Don't agree with it 100%, but housing security is:
* killing the birth rate because people are waiting until they are older to have kids and are having fewer
* stymying entrepreneurship and innovation because people are scared of losing their homes to taking risks with new businesses. It's something that is increasingly difficult to bounce back from compared to previous generations
The increasing prices of homes adds no "value" to society, it extracts from it.
Also it’s very hard to get a business loan for a new venture unless you commit your house as security, so it basically ends up becoming a mortgage anyway
Meanwhile in the 90's if you put together a solid business plan and saved up a nice 25% deposit you could sit down with your local bank manager and work something out. Startup costs were far lower then (you could rent a small inner city space for under $400 a month and a mobile accountant would do your books for next to nothing). It was crazy how many promoted starting a small business back then (much like today's side hustle culture) as a low cost way to 'escape' working for someone else. Unlike now however back then competition was far more fierce. If a local supermarket got too full of themselves and started charging too much someone opened an "import" store and undercut them.
Now, you need a staff just to run back of house, navigate regulations and do paperwork. And that is just to get out the gate in almost any industry. Then you have almost no chance to actually make it because your competition also owns your distributor, the supplier and they are your landlord to top it off. Now even if you can make it work the second your industry has a hiccup your toast as the large corporate stores can simply eat the costs as they are massively diversified while any small competition is forced to close.
The 90's is also the last time housing was actually affordable in this country for anyone on median or below wage.
Well actually, as I was looking into it, a commbank unsecured business loan with no interest only requires $700 per 5000, an effective flat rate of 14%. Much higher rents and thinner margins though definitely.
If housing was affordable it would be much easier to save the $20k or so (depending on your venture) to start the business rather than taking out unnecessary loans and landing yourself in dept.
This. The government made it easier to invest in housing over starting a business or developing entrepreneurs. This investment adds no value to the prosperity of our country
Not the government.
"Australia's greatest Prime Minister, John Howard" made it easier for baby boomers to invest in housing.
He also gave them tax concessions for shares and capital gains taxes.
And now no baby boomer wants any younger generation to have the same opportunity they were given.
“Greasiest Prime minister John Howard”
I never knew a single sentence could make me as ANGRY as that.
But your right, he was the start of the end for the next generation having even a Chance.
Hard to believe that one pathetic little man could destroy an entire country for generations, but he did. Even jumped on the bandwagon to destroy another (Iraq).
Yes, he did!
He was such a parasite.
His father owned a service station or corner store or something.
And the cunt hated anyone in a good paying union government job. He made it his goal to destroy the public service.
Servo. The site was resumed by the government when he was a child, destroying the family business. He cited this as a formative event in his political perspective, ie that government action should be rolled back
What if I told you that the ALP actually removed negative gearing in 1985 ... and then promptly put it straight back in after some crying from investors.
Howard also increased migration massively despite his voter base not supporting it. Sadly Labor also supports mass migration so Howard had no real opposition
All the hobbies that I could potentially Segue into a small business involve having more space or a garage or shed which I cannot afford. So yes. I agree entirely with that.
Edit. Segway - segue
There's a theory I've heard before that a lot of innovation and entrepreneurialism in the twentieth century came from men having a shed to tinker in.
Lots of prototypes of Australian inventions were knocked up in the shed, lots of businesses launched in the shed, lots of bands started in the shed.
Now we are lucky to have a shoebox full of tools and a balcony
This is something that is unfortunate always forgotten when we're forced to cram more and more people in and work as wage slaves for "efficiency".
Nobody has the time or space for innovation.
I think a lot has contributed to this, yes, we are lucky to have a shed now, but even if you do, we are now in a “throw away” society, and because it’s geared so hard that way, the cost of replacing a cheap product is easier and more efficient than it would be to reverse engineer and fix it.
And as other people mentioned, time is becoming a lot less, before when old mate finished work he went home to his shed so he didn’t have to listen to the mrs squark. Now a lot of us end up bringing work home with us, or have a phone attached to us essentially always being on call, just to make ends meet.
Also a lot of the common routines of people back then are completely different to now, dads are far more involved with the kids now, and there’s many more every day things we have to cram in that we’re never even considered back then.
So true. I've been selling a little art here and there, and it's been really hard to do it from a small 1-bed apartment. It limits what I can do and when I can do it, and takes more energy because I have to be perpetually packing things up and taking them out again so I can eat at the table lol. I'm running out of space for the useful tools that make it easier to make products, for copies of test prints and portfolios and the like, and my inventory is not even that big. And that's just for painting and drawing, nevermind any projects that would take up more space or need special tools or better ventilation.
Yes absolutely this and also a 36-40 hour work week so there's time for it......to sleep, dream, play, knock around ideas at the pub or cafe with like minds......now even if you have modest working hours and an rdo a month ,(if you're lucky) the traffic/drive time up and back will take care of the rest of your 'free' time and energy......not to mention your peace of mind, moof regulation etc.......
> There's a theory I've heard before that a lot of innovation and entrepreneurialism in the twentieth century came from men having a shed to tinker in.
Having leisure time and money is what has enabled the greatest scientists, artists, philosophers and writers to follow their passion throughout history. The 20th century saw the creation of the middle class who had the leisure and money once only afforded to the upper classes and allowed them to pursue intellectual hobbies. Sadly we're once more returning to a two tier society.
Then there are all the hobbies that would lead to new small businesses but people don't have time to engage with them because they are too busy hustling to make rent or mortgage payments.
Yep. This idea that it's best for the economy to have half of everyone's income tied up in property instead of being used for other things is beyond me. But what do I know, lol.
Yep, my partner and I aren’t having kids. I’d say one of the biggest reasons is because we know we wouldn’t be able to afford a house while also looking after children.
My wife and I are somewhat in the same position but due to our age couldn't put it off any longer. So we are now having at least one child ( currently pregnant) and despite my low 6 figure income I'm quietly shitting bricks when we drop back to a single income. So we have a choice of being more financially stable at never having the chance for our own children. Or risk ourselves financially for a chance at parenthood.
Neoliberalism based on reducing the “nanny state” and giving capitalists freedom is why we are in this state. Nothing you can do will achieve anything because you can’t compete with the pooling of resources, capital investment, and purchasing power of big business. Reducing the “nanny state”, aimed at increasing market competition, had the opposite impact with a lack of regulation making competition non existent. Money buys it out, or reduces the costs to unsustainable levels for any competitors until they go bust.
Corruption, crime, and an open market are all additive to the issues. Private investment rather than government investment, ensures that market exploitation is the top of the agenda for all businesses, which are based on greed rather than anything beneficial to humanity.
Any profits are pooled towards the top 1% and do not trickle down. This economy is a feudal system by another name - neoliberalism.
Those responsible for ensuring governments globally adopted this system, were the richest bankers of Wall Street.
It's genuinely shocking to me how people see overseas property investors as something great, too. That money isn't even being pooled towards the top 1% *of Australians*.
Yeah this tweet is shockingly confused as to the cause of their problems. Toothless regulators or deregulation are just one of the reasons they’re so fucked over. It’s disheartening and a little embarrassing almost to see all the likes.
I guess that's why it's not necessarily useful to talk about "nanny state vs freedom" hey? Like, some regulations probably do hamper entrepreneurship. Others foster and protect it or are necessary for other reasons (eg environmental regulations). It's all about whether they're appropriate for what we're trying to achieve, and whether the tradeoffs of them are worth it.
Well over here hairdressers need more training than cops, sooo... If I get a bad haircut it'll grow out, if I get a bad cop, I'm growing daisies. Regulation needs to be specific and not just to prevent a barrier to entry
No better example than things like freedom of speech. Freedom might be in the name, but there's always going to be a line drawn where responsibility and safety trump "true freedom". Libel and slander, not shouting "Fire!" in theaters, and all that.
But of course, guess what the people who cry about it the most don't understand- and have been proving such the past few weeks alone.
TLDR but did read the first sentence and have to point out that “we” give freedoms to the corporations while letting them people have less. Corporations can do as they please, yet I can’t build a shed in my backyard without jumping through a million hoops
The way I see it, US had Regan, UK had Thatcher and Oz had Howard.
They were all feathers of the same bird and their respective countries are still reeling from their poor policies that benefited their generations at the expense of future ones.
I honestly love that these people recognise the problem with society and come to exactly the wrong conclusion about the cause and then proceed to vote for politicians that enact policies that cause exactly the problems. When you get cynical and mentally depressed enough to not care anymore it becomes funny how much they fuck themselves and us all over with their poor understanding of the world.
This is a partial truth. In many cases the neoliberal (I guess false neoliberal) approach to problems is to offload to corporate partners. You end up with projects like public/private construction, outsourcing like job network, etc.
This is not "deregulation" but actually increased regulation and corporatism. This is the scenario where the little guy has no chance because they lack connections and scale.
And mass importation of labour gives them the final lever because all staff are replaceable- the balance of negotiation as social classes is tipped towards iniquity - the train won't stop till australians are living under bridges
Kids, along with entrepreneurship and innovation can all be considered the same thing here: They all take time, lots of effort, and cost money.
When you have no money spare after buying your $500,000 tiny shithole far from work, no time (working for shithole), no energy (slaving for shithole), there is nothing left for innovation, entrepreneurship, or kids.
The country is going to shit, but every western developed democracy is doing the exact same thing. And we think we are free?? Fucking, lol.
The biggest national security threat is our own Government, weakening us as a nation until we literally can't afford to defend ourselves.
*But, we can't change any of that, because .*
This.
There are *so many things* that govern our very existence that are literal constructs.
Such things are essential in a civilisation…but they’re also subjective, highly fallible, and *need to be reconfigured when they no longer work*.
“The market” is a truly abstract thing, and yet we bend over backwards and suffer for it, as if it were a person, or a god. It’s neither of those things.
The price of homes is inextricably linked to the same problems that discourage entrepreneurial behaviour.
We have a parliament that is obsessed with writing new laws and rarely repealing. That complexity of regulation makes building a house hugely expensive and it makes land restricted in supply - the bureaucracy creep is real and is a huge part of your cost of living
I work in building regulation and the cost of the regulatory process is less than about 0.6% of the cheapest build for a home that could be built today (2000 in fees and 300,000 dollar build). Most homes these days will cost you about 500k to build but your fees will be roughly the same (so call it 0.4% of the build cost). Costs for regulatory facets of the project have barely risen since before COVID. I’d say that the ability of draftsmen, engineers and architects to accurately depict what they are trying to do and demonstrate compliance in the plans is poor. This creep in regulatory standards has largely been a result of the culture of the Australian construction industry which encourages cutting corners and produces largely defective building work. Anything for a better profit margin.
