It's a sobering thought that so many large employers are finding the going so tough in Australia. Capital is relatively cheap (although rates are higher in Australia than almost everywhere else) but here we do have some of the most expensive workers in the world.
Top management salaries aren't the problem, they're just an irritant. It's the worker on 30% more than their counterpart in another country, times 10,000 workers in similar roles, that makes the workforce so costly.
It's a global marketplace and we need to either have an enormous point of difference that makes that 30% (or whatever) margin sustainable, or else we have to find some other, absolutely unique, business to be in.
In other words, we have to be competitive, or else operate in a market where we have no real competition.
We may rail against what we see as woeful management - we should, because it is woeful - but we need to have some options.
We can't all be fast bowlers. And there's only so much orange rock to dig up to sell to China.
Where else can we employ airline crew and customer service staff, car manufacturing and parts production workers in a competitive or monopolistic industry where Australia can take on the best in the world and win?
Ideas... Anyone? Bueller?