Australian Politics -- and YOU WILL LIKE IT

[simmo41]

@bigallan

My annoyance with the ABC was not left or right driven, but that, at the national news level, it was ill informed and presented developments in other States from a Sydney centric perspective and on occasion was factually incorrect.
I do have a gripe that, in the interests of so called balance, the ABC selects some hopeless and uninformed panelists for its programs, when some depth of expertise is needed.

for mine, we are making the same point but wording it differently

[handypoint]

So we are apparently finally getting some wage increases across the economy and the government wants to open the doors to millions of migrants?

I mean exactly how does that serve us in the short to medium term? Increasing the supply of said workers?

Any economically minded blitzers explain?

Since we have had record immigration wage increases across the country appear to be well fairly paltry.

And I think most could agree that there’s now a little bit of a problem around wages vs the cost of say a dwelling?

I mean I get bring in a few chefs allows perhaps a new restaurant which can then employ say some waiters.

But really how many skilled migrants (and locals) end up say driving Uber as extra workers simply crowd out the job market for their genuine skills?

[barnz]

helps political donators business owners

[FuriousGeorge]

@IceTemple

@RedandBlackPartisan

So Morrison went on the attack, said something which wasn’t true, then changed the meaning of what he said when confronted with what had actually occurred. All in the space of an hour.

yep

“but I don’t lie”

Yes Scott, but I can say you rarely tell the truth and you manipulate your words to give you an out, which is deception/misrepresentation. One is as a bad as the other Scott.

It’s this sort of ■■■■■■■■■■■ that leads normal people to tune out whatever politicians say on the assumption they are always lying. And our Prime Marketer does it more than just about anyone.

[Aceman]

Definitely need more fruit pickers

[Toast]

Well now they have a mandatory minimum wage they shouldn’t be too hard to find

[Aceman]

I don’t know anyone who would do it even if you got $50/hr. Absolute crap work

[Diggers]

This should help explain the LNP’s position on how to best get between the working people of Australia and wage increases.

Alan Kohler: Farmers and business want to import cheaper workers

[Aceman]

I’m not sure that the writer of that piece knows what a “slave” is.
No one is forcing these people to come and accept those wages. Perhaps if more people said no to it the farmers would have no option but to raise prices

[handypoint]

It’s that explains the coincidence that around 96 is when a real disconnect between wages and house prices begins.

Thanks Johnny.

[Diggers]

I’m pretty sure A Kohler knows what a slave is.

The LNP was pretty smart with how it went about setting up the visa process. In order to be able to stay in the country longer than 2x years, the young traveler is compelled to work in a designated rural area for 12x weeks at some point during their stay.

So when you say “if only more people said no to farmers etc”, turns out they didn’t have a choice.

[Diggers]

He’s the hero of the aspirational Australian. That is if you’re aspiring to be a piece of sh*t.

[Aceman]

Still doesn’t make them a slave.
These people do have a choice, genuine slaves have no choice

[handypoint]

@Aceman

I’m not sure that the writer of that piece knows what a “slave” is.
No one is forcing these people to come and accept those wages. Perhaps if more people said no to it the farmers would have no option but to raise prices

Aside from farming as diggers points out, the other impact has been to depress middle class wages.

Unskilled labour to some extent(although this has been eroded) is protected by award wages.

It’s the depression of skilled labour. That is one factor which has helped exacerbate the difference in median wage to median housing costs.

[Diggers]

Ok. I’m going to leave you to ponder the semantics of the word ‘slave’ rather than discuss the diabolical brilliance of how the LNP found a way to supply it’s rural brethren with an endless supply of cheap labour whilst simultaneously managing to suppress wage growth for the locals.

[Humble_Minion]

@Aceman

I’m not sure that the writer of that piece knows what a “slave” is.
No one is forcing these people to come and accept those wages. Perhaps if more people said no to it the farmers would have no option but to raise prices

People have said no to it, in droves, and the farmers have instead whined to the govt until they got their captive pittance labor back.

(TBH I expect farmers CAN’T raise prices, they’re probably locked in to long-term contracts with the supermarket oligopoly)

I have very, very little sympathy for the farmers in this case though. In normal times I do a couple of hiking trips a year and stay in hostels, and the stories the backpackers tell you about farm work rounds are hair-raising. They have to do it for visa extensions, and the farmers know it, so the famers soak them for accomodation fees, food, water, heating/cooling, transport. Generally the workers have zero choice, they can either pay the farmer (or the farmer’s mates) through the nose for this stuff or they can take the highway - even if you can find cheaper accomodation, the farmer won’t hire you unless you pay his monopoly. In the case of a backpacker, that means no visa extension. In the case of a picker on a working visa, they’re tied to their employer so it means deportation immediately. The backpackers I talk to generally accept they’re not going to make money in their 3 months work or whatever, they just work to extend their visa and after all the farmers’ sneaky cuts, hope to break even.,

And the conditions are vile - not just the work, that’s accepted to be hard, but the accomodation is generally filthy and falling apart, and the farmers are generally utter arseholes. I’ve seen backpackers passing around lists of farmers to avoid cos they’ll have cameras in the shower block, or they’ll wander into the girls dorm at night, or they’ll give the girls a discount on hot water if they pick in bikinis, etc etc. The lists are LONG. It’s absolutely endemic. And these are relatively well-off English-speaking backpackers - pickers on temporary work visas or with poor english would be much more ripe for exploitation.

Remember it’s not the GOOD farmers who use these people, generally. There are Australian professional pickers who are very good at their jobs and who are paid accordingly. But those people are good enough that they can choose their employers, and they choose not to work for ■■■■■■. The leftover farmers, who have to use visaed workers, are disproportionately made up of the ones who, rather than choosing not to be scumbags, prefer to whine to their local National MP to get captive cheap overseas labor instead.

Seriously, if you ever want to be broken of the romantic illusion that farmers are all robust honest hardworking good-natured salt-of-the-earth solid blokes it’d be great to have a beer with, hang around with some backpackers for a while.

[handypoint]

They(the English) don’t have to do it any more.

Now it’s south East Asians on ag visas.

They will come because it beats the conditions they have at home. With an eye for PR afterwards

[Diggers]

They don’t have to but they will. So will the Europeans. And people from the South Pacific. As long as sh*t wages here are a) more than what they can earn at home or b) linked to a visa extension they will continue to come. And the agrarian socialists will continue to get their cheap labour, the trickle down enthusiasts will get their wage suppression targets met and the rest of us will get what we deserve.

[tinhillterror]

Sounds a bit like my treatment working in a pub in London. Glad to see our reciprocal visas is still a thing

[simmo41]

@Aceman

Still doesn’t make them a slave.
These people do have a choice, genuine slaves have no choice

never thought i’d see “no true scotsman” applied to slavery, but hey we did it blitz