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On 11/16/2018 at 1:02 PM, malloy said:

I am just curious as to what state you think Castlemaine is in?

Castlemaine brewery began life in the Victorian gold fields but for some reason it became big in Queensland and they moved the brewery up there. In the 70s people you could not buy the stuff in Melbourne. When the beer markets were deregulated they tried to sell in Victoria and bought a few pubs to sell the stuff but VB had the market cornered.

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On 11/16/2018 at 10:24 AM, cadete said:

Victoria was at worst in 1992... it was such a bad shape the ALP Government had to sell the State Bank when they did not want too. Even South Australia's economy was doing far better than ours.

If the Chinese did not want their children to integrate they would create their own schools rather than sending their kids to the elite private schools or pay large sums of money to live in certain state school districts. They are not stupid and they realize the importance of their children speaking English.

hardly.  its about getting in to the most prestigious course in the most prestigious university. Melbourne Uni's student demographic is unrecognizable from when I was there in the 90's.  It might as well be a uni in some capital of Asia.

 

@heartfC I agree with you.  The claim that all immigration periods are the same because  all immigrants turn out the same in the end is absolute rubbish.  The current wave has no interest in assimilating.  I work in an area with a large Indian population.  I've lost count the number of times I've heard them say " I'm  Going home, to India for a few weeks".  These are young 30 somethings with kids.  Australia is just a place to get better income.  Its not "home".
 

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19 hours ago, Kiro Kompiro said:

hardly.  its about getting in to the most prestigious course in the most prestigious university. Melbourne Uni's student demographic is unrecognizable from when I was there in the 90's.  It might as well be a uni in some capital of Asia.

 

@heartfC I agree with you.  The claim that all immigration periods are the same because  all immigrants turn out the same in the end is absolute rubbish.  The current wave has no interest in assimilating.  I work in an area with a large Indian population.  I've lost count the number of times I've heard them say " I'm  Going home, to India for a few weeks".  These are young 30 somethings with kids.  Australia is just a place to get better income.  Its not "home".
 

When I was at Uni one of the humanities professors was doing research on educational levels of migrant communities from first generation through to third generation. He found that by third generation the distribution curve for the  educational levels of migrant communities were similar to the wider community (read Anglo) with the exception of Turkish and Yougoslavian communities which remained at more or less the same level of the first generation. His work was to develop programs to give the latter two a nudge.

So as far as integration communities need time to integrate in terms of generation - not years. The Indian community is relatively new in Australia (yes there have always been Indians AFAIK but not in the scale that we have them now). However I take heart that the Indian community has been in the UK for far longer and I remember reading an article in The Economist about a year after 9/11 saying that the integration profile between Indians and Pakistanis were markedly different: Indians were integrated in all levels of society across the UK from politics, sports and business (at all levels) but the Pakistanis which have been there just as long had an incredibly limited number of people ingrained into society.

Finally on a personal note the office manager who was born and raised in Cambridge, England and has been in Oz for over 40 years (married here, children and grandchildren) still calls Cambridge home.

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On 11/18/2018 at 9:10 PM, Kiro Kompiro said:

hardly.  its about getting in to the most prestigious course in the most prestigious university. Melbourne Uni's student demographic is unrecognizable from when I was there in the 90's.  It might as well be a uni in some capital of Asia.

 

@heartfC I agree with you.  The claim that all immigration periods are the same because  all immigrants turn out the same in the end is absolute rubbish.  The current wave has no interest in assimilating.  I work in an area with a large Indian population.  I've lost count the number of times I've heard them say " I'm  Going home, to India for a few weeks".  These are young 30 somethings with kids.  Australia is just a place to get better income.  Its not "home".
 

I cant think of any other Migration Population over the past eighty years that was "fairly or not" accused of the exact same... :rolleyes: 

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On 11/20/2018 at 3:40 PM, cadete said:

I cant think of any other Migration Population over the past eighty years that was "fairly or not" accused of the exact same... :rolleyes: 

This wave is completely different. 

