Letters: Your Say

Have Your SayParking salaries
Editor,
Instead of large corporations paying their CEO’s huge salaries + bonuses they should put the money into saving our parks and gardens (Parks for sale to save the parks, 18 May 2012).
   They could also have their name listed on the brochures etc.
   I think it’s about time wages for these people became more realistic world wide and paid better wages for the workers further down the corporate ladder.

E
Canberra
Business issues
Editor,
The article raises two questions (Aboriginal workers are business’ business, 18 May 2012).
   1. What happens to the non- indigenous employees who are currently in the positions to be filled with the increased number of indigenous recruits;
   2. Is there equal funding and effort going into creating employment in that region for people of non-indigenous heritage?

A
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Culture missing
Editor,
Can there be a little more detail about what exactly he has announced, please? (Cultural institutions to get new culture, 15 May 2012).
   The article is too general and the only thing I can find announced by Crean recently is the Australia Council review, which does not appear to be relevant.

M
DBCDE
Answer given
Editor,
My letter published following the PM’s announcement about this plan has now been answered (Disability plan poses questions, Letters 9 May 2102).
   In a TV interview on 13 May, Senator Penny Wong was asked about the system for which $1b was provided in the budget (Australian Agenda on Sky).
   Her answer was that the Government hasn’t worked out any of the details yet!!
   Doesn’t this say something about the poor communication skills of the Labor Government?

Neville C
Ex-ABC and ANSTO
Yahoo serious
Editor,
Is a Uni degree worth it? (The social return on universities, Features 15 May 2012).
   Why not ask Yahoo!!

Brian
Australian Tax Office
Seeing the light
Editor,
I refer to the article ‘Answering the call to be extraordinary” (Personal Development, 15 May 2012) and this quote from it:
   “Often times, we are confounded by our ability to be extraordinary.
   What is it that drives the best of us to accomplish the seemingly impossible?
   Thomas Edison had 1,000 failed attempts before he finally figured out a way to create the electric light bulb.”
   Really?
   Well, if “answering the call to be extraordinary” means stealing someone else’s idea and then passing it off as your own, then, yes, how “extraordinary” of Edison.
   Because Edison didn’t create the light bulb, he actually stole his employee’s work and on-sold it, discrediting his reputation in the process (he later admitted this in his old age).
   The real creator of electric light was infact, Nikola Tesla. Please feel free to look that one up sometime.
   I sincerely hope that successfully passing someone else’s idea off as your own is not considered typical of what passes for “extraordinary ability” in the APS these days.

Annalise
FaHCSIA
In previous editions... Assurances redundant
Editor,
Obtaining an assurance from the Government will do no good (Redundancy fears as job cuts mount, 11 May 2012).
   All that agencies need to do is declare jobs excess and most people will accept a voluntary redundancy because they have little choice.
   An involuntary redundancy means that you have a retention period and your entitlements start from the beginning of that period, so every day you stay at work is less in hand.
   What the Government really should do is to design packages for people that will include compensation for loss of earnings, reduction in real superannuation pension, and make it worthwhile for people.
   At the moment there is little opportunity to move within the APS so increasing the unemployment numbers doesn’t make a great deal of strategic sense.

K
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Editor,
Are you aware that a recent ATO ruling discriminates against those over 65 who take a redundancy package? (Redundancy fears as job cuts mount, 11 May 2012).
   VR payments to this group of employees are now treated as an ET and incur an additional 16% tax as opposed to those under 65 who are not subject to this ruling.
   It would be good if you could make this widely known.

Alan
Performance pay not performing
Editor,
Bravo Mr Hawke (Ex-Secretary pays out on performance pay, 8 May 2012).
   It is about time someone from the upper echelons spoke the truth about performance pay.
   It is against the principles and spirit of public service, the idea that a job well done should be awarded any more than the salary received for the role.
   Managers who are unable to fulfil the responsibilities of their position to a high standard should perhaps be demoted.
   There are too many careerists and bonus aspirants rather than senior managers committed to service and duty of care to public and staff.

