Always Travelling

Australia just beat England so comprehensively and so early (a few hours before the end of the third day's play) that they've had to show a replay of a whole session of play on tv because they had no other programming lined up!

To be honest I'd prefer to watch a contest, not a walk over.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: do or diy <do.or.diy@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 27, 2006 12:35 PM
Subject: The next flashmob
To: do.or.diy@gmail.com

Hello.

Well it's been awhile since you've heard from me. Sorry about that. A combination of computer malfunction, moving house and christmas made it impossible for me to do anything flashmob related. Anyway enough rambling.

The next Flashmob is on

SATURDAY the 3rd of FEBRUARY

Now if anybody can get crutches or walking sticks  .... please bring them along.
As always more details closer to the day. This flashmob will also include a little sausage sizzle ...sort of a late xmas present for all you flashmobers...  Yes FREE food !!!!!

Ok.
Any questions or comments as always....

Thanks.

Since I'm using Google Reader almost every day to read news, and since it's only an extra click to share an article I enjoyed, I might as well. There may be no readers, but then again there may be!

My linkblog is here, and it's feed . If you use RSS, you can get your news daily via me!

I'll add that link to the banner net to the archive link.

To All My Great Workmates,

I wanted to send out some sort of holiday greeting to you, but it is so difficult in the current climate to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So met with my solicitors yesterday, and on their advice say as follows:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

Also I wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make the world a great place, and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement any of the wishes for himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishor.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor...

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message, however, while a significant number of electrons were inconvenienced, no bits were lost.

My very best wishes to you for a Happy Xmas and a great 2007.

My experience in the last week and a half confirms a few things for me: the value of AIESEC as a turboboost at the start of your career, the severe lack of HR personnel in Western Australia currently, and the opportunities you uncover when you put yourself out there.

Last weekend I adjusted my resume for the first time since August 2004 - I hadn't needed to in all that time. The jobs I've had never required me to submit a resume. But I had my whole AIESEC experience to put down, a fairly high profile 3 month internship in the WA department of premier and cabinet, various casual work, as well as student advising - everything in the last 2 and a half years of my life.

I got my parents and brothers to look over it and by Sunday night I was happy enough to send it out. I looked up a bunch of Human Resource companies (global, local, different industries, big, small) through the advertisements for HR graduates and various other HR positions on seek.com.au, as well as looking through the uni job board. I sent my resume and my grades to about 15 companies, unsolicited, and to a few other connected people I mostly know via AIESEC. In some cases I had to scour the company website to find an email address. Another idea would have been to make phone calls directly to HR directors, but I was on a roll on Sunday night and just sent my resume via email.

I really was just trying my luck, not expecting but rather hoping for a result. The response has been fantastic, especially given that it was the week before Christmas. I've had a couple of rejection replies along the lines of "we don't offer internships because of the nature of our work" and "we have nothing to offer at the moment", but I have been pleasantly surprised by half a dozen positive responses. I expect that I will get a few more nibbles in the new year as people come back from holiday leave.

I believe that targeting the small specialist recruitment companies was a particularly rewarding move. Often these companies may focus on the one sector, such as resources/mining, and may have deep and long held relationships with their clients. I've been told by two different companies that it was a good coincidence that I applied as they have some small hands-on project work that would be perfect for an intern to get stuck into. But coincidences aside, these smaller companies (by small they still may have up to 30 or 40 staff) probably wouldn't get that many students applying for internships with them, particularly unsolicited applications, and they may never get around to advertising for interns off their own bat. In this case it is less about coincidence and more about making your own opportunities by putting yourself out there.

What I'm looking for ideally is to collect as much work experience as possible across all the HR functions. I graduate in November 2007 and will be applying for graduate programs as early as August. With the time that I was committing to AIESEC available for use, ideally I will be working one or two days a week as an intern in various companies. I am very flexible in regards to time, length of commitment, self-directed project work or supervised office cubicle type work; basically I'm not picky and ready for anything. This is the message I sent out on Sunday night with the emails.

