Vote early, vote often

Leslie Heimann writes: Re. “Counting the votes.” (Friday). With regards to counting the votes, it is true that there are many instances where people vote early and often.

A long time ago certain people openly boasted how they won elections by using names other than their own and voting them at every polling booth in an electorate such as the Victorian state seat of Richmond). I wonder whether the AEC actually ever checks multiple person voting and has stats on same.

I also wonder whether there is ever an audit done of voting. Some questions to ask the Special Minister of State perhaps?

Being left on the unemployment scrapheap

Warren Grzic writes: Re. “Q&A getting down to business” (Monday). I was in the audience of Q&A on ABC TV last night. I’ve sat in the audience many times, and often I’ve wanted to ask a question about skills shortages and the need to train workers. Because last night’s episode had a panel of prominent business figures, I’d thought that my question was highly appropriate for it, and I was lucky enough to get shortlisted to ask a question, but was unable to ask it.

As an off-again-on-again worker who’s only been able to find temporary work on the odd occasion over the last six years, I’m depressed at my inability to find work, largely because everybody wants experience that I haven’t got and can’t get.

Many workers, especially older workers retrenched after long careers, face the depressing catch-22 of needing a job to get experience yet needing experience to get a job.  Even after studying at TAFE and another place, supposedly to get skills that employers want, I found that employers only want workplace skills acquired outside study, and I can’t get that.

Worse still, most of the jobs that I apply are advertised through private recruitment companies, and they can really screw you around. Apart from apparently making more money out of placing workers in temporary assignments, they can terminate you when you’re away from the assignment, deny you the chance to get a work reference, and then refuse to help you because of your inability to provide work references. Having been screwed around with by a few of these agencies, and having registered with so many of them without hearing from them again, I find it impossible to make a proper living, and it’s crushing my self-esteem.

Why is it that people like me are being left behind on some sort of unemployment scrapheap, and nobody cares?