What is so damn difficult??

“Pain specialist Dr Marc Russo said his clinic in Newcastle treats about 2,000 new patients with chronic pain every year.

“And I’m very worried, and as many of us in the faculty of pain medicine are very worried, that ultimately it will lead to the prescription of more opioids as a sort of back-stop measure and we know that this carries significant risk and often very little benefit,” he said.”

So opioids continue to get a bad name, and cause more deaths by overdose than car accidents per year in the US because people take so many to try to stop their pain.

And yet CBD oil, which would earn the Government tax dollars instead of costing them by subsidising prescriptions and paying for opioid patients using hospital beds.

It is such a simple, straight forward decision with SO many benefits, why are we not following 40 other countries and giving chronically ill people the ability to buy it??

As usual in our society in the last ten years, in many areas, it makes no damn sense.

Reference here.

Internal dizziness driving me crazy!

For about seven weeks now my brain has felt as though it is a spinning top.

Some days it is bearable, others are filled with headaches, migraines, nausea and very little sleep as it worsens when I lie down. To be honest it is incredibly difficult to live with and I wish someone would put me in a coma until it was over. It is that bad.

It began when I was taking yet another approved drug for my condition and lasted several weeks, so I stopped taking that drug. My doctor, a wonderful woman, during my last visit said it could take a while to wear off. That was a month ago.

Since then I started another drug to help my chronic illness symptoms of complete body pain, incredibly sensitive and painful skin (every square millimetre), horrendous headaches, zero energy, the dizziness (I have had it off and on for nearly three years now) and general complete lack of quality of life.

It is, by my count, the eighth or ninth drug I have tried, perhaps more. Each time you have to build the dose slowly over time, then if it doesn’t work or you suffer a side effect (I’m good at those, there are dozens to choose from) you have to slowly reduce the dose to get off it. So months are spent doing this just to feel worse.

Why? Because they are all so incredibly dangerous. Eaxh one is highly addictive, has extensive withdrawal symptoms and can cause other significant damage if used too quickly, or just too much. All very dangerous to those who get fed up with feeling ill and so just keep increasing the dose, until they die. Opioid based drug (which the vast majority are) overdoses kill more people in the US now than car crashes.

Cannabis oil doesn’t kill anyone.

Placed on the skin and without any THC there is no high, are no side effects and no awful reactions if you increase or decrease the dose.

But it is illegal here in Australia without paperwork a mile high and a ‘luck of the draw’ response to your application. Less than a few hundred have been successful in over a year. You then need to resubmit more paperwork after six months.

You also need a letter of recommendation from a specialist, most of whom somehow choose not to believe over thirty years of pure and incredibly extensive scientific research into the positive effects of CBD (cannabis) oil.

Why? Perhaps because it is not backed by a big pharmaceutical company so it doesn’t come with trips to Hawaii for ‘education purposes’ or first class tickets to highly desired travel spots (‘conferences’) if you prescribe a set amount.

The only people who can make money out of it are governments, in 40 countries, who have legalised it and tax it. Some States in the US have completely paid off their debt and still have money left over for housing homeless people because the allow and tax this huge industry.

In Australia we do nothing. There is no financially backed lobby group that can take you to a conference at an exotic location to educate people of its benefits, just several hundred thousand sufferers (probably many more) who know it works yet are criminals if they use it.

Yet who are the criminals here? Those who choose to use a naturally occurring herb to take away their immense pain and suffering, or those who prevent the hundreds of thousands of others from doing the same because there is no patent and therefore no money to be made, no ‘promotions’ to offer.

The big pharmaceutical companies would make nothing from CBD oil and it is banned. Coincidence?

When will our governments, State and Federal, realise the amount of tax dollars they can make, the hundreds and hundreds of jobs that can be created, and most importantly the people whose suffering they can ease just by legalising a herb? It has more scientific research behind it than most of all the other drugs I have taken, combined, that cause emergency trips to hospitals and help overload our stretched system. Cannabis oil doesn’t.