Thus far I've had two interviews and have organised two more for early January. The first was with a WA football league club and through conversation there transpired 7 different HR issues that need attention - from job description review and creation to checking on the legal status of certain employment arrangements. Very hands on, realistic, and exciting. I'd be working closely with the CEO and hours would be flexi-time. It would be unpaid work and could start in February, with a few issues requiring more immediate attention than others. I'm attracted to this internship because it's practical and challenging, there are real consequences and implications from my work. Additionally I could fit the work around university and student advising commitments. I have accepted the offer and will work out the arrangements at the end of January.

The second interview was with a small blue collar recruitment company focused on servicing the resources sector through the supply of various tradesmen - boilermakers, diesel fitters, electricians, instrument technicians, etc. I was disappointed with my performance in the interview as I was really nervous, much more nervous than I've been for a while. I still got an offer though, which I accepted, so I suppose it doesn't matter. The work will again be very hands on and practical; I will start off by getting stuck into reference checking. The resources boom has lead to insane competition from companies for good tradesmen with up to $4000 a week being offered at some locations up north. This has also lead to 2 things: a greedy environment where a few extra dollars will be enough for a worker to quit and work for a competitor (which reflects badly on the recruitment company), and unqualified or inappropriate candidates (through temperament etc) landing positions. I've heard crazy stories like some worksites stopping drug testing because they can't afford to turn workers away even if they do have traces of prohibited drugs in their system. It will be a paid internship and will be pretty much full-time from the first Wednesday of January (I will need to take time out for a few student advising activities in Jan though).

Challenging situations can consistently invoke a closed response from most people - you don't want to step outside your comfort zone. You have to push yourself to do the unnatural thing and ask yourself "why not?", "why am I not stepping forward for this?" or "why am I reacting like it can't be done?". Yet when we meet that challenge and choose the harder route, the "why not?" route, it is exhilarating. We perform to the best of our ability, we learn and develop, we feel truly alive in the moment. It's a great feeling.

"Why not?" is something I have taken on since around March this year through the influence of a good friend in AIESEC. I've added it to my personality, my attitude inventory.

The other day whilst working at Zipform, a local print and mail company, I was in conversation with a couple of my workmates. Zipform calls us in every now and then to do an 8 hour shift, but it's pretty irregular. It's really something on the side, if you need cash from a casual job then you'd have this as an extra option for a little extra money but not something you could rely on.

Let me describe quickly what we were doing. Imagine there is a long table against a wall, and four people sitting at the table with 4 piles in front of each of them. One pile is of envelopes, one of receipts, and one of license stickers. The final pile is of envelopes stuffed with receipts and stickers. And we do that for 8 hours.

So we get to talking about what each of us 'do' (obviously not filled envelopes full-time!). Turns out we're all students. One has just finished his honours in Psychology and is starting another degree in ' security, terrorism and counterterrorism studies (BA)', and one is completing a corporate law degree, and the last is about to start his psychology honours thesis. 

Now this may sound really snobbish, but you'd not really expect that line up doing such menial labour right?

But I think that is a wonderful thing. Yes, this type of work is dull, dead boring, watching grass grow type of stuff. And we do it because we want some extra cash or need that cash to pay for rent/petrol/food/entertainment. The best thing about this work though is that it brings us back to Earth. In my first shift there was a part of me crying out, yelling "You're prostituting yourself! You're just another piece of machinery! This is below you!" and another part of me said, "You want money, money doesn't grow on trees, this is a job, it's not the best job but get on with it, just do it".

A value held tightly by many Aussies is that of the equal value and standing of every member of our community. Now there are of course numerous exceptions to this rule but perhaps it's one of those ideals we like to think exists. I personally feel very passionate about equality and positive discrimination - and I know I'm going off in all directions here but I hate the concept of 'tolerance', but I'll rant about that in a future post. Anyway, I think the teenage phase where almost everybody works a rather menial casual job contributes, at least slightly, to a broad understanding that you're no better than anyone else. Just because your Daddy is rich doesn't mean you are above the dirty work (especially if your Dad made his own money, then you're more likely to grow up with the real value of money drilled into you). Everyone does what they need to do to get by. A bricklayer and a CEO if they met would talk on equal terms, with there being little sense that either is 'better' than the other - they're just two people. Neither has to try to treat the other equal, it's just the culture, a ingrained value. Well there are of course exceptions and you can never generalise over a whole population but I feel this holds true for many Aussies.