The 50's 60's 70's an 80's were escaping war, poverty and to start a new life.  The Indians and Chinese we have migrating here are middle class and are not interested in assimilation now, or later.  Ask the Fijians what happened to their Islands after the Indians moved in.  They didn;t become Fijian, btw.

As far as the Middle East migrants.. I don't even want to go there.  Its not even up for debate.

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I work with a lot of both Indians & Chinese, the Indians are more aligned culturally by default and also do have interest in assimilating. The Chinese on the other hand, dont have any interest in assimilating, and just keep to themselves.

It's not really about a "better income", a lot of the Indians had servants and overall more purchasing power in India by the sounds of it, it's more about the general increase in quality of life, not living in a country of 1bn+ people. I imagine the Chinese would also be okay economically in China, but again would be the pollution and government and population that make them come here.

Also the Chinese aren't taking over anything, unless it's by sheer force of numbers, they're not getting anywhere when their English is bad, they dont drink, and in general have a subservient attitude. But if they did, we're all fucked, give them a little power and it goes to their head. Indians on the other hand can definitely manoeuvre our society to get somewhere. Much more driven, social, confident, good English (just bad accents on a lot of them).

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I think what irks me most about quite a number of the Chinese that I know is how many have substantial assets including property, cash, and pensions paid back in whatever country they have come from. and are double-dipping into our social security system. They are not the only people doing this, of course, but on top of the cultural and assimilation questions this really gives me the shits.

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Liberals need to ease up on social issues, new generation of Liberal voters are going to be more to the left socially, thats just how our society is evolving.

Would be better to focus on economic matters, at the end of the day most people are going to put the greatest weight on their hip pockets.\

Average FT salary in Australia is now $86k + super, thats a lot of people who are on the fringe of paying 37% marginal tax rate on some of their earnings, and paying medicare surcharge.You need to make $200k just to have double the average FT employee after tax.

Time for some good old fashioned class warfare, cut taxes for the bourgeois and let the poor rot :up: 

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7 hours ago, Tesla said:

Liberals need to ease up on social issues, new generation of Liberal voters are going to be more to the left socially, thats just how our society is evolving.

Would be better to focus on economic matters, at the end of the day most people are going to put the greatest weight on their hip pockets.\

Average FT salary in Australia is now $86k + super, thats a lot of people who are on the fringe of paying 37% marginal tax rate on some of their earnings, and paying medicare surcharge.You need to make $200k just to have double the average FT employee after tax.

Time for some good old fashioned class warfare, cut taxes for the bourgeois and let the poor rot :up: 

I tend to agree with you but fortunately the Liberal Party has  been heavily recruiting amongst the evangelicals who will continue to push against the social tide. However I give Andrews just this term only with the next election either a loss or a very close win.

Two things though that has come through for me: 1) the Ted Baillieau tag of a do-nothing government proves that Victorians don't like the idea of a small government, and 2) that the ALP and the Liberals are now just an urban parties. 

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13 hours ago, NewConvert said:

I tend to agree with you but fortunately the Liberal Party has  been heavily recruiting amongst the evangelicals who will continue to push against the social tide. However I give Andrews just this term only with the next election either a loss or a very close win.

Two things though that has come through for me: 1) the Ted Baillieau tag of a do-nothing government proves that Victorians don't like the idea of a small government, and 2) that the ALP and the Liberals are now just an urban parties. 

Andrew's summed it up when he said his Government was the most progressive and busy doing things in the country, he is right just like how the Brumby (Under Brack's name or his own) Government were as well and of the course the Kennett Government... which did not sit on its arse.

There is reason why Melbourne is the best place to live in Australia and easily the number one destination for young tourists... its because besides the last Liberal Government we have had Governments that actually do things rather than sitting on their arses.

If ppl want a few more bucks in their wallet they should move to Perth cos they have a little bit of money under either side but absolutely sweet fuck all to do.

