Whose way, Kingsway or My way

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly on 27/4/2011 at 4:08 PM
Whose way, Kingsway or My way?

OK, outdoor diners, all civic conscious and sensible people sympathise with your plight. We understand that you are contented to smoke or breathe in second-hand smoke to be lung cancer suffers causing grief to your loved ones; be an inconsiderate nuisance to create hazards forcing parents pushing prams or shoppers with trolleys into the street and get knocked down by cars wanting to park at the bays; an environmental hypocrite wasting valuable energy during winter using very inefficient ceiling heaters; gulp down the dirty and silent carcinogens pumped out from vehicles which do not complement well with the presumably healthy food you are consuming.

Oops, I forget to mention about the filthy mess, including the cigarette butts that scattered on the footpaths. Yes, City of Monash is a multicultural city, I do not mean ethnicity related culture, what I mean is the practice of those who want to be seen as trendy and mindless.

China's economy about to overtake US

Posted to Monash Weekly (25/4/2011) on 26/4/2011 at 1:35 PM (Not published)
Resubmited Part 2 of 3 on 15/10/2011 9:23 PM
Commenting on “China's economy about to overtake US”
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/news/world/world/general/chinas-economy-about-to-overtake-us/2143313.aspx

Good on China. This is a great example for many countries to follow! Unfortunately, far too many countries adopt the NATO’s motto - Talk Only No Action!

With a population of 1.3 billion people to support and yet can win the economic race is definitely a modern day fairy tale. Australia has only 23 million people, but keeps whinging about the size of the population – this is just laughable!

While Australia still needs to resolve the NBN rollout, China has already built the highest rail track in the world linking Beijing to Tibet, the fastest bullet train, a modern international airport bigger than London’s Heathrow Airport, thousands of wind turbines, booming automotive industry building electric cars, rockets to send satellites and astronauts to outer space, and the most awesome one is that China is the factory of the world now!

End Part 1 of 3


Is there anything China cannot excel in? China is progressing at lightning speed – thanks to technology transfer, it is rather unstoppable. What is more concerning is that China will soon be the office of the world. With the unprecedented speed of technological advancement, a modern office is no longer an enclosed space with fixed locality - staff can be situated in other parts of the world, and documents filed and backed up in computer servers remote from the source.

Can you imagine the benefit of outsourcing office services to overseas companies? Just compare that with buying goods online from other countries – there is no GST if the value is under $1,000. Outsourcing office work saves on payroll tax, compulsory superannuation guaranteed contribution, office expenses, union interference, etc. What is going to happen to employment?

End Part 2 of 3


2009-2010 $19.1 billion international education industry has become the thing of the past. Australian government move to change the visa and permanent residency policies have led to a drastic decline in international students coming to study in Australia, causing a financial blackhole in our economy. This subject has not been raised openly and treated urgently by both political parties.

With economy of scale and determination, China can train more people in China per week than probably all the Australian learners / trainees trained in one year. It is just a matter of a decade or so, professional trainers in China will lose their accent, and international students from all over the world will be pursuing their qualifications in China. After being an educator / trainer in the industry for about 15 years, I can only say that future learners will probably get higher quality training in China than Australia, and at fraction of the cost.

After all that being said and written, are there no negatives about China especially the way she deals with human rights and social justice? I can only say it is a matter of opinion, and this is not relevant to the subject in discussion.

End Part 3 of 3

No to pets on V/Line Trains

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly on 22/4/2011
No to pets on V/Line trains
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/content/letterstotheeditor/

Whether it is just for Easter or Christmas period to have pets on V/Line, the answer should be a NO! In fact, it should be a blanket NO for pets to be on any public transport at all time.

This should not be confused with having guide dogs accompanying the visually impaired on public transport. The guide dogs are more than just pets, they are instruments used to assist the visually impaired to gain mobility which most people take for granted.

A pet can be as poisonous and small as a spider, and as well-behave and big as a bull. Where do we draw the line? If pets are allowed on trains, be it V/Line or Metro, that is going to set a precedence in allowing pets in food premises, movie theatres, aeroplanes, public swimming pools, workplace and list just goes on.

Hasn't Mulder got better things to do? Perhaps he needs a bit more "training" for his position!

Some people argue that pets are allowed on public transport in many European countries, and that Australia is backward by not following the European example.

We don't need to follow what the Europeans do, because we are Australians NOT Europeans. Economically we are better than many European countries, because we are a better nation. In short they should follow our example. It is sorry to see so many Australians having the me-too mentality.

I do not belong to any union, and I do not like to knock any unionist for the sake of doing so. Train workers have a job to do, and their role is to look after the human passengers. Furthermore, it is not ill-founded that there are risks in handling pets. New sets of laws have to be drawn up for dealing with unruly behaviour of pets on public transport.

Having pets on the train is like asking RSPCA to use pet shelters to accommodate homeless people. There are places for people, and there are places for animals.