It is such a clear decision, yet has not been made, that money must be the answer. Whose pockets would be lighter if people started to take something with no side effects or addictive properties instead of extensively promoted prescription drugs?

Pharmaceutical companies.

Wonderful to know what their main motivation for being is. In fact just read the Executive Summary of the recent interim report into our financial industry here in Australia and the same applies. Greed.

In the meantime I’ll just keep spinning. If you thought your last hangover was bad, try one that has lasted six weeks and counting.

I know what can help me, CBD oil, but greed and institutions with their aged heads in the sand prevent me from accessing it.

Aren’t we meant to be a humane society, where the sick are allowed to be treated with what makes them better, no matter who benefits?

It’s all going to hell in a handcart

Politicians found guilty of lying to Parliament by a Senate Committee but keep their jobs, rich Catholic schools receiving billions of dollars, family child carers and carers for ill family members paid below the poverty line, pensions not increased for over 35 years but top tax rates raised allowing the highest earnings with the lowest tax rates ever.

This is the new Australia, and I for one am devastated that in ‘growing up’ we have become, at the top and fast filtering down, just a bunch of selfish hyperactive kids out for what we can get for ourselves. Five Prime Ministers in five years is testament to this.

Local Councils charging exorbitant rates that grow above inflation every year, some of the highest electricity prices in the world, car registration costs tripling (or more) within the last five years so now old and worthless vehicles cost more to register than they are worth.

People in institutions like unions, Councils, government found to be spending as much as possible as if it is their right to do so, not caring the money was paid by us, the electorate.

Fines increased by multiples, not even a backwards glance at the CPI.

Banks and Insurance companies charging us for services we do not receive, for products we do not need, even if we are dead.

We complain about a seemingly corrupt-ridden USA, yet in our own society we trample on the rights of individuals, charge way more than necessary for vital services (unless keeping a growing beurocrocay well fed is some sort of benefit to us all) and keep a vast number of our fellow citizens below poverty, with pathetic allowances that are meant to help those who fall between the cracks, not actively widen those cracks.

And we wonder why many of our best and brightest move overseas? If I had the option I would seriously consider it myself.

We have far too many rules and regulations, our nanny state is now a baby state. The fines for minor transgressions are so high that those just surviving are pushed one step closer to poverty, even with both couples working.

The reaction to all this from the majority of our ‘leaders’ and politicians? They ignore their duties and have no KPIs or accountability to those who voted for them and pay their wages and perks. Instead of working for us, as they all promise to do prior to each election, they spend their time fighting for pre-selections, factional votes, ministerial positions that cover areas they have no experience in, and ultimately chase how many ‘numbers’ they can control which somehow defines their own importance, and therefore how much power they can wield.

Already the sixth Prime Minister in five years is jockeying for position, even before next year’s election.

Carers and volunteers contribute far more to this nation than our politicians yet live in poverty.

Either a massive shift is coming from someone with the guts to make serious changes, or a quiet revolution of a significant number of independents being elected, or worse, will cause our country to have the massive look in the mirror it desperately needs before it implodes.

What’s in a name? Everything!

The world renowned scientists in Israel have 30+ years of verifiable studies showing that CBD oil significantly reduces (and in some cases erases) chronic pain with no side-affects, and it is not addictive.

Other studies around the world have had the same results. Even medical studies here in Australia.

Yet we (those of us who suffer daily, with no or very little quality of life) are not allowed to access it because ‘wowsers’ hear the letters CBD and react with, “That’s cannabis! You just want to get high! Just like those 60s hippies!”

CBD (cannabis oil) contains NO THC, the stuff that gives you the high, so NO we CANNOT get high, we just want our chronic, debilitating pain gone. Oh, and to live a life approaching normal would be a huge bonus, thanks.

So if it’s the name that is causing all this resistance, why not change it? Call it something in Latin, people seem to love that. Or just something unpronounceable and therefore important-sounding like all the other drugs on the market, that are addictive and have a list of side-affects that take fifteen minutes to read and over two hours to understand. Then there would be no overreaction.

