I BELIEVE it is time to review our thinking regarding paid child care for working parents in the crucial years of a child's development, namely from birth to around four or five years of age. It is a brave person, Pat Garnet ('More important things than free childcare', Letters, 3/9), who puts forward a different opinion to what has become the acceptable norm in an increasingly self-centred society.
The need for more affordable child care is bandied around as though it is one of life's essentials, but child care is a business and businesses must make profits to stay afloat. I imagine that in some cases corners are most probably cut, especially when staff leave, call in sick or take holiday leave. Would we want to know about neglect, lack of supervision or even abuse? I believe it could be happening without our knowledge.
What many fail to realise is that it costs a fair amount of money to go to work. There are costs associated with clothing and shoes, fuel or transport fares, the cost of running a vehicle, food (given no time to make up cheaper lunches and morning teas) and on top of that, childcare fees.
Besides this, the constant rush in many households is not healthful and places everyone on edge a lot of the time. Single parents have little choice, but this is where governments could step in and help. In this debate have we not forgotten the one thing we should never forget? It is more important than extra money, prestige of career or personal fulfilment: it is the baby, the child. They did not ask to be born or be part of our lives, so the least we can do is to be responsible parents and provide essential loving care in those impressionable formative years.
Julie Robinson, Cardiff
Collective bargaining is no answer
THE Jobs and Skills Summit has wound up. It may have been a choreographed 'talkfest', but most parties who left the summit feel that they gained something, if only a promise.
The summit addressed the skills shortage in the short term, by increasing skilled migration, and increasing the participation of retirees, younger women and older children. The summit addressed the skills shortage in the longer term with government promises of more money for vocational education. But the central issue, wage determination that gives workers who contribute more an increased share of production, has been put on the backburner.
The prospect of a return to collective bargaining and industrial action across whole industries should ring alarm bells with voters. This is not what Bob Hawke and Paul Keating had in mind with the Accord and enterprise bargaining agreements (EBA). Industry-wide EBAs could lead to industrial chaos. If ratified by a tribunal, struggling individual employers who cannot afford to pay would have three choices: sack some workers and (unofficially) require remaining workers to work harder, raise prices to cover increasing cost if their markets for their products allows this, or wind up their businesses and sack everyone.
Since trade unions no longer speak for most workers, in my opinion governments must stand in. They could provide expert productivity assessors and conciliators when EBAs are due for renewal. The productivity assessors for particular industries would inspect work done in individual enterprises, examine business' financial statements and determine any labour productivity gains and recommend any wage increases. At this point collective bargaining negotiations would take place, assisted by conciliators. When wage agreements or EBAs had been finalised, both parties would notify the relevant industrial tribunal who would then ratify the EBA. The ingredients that are necessary for this process to work are honesty, transparency and respect for the truly independent umpire's decision. Strikes, lockouts and mass sackings would require court orders to proceed.
Geoff Black, Caves Beach
Why we should abolish TAFE fees
The new announcements about TAFE funding go some way towards repairing the damage done by John Howard, who seemed so fanatical about driving down teachers' pay that he was prepared to wreck the entire vocational training system. It didn't work - his new privatised colleges couldn't attract enough low-paid teachers - but the TAFE system hasn't yet recovered from that blow.
It would help to go one step further and abolish student fees. That, in combination with improved tertiary sector funding, would attract more students into university and TAFE courses, which would help the skills shortage. It won't happen, though. Since Whitlam abolished university fees in 1974 there have been a lot of tax cuts. We are now too poor to introduce massive improvements to the public sector.
Would skilled migration help? Yes, a little. It's been a centrepiece of Australian education policy for years. If we can poach the brightest people from poor countries, leaving those countries worse off, we can improve our workforce. If we can get them after those nations educate them, so much the better; it allows us to make cuts to tertiary sector funding.
What COVID showed though is we're vulnerable when the migrants stop coming.
