Thanks Andrew for raising the cabbie issue, we thought you may not touch it! No one of course disagrees with workers being safe at their workplace so lets not get bogged down with that issue too much. The real issues of the day were 1) the govt paying to upgrade private vehicles run by a multi million dollar private monopoly (can I ask Kosky to have the public pay for my home alarm?), 2) the age old notion of govt policy being based upon careful consideration and advice from the public service being chucked out to make decisions within 30 minutes from the time protestors went to Kosky's office and her actual decision 3) none of these drivers were union members yet the govt caved to every demand within thirty minutes (spare a thought for teachers and nurses and police who have protested and lobbied the right way for years and the Minister refuses to meet with them!) 4) When will the Minister make decisions not just in favour of a group of half naked non-nationals here temporarily on student visas but on behalf of the entire Victorian public who are subjected to the worst taxi system in the world? At what point will clean cabs and drivers with a good grasp of English and a thorough knowledge of Melbourne streets and landmarks be imposed? The tragedy of a young man being stabbed and then left for dead on the side of a cold street is horrific but ultimately - and thankfully - a rare occurence. The embarassing state of our taxi system is not.
Harry is spot on. Smart chap I tell ya!
Harry Wong for Transport Minister!
"As I learned the hard way as a puppy parent, if you reward bad behaviour, you're certain to get more of it."
There is a seminal paper (Academy of Management Journal, 1975) on this called "The folly of rewarding A while hoping for B". I quote --
'Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in that the types of behaviour rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to discourage, while the behaviour desired is not being rewarded at all.'
I might add a typical example is where we want aspirants for political office to always tell the truth. However should an aspiring political be perfectly truthful we punish him at the ballot box. We reward candidates by voting them in when they do the opposite of what we desire: when they lie and obfuscate. Inevitable but unwanted result: lying politicians.
When your boss at work says, "I want your candid opinion about..." you know exactly what do do if you want to advance or even keep your job.
Interesting take Harry. I dont disagree in broad terms, but the practical implication of doing nothing is shutting down Melbourne's CBD as well the eventual decline in driver supply. The reason these Indian drivers do this work, is because, quite frankly, everyone else in a tight labour marker thinks its beneath them to work in such a tough unrewarding environment, which it is. Apart from the immediate timing by Kosky to give in to these demands, these demands in themselves seem quite reasonable, especially in light of a driver bleeding half to death the day before.
The bigger story here though is that of The Age. Imagine the story they would report if it was the case that such emails were sent to politicians and in which they did nothing as a consequence. They have blood on their hand the Age and they know it. Beating up the taxi driver demands story is no doubt a welcome distraction to their own shame.
Are you honestly saying Andrew that The Age did nothing to help after getting these emails?
Jimmy Mentor is no Patriot.
There is a lot of dogging in South Australia.
The Chairman and I look forward to developing branches once Scotty's improvements to the Constitution have been made.
Jimmy Mentor is a top bloke and will go down in history as MSA's hardest working Education Public Affairs Officer. We should be giving him a pay rise, not a pay cut.
No, he is not. Get real.
If there is dogging in SA I am on my way.
Ollie, don't go to SA, stay in Victoria. There is plenty of dogging in Poowong.
he is now a labor unity aligned patriot, young james.
Yes sizzers (UK) covers paper (Germany) but for a time paper covered rock (USSR) but later rock crushed sizzers in the sense eastern europe was enslaved by Stalin and these were the nations that Churchill was fighting for.
opps type above - sizzers cuts paper not covers.
it's spelled scissors
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