BS: The shearing's not for you

Subject: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:33 PM

I heard on the radio that the latest Home Office (UK) clampdown on work permits will prevent the usual influx of New Zealand sheep shearers this summer - so the poor unshorn sheep face the prospect of parasites breeding in their wool and then eating them alive.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:35 PM

Yes I heard that too, we need to start a Lonely Hearts column for the poor sheep, who will be missing their favourite Kiwi this year,
G

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:41 PM

No Giok, we probably need to start a petion on the number 10 website? Ewe know it makes sense...

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:42 PM

Comments like that need to be rammed home!

Colyn.

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 04:03 AM

We'll have to train our own sheep shearers and help to bring down the unemployment figures.

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Michael
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 04:03 AM

So no Kiwis coming to fleece us this year then?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 04:13 AM

Guess that means we'll be seeing more of them working as bar staff in the cities then... seemed like once upon a time every barman in Camden was an Aussie or a Kiwi.

Kiwis make great bar staff, they always manage to get the last olive out of the jar.

LTS



























Think beaks.

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 04:43 AM

So they'll be alot of you drowning your sorrows in woolite

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 07:45 AM

These commenst should be baaaaaahed.

:D

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: leeneia
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 10:44 AM

"...so the poor unshorn sheep face the prospect of parasites breeding in their wool and then eating them alive."

Don't let the media get you all upset until you know the entire story, Herga Kitty. For example, is actually meant by "clamp down"? It could be something as simple as weeding out men with criminal records or men who are using sheep-shearing as a way to escape from the law or financial responsibility.

(Can you really picture the entire wool production going down the tubes for want of shearers? Can you picture the farmers putting up with that?)

Beware of people (either newspeople, Internet posters or personal acquaintances) who get a sick feeling of power by getting other people upset.

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:37 PM

men with criminal records or men who are using sheep-shearing as a way to escape from the law or financial responsibility.

I always got the impression those kind of blokes were key members of the shearing fraternity Down Under... The Frontier Tradition.

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Fergie
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 07:09 AM

The Bantry Girls' Lament

Oh! who will plough the fields now and who will reap the corn
And who will wash the sheep now and keep them neatly shorn
The stack that's in the haggard, unthreshed it will remain
Since Johnny went a-threshing all in the wars of Spain

The thread brought it to mind
Fergus

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Crane Driver
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 11:44 AM

I gather the problem is that the UK government actually wants Kiwis (and others) who come over to work as shearers to start paying tax and national insurance on their wages - and they're threatening not to come over as a result. Talks - as they say - are ongoing. I do not know enough of the economics of the business to say who, if anyone, is being unreasonable.

Please, don't enlighten me.

Shearing is a highly specialised trade, but the season for it in any one country is short. I guess it's not feasible to train as a shearer to work just a few weeks out of the year. That's why Kiwi shearers come here in their winter. I guess UK shearers don't go to New Zealand in OUR winter - maybe they're expected to pay tax there.

There must be a song in this.

Andrew

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 09:59 PM

The hassle with the Tax thing is that the Kiwis have to pay on the money they bring home - and if they have already 'paid UK tax', that really hurts.

Various attempts have been made to do deals between countries about this sort of game, such as 'portable tax credits' - but each govt wants its pound of flesh - the idea that a temporary worker will be able to draw much in the way of benefits (when they have gone home again anyway!) is what is pissing off the kiwis - also workers who have only a few weeks to earn a year's income will get hit really hard on a 'weekly pay tax as you go' arrangement as they get taxed on the 'weekly rate' that assumes they will get that same rate every week - when they do their return, they would be due a huge refund - which they sensibly see that they are not gonna get!!!! This is the same hassle that those on the dole have here - they lose heaps off the dole when they earn anything, and don't end up much better off for short periods of casual work.

Subject: RE: BS: The shearing's not for you
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 04:55 AM

Aah think that the whole thing is lamb-entable!

Aah bet the Deputy Prime Minister, Johnnie 'Two Fleeces' Prescott has gorra hand in this - he's a mutt-on legs!

Aallreet!! Somebody's bringin' me coat!!