The Western Australian economic upkick

Whilst not a quantatitive analysis, I am beginning to see not only an improvement in business confidence, I am also beginning to see an upkick in recruitment and selection. After years of decline, we are finally beginning to see some economic light.

The state government had announced a gold tax in a feeble attempt to restore state finances ravaged by the GST distribution inequity but that bill failed in Parliament so the largest risk to the state economy has passed. Iron ore prices are depressed, other commodities are down but gold is hanging in there around the $1344 USD mark per ounce.

I was recently on-site assessing the competence of maintenance personnel when discussions with the maintenance supervisor almost knocked me over, they were seven personnel understaffed in their engineering workshop facing difficulties with not only current projects but future projects tendered upon.

The government is mad insofar as trying to place extra taxes above and beyong normal taxation in order to improve budget deficits. Why destroy an industry already adding to the economy? The job of government is to create the environment for stable investment with the dividends of that investment returning to inhabitants improving services from health, education and transport.

Regardless of state government inefficiency and meddling in the economy, the worst of the downturn appears to be over and the mining based powerhouse is expected to once again drive the economy. We might not return to full employment as we did before but the people displaced from their jobs might begin to gain a regular income again.

The Australian of the Year

Leading into Australia Day, there are plenty of times I disagree with the selection of the Australian of the Year after high profile sports stars and actors/entertainers such as Adam Goodes 2014, Ita Buttrose 2013 and Geoffrey Rush 2012 were selected over more anonymous but no less tireless achievers. We could probably argue Ita is a journalist and not a television star even if she has a strong TV presence.

The Australian of the Year is announced on the eve of Australia Day with Quantum physicist Professor Michelle Yvonne Simmons winning the 2018 award. Whilst there is a little irony that the Australian of the Year emigrated to Australia from Britain in 1999; she was educated and grew up in the UK so one could argue holds English traits and values.

However, we could also argue it doesn't matter where you are born and grew up, it is what you bring to Australia; there are worries here, she brings heaps to this country and has been an Australian citizen since 2007. We are more than lucky to be able to claim her as an Australian and the population I suspect is more than happy to adapt a person of her calibre. I would argue she she has adapted Australian characteristics as much as we have adapted her.

Professor Simmons leads a team at the University of NSW Quantum Physics Department where her team developed the world's first transistor manufactured from a single atom including the world's thinnest wire. Her team is now seeking to develop a quantum computer capable of revolutionising artificial intelligence, facial recognition, drug design, finance, traffic flows, weather forecasting and a whole load of applications requiring amazing computer power and capability.

Her acceptance speech touched on Australian researchers holding unique advantages from being down to earth, being results driven and a holding a distrust of authority. Whilst Professor Simmons makes a great role model for women seeking to break into science and technology, I would argue she makes a great role model for anyone regardless of gender. This year science beats sport and entertainment.

Australia Day and our convict heritage

Leading into Australia Day, this is celebrated on the 26th of January; the national discussion has challenged the current date with calls to change the date of Australia Day. I believe this is a poorly conceived idea but some people argue otherwise. There are some that call this invasion day in solidarity for the Aboriginal population, but I believe this is a simplistic argument. It is my belief that this is an inclusive country and we need to accept all inhabitants and their heritage, we need to be respectful of the Aboriginal heritage and include their culture as part of Australia Day celebrations and not create divisions within society.

When travelling overseas, I have been taunted on a couple of occasions and told that I am the descendants of convicts. This is clearly an attempt to rile me up and never works - I actually enjoy the laugh. Some research is in order as I do want to have an answer for them, if anything, just to shoot down their ill-conceived insults.

This has been when I have been first introduced to people I have never met before - very strange behaviour. My family name is OHalloran, that's Irish and the family came out during the Victorian gold rush before moving to the goldfields of Western Australia. My grandmother came from Kalgoorlie, still the capital of the West Australian goldfields. Besides, this appears to be their problem and not mine, so I ask myself, how many convicts were actually transported to Australia?

