Sky falls
Posted by Christopher Sheil on Friday, May 4, 2007
Greg Combet shows how to run a 21st century campaign |
Have a drink for workers today. In what must go down as one of the biggest backflips in Australian political history, John Howard will today announce that people with salaries under $75,000 will have their AWAs subject to a “no-disadvantage” test. With apt timing, the move comes as Greg Combet is tipped to announce that he will stand in the forthcoming election. First things first, Mr Combet is to be congratulated for running the most effective public campaign ever seen on behalf of working people in this country. Assuming his election, Kevin Rudd’s successor will soon be in parliament. What will be the political implications of Mr Howard’s backflip? Under what conditions do palliatives mollify demands and under what conditions do they only fuel further demands? Has Howard pulled the sting or undermined the credibility of his whole package? What does the measure say about the Man of Steel, the conviction politician, the person who - the Australian has spent forests telling us - has deeply believed in a free labour market all his life? We’ll see.
Update: For those trying to figure the strategic implications, this concession has been at the starting gate for at least six weeks. On 28 March, the always well briefed (by the government) Paul Kelly wrote: “Howard is vulnerable on Work Choices and he will re-examine his position. This may go beyond finetuning to a strengthening of the social safety net.”
Update: This has been another big day in Australian politics. Another peak in the phony campaign. Kevin Rudd’s leadership and popularity have survived serial-peaks. The PM’s war wedge, on the US Democrats. The Cheney Sydney Gridlock. The Grand Water Plan. The 20 point ALP lead. The Brian Bourke stunt, which still amuses at the margins. The End of the Honeymoon. The broadband stoush. The NSW election rocket. The proof that Kevin didn’t grow up in a car. The End of the Honeymoon, the Sequel. The Death at Sunrise Spectacular. The End of the Honeymoon, Definitely. The Murdoch stroll. The Lefties Lose Anyhow Moment. The Rise Australia Because Global Warming is Horseshit Speech. The Two Point Clawback. Lately, good old class conflict. APEC coming soon, to a place near me.
On it goes. Each peak presented as the big test for Mr Rudd’s leadership. Each big final test waiting in line to greet the opinion polls. Each forgotten as the next rushes. Today leaves us with a gaping hole between the politics and the policy. It is wise to expect that today was more gesture politics than policy substance; more spin to licence an advertising campaign than tangible concession. It was effectively a response to a great campaign that amounts to a counter-campaign, not a practical admission. Yet there will be a significant time-gap between the announcement and the legislative amendment. The Howard government is at perhaps its weakest moment. The contingency of the moment may matter. Between the conception and the act falls the shadow of the public response.
Update: Famous fake turkey fondler, Tim Blair, thinks paraphrasing T S Eliot is obscure Marxism. Gobble, gobble, gobble …
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This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 8:07 AM and filed under Politics - national.
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Neutralisation through confusion Chris. That’s the name of the game here. No disadvantage tests, pattern bargaining, etc etc. It’s a sea of confusing jargon, and the public will be swimming in it over the next few weeks to the point that they won’t know if they are Arthur or Martha, and they’ll be looking to their favorite newspaper to tell ‘em what to think.
And the newspapers, filled with “middle of the road fascists” who “wouldn’t have the wit to design an industrial relations policy” will pretend they understand, but in the end will talk about the easy stuff - ’cause its easy. Such things as whether the unions are running the ALP, whether Julia’s lost the plot, whether Mr. Howard is getting the collywobbles before the polls.
And so in the end we’ll talk ourselves around and around in circles for so long that come the election Workchoices won’t matter a toss.
It’s time for the ALP to launch an attack on another front
Posted on 04-May-07 at 8:40 am | Permalink“This is not about overturning any reforms, this is about putting in place a stronger safety net“
Posted on 04-May-07 at 8:41 am | PermalinkHoward and Hockey not content with tripping up small business with red tape and 1000s of pages of arcane workchoices will now proceed to slowly strangle small business with the red tape of another change. Might be doable for a large established company with 2 floors of HR checkers and paper shufflers but impossible for the rest.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 10:21 am | PermalinkThe article says effectively revive “no disadvantage test” and in a sense its right but it is also wrong.
