A brief look at The Coalition's Policy to Improve the Fair Work Laws

 

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on introducing the Coalition’s new industrial relations policy talked of no worker being worse off and the proposed legislation needing to pass the pub test.

 

As both these phrases were rather notorious on the NSW North Coast during the Howard Government era, I decided to take a look at this policy document which sets out (among other things) an intention to further limited a union’s right of entry into a workplace, reinstate the Australian Building and Construction Commission and alter the Better Off Overall Test.

 

This is what I found on a first reading of The Coalition's Policy to Improve the Fair Work Laws:

 

On Page 5 there is a justification to change right of entry for union representatives:

According to the footnotes this workplace receiving up to 200 visits is the Foster Wheeler Worley Parsons (Pluto) Joint Venture located 190km north-west of Karratha in Western Australia, where the occupying employer of record Woodside Burrup Pty Ltd (WBPL) would only allow one signed in and staff  accompanied CFMEU representative to see one individual contractor’s employees per visit.

Which means that he was required to make multiple visits due to the scale of this mining venture, where the onshore plant and associated infrastructure alone cover about 80ha and the combined construction and operation workforce was estimated to be between 4,000-6,000 workers over the life of the project up to that point in time.

 

Page 6 contains a justification for reforming the Australian Building and Construction Commission:

Again the footnotes do not fully support these assertions, as productivity was above predicted levels before the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) was formed and it is noted that the alleged over $6 billion per year is arrived at in part by KPMG Econtech assigning a monetary value to personal leisure time when not at work.

 

By Page 13 of the document the Coalition is stating that between 2014 and 2016 it will review the Fair Australia laws:

Of course there was a prior post-implementation review of these laws between 2011-2012 and the Coalition obviously finds no fault with that particular review as it allegedly intends to rely on some of that its recommendations. Which begs the question as to why there is need for another review if Abbott wins government.

Then on Page 36 the Coalition is supporting a new proposition regarding workplace laws allegedly drawn from that same post-implementation review:

The Fair Work Australia Better Off Overall Test apparently specifies that the employee must actually be “better off overall”. That wages and conditions being offered by the employer in any new individual flexibility arrangement or enterprise agreement are not merely equivalent with the relevant modern award.

 

In Australia, non-monetary benefits broadly cover conditions of work such as guaranteed minimum hours, reasonable working hours, location of employment, flexible working arrangements etc.  

 

During the period Work Choices legislation was in effect, the Fairness Test only partially protected and/or compensated for the loss of such benefits and that under Work Choices there was the removal of any requirement to offset employee losses with benefits. It also meant that being provided with such things as access to a works car park could be assigned a nominal monetary value and used as compensation for loss of award condition/s and overtime worked would not always result in an increase in wage received but could be a payment-in-kind such as leftover food.

 

There is no mention in the fact that the 2011-12 review of work place laws, on which the Coalition policy document relies, clearly indicated that any arrangement to confer a non-monetary benefit on an employee in exchange for a monetary benefit was conditional on the value of the monetary benefit foregone is specified in writing and is relatively insignificant, and the value of the non-monetary benefit is proportionate.

 

However, what is clear is that under proposed changes to Labor's system of individual flexibility arrangements, workers would have a greater ability to trade off entitlements, including penalty rates and leave which was a key characteristic of Work Choices eagerly abused by employers.

Casino Beef Week tarnishes its own brand

How does a Northern Rivers festival which has been in existence for thirty-one years this month tarnish its brand?

By continuing to allow this sponsor for Casino Beef Week:

http://www.casinobeefweek.com.au/#/program/4574871516

Having Stuart George as President of Beef Week and chair of its promotions committee at the same time he is employed by coal seam gas exploration and mining company Metgasco as its Community Relations Manager is a distinctly odd look, given this company has been widely rejected by Northern Rivers residents and the farming community.

This rejection appears to include a majority of the good people of South Casino according to a report in the Richmond River Express Examiner on 1 May 2013:

The state of the Australian economy confuses the average voter?

It rather beggars belief that so many political commentators have been talking down the Australian economy for the last five years, when overall that same economy has been the envy of the developed world during that same period.

It seems that hardly a week has gone by when somewhere in the national media there hasn’t been a journalist reporting economic doom and gloom, aided and abetted by various Liberal and National Party politicians.

Yet in 2013 gross government debt stands at a comparatively modest $271 billion by international standards and net government debt is estimated at $145 billion to date in Australia as the world’s 12th  largest economy. The nation still has GDP growth, a budget deficit of around 1 per cent of GDP or less, an across the board AAA international credit rating, low inflation, low unemployment and is considered a safe haven for investors.

To say that this disconnect between negatively-coloured reporting and verifiable fact may have led to voter ambivalence is positing the obvious and it can possibly be seen in this survey.

Between Wednesday 1 May and Sunday 5 May 2013 an estimated 1,000+ survey respondents answered questions concerning the Australian economy and, their replies were published as part of the broader Essential Report on 6 May 2013.

These respondents were drawn from among the same 7,000-8,000 people who have been answering this regular Essential Services survey for years.

What is interesting about this latest report is the respondents answers to questions about government debt.

In one question 25% think that Australia’s national debt is higher than other developed countries and 48% think it is lower – 18% think it about the same.

In another 46% think the main reason for Australia’s national debt is that the Government are poor economic managers. 26% think it is due to the world economy and 17% blame the high Australian dollar.

However, in yet another question 39% think that government’s management of the Australian economy compared to how governments in other countries around the world have managed their economies has been good/very good and 32% think it has been poor/very poor.

