It was about this time last year my cousin Jim, in his 50’s received the news he’d been accepted into university to study behavioral science. He’s taken to it like a luvvy to latte and got straight As in his first year.

When I asked Jim (who’s marriage breakdown lead him to psychotherapy to deal with the rage, blame and control created by the emotional trauma of being raised by very damaged people) why he wanted to be a psychologist he replied, “I want to stop any more dads throwing their children off the Westgate Bridge.”  Which is what happened this time last year. “Why did he do it?” people asked at the time, desperately trying to make sense of an irrational action with devastating consequences that came from something broken deep inside he may not have even known was broken and if he did, could not find the tools to fix.  “Because he was sick,” I’d answer.  “No other reason. He was sick and not getting effective treatment. That’s not what healthy people do.”

When I told some girlfriends about my brave and beautiful cousin’s mission, my mate Sue said “When Jim’s finished his degree can you ask him why men only do something when it’s too late?”

Mental Health Blowout The Age Saturday January 30 moaned “Medicare spending on psychological therapy blowing our by $1.5 billion by 2011, twice it’s allocation.”

What?  How about “The constant underestimation of the enormous social costs of metal illness and the medieval attitude towards people suffering mental illness to  “get over themselves, stop whinging and get on with it like the rest of us” has lead to the realization that the pitiful amount of money allocated to deal with this important issue is nowhere near enough.”

Blowout.  Loaded term number one.   How can it be a “blowout?” The budget is arbitrarily created.  You can allocate amounts however you like just because something is under funded doesn’t mean it’s absorbing more resources than it needs.

One in 5 people suffer mental illness.  And they always have.  This is not some ‘recent development’.   Mental health is under funded and under resourced. Can anyone tell me of anything more important we can put our resources into than investing in the mental health of our community?

“The blowout wlll put pressure on this year’s budget. “

Pressure.  Loaded term number two.  I don’t remember reading about how the government propping up private health funds is putting ‘pressure’ on the health budget.  Or the huge rise in caesarians due to the government’s doctor pandering despite mountains of evidence to towards midwife care is blowing out the health budget.

And who knows how much pressure it’s taking off people suffering mental illness and their families.

There are concerns the Federal Government hasn’t released any evidence that the consultations are improving mental health.  Which doesn’t mean they don’t have any any. And just because they don’t have any evidence, or have evidence to the contrary that doesn’t mean it’s not helping.  Maybe it’s not visible yet, maybe they’re not asking the right questions or looking in the right places. Emotional corrosion takes a long time to set in and a long time to fix.   Mental illness is something you often can’t  “see” until it’s too late. It’s possible you can’t see the benefit if it’s too early.

There are concerns therapies are failing to reach men and young people.  It’s imperative we deal with this swiftly and effectively.  But not by taking the resources away from people who are being treated and gaining benefit.  Many of these people are women needing treatment to deal with the sickness of the men and the young people they are supporting. Mental illness can be contagious contracted via the emotional pollution it creates.

Women are often the soul support for many men and young people who suffer mental illness because they don’t get professional help. This support often lessens the urgency for them to seek assistance. It’s a huge burden for these women. And not effective.  Most women have no mental health training. It’s a fine line between supporting and enabling destructive behavior.

Many people have approached me asking why no one is talking about the crisis in men’s mental health and urging me to say something. They usually suggest women are going to have to do something about it because the men can’t or won’t.

But it’s not a women’s job.  Many are doing it and clearly it’s not working.

A bloke recently pleading with me to write about in the men’s mental health crisis told me he recently attended a launch of a book navigating Men’s Midlife Crisis. 40 or so people turned up. All but two were women, and the two men were both psychologists.

One thing that can happen with the increased access to therapy is a shift in cultural change and a reduction in stigma which will normalize the equation, and help men and young people to access mental health support.  Changing the thought from “I need to be strong and not ask for help.  Instead I will self medicate with work, sex, drugs, blame and denial because I am scared of what will happen if I sit in a chair and open up” to  “I am hurting the people around me and detonating my life maybe I need to talk to someone.  That’s what I’ve seen other people around me do.”
Article from The Age on Mental Health Blow Out. 

