If we want to increase the job opportunities for young school leavers, we need to reincorporate compulsory service. You know, being obliged to retire early and rise even earlier; to develop self reliance, personal responsibility, some reasonable conformity and team work!

And also expose them to some very relevant work experience and helpful networks as part of the same experience!

We also need to claw back our own economic sovereignty, and the repatriated profits, that the fire sale of that item is taking from us, and indeed, the huge additional economic activity, that money could create, if left to circulate around and through our own economy, before being permanently lost elsewhere.

We need to once again become a country that makes things, as not everybody, can be a uni graduate or service provider.
Very few services can be exported!

What we need is a government, that actually understands energy and capital's roles, and creates policies that bring down the cost of both.
Energy is something we have an overabundance of.

Capital, well that's a little more difficult, given the big four are mostly owned by foreign equity firms/hedge funds?

And, we have studiously avoided using thirty year self terminating bonds; or, can't seem to sell our energy resources fast enough, or worse, leave those with the lowest carbon footprint or extraction costs, in the ground, or as capital creating equity/mineral banks, for foreign investors?

Were we to adopt some form of social credit, to allow us to finance our own resource extraction, infrastructure requirements, and our own energy resources, we wouldn't be totally dependent on the whim and caprice of foreign firms and or foreign capital; just to get some of this done!

Nor would we be required to further grow, a foreign debt burden, that's already at record, stratospheric levels!
I've read some numbers, that equate our own private sector, (Foreign) debt, with China's total foreign exchange reserves!
And whether we chose to acknowledge it or not, are forced to pay a premium, just to service a debt burden that arguably belongs to someone else, somewhere else?
Rhrosty.

If we want to increase the job opportunities for young school leavers,
Rhosty,
We'd better get them to learn chinese so they can work for Australian bosses in chinese sweat shops because with the education they get here they haven't a hope in hell to do any other work.
Plus all those oldies will be taken all the jobs if they have to work to 70.

Certainly jobs are not everything but without one, forget about a life. Marriage not a hope, kids (see marriage), a nice place to live (cardboard box), and etc.

Only someone totally removed from hard times could spout such drivel, allow real jobs to be created and then all the rest is easy. Real jobs, not some Green fallacy.

‘morning Jan,

As a former employer of the products of our education systems, I can relate to some but not all your perspectives. We hired from both tertiary and university systems across a wide range of disciplines for roles in technical, scientific, marketing and management positions.

Tertiary education systems were typically easier to deal with due to the fact that skill bases were easier to define as a requirement and easier to test in candidates.

University education in the last thirty years has been and still remains a problem for many employers. There is nothing new in the dialogue between employers, students and faculties, it has been going on for decades however, for most of us in management this was a tokenistic process to get the best of the bunch from what was available. So don’t get too excited about the current “dialogue” you are encouraging.

From 1984 we recruited almost exclusively from universities, a corporate mandate. We visited universities, gave presentations to academia and students and conducted interviews.

Our entire participating management team came to the conclusion over many years that the biggest problem and obstacle for students was academia. We were never left in any doubt that our intrusions were “tolerated”, academia was never able to disguise their utter distain for the capitalist inspired industrialization and exploitation of their darling charges.

We devised a ploy to increase buy-in from academia. We actually got them to agree to be interviewed as “candidates” in order that they “might be better informed” of industrial needs. We never found any that were employable in the “outside world” or even understood what that was.

Cont’d

Cont’d

We tried our very best to impart our needs for basics, reading, writing, comprehension, history, geography, science and maths plus the domain specific disciplines as minimum requirements.

It is these basic tools that industry needs to train employees in the disciplines they need now and the flexibility to mould them with additional skills into new and ever changing needs. Thus industry is able to provide new challenges, new opportunities, rewarding careers.

Knowledge, skills, adaptability, creativity, collaboration, innovation, communication and digital literacy should not be the primary domain of education, they belong to industry and commerce. If students have not gained these as a by-product of their education they are already doomed.

If you need any more confirmation that you and your organization are so far removed from industrial and educational reality, just re-read your perspective on what you perceive as the “broader challenge”;

<< to equip young people to lead a society in which we sustain our standard of living, enhance our quality of life, protect our fragile environment, contribute to the global family and become a lighthouse nation to the world.>>

What a load of socialized, dangerous, misguided tosh. It is this nonsense that is making more and more graduates not only unemployed but unemployable.

