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2007 Federal Election - Coalition or Labor/Howard or Rudd? (4 Viewers)

Coalition or Labor/Howard or Beazley?

  • Coalition

    Votes: 249 33.3%
  • Labor

    Votes: 415 55.5%
  • Still undecided

    Votes: 50 6.7%
  • Apathetic

    Votes: 34 4.5%

  • Total voters
    748

Nebuchanezzar

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frog said:
I apologise for voicing my thoughts oh venerable one.

As the most learned person on the forum,
I would appreciate it if you could enlighten us as to the detail of how the fairness test doesn't satisfy its purpose. Until that occurs, then there is really nothing to discuss about the issue..

It is a mechanism that has been established to ensure that conditions are not removed without some form of recompense. Until it has been practically applied to specific situations and agreements, I fail to see how you can assess its effectiveness and overall ability to satisfy its purpose..

Oh, and the chip I spoke about some time ago, its still there plain for all to see..
Oh, I'm quite sure I asked you first, my friend. The fairness test? It doesn't acheive its purpose as it doesn't take into account all the rights that should be guaranteed to workers. Sure, you can slap the words 'fairness test' on quite a lot of things and attempt to pass it off as being fair, but when that test considers only half (roughly?) of the rights guaranteed to workers before "Workchoices" came into play, all of which were quite nessecary, it's not all that fair.

:)
 

frog12986

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Nebuchanezzar said:
Oh, I'm quite sure I asked you first, my friend. The fairness test? It doesn't acheive its purpose as it doesn't take into account all the rights that should be guaranteed to workers. Sure, you can slap the words 'fairness test' on quite a lot of things and attempt to pass it off as being fair, but when that test considers only half (roughly?) of the rights guaranteed to workers before "Workchoices" came into play, all of which were quite nessecary, it's not all that fair.

:)

On the topic of fairness, are you, or most people for that matter, aware that the ALP is intending to reintroduce bargaining fees in an attempt to lure people back to the unions? (i.e. by making a compulsory bargaining fee more expensive than the union membership)

Or that under the collective arrangements, if 100 employees out of 1000 attend the vote, then it is possible for 51 employees to decide on the arrangements for the remaining 949.

Yet they do not consider their policy to be backward step, or a move that panders to union demands?

You continually talk about the rights that should be afforded to workers, yet don't consider the right to free choice? Of the conditions and 'rights' of workers, the government has struck a strong balance. For instance, Labor policy dictates that the maximum hours per week is 38 for any employee. However, under Coalition policy the hours must average 38 hours over the course of the year. The stark contrast between the flexibility of two policies is clear. The seems to be a stigma attached to flexibility by the unions that it is only beneficial to the employer. Perhaps this has something to do with the dwindling union numbers, and the overall decline in union support as evidenced by the extremely poor turnout at yesterday's May Day Rally..

Of the 'rights' that existed before that no longer exist under the new system (fairness test included), could you list a few that are absolutely necessary?
 

ZabZu

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frog12986 said:
On the topic of fairness, are you, or most people for that matter, aware that the ALP is intending to reintroduce bargaining fees in an attempt to lure people back to the unions? (i.e. by making a compulsory bargaining fee more expensive than the union membership)
I heard a bit about that. To be honnest it sounds quite frightening. However, Labor's IR policy today is going to be very different to the one it has on election day. Changes will be made regarding individual contracts, etc.

frog12986 said:
For instance, Labor policy dictates that the maximum hours per week is 38 for any employee. However, under Coalition policy the hours must average 38 hours over the course of the year.
People aren't restricted to 38 hours. They are free to work more but they would be paid overtime shift loadings. The coalition policy averages out the number of hours in one entire year, which is way too long. Plus with AWAs that take away overtime, a worker can work 60 hours a week and they receive no shift loading for their excessive work commitment.

Ross Gittins wrote a very good article in the SMH today about IR.
 

Nebuchanezzar

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frog12986 said:
Of the 'rights' that existed before that no longer exist under the new system (fairness test included), could you list a few that are absolutely necessary?
unfair dismissal laws?
 

volition

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With those increased overtime rates for any hours over standard full time, I get the feeling those are there just to make it that much more expensive to get a worker to do overtime, so that the business is more inclined to employ a whole new worker instead.

I don't like this kind of thinking, even though it may have good intentions behind it, it costs us growth in the long term because of increased production prices and decreased flexibility. Increased production prices(prices at more than what they would otherwise be) can only lead to narrower markets.
 

