JJA,

even then, I doubt they will fully understand what's going on.
No I believe that the thieves we voted in over the years have had an evil and self serving agenda, and completely free hand to do what they wanted and say what we wanted to hear.
A major problem being that govt ministers are just people with no experience at running a country, let alone running a business.
They are in the job, only for what they can get out of it.
Our well-being is not on any of their minds, irrespective of what you or anyone else believes.
Once upon a time they were statesmen with some honour and pride.
Today they are snivelling reprobates with morals and respect of drug dealers and rabid dogs.
The govt of yesteryear was a much more mature lot, who, at least appeared, to have the interest of the people they represented, at heart.
Not today, they have slowly figured out that they can do whatever they want and get away with it, because Aussies, like some other countries, are too well off and too slack to give a sh!t.
JJA, I suppose I would consider a form of govt that is not chosen by the people, because people are stupid, and are too easily swayed by trinkets and treats.
If the people were more mature, pragmatic and objective in their attitudes, we might have a chance, but this lot, not a chance, never.
So the prognosis is bad, we are heading into a very gloomy future, which will end up with countries like ours being swallowed up by the likes of the Illuminati, with their sick plan of world dominance, which is impossible of course, except for smart arse arrogant countries like Australia.

Jonathan J. Ariel,
Yes, there are two approaches Australia could take to create more jobs: reduce wages to create more low value jobs, or use a combination of fiscal and monetary policy to create high value jobs.

Doing the former would reduce people's standard of living and would also reduce tax revenue; doing the latter would increase people's standard of living and increase tax revenue.

For the past third of a century, Australia's decision to be a high wage country has served us well. So why do you want to revert to third world conditions?

Aidan,

what are you on about?
Low value jobs?
High value jobs?
Your forgetting, right now we have little or no jobs.
Where are you going to get all these "high" value jobs from?
I don't think people are so arrogant or are they?
I believe there are so many people out of work, since the closure of some pretty high labour force industries, that they would rather have any job than get upetty about how much they get paid.
When jobs become abundant once more, then is the time to make foolish wage increase demands.
The economy has to adjust to suite the circumstances of the day.
No work, no pay.
It is precisely your kind of thinking that contributed to the demise of some large Aussie industries.
With our level of income, we could not compete with other countries with lower income levels.
Thank God we have the resource sector to rely on, together with farming for added exports.
Even they come under constant internal threats by the likes of the pathetic greens and animal liberationists.
As for tax revenue, if we have NO jobs how do you think your "tax revenue"will stand up?
No it's better to have a low paying job than no job at all.

ALTRAV,
Do you think it's good to have people doing low productivity work when they're capable of doing high productivity work? I certainly don't!

>Your forgetting, right now we have little or no jobs.
WRONG!
We don't have enough jobs, and I certainly haven't forgotten that. But that's because the government are hell bent on taking more money out of the economy than they put in (aka running a surplus). It would not be too hard to instead set the combination of fiscal and monetary policy to enable enough jobs to be created. Indeed doing so would be almost as easy as cutting the minimum wage, but the result would be a lot better.

If the money's there, the jobs are there. There's no shortage of things to do, either in the public or private sectors, and lower wages only offer a short term advantage. Automation is a much better long term solution, and higher wages encourage this (it's no coincidence that Australia is the world leader in field robotics).

Do you understand now? I'm not suggesting sticking with the status quo. And I'm not suggesting making foolish wage demands either now or when we achieve full employment.

Aidan,

your talking cross purposes.
The govt is the last place to look to for growing the economy and hiring people to produce goods for export.
All your doing is taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other.
We need export jobs.
Value added would be ideal, but for the fact that wages are too high, so no export jobs.
No! export brings in new money, and so everyone benefits.
"If the money's there, the jobs are there".
Rubbish, where do you come up with this stuff.
If your suggesting the govt create jobs just to satisfy your rabid anxiety for work, fine, but if you are seriously promoting that the govt should create local infrastructure jobs, you're nuts.
Have you heard the one about the $100 getting passed around the town to pay for goods and services by the people of that town?
Well it's a little different in the "real"world.
In Australia, if you start off with $100, there's a good chance that after a number of transactions of that same $100, it will be all gone.
But not just gone, the consumer will have had to cough up another $100 to cover the taxes and govt charges associated with the purchase of goods and services.
No Aidan, there is no substitute for export as the ultimate goal of any industry, whether agriculture, engineering, or livestock exports.
Lessen any of those things and you will go backwards or at least into recession.
I do not believe we can afford the naivety of some people such as the greens and the like, because they are clueless about anything other than what they ignorantly believe and naively accepted as fact, just because they believe all the BS, and not because they are in possession of incontrovertible truths.

Aidan..............

I must pick you up on your comment of choosing between low and high productivity work.
Aidan, we're lucky if Aussies want to work at all, so don't even try to elevate the Aussie worker to any level of efficiency or productivity, seen elsewhere in more efficient and disciplined countries.
Japan and Germany come to mind.
We have the most entitled, arrogant, so called, workers, in the world.
If I were in charge, I would not employ them, and I didn't.
I had to go offshore to find people who actually wanted to work and did not complain, like these Aussie morons.
Let me broadcast a sickening fact about this sh!tty country and it's equally shi!tty, ha ha workforce.
I was once verbally abused by an idiot because as he put it, "if I didn't want this damn job done he wouldn't have to work".
Seriously and it is the truth.
Aussies are so far up emselves that they have lost all reason and common sense.
They demand stratospheric hourly rates for third class workmanship.
And don't try to mitigate with one worker in a hundred that scrubs up to the challenge.
No Aidan, first you get these morons off their arses and giving a rats about their jobs, then you pay them what their worth, which at present is about the same as the dole, which pretty much rates their performance in terms of a weekly wage, then come and see me and I'll consider the matter at that time and not before, or especially where we were before the sh!t started hitting the fan, and we have lost so many big companies to other more effecient and cheaper countries.