Chef Dreams

Masterchef has been an enjoyable show to watch over many years.  Their culinary achievements as amateur chefs have been spectacular.  As the show continues season after season the boundaries of possibility just keep shifting.  Contestants keep getting better now they know the level of knowledge and skill that will be required to win.

Masterchef has become a platform for people to follow their dreams to have a career in cooking.  Yet it’s interesting to find that none of the contestants had started to pursue this dream outside of masterchef.  This is despite having obvious skill and aptitude to do just that.

Many contestants had been working in different fields of employment for many years.  They’ve had children.  Cooking became their hobby.  A few were just beginning tertiary education and training in alternate professions. 

I understand most situations.  Life takes over and our personal dreams take a back seat.  Hence applying for Masterchef.  But for many other contestants one is left wondering why they began pursuing another career direction when they had this dream for so long.  Surely applying to a hospitality school or an apprentice chef would have been wise.  I wonder whether through Masterchef they are trying to skip the training stage and go straight to celebrity chef or successful business.

Third World?? Hardly!

“It’s like the third world in here,” proclaimed a well dressed random patient relation to by standing nurse and paramedic in an emergency department.  She appeared serious and genuine in her derision.  She had just witnessed a patient have a seizure in the corridor awaiting a bed.

Say what you like about the health system.  We all have our criticisms.  Some have legitimate basis.  But we are lucky and blessed to have our health care.  It’s the furthest thing from the third world you might ever see.

People from the third world would definitely show more gratitude at having such health care.  They would feel privileged, as should we all.

Union Propaganda

Workchoices is a dirty word.  What started as a reform policy that had its good points became fodder for unions to slam any further workplace reform.  Therefore unions are quick to label any new policy as workchoices all over again.

Pauls Howes did, in his recent opinion piece in the Sunday Telegraph (15/7/12).

“Workchoices” was mentioned a total of nine times.  Quite a lot considering the relatively small article.  Perhaps it’s out of desperation.  Unions have become less relevant in the workplace and membership is on the decline.  Perhaps he’s feeling threatened that his power base might be taken away.  So it’s time to bring out the slander.

When it comes to slander Howes goes further than just mentioning ‘workchoices’ ad nauseum.  Howes proclaims the coalition as the enemy of the worker, “there’s nothing they like better than slashing wages and conditions, it’s almost pathological”.  Really Paul?  Really?  I suspect he knows it’s not true but it’s in his best interests to mislead.

Howes wants Abbott to outline his policies instead of giving “coded messages”.  Even though an election hasn’t been called.  Howes definitely wouldn’t advocate an early election, as he can see the writing on the wall.  An opposition leader doesn’t have to outline anything until there is an election. 

Howes talks about “rights” and “entitlements”.  No such thing Paul.  There is no right to employment.  We are privileged to be employed.  Privileged to be earning an income.  Privileged to live in a prosperous, democratic nation.  Describing privileges as rights and entitlements takes away what makes them special.

‘Scare campaign’ is an interesting term.  One thing that is for sure is that Labor and the unions are masters of the scare campaign.  They are good at it. ‘Workchoices’ was a prime example.  So when they claim that the coalition are scare mongering they are in fact doing so themselves but in the name of the opposition.  They are so devilishly clever.

Look into their motives for making such claims against Abbott and see the vested interests they have in keeping things the way they are.  It makes for interesting viewing.

The Boofhead

Ray Hadley called Wayne Swan a boofhead and a liar.  Then Swan demands an apology from Hadley.

How stupid is Wayne Swan?  And he’s in charge of the treasury, you’re money.  He’s just given Hadley more ammunition to call him a boofhead, a liar and probably much worse, until he is long forgotten from parliamentary circles.

Swan can’t even dispute the liar accusation.  Now Hadley will play the lie twice as much on his top rating radio talkback show.  The boofhead tag is just a matter of opinion.  Hadley shouldn’t be required to apologise for an opinion.

If Swan is so concerned about changing Hadley’s opinion of him then the onus is on Swan to act less boofheadish in the eyes of Hadley.

Although it’s instances like this and many others that only go to proving Hadley’s assertion.

Keep Telling Yourself That

Sometimes people lie so much that it becomes reality to them.  Greg Combet seems like one such example in a recent opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph.

In it Combet follows the typical Labor mantra of berating Abbott for doing exactly what they are doing themselves.  That is, pulling stunts in an attempt to score political points.  Ironically, Abbott’s stunts are puny compared to attempts by Labor past and present to score political points.

Combet has the ultimate straw man argument.  He intimates that because the world didn’t end on July 1, when the carbon tax was implemented, that their actions were justified.  Except no one said that the world was going to end on July 1.  The only people who are saying that are doing so to put words in the mouths of their opponents in an effort to make them look stupid.

Meanwhile, Combet will continue to sell the lie now that he believes it not to be a lie even though it is still a lie implemented based on a lie to the Australian people.  No amount of overinflating the carbon tax’s success will change that fact.

Purposeless

The Carbon Tax was originally sold as a method of targeting ‘climate change’.  Now it seems it is driven purely by wealth redistribution.  Temperature has become irrelevant, although it’s doubtful that it ever was relevant in the minds of politicians.

Assistance will now go to where it is needed most they say.  But where is that.  Such a subjective statement.

All that will happen is that more people will be trapped in welfare.  Reliant on the government.  So that when someone dares to mention the scrapping of the flawed policy there will be uproar in the streets because a source of easy income will be shut down.

They don’t realise that they have become slaves to the govt.  Meanwhile the reason for the tax will have been forgotten.