Author: Kev

From the Australian editorial

Employment Minister Joe Hockey said that since the Government’s workplace reforms were introduced in March 2006, 430,700 jobs have been created. Where the rise in job numbers is an objective fact, measured by the ABS, academic investigations into the impact of Work Choices on working conditions and employee security and sentiment have been highly politicised and the data is unreliable as a result.

As Health Minister Tony Abbott told a Quadrant and Institute of Public Affairs discussion this week, the problem for the social justice lobby is explaining how 10.9 per cent unemployment under a more regulated labour market is more fair than 4.3 per cent unemployment under the policies of the Howard Government.

No amount of articles claiming detractors have found someone who is worse off under work choices can counter Abbott’s point. In a large system we can always find someone who considers themselves worse off but it is never someone who was previously unemployed that now has a job.

Just ask the 437,000 new job holders.

Denied overtime? Yes – worse off but the guy doing your overtime isn’t if he didn’t have a job before.

Not getting Leave Allowance? Yes worse off but you should never have got it in the first place. Leave Allowance is totally unsupportable….money for jam…money for nothing!

Have to work weekends without Penalty Rates? Yes- worse off but your penalty rates are someone else’s base salary so get over it.

And as a matter of interest, double time on Sunday is based on just what exactly? Religion?

If Rudd gets the keys to the Treasury, voters must keep in mind that Unions will get the key to awards and conditions and while unions had their place in the bad old days of kids in coal mines there is little use for them now. Unions seek power to extract conditions for workers in a vacuum that has no place for the employers ability to pay these conditions and that is a proven formula for less jobs.

Just to make it easy for you on election day to decide how to vote I have summarized the entire Work Choices debate into two short lines.

Anti Work Choice – political driven opinion
Pro Work Choice – ABS indisputable facts

Vote now to end the PM’s obscene waste says Mike Steketee while every other pro ALP journalist and the ALP themselves make an issue over Howard taking his time to announce the election date. He is taking his time in the interpretation of his detractors but in fact he is doing what every PM has ever done -reserving the right to call the election at a time that suits him.

The ALP and supporters want it over with before Rudd blows it and Howard wants to give Rudd every chance to blow it.

That’s politics.

A LABOR government would attempt to bring Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before the International Court of Justice to face charges of “inciting genocide” in an effort to force the rogue Middle East leader to justify his attacks on Israel.

How brilliant! More brilliant in the face of the fact that no one else in the Western World has thought of such a simple plan. No one! Not the UN, Britain. the US Democrats, France, Germany nor Israel,

I wonder why?

Downer offers a clue, stating;

….that countries only could be taken to the ICJ. Individuals such as Mr Ahmadinejad can only be taken to the International Criminal Court.

“To take an individual to the ICC the relevant country has to be a party to the statute of the ICC, but Iran, Zimbabwe and Burma are not. You can only take them to the ICC if the country is not a party and if all five members of the UN Security Council agree,” Mr Downer said.

So, it’s not going to happen but some voters will still believe that Rudd has the answers and in a way they are right.

But does he have any correct answers – ones that will actually work?

Haven’t seen much evidence of that yet but let’s wait for the campaign proper.

THE Liberals have denied being behind a scare campaign posted on internet video site YouTube warning that Australia would be governed by union thugs if Kevin Rudd were elected prime minister.

I did a “Australian Politics” search at Youtube but got lost in pages and pages of videos attacking Howard for every thing that’s wrong in Australia. ‘Time to go, John’ edition #1,2,3,4,5,6 etc; ‘Johnny is a liar’; ‘The Chasers war on’ everything conservative; clip after clip of the Greens and their wacky rational-devoid policies; Clips of the Unions warning against a Conservative government; clips of Howard tripping over and somewhere in the middle of it all – a clip warning about Union power.

Why is it that headlines say “The Liberals have denied being behind a scare campaign” and the clip is lost in the midst of a Pro-Rudd avalanche of scare campaigns? An agenda maybe?

Could some Journalist ask the ALP if they are behind the avalanche of anti-Howard ‘scare campaign’ video clips on YouTube so we can have a balanced headline…ALP deny being behind scare campaign that is ten times bigger that the ‘so called’ Liberal scare campaign

A union dominated front bench/government is a worry and the country will pay dearly if it ever eventuates.

The ALP are busy in-fighting as they lobby to divide up the spoils before they even get the keys to the Treasury.

Supporters of Kevin Rudd are being talked up for two of the Parliament’s most prestigious and highly paid jobs – Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senate President. But the pre-election push has angered senior Opposition figures who warn that voters will crucify Labor if it becomes cocky.

“There is a lot of triumphalism from Rudd supporters,” one Labor MP said.

Roger Price, a right-wing backer of Mr Rudd from western Sydney, has emerged as a potential Speaker of the House of Representatives.

And Gavin Marshall – a left-wing senator from Victoria – is being promoted by others to become President of the Senate.

Senator Marshall is closely aligned with the Left’s Kim Carr.

Talk of the Price-Marshall ticket has infuriated Labor MPs, who have labelled Senator Carr – an ally of Deputy Leader Julia Gillard – a “destructive influence”

Anyone associated with Julia Gillard is bound to be a destructive influence.

Senior Opposition figures … warn that voters will crucify Labor if it becomes cocky.

Keep up with the triumphalism guys while we get the cross ready.