If they changed the name to simply ‘vitamin oil’ there would be no problem. Vitamins are easily imported, advertised and sold with claims that they ‘may’ assist every sickness known to man. I am sure it would be government approved within days, if government approval was even required.

But it currently has the name ‘cannabis’ in it so I must be a strungout hippie, chasing a high.

It’s all in the name.

People cannot get past the image that pops into their head when you say ‘cannabis’, of smoke filled rooms and people rolling around in their own psychedelic world. Yes, it should be their problem and not mine, but I have been in constant pain for over two years now because people cannot let go of their deep-seated biases.

I must admit that, until I became chronically ill, I probably would have thought the same – hippies out to legalise their highs from smoking weed.

It is a very deep-seated stereotype.

So I cannot blame anyone or get angry, there isn’t any point. I will, however, continue to write about it here and to my local politicians because chronic full body pain, with not a second of rest in over two years, can really get you down.

Then there is the massive financial saving.

I read daily of people with my condition, or worse, calling ambulances and going to hospital so they can be placed on higher pain medication for a while. Each visit costs you, the Australian taxpayer, thousands of dollars and clogs up an already stretched health system.

Personally, over the next few years I could save you all tens of thousands of dollars if I was allowed to buy what I know helps my condition.

Yes I can try jumping through hoops and attempt to navigate a mountain of red tape (and I really mean a mountain because I have seen it), but that costs a fortune in time and money (a medical professional has to fill it out, paid by Medicare out of our tax dollars) and I don’t think I would survive the stress.

Red Tape. If only we could grow cannabis oil as quickly as Red Tape, everyone in pain would find instant relief.

The money we sufferers would save the government in unnecessary ambulance callouts, hospital stays and subsidised (addictive) painkillers would be in the millions. Money I am sure you would rather the government spent on other things, or even better returned to your pocket.

Which leads me to my final point. With dozens (closer to hundreds now) of studies over decades as proof that CBD oil is safe, not addictive, not capable of giving anyone a high and yet people are stopping us from accessing it, can we sue these people for the pain and suffering we go through every day?

It is criminal, in my pain-filled opinion, that I know what helps my chronic pain, I’m prepared to pay for it myself and save the government thousands in subsidised medicine, but I cannot buy it because the government here disallows anyone to import it, or sell it without a pathetic initial prescription that lasts just two months.

Alas it is all in a name. How about we call the oil Fred? Fred oil sounds pretty harmless to me.

My great prediction

In a few days time, if it passes into law or not, we will pay GST on any goods we order that come from overseas.

Apparently this will be a big boost to our local retail sector. Unfortunately my prediction is that it will not be anywhere near as big a boost as they are hoping for.

For decades we have all had to pay the Australia Tax. This is the massive differences in price to, say, a notebook for sale in the US and the price the exact same notebook sells for here. You can find even worse examples in everyday painkillers (we pay around $8 for 24 ibuprofen tablets and in the US you pay $10-15 for 500 tablets!

Other examples are DVDs, CDs, books, food…. basically anything.

And when the companies that sell these products at vastly different prices are asked why, the excuse they always offer is the distance to Australia and our smaller market.

So either the suppliers are making a fortune because no-one in Australia has the guts to ask the tough questions or our local retailers are terrible at negotiating.

Maybe a bit of both. Personally I am staggered by the number of people here who will pay nearly double for the latest smartphone or Apple product, as they sell for in the US. Go ahead, check it for yourself.

So, my prediction is that on the 1st of July the people of Australia will have finally had enough of governments introducing new taxes seemingly every week. (A sugar tax? What a laugh. Apparently we can’t be relied on to make our own decision on what we should drink, so of course we need a tax to help us out. To paraphrase The Beatles, they’ll be taxing air next).

We will have had enough, finally, and we will revolt. Personally those items I purchased from overseas – because of this thing that is meant to be free, called the internet – I simply will not buy again.