I like the fact that many of our future community and business leaders had to work crappy casual jobs in their youth and throughout university. The egalitarian element to the Australian culture is something I cherish.

Today my younger brother Sebastian and I raced around Perth delivering Xmas hampers to businesses for 9 hours straight. My Mum's work had arranged thoughtful Xmas hampers for each of their valuable clients and was without a courier, so she volunteered us :) No complaints though as it was fun. I would pull up in a no parking zone and then he'd race in with a hamper for the lucky recipients.

Well if I was to have a complaint it would be that it left me stuffed! Driving all day is not so enjoyable anymore - it used to be when it was still new. Not anymore.

I should start a courier business. We actually saw a number of small courier cars on the road, catering to the 'immediate delivery' need - they looked like they could be one person operations with a car, a mobile phone and a listing in the yellow pages and/or website.

Lucas Elliot Trim was born on Saturday at approx 3pm to my brother Kieran and his wife Tamara. He's the first in what I'm sure will be many kids from my brothers and I. In this day and age with the diminished family life in Western culture, I hope to provide a nurturing, full and valuable family environment for my own family. Lucas will grow up with 6 uncles!!! He has every chance of being a sports star as we are all sports mad and we watch and play everything under the sun :) 

He's about 24 hours old in this pic

I find this very interesting. In Australia the Howard government has been in place since 1996, a political party based on liberal philosophies, ie. decreasing regulation, reducing the government's size and role in the national economy, reducing overall tax burden to business... etc. Since the Liberals won the majority in the senate at the last election a whole raft of legislation has passed dramatically changing, among other things, the way the employment relationship is regulated and the rights and obligations of employer and employee. It's all been done for the sake of freeing up business to grow as quickly as possible, to be as competitive as possible on the world stage, to be as efficient as possible and thus increase overall standard of living nation wide.

However a recent report has found that the overall tax burden on Aussie businesses has actually increased by over 10% relative to the same time last year - and remains at a level near double that of the US and UK. 

I wonder how high the level of corporate tax burden has been in the past, for instance over the last 20 years? I would expect it to have been reduced wholescale over the last 10 years at least.  

-------------------

International comparison of corporate tax

Monday, 11 December, 2006

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has released “Corporate Taxation: An International Comparison — 2006 Update”, which compares the overall burden of taxes on Australian companies with taxes in competitor countries, such as our trading partners, the OECD and the European Union.

The report, which was prepared in conjunction with KPMG, found that Australia's corporate tax burden has risen to 5.7% of GDP, up from 5.1% a year ago, more than double that of the United States and almost double the level in the United Kingdom.

The CEO of the BCA Ms Katie Lahey said that Australia must act now to reform our taxation system or we will jeopardise our economic prosperity and fall even further behind our international competitors.

I've got to say, the night was very well organised and coordinated - we had a great bunch of stakeholders, BOA, supporters, trainees, parents, many alumni, plus of course the current active crop of young leaders. The venue was good, the food delicious and plentiful (ususally you'd expect a few trays of finger food and that's it - what we were served constituted a whole dinner brought out throughout the night, it was great!), and the bar tab seemingly never-ending depite the fact it covered even boutique beers on tap! In an effort to provide balanced feedback I should add that there were sound issues with the speakers at the start. But they were fixed up and the night rolled on. The event was a real credit to the team that put it together, and it provided an excellent forum for outgoing members to set a high standard of event for the newer guys to aspire to in the future.  Well done!

All my photos from the event can be viewed here.

If my last week were to have a theme, it would be India. Having been left a stack of Bollywood movies by my good friend Taylor, I have been making my way through them, generally watching a movie per day - and let's not forget how bloody long Bollywood movies are! When I was watching Chalte Chalte I seriously thought that the movie was over, only to see the 'intermission' screen come up, meaning it was only half way!! I laughed out loud - only a few 'western' movies I've ever seen, Titanic, LOTR series, etc run the same sort of length, and they are the exception to the rule. It is common for a Hollywood movie to run 80 to 120 minutes, but definitely not 180 or more. 3 times now I have gone to bed at intermission and watched the end of the movie the following day - I have to get used to budgeting 4 hours (interruptions included) for a movie. I've also gone to Annalakshmi twice with friends. Tomorrow we'll hopefully get a good bunch of people along again.

