Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

With the 2009-2010 budget handed down last night, finance nerds like me are busy pouring over newspaper coverage and figuring out what it all means.

Over on Lightening’s blog yesterday she posted why she’s against paid maternity leave.

Today I’m going to share my thoughts and explain why it’s really a bit of a non-event.

1. We are behind the times. The only developed nation without a paid maternity leave scheme now is the USA. Even Afghanistan has a program of paid maternity leave.  Support it or not, this is one area we have lagged behind the rest of the world.

2. We have other maternity payments. A $5000 baby bonus is currently paid for families where the primary carer earns less than $150,000 a year. There is also the ongoing Family Tax Benefit A & B payments as well as child care benefit, child care rebate and immunisation allowance .

I’m generally in favour of these payments. Having children is expensive, and however much Baby Boomers complain about it, someone’s going to have to be working to care for them in their old age, and pay taxes so they can have their pension.

Women, in persuit of a career, are putting off motherhood, increasing the need for fertility treatments andthe likelyhood of multiple births. Having children is becoming a financial decision - do you have them young and sacrifice a career and a solid foundation (ie a home and sable incomes) or do you wait, and face increased costs in the form of fertility treatment and potential multiple births.

What these payments do is take the financial aspects out of the equation. If people don’t want children, no $5000 bonus or 18 weeks paid maternity leave will encourage them. On the other hand, if people DO want children, the additional money may make it more feasible and allow them to choose the time to increase their family without basing the decision on financial considerations.

Having said all of that, this scheme is a paid maternity leave in name only.

$544 a week less tax (of $62) is $482 a week for 18 weeks, or $8676.

For women who don’t qualify for this payment, there is still the $5000 baby bonus paid in 13 fortnightly payments, and the ongoing Family Tax Benefits A & B, potentially bringing the amount to a total of $7484 in six months.

Either way you look at it, there’s a fair amount of money there to help take the sting out of the costs associated with welcoming a new family member, be it the furniture required, or the drop from two incomes to one.

In reality, this is a scheme that simply renames money mostly already being spent and fulfils a government promise at little to no additional expense.  However, it is a change that is long overdue and brings us in line with the rest of the developed world.

What do you think? Long overdue or are we not ready for it? Is it too much? Too little? What should they have done differently?

Or not.

Seems Hamish is coming for a visit.

Tropical Cyclone Hamish.

Did I mention I’m moving house in 4 days???? Hello?? Hamish, seriously dude, you need to find someone else to terrorise, because I’m just not interested.

Of  course I’m fairly well prepared in that we have food, essential paperwork is secure and we have plans in place. But those plans don’t involve staying with my IL’s while my mother in law is away and moving house IN FOUR DAYS!!!!

For anyone following Hamish’s progress, you can keep track here. Currently a category 3 storm he is expected to be upgraded overnight to a category 4.

If you’ve been paying attention at all for the last two weeks, you’ll know that Israel has been attacking and invading the Gaza Strip, allegedly in response to Hamas fire into Israel.

I don’t pretend to understand all the ins and outs of this situation. I don’t pretend to think I can do anything.

But I will not sit here and say nothing.

I am horrified by what I am seeing and hearing on television. What I read in news reports online.  Horrified. Sickened.

Every day I think that it will be the end. Someone will see sense. The Israeli’s will pull back and this will just become another nightmare for the residents of Israel and Palestine to live with.

But it gets worse.

Tonight I read this on the ABC. For those of you who don’t want to click over, this is some of the parts that horrify me.

The UN report said that “according to several testimonies, on January 4, Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians into a single-residence house in Zeitun (half of whom were children) warning them to stay indoors. Twenty-four hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30.”

Followed by this:

Israeli military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said: “From initial checking, we don’t have knowledge of this incident. We started an inquiry but we still don’t know about it.”

This one also got me, from the same article:

UNRWA, the main UN agency in Gaza which provides food aid to half the territory’s 1.5 million people, said it had suspended its operations after tank shells hit a UN-flagged humanitarian convoy on Thursday, killing at least one person.

Like I said, I don’t know the answer, I don’t pretend to begin to understand the history, the issues. But the killing needs to stop. Human decency needs to reign. In the end these are not Israeli’s and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims. They are people. Mothers. Fathers. Children. Grandparents.

People need food. They need water. They need shelter.

People are being denied this things.

It needs to stop.

The killing needs to stop.

It’s official.

You know you’re getting older when Dr Who is younger than you.

Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor, is just 26 years old.

To be honest, I’ve just watched an interview with him, and I think he’s perfect, it’s just he’s so young. Younger than me.

Which is of course my problem here (in case you hadn’t guessed).

I guess I’m just starting to feel old.

The timing of this is amazing as I struggle to write a Criminal Law assignment on theories of punishment. In my Google Reader I have a feed showing the latest news headlines from the ABC. Today I refreshed to find the following headlines:

Judge jails p-plater for driving 255 kph

followed by:

No jail for doctor who raped patient

Are you serious? I know I only wrote about the appaling rate of rape, sorry, sexual assault convictions a couple of weeks ago, but it appears that even when a woman goes through SIX YEARS of charges and trials in search of justice, and have the rapist found guilty, the guy (a doctor no less) walks free? Yet a 20 year old gets sentenced to 9 months jail for speeding? Where are our priorities?

