Totally agree with Rohan; whilst you might not be performing data entry or preparing journals or even trial balance; the ability to read and interpret financial statements is a skill contemporary managers need.

The foundations of an MBA program is based on analysis with the ability to interpret not only financial data; the ability to interpret economic data and relevant business information is critical. Whilst not every role requires operations management, marketing or finance, you had better believe analysis and accounting is the core of the decision making process.

The sad truth is that Labor has run only one efficient government at the federal level since the Second World War. The Chiefly Labor government failed spectacularly, attempting to nationalise private trading banks with restrictive socialist legislation; the High Court of Australia ruled such legislation invalid. Arrogantly refusing to repeal the law; the incumbent Chiefly government took the issue to the 1949 election losing to Menzies.

Secondly, the Chiefly government attempted to retain wartime controls including price and import controls including rationing of what they determined scarce commodities. Even the communist controlled Miner’s Federation undertook strike action in protest; seven years of national emergency controls was accepted during the war, however, as socialism swept Europe, the lives lost fighting for freedom were not going to be meekly handed over now that the threat of national socialism had been defeated.

The ALP did not return to office until late 1972; after 23 years in the political wilderness, incoming Prime Minister Gough Whitlam rode a wave of popularity and was swept into office with the promise of change. However, his administration was beset by incompetence from the very beginning, dismissed by Governor General Sir John Kerr in 1975, it was a short and tumultuous period ending in economic disaster for Australia.

The Whitlam failure motivated future Labor leaders of the period to demonstrate Labor could run a modern economy competently and professionally. The economic rationalism drive was commenced by Bill Hayden in opposition contrasting the Malcolm Fraser do nothing approach. The reformist legacy was not only continued by Bob Hawke succeeding Hayden just before the1983 election, the program was accelerated under his guidance.

The Labor government headed by Hawke was highly successful in their early years implementing the Campbell report recommendations including floating the currency, reducing tariffs, the prices and incomes accord between the unions, compulsory superannuation and Medicare. The later years saw a deep recession in 1990 and 1991 take some of the gloss off the Labor government, public sector debt was an issue, never addressed seeing the Howard Liberal government return to office in 1996. The Hawke government proved equal to the task, this was the only successful Labor government.

Unlike Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were unabashed admirers of Whitlam and his government’s doubtful legacy. Rudd inherited one of the best-performing economies in the world, making adjustments to the global financial crisis somewhat easier than would otherwise have been the case. Low government debt coupled with strong taxation receipts from the mining sector, an insatiable thirst by China to consume Australian coal and iron ore, agricultural products and a gold price fueled by uncertainty. It was hard to actually bugger it up, but bugger it up they did.

Australia remained one of the strongest performing economies in the Western world. The problem with the Rudd and Gillard governments has turned on the implementation and/or mishandling of a range of policies. Including the carbon pollution reduction scheme, which became the carbon tax, along with the bungled imposition of a mining tax. Then there was the abandonment followed by the restitution of an asylum seeker policy aimed at controlling Australia’s borders.

The focus on the Labor party leadership essentially overlooked Labor’s policy problems; the inability to withstand Coalition critique led by then opposition leader Tony Abbott in late 2009. Julia Gillard’s assassination of Kevin Rudd, still in his first term as Prime Minister did not endure to the majority of voters stating the government had lost its way, the very government she was deputy Prime Minister from the outset. However, her leadership failed to resolve a number of high profile policy failures associated with the mining tax, luring more than 1000 asylum seekers to their deaths; continual government deficits despite announcing budget surpluses were top priority.

The decision to introduce the carbon tax, essentially the Greens party policy was viewed as the cost to stay in government at all costs making a mockery of the Australian voter. We all knew we had been played in a feeble attempt to run a minority government, the personal attacks on the opposition leader were a distraction, the misogamy claims were a desperate attempt to fool the politically illiterate. Tony Abbott himself is having a difficult time selling his government’s policy, despite his lack of personal popularity and the ALP and Greens controlled Senate are opposing his every move; leadership unity and bitter infighting will not bring this government down.

Heading out on holidays and bringing a textbook with me – madness or masterful? Many will argue this is the time to leave the stress behind, yet reading an excellent novel, I will always have in my mind I could be doing something productive.

Well, I suppose it depends on your point of view; this is not the first time, nor will it be the last time for me unfortunately. Where better than to do coursework? Lounging about in the tropics on a deckchair, the sound of waves crashing into the beach and the distractions of home left behind for a week.

I had a mini celebration, organisational behaviour done, now onto the dry subject of business ethics. I was going to be sitting on a deckchair anyway, it might as well be leading to a better future whilst enjoying the present. The deadlines don’t go away just because you are on holiday although I must admit, reading about business ethics did allow me to sleep easily on the deckchair. The sad fact is, for the last year I now hate my job as I have no confidence in the management decisions taking place. Had they taken the time themselves to study subjects of organisational behaviour and ethics, I wouldn’t be needing to study this myself.

