*as "your" corporations have bought and continue to buy all the tradable assets this commonwealth possesses*

Sheesh Songofgloin, those corporations are largely owned by the
workers, through those 1.3 trillion$ of Superannuation payments.
I own my teeny bit, I run my own super fund, no boss pays
the 9% every week for me.

You are confusing Australian workers savings and the annual savings
rate. Yup, that has gone down over time, as people became less
frugal and more spend their whole salaries. Not too many sewing
their own clothes these days, as they used to etc.

How will people learn to be frugal again? Hard times teach them.
A whole couple of generations don't know hard times, they want
everything now. Aussies have been living it up, like Americans.

Belly, I acknowledge that trade unions have a role to play, but let
me tell you what happened this morning. The local roadhouse only
opened at 8am and he's closing at 4pm. 4 days, as two public
holidays given. If he hired staff he would have to pay double time.
Add super and workers comp, its 46 bucks an hour he'd have to pay.
Its simply not worth his while, so he told his staff to stay home.
He's better off doing less business and they get 0 pay. That is
what is happening under the new rules.

Belly:>> As debates rage about increased interest rates mining tax's and heaps of evidence we are far out in front of most of the world b the thread amuses me.<<

Belly let’s not exhaust all our amusement at this paltry offering as your comment should bring amusement to many as well.

So with a track record of 40 years behind the fluoro safety vest coupled with your ideological dependency on the left you are telling me things are great, you’re another bloody Yabby except Yabby is openly on the side of the bosses.

Belly the "far out in front of the world" post GFC is a joke right, or are you serious? Why I say that is our government was in surplus, our financial institutions did not expose themselves to anywhere near the level of nearly all Northern Hemisphere money lenders, our banking shares did not plummet, banks did not need bailing out, we kept digging it up and shipping it out, unemployment did not sky rocket, in short Belly what GFC in Australia.

Your Labor party borrowed and blew 100 billion on crap we did not ask for and got half the cost value of, so your need to carry the "spin" line of Rudd “saved our arses” is factually complete rubbish.

Belly you are certainly not credentialed to decide on what a joke is and what is not. You have a failure of reality based around your need to see the implementation of an ideology. One that is not even practiced by the gaggle of Lawyers now running state and federal party rooms for Australia’s premier blue collar party, now that’s a joke worth a laugh for you Belly. These Lawyers that represent the Labor party are hollow my comrade and that you don’t see that is a concern when it comes to your future utterances.

Lexi:>> Just to clarify a few things for you. My parents came to this country as displaced persons (refugees from war-torn Europe after World War II). I can assure you I am well aware of having to survive on the bare minimum<<

Lexi, god it must have been hell on earth in Australia post WWII, how did you survive? How many of your poor starving siblings died here in Australia before the Red Cross got to them. Did your folks find work, did they buy a family home, did they come with nothing and make a secure life for themselves, thats what everybody did in the Australia of then.

The conceit you display in the fact that you and yours have security that was built in a time when if you worked you got on and if you wanted to work there was "real" skill based productive work waiting for you.

Lexi youth unemployment is 30% , we have no manufacturing bases left and a house in the suburbs averages at half a million, this is not the land of opportunity that your folks landed in any longer. Your attitude is “I and mine are all right Jack so tough titties to those who are not”.

Finally I won’t have a wrong word said about Canadians excepting those from Quebec.

yabby, mate, first look that was not a stone you hurled at me, a single chook feather mate.
THAT LAW was in place under Bob Menzies is it is not new.
SOG first job age 13 bush kid, last, [maybe not] 65plus 4 months.
Worked a bit more than 40 years.
Now quick lesson mate, each of us has views ideas thoughts me you yabby.
The very hardest thing is to understand it is more than unlikely we ever get most right, even close.
Now if one of us did we would stop growing learning, achieving, life would be pointless knowing every thing would be boring.
I have to except right now, more people want your side in power than mine.
But can you except one vote one value my party would never be out of office federally?
Sit still SOG it is my turn, I do not look for balance from you or advice.
One of us is more right than the other.
I am content to read the form carefully,study the track and back myself to win by a short half head ok?
Be nice now thanks for the insults nice to know I am not your mate,I got that, it cheers me no end.

*THAT LAW was in place under Bob Menzies is it is not new.*

Belly, I don't care if that law was in place under Gengis Khan
lol, I am not about politics, but good or bad policies.

Now if the law was somewhat reasonable, people were paid
20-30% extra on public holidays, many small employers might
wear it. As it stands now, being enforced now, unlike before,
alot of women who could have done with the extra cash, will
miss out. It was not an issue under workchoices, it is
under Gillard, pushed by unions.

*we have no manufacturing bases left*

Some people repeat this rubbish over and over and its simply not
correct. What would you like to buy, Sonofgloin?

An Australian made house, car, dishwasher, washing machine,fridge,
welder, mining machinery, farm equipment, various chemicals,
various drugs, ferries, furniture, food, the list is endless,
all still made here.

Yes, manufacturing has changed, ie more mining equipment etc, as
we do more mining then in the 60s. Manufacture has also shrunk,
as new services, like the internet, have created enormous amounts
of jobs in other areas.

If meatworks can't find meatworkers and manufacturers can't find
even welders, then clearly the problem is skilled staff.

Perhaps you should look at training more of those teenagers,
for flipping burgers won't do it for them, in a skilled economy.

Belly:>> Be nice now thanks for the insults nice to know I am not your mate,I got that, it cheers me no end.<<

You are absolutely incorrect I have a load of time for you, and Yabby for that matter, although Yabby's politics don't suit me at all, but much of yours do.

When we discussed the NSW right and you conceded that you could see the ideological rot and the poison of personalities having totally ruined the management platform I thought great, an old style unionist that calls a spade a spade. That is a unionist, where the plebs tell them what will be good for them, rather than the Labor political commissars deciding they know what is good for the plebs and that is that.

This government is big on talk fests, ultimately reviewing every issue imaginable, but the "spinners" choose the audience the speakers and the terms of reference, making every outcome one that mirrors their policy direction.

When I first joined I told you my old man was unionist for the dockside workers and coming from that background when I went to uni I was intrigued to watch middle and upper class kids with too much Bertram Russell in their thoughts morph into a new generation of Fabian ideologues. There was no longer discussions about the rights of the pleb, it was about the international game plan and discussed in the ruthless language of those who have not suffered hardship with total disdain for the casualties of their policies who they accept as collateral damage.

Belly if you believe this Labor government is competent then you are bereft of reality, as I said you are probably blinded by your historical ideology and memories of a Labor party that represented the average Aussie rather than the subset of youth and the inexperienced that Swan and Gillard chased relentlessly on FM radio during the federal campaign.