It never rains but it pours......

Hello from the QLD, home of floods, insane rainfall and now, cyclones. Just after people were getting over the floods, and some are still a way away from 'getting over' them, two major things have happened:

1. Julia Gillard has created a tax flood levy to pay for the Queensland rebuild. It constitutes 0.5% of annual wages if you make between $50-100k and 1% if you make over $100k. People are very much 50/50 about this. It seems that if you live in Queensland, you are happy with it, but if you live in any other state of Australia, then you are not at all happy for the most part (about 68% at the moment are not willing to pay it). Many people still feel that a disaster fund for any possible future event is the way forward and the way to pay for QLD.

This has meant that Gillard has gone from great leader to a money grabbing scoundrel quite quickly!Team this with her late response to the plight of Australians in Egypt and she has not had a great week. In a direct comparison, the approval rating of Anna Bligh, QLD premier, continues to rise because of her response to:

2. Tropical cyclone Jasi!The latest addition to the wild weather summer that Queensland is experiencing is expected to hit land late wednesday or early thursday. It has been said it could be the worst cyclone ever to hit QLD, tropical QLD particularly, coming in at a category 4 cyclone, winds of up to 230 km/h and torrential rainfall hitting tourist areas such as the Whitsundays, Airlie Beach and up and around Townsville. The weather system could extend 500km and take in large swathes of the state that have already been affected by the floods and reflood many areas that were very badly hit. I really do feel for everyone involved and it really is a shocker for tropical Queensland.

In other news, I was offered a year's contract in the primary school that I worked in in Ipswich, the quite hard school. I turned it down for the reason that even for me, a two and a half hour commute each way to work is a little excessive, but I must have done something right whilst I was there!haha.

I will update everyone after Thursday's expected landfall and here is hoping that it fades away in the Coral sea and merely becomes a whisper of rain over the next few days!