mauriesy

So pick the biggest odd-ball nutcase, who accosts Prime Ministers in the street with no respect, and portray them as mainstream?

Ray O'Connor Wayde Smith Michael Cobb Andrew Olexander Tony Packard Barry Morris Brian Austin Leisha Harvey Geoff Muntz Don Lane Henry Bolte would have joined that list if he didn't have a friend in pathology. Every party has had its share of crooks.

Just get up every morning at 3.30.

Furnival may not have committed a crime, but he's misused his position dreadfully. Conflict of interest up to the eyeballs.

Thomson is a disgrace (and deserves time in jail). So is this guy: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/alcohol-lobby-link-to-dumping-health-body-20140217-32wft.html It's supposed to be the Ministry for Health, not the Ministry for Poor Health or the Ministry for the Alcohol Industry. Just as well Furnival resigned as he is corrupt.

Funny how Smith is claiming Mitchell Johnson is taking 'lower order wickets'. He took five of their top seven, including the two openers, in both SAf innings.

Last year Pedersen was strongly and rightly criticised for that incident where he tapped the ball on with both hands rather than mark it when he heard footsteps. On Friday night he crashed a pack and nearly took out Vickery. I think every player should be entitled to a clean slate under Roos, who seems to have the capability to bring out new levels of commitment from his players. BTW, love the way Vickery can mark a Melbourne player's head in both hands and not give away a free.

What the rightist idealogues don't understand about agriculture, indeed many industries, is the need to assist transformation to help make them more competitive. They read too much from Andrew Bolt, the IPA and the Productivity Commission and think money is for 'bail-outs' to keep doing what farmers have always done. They should get out around farmers, go to field days and start watching programs like Landline to see where farming is headed, the terrific innovations that are taking place and how government assistance can really help. I've been working in the dairying industry for 25 years. A friend farms 200ha of fresh vegetables near where I live. To just treat these industries in a 'sink or swim' fashion in the current uneven market and economic circumstances would be disastrous. I have no doubt that without government help, CCA would have just closed its SPC division as a lost cause and walked away. It would have led to huge economic implications for the Goulburn Valley and a depression in the area. All for $25 million. SPC is basically a traditional cannery (with some updating for plastic containers). What modern food processing needs is the capability to process and market fruit in a more fresh manner, using techniques such as plastic snack packs and vacuum sealing. The assistance asked for was to transition and modernise these lines, not just as a 'bail-out' to retain existing inefficient means of production. BTW, China currently puts a 20% tariff on fruit and fruit products imported from Australia. We put a zero tariff on fruit imported from China.

I see JKH every second night, walking down that subway with his headphones on, worried about shadows that turn out to be protective services officers.

Trouble is they're not always free. They're skewed. For instance, SPC is battling against dumped imported fruit, retailed in Woolworths and Coles, that is sold for 26% below the cost of production. That's not just an opinion, it's the finding last week of the Anti-Dumping Commission. The Australian Government hasn't even applied punitive tariffs. Ford was looking for somewhere in the world to build a new engine plant that would produce aluminium and magnesium alloy engines. The plant at Geelong, which produces older cast iron blocks, could have been upgraded, but Ford were offered $500 million assistance by the US State of Michigan to build a plant there instead. Guess which alternative they took, and who lost out? They are the sort of 'distortions' in the free-market you are ignoring.

I'm asking about future industry policy, not the past. I'd like to know what the government will do to to help build trade, jobs and the standard of living. Other than leaving it to the market. Is there ever a place for industry support?

Those were the days when wine selection was easy. No such thing as a cabernet sauvignon with aromas of blackberry, wet grass and oak. Just Claret. In a cask or flagon.

It's a government choice to let the car industry go. Not one I necessarily wholly agree with, but it's done and dusted. But you've conveniently overlooked my last three paragraphs: What overall industry policy do you suggest other than the hard-line free market? Do you agree with (what looks like) the State Government supporting SPC to stop all the fruit farmers in the Goulburn Valley going broke and the region becoming depressed? It's against your 'free market, anti-subsidy' principles. Obviously the National Party is wielding influence. Should we subsidise and support farmers? Is there a conflict of principles here? Will totally laissez-faire, 'dry', market-driven policies be Australia's salvation, or it's ruin?

