spanners I'm not asking for wages to be reduced here in...

spanners I'm not asking for wages to be reduced here in Australia, all I'm asking is how is it that we are doing so much better than the rest of the world wages wise and employment wise.
How are we getting away with it ? ,, that's all.

I'm marvelling at that if you like.

and you've brought up a good point re: your industry and the better service and back up that the company you work for offers.

I hate to think that regulations are preventing Australia from value adding .. we have all the raw material here, we should be value adding to build further on our one big strength - which is the mining industry.
What am I missing - I reckon our GDP would triple if we value added.,,and everyone would be employed.

Why not some vision and long term planning by industry and government instead of the resource rental tax idea cop out - why not impose the resource rental tax on the big companies that are not examining the idea i.e. not doing a feasibility study on value adding.