Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard began the task of wrenching the political debate in Australia back towards Labor’s preferred territory of industrial relations.
Climate change and refugee policies have been a disaster, in both cases because of the alliance with the Greens — an arranged marriage that has been so expertly exploited by Tony Abbott.
Gillard needs to move the national boxing match back to WorkChoices, and at the same time Abbott has to make sure he maintains a mandate for industrial reforms and doesn’t rule out rewriting the Fair Work Act to introduce more flexibility in the workplace, while at the same time not appearing to advocate a return to WorkChoices.
Gillard didn’t mention the Greens in her speech to the NSW ALP state conference yesterday, but a week of Green-bashing by the NSW Right had highlighted the difficult problem of Labor’s dance between its traditional blue-collar union backers and the progressive urban Left being steadily captured by the Greens.
Labor’s problem is that, unlike the Liberal and National parties, Labor and the Greens can never be in coalition because there is a fundamental ideological discord between environmentalism and trade unionism.
Unions and greenies used to fight over Tasmanian logging, now it’s the impact of carbon tax on manufacturing jobs. The 2010 agreement between the Greens and the ALP was signed during a lull in these two battles: in 2010 Tasmanian premier David Bartlett had negotiated a fragile agreement with the Greens over old-growth forests and Gillard had, at the time of the election, ruled out a carbon tax.
So a deal, not a coalition, was possible between the traditional enemies of organised labour and environmentalism. That deal is now, inevitably, fracturing because putting a price on carbon is designed to shift employment away from the strongly unionised business in manufacturing towards new more entrepreneurial, less unionised, businesses in renewable energy and services.
The final straw for the NSW Right last week was the Greens’ “purity” in refusing to support Labor’s policy of offshore processing of refugees in Malaysia, which might have sidelined the boat people as an issue. But that’s the problem: the Greens are successful because they are pure; as a mainstream party the ALP must engage in compromise.
Gillard’s speech yesterday was entitled “Labor — not a brand, a cause” and it was all about rebuilding Labor’s “brand” as the party that protects workers’ rights from the predations of WorkChoices.
In it, she referred to a speech last Wednesday by Abbott in which, she says, he “accidentally told the truth”.
It was a speech to the Tourism and Transport Leaders Forum, and there was nothing accidental about it. He deliberately and carefully began preparing the ground for a new Coalition IR policy to take to the next election, knowing that this will be his most important task — more important than climate change and refugee policies.
No team wins a grand final without a good defence. Abbott’s forward line is “the toxic tax” and “stop the boats”, but Gillard’s team will kick goals if he doesn’t get his story on WorkChoices right.
In March I suggested he would propose an expansion of the existing “Individual Flexibility Agreements” within the Fair Work Act as the means to introduce flexibility without rewriting the entire act, particularly on weekend penalty rates.
In last week’s speech, he said: “You do need more flexibility in your workplace arrangements. Individual flexibility agreements must be made more workable and we will do that.”
He must do this because he doesn’t want to get caught as Gillard did on carbon tax, when she said before the election: “There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.”
That has been her greatest single error. Because of it, Abbott will probably win the next election no matter what he says, but his longevity as PM may well depend on how well he sets up a mandate for the next wave of workplace reforms to be introduced after the election.
To guarantee the small business vote at the election, he needs to offer more flexibility — specifically on penalty rates and unfair dismissal.
But he needs to avoid appearing to promise he will bring back WorkChoices, while making sure he doesn’t promise he won’t.
*This article was originally published at Business Spectator
Corresponds to proper major party election battlelines.
Labor doesn’t want to go into the fight with The Greens hanging off their backsides.
And The Greens do not really see themselves well placed to win as complete Labor dags.
The wedge is between Liberals and The Nats with Abbott putting the single conservative party on the backburner until fellow religionist Barnaby Joyce takes the Nats leadership.
Not so much of a brain strain following the single conservative party success in Qld is it now?
Just remember Abbott’s successful tilt at the leadership came from adopting the Nats position on the Environment.
Any real Liberals wanting their party back, before it is too late, better start with a bit of coalition disunity. Now there is no Coalition disunity is there, unless it is between Labor and The Greens?
Excellent piece, Alan. Greens are successful because they are pure. Successful at capturing the lunatic fringe because they are pure nutcases.
It is a pity that Kohler is so locked into his biases that he cannot see the facts.
Kohler thinks that “the Greens are successful because they are pure; as a mainstream party the ALP must engage in compromise.”
Yet look at the compromises the Greens needed to make to get the Carbon Tax passed. There are many other examples where the Greens have supported Labor even though the Labor policy has been far from what the Greens wanted.
Kohler, like all MSM commentators, also quotes the Labor view of the Greens’ “purity” in refusing to support Labor’s policy of offshore processing of refugees in Malaysia.
If Labor wanted to bring back the death penalty with lethal injection, and the coalition wanted it as well, but with hanging, and the coalition refused to support Labor, would the Greens be called absolutists for continuing to oppose the death penalty?
