Dudd Vs Phony

Bill shorten or someone fresh like mark butler!

 

Bill Shorten would steal the eye out of one`s willie. He should be a big hit down at trades hall.

 

tv - "fresh" is probably impossible. In Labor from the moment you join you are faced with whether or not you join a faction. Shorten is on the Victorian Right, Butler (my fed MP) I'm not sure of, I thought he may be soft Left in SA but he could be soft Right too, dunno. Either way I don't think there's anyone "fresh", they've all been through the factional wars.

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Jeez, talking about eyes, mine are watering reading that line

 

What about Lindsay Tanner? At least he had the decency to be disgusted by shifty Julia and Wayne. I can`t see how the ALP can repair itself without breaking away from the unions. They need to separate church from state, so to speak.

 

Personally I'd like Tanya Plibersek as leader, and Jason Clare as deputy.

I'm a bit sick of Shorten, I think most people are.

Albanese, Bowen and Burke... I just don't see it, sort of like Wayne Swan.

I think in the future ALP need to focus more on the shadow cabinet "team" and less on their leader.

The main problem with Rudd, is that he thought he was President.

 

Tanya Plibersek is more of a snake than a king brown.

 

Is there anyone to the left of the Coalition who you don't think is a "snake" though?

 

lol.....say no more!

 

That would like the Libs backing away from big business or the Nats telling the squatters to get stuffed. Labor is from the unions. True the history has been difficult, especially during the 1950s when the DLP split, but for the most part the union movement has had the Labor party as its political arm. Without the unions Labor is a social democratic party with no connection to working people.

 

unfortunately for Plibersek Australia haven't recovered from the Gillard experiment. She would be fodder for the cannon. That and I think she is a dill.

Shorten was too involved with the leadership tragedy. He is badly damaged goods. Albanese is a follower, much like Costello, no real balls. That leaves Bowen and Burke. Bowen was embroiled in what was the most grubbiest of personal slander, something I was shocked about to be honest as I had some time for him. Then we have burke, who I don't mind as he seems a littler measured. But is he a Turnbull ? People like him, but seems slightly weak.

I am not sure who it will be but they will be only temporary, as the eventual leader will emerge later down the track.

For now my money is on trash teeth ( Shorten ) as he has the backing of the rotten faction. What I do know is that if the ALP keep moving away from their core values, they will be the forgotten party.

Basically they need to ditch the half strength, soy, skinny caramel latte and go back to Nescafe blend 43 with a dash of milk.

 

It is often said that the unions have lost their way. True enough that the ALP needs the union to survive but the truth is that the Union need to become proactive to realities of the political scene rather than just trying their best to make themselves relevant to the workers of the population.

Either the ALP separates itself from the Unions or the Unions get themselves up to date. Unions can no longer sit about gouging their members and trying to show their relevance they need to adjust to the times. As in the past the unions think that while the ALP are in power they are able to do what they like with absolutely no impact to economy. While they continue to make themselves relevant on the same manner of the past they have pushed cost of manufacturing in total disregard for the competiveness of the nation on a global market. Unions isolate themselves from such efforts by laying the blame for such at the feet of their political arm while trying to make their actions appear as if they are doing their best for Australia.

Unions have a place in Australia, but under their current management and ideals they are only causing problems in Australia. They need to stop their stupidity and begin to work with business and the people as the go between not simply push wages and costs with absolutely no injection at all.

Under the current system the ALP are simply a joke of the Unions, that needs to change.

 

Couple of major themes going on here I think.

The first is the relationship between the ALP and the union movement. I think they need one another and I think the party needs the unions more than the unions need the party. Before the ALP were formed there were labourist parties in each colonial parliament (I think, I do know that here in SA we had the United Labour Party). Even when and where there were no labourist parties the organised workers bodies would seek politicians who would basically be lobbied to look after the interests of workers in the legislature. It was just a natural move for the entire union movement in Australia to create a national political party. Without the union movement then the ALP would be a social democratic party which would be funded by local membership.

To unions. The traditional view of unions, as we might all agree, was basically blue collar and with a range of job skills where workers gathered together for mutual support and for bargaining on wages, that's a fairly basic view. In Australia it wasn't until after the Second World War that we saw white collar occupations becoming unionised. I think that division is still apparent in the union movement in Australia. But is the rationale for unions still valid?
I think it is, but then as Mandy Rice-Davies once said, “well he would say that, wouldn't he?” Big Business, small business, the H.R. Nicholls Society, the Coalition parties and various other rightists want unions to be non-existent in Australia so that the profits of business can be higher on the backs of lower-paid workers. They don't care that the standard of living in Australia would be lower or that eventually there would be problems in the consumer economy, just as we see in the US, when the low-wage approach creates fewer consumers of anything other than the basics. Of course unions are still relevant. While the power imbalance exists then the need for unions exists. It's how unions organise themselves that's important.

