When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull commented on the over-supply of law graduates, he should know, he has first hand experience both as a lawyer and as a businessman. Universities are churning out law students in record numbers and the industry doesn’t appear able to support the number of law graduates – Turnbull is right to be concerned.

Law is an important skill for political leaders, current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has a law degree, former Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard, John Howard and Bob Hawke were all law graduates along with hopeful Prime Ministerial candidate and Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten. Regardless of party affiliation, law is an an important CV filler for a politician. One could argue that that law is important for business, it is an important skill set that may assist board decisions. Senior managers could well comprehend the consequences of their proposed actions and possible/probable repercussions for stakeholders.

Three arguments about law courses and lawyers generally exist, there are:

1. A law course is relatively inexpensive to set up; all that is required is a library of law references with space for as many students that can be crammed into a lecture hall.
2. When a case does go to court, 50% of lawyers will be wrong; this is an appalling failure rate that would not be tolerated in other professions.
3. Regardless of an over-supply of lawyers, competitive forces do not result in the cost of their services reducing, not that I have seen anyway. So much for the marketplace determining their value.

All jokes aside, the question is, do we allocate scarce resources to law courses where graduates have little chance of success in an open market. Law is important, why not better incorporate law units into business and commerce courses; possibly even a major in corporate law, contract management, economics, finance or international business. I hate seeing young people get into to debt at tertiary educational institutes and then lack the employment opportunities to pay back their fees and progress their careers.

In Australia, in many cases a trade is more valuable than most university degrees bar the top degrees of medicine, engineering, science and law. A technical trade is more valuable again providing wonderful opportunities for tradespeople around the country and the dominant feature of an apprenticeship is you get paid to learn.

An engineering trade encompasses the maintenance and repair of mobile plant machinery in engineering workshops and in the field. This is a broad trade involving engines, fuel systems, transmissions and drivetrains, steering, suspensions, hydraulics, low voltage electrics and electronics. People also have the opportunity for specialisation although I have always thought a generalised skill-set offers greater opportunity and earning potential over an extended period.

Plant Mechanics are employed in a variety of industries including open cut mining, underground mining, earthmoving, civil construction, diesel fuel injection, fork lift, elevated work platforms, ancillary equipment, marine, rail, exploration drilling, agricultural equipment, turbines, power generation, cranes and lifting equipment. My background began in civil construction before moving to open cut mining and then onto underground mining and that included short stints in marine, exploration drilling and power generation based in short-term contracts.

For myself, this has been a wonderful trade, I have gained personal freedom, the opportunity to travel, financial freedom and a large dose of self-esteem and self worth. The days of a grease monkey are history as modern machine systems require high level technical skills, diagnostic abilities, problem-solving skills, analytic skills whilst retaining a degree of manual dexterity and hand skills. Despite this, this trade offers wonderful opportunities for women as the trade is less about strength and more about knowledge application.

Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet is a tender floral bouquet that is delicate and light. This perfume is described as a springtime bouquet with a hint of elegant and light woody notes with white musk notes delicately wrapped around this springtime fragrance.

That’s a very complex description that far exceeds my ability to identify individual notes within the fragrance. I just hoped this is what she wanted, Christian Dior is supposed to be excellent quality – I hope I’m right. I purchased a bottle at great expense for my partner and whilst she liked the scent, she was left a little disappointed with perfume longevity.

According to the notes, the fruity top notes of essence of Sicilian orange combine with a tender floral heart dominated by Peony and Damask Rose. What I do know is that when women wear this Dior perfume, I’m told they are unable to identify this fragrance on themselves. I reckon this has to be a positive as men can’t stand overbearing perfume.

However, the complaints I have heard is that this fragrance doesn’t last. As an eau de toilet, this is about right as this lightly scented cologne has a reasonably high alcohol content and as such a weaker concentration than a eau de parfum. I wish I had known this before I purchased this as a gift as it would have saved some disappointment.

Former Prime Minister John Howard stated he admired many things about Americans, however their culture of gun ownership was not one of them. The 1996 Port Arthur massacre was very personal to me, I worked together with the first person to be killed during the mass shooting.

Katie was a young woman full of hope and substance, she had spoken of her excitement of her trip to Tasmania weeks before her trip. She had an outgoing and friendly personality – everyone liked her. Back then, I was a fly in/fly out mining worker getting ready to embark on my first backpacking trip to Europe, my life was full of hope and aspiration as well.

