25 July 2009

Lord Barr wonders why you won't take your leave

| johnboy
Join the conversation
32

Andrew Barr’s a lucky guy. With a safe legislative assembly seat and a double income, no kids lifestyle one imagines he’s got a lot of options about how he spends his time and money.

But for those of us either supporting kids, or single, (or both) and earning much less than a ministerial salary life is a little scarier.

Which is why he comes across as a little detached in his latest media release calling on us all to stop hoarding our annual leave and take a holiday to help out the struggling hoteliers of the tourism industry.

    New research shows Australians have accrued 123 million days of annual leave.

    The amount of leave accrued has grown 11 per cent since December 2006 with one in four full time employees having 25 days or more of annual leave they could take.

    This is not healthy. It’s widely recognised that holidays are important in managing stress, high levels of which can cause serious health problems for individuals and damage the economy by reducing the overall productivity of the Australian workforce.

You want to talk about stress? Stress is living from paycheck to paycheck without knowing that at least if the work disappears you’ve got a month’s leave accrued to pay the bills until you can get some other kind of work.

It’d be nice if we all had major investment portfolios to draw down on, and owned our own houses outright. It’d also be nice if it rained lollipops this afternoon.

But heck, let’s not assume people are hoarding leave just because they’re silly.

Join the conversation

32
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

Pandy said :

At #28: Sydeny prices in the CBD for 3 stars

http://www.wotif.com/hotel/View?hotel=W42555

Theres 110-140 for 5 star apartment on Kent St in Sydney CBD.

Ozybob said :

ummmm i know the answer for the pinkos….you all voted for them. farkin funny that

wrong. I didn’t. I voted libs. it is all the misguided fools that voted green that got sold out.

I have a flexible employer who I can accrue leave with, but can also dip into neg leave if I need to. As to whether my job is secure, so it goes. I am comfortable that I do a good job, if the company decides that it is my time to go, well, I will just have to find another job.

At #28: Sydeny prices in the CBD for 3 stars

At my old work place it was hard to take your annual leave. They made out like you were asking for their first born or something. And if you ever wanted to take leave around christmas or other holidays people with children were given priority. As a result I have heaps of annual leave up my sleeve still, years later.
Thank god I don’t work in that sh*t hole anymore though.

A lot of people take leave and stay at home, so no cash injection for the tourism industry there. I am one of those sad peeps who use my leave to do things like paint the house or clear up the garden…

Pandy said :

Barr, I cannot afford $170 per night on a decent hotel.

$170/night? Unless youre travelling with your family, how are you spending that much on a hotel? A quick check shows the Waldorf 4.5 star serviced apartments in the city are $170/night.

But as p1 said right from the start, why pay a hotel when you can buy a tent.

I cash out 4 weeks hols a year.

As a single income family, we can’t knock back the money.

ummmm i know the answer for the pinkos….you all voted for them. farkin funny that

andrew barr should mind his own f****** business…..

HSBC in the UK make you take 10 consecutive days off sometime in every calendar year. Something to do with fraud protection in their IT systems. Maybe that needs to be implemented in all businesses and gov’t departments here. Whilst it may not add to hoteliers coffers it certainly would help the temp market.

Clown Killer9:23 am 26 Jul 09

In my organisation you are not allowed to accrue leave past a certain amount. If you do you can be ’sent’ on leave to reduce your balance to below the maximum accepted level (that being said you can accrue it above the max level for a particular reason if the job is kept in the loop).

VG, this reminded me of a place where I once worked many years ago that had the same arrangement. Our boss was completely committed to the job (I don’t actually believe that he had a life outside of work). He was told that he would be placed on forced leave because he hadn’t taken any holidays for over three years. His response was to still come in to work every day as usual, but wearing a track suite.

I like having my massive reserves of flex and leave so I’m unlikely to hit struggletown immediately should I unexpectedly end the job I’m working (making my final pay huge, last time was 80 hrs standard pay + 200hrs rec leave cashout + 50hrs flex cashout).

If I do as the out-of-touch Barr says and take my current leave entitlement all at once, I might be off stimulating the tourism sector for a while, but I’ll come back to either a lot of work that has gone uncompleted or a bunch of teammates who are really happy to have me back, because my manager has had to cover my role for the duration.

