Will Abbott sell us out?

This is a policy so many people voted for. I guess Abbott has a mandate to sell us out.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/abbott-open-for-business-and-multinational-lawsuits/700/

 

It's up to the opposition to drag this out into the public eye. Let's see if they do.

 

Actually, I think they may wait a bit longer until it is more than opposition speculation...

 

Well if this happens it just proves my deleted topic (Rule 11 what ever that is) Shut the door, turn off the lights, board up the windows. Australia is open for business.

 

Well if this happens it just proves my deleted topic (Rule 11 what ever that is) Shut the door, turn off the lights, board up the windows. Australia is open for business.

 

You can say that again.

 

Bazinga!

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This is typical isn't it. If i mention something of little relative importance like refugees, i'll get 4 pages of guff. But something as serious as this gets virtually no attention by people on this board.

 

I think that there should be some process for resolving international disputes like these - likely we should have a clearly agreed upon set of rules, and have an independent arbitrator of mutual selection decide the outcome according to the rules established.

The Coalition's approach seems a bit crude - I'd like us to move in the direction of regional interaction in the Asia Pacific, and a non-interventionist foreign policy.

I dislike the Coalition's general policy toward the United States. They're too subservient. We need to assert our independence.

 

I just lolled out loud!

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I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for this to appear in our media.

 

This may be more about BHP, Rio Tinto, and those like them, than it is about the U.S.

Corporations are running countries. In fact I would go as far to say that our two major parties are corporations themselves. Hundreds of years ago power was everything, nothing has changed.

We really do not need this, as the article states we have little to gain as a country and so much more to lose. This is about paying off big business for their favours.

Not good at all. The ALP know about this as it has been on the table for both their terms, but their silence is deafening. Maybe they are too busy to be an opposition, after all they are producing that great new drama series......The Power Of Two. Or is it Albo the great........ Slayer of trash teeth.

 

We're to blame. We've let the corporations become powerful without bolstering the authority of our politicians, our parliaments. We're frightened of corporations, we're so frightened of them that we failed to give our pollies the balls to deal with them. Instead we elect the corporate sycophants who will do exactly what the corporations want. The clue will be in the Coalition industrial relations policy which we haven't yet seen. The vanguard is at it though, Reith was on The Drum banging on about the "damage" being done by the present IR laws. Watch out workers, it's sliding down the hill towards you!

 

I do not believe that the Coalition want to be known as a term government. There will be changes, but workchoices is dead. I cant see how the current system is that bad that it needs major change. Outside of a situation that I know about currently where a women was hired by a small business less than twelve months ago. She has fallen pregnant in that time and is currently off sick. This is all fair enough. However she went to her doctor and he has told her that she should not work any more than 1 day a week to alleviate stress. This does not help the small business as they need and thought they hired a full time employee. Needless to say she is not entitled to maternity leave as she has worked less than 12 months, however there is nothing the business can do legally before she actually takes maternity. Yes she doesn't get paid as she has no sick leave left, but the business can not hire anyone as she is entitled to her job until she leaves to have the child. An absolute stink. No measures have been put in place for this situation. An obscure case that shows some of the deficiencies in the current system.

 

Actually I believe this and refugees are fairly equal.

Australia's business dealings with the world and the security of sovereignty and that's our international relations. We tend to get a bit cocky sometimes because we have always had friends with big sticks.

Big sticks aren't as affective as they were, you can't nuke the war on terrorism into submission, although I am sure that there are some that would love to try.

Borders are being crossed every second, in nearly every country in the world. There is millions living in refugee camps and millions more homeless. But they see and hear, some have mobile phones, some have the internet, some have tv.

They see that there is more, they are not greedy, they are hungry, they are dirty, they are thirsty. They are dying of diseases we can't imagine having, their bodies, minds and souls are rotting.

We have this picture that they are all evil, terrorists or criminals or just wanting to come here and bludge of our welfare system. What we have to do is set up a complete system.

Take Afghanistan, when we needed them we imported them into Australia. Some of these people are going through persecution nearly equivalent to what the Jews went through, not in scale though or as organised, ethnic cleansing is still on the menu.

