The following was written by someone I know in a closed environment under the guise of what had pissed them off today, and to be honest it pisses me off too and touches on an earlier comment of mine about how actual Australians are becoming a second class to non citizens.

I expect and hold dear the values of our nation, to give people a fair go, stand by your mates and support those that can’t support themselves but I despise and loathe Government policy that would take advantage of our good nature and trade on the fact we will just cop it on the chin.  We are far to apathetic, living in an idiocracy.

On the 18th of August 1966 at Long Tan, Vietnam, D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, mainly made up of Australian National Servicemen and at that time located to support the American Army, fought a battle against the Viet Cong.

In this action D Company lost 18 men killed and 24 injured. The Viet Cong dead numbered in excess of 245.  The Australian lines were never crossed. The Viet Cong withdrew.

American President Johnson and US Army Staff recognised the achievement by awarding the Unit Citation of Gallantry on 30th May 1968.  The Award was formally accepted by Queen Elizabeth in 13th June 1968.  Prime Minister John Gorton made the formal presentation of this American Citation to the Battalion at Lavarack Barracks, Townsville on 18th August 1968.

On the 31st of March 2010, D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment were belatedly awarded the Australian version of “Unit Citation for Gallantry” (UCG) honouring their extraordinary deeds at Long Tan.

The Government however refused to approve travel payment for the surviving Unit Members or their families, including the families of deceased Unit Members, in order that they be present at the UCG Presentation Ceremony presided over by the Governor General of Australia.

In February 2011 the same Government of Australia footed the Funeral Bill to bury the illegal boat people, who tragically perished on Christmas Island. This included flying surviving family illegals and survivors to and from Sydney and Xmas Island, accommodating them, etc etc, plus a Coach tour of Sydney thrown in.

The Canberra Politburo had waited 45 years to publicly acknowledge the bravery and sacrifice of  these Sons of Australia and then immediately shit on their memory by wetting themselves to appease the feelings of boat illegals forcing entry into our country.

Now we witness what can only be described as attempted political face saving, by this same  Government, sponsoring a TV Documentary, to celebrate our Armed Forces accomplishments at Kapyong, Korea in 1951. This will see our Prime Minister and the entire Priministerial Entourage fly in a RAAF plane to Korea to mark this 60th Anniversary.

What Bloody Hypocrisy!!!

What a Blatant Affront to the feelings of our Nation’s serving Armed Forces, Past and Present.

Back in 2010 I wrote  a small tidbit about Refugee’s and the myth of outrageous benefits being applied to them over and above our other welfare recipients.

As someone who dearly believes we as a nation have a social contract to look after those that cannot look after themselves while that state exists I have no desire to turn my back on refugee’s or the systems to look after and manage them.

Recently on the 25th of November 2011, our Immigration Minister Chris Bowen with the direct support of Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a policy shift to onshore community detention by way of granting bridging visa’s to irregular maritime arrivals (IMA) known commonly as boat people or asylum seekers.

This shift is the next stage in the legislative impasse between the opposition and the government , with the greens thrown in for added flavour.  I really dislike the issue of welfare being turned into a political basket ball game seeing who can score from the three point line and then rebound with a slam dunk.

Immigration policy should never be about point scoring and it should never get to the point where policy is introduced just for political gain.  What distresses me more then anything with this shift is we are now seeing Asylum seekers elevated to a level of support over and above those of our most vulnerable pensioners and low income families.

We have the situation where opposition leader Tony Abbott will never agree to bipartisan support for any type of reform, his and the entire Liberal ethos at the moment is to oppose, oppose, oppose regardless if it is in the interests of Australia or not.  This forces the Government into the arms of awaiting Greens which make untenable and unreasonable demands to get their support which the Government has to bow to in order to get anything done.

We all know what happens when someone has you over a barrel, you invariably get shafted and folks that’s exactly whats happening to us… we are being shafted as we have a weak opposition unwilling to put our needs first.  The Greens control over the Government has given us the Carbon Tax, and now it’s given us Immigration policy that offers no deterrent to irregular arrivals weather it be by air or sea.