As it goes on to say “Fairfax and News Ltd newspapers said Mr Howard will announce the new ‘fairness test’ ”
As well as “Mr Howard has stopped short of actually reviving the mandated ‘no-disadvantage test’ ”
So the question becomes, what is in the ‘fairness test’ and whether it does go some way in addressing people’s work and financial insecurities under WorkChoices AWAs.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 10:37 am | PermalinkI cant see any of these fairness tests making much difference apart from window dressing. They cant apply to new jobs and will be incredibly hard to judge for existing jobs by an outsider because they’ll have to compare packages with complicated and differentiated job amenities (Is a package with 5% more pay but no sickness insurance fair or not?). It seems unlikely they’ll apply retrospectively.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 10:46 am | PermalinkThe greater significance of this move is to further replace unions as the designated bargainers by lawyers and judges who interpret and enforce laws. Legal minimum conditions and fairness tests in stead of union bargaining. As far as I know union officials are usually paid less than lawyers and have more local knowledge (meaning they need less time to figure things out) so on that score the move from unions to lawyers must have been a net additional cost to workers and employers.
Real Estate Sales Reps throughout the country will be breathing a sigh of relief over this new announcement.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 11:39 am | PermalinkI wonder if Howard was sitting on this until something happened that he needed to get off the front page in a hurry. Bill Heffernan, say.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 12:32 pm | PermalinkThis is his excuse to spend millions on a media campaign to explain the changes, the timing is perfect. If you sugar coat a dog turd, at least it looks better.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 1:05 pm | PermalinkI wonder if Howard was sitting on this until something happened that he needed to get off the front page in a hurry. Bill Heffernan, say.
Maybe, but I suspect the plotting is more devious. A Friday morning announcement will run through the weekend. Unless I’m mistaken, these will be the three days over which Nielsen does its next survey. So, the full story is more likely to be: (1) change the channel from Hef; (2) backflip on WorkChoices; (3) get a couple of points from Nielsen on Monday; (4) unleash the “middle of the road fascists” to write acres on the “dogged ordinary man who fights back against elite union bosses and the rest of the universe”. He’s a clever politician, our prime minister.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 2:00 pm | PermalinkSugar coated dog turd? Lipstick on a pig? Take your pick, this is just dressing up a policy which was killing the government out in battler land in order to get through to the election. If Howard wins again all pretence of fairness will go and really draconian NoChoices legislation will come in, all in the interests of flexibility and the economy of course.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 2:25 pm | PermalinkIt can only be hoped that there are only a few left who don’t know that Howard will do whatever it takes to stay in power - and whatever he likes when he is in power.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 2:33 pm | Permalink“Battlers” earn up to $74 999 p.a, including superannuation and health insurance?
I didn’t think APS 6 and EL 1 were battlers, but there you go…
Posted on 04-May-07 at 3:12 pm | PermalinkHas anyone seen an interviewer ask Howard or Hockey about plans for WCII should the Liberals (time that name was changed) be re-elected?
Sure as today is Friday, if Howard gets another guernsey, and with a compliant senate, he will bring in round two and effectively outlaw unions before he retires.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 3:14 pm | PermalinkDo you mean he will actually outlaw voluntary association or just remove the pro union bias in IR laws?
Posted on 04-May-07 at 3:17 pm | PermalinkMark,
I think he would make unions totally irrelevant by making it impossible for them to represent workers in any meaningful way. I think that has happened to an extent now and a WC Mk II would be the next logical step.
A touch of paranoia here but I think if Howard and gang get another term, particularly after the recent polls, numerous ALP leadership changes and the ALP’s move (jolt?) to the right under Rudd, the megalomania of the government will be unparalleled.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 3:33 pm | PermalinkHere are the latest Morgan poll figures http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4160/
No wonder Howard is getting desparate. Looks like he isn’t counting on much of a boost out of the Budget.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 4:03 pm | PermalinkWe need to await the details but it at first blush the safety net seems full of holes. It covers only those with incomes below 75,000, it does not compensate those already hit in the last twelve months, it will let off firms “experiencing economic difficulty”, there is no protection for redundancy and it does nothing to increase workers’ control of their working hours.
Moreover Howard will ask the ‘independent’ Employment Advocate (or whatever it’s called) to police the new safety net. On past experience, that’s a laugh. If the exercise is taken seriously, the enforcement process will require an army of bureaucrats and drive business mad!