Why not? Because every time I go to do so online there will be a stark reminder in my shopping cart, GST of 10%. I will get angry and log out.

And I will not buy it locally because unfortunately local retailers, big and small, are lacking when it comes to understanding buying on the internet. Ask them what a Google rating is and they will ask what movie are you referring to. Seriously, key into Mr Google the item you want to buy and stipulate Australia. The first items listed will be Ads for overseas sites, followed by some articles or reviews (from overseas of course) followed by something completely unrelated. Unless you include a store name in your search you will not even get close.

So until the local retailers discover Google search, it will make me so angry trying to find the item I want that I’ll end up not wanting it anymore. Shopping online should be easy and fun, and only a dozen or so Aussie retailers get it.

So, our local retailers will see a much smaller increase in online sales than they hoped for. My prediction is that less than 50% of what was spent overseas up until June 30 this year, will be spent locally in the next financial year.

If I see a news article stating how local retail has boomed I will know it is false, and was probably influenced by government press releases. How do I know this? Because every year, about two weeks before Christmas, every news outlet predicts the biggest spending Christmas ever of $X billion dollars. Then in February or March, on page 27, will be a small article saying the figures are in and it was actually a very disappointing Christmas for retailers. It happens every single year, like clockwork.

I am especially a fan of TV newsreaders proclaiming that in the last weekend before Christmas shoppers went crazy and spent $X billion dollars. Hello? How could you know that? Did you ring every shop in the State and ask them for their sales figures? No? Would the shops even know what their figures were for those two days, and get them to you within just 24 hours so you can run your news item? Somehow I doubt it.

Wet your finger and proudly hold it up high. There, now you have as much chance as getting your prediction right as 80% of our so-called economic ‘experts’.

As Steve Jobs said on many occasions, do not listen to anyone who says they are an ‘expert’ or worse, a ‘guru’, because no-one is, it’s impossible.

So buy big and buy now, the clock is ticking. At least this is one tax you can choose not to pay. And just think of all the money you will save!

My illness fights back…

For the past six weeks I had been feeling the best, healthwise, since around June 2016.

Less pain, more energy, oh how I was loving it! Endep (amitriptyline hydrochloride) I love you!

Then silly things I dismissed as stemming from my exhaustion became more real, then downright worrying.

I was hallucinating, which was funny at first, just like the worsening brain fog.

‘Haha, silly me, what a laugh’ soon became ‘what the hell is happening to me?’

Obviously my symptoms were feeling neglected, poor things, because they sent hallucinations and extreme brain fog to get me and shake me out of my new (relatively) comfy world.

I would have a conversation with my wife, and the very next day I had no recollection of it whatsoever… I still don’t! And those hallucinations? I was reading a book when the lines started to appear as though someone had highlighted them in green and then yellow. The next thing I remember is thinking wow this huge piece of hot fresh bread in my hands looks delicious (any bread is a no-no for my diet) and I was going to take the biggest bite possible!

Then I was back in the real world, only to find myself about to take a large bite out of the book I was reading.

Yes all the small hallucinations and forgetfulness was a bit of a lark to start with, but now it wasn’t funny anymore!

Last Saturday I had my monthly appointment with my wonderful GP and told her of all my symptoms. She got out her information on Endep and read out the horror side effects that ‘could’ occur.

Then she said it was my choice, a reasonably good life for about ten years then Dementia, or I go off the drug and all my symptoms come back. I would be back to square one with my pain, dizziness, sensitive skin etc etc.

Chronic illness 1, me 0.

So last Saturday I reduced my dose from 150mg to 125mg. Not much, so how hard could it be?

Extreme nausea, thumping headache (that lasted hours and hours and hours) and hello sensitive skin! Gee, how nice of you to return to make my life hell. Now, as before, anything touching my skin (including air) was once again a source of sharp pain.

So what now? Unfortunately the other drugs I could try have the same possible side effects. Indeed the only medication that has worked with me over the past two years was CBD (cannabis) oil. I managed to score a small sample and it was wonderful.