Abbott wants Naru back on the cards, Gillard wants Malaysia, Greens want onshore community detention and that’s exactly what we are getting and Gillard is only to happy to face the media time and time again and say to us we have had to take this measures as Abbott won’t work with us, so really it’s his fault we have these people in our community now as parallel off shore processing can’t work without his support.

There is a lot of fear mongering that boarders on racial vilification that I really don’t want to get into, other then to say it plays no part in my dislike of this policy and to be clear I don’t really even have an issue with community detention.

What I have a issue with is these people getting more support then Australian’s receive,  under preexisting arrangements and legislation irregular arrivals only received benefits once a protection visa was granted after they were assessed as being true refugee’s with need of assistance and the level of benefits were the same as any other Australian.

What we have now with these bridging visa’s are groups of people being moved into the community while their status is determined.  They are provided housing, material aid and income support via the Red Cross but fully funded but the Department of Immigration and granted on the basis of ministerial discretion.

In south east Queensland the cost of this housing which is fully paid for by us the tax payer is on average $383 a week, with phone and electricity connections being covered as well.  That in itself is more then any Australian can hope to get from the Government in terms of housing support.  What’s more these rental properties are not housing commission dwellings these are private rentals.  This eclipses the support of rent assistance or even the National Affordable Housing Scheme.

Further once a property has been identified, it has to be setup to make it habitable which is reasonable but again it’s more then any Australian in need is provided.  Centrelink doesn’t take our needy down to the Good Guys or Fantastic Furniture to fit our their housing commission dwelling.

The average home starter package as provided by the Red Cross paid for by us the taxpayers runs at about $10,000 and includes items such as LCD Digital Televisions (our pensioners had to make do with a set top box), washing machines, bed suites, and lounges.  It also includes a hamper with essential home items like cleaning goods and groceries valued at $750.

This is all based on a family or grouping of 5 people, more people equals more money.  On top of this recipients can petition the Department of Immigration to have items such as bikes, computers, internet access and even iPods considered and granted to them.

89% of the Centrelink special benefit is then provided to individuals as income support which is comparable with Newstart Allowance, but with all other costs already covered such as rent, phone and power this is far an away more then what our Australian needy are left with.

Pretty sure I’ve never heard of any welfare benefit paid by Centrelink to Australians including any of these things.   I believe this is a step too far, if we can’t and won’t do these things for Australian’s in need we shouldn’t be doing it for anyone else either.  Welfare should start at home and be equitable for all those receiving it no matter the political points to be scored.

My other real concern with onshore community based processing of claims is that many asylum seekers often arrive with untreated medical conditions, some quite serious in nature.  Only this week we have seen arrivals at Christmas Island with typhoid fever which can have fatality rates as high as 47%.  We need strong quarantine measures and ensure correct medial examinations occur well before anyone gets out of mandatory detention.  In our agriculture we talk about having strong bio security,  this needs to be no different.

I am greatly disappointed in the Opposition and the Greens for allowing this imbalance to occur.  Since when does being Australian make you a second class citizen to irregular arrivals?

Chris Bowen has already confirmed that the majority of irregular arrivals are now in community detention under these measures.  That’s 1,145 people with more then that already moved through the community and onto protection visa’s.  Since 2010 when Gillard took office at the last election we’ve had 117 boats arrive with 6,897 people on board.  Higher then under Rudd, and with no deterrent in place to stop them only more will arrive till this political point scoring ceases and a real bipartisan solution is found.

It annoys me when Gillard says things like “we are committed to strong protection of our borders“, this has nothing to do with border protection.  This is about doing the right thing, and creating a policy frame work that not only protects asylum seekers but protects every day Australian’s as well while providing adequate levels of support to people as they progress through their changing circumstances.

Today I believe we have gone beyond any reasonable measure of assistance and need to pull it back in line, even for a socialist like me this is hard to justify and I can’t.

