Australia A Great Country ?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 100, 25 September 1950, Page 5

Australia A Great Country ?

“It is a great country with opportunities ablenty for those willing to work.’’ This was how two young Australian tourists, a child welfare officer in Newcastle and an electrician in Sydney, who visited Gisborne in the course of a tour of New Zealand, described the Commonwealth after refering to labour shortage there. These shortages applied in almost every field, particularly in regard to big works projects which were being undertaken, the visitors commented.

Said the electrician: “Where I work there is a man aged 74 and they won’t pension him off, even though the maximum retiring age in Australia is 65.”

As in New Zealand, there is a shortage of school teachers in Australia, where married women who were teachers before they married are returning to duty. The basic wage in Australia, they aded, was £7 Is a week and unskilled men were being paid between £8 and £9 per week. The wages for skilled tradesmen were around the £lO mark.

When they left Sydney on September 1 peas and beans were still being retailed at 3s 9d per lb., due lo shortages as a result of the floods. At that time, they pointed out, those vegetables usually sold at Is 6d a lb. The minimum price normally was 3d a lb. Meat prices, too, were particularly high. The high prices had been ruling not only in Sydney, but generally throughout the Commonwealth.

The visitors were Messrs H. G. Baker and C. J. Burns, who were impressed with New Zealand from the viewpoint of a tourist country