While I’m quite a fan of allohistory, I rarely engage in it because (a) I’m not very good at it and (b) it’s rather self-indulgent. But like most indulgences, it’s a bit of harmless fun and it won’t make you go blind.
So here goes: This letter in today’s Oz alerted me to the intriguing possibility that a bit of judicial activism by the High Court over WorkChoices might have been enough to save the Howard government from electoral oblivion.
While the High Court’s 2006 judgement on WorkChoices makes an unassailable case for the legal correctness of upholding the legislation, let’s pretend things were different. If the High Court judges had gone all activist and concocted a convoluted Constitutional argument to strike down WorkChoices, then the result of the 2007 election might have been very different.
Continue reading ‘Would judicial activism have saved the Howard government?’
Two papers released today probably won’t be the proverbial barbeque stoppers of Howardian memory on work/life balance, but they’re raising very interesting issues and questions which have the potential to reframe debates of central importance to, well, all of us. The Productivity Commission’s Issues Paper on Parental Support has now been released. It’s a very good exercise in recognising the differential impacts of decision making on people with different circumstances and basing policy on rethinking its objectives. There’s also an extremely useful appendix summarising what’s known about the scope and impact of policy in this area in Australia and overseas. It’s certainly true to say that Australia is one of the few major developed nations not to have in place any overall framework for parental support, but that doesn’t mean we should rush to formulate policy on the run, but rather that we have the chance to get it right. The Commission is inviting submissions in response to the paper, and I’m also glad to see that it’s welcoming individual submissions on personal experiences of time taken out of work for parental reasons.
It’s also worth observing that the PC provides data which demonstrate that access to paid parental leave is currently a privilege largely enjoyed by full time employees and those employees in higher income brackets. It ought not to be seen as a “bonus” but rather as a right that enhances and underpins equitable access to employment and career progression and job satisfaction, and should thus be guarenteed to all. The Commission also notes the positive labour market effects and productivity gains for employers which could flow from a broader extension of paid parental leave.
Having worked in the area of advising corporations on staff retention and equity issues myself, I’m well aware that one of the options often taken by professional or skilled parents (and particularly women) - part time work - has often been something which is viewed as an inconvenience to employers (although in the case of less skilled workers, it’s lauded as necessary flexibility). Continue reading ‘Parental leave, part time work and policy’
I don’t think you can sing along as you could to Paul’s post on yesterday’s anniversary, but my thoughts on the enduring legacy of the Waterfront dispute are in my column at New Matilda today.
It’s ten years yesterday since the commencement of the waterfront dispute.
As one of a number of Brisbane university staff and students who walked several kilometres in the rain in support of the workers at the Port of Brisbane, I’d like to commemorate the occasion by linking to a great song, written by the late, great Stan Rogers, and performed here by Makem & Clancy, about a bunch of Canadian maritime workers who wouldn’t just let management cut them, and their ship, adrift for the sake of profits. Up the workers!
1968 was a very eventful year, and we’re seeing a number of anniversaries which - hopefully - stimulate further reflection on some of the key personalities, cultural and political events four decades down the track. Friday the 4th of April was the fortieth anniversary of the death of Dr Martin Luther King.
There are a number of such reflections around in the blogosphere this weekend. Andrew Bartlett provides a number of valuable links, including one to Joseph Palermo at The Huffington Post who makes an interesting and important point about the difference in perceptions about King before and after his death:
Contrary to mainstream belief today, while King was alive he was never widely heralded in the media as a “savior” or a “great leader.” He was just as often denounced as a “polarizing” figure and his work was often denigrated in racist terms. As was the case with Robert F. Kennedy, the love affair with MLK only took off long after he had become a kind of martyr.
King had actually found himself at something of a crossroads in 1968 - most of the civil rights the movement had been seeking had been embodied in law - largely through LBJ’s decision to force them through a mainly reticent if not unwilling Congress. Continue reading ‘Martin Luther King - the legacy’
Brendan Nelson’s been at one of the regular talkfests organised by The Australian and the Melbourne Institute - the “New Agenda for Prosperity Conference” - having his say on industrial relations.
The day after Julia Gillard buried AWAs (or did she?), Dr Nelson’s taken time out from his compassionate crusade to resurrect the Coalition’s support for statutory individual workplace agreements:
The proposition is for an AWA with a different name and a better safety net. “The Coalition has heard the message from the electorate about AWAs and we no longer support them,” he said.
“Having said that, it is important for Australians to understand that we continue to support individual statutory agreements with a fair no-disadvantage test.”
Nelson, meet Labor trap.
Given that even mining companies were being quoted in the Fin Review yesterday as being “relaxed” about the absence of individual statutory agreements after 2009, this can only be about pure ideology. Which is, of course, what got Howard into so much trouble. The Coalition’s inability to paper over the cracks of the Howardian legacy just ensured Labor gets to run the scare campaign it wants to run at the next election.
This folly was perhaps predictable. What’s more interesting is one of the other themes from Nelson’s speech The Australian decided to highlight in advance of its delivery. Continue reading ‘Tangled up in blue’
Yesterday, the House of Reps passed the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 without a division and the Senate committee released its report into the legislation. Although from my point of view, it’s fantastic that WorkChoices is being buried, the way it’s being done raises important questions about the government’s commitment to consultation and the integrity of the legislative process as well as important questions about the relationship between the labour movement and the Labor party. I look at all this in my column in today’s New Matilda.
…well, design an IR system that you think is simple and politically feasible. That’s what I’ve had a go at sketching out over at On Line Opinion, as part of their alternative 2020 summit feature. Note that I’m not putting forward what I would like to see in an ideal world, but something I think is possible in this one and might secure some broad agreement.