Nowhere written in the Australian constitution is the right to bear arms, if you run an incompetent government, the Governor General has the power to sack the Prime Minister, as Gough Whitlam found out, there is no need to overthrow the government in violent uprising – that’s what the polling booth is for.

Likewise, John Howard was also reminded of the democratic process when his government was relieved of its duties following the 2007 federal election. Both times an uprising occurred, in Howard’s case, as Prime Minister for nearly 12 years (the second longest serving Prime Minister in Australia’s history) the people felt his highly competent government had been in power long enough and it was time for a change.

The people of Australia transitioned power in a democratic manner, there is no requirement to bear arms and overthrow the government. There is a role for guns in Australia from the military, police forces and even farmers who need guns for various roles – the average Australian however doesn’t require a gun.

Torrens University, Australia’s newest tertiary institution was formally opened in 2014 with much fanfare following a flying visit from former US President Bill Clinton. As Torrens University is part of the Laureate network, the university has links to a vast network of universities worldwide with what I expected to be shared resources and synergies. In 2016 Torrens University bought out Chifley Business School in what should have been a positive transaction for students – sadly this was not the case.

I am tending to believe the quality of their teaching and learning just isn’t what I initially expected. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of New England, a well established regional university with an excellent reputation for online education. I had grown accustomed to a quality learning process so my expectations were relatively high. The staff interactions were excellent, we were required to join online discussions and we received marks for mandatory posts on a learning outcome and we were required to provide a minimum number of referenced replies to student posts.

This brought about excellent student interactions and we learnt from fellow students. I had trouble with one lecturer and was dismayed to have him for a second semester directly after I complained about him. Torrens University started well, the client advisor was an American from Walden University in the United States, he was in constant contact with me during the initial stages.

The Americans know customer service and this guy was good; however, it appears he was sequestered for the start-up phase and when he returned to the United States so did the outstanding service. Torrens University utilises the Blackboard learning management system like many tertiary institutions and colleges. So this learning management system is industry standard.

I had previously used the Moodle learning system so a period of adjustment was necessary. However, the Torrens University instructional design processes are well below expected standard I expected. Furthermore, they have not been updated each unit since before the Chifley Business School purchase and we were doing outdated assessments from previous trimesters. That in itself isn’t a bad thing if the assessments are good.

The issues arose from different versions and the dates on the assignments – it was very confusing as you were never sure of submission dates. When you are undertaking multiple units, setting schedules was much harder than it needed to be. The schedule dates in some units were aligned to trimester 1, 2015 and we were in trimester 2, 2016, this made following the schedule almost impossible and complaints weren’t headed.

The lecturers didn’t have access to the learning management system course design and were instead purely learning facilitators, initially some of whom were employed at rival universities. I am guessing a contract was awarded for the initial course design but an ongoing maintenance contract was not costed and instructional designers were not employed on staff.

Torrens University was not utilising hard copy textbooks instead opting for the Vitalsource electronic book; ok, that is an acceptable option. The problem arose after the amalgamation. The learning management system wasn’t updated and the required readings were totally skipped instead just relying on supplementary readings that really didn’t align to learning outcomes.

As the learning management system still aligned to the required reading, I searched online for a free pdf version of the textbook that I shared with my fellow students – not good enough. These courses are not cheap and they initially came with ebooks for study, all of a sudden after the amalgamation, the ebooks were dumped and the course required us to still read certain chapters.

Supplementary readings are exactly that, supplemental information to reinforce an objective and are not core learning concepts. Now they were being used as the main source of learning, the required online interactions really didn’t embed learning and the concepts were really unclear. I won’t complain too much, I received a scholarship that saw me granted advanced standing and a discount on the remaining units that saw the price significantly reduced. One hopes the management really engages in self-reflection and engages in critical analysis like we are told we should do.

All in all I enjoyed the online experience despite the stress, I began with two units per trimester but soon worked out after the second trimester that I was unable to keep up the pace. Instead I only undertook a single unit per trimester. I was able to concentrate on the coursework, even then I struggled as there is plenty to learn. This took me beyond the timeframe of my scholarship but I felt I gained more out of it and there was really no value graduating in the middle of a downturn.

There have been many published photographs of World War II depicting loss, bravery and the brutality of war. For Australians, there is no more an enduring photograph than the beheading of Sergeant Leonard Shiffleet in New Guinea on the 24th of October 1943.

