What's what?
"Are we still arguing about the same thing?
I can't tell."
Ha ha! What's what, indeed!
Some on here could be arguing with themselves, such is the inner contradiction!
Reminds me of this classic:
https://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/09/climate-change-cage-match-abbott-de...
Traplift. You need more humour in your life.
Haha, humour, I got you happless, and, as facto points out, there's fuckin' bucket loads of this!!!!???
'When I asked Clam if I might have known him I hadn’t realised that he was Caml. I thought he might have been a guy I know from the South coast of WA.
Which is why I asked him if he was from the South Coast of WA ....get it ?
Comprehension ain’t your strong point is it Lifty '
'I thought he might have been a guy I know from the South coast of WA.
Which is why I asked him if he was from the South Coast of WA ....get it ?
I thought he might have been a guy I know from the South coast of WA.
Which is why I asked him if he was from the South Coast of WA ....get it ?
I thought he might have been a guy I know from the South coast of WA.
Which is why I asked him if he was from the South Coast of WA ....get it ?'
East a albany ya said ta be exact, in a nutshell!!!
‘Which mate? I don’t know anyone east of Albany’
‘Which mate? I don’t know anyone east of Albany’
‘Which mate? I don’t know anyone east of Albany’
Me comprehend'e all right blowindo, ya swillnuttin', loopy bullshitter!!! In a nut shell!!!
Its a laugh a minute, team blowindo, king of the doozies, that's what!!!
Need a hug mate?
Good to see ya got back to the nursing home in one piece ‘that guy’. Don’t lose control of ya gopher again!!! Get the nurses to clean you up, (fuck it, guess who rang their buzzer... yep, ‘that guy’)... and take ya pills!!! Again... in a nutshell!!!
Who thinks we need a national bank ?
Not the NAB , but a bank owned by Australians to benefit Australians.
Absolutely Blowin - a decent old world bank by the people for the people, community focused with unimpeded high level probity - imagine that!!!
Arn't they called buiding societies now?......anyway when it comes to money and greed it goes hand in hand...which bank?.....
Didn't we used to have one of those Blowin' - I think it was called the Commonwealth Bank. Good name - Common wealth.....until corporatisation became the dictator of government.
Check it out. Mutual Banks. Credit Unions. Building Societies.
Customer owned.
https://www.canstar.com.au/mutual-banking/who-are-the-customer-owned-banks/
Not a comprehensive list - my bank isn't on there - but a start.
Also some choice info here:
https://www.choice.com.au/money/banking/everyday-banking/articles/credit...
Now days the Commonwealth bank are so dedicated to their customers and shareholders that they will continue to charge you even after you die.
Labor targets CEO pay
Disclosure alone won’t fix wage inequality
There is always something to learn from a speech by Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh, one of the very few former academics in the federal parliament. In a speech to be given in Melbourne tonight – which announces a new proposal for mandatory disclosure of CEO pay as a multiple of that of the company’s median employee – the shadow assistant treasurer reaches right back to the industrial revolution. He describes “Engels’ Pause”, a half-century lag between growth in productivity from mechanisation and wages growth for ordinary workers, which was first discussed by Marx’s famous colleague Friedrich in The Condition of the Working Class in England. The Pause only ended when the workers took collective action.
“In 1833,” Leigh reminds us, “six agricultural labourers in Dorset swore an oath to stand together against attempts to cut their pay from seven shillings a week to six. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were convicted of swearing a secret oath, and transported to Australia. So strong was the support for the union cause that 800,000 people signed a petition calling for them to be pardoned, which was done in 1836.” Perhaps, with digitisation, we are seeing a repeat of Engels’ Pause? In Leigh’s speech, “Why Unions are Vital to Advance Australia Fair”, he argues that the solution is the same: collective action.
Leigh’s pay proposal is hardly radical: it would only apply to listed companies with more than 250 employees and mirrors similar laws in the UK and US, where disclosures have formed the basis of media coverage such as Bloomberg’s CEO pay tracker. Leigh rejects calls for firm caps on CEO pay, saying they could have unintended consequences, such as when limits on tax deductions against CEO pay packets above $1 million provoked an explosion in remuneration via stock options. Already the Australian Shareholders Association has backed the proposal, to take effect from 2021.
