Dnarever wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2012 at 6:46pm:


And yet Mr Abbott is so incompetent that he said he cant afford to pay his bills on a shadow ministers salary.
And he wants to control the purse strings of the country 

I'm best friend of workers: Abbott

Date
    July 13, 2012


OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott declared that Australian workers would find he was ''their best friend'' - prompting Julia Gillard to retort that ''with friends like that who needs an enemy?''   

The government seized on Mr Abbott's promise to the tourism industry on Wednesday that he would get more flexibility into workplaces, saying a Coalition government would attack penalties.

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten said: ''Let's decode what Mr Abbott is saying. He's saying to hospitality workers, to retail workers - who are amongst the lowest paid in Australia - that he will cut their penalty rates because he wants to make the big end of town happy with him on industrial relations.'' He challenged the opposition to ''come clean'' with its IR policy.   

But Mr Abbott, who says he wants to restore the industrial relations pendulum to the ''sensible centre'', flatly denied he wanted to cut penalty rates in the tourism industry. Pressed on what he meant by flexibility, he said the Coalition workplace policy would be sensible, responsible, careful, cautious and based on real problems not ideology.


''The one thing that the Australian workers will find is that I am their best friend. What I want to see is higher wages and more jobs. That's what I was like when I was the workplace relations minister.''

Ms Gillard accused Mr Abbott of ducking and weaving on whether he would ''rip penalty rates off working people. We've been here before when Mr Abbott was in government and he and his cohorts were in on a plan to rip penalty rates off hard-working Australians.''

Mr Shorten, who has received the government-commissioned review of the Fair Work Act, rejected business claims that productivity had fallen as a result of the IR changes Labor made.

''They have no evidence for that statement. I'm just not buying that bill of goods. Productivity has fallen in Australia over the last 10 years. The majority of that time, it was the old Liberal laws in place.

''So productivity has fallen, but it's been a haunting secret for 10 years. If you look at the last three quarters, productivity has been lifting again.''

Asked if a more flexible approach to workplace relations was required, Mr Shorten said he believed the labour market was undergoing a ''silent revolution''. He predicted future productivity would be boosted using a ''collaborative'' approach between workers and business.

What was needed to lift productivity - workers doing more with the same effort - was high-value, reasonably well-paid workplaces, he said. The government was addressing productivity by addressing skills and infrastructure.   

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/im-best-friend-of-workers-abbott-20120712-21yvv.html#ixzz21R1QXTqd

Quote:


Abbott has never worked a day in his life and yet he wants to strip the rights from our poorest workers..typical neo con.
If he cant survive on a shadow ministers salary why would he think our poorest workers can survive without basic working conditions and wages?

adelcrow wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2012 at 6:18pm:


LOL

You and Gist are both chock-a-block full of crap.

You are making it up, you have no idea.

As far back as 20 years cheap Brazilian imports started to ruin the Australian citrus industry.

I remember at one stage in the mid 1990's you could land Brazilian concentrate for the equivalent farm price of $20/t against production costs of $30-40/t. People let their fruit rot.

Get a clue you destructive lying morons.

skippy. wrote on Jul 24^th, 2012 at 9:59am:


At the time there was a 30% import tariff on Australian concentrate to Brazil and 5% on Brazilian imports.

We would process beautiful Oz Valencias just to make peel juice and extract oragne oil, the juice was pretty much worthless, so many people went under.


This isn’t about morons with stupid opinions.

Go away.

skippy. wrote on Jul 24^th, 2012 at 10:07am:


LOL

Go away moron, you got nothing but abuse and calling people socks.

Pathetic little try hard, make me LOL.