The Libs need to sweep the Conservatives out after what will be a huge Shorten win in the election, I suspect Fyrdenberg is probably already planning to be  Opposition leader after the others make each other look stupid for a year or so after Shorten's win. He will then aim to gain some publicity in getting a swing after Shorten's is elected for a second term, and then once having a younger more "Small L" team will be hoping to win office after the ALP serves its second term.

The party can no longer keep hold of its outdated right... its now too large a part of the electorate that can not come close to relating to these people's views anymore. Public attitude on a number of certain things have changed quite rapidly since the Howard years. Too many people in Liberal Party are holding on to the successes of a different begone era.

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22 hours ago, cadete said:

Andrew's summed it up when he said his Government was the most progressive and busy doing things in the country, he is right just like how the Brumby (Under Brack's name or his own) Government were as well and of the course the Kennett Government... which did not sit on its arse.

There is reason why Melbourne is the best place to live in Australia and easily the number one destination for young tourists... its because besides the last Liberal Government we have had Governments that actually do things rather than sitting on their arses.

If ppl want a few more bucks in their wallet they should move to Perth cos they have a little bit of money under either side but absolutely sweet fuck all to do.

The Libs need to sweep the Conservatives out after what will be a huge Shorten win in the election, I suspect Fyrdenberg is probably already planning to be  Opposition leader after the others make each other look stupid for a year or so after Shorten's win. He will then aim to gain some publicity in getting a swing after Shorten's is elected for a second term, and then once having a younger more "Small L" team will be hoping to win office after the ALP serves its second term.

The party can no longer keep hold of its outdated right... its now too large a part of the electorate that can not come close to relating to these people's views anymore. Public attitude on a number of certain things have changed quite rapidly since the Howard years. Too many people in Liberal Party are holding on to the successes of a different begone era.

The issue I have with not having a party that can embrace at least embrace some aspects of conservatism is that you will encourage the rise of the "far right," and I don't think that's healthy for society generally. I find that as I age it is more difficult to cope with change, even though I might think a particular change to be beneficial overall.

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On 11/27/2018 at 4:20 PM, jw1739 said:

The issue I have with not having a party that can embrace at least embrace some aspects of conservatism is that you will encourage the rise of the "far right," and I don't think that's healthy for society generally. I find that as I age it is more difficult to cope with change, even though I might think a particular change to be beneficial overall.

There appears to be a lot angst amongst the right wing voters who describe themselves as economically conservative but socially progressive without getting hung up on what conservative/progressive mean. However the American evangelicals are what is driving  lot of the agenda. The Catholic church, the CoE, the Orthodox churches have made their peace with science not so the evangelicals. And I think that this is what is driving people that live in Brighton to vote for a 19 year old ALP candidate.

To my mind the Liberal party needs to jettison Kroger; then decide whether they want to be representatives or ideological warriors; if the latter then the ALP won't have competition for a while. However if they go for teh former then they will need to control the Evangelicals, purge the IPA candidates and develop policies that the public wants but with the spirit of conservatism.

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Howard put money in people's pockets and he was PM for a long time.

Do that and dont give people too many reasons to not vote for you, eg avoid the pointless and stupid gay marriage circus next time.

Unfortunately we'll probably be full communist by the time the Libs come to their senses.

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37 minutes ago, Tesla said:

Howard put money in people's pockets and he was PM for a long time.

Do that and dont give people too many reasons to not vote for you, eg avoid the pointless and stupid gay marriage circus next time.

Unfortunately we'll probably be full communist by the time the Libs come to their senses.

I really dont see how a Member of the ALP Right is going to want to make this country: "Full Communist Bro" ESP seeing as it was Paul Keating who floated the Australian Dollar. If Shorten can have a Government which follows the ALP Right Template of Hawke and Keating I think a lot of Younger People who once would have automatically voted Liberals in the past will be content.

