[News] Things.

[moonvoice]

Western Australians are more likely to be discriminated against for disability than anything else, with discrimination against disability rising in incidence and beating out sexual harrassment claims; making us officially the most discriminatory state in the nation for disability... - yup, it's great to be on the DSP in Western Australia, it sure is. But then, this is a country where the people who actually *process* your Disability are themselves discriminatory against those with Disability.

Dig in Australia unearths giant, sabre-toothed marsupial carnivore, likened to a badger. - Awesome.

Julia Gillard still backing Stephen Conroy's internet censorship filter - guess I won't be voting for Labor after all. That and no Mental Health plan, has really disappointed me in the Labor department this term.

Comments

[darakat-ewr.livejournal.com]

Is it me of is Julia starting to shoot herself in the foot?

Disbility services descriminate wish it wasn't so, it is, we found already it very hard for us to simply apply for payments since Nicky is going to be out of work for at least another 2 years.

No suprises here, she isn't going to back down on this till after election.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Seriously, Gillard is really out of touch if she doesn't realise that she's going to lose votes from a lot of educated, intelligent people over this Internet Filter, at the very least.

I have been loyal to Labor all my life, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be part of the precedent of 'treating Australians like little babies.' :( Once that precedent is set, it will never end, and I will even consider leaving the nation and declaring my citizenship somewhere else (I wonder if New Zealand will have me?) That's how strongly I feel about it.

Disbility services descriminate wish it wasn't so, it is, we found already it very hard for us to simply apply for payments since Nicky is going to be out of work for at least another 2 years.

Going for assistance through Centrelink is fucking demoralising, and there's no way around that. I suppose, for me, it helped to realise they treated ALL people who were doing it tough like shit.

The sad thing is, once you're actually *on* Disability, they tend to be really good. Just the 'trial by fire' to begin with that sucks and is incredibly offputting to people who have genuine long-lasting illness. I mean I'm sure they think they'er weeding out the people who don't need Disability and think it's too much effort, but don't they realise that most people feel stigmatised enough about their Disability and are often put off without too much effort? *shakes head in disbelief and disgust*

[darakat-ewr.livejournal.com]

I only voted for labor once, back in the first election I ever voted in, since then I have been a member and voter for the Greens. My views more closely aling eilign with them anyway.

I really dislike the whole idea of a filter at any level, the fact I know that my internet is ALREADY filterd makes me want to become a end-user (if I could have my own server and connection to the net).

I knew it would be long and involved when we got told they didn't accept internet or applications over the phone etc, both very good options for people who are geuninly disabled. The vetting process will be designed to keep as many people as possible off DSP simply due to the public service guidlines let alone centerlinks own anal processes.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've been voting Greens for a while too, but a Greens vote is still essentially a Labor vote (for now anyway), so I still think of them as Labor votes. To really not give Labor a vote, I would probably have to vote Liberal or one of the Liberal-affiliated parties. :/

[darakat-ewr.livejournal.com]

It depends on how you vote and the number of candidates, your prefrences flow the way you direct them on your card unless you don't list any more votes. I.e. if you just put a 1 Green then prefrences utimatly flow to Labor (unless you get enouth Green votes for a MP/senate quota of course). You can list as many prefrences as you like, in senate election forms I number every box, so my prefrences will eng up at labour if the Greens don't get a quota from my vote.

[shadows-wolf06.livejournal.com]

We have a stupid way of dealing with disability over here in the States, it seems. The ones that actually need to be on disability are the ones that have to go through hell to get it and the freeloaders who just want to stay home without working generally are able to get it first try. Go figure.

I have an aunt and uncle down in Florida who have been fighting tooth and nail to get on disability since they've been down there. Well, my aunt has, anyway. She has a bad back from an accident that happened years ago and can't go for long periods of time doing any type of even semi-strenuous work. Add to that the fact that she has a bum heart and has now had her second angioplasty to unclog a blockage in it and she's not really doing all that great. Add to that the fact that she has asthma and she's pretty much screwed for any type of job that requires even a minimal amount of exertion. I worry about her. A lot.

My uncle, on the other hand, has been working since they moved to Florida a few years ago and this past summer he kept having blisters and sores opening up on his hands and neck. He had gotten so depressed and worn out from the fevers that were accompanying this that he didn't want to eat, couldn't sleep and at one point refused to even *talk* to anyone because he felt so shitty.

Turns out that he had Porphyria, aka The Vampire's Disease which induces photo-sensitivity, sores and scars that break open and will not heal properly, and apparently the fevers were from the infections caused by the breakdown of the skin from the sun... Because of this, he's now trying to get covered under disability but they're screwing with him as well, despite the fact that- also like my aunt- he has plenty of medical documentation and paperwork to back up his need.

As for internet censorship, I think it's stupid, honestly, but then I'm aware that most people do. When it comes to Gillard's policies, I don't really know enough about them to comment all that intelligently on her, so I won't.

Awesomeness on the marsupial dig, though I wish it had a picture of the dig. That's a bit disappointing, really D=

[tanwyn.livejournal.com]

We have a stupid way of dealing with disability over here in the States, it seems. The ones that actually need to be on disability are the ones that have to go through hell to get it and the freeloaders who just want to stay home without working generally are able to get it first try. Go figure.

That's a bit of an unfair characterization. The process is far from perfect, but it's not really like how you are characterizing it either. Pretty much everyone gets denied on the first go. Also, a lot of those "freeloaders who just want to stay at home" actually have severe, chronic mental illnesses that are just as debilitating as a physical illness. I should know, I work with chronically mentally ill adults and I have a serious persistent mental illness myself. Just cause you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there, and the Federal government really isn't fond of just giving out money.

