Fed: Knock off on time, workers urged

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2004
Fed: Knock off on time, workers urged

By Steve Connolly

BRISBANE, AAP - Go home. Stressed out Australians are spending too much time at work.

The work and family debate, now a major issue on the federal political agenda in this
election year, has been the focus of an international conference this week in Brisbane.

The conference has heard that family life and even the physical well-being of workers
is suffering from people putting too much emphasis on their jobs.

One of the main speakers, Australia Institute senior research fellow Richard Denniss
(Denniss), believes consumer demands and excessive employer expectations are a major threat
to Australian families.

"We see consumerism as posing a very real threat to people's well-being and family
functioning," he said.

Mr Denniss said society seemed to have lost touch with the simple things in life such
as enjoying time with family and friends.

"For centuries people have understood that money didn't buy happiness and they've wondered
what the meaning of life is," he said.

"But in the last 10 years we've seemed to have shrugged our shoulders and said: `I
don't know ... but a pay rise wouldn't be bad'."

Mr Denniss said improved economic growth in Australia was not solving the problems
facing families.

"Both through individual choice and government policy the vast majority of this growth
has been directed towards new consumer demands such as mobile phones that take photographs,
flat screen televisions costing thousands of dollars and larger and larger homes to house
our smaller and smaller families," he said.

Mr Denniss said people believed that they needed to earn high incomes to properly provide
for their families.

"We're not suggesting for a minute that earning more money can't make it easier for
you to meet some of those needs," he said.

"But if what you have to give up to get that higher income is having time to spend
with your family and eating dinner together ... then you're probably doing yourself and
your family a disservice."

Mr Denniss, a one-time chief of staff of former Australian Democrats leader Natasha
Stott Despoja, said Australia needed a national "go home on time day".

"A lot of people have lost touch with the fact that once upon a time they were home
at 5.30 in the afternoon," he said.

"What we've created since we started to de-regulate the labour market was an environment
in which people feel very afraid to actually say `I'm committed to my job but I'm also
committed to my family'."

Mr Denniss said business and political leaders needed to play a part in achieving the
balance between work and leisure time.

"I think it's ironic that conservative political figures such as John Howard who do
so much to talk about the role of the family in bringing up children and in taking responsibility
and creating a good society, are the same people who are creating a workplace culture
which almost prohibits people from having that kind of experience at home because Dad's
working overtime and Mum's working split shifts," he said.

He said in the 20th century working conditions evolved to create more leisure time.

But he said the rise in unemployment in the early 1990s made workers more fearful about
keeping their jobs.

The conference on Globalisation, Families and Work also heard that many young adults
today led unsettled lives and even as they approached 30 were changing jobs, renting,
and were single and childless.

Richard Eckersley, of the Australian National University's centre for epidemiology
and population health, said a Victorian study which followed a group of people who left
school in 1991 found many now had concerns about their health and well-being.

"Maintaining the right balance in life remains a real challenge; life is still a struggle
with uncertainty," he told the conference.

Mr Eckersley said another study had reported that young women in particular felt considerable
stress about money, employment and work.

He said one young woman remarked that if she ever had time on her hands she panicked.

"You get addicted to getting busy," he quoted the woman as saying.

AAP sc/jv/

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