The entire world is ripped apart by the ‘Them and us’ syndrome. If you sit down with Palestinian families, you can’t help but weep at the horrific situation in which they find themselves. If you look into the eyes of a mother who saw her children burn alive, you would have no words with which to console her. Then, travel to Israel and sit with a broken mother whose sons were kidnapped and tortured for weeks on end, and whose severed limbs were sent back to her in a bloody box, you would feel ashamed at how humans can inflict such unfathomable cruelty upon each other.

Fold away the national flags, and bring the women together, and they will lament at the sheer agony of loss. They will both understand the emptiness that haunts their shattered spirit. Irrespective of language or creed, they will hold hands as they ache at the incomprehensible barbaric behaviour whose result is never anything more than pain and suffering. There can be no victory. These women will tell you that nothing was worth the loss. No act of revenge has ever soothed a stolen life. Nothing good has ever come from bullets and bombs. What is worse, is the perpetual lies that fuel endless misery for both sides. There can be no victors where there is no justice. Land, geography, money, and sovereignty do not provide prosperity. Real wealth grows in the hearts of children. Real peace comes from shared fruits. Real happiness comes from common toil that concludes with the setting-sun around a dinner table where neighbours and strangers are just as welcome as family members.

Talk is cheap. Tough talk is pathetic. With mighty weapons, people can’t think straight. With lop-sided power, people can’t be just. Putridity dominates our world, and it gallops fast when humans are hell-bent on blaming ‘them over the border’. It is never us. It is always them. They killed our children, so we will kill their children. Has anyone stopped to ask the children what they think?

It is pathetic that we speak about the troubles of the Middles East in terms of religion and politics. I’ll tell you what fuels it: greed and stupidity. And the one ingredient that keeps greed and stupidity in full flight is lies!

And the worst lie is not the one that we spin for others to believe. Rather, it is the lie that we fashion and swallow ourselves.

There have been errors, horrors, and atrocities on both sides. Left, right, and centre. We have all erred. We have all suffered. Sad indeed that the Arabs have so quickly forgotten that they were the leaders in the fields of science. The Arabs were the forefathers of mathematics. They were the trend-setters for hospitality and generosity. They have so much going for them, they could dominate the world, and teach it about how to live a joyous and zestful life. Sadly, the Arabs have allowed themselves to be distracted by wider, jealous enemies who know how to divide and conquer.

The history of the torment in the Middle East would require billions of pages to document. How can we ever tell all the stories? And there is always one more story… have I told you what his grandfather did to my grandfather… However, those billions of stories can be summed-up in one word: Debauchery!

So, where to from here?

Corrupted souls do not know how to reason. They only understand the language of hate. Their only currency is blood. Their only mantra is power. And we still invite them to peace talks? There can be no peace while we trade in lies. There can be no respite while justice is suffocated at every opportunity.

We are left with one solution: the sane amongst us must pray for ‘magnanimity’. All of us, young and old, the pained and the troubled, the guilty and the pure, must come to the village-square and say, ‘I have made terrible mistakes. The only way for me to repent is to be magnanimous. Please dear enemy, will you allow me to be magnanimous? May I do something to show you that I am sorry about my past mistakes?’ And as one party says this to another, you will find people embracing each other and saying, ‘My enemy, my friend, there is nothing I need from you. I just want us to stop this madness. The moon is nice tonight, shall we toast the moon as we bathe in its light? Look, the stars have begun to sparkle. Please break this bread with me. The angels are watching. Let us not disappointment them on this blessed night.’

This kind of solution is only possible if we can mature. But that is unlikely. It can only happen if we are ready to forgive. But that is unlikely. It can only come to fruition if we can love, but the anger sill burns in our heart, and the rage still consumes our mind. Therefore, sadly, love is still a long way off. And this begs the desperate question, ‘What can we do?’

We can expose the lies. Not so that we can swing back and forth and take sides. Not so that we can pretend that they are at fault and we are pure. But so that we can let it all out, in the light of day. So that we can stand naked in front of each other, both ‘Them’ and ‘Us’ called to account to open our black books and place them out in the open for us all to see that neither one is blameless, and neither one is without a blemish. We both have blood on our hands. We are both guilty of atrocities. We both have troubled pasts. We both could do better. We both deserve better. We happen to be temporary guests on Planet Earth. Is this the way guests are supposed to behave?

The videos below are by Dr David Duke. At the end of it, please do not take sides. Just see that no one is blameless. Only when we can blow the whistle and halt the game, can we have any hope of coming together as two guilty parties with our heads bowed down in shame, and say, my enemy my friend, we can both do better. So much has happened, that it can never be corrected. So many lives have been ripped apart, that we can never raise our head and utter another word. Shame on us all.

Let this be an era for silence. Speak no more. Consult no more. Shout no more. Promise no more. Demand no more. Hush. We have said too much. We have hurt too much. We have lied too much.

The children will turn to us and curse our existence. Let us not fail them. Can we create the turning point? Can we halt the madness? Can we stem the tide of absurdity? Our only mission now is to be magnanimous so that the children don’t despise us. On our watch, we must arrest the barbaric behaviour.

What can we do about it? First, let us not point the finger. Let us not raise our fist in anger. It is all too pathetic for anymore posturing. You and I can do something. Any little thing. Whatever you think you can. But please do it. However small. Please do it. Something. Anything. Please do what you can. It might take no more than seven minutes of your life. Can you afford that much?

Enough with the lies. Both parties are guilty. The children are suffering. This is not the smart way to live. We can do better! How do we win the war? By stopping the lies. In the absence of lies, we can win together.

When will the healing start?

When the children play together.

