Bobby. wrote on Jul 9^th, 2021 at 12:32pm:


Glad I resisted the temptation to transfer my superannuation pension from cash back into the stock market 'gamble'.

A few people (including my own cousin) recently told me I should put my super back into the stock market but I had a suspicion another 'crash' wasn't too far off with all the Covid outbreaks and lockdowns.

Moved it into cash in February last year (like many other people did) when I lost about $4000 in less than a week. I only get a small amount of interest now but its safer than potentially losing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars having it all 'gambled' on the stock market because my super needs to last me another 3 years until I can apply for the age pension when I'm 67.

Karnal wrote on Jul 9^th, 2021 at 12:53pm:



Very virtuous.

Gordon wrote on Jul 9^th, 2021 at 1:16pm:



subscriber only content -
please copy and paste it all.

Like we’re children’: Show of force in Sydney’s south-west will put community offside

There’s a theoretical boundary that splits Sydney. It’s drawn diagonally between Sydney Airport, Parramatta and Sydney’s north-western suburbs. Geoff Roberts, the chief commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission referred to it in 2016 when he told a group of property developers: “If you are north of that line you are largely a ‘have’. If you are south of that line, you are largely a ‘have-not’.”

Research has backed this up. Whether you call it the Red Rooster line, the latte line or the quinoa curtain, overall access to jobs and white-collar work is concentrated in the north and east of the city (above this line), with blue-collar jobs being focussed below the latte line in the south and west of the city.

But the differences in the two parts of the city run deeper than that. The south and west of the city, where some of my own relatives live, is also where family and community come first. This is a place where bloodlines run deep and where connectedness to culture and each other is of utmost importance. It is why many residents of these areas struggled to understand why they were being targeted by the city they call home.

“In Islam there is a whole bunch of stuff about not spreading disease,” Will Scates, resident of Bankstown says. “If you’re sick you don’t go to see people. There are hadiths about this.“

Of course, people wouldn’t intentionally act in a way that would harm them or the people that they love, he says. “But it’s made out that we don’t care or we are too stupid to understand that.”

Scates is one of the many Muslims who live in the area. In places like Lakemba and Wiley Park in the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA over 50 per cent of the population is Muslim. For many of them the mosque is where the community comes together and where information is distributed and gathered, but since the latest COVID outbreak, mosques and community centres are closed.

It’s these differences in population groups that the government needed to understand to properly communicate the latest health advice. Instead on Thursday the NSW government chose a more combative response by making a public show of ordering an extra 100 police officers to patrol the area. The operation is also using traffic and highway officers, dog units and police helicopters to ensure compliance and issue fines for breaches.

As Jihad Dib, the member for Lakemba in south-west Sydney, told the ABC: “There’s lots of different ways to get the message out; there’s community leaders, there’s sports leaders, your local MPs, your schools and businesses ... I don’t think people would have seen this coming.”

Assistant Commissioner Tony Cooke did mention police had deployed multicultural liaison officers “for weeks now across the community” and had educational material about the public health orders made available in 56 different languages. Though this seems to not have worked.

Scates mentions how he’s not seen these liaison officers or indeed material being distributed. He also has more pertinent concerns about how the use of police force is giving out a confusing message.

You look outside and you see a show of force. And one second we’re told that following the orders is good for ourselves and our families, then next thing they’re saying that without force we won’t do so. Like we’re children or animals. But I wouldn’t treat either kids or animals like this! If someone is giving illegal haircuts or dropping their kids at their aunt’s place it’s because they need to. The rent being due is more of a sure thing than catching COVID.”

His point brings up the fact that many in the area have precarious job arrangements. As the “latte line” shows, a number of the residents in the area are considered essential workers – working in hospitality, supermarkets, and the like. Can these residents even afford to stay at home like their eastern suburbs counterparts who are mostly employed in white-collar work can?

The mood in the LGAs affected is one of resignation, even though as Scates mentions, most people seemed to be complying with health orders. “Since the Delta variant came out people are hyper-conscious. Where I live I have probably seen two people without masks. But the feeling is even if you’re doing things for the public good the message still is that the public is against you.”

This feeling of being targeted comes through witnessing this same situation playing out many times before. In Melbourne almost exactly a year ago on July 4 the largely immigrant populace of Melbourne’s public housing towers were put in stringent lockdown where they were not allowed to exit their homes, in some cases not even to get fresh air, a situation that the Victorian Ombudsman found breached human rights.

The government of Victoria seems to have learned a number of lessons after it was criticised for not doing enough to engage with multicultural communities. Since then it has introduced multilingual workers who work with the community to dispel myths around vaccinations as well as collecting ethnicity data on coronavirus vaccinations.

cont....

What a load of crap, we've had the mounted police at the beach every day, cops everywhere.

What should be inforced is people going to indoor venues.

Carl D wrote on Jul 9^th, 2021 at 1:29pm:



I get 10 lines fading out.

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