Sparcod

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Captain Gh3y said:
When WILL THE LIES STOP?
Too bad. It's election year. Everybody wants to get in.

volition said:
With those increased overtime rates for any hours over standard full time, I get the feeling those are there just to make it that much more expensive to get a worker to do overtime, so that the business is more inclined to employ a whole new worker instead.
You've got a valid point there. I somewhat agree with you volition on overtime payments.
Putting ovetime aside, would you say that businesses are more inclined to hire workers on public holidays because it's cheaper to do so? Then again, there'll be less takers of this position unless they've got lots of time on their hands and don't mind missing out on family time. Economics is all about trade-offs.

Oh yeah, what if there is someone who really wants to work 50 + hours a week because he's got 6 kids and the wife is at home?
 

volition

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Sparcod said:
You've got a valid point there. I somewhat agree with you volition on overtime payments.
Putting ovetime aside, would you say that businesses are more inclined to hire workers on public holidays because it's cheaper to do so? Then again, there'll be less takers of this position unless they've got lots of time on their hands and don't mind missing out on family time. Economics is all about trade-offs.

Oh yeah, what if there is someone who really wants to work 50 + hours a week because he's got 6 kids and the wife is at home?
I think that what you would see is public holiday pay still being slightly higher than normal day pay, but at the market set rate, probably not as high as it is now. There'd be plenty of people who are willing to work for less than what businesses are being MADE to pay.

The person who wants to work 50+ hours is less able to do that under a system that enforces high penalty rates.
 

frog12986

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http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/labor_scheme_to_sell_out_workers_to_unions/

Labor scheme to sell out workers to unions
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Janet Albrechtsen


AS always, the most prescient observations about Labor come from within Labor. When the Kevin Rudd-Julia Gillard leadership ticket won the day back in December last year, one Labor insider said they looked like “the spider and the fly”.

He added: “The spider was a red-back,” alluding to Gillard’s scarlet locks. Last week, when Rudd admitted he was not across the detail of Labor’s industrial relations policy, a policy that puts unions back in charge of the workplace, he basically confessed he had been caught in Gillard’s union web. And his problem is our problem.

Under Labor, workers will be caught in the same web, conscripted to the union cause. If you are a worker, you can expect to be paying bargaining fees to unions with a nice moiety flowing through to the Labor Party.

Labor is playing funny games. Contrary to Rudd and Gillard endorsing bargaining fees in the past three days, Gillard backflipped late yesterday, denying they would be allowed. Let’s wait to see that in Labor’s IR policy before we get too comfortable.

This aspect of Labor’s IR package has gone largely unnoticed. As I wrote in Inquirer on the weekend, unions wanted it that way and are furious their secret agenda has been exposed. Equally disturbing, the Howard Government has done a poor job in unmasking this union scam, which promises to radically reshape the Australian workplace.

If Rudd is right that IR will determine the next election, the full ramifications of bargaining fees deserve greater attention.

So here’s a recap. First, Labor’s IR policy statement, Forward with Fairness, says: “Collective agreements will be at the heart of Labor’s industrial relations system.” It says a collective agreement will rule a workplace when agreed on by a majority of workers who turn up to vote. That means in a workplace of 1000 workers, if 100 workers turn up to vote and 51 workers vote yes to a collective agreement, that agreement prevails. The vote of 51 workers will bind all 1000 workers.

Second, and this is not in Labor’s policy statement, the unions plan to charge all 1000 workers a bargaining fee. This will deliver truckloads of cash to the unions when they are financially strapped and suffering from record low membership.

Even better, the plan will also boost union membership because unions will set a bargaining fee at a level higher than membership fees. Understandably, workers will be tempted to join a union rather than pay the higher bargaining fee. And as the ALP collects a percentage of union fees, each new member of an affiliated union means more money for Labor.

The figures are potentially staggering. Let’s take two examples.

According to Grace Collier, a former union official who is an industrial relations specialist in Brisbane, a union contact in Telstra told her yesterday that unions extract on average just more than $455 in fees from each of the 9880 (26 per cent) union members who make up Telstra’s 38,000 workforce. So unions collect $4,497,041 from Telstra union members each year. Collier’s union contact is predicting that, under a Rudd government, a higher bargaining fee for Telstra’s 28,120 non-union members. Pegging it at $500 (he suggests it may be $800) will pull in an extra $14million for unions that negotiate collective bargaining agreements for Telstra workers. (At $800, it rises to more than $22million for those unions.)

Collier points to a smaller workplace, a private hospital in Brisbane she helped restructure. Of the 220 full-time nurses on a collective agreement, 30 are union members who each pay $416 in union fees, delivering the relevant nurses’ union a total of $12,480 each year. Under Rudd’s IR policy, if the remaining non-union members pay a bargaining fee of, let’s say, $500, the union will collect an extra $95,000. Now repeat that in small workplaces across Australia. No wonder they wanted this issue under wraps until after the election.

