[This development via steve in comments]
QUICKLY but quietly, the term “Work Choices” is disappearing from the Federal Government’s lexicon.
The title of the Government’s industrial relations overhaul, carefully market-researched and introduced last year at great expense and with great fanfare, has become a “damaged brand” and its use within Government is being discouraged.
The Workplace Relations Minister, Joe Hockey, and other senior ministers no longer use the term and it appears nowhere in the wordy, full-page advertisements the Government ran this month to promote John Howard’s “fairness test” amendment.
The new advertisements also direct people seeking further information on the fairness test to the website workplace.gov.au.
The first round of advertisements run a year ago to promote Work Choices directed inquiries to workchoices.gov.au, which is now a link on the workplace site.
Meanwhile, in the reality based community:
The language shift emerged as official figures show wages are only just keeping pace with inflation in industries where Australian workplace agreements are most prevalent.
Elsewhere: More on the economics of WorkChoices from Tim Dunlop.
From Joe Hockey’s Lateline interview last night:
Completely beyond satire.
You can say that again.
Are you sure that wasn’t John Clarke and Bryan Dawe?
AWB pays its employees so badly?
If it was John Clarke and Brian Dawe they’ve obviously decided to start using a make-up artist. The best in Australia, if the video is anything to go by.
Reading the transcript I could visualise John Clease or Michael Palin in their Monty Python days as hopeless Hockey.
‘This policy’s dead!’
‘No it’s not, it’s got the fairness test!’
‘If the policy wasn’t dead it wouldn’t need a fairness test! You’ve sold me a dead policy!
‘No no no. Now listen, I can guarantee you’ll have nearly twice as much money with this policy…’
‘But it’s dead!
etc. etc .etc
It’s good to know that Howard watches Lateline before retiring for the night.
But of course we wouldn’t know as we’re not actually collecting any statistics. As Jokin’ Joe mentioned on Lateline a couple of weeks back it’s impossible due to the intractable problem of those pesky apples and oranges.
Don’t mention WorkChoices! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.
While speaking of word choices … has Our John stopped using “the Australian people” in favour of “the Australian public” – when the public’s view is not lining up with the Liberal party view?
I feel that with my avatar I should make comment on this topic, but I struggled to watch lateline long enough to take note of what Uncle Joe was saying. It was all too funny.
Rudd is TEH GOLDSTEIN:
OzCon is doubleplusgood:
Oh, really? Whoops, thoughtcrime.
Looks like the tax cuts have been taken with a grain of salt too!
Heaven forefend! Rudd is aiming to give workers a choice about whether or not they wish to stay on AWAs.
Mr Howard is absolutely correct!
What have choices to do with WorkChoices?
Choices are utterly contradictory to WorkChoices.
Stick to your guns Mr Howard!
(With each passing day the whiff of desperate try-hard loser around Howard grows stronger.)
Remember how the Frankenstein term morphed from: ‘WorkChoices’ to ‘Work Choices’ between its first release and the legislation? Reminded me of when I first noticed the Commonwealth Bank had changed its name/logo, by running the two ‘m’s together into a single, mutant letter.
Love to know how much ‘themists’ and PR-wonks get paid for this stuff.
BTW parliamentary drafters hate having spin/slogans cluttering up the law more than us.
The average weekly earnings were released today and it is not hard to see why the tax cuts have been dismissed by the General Public as too little too late.
now now now…
its not called workchoices any more… its not to be mentioned
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21747358-1702,00.html
reminds me of Basil Fawlty and the germans…..
I think the “people on AWAs are getting more” is disingenous as (I wish I had the figures to hand) data indicates that if you split the cohort in two (managers who used to be on contracts anyway vs workers who previously weren’t), the manager types have done VERY well (but executive salaries are and would have been growing like topsy anyway) while the workers aren’t much better off, if at all.
Does anyone have recent data?
Gummo: On “Good economic management”: “The Economist” gives credit this week to Howard/Costello ONLY for fiscal responsibility with most of the credit due to China’s demand and the reforms of previous Labor Government. (Continuous growth since BEFORE Howard, Longest-Ever-Trade-Deficit SINCE Howard.)
Perhaps the ALP should start calling Hockey “the b*llshit-artist formerly known as Minister for WorkChoices”.
Deja vu Thought I’d heard all the Government’s tired old arguments before.
Look surely the most important thing here in the IR realm is that there are two very well known precedents for sacking the democratic socialist leadership without one seconds notice and that these precedents hold good. No word about changing these arrangements yet is there?
Jolly good.
