Australian Dictator Tony Abbot to Reduce Minimum Wage

[Marshal of the People]

Australia's very own despot Tony Abbott has decided (thanks to some of his friends in business) that Australia needs to lower its minimum wage to American standards in order to help boost the Australian economy (which already has a AAA credit rating, low unemployment and is growing), decrease unemployment and raise the standard of living for all Australians (really just the Bourgeois) somehow (?).

I think this is just despicable and a push to increase the profits of the corporations and the bourgeois at the expense of the workers. We all know how America's minimum wage has worked out and now the local fascist (Tony Abbott) is going to do it to Australia!

[Yazman]

Let's face facts here. Tony Abbott, while a typical member of the ruling class, is certainly not a dictator. I understand the rage, and it is certainly a useful weapon that you should seek to maintain, but he isn't a dictator, and trying to paint him as one isn't really a very useful part of what should be our critique of the ruling party (or class) in Australia. Abbott is certainly bourgeois, but I think it's going a bit far to label him a fascist or a dictator to any extent. Even if he appears to be as xenophobic and racist as most fascists seem to be.

[Kingfish]

Do you have a source for this? google doesn't seem to have anything about this outside of its place in his paid maternity leave scheme.

Given the current Senate composition Tony Abbott is going to be fairly powerless until July, that is probably when Australia will start to see his policies go beyond mere rhetoric.

[Marshal of the People]

I can't post a link because of my post count but the website; http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/13/lowering-the-minimum-wage-what-a-terrible-idea is a source.

We were debating about this in school.

[Marshal of the People]

Let's face facts here. Tony Abbott, while a typical member of the ruling class, is certainly not a dictator. I understand the rage, and it is certainly a useful weapon that you should seek to maintain, but he isn't a dictator, and trying to paint him as one isn't really a very useful part of what should be our critique of the ruling party (or class) in Australia. Abbott is certainly bourgeois, but I think it's going a bit far to label him a fascist or a dictator to any extent. Even if he appears to be as xenophobic and racist as most fascists seem to be.

I guess he isn't really a dictator or fascist (though I think he is almost a fascist) it is just that he is the most right-wing conservative leader I have ever had to live under I am really worried about the future of this country and the world since he is stupid and has been implementing many idiotic policies such as almost starting a war with Indonesia (in his first week in office), destroying every government and government-funded thing to do with climate change, challenging the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Tasmania in the High Court, some major cutbacks in health, education, welfare among others and also his anti-abortion stance which is a bit worrying and It'll only get worse (far worse). I sincerely believe he is going take Australia back to the 1950's!

[Red Commissar]

It's a suggestion given by his chairman of the "Business Advisory Council", whether or not he's considering this is another question. It doesn't appear that this has been introduced in parliament. The key part of that Guardian article is this


Speaking at a business dinner in Sydney recently, the chairman of the prime minister’s Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, bemoaned the fact that Australia’s minimum wage is so much higher than in other countries, particularly the United States. In US dollars the minimum wage for a 38 hour week in Australia comes to $33,355 per year compared to a measly $15,080 yearly for an American worker. Newman felt it was his “civic duty” to point out that Australian wage rates “are very high by international standards” and he’d like to see them move in a southerly direction.

Which sites an Australian source (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-12/maurice-newman-slams-rudd-gillard-governments/5084760).

I don't see this getting traction as this'd likely push working class people who were either ambivalent about labor or threw in with the Liberals squarely back into Labor camp, as no amount of immigrant fear mongering will distract them from that. It would be bad politics on the part of the Liberal government to basically shoot themselves in the foot like that.

On this topic, has a country ever reduced its minimum wage? Most of the time when I see stories like this come up it's around the question of raising it, with the "business community" complaining it'd mess up the economy. I know there have been suggestions like the above where people have suggested lowering it or all together eliminating it, as well as nations like Germany which don't have one.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Kill him. Sorry guys, that sucks.


