Here are the results of the recent poll.
Should Elon Musk Stick To Making Tesla Cars And Stay Out Of US Politics?
Yes 15 (50%)
No 15 (50%)
I Have No Idea 0 (%)
Total No. Of Votes: 30
A totally split vote with no abstainers! Amazing!
Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!
Not bad voter turnout – question must have been decent.
0 of 30 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!
Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted!
David.
This appeared a day or so ago:
Insurers say stress, burnout and bullying at work - especially among young people - are among the reasons claimants give for being unable to return to work.
Lucy Dean Wealth reporter
Updated Jul 9, 2025 – 12.30pm, first published at 12.08pm
Almost $1 in every $2 paid out by life insurers is linked to mental health problems in what sector leaders say is a crisis that is about to get worse, as more young people claim they are unable to work because they have developed severe anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Life insurance companies paid a record $2.2 billion in claims related to mental illness last year, up from $1.2 billion five years ago.
Stress, burnout and bullying at work are among the leading reasons claimants give for being unable to return to the workforce, along with divorce, financial strife, traumatic experiences and mood disorders such as depression.
Christine Cupitt of the Council of Australian Life Insurers, Kent Griffin of Acenda and Damien Mu of AIA have said the life insurance sector is struggling under the weight of surging mental health claims. Bethany Rae
Kent Griffin, the chief executive of Acenda (formerly MLC Life Insurance) and co-chair of the Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI) has said he is especially concerned about the rise in young people making total and permanent disability (TPD) claims for mental health reasons.
One study showed permanent disability claims by those in their 30s increased 732 per cent between 2013 and 2022, and now make up 36 per cent of all claims. However, people aged 50 and older still accounted for the majority of claims.
“This unprecedented increase not only highlights the growing burden of mental illness, but also raises concerns about the long-term financial sustainability of life insurance products designed to provide this support,” Griffin said.
Of all $5 billion in payouts in 2024, 44 per cent were linked to mental ill health rather than a physical condition or injury, compared to 25 per cent in 2019, according to Council of Australian Life Insurers figures released for the first time.
That is a 19 per cent rise over five years that has sector leaders warning of a “crisis of sustainability”, the outcome of which will be higher premiums, radical changes to eligibility criteria and many more claims being denied.
The same problem has created a political storm in NSW, where the government is attempting to narrow the scope of its workers compensation scheme. But the move so far has been stymied by heavy opposition from the Greens, Unions NSW and the Coalition.
Damien Mu, the chief executive of life insurer AIA, said the situation was alarming.
“Twenty-five per cent of the cause of claim for those under 25 is now mental health, and for those under 40, 30 per cent of the claims we get are for mental health,” he said.
About 80 per cent of retail mental health claims made at AIA were lodged by white-collar workers, Mu said, with anxiety, stress and PTSD the leading causes for a claim.
These were often the results of workplace bullying, burnout, excessive workload or a business failing, along with personal factors or exposure to traumatic incidents.
The second leading cause for mental health claims were mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar affective disorder.
But Mu said some claims were being lodged over an issue dating back 10 to 15 years ago.
“That makes it very difficult to assess … especially in the area of mental health, which is often the secondary [impact] of another health event. If we look at other insurance industries, there’s usually a time frame for which a claim needs to be put in.”
Mu said one option AIA was considering in an attempt to make the system more sustainable was limiting the time window in which claims could be made – possibly to a maximum of six or seven years after the incident.
“Looking at a six- or seven-year time frame makes sense, and will help reduce the cost and also make people more aware of the need to get claims in quicker,” he said.
TPD policies are paid out as a lump sum when a claimant can no longer work at all, either in their own job or any job, depending on the policy type. Claimants must prove they are totally and permanently disabled.
Payouts are in a lump sum ranging from $30,000 to millions of dollars, depending on the policy.
It is difficult to find figures on TPD premiums because they are not collected by a central body. However, financial adviser Trish Gregory of Hayes and Co Insurance Services said annual increases had been in the double digits and as much as 50 per cent, while Griffin said premium increases – which vary greatly depending on the customer’s risk profile and product – had ranged from 5 per cent to 40 per cent in recent years.
The increases were partly because of the rise in mental health claims, according to CALI chief executive Christine Cupitt.
“While we can’t draw a straight line [between the two], there is a very clear correlation between this increase in TPD claims for mental health, and premium increases,” she said.
The CALI figures cited above are for claims outside of superannuation. This type of coverage is usually arranged through a specialist broker or adviser.
However, Cupitt said a similar trend was playing out for life insurance claims made for coverage within super.
While TPD cover was paid out in a lump sum, Mu said a new model, which paid out smaller lump sums periodically based on someone’s work capacity, might need to be considered for mental health claims. This was because mental illness or injury posed a different recovery trajectory to that for a physical illness.
Mu gave the example of a dentist who lost a hand – they would probably never work in their primary occupation again. But a worker with PTSD may eventually be able to return to their primary occupation with the right support, limiting the need for large TPD payouts.
