The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Work Choices 'disadvantages thousands'

WORK Choices has disadvantaged thousands of workers and failed to create new jobs, a report by South Australia's Industrial Relations Commission says.

After a six-month inquiry into the impact of the Federal Government's new industrial relations system, the commission said the changes had particularly disadvantaged the most vulnerable, including the low paid.

It said there was no reliable evidence that the changes had increased productivity or flexibility and no evidence that they had generated increased employment opportunities.

The commission also criticised the Government's fairness test as less comprehensive than the previous no disadvantage test and has attacked the loss of unfair dismissal laws for many workers.

"Overall our conclusion is that the impact of Work Choices in South Australia is adverse to a large number of employees without bringing compensatory beneficial impacts in terms of increased productivity, flexibility, income or employment," commission president Peter Hannon said.

"Work Choices has not introduced a simplified system of industrial relations. It has made what was already a complex legislative scheme even more complex due to an increased level of intervention and regulation."

Unions SA secretary Janet Giles said the inquiry, which was ordered by South Australia's Labor Government, had confirmed what workers had been saying.

She said while the commission examined the impact of Work Choices laws in South Australia, there was no reason to believe the situation would be different in other states

Hawke queries record of man who 'buggered' the economy
Peter Ker and Michelle Grattan
October 25, 2007
FORMER prime minister Bob Hawke has lashed out at John Howard's record as treasurer in the Fraser government and has accused him of a "despicable" campaign against unions.
He said Mr Howard "absolutely messed" the economy as treasurer, and had been "the worst economic manager that this country has had since Federation".
The Hawke Labor government had inherited an economy of which Mr Howard, as treasurer, had been in charge, leaving a $9.6 billion deficit, he said. This was more than $40 billion in today's terms, which was the worst performance of any developed country.
"That absolutely buggered the Australian economy and we had to fix it," said Mr Hawke, who was prime minister from 1983 to 1991.
Mr Howard's line that the Liberals were better economic managers was nonsense, Mr Hawke said. "The strength of the Australian economy today is because of the fact we had the courage to do the things that he didn't have the courage, the wit or the wisdom to do."
Mr Howard's attack on the unions was "the most disastrously unfair and baseless accusation and propaganda that has ever been used by any leader in the history of Australian politics. I say that deliberately, that's not exaggeration," he said.
"Every single Australian is indebted to the Australian trade union movement. How dare this man attack the trade union movement. There is no institution in Australia which has done more to flesh out the concept of a fair go, to give it reality, than the Australian trade union movement."
He said the attack was "absolutely unfounded, ungracious and totally unfair". "I believe the Australian electorate will repudiate it, not only because it's an attack on the trade unions but it's also a part of a process whereby this man is trying to dismantle the whole apparatus of protection for working people in this country with the WorkChoices legislation."
Mr Hawke said it was the judgement of every economist and international financial institution that it was the restructuring reforms "undertaken by my government with the full co-operation of the trade union movement which created the strength of the Australian economy today.
"So instead of attacking the unions, this man should be eternally grateful to them.
"He should go down on bended knee and say thank you."

Fraser calls for vote on taking country to war

Sarah Smiles
October 26, 2007

FORMER Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has described the war in Iraq as an "unmitigated disaster" and says that, in future, the Australian Parliament should vote on going to war.

"The Parliament now does not need to be consulted," he said during a lecture he gave in Melbourne last night. He compared this with the situation in the US, where there must be a vote in Congress.

"If the government has such a weak case for war that it could not persuade a majority of both houses of parliament to vote in favour … then that conflict should not be undertaken," he said, calling for the constitution to be changed to allow for a vote.

In a lecture at Melbourne University titled "Finding Security in Terrorism's Shadow: The Importance of the Rule of Law", Mr Fraser decried what he saw as dangerous US unilateralism, disregard for international law and the weakening of the United Nations.

"The failure in Iraq demonstrates that the idea of American unilateralism has been extraordinarily destructive," he said. "The twin towers (attack) enabled them to establish an aggressive unilateral foreign policy … It was based on ideas that were doomed to fail."

Mr Fraser said that since September 11, 2001, there had been an "increasing disregard for the rule of law" in Australia "in the name of national security". He referred to the detention of asylum seekers and the cases of David Hicks and Mohamed Haneef.

He said the Parliament had developed an "unhealthy subservience" to the executive, pointing to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation's power to censor parliamentary committee reports.

He described Labor as "relatively silent" on these issues.

"I have only contempt for somebody who says to me they fight these issues but privately they are not prepared to speak out," he said.

