Helen Masterman-Smith and Babara Pocock have published a new book called "Living low paid the dark side of prosperous australia".
The book takes us through the jobs and lives of low paid Australians,mainly working in the service industries.It's a sad enditement of our society today,that in a country as rich as ours
people are poorly paid for what they do.It has been said that the poverty line for a single income family of four is $38000 a year, many of these people earn nowhere near this.In fact
in the retail sector-one of the largest industries and employers of labour, the average wage is around $32000 a year before tax.Consider this? the largest hardware retailer's CEO earned
$4.5 million last year and received a bonus of $760,000.When many of his workers earned less than the above poverty line;not even 1% of his salary.How can we justify this level of largesse?
How can a labour government allow this to continue?

Excellent well overdue post Tumblegum.

and I'd bet my bottom dollar [when I have one to spare] that many of these low-income earners contribute greatly in a voluntary capacity to fellow Australians, their families and children.

*How can we justify this level of largesse?*

Quite easily Tumblegum. People are paid what they are
worth to the company, and really intelligent individuals
who can run such a company, are extremely hard to find.

As shareholders risk billions upon billions of $ of
losses, if the CEO gets it wrong, they are clearly happy
to pay him a good salary to keep him there and motivated,
or he might just wander off and go and run another company
which rewards his talent.

But see it another way. Let's say we employ a dummy for
100 k$ and split the remaining 4.4 million amongst the
remaining employees. Given that tens of thousands are
employed by the company, how much would each of them
actually gain? Very little indeed.

What if the dummy makes mistakes and sends the company
broke and they all lose their jobs?

What about the stupid shareholders, who were not smart
enough to hire the smartest bloke to run the company and
so lose all their hard earned savings? Are you going to
care about them too?

The poverty line is relative. It costs a lot less to live in a small country town than to live in one of the cities, but the local median wage is also lower. One of my older relatives lives off about $6000 per year (single, older, doesnt drink or smoke, only goes out to community events, owns home, doesnt buy magazines, doesnt own a computer or mobile phone....). Other relatives with kids SAVE on Newstart Allowance. You start trying to buy a decent house in a good area of Sydney, suddenly you need to be pulling in $200kpa and you'd STILL be on the poverty line. Dont even start me on the costs of childcare or private school fees!

Look closer yabby at the throw away people who do live well under that poverty line in this country.
Yes I understand supply and demand.
And market forces.
I also know some casuals are throw away human beings.
just on 3 years ago a country boss sat and told his workers they either signed his 3 year agreement or he got others to do the work.
No jobs in that town they did him two favors dropped the intention of asking a union in, and signed his agreement.
He assured them it was registered with Howard's work choices system and it was ok.
IT FAILED Howard's test never was legal.
His highest paid workers are his formen $20 an hour.
Only over time is earned after 10 hours is worked.
And even on Sunday only at time and a half.
Some casuals get even less, it Will get worse not better as we will never again get rid of body hire, profit matters more than people.
Here in my last statement is why we no longer train enough skilled workers profits rule.

TUMBLEGUM;
As one of the 'bleeding heart' society, you have conveniently forgoten, or deliberately failed, to mention 'family support'.

Now a single wage earner, with four kids, on $38K, which is what you have based your thead on, would be laughing all the way to the bank as the amount of 'hand outs' they would receive, from the other 'tax payers' would be quite nice indeed and, they would be 'TAX FREE'!

Ever been asked if you have a 'health care card'? I wish!

Furthermore, while the 'high skilled', 'high paid' worker you refer is out slaving away, sometimes up to 90hr per week, your poor little 'over worked and under paid battler' is working his/her 38hr and enjoying every weekend with their four kids.

And, if society wishes to improve the conditions for retail workers, pay decent money for your goods and stop continually seeking the cheapest alternative as you know, or ought to know that every time you seek the cheapest goods, retail jobs are at risk as the major employer in retail is small business. Not big business.

May I suggest that rather than taking the 'tall poppy' approach towards the CEO's of the world, just remember, it is they who pay huge taxes and receive little to no assistance, just so the likes of your battlers can enjoy life with their four kids, even though they knew full well they could never afford them.

In my organisation I know of several chaps who are on $12700 per annum. They work 1 week on , 1 week off. They are essential services officers on CDEP. This has been happening for years now under successive Qld Labor. Others in the communities do sfa & are on excellent public service awards. Yes labor , the for the worker party. What a joke, they're nothing but an academic yuppy club.

Worth is a funny word. For ordinary people value is based on the merit in the jobs people do allowing for small variations in opinion.

In the madness of our shareholder/profit driven economy 'worth' and 'value' take on nebulous meanings like "you are worth what people are willing to pay" not in terms of the 'real' value one might contribute to a business, whether one is a CEO or a cleaner. These worths are contrived.

This term is also used in real estate as though the continual push to make higher commissions is not relevant to the cost of housing along with issues like availability.

We live in a world where words like efficiency no longer mean doing a job well including great customer service, but reducing services to make more profits is now what is viewed as efficiencies. The customer and the employee can go jump in other words.

It is not tall poppy syndrome to see that the widening gap between the incomes of the rich and the poor have far reaching consequences on prices and affordability leaving those on lower incomes out of the loop for access to home ownership and other benefits. It also has great effects on health and wellbeing and the ability to raise children.

We wouldn't have to provide subidies to low income families in the way of tax benefits and allowances if the economy was better managed in relation to personal debt, housing affordability and rental prices.

Why is it unreasonable to ask that some of those exhorbitant salaries at the top be reduced so that some of the spoils be filtered downwards. CEOS earning $23M per annum plus bonuses (which they seem to get despite falls in share prices) is not a 'reasonable' income while a cleaner that cleans the office is on $30K per year. The CEO should earn more given his responsibilities and the time he puts in but...$23M?

We live in an economy where it is too easy for those at the top to continually feather their nests while consumers, workers and shareholders remain powerless to influence policy.

Pelican, you echo my thoughts.

Why is it anathema for a liveable wage be paid to the lowest level employee who earns less in two years, which a CEO at $23M earns in a day? That's value for work done? I don't think so. Industry relies on the contribution of the bulk of employees who are paid minimal rates - without them nothing would be produced.

Pelican, I think you will find that human greed runs right through
society and that those who can feather their own nests, in fact do.

I was in a small way involved in an insurance class action, where
the lawyers were charging 400$ an hour. When the farmers tried to
claim 20$ an hour for their time, the lawyers cleverly argued that
the farmers time was in fact worth nothing. By this time the farmers
were so brow beaten by all the legal costs, that they just gave in.

Recently a company operating up North had a gun put to its head
by a union, and was forced to pay workers a 50k$ pay rise per
worker. Just plain old human greed, all through society.

The only Australian CEO that I know of, who earned 23 million
in 08-09, was Allan Moss of Mac Bank. I'm not sure what they pay
their cleaners, but Mac Bank staff on average, are apparently
extremely well paid.

Was Moss worth it? To me Mac Bank is a bit like a magic pudding,
making huge amounts of money in ways that few people understand
in investment banking. He certainly seems to have been the brains
behind the whole MacBank success story. B&B tried to copy him,
but they soon went broke.

Would MacBank ever have become what it did without him? I doubt it.

Dont believe the lies that CEOs are paid what they are worth. Of course the fat cats will say they are smart and intelligent and no one else could do as well as them but this is just self serving BS. None of them took a loss when they screwed up and brought the world to the brink of another great depression. None of them were made homeless by their incompetence. Unlike many of their workers.

Being paid thousands of dollars an hour is only possible within the exclusive, elitist, fatcat club of parasites, living high on the backs of their workers and using their power to influence and blackmail governments. Swanning around with their limos, power lunches and first class they do minimal work while "earning" millions. A filthier, more vile bunch of parasites there has never been. Even the monarchs and the church of medieval times dont come close to the capitalist pigs of greed and exploitation that are running this world into war, degradation, inequality and collapse.

Bring back the militant unions of the 70s and the class war that was seemingly won by the capitalist parasites. A few general strikes and walkouts and these rich pigs will have no choice but to share the wealth. Wealth produced ONLY by workers never by rich paper pushers and the millions of pieces of paper they stole from us.

Solidarity is not a dirty word. It is the only way to stop being screwed. They all stick together why shouldnt workers do the same?

Yabby,
I understand your argument but look at the Mexican banditos that ran Telstra, was he worth what he took out, Bondy, Quintex beneficiaries, FAI, HIH execs, rich executive wives/families etc. Do they suffer the same as the average man when the execs screw up, even relatively? Not on your nelly. Rodney Adler clearly gross incompetent who did time, did it tough he was forced to 'down size' from a $23 million mansion to a $6 million mansion (Awww poor man bugger me). How many farmers, people who were caught lost their homes, life savings? equitable?
Do I go on Packer Jr., Murdock JR got away Scot free. By any reasonable stance Packer Jr is trading on his money etc not necessarily his smarts.

The capitalist god Pty Ltd and its far more virulent, misbegotten, grotesque progeny has unleashed some horrible monsters upon the world.

I would also suggest that greed is fine, providing it's on a level playing field but the context of what I think is being said,it isn't. There are more victims to the vampiristic corporation than beneficiaries.

Did you watch 'hungry beast' about the two supermarket giants, strangle hold of the market in Aust compared to other western economies...Oh yes and the raw deal farmers get? (its on the net and only a few minutes but truly terrifying for those who think of where it's going) Competition? Independence of Government's? what's that?
Yabby, you are right magic pudding is apt the question is Who's getting the biggest cut and why are the rest of the population forced to squabble over ever decreasing share of the pie?
Your view seems to cheer squad the hopelessly inequity.

