Australian State Orders Public Servants To Stop Remote Working After a Newspaper Campaign Against It (apnews.com) 122
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The government of Australia's most populous state ordered all public employees to work from their offices by default beginning Tuesday and urged stricter limits on remote work, after news outlets provoked a fraught debate about work-from-home habits established during the pandemic. Chris Minns, the New South Wales premier, said in a notice to agencies Monday that jobs could be made flexible by means other than remote working, such as part-time positions and role sharing, and that "building and replenishing public institutions" required "being physically present." His remarks were welcomed by business and real estate groups in the state's largest city, Sydney, who have decried falling office occupancy rates since 2020, but denounced by unions, who pledged to challenge the initiative if it was invoked unnecessarily.
The instruction made the state's government, Australia's largest employer with more than 400,000 staff, the latest among a growing number of firms and institutions worldwide to attempt a reversal of remote working arrangements introduced as the coronavirus spread. But it defied an embrace of remote work by the governments of some other Australian states, said some analysts, who suggested lobbying by a major newspaper prompted the change. "It seems that the Rupert Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney has been trying to get the New South Wales government to mandate essentially that workers go back to the office," said Chris F. Wright, an associate professor in the discipline of work at the University of Sydney. The newspaper cited prospective economic boons for struggling businesses.
The newspaper wrote Tuesday that the premier's decision "ending the work from home era" followed its urging, although Minns did not name it as a factor. But the union representing public servants said there was scant evidence for the change and warned the state government could struggle to fill positions. "Throughout the New South Wales public sector, they're trying to retain people," said Stewart Little, the General Secretary of the Public Service Association. "In some critical agencies like child protection we're looking at 20% vacancy rates, you're talking about hundreds of jobs." Little added that government offices have shrunk since 2020 and agencies would be unable to physically accommodate every employee on site. Minns said the state would lease more space, according to the Daily Telegraph. Further reading: Ordered Back To the Office, Top Tech Talent Left Instead, Study Finds
The instruction made the state's government, Australia's largest employer with more than 400,000 staff, the latest among a growing number of firms and institutions worldwide to attempt a reversal of remote working arrangements introduced as the coronavirus spread. But it defied an embrace of remote work by the governments of some other Australian states, said some analysts, who suggested lobbying by a major newspaper prompted the change. "It seems that the Rupert Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney has been trying to get the New South Wales government to mandate essentially that workers go back to the office," said Chris F. Wright, an associate professor in the discipline of work at the University of Sydney. The newspaper cited prospective economic boons for struggling businesses.
The newspaper wrote Tuesday that the premier's decision "ending the work from home era" followed its urging, although Minns did not name it as a factor. But the union representing public servants said there was scant evidence for the change and warned the state government could struggle to fill positions. "Throughout the New South Wales public sector, they're trying to retain people," said Stewart Little, the General Secretary of the Public Service Association. "In some critical agencies like child protection we're looking at 20% vacancy rates, you're talking about hundreds of jobs." Little added that government offices have shrunk since 2020 and agencies would be unable to physically accommodate every employee on site. Minns said the state would lease more space, according to the Daily Telegraph. Further reading: Ordered Back To the Office, Top Tech Talent Left Instead, Study Finds
I guess Murdoch has money in office blocks (Score:2)
Though to be fair the UK government also seems to be panicking and trying to get people back in the office. The wider issue is that if the firm that owns the office block finds it's no longer worth very much, they'll just default on their mortgage and leave the banks with a duff asset. If this occurs enough, the banks will stop making loans and so there'll be a shortage of credit in the economy.
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What about saving the planet? Working from home == saving the planet!
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What about saving the planet? Working from home == saving the planet!
And working in the outback might save the cities?
Government insolvency fix right here (Score:2)
>jobs could be made flexible by means other than remote working, such as part-time positions and role sharing
Simply do what US retailers do:
a) Hire everyone at the location as a 29 hour a week part time worker without benefits
b) Hire a few full time employees to manage the part time workers at each location. Full time employees get benefits
This would save at a guess 5% to 15% of the total compensation paid to employees per hour if government part-time workers did not receive benefits for health, etc.