If the 10.7 million employed Australians to take accrued 123 million days of leave, who is going to actually be productive while we’re all out of the country for two weeks?
(Or is that a question for the Minister for ACT Business & Economic Development/the Federales to answer, when the entire workforce goes missing?)

vg said :

In my organisation you are not allowed to accrue leave past a certain amount. If you do you can be ‘sent’ on leave to reduce your balance to below the maximum accepted level (that being said you can accrue it above the max level for a particular reason if the job is kept in the loop).

Ah, to be “sent on leave”. I can only wish…

Mike Crowther11:02 pm 25 Jul 09

damo +1 🙂

There is a sad disconnect in this city between the under priveleged, privileged, educated, under educated and alternate choice lifestyle persons who hold power in our community.

It is a shame that many lose sight of their humble beginnings in pursuit of their ambitions and goals.

If I were one of Andrew’s staff, I would be spending this weekend researching & booking holidays ready to walk into his office Monday morning to have my leave form approved.

Oh, and I would be asking for time-off around the date the next election was due.

Perhaps Andrew can have a chat with my boss when I ask again about being allowed to take my long service leave

gun street girl7:31 pm 25 Jul 09

If that is true, then god help us both. 😉

gun street girl said :

Trunking symbols said :

I can’t understand this. When I was working I used to count the days till the end of the year when I gained more leave. All my rec leave was usually taken by the end of January. Why anybody would want to keep working and not take leave is beyond me.

For some, taking leave isn’t so easy – it entails having management find someone to do your job while you are gone. This is often a near-impossible task (and indeed, without a great amount of notice, requests for leave are not uncommonly denied), so periods of leave are few and far between.

+1. Now I know you do the same job as me GSG!

The ACT legislative Assembly only sits for 15 weeks this year. If my employer paid my current salary to only work for 15 weeks/year then I would take more leave.

Typical out of touch politicians… bunch of retarded monkey’s – the lot of them…

gun street girl6:47 pm 25 Jul 09

Clown Killer said :

For some, taking leave isn’t so easy – it entails having management find someone to do your job while you are gone. This is often a near-impossible task (and indeed, without a great amount of notice, requests for leave are not uncommonly denied), so periods of leave are few and far between.

When I read that I just shudder. In my business we’ve never denied an employee leave – whenever they’ve wanted to take it. I look at it as an investment my business makes in the quality of people we have working with us.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Dear Overlord – thank you for your kind suggestion that I should take my holidays at your command. Unfortunately I must decline at this point in time due to prioir committments.

Kind regards

The unwashed masses

In my organisation you are not allowed to accrue leave past a certain amount. If you do you can be ‘sent’ on leave to reduce your balance to below the maximum accepted level (that being said you can accrue it above the max level for a particular reason if the job is kept in the loop).

Live to work, work to live….I know which part I am

it’s a cultural thing most aussies over the age of 30 don’t take all their holidays. A guy I know who works for a big IT company says they are required to take all their leave every year. Apparently the staff don’t like it.

Barr, I cannot afford $170 per night on a decent hotel.

Clown Killer5:29 pm 25 Jul 09

For some, taking leave isn’t so easy – it entails having management find someone to do your job while you are gone. This is often a near-impossible task (and indeed, without a great amount of notice, requests for leave are not uncommonly denied), so periods of leave are few and far between.

When I read that I just shudder. In my business we’ve never denied an employee leave – whenever they’ve wanted to take it. I look at it as an investment my business makes in the quality of people we have working with us.

gun street girl5:11 pm 25 Jul 09

Trunking symbols said :

I can’t understand this. When I was working I used to count the days till the end of the year when I gained more leave. All my rec leave was usually taken by the end of January. Why anybody would want to keep working and not take leave is beyond me.

For some, taking leave isn’t so easy – it entails having management find someone to do your job while you are gone. This is often a near-impossible task (and indeed, without a great amount of notice, requests for leave are not uncommonly denied), so periods of leave are few and far between.

Sounds like Barr is reading Stanhope’s book on how to stay in touch with your electorate…

I’d say that the tourism lobby have gotten to him.

Trunking symbols4:35 pm 25 Jul 09

I can’t understand this. When I was working I used to count the days till the end of the year when I gained more leave. All my rec leave was usually taken by the end of January. Why anybody would want to keep working and not take leave is beyond me.

Who gets paid enough to take themselves on a paid for holiday at will anyway? Maybe if the hoteliers didn’t charge like a wounded bull people would use them more often.

If I take leave I very rarely spend any money on hotels. I already own a tent.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.