An End To " Franchising " !

Luke Foley's plan to make firms granting name franchise licenses available to entrepreneurs responsible for any shortfall in the pay paid to their employees would probably see the end of this business model in the Australian workplace.

Franchising has allowed thousands of small operators to launch their own business and prosper because a winning formulae is being duplicated across the nation.  Customers are attracted because the trade name is nationally known and respected and the franchisee is guided to duplicate the display, service and signage of the original enterprise.  It has the advantage that national advertising ensures a steady customer stream and that reduces the business risk.

Franchise arrangements are widespread in every shopping centre and include businesses selling international brands of petrol, bakeries and of course the many fast food outlets that include McDonalds.  In more recent times, the services offered have widened.  Today we find franchise operators cutting lawns and servicing cars.

They range from spacious operations with multi staff to Mum and Pop type businesses tucked away in arcades but these are people who have taken an opportunity to be self employed.  In recent times, there have been prosecutions where casual staff working for franchise chains have been subjected to  exploitive hours and paid less than the gazetted hourly rate.  In many cases, overtime payments have been ignored.

Foley is proposing to make the firm owning the franchise responsible for all aspects of pay - and even talking of prison terms for what is really " wage theft ".  Quite obviously, Luke Foley simply does not understand the basics of business and the sheer impracticability of a franchise owner being asked to take legal responsibility for businesses that they neither own or directly control.

Not all who take a franchise are competent business people.  Some are over confident - and some are plain lazy and fail to find favour with the public, and they are no less responsible for paying the correct wages to employees as anyone else starting a small business.  The fact that they are running a franchise has nothing to do with it.

As we have seen, the shortage of jobs has many people receiving the dole welcome cash in hand arrangements far less than the stipulated wage and we have always had a burgeoning black economy in this country. Unscrupulous employers sometimes take advantage of such conditions - and are open to the full force of the law to atone for such law breaches.

Should Foley ever be able to implement his aim he would impose an impossible condition on the franchise system - and it would quickly evaporate.  Without it, there would be massive gaps in the business community that serves us so well today.

Fire Safety !

The aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster in London sends a long shadow.  About one thousand five hundred tower blocks in Sydney are fitted with a similar flammable exterior cladding and pose an unacceptable risk to residents.   The city will receive a safety audit and where this danger exists compulsory removal will be ordered.

This is shaping up to be a financial disaster for many families struggling to repay a crippling mortgage to secure a foothold in the Sydney housing price bubble.  Many abandoned the dream of a nice home on a block of land with a backyard and settled for a city apartment and bought on the understanding that the new building met all aspects of the building code.  By law, it must be inspected and approved by the responsible council before residents are allowed to move in.

This cladding adds no structural benefit to the building.  It is purely for cosmetic purposes and if removed and not replaced the building will present a rather ugly concrete shell.  As was evident in the London fire, if left in place it could allow a unit fire to escape and climb the outer walls of the building until the entire structure becomes a flaming torch.

Putting this right is going to involve costs that will in some cases top well over a million dollars.  What is painfully unclear, is just who will have to foot that bill ?  Unfortunately, it seems likely to fall on the shoulders of individual unit owners - and yet they are the least responsible party.

The building code requires the material used in a building to meet specified standards and it is the responsibility of the architects, the council that approves the plans and the builder to adhere to those guidelines.  When the building is finished, it is the relevant council that signs off and testifies that those conditions have been met.

Expect to see a lot of building companies, investment firms that finance new buildings and importers either go into voluntary liquidation or move their operation overseas as this debacle moves to the legal stage.  All concerned make their money as the new building is constructed and units are sold to future owners.  The only " sitting duck " is the council responsible for approving the plans and supervising the job and it is probably that imported building materials were deliberately described with falsified accreditation.

With everybody else ducking for cover, it is the individual unit owners who are left to cleanup this mess.  If the legal system throws the weight of rectification back on the councils that approved the buildings it may make some of them insolvent.  In many cases, this cladding has been used to renovate older buildings to give them a more modern look - further complicating the search for responsibility.

If nothing else, it highlights the need for a complete revision of all aspects of the relevant building code.

The " People " have spoken !

We are proud of the fact that we live in a " Democracy " but it seems exactly what that means is widely differently interpreted by many people.   The fact that who occupies the Treasury benches in parliament depends on a popular vote at election time seems to signify that the will of the people is decisive, but this can have a completely different outlook at local government, state and Federal level.

It is not unusual to have a different political party in power in Canberra and its opposition regime delivering government in a state capital.  Within each state councils of various political persuasions rule over the local affairs of the suburbs contained within their boundaries.  Each group can claim to be expressing the " will of the people " because they won office by popular vote..

Of course, that not how the system works.  Because of party politics the aim of each political party is declared in its manifesto, but that is a long term aim.  Most decisions are made with the aim of holding office at the next election.  The degree of opposition to the proposed measure has a greater bearing on how the party members vote.

