Leigh Clifford's Agenda

[fishers.ghost]

QANTAS chairman Leigh Clifford has accused the Gillard government of being "hoodwinked" by unions.

He has also taken aim at the Australian Industry Group for remaining silent for too long on the need for industrial relations reform.
In an escalation in the big business campaign for workplace reform, Mr Clifford urged the Liberal Party to promise greater flexibility and provide the platform to drive productivity in the race to the next election.
He warned that a failure to outline a positive policy agenda in industrial relations before the election would leave the Coalition open to the charge it would revive its electorally unpopular Work Choices package.
Mr Clifford said Heather Ridout's Australian Industry Group had been too slow to join business in the fight for change, a claim strongly denied by the boss of the employers' group.
"I think the union movement has hoodwinked the government with regards (to) the re-regulation of the labour market," Mr Clifford said.
"Only now is there a recognition in the last few weeks of the necessity for change. And I think Heather Ridout's organisation was silent for too long on it.
"But we have at least had Wayne Swan recognise that some change is necessary. I think that dramatic change is necessary."
Mr Clifford was speaking at a Liberal fundraiser in the party's heartland Melbourne seat of Kooyong, held by Josh Frydenberg.
He was backed during a panel discussion by economist and former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin, who said the party needed to outline its industrial relations policy.
"What you need to do is get rid of the name Work Choices but actually lay out what the policy is," Mr McKibbin said. "And then give it another name."
Mr Clifford described Labor's Fair Work Act as a marked change from Howard era policy.
"It's been a dramatic reversal," he said. "The Liberal Party has got to go forward with a policy skeleton, if you like, that says: 'We are going to open the question of regulation of the labour market.' "
Mr Frydenberg said small business had been crippled by unfair dismissal laws.
The comments follow the Treasurer's strongest indication yet that the government will tweak its Fair Work laws in response to concerns they are curbing productivity.
Ms Ridout this week urged Labor to allow firms and workers to strike more flexible workplace deals after the government scrapped Australian Workplace Agreements, the individual contracts at the heart of the Work Choices regime.
Ms Ridout rejected Mr Clifford's criticism, saying the AI Group had led the debate for changes to the Fair Work Act.
"Our approach has been to closely monitor the operation of the act and to intervene where necessary to ensure that the act is applied in a flexible and productive manner," she said.
The Weekend Australian's columnist Janet Albrechtsen was a panellist in the discussion.

[unionist1974]

A classic lesson for those that could not wait to get rid of Margaret Jackson . Be careful, you get what you wish for . A lady who had good labor connections replaced by a red hot old style anglophile Tory . I hope you are all happy with this outcome .

[maggot]

^^^

Shouldn't that be work choices to the right and carbon tax to the left?



edit: this makes no sense since the post above vanished. whatever.

[Worrals in the wilds]

"What you need to do is get rid of the name Work Choices but actually lay out what the policy is," Mr McKibbin said. "And then give it another name."

From the Libs' point of view, isn't he a helpful little sausage:E? Me, I'd be paying him to stay away from microphones.
Mr Frydenberg said small business had been crippled by unfair dismissal laws.
Qantas isn't a small business...yet. Maybe he's thinking ahead. :eek:
These zillion dollar corporate types always accuse Labor governments of being hoodwinked by unions. It's just part of the rhetoric that goes with not being allowed to use serfs and galley slaves in the lower lobe.

If he can't remember what the electorate thought of Work Choices he should probably get a brain scan before he starts putting the cat on the stove and going to work in his pajamas. Democracy's a bitch! :}

[Clipped]

An opinion on Work Choices and facts from the AFR.

End Work Choices Myth, Australian Financial Review, 6 September 2011

In Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, a man is accidentally mistaken for the messiah. Despite all facts to the contrary, he is unable to persuade his devoted followers that he is not divine.

And so it is with WorkChoices. Over recent months, a steady drumbeat has been sounding through the Coalition and more extreme elements of the business community, claiming that a return to the industrial relations system that existed from 2006 to 2009 would boost productivity in Australia.

Alas, there’s precious little evidence to back this up. Productivity growth in Australia peaked in the early-2000s, and has been significantly lower in the naughties than it was in the nineties. If WorkChoices boosted productivity, you might have expected that Australia’s productivity would have soared in the period 2006-2009. But the opposite is true. In the WorkChoices era, labour productivity growth rates were lower than any 3-year period in recent times.

In a pair of papers presented to the Reserve Bank’s annual policy conference in August, these results were confirmed. In a splendid analysis of productivity, the Grattan Institute’s Saul Eslake concludes: ‘In particular, the workplace relations reforms introduced by the Howard Government under the title ‘WorkChoices’ in its last term in office were not, primarily, ‘productivity-enhancing’.’

The same holds true of unemployment. Looking at the jobless rate that prevails at a given level of inflation (the so-called ‘Phillips Curve’), Melbourne University’s Jeff Borland finds no evidence that WorkChoices reduced the unemployment rate.

None of this should have come as a surprise. Most of the WorkChoices package was not about labour market deregulation, but increasing the industrial relations power of the federal government and shifting the power balance from workers to employers (eg. by abolishing the no-disadvantage test and restricting union rights). Removing dismissals protection from small businesses greatly raised the chance of employees being treated unfairly, since small firms are least likely to have proper human resources processes.