No side effects, no addiction possible because the THC (the stuff that gives you a high) is removed.

But of course our moron politicians would rather spend our hard earned tax dollars and subsidise my expensive drugs, rather than allow me access to a native oil that I would gladly pay for myself. It would help tens of thousands, and has a multitude of peer reviewed studies showing how amazing and side effect and dependance free it is.

And it is available in the US, including one State (Colorado I believe) who paid off their entire debt within one year of allowing people to grow and sell this oil.

I shall say again for all those conservative and ignorant wowsers out there, NO the oil DOES NOT include the THC that gives you a high, hence the fact it cannot become addictive.

Yes, our wonderful Federal Government did say a while ago that we could have access to this in Australia. What they didn’t say was it is only available if you get two doctors to say in writing that you have tried all other available medication (which can take years) and they support your application for CBD oil.

If, by the glory of the public service, you are approved, they only allow you two months supply before you have to fill out a stack of other forms! So yes it is available but only if you spend all your time going to doctors, trying drugs that wreck your brain, and filling out a bazillion forms every few months.

I think I would rather be ill.

I did hear that some people were buying it from overseas and getting it shipped here. Great!…except the ever spreading moronity within our government then banned this. Isn’t it nice to know that our government is taking such an interest in our health? Here in South Australia they built the world’s most expensive hospital and ran out of beds within two weeks. So sure, we trust them!…..don’t we??

There is a naturally occurring plant that can be grown here, where the THC (and hence the ‘high’) part of the plant is removed, made into an oil and sold to over a hundred thousand sufferers as their only relief from devastating chronic pain and suffering. And a side benefit is that the government can tax it and make a fortune.

But no, far more efficient to keep it all at arms length, make hundreds of thousands of their subjects go through hellish illnesses and ignore the massive income stream they could receive.

Much better to sit back and wait for opinion polls, to see if they would gain more votes than they would lose, before helping the sick.

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to buy your vote.”

If you want to read more; https://eternalplants.com.au/news/medical-cannabis-red-tape-forces-thousands-turn-black-market-pain-relief/

Rebel Wilson’s defamation payout from magazine publisher Bauer Media reduced on appeal…???

If our learned judges can disagree so significantly, no wonder our whole world is upside down! Seriously, how can one judge award $4.5m and another, on the same facts, $600,000??

How the hell are we meant to know what is real and what is not when the System itself is full of lies, manipulation, inaccuracy, deceit and completely false reporting which is somehow our fault for shortening the news cycle? I for one certainly do not remember contacting the news media and asking them to broadcast any old crap because I want to read it quickly them get on with my life.

Did I miss a memo??

They also tell us there is no inflation, yet we get far less for the same money than we ever used to. Fewer crisps in packets pumped full of air, packs of four becoming packs of three for the same price, and our taxes such as car registration, ESL, Land Tax, speeding fines (which you cannot convince me is not a tax and a barely legal one at that) all tripling in price, or more.

Our cost of living has risen significantly and yet inflation is somehow measured as being between 1.5 and 2% here in Australia??

But we are wrong, of course, they couldn’t possibly be calculating the inflation rate incorrectly…heaven forbid!

We are being kept in the dark and lied to consistently, and far more often than we were ten years ago. It is all since the GFC and the consequences of which that still affect our economy today.

If we taxed everyone 100% of their salary it would still take many years to pay off our country’s debt. The poor USA has around $2 trillion in debt! I feel a default coming on, and not just in the US of good old A.

All our so-called Leaders and ‘Experts’ can do is disagree violently with each other, making fools of themselves when they don’t think we see right through them. How many of these expert’s predictions have actually come true? So please don’t call them experts in the media before you have asked how accurate they have been!

Any moron can be an Expert, just ask me.

We have been completely rooted by the powers that be, by major banks and other companies who can only see dollar signs and act on greed. And yes we know it is happening, you have not fooled us, as evidenced by the last few elections which have been massive messages of ‘we don’t trust you’ with a very large middle finger extended for emphasis.

