Usually fan interviews on this blog consist of people who are fans of Transformers and/or yours truly. However today we are interviewing someone who I am a fan of. As the big sis of long time blog reader Maddy, this is a person whom I have had the honor of meeting once or twice, as well as conversing with online when I’ve had a few too many and want to vent about the current political issues plaguing this country. She is The Greens Councillor for Moreland, North-East Ward, Natalie Abboud.
Given it can sometimes mean a life where you are working hard for a populace where the fashion is to openly distrust and dislike politicians, what lead you personally to enter a life of politics?
I get a $28k taxable allowance at Moreland (the Moyoralty is more but it’s full time) so it’s certainly a job you do for love or challenges. I’ve always been engaged in politics and ran in a couple of elections I couldn’t win so when I was tapped on the shoulder for council I was up for it. I also work hard and answer calls in an effort to break the stigma. People don’t always need to agree but we all want to be heard. I had some great conversations about Australia Day.
For those of us that are ignorant of what politicians actually do, what are some of your primary responsibilities? How does a usual day at work play out for the Councillor for Moreland?
Monday’s and Wednesday’s are blocked out for emails and meetings but I often do stuff most other days too.
I’m the Cr responsible for Youth, status of women, and Social Diversity, multiculturalism and Reconciliation. I sit on the Oxygen Committee, audit and risk committee, chair the Human rights committee and I’m the council rep for the Disability working group and the reconciliation working group.
This means I attend up to 4 night meetings a week and occasionally(once a week) I go to other conferences and events.
As a Member for The Greens, what do you believe are the three main issues (among the many) that need immediate and significant action in our country today?
-Renewables (why do the Gubs keep resisting them?)
-Transport (why can’t we have trains like Japan?)
-Addressing the Climate emergency
Where do you see The Greens in ten years time?
Holding balance of power in Vic which will lead to more action in State Parliament. Not sure about Aus. I’d like to see two more in the Federal lower house and maybe a few more senators.
As a young man I didn’t care much about voting, I just liked the requisite sausage sizzle. My first election I voted for The Democrats as I had a crush on Natasha Stott Despoja. My second I voted for The Shooters Party as I thought it would be funny if they won and would give me material for my stand-up comedy routines. My third I voted for The Sex Party because a big fat bearded guy in a bright yellow T-shirt gave me a flyer while I was waiting in line to vote. Now that I am (somewhat) more mature, as well as a parent, I vote for The Greens because I care about the state of the planet my kids will grow up on, as well as many of The Greens policies aligning with my personal moral compass. Do you find young people are more ‘switched on’ to voting and politics now than in decades past? Or does one need to get a few years under their belt in order to understand the depth of the issues and the importance of ones vote?
Young people are more engaged than ever. Young people understand the risks we face. Politics is very conservative in Aus which has alerted people. (This could be wishful thinking but the Greens have many young active members so I exist in a bubble)
I’ve never understood those that treat Political Parties like football teams, as in they will ‘barrack’ (vote) for that Party no matter what they do or what their current policies are. What methods does one take to sway voters of that mindset?
Vote compass is effective. Get people to talk about policy not personality. Having a crush won’t get the results you want from your government 😉
Show people where government is active, any action is about getting votes. Ie the schools money and Scott (Hillsong) Morrison or trying to throw Barnaby Joyce at the drought. In Vic it’s all about marginal seats. Moreland council has been asking for a really dangerous intersection to be fixed for years, now that Pascoe Vale has gone marginal we were just promised $11m to fix it. Meanwhile in Frank McGuire’s electorate of Broady (next door) the Windows of the schools are literally rotted shut and the carpets are rotted or threadbare.
There is a growing movement in rural areas by farmers for the government to take action on climate change. Yet a large amount of country people remain voters for The Nationals, even though as part of the Coalition they have taken no real action on this issue and have within their ranks a significant number of climate-change deniers. Do you think this may signify a possible shift in rural voting habits for the future and what can The Greens do to bolster their presence in these regions?
I sure hope so. We are running a guy called Serge Simic who is a farmer for the seat of Ripon. He came here escaping the breakup of the Former Yugoslavia as a child with his family.
Water will be the real issue. The cockies are already involved in “hay battles” South Aus is unhappy that NSW is getting their hay, grain is being freighted from WA. That kind of thing is completely unsustainable.Sad thing is, Serge is getting trolled by hunters who don’t wanna be locked out of the national parks so we have a way to go.
On our farm we subsist on rainwater (not easy in a drought) and if we want our rubbish taken away we have to drive it ourselves to the tip. This contributes towards our mindset of conserving water as much as possible as well as trying to create minimal waste. How do you encourage people in a large city to be ‘waste conscious?’
We are heavily focused on getting food waste out of landfill at the moment. The container deposit scheme was voted down again by the old parties which is disappointing.
