EXPOSED: Leftist public servant snob searches for "bogan free childcare"

Pauline, a federal public servant based in Canberra, is on the verge of having a baby. Good for her. But on her blog the flamboyantly feminist, yoga-enjoying, Greens political party supporting, Amnesty member lefty idealist Australian Public Servant is worried. She’s worried about the prospect of her child mixing with – wait for it – bogans.

Next to a big ad for the supposedly progressive GetUp group, she describes herself:

Working full time in the public service, I dream of ways to build a house for $190,000 within commuting distance of the office. I organise a book group named after a pub, I do a bit of yoga, and everyone thinks I’m a vegetarian, but I’m not actually. I’m in the union, and in Amnesty International, and I get heaps of letters from NGOs asking me for money. If any of them are reading, please note: I’m trying to be socially active in non-financial ways.

To help place Pauline politically, she explains her enthusiasm about her union – the leftist Community and Public Sector Union – conference:

And with Dr Carmen Lawrence on the bill I was more than ready to fork out an extravagant sum of money.

Outside law enforcement circles, we have never detected such enthusiasm to hear from Dr Lawrence, whose ability to forget things made her a most unimpressive witness at various public inquiries into her misconduct in office.

On her blog Pauline gets down to her main concern. The prospect of her prospective child mixing with the wrong people. She writes:

Bogan free childcare. An impossible dream?

Yes, I know that’s rude, and I’m a snob. The thing is, I catch public transport to and from work every day. I have developed strong views on bogans. And these have coalesced around the fear that if I do indeed require childcare at some point, my child may wind up at the mercy of those who I prefer not to sit next to, for around eight hours a day. And if that happens, my child may become a bogan. This is not a laughing matter.

Indeed, such blatant snobbery and elitism is more horrifying than humorous, particularly coming from a “socially active” person.

We hate to think what society she is actually trying to build. A “bogan free” one? One where it’s considered OK to look down one’s nose at working people with different priorities and who value different things.

A ‘bogan’ is defined as a pejorative term for:

a person who is, or is perceived to be, of a lower-class background. According to the stereotype, the speech and mannerisms of “bogans” indicate poor education, cheap clothing and uncultured upbringing. ‘Bogans’ usually reside in economically disadvantaged suburbs (often outer metropolitan) or rural areas.

It’s horrifying to think that an over-educated snob is operating within the Australian Public Service making decisions that impact on many Australians. The class war – it seems – is alive and well within the Left but not in the liberate the lower classes way that it once pretended it could.

She continues:

Anyway, I will try to develop faith in the professionalism of childcare workers, and when it comes to the crunch I’ll give the centre a thorough inspection and carry out spot checks to make sure none of the staff smoke Winnie Blues, have frangipanni stickers on their cars, or listen to Pink on their ipods at antisocial levels.

Anti-social indeed.

UPDATE:

As Borat would say: “SUCCCESS!”, for Comrade Pauline has removed her website from public view in light of the stink over her quest for “bogan free childcare.” That’s her right of course but it’s also our right to believe solemnly in the sacred power of screen-grab. We often keep copies of these things just in case the panicked reach for the delete button. The curious can click the screengrab below:

BOSS PAY: Respected venture investor says best predictor of start-up success is low CEO pay…

The Australian government’s War on Executive Salaries was reported around the region, with the main Singapore daily Straits Times reporting on ministerial pontifications and incorrectly labelling K-Rudd as the Tanner.

In a boom, it seems everyone wants to get rich, in a bust everyone wants to get the rich and string them up from the highest tree. We’d much prefer the former. It’s much more fun driving around in a Ferrari than slashing the tyres of one.

Food for thought though came from one of VEXNEWS growing army of twitter followers (join now, ask me how) who sent an article quoting a founder of Paypal and early investor in Facebook (not a bad start commercially) who declared:

The lower the CEO salary, the more likely it is to succeed.

The CEO’s salary sets a cap for everyone else.  If it is set at a high level, you end up burning a whole lot more money. It aligns his interest with the equity holders.  But [beyond that], it goes to whether the mission of the company is to build something new or just collect paychecks.

In practice we have found that if you only ask one question, ask that.

Very interesting observation and certainly something for investors in Evan Thornley’s Better Place to carefully consider. He’s reputedly pulling $700,000 per annum. And his boss is no doubt getting a lot more than that with the company many years away from profitability.

The issue is not the level of CEO remuneration overall, it’s whether it’s linked to the results delivered to shareholders.

That’s the point Peter Thiel is making, in the context of a start-up, paying the senior staff a small amount until the company is profitable makes a lot of sense. Their incentives are usually in the form of shares or an instrument that allows them to buy shares at certain prices later or whatever.

Note he’s not proposing a cap. Quite the reverse, in his model, a spectacular result for him delivers a spectacular result for the CEO, just not in their pay cheque.

In more established enterprises, it is usually not possible, tax effective or desirable to give senior managers a large stake in the company to align their interests with shareholders, so instead they’re paid a lot.

A cap on executive salaries makes as much sense as a cap on how much wealth one could accumulate. Surely, a billion dollars is enough. Why not confiscate everyone’s fortune above that and distribute it to the deserving. Perhaps to bushfire victims, people with disabilities or the long-term unemployed.

For one good reason, those few in that category would be on the first private jet out of the place. Capital is mobile, as are people.

Not even Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has done such a thing yet.

Peter Thiel’s opinion on executive salaries is a common enough view in the venture capital world. He’s not a bloke in search of a socialist solution or playing envy politics, he just wants a big return on his investment and he’s perfectly willing to share a big chunk of that with those running the show once they’ve delivered. But not before.

That makes perfect sense.

What doesn’t is stoking the fires of jealousy, envy and blame in tough times. We need to help each other and unite not divide and rip each other apart to address the huge challenges ahead.

We need to restore confidence in and within the banks without overdoing regulation and interference from government, we need government to stop impeding growth at all levels from the smallest laziest local council to the federal Minister for the Environment. We need to shut down all remaining Greens party schemes that would shaft local manufacturers and job creators. We need to remember that a strong, vibrant, confident private sector is our only hope for protecting and growing jobs in Australia.

Issuing fatwas on capping executive pay does nothing to save a single job.  We know what we have to do. It’s time to get deadly serious, ignore distractions, and get on with the job.