One model would be for a hypothetical customer claiming TPD due to PTSD to receive a smaller lump sum in the first year of claim if they could not work in their current job, said Mu. But in the second year of claim, that lump sum would be paid only if the claimant could not work in a related field, and in a third year the money would be paid only if they could not work at all.
Mu said early intervention was also essential. He noted AIA had developed programs giving people access to affordable psychology and rewarding people for good habits such as exercise and sleep. It had also developed a scheme that allowed access to subsidised psychologist appointments.
At Acenda, TPD claims related to mental health have increased by 339 per cent since 2020. Mental health is now the leading cause of TPD claim, at around 40 per cent.
In NSW, for compensation schemes for state workers, the number of psychological injury claims compensation schemes has doubled since 2019. Premier Chris Minns wants to raise the threshold for injury required to access compensation, and impose stricter limits on the payment of lifetime benefits.
The plan has been met with strong opposition from unions and the Greens, who argue that some measures – such as lifting the impairment level required to be eligible for long-term payments – make it effectively impossible for people to claim.
Griffin said life insurers were experiencing a similar pinch, caused both by increasing prevalence of mental illness and outdated product design. “Arguably, you’re going to see life insurers doing the same thing,” he said.
Here is the link:
This sounds to me like a pretty worrying and rather immanent crisis, where many will not receive the care they need without major system modification. We need a major effort in “root-cause” analysis to work out why the incidence of mental illness is rising so dramatically and what early interventions may help!
Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be done to help?
David.
This appeared a few days ago:
Donald Trump blindsided Australia with plans to slap brutal new tariffs on a $2b industry. Insiders have spilled on the true impact of the trade war move.
July 9, 2025 - 12:08PM
US President Donald Trump’s plan to drop a 200 per cent tariff bomb on Australian pharmaceuticals is set to “screw over” the sickest and most vulnerable in the United States suffering rare and life-threatening conditions including burns patients.
As the Albanese Government scrambles to secure more information about the US government’s latest plans, Australian officials are sounding the alarm given that pharmaceutical exports are worth over $2 billion a year.
All plasma products collected in Australia stay here and are not exported to the US.
Instead, the export issue relates to vaccines and blood products collected overseas and sent to Australia for processing before being returned to the US.
President Donald Trump has threatened to introduce 200 per cent tariffs on pharmaceuticals – one of Australia’s biggest exports to the US.
Speaking to the media before a cabinet meeting, the President suggested the “very, very high” levies on pharmaceuticals would not go into effect immediately, saying he would give drug manufacturers “about a year, year and a half” to respond and relocate their operations to the US.
“They’re going to be tariffs at a very high rate, like 200 per cent,” Mr Trump told reporters.
“We’ll give them a certain period of time to get their act together,” he added, seemingly referring to drug manufacturers bringing back manufacturing into the US.
Australia is subject to a 10 per cent “baseline” tariff, which was the minimum rate imposed on all US trading partners by Mr Trump earlier this year.
Australia’s plasma exports to the US
One of the biggest sections of the market includes blood products such as plasma products including exports linked to CSL Plasma which collects blood plasma in the United States.
In 2023, Australia exported $1.42 billion of vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures, making it the 20th largest exporter of 208 in the world.
Blood collection is a commercial operation in the United States, with plasma donors typically paid for their blood.
CSL Plasma operates one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated plasma collection networks, with nearly 350 plasma collection centers in the US and elsewhere.
The blood products are mostly processed in the US but some are sent back to Australia to manufacture therapies for a variety of rare and life-threatening conditions.
These conditions include primary immunodeficiencies, bleeding disorders like hemophilia, neurological disorders, and critical care needs like those arising from trauma or burns.
One Australian official predicted that demand for the products would continue but the tariffs would “screw over” patients relying on the notorious US healthcare system.
Vulnerable patients will be hit with cost increases because the tariffs are paid by importers, not Australian exporters.
CSL has a factory in Melbourne
Biotech giant CSL has a plasma fractionation facility in Broadmeadows in Melbourne.
The impact of the threatened tariffs relates to the commercial arm of CSL. which uses US blood products which are sourced in America and then processed in Australia before being sent back.
“Plasma manufacturing is a really fragile supply chain because it starts in a human vein,’’ an industry source said.
“It’s not a tap that you can turn on or off. You need people to vote with their feet to go into a facility that is enabled to collect plasma, and the demand for plasma products is growing globally each year.”
“Tariffs on pharmaceuticals impact the end user.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers “very concerned”
The Treasurer said on Wednesday that Washington’s latest announcement was “very concerning”.
“These are obviously very concerning developments,” Mr Chalmers told the ABC, adding that it had “been a feature of recent months that we’ve had these sorts of announcements out of DC”.
“It’s still early days. Obviously, we’ll make a more detailed assessment of what’s come out of the US in the usual way.”
“Our pharmaceuticals industry is much more exposed to the US market, and that’s why we’re seeking - urgently seeking - some more detail on what’s been announced.
“But I want to make it really clear once again … our Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme is not something that we’re willing to trade away or do deals on – that won’t change.”
