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Issue No. 290 | 18 November 2005 |
The Long March
Interview: Public Defender Legal: Craig's Story Unions: Wrong Way, Go Back Industrial: WhatChoice? Politics: Queue Jumping History: Iron Heel Economics: Waging War International: Under Pressure Poetry: Billy Negotiates An AWA Review: A Pertinent Proposition
National Rally Boosts Local Action Boss Likes Women 'Work-Hardened'
The Soapbox The Locker Room Culture Parliament
What lucky country Swimming with Sharks Save Our Culture
Labor Council of NSW |
News PM Executes Back Flip
The Prime Minister lobbed up on television to play statesman in a performance Unions NSW secretary, John Robertson, has labelled "dishonest" but "typical�. "It was pure John Howard," Robertson said, "very clever but fundamentally dishonest. "For weeks, every spokesman, every supporter he could muster had been threatening legal action and massive fines in a bid to intimidate Australians. "It is a strategy, just short of outright lying, that we have seen from him over and over again." Howard indicated that no retribution would be taken against workers who stood up to "Workchoices" because his Australia was a democracy where the right to protest was cherished. Robertson accused the Prime Minister of using "cheap tricks" to undermine the trust that should bind governments with the government. He cited Howard's invention of "non-core promises", and "double-speak" on Medicare, Children Overboard and Weapons of Mass Destruction as other examples. Robertson said the strategy is further revealed in "Orwellian" titles the federal government chooses for its most contentious legislation. "Workchoices is a classic. Academics, practitioners, almost every impartial observer who has entered the debate, accepts these proposals drastically limit, or remove, choice from people's working lives," Roberston says. Howard backed-in protesters after a two-week campaign of threats and intimidation by his Workplace Relations Minister, Canberra's hand-picked ABCC chief, federal government departments and employers, including the AIG, Qantas and Visy. All had warned that stopping work to protest against Workchoices would be "unlawful" and had threatened workers with the possibility legal action and substantial fines.
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