australia

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betting the grocery money

Tasmania has a population of around 500 000 people.  It’s a relatively small place.

Staggeringly, so far in 2010, we have collectively lost over $100 million on poker machines.  $100 million.  That’s $200 for every single man, woman and child.   Something like 120000 of the population are children, so that bumps the per adult loss up to the vicinity of $260 each.  There are obviously a lot of families who don’t gamble at all…..so the picture for those who do, and those who are ‘problem’ gamblers with serious addictions just keeps getting worse and worse.

Those stats are the tip of a horror story. It’s nothing less than frightening that as a state we’ve lost $100 million from family budgets to poker machines in just six months. That’s not including losses at gaming tables, betting on horse racing or other sporting or community events.

How many families are on the edge because of gambling addiction? How much crime is gambling related? How many relationships are damaged or destroyed?

I’m declaring myself not to be a wowser. I don’t mind the odd raffle ticket to support a community initiative, or maybe an office Melbourne Cup sweep, but how far do we let our collective addiction to gambling go?

Right now you can bet on anything you like.  Julia Gillard for PM? You’ll currently win $1.52 for every $1 you bet.  Meanwhile David Wirrpanda is at $26 for a $1 bet to win Dancing with the Stars.  Daily news and sports reports will let you know the odds for your football, basketball, cricket or european handball team.  Every day. Time after time.  Encouraging you to lose your money, your family, your groceries. I can only imagine how much the internet gambling companies pay our commercial news providers to include that information in impartial news bulletins.

We’ve invited gambling into our lounge rooms – not just via the internet, but on the evening news.

If I’m frank, I’m appalled by it.

But the pokies still seem to be the big issue, at least here in Tasmania.  Everywhere poker machines are installed, gambling revenue goes up.  In lower socio-economic areas the pokie losses are higher that other places.

And the state government? They earn almost $90 000 000 each year from gambling taxes. Think they’ll do much about it? Wanna bet?

What does it say about us as a community? A society?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be letting my community leaders know that I’m very concerned about the costs of gaming machines and gambling for our families, our communities, our state.

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the australia i want to believe in

An open letter to Australia’s political leaders….

I want to take this opportunity, on the eve of an election, to tell you – the political leaders of this nation – about the country that I want to be a part of.  And I want to tell you about the kinds of political leaders that I want leading us into our future. Continue reading →

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one small crack in the elbow

So it’s “le tour” time. That time of year when my sleep patterns are destroyed by SBS coverage of .

It’s truly one of the world’s great sporting epics, and I’m years into my annual addiction to it.  If you missed last year’s reflections, here’s some stories you might find interesting:

This year’s tour has been unbelievable – and we’re not yet half-way into the race. Massive accidents, favourites falling by the wayside, the inclusion of seriously tough cobblestone stretches and plenty more.

But last night’s stage took the cake. After already covering 145 km and topping three big mountains, the pack hit the foot hills of a monster 27.5 km climb (gaining over 1600 vertical metres) up the famed Col de la Madeleine.  With the front running teams pouring on the power up front, the peleton split apart, with race leader and Australian Cadel Evans one of the biggest casualties – dropping out of the battling pack and destined to lose so much time that any hope of winning this year’s Tour was gone.

Later it emerged that Evans was carrying an injury – a fractured bone in his elbow suffered in a crash two days earlier (the day he took the race lead).  While seemingly a relatively minor injury, the cracked bone hit Evans where it hurt the most – stopping him from being able to stand up out of the saddle and power up the mighty Madeleine. Continue reading →

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leadership by opinion

I’m not one to buy into political debate.

Really, I’m not.

But I’m increasingly concerned about what we’re seeing in federal politics in Australia at the moment.  It appears to me, that leadership and policy-making are increasingly being shaped by opinion polls, and by doing ‘whatever it takes’ to remain in power by pandering to voters.

Perhaps its naive of me to think it, but I’d far rather have leaders who lead from their convictions, from well thought out and argued basis, than by figuring out what’s the most popular opinion to hold.

Where are the leaders who will cast their vision on asylum seekers, mining taxes, or climate change, and then convince us to follow them?    Consultation is one thing, but sometimes the ‘majority of voters’ are wrong and need to be told they (we) are wrong.

At least part (and perhaps a big part) of the issue is that today leadership is executed by ‘sound bite’.  Very few Australians get to hear or see extended presentations from those who would lead us.  Most of us catch 30 seconds on the news at night, a paragraph or two on a commercial news website (with its own axe to grind) or the distilled opinions of others in our facebook or twitter feeds.

That’s no way to engage with those who would lead our nation. But that’s all most of us are prepared to give.

Is it any wonder that our leaders lead based on the sound bites they get back, when that’s all we ‘re prepared to hear from them?

With our increasingly self-centred existence, and inability to enter in genuine dialogue on all sorts of topics, perhaps it’s no surprise our leaders have given up trying to lead us when we plainly won’t follow (that’s a topic perhaps for another day).

Maybe we’re getting exactly the kind of leadership we deserve.

PS: I know, just one or two sweeping generalisations in this post. But still, I’ll stand by my opinion. Unless I take a poll and discover its unpopular.

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workshop description: create-a-cafe

Last week we ran the first of a series of “Hobart 2020 Cafe Forum” gatherings.  Designed to provide opportunity for people to explore the themes of the report “How then shall we live?” for the Uniting Church in Hobart, we tried to take a creative approach to this gathering.

The key themes of the report that formed the basis for this gathering are collaboration, creativity, innovation, imagination and community.

This post records the shape of the event, some of the thinking behind it, and a simple recording of what happened. If it’s an idea that has use for you, please feel free to run your own create-a-cafe gathering….either along similar lines to what happened in Hobart, or better still, shaped to fit your own context.

Hit the link to read all the details:

Continue reading →