Mirko gained his education at a different time when government thought it had a social responsibilty to educate and train young Australians.

Since 1992 the traditional avenues of training for apprentices and newly minted graduates has been closed as government departments and large organisations trimmed their staff to contain costs. This is the real source of the skills shortage in Australia - as large employers no longer see it as their responsibility to provide young people with technical or skilled work experience opportunities. The growth in employment in this country has been in micro businesses that barely make a return for their owner and definitely do not have enough revenue / turnover to take on an apprentice / graduate trainee unless its a family member.

Work choices will lead to a lower fertility rate in Australia as women decide they can't afford to start a family with the erosion of stable employment opportunities.

Many unskilled jobs demand the worker have an ABN - so you wonder who pays the income tax, public liability insurance as well as superannuation and sick leave etc. A new employee asking these questions will be branded a trouble maker and not get any rosters.

“Their focus will be sharpened by next year’s Federal election which will largely turn on the merits of the most fundamental changes to Australia’s industrial relations system for over a century”, asserts Bagaric.

But, the next election, like all others, will ‘turn on the merits’ of the economy and what goes into voters’ wallets. There will be some union diehards who will see IR as the big thing, but they would not vote for the Coalition anyway. There are also a great many workers who say that they are OK with the new IR laws, and are better off than they were before. So, whatever way they usually vote, IR changes will not affect their votes.

As Bargaric says later on in his article, ‘sometimes six months is a long time’, and it will be business as usual at the 2007 election with whoever offers the best bribes getting the guernsey. The incumbents have a good economic record, and the Opposition – especially Beazley and Rudd – don’t seem to have any contact with reality. It just might be that people want a change, but will they vote for a three time loser with nothing to offer?

Sure, Howard has gone stale, resting on his fast withering laurels, but he has to let someone else have a go very soon; but Beazley! Surely not

Fair enough there have been no mass sackings under workchoices - though I was under the impression that these laws were designed for more of a cumulative effect by reducing the powers of collective bargaining.
If this is the case, the true effects wouldn't be known until the laws are well and truly entrenched.

Mirko,
If you think the fight is over think again my friend wait til the 30th of this month, and see how many ordinary people march in protest against these laws, an indication of the result of the next election, we are far from beaten.

Kim Beazley has been quoted about WorkChoices as follows:

"Nothing with this Bill will happen immediately - it's going to happen in stages...it's like an infestation of termites, it just gradually undermines."

Let's not keep up the pretence that the labor movement at large have been saying the sky will fall in, that is a Howard (or Textor?)line used to try and discredit opposition to WorkChoices.

There was never any doubt about the case, after all Howard appointed the majority of the High Court.

Unions have never been hanging out for a High Court decision the main game has always been political and will continue to be.

By the way, please don't cherry pick stats to suit your argument, it is annoying. If you wanted to compare the US and France you may also want to consider the various elements of the social wage in both countries. I would hazard a guess and say you'd be better off on the dole in France than in a low wage job in the US.

The trouble for this "grab for power" is a short term ego trip. It's about the rodent doing to ordinary working people what his dream has been to do to us for at least the past 25 years.

Problem being similar to Keating winning the 1993 election, a huge defeat in 1996. Howard has pushed politics in this country so far to the ultra right, that when the ball bounces it is possible Australia will go ultra left, I for one would not like to see that.

That situation would ceate as much uncertainty as the present situation is creating for workers, only the boot would be on the employer's foot. Australia has always been middle of the road conservative with both left and right extreme groups influencing decisions.

With the recent revelations that the NSW Branch is being taken over by the religous ultra right, the Liberal Party is in real danger of self inplosion, I would not like to see this happen either. Democracy is built on Government v Opposition both strong forces.

Mirko is just pushing the Govt. and employers line. The Union movement never declared that mass sackings would occur. The simple fact is the whole legislation is designed to give all power to employers. It is an act of bastardry that Howard will pay dearly for.
Witness SA and Qlnd elections. Watch Victoria on Nov. 25 and NSW in March `07.
Then Mirko you will realise that the punter has a good memory.

hedgehog,
Another fall in the average weekly wage the other day, 1.2% =$13 for the second consecutive quarter since the rodent introduced workchoices, a policy he said was about higher wages, when will the blind see?

Last year Bagaric wrote an article about the acceptance of some level and kind of torture in certain circumstances for prisoners detained on suspicion of terrorist activities...so much for the rights of prisoners.

Sometime after that - and following a less than encouraging response to the abovementioned article - Bagaric wrote an article about the apparently appauling conditions in Indonesian prisons and thus concern for prisoner's rights.

Now Bagaric seems to be sending the message that we apparently don't need to be concerned about worker's rights in Australian under the new, and as yet not fully played out IR laws. To be sure, the legislation is cumulative in terms of its impact and one probably couldn’t draw any hard and confident generalized conclusions about the impacts of the new IR laws for probably another year or so. Empirically, there have indeed been cases which indicate a negative impact on worker’s rights, but there have also been instances of little change. Any firm and *generalised* conclusions are highly problematic.

I would hope/assume Professor Bagaric’s sweeping and confident generalizations about the impacts of the erstwhile IR laws have been informed by rigorous, comprehensive studies of workers (male and female, across a range of age groups) in a range of geographic locations and industries. Also, that a range of measures have been used to assess the rights impacts of these IR laws.
I am personally unaware of such studies and would welcome Professor Bagaric providing explicit reference to such studies in support of his confident and bold generalizations, and indeed providing a solid basis for refuting counter studies.
Pointing to overseas examples/comparisons, such as France, is not entirely useful or accurate for a range of reasons that I dont have the space to explicate. Of course, using such an example does deliver an emotive response from readers who are unaware of the actual context of France's uneamployment rate and reality of their labour market situation.

I wonder which audience this commentator is attempting to gain the attention of...

Perhaps when and if the audience changes in 2007...