The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Don't fret, bungie! See, they're making progress! :

They're starting to get a bit shrill & hysterical. Or Peter Treasurer is, anyway. What a pathetic response (in the polls) to his fabulous budget! Unfair, unfair!:

A cartoon comment on the PM's comments about the media comments on that recently abandoned baby.:

By George Megalogenis

May 17, 2007 01:00am
Article from: The Australian

MINING companies could be given special status to keep their workers on Australian Workplace Agreements until 2013 under Labor policy being finalised by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Labor's offer of protection for the nation's star export industry may also be extended to other sectors of the economy where the controversial individual contracts are popular.
=======================

So much for tearing up AWAs .

Perhaps it's just a slow tearing up ?

It sure is hard to please everyone ..

It certainly is!
Those WA mineral boom folk think they are so important! (Yawn)
If the mining company bosses AND the unions want their damned AWAs then let them have them. Just don't insist on the same for everyone else! (The boom will be over by the time their current agreements expire anyway. :wink: )

Interesting about "WorkChoices" being history, hey?
I wonder what the new title will be?
And I wonder how many (more!) millions of our taxation dollars will be spent on advertising, ramming (whatever the new name is) down our throats!

You know that only 16% of mine workers are on AWA's? It's just another in the endless litany of lies from business and the government.

Of course!
It's all part of the Lib's campaign!
Without the AWAs (& WorkChoices, or whatever they'll call it now) there would never have been a minerals boom & all that wonderful prosperity for the country! :wink:

First, it looked like neither John Howard nor Kevin Rudd would meet the Dalai Lama during his coming visit to Oz.
Then John Howard said he was considering it, so Kevin Rudd said he was, too.
Now it looks like they both will.
In the meantime, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, John So, made it clear that he was not meeting with him.
Then there were rumours that no Melbourne City Councillors were to be allowed to attend a function with the Dalai Lama, either.
Then some of the councillors went public ..... then there was a denial from Councillor So ....etc, etc, etc .....

Crikey, lucky us! Pushed around by the yanks AND the Chinese!
:

Last Update: Thursday, May 17, 2007. 7:05pm (AEST)



John Howard and Kevin Rudd both say they will consider meeting the Dalai Lama (Reuters)

China warns Australia on Dalai Lama meetings

China has issued a thinly veiled warning to Australian political leaders not to meet the Dalai Lama during the Tibetan spiritual leader's visit next month.

"We hope that relevant governments and parties can stay on high alert to the actions and words of the Dalai Lama aimed at splitting China and do not give support to the Dalai clique," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing.

The 71-year-old Dalai Lama, who has led a Tibetan government in exile in India since 1959 after fleeing a Chinese takeover, has planned a 10-day visit to Australia.

Prime Minister John Howard and Labor leader Kevin Rudd both initially said they would not meet him.

But on Wednesday they said they might reconsider following accusations of kowtowing to China, which is Australia's biggest trading partner.

China views the Dalai Lama as the leader of a Tibetan independence movement, although he has denied that and says he only wants autonomy for his homeland.

"The words and deeds of the Dalai Lama in the past decades have shown that he is not a purely religious figure," the spokeswoman said.

"He is a political exile engaged in activities aimed at splitting China."

China regularly voices anger at political leaders for meeting with the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.

- AFP


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1926184.htm

Hey, big spender!:

..... In 2000 Howard spent $211 million in tax money on federal ads as he sought to reassure us the GST was good for us. Together with the $156 million he spent the next year, this unquestionably helped him win the 2001 election.

The total spent on Federal Government advertising in the life of the Howard Government? Says Labor's Penny Wong: $1.7 billion.

That is a stunning amount. It's enough to accomplish real progress in our society. For instance, for a tad more than that, $1.9 billion, the Howard Government funded a five-year mental illness program. Howard has spent this vast amount of our money telling us what a wonderful job he's doing. .....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/hey-big-spender-thats-our-money/2007/05/17/1178995319873.html?page=fullpage

Last Update: Friday, May 18, 2007. 2:30pm (AEST)

Hockey refuses to detail cost of new IR ads

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has refused to say how much a new round of advertising on industrial relations will cost.

The Federal Government will launch another advertising blitz this weekend to explain recent changes to its industrial relations (IR) legislation.

The Government has stopped using the term 'WorkChoices' to describe the legislation, saying the change of language is designed to highlight the newly introduced fairness test for low and middle income earners on Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs).

Mr Hockey says the ads, to run this weekend, will be simple and free of spin and will refer people to a workplace information hotline.