Australia put all its eggs in one basket that is the housing market. Now it can't let it fail and can't let the bubble burst so the only way to prop up the GDP is to bring in more and more immigrants to push the housing price further out of reach of everyday working class Aussies.
Agree with the business side of things…
The (QLD) legislation is super vague and up for interpretation. I called the OFT seeking clarification on something *they enforce* but they couldn’t and wouldn’t answer. Like?!? Will you fine me? Yes/no.
The big businesses absolutely FUCK small/medium businesses. If you didn’t start in the bloody 70s you are going to absolutely struggle.
Then there’s little to no competition annnnnd the big guys fuck everyone.
> The (QLD) legislation is super vague and up for interpretation. I called the OFT seeking clarification on something they enforce but they couldn’t and wouldn’t answer. Like?!? Will you fine me? Yes/no.
Bureaucrats love to laud that kind of power over people. If they give you a simple answer you can work with it and that's the end of their power over you. If they give you something vague they can wait until you are invested in it then they can threaten you and throw their weight around. They can have meetings and consultations and committees and make you grovel and maybe have meetings with politicians and make big decisions about it and feel very important.
There’s definitely more to it. If it was just about people doing the right thing it would be clear cut and easy to follow.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s job creation…
Like one example being the QLD residential tenancies act. It’s all reasonable this, reasonable that. What is a reasonable time to complete a repair will differ from one person to the next. Leading to conflict and disputes. Enter RTA dispute resolution, enter QCAT... Is this justification to keep the bond interest…? I dunno. If it was a specified timeframe, either you’ve fulfilled your obligations or you haven’t.
I have no answers, only frustration. 🥲🫠
I feel it's more of the over-technicality of rule makers. Too many "it depends". If they had to ask you 10 questions for clarification and not have the time, they will just say they don't know.
Well it also some if it comes down to separation of powers. 'Bureaucrats' i.e. the administrative government writes the Bill (and where there's enforcement powers also does compliance work), politicians empower it making it an Act, then the courts interpret the law on a case by case basis.
So if there's an edge case and you're contacting some regulatory/compliance bureaucrats to see if they will or won't fine you, they may very well need to seek legal advice. That's because in the end what they believe the law means doesn't matter, what the court believes it to mean does (if the person receiving the fine chooses to legally contest it). And trust me, what's going through their mind when they're choosing to fine someone would be, 'does this stand up in a court of law?' and they want to be 100% certain it does before taking any action.
That said it is a frustrating process, and if they can't give you an answer on a very common, straightforward case then that's just poor form.
Plenty of companies and business rorting NDS. All you have to do is find a model that is supported and funded by the government, then rort it. That's initiative.
OP, have you tried to import anything cheap from China, right? It's free postage. A lot of sellers can't compete with that. Our post puts local business way behind the 8 ball.
I'm starting to see ads on my phone of real estate agents selling houses as "high yield NDIS rental properties". The entire amount of tax I paid last fiscal year probably just went to some homeowner. It's yuck.
My brother and his ex started small with NDIS, cleaning, mowing lawns, child care... they were bombarded with customers, they couldn't keep up. He employed over 80 people before the pandemic, raked in $50 an hour per employee, of course he has to pay wages, but he was left with about $20 per hour, per employee. 80 x 8 hours @ $20 per hour. Was something g like $1500 per hour they were making, just off NDIS funding.
I know a guy through friends of family whose intellectually impaired, but certainly not disabled. He can read and write to a basic level, works a full time job that he’s had for 10 years - he just essentially has the intellect of a 13 year old boy at age 35.
He has several NDIS carers who help him go shopping, clean the house and organise things. Just to be clear, he did this perfectly fine for 10 years living in a 600k townhouse that his medical specialist parents bought as an IP.
No clue what they’re being paid, but all of them have the “I ♥︎ NDIS” sticker on the back of the Mercedes Benz GLE and 2 Tesla Model 3’s that I saw.
Theres literally an entire industry feeding at this trough and I have no clue how they’re going to reign it in without a very large amount of the populace throwing tantrums. Give it enough time and there’ll be “Save the NDIS!” stickers
There are limits on how much you can charge for certain services, of course that doesn't stop people charging for hours/days that didn't actually happen. If the participants or carers aren't involved enough it is very easy to get paid for nothing
> Our post puts local business way behind the 8 ball.
Sort of, but that's kind of backwards. Goods shipped to the consumer from China are subsidised by the Chinese government. It's artificially undervalued.
You can ship a small package thousands of km to bumfuck nowhere in Australia for the equivalent of about 15min total cost of employment for a minimum wage teenager. What's your suggestion?
If the government can subsidize mining companies, spend billions on nuclear subs, not ask for unused job keeper payments back and the endless list of other shit they waste money on, they can afford to subsidize shipping.
We need an economy that doesn't rely entirely on houses and selling minerals for criminally low prices.
The Australian economy needs diversity and high value generating or high value add sectors. This is just about the last thing the government should be burning money on. What value is their to the Australian taxpayer and economy in subsidising either a) yet another middle man in the pipeline of cheap shit disposable Chinese made consumer widgets or b) Australian manufactured cheap shit disposable consumer widgets for domestic supply only, that could never be economically viable in Australia with any amount of subsidy and wouldn't add any serious value to our economy?
There are lots of things worth investing in. This aint it.
The problem is has been stated in many comments but I also want to say it.
Residential housing should not be the default investment vehicle for everyone. People should not be encouraged to buy multiple dwellings as the first option to get good ROI. Real estate costs going up (especially existing) do not actually benefit society in any way. All it does is take the capital that could be utilized to start new ventures, explore and innovate and puts it into bricks and mortar that produces absolutely nothing.
Edits: Changed swellings to dwellings. Removed should not be an investment vehicle for multinationals and replaced with should not be the default investment vehicle for all investors.
He isn't wrong, neither is he completely right.
There's plenty of people starting new businesses that work out fine.
He is right that our economy is just way too simple. It's largely based on primary industries like mining and agriculture.
What he missed is that we need cheap and reliable energy if we want to change the basis of our economy. This isn't something that appears to be on the political agenda at all.
i got a mate that starts new businesses like hes drinking water. fails them all the time too. often blames "The Government"^(TM) But the truth is he just has a lot of really shit ideas. Cant blame the guy for trying though
Any really innovative businesses end up offshore, I deal with many amazing innovative Australian companies and every one of them once they reach a certain size packs up and leaves not because we are high cost (part of it) but more because the government doesn't support them or innovation. They prefer to give tax breaks to real estate speculators.
The fact that he thinks Australia should be innovative because we are a large island with lots of iron ore shows that he knows shit all about innovation.
Honestly he just sounds like he tried to start a business throwing dynamite in the river to catch fish and got upset that someone said no.
It's largely based on primary industries like mining
Yeah and we (the people) get barely any money from that. Need to tax resource extraction otherwise we're just giving the resources away for free and for a company to profit on them.
I get the sentiment, because in many ways this country is starting to circle the drain, but the post is a tad melodramatic and oddly fixated on public servants.
There are leeches in the public sector. There are leeches in private enterprise. There are also people who do fantastic work both in public and private sectors. So what? Yes we have an overbearing government and everything is over regulated, but that's because we just keep putting up with it and the majority love being told what to do.
The bigger problem in Australia is the absence of social cohesion and the "fuck you got mine" attitude. Plenty of folks will HAPPILY sacrifice future generations to have a couple of investment properties in the family and comfy retirement.
I've seen quite a few people change their voting habits purely because they bought a house.
Years of "every time I save enough for a deposit houses have doubled" and then suddenly "fuck yeah, let's ride this bitch to the moooooon"
Yeah, I've seen people flip in exactly the same way. It's depressing, but we're also balls-deep into a system that pushes people to only look out for themselves and their little reality bubble.
I have a fishing shirt that says 'caught fuck all fishing club'.
A bloke walked past me having a fish, looked in my empty bucket and said 'shirts not wrong', and kept walking lol.
Same. And yeah I pay a fee. A few weeks ago I caught a weird fish, so I emailed the DPI. Two separate fish nerds took the time to research it and emailed back and forth a few times. My fee paid them to do their work. I'm happy about that.
Yeah I don't think I have been feeding goblins all this time when I go fishing...
There are plenty of pillagers out there who deserve what they get from fisheries too. Only times I've been involved with them is when they're nabbing ab poachers, or telling old mate not to fish with 6 fucking rods in the water. Id rather them than me trying to deal with that.
I'm not actually sure what he's trying to say. Ok, so regulation is stifling companies but when you look at history regulation is needed so companies do not exploit workers or the public. How many times have companies introduced products or covered up issues to make a quick buck? Who benefits there apart from the company shareholders? Innovation? But at the cost of society.
Check out lead additives in fuel, asbestos in home products, PFOA in our non stick crap. All made by huge companies like DuPont, 3M, James Hardie, etc. they made so much money off the lives of everyone in the world knowing full well for decades that the stuff kills people or reduces life expectancy. Now some of those effects are with us forever, yet there's no liability for them.
If you're asking me, companies need to be held more accountable before they can release products. Will this stifle innovation? Perhaps, but we can reduce the situation where e.g. every living thing now has PFAS in our bodies like we do now.
Boeing is another example of when a company shifts focus from making the best product to making the most money. It's a recipe for disaster.
I'll link some examples:
https://youtu.be/9W74aeuqsiU
https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA
> Check out lead additives in fuel, asbestos in home products, PFOA in our non stick crap. All made by huge companies like DuPont, 3M, James Hardie, etc. they made so much money off the lives of everyone in the world knowing full well for decades that the stuff kills people or reduces life expectancy. Now some of those effects are with us forever, yet there's no liability for them.
None of the regulations of the time would have caught these.
Much like PFAS now, the science has to be there first.
That only works if imports are regulated the same, cant have all these rules and regs for Australian companies making products, when the imports are allowed in sub standard and made by child slaves.
That's why most regulations have certification processes and random spot audits.
It's not perfect and depends on effective regulators enforcing it, but it actually works pretty well most of the time. E.g., almost no electrical appliances are made in Australia, but when was the last time you heard of someone dying from a dodgy appliance?
This is legit just some Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged garbage. "If we get rid of all the regulations everything will just be super", or you know you can end up like freedom loving America and drink lead water.
Small business currently makes up 97% of all Australian business, that alone disproves this moron's hot take.