We have just seen the New South Wales state government retreat on the question of forcing the amalgamation of councils to achieve economy of scale.  Two centuries ago what are now Sydney suburbs were originally villages that needed infrastructure to manage village life.   The local council was responsible for providing somewhere for residents to tip their rubbish, collect the " night soil " before sewers were connected and general keep the streets neat and tidy.  Getting elected to council was a convenient way of going on to higher office.

Today, many of those councils are facing bankruptcy.  The role of councils has changed and they face greater outlays and most have a greater amount of  need  far beyond their financial capacity. The only answer was amalgamation  to spread the financial load over a wider base and gain the benefit of pooling expensive machinery.  That offered the only hope of eliminating a huge backlog of unfunded work and keeping rates within residents ability to pay.

Public reaction was surprisingly hostile.   Huge numbers of people took to the streets in noisy demonstrations and attended public meetings.  There was fear that amalgamation would dilute local decision making and that council funds would be concentrated on renewal and expansion areas.  It quickly became evident that to continue pursuing amalgamation would put the longevity of the state government at risk.

Those mergers already in place will remain, but no further amalgamations will be forced.   The will of the people appears to have been decisive - but it will come at a cost.  Many smaller councils will continue to accumulate a backlog of urgent work that remains unaffordable and it is likely that some will eventually be unable to pay their bills.  If a council is forced into the bankruptcy court, the interesting question is who will pick up the pieces -   and what will be done to rescue the ratepayers from lack of services ?

And most interesting of all.   Who will shoulder the blame for that fiasco ?

The " Fight " Over Water !

Cotton is a thirsty crop and it is suited to the agrarian conditions of northern New South Wales and Queensland.  It is being blamed for the mysterious disappearance of water from Australia's inland river systems.  The problem is that these rivers wind their way through Queensland and New South Wales before they empty into the great southern ocean in South Australia.  They therefore come under a number of state water management schemes.

For too many years each state granted water rights to agricultural interests drawing water from the inland river system until the flow failed to reach the sea.  It was imperative that action be taken and the Commonwealth stepped in and compulsorily bought back the water rights that exceeded reasonable usage.  Farmers allowed a more meagre water allocation had no option other than to manage their water use more wisely.  Drip irrigation replaced wasteful crop inundation and there was an expectation that the problem was being resolved.

This year, the scientists who evaluate the river system are reporting a strange anomaly.  Despite predicted rainfall in the catchment area the level of the inland rivers is not reaching the expected flow level predicted and in South Australia it is much the same as when the alarm was first raised.  This raises the question of what happened to the missing water ?

Suspicion is mounting that the big cotton farms to the north have greedily taken more than their allocation and that the New South Wales government has been complicit because the cotton crop is critical to the state's economy.   Inspectors who manage water use report that water gauges have been tampered with and hidden pumps have been drawing water far in excess of the allocations granted.  The opportunities exist over the many miles the rivers run through country almost devoid of human occupation.

This is water that belongs to the Australian people because it has been bought and paid for by government taxes.  It was public money that bought back those water rights from farmers and that public money bought the expectation that we would achieve a healthy inland river system despite the encroachment of global warming.

The pundits have been predicting that water will be the source of future world wars.  The worlds great rivers run through many countries and as rainfall patterns alter desperate people will choke off flow to others downstream by building dams and running off supplies for their own use.   Most of these rivers start from melting glaciers - and these glaciers are themselves melting away.

We are fortunate that Australia is an entire continent with no land border with another country.  Our rivers start and finish within Australia.  Their management rests entirely in Australian hands.  We need to crack down hard and see that quotas are maintained and use the punitive power of the Commonwealth to achieve a healthy river system.   Those illegally taking water must face the full force of the law !

Parabiosis !

The word " Parabiosis " is likely to become very familiar to the elderly searching for the elixir of life or hoping to find the Fountain of Youth.  Back in the 1950's a researcher in the field of dentistry conducted an unusual experiment when he was trying to prove that tooth decay was caused by the sugar in food and not by some inherent human deficiency.

He cut small patches of skin from a pair of lab rats and then sutured the animals together at the site of the wound.  After a week of being so joined the animals blood vessels began to merge and the result was two rats whose  hearts were pumping blood around a shared circulatory system.  This scientist also noticed that older rats that shared blood with younger rats  lived four to five months longer than similar old rats which did not.

That was enough to get many pharmaceutical companies very excited.   Any company that can market a drug that  extends life will have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Dozens of papers have been printed detailing the procedures that have been tried with animal research and it seems conclusive that this cross fertilization even operates across species.  It can help repair spinal chords, rejuvenate pancreases and even impair neuron growth in brain cells.  The walls of mouse hearts get thicker as they age.  Young blood can reverse that process as well.

Like Newton's famous " Law of Motion " it also works in reverse.  Wounds and damage in the younger rat exposed to parabiosis take longer to heal.  It can impair growth in younger brains and decrepify younger muscles.   It was also noted that the lab rats were not keen on this type of experiment and needed careful socialising to prevent them tearing each other apart.

No doubt this will be the base of promising future research and progress will inch its way forward. What seems to have been proved is the theory that an old body can gain benefit if the blood coursing through that body is also passing through the body of a younger person.    Perhaps the kidneys and liver of that younger person are doing a better job of removing waste matter than their aged counterparts in the older body.

