Which election were you watching?

Is Brandis commencing a double dissolution suicide mission?
“This is the mandate theory that I don’t particularly subscribe to,” Senator Brandis told ABC Radio in Brisbane.
“I think it’s a weak theory, unless it could be said unequivocally that the election turned on one issue and one issue alone.
“I myself think the overwhelming factor was just a [...]

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Capitulation

The people who brought you this:

are now whistling a different tune:
Mr Gailey said despite the concerns during the election campaign about the power of union leaders, he was not worried about the government dominated by newly-elected union identities such as Bill Shorten and Greg Combet.
“We’ve worked successfully with Labor governments in [...]

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Captain catches Truth Virus

John Howard helps to deliver a campaign message for Labor:
“If we win on Saturday then the reforms that we have brought about will never be reversed by a future federal Labor government,” he said.
“They will become part of the furniture. They will become so embedded in our business and workplace culture that no future Labor [...]

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Failing the test

Around half of the AWAs that have been lodged since the introduction of the fairness test fail to meet its requirements.
Of course, Joe Hockey can keep telling us that this is a sign that the system is working – unfair AWAs are being picked up and rectified. He might even manage to keep a straight [...]

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Public sector managers

Anti-union:
The federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations today faces the prospect of being fined by a court for breaching federal industrial law.
Justice Catherine Branson found the department issued prohibited advice leading to Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members being refused leave on the day of an anti-WorkChoices Rally.
She was critical of public sector [...]

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Let them eat ads

Now that the mid-year economic review data has been released, Labor has an up-to-date price tag of the taxpayer-funded propaganda campaigns. Julia Gillard has jumped on the WorkChoices advertising figures ($121 million in total; $66 million since the fairness test):
“$4 million a week each week of this financial year to try and convince Australians who [...]

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The other story of the day

Rudd and Gillard made a start on bringing WorkChoices into the campaign. It’s been overshadowed by the tax cuts, but was a decent start. However, if I may answer one of Kevin Rudd’s questions (perhaps not in the same way JWH would):
“What is to stop Mr Howard in the future from enforcing WorkChoices on nurses, [...]

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What George said

Another smart, sensible column from Mr Megalogenis, the theme of which is:
Beware leaders promising jobs.

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Australia@Work

Blogocracy has a guest post by the University of Sydney’s Brigid van Wanrooy, one of the authors of the attention-getting Australia@Work report. She also spent some time responding to comments, with Tim posting some responses as well. It’s worth trawling through the four or so pages (so far).

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Preventing contamination

Tim Dunlop noted a story in The Age that shows Barbara Bennett is doing her bit to save the Government from attack by “former union officials”:
WHILE the Federal Government has attacked academics whose study of WorkChoices it disagrees with, it has also stopped researchers from getting crucial information to study the effects of the industrial [...]

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