Boonta Vista - EPISODE 123: Add Another Zero (Feat. JR Hennessy)

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

Andrew, Ben and Theo are joined by Editor of Business Insider Australia JR Hennessy to discuss widespread wage theft within Australia, the Ooshie economy, hazardous workplace falcons, the legendary and mysterious Big Cats of Australia and more. Follow JR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jrhennessy Check out JR's writing: http://www.jrhennessy.com/ JR's articles on Business Insider Australia: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/author/james-hennessy *** Support our show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista *** Email the show at [e-mail]! Call in and leave us a question or a message on 1800-317-515 to be answered on the show! *** Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista Website: boontavista.com Merchandise: boontavista.com/merchandise

Welcome to Budav Vista episode 123. I'm Andrew and I'm joined as usual by my dear sweet friend Ben. Hi Ben. Hey. Oh, that's nice. Well, we're pretty nice around here. We're the podcast with no obvious beefs with anybody. Is that true? Or like no no like shared beefs at least. Like I feel like we have

Individual grievances with people. I mean like we have issues with people, but no other, you know, podcast or Celebrate also has issues with us. It's not like a two-way beef I'm just glad that we're not on anybody's radar enough to get complained about free. Yeah, I don't like that. Yeah, that is a blessing. If we ever become popular enough that like someone with a reasonable amount of clout goes after us, I think I'm just, that's it. I don't want to be when after. Is that? I don't want want to to to to to to to to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their. their their. their. their their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their their. their their their. their their their the leaving. I'm done. I don't want to be when after. Is that ridiculous of me to say? I don't want to get got, basically. Oh no. Don't want to be pursued?

No. Don't need any of these things. And you've been here. I would hate to be dragged. The man who doesn't want to be dragged. cast dispersions on on anybody because I love you all dearly. We spent about five minutes trying to work out what was going on with Ben being unable to add comments to the like little review comments that pop out from the Google Doc when you've been. And I noticed that after that which was, you know, it's a worthwhile process but it did take some time and some

some effort to get that up and going. He's highlighted one sentence and added a comment that says, Seems Cool. Okay. I also noticed that, yes. The highlight was so that I saw the sentence. The comment was not the important part. It made it seem like the important part. I got a notification sent to my phone. Look, I'm not going to tell you guys how to, you to, you to, you to, you to, you to, you to, you to, you to, you to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage to manage the the the to manage their their part I got a notification sent to my phone. Look I'm not going to tell you guys

how to you know whatever it is how to manage a team. I don't think you get the best performance out of a team by berating them for trying stuff. Oh, micromanaging. Yeah. Okay. Look, I understand that's all part of the process. And you know what people really want to hear from a podcast? Update on how their shared Google document is going. Wow. And how we manage our affairs, yes. And speaking of managing business, taking care of business, if you will, we're joined by a guest who's had to sit there and listen to all of that just now, who's been waiting very patiently. A friend of the show, Man About Town, and editor of Business Insider Australia, it's J.R.

Hennessey. Hey, guys, how are you doing? We're doing very well. I hope you were excited to hear about the Google Doc and how it gets updated. Yeah, I hate being on podcast and not having been introduced yet. I'm feeling like I can't weigh in on the banter before the person is introduced. Luckily for me it was so shit that I tha tha th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. to, thi. tooi. thi. We're, thi. thi. We're, thi. thi. We're, introduced. But, luckily for me, it was so shit that I didn't even feel compelled to. There wasn't even anything to add. No.

No. You don't have any shared document-based zingers you just want to throw out now? No. There's nothing funny about Google Docs, really. You don't have a type 5 on Google Docs. No. Just an unfortunate unfortunate unfortunate fununfortunate funfuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu tha funtion funtiptiptiptiptiptiptiptiptiptipttau. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. I I I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. thi. thi. to. too. too. too. too. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. thi. I thi. I thi. I Docs. No. Just an unfortunate fact of life, you know? Well, just you wait until we get to the sentence that quote unquote, seems cool. Yeah, okay. We'll see if your mind gets changed.

You know, please flag it when we do reach that part of the discussion. I'll use the code phrase, seems cool that was that sentence. Cool, that's clear. Got it. Oh dear. So from the wide world of business it seems like there's been an awful lot of wage theft lately and by lately I mean probably all the time and forever. Sure. Yeah. But it certainly seems to be coming up a lot now there's been a whole lot of it getting exposed recently and one of the biggest high-profile cases of the last, I guess, several weeks.

Woolworths. Groceries, giant Woolworths. Yeah, no, Woolworth have been stung on a very large scale, substantial scale bigger than almost anyone in recent memory, they are facing sort of a $300 million hit for underpaying I think about 5,000 I believe is the number staff over the course of possibly since 2010 I think which was when they when the most recent award was installed. And yeah, no, that's a substantial amount of money to be not paying someone accidentally,

or so the story goes. Yeah, but like, they haven't had too long to sort it out. It's only been nine years. Well, exactly. And I don't know if you've ever worked in an office working with numbers, but it's very boring. And there's a lot of things to get across in the spreadsheet, you know? There are a lot of things I would rather do. If I had to list all the problems that I hadn't solved in nine years, oh, if you're here all day. Do you want to do like your top five?

No. I can give you one. Long power lunches. What happened to those, you know? I can't think there'd be any changing conditions that would mean people didn't do those anymore. Why don't we bring them back? Yeah, did you see that New York Post article the other day?

I was about how millennials the millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials millennials about how millennials have killed the power lunch or whatever, because they don't have them. And one of the reasons that it gave is that I think it's like restaurants in Manhattan don't have like big nice dining rooms for people to do power lunches in anymore. So that's that's one problem. That's one significant problem. And I'd say yeah, I don't know and part of it I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess I guess. I guess. I guess. I guess. I guess. I guess. I guess. I guess. I'm that I guess. I guess. I'm that I'm that I'm that I that I'll that I'll that I'll that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. I'm. I'm th. I'm th. I guess. I'm th. I'm th. th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I thi. I th. I thi I guess is we're all ground down to the bone by the current state of work on the planet and we don't have time to do long power lunches. I think it was the first thing mostly though. I think it's the size of the dining room. You really need to be able to gesticulate wildly. You want to be holding a tea bone stake by the bone in one hand. You want to be holding a comically enormous glass of champagne in the other, and you want to be screaming at all of the other executives, that they need to start selling more.

And there's got to be like a thick cigar fog, just obscuring the entire arrangement. A stratosphere of it just exactly at eye level at all times. I like to think we are still keeping the spirit of power lunches alive by still getting day drunk though. That's true. That much is remote. I mean that's part of the thing, I guess. I like to have my own personal power lunch when I sit at my desk and continue working while eating $10 dumplings by myself. Are you still getting that from the same place? Yeah. The mysterious dumpling shop.

Yeah. It's just a great. I just want to put it out to you. If there's any of the listeners in Sydney, there's a place on the corner in Surrey Hills that does dumplings. $10 gets you 16 dumplings and a pork bun. You can't sniff at that kind of value. Is this the one where like two years ago it came out that they had like a whole bunch

of rats infesting the place and every single person that frequented this joint is like, shut the fuck up. I'm going to continue eating the rat dumplings. No, that was that's Chinese No, I was among that chorus. I was among that chorus telling everyone to shut the fuck up That exact same thing happened at the trans in West End which is just a large sort of pan-Asian restaurant that sells everything and the you know health board or whatever came out and was like yeah It's fucking disgusting. There's just like vats of black slime everywhere and And everyone was just like, yeah man, it costs like nothing and the food is amazing. Fuck you. The black slime is where the flavor comes from.