As for rehctub's 'bleeding hearts' Comment,"Paper deep superficiality" comes to mind.

*I would also suggest that greed is fine, providing it's on a level playing field*

Examinator, I never said that greed was fine, for personally I am
not a greedy person, far more commonly far too generous for my own
good. What I said it that this is reality. Next point, life is not
fair, get over it. If the pretty girl decides not to bang you,
because say you have a big nose and are short, instead shmoozing with
the attractive hunk, then that's just his good fortune, born with
genes that make him look pretty in her eyes. Similarly, some people
face disease etc all their life, despite healthy living, others
abuse their bodies yet are always healthy. That is hardly fair,
that is just how the dna rolled the dice. Just realities of nature and nature is certainly not fair.

Skase, Adler, Bond etc, were not employee CEOs, they were
entrepreneurs who screwed investors and landed up in jail.
I certainly never bought shares in any of their companies, but
like my old uncle used to say, for every fool that dies, another
10 are born :) Scoundrels exist in every sphere of life, including
the corporate world.

I personally also am not jealous of those who inherited heaps of
money, for I don't suffer from envy, as Mikk seems to. What I have
noticed however, is that those kids who do inherit heaps, if they
don't have the aptitude to manage it wisely, there is soon not
much of it left.

As to CEO salaries, we could go through a list of individuals and
how they changed companies, compared to what they were paid. Some
were more then worth it, some were not.

Take a smart CEO like Michael Chaney, who transformed Wesfarmers
from a small farmers coop into a huge company, with shareholders
benefitting all the way and tens of thousands of jobs created.
Frankly he would have been cheap, at double what they paid him.

Similarly Bob Joss, an American import, who turned Westpac around,
when it nearly went broke in the early 90s.

Yabby,
While greed is not confined solely to any one group, I don't think you can compare a push for higher wages for lower income workers with highly inflated salaries of CEOs.

Certainly the trend is more people are spending more than they earn and the level of personal debt has grown, shows a change in the modern mindset in regards to consumerism. I am all about personal responsibility but income disparity is not the same thing.

It is in the ratio between minimum income and highest income that the problem lies. You can't argue that the fight for higher wages or even the right to a living wage is the same as the nest feathering of those who have group power to influence their rates of pay. This is why unions are needed, to collectively fight for the rights of employees. Are unions perfect? No they are full of careerists as much as anyone else but without them who would ensure that rates of pay are 'fair'. The free market won't work because of group vested interests (think banks).

http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/

From that article: "In 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned in 52 weeks."

You and I hold similar views about money. Happiness is not about money unless you are nearing poverty and thankfully we are not.

*I don't think you can compare a push for higher wages for lower income workers with highly inflated salaries of CEOs.*

Pelican, that depends on how you define "lower income workers".
The train drivers that went on strike in the NW, earn over
200k$ a year and admit to being extremely well paid. The
last little 50k$ blackmail was paid to workers already on 6 figures,
hardly lower income. But now that the union is back, it has
the power to hold up multi billion $ investments, by pulling
out a few men. In my eyes that is little more then blackmail,
hardly "negotiation".

Yes, in America there are some huge extremes in CEO salaries,
unlike anything that exists in Australia.

The last figure I can remember, the CEOs of Australias top
20 companies averaged around 10 million. For that they bear
the responsbility of companies worth tens of billions of $.
One strategic mistake can cost a billion or three. The stress
of that kind or responsibility is huuuuge. I certainly would
not want it, even for 10 million.

Some of these companies employ over 100'000 people. Even if you
paid the CEO nothing and spread his salary over the rest of
the workforce, that is around 100$ a head per year, its hardly
going to matter. None of them would be working just 260 days
either.

Take out half their salary in tax and they are left with
5 million. People complain about that, but seem to have
no problem with sports stars, rock stars, earning far far
more.

What a crock Yabby.How can we defend this largesse was the question posed. Yabby, "people are paid what they are worth." No one is worth hundreds of millions as a CEO.It is the upper and middle managers who do all the hard work.The monetarist system is dying and you don't even recognise the symptoms of decay.

Yes there does seem to be a certain amount of envy among the posters although I admit some of the recipients of large salaries can be seen to be unworthy of their wealth.

It always puzzles me when individual earnings are discussed that so-called celebrities often get off scot free in this regard. The sports stars who earn incredible amounts of money or film stars that earn millions for one movie. Is it because the public feels it knows and likes them and therefore it is OK for them to earn equally large amounts of money ? They, like their counterparts in industry, are at the top of their profession, so can command large remuneration for what they do. Again like their counterparts in other areas, they have probably made great sacrifice in achieving their goals, but that is often never considered and nor is the often large amounts given to charities by wealthy people. Just a thought, to consider the other side of the coin. Things are often not always what they seem

We live in a world where we are not all born equal and don't often get equal opportunities. As has been pointed out, some have better genes than others which gives them a leg up. We are all in control of our own destiny and the decisions we make in life govern what we can get out of it and we have to make the most of it. There are risks in everything we do.

We never will be equal if we want to be honest we often prosper on the sweat of the true poor.
We most of us, have imports from China , and while income is not good it is better than they once had, still living standards differ greatly.
Rechtub, did you give much thought to that post, tax avoidance is much more in those who earn such incomes even legal investments that are tax relief.
You must run a high price butchers, seems you dislike the average worker so no cheap snags I bet.
An answer to this difference in incomes is not going to be easy.
I truely ask why we can not re craft some social welfare payments.
How hard would it be to stop contracting out local government jobs and put those on welfare in those jobs using welfare as part wages so costs would be an asset to ratepayers.

*No one is worth hundreds of millions as a CEO.It is the upper and middle managers who do all the hard work.*

First point Arjay, nobody claimed that anyone was worth hundreds
of millions of $, so please stop the verbal masturbation :)

Second point Arjay, don't give up your day job, for you would last
about 5 seconds in the corporate world. Investors would run a mile,
when you started talking, including me.

Upper and middle managers should work hard, for they are extremely
well paid. But they still basically do what they are told. Ultimate
responsibility remains with the CEO. If he/she gets it wrong, they
will soon take a walk, their career largely over.

Now let me give you an example of why the CEO matters. Every time
I see Marius Kloppers of BHP, he reminds me of a schoolboy, not
at all of a CEO. Yet he clearly has the smarts!

The results are out for iron ore sales last year and their prices.
FMG sold at the benchmark, so made very little profit. Marius,
through a clever marketing strategy, which is his baby, achieved
around 10% extra. Multiply that by 150 million or so tonnes and
you are talking an extra billion $ profit for BHP and for Australia.

So how much should he be paid, for earning BHP an extra billion$?

I've always favoured a heavily progressive Scandinavian style tax system. Years ago at a lecture from a Swedish Prof of finance he informed me that the tax rate above about 200K was around 85%. This is many years ago now and I believe their tax system has changed quiet dramatically. But at that time it did lead to a very equal society where virtually everyone was able to live with some degree of comfort. I'd like to see a similar system applied in Australia, with say a minimum wage of 60K and a maximum of say 200K.
It's very sad in my opinion to see Australia going down the competition pathway, where lower paid workers are discarded so easily.
If anyone has read the book "Happiness, lessons from a new sciencë" by London school of economics prof R Layard, he goes into alot of detail of how we could live in a much better society if we had a highly progressive tax system. It takes away much of the fight to be better than others.
Seems individual happiness increases dramatically up to a threshold of about 50K(US) then increases only very marginally after that figure.
I hate to see people poorly paid, but most of all I hate seeing others take advantage of these people.

Yabby, you live in the cybre world of money creation which has nothng to do with real productivity.The reality is that even with two parents working,people today are worse off than 1980.

The banking system has more power than our Govts.When the RBA drops rates ,many of the banks ignore the trends and please themselves.

When I came back from OS in 1980 with nothing, I worked hard and at the end of that yr ,had $20,000.00 for a 20% deposit for a house.This is impossible to do today.The main reason being is that banks have made credit too easily available thus over inflating housing,making ordinary folk debt slaves to over valued assets.

You still don't get it ,do you Yabby?

Ozzie, if we adopted your suggestion of a maximum $200,000, can you imagine the brain drain of all the expertise and talent to places around the world where they would be welcomed with open arms. Just the medical experts alone would leave the health system in tatters.
It would leave a very poor Australia with all the people who work in every section supplying the wealthy, out of work from the arts to building. Sorry, it wouldn't be practical. Believe it or not, we all benefit indirectly from wealthy individuals. It's an unfair world and always will be.

What exactly do these fat cats do with so much money? Even with servants, limos, holiday mansions, firstclass travel, a yacht or two, daily five star restaurant meals, expensive wine etc etc it seems impossible to spend the 10 or 20 million a year some CEOs receive. Notice I did not say "earned". They dont "earn" their money the same way a cook or a cleaner or a clerk does.

Considering many of them receive 200 to 300 times their lowest paid workers who here really believes they work 200 to 300 times harder than the lowest paid? How do they do so? Even if they worked 24 hours a day I cannot see how they could possibly work 200 times harder. Not to mention what's harder? A few years at a posh university then a nice cozy boardroom with copious paper shuffling and the oh so onerous (expense account) lunch meetings or a lifetime of manual labour down a mine or in a factory?

A quote from somewhere that I agree with.

"Now things are so strangely organised at present that it is just the dirty and disagreeable work that men will do cheaply, and consequently there is no great rush to invent machines to take their place. In a free society, on the other hand, it is clear that the disagreeable work will be one of the first things that machinery will be called upon to eliminate".

