Readers respond to business leaders’ negative take on the 4.75 per cent wage rise for Australia’s lowest-paid workers.
. Please include your home address and telephone number. No attachments, please include your letter in the body of the email. The argument that basic wages should not rise because of the impact on small business seems plausible but is immoral.
Capitalist economic thinking revolves around aspiration, where all should be able to develop their good ideas, or follow their passions, and improve their lives with the hard work and risk involved in setting up a business. The resulting increase in personal wealth then benefits all in society with some wealth generated trickling down to all.
However, the reality is that about 50 per cent of small businesses fold within three years. Many aspirationals make misguided assessments about their ideas, abilities and the markets they hope to serve. To argue thousands of people should sacrifice their standard of life to ensure these businesses can survive does not pass the pub test. And it exacerbates the two existential challenges of inequality and destruction of the biosphere.
”, 3/6). This pay rise is still inadequate though because it “keeps workers worse off than they were before the pandemic when accounting for inflation”. Apparently the “only way to sustain higher wages was through higher productivity”, says the Australian Chamber of Commerce. So perhaps baristas could hurry up and make more coffees more quickly.
Nurses should run between patients. Obviously, lower-paid workers can do little to increase productivity. What has this country come to? What about a fair go?
Economics, politicians and leaders need to look at better ways to make a bigger pie rather than expect lower-paid workers to do the heavy lifting by being content with low wages. Why is there an outcry by business every time the lower-paid workers in our society receive any kind of pay rise, large or small?
What businesses all need to understand, if they don’t already, is that if you pay your employees more each week, the extra dollars will be spent buying more of their products and services. Don’t they deserve it? This will in turn help to keep their businesses operating for longer, and it will also mean that companies can afford to invest in their businesses to the benefit of the entire community.
It starkly contrasts with pay rises to those who are paid much more but will most likely spend the extra dollars on expensive overseas junkets and expensive motor vehicles, and plough their dollars into the stock market. As expected, the usual suspects – the Coalition, of course – and employer groups are unhappy with the lowest-paid workers getting a pay increase. The usual excuse is trotted out: “It isn’t the right time.
” Perhaps they could point to the last “right time”. They would have to go far back in history, and even then they wouldn’t find it because it has never happened. Of course, it is always the right time for corporate bonuses for the bosses. Every time there is an increase in the minimum wage, business groups come out with the same catastrophic predictions: small businesses will collapse, unemployment will rise and the sky will fall in.
After the last increase, how many of these things happened? Jim Chalmers’ budget has got many of us talking about aspiration. Changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing have shifted the dial on political debate. Young people with aspirations to enter the housing market buoyed versus the crushed aspirations of those wanting to get ahead with their dreams to build their own businesses.
My aspiration is for us all to take a broader view, so that we all do better. We could aspire to have well-paid teachers, police and nurses. We could aspire to have fully funded social security and disability services. We could aspire to have the best hospitals.
We could aspire to fully fund public schools. Of course, all these things require buckets of money and a good government to see that the taxes collected are well managed. Is it fair that the entrepreneurs, who generate jobs, are also able to find all sorts of mechanisms at their disposal to reduce their own personal tax obligations? Let’s find some better ways to support business ventures.
This might even help us to better define our Australian values. As a political party claiming to have top billing as the “party of choice” for the electorate, it would appear that it lacks a coherent accounting of what truly matters to Australians – health and Medicare being No.1. We deserve better, and I believe voters will reject Hanson’s ill-considered methods.
As Price rightly says, they are more of a “permanent protest movement built on fear-driven rhetoric, rather than substantive solutions”. Jenna Price has scoured the One Nation website for coherent policies but she finds very little on core policies such as health. Many interviewed people are saying they may vote for One Nation to “try something different”.
We can look across to the US where they have “tried something different”, and the world is still trying to come to terms with the results. The observation “Perhaps regulation could include polling subjects being tested ... if they haven’t got a clue then don’t ask them to comment” should be extended to filter out my friends and neighbours who have no intention of supporting One Nation even though they profess otherwise.
They are simply tired of being misled and deceived, fed up with extreme political correctness and reject “Yes23-style” directives – “We know best, just do as you are told”. Labelling them racist if they question population and immigration policy has political consequences. The first, winding up others with utterances designed to provoke responses of shock, horror and disbelief from their highly educated comrades. The last?