No matter, it took gun control ten failed bills to parliament by the Greens before a massacre at Port Arthur finally got it over the line.
Now for a few personal questions if I may:
*Living in the second most populated city in Australia, what do you in your own life to ‘stay green’?
Try not to use a lot of plastic, compost everything we can, grow veggies, ride my bike when I don’t have the kids, shower in a bucket and use the water for plants, we are about to have solar installed on our new house and I don’t do stuff like get acrylic fingernails or consume a bunch of unnecessary crap. I still regularly feel like I can do more though.
Your sister has been raising some lovely chookies over the last few years. Where you live do you have a yard big enough to have any animals? Or perhaps a couple of fruit trees and a veggie patch?
We have had chook but they got eaten by foxes, bit by snakes and other fatal things. My FIL has 4 so we get eggs from him. We live on 1500sq m so we are very lucky. We have a big veggie garden and this year we will grow tomatoes, peas, Lebo cucumber, pumpkin, beans, lettuce, beetroot, sorrel, corn and I’m trying Okra for the first time. We have heaps of herbs and rocket. We also have apple, olive, orange, tangelo, lemons, peach, nectarine, plums, apricot, avocado and a passion fruit vine and a walnut. (Most of those trees are established and bear fruit but some are still young). I want to add cherry and almond.
And of course I have to ask, with three strapping young lads of your own, who are their favorite Transformers?
Percy: Definitely Bumblebee
Patrick: Bumblebee
Mally: Optimus Prime
Ms Abboud, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
Do you have any questions for Ms Abboud? Pop them in the comments section below!
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Monthly Archives: September 2018
Househusband Tales #8 – Star Charts
Kids. Can’t live with’em, can’t hook them up to a car battery and yell ‘FOR THE THOUSANTH TIME, CLEAN YOUR ROOM!’
Yep, as much as we love our kids they can frustrate us, especially when they show the same behaviours every day no matter what we say or what we try to teach them.
Having a 5 and 3 year old at home, dinner times could be very stressful in our household. You spend an hour in the kitchen preparing a meal that is both nutritious and tastes great, only for one of your kids to sit there with a look of pure revulsion on their face and go ‘Yuck! I hate this!’ before they have even tasted it! Meanwhile your other child has stripped off to just their underwear and is running laps around the table trying to catch the cat! It can drive you barmy!
We got tired of nagging our kids about some of their behaviours, and realised that everything we were doing was negative and reactive. So we decided to change tack and go proactive and my word it has made a world of difference!
How have we done this? Something very simple – The Star Chart System.
The concept is very simple. We assign each of our children 3 goals – one for the daytime, one for dinnertime and one for bedtime. These are printed out and stuck on the wall. Whenever one of our kids achieves one of these goals they get a star sticker that they put up on their chart. When they have gotten 7 stars for that particular goal then they get a prize!
Now I know that sounds somewhat like bribery and perhaps at a basic level it is. But it is more about changing your child’s mindset. Instead of it being about the negatives associated with doing the wrong thing, its focusing on the positive’s associated with doing the right thing.
As for prizes, it needn’t be anything lavish, especially if you are giving them out reasonably often. For kids it can be mainly about the excitement of getting the prize rather than having it. Each of our kids has a prize bag full of stuff and none of it cost more than $2 or $3. A quick trip down the toy and stationary isles of discount stores like The Reject Shop and you will find plenty of pencils packs, sticker sheets, fairy wings, army men, bubble wands and other assorted tat that will keep your kids occupied for an hour or two before they break it or lose interest.
The beauty of The Star Chart System is that you can adjust it to the every changing needs of your child. For instance with our 3 year old daughter we found that achieving 7 stars meant that she would lose interest as it was too long a timescale between tangible rewards. So we shortened her chart to she only needed to achieve 5. By doing so she was getting more prizes and thus became far more interested in the whole process. Admittedly she still struggles with her bedtime goal so we have reduced that to she only needs to get 1 star for a prize in the vain hope we can get a decent nights sleep. And of course, when they achieve their goal you put a line through all the existing stars and begin all over again until the desired behaviour becomes ingrained.
We also found that by having special stickers for the final square on their charts, they worked harder towards getting that last one done so that they could put up a frog or bear sticker instead of a star. Tweak the system as needed.
When it came to dinnertime, after only a month both our kids were achieving their goal on a daily basis, the chart working where months of nagging had not. But again, the beauty is you can change the chart. So instead of our son having to ‘Try all the food on my plate’ and our daughter ‘Stay in my seat and use my fork‘ we changed both to ‘I will eat all the food on my plate’. And I’m pleased to say that most nights both our kids are now achieving this! It has made perhaps the most stressful part of our evening as parents into something so much more positive and relaxed for the whole family.
So if you are sick of nagging your kids, and your kids are sick of getting nagged, give The Star Chart System a whirl – you will be glad you did!
Got any comments about the above? Would love to read it in the comments section below!