They need rewarding careers and industry will provide them. The education system needs to immediately stop producing what “it” thinks is needed.

Employers need a well crafted product ready for stress testing, not a set of operating instructions and a social lecture.

Your naïveté has made you part of the problem

This is one of those rare occasions I find myself agreeing with spindoc, and real world experience!
One of the problems of absolute lack of practical real world experience, is that it becomes a profound problem, if it then transfers, via the aging process, and promotions for political candidates; into future leaders.
One classic example of this manifesting?
We now import 91% of our liquid fuel requirements, and at a cost to us and our economy, of 26+ billions P.A.
All while we have billions of barrels of much cleaner superior fuel types beneath our virtual feet!
[Perhaps more than the entire Middle East?]
And that same fuel, from wellhead to harvester, produces four times less total carbon!
And we can expect a plethora of fossil fuel executives, alias green advocates etc/etc, to come up with some marvelously creative excuses for the current status quo, or just not touching what we own!?
People not welded to insane green policies, or fossil fuel funding/salaries/consultancy fees, or have just had a modicum of real world experience, would reinstate our own oil and gas corporation, and just crack on, getting our own fuel into our own bowsers!
If that added billions to the budget bottom line, how exactly would that hurt us, or youth job creation?
And given average extraction costs down around $3.00 a barrel, for far less than we are currently paying price gouging foreigners at the bowser!
Were we to develop more of our own energy resources ourselves, and in a more timely manner, we could ramp up local employment opportunities, and even make room in that, for 70 year olds, who would just be employed as mentors, for youngsters, who just need, the getting of wisdom.
Local industry/business, just needs access to much cheaper energy, to start growing their businesses and job opportunities!
It's not them or us, but we!
If only we had someone with the experience and wisdom of spindoc running the country, we'd likely as not, not needing to be having this conversation?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty, are you trying to start a war with the US? Though I agree with both you and spindoc, we're not allowed to be self-sufficient...that would be vastly contrary to US foreign policy. What you're talking about is tantamount to nationalization of resources (which I also agree with), but is unrealistic in the scheme of things. Globalization is here to stay, and just as educated people need specific skills for "rewarding" jobs, so does unskilled labor, ironically. And that's learning to do with less, because with the Western World comprising of only less than 2 billion people, that's more than 5 billion people that will do the same for less. And that's what globalization is about for big business.

Obama is in the process of doing a deal with the largest 600 companies, whereby those companies will have more rights than government, that already has more rights than the individual. So things are not about to get better for any of us in the West, only tougher...we're too expensive as a labor market.

Dear Dick you mention we are to expensive labor market
US pay base of $8 per hour we pay $18 so yes is expensive but at $8 per hour the US can't compete,So We can't go lower in wages whats the answer ? I ask this because a lot of economist use this line to justify there arguments, Whats your thoughts how would you handle it

Aussieboy, in descriptive terms, the answer is easy...

* we return to regulated banking and business;

* we place higher taxes on the wealthy, returning to paying the captains of industry only 6-8 times the lowest wage earners of the company (it's currently 200-400 times the lowest wage earners);

* 80% of our manufacturing is off-shore...bring it back on-shore;

* scrap all "free trade agreements";

* nationalize our infrastructure.

But absolutely none of that will happen, as it's contrary to the concept of globalization, the self interest of government and the captains of industry, who ultimately, run government.

So in effect, there is no answer. If you're lucky enough to have both the intelligence and family affordability to further your education, you have a chance to find a career with a future. If however you don't possess one or either of those things, "unskilled" jobs are going to be at a premium, since average people outnumber above-average.

One point about the US minimum wage, in service industries where you get tipped, like waitressing, the minimum wage is $2.50 per hour. Nike was paying 50 cents a day for people in sweatshops making $300 shoes in underdeveloped countries, to sell to us in developed countries.

So young people NEED to find a skill with a future. The technological age is going to leave behind those that can't adapt or gain the skills. Period. And what we called "working class" will become a distant memory, for most will be unemployed. In the future, working class will be low level tech jobs, some basic service industries, and for awhile, construction. But that too is being technologically developed, whereby robots will perform construction work.

Everything of the last 4 decades has been steadily working towards this. I'm not advocating conspiracy per se, it's just good business sense for better economies of scale and maximizing of profits. But it ruins it for the people in already developed countries, while bringing underdeveloped countries up. We will never see times like the 60's, 70's and 80's again. In effect, we're witnessing the demise of the Western Empire.