I haven't worked much at all this break. Today I will work at zipform for the first time in at least a month. Student advising has been very quiet as the semester has finished, although starting next week there will be some preparation work to do for next year, and I'll be in the office all day on Tuesday and Wednesday. But I'm happy, I'm enjoying the break SO MUCH! I've been exercising, hanging out with friends, and reading lots - exactly the things I wanted to do. I have some goals I want to achieve as well but they can wait till next week.

At the end of the latest note to staff from our university's Vice Chancellor was the note below. It seems to be that for Aussie students, study abroad is an opportunity that is not widely taken up. As AIESECers, we are well aware of the development opportunities available through living overseas. Hopefully this will enable more Aussie students to travel, and perhaps encourage not just those who will find a way to travel regardless. Australia has a reputation as a tolerant, accepting country - yet there are prominent pockets of our community that are as backward and bigoted as anywhere on Earth. The link between the Australian penchant for travel - particularly in a gap year between high school and university, during university, or straight after graduation - and our tolerant society cannot be dismissed. More people travelling = more cultured and worldly society.

 

To quote Mark Twain:

It liberates the vandal to travel--you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction.
- The American Abroad speech, 1868

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Innocents Abroad

---------------------

Outbound Student Exchange

I am very keen to encourage more of our Australian students to have an overseas educational experience, particularly a semester or a year on student exchange. We know that students who go on exchange add immeasurably to their own personal development as well as having a very significant educational and professional experience.

I am also very pleased, therefore, to announce that Curtin has been successful in winning $250,000 of funding from the Federal Government, specifically for student exchange. The programs for which funding is available are spread across the world, but focus in particular on universities in the Asia Pacific region.

This one pops up every now and then - the idea of New Zealand and Australia merging into a single nation. I've heard of this many times, and apparently the suggestion has a long history going back many years. Yes, our cultures do share many similarities, economies of scale would provide some efficiencies, a stronger currency, perhaps an increased ability to take a more prominent stand in world issues, larger military, yada yada.

We already have very close ties with NZ, from free movement and residency across boundaries, to economic and political pacts, to an agreement that Rugby Union is the only sport that they will ever beat us in. From what I understand, Australia could learn many things from the way NZ's indigenous Maori were historically treated and are currently treated in society - the situation here is surely one of the worst blights on our record and our national conscious, if we have one. 

Closer ties are a good idea, but merging into a single nation won't happen. Just as there are many good reasons for Western Australia to break away into an independent nation - after all, West Aussies would probably be much better off - but if won't happen. We're all doing alright, people are content, things are cool... there are no real serious driving factors that would bring about any change in the status quo.

By the way, over 90% of WA's population, in the strip running north-south from Joondalup to Busselton, is far further away from even Adelaide, let alone the populous Eastern seaboard which holds the vast majority of Australia's population, than NZ is.

------------------------

Fed: NZ foreign minister rubbishes idea of union with Aust

Wednesday, 06 December, 2006

CANBERRA, Dec 5 AAP - New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters has ridiculed a proposal for his country to consider a full union with Australia.

A bipartisan parliamentary committee yesterday recommended Australia and New Zealand consider becoming one country.

The House of Representatives committee - which examined the possible harmonisation of the nations' legal systems - suggested much closer ties, including a common currency.

But the committee's report went a step further, recommending the nations consider a full union in the future.

Mr Peters said New Zealand wanted a close association with Australia, but there was no desire for a union. He rejected the idea as an exercise in "parliamentary adventurism".

"New Zealand is 1,200 miles (1,900 km) away from Australia and that's 1,200 reasons why I don't go along with that committee, nor will New Zealanders," he told the ABC's Lateline program.

I think Kevin Rudd will be Prime Minister by the end of 2007. Currently, I like him. Currently.