“We’ve made it very clear that we think these tariffs are bad for the US, bad for Australia and bad for the global economy.” Mr Chalmers said one of the things the Albanese Government was “most concerned” about was in addition to the direct impact on Australian workers and industries caused by this tariff, was the “impact on global demand more broadly”.
“That’s why we’ve been … at every opportunity, making the case that these tariffs are unjustified, they should be removed in line with our free trade agreement,” he said.
The Prime Minister has described the taxes on Australian exports to the US as an “act of economic self-harm”.
“Tariffs are a penalty on the country that is imposing them, because what they require is for goods to be purchased with a tax on top, and the US has made that decision,” the Prime Minister said.
How plasma exports are used to help patients
CSL Behring uses a process called plasma fractionation to separate the collected plasma into different components, such as immunoglobulins, coagulation factors, and other proteins.
One example is helping people with bleeding disorders, with doctors utilising coagulation factors that are used to help patients with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders.
Plasma-derived products are also used in emergency situations like severe trauma, burns, and shock to replace lost blood volume and proteins.
For now, Australian officials concerned about the impact on blood product exports don’t have full clarity on how it will impact the supply chain process.
Here is the link:
Trump is really becoming a serious menace!
David.
This appeared last week:
A group of Australians at special risk of experiencing loneliness is older men. Yet most people – doctors included – don’t recognise the huge effect it is having on their lives and health.
There’s a condition that can take years off your life and set you up for a raft of medical problems. Older men are most at risk for the condition and, at the moment, we’re in an escalating epidemic of it. Yet most people – doctors included – don’t recognise the huge effect it is having on our lives and health.
That condition is loneliness.
There is strong evidence that Australians are experiencing loneliness more than ever. A group at special risk is older men – with the decade from age 55 to 64 being a time of special risk according to recent statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The institute’s figures point to almost one Australian adult in six experiencing prolonged loneliness. This is very similar to findings from countries such as Norway and the United States.
Indeed, so concerning is the global trend to loneliness that the World Health Organisation has described the situation as a major public health concern.
For these reasons the Australian organisation Ending Loneliness Together is calling for a national strategy to address the problem.
Aside from the health and compassionate concerns society should have about the “epidemic” of loneliness, economic research from Australia suggests that the health effects of loneliness may cost the economy as much as $2.7bn every year.
All of us need human connection not only to thrive but also to survive. Loneliness is the sometimes intense feeling of being alone or separated from others. While social isolation is closely related, it is possible – indeed common – to be lonely in the midst of many people.
Loneliness can be miserable for people to experience, but ill health flowing from being lonely can make everything worse.
It is startling to realise that long-term loneliness increases your chance of an early death by 26 per cent – the same effect as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
So concerning are the health effects of loneliness that the US National Academies of Sciences has warned that “social isolation presents a major risk for premature mortality, comparable to other risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, or obesity.”
Loneliness now has been linked to illnesses such as heart disease and stroke, diabetes, mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety – even suicidality – as well as alcohol misuse and other additions. Dementia and other cognitive problems also are known to flow from long-term loneliness.
Why are we seeing such a wave of loneliness and health consequences flowing from it?
There is no doubt that the pandemic increased social isolation for many people, but loneliness was an issue before Covid-19 took to the stage. Part of the reason is that Australians are ageing and many of us are relying on digital connection rather than direct human contact.
Things that can have a powerful effect on causing loneliness including loss of mobility and difficulties in moving around. Untreated problems with vision or hearing are major contributors as people lose confidence in connection and communication.
Living in isolation has become an increasing trend in Australia. This is made worse if people have problems accessing transport or if they lack social support with getting out of their home. Cost-of-living issues are seeing many older Australians forgoing trips out and social events or joint meals.
The loss of a life partner – either their death or a need for care in a hospital or other care setting – can be very isolating. Divorce and relationship breakdowns can have a severe effect both on mental health and other friendship groups.
People already experiencing failing health, and those with a disability – especially Australians living in rural areas – may be at particular risk. People without children are another increasing trend, and those who have problems with social media connection.
Accepting that loneliness is a common problem for many people in our community, and that it has enormous potential effects on individual health and the broader economy, it may surprise you to learn that the medical research on what to do about loneliness is scant indeed.
Recognising these risks, it is vitally important that if you are experiencing loneliness that you let your doctor know. There should be no shame in talking about how you feel and how loneliness is affecting you. Your doctor needs to know.
That said, much of the solution clearly is beyond the realm of medicine alone. The US National Institute of Ageing has some excellent tips on managing loneliness. The critical first step is recognising the problem, understanding that is it common, and that it puts you at risk.
It is easy to neglect self-care when you’re lonely. As basic as these things seem, focusing on sleep, gentle physical activity, and eating healthily are an important start. Make sure you work with your doctor on this if you have been neglecting your health for a long time.
Re-connecting can be a challenge for many lonely people – it is very easy to lose confidence.
Volunteering can be a powerful way of giving yourself back a sense of purpose and meeting and building relationships with like-minded people. In fact, there is research to support the effects of volunteering in boosting your mood and strengthening your mind and body.
