Please, Sir, May I Have Some More
The Howard industrial relations laws have come through the Senate committee with a recommendation for seven changes, but also that the laws should be passed even if no amendments are made. A bad result, and no surprise: the committee, is, of course, the Coalition’s. The news has been reporting various levels of discontent even within the Coalition, suggesting that amendments would inevitably be proposed, but it’s still surprising how the committee acted. If the laws as presented for inquiry don’t contain sufficient protections, then they don’t, and amendments are needed. Otherwise, no amendments. Instead, the committee has said the laws are inadequate but they don’t care. Either they are so in thrall to Howard they can no longer think for themselves or they hold the Australian public in contempt. Assuming Labor (28) have the courage to stand together against this and are joined by the Greens (4) and Democrats (4), it would take only a handful of Coalition (38) backbenchers to put an end to this monstrosity. With their party’s polling numbers falling dramatically, it may be that there are enough Liberals concerned for their seats two years from now to do the trick, but that’s a long way off, and the public has serious ADD problems. While some among Howard’s triumphalists claim a Labor win in two years would allow them to reverse these hideous laws, that isn’t true: they’d need to have a Senate majority itself at that time to ensure a reversion to labor-management equity. It has to be stopped now, before we end up with debtors’ prisons and workhouses.