Category: General news

The Queensland Police demonstrated today their highly militarised approach to the protection of world leaders visiting Brisbane for the G20 in five months. In a demonstration of firepower showing bomb detonations, baton charges and semi-automatic weapon deployment, the police left no doubt that all energy would be focused on ensuring the official G20 summit goes as smoothly as possible and that any citizens who wish to express a different view will be severely curtailed.

Westender’s coverage of the preparations for G20 over the last six months has indicated a wide diversity of views regarding the value of the summit and the appropriateness of the government’s preparation.

We have faithfully reported the police requests for Issue Motivated Groups (IMGs) to register their intent to raise their issues, legal advice regarding the pros and cons of dressing in black during the summit, the calls for indigenous people to hold a first nations conference at the same time, the possible impacts on business and the need for an alternative summit proposing different futures than those that will be discussed by world leaders.

The police emphasis on a military response to ensure the orderly progression of the official, summit, though, leaves no doubt that there will be little sympathy expended on residents, local businesses, indigenous people or activists. According to police spoksepeople, those seeking an alternative future to a World Bank dominated view of macro-economics should register as Issue Motivated Groups and sit meekly on the side-lines with police approved signs quietly stating the reasons they do not think world leaders have a monopoly on intelligence.

Given  the government’s stridency on this and its refusal to countenance alternative points of view, it is important to air the alternative view. Many Westenders are more than happy for the world leaders to come and drop $20million on 4101, we are even happy for them to bring their security guards, dominate hotel bookings, bars, nightclubs and what ever other venues they choose to entertain themselves at.

What they do not want to see is the nation’s and the state’s precious resources squandered on the opression of those who express a different opinion. It is clear to any thinking person that:

• an economy in which the top one percent have more wealth than half the world’s population is not healthy;
• that a world in which one billion people do not have clean drinking water or sufficient food and so die an undignified and horrid death while rich nations throw away mountains of  rotting unwanted food is unfair;
• or that the 80% of business owners who generate 57% of the wealth despite ongoing welfare to global corporations deserve a better go.

It is not clear that these views are best expressed in a designated protest area at the periphery of the action, or that police in military gear with semi-automatic weapons are best placed to decide which views should be heard and which views should not.

Westender’s role is to ensure that those views have a wider forum. If that puts us at odds with the official line on the G20 then so be it. If that limits our capacity to profit from the official largesse as the $20m is spread around the community then we will wear that as the cost of putting an honestly held alternative view.

Even if you do not agree with us, we hope that you will acknowledge and respect our integrity.

Beware online services offering to find lost super, says local man, Paul Judd.

“I got an email offering to find lost super, pressed the button and ‘BOOM’ my super disappeared,” he told Westender.

Of course, the super was there somewhere, it just took a bit of a journey to find it, and along the way Paul discovered some of the pitfalls that can occur when you roll your super over.

“I was lucky that I bumped into Suzy. Yellow Brick Road went out of their way to get everything in place before they touched a cent.”

Independent research carried out for Yellow Brick Road indicates that people living within two kilometres of West End have one quarter of a billion dollars in lost super. Yellow Brick Road is running a campaign to help people find and consolidate that superannuation, carefully.

“It is often young people who are most affected,” said Ms Butterworth. She said because they are not carefully managing their superannuation, they do not notice when employees open new funds for them and they end up with multiple superfunds all with small amounts of money and all costing them annual fees.

“It is not until they start to calculate how much they will need when they retire, that they give it any thought.”

Paul Judd is one example of a local in exactly that position.

At 40, Paul is beginning to calculate the amount he can save over the years that he will enjoy working.

“I want to retire before seventy,” he said.

His mistake, though, was to respond to an email that offered to consolidate his superannuation money, automatically.

Ms Butterworth helped Paul find his super, sort out the insurance and invest more aggressively than the average managed fund, that matched his appetite for risk, to yield a higher return and give him a better lifestyle in his retirement.

