The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

..... & where have you gotten to Builder? <nudge, nudge>

& all the rest of you Ozzians! (You know who you are! :wink: )

0 Replies

Well!

I'll be very interested to hear any responses to this!

Hmmmmm .... I don't think this is quite what many workers had expected!:

Last Update: Tuesday, April 17, 2007. 1:28pm (AEST)

Rudd lifts lid on workplace plan

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has unveiled a tough new stance towards strike action under a Labor government.

Mr Rudd has addressed the National Press Club, where he outlined how Labor would overhaul the Government's workplace relations legislation.

He says a Labor government would introduce a mandatory secret ballot for strike action.

"Under our laws, employees will not be able to strike during the term of a collective agreement," he said.

"They will not be able to strike unless there's been genuine good faith bargaining.

"They will not be able to strike in support of an industry-wide agreement and they will not be able to strike unless it has been approved by a mandatory secret ballot."

Mr Rudd says the new stance includes changes to unfair dismissal laws and prevents employers from paying strike pay.

He says Australia cannot return to the industrial culture of earlier times and his policy reflects that.

"The only time industrial action will be legally permitted is if it is taken in pursuit of a collective enterprise agreement during a bargaining period," he said.

"Even then, it will only be protected from legal penalties if it is authorised by the employees, who will be taking that action through a secret ballot supervised by an independent industrial umpire."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1899302.htm

0 Replies

Kevin Rudd's speech to the national press club today. (pdf =17 pages):

http://www.alp.org.au/download/now/070417_sp_npc.pdf

0 Replies

msolga wrote:

...... as I said earlier, vikorr & bungie, my intention was not to cut the discussion on racism short ..... I just wanted to post these latest developments while they are still fresh.

Please do continue where you/we left off if you still have more you'd like to say on the subject. I must say it's a pleasure to be able to discuss issues more, rather than me just posting stuff so much of the time. Great! This is taking some getting used to! :wink:

I have said all I wanted to on the matter msloga, and I think bonzai's IR laws need plenty of airing. As I said in an earlier post, the full effect has not yet been felt by workers. Many thousands are still under award provisions, but when those agreements expire, they can't be reinstated. Work Choices will be in.
I think it's time to apply Work Choices to politicians. They need to sit down with ordinary wage earners and bargain their pay rates and benefits and retirement provisions. Perhaps they should be paid for performance and productivity. ( That should save the taxpayer a fortune)
I intend to sack my politician at the next federal election and I am so glad the unfair dismissal laws won't apply. (tongue in cheek)

0 Replies

Hi Msgola

My sister is here from the States Smile

Quote:

But what if your assessment of the "problem belonging to a group" is flawed or wrong in the first place? Sigh.

There's no problem with it being wrong, for what you say would be from your perspective. If you don't say it and it's not discussed, then you will continue holding the same perspective (possibly) not knowing it's wrong. Being wrong is rather human Smile

Quote:

It's the context and the tone of the discussion that most matters to me. I mean, taking the Cronulla example, I object to the issue being discussed within a negative "them vs us" context, with shock jocks like Jones "leading" the debate (& taking sides). That made any possible rational discussion impossible (for both sides)

Couldn't agree more.

On the subject of IR laws, the articles you posted are pretty much what I thought would happen from the Start. The thing about it is, most of those with the ability to have their voice heard are those that benefit from workchoices.

0 Replies

Rudd's anti-strike laws
I have said in a previous post that Howard unashamedly stands up for people he represents, ie business, farmers etc. He puts in place unfair industrial laws to the detriment of wage earners so as to give greater returns to employers. Mr Rudd needs to be enticing the swinging voter who at present are voting for Howard. Does Mr Rudd think that by pandering to business with tough anti-strike laws that they will vote for him ? Hell will freeze over before a devout liberal will change sides and vice versa. The swinging voter is the key if Mr Rudd wants office, but talking tough about anti-strike laws seems just like more of the Howard camp. When it all boils down, withholding labour is the only power a worker has. The employer has all the power, especially when he doesn't have to justify dismissals.
Most workers I know, feel they have been kicked in the guts by Howard and Co. Mr Rudd needs to be careful or he will be put in the same category. People need to vote for someone they want, not the lesser of two evils.