With bargaining fees exposed, Rudd was forced to respond on the weekend. He said if employers agreed to a compulsory bargaining fee being included in a collective agreement and agreed to collect it for unions, where was the unfairness?

Either Rudd does not get it or else he is treating us as dopes. The unfairness is that employers may well agree to tax workers. It’s no skin off their nose and by agreeing to the union’s biggest earner, bargaining fees, the employer may offer reduced benefits for workers. If the employer refuses, then, according to Collier, Fair Work Australia will be able to step in and impose bargaining fees in a collective agreement. The unfairness is that workers who did not vote on, and may not want or need, the collective agreement will be bound by its terms and be charged a fee for the privilege.

Unionists tell us it is all about dealing with the so-called freeloaders who receive a wage rise without contributing to unions who negotiate the collective agreement. In fact, workers across Australia secure wage rises without the help of unions or collective agreements. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, only 24 per cent of workers in the private sector are on registered collective agreements (only 15 per cent of those workers are union members) and 39 per cent of private sector workers are on individual contracts. In other words, Australian workers are able to secure wage rises for reasons other than union muscle. That will all change under a Labor government where the plan is to re-unionise the Australian workforce by stealth.

When Rudd revealed he was not across the detail of Labor’s IR platform, it was a devastating admission from our alternative prime minister. Indeed, his efforts to pull the union movement into line have been laughable. During the weekend he warned unions that they “will survive or die based on their ability to compete”. Compete? Rudd’s IR policy hands unions a new monopoly to negotiate collective agreements and to charge all workers for their efforts.

It is becoming painfully clear that domestic policy has never been Rudd’s focus. Indeed, in his first big interview with The Weekend Australian Magazine after becoming leader, he was asked by Christine Jackman to nominate his greatest strength as alternative prime minister.

Rudd pointed to his knowledge of China gleaned from his diplomat posting and travelling there “probably more than 50 times” since.

It’s neat that Rudd is across the China challenge and is no doubt chuffed to hear that a new biography is due to be translated into Mandarin. But while he was delivering speeches in Washington at the Brookings Institution last month on how China would “shape the history of the Pacific century”, back home Gillard and the ACTU were putting the finishing touches on a plan that effectively introduces compulsory unionism.

From Gillard’s perspective, it makes perfect sense. As one Labor frontbencher told The Sydney Morning Herald, she wants to be the “darling of the union movement”. Whether Rudd wins or loses the election, this is the power base she will ultimately draw on to swallow up the fly. The only question is when.
It's interesting that the ALP has made 5 changes to their IR Policy in 10 days, and yet again, Gillard has decided to 'alter' their position on bargaining fees, however not formally. So who know's where they stand.

As Joe Hockey said in parliament today, what's even more farcical is that the ALP's '10 minimum conditions did not initially include the minimu wage, and as such, has been extended to 11 minimum conditions. There are serious policy development flaws creeping up, particularly in relation to their IR policy..
 
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Sparcod

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volition said:
The person who wants to work 50+ hours is less able to do that under a system that enforces high penalty rates.
Yes, you're quite right in my opinion. I do agree that it is more possible to work longer because from the company's point of view, it's cheaper for them to let him.

From a social point of view, that poor guy has to try to work 50, 55, 60 or more hours a week to make up for what he lost in income because of the removal of overtime payments etc. This means that he has to sacrifice some of his family time and would probably earn a bit less too.
 

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Mind you, these kind of numbers would worry the government.. it really does solidify the national trend..
 
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Nebuchanezzar

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Meh. It seems to be on the same trend as all the other polls 'n' such, so I'd take it to be fairly true.
 

frog12986

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Newspoll 59-41.. I honestly cannot see this trend reversing..

The election should be called now, so the pain is not prolongued any further..:wave:
 

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frog12986 said:
Newspoll 59-41.. I honestly cannot see this trend reversing..

The election should be called now, so the pain is not prolongued any further..:wave:
Just wait for the last week. That's when it all hits the fan.
 

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zimmerman8k said:
haha yeh theres no way these polls are accurate. I think Rudd put it well when he said on election day "it's gonna be 51 - 49 one way or the other." So true. Also the best predictive tool for elections is generally the betting markets. Current odds are:

Labor - $1.90
Coalition - 1.87
http://centrebet.com/cust/?action=GoSports

In other words its pretty much 50 - 50.
They do seem inaccurate, but this type of consistent 'Ruddslide' is unprecendented. The even more disconcerting issue, is that according to the poll, it was the most popular budget since 1996, yet this did not translate into support..
 
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Born2baplacebo

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Re: 2007 Federal Election - Coalition or Labor/Howard or Beazley?

Howard needs to step down. Let Labour get control of the front bench I say.
 

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