
Issue No 75		27 October 2000

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News

ACTU Calls For Compo For Costello's Inflation Spike

ACTU Secretary Greg Combet says unions will push for a pay rise for low paid workers to ensure that living standards are maintained in the face of GST price increases, record petrol prices and rising interest rates.

The ACTU will launch its Living Wage 2000 campaign next week which will seek increases in Award rates of pay for low paid workers.

Greg Combet says unlike previous years union members will have plenty of opportunity to look at and discuss the Living Wage claim before it is lodged in the commission.

'We'll finalise the claim at the ACTU executive meeting next week. In November unions will take the claim out to members and delegates, explain it and discuss it. Then we'll follow up with an application to the commission in November,' he says.

This change from the top down, file it and arbitrate approach to one encouraging members to be part of the process builds on a successful rally outside the Commission on the last day of hearings last year.

Combet says the message is clear so far from union members.

'People understand the issues. Low paid workers are hurting. The tax system is unfair. Someone on $25,000 a year only gets a $12.50 tax cut. Fair dinkum, that disappears in the first visit to the petrol pump,' he says.

Combet's comments follow the release of CPI figures for the September quarter that confirm the cost of living jumped by 3.7% since the introduction of the GST, pushing inflation above 6% for the first time in a decade.

"These figures confirm that it is ordinary workers and their families who have been the big losers under John Howard's GST," he says.

"The bad news in the CPI figure for working families, whose budgets are already stretched to the limit, is that the full impact of the GST on prices is yet to be felt.

"Despite the Treasurer's promise that the GST impact on inflation would be a 'one-off', the figures suggest that GST price rises, $1 a litre petrol and a low $A exchange rate will continue to push up the cost of living."

Mr Combet also said that Treasurer Peter Costello had directly contradicted himself when he claimed in a radio interview this week that low paid workers are 'better off' under the GST and that the July 1 tax cuts 'more than compensates for price rises'.

"Back in May, Mr Costello told us that the July 1 tax cuts were not compensation for the GST. He said Australians 'deserved' the tax cuts that they were not designed to 'sugar coat' his GST. What we saw this morning from the Treasurer was a giant back flip. He now claims that tax cuts were designed to compensate the low paid for GST price rises.

"The reality is that Mr Costello's GST tax cuts have failed workers on both counts. The low paid only got back what they had lost to tax bracket creep since 1993 and the CPI result confirms that the GST will continue to push prices up for some time yet.

"Mr Costello also said that home mortgage rates were lower than at any stage since 1983 - apart from the rises in the last year. Does that mean the low paid can just ignore all four rate rises? The Treasurer is not living in the real world.

"Low paid workers must not be left to unfairly carry the burden of this tax."

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  Issue 75 contents

Interview: Civilized Capital
The FNV's Harrie Lindelauff explains to Peter Lewis how a friendly government and moderate employers make for a different sort of workplace in Holland.

Politics: Where Too Much Politics Is Barely Enough
With daily newspapers providing polling and analysis, television, cable, radio and Internet providing 24 hour coverage over a year long campaign -- there's more than enough politics for even the most voracious American political junkie reports Michael Gadiel.

International: US Cleaners on Hunger Strike
A number of US cleaners have this week gone on a hunger strike to back a union campaign for higher wages.

Economics: The Pass The Risk Trick
Derivatives, often seen as the currency of casino capitalism, are the fastest growing, largest and potentially most volatile aspect of capitalist economies. Economist Dick Brian sees behind this image an even deeper danger.

Health: Depressing Workplaces
New technologies and the impact of globalisation have sparked more stress and bouts of depression for workers, while causing a growing burden for social security systems, a new ILO report says.

Unions: Costello's Con
The low paid are bearing the brunt of the GST with inflation at a 10 year high argues the ACTU's Greg Combet.

Satire: Bush campaign an in-joke, admit advisors
TEXAS, Thursday: Following Bush's disastrous performance in the first Presidential debate it has been revealed that his bid for president is actually the result of a in-joke about how stupid the American people are.

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