IS IT just me or does anyone else wonder why they’re busting their balls to make a piss-weak contribution to saving the environment when most of the world, the Government and a fair whack of our neighbours continue to turn environmental vandalism into an extreme sport?

Don’t worry, I’m going to keep doing it, and so should you, but it does shit me at times because it seems so futile. Me and my little green bags and bucket-back, while Hazelwood is churning out emissions 24/7 fagging our way to global lung cancer, and China’s flat out taking 10 years off the human habitableness of the planet every day with their chain-smoking emissions.

People are arrogant. We just think: “The earth won’t fry us. She loves us. We’re humans, we’re the best.” The earth doesn’t care. It’s just an organism with no heart and no favourites. It just heats up and cools down to cope with its conditions. To the earth we’re just insects and if we fry, we fry. She doesn’t give a rats. Humans are the new dinosaurs.

At our place we’ve shifted down to one car, cycle where possible, pack the kids’ lunches in bread bags and reusable containers, buy in bulk, shop locally, reuse wrapping paper and packaging, switch appliances off at the wall, flush the toilet with the kids’ bath water, buy when we need, not when we want, and we even have chooks. Sure, we’re not living in a hessian sack under a tree eating cockroaches but we’re doing our bit. Or at least a bit. But it never seems enough. I vacillate between being wracked with guilt and thinking, why bother?

What good will my little drop in the ocean do when the Government should have had a decent solar-powered energy solution 20 years ago yet keeps banging on about clean coal? Repeat after me: there is no such thing as clean coal, there is no such thing as clean coal, there is no such thing as clean coal. Even I know that and I’m an idiot.

The aspirationals continue to build their McMansions an hour’s drive from where they work and then hop in their fuel-guzzling monster trucks every morning to pay for their five wide-screen televisions, air-conditioning to counteract poor design and petrol to fuel their “lifestyle”, which is basically shopping. Am I the only one who’s a bit happy when the price of petrol goes up? “Good,” I think. “Make those dickheads suffer.”

Because nothing will make them think, or change.

They bleat: “We can’t afford to live closer.” Yes, you can. You just won’t have a double garage, a parents’ retreat, a rumpus room, a home cinema and five bedrooms with en suites. While industry and farming continue to squander drinking water by the gigalitre we had a 7000-litre water tank installed. Yes, I know, we’re legends. I mentioned to the bloke who installed it that we’d need one of those TANK WATER IN USE signs. The bloke said: “Stuff ’em. Just let ’em dob you in and when they come over, show them your tank.” I liked that idea, then I had a change of heart. We put the sign up to show people that you can have green grass if you install a tank. That is if you can afford a tank. So much environmental responsibility is simply a privilege of the wealthy.

If I turn up at a supermarket without my calico bags I’m consumed by so much guilt I want to whack on a hair shirt and self-flagellate. Yet the Government still won’t legislate against plastic shopping bags even though, according to recent reports, a billion more bags were handed out in supermarkets and shops last year than in 2006, which is an increase of more than 40%. Maybe they’re on to something. Why bother when you can walk into a supermarket and buy items such as sliced apple. Ready-to-eat, all cut, with plastic wrap and packaged. Isn’t an apple already ready to eat? If you want it sliced, use a knife. And as far as coleslaw’s concerned, I cut my own. Hopefully it’ll save the world. I was in one of those $2 shops the other day and found myself surrounded by crushing aisles of imported useless plastic crap. And I realised it’s impossible for environmental sensitivity to coexist with capitalism.

We feel guilty and our kids feel guilty. And they worry. I’ve heard about kids who say: “I’m not allowed to eat strawberries from Queensland because the carbon emissions are too high.” We voted for politicians to protect us by consulting smart people and acting on their advice so we could be insulated from this kind of impending catastrophe. They didn’t. And now we feel as though it’s all our fault.