Gay Marriage was seen as logical by most of the Electorate, and its one of a few social issues that the Electorate sees as such which makes the right of the Federal Government looks hopelessly out of date. Howard was able to present himself as logical to the public was a brilliant interviewer and great at hammering his points when speaking in public..

However by the end on certain issues he showed his age: I know its not black and white but he pushed it too far with Work Choices (You disagree for good reasons on this I know but it did ultimately lose the Libs a lot of votes, that cannot be denied. Also he could of done the token gesture of saying "Sorry to Aboriginals".

I mean remember the big deal some people made in the Right about that? Legal Ramifications and crap... none of that happened and if he changed his mind prior to the election it would have made a dent on the polls and shown he was still relevant. 

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I see Shill Shorten as almost leading a wing of the Greens party, a bit like Daniel Androids. They both seem to agree with just about everything the the Greens say on social issues, climate change, immigrations etc. I honestly can't see too many things the Greens and Labor disagree on these days. Obviously the Greens would go full retard in power but I kinda see Labor as a watered down version of them...

@cadete Please fill me in coz I'm genuinely interested in how Shotern will improve this nation when he gets the gig? I sold my house a couple years ago so the only positive I see is Labor further tanking the housing market by cutting negative gearing. 

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3 hours ago, cadete said:

I really dont see how a Member of the ALP Right is going to want to make this country: "Full Communist Bro" ESP seeing as it was Paul Keating who floated the Australian Dollar. If Shorten can have a Government which follows the ALP Right Template of Hawke and Keating I think a lot of Younger People who once would have automatically voted Liberals in the past will be content.

Gay Marriage was seen as logical by most of the Electorate, and its one of a few social issues that the Electorate sees as such which makes the right of the Federal Government looks hopelessly out of date. Howard was able to present himself as logical to the public was a brilliant interviewer and great at hammering his points when speaking in public..

However by the end on certain issues he showed his age: I know its not black and white but he pushed it too far with Work Choices (You disagree for good reasons on this I know but it did ultimately lose the Libs a lot of votes, that cannot be denied. Also he could of done the token gesture of saying "Sorry to Aboriginals".

I mean remember the big deal some people made in the Right about that? Legal Ramifications and crap... none of that happened and if he changed his mind prior to the election it would have made a dent on the polls and shown he was still relevant. 

Shorten may be from the Labor Right but Labor is constabtly being dragged to the left to combat the Greens. I think a modern day Labor Right government would be very different from your examples, I guess we will soon find out.

 

Workchoices was a good way for Howard to go out tbh, pursuing an unpopular reform because it was for the good of the nation, which he obviously had a strong track record doing and something prime ministers that came after him have lacked.

It was the right policy at the time, and actually a lot of it wasn't repealed and just rebranded by Labor and continues to be a fundamental part of industrial relations laws today. The GFC and subsequent economic dip decreased the urgency of further reform but, with unemployment back to very low levels, industrial relations reform should be back on the agenda (not necessarily workchoices).

Having said that, industrial relations laws are one thing, and economic reality are another. You can have a bunch of protections in there but low skill workers are still going to be commodotiesed and easily dispensed with if they don't work their ass off or fuck up. Whereas in an area of skill shortage, people can write their own salaries to an extent, be medicorore, even basically take the piss, and still be valuable because replacing them is too hard (I have to manage and hire people in an industry like this, and when you look at the quality of applicants trickling in it makes you value the people you have regardless of how far from perfect they are).

Though some areas worth looking at would be further watering down unions and industrial action (I don't really know enough about the laws here to say exactly what should change but the outcomes I see certainly don't look right), and rebalancing some areas where employees seem to have way more power than employers (one example is notice periods, extremely unbalanced and there were recent changes for employees covered by an award which basically give employers zero recourse for employees not fufilling their notice obligations, while even on the other end of the labor market there also is little recourse and really only a reliance on professionalism and reputational considerations keeping people from being able to walk out of a job without giving notice).

