I love creative writing and I feel I find topics to write about when I am sitting on a plane either heading to work or off on holiday.

Now I am back working on a mine site I find myself short of topics to write about, then when I am sitting in the business lounge ideas seem to flow. I get up at 4 am and despite going to bed early, I seem unable to write, I feel mentally drained. Before I returned to the mining industry I had an energy to write; ideas flowed easily. Now, by the time I arrive home, I am exhausted both physically and mentally and have trouble coming up with ideas – writer’s block so to speak. Sitting in the rear section of the aircraft way back in economy class, I easily find topics to write about again, I have my tablet out and I am able to put my thoughts into the notepad ready to transfer into my blog when I come online again.

When I think of a business partnership that can deliver value, I think of illy and Nespresso. Both are coffee suppliers and in competition with each other, but really in differing key markets.

Firstly, illy is a supplier of coffee beans to reputable cafes, their branding is well known and sought after. Also, illy coffee is able to be purchased by the container and consumed in your home coffee maker. This would boost the exposure of illy in key consumer markets and tie the product to a reputable distributor with scale and coverage. Living in Perth, I really lack the opportunity to purchase illy coffee from a reliable source. On my trips to South East Asia, I have better opportunities to drink illy espresso than I do in Perth.

I can purchase illy beans from my local supermarket; however, I have long retired my Delonghi coffee machine for the convenience of Nespresso pods. They have a reasonable selection along with a reliable coffee machine without the hassle of disposing of coffee grounds. Now, I just wait for the announcement of illy teaming up with Nespresso. Nespresso comes up with Limited Editions on a constant basis, an illy Limited Edition would be a pretty decent combination and a unique sales promotion.

Diving in 28C water, is a wetsuit really required? If we talk about exposure protection, now there is a different requirement. I was diving in the tropics in really warm water, my 75 minute dive wasn’t going to see me get cold, but what about skin protection? To my detriment, I never took that into account. I was diving around a pier with a little bit of current around, not a great deal but enough to make you think about it. If you are not thinking about what you are doing in regards to positioning, it is pretty easy to be washed up against the pier uprights damaging the growth or maybe getting stung, reducing your exposed skin is really important.

As we ascended in the shallows to off-gas on our safety stop, I nearly swam into a stinger, that would have earned me a nice mark on my face. As I broke the surface, it was almost impossible to move through the water without contacting the stingers in the water – they were everywhere. The boat was some distance away and I needed to swim backwards allowing my cylinder and BCD to deflect most of the tentacles away. 

As I only had a set of speedos on, I had plenty of flesh exposed and I was copping stings pretty much all over my body. As I approached the boat as he cruised in, the boat boy was telling me to take my fins off before trying to climb up the ladder. No chance, I dug my heels into the ladder rung to remove the bulk of my body from the water and out of the reach of those electric tentacles.

My usual procedure on these really small boats is to throw my equipment in the water and get in it on the surface for deep water or let it sink to the bottom for shallower water and put it on there. Normally getting out of my equipment underwater on the way to the surface so I can hand it directly to the boat crew is my normal procedure – not today. 

I tried to climb out of the water like it was toxic, for all intent purposes it was for me, I wanted no more exposed skin being touched by these box jellyfish. These stings are not going to cause respiratory shock to throw me into a coma like some box jellyfish are able to – still, these stingers really made me jump so lesson learnt. I might not need a wetsuit to keep warm – the exposure protection it provides is the real key for warm water diving.

I have walked past plenty of Victoria’s Secret retail stores in shopping malls and airports. I didn’t think it was much of a secret, Victoria wore undies and more than likely didn’t get around commando.

When I wandered in, well dragged in, not to my surprise I was the only male in the store. During my brief appearance I found they retailed all sorts of merchandise from fragrances, body lotions, cosmetics, backpacks and handbags. You kind of feel like a pervert in these stores even though I was accompanying a woman. I said already that I was brought in under duress right.

I am a big fan of treating people with respect, it really isn’t a difficult concept to grasp. Why then do so many people have trouble doing exactly that?

What I see is people full of their own importance forgetting about how they got there. We mostly began with menial jobs and worked our way up to more important roles with increased experience and in some cases education. We are all pretty much working class, not that many are born into immense wealth where they don’t need paid employment, some eventually marry into money or receive an inheritance but they are still in the minority.

