It’s going to happen guys – move on now
As much as the left and the Intelligensia complain, the anti-terror and IR laws are going to be passed before Christmas. The ‘Shoot to kill’ red herring can stay in or out…doesn’t matter much as no court would convict a federal or local agent of murder, or even manslaughter, if he thought the other guy was trying to kill him.
Oh, and don’t waste too much money on champagne celebrating the demise of Howard in the poles largely acredited to the IR Laws by optimistic pundits. The voter still has to shed the message of the ACTU/ALP adds with their lies and propaganda and absorb the truth.
Gary Morgan says: “Despite the mass of publicity, debate, and advertising by the Federal Government and the Unions, the opinions of Australians have barely changed since the last Morgan Poll on the Industrial Relations reforms in July of this year. In fact, a slightly higher proportion of Australians now disagree with the Industrial Relations reforms (49%) than disagreed in July (47%). The percentage of Australians who agree with the reforms (17%) remains unchanged since the previous survey.?The voters don’t know enough about the reforms yet to have any firm opinion. Ads like the current government releases take time to be absorbed. Lets face it – they’re pretty boring. Surfing over at Ranting and Rambling, Hamish quotes a piece from Crikey that I can’t find so I’ve quoted it in part here. Truth in advertising would go a long way to giving Howard a postive poll for Christmas.
Much has been said about the fact that the Government is spending around $100 million advertising its planned changes to the Workplace Relations Act. But not much has been said about the pathetic advertisements that have so far been produced. The Government would be better off sacking their grossly overpaid advertising agency and media buyers and running ads like this: Advertisement One: Cameras focuses on an employee rifling through the handbag of a fellow employee and removing money from her purse. Midway through the act the thieving employee is caught by a manager and summonsed to the manager’s office. The manager tells the employee he can no longer trust him and that he will need to find another job, and offers the employee a generous one month payout. The employee swears at his manager and says he’s going to call the union. The next scene is a hearing at the Industrial Relations Commission in which the Commissioner announces that the dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable and that the manager must re-employ the thief in his previous position as he was not given a proper warning before being dismissed. The Commissioner also announces that the thief is to receive pay in lieu for the time he was away from work. The advertisement then concludes with white writing on a black screen which reads:“The New Workplace Laws – Allowing thieves to be sacked.”The people know this type of thing goes on and will eventually accept the need for new IR regulations. Just wait and see.
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I agree that IR laws are well overdue for reform but I’m a bit worried that Howard may go too far. I worked for a quasi-govt. deptartment a few years ago, we had a staff member who was hopeless at his work, lazy, etc. It took 4 years to finally get rid of him, and that was only because they offered him a package in the end. That area definitely needs some reform and a firm injection of common sense. The thing that bothers me is that we could end up with a class of ‘working poor’ as in the US, if the basic awards are watered down too much. There are people in NY with 2 jobs but who are living in shelters because their salary is too low to enable them to live properly. I would hate to see this happen here.
Many Australians still remember why there was a necessity for unions in the first place – employers are no Santa Clauses. I saw enough in the Public Service to be grateful for the laws on firing people. The amount of management favouritism and skullduggery to get their pets into positions they didnt deserve astonished even cynical me. If these laws are removed, Australia goes back to the days when people could be fired for a trumped-up reason because they wouldnt sleep with the boss, or because someone in management didnt like them. I know plenty of people who have lost their jobs because the boss didnt like them, or some such reason. At least they have some form of redress now, but maybe this wont be the case in the future.