Let's not forget that it was the ACTU and the Labor government of Hawke and Keating which modernised Australia's economy after the protectionism of the Coalition. It was Laurie Carmichael, among others and of course Bill Kelty, who led the shift to collective bargaining and the link with business-based productivity which got us away from the centralised, industry-wide wage fixation processes that we had. The Coalition governments before then were happy for Australia to lumber along as it had since federation, I mean that's what conservatives like, nothing to change. Pity that the world was changing then.

It will be interesting to see what the new Coalition government has in store for us. I will be watching closely.

 

There are very few who aren`t. Look at it this way. Any "group" who`s entire livelihood is based completely on living off others (unions) , will always have high reptilian tendencies.

 

The problem is that while the Unions pat themselves on the back for the life style in Australia today, the fact is Australia has massive problems with the consumer nation it has become. National debt is continuing to grow out of proportion to the manufacturing sector while governments want to focus people’s attention on government debt.

Relevance of Unions is questionable while they hold to the out dated understanding of the purpose. Unions need to become more entrenched in acting for their membership within reasonable expectations. While unions blindly attempt to gouge business for more, business is moving to outsource and unions complain for more. Relevance is only to the value of the Union movement for the expectations of the workers and business.

Interesting that you would consider that last sentence as good response as your entire comment is to say that unions don’t need to change yet you acknowledge the world is changing…

Problem is that while you say that Unions continue with a productivity indexed wage fixation system, Unions continue to push for far higher increases without any productivity increases at all. Fact is that in the last six years of ALP governance wages grew and Productivity decreased. This is where the Unions need to be fair dinkum and recognise that workers need to give as well as receive.

Unions know as we all do, that under a coalition government, they need to show their relevance, let us hope it is not simply through stupid actions. While Unions simply feel that their purpose is to simply get more for the worker they ignore the fact that this increases costs. Unions need to focus on worker’s rights, safety and conditions not simply their incomes.

Unions need to change and adapt to current problems and not live in the past. It is irrelevant to the future the successes of the past if they simply want to live of their past.

It is time for the Coalition to front up with some real change. Promises were made so now it is time to deliver. The ALP made its own problems by trying to be different to the LNP by simply changing the name of policy they supported (which amazed me) to simply telling lies to make themselves look good. The ALP could have lived on its merits but they seem to focused on remaining in opposition throughout the government (in action) rather than actually govern in their own right. They do realise the problems Australia is facing but how does it tell its base support to pull its head in? So fractured was the ALP during the last six years that nobody has the credibility to stand forward and begin to lead them in opposition with any substance.

It will be interesting and I expect that the Coalition government will not be able to do many things it promised I don’t think they will take it to a double disillusion as they have said. It will be interesting to see what they do to address the problems they face with a hostile senate of Greens holding the balance of power. Traditionally, it is the normal course Australians like to see but with the Greens so determined to undermine the new government from the start, will it be their slow demise???

 

I think you're putting too much at the feet of unions. The state of the national economy is not down to unions, it's a result of government policy, business policy and actions and reactions by business to union activity. Yes unions have helped to give Australian workers a pretty good set of conditions. Those conditions were not handed over, they had to be demanded and fought for, such is the nature of our economic system. The demise of manufacturing in Australia is a result of forces well beyond the control of unions. If you remember Keating in particular advised us that we had to upskill or become the “white coolies of Asia” I think was the phrase he used. He saw that we shouldn't compete with low-wage nations but we should shift to a higher skills-based manufacturing possibly like Germany. However it seems as though since the Keating term that manufacturing has been decaying as a result of offshoring and a move by some businesses that could do so from making stuff to simply extracting minerals and selling them. I don't see how unions can be blamed for that situation.

Where a business can lower its costs it will do so. I understand that. It will seek to lower wage costs even without a pesky union making demands through collective bargaining and offering to increase productivity. Where a business is forced, by circumstance, to negotiate with unions then all this does is put the individual worker in a better bargaining position through collective action. Any enterprise agreement which has been reached has to be examined by the IR umpires to make sure it's valid and it does increase productivity. I see nothing wrong with that process or the role of the union in the process.

For the sake of the country I hope the new Coalition government is a good government. I'm biased, I don't expect it to be a good government for any but the already well-off, but we shall see. I hope that the parliamentary debates and the public debates focus on real issues though, not someone's hair colour or the size of their ears. That gives me the (*)(*)(*)(*)s.

 

The Tories have and always will try and convince the people that the unions are the unnecessary evil. It is about time people stopped listening to rubbish that is motivated by greed. Sure there are issues with unions, the same as those on the other spectrum such as Rhinehart, palmer, forrester etc who would rather workers work for less so that they can be paid more. It is never about productivity but about how much more money they can line their greedy pockets with. I for one am sick of the blame union line.........it is just blind parroting for the sake of trying to have something valuable to say from a right perspective of blind followers.