Bad
Declining commerical real estate prices (Score:3)
The local government must be afraid that the central business districts will be crime ridden, abandoned areas in a few years as empty office buildings are sold for progressively lower and lower prices and left vacant.
Not an Australian, though our local government has done enough hand-wringing appeals to get back to downtown offices for the last 2 years.
They give all of the usual reasons yet never discuss the money:
- Property taxes on office buildings
- Government jobs paid for by those property taxes
- 'Prest
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empty office buildings are sold for progressively lower and lower prices and left vacant.
An obvious solution is to convert them to urban housing, which is scarce in Australia and very expensive.
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Bad for the affected workers, but a way to cut down on the entrenched bureaucracy.
So, intentionally harm your family, neighbors, and fellow citizens to send a message to the uncaring bureaucracy? I don't think that's going to work out the way you'd hoped....
Re:I guess Murdoch has money in office blocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't it seem that Murdoch enterprises are completely devoted to the enshittification of our entire civilization?
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To my mind, he's truly one of the worst people of the modern age. The damage he has done to so many countries is horrendous. For example, he drove the wrecking of the UK's public services (and shattered the Tories along the way).
My main cancer, I call it Rupert (Score:2)
by Dennis Potter [independent.co.uk]
My main cancer, I call it Rupert [youtube.com]
One of the favourite fantasy plots of a writer is, a character's told you've got three months to live . . . which is what I was told . . . who would you kill? I call my cancer - the main one, the pancreas one - I call it Rupert, so I can get close to it, because that man Murdoch is the one who, if I had the time - in fact, I've got too much writing to do and I haven't got the energy - but I would shoot the bugger if I could. There is no one person more respons
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Rupert's old and should kick off soon, I'd go after his son Lachlan. He's every bit the psychopathic scum his father is.
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Rupert's old and should kick off soon, I'd go after his son Lachlan. He's every bit the psychopathic scum his father is.
A few days ago I found this podcast episode very interesting and worth my time. [amazon.com]
Here's a recent NY Times article as well. [archive.is]
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What "planet", when the "value" of my real estate is going down???!!11!!
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Probably but it could be anyone. News Corp attack campaigns have always been available to the highest bidder. Notable campaigns in the past have been against renewables, resource taxes and banking regulations. It's obvious Murdoch press gets more money from big oil and mining groups than it does from subscriptions. Propaganda is News Corps' primary business model. The political attacks against the center/left parties, the poor and immigrants are really just frosting on a shitty cake of corporate greed.
As fa
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Do you mean the new Labour government? I know Rees-Mogg did some performative cuntery along these lines but wasn't aware of anything since Labour came to power.
Change of policy under Labour? (Score:2)
I doubt we'd know; the Tory government didn't do this publicly - instead big firms appear to have been 'encouraged' to get people back into the office.
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Won't be a shortage of floor space, though.
Yes, office space can't easily be re-purposed to housing, but then I couldn't give a shit about commercial landlords' problems.
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Lots of office buildings have been repurposed as apartments, it's not especially difficult or expensive and can be highly profitable given the shortage and cost of housing.
Even if the building cannot be repurposed, the land can - old buildings are demolished and replaced all the time and there is a severe shortage of available land for building new residential properties.
Knock on effect on the banks (Score:2)
Unfortunately if the banks make substantial losses on commercial property they will have less money for loans in other areas. This would be BAD.
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Unfortunately if the banks make substantial losses on commercial property they will have less money for loans in other areas. This would be BAD.
Australian banks have posted record profits throughout this "cost of living crisis" (which is, of course, actually a "corporate greed crisis") so fuck the banks, fuck them and their shareholders all to hell.
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No they won't. Banks create money by literally saying it exists. They'll just say some more money exists and loan that.