The eleven ships of the First Fleet arrived in 1788 in Sydney Harbour departing from Portsmouth in England for the 13,000 mile journey carrying about 1500 people in 1787. Prior to that, Joseph Banks had returned from a expedition in 1770 and declared this land as suitable for a penal colony. On board the ships of the First Fleet were 751 convicts and their children along with 252 marines and their families.

A further two convict fleets arrived in 1790 and 1791 before the free settlers began arriving in 1793. The French had also been interested in colonising the great southern land and the British wanted to get there first and claim the land for Britain. I believe the French were also interested in establishing a penal colony as this was as good a way to claim new territory.

Over on the west coast of the continent, the Swan River Colony was established in 1829 after an expedition in 1827. These were not the first Europeans to explore the west coast as the Dutch seafarers had navigated the west coast then known as New Holland with Dirk Hartog planting a pewter plate on an island in what is now known as Shark Bay in 1616.

Willem de Vlamingh mounted a rescue mission searching for survivors of the Ridderschap van Holland that had gone missing a number of years earlier. The three ships under his command landed at Rottnest Island in December 1696 and ventured up the Swan River in January 1697.

They are believed the first Europeans to do so, although Frederick de Houtman may have also ventured up the Swan River in 1619 but this is unclear. Vlamingh's trek headed north up the coast where they replaced the pewter plate left by Dirk Hartog also inscribing their own visit on the replacement plate.

The last shipment of convicts arrived in Western Australia in 1868 with the total number of transported convicts recorded at approximately 162,000 men and women transported on 806 ships.The convict transportation to Australia ended at a time when the population of the colonies was approximately one million people. 

The purpose of the convicts was to provide labour to the fledgling colonies and by the mid–1800s there were enough free settlers in the colony to undertake the work with the colonies becoming self sustaining with convict labour no longer required. 

What is interesting is that even though slavery had not been abolished, at least in the British Empire, there was no slavery in the colonies although the convicts sent to the colonies were for reasonably minor infractions.  

The Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander population in Australia is 2.8% of the total population with 649,200 people according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2016 with the approximate population of 24,770,000 people in 2018. The 2011 population census identified approximately 25% of the population claimed their ancestry to be Australian. 

An interesting statistic from the 2011 population census is 30% of Australians were born overseas with 46% having a parent born overseas. We might have started off as a penal colony back in 1788 but we are truly a nation of immigrants embracing a mixed race heritage growing as both a country and nation. 

Welcome to Adelaide

Our Jetstar flight landed at 10:05 on a Saturday night, the airport was all but closed with no shops open. The final flight of the evening was an Emirates flight departing at 10:35, that was it. So this was a Saturday night in the capital of South Australia.

Welcome to Adelaide, the city where fun goes to die. A little too harsh of an assessment, well maybe, but that was first impressions. As we climbed into the cab and headed to the CBD we weren't left with much of an impression of a fun city. Our hotel was on South Terrace and it was like the city was shut down and off we went in search of some food at about 11 pm on a warm Adelaide Saturday night.

There were a few hotels open but they didn't seem to be buzzing and they didn't look to be serving food at not only this time of night or earlier and the five nights we booked here weren't looking all that exciting. My first impressions of Adelaide were not brilliant - that's true. I just hoped that during the course of my stay my impressions of Adelaide were to improve.

Locking your dog in a car almost always ends badly

Last week was a pretty cool week for Perth in January, we had the remnants of a cyclone further north drop a deluge of rain on the city bringing temperatures down. The authorities run community adverts on television and radio throughout the warmer months and possibly magazine and billboard ads too. There is no excuse for locking your dog in your car, you can't claim ignorance as the advertising campaign is pretty good, they even run stories on the news about this.

So when the news report came through that a dog had been died after been locked in a car my initial reaction was you arsehole, how could you be so stupid and cruel? But like most things, there is more to this story, this isn't just a simple case of neglect and animal abuse. The man, Steve fronted the news camera sobbing “To the public out there, I’m sorry” as he apologised for his dog's death. “If I could take it all back I would, I made one simple error, my intention wasn’t to kill my dog.”

So how did this tragic story unravel? Steve had been living in his car since losing his job and then his home after the death of his teenage son to cystic fibrosis. He had left his dog in the vehicle as he went to lodge a rental application to hopefully organise himself a home for his dog and himself to live.