So let me get this right ... In order to save $1885 on the cost of a new car, or less than $200 per year over the average car's 10-year life, we are happy to close down the operations of three companies, parts industries and forego tens of thousands of jobs. There'll be a large rise in newstart allowance payments and industry adjustment costs, maybe a billion or so. It might be cheaper and less socially disruptive to ask me to pay my per capita $17.75. Abbott's pre-election policy was to cut $500 million in subsidies to the car industry, but in return, now the car industry is 'dead', he'll forego $1 billion in income per year through the removal of tariffs (so we can become an economy even more highly based on 'consumption'). So he's now a net $500 million in the budget red? Haven't we got a 'budget emergency'? How's he going to fund all his 'infrastructure' (that builds efficiency and productivity)? Actually, I'm not too worried about losing the car industry specifically, as in reality it employs about 1% of Australia's workforce, which could be made up in a year or so's worth of normal jobs growth. (Except that that jobs growth normally goes to new workers, not ones made redundant. So someone still loses.) What I'm more concerned about is that the current government's industry policy seems to be so typically rightist: a. bash the unions, b. lower worker's wages and conditions as if they're solely responsible, c. cut all industry assistance through the Productivity Commission and d. resort purely to 'market driven' laissez-faire economics with absolutely no intervention, unless you make chocolate in Tasmania. Is that really going to work? It seems to be a huge gamble to place so much trust purely in the ideology of the 'market'. PS. Why is the State Government now likely to help SPC? And why give drought assistance to farmers? ... after all they should know that periodic lack of rainfall is a normal agricultural business condition.

The Abbott government is just itching for a wages and conditions fight. They want to restore the breadth of Work Choices without actually bringing back Work Choices by name. The bleating here about wages and conditions from the rightists is symptomatic. An example is the SPC 'wet allowance'. In the refusal of the $25 million, Abbott described this as an example of 'exorbitant' conditions and above-award payments. The allowance was 58 cents a day, and covered employee's protective clothing for those on production lines who were getting wet or exposed to agricultural chemical residue from the washing of fruit. That's not unreasonable. SPC no longer pays the allowance because they supply protective clothing to the workers themselves. Time we stopped the Work Choices war. Time we started working together for the future benefit of the country rather than creating continual conflict. I agree with Paul Howes. Is there an example of a country that got richer by driving down worker's wages?

Fixed your post.

The Anti-Dumping Commission found in favour of SPC on Tuesday in regard to dumping of European fruit. Dumped Italian tomatoes (including those sold by Coles as part of their 'Down Down' campaign), for instance, have reduced SPC's market share from about 70% to 15% in the Australian market in the last six years. Never mind that the Europeans subsidise their produce to the hilt, let's just go for cheap prices and dump an entire Australian industry employing thousands, because it's not 'viable' under these circumstances. All for the sake of $25 million. It's probably a quarter of the cost of some witch hunt Royal Commission, or about 300 rich women on parental leave. Maybe the award wages for manufacturing process workers are a pittance.

