Belly,

"Do most understand some truly hard up low income workers still struggle under 5 year agreement forced on them under work choices"

This is shocking! If indeed it could occur that an agreement was forced on anyone, then it is an atrocity, it is slavery, and surely the government has a duty to release those poor workers. Can you actually prove that the agreement was forced upon them? I honestly thought that an "agreement" is something that people actually agree on, of their own free will.

In any case, there is a vast difference between releasing miserable people from unfair contracts and preventing happy people to willfully enter whatever agreements they choose.

A government that supports misery and condemns happiness, will achieve just that: more misery and less happiness.

Let me sketch a potential agreement, freely drawn between Mr. Employer and Mr. Worker, legal under WorkChoices, but made illegal under Rudd:

Worker agrees to perform a certain work for Employer 3 hours a day, 7 days a week, every other week, rain or shine, dead or alive, in sickness or in health, be it an ordinary or a hol(y)i day. Employer will pay Worker $100/hour (less the compulsory superannuation, if the government so demands). Any failure to work is a basis for terminating this agreement, and unless a 2-month notice is given, Worker must compensate Employer $10000 as the cost of finding and training someone else to do the job.

Now Mr. Worker is not exactly poor, he gets in hand a respectable $49686/year (plus superannuation) for working on average only 45.5 hours/month, yet it is technically below the $100000 exemption limit.

What right has a government, or anyone else for that matter, to deny humans their freedoms in such a way?

Can I prove it? you bet I can surely you already know it is true.
Howard did not have a fairness test until the middle of his last term the workchoices one.
Agreements non union went as long as 5 years.
If you agree it is human nature to serve your self first you will have no doubt some bosses did just that.
Understand it is my view bad bosses are the minority but if just 1% are then that is a lot.
23 workers under paid 3 years ago,called one at a time in to bosses office sign this or not job.
They did.
He sent it to get the fairness test, it failed HOWARD'S test.
He told his workers it passed they lost [work extreme shifts and overtime] $200 plus a week making it a low income job.
Case after case is on file in the old your rights at work campaign page of the 5 years lost overtime and sick pay public holidays and family leave surely you know that is true?
However workchoices must wait before the filthy thing re emerges Abbott is dead in the water loved that film clip it will get a lot of hits the Abbott family.

There was an interesting article about the Greens in today’s Australian –among other thing it says this:

“ In the mid-1800s English liberalism had appeared unassailable. However [due to a number of problems] Eventually, British Labour took over as the party of the Left.
Could we, too, be witnessing the strange death of Australian Laborism?
...the Greens are snapping at Labor's electoral heels. Polls consistently show the Greens' primary vote at extremely healthy levels.
Several Labor Left high-flyers face the fight of their political lives in next month's election. If the Greens can break into the lower house… this fight will morph into a full-blown war.
As Dennis Glover argues, environmentalism now represents an existential threat to Labor…Labor has the most to lose (and perhaps gain). There will of course always be some form of conservative party occupying the political spectrum's Centre-Right. By contrast, who leads the Centre-Left will be up for grabs over the next half century.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/rise-of-the-greens-could-spell-the-strange-death-of-labor-party/story-e6frgd0x-1225894260227

Certainly something to be mindful of when you’re casting your vote-- or cutting deals --if you’re a laborite.

What do you say Belly?

Dear Belly,

The case you described is disturbing and obviously criminal. It is plain fraud, dishonesty, I see it as a matter for the police and the courts, placing this crooked employer behind bars and making him pay dearly in compensating the 23 workers to which he lied.

As I am not familiar with the case, I take what you wrote at face value, but with due respect, by what I read, this is not a case of forcing a contract, it is not a case of slavery: those workers could simply refuse to sign, and (I assume, unless you inform me otherwise) they would not be beaten or tortured if they did, just be sent home and probably be able to demand compensation for breaking their former contract. It was their free choice to sign for the terms of the agreement, albeit based on fraudulent information.

No matter what the law be, with or without WorkChoices, there probably will always be some inconsiderate or even monsterous crooks with no regard neither to the law nor to their fellow beings. Of course those should be dealt with harshly, yet it gives no justification whatsoever for taking away the freedoms of honest people who wish to make well-informed and consensual agreements between them, which is what Rudd did.

Sorry, but your last paragraph, relating to Abbott (being "dead in the water"?) and his family is so cryptic that I did not understand a thing.

Nice of you to take my statement on face value, why not openly say you think I may have lied?
I think you know I did not and that ten thousand, yes right number of such storys exist.
Remember Howard no GST pledge? did you believe it? can we believe Abbott's different statements about IR.
What statement was written what one was on the run?
John Howard had his battlers, no doubt about it they trusted him and voted for him.
He in his lifetime hatred of unions forgot it is those battlers who suffered under workchoices.
Workchoices bought Howard defeat,even his own seat, you defend it, look hard for a story you can throw at the ALP your rock is a grain of sand the reality of workchoices was a meteor shower on true battlers and fairness in the workplace.
Horus , you are better than that, the greens inhabit soil only a very few want, let them have it, but the reality is Labor is taking ground the conservatives marched away from.
Who will replace Abbott? Joe Hockey is already being fitted for an oversize office seat.
And already trying to out do Abbott in sexist remarks a big job but he is doing it well.

Dear Belly,

"why not openly say you think I may have lied?"

Because such an idea never even crossed my mind. I never had a doubt that you know the facts far better than myself.

"can we believe Abbott's different statements about IR"

Unfortunately I tend to believe, but hope I'm wrong!

I understand that for you, personal freedom is but a grain of sand compared with fairness. For me, however, fairness is but a grain of sand compared with personal freedom. I believe that our different priorities stem from a whole different metaphysical outlook on life.

I think, and very sorry if I am wrong about you, that your outlook is material, while mine is spiritual. I consider the material only as instrumental for one's spiritual evolvement, not as a goal by itself, same for society. Choice is the elementary particle of spirit - take it away and you are left with dead matter, which as far as I am concerned, has no value. Taking away one's free choice is the essence of violence, it is even worse than destroying their body.

Ultimately, nobody can take another's choice away, not against their will, but because and to the extent that we do love each other, we tend to listen, to accept influence, and if the message coming from society is denying free choice, we might allow our spirit to get depressed, or even die. The role of a spiritually-minded government is to provide an environment that fosters free choice, that encourages individuals to exercise it fully, so the government needs to be extremely careful and limit their dictation of what individuals may or may-not do to the very minimum, only to the most severe cases against such members of society that attempt to deny the free choice of others.

As for fairness, it is beyond our human capacity to achieve, but I personally believe that we need not worry about it because in a broad enough view it is already taken care of by God or Nature. In any case, whether I'm right or wrong, kindness is even better.