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Columnists & Opinion

It’s a matter of urgency

It’s a matter of urgency

Why someone wouldn’t slow down in their car while passing an active emergency, as a demonstration of common sense if anything, is a mystery. Thankfully, from September this year, everyone will be required to slow to 40km/h on all NSW roads when police, ambulance, fire, SES or rescue vehicles are stopped and have their red or blue lights flashing. It’s part of a one-year trial which will be monitored by the NSW Government and which…

Cricket – It’s business as usual at Australia’s national sport

Ask me to name two things about professional cricket, and two grand illusions come to mind. Firstly, the mass hallucination that cricket is our national pastime, engrained in that fantastical notion of ‘Australian values’, and the national team represents these values of ‘a fair go’ and good-hearted larrikinism to the world. Secondly, the misconception that cricket is a noble game rich in gentlemanly conduct and sportsmanship, linked back to the days of the gentle sound…

The business of charities

National charities are businesses. As hard as it is to accept it just has to be. I have a lot of conversations with different people who have concerns with money going toward administration and wages, and that sort of thing, for charity organisations. At the end of the day, I can tell you, if it wasn’t for someone being paid we wouldn’t have these charities, which make a big difference when you are going through…

How to stop Time in the Spring

Do you ever have days where you’re 100 per cent certain you can feel the Earth spinning on its axis? Actually rotating at its 1600 kilometres per hour or whizzing around the sun at 30 clicks per second!? Stop the bus! Information overload, the Digital Age, robots taking our jobs, doubts about dual citizenship, cranky North Korean leaders with ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ syndrome, the constant gnawing hope Australia will one day win Eurovision... none…
Love is a many splendid thing until you want marriage equality

Love is a many splendid thing until you want marriage equality

Our oldest son and his girlfriend are engaged. The word “soulmates” popped up in conversation occasionally. They are two very special people, the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The word “marriage” would also occasionally be mentioned, as they have been living together for several years in a house they share with their mortgage and their pets. People on the outside looking in could be excused for thinking they were already married. As…

Feeding the machine on Earth Overshoot Day

If you caught the ABC’s 4-Corners report, ‘Trashed’ this week, you’ll have seen a tip of the iceberg; a hardly surprising, corrupt tip, of the waste industry. I wonder should we really actually bother teaching our children to recycle, reuse, repurpose, abstain from buying crap, when the people like those depicted in the program, people who are entrusted and claim they can be trusted, with the management of our refuse, are actually driven only by…

Wellington marks 200 years 

Between August 12 and 20, Wellington will mark its bicentenary of European arrival in Wiradjuri country virtually to the day that intrepid explorer John Oxley arrived in the area and which proved to be a discovery of great economic value to the British colony of New South Wales. It’s Oxley, too, who history books thank for naming the area ‘Wellington Valley’ which he christened in honour of the then Duke of Wellington, Field Marshal Arthur…

A life free from single-use plastic is possible: so what are you waiting for?

Plastic Free July is now done and dusted and so begins a plastic free life. Having navigated my way around the sea of plastic bags, bottles, windows in boxes, tubs, packets and packaging as standard for almost every single food retail experience, for 31 days, I’m convinced it can be done, and will be a continuous uphill battle. Thankfully, this month’s announcement by Woolworths, Coles and Harris Farm to phase out single-use plastic bags over…
Image: Supplied

That liberating feeling of being single-use plastic free

Sitting with a friend getting a replacement phone at Optus this week, I opened the box and removed the plastic moulded tray, the little plastic bags the accessories were individually wrapped in and the little bits of plastic wrapped around the headphones. It occurred to me this “schmick” packaging is probably seen by some as having “status”, but basically the plastic is landfill. Handing them back, with a second box made with a plastic window…

National Pyjama Day

It’s been described as ‘skanky’. ‘Bogan’. ‘Feral.’ Just mentioning it can draw looks of horror, shock and dismay. “If I see it, I ‘look away’,” one colleague said. “It burns my eyes,” said another. In some parts of the world it’s actually illegal but right here in this city, there are those who move among us, acting as if their appearance is perfectly normal, or they’re not openly crossing social or cultural boundaries to offend,…

How Qatar got the cold shoulder is a hot topic

You know you have a problem when human rights abusers Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties with you. The gulf state of Qatar was recently at the centre of a diplomatic row when these Middle Eastern countries cut off all transport routes and diplomatic contact, accusing Qatar of supporting terrorist groups – notably Islamic State – and having a diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia’s enemy Iran. Following the Arab…

So long and thanks for all the fish

Passwords. Friend or foe? Let’s go with foe. Exhibit A: 9%vgY2h/Q&7tWx$2jJ Exhibit B: The username or password you have entered is invalid. Well. Which one is it? The username or the password? After a little reading of training manuals written for the ‘brainiacs’ who actually create these responses, one suggested the ‘user’ “might get frustrated by not being able to remember the email address or username he signed up with”. Apparently women don’t use devices…