When the new industrial relations laws were introduced what did the National Farmers' Federation do? They cheered. They cheered the reduction in working conditions. They cheered the reduced wages. They cheered the opportunity to exploit employees by paying them less. They cheered the fact that employees can now be paid less than it costs to maintain a decent standard of living. They cheered the laws which will create a working poor in Australia.
Now, they whinge when they're not paid enough for what they produce. What do they expect from the rest of us? Support for their plight? When they clearly did not support us when we have laws pbutted which mean many employees won't be paid enough.
Well all I can say is, go jump! When you cheer when we're screwed, don't expect us to lift a finger when you're screwed.
And who is supporting the importation of guest workers because they claim there is a skills shortage? Why, the farmers of course. What they really want is employees they can pay less. The skills shortage is a result of a lack of apprenticeships. Australian business has never been much for training apprentices. When all the big government companies like the SEC and the government owned railways and the like were privatised they stopped training apprentices. Lo and behold, now we're short of tradies. What a surprise! So, the farmers don't like the importation of cheap foreign sourced food, but they're fine with importing cheap foreign sourced labour - what hypocrites.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mind subsidising farmers, I reckon we should buy Australian when we can, if for no other reason than the environmental cost of shipping all this stuff around the world. What really peees me off is when the farmers whinge about not getting paid enough for their produce and at the same time support paying employees less or importing cheap foreign labour. They are a bunch of hypocrites and as such forfeit any right to be supported by the rest of us.
DS
Girth
