Yabby, Billie & other interested parties, I'd love to discuss further just why people won't move to find work since I still believe security is a big issue. I'd like to discuss how the "mean and tricky" policies of the Howard led Government has attempted to destroy people of low socioeconomic standard and of how horrible it treats those who find themselves on Newstart benefits. Is there a better way? Yabby, you seem to have the unrealistic expectation that ANYONE could find work ANYWHERE if they were prepared to move. Billie thinks otherwise. I don't have to move. I have a resonably secure job as a nurse looking after societies worst outcasts. I only work part time since at my age, it's actually hard to obtain full time work in my field. I often take home little more than the aged pension, but I do ok because I'm a home body. The shortage of nurses is a myth. It's simply propaganda. I agree with you on one point Yabby. The Australian economy is at present on a high and there are people too lazy or proud to take certain jobs. I spend a great deal of time in my job washing crappy bums and cleaning up urine spills, washing people who are so mentally unwell that they cannot wash themselves. I've been spat at, had things thrown at me, forced to react quickly to fights between burly men whilst at the same time having heaps more regulations and paperwork.....yes, the dreaded paperwork heaped upon me in ever increasing workloads. We get students through who usually say they'd never want to work in this field. And yet I love my job. It suits me, but at the same time I understand just why others don't feel the same way.
However, we've hijacked the original context of the discussion and I must appologise to Brightspark for that. Maybe, if you want, we can take it to another discussion, but perhaps you feel it's already been done to death.

"re the Cowra abbattoirs - the owners have a local reputation for being MEAN,"

The place closed down as it went broke Billie. We'll see if
the new business plan, under new ownership, will work better.
Last I heard some locals were negotiating with the administrator.

If you are saying that Aussies don't want any jobs that are
seasonal, well thats most of agriculture. Best then we just fly
in people from overseas on contracts and leave the Aussies on
the dole, if they refuse to do the work.

Given that meatworks are happy to pay airfares from China etc
and guarantee a minimum of 42K a year, I'm sure they'd pay
somebody's airfare to and from the south, which is just a
few hundred bucks.

The meatworks I know are not in the North of WA, but the South,
some right on the coast, regional but pretty country, working
11-12 months a year and they have for years. Still no workers.
Fletcher brought in 160 from the Philipines in the end, but
still unions complained, even though they can't provide the workers.

A large % of the cattle upnorth are now simply sailed out on
boats to Indonesia etc, thats solved the problem in the North.

Wildcat, I admire the work that you do. Lots would not do it,
they want an office job, something easy, with little work
and huge pay.

Just about everyone I know in WA has moved around the place,
changing where they live and where they work over time. Perhaps
thats why we are such a go ahead state with go ahead people :)

Yabby people on Newstart can't afford to take seasonal jobs because they are penalised for doing so.

1. They may have to wait 6 weeks to get back onto Newstart
2. People moving from welfare to work pay an effective tax rate much higher than everyone else, maybe 75%.
3. Newstart is so paltry that people on Newstart may not be able to fund a move to WA to search for jobs,
4. The federal govrnment will pay the moving expenses of silled workers who have found work in WA, a very different proposition to travelling to look for work
5. Employers avoid hiring older workers
6. People who have worked in offices are prone to injury when they move into manual labour and employers know this
7. The labour shortage is a furphy in nursing (wildcat), teaching, work in northern Australia (me), professional engineering, computing.
8. according to figures released on Thursday one third of working age males in Australia did not work for some period of 2006.
9. In Australia a person is counted as employed if they work for 1 hour paid or unpaid in the survey period. So volunteers, work for the dole and students are not unemployed. Very liberal use of statistics

So because Yabby's local abbattoir is short of workers, although I do remember the Fremantle and Kwinana slaughtermen being laid off. Actually the Cowra abbattoir has no difficulty filling its positions at lower pay as there is a shortage of work in the district.

To get back to Brightsparks initial premise, this is not the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years.

" The labour shortage is a furphy in nursing (wildcat), teaching, work in northern Australia (me), professional engineering, computing."

Ok, so those hospitals in WA screaming out for nurses, are but a dream. Those mining companies advertising daily for engineers, don't
do it because they need staff, they do it just for fun. Billie wake up!

" although I do remember the Fremantle and Kwinana slaughtermen being laid off."

Billie, that was 20 years ago! a failed Govt run works, as usually
happens when Govts run things. Do you have any idea of today's
situation, or are you living in some dream ideology of the past?

Fact is every meatworks that matters in WA is looking for staff!
Sheesh, perhaps we should get back to seceding from you Eastern
Staters, living in your dream worlds, and just paddle our own canoe
over here. If you won't get off your butts, why should we keep sending
you money?

Wildcat, not at all, the subject is employment and I have learned much from all of the contributors. I first got interested in this topic when I realised that, what I was observing, was not consistent with the government and opposition’ claims of a well functioning economy. Government and opposition only differ on the point of who should take the credit (I prefer the term “blame”).

I do think that the problems you are describing all have their roots in this economic mismanagement.

I would like to make the following observations:

We benefit from recent technological advances and low priced sophisticated consumer goods.

I believe that many of the part time or officially unemployed workers (1/3 of the official workforce) fear leaving their family nest for what they see as insecure short term employment in the regional areas and loss of local opportunities. In any case they can not afford the cost of relocation. I think full time abattoir work close to home would not be a problem for these people.

The government’s “work choices” adds to the insecurity for the vulnerable.

The unions formerly made available a disciplined work force. Now with industrial law of the jungle, many employers are feared by the workforce.

One method used to moderate the high unemployment has been to retain teenagers at school.

Now when these extra teenagers gain a VCE/HSC even without having to actually pass any examinations they form a lifelong opinion that they are ready for an executive job at BHP, and a meatworkers job is out of the question. The education system is misleading them. Dare I say in the sixties a failed round of examinations would teach the student a valuable lesson about their own limitations leading to realistic career choices some of which, in the fullness of time, have lead to high prosperity. Better students are also poorly advised causing the skill shortages detailed by Yabby.

After thirty years of “free trading” we do not need more education as proposed by Kevin Rudd we are no longer an industrialised country.

Mostly we need a new political party.

I would like to make this point.

In the era which was ended by the Whitlam Government;

We didn’t need to spend much on “Newstart” because we had real unemployment of around 1%.

We were technologically sophisticated being the third nation in the world to launch a satellite into orbit.

We genuinely educated people from disadvantaged countries,

We ran a balanced foreign account.

We were a more caring society.

The “sheep’s back” was really not important. (a furphy of today)

We had more equitable distribution of wealth.

We compared well with other countries.

We earned our economic growth and did not borrow it.

There was no trouble in recruiting people to work on outback mining developments.

We had plenty of nurses, doctors and engineers.

Nurses were valued, respected and given better working conditions.

There was no trouble finding meatworkers.

The “Melbourne establishment” had to give up some of their wealth to workers who had powerful unions.

The governments ran some fiscal deficits, which, even in real terms, were miniscule compared to the current account deficit.

Now the “Melbourne Establishment” and others give themselves seven figure golden handshakes.

No we have skill shortages.

Now we have dumbed down and we bludge off the rest of the world in an unsustainable way, soon we will need to privatise air and water.

Wake up everone.

We need to look at the big picture! We need to look at the road ahead and not the speedo.

He was none of your dolts,
He had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock
Made him one of the flock
It must surely be something like branding!

From the Bush Christening by A. B. Patterson