Sam Cohen of IHRB

If you have anything to do with Sam Cohen or IHRB, you need to read all about the trickery and deceit at a special site I constructed called www.IHRB-Story.com. This site explains the amazing misleading contract that is used to con people into handing over their money to buy silly products which are supposed to contain herbal ingredients that IHRB and Sam Cohen says are his magical formula. I have heard of people selling things that don’t work, but Sam Cohen’s hair regrowth treatment is empty. It does not contain the supposed Indian Curries. So if they are not in the bottle, how can we say that they do not work? Is the hole in the doughnut just as tasty as the rest of the doughnut? How can it be? In the absence of these Indian Curries, how can we still even discuss the treatment offered by the Institute of Hair Regrowth and Beauty? How can we even keep calling it a treatment? It is nothing. Nil, Ziltch. Non existent. So Sam Cohen and IHRB of Pitt Street will take thousands of dollars, all on the basis of a lie. Wow, that’s a few million-percent profit, on top of a scam. All pretty bad news. Read all about this rip off at www.IHRB-Story.com and let me know what you think.

If you know of any students studying contract law, they might find this amazing. You see, a contract is not just about words. One has to understand the beast behind the magic trick. When you know the environment that surrounds the contract, you will note that each word takes on a whole new meaning. You have to know how and why a contract is prepared, before you can effectively assess the merits of the words. The intent is more poisonous than the words alone. When combined, the contract by Sam Cohen and IHRB will sting you like a scorpion. Deadly.

Right under your nose, you will sign a lovely contract, thinking that you are in control. Sadly, down the track when you need to rely on the contract to assist you, it becomes apparent that it was all smoke and mirrors, at your expense.

Until we can find a sure-fire treatment to cure baldness, perhaps at the pre-birth genetic level, we will have to go with snake oil, charlatans, scammers, con artists, and liars, amidst a few good treatments that can work for some people, some of the time.

Sadly, my hair is thinning, so I thought to try out the treatments offered by Sam Cohen of IHRB (Institute of Hair Regrowth & Beauty). I regret ever having anything to do with IHRB and Sam Cohen. He promised a money back guarantee that was nothing more than a lie. Anyway, he did us all a favour by not refunding my money. It caused me to investigate his operation. After five months, I have collected enough data to expose this man and his company. If you have anything to do with hair loss or baldness, or if you have anything to do with Samuel/Sam Cohen or IHRB of 105 Pitt Street Sydney, you can read my dedicated blog at IHRB-Story.com.

This made me think that as large as Google is, it has more code to write. Its software needs some modifications. I would have thought that advertisers should be able to stipulate where their ads go. I know that it is all one big pot, but in this case, it would make sense for the ad not to have been associated with this damning article about the company’s misconduct.

Anyway, IHRB and Sam Cohen always bag Shane Warne and Advance Hair Studio. After investigating Sam Cohen and his methods, I have found that his practices leave a lot to be desired. A full report is now filed at this site dedicated to Sam Cohen and IHRB. The site is designed to assist people who are experiencing hair loss and who are contemplating wasting their money with Sam Cohen and the Institute of Hair Regrowth and Beauty, also known as I.H.R.B at Pitt Street Sydney. If you are planning on spending money with IHRB, you would be well served to visit that site. I am sure you will change your mind and be grateful that you did not waste your money.

Update: Since writing this, I have created a new site that is dedicated to Sam Cohen and IHRB’s hair loss nonsense at www.IHRB-Story.com.

You can see the Ads by Google, promoting Advance Hair Studio, in this online article in the Sydney Morning Herald. The report speaks about the misleading conduct by the company that resulted in the ad being banned.

Dear Mr Greene

May I please protest at the ways in which the M2 roadworks are impacting on the service that your company delivers.

I understand that roadworks are necessary. However, it seems to me that 90% of the time that I use the M2, there are roadworks in progress. This forces me to travel at 40 km per hour. Yet you still charge me full toll fees. This cannot be right. I spend thousands in tolls each year.

May I please ask you to review my e-tag charges and match this up to the dozens of times that these coincide with road closures and detours, and refund the tolls. The whole purpose of the M2 is to provide a benefit over Epping Road. Pray tell, what is the benefit of crawling at 40 km per hour? At one time, the detours were so confusing, I ended up in Windsor and had to double back and pay more tolls!

I believe that you ought to place an early sign to advise motorists of these roadworks, well before the entry point so that we can decide to use Epping Road instead. I urge you not to place an all encompassing sign on the M2, but one before the M2, on each and every day, so that we can make an informed decision. And please do not place a sign that says, ‘Roadworks from January to April’. This wide sweep will not work, because we motorists cannot remember every sign and every instruction. We need to be told of your roadworks prior to entering the M2 so that we can detour, rather than be trapped. It just is not fair. And it seems unethical to charge for a roadway that promises time-saving, when there are none!

Tonight 11 January 2010, I entered the M2 at Ryde, heading towards the Hills, and it was roadworks ALL THE WAY to the Pennant Hills exit, and all this time, there was only one truck to the side of the road. Why are you slowing us all down, charging hefty tolls, and making us crawl kilometre after kilometre, with the threats of RTA cameras. How excruciating.

I would appreciate your response. If you need additional information, I would welcome your call.

Mr Greene responded thus:

Dear Jonar,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us about your recent experience with travel delays during essential maintenance works on the Motorway. I can appreciate that roadworks can be frustrating and often require what seem to be extensive work zones, however it remains our absolute priority that we protect people undertaking essential works on the motorway.

The works schedules are advertised on the M2 website and are aimed to minimise traffic impacts during day time peak travel. For information about M2 road works to plan your travel ahead of time, please visit the Work Alert page on our website. If you would like to register for email alerts about upcoming works, please respond by return email.

We acknowledge your comments about additional signage to advise motorists about planned works that may cause delays and can confirm that we do use variable message signs to alert motorists of upcoming works. Ultimately the decision to use the motorway is then one for motorists themselves to make.

We are working hard to deliver improvements to our customers. You may be aware that on 13 October 2009 the NSW Government announced that it had reached an ‘In Principle’ Agreement on the scope and funding for a proposed upgrade of the M2 Motorway.

