Un-Election 2010

Watch out Julia! Someone's coming to stab you!

Hey guys! Sorry it's been a while. My reason for absence is due to mainly being slack as well as playing Supa Golf, wine tasting at Sandalford Wines and watching Perth Glory dominate, hence they're pretty legitimate reasons. What's not legitimate, is the outcome of yesterday's Federal Election.

The last five weeks have been the most uninspiring lead up to any kind of election in my twenty and a half years on this Earth. The terms 'moving forward' and 'real action' have been bandied so much that they have lost its meaning and look what we've ended up with, a hung parliament (yes, please laugh at the sexual innuendo, I know The Todd would), the first of such since 1940.

There isn't much I can take out from this election but here are some lessons I've learned:

1. Member for Perth, Stephen Smith, is actually a woman. How on Earth can he talk on the phone, message on his BlackBerry and calculate how many seats his party has lost at the same time whilst being on television talking to Kerry O'Brien??? This (wo)man can multitask!
2. Never, ever, wear a budgie smuggler or drink a shandy. It will define you forever.
3. Learn how not to pronounce 'negotiate' (it is not ner-go-see-ate)
4. The words 'moving forward' and 'real action' shall never be uttered again
5. Every other state and territory in Australia is Western Australia's bitch
6. You are able to turn nearly any word in the political glossary to make it sound inappropriate. For example: swing, hung, tight, liberal, affirmative action, caucus...and the list goes on.

So, what happens with a hung parliament? Well supposedly Gillard is caretaker PM until a formation of a minority government is made with either Gillard or Abbott making a deal with the Independents (such as the kooky Bob Katter) and the first Greens Member of the Lower House, Adam Brandt. The last hung parliament was in 1940 and lasted 2 years, 230 days but no commentator is giving this session of parliament any hope of that. If government is not formed by the 26th November (which seems unlikely but still) another election has to be called.

Now starts a series of negotiations that could last for a series of days or even longer but I'm an extremely impatient person so I've devised a set of methods on how a government can be formed in this situation.
1. The Ultimate Tug of War (Have you seen ToW with 145 people? I think not!)
2. Yard Glass contest between Abbott and Gillard
3. Knock-out Paper-Scissors-Rock tournament, winner becomes PM
4. Pie eating contest between Joe Hockey and Sharryn Jackson (pretty sure i'd beat both of them)
5. Put Gillard and Abbott in a dark, locked room and see which one loses the plot first.

Unfortunately, the Australian Constitution won't adopt these methods any time soon, so in the meanwhile, let's just wait it out and see what happens.

Until next time,
The Canteen Boy

Five Cents Makes No Sense

Picture this, you park on the street in the city and you're looking for change to pay your ticket. You dig through your purse/wallet, scourage the floor of your car and then make way to your car's ash tray which is your favourite place to hoard your coins. You think you have the right amount, mostly in 5c pieces. As you stare at the parking machine it says it doesn't accept 5c coins and you just lose the plot...well not really, but surely you're fustrated.

In 1993, Australia's 1c and 2c were demonetised and taken out of circulation and led for totals to be rounded to the nearest five cents (known as the Swedish rounding system). Contrary to popular belief at the time, this did not lead to a spiral in inflation. A study by the University of Melbourne (http://www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/whatisstatistics/coins.html) stated that 95% of shopkeepers will lose or gain no more than 88 cents (in a sample size of 1000 transactions over five shops), 1.15% will only stand to lose/gain more than a $1 and 0.06% would have losses/gains of more than a $1.50.

I guarantee most of you are thinking why do we still have this piece of shrapnel. We can't use them in parking machines, vending machines or even those little lollies at your local deli!

Put it in this perspective, your average package of chips has about 34 chips inside, it retails at $1.70, hence the cost is 5 cents a chip. That is how little it's buying power is now! Compare that to 1966 when the cost of a postage stamp is 6c, now it is 60c hence in the last 44 years, the buying power of our dollar has weakened to the factor of 10.

The five cent coin weighs 2.83 grams, made out of 75% copper and 25% nickel. The copper value of the coin is 1.67 cents and the nickel value is 1.59 cents hence the material cost of a 5c coin is 3.26 cents and that's without taking into account labour and transportation costs! Between 1999 and 2006, at least 1.4 billion coins have been minted to the face value of $70 million! That's $70 million dollars going straight to bottom of purses, drawers, ash trays and large water features which 'bring luck'.

I don't bother anymore in using my 5c coins, I hoard them at home, put them in those bank bags and when I fill enough of them, they go to the bank and straight into my account. Last year alone, I deposited 400 ($20 worth) of these nuisances which was enough to have a decent lunch somewhere in Leederville.

I think it's about time we got rid of this piece of metallic wastage. New Zealand thought so when they got rid of their 5 cent coin in 2005 and there was no huge jump in prices or inflation. Recently the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra unveiled their new refurbishment to the public, it features a staircase adorned with 5 cent pieces. You know when that happens, it's not worth using anymore.

So I urge you not to return your 5 cent coins into circulation and rather continue hoarding them as you do and deposit them. In the meanwhile, keep a look out for some rare 5 cent pieces. These are the ones minted in 1972 (worth $35 uncirculated) and those minted between 1966 and 1969 ($6-8 uncirculated).

Really, five cents makes no sense.

