In its advertising last weekend, the Government claimed,”Workers on AWAs currently earn 13% more than workers on certified agreements”. This is a lie. Some time ago, David Peetz explained that the Government was deliberately manipulating the statistics, for example by comparing managerial AWAs with non-managerial collective agreements. The ABS yesterday released its Australian Social Trends [...]
The new Primate of the Anglican church, Dr Phillip Aspinall, has rejected the Government’s demand that clergy stay out of the IR debate. He says, for example: The purpose of unfair dismissal laws is to prevent unfair dismissals. If a change there means we’re going to allow unfair dismissals — that is, expose vulnerable people [...]
The Government’s propaganda campaign started yesterday, with full-page ads in newspapers around the country. I reckon they were too cluttered and wordy to have any real impact. Television and radio advertisements will begin within weeks, but before the details of the legislation have been finalised. A letter to every Australian household is also being considered, [...]
The Prime Minister hit the airwaves yesterday, but refused to say his IR policies wouldn’t hurt workers. He said, “Nobody, whether you’re John Howard or [anyone else], can give a guarantee that no single individual is going to be worse off in the future.” But that’s not what he said in 1996: “Under no circumstances [...]
Yesterday I linked to David Peetz’s column on the evidence about economic reform. I’m linking to it again today because it’s a must-read — especially when compared with the fact that “in response to Herald questions, government spokesmen said they did not know of any government economic studies supporting Mr Howard’s claim[s]” about his IR [...]
The Government has proposed changing the minimum conditions of employment, to replace four weeks’ annual leave with two weeks’ leave plus cash. Unions are concerned that this would be the end of the family holiday as, over time, two weeks would become the standard. Kevin Andrews says it would be the employee’s choice, “at their [...]