I’m not sure what’s more appalling. The sentence or the fact the doctor’s name was supressed.

Further to my post yesterday about Bad New Idea paying Wayne Carey and his girlfriend $180,000 to admit to cocaine and alcohol abuse (did anyone really doubt it?), it appears he’s now appearing on Enough Rope on Monday night. To what? Share more? Break down and say how sorry he is? One would think too little, too late.

Perhaps we can all just live in hope that he spends his $180,000 on drug rehab, and not on more drugs.

Reports yesterday that New Idea had paid $180,000 to Wayne Carey and his girlfriend, Kate Neilson to tell their side of the story relating to their drug use and his assault charge in the US have left me all but speechless (I have enough to say to write a post after all ).

What a way to reward bad behaviour. Here’s $180,000 if you share your drug and alcohol abuse and how you assaulted your girlfriend. Shag your best mate’s wife (or more specifically get caught), leave your wife with a newborn baby two years after she took you back, succumb to a drug addiction and assault your girlfriend and police. That’s just what I want to read to “relax”.

Why does bad behaviour have to be rewarded with MORE money (which is probably half the cause of the problem anyway)? Now he’s just got more money to buy more drugs with.

What are your thoughts?

I know, I know, it’s just one thing after another. Settlement for the house is today. I presume it will go ahead despite the flooding, although I just thought the bank is in town where the worst of the flooding was… Hmm, might go for a drive in a bit and see how bad it is.

Soooo, just for fun it’s now a “baby stay there as long as you can” scenario, because currently my only way of getting to the hospital is a boat or helicopter. Oh the joys!

I just knew this would happen. I’m sooo getting my hospital bag packed properly today. Until now I’ve been like “if I need anything Hubby can bring it over” but it might be a little difficult, so I want to make sure I have everything I need ready to go.

I was going to go and take some photos today, but Hubby took the camera, so I might have some for tomorrow, if you’re lucky

Until then I have try and get some washing dry  and amuse the children with some rainy day activities.

I read with interest this morning a story about our new Evironment Minister pushing to ban plastic bags altogether within the year. While I’m against the wasteful use of plastic bags, and LOVE fabric shopping bags (I prefer mostly calico as if I put meat in them I can wash them easily between shopping trips), I have a small problem with banning plastic bags.

I would then have to spend money on rubbish bags. I have had this conversation with a few people, and it turns out I’m not as normal (in this aspect anyway ) as I thought.

See, I use plastic shopping bags, as rubbish bags. If I find myself with an excess, I recycle them, but generall if I end up with a few I switch to cloth bags for a while until my stash runs down.

But with all this talk of plastic bags in dumps, and what have you, I wonder if I’m unusal because I use plastic bags as rubbish bags? We bought our bins specifically because they fit shopping bags. Why would I pay good money for something I can get for free and recycle?

But if our Environment Minister gets his way I’ll not only have to remember to take enough bags with me to the shops EVERY TIME!! I’ll also have to spend money on rubbish bags, and I suppose a new bin to fit the rubbish bags. Does it just seem a waste of time to anyone else? Or am I that unusual?

So you don’t think I’m completely caught up in my own little world, here’s my personal election coverage in preparation for tomorrow’s voting extravaganza.

Why I’m not voting Labor

1. Despite promising to ratify Kyoto, there has been no funding allocated to do anything about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Kyoto time frame.
2. Kevin Rudd is backing down on a pledge to hold a referendum on Aboriginal Reconciliation
3. Labour has not provided funding (that I could find) for more training places for Doctors
4. Kevin Rudd’s lip licking annoys me to DEATH (I would use harsher terminology, but I don’t think I’ve sworn yet on this blog, so I’ll try and keep it that way).
5. I DETEST Julia Gillard.
6. Wayne Swan is possibly the least qualified member of the Labor party to do anything, and he’s supposed to be our Treasurer if Labor win? No thanks!

Why I’m not voting Liberal

1. All the policies I read tonight were too complicated to pick anything out. None of them make much sense to me.
2. Oh, plus, I don’t have a Liberal candidate - I have a National one. But you know. It’s late.

Why I’m not voting Green

1. I’m sure there are many reasons to not vote Green, but it’s late, and I’m tired, and I just don’t want to see Bob Browns face on TV everytime a bill goes to the Senate as he tries to justify how it fits with his policy (if Labor wins) or how it doesn’t (if the Libs win). Ugh.
2. Their website is annoying

Why I’m voting Democrat

1. They are the only party who have clearly made women’s issues a priority.
2. Plus, it’s either that, Family First or the CEC (and people think the Lib’s use scare tactics?).

And that just about wraps up my campaign coverage. I’m off to bed, and hopefully when I wake up I’ll be able to put a coherent argument together.