Today in the AFR, it is reported that Domino’s CEO Don Meij, reportedly the highest paid chief executive last year on a package worth $37 million, has backed [$] Labor’s plan, saying it would promote transparency and help lift workers’ pay. He called on the Coalition to adopt it. Meij may change his tune when he reads Leigh’s speech, which points out that his exorbitant package came “after a year in which the Fair Work Ombudsman publicly complained that Domino’s had failed to comply with requests to provide information into claims that Domino’s franchisees were paying workers as little as $10 an hour. Last year, Mr Meij earned $10 every eight seconds.” Meij argues the $37 million figure was inaccurate and the actual figure was a tenth of that.
Leigh pitches the pay measure as a way of tackling inequality, which has risen inexorably over the decades, and as a prelude to giving ordinary Australians a pay rise. The average realised pay of ASX100 CEOs rose by 9 per cent last year, he says, which is four times faster than average wage growth. Among the ASX100, median CEO pay is now $4 million, while mean CEO pay is $6 million. The average pay for ASX100 CEOs was 75 times the average pay of full-time workers, meaning a CEO takes home in a single year what it would take the average worker nearly two lifetimes to accrue. “I fully expect that some of our frothier critics will say that this is an attack on capitalism,” says Leigh. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
More confronting than Leigh’s pay proposal are his reflections on the decline of union membership in Australia, which his own analysis suggests is now lower – at 13 per cent – than at any time since 1904. This is despite a litany of achievements for working people, which includes sick leave in the 1920s; annual leave in the 1930s; the eight-hour day in the 1940s; unfair dismissal protection in the 1970s; banning asbestos in the 1980s; the weekend; paid public holidays; and long service leave. “Unions helped create the first occupational superannuation schemes, which grew into universal superannuation today. Unions spearheaded the campaign for parental leave, and are now at the centre of the campaign for family violence leave,” Leigh says.
Leigh draws the link between low union membership and low wages growth, to explain the “real wage underhang” in which workers have failed to get their share of productivity growth. It’s a subject explored in the seminal “Pay Paradox” series by The Guardian’s Greg Jericho and Gareth Hutchens, and it’s far from a uniquely Australian problem. At a recent press conference, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell admitted that the lack of pay rises was “a bit of a puzzle”. Historically, a scarcity of workers has led to higher pay – a relationship documented in the “Phillips Curve”. Yet despite historically low unemployment, many American workers are experiencing flat wages. Leigh suggests unions are the missing piece.
and @stu do you think at anytime in the last decade a Labor minister or shadow minister would deliver such a speech? I'm starting to think the tide has turned and the next Labor government will be moving to the traditional centre left.
Sounds like at least one Labor MP listened to Corbyn's speech. And I agree Guy, I think that there will be a swing left particularly if, as seems likely, the economic conditions worsen.
Yes , I’ve said it before , maybe I’ve even said it many times before , but until Labor caps the wage reducing geyser of surplus labour gushing into the country via unbridled immigration and “guest “ workers then the unions are still pissing into the wind.
Big day for metaphors around here , apparently.
It’s extremely good news to hear of a potential awakening amongst the Labor party as to their forgotten obligations towards their fundamental supporters.
About fucking time.
Yes, Stunet, yes!
Things are afoot!
Have been for a while.
With regards to our overseas economic and cultural lodestones, the US and UK, the real story from their last elections wasn't the circus-show of Trump and Brexit. It was Sanders and Corbyn.
Things are afoot!
@Blowin,
Thanks for your continued honesty, courage and coverage of this issue.
Couldn't agree more on the unbridled immigration factor . . . this has been a no brainer for years . . . decades in fact. I agree with a former Prime Minister that "We won't cop racism." But the owner of that comment, Paul Keating, was also instrumental in pushing MASS immigration and this was continued by Howard and continues to this day under Morrison and will continue under Labor. At least 4,000 - 5000 people per week to be fed, housed, educated and found jobs going on for decades - absolute madness for a fragile desert nation - but feel good triumph and unjustified glee for the growth junkies and the multi-culture vultures who are clueless to the legacy we leave our children and future generations. Racism is deplorable but so is runaway population growth condoned by those who won't be around to face the music.