For further information about the Hills M2 Upgrade please visit www.hillsm2upgrade.com.au where you can also register for email updates about the project progress.

Regards,

I was completely dissatisfied with this reply. I could not believe that this was any response whatsoever. For this reason, I thought to check that this, indeed, was the official position of Transurban. So I sent a note to the CEO, Mr Chris Lynch. This was the response, from Mr Darren Moy, General Manager, NSW Assets:

Dear Mr Nader

Thank you for your recent letter to Chris Lynch regarding maintenance works on the M2. He has asked me to respond on his behalf.

Both Mr Lynch and myself concur with the advice you received from the Head of Hills M2 Motorway dated 14 January.

It is a core responsibility of motorway management to ensure essential maintenance works are undertaken in the interests of safe and efficient travel on M2 for all Motorists. Works programs are developed in such a way that minimises impact on the greatest number of motorists. This includes programming work outside peak hours and compressing work periods to reduce the overall number of days on which it occurs.

It is essential to ensure safe working sites are in place when this work is done, both for workers and passing motorists.

It is my understanding that on 11 January, maintenance was being carried out in the tunnel, which perhaps explains why you saw only one truck.

Hills M2 has responded comprehensively regarding signage and other means of maintenance works notification to motorists such as the website.

Ultimately use of the motorway is a matter of free choice. Transurban considers that the M2 does offer motorists time savings and value for money. The proposed widening of the motorway will further improve customer experience and I trust regular users will welcome this development.

Yours sincerely. Darren Moy. General Manager NSW Assets.

Here are my observations about this absurd response.

Transurban has refused to face the question. The company must tell its users about the roadworks, BEFORE a user enters the motorway. Mr Moy says that the use of the motorway ‘is a matter of choice’. NO! I am given no choice! I am lured onto the motorway, with a promise of a motorway, expecting a motorway, only to be then, later, after the entry, told that I have to slow down to 40 km per hour AND to prepare to stop. That is not a matter of choice, because once I am on the motorway, I am trapped. I cannot turn back. I cannot get off without paying the toll.

One simple sign, if it were erected just before the entry point, would enable motorists to decide to use the M2 or to use Epping Road. This argument would apply to each and every toll road in the country. One young engineer, Mr J Bennett, said that another option would be to have an audio message into which motorists could tune, via their car radio, so that they can know about the condition of the M2 (and all major roads) several kilometres before they have to make the decision about which road to use. The radio broadcast would be short, sharp, and constant, so that motorists can know what is going on.

Allow me to slow this down and respond to Mr Moy’s letter, line by line.

TRANSURBAN: Both Mr Lynch and myself concur with the advice you received from the Head of Hills M2 Motorway dated 14 January.

JONAR: This confirms that at least three senior people at Transurban have missed the point, and are refusing to answer the question, and are disregarding their duty to operate within the Values of their company.

TRANSURBAN: It is a core responsibility of motorway management to ensure essential maintenance works are undertaken in the interests of safe and efficient travel on M2 for all Motorists.

JONAR: The sentence above is as useless and as pointless as any statement can get. Why are they telling the bleeding obvious. Of course it is their responsibility to undertake maintenance. Did my letter protest about the maintenance? No. Did I say that they ought let the road degrade and stuff public safety? No. So this point might well have been something just as useless, along the lines of, ‘We at McDonald’s must ensure that our deep fryers are in working order, and are kept clean.’ What’s that’s got to do with anything?

TRANSURBAN: Works programs are developed in such a way that minimises impact on the greatest number of motorists.

JONAR: Was I urging you to schedule your work so as to inconvenience every user? Who in their right mind would not try to minimise the impact? Work has to be done. Of course maintenance must be undertaken — at the best possible time, taking into account a multitude of factors. I am not dictating when you should schedule your work. However, given that you have raised this point, has it occurred to you that a person with an excruciating toothache does not care how many other people do not have one? If you have to conduct a works program, and your only option is to either impact 30,000 people or 20,000 people, what benevolence are you boasting about to the 20,000 whom you have inconvenienced? I was merely suggesting that you fore-warn the 20,000 people so that they can make an informed decision. I was not asking you to cease work or to put your workers at risk. I was saying that the 20,000 drivers ought to be told that the long stretch of road is not what it seems to be. Drivers are told that they are about to enter a motorway. This word ‘motorway’ means something. It means a long uninterrupted road. So if your works schedule is going to contravene the meaning of the word ‘motorway’, tell people before you trap them and take their money, so that they can indeed have a ‘free choice’.

TRANSURBAN: This includes programming work outside peak hours and compressing work periods to reduce the overall number of days on which it occurs.

JONAR: I guess that only an emergency or catastrophe would necessitate work to be performed during peak hour. This photo from your website shows only too well the hideous nature of the M2. It would be unbearable to conduct work during busy periods. So why are you stating the obvious once again? Besides, I wonder how your company can promise a motorway, when, during peak hour, the M2 resembles a car park. How can you take money for a service that is not delivered to the ‘greatest number of motorists’, and then take money for a service that is again not delivered to the off-peak motorists who are forced to slow down and still pay for the privilege?

TRANSURBAN: It is essential to ensure safe working sites are in place when this work is done, both for workers and passing motorists.

JONAR: My letter to you did not hint at a desire to speed-up and injure people. Safety is paramount. I was not asking you to compromise on safety. I was saying that when your motorway is temporarily NOT a motorway, that you give me a sign. Of all the signs you and the RTA flash at me, how hard would it be to place one that ‘honestly’ states the ‘conditions ahead’. But you must do this before I am trapped inside a motorway that now is guilty of false advertising. It is dishonest to make an offer, and not provide the service. Please ask ten senior managers and ten junior staff to write 100 words on the meaning and application of ‘integrity’ within Transurban? If you all do not define it in the same way, who shall be the arbiter? If you ask me, and in essence you are asking everyone, because you are publicising your values for all to see (and why are you?), then I would say that integrity requires you to do what you know in your heart is the correct thing to do, even if this might mean that you miss out on a toll fare. You see, if you do not like to miss out on a fare, what makes you think that the customer is happy to miss out on the service? Where integrity is ignored, we had better know the definition of ‘theft’.