"Money" is one of the most impressive acts of applied magic in human history. Almost the entire world has been subjugated under an illusion cooked up by an elite to basically keep them in idle luxury and the rest of us in debt based slavery.
Go and look up 'reserve ratios' (Score:2)
The regulations under which banks operate require them to have a certain amount of reserves in order to make loans. When there is significant loan defaults, these reserves are reduced, requiring them to cut back loans.
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Well the banks shouldn't have been lending money for office purchases in the first place, since it's been quite obvious for many years that offices are unnecessary for a lot of employees.
The asset won't be totally worthless either, there is a severe shortage of housing as well as a severe shortage of land to build housing on. There's nothing to stop those buildings being repurposed as housing, or knocked down and the land used to build new housing.
Even if banks stop making loans for the purchase of offices,
The need for reserves (Score:2)
If a bank makes losses they dig into their reserves, reducing their ability to make loans in other areas. That's why losses on offices are a problem for the wider economy.
Fad (Score:1, Insightful)
That work from home thing was just a fad. That "era" is over. No meaningful changes in society from that little experiment. Get back to the office building!
Besides, it's not like there are going to be any more pandemics.
That said, most of the government workers that I personally observed who "work" from home just slack off and outright defraud the government. Claiming 8 hours of work when they only did 3-4 hours. Running side businesses during work hours. Going outside to play and socialize and run errands
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That's not the case here. With everything being online and easily trackable and monitored, it's almost impossible to slack off and yet still produce the work. I find we are more productive because there's no time wasted commuting to work or with the unavoidable interruptions in a large office space (where it's hard to concentrate anyway).
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That's not the case here. With everything being online and easily trackable and monitored, it's almost impossible to slack
I should have clarified my comment: I am talking about the US. Where are you, down under?
No, benefit (Score:5, Interesting)
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Bingo.
Plus, WFH is the great salary equalizer. My local market has an abundance of cheap talent and is fairly isolated from any of the big cities in the area, so the local market's rates have for decades been well below national rates. That was fine when I was part of the "cheap talent" as a bachelor just starting his career many years ago, but wasn't working so well for me when I became a husband and a father and was concerned I may need to financially support my parents in retirement.
Fast forward to the p
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WFH is now a tangible employment benefit just like any other - vacation time, remuneration, pensions, etc. Like all the other benefits it will contribute its part to defining better jobs from lesser jobs. The invisible hand of the labor market will do the rest.
There is no invisible hand, when it comes to government workers (at least in the US where I am).
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Of course there is! If the government stops offering WfH, then a larger number of public sector workers will leave for the private sector than otherwise would have. Or move to a different part of the public sector where this new mandate doesn't exist -- eg in this case from working for the state of New South Wales to working from another state (enabled, natch, by WfH) or the Australian federal government.
By the way, my current team of five direct reports live in four different places -- Seattle, Florida, UK
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Of course there is! If the government stops offering WfH, then a larger number of public sector workers will leave for the private sector than otherwise would have.
My experience and reporting is from the (mainly federal) workers in the US. (I live in Washington, D.c.) I'm not talking about IT workers, by the way. Rather, the primary employees of the bureaucracy. And the reason they will not move to the private sector is that they can't get hired there because they are not good enough at anything to get a "real job". Like in Ghostbusters: "You don't know what it's like in the real world! They expect results!"
Most people, given a choice, will not work unless they are f
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Please explain yourself. How are these jobs not affected by market conditions?
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> There is no invisible hand, when it comes to government workers (at least in the US where I am).
Please explain yourself. How are these jobs not affected by market conditions?
The public sector workers I am referring to are incapable of getting private sector jobs. Once hired as a federal Government employee (in the US) it is effectively impossible to ever get fired. So that's a guaraneed paycheck and great benefits. Meanwhile, these mostly low skilled "work"ers (wankers) won't get private sector jobs because nobody would hire them (ot they would be fired in short order, or the company would go out of business). They never wanted to work in the first place, and will take every po
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Re:Fad (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll have you know I can easily waste 4 hours at the office looking busy.
