Sunday 9th February 1997
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Issues - The banking system under the spotlight.
The lead paragraph under the heading "Hanson wages bill: $33,000 for 5 staff" states:
"Pauline Hanson, controversial MP and Queensland's best known fish and chip proprietor, paid her staff of up to five full-time and casual employees a total of Au$32,333 last financial year according to documents provided by her to sell her business.
"Ms Hanson's business received Au$5,454 in Federal Government subsidies over two years to help her employ staff."
The story describes how Ms Hanson sold her store (which turned over Au$317,837 in the year to June) last week for Au$104,000. It reports that a detailed profit and loss account provided to the paper records a total wages bill of Au$29,538 for the 11 months to May 1996.
When questioned by the paper about her business affairs she told the paper the number of people she employed was "nobody else's business".
From the article: "Responding to the disparity between turnover and wages Ms Hanson said it indicated how many hours she had put into the business on her own."
The article goes on to detail various facts and figures from her records and then this, "The award wage for a cashier or cook in a takeaway shop is Au$366.10 a week or Au$19,037 a year."
"A junior on the award wage would earn Au$10,467 a year.
"Several firms of accountants specialising in small business told The Sunday Mail wages generally represented 20-30% of turnover of similar businesses.
"The wages bill for Ms Hanson's shop represented about 10% of turnover.
"One accountant said the wages bill appeared to be "pathetically low" while another descibed it as "abnormal". So there you have it... now I know of several ex-News Limited jouranlists who have complained about the "pathetically low" salaries that they get paid by the group. In fact many have found the pickings better if they work on contracts with several publications.
Let's hang out the dirty linen closer to home where the question is not the number of hours of hard work that a single mum with kids (Ms Hanson) puts in to see her family live from day to day but how the media moguls live lives of absolute luxury largely subsidised by the "pathetically low" salaries paid to their staff. Please send your comments.
Following our earlier reports about the jailing of Aland Bond, here are the dates and events that led to the stripping of the cash rich Bell Resources by Alan Bond's Bond Corporation:
Here is a picture of a quite remarkable Australian, nicknamed Shorty, who loves poetry, served with the 11th Light Horse Regiment (the Australian division that attacked Gallipoli), and who has a lovely warm, quiet nature.I met "Shorty" last night when joining Barry and Liz for a bar-b-que - Barry is my partner in the World Wide Websters. My wife and I had just picked up Mother Nature from Silvie O'Dea who lives near by. Silvie is holding Mother Nature in this photo.
The highlight of the evening was when Shorty recited from memory long tracts of "The Ballad of the Drover" by Henry Lawson bringing tears to my and others eyes. Shorty can recite the whole of the Banjo Patterson lyric from memory.
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