Looks pretty reasonable to me.

Your google doc isn't shared correctly, I'd love to have a look at it if you can sort it out. Saying that it's a great test for how little the intended target for your data cares about actually listening to your argument :roll:

no comparisons were not made with Scandinavia they were made with the oecd
it was shown that you were misreading the graph and Australia is not a high tax environment with the exception of corporate tax
It doesn't seem I'm learning anything from this "debate" so perhaps I'll focus my conversation with other people

ok try this
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rj3VVMovU41uAzFvE90W4Q8GgDEEbGc0XrDH1jP3W3o/edit#gid=0

Better, thank you. It'd make it easier for some to follow if the point labels had the country name but I could work it out fine.

Coalition's $840 million interns plan illegal: lawyers by Mark Kenny

A centrepiece of Malcolm Turnbull's re-election platform, the budget's PaTH interns program, breaches current minimum wage standards and would require changes that would either blow out its cost or see it stalled in a hostile Senate, according to employment law experts commissioned by the ACTU.

Legal advice sought by the peak union body suggests the PaTH program, (Prepare, Trial, Hire) which proposes to pay under 25-year-old jobseekers a $200-a-fortnight top-up over and above the dole, would leave vulnerable interns languishing below the legally enforceable minimum wage and potentially able to sue for recovery of unpaid wages.

Currently a single childless jobseeker on Newstart gets $263 a week, which would rise to just $364 a week despite 25 hours of work per week.

The $840 million program forms a central plank of the Turnbull government's jobs and growth package.It features generous $1000 incentive payments to employers in the intern phase and $10,000 employer payments in the hire phase, raising concerns of a perverse incentive for employers to churn through interns.

But if the legal advice is correct, the program is not legally sound in its current form and would necessitate changes to the Fair Work Act, or have its subsidies increased to meet minimum wage rates, adding hundreds of millions to its cost.

While concerns of exploitation and systemic abuse have been raised by unions and the group Interns Australia, the advice from the firm Maurice Blackburn Cashman is the first authoritative argument that it is technically illegal.

The ACTU argues it "would require new legislation to legalise a second-class category of $4-per-hour workers and remove those employees' basic rights under the Fair Work Act".

It says fixing the problem to bring interns's pay up to the legal minimum would "blow out" the cost of the PaTH program by $478 million.

"The government's plan is either very badly designed and underfunded, or very well designed to exploit Australian workers and strip them of their legal rights and pay," said ACTU president Ged Kearney.

"Not since the 1990s has it been legal to pay workers as little as $4 per hour. This policy takes employment standards in this country back almost 30 years and has the potential to drag down wages and conditions for all workers – not just those in lower-paid jobs.

"For a government to change the law to allow big companies to pay workers $4 an hour, while stripping them of protections and entitlements under the Fair Work Act is one of the heaviest betrayals of Australian workers since WorkChoices."

Legal academic Andrew Stewart, who is Adelaide University's John Bray Professor of Law, said it appeared there were problems with the hasty design of the scheme.

"It certainly appears that important details had not been worked out because this was announced last Tuesday with some information but nothing about safeguards and nothing about the operation of the Fair Work Act; nothing about the relationship to the National Work Experience Program and since then what we've seen is a drip-feed of announcements by a combination of minister and department officials in Senate Estimates, which, to me, suggest that the government has been sorting out details on the run," he said.

Professor Stewart said the difficulties arose because of ambiguities in the legal status of the relationship between intern and the firm - with the added complication of other parties such as the government and the job service provider. He said unlike the National Work Experience Program, in which people participated in purely voluntary work without pay, the PaTH scheme appeared to create an employment contract.

And that brings with it minimum standards in wages, safeguards, and insurance. However, he said there was little supporting detail on these areas at the time of release.

Defending the scheme last week after its budget day unveiling, Mr Turnbull rounded on Labor and unions for standing in the way of a chance to "change a life" by exposing a young person who had never worked, to the experience needed to get a job.
"You take a young person who is unemployed, who is perhaps unemployable, and you make them employable you change a whole life ... the life of their partner, the life of their children," he said

Questioned on the aspects of the program, Department of Employment secretary Rernee Leon had said employers would be kicked out of the scheme if they abused it.

"If an employer is making a habit of churning people through subsidised placements we would stop referring to them," she stated.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/coalitions-840-million-interns-plan-illegal-lawyers-20160511-gosd1e.html#ixzz48MJIW0Sj
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

What an absolute farce all round...

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reportedly named in Panama Papers

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has reportedly been named in the Panama Papers as a director of a company that used the controversial law firm exposed for helping millionaires dodge tax.

