Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Where the bloody hell are we?

Would the last person to leave Perth please turn off the lights... oh, they were never on.

I can't believe it. Just when we were acting all grown up, suddenly the blinkers are back on and we're all huddled around the wireless counting our ration coupons again.

Yes indeed, the prospect of Sunday trading has been dealt a lethal blow. Perth, 2 hours and 25 years behind the rest of Australia - the only city where you can't go shopping on a Sunday if that's what you choose to do.

Go on, let's go the whole hog - bring back roster petrol stations, stamp out those pesky supermarkets that dare to stay open beyond 5.30pm, make bottle shops illegal so that we have to run grog in from illicit stills hidden deep in the hills and - most importantly - repeal the daylight savings legislation immediately.

In fact, I say we not only abolish daylight savings, but we go one step further and put the clocks forward by an extra hour! What better than a city that slips under the cover of darkness at 5.30pm and wakes to a new day at 4.00am. We'll be able to water the lawns for hours, take our dogs out to shit in other people's front yards, put in the hard yards on talk back radio, water some more, have dinner at 4.30pm and be tucked up in bed by 6.00pm - bliss!

What the friggen hell is wrong with the idea of deregulated trading hours? It means more work for more people and gives us all an opportunity to do our shopping outside of the restrictive hours that currently exist. My local IGA closes at 5.30pm every week day except Thursday and I am not one tiny bit interested in joining the crowds for 'late night' shopping, or for that matter the mad Saturday supermarket rush.

I think this whole issue has got more to do with the fact that we're so isolated from the rest of the country that we feel the need to be 'different' - it's the old chip on the shoulder syndrome. More of the old 'If it aint broke, don't fix it' mantra.

Perth is acting like a spoilt child stamping its feet, squeezing its eyes shut and screeching its lungs out to avoid the tide of change. NO, we don't need to be like everyone else, but resistance simply for the sake of being 'different' is infantile.

Now before you take me away and start beating me about the kidneys with old phone books, let me just state that I love WA and the lifestyle it offers. All I'm asking is that we start looking more to the future instead of fretting over maintaining the status quo all the time.

Anyway, got to sign off and get back to the lawns...

5 comments:

lulu said...

here here!

Anonymous said...

not that i really have a huge issue with derulated hours...i don't spend that much tie thinking about it. but when i have i often wonder who are the people who are going to work these extra hours? i mean it won't be your mon-fri office worker. it won't be the salaried man/woman on a $100K. it will be young kids and those who have to be casual workers (for whatever reasons). so basically the slightly disadvantaged in the workforce get to work longer hours. thats a great family scenario, because basically the majority of casual workers in retail/hospitality are women. and don't feed me the line about lowering unemployment, because at the 4-5% we are at now really it is the really unemployable that are left. i too have lived abroad. yes the 'lifestyle' was great but there are a shit load of social problems elsewhere in the world too. maybe the resistance to being like everyone else is because everone else hasn't quite got it right and we need a different path. maybe not the one we have but maybe not quite so eager to become everyone else...

Cookster said...

Codswallop!

Anonymous said...

Hey John,

It's Mike here from intox.com.au gone under, literally. Listen I'm really sorry that we never managed to get anything off the ground but I just wanted to let you know that I'm still reading your blog and that I have a personal one up now myself at www.striveseekfind.com

What I'm really interested in is asking you to read one of my recent posts titled "Police Aggression on Australia Day" to see what you think of the story and my prose as I'm sure you'll have judgements that I'd be interested to hear.

Thanks again,

Mike

Anonymous said...

Hell yeah brother!

And Dara, anyone who wants some money will work on Sundays, just like the rest of the friggin world, and with people losing jobs lately I'd say alot of people will be looking for employment. So go to hell dumbarse.

And say YES to daylight savings. Or I'll shoot you.