Workchoices just a part of Howard's sins against Australia, the very fabric of our culture.
But what a part! some tell us it is not that bad but have no true evidence to say that.
Some remind us quite rightly too that some on AWAs are better of, and they are too.
But how about the young or unskilled who are called into the office and told sign that now or you do not have a job?
Yes now instantly or out the door, do you truly think its not true?
Oh its true no time for dreams Australia has always had bad bosses, no I am not claiming all bosses are bad or even most but some are.
A country timber mill operator , many of them, once most of them gave you a mill owned house at a set rent to live in.
Paid bills you could not afford and took it back out of your pay, a sub from wages was every day.
It was the chains that kept you locked into the bosses wishes.
More unskilled workers than ever before live under those rules in rural Australia.
Even being ordered by the boss to vote as he says.
workchoices first target was kids and the wife and daughters of workers.
They are filled with fear to even ask why they an no longer have smoko or lunch.
Workchoices John Howard is your worst mistake Bob the man you love to follow would turn his back on you if he was alive today.

Belly,the worst part about "Work Choice" is that it is the bosses who have all the choices. It has the capacity to send workers back to almost the conditions of the 1890s. Those particularly with a lack of marketable skills are vulnerable to being made quite servile. The Coalition boast about the lack of strikes since their odious "Work Choice" legislation, it is because of possible consequences that workers are too frightened to go on strike. It doesn't take much to work out that in 10 years time that workers will be worse off than prior to "Work Choice" and conditions will continue to deteriorate.

Not all bosses are corrupt or mean, the same as the vast majority of workers are going to do the right thing. "Work Choice" provides a sledge hammer for employers to use on workers, and workers are not afforded protection. The arrogant Coalition governs for the big end of town only. There is more of a feeling of us and them since the Coalition has been in power Federally.

There is a bipolar feel about Senator Santoro's replacement who has also stumbled in relation to share deals; yet, no action will be pressed against him.

I ant agree, as a union official I see it daily, some are so focused on the lie unions are thugs and unionists not good workers they never know the truth.
Workchoices is the enemy of fair minded employers too, in civil construction wages are about the same for all using a skills matrix called wages classification structure.
Labor hire has two party's the fair paying type and the not fair paying type.
The fair minded boss always comes to unions for protection from those thieving his work, the grubs who do not pay fairly.
One real life war about to erupt is a labour hire group paying just over $2 am hour [this includes a 25% casual loading] less than CW1 the lowest paid full time employee on site to CW2 workers it employees.
And in an industry that has traditionally only paid weekly it pays fortnightly!
Those it employees are skilled workers with in some cases a lifetime of employment in the industry.
So all those union haters is this fair? less pay than ever before for the very same job?
Is this the way to prosperity for Australia?
One day I may just unmask this grub one of a thousand who use workchoices for profit from honest workers.
This bloke? from the far left! how can one Australian treat another so badly?
I wait for my phone to ring and the offer must start with wage parity and twice as many pay days.
John Howard's anti union campaign the fear tactics that we run Australia will not save him while he continues to use his mandate as a weapon against the Aussie fair go.

[Part 1]
Hawke and Keating's initiatives and legacy have in most part been tweaked by the Liberals with the exception being WorkChoices - which has more to do with union busting and short term profitability than long term productivity via investment in wholesome productive capacity.

Hawke had vision introducing a compulsory superannuation scheme. I expect the Liberals would have dragged their feet coming up with this impost on business. The Accord was a masterful exercise in politics by moderating and linking union demands to productivity increases. On the social policy front I will not forget the palpable emotion in Hawke’s voice in “no child will live in poverty…” speech. However unrealistic you might think it was at least the man had character and depth. Keating’s embrace of deregulation and globalisation grated with the population but his wit and incisive mind stands in sharp contrast to the slouching, smirking Costello who has all the strength of character of a piece of wet cardboard.

That productivity has slowed despite rises in income and profits is no surprise to me. Revenues generated from resources both to the state and business have not been reinvested in diverse productive capital, infrastructure or social capital. Australian entrepreneurs and businesses are notorious for the quick dollar that can mean a flight of capital (and expertise) to overseas locations.

The lasse fare, complacent, limp Liberal Government doesn't believe in pump priming - why invest in a new broadband network with a large public component when someday, just maybe in the future, the competing businesses in the industry might work out a way of sharing the risk and profits? And today Helen Coonan announces the Libs will get off their arses and cajole business into action – so free enterprise can’t do the job alone, policy on the fly.

However, on the point of broadband, the 'opening up' of telecommunications by Hawke/Keating has been a spectacular disaster, as has the Liberals management of the sell-off of Telstra.

[Part 2]
Inviting a foreign government controlled enterprise - Optus/Singtel, majority owned by the Republic of Singapore - that great bastion of free speech and democracy to our north, effectively stymied the prospects of fiber optic rollout to Australian homes that could have been efficiently and cost effectively achieved under public ownership of Telecom/Telstra and brought with it, through the wholesale of bandwidth to private enterprise, a significant return to the public purse as well as stimulating business.

So while Singapore is going gangbusters out flows Australian dollars to a foreign Government which unlike Australian governments isn't shy about involvement in the market. And still, in a metropolitan suburb of Sydney I sit here writing on a computer connected at 256Mb/sec and the prospect of getting ADSL2 is unknown, outside strung from telegraph poles is Optus cable - a fiasco of a technology that should never have needed to be installed.

However, it’s not only sloppy free enterprise, the investment and savings directions of ordinary Australians has not contributed to well-being and a sustainable economy. The Australian hobby of speculative investment in housing, spurred on by negative gearing, has resulted in a cannibalistic, regressive market resulting in reduced capacity for consumption - less available cash to spend after mortgage repayments.

While the baby boomers of the Howard/Costello generation will benefit from large superannuation pay-outs the propensity of Australians to buy foreign made goods is high and the amount of goods produced locally is diminishing. With the 'race to the bottom' of wages implicit in WorkChoices the capacity of younger Australians to save, invest in their own homes or contribute enough to superannuation to not burden the public purse in the future is diminished.

To tag HOward's statement that 'interest rates will always be lower..." as a PROMISE is churlish and incorrect. AS is Labors insistence that Howard's "never, ever" answer to a question was a PROMISE broken. I seem to recall an election campaign where this was mentioned once or twice-if we are a bi-polar nation then the ALP is delusional and its own worst enemy here too.
Labors unwillingness to embrace the Hawke-Keating years stems from its own schizoid nature. Who back in 1983 knew that we were voting for many of the changes we got? We knew we were voting to get rid of big Mal;but who can really say we knew we were voting for the beginning of the end of centralised wage setting or for privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank(etc) or for greater finance sector deregulation than even the Libs were promising?
Trying to alloy old Labour to Keatings Labour is a trick for an alchemist or a magician, and will no doubt be done on the backs of the 'rusted on'.Just yesterday we learn that a Ruddy government has no problem with the sale of Telstra shares-bi-polar,
schizoid and suffering from amnesia perhaps!