Australia is a funny place, nearly all of us live in a very tiny area, we have raped the life out of most of the other land we could inhabit. A hundred miles or there abouts East of Broken Hill is a town called Wilcannia. It's on the road to Perth and Adelaide, there is plenty of land, water etc, it's just out the back of nowhere, the councils motto is "Middle of nowhere, centre of everywhere". There's Alice Springs, Bourke. We already have a basic infrastructure. We need to open the continent up, to harvest the flood waters of central Australia. Build super highways out to Broken Hill, there diverge to Broken Hill and Alice Springs, on up to Darwin. Another arm heads towards South Australia, branching down to Adelaide and to Perth.

There are thousands of middle eastern refugees who would be happy to work on the infrastructure and later in developing the regions. We need to open up the desert areas as has been done in the US.

Big problems need big solutions, I know one can be made to satisfy all if we (the smart country) put our collective minds to it and put our prejudices aside.

If we only had a visionary government and people.

 

The business can hire a replacement on a temporary basis to cover someone who is off on long term sick leave, I think. I would be surprised if they were forbidden from doing so. If that were the case then yes, that is definitely not acceptable.

 

Sounds easy enough to just hire a temporary replacement. Most businesses need their staff to be as stable as possible. In cases where team work is important, which are most cases, it`s highly inefficient, even dangerous to not have a stable labour base. To train staff for specific roles, is expensive in terms of training costs, interruption of output flow, and the inevitable costs of systemic disruption and inefficiencies that come with the engagement of any new staff member. Existing staff always have to "carry" more load, during transitional periods. There is also the matter of finding a temporary replacement, someone who is prepared to switch on and off like a light bulb, so someone else can "own" their job. This in itself, is a major imbalance, a double standard.

 

The complications I understand. But any business that is going to succeed should be able to handle various personnel situations.

 

look businesses will always complain and everything will cause disaster.
Shorter working weeks, annual leave, unfair dismissal laws all were touted to bring disaster.

We work faster, cheaper, more efficiently than we ever have, most, 99% of business CAN make the necessary arrangements IF THEY WANTED TOO.

 

For any business to succeed, it has to overcome / survive all manner of obstacles. This dosen`t in any way justify an "open season" approach. Wonder why some business people develop a siege mentality, lose respect for workers?

 

Nominating those "other people" to carry more load, too easy. The love of other people`s money is the root of all evil.

 

This is a high end executive position not a an assistant. Who would you get that is happy to commit to an unspecified term of employment at any level let alone one at an executive level ? Diuretic, at this level there is rarely someone qualified who would commit to temporary. This, i know, is a rare case but it highlights a hole in the system, only this time it is on the other side. So it is not always business that is the bad guy, it cuts both ways.

I dont think we could get it fair and equal, as it only takes one to wreck it for everyone. Human nature.

 

Had exactly that situation at a previous workplace. The executive, like most these days had both an assistant and a p.a. Because they had a significant amount of notice, the prognosis was well known in most cases, a contingency plan was developed.

Different duties were assigned to the different members of the team. Their immediate line manager also absorbed some duties, as did another executive in a parallel but overlapping department.

Afterwards, upon her return to work, an analysis of the project showed that in some way everybody benefited.

 

But then again someone will know of a few hundred cases where it would be extremely difficult so we had better prejudice a hundred thousand or so mothers then a thousand or so businesses ... maybe. We aren't so sure of the policies prognosis.

 

Actually it is prejudicing a hundreds and thousands of WOMEN. One of the major issues is that WOMEN have babies not men, thus there is much discrimination. This is why a decent policy in this area is necessary.

 

Great post! It puts another slant on "Being open for business"! Abbott is obviously in support of foreign investment in our farmland, which has valid reasoning to a degree but question marks over sovereignty in the long run, but you add ISDS on top and it looks as though Australia will not only be sold out in terms of land but business investment. I think we can start to be really concerned about our long term prospects as a sovereign nation. It's a wonder we haven't heard from Mario on this one...lol! I hate to say it but it is looking more and more like heading towards a "One World Government"!

 

Basically, in the endevours to make things equal for women in the workforce, what they have inadvertantly done is make women of child bearing age unemployable. A regrettful situation no doubt, but unfortunately we don't live in a world candy canes and marshmellow.