Even when the Howard Government introduced the WorkChoices package, it struggled to provide evidence for its productivity-enhancing effects. In the Explanatory Memorandum, then-minister Kevin Andrews included a graph showing a negative relationship between an industry’s productivity growth from 1990-2004 and its award coverage rate in 2004. As Griffith University’s David Peetz pointed out, such an analysis only makes sense if time runs backwards. When Peetz used a measure of award coverage from an earlier year, the relationship falls apart.

But just because WorkChoices isn’t the answer, it doesn’t mean that the question isn’t important. In his study of productivity, Eslake notes that Australia’s productivity slowdown has been broadly-based, affecting most industries. He points out that Australian firms are less likely to introduce product innovations than companies in Japan, the US and the EU, and that many large Australian firms do not even bother to measure their productivity.

Among his favoured solutions, Eslake includes regulatory reform (eg. more competition in the pharmacy, newsagency and taxi markets) and tax reform (eg. removing tax loopholes and reforming inefficient state taxes such as stamp duty). He might also have mentioned policies to reduce congestion, which operates like a tax whose revenues are dumped into the ocean.

In my view, the most promising productivity-boosting reforms are in the area of education. With test scores having flatlined since the 1960s, it is vital to find ways of making our schools work better. Publishing test scores on the MySchool website, funding reforms in low-SES schools, and creating a system of teacher performance pay are among the promising policies that the Gillard Government is putting in place to raise school quality.

Alongside this, we need to increase the quantity of education that young Australians receive: through a higher school leaving age, more in-school trades training, and a demand-driven university system. Education reforms will take some years to affect productivity, but in the long-run, their value is likely to be higher than other productivity reforms.

Lastly, it’s important that more Australians have the chance to participate in the labour market. For example, we’re updating the disability impairment tables, and requiring that people try finding work before they sign up for the Disability Support Pension. Policies like this won’t raise average productivity (in fact, they’ll probably lower it a smidgin), but they’re unambiguously the right thing to do.

So by all means, let’s continue the national debate about productivity, but let’s drop the myth that WorkChoices will be the salvation all our productivity problems. As Brian’s mother finally tells the crowd: ‘e’s not the Messiah – e’s a very naughty boy’.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser.

[UPPERLOBE]

"As Brian’s mother finally tells the crowd: ‘e’s not the Messiah – e’s a very naughty boy".

Just as Brian was executed, work choices was also executed at the insistence of the proletariat.

Are we seeing the old Liberal Party 'repeat a lie enough and eventually it becomes the truth' maxim at work here?

Always look on the bright side of life...

[gobbledock]

Clifford now a John Howard disciple ?? Oh sorry, I forgot, he always has been.
Clifford, stick to business and keep your nose out of the blue collar workers backyard you knob.

[teresa green]

Yeah, lets just stick to fair work choices, and watch the country go down the gurgler. You think QF has problems, its nothing to what this country has under these lunatics. Its fairly obvious they could not organise a :mad: in a brothel, and a election cannot come quick enough for 70% of the population.

[maggot]

Its fairly obvious they could not organise a in a brothel

it's fairly obvious they can. well on someone else's card at least - definitely government material!

[teresa green]

Actually Maggot it would appear he got the knockers to come to his room, fair more comfortable. I was hoping I would get one of those credit cards for Fathers day, but alas got the usual shirt, daks and socks. Bugger.

[PIOT Bord]

Part of Mr Clifford's agenda is being practiced tonight. Look over at Bay 73 SIT and you can see belt loaders and other ground equipment repeatedly being driven up to an aircraft parked on the bay. Engineers who towed it there were told it was having "preservation checks" carried out.

Under the cover of darkness, ops managers and other office types who had "today off" started to turn up. The plan is to give them refresher courses over the next couple of days prior to Tuesday.

Mr Clifford plans to smash Qantas employees, out-source the lot, and will use anyone and everyone to achieve his goal (prior to their out-sourcing).

Don't assist this man and the Qantas Board destroy the airline!!!

[Millet Fanger]

Were they wearing balaclavas?

[Worrals in the wilds]

Under the cover of darkness, ops managers and other office types who had "today off" started to turn up. The plan is to give them refresher courses over the next couple of days prior to Tuesday.
Interesting news. I've seen that happen before, many years ago. IIRC the spate of managerial bad backs and damaged equipment that followed was a beautiful thing to see. :E They were hopeless at chucking bags, too. Most of them ended up on the ground first.

Even really crap GHS companies (and you know who you are :}) give their new staff a couple of weeks training. Of course management types think that all that sweaty ramp stuff can be done by anyone without training, after all it's just manual labour isn't it? Not important stuff like turning up to meetings and sending out inane emails. :} Dya reckon anyone will ding an aircraft? :ouch:

[ozbiggles]

I wonder if CASA will be conducting a few ramp checks to make sure its all done safely?

[Arnold E]

I wonder if CASA will be conducting a few ramp checks to make sure its all done safely?

How would CASA know if it was safe or not :E

[unionist1974]

Oh dear , here we go again , and how many jobs will go after management realise how many " ghost" employees there are on the ramp