Half the time at these tech companies people are sitting at their desks having zoom meetings. So what's the point other than keeping chairs from floating away?
Several years into working from home and society hasn't collapsed and companies haven't folded up. The only people who are upset are real estate investors who are seeing building values drop. They made come phone calls and the newspaper ran an op-ed piece disguised as a real story.
Re:Fad (Score:5, Interesting)
Before I retired from Amazon, an exceedingly data-driven company, they were surprised to find that people were MORE productive when working from home. In my team of 8 only two of us went into the office at all in an entire year, and that was only to test some new hardware in the lab. One of the guys was visiting family in western Africa when the lockdowns happened, since he had his work laptop with him he happily worked from there for six months before even bothering to come back to the States. My niece and her roommate went to Alaska for a week, and since she took her laptop and got all her work done her boss didn't even know until she came back and mentioned it.
Of course since executives are pathological control freaks they're doing their best to kill WFH, not because it isn't working.
Great post (Score:2)
Sorry I can't give you points!
Re: Fad (Score:2)
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This depends on a healthy office culture which seems to be incredibly rare. If you have a middle-management or executive culture of "if I'm an obstacle then I'll look important and involved" (or any other micro-managing strategy) then you will likely see an almost complete halt to progress.
I would assume that any government office is a complete quagmire of office politics and nothing valuable seems to get done anyway.
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There's nothing worse than an office bound user joining a conference call. There is always a huge amount of background noise and it's often hard to make out what they're saying, sometimes you can also overhear their colleagues talking about other things.
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The only problem my WFH team has with that is the one coworker whose wife also works from home, apparently in the same room for some reason, because we often hear her in meetings.
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Yeah, that can be a problem for people living in small apartments...
But, most people live in small apartments because that's all they can afford within easy commuting distance of their offices. Once relieved of that burden they could almost certainly afford to live somewhere else in a much larger place for the same cost.
I have a separate room set aside for work, so if there are relatives, visitors, or a dog at home their activity doesn't interfere with work.
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I believe they live in a single family home in the suburbs. So it's kind of mystifying to me but none of my business.
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I'll have you know I can easily waste 4 hours at the office looking busy.
Half the time at these tech companies people are sitting at their desks having zoom meetings. So what's the point other than keeping chairs from floating away?
This.
Ironically the most prolific time wasters and productivity syncs are gasping to get everyone back to the office as they've lost the ability to hide amongst productive employees. Work from home and your boss really starts to take a look at the work you produce, not how many hours a day you're there. For people who made a point to be at the office but didn't do much actual work this has been a terrible time for them.
I don't miss the office, I don't miss the pointless meetings, constant disruptions,
Unmet Capital Gains (Score:2)
Several years into working from home and society hasn't collapsed and companies haven't folded up. The only people who are upset are real estate investors who are seeing building values drop. They made come phone calls and the newspaper ran an op-ed piece disguised as a real story.
This,
What might make this more understandable is that Australia recently passed "Unmet Capital Gains" tax on properties. Essentially sell the R.E at a loss or put the entire public service on notice and add 10's of thousands of commuters back onto overcrowded road and packed commuter trains to generate a return on the commercial properties.
so yeah, this massive circle jerk indeed.
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The only people who are upset are real estate investors who are seeing building values drop.
I wouldn't say they were the only people. I am tired of calling offices only to be told I can't speak to X because they are working from home today. I am sick of having to talk to someone "working" from home who is focusing all their attention on an unruly child demanding a parent's attention. I'm sick of being unable to hold a conversion because of a dog barking constantly in the background. I am fed up with critical POs not being processed for a week because Y is working remote. Emails and voice mess
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I'll have you know I can easily waste 4 hours at the office looking busy.
Half the time at these tech companies people are sitting at their desks having zoom meetings.
I thought this was about Government workers, not employees of actual companies that have to stay afloat.
My reporting was about federal workers in Washington D.C. where I live, and also not about IT workers at all.
