Sounds like Peter you've just come out of uni and had you brain zapped by libertarianism and radical skepticism at the same time.

I also think you've been sleeping with Ayn Rand - you wouldn't be the first.

You comments are truly odd in the light of modern management practice, although you'd find some allies in the mining industry and probably what's left of the HR Nichols society.

PS I enjoyed your comment some months ago about urinating on Jocelyn Scutt's front lawn. All class.

Well said again, Peter!

<<You comments are truly odd in the light of modern management practice>>

That's a code-name for stealing - which currently seems to be in fashion (so as being careless about spelling, for who cares when the parasite-government is on your side anyway?).

Indeed your comments are odd in the darkness of these vulgar modern times.

Cheryl, thank you for showing that you have to offer nothing but instant descent into personal abuse when challenged and that you cannot answer my questions which prove you wrong.

I don't know where you got the idea that it is your responsibility to increase national productivity, or that you would know how to. (Hint: you don't.)

All you need to understand "falling national productivity" is that there are millions of people like you and Killarney, who think that productivity is increased by compulsory loss-making activity and punishing employers for employing people: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!.
(Wipes tear of mirth from eye "Ahhhhhh. Idiots".)

I don't recall defending urinating on Jocelynne Scutt's lawn - got any proof? Are you sure it wasn't her defending people's "right" to urinate on other's property without the owner's consent to be there. That's it, isn't it?

Come on Cheryl, Killarney, Malcolm? How many jobs for old people have you provided by mortgaging your house and operating at a loss like you expect others to do?

What are the answer to my questions in my last post? No evasion, no ad homs, no skulking. Just the answers with an admission that you are wrong and hypocritical if you can't answer them.

BTW Malcolm I've just had a look at the DEEWR site. It appears to be include lots of programs that discriminate on the ground of age and race. Comments? Should you be imprisoned like you want other people to be for age discrimination? IF it's socially beneficial when DEEWR does it, what makes you think it can't be socially beneficial when others do it, hypocrite?

Has it ever occurred to you that the government programs you are in favour of, are the main factor you're trying to fix by more government programs?

Actually let's just do a test for critical thinking. List here the government activities that you think contribute to older people having difficulty getting a job? Let's see if you identify a tenth of the governmental factors causing the problem.

Malcolm if you've got a cafe, and your custom is greater when you employ young good-looking waitresses than older men or women, what's wrong with that? Why aren't age, sex and good looks a legitimate part of your decision to employ or not employ?

Should discriminating on the ground of age and sex be illegal when people are looking for a life partner too? If not, why not? Why doesn't the same consideration apply?

Would I be right in thinking you've never employed anyone?

Who are you to tell other people what they should prefer, especially when you don't practise what you preach?

When my mother was in her 60s she told me about this terrible thing called age prejudice. I believed all this and ended up employing two older people in my business.

However I found with both of them they really didn't want to be working. (I've had lots of conversations with older people since in which they joked openly with me about they're over working, maybe that was a coincidence.)

Also, they both seemed to think that they knew better than me (maybe they did but then why weren't they running their own business?). They resisted being told what to do in a way that younger employees didn't. They were slower at picking things up than younger employees.

Now two is not much of a representative sample, I admit. But I only had a small business: about 16 employees in total. On the other hand,it's a bit of a coincidence that both of them - 100% of old employees, being 12% of the total employees - just happened to have these characteristics, isn't it?

I couldn't afford to have employees who weren't pulling their weight, because I personally was working much harder and longer than any of them. Any shortfall would be made up by me working longer and harder, which I couldn't do and why should I, for less pay.

Now I won't employ older people unless they bear the risk and cost of their under-performing. This means that their market rate, at least in some areas, is not the same as for young people, just as young people's market rate is not the same in some areas as for older people. So just because people prefer young or old age in a particular context doesn't mean there's anything immoral about it. Just as you and the government don't value everyone equally, neither does society.

Will Malcolm King, Cheryl and Killarney personally indemnify me against the risk of employing another old person? Not likely!

Peter Hume has got these guys pegged.

I always thought that bringing in laws against age discrimination were doomed to fail. How the hell are you going to enforce something like that? As long as the employer picks some one out of the people he interviews, without stating that he did it because of their youth there is no way to prove it.

I understand why employers want attractive young people with enormous
Vitality. It is the public image of their business. The public themselves
Are age prejudiced. How many old blokes at the supermarket eye off the old
Girls instead of the young ones. None.

Now whilst understandable, it does present society with a problem. Do Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandad move back in with their children because they don’t have sufficient funds to eat and house themselves? This is the way of other cultures without welfare. Would some of the employers talking here wish to have their parents move back in with them if things got desperate enough for the old people? I think not.

As was seen in the last big financial crash, the employers here could lose everything too. as well as their investments, savings or superannuation. How will they fare in their old age?

Understand that although you may exercise, eat right etc. The body does wear out and digging holes is just physically impossible for a lot of people in their late 50’s, although there are are always a couple of genetic superbods that can.

You can’t have it both ways, you either have Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandad move back in with you or you have to employ them or pay them enough through welfare to house, cloth and feed themselves.

Hopefully, future superannuated generations won’t have this problem, but it’s an uncertain world and a war could easily change all that.
My daughter is a manager and has the same opinion as the employers here and says that she would never hire and old person, they are just too slow compared to the young ones.