Slack maths education helps Terrorgraph beat up parrot hate over logging #environment #media

Ahhh, the Terrorgraph's definition of lunacy is a solid one:

IN THE middle of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the Federal Government's decision to enact a law that will knowingly put 1000 people out of work in NSW is nothing but sheer lunacy.

Now no-one wants to deliberately put people's jobs at risk, but sometimes it's better to paint things black and white, isn't it? To the Daily Telegraph it's jobs before everything else, no matter what. Especially if it'll sell newspapers, too.

But does the maths stack up? Let's see, 1000 jobs. That's made up of:

A Forests NSW briefing note obtained by The Daily Telegraph warned 11 sawmills would be forced to close overnight and 800 people would lose their jobs along with the closure of an industry worth $60 million to the NSW economy.

Well 800 is close to 1,000. Small rounding error. But the Tele can do better, and it does:

The State Government is seeking an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Mr Garrett, claiming the intervention by the Commonwealth to declare the logging illegal would cause the immediate loss of at least 500 timber jobs and 360 indirectly related jobs.

Now that's closer. 500 + 360 definitely feels like 1,000 now. So let's go with that. (Sadly there is no push here to correct the obviously ineffective teaching of mathematics to journalists.)

Whilst we're here, let's make out that the parrot at the centre of this issue is making no effort to adjust in this matter, despite the seriousness of the issue. Indeed the parrot is making out that there's a big problem when in fact it simply does not like flying over open spaces. So parrot, the Tele's advice to you is to get over it - literally.

Now I have spoken with these parrots and they are seeking professional help immediately. As a species with a fear of open spaces (and let's face it, if you were a brightly coloured small-medium parrot that was exposed to loss of life and wing by birds of prey, you'd feel a bit exposed too) they qualify for Federal Government rebates for psychological counselling. Hopefully the Tele won't squash that temporary stimulus assistance as well.

Mind you, it's not just parrots that offend the Tele. They also have it in for 'middle class' working mothers taking paid maternity leave:

The main targets are new mums earning a lot less, and who might not be able to confidently have a family without assistance. But slipping $260 million a year to women who might be among the top 10 per cent of wage earners doesn't sound like tough and rigorous Budget discipline.

The angle here is that middle-class women (whoever they are, but obviously they earn up to $150,000) don't deserve further assistance - they are well enough off already; but really it's just that the Tele's editor believes that the paper's readership can't hack the idea that working women can be successful, earn decent money and be an integral part of an Aussie family's "breadwinning" process. If they earn over the average wage then they don't deserve to be temporarily supported by the community whilst they are caring for newborns - except by their husbands, of course. Bizarre, I know, but that's the 1950s for you.