News of the morning

I see Moany Tony want all preschoolers to learn a second language.  An excellent idea, might I suggest English as the language of choice?

Also in breaking news, I see Tony also doesn't like the federal budget.

Slightly more back to the real world, the poor beleagured smokers of the world are now whining that they are being excluded from applying for some jobs, presumably on the basis that the potential employers would rather not have someone taking numerous smoke breaks to kill themselves with cancer while on company time.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, smokers have a problem with that, but that's OK because nobody else gives a flying fuck about their wish to slowly rot themselves to death with poisonous chemicals.

Acting Victorian Equal Opportunity Commissioner Karen Toohey said job advertisements must not discriminate.  "Stipulating smokers need not apply for a job may be against the law."

Sorry, Kazza - you might want to recheck the definition of illegal discrimination, which is discrimination on the grounds of "age, colour, creed, disability, family status, gender, nationality, marital status, parental status, political opinion/affiliation, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, race or social origin, religious beliefs/activity, responsibilities, sex, responsibilities, or sexual orientation".

I think most people would agree it's OK to discriminate against hiring a heroin addict, for instance.  I don't see anything in the definition above that says you're required to hire someone that voluntarily carries on an addictive practice that requires them to absent themselves from work to poison themselves, affects their performance when they are jonesing for their next hit, affects their performance after it, creates objectionable smells and odours for co-workers, leaves toxic waste behind that other people need to avoid and someone else needs to clean up, and slowly rots the addict to death from the inside out.

Oh sorry, I forgot about heroin.  I was talking about tobacco addicts.  Yeah, that's OK, because it's socially acceptable and legal!  Yeah, that's totally discrimination if you don't hire a smoker.