This would be great, Philip - but what if the employer and employee do not agree?

The next step for one who wishes to impose on employers which employees to accept (or keep), will be to impose on individuals who they get (or remain) married to.

Surely people need to feel secure, that they will not be left out hungry in the cold - but it should not be the role of either institution (employment or marriage). It should best be handled by the state's welfare system.

Yuyutsu... wow.. you were up VERY early for your posts.. that's committment :)

FLEXIBILITY
GR flexibility in the workplace is crucial to basic survival for many businesses. You seem to have as your 'business stereotype' a business which has money to burn, guaranteed income, 100% faithful customer base, and margins which can absorb people coming to work but having nothing to 'do' except be paid for doing nothing.

FANTASYLAND
Well, I don't know which section of industrial fantasyland you are wandering around in, glazed eyed and impervious to the fact that Walt Disney slapped it all together, for entertainment, but YANK... I hereby drag you back outside the playground to 'reality'.

REALITY
Now..there you are.. work is slack this month, you see your overdraft ballooning out as you continue to pay people to do 'whatever' you can find for them.. sweep the floor.. re-arrange stores..chuck out useless stuff... do pre-work for product you don't know your goint to sell.... etc...

Or.. continue paying girls to come along and serve customers who now happen to be going to the newly opened chicken shop a few doors away rather than yours... because they are 'cheaper' (but also buy B grade potatoes for their chips, as opposed to your A grade)..etc etc....

I think personally, that we have had it too good for too long, and if you REALLY think about it, we are just reaching the tail end of the 'boom times' which can only occur in an "Empire" environment, where you can control the trade and economics of large chunks of the world to your own benefit.

WAKEUP CALL
We just 'shudder' at the thought of having to grow our own silverbeet in the back yard (as many in the world have to do) shock horror.. no, we want Creches and 'family friendly' workplaces...paid materanal leave,we want want want......
But.. sorry to be a spoilsport, the world is way past that now. Emerging economies can 'trash' us in labor rates and WWAAAAAAAH (crying sound) we can't make megabucks off them by forcing them to buy our opium or whatever...

BOAZ_David says,

"We just 'shudder' at the thought of having to grow our own silverbeet in the back yard (as many in the world have to do) shock horror.. no, we want Creches and 'family friendly' workplaces...paid materanal leave,we want want want...... But.. sorry to be a spoilsport, the world is way past that now. Emerging economies can 'trash' us in labor rates"

So, to paraphrase, are you saying that to compete with developing nations, we have to become one?

If the Governemnt has failed to ask the Treasury to examine the economic impact these new laws will have on the nation - or if they have and as earlier reported refuse to release the analysis because it fails to support their case- what is the basis for the endless assertions made by Costello, Andrews and Howard that we will all be better of EVENTUALLY?

Arguements regarding international competition are a nonsense unless we look seriously at innovation and valued adding and sadly that is far beyond the ken of most Austrlian employers.

THese moves are merely a mechanism to place the control of employee relaions back into the hands of the employers - the old regualtions as restrictive as some might think provided an environment of some certainty.

Business cry out for certanity and predictabilty in the environemnt in which they operate so it is only reasonable for employees to expect the same ; these changes will simply herald a period of over whelming instability and uncertainty for the average employee and be counter productive. Productivty is rooted in certainty of a future and security these laws directly undermine those notions.

I have been doing a bit of personal research into the IR about how people think they will be affected.
The past couple of weeks I have spent a couple of nights a week at Suburban pubs and service clubs chatting to people about how they think they will be affected.
Most think they will be but don't know how.
I spoke to a woman (a nurse from a public hospital) the other day for about 45 minutes while we played the pokies. She was adamant these changes would be bad for her (despite her being employed by a Labor State government)even though she will remain under an award.
Any way she certainly had enough money to lose close to $100 while we chatted.
Maybe this is what the State Government's are fearful of - if (and I still see it as an if because people are going to be better off under these reforms) wages somehow drop. there won't be enough revenue from the pokies.
Certainly, many of the people I spoke to were having a press while grumbling about how they were going to be bent over the table by IR reform.

BTW - This research actually cost me about $150 over two weeks - including gambling losses, alcohol imbibed and some delicious wedges from the bistro. Not as much as Malcolm Turnbull's tax research but money well spent nonetheless.

t.u.s.

Usual,

I wish my pub and pokie expoloits I could write off in the name of research!

You are committed to the cause though. We should not judge people for what they do with their disposable income, just as she did not judge you. She has a right to dust that money, who knows she may not be in the position to over the next few years.