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2 hours ago, Tesla said:

Shorten may be from the Labor Right but Labor is constabtly being dragged to the left to combat the Greens. I think a modern day Labor Right government would be very different from your examples, I guess we will soon find out.

 

Workchoices was a good way for Howard to go out tbh, pursuing an unpopular reform because it was for the good of the nation, which he obviously had a strong track record doing and something prime ministers that came after him have lacked.

It was the right policy at the time, and actually a lot of it wasn't repealed and just rebranded by Labor and continues to be a fundamental part of industrial relations laws today. The GFC and subsequent economic dip decreased the urgency of further reform but, with unemployment back to very low levels, industrial relations reform should be back on the agenda (not necessarily workchoices).

Having said that, industrial relations laws are one thing, and economic reality are another. You can have a bunch of protections in there but low skill workers are still going to be commodotiesed and easily dispensed with if they don't work their ass off or fuck up. Whereas in an area of skill shortage, people can write their own salaries to an extent, be medicorore, even basically take the piss, and still be valuable because replacing them is too hard (I have to manage and hire people in an industry like this, and when you look at the quality of applicants trickling in it makes you value the people you have regardless of how far from perfect they are).

Though some areas worth looking at would be further watering down unions and industrial action (I don't really know enough about the laws here to say exactly what should change but the outcomes I see certainly don't look right), and rebalancing some areas where employees seem to have way more power than employers (one example is notice periods, extremely unbalanced and there were recent changes for employees covered by an award which basically give employers zero recourse for employees not fufilling their notice obligations, while even on the other end of the labor market there also is little recourse and really only a reliance on professionalism and reputational considerations keeping people from being able to walk out of a job without giving notice).

I take your point about the Industrial stuff I was never a fan of Work Choices but I got the point that if explained it was nowhere near as bad as the layman's perception, which was it was bad policy because it needed someone to explain it consistently... TBH it reminded of how Howard fucked up the Republic Referendum which as obvious Australian Republic even I have to say was a piece of Machiavellian Art .  

Work Choices was the opposite as he wanted to work, it lost the election and I know as that was the one Election I worked in as my time as an advisor. Also by this time he had already made his biggest mistake of breaking his word and not let the transition to Costello with his younger family to occur way prior to 2007 for a more modern look to a popular Government. In fact the election prior of 2007 the ALP constantly ran adds telling Australian's they would be getting smug Costello and then had to admit that the adds actually backfired.

However in Howard's defence although it would have helped the party greatly if he had honoured "The Pact".. the fact is Costello should have had the balls to do one challenge like Keating. He never did and then the fact that if he had waited one term he probably would have nailed Gililard considering she almost lost to a man who was from another time in Abbott. (Mind you some credit does need to go Abbott's way in being really good at being an Opposition Leader and alas not much else.)

 

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On 12/3/2018 at 8:04 PM, Tesla said:

Howard put money in people's pockets and he was PM for a long time.

Do that and dont give people too many reasons to not vote for you, eg avoid the pointless and stupid gay marriage circus next time.

Unfortunately we'll probably be full communist by the time the Libs come to their senses.

The mining boom is over so putting money in people's pocket is a lot harder. Read Peter Costello's auto-bio to see what he thought of the freebies. And as people warned at the time and we are paying for it now, there was too much give aways meaning that there is an unstructured imbalance in the budget which will take time to wash through.

And of course Soviet style communism has been dead for 27 years this December. So that means that the younger voters will not have a clue what you are talking about. The only communists that they see are Chinese ones taking their jobs and educational spots in Universities. Also, you may not have noticed but the State Coalition kept on calling Daniel Andrews comrade and how did that work out for them?

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22 hours ago, NewConvert said:

The mining boom is over so putting money in people's pocket is a lot harder. Read Peter Costello's auto-bio to see what he thought of the freebies. And as people warned at the time and we are paying for it now, there was too much give aways meaning that there is an unstructured imbalance in the budget which will take time to wash through.