Come on. Delicious. And look, I don't want to speculate on the um, industrial scale wage surf that has to happen to allow dumplings to be that cheap. But, uh, this dumpling restaurant is actually at the bottom of the list we're about to go through. Yeah, great. Let's just leave that particular veil unlifted.

Although I think this place might be cutting corners, coswise in other areas. Could you maybe explain the ambience? The whole, the way they advertised themselves when they started in particular. Yeah, well, so, where this dumplingplumumumumum dumpling dumpling dumpling dumpling dumpling dumpling dumpling dumpling dumpling the the the dumpling the dumpling the the dumpling the the to to to to to to to the to to their to to their to their to to to their to to be to be to be to be to be, so the, where this dumpling place used to be, there was a burger shop called Rush Burgers. It wasn't very good. It was a bad place. I went there once, had a substandard burger never returned. Anyway, one day it was just vacant, so obviously it had gone out of business or whatever. But then like the next day, the dumpling place was set up in the, sort of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the next day the dumpling place was set up in the sort of

the carcass of this burger joint and they had not changed to fit out at all. It was exactly the same as it was before and all they had done is they had taken like a strip of paper printed out on Ariel font and just stuck over where it had rushed burgers and now it just says Rush dumplings. And then there's these gigantic like A2 pieces of paper that basically just explain what the, they have like a, they came in hot with like a loyalty program where you text the number, then they they text you back with like the code word for the day and then you can get like a dollar off your order or something.

Anyway, this is explained in like excruciating detail on this gigantic A1 piece of paper. Pace it on the window of the restaurant. And that's it. That's all they did. And then there's like three guys that run it. I've no idea where they source their dumplings. But like I said, $10 $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $10. that's $10. that includes $10. that includes $10. that includes $10. that includes $10. that includes $10. that includes $10. that includes $10.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00. that includes $10. that includes $ $ $10. that includes $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $10.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00. That's and that includes a pork bun and 16 dumplings. And I believe it actually comes with a can of drink as well. Oh God. I mean, you can't sniff at that kind of value. But you can't, you can certainly speculate on how they, what their profit margins might be, and where else they're cutting out their expenses, most likely wages, I suppose.

That's the first thing to go. It's the first thing to go go to go go to go to go to go to go to go. Poss possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly they they they they they they they they're possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly possibly. Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. I'm possibly they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're cutting. I they're cutting. I they're cutting. I they're cutting. I they're cutting. I're cutting. I're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they'reto go. It's the first thing to go. Possibly, I don't know. I've always maintained any time that anybody speculates about like the cleanliness in the the back of house of a restaurant. My position has always been, why would you want to open that Pandora's box? Just enjoy the food that they bring out to you and then go on living your life. Don't worry about it and if you become ill just be like huh and then just get over it. Yeah exactly. Yeah exactly. So from the story of Woolworth's here so yeah up as much as 300 million dollars in

underpaid wages they know nine years. So I'm just gonna double check that number with you real quick. Yeah so that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th. So it's th. So it's th. So it's th. So it's th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the th. thi the you the thi. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you the the you you the the you you the you the the the the the the the you you the th. th. you th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thooooo thi thoooooooooooooooooooooo. you you you I'm just gonna double check that number with you real quick. Yeah. So that's a three followed by five zeros. Here we go. Sure. That's $300,000. That's like a pretty big amount of money, but for a company like Woolworths. I have several more zeros on that order please.

How many would you like? Start with one. Okay, so $3. on that order please sir. How many would you like? Start with one. Okay so three million dollars. Yeah, wow, holy shit that's a lot of money. That's more than I'll ever have. One more. Okay, oh 30 million. Yeah, now. Now that's more than a dollar for every man, woman and child in Australia. Absolutely. Yes, please. That's my political platform. A dollar. Very minute.

And now what you're going to do is you going to add just one more zero on that. $300 million. Yeah. I'm sure it seems like a lot when you say it like that. 300, 300,000, 0,000, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. Yep. That's it that's it a million dollars for 30 people in Sydney terms that is 20 houses no one wanted to correct that you know my position I will not ever be correcting anyone on anything with a

number in it and fair enough due to my stupidity 300 million dollars just seems like fair enough, due to my stupidity. $300 million just seems like a lot of money to me. Absolutely. Which makes it sort of ring slightly hollow when they sort of suggest that it was just like an error of auditing or, you know, whatever. Because that is just a lot of money to not be paying people. Just a little oopsie. Someone forgot to carry a one, aren't in several zeros? As we will find out, their whoopsy was the mistaken belief pervasive throughout the entire

company, it's an entire HR and accounting departments, that you don't have to pay salaried employees over time. Yes, and as we will come to see, that appears to be a widespread, oopsie, among a lot of people in the Australian economy. And there are a number of other allowances that weren't being paid, which are entitled to under the award under Australian Industrial Relations Law, you know, things like meal, like even like meal breaks and laundry allowance and things like that. So that obviously added to it as well, but over time was sort of the brunt of it.

And when the story originally came out, it was sort of, well, worse being like, well, would you just look at what we found? This This, dearie, dearie me. This is, I don't know how to tell you this, that sort of thing, which is often how these stories, not always, but sometimes how it gets revealed is the company will come out and be like, hey folks, look, we've been reading the books and we're sorry to inform you that we owe $300 million to our employees or whatever but then obviously a day later when the because obviously the the SMH and the age who have been breaking sort of the majority of the stories about wage there for underpayment. They've been

doing an incredibly good job at that. They came out the day after and sort of did their, you know, behind the scenes of how the story was broken and then it turned out that it wasn't well worse admitting their mistake out of sort of the goodness of their heart and their obligation to their employees, but rather it was one, basically, literally, sort of one employee who asked his mate, who was an employment consultant. Does this look right to you and then that mate just going on an absolute war path against Woolies over the course of quite a while I believe until eventually they couldn't, they could

no longer ignore the problem that was sort of unfolding before them. Yeah, but have you considered this quote from group chief executive Brad Banducci who said, as a business we pride ourselves on putting our team first and in this case we've let them down. We unreservedly apologize. And that's this week's, we're sorry. We're sorry. Yeah, that's very nice. Very nice thing to say, I suppose. Somewhat after the fact and somewhat after, you know, being forced to do so. It does say here from the SPS, the announcement overshadowed the release of Wooley's first quarter sales growth that, driven by the success of its Lion King Ushies.