In Australia, we have an egalitarian society for the best part, to be honest, I care little for the Murdoch family, Packer family or more old money such as the Fairfax family. I can’t say I envy them; sure, their family wealth would be nice but they are far divorced from everyday Australians and I don’t actually mind heading off to work every day.

If the billionaires of Australia can treat people respectfully then I am sure everyday Australians should have no trouble with this concept. With the exception of some, we are all pretty much working class. Whilst some have greater means than others, we all still have to show up for work on Monday morning.

The problems with saving for retirement are inflationary pressures, most people begin work in their 20s and reach retirement age at around 65. For most people, that is around 40 years in the workforce paying tax and contributing to the economy.

If you are saving 10% of your salary from your early years in the workforce then that 10% in 40 odd years time won’t look so attractive. Sure the benefits of compounding start to kick in, that last decade in the workforce is when you need to really dump the maximum funding in your retirement account to benefit.

The real challenge then for governments is to provide the incentive to attract people to save easing the burden on the pension system. The pension is not a right, your tax paid goes to health, transport, defence, utilities and just about every essential service. Governments unfortunately don\’t plan long-term, they follow the three year election cycle of short-term decision-making.

A percentage of your tax paid does not go to a retirement account invested in government services run at a profit for stakeholders. You could pay tax all your life and not qualify for the pension system, you are self-funded until your assets decline in value below the threshold and you may receive a part pension.

The strategy then if you are in a financial position to do so is retire the moment you qualify to self fund and enjoy your early retirement while you are hopefully healthy and active enough to enjoy it. At this point all you have to do is support yourself for 7 years and then draw on the public pension if you so desire. For me, I don’t like that option as I don’t want to rely on a government with an ever increasing welfare burden.

Based on contemporary data, the average lifespan of Australians is 82 for men and 84 for women. Based on this information, the majority of health issues arise at around age 80 so retirees should travel and partake in as many activities early in their retirement as lifestyle and the ability to partake in activities incrementally declines with increasing age.

However, we all know most governments are somewhat reckless with public money. Governments like to spend big to get in favour with voters and when they look like losing power they spend more to bribe the electorate with taxpayers money. Then they needn’t worry about the payments, that will be the problem of the incoming government.

Now that as a nation we have a large pool of retirement savings, the prudent long-term decision would be to encourage current workers (taxpayers) to self fund their retirements through tax incentives. However, how governments really work is to spend big to retain power then tap into the large pool of retirement savings through increased taxes to fund their election promises.

I couldn’t believe it, I was wandering through a major department store in Liege on my way to the toilets on the second floor when I noticed what they had for sale. This is way out of my league, I had to look but I really couldn’t believe it.

This was the children’s clothing floor when I noticed Hugo Boss for babies, my interest was aroused and I then saw Tommy Hilfiger, Timberland, ESprit, United Colors of Benetton and Calvin Klein brands for babies, toddlers and young children too. I didn’t check the prices but I wouldn’t expect this style of clothing to be cheap. Seriously, people have way too much money to waste, yes waste on Hugo Boss clothes on babies and young children. They grow so quickly at that age, why would any reasonable person throw money away in such a manner?

I am checking out the Polo Ralph Lauren branded stores in Ubud, Bali. This is my annual pre-Christmas trip to Bali as I have earned an extra week of paid leave on top of normal entitlements.

I don’t know if they are really genuine or not but the quality of their merchandise is good. So I decided to wander in and check  What I see is a bunch of retail outlets with similar shop fronts, styling and layouts. Even checking their social media links, they all run the same Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds. The cost of a Polo shirt in Bali is outrageous, $120 AUD, they have a 30% sale on bringing the price down to $84 AUD but I still think it is excessive.

There is some room to negotiate on price, there are list price and reduced sale prices. A further discount may be applied for cash but I tend to feel they are fixed and staff don’t have much latitude to discount further than standard rates. The quality is good, but let’s face it, production has been outsourced to Asia for a long time. That being said, what you get with a genuine Polo shirt is quality and I don’t mind handing over a certain premium to genuine retailers.

We had an amazing election result on the weekend insofar as nobody, and I mean nobody picked the result. We had the Liberals trailing in every opinion poll for the past three years with the almost comical Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull show aided by Peter Dutton slipping in and nearly destroying the Liberal party. They tried their best, personal vendetta instead of benefitting the party was the order of the day.