Recognise that everyone – all of us – seeks human connection. Make the time to call, text, or even write to family, friends or neighbours. So often you’ll be surprised how people will respond.
Think about joining a walking club, a church or other faith-based group, and check with local community organisations.
If you’re an older Australian man then you’re in a risk group for this most pernicious of conditions. Loneliness can affect anyone at any age, though. It can be tough to admit it has entered your life, but recognising it can save your life.
Steve Robson is professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Australian National University and former president of the Australian Medical Association. He is a board member of the National Health and Medical Research Council and a co-author of research into outcomes of public and private maternity care.
This column is published for information purposes only. It is not intended to be used as medical advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for independent professional advice about your personal health or a medical condition from your doctor or other qualified health professional.
Here is the link:
I am not sure this is a problem confines to men – but whoever it affects on would hope for some quality help – especially to make the older years more contents and rich!
There is little doubt e are not doing enough at present and that there is decent room for improvement.
There are a lot of lonely people out there sadly…..
David.
This notes the reported goings on from a day or so ago in Melbourne:
Ronald Mizen Political correspondent
Jul 6, 2025 – 1.08pm
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has labelled a spate of attacks in Melbourne over the weekend antisemitic hate crimes and urged authorities to pursue those responsible to the fullest extent of the law.
After an arson attack on an East Melbourne synagogue and protests inside an Israeli restaurant on Friday night, and vandalism of the offices of a military-linked engineering firm early on Saturday morning, Netanyahu took to social media to demand action.
“The reprehensible antisemitic attacks, with calls of ‘death to the IDF’ and an attempt to attack a place of worship, are severe hate crimes that must be uprooted,” he said in a statement posted to social media.
Writing in The Australian Financial Review on Sunday, Jewish community spokesman Paul Rubenstein said such attacks were no longer shocking Australians and were “increasingly seen as part of the landscape – tragic, yes, but somehow expected”.
The NSW chairman of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council said that “should terrify us all”.
“By failing to grasp the seriousness of what is unfolding, Australia’s political and civic leaders have left the Jewish community standing alone. This abdication of responsibility has sown deep moral confusion. It has set us on a perilous path – one history warns us never ends well,” Rubenstein said.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke declined to be drawn into a political spat, instead calling for unity. He echoed Rubenstein’s sentiment that what starts with words, “rarely ends with words”.
Burke labelled the arson attack on the synagogue in Melbourne’s east an “attack on all Australians” and sent a clear message to Australia’s Jewish community.
“You belong in Australia, you are welcome in Australia, and the Australian government has come here immediately to stand in solidarity with you,” he said after a visit to the synagogue on Sunday morning.
The Coalition demanded Prime Minister Anthony Albanese convene a meeting of the national cabinet to address the issue “with urgency”.
“There’s a number of things the government could be doing, yet we’re sitting here today discussing a horrible attack,” Coalition frontbencher Melissa McIntosh told the ABCs Insiders program.
Firefighters swiftly responded to the arson attack in which the door of the building was set alight while worshippers were inside. A NSW man has been charged following the incident.
Detectives from Victoria Police allege the 34-year-old man was seen walking through Parliament Gardens before entering the grounds of the synagogue on Albert Street at about 8pm.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene on foot in a westerly direction along Albert Street,” police said.
“There were approximately 20 people inside the synagogue at the time of the incident, taking part in Shabbat.”
Police confirmed everyone evacuated from the rear of the building and no one was injured. The man from Toongabbie, in western Sydney, was arrested in the Melbourne CBD on Saturday at about 8.15pm.
“He was interviewed by detectives and charged with reckless conduct endanger life, reckless conduct endanger serious injury, criminal damage by fire, and possess a controlled weapon,” police said.
He was due to appear in the bail and remand court on Sunday.
Under pressure to guarantee such attacks never occur again, Burke said part of the reason for the swift arrest was because of investments in CCTV under funding grants from the Albanese government.
“In terms of additional security measures, that was largely led by Mark Dreyfus [in the last parliament and] has been part of the story of this offender being captured so quickly,” he told reporters.
“People should be safe wherever they go in Australia, and the Australian dream, of this country, is [that] no matter where you come from in the world, no matter what your heritage is, we stand together, we welcome each other, and we do not import hatred and violence from overseas to life in Australia.”
Also on Friday night, police responded to a group of about 20 people, some masked and wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, entering the CBD Israeli restaurant Miznon. Video footage from the Miznon incident shows diners screaming in fear inside the Hardware Lane restaurant.
Here is the link:
There is commentary here also:
Opinion
If we cannot defend the safety and dignity of Jews in Australia today, we will not be able to defend the idea of a tolerant, inclusive, multicultural Australia tomorrow.
Paul Rubenstein Community leader
Jul 6, 2025 – 11.20am
When a synagogue is set on fire in East Melbourne, when diners at an Israeli-owned restaurant are violently assaulted by antisemitic thugs, the response should be national outrage. These are the kinds of attacks that ought to shake a country to its core.
But they don’t. Not any more.