Of course, the movers and shakers of the world could all have a simultaneous attack of altruism, and institute the Mondragon system...http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation, but I also somehow doubt that.

‘morning Rhrosty,

Rare indeed! It just goes to show how effective dialog will eventually find some common ground.

I like your point about engaging experience through making << room in that, for 70 year olds, who would just be employed as mentors, for youngsters, who just need, the getting of wisdom >>.

This is a valid point and I know there is a real need because I have done such work as a consultant since leaving corporate.

You note one of the problems is the absolute lack of practical real world experience and its knock on effect. Surprisingly, most employers accept that recruits lack practical real world experience. Moreover they accept that it is their responsibility to impart that practical experience, even for those trade, tertiary or university qualified.

Most experienced employees take absolute delight and pride in coaching and mentoring willing new employees. They are proud of their own skills and experience and dearly wish to pass them on.

Now for the bad news. The one main complaint across the board is attitudes. They complain that whilst they are willing to pass on their skills and knowledge, it is often the case that new intakes appear not to value these.

I maintain a sort of “Black Museum” of comments and attitudes documented along the way from the employer perspective. These I might add have absolutely nothing to do with the domain specific skills or knowledge that recruits are expected to have, but I’ll share some of the most common.

“Can’t read, write, spell or add up”. “Won’t Listen, they want to tell”. “They always know better”. “We are just old fashioned”. “ Can’t leave their bl**dy iPhone’s alone”. “They can always get another job somewhere else”. “They want to be CEO by next week”. The one comment hated the most is “I want to work smarter rather than harder”.

Attitudes drive behavior and the attitudes are inculcated during the education processes.

The greatest gift the education system could deliver for future employees is to remove value/moral laden judgment and replace it with reality

D.D.
I just don't see developing our own resources as any kind of nationalization! But particularly if nobody else is!
These things belong to nobody else but us; and, a mineral lease should be fully developed or lost, starting as soon as the ink is dry!
Rather than lay dormant and be included as a virtual land bank, in some multinational's portfolio!
Anyway, nothing whatsoever prevents us from utilizing the tender process and contractors, just as many large resource companies do, to get these provenances developed and earning income for us!
Imagine, if just one Leader had the foresight to back a hat in hand Lance Hancock, we not foreign nations, could be in-charge of and reaping all the profit from exporting our iron ore.
And nothing prevents us adopting a new far simpler tax system that then lowers the average tax burden, while actually harvesting more revenue. All that is really required, is to make the thing unavoidable.
If you do business and reap profit here, you should pay some tax! No if, buts or maybes!
Some of the new surpluses could be invested in the energy equity market?
The very simplicity, means pocketing tax compliance money, as the very unavoidably of a decent well thought through scheme, will make any compliance costs unnecessary!
And given it averages around 7%, more than the required tax rate!
Moreover, the tax rate can be varied marginally where and when necessary, to alone and much more immediately control all inflation or stagnation; meaning, interests rates can come down and be left at historical lows, to turbocharge the non mining economy.
Add, to the lowest possible tax, the world's cheapest energy, and we have the high tech industries queuing to relocate to these shores!
And in so doing, end forever, any youth unemployment!
Tomorrows Leaders need to learn to follow before they can learn to lead!
Put simply, even in a world as advanced as ours, there still is no way to put an old head on young shoulders!
Rhrosty

* we place higher taxes on the wealthy,
DD,
I'm not wealthy but I don't think this is a fair proposal. There's only one fair tax & that is a flat tax. No ifs not buts.
Everyone pays the same rate. I can't understand why people have a problem with the same rate of tax for everyone. What could be more simple ? Perhaps too fair for the geedy ?

Rhrosty,

If our resources "belong to us", that implies they are nationalized. If they belong to those who hold leases, then they are owned by whoever the investors are, many of which are foreign. BHP/Billiton is predominately foreign owned. When it was just BHP, it was an Aussie company, but no more.

If you remember the usurping of Kevin Rudd, strangely, it occurred only days after his announcement to tax the mining industry an extra $10 billion per year (he made the announcement on a weekend, and by Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, he was unemployed). Political suicide on his part, three months prior to an election, believing the mining industry wouldn't retaliate, but retaliate they did, and swiftly. My point, is NOT about Kev, but of the vested interests in keeping the taxation on mining low. So the only way to have control of our resources, is to control our resources...nationalize them.