Wake up people they are ripping off millions that rightfully belongs to the workers.

ozzie mentioned progressive taxation. When that was removed/reduced it became open slather for these gluttons to increase their own remuneration and it is not suprising that their greed has taken over and they have taken as much as they can get. Power corrupts as they say. Bring back progressive taxation and you remove any incentive for excessive income for parasites with power and control of big business. Whatever happened to the owners (shareholders) having control of what they own? How did the CEOs take over as if they are the owners and not the shareholders?

Snake, I believe you are oversimplifying things. Do you really feel many highly paid individuals would move OS and leave family, friends, the country and culture they were brought up in. Obviously there would be some, but I would feel the majority would stay. What also must be remembered is that such rules affect everyone, so still the top earners would still be the top earners, in other words an income of 2m might be reduced to 400k after tax which is still more than his friend previously on 1.75m that is now on 350k. Humans are very competitive animals, and what is important is not really the absolute difference between the figures but more so that the pecking order is still preserved. That book I stated before went into a lot of detail about such things.
The example you give of medical experts applies to myself, although I am a medical practitioner and earn above 200k I would not call myself an expert. However I would not leave Australia if such a tax was applied. In Scandinavia at the time there was a rule to discourage people "officially" living abroad yet in reality spending much of their time in Sweden. Something like if you lived abroad you could not spent more than 3 months per year in Sweden(not sure of the exact rule) but it did discourage many of the super rich from living abroad. An exception was Borg and his millions living in Monaco? I think.

All have equal oppertunity. It is the individuals choice. You chose who you serve. For 36 years I got out of bed with this thought "I wonder what will go wrong today", and guess what, I was never disapointed, then at a low point in my life I met a man called Jesus who is the Christ and I surrendered my will to his and sort to gain knowledge of His Kingdom and abundant life.
The first thing he showed me was who He is, then he taught me who i am in Him, then He taught me my rights and responsibilities in Him (His promises).
At many times along the way my purpose has been contrary to his and I still bare the scars. When I was young God gave me a dream and a vision for my future and it has taken me 66 years to see that dream and vision come to pass and it will be completed before I leave this earthern ware vessel I now call home.
Gods purpose and destiny for me was to be the best Richie 10 I can be in all fasets of my life, and I don't need any one else to tell me when I miss the mark.
Don't waste your time or energy on things you have no control over eg what other people do or have for it only breeds envy and disapointment in your soul.

*Do you really feel many highly paid individuals would move OS and leave family, friends, the country and culture they were brought up in.*

Ozzie, too right they would! You are trying to judge the world
from your particular perspective of life. Just look at how many
Aussie expats live overseas now. I gather its around the million
mark. Places like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc are full of them,
usually highly skilled individuals, paying very little tax in
those countries. When they finally return to Aus, they are commonly
financially loaded to the max.

The Swedish experiment was in the end a failure for good reasons.
It did not pay the dentist to work more then a couple of days a
week, so he'd commonly barter, if he was going to work extra.
All tax free of course.

Next thing, large Swedish companies simply moved offshore. Despite
being Swedish, Ikea pays virtually no taxes there. There are
many similar examples.

Try and screw the goose that lays the golden eggs and she'll go
lay her eggs elsewhere. People learn the hard way.

Yabby
The income disparity is no doubt sometimes caused by unions as well. If you work in a male dominated field that has a strong union, workers are more likely to earn more than say (for example) nurses whose union is not as strong. And it is a profession that generally does not strike on moral grounds.

But this disparity is chicken feed when compared to executive salaries (not only CEOs).

Many of the big gun CEOs who have come out to Australia on big salaries have not performed well and yet still they prosper. There is no accountability at this level and often they disappear with big bonuses or handouts at the end of their failures.

I suspect there are many talented people already working in senior-middle management roles within Australia who could take on the reins of a big company for much less and perform much better.

Sometimes the value of certain seasoned CEOs grow to mythical proportions. There is not much substance in the claims that there are no other talented or creative people ready to take on the challenges.

Income disparity can be too lightly dismissed as salary envy but it is much more than comparing wages, it is about the effects on inflation, the economy and affordability. The greater the disparity the greater the gap between those who can live well and those who can barely afford basic living costs.

*The greater the disparity the greater the gap between those who can live well and those who can barely afford basic living costs.*

One thing that I have learned Pelican, is that some people can manage
money and some cannot. I know people on 6 figures who complain and
struggle, then I have a friend on a pension, who grows his own
vegies and chooks, he has money left over each week.

If you really want to help the poor, then shut down the pokies, for
its mostly not the rich who lose 20 billion a year on gambling.

Indeed great CEOs can come from management. The last two BHP
CEOs have, Goodyear and now Kloppers. That does not mean that
they should not be paid an adequate salary for their responsibility
of running a hundred billion $ company.

CEOS certainly are accountable, to the chairman and to the board.
If the board screws up, they are accountable to shareholders. As
a shareholder, you can go to the AGM and rub their noses in it,
they will have to listen. You can even put forward a motion that
they be removed.

I have pointed out before, there are in fact very few CEOS of
large companies in Australia. Even if you spread their salary over
their tens of thousands of employees, it would hardly make a difference. So for a good reason, who you left with none but
envy. BTW Pelican, I am not talking about you personally here
Pelican, for I know that you take my position about money, ie
its not the key to happiness.

imagine the brain drain of all the expertise and talent to places around the world where they would be welcomed with open arms.
Snake,
I wish they would because firstly, we'd rid ourselves of a great many of those Experts who are of no value whatsoever to us. And, secondly, this overated overseas marked would very soon be saturated & that in turn would bring those insanely criminal salaries back to a sensible level.

Yabby

"Ozzie, too right they would! You are trying to judge the world
from your particular perspective of life. Just look at how many
Aussie expats live overseas now. I gather its around the million
mark. Places like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc are full of them,
usually highly skilled individuals, paying very little tax in
those countries. When they finally return to Aus, they are commonly
financially loaded to the max."

Everyone judges the world from their own particular perspective. Yes there may be many expats living OS, but there may be many varied reasons for them doing this. I met a few recently, and all of them did this just because thats what their jobs required. The most recent one I met was working in dubai as a migration agent. He hated the place and couldn't wait to get home. Sure he made alot of money, but thats not the reason he was there. I just wonder how many move their whole lives OS just to save on tax?

Yabby," Try and screw the goose that lays the golden eggs and she will go elsewhere." You have no perception of who the actual goose is.Don't look in a mirror.It is not Wall St or the Global Banksters that keep you in this comfort zone.It is the hard work and creativity of ordinary folk.

Currently they are again trying to make the masses pay for their GFC.There will be blood in the streets in the USA if they do not put the ponzy scamming thieves either in gaol or in their place.

The USA is on a knife edge with good reason.Wall St and the Federal Reserve have robbed the people.That, no one can deny.

*I just wonder how many move their whole lives OS just to save on tax?*

Ozzie, there are invariably many little reasons which make one good
reason. Tax is one raised constantly. Mind you, if your suggestion
of 80% tax as in Sweden was taken up, I'd be pretty sure that there
would be a flood, claiming it as an extremely good reason!

If you think that people will work their butts off to have Govt
take 80%, you are highly mistaken. People basically act out
of self interest, ignore it at your peril.

Arjay, your posts are becoming more and more confused, I am afraid.
On another thread you claim that Americans are becoming lazy and
could achieve alot more, you imply that the masses should be working
much harder. Now you claim that its ordinary folk that are doing
all the work.

I'll pay more attention to your posts, when they start to make
even a scrap of sense. That is not the case right now

Yabby,
"Ozzie, there are invariably many little reasons which make one good
reason. Tax is one raised constantly. Mind you, if your suggestion
of 80% tax as in Sweden was taken up, I'd be pretty sure that there
would be a flood, claiming it as an extremely good reason!

If you think that people will work their butts off to have Govt
take 80%, you are highly mistaken. People basically act out
of self interest, ignore it at your peril."

This is actually the whole point of the tax. I agree with you that few people would work more once they have achieved a salary of 200k if they knew the marginal rate from then on is 80% or so. In the book i referred to above it went into great detail about how at levels of income above around 50K most people are reasonably satisfied with their income and other factors besides money become more important (relationships etc). In other words people on 3m are not really any happier than those on 2m etc. The high marginal rate above around 200k acts as a very strong disincentive to limit the rat race that life has become. Above I mentioned that humans are very status conscious animals competing to see who earns more. This tax attempts to curb this urge. Remember a tax above 200k or so really affects a very small % of the pop, and they are really not any less happy. Compare this with the redistributed money to poorer people who now benefit and for example may be lifted out of poverty to a reasonable income. The book shows how the increase in happiness by lifting many people from say 20k to 50k is many times greater than the loss of happiness experienced by the very well of that get cut back to 200k or so. Thus society as a whole is better off.
Basically the whole point of this tax was to stop the continual race for more and more income once a person has achieved a reasonable life.

I know and have experienced life better than these Posters who obviously have only worked in business backgrounds, or blinded by their narrow experiences with the broader communities taking the view that "everyone has a choice to further themselves".

Non-factual. Life is not black and white. There is plenty of grey in between; as all of us worldly people know and live.

My parents as business owners and brother in his business, know that without the sacrifices and fantastic contributions of their employees, the businesses would not be flourishing or made the fantastic profits over many years and they reward their employees accordingly paying the highest dollar possible to retain their excellent employees. If Unions had power today; their businesses would not receive a 'Union visit'.

A significant difference and problem arose in Australia for employees when the old strong unions lost their power. Most people who are not tertiary qualified or hold a degree or relevant certificate in their work are not paid according to the work and sacrifices made. Work experience, work history and merit should be acknowledged and employees rewarded. This has not occurred for 15 years in my residential state. Complaints of ill treatment and low wages in many industries, businesses and some areas of the public service outlined.