Australian Financial Review reports Mr Turnbull was on the board of Star Mining NL, a British Virgin Islands company set up by law firm Mossack Fonseca to develop a gold mine in Siberia.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/05/12/00/51/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-reportedly-named-in-panama-papers-as-director-of-company

Absolutely.

Interesting seeing how much bad press the Libs are getting this time round in particular (daily terrorgraph aside).

Here's another one

But I thought the naughty press was controlled by Rupert Murdoch?

But I thought the naughty press was controlled by Rupert Murdoch?

It's quite incredible that people are trashing the Path program, simply because it's a Coalition policy.

Here we have an opportunity to get young people into paid work gaining invaluable skills and job experience, possibly leading to full time employment at the full wage which could set them up for a career in employment. Instead opponents dumb it down to the myopic monetary aspect with absolute no consideration for the life changing skills, experience and job marketability it will bequeath to the young people who participate, not to mention the greater feelings of self worth economic activity and higher living standards they will enjoy as they develop an appetite for work and self sufficiency.

I suppose from labor and the unions point of view its better that these people languish on the dole forever as it will make them more likely to vote Labor, and that of course always trumps the needs of young people.

Except that I think it is becoming clearer that the program itself is poorly designed and won't achieve the goals you are stating.

It seems to be policy on the fly - something both parties have been guilty of for far too long.

The fact that it is likely illegal should show you how little time has been put in from a technical perspective.

Who says it's illegal? Union lawyers?
Who says it's poorly designed? Unions?

Of course they say that.

Edited by rusty: 12/5/2016 11:52:17 AM

Rudd was wrong to claim Murdoch had 70% of the newspaper market, but he wasn't that far off...

http://theconversation.com/factcheck-does-murdoch-own-70-of-newspapers-in-australia-16812

Among capital city and national daily newspapers, which are by far the most influential in setting the news agenda, News Corporation titles accounted for 65% of circulation in 2011. Fairfax Media, the next biggest publisher, controlled just 25%. Those figures may have shifted slightly since then, but there is no doubt that News Corp Australia is our most dominant player - as academic Matthew Ricketson pointed out in The Conversation’s media panel blog, it owns 14 of our 21 metro daily and Sunday newspapers.

An International Media Concentration Research Project, led by Professor Eli Noam of Columbia University, found that Australian newspaper circulation was the most concentrated of 26 countries surveyed, and among the most concentrated in the democratic world.

News.com.au - a News Corp paper, is more left wing than the ABC

Of course they would argue that.

But from what has been published about the program, it seems like there is a good chance that they may be correct. That's my interpretation of course, we will find out in due course.

But the fact that the issue wasn't covered off in the design indicates a lack of planning.

Who the fuck still buys newspapers? :lol:
Have you had a look at the digital news ratings recently?

SMH is top
News.com.au - a News Corp paper, is more left wing than the ABC
The Age, Guardian, BBC also feature in the top 10.

All those together represent a circulation of about 17 million subscribers.
Then you have the Drum, The Project, Q and A, the Conversation, two FTA 24/07 channels dedicated to trendy boutique left wing issues, not to mention twitter and Facebook

Anyone who argues Rupert controls the press, due to a wee bit of print media , is a moron.

Malcolm Turnbull denies any wrongdoing after being listed in Panama Papers
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-12/turnbull-listed-in-panama-papers/7407424

Hilarious :lol: It targets a younger demographic and is full of clickbait and hardly any political stories.

Newspapers reach a far more broad audience than most online content. I would say that news.com.au is populist, rather than left wing.

All online publications use algorithms to promote what is getting hits.

You are correct that the influence of newspapers is declining. But they do drive a lot of the agenda, in terms of what topics get focussed on. Especially the Daily Tele.

I am not a Murdoch conspiracy theorist by any means. Ultimately, he will push whatever he thinks will make money. He jumped on the Rudd train in 2007.

However, we do have one of the most concentrated media markets in the world. and I think that is not healthy.

I would say that news.com.au is populist, rather than left wing.

All online publications use algorithms to promote what is getting hits.

If Labor win government and they have a favourable senate, Senator Conroy's media changes will be revisited Murdoch should get sunk. Deservedly so, for the more critical thinking.
There should be prosecution/financial penalties for ANY unsubstantiated media reports, chiseled in statute law. Libs reject it, because they know they rely more on media lies than Labor, to be in power.

And news.com.au is geared this way much more than any other Murdoch site.

If Labor win government and they have a favourable senate, Senator Conroy's media changes will be revisited Murdoch should get sunk. Deservedly so, for the more critical thinking.
There should be prosecution/financial penalties for ANY unsubstantiated media reports, chiseled in statute law. Libs reject it, because they know they rely more on media lies than Labor, to be in power.