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Toys Review – Cyberverse: Grimlock & Shockwave
With RID disappearing into the sunset, leaving most fans with a ‘yeah, it was alright I guess’ taste in their mouths, many have been anticipating the new Cyberverse cartoon and toyline. However if what one reads online is to be believed, fans are already being put off with what they perceive to be overly simplistic figures.
On Father’s Day I received two from the new line, and both characters I obsessively collect. So without further ado let’s take a look at Cyberverse: Warrior-Class Shockwave and Ultra-Class Grimlock.
Shockwave
Robot Mode
Though small in stature, Shockwave comes in a really vibrant purple with pink highlights via circuitry lines on the arms and the hexagon on his chest. He has shoulder, elbow and knee articulation though his head is immovable. His proportions are quite good and he has his signature blaster on his left arm.
I really like the head on this Shockwave. I think because you only see the bottom half of his eye so it makes him look far more angry than usual.
His ‘Wave Cannon’ weapon sits behind his right shoulder. Moving it up onto the shoulder makes the pink laser fire automatically pop out. Personally I prefer to leave it behind his shoulder but it adds a lot of play value for the kids.
Cybertronian Spider-Tank Mode
Really, this is the first alt-mode of this kind we have seen in a Transformers toy. There was Thunderhead from DOTM which had treads so perhaps this is the first walking spider-tank in the Transformers line *. That novelty value alone made me want to grab Shockwave. It looks odd but fairly good overall. Really they needed to find a way to shorten Shockwaves thighs so that the two back legs were the same length as the front, and have a bit more detail and variety in colour so it’s not one big block of purple. It’s nice to see that they have kept with the theme of Shockwave not having an Earth mode, and this makes a nice variation on the Cybertronian Tank form he has been rocking for the last few years (such as in Energon, Animated, Prime and DOTM). Since all 4 legs are able to be positioned in different ways, both on the horizontal and vertical axis, it means this toy is great to set up on battlescapes with uneven terrain.
*I have subsequently been reminded by Laine from Melbourne that in fact ‘Scrapmetal’ from the Cybertron series can be considered the first ‘walking spider-tank’. Thanks Laine! I actually own this toy so I feel particularly silly for forgetting this figure 😉
The laser turret on top of the tank can once again activate his ‘Wave Cannon’ for pink laser fire but only one pops out. There is an Ultra-Class version of this character coming out in subsequent waves where the laser turret resembles his Prime incarnation more.
Grimlock
Robot Mode
It is a big bulky and solid looking Grimlock. Despite being depicted in the shots of the cartoon as having a mouth (like in RID) they have given Grimlock back his faceplate and overall a much more G1 head than the ‘teddy-bear’ look he was rocking in Robots in Disguise, which I was not a fan of. He is well proportioned and has a very G1/Evergreen colour scheme. This figure has minimal articulation, his shoulders and elbows both have a small amount of movement but he has no knee or head articulation whatsoever. The front half of his Dino-mode folds down the back of him and goes all the way down to his knees; the figure could have benefitted from this folding in half so that it formed a backpack, but I guess that was not possible due to the figure having to accommodate the ‘Rocket Roar’ feature that the robot mode doesn’t use. I quite like Grimlock having missile pods on each shoulder, it’s something new for the character and makes up to a small extent him not having any other weapon such as his signature Energon-Sword.
Cybertronian T-Rex Mode
It’s an interesting look, very distinctive with the raised eye sockets and the way it leans forward is quite indicative of the Animated version. The spikes on his back, forehead and tail are quite interesting too. A black tail instead of the usual gold but it still sorta works.
By pressing down on one of his back nodules (the foot from his robot mode) you activate the ‘Rocket Roar’ feature which not only shoots ‘fire’ out his mouth but also causes it to flare up from his back. It looks pretty cool and it will be interesting to see if this happens in the upcoming cartoon as I think it would look quite boss for his back to be spouting fire as he breathes it at Cons. My only gripe is you have to lean Grimlock even further forward in order to get the nub that activates the switch to be in the right position, meaning Grimlock has to be virtually horizontal for this to work.
Transformations
Both this figures are very easy to Transform, in particular Shockwave whom my 5-year old can do with his eyes closed. Didn’t take too long for him to figure out Grimlock either. Not much challenge for the adult collector but then that’s not who these toys are aimed at.
Overall
Look, I have to put my hand up to say that I’ve been feeling fairly negative about this new line from all the images I’ve been seeing online. But now having two in my hands I gotta say they are a lot of fun! I received these two for Father’s Day and I think my son played with them more than me and he had an absolute blast! I think given the relative simplicity of these figures that their price tags are a tad steep and feel that set at about 2/3rds their current cost would be more appropriate. However that said, if you are a fan of these two characters or you have kids that are really into Transformers they are both worth picking up.
Got anything to say about these toys? Would love to read it in the comments section below!
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