Also, many people are not given the opportunity to complete their studies and/or attend university as a result of family obligations both in their immediate families, and later on in their married life.

Australians have medical conditions that make studying and qualification to further themselves out of the question and backgrounds where stereotyping and lowering of self esteem played a large part in what would have been a more highly paid future.

There are validated reasons for people being unable to obtain a tertiary qualification or qualify academically; regardless of correspondence courses and/or university.

Btw I forgot to make the point that many kids leaving school these days are quite illiterate in relation to basic maths and english. A good portion of the blame kids and adults are unable to 'further themselves' lies within the Education Departments' curriculum over a good 25 year period.

Technology is another factor that has impacted and caused negative changes with school leavers today who could have been high income earners.

Many kids are unable to 'further themselves' as a result of their lower passes and unstable home life/environment;instead opting for lower paid wages and careers. Choice is not an option for many kids these days.

Add technology and the reduction in kids and people reading books, writing, and being creative; and,no,choices are reduced significantly.

Do not forget that these 'uneducated' kids and adults' are now competing with highly qualified academics from overseas also.

Many factors come into play regarding low income wage earners.

Who you chose to serve governs your choices. The world is ruled by dead men. All ideologies that serve as the foundations of all governments, religions, and social and civic institutions are built on dead mans ideas. How do you win a war against an idea. Will a bullet kill an idea. No there is only one way too, change your mind, and that is to hear and act on a better idea. I believe we fail as a nation because we follow wrong ideas. When a thought or idea is conceived, it can be cultivated into a theory and emerge as a philosophy. It is at this stage, when an idea can becomes philosophy, that it forms the foundation of a belief system, ie religion, communism or socialism, evolution and global warming. A belief system then becomes the motivator of all behavior and response to life and environment. Belief becomes the shade through which all life is viewed and interpreted. In essence, ideas are the foundation of philosophy, which becomes our way of thinking, our concept of truth, and our belief system, which produces our lifestyle and mental conditioning.
Nothing is as powerful as philosophy, and the source of philosophy is precepts, which are ideas we come to conceive and accept. Thoughts control the world and we become our thoughts. This is the premise on which the ancient king Solomon, over 3000 years ago, stated, "as a man thinks in his heart, so he is". You cannot live beyond your philosophy and belief system. You will only change when your philosophy changes, and your philosophy will only change when your ideas change. So who you follow governs your journey and destination for if you always do what you have always done you always get what you always got.
Regards Richie 10

Richie ten, just like you I am miss using the thread, bending it in fact.
Diverting it to a direction it never should go.
From you I expected more, no Christian me,but aware most would show concern for the true poor.
Your God however has form, from your book I find he free,d his people from Egypt, after killing the first born of every person not being Jewish.
Innocents some surely.
He drowned every man and woman in the world, every animal too, except one boat load.
God your book says made us all, every human, but condemns most to hell.
Well sorry Richard I can see why you are unconcerned at low incomes and the huge differences in lifestyle of humans.
Strange but would some of those poor be Christians?

*Compare this with the redistributed money to poorer people who now benefit and for example may be lifted out of poverty to a reasonable income*

But that's the problem Ozzie, in the real world your planned social
engineering does not work out that way. What do you think most
entrepreneurial types will do? They will simply restructure their
affairs so that they pay virtually no tax in your country and their
main business will be offshore. So your country will lose out
in jobs and it will lose out in revenue. You won't have the Dollars
to redistribute. There are a hundred ways to do it and every time
you introduce a law to try and stop it, they will invent another
3 ways to get around your law. All because you have a problem
with envy.

It does not take high income earners to create a rat race, simply
enough people crowded together closely enough, all acting in their
own short term self interest. But that is human nature for you.

The thing is, you can never stop some people from being poor and
falling through the cracks, because you can't mandate people to make
good judgement calls about their lives. So there will always be
disasters.

But Australia is still a land full of opportunities, for those
who want to take them.
Australia also spends huge amounts (120 billion) on social welfare
to help the poor. That is the large majority of the federal budget.
Australians live in the world's largest houses.
Australians are the world's biggest gamblers.
Overall we arn't doing too bad really.

Dear Belly,
The subject of the thread is low wages in Australia. When I started work I received $500.00 for one years work. 20 years later I was receiving $8000.00 for a years work. Then I was told about a different concept "Fill the tank and live off the overflow instead of trying to stretch money". Within 3 years my income was $80000.00 steadily rising to $250000.00. So you see what you think so you are.
And so as a man speaks it is easy to see what is in his heart. There are many ways to skin a cat Belly and I know that you are not the font of all wisdom because you seem to think there is only your way to skin the cat.

Richie 10,
Unless you've won the lottery, your speedy rise in income can only be due to a questionable practise. I know many people who make the same as you do now & more & I can tell from my observations that integrity goes out the window when the income goes over about $100 grand a year. Yes, some people have a product or service that everybody wants & that earns them a lot of money. My question is, if anyone can make so much profit isn't then not making it available at a cheaper rate just as bad as extortion & exploitation ?

continually making comparisons with what others earn only leads to envy. Being thankful for living in a prosperous nation, for having an abundance of food and clothing leads to contentment and joy. Some earn $100,000 plus for driving a truck up and down a mine only to be discontented because someone else earns $110000 somewhere else. I found after a decade in the public service that many were discontent because they never had a job where they really had to earn their money. They would whinge and moan despite putting in their dubious 7 hours a day. People often sign up and are happy to work for a certain amount and then become discontented when they hear someone else is getting a bit more. Maybe if they changed their stinking envious attitudes they might find they also might be offered a bit more. Anything over the minimum wage is not an 'entitlement' but a blessing.

Yes it is me, a trade unionist till death and ALP active member but we can fix this low pay stuff.
Not with more welfare, but making better use of what we already pay.
Let us, including those on my side of the political fence be realistic.
What we do now is not working.
Ignore runner and Rich, they want us to live by rules of a phantom God, and seemingly do not understand his views on the poor.
Have any of us been truly hungry?
And not knowing a way out?
I lived such a life and right now others do.
So what would I do about it.
Change social welfare for unemployed, give real jobs, ones that demand commitment, in local government and conservation projects , INSTEAD of dole.
Not half jobs or half wages but a job on fair wages.
Do not farm them out to business let their work outcomes be true public service.
Instead of contracting out forests parks RTA local government positions make them give value back to the community.
We know that anyone can make it in Australia, and surely that anyone can fail too.
I CRY yes I do to think some bosses get deals that betray workers.
Pay under award rates , with no concerns, my view of unionism is if it kills me, fair go mate , minimum wages should be auto matic not sold out for some.

Dear Belly and Individual,
I meditate on Gods word "Lord what do you mean in Deuteronomy chapter eight when Moses says if I obey your word I will make wealth" "Does that mean Lord that I can do my own thing". Proverbs chapter 3 " My son keep my commands, Honour me with your possessions so your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine". "Please explain Lord". Malachi chapter 3 "Pay your tithe so there may be food in MY house and !" prove ME "! says the Lord of hosts.
This is the only way he allows and invites us to test Him and his word. In the making of wealth.
Me I choose to believe Him and take Him at his word. I have tried and tested it for over 30 years and it works. The word says we have not for we ask not or we ask amiss. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
Wisdom cries out every where. Repent (turn your mind around), be baptized for forgiveness of sin, and you will receive Gods free gift the Holy Spirit and He will guide you into all truth.

In Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad Poor Dad he asks the question " How do you make wealth, buy a loto ticket or get knowledge", you have a choice. Stephen R Covey said that "there are 3 constants in life,
change, choice and principles. If you focus on principles you empower everyone who understands these principles to act without constant monitoring, evaluating, correcting or controlling." give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Hosea speaking to the Jews said " people are destroyed for lach of knowledge"
A proud haughty person hearing never hears, seeing never sees for he has the wrong focus which gets us back to choices. Chose to remain poor and blame your lack on others or take responsibility for your choices and get knowledge. Your move in the journey of life.

So Individual as you can see you don't have to be evil to make money you have to be open to new ideas. God is good and his way leads to abundance. The thoughts of mans heart are only evil and lead to lack and poverty. Focus on life not good and evil.
Belly broaden your tent pegs and learn new ways to skin the cat and you may be plesently surprised at what you acomplish without having to take from another. When you use a big stick to acomplish your your goal it doesn't last. Kindness and acts of engouragement with understanding sets change in concrete.

Richie 10,
Whilst I am unable to prove religious people neither right nor wrong I do question their integrity. I know quite a number of people who, at every opportunity bring up the values of their faiths but when it comes to giving or declining anything to do with money then religion appears to shift from the front row to the back. going back to low wages, Living in a so-called remote community I am constantly arguing with those moron consultants , bureaucrats & academic types that, as long as the remote communities are not allowed to regain the social cohesiveness that was until about 1980 & ged rid of this idiotic CDEP program then wages for ordinary working people will not improve. You see, by not affording locals the opportunity to to gain qualifications & constantly bringing in short-term career public servants no community can get ahead. If only the Governments put the excessive remote area allowances, travel allowances & whathaveyou allowances into qualifying more often than not far better suitable local people for these positions than it could only be positive. One of the reasons for low ages is that too much is being syphoned off for people in positions who are utterly & totally incompetent & yet our so-called "experts" can't see anything technically or morally wrong with it. Even the unions are totally useless because there aren't enough people to warrant a visit. I have asked a union official & that's how he explained it. Yes, very caring indeed. Do you have any inkling at all how much funding is being misappropriated by bureaucrats ? Do you know how much funding is wasted by incompetence ? I have yet to hear of a religious group, unions etc to put serious pressure onto Government to stop this.