Compare and contrast, as they say, Kevin Rudd in PNG building bridges and restoring relationships and John Howard in Washington ranting about “Islamic fascism” and dwelling on the past.
It’s the exact same dynamic as in the election - Rudd accentuating the positive and looking to the future, and Howard mired in negativity and defending his “achievements”. Still, I thought it was neat that both were overseas at the same time - it really does shine an interesting light on their differences.
Macquarie University researchers Ben Spies-Butcher and Shaun Wilson have released results of a study they’ve done into the results of last year’s election. They’re interested in whether a large third party campaign (specifically the Your Rights At Work effort directed by the ACTU and its affiliates) influenced the election. This is what they got up to:
We develop a linear regression model based on the seat-by-seat results, and the swing against the Howard Government (two party preferred) recorded in each. This approach uses statistical correlation to test whether there is a relationship between particular features of a seat (for example, its age composition) and the anti-government swing recorded in that seat. A particular advantage of this type of model is that it can separate out the effects of different factors.
Continue reading ‘Explaining the swing’
Somewhat predictably, while federal parliamentarians are (grudgingly) exercising voluntary pay restraint, the top end of town has totally rejected any notion that business execs should follow suit. Nor does Professor Ian Harper, chair of the Fair Pay Commission, appear to believe that we’re all in the war on inflation together, pocketing a nifty pay rise from $81,445 to $119,830 for his part time job. The good prof does appear to believe, however, going by everything he’s been saying recently, that low paid workers should make sacrifices to help slay the inflationary dragon.
I don’t think this is either necessary or fair, and I look at some alternative ideas in my column for New Matilda today.
Update: Martin Leet also writes about this issue at Brisbane Line, pointing out the fact that monetary policy is simultaneously a sledgehammer and seemingly ineffectual, and observing:
Successive governments, of both political persuasions, have eroded a key policy instrument they could have been used to bring the inflationary problem under control: a centralised wage system. Now, politicians are reduced to ‘asking’ for wage restraint, and to ‘setting an example’.
Predictably, perhaps, the government’s move to reinstate unfair dismissal protections for employees in organisations with less than 100 staff is copping flak from small business reps (and lawyers who might reasonably be thought to be engaged in special pleading, since the intent of the changes is to make the process less legalistic).
Never mind the fact that there will be a twelve month probation period before the provisions apply, and that they won’t apply where there are less then fifteen employees. “Red tape!”, “uncertainty!”, “inflexibility!” are the cries. Julia Gillard and Craig Emerson are actually trying to make things easier for bosses - by removing lawyers from the process (as in the Queensland jurisdiction) to cut down costs and facilitate access, and by proposing a code for employers’ guidance. But the sticking point is apparently the suggestion that employees should be warned and given explicit details of what is lacking in their performance.
There’s something more going on here than meets the eye. Continue reading ‘It’s unfair!… says small business’
Tim Dunlop rounds up the press stories. Here’s The Australian:
THE Coalition has agreed today it will not oppose legislation to abolish AWAs. Instead it will amend the laws to extend the operation of Labor’s new interim individual agreements to operate permanently.
In a new refinement on the opposition’s tactics in the Senate, Liberal MPs today agreed to back Labor’s interim agreement to be known as interim transitional employment agreements, or ITEAs. But they will seek to amend the legislation to ensure the ITEAs can be available permanently rather than for only two years while the phase out of AWAs in underway.
I suspect the Dr 9% thing combined with Kevin Rudd’s threat of a double dissolution had its role to play in this decision.
Continue reading ‘WorkChoices buried’
Most of the dirt the Libs are going to be dishing out at each other on Four Corners tonight is already in the public domain. There was a rush to the papers over the Christmas break as ex-Ministers leaked their little hearts out trying to one-up each other on who really knew Ratty was the problem first, and who bravely told him so (answer = very few of these stouthearted souls). But letting all their dirty laundry hang out on tv is going to be an awful look. Just ask a previous generation of nongs who bragged to Four Corners way back in 1989 about how they knifed John Howard (sounding familiar?)… Jeff Kennett is almost certainly right that they’ll only be doing themselves and the Liberal party damage, even as they try to stake out their ego-driven places in political history.
But, if unlike Jeff, you’re going to be watching, here’s the place to comment. Some won’t want to miss it - as the Liberal party morphs into the comedy gift that keeps on giving.
Elsewhere: Both An Onymous Lefty and Andrew Bartlett pick up on one bit of news from the program - Joe Hockey’s revelation that his Cabinet colleagues had no idea WorkChoices was forcing down wages and stripping conditions. Lefty:
Who were these morons? Why did they THINK the Business Council of Australia was pushing for it? A love of paying higher salaries to their employees?
Bartlett:
Those who are worse off as result of Work Choices (or other measures like Welfare to Work) will not feel any better to know that so many of the people who made the decision to adopt the measures which caused them hardship didn’t even bother to understand what they were doing.
Tony Abbott got himself into a bit of trouble during the election campaign by claiming that all those old fashioned protections stripped away by WorkChoices were unimportant anyway – because the best protection was giving the boss the finger and looking for a new job. That, of course, assumes that there wasn’t pattern bargaining going on by employers in particular industries where large numbers of AWAs were being offered – such as retail, cleaning and hospitality – and therefore that your boss might have a competitor who’d actually pay you a decent wage.
But anyway, Abbott’s bright idea may be about to be turned around on the Coalition.
Continue reading ‘Ghost of WorkChoices’
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