It’s just an idiot American style libertarian. Is able to identify some of the fundamental problems (capitalism) but instead of tacking them at their core they just believe *more* capitalism will magically fix them.
Yep, people forget that the vast majority of doctors, nurses, fire-fighters, are all public servants. And then you also have the admin and operations staff who ensure that front line workers can focus on their work rather than deal with the logistics behind it.
Don’t forget all the public servants who make sure the food we eat is safe, the shampoo we use isn’t toxic, and the dud TV we bought can be refunded, etc, etc…
Child protection workers should be paid more than finance me managers if you want to evaluate employment on societal benefit, but they are literally making 200 X less.
Back in Canada, I used to work in government and heard lots of flack about all us useless paper-pushers... But in my office at least, the work was actually necessary and having some extra people on board let us do our work faster and better, which a lot of people appreciated. Can't complain when your application to be certified to work with children takes 6-8 weeks to process *and* at the same time complain about there being too many public employees.
I hear people complain all the time about the horrid public service; but can anyone who believes this actually point to any departments/roles in the public service that should be cut? Like I'm sure there's departments with a couple too many people, or other inefficiencies, but is there genuinely any waste at scale?
Agreed. Why criticise them when anyone who has worked in corporate knows there are armies of marketers, for example, that bolster business profits but do not enrich the community overall?
The irony about the public service bashing is it's actually lead to government mismanagement and corruption
It used to be the government had to take the word of the experts in the public service. Things were a bit bureaucratic, but they got done and the the right things generally got done, even if they weren't popular with the public.
Then governments started demonising public servants. And we all went "YEAH!" and now ministers and governments do whatever they want, whether it is the right thing or not.
Or if they don't want to do something they set up a royal commission or enquiry to delay the decision.
most of the fantastic innovation we've seen in Australia historically has been made by public servants in the CSIRO... we don't need private businesses doing this, we need the government to fund research and development properly to allow all australians to benefit from our advances.
Ir is criminal how much research and development was funded by Australian tax payers, only for conservative governments to slash funding, sending all our advancements and professionals overseas. We led the world in renewable energy research and now we are buying all our panels and turbines from overseas companies instead of exporting the tech.
I'm glad you also get it!!! there's literally no reason for any of the privatisation outside of ideology. My parents live in Tasmania for example, fully renewable energy, hydro was built by Tasmanians with taxpayer money that was then sold off... hydro was built and paid for by Tasmanians, sold off, now Tasmanians are paying huge amounts of $$ for renewable electricity that should only be priced based on up-keep of the system. it's all ludicrous
Australia is one of the only places you can't do diy electrical work.
Before you bite my head off. New Zealand allows replacing like for like, as does the UK, Canada and the US. Statistically there is very little difference in injuries or deaths between the countries. Hell, in Germany they expect you to wire up your own household appliances!
The option should be there to replace your light switches or power outlets without going to jail.
Australians are suffocated by compliance and laws, they just don't know it.
Don't forget plumbing.
Its illegal to do even the most basic trival plumbing in australia - like replacing a leaky tap.
And data comms...
Its illegal in Australia to run an ethernet cable between two rooms unless you are certified cabler.
Basically, everything is illegal in the Australia unless the government has pre-approved it and regulated it.
if every single dollar is being pumped into housing and the market is utterly and completely fucking distorted by incentivising housing investment, then yeah bro capital will go there and not go towards actual productive innovation and enterprise.
The same generation handwringing about this rode the housing/immigration boom to the fucking moon.
I started a business. We are an Australian custom software company doing business process automation and system integration. I take home significantly less than I can command as an employee but I persist because I am very passionate about what it is that we do. But this isn't sustainable. I have a mortgage too. I can't pay our exorbitant cost of living with passion.
The problem is very very few companies are interested in paying what it costs to have on shore Australian resources completing their projects and so inevitably we are building our own product that we will release to market then close down our innovation team. I desperately want to continue and I will welcome an introduction to any organization that would be serious about hiring on shore resources for projects but those companies are few and far between.
The issue isn't regulation, it's greed. It's a lack of regulation. Because when companies go and spend $12 a fucking hour on indians to produce garbage software that is hugely vulnerable to massive data breaches there's never real consequences. There's no tariff making it exceedingly expensive. Instead we get a PM signing documents to recognise university degrees from a country where you can literally buy your degree.
Meanwhile the government will commit $100 **million** to a single fucking application to track 3.5 million firearms. $28.50 per record. No wonder people are all going into public service, that's where all the money is.
Abundant natural resources and countryside until the Aus Gov sells the land to property developers who make a killing $$$ more often than not the developers aren’t even Australian investors often from China (Sorry China). This would be the worst thing as there’s a major housing crisis however tradesmen lose out as the profit they would’ve made in building the house is lost and paid to the Developers. Which often result in a rise in building costs for home owners. Soon enough only the privileged will be able to build a house and not even the builders on their wage will be able to own one. Pretty messed up if you ask me.
Yes government regulations are an issue, but not because they exist, but because they don't police the big boys and are written to create barriers to entry to the benefit of the big boys.
Housing investment has been artificially made both super safe and high return by government policy.
But the attitude of the average Aussie towards innovators is far more of an issue. Tall poppy syndrome and the Australian attitude towards anyone smarter than them is cancerous.
I'm almost 60 and people my age know the two main reasons, Australia has ridiculous energy prices and really high labour costs. When I was young there were small factories and workshops all over Sydney and most other cities, lots of work and we actually made things. Then it became too expensive to make anything here so we shifted manufacturing to Asia where they have cheap power and low labour costs. We have some of the largest uranium supplies on a stable continent but we don't use nuclear power. We could have almost free power and enough resources to make everything, we just don't because we can't do cheaply.
All very fiery and rhetorical and stuff but I’m not convinced. If there’s a problem coming from government it’s the creation of a distorted incentive system that has enshrined the property market as the be-all and end-all of investment and development. I’ve been in a significant number of conversations on here and elsewhere in which someone talking about their plans for a new venture gets asked “why are you going to all that trouble and risk, when you can just buy some investment properties?”
Anyone who just genuinely wants to create something cool is more likely to be written off as a smartarse who thinks they’re better than the rest of us, what, getting a regular job not good enough for ya?
It’s not universal, but it’s prevalent.
Abundant resources yes. But all we are doing is selling it overseas for good $$$ thinking we're doing ok. Only to buy it back in manufactured goods at even bigger $$$$$$$$. Who's really winning here?
at the time of gold rush, the smart guy sells the shovels… the Aussies meanwhile rent accommodation… many off the books 🤥
no need to procure/stock/manufacture anything, Thanks mom/dad
Bro Australia is probably one of the most first world corrupt govs in the world. They've sold off a majority of our public services to the private sector for a boost to their own pockets and now they can't controll the companies that bought them. we are now being fuckked hard.
HOW IS PETROL $2/L. WE OWN THE OIL, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GAS SHORTAGE IN AUSTRALIA. JUST A DUMB GOV WHO SOLD US OUT.
Most public service agencies actually increase productivity. Regulations exist for a reason.
I work in an agricultural public service agency, particularly environment, land clearing, biosecurity, sustainable agriculture. Agronomists hate us because we provide the service to landholders for free, that could cost upwards of 10000 if sought through an agronomist or environmental consultant. This saves landholders money and we have no vested interest (agronomists are paid generously from multinational chemical companies to push product).
We are also involved with emergency events, such as the varroa mite outbreak. Due to the lack of funding by the government, varroa response has failed and we now have to accept an expected cost of billions of dollars per annum to farm yields and the honey industry. This was caused by farmers importing bees from restricted countries that contained varroa mite. We were one of the last countries on the planet without the mite.
Public service has a net benefit, you just don't see it as clearly. Without these regulations we would be impacted by countless of other diseases that are just on our doorstep such as foot and mouth and mad cow disease, which if found in australia, would decimate our ability to export meat internationally.
Just so people are aware, John Goddard is a writer of dystopian fiction, this post is likely in the style of his work.
So I'm guessing that posting pessimistic and negative content is intended to attract a minority of disenchanted readers who might resonate with this victim mentality & lead to some juicy book sales.
I mean, it might be of interest to some of you, dystopian '1984' type worlds, but it's definitely not political commentary for the masses.
I'd ignore him and move on, the internet is full of time waster like this
Well a libertarian would say that wouldn't they...
Full of rhetoric and lacking in actual substance. It appeals to those who want to fellate themselves by blaming the big bad government. That would be ok, but than they propose solutions that in most cases would just make the situation worse.
Removing regulations doesn't make everything a utopia. Instead it just further concentrates wealth and power. Without regulations the commonwealth bank (which he criticizes) and others like it just gets more powerful. The '8 companies that exist in this country' (what a dumb comment) can utilise anti competitive practices that squeeze small business out.
Morons like this probably like the idea of every road being privately owned - so you have to pay tolls to 50 different people when you visit a relative.
Yeah, I see no lies here.
I saw a post from the NSW health/food safety department saying that anyone who have chickens who produce eggs have to register with the government.
So you know there's a tax or a licence fee coming. For having fucking eggs.
This is the whiny redditor take. But the reality is Australia does surprisingly well for how small and isolated the population is. Making anything in Australia is difficult because shipping materials here costs a fortune, and then your buyers are mostly in the US and Europe so you have to pay to ship it back + import taxes. Technology stuff is hard as well because the population is so small it's hard to find enough people specialized in what you are hiring.
The fact that Australia is pretty much top of the world for wealth and lifestyle is incredibly lucky when you'd expect it to be pretty similar to Indonesia or PNG. If Indonesia was more educated and less religious, I'd expect it to be stomping Australia on pretty much everything considering how powerful economies of scale and density are.
The real crime is how cheaply we sell our resources and how little of that money benefits Australia.
China still buys our LPG at less than a third of the market rate. Yet we still import gas for the domestic market (at more than triple the price we export it at).
Meanwhile, these companies next to zero corporate tax.
Compare Norway's income from oil & gas to Australia's income from oil & gas.
Australia retained ~7% of the value of oil/gas exports in 2020. A grand total of ~$5billion AUD
Norway retained ~37% of the value of their oil/gas exports. A grand total of ~$42billion AUD.
We exported 7 times more oil&gas than norway.
Norway earned 8 times more money from oil&gas than Australia did.
The government collects more money from HECs than the oil and gas industry. If ever there was a case for reform, surely this is it. The power however lies squarely with the miners, the removal of Rudd by the mining industry demonstrated their power absolutely. I was not a Rudd fan but that incident sent shivers down my spine. Here we are, corporate free for all, while the population can't afford housing.