Because these attacks are no longer treated as aberrations. They are increasingly seen as part of the landscape – tragic, yes, but somehow expected. And that shift should terrify us all.
The scorched door of the East Melbourne Synagogue after an anti-Israel protester set it alight on Friday evening. Christopher Hopkins
Since October 7, 2023, Australia’s Jewish community has felt the ground shift beneath it. What once felt solid – our place in a tolerant, multicultural democracy – has been profoundly undermined. We hear the standard declarations that antisemitism has “no place” in Australia. But in practice, it has found one. It is growing stronger, louder, and more brazen by the day.
This is no longer just a campaign of intimidation against Jews. It is part of a broader assault on tolerance itself. The public space has become fertile ground for dangerous and false narratives: that Israel is colonialist, racist and genocidal. These are not simply criticisms of a nation-state – they form a grand, dehumanising accusation: that Israel, and by extension Jews, are inherently evil.
This rhetoric is not abstract. When protesters chant “Globalise the intifada”, they are not calling for peaceful reform – they are calling for violent revolution.
When crowds shout “Death to the IDF”, they are not voicing foreign policy concerns. They are issuing a threat: that Jews have no right to self-defence and should face mass slaughter at the hands of those who proudly call for it.
This is not free speech. It is incitement. And it is being tolerated.
By failing to grasp the seriousness of what is unfolding, Australia’s political and civic leaders have left the Jewish community standing alone. This abdication of responsibility has sown deep moral confusion. It has set us on a perilous path – one that history warns us never ends well.
The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It began with lies. With distortions. With the portrayal of Jews as uniquely evil. That same dynamic is playing out now.
The collective “Jew”, now equated with Israel, has become a scapegoat for all the world’s ills. The thing that stands between those ills and utopia. And that idea has taken hold here – in our streets, our institutions, even our schools.
This kind of hatred never stays contained. The history is clear: every society that has allowed itself to follow this path has ended up ashamed of where it arrived and inevitably in abject failure.
So we must ask, urgently and clearly: is this really the road we want Australia to go down?
This is not a fringe issue. It is not a moment that can be smoothed over with vague condemnations of “all hate”. It requires leadership. It requires moral clarity. And it requires action now.
Because if we cannot defend the safety and dignity of Jews in Australia today, we will not be able to defend the idea of a tolerant, inclusive, multicultural Australia tomorrow.
Here is the link:
https://www.afr.com/politics/tragic-shift-on-antisemitism-should-terrify-us-all-20250706-p5mctr
All I can add is that we can all do without these ructions disturbing the peace anywhere in Aus!
My view is deportation / goal is ideal for these troublemakers. Confinement for a few years and then deportation seems ideal to me, in that order, for these troublemakers!
David.
This appeared last week:
July 1, 2025 11:52 am
The Australian Digital Health Agency has released the Health Connect Australia Strategy, Architecture and Roadmap as part of the launch of the national health information exchange project, Health Connect Australia.
The overall aims of the programme look at improving access to health information between healthcare participants while also addressing the “evolving needs of Australians and healthcare providers” by enhancing the digital infrastructure in place.
Three separate documents have been created to help tackle key challenges around digital health inequity and low digital literacy levels, with the first being based on strategy. It gives an “overview of the strategic intent and goals”, which includes improving access to health information for the right people at the right time, allowing patients to control their healthcare journey, establishing national digital health tools to support health outcomes and making sure information is secure, high quality and addresses privacy concerns.
The agency also focuses on architecture, with an aim “to enhance national digital health interoperability” over the next five years, with 13 different intents outlined, including adopting a consumer-centric approach, supporting local investment and innovation, developing architecturally resilient technical platforms that can accommodate change, approaching technologies and practices with an ecosystem-wide perspective and more.
As well a high-level indicative representation of the roadmap detailed from 2025 to 2030 and beyond is shared. Split by four phases: a foundations phase (2025-2026), which looks at the establishment of a national directory for seamless access to provider information; a sharing phase (2025-2028), focusing on the secure communication of health information between providers and improving consumer access; a discovery phase (2027-2029), working on developing a record discovery service to locate and access healthcare information; and an enhancement phase (2027-2030+), which introduces value-added digital services.
Agency chief clinical adviser (medicine), Dr Amandeep Hansra spoke on the introduction of Health Connect Australia, saying: “The frustration for consumers having to constantly retell their story and clinicians trying to find information such as pathology and diagnostic imaging results, is real, and Health Connect Australia will ensure that a person’s health information moves with them though the system, enabling seamless care.”
Learn more about the Health Connect Australia Strategy, Architecture and Roadmap. (© Australian Digital Health Agency, 2025 Health Connect Australia Strategy, Australian Digital Health Agency.)
Here is the link:
And we have this – which provided links to some details:
The Health Connect Australia Strategy, Architecture and Roadmap articulates the overall architectural vision for creating a digital health ecosystem that enables secure, efficient and standardised information exchange across Australia's healthcare sector. It was developed in consultation with government, industry and peak bodies, and informed by more than 500 items of feedback from key stakeholders.