0 Replies

vikorr wrote:

Hi Msgola

My sister is here from the States

That's really nice, vikorr! Enjoy! Very Happy

May I ask you a personal question? (Ignore it if you choose. That's perfectly OK.)
But you mentioned earlier that you were a "black Australian". So I'm now assuming you're of American decent?

If so, that adds another dimension to your comments (to me, anyway). I guess, if you are a relatively recent migrant, you would be speaking about what's happening here with a knowledge of two different cultures. That's interesting!

I probably have all this wrong & you probably think I'm nosy for asking! Laughing

Having asked you such a personal question, I think I should make my own cultural heritage clear. I'm an off-spring of Eastern European migrants ... refugess who were displaced from their homeland as a result of war. If I sometimes come across rather passionate about the concerns of asylum seekers or migrants, that could explain why! I've lived a bit of that myself, though I'm eternally grateful that my family decided to live here. I love this country. Very Happy

0 Replies

Re: Rudd's anti-strike laws

bungie wrote:

Mr Rudd needs to be enticing the swinging voter who at present are voting for Howard. Does Mr Rudd think that by pandering to business with tough anti-strike laws that they will vote for him ? Hell will freeze over before a devout liberal will change sides and vice versa. The swinging voter is the key if Mr Rudd wants office, but talking tough about anti-strike laws seems just like more of the Howard camp. When it all boils down, withholding labour is the only power a worker has. The employer has all the power, especially when he doesn't have to justify dismissals.
Most workers I know, feel they have been kicked in the guts by Howard and Co. Mr Rudd needs to be careful or he will be put in the same category. People need to vote for someone they want, not the lesser of two evils.

Sigh.

That was pretty much my reaction when I heard media reports of Kevin Rudd's speech yesterday, bungie. I think the right to strike is very important to workers. Hell, it's not as though Oz workers are exactly strike-mad in 2007! Rolling Eyes

But needing a secret ballot?: that's the conservatives' agenda.
But then, I felt quite uneasy & dubious about Rudd's "schools" pronouncements, too. And a few other things, like uranium mining & Alan Jones, as well ... too middle of the road & attempting to appeal to everyone. Or trying to. I was hoping for a real alternative, not a sort of Blair clone. But we'll see ......

Sigh

Hey, it's going to be a very interesting ALP conference (end of this month?), hey? Sad

I do understand that Labor should not have to be locked in, forever, to traditional ALP attitudes, but I was hoping for some clear indication that a Rudd-led government would have a stronger commitment to equity & fairness in this society. Right now it appears that he's trying to be all things to all sides. Wishy-washy.

0 Replies

Rudd defies unions on IR
Steve Lewis, Chief political correspondent
April 18, 2007/the AUSTRALIAN

KEVIN Rudd has stared down the union movement and risked a brawl with the Labor Left after committing the party to placing severe limits on strike action and refusing to fully restore unfair dismissal rights for workers.

In a big shift to the right on industrial relations, the Opposition Leader has backed secret ballots before all strikes and a ban on strike pay.

He has also overridden union objections to imposing a national industrial relations system over the states.

Using his own strong approval rating to drive through change, Mr Rudd yesterday challenged the union movement to embrace a more flexible system for a modern economy. "There can be no going back to the industrial culture of an earlier age," Mr Rudd told the National Press Club in Canberra.

Under Labor's new policy, workers would be prevented from bringing unfair dismissals claims within 12 months of being employed by a company if the firm had fewer than 15 employees.

For companies with more than 15 employers, the no-claims probation period would be six months.

As well as a historic shift for Labor to mandatory secret ballots, workers could not take industrial action except during legal bargaining periods.

There were signs yesterday that the unions, which are pushing Mr Rudd to scrap the Government's Work Choices laws, were prepared to wear the radical changes after 11years of Coalition government.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union boss Doug Cameron, who is seeking Labor Senate endorsement, attacked the changes. "We don't like to see lower capacity for workers to take industrial action," he said.

But ACTU president Sharan Burrow, who had publicly criticised any move to increase probation periods for new workers just a fortnight ago, described the unfair dismissal changes as a "good start".