E
Canberra
Editor,
Agree completely! (Ex-Secretary pays out on performance pay, 8 May 2012).
   I have worked in several Departments with and without performance pay.
   The sense of team work and putting in the extra effort during busy periods is much stronger in the organisations without performance pay. (We are all in it together).

Pamela F
SEWPAC
Editor,
So that’s around a 2% cut in FTEs? (Ex-Secretary pays out on performance pay, 8 May 2012).
   Fairly benign if done right.

C
Canberra
More effort for mental health
Editor
While I applaud all efforts taken in getting the message across, as the Aunt of a teenager who recently committed suicide I don’t think that we are doing nearly enough to get to people at risk (Thoughts invited on mental health, 8 May 2012).
   More work/money at the coalface and less in writing reports.

G
DFAT
Defining ourselves
Editor,
I have no problem with the political correctness of the terms “carer” or “spouse” or “partner” (Language of officialdom devalues ties with those we love and care for most, Talking Point 16 April
2012).
   However, I think an individual is entitled to define themselves in relation to their actual situation.
   I always refer to someone’s “partner” if I am not aware of their situation, however, I happen to have a husband and that’s how I refer to him.
   I don’t think the term is exclusive and if a man has a “husband” or a woman has a “wife” and they want to use those terms, they should.
   My mother was recently recognised as being my father’s [her husband’s] “carer”.
   To her this was a positive recognition of everything she does for him. But she remains his wife.
   Frank’s article is thought provoking.

Karen T
Attorney-General’s
Kids’ Commissioner old idea
Editor,
This is not the first Children’s Commission (New Commissioner for Children comes of age, 1 May 2012).
   The Children’s Commission Act of the Whitlam government was formally assented to on 11 June1975, but the Act was not proclaimed before the general election of December 1975.
   The Liberal-Country Party Government decided not to continue with the proposal to establish a Children’s Commission.
   The functions under the Child Care Act 1972-1973 and the Children’s Commission Act 1975 continued to be carried out by the Interim Committee for the Children’s Commission.
   The records of the 1974-5 Children’s Commission are held by the National Archives.

C
National Archives
Teachers testy
Editor
I would like to know if all politicians are required to go through a similar yearly performance assessment? (Teachers to pass annual tests, 1 May 2012).
   If not, why not as it is they who have implemented this assessment on teachers?
   How do teachers in lower academic and socioeconomic schools pass such assessments and have the same opportunities as teachers in higher achieving schools?
   How do teachers who have a personality clash with their principal pass these assessments?
   I am not a teacher but based on the claim Mr Garret states “that teaching is a very important role in our communities” I would assume they should be paid in accordance with many other professional positions in our society (but they aren’t).
   I think teaching is a very important role and needs a much higher profile and status recognition than currently exists.

A
Industry NSW
Editor,
Fantastic idea! (Teachers to pass annual tests,1 May 2012).
   Nurses have been having to complete annual Professional Review and Development activities for years.
   It will help acknowledge the best and put a stick of dynamite up the rest.

Matthew R
Health
South Australia
FoI needs uniformity
Editor,
There is no uniform approach in publishing the FOI disclosure logs, with some agencies providing links to documents released and others inviting people to ring or email if they want the documents (Information watchdog to check on agencies, 1 May 2012).
   This comes with a photocopying fee.
   We have the technology...
   Not all FOI documents are listed on the log, publication being at the discretion of the department.
   This would appear to go against the principles of greater transparency.

E
Canberra
Disability plan poses questions
Editor,
So far we have only been told the help those with disability may get (Disability insurance enabled by PM, 4 May 2012).
   It is called a National Disability Insurance Scheme.
   Presumably there are insurance policies and premiums to be paid. By whom?
   The fine details can be given later but at least we deserve to know how the scheme will be financed.
   Is this another tax?
   This Government is still a poor communicator.