The washout from the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd infighting has been largely forgotten about; however, we all know the chief protagonist was now their leader. The Liberals should have been punished at the polls for the very dysfunction that plagued the Labor party and ruined their government. Even when John Hewson blew the 93 election against the abominable Paul Keating, the Prime Minister we apparently had to have that gave us our last recession. The result was pretty much assured well before polling day – we already knew. Strangely, Keating deposed the popular Bob Hawke that really started the whole notion of swapping PMs.

Abbott was able to win an election, he did so by an amazingly large margin, despite his poor judgement and decision-making, he should have stayed as leader. Turnbull, a more likeable guy was a disaster and never gained traction with the public. Although I didn’t think he was as bad as Abbott, people never took to him and only managed to fall over the line at the next election. It goes to show you don’t need a popular leader to win an election so Shorten’s lack of likeability is not the real cause of this election result.

So how did this come about? Firstly, I believe the two sides have changed supporters, the Liberal party has the aspirational voter and the Labor party attracts the inner city elite. Lawyers and doctor’s wives are more likely to support Labor than a bonafide blue collar worker clutching a trade certificate. Labor now attracts university graduates who follow a specific viewpoint such as climate change. Nobody seems worried about plastics in the ocean, this I believe is a greater threat to humanity with plastic now spotted on the seafloor at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Labor has to stop this big end of town envy, the Liberal party is about small business and entrepreneurship. The uncosted policies were immediately seen through by the voting public, they knew the promises didn’t add up. Scott Morrison on the other hand promised very little, people were more inclined to believe him. The trick is to target the issues that concerns voters, don’t dictate to them but do your research and address their needs.

Blue collar workers such as tradies are the new entrepreneurs, they are mostly non-unionised and setting up as contractors. The public sector is the last bastion of union influence and that won’t change anytime soon. I think people are sick of being dictated to by a perceived left wing media and these so called celebrities, people form their own opinions and this politically correct posturing is driving people away. Who wants to be told how they should vote, how they should think and what causes they should support.

I logged on my computer first thing in the morning, the east coast of Australia was eight hours ahead. Exit polls were still picking a Labor win – as was expected. When I got home from work, Abbott was expected to lose his seat as I expected as GetUp threw huge resources at his electorate. This was poorly targeted funding driven by personal issues instead of winning the election – poorly played.

Whilst they dumped Abbott, they neglected to target the marginal seats that could have got better results. This helped the Liberal party, all this infighting was the result of Abbott and Turnbull and now both of them are gone, I would expect Dutton to now pull his head in now if he had any sense. On the Labor side, Bill Shorten may have stood down as leader but he is still looking for a front bench gig, Tanya Plibersek and Chris Bowen are both architects of this loss with some terrible policy.

Anthony Albanese, better known as Albo is a genuine guy who is the only guy capable of taking on the highly approachable Morrison and he stated he stated he will dump the franking credit debacle if elected leader. With Bill Shorten still hanging around, there won’t be any change in policy or direction and they really need to bring in a whole new team and change direction. Shorten blew what most would perceive as the unlosable election and may be viewed by many as the new Billary.

Hopefully this election loss has defined the issue of franking credits for perpetuity, no future Labor government would ever risk taking this to an election again. However, the Labor party will one day be returned to government, hopefully the Labor party will never try to reintroduce this horrible legislation, they are pretty arrogant and make the same mistakes over and over.

Australians who have worked and saved hard for their retirements were to be disadvantaged. The younger generation who watched their parents work hard and save for their retirements were now taking a major hit. This attitude of wealth redistribution didn’t sit well with them. Whilst the Labor party had envisioned a class war between the have and have nots, it didn’t eventuate because the younger generation related to the baby boomer generation. Then throw the inheritance tax argument into the mix and people were not having a bar of this.

Unfortunately, the Labor party has lost site of their core demographic, they now pander to minority groups who on most occasions aren’t even union members. Unions are organised to represent their members through higher wages and improved conditions, they need to remember who they represent. The arrogance of the Labor party who were so far ahead in the polls was that they believed they could not be defeated. It was inconceivable to them that they could even remotely lose – the best part was they never saw it coming.