If I had to drive through Melbourne every day I’d kill myself , that’s what’s what.
How fucking cool are lyrebirds.
Parked up for the night in a secluded forest 100 kms SW of a literal and figurative Eden . Just as the sun dips behind the trees the air is filled with alternating sounds of Black cockatoos , kookaburras, wrens and even a decent approximation of a chainsaw . All coming from the same unassuming little animal strutting around in the clearing a few metres from our car.
Australia is incredible. The world is beautiful.
Peace , man.
Sitting in a Starbucks in the middle of Liverpool. There a million people in the city centre to see the giant crane operated puppets. I haven’t heard an angry word or seen a pissed off face all day. Tens of thousands crowding the streets and not a single incident. So yes Blowin, the world is a very beautiful place and people are amazing.
'There a million people in the city centre to see the giant crane operated puppets'
What better way to save the environment!!!????
Its advanced... fuel guzzling giant corgi cross pissing on the planet in the name of... 'culture'!!! In a nutshell!!!
Wind power Crypto. Huge amounts of it and an excellent public transport system. Morning peak in Sydney would use way more fossil fuels than this event. .........missed the dog taking a piss!
I thought so!! That explains everything! Your bus is on time from London to Sydney too!
Never mind it might piss on blue poles next year!!! Always bigger and better!!!
The NW shelf has been notified and is ramping up production as we speak!!!
You might even catch a wave from our very own ‘queen of the world’!!!
Wait blinder, the 'giant puppets' aren't quite finished yet!!! In a nutshell!!!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/08/heathrow-airport-p...
'The project will further congest and pollute what is already one of the most choking parts of the capital. Its air quality is illegal. The runway will suck economic activity into London, and away from the provinces. It will cost billions in public money. It is so expensive that even Heathrow’s old ally, British Airways, now opposes it.'
'The hapless transport secretary, Chris Grayling, burbled this week the old Heathrow line about “global connectivity”. But hub airports are for yesterday, replaced by a demand for point-to-point journeys. Grayling said Heathrow was about business and “global trading”. It is not. Less than 20% of travellers using London’s airports are business users. Air travel is overwhelmingly for leisure. Airports talk of “business use” because they are ashamed being part of the tourism industry, which Grayling never once mentioned.
Grayling added that Heathrow was full. But so are the M25 and M6, so is Victoria station, and he has no plans for them. The difference is that London has two other airports at Gatwick and Stansted, the latter shockingly underused chiefly because it has been denied a high-speed rail link.'
Don't blame me... again... I didn't call him hapless, and say he was burbling!!!
Here's a compelling story that could be cited as a reason to manufacture your own microchips:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-chin...
And surveilance cameras....
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia...
Seriously who's these braniacs in military and ASIO who didn't think of this shit?
Talking about smothering democracy, here’s something from a bit closer to home.
Labor and LNP , the two major parties that have a stranglehold on politics in Australia have decided - without consulting the population- that globally unprecedented high levels of immigration into a developed country are non negotiable.
Despite it being the single most influential policy in the land with its affects on every aspect of Australian life and the environment.
Where is the environment impact study on this folly ? Let alone a complete assessment of its affects on all aspects of Australian society.
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/bill-shorten-proposes-new-plan...
Labor needs to be restrained from power as surely as the LNP.
Tell me blowin, do you think labor are so obtuse to public sentiment on this topic because they have some blind faith coupled to a moral obligation to open borders? ...like some crew on here...
not a bad thing... but...
Or are they just being lazy cynical economists, blindly chasing the mythical goldilocks growth figure? ...like the liberals...
Labor had a real chance to define themselves this last few days, as the public supposedly had a "second look at labor". A chance to differentiate from themselves from the neo liberal madness, and frankly, they blew it.
Maybe some of the ALP supporters on here could answer that ?
That would be interesting.
Unfortunately Blowin we know this is really not surprising. Big business, powerful ego-driven interest groups within the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council - FECCA, Teddy Kennedy type idealists, universities driven by profit and the gravy train within the Department of immigration don't wan't any change and will collectively keep pulling the strings accordingly with ambitious motherhood statements. Bottom Line: Mass immigration is a closely protected sacred cow and whoa betide those who question it.