My pointless efforts do make me feel better. At times to the point of smug. When you don’t know what to do, do anything. Unfortunately we can’t do everything. But we can cut our own apples.

HOW can anyone not agree with free universal high-quality health care? How can anyone think that our current public/private marriage of political convenience is beneficial to all Australians both now and in the future? How can anyone think that our nation is getting value for money? It’s not.

Private health insurance is a rip-off. Public health needs the $3 billion government subsidy that is propping up the private health insurance industry. And a truck-load more. People don’t need a 30 per cent rebate on their private health insurance premiums. They need not to feel terrified into having to pay the premiums in the first place.

My solution? Make it mandatory that politicians and their families are forced to use only the public health system.

Government subsidy of private health is theft from the public health system. It’s a disgrace. Where is the choice if you are on benefits or a low income and you can’t afford private health insurance? “Chicken or beef, sir?” That’s a choice.

Having private health insurance is not a choice. The poor, the old and the vulnerable wait in pain. The rest get served first. Why is pain and loss of quality of life not as important if the person is old, poor or on benefits? It’s discrimination. It’s an economically adjusted pain scale. “They’re doing it tough so a bit more pain won’t hurt ’em.”

Last week I found myself on the Medi-Go-Round. It was one of those “it’s probably nothing, it’s probably nothing, it’s probably nothing, maybe it’s cancer” scenarios. After six months of niggles that had grown to excruciating discomfort, I was off to the doctor. There was talk of having something removed. I don’t have private health insurance. I’ve never had it. I’m politically and philosophically opposed to it.

But I also have the confidence of my convictions to tell you that if I was facing six months on a waiting list or six months of misery, I was happy to pay out of my own pocket and jump the queue. It’s not fair that I can do that. I want my taxes used efficiently, or to pay more tax so that we can all be treated in order of need and not of wealth.

Start talking to people about why they have private health insurance and you’ll realise that hospital waiting lists are the best advertisement and incentive for private health insurance there is. The Government has no interest in reducing the waiting lists because the waiting lists are saving them money that they can spend on important things, such as the parliamentary super fund, $9000-a-roll silk wallpaper for the Prime Minister’s plane and more defence toys and war bling.

People will tell you that they have private health insurance because they were sucked in by the fear of waiting lists, getting into “the breeding zone”, the 2000 run-for-cover campaign or simply “because my accountant told me to”. None of them will tell you that they think it’s value for money. Most of them are opposed to it. Necessary evil. They will tell you that they don’t notice the payments and any rebate feels like a bonus.

If negative optimism is “it won’t happen to me” then positive optimism must be “maybe it will”. Once people sign up to private health insurance they are reluctant to pull out because: “What if I get hit by a car tomorrow?” And for the people who convince themselves that having private health insurance is taking pressure off public hospitals, it’s not. It’s making the situation worse.

It’s clever how the Government is taking away with one hand and giving back with the other. “Oh look at what a mess the public health system is in! Whoever did that should be smacked. And look at the Medicare levy surcharge. Outrageous! Here’s a rebate on your private health insurance and a lovely safety net. What did you say? A safety net will only encourage the increase of fees and not benefit the public in any way shape or form? Don’t be so cynical. We’re your Government and we love you.” It’s all smoke and mirrors, ladies and gentlemen.

I pay the Medicare levy surcharge and I want it to go to Medicare. At present, it doesn’t. It probably goes to pay for John Howard’s nose-hair clippers, or some more taxpayer-funded government advertising.

Tomorrow Michael Moore’s documentary on the US health system, Sicko, opens in cinemas around Australia. When you watch this movie think of it as “here’s one we prepared earlier”.

There is a proverb: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” With free high-quality universal health care there will be shade for our children. With the increase of private health there will be no shade because there will be no trees.

I love a good rant. I feel better now.

