WA retail trading hours
This is a contentious issue in Western Australia. Most shops and supermarkets here can’t trade after 6pm on weekdays or on Sunday at all.
I can’t think of anywhere in the developed world that has such restricted trading hours. Maybe Sundays are banned somewhere for religious reasons, but evenings, when most people actually have time to shop?
There have been referendums on the issue previously, at state and local level, and any move to extend trading hours has been defeated.
I can’t recall there being a referendum on the issue in any other state. The governments there just got on with the job and let the people have their say at the next election.
There was some scaremongering in Victoria, mostly about the predicted demise of small business. This never occurred.
The Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is leading a new push to extend retail trading hours.
“Extended trading hours will create thousands of new jobs and give workers greater flexibility in the hours they work,” the chamber says.
I don’t think there should be a referendum on this issue. The government would be better advised to have a one-year trial and allow the impact to be independently assessed.
That reminds me of the other prickly WA issue of daylight saving, with which the government decided on a three-year trial. One year was enough, just as it would be with shop trading hours.
WordPress upgrade
I have upgraded this site to WordPress 2.3. There were a couple of plugins which didn’t work and I had to make some theme changes to accommodate the native tag system. I’m currently running that in parallel with Ultimate Tag Warrior until there is better integration between the two.
I haven’t noticed any major benefits so far, but it sounds like a lot of work has gone into improving the code.
If anyone finds something which doesn’t work on this site please let me know.
Woody Island
We’ve just returned from six days at Esperance. Young Michael and I took the wildlife cruise on the Seabreeze II (pictured) to Woody Island and stayed overnight on the island in a safari hut.
This was a large, canvas tent with a timber floor, furnished with comfortable beds. There are shared amenities, including a camp kitchen and a kiosk which cooks meals to order. We had a fine breakfast there.
The island is fairly small but has some interesting walks and beautiful scenery. The vegetation is more lush than most other islands in the Recherche Archipelago. There is diverse flora and fauna including kangaroos (which were introduced) and lots of lizards, but no snakes.
Apparently one of the nearby islands does have snakes (adders), showing the fickleness of nature when these outcrops separated from the mainland.
We arrived just before a cold front which brought heavy showers for most of the time we stayed on the island. We managed to get all our walks in though between downpours. It was actually rather pleasant at night to feel warm and toasty in bed while the rain tumbled down on the tent roof.
If you’re not into fishing or biology there’s not much to do on the island apart from walking and relaxing. Michael probably would have got bored if we’d stayed much longer, but he enjoyed the short visit. I could spend a week there, no problem.
Geelong v Port Adelaide
I don’t barrack for either of these teams, but have a lot of respect for both and can’t choose who I will support in the grand final.
Geelong was my “second team” when I was younger and living in Victoria. I saw them play Hawthorn at Kardinia Park once and respected the passion of the Cats fans. They had Gary Ablett too, of course, and he was just magical to watch.
On the opposite end of the scale, I lived in South Australia for three seasons from 1992-94 and came to despise the Adelaide Crows. That was before Port Adelaide entered the competition (at Fitzroy’s expense). The arrogance of Crows people and the whole operation really annoyed me.
They had no history but thought themselves better than everyone else.
While in South Australia, I developed an admiration for the Port Adelaide Football Club. They had a fantastic tradition, an arrogance borne of success (not hype) and were the only people in the state who weren’t besotted with the Crows, patiently waiting their own time.
It didn’t take them long when they did enter the league to peg the Crows back to reality.
Saturday’s grand final should be a great game. Geelong has been the best team all year and should win. I won’t by disappointed though if Port Adelaide gets over the line.
Bernie Quinlan
Bernie Quinlan came from my home town of Traralgon. He was zoned to Footscray and played there before he went to my VFL team Fitzroy.
I don’t remember much about those early days, but I do recall Quinlan kicking bags of goals for Fitzroy in the 1980s. He was known as “Superboot” because of the tremendous distance he could achieve.
He later coached the Lions and suffered their league-sponsored demise. The chiefs wanted someone to make way for Port Adelaide and Fitzroy was the weakest team at the time, no fault of Quinlan. He kicked some magical goals, as the video shows.
Monica Attard finds it tough
According to The Age, Media Watch presenter Monica Attard is standing down after two years, which she considers long enough in an “extremely taxing” position. The Australian says the show’s producer Tim Palmer is also moving on.
