Recent Remarks by Federal Treasurer Peter Costello (cut workers pay for rural Australia) Alan Jones Comment. 14th December 1999 Peter Costello said at the weekend that if you wanted to regenerate jobs in regional Australia, you needed to cut workers� pay and he said something to the effect that if they, that is, the regions, and I quote, �could have some flexibility and use that flexibility on wages, I think that would dramatically help some of the regional areas.� Well, it sounded like rubbish then. It has been identified as rubbish since then. Peter Costello was on the defensive yesterday. Suddenly, he said he was only advocating greater flexibility for working patterns and wage fixing. Well that only made things worse. He seemed to be saying yesterday he meant giving employers the freedom to offer low cost housing and a nice lifestyle to establish themselves in the bush. Well, Federal Liberal MP Warren Entsch said the comments were irresponsible, grossly ill-informed and just bloody stupid. Queensland Opposition Leader Dr David Watson said the remarks were dumb, and the former Queensland premier, Rob Borbidge said the Treasurer seemed to be advocating a third world sweat box for rural Australia. And Country Labor has called for an alliance of all rural MPs, regardless of party affiliation, to campaign against any plan to cut rural wages. Well, dumb is most probably the word that best applies to the Treasurer�s observations. If you want people to go back to rural and regional Australia, you�ve got to make regional and rural Australia more productive. You�ve got to be able to guarantee the long term viability of business and, in particular, rural business. And what is it, over many years, that�s stopped rural and regional Australia from being viable? Simple - the absence of water. Peter Costello�s the Treasurer of Australia. He�d be better put, instead of making stupid comments about wages, in applying himself to what it would cost to water Australia. We seem to be happy to put gas in pipelines all over Australia, but not water. We�re happy to save the whale, but not water. I guess it is the silly season. I�m Alan Jones. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is the Neither public email list, open for the public and general discussion. To unsubscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=unsubscribe To subscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=subscribe For information on [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.neither.org/lists/public-list.htm For archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