I am guessing his dog Bully was his best friend at this point in his life as they lived together in his car. People argue, well he could have taken the dog out of the car and tied it to a tree in the shade while he lodged his rental application.

Unfortunately, people are losing their dogs from their backyards as people steal them for illegal dog fighting - so that really isn't an option. He had no home to leave the dog so that isn't possible either, could he have taken his dog as he lodged his rental application? Possibly, but that is usually frowned upon.

Leave the dog at a friend's house? Once again possibly, but that is isn't always practical and we don't even know if that option was available as he could have been living at friend's homes if that was the case. Well, why didn't he wind the windows down whilst the dog was inside?

One expects the simple answer was that as he had all his possessions in the car he wanted to lock the vehicle but the answer is even more basic - his battery was dead and he couldn't wind the windows down.

A couple of people passing by saw the animal in distress and broke into the car to rescue the dog. The woman, Nicci is a trainee vet nurse along with another person got the dog out and placed under running tap water whilst performing CPR and chest compressions to the stricken dog in an attempt to revive the dog.

According to reports, the dog had two seizures and was bleeding from the mouth after throwing up in the vehicle. The temperature was 27°C which wasn't really as hot as a normal summer day, but due to the cloud cover from the remnants of the cyclone the humidity was higher than normal.

She told reporters that the bull mastiff at 40 kg was just too big and she didn't have the lung capacity to revive the dog despite her attempts. Despite her heroic attempts, the dog died a painful death and that is a tragedy. Taking Steve's circumstances into account; I think he has lost enough and on this occasion, I hope the RSPCA doesn't prosecute as I am sure this won't happen to him again as he was genuinely distressed and remorseful.

Flying domestic again

For the last decade the majority of my flights have been international and I have had little need to fly domestic routes, some but not many. A four week period just before Christmas saw about eight domestic flights due to work commitments, so I have reacquainted myself with domestic flying procedures.

With the exception of a return flight to Adelaide, the flights were within Western Australia and just a hour's duration. This suits me, I really don't enjoy flying insofar as I need to get to the airport early, begin work as soon as I arrive after hiring a car and driving out to see the client before getting back in the evening for the flight home.

I don't mind getting up at 4:30 am and waiting for the 5:15 taxi to catch the early flight and walking back through my door at 8:30 in the evening. Actually, I really like getting home again even if is a little late as I will be back in my workplace again in the morning but I get to do it from home. For over a decade I worked away from home, times change and coming home in the evening is great.

The unimaginable consequences of cyber-bullying

It saddened Australia and the story needs more coverage to hopefully prevent this occurring to more families across the nation. The suicide of fourteen year old Amy 'Dolly' Everett due to online bullying is a disgrace; how could a young life be cut so short? How could a person feel they have no other option but to take their own life to stop the cyber-bullying?

The way the family have conducted themselves during this ordeal has won the respect of the county to raise awareness of teenage suicide. I am personally full of respect for the family and I can not feel or comprehend the loss they suffered.

Her father, Tick Everett invited the cyber bullies to the funeral to witness the complete devastation they had caused their family. This challenge is not made out of anger or hate, but so they could comprehend the consequences of their actions to prevent future occurrences - he wants this cycle of cyber abuse to stop.

He, along with wife Kate and sister Meg has been very vocal openly discussing his daughter's suicide because he doesn't want another family to go through the same devastating loss they are going through.

The Everett family has launched an online campaign to raise awareness of cyber-bullying and harassment. I feel I should also do my part, however small, to help raise awareness of the effects of cyber-bullying.

The Everett family and friends has established a foundation via a GoFundMe fundraiser page to provide financial support to charities through promotion and discussion to recognise cyber-bullying to prevent the devastation of this loss afflicting other families; the page is https://www.gofundme.com/dollys-dream-foundation

Lifeline 13 11 14

Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800

Reporting wrongdoing is not vexatious - it is a requirement

It is not vexatious to report misappropriation of government funds and/or corruption; in fact, it is the duty of every public officer to report inappropriate dealings, actions or behaviour. In the public sector, we actually undertake training so as to understand and identify such behaviour so as to not inadvertently commit an act of wrongdoing and believe I am acting within the scope of this training.

