REJOICING FOR RUBY
My heart is full of joy and excitement for Ruby and her family (Ruby’s Lifeline, May 8, 2018).
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
My family went through spinal muscular atrophy 24 years ago with our son Dean Lambert.
I would like to say a big thank you to all the medical profession who made the break through of this wonderful miracle.
Ruby the world is at your feet.
Sharyon Wynn, Albion Park Rail
COUNTING THE COSTS
Around the 1950s employers were obligated to pay workers a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, penalty rates, shift allowances and a couple of weeks holiday each year.
Australian industry was protected and produced all agricultural products the nation needed, along with just about every manufactured good required. Unemployment did not exist.
Since then protection has been removed and Australian business now must survive in a global marketplace.
It must cope with costs and other barriers that are far greater here than in many competitor countries.
One of the noncompetitive cost areas has been employment costs, costs that include wages, and additional add-on costs that are far outside the old tenet: “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”.
Because the list of these additional types of payments is so long, I don’t have the space here to cover them here.
There is also the underlying and unstable, combative-environment that Australian business must face, created by trade unions.
The upshot has been the accelerating disappearance of both permanent skilled and unskilled jobs in Australia.
I suspect businesses, in striving for survival, over past decades have eventually done some basic cost benefit analysis.
Even discounting other cost issues, it has probably become clear that looking solely at wages and add-ons: workers have become more expensive than the cost of introducing automation into their operations; or it is more profitable and easier to operate in a different country. This is a process that will be ongoing.
Richard Burnett, Wollongong
SOMETHING MORE POSITIVE?
Another letter (Illawarra Mercury, May 10) from Mr D J Preece with good old fashion Labor Party bashing.
Again raising the Illegal boat people trying to get a better life in Australia and of course the multiple drowning that occurred in that awful period 2003.
The man that is now responsible for all the border security is happy to take on refugees from South Africa, because they are persecuted farmers. The White Australian Policy has again risen from the dustbin.
It seems a bit unfair , and bringing up the past , just to have another shot at that subject is boring, and can not serve any purpose except helping the “Kill Bill” drive that this current Government is engaged in.
Lighten up Mr Preece, we like to read more positive letters from everybody, I am sure you can manage one next time.
John Pronk, Wollongong
ENERGETIC RESPONSE
Last Saturday night at 8pm I reported an electrical line down to Endeavour Energy. By 10pm there had been two teams to my home and the problem was fixed.
Thank you to the workers, amazing job guys and thanks to Endeavour Energy.
Margaret Perrott, Warilla
WEB WORDS EXTRAS
BOB DYLAN TO PERFORM IN WOLLONGONG
My teenage hero but as a performer in 2011 was my greatest disappointment as he didn’t look up from under his hat and didn’t engage with the audience at all. Still love and admire him and his music but “the times they are a changin”.
_ Stavely