Carry on.( imbeciles)
Meanwhile, in the Global War for Talent…
That seems to be at odds with the excuses being peddalled for the latest closure of the Murgon meatworks in the South Burnett this week.
I’d go so far as to say that one of the stories is absolute nonsense but have no idea which one.
Did you get the impression that Hollywood Joe looked like a hapless marsupial spotlit by headlights at the end of the show?
To mix metaphors a bit, Joey got a bit of a spanking from Tony Jones, who was quite merciless – there was a professional butcher’s look in his eyes – in spite of the fact that Joe was dead man walking halfway through the interview. The Fairness Test question was unanswerable. I think Tony has the remedy for obfuscatory filibustering by returning to the unanswered question a few questions on, again and again if necessary, like a good boxer working on a nick to the eyebrow arch to open it up into a decent wound for a tko. By deftly rephrasing the question he makes the interviewee look shifty, and so it proved, with Joe moving uncomfortably in his chair, a fixed smile glued to his immoderately oleaginous features. But attuned as I am to politicians in pain, I heard a terrible squeal.
Post Lateline the odds have firmed Labor way again. Here they are at Centrebet as of 4:10pm Sydney time -
Lab 1.83
Coal 1.95
On May 15 they were:
Lab 1.85
Coal 1.92
Last week it was
Lab 1.95
Coal 1.82
The Minister for WorkChoicing cleared it all up today – http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1925800.htm
So you can all get back to work now.
So does that mean they DON’T intend to legislate any changes to the policy that dare not speak its name?
The only thing I learnt from that interview was that Labor make up new policy at media conferences.
WorkTurds New is to be the campaign name that, ‘The Hock’, is currently polishing up.
Fully approved by every employer lobby group. Guaranteed to scare the shit out of socialist underpants. With none of that exploitation aroma that surrounded a previous, unnamed product.
‘Because on average, people on AWB are earning nearly twice as much as people who are on an award.’ – Then why, oh why Gummo Trotsky is WorkChoices being credited as keeping a lid wages growth?
Oh St Margaret,
You should know that the divine miracle that is Workchoices works in mysterious ways.
We should all be on our knees, praying to our heavenly Johnny to thank him for such largesse!
Don’t ask me St Margaret – ask Joe Hockey. It’s his dumb claim, not mine.
The latest Newspoll has rocked the Libs to the core. Brough’s musings are evident of the “Oh my God, we are all going to die” mentality that is starting to filter through to the upper echelons of the Liberal hierarchy.
Remember all those comments about Howard staying Leader as long as the Party wants him. I smell an options float.
So now Ratty & Co. officially dump WorkChoices ‘as a brand’, but does the 7.30 report tonight focus on precisely what they are up to now? Is it going to be the same old AWA zombie with just a facelift, some botox and a jab of speed or what?
No! All we’re told is that Ratty is going to be spending an awful lot of taxpayer’s money telling us all about his ‘new’ IR policies very soon! Then the 7.30 Report spend the rest of the program shining the spotlight on Labor’s niggling IR problems with the mining industries – you know the ones that are affecting just 7% of the workforce and they put the inquisitorial blowtorch on Julia Gillard.
Am I a) Clueless b) Imagining things c) Going crazy again or d) Is it that Ratty, Ace of the Skies actually is in a tailspin his, Fokker punctured silly with bullet holes, black smoke pouring from the engines and the Rudd Baron in hot pursuit?
Regardsless of what the Government calls it, the Electrate will call it Workchoices.
I’m a little surprised that the backbench as been so muted, maybe they are just in shock!
Yes, Gillard performed well tonight – but I was wodnering the same thing, St M.
I havent seen Kerry give either J-Ho a good grilling over the WerkHeist backflip – and specifically what a crock v2 is. The slightest inspection reveals enough wriggle room for a fleet of Mack Trucks on the ‘no-disadvantage test’ 2.6.
Its more accurately described as a “some evidence of de-maximising disadvantage” test.
Here, have this free 1982 Commonwealth Games Memorial ‘Matilda’ cap.
*Tick*
10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more
the Bloody Rudd Baron was taking the seats.
8 Ministers died trying to end the streak
of the Bloody Rudd Baron from Breakfast Creek.
Comment disappearance! (Did I say “luvvie” or “wets” or something?)
Did anyone notice Hockey’s lines on the current employment numbers? The government should cancel its upcoming ad campaign on Workchoices/[insert new name here] and repeat the phrase “lowest unemployement in a generation” as the complete and only answer to any question on IR from now until the election. Its clear that talking about government IR and attacking Labor’s IR does not shift poll numbers in the government’s favour no matter how its done.