Campbell Newman, leader of the Liberal National Party is having a bit of a sook today over flak being thrown his way by Queensland Labour over not declaring his interests in the pecuniary register.

Now strictly speaking he doesn’t have to, he’s not a sitting member of parliament, nor is he the Lord Mayor of Brisbane.  However he would be Premier, and in contesting the seat of Ashgrove at the next election I frankly think the man who would be king should reflect the standards we expect of our elected officials and have an open book policy.

Back in April when Campbell Newman won preselection for the LNP and resigned as Lord Mayor he went on the records saying “We will be open and accountable and plan for the future, not the daily media cycle.”

Open and accountable, well lets look at what he is crying foul over.  As we all know earlier this year South East Queensland was subjected to flooding not seen since January 1974, and it was every bit as bad with the loss of 35 lives and sum $30 billion in damage inflicted.

What should be on the mind of the Lord Mayor and his partner?  Helping Queensland or making a quick buck?  Seems it was the latter, Lisa Newman the wife of Campbell Newman became a director and secretary of Majella Global Technologies which was first registered on the 21st of January 2011 by her brother.

Who just a day earlier had emailed John Bradley, who at the time was the director general f the Department of Environment and Resource Management trying to sell the companies profile in disaster management.

It doesn’t matter that this company didn’t receive any business from the Queensland Government or Brisbane Council, what matters is that Campbell and Lisa Newman thought it was appropriate in January in the midst of this disaster to actively tender for business to profit off the misfortune of the people of Queensland.  This wasn’t some going concern, they deliberately setup this company to take financial advantage of the situation.

Did this interest appear on the Lord Mayor Campbells last declaration to the pecuniary register? no it did not, and it should have, even if Lisa Campbell by then has resigned her position as a director of the campany.

How can Can Do Campbell tell us he will be open and transparent when he refuses to disclose his interests, and while he may not have a legal obligation as such while unelected, surely he has a moral one.

The real problem I think Campbell has here is the heat being placed on his wife Lisa, well Campbell what goes around comes around and you had no qualm throwing fist fulls of mud as Anna Bligh’s husband, Greg Withers back in July.

I’ll chalk this one up to Karma.   Take some rapid set and harden up Can Do!

This probably won’t be a very popular subject nor do I envisage my point of view being popular either however I will try and not let that deter my resolve to say my bit on the matter.

Recently David Hicks has hit the headlines in Queensland again because his new book “My Journey” is up for the premiers literary award and out comes the media of ignorance wanting to shut him down and quieten his voice.  I am reminded at this time of a quote from John F. Kennedy “Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors“, what do we have to fear from this book?  does it go against the establishment so badly that we must silence it?

For myself it’s not weather I agree with what David Hicks did or not, honestly for me it’s not about that, it’s a question of what we did, what Australia did and what we supported.  How can we deem the actions of one individual to be wrong and then deem the actions of our Nation to be right when materially they were the same.

The only thing David Hicks was successfully convicted of was “providing material support for terrorism” and that was in a hostile United States military commission that many internationally still take acceptation to and probably with good reason but that in itself is probably a subject all in it’s own so I won’t go into that.  I have a feeling this will be long winded as it is.

What I do want to go into however is the topic of material support for terrorism, why it troubles me and how I see it pertaining to David Hicks.  My take on David Hicks is the dude’s just not that bright, do I believe he wantonly wanted to go off and support terrorism? no not at all.  I feel he was misguided and impulsive without a good steering influence on his life, seeking a place to belong and latched on to something he thought he could believe in.

David Hicks is portrayed to be a bad bad man, so bad the United Stated had to create retrospective laws to charge him with.  Lets then start at the beginning of Davids terrorist activities according to the United States statement of facts as per his charge sheets.

Albania 1999, David joined the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) after seeing their struggle in a documentary in Japan and decided to travel to Albania to join them where he completed a 4 week military training course.  The United States saw the KLA as a terrorist group until 1998 when it was de-listed and the UK and US opened diplomatic relations with them.  So by the time David Hicks arrived  he was on the right “Team“.