Oh my god. Wushies? That is by Anticellador. I think? You hate to say something as a product as incredible as the Lion King Ushy, undermined by systemic wage left. They're at the top of their game. And this brings them up. They were, they were soaring on the top of their game and this brings them down. Yeah they were they were

sawing on the back of that. Obviously they'd just gotten over when that farmer cut the issues head off on like the TV. Oh God. To protest water? I can't remember the exact connection. I think it was a combination of water and online bullying. That's right, he was like, I could show the trolls. Like, I kind of head off the thing they're making fun of me for or whatever. I can't remember the... Have we talked about Ushy's before on the show? Do we... There are a whole bunch of international listeners just losing their mind what the fuck are the word... What the fuck? What is it? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What is? What are? What are? What are? What are? What? What? What are? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? What? Are? Are? What? What? Are? What? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are? Are, the... What? Are, the... What? Are? Are, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they talking about? This, all of this happened while George and I were in the States.

And I like didn't have internet for most of the time, but I like logged in one day and I just kept seeing the word Ushy over and over again just be like, what the fuck is this? What the fuck are you talking about? And now, obviously I'm obsessed with them. I have thousands. Am I to understand, I'm sorry, I'm just to just to just to just to just to just the the thiiiii. thi. their thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thoosososomomoosomooskoshe. I'm just obsessed thi. I'm obsessed thoes. I'm obsessed with thoes. I'm obsessed with the word, I'm obsessed with the word, I'm obsessed with the word, I'm obsessed with the word, I'm obsessed with the word, I'm obsessed with the word, I'm obsessed with thoes. I'm obsessed with thi. I'm obsessed with thi. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm just obsessed with thooseauau. I'm obsessed with thoosananananoosanoosanoosanoosanoosanoose. I'm obsessed with thoooooooosan. I'm obsessed with thoooosan, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to clarify that quote that you gave us to tea. Not all Ushis are Lion King themed. I really couldn't tell you to be honest. I actually don't know, I can't, I actually have no idea of what was like a promotion prior to, because the word the word to really seem to suggest Lion King. I don't think, I thi I thu I thu I thu I'm thu I'm thu. I'm thu. I'm thi. I'm thi. I'm thi. I'm thi. I'm thi. I'm thi. I'm thi. I'm thi, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm to to thi, I'm to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to tho. tho. the. I'm just just just the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. to the. to to to to th. I don't think that's a word from the Lion King canon.

Certainly. Okay, after a quick little Google search, I believe that they do, they're like Marvel Ushes and things like that. Okay. And also just a little thing for a little bit of trivia. When you search Ushi, you get that little, you get that Google People also asked window. And then the first one is, what is an Ushis? Then the second one is, are Ushish. And having received one myself, I can confirm that they are.

They're quite like, they're not like incredibly squishy, like a stress ball or something, but they have, they're quite firm, but they do squish. They've got some give in them. And they're also pencil toppers. Like that's what they actually are. And I feel like nobody in the world has used one as a pencil topper. No, it doesn't really really really really really really really really really really really reallytoppers, you are supposed to put them on top of a pencil. My people also ask, served me up some different questions. The first question, the same.

What is an Ushy's? The second question, what is spirit Mufasa worth? The third question, how much is a blue Ushy worth? Yeah. How much is a blue Ushu? Worth more than $10,000? That does not seem true. The Ushy has flex of silver embedded in its rubbery skin? Well my kids got one of these in their bedroom. Should I be selling it for $20,000? Oh yeah, I'm not sure it's because I, when I was, when I received an Ushy out of curiosity, I was like caught up this chule of madness in like, I, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, I thi, thi, th. th. th. th. thi, thi, thi, thi, I need to get my hands on one of these things. I was just like caught up, there's like chule of madness in like the Netherlands and the 16th century or whatever. I just seemed to get my hands on one. And as soon as I opened like the packaging, it was a blue Ushi and I was like, my lord, I just opened $10,000. But it turns out it's like a very specific blue Ushi that is actually worth $10,000. When you say actually worth?

Like people will pay $10,000 for it maybe. So I meant of like objective worth. It's like gold. You could you could peg a currency to it is what I'm saying. The Ushi standard. Yeah. But then Woolworth got canceled for Usies because they're pumping out all these plastic and rubber objects into a dying planet.

So they've got their new thing, which is like something garden like inspiration garden or whatever where it's like discovery garden that's the one and it's where you collect like small plants that you can then put into a garden at home and to my understanding it has not taken off nearly as much as small rubber Mufas for obvious reasons you could on the face of it it just doesn't have the same sort of value. I feel like I am a very old person watching Beatlemania happening and failing to understand it entirely. Oh, I'm really glad, like my kids have got a bunch of both of these things around the house, but I'm very glad that they have not gone psycho about them. I'm glad that there hasn't been any evidence of any kind of like collector

slash trading mentality coming in. There is a threshold. Because some kids and parents did go certifiably psycho over Ushis. Oh yeah, people doing the trading groups on Facebook and trying to buy things and so which of course led to the infamous farmer cutting the head off the expensive who she doing an ISIS beheading video with a very small toy this is very much what it was my favorite part about that video like that today show segment was like 12 and a half minutes long which is just an absurd period of television to dedicate to anything it must take like a I don don't know, a wonderful kind of, I imagine your mentality working on that kind of segment must just be beautiful.

You must just have to kind of let go. You must just kind of have to say, yes, whatever you hand to me, I will very willingly produce a television segment about it. You just got to let history unfold before you. You are it steward, you know? Yeah, exactly. Give the people what they want. Unfortunately, what a lot of people want is to be paid award wages, I guess.

Yeah, it seems to be a desire among a lot of people. It's that millennial entitlement. I think that we've all seen. Yeah, and I think that the recent sort of fact that there's just been like an absolute explosion of these cases is that people are just more aware now because of them. Like obviously a few outlets have been really sort of hit the issue very hard and as a result people are kind of like, huh, actually you know what I am entitled to over time or I am entitled to be paid the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the recent the the the the the the the the the the the the the the recent the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th th. th. the the the. threat. the. the. the. threat. the. the. threat. the. the. the. the. the. the. the the issue very hard and as a result people are kind of like, huh, actually you know what, I am entitled to overtime or I am entitled to be paid the figure that's clearly outlined on the fair work website.

Yeah. I guess I'm, as a sort of sideways question about this, I find myself wondering sometimes about things like this where, like surely anybody who has ever worked in or had a friend who has worked in a cafe or a restaurant anywhere in Australia, knows about wage theft, knows about, you know, people getting paid cash in hand, so they're not getting paid super and they're getting paid less than minimum wage and their bosses generally do lots of exploitative stuff where they say well you know if you demand on getting your $15 an hour which also isn't the minimum wage so I'll just give the job to

somebody else all that kind of stuff it seems it seems to me like such a it's been such an incredibly open secret of the world of at least small business for a very long time now. And it kind of makes me think of the whole greyhound expose that Four Corners did, where they said, hey, has everybody ever thought about the whole just murdering thousands of greyhounds every year for gambling thing and showed a bit of footage of it and seemingly overnight the country went. Oh yeah, that's fucked up and we should probably stop doing that.

And it seems a bit like that with the wage theft stuff where it just seems like it's been that open secret of the country for so long that everybody kind of knows about but we all just live with and then all of a sudden a bunch of media outlets start reporting on it once and it turns into this big big rolling ball of momentum around it? I wonder how much of it do you think is driven by media coverage specifically and how much of it is media outlets saying, oh, there's an actual appetite to know about this stuff. Yeah, there's a kind of, I think there's multiple things. One is that the unions have really been pushing it.

