The most ironic part for me is the people who complain about wasting the Earth's resources and how we need to be sustainable, but then expect govt to provide whatever they think they are entitled to, whatever gets promised to them by politicians who'll promise the world, whether they can pay it or not, to get into government. When you look at govt with it's massive waste of resources for very little return (I mean, everyone knows you go into the public sector if you want an easy, cushy position), it's not hard to see where the waste in society is.
Clive is entitled to donate to any political party he choses, part of his right to free speech. That doesn't give him the right to get special treatment and if it did we'd hear the Peters and Big A.D.s of the forum crying about big business buying democracy again. I agree to a point that emergency money was needed. And local infrastructure repair, I am happy to have loaded onto the credit card. What pisses me off is when the amount of legitimate debt happens to be less than the government has flushed down the toilet or over spent on over budget projects. Take traveston dam and the pay roll debacle alone. Those two are pushing 2billion alone flushed! The 5 more minutes on google will provide you plenty of news articles talking about over budget projects.
From a purely self-interested point of view why would you leave a job paying you $70k to literally do nothing?
What about a rundown on BCC finances ..A report on the tunnels that Campbell built/Are they making money? A 20% reduction on Qld politicians surely would be on his agenda...No sorry I got that wrong, we will have an independent committee to determine their wages. What is the debt level at the BCC. Regards Errol 43
^^^^ BCC debt is @ around $2000 per person, it's nearly as big as the state debt. BCC spending is @ 106.8% of revenue & rates are going up by 4.49%. (Albeit with a larger population to spread the cost, the State's debt has been estimated at ~ $1500 per person.) So, Newman doesn't have a strong fiscal record to stand on.
Is this the one your refer to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gough_Whitlam_by_Clifton_Pugh_1972.png
really? Currently the state government's debt borrowings are 122 per cent of their $45 billion budget, while Brisbane City Council's debt levels are just 49 per cent of its $2.9 billion budget. "The state government's debt levels are currently in excess of $11,500 per person, while BCC's debt is just $1305 per person." http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/que...-newmans-promise-on-rates-20110606-1fopu.html
O.K. fair cop... I'll do the maths. Qld population = 4.5 million BCC council pop = ~ 1 million state debt $62 B BCC DEBT (49% of $2.9B)= $1.421B $1.421B / 1 million = $1421 $ 62B / 4.5 million = $ 13777 p.s. that's per capita... only about 1/2 the population should be counted as tax/rate payers, so we can probably double that repayment figure. p.p.s. Wouldn't u love to live in Brissie where u have to pay both council AND state debt
The problem with local, state and federal debts is each individuals entities to repay them, through increased revenue. We know how hard it is politically to "reduce" services by the flack newman is copping right now. Now comparing the BCC to the state debt is a perfect example. For the BCC to increase revenue in order to pay off that debt because of the significantly smaller amount, means a significantly more manageable hit to the constituents bottom line. An increase of $100 to the rates to the Brisbane city house owners is a significant debt reduction device. Finding a way to dig $3-400 a year off of each BCC constituent while politically unpalatable would see them debt free in one term. Where that sort of revenue would be a drop in the ocean for the QLD state government. When you consider that the federal government tweaks it's tax squeeze as effective as possible, it leaves very little room for a state government with a huge debt to increase revenue to address the problem. Considering that the "super profits" tax was a national wealth redistribution scheme on "super profits", if I was a state shadow LNP leader in QLD or WA, I would have been quietly talking to the miners to be vocally against it while allowing them to get it through without too much push back. With the promise of course that once elected, they would simply up the state royalties in line with the same amount as the tax, hence reducing the super profits tax to a negligible level, then used those extra royalties to fix the roads, build rail line and ports in the regional areas where the miners do business.
Wouldn't work. With the way Commonwealth revenues are divvied up for every extra dollar the states got in mining royalties they lost in other revenue from the feds. Not strictly dollar for dollar of course - I think it was 75% & 90% for WA & Qld - not sure which order they were in. Going from memory so my numbers might be a bit off but you get the gist. I recall just recently Swan threatened WA that if they upped their mining royalties he would get them back by reducing fund flows from the commonwealth. Can't remember specifics of that though. As per usual when it comes to politics it is never as simple as it could be.
I was talking with one of my brothers today and he is fairly high up in the public service payrolls department in Qld. I have another brother in the public service who was cut from the public service on Friday who has been a career public servant for the last 25 years since he was 18. He is getting a massive payout. Anyway, my brother in the payrolls department told me that my other brothers department had 74 people cut and the payout for those 74 people was - wait for it - $3.95 million!!!!! Yes, that's right almost $4 000 000 for 74 servants of the public!!!! Can you imagine what 15 000 public servants is costing the taxpayer? I get sick of hearing from the rest of my family how bad Can Do Campbell is. I'd like to see the public service cut by 100 000. Personally I get sick of hearing about how bad the private sector unions are. The public sector unions are FAR FAR worse. The amount of benefits these people get are unbelieveable. Whenever I see stuff in the MSM about unions it's always about the private sector unions. No one ever comes down on the public sector unions. These unions are much more pandered to by governments. Their benefits are totally ridiculous. I don't even talk to my family about my brothers sacking as they are totally on side with him. He knows I think that the PS are all leeches and they don't deserve their pay/benefits. If it ever comes up at family gatherings I walk out of the room as it makes me so angry I could scream at them. The worse thing about this is that I see in the future all these leeches getting reinstated to their positions when there is a change of government.