[shadows-wolf06.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe it's a bit unfair, but as a homemaker/companion, I've worked with people that have milked the system and joked around about doing exactly that.

I've also been witness to some really trashy people of whom I've had the ill-pleasure of coming across who are ignorant, bigoted, lazy and simply there to play the system. Trust, when I was living in this one town most of the neighbors around me were as such. And I actually did take the time to get to know them.

I'm also basing my comments on the experience of watching said neighbors and clients screw the system over while laughing about it. One woman I worked with didn't bother telling the state that she and her hubby had gotten back together so she'd keep getting food stamps, despite the fact that she didn't need them. What she bought with them? For New Year's she bought steaks, lobster and shrimp cocktail along with some other really unneeded stuff.

Now a person like myself who was making $100-$150 a week at that time couldn't get on either state insurance or foodstamps because I was "making too much money to qualify" at the time.

I don't look upon people with serious chronic mental illnesses that are debilitating to the point of keeping a person out of work as freeloaders. Creator knows my family has it's share of mental illnesses, so I know how seriously they can interfere with a person's life.

But I also know from experience that there are a lot of people who milk the system for all it's worth while others are left high and dry without a pot to piss in when they are the ones who need it.

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

What is with people wanting to filter the internet? I honestly don't understand. Because people are people they'll still find ways to disseminate the bad things (or just the things that the government might not want spread), and the rest of it is harmless. Trying to control it is an incredibly pointless waste of time and effort and resources.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

What is with people wanting to filter the internet?

Because it's big and scary and unregulated I guess, which is deeply threatening to any insecure government that doesn't trust its citizens.

*grumbles*

[tanwyn.livejournal.com]

The fossils discovery is awesome! Not so awesome as far as the discrimination and the internet censorship though. I imagine the discrimination has to be even worse when it's a mental illness involved, as stigmatized as a lot of them are.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

The fossil discovery is awesome. I think there's a lot more extinct marsupial carnivores out there to be found as well.

As for the stigma with mental illness; I can definitely say that people were much less discriminatory against me when I had a cane asking for Disability/Pension discounts, vs. now when I don't have a cane.

That said, I was still treated pretty poorly back when I had a cane to help me walk and couldn't get around everywhere, or even most places. My hatred of public transport started around then, because 9/10 people won't stand or make room (i.e. pick up their single shopping bag and put it on their lap) for a physically disabled young woman, that's for damned sure. So I'd be standing, with my cane, for up to thirty minutes at a time on a rattling bus in excruciating pain.

I guess at least the shopping bag got a comfy ride.

I don't *need* people to stand up for me or anything anymore on public transport. In fact, what I require from people on public transport is so specific, I can't go on it at all (i.e. I need people to not stand near me, or touch me, which is just not possible - especially during peak hours). So I'm more debilitated from mental illness, but the disdain and discrimination is more latent. And there is a frequent attitude of 'you just don't have a disability' if people can't see it.

Fuckers.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Having been* someone with an invisible medical issue wrestling with Centrelink it really does seem to be designed to make people give up in disgust/depression.

(*) I still have invisible medical issues, but I am now working, if not enough lately, and thus you can put me in the 'too hard to bother' group. *spits*

As for Julia's efforts since moving up, I am bitterly disappointed. The whole boat people dog-whistling crap, and now the filter? Way to live down to my pessimistic expectations.

It's well past time we got Bob Brown onto the public debates and broke through the two-party deadlock.

*seethes*

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I spent 8 years having given up on Centrelink despite GPs and psychologists telling me to go on Disability. They were like 'we'll support you!' but the Centrelink people put me off and just...shattered me really, and prevented me from wanting to give it a try until I really just had no choice anymore.

By the time I went on Disability, I hadn't been working for some time, and I was literally living off Glen's goodwill and my health was suffering for it. I was skipping necessary doctor's appointments, skipping meals regularly and had my parents not been willing to provide me a home at the time (which in many ways, they weren't, and never failed to let me know), I would have ended up homeless.

And as it turns out, when it gets to that point, Centrelink doesn't seem so bad.

[paka.livejournal.com]

So basically Aussies have the same thing as Brits, where people get completely stupid about privacy as soon as the possibility of child porn gets raised?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Oh man, Australian media censorship is worse than Britain; the internet is already being filtered here; the difference is how much heavier and China-like it's about to get.

Australia basically took the UK's upperclass conservativism and then went with it. To huge, epic degrees. Since settlement, we've been one of the worst nations in the Western world for media censorship (books, cinema, tv, video games).

We are still a nation where adults cannot purchase R+18 video games, because the nation doesn't trust us with them. Though this will hopefully change soon.

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

Every six to eight yrs, I have to prove to Centrelink that my 20yo son's Down syndrome has not gone away. 15 pages for me, 20+ for my GP to fill out.

[white9-fox.livejournal.com]

Is the Labor party in Australia the same as the one bewylderbeast talked about?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

No, Labor in the UK is different to Labor in Australia. And then you have factional Labor within the Labor party, like right Labor and left Labor.

Australian politics are also stupidly complicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_politics

[sidheblessed.livejournal.com]

I'm really upset with Julia over this. In didn't expect her to be World's Best PM EVAR just because she's a woman or anything dumb like that, but I did expect her to, you know, make changes? If anything, she's going backwards.

Rudd was a weanie but he was OUR weanie.

And honestly, if this clean feed gets in, I would seriously consider moving to NZ. I don't want to live in a country that won't let its people think for themselves. I won't live in a country that babies its people.