Talking to a young guy yesterday. Knew him when he was at secondary school about a decade ago.
He now lives in Aussie. Not because he wants to but because he feel it is the only way he can get ahead.
Over to watch of few games at RWC and to see family.
Drives a truck.
Earns roughly double what he got here. And then there is the employer funded super on top of that. Cost of living not much different.
His rig is slightly bigger but much more sophisticated than here. He gets lots more training on the job and he reckons he is about three times as productive.
I reckon he has to be more productive because his wages are higher and hs employer trains him more and invests in better capital goods for him to use, in order to make a profit.
It’s good to see Red Alert posting stories about those who have actively gone out and improved their situation, rather than the usual “sobbing in my office” stories from Curran.
So the story is ‘Much larger and richer Australian economy offers higher wages and better opportunities than NZ’.
What an insight.
I for one, had no idea.
@ Gregor W. No, the story is ‘Better pay, better investment and job training by employers i.e. treating employees well and thus getting good returns.’
Somewhere along the line someone has to pay for it all. High wages and modern equipment and training don’t come from fresh air.
Gregor , it wasnt that long ago that wages here were higher than Aussie, around the the late 80s. I know because I came back to a pay rise.
Makes you wonder what happened during the 90s to change all that. The overall figures dont lie , it was a lost decade .
Also I bet Trevs truck driver is a union member with a good collective agreement
Man, tis pretty grim here!
!
(Pssst, some of us want a gloat thread about the rugby last night!
)
There are two aussie economies. A mining one which provides the goodies and subsidises everything, and a non-mining one which overall isn’t too hot at the moment.
We should either compare our performance with the non-mining economy in Australia (I’m sure that the army of social scientists we’ve produced over the years would be able to find a suitable way of doing this) or project into our figures the potentail benefit of allowing the NZ economy to take advantage of the valuable resources we’re sitting on.
Those who’re happy to prevent us from exploiting our natural resources should stop whining about how poor we are, as one is a natural result of the other.
Doesn’t it beg the obvious question as to how a truck driver can be ’3 times’ as productive as a driver here.
What are the differences in how freight is moved in Australia versus here?
I wonder if this productivity increase has anything to do with the remuneration at all. For obvious reasons truck driving in Australia can involve some pretty monumental distances, and hence would require higher remuneration, as you are asking people to spend less time with family etc. Compared to distances in NZ it is therefore not exactly an apples-apples comparison.
Was going to ask, does he work on a mine site? If so the answer is pretty clear that NZ needs to drill baby drill..
Tell us about an actual pot of gold we are sitting on, but cant mine ? or a major coal deposit that cant be touched ?
NZ already has a substantial natural resource sector, gold ,oil, coal. Australia has many minerals that just arent here, nickel, bauxite, copper uranium diamonds zinc and especially the big one iron ore. ( 342 Mt)
Cactus Kate obviously hasnt been to Taranaki recently, the roads are busy with oil tankers ( and milk- why arent the drivers getting some of the very high returns ?)
No, not in a mine. Lives in West Sydney. Mainly construction loads.
@MrV think it is a combination of the loading and unloading gear, and more importantly the IT driven logistics system which maximises load/k.
troll ban until 1 Dec. Trevor
@ghostwhowwalksnz 25/09 12:22
What happened was
(1) The Employment Contracts Act 1991, which had the purpose of cutting wages – Jim Bolger as good as admitted as much in an interview with Geoff Robinson.
(2) The introduction of LAQCs in 1992(?) which massively tilted investment in favour of real estate. This gave rise to NZ’s chronic high overseas borrowing, high interest rates and shortage of investment funds for businesses. (Investing before LAQCs: save your money in the bank, then lend it out to businesses. After LAQCs: borrow all you can to buy real estate.)
The high cost of loans for plant and equipment and low wages quickly got us to where we are today.
Australia, by contrast, chose to have the Prices and Incomes (Labor) Accords 1983 – 1995 to manage liberalisation of their economy, and the Superannuation Guarantee 1992 (with compulsory contributions) which created a big pool of funds for business investment. Both times, a Labor Government.
Policy choices, policy choices. It matters who is in government.
Gregor , it wasnt that long ago that wages here were higher than Aussie, around the the late 80s. I know because I came back to a pay rise.
@ Ghost
Not too sure about the 80s wage comparison but I suspect it had a lot more to do with inflation, tight monetary policy coupled with extensive deregulation, and the general switch of capital from the manufacturing to service sectors once protectionism was removed. Aussies were (sensibly in the long run) far more conservative with economic change / deregulation.
Makes you wonder what happened during the 90s to change all that. The overall figures dont lie , it was a lost decade.
I reckon what happened in NZ was that unlike Aus, people never recovered from the shock of 87.
People chucked all their money into ‘safe’ finance companies and property and the liquidity required for a functioning stock / capital market has never reappeared.
Also, in my experience, Aussies like to talk about, encourage and revel in commercial success (i.e they like to be winners and not just in sport), whereas Kiwis appear to be happier wallowing in self pity.
People like that truck driver have no soul. They just ditch our country.
Since you’re so negative about NZ then why don’t you leave too Trevor? I think it’s because you like it here.
NZ isn’t for everyone. It’s a small country, so we can’t afford to pay as much as Aussie. But who wants a whole lot of fair-weather citizens who’ll leave to live in Trashville for some cash?
So did this guy leave NZ with the big emigration movement during Labour’s ‘prosperous’ 2000-2007/08 period, OR did he go during the GFC affected 2008/09-2010 period?
Late last year, after his wife lost her part time job when the employer went under and they worked out that it was going to be hard for her to get another, that they couldn’t live on 40 hours driving wages and almost no overtime was available.
Looking at recent salary reviews for Truck Drivers in NZ and Oz it seems that that rates are fairly comparable (NZ =$31K to $52K and OZ = $41K both figures include benefits both based on a 40 hours week).
So if your driver is getting paid double the amount in OZ vs NZ it seems likely he was previously working for a lower paying NZ transport company (not unusual if he was located out of the main centres or working for one of the smaller firms) and has since moved to an Aussie employer paying the within the top range of their salary rates.
I’m guessing though that he wasn’t an owner operator, as when I was involved in the transport industry 12 months ago it was common for them to be earning $120k+.
Wow a thread about aussie wages being higher than NZ and not a single comment about he 2008 “closing the gap” campaign of National, and the reversal of the brain drain which was so crucial to NZ when they were in NZ.
George I agree about Aussie having 2 economies, which was also very true in 2008 when National was misleading about reversing the brain drain and actually being prepared to do something to shorten the wage gap between here and there.
NO tax increases, close the wage gap with aussie, reverse the brain drain, “do not talk” about job creation…
I’m currently a tertiary student in NZ, and will be heading overseas to continue postgrad. Over the past few months I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t really intend to come back, looking at the way things are going now.