ALP lacks IR mandate
Malcolm Colless | March 17, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

THE Rudd Government's industrial relations laws are bad for business, bad for the economy, and bad for democracy and freedom in the workplace. They are designed to get square with employees who dared to enter into private deals with their employers and shut out the prying eyes of the unions.

The deepening economic crisis has heightened fears that the proposal to guarantee a role for the unions through a new collective bargaining system will drive up wage levels and drive down employment.

While this assertion seems quite justifiable, it is wrong to conclude that these retrograde laws are only a cause for concern because the economic tide has gone out.

It is true that Labor's Forward with Fairness industrial relations package was floated in the buoyant economic environment leading up to the 2007 federal election. But this doesn't mean, as former Howard government treasurer and now Opposition backbencher Peter Costello seems to be suggesting, that it is legislation for the good times. It is seriously flawed and potentially damaging, no matter whether the times are good or bad.

This is the point Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is missing as he thrashes about, trying to find a conservative response to the Fair Work laws that are being driven with political astuteness by Deputy Prime Minister and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard.

At each turn in the debate about the merits of her legislation, Gillard has been able to successfully force Turnbull and many of his colleagues to confront the electoral disaster triggered by the Howard government's Work Choices laws.

This has now reached a stage where Turnbull needs no encouragement to publicly declare not only that Work Choices is dead but that this is the will of the electorate.

While the premise underpinning Work Choices was fundamentally sound - to encourage more flexibility and freedom of choice in the workplace - it was managed badly by the Coalition. But even then it was the well crafted and highly emotive union media campaign rather than the shortcomings of the system that drove a stake through the heart of the former government. Nevertheless, capitalising on the mixture of guilt and depression that has hung over the conservatives since then, Gillard has argued that her legislation should be unopposed because it received the mandate of the electorate in 2007.

The electorate, whipped into a frenzy by the combined efforts of the union movement and the then Labor Opposition, was clearly confused, concerned and even angry about Work Choices. But was the electorate's rejection of Work Choices at the ballot box an automatic endorsement of Labor's industrial relations reforms now before the Senate?

This is a crucial point, because it has become quite clear since the legislation was unveiled last November that a number of key components of this package, particularly relating to enhanced union power and limits on employee privacy, were not canvassed in the original policy. But this is being underplayed by the Opposition.

Instead, it is whingeing because Gillard is ignoring its calls for discussions on amending the legislation unless it promises to respect the Government's mandate to pass the Fair Work Bill.

Opposition workplace relations spokesman Michael Keenan told The Australian last week that if Gillard "was remotely interested in us she wouldn't have put that precondition on talks". The Opposition had consistently said its door was open for the Government to discuss the bill, but so far Gillard had not taken up that offer, he added. Keenan should grow up. Gillard couldn't care less about the Opposition and is concentrating her efforts on the Senate independents and the Greens. And it is probably just as well, because tweaking this legislation with a few benign amendments would not alter its basic thrust, but it would signal that the Opposition accepts its legitimacy.

Instead of pussyfooting around, Turnbull should challenge Labor to test its mandate claim by putting the unexpurgated version of its industrial relations policy back to the voters at the federal election due next year, and take its industrial relations legislation off the table in the meantime.

Grendel wrote on Mar 18^th, 2009 at 2:52am:


Was it really? Weren't most people just over the Howard government? I don't think most people would have voted to bring back unfair dismissal legislation for all employees? Or maybe I just don't know enough people.

The problem with unfair dismissal legislation is that *everyone* brings unfair dismissals, so you can't sack anyone. No one is ever a dud. Anyone who underperforms is just a victim of the boss. And to defend even the most ridiculous unfair dismissal will cost the boss $30,000 to $40,000. So better off giving the employee $20,000 or so to go away.

Grendel wrote on Mar 18^th, 2009 at 2:52am:


Unless you have the power the enforce legislation, you don't have a mandate.

The opposition is supposed to try to block legislation that those who voted for them do not want.