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.