Former PM Bob Hawke has a way with words. On Monday night he opened a new policy-focussed branch of the NSW Labor Party, and had this to say: In his address he called John Howard “the most conservative PM in the history of the country” and warned that the new industrial relations laws would “come [...]
Splashed on the front page of last Wednesday’s Financial Review was an article headed, “Employees face tax slug on superannuation savings”: Millions of Australians risk losing almost half of the money going into retirement savings from July next year if their tax file number is not lodged with a superannuation fund. Buried in federal Treasurer [...]
Way back in March this year, senior minister Nick Minchin told the HR Nicholls Society there was “still a long way to go” on industrial relations. If he had his way, the Government would “seek a mandate from the Australian people at the next election for another wave of industrial relations reform.” This was taken [...]
A while ago I did some research into the Independent Contractors of Australia, a group that claims to represent workers but has very strong links to right-wing think tanks and employer lobby groups. It was set up by HR Nicholls Society activists to push for an Independent Contractors Act that would make it easier for [...]
Faced with significant antipathy to its industrial relations agenda, the Prime Minister has been forced to assign a new group of babysitters to help out Minister Andrews. The effort will be led by Joe Hockey, who will take on the role of Minister Assisting the Minister for Industrial Relations, in addition to his existing Human [...]
Two recent polls have shown that WorkChoices is hurting the government among its own constituents, in the business community and in Coalition-held marginal seats. Business accounting software firm MYOB polled over 1000 small businesses in July, and found many think WorkChoices is unfair (full report, pdf). The ACTU has highlighted some of the more important [...]
To those of you who are still checking in occasionally, I apologise for my unannounced hiatus. Unfortunately, life intervened at the worst possible time — there’s been a lot happening on the industrial relations front this last few weeks. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with the major stories and get back into [...]
