John Howard’s failed WorkChoices plan was just the warm up. Tony Abbott’s WorkChoices (inspired by Gina ‘Less Than $2 A Day’ Rinehart) will turn Australia into a Medieval Fiefdom controlled by a handful of billionaires and their marionettes in parliament doing their bidding.
The media are pushing the idea that the biggest threat to Australian millionaires comes from workers wanting flexible hours, perhaps for caring for elderly or disabled relatives or children, they claim this is in inflexible.
The ALP has plans to make it easier for employees to seek flexible working hours. Flexibility would apply to those workers who are over 55, with school age children, disability or carer duties, victim of domestic violence or new parents. (source: here)
As sure as night follows day, the millionaires and billionaires have launched a campaign to demonise “flexibility”.
Labor’s IR law hurts business ‘battlers’: CEO
Nicola Mills confesses she gets a little “nervous” when the federal government starts fiddling with Fair Work legislation. The chief executive of Pacific Retail Management, which runs restaurant chains including Go Sushi and Kick Juice, says the proposed changes to expand the rights of parents to request flexible hours and restrict roster changes put more pressure on small businesses by imposing too much bureaucracy.
Paywalled: source here Financial Review
Pacific Retail, with a turnover of more than $9 million is the conservatives idea of a battler. All those workers with an Alzheimer parent to look after and two kids in school struggling on minimum wage in an office someplace between midnight and dawn on a saturday night without the chance of penalty rates at (for example) one of Pacific Retails businesses probably didn’t realise that $9 million was the New Battler.
But for all you workers of Australia who are battling on much less than $9M, Tony ‘Superman’ Abbott is putting on his cape, his undies over his tights and will save you.
Tony Abbott says “the real friends of the workers of this country are on this side [Opposition] of the Parliament.” (source: here)
In the past Tony Abbott has said “The one thing that the Australian workers will find is that I am their best friend. What I want to see is higher wages and more jobs. That’s what I was like when I was the workplace relations minister.” (source: here)
Tony Abbott was also part of a Liberal government that inflicted WorkChoices on the nation. Slave wages and no rights is Tony Abbott’s idea of being a “best friend”. Although, considering he was Peter Slipper’s best friend, and was best man at his wedding, and has since tried to force him out of his job and into prison, perhaps Tony Abbott doesn’t realise what being a Friend means.
However, the ALP will fight for all Australians, not just a handful of multi-millionaire battlers.
Bill Shorten, speaking in parliament yesterday told the nation the reality.
But the problem is that there is only one side of Australian politics that wants to be positive about workplace relations.
Whenever we talk about workplace relations, someone in the central bunker of Liberal headquarters presses the alarm button and says: ‘Quick; we’d better get out and bash unions. We’d better disguise the fact that we do not have a policy for Australian workplaces.’
Even better, someone in Liberal Party headquarters presses the button and says: ‘Quick, let’s rake over something from 20 years ago as a revenge against our Prime Minister.’ At least we talk about workplace relations.
I will tell you about Liberal flexibility—because they will not. Under Liberals, it is more flexible to sack someone. It is more flexible to cut their pay. It is more flexible, but they do not have job security.
Under Labor, our definition of flexibility is productivity; it is modern families getting a decent go in the workplace.
I love it when the Leader of the Opposition reminds everyone, as he did today, that he is the worker’s best friend. With friends like him, you don’t need enemies!…
You might not like the truth over there [Opposition], but you should have it.
Finally, when we talk about prosperity and threats to it, I love a good Leader of the Opposition quote. Talking about Work Choices, Mr Abbott said:
The Howard government’s industrial legislation, it was good for wages, it was good for jobs and it was good for workers. And let’s never forget that.
I will tell you one thing: we’ll never forget about it, but I don’t agree with the rest of that quote.
Source Hansard: here
BY Janet Sharp
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