Dead, Buried, Cremated? Its hard to imagine a worse start to the political year for Tony Abbott, who is now – not yet 18 months into his first term as prime minister – facing the kind of leadership speculation that dogged John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard during their final months in office. Even if Liberal Party backbenchers stop backgrounding journalists, speculation will likely be sustained by media outlets while the Abbott governments polling remains low. The reasons for Abbotts troubles are well-canvassed, and include his multiple broken promises, backflips on key policy statements and political mismanagement. He added another backflip yesterday when he said that the $3 billion that had been earmarked for Victorias East West Link may yet be available for other nationally significant infrastructure projects, despite promising the opposite before the Victorian election. And after a poor start on Medicare and higher education reform, Abbott must now contend with a wide-ranging Productivity Commission inquiry into most aspects of Australias workplace relations system. Business groups have criticised the Abbott government for its unwillingness to revisit workplace relations reform, by which they mean legislating for lower minimum wages, lower penalty rates and bargaining rules that further advantage employers. In Battlelines, Abbott wrote that WorkChoices – the Howard governments attempt to knock the pendulum firmly in employers favour – was not all bad, but since then hes said repeatedly that WorkChoices-style reform is dead, buried, cremated. The Productivity Commission is inviting submissions and will produce a final report in November. The government has promised to take any proposed changes to workplace relations to the next election, though that would be a free kick to unions and the Labor opposition, and at this stage its difficult to see how the Coalition would have enough political capital to think it could withstand a WorkChoices-themed election campaign. Russell Marks
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:12:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015