Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical.

Hobart in the Summer! Mount Wellington, as seen from New Town, February 2011.

Quick, I need a Sunday Top Five!

Ummmm….

How about Top Five Statistical Details About Tasmania That You Might Not Be Aware Of?

Most Tasmanians live in urban centres, with nearly 90% of the total population living in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Devonport.

Over the next twenty years the proportion of Tasmanians under the age of fifteen is projected to decline by approximately 7% while the proportion of people aged 65 years and over could grow by almost 60%.

In the ten years to 2006 there was a 10% decline in the number of households with children in Tasmania, while the number of childless couples increased by 17% and the number of people living alone increased by 15%.

Although the proportion of welfare-dependent households has declined in recent years, Tasmania still has the highest proportion of welfare-dependent households of all states and territories at 34%. Of these households, the majority (52 %) were in receipt of retirement pensions and benefits.

Tasmania had a significantly higher percentage of its population that are rated as ‘low socio-economic status’ as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics at 55% of its population. The next highest is the Northern Territory at 28.4%, with Queensland and WA hovering around 23%. The Australian Capital Territory has just 0.3% of its population rated as ‘low socio-economic status’.

Comments

Roddy said…

I suppose with your job these statistics are readily at hand.
How about your dad and mum becoming amongst the retirees and pensioners?!
We are in Gladstone Queensland today and it is rather cool for this neck of the woods. No snow though.

3 April 2011 at 12:33

Kris McCracken said…

Lots of wind today.

3 April 2011 at 12:46

Roddy said…

We had lots of wind yesterday.

3 April 2011 at 16:52

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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