“You have to choose between spending less now, spending less later, or working longer,” she said. As we age, the options begin to narrow, so the key is to start early.

“If Paul had come to me ten years ago, he would be in a completely different position,” said Ms Butterworth.

The Australian Government has released a series of guides aimed at helping small businesses adopt and use cloud computing services with confidence.

Cloud computing is the term commonly used to describe the delivery of an ICT service over the Internet, on demand.

Cloud computing is already proving to be revolutionary for small businesses, as it significantly lowers cost barriers to ICT adoption. KPMG estimates the increased adoption of cloud services in Australian firms could boost the Australian economy by $3.32 billion a year.

The guides published today will assist Australian small businesses to be part of this revolution. They cover a range of topics from questions to ask your cloud provider, to legal issues to consider in the cloud. The guides are published on the digitalbusiness.gov.au website.

These cloud guides have only been possible because of the development of a longer, more detailed ‘Stock Take’ of regulation that impacts the cloud services market in Australia. The Cloud Computing Regulatory Stock Take provides an overview of regulation affecting the Australian cloud market and how this might impact the take up of services.

The Stock Take aims to give consumers confidence and industry certainty about the regulatory arrangements that apply to cloud computing.

The Government welcomes additional comment by industry, consumer stakeholders or the public at large. In particular, the Government would be interested in views on whether the regulation in this space is overly complex or burdensome.

More information about the Stock Take and how to provide feedback is available at www.communications.gov.au/cloud

The Australian Human Rights Commission, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have jointly launched the ‘Know Where the Line Is’ awareness strategy intended to run in workplaces around the country to help workers and employers recognise sexual harassment and know how to take action.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, said the ‘Know Where the Line Is’ awareness strategy features a video and a suite of workplace posters that illustrate the line between acceptable questions or comments and workplace sexual harassment.

“On one side of the line is an acceptable behaviour, on the other, a behaviour that is typical of sexual harassment,” she said, “For example, one of the posters reads ‘how was your weekend… /…did you get any?’. The posters also feature advice on how the target of the harassment, as well as bystanders, can take action or seek help.”

“From the research the Commission has done on the prevalence of sexual harassment, we know that many people who experience it know that they are experiencing something that is not right, but are not sure what it is, or that it is unlawful,” she said. “We found that one in five people who say they have not experienced sexual harassment then go on to describe experiences that would constitute sexual harassment under the legal definition.”

President of the ACTU, Ged Kearney, said research also shows that people who experience sexual harassment rarely report it. “The hidden nature of this issue means that we must enlist the support of bystanders – we need our colleagues in the workplace to be aware when harassment occurs, and to stand up against it.”

CEO of ACCI, Kate Carnell AO, said the ‘see-talk-support’ messaging in the campaign was developed specifically with bystanders in mind.

“Workplaces have a leadership role to play when it comes to ending workplace sexual harassment. We want people and businesses – small, medium and large – to ‘see’ the sexual harassment that may occur around them and recognise those behaviours that cross the line. But we also want people to ‘talk’ about this issue and to raise awareness in their teams about how harmful harassment is not only for the individuals who experience it, but for workplaces as a whole,” Ms Carnell said.

The three leaders said they also hoped the strategy would help to provide a ‘call to action’ for Australian employers to support their staff in taking bystander action if they see or hear sexual harassment.

Resources for employers and employees are available on the Know Where the Line Is website, including the Commission’s new ‘Ending workplace sexual harassment: A resource for small, medium and large employers’: www.knowtheline.com.au

 

“WE ARE ALL GHOSTS’

by Josh Donellan 

The beauty of the Anywhere Theatre Festival is that every production is unique in its choice of venue and frequently that choice plays out in a powerful and significant way.

‘We are all ghosts’ is no exception.

Set in a 19th street in the ambling hills of inner city Paddington, the stage is set for an urban contemporary ghost story. The audience is led into the privacy and intimacy of the home by candlelit pathway, setting the stage for an expectation of secrets revealed.