That's been like their campaign, like a central campaign for a little while now. And I think part of that might be because, you know, they lost on penalty rates and things like that. So now, th, th, th, th, they're th, the their their their their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, th. thi, thi, thin, thin, thin, their, thinks, thinks, thinks, thin, thin, thin, I, I, I, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I's, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I's, I's, their, they. And, thin, thin, thin, thin, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And,, you know, if you're not going to pay us, if you're taking away our entitlements, then we're really going to make sure that you are actually paying the ones that we still have. So that's, I think that's kind of an issue there. But also, like, the, the coverage has also been about some of these much bigger companies, which should know the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, th. th. thi thi thi. thi. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, if you thi, if you're not to to to to to to thi, if thi, if thi, if thi, if thi, if thi, if thi, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, thi. If, thi. If, thi. If, thi. If, thi. If, thi. If, thi, they's, they's, they're they're they're they're their, they're they're they're they're they're they're they're their, they're they're their, their, their, their, th about some of these much bigger companies, which should know better. I mean, on the one hand, you can sort of hand waive away small businesses paying cash in hand and blah blah blah and so on so forth. You can wave away rush dumplings. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm defending rush dumplings here. You can in the sense that, you know, exactly as you say, people are like, well, that's just unfortunately how the lower echelons of the economy work and they're not a whole lot you can do about

it. But once these bigger companies, like Woolworths and things like that get exposed for it, people are less likely to give them the better for the doubt. And especially when it's like George Calambirus or whatever, which I think was like a fairly substantial tipping point for a lot of people as well. It's like that, so it's that prick from the TV and he's ripping people off. You know, people hate to see that.

But you know, there's been lots of other smaller things as well, like the fact, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the that it, that it's that it's that it's th is that it's thi thi that it is thi that it is that it is that that that that that's that's that's that's that's that. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that. that's that. that. that. that. that, that's that. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th is th is thi. threathe only only. threathe only. threathe only. threathe only. threathe only only. threathe only. threathe only only. threaten, threathe only only. th. threaten. that's that's that's that's that's that's the fact that the government for a long while now, like the liberal government has flagged that it is willing to criminalize underpayment or wage theft, which is fairly substantial and you do need to, obviously, when it's a liberal, like a coalition government talking about doing that, you have to wonder what the upside is for them. And I think part of it is probably because they don't particularly like the award wage system anyway. They are more inclined towards, you know, the work choices way of handling things through individual

employee business contracts and they maybe they want to undemand that? I don't know. But the fact the matter is the is the the the the the the the th is the th is the th is thi is the thi is thi is thi is thi is thi is thi is thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, that? I don't know. But the fact that matter is there's been like all these different on all these different fronts, but you know the media are talking about it more. There are big companies that are being hit for it. There are very like visible companies like Rockpool and George Calabirus's outfit. It's sort of coming together and making people realize actually you know what this probably is is is is is is is probably is probably is probably this probably is probably this probably this is probably this is probably this is this is this is this coming together and making people realize, actually, you know what, this probably isn't acceptable at any level. And also another aspect, which I don't think is getting talked about a lot, but I think

is relevant is the fact that the cash economy is dying, so it's getting harder and harder and harder to get away with it. You know, the, as of this year, they've, the ATO has implemented that single-touch payroll thing where basically like they manage the whole workflow for accountants from the declaration of their income, their GST, all the way to like employees lodging and filing tax. And it's become overnight basically almost impossible to run a dodgy cash-only business because the tax office will catch you now.

So as a result, that's got a blow on effect where it's like, you can't really get away with just giving poor migrant worker 10 bucks an hour in cash, without somebody finding out about it. So there's a lot of different things I think that have sort of like coalesced that have made the average person in Australia be like, oh I guess it does suck when people don't get paid for their jobs. Yeah, I think Kalamburus and the celebrity chefs in particular, like you're saying are, they're the real kind of nexus of a bunch of different things. They're, they're, their, their, their, their, th. T, th. T, th. T, thir, thir, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, I thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, their, their their their their their their that, their their their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thi, they're the real kind of nexus of a bunch of different things. They're well known enough for people to be able to actually kind of, you know, put

a face on it rather than just, you know, like you're saying, nobody, nobody particularly cares to see just a single small business in the paper saying, hey, these people were underpaying their four staff. Because, yeah, it's not particularly noteworthy or of interest to anybody besides the people who frequent that restaurant. Whereas with someone like George Columbares, it's, you know, he's somebody who's on TV, somebody with a name, with a brand. And I think, which I think helps. I think also the fact that the reason that people like George Calumbarus and the other celebrity chefs are well known enough is because they've had these big successful sustainable businesses for years now. Totally.

And that's a large part of what their identity is. And I think that really, that really undercuts any arguments that they can make about, oh, we just kind of didn't know. the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact the fact th th th th at th at th at th at th at th at th at th at th at th at th at th at that th. th. thi. thi. thi. that's that's that's that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. that's. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. the. the. the. thecuts any arguments that they can make about oh we just we just kind of didn't know and it was all a bit too complicated which sort of aligns them with the the Woolworths sort of case of well you clearly have you know the infrastructure and payroll like for payroll for paying you know dozens or hundreds of staff. Yeah, this is like the instance where it's truly laid bare that that's just bullshit, right? Like, I mean, you kind of swallow it on a small business sense, even though it's almost certainly not true, but you know, here it is. Clearly they just don't give a fuck.

Yeah, I mean, if you find out that your local doubling joint is not paying itself correctly or not paying overtime or they're not getting proper meal breaks and things like that, you might be like, oh, that's unfortunate, but that doesn't really surprise me. But if you look at Rockpool, you know, the one Neil Perry fronts, they are systemically underpaid, the to'nigh-frash and things like that, you know, you're like, that's that's that's that's that's their their their, their, their, they, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, thr-nip. throuping, throuping, you're, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you................. You. You.. You, thi. You, thi. You. That's, thi. That's, thi. That's, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thr-I. You're not, throwne. I's, th. You're not, th. I's, th. I's, th. You're not, throwne. You're not, throwne. You're like Fratelli Fresh and things like that. You know you're like that's a that's a chain Italian restaurant where you pay 40 bucks for a pasta. It's like why are they not paying their staff correctly? And then the story came out also in the SMH the age about Rockpool which again sort of puts it the lie to the idea that it's just about the complexity of the award when it turned out that they were literally like shredding pay slips, which is like, that's it. You can't be caught doing that. Yeah, they were going back and like rewriting people's timeships.

