The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

& back to those proposed IR changes:

Women to suffer under IR changes: Labor
July 21, 2005 - 8:04PM/the AGE

Women will be fighting an uphill battle to gain a foothold in the workforce under the government's planned industrial changes, Labor says.

...Ms Macklin said the changes would hit women hard because they were more likely to work in lower-paid, casual jobs, earn less money on individual contracts, and need more flexibility in their workplaces to accommodate family commitments.

"In Australia, women outnumber men in terms of Year 12 completion and participation in higher education, yet the wage gap between men and women is increasing. We are about to go backwards," she told the 17th Women, Management and Employment Relations Conference in Sydney.

"When the Howard government took office, men on average earned around $230 per week more than women.

"Now, the gap is over $308 a week and women's total wages are just 66 per cent of male total earnings."

But women were over-represented in low-paid, casual jobs which made them more vulnerable, she said.

"It's these women that will be well and truly in the firing line if the Howard government's extreme industrial relations changes are implemented."

The minimum wage protects 1.6 million of Australia's lowest-paid workers, and 60 per cent of these were women, who were now under threat, Ms Macklin said.

"Women on individual contracts earn 11 per cent less an hour than men on collective contracts.

"Currently, women receive around 90 per cent of the hourly pay of men on collective agreements," she said.

"Casuals and part-timers - mostly women - respectively earn 15 per cent and 25 per cent les on AWAs than collective agreements."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Women-to-suffer-under-IR-changes-Labor/2005/07/21/1121539088118.html

0 Replies

Get the word out. We have to fight this intelligently. Having written that I am wondering about the word "intelligently" (it's okay I practise self-deprecation when under stress Very Happy

)

Seriously - good, this has to be put out there. The ACTU and the state/territory unions have done a good job getting the word out, they have to fight the taxpayer-funded multi-million dollar lying campaign by the government though. Talk about taxation as theft, they are using my money to tell me what I know is a bunch of lies. That in itself may be a miscalculation on their part.

0 Replies

Yep, the government's full page ads. are an expensive, totally dishonest outrage.
But just imagine full page ads. telling women this sort of information! The trouble, of course, is that the ACTU has nothing like the funds that the government has access to. Our taxes at work! Evil or Very Mad

0 Replies

Indeed msolga, but as I learned many years ago on a union-organising campaign - tell someone, they'll tell ten others. Call me a pollyanna but I am regaining faith in our populus (now that the housing market has cooled down and all the would-be property moguls have been hit by reality).

0 Replies

It'd be very nice if you're right! Very Happy

0 Replies

Attack on ad spending
By Josh Gordon
July 22, 2005/the AGE

The Federal Government has spent $140 million on advertising in the past two years and almost $1 billion since 1996, according to Kim Beazley.

Accusing the Government of using taxpayers' money for blatant political propaganda, the Opposition Leader yesterday released a list of spending on advertising, claiming the money could have been better used.

Mr Beazley said the latest example was $25 million for an ad campaign "in an attempt to sugar-coat (John Howard's) extreme industrial relations regime". His other examples included the terrorism fridge-magnet campaign.

He said the Prime Minister had ignored draft guidelines drawn up by the Auditor-General in 1998 and his own promise as opposition leader 10 years ago to set up a new advertising code.

A total of $20.6 million will be spent between July and September on the industrial relations campaign and the relaunch of the national security campaign.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/attack-on-ad-spending/2005/07/21/1121539090761.html?oneclick=true

0 Replies

John Howard and promse in the same sentence. Risible. Go KB. Very Happy

0 Replies

I don't like to play the man as it were but I wonder if what I just saw on ABC News will present Howard with a problem. No time to go to Germany to visit the Australian bicycle athletes in hospital but plenty of time to attend Lords for the Test. I want that to count against him. Sorry, it's not right and I feel really bad about it - NOT.