Personally, I've worked partly or entirely from home for more than 30 years (both as an independent contractor, and as an employee). But you and I like to work hard. That's not how most people operate.
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Claiming 8 hours of work when they only did 3-4 hours.
So ... just a normal government job then regardless of where you sit? Your generalisations are jaded and quite worthless. Why are you spending your time sitting and observing government employees. Is that your job? Supervising them? If so why are you so bad at your job that they slack off? If not I suspect you're talking out of your arse.
Going outside to play and socialize and run errands all day long (many hours) when they claim they are working.
Yeah I do this too. The thing is, I did it while I worked at an office as well. People haven't clocked in at 8:59 and clocked off at 5:01 since the 80s, flexible work arran
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I dunno where you are, but everywhere I've worked, it is VERY common to eat the lunch you brought at your desk, and not formally take any time off....
That way you don't have to stay there the extra hour....
Re: Fad (Score:2)
Eating at desks is disgusting. I donâ(TM)t want the sounds or the smells of somebody else doing that. Itâ(TM)s just rude and obnoxious. The only thing worse is when people do it on a call without muting and then youâ(TM)ve got the noises right in your ears.
Never mind the state that keyboards end up in or what looks like wank stains on chairs where things get dropped.
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The only thing worse is when people do it on a call without muting and then youâ(TM)ve got the noises right in your ears.
Remotely mute them man. That's a function in all conference tools.
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I guess it varies greatly by both country and job. I was pulling classic music lyrics out of their air "Working niiiine to five, what a way to make a liiiiiivin".
My current contract is 8 - 4:17. No I don't know where the 17min comes from. Yes it is just shy of 38 hours a week with a lunchbreak.
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I got news for ya. They sit in their government buildings do their side businesses also. Sure, most are just fucking off on their phones but the more clever ones (I've met a few and they've told me even more crazy stories) are running a side business while collecting a government check. It's crazy and sounds like the country in question doesn't matter. This is just how government is. A jobs program to be defrauded.
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My experience in a Canadian provincial ministry office is that there were some people genuinely interested in getting something done... and a whole lot of useless oxygen consumers.
Most of them pretty thick in the head, but eventually even a lot of the smart ones succumb to the environment and get caught up in petty personal rivalries as the bureaucracy frustrates them. And yes, some of them are working jobs they shouldn't be while on the government payroll. I saw some who were in clear conflicts of intere
Re: Fad (Score:2)
Between meetings, ambient noise, discomfort, lunch, coffee and socializing, I would have to say that most of the office workers in my career have hardly ever put in more than four hours of really solid work per day. But if you read books on productivity, that's about as much as anyone has expected from white-collar work in the last 30 years.
The difference is that people that work from home for 4 hours aren't persistently miserable and I think that makes some managers mad. They would rather have someone mise
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Fair point. But the papers are owned by businessmen that talk with their businessman friends and generally conspire to make labour miserable.
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That work from home thing was just a fad. That "era" is over. No meaningful changes in society from that little experiment. Get back to the office building!
Besides, it's not like there are going to be any more pandemics.
That said, most of the government workers that I personally observed who "work" from home just slack off and outright defraud the government. Claiming 8 hours of work when they only did 3-4 hours. Running side businesses during work hours. Going outside to play and socialize and run errands all day long (many hours) when they claim they are working. When they are "working" --- that is, sitting in their chairs -- they are usually watching television and chatting on the phone with friends. Just push some keys and wiggle the mouse every now and then. They are crazy about showing up for phone/video teleconferences, though.
See, the thing is: it's almost impossible to fire them.
On the other side, I also know some who were higher level employees (e.g. case lawyers) who were subjected to insane monitoring and performance metrics. They worked those guys to fucking death.
Sounds like you're right in Murdoch's core demographic (all government employees are lazy dishonest slackers, private sector are honest hard workers).
Either way, I agree that there's probably some efficiency and communication loss in WFH, but there's also substantial savings in employee quality of life, and long term that translates into slightly lower salaries.
Different choices make sense for different orgs.