Neville C
Ex-ABC and ANSTO
Defending pension pain
Editor,
In a letter to the Editor of the Australian newspaper on 2 May, former Coalition Finance Minister Nick Minchin attempted to defend both the former and present Governments’ decisions’ not to provide fair pension indexation for retired Defence personnel and Commonwealth public servants.
   How dare he claim that these people should continue to have their standard of living fall behind the rest of the community.
   Their average pensions of $27,000 are less than the combined married rate of Age Pension and is only a fraction of the massive $100,000 plus pension Nick Minchin receives.
   His letter shows hypocrisy at its finest!
   Over the past 20 years Commonwealth superannuants’ pensions have increased by less than half the percentage of Age Pension increases.
   Nick Minchin’s pension, which also isn’t means tested, will maintain its purchasing power because it is indexed by movements in Parliamentary salaries and allowances which have increased by about 160% over the past 23 years.
   Commonwealth superannuants’ pensions are indexed by the inappropriate CPI, an indexation tool rightly discarded years ago as the sole means of indexing the Age Pension.
   When public servants and Defence personnel signed up to work for the Government they did so believing their retirement income would maintain its purchasing power.
   However the CPI is no longer a cost of living or purchasing power measure – that’s not my opinion but that of the Bureau of Statistics.
   Three separate Senate Inquiries have unanimously recommended a fair wage-based index , as is used to adjust the Age Pension, but successive Governments have refused to provide their former employees the fairness all Australians rightly expect and deserve.
   We are not asking for special or favoured treatment, only the national indexation standard.
   The annual cost is tiny in budgetary terms, as Nick Minchin well knows.
   Well it’s not really a cost but the value of what’s been surreptitiously stripped from the Government’s former employees.
   If this issue affects you either now, or will in the future, we urge you to join our campaign for a fair go.
   You don’t have to be a SCOA member to do so, although we’d welcome your membership.
   You can go to www.scao.asn.au and find on the home page, a simple “indexation tool” that will calculate the amount you are losing or will lose once you retire.

John Coleman
President
Superannuated Commonwealth Officers’ Association
Drink drive data down
Editor,
I am very open to harsher penalties for “driving whilst impaired” but there was no data in this article that would support the recommendation to lower the BAC requirement to .03% (Is a drink driving killing murder?, Talking Point, 1 May 2102).
   I would like to see the statistics for people with .04/5% before applying a potentially ineffectual mitigation measure which may just result in prosecuting vast amounts of innocent people for merely having a glass of wine with dinner.
   I would also note that the BAC threshold in both the UK the USA is currently at .08%.

C
Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
Editor,
William Sproul’s article on drink driving (Is a drink driving killing murder?, Talking Point, 1 May 2102) suffers from not examining its social context.
   Most people in Australia live in situations where they are compelled to drive. This means that crimes committed at the wheel of a car are treated by society as a whole as being “different” from crimes committed in other circumstances.
   Virtually all adults, and not a few minors, are licensed to operate one of the world’s most dangerous pieces of machinery and access is rarely withdrawn, because society couldn’t function if it was.
   What we need is a comprehensive public transport system, including rural buses and a network in the outer suburbs as well as the traditional inner suburban areas, to give everyone a practical non-driving option for the journey they need to make.
   Apart from the benefits usually cited, it would reduce drink-driving, take many disqualified drivers off the road and make it more practical to set appropriately high standards for driver’s licences that at present are virtually distributed in boxes of breakfast cereal.
   Deaths from drink-driving are just the tip of the iceberg.
   The larger problem is the extent of society’s dependence on the private car.

Greg P
Bureau of Statistics
Straight talking
Editor,
I absolutely love this article! (Raising boys who play with dolls, Features, 23 April 2012).
   I am a gay man and I had similar experiences when I was 8 and told my Mum that I wanted earrings.
   “Earrings are for girls! Are you a girl?”
   Well I ended up getting all the earrings I could once I was legal!
   I have male friends in “female” dominated roles... first question is always “are they gay?” It is assumed that if a boy does not do “boy” things then he is gay.
   It must be really hard for those guys to constantly have to prove themselves as straight males.

