Finally the media is saying out loud what many of us have known for ages- that John Howard is a slimy bastard. Here's a transcript of an interview with him on the 7.30 Report in July 2005, shortly after the announcement of their
JOHN HOWARD: The current evidence is that people on AWAs are better off than people on awards.JOURNALIST: That's because of the no disadvantage test which you're abolishing.
JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but there are ... would be other factors that will bear on what people get. You're asking me whether I believe, generally speaking, people will be worse off as a result of these changes, and I'm saying no, I do not believe they will be worse off.
REPORTER 2: So you're saying some will be, but most won't?
JOHN HOWARD: No, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that generally people won't be worse off.
REPORTER 2: But what does that mean?
JOHN HOWARD: It means exactly what I said it means.
Thanks to The Pigs are Flying for the transcript.
Today, 'news' is out that John Howard knew that 'I can't believe it's not WorkChoices' would leave workers worse off. Not that it's really news, as it's something that everyone knew, but the media haven't dared to report it this way until now, preferring to give Howard the benefit of the doubt on his weasel-words. It's got to be said that this new biography of Howard is turning out to be rather politically juicy:
THE Federal Government introduced its Work Choices legislation into Parliament knowing it would leave some workers worse off, the new biography of John Howard reveals.
However, the Prime Minister ruled out further changes because he was keen to have the legislation passed. Time was short and Mr Howard wanted the laws bedded down politically well before this year's election.
The revelations are based on interviews with two cabinet ministers who witnessed the deliberations on Work Choices, and explain why Mr Howard would never pledge that no worker would be worse off. They also explain why he introduced a "fairness test" in May as perceptions and anecdotal evidence continued to emerge about some workers losing pay and conditions.
Note that Phillip Coorey speaks only of "perceptions and anecdotal evidence". Talk about soft-ball journalism. What about studies like this? There's solid evidence that workers are being screwed over, and there's no point in pussy-footing around it. Even the public aren't fooled, this time.
As for the "Howard wanted the laws bedded down politically well before this year's election" bit, here's what I had to say in 2005 about Howard's policy tactics:
It's also just part of John Howard's typical election cycle. Get the nasties (GST, Telstra sale, IR reform, VSU) over and done with in the first 12 or 18 months, and then start thinking up the next election campaign.
It's good to see that for once, it seems this tactic hasn't worked, as Howard's IR laws are still a top concern for voters.
GIMPed image by Gam :)
10 comments:
I am going to throw a spanner in the works here and say that I don't agree that IR is still a top concern which will influence how people vote.
The ABC hyperlink to the study that was commissioned by the ACTU, to me, has very little credibility. The ACTU are notorious for 'fishing' for 'right' responses with their scripts.
ie "What are the three top elections issues for you"
"Umm... police"
"ok. Anything else? How about IR?"
"Yeah, i guess so"
Why would they want to inflate the results? They have a vested interest to do this. Hype and fear.
Also, it found that the proportion of votes that claim to now vote for Labor has increased from 56% to 57% of those surveyed.
If the IR laws are such a huge issue for people, how come we have only seen 1% increase in the Labor vote since these laws have been introduced (which is some 18 months ago)?
Doesn't sound like the Australian public are as worried as some may think.
there are some inaccuracies there.
the labor party vote has gone from 30 something % from after the 2004 election to over 40%. where are you getting this 1% figure? are you suggesting we only count polls from after the legislation was actually introduced to parliament? that doesn't make sense.
secondly, if work choices aren't an issue, why has the government spent more on advertising them than on any other government policy?
thirdly the liberal party's own polling indicates that work choices is a major issue. i suppose they pushed their own polling too? what about independent polling (ac nielsen, newspoll) that also indicate that work choices are a big issue for voters?
finally at least 280,000 people turned out across australia to protest the legislation on just one day. 280,000 is something like 3% of the total employed population of australia. when you're talking about direct action, those are significant numbers.
you'd have to discount a lot of very persuasive evidence to arrive at the conclusion that ir legislation is only an election issue because of hype and fear.
i don't suppose you're going to explain how work choices are actually good for us and we're just worrying unnecessarily? if so i'd love to hear it.
"Am I suggesting polls only matter post-introduction of legislation?" No. I never said that. IR was a hot issue during the 2004 election, everyone knew that the Coalition were keen to start work on IR reform, and yet the Australian public not only re-elected the Coalition, but gave them a majority in both houses. It surprised me too, as I too was of the belief that voters were enormously worried about IR reform, but polling day proved me wrong.