Perth's Traffic Congestion Conundrum

It's 7.20am, on my way to uni to get to my 8am lecture. It is a 10.9km drive from my house to uni. In an ideal world, this really should take me 20 minutes, according to Google Maps, it should take me 29 minutes, but really this is nowhere near the truth! It takes me at least 45 minutes in peak hour and 30-35 minutes in normal periods. If it takes me 45 minutes in peak hour, I am averaging 14.53km/h! Well below the speed limit of 50 or 60km/h throughout my journey.

My story is only one of several hundred thousand that drivers in Perth encounter daily. A combination of short-sighted road network planning and bureaucracy has led to a series of unneccesary bottlenecks in and around Perth during peak hours.

Daily on Perth's three freeways (Mitchell, Kwinana and Graham Farmer), traffic is always at a crawl during peak hour extending for kilometres. This is also the case on Perth's main arterial roads such as East Parade, Beaufort Street, Tonkin Highway, Loftus Street, South Street and Stirling Highway amongst a plethora of others.

Here are what I think the main problems are:

1. The failure to invest in improving roads such as increasing lanes on the freeways and other roads such as Great Eastern Highway;
2. Poor traffic management control through traffic light patterns, especially in the CBD;
3. Failure to promote schemes such as car pooling lanes. According to
The Sunday Times on July 18 (I know, not always the reliable source), during peak hour 9 out of 10 cars on the freeway on had one person in the car and;
4. The lack of public transport infrastructure, especially in the suburbs East of Perth.

I know that peak hour traffic is non-avoidable and is a part of many cities across the world and Perth is no exception but it really should not be this bad.


Extending Perth's public transport infrastructure can lead to reductions in traffic congestion.

According to new figures released by Main Roads, an additional 50,000 cars will clog Perth roads by 2015. With no new major road projects in the pipeline to be completed by then, this situation will only become worse. There is only so much a road can handle and there are only so many car parks you can provide. Inevitably it will only become worse and if there is nothing proactively done to solve this problem, it will be permanent.

At this point in time, the state government has no plans to increase the amount of lanes or extending the public transport system beyond its current infrastructure as Transport Minister Simon O'Brien said:

"Managing traffic confestion requires multiple strategies, including land-use planning to achieve more balanced traffic flows and reudced travel, encouraging car pooling and the use of public transport, cucling and walking as alternatives to private vehicles. The growing use of technology...will also help manage congestion and reduce bottlenecks."

Personally I think the minister is extremely short-sighted in his views towards the reduction of congestion on our roads. The ultimate aim is for the population is to live close where they work, educate, recreate but we know that is never going to be the case so the government needs to work on strategies to reduce congestion around the city. These are my suggestions:

1. Expand the public transport network infrastructure by building light rail, additional train lines and invest in more buses and rolling stock for train lines to improve service frequency.
2. Integrate traffic flow through a centralised control of traffic lights through a system using GPS and CCTV at all major intersections in the CBD and on major arterial roads heading into the CBD.
3. Promote the use of public transport and car-pooling.
4. Increase the amount of lanes of traffic on the Mitchell and Kwinana Freeways.
5. Remove merging points to improve flow of traffic and prevent bottlenecks.
6. Variable speed limits to adjust to road and traffic conditions and improve traffic flow.
7. Businesses can stagger start and finish times to enable their employees be on time and reduce traffic on roads during peak periods.
8. Introduce part-time traffic lights that only operate during a certain period of time (peak or off-peak periods).
9. Improve the link between public transport and roads such as increasing parking at train stations or increase in feeder bus services from suburbs to train stations.
10. Congestion charge for driving in the CBD (e.g. London)
11. Reduce the cost of car registration whilst introducing a system of road pricing where cars are charged for using certain roads during different times of the day (e.g. ERP in Singapore).
12. Increase the amount of Variable Message Signs on Perth roads to alert users of incidents and estimate times to the next intersection/exit.

There are 12 ideas here but there are much more that could also be considered. All in all, a solution to curb traffic congestion is needed as soon as possible and has to be long-sighted to take into account future population and vehicle growth in the Perth Metropolitan Area.


Traffic congestion can also be caused by stupidity

Welcome!

I am The Canteen Boy, kneel down before your leader!...

Well that was a sharp introduction. Anywho, yes, I am The Canteen Boy. I've been meaning to start a blog from a long time now but I have had no idea what to right about. After browsing many blogs I have come to the conclusion that this will be a blog mainly about four things important to me:
1. Food
2. Sport
3. Music
4. Perth

Here's a bit about myself:
Male.
20.
I'm currently studying at UWA, in my third year doing a double degree in Commerce and Economics (yeah, i know, they're pretty much the same thing but wasting another 1.5 years).
I am sports mad (love my cricket and soccer (here on in I will label soccer as football));
I love food (probably too much);
I'm into various types of music except heavy metal and;
I'm genuinely interested in the future of the city of Perth, Western Australia in where it's heading in terms of urban planning and infrastructure.

The name 'Canteen Boy' originated when I was at high school and I was involved in the Canteen Committee from Year 10 to Year 12 when I became Prefect. I was very much in the canteen most days of the week serving students and helping the in the general running and organisation of our canteen and yeah someone called me that one day and it stuck through high school.

I won't reveal too much more about myself, you'll find that out in future posts.

Stay tuned...

whirling, whirling, whirling, towards freedom,
The Canteen Boy