A “1” next to One Nation, but it won’t come to that. Ignorance means lacking knowledge or awareness of a topic. Charlie Pickering yesterday derided many of the people who protest against the current genocide in Gaza and the West Bank as “ignorant a lot of the time” . Both conflicts have cost a huge loss of life and civil and economic infrastructure, and are grinding on in an endless stalemate due to the excessive and misplaced pride of Putin and Trump.
Similarly, the protagonists in the Levant seem incapable of recognising the many years of past and future trauma caused by the grievous, massive destruction in that region. Other nations, including middle powers such as Australia, must become much more active in condemning reckless acts of aggression, including those initiated by “allies”. At the same time, they must do what they can to strengthen civil society and economies in the developing world to help reduce poverty and other precursors to unrest.
”, 3/5), which details the bloodshed caused by fascist governments. I support democracy but would note that the historical record is more complicated than a simple contrast between fascist and democratic states. In my reading of world history, many nations that described themselves as democratic were responsible for immense suffering within their overseas empires. Massacres, forced starvation, repression, torture and other abuses committed under colonial rule have been extensively documented by historians.
The victims of these democratic nations were no less dead because the governments responsible held elections at home. As Hall explains, with Australia already 1.5 degrees warmer than when records began, the impacts of an El Nino become even more severe. Rural and regional communities, in particular, need support to prepare for increased risks of fires, drought and extreme heat.
But when the Albanese government isn’t even willing to properly tax the polluting gas companies driving climate change, it’s hard not to feel that ordinary Australians are being left to face the heat alone. I wholeheartedly agree with Robert Redlich, integrity experts and others calling to give IBAC follow-the-dollar powers greater use of public hearings, a broader definition of corruption, and adequate funding. These changes need to happen now and not after the state election.
I also believe we urgently need an investigation independent of government into the alleged corruption, rorting and illegal behaviour on Big Build projects. I urge every Victorian MP and candidate in this year’s state election to remember their promise to serve the people of Victoria. Not just in the lead-up to the election when election promises fly thick and fast, but every day. Corruption affects us all.
Transparency International sums it up well: “Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis. ””, 3/6).
However, after deeper thought it is really a personal decision and everyone is different. That she has been called selfish by others shows how people do not respect difference. The choice to have children is an important one and must be done freely – bringing children into our world, which is becoming more violent, is also a serious one. The irony is that many women long to have children and struggle with being childless.
However, it is certainly an individual decision. With the serious threat of climate change, and an increasingly violent world, it is not an ideal decision to bring children into it. As a parent and a grandparent, I worry for my family. My children and grandchildren light up my world, but the world I am leaving them is a lot more troubled than the one I was born into.
I’m sure Apple Corps wants the residents of Savile Row to let it be and allow the rooftop concert exhibit to be built . However, if the residents choose to resist, they’ll have to work eight days a week, and with a little help from their friends, to take this sad song and make it better. It looks as if there is a long and winding road ahead. Help!
ANZ, AFL, MP and CFA are easy for me to add the words they represent. But IBAC was repeated at least 24 times in yesterday’s. Finding out the words was my mission. On the opinion/letters pages: Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.
Now I’m happy to read on. The arrival of the shipload of 5000electric vehicles means there will be 5000 fortunate new EV owners less affected by the non-arrival of the shiploads of diesel and petrol (“I wonder if all the economists who are concerned that the recent increase to the minimum wage may be inflationary will be knocking back their annual remuneration increases for the very same reason.
It would be a surprise if bosses did not predict doom and gloom every time there is a pay rise. Shane Wright tells us the 4.75 per cent rise to the minimum wage is an inflation problem. I would prefer to argue world inflation is a threat to workers if they don’t get a pay rise. How long before the used subs are downgraded to conventional subs?
At the current rate, we’ll be lucky if we get delivered foot-long subs.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
ATSB investigates engine shut down in remote plane crashThe Australian Transport Safety Bureau releases its preliminary report into how a small aircraft crashed in mangroves, with five passengers and two pilots on board.
Read more »
Allan no longer able to bat away questionsReaders react after the premier concedes that IBAC needs a broader remit to investigate corruption in state institutions.
Read more »
Readers' Picks: Books that Capture London's Spirit Across Time and GenreGuardian readers share their recent reading experiences, highlighting a diverse array of books connected by the theme of London. The discussion covers novels that blend magical realism with historical settings, nonfiction accounts of immigrant stories, poetry collections, and Shakespearean scholarship. The selections range from re-reads that have lingered for over a decade to newly discovered works that explore the city's endless histories and its capacity to both dissolve and be home.
Read more »
A roof with a view and a hiker’s reward – readers’ best photographsA selection of Guardian readers’ photographs from around the world
Read more »