No offence, all we will be doing is rewarding companies who have been screwing us over anyway. Smashing the unions is actually what stopped real wages growth and all that happened was multinationals took the profit overseas whilst still closing down the manufacturing industry here - enough said. Basically, the whole question on domestic demand issues caused by the stagnation of the domestic economy over the last year or so (not exports, and the retail Decmeber quarter figures are the basis of the new concern as no Santa rally there) can be sorted out in part by Govt collecting its fair share of tax from multinationals and reinvesting the money in building iconic infrastructure. And before others blabber Singapore/Caymans remember they do not mine there so Australia needs to be better at taxing income at source rather than a company telling us that Singapore is a miner - LOL - and that is why we are booking profits there. Whilst the unemployment rate is low remember unemployment is teh concern and a lot of people are part time/contract, and the employment makeup is much different to the 80/90s where full time jobs was the norm.
Secondly, the worry on wages is really a consequence of housing prices going through the roof meaning people have less money to spend on the domestic economy. People are dipping further into savings but that is now drying up and all of a sudden the govt realises we have a problem as retail sector starts shrinking. There solution raise wages so that Mr Ponzi can keep going up (or we will allow more foreigners to buy housing), rather than a two pronged attack of curtailing unproductive investmenets in housing so people can get an affordable home and have money left to spend and address wages growth (provided wages growth doesn't lead to inflation which drives up interest rates and as a result really sends the economy broke given we are so much in debt now due to govt inaction to deal with Mr Ponzi). So wages growth needs to be backed by productivity growth orelse we are truly stuffed. Just look at our tax system - skewed to unproductive investment through Negative Gearing and then providing a CGT discount on investment properties - personally I would reuce NG and remove the CGT discount on investment properties but continue maintaining the CGT discount on productive investments that lead to sustained (rather than false growth), in other words growth that is not inflationary because any raise in interest rates is going to really screw over the economy just given how mortgaged to the hilt we have become as a nation trying to put a roof over our heads LOL.
What you are witnessing is government incompetence for the last 10 years to 15 years and this is the fallout. As you might recall I said as such in the thread I created a month ago "The Lucky Country is Flatlining". SeePost #: 30601303 If the govt was really serious about increasing wages it would start by increasing the wages of public servants/police/public doctors etc to send the signal to industry it wants wages growth - is it doing it no, so treat teh rubbish coming out of it on wages growth as rubbish pretend statements. But all this is games because they know they have stuffed up because the problem with the domestic economy is becoming people's discretionary spend is falling as the cost of housing skyrockets and left over income falls (the income to house ratio moving beyond 10 times in some cities compared to less than 3 times in the 1980s) and governments price gouging essential services (read more costs for the workers in meeting basics) because governments haven't got the ticker to cap welfare or reign in such expenditure - they treat as as mugs with fluff comments as theones of today..
Pure hyperbole by a desperate government not understanding the issues.