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That said, most of the government workers that I personally observed who "work" from home just slack off and outright defraud the government. Claiming 8 hours of work when they only did 3-4 hours.
Just to get an estimate of the statistical significance of your observation, how many employees homes did you enter and observe them working to draw your conclusion?
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That said, most of the government workers that I personally observed who "work" from home just slack off and outright defraud the government. Claiming 8 hours of work when they only did 3-4 hours. Running side businesses during work hours. Going outside to play and socialize and run errands all day long (many hours) when they claim they are working. When they are "working" --- that is, sitting in their chairs -- they are usually watching television and chatting on the phone with friends. Just push some keys and wiggle the mouse every now and then. They are crazy about showing up for phone/video teleconferences, though.
Pretty much all the studies done have concluded that productivity did not decrease, and in some cases actually increased. So while they might be slacking off and only working 3-4 hours at home, clearly they were doing the same thing while in an office too.
Offices, especially the modern open plan type are horrendous environments for actually getting any work done. You have lots of noise and unnecessary distractions.
To top it off, you have had companies trying to reduce office expenses for years (noisy open p
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I always love it when get modded both Insightful and Troll. This always happens when I report the above observed reality. (The WFH story comes along quite often.) What I don't get is why it upsets the Moderators. They are -1 DISAGREE moderating me because they don't like my reporting on Government employees fraudulently fucking off "working" from home. I live in the Washington D.C. area where approximately everyone works for the federal Government, so I personally witness it all the time.
Maybe these particu
I'm one of those public servants (Score:5, Interesting)
There isn't enough office space to accommodate everybody so it'll certainly be interesting. Maybe they'll go back to the tiny desks and chairs we had in primary school. All this just to prop up some coffee shops and some cafes nearby? Seems a bit of overkill.
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I don't understand what this gains anyone. WfH is a good way to alleviate traffic issues without having to deal with new roads or construction. It also is good for the environment, and it also reduces crime because it means fewer victims for the bad guys to prey on. I'm guessing justifying real estate purchases overrides everything.
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Congestion pricing or surtaxes on CBD parking can achieve that.
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Congestion pricing or surtaxes on CBD parking can achieve that.
All that does is cost people money and cause unions to require larger pay rises. Nothing like the government handing out on one side and taxing on the other to improve the efficiency of the economy all the while doing nothing to solve the issue since ultimately people aren't making a *choice* to drive, they are doing so because someone told them they needed to be somewhere.
They did that where I live. Introduced a congestion charge and increased our travel allowance basically on the same day. Ultimately ther
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Congestion pricing just puts the onus on the average commuter, who is likely low middle class, if that. This is a very regressive tax, as well as tolls, parking fees, and adding more and more obstacles. Only hurts the little guy, and won't help anything, as people need to go to work.
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Public transit isnt free from congestion or delays either. Overcrowded trains and buses are also more dangerous.
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The only thing that will reduce road congestion is raising its cost until some canâ(TM)t afford it. Harsh but that is reality.
This is true, but the trick is to use the revenue from the congestion, parking etc charges to improve the public transport. So as the driving goes down, the capacity and performance of the public transport goes up.
Of course, NSW isn't doing this. Most of those toll roads in Sydney (More than London or NYC by the way) are privately operated, and those profits do not benefit the citizens. NSW has been hostile to its citizens since at least the 1960s.
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and it also reduces crime because it means fewer victims for the bad guys to prey on
Well, you see, there you go. Inequality! Unfair to criminals! Good thing we are nipping this in the bud!
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Real estate purchases. Fuel taxes. Vehicle sales. Parking fees. Restaurants. Tire shops. Several other broken windows.
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It is more than the coffee shops. Some of those fully WFH save thousands of dollars a month in transit/tolls or parking/gas/car costs, childcare, dry cleaning, parking, coffee, lunch, etc. Most pour those savings into mortgages, retirement savings, travel, other stuff. Instead of directly and immediately into the economy. Then there is the commercial real estate and municipal taxes on occupied floors in towers.
