This is a reponse to a post on another thread at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=830#14604 concerning "How Bad is terrorism" I am putting it here to prevent putting too much off-topic material in the other thread. It also interects another current thread topic "Workchoices the hidden victims" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=847 and the article "What do AWAs really pay?" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6138

Australia's claimed record low unemployment levels has become a catch-all answer to any concern about any consequence of any Federal Government policy decision. Some examples:

* A standard reponse to objections to the removeal of protection against unfair dismissal or any other abuse resulting from Howard's "Work Choices" legislation is that with such low unemplyment any worker can easily leave one job and find another.

* Once when confronted by a caller on talk-back radio in late 2005, as I seem to recall, by a woman who feared for the loss of her husband's job in a Telstra call centre due to Sol Trujillo's plan to axe at least 10,000 jobs over the next five years, Prime Minister John Howard responded that the economic propserity and low unemplyment he claimed that his government had brought about would ensrure that her husband had little to fear if his job was lost.

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(I couldn't fit my post into the 350 word limit. For the rest of this, please visit http://candobetter.org/node/98)

(Thanks for having approved my forum topic so promptly, Graham(?)) Now if you will permit me I will try to post the rest of my article below ...)

Also, hysteria about our supposed 'labor shortage' is also used as an excuse to break down Australia's immigration control. Without allowing skilled migrants into the country, it is claimed that our economic boom will be brought to a gringing halt. As a consequences the categories of 'temporary' workers allowed in under the section 457 skilled worker visa program have been expanded.

Partially as a result of 'skilled migration' under Howard who famously said on 6 December 2001 immediately prior to the Federal elections of 'We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come', immigration has rocketed up to an unfficial 300,000 from only 68,000 in Howard's first year of office (See Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald at http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/backscratching-at-a-national-level/2007/06/12/1181414298095.htm

However, a good many important facts are overlooked when these claims of low unemployment are made. Many of the jobs that people are forced to take are not the same kinds of jobs that were on offer a generation or more ago. Many occupations are casualised with no career path. The hours are often shorter and unpredictable. Largely, thanks to "Work Choices" provisions for penalty rates have been effectively removed.

One categories of very unpleasant and work which appear to be booming is traffic controller. The frenetic expanson of road building to cope with our enforced poulation growth has created the necessity for ever more people to control the flow of traffic past roadworks and construction sites. It would be hard to imagine a less interesting and more unhealthy occupation than to stand at the side of a road in the hot sun from the order of six to ten hours per day breathing in poisonous car and truck fumes.

Other categories in our emplyment 'boom' would inlcude telemarketing, delivery of junk mail, casual unloading containers (low paid work that leaves one physically exhausted after having worked, and been paid for, only four hours).

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Our economy has largely shifted away from a situation where practically every motivated person could aspire to achieving a stimulating socially useful and well paid job to what we have now.

The number of jobs in Australia's now booming mining sector still seems insignificant compared to Austalia's overall population. Also, this industry is not sustainable in the longer term because it depends upon the extraction of finite non-renewable resources and is contributing unacceptably to the planet's grave current environmental problems.

Quite correct Dagget, but we haven't seen anything yet. Imagine this scenario....

Believing the "boom times" will last forever because big business and the Government tells us so, people become even more indebted to financial institutions because they mistakenly believe they'll have all the time they need to pay it back. "Hey, lets wack a new LCD TV on the credit card." "Don't worry about taking 40 years to pay off the house, we'll be able to go straight onto the pension by then and live on clover." "So we owe half a million? Who cares!"

Now, some years down the track, exactly what you predict happens Dagget and the mining boom comes to an end due to resource depletion. The world will never be the same again. We'll have the mother of all depressions and it will never end. People will starve as the "green revolution' grinds to a halt, but people will continue to carry that terrible debt. That's when it gets worse....much worse!

The Government of the day will tear up any workchoice legislation concerning "fair pay" and force all those who owe money to work off the loan. It will be structured so that those people will never be debt free and big business will have an army of slaves to work practically free of charge. Oh yes, they'll be given a sustenance wage. It's here already. It's called "work for the dole" only when times get hard, all indebted people will work for the dole.

Howard is busily laying the groundwork for this type of future, a future he knows full well is coming and will see all those mums and dad investors struggling to survive. Serves the mums and dads right I say. It is, after all, their greed that continues to prop up a business regime whose only interest lies in making even more obscene profits at the expense of all who fall into their ruthless trap.

yes, aime, you're right: pollies are nasty. but you have just said that most ozzies are dim. you're right there, too.

so what's the solution? wish really hard that pollies will be kind uncles? that's the usual suggestion. bound to work some day, and may be we'll all win lotto if it doesn't. so relax, she'll be right.

Demos said....
"but you have just said that most ozzies are dim. you're right there, too."

Good grievous bodily harm Demos, I said no such thing, although I suppose I did allude to the fact that all mum and dad investors are greedy. Actually, I don't believe that either. I think it's more the case that mums and dads have been conned into thinking that politicians can somehow manage to keep the economy wheels in motion despite the fact that resource depletion is already starting to bite. Australia is over populated for the amount of arable land available on the continent and Howard's mob insists on bringing in more and more foreigners in order to prop up an economy that will, in due course, fail.

It's high time small investors woke up to the fact that it's THEIR hard earned that will go up in a cloud of bull dust once history repeats itself (as it will) and the economy goes belly up. If Labor is in power when it happens, the Libs will say "I told you so" like a spoilt little adolescent brat. Should the Coalition be in power, I'll laugh like hell, but I refuse to vote for either of them.