Even more important than jobs & money is mentality. If we can somehow induce the teaching of a more sober mentality by starting with more intelligent teachers & a more conscencous education system we'd be miles ahead in an instant.
We could reduce unemployment by introducing a non-military National Service using much of the funding that is now wasted on the Dole. In a national service we'd get the benefit of some responsibility being taught & hopefully some of it taken in whereas with Dole payments we're doing nothing more than taking away dignity from adults whilst turning young people into listles, pointless & lazy, selfish sods.
No ? Then what do you call the situation now ? I work with idiots who have an education I could have only dreamed about & they're costing all of us very dearly in every aspect.
If Australians want Australia to be Australia again then one thing is certain, we can't go on like we have done since the Goaf.
The present outfit running this country has inherited an unenviable state of affairs but that is not god-given right to worsen things.
Hockey wouldn't be so obese if he had to do to some physical labour & Abbott would be well advised to start remembering his ideas from before he became PM.

Yes well, it's nice to dream, even as an educated adult.
The reality is that rather than assist in youth employment, we have recently seen a push to lower the age for the adult wage, with a target number being around 18. That's a huge wedge that's just had it's first win.

The other problem is education, as labor simply wanted to throw more money (via Gonski) at our broken system, where as it is my view that subsidized tutoring (for those who want to learn) would be a far better way of injecting money (we don't have) into a failing education system, because let's face it, too many kids go to school today to fill in the gaps between breaks and weekends. Why waste precious resources on the likes of them. Especially when we no longer have this resources, so have to borrow them in the first place.

Like it or not, we have to take the path of not wasting time, effort or resources on wasted causes. Now I know that's cruel, but if parents don't give a stuff about their own kids future, and the kids themselves don't give a stuff, why waste our taxes. Now if the parants care and the kids dont, then lets work on that. Besides, if dead beat kids see other kids doing well, some of them may just buck the trend and change their ways, but they will never change if they are not cut off from the free ride they currently enjoy.

The other problem we face is competitiveness, as unless we drag our life styles down a few pegs, we WLL NEVER compete with the likes of China or India.

As I say, it's nice to be able to dream.

D.D.
If we used new surpluses to buy majority shares in resource companies, via the free market; and those companies held several mining leases, who would own the leases? That is clearly not nationalization!
If there was some ground that held valuable minerals, and the appropriate authorizes had not listed them for development or made them available as prospects. Who would own the mineral wealth?
And if we held such a provinces and had however protected them with heritage listing or a national parks? Who would own the mineral wealth?
You seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet about (American) private enterprise, and how it alone can develop our Australian mineral wealth?
And no, I don't agree with a mining tax or a carbon tax, given all that seems to achieve is yet more layers of complexity and paper shuffling bureaucracies!
The only thing that prevents the reestablishment of the gas and oil corporation is ideologues, unable to think outside a very limited set of extremely limited ideas.
Given we own said corporation, what prevents us, from emulating BP/Caltex/Dutch Shell, and employing expert contracting companies, to develop our minerals on our behalf, and then return the profits to internal revenue, rather than see them head offshore as repatriated profits, a lose/lose outcome for all Australians. Given we also send scarce export incomes offshore, buying foreign oil!

As for bringing off-shored companies back onshore, We could put a gun to their head? Or, if we had the lowest most efficient tax system on the planet and coupled that to the lowest energy costs? Leave them with no other option, but queue to return!
There were some very valid reasons for them to leave?
We surely are clever enough, and given our still massive resource base, to leave them with no valid reason to continue to stay away!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty, I have no bee in my bonnet about America only, being able to develop our mineral wealth...I'm not sure how you got that impression. I believe WE should own the resources and develop them ourselves. I like your idea of contracting out the work to companies, and think that to be more beneficial for the nation than how we're currently doing things.

I have a passionate dislike for bureaucrats, so anything that streamlines how we do things is a good thing.

I'm not sure that it's the government's business to buy controlling shares, as it lends itself to manipulating markets, corruption and insider trading, and complicated portfolios to manage. But simply contracting the work out strikes me as very efficient, in the nation's interest and minimizes the above criticisms.

Maybe "nationalization" is the wrong term, but I see it this way...if "we" own the resources, and "we" are a nation, that's nationalization. I know it's used to describe dictatorships seizing control of resources in their countries, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe national ownership of something.