Basically a whole lots of things are funded by all the activities of commuters. They need you ou
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Then if the workers are annoyed about having to RTO, perhaps they should boycott the coffee shops,and bring a bagged lunch from home. (Or buy food in the suburbs before getting on the train in the morning.)
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The coffee shops being the most ridiculous excuse...
People still need to eat lunch and still need to drink, they will just do so wherever they are which means coffee shops in residential areas will see increased business.
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There isn't enough office space to accommodate everybody so it'll certainly be interesting. Maybe they'll go back to the tiny desks and chairs we had in primary school. All this just to prop up some coffee shops and some cafes nearby? Seems a bit of overkill.
Just wait for the long benchs and long narrow tables to be installed.
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Welp, looks like it's time to give some developers some government-funded incentives to build some more downtown office space to um, rent back to the government at extremely profitable rates to put them all in!
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But you'll be doing your part to prop up the real estate business and other Rupert Murdoch interests! Even public servants can benefit private businesses by transferring public money into private hands! That's all this is about. Making public money private, and thus enriching the already rich.
Re: I'm one of those public servants (Score:2)
People will be fired....
Government should be LEADING on WFH (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's not great if you own an urban office tower and want to rent it out, but on almost every other score it's a huge win.
1) Less commuting means less fossil fuel use, less traffic congestion, and more 'me' time for employees
2) Those lost urban jobs? They'll migrate out to where the people are. People who will have more money to spend on something other than gasoline and parking or train tickets. And more personal time to spend it in.
3) Combo of 1&2 - less produce being shipped into cities to support workers, so even less fossil fuel use and traffic.
Re:Government should be LEADING on WFH (Score:4, Insightful)
Less commuting means less fossil fuel use...
Not only is remote work a good idea where it is plausible to do so (and has become job perk people are looking for), it should be mandated by law wherever possible. Air quality increased, and air pollution decreased, dramatically during the pandemic due to fewer vehicles on the road. That alone should be enough for countries with good Internet infrastructure to mandate working from home.
Rupert Murdoch has too much influence on government, and both he and the corrupt government officials he has bought need to be prosecuted and jailed.
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Less commuting means less fossil fuel use...
Not only is remote work a good idea where it is plausible to do so (and has become job perk people are looking for), it should be mandated by law wherever possible. Air quality increased, and air pollution decreased, dramatically during the pandemic due to fewer vehicles on the road. That alone should be enough for countries with good Internet infrastructure to mandate working from home.
Rupert Murdoch has too much influence on government, and both he and the corrupt government officials he has bought need to be prosecuted and jailed.
Australia has a terrible public transport system, even though NSW is probably the best it's still terribad. So all those public servants will now be driving to the office and there goes the NSW state governments green credentials out the window and it was the green vote that decided the last Australian Federal Election.
But they'll continue to kow-tow to Murdoch no matter how much it harms them.
This is why nobody bothers with legacy media (Score:5, Insightful)
Australia has a really weird and really fucked up government. They've got the same problem we hear in America do where their political system gave rural landowners extra voting power effectively making it so land votes instead of people. That means you can target those voters with a few billion in propaganda and get pretty much anything you want.
I don't know about Australia but in America increased education and small towns emptying out from a lack of jobs is changing that. They're just isn't enough people and the ones that are there are desperately trying to get enough education to get out so it's harder to fool them
But we are somewhere between 6 to 8 years out from the demographic shifts that'll make that really matter.
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That's a silly take. "No one bothers" here is quite a stark contrast from the reality that the media control complete public perception. Murdoch is an absolute kingmaker in Australia. It ultimately doesn't matter what happens at an election, the winner will be who Murdoch decides his empire will support. News Corp has single handily toppled prime ministers on several occasions.
They've got the same problem we hear in America do where their political system gave rural landowners extra voting power effectively making it so land votes instead of people.
Rural Australia is the one group who don't give a shit about what the newspaper says and largely have completely fixed votes. They a
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>> Murdoch is an absolute kingmaker in Australia. It ultimately doesn't matter what happens at an election, the winner will be who Murdoch decides his empire will support.
