The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

I honestly don't think a national strike is out of order. How much worse can workers be treated?

Things are hotting up so quickly, so much is happening!
I could just as easiliy have sent this post to the "cruel, cruel deportation" thread:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46353&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=40 -

Everything is starting to zero in on one thing: The shocking absence of humanity in the Liberal Party, our government. In the absence of any viable opposition to Howard's excesses from the Labor Party (who I'm starting to think of as the "no risk" party), it's the small "l" Liberals, the backbenchers of the Liberal Party, who are arguing for a reasonable deal for detained asylum seekers & their children. Here's some interesting background information on how the Liberal Party went so far right on this issue:

Liberals of conscience, an endangered species
May 31, 2005/the AGE

Liberal MPs who put principle before party are inviting trouble, writes Greg Barns.

... Once the Government takes control of the Senate in July, the events of last week might embolden Liberals who believe in protection of human rights to threaten to cross the floor. Howard was reported to be angry at last week's party meeting where Georgiou and his colleagues nailed their colours to the mast. He might be rattled, but at least some in the Liberal Party are standing up for freedom of thought and speech.... <exerpt>

<complete article>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Liberals-of-conscience-an-endangered-species/2005/05/30/1117305556384.html

deleted post

Sadly my union, while it's strong, will look after itself (or its members). While I appreciate its power I wish that it would line up with the rest of the union movement in denouncing what the Howard Government is about to do. After all, my union represents people whose job it is is to stop and/or investigate occurrences such as Howard is about to do to the average Australian worker (I'll leave the allusion at that, I don't want to sound vulgar).

Here's some interesting reading if you're feeling a bit masochistic. <sigh>:

Dark days ahead for unions in tough new workplace
June 17, 2005/the AGE

There is little awareness of just how hard it's going to be after July 1, writes Paul Gollan.... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Paul-Gollan/2005/06/16/1118869039223.html

Very bad timing, Mr Andrews!

Public servants in revolt over IR
Brad Norington and Michael Bachelard
June 21, 2005/the AUSTRALIAN

THE man in charge of John Howard's workplace reform agenda is facing a revolt from his own department, with staff claiming they were coerced into signing non-union individual employment contracts.

The charge came on the same day Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews demanded the ACTU remove television advertisements from air for wrongly claiming that workers could be forced into signing individual contracts under proposed new Howard government laws. ... <cont>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15679784%255E601,00.html

The ACTU must be secretly grinning surely? I mean if this doesn't send workers back to the unions then nothing will.

I feel a little better now

Sheer bloody stupidity on Andrew's part! And what amazing timing! EXPOSED!!!!!
Ah, you've gotta laugh!

Good morning. Realjohnboy took a break from this thread for a while but checked back in and noted that Mr Howard seems to have gotten himself into another fight with his workplace reform agenda. I read the postings from most recent to earlier, but I am going to have to spend some time figuring this out I know who Kevin Andrews is and I am making notes of the acronyms (ACTU, AWA) and I read a couple of the links to newspaper articles. But I should probably go back and start at the beginning of the posts about this issue. One line from one of the newspaper links threw me:
"Trade-offs already rejected by staff include reductions to redundancy entitlements..." Is that the Aus equivalent of unemployment compensation (US) or being on the dole (UK)? Thank you. johnboy

RJB
Welcome back!

You are not the only person whose taken a break from this thread. Almost everyone else has, too! Including me, recently! It was making me so miserable ... The chronicler of bad news!
It's getting extremely ugly here & the the worst is yet to come when the current (Liberal) government has control of both houses of parliament. They believe they can do anything, as you can see!

No, "trade-offs" generally mean trade unions or individual workers on contracts agreeing to trade some established conditon of work for some other "concession" the employer might be offering. I'm not brilliant at explaining these things, I hope goodfielder reads this & responds.

Happy to help where I can msolga but I'm not an expert.

RJB regarding the reductions to redundancy entitlements. Unions can - backed up by a previous strong legal framework (now being targeted by our federal government) - ensure that where workers are made redundant by an employer they are entitled to what is essentially a payout (usually a formula is agreed that takes into account length of service, classification etc) that it designed to enable the worker to live until he or she is able to get further employment.

Most redundancy agreements are fairly standard (of course we're not talking about the excessive golden handshake payments to CEOs who screw up and are shown the door).

Our federal government wants to set things up so that redundancy payments are lowered. That's about all I know about it.

Thankfully I didn't have to worry about redundancy for our members when I was working for our union.

Thank you, goodfielder. You're better at this than I am!

Great cartoon! The word must be sinking in surely.

Maybe, goodfielder .... but I worry that the good folk of Oz may have developed "Howard-fatigue" & just can't cope with any more bad news.

Granted - but then when it starts happening to them and isn't just an item on the 7 pm news?

Well, then it becomes an important political issue! :wink:

July is almost with us, folks! Fasten your seat belts!

Forgive johnboy's naivete, but that last cartoon was too obscure for this (admittedly slacker) follower of all things OZ.
"And July is almost upon us..."
In the middle is the "detention report." I think I know what that is about, but perhaps not. In the upper left, above water, are the Nats, In the lower left, below water, the Democrats and in the lower right, ALP.
What is going on? Sorry to have to ask you for an explanation of what is probably painfully obvious to yall, but I am genuinely interested. Why? I don't know. Like watching car crashes, perhaps. You really shouldn't look, but you do. Thanks.