Belly,
I came to this thread late so have not contributed, but I must say that I agree with your views, in your last post. I have worked for bosses that exploit their workers and also have seen workers that rip off their bosses and sabotage the business. I have no time for either of the above.

You must have, at the least, interesting discussions with your workmates and other party members.

I think you and Yabby and Rehctub have more in common than you think. Mainly based on common sence and a fair go. I recall butcher saying, on another thread, that he pays his employees well above award wages, but he expects loyalty and good work in return. I do not think you would have an issue with that.

If more ALP members thought like you, we would have far better government that we have at present, at all levels. One question. How do you set up a scheme where the unemployed do meaning full work in return for social security, easier said than done.

Dear Individual,
I understand exactly what you are talking about.
My mother was a christian and she died when I was a teen. She honoured
my father and never ever said anything about God or Jesus to any of her 4 children. But she read the bible and an every day with Jesus type book and prayed. Today some 50+ years later 3 out of 4 are followers of Jesus. My fathers father was a religious man and for punishment he put his children in the corner facing the wall reading the bible aloud. In my fathers 11 year my Grandmother cooked a real feast for the family xmas dinner. Difficult when you live in the bush in the 1920's. To cut a long story short the old man came to the table and blessed the food and then did his christian duty and wrapped it up in the tablecloth and went and shared xmas dinner with the next door neighbours and Gran made fried bread and syrup for the children.
My father told me that story shortly before he died as it was the reason he couldn't trust God. Don't let the Hyprocy of others run your life. Remember it is your choice.

Banjo wrote:
"How do you set up a scheme where the unemployed do meaning full work in return for social security, easier said than done"

Change the fools in power with people of real intelligence!
Quite simple really.

Just think for a minute if we had smart people running the show, how many programs could be started where the unemployed could be put to good use and even pay them more than they get now and we all win. If they don't want to work, give them nothing, they don't deserve it anyway.

And yes, even I agree with Belly this time :)

Banjo nothing comes without effort but it could be done.
Right now in fact for 30 years I have had part of the answer.
Let us just look at the NSW RTA, once it was the DMR, now some fool has come up with the idea changing its name again will help?
Contract out every position above Foreman, yep no exceptions.
Ask why very high placed people take the golden hand shake then come back, to their old jobs, on contracts paying more.
Consider this if out door staff do not work, if they are the problem and they are not managment is failing and it is,just maybe ,no certainly better management can make any work force work.
Unions, yes some only visit big shops, I would drive any distance on any day, to visit one single member.
But if others will not? all unions pay once lost lost forever members are the oil that unions run on.
Last but important, a contractor has won a contract to do one government workers annual out put.
that work grossed $55.000 a year contractor got $154.000 for one year, sublet the work to another hight tec contractor, he got $18.000 in total to do job.
Not over yet, it was a trial, so government worker stayed in job too.

Belly and SM,
Over the years from Whitlam on, I have seen various schemes tried by both parties in government and none were very successful.

I remember one about the late 80s where local government employed them with Fed funds. Here they put teams on rural roads, trimming overhanging trees. They had to hire chain saws, cherry pickers, trucks, etc. and had two blokes with stop/go signs at each end of the work area.

In my opinion, the only benefits were to the hire people who hired out the equipment. Pretty poor value for money, a bloke with an excavator would acheive a thousand times more.

I would like to see a scheme that works and maybe before I die I will see such, but not counting on it.

I reckon the main beneficeries of the insulation and solar hot water schemes were the overseas manufacturers of the batts and water systems. We certainly stimulated their economies.

RawMustard,
The saying goes, 'pay peanuts', 'you get monkeys'!

If you want 'top of the class' polies, we have to pay much more than what they receive today.

I have mates with butcher shops who make many times that of the PM with limmited educational backgrounds.

I have always said that we should have less people in polotics and pay them much better than we do.

As for belly's comments, we have many wasted opportunities in this country. We could value add so much more, yet we choose to pay people to stay home and sell far to many raw materials, only to buy them back as 'value added' products, all because of 'cheap overseas labour'.

We should build public owned factories, create jobs, subsidise the wages and prosper, instead of taking the easy option.

One small example; All excess food could be harvested, instead of being wasted. We could then process that food and send it overseas as 'aid', rather than sending dollars, as money simply ends up in the hands of the 2% of the population that owns 98% of the wealth in the poor countries.

Live export is another well beaten example of a wasted opportunity to create jobs for the jobless.

We have just seen three abbittors close in QLD due to being unable to compete. It's a 'no brainer' if you ask me!

Yabby, your CEOs as magicians argument isn't working. Like people in any other line of work, they basically copy what the person before them did. Often, they take gambles. For every CEO that you name who guessed correctly, I could name five who stuffed up and still got the big money.

Ah Benk, all you have pointed out is how difficult it is, to find
a good CEO!

Yes, many crappy ones have been appointed and cost shareholders
billions. I agree, pay should be performance based. That is what
more and more CEOs now have in their contracts.

What changes is that once somebody is appointed CEO, he has to
start thinking more like an entrepreneur, then as an employee.
So its a whole different role and there are no manuals to read,
to tell him how to do it.

But lets take an example, the disaster that was Coles. I remember
years ago, when Woolies was on the ropes and nearly broke, all
that eventually changed with good management. Coles kept on being
badly managed, corruption set in.

So when Wesfarmers bought it, Goyder virtually had to start again.
He's brought in some great talent for the various divisions and
slowly things are turning around. But he had to look globally for
that and you are not going to hire globally great talent, by
offering to pay 200k$, or 500k.

So my point is that indeed great talent can be found, it can make
or cost shareholders billions of $. That 1 or 5 million or whatever
hardly matters, in situations where billions are at stake.

Now according to you, Kloppers is just doing what was done before.
Not so, changing commodity pricing from annual contracts to
market based pricing has been his baby for a while. The hard part
has been in convincing his competitors, as in Rio and Vale. It
sounds to me like he might have finally achieved that, earning
BHP billions. So how much should he be rewarded for that?
A gold watch perhaps? Think about it.

*I have mates with butcher shops who make many times that of the PM with limmited educational backgrounds.*

*Live export is another well beaten example of a wasted opportunity to create jobs for the jobless.*

Now you know Rehctub, why the live export trade is critical to
farmers!

Fact is, certainly in WA, the meat industry is all about this cosy
little club, with few competitors in the saleyards, who in the past
could basically name their price. Only the live trade offered them
any real competition. When Mr Fletcher offered 20 bucks for cast
for age ewes, there was nobody there, to offer 21.

How did farmers eventually respond? They got jack of all this,
year after year, sold their sheep and bought big machinery, to grow
more crops. When they added it up, suddenly the States sheep population had dropped 10 million and the numbers arn't there
anymore to run the meat chains.

So we have howls of protest about the live trade, when it was in fact
one of the few reasons why farmers still bothered with sheep.

The live trade is there to keep you meat industry people at least
a tiny bit honest. That is why it has so much farmer support.

Whilst you drive an imported car, don't preach to farmers about
the live trade.

Banjo think with me on this.
You seem to think my views as an ALP member and proud unionist are strange.
Can we all forget the idea those we are opposed to are any different than us.
This country has always been governed by the wishes of about 80% of voters.
The last 6 elections have proved we think about voting.
Abbott has dropped his parental leave ace on Rudd's King,
Who would have thought it could happen?
Howard, not Rudd started the hand outs baby bonuses for a start.
We want the same outcomes a better country.
And some blindly will defend welfare, my party was branded even by the church of England for child welfare.
I t again should take the lead in change we must have/make work.
Yes those schemes wasted cash, are you aware in Queensland those jobs went to farmers having hard times?
I truly honestly, think local government and state government authority management is not working.
Giving anyone a job that lets them fail but get paid forever is not going to work.
And can we talk about why we say 5% unemployment is full employment?
WHY?
Get of yabbys back live exports is a different market one that we can never make meat exports
The true path for this country has to always be constructive change.

We however rechtub can NEVER build government factory's.
That is Socialism and defeats the required results , it would take work from private enterprise.
Jobs created should give dividends back to the community.
That could mean increasing state government jobs in parks forests and road building by 50% now and more soon.
It could see greens teams paid to build rest areas and amenity's at creek and river Banks.
A whole new way of welfare.
Not give away jobs or money true work true pride in a job.

Dear Belly,
You and I both want the best outcome for Australia. period .
This is our country and we would both give our very best for it.
The only disagreement we have is the source of life and the source of death. There is always a better way to do things. I think we would both agree on that.
Could you please listen to a short talk on the constitution and give me your opinion of it. It is found at http://larry/hannigan.com/Constitution.htm
Richie 10

Raw Mustard,
Sorry, my last post was ment for you and Belly. I got your initials wrong and apologise. I welcome any input you may have.

Belly,
I don't think your ideas strange, but, from my experience with unionists and ALP members, I think your views would be in the minority within those groups.

I agree with your concepts of giving people meaningful work for social security. The difficult part is in how to achieve that.

It seems to me that the work has to be mainly manual and that which cannot be done more efficiently by machine. Your ideas of 'rest areas' on roadsides is good but limited.

Recently there has been talk of bringing in thousands of foreigners to pick fruit so why could that not be done by locals. Its very hot and hard work, so give no-tax incentives as an encouragement. Some opponants will find the no-tax thing unacceptable, but the money will soon be back in the main economy and at least it stays in the country.

People used to take their holidays to coincide with the fruit season and it was all cash in hand. Those without other skills could better themselves by working hard and that has to be good.

That is about the only area I can think of in which to implement such a scheme, but there may well be others.