Let's face facts here. Tony Abbott, while a typical member of the ruling class, is certainly not a dictator. I understand the rage, and it is certainly a useful weapon that you should seek to maintain, but he isn't a dictator, and trying to paint him as one isn't really a very useful part of what should be our critique of the ruling party (or class) in Australia. Abbott is certainly bourgeois, but I think it's going a bit far to label him a fascist or a dictator to any extent. Even if he appears to be as xenophobic and racist as most fascists seem to be.

Waht? Yo, is capitalism not a dictatorship of the bourgeois? Would it not then make sense that they in fact have a dictator? You don't have to be fascist to be a dictator you can just be a dick, and it could very well be that it's just despotism with Australian characteristics.

[helot]

Kill him. Sorry guys, that sucks.



Waht? Yo, is capitalism not a dictatorship of the bourgeois? Would it not then make sense that they in fact have a dictator? You don't have to be fascist to be a dictator you can just be a dick, and it could very well be that it's just despotism with Australian characteristics.


two different uses of the term im afraid. Tony Abbot being a dictator would be using the common, contemporary use while 'dictatorship of the bourgeoisie' being archaic and only used by Marxists. In the common sense of the word no, Tony Abbot isn't a dictator. In the archaic, again, no, class dictatorships don't need a dictator but if we're to say they do then the dictator is the ruling class as a class.

[FSL]

On this topic, has a country ever reduced its minimum wage?
Greece has, I'm sure others as well.




Australia's very own despot Tony Abbott has decided (thanks to some of his friends in business) that Australia needs to lower its minimum wage to American standards in order to help boost the Australian economy (which already has a AAA credit rating, low unemployment and is growing), decrease unemployment and raise the standard of living for all Australians (really just the Bourgeois) somehow (?).

I think this is just despicable and a push to increase the profits of the corporations and the bourgeois at the expense of the workers. We all know how America's minimum wage has worked out and now the local fascist (Tony Abbott) is going to do it to Australia!
What you're saying is that it wasn't Tony Abbot that decided it but rather that people in businesses are asking for it. That's different because it means that it's not Tony Abbot that is the problem, it's those businessmen. And they would get things their way, even with another prime minister if it was really necessary to them.
For example, the last time the federal minimum wage was increased in the US it was by a Bush legislation several years ago. It has never been increased by Obama so the real minimum wage has actually decreased these past five years when you take inflation into account.



And on another note, you seem to be giving the australian economy to much credit. No economy can for any reason escape the crises that come with capitalism and some countries haven't really had theirs yet (not all economies are "synchronized" even in this day of expanded foreign investment and trade).

One thing to be aware of is that to a great extent australian growth depended these past years in ever increasing exports to China. But China's growth is already decreasing by a lot and will probably decrease even further since investment remains its basic growth engine (imagine what will follow when all investment in superfluous buildings and public works stops as it's bound to happen).

Another major growth sector for Australia was construction. But to keep profit margins high, housing prices would need to keep increasing while wages would need to remain stagnant. Of course that can't keep happening for ever, since at some point people wouldn't be able to repay their loans. This is part of what happened in the US or Spain or Ireland -just a part of it of course- and it is yet to happen in other economies in a similar situation like Australia or Canada.


It would be wrong to think that the only problem is a crazy guy that got elected or a handful of really greedy businessmen. It is a strong possibility that Australia will face the same problems other countries have been facing these past years and may go through a recession. Reducing wages would be a way to prevent or stall that as it would make investments more profitable for the time being. Germany in Europe is known for keeping wages stagnant for near a decade starting in 2000 and having minimal problems with the crisis so far, because its capitalists had "leeway". Maybe capitalists in Australia want the same thing.

[Yazman]

two different uses of the term im afraid. Tony Abbot being a dictator would be using the common, contemporary use while 'dictatorship of the bourgeoisie' being archaic and only used by Marxists. In the common sense of the word no, Tony Abbot isn't a dictator. In the archaic, again, no, class dictatorships don't need a dictator but if we're to say they do then the dictator is the ruling class as a class.

I wrote up a proper response, but the server appears to have died when I posted it, so instead of rewriting all that shit I'm just going to quote you here and say - yeah, pretty much.

It's a shame Marx used the word 'dictatorship' in this term, because it creates a lot of confusion and annoyance for we modern people.