And of course Soviet style communism has been dead for 27 years this December. So that means that the younger voters will not have a clue what you are talking about. The only communists that they see are Chinese ones taking their jobs and educational spots in Universities. Also, you may not have noticed but the State Coalition kept on calling Daniel Andrews comrade and how did that work out for them?

IMO the whole lot of them in the Federal Parliament - whatever party they are in - are overly-focussed on trying to micro-manage the daily lives of ordinary people. Better that they should focus on matters of national and international importance. But of course we're the easy target, and the other is way to hard for their tiny minds.

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On 12/6/2018 at 9:36 AM, jw1739 said:

IMO the whole lot of them in the Federal Parliament - whatever party they are in - are overly-focussed on trying to micro-manage the daily lives of ordinary people. Better that they should focus on matters of national and international importance. But of course we're the easy target, and the other is way to hard for their tiny minds.

??? Elaborate on the micro management,. To my mind there are things which are a historical hangover but otherwise I can't think of anything else.

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10 hours ago, NewConvert said:

??? Elaborate on the micro management,. To my mind there are things which are a historical hangover but otherwise I can't think of anything else.

Forever fucking about with the rules around superannuation for a start. Centrelink, Department of Human Services (shades of Orwell, 1984) and aged care (my mother-in-law) for a second.

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On 05/12/2018 at 11:28 AM, NewConvert said:

The mining boom is over so putting money in people's pocket is a lot harder. Read Peter Costello's auto-bio to see what he thought of the freebies. And as people warned at the time and we are paying for it now, there was too much give aways meaning that there is an unstructured imbalance in the budget which will take time to wash through.

And of course Soviet style communism has been dead for 27 years this December. So that means that the younger voters will not have a clue what you are talking about. The only communists that they see are Chinese ones taking their jobs and educational spots in Universities. Also, you may not have noticed but the State Coalition kept on calling Daniel Andrews comrade and how did that work out for them?

I was referring more to the Howard tax cuts.

Because we don't have indexation on our tax brackets (which is absurd), then basically we rely on the government to "cut" taxes, which was happening consistently until the GFC. With the economy looking better (aside from the potential effects of a housing market crash), I think it's reasonable to expect some significant tax cuts, in the decade or so since the last significant adjustments inflation would have toteled probably 25% yet the brackets haven't moved except for the small change for this FY. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It was one thing when the gender pay debate was about "equal pay for equal work", that was just plain old stupidity.

Now Labor are turning it into "female dominated industries are undervalued", as in social workers should get paid the same as construction and mining workers. Now we're actually in socialisim territory, where the central government thinks it can determine the value of entire industries better than the market. 

 

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4 hours ago, Tesla said:

It was one thing when the gender pay debate was about "equal pay for equal work", that was just plain old stupidity.

Now Labor are turning it into "female dominated industries are undervalued", as in social workers should get paid the same as construction and mining workers. Now we're actually in socialisim territory, where the central government thinks it can determine the value of entire industries better than the market. 

 

Nursing? Teaching?

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Its a slippery slope. Once the government brainwashes the women and weak men, they smell blood and the blessing is given to target the biggest tax contributor in the country... the average middle class male. It slowly intensifies until the ballon goes pop. Yellow vest movement is the perfect example.

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On 19/12/2018 at 6:39 AM, NewConvert said:

Nursing? Teaching?

Critical disciplines. Absolutely vital. But there's a reason they dont earn the big bucks, and its because theyre not scalable.

And lets face it, the people that need them most can't afford them as they are, raising the price so they pay better ain't gonna go down that well.

That's not to say we shouldnt have the discussion and work out what has the best balance of pros and cons on the pay scale, but the simplification of it that many seem to subscribe to is mind-numbingly silly.

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15 minutes ago, Tesla said:

Any industry where people are paid as per an award is overpaid, not underpaid. That's the point of the awards, to artificially increase people's pay.