What I don't get is all the comments in the courier mail from people whom complain about how lowly paid and unsecure their own jobs are... and rather than doing anything to improve their lot (like joining a union or getting a P.S. job) they want to bring others down to their unpleasant situation. I've been in all extremes of the workplace negotiation , from my own negotiation as a consultant to being in a coal miners union to being ignored as a roadworker by the AWU (the biggest & weakest). What I've learned is the same lesson my peasant tenant slave farm labouring ancestors learned when they were free to take their effort wherever they liked... employers will pay you the LEAST they can... its up to you to get the best deal you can. Don't begrudge anyone for getting a good deal for themselves. Begrudge yourself for not doing the same.
I broadly agree clawhammer. Given our freedoms everyone is free to find a different job (or even to get a second and third job). It's largely a matter of getting off your arse rather than simply whinging about your boss. In my experience, willingness to be mobile is usually the best way of getting pay rises. Because of the nature of a business wage rises generally lag labour productivity improvements (which is the only logical way it can be really). Hence, when you are in a period where your personal productivity (and hence inherent worth) is growing rapidly your current employer will generally be slower to recognise that your value has increased than you personally. The best way to demonstrate your higher value compared to your last pay rise is to point it out. Unfortunately, due to the inherent conservativeness of good managers (since nonconservative managers more often lead a company to bankruptcy) the best way of pointing out your true value is by having a competing job offer. Many times throughout my career (up to two hands now) I have received a job offer from a competitor and THEN I received a better or matching counter-offer from my employer at the time. For better or for worse, I also value loyalty and hence in most instances I stayed with the current employer after their counter-offer. Sometimes though they are not in a position to match it. Ironically, sometimes this is the conservative manager seeing your true worth rather than your inflated self-worth and in hindsight they were totally correct in NOT giving a pay rise. Everyone bitches about their tight-arse, shitty boss but the important thing is that the power for change has always been primarily in the hands of the same workers who do the bitching. Our freedoms provide the worker to not take a job more than it offers the employer to not offer a pay rise.
I want to agree and disagree a number of times in this post. To state plainly that wage rises lag productivity improvements is in the most flatly wrong! Very very rarely, will any industry improve productivity BEFORE increases in wages and conditions. For the most part, Unions and government will force wage rises on employers and if employers are lucky they can get productivity improvements as a trade off. In the last decade or so, employers have been in a position to increase wages and conditions across broad industries. NOT, because workers have been more productive on their behalf, but because superfluous conditions have allowed those employers to increase profits. The employees were rarely producing more goods or services per hour than a decade or so before. But, employers had extra revenue to attempt to keep the best trained/experienced people in their employment. Look at the mining industry as a perfect example. Mine magnates are not paying low skilled workers 100K+ because they are producing more. They are paying those sorts of wages for two reasons: 1) They cant get anyone to work remotely in harsh conditions for less and 2) Huge investments in mining equipment allows them to make mega bucks while still employing the same level of skills.
^^^ Lovey, I'd just say that wage rises due to labour shortage are different to wages rises because of skill development/career progression. The former is a key reason for large wage rises in recent times while I was mostly talking about the latter. An apprentice/graduate is genarally on apprentice wages even though in the last few weeks/months of their apprenticeship they are doing work of the same quality as other employees on higher wages etc. Generally most people's skill/experience get better and better as they go through their career and even though acquiring those skills is broadly continuous the pay changes are generally discontinuous. Also, broadly (as you pointed out) investment in labour enhancing machines generally gets split between the workers and the owner of the capital. Hence increased labour productivity = increased real wages.
The only reason Australia needs such high wages relative to the rest of the world is because Australia has the world's highest property prices. The damage to the economy is substantial, if you have to spend 70-80% of your income on your mortgage you won't be spending it on other things. Only winners from all this are the banks, estate agents and ATO.
Not just realestate Jonesy, we have the highest everything! When we hit parity a couple of years back before the big correction an American friend was asking me the prices of goods in Australia. He couldn't believe what I was telling him. People are crying about the high AUD hurting certain industries. I always disagree. It was the decades of low AUD and ever increasing prices on everything that caused the need for high wages that hurt us. The low AUD for all those years masked us becoming less competitive. The high AUD is correcting all those mistakes.
You're forgetting construction as well. The high house prices were the biggest factor behind the 2000's boom. Higher house prices meant people willing to invest in the property sector spurring construction and as a result, jobs. It all ends at some point when house prices can't go any further and you end up with a depressed economy, where people are not willing to invest as much anymore in that sector, because the profits have evaporated, thereby meaning there is not as much construction and salaries are lowered and job losses acrue, spurring unemployment. I think they refer to encouraging insane house price increases "good economic management" or a "golden era" around these parts.
I'm afraid that Newman will make the same mistakes in trying to stimulate the housing/construction industry artificially. All you do is bring forward future demand to today leaving a gap to fill in the future.
