Hi, So my local Cafe, built in the 90s, was recently demolished and replaced with a more modern equivalent. The car park is not huge, and maybe 15-25% of the total space is taken up by ACROD disabled parking spots and associated yellow spacers between the bays. I find it very hard to believe that over 5% of Australians have ACROD parking permits. Despite lots of Googling I have been unable to find a figure. Just wondering when us able bodied people will reach parking bay parity with the ACROD supremacists. We need quotas. Moreover, this virulent discrimination is done under the law, with force of law, not through benign market processes. When will the Commonwealth stop discriminating against me? Thanks.
The elderly and disabled are far more numerous need to have only minimal distance between car and loom You are young so sorry but in the interest of national obesity you need the exercise : p
ACROD holders are more numerous than 15-25% of the driving public? I'm not complaining about walking to the shop, that's not the issue, the car park is tiny. The problem is that it fills up quick and there are very few ACROD holders in a small country town so the bays mandated by law go unused. The point of the OP is that we could rectify this by having parking bay quotas proportional to the population, or close to it. Like gender quotas. This discrimination against able bodied people goes to the highest levels of government and corporations and must end. I note that ability status is a protected class, so presumably so is lack thereof, same as religion.
ELDERLY. They are the largest population Either you generation had better start procreating or we need to import carers
Being old doesn't entitle you to an ACROD permit. I am unable to find how many people have permits, a figure which would be most useful. The aging population will destroy mankind once the developing world reaches the birth rates of the developed world, as all modern societies are predicated on the assumption that the young can pay for the old.
What gets me is the rows and rows of pram parking....not that I haven't done my time but seriously... once it's out of the vehicle you just push the damn thing... why does it matter where exactly the pram people park
After assisting aging parent, one with terminal illness and another wheel chair bound, seriously the more space I could find the better it was. That was two people who on their own vehicle held the permit but I did not. When you get the opportunity to use the permit you just hang on as long as you can until you need to leave again. Anyway, that was my experience, but there would appear to be a lack of facility to maneuver wheel chairs about many places. I don’t have figures on the numbers but it is fairly easy to get one. I would suggest there is a bit of abundance on that point. Quotas, we don’t need any more quotas. But I do get the point. On the point of population, the world is beginning to struggle in many areas, due entirely to the population size. Food production is struggling to meet demand while manufacturing struggles to meet humanitarian rates. The world seriously needs to think about how to meet such demands or the birth rates will be stunted faster than anticipated…
Just a round about way to give feeble women a condescending parking spot. They're less subtle these days, in my local multi story the whole first floor is female parking only. Absolute disgrace. As if they're too stupid to use an elevator.
They can and they should. Our parents went to a war or lived through waiting at home. They worked at least 8 hours a week although most didn't work Sunday. They didn't have iPhones, computers or iPads, they called on a land line and wrote letters, addressed envelops and used stamps. They waited days to see if the snap shots of you came out, and a holiday was a bungalow at the lake or the beach, and places like Bali were out of their reach. They worked hard and saved with the entertainment was a night out at the flicks. When they were young they couldn't go to a pub until they were 21, and nowhere to drink after 10. Most people managed to buy a small block of land and the majority built a weather board home. Most of them from those days will be gone soon, my gen is they last. The drinking age was lowered to 18 the year I turned 18, and conscription was gone by the time I was eligible. Those were the people that took their mother's and father's young country, and turned it into a great nation. I asked my father once if he felt like the pension was welfare? He replied OH god no. For 50 odd years I gave what I could, blood, sweat and tears, and willing if needed to give up their lives. We would not have what we have if they were like us, we're greedy people we don't want to live out our lives looking at the pictures of our children in their childhood homes. We want more and the more we get the more we want, and our children are growing up worse. They celebrate the end of school in Bali, they all have at least a smart phone and a sense of self importance. It's not that we can't look after the elderly, it's that we don't want to.
You are missing that all good intentions in politics are tested by what reality will permit. Developed nations have below replacement birth rates. This is due to multiple changes over the past few generations: 1. The Death of God. 2. Contraceptives and abortion 3. Different choices by women (career, family seen as uncool and something you do in your 30s) 4. Modern men are different. Look at Japan. This will hit Africa and the ME if they develop sufficiently. Importing migrants from high birth rate areas is a band aid which will **** all over everything and bring lower disposible income, higher taxes, deflation, recession. There is no real way around this. The system we have set up depends on growth, but in a free society we can't exactly prohibit decline. Hence the coming crisis.
But the solution is possible and practical. First we are already seeing a change for the good. I have been driving a 500 kilometer round trip from Sydney to dad's once a fortnight for 10 years. At the beginning you would be lucky to see 1 or 2 caravans an hour, now it's caravans, motor homes and fifth wheelers every 100 vehicles. It's a way of redistributing their savings into the economy. The growth in supporting care like gyms, health spas etc. The world is changing yes, less people are now making more cheaper than ever before. Salaries in the millions are fairly common and those ten times the pension are common. There is the very rich who nearly avoid taxation completely. There are billions in companies that don't pay taxes. These are the problems not the aging population. Of course we could always have a lottery, first prize? How about a holiday on an island?
No but being old means you are more likely to need one We have an ageing population, increased mobility for disabled people and a need to encourage exercise amongst our population
More down to TV than “the death of god” whatever THAT is supposed to mean If you doubt me look up the rises in birth rates following blackouts
Jesus wants them babies mmkay, that's what I mean. Religious families on average produce more children. I am an Atheist but this has been a clear consequence of the move away from Christianity.
I agree that the rivalry between the great religions trying to out produce each other in terms of offspring is a world wide issue and one that impacts greatly on the welfare of billions but, you have to couple the religion with ignorance. Where there have been inroads into base knowledge levels, again through media , those attitudes have changed. This is why abstinence only is still practiced in third world countries (and failed) but contraception is used by people in developed countries
Yes, and unfortunately this has the side effect of below replacement birth rates, a disaster given our entitlements require the young to pay for the old. Cost of living relative to wages will sky-rocket when this reaches fever pitch and there are no developing nations to draw on.
What will and is happening is that retirement age is rising. Soon it will be seventy not sixty five. Meanwhile the length of schooling and the expectations of parents to support same has increased
Precisely. We have to take measures even now. What happens when migration is not a viable bandaid? What happens when these Asian and African nations develop and reach similar birth rates?
