of functioning work like the rest of us?
And it's not, nor had it ever been "Government money" that's involved, for "the Government" has no money at all, except that which society entrusts to it to be used for the good of the people, including those trapped in the terrible impasse of modern unemployment, that is, operating real "mutual obligation".
Of course there's much more involved here, including the pressing need to reorganise the whole world of work to counter the job-destroying effects of the computer revolution, so that all may have some, and when will our Government and people start to act decisively on this fundamental requirement?
Gerrigong NSW
Free education
It is an outrage that Universities will now lower their entry standards for the rich. What do people think about this latest attack on the quality of tertiary education and on those on modest incomes?
Could TV stations run opinion polls to find out? Could the very few registered parties who favour the reintroduction of free tertiary education be given an opportunity by the media to publish their education policies — and how to pay for them? Could we have a serious public debate about who is to pay for tertiary education for the meritorious? How about an earmarked tax of 1% on corporate incomes?
Aren't the corporations the principal beneficiaries of tertiary education? Will the media assist in halting the march towards plutocracy and the restoration of egalitarianism — claimed to be a core value of this society — or are they just part of the plot to destroy it?
Frenchs Forest NSW
University enrolment
The news that would-be university students can gain enrolment with a lower universities admission index if they are able to pay fees in advance is long overdue, but does not go nearly far enough.
These students are still required to waste three or more years attending lectures when they could be out earning money. What is needed is a system in which applicants pay the entire fee for their degree up front, and receive their degree on the spot.
Such a procedure would not only be far more efficient but would also reduce pressure on university resources, leaving more space for HECS students.
Sydney
With Australian training
The mainstream media hardly reported the killing of Nepalese UN peace-keeper Private Devi Ram Jaishi 25km inside of East Timor, on Thursday, August 10. He was 25 years old.
He was killed by one of the militia arms of the Indonesian army. The same Indonesian army this country has help to train.
Secretary AETA NSW