Yeah, they were getting them to alter their own time slips and things like that. Yeah. Like, someone on Twitter did this, says I'm really funny, they were like, you know, the award is so complex that you just, you don't know which pay slips you're allowed to shred or not. Well, and like you're saying, it does completely, I mean, in order to, you know, actively go about defrauding the award wage, you have to, you clearly have to actually know what it is. Like, and what you're supposed to be applying. Yeah, I mean, it, you, you, you, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the, it's, it's, it's the, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind, it's, it's, you the, you the, you the, you the, you the, you the, you the, you the, you to, you to, you to, you to, you the, you don't, you the, you the, you the, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the, it's kind. the, it's kind. the, it's kind. the, it's kind. the, it's kind. the, it's kind, you know, the, you're, you're, you know, you're, you're, you know, you're supposed to be applying. Yeah I mean this the it's kind of like trite but you know there's everyone says it now it's like you never hear about cases where someone's fucked up the award and accidentally significantly

overpaid an employee or what oh yeah oh but you do as someone pointed out just recently a Commonwealth Bank mistakenly paid a whole bunch of bonuses that they shouldn't have paid. And I'm not sure how long it took them to work it out, but they basically said, hey, you need to give us that money back, please. I think it took them, I'll just check my notes here, but I think it took them less than nine years to figure out. I'm sure it probably did yeah I know like obviously the right slide examples but it doesn't it certainly doesn't come up. No no doubt you're a hundred percent very I thought that that was that was funny it was it is yeah yeah yeah and look you know to some extent that you know Australia's award that you know the a tasks. Like you know there are aspects. I I I I I I I I I to to to their. to their. their. their. their. their. their. their. to their. their. to their. to some their. to some. to some. to some. to some. to some. to some. their. their. that's that's that's. I's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's. I's the. I's the the the the the the the the the the the the the. I'm the. I'm certainly. I'm the. I'm certainly. I'm certainly. I'm certainly. I'm the. I's. I'm. know, there are aspects which are difficult to get you head around, like, and

especially for companies that aren't large, you know, trying to work out, you know, where your employee might sit in terms of like the different ties within an award, you know, where some employees might be covered by one award, whereas other employees might be covered by another, like, there obviously obviously are complexities and they inevitably will be for a system that has existed in almost unchanged in its fundamental since sort of the 1950s. But also, then you look at the fact that all of these celebrity chef restaurants basically, in war worse, in a bunch of other cases, it really comes out to the fact that people just not being paid overtime, which is not really a complex problem. That's like, you know, if your staff are, you know, working an extra 10 hours a week or

20 hours a week or whatever it might be and not being paid for that, that they're donating their time to you and that's not, that's not a very difficult problem to get your head around. So that whole argument sort of falls to bits at that point. I think there is an issue with like the restaurant industry that is specific to that industry and some other industries as well, less so than for like banks and Woolworths and Sunglasses Hut and that kind of thing, which is that it's something that I've spoken about on the show before which is that some industries like you know restaurants and like a lot of things that have any kind of alignment with different creative industries I'm sure it's very similar for a lot of things that have any kind of alignment with different creative industries. I'm sure it's very similar for a lot of forms of writing.

It's very similar for like design and that kind of stuff where there's this pervasive culture of everybody wants to be here doing this. And you know, if you need to be willing to make sacrifices and do what it takes and show that you really want to be here, otherwise someone else is more than happy to step up and take your place. If you insist on being paid the award wage that you are legally entitled to, oh I could get someone else in off the street who would do this for half of what you're doing it for.

They just do it for the higher end restaurants like Neil Perry's and like George Columbaruses, I can guarantee you that within those businesses there would be a pervasive culture of this is a place that looks amazing on your resume and we're doing you a favor by letting you work here, let alone paying you anything. And that probably goes hand in hand with like apprenticeships at places like that as well. We're expected to work, you know, outrageous hours for barely any money. But yeah, I think there's a whole thing of asking for what you're actually entitled to is a selfish thing and you're not being a team player and you're not doing what you're supposed

to do in order to sort of pay your dues to work at a place like this. And I remember, like my sister-in-law's chef, and I remember her saying about, you know, moving up through different restaurants and then going over to London and working in a series of places, and, and you know, she sort of said the same thing about, yeah, everywhere that you go, it's like, well, you gotta work crazy hours here for less money than you're actually worth, but it's paying your dues.

And then when you get to the next place, it's really gonna pay off. And then you get to the next place, and they're like, well, you just gotta pay your dues and take, and tak a bit less than what you know that you're that you're that you're that you're that you're that you're that you're that you're that you're worth that pay off. And then you go to the next restaurant. It's got like a big name, and you're one of the head chefs, and they're like, you just got to pay your dues, and it just kind of never ends for some reason. It's just this never-ending series of cresting a hill and going, oh, look at that big mountain up there where I don't get paid. Like that's totally part of the restaurant industry as it is with many others. Obviously another part is that the restaurant industry, especially at the lower levels,

is staffed hugely by migrant workers who probably or possibly don't know any better. A, and B, also have sort of the looming threat of being kicked out of the country over their head as two, which makes them unlikely to report these kind of violations. But also, I think a good thing to come out of, you know, Woolworth and Sunglasses Hut and whatever is sort of the fact that this is not a problem that's endemic just to the hospitality industry even though it's very visible. And like we said before, everyone has kind of on some level known for a long time that to eat food at the prices that we're eating at it now, someone is getting

screwed at some point in that chain. So people kind of knew about it. But also, like, you know, this is like an economy-wide thing. So many industries are doing this. They're doing this through all different vectors, sham contracting in the construction industry for example is endemic and that's how people will get underpaid there. It happens in the media. It happens in so many industries through whatever means, be it like not paying overtime or not paying penalty rates or, you know, whatever, are doing this. So I think it's good that we're sort of seeing some examples pop up, which aren't just restaurants. Even though, you know, I did put a shout out when I did an article

on B.I. that was like, you know, if you've had any issues with underpayment, feel free to shoot me an email or send me a message or whatever. And I, over the course of like a week, I got so many messages and a solid chunk of them were from restaurants, basically, but a lot of them were, as we said before, like small ones, family restaurants, just like, here's an Italian place up in Rockhampton or something, and it's like, well, you can't really do a story about that, you know? As you said, it's like no one is really interested in opening up the newspaper or clicking a link and reading about some restaurant in the middle of where that's not paying people correctly, they'd be like, well, okay. Yep. That sucks. I guess I'll continue not eating there.

Yeah, cool. Whereas, you know, but reading about 5,000 employees of Woolworth being underpaid $300 million, which by the way, when you divide that up, it's like, that's a lot of money for each individual person, it becomes an up, it's like, that's a lot of money for each individual person. It becomes an issue. It's like, oh, shit, this actually has like proper, large, economy-wide sort of implications. I guess one of the other things that's interesting to me about all of this is that part of the argument that's made by the businesses involved is that everything's, everything's too complicated and in some cases, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th is, th is, th is, th is, th is, th is, th is, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th is th is th is th is thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the argument that's made by the businesses involved is that everything's too complicated and in some cases, I mean, to read to you from your own article in The Guardian earlier this year, you were talking about the directors of the terrible sushi pizza restaurant that we did cover on the show at the time. The sash directors Kyle Stagol and Dave Nelson, who seem otherwise committed to the viability

of Hawaiian-Peruvian Japanese sushi pizza as a profitable enterprise. Appears appeared in a Sydney morning herald to announce the collapse of their Sydney venture due to a confluence of unfortunate factors including quote high wages, high rents, a slowdown in consumer spending and Uber eats. All four seem like potential bullet points in a responsible restaurant business plan, but the internet took particular a program with the commentary on the wage issue. That and the fact that they managed to spend $900,000 on the fit out, but that's an argument for another day.

