Chairman Dan

[spacesailor]

That's the best thing . Don't worry be happy .

Or get someone with a nice new Tesla to give you a ride there .LoL

spacesailor

[octave]

10 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

Or get someone with a nice new Tesla to give you a ride there

 

We did that recently in NZ. We hired a Tesla Model X and a driver to take us to Milford Sound.  It wasn't even that much more expensive than going on a coach with crowds of people.

 

 

 

[red750]

While the public is suffering skyrocketing cost of living rises, and off the chart rental and mortgage rates, Victorian politicians have been given a 3.5% raise to their basic salary. They can earn more by sitting on committees, etc.

 

Now, before you go kicking the living suitcase out of me, I realise that these rises are granted by an independent tribunal, and not the pollies themselves, none have knocked it back.

 

This now makes Dan Andrews basic salary $480,000, the highest of any state premier.

 

The tribunal was set up in 2017. Andrews salary at the time was $100,000.

[facthunter]

Have a look at what CEO's get generally. Do THEY have harder jobs than a State Premier?  Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Red, those on large public salaries are entitled to wage increases, just as anyone else. Vic MPs receive a 3.5% pay increase while the Fair Work Commision approve a 5.5% increase to awards (or whatever they are now): https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/resources/annual-wage-review-2022-23-decision-announcement.pdf

 

The basic single pension went up 3.7% apparently, over the course of last year. Of course, a 3.5% pay rise on what was $464K is going to provide a lot more than a pensioner surviving on $960/fortnight, and the 5.5% on minimum awards... So, if nothing else, a token gesture would be to refuse the pay rise for him and his colleagues. Chris Minns went a step further and froze the pay of pollies and public servants who earn over $170K a year for 2 years: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/30/nsw-politicians-and-public-service-executives-hit-with-wages-freeze-to-fund-payrise-for-frontline-workers

 

Note, from the first link, that DA's salary includes up to $60,480 of personal expenses. No doubt he will use it, but I am guessing that he has to justify claiming that allowance, however flimsy it must be. Even if you subtract it, it still leaves him sort of Chris Minss, who is managing a larger state and real economy (taking out one-off leveraged development that Vic is still doing).

 

As for independent pay commissions for pollies - yeah, right! Would be interesting to see the criteria they use and how the numbers stack up against it. You can see the determination and statement of reasons, but I lost interest after about 5 minutes of reading waffles on toast: https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-06/Members-of-Parliament-(Victoria)-Determination-No.-01-2023.pdf

 

21 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Have a look at what CEO's get generally. Do THEY have harder jobs than a State Premier?  Nev

Apart from monopolies, dupololies, and the like, we can vote with or wallet if we don't like what a CEO is doing. I haven't flown QANTAS internationally for years (I kno domestically, it is a virtual monopoly) - unless there is no choice, which happened in 2018  -  it reminded me why.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[facthunter]

People fly with  an Airline based on Ticket price, loyalty and service satisfaction. I doubt they care a fig about what the CEO gets ..  Nev. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yes.. but that is their choice. That is the point though.. Can't use a CEO's salary to justify a Pollies as they are very different systems; and one is required by law, but the other by markets (ostensibly).

 

Sadly ethics and values are only as deep as consumers pockets.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[red750]

Speaking of politicians pay rises...

 

 

 

[facthunter]

CEOS set their own. practically and  politicians salaries here are set by an independent body.  .

[octave]

Just going back a few topics to the issue of charging charities to dispose of rubbish.  For the past 3 weeks (and hopefully only for 1 more week) we have been interstate as my mother has gone into aged care.  As I have power of attorney it is my job to sell the house (done) and to empty it (almost done).

I live in Melbourne and it is a common sight to see charity bins surrounded by unsightly junk. Even our local saint Vinnie's often has junk spilling into the road.

For whatever reason the charity shops here in Adelaide (at least the ones I have been using) do not suffer from this problem. Both Vinnie's and Salvos have 2 or 3 wheely bins which appear to be emptied regularly.  I don't know if charities here have to pay to dispose of junk or whether that is paid for by the tax payer but there does not seem to be the same junk problem here 

 

By the way, regarding donation of electrical goods, most charities will not take them however the Salvos do. I guess perhaps they employ someone to test and tag.

 

Lastly, who wants to buy a lovely table lamp?

[nomadpete]

Our tip shop sells electrical stuff. But they place a tenacious sticker on the power cord

 

NOT TESTED FOR SAFETY. DO NOT PLUG INTO POWER WITHOUT TESTING BY QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN.