And which dickhead made the rule that if you work just one day a fortnight then you are not counted as unemployed?? Give me a break and at least be somewhat realistic and make it 5 or 6 hours a week. One?? Really?? So our unemployment rate, the real rate we feel in real life and not those that live in fantasy land in their lofty offices who make these moronic decisions. Our unemployment is probably 2-3 times higher than reported, and we all know it and yet no one says it because it would be too awful to hear.

Sometimes the truth is the bitterest of all pills to swallow.

Sorry, when I saw this article I just had to vent. It blows me away that a judge can award $4.5 million then another judge hearing the same evidence awards just $600K….???

Unbelievable. That is how I describe our lives today.

No privacy because it’s for our own good, fighting wars because of WMD’s that were never there, the greed and corruption that brought on the GFC and still no one has gone to jail for it.

Dairy farmers going broke but supermarkets saying that it’s not their fault they started a price war of $1 per litre.

Large businesses making record profits and bonuses when our wages have hardly moved in ten years?

Just how stupid do these idiots think we are?

Don’t answer that, please, it will only make me angrier!

GST payable on all items purchased overseas – WTF!!

From the 1st of July, courtesy of the Federal Government who has once again bowed to big busines, lobbyists and those who provide large donations (to both political parties) another tax will be forced upon us.

This new tax will apply to all online purchases under $1,000, where the items come from overseas.

This is the result of extensive lobbying from big business (Harvey Norman, Myer, David Jones et al) who claim their declining sales have been caused by these types of purchases.

Basically they are saying it is not fair for an overseas retail business to provide the same goods they sell but at a better price and with better service.

If you believe that, then you are a big business wearing blinkers to stop you from seeing reality. The reality is that in Australia we receive poor customer service and are ripped off by their suppliers pricing models.

Allow me to explain. But first a quote from an Australia Post study published in 2017*;

Online retailers are a blessing for many Australians – especially those living remotely, or in areas with limited access to conventional bricks-and-mortar stores. Increasingly, customers are heading online to find their everyday essentials at better prices, with buyers in remote
regional locations and tourist towns shopping online the most.“

So if shopping online to get the best deal is so important to us, why are they going to tax it?

The answer is in the question, as Governments are always looking to increase taxes. Or, in this case, impose a brand new one. It pays for their perks and helps to fill holes in their budget created by overspending on shiny new infrastructure in marginal electorates.

This new tax goes against the findings of the report quoted above and is weak, pathetic and completely unjustified. Do local businesses really believe that an increase of 10-15% on the price we pay for an item overseas is going to somehow force us to buy local instead? Maybe, if they offered free shipping instead of charging $10-25.

I can buy one book a day for a week (or a month!) from the UK and have free shipping on each one. I can also buy almost anything from China with free shipping. And yet Australia Post would charge me around $20 for me to send one book interstate (including packaging).

I would hate to get a quote from Australia Post as to what they would charge me to send just one book back to the UK!

Local businesses need to be better negotiators with Australia Post, or use someone else (Startrack).

And then there is the ‘Australia tax’.

The ‘Australia tax’ is another way of saying suppliers (Apple, Samsung, HP, Sony, LG and many, many more) rip us off because we are “just a small market” so their costs are higher. Since all their products come from the same factory I find this argument hard to swallow. Again, local businesses need to lessons on negotiation.

So overseas companies sell their products to Australian retailers at up to 30% more than their very same goods sell for overseas. Books, DVDs, medicines and computers to name but a few.

On a visit to the US in December of 2015 my family saw bottles of 500 ibuprofen tablets (yes, 500!), possibly the biggest selling painkiller in Australia, on sale for $10 each. Here $10 buys you about 48 tablets, or ten times the price of the same product you can buy in the US! The same whopping price differential can be found on many everyday medications and vitamins.

A pair of Rockport shoes is half the price if ordered from overseas compared to my local shoe store. The exact same product from the same supplier from the same factory.

I think you get the point.