"How do you set up a scheme where the unemployed do meaning full work in return for social security, easier said than done"
Banjo,
Introduce National Service & get those Drongo kids of Drongo parents into doing some thinking. Presto, there's 90 % of your dole que gone. The older ones can be absorbed in Government funded local Council schemes. I mean, if we can afford bureaucrats who achieve next to nothing then we can afford to support councils to get unemployed people into a financially unviable workforce & start building a more sesible society.

Yabby; Wa is and always has been 'remote' when it comes to servicing the rest of the country. This is why WA is often non-competetive in the market place.

Now if you (the farmers) were willing to pay the excess freight, then I dare say you would fetch simmilar dollars for your goods. Trouble is, you don't pay the freight, the buyers do, hence the lower prices on offer to WA farmers.

There is no reson why processing plants can't be set up there to process meat rather than exporting live.

Now as for keeping butchers honnest, well the general public do a pretty good job of that.

In most cases if something is cheap for us to buy, we (the industry)specials it as we, like the majority of businesses, work on margins.

Belly; I am not talking about 'pre-existing' jobs. Take the insulation project.

Why did we have so many out of work while at the same time we imported tons of 'low grade' insulation?

You can't tell me we couldn't have set up factories here.

Why? Because it was the 'easy option', that's why.

Value adding means 'add value to something we sell as raw goods'. Has nothing to do with competing with private industry.

Now as for your socialism comment. If we continue to sit on our hands and continue to support 'non-productive' people, something is going to give, prob sooner rather than latter!

We are already seeing predicted holes in our budget to plug holes in other areas as there is simply not enough to go around and, we are still only just over 20 million! How can we cope when we are 30 millon or 50 million?

The time has come to end the 'free ride' that so many have become accustomed to! (seniors exempted)

*This is why WA is often non-competetive in the market place.*

Rehctub, the marketplace today is global. Frankly, without WA,
the rest of Aus would be a banana republic, for over here, 10%
of the Australian population generate around 50% of Australia's
exports. You guys make a living by trading houses with each
other and call in an economy.

My point is don't come preaching to WA about the live trade, for
its an issue clearly above your head and its critical to WA farmers,
whose market is the global economy.

*Now as for keeping butchers honnest, well the general public do a pretty good job of that.*

Well cleary not, for the general public are not in the saleyards.
Given the figures that you are quoting, the general public are
also being screwed by many butchers.

Rechtub/banjo I see confusion in both posts.
rechtub our live sheep exports started with a market requirement.
People wanted to kill their own sheep in their own way, can you give evidence they would buy meat?
Would it be easily stored kept.
Would an end to live exports lead to one extra job, or would another country take up the slack.
Banjo, you talk to the wrong ALP/Union people, yesterdays men.
Market forces drive us, we can stand on the side of the road and be left behind, stay as we are and starve after our big holes in the ground are empty, or progress.
Please do not think in terms of a few roadside rest areas, it was not what I intended.
Clean toilets built by these people tracks roads a whole rest area built and looked after thousands of them.
A National tourist track, pack packers camps kept clean, made and maintained by new employment people.
A job much like a life boat forever or just while looking for something else.
Surely we over looked 5% being full employment? why do that number not get a job?
How many never want one?
Fair go mate also should mean every one has a go, no free loaders, and fairer outcomes for tax payers ,what better tax spent on giving some one a job?

Banjo challenged me for not thinking like his view of an ALP member or trade unionist.
I have found much in rechtubs posts here that is unlike the very right wing person he appears to be.
I others too, define how I should think.
But rechtub, you took the stick to Labor for importing that insulation, spoke of building factory's to build it.
Are you sure? would it cost more? maybe twice as much, we must not forget Labors waste bloke,
In fact market forces drive us, not now or as far as I can see in the future can we try to use patriotism to justify paying far more for anything.
I want Australian jobs, full time not casual.
I want IR to be about fairness and equity, and both sides to understand unionists are human, and in fact the consumers who keep industry rolling.
Insulation while we are at it, it proved my point any government can have a Peter Garrett.
But they all have the same public service cover ups, endemic in such places is cover up of total failure by those high paid and well trained in self defense state local federal we must do better.

Dear Belly,
You are starting to sound more like your mothers son.
There is a scripture found in Luke 14-26 that doesn't seem to fit, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
That is a curly one, have you any idea what Jesus is talking about. I guess we need to look deeper to get an understanding of how God thinks because his way of thinking is different to mans. Also have a look at Jesus words to Peter in the last chapter of the book of John for many people believe Peter is the rock to build your life on, very shaky ground.

Yabby;10% of the Australian population generate around 50% of Australia's exports.

You are talking about 'resourses', not live export. Huge difference!

Given the figures that you are quoting, the general public are
also being screwed by many butchers.

How do you come to this conclusion?

Belly, my comment on live export has nothing to do with whether or not those countries would buy processed meats, it has to do with creating jobs here and replacing aid funding with 'value added products' as oppossed to cash.

Now as for 'free loaders' you and I are on the same page there.

>>But rechtub, you took the stick to Labor for importing that insulation, spoke of building factory's to build it.
Are you sure? would it cost more? maybe twice as much,

Better to cost twice as much and have zero unemployment, don't you think? Even single mothers could work there and disabled persons could run the office.

I say again, we must find a way to create jobs for those out of work without effecting existing markets and I think the answer lies in 'value adding'. Insulation in my view was a prime example.

The importers of this insulation would have made a killing, yet we could have made it here with minimal wage costs as we already pay people to do nothing!

Continued

>>I want Australian jobs, full time not casual.
I want IR to be about fairness and equity

You will never see a return to full time work again, like we had, as long as we have the trading hours that are currently in place.

Retail: Shoppers have from 8am till 9pm to shop. Then there is sundays. How can you plan a roster to suit that?

A big fotty match often means fewer customers.

An event like 911, means many are glued to their tv's as they know they can shop most nights. How can one plan for that?

Hospitallity: Many restaurants have 'elfresco dinning areas' and, when it rains people simply don't dine out as much. How can you plan for that? How can you pay 'full time staff' with little or no income?

As long as we want the shops open these hours and the restaurants there at our 'beck and call', casualisation of the workers will be here to stay.

The retail industry was very predictable and most had full time jobs.

Two thing effected this more than anything else, extended trading hours and unfair dismisal laws.

If you don't believe me, go back and find out when the full time jobs started to turn casual. You will find there is a link between these two major changes and the casualisation of the workplaces.

The building industry also went casual, only in the form of 'contractors'.

How can a builder pay full time workers to stand around on a rainy day, then, when the sun comes out they are on RDO's?

I say again, people should be paid for what they do, not for how long it takes to do it and, until this is achieved, you best get used to casual labour as in the present conditions it is here to stay.

Market forces and forced rules have brought about casual employment. You (the unions and the general public) all pushed for it but you don't like the outcome, but it is all to late.

*I have mates with butcher shops who make many times that of the PM with limmited educational backgrounds.*

Given that the PM makes around 250K and your mates make several
times that from operating a butcher shop, what kind of return is
that on capital invested? IMHO thats a ripp off and I'll stick
to buying meat at the supermarket, where their profit runs at
3% of turnover.

The majority of cattle being exported live, come from up North,
where there are no meatworks. The majority of sheep come from WA,
where we don't have your unemployment problems. In fact for years,
meatworks could simply not find the staff to operate and still today
rely on imported 457 workers.

But the real hypocracy here Rectub, is that you want to flatten
farmers by banning live exports, based on the excuse of creating
jobs. Yet 80% of cars in Australia are foreign made. So why
not ban foreign made cars, for car factories are after all where
the unemployed are. I seem to recall that you too drive an imported
car.

If you want to stop live exports, so buy the livestock in
the saleyards and slaughter them here. But of course butchers would
prefer a ban on live exports. That would dramatically drop the
price of livestock to farmers and butcher's already seemingly huge
profits, would increase even more. Greedy pigs.

Given that the PM makes around 250K and your mates make several
times that from operating a butcher shop, what kind of return is
that on capital invested? IMHO thats a ripp off and I'll stick
to buying meat at the supermarket, where their profit runs at
3% of turnover.

Acctually, one that comes to mind owns three shops, with a combined turnover of about $26 million per year and nets about 3% of that. So that blows your 'greedy butcher theory' out the door.

Furthermore, he has invested in excess of $5 million, has his balls on the line every day and, unlike the PM who has invested 'ZERO', he is finnancially and civilly liable for his actions should they result in either the failure of his policies(business) and or an injury to one of his employees if negligent.

It's a pitty our PM and his fow were not liable for their 'stuff ups' hey!

They simply come in to power, waste billions, oversee several failed projects, perhaps get voted out of office (here's hoping) and walk away with a 'life time pension' and their entire wealth intact.

Yet you take the 'tall poppy' attitude with us butchers.

Hey Banjo are you still around?
Come on back I need you!
You compared me to rechtub, do you understand just how far apart I and he are?
And have you looked at his views with the same slant as you look at mine as a trade unionist and ALP member/
No offense mate but you live in the past.
My youth was full of what turned out to be bad unionism fighting equally bad bosses.
Remember Hawk and Kieting and their actions to take power from unions?
See the near death of some unions that rely on forcing workers to join?
Compulsory unionism nearly killed unions, people thought for workers, not with them.
Radical and extreme unionism will shrink much more, unions that impose views not part of working life may well die.
But while self interest rules us all unionists in Australia and ALP members, do not think much different than you.
rechtub however , well bloke it is clear you do not see just how out of touch you are.