At this stage, I am a bit with the cynics like Lucky. Is it an excuse to mount another big taxpayer-funded advertising campaign just before the elections?
Posted on 04-May-07 at 5:04 pm | PermalinkI think what he would do is restore the tort of criminal conspiracy to cover all collective attempts by employees to control the terms and conditions under which they work. Why not? If the 18th century works for the construction industry, why not the rest of society.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 5:42 pm | Permalink“tort of criminal conspiracy ”
Huh?
“Why not? If the 18th century works for the construction industry…”
Then who are the BLF and CFMEU?
Posted on 04-May-07 at 6:17 pm | PermalinkFrom the ozpolitics blog bunfight:
Posted on 04-May-07 at 8:50 pm | PermalinkUnbelievably cynical. The PM has discovered his heart because he has discovered fear in it.
For what it’s worth, I conducted a wide ranging straw poll today. I’m certain that no-one in the political class, broadly defined as a broadsheet reader, has bought this deal. Much less scientific, neither have the so-called ‘punters’, broadly defined as Tele readers. The common response was along the lines of ‘he said it was fair and now he’s admitted it isn’t’. The Nielsen will be interesting.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 9:01 pm | Permalink…one of the biggest backflips in Australian political history.
That would be a good description of Mr Rudd telling the National Conference that union membership is now irrelevant. Second place for astonishing idiocy: Julia Gillard forgetting the minimum wage in Labor’s IR Gold.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 9:23 pm | Permalink…I conducted a wide ranging straw poll today.
Decoded: Chris had a chat with other Laborites in the Evatt Foundation staff room.
Posted on 04-May-07 at 9:24 pm | PermalinkHi Currency. A night on the red cordial, I see. I have exercised author’s rights to editorialise in my update.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 12:41 am | PermalinkGreg Combet on Australian Story late last year:
The dumped-for-Combet Labor MP yesterday:
This is “a 21st century campaign”? Throwing a woman and children out of work? Combet is a disgrace. He should withdraw and apologise.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 1:26 am | PermalinkThe half-hearted effort to reintroduce Labor’s no disadvantage test really smacks of desperation. If Howard really wanted to neutralise WorkChoices as a big election issue he should simply have reinstated the original test. Sure he would have had to tacitly acknowledge that everything he’d said until now was completely misguided but he could do his been-listening-to-the-people schtick again. He’s got no shame, we know that from previous events (think fuel excise).
However he hasn’t reinstated a proper no disadvantage test at all. As Fred Argy notes, it’s full of holes. Moreover the way the media is reporting it makes it look even more trivial than it actually is. A car space as a trade off for penalty rates - how many people are going to think that’s a good deal? It’s one more indication of how out of touch the government is - it thinks employees of Macquarie Bank in the Sydney CBD are your typical Aussie battlers.
I reckon Howard’s ended up with the worst of both worlds: he’s conceded that WorkChoices is unfair but he hasn’t done anything worthwhile to improve it. All he’s managed to neutralise is concern over Labor’s IR policies. He can hardly criticise them for making changes on the run when he’s just done exactly the same thing.
One more screw-up by the bloke who was supposed to be The Master Politician of His Era.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 9:06 am | PermalinkWhat smacks of desperation, Ken, is the critics’ anger and fear that a system working well is now more difficult to advertise against with tens of millions of purloined unionists’ dollars. I note that after the catastrophe of Labor’s IR Gold, Kevvie is now eager to assure everyone that - of course - he always intended to
Posted on 05-May-07 at 10:18 am | Permalinkback down, humiliatedconsult with business and tweak Julia’s botched handiwork.Ken, you’re right, its not the olde no disadvantage test reurrected, even for workers on wages below the threshold. As I said across at LP, my understanding of Howard’s announcement is that awards won’t be the comparator for the fairness test (as they were under the old no disadvantage test.) Rather, the reference is only to what WorkChoices calls ‘protected award conditions’: mainly penalty rates, shift loadings, leave loadings, public holidays, bonuses. Previously these could be fairly unilaterally taken away by bosses with no compensation, as long as they explicitly said as much in the AWA. Now they need to be traded away for ‘fair compensation’
So the old no disadvantage test operated by reference to the wide-ranging and complex web of minimum conditions set by the relevant industry award (which was itself a dynamic and evolving code).
