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Under staffing Why long waits at the Commonwealth Bank for service? Went in there the other day and had to stand in a queue just on 16 minutes for service. On complaining to teller and calling for manager, was told they were short staffed that day. Said in reply, bank should have reserve staff able to go wherever needed in say, city regions. Also complained loudly so others waiting for service could know that you need to protest. One person here told me that the ANZ bank will give you $10 if you wait more than 10 minutes. Must be unnerving to staff having to face line of irritated customers.
Jean Hale
Balmain, Sydney Prenatal diagnosis The "... and ain't I a women?" column of January 31 (GLW #217) ignored many crucial feminist critiques of prenatal diagnosis. By focusing on some admittedly inflammatory headlines and deciding that Roy Eccleston was seeking to restrict women's access to abortion, Trish Corcoran has silenced women's voices. As the mother of a one-year-old boy with Down Syndrome I am hardly a dispassionate observer but I appreciated the Australian magazine article for debunking the myths that the birth of a child with a disability is a tragedy, that the child "suffers" and creates an intolerable burden. There are real costs for women in the rush to embrace prenatal diagnosis. It greatly increases the already rampant medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth, and so actually threatens women's control over their own bodies and lives. My experience is that doctor's intolerance, fear and ignorance of disability is great, and I feel cynical about their capacity to provide non-directive support and appropriate information for women facing the confusion and turmoil of an abnormal result. Eccleston's article highlighted the situation of two women receiving widely different prognoses for the same diagnosis (Trisomy X). In this economic rationalist age I am also genuinely fearful that prenatal diagnosis could be used as justification for denying sport services or that women will be seen as negligent or face litigation if they fail to avail themselves of the technology. Disabled feminists have been vocal in their criticism of the feminist movement for excluding them and their concerns. Without compromising their commitment to women's reproductive freedom they have been critical of some pro-choice activists who they feel have exploited social horror of disability by using arguments which greatly overstate the "burden" of disability and employ unacceptable prejudicial language such as "abnormal", "deformed" or "retarded". While critiquing the individualistic society which unfairly places responsibility for caring in individual women, Trish still sees the solution as "individual choice". She does not question how real "choice" is when the new medical technologies are profit driven, where physical beauty is prized and where for many women one of the few ways they can succeed is in producing the required "perfect" baby. For myself I refuse to be defeatist about the present lack of tolerance and inclusion of people with disabilities nor limiting gender roles which dictate self-sacrifice (human sacrifice?) for mothers. I will fight to defend and improve services and struggle for more enlightened attitudes and policies. I will demand to know why we are concentrating resources on prenatal diagnosis and billion dollar projects such as the Human Genome project when the majority of disabilities develop after birth and when poverty and environmental hazards are the greatest threats to foetal, child and maternal health. If we are serious about expanding women's freedom and choices we need to confront our own prejudices about disabilities. We need to work to create a society where the continuation of a wanted and planned pregnancy represents a realistic choice.
Lisa Bridle
West End Qld Ode to politicians The Greenies are back to seek revenge
While Keating wants to see the monarch end
They tax us on booze and also smokes
It's not amusing but they think it's all a joke
There's taxes, they're taking all our money
Tell me do you think it's very funny?
Now they make us pay for our water
Have they ever had a drink of it they oughta!
Sell the trees and send them all to China
And bring in all the rubbish would that be finer?
Who's the nut that went and cancelled all my pension
Well I reckon they deserve immediate suspension
How on Earth do they expect me to live
They do all the taking but they won't give
I wouldn't mind getting a polly's pay
If I had a choice I'd take it anyway
And while they sit there publicly and snipe
I've had enough I'm fed up so good night.
D.A. Hazelwood
Oatlands Tas Tasmanian Greens If they Tas Greens get the extra two seats in the state elections that polls are predicting, it will be a real indication that more and more people are looking beyond Labor-Liberal no-choice politics for a real alternative that truly represents people's needs. The formation of the Greens has been a big step forward in building a political alternative to the major parties. But I think it's really disappointing that the Greens have developed such a parochial Tasmania-focused political outlook which gives no indication of how they see themselves fitting into a global strategy for change. A Tasmanian economy based on tourism, furniture-making, and export of "clean, green" products is a really nice idea, but extended to a broader strategy for change, it just doesn't offer a solution. Do the Greens advocate the rest of Australia make the same shift? Do we stop mining minerals altogether and become a tourism country? Or do these "less desirable" industries just get shifted into someone else's back yard? This seems to be the logical extension of a such a strategy, and it's no solution at all to the problems we face. Mining, paper and manufacturing industries aren't going to go away, because our society is dependent on many of the things they produce. They need to be changed dramatically, that's clear, but shifting them outside our borders isn't a solution. We need to work out how to make these industries work to provide for the community's needs, rather than for the needs of each particular business and their profit levels. And this means bringing them under public ownership and control so that the community itself decides what is produced and how, rather than an unaccountable board of directors. A strategy that focuses on clean, green production at a local level takes advantage of the poor environmental production standards in other countries and does little to address those differences. We profit from other countries being more polluted to sell Tasmania's clean products! This is not an argument against clean production, but simply to say that merely to think globally and act locally is no longer enough. We need a strategy that links us with movements for change in other countries, helping them to build their own struggles as we wage our own campaigns in Australia. A back yard strategy isn't enough any more. Environmental problems are global ones. Social problems are increasingly global as well. We need a political perspective that offers a truly internationalist perspective.
Sarah Stephen
Democratic Socialist federal candidate for Denison
Hobart Tas Honesty and elections The federal election campaign appears to be getting more boring the longer it goes on, but some intriguing features are developing. One is that both Labor and Liberal are refusing to speak honestly about the budget deficit and therefore the reality of their election promises. This essentially means that the entire process lacks integrity and, what's more, large numbers of voters are aware of it. Another is that all the major parties only address the environment as a vote-catcher. None are seriously interested in addressing the looming environmental crisis. No wonder youth suicide seems beyond their understanding. Lastly, it appears that people are turning against Labor for very healthy reasons; they are sick of dishonesty, arrogance, undemocratic behaviour, privatisation, destruction of unions and working conditions. The trouble is, of course, that the reasons they might vote against Keating are the very things that Howard will do to them.
Barry Healy
Sydney Youth unemployment At the launch of Young Australia the other week Paul Keating said that the number of unemployed youth had fallen from 158,000 when Labor took office in 1983, to 88,000 in December last year. Now, here's the puzzle: If this statement is true then why has the youth unemployment rate for the same period fallen only 0.3%, from 26.9% to 26.6%? Of course it's a sleight of hand. The massive expansion of the number of tertiary places available to school leavers (funded through HECS, postgraduate and international student fees and the "pack em in" policies of Dawkins' breed of academic entrepreneurs) has slurped up a large pool of unemployed 15 to 19 year olds and poured them out at the other end of university as unemployed twenty-somethings. Voila! Youth unemployment disappears! Incredible. All completed without the aid of mirrors.
Karen Fletcher
Democratic Socialist candidates for the seat of Sydney
Bondi NSW