Oz reached 25 million a couple of months ago. The 2002 federal Intergenerational Report forecast the date for this to occur at around 2042! Our politicians are ignorant and gutless plunderers. Comprehend this, every two years we are now creating a city larger than Canberra while our precious soils are depleting at up to 6kg's per loaf of shitty white bread and upstream water thieves work to eutrophy the Murray Darling system. Morrison and Shorten love mass immigration for easy "growth" that arrogant, out of touch policy wonks can vaingloriously argue is in the nation's best "economic" interest. Just don't ask the hard questions!!!
5,000 new people each week are contributing to wage stagnation, clogged roads and lurching infrastructure - and in some instances - the emergence of new criminal networks whereby the brave nomadic dream morphs into elemental societal malfunction that is invariably blamed on the host society.
As I've stated before we are a more dynamic, exciting and innovative country through immigration and, personally, I would not have met my beautiful wife without it. But common sense, balance and fairness has to hopefully prevail if we believe in the true sense of the meaning of sustainability - a word that has been dreadfully misused and hijacked. Moreover, quality of life is far more than just consuming as most surfers and those truly connected to the natural world well know. Our politicians seem to think their constituents will continue to fall for this odious rhetoric of "Go for Growth".
Dick Smith for Prime Minister. 50,000 - to 75,000 people per year - that is sustainable.
Damn ermagrants terk err jerbs!!!!!!!!
"Australia's population growth is extraordinarily high when compared to our global peers, at 1.6 per cent per year. On current projections, Australia will hit 38 million people by 2050.
This high rate of population growth is driven mostly by high immigration.
The simple economic rule of supply and demand means these new workers effectively lower the price of labour, which means lower wages."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-22/wages-stall-as-population-soars/92...
"A huge increase in migration has fuelled headline GDP growth, keeping Australia technically out of recession.
It's a very simple equation: more people means more economic activity and that gives the government of the day an easy way to keep crowing on about good economic management.
But more people does not mean that the living standards of the existing population also rise. In fact, it can have detrimental economic effects for the people who are already here.
New workers mean greater competition for jobs, which suppresses wages. The most recent data shows that wages growth in Australia has hit a record low of just 1.9 per cent per annum" [inflation is just under 2%].
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-19/high-immigration-masks-australian-...
"If you want stronger wages growth, cut immigration"
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/01/want-stronger-wages-growth-cut-...
Check out the "Annual Growth of Wages" graph on this SMH page.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/war-on-wages-australians-are-w...
"But a new survey released this week reports that more than half of all Australians want lower levels of migration, with nearly three-quarters agreeing that the country is "already full.""
https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2017/10/26/australias-econ...
Sorry Sheepy, the jury is in.
I drove through your home coast a few days ago , Sheepy. You’re lucky that you’ve found somewhere that is still relatively unscathed by the most obvious pitfalls with a crash loaded population.
Ummm....except for when you were hating the price of real estate and the abysmal state of wages not so long ago. And I hope your missus is better so she’s not too reliant on a public health system that’s had its budget per capita spread ever thinner for the last decade or so.
@sheepdog.
FFS. Why so glib? You intentionally chose to misunderstand. A number of my "ermagrant" Indian friends are stuck driving taxis - holding fine engineering qualifications and unable to utilise them. My "ermagrant" wife, highly educated and polyglot of NESB is also concerned about how population is not being correctly managed.
"Ummm....except for when you were hating the price of real estate and the abysmal state of wages not so long ago. And I hope your missus is better so she’s not too reliant on a public health system that’s had its budget per capita spread ever thinner for the last decade or so."
What a load of crap, lumping all of this on those damn ermagrants.
Overseas investors have NOTHING to do with house prices right? Howard deliberately inflating house prices for the boomer generation circa 2002, negative gearing etc etc all play no part.... Itsd that fuckn indian doctor here in Mt Gambier filling a service we need.
Fuckn arsehole he is.
And of course wage stagnation is that bastards fault as well, even though wage stagnation is occurring in japan too.... Nothing to do with the corporate squeeze for shareholders... Nope..... It's that backpacker fruit pickers I tells ya....