 

Or words pretty close to this.

At least it keeps a lot of stuff out of landfill.

[spacesailor]

Most refuge tips don't allow " scavenging  " .

As there's money in muck .

Even had one part built " Hummle bird " at Dubbo's tip .

They squashed it for " scrap alloy " what a waste,  I only got the wheels.  ( a day too late )

I did get a " Chinese motor-bike , only rode it twice,  then it was passed on to someone else .

spacesailor

[red750]

The nightmare and disaster with the Vic Labor party continues unabated.

 

With the budget debt blowout, they are getting rid of health sector workers when the system is at breaking point, postponing recognition of paramedics when ambulance ramping is rampant and waiting times are costing lives, and at the same time paying record salaries and bonuses to consultants who get it wrong anyway.

 

Now workers on the 'big build' tunnels have been given pay rises to more than $300,000 p.a., PLUS  underground allowance PLUS living away from home allowance twice the average flat rental.

[octave]

 I am not sure about the North East Tunnel but the Westgate Tunnel is a fixed-price contract.   It is not an issue for the government but for the construction company  West Gate Tunnel workers reach pay deal: $300k a year.  

[Bruce Tuncks]

I don't agree that " salaries are set by an independent body". Who appoints the "independent" body? my opinion is that such salaries are quite obscene, and the getting of them is worse than honest bank robbery..

[octave]

8 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I don't agree that " salaries are set by an independent body". Who appoints the "independent" body? my opinion is that such salaries are quite obscene, and the getting of them is worse than honest bank robbery..

 

I am not necessarily in favour of such high wages but my point is that the original post was the usual dig at the Victorian government and the suggestion that these wages were something to do with the Victorian economy.  As I understand it these wage increases do not change what the government is paying for the project.  These wage increases were set by the Fair Work Commission which is a federal body, not a state body. 

 

There are lots of jobs in the mining industry that seem to pay amazingly high wages probably because of the working conditions.

From the article, I linked about the wage rise on the Westgate tunnel 2 years ago.

 

An entry-level tunneller working an average six-day working week – common on big projects – would be paid an annual salary of $230,000, once travel and site allowances are included.

 

A more experienced tunneller operating the large tunnel-boring machines would be paid about $320,000 for working 12-hour shifts over seven-day blocks, which alternate between night and day rosters.

The rates and conditions are broadly comparable with those agreed to on Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel and the Cross River Rail project in Brisbane.

 

 

[red750]

24 minutes ago, octave said:

As I understand it these wage increases do not change what the government is paying for the project.  These wage increases were set by the Fair Work Commission which is a federal body, not a state body. 

Regardless of who "sets' them, who ends up paying them? The contracters out of their profits? Where do they come from?

[octave]

Just now, red750 said:

Regardless of who "sets' them, who ends up paying them? The contracters out of their profits? Where do they come from?

The company building the tunnel? The Vic gov is not responsible for giving the pay rise and is not having to pay extra because of the wage rise.  If you are mad at anyone perhaps it should be the Federal Fair Work Commission and perhaps the union. Geez it must be exhausting being angry 24/7

[octave]

6 minutes ago, red750 said:

The contracters out of their profits? Where do they come from?

 Just to be more specific here. I would imagine that when you set your price for a project you take into account these kinds of contingencies.  The wage rises will of course eat into the profit of the company. In the case of the North East Link, it is a consortium of large companies.  In the case of the Westgate tunnel, I think the company is John Holland which I believe is Chinese-owned John Holland Group so I wouldn't lose too much sleep over that. I think these corporations are doing OK. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Not to mention this is on par with other projects in Melbourne... and Brisbane, so hardly think it is all Dan Andrews' doing. In fact, none of it is; it is, as Octave says, a federal matter.

2 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I don't agree that " salaries are set by an independent body". Who appoints the "independent" body? my opinion is that such salaries are quite obscene, and the getting of them is worse than honest bank robbery..

I missed the "salaries are set by an independent body" in the article quote by @octave. The deal was hammered out between the corporations and the employees and ratified by the fair work commission. The only independent body - the Fair Work Commission - simply opined on it - they did not strike the deal.