While the conclusion arrived at in the final question was that 32% trust Wayne Swan more to handle Australia’s economy and 35% trust Joe Hockey more. With those on incomes under $1,000pw favour Wayne Swan 34%/31% while those earning over $1,000pw favour Joe Hockey 37%/32%.

So while the biggest percentage blocs in two questions realized that Australia’s national debt was lower than most other developed countries and considered that the Gillard Government's management of the economy was good to very good in comparison with the rest of the world - at the same time the biggest percentage bloc in another question decided that the federal government’s poor economic management was the root cause of the national debt.

Leading to the untried Opposition Shadow Joe Hockey being seen by three per cent more respondents as being better trusted when it came to handling the Australian economy than Treasurer Wayne Swan and, that 3% looking suspiciously like a group earning over $1,000 per week.

It would appear that five years of relentless negative comment in the media may have left many unable to reconcile political rhetoric with Treasury’s annual economic data and, choosing to believe the former rather than the latter much of the time.

* Graph from ABC News

No worker will be worse off under our industrial relations policy. Now where have I heard that before?

 

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott (former Minister for Employment Services and  Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business  in the Howard Government) on the subject of the Coalition’s industrial relations policy on 9 May 2013:

Australian Coalition Prime Minister John Howard on the subject of the Coalition’s industrial relations policy in 1996:

In 2007 over twelve months after the introduction of the Coalition Government’s Work Choices industrial relations legislation and regulations:

 

* on average across the country, workers on AWAs earned 3 per cent less than workers on collective agreements. Outside Western Australia, the shortfall was 10 per cent.

 

* Some of Australia's 1.7 million retail and hospitality workers have lost up to a third of their incomes since the introduction of Work Choices laws, a new study has found.

 

The Coalition’s current May 2013 industrial relations policy document here.

Electoral Commission announces 14 September 2013 referendum on local government recognition in the Australian Constitution

 

AEC Announcement 9 May 2013:

 

The Government has announced that it is planning to hold a referendum on recognition of local government in the Australian Constitution at the same time as the federal election planned for 14 September 2013. The Australian Electoral Commission will be making the necessary preparations to conduct the referendum ballot with the election.

This forthcoming national referendum will be the forty-fifth since Federation and the second time voters have been asked to consider recognising local government in the Australia Constitution.

On the first occasion in July 1988 the referendum failed, as only 33.62% of voters wanted local government recognised and therefore there was no majority in any of the mandatory five out of six states required for it to pass.

Voting in a referendum is compulsory and, in a better world than this, the question would be framed in such a way that future regional local governments on the NSW North Coast and across the nation would be able to resist being turned into no more than powerless ciphers of successive city-centric state governments.

Unfortunately the intention of the referendum is not to remove the power of state governments to legislate in relation to local councils, neither is it to lessen the risk that state governments will reduce local autonomy even further, nor is it to take from the states their powers to impose compulsory amalgamations on residents and ratepayers.

What is being offered is the formal inclusion of local government in Section 96 of the Constitution so that the Commonwealth may directly grant financial assistance to councils on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit.

Much in the same manner as it does now under certain federal government funding programs, but without the ongoing uncertainty created by a successful constitutional challenge in 2012.

The principal reasons for this referendum can be found in Chapter 2 of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Local Government's Final Report (7 March 2013)

How fast will your Gillard Government NBN fibre to the premises connection be when compared with the Abbott-Turnbull fibre to the street scheme? Find our here

Go to http://howfastisthenbn.com.au/ and run the test yourself. 

Labor's NBN uploads and downloads can happen in seconds. Coalition's NBN is going to be excruciatingly slow in comparison.

Does Tony Abbott thinks that Alan Jones' radio audience can't read and will not notice yet another political lie?

Obviously relying on the probability that Alan Jones 2GB radio audience would not immediately fact check his statements, Australian Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said what he knew Jones wanted to hear in a 2 May interview – audio here.

Unfortunately for Abbott the mining industry was not so obliging and, he had to finally admit the blindingly obvious, that state laws do not allow farmers an unfettered right to keep mining companies off their land and that he supports states’ rights on this issue.

The Australian 3 May 2013:

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott was last night forced to clarify his coal seam gas policy after indicating he would intervene in the issue as Prime Minister and protect the rights of farmers.

Only hours after the declaration on anti-CSG campaigner Alan Jones' 2GB radio show, the Coalition last night admitted its policy had not changed and it still believed the matter was a state issue.

The move came as one of the major industry players, Queensland Gas Company, lashed Mr Abbott for trying to appease Mr Jones' vocal campaign against the sector and stifle energy development.

The shifting positions came less than two years after Mr Abbott made a similarly bold declaration on Mr Jones' show declaring farmers had a right to refuse land access to miners - only to back away from the position days later.

On 2GB yesterday morning, Mr Abbott said his resources spokesman, Ian MacFarlane's comments backing the rights of farmers were ''sensible'' and it was his policy.

''Yeah, look, miners should not go on to farms if they're not wanted,'' he said.

''It's very wrong and they shouldn't be going on to land where the relevant landowners don't want them. It is as simple as that.''

Asked if he would ensure that in government unlike other politicians, Mr Abbott said: ''I want to be someone who keeps commitments and the interesting thing Alan is that the sensible miners, people like Santos, don't go on to land if the land holders aren't happy about it and that's the way it ought to be.''

But Mr MacFarlane last night said the Coalition believed farmers had rights in principle but that it would only ''urge'' states to protect their rights if elected to government in September.

''Nothing has changed,'' he said.

Mr Abbott's office said there was no change to the CSG policy, which let states handle the issue.