(Contd. from previous post)

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/news/researchStatistics.asp

AWA earnings data from ABS Employee Earnings and Hours Survey (May 2006):

Average weekly total cash earnings (AWTE) of AWA employees: $963.70

Compared to AWTE of federal registered collective agreement employees:
+12.2%

Compared to AWTE of award only employees:
+96.2%


http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/docs/news/FactSheets/factsheet_monthly_aug07.pdf

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/docs/news/FactSheets/factsheet_monthly_sep07.pdf


At the time, I noticed that they were:

1. Not actual Workplace Authority figures - but re-published ABS Survey data.

2. From May 2006 and therefore only 2 months into the WorkChoices era.

3. Mostly (if not almost exclusively) related to Pre-WorkChoices AWA's.

4. Not differentiated in any way - neither by pre/post-WorkChoices, gender, job, industry, &/nor region, etc.

5. Therefore largely - if not totally - irrelevant to AWA's being 'negotiated' in the deregulated WorkChoices regime.


More recently, I noted the cumulative WorkChoices AWA stats on this page - especially the as shown on the graph entitled, 'Monthly graph of employee coverage by agreement type:4'

http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/NEWS/researchStatistics_quarterly.asp

Clearly, the ABS Survey contained very little (if any) AWA data under the WorkChoices regime. Yet, both the ALP and the media are letting Joe Hockey, the Workplace Authority and the Liberal Coalition get away with their deceptive and dishonest AWA charade!


Meantime, I note that the October monthly Workplace Authority stats were due to for release on 5 November 2007 (also per http://www.workplaceauthority.gov.au/graphics.asp?showdoc=/NEWS/researchStatistics.asp ) - and therefore that they are now 3 days overdue!

I also note the Govt's and Workplace Authority's ongoing refusal to publish real AWA data for due and proper public and academic scrutiny!


SO, OUT OF SHEER FRUSTRATION AND DISMAY, I ASK:

WHY IS NOBODY HAMMERING JOE HOCKEY ON THIS!?

I TRUST JESUS of NAZARETH.

Now.. call it as you like 'GB's hijacking the thread'.. rubbish I say.

Why ? well of all the people who have strutted their stuff on the stage of human history, our Lord not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.. all the way to the Cross.

If our politicians.. on all sides, took Him to heart.. His word and deed.... then we would not even have this thread. Because each of us, like Zacchaeus would be saying "Lord... those I have defrauded, I repay them 4 fold" From top to bottom of our social structure.

I trust that only a person walking close the the Lord Jesus Christ, "Walking in the Spirit" as the jargon goes, (but it is also a reality) will have a conscience suffiently sharp to steer them away from the many pitfalls of 'political self interest' which of course, is merely an extension of our own 'personal self interest'.

Tom's timely article prompts the following question:

what legislation of national benefit has the Coalition government passed in the past 11 years?

This has me intrigued and I do hope that fellow onliners will join me.

My suggestions are the gun law restrictions and making the Reserve Bank independent.

Any other suggestions?

There ain't anybody who doesn't trust Jesus, I mean after all, the Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus who is also named Isa in Qur'an, are the exact same person. (although whoever it was that ran off to France after Mary Magdalene after faking a crucifixion surely must be the source of the confusion in the fallacy of more than one Jesus.

However, my purpose here was not especially to compliment your trusting the right guy, but rather to comment on the comment left by billie, who is not sure that life under the modern labour party will be any different to life under the modern liberal-national co-alition.

Perhaps it won't, but that will much more likely be the case if we all start to feel sorry for ourselves in light of that possiblity before it even begins.

In fact, most decent minded Australians are quite probably beginning to seriously think about what sorts of pressures we will need to be putting on the labour party, so as to ensure that the change is a really definative change for the better, and that on into the future we continue to enable a conscious improvement of Australian life.

Who do we trust? Well we can't trust anybody unless we can trust ourselves to work at holding one another accountible within every democratic process, and also those less democratic.

Who do you trust?

Better to ask, what do you trust?

I trust self interest, save for commendable historical exceptions, self interest is always in there trying hard. That is human nature.

The political conundrum is how to put self interest and public interest in some kind of alignment. One, negative, way is to prevent, or at least diminish misalignments by having rules and regulations against excessive self interest - laws against cartels for example. But how can we do it positively as well? How can we increase the idea that the best self fulfillment is in promoting the public good? (That a great contribution to society is to pay a lot of taxfor example)

I would like to hear more appeal to the instincts of commonwealth and public good, and fewer appeals to personal advantage, but the politicians have it right, self interest is supreme, and we have not solved the basic problem of aligning individual interests with common good. We can do it within the family sometimes with a bit of give and take, but extending it further beyond clan seems to be beyond us yet. I am slightly in sympathy with the yearning of Boaz, but I think the solution is more within social science rather than religious territory.

Reconciling self-interest with public-interest is really easy actually. Just try a decent dose of shame.

Reality hits home with every self decent family who have children who are gradually becoming interactive with the public social domain.

I mean, it doesn't hurt to give birth for nothing you know. Its the gentle reminder that we are fully culpable for our children's experiences. Factually verifiable in discourse with women about their childbirth experiences. Labour seems not to progress when the mind attempts to escape the reality of responsible motherhood; labour progresses more smoothly and with heightened release of endorphins, when the mother accepts the social expense of motherhood. But most clinical professional witnesses are as afraid of these facts as most first time mothers are. And there is something to be said for just letting it happen rather than trying to rub it in.