This self-directed and perfectly cast vignette written by Josh Donellan gives ample scope for the characters played by Jessica McGaw, Helen Stephens and Daren King to explore the collective memories of lost friend Eric.

The setting and text combine in an intimate, atmospheric and subtle story which explores concepts of physics and metaphysics, friendship and mental health, love and loss. Contemporary, relatable and yet transcendent with the interweaving of poetry and science, past and present, the house and ultimately the audience, become the increasingly evident presence of ‘Eric’. Beautifully nuanced performances by the cast, who were never more than a metre from the audience, ensure that the intimacies of the individual anecdotes are powerful and affecting.

“THE BALD PRIMA DONNA” by Eugene Ionesco Paddington Substation

Directed by Heidi Manche

The Bald Prima Donna at the Paddington Substation is the perfect marriage of text and location. The stark white walls, minimalist set and all important clock provide an excellent playing arena for this absurdist farce. The highly skilled cast provide a thrilling fast paced romp through bizarre and hilarious scenes.

Surreal choreographyis seamlessly integrated throughout and the physical features of the building, stairs, balcony, massive entrance doors are used thematically and purposefully. The cast, Crystal Arons, Lizzie Ballinger, Jane Barry, Iain Gardiner, Robert Horton, and Alastair Tomkins deliver with perfect timing and aplomb, and appear to relish in this superb absurdist delicacy.

The Bald Prima Donna is a most welcome addition to the Festival’s programme providing Brisbane audiences with an opportunity to experience a style of theatre rarely on offer.

“BLOKE”

by Shane Pike and Zoe Tuffin

The venue for Bloke opens up a hidden nest of artistic wonders and re-use of industrial space tucked away behind Boundary and Mollison Streets West End.

Suddenly Brisbane has its own Manchester or Berlin ambience – a welcome relief from the spruced bare sanitized and polished concrete of state funded arts establishments. Here, are real stories, and real artists telling them.

Zoe Tuffin’s Director’s notes say (this) ‘is no romanticised, commercialized Crocodile Dundee’, and that is correct. The recurring phrase of the evening was ‘hurt men hurt’ and it succinctly encapsulates the dilemma the audience face.

Shane Pike as both actor and writer excels. This is a fast paced engrossing and highly relevant tale, in which humour, revulsion, anger and empathy are dealt in equal measure. Shane Pike never loses momentum as he pauses, reflects, jokes and teases and ultimately leaves us questioning good, evil, innocence and justice.

The chosen location for this contemporary tale of manhood again perfectly provides all that the most highly funded production could not. This is real, genuine, gritty, personal and intimate. Audience members introduce themselves to each other as Silvan Rus warmly announces his next song accompanying himself on electric guitar; this is where friends meet and mingle, and where it is safe to reveal inner torments over a beer. Perched on stairs, on beer barrels, cramped in corner couches, the packed audience strain necks to hear their ‘mate’ tell his tale.

This is story-telling at its best.

Confusion reigns as different departments of the Brisbane City Council coordinate their response to community concerns over the disappearance of the tree outside Suncorp at 108 Boundary St West End.

The tree appears to have been removed by Council because of traffic concerns and that there is no intention of replanting another tree to replace it.

The Google Street View shows the Sun Corp building before the storms damaged the two trees on the corner earlier this year. The before and after shots taken by Tony Robertson show the change to the landscape over the weekend.

Readers reported responses ranging from secret contractors in the dead of night, to council officers claiming that police had called for the removal of the trees. Council’s media department is working to obtain an official response for Westender.

We can already report that the police deny making any complaint about the tree, that photographs of the tree being removed during the day indicate there was no secrecy involved and the tree assessment form provided by Council indicates that it was undertaken using standard council procedures.

West End Community Association (WECA) is spearheading a campaign to have the trees replaced and has prepared drawings to alleviate any concerns regarding traffic safety.

We have specifically asked Council to respond to questions regarding community consultation and streetscape design for Boundary St and will report them as soon as they are available.