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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

What type of nonsense is this ? It's super expensive to do business in Australia because it's super expensive to do anything in Australia. It has a high cost of living, high salaries, high property prices, small population and it located far from everyone.

We've seen over the last few months what a smaller government looks like. Moving to a "user pays for everything" model means less take home wages with a flow on effect of less money for startups.

Labor unions are not mandated by law and for all intents and purposes irrelevant for 99.9% of startups. They do serve an incredibly valuable part of society being the only counterweight to large corporations who are easily able to buy their way into politics.

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> We've seen over the last few months what a smaller government looks like. Moving to a "user pays for everything" model means less take home wages with a flow on effect of less money for startups.

I don't know much about Australian government, but how is a "user pays for everything" model different from taxation? In your state, doesn't a user still pay for a service through taxation, whether an income tax (less take home wages), sales tax (less money for startups) or some other tax?

Taxes didn't get reduced, they just got reallocated to fighter jets.

Reductions in public services/welfare supposedly matched by temporary levies on high earners. Those levies will be gone soon enough and the high earners will make back any shortfall through super changes anyway.

"It's super expensive to do business in Australia because it's super expensive to do anything in Australia. It has a high cost of living, high salaries, high property prices, small population and it located far from everyone."

Labor jobs pay $16/hour minimum. There is heavy regulations and taxes on businesses. With a company over a certain amount of employees, firing an employee ends up being a court case with the head of the labor union.

Startups can't thrive in an environment like this, which is why we don't see VC firms flocking there. It's no coincidence that they are flocking to the US.

"They do serve an incredibly valuable part of society being the only counterweight to large corporations who are easily able to buy their way into politics."

Labor unions are just as bad as corporations. They destroyed GM in the US and continue to create waste in many other industries (teacher unions creating an environment where bad teachers can't be fired).

It's not a shock to me that I was down voted. The leftists here on HN love unions.

I get the feeling you just like having a rant about unions. As the parent said, unions aren't relevant for software startups.

BTW, I personally don't like unions. I think they were needed in the past, but now they are just trying to find a reason to exist.

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