The 2010 Federal Election is about the rights of all working Australians and the threat of a future return to WorkChoices under the Coalition.
Tony Abbott was a key Minister in the former Howard Government that introduced WorkChoices. He believes in WorkChoices and wants to bring it back. He just won’t call it WorkChoices. He said it was one of the Howard Government’s greatest achievements.
The Howard Government’s industrial legislation, it was good for wages, it was good for jobs, and it was good for workers. And let’s never forget that.
Tony Abbott, Canberra 19 March 2008
Then just this year, he said he’d bring back individual contracts and cut unfair dismissal laws – the worst of WorkChoices. But now, with an election on, he says WorkChoices is dead, but then adds:
Obviously, Um, I can’t give an absolute guarantee about every single aspect of workplace relations legislation.
3AW, 19 July 2010
And during the election campaign, another senior Liberal Mr Abetz admitted that the Liberals would ‘tweak’ the legislation if they were elected.
Liberal Senate leader Eric Abetz says there is room to tweak Labor's Fair Work laws.
AAP 17 July 2010
Unfair dismissals
At a meeting this year with business executives, Mr Abbott said he will remove protection from unfair dismissal for workers in small business.
You know, at four elections running we had a mandate to take the unfair dismissal monkey off the back of small business and we will once more seek that mandate.
12 February 2010
When Mr Abbott released his book last year he was asked if he would revisit WorkChoices and remove protection from unfair dismissal and his evasive answer was:
Well, if we are going to have productive workplaces, we can never bring down the curtain on workplace reform.
27 July 2009
Cuts to pay and conditions
Mr Abbott also promised a return to individual contracts in his major speech on the Federal budget in May 2010.
AWA individual contracts were banned by the Labor Government because they led to widespread cuts to workers’ pay, conditions and rights. But Mr Abbott has said he will bring them back.
Mr Abbott has also said he will allow employers to negotiate job contracts with young workers that cut their pay and conditions by reducing the requirement to be paid for a minimum number of hours.
‘Abbott policy on shift hours 'exploits' youth'.
The Australian, 19 Feb 2010
The Liberals’ WorkChoices
Under WorkChoices, Australian workers faced the following cuts to their rights:
Protection from being sacked unfairly was stripped away from more than three million workers
Employers had the power to put workers onto AWA individual contracts that cut the award pay and conditions of employees
The award safety net was effectively abolished and there were changes to the way minimum wages to drive down the pay of low income workers
More than a million low paid workers suffered real pay cuts of up to $90 a week from WorkChoices’ changes to minimum wages. Thousands of workers were pushed onto AWA individual contracts and:
70% lost shift loadings
68% lost annual leave loadings
65% lost penalty rates
49% lost overtime loadings
25% no longer had public holidays
Working Australians simply can’t trust Tony Abbott on WorkChoices.作者: hqx888 时间: 16-8-2010 15:40
