Welfare Matters

Business defied as low-paid awarded more | The Australian
Low paid worker in Australia will be paid 568.20 a week

THE weekly pay packets of hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers in South Australia and Queensland will be given a boost after the states' industrial relations commissions yesterday awarded increases to the minimum wage.

The QIRC handed its lowest paid, full-time adult workers a $16.20 weekly wage increase. From next month, they will earn $568.20 a week.

The rise ensures Queensland workers are on par with NSW's lowest-paid wage earners, who were awarded a $15.50 increase last month.

The Australian Workers Union described the Queensland decision as "fair".

"The commission's decision is a good outcome for the AWU, its members and for the working families across Queensland," senior industrial advocate Chris Simpson said.

The SAIRC handed down a $14 increase, taking SA workers to $560.65 a week.

A disappointed Business SA chief executive Peter Vaughan claimed the SAIRC had shown "no consistency" with last month's Australian Fair Pay Commission ruling, which froze the national wage on $543.78 to protect jobs and promote economic recovery. The state's employer groups had requested no increase.

"This increase in minimum wages is likely to flow on into price increases, and may lead to operators reducing labour costs and cutting staff," Mr Vaughan said. "Many businesses are already taking the appropriate precautions to avoid reducing staff levels and with unemployment levels expected to rise in coming months, this increase ... will put further pressure on jobs."

SA Unions had asked for a 3.91 per cent increase, which would have raised the lowest wage to $568, but state secretary Janet Giles applauded the decision not to freeze wages.

The wage rise will take effect in SA from October.

Crasher The Squirrel :)

Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania

Economy and Global Sex Industries

German brothels battle a backlash over flat-rate offers | The Australian

A POLICE blitz on red-light establishments could spell the end of a pioneering attempt by German brothel owners to fight the economic downturn with special offers.

Customers were sent scurrying for cover on Sunday when 400 police raided four establishments that have started to offer flat-rate services, based on all-you-can-eat evenings run by restaurants. At the Berlin Pussy Bar, clients were offered sex with as many of the in-house prostitutes as they wanted for E70 ($120).

"So far our investigations are directed only against the owners of these establishments," a police spokesman in Berlin said. "The working women and the clients are being considered only as witnesses."

The raids are due to continue, however, because the flat-rate principle has been catching on in the market-sensitive business.

Prostitution is legal in Germany and, according to the Verdi service sector union, approximately 400,000 officially registered -- and taxpaying -- sex workers account for up to E14 billion of turnover annually. That is about twice the figure recorded by registered self-employed electricians, yet electricians are among the many beneficiaries of state support.

Turnover in brothels has dropped by an estimated 30 per cent since the economic crisis began last year.

Brothel owners have offered rebates for pensioners, the unemployed and those on welfare. Some have offered discounts to taxi drivers and rubbish collectors on the 15th of the month, which is close to pay day.

One Berlin brothel tried to brand itself as environmentally friendly by offering a 10 per cent discount to customers using public transport or bikes and some have started to provide free drinks -- overpriced alcohol is one of the big earners in brothels. In Hamburg, men who stay overnight have their shoes polished and clothes pressed as part of the service.

All to little avail. "The clients are holding on to their money," said Sabine Skutella, a counsellor at Mimikry, a prostitutes' advice centre in Munich. Patricia Floreiu, the manager of the Pussy Bar, said her club paid between E100 and E300 a day to its prostitutes. The sum is guaranteed even if there are no customers.

That is why the industry has homed in on the flat-rate idea, aimed at increasing the volume of business sharply. But it has caused a debate that has drawn in politicians, bishops and newspaper editors. Open letters have been sent to Chancellor Angela Merkel demanding that she should ban the flat rate.

In 2002 a law scrapped the idea that a prostitute was engaging in an immoral trade, giving her legal protection but making her liable to tax. Brothels offered contracts to their prostitutes, making them self-employed subcontractors.

For conservative politicians, sex sold for a flat rate is a step too far.

"This is an outrageous violation of human dignity," said Heribert Rech, the region's interior minister, who ordered raids in the clubs of Baden-Wurttemberg, particularly in Stuttgart.

The Times

Hypnosis : Think Slim?

Nine tried to hypnotise viewers | The Australian

For the record here is the hypnosis:

“Going down from five
Soften and relax
Down to four
Softening more
Three, deeper and deeper
Two, all the way down
One
The more active you are, the more fat you burn
Quietly repeat in your mind
The more active I am, the more fat I burn
The more active I am, the more fat I burn
Your body craves water
You now realise most of the time when you thought you were hungry between
meals you were in fact thirsty
Repeat in your mind
The more I drink, the more I shrink
The more I drink, the more I shrink
You now make health and fitness your number one priority in life, because you
are the most important person in the world. “

Feel thinner?

They cheat, they lie, they're spoilt brats and they steal. They are politicians

Politicians caught out misusing taxpayer-funded allowances | National News | News.com.au

They cheat, they lie, they're spoilt brats and they steal. They are POLITICIANS.

* Pollies use allowance to buy lollies, batteries
* Uncovered in Auditor-General's investigation
* Many leaflets shouldn't have been funded

FEDERAL MPs have been caught out misusing taxpayer-funded allowances to buy confectionery, batteries and child and adult fiction.

It was just one example of wide-spread abuse of public funds by politicians uncovered in a year-long investigation by the Auditor-General. The explosive report has prompted the Rudd Government to overhaul the $300 million parliamentary entitlement system.

The scheme provides generous funding for printing, telephone and internet, newspapers, photocopying and office administration, with the watchdog finding the current system riddled with "inconsistencies and ambiguities" that allowed politicians to escape proper scrutiny, The Daily Telegraph reports.

MPs and Senators entitled to up to $4000 a year to buy newspapers and periodicals were found to have spent some of the money on confectionary including chocolates, batteries, cardboard and fiction.
Related Coverage

* Mike Rann's $23m ad spreeAdelaide Now, 13 Aug 2009
* Rann breached rules on hospital PRThe Australian, 13 Aug 2009
* Federal MPs rorting millionsPerth Now, 12 Aug 2009
* Reader's Comments: Federal MPs rorting millions - The Courier-MailCourier Mail,
* Rudd's ute-man denies name droppingThe Australian, 5 Aug 2009

Your Say

Looks like your politicians are just as crooked as ours in the UK...These lazy snakes on the take (none of whom would last 5 minutes in private industry) need to be flushed out of ...

(Read More)
Shane of UK
add news.com.au to iGoogle

One of the biggest problems identified by the audit - conducted into politicians from NSW, QLD and Victoria - was the current rules for printing election flyers and how-to-vote cards.

It revealed a cosy network exploited by the Liberal Party and the ALP - and controlled by a small coterie of senior party officials.

The investigation found that six printing firms secured lucrative election contracts - after donating more than $300,000 to Labor and the Liberal Party.

In an explosive 100-page report obtained by The Daily Telegraph the watchdog found that thousands of election flyers and how-to-vote cards distributed during the 2007 federal campaign breached entitlement guidelines - and should never have been funded.

It also labelled the spending of taxpayers money on chocolates to be a "blatant" misuse of the funds, while the purchase of the adult and children's fiction considered "at risk" of breaching the entitlements.

The Auditor-General does not name the six firms who received millions of dollars in election work.

Lifting the lid on a system open to widespread abuse, the Auditor-General was demanding "fundamental reform" in its draft and confidential report.

Despite promising to clean up the political system, the Government was yet to introduce an "independent auditor" to oversee the entitlements system, but was expected to shortly announce plans to clean up the system.