D
Medicare Australia
Drugs article misses mark
Editor,
I really enjoy the PS News but I hope never to read another article which talks such utter nonsense ever again (The decriminalisation (or even legalisation) of drugs, Talking Point, 5 March 2012).
   I seriously hope you never print anything like this again.
   Drugs are for Mugs (or idiots).
   I also trust that anyone who writes rubbish like this is never associated with young people.

Diane B
Courts Administration Authority
South Australia
Grants for women
Editor,
I left a difficult situation 2 years ago and the support networks were negative, judging me and it seemed blaming me (Women’s panel to beat violence, 27 April 2012).
   I have worked at making sure I keep myself calm and don’t take on the negativity that they have projected at me.
   If the Alfred Hospital Psychiatric staff had have made the time to communicate with me when I was working to leave someone who was their patient, I would have been better able to manage my situation.
   Instead, they tried to blame me and when I raised matters to do with their shoddy medical care for the person who had hit me, they tried to turn me into one of their patients.
   Women need access to grants to re-establish housing where it is good for them to go, not where some Government department tries to dump them.

Joanne
NSW
IQ article not OK
Editor,
The article ‘learn how to improve your IQ’ (Personal Development, 24 April 2012) is disingenuously headed.
   The tips included are principally ways to make better use of the IQ you already have, rather than enhancing it; not that these ideas are of no value, but it would be nice to have some honesty in the headlines of this august organ.
   Also, it is disappointing that one must have a facebook account to comment on articles...

J
Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
Information charges
Editor,
I cannot see how PhD researcher, Perrin Brown, reached the opinions he expressed if he had read the report that I prepared on FOI charges (Gillard’s impending FoI blunder, Features, 24 April
2012).
   Nowhere does the report recommend that agencies double some charges after being ‘inundated’ with requests; or that government should be able to recoup the estimated $36 million for administering the FOI Act in 2010-11.
   The number of requests in 2010-11 increased by 9.3% off a very low base.
   I recommended that the FOI charges framework be based on four principles, including that: ‘A substantial part of the [FOI] cost should be borne by government’; ‘No one should be deterred from requesting government information because of costs’; and ‘personal information should be provided free of charge’.
   The report explains that the recommendations would make FOI cheaper for most applicants: there will ordinarily be no application fee; no charge for the first 5 hours; and a flat processing charge of $50 for the next 10 hours.
   An application fee of $50 would be payable only if an agency establishes and publicises an administrative access scheme that can be used to request information or documents, and a person uses the FOI Act ahead of the administrative access procedure.
   An FOI Act request could be made free of charge 30 days after the administrative access request (or perhaps earlier in many cases).
   The report acknowledges this to be a contentious recommendation that could only be implemented after further planning and reassurance that it will make it easier for people to obtain information without having to battle through formal FOI Act requirements.
   Other comments by Brown inaccurately portray Australian FOI developments.
   It is not accurate to say that the FOI ‘experiment was failing until the 2010 changes were introduced’. The Act had a profound impact on Australian Government administration since 1982, albeit reforms were needed.
   Queensland and the Commonwealth do not present greatly different models, as Brown suggests.
   The Queensland ‘push’ model was not introduced until 2009; the Commonwealth’s ‘push’ model in the following year. Nor is it mentioned that Queensland has an FOI application fee of $39.
   Brown seems to favour introducing a ‘vexatious litigant’ procedure. In fact, the Act does enable me to make a vexatious applicant declaration (s 89K).
   In Guidelines on the Act I have explained that this power will be used sparingly, and that any decision I make can be appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
   To suggest, as Brown does, that the power could be used to silence veteran FOI journalist Michael McKinnon is plainly silly.

John McMillan
Australian Information Commissioner.
Reminder on boys
Editor
What a timely reminder that we unconsciously treat boys and girls differently but shouldn’t (Raising boys who play with dolls, Features, 24 April 2012).
   I painted my nails on the weekend and my 2yo daughter’s on her request. I didn’t even think to ask my 4yo son.
   He didn’t appear interested but may have been if I had thought to ask him.
   My partner and I have tried hard to not ‘genderise’ our kids but sometimes its just
unconscious.
   Will make more of an effort.

M
SA Water
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