Peas, Roses and Orange Blossom

Nationwide our youth unemployment is, according to a recent press release, in the region of 21%. As a nation we are on the horns of a major dilemma – actually a twin dilemma – youth unemployment and age pensions. About to be announced in the National Budget this month  is the decision to raise the pension age from 65 – 70, which will deffer the payment of pensions for five years, but will make the youth unemployment worse than it currently is. Well, yes, I have no doubt that the government will come up with all sorts of plans that their tame academics have devised to tackle the problem — More training and development – get them  ‘Job Ready”  not that there are many jobs around for them to be ‘ready’ for – but let’s not quibble over semantics.   ´South Australia is facing a generational crisis,” warned Brotherhood of St Laurence Executive Director Tony Nicholson. ”For young people caught up in this jobless spiral this can be a road to long term poverty and reliance on welfare.”  Raising the pension age from 65 – 70 might, in the short term, solve one problem but creates a whole lot of other problems.  As one person put it – in the event of a major fire – or indeed any fire – do you really want  someone 70+ trying to carry you out of a burning building? Do you really think a 70yo police officer is a running match for a 22 year old offender? Also the longer you keep older people in jobs the less opportunity for employment there is for younger people. We have had six years of a Socialist Government that spent money like it was going out of style. But all socialist government do likewise – borrow and spend – and to quote the late Baroness Thatcher – “The trouble with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s

money”.  Have you heard of the PIIGS – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain – all socialist  governments – all up to their little eyes in debt – and the UK is not all that far behind. Ireland is slowly starting to recover but it’s a long slow grind and not popular because the population have gotten used to “Let the good times roll” and if and when you threaten that – look out. That’s what’s happening here right at the moment. The Labor Party Government threw money at everything and anything and people liked it until their lies started to come home. This government wants to repair the damage but it’s having a hard time to do just that. The previous government promised billions  for programmes that we cannot afford and people still want them – even although we can’t afford to implement them.   I look at Europe and I really do wonder how much longer the European Union can continue to survive because it’s really only Germany that’s holding it together – well German money at any rate. But this is not a political thing and I don’t intend it ever to be,  so I will simply say that we are in a mess right now and it’s not going to get any better – well it will,  but later rather than sooner.

The flowers of the Desert Pea are really starting to take off now – just as they did last year, and in the same pattern  and I am more than happy to leave them alone and get on

with what they want to do  :o) I am  happy about this because it’s my one of only two real success stories – the other being the Desert Rose, so it’s fair to say that I’m quite chuffed. Oddly enough the three pines I planted months age are as big now as they were when I planted them. In other words they haven’t grown an inch. I have a friend in another area who is going to get me  some cuttings from a frangipani plant, which should be nice  Out back,  the Mexican Orange Blossom is progressing well as is the Flamenco Hibiscus as well as the  new native Hibiscus, so it’s not all a dead loss. Two of the Bougainvillea have died – but I mentioned that before – but two have survived. What have also survived are the masses of weeds that the wet stuff produced.  I have a problem with them because  they just love the weed killer I  feed them with. It’s a worry  :o)