I put my case that saying a reform of some welfare, [see rechtub had invalids at work up the thread]is not radical.
I pay my full taxes rechtubs mate probably does not, he has enough income to pay some one to avoid it.
I am all for a fair go, some unemployed are so destroyed by it that they no longer believe in them selves, true.
Searching for work in country towns with no hope ever they will get one.
Some use welfare income to exist on never ever intending to work, hence 5% being called full employment?
My scheme ,in some cases would save money, yes income for some is more on welfare than work.
It[the idea] for some would be a stepping stone to a better job, others just as council and others in the mid 60,s would find a job they never could have forever.
Why should except failure in work outcome from such jobs?
Or failure in welfare as it is.
It was from the heart of LABOR that welfare came into existence and surely we can change it must change it.
Madness right now is we pay baby bonuses at one end then parents in numbers that will frighten you, dump the kids on grand parents or DOCs ,some quite unfit to do so run baby farms getting as much as 800 a week for one hard to handel kid?
We must never stop growing and changing for the better.

Dear Belly,
Lets talk about the common wealth of Australia and how we are going to divie it up. In the year 2008 the combined wealth produced in spending dollars was $34064.75 per person, for every man, woman and child. If we divie it up your way which is mans way apart from Gods word, you have to take into account envy, murders, drunkenness, drugs, ill health, adultery, jealousies, selfishness and no self control or self disipline, many which are against the Law and are subject to the Law. Where as if you do the divie up Gods way of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control which are not subject to any law.
As you can see if it is divided up mans way the wealth is destroyed and we are in a worse state than we started.
Now lets suppose you smoke and you burn $50 per week which is $2000+ a year + ill health in the future ( your choice ). And you read about Jesus and decide to follow his way. You give up smoking and start saving at the end of the first year you have $2200 + with interest. Then you hear Gods word on multiplication (sewing and reaping) and you take the money and rent a field and buy seed and fert and sow the seed and you trust God for the increase. you would find that for every seed you sowed you get 30, .60, or 100 fold increase.
The kingdom of god is not about eating, drinking, traditions of man or other religious thinking but an abundant life for Jesus said the truth you know will set you free. You have to "Know" the truth. Not just a passing aquaintance. We go to church as our duty and think that makes us free. Not so. Think on these words Belly.

Richie ten, in time you will understand I do not share your views.
I want to live a life without hurting anyone other than in self defense or defense of another or country.
An honest life owing no one on death.
To be accountable for my every action
And to share my luck in life with others.
not to abandon my life and need to be a better person to A God THAT NEVER EXISTED.
No intent to hurt you but I once was a Christian, true the start of my awakening came on hearing a man of your God saying good money could be made from his point of view in his church.
Some how I feel the God Myth Followed had better things in mind for the poor.
Richie are you quite sure your representations of your God do not do more harm than good?
Or that he is as unconcerned at the very poors plight as you are
cheers

Absolutely Belly because I have chosen to follow Jesus and when I got confused and started to follow mans teachings my world collapsed and I only had Jesus and his word to lean on left.He has never ever let me down and as I have learned to take him at his word the understanding comes.
There are only three constants in this life; change, choice, and principles. We have to go with change or it destroys us. We have to learn principles to make the best choices in a changing world.
Regards richie 10

So Yabby, you keep refering to 'imported cars' and that we should stop importing them and build cars here.

Great idea, except the unions continued intervention makes employing people here to build cars almost impossible.

Now on the subject of 'imported cars', the majority of farmers drive 'landcruisers', do they not?

In any case, most cars built locally should be labelled, 'assembled in Aust from local and imported components', don't you think?

Now as for greedy butchers and the fact that I have put that argument to bed, our very own consumers struggle to eat lamb as it is simply too expensive and, these are the very persons who pay their taxes, just so our poor farmers can stick their hand out when they are doing it tough.

Don't talk to me about poor farmers, esspecially when they take our hand outs then bypass us for live export.

Rehctub, I did not say that we should ban imported cars, I said that
you should not be a hypocrite. There is no more reason to ban live exports,
then there is to ban imported cars. You seemingly don't
understand your own contradiction.

Farm handouts nearly all go to the Eastern States, live exports
nearly all come from WA. Once again you are confused.

*Now as for greedy butchers and the fact that I have put that argument to bed*

Lol Rehctub, you have done no such thing. We hear about all the
money that you have made from your butcher shop, we hear about
your butcher friends earning many times what the PM earns. Clearly
there is a rip off going on, as some people support the "little man"
Little man my arse lol. Greedy pigs as far as I am concerned.

I am selling lambs next week, 4.60 a kg. It costs 1$ a kg to
knock em off, the meatworks get the fifth leg for free, 1 $ a kg
to cut them up and they could be home delivered with a handsome
profit for another 2 bucks a kg. Total cost 8.60$ a kg is hardly
too expensive for the housewife. But perhaps that would not be
enough margin for our butchers.

Yes, 4.60 a kg is a high price in historical terms. Reason being
that our sheep flock has dropped by 60%, because people could
not make a quid. The last data that I saw from Abare, the average
lamb grower earned around 50 k$ a year. They are hardly rolling in
it. Luckily for me, I do this stuff purely as a hobby and I don't
depend on agriculture for a living. But I'm seeing plenty of our
best farmers pack up and leave, they have had a gutful of you
blokes. The only ones showing any kind of honesty in the saleyards
relating what they can pay to what they can sell their product
for, have been the live trade. Now pricks like you want to shut
it down, for your own little-selfish-interests.

rehctub, "Don't talk to me about poor farmers, esspecially when they take our hand outs then bypass us for live export."

Specifically what handouts would those be?

What you should be getting edgy about is the domination in the marketplace of the big two, Coles and Woolworths.

Banjo, you still think I am bit bit like rechtub?
Maybe I should sell the PC and get out more.
Rechtub please,cars even in America are being outsold by over seas ones.
This country going way back to the very first Holden has supported car manufacturing here with tax payers cash, too much cash too little return.
While I am not involved with the union you defame they are not the reason we build less cars here.
And can reason get involved in the live sheep export thing?
WA prices are less than east coast.
Transport is the reason, hight transport allows buyers to control prices.
Live sheep market is a far different one than prime lamb.
I very much doubt Australians could eat enough sheep meat to bring about an end to the need to export.
Farmers ,like you, have every right to earn a living and droughts and other things get us tax payers helping we can not after all live without both food and exports.
sorry rechtub but at times you appear lost and unable to see views other than your own.
Mate it is my honest view the worst thief in Australia is not dole bludgers, not welfare cheats no doubt at all, high income earners who avoid paying tax are indeed grubby people.

Dear Yabba,
The system of Globalisation is a very destructive system leading into the New World Government which is all about power. Due to our individual apathy and gutlessness we have allowed a progressive socialist takeover in the name of democracy and Social Justice, Nazi's and Commo's,the flip side of the same coin and it doesn't work. For their final solution comes from the barrel of a gun.
Bellys answer is leave me alone so I can sleep in peace. Just make sure I get enough pie to eat and while you are at it lets take some pie of the rich bastards and give it to the poor and underprivelaged. Charity begins at home not in someone else's home. The poor bastards in third world countries are starving because global trade has destroyed the incentive to produce food and there is no surplus for foreign aid. So what is the socialist's answer. Population control and starvation, destroy the farmers and import the food from 3rd world countries. Even blind Freddie can see trouble coming. Farmers are price takers not price makers and are last in the power train. Unions are trying to mount a takeover but as we outsource jobs their power base is disapearing. Banks and Governments are in control and everybody is paying the cost. History shows that democracy does not work. Only the maker has the original blueprint and only when we are hurting enough do we cry out "God help me".
Farming is now a lifestyle not a business for as they taught us in the program "smart moves" business's make profit or fail. Sadly all the teachers of "smart moves" were made redundant but thank God they all got redundancy packages. Now they spend their time castigating farmers for making a buck sending sheep and cattle on a cruise ship instead of giving their union brothers a free ride on the gravy train.
She ain't worken and a train wreck shees a comin.

Yabby>>your butcher friends earning many times what the PM earns. Clearly
there is a rip off going on

But Yabby, he makes the same % in profit that the supermarkets do. Your words not mine. How does this make him a rip off?

>>I am selling lambs next week, 4.60 a kg. It costs 1$ a kg to
knock em off, the meatworks get the fifth leg for free, 1 $ a kg
to cut them up and they could be home delivered with a handsome
profit for another 2 bucks a kg. Total cost 8.60$ a kg is hardly
too expensive for the housewife. But perhaps that would not be
enough margin for our butchers.

Yes I saw the back yard butchers on ACA. What a joke!
You confuse 'margins' with 'profits'. To make $2 profit, one has to add at least $3.
Stick to 'hobby farming 'mate.

I pay $6.20. Tassie lamb. Could sell from accredited premises for $11kg. A small price for healthy food.

Now out of my $4.80 comes rent, wages, power, advertising, super, compo, insurances, complience costs, legal costs. Hopefully, 3% profit.

>> But I'm seeing plenty of our
best farmers pack up and leave, they have had a gutful of you
blokes

It's not us mate. Many farmers have educated their kids and their kids have decided it's to harder life. That's the reality!

>>Now pricks like you want to shut
it down, for your own little-selfish-interests.

When in doubt, turn nasty!

Q. If the government were to subsidise your freight, effectively placing you on a 'level playing field', with the rest of the country, would you stop live exporting?

Continued

Cornflower >>Specifically what handouts would those be?

Well they have just come through drought. They are now about to seek relief for foods.

Now what about the other businesses who rely on farmers for their business. They don't get any relief. Why?

As for the 'big boys'. Perhaps you should ask the general public who support them, knowing full well they are killing off all small retailers.

