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Australia’s new car industry emerges

Australia’s new car industry emerges

Oct 12

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Following the announced closure of GM Holden and Ford the last car manufacturers in Australia a consortium of Australian engineers and investors have begun development of a new concept car.

Kent Topp spokesman for the Driftback corporation made this statement in a press release.

We have been developing a new urban transportation concept for Australian urban environments. We took into account that most cars are drive with 2 or less passengers and with virtually no luggage for most journeys. Our engineers decided this meant space and weight in the vehicle were wasted and could simply be removed. The car is much lower to the ground than a typical car and this should give aerodynamic advantages and reduce fuel consumption, but gains in this area have to be ironed out. Staggeringly this is two door two seat car, a radical departure form the 4 door 5 seat touring sedan iconic in Australia for decades. Kent explained that those cars were made for a time when domestic air travel was expensive and families would drive vast distances to take holidays and visit relatives. Times have clearly changed and those design parameters are just obsolete. I envision a time when the Driftback will a be a common sight on our streets. Early testing has indicated the car is economical, eye-catching and fun to drive, and that’s really important to Australians. There have been some claims that that car can be prone to slight over-steering, but we predict drivers will quickly adjust to the handling dynamics.  We have calculated the Driftback will cost about half as much as a economy hatchback, and that’s a hard price to beat in today’s market.

After reading Kent’s press release we manage to secure some secretly filmed testing of the Driftback.

Posted in Australia, Transport

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IT students dwindle due to 457 Visa rorts

IT students dwindle due to 457 Visa rorts

Sep 9

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The IBM 5150 released on August 12 1981, this is where we get the term PC from and much of the basic architecture still in use.

The IBM 5150 released on August 12 1981, this is where we get the term PC from and much of the basic architecture still in use.

 

So a few days ago ‘The Age’ (our local rag) ran a story about High school student abandoning  IT as a field of study.

The article was good enough, but the comments were an absolute goldmine of insight into the problems in IT in Australia

http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/expertise/it-crowd-shrinking-as-vce-enrolments-plummet-20140907-10dizx.html

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  • I have worked in the industry for nearly 20 years. The jobs are slowly disappearing to overseas cheap labour pools and imported 457 workers who claim to have the skills and are willing to work for far less than is reasonable.

    Why would anyone want to study a subject or career that clearly has a poor future in this country?

    Ask Telstra for example how many jobs they plan to send to “Asia” over the next year alone.

    Commenter
    Martin
    Location
    Sydney
    Date and time
    September 08, 2014, 7:37AM

    • Australian IT is a disaster, remember myki and hundreds of other projects paid for by taxpayers that are all over budget , late and don’t work well.

      Commenter
      preacher
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 8:09AM

    • Ive been in IT for 35 years and its never been this bad, and its all a result of failed Government policies

      Offshoring and 457 visas have decimated Programming, Testing, Business Analysis, etc. The last project I was on there was a team of 20 people on 457 visas.

      Abbott has relaxed 457 visas so its only getting worse.

      If your thinking about a career in IT, you’ve got bugs in your head

      Commenter
      IT DOES NOT COMPUTE
      Location
      Melb
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 8:23AM

    • Offshoring and 457 Visas are destroying/have destroyed the local IT industry. The hilarious thing is overseas workers come in on 457 Visas (weren’t they meant to be for positions where we don’t have the skills locally) and upon arrival they do not have a clue. They are shielded by the resident overseas workers to hide their incompetence. Projects are taking longer and have more bugs in them than ever before. And don’t get me started on their can’t say”no” issues.

      Commenter
      Gilly
      Location
      Melbourne
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 8:57AM

    • +1 Yep its going down hill faster and faster. To anyone thinking of a career in IT forget it.

      Commenter
      Tim
      Location
      Melbourne
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 9:20AM

    • Your right, overseas cheap labour, view source code and see note for example rajah said do it this way and that way etc, and upgrades to complex sites like TAB racing became worse and primate, upgrades to westpac BPAY atrocious enough for me to complain yesterday, but execs never check these upgrades nor are there customer complaint avenues. We see many script and hidden cache crashes via programmers not meeting updated flashplayer requirements and see new versions grow 10 times in size but do far less, excessive programming is excessive load. I think we need better quality training rather than worry about drop-out load

      Commenter
      Brian Woods
      Location
      Glenroy
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 9:57AM

    • Yep, and as Telstra is trumpeting Magda Szubanski in its ‘we love our customers’ advert, it continues to ship customer support functions to Manila and elsewhere, and 457 visas appear to have become the latest immigration portal. Google, “457 visa to permanent residency” to see how much effort is being put into this channel. IT as a career choice in Australia? Only if you are really passionate about it, and prepared to fight to get ahead.

      Commenter
      OpenWindow
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 9:57AM

    • The Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s most recent 457 quarterly report put the average salary for applications granted to 457 workers in the Information, Media & Telecommunications sponsor industry at $87,200 and for the Professional, Scientific and Technical sponsor industry at $96,500. I am unsure how those wages are unreasonable.

      Commenter
      teh krazy
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 10:13AM

    • I agree with all of the above. As an employer who is looking for client facing web developers. What a joke the so called ‘education revolution’ sausage factory has produced a whole lot of It paper graduates who will never get a real job in IT. More quality less quantity required. The reason is the ‘education revolution’ desperately needs new foreign paying students. Everybody knows most are going to be useless in the workplace. But the carrot is handing out visa’s and ultimately passports via this useless education. So tell your kids don’t even think about a career the government has sold them down the river.

      Commenter
      DifferentLens
      Location
      Melbourne
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 10:37AM

    • @teh krazy
      The point is not the salary per se. The point is a 457 Visa should NEVER be granted to an IT worker as we have a plethora of qualified people here in Australia. The salary point is a whole other issue. If you have ever had anything to do with the outsource industry in IT you would know what most posters here are talking about.

      Commenter
      Gilly
      Location
      Melbourne
      Date and time
      September 08, 2014, 10:46AM

 

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Posted in 457 Visa, Corporations, Law & Government, Meme, Reblogged, Telstra

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