Thread: Bureaucracy. Is Australia the World's Worst?

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

Which world are you living in? I can't even get them to turn up to do a quote let alone get them to arrive on time to actually do any work.

Get another, then. I had some plumbing & electrical problems recently. Both arrived the day I rang them. Plumber completed the job the next day, sparky the same day.

Mind you, they don't come cheap.

Since the trade ads in the local paper have been in terminal decline I've transitioned to the gig economy using places like hipages to advertise jobs. Supposedly they have a vetted list of registered trades they send out quote requests to. You get notified of the companies contacted and I have been lucky if one out of three has even followed through to find out more details, let alone want to come out to actually inspect and quote. Maybe things are a bit more competitative in Sydney.

Originally Posted by crowie

How about we have a tradie revolution; kick out the PM's & bureaucrats and put the self employed hard working tradies into Parliament House....

We'd have working plumbing, electricity that works, buildings that are solid & well maintained; they'd start early and only leave when the job was completed....

Much better value for money especially without all the bureaucracy....

You'd get a similar result electing engineers. The trouble is most people who run for election are lawyers, "business people" or political "science" grads. "Good" people don't run often and when they do they run poor campaigns or get shafted by the underhanded tricks.

My locality is a good example. There are some properly evil back room officials in the LNP. Newman was whiteanted from the minute he won the election and many of the policies that lost them the next election came from the back room. Then they rolled Bruce Flegg our state member to put in one of their mates who is a total AH. Now they have tried to roll our councilor with BS corruption allegations so they can replace her. They behave this way toward their own, you can imagine what they do to anyone who dares stand against them.

Politics is a sewer so anyone decent and smart stays well clear.

Regarding trades: When I moved to brisbane from sydney one of the things that astounded me was how many people up here don't work, or don't work much. Even when you do work the standard expected is so much lower. In sydney people are desperate for money to pay the mortgage, the place has always been high pressure. You MUST work just to survive. The rest of Australia isn't like that. People have a much more relaxed relationship with work. An optimist would call it a better lifestyle. I call it laziness and stupidity. Both local pizza shops open 4 hours a day, and even then they shut shop early sometimes. Any excuse to close the doors. Most businesses suffer the affliction and the few well run businesses up here are run off their feet with customers.

Calling it laziness is one way to look at it
The other is quality of life is much better than the rat race style existence in Sydney etc

Originally Posted by Beardy

Calling it laziness is one way to look at it
The other is quality of life is much better than the rat race style existence in Sydney etc

I've heard that excuse a lot, right before they start complaining their business went broke or that there are no jobs in town.

I'd never go back to live in sydney, beautiful city to visit but all cities are hell to live in, but if I want something done I don't waste my time on people who don't want to work for my money. I expect to work to get paid.

Back on track with the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy and how they want everyone and every thing to be certified & documented...

Out of Hand Stupidity for sure.

Has the country got that bad that we have to "COTTON WOOL" everyone from cradle to grave along with the ability to always POINT THE FINGER of BLAME at someone.

Whatever happened to the old saying "SH*T HAPPENS" and sometimes people do stupid things, yet survive having learnt a valuable lesson.

Some of the madness folk have described here from Paul's first outrageous happenings,
makes one wonder if today's oxymoron of COMMON SENSE is at best last century experience by older baby boomers.

Oh well all we can do as old blokes is continue to tell BAD DAD JOKES, BE POLITICAL INCORRECT and ENJOY EACH NEW DAY....[especially if it's in the shed]


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SH*T does not just HAPPEN, it is caused by ARS* HOL*S.

Originally Posted by A Duke

SH*T does not just HAPPEN, it is caused by ARS* HOL*S.

And the rolls of bureaucratic paper wipe it up and flush it

Whatever happened to the old saying "SH*T HAPPENS" and sometimes people do stupid things, yet survive having learnt a valuable lesson.

And sometimes they kill or maim someone else through their stupidity. If no one was stupid or greedy or took short cuts, we wouldn't need OH&S rules. Unfortunately...

Originally Posted by AlexS

And sometimes they kill or maim someone else through their stupidity. If no one was stupid or greedy or took short cuts, we wouldn't need OH&S rules. Unfortunately...

The flip side of that is that OH&S has made people stupid. When I was an apprentice on a construction site everyone was “street smart” and would be aware of their surroundings and potential dangers nowadays people walk around looking at their phone with a mindset that someone else is looking after them.

People have learnt to be stupid these days

I don't think OH&S made people stupid. There have always been stupid people, there have always been greedy bosses and there have always been people who would take dangerous short cuts.

Going back the the bush fire brigades, we're all volunteers. They can't make us do anything but they need us. I was greatly amused to hear our brigade captain tell the local command wallahs that our brigade "doesn't go to the National Park" The reason? Around '03 the boys were called out to a fire there on Christmas Eve. They stayed right through Christmas Day with about 2-3 officers of the National Sparks and Wildfire Service in attendance. On Boxing Day, 13 of them turned up to collect their double time. So...

mick

Originally Posted by Beardy

The flip side of that is that OH&S has made people stupid. When I was an apprentice on a construction site everyone was “street smart” and would be aware of their surroundings and potential dangers nowadays people walk around looking at their phone with a mindset that someone else is looking after them.

People have learnt to be stupid these days

Absolutely. When I was still working as an engineer the proportion of my time spent trying to stop people killing themselves was ever increasing. The more rules you gave them the more creative the stupidity. Everywhere I look around and I see people with no sense of self preservation. None at all.

Maybe before OH&S they died young and nobody noticed...

Originally Posted by damian

... Everywhere I look around and I see people with no sense of self preservation. None at all.

Maybe before OH&S they died young and nobody noticed...

Then either they were able to breed before they died or stupidity is not hereditary. The stupid still walk among us.

Come to think of it they drive among us too. I just got back from the shopping centre.