Govt amends workplace transition bill

The Rudd government has put forward numerous amendments to its workplace transition bill in response to a Senate inquiry's criticisms.

The 24 separate amendments were circulated in the upper house on Tuesday during the committee stage of Senate debate on the first plank of Labor's industrial relations legislation.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told parliament the amendments addressed "technical" issues with the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008.

"The government has circulated some amendments which I'm advised are technical amendments arising in part from the Senate committee process," she said.

A report on Monday by the Senate's education, employment and workplace relations committee found some important aspects of Labor's transition bill needed clarifying.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz questioned why Labor had criticised the previous government for having to amend its original Work Choices legislation, when Labor was behaving similarly now it was in government.

He questioned why the government needed to move 24 separate amendments with a 15-page explanatory memorandum.

"Why the delay in presenting us with these very detailed and lengthy amendments," he asked.

Earlier, Senator Abetz challenged Labor to guarantee that no worker would be worse off as a result of its changes to the previous government's Work Choices laws.

"We as a government didn't give that guarantee (about Work Choices)," he told parliament.

"We were castigated from the Torres Strait to Tasmania, from Sydney to the Swan, for not being able to give that guarantee."

Some workers would inevitably be worse off as a result of Labor's legislation, he said.

Senator Wong would not give the guarantee sought by Senator Abetz.

But she said the Rudd government's workplace laws would provide far more protection to workers than the Howard government's Work Choices regime.

Labor's workplace bill bans the creation of new Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), initiates changes to the award system and provides for transitional individual agreements for employees on existing AWAs.

The bill entered committee stage on Tuesday shortly after the upper house resumed, having been read a second time.

A second-reading amendment moved by Family First senator Steve Fielding, which noted the absence of guaranteed meal breaks and penalty rates in the bill, failed on the voices.

During the committee stage the Senate will consider several amendments from the minor parties as well as from the government.

Australian Democrats senator Andrew Murray said the government needed to address a contradiction in the bill identified by witnesses who gave evidence to the Senate inquiry into the legislation.

The bill pledges that in the process of standardising industrial awards, the process will not disadvantage employees or increase costs for employers.

But, in the committee report, academics Professor Andrew Stewart and Dr John Buchanan raised concerns that this was impossible.

"Has the government understood that that's a problem, because of the evidence raised?" Senator Murray asked the government.

"Will you have a look at it and try and find a means of dealing with what are regarded as irreconcilable, competing objectives?".

What!!!  I though you had a plan Kevvy?  Did you lie about your preparedness?

http://news.smh.com.au/work-choices-mousepad-ideas-flood-in/20080318-2060.html

Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard is being inundated with suggestions of what to do with the government's "plague of mousepads" designed to promote the previous government's Work Choices laws.

Some ideas are intensely practical, but many reflect an element of political dislike for the unpopular workplace laws.

"We've had (suggestions for) mudflaps, stubbie holders, putting them together so you'd have enough to make a yoga mat," Ms Gillard told parliament on Tuesday.

"We've had the suggestion that they could be used for noticeboards, or shin pads for soccer or inner-sole pads for shoes, or doormats, or my personal favourite, floor-liners for porta-loos - a good use of surplus Work Choices mousepads."

Ms Gillard was again seeking to make a point about advertising waste on promoting Work Choices ahead of last year's election campaign.

She said the coalition government had spent $120 million on Work Choices propaganda, an example of which was nearly 100,000 Work Choices mousepads which had remained warehoused due to the laws unpopularity.

"As we collect suggestions, we are of course asking for suggestions about what to do with the 77,000 pens and the 100,000 plastic folders we've got left over from the excess of the extremists in workplace relations who sit opposite," Ms Gillard said.

She announced that 5,000 mousepads would be given to the Mental Health Activity and Learning Centre which was planning to cut them up because of the colours and use them in a large mural.

"We will also be forwarding a large number of mousepads to schools who have requested a bulk number, no doubt to use in art and craft classes," she said.

I do, sometimes.

But I'm lazy too. It's a bit of a dilemma isn't it? Perhaps I should turn the auto hotlinking back on - only problem is the spammers seem to like it.

I reckon that 95% of the links I post would not be followed even if they were hot linked. I post quite a lot of them.

freediver wrote on Mar 18^th, 2008 at 8:16pm:



I wonder if they ever thought to just use them?  But then that would take a government serious about waste rather than one engaging in symbolic stuff like proposing to tax plastic bags or ratifying Kyoto while being very secretive about how they plan to save the planet.

http://news.smh.com.au/laws-banning-new-awas-pass-parliament/20080319-20ae.html

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has promised no worker will be worse off after laws banning new Australian Workplace Agreements passed parliament on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared Work Choices "dead and buried" as the laws, the first step in dismantling the Howard government's unpopular industrial relations system, passed with opposition support.

Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard repeatedly refused to promise in parliament that no worker would be worse off from the abolition of AWAs.

But Ms Gillard later gave the guarantee on television.

i've got another suggestion - when opposition members complain about not being paid enough - gilly can send a couple of boxes over to raffle off at lieberals bbqs and garage sales.