Mandarin-speaking parents get word

Posted to Monash Weekly (11/4/2011) on 11/4/2011 at 1:00 PM
Commenting on “Mandarin-speaking parents get word”
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/article.aspx?id=2129975

What about the English speaking parents? Many of them need more than 10 hours of parenting lessons.

Language skill is neither the problem nor the solution. Parents don't spend enough time with the children, and their respective life styles are so different, and they don't want to know each other's activities.

The bondage is not there, whether at dinner time, or weekend BBQ. The parents make excuses that they don't know their children's school work,- who knows, unless they take some interest to learn about the subject.

Start "connecting" with the children NOW, before they leave you for good!

Some free advice on real estate matters

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly on 9/4/2011
Some free advice on real estate matters

If you haven't read my Real Estate forecast written to Letters to the Editor dated 14/12/2010, check it out now.

Let me I offer some more free advice on Real Estate matters as a community service.

1. We eat everyday yet we don’t need to own a foodstore or restaurant. To live in a house, we don’t need to own one - stay with parents or rent!
2. One basic need according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is shelter NOT ownership of shelter. Ownership of real properties is a privilege, not a right. We need to sacrifice or compromise in every undertaking, to save up for a large deposit ASAP before buying a property
3. An elastic band will finally snap after it has stretched beyond its limit. Many over-commit and over-stretch property owners will snap under mortgage and financial stresses. Damage can be irreparable
4. Climatic fluctuation flip-flops between drought and flood. Economic fluctuation flip-flops between low and high unemployment rates. Single income families stand more risks should the sole bread winner loses employment.
5. Buying off-the-plan is buying a drawing, buying an apartment is buying air space, but buying a freehold house is buying the precious commodity called land!
6. Selling huge areas of rural land to foreigners without sunset clauses is not the smartest to run Australia! Foreigners can occupy our sovereign land without opening any friendly fire!
I'm not telling you how to suck eggs. I'm just trying to help you build your nest eggs and then you can suck them your way.

Keeping mature aged workers in jobs

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly 8/4/2011

Keeping mature aged workers in jobs

The biggest problem why many qualified mature-age workers can't find jobs is that many recruitment companies and human resource departments are run by people who don't know about the nature of the positions advertised. They look for perfect match. Whoever can write an application with lots of BS that match the selection criteria will stand a chance for an interview, otherwise the application will be thrown into the non-Recycle bin.

There is no joy for a grey-hair applicant after getting a phone call to go for an interview. The next hurdle is to face a younger, feeling insecure manager who doesn't want anyone that can present a threat to his/her promotion or even replacing him/her in the future.

Many job advertisements are written by graduates who have just finished a TAFE / uni course, using terms or jargon that many people can't understand.
How many of these terminologies can a mature-age experienced person including managers who have been working for decades with small companies "decode"? e.g. 2IC, ICC, CCT, CO, MO, L&D, L&M, PD, KPI, KRA, 360 Degree feedback, 6 Thinking Hats, etc.

Who wants to appear like an idiot in front of an interviewer bombarding the applicant with these out-of-the world terminologies? How many courses do we expect the mature-age unemployed to attend to upgrade their qualification or to re-train? Who do you think the trainers are and what sort of qualification do they trainers have?

Do I sound cynical? Sure I do, I'm one of the unfortunate candidates.

To add salt to the wound, I'm more qualified and experienced than my students and yet if one of my students and I apply for the same position, guess who will get the job? Not me, for sure! Unfortunately, I'm over qualified – haha!

Will you take a Jack of many trades, and master of some like me? I love to hear from you!

Millions behind on basic skills

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly 4/4/2011
Millions behind on basic skills

The education system fails Australia! Too much emphasis is placed on training instead of teaching, and competency instead of quality.

In the name of being a developed, affluent English speaking country, we have a misconception that we are more superior than our neighbouring Asian countries - poor, underdeveloped or developing.

Whatever we do in Australia, we do it the most expensive way, because we are bound by many legislative requirements such as equal opportunity, anti-discrimination acts. Our system produces half-baked Rolls Royce instead of quality T-Ford learners.

From early childhood days, children are brainwashed to take things easy, not to be overloaded with knowledge - the key to future success. Instead of building solid foundation based on language, literacy and numeracy LLN skills, children are forced to learn things that even adults have problem in grasping such as social responsibility, global warming, bullying, etc. Children are encouraged to think and debate without the underpinning knowledge, and hence grow up to be unreasonable and arrogant - Jack of all trades, and master of none.

My motto is "being good is not good enough, my minimum standard is excellence!"

Stop releasing balloons, stop killing the defenceless

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly 3/4/2011
Stop releasing balloons, stop killing the defenceless

On Saturday, 2 April 2011, many balloons were released at St Kilda to mark the autism week. This also marks the death of many defenceless animals and marine lives. Why?

These people are no different from many who release hundreds of balloons in "celebrating life" (for the deceased) events at funerals.

It is important to understand that once the helium gas has escaped from the balloons, they will fall into the rivers, streams, paddocks, etc. and pollute the environment and suffocate birds, small animals and marine lives.

Stop releasing balloons, stop pollution NOW!