500N .... ref. blue collar/white collar.
Some years back someone in government decided that all Australian workers were to undergo a re-education programme with regard to sexual harassment of women in the workplace. Attendance by everyone was mandatory.
Myself and one other 'blue collar' worker were ordered to attend one such meeting along with assorted 'white collar' workers such as managers,engineers, draftsmen etc.Before the young lady, who was doing the re-education,could start proceedings my fellow blue collar put up his hand and asked what percentage of sexual harassment charges were blue collar and what were white collar. The young lady replied that it was predominately a white collar problem, something like 98% white. Fellow blue collar worker then stated that he was relieved to hear that as the company only had 4 female workers on the shop floor and he wouldn't touch any of them with the proverbial barge pole let alone sexually harass one of them.In fact he said that he was actually frightened to even talk to any of them. I then asked if we could be excused from the meeting in view of the previous information and it was at this point that we were both told to be quiet by the General Manager.

How un-PC of you, Bos! Hang your head in shame;)
We in the ADF have to endure that cr*p every year.

Actually, your mate could be done for stating . Really.....

I went to one of those!! My predominantly male and 100% non-PC team was subjected to a speech from one of the grim, humourless female harassment reps about how all men were guilty of harassment even if they weren't :bored:, followed by a video on the subject by Indira Nadoo. After one of the team said sotto voce (and not so sotto) 'nice tits, for an Indian' the rep failed us as a group. Him for saying it and the rest of us (two women included) for laughing. :}

We never had to re-qualify. :E
That's my point; he's ADF. IMO if he'd been from tax or immigration he'd have been dead in the water. The ADF get more autonomy than the public service, because smart pollies usually realise that they have NFI about defence matters. Unfortunately they all consider themselves public policy experts, and make legions of expensive, useless dumbarse decisions because They Know Best. :mad:

This means that the only people who crawl to the top of the APS crab barrel are the people who say Yes, Yes, Yes repeatedly, even when they and their entire department know that the answer is F:mad:k No, what planet are you from? :sad:

Amanda Vandstone was a really notable exception.

Albasleazy and Shorten on Sky talking about Qantas.

Can someone tell me, where is this place Albasleazy kept rabbiting on about? - Austaya.




..and now Shorten speaking (in outraged terms) about the Abbott Government exporting Australian jobs.

Errr... that year we dare not mention here and Bob'orke "exporting Australian jobs" - 77% of the domestic airlines' pilot strength - the ones who did not become "heroes", comes immediately to mind.

But how many Australian voters - or even current Qantas pilots - would even remember that?

Agreed. However, that's ancient history in political terms, ie more than a decade ago. It shouldn't be, but that's the way it is.

Qantas is a Qluster, but more recent history has shown that neither side of politics has the balls to deal with it. Nor do the shareholders (cue tumbleweed rolling across the landscape :zzz:). Their continual mismangement of a former goverment asset that was handed to them on a plate knows no bounds, and nor does the whining or lack of personal accountability from the board. How anyone can run the major domestic airline in Australia and still lose money without being a bunch of d:mad:kheads is the question of our times. Oh, that's right, it's all the nasty unions' fault. The unions came up with the Red Q debacle, Jestar Asia's spectacular losses and managers being imprisoned in Vietnam over fuel hedging issues. Darned unions! :ugh::} We grounded the fleet though, by gosh begorrah. We inconvenienced thousands of Australians and irreparably tarnished our brand...aren't we tough? Good dog, Joyce; have a biscuit. :yuk::yuk::yuk:

Telstra have made the transition from public asset to private company. It hasn't been pretty but they managed, and without grounding the nation's telecommunications. Likewise Airservices and Australia Post, while admittedly still government owned corporations still had to wake up and smell the efficiency hangover.

Qantas is like one of those really bad domestic disputes you read about in the papers, where the husband sends the kids' horses off to the doggers and the wife shreds all the important documents :uhoh:. It's like a slow motion car crash where everyone on the sidelines (including the government) says 'nooooo' but can't actually stop it.

I"m not usually a proponent of moon landing hoax style conspiracies, but I have to wonder about Qantas :hmm:. Either they're incredibly, majorly incompetent, or they're actually very competent and there's a hidden agenda :suspect: .

"No more; the text is foolish." King John, IV ii (Shakespeare).

Hmm thats a hard one Worrels, if it was government run then the first, but being business could be 50/50

Exactly, They were privatised a long time ago, time enough to sort their shit out. Bleating to the government now about unfair competition just seems a bit old, IMO :bored:; particularly since they were happy to see Ansett take a dive at the expense of a foreign backed carrier.

Worrals, I've been saying for ages that Joyce is still in place after what looks like five years of repeated disasters because he's actually doing quite well at what he's really been employed by the Qantas Board to do - to gut Qantas down to as small a 'rump/core' as possible, meanwhile forcing more and more of the heavily unionised (and in the Board's eyes) far too well paid staff either out completely or into 'lean and mean' Jetstar-style contracts.

Someone on the inside will write a book about it one day and I really think that it will come out then that something along those lines was the Grand Plan right back from the period immediately after the attempted sell out to the foreign hedge funds went off the rails - and possibly even earlier. Pilots and voters might have forgotten the lessons of nineteen eighty-you-know-when, but I'd be willing to bet that airline management haven't.

500N:
So you ALREADY have Sharia in Oz? Jeez.

War in Australia (any Oz Politics)
 

Shorten on the ALPBC news this morning doing his 'statesman' voice as he says Labor will block the government's proposed changes to the Qantas ownership rules in the Senate: "We... will... not... allow... skilled... Australian... jobs... to... move... overseas." This from the leader of the same Party that forced damn near every Australian domestic pilot to take his skills overseas or become a "hero". Bob Hawke is either laughing his head off in his waterfront mansion or just possibly squirming as his listens to this utter bullsh1t coming from Shorten.

Sometimes I’m ashamed to be Australian....
She has a five year old child, who is going to have a ‘great’ start in life with an ice smoking derro mother. And so the cycle repeats.....

I had to chuckle this morning with the headline that the Indonesians might revoke Schapelle's parole which is what I predicted might happen before the end of it.

I would say she is treading a very very fine line at the moment and if it doesn't happen now, it will only take one more thing to make it happen
which IMHO will be good.

Is it just me or do others think that the stand-in anchor on the 7.30 Report is the epitome of rudest and aggression? It's one thing to give pollies a hard time but I think this woman goes beyond that. Any comments?

Who is it ?

The stand in ?

Australian journos rude and aggressive? Say it isn't so!:E

Haven't seen her. Is she breaking the ALPBC rools? - being rude to Labor pollies?

Was it Sarah Ferguson?

Ref.qantas, I was talking to a guy I used to work with who now works at Qantas via e mail. While he was discussing events there he said, in passing,that the re are, quote," Indians and Asians on 457 Visas working for Jetstar at Tullamarine.
If, and I repeat if, this is true then it's time for reporters to start earning their money and begin to ask some hard questions of politicians on both sides of the fence.

Bos

Send an email to the reporters. Someone listed some emails in the Qantas thread in the Aussie section a few day ago.

I note that the Navy has had to tie up 6 patrol boats in Darwin due to cracks being found in their hulls. No doubt a legacy of being used as HMAS taxi. Another Rudd/Gillard/Two Dads legacy we have to live with.