During the months David was with the KLA it transformed  itself into the Kosovo Protection Corps working with NATO and being armed by the United States, in fact the former head of the KLA went on to become the Prime Minister of Kosovo.  After being little more then a tourist David returned home to Australia, at no time did David pick up arms or enter the battlefield in Kosovo.

By this point we can see David temptation for adventure? and wanting to do something that he thought would make a difference no matter how misguided he may be?  David next took interest in East Timor and tried to enlist in the Australian Army but was rejected due to his poor educational levels having left school at the age of 14.  I think this in itself speaks volumes, did David truly grasp where the path he was traveling would take him?

By the end of 1999 David was on the move again and in November traveled to Pakistan to study Islam and take up with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in early 2000.

The LeT has an interesting back story that we will take a look at, firstly though I would take note that the LeT wasn’t listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States until December 26th, 2001 and similarly not by Australia until April 11th, 2003 well after the war on terror commenced and after the attacks of September 11th, 2001 which precipitated it.

Why is that?  How was David Hicks to identify these groups as terrorist if we didn’t?  What indicators where available to say these guys might be on the wrong side?  Maybe it was just for the first time in his life people accepted David.  I wish it was just sloppy intelligence but alas the truth is more sinister then that.  The LeT were an instrument of Pakistan supported by the Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan with close links to the 12th Infantry Division of the Pakistani Army founded to take up arms against India after 1990 as hostilities increased.

It was more then likely with the 12th Infantry Division that David Hicks toured with and mentioned in his letter of August 10, 2000 to his mother that  he had been the guest of the Pakistan Army for two weeks in their war against India having been able to fire hundreds of bullets across the boarder legally.

So the LeT was funded by the ISI, and where did funding for the ISI come from?  Pakistan? no, unfortunately the ISI’s funding came from the United States and Saudi Arabia using Pakistan as an intermediary to launder the funds.  WTF right?  Why would the United States do this?  To answer that we have to go back in time to 1978 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

The United States in a move to weaken Soviet Russia as part of the cold war strategy in 1979 began to fund anti-government militant groups (can you say terrorists) through the ISI.  During the Soviets decade long occupation of Afghanistan from 1978 – 1988 the United States and Saudi Arabia injected in excess of $40 billion to these anti-government militant groups under the banner of Mujahideen including what would go on to become the LeT, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda.  By 1987 over 65,000 tons of United States munitions per year was being handed over to the likes of Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Omar who went on to be the founder of the Taliban by the ISI.  While the United States provided the funding and weapons through operation cyclone, the training of the groups was carried out by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI.

Osama bin Laden was a close ally of Hamid Gul, who was a three star general in the Pakistani Army and also the head of the ISI.  During the Mujahideen bin Laden was a key player in the arranging of training camps and the funneling of war assets into Afghanistan.

Anyone watch the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” staring Tom Hanks?  Cause it’s entirely about this very subject, hell they are so proud of it they made a Hollywood movie.  Tell me again who is guilty of providing material support to terrorists?

So when we talk about the LeT it’s impossible to ignore the links to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as they all had the same father Uncle Sam and shared the same up bringing.  David Hicks has always maintained he hadn’t heard of the term Al-Qaeda until after his capture and I am inclined to believe him since our very own highly educated Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) didn’t see fit to mention Al-Qaeda in any of their annual reports to the government prior to 2001-2002 as an external threat.

They just simply weren’t on the radar, and the United States while knowing exactly who and what they were didn’t want to bring too much focus on their would be children.  To this day it is believed that Pakistan still support the LeT via the ISI even though officially after the attacks of September 11, 2001 they too declared them an illegal terrorist group.

In January 2001 when David Hicks was funded by the LeT and introduced to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Taliban was seen by Australia as the de facto legal government of Afghanistan going so far as having diplomatic recognition for the state.  Indeed after the twin towers attacks the United States made diplomatic demands of the Taliban to hand over the leaders of Al-Qaeda or face attack.  It wasn’t till after this ultimatum was refused by the Taliban on September 21, 2001 that the Taliban government was deemed in need of removal by the international community and a United Nations resolution passed.