Peter Moylan, Glendale
Old systems have lessons to teach
I DON'T understand the motivation behind the original decision to change from the old Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) into Centrelink.
Originally diversifying purpose skilled offices to deal with the need for placing people in the right skill-based employment made sense. Having attended those offices in the 1970s, they were depressing places. No comfortable chairs, toilet facilities, water coolers or self service counters. After registering I would go to attend the government operated temp agency. For me this was hospitality; others went to builders and day labourers, offices, etc. These were small offices opening early to hand out jobs for employers needing short-notice staff. The money earned was automatically logged to CES, making cheating unlikely.
There were no agencies charging the public purse extra per hour for their service. All public servants had job security. They were helpful and as willing as us to work and earn. I rarely used CES for more than a short term because the temp agency gave me some work and those employers in need of day labour provide great service.
Let us look back to some of the old services and use the best. Some seeking work would be glad of the opportunities we had, and many employers would be happy to use agency staff without a 20 per cent surcharge.
Lyn Rendle, Rankin Park
Liberals did a job on themselves
THE po-faced and petulant commentary of Peter Dutton, Sussan Ley and, Michaelia Cash about the Albanese Jobs and Skills Summit could best be described as par for their course. Mr Dutton was given an invitation to have input and refused it, branding the event "a gabfest dominated by union thugs." That the summit has proven an event delivering benefits for the nation must surely come back to haunt Mr Dutton. In my humble opinion, if the Liberal Party had any electoral currency left beforehand they have wasted it with this commentary.
Barry Swan, Balgownie
ANDREW Williams frets that at 6am one windless morning, our grid was supplied by 94 percent coal and gas (Short Takes, 3/9). Yes we know we don't have nearly enough storage so far but the five pumped hydro plants Matt Kean just announced for NSW will change that game. We are only at the beginning of our renewables journey, as Andrew correctly points out.
Michael Gormly, Islington
CARL Stevenson, (Letters 3/9) 'employers moving offshore' actually began in the 1980s not the 1990s and had little to do with wages and conditions and everything to do with corporate greed for increased profits. The average Australian wage in 1985 was $10 an hour, China 10 or 20 cents. Other costs were just as cheap. Even allowing for those costs and transport all through the '80s and '90s we saw an increasing wave of massive cuts in the price of those manufactured goods, didn't we? Or did prices remain the same and just keep getting higher?
Colin Fordham, Lambton
AS a taxpayer, I have had a gutful of the ABC employing apparently semi-literate people as newsreaders. Every morning they stutter and stammer their way through simple sentences in the radio bulletins. Not only that, the news is read with curious emphasis on words that shouldn't be emphasised; and they de-emphasise words that need to be stressed. My just-turned-eight grandson recently read faultlessly, hand-written greetings immediately upon opening his birthday cards. If he can do it, why can't the ABC find grown-ups who could do the same.
Ray Dinneen, Newcastle
Did I hear wrong? Thousands of extra people to fill our job shortages. We can't house who is here now. Ever heard of on-the-job training? No certificates in this and that needed to even get a look in for a job; just willing, hard workers who need a chance. Job advertisements simplified and in plain English are a start. They certainly put people off. We are here and ready to work, so why are we being penalised for our age, driving ability, lack of qualifications? We can learn, so is it that you can't teach us?
Amanda Johnstone, Mayfield
I AGREE with Paul Scott ('Faith wavers over God's role in the chamber', Opinion 5/9). It's time to be rid of prayers seeking guidance from mythical beings before our elected local government representatives meet to make decisions on our behalf. In my opinion it's also time this newspaper ceased the daily Today's Text on the Topics page. If it needs to be replaced I would argue it could simply be substituted out for inspirational quotes by real people with real life experience through history.
John Arnold, Anna Bay
WELL done to the Newcastle Knights' women's team ('Comeback win puts Knights in finals', Newcastle Herald 5/9). Congratulations on another victory.