 

Well said TV, of course we will be shot down in flames, but no matter what they say, how hard they try to persuade people with their rhetoric, some things are just the way they are.

Yes there are corrupt union officials and members, they are human beings and corruption is a human trait. Yes some have political agendas, yes some have power gone to their heads, yes some are just plain R. Soles.

The point is that the unions are a creation of businesses. Yes that's right, the business sector created unions. How, by treating workers so bad they needed to form an alliance to have some power against those that had the power...money. We have all seen the sweat shops, the non-existent OH&S that was rife on factory floors.

As for corruption, it is much more prevalent among business people than it is among unions, we see examples of it every day. Builders, tradesmen, sales persons deliberately misleading and fraudulently obtaining money, usually off the most susceptible, the elderly. We see stores like Harvey Norman, Ikea, Rivers etc all moving into the suburbs with their cheap imported goods, muscling out the small family businesses.

When they look at a location they create a business plan, they research what share of the market they can gain, they plan ways of taking a cut of the market, ways of ruining small family businesses. I will guarantee that Harvey Norman would not say "We won't go into that market, there is already a small family electrical and furniture business that has been operating in the area for a hundred years and supplying and servicing the needs of the community." No, they are more likely to look at how they can muscle in on their business, success is when they send the family business broke.

No one will ever convince me that business, big or small is as saintly as some here would have us believe. Most of them now don't consider banks to be businesses, why, because they don't like the way banks do business, but banks are as much a business as a factory or a shop.

Suck it in guys and grow some nuts, stop letting money cloud your judgment, one day, rich or poor we will all lay in a box. As I pass to where ever I go after here I just want someone to miss me, some one to cry that I have gone and the world to be a just a little bit better for my having been here. Then I will die truly rich.

 

DV : "No one will ever convince me that business, big or small is as saintly as some here would have us believe. Most of them now don't consider banks to be businesses, why, because they don't like the way banks do business, but banks are as much a business as a factory or a shop."

Or in some cases... A UNION !

 

While Unions lay claim to the ALP, then they are very much to blame along with the Coalition. Far more than the business sector. The continued push for higher wages without increases of productivity is great contributor to current position of Australia on the global economy. So no, while the ALP is based on union nobody can dilute the blame from the union.

As stated :"Unions isolate themselves from such efforts by laying the blame for such at the feet of their political arm while trying to make their actions appear as if they are doing their best for Australia"

Yes, and now they have them Unions should be looking for ways to improve them with minimal costs to manufacturing and insuring maintains of such conditions. BUT they simply continue to push for increases over and above to make themselves appear to be working for the working class.

As stated, they need to be more proactive in the system...

Unions are a major issue with this, increasing costs with unwarranted industrial actions and increased costs without any increases in productivity has priced Australia well above international standards. The reason there is a move to outsource is due to that very problem. If Australia was on par with the rest of the world there would be no advantage to moving away from manufacturing in Australia. Considering that over 30% of costs in manufacturing is simply wages (which is the highest in the world) how can Australian manufacturing compete???

Great, you understand the wage issue and how to get more for the worker. BUT your actually wrong about what makes an agreement, the "IR umpires" only determine that the agreement is not detrimental to workers, they do not care or even rule on productivity issues. Due to the fact you see nothing wrong with a system that does not do what you claim it does, that in itself is a problem.

I hope your wrong about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer because Australia cannot continue it the same vain for too long. Sure if Abbott does turn around the government debt the points will be staved off but the problems will only be put off for later. The only thing I think you will see is that the Coalition government remember how to be in government, which is something the ALP lacked...

 

Of course you will be shot down in flames. You say you looking to the future yet you consider Union movements should remain the same... That is of the past. Go figure.

Great, perhaps you could find a way to stop the corruption before it begins rather than simply put up with it because it is 'human nature'. BUT hardly the point.

Regardless of why Unions came about simply remaining in the 50's and 60's with their ideals do them no favours. Times have changed, so the union needs to get up with the times or get out of the way, just like the government...

again hardly the point of need for unions to join the times and begin to be proactive. But again, simply accepting something because you consider it to be the norm is unacceptable really.

Suck it up, if you want to complain about big business, why the hell did you support a government that would not challenge the culture and push for small business. Sure the rhetoric was their but the truth is that the ALP supported the big business and would not do anything to change the current dynamic...

Nobody is trying to convince you of anything. Most are trying to tell you things need to change, you seem happy to stay oblivious to the realities and seem scared of change... Funny when all along people were proclaiming the ALP as a party for the future...

Lovely sentiment, shame about the sour grapes...

