I have a question;
Who pays for the higher labour costs that the regulation benefits?

You can’t subsidize yourself, so who foots the bill?

We have 50 plus years of wealth transfer for top end of town to the bottom, yet the top end of town has still done better, why not ask “why’ on this point?

Just a thought, are the benefits to one person a cost to another person that does not have a higher income regulated by govt.

Marty,

I am glad you agree with me. To answer your question, as to why the lower end of the spectrum has to cop the cuts, the answer is that broadly we have two kinds of people in our economy. These could be summarised as the internationally competitive (i.e. jumbo jet pilots) and those who aren't (i.e. hairdressers). If we don't pay the going international rate to the pilots, they will depart to where they can collect the going rate. The hairdressers can only do business in Australia, and if gerneral wages are cut they will have to do the same or people will cut rheir own hair.

I get the sense that those advocating for 'flexibility' have never had a casual job, and experienced the difficulites that it entails.

I worked casually for six years while studying, and it is very difficult, even with sympathetic employers. Downturn because the company decides to change direction and alienate its core customers? Casuals' hours dropped. Full-timers decide to change their hours to fit their lifestyle better? Casuals' hours dropped. Another Casual fell pregnant- oops, suddenly no hours for her, because in asking for one weekend off to catch up on the extra sleep required, suddenly found that someone else had been asked to work in her place for the next three months. Take holidays at your peril, as often your hours will be gone when you return. Yet if a full-timer is ill, you're called in. If things get busy, you are called in. There is an expectation that as "Just A Casual", your time is less valuable, and your other life committments less important, than those of your full-time co-workers.

I liked my job, and my co-workers, but even after several years in the job, one change of management and my agreed time off at Christmas was suddenly null and void, and my inability to work these hours (due to long-standing family committments) were considered to therefore mean I no longer needed any hours, and I was effectively fired.

Why on earth is it desirable to increase the numbers of people working in such conditions?

As any HSC economics student can tell, ‘Comparative advantage’ is the keyword when involving international trade. Economics is a competition & the best countries understand their assets & develop the skills that will ensure their future. By & large, Australian governments do not perform well in this area – we need better long term planning involving free education to develop human resources. A point often overlooked is the freedom of education in China & its obvious impact.
We should not attempt to compete with present labour conditions & scales of economy afforded by the PRC & the rest of Asia in relation to manufacturing – Oz simply does not have the population. We need to look at high-tech – model ourselves more on Scandinavia with the technology of Japan (with ethics). This requires an education plan & system that maximises our resources & does not exclude those of lesser social & financial means.
Our lack of tradespeople is an obvious indicator of our lack of planning.
All this has been said before, & this is the problem. When will we have an Australian government that is willing to look beyond its own self interest & provide the obvious? We appear to have the finances to do this, so why not now?

I Agree the income gap will indeed widen.

One point that appears to have been missed is the likely effect that the proposed reforms will have on management practices. I believe that at least in some cases at the margin management practices will deteriorate. There are many incidences in the workplace where employee performance can be improved by good management providing incentive initiatives and proactive mentoring. I believe often overworked management will be less likely to consider such approaches if it is easier to sack an under performing employee. Sometimes underperformance is a result of poor management and ill conceived business processes. Often it is the under performing employee that tells you more about your own management weaknesses and perhaps areas where business improvement can be initiated. It is often through counseling to improve performance that valuable feedback is obtained about internal business operations that has real business value.

Of course in some cases the employee cannot be reformed and is clearly unsuitable however existing arrangements allow these people to be sacked through proper warning and notification processes. But again that is a failure of the recruitment process. How many times has an employee been unsuitable at one job only to go on to success at another? We would be foolish to overlook this phenomena.

Overall I believe that management practices will either stay the same or deteriorate but will not improve as a result of these proposed changes and that will be a cost to business and the economy as a whole. Also removing the physiological job security factor and the concept of "trust" between employer and employee will also lower productivity somewhat.

Quote from swilkie:

“We cannot force our workers to compete with the frequently substandard employment conditions of our Asian neighbours”

I ask, what makes “Australians” so special that they deserve more than our close Asian friends.
If I was Asian, I would be offended with that comment as its racist.
As an Australian, I am offended as it is an outcome you are demanding based on race (or citizenship).

My view is that comment should be removed for the racist connotation it has.

A “We deserve more than you” attitude that is related to race or nationality should never be tolerated.