This weekends Australian Magazine article on Shorten told us what we all need to know.
As per previous posts by myself it confirms the bleeding obvious.
Shorten is the Bosses reserve Goalkeeper.
In the terrible event of the Australian electorate voting in the Labor Party, Billy is there to protect thier intrests.
Raised and nourished over many years and strategically placed in the AWU.
Billy at 38 years of age has achieved NOTHING.
Yet we see the press seriously suggesting he is PM material.
Poor punters.

Sly,

I agree with you completely that the government is no good. What I disagree with you about is that the Unions and the ALP will ever ever ever be able to, or even desire to, substantially improve the situation for workers, or the environment. This is because their entire platform is based on the impossible task of maintaining or improving workers’ conditions while ensuring that business maintains or increases profits. Rest your mind on that pivotal point for a while.

Ask yourself how business makes profit? – by minimizing production costs. What is the result of improved workers conditions? – increased production costs. There is an irreconcilable conflict there and it doesn’t matter which party is in government. As long as they support the profit system they will never be able to resolve the contradiction. Even if workers are able to improve their conditions through the ALP and the unions (as they have done in the past, but only through an implicit threat to the entire profit system), business will seek to erode them as we see happening today under either the Coalition, or the ALP (the Accord). Any “balance” as you so put it is temporary.

The unions and the ALP lie to the workers and offer them false hope of improving their conditions, while all the time reinforcing the belief that others are entitled to profit from their labour. When unions claim that they are still useful, they are not appealing to workers, they are appealing to big business and attempting to show that they can contain the workers within the capitalist system. And then they run around behind workers backs and shaft them. And I mean all unions, not just the AWU.

The unions and the ALP cannot be revived or reformed because they are a tool of the capitalists to contain the workers, and have been since Federation. The only interest they have in workers is getting their votes, and their union dues.

The sooner workers understand this, the better.

Hedghhog you must have a headache! me on one side tao on the other yet I think you and I share some values.
The 2 messages in 24 hours will get me but here it is, I would never agree that Labors right is true right ,its nothing like it, if it was we may be in the lodge not Howard.
And in my honestly held view ALL UNIONS have grubbs who betray workers/ members/ the movement.
Now final word on Bill Shorten like it or not in some roll he will serve Australia and Labor well, but replace him with any true canedate from the faction that selects Labor leaders and you will only have contempt for that new leader.
I in no way hold your views against you would as I said man your picket line for you mate I HAVE DONE IT!taken the bucket around and filled it then delivered it ,haveing on my first visit out of my pocket and my fellow trade unionists [AWU] bought food/petrol for generator and took your delegate to my meeting to fill that bucket.
You devalue the true frendship I have with 3 CFMEU oficials, and the 90 to 100 members who asked not poached to come to me from that union.
Or that $1.000 from my pucket that I lent to some from that union.
PTO

I have never voted for Howard but I thought he was not as bad as I had been told. After taking full control of the senate and slapping Australian people in the face I think he and his party are SCUM.

Alot of people think Howard is a good leader, I disagree and I believe in years to come Howard will be a disgrace as his new policies hit hard. Howard voters shame on you.

No Belly i suspect we share very few values.
Your absolute reticence to accept the bleeding obvious regarding Shortens' pedigree is disturbing.
As for Tao and his attack on Unions in general, i note he offers no answers.
I suspect he is one of those characters who takes the hard line where failure is obvious, achieves nothing and brags about what a radical he is.
He then attacks pragmatic people (not the AWU)who seek to achieve a small victory and live to fight another day.
We are so pure.
What did u achieve brother? Nothing! But we told them.

hedgehog,

Which part of what I said is not true? You yourself have criticised the unions (oh that's right, yours is different) and the ALP, which have been pragmatically paving the way to Workchoices in recent decades. That is what they have achieved.

But workers united the union way will never be defeated right? Did your union call on all unions to call a general strike in opposition to Workchoices? I doubt it. I'm sure you have all sorts of reasons for why they didn't - living to fight another day..... in the future .... a long way down the track .... after jobs have been lost .... wages have been cut ...... workers are totally demoralised .... then you'll think about calling a g-g-g-g-g-general s-s-s-s-s-s-strike.

In the meantime you'll wait for the ALP to get back in power so you can make another Accord and deregulate some more.

The solution is for workers to build their own independent party based on socialist principles, which completely and unconditionally opposes the profit system. It might not be "pragmatic" but it is certainly not selling out workers.

mmm....I seem to recall the ALP once had socialist ideas ......mmmm .......that was when it was actually improving workers conditions ...mmmmmm... now it has dropped any pretence of socialism workers conditions are going backwards ..... mmmm...... I wonder why that is? That's right, they figured out capitalism couldn't be gradually reformed or ameliorated, so instead of biting the bullet and calling the workers to revolution, they sold out. Leaving workers to bite the bullet of capitalism.