Naval officer Yasuno Chikao gained infamy for the beheading Australian prisoner of war Sergeant Leonard Siffleet in Aitape, New Guinea in 1943. After being captured himself, Chikao escaped the death penalty by hanging as the order was given by Vice Admiral Michiaki Kamada. Instead, Chikao was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in conditions vastly superior to the POW camps the Japanese military ran. Had Chikao not requested a subordinate to take the photograph of him wielding the execution sword, he may have had escaped punishment for his war crimes.

Shiffleet volunteered for the Services Reconnaissance Department of the Allied Intelligence Bureau in Melbourne in 1942. Shiffleet was then transferred to Cairns with the Z Special Unit and promoted to the rank of sergeant in 1943. Later that month Shiffleet was transferred to M Special Unit that was deployed to New Guinea.

Shiffleet’s unit landed in New Guinea in July 1943, midway through September 1943 a small patrol including Shiffleet operating behind enemy lines was discovered by New Guinean natives and captured after a brief fight. The patrol was handed over to occupying Japanese forces and taken to Malol for a ruthless interrogation over a period of two weeks – in layman’s terms, torture.

On the afternoon of 24th of October Private Pattiwahl, Private Reharin and Sergeant Shiffleet were marched to Aitape Beach; bound, blindfolded and forced to kneel and executed by beheading in front of a crowd of Japanese soldiers and locals. The photograph of the execution was found on the body of a dead Japanese Major near Hollandia still in New Guinea in 1944 by American forces.

Apparently the photograph was widely distributed within the Japanese military as some sick form of memento and eventually ended up in Life magazine showcasing the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Forces. Just another example of Japanese war crimes in WWII, this was a wide practice throughout the entirety of the Imperial Japanese Forces, it took brave men and women to stand up to the brutality of the Japanese military.

I was sitting at home on a raining Sunday afternoon with my laptop computer perched on my knees working on my resume to send out to prospective employers when The Dam Busters showed up on the title menu. I was quickly on the phone to my old man, he wasn’t going to miss this even though he had seen the movie on plenty of occasions.

As a young punk I had read Paul Brickhall’s book of the same name so I knew exactly what this 1955 movie was based upon. Naturally, Brickhall’s book is based on real events, this is a true story complete with photographs of the main players, aircrews and the amazing aircraft. In putting his case forward to procure resources, my favourite scene of the movie played out “What possible argument could I put forward to convince them to loan you a Wellington Bomber? Barnes Wallis replied “What if you told them I designed it, do you think that could help?” Needless to say, Wallis got his aircraft.

The full-throated roar of the four V12 Rolls Royce Merlin 1280 horsepower engines powering the Avro Lancaster is spine tingling, it must have been amazing to witness these aircraft in flight. We have a Lancaster bomber at the Aviation Heritage Museum in Perth, the Lancaster was flown to Australia and then left out in the weather before eventually being moved to the museum, but unfortunately I have never heard the engines roar to life. The scene in the movie with the Lancaster engines firing up as they departed on their mission still gets me excited.

The bouncing bomb, actually a mine as it detonates at depth was required to skip across the water and had to be dropped from an altitude of 60 feet, that’s 18 metres – unreal. At that altitude the altimeter wasn’t accurate enough so two spotlights mounted at the rear of the bomb bay, the bomb doors had been removed to mount the bouncing bomb. The spotlight beams converged at 60 feet, yep, they were flying over water at night with their lights on under fire from German defensive positions to position the aircraft for the bomb drop.

On the flight over and back, there was anti-aircraft fire, interception from German fighter aircraft and ground based fire. Strategic Bomber Command had horrendous losses during the war, this highly secret mission just multiplied the danger. 617 Squadron was formed in 1943 with highly experienced personnel from the Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force with Guy Gibson as Wing Commander.

There are no spoilers here, everyone knows the mission was a success despite heavy losses as eight aircraft were lost each with seven crew members with only three survivors out of fifty six men. The dams were busted, German industry disrupted, military assets diverted to protect and the Second World War was arguably shortened. The aircrews are amazing, they are a bunch of people I have the upmost respect for all or these aircrews and as ANZAC Day approaches, we remember their sacrifice.

The eruption of Mt Agung on the Indonesian resort island of Bali made worldwide news with airlines ceasing flights due to safety concerns emanating from the volcanic ash cloud pluming from the volcano and hovering above the airport. The reports on the Channel 7 nightly news at 6 pm ran emotional stories of stranded at Ngurah Rai International Airport just wanting to return home.