TRANSURBAN: Hills M2 has responded comprehensively regarding signage and other means of maintenance works notification to motorists such as the website.

JONAR: First, this is incorrect and does not address my question. You can have a million neon signs, and that’s up to you. I was asking for a sign that forewarns a customer that the motorway is temporarily not a motorway, and that the customer would be expected to STOP (which is hardly what a customer expects when entering a toll road). Your fancy Values pie speaks of ‘Corporate reputation’ and ‘relationships’ and ‘excellent’. What a load of noble words. What do they mean?

And now for the clanger: you all gloat about having a website. And you seem to exonerate yourselves by flicking aside my complaint, justifying your actions by saying that you post all your works programs on the web. Mr Greene had said, ‘The works schedules are advertised on the M2 website and are aimed to minimise traffic impacts during day time peak travel.’

Why are day-time users more important than night-time users? If there is this major difference, why don’t you reflect this discrimination in your tolls, and make it cheaper to travel when the service is obviously degraded for the night-time travellers?

Mr Greene then says, ‘For information about M2 road works to plan your travel ahead of time, please visit the Work Alert page on our website.’

Would I be right in assuming that this statement, had it been written twenty years ago, would have said, ‘To plan your travel ahead of time, please review the Notices section of the Sydney Morning Herald.’ You see, it might as well say that now. As a corporate-type driver from the Hills, you can believe that I can easily travel 200 km per day. We Hill-billies are not all farmers you know. My day does not constitute a train-track style of commuting from A to B. Rather, I move about, enjoying the wonders of dozens of major roads and dozens of smaller streets, all changing daily in their ebb and flow of traffic. And you expect me to log onto your website and plan my trip? This would be advisable to those about to climb Mt Kilimanjaro whose highland tracks are opened and closed seasonally.

The M2 is a major fixture. It is not like the road to Gundagai, or some arbitrary war zone bordering India and Pakistan. It is a major arterial. It is not the responsibility of the traveller to check the daily whims of every road. We live in a city. The M2 is a permanent motorway. The whole concept of road-signage addresses the otherwise impossible driving burden. If someone is merely going to the airport, isn’t it insane that a driver has to check the websites for Pennant Hills Road, then the M2, then the Lane Cove Tunnel, then the Harbour Tunnel, then the Eastern Distributor, and then maybe the City of Sydney and dozens of other roads (and back again). Please answer this question in accordance with your Values. By the way, the RTA requires all motorists to check the website to determine when their permeant warning of ‘School Zones’ apply. Now that is for another argument, at another time.

In any case, I did visit your website and noticed that your Road works alert has not changed in over one week. So do I go there every day like a bunny and read it carefully, in case some minor date did change? Is this like a game of spot the different? I know that you suggested that I subscribe to your email alerts, so now is a driver supposed to remember all this during 1000 km of travel, until an email arrives? And now we have to check our inboxes every day before we head off to work each day? What a lot of effort that is! Exhausting really. What’s wrong with one sign?

Incidentally, those who live in North Sydney are about the only people who might understand any a broadcast that says, ‘Heavy traffic South Bound’. Anyone else who has been twisting and turning for two hours can hardly know the time day, let alone the bearing to would the jolly that warns of delays east bound. Most people, and I am willing to bet on this for charity if you would care to take the wager, would not have a clue which way to point if you stand them in a street and ask them to indicate what is meant by westbound. This would require a compass, and I have never met anyone, outside of the Scouts, who has one. Furthermore, your website speaks of ‘Geotech and cut sampling’. Must a carry a packed lunch for day? What do you want me to do with that information? It makes as much sense as when the weather presenter tells us that the barometric pressure is 1024 and rising. Batten down the hatches!

WHEN TIME IS MONEY

I am not sure what your CEO earns. No doubt it’s no great secret for a public company boasting toll revenues in exccess of $770 million. Bellow we see a Transurban management report that shows one-off adjustments whereby a CEO transition is shown to have cost $16.1 million. The 2009 Annual Report outlines the current CEO’s remuneration and incentives exceeding $6 million. Good luck to him. I have no problems with this.



I point out the CEO’s income so that I can work out what his time is worth. This is so that we can plug in the figures into the Transurban calculator that acknowledges that our time is money. Transurban very well knows that people use a motorway and a tollway to save time, because time is valuable. This proves my point completely. We use the M2 so that we can get there sooner. We want to save time. The Hills M2 website shows this calculator as an example of why people ought to use the M2 — to save time. So my dear people, why do you want us to prepare to stop? If you know that we use the M2 to arrive at an advantge, for which we pay handsomely, then why would you still take our money when you do not deliver on this very promise?

TRANSURBAN: Ultimately use of the motorway is a matter of free choice. Transurban considers that the M2 does offer motorists time savings and value for money. The proposed widening of the motorway will further improve customer experience and I trust regular users will welcome this development.

JONAR: I wonder how many people know that this problem will only become worse as the widening program continues for two years! And I wonder how many people know that after this widening, the tolls will be jacked up! They will, dear reader, because the company has struck a deal with the NSW State Government. I shall write to the Premier to see if we can change the contract to rectify this stubborn negligence. Transurban wants to inconvenience drivers, take their money, slow them down, not deliver on the service, not warn anyone about the road-works, and then, at the end, raise the price! Well you can knock me down with a boom gate. And I say yet again, we have no choice to avoid your road-works, if you do not tell us about them in a reasonable way. Fudging the whole thing by saying that the details are on the web is an insult to your own intelligence. Why don’t you do the right thing? You take our money and you justify it on the basis that we are receiving value for money. You are making millions in profit. You are the people who find this great value for money. So just do the decent, ethical, honest, honourable thing.

