Yes Belly your correct, it is farcical that Rehctub should attempt to claim the middle ground on this issue.

"So I guess we should be seeking that middle ground, as IR will be a heavily faught election issue".

Clearly, Rehctub thinks Workchoices is the middle ground, as does Abbott whom spent his latest time rubbishing his country to his crony extreme ideologue counterparts in the U.S.

Preaching, (most probably) too a room full of downtrodden right wing ideologues with tax reducing investments in the Cayman Islands, whom haven't payed their workers a pay rise in eons, because nobody represents American working people.

If Abbott tries to get that Workchoices stuff up again Belly, the streets will again fill up with 1000's of protesting working families, even if Gillard is still PM. Of this you can be sure.

You would have to be crazy to believe Abbott's masters doesn't want to go back to a Workchoices-like environment. At the time, some in his party were apologising that the reforms did not go far enough.

The main pillars of the Liberal Party are -

1. Smaller Government with lower taxes
2. Less Government Regulation and
3. Deregulation of the labor market.

That's all. That's why they exist. The rest is just window dressing they need to do to achieve those aims and there's no way they will just walk away from an essential part of their philosophy.

It may not be under a big banner name again but a series of incremental reforms will produce the same result, but be more like the frog in the pot scenario.

Work choices can not be implemented again & neither can the unfair dismissal act.
Both sides need to dream up new terms. If the Coalition, repeat if the Coalition has any sense it will focus on natural attrition to reign in the size of the Public Service & freeze Public Service pays for at least two terms. It could be done if they changed the heads of Departments.

Individual, you say "freeze Public Service pays for at least two terms" My partner is one of those public servants you want to put the big freeze on. She leaves for work at 4.45am every morning to work in a large public hospital. Works hard all day for her $20.66 an hour. Are you proposing a wage freeze for her for the next 6 years?

How's this my old father in-law who is 80 had some grub out today to fix his stove, there for less than 10 minutes fitted a $40 part (my son took the old part and got a price for it.) charged the old bloke $260 for the job. Allowing for the cost of the part that works out at $1320 / hour for labour. like so many small business grubs this bloke didn't give a receipt avoiding GST and other tax, as so many do.

So person A needs some job to be done and person B can offer this service, they meet each other and happily reach an agreement, some form of a work-for-money exchange, then comes along the government out of the dark clouds, labels one of them an "employer" and the other "employee" and says: "Stop, you can't do that".

How ridiculous and abusive. Two adults are in agreement, with informed consent: what right on earth or in heaven have the government to intrude in their lives?

Paul, the reason this so called grub didn't give a receipt, is cause your dear old dad wanted a discount, ie, no GST. BTW, I don't blame him.

As for this grubby practice, I am with you there, it's a disgrace what these guys get paid.

I remember having a blocked drain one Sunday in one of my shops, I was charged about $800 for two hours, that was back in the early 2000's.

I believe all seniors should be able to go to Medicare and have their call out fee, usually about $80 refunded, as they quite simply can't afford it.

But back to the topic, despite my mate T2's dig, we must find middle ground, as we will be in dire straights if the present situation continues.

We have disgruntled workers, who can't get enough steady hours, disgruntled bosses, many of whom no longer wish to employ staff and strikes everywhere.

Things must change, hopefully for the benefit of everyone.