Bullshit - no-one reads the papers or watches his TV channels anymore; print and tv viewership is crashing in Australia
They had no impact on the Voice vote which was utterly doomed from Day One thanks to Labor jumping on the Bandwagon and the frantic virtue-signalling from Corporate Australia. If there is one thing Australians do not
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Please don't tell me that everyone now gets their "news" from Tik-Tok....
If so...we're doomed.
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It's painfully clear you know fuck-all about Australia also.
Murdochs power is nowhere near where it was decades ago; newspaper readership is falling like a stone as is viewership of the terrestrial TV channels he and others own.
It's an NSW Issue; the economy there is seriously screwed, especially the big commercial property market so there is immense pressure to get bums on seat as it's affecting retail and transport. Plus the universal understanding that office dwelling Govt employees are lazy bastards; so
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Most online news feeds are full of misinformation from legacy media - google news, apple, etc. So even if I don't watch any of their channels, the stories they make up still appear all over the place. Today Fox News wanted me to know that Harley Davidson is hosting all-ages drag-queen shows during working hours as part of its new "woke agenda" created by the new non-American CEO (he's German, oh my! The bohemians are coming!) So all the bikers are heartbroken and switching to Indian. It smells like a fake s
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
His remarks were welcomed by business and real estate groups in the state's largest city, Sydney, who have decried falling office occupancy rates since 2020
At least they are being blatant about it ...
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His remarks were welcomed by business and real estate groups in the state's largest city, Sydney, who have decried falling office occupancy rates since 2020
At least they are being blatant about it ...
I don't know how much they expect to get out of public sector workers. They were the poster child of the Brown Bag brigade (bring a packed lunch to work) before the pandemic because public sector pay was so terrible.
I was a contract worker in the (western) Australian government for a bit over a year some time ago, (contract worker == how to get paid twice as much for a public service job) and hardly anyone would go out for lunch... The old timers would regale us with tales of when they got a fully stocke
Mush! (Score:2)
Great more stress on properties. (Score:2)
NSW has some of the most expensive properties in the world. With Sydney being in the top 5 most expensive cities to live in year after year.
During the pandemic people moved out from the city in droves. Getting away from the staggering cost of living. Now with pressure to have 300,000 people pushed back to travelling into an office in cities people will of course be pressured to move closer into the cores again. But there is a hitch. The cost of those properties has gone through the roof in the last few
It's worse than that (Score:2)
Not only have people moved away, many have moved far out of commuting range. Forcing a return to office will force those people to quit, and depending on the circumstances, they will leave before suitable replacements are made, disrupting the services that the government can provide. There is _no_ upside other than for businesses that depend on full offices. That's assuming that these employers haven't filled their offices with new staff since the pandemic ended, in which case they do not have the space for
Look, Chris, we've been over this. (Score:2)
It doesn't matter how far backwards you bend over for him, come next election all his newspapers and TV stations are still going to tell everyone to vote for the Potato With Glasses On.
Physically present? (Score:2)
"building and replenishing public institutions" required "being physically present."
How exactly?
Those who could were all working from home during covid and the government didn't grind to a halt. Most of those who couldn't work remotely never worked in an office to start with, as a lot of work is inherently field work.
Office space is a waste of money, taxpayer's money. The government should only be spending money on physical premises when it's absolutely necessary.
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How can police working in CPS be doing their job effectively while working from home? Protect and serve, remember? Won't somebody please think of the children!?
CPS employees are typically social workers, not peace officers, but apart from that I agree. That is a profession that should require a lot of field work and relatively less office work no matter where the office is located.
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Exactly, jobs like these are primarily field work. You simply don't need an office in most cases. If doing paperwork instead of fieldwork, stay at home.
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"Perth and Adelaide are mid 90s!"
And its winter in Ozzie right now. Whats it gonna be like in the summer time. Global warming is really hitting them hard.