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Turnbull exhumes rotting corpse of WorkChoices
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It is extraordinarily generous of the Liberal Party to keep giving the Government issues with which to beat it. Last week Joe Hockey decided to open his mouth, and promptly fell into it, nicely distracting from the modicum of pressure Christopher Pyne had managed to bring to bear on Julia Gillard. But just in case the Government might run out of attack points in Parliament this week, Malcolm Turnbull has decided to exhume the rotting corpse of Workchoices to see how badly it smelt. One suspects he’ll discover that eighteen months in the ground hasn’t improved its stench. It’s not entirely clear what Turnbull’s position on individual contracts is. It appears to be that he wants to have a review about levels of workplace “flexibility” before deciding. Why he wants a review isn’t clear. Either you support the right of people to negotiate individual contracts with their employers or you don’t. The Liberals should support that right, subject to appropriate safeguards (so should the ALP, but that’s another, union-dominated story). Instead, Turnbull wants the flexibility to dither. What is he thinking? Anything other than a rolled-gold commitment never to return to Workchoices will be used by the Government to mercilessly attack him. The Government will delight in pointing out that the “flexibility” that Turnbull thinks is so important is a euphemism for lower wages and poorer conditions. No employer ever needed more flexibility to pay their employees better. It’s a doubly tricky position because the Coalition never mastered its line on Workchoices the first time around. On the eve of the 2007 election, Joe Hockey was using wage rises created by low unemployment and a skills crisis to argue that Workchoices led to higher wages, when the entire intent and economic purpose of Workchoices had been to better enable employers to cut them. Good luck going to the next election telling voters they’re getting paid too much and need a little “flexibility” in their working lives, especially if they think employers are more likely to use it than they would have been at the top of a boom. Turnbull saying he won’t rule out individual contracts until he’s had a review is the worst possible position to be in. Or, actually, the second-worst. The even worse position is to want a review that can never show what you want it to show. That’s what will happen to Turnbull’s review of labour productivity. As a rule of thumb, labour productivity declines as you enter a recession and improves as you recover. Cutting back on hours and otherwise hoarding labour during the downturn – and the labour force data shows there’s been a great deal of that – means lower productivity per worker, until employers start closing or sacking workers outright. But come the recovery, they put their existing staff to work more first before hiring more labour. There’s more work for existing workers to do; part-timers move to full-time; people start doing overtime. Output per employee increases, and capital equipment gets used more. It’s one of the reasons it took so long for us to escape high unemployment during the early nineties recession and gave us a low-inflation recovery. This time next year, assuming the recovery takes hold, we’ll therefore have seen a sizeable increase in labour productivity. Turnbull’s “review” thus will have to consider whether it would’ve grown even more if individual contracts were available – notwithstanding that hundreds of thousands of workers will be on AWAs for another three or four years anyway. It’ll be hard enough getting labour economists to agree on that let alone sell it to voters as a compelling reason for IR changes. Perhaps Turnbull thinks business will donate more to the Liberals if they back another round of IR reform. Given the dominance of Labor, the dismay in business ranks at the Liberals’ opposition to the second stimulus package, and the particular alienation of the normally generous commercial property sector, it’s not a bad idea to give employer groups a reason to come back home and bring their chequebooks with them. Except, it will be counterbalanced by additional support for the Government from trade unions infuriated that the Coalition wants to return to Workchoices. Inexplicable stuff, simply inexplicable. Industrial relations was off the agenda, apart from the carry-on over the abolition of the Stasi – sorry, the Australian Building and Construction Commission – which is primarily of interest to the CFMEU. Workchoices hadn’t even been mentioned by the Government in its attacks on the Coalition for months. But Turnbull has got his broad shoulders underneath it and pushed it back into view. For the umpteenth time, there has only been one successful Opposition leader in the last decade, and that’s Kevin Rudd. It therefore may be in Malcolm Turnbull’s interests, however galling, to study what he did right, which can be summarised as: close down problem areas; avoid at all costs fights you don’t want or can’t win; offer a clear and saleable product in the areas where you want to differentiate yourself, and stick to a small number of key messages all the time. Turnbull is instead using Rudd as a reverse playbook, and the polls show it. |
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12 Comments
Given the blatant unfairness of ‘Fair Work….’ there obviously needs to be some kind of balance and flexibility. By sticking to the union friendly “Fair Work…..’ I would suggest that Rudd and Gillard can hardly be painted as white knight and knightess. It’s the same old Labor/Union promotion of mediocrity.
Malcolm Turnbull needs to realise that just because you were good in your past life as a businessman and lawyer, doesn’t necessarily follow that you will be a good politician, not even by the dint of your sheer force of will and study of the political sciences.
You need to be an alchemist and A-grade political Poker player to be successful at the game, and Malcolm can’t even take a trick; why he can’t even manage a lay-down mizarre like Steve Fielding did last week after his spelling blooper.
misere, as spelling pendant with woeful record.
Insiders yesterday suggested the ALP Govt ‘believe/know’ they have Turnbull’s measure.
What I seemed to notice in the clip of PM Rudd with Ali Moore on 7.30 late last week, with Rudd in furrowed brow mode - a dangerous political posture a bit like Jed Bartlett with hands in pocket, setting a course.