Awards are there to overpay those whose work is worth less than the award, and to underpay those whose work is worth more, based on the fallacy that the work of everyone subject to the award is worth exactly the same.

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3 hours ago, jw1739 said:

Awards are there to overpay those whose work is worth less than the award, and to underpay those whose work is worth more, based on the fallacy that the work of everyone subject to the award is worth exactly the same.

Agreed, though there is nothing stopping employers paying better employees above award, and it does happen, it also creates a mentality of commoditisation of labor where everyone is the same and worth the same which couldn't be further from the truth.

So basically incompetent employees are overpaid, good ones are probably split between those who are underpaid and those who have been fortune to find an employer who values them and is willing to go above award conditions (which is probably reasonably rare).

 

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1 hour ago, Tesla said:

Agreed, though there is nothing stopping employers paying better employees above award, and it does happen, it also creates a mentality of commoditisation of labor where everyone is the same and worth the same which couldn't be further from the truth.

So basically incompetent employees are overpaid, good ones are probably split between those who are underpaid and those who have been fortune to find an employer who values them and is willing to go above award conditions (which is probably reasonably rare).

In big industries - such as mining and smelting - that have hundreds of unionised employees on a major site, it is difficult to pay above the award.

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6 hours ago, Tesla said:

Agreed, though there is nothing stopping employers paying better employees above award, and it does happen, it also creates a mentality of commoditisation of labor where everyone is the same and worth the same which couldn't be further from the truth.

So basically incompetent employees are overpaid, good ones are probably split between those who are underpaid and those who have been fortune to find an employer who values them and is willing to go above award conditions (which is probably reasonably rare).

 

In over 30 years in the workforce, having worked in WA, Vic & SA as well as Japan I have never come across a situation where this occurs. And talking to sales personnel who have a basic salary plus commissions their base salary is so low that the commissions take them into what would be normal pay. Admittedly I have never worked in the finance sector so that may be exempt.

As far as commodisation of labor well it is true. Otherwise robotics and AI would not have been pushing out humans from these tasks. And for some of these tasks whether one worker is better than the other it does not matter due to tolerance in what the customer would accept.

 

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3 hours ago, NewConvert said:

In over 30 years in the workforce, having worked in WA, Vic & SA as well as Japan I have never come across a situation where this occurs. And talking to sales personnel who have a basic salary plus commissions their base salary is so low that the commissions take them into what would be normal pay. Admittedly I have never worked in the finance sector so that may be exempt.

As far as commodisation of labor well it is true. Otherwise robotics and AI would not have been pushing out humans from these tasks. And for some of these tasks whether one worker is better than the other it does not matter due to tolerance in what the customer would accept.

 

You've never seen someone paid above award? My partner is a kindergarten teacher and her work place pays everyone a percentage above award, but that's everyone and not just people who are good. Also technically engineers and IT professionals are cover under an award (professional employees award) but I don't know if anyone is actually paid to the award as it's the same as any profession where you individually negotiate your pay AFAIK, so technically the vast majority of people in those two industries would be paid above award. Probably some other professions that are similar to that where an award technically exists but 90%+ are just on individually negotiated terms.

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6 hours ago, Tesla said:

You've never seen someone paid above award? My partner is a kindergarten teacher and her work place pays everyone a percentage above award, but that's everyone and not just people who are good. Also technically engineers and IT professionals are cover under an award (professional employees award) but I don't know if anyone is actually paid to the award as it's the same as any profession where you individually negotiate your pay AFAIK, so technically the vast majority of people in those two industries would be paid above award. Probably some other professions that are similar to that where an award technically exists but 90%+ are just on individually negotiated terms.

Engineering and IT is my turf. First up, there is a salary band for experience/expertise which is not that much higher than the award and is not particularly wide. Secondly, you are expected to work long hours and this happens regularly. So when you work your annual salary as per hour salary the wages come right down.

Furthermore in order to reduce salary costs there is high Indian migration. This then floods the market putting salary and condition pressure downwards. However Indians soon realise that the cost of living in Melbourne is so much higher than in their hometown and they also begin to struggle.