Quote, most of our competitors who have been successful over the past few years have been paying staff under the award rate. It seems the only way businesses can stay ahead, he told the herald. Does that mean hospo workers are drastically overpaid for the value they produce for a business? Probably. Uh, you continue. It could possibly indicate a cultural rot within the hospitality world if basic adherence to workplace law is considered a noble sacrifice. Putting aside whether or not we believe that sushi pizza constitutes an unholy union unfit for human consumption, we can probably agree on one thing. He shouldn't have said that. It definitely seemed like a quiet part loud moment. Yeah, it was like, sash was a really like literally next door to our office as well. I walk past it like every single day on my way to work. I just, but looking inside there, I noted the incredibly expensive weird industrial fit out, but it's like no one was ever in there anyway. So it was like it was such a transparent thing of like

it seems like you've set up a terrible business. Like it seems like you, you, it, the street that it was on in Surrey Hills is like, there's not a tremendous amount of foot traffic up and down there, but it would be incredibly expensive to rent other anyway. And it's just, it really stood out. And as I said, obviously sushi pizza doesn't sound particularly good. I think their Melbourne joint does okay, but I don't know. But it was just like a weird, yes it was like quiet part loud, but it was such an obvious case of like blaming a business that just failed. After like three months, like you can't blame wages for your business collapsing after three

months. It was just such an obvious case of blame shifting onto something that restaurants have blamed for so long, which is having to pay their staff properly. But the timing of it was among all the other problems when for the first time, the whole country is basically thinking about wage theft and thinking about underpayment and being like the reason our sushi pizza events are collapsed was because we had to pay people to make it, was, it was just a spectacular example of bad timing. And I guess it's also a weird coincidence that out of all of

the things that went into the decisions around opening this restaurant such as the venue, the fit out, what you're actually selling to people, the branding and all of those things, it was the one thing that they didn't have any options about doing, which is just paying the legal rate that was the the business fail. It wasn't any the the the the the the the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th that they didn't have any options about doing, which is just paying the legal rate that was the thing that made the business fail. It wasn't any of the things that they could have had a hand in actually steering the direction of. It's just a strange coincidence. Yeah, no totally. And it's like, you know, I think I say it in the article is like you don't really hear businesses appearing in a newspaper complaining about the other stuff. You don't see them get their complaining about high rents or the cost of produce or whatever

it might be. It's only ever the fact they have to pay people that, and it's because in the past there has been genuine political capital in that, you know. Like that argument flies for so many things. That argument flies in so many sectors of the economy that, you know, Australians have paid too much and workers demand too much money and the minimum wage is too high and the penalty rates are too high. And it's been going on for so long that, but we're possibly at the first time in a while, where

once people make those kind of arguments, people are like, actually, you know what, that does not make any sense. But I guess what's interesting with the larger businesses that we're talking about, Michael Hill Jewelers, super retail group, West Farmers, Quantis, Commonwealth Bank, the sort of endless refrain in all of these things has been number one, whoops, we found a genuine honest mistake, a miscalculation, it's not

our fault because it's so difficult for our massive accounting department to figure out what we're supposed to be paying people. But I guess the second part to me is that in all of these cases where these people have been bought for fair work, they've said, you have to pay back all this money. You have to pay back $300 million and they've all gone, okay, and paid it back. And the business didn't collapse. You know, nobody went under, nobody went bankrupt or anything like that. All of them just said, oh, sorry everybody will give you your money now,

and then things just continued on. So it kind of also indicates that it's not actually paying workers the award wages that they're entitled to, that is the difference between these businesses being able to run and not. It's just the difference between shaving a big chunk of extra profit off the backs of your own workers. Woolworth's made $1.5 billion in 2017, right? So they clearly don't have to steal from these people. So it's $1.5 million?

Oh boy. All right, I'll teach about numbers after this. But it's a big one, right. And doing like underpaying people for nine years, for $300 million, you divide that out, right? It barely touches their bottom line at all. It's just a decision that they chose to do. Right? Like in the end, it's not a small business that would collapse if they would collapse if they, you know, the way that they, the small restaurants tell it or what have you,

it would collapse if they didn't do this. Like if we, if we paid the thing that we're supposed to, which we consider to be too much, that would swing us from the green to the red, right? Whereas with Mooreworth, it's clearly, it's not the case. It's just something that they sat down, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that, it's that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that. that's that. that. that. that. that. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. the. the. the. the. the. the. they's. they's. they. they's. they's. they. they. they. their. they. the. the. they's and worked out that it would cost them less to set it up this way so may as well do it and I can only imagine you know the great example that you know we're talking about this guy that's the the manager who you know realized that he was being underpaid and took it to him that they immediately kind of saw this slide across their desk and go oh oh fuck like no one no HR person in paid and took it to him, that they immediately kind of saw this slide across their desk and go, oh, fuck.

Like, no HR person in Woolworth or no lawyer in Woolworth would have seen that come across their desk and go, oh shit, that applies to everybody and not just this guy, there's a real, there's a real chance that, like, we are going to have to eat a lot of crow on this. And so I think that like then for them to go on and to try and address this as an individual case is extremely cynical. Oh yeah, totally. Just to bolster that point, this is from the Sydney Morning Herald in April. Commonwealth Bank will reimburse millions of dollars to about 8,000 staff after underpaying wages and other entitlements due to errors in its systems.

We're so are we? Whiwink? We're so are we? The bank on Tuesday confirmed that it started reimbursing staff for the botched payments, although botched kind of implies an accident or a mistake, which also included superannuation. The finance sector union estimated the bank could end up paying as much as $15 million the current and former staff. The CBA apologized for the errors, so, sorry. Pledge to pay all amounts owing plus interest and said that its

first tranche of payments to workers could be worth 4.8 million dollars. The bank did not... Which again is nothing for a company that makes over a billion dollars profit every year? The bank did not confirm or deny the union's cost estimate and was unable to say how many tranches of payments there would be. The payments cover a range of problems going back as far as 10 years within parts of CBA and its fully owned Bank West. In one case, the entire staff of Bank West missed out on a day's that's that's th.. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thiolk, thiolk, to work to work to work to work work work work work work work thiolk, to work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work over over over over over over over over over to work work work work, to work, to work, to work, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, tholk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thiolk, thoiolk, thoiolk, toe, toe, toe, toe, thoioliolk, tho' thiolk, th In one case, the entire staff of BankWest missed out on

a day's pay. So just for context, in 2018, Commonwealth Bank made a cash net profit of $9.233 billion dollars. Are they the most profitable business in Australia? It's got to be close, right? I mean, you'd possibly be looking at, apart from like the mining giants. Oh yeah, yeah. But yeah. And another thing that doesn't get mentioned quite as much about this, but the unions do love to go on about, is the fact that one of the reasons that this problem has ballooned is that sort of core union business of your, which is like literally union reps marching into businesses and checking the books, has become almost impossible since about, I think it's 1996 or so, legislation passed, which still makes it possible for a union

rep to do that in a large chunk of businesses, but is subject to so many requirements that they basically don't do it. And as a result, these systems have become so opaque, the pay of especially these larger firms like Commonwealth Bank and like Woolworths and things like that. As you can see in like the Woolworse story when SMA is talking about what happened during the reporting of it, the employment consultant found it really, really hard to obtain more information about his client, who was, you know, his friend, because Woolworse was able to immediately push back and

say you're not a valid union rep so you can't come and check this information. But the fact that a matter is is that it's very, very hard for a union rep to genuinely do that. Obviously the SDA and will worse have quite a buddy-by-relationship so it's open as to whether they would even allow want to do that in the first place but yeah no the case is that there's just not a huge amount of oversight over these things anymore, which lets these problems sort of get out of hand. Because obviously the businesses, as we've been talking about for the past hour, have an incredibly strong motivation to not resolve these problems. And this is where it ends up. You end up with $300 million owing.