I totally disagree with Elizabeth; the very nature of contingency planning is to account for unexpected disruptions. Risk management is now the foundation of prudent business planning, what if sales don’t reach expectations?

What if a competitor launches a new product? What if a natural disaster disrupts a supply chain? You had better have contingency plans in place as a risk management regime instead of flying by the seat of your pants type operation. Military planning has frequently held troops back in reserve, what happens if in a military situation where the platoon or battalion leader is wounded or killed in action?

Is the next in command capable of taking over, it isn’t difficult to step on a land mine or be shot despite your best efforts to keep your head down and watch where you step. What is the chance of key personnel getting sick? The chances of staff being recruited by the opposition is high, can they be replaced? Is a succession plan in place?

It is well documented that Bali is not the destination it used to be, this can be evaluated a number of ways. Bali is no longer the cheap holiday location it once was – true. In many ways, Bali has improved, it is now longer the open sewer it once was according to some. As a Bali holiday gets more expensive, what are the choices? Just take it or seek alternate sites elsewhere?

The Master in Management (MiM) employment report for 2014 doesn’t make great reading from an Australasian perspective. Just 1% of London Business School MiM graduates from 2014 headed to Australasia; Asia offered better prospects to graduates indicating the carnage of the Australian job’s market hasn’t yet bottomed with plenty of downside ahead.

One could argue the United States job’s market is poor too; however, capacity is filled by MBA graduates from the multitude of US business schools. This would appear to be less so in Australia with London Business School graduates likely to be well received south of the equator.

The dive business is a low margin, capital intensive lifestyle industry. Whilst the experiences in life can be great, the social costs however can be enormous too, it isn’t well paid – that is for sure. I chose to work in the recreational dive industry after completing a four-year technical apprenticeship after working ten years in my technical area of expertise. I was due for a break after working on average eighty seven hours per week – the recreational dive industry suited my personal goals at the time.

I went travelling and gained employment as a divemaster, dive instructor and dive centre manager. When I returned home, I maintained employment in the dive industry. The pay wasn’t great, the hours long but I was enjoying life again and I could afford to live a life of poverty. So who actually makes money out of the diving industry?

The certification agencies are rolling in money, they sell training materials, dive centre licencing, instructor trainer (course director) training courses, instructor evaluations, insurance, dive centre support materials, promotional materials There is even discussion of private equity firms buying into the larger certification agencies.

The dive equipment manufacturers are making huge profits, they support wholesalers, technical representatives, sales staff, logistical staff and a layer of management. I know this from personal experience, honesty and integrity don’t rate highly in their vocabulary. The dive equipment manufacturers and wholesalers strongly dictate terms to the retailers, with pricing policy, product lines, availability of inventory and refusal of service. Price fixing, cartels and non-competitive practices are outlawed yet dive equipment manufacturers engage in such illegal activity.

Annoyed with having to pay a yearly subscription to Microsoft, I have decided to forgo MS Office and seek alternative software for my computer. So I decided to start using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings and My Maps as my software of choice on home computers.

All in all, this is a pretty simple suite of office products and while you need an internet connection to use the product, I hope the future is an online download and a program for use on any computer. My preference is the ability to access my working documents from any computer terminal without having to plug in drives and USB connections.

I was hoping 2015 is going to look up after a very tight 2014. Whilst a 3% increase is an increase and not a decrease, the MBA employment market is tight. Newspapers and websites are not yet reporting increases in job ads, hopefully over the worst of it is over by December. Yet I am feeling 2016 won’t be much better in terms of employment as the market is now saturated by retrenched workers.

Once upon a time, there wasn’t much in the way of deep diver training, so was it worth doing a PADI deep diver course? Even back a long time ago, the answer is no, the question may well be, how far back? Maybe the 1970s, I doubt the 1980s and definitely not the 1990s and beyond, there were much better courses around by then.

Did you learn new equipment configurations? No.

Did you follow customised dive tables? No.

Learn decompression software maybe? No.

Did you learn to perform in-water decompression stops? No.

You don’t even require extended safety stops.

Learnt gas planning such as rule of thirds, turn pressures, respiratory minute volume, surface air consumption? No.

What about physiological aspects of deep diving; topics such as hypercapnia, nitrogen narcosis, blood perfusion or gas diffusion? No.

Decompression theory and on-gassing, off-gassing, m-values and the half-time concept. Learn how to identify decompression sickness and treatment for suspected decompression sickness. No.

So you used standard scuba equipment, learnt no new procedures, stayed within no-decompression limits, learnt no advanced dive theory or the use of decompression tables and/or software – ouch.

Keeping in mind PADI treats any dive deeper than 18 metres as a deep dive, you may be left feeling that this deep diving course lacks substance. You can even use the deep dive from the advanced open water course as a credit so your four dive course has now been reduced to three dives – exactly what you need to learn deep diving.

I never saw much value in going down to the bottom, kneeling down and looking at colour changes at depth and performing a timed task that you already did on the surface. The answer is a resounding no, better to take a course from Technical Diving International, a competing dive certification agency and their Intro to Tech course.