Mr Fraser called for a federal bill of rights ?- "to act as a restraint on governments, to provide some benchmarks for our judicial processes" ?- and legislation to prevent security agencies from censoring critical parliamentary reports.

FORMER Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has described the war in Iraq as an "unmitigated disaster" and says that, in future, the Australian Parliament should vote on going to war.

Rudd expels firebrand unionist

Jewel Topsfield
October 27, 2007

MILITANT unionist Joe McDonald has been expelled from the Labor Party over his "incendiary" warning that the Prime Minister was "gone" and he would be back.

After being acquitted on Thursday of unlawfully entering a Perth building site, Mr McDonald yesterday said: "John's gone, you know that? I'll be back."

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said the comments were "highly inflammatory, completely unacceptable and not part of the 21st century industrial relations system", and he asked the National Executive to expel the firebrand "forthwith".

"I've no time for any thuggery from any individual," Mr Rudd said. "There is no room for either that sort of behaviour or that sort of language underpinning that sort of behaviour." Mr McDonald's future has been under a cloud since June, when allegations emerged that he had been caught on video calling a company director "a f---ing thieving parasite dog".

On Thursday, Mr Howard predicted that Mr McDonald ?- who is featured abusing a worksite supervisor in a Coalition advertisement attacking Labor's links to unions ?- would be back on every building site under a Labor government. He said Labor would never kick Mr McDonald out of the party despite pledging zero-tolerance to union thuggery.

But Mr Rudd yesterday rose to the bait, condemning Mr McDonald's "incendiary, inappropriate and unacceptable" remarks. "If you take the remark that he made concerning his intention to be back and the activities for which he has been the subject of not just considerable controversy but in the past a result of considerable found action, I believe that such behaviour does not have a place in the Labor Party."

He said Mr McDonald's status was beyond doubt. "His association with the ALP has come to an end." He added that the laws a Labor government would have in terms of union right of entry to building sites would be those that exist now.

Mr McDonald , the assistant secretary of the West Australian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy union, faces five more trials for allegedly unlawfully entering building sites.

He said yesterday he had done nothing wrong and the expulsion came like "a bolt out of the blue". "I'm not going to roll over, I will be seeking legal advice … I'm not going to disappear for Kevin Rudd."

Wearing braces with pictures of rattlesnakes that said "if provoked, we will strike", he said he could see nothing wrong with his remarks.

"I hope Kevin agrees with me John's gone. And as for I'll be back, I haven't gone anywhere, I've worked for the union for 20 years."

CFMEU state secretary Kevin Reynolds said Mr Rudd would "sell his mother to win the election". "Leaders come and go ?- eventually we'll get a leader who is more supportive of the working class. They expect us to be on the polling booth and give us money, but they don't want us to say John Howard's gone."

A union official told The Age that sacking someone from the Labor Party for stupidity set a dangerous precedent. "You would lose a few on your front bench if you kept going," said the official, who would not be named.

Howard dismisses Fraser's Iraq comments

October 26, 2007 12:00am


THE Prime Minister says the war in Iraq is not the "unmitigated disaster" claimed by former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser.

Delivering his inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Melbourne Law School last night, Mr Fraser described the war in Iraq as an "unmitigated disaster".

Mr Fraser - a long time opponent to the Iraq war - also said laws were needed to prevent future governments from going to war without a vote in the parliament.

Prime Minister John Howard dismissed the comments.

"I don't agree with Mr Fraser on this, it's not an unmitigated disaster," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"I think it will be an unmitigated disaster if America is defeated in Iraq."

Mr Howard says withdrawing allied forces from Iraq now will be "a big set back" and "disaster" for the west.

"Whatever your views may be about what should or shouldn't have happened a few years ago... you have to look to the future - straight forward.

"Is it in our interests that America be humiliated in Iraq or is it against our interests?

"Is it in our interests that the terrorists win in Iraq or that they be defeated?

"The answer to those two questions is obviously it is not in our interest that America be humiliated and it's not in our interest that the terrorists win."

Mr Howard says it is astonishing that people support Australia's involvement in defeating terrorism in Afghanistan but not Iraq.

The report recognizes the challenges confronting the Government of Iraq in the face of ongoing violence and an ever-deepening humanitarian crisis. The report states, "Having been forced to abandon their homes, many are living in dire conditions without access to adequate food supplies and basic services, with children being particularly vulnerable to disease." It warns of growing displacement stating that, "Large-scale displacement of Iraqi civilians continued due to the ongoing violence, including direct death threats, abductions or killings, in many parts of Iraq," and notes that the, "UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that some 2.2 million Iraqis are currently refugees abroad, around half of whom are in Syria."