ACTU secretary Greg Combet said while the compromise was not ideal, it was vastly better than Work Choices. "It's perhaps not ideally what unions would want but it's a long, long way ahead of where the law is now, and for that reason we support it," he said.

Mr Combet has insisted in the past that unfair dismissal laws are a universal right and has objected strongly to secret ballots. ... <cont>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21576778-601,00.html

0 Replies

Whaaaaaaat?
Confused

What the hell is this all about?

Someone, please explain the logic of this deal between Australia & the US ....

Poor bloody refugees, that's all I can say at this point .... Sad

:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,1658,5451796,00.jpg

Refugees 'not washing machines'
April 18, 2007 - 4:57PM/the AGE

Refugee advocates have expressed outrage at a plan to swap asylum seekers intercepted en route to Australia with those detained while trying to enter the United States, describing the scheme as a "dark and murky" political fix.

Under the new refugee exchange scheme announced by Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, asylum seekers detained on Nauru would be taken to the US and Cuban refugees held at Guantanamo Bay would be resettled in Australia.

"This is not a container load of washing machines that we've decided to reject. This is human beings," Asylum Seeker Resource Centre spokeswoman Pamela Curr said.

The comment came amid a torrent of opposition to the new scheme, with Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd describing it as "strange" while Greens senator Kerry Nettle calls it "bizarre".

The program signals further changes to the Pacific solution, after the Nauruan government moved to place time limits on the processing of Australia-bound boat people sent to the remote island.

Up to 200 asylum seekers could be exchanged under the scheme, with the first to go expected to be the 83 Sri Lankans and eight Burmese currently having their asylum claims processed on Nauru. ... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/refugees-not-washing-machines/2007/04/18/1176696902281.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

0 Replies

Heh, I said black Australian, because it's the easiest way to describe my ancestry.

One of my grandfathers is Dutch, the other is from PNG
My father was born in England, my mother in PNG
I'm born in Australia
On my mothers side, they have some aboriginal ancestry, as some Australian Aboriginals migrated to PNG during the European settlement of Australia.
My sister married an American, which is why she's over here from the US.

0 Replies

Thanks, vikorr.

Much more intersting & varied than my ancestry - pure, unadulterated Ukrainian peasant stock! Going back forever!

Regarding Rudd's IR anouncement, you said:

On the subject of IR laws, the articles you posted are pretty much what I thought would happen from the Start. The thing about it is, most of those with the ability to have their voice heard are those that benefit from workchoices.

Are you talking about workers here? Not sure what you mean ...

0 Replies

Yes, Kevin Rudd seemed to be suggesting something similar yesterday ... that Greg Combet should join Labor.
But I see things differently to John Howard: all this ex-trade union representation hasn't, as JH suggests, made Labor "union dominated". I think, rather, it's undermined the trade union movement. I mean, look at Rudd's IR plan. Hardly what we folk who marched at the rallies & stopped work would consider a huge workers' victory! And hardly what Greg Combet was advocating at those rallies, either.
I've thought, for years now, that it's unfortunate (for workers/rank & file union members) that the ALP has had as much impact on trade unions as it has. Always believed that the best interests of workers would be served by not being quite so entangled (while obviously much more aligned with it than the conservatives) with the ALP. Anyway, all those ex-trade unionists have hardly made the ALP become exactly Bolshie, have they? :wink: :

Last Update: Wednesday, April 18, 2007. 7:01pm (AEST)

Combet heading for frontbench, says Howard

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200703/r134651_453453.jpg

There is speculation Greg Combet will run for Labor at the next federal election. (File photo) (Reuters)

The Prime Minister says Labor will not be able to pretend it is not union-dominated if Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Greg Combet does move into Parliament.

There is strong speculation Mr Combet will contest a safe Labor seat at the next election.

John Howard says Labor should admit Mr Combet is being recruited to its frontbench.

"They should stop mucking around," he said.

"He's coming to Parliament and he's going to be a Minister in the Labor government - if they win, you're going to have Combet as a minister, Ferguson as a minister, Crean as a minister, and maybe Jennie George as a minister."

Mr Howard says because of their previous positions within the ACTU, the Australian public will not be convinced that the Labor government will not be union-dominated.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1900789.htm

0 Replies

Quote:

Are you talking about workers here? Not sure what you mean ...

