I take your point Twiggs now you've explained it like that.
I hate to say that I still don't think it will work as no-one can survive in Australia on what the Thais are paid or on what our new Jet* International crew based in Saigon, Taipei, Denpasar (insert 3rd world city here...) will be paid. LowerLobe used Jet* (domestic I guess?) as the baseline but I would suggest that even this will be seen as too expensive in years to come.
Additionally, I'm still struggling to understand why we are suggesting to our unions methods they can suggest to management to cut Australian workers terms and conditions. It's about time we collectively grew a backbone and said enough is enough!
There was an interesting article in the Sun-Herald in Sydney today regarding the percentage that manufacturing makes up of total GDP in developed economies. Australia at 13% was far and away the lowest of the OECD nations. China was well over 30%. To paraphrase the CEO of Bluescope Steel, it's totally unprecedented for a developed economy to have less than 10% of its GDP made up of manufacturing but that is precisely where Australia is heading.
In short, who is going to be be buying these cheap airfares? The drive to force down the salaries of Australian workers will make even the cheapest of airfares too expensive. How many Chinese factory employees on 2 bucks a day can afford to fly? Yet we are still happy to swallow the line that job creation is the most important thing to keep the Australian economy healthy. I would suggest that it's a combination of how many new jobs are created combined with how much those new jobs are paying that is most important, not merely their quantity.
Cheers and thanks for your measured reply to my rant!
Last edited by DirectAnywhere; 16th July 2006 at 13:00.