…Was it clever politics for the Liberal Party to preselect one of the (junior) architects of WorkChoices, Jamie Briggs, for the Mayo by-election?
Elsewhere: Pavlov’s Cat isn’t impressed. Tim Dunlop on the spectre of WorkChoices.
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Not if they want to keep going after Rudd’s 28=year old Press Secretary.
Briggs would’ve been around the same age or possibly even younger when he was advising Howard on WorkChoices.
But then, they don’t have to play clever politics - it’s Mayo we’re talking about.
From the ABC article:
Pretty funny comment given all the complaints that Labor hasn’t really killed workchoices off at all…
Labor hasn’t killed Woekchoices, to their utter disgrace. And now it looks like they might be getting into an unholy alliance with the Libs to get their emissions trading scheme through.
This candidate from Mayo is what you’d expect from the South Aust. Libs - another one of Minchin’s puppets.
Maybe the Greens will win.
Just what I was going to say, Chris. Rebadge it and on we go. Pretty much like much of this government’s efforts from what I have seen so far.
That said, Howard was much like Hawke/Keating with a rebadge. Plus ça change…
Which is to say Andrew, that the prime ministers were similar insofar as their policies affected your life. People in other demographics would be able to point out some quite substantial differences I think.
Mayo will now prove a most interesting by-election with no Labor candidate and a tainted Liberal upstart.
One or two strong independents, probably six other lesser lights, then Greens and Democrats…wow. There must be some high profile local individual who will give this bloke a run for his money - most likely, “small l” and “old money”.
If you think this is true, as opposed to simply being a poseur in print, then you have established the point that you are someone who would not notice any difference. The ‘comfortable middle class’ always like to pretend, to others much more than to themselves, that ‘nothing makes any difference’. This makes it easier to convince people that doing nothing about something which makes their lives harder and less comfortable, is the best and only option. It is the middle class wanker version of ‘TINA’, and is designed to show your social and economic betters that you can be relied upon not to rock any boat, and to the relatvely powerless and economically vulnerable, that nothing they ever do, ever ever, makes any difference at all.
The technical term for this kind of statement is ‘bullsh*t’.
Yeah, go tell it to someone on minimum wage with minimal bargaining power.
What does this actually mean, Paul?
There will be new legislated minimum employment standards, an end to AWAs, and legislative support for collective bargaining and union rights. It’s not perfect as policy, but it’s wrong to suggest that there is no difference between the regime Labor is introducing and WorkChoices, and to claim that doesn’t get us very far either in terms of analysing or fighting for a better deal.
I live next door to Mayo.
Being an advocate for workNOchoices won’t do the Lib candidate much harm.
He’ll win comfortably.
The 2PP last election was 64:36.
Maybe down on that slightly this time, 60:40, but who knows when a bye-election is essentially meaningless in the larger context and which will have little impact on the locals.
Just a change in the face of the local fuedal lord.
Parts of Workchoices are in place for at least 2 more years. And the Building Industry Commision is still going.
He’s nowhere near quick enough.
Unfortunately, Paul Burns, I must agree with you on a couple of points. Firstly Briggs. He looks a classic ice-cold neo lib flying squaddie, doesn’t he? No life experience whatsoever.
Even bible-flogging Evans would have been more appealing.
Still, if the only direction they can move is further to the right ( a bit like the Bismark after its rudder got torpedoed ), then so much closer they are to becoming a total irrelevance, if they’re not there already.
But a weak opposition just makes for weak government. I don’t therefore accept Kim’s attempted botoxing of labor’s wishy washy, pussy IR, although I can understand it for the politics and the economics ( as to inflation ).
patrickg / amused,
On the philosophical point - we all only have our own perspective, so attempting to attack me for mine is pointless. Illustrating with some particular point of difference would be useful, but the challenge is there to find anything really major.
Hawke/Keating commenced the liberalisation process (the one Fraser flubbed) by opening up the trade and capital areas. Howard continued this and accelerated in some areas, including industrial relations, while adding an (mild, but still unfortunate) element of conservative social policy. Rudd does not (yet) seem to be changing this an any substantial way, with workchoices being replaced (gradually) with a brand, spanking new system which … does almost exactly the same thing. This is good, safe, policymaking. Workchoices may have been badly presented and over-bureaucratic, so a re-work is needed and Gillard seems to have been reasonably sensible in what she has done. The rhetoric, of course, has been different, but really there is no substantial difference.
We both may have liked the government to go further and faster (though I suspect in opposite drections) but the fact is that this is not happening. Rudd is making no real changes of substance.
Andrew Reynolds - you’re spot on.
That’s “tainted Liberal upstart Minchin stooge”.
Which is much worse.
Kim - I think the question is whether they have ended AWAs or they just changed the name and introduced something very similar (eg flexibility clauses allowing award conditions to be altered on an individual basis).
Chris, the model flexibility clause is still under development by the AIRC but the significant difference in an award clause which enables variation (which is not a new thing, by the way) and an AWA is twofold:
(a) the specificity of what can be varied;
(b) the legal standing and rights of the parties to the award.
In short, the claim that the flexibility clause is somehow equivalent to an AWA is a lazy one, made sometimes by those who would like that to be the case (ie business) and made sometimes by those who oppose the concept.
No that’s not right, Andrew. To take another example, removing the bias against collective bargaining and in fact encouraging it will make a potentially big difference to workplace relations. I could go on, but it’s really an empirically incorrect statement that WorkChoices and Fair Work Australia are little different, not a matter of opinion.
Mark @ 18 is right.
Andrew @ 13 is right.
Workchoices has had a name change, many of the components have had a name change (as mentioned by Andrew) & a few of the rules have been changed (as mentioned by Mark).
