The mayor of Townsville certainly is an odd character and, if guilty of nothing else, confusing his military career is in my mind pretty defining – and not in a good way.
But in today’s society, adding a bit of GST to things seems to be a pretty common thing.
Take a national supermarket chain, for instance.
If you haven’t heard their latest propaganda on most media outlets, let me fill you in.
Their head buyer (or whatever he is called) talks about what’s on special in the fresh food department and finishes with “at the moment, there is shortage of corn and strawberries” etc, “but we are working with growers to rectify the problem”.
How dumb do they think we are?
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb.
Or, how dumb are we if we actually think they are working with growers to rectify the problem?
Is this fresh-food guru out there planting corn, watering or harvesting it with the farmers?
‘Helping’ and ‘assisting’ are two good adjectives that I am pretty sure growers would appreciate if it was actually happening.
When I see pineapples for sale for $5, the only thing I can think of is how much the farmer is getting compared with the charitable souls selling them and, of course, working with them for a happy outcome.
Bugger me!
I can’t really blame big companies embellishing words and products as we continue to lap it up.
But why should we be surprised about GST on things?
Sure, it was introduced to our financial system decades ago as a kind of sneaky way of robbing Peter to pay Paul – not Peter Costello and Paul Keating, but generally (and to be fair, they probably had something to do with it).
Here is the thing: politicians have led the way, firstly in a monetary sense, in routing us.
They have then added insult to injury by adding or subtracting how much truth we need to be told.
I am guessing but 10 or 11 per cent added or subtracted on the truth is probably quite conservative when it is coming out of the mouths of our politicians.
But in general, we seem to swallow it as gospel.
Maybe it is the nodding heads in the background.
So maybe, if the food guru wants us to believe him, he should have some nodding farmers standing behind him.
But they are hard to find because they are way too busy trying to make a living.
Ashley Robinson is chairman of Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball, and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