Belly>>Farmers ,like you, have every right to earn a living and droughts and other things get us tax payers helping we can not after all live without both food and exports.

As I say belly, what about everyone else. The truck drivers who sit idel. The agents, the processors, the retailers. What about support for them. Why just farmers?

Now one reson why we have a lamb shortage, 60% as Yabby says, is that the breeding heard is short. Now I have no objection to live export for old, worn out ews, but not prime breeding stock. At least not until we have re-built our herd.

Two things caused the present shortage. A huge drought in the early 90's and live export.

Back on toppic
Low wages in the retail sector are due to consumers forever seeking a better deal. Lower prices mean lower margins, means lower running costs, means lower wages. It's not rocket science.

Food is one of the few areas people can save. The price of fuel is the price. Rent is rent, power is power, etc etc. All non-negotiable. Food however is negotiable and, if the price is to high people simply won't buy.

It is the consumer who has driven wages low in retail, not the businesses, large or small. Plumbers, sparkies, brickies, chippies, concreters all make huge money compared to retail staff.

A telephone tech charges around $90 per hour to fix a phone in a shop where the staff there get paid $20hr. Who is the rip off?

I will bet even garbage collectors get paid better than retail staff.

*Two things caused the present shortage. A huge drought in the early 90's and live export.*

Rehctub, that is pure rubbish. Yes droughts cut numbers in some areas,
but the main thing has been farmers getting out of the
sheep industry, because they could not make a living. Thousands and
thousands of them. That land now grows crops mainly, some went into
cattle, as wild dogs were less of a problem. The live trade exports
mainly wethers, they have little to do with the breeding flock.

In fact if anyone had a positive effect on the breeding flock it
was live exporters, as they paid a fair price and did not screw
farmers into the ground price wise, as processors did.

If one bloke is paying 60 bucks and another paying 20 bucks for the
same weight animal and you have a family to feed, who would you
sell to?

*he makes the same % in profit that the supermarkets do*

You are trying to dig yourself out of a hole here Rectub, instead
you are going deeper. You bragged about mates and what they earned.
When I challenged you, based on your continual attack on live exports,
you conveniantly quoted a single bloke, who happened to have figures
which equate with the 3% that supermarkets like Coles work on.
What about all the rest?

*Yes I saw the back yard butchers on ACA. What a joke!*

Rehctub, once again you are confused. Even in WA we have licensed
and accredited meat packers, who do nothing but break down beef, mutton and
lamb carcasses. They will even pack them on trays and
cryovac. Cost is around 1$ a kg.

In fact in a large and modern plant, you can slaughter and break down
a sheep into portions, including automated packing, for around 1$
a kg. Then you still have the 5th leg left over for sale.

tbc

So the actual cost of a lamb, broken down and ready to go to the
consumer, is between 5.70-6.70 a kg.

A refridgerated van can deliver them straight to the customers door,
take peoples money etc, at the rate of around 4 per hour.

Allowing for 80$ an hour to run your van and employee, that's 1 $ per
kg. Allow another 50c a kg for advertising and phones, your cost
is around 7.20-8.20 a kg, landed at the customer's door. Add
another 1 $ for yourself, you are making money and the customers
is getting value for money. Given that that lamb is in your possesion
for no more then a few hours, you are making a great quid for your
effort.

The theatrics that go on in a shopping centre and all the costs
associated with it, have everything to do with theatre and little
to do with the cost of food. Don't blame farmers for food costs,
if you want to play theatrics.

Yabby, I must admit I know little about L/E so I will take your word for it.

>>What about all the rest?

Well I was refering to 'mates', not the industry as a whole, however I do have two other mates that make big money out of their shops.

They to have invested millions$, employ many staff, take huge risks and often do a weeks work in two days.

Now if I outlayed $6+ per kilo, then took all the risks associated with business, then delivered the meat all for one dollar, or 16%, well, I would go broke.

Now on the other hand, if the one dollar you refer to was 'net profit', then that would be fine.

>>>Don't blame farmers for food costs,

Have I ?

BTW, are you going to answer my question about subserdised freight?

Or is live export to good a thing to let go?

Rehctub, the problem is not subsidised freight. Just this week,
one of the agents in the know, mentioned at a public meeting, that
it costs the big boys 35c a kg to cart meat from East to West or
West to East. So even if that was paid by Govt, it would make
no difference to the realities of the WA marketplace.

They are that you basically have 3 processors that matter and
their buyers all know each other extremely well. Unless there
is an extreme shortage of livestock, as right now, they can basically
dictate their terms. For they are each specialised in different
areas, so there is hardly competition in the marketplace.

Processors are there to make a quid and I have yet to see them
pay a penny more, then they really need to. That just seems to
be human nature. So the only solutiion to that, is completely
different competition. The live trade provides it. They work
a bit like an airline, but a floating one. So much for the trip
per head. They realise that without farmers, they won't have a
business. The processors clearly took no notice of that in the
past. Farmers see what is going on in the saleyards. Even one
of the salyard managers recently mentioned on radio, that when
there was a tiny surplus of lamb, the buyers pushed the price down
to 2.80 a kg. He then heard farmers saying, "thats it, I'm selling
the flock and cropping the lot".

As for the lamb distribution business I mentioned, its functioning
in Perth and they are doing extremely well. Bugger all overheads,
great turnover and everyone wins. Yes, they are left with a dollar
a kg, a bit more if they do boned shoulders etc

rechtub as you know my time at school was short and unproductive.
But life has told me much, do you think as you write?
Bloke do you understand what makes the economy work, the principals of both world trade and commercial reality's?
Are you aware bloke in your last few posts you asked government to become a purely Socialist one?
To intervene in both world trade, and commercial, fund transport for producers on the other side of the country, maybe helping them survive but costs surely loaded onto consumers?
How would it affect eastern producers
live exports as yabby has shown are not of prime Australian Lamb, not salable in the home market in those numbers at the profit to growers they get from export.
On one hand you want to tell producers who to sell to and how, and yet want to pay them to bring it here.
If I had the years,and the money, I think setting up a sheep packing house in WA for sending packaged sheep mate meant for sale as whole carcase cut up and in one box for bulk sale in super markets would be an earner.
My freezer would have one in it at all times, free market at work but how would it be with your shops if it happened?

Belly, my question to yabby was hypothetical. I don't expect any government to pay freight.

Now as for 'sheep meat' being unsaleable here, I am sorry but you are wrong.

Back before LE there was a huge trade for sheep meat with most of it going in to 'cheap sausages' and smallgoods, also meat pies.

In the early 90's, I could buy a sheep for about $16.00. I would cut them up and sell them for $23.00. A 30% margin. Everyone won, including the farmers at the time.

Now, that same sheep costs me more like $80 and, with the increases in costs, including employment costs, rents, power and complience costs, smaller butchers need to have a margin of at least 40% or they will go broke. That means the same sheep would now cost the consumer $135.00. Still affordable for 20 kilos of meat, but an increase of almost 500%. Mainly due to a lack of supply.

*Back before LE there was a huge trade for sheep meat with most of it going in to 'cheap sausages' and smallgoods, also meat pies.*

Rehctub, the live trade has been exporting 3-4 million sheep a year
since the 70s, or around 35 years. So your theory of before LE"
is a nonsense. For they were exporting then too.

So what has changed? The nature of the sheep industry. Old sheep
used to be a byproduct of the wool industry. Wool made money,
whatever you got for old ewes was a bonus. Wethers were always worth
alot more in the West, as they went on boats.

Today wool is becoming a niche product. Women don't wash those
jumpers by hand anymore, if the machine won't do it, they won't
buy it. It hardly pays to grow wool now. Its become a byproduct
of the sheep meat industry, as consumer tastes have changed over the
years.

So sheep meat now stands on its own. Either it pays to produce it,
or people will do something else with the land, that is more profitable.

Mutton continues to be used in pies, sausages etc. The Japanese
have been known to add enough pork flavouring, to turn it into
pork sausages.

Until just a year ago, they were paying 1$ a kg or so for mutton,
weight and grade. That gave farmers yet another reason to sell the
flock, as it wasn't profitable to run sheep anymore. Thousands did
and bought large cropping machinery. The net result in WA alone
was that when they counted, 10 million sheep had vanished.

Now they are short of sheep, those people who screwed farmers into
the ground. Serves the bastards right :)

The live trade has nothing at all to do with all this.

Well I can't argue with that Yabby. Point taken.

As for 'pork sausages', well they are also sold here as well and marketed as 'BBQ Sausages.

They have a great machine at present called an 'emulsyfier', not sure about the spelling. What it does is passes the rind of pork (skin) though very small holes and makes a 'paste'. This paste is very high in nutritional value and when added to other meats, gives the sausage a 'pork flavour'.

I see no problems with that as we eat crackling anyway.

In any case, farming is no different to any business or industry. If all players don't make a decent living, then the industry collapses.

I do feel for farmers, however where I get frustrated is when the government only assists farmers and not the other industries that rely on them for thier very business. Definately not the fault of the farmers though.

rechtub I was referring to an extra 4 million sheep being sold in the east instead of live exported.
I once bought half a hogget every week, put in in my back pack hopped on the Coma mail and took it home every Friday night to a hungry big family returning to the city to work Sunday night the same way.
It cost me 45% of my weekly wages,less today if you look it would cost less than a third at you quoted price to buy better quality and the whole sheep.
You bloke are quite wrong.
Have no doubt in saying government supports farmers more, if no only in your words
Tax concessions for plant and machinery cars and trucks have been there for you under both governments.
In getting behind farmers in troubled times it is Australia's interests government is protecting.
20/20 vision is required if you want to make claims of favoritism.