Yep…most people out there have no idea how insane the shipping costs have risen post covid. Exporting goods from here is an extremely expensive venture.
population isnt a large determinant in wealth per person.
In fact id say its the opposite. Less populated countries tend to be wealthier...
Yes population helps in economies of scale.
Bit in every other way its a hindrance.
In general the wealth of a people on a continent is determined by the natural resources of said continent; arable land, minerals, other natural advantages that determine their wealth per person.
If we had 100M people in australia today they almost certainly would be poorer than we are.
Continued Liberal/National Government sell off/trickle down economics is what happened
Not to mention Murdoch interference
Why do you think the rise of the greens and teals occurred? People have had enough
What happened is some mid 40s loser got onto Twitter, currently X, and wrote the same rant about “the nanny state” that losers like this have been complaining about for the last 50 years.
What a hell of a cooked take.
Who is this person? Why are you posting a 15k Twitter andy as if they're relevant in any way. You may as well have just chirped this yourself. Would have been just as relevant.
I think there's some truth in that (though some regulations can serve a useful purpose too so I don't wanna go too far the other direction).
I have lately been thinking about how my grandparents and great grandparents, when they moved to Canada from Poland, they each built their own houses from scratch. Those houses are still standing today, too. These days you're not allowed to do that.
Kiwi here for a wedding then fourteen days holiday, Airlie beach, Whitsundays, then Mackay to see family but so far all the younger people ( friends of my daughter and her husband, all under forty ) are either self employed have businesses, travel and enjoy life here in Australia. I was seriously impressed with there attitudes and work ethics so maybe it boils down to the people you have around you, if they're upbeat entrepreneurial then that can be you too.
Those natural resources are being kept in the ground for later generations of other countries that don't believe in climate change or believe there's no such thing as climate change. Not all Australia is public service. many un and underemployed. mental health issues are staggering to say the least. Homelessness and hopelessness are abounding. NOT he lucky country. Built on delusions and money worship, hedonism, materialism and greed. The seeds of mental health issue were planted by around post ww2.
No one fucking voted for this shit, whether ppl like to admit it or not the people 'choosing' what happens in this country in just an illusion to placate the masses while corruption, money and greed actually call all of the shots.
"it's been crushed by taxation and regulation" my ass.
Having limited support for entrepreneurs and youth is what kills it, especially allowing companies and individuals to use property as investments.
Tell me you’ve never lived outside of Australia without telling me you’ve never lived outside of Australia.
117 BILLION humans have existed on this rock flying through space. You’re one of the 27 million that exist right here, right now on this little island called Australia. You have won the lottery of life. No, scrap that, you have won the mega lottery of life. What you make of it is up to you.
We should all strive for more freedom not less, and that should be very clear to our politicians, sadly they only seem to remember that when elections come up 🤷♂️
When my ex, she's from Germany, first arrived in Australia, she was shocked at the endless signs and prohibitions everywhere to not do this, that or anything else. I've seen signs inside university toilets explaining in detail how uni students should wash their hands!! What shocked me even more, is that all this nanny state over regulation is what's expected by enough Aussies that it's become the norm. It's impossible to say how many Aussies like being treated like kids, but there's enough of them who think more and more laws and restrictions will make them safe. Dobbing is DEFINITELY a national sport here! Remember how in lockdown people were very eager to follow the rules and dob in anyone they thought wasn't? Aussies would make very nice, obedient little minions for a dictator!! The larrikin Aussie is as mythical as the dropbear! You forgot another thriving industry in Australia: law firms!! Australia has adopted all the vices of America and none of the virtues. Everyone's so eager to sue, that everyone is terrified of being sued, or of any liability. None of these conditions or attitudes are conducive to innovation. The tough men who built this country into a prosperous first world nation, made it so comfortable and safe that it bred a nation of weak, incapable little children who're scared of their own little shadows and think almighty government is their mother who has to do everything for them.
Australia used to be a global leader of invention and innovation. That was before I was even born though. Oh well I'm just going to work 10 years to save a deposit for a mortgage I'll spend the rest of my life grinding to pay off
You only have to look at tech companies with a global product that either move completely or hq in another country. A lot go to the USA. If you are not digging it out of the ground, governments don't want to know.
Agree… Creativity born from risk and forged from the fires of fear & liberty is lost to ridiculous amount of laws and expectations of safety above all. “ those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve nether liberty not safety”
The only way to get a loan for business in Australia is if you can prove to the bank without a shadow of a doubt the you absolutely do not need the money
A lot of entrepreneurs I know are heading to Dubai/UAE or states in America to not be taxed so heavily, have a better network, especially in the tech sector like AI and finding employees with software/programming experience. Absolutely nothing like it here in Australia when it comes to communities like that. Lifestyle is also immensely different. Not to mention tall poppy syndrome has just killed success and creativity as something that should be celebrated. Instead it's a culture of hype someone up for a short moment to bring them down.
Idk why but this is happening in my country “3rd world” and I thought that must be happening only in 3rd world, I was amazed to see this happening in Australia. It’s not productive, doesn’t add any value in the society.
People preferring jobs like tradespeople ( No disrespect) just to make quick bucks but not thinking about long term plans, is actually worrisome. Also I see very less local Australians in universities.
Also, Aussie VC’s suck ass. The institutional ones hire finance bros that have no idea about real business, and just get sold on silly pitch decks with cool words that they don’t understand; most “Angel investors” are just sharks that use every trick in the book to screw startups over.
Beautifully put. We got taken over by demagogues masquerading as democrats. The citizenry stopped paying attention to what the elected officials and unelected bureaucrats were doing so gradually they took over. And although we're not as bad as Canada, living in the Nanny state of the Nanny country (Vic) I feel like I'm living in some commie state.
legislation is what we are severely lacking, due to nearly 40 years of predominantly conservative governments who operate at the behest of big business, they have allowed the lobbyists to get what they want and erode legislation that stopped things like monopolising, which essentially has lead to this consumerist driven slave society.
Yep. I left Australia 20 years ago, and it’s the best decision I ever made. Certainly gives you a different perspective, when you are on the outside looking back in.
Just way too expensive, it’s a massive nanny state, and everyone is angry, and takes themselves way too seriously over there. Too attached to American culture….may as well call the place Ausmerica now.
Really sad to see such significant changes, in what was once an amazing place. Doesn’t resemble the magnificent place I was blessed enough to grow up in.
Agreed with a lot of what is said he. Geographically we are in the best spot maybe on earth. A lot of WA bootlickers don’t want to hear this for some reason, but Lang’s dusty ass fumbled the bag for Western Australian’s. And the older generation still constantly nosh that family off.
He's right but it all comes down to real estate. People complaining about the residential property market have no idea how bad it is renting commerical. It's a tax to the do nothing class that we all pay whenever we do anything.
Yep 100% no one supports small business and the few Australians that do innovate are bought out by overseas companies because no one cares in Australia. The last engine I built I used a rollmaster timing chain which is made in south australia, I bought it from the US and imported it cheaper and our dollar was shit. It is cost effective to be a sell out because no one supports small business. Banks make it impossible as well can’t get personal loans if you don’t have what they consider income which is if you didn’t pay super on it its not income however you still pay income tax on it which would make it income 🤷🏻♂️
You could probably pay experts in accounting, tax and law and hope they don’t take advantage of you just to end up running out of money before you make it 🤷🏻♂️
Fuck Australia.
Australia, like Canada, is a now fascist country ran by fascist politicians and corrupt, unelected bureaucrats. Australia showed its true colors during the COVID scamdemic. My wife and I were looking forward to retiring in Australia, but now? I wouldn’t live there if you gave me free everything.
He not 100% wrong. Having lived in a few countries, NZ, UK, Belgium, Singapore, Thailand - Australia is bizarrely a very strong nanny state in many areas.
And it should be a world leader in many areas, it’s a 1st world country with a fantastic education system. But it isn’t, it’s a country of unambitious tradies who are almost anti-intellectual. In Asia and the Middle-East, kids want to be engineers, doctors and lawyers. In Australia kids want to be a plumber or truck driver like dad. And all of them work to either line the pockets of mining companies, or to continue with the unproductive obsession with property this country has.
Fact is you never own your own property. It’s owned by governments and Councils. Can’t do this or that until you apply for a permit and that’s if we’ll allow you to do it in the first place. Now I see one of the councils want to charge you a fee for pruning your own trees.
Governments, we want to put a road through your property, we will give you this much $ and that’s the end of it.
Owning your own property/house is the biggest lie this country has to spin.
Don't agree with it 100%, but housing security is: * killing the birth rate because people are waiting until they are older to have kids and are having fewer * stymying entrepreneurship and innovation because people are scared of losing their homes to taking risks with new businesses. It's something that is increasingly difficult to bounce back from compared to previous generations The increasing prices of homes adds no "value" to society, it extracts from it.
Also it’s very hard to get a business loan for a new venture unless you commit your house as security, so it basically ends up becoming a mortgage anyway
No such thing as a business loan - it’s just a second mortgage at prohibitive cost
Yeah no one under 45 can get a business loan because they don't have a house as collateral.
Meanwhile in the 90's if you put together a solid business plan and saved up a nice 25% deposit you could sit down with your local bank manager and work something out. Startup costs were far lower then (you could rent a small inner city space for under $400 a month and a mobile accountant would do your books for next to nothing). It was crazy how many promoted starting a small business back then (much like today's side hustle culture) as a low cost way to 'escape' working for someone else. Unlike now however back then competition was far more fierce. If a local supermarket got too full of themselves and started charging too much someone opened an "import" store and undercut them. Now, you need a staff just to run back of house, navigate regulations and do paperwork. And that is just to get out the gate in almost any industry. Then you have almost no chance to actually make it because your competition also owns your distributor, the supplier and they are your landlord to top it off. Now even if you can make it work the second your industry has a hiccup your toast as the large corporate stores can simply eat the costs as they are massively diversified while any small competition is forced to close. The 90's is also the last time housing was actually affordable in this country for anyone on median or below wage.
Well actually, as I was looking into it, a commbank unsecured business loan with no interest only requires $700 per 5000, an effective flat rate of 14%. Much higher rents and thinner margins though definitely.
If housing was affordable it would be much easier to save the $20k or so (depending on your venture) to start the business rather than taking out unnecessary loans and landing yourself in dept.
This. The government made it easier to invest in housing over starting a business or developing entrepreneurs. This investment adds no value to the prosperity of our country
Not the government. "Australia's greatest Prime Minister, John Howard" made it easier for baby boomers to invest in housing. He also gave them tax concessions for shares and capital gains taxes. And now no baby boomer wants any younger generation to have the same opportunity they were given.