Dear Transurban executives. Next time you touch your annual report or see your values statement, please ponder if these values are still valid? But in reviewing them, please be sure to do so with Honesty, Integrity, Humanity, and Accountability.

Did Professor Fels really say that? If he did, then let me say that this is an example of spin. The average Australian will remember Professor Allan Fels from the time that he was the head of the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) and they might presume that he is an authority on consumer-related matters, and they might hold him and his opinion in high regard. As a result, they might believe his statement, and therefore adopt his views.

It is reported by ‘The Age’ that he refers to the ‘uneducated clamour of a few authors who are driven by publisher interests’.

1) Authors have enough to worry about, trying to survive in a fickle market. They have no misplaced affection towards publishers.

2) If professional authors are uneducated, then there’s no hope for the world.

3) To which clamour is Professor Fels referring? The entire country was asked to submit its views to the Productivity Commission, which has informed us that 272 submissions were received prior to the Commission’s discussion draft, and a further 288 submissions were received in response to the draft. I read some of those submissions. It is neither democratic or sporting to seek submissions, and then refer to those submissions as ‘clamour’.

4) When Professor Allan Fels says, ‘a few authors’, what is the average reader going to imagine? Two or three authors? Seven or ten authors? There were dozens. From the humble beginners to the biggest names in Australia.

I had submitted my views to the Productivity Commission’s Chairman, and here is a copy of my letter. Perhaps you can read my note, and then count me amongst the few of the uneducated clamourous authors.

Dear Committee

It is not for me to say whether or not we should allow the importation of books. I trust that you will make the best decision. I would be willing to assist you in any way, and I would welcome your call at any time.

May I please urge you to ask the correct probing questions. So far, I have researched some of the arguments, and as an author and publisher, I fear that there have been one-sided arguments designed to mislead.

Some people say that importing books will not harm authors. This is incorrect. Let us look at typical publishers’ contracts. From my experience, as an author who has signed contracts with Prentice Hall/Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Pearson Education, ABC Enterprises, HarperCollins, Ink Group, and a host of other international organisations, I know that the percentages and the loopholes within the contracts will mean that the royalties received by authors will be magnificently reduced. Contracts state that international sales are a fraction of the domestic amounts.

Also, people say that importing books will make them cheaper. These people compare typical wholesale prices across regions. They do not seem to calculate freight, storage, customs, etc. So they are insulting your Committee by their calculations.

They denounce the idea that remaindered books will flood the market. Having been in business for over 30 years, and having worked for retailers plus multinationals such as IBM, I have seen how the world of commerce operates. I fear that your Committee might be misled about how remainders really work, and what triggers them. The loopholes in these areas are so huge, that authors might not only never receive royalties, but also have to actually PAY to have their books shipped to Australia. The argument is laughable and complex for those who are not well versed with how this industry works.

What will happen when, due to freight and long lead times, the retailers start to e-print titles? The contracts for e-prints are again amazingly unfair. Author will not only receive miniscule royalties, they might also be charged for marketing and advertising subsidies. I can show you signed contracts from large operators who actually thrust their unfair practices onto authors.

My submission to you could easily turn into fifty pages and cover a raft of areas. I shall pause here to invite you to contact me if you would like additional information so that you can arrest people whose illogical arguments are designed to baffle you and the public.

I shall support your decision. I am not trying to sway you either way. However, I cannot abide unethical self-serving conduct by business people. I do not mind any corporation making a submission that brazenly seeks higher profit and control. My abhorrence relates to organisations who twist half-truths to seek sympathy via a back door. They should deal in facts, not propaganda.

I wish you every success.

Yours faithfully

Jonar Nader

Here is a copy of the text from ‘The Age’:

The brochure says:

‘You can qualify for free parking when you play table games, gaming machines or dine at any Conrad Treasury restaurant… You can qualify for a rebate when you use public transport to visit Conrad Treasury and play table games or gaming machines… Help yourself to up to two drinks a day from our Refreshment Centres when you earn 20 bonus cents within a three month period.’

The brochure notes that Silver members receive six drinks per day, while Gold members enjoy eight drinks per day in the special Gold Suite lounge. Members can earn table complimentaries. Floor managers can hand out special gifts that include free breakfast, or vouchers which can be used for food, drinks, merchandise, parking, or accommodation. Members can earn bonus dollars when they play gaming machines, and these can be redeemed for cash. Special promotions and tournaments offer exclusive cash and prizes.

There are members-only discounts at restaurants, plus $6 member meals. Not to mention savings on accommodation, plus a range of other offers, vouchers, free meals, and goodness knows what else if you reach Platinum Status!

Here’s something from which every company can learn: Conrad says, ‘When you have agreed to the terms and conditions by signing overleaf you will be issued with your Casino Rewards card on the spot!’ Isn’t that brilliant. Free, fast, easy, and on the spot. And you earn rewards straight away. Rewards that are useful and attractive.

My friend and I (we attended purely for research purposes) had a meal at Cafe21. The food was excellent, and well presented. The bill came to over $100. Had we have been members, I guess the meal would have been free, or a quarter the price. This is an example of the saving. A Reef & Beef Fillet Steak, topped with garlic prawns, chips and salad, with a glass of house wine retails at $25.90 for non-members, yet is only $9.90 for Platinum, Gold, and Club Conrad members.

The logic of the promotions is brilliant. Yet I wondered how that related to the company’s advertising and promotions guidelines that are part of the Queensland Responsible Gambling Advertising and Promotions guidelines.

Why were the guidelines introduced? A week earlier, I met a man at Jupiters Townsville who had lost everything to gambling. It was his stupid fault. One cannot blame the casino. Yet, why does the casino speak about responsible gambling? As a marketing enterprise, the casino scores full marks. As an allegedly responsible venue, I am not sure that it is doing the right thing. Sending out free meal vouchers has only one purpose: to bring the poor stupid sod back into the lure of the sights and sounds of the casino complex, and we know what that’s designed to do. In the words of the casino, ‘There is nothing like the sound of the gaming machine floor in action. With an energetic crowd and electric atmosphere this is the heart of the casino.’