By the way Demos, what did you suggest we write on the ballot paper? I'm actually beginning to warm to the idea.

be still my heart!

aime. i have a simple plan: don't vote for politicians. they have no legitimacy without your vote, so take it away.

if you, me, and a few hundred thousand others write only "democracy" on our ballot paper, and support the push for democracy with a plan for citizen initiative and direct election of ministers, one of the parties will make this plan their policy, or we'll start another 'constitutional' party.

it will take a few years, need patience, etc. but it's the only way to do it legally and non-violently.

not very glamorous, huh. but it will work if/when ozzians decide they want democracy.

"Our economy has largely shifted away from a situation where practically every motivated person could aspire to achieving a stimulating socially useful and well paid job to what we have now."

Well in the West, things have certainly changed. Young peoples
aspirations have gone through the roof, so that every 20 year
old thinks they deserve to be CEO and earn 100K+, with talent
or without talent. People have lost touch with reality and
are getting it far too easy, thats the real problem.

(Apologies to all for my appalling spelling and grammatic errors above. At least I have been able to fix then at: http://candobetter.org/node/98)

Aime wrote: "... but I refuse to vote for either of them."

Please think very carefully before you throw your vote away. However disgusted we we feel about Rudd's sell-out of Tasmanian old-growth forests, as just one of many possible examples, the choice between Rudd and Howard is still a very important one. If Howard is re-elected it will be interpreted as am endorsement by the Australian electorate of "Work Choices", the Iraq war, environmental vandalism, the privatisation of Telstra, "Welfare to Servitude" etc, etc.

If Rudd is elected then at least his mandate to pursue policies as reactionary as Howard's, will not be nearly as great, should our worst fears about Rudd be realised. In that case, it is far more likely that people would look towards an alternative that is beter than both Labor and the Liberals than would be the case if the Liberals were re-elected.

To allow Howard to be re-elected yet again after all the crimes he has committed is really asking to be kicked in the teeth.

By all means give your preference to a good independent, or if one does not exist, then to the Greens or to the democrats, but please make sure that your vote flows to Labor ahead of Howard's Liberal Party.

"To allow Howard to be re-elected yet again after all the crimes he has committed is really asking to be kicked in the teeth."

Unfortunately Dagget, very true! However, Labor needs a swing of 17 seats to win office outright I believe and the only bad reaction to Howard I see on the nightly news is minimal to say the least. Idiots seem to be only too willing to run from their little sheeple flock to warmly shake his hand as he passes by, well, except for a group of workers in WA yesterday :-)

Yes, many Australians hate what Howard has done on several fronts and the polls currently represent their disapproval, but come election time, the polls won't matter a damn! People will vote the way they always have because for some strange reason, they're too stupid to realise that the Australian Government is not controlled by the head of their party when in power. It's controlled by the huge war mongering corporations of America. Australia is simply a fly caught in their web. There is no escape.

Through draconian legislation, Australians will be brought down one peg at a time until we're all slaves of these massive empires, so what's the harm in swapping political parties every now and then? It makes it easier for Howard to comply with his US counterparts should we follow him like sheep, but in the end it really doesn't matter, we may as well vote for Rudd, or the Greens, or..... not at all!

I remember a time when the new PM one BOB Hawke was going to rid Australia of Pine Gap. The US empire took him aside, had a word in his ear and the matter was swiftly swept under the rug. The American message is... "Don't step on our interests or you'll be crushed!"

DEMOS, you advocate direct democracy, and I notice from one of your other posts that you are a Yank. Do you not see the damage that has been caused to that country by direct election of leaders (eg the president)? Our system is far from perfect, but I'll take it over yours anyday.

Like many things in our lives, we dont have the time to effectively address every issue confront the country as a whole. So like a number of other things, we hire someone to do the job for us. Unfotunately, the field of candidates are pretty poor, so we tend to hire the ones that we think will do the least amount of damage, rather than the ones we think will do good.

What we need is greater accountability from policitians at every level. There needs to be serious consequences for wrong or harmful actions. Not just loss of office. Jail terms would be a good start. It certainly calmed Pauline Hanson down. It would be more than beneficial for a few others to cool their heels for a few months. we could probably start with anyone that's been in politics for more than 10 years.....

The point is that the figures of "low unemployment" are flawed by real definition and the ways that this distribution equates in reality.

Cooktown and Cape York has 25-28% unemployment.

Two; the population shifts to casual, and alternative employment where it is stressed reflects the ludicrous failure in skills distribution needs in the work force and deepen the complexity of planning for future training.

It is here that the risks are being transfered onto both the present and future inter-generations of Australian society.

As dagget points out; "Many occupations are casualised with no career path. The hours are often shorter and unpredictable."

This will burden Australias long term economic productive outcomes and will add weight to future unbalances due to skills shortages, pariculary in rural and isolated Australia.

http://www.miacat.com/
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The low unemployment is a direct result of DEMOGRAPHICS, not necessarily economic management.

Simply put ... when plenty of babies are born they will mature into a workforce with plenty of peer competition for jobs - high unemployment. That was the case during the "baby boomer" era which started after World War II.

What we are in now is the opposite situation to that. Birth rates a generation ago were way down on previous generations, therefore not so many young people maturing into the workforce.

At the other end of the demographic, the baby boomer oldies are starting to retire in big numbers, and there aren't enough up-and-comers to replace them. Equating to low unemployment, and a "skills shortage" (which Howard has ignored for a decade).

Five simple words: "The Ageing of the Workforce"

It would not matter what party was in power. There would still be low unemployment.