In addition there are some products you cannot buy here at all, so you have to purchase them from overseas. This includes many excellent vitamin supplements and other health care items. Why should we be punished because we have to buy these from overseas?

There are many, many more examples, especially if you do a quick search for technology, clothing and health products. Many of these overseas sites have free shipping (as per the above examples) and arrive within days. This is mainly because they do not use Australian Post, who take longer to deliver everything and charge you three times the amount for the privelidge.

So because Australia Post cannot get its act together (except when paying their CEOs very large bonuses despite losing money, in which case they are extremely efficient) and large businesses cannot negotiate properly they blame overseas purchases for their declining sales.

Actually we buy online simply because we want the best price and the best service, and unfortunately businesses in Australia cannot compete in most cases.

So we will be paying the government a brand new tax of around 15% of the value of the items we now buy online.

Fifteen percent? Yes, because GST will not only apply to the price of the item you purchase online from overseas, but also on any overseas taxes (such as the VAT in the UK, their version of our GST) and shipping. So you will soon be paying up to 15% more for those items you buy online today from Amazon, Book Depository, iHerb, Alibaba and many, many more.

The same Australia Post report quoted above says most of our purchases online are with largely domestic businesses, not overseas ones;

“Despite international access, domestic purchases still make up the majority of online spending in Australia. At the end of 2016, domestic spend represented 79% of the online market, showing a growth rate of 11% compared to 7.3% for international spend.”

So why did businesses here complain so much about it being unfair? Because that is easier than competing or trying to negotiate better pricing from their overseas suppliers.

The report also states that overseas spending accounted for 21% of purchases. The vast majority, 79%, being purchases from Australian online sites, so they can get it right if they want to. The only unknown factor is how many of those overseas online purchases were under $1,000, the target of this new tax. My guess is around 70%, but we will use 50% to be conservative.

Given that Australian households in 2016 spent $21.65 billion (according to Australia Post whom I don not believe as I shall explain shortly) in online purchases, collectively we will be paying an additional $341 million in tax each year.

It gets worse if you believe Roy Morgan Research over Australia Post (I would) as their study states that we spent $37.8 billion online during the 2014-2015 financial year”**. If we use their figures, we will be paying a total of nearly $834 million a year (using the same numbers as above) on this new tax.

No wonder the Government chose to listen to big business over common sense. However doesn’t the Federal Government keep saying they should let market forces decide pricing because competition is a good thing? At least that is what they say about the electricity market.

So not only are we currently paying far more locally for many hundreds, maybe thousands of items because of the Australia tax, we will soon be paying 15% more for those same items.

My suggestion is that local businesses lift their game and then we would gladly buy from them, as many studies show we want to buy Australian. To do this they need to significantly improve their customer service, have far better web pages, make it easier for people to buy online (have you seen the David Jones and Myer websites? Complete rubbish) and improve their Google search score.

Much easier to blame someone else, and it’s free too.

However, within this rant of mine I do concede that some big businesses here are viewed as quite minor in sales by their global suppliers. Therefore they cannot negotiate lower pricing (Samsung, Sony, Apple to name a few). I suggest they make this fact publicly known so we can decide what to buy with all information on the table. A nationwide boycott of certain brands might even get them to lower their prices.

Oh, and also go to war with Australia Post over their rediculous delivery charges.

When an overseas online book retailer in the UK can send me a $12 book with NO delivery fee, and I can buy a product from China that is worth $5 and get it delivered FREE, we are being ripped off by local freight charges.

In summary GET RID OF THIS STUPID TAX! Businesses have to learn to be more competitive, improve their customer service, maximise profits, make sure they can be found by Google and have great websites that look good on a phone. Pull your socks up folks, do some targeted marketing and stop blaming everyone else.

The retail market has always been tough, so learn what works for your business, keep experimenting.

You must keep up with technology and react quickly by constantly making changes to your product or service.

Or we could all just pay hundreds of millions of dollars in a lovely new tax.