When David Hicks moved from Pakistan to Afghanistan, he was moving from the legal army of one nation to another.   David can’t speak the language,  nor has a grasp of international relations or politics so his grasp on what was going on around him would have been limited at best.  Between 1996 and 2001 Al-Qaeda was a state within the Taliban state, most of the camps used by the Taliban were setup by bin Laden as part of the Mujahideen so it’s of little surprise that David Hicks found himself in a training camp with links to Al-Qaeda after all many a CIA agent had used and visited these same camps, hell even the odd US Senator did.

On September 9th, 2001 David had left Afghanistan and returned to Pakistan to visit a friend it was during this visit he saw the coverage of the twin towers attacks on the 11th and frankly I think David shit himself.  He immediately returned to Afghanistan to retrieve his passport which he had handed over to the Taliban when he arrived in January so he could go home.

I am of the opinion things quickly escalated around David and he was caught in a tide hard to swim against.  Much is made of the fact he was given an AK-47 and choose to go to the Airport to guard a Taliban tank for all of two hours.  For starters everyone over there carried an AK-47 even farmers and if I was looking to get home being at the airport rather then in the mountains would seem a pretty good bet to me.  Seriously he guarded a tank for two hours, maybe he was keeping up appearances?  I don’t think I’d want to stand up in the middle of the Taliban and say hey um guys thanks but if it’s all the same to you I will go home with the good guys now.  He’d probably be shot on the spot as an infidel.

We know that between September 11th and his capture on December 9th David did not fire a single shot, was not involved in any action against Australia or her allies in fact David spend most of the time on the lamb hiding trying to work out how to extradite himself from this mess.  His final act was to sell the assets he had ie his AK-47 to catch a Taxi back to Pakistan to try and escape, when David was captured he was unarmed no where near the fighting and was looking to go home.

When David was sold to the United States he was declared an enemy combatant, which is a historical term referring to members of the armed forces with which another state is at war.  What followed is a legal travesty and a insult to every Australians basic human rights, David Hicks was held without charge from 2001 till 2004 and even then the charges laid against him where deemed to be unconstitutional by the United States supreme court and reversed.  It wasn’t until 2007 that new revised charged were filed.   That’s more then 5 years without facing legal justice.

The Geneva convention lists a prisoner of war as a legal combatant of which the main provision makes it illegal to torture prisoners and applies from the moment of capture to the time they are released or repatriated.  When looking at the definition of a legal privileged combatant under the convention it states they are members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government.

So David was by the United States statement of facts defending a Taliban tank who were the de facto government of Afghanistan, this would make him a privileged combatant under to Geneva convention to which Australia and the United States are signatories.

David has claimed many a time he was tortured and signed his charge sheet under duress, I’d say 5 years locked in a hole is duress wouldn’t you?

George W. Bush stated in 2009 “This Government does not torture people.  I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world.  The United States does not torture.  It’s against our laws and it’s against our values.  I have not authorised it and I will not authorise it.”

So torture is illegal, that makes it a crime and crimes are punishable right?  But it’s okay cause the United States doesn’t do it right?

George W. Bush affirmed in his 2010 memoirs “Decision Points”  that he told CIA officials that they could torture terrorism suspects and that he would do it again.  President Barrack Obama in a press conference to mark his first 100 days in office made an unequivocal statement “I believe that waterboarding was torture and, whatever the legal rationals were used, it was a mistake.”

President Obama went on further to say “I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British, during world war two, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees.  And Churchill said ‘we don’t torture’, when all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.  And the reason was that Churchill understood you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people.  It corrodes the character of a country.”

Given that David Hicks is not the only person nor the only Australian to claim to have been tortured in Cuba at the hands of the United States and given that George W. Bush admits it was happening I think it’s a fair bet to say it happened to David and that it was not only illegal, immoral but also wrong.

If you were kept in those conditions, under that treatment for that long you too might be willing to say or sign anything to get out.