P.S. One day I will write something asking why dental is not covered under Medicare. Why is the mouth separate?

I’VE wanted to write about the social apartheid and false economy of private schools for a while. And the Government’s “privatisation by stealth” of the education system. So a few months ago I hunted down the speech that writer Shane Moloney made to Scotch College. Reading it, I cheered, thumped the table and yelled “hallelujah” at the sheer brilliance and balls of Moloney. I then slumped in a heap thinking, “Well, there’s no point me writing anything because he’s said everything that I want to, but much better.”

A recent chance meeting with Moloney had me gush about the speech and explain my quandary. He encouraged me to basically “just say it all again”. So Shane Moloney, if you’re out there, this one’s for you. And for the 70 per cent of parents who send their children to government schools. And for the 70 per cent of students who attend them.

Here’s something in the budget that you may have missed: federal funding for private schools will increase from $5.8 billion to $7.5 billion over the next five years. Funding to public schools will rise from $3.1 billion to $3.4 billion over the next five years. Shame on us.

Here’s where I stand: private schools should not receive funding. That’s it. We have a police force funded by the Government. If you want a bodyguard or private security, you pay for it out of your own pocket.

The same should go for schools. If you want your child to go to a school where they wear blazers so you can get over your own insecurities, or the chip on your own shoulder, you should pay for it. Every single cent.

And it should be compulsory for all politicians to send their children to government schools. And use only public health care.

It’s liberating not to be worried about where my young sons will be going to high school. It will be one of the closest government high schools. If things don’t work out, we’ll try somewhere else. It’s not their education. It’s their school. Not the same thing. The school a child attends has no bearing on their future success or happiness. I’m disgusted by parents’ nauseating obsession with the perfect school for their perfect child. Parents panic that any “wrong” decision may mess up their kid’s potential trajectory. They seem to believe that kids can simply be programmed by their parents’ desires. Here’s a tip: instead of both working full time just so you can send your kids to a private school, cut down your work, be less stressed, stop outsourcing your life, send them to the local secondary and be home more. Teenagers need, and want, their parents to be around.

Sending children to private schools seems to be less about parents doing what they think is best for their child and more a case of parents wanting their children to have something better than every other child. Education is the entire community’s responsibility and the outcome affects us all.

I am torn between saying that the public schools desperately need more funding and writing about how wonderful they are. Both of which are true.

The lessons kids learn in government schools — resilience, motivation, community and tolerance — hold them in much better stead than hand-holding, spoon-feeding, mollycoddling and segregation.

When I think of kids less fortunate than my own, I think of kids stuck in middle-class, single-sex, white ghettos from the age of five (or four if they’re “gifted”).

The independent and Christian schools are divisive, discriminatory, reliant on hand-outs and implicitly teach children that some kids deserve nicer playgrounds than others. Even within their own tribe. The preps at Burke Hall surely don’t deserve better facilities than the preps at St Gabriel’s in Reservoir. Give me a child when they are seven and I’ll show you an invoice for $12,477 (excluding uniforms, excursions and music lessons) for something they could get around the corner free.

I added up the cost of fees for what it would cost to send my three children to a middle-of-the-range private school for six years. Not counting uniforms, excursions, transport, building funds etc. And it was about $330,000, give or take. My first thought? No one can be getting value for money. My second thought? I could buy my kids a degree for that amount of money, and I might have to if education keeps heading the way it is. But I’m hoping that my kids will all be tradies. Because the happiest blokes I know are the tradies. People say, “Stop funding private schools? It’s not as easy as that.”

Yes it is. Like smoking in hospitals, gender-based pay and taking babies away from unmarried mothers, funding private education is something we will look back on and be ashamed of.

God is not only bullshit, his agents are tax cheats.

The expert scholars who have written the papers quoted below are happy to answer questions.

February 7 Q and A for those who missed it. 

February 8 me talking on radio with Paul Bevan on 1223 ABC Newcastle 

Are you okay with how much religion is gouging from Australia’s spending?

