Hobson’s Choice – guide to preferential voting

By Laurel Wilson I wasn’t born in Australia, but I got here as quick as I could, and have been here a long time, having been educated in Brisbane (or at least I went to school and University there.) But I don’t recall being taught anything about our voting system. Perhaps it was considered to be not all that relevant, as the minimum voting age was 21 at the time. After finishing a Dip.Ed. at…

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The naked retiree and life in the ‘Lucky Country’

Now that the naked retiree headline has got you in, time to say a quick hello from Stradbroke Island where I am taking a couple of weeks out with family. Today let me introduce you to guest blogger Kathryn Johnston who has a few thoughts to share on how retirees are getting on in the “Lucky Country.” Kathryn wrote this, the first in an occasional series, on New Year’s Day, coinciding with a new pension…

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Wikipedia and the 105-year-old blogger

For reasons yet to be linked to Wikipedia, this week I ended up on the home page of a 105-year-old Swedish blogger who goes by the moniker Bojan. I know, it sounds like material for a Nordic noir series. When starting out with the online arts at the age of 100, Bojan starkly rejected comparisons with the ‘100-year-old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared,’ (a popular Swedish novel by Jonas Jonasson). Bojan’s…

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Many issues in unwinnable Queensland election

In the interests of better community policing and the fact she had just called an election, Queensland Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk made an unequivocal promise. The Premier, who somewhere in the Courier-Mail’s Monday election coverage recalls winning a Grade Nine competition to ‘help police fight crime’, made a commitment to hire an extra 400 police officers over the next four years. Based on a First Year Constable’s salary (including shift allowances) of $70,820, that’s a $28.32…

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