Everyone has an opinion and rightly so, but in my opinion,there are benefits to attending preschool that even the most hands on, well-intentioned parent can’t provide. Our grandchildren attend eight hours a week and that’s not because their parents farm them out so they can do other things. It’s for these reasons:

Preschool helps a child to feel secure in the feeling that when Mom or Dad leaves them they will come back to get them. This helps with separation issues when they go to full time school. Preschool teaches children to get along with children of different ethnicities and social and cultural backgrounds. It’s a chance for them to learn they can be friends with all types of people.Then there are lessons they learn about responsibility and self sufficiency. They are expected to hang up their coats and backpacks, keep their desks clean, pick up their toys, and often have little classroom jobs which our grandchildren love and have great joy in telling us about what they do at preschool. Some parents do instil some good habits at home, but it’s certainly a bonus when children do these things helpfully in a group situation. Children learn to share at preschool, they have an opportunity to practice the manners they may have learnt (or not) at home.

We had no hand in our grandchildren going to preschool (I wish they’d change the name to Playschool), but when we see the difference between them and children who have not been to a Preschool, I’m so glad their parents took this initiative. The children are more active, creative, and their imaginations run wild . No single household can provide the same stimulation a child receives in a properly run Preschool with well qualified caring staff. Kids live in a multicultural and multi faceted world, and there are many things they can’t do at home if an only child, or having one other sibling. I would pit a child who’s attended a good preschool any day against one who has not, and the “preschool child” will always come out on top. 

Are you men for real? All this argument over female tampons?

I just can't believe that people are so hung up on this as the saving is only a couple a dollars a year. Surely people have far more important things to occupy their minds. If it is such an issue why not use sanity products that are washable and reusable and then only pay for them once instead of contributing more contaminated wastes to our already growing mountian of waste. 

Alternatively get an implant under Medicare and you wont need these sanity products. 

Sadly there are not many people on this planet that care a darn about the waste and horrors that go to landfill -- I am so vigilant-- but so many do not give a hoot -- I honestly can not see this war on waste happening -- until the manufacturers STOP using this stuff.

Also, it seems that many councils differ in what they accept -- and also the pigs of people that use your clean and looked after bins with all of God knows what that totally undoes everything your do to try and help

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison is considering recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in a historic change of policy that would align Australia with Donald Trump’s controversial shift but jar with much of the Western world and risk angering Arab and Muslim nations.

Mr Morrison will announce on Tuesday that he will also initiate a review of Australia’s support for the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, and have Australia vote against Palestine’s leadership of a large United Nations voting bloc of developing nations – also both key Trump policies and top priorities of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem announcement is likely to reverberate around the world as Australia would become only the second major country after the US to shift its position on the contentious issue that goes to the heart of the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.”

By David Wroe, The Age

Looks like Scott Morrison is making policy on the run to please the large Jewish population in Wentworth. Dangerous stuff - I think we should remain bipartisan.