The IR war

The opening rounds of Australia’s next war are currently being primed and loaded by the AWU Generals starting with the 2005 AWU National Conference held recently at the Gold Coast.

The four-day conference on the Gold Coast brings together nearly 200 AWU delegates representing 135,000 workers nationally. Guest speakers will include Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet, Federal Shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan, Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Stephen Smith and former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Big guns are coming in from overseas to lend socialist weigth to the conference

Sixteen representatives of international union organisations, including from China, the USA, Britain, Canada and Denmark are attending the AWU conference.

Shorten announces his resistance to the Governments plans to tidy up all those matters that are impinging on Australia’s growth and economy.

Mr Shorten said the conference would debate the AWU’s resistance to the Howard Government’s planned legislation to cut Award conditions, scale back unfair dismissal laws, weaken the Industrial Relations Commission and hinder union attempts to organise in workplaces.

In todays Australian. Kate Legge fires the first burst at the Governments plan to control the Disability Support Pension (DSP). She waxes long and emotional about Ivan, a 40 year old who has psychological and behavioural difficulties that has precluded him from working for the past 30 years. She makes this emotive call

Whenever the fraught issue of the DSP comes before cabinet, I think of Ivan and how he will manage if new rules are introduced tightening the eligibility criteria for a benefit that is more generous than the dole and therefore a preferable place to park yourself if employment in an increasingly competitive job market seems remote.

Be aware that the DSP issue will be long on emotion and very, very short of facts. Ivan’s case, on the face of it, seams reasonable and he will most probably manage quite well as he is unlikely to face change, but the Ivans are not the target. The targets are those with very iffy, unprovable disabilities who milk the public purse on the basis of stress and sore backs. Becaue the DSP offers more money and less scrutiny, people so inclined have bothered Doctors and Physciatrists ad nauseum until they sign the ‘No work – full pay’ chit. Kate alludes to the problem herself when she says the DSP is a;

…benefit that is more generous than the dole and therefore a preferable place to park yourself if employment in an increasingly competitive job market seems remote

The DSP was never intended to be a Dole payment and yet we have people, simply unemployed, exhibiting a preference for the more generous, less scrutinized DSP. The unemployed are not supposed to be able to pick and choose their avenue of access to the public purse. They should get the dole until they rejoin the workforce. It looks like being an interesting battle. Debate is needed to keep the Government concentrating on reform but I think by the time Howard has control of the Senate everything that needs to be said will have been said. Conversely we will hear and read a lot of irrelevant, emotive, socialist waffle that most Australians will consign to the bin of ‘less important’ things. Let’s join the fray and be done with it.