And would be get editorials about the Green’s intransigence and unwillingness to compromise on this issue?
The terrible thing about Gillard making industrial relations a big issue is that if (or should I say when) Abbott wins the next election he will rightly claim that he has a mandate to act on this issue.
But I guess that will then prove that we all want more flexibility in the workplace — specifically on penalty rates and unfair dismissal – i.e. lower pay and worse conditions for some of the lowest paid workers.
Interesting how after Howard, Rudd and then Abbott made their supposed Christianity a distiction from other politicians no-one ever called them on their committment.
Regarding Michael’s Capital punishment example, Christ singularly called for capital punishment for child abusers. No response at all from the so-called parliamentary Christians.
And on weekend penalty rates? This goes all the way back to the Northern European Emperor Canute, who when newly converted to Christanity, gave England Saturday afternoon and Sunday as Time Off.
All attacked by the ever so pious Howard in favour of the owners of the new Sunday Religious observation, going to the “Mall”. The profits of which must be enhanced by destroying the Christian edicts, 1000 years old, observed for 1000 years, sanctioned by the scriptures.
Where are the Churches on this? Still on the PM is a non-believer page?
Nice article Alan. Abbott can play it smart and put down in ‘writing’ very modest IR reform as his gospel then they can make further reform in a few years down the track. Workchoices issue also lost much of its bite since 2007 and will not scare that many people again.
Either it’s political spin or the Greens and Labors are living on fantasy land to say that Abbott won’t repeal the carbon tax. He will try to cut anything to fund the promise. Public service, social service, Aboriginal affairs etc. and if it still does not balance the budget just blame the Greens and Labors, we can’t be in surplus because of Labors and Greens mismanagement. The LNP will get away with anything by blaming Labor.
Things might not be terminal yet if the Greens and Labors can resolve the asylum seeker impasse.
800 resettlements from overseas last year, at this rate of arrival by boats and planes with the impasse unresolved there will be none from overseas camps resettled this year and there will probably be a big backlog of boat and air arrivals awaiting for settlement. Now here’s a part of the solution from my proposal, I won’t repeat the elborate details posted behind the paywall.
Gillard suddenly discovers Allah, or Krishna, or Jesus, or Buddha, or the Tao and gets an epiphany. She will support a gay marriage bill if the Greens support a bill on asylum seekers.
All un-authorised arrivals have to do voluntary work 4 days p/w and study 1 day per week for the first 5 years, $10 cash paid per week and a grocery card; then another 2 years of either voluntary work or paid work with a flat top tax rate 48% plus a medicare levy, it’s not unfair labour considering their lives require building dwellings, infrastructure, health, education, administration, intelligence and security. Illegal workers shall be deported. Let’s indulge in hollywood fantasy and get the ‘L i e to Me” investigators team in to train immigration officers, those who try to deceive and defraud the government to gain refugee status will be sent to Van Diemen’s Land to build a new colony as punishment, sanction and deterrence are necessary.
The Greens can set up their own sea rescue operation, send the Sea Shepherd up there, have concern, sympathy and compassion for people who drown, like whales they are also living beings . Put those arrivals in backpackers hotels, preferably non-alcoholic ones. No need to hurry up the processing of claims, on gound intelligence to investigate claims is compulsory to finalise all cases that will be approved for settlement, preferably the budget allocates for 3 cases per year for the on ground investigation, immigration minister can decide certain cases that require more resource to speed up. No need to spend a billion dollar to re-open Nauru, save that money to take in many more refugees around the world, the more the merrier.
If Gillard doesn’t shake off the right wing Labors, here’s another sugestion. It is illogical to argue that gays deserve the right to the same marriage tradition as heteros, the ‘tradition’ is between a man and a woman not the same sex. But gays can create their own similar tradition. Call it getting merriered to your spouse, and get a certificate of merriarge, and all legal ‘rights’ or entitlements are the ‘same’ as hetero couples’. Problem solved.
If the Greens are content with many people drowning as that’s life there’s no need to do anything about it, as they’ve been behaving in the last couple of years, then they should not try to ban any fishing, any logging and any mining, that’s just life.
Light sparks in the flux of negative and positive energy. The universe moves in balance between Yin and Yang, left and right. In Yin there is yang and in Yang there is yin. Those who recognise and understand the flux, and are able to balance the passive and active forces can ride the waves of the river of life. The pure like Abbott, Milne and Young can go to heaven to be with their God and the 72 Virgins and the Talibans.
Even Dr. Berhan Ahmed puts the Greens at the bottom of the ballot ticket, you can’t blame him. And I thought all those who profess environmental philosophy are well learnt in the Dao, apparently not!! Don’t they teach them at uni anymore? No instinct for problem solving, no sense of adapting to circumstances and seeking to balance forces to maintain harmony. Evolve, evolve, evolve or please god just give us a benign dictator for the next 10 years, send in the military, Danke!