Tyres, safety and compliance

As many of you would have known, Australia is fully of compliance. There is compliance against bullying or discrimination at the workplace and there is also the famous Work, Health & Safety (WHS) regulations which is much more onerous that the version in Malaysia.

The WHS here covers many areas and may even include whether one can change the light bulb at your workplace or whether one needs to buy insurance whenever a tradie comes to your home to repair or fix your house.

Last weekend, I happened to be at a reputable tyre shop to change tyres to my car. As I was in the waiting lounge, waiting for my tyres to be replaced, in came a man with some enquiry which I happen to overhear.

It goes something to the effect that he had a tyre which was either bald or nearly bald i.e. not legally allowed to be on the road, which had a nail embedded in it. He wanted the nail removed and the tyre patched to be either reused or as a spare.

The staff manning the counter at this shop told him that they (the shop) cannot comply with his request due to safety and duty of care, as the tyre itself was no longer road worthy. Hence they are legally not allowed to repair nor allow this tyre to be on the road ever again (even as a spare).

He either had to discard this tyre or get a new one as a replacement, NO repair is allowed.

I cannot imagine this scenario ever happening in Malaysia, but it goes to show the level of compliance and trust built into the system here in Australia.

One can imagine the scenario in Malaysia, where the shop would comply to the customers' request and collect a fee for the work done.

What has happened?

It has been close to five years since we arrived in Sydney. This blog has been dormant for quite some time and I've decided to revive it again, time permitting.

So what has happened so far? Some of the milestones achieved so far include:

a) Changed two employers
b) Completed a Certificate IV Course in Carbon Management when carbon taxes were in the daily news
c) Completed a Graduate Diploma leading to membership with the Governance Institute of Australia
d) Joined millions of Aussies in home ownership with a bank mortgage
e) Bought my first new car with an added mortgage
f) Kids are settled down well and coping reasonable well is school with the elder one in high school

What has so far been the lessons learnt since we moved here:

i) Getting a job is VERY difficult, I know of people who are continuously in temporary positions without reasonable level of certainty in their role
ii) Home ownership is expensive, much more compared to other parts of the world
iii) You need to obtain council approval to cut down trees in your back yard
iv) Sydney is a very expensive city to live, I guess you can't have it both ways as it has one of the highest wage rates in the world (hence also why getting  a job is difficult)
v) The Authorities here are generally more forgiving as they give you the benefit of the doubt and are more trusting (I guess its part of the system here as people are more honest generally)
vi) Many Asian families continue to put pressure on their children similar to the way back in Asia and competition for good schools is keen although less compared to Asia
vii) We still eat Asian cuisine most of the time
viii) People generally change cars and homes frequently
ix) Setting up your own business is easy and selling/ buying businesses are common