On August 2nd, 2005 former Prime Minister John Howard rejected the possibility of David Hicks being tried in Australia as there were no laws covering his alleged offenses at the time.

David Hicks broke no Australian laws, was tortured, held without charge for more then five years and yet we want to silence him from telling his story?  Sorry however misguided he is I want to hear it.  Do we really want an Australia that is okay with it’s people being treated in this manner by those that would call us friend?

When do we as a Nation, as a group of Nations stop, stand up and take note of the mistakes we’ve made and decide to stop repeating them.  Even now in Libya we support a movement exactly the same as the Mujahideen with CIA operatives on the ground Libya supporting NATO’s air strikes, and well as the rebel leadership.

The United Kingdom has ordered the elite 22nd SAS Regiment to render assistance to rebels in the manhunt for Muammar Gaddafi, whom a bounty of $1.6 million has been placed dead or alive… really is this right?  is this what we stand for?  The crack troops have donned Arab clothing and carry the same types of weapons as the rebel fighters in a bid to blend in.

Explain to me how this behavior is any different to what David Hicks did, except David was an uneducated fool and we as Nations should know better.

When I think about the charge of “providing material support for terrorism” I can’t help remember the billions of dollars injected into Al-Qaeda and the Taliban along with the weapons to wage war.  The Training Australia and the United States have long provided to Pakistan who then trained these terrorist under another name.

Who taught the Taliban to make improvised explosive devices? Where did the funds come from to train Al-Qaeda to fly air liners?  It wasn’t the Soviets cause they were the enemy… lets face facts and be honest for once and drop the spin.  We did it, the West we taught these people how to kill us and we gave them the money to do it.  If any one is guilty of supporting terrorism it’s all of us through our fear and past actions.

It will keep happening till we learn as a society that we can’t force political change on others, it needs to be an evolution not a revolution and that it’s differences that make the world an interesting place just cause we don’t agree with someone and we have the might it doesn’t make it right to set out to destroy them and install our own vision of that the world should look like.

What have we achieved?  I see David Hicks as a victim of  himself, his environment our society that says it alright to do these things.  He may have been wrong, he may well be guilty, but since when do two wrongs make a right?  I don’t want my children learning the ends justify the means, there has to be a line in the sand you won’t cross because it’s the wrong thing to do because we as a people are unwilling to sacrifice our ideals and principals.

I used to see us, Australia, the Commonwealth as being on the side of right even in the face of uncertainly and over whelming odds.. that’s the Anzac legend that’s who we are meant be, we’re meant to stand up for those that can’t stand up for themselves.  Instead I feel like we have been led into the dark, jumping at our own shadows because someone is different, we are turning into a bully taking kids lunch money in the form of oil fields.

I wonder what Weary Dunlop would say, I think we could use a lighthouse of sanity in a universe of madness and suffering once more.

It’s hard not to hear or read about Gerry Harvey and consumers talking about the downfall of the Australian retail sector and watch them speculate on the causes and how to fix it recently given the media coverage it’s currently getting.

I will agree that at the core of this is people are buying online, but what I disagree with is the reasons people buy online.  Gerry Harvey would have us believe it’s all about price and that online sales don’t attract the GST, sorry Gerry that’s not it at all.

The simple fact is the retail sector gives us consumers very little reason to buy from them, seriously what do they offer us?  A store like Harvey Norman wacks a minimum 30% GP on everything they sell and then some but in return what do they provide me the consumer?  I have never once walked into a Harvey Norman and been in awe of the depth of knowledge of the sales staff, or made to feel important and that they were there to help… in fact I’ve been made to feel the very opposite.

So given the option of buying from Mr Harvey at an added 30% markup or online I think I will go online as at the end of the day they are both just a place to get something.

In times past when things weren’t so tight consumers where more willing to pay that extra 30% despite a fundamental lack of service or value add because they wanted it now, right now not later it was shiny and we all like shiny things and you could take it home and play with it that very day.  Of course that was a luxury of good times, and now times aren’t so hot so even the well off are more conscientious about how and when they spend their hard earned so now people are willing to wait for the post to arrive to get their shiny new goods in order to less, a lot less.