The new system effectively puts in place instead a two tier baseline: the five minimalist conditions in the Australian Fair Pay and Classification Standard, which can’t be traded away, and a second tier of conditions around things like award entitlements to penalty rates and public holidays etc, which can be traded away, as long as there’s a genuine trade.
The ‘genuine trade’or fair compensation notion raises the same difficulties we saw with regard to the no disadvantage test. First, it’s hard to tell what’s a genuine trade when comparing apples with oranges: to what extent can, say, higher pay compensate for the loss of conditions which go to a worker’s control over their job. Secondly, ensuring there’s a genuine trade can be administratively a hard slog, and there was some evidence with the no disadvantage test that the office of the Employment Advocate (in the case of AWAs) and the AIRC (in the case of collective agreements) weren’t always that diligent in making sure agreements met the test.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 10:56 am | Permalink“…if we lose this income, we lose our house”.
But a desperate Kelly Hoare won’t get any sympathy from millionaire Kevin Rudd (who claims he lived out of a car boot after his father died and his Mum lost the house) or Greg Combet (who claims his father’s death made him a warrior for justice when his Mum lost their residence at the winery).
Posted on 05-May-07 at 12:43 pm | PermalinkGood old C.L., always trying to change awkward subjects.
Anthony the changes can be framed now as making the system less flexible, because the awards from which the preserved entitlements are drawn are effectively frozen. Neither employers nor unions can apply to vary them to reflect changing industry circumstances.
Your comments about the problems of monitoring adherence to any no disadvantage test are spot on. I’ve seen AWAs from the late 1990s that didn’t appear to meet the test that applied then but they had been certified nevertheless. One of the obvious deficiencies in the process is that the Employment Advocate’s staff can ask the employer for verbal assurances and make their decisions based on them, with no provision for later review.
Steve at Lavateus Prodeo suggested the changes had been ‘hatched … in the Brisbane cabinet meeting last week.’ I reckon they must have done it after a particularly long lunch.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 12:58 pm | PermalinkIt’s a fake subject, Ken. We have full employment. The system is working fairly well; a change has been made to it for reasons of political perception. Perfectly humdrum and perfectly good politics given that it pre-empts the coming multitude of backdowns from Ruddard - as they do their best to turn around the most disastrous policy launch since Medicare Gold. Like Chris, most of the LP luvvies are ALP members and they’re desperately spinning the subject to get some relief after an embarrassing National Conference. I note that you’re not actually interested in a real-life case of a woman being unfairly dismissed by powerful employers.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 1:17 pm | PermalinkWell the fatuous proposition that an MP is employed by the political party she belongs to does have the virtue of novelty but in the absence of any other features of interest yes, I have better issues to occupy my mind. If the voters in the electorate concerned don’t like it I’m sure they’ll take the appropriate action.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 1:49 pm | PermalinkC.L. ,
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but Kelly Hoare will have done over 8 years of parliamentary service by the next election. By my reckoning that entitles her to a Lifetime Gold Travel Pass and a Retirement Allowance which would be around $60k a year.
After she regains work her income will be at least very close to when she was an MP probably much higher. Surprised to see you falling for a bit of Labour hack spin
Talk about a fake subject…
Posted on 05-May-07 at 1:54 pm | PermalinkKen, you’re right, under the pre-WorkChoices system the award ’safety net’ was evolving, the result of ongoing three-way bargaining between unions, employers and the Commission. The Work and Family test case of 2005 is a good example. It meant the right to a second year of unpaid mat leaave, the right to request part-time work on returning to work etc etc. Once such clauses became generalised through most industry awards, it would have to be a factor taken onto account for the pruopses of administering the no disadvantage test. In short, standards are ratchetted up to reflect evolving community standards as well as the specifics of particular industries. With legislated minima, or minima set by references to awards frozen as of March 2006, any increase in the baseline depends on the legislative process (refelcting perhaps political will and the electoral cycle), with outcomes that are generally going to be of a one-size-fits-all variety.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 1:57 pm | PermalinkSwio says women with legal entitlements are sackable for no reason if they have some money coming to them anyway and ambitious males want their jobs.