Attracting back manufacturing? Not in our lifetimes. Apart from labour being cheaper in underdeveloped countries, so is everything else, from land to infrastructure. Then we have "free trade agreements" that reduces or eliminates import taxes, which is how we protected manufacturers from cheaper foreign imports. That alone goes a long way to explaining why we're losing Holden and Ford, plus their market share in cars has shrunk now to only 10% of the market, with Japanese and Korean car companies having the lion's share.

The world as we knew it has gone.

How do we provide jobs for low level to non-skilled labour? Tourism comes to mind, and the service industries attached. I'm not suggesting that's the sole answer, but if we provide world class attractions and superior service, it would certainly help.

We used to be the land of opportunity, but we have simply priced ourselves out.

It started in the 70's with sugar, where we became so greedy that our largest buyers decided to grow their own. In fact, our sugar industy in Bunderberg had the highest percentage of millionaires when being a millionaire was a huge deal.

Even today, while the likes of meat, fruit and veg are becoming a luxury for many,they are being produced at rock bottom yields, if not losses by our farmers, as the cream is taken by the middle men. A beast that could be purchased for just $20 in Longreach was deemed 'not worth it' as it cost over $150 to have it trucked to where feed was available. And it didn't even have to leave Queensland.

Diesel $160+ and drivers rarely work for less than $30 an hour, while many trucks lay idle because drivers have reached their allowable hours.

Much of our wage growth has been manufactured by the mines, but without them I doubt we woukd have survived the past six odd years.

The other driver has been our onssesion with wanting the biggest house, as many today could afford a house, they just can't afford 'the house' and there in lies the problem.
I sternly believe one of our few options will be to build factories and force the low skilled out of work to work there part time for the equivalent of the dole, or, they could even take a positive approach and gain skills, not that those skills will be in demand post mining, if that happes.

The truth is we have pushed for a better deal, and we must now accept the consequences as along with our desire for a fairer, family friendly work environment, has come the anti competitiveness that was always going to raise it's ugly head. The question was when, and perhaps that is now being answered.

Unfortunately for every action, there is a reaction. Some just don't get it.

We haven't found bottom yet which will be step one.

Rehctub,

You are blaming ordinary Australians for factors that are mostly due to greed of the one percent, apart from the diesel prices, which are due to the world market price for oil. Globalisation has made manufactured goods cheaper, but I would question the overall benefit. People paid much more in real terms for clothing, cars, electrical goods, etc. in the 1960s and 70s, but far more people had secure jobs with good working conditions that could support a family on one income. The real winners (apart from the workers in poor countries) have been the folk at the top. With globalization, there is always someone poorer and more desperate who will work for lower wages under more miserable conditions. Even the Chinese are losing some industries to poorer countries.

The problem with your argument on housing is that 70% of the cost of an average house is now the land it sits on.

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/11/residential-land-values-reflate-across-australia/

You could put up a wretched shack with an outdoor dunny and pay almost as much for it as a McMansion.

I agree with you about a jobs guarantee, although maybe not in factories. The economist Bill Mitchell has written a lot about this.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=23728

Divergence, again, that's because people want 'the block of land' not a block of land.

$100 grand buys a lot of train travel but the modern day house hunter also wants the latte to be within easy reach. They have a problem which often leads to housing affordability.

You say the one job family. Yes, I came from ome of those myself, but we also lived in a very moderate house with mixed matched furnishings etc, but we were a happy family who didn't care how the other half lived.

Huge difference!

Rehctub,

You would be correct if decentralization had gone ahead. As it is, there is a limit to how much time people can reasonably spend commuting, especially if they have family responsibilities. Most people have no choice about living in the city, as that is where the jobs are, and all the residential land and/or existing housing within reasonable commuting distance is very expensive. This lack of choice is made very explicit where unemployed people are concerned. If you move from the city to a country town where you can get cheaper housing, Centrelink will cut off your income support, even if you couldn't get a job in the city either.

Divergence, they cut them off simply because we are no longer in a position to carry passengers.

Like it or not, our previous two terms of federal government wasted the best part of 600 BILLION and, we have reached the point of enough is enough. Unfortunately some decent people get caught up in the mess.

One can buy a neat house in the likes of Caboolture, about one hours train commute from Brisbane CBD for under $300K.

If a first home owner is looking in the $600 to 700K range then they have set their sights too high, unless they are on a combined $150K income and are prepared to make some sacrifices.

My first home cost me 90% of my monthly income just in repayments, so I had to get two more part time jobs. Young ones today rarely do that.

While I recognize it's.a tough world out there, nothing should come without hard work and effort and, as I have said, there is no money left to splash around.