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.

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.

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.

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 …

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.

None of us are reading “The Daily Mayo”, for gawds sake.

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.

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.

The rhetoric, of course, has been different, but really there is no substantial difference.

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.

(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.

There will be new legislated minimum employment standards, an end to AWAs, and legislative support for collective bargaining and union rights

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).

Mayo will now prove a most interesting by-election with no Labor candidate and a tainted Liberal upstart.

That’s “tainted Liberal upstart Minchin stooge”.

Which is much worse.