 

I am in touch with contacts about setting up work in Melbourne for a return in the not-too-distant future. When I read the article above and saw the salary of the entry level tunnel worker, I thought what the heck - add in super and it is a sweet deal. Then I read the rest of the article and thought, "er… no thanks; they are welcome to it". It isn’t their base salary and covers shift allowances, travel and other expenses - as well as danger money. And the shift rota doesn't look terribly conducive to a decent work-life balance. Also, once their work is over in the project, they lose a lot of that sweet deal. At least some are employed direct by John Holland, so will have some protection.

 

2 hours ago, red750 said:

PLUS living away from home allowance twice the average flat rental.

Can you provide the figures - and average flat rental for what area?  The average for renting a flat in Dandenong is less than central Melbourne (I would guess); but there is also the water, electricity, insurance, gas, phone, maybe a car parking space, food*, cleaning, etc... All that still has to be done at home, too, as well as being away from your home; family, friends, etc. and maybe having to delegate dealing with emergencies, etc.

 

* As someone who spent a lot of time on expenses in long-term gigs (3 months in Nth Dakota - twice; 3 months in Philadelphia; etc), even though you can get your food, a) you're working usually longer hours and they are on their long shifts so who can be arsed cooking, cleaning, etc, - so diet goes out the door or it costs more.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[Jerry_Atrick]

1 hour ago, red750 said:

Regardless of who "sets' them, who ends up paying them? The contracters out of their profits? Where do they come from?

This is a good point, actually, because obviously, if labour rates were cheaper the contractors could charge less. But, it ignores a  couple of things, of which I don't have the answer and haven't tried to look up:

• What are the profit margins? And was the prospect of this deal not already baked into it given it does not seem out of kilter to other deals?
• What about the rest of us - are we all willing to drop our incomes so people who have their expectations of an income can reap the benefit of the costs and prices dropping in other areas of the economy so they can enjoyr a standard of living the fruits of us sacrifcing our income?
• What about the ways the large corporations manage to avoid paying their fair share of tax that would increase revenues to the state and federal governments thus providing the ability to further reduce debt?

 

Don't get me wrong - I am not saying DA is a saint; and I think he has got the balance not quite right with the debt that has been taken on. But he is not the only one who has saddled their state with debt; buit at least he is investing it in projects that seem to be for the commuinity benefit rather than pure pork-barrelling.

 

The only state in Australia that has a AAA rating across all agencies is the WA.. and they only just attained that. When ethey were well below that level of credit quality, no one complained when bus drivers paid by private mining corporations were getting paid $150k+ per year, and that was almost 30 years ago.

[octave]

4 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I missed the "salaries are set by an independent body" in the article quote by

Correct the deal was ratified by the fair work commission. I can't really see much of a reason for an anti-Dan rant with this,   sure, blame the union or blame the companies, or blame the fair work commission for not opposing it. That kind of money would not entice me to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week so I am not going to lose sleep over people who are willing to do that kind of work.

[facthunter]

They don't get what the RBA people do and really have to get their hands  dirty, There's been a lot of extra difficulty in that Job and you need gor people to complete it successfully. Victoria got short changed a lot  and WA is unique in its MINING activities which put them in their current  financial position rather than any particular political MAGIC at work.  Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Indeed. .I was tryuing to make the point that Vic is noit alone as being in debt and not with a perfect credit rating.

[onetrack]

One of the problems I see with Victoria is that Dan has no general employment background or business experience. He's a political animal who went straight from Uni into a politicians assistant job.

He's never had a "real job", where he's had to manage finances or business deals.

Increasing State debt is O.K. when you're investing in things to improve productivity or to gain revenue from that investment. But Dan appears to be investing State monies in areas where the return is very little, such as public transport (always a loss-making enterprise when owned by Govts), and other nebulous Labor ideas that also appear to be likely to be low return.

 

Govts should be concerned about energy security and cost, water security and cost, and be encouraging of small business attempts to provide worthy services and products. Victoria has always largely been a big manufacturing State and always made fat profits (and State Govt wealth accordingly) from its big manufacturing base.

But I see little in Dans plans to set up business and industry to meet the nations manufacturing demands in the next 10 or 20 years. There are any number of important manufactured product areas that would yield important products for the rest of Australia, that would punch a big hole in our current import bill, and yield substantial returns for the Victorian Govt, if Dan was oriented in that direction.

 

But about the only thing he wanted to do to big-note himself, was align himself with Xi Jinping and his now largely discredited "One Belt, One Road" scheme, which was simply a Chinese investment scam designed to profit no-one but China.

I personally think Dan's important political achievements record, is eventually going to be of one being able to be written on just the flyleaf of a small pocket diary.

 

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by onetrack