The only way for the Australian retail sector to combat this is with good honest to god service and a willingness to go the extra mile and make it easier for consumers to do business with them.  This means know more about the products which it sells then the consumer buying them.  Far too often I am educating the person whom is supposed to be selling the goods I am interested in, or they spend an hour on the phone scrambling to find answers to a common question about the product.

So number one product knowledge is king, it makes consumers confident.  Be honest, if a product is not right for the consumer’s needs say so and offer alternatives but be genuine about it that is to say don’t simply steer the consumer at another product simply because that’s what you sell be up front about your motives as consumers are like elephants ie they have long memories.

Retail is all about relationships, you treat consumers right and they will invariably treat you right if you give them a reason to.  Sure today you might not get the margin you want or you might lose a sale by giving them the right feedback, but they remember this and on the next purchase and the one after that you will make it back in spades let me assure you.

Now thirdly and a bit more on topic for the title of this entry is about price and the internet.  I hear retailers lament about the internet and the trouble it cause them as consumers come in to tire kick and then buy online at a cheaper price once they have pawed the retailers wares.  To be honest I know this happens quite a lot and I really don’t understand why as a consumer you’d do this, people you have it back to front.

If you know you want a product or have need of a product, research it online that’s why god gave as google.  Learn as much as you need to make an informed choice about what you want, and then start hunting prices.  Get a median average online cost, make sure you are realistic and include freight.  I always try to get pricing from Australian online retailers as well as over seas.

Now you are in a position of power, you are armed with knowledge, you have a price in mind that you should be paying it’s time to go talk to the local retailers.  Often with retailers you get one bite at this so make it count be ready to do the deal, do not waste your time or theirs testing the water.  You’ve done your research you know what a good buy is, you set the price you want to pay.

Here is my hard and fast rule if they will not negotiate on price just walk away, I have been known to ring their direct competitor for directions to their store in front of them as it sends the point home for them.

Don’t buy this “oh we can only price match another quote” get real, come on retailers this is the most absurd policy I have ever heard.  What school of business did you go to that told you sending a consumer that’s standing in front of you wanting to do a deal to your competitor was a smart move?  Hello are you insane?  Given the local climate you never ever want to expose your customer to another avenue of business.  Hell if I can get a better price from your competitor why would I deal with you again?

Now I will admit at this point some gamesmanship comes into play, often I will say to a salesmen mate is that the best you can do and they will go um let me see and say X and I will go hmm you know what X sounds better to me… they will give me a line about oh we can’t do it for that, that’s too cheap… next thing I say is oh well pretty sure I can get it from Fred at X store for that but since I always shop here I thought I’d buy it from you, hey I thought you wouldn’t be beaten on price.  This invariably leads to them talking to their manager, who will come over and say wow that’s a great price.

This is the moment to seal the deal, you again state you want to pay X for the item, and you want to pay for it now and do the deal… fast transactions are a wonderful thing to a retailer and the smart ones know that once they have built a rapport with you that you will keep coming back so over time they will always make out better then letting you walk away.

Being willing to play the salesmen yourself will give you the result you want every time I promise, you get the price you want to pay, you get the shiny right there and then and you support your local retailer.

Be mindful though, I reward good businesses, if a retailer treats me right and provides a good level of service I am more then willing to pay a premium for it.  Price is NOT everything, but in the absence of service or a value add unfortunately a good 90% of retailers reduce themselves to just that.

I am quite a loyal customer, if they do the right thing by me I will do the right thing by them, but I will never be taken for a ride… next time you feel the urge to buy something online please give your local retailer a change, even if you have to educate them a bit about this process, I promise you time and time again it’s worth it and you can create lasting relationships that mean you don’t have to go through the routine repeadly.

My last piece of advice is simple, use peoples names, read their name tag and use it… make it a human transactions not a financial one.