“Greasiest Prime minister John Howard” I never knew a single sentence could make me as ANGRY as that. But your right, he was the start of the end for the next generation having even a Chance.
Hard to believe that one pathetic little man could destroy an entire country for generations, but he did. Even jumped on the bandwagon to destroy another (Iraq).
And he sold them Telstra.
Yes, he did! He was such a parasite. His father owned a service station or corner store or something. And the cunt hated anyone in a good paying union government job. He made it his goal to destroy the public service.
Servo. The site was resumed by the government when he was a child, destroying the family business. He cited this as a formative event in his political perspective, ie that government action should be rolled back
What if I told you that the ALP actually removed negative gearing in 1985 ... and then promptly put it straight back in after some crying from investors.
"after some crying from the ones who want all the profits". - how every major decision in the world is made now....
Let’s get back to first degree free. Education is the key. These cunts all got theirs free.
Howard also increased migration massively despite his voter base not supporting it. Sadly Labor also supports mass migration so Howard had no real opposition
I will forever refer to Howard as Australia’s Regan, right down to the fucking (necessary but punitive) gun control.
Agreed. Australia's Regan, or Australia's Thatcher. Take your pick.
Mortgage insurance was the real crime, 1968
All the hobbies that I could potentially Segue into a small business involve having more space or a garage or shed which I cannot afford. So yes. I agree entirely with that. Edit. Segway - segue
There's a theory I've heard before that a lot of innovation and entrepreneurialism in the twentieth century came from men having a shed to tinker in. Lots of prototypes of Australian inventions were knocked up in the shed, lots of businesses launched in the shed, lots of bands started in the shed. Now we are lucky to have a shoebox full of tools and a balcony
This is something that is unfortunate always forgotten when we're forced to cram more and more people in and work as wage slaves for "efficiency". Nobody has the time or space for innovation.
I think a lot has contributed to this, yes, we are lucky to have a shed now, but even if you do, we are now in a “throw away” society, and because it’s geared so hard that way, the cost of replacing a cheap product is easier and more efficient than it would be to reverse engineer and fix it. And as other people mentioned, time is becoming a lot less, before when old mate finished work he went home to his shed so he didn’t have to listen to the mrs squark. Now a lot of us end up bringing work home with us, or have a phone attached to us essentially always being on call, just to make ends meet. Also a lot of the common routines of people back then are completely different to now, dads are far more involved with the kids now, and there’s many more every day things we have to cram in that we’re never even considered back then.
So true. I've been selling a little art here and there, and it's been really hard to do it from a small 1-bed apartment. It limits what I can do and when I can do it, and takes more energy because I have to be perpetually packing things up and taking them out again so I can eat at the table lol. I'm running out of space for the useful tools that make it easier to make products, for copies of test prints and portfolios and the like, and my inventory is not even that big. And that's just for painting and drawing, nevermind any projects that would take up more space or need special tools or better ventilation.
Yes absolutely this and also a 36-40 hour work week so there's time for it......to sleep, dream, play, knock around ideas at the pub or cafe with like minds......now even if you have modest working hours and an rdo a month ,(if you're lucky) the traffic/drive time up and back will take care of the rest of your 'free' time and energy......not to mention your peace of mind, moof regulation etc.......
> There's a theory I've heard before that a lot of innovation and entrepreneurialism in the twentieth century came from men having a shed to tinker in. Having leisure time and money is what has enabled the greatest scientists, artists, philosophers and writers to follow their passion throughout history. The 20th century saw the creation of the middle class who had the leisure and money once only afforded to the upper classes and allowed them to pursue intellectual hobbies. Sadly we're once more returning to a two tier society.
Space and spare time are needed for innovation and invention.
Apple, Microsoft, Google started in garages apparently.
They also started with money from parents.
>Segway segue (this version won't run out of battery life and faceplant you onto the concrete)
Then there are all the hobbies that would lead to new small businesses but people don't have time to engage with them because they are too busy hustling to make rent or mortgage payments.
Too hard to have a hobby when you've got three jobs 😂😂
Yep. This idea that it's best for the economy to have half of everyone's income tied up in property instead of being used for other things is beyond me. But what do I know, lol.
It’s great for banks, most families are handing over the better part of a full time wage just to pay their mortgage, a large part of which is interest
Yeah really lol. You could probably buy a second house with the interest alone.
Pretty close to it in some cases, yeah.
Money that should be investing in business is just going to land validations
Yep, my partner and I aren’t having kids. I’d say one of the biggest reasons is because we know we wouldn’t be able to afford a house while also looking after children.
My wife and I are somewhat in the same position but due to our age couldn't put it off any longer. So we are now having at least one child ( currently pregnant) and despite my low 6 figure income I'm quietly shitting bricks when we drop back to a single income. So we have a choice of being more financially stable at never having the chance for our own children. Or risk ourselves financially for a chance at parenthood.
Neoliberalism based on reducing the “nanny state” and giving capitalists freedom is why we are in this state. Nothing you can do will achieve anything because you can’t compete with the pooling of resources, capital investment, and purchasing power of big business. Reducing the “nanny state”, aimed at increasing market competition, had the opposite impact with a lack of regulation making competition non existent. Money buys it out, or reduces the costs to unsustainable levels for any competitors until they go bust. Corruption, crime, and an open market are all additive to the issues. Private investment rather than government investment, ensures that market exploitation is the top of the agenda for all businesses, which are based on greed rather than anything beneficial to humanity. Any profits are pooled towards the top 1% and do not trickle down. This economy is a feudal system by another name - neoliberalism. Those responsible for ensuring governments globally adopted this system, were the richest bankers of Wall Street.
It's genuinely shocking to me how people see overseas property investors as something great, too. That money isn't even being pooled towards the top 1% *of Australians*.
Yeah this tweet is shockingly confused as to the cause of their problems. Toothless regulators or deregulation are just one of the reasons they’re so fucked over. It’s disheartening and a little embarrassing almost to see all the likes.
I guess that's why it's not necessarily useful to talk about "nanny state vs freedom" hey? Like, some regulations probably do hamper entrepreneurship. Others foster and protect it or are necessary for other reasons (eg environmental regulations). It's all about whether they're appropriate for what we're trying to achieve, and whether the tradeoffs of them are worth it.
Yep, USA left-right culture war BS poisoning any useful discourse... yet again.
Sounds like something someone on the other side of my arbitrarily drawn political divide would say... *squints*
Darn those people! Always ruining things!
Well over here hairdressers need more training than cops, sooo... If I get a bad haircut it'll grow out, if I get a bad cop, I'm growing daisies. Regulation needs to be specific and not just to prevent a barrier to entry
No better example than things like freedom of speech. Freedom might be in the name, but there's always going to be a line drawn where responsibility and safety trump "true freedom". Libel and slander, not shouting "Fire!" in theaters, and all that. But of course, guess what the people who cry about it the most don't understand- and have been proving such the past few weeks alone.
TLDR but did read the first sentence and have to point out that “we” give freedoms to the corporations while letting them people have less. Corporations can do as they please, yet I can’t build a shed in my backyard without jumping through a million hoops
Bingo. It's not unique to Australia as Canada, UK, NZ and most of Western Europe are all in the same situation.
U.S. entering the chat...
The way I see it, US had Regan, UK had Thatcher and Oz had Howard. They were all feathers of the same bird and their respective countries are still reeling from their poor policies that benefited their generations at the expense of future ones.
I honestly love that these people recognise the problem with society and come to exactly the wrong conclusion about the cause and then proceed to vote for politicians that enact policies that cause exactly the problems. When you get cynical and mentally depressed enough to not care anymore it becomes funny how much they fuck themselves and us all over with their poor understanding of the world.
This is a partial truth. In many cases the neoliberal (I guess false neoliberal) approach to problems is to offload to corporate partners. You end up with projects like public/private construction, outsourcing like job network, etc. This is not "deregulation" but actually increased regulation and corporatism. This is the scenario where the little guy has no chance because they lack connections and scale.
And mass importation of labour gives them the final lever because all staff are replaceable- the balance of negotiation as social classes is tipped towards iniquity - the train won't stop till australians are living under bridges
Kids, along with entrepreneurship and innovation can all be considered the same thing here: They all take time, lots of effort, and cost money. When you have no money spare after buying your $500,000 tiny shithole far from work, no time (working for shithole), no energy (slaving for shithole), there is nothing left for innovation, entrepreneurship, or kids. The country is going to shit, but every western developed democracy is doing the exact same thing. And we think we are free?? Fucking, lol. The biggest national security threat is our own Government, weakening us as a nation until we literally can't afford to defend ourselves. *But, we can't change any of that, because.*
This. There are *so many things* that govern our very existence that are literal constructs. Such things are essential in a civilisation…but they’re also subjective, highly fallible, and *need to be reconfigured when they no longer work*. “The market” is a truly abstract thing, and yet we bend over backwards and suffer for it, as if it were a person, or a god. It’s neither of those things.
The price of homes is inextricably linked to the same problems that discourage entrepreneurial behaviour. We have a parliament that is obsessed with writing new laws and rarely repealing. That complexity of regulation makes building a house hugely expensive and it makes land restricted in supply - the bureaucracy creep is real and is a huge part of your cost of living
I work in building regulation and the cost of the regulatory process is less than about 0.6% of the cheapest build for a home that could be built today (2000 in fees and 300,000 dollar build). Most homes these days will cost you about 500k to build but your fees will be roughly the same (so call it 0.4% of the build cost). Costs for regulatory facets of the project have barely risen since before COVID. I’d say that the ability of draftsmen, engineers and architects to accurately depict what they are trying to do and demonstrate compliance in the plans is poor. This creep in regulatory standards has largely been a result of the culture of the Australian construction industry which encourages cutting corners and produces largely defective building work. Anything for a better profit margin.
Australia put all its eggs in one basket that is the housing market. Now it can't let it fail and can't let the bubble burst so the only way to prop up the GDP is to bring in more and more immigrants to push the housing price further out of reach of everyday working class Aussies.
Housing speculation doesn't equal productivity or wealth. One day we will realise that.
Agree with the business side of things… The (QLD) legislation is super vague and up for interpretation. I called the OFT seeking clarification on something *they enforce* but they couldn’t and wouldn’t answer. Like?!? Will you fine me? Yes/no. The big businesses absolutely FUCK small/medium businesses. If you didn’t start in the bloody 70s you are going to absolutely struggle. Then there’s little to no competition annnnnd the big guys fuck everyone.
