From our ABC

Electrolux closures to leave 500 jobless
Whitegoods maker Electrolux will close two factories in north-west Adelaide, causing the loss of 500 jobs.

The company will shut its plant at Regency Park early next year and at Beverley the following year.

A third factory in Adelaide and one at Orange in New South Wales will stay open.

Electrolux will move its production to South-East Asia and Europe.

The company's managing director, Trevor Carroll, says the closures are being forced by lower production costs overseas.

"I know this news is a blow to the many loyal company employees who have worked tirelessly to achieve our current standing as Australia's largest whitegoods company," he said.

"However, factors such as cheaper labour rates, larger domestic markets in Asia and Europe and consumer's reluctance to buy products just because they are Australian-made have all combined for Electrolux to make this decision."

Prime Minister John Howard has announced that the Federal Government and the South Australian Government are committing $35 million toward helping the region adjust.

"We're naturally disappointed in the announcement but it's an announcement driven by commercial realities as that company sees them," Mr Howard said.

"The two governments will provide assistance to workers and to local industries to adjust."

From the ABC

Training to blame for skills shortage: PM
Prime Minister John Howard says Australia's education and training system needs to be reformed to address the nation's skills shortages.

Mr Howard has told a conference in Sydney that the nation will need a more skilled work force to compete and prosper in the coming decades.

He says Australia needs to improve the basic skills of its work force, raise apprenticeship completion rates and increase opportunities for people to gain higher skills.

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Gus: What has this rodent done in the past ten years about training? He slashed the TAFE meat to the bone, made sure that much less people could get educated for free or a modest fee, created an economy that sends all the blue collar jobs to slaves overseas, made sure training "trainees" on the job was impossible in many career paths, made sure people who work for less than a pittance do not get the dole... Hey! What a hirsute cheat and deceiving rateous rat to come bowl in hand to claim what the country needs to to is to do the opposite of what he's done in the past ten years!!!!!!!

see cartoon above

From our ABC

Fee hikes prompt university scholarship call
A federal Labor MP is calling for the re-introduction of Commonwealth scholarships to help bright students who cannot afford to go to university.

Craig Emerson says Australia is the fifth-most expensive country in the world to get a degree.

He says the Federal Government has a responsibility to ensure all students who make the grade can afford to continue their education at university.

"Too many young people are being shut out of a university education by exorbitant fees," he said.

"There were big fee increases in 2005 when HECS fees went up by 25 per cent and as a result of that and earlier increases in HECS charges, the fees are now prohibitive for many young people."

Mr Emerson says higher education should be everyone's right.

"We should not be locking young people out of a university education," he said.

"Higher education is Australia's future. We should be investing in it rather than shutting the university gates in the faces of young people."
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see cartoon at the beginning of this line of blogs...

From the ABC

The elephant in Australia's economic living room

 

by Steve Keen is associate professor at the School of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney

...

debt that is growing 1 per cent faster than your income every month is obviously not a good thing. They'd rather we ignore this number, and if it's ever raised, they argue that comparing debt to income is like comparing apples to eggs. Better to consider the ratio of assets to liabilities, they say, and there the picture is a lot rosier.

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Gus: see cartoon at top of this line of blogs and the other one "flamboyant flimflam".