Maybe that's because the last 7 years have been feast as opposed to famine. Now we're in the famine season and people have lost jobs hand over fist, people may see the public sector jobs in a different light

Or maybe its simply misplaced snobbery

Not in Perth we're not. Still in feast mode. My company alone has 261 vacancies in our Perth offices that they've been trying to fill for over 3 months but havent been able to to find the right people. We got an email about it on Friday looking for employee referrals and offering bonuses of up to $5000 if we refer someone and they get hired.



Definately agree on the misplaced snobbery. I wish they would all just grow up.

I'm sure that now you are exaggerating as about 90% of the Australian population live in 7 of the largest cities then surely more than 300000 live in the city-centres.

LOLOL - I'll make sure I tell my friends at the DOD that. I'm sure they'll piss themselves laughing.

Well it will have to triple it's population in the next 30 years then and that is unlikely to happen. It will also have to beat Singapore as the Asia Pacific region's financial hub and that is also unlikely to happen as Australia is nowhere near as competitive as Singapore from a tax and bank secrecy perspective.

Fact: Australia's economy is tied to China's and if China stops buying resources from Australia then goodbye to the Aussie economy. Australia's economy more closely resembles Dutch Tulipmania (just before the bubble burst).

Also, if the govt. is successful in introducing a carbon tax/trading then that will decimate the economy with many businesses and jobs going overseas.

The UK is definitely stagnating and in the short term is only going to get worse.

Ah well, I guess it comes down to being happy doing what you do and not caring what others think.

I guess a lot of sad people would look down on the bin-men but I don't want my rubbish building up ...

Quite often actually. Have you looked in the world section?

The city centres aren't big enough. There is a reason why Australian cities have a sprawling suburbia.

It may depend on the industry but I found it the same in the UK as well. People who used to be employed in the public sector had an aura of expecting lots of benefits and little work. I know that when working with them they would complain about their wages compared to the private sector but when asked whether they would give up their extras few said they would and most thought they should have the private sector pay levels and the extras.

Bill Bryson nailed it. Aus is a stable country that does not cause trouble. Therefore it rarely makes the news in the US.

If news coverage is a sign of a country's importance in the world then Afghanistan must be really important.

Because Iron and Coal are just like tulips.

From a bubble and over-reliance perspective, yes.

It's not in the same league yet.

There should be a Godwin's law for bubbles. Any mention of South Sea, Louisiana, Tulips or Ponzi schemes should be made an automatic fail.

In life there will always be the type of sad people who think that where you live is really important, would never dream of working in a government job and lack the ability to think outside of the box on many common topics present in the world today.

These people are small minded, quite probably have little life experience, don't have the mental agility to consider a different point of view without confusing themselves and each night most probably go home and stand in front of the mirror for an extended period of time trying to convince themselves how great they are.