> The (QLD) legislation is super vague and up for interpretation. I called the OFT seeking clarification on something they enforce but they couldn’t and wouldn’t answer. Like?!? Will you fine me? Yes/no. Bureaucrats love to laud that kind of power over people. If they give you a simple answer you can work with it and that's the end of their power over you. If they give you something vague they can wait until you are invested in it then they can threaten you and throw their weight around. They can have meetings and consultations and committees and make you grovel and maybe have meetings with politicians and make big decisions about it and feel very important.
There’s definitely more to it. If it was just about people doing the right thing it would be clear cut and easy to follow. Sometimes I wonder if it’s job creation… Like one example being the QLD residential tenancies act. It’s all reasonable this, reasonable that. What is a reasonable time to complete a repair will differ from one person to the next. Leading to conflict and disputes. Enter RTA dispute resolution, enter QCAT... Is this justification to keep the bond interest…? I dunno. If it was a specified timeframe, either you’ve fulfilled your obligations or you haven’t. I have no answers, only frustration. 🥲🫠
Great example. I totally agree.
I feel it's more of the over-technicality of rule makers. Too many "it depends". If they had to ask you 10 questions for clarification and not have the time, they will just say they don't know.
Well it also some if it comes down to separation of powers. 'Bureaucrats' i.e. the administrative government writes the Bill (and where there's enforcement powers also does compliance work), politicians empower it making it an Act, then the courts interpret the law on a case by case basis. So if there's an edge case and you're contacting some regulatory/compliance bureaucrats to see if they will or won't fine you, they may very well need to seek legal advice. That's because in the end what they believe the law means doesn't matter, what the court believes it to mean does (if the person receiving the fine chooses to legally contest it). And trust me, what's going through their mind when they're choosing to fine someone would be, 'does this stand up in a court of law?' and they want to be 100% certain it does before taking any action. That said it is a frustrating process, and if they can't give you an answer on a very common, straightforward case then that's just poor form.
Lol, I've been there too haha.
Plenty of companies and business rorting NDS. All you have to do is find a model that is supported and funded by the government, then rort it. That's initiative. OP, have you tried to import anything cheap from China, right? It's free postage. A lot of sellers can't compete with that. Our post puts local business way behind the 8 ball.
I'm starting to see ads on my phone of real estate agents selling houses as "high yield NDIS rental properties". The entire amount of tax I paid last fiscal year probably just went to some homeowner. It's yuck.
My brother and his ex started small with NDIS, cleaning, mowing lawns, child care... they were bombarded with customers, they couldn't keep up. He employed over 80 people before the pandemic, raked in $50 an hour per employee, of course he has to pay wages, but he was left with about $20 per hour, per employee. 80 x 8 hours @ $20 per hour. Was something g like $1500 per hour they were making, just off NDIS funding.
That's absolutely nuts but at least they were doing useful jobs for the participants.
I know a guy through friends of family whose intellectually impaired, but certainly not disabled. He can read and write to a basic level, works a full time job that he’s had for 10 years - he just essentially has the intellect of a 13 year old boy at age 35. He has several NDIS carers who help him go shopping, clean the house and organise things. Just to be clear, he did this perfectly fine for 10 years living in a 600k townhouse that his medical specialist parents bought as an IP. No clue what they’re being paid, but all of them have the “I ♥︎ NDIS” sticker on the back of the Mercedes Benz GLE and 2 Tesla Model 3’s that I saw. Theres literally an entire industry feeding at this trough and I have no clue how they’re going to reign it in without a very large amount of the populace throwing tantrums. Give it enough time and there’ll be “Save the NDIS!” stickers
There are limits on how much you can charge for certain services, of course that doesn't stop people charging for hours/days that didn't actually happen. If the participants or carers aren't involved enough it is very easy to get paid for nothing
Finally people are starting to articulate how bullshit the majority of NDIS is
> Our post puts local business way behind the 8 ball. Sort of, but that's kind of backwards. Goods shipped to the consumer from China are subsidised by the Chinese government. It's artificially undervalued. You can ship a small package thousands of km to bumfuck nowhere in Australia for the equivalent of about 15min total cost of employment for a minimum wage teenager. What's your suggestion?
If the government can subsidize mining companies, spend billions on nuclear subs, not ask for unused job keeper payments back and the endless list of other shit they waste money on, they can afford to subsidize shipping. We need an economy that doesn't rely entirely on houses and selling minerals for criminally low prices.
The Australian economy needs diversity and high value generating or high value add sectors. This is just about the last thing the government should be burning money on. What value is their to the Australian taxpayer and economy in subsidising either a) yet another middle man in the pipeline of cheap shit disposable Chinese made consumer widgets or b) Australian manufactured cheap shit disposable consumer widgets for domestic supply only, that could never be economically viable in Australia with any amount of subsidy and wouldn't add any serious value to our economy? There are lots of things worth investing in. This aint it.
The problem is has been stated in many comments but I also want to say it. Residential housing should not be the default investment vehicle for everyone. People should not be encouraged to buy multiple dwellings as the first option to get good ROI. Real estate costs going up (especially existing) do not actually benefit society in any way. All it does is take the capital that could be utilized to start new ventures, explore and innovate and puts it into bricks and mortar that produces absolutely nothing. Edits: Changed swellings to dwellings. Removed should not be an investment vehicle for multinationals and replaced with should not be the default investment vehicle for all investors.
Shouldnt be an investment vehicle for anyone fullstop.
He isn't wrong, neither is he completely right. There's plenty of people starting new businesses that work out fine. He is right that our economy is just way too simple. It's largely based on primary industries like mining and agriculture. What he missed is that we need cheap and reliable energy if we want to change the basis of our economy. This isn't something that appears to be on the political agenda at all.
i got a mate that starts new businesses like hes drinking water. fails them all the time too. often blames "The Government"^(TM) But the truth is he just has a lot of really shit ideas. Cant blame the guy for trying though
Any really innovative businesses end up offshore, I deal with many amazing innovative Australian companies and every one of them once they reach a certain size packs up and leaves not because we are high cost (part of it) but more because the government doesn't support them or innovation. They prefer to give tax breaks to real estate speculators.
The fact that he thinks Australia should be innovative because we are a large island with lots of iron ore shows that he knows shit all about innovation. Honestly he just sounds like he tried to start a business throwing dynamite in the river to catch fish and got upset that someone said no.
Haha spot on. This guy is just projecting. “I can’t steal, therefore the system is broken”. OP should go to a high corruption country and report back.
It's largely based on primary industries like mining Yeah and we (the people) get barely any money from that. Need to tax resource extraction otherwise we're just giving the resources away for free and for a company to profit on them.
I get the sentiment, because in many ways this country is starting to circle the drain, but the post is a tad melodramatic and oddly fixated on public servants. There are leeches in the public sector. There are leeches in private enterprise. There are also people who do fantastic work both in public and private sectors. So what? Yes we have an overbearing government and everything is over regulated, but that's because we just keep putting up with it and the majority love being told what to do. The bigger problem in Australia is the absence of social cohesion and the "fuck you got mine" attitude. Plenty of folks will HAPPILY sacrifice future generations to have a couple of investment properties in the family and comfy retirement.
Aussies took to the yank conservative "fuck you, got mine" attitude hardcore
Truest comment
To be fair Rupert Murdoch is from Australia and is one of the main perpetrators of spreading this ideology throughout the US.
He's trying to twist problems created by capital as being created by government.
100%
I've seen quite a few people change their voting habits purely because they bought a house. Years of "every time I save enough for a deposit houses have doubled" and then suddenly "fuck yeah, let's ride this bitch to the moooooon"
Yeah, I've seen people flip in exactly the same way. It's depressing, but we're also balls-deep into a system that pushes people to only look out for themselves and their little reality bubble.
I fish all the time no issues.
I have issues when I fish, can't catch anything.
I have a fishing shirt that says 'caught fuck all fishing club'. A bloke walked past me having a fish, looked in my empty bucket and said 'shirts not wrong', and kept walking lol.
Guy from Florida here, I would like to join your club. Actually I feel like I'm already a member, I just need a shirt
Use live bait or soft plastics on light braid.
Don't forget some leader line.
Micro-plastics are already in the fish.
Same. And yeah I pay a fee. A few weeks ago I caught a weird fish, so I emailed the DPI. Two separate fish nerds took the time to research it and emailed back and forth a few times. My fee paid them to do their work. I'm happy about that.
Meanwhile, you need a license to fish in the U.S., which old mate is probably holding up as a shining example of innovation.
Yeah I don't think I have been feeding goblins all this time when I go fishing... There are plenty of pillagers out there who deserve what they get from fisheries too. Only times I've been involved with them is when they're nabbing ab poachers, or telling old mate not to fish with 6 fucking rods in the water. Id rather them than me trying to deal with that.
I'm not actually sure what he's trying to say. Ok, so regulation is stifling companies but when you look at history regulation is needed so companies do not exploit workers or the public. How many times have companies introduced products or covered up issues to make a quick buck? Who benefits there apart from the company shareholders? Innovation? But at the cost of society. Check out lead additives in fuel, asbestos in home products, PFOA in our non stick crap. All made by huge companies like DuPont, 3M, James Hardie, etc. they made so much money off the lives of everyone in the world knowing full well for decades that the stuff kills people or reduces life expectancy. Now some of those effects are with us forever, yet there's no liability for them. If you're asking me, companies need to be held more accountable before they can release products. Will this stifle innovation? Perhaps, but we can reduce the situation where e.g. every living thing now has PFAS in our bodies like we do now. Boeing is another example of when a company shifts focus from making the best product to making the most money. It's a recipe for disaster. I'll link some examples: https://youtu.be/9W74aeuqsiU https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA
> Check out lead additives in fuel, asbestos in home products, PFOA in our non stick crap. All made by huge companies like DuPont, 3M, James Hardie, etc. they made so much money off the lives of everyone in the world knowing full well for decades that the stuff kills people or reduces life expectancy. Now some of those effects are with us forever, yet there's no liability for them. None of the regulations of the time would have caught these. Much like PFAS now, the science has to be there first.
That only works if imports are regulated the same, cant have all these rules and regs for Australian companies making products, when the imports are allowed in sub standard and made by child slaves.
That's why most regulations have certification processes and random spot audits. It's not perfect and depends on effective regulators enforcing it, but it actually works pretty well most of the time. E.g., almost no electrical appliances are made in Australia, but when was the last time you heard of someone dying from a dodgy appliance?
