Election 2016

[dutchroll]

We like chickpeas in our aussie mince and veg. Why should only the arabs enjoy them?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

What if Arabs hate our freedom.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I saw a chickpea once, at a rock festival.

 

 

[M61A1]

What's the difference between a chickpea and a lentil?

 

I wouldn't pay $200 to have a lentil on me....

 

 

[dutchroll]

What if Arabs hate our freedom.

Do what the Americans would do. Use Australian grown chickpeas and call them "freedom peas".

 

Fixes everything, and really makes the world sit up and listen.

 

 

[Bruce]

The rain does not follow the plough at all pmc. In a small way it does the opposite. Have you ever noticed how clouds can sometimes form over the scrub but not over the cleared land?

 

Nor does rain respond to particles in the air, well not in a simple and positive way. How wonderful if it did.

 

And SQ, I too would want a lot more convincing to fork out money on the exhaust-fertiliser system. You are doing the right thing by raising it as a topic... are there any research people who could look at it ?

 

 

[old man emu]

"The Byron Bay Cookie Company, which has been certified Halal for 10 years, like meat processors who say Halal is no different to certification for grain-fed and grass-fed cattle, Mr Byrne, the company's CEO, compares Halal to gluten-free labelling." Should Halal certification be regulated? Does that sound like the Heart Foundation "Tick of Approval" and all these markers that foodstuffs are good for this and that?

 

The problem with both halal and kosher food rules is that, historically, they were developed in ancient times when food health standards were in no way as high as they exist now, in a secular world. Until religions have the strength of moral fibre to modernise their practices then these archaic rules will continue to be a source of division.

 

OME

 

 

[fly_tornado]

I am amazed how much time and energy people are putting into this halal certification issue.

 

As a veiled excuse to talk about the evils of Islam it must bring joy to so many.

 

 

[Marty_d]

People need little issues like islam and asylum seekers to distract them from the real issues - environment, education, health.

 

 

[Bruce]

The real issues are overpopulation, resource depletion and global warming. For the grandchildren to have a future, they all need to be solved.

 

But this would need a longer time horizon than 2 weeks.

 

I reckon religion plays a part in preventing the real issues being noticed while people seek eternal truths in bronze-age superstitious nonsense.

 

 

[jetjr]

I think the complaint is about paying ongoing fees for the certification and where that money goes

 

 

[Yenn]

We keep hearing that the real issues are environment, education and health.

 

Our present government is doing nothing about the environment. Everyone says education is no good, but I think that the current school leavers appear to be better educated than I was when i left school. It is easy to say we have a problem and even easier to just throw money at it, but do we have a problem. Health is similar to education except that the health proffessionals are just looking for more money to be thrown at health so that it ends up in their pockets.

 

 

[M61A1]

We keep hearing that the real issues are environment, education and health.Our present government is doing nothing about the environment. Everyone says education is no good, but I think that the current school leavers appear to be better educated than I was when i left school. It is easy to say we have a problem and even easier to just throw money at it, but do we have a problem. Health is similar to education except that the health proffessionals are just looking for more money to be thrown at health so that it ends up in their pockets.

Yep, it's been quite well established that we have achieved bugger all by throwing money at education, you can't educate people that don't want to be educated, you might be able to work for a living if you're educated.

 

Can't speak for other states but QLD health is riddled with inefficiencies, and is currently being made worse again by Palaszczuk.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Health is similar to education except that the health professionals are just looking for more money to be thrown at health so that it ends up in their pockets.

My wife's a surgeon. It's more profitable for her to totally desert the public healthcare system and work solely in the non-Government funded private healthcare system, which is funded by your private health insurance premiums and run by private companies. Way, way more profitable.

 

The only reason she stays in public healthcare working in public hospitals is because she feels obliged to provide a surgical service to people who can't afford private insurance. Pensioners, people on low incomes, etc.

 

Yeah she's paid very well. But she worked under training for 8 years after finishing university before she could perform a surgical operation completely unsupervised. Her hourly rate under training as a doctor in the public hospital system for that time was around $38-$40/hour. I can't even find a plumber who will work for that. Her longest shift in a public hospital was 36 hours continuously treating patients. She had a 2 hour break.

 

She does orthopaedics. What value would you care to put on a 3 hour operation which repaired a man's badly smashed leg so he could walk, work, and be generally mobile again rather than be badly crippled for the entire rest of his life? $40/hour, so say $120?

 

A lot of people have no clue what many medical professionals go through to get where they are, nor the amazing changes they make to people's lives. The majority of them (there are unfortunately of course always some exceptions) deserve every cent they get.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Yep, it's been quite well established that we have achieved bugger all by throwing money at education, you can't educate people that don't want to be educated, you might be able to work for a living if you're educated.Can't speak for other states but QLD health is riddled with inefficiencies, and is currently being made worse again by Palaszczuk.

