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Buy Australian…

If there’s one positive thing that has come out of Coronavirus, it’s the shift towards buying food, clothing and whatever else that has been made here in Australia. From Australian products, produced on-shore by Australian-owned companies. This is a good thing.

For too long now, Australian companies have been either selling out to overseas investors or moving their operations to an off-shore location (often China or another Asian country) where they can get the work done far more cheaply, at the cost of their Australian workforce. Then they bring their products back into Australia but the price doesn’t come down so they are making huge profits. The items, especially clothing, are not as well made, yet customers are still paying top dollar for the label. But the ongoing selling of so many of our best assets to overseas interests is a national disgrace and the sales of large rural beef and dairy properties and our ports to foreign buyers is criminal.

Then there’s the companies labelling their products made in Australia, but from a high content of imported ingredients (visible only if you red the very tiny print on the back of the packaging).  A lot of Australians have fumed over this. They have been angered by the string of Australian-owned businesses, farms and other valuable assets that have had the green light to sell out to a foreign owner and it has become harder to find Australian-owned food and other products that are still produced and packaged here. It’s not beneficial for a country to be too dependent on another and even less so when the other country is allowed to buy up to much local real estate and so many local businesses. It’s just not good.

Like many others, I have often wondered why. Well yes, some people are just all about the money which tosses national pride out the window, but when you think about it, Australia can grow it’s own crops, it’s own beef, lamb, pork and poultry, even allowing for the impact on some industries due to drought. We produce some of the finest wool in the world, grow cotton, fruit and vegetables, so if you add all of that up it becomes obvious that we could easily sustain ourselves, just like Australia did decades ago. Certainly, trade is useful and often necessary, but it should not be used to supply the bulk of our needs when we can so easily do this ourselves.

And then came COVID-19 and everyone started to wake up to what a lot of us had already been thinking. Keep it local. Locally sourced, locally produced, locally made. Locally owned. This is what makes a country wealthy and sustainable in a situation like the one we are in now. It’s what keeps a nation’s citizens in employment and keeps the national debt to a minimum and stops the nation’s primary producers from going under, even in the event of drought or flood or other natural disaster. It’s what keeps a nation going in situation like this one.

So if every cloud has a silver lining, this could be ours, because the push to reject overseas imports for Australian owned, grown and produced products is not a bad thing. This should be our first line of supply and these products should be placed prominently on our supermarket shelves, on the racks in clothing stores and wherever else goods are sold. It should also apply to major industries too. Use Australian produced building products. If the Australian Government wants the country to survive the Coronavirus then it needs to put Australian businesses and their products first and promote them on a large scale. This will boost our economy because the money we spend on these products will stay here in Australia, not end up in the coffers of an overseas company.

It’s not difficult to do.

 

 

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Don’t Try This at Home

Right, so we are all in lockdown basically, which means there are a lot of things we may be used to having done professionally, outside the home, which some of us may be considering doing ourselves while unable to visit our favourite personal maintenance places.  Well that can work, in some cases, but in others it just might prove to be a very bad idea.

Can’t go to the Gym? Generally this would be fine because you can keep fit at home. Even if you don’t have any gym equipment, you do have floor space and can make do with aerobics for now. Food cans make great aerobic weights but if you’re used to heavier lifting, there’s always the couch or something. Anyway, you are making a good start by continuing with your fitness routine and adapting it to your lounge room.

But doing the gym thingy at home can also be a not so good idea if the last time you did anything vaguely exercise-like was back in your school years, or in the first days after buying that do-everything exercise machine a few decades ago, and you decide to dust everything off and do a three hour workout to kick off the New You. This will probably lead to the Totally Incapacitated You long before the end of the day and will probably have you flat on your back for the next week. Not the outcome you’d like.

Making over your house can be a good idea too, especially if you have been wanting to spruce it up a bit but have never been able to find the time. Now you have the time. It could be something as simple as a new paint job or a more complex renovation (assuming you can still access what you’ll need) but being able to utilise the lockdown time to tackle some DIY is a great way to spend the days.

Unless you absolutely suck at DIY. If you don’t know a paintbrush from a hammer, a house makeover might not be the best way to use your sudden and unexpected free time. This also applies if you have never done any painting or renovation work in your whole entire life. If you are still tempted though, just remember that you will have to live with the end result until the country is back in business again. And if you live with a partner who was adamant that you Not Do It in the first place you might find yourself living in a state of angst and tension for some time. You will really need to think this one through.

Fake tans. Although why you’d want one when you aren’t going anywhere is beyond me, but to each their own. Salons are closed right now so if you are used to having your golden glow sprayed on all nice and even by a professional, please do not opt for doing it yourself out of a bottle. Getting a bottle tan right takes years of practice (look, I don’t care how easy the directions tell you it is) and if you get it just the insy-est, tinsy-est bit wrong, you will spend the next five days trying to scrub it off and it will be resistant to every cleansing product known to woman. So if in doubt…don’t.