For these reasons, I would suggest that if Conrad is indeed following the guidelines, then whoever drafted the advertising and promotions guidelines did not know what they were doing. Lip-service all over again. What a waste of effort. If you are trying to solve a problem, then solve it. If you are trying to spin stories, then shame on you all. One of the guidelines says that staff will not pressure gamblers who have indicated that they wish to stop playing. But there is nothing in the guidelines to suggest that the client will be sent home in a taxi. And nothing to stop the pit manager from giving that gambler a free meal and a free room at the hotel.

I love the line that said that a gambler who wins a large amount can ask for the money to be presented in the form of a cheque. This, devised as some charitable act to help the gamble to cool off, is supposedly good for the gambler. The cheque would have to be taken to a bank, and this takes the temptation away from the gambler injecting the winnings all over again during an early morning gambling frenzy. Alas, the cheque would only be issued if it is asked for. I do not know any problem-gambler (and I know enough for multiple PhD theses) who would voluntarily ask for a cheque. Play-on is the mantra of troubled problem-gamblers who lose their head and bet over it.

And one more thing: If a casino really really really wanted to be responsible, it would never allow anyone on the floor who has the tiniest drop of alcohol in their blood. Alcohol clouds judgement. If you really want to be responsible, then the casino ought to be alcohol-free, with breathalysers at each entry point.

Then again, casinos are doing a great job. It’s the mugs who are to blame, along with a society that now glorifies gambling with TV poker games that are disgraceful and an inditement upon any TV network. Not to mention the socially corrupt concept of Celebrity TV poker championships. Ok, people can do what they want. Fine. But don’t spin the ‘responsible’ casino rubbish.

Well done, and nothing wrong with that. Tabcorp is one of the world’s largest gambling companies.

It struck me that on its website, in the ‘about us’ section, the very first sentence starts, ‘Tabcorp is a successful, diversified and responsible organisation…’

I fear that the company over-emphases its word ‘responsible’. A crude search on its site shows that the word appears 66 times. A search for the word ‘leadership’ returns 24 hits, as does the word ‘profit’.

So, with a fixation on the word ‘responsible’ and a statement in the section about ‘Integrity’ saying, ‘We take our obligations seriously – not paying lip service to compliance’, I was keen to understand what the company meant when it said (in its brochures called ‘Responsible gambling’ which it places throughout its properties and next to all ATMs), ‘The odds of winning are incorporated in all of our gaming Guides.’

Incidentally, the brochures also stated something fundamentally true, and which all gamblers would do well to understand: ‘Gambling should not be seen as a means of financial betterment. All casinos maintain a favourable percentage in all gambling products offered.’

However, although gambling addiction is a super-mega-complex problem, and one that manifests differently for each person, one of the problems in my opinion has been the ignorance of gamblers. They simply do not understand the laws of probability. Their mathematical skills are abysmal. Many of the problem gamblers whom I happen to know are talented in some areas of their life, and completely ignorant when it comes to the odds of winning.

Therefore, it piqued my interest to read that Tabcorp incorporates the odds of winning in all its gaming Guides. And for this reason, I visited two of its four casinos and obtained a copy of each of the gaming guides to see if the odds of winning are made clear to patrons and gamblers. So let’s review these here.

The Keno brochure is the only one that came close to making any sense. It stated, ‘Your chance to win the 10 Number Jackpot is 1 in 8,911,711…’ I wonder if players truly understood what this means. This is approximately the population of Queensland and Victoria, combined! Every woman, man, and child. So imagine this scenario: Give me one dollar, and you could win one million dollars, but you had to walk up to one person and tap them on the shoulder. You can pick any person you like. You have nine million to choose from. I would have combed the length and breadth of Queensland and Victoria, and gone into every school and every shopping centre and visited the young and old in every street in every suburb. And having visited every farm and every house and every pub and very hospital, I would have silently eyed out a person whom I would declare the winner. No one will know who I picked. And no one would know where I had travelled. On a piece of paper in my pocket is the person who I would have selected as being the star. All you have to do is roam the length and breadth of the entire two states in search of a person to tap on the shoulder. All you have to do is tap one person on the shoulder, and if it the person that I had chosen as the star, then you win a million dollars. Now tell me this: in your wildest dreams, do you think that you can travel the highways and the byways of these two vast states and pick one person who happened to be the very person that I had secretly selected? If a gambler can understand these odds, they will begin to understand that ‘gambling for fun’ is one thing, but gambling with an earnest desire to win, is really far fetched.

Indeed, each month, millions of dollars are handed out to Keno winners. Of course people win, at random, by pure chance, and yes, maybe one day you could be the lucky winner. But what they don’t tell you is how much was lost. The Keno website shows that for the month of September, $51,500,033 had been won. But how many people played? How much money did they spend. You can say, wow, $51 million was won, but how much was spent, by how many people, over how many games? And a true-blue gambler would say, I don’t care, I want to play because one day, I might win. But how many people shared in that $51 million. Was it ten people or a million people? And of all those people who shared this $51 million, how much had they sunk into the game over their lifetime before they won a prize large enough to satisfy their fantasy?

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), ‘The total net takings from gambling during 2004-05 was $15,459,700,000.’

For the same period, the ABS reported, ‘Revenue paid to government in gambling/gaming taxes and levies was $5,633,000,000.’

Interestingly, it said that ‘at the end of June 2005, there were 199,930 poker/gaming machines for which licences had been issued…’

It reported that ‘at the end of June 2005, there were 76,848 persons employed in the provision of gambling services.’

