One has to hand it to The Daily Telegraph's Piers Akerman. He is nothing if not consistent.
Here is a quote from his latest 'reading' of the political climate.
"Prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd's decision to give his deputy Julia Gillard the responsibility for both industrial relations and education sends the trade union movement a confused message.
After gambling their members' money on an expensive 12-month advertising campaign in support of Rudd Labor, union leaders are concerned that IR has been relegated to a part-time portfolio.
The Howard government's clunky WorkChoices legislation was central to Labor's fear message and it appears to have worked in all parts of Australia except WA, which happens to have the highest number of people employed on the Australian Workplace Agreements the Rudd Government is sworn to outlaw.
Workers on those agreements are now wondering whether they can enlist the support of WA Premier Allan Carpenter to protect them from federal Labor, which they see as driven by power brokers a long way from the realities of their state's minerals boom.
With the nation enjoying its lowest level of industrial unrest in living memory, IR will have to be carefully managed and Gillard will have a lot on her plate driving Rudd's promised education revolution."
Yesterday's Akerman article in The Daily Telegraph:
Akerman ignores the fact that transitional arrangements for changes to WorkChoices were on track at the time he wrote this piece, as well as conveniently forgetting that WA electorates in mining areas generally came out strongly in favour of federal Labor on 24 November.
One has to wonder why if Akerman's worried 'workers' were so numerous as to rate a mention, he didn't include a direct quote and name for at least one.
This Akerman piece is just another reworking of his federal election campaign positions.
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