This was over done, a couple of nights sleeping at the airport isn’t such a major inconvenience compared to the plight of ordinary Indonesian residences evacuated from the surrounds of Mt Agung. Still, I had a decision to make as I was booked at the Anda Amed Resort on the north east coast relatively close to the active volcano from the 17th to the 23rd of December before heading down to Legian for the final two days at the Jayakarta Resort.

The clientele of Amed is predominantly French, German, Dutch and British with the Americans preferring Ubud and the Australians congregating down in Kuta. This is my pre-Christmas end of year trip to kick back, sit around the pool, drink some alcohol and eat well. I\’m not interested in exploring the island to any great extent as I come here on a regular basis and have done this already.

I am here to kick back, unwind from my battles with recalcitrant managers and relax. I leave my phone behind, reduce my social media usage although I do bring my dive equipment and do some rafting from time to time. Amed is very quiet compared to the party and nightlife dominated area of Kuta.

I couldn’t believe it, the beautiful Anda Amed Resort was totally empty in peak season leading into Christmas with every client except myself cancelling. When I booked in early September on Booking.com I had to make a quick decision, the last bungalow was available but people were searching.

The other resorts in the area were fully booked and I had limited options even though Anda Amed Resort was my first choice. Naturally, it doesn’t hurt to search and negotiate to find a better deal or bargain. So here I was in this wonderful small private resort of just ten bungalows with the run of the place. As we drove into Amed after being picked up from the International airport for our two and a half hour drive north to Amed we were amazed at the lack of activity.

All the resorts, restaurants and businesses were dark, this was around 10 pm so no chance of picking up a meal now as my budget flight didn’t provide a meal and I never purchased one on-board. I feel sorry for the resort owners and staff but from a personal viewpoint – it doesn’t get better than that. It is tough for them, there are families that need to generate an income to feed their families, pay rent and to generally provide for their families.

Omega has long been associated with Olympic games timing dating back to 1932 with the Heuer brand taking over official timing duties for a brief period from 1978 to 1980. Longines, a brand along with seventeen other watch brands including Omega forms the Swatch Group.

Longines is the official timer of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in Queensland and was the official timer of the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games in Scotland. Building on their French Open exposure, Longines partners the Swiss Timing consortium through collaboration with Omega, Tissot,  Blancpain, Certina and Swatch to develop and maintain timing technology.

Heuer was involved with Swiss Timing at some point but I believe no longer is associated with the consortium and Breitling was involved at some point also for the Equestrian Games but that is now dominated by Longines.  I would suggest that the Swiss Timing consortium founded in 1972 is only involved in Swatch Group brands now. From my viewpoint, I prefer the actual brands to be represented at sporting events and I believe offers the greatest exposure to the brands.

Swiss Timing is now headquartered Corgémont, Switzerland maintaining a degree of independence to the Swatch Group. This is very much a values based judgement, this appears to be an organisation devoid of ethics. From what I can gather, Swiss Timing was involved in a bribery scandal at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. Indian police claim Swiss Timing supplied equipment at exorbitant rates resulting in a large financial loss to the Indian government.

So I\’m guessing Swiss Timing will remain the holding company with the actual brands performing the timekeeping duties and hopefully they remain scandal free. This scandal may not have damaged individual brand credibility but it still doesn’t make it right. Let\’s hope that now that the brands themselves have taken over official timing duties, any hints of impropriety have now been been resolved. You purchase a brand, you don’t purchase a holding company and Longines is a pretty decent brand.

I like to travel to South East Asia to dive so I spend plenty of time down the beach. Any one familiar with South East Asia is aware that pretty much everything is unregulated and for sale. So when I am constantly approached on the beach and propositioned to purchase Viagra, I ask myself, does anyone really purchase drugs from a guy on the beach?

My knowledge of Viagra is pretty rudimentary, Pfizer was developing a blood pressure and angina drug when they noticed some unusual side effects during human testing. Apparently you need to firstly visit a doctor where I guess they measure your blood pressure along with some other tests whilst reviewing your medical history.

So I have to ask, who I purchase pills off a guy on the beach that has the potential to kill me? We have never got as far as discussing price but I do wonder what the expected savings are? Ok, so I don’t need to pay for the medical consultation and I imagine the pills are discounted. Pfizer is a major international drug company producing drugs for medical professionals, hospitals and clinics.

I seriously doubt Pfizer would be developing a grey market for pharmaceuticals and I am guessing these pills would be fake. So I have to ask myself, would I be popping fake pills with the potential to kill myself? Surely, no rational person would actually buy these? As an Australian, my trip to the doctor will be underwritten by Medicare, s why would I be purchasing by some seedy guy on the beach – no way.