However, workchoices is not undone. For that to happen, the power must be returned to the state industrial systems, and everybody must go back on a state award, with the feds getting the heck out of our payslips.
Then legislation must be passed preventing this corporations law loophole from being exploited again to dismantle the award system.
After all, that is what the ALP (via the state governments) spent a shedload of public money fighting to achieve in court.
Until we return to the prior status quo (ie, undo all the changes made by workchoices) then workchoices ain’t dead.
Well, steve, I think the point is that we aren’t returning to the status quo ante, and that the changes incorporate some aspects of WorkChoices. You’re quite right that the effective disappearance of the state systems is a big shift that’s continuing. In many instances, it’s a regrettable one, at least as far as Queensland is concerned (I don’t know if I’d be crying too many tears for the IR arrangements in NSW).
So, Steve at the Rubbity, since the Government is just doing what they said they’d do, which you reckon is 2/5 or 1/2 of SFA, what was your mob banging on about during the campaign? Surely all those ads about union domination and damnation weren’t a pack of porkies. Heaven forbid.
Everyone:
Reluctantly disgree with Hannah’s Dad [10]; the Liberals are cactus regardless of whatever vote they got previously or how many millions they squander on the upcoming by-election campaign.
It looks instead like an interesting tussle between The Greens and the Australian Democrats - and if the Australian Democrats candidate wins, it would be a first for the House of Representatives.
Mark - please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding was that the flexibility clause includes things like overtime and hours of work, two things which were major concerns with the previous system. There is a no-disadvantage test, but we ended up with one of those with workchoices as well anyway.
Pavlov’s Cat, it is up to you to speculate on the fabulous local independent who will steal this seat from the ….“tainted Liberal upstart Minchin stooge”.
None of us are reading “The Daily Mayo”, for gawds sake.
Chris, yes, that’s right, but the “fairness test” wasn’t a “no disadvantage test”, and the model clause will ensure that any negotiated variation can’t be of “detriment” to the employee - which would imply something closer to the original no disadvantage test in that it would quantify any trade offs, rather than the much weaker form of the test in place in the original WorkChoices - the more robust form of the test utilised in state based legislation is essentially the model. Note also that it only applies to variations in conditions contained within the award, rather than employment standards which are applied legislatively to all workers, and doesn’t apply to rates of pay. The other big difference is that AWAs completely ousted awards from operation. I know all this sounds highly technical, but believe me, as someone who used to work in IR, the technicalities are very important indeed.
In the federal system, there are also no “paid rates” awards so any variation can only be to the safety net provisions. It would have limited applicability, therefore, to most employees who are on conditions above and beyond those of the award - or rather, any monetary compensation would have to take into account their entire remuneration rather than the award component of their remuneration.
Seriously, it’s really not comparable to an AWA.
Folks, this guy will have to put his name and face out there and confront the “deciles” who are abstractions in Canberra. Serves him right. He’s been looking at Howard, Downer and the rest and thinking to himself: I can do that.
Well, let’s see. Briggs is having it all handed to him. Let’s see what he makes of it. This is not to say that Briggs deserves the benefit of the doubt - I’m just saying that the wax and feathers seem to have worked for the moment …
Thanks for the explanation Mark.
No worries, Chris.
The architecture of the whole thing is pretty complex from a policy perspective - draft national employment standards released, and the AIRC working on the award stuff, but the substantive legislation is still being drafted. It’s difficult to be definitive, but there’s always a lot of continuity in the structure if not the substance of IR law - no matter who the government is - so you can make some reasonable inferences based on what we know now and the pre-election position. I could do a sort of Guide to the Changes but I wouldn’t like to be definitive until it’s all out there (and we know what the Senate might do to it). But it is possible to be pretty clear about how the flexibility clauses will work, because the parameters have been set out, and while the parties are doing the argy bargy thing in the commission, we know what the AIRC have been instructed to achieve.
Dr Cat, while you’re right that this bloke is a Minchin Stooge, it won’t really matter much. The Libs are likely to be in opposition for at least a decade, and who knows? maybe this bloke’ll get sick of that and, I don’t know, move to the private sector or something. In fact, for the Libs to be electable in the medium-to-long term, the local branches will have to roll all the Minchin clones at some stage anyway.
Representation is just that. Representation. Representatives of an electorate should understand that electorate, have a non-political stake in that electorate, and draw on their skills and experiences in life to then represent that electorate in the federal (or state) capital.
A life experience which is purely (or even mostly) within a political arena, and the consequent creation of a political class, is possibly the worst thing which could happen to our parliamentary system.
Candidates parachuted into safe seats, candidates whose experience is only within the office of their electoral predecessor (or the offices of that party or a lobby body) have little to no loyalty to the people of that electorate, nor do they command any.
The ultimate consequence of this over time is a politica system where representation is done not for the benefit of the electorate, but for the benefit of the representative, the main goal being perpetuation of the representation, not the advancement of the interests of the electorate.
Just as pilots must have a specified number of hours experience before they may fly for reward, fly charter, or instruct, perhaps political representatives should be required to have a certain number of years (say 20) in a non job for the boys/girls environment.
All political cadres should be banished from representation. Their class I don’t want.
Agreed, steve at the boozer.
It was rife in the ALP, now it’s happening more often than ever in the Liberals and Nationals (state and federal).
The writing was on the wall when Briggs (decided!) to shift to the Mayo electorate 5 months ago. It was obvious that Howard’s and Downer’s choice would be the real choice for the Libs. and to hell with the locals.
This would have been his reward for helping to form the now disastrous Work Choices by giving him a safe Liberal Seat for the next 20 years
It was farce right from the beginning.
And the Mayo reverberations have the potentioal to rattle around the country, just like Belinda in NSW, any pre-selection shenanigans for a Federal seat …..
Cheers to Steve