Sort of.

Howard basically made it almost impossible for Unions to operate, which something not even America has done. He then added a system similar to America's.

Thirty years or so down the track from the US' similar contract policy, and what we see in the US is :
1. The minimum wage has actually gone backwards in relation to inflation.
2. The wage earned by the skilled keeps rising

The result were always going to be simple maths:

(Higher wage for skilled)=>(static Wage pool)<=(lessened wage for non-skilled)

The talks of 'losing award conditions' etc, is basically a reflection of 1. (+ an unquantifiable degree of influence from the basic outlawing of 'union interference').

The difference between Australia and the US, in terms of minimum wages, is the US has for the last 3 decades, had a steady supply of people willing to work the worst jobs for minimum wages - illegal immigrants (mostly Mexican), of which there are about 7 million (last I heard).

The US has an entrenched difference between the have's and the have nots.

Australia's situation will end up much worse than the US because :
1. We don't have that percentage of illegal immigrants for one; and
2. The disempowerment of Unions means a much wider variety of people will become effected.

Now, when you have a decent percentage of the population receiving higher wages (and it will be a decent percentage, though I don't know exactly what percentage), there's a number of things that happen, but the most important is this...those higher wage earners drive up the housing market. They do this because :
1. They can afford to pay more
2. They buy investment houses

These booms can occur without contract work (as we've seen in many cities), the difference the next time will be between those who can afford and those who can't.

Next time, this is what happens...unskilled wages go down...housing prices go up...therefore rent goes up. The combination of lower wages vs higher rent (occurring over a long period of time - think decades, similar to the US, but worse) is going to create vast social problems.

Australia used to have a system, where even those stuck in the cycle of poverty were able to find their way out through education. The introduction of HECS debts put one nail in the coffin, and the IR laws and driving the other nail through the coffin (if you think it's bad now...a couple of decades down the track will put a different perspective on things).

PS. That said, I have no problem with the watering down of unfair dismissal laws - the amount of horror stories (against small business) that have come out of those laws have been ridiculous.

0 Replies

Thanks for that thoughtful post, vikorr.

Interesting.

I'm going to mull over what you've said before I respond. (I'm tired. A bugger of a day, today. Over-taxed brain, just now.)

Any thoughts on this from you, bungie, anyone .... ?

0 Replies

Kev explains it all to Kerry-Anne between rumbas & the cooking segment & the gardening segment, and ... :wink: :

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/04/19/2004_moir_gallery__470x302,0.jpg

0 Replies

msolga wrote:

Thanks for that thoughtful post, vikorr.

Interesting.

I'm going to mull over what you've said before I respond. (I'm tired. A bugger of a day, today. Over-taxed brain, just now.)

Any thoughts on this from you, bungie, anyone .... ?

Well I certainly hope your weekend gets better msolga.
vikorr makes a lot of good points. Isn't it strange how we seem to follow the USA trends ? Remember when bonzai said we should be following the American type of health system ? How good it was ? If you asked the average American at the time, they would tell you that the system in Australia was second to none. Friends of mine in the States tell me that one of the main aims of workers there is to get a job which has health insurance.
I saw a medical bill where items were listed... would you believe $35 for a bandaid ? If you have to have hospital stay for a couple of days, and you don't have cover, you could spend the rest of your life trying to pay the bill off. This is the sort of system bonzai wants for us.
Maybe I am wrong, but it seems a lot of American doctors, hospitals and health insurance coys are all one and the same. The charges are so high that you have to insure which means they get a weekly/monthly income from you if you use them or not. But I guess that's what bonzai calls free enterprise.
Anyway, have had my dummy spit for this morning ....

0 Replies

vikorr wrote:

(Higher wage for skilled)=>(static Wage pool)<=(lessened wage for non-skilled)

The talks of 'losing award conditions' etc, is basically a reflection of 1. (+ an unquantifiable degree of influence from the basic outlawing of 'union interference').

The difference between Australia and the US, in terms of minimum wages, is the US has for the last 3 decades, had a steady supply of people willing to work the worst jobs for minimum wages - illegal immigrants (mostly Mexican), of which there are about 7 million (last I heard).

The US has an entrenched difference between the have's and the have nots.

