Christian, you wrote "perhaps there is scope for diverting some of this expenditure towards funding a policy of tax deductible family holidays. Such a policy would enable Australian families to maximise their enjoyment of the limited time they have together. Importantly, it would actually encourage families to spend time together, rather than simply giving them money to spend on whatever they like as is the case with the baby bonus." This is a common bureaucratic/government fallacy - we know better than individuals how they can maximise their well-being from given resources. I think that that's nonsense, and part of the Howard Government's success comes from policies intended to give people more freedom of choice, less dependence on government. Howard could have done more, by cutting taxes rather than increasing government spending - his reasons for not doing so are to maintain the vote-buying influence of sectional, targeted policies.

Faustimo,
My understanding of many of these international financiers, is that they do not necessarily belong to another country, but can float between different countries, and they can make their own rules to suit themselves.

A loan shark will feed the other person money until they become much in debt. They will then call on the loan, and when their victim cannot repay, the victim is now “owned” by the loan shark. The same can occur on a national basis. Keep supplying a country with money until that country is up to it’s eyeballs in debt, then call on that debt. The country cannot immediately repay, so the whole country is now “owned” by the financier, and the people in that country are now the slaves of that financier.

If you look at the history of organisations such as the IMF, you will see similar occurring to many so called “third world countries” throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America etc, and it can happen to Australia as well.

But the total level of debt we have in the country seems to be continuously increasing, which should be of concern. As shown earlier postings, the hours being worked by mothers and fathers in families is now close to maximum, and any increased debts will be very hard to repay.

Christian:

Another problem with your methodology is that the rise in average hours worked by full-timers is not only a reflection of an increase in the number of full-timers working longer hours.

Consider this thought experiment.

A business employs one part-time office person working 20 hours a week, one production worker on 36 hours, and one driver on 48 hours.
Average total hours worked are (20 +36 + 48)/3 = 34.7
Average full-time hours are (36 + 48)/2 = 42
Average part-time hours are 20

Then, the employer and production worker agree her hours will be cut from 36 to 34 a week. By the ABS definition, she is no longer a full-timer (working 35 hours or more), so:
Average total hours worked are (20 +34 + 48)/3 = 34.0
Average full-time hours are 48
Average part-time hours are (20+34)/2 = 27

Average full-time hours have risen by 6, and average part-time hours by 7, but no-one is working longer hours, a third of the workforce is working shorter hours, and average total hours have fallen.

My back of the envelope calculations suggest that this distributional effect - a shift in employment from “low” full-time hours to part-time hours – accounts for just over half of the increase in Australia’s average full-time hours in the past 22 years, with the balance due to a rise in the proportion of employees actually working relatively long hours.

This is the distribution of hours worked in August 1982 and August 2004:

______________% Employees
_____________ Aug 82 ___ Aug 04
< 35 hours _____ 31% _____ 39%
35-40 hours ____ 43% _____ 30%
41+ hours ______ 26% _____ 31%

The biggest change has been a drop in the proportion of employees working 35-40 hours (-13%) with the bulk of this shifting towards shorter hours (+8%) and the balance towards longer hours (+5%)

It has been quite apparent that hours of work increased in ICT during the 1990s. In fact one professional said "that you should work in ICT if you are not prepared to work 50 hours a week". There was considerable pressure applied to work on weekends and some workplaces regularly had employees working 70 hours per week for 52 weeks of the year. Sadly many of these workers were retrenched when the company was sold to new owners who wanted to run a leaner operation.

It was also observed that many accountant's hours of work were approaching 70 hours per week. Effectively employers were getting 2 people's work for one salary.