McCleod’s Daughters go Bolshie
(You Tube link via Crikey).
And of course it is a very popular program amongst the “Howard Battlers”.
No doubt someone in the Guvment will counsel James Packer ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAO2jmdj4Qk
Yes Lefty E the lack of public scrutiny on Ratty’s latest foray seems to be more evidence of Mark Bahnisch’s thesis that Kerry O’Brien and the rest of the supine mass media very kindly won’t barge in on Ratty until he’s fully washed, dressed and recovered from his wounds and finished working out his WCV2.
This is all deplorable not least because the makover needs so much more generous spending of Ratty’s largesse on educating us about His Divine Miracles, BigBob. Honestly if I weren’t an alien from the New Confederation of the Dogstar Solar System Planets, I’d be downright disgusted right now.
Maybe the WC2 blitz will hit home, business will be threatening even more horrendous price rises, the economy won’t be able to stand for any more wage rises and so all those frightened, over-mortgaged battlers will return to Ratty’s fold and accept the lousy miserable WorkChoices – sorry – WaterCloset V2 deal – so it goes. Sigh! Meanwhile, back at Slaughterhouse 5….
So Gummo Trotsky ‘A survey conducted by a leading career networking site Linkme.com.au shows that 34.3 per cent of Australians live “pocket-to-mouth”‘.
But how can you trust the average voter in a survey to tell it like it is? God if someone rang me up and asked I’d be saying Gawd yes, of course we’re starving to death here and those tax cuts aren’t even going to get us so much as a crust of mouldy bread. Bring on the violins!
It must be true St Margaret, I read it in the Ruperts.
If you can’t trust them to tell it like it is, who can you trust?
FFS.
SMH has seen fit to run this near the top of their front page.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/rudd-google-search-yields-a-nazi-surprise/2007/05/17/1178995316634.html
Do a Google query on Kevin Rudd on one of its experimental search sites and the first entry that pops up relates to another ambitious political leader – Adolf Hitler.
Jeesbus.
By the way, there’s nothing particularly fabulous about AWAs paying twice the award (even allowing for the fact that it’s nonsense to talk about AWAs generally as they tend to be clustered around the top pay levels and the bottom ones depending on industry and occupation). Since the Workplace Relations Act prohibited “paid rates awards” in 1996 – ie awards which specified the actual rate of pay, awards have been reduced to a bare minimum. It’s supposed to encourage bargaining. In most collective bargaining environments, actual pay rates set by enterprise agreements are around 70% higher than the award.
Hello, Oz media, you hapless craven bunch of toadies: I haven’t seen once decent interview with Hockey or Howard explaining Workchoices 2.0 to the public.
Isn’t it about time?
Speaking of which, the “workers will get to keep AWAs if they’re happy with them” thing in the news tonight is not a “Labor backflip”. It’s always been part of the policy.
Yes, are the Oz media lazy, stupid, corrupt, or just plain gutless?
or on AWAs?
To be fair, I know quite few senior and serious journos and they all say how they’re being squeezed these days to come up with more and more copy and with less and less experenced subbies around to help get it to the virtual stone in thoughtful and accurate shape.
Pundits on the other hand. Has there even been more cushy and responsibility-free open collar job in modern memory?
In my opinion it is a bit late for a government advertising campaign. The electorate has already formed an opinion and these ads are likely to backfire and keep raising an issue that the Coalition cannot win on. The battle has already been fought and won. It was battle fought over the last year and the government vacated the field, no doubt thinking the whole thing would somehow disappear off the radar screen. There was a no lack of media pundits prepared to reassure them that it would disappear as an issue, and for that I thank them.
I suppose the issue is not whether the Coalition can win the IR issue, but whether the IR issue will determine the election. A lot of pundits see the economy as the determining issue but I think economy for a large chunk of the electorate is tangled in the IR issue.
I saw a post from somone who suggested IR just might be for the Coalition what the Tampa\boat arrivals was for Labor in 2001. It doesn’t matter in what context the subject is brought up, the fact that it is brought up at all can only help Labor. Roll on the ads I reckon.
Yes Kapunda, maybe the Punditariat is contributing to the demise of the Howard government in it’s very outrageous lack of criticism and scrutiny of it. But my dear old Dad says it was ever thus and in fact the media were even more hysterically partial to the Liberal Party in the 1950 and 1960s than they are today.
If Labor does win however, will be a lot of soul-searching, angst and bloodletting in the punditariat just because they got it all so spectacularly wrong? Or will they just start going Hell for leather criticising the new Labor government?