So, it’s all good for the economy. But let’s go back to the odds of winning. Would you give me one dollar, and go in search of one person in Queensland or Victoria whom I might have selected as the star person? If you can’t wrap your mind around the sheer quantity of nine million people, then think about it this way. The average notebook computer might have a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (picture elements). Come closer to your LCD computer screen (you might need a magnifying glass) and see if you can spot one pixel. This full stop ‘ . ‘ might well comprise four pixels. So split it into four. The whole screen would contain 786,432 pixels. So imagine 11 computers scattered around your room. I would have selected just one of the nine million pixels. Your job would be to just go and point to one of the pixels on any one of the 11 computers. What are your ‘chances’ of winning? This becomes a mathematic question. So let’s remove maths out of it and ask you, what is the likelihood of you winning?

Ok, you now understand the odds. And if you still wish to play Keno, that’s fine. But let’s look at how the casino meets its responsibility and helps its patrons to understand their odds of winning when playing other games.

Here we are told that the house margin is always the same at 2.7%. Is it the responsible thing to do, to speak in terms that most people would not understand. If I were to go to the casino and select players at random, what are the chances of any of them telling me what is meant by this 2.7%? This brochure is designed to help patrons to learn how to play, and to advise them of their odds of winning. The brochure does an okay job at explaining the game, but how well does it meet its promise of being responsible? Is this really a sensible way of advising gamblers about their odds of winning?

How does this help a player to understand the odds of winning? What is meant by, ‘The house margin for Blackjack is generally less than 0.5% for skilled players? How many gamblers can explain this? The brochure was printed to assist gamblers to understand their odds of winning. How many players are considered ‘skilled’. What does ‘generally’ mean? Here are the odd for some of the other games:

STUD POKER: ‘The house margin for Caribbean Stud Poker is about 5.5%, which includes and allowance for the jackpot.’
What does the word ‘about’ signify? And what does the allowance mean in relation to the gambler? Does 5.5% ‘include’ the allowance, or do they mean that it excludes some money (by taking it away from your side of the bargain) to fund a jackpot? Most unclear.

MINI BACCARAT: ‘The house margin for Mini Baccarat is approximately 1.2%.’
Now we see the word ‘approximately’. Is that an average, or really an approximation? In reality, it does not matter. The question is, how responsible is it to say that the casino complies with regulations and guidelines, when it does not really assist its gamblers to understand what hope they have of winning?

WHEEL: ‘The house margin is 7.7% for all symbols and cannot be reduced.’
Why emphasis that it cannot be reduced? Are the other games sometimes reduced? It’s just that this statement is not mentioned in relation to other games, so what can we assume. What is it emphasising?

MINI DICE: ‘The house margin for mini dice is 3.7% and cannot be changed.’
The Wheel’s margin cannot be reduced. Yet this cannot be changed? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? If not; why the sloppy language? If there is a difference, then why the sneaky language?

SIC BO: ‘House margins for each type of bet vary from 2.8% (big, small or combinations of two dice) to 16.2% for a specific triple. Sic Bo is a game of chance so there are no betting strategies to reduce these margins.’
Is Mini Dice not also a game of chance? If so, why is this statement not also made for Mini Dice?

TREASURY 21 / JUPITERS PONTOON (Spanish Blackjack): ‘The house margin for Treasury 21 is generally 1.25%.’
My goodness. Most people cannot comprehend what the point-2 in 1.2 means. Now we expect the patrons to understand what .25 means? Not on your life.

I find it bemusing that this game allows the player to purchase insurance. I wonder what innovative ideas might spring from this. Imagine an insurance company offering overall cover for gamblers, perhaps akin to travel insurance. For the life of me, I have never understood travel insurance. Hence, I have never taken any. I think I did once, and was let down badly by the fine print. Every now and then I read the policy when an airline offers it to me when making an on-line booking. I just cannot work out under which situation I can claim? The limitations and permutations and convolutions make my eyes glaze over.

THREE CARD POKER: ‘The house margin for Three Card Poker is about 2.01% for skilled players.’
What on earth is the significance of the 0.01% when the preceding word is ‘about’. If it is about 2.01% then surely it would be correct to say ‘about 2%’. Please!

MACHINES: The two casinos I visited, the Conrad Jupiters and Conrad Treasury together have 1300 gaming machines. Imagine the floor space. A machine that offers a prize if the player can receive 5 of the same kind of symbol (5 of a kind) is said to offer one chance in 9,765,625 of the 5-of-a-kind combination happening on a single play line. That’s the population of Sweden. Imagine if every human in Sweden had a personal phone. Their numbers start at 1. And someone’s number is 15, and someone’s number 12823, all the way up to 9,765,625. You have one shot at dialling a number; any number from one to 9,765,625, and if you are lucky, you will dial the one chosen person in Sweden who can take your call and say, ‘Yes, you have won’. Mind you, I am not sure what you win. The brochure does not tell us what we can win if we obtain 5-of-a-kind. So, knowing this about the phone numbers, what do you think your chances are of winning?

Incidentally, I wonder why these brochures are not translated into other languages? What are the demographics of patrons? Never mind their mathematics skills. Tell me about their English language skills. How many could read these brochures? For a multi-billion dollar industry that relies upon tourists and foreigners and the ethnic types, why is this information not in any other language?

Consumers waited decades before products were labelled properly. For a long time, consumers had no idea about the ingredients that were used to manufacture foodstuffs. The use-by date was a recent innovation. With gambling being a devastating social disease that rips families apart, is this the best we can do? By all means, if casinos wishes to argue with me, I would take my hat off to them. Just be sure to tell the government and the community where to go. In other words, don’t pander to regulations and guidelines with nothing more than lip service. If casinos don’t agree that they have a duty to society and a corporate social responsibility, then they are entitled to their opinion. But just stop publishing responsibility crap!

On page seven was a statement that said that the casino has numerous financial policies and procedures in place to assist customers in maintaining responsible gambling practices. The first point said, ‘ATMs are not provided within gambling areas.’