Australia's situation will end up much worse than the US because :
1. We don't have that percentage of illegal immigrants for one; and
2. The disempowerment of Unions means a much wider variety of people will become effected.

Now, when you have a decent percentage of the population receiving higher wages (and it will be a decent percentage, though I don't know exactly what percentage), there's a number of things that happen, but the most important is this...those higher wage earners drive up the housing market. They do this because :
1. They can afford to pay more
2. They buy investment houses

These booms can occur without contract work (as we've seen in many cities), the difference the next time will be between those who can afford and those who can't.

First, can I say that I'm glad we don't have an entrenched system of exploitation of migrants/asylum seekers propping up our economy. For pretty obvious reasons, like preferring fairness & integrity in the treatment of any workers in this country. The challenge is (obviously) how do we ensure our unskilled workers receive a fair go, despite "global market forces"? (In those jobs that still exist here & haven't been "out-sourced" to Asia? Australians can't all be skilled workers, can we?)

The other thing that really bugs me, like when there's talk of interest rate rises to "cool" the economy: we're all treated as if we're in the same boat, wages-wise, debt-wise, etc. When (as you know) there are huge differences between the wages of some workers in the "boom" states (WA, QLD) to those in the eastern states. Same when comparing public sector wages with much of the private sector. And what about on those living on small, fixed incomes (like retired pensioners, the unemployed)?
We need more than a few token tax "concessions" for those living on low or fixed incomes, we need to acknowledge the huge drift between the haves & have nots that has developed in this country under the Liberals. We need to acknowledge the necessary work of public sector workers, too & their right to maintain reasonable wage levels.
To hear constant media talk of full employment & boom times is not acknowledging the real situation, it misrepresents the real living circumstances of many, many Australians. I think this is an area that needs to be addressed, urgently. It means far more than the less well off being excluded from home ownership ... it means more & more of those on low incomes are simply not able to make ends meet, despite living very frugally. The notion of having a sizable permanent "working poor" sector of the population (as in the US) should be tackled, challenged & addressed by the Labor Party & the unions, too. AWAs, WorkChoices, casualization of the workforce have contributed to a serious decline in the living standards many more Australians than the "official" statistics would have us believe.

0 Replies

Ooops! That turned into a bit of a rave, didn't it?
I guess what I'm trying to say is if we want to this country to retain many of the features that have made it such a good place to live then we simply can't allow "the needs of the economy" & "market forces" to completely dominate all other considerations, that's all. I can't see why a bit of positive intervention, to support those who are falling through the cracks, should be considered such a backward step. I would love for the ALP to address the widening gap between the haves & the have nots in some sort of meaningful way. Who else will if Labor doesn't? Right now Kevin Rudd's push appears almost solely to be not to scare off business. It's disappointing.

0 Replies

bungie wrote:

Well I certainly hope your weekend gets better msolga.

Thanks, bungie. Very Happy

It was more a frantically busy week (looking for new avenues of employment!) than a terribly upsetting one. I think I'm getting somewhere, though ...

bungie wrote:

vikorr makes a lot of good points. Isn't it strange how we seem to follow the USA trends ? Remember when bonzai said we should be following the American type of health system ? How good it was ? If you asked the average American at the time, they would tell you that the system in Australia was second to none. Friends of mine in the States tell me that one of the main aims of workers there is to get a job which has health insurance.

Margaret Thatcher was also one of acknowledged JH's "heroes". Quite a bit of the inspiration for many of the Libs' "reforms" (privatization, user pays, etc, were based on UK policies & practice. Terrible that proper health care could depend almost solely on ability to pay. Sad

bungie wrote:

I saw a medical bill where items were listed... would you believe $35 for a bandaid ?....

You're kidding, surely?

bungie wrote:

If you have to have hospital stay for a couple of days, and you don't have cover, you could spend the rest of your life trying to pay the bill off. This is the sort of system bonzai wants for us.
Maybe I am wrong, but it seems a lot of American doctors, hospitals and health insurance coys are all one and the same. The charges are so high that you have to insure which means they get a weekly/monthly income from you if you use them or not. But I guess that's what bonzai calls free enterprise.[/color]

I'd certainly like to know more about how the US system works.
RJB?

0 Replies

The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know