And congestion in the cities? Instead of building stuff, we're blowing billions on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fences around parliament house, and chucking money at cambodia.
Yerrrrrrrp........ They terk err jerbs!!!!!!!!!
Déjà vu
An official message from our Prime Minister (via his official channel):
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/prime-ministe...
(you get some bonus Joe Hildebrand too)
@AndyM,
Thanks for those links. More and more people are talking about this issue.
Yer yer we can all post links Andy... Japan....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-04/japan-is-growing-but-...
Sure Sheepy, everyone else is wrong, including journos from Australia's most respected publications, and you're right...
Spuddy, at some stage it'll have to be accepted that 15 million+ Australians can't all be racist.
Can anyone explain this quote by ScoMo:
"When it comes to population growth at the moment, there are 10 extra people that have got on the bus. Just over four of them are temporary migrants. Just under four of them were born here, a natural increase. And only two of them are permanent migrants.”
Just how temporary are temporary migrants? I mean, if they're truly going back home then why count them in the population debate at all. But if, as I suspect, a large majority aren't actually 'temporary' but sort of waiting for their citizenship then doesn't that make ScoMo's stat a nonsense as potentially more than half of the pop increase is due to migration.
Sheepy, your first link states that the growing workforce is putting downward pressure on wages, so that's an own goal there.
However, I agree that weak unions and rampant neoliberalism are playing a definite part.
As for your second link - "high employment levels" - wtf does that even mean?
Nailed it Stu, that statement stood out as a duplicitous bit of bullshit.
Respect!
https://theconversation.com/blaming-immigrants-for-unemployment-lower-wa...
https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-immigration-has-only-a-mi...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-4932.12328
TL:DR?
Conclusion: Once we control for the impact of experience and education on labour market outcomes, we find almost no evidence that immigration harms the labour market outcomes of those born in Australia.
Anyway, let's go back to Blowin's original article and have a read. Considering what is actually in the article, and not extrapolating and/or going off half-cocked, is there anything particularly alarming/disappointing/radical/silly here:
"The Labor leader has written a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison asking that he consider creating a population taskforce that would outline recommendations both parties could accept.
That taskforce would look at temporary work visas, infrastructure development, service delivery such as health and education and settlement policy."
And:
"In his letter to Mr Morrison, Mr Shorten wrote: “As you would be aware, there is no single policy lever — a multifaceted approach is needed that ensures we maintain our standard of living.
“More important is a consistent approach that will last well beyond the political cycle and that requires the support of both major political parties.”
I did like this bit. PM Morrison's 'nuance' for all to see:
“I’ve never bought this idea that the permanent immigration intake is the thing fuelling population growth. Because it’s not borne out in the actual maths,” Mr Morrison said in an exclusive interview with news.com.au.
“When it comes to population growth at the moment, there are 10 extra people that have got on the bus. Just over four of them are temporary migrants. Just under four of them were born here, a natural increase. And only two of them are permanent migrants.”
He sure knows how to sell does our PM! Yes'm!
I can feel some 'whataboutery' coming on...and hopefully some 'join-the-dots'!
This is from your first link Facto
“While migration has increased labour supply, it has done so primarily in sectors where firms were starved of labour, and at a time of broad economic growth.”
Oh really ?
So the nation has been bled dry of service station attendants , taxi drivers , pizza delivery crew , non skilled construction workers , car wash workers etc etc etc etc ?
And this is before you even start to look at the skilled labour visas where no market testing is required and even if it was there is no oversight or penalties imposed if found to be in breach.
And this is the fundamental base that their argument is based on . It’s erroneously assuming that labour shortages exist at all. And what happens if labour demands are not only already met but in surplus as the Australian economy stands ?
“Sophistry is the practice of using clever arguments that sound convincing but are in fact false”
Re: Blowin's link...
"There are two takeaways for readers.
First, this nicely demonstrates who the real radicals are in the debate. It is not those supposed fringe-dwellers fighting to cut the intake. It is those defending the wild experiment that are the extremists.
Second, the immigration-led economy puts Australian support directly behind the evolution of a Chinese regional hegemony as it opens ever wider channels of influence to Beijing via resource and services trade dependence, people-to-people links and cultural shift."
Thoughts?
Spittle-flecked abuse?
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