Waxing. If you’ve never done this yourself, stick to depilatory creams or shaving. End of story.

Hair. If it’s just colouring, and you sensibly opt for a hue that will gradually wash out, you can’t really go wrong. Even if you’re a novice colour-er and you get the colour wrong. It’s going to wash out over a few weeks and it’s not like you’re going anywhere anyway. But cutting is a whole different animal. If you are a professional hairdresser, or a really deft amateur, who can manage to do a good job using two mirrors then by all means give yourself a cut or trim.

Not a professional or a deft amateur? Then lock those scissors up. Unlike a bad colour that will wash out, a bad haircut is going to be with you a lot longer than the lockdown is and will send you into meltdown every time you look in the mirror. Just put up with the split ends and overgrown fringe until your hairdresser is back in operation. You can always tie it back or put it up until then and console yourself with the knowledge that all your friends are in exactly the same bad-hair boat. Feeling better now?

No, me neither.

 

 

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When Stay Means Stay!

With COVID-19 busy doing the rounds across the globe, most countries have sensibly gone into total lockdown in an effort to slow the spread of the disease, and their inhabitants are sensibly following the directives. That’s good. Smart people.

What’s not good (and just plain stupid) is what’s happening here in Australia. The word has been out for weeks now; stay home, stay indoors and if you do have to go anywhere, make sure it is only a quick trip to pick up food and other essential supplies and maintain a safe distance from others. Pretty simple really, so why are so many Australians indifferent to what is happening right in front of them? The footage on the nightly news  of vacuous people, wandering around in groups and generally enjoying a day out on the town has me spouting profanity that I didn’t even know I knew. I’m talking a lot of people here (and a lot of profanity!)

Staying home means exactly that. It does not mean meeting up with your friends for coffee and huddling up for a get-together. It does not mean going off for a day at the beach or the park or to go wandering around whatever shops are open and generally socialising and having a good time. It does not mean that at all. It also does not mean holding a barbecue in the backyard and inviting all your friends and neighbours to drop in. It actually means Stay Home! Just you and your family, in your own home with no visitors, no matter who they are. Now how hard can that be? But there are still hordes of people out there thinking the directive does not apply to them, hence the vast numbers blatantly ignoring what they have been told. In the cities, scores of people are out having a stroll and doing it in total disregard of the “social distancing” we have all been asked to adopt.

Seriously? What is wrong with people? Why is Stay Home, Stay In, and Stay Away From Each Other not clicking?

To be fair, many of us are doing the right thing, but the number who are completely ignoring the steps that have been put in place to try and stem the spread of this disease is just deplorable!

Ditto with the hoarding. This began with the bushfire crisis here and has now flowed into the Coronavirus crisis. Time and time again people have been told that buying up more than they need is not necessary. Doing so is just creating shortages that don’t have to happen, which makes it incredibly hard for the rest of the population to buy what they need. But this is another directive that is not getting through some thick skulls out there and so shortages in food, toilet paper and other essentials continue to plague us. When will that message get through that there really is enough for everyone if the selfish and greedy few would just back off and let the rest of us buy what we need.

I think the problem here is that up until now, current generations of Australians have not had to contend with something like this. Yes, there were shortages and food coupons around the time of the  First and Second World Wars, and there was the Spanish Flu epidemic, but the current generations were not alive when these events happened and so they aren’t really taking this seriously. I was not alive then either but I can at least see the logic behind the steps being implemented to try and slow the spread of COVID-19.

Surely people must be able to see the logic in following the plan? Well no, many here still appear to be ignorant of the threat, despite all the warnings. They are still hanging out at beaches, shopping centres, parks and each other’s homes. So what does it take to make the danger we are in hit home to these people? Have they convinced themselves that it won’t happen to them? I’m guessing it will take contracting the disease and ending up in hospital, as sick as, staring mortality in the face!

It has also come to light that those who have managed to return from overseas and tested positive, along with those who have just contracted it anyway, are ignoring the self isolation conditions. Police checking up on them, following information that they are going out into the community, are finding that yes, they are not at home. Self isolation would have been very precisely explained to them, so they cannot claim ignorance about the conditions, yet they are going out. Hefty fines are in place now, so we may see a bit less of that. But how many have they infected?

No one’s exaggerating here. COVID-19 is a very dangerous disease. It has shut down countries world wide. If infected, you are a danger to your community. You, and those you infect when you ignore the rules, could end up dying from it. It is a global pandemic.

And it can so easily happen to you.