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14 hours ago, NewConvert said:

Engineering and IT is my turf. First up, there is a salary band for experience/expertise which is not that much higher than the award and is not particularly wide. Secondly, you are expected to work long hours and this happens regularly. So when you work your annual salary as per hour salary the wages come right down.

Furthermore in order to reduce salary costs there is high Indian migration. This then floods the market putting salary and condition pressure downwards. However Indians soon realise that the cost of living in Melbourne is so much higher than in their hometown and they also begin to struggle.

You must have worked at the bottom rung of those industries.

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22 hours ago, Tesla said:

You've never seen someone paid above award? My partner is a kindergarten teacher and her work place pays everyone a percentage above award, but that's everyone and not just people who are good. Also technically engineers and IT professionals are cover under an award (professional employees award) but I don't know if anyone is actually paid to the award as it's the same as any profession where you individually negotiate your pay AFAIK, so technically the vast majority of people in those two industries would be paid above award. Probably some other professions that are similar to that where an award technically exists but 90%+ are just on individually negotiated terms.

Just to clarify...I've only worked in industries and for companies therein whose employees were divided into "staff" and "award." Other terms used were "salaried" and "daily paid." If there were awards covering various members of staff, I doubt that they were aware of them, because staff were employed on individually-negotiated salaries paid monthly and other items such as minimum hours of work, annual leave, sick leave, etc. Salaried staff were subject to performance reviews, annual salary adjustments, transfers, etc.

"Award/Daily Paid" employees were strictly governed by all the provisions of the relevant award, and usually paid fortnightly. No exceptions.

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On 12/21/2018 at 8:20 PM, Tesla said:

You must have worked at the bottom rung of those industries.

Actually I have done the whole lot. Including being the lead to present to CTO/CIOs of some of the largest telecoms in the world. Didn't enjoy it - too removed from the actual task of doing something. Plus the politics gets to me and I tend to behave in ways that are not acceptable to the community or the law.

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3 hours ago, NewConvert said:

Actually I have done the whole lot. Including being the lead to present to CTO/CIOs of some of the largest telecoms in the world. Didn't enjoy it - too removed from the actual task of doing something. Plus the politics gets to me and I tend to behave in ways that are not acceptable to the community or the law.

And probably the higher up you were, the more your behaviour had to change to being not only unacceptable to the community and the the law but also unacceptable to yourself? 

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7 hours ago, jw1739 said:

And probably the higher up you were, the more your behaviour had to change to being not only unacceptable to the community and the the law but also unacceptable to yourself? 

Hard to say. I like to think that I did not change much - hence why I did not fit in. But when people whose judgement I trust said that I was not being myself I realised that the job had to go. 

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  • 3 months later...

I am surprised that no one has commented on the federal election or the Israel Folau case.

I am really hoping that the Folau case ends up in the courts. To me this is the cross between contract law vs the implied freedom of speech vs the limit of employers to demand 24 hour access vs industry sector. I don't think that this type of situation has ever been tested and I would like to see some nuance being introduced.

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1 hour ago, NewConvert said:

I am surprised that no one has commented on the federal election or the Israel Folau case.

I am really hoping that the Folau case ends up in the courts. To me this is the cross between contract law vs the implied freedom of speech vs the limit of employers to demand 24 hour access vs industry sector. I don't think that this type of situation has ever been tested and I would like to see some nuance being introduced.

Most of us are probably over both.

I think Folau is perfectly entitled to express his opinion about what he regards as sin and his belief that sinners will suffer punishment in a different life. IMO Rugby Australia (or whatever it is called) is the party showing small-mindedness and intolerance, not Folau. Folau is not personally threatening anyone specifically and should be free to express his views.

I see that Barry Humphries has just had his name removed from the Barry Award for expressing views on transgender issues.

Totally sick of political correctness permeating every nook and cranny of our society.

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