Most responsible positions are personally demanding, so I find Attard’s explanation a little strange. I wonder how long she would last in my job?
Media Watch has a role to play, no doubt about that, but I tend to think the show has lost its edge. I read a good article by Caroline Overington in The Australian recently which showed how Media Watch missed a number of big issues while being pedantic about minor blemishes and accidental mistakes.
Media Watch, as far as I can tell, relies largely on journalists dobbing in other journalists. That’s pretty selective, and the people who dob are probably disgruntled former employees or competitors.
That was certainly the case in the Kalgoorlie Miner’s last appearance. We discovered that an ABC Radio journalist, who was also an ex-employee, provided the information about a mistake on our part.
A local radio station reported falsely last weekend that an assault victim died. I won’t dob them in. Media Watch won’t scrutinise them either, because apart from top-rating state and national broadcasts, radio is not recorded.
Forming a view
I don’t want to see another form for the rest of this year. The paperwork trail to lease a vehicle and buy a house is just incredible.
On top of that I’ve had consent forms and medical forms to fill in for young Michael’s Country Week soccer trip to Perth. I also obtained a new frequent flyer points credit card, which fortunately didn’t require too many forms (funny how the banks hand out credit cards so easily) but changing my direct debits to maximise points involved numerous other forms.
The bank forms for the home loan were the most onerous. I signed my name dozens of times, then Juliet had to do the same and we needed a witness to the fact we had signed the forms, and she had to sign a form too.
Imagine the relief when I arrived at the bank and triumphantly handed over all the forms! The lending consultant flicked through the forms and after about 25 pages (half way through) discovered that Juliet had missed signing one part of a form. I was crestfallen.
I haven’t felt so downcast since Myrtleford lost the Ovens and Murray football grand final in the dying seconds to Lavington.
Bee alert
A skeleton staff works on Sunday at the Kalgoorlie Miner. The sports reporters and photographers work most weekends. The sub-editors work about every second weekend, the editors every third weekend and reporters about one in six on rotation.
There were only six of us in the office on Sunday, three blokes and three women.
I was a little perturbed when a call of nature revealed the men’s toilet had been invaded by a swarm of bees. It’s somewhat difficult to concentrate on the task at hand, so to speak, when the threat of a sting is ever present.
There’s an open window to the upstairs facility and the bees were checking it out as a possible new home. I wasn’t planning to argue with them and made a hasty retreat.
On the way back to my desk I had the presence of mind to warn the sports reporter not to drop his guard. The sub-editor bloke wasn’t around and I forgot to tell him.
An hour or so later he came to report the bee invasion. Was I aware that bees had overtaken the lavatory? A casual affirmative from me, a shrug from him and an off-hand remark about it being “rather disconcerting”.
Australians are masters of understatement.
New vehicle
I took delivery of a new Kia Grand Carnival today. It’s always exciting to get a new vehicle and this was no exception.
It’s too early for me to write anything resembling a review, but so far I am very impressed with the internal space.
Unusual workplace accident
An unusual accident occurred this week at a workplace I’m familiar with. I won’t name anyone to avoid embarrassing them.
It seems a group of colleagues were sitting around waiting for a picture of the Hannans Handicap winner and decided it was a good idea to open a bottle of wine.
Alas there was no corkscrew. Much improvisation comes into play when inebriated people are confronted with this scenario, however the journalists group were all sober.
One lady volunteered to push in the cork. Sadly, she lost her grip on the knife and slashed her finger, requiring urgent remedial attention.
Given the volume of blood and a suspicion that stitches might be required, the wounded employee was ferried to Kalgoorlie Hospital with consoling remarks that she had sacrificed herself for a noble cause.
Management responded the following day with appropriate preventative measures by purchasing a corkscrew.
Recent comments
- Sue: mmmmmm… *drool* Tim Taaaammmmmsssss Heaven in a rectangle. Sues most recent article …Accents to...
- Michael: Congratulations Sue. That was the 1000th comment on this site. You win a Tim Tam.
- Sue: One more reason to love your country… awesome plate! Sues most recent article …Feeling Disconnected
- Angela Aguilar: READ CAREFULLY Hi to all, My name is angela and im one of the reservation of TIMESHARE here in the...
- Stephan Miller: Cool. I have tried so many ways around the javascript in post issue. I went as far as using an ad...
Links
Random posts
Archives
Useful stuff