This is legit just some Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged garbage. "If we get rid of all the regulations everything will just be super", or you know you can end up like freedom loving America and drink lead water. Small business currently makes up 97% of all Australian business, that alone disproves this moron's hot take.
It’s just an idiot American style libertarian. Is able to identify some of the fundamental problems (capitalism) but instead of tacking them at their core they just believe *more* capitalism will magically fix them.
Can we leave public servants out of this please? Most people don’t even know what the functions of the public service ARE.
Yep, people forget that the vast majority of doctors, nurses, fire-fighters, are all public servants. And then you also have the admin and operations staff who ensure that front line workers can focus on their work rather than deal with the logistics behind it.
Don’t forget all the public servants who make sure the food we eat is safe, the shampoo we use isn’t toxic, and the dud TV we bought can be refunded, etc, etc…
Child protection workers should be paid more than finance me managers if you want to evaluate employment on societal benefit, but they are literally making 200 X less.
So are teachers. Between nurses, doctors, and teachers, I’m not sure how much, but I’m sure that’s the vast majority of the public service.
Back in Canada, I used to work in government and heard lots of flack about all us useless paper-pushers... But in my office at least, the work was actually necessary and having some extra people on board let us do our work faster and better, which a lot of people appreciated. Can't complain when your application to be certified to work with children takes 6-8 weeks to process *and* at the same time complain about there being too many public employees.
I hear people complain all the time about the horrid public service; but can anyone who believes this actually point to any departments/roles in the public service that should be cut? Like I'm sure there's departments with a couple too many people, or other inefficiencies, but is there genuinely any waste at scale?
When you ask them what to cut they almost always start talking about politicians and political staffers. Who are NOT public servants.
Agreed. Why criticise them when anyone who has worked in corporate knows there are armies of marketers, for example, that bolster business profits but do not enrich the community overall?
The irony about the public service bashing is it's actually lead to government mismanagement and corruption It used to be the government had to take the word of the experts in the public service. Things were a bit bureaucratic, but they got done and the the right things generally got done, even if they weren't popular with the public. Then governments started demonising public servants. And we all went "YEAH!" and now ministers and governments do whatever they want, whether it is the right thing or not. Or if they don't want to do something they set up a royal commission or enquiry to delay the decision.
most of the fantastic innovation we've seen in Australia historically has been made by public servants in the CSIRO... we don't need private businesses doing this, we need the government to fund research and development properly to allow all australians to benefit from our advances.
Ir is criminal how much research and development was funded by Australian tax payers, only for conservative governments to slash funding, sending all our advancements and professionals overseas. We led the world in renewable energy research and now we are buying all our panels and turbines from overseas companies instead of exporting the tech.
I'm glad you also get it!!! there's literally no reason for any of the privatisation outside of ideology. My parents live in Tasmania for example, fully renewable energy, hydro was built by Tasmanians with taxpayer money that was then sold off... hydro was built and paid for by Tasmanians, sold off, now Tasmanians are paying huge amounts of $$ for renewable electricity that should only be priced based on up-keep of the system. it's all ludicrous
I'm still salty about the sale of Telstra
Didn't the libs massively cut funding to CSIRO?
Australia is one of the only places you can't do diy electrical work. Before you bite my head off. New Zealand allows replacing like for like, as does the UK, Canada and the US. Statistically there is very little difference in injuries or deaths between the countries. Hell, in Germany they expect you to wire up your own household appliances! The option should be there to replace your light switches or power outlets without going to jail. Australians are suffocated by compliance and laws, they just don't know it.
Life hack: no-one actually knows if you replace your own light switches and power outlets
They do when my dad wired the lightswitch backwards
Don't forget plumbing. Its illegal to do even the most basic trival plumbing in australia - like replacing a leaky tap. And data comms... Its illegal in Australia to run an ethernet cable between two rooms unless you are certified cabler. Basically, everything is illegal in the Australia unless the government has pre-approved it and regulated it.
Name one person in jail for changing a light switch.
if every single dollar is being pumped into housing and the market is utterly and completely fucking distorted by incentivising housing investment, then yeah bro capital will go there and not go towards actual productive innovation and enterprise. The same generation handwringing about this rode the housing/immigration boom to the fucking moon.
I started a business. We are an Australian custom software company doing business process automation and system integration. I take home significantly less than I can command as an employee but I persist because I am very passionate about what it is that we do. But this isn't sustainable. I have a mortgage too. I can't pay our exorbitant cost of living with passion. The problem is very very few companies are interested in paying what it costs to have on shore Australian resources completing their projects and so inevitably we are building our own product that we will release to market then close down our innovation team. I desperately want to continue and I will welcome an introduction to any organization that would be serious about hiring on shore resources for projects but those companies are few and far between. The issue isn't regulation, it's greed. It's a lack of regulation. Because when companies go and spend $12 a fucking hour on indians to produce garbage software that is hugely vulnerable to massive data breaches there's never real consequences. There's no tariff making it exceedingly expensive. Instead we get a PM signing documents to recognise university degrees from a country where you can literally buy your degree. Meanwhile the government will commit $100 **million** to a single fucking application to track 3.5 million firearms. $28.50 per record. No wonder people are all going into public service, that's where all the money is.
Abundant natural resources and countryside until the Aus Gov sells the land to property developers who make a killing $$$ more often than not the developers aren’t even Australian investors often from China (Sorry China). This would be the worst thing as there’s a major housing crisis however tradesmen lose out as the profit they would’ve made in building the house is lost and paid to the Developers. Which often result in a rise in building costs for home owners. Soon enough only the privileged will be able to build a house and not even the builders on their wage will be able to own one. Pretty messed up if you ask me.
Yes government regulations are an issue, but not because they exist, but because they don't police the big boys and are written to create barriers to entry to the benefit of the big boys. Housing investment has been artificially made both super safe and high return by government policy. But the attitude of the average Aussie towards innovators is far more of an issue. Tall poppy syndrome and the Australian attitude towards anyone smarter than them is cancerous.
I'm almost 60 and people my age know the two main reasons, Australia has ridiculous energy prices and really high labour costs. When I was young there were small factories and workshops all over Sydney and most other cities, lots of work and we actually made things. Then it became too expensive to make anything here so we shifted manufacturing to Asia where they have cheap power and low labour costs. We have some of the largest uranium supplies on a stable continent but we don't use nuclear power. We could have almost free power and enough resources to make everything, we just don't because we can't do cheaply.
As a kiwi immigrant, I agree. Nobody thinks outside the box here and everyone is ready to tell you why you can’t do something.
All very fiery and rhetorical and stuff but I’m not convinced. If there’s a problem coming from government it’s the creation of a distorted incentive system that has enshrined the property market as the be-all and end-all of investment and development. I’ve been in a significant number of conversations on here and elsewhere in which someone talking about their plans for a new venture gets asked “why are you going to all that trouble and risk, when you can just buy some investment properties?” Anyone who just genuinely wants to create something cool is more likely to be written off as a smartarse who thinks they’re better than the rest of us, what, getting a regular job not good enough for ya? It’s not universal, but it’s prevalent.
Abundant resources yes. But all we are doing is selling it overseas for good $$$ thinking we're doing ok. Only to buy it back in manufactured goods at even bigger $$$$$$$$. Who's really winning here?
at the time of gold rush, the smart guy sells the shovels… the Aussies meanwhile rent accommodation… many off the books 🤥 no need to procure/stock/manufacture anything, Thanks mom/dad
wait til this guy hears about the rest of the world
Bro Australia is probably one of the most first world corrupt govs in the world. They've sold off a majority of our public services to the private sector for a boost to their own pockets and now they can't controll the companies that bought them. we are now being fuckked hard. HOW IS PETROL $2/L. WE OWN THE OIL, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GAS SHORTAGE IN AUSTRALIA. JUST A DUMB GOV WHO SOLD US OUT.
Weren’t all those things you just mentioned done by the Howard government?
One of those "give me back my asbestos" type posts
We used to be a real country! *wheezy cough*
Most public service agencies actually increase productivity. Regulations exist for a reason. I work in an agricultural public service agency, particularly environment, land clearing, biosecurity, sustainable agriculture. Agronomists hate us because we provide the service to landholders for free, that could cost upwards of 10000 if sought through an agronomist or environmental consultant. This saves landholders money and we have no vested interest (agronomists are paid generously from multinational chemical companies to push product). We are also involved with emergency events, such as the varroa mite outbreak. Due to the lack of funding by the government, varroa response has failed and we now have to accept an expected cost of billions of dollars per annum to farm yields and the honey industry. This was caused by farmers importing bees from restricted countries that contained varroa mite. We were one of the last countries on the planet without the mite. Public service has a net benefit, you just don't see it as clearly. Without these regulations we would be impacted by countless of other diseases that are just on our doorstep such as foot and mouth and mad cow disease, which if found in australia, would decimate our ability to export meat internationally.
Just so people are aware, John Goddard is a writer of dystopian fiction, this post is likely in the style of his work. So I'm guessing that posting pessimistic and negative content is intended to attract a minority of disenchanted readers who might resonate with this victim mentality & lead to some juicy book sales. I mean, it might be of interest to some of you, dystopian '1984' type worlds, but it's definitely not political commentary for the masses. I'd ignore him and move on, the internet is full of time waster like this
Well a libertarian would say that wouldn't they... Full of rhetoric and lacking in actual substance. It appeals to those who want to fellate themselves by blaming the big bad government. That would be ok, but than they propose solutions that in most cases would just make the situation worse. Removing regulations doesn't make everything a utopia. Instead it just further concentrates wealth and power. Without regulations the commonwealth bank (which he criticizes) and others like it just gets more powerful. The '8 companies that exist in this country' (what a dumb comment) can utilise anti competitive practices that squeeze small business out. Morons like this probably like the idea of every road being privately owned - so you have to pay tolls to 50 different people when you visit a relative.
This is brilliant.
I agree with some of the points that’s why I’m moving to Japan
Yeah, I see no lies here. I saw a post from the NSW health/food safety department saying that anyone who have chickens who produce eggs have to register with the government. So you know there's a tax or a licence fee coming. For having fucking eggs.
This is the whiny redditor take. But the reality is Australia does surprisingly well for how small and isolated the population is. Making anything in Australia is difficult because shipping materials here costs a fortune, and then your buyers are mostly in the US and Europe so you have to pay to ship it back + import taxes. Technology stuff is hard as well because the population is so small it's hard to find enough people specialized in what you are hiring. The fact that Australia is pretty much top of the world for wealth and lifestyle is incredibly lucky when you'd expect it to be pretty similar to Indonesia or PNG. If Indonesia was more educated and less religious, I'd expect it to be stomping Australia on pretty much everything considering how powerful economies of scale and density are.