It seems highly likely that less ethical parts of the world will see an opportunity for profit.  No doubt entrepreneurs will offer " refreshing " holidays for rich old men and women where they will have their blood circulate through a younger person to gain benefit.    It is quite possible that participating in such renewal schemes may replace donating kidneys as a way of poor people getting an economic start in life.

If the results of the rat experiments holds true, it simply means that an improvement in the health of the older person is replaced with a corresponding   decline in the ability of the younger donor to recover from future maladies.  A trading of health - for money.

Crime - And Punisment !

When a criminal is found guilty and a judge hands down a sentence the term of punishment is for a known period of time, and at that conclusion they return to society.  Unfortunately, Australia has prisoners stranded on the island of Nauru and at a camp in New Guinea who have been convicted of no crime and yet are serving an indefinite sentence that may never end.

These people were victims of the lies told by people smugglers. Vast hordes were fleeing civil wars in many parts of the world and intermingled were " economic migrants " looking for a better way of life.  People smugglers took their money, crammed them on unseaworthy boats and dumped them on the Australian coastline.   They were coming in ever increasing numbers and the Australian government was desperate to halt the flow.   They vowed that from a given date no new arrivals would ever be settled in this country.

The people smugglers convinced many people that this was pure bluff - and some boats continued. These unfortunates were immediately transported off-shore and there they remain to this day, living in squalid camps with poor medical facilities and with the hostility of their hosts.  Their fate stopped new arrivals by sea but should Australia be merciful and allow them to settle in Australia the people smugglers would be triumphant - and continue their trade.

We have made massive efforts to find other countries prepared to settle these unfortunates - with little success. A swap deal with America may lower the numbers, but a stubborn residue remains and many have family members already settled in Australia.  Now it seems that the United Nations is critical of Australia because they believed they had a " deal "  whereby they gave help to settle the swap arrangement with America on the understanding that the residue would be settled in Australia.   They claim that the Australian government has reneged on that promise.

These people in island camps have been stranded there for years - and it can not go on indefinitely.  They are human beings and we are simply treating them as terrorists.   They deserve better - and the world is starting to criticise their inhumane treatment.  We have offered to give them money - and a free trip back to their original countries - but most refuse because they fear repercussions from the regimes in power in their old countries.

Perhaps it is opportune to involve the United Nations in a new approach to this world wide glut of refugees.  There are many islands dotted about the Pacific ocean that are uninhabited.  An offer to purchase one from the country that owns it to form a new refugee nation would be a way that found favour in earlier centuries.   It would need massive help from donor countries, but it could ease pressure in Europe and across the world.   Otherwise, we may eventually have to bite the bullet and settle these people in Australia.

Kindly Neighbours

A recent news story must have sent a chill through the heart of many people living apart from elderly relatives.  It concerned the discovery of two bodies in a well kept house in a fashionable suburb. This aged couple well into their eighties had become reclusive.   They shunned contact with neighbours and the old man was the sole carer for his wife, who was blind and suffering from advanced Dementia.

The police can only conclude that the carer died from natural causes and that his wife consequently suffered a lingering death when his supportive services ceased.  The anguish is unimaginable.  It would not have been a pleasant death and it certainly provoked a surge of reflection as many people thought of similar events that could be happening in the street where they lived.

Sadly, there was a neighbour who regularly knocked on the door to ensure that all was well with this old couple, but she was away on an extended holiday when this death happened.  It provoked the government to urge people to at least be observant when they have a reclusive old resident living nearby.   Even if attempts to make contact are being rejected it would be merciful to be aware that the milk delivery and newspapers were not being collected - or the lights failing to show in windows at night.  A report of concern to the police will ensure that such a suspicion will be quickly investigated.

A number of charitable services are already in place to fill this need.  Most are staffed with volunteers who make regular contact to ensure that the elderly person is alright.  It is usually the same volunteer and often this develops into a friendship.  That regular phone call develops into a welcome chat that banishes the loneliness into which some old people descend.   The problem is getting the recluse to accept initial contact in the first place.

In the distant past keeping tabs on the elderly was usually a task undertaken by the local doctor.  It is usual for the elderly to be reliant on some form of medication and obviously they need to have regular contact with a doctor for prescription renewals.   Most suburban general practitioners had part of the day put aside for home visits and were therefore in regular contact with the elderly on their books.

Today, such practices are more likely to be a clinic where patients take a number and wait their turn to see whichever doctor happens to be on duty - and that personal relationship is lost.   In fact some elderly have little contact with doctors and rely on the local pharmacy for both advice and medication.  In such cases, observant pharmacy staff can be the valued contact between that person - and the outside world.

Usually it takes a tragic death like this news story to bring the plight of reclusive elderly to public attention.   Many will make the effort - and some will be rather rudely rebuffed.   It is not unusual for the elderly to be very defensive about what they see as their " privacy " !

Hopefully, in some instances alert and attentive neighbours will enable intervention to prevent such tragic conclusions.