What if you are a product of a failed education system?

 

 

[Bruce]

Dutch, I agree with a lot of what you say about how tough it is to get to be a medical professional. But it is not true that private health funds operate in anything like a free market.

 

I wish it were so. They are highly supported by government sticks and carrots. Also, the whole medical profession is highly protected by the government who enforce their monopolies. Try and set up a medical school and see how far you get before being stopped. If electricians were so protected, you could not buy a switch without a prescription from an electrician. And you could not get to be an electrician without being in the unio... er... college to start with.

 

I would like to see the whole system deregulated, but alas that's not going to happen.

 

Having said that, there sure are some good people in the profession doing wonderful things.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Yes the private funds are regulated to an extent. If they were not, we would have a system like the USA where a certain percentage of insurance claims are arbitrarily denied, whether you desperately need the treatment or not and you would lose any semblance of cover for pre-existing conditions, among many other things.

 

How do you conclude that the entire medical profession is protected by the government? My observations from being married to one of them are that the government spend a lot of time trying to shaft them and no time at all trying to protect them.

 

The medical Colleges are not run by the Government. They enforce training standards among other things. So no, you cannot become a surgeon without meeting the training standard set by the College. If you meet the training standard, you'll become a surgeon whether there's a job out there for you or not. There are actually cases these days of specialists finishing their training with no job to go to, unless of course they want to pack up and move interstate or work out at Oonawhoopwhoop, which very few want to do.

 

 

[old man emu]

There are actually cases these days of specialists finishing their training with no job to go to, unless of course they want to pack up and move interstate or work out at Oonawhoopwhoop, which very few want to do.

Which of course they won't because there's not the motza of money to be made there.

 

OME

 

 

[Bruce]

In Ethiopia, the Fred Hollows trained people do a cataract operation for $50.

 

Try bringing one of those to Australia or the US and before you do any business you will be stopped by the government. The Hollows stuff would be completely illegal in Australia. So we pay $5000 or more for a cataract operation.

 

So there is a model of deregulation that works over there.

 

Here's something I've wondered about: What are the restraints of trade that make medicine in the US so expensive? Do they have colleges with the power to prevent people from entering the profession?

 

 

[M61A1]

What if you are a product of a failed education system?

Don't you mean product of a disfunctional family?

 

 

[dutchroll]

Which of course they won't because there's not the motza of money to be made there.

OME

Actually OME the exact opposite is often true.

 

In NSW at least (I think other states are similar) most public hospital specialists are "VMOs" which means they're sole traders/private contractors who are contracted to work in the public system. There are 2 basic pay scales: "sessional rates" which is essentially getting paid by the hour no matter what you do, or the far mor lucrative "fee for service" which is getting paid per procedure, with different procedures worth different fixed payments.

 

So if you're on a fee for service contract and do multiple procedures in a day you can make a lot more money. And guess what contract is normally offered at Oonawhoopwhoop Area Health Service as a "designated area of need" to attract specialists? Yep, fee for service. The government is trying to change that, but watch how hard it becomes to get specialists out there when they do. Why would you work out the middle of nowhere in Oonawhoopwhoop when for the same money you can live and work in the city you were born & bred in (Oonawhoopwhoop doesn't produce many specialist doctors)?

 

 

[old man emu]

It's because the good folk of Oonawhoopwhoop have had such little service from medical specialists and have had to pay exorbitant fees that they hold pimping, prostitution or politics in higher esteem than medicine.

 

OME

[Bruce]

FT, the educational system has failed in that it no longer culls out anybody. Failing students upsets the idiot politically correct lot as well as the nasty bean-counters. The result of this is that you can get a phd for grade 7 stuff if you work the system with cunning. Except in medicine.

 

But just because you have a useless phd though doesn't mean that there is a job for you.

 

I think that it is only in medicine where the university system still works like it used to, where the students have to work hard but the degree is a sure-fire meal ticket.

 

 

[dutchroll]

It's because the good folk of Oonawhoopwhoop have had such little service from medical specialists and have had to pay exorbitant fees that they hold pimping, prostitution or politics in higher esteem than medicine.

OME

Well tell them what you think! When you next walk into a specialist consulting room for treatment for a major health problem don't be afraid. Tell them straight up that you hold prostitutes in higher esteem than them!

 

 

[Bruce]

I reckon being a prostitute would have been a good job. Getting paid to have sex with women, ... earning more than $1000 a day.

 

Bugger I totally missed out. Maybe there was a degree I could have enrolled in?