kalweb I totally agree with you. It is because Australias welfare system is so lax and gives handouts to able bodied young people who would prefer to sit around than contribute to society, that the people who really need our help (eg the mentally ill) miss out.

As for GM in Adelaide- the new industrial reforms do not make any difference to the plight of our workers. That is a sad symptom of just how tough the global market is. Perhaps another reason why Australians need to wake up, and take proactive steps to ensuring the work force and small business can compete.

Instead of sitting aroung whinging about how tough life is in Australia (in comparison to the rest of the world!?), and how unfair global competition is, the workforce should be looking to savvy, aggresive people like Corrigan to lead them through. Far preferable to any ACTU secretary with loads more political ambition than social conscience.

Wre, why do you attack a man like Combet who is a voice for the needy, whilst championing the likes of Corrigan who represents the greedy. I have always found the biggest whingers to be the wealthy. This country has added $3billion to its gross domestic product in the last decade, with very little going to workers. Australian workers should not compete with Bangladesh because its a race to the bottom they cannot win. A decent society shares its wealth.

WORKERS:
You want to know how kind and understanding is the Liberal Government?
Step back in time to the 60's and 70's. Drift back to Vietnam. Remember that "War" ( remember that slaughter, three million). Smell the charred bodies, listen ...for the screams of dying women and children, fleeing on fire with napalm clinging to their emaciated bodies. The sights of dead children, their little bodies blown to pieces by machine gun. Mauled upon by dogs. Go there. Or.............A new theatre has opened around the corner......Saturday matima............Iraq. The same old bombs, the same old napalm the same old machine guns.....New foe..........Same old Liberal party.......enjoying the same old games with the same old friends and telling the same old lies
For the workers………what chance?

This Post is from a retired farmer but still a director, who has never had to work for a boss besides a bank manager. Also in his retirement he has gained a degree with honours in International Relations. Also in his studies he has learnt about the true meanings of classic liberalism and the free market, with the realisation that both terms mean a free go for the master not the underling. A free go for the wheeler-dealer or middle-man and not the little retailer or store-keeper. Also from one who remembers the Great Depression, it was the strength of battling farmers joining together and not the more smart-arse clique groups who won relief for the growers.

There is an old saying that in certain enterprises if the owners don't get together they can be knocked out one by one, as is happening with many Australian smallholders like our dairy farmers, right now.

Maybe we can learn from the French who still believe in agrarian socialism, a type of socialism that has historically worked for small growers and which might also work well for small business, especially as that rotten term, get big or get out, has scared many out, anyhow.

Just a suggestion, but with governments encouraging only the getting together of the big units, corporatism, there is only the crumbs left for the little units. Also our leaders should be warned, that if they do not encourage the little units, the big-time believers might find themselves run out of power quicker than they can imagine.

Well said Des.

The responses to this article are quite pathetic. Instead of confronting the argument with facts... the typical ignorant lefties have come up with the "but you're evil" defence.

Of course not everybody would want a job on $11 to $25k/year.. but currently it is illegal to have such a job. Making jobs illegal does not help the unemployed. Using the debating tactics of the left (crying "you're evil") I can only conclude that you hate poor people and you want them to starve to death. Shame! SHAME!

Incomes for the poorest people in Australia have increased over the past 10 years. Fact. Labour market deregulation would improve the economy. Fact. Higher productivity leads to higher wages. Fact. Inflation has nothing to do with this and will not be impacted. Fact. Labour market deregulation will lead to more jobs. Fact. What is it about the left that makes them so alergic to facts?

Well said JH. The left hates facts because their existence means the left has to take a position, and stand by it. Obviously this never happens. Many Australians don't emphatically like Howard but at least he knows what he stands for, and pursues it.
As shown in the above theatrics the left would love Iraq to become another Vietnam, and they would love another depression. If for no other reason than to bash the right. Afterall the left has proven incompetent handling every portfolio that matters, so what is left for them to do but hope for the failure of the right?
I run down men like Combet (and women like Macklin) because I don't believe the ACTU stands for the workers. Instead it stands as a hopelessly ineffective PR machine working for the ALP. The Tasmanian election debacle showed this. Those workers cottoned on pretty quickly to the fact the left had abandoned them...
While on the topic of unions let's look at education-another portfolio the ALP stuffed. How many children of ALP MP's are blue collar workers? Very few-most of them are out organising protests at Woomera as 'student union leaders'. Now that's delivering services to the students isn't it?
The agrarian comments above were informed, and interesting. Perhaps groups of farmers forming their own corporations is the way to go. Wouldn't it be nice to show the defeatist left a little bit of Aussie grit, and enterprise.