The Health Connect Australia Strategy, Architecture and Roadmap consists of 3 key documents:
Download the Health Connect Australia Strategy (PDF, 1018.7 KB)
Download the Health Connect Australia Architecture (PDF, 2.12 MB)
Download the Health Connect Australia Roadmap (PDF, 1.1 MB)
Learn more about Health Connect Australia.
Date last updated: 30 June 2025
Here is the link:
For oldies like me there is a real sense of déjà -vu with so many of these documents looking like a rehash of previous versions of documents most of us have seen often from many years past!
I suppose there is change – but it really feels to be pretty glacial to me!
As for actual progress and improved delivery of services I will let the reader be the judge!
David.
Here are the results of the recent poll.
Should Australia Increase Defence Spending To 3% Of GDP?
Yes 14 (42%)
No 14 (42%)
I Have No Idea 5 (16%)
Total No. Of Votes: 33
A totally split vote with a few staying out of it!
Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!
Not bad voter turnout – question must have been decent.
5 of 33 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question or wanted to stay out of it!
Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted!
David.
This appeared last week:
12:00AMJune 28, 2025
When it comes to recorded music, the tail has always wagged the dog; the length of songs has long been dictated by the recording format. The three-minute pop song wasn’t the idea of any artist. It came about because the early recording formats – particularly shellac 78s which exploded in affordable popularity between the wars – ran about that length.
And it stuck fast as radio formats and advertising were tailored to fit. A few longer songs – Don McLean’s American Pie, for instance – were defiantly broken in two with the first half on the A side and finishing when you flipped over the seven inch single. But they were oddities.
Arguably the Beatles’ two most creative albums were Rubber Soul and Revolver, and across them both there are just three songs that are more than three minutes long – one by two seconds, one by seven, the third by 18.
By the time Mark Knopfler’s band Dire Straits started recording, longer songs were tolerated by radio, but the band’s debut single, Sultans of Swing, at 5 minutes 47 seconds, was still an exception. Not for Knopfler, though. He has never been inclined to short musical ideas.
Over the next few albums he would take full control of the Dire Straits project. He was already writing all the songs and did so on every album the band recorded and not a moment of it boxed in by commercial radio rules. The first album, produced by Steve Winwood’s brother Muff, had come out of the blue. Their second came out of Nassau in the Bahamas less than a year later. It was a planned project with the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios team of Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett in the drivers’ seat. This was their American label, Warner Bros, trying to guarantee a winner like its unexpected predecessor. And it was with its hit single, Lady Writer, assumed by many to be a leftover from the first album sessions. Indeed, it sounded like it might have been recorded the same day as Sultans of Swing.
Despite the laidback Bahamas seaside setting, Wexler and Beckett brought aspects of that undeniable funk and soul feeling to the sessions even if the Alabama grit didn’t travel. Knopfler’s brawny baritone barks and coaxes the storylines out of the music while his 1962 Fender leads its way lyrically and apparently effortlessly through unlikely melodies.
By the next album, Making Movies, Dire Straits was down to a three-piece, Knopfler’s brother David stepping away from the never-ending cycle of album-tour-album leaving bassist John Illsley and drummer Pick Withers. Knopfler co-produced Making Movies with Jimmy Iovine who had just come from making Patti Smith’s Easter album from which came the hit single Because The Night. Perhaps because of Iovine’s connections with Bruce Springsteen and his band, E Streeter Roy Bittan joined in on keyboards, cheekily reprising those first ethereal lines from the storming Jungleland that closed Springsteen’s breakthrough Born To Run album, for the cinematic single Romeo and Juliet. It could well be Knopfler’s finest and most enduring moment.
If he sounds like he means it, it’s because he did. He had just broken up with Holly Vincent, the Chicago-born lead singer of the punk rock band Holly and the Italians. The US outfit had moved to England in 1978 where punk rock was flourishing, but their shallow, derivative sounds – a flimsy mix of punk and new wave – failed to find and audience, and in any case Holly was deported.
But Knopfler’s heart was broken. Good thing, too. It led to the creation of one of the finest rock songs ever written. And it is so beautifully rendered; the arpeggios poured from his 1937 National Resonator guitar and he pulls together lyrical couplets as if he were Jimmy Webb.
When you can fall for chains of silver, you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold.
And then referencing West Side Story, that famous New York City retelling of Romeo and Juliet by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim:
There’s a place for us, you know the movie song.
When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
But Australians weren’t buying it. Neither, other than in the UK where it rose to No.8 on the charts, was anybody else. It is one of the mysteries of music that such wonderful songs can sometimes pass us by.
But Dire Straits was always an albums band. They have had four No.1 albums in Australia and the worst performed, which was Making Movies, came in at No.6. The other single from it, Tunnel of Love, reached only 62 on the local chart.