The purpose of ethical decision making is to train staff to identify inappropriate behaviour, the risk to the organisation and the community as a whole. I am loathe to use the term fraud as the requirements involve receiving a personal financial gain, that will all come out in an investigation. The onus then falls onto me to prove my claim against an individual and I am not targeting any individual; that is not my intent, my purpose is to protect the organisation and the public who is served by the organisation.

I am attempting to keep this issue in-house; but you argue, hey, you are writing about it on your blog. True, I am also taking a series steps to keep my government department anonymous as my wish is to avoid reputation damage to my employer. My blog is Observations in an Undemocratic World and deals with such issues since I began this blog back in 2013.

It is true I write about my anonymous organisation so they feel they are under pressure to act and not become involved in a cover-up - this is entirely my intention. I am aware they cyber-stalk me reading my blog as this discussion has come up on a number of occasions. But since I do not identify my employer, they won't take formal action - I am almost daring them to so but they don't want this to become common knowledge.

CEO pay packets back in the spotlight

With CEO pay-packets and bonus schedules back in the public domain after Apple's Tim Cook received a 74% increase in pay. Cook had a base salary of $3.06 million, incentive pay of $9.33 million and and equity award of $89.2 million to bring his pay to $102 million.

I believe entrepreneurs taking the full personal risks to start and build the company should benefit financially. My issues arise from CEOs who are hired to run a business don't have a personal stake in the success of the business. These CEOs aren't taking any personal risk as they receive golden handcuffs initially with their real risk more concerned with missing out on their potential bonus. 

With such a rewards system in place, they are not inclined to make decisions in the long term interests of the business owners - the shareholders. Then, if it doesn't work out then they are endowed with a golden parachute so they don't lose. Then there is the Apple battery scandal, shareholders would be very concerned as to what this is going to cost? Pretty poor to be receiving such a bonus when there could be lawsuits pending.

An Australian recession - not just yet

Heading into 2018, the US bull market run continues, the American price earning multiples are increasing but people are getting nervous but with the low interest rate environment and lag effects of the quantitative easing that poured large amounts of money into the financial sector - the risks increase. One expects US tax cuts to fuel the party for another two or so years - then what?

Down over the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the Australian index has not eclipsed the 2007 highs and although the Australian economy didn't melt down like the US or Europe as Chinese demand kept Australia from recession. Ten years on, the XJO, that is the S&P/ASX200 is sitting just over 6000 points still below the October 2007 high of 6700 points before plunging to just over 3000 in March 2009. No recession maybe, but we felt wealth destruction without the rebound but fortunately not on an American scale.

We still have soft conditions with low wages growth; the major concern to the economy being the high personal household debt. With non-mining business continuing to improve we are finally seeing increased business confidence. When we get some decent wages growth we should see improvement in the retail and services sector and increased jobs. The bright side is we don't appear to be hemorrhaging jobs anymore as jobs growth is improving; even if full-time jobs are being replaced with part-time work, at least an income is coming in. Easy to say for a person who maintained full-time employment through the whole GFC saga and beyond.

Bank dividends and pay-out ratios

There has been plenty of criticism of banks in Australia with a special emphasis on the big four banks of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the Australian and New Zealand Banking Corporation (ANZ), Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC) and the National Australia Bank (NAB). Looking into banking misconduct will be the role of the Royal Commission; one expects some poor practices to come to light with some improvements required. Despite the popular opinion, the banking and finance industry is pretty stable in Australia.

Bank pay-out ratios are high, really high. This is the dividend paid to shareholders from profits with ANZ sitting at 71%, NAB is 74%, CBA is 75% and WBC is also 75% of profits paid to shareholders. Then the argument reverts to greedy shareholders taking all the money that should be the people's money. Hang on, the federal government once attempted to nationalise the banks directly after world war and spent the next twenty five years out of government, so this isn't the answer.

Banks are commercial entities and make profits; they are also the nation's largest corporate taxpayers with CBA paying $3.3 billion in tax. This was followed by WBC with $3 billion, NAB with $2.4 billion and ANZ paid $2 billion paid in tax. Approximately 168,000 people are employed in the banking sector in Australia with the finance and insurance sector the 11th largest employer in the country.

