Voters back the mining tax but oppose uranium exports to India, today’s Essential Report shows. And voters are less concerned about a return to Workchoices.
WorkChoices
The long tradition of union ‘interference’
Advocates of IR reform claim unions traditionally haven’t been allowed to “interfere” in issues such as contracting out. Wrong.
Australia’s OECD productivity freefall
Australia isn’t the only country grappling with labour productivity problems. But ours got a lot worse during Workchoices.
Essential: Gillard down again, but support for offshoring, pokies reform
Julia Gillard has hot a new low in today’s Essential Report. But there’s support for the government in asylum seeker processing and pokies.
Searching for truth on productivity
For journalists willing to do some work, it’s easy to check whether the link being made between IR deregulation and labour productivity stands up.
The return of protectionism: the gang’s all here
Protectionism is alive and well and has strong allies in the public policy arena.
Once again, taxpayers pick up the tab to advertise to themselves
Here we go again. The Gillard government now has to defend not only its carbon pricing plan, but also its apparent hypocrisy in spending some $25 million of taxpayers’ money to promote it.
podcast Canberra Calling: The WorkChoices reincarnated podcast
This week, Crikey’s Canberra Correspondent Bernard Keane and Crikey editor Sophie Black discuss the return of WorkChoices, Peter Reith’s failed Liberal Party presidency bid and Bob Brown’s report into the foreign ownership of Australia’s mining sector.
Liberals in search of the case for IR reform
Since IR reformers won’t explain why we need it, we’ve looked at what WorkChoices accomplished. It wasn’t much.
So… just why do we need IR reform again?
We’re told time and again that we need more IR reform. But no one ever says why.
WorkChoices zombie rises
Contradicting his own commitment not to change IR legislation isn’t the only problem with Tony Abbott’s savings proposal on union ballots. It goes much much further than Workchoices did.
It’s amateur hour at Tony’s house
Four days into the federal election campaign and IR is the topic of the day. But it seems that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his party have been caught on the hop, appearing like amateurs and willing to give up a generational-long commitment by the Liberal Party to labour market reform, writes Paul Kelly.
Keane: dead and buried, but the Work Choices zombie dogs Abbott
WorkChoices won’t cost the Liberal Party the 2010 election in the way it did the 2007 election, but it won’t help their decreasing chances of pulling off an improbable victory, writes Bernard Keane.
Essential: Labor opens a lead again, asylum seeker approach popular
According to the latest Essential Research poll Labor continues to move ahead of the Coalition and has now accumulated a handy lead. Voters also approve of Julia Gillard’s shifts on the RSPT and asylum seekers.
Voters down on Rudd and Abbott — and deeply worried about Workchoices
Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are falling rapidly in voters’ estimation. But Abbott has another problem — no one believes him about Workchoices.
Your children, are they safe from fat, old sunburnt people?
No, they will be drowned in the bath by The Unions!
Colless: Tony, don’t be afraid of the big bad union
A new media campaign by ACTU called “Don’t Go Back To WorkChoices” is an unfair and untruthful attack on Tony Abbott. The Libsneed to offer a suitable IR alternative since Rudd’s policies are collapsing, writes Malcolm Colless.
Grattan: Can Abbott tame the WorkChoices beast?
Other disposed Lib leaders wouldn’t touch industrial relations with a ten foot pole, but Tony Abbott says “WorkChoices wasn’t all bad” and is pushing his own, more tightly reigned in version. Will it work for Abbott? asks Michelle Grattan.
Why business won’t be lining up to support Abbott’s IR plans
While employers may quietly support Tony Abbott’s plan to scrap weekend penalty rates and unfair dismissal laws, they’re not about to form a Coalition cheer squad, says Nicholas Way: they know Gillard will still be holding the reigns of power after the election.
WorkChoices II: the Coalition strikes back
Tony Abbott has been steering the political narrative into some treacherous waters this week: industrial relations. As the sharks start circling, will the Coalition sink or swim in the spectre of WorkChoices?
Grattan: WorkChoices back from the dead
Let the scaremongering begin. Tony Abbott’s new workplace relations reforms aren’t dissimilar to the much hated WorkChoices. It’s a risky move by Abbott to bring IR laws back into the spotlight, writes Michelle Grattan.
Turnbull exhumes rotting corpse of WorkChoices
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.
Guy Rundle: Did Harper’s Christianity influence his wage decision?
Does Harper’s Christianity shape his idea of how recovery should proceed?
Fair Pay: the perils of politicians appointing ‘independent’ experts
The Fair Pay Commission is a classic example of when politicians appoint independent experts, things often don’t turn out exactly the way they planned.
A mining boom for mining companies… not for anyone else
New research suggests the benefits of the mining boom were far smaller than believed.
