Dog, and their differences.

I have two dogs, Ishan and Roory, they are both bitzas, bitza this and bitza that and both came from the dog pound. Ishan is great with other dogs, he wasnt so great with little people when we got him and was pretty skittish, Roory is not so great with other dogs but fine with people.

Ishan is so laid back he appears to be on drugs, actually he is, he takes pills for an overactive thyroid but they shouldnt have a laid back effect on him rather the opposite I think, Roory follows me around like a shadow he was underweight when we got him and pretty protective of his "grubbies", he was also protective of Ishans grub and put on a lot of weight so he is on a diet. Much to his disgust he gets fed in the front yard with a gate between him and Ishan at feeding time, thing that intruiges me is Ishan teases him through the gate, eating maybe half his food then sauntering off until I go outside to let Roory back in and then Ishan is back into his bowl and Roory is climbing the gate.

The two of them wrestle after their dinner in a cute display of fangs, and also when they are excited about getting out for a walk. As soon as I get up in the morning they think theres a chance of a walk so they get hyper. Roory knows and hates the command "go away" I had to teach him it cos I keep tripping over him, you can see in his eyes he is upset and having to leave my feet.

Another command, which is supplimented with a water pistol is "no barking", Harley Davison bikes get Roory upset for some reason and he cant help erupting, unfortunately he needs a squirt from the pistol to reinforce the following " no barking" shout whereas Ishan is off like a scalded cat before the "no" is uttered.

Roory wont chase balls, Ishan wont stop chasing them. I wonder if Roory thinks Ishan is rediculous running around like that when there are some great pee smells to be checked out?

Today I may whinge a bit.

Well today I intended to have a swim and did, water was warm and clear and the tide was high at 0900 today when the plunge was taken. I live at Kurnell near where Captain Cook landed and its an easy stroll to the beach, I have two dogs and part of the reason we chose to buy a house here was because we can walk them on the beach here and my work is close to the house.

I drive tugboats for a living, I've always worked on the water and passed my first masters ticket in Scotland almost 20 years ago, was captain on small coasters around the western isles of Scotland and around the UK and near continent. Since emigrating to Australia I've been master on charter vessels, tugboats, and various other small craft. Things could be worse, my job is on the water.

I am concerned about the new IR laws that have gone through court this last month as I fall into the "less than 100 employees" category so the unfair dismissal laws are scrapped for us. At the moment we work under an EBA (enterprise bargaining award) which was bargained for us by the MUA (Maritime Union of Australia, the company I work for actually never ended up signing up on the agreement, it went to court and a 4 month trial period which gave us 7 days off a month was agreed to in principal, but unfortunately after the 4 month period the company wanted us to give back more time and the matter ended up in dispute. To give you an idea of my work conditions and the reason we are so adamant we dont want to give back any time off, I am expected to be on call 21 days straight and most 21 days on are worked, my average hours per week are 63 hrs although I do get weeks with up to 86 hrs at work.
I get 5 weeks holidays a year as we work nightshifts of 12 hrs when required and are available for more than 32 weekend days and public holidays in the year, with the holidays and the 7 days a month off we total 119 days a year off work. If you work in an office with 4 weeks annual holidays and public holidays and weekends off you get 139 days off, office workers arent ussually expected to work 12 hr shifts or have callouts any time throughout the night, so I dont think we are overly softly treated in our time off. The thing is there is absolutely nothing stopping the company not renewing our EBA this June when it expires, but putting us all on AWA's, the government is pushing for no penalty rates, at the moment my wage is over 50% penalty rates so I can expect my wages to drop at least 25%, if I have a problem with this I can "go pack shelves in a supermarket" thats a quote from my boss by the way. Little Johnny Howard has had unions in his sight for as long as I have been in Australia (15 years) and I was never a union member till I started working on vessels here and dont consider myself militant atall, I think his IR changes are wrong, he based his changes on the NZ law changes, wages there dropped by up to 40% and one in seven NZ workers works in Australia, how can that be right.

I remember at 25 year old argueing for the same rate as another master was on, with a company back in Scotland, the other master was in his late 50's and had Master class 1 ticket but he didnt have any coastal experience, he ended up lossing his comand to a reef off Benbecula due to the fact he anchored in a spot that would have been fine for a supertanker but hoplessly too exposed for a small coaster and mounting seas drove him aground. They gave me a rise in the end. I dont want younger masters working alongside me to be punished because of their age if they are doing the same job as me I think they should get the same rate, that could all change with individual contracts ehh, if I was unemployed I'd work for less than A$22 an hour just to get work, and noone could really blame me, you have to do what you have to do, my repayments for my morgage are A$680 a week.

I hope I'm made to eat my words, hopefully there will be tax breaks comming soon that my help but I cant see any rises in my wages untill we come to our senses and vote this bloke out of power.