In most of my books, I refer to a range of addictions, including gambling. I have a particular fear of the powers of gambling-addiction, having known many people whose lives have been completely and utterly ruined by this disease. I have studied gambling and its grip for twenty years. For this reason, my eyes are drawn to anything about the subject, whether it be about casinos, horse racing, or scratch cards.

Obviously, casinos are aware of the problems. So much so that a brochure of this kind, with warnings and advice, are placed on every floor of the hotel, as well as within the casino area. Other brochures and pocket-sized leaflets proffer advice, along with the phone numbers for the 24-hour free and confidential Gambling Helpline.

I am not sure which committee or government department helped to draft the code of conduct. I don’t know who suggested that ATMs should not be within gambling areas? Was this a genuine recommendation based on research? Or it is a hollow gesture? The said brochure said, ‘[our] Casinos… are committed to best practice in the provision of responsible gambling, within the aim of minimising the potential harm to individuals in the community through Responsible Gambling Practices.’

Tabcorp’s website, under the heading of integrity, lists ten key compliance practices to which the Board is committed. At number seven, it says, ‘We take our obligations seriously – not paying lip service to compliance.’

The words ‘committed’ and ‘best’ and ‘responsible’ and ‘minimising’ and ‘responsible’ are serious words. If a casino is indeed committed, it would take the matter more seriously. I say this because there were three ATM machines within spitting distance. Upon entering the foyer of the hotel, one could turn left and take ten steps to reach the ATMs, or turn right and take thirteen steps to reach the casino area. A child could throw a ball from one extreme end to the other. That’s 23 steps from the gaming area to the ATMs. This is hardly a hindrance to any gambler who is gripped by the flashing lights and the lure of the millions.

Here is a photo of the three ATMs, and you can see the casino at the far end. Now I do not blame the casinos one way or the other. They have a business to run. They are in the business of making money, and that is their business. I do not mind that they have ATMs there. However, I object to their hollow statements. In all my writing, my readers would know by now that I abhor rhetoric. Don’t say that you are committed to minising harm etc, if you are not committed. And if you are committed, and you know that providing ATMs is harmful, then don’t provide any. On the other hand, if a casino is merely following the laws of the land, and is placing the ATMs exactly where they need to be in terms of the rules and regulations, then that’s fine too, but don’t print glorious brochures containing motherhood statements. Just say that we comply with the law, and the law states that ATMs should be 23 steps away, and that’s what we have done, and if you don’t like it, don’t come it. A casino is not part of the nanny state. It has a right to exist. In which case, just exist and brazenly call it like it is. Do not pretend to care for the people and the devastated families. If a person wants to be so stupid as to throw their money to the wind, then so be it. It’s a disgrace when humans have no control over their actions. I’m not blaming the casinos. I am simply challenging their ethics in terms of truth. Don’t make out that you care when you clearly don’t. And if in fact a casino did understand the horror of living within a household where one of the parents is a gambler, then that casino would not have any ATMs whatsoever. Not that this would stop a gamble in any way whatsoever. A walk up the road to a local store will provide an ATM. Besides, serious gambles with serious problems do not have any funds in ATMs. They rely on stealing, lying and cheating.

I met a young at this casino. He told me that he had lost his business and all his money to gambling. He and his mate had thought that they had found a clever way to make money. Their system worked for the first three days, and thereafter, for months to come, they could not win. All the while, they were sure that it was all due to their bad decisions, as opposed to the nature of the beast. He insisted that it was possible to make a living out of gambling, so he sold his tools, then his truck then anything else that he could liquidate, and now he had nothing. He had to live with his mother because he could not support himself. ‘Why are you here at the casino now?’ I asked. He said that he receives vouchers for free three-course meals. He said that the other casino down the coast, offers him so many free meals that he could dine there every day, if he lived down south. He came for the free meal, and while there, he tries his luck with $25. That’s his psychological limit. His internal excuse for still gambling is, ‘…to win back what they owe me. I am not going to let them get away with it.’ That’s a long and sad story.

During our conversation, I mentioned these ATMs to him, and he laughed. He said, ‘There is an ATM inside the casino gaming area!’ I could not believe it. Indeed there was. As you go down to wards the casino, past the security guard at the door, there are three steps down onto the gambling floor. Turn right, and you see a cafeteria that offers great meals. That cafeteria is two steps away from the gambling tables. Buy a meal, pay for it (at a great discount (less than 50% off) if you are a member (and it is free to become a member) and sit and eat your meal at any of the tables that are within spitting distance of the gambling tables. And five steps away, around a corner, you will see an ATM.

Yep, I had to go back the next day, just to take this photo. I ordered a fruit salad and sat at one of the white tables. My camera was placed on the table, hence the white blur at the base of each photo. The first shows the ATM that his hidden in the corner, only seconds away from the gambling floor. I swivelled my camera to the left, and you can see the lady at the poker machine. I smudged the photo so as to provide her with privacy.

Now I ask you, how can the casino say that ATMs are not provided within the gambling area? Is this a technicality? Is the gambling area defined as within arms reach from the roulette wheel? Now be fair!

By the way, after taking the shots of the three blue ATMs shown above, I noticed that a transaction receipt had been left behind, sticking put of the slot. Of course, that’s no big deal, because the three large chrome bins next to each ATM contained dozens of receipts. But this one, sticking out, was an ominous invitation. So I pulled it out, and here it is. The user had withdrawn $500, and had no funds left. The available balance was zero. Luckily, the person had had a cheque that had not cleared. Otherwise, I would have bet that the person would have dipped into that as well. I found it interesting that the back of each ATM receipt says, ‘Is gambling a problem for you?’ and then it lists the gambling helpline 1800 number. If the back sof ATM receipts were known to work, the space would have been sold to advertisers.

The photo on the left is of the ATMs at Crown Casino in Melbourne. The machines are seconds away from the gaming floor. The photo below is of the ATMs at Conrad Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast. These ATMs are also seconds away from the gaming floor. So who are we kidding? Why not save all this effort and just place them at every gaming table. Swipe your card and be done with it.