The stated purpose of this article was to provide better selling points to the new workplace regulations. Unfortunately Mr. Moor chose to do so by pointing to the benefits to employers - benefits against which thousands of Australians have already protested. Stressing employer benefits does nothing to reduce the fear by workers that such schemes are being put in place in order to promulgate the paternalism and elitist mentality which is increasingly contributing to the ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots.

If indeed the government - and Mr. Moor - want to convince the majority of the advantages accruing to them under such a system then we are in no need of further rhetoric. Simply bullet point or other wise list the ways in which the community of workers will be able better to feed, clothe and educate their children above the subsistence level. These are the reasons most of those who resist this legislation go out to work and of course they will favour legislation which facillitates such advantages.

No selling or persudaing or even coercing is needed if clear statements of fact listing the ways in which not only workers but their dependants' lives will be improved as a result of these reforms can be provided.

A working knowledge - as opposed to a statistical or theoretical knowledge - of the societal and economic conditions which govern the lives of workers would also function as an indicator of how best to present these reforms. Perhaps the inability so far of any proponents of this legislation to provide the above is a clue as to why it is being disputed.

Most Australians are keenly aware of the changed IR landscape because they or their kids have to sign AWAs to get a roster in the local shopping centre or call centre.

The government has lost all credibility with the large segment of the population that knows the unemployment rate is far greater than 5% because they are I of the 500,000 unemployed or 800,000 not working not counted unemployed or the 500,000 under employed persons in this country. On Des Moore's figures the unemployment rate is 18%.

Looking around my suburb in inner Melbourne at all the university trained over 45 year olds who would like to still be in the workforce except the scientific and technical roles which they once did have gone. They may have been pushed out of the workforce by the Kennett changes or their job may have been offshored. Employers regard technical workers who have not worked in their field for 2 years as unskilled labour .

I wonder what pissy little training course Newstart is going to force people to enrol in. I question the effectiveness of retraining to attain a new position. So from my little corner of God's own country I can see absolutely no merit in offshoring Australian jobs.

From my working life experience I assume that those who suck up to the boss have less to fear from AWAs than those who get on with job without showing the boss due reverence. As we all know, brown nosers often aren't actually productive members of the workforce.

"The Coalition needs to argue the case for workplace reform."

- No they don't. They need to crawl into a hole and die.

“Another truth seemingly overlooked is that employees who do not like the conditions provided by a particular employer are, in most cases, able to change jobs...”

- What about the workers in small towns?

”It is surely time for Coalition ministers to grasp the nettle and expose the many fallacies...BlahBlahBlah...”

- The reason they won’t is because the Coalition members are smart enough to realise that the more they debate it, the bigger hole they dig themselves into and, eventually, end up exposing their real agenda.

Howard has always dreamed of hitting the working-class where it hurts the most since they are such an “over-demanding” lot. There used to be a poster that hung on the wall of the Robert Menzies lounge in Parliament House that said “The Working Class: Give ‘en F---ing Nothing”. Apparently Howard used to get a real kick out of this and would chuckle about it all the time.

Oh, and before the rich start messing their pants over these reforms and their new-found glory as Lord and Master, they should remember, it’s only going to take one election win from the ALP to undo it all, after all, the Coalition has attacked what is the heart of the Labor party. Yet it would require the Coalition to gain control of the Senate AGAIN to bring the reforms back in – Something that I’d doubt will happen for a good many years considering the harsh lesson the general public are learning.

But I don’t have much sympathy for the working-class who helped to give these bastards control of the senate. If they didn’t have the brains to realise that these kinds of policies are what Rightwing governments stand for, then they deserve to learn the hard way. Saying that Labor wasn’t providing an alternative is an excuse either because you only have to take a look at the US to see what kind of a society the Coalition want to create for us.

John Howard to the Young Liberal convention just before winning the 1996 election:

”Under no circumstances will a Howard Government create a wages system that will cause the take home pay of Australians to be cut. Under a Howard Government you cannot be worse off, but you can be better off. I give this rock solid guarantee our policy will not cause a cut in the take home pay of Australian workers.”

Yet, employees at Spotlight, the retail chain, have lost the following: all penalty rates including for public holidays, all overtime, rest breaks, shift allowances, sick leave allowances, rostered days off, uniform allowances, meal allowances, and first aid allowances. Furthermore, there will be no restrictions on the number of consecutive days employees can be required to work without a break, and no minimum break between shifts.

In exchange for all this, the employees have received a pay increase of 2c to the hourly rate of $14.30 an hour.

WOW! What a deal!

This is in no way an isolated case either.

Next on the way, is the ability for employers to make all their staff contractors. This could see the end of holiday leave, sick leave and workers compensation. We would be responsible for paying our own taxes and Superannuation.

The next election can’t come soon enough.

Mr Man I think you will find that all the cleaners at Coles and other supermarkets are sub-contractors who are responsible for organising their own tax payments, leave, superannuation.

I think that one of the airlines hires its cabin crew as sub contractors and of course the building industry has been rife with subbies for over 20 years.

Its a sad state of affairs when the most vulnerable members of the work force are offered no protection from unfair work practices.

Please never overlook tails like our authors are while one sided and untrue have an impact.
Just this week a young man stood up in a workers lunch room and pored his dislike of the ALP out hopeing they would never win an elction.
Breathless about his blast I was about to ask questions when he made it clear he thought John Howard lead the Labor party!
Some anti worker views in the authors post are just as uninformed.