We shall see. ‘Glasses’ Grattan earlier today seems to assume a double dissolution on a $2B health shortfall is not really a goer for some procedural reasons. But what if the PM’s office really leans into it, the way the polity have the NSW ALP totally off balance this week despite ostensible 4 year terms to 2011.
I wonder.
No Malcolm no! … You’re leading with your chin …
Tom McL, there are too many “if’s” in your proposition. Besides which, if the Feds go too early, they will collect a huge protest vote in NSW and Queensland which is really due to their under-performing State brothers and sisters. It is by no means clear that a double dissolution trigger would be usable.
Turnbull will keep on being Turnbull. Outsiders will think that he lacks control and insiders will continue to undermine him, both accidentally (Hockey) or intentionally (no names needed).
Those on the Right simply have not agreed which course to set, and presumably will continue in this mode until they realise collectively that there is an election on, ie in about a year’s time, by which time any policy will be better than none at all.
Watch the frightened backbenchers of both sides as they approach the next election, those for whom re-election is by no means guaranteed. There’s nothing like the threat of the sack to loosen a politician’s lips.
“Simply inexplicable’ I gaped at the telly in open mouthed horror that Turnbull could get it so wrong. Like watching a car crash. And then this morning Joe Hockey giving a verbal approximation of a drunken bear dancing. Even if they wanted to bring it back, why now for christsake, with the GFC in everyones mind and unemployment rising, just astonishing. The powerfox sounded like someone had thrown a brace of tied up chickens in her lap.
pendant or pedant, Tom?
Or am I being swooshed here?
nice work meski, or is Tom just leaving us hanging?
SBH - I think, good on you Turnbull, you’ve just dug your own grave. As a person who was diligently working against Howard being re-elected, primarily over WorstChoices and his general attitude to foreign affairs(read illegal wars etc) and our shame via the migration ‘laws’, I can’t think of a more stupid path to take by the conservatives. What do they think? That we’re so bloody stupid we’ll fall for it again?
I’d like the new IR laws to go further in the workers’ favour, and I’m certainly against the “Stasi….ABCC” What a disgrace that is. People can be jailed for refusing to answer questions; jailed for telling their partner where they’ve been and what transpired etc. This from an Opposition calling Rudd a ‘dictator from Mao etc’?Next they’ll be telling us what a great democracy we have, and how we’re the leader in human rights around the world, blah blah! Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence, and what happens at the barbeque has nought to do with the boss, or the ‘thought police’ either for that matter? There’s some pretty horrible stories on the CFMEU web site.
I’ve heard some terrible stories via WorstChoices, particularly among the lower paid people; young and inexperienced people, and people just sacked for no reason, except to change the workforce to casual, without proper pay and conditions. WorstChoices brought out those disgraceful employers who’d prefer we all worked for nothing or close to it. I remeber Gerry Harvey’s push for a two tier wage system - the lower one for foreign workers? Great stuff Gerry, he’d be at it again. I thought it was dead and buried. Perhaps we need a different method of paying politicians - we could start with Wilson Tuckey, who informed us all, that his maiden speech(1981?) was on IR, and against penalty rates etc. What does he do, apart from taking up space in the Parliament? Not much! He should take a pay cut?
I think a little bit of perspective is needed about the ABCC. I certainly admit I am very uncomfortable with the level of power it can exercise. Once you get away from the politics of the situation, difficult as that is given the ABCC’s history, I don’t think too many people will disagree that the building industry in the late 1990s was not in a good shape particularly in Victoria and WA.
More recently, I watched the construction of the Perth to Mandurah rail-line and the occurences of ‘blue-flu’ and other acts of industrial bastardry from the unions contribute toward a massive cost overrun on the project.
Don’t get me wrong, I also saw the horror stories and horrible AWAs from WorkChoices with the job I had at that time. It would be very naive to suggest that employers are all saints irrespective of whether they are in retail, construction, hospitality, government etc. It would also be extremely naive to ignore the findings of the Cole Royal Commission.
I make no excuses for either the CFMEU or the building industry employers. The entire industry needed to pull its socks up!
Umberto you are right, some perspective is needed. This is one hell of an industry but the question is do they need special laws. Special laws seem to be the flavour of the month for our politicians, we need special laws for all kinds of things that our old laws seem to prohibit already but that aside the industry needs to be looked at in context. It is a dangerous industry and before the BLF it killed a large number of workers, it still kills more than most other industries and injures many many more. It’s hardly surprising that unions are militant.
But let’s remember that the ABCC is the end result of a political stunt. the Cole Royal Commission found far more bad behaviour on the developers and employers side than on the workers side.
It’s also pertinetnt to ask what percentage of the cost of a high-rise CBD building is litigation. I understand it’s about half. If we really wanted to clean up the industry we’d look at this.
Liz 45 you delightful nutcase, you are even further left than me and that’s saying something. I wish there were more like you.
He’s like Kyle Sandilands our Malcolm - always putting his foot in it. So tuned into himself he’s missed the past few years - you know when Brendan Nelson gave Workchoices the last rites and the rest of us watched the cortege carry off the Coalition, its leader and the expired legislation. So badly infected by the deadly IR virus the Liberals carried out their own post-mortem as we debated democracy. Leadership spills, bench swapping and bi-elections later the Party’s future remains in the balance. So what does the Evel Kneival of federal parliament do to top failed Utegate and fake email tricks? He rides into Workchoices territory just to make sure the more things change the more they stay in Opposition.