Media Statement - 4th November 2007
Today the Prime Minister claimed he made it perfectly clear to the Australian people before the 2004 election that he intended to introduce extreme IR laws.
CASSIDY: Alright, and let’s accept that it’s true. There is a template for this, isn’t it? You went to the last election, presented a policy platform and you didn't mention Work Choices?
HOWARD: Can I tell, you that’s wrong. I read our policy last night. I read our policy from 2004. We committed ourselves to changing the unfair dismissal laws. We committed ourselves to making agreement making easier. We committed ourselves to pressing ahead with the creation of the Australian building and construction commission. And we also committed ourselves to reducing the discrepancies between the different State jurisdictions. So this idea that we went to the last election without saying anything about industrial relations is wrong and I suggest you need to have a look at our policy… (Insiders, 4 November 2007)
The truth is the policy didn’t mention Work
Choices, the extreme laws that have hurt Australian working families.
And
the policy document didn't detail the following 10 major problems which have hit
Australian working families and employers because of Work Choices:
1. Take-it-or-leave-it Australian Workplace Agreements that stripped away basic conditions like penalty rates, overtime, public holidays and shift work loadings;
2. Unfair dismissal laws that mean Australians working in a business with less than 100 employees can be sacked unfairly or for no reason at all;
3. The creation of an alphabet soup of workplace agencies for businesses and employees to get lost in and that the industrial umpire, the AIRC, would be sidelined and stripped of power;
4. That pay scales would not be published to assist business to pay employees the correct amount;
5. That the number of award matters that employees are entitled to would be reduced leaving out redundancy & long service leave;6. Agreements would take months to be checked by the Workplace Authority increasing red tape and uncertainty for business and employees;
7. That any employee can be dismissed for so- called ‘operational reasons’;
8. Fines of $110 per employee would be ripped from businesses that failed to hand out the Howard Government’s political propaganda within three months;9. That AWAs would be forced into universities, TAFEs and schools; and
10. Employees on the minimum wage would have an 18 month wage freeze before the first minimum wage decision after Work Choices.
What Mr Howard has confirmed today is
Australians should never believe a pre-election Liberal Party industrial
relations policy. In Government they will always go further.
Yesterday
the Prime Minister claimed a mandate for Work Choices because he is a believer
in industrial relations reform and he was elected.
The Prime Minister still believes in 'reform' and if re-elected he will use the same justification as a mandate for going even further than Work Choices laws.JOURNALIST: Didn’t you deceive the Australian people in not outlining Work Choices before the last election? That was a hidden agenda?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no, no because people have known that I have been committed to workplace relations reform all of my political life. Everybody knows that. (3 November 2007)