A few resolutions to fix Australia in 2019

I can never keep my own resolutions, so I’ve decided to make some for our country instead, writes Margaret Wenham. Starting with changing the date.

I’ve long realised New Year resolutions I make for myself are disappointments waiting to happen.

This is because the powerful primal bits of my brain immediately get cracking to overwhelm the delicate frontal cortex and so the self-sabotage begins.

I figure the way around this is to push the onus on to others to make my life — and the lives of my fellow humans with equally susceptible frontal lobes — easier, happier, healthier, safer. So here’s my wish list for improvements others can make to my life — all our lives — in 2019.

AUSTRALIA DAY: The date needs to change. It’s very simple. It is unreasonable for non-indigenous Australians to expect indigenous Australians to celebrate what’s supposed to be a national day “for ALL Australians” on the anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, after the British laid claim to this land based on the whopping lie nobody lived here.

Plenty lived here and they’d been here for 40,000+ years. On the basis of their “terra nullius” balderdash, the Brits didn’t bother with treaties or recompense — required under the international laws of the day when there was an indigenous population living on land empire-builders wanted to claim — and proceeded to colonise with impunity. The locals, Australia’s Aboriginal people, were accorded the status of fauna — a situation not rectified until the 1967 referendum — and dealt with abominably for more than 200 years, and still the racism and paternalism continues.

Or how about if you want to keep January 26 as a national holiday, we call it straight — Invasion Day.

A young girl marches in the Invasion Day rally in Sydney on Australia Day 2018. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

DRIVERS WHO CAN’T PARK STRAIGHT: This issue is also very simple. If you don’t park parallel to the parking bay lines, with those lines equidistant on either side of your compensating-for-something Chevy Silverado, then chances are you’re parking someone in or making it near impossible for someone else to park in the next bay.

It’s not just very big vehicle drivers who offend in this manner. There’s just as many SUV, sedan, hatchback and tiny underpowered sh-tbox drivers for whom parking is obviously a major challenge.

Of course, parking poorly on an angle doesn’t necessarily mean you’re just a hopeless driver. It could be you’re just selfish and anti-social. Worst case scenario, you’re a crap at driving and selfish to boot.

Anyway, a little more care in the way you park will make life easier for me and the rest of us.

RELATED: If you park like this, you should be jailed

Parking like this doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad driver. You might just be selfish.

DAYLIGHT SAVING: This one’s directed at our country cousins in the boondocks who screech and flap anytime putting the clocks forward in summer in Queensland is mentioned.

Just to get a bit technical here, Brisbane’s longitude is 153.02809 degrees east. This compares with Bedourie’s of 139.4620 degrees, Roma’s which is 148.7838 degrees and the bigger northern cities such as Cairns (145.7781 degrees), Townsville (146.8169 degrees) and Rockhampton (150.5100 degrees). And this means the southeast, with its commercial epicentre, Brisbane, is further east than just about every other bit of the state. And this means we experience first light and sunrise way earlier than those up north and out west.

Currently first light in Brisbane is 4.25am and sunrise is 4.51am, whereas first light in Bedourie is 5.27am and sunrise 5.52am. In Cairns the birds are starting at 5.18am and the sun’s up at 5.42. So while Brisbanites are lying in bed at 4.30am eyes wide open with fingers jammed in their ears to block out the kookaburras laughing it up, the folks up north and out west can dream on for at least another hour. It’s time people. Daylight saving for SEQ, please.

HEALTH COSTS: My Bupa top hospital private health insurance cover has increased by 22 per cent in less than three years, despite government promises (and they just made another one) of only tiny rises. And I’m not Robinson Crusoe because, as I’ve written in other columns about our triple whammy health system, some folks have suffered even greater assaults on their hip pockets. Like Bill who’s premiums have gone up 93 per cent in nine years. Or another furious reader, Phil, whose insurance for he and his wife was in the vicinity of $6000.

There’s also the gaps charged by some medicos — with specialists in immunology, neurology, rheumatology and endocrinology among the worst offenders.

So, in 2019, we (that means you!) need to up our efforts to hold the insurers, the private hospital sector, the medical profession but mainly the Federal Government to account. But I’m not going to hold my breath (a) because of the out-of-pocket costs of seeing a respiratory specialist; and (b) because, in my view, the chumps in Canberra couldn’t organise a bedpan in urology ward.

Petrol price gouging happens all over Australia. Rebecca Bryan of South Australia’s Wayville is unhappy about the extremes. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

PETROL PRICE CYCLES: Well, finally, three weeks ago, the ACCC’s Rod Sims released his agency’s report on petrol price cycles. This just happened to correspond with my local Woolworths Caltex servo whacking its ULP price up by nearly 30cpl the nanosecond I thought “Hmmm, better fill up”.

I’ve just read the report. To summarise its 100-plus pages, it says petrol price cycles happen … That’s pretty much it. And, oh yes, consumers should avoid filling up on “peak” days and make the most of “trough” days.

Well, crash test my car and call me a dummy! My points are this: it is not a globally widespread practice so it’s localised, price-gouging bollocks; the length of the cycle and the size of the price difference have got much, much bigger and therefore much, much harder to work around; and you can bet your bottom dollar it’s all in the name of much, much higher profits for the petrol retailers.

In 2019 we (that means you again) must stop being patsies. Commit to boycotting those high-priced bowsers.

Happy New Year, folks.