Knopfler took over production duties for 1982 Love Over Gold and it showed. Side one had just two songs: Telegraph Road at just over 14 minutes and the single Private Investigations at almost seven. Reluctantly trimmed to just less than six for the single, it must surely rate as one of the most unusual rock songs. Over a glorious guitar melody Knopfler narrates the three verses. It has no chorus. There is a musical interlude of 50 seconds and then he’s back with another line: “Scarred for life, no compensations. Private Investigations.” Knopfler then rates the pain of an untrusting relationship with distant chords until it all fades to nothing.
What could follow? What did is one of the remarkable stories in music. Australians have often defied international trends to adopt albums others overlooked. In 1972 we fell in love with Neil Diamond’s live double album Hot August Night. It had risen to No.5 in the US during a 19-week chart run, and No.32 in a fortnight placing on the UK charts. But across 1973 and 1974 it lodged at No.1 for five months in the Australian charts where it spent 224 weeks. Four years later, Australians adopted Boz Scaggs’ white soul classic Silk Degrees album and we were the only country in which it topped the charts staying across 1976 and beyond in a 102-week chart residency.
Forty years ago this month we similarly adopted Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms. No great effort went into the album artwork, just a striking photo of that treasured 1937 guitar set against a beautiful sunset. But the album entered the charts at No.1 and stayed there for 22 weeks. Then the band toured here – a monster run of 55 dates for which 900,000 tickets were sold. A record broken only recently. Three singles, So Far Away, Money For Nothing and Walk Of Life, charted strongly and Brothers in Arms once again topped the charts for another consecutive 11 weeks. It was the first CD in the world to sell a million copies, and we did our bit; it was the biggest-selling record in Australia in 1985, and the second biggest-selling album the following year.
Brothers in Arms: No great effort went into the album artwork, just a striking photo of that treasured 1937 guitar set against a beautiful sunset.
It has sold 1,225,000 copies here which is 17 times Platinum. It lost out to Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required for the album of the year Grammy – a sin with which The Recording Academy must forever live. It did win Best Engineered Album and the surround sound re-release in 2006 won another. For Knopfler, that year was a whirlwind of concerts – 248 of them starting on April 25, 1985, taking in the London end of Live Aid, and finishing in Sydney with 16 consecutive nights. The tour then moved to Queensland, Perth and even Uluru before returning to Sydney for another four-night stint at the old Entertainment Centre, ending a year and a day later after it had begun.
The songs from Brothers in Arms came to Knopfler at various points, the title song arriving during the Falklands War from a comment his dad made in 1982: “My old man said ‘Isn’t it ironic that the Russians were brothers in arms with the fascist collection of generals in Argentina’. And that’s what put the phrase into my head.”
The band toured repeatedly leading up to the recording of Brothers in Arms. “We were working like trucks. It felt like a 24-hour day shift all the time,” he said, adding that he had to learn to compose songs on the road. “You’d see me walking up a hotel corridor with a chair with no arms on it. It was because there wasn’t one in my room, and I’d gone and found a chair I could play guitar on,” he said laughing at the memory.
The album was mostly recorded over an indulgent three-month stay at George Martin’s small AIR studios on Montserrat in the West Indies. It had the latest 24-track digital tape machine desks. But some of the new tapes were faulty and three tracks had errors on some channels. These were finished off at the Record Plant on Manhattan, giving Knopfler the chance to add some of the sophisticated brilliance of the Brecker brothers, Randy and the late Michael, to add trumpet and sax to Your Latest Trick. Two years before, Michael’s sax had also defined the glorious melody Knopfler wrote for Going Home, from the Local Hero soundtrack. “He’s just got New York in that sound in that sax. I don’t think he’s actually ever been equalled,” Knopfler said of the virtuoso who stood tallest in narrow canyons of Manhattan’s brass-section giants.
English rock band Dire Straits performing in concert at Football Park, South Australia, in 1986. Lead singer guitarist Mark Knopfler, right
Terence Williams, who’d replaced Withers on drums, played on all the Montserrat recording, but was uneasy about his contributions and flew home to make way for David Bowie’s drummer Omar Fakim who’d earlier made his name in Weather Report. But Williams’ fierce drum intro to Money for Nothing stayed. But not everything did: weeks after Brothers in Arms was released Knopfler and Sting performed it at Live Aid with Knopfler changing the word “faggot” to “queenie” and later “maggot”.
Knopfler remembers the Australia legs of that tour well.
“I like the smell of Australia,” he said. “I loved it there. It became a bit of a break for us. I still treasure my time there.”
Dire Straits had toured in 1981 and 1983 and Knopfler had become friends with eccentric Sydney artist Brett Whiteley and had seen his dramatic, 18-pannelled Alchemy work which these days can sometimes be seen at the Art Gallery of NSW in all its 16m glory. Knopfler had adapted some of the cover of his 1984 double live album of the same name.
“I think Brett was always very, very interested in what was happening in the rest of the world,” Knopfler says on a Zoom call from London. He agrees Whiteley was a bit bonkers. “Oh, yeah. Brett was Brett, bless him. He was bright, bright”, he says of the artist who died in 1992 at the age of 53 of a drug overdose. “I don’t ever think he was looking for a way out because absolutely he wasn’t.”
