Hell in houndstooth heaven

 

Ragtrader founder and columnist Fraser McEwing offers a controversial take on the legal drama surrounding department store David Jones and a former employee.

Everybody’s having a go at the David Jones sexual harassment case so why not me?

Well, one reason is that the damn thing is moving so quickly that this publication’s lead time could indirectly make me look mashugga, or worse.

Another is that if I was Kristy Fraser-Kirk’s brother I’d be Fraser Fraser-Kirk, which would be too much to handle when it came to introducing myself.

But, I must admit, I just can’t keep my hands off Kristy. I’ve got to speak up for the brotherhood since the sisterhood is pelting metaphorical tomatoes, not only at Mark McInnes but at all men whose actions can be somehow interpreted as sexual harassment, which may include looking at a woman’s big toe poking through a sandal or saying good morning with the wrong verbal inflection.

I’m not trying to justify what the hapless Mark did – although those who have done worse probably make up the majority of the male population. What I am suggesting are some reasonable solutions.

The most obvious one is that David Jones becomes a single-sex employer. It can be all women or all men, but no mixing. This would prevent any of the events under current scrutiny taking place. There might be the odd gay incident but it would be unlikely to fetch up law suits worth $37 million.

If the current mixed workforce must persist, then all interactions between men and women should be in the presence of a sexual harassment-spotting officer (SHSO), qualified to identify gender transgressions and empowered to issue on-the- spot fines for the few matters not serious enough to be taken to court.

If this barely salacious case succeeds, Mark stands to lose his $2 million of cheerio money. There’s a reasonable way for him to handle that, too. He sues Alannah Hill for verbal advances, wins, and passes the loot across to Kristy.

I would remind Kristy that all living creatures have been handling unsolicited amorous advances since jellyfish were the most advanced thinkers on the planet. Do we really need hair-trigger appeals to the cops and the courts when a firm, private word nearly always fixes the problem?  

How to make a million

Even though there is now only a measly 10 per cent import duty on clothing made in China, some importers can’t help squeezing the system a bit harder to dodge some duty.

The trick is to ask your Chinese factory to invoice 80 per cent of the cost of each shipment as though it were the total cost of the goods. The balance is paid to the supplier as commission or service fees or any other imaginary cost which does not
attract duty.

Now, a saving of 10 per cent of 20 per cent doesn’t sound worth doing, except when you get into big numbers. Let us suppose an importer is bringing in $50 million worth of garments a year. Duty on that should be $5 million but, in fact, the buyer is only parting with $4m, thus generating a million-dollar saving.

The scheme would have been more lucrative last year when duty was 17.5 per cent but still probably be worth doing at 10 per cent.

Am I talking hypothetically here? No, it’s happening. Now, whether Customs is really interested in chasing this elusive scam is a moot point. It would be a tedious exercise and involve a lot of expensive sniffing and a lot of dead ends. The most likely way for an importer to get sprung would be through a whistleblower. Who might blow us a whistle? That’s interesting.

A Group of Groups

You may have read elsewhere in Ragtrader a story I wrote about Apparel Group Australia. No doubt this name was partly chosen to express anonymity, since the company used to only design and produce for customers’ brands but didn’t have one of its own until 2000 when it bought Sportscraft.

Now Sportscraft and Saba are the pennants that flutter above the company as it goes into battle.

Meanwhile, back in Google land, one could be forgiven for becoming confused with the name Apparel Group.

A search will reveal the Retail Apparel Group (RAG for short and incorporating the Tarocash brand); the Salt Apparel Group (no prize for guessing it deals in swimwear); the corporate Apparel Group (which concentrates on menswear); Resort Apparel Group (swimwear again); Blackstone Apparel Group (assorted clobber from Victoria) and United Apparel Group (bridal and christening dunk-wear).

That’s only in Australia. The US has spawned an impressive lot of its own.

One way out of the name confusion would be for John Marshall and Andrew Michael to buy up all the Australian lesser lights and form a big new company called the Apparel Group Group.