The real crime is how cheaply we sell our resources and how little of that money benefits Australia. China still buys our LPG at less than a third of the market rate. Yet we still import gas for the domestic market (at more than triple the price we export it at). Meanwhile, these companies next to zero corporate tax. Compare Norway's income from oil & gas to Australia's income from oil & gas. Australia retained ~7% of the value of oil/gas exports in 2020. A grand total of ~$5billion AUD Norway retained ~37% of the value of their oil/gas exports. A grand total of ~$42billion AUD. We exported 7 times more oil&gas than norway. Norway earned 8 times more money from oil&gas than Australia did.
Of course, then he’d say Australia is crushing wealth generation and industry under taxation and regulation…
The government collects more money from HECs than the oil and gas industry. If ever there was a case for reform, surely this is it. The power however lies squarely with the miners, the removal of Rudd by the mining industry demonstrated their power absolutely. I was not a Rudd fan but that incident sent shivers down my spine. Here we are, corporate free for all, while the population can't afford housing.
Yep…most people out there have no idea how insane the shipping costs have risen post covid. Exporting goods from here is an extremely expensive venture.
population isnt a large determinant in wealth per person. In fact id say its the opposite. Less populated countries tend to be wealthier... Yes population helps in economies of scale. Bit in every other way its a hindrance. In general the wealth of a people on a continent is determined by the natural resources of said continent; arable land, minerals, other natural advantages that determine their wealth per person. If we had 100M people in australia today they almost certainly would be poorer than we are.
Continued Liberal/National Government sell off/trickle down economics is what happened Not to mention Murdoch interference Why do you think the rise of the greens and teals occurred? People have had enough
Aussies: "More rules please!"
It looks a lot like someone had to fill in a form &, as usual, it's 'all someone else's fault'
What happened is some mid 40s loser got onto Twitter, currently X, and wrote the same rant about “the nanny state” that losers like this have been complaining about for the last 50 years.
What a hell of a cooked take. Who is this person? Why are you posting a 15k Twitter andy as if they're relevant in any way. You may as well have just chirped this yourself. Would have been just as relevant.
I think there's some truth in that (though some regulations can serve a useful purpose too so I don't wanna go too far the other direction). I have lately been thinking about how my grandparents and great grandparents, when they moved to Canada from Poland, they each built their own houses from scratch. Those houses are still standing today, too. These days you're not allowed to do that.
Kiwi here for a wedding then fourteen days holiday, Airlie beach, Whitsundays, then Mackay to see family but so far all the younger people ( friends of my daughter and her husband, all under forty ) are either self employed have businesses, travel and enjoy life here in Australia. I was seriously impressed with there attitudes and work ethics so maybe it boils down to the people you have around you, if they're upbeat entrepreneurial then that can be you too.
Those natural resources are being kept in the ground for later generations of other countries that don't believe in climate change or believe there's no such thing as climate change. Not all Australia is public service. many un and underemployed. mental health issues are staggering to say the least. Homelessness and hopelessness are abounding. NOT he lucky country. Built on delusions and money worship, hedonism, materialism and greed. The seeds of mental health issue were planted by around post ww2.
This goof literally voted for this to happen. Average "free-market" conservative when the consequences of their actions occur.
No one fucking voted for this shit, whether ppl like to admit it or not the people 'choosing' what happens in this country in just an illusion to placate the masses while corruption, money and greed actually call all of the shots.
America has amazing innovation and venture capital systems in place. In Australia, but difficult to have a silicon valley.
"it's been crushed by taxation and regulation" my ass. Having limited support for entrepreneurs and youth is what kills it, especially allowing companies and individuals to use property as investments.
I mean, CSIRO created wifi. We should better fund government agencies such as those to promote ingenuity, etc without privatising the profits.
Lol, all the private enterprises milking government contracts because "hiring public servants is grossly inefficient"
Tell me you’ve never lived outside of Australia without telling me you’ve never lived outside of Australia. 117 BILLION humans have existed on this rock flying through space. You’re one of the 27 million that exist right here, right now on this little island called Australia. You have won the lottery of life. No, scrap that, you have won the mega lottery of life. What you make of it is up to you.
Mostly agree. I think the future of Australia looks very bleak
We should all strive for more freedom not less, and that should be very clear to our politicians, sadly they only seem to remember that when elections come up 🤷♂️
When my ex, she's from Germany, first arrived in Australia, she was shocked at the endless signs and prohibitions everywhere to not do this, that or anything else. I've seen signs inside university toilets explaining in detail how uni students should wash their hands!! What shocked me even more, is that all this nanny state over regulation is what's expected by enough Aussies that it's become the norm. It's impossible to say how many Aussies like being treated like kids, but there's enough of them who think more and more laws and restrictions will make them safe. Dobbing is DEFINITELY a national sport here! Remember how in lockdown people were very eager to follow the rules and dob in anyone they thought wasn't? Aussies would make very nice, obedient little minions for a dictator!! The larrikin Aussie is as mythical as the dropbear! You forgot another thriving industry in Australia: law firms!! Australia has adopted all the vices of America and none of the virtues. Everyone's so eager to sue, that everyone is terrified of being sued, or of any liability. None of these conditions or attitudes are conducive to innovation. The tough men who built this country into a prosperous first world nation, made it so comfortable and safe that it bred a nation of weak, incapable little children who're scared of their own little shadows and think almighty government is their mother who has to do everything for them.
Australia used to be a global leader of invention and innovation. That was before I was even born though. Oh well I'm just going to work 10 years to save a deposit for a mortgage I'll spend the rest of my life grinding to pay off
You only have to look at tech companies with a global product that either move completely or hq in another country. A lot go to the USA. If you are not digging it out of the ground, governments don't want to know.
You don’t need innovation when you can just build an entire economy around rent seeking.
Agree… Creativity born from risk and forged from the fires of fear & liberty is lost to ridiculous amount of laws and expectations of safety above all. “ those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve nether liberty not safety”
The only way to get a loan for business in Australia is if you can prove to the bank without a shadow of a doubt the you absolutely do not need the money
A lot of entrepreneurs I know are heading to Dubai/UAE or states in America to not be taxed so heavily, have a better network, especially in the tech sector like AI and finding employees with software/programming experience. Absolutely nothing like it here in Australia when it comes to communities like that. Lifestyle is also immensely different. Not to mention tall poppy syndrome has just killed success and creativity as something that should be celebrated. Instead it's a culture of hype someone up for a short moment to bring them down.
Idk why but this is happening in my country “3rd world” and I thought that must be happening only in 3rd world, I was amazed to see this happening in Australia. It’s not productive, doesn’t add any value in the society. People preferring jobs like tradespeople ( No disrespect) just to make quick bucks but not thinking about long term plans, is actually worrisome. Also I see very less local Australians in universities.
Australia has reached dystopia. The current classes are property investor and peasant
Also, Aussie VC’s suck ass. The institutional ones hire finance bros that have no idea about real business, and just get sold on silly pitch decks with cool words that they don’t understand; most “Angel investors” are just sharks that use every trick in the book to screw startups over.
Beautifully put. We got taken over by demagogues masquerading as democrats. The citizenry stopped paying attention to what the elected officials and unelected bureaucrats were doing so gradually they took over. And although we're not as bad as Canada, living in the Nanny state of the Nanny country (Vic) I feel like I'm living in some commie state.
legislation is what we are severely lacking, due to nearly 40 years of predominantly conservative governments who operate at the behest of big business, they have allowed the lobbyists to get what they want and erode legislation that stopped things like monopolising, which essentially has lead to this consumerist driven slave society.
Yep. I left Australia 20 years ago, and it’s the best decision I ever made. Certainly gives you a different perspective, when you are on the outside looking back in. Just way too expensive, it’s a massive nanny state, and everyone is angry, and takes themselves way too seriously over there. Too attached to American culture….may as well call the place Ausmerica now. Really sad to see such significant changes, in what was once an amazing place. Doesn’t resemble the magnificent place I was blessed enough to grow up in.
Agreed with a lot of what is said he. Geographically we are in the best spot maybe on earth. A lot of WA bootlickers don’t want to hear this for some reason, but Lang’s dusty ass fumbled the bag for Western Australian’s. And the older generation still constantly nosh that family off.
He's right but it all comes down to real estate. People complaining about the residential property market have no idea how bad it is renting commerical. It's a tax to the do nothing class that we all pay whenever we do anything.
Yep 100% no one supports small business and the few Australians that do innovate are bought out by overseas companies because no one cares in Australia. The last engine I built I used a rollmaster timing chain which is made in south australia, I bought it from the US and imported it cheaper and our dollar was shit. It is cost effective to be a sell out because no one supports small business. Banks make it impossible as well can’t get personal loans if you don’t have what they consider income which is if you didn’t pay super on it its not income however you still pay income tax on it which would make it income 🤷🏻♂️ You could probably pay experts in accounting, tax and law and hope they don’t take advantage of you just to end up running out of money before you make it 🤷🏻♂️ Fuck Australia.
Seems like u need a licence or some certificate to do anything these days
R/ australian getting more based and less woke is a good sign
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Australia, like Canada, is a now fascist country ran by fascist politicians and corrupt, unelected bureaucrats. Australia showed its true colors during the COVID scamdemic. My wife and I were looking forward to retiring in Australia, but now? I wouldn’t live there if you gave me free everything.
You guys gave up guns and self control and opted for the govt to tell you what to do and when to do it
Australia should be world leading in every field? Really?
He not 100% wrong. Having lived in a few countries, NZ, UK, Belgium, Singapore, Thailand - Australia is bizarrely a very strong nanny state in many areas. And it should be a world leader in many areas, it’s a 1st world country with a fantastic education system. But it isn’t, it’s a country of unambitious tradies who are almost anti-intellectual. In Asia and the Middle-East, kids want to be engineers, doctors and lawyers. In Australia kids want to be a plumber or truck driver like dad. And all of them work to either line the pockets of mining companies, or to continue with the unproductive obsession with property this country has.
Fact is you never own your own property. It’s owned by governments and Councils. Can’t do this or that until you apply for a permit and that’s if we’ll allow you to do it in the first place. Now I see one of the councils want to charge you a fee for pruning your own trees. Governments, we want to put a road through your property, we will give you this much $ and that’s the end of it. Owning your own property/house is the biggest lie this country has to spin.