My bad on the interest rates. I meant tax rates.
Fair work Australia might well have been set up by the Gillard government. Are you suggesting that the current government left these ex union officials there and they were the ones who allowed the overtime payments to be cut? I doubt it. The government needs to take more responsibility for these cuts and not hide behind some committee.
Yup. Thats the exact purpose of FWA - in theory to interdependently set base wage levels and awards which Govco implements. They haven't changed OT rates - just Sunday penalty rates. Interestingly Shorten prior to the decision said 'we will accept the verdict of the independent umpire'. Then when it became politically opportune for him he changed his stance. Has a fair history on that one - just ask Gillard
The whole idea of overtime rates or more correctly penalty rates in the first was to make it uneconomical and allow people to spend more time with their families. I know and have been guilty of it myself of working every hour that I could. I worked in the mines 11 on 3 off purely for the money. Would I have been as interested in working there if there were no overtime rates? Who knows I wasn't faced with that situation We didn't have children so the effect on family life was not the same as someone who could not watch their children say play Saturday sport.
OT rates haven't changed. Penalties for working weekends have changed for some awards.
Regarding the banks there are people who should have gone to jail to in effect get some paltry fine. Go ask the person who has lost his house because of what the bank did to him what he thinks of their conduct and what would have happened to him if he had done the same.
Moving forward, what exactly do you want changed with regards to banks. Retribution is fine but the key is what should change to make things better going forward?
The senate is not just made up of LNP, Labor and the Greens, it is also the independents. We have the ludicrous situation that some one who received 19 votes could possibly decide the fate of the country. That is the hand that they are dealt so that is the game they have to play. And both side of politics play that game. Remember the antics of Abbot when the he was in opposition?
Regarding our national debt, part of of is made up through things that are out of our control. The country imports 80% of its oil and it is paid for in US dollars. It was only a few years ago that we had parity with the US dollar, now we are paying approximately one third more and once again the cost of a barrel of oil is going up. We need to look harder into electric cars as one way of reducing our dependency on oil. For a person like myself who has 3 v8's this is going to require a change of attitude. It might take some time.
You are confusing private debt (that made up of companies and private individual borrowing money) and public debt is that of government borrowing money for government things.
Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey killed off the car industry
Lolololol - you are so misinformed it's actually hilarious.
Here we go again…. “Abbott and Hockey killed the car industry”
Holden decided to close the day after Hockey asked them to put up, or shut up and piss off…….yeah, right.
Holden should have closed its doors in 1987 when the VL Nissan engine deal sent them broke.
Please do some historical reading about the Australian car industry, which goes back a lot further than 2014, as I am not going to try to explain it …. again.
Holden were broke much earlier than that - was the early 80's and GM bailed them out. The VL was a big leap forward for them and things went from strength to strength thru the VN/P/R/S years to the pinnacle around VX/Y.
In reality, and I have given it a lot of thought and research, I think Holden leaving Australia was caused by many, many factors. The button plan was great for it's day but wasn't adjusted to keep up with the times. Both sides of Government have to put their hands up on that one.
GM also putting their beaks in thinking they knew how to do things better and really fked things (and continue to do so to this day). Many point the finger at unions but I suspect their culpability was not big. Cost of energy (power) was a big factor, being a huge input cost to the car and even at the subsidised rates they are paying, it's way over the odds compared to most of the world.
The Aus$ was terrible for Holden at the time also played a substantial part.
In reality the decision was made well in advance with the only question being 'when'. The only contribution the LNP had was nothing more than bringing the inevitable decision (and they knew an announcement was due within days) to ahead. Anybody who thinks a car company makes such a decision within 6 weeks of a government being elected has rocks in their heads and clearly has no knowledge of how Auto manufacturing actually works.