Sydney Entertainment Centre secret facts playing cards featuring artists, such as Dire Straits (pictured), who have played concerts at the venue. The Card set was found during the demolition of the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Picture: John Fotiadis
Just before he died, Whiteley had told Knopfler that “he was looking forward to his Paris show – which was tremendous – and he was looking forward to something else in painting and exhibitions. So he was really enthused by what he was doing. He just made a stupid mistake.”
Knopfler maintains many friends here in Australia and particularly likes Rushcutters Bay in Sydney, a short stroll down from Elizabeth Bay’s Sebel Townhouse where the band stayed for so many weeks as the city fell in love with seeing them live.
He tells me his sister, who lives in England, still buys him his favourite chocolate bar. “She goes out to a special candy sweet shop and buys those raspberry ripply things that get made in Australia and gives them to me. It’s the taste of Australia!”
I have never before heard a Cherry Ripe described in that way, but I understood.
MAKING MAGIC WITH BOB DYLAN
Mark Knopfler’s good friend from his early days was Steve Phillips, a blues enthusiast, guitarist, instrument builder and painter. In The Gallery, a song from Dire Straits’ first album, was about Phillips’ sculptor father Harry. Phillips’s mother was a painter. Phillips is the bloke who bought that National guitar which, of course, shines like the Mississippi Delta across so many of Knopfler’s songs.
That was in the 1960s when Phillips played around Leeds pubs and at one point was interviewed by a young reporter called Knopfler. They became friends and Phillips introduced his mate to older American blues. Years later, Phillips would record some of it, including songs written by Blind Willie McTell (below). “It was a tremendous broadening of my knowledge,” said Knopfler of playing and rehearsing with Phillips. “My finger-picking became more refined and more and more bluesy. I was going forward with jazz a little bit, going forward with chords on the one hand, and on the other going backwards into the past with the National and with other string instruments.”
It was timely training. By 1977, Knopfler had formed Dire Straits. They recorded their debut album in a deconsecrated church in London in February the following year and by early 1979 had the single Sultans of Swing climbing charts worldwide and were performing small venues in Los Angeles where, on February 28, 1979, Bob Dylan went to see them at the late show at the Roxy.
Dylan’s concerts and records had been poorly received for a few years and, the man who believed Christ had visited him in a Tucson hotel the year before, was bent on making changes to his life – and certainly to his sound. He went backstage and asked Knopfler to help out on his next album which would be the Christian/folk/blues music shock that was Slow Train Coming.
Knopfler was back to work on Dylan’s Infidels in 1983, an album they co-produced and on which should have been perhaps Dylan’s most exquisitely perfect composition – a stark, melancholy, lyrically absolute song Dylan had just written called Blind Willie McTell. Just the two of them: Knopfler on an acoustic 12-string and Dylan on piano. The dull foot tapping throughout is Knopfler’s.
McTell himself had been recorded by musicologist John Lomax who, apart from teaching himself ancient Greek and Latin, realised before anyone else the invaluable contribution to American music that had been made by black American cowboys. He and his sons John Jnr and Alan spent their lives recording the music that was already fading from American life and whose practitioners were dead, in jail or otherwise silenced.
McTell’s thin volume of music – he died in 1959 – is a jaunty mix of blues and country and perhaps with hints of Scott Joplin. One of his songs to survive – with that distinctive clear, penetrating vocal – is Statesboro Blues which has been recorded by Taj Mahal, David Bromberg and was famously part of most Allman Brothers’ sets. English folkie Ralph May recorded it before changing his surname to McTell.
Dylan’s song traces lines in American history from slavery, chain gangs, hostile Confederate “rebel yells” to the Civil War and the burning of rundown plantations after it when the cheap labour that sustained them dried up.
For Dylan, “God is in His heaven” but man proved himself untrustworthy in the Garden of Eden through “power and greed and corruptible seed”. Knopfler too was struck by this composition’s undecorated beauty. “I love that song,” he said. Indeed, they had been discussing influences with Dylan “who was big into Robert Johnson, and I said ‘do you listen to Blind Willie McTell?’. It could be that I put Blind Willie McTell into Bob’s head”.
Indeed it could. It’s not a song about McTell (pictured left), it is just a device to link the verses together, and unlike Johnson, McTell rhymes with lots of words. Dylan clearly thought he had never nailed the song he heard in his head. There are three versions of it about, the one with Knopfler that came out on the Official Bootleg Series, another with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor on slide, and a third yet-to-surface version, of which Knopfler said: “I did (it) with electric guitar and piano. I don’t know what happened to that, which was really spaced out.”
On May 5, 1983, Dylan and Knopfler recorded it a final time, a hauntingly spare rendition. Still Dylan was unhappy. He never returned to that song. It sounds like another manufactured myth of Dylanology to point out that it would have been Blind Willie’s 80th birthday.
Alan Howe
Here is the link:
The track (Telegraph Road) is on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhdFe3evXpk
The sound-track of my PhD! – was introduced to them by my research assistant and never looked back!
What with doing all my training I missed them until started doing my PhD research by which time they were “old hat”! A very great band IMVHO!
David.