* Inside Australian online shopping, Australia Post and Startrack, 2017

** According to Wikipedia there were 9 million households in Australia in 2016

*** The state of Australia’s $37.8b online shopping landscape, Roy Morgan Research, 2nd December 2015

The Decaying Morality of Big Business in Australia

Once upon a time…yes I am using a fairytale opening, because big business and morals in this country has now become a fairytale concept.

With the Royal Commission into Banks, who would be naive enough to think that all the other big publicly listed businesses actually do the right thing?

Why would they?

Their advertising says that you, the customer, are the most important thing to them when in fact it is hitting targets to gain bonuses. They couldn’t care less how they achieve their bonuses just as long as they receive them.

When was the last time you heard of a major Australian public company contributing to a crowdfunding campaign for someone in desperate need? I cannot remember one.

Small businesses have, however, and enjoy a far better image as a result.

The four major banks should have an ‘Humanitarian Budget’ which is allocated to the worthiest causes as judged by senior, or even middle management (remember them?). They can, and should, by any moral or ethical argument put some of the Billions of dollars in profit they make each year towards dozens, perhaps hundreds, of worthy causes. Their bottom line would barely be affected.

The one stupid, contrary argument (and unfortunately it is law) is that as publicly listed companies they must put shareholders interests first. In other words they must maximise shareholders’ dividend payments.

As mentioned they could easily give away $10M each and split it up into hundreds of worthy causes. However their shareholders would rightly ask “Hey, by law you have to put us first and by giving that money away I got $10 less in dividend income!”

With the law on their side unfortunately it is a circular argument, a Catch 22.

As long as that law remains as it stands, profits will always be put before helping people where public companies are concerned. Perhaps a ‘tweaking’ of the law is required?

Many large private companies (but still too few) are well known for their generosity. I argue it is because they decide what to spend their profits on, not a horde of needy shareholders.

At this stage I must put my own hand up, and reveal that I have owned shares and as a shareholder I lived for those dividends. Yes, I am two faced but at least I admit it and am ready to discuss badly needed change.

The big four banks might point to a number of charitable donations, but they seem to only contribute if they can place a huge logo on it, in order to achieve a return on investment for their marketing dollars. Yes, they call helping people in need “Marketing”.

Westpac used to have a lovely rescue helicopter flying around but only because it was saturated with their logo. Then they did some analysis and ROI (return on investment) calculations and ceased funding this rescue helicopter. Not because they couldn’t afford it, but because they need to put shareholders first followed closely by their bonuses (or is it the other way around?).

Putting bonuses ahead of helping people is disgusting and definitely unAustralian. Which is ironic because had they helped more families they would have received more favourable media coverage and may not be facing a damaging Royal Commission right now. It would definitely would change our perception of them.

But there is one final problem, and this is the biggest and by far the most difficult to understand. Almost everyone hates the big four banks, and will complain about them ad nauseum but they will not close their accounts and take their business elsewhere! The big four easily have 85% of the total market, so there is no incentive on them, at all, to change their ways. In fact it encourages them to behave badly because their customers do not leave them.

So, in the end, it is your own apathy and unwillingness to follow through on your complaints that makes them so comfortable. It also creates the perfect environment for corruption, because they know that no matter what they do their customers, by and large, will stay with them. So up go fees, down goes quality of service and contributing to the community.

Well done Australians, you reep what you sow.

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Medical Expenses Tax Offset to be Axed!

More evidence that governments attack those who can’t fight back, namely the ill and the poor.

The net medical expenses tax offset will no longer be available from 1 July 2019.

From 1 July 2019 if you have to buy a wheelchair to get around, the tax offset you were allowed (a pathetic 10% of the cost, but at least something) is being deleted. How lovely and caring of those on over $200k p.a. and couldn’t give a stuff.

“From the 2014-15 income year until the end of the 2018-2019 income year, taxpayers can only claim the net medical expenses tax offset for medical expenses that both meet: the current definition and eligibility requirements, and relate to disability aids, attendant care or aged care”.

How lovely of our caring government to kick all sick people in the balls!