0 Replies

goodfielder wrote:

I don't like to play the man as it were but I wonder if what I just saw on ABC News will present Howard with a problem. No time to go to Germany to visit the Australian bicycle athletes in hospital but plenty of time to attend Lords for the Test. I want that to count against him. Sorry, it's not right and I feel really bad about it - NOT.

It SHOULD count against him. Evil or Very Mad

But a trip to Germany didn't fit in with his planned itinerary, obviously. (What, miss some cricket?!) And perhaps his publicity folk felt that sharing the spotlight with Blair after the terrorist scare in London this week was enough positive PR for this trip. Rolling Eyes

0 Replies

Quote:

And perhaps his publicity folk felt that sharing the spotlight with Blair after the terrorist scare in London this week was enough positive PR for this trip.

An excellent point.

I wonder if we can stop the little bugger travelling, he seems to go somewhere and then all hell breaks loose. Just the sight of him in his Wallabies track suit or his shorts and tee shirts doing his striding out thing must enrage terrorists the world over.

Perhaps we owe the word an apology for this peripatetic harbinger of doom. Funny how at home he's on a slow fuse (ie everything is falling apart in slow motion) but when he's overseas it all breaks out. Must be the time difference.

0 Replies

goodfielder wrote:

I wonder if we can stop the little bugger travelling, he seems to go somewhere and then all hell breaks loose. Just the sight of him in his Wallabies track suit or his shorts and tee shirts doing his striding out thing must enrage terrorists the world over.

... and back home we're all going Embarrassed

...

0 Replies

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/07/22/2307_tandberg_gallery__550x386,0.jpg

0 Replies

goodfielder wrote:

..I wonder if we can stop the little bugger travelling, he seems to go somewhere and then all hell breaks loose.

The Sunday Age cartoonist was thinking the same thing, gf. This man brings trouble! Laughing

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/07/24/2407_golding_gallery__550x425.jpg

0 Replies

Classic! Reminds me of that old saying about wise minds thinking alike, to which my mother would retort "and fools seldom differ", Used to bring me down to earth Very Happy

0 Replies

She was right!

So now we await JH's triumphant return, hey? Can't wait for the next exciting instalment! Sad

0 Replies

Good Saturday evening in the US/ Sunday morning in Aus.
I'm confused about a comment that was made in yall's rants against JH. Full page advertisements in newspapers paid for by the taxaayers in support of his IR plan? Really? Is that legal or typical?

0 Replies

realjohnboy wrote:

Full page advertisements in newspapers paid for by the taxaayers in support of his IR plan? Really? Is that legal or typical?

Apparently it's on the right side of legal, RJB, though how, beats me! Confused

And typical? Absolutely! Sad

0 Replies

It's a good question rjb. It's accepted that government is able to spend taxpayer's informing the taxpayer about policies. The difficult thing is how to ensure that it really is policy and not just party propaganda. Unfortunately in Australia at the federal level the watchdogs have been emasculated and this sort of garbage gets through.

0 Replies

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/07/25/2507_petty_gallery__550x393.jpg

0 Replies

Vital vote on workplace
July 25, 2005/SMH

The most radical overhaul of workplace relations in a century may meet its first stumbling block on Friday, when the National Party holds its state conference in Brisbane.

In a closed session, 300 delegates will discuss whether to reject the Federal Government's proposed changes as an unwarranted assault on states' rights.

If they do so, the focus will be on Barnaby Joyce's insistence that he is awaiting his Queensland party's "direction" on how to vote.

Without Senator Joyce, the Government would not have a majority in the Senate.

The Queensland party leader, Lawrence Springborg, wants the conference to oppose the end of state jurisdictions in industrial relations, and believes it will.

But Andrew Hall, the federal director of the National Party, warned yesterday against predicting conference outcomes. "Nationals pride grassroots decision-making and it's notoriously hard to predict," he said.

The Queensland decision will be submitted to the Nationals' federal council in Canberra in September, and National Party MPs will have the discretion to follow suit or take another course.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/vital-vote-on-workplace/2005/07/24/1122143730138.html

0 Replies

The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know