Butch is blowing his own trumpet again. A business is not guaranteed success, a community can only soak up so much of what is on offer. Business will come and business will go. The wage has been set out by rational people, and if you can't make ends meet, you are in the wrong or duplicated business. There is no such guarantees as the proprietor making a profit for themselves as you are wanting at the expense of the worker.

Business in Australia, especially small business will be doomed if ordinary Australians keep getting tempted by cheaper imports. Australian small business too has to come some way towards ordinary Australians. Both need to make it very clear to the federal Govt of the day that Govt charges are getting ridiculously high. Start doing cash business & perhaps Govt will start to listen. Just because we have a somewhat more competent & responsible Government for now does not translate automatically into a morally right administration. There are greed & ego mongers in the coalition too not just on the left although not as many.
Pay your hospitality workers & labourers in cash if the Govt fees don't show any sign of abating.
Govt can be made to listen at any time not just at an election. If they can justify highly paid consultants for nothing then they can justify lower Govt fees to boost the small business economy too. Stop so much contracting out for nothing in return.

Paul1405, "SMH spending at cafe and restaurants up 11.9% in the past year"

If you had access to the article to make your claims about its findings and causes you could at least quote the link, please do.

The turnover and closure of small businesses, including cafes and restaurants is a fact that is easily checked by a tour of most suburbs.

"Pay penalty rates, but not through awards system
Judith Sloan, Feb22, 2014, The Australian

..
Today, penalty rates are a blast from the past. They reflect patterns of family responsibilities and educational engagement that no longer apply. Gone is the dominant model of families in which the man works full-time, generally nine to five on weekdays, and the woman stays home to care for children. Most children now stay on to Year 12 and more than 40 per cent continue on to university. Church attendance figures are way down and we can watch all the major sporting events from the comfort of our lounge rooms.

Trading laws have been relaxed and, while it is not quite 24/7 when it comes to the service industry, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are popular trading days with customers.
..
Indeed, the penalty rates are a dog’s breakfast, in part because they emerged from a number of pre-existing awards that were merged to create modern awards. In this process, penalty rates floated to the highest common denominator. The differences across these major awards really make no rhyme or reason.
..
Just as the days of the six o’clock swill are behind us, the days of inflexible, compulsory penalty rates specified in awards should also fade away."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/pay-penalty-rates-but-not-through-awards-system/story-fnbkvnk7-1226834107641#

'afternoon all...

Thinking hard about this dilemma of Penalty Rates, as I indicated in my earlier thread, I've received penalties all my working life !

Anyway, there's strong argument emerging, apropos whether or not penalty rates need to be discarded or at the very least, heavily curtailed.

In the spirit of fairness - for all those people who currently receive penalties for working odd hours or on public holidays etc., perhaps there is merit for Penalty Rates In toto, to be expunged altogether ! If that rule is to be applied, it must be implemented to include everybody, without exception. Including those alleged 'sacred industries' such as Firemen, Ambos, nurses, coppers, in fact everyone who's in receipt of penalty rates !

Instead of receiving additional payments (penalties) perhaps a modified system of increased pay (in lieu) might yet be trialled ? I really don't know ? I think it was SUSEONLINE said that Nurses DESERVED their Penalties; I couldn't agree with her more ! But consider for a moment if you will; if a waiter has to work Christmas Day, while his family enjoys their Christmas get together at home, isn't he just as entitled to the additional penalty payment, similar to that of Nurses ? It could well be argued too, that a Nurse's work is more highly valued to that of a Waiter ?

Why is it that lefties are so damn destructive of their own best interests? This hate of employers damages them much more than the employer.

If they had looked at the history of industry in the UK they could have easily saved our car industry. Even now, they are applying the same self destructive behavior to the mining industry. Africans & South Americans are only too happy to welcome our miners, driven out by excessive costs.

I ran tourist boats. It is a 7 day industry, & those who enter it should understand that. It is also requires long hours. Even after I brought in contract cleaners, the minimum day is 10 hours. Worse, you can't do the little chores at lunch time, when you are 40 miles out to sea.

This of course was well rewarded by overtime, & deservedly so. It can be very tiring being surrounded by tourists all day. What was not right was the penalty rates.

In most tourist areas all days are the same. You need to look at a calendar to know what day it is. To have to pay double time, or double time & a half, just because of the name of the day is ridiculous. It also costs jobs.

It was just not viable to run on weekends, except for a few at the very peak seasons. Instead of running through the season, with permanent staff, & attempting to build up a market, we ran with casuals, & some staff who wanted extra hours, just a few weekends.

Compressing the available traffic into less days was more profitable, but it was a waste of capacity to leave multi million boats on their moorings.

Regardless of penalty rates, many of the staff would have preferred week days off, when they could go to the larger cities for shopping, dental appointments etc. but could not.