(Statistics can be easily massaged – $30 billion is in theory possible but  more  is likely. If this is not correct can someone supply us all with the figure that supports religion (not charity, not all charity work is religious) costs us. For more info on the shameful amount we fund religion read The Purple Economy by Max Wallace)

Some other ways to raise money off the top of my head…

Cut the national school chaplaincy program, there’s $437 million right there.

PUBLISHED BY THEAGE ON OCT 23 2008.

Here’s one to file under “What would chicks know?”, or “Sheilas, if they didn’t wear skirts we’d throw rocks at ’em”, or possibly “Stand back ladies, have a cup of tea and talk about your feelings while we fellas run the world”.

Yes, I do have penis envy this morning; I wish I were a bloke writing this because I’d have a better chance of people taking me seriously. They’d be seduced by my authoritative voice, convinced by the myth of my genetically superior intelligence, hypnotised by my sense of entitlement and comforted by my grey suit and crisp white shirt.

The next bit’s a bit dry but go with me. The Millennium Development Goals were cooked up by the UN to help make the world a better place. The eight goals are: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

You’ll be thrilled to know there’s an event beginning tomorrow here in Melbourne called Business For Millennium Development Summit. It’s not as sexy as it sounds, trust me.

Pen pushers, number crunchers, professional capitalists and captains of industry from all around the world are meeting to chat about the practicalities and challenges of implementing the eight goals in business.

I expect the conference will kick off with some lukewarm coffee and flaccid croissants and end with a dinner, which will be part hot bed of adultery, part celebration of the choreographically challenged.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fabulous the folks with the cash and the jobs are bumping heads and chewing the fat trying to work out how best to implement these goals. What I am appalled, incensed and almost amused by is that on the original program of 24 speakers, all were men.

That’s right. Twenty-four speakers. All men. Just to be clear, in an attempt to make it appear that it isn’t a festival of gender apartheid, the moderator is Jenny Brockie. I imagine her role consists of using her feminine charm to diffuse potential testosterone-fuelled shirt-fronting: “Righto boys, settle down, take that biffo outside. We’re trying to save the world here.”

The decision to select Brockie as moderator (who’s not only smart, wise and incisive but also very pretty) aligns perfectly with the corporate world’s mission statement: Women As An Afterthought And Only If We Have To.

One woman equals 24 blokes. Where do I start? Jane Sloane, executive director of the International Women’s Development Agency, was outspoken and constructive in her response. She called the organisers of the conference, pointed out the absence of female speakers and gave them a list of suggestions. Which may explain why the number of speakers on the website has suddenly jumped from 24 to 32 and the number of women has skyrocketed from zero to three. You’ll find them at the bottom of the page of speakers.

“Yet, again,” Sloane points out, “we have a major summit on critical issues facing the world, with women almost completely excluded from the discussion.” It’s not enough for women to be there. They have to be setting the agendas.

Wouldn’t we need gender equality embedded as a default setting for the other seven Millenium Goals to have any hope of being successful? If the organisers approached an equal number of women and men in the first place, there’s no way they’d have ended up with an all-bloke line-up.

If there were an equal number of women and men in the organisation to start with, this probably never would have happened. Now it’s a game of “if my aunty had balls she’d be my uncle”. The truth is, if my aunty had balls she’d have a better chance at being approached to speak at this forum. Or any forum, conference or symposium.

The response is always “We just got the best speakers and they just happened to all be blokes”. Wow! What a magic trick! Imagine if the line-up just happened to turn out all women. I’m certain one of the mostly male organisers would have said: “Hey! Where are the blokes?” But it took women to tap them on the shoulder and point out there were no women and show them where to look.

Suddenly they found three women speakers. Just like that. Imagine if they’d tried looking earlier than the last minute how many may have ended up contributing to this important discussion. Apparently conference organisers find it hard to find women speakers. Here’s a tip. Try looking.