Which fortunately is apparently really easy to pay back. It's, you know, it's a water under the bridge. That's all good. You can just toss it on the pile. Is there any signals at all, kind of that there will be a move towards these sorts of acts being more severely punishable because I think you know we talked about George Columbaris and the absolutely pathetic slap on the wrist that he yeah which ended up being less than the interest if he'd you know of him holding on to that money for that period of time right which is just you know it's clearly ridiculous yeah no, no, there is. Like, Scott Morrison and Christian Porter, the Attorney General, have

repeatedly flagged that they are trying to work out a framework for what they are going to do about this. They say that they will criminalize the more severe infractions, which I suppose would include things like your Woolworth, maybe your George Caron viruses. They haven't really indicated what the threshold for like a more severe infringement actually is. And they're obviously facing pressure on both sides. On the one side, the business lobby, like the Business Council of Australia and things like that, AIG, are putting out heaps of statements and reports and all this sort of thing, basically saying that you shouldn't

call it, you shouldn't criminalize it, you shouldn't make it a crime, and the reasoning that they tend to give is, A, the classic, like, it'll be a handbreak on the economy, whatever. But their other argument is that it will incentivize companies to do a much better job at hiding it. It'll make it and it will make it far less likely for businesses to come forward and admit they've made mistakes which as we've said you know isn't really an argument that holds up anyway because as we've said, you know, isn't really an argument that holds up anyway because as we've argued, it's pretty unlikely that nobody worse knew what was going on.

And whereas on the other side, obviously the unions are very, very pro this. I think the ACTU, I'm speaking off top of my head here, but they basically want to institute like a mandatory or possibly a maximum sentence of five years in prison for people found to be doing this as well as far more substantial fines which run into millions and millions of dollars. I think that I think might have like a million dollar per infringement which is quite large especially if you're looking at the case of more worse where like they have you know possibly 5,000 infringements. So it looks like the government is sort of a, it looks like.. the the the the the the the the the the the th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, thi, possibly, possibly, possibly, the the thi, possibly, possibly, possibly, or thi, or thi, or thi, possibly, possibly, or thi, or possible, or possibly, or possibly, or possibly, or possibly, or possibly, or thi, or the, or the, or thi, or thi, or thi, or thi, or thi, or thi, or thi, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly, possibly th, possibly th, possibly thi, possibly thi, possibly the thi, possibly thi, possibly the the the the the thi, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a possible, possibly a the thi the thi thi thi thi th like they have, you know, possibly 5,000 infringements. So it looks like the government is sort of trying to, will likely find a solution that sort

of sits in the middle of those two things, but they have flagged that they are going to criminalize wage theft at some level. And it really does speak to where the discourse is at when you know Christian Porter and Scott Morris and of all people are using the language wage theft which until recently was something that you know only the unions were saying in Australia. It is it's almost a trite point to make but you know I think plenty of people have said already you don't get this kind of amnesty in the other direction, right? Like if you're someone that's just being shoveling cash out of the register into your pocket

at the end of the night every night, you know, you can't expect that kind of amnesty that they're asking for, even though they are the ones that hold all the power, they're the ones that are, you know, cynically performing these actions.. the wages the wages the wages the wages the wages of the wages of the wages of of the wages of of of the wages of of the wages of the wages of of the wages of the wages of the wages of the wages of the wages of the actions with the with the clear knowledge of that it is you know reducing the wages of the people that that work for them in a way that contravenes the law. Yeah absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised if in the end though if you know if the government actually gets around to implementing this among whatever the rest of the agenda is, that they are fairly sure they probably will institute some sort of amnesty period or amnesty process whereby businesses that have historic wage problems will be able to come forward and be like, okay here we go and then not be subject to criminal penalties, which you know,

might be unfortunately sort of the only way that you can make this sort of thing work. But, um, it does, and th, and th, and th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, the, the, th, the, the, th, the, the, the, the, the, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I the the thi, I the the the the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I I the, I I I the, I I I I I the, I I th, I I I the, I the, I the, I I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I the, I their, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the, I'm thea, I'm thea, I'm fairly thea, I'm fairly thea, I'm thea, I'm thea, I'm be unfortunately sort of the only way that you can make this sort of thing work. But it does seem like, especially as more and more of these stories come out, it's going to be impossible for the government to have been promising this for so long, and then sort of, you know, keep kicking the tin along forever. I'm sure they're not entirely happy that they have to do this, but the pressure is too great. Now before we run out of time today, we have another segment that we have to do. That is of course an installation of Nature Corner.

So we need a theme for Nature Corner. Yep. Theo, have you got any... Did you... You put together a... We started that one? Yeah. Um... So I've been doing a lot of self-care. Yeah.

Well, luckily for you, um, I received a message from a wife of the show. No wait, lover of the show, Mark, who said, Hello, Andrew Deere, as we all know, Sweet Theo has been tasked with coming up with a theme for Nature Corner, a segment on your podcast. We couldn't help but notice that he was struggling with this burden, and we took it upon ourselves to make one for him. So here we have a new Nature Corner thing. Robocrabs, stick to my dear. Wow.

That is the theme. A great burden has lifted off me. Apparently that is 18 of our patrons singing the vocals for the Oh my god. Oh, well, that's a wonderful thing. And they gave it to us. It's lovely. Yes, real, real community over there on the Buunta Vista Discord.

Thank you so much, the grubby little pigs that frequent it for this delightful thing. I believe the, I believe the lyric at the end if I'm identifying it correctly as, rubber crab snipped my dick. Love those rubber crabs. I think that's what I'm hearing. They're so big. They're huge, they're very big. It's very upsetting. So here from the Guardian we have a story about an aircraft worker has been gouged in the eye by a falcon that

lives in a Qantas Sydney airport creating what the Union has called a quote unsafe work environment. I think you could call it that. I think you could. Yep. I don't think that that is that that is unreasonable. Multiple peregrine falcons including at least one small family lived nest and hunt in the hangar. Falcons have been there for at least 20 years and have sent it into a known roosting site. But on Tuesday last week, one of the falcons attacked a worker causing significant damage to his eyes, neck, and face. Jesus Christ. No, I don't like it.

A really horrible thing to think about, I think. Uh-huh. A pair of green falken attaching itself to your face. The Australian worker is getting a short drift at every corner. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, their, their, their, their, their, th, their, th, th, th, th, their, th, th, th, th, th, th, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi... thi.. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. So The Australian worker is getting a short shrift at every corner. They're being underpaid in one hand and then having birds rip out their eyes or the other. Yeah. Being reintroduced into the food chain. You hate to see it after all these years.

