AUSTRALIAN LETTER Sydney Dentists Now Give Time To Pay

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28183, 23 January 1957, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN LETTER Sydney Dentists Now Give Time To Pay

(Australian Correspondent.

(Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 21. Sydney dentists now arrange loans for patients unable to pay for costly treatment. This is a further extension of the time payment system under which Australians have spent 5 per cent, of a national income they have not yet earned. The Commonwealth Statistician has revealed that Australians owe a record total of £22lm on hirepurchase. In addition, they owe an estimated £ssm to retailers who operate their own hire-pur-chase agreements. The combined figure means a debt of more than £3O for every man, woman and child in .the country. As well as buying his home, his car, radio, refrigerator and other household appliances, and his clothes on time payment, the working man can now travel to work on an instalment-plan ticket, and eat his lunch on time payment. Many Sydney builders and carpenters will carry out home repairs on a time-payment basis. Airline companies have “fly now pay later” plans for those unable to pay their full fare. And now’ many Sydney dentists are issuing! patients with quotes for dental work and arranging loans for them with up to three years to pay. This arises from a special management course held for dentists recently. At this course, the first of its kind in Australia, 24 lecturers addressed dentists on business techniques. The dentists heard how to arrange loans for patients incurring £5O or £6O dental expenses. The Rural Bank makes the loans, after receiving a written quote from the dentists. The interest rate is 6 per cent., and the repayment time anything from one to three years. Some dentists now take an Xray before any work is done, and supply this, with the quote, to the patient. If the patient considers the charge to be too high, alternative treatment is suggested. For instance, the patient could be given the choice of long, expensive treatment to save a tooth or have it extracted for a much smaller fee.

“We don’t want people committing themselves for more dental work than they can afford,” the secretary of the Australian Dental Association (Mr R. B. Newland) said.

There have been many instances of people getting themselves in too deeply with hire-purchase agreements. A case was quoted last week of a mill worker appealing to a charity for food. A charity official found the man’s’ house lined with expensive carpet and packed with electrical appliances. He was paying out £l2 a week to meet time-payment agreements on a salary of £lB He was trying to feed and clothe his family on the balance. Most of his luxuries were repossessed However, less than 2 per cent, of all hire-purchase customers buy beyond their means, and have goods repossessed.

Australia is now closely behind Canada and the United States in time-payment spending. Retail associations expect that Australians will spend even more this bu y’ n g on instalment. Rabbit trappers in soutn-west-ern New South Wales and the north-west of Victoria are now earning up to £l2O a week. About four months ago. it was reported that the trappers were averaging £7O a week. In some areas on the lower Darling, rabbits have overcome the effects of myxomatosis and are almost in plague proportions.

A rabbit-exporting industry worth £370,000 a year is being run by buyers in Mildura. About 30.000 pairs of rabbits are being sent from Mildura for export each week. Thousands of other rabbits, not of export quality, are being sent to Melbourne or sold locally. * * *

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane (Dr. James Duhig) blames “foolish mothers” for increasing illegitimacy in Queensland.

Dr. Duhig said “foolishly confident” mothers were guilty of injustice to their girls when they said: “My daughter cannot do wrong.”

The number of illegitimate births in Queensland in 1954, the latest year for which figures are available, was 1585. This repre-i sented 5.08 per cent, of total births. Australia-wide illegitimate births in 1955-56 were 4.11 per cent, of the total—the highest for a decade. ❖ * * Everyone with enough intelligence and knowledge should be able to go to a university without paying fees, a big majority told a Gallup poll recently. In every State, big majorities said universities should be free to all who pass the entrance examinations. # ❖ # The shark menace in New South Wales estuaries has become the worst in years. Experts have warned that parts of the estuaries are “death traps’’ for swimmers, and bathers are urged nqt to swim in the open water. Recently, large man-eating sharks were seen within 100 yards of six children at Balmoral, one of the beaches within Sydney harbour. Residents along the Lane Cove river have reported an “invasion” of sharks. The Lane Cove river runs into

Sydney harbour. A dog was taken by a shark in the Lane Cove, and this is seen as a serious threat to bathers. Australia’s leading authority on shark attacks, Dr. V. M. Coppleston, said that shark attacks had occurred mainly in cycles, and these cycles very often had begun with a shark taking a dog. Dr. Coppleston’s research shows the presence from time to time of a solo killer which patrols a certain area for a long period. Its presence is usually disclosed by its ferocity and it may attack dogs and tear fish from lines. Some years ago, a shark attacked and killed a boy in Botany Bay. Dr. Coppleston then issued a warning based on the theory of a solo killer. Soon after, a man was killed a few hundred yards from the scene of the previous tragedy. Before both tragedies, a shark had killed a dog in the same area. A 15-year-old boy caught a 10001 b shark, nearly 10 feet long, in Sydney harbour last week. There were about 30 persons swimming off the beach where the shark was hooked at the time.

Almost daily beach patrols on the surf beaches north and south of the harbour spot sharks and sound the alarm bells to bring the bathers out of the water. >1:

Last winter the Hume highway linking Sydney and Melbourne, was impassable for days on end when a section of the road collapsed after heavy rains. The secretary of the National Roads and Motorists Association (Mr H. E. Richards) now warns that “only a miracle” will keep the highway open next winter. He added that little or no attempt had been made to repair damaged sections of the road, and the chaotic conditions of last year were certain to be repeated after winter rain, and the pounding of heavy vehicles. Garages along the road are doing a roaring trade repairing damaged cars and trucks. Sections of the highway in southern New South Wales are so badly pot-holed they threaten to become death-traps. Police have warned motorists to drive slowly and carefully on the damaged sections of the road. State Premiers and the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) are to confer soon to create a formula to tax interstate road haulers. Mr Menzies and the New South Wales Premier (Mr Cahill) are known to favour the taxing of haulers so as to gain more funds for maintenance and the rebuilding of roads.