Where does the money go?

 

Sitting on Jimbaran Beach in Bali you can see the big planes fly in from all over the affluent world. There was at least one every half hour when I was on that beach for the day, not so long ago. The ocean and the surrounding terrain, were almost shouting in golden light. I had the obligatory beach manicure and a group of musicians came up and sang “you are so beautiful” to me, as I finished off my grilled sea food. As my companion was telling me off for paying the five-piece band ten dollars, another plane seemed to float down onto the nearby runway like a giant bird. People were coming to take a well-earned rest in the island paradise – a cliché, but it’s hard to bother coming up with anything else in this gorgeous, magical part of Indonesia.

This morning, at home in Australia, I’m reading the latest on a disagreement between the Bali wage council and the unions on the minimum wage for workers in Indonesia. According to the Bali Daily, the Bali Wage Council has set the minimum wage at 1.4 million Rp (about $130 AUD) and is now waiting for approval from the governor. The Independent workers Federation wants it to be raised to 1.7 to 2.1 million ($160 – 200 AUD).

Something doesn’t sit right--negotiations over $70 per worker per month going on while these huge planes arrive, from the bellies of which emerge millions of tourists every year. They will spend more than $70  per day on having drinks and seafood served up to them, luxuriating in spas and shopping for fake or real designer clothes, and locally crafted jewellery. Where does all the tourism money go?  We Aussies with our sunburn, pot bellies, thongs and Bintang t-shirts are an odd-looking global aristocracy, haggling over goods in the markets and shops of Kuta. I don’t know what the answer is, or even the question sometimes, but reading this Bali Daily report this morning as I think about my upcoming Christmas trip to Bali, my toast isn’t going down as well as usual. In the great land of the fair go are we becoming anesthetised to global inequity?