Mark wrote:
“By the way, there’s nothing particularly fabulous about AWAs paying twice the award (even allowing for the fact that it’s nonsense to talk about AWAs generally as they tend to be clustered around the top pay levels and the bottom ones depending on industry and occupation)”.
This is precisely why I think “the big aggregate numbers” being used by the Howard Government and its supporters are “failing to relate” to the average person’s experience of workforce and economic development.
The Liberal Party is meant to be the party of the individual, yet their heavy reliance on “aggregate” performance data is causing me to compare the concept of “aggregate development” against the concept of “personal development” through my writing.
…From Justin
Interesting graphics from andrew Leigh
Ozpolitics has this link to possum which looks at whether more jobs have been created since wc’s was introduced.
Minitrue to reveal all soon:
And it will be propaganda free!
Gee that’s a relief.
Some retail industry talking head said this morning that anecdotal evidence has AWA uptake already dropping since the re-intro if the no-disadvantage test; even J-Ho’s pissweak version of it.
Seems then that disadvantage was what AWAs are all about! Employers not too interested in them if they offer advantage or parity (see AWA 1.0, 1996-2006 for more evidence of this).
I think the editor of The Australian Financial Review sums up John Howard’s WorkChoices quite well: it is an “unwieldy creation”. It is a concession that WorkChoices has been a strike against the Howard Government, but its not a conservative concession of defeat.
Ed writes:
“(Howard) is paying for poor drafting and a lack of effective consultation. But the government does not need to be so faintly proud of its unwieldy creation.”
Ed believes at consumer confidence, non-inflationary job-creation and low industry disputation is “all at risk” if Labor “rip up” WorkChoices (or whatever it’s called tommorow).
Ed’s headline reads “Labor loses its way in the workplace”, but we’ll soon see if in fact it is the Mainstream Media’s “journalism” that has lost its way by making too many assumptions.
Strike One has been the journalistic failure to apply in-depth questioning of WorkChoices, the “dumb-down branding” that conceals as much as it reveals, (sure you need to “choose between options”, but not every worker has equal access to “understanding options available” and the Howard Government has simply refused to reveal all data about AWAs to promote such understanding).
Strike Two was the elitist attitude in the Mainstream Media that Kevin Rudd was to be granted a “honeymoon”, with the duration of that “go easy on Rudd” period to be effectively event managed (what any of this has to do with “journalism” is currently beyond my full comprehension). Again, the motives of the Mainstream Media’s “honeymoon” concealed as much it has since revealed, given the poor effort to “deliberately cut down” Rudd’s popularity with voters.
From my monitoring, only The Australian’s Michael Costello has been consistently conveying a more accurate picture of what’s really happening out there since December of 2006.
Strike Three will surround the use of the term “risk”, as demonstrated this week by the “risk of Rudd” rhetoric. Again, if the Mainstream Media pattern of “concealing as much as revealing” continues, there may again be mistakes made. We shall see.
…From Justin
Everyone:
In celebration of the unbounded prosperity currently being enjoyed by every small business throughout Australia …… the name for WorkChoices for the rest of the month will be ……. Pre-Receivership Human Resources Management.
There are heaps of jobs going at the Liquidators’ auction rooms too as they go onto shiftwork to keep up with the demand. …..
“Some retail industry talking head said this morning that anecdotal evidence has AWA uptake already dropping since the re-intro if the no-disadvantage test; even J-Ho’s pissweak version of it.”
Lefty E, I suspect this is largely wait-and-see. Why impose AWAs over the next several weeks if you don’t know what the test is, let alone how the OEA/Workplace Thingy will interpret it? Not worth the administrative hassle, especially if you wind up having to give back pay.
The industry was happy to undermine awards under the misnamed no-disadvantage test – annualise pay, institute 24-7 rosters and abolish overtime/penalty rates, thereby turning every worker equally into an ‘on call’ slave. And the ‘f’ test is much weaker than the NDT.
Everyone:
All the name-changing is good for a laugh ….. but on a serious note, what can be done to rehabilitate the Australian economy after the hard cruel world of economic reality sends BirkChoices and WAWAs off to the rubbish-dump?
For a start. how are we going to entice all those talented Australian who decided to work overseas to return to Australia? If Poland has trouble getting its tradesmen to come home and work in its growing building industry; we in Australia have an even more serious and widespread problem. What do we offer them? A million dollars, a first class Qantas ticket and a year’s free rent?
Graham, the US can’t get workers to work in their nuclear power plants either so it will be interesting if Ziggy and John will tell us where Australia will find them. The nuclear power plant in the back yard of Kirribilli House might be a white elephant with no one to man it.