We thought we would do it great. Yeah. The birds cannot easily be removed because they are a protected species and Qantas has allowed them to stay because they keep mice, rats and pigeonsway. Guardian Australia has obtained an internal safety warning issued by Qantas that confirmed the attack and told staff to wear safety goggles till the end of breathing season. And in wonderful, wonderful corporate speak here, the warning said, maintain clearance from any falcon activity. If you are swooped or observe the falcon, please report the location and activity observed. If you observe the falcon sounds like a Mars Walter album.

Maintain clearance from falcon activity is a wonderful sentence, I think. Staff in the hangar provided images of the falcons to Guardian Australia. Perigreen falcons are the world's fastest animal and can swoop at speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour. Yeah. When you start describing an animal speed in terms of like mark numbers. I don't think you've got a real real chance of getting away from it once you observe it. It sucks when you walk into an aircraft hangar to pick up some tools or whatever. You hear a sonic boom and then all of a sudden you wake up in the hospital with bird-related

injuries to your face. Yeah. As of the sort of, we've started, a trend has been begun about like a wars between birds and people in Australia. There's this and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, it, it, th th th th th th th is th is th is thus, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, thus, thus, thus, thus, thus, thi, thinks, thiolus, thiolus, thiolus, thiolus, thiolks, thiolks, thiks, thiks, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th is thi stuff th, th is thi stuff stuff stuff thi stuff thi stuff thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi's thi, thi's thi's thi's thi's thanks, thinks, to thanks, thinks, thinks, thanks, thinks, thinks,'ve started, a trend has been begun about like wars between birds and people in Australia. There was this and then there was the Kevin the Cucaburbor story from the other way. Oh my God, he's about that on here. That deserves a mention for sure. Oh, you want to talk us through that one Hedo? Sure. Well, the, uh, the thrust of it is that there was a bird by the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the name the the the name the name the name the the that that that that that the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. tree. tree. te. tree. tree. te. tree. te. te. tree. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. te. is that there was a bird by the name of Kevin the Cookaburra who was something of a local hero around a pub in Perth. He seemed to be someone who would show up in the pub's beer garden and entertain the children. I believe he was something of a cheeky bird who was known for taking chips off people's plates and so on. Anyway, those are cheeky fuckers. Yeah, so but the the unfortunate conclusion to Kevin the cooker's

short life was last weekend he stole food off someone's plate. I don't think it was ever specified near the reporting exactly what was stolen. One chip, two chip, an entire poor cutlet, that's no way to know. I mean, you know, by the powers of inference I would assume probably a chip. That seems to be the sort of thing that a bird would take. But anyway, but the man who's, who had been subject to the theft by Kevin the Cookebara, then grabbed Kevin and tore his head off and threw the body under the table and continued to eat in front of a bunch of... Yeah, yeah. So, obviously that's quite shocking.

And a lot of kids saw it I believe. And now it's become something of an international incident because the guy who did it having been subject to obviously quite a bit of online criticism for ripping a bird's head off at a pub has fled the country. Have we put into Poland to him yet? No idea. No idea. No idea. I just could.

I'm trying to find the quote as I say, but in like the original story, like they quoted someone who worked at the pub who clearly still shell-shocked by what he had seen. We'll said something in lines of like, yep, that's something that'll stick with me for the rest of my life. And it would. Absolutely. Yeah. The murder of Kevin the Kucabara. Now we're just about out of time, but we do have a very quick letter from the mail bag here.

Hey gang, and I thought this is a question you might like to answer for us, just a quick question from your recent discussion on the latest episode in terms of Australian cryptids, do fabled big cats, e.g. the Blue Mountains Panther count. They are certainly treated like other cryptids but are obviously less magical slash fantastical compared to your Big Foots or Yowies. Maybe this is indicative of Australia's generally low aiming mentality. Anyway, love the show, thanks Andrew. And I just want to to to to to to to stress to stress to stress to stress to stress to stress to stress to to stress to to to to to to to the to stress the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their th. th. th. thii. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. tho. their their their their their their their their generally low-aiming mentality. Anyway, love the show, thanks Andrew, and I just want to stress I did not write this letter to myself. You know what, folks, I'm going to go out on the limb and I'm going to say that the Penrith Panther and similar big cats are cryptids.

And my reason for categorizing them as such is less to do with the creature itself and more with the people that are obsessed with them. Mmm, I think there's a community around them, certainly. The kind of bloke who is really obsessed with the Penrith Panther has a certain aesthetic quality very similar to a person who would be obsessed with a Yowie, and I feel like you would be doing that hypothetical person in disservice by not calling it a crypted. Yeah, it's not so much the idea of a big cat itself or a panther or a jaguar or anything like that that is mythical. It's more the status of the creature is definitely mythical in nature. And it's all, it's folklore, people talk about their sightings of it.

It's got all the signs, you know? It's a crypted to me. My only argument against why they would be cryptids, or why you would call them cryptids, sure. Is that they're all real. Okay. I mean, I mean... Except are they? I think we should... I let's are. Let's just dispose of the category altogether and just accept that Bigfoot is an animal.

Well, I mean, as common as a, as a kookabara or another ape, you know. He's an animal in the sense that man is an animal, certainly, but I don't, I don't like the connotation that's there. He's hyper intelligent almost. Sure, it's smarter thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi that thi that thi thi that thi that thi thi that that thi thi that thi that that thi that that that that that that that that thi. thi. that's that's that's that that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. the the the the the theateateateate. the the theateate. that's that's that that that's that that that that that that that that that the. He's hyper-intelligent almost. Sure, it's smarter than you or I. 250 IQ on Bigfoot. He has no problem with processing numbers, unlike some people on the show. Any number of, well, 3D objects in his head, very easily. Yeah, absolutely. Well, there you have folks.

That's official show canon now. The Blue Mountains Panther is a cryptic. And real. Yeah. So thanks to joining us, Hannah. Where can the people find you and your various writings and musings and such? You can go to my Twitter at J.I.Henise. to come to my website, J.I.Henasy.com. You can go to go Twitter at J.I.Hennessy. You can go to my website J.I.Hennessy.com You can go to Business Insider Australia to see my Reporting on a more regular basis and you could come up and say hello in the street if you ever encountered me at the shops But that's yeah that those are my channels. I feel like flipping you off from the open window of an Uber. I have a very sensitive disposition. Oh, and yeah, as always folks, if you would like an extra episode of the show every week,

you can hit on over to Patreon.com slash Buntavista, that will also get you access to our exclusive discord where you can coordinate gang vocals on a theme that will be featured on the show at some point in the future. I feel like that was a once off but... It could happen again. It could happen any number of times. Look, so far that it's happened once and it made it with toy under the show. So good precedent. Yeah, one for one. Good precedent, you know. If you would like to to the one one one one one one one one one one one one one one one one one the one the the the the the the the the the the the that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the. the. the. the. theat the. theat the. theat theate. theate. the. theateeate. that was the. the. you would like to write into the show, please send an email to Mailbag at Buntavista.com, and if you would like to leave a message for us to listen to and potentially respond to on the show, please call the Buntavista Hotline, 1,803175.

If you're a US listener, and you would also like to do that, you can call 732-2876. 876. And you would also like to do that. You can call 732-8763446. And that's it for us folks. Thanks again for joining us, Henno. No worries. Thanks for having me. And we'll see everybody next week. Bye-bye.

Peace. to