But he declined to put a figure on how much the ads will cost.

"We will monitor its success," he said. "It's important that people know where they stand."

The Government insists the ads are needed to counter what it says is a union fear campaign.

But Labor's deputy leader Julia Gillard describes the campaign as "desperate" and "arrogant".

"If the Liberal Party wants to put up a party-political propaganda campaign, then it should pay for it," she said.

"The Howard Government's answer isn't to do something about WorkChoices.

"It's to pretend to change the name and then to stick its hand in the purse and wallet of every Australian to fund a deceitful advertising campaign."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1926904.htm

Going backwards



..... the problems now confronting the Government flow from three crucial misjudgements by the Prime Minister since 2004, on industrial relations law, the political potency of fear and the condition of the Labor caucus.

The Government in the past two weeks has effectively declared WorkChoices a disaster, first by introducing what it calls its fairness test, and then by choosing to abandon the policy's name. These steps are as close to surrender as you will ever see. They are a sign that the Government, 14 months after introducing the laws, had run out of options.

Having made the fundamental error, one that Howard had studiously avoided when announcing his previous big reform, the GST, in 1997-98, of failing to set out any sort of intellectual or economic case for WorkChoices, the Government is now reduced to running out tweaks and tricks. Clearly, the Government is now trying to convince the public that WorkChoices, as it knew and loathed it, is dead and in its place is a new, friendlier workplace regime. This is desperate stuff. ......

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/going-backwards/2007/05/18/1178995412464.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Two more lots of bad poll results in the past two days!:

Last Update: Tuesday, May 22, 2007. 3:39pm (AEST)

John Howard says he will not be pulling a rabbit out of a hat. (File photo) (Getty Images)

PM warns Coalition of electoral annihilation

The Prime Minister has warned his colleagues that current opinion polls mean the Coalition would not just lose a federal election, it would be annihilated.

John Howard has told a meeting of Liberal and National MPs the polls show Labor would win emphatically.

He has warned if they are expecting him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he does not have a rabbit.

Mr Howard says one of the reasons the Government is in this position is that the economy is so good, so it is important for the Government to remind people of the consequences of change.

He says it is both a strength and a weakness for the Government that its three most visible members - himself, Peter Costello and Alexander Downer - have held the same jobs since 1996.

'Desperate Government'

The ALP's national secretary, Tim Gartrell, says he expects this year's election campaign to be the most negative Australia has experienced.

Mr Gartrell says the Government will run a dirty campaign against the Labor leader Kevin Rudd because the Government is desperate.

"I think the negative attacks in the last campaign will be nothing compared to this campaign," he said.

"I think this will be a very negative campaign by a desperate and dated Government that will do anything to cling onto power, whether it's the waste of millions of dollars of taxpayers' funds or whether it's unfounded negative attacks on people."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1930125.htm

I see Alexander is off to the US - a trip to San Fran, take in a game of baseball lunch with nancy and condi oh yes and a few official talks about iraq Nth korea and terrorism.

Junket before they are outed?

I'm sure he was working very hard, on essential business dadpad!
You are so cynical!

After days & days of bad press & another set of revolting poll results, the Libs finally managed to get JH off the front pages of the Oz papers today. With quite a bang!:

Thursday, May 24, 2007. 9:00am (AEST)

A company owned by Therese Rein is accused of taking away penalty rates and overtime in return for a small hourly pay rise (Getty Images)

Rudd's wife's company 'scraps job conditions'

Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey says a company owned by Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's wife might have acted illegally.

News Limited newspapers have reported that a job agency owned by Therese Rein has removed workers' penalty rates, overtime and allowances for an extra 45 cents an hour on a common law contract.

A spokesman for Mr Rudd would only say Ms Rein's company, WorkDirections Australia, will give a statement later this morning.

Mr Hockey says Labor should respond.

"For a common law contract to remove conditions from the applicable award would be unlawful," he said.

"But I need to get more information and that's the appropriate way to handle these matters.

"You can never stop the Labor Party from commenting about other people's businesses and they do it without consulting those businesses," he added.

"They've waved around contracts and AWAs [Australian Workplace Agreements] in Parliament.

"They've certainly never held back in giving comment on other people's businesses. I would hope and expect they would have an opinion on this as well. "

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek says the issue does not affect Labor's credibility on industrial relations.

"She's an independent person who's running a business," she said.

"Any decisions that are made about her businesses in the future will be made independently.

"She'll be treated like any other business. If there's any conflict of interest, she won't be able to tender for that business."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1931689.htm