Friday 26th of April 2024
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and just like that, at the push of a button, my whole working life was erased...

emergency

It was my birthday recently. I turned 58. I have a 40-year work history and a bachelor of science with a double major in physics and chemistry, plus a string of other qualifications. I even have a forklift licence, and used to run the quality testing lab at the factory where I worked for eight years before it closed in 2012.

According to my Jobactive provider, none of it happened. All they see is my age.

When I became unemployed it was unexpected, and despite my confidence I struggled. Everywhere I applied said I was too qualified and they’d have to pay me too much. When I started going to these providers, my 20-something caseworker suggested I should simply delete my qualifications from my resume.

And just like that, at the push of a button, my whole working life was erased.

Afterwards they started shunting me into jobs for which I was unsuited. They made me take cleaning jobs, even though I had arthritis. Once a caseworker asked me whether I had any retail experience. In 40 years I had not worked a day in retail but she said she had found the job for me and moved the screen around so I could see it. It was a job in sales. Up the top it said in big, bold letters that applicants must have a minimum of five years’ retail experience. She even bought me interview clothes that didn’t fit.

If I didn’t go to the interview my payments would have been cut, so I went along anyway in my clothes that didn’t fit to explain why I was applying for a job I was entirely unqualified for.

I keep getting into trouble because I won’t use their version of my resume. They say I’m not allowed to and that I have to show proof of my qualifications. So I take in my university degree – I’ve got it framed – I take the whole thing in there and say, “Look, this is my university degree and my forklift licence,” and they still don’t put it on to the system.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/15/the-nightmare-of-...

god isn't listening because of global warming...

Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is on his first official visit to Australia despite having led the Pacific Island country for more than a decade — first as the leader of a military coup, and later as an elected politician.

Key points:
  • Mr Bainimarama clashed frequently with Australia after the 2006 coup
  • Australia and Fiji have since mended ties, but baggage from that period remains
  • The Fijian leader has been an outspoken critic of Australian climate policies

 

Former Commodore Bainimarama seized power in Fiji back in 2006, leading to a series of events that would eventually see Australia and New Zealand slap sanctions on him and other senior officials.

But two democratic elections later, Mr Bainimarama is still leading Fiji — and his international reputation has made a fairly miraculous recovery.

Australia and New Zealand have normalised relations with Fiji, and both are trying to up their engagement with the nation and the broader region, in the face of diplomatic overtures from China.

Mr Bainimarama has also become a prominent climate change advocate on the global stage: Fiji was the first country to ratify the Paris Agreement, and he was the President of the COP23 climate change conference in Bonn in 2017.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-15/frank-bainimaramas-journey-from-c...

 

Meanwhile:

Hundreds of residents are holed up in evacuation centres on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast as firefighters continue to fight 80 fires blazing across the state. The region of Noosa – a beloved holiday destination for Australians and non-Australians alike – has been one of the worst hit, with infernos unable to be contained.

Hillsong Noosa Pastor Jamie Coyle has been at “The J” Theatre –  the community facility his church meets in for Sunday services – since midday yesterday.


The J is being used as an evacuation centre for those affected by the bushfires in Peregian Beach and surrounding suburbs.


“There are mattresses everywhere. Two hundred people slept there Monday night, which is its capacity, and then again last night [Tuesday],” he told Eternity.

 

Read more:

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/pastors-lend-a-listening-ear-a...

scummo initiative: send the unemployed ('s cash) to mars...

For decades an instantly recognisable Australian object has been sitting in an office in NASA's Washington DC headquarters.

Key points: 
  • Scott Morrison has allocated $150 million for Australia's contribution to a Mars mission 
  • He said he wanted to triple the country's space sector, and add 20,000 jobs by 2030 
  • One high-ranking NASA astronaut said he expected to see more Australians on missions in the coming years

 

Bob Jacobs, a senior agency spokesman, has kept it close because he had "never seen one before", and overnight, while welcoming Prime Minister Scott Morrison to the building, suddenly pulled it out for comic relief.

"It's a Logie" Mr Jacobs said, as the crowd laughed.

"This is the Australian equivalent of an Emmy Award".

The "special" Gold Logie was given to astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1970 "for their historic moon telecast".

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-22/scott-morrison-backs-nasa-moon-ma...

 

Let's pray:

 

Of Father, thy lives on the Red Planet

Give us the will to send our less fortunates

To your Mars paradise, forever and ever

So they don't come back whenever

To damage our precious surplus

In your Pentecostal kingdom Gruß*

Of burning oil and coal haven

Forever and ever. Amen.

 

 

 

* Welcome (pronounced gruss)

 

Of course all the culprits who make you despair at human nature were at the special dinner:

 

The Wall Street Journal revealed Morrison had wanted the Hillsong Church pastor Brian Houston to be a guest at the glittering black-tie function, which included special guests Lachlan Murdoch – but not his father, Rupert – the billionaire box magnate Anthony Pratt, miners Twiggy Forrest and Gina Rinehart, and the golfer Greg Norman.

But, according to the Journal, the White House declined Morrison’s request.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/21/morrison-toasts-u...

 

 

she would roll in her grave...

utopia...

At Friday night’s state dinner, Trump in his remarks raised his glass to a “very special people and a very, very special country” and quoted from the journalist Mary Gilmore, Morrison’s great-great-aunt, as part of a toast to his Australian guests.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/21/morrison-toasts-u...

 

-------------

 

Dame Mary Jean Gilmore DBE (née Cameron; 16 August 1865 – 3 December 1962) was an Australian writer and journalist known for her prolific contributions to Australian literature and the broader national discourse. She wrote both prose and poetry.

Gilmore was born in rural New South Wales, and spent her childhood in and around the Riverina, living both in small bush settlements and in larger country towns like Wagga Wagga. Gilmore qualified as a schoolteacher at the age of 16, and after a period in the country was posted to Sydney. She involved herself with the burgeoning labour movement, and also became a devotee of the utopian socialism views of William Lane. In 1893, Gilmore and 200 others followed Lane to Paraguay, where they formed the New Australia Colony. She started a family there, but the colony did not live up to expectations and they returned to Australia in 1902.

 

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Gilmore

 

The poor socialist/communist woman would have a fit to see her great-grand nephew behave like a dork in church and having joined the CONservative, to be toasted by an idiot nameth Trump.