 

I'd just like to make one point initially garry and that's that the enterprise bargaining system is predicated on productivity. In theory the reviewing authority can refuse to register an EA if there is no proof of productivity. I know that from personal experience, having been involved in the negotiation, formulation and approval of an enterprise agreement back in the late 1990s. Now I'm not naieve enough to suggest that there isn't a possibility of sweetheart deals where an employer may roll over and pass on the costs to someone else in the consumption chain, but the reviewer authority (FWA or the state based commissions) should be awake to that and demand evidence.

And unions aren't there to do the best for Australia, they're there to do the best by their members, which is why those members pay dues. True enough in wartime unions in Australia have contributed greatly to the national war effort but in peacetime the system works on sectional interests, not national interests.

“Unwarranted” industrial action isn't “protected” and I can't remember the last time the headline “wildcat strike” appeared in the media. As for offshoring and outsourcing – it was always going to happen. As soon as developing nations showed the ability to provide skilled labour at lower rates those jobs were going to be offshored. I think Keating was trying to tell us that. The key is to upskill our workers in various industries to produce high level outcomes using high level skills that overcomes the competitive advantage of production in a low-wage economy that rests within a low standard of living society.

I'm pretty sure that one of the first items on the agenda for the Coalition government will be industrial relations and that a form of Work Choices will be back. If so then I'm afraid that the rich will get richer and the poor, well they get the picture.

 

Well your dealings with EAs are very different to mine. Also your dealings with the powers to be who ratify these agreements are by far different from the realities of my dealings with them. As they continue to grant increases in wages without increases in productivity, Especially the last six years where increases in wages accompanied drops in productivity ALL approved by those arbitrators you believe act in such interest.

No, the Truth is that EA's do not have productivity association at all and there is no necessity for them to contain any pay off for productivity. So I would severally question your proclamations of being part of negotiations for EAs

True Unions are supposed to be for the best of their members. However, they are stuck in a period well behind the rest of the world. To say they are doing the best for Australia is a misnomer. You cannot do best for both if you ignore the fact that increases in costs affects the future competiveness of the nation. As stated, while Unions ideals remain in the 50s and 60s they remain irrelevant. Unions need to update and work with everybody for the betterment of Australia. That in does not mean they need to sink into the back ground but they do have to understand what impact their dealings will have in future and account for such impacts with the nations interest at the best, which includes the members. Selling one off in demonstrations of relevance is not acceptable in this day and age.

Unions could well take the place of several levels of bureaucracy if they could be trusted to understand what impact their dealings have and that they could demonstrate clearly an anti-corruption stance with speed and server penalties for failures in this area reducing the need for government intervention. However, due to the fact they continue to remain with outdate Ideals and refuse to account for any increases in costs from their actions, they remain in scorn of much of the nation…

Classic example is the Union interference at Holden that almost cost the members 1200 jobs because of their belligerent stance. Only an 11th hour flip saved those jobs for a year or two...

Who said it was protected??? Simply because you believe they do not happen does not mean they don't. But I believe the ACTU have been fined a few thousand just recently for an Unwarranted strike.

Well DUH... and guess what else Keating was telling you. Unions have to stop the continued push for more money.

Again, while the Unions continue to push the wage bill up, the more attractive it is to outsource... Get the picture...

What a load of crap, the key is to reduce manufacturing prices in Australia for parity to the rest of the world. As up skilling increases the amount of wages needed to pay workers all that is occurring is increasing the costs of manufacturing.

As cutting wages to levels making them competitive is not acceptable, there is only two ways to close the gapes due to high costs in Australia. One way is to lower the Australian dollar to such a level so the value of production is on par with the rest of the globe. The other is to grow productivity to such levels as to again make each unit value on par to the rest of the globe...

What does the government do??? Grant corporate welfare to pay the difference of high costs... cutting tariffs so now companies gain great benefit to export their product to the rest of the world while importing the product they sell in Australia at a vastly reduced cost... Outsourcing made profitable by increasing wage costs brought about by Unions…

Yes, Unions are really helping to build the nation by pushing the wages cost while productivity drops.

Wake up... Work choices that you are so scared of never really went away... individual agreements still remain throughout the ALP governance. Much of the policy never went away and you applauded the ALP for such good work place reforms... It was all a sham... I don't recall how many of those supposed outlawed agreements that I have been party to, that went through the arbitrators and where approved. BUT shake if you want, just demonstrates you really have lost the way with the industrial relations reforms.

 

Okay, agree to disagree.

 

Ok but what is it we disagree on???

Unions need decent reform to bring them up to date???

Unions cannot pretend they have no blame for the present conditions in Australia while they are the base support for the ALP???

Unions will remain irrelevant until they reform???

Just want to know what we are disagreeing on.

 

All of the above. Point being that I don't see it the way you do, which is fair enough - and I think it's fair to say that neither of us are going to give way on those points. Being so diametrically opposed it is best to leave it at that. Unless we get an umpire.