1. Under what criteria is SPC 'inefficient'? Please state them. 2. Why is the first port of call 'workers pay and conditions'? In a statement today by CCA/SPC, their managing director said it had made "significant improvements" in productivity in recent times and had cut jobs by a third. "Our employees are aware of the critical and urgent need to transform our business and the majority have responded in practical and financial ways to lift productivity to help secure our long-term future in the Goulburn Valley." He said its problems were not from labour costs or productivity, but rather a high dollar which hurt exports and allowed a "flood" of cheap imports since 2009. "In that period market share of private label canned fruit grew to 58 per cent today, while SPC Ardmona canned fruit share declined to 33 per cent. Our export market volumes declined by 90 per cent in the past five years. Other Abbott government claims were rejected by the company in a statement claiming to provide "the facts on workers' allowances". It said there was little overtime at SPC Ardmona, and the company had in 2012 reduced redundancy provisions and stopped sick leave from being cashed out. It also denied claims that workers get nine weeks of paid leave a year, saying they are paid 20 days annual leave while rostered days off are accrued throughout the year so they will not be taken at peak season. Stone has called out Abbott and Abetz over their statements about SPC worker's conditions, which are basically incorrect. What caused the high dollar? Probably the resources boom and the large cash inflow from foreign investors, overseas currency speculation linked to high interest rates, incentives to invest in property such as first-home buyers grants and negative gearing pushing up housing prices. How is SPC, along with other primary manufacturing exporters, going to manage that? Third-world wages? Is that all you can come up with? IMHO, what we're seeing with SPC may be a classic case of 'Dutch disease' ... the massive increase in resources spending has coincided with a decline in manufacturing and agriculture, because the increase in revenues from natural resources or inflows of foreign investment makes the currency stronger. So our other exports become more expensive, making our manufacturing sector less competitive. I'm not suggesting the company should be 'bailed out' at all. But there may be a case for some assistance until conditions are more favourable. The lessening of the mining boom will lower the dollar, perhaps down to sustainable levels for companies such as SPC. Do we take the punt and let them disappear, or bide time for a few more years in hope? If CCA closes SPC, what would be your plan, as a 'rightist', for the fall-out in Shepparton, the Goulburn Valley and its thousands of growers? Total apathy under your dry economic model? Just allow imports to increase to 100% because overseas producers are 'efficient' (i.e. have a better exchange rate)? $25 milllion might be cheap by comparison.

Kodak operated for a further 15 years after the 1989 'bail-out', with jobs for over 600 families. That could well justify the cost. They closed their Coburg film plant in late 2004, when it was certainly under pressure from digital photography. It's been said by governments of all persuasions. It's been an objective for decades. Anything wrong with aiming for value-added exports? I'd have thought you'd applaud it. It's been achieved to quite a reasonable degree in wheat, dairy and beef.

Not with Commodores and Falcons. Modern warfare isn't Spitfires and women in overalls working in converted factories. It's high technology, most of which we don't have here anyway. Everything the military use, except for a few all-terrain vehicles made in Bendigo, now comes from overseas. Even uniforms. At least they'll still be able to drink local milk.

Two options: 1. CCA says OK, we'll upgrade it and keep it running. Then no dramas, all is well. 2. CCA closure because it's uneconomic and they refuse to put money into it. Will the community support required, tree pulling, restructuring, unemployment, loss of tax and downstream effect on other businesses (retailing etc.) cost more than $25 million? Or are we just going to stick slavishly to dry economic 'principle'? CCA is not a benevolent institution that is obliged to keep poorly-performing divisions going. How big they are and what profit they make is immaterial to one loss-making division. The difficulty here is that it's an already-depressed rural community, a whole town of 20,000, and thousands of upstream producers who are in the firing line. Maybe the best option under option 2. is for an SPC buy-out and turning it back into a co-operative run by all the local fruit producers, with some government support (interest-free loans) to upscale and modernise. It's a bit disingenuous to compare a dying, uncompetitive industry like photographic film to a food product with a good future market. If we are to be the 'food bowl of Asia' as is often proclaimed, then we need to be better than close down processing. I'm all for 'personal responsibility', as long as it also cuts out generous middle-class welfare, obscene parental leave schemes, tax breaks for school costs and negative gearing, diesel fuel rebates and drought assistance.

Boats should have been stopped from leaving Indonesian waters from the Howard years onwards. It's putting a fence at the top of the metaphorical cliff, and probably would have been billions cheaper over the years. The disgraceful behaviour has been in incarcerating people for up to five years on a remote island prison somewhere, especially kids.

You're the first person I've ever seen arguing that retaining local car manufacturing will keep prices down. If anything it causes higher prices. Lower prices will most likely come about through volume production (something Australian car manufacturers can't achieve ... it's what is killing them at the moment) and the total abolition of tariffs (more likely when there are no more local manufacturers to protect). The great unknown is the exchange rate though, and that is linked to interest rates as much as anything. If the exchange rate goes down, local car manufacturing will be more viable, but it will be too late if they're all shut. There are lots of good reasons to keep local manufacturing, but lower prices is not really one of them.

Rightists are also a fascinating case study. They sprinkle labels like 'leftist', 'warmist' and 'politically correct' around like confetti.

Paul Roos? I'll buy one.