So who are the shareholders? To begin with, anybody who has held employment over the past 25 years or so will be holding money in a superannuation account of some form. The default plan for a superannuation fund is a balanced plan generally holding approximately 25% of their assets in Australian equities. The superannuation funds of Australia are the majority owners of Australian banks with the members of the funds collectively owning the assets of the fund.

The big four banks lead the top four positions in the Standard & Poor's ASX 200 index in terms of market capitalisation with CBA making up 9.25% of the index, WBC the second largest bank accounts for 6.9% of the index, ANZ makes up 5.5% and the smallest of the the big four banks is NAB with 5.25% comprising of approximately 27% of the value of the Australian sharemarket.

So we are the shareholders and the profits are paid out to our retirement accounts. The average worker has the ability to contribute extra funds to their superannuation fund through salary sacrifice increasing their retirement benefits. But most prefer to spend it now and rely on the aged pension instead, then complain when the federal government raises the pension age as the country can't afford it.

Alternately, salary earners could directly purchase shares in banks or other investment opportunities but mostly chose not too. Instead of wagering cash on horses down the racetrack, lotto, poker machines or at the casino maybe people would be better off investing their excess funds for their future and cut down on cigarettes and alcohol to make some savings. I have done some calculations for some broke work colleagues and their nicotine habit finding they could have doubled their retirement accounts by diverting their smoking habit to investment funding.

I left school early after just turning sixteen to start an apprenticeship and I was able to take a part time evening class at my local TAFE, the Americans would know this as Community College, to learn the basics of the sharemarket. So if I am able to find the time as a guy who didn't finish high school I am sure plenty of others are capable of a little study.

This included purchasing some books and doing some extra curricula reading. If you can't afford to purchase books then the library is the answer as long as you are putting in the effort to invest in yourself. If you can't be bothered to put in the effort, then don't complain when you have to work until seventy.

So, what's in the hang tank?

I was diving in Subic Bay in the Philippines at a pretty good dive centre and we were undertaking no-stop diving activities at deeper recreational depths. As a safety precaution, they suspended a hang tank at five metres for low on air situations - great stuff for recreational diving operations.

In their hang tank was a nitrox blend of 31% oxygen and entry-level divers with no nitrox certification were undertaking dives - was there an issue here? I would suggest the answer is no as a blend of EAN31 has a partial pressure of 0.15 ATA at 5 metres - that's pretty conservative. Referencing a CNS table, a partial pressure in the 0.6 range has a maximum CNS limit of 720 minutes. Generally most recreational divers undertake a safety stop for 3 to 5 minutes, that's not a huge uptake of CNS oxygen toxicity so at this point, who really cares?

A busy Saturday morning

The alarm screeched interupting my sleep at 4 am, a quick shower and packing up my motel room to make sure I am on the road at 4:30 heading east of the Kalgoorlie city limits before any traffic slows me down. It is still dark and I drive carefully heading towards the rising sun as I don't want to hit any wildlife, the hire car is attached to my personal credit card and has a $4000 excess.

I arrived on site at 5:15 with time to spare as I wanted to speak to the nightshift at their 5:30 to 6:00 shift handover meeting. I also needed to meet with two of their maintenance personnel before driving back to Kalgoorlie for the morning flight to Perth. I needed to meet with the As I had missed my pervious flight, I was empthatic that this wasn't going to happen again.

I had informed the skipper of the yacht I sail on of my movements, they were to wait at the jetty until a pre-determined time and depart without me if I couldn't make the deadline. My schedule was tight but I believed I could get to Royal Perth Yacht Club on time. I was lucky to get a taxi straight away as I needed to get home, get changed out of my drill press work clothes and into my sailing whites.

Fortunately I live within a 15 minute drive away from Matilda Bay, if traffic conditions allow and I had envisioned any traffic delays I will be there on time. Dropping through the clouds as we descended, the flight was on-time so I have to quickly collect my bag from the carousel and straight to the waiting taxi - no sweat. I know I have a pretty good job when I am 600 km away and still able to get an afternoon sail in - life is good.