Interesting admission.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 2:27 pm | PermalinkFred,
Do you think there should be ‘no disadvantage’ tests for people earning >75K? I’m afraid I don’t.
And if I might change the tone a little, surely you’re not suggesting that on getting back into govt Howard would diddle the workers who’d voted for him. After all the approach enshrined in the new fairness test (on which millions of PR dollars are already being expended will be ‘protected by law’.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 4:17 pm | PermalinkNicholas you remind me of an interesting point. Many AWAs apply prospectively, usually because a worker signs up when s/he gets a job. So how is anyone to know whether they’ll earn more than $75000 or not? Under agreements with substantial performance-based pay components, or in jobs with variable overtime requirements, there’d simply be no way of telling whether the test applied for months after the agreement came into being.
The whole thing is a joke. The
Posted on 05-May-07 at 6:00 pm | PermalinkEmployment AdvocateWorkplace Authority would be tearing its hair out except for one thing: the whole certification process goes on behind closed doors so the bureaucrats can apply pretty much whatever interpretation they like and nobody is in a position to challenge them.Ah, but will those laws be enacted as core legislation, or non-core legislation?
Posted on 06-May-07 at 11:18 am | PermalinkIt’s a smart move by Howard. He knows he’s long lost sectors of the voting public - and he’s given up on them long ago himself. This is not specifically about general play. This is sectorial with an overlay of general voter toe-hold.
That toe-hold is designed to keep his words in public mind as the game rolls on. ‘Sectorially’, he covers his bases as he sees them.
The question is how the mob now see Howard, and how or if they take on board his utterances.
Why it’s clever is because Rudd has by no means claimed IR as Labor’s win, and having made the changes, Howard can call Labor on several fronts - he’s the architect now (having had the laws in place for significant electoral time -hence the need to rush them through pre that
Posted on 06-May-07 at 11:08 pm | Permalinkdemocratically horrific Christmas amongst a boatload of changes all guillotined) - and by this adjustment he’s making further claim we live in his house. In contrast, Rudd is trying to buy the house.
What you’ve heard is the first day of rhetoric. Howard will drum that message into peoples’ heads without an iota of entering the question until he stands strong in voter mind as the man of those select, few, brilliantly consumable idioms.
Rudd, instead, has to open up the bigger picture and prove he can hold that together. But he can also rip into Howard with similar, simple, messages. That’s for the taking if voters see Howard as a dud.
If a swing is already in the air, none of this matters. But if not, and Howard and others have good reason to expect it’s not, then Howard’s toe-hold can open up into a case of a touch “too much risk” to vote for Labor. Howard has done this before. It’s partly about people’s fear, partly about their apathy. Partly about the media grab. And partly about acting the part.
So far, the IR issue in the binoculars of an election, is not at all clear - unlike the clarity of daily IR issues.
I’m not making Howard out to be the master playmaker here - I imagine he knows he’s lost a lot. But I am saying today’s acceptance and reading of Howard’s move is not as it will be in three month’s time.
Nor is that to say Rudd is not benefited by Howard’s move.
But for now, notwithstanding daily winds and dialogue, Howard’s move has yet to reap its reward - and my point is it wasn’t designed to do so today. Today, he cops the flak. ‘Tomorrow’, the words he spoke start working.
Rudd can shoot them down as much as shooting his own foot.
It’s a fascinating beginning.
Posted on 06-May-07 at 11:09 pm | PermalinkMilne jumps the field today:
there is now a feeling that John Howard and Peter Costello are beginning to hit their straps at the right time of the electoral cycle; that while Kevin Rudd remains indisputably at the head of the field, the Prime Minister and Treasurer are coming around the turn and beginning to gather the Labor leader in.
The little Aussie battler, the ordinary, unloved, ragged, wartorn underdog, fights back with tenacious guts and dour determination against the Labor behemoth. From News Ltd, coming soon to a paper near you …
If the LNP can pull a point or two from the Nielsen, and then a point or two from the budget, expect “Government draws level” reports Dennis Shanahan, “ALP lead slashed to 10 points.”
Posted on 07-May-07 at 10:56 am | PermalinkI’m with Gummo. I reckon all that Rudd has to do is say “so please tell the Australian public Mr Howard: Is this a core promise? And if so, how long will it stay that way?”
Posted on 07-May-07 at 11:08 am | Permalink