Again, I said that I just don't think IR is as big of an election issue as what some make out to be. It's an election issue, but I don't believe that for many people it is THE election issue. Interest rates, tax cuts, climate change and superannuation reform are all added into the mix - it's just not all about IR, and the Coalition have sought to promote some of those items also. The Coalition would be stupid if they didn't run their own IR campaign to combat the UnionsNSW campaign, as we all know that the branding of "WorkChoices" is no longer because of the UnionsNSW very successful campaign.
Does the 280,000 protestors include persons under the minimum voting age? The ratio of children to adults at a union rally is often pretty high.
Slip on an orange shirt kids, we're going protesting this weekend.
"IR was a hot issue during the 2004 election, everyone knew that the Coalition were keen to start work on IR reform, and yet the Australian public not only re-elected the Coalition, but gave them a majority in both houses."
nope. it wasn't. maybe you and i might have suspected it was coming but voters didn't. the govt. acknowledged as much because they deliberately kept quiet about it. last election was an interest rates/"economic management" scare campaign.
it also sounds a little tinfoil hattish to suggest that children made up anything approaching a significant proportion of ir protesters. there is no indication of this. even if this was the case it certainly doesn't account for the independent and liberal party polling that tells us in no uncertain terms that it is a serious issue.
of course it's not all ir but it seems to be the single biggest issue. like i said, the govt. has spent the vast majority of its advertising budget to date defending itself on an issue you say most voters don't care about. doesn't that seem strange to you?
IR was a hot issue during the 2004 election, everyone knew that the Coalition were keen to start work on IR reform
Did you believe that the 2001 election was won because of Howard's 'good economic management' rather than the "we will decide who comes to this country" xenophobia campaign? Your statement might make sense if that's the case.
Honestly, I'm pretty well-informed as a voter, and while there were mutterings that Howard was going to do something with the IR laws, it was *never* an election issue in 2004. 2004 was the "if I vote for L-plate Latham me mortgage will go up" election. It had nothing to do with IR.
Haven't you ever been to or seen an IR reform protest? They are well-reknown for bringing their families along!! Check out the "your stories" section on the Your Rights at Work website. Never seen kids used, eh?
*never* an election issue in 2004? You're kidding right?
Even your beloved ABC News reported it here, as did Allens Arthur Robinson... the list goes on.
At this stage the Unions were too slow / dumb / back-footed to implement their scare campaign in lead up to the 2004 election - maybe that's why people tend to think that the IR reform came as a shock - we didn't have the Unions brainwashing oops I mean "educating" us... pffft.
Yes, we have been to ir protests. we even have some pictures on this very blog. why don't you do us a favour and look at the photos we took. count the 'used children' and report back to us. extra points if you can find the kiddy brainwashing gas trucks. they hide it in icecream too... you've been warned.
our 'beloved abc', you know the one with board members picked by the liberal party government? reported ir issues as "tipped to be significant election issue" obviously you can't find any actual analysis of the actual election that says they were an election issue, or you'd have linked to it.
i also looked at the newspoll website from january 2004 till around november 2005 there wasn't a single poll on ir issues. not. a. single. poll. i guess it was such a major issue one of the biggest polling companies in australia just forgot to ask people about it.
so.. the unions were so dumb in the 2004 election that they didn't attack a policy that didn't exist in any concrete form. now they're so clever they manipulate families into bringing their kids to rallies (because job security doesn't affect kids!) in a massive scare campaign which somehow works even though nobody cares. did i leave anything out?
since you've come out of closet re union scare campaigns, i'll ask you again.
i don't suppose you're going to explain how work choices are actually good for us and we're just worrying unnecessarily? if so i'd love to hear it.
I should point out that I went out of my way to photograph people with kids at the two IR rallies we went to in Brisbane. The kids were usually too young to be left at home, and all the parents we spoke to expressed the desire to ensure that Australia's IR system retained certain rights for workers so they could a) be allowed work conditions that enabled them to actually raise a family, not just pay for one, and b) keep those rights in place for their kids when they grew up and entered the workforce.
They weren't just there to make up the numbers, they had a genuine vested interest in their children's future.
I disagree. I believe it's a huge issue. People are being monstered in the work place across this country. Ranging from subtle 'you can work this weekend right?' to 'my way or the high way'.
Work Choices went to the heart of middle and lower australia. Because most of us are still PAYE payers and we don't like losing basic workplace protection
As noted in the biog Howard bought it in so early in his term because he knew he had to spent hundreds and millions of dollars of our money convincing us to take a bite out of a big shitty sandwich.
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