I am not quite sure why there is not more outrage about Bill Shorten’s (MBA) quite brazen effort to further contaminate the membership of Fair Work Australia by appointing two unrequired Vice Presidents. This will come about as a result of the shonky amemdments to the Fair Work Act that were rushed through parliament at the end of the year.
Clearly, Shorten wants to create some sort of legacy by appointing mates and committed IR clubbers as members of FWA who have jobs for life. The government has already gone overboard with tribunal stacking, with virtually all appointments to FWA either union officials or Labor friendlies. It is interesting that Coalition governments are quite reserved about this sort of thing, but Labor’s attitude is that we are in power and will appoint only our maates – you’s can all get stuffed.
The fact that two current vice presidents, Graeme Watson and Michael Lawler, were appointed by the Howard government clearly irks this government, although their ability to influence any outcomes is very limited, particularly given the power of the president to allocate the work. In other words, continuous shipping news for Watson and Lawler basically sidelines them. in any case. This has already occurred.
The employer groups were seemingly united in their opposition to this amemdment to the act, with AMMA and ACCI particularly vocal. Initially, Ai Group – bless their hearts – were opposed too, but changed their mind to be OK with the whole thing as long as the appointments are based on merit. (AHAHAHAHA) This is surely code for an Ai Group person – methinks, Stephen Smith – being appointed one of the Vice Presidents.
Another completely egregious amendment to the act is the power that is now conferred on the president to change members hearing cases during the course of the case. Don’t like how that member is handing the issue, don’t like the questions he/she has been asking – moved on. I am sure this is violation of judicial independence – it is a bit like a chief justice removing a judge hearing a particular case. But not a squeek from anyone, it would seem.
The word from the inside is that the new president wants to exert his influence by creating factions – you are with him, or agin him – and the quality of the work allocated is determined on this basis. More generally, he has been pushing his weight around in a way that was unheard of in the day of Geoff Guidice. Not a happy place and there are money worries. The poor dears.
Sadly this is what is expected from Shorton. He agrees with Gillard even when he does not know what she said…now he is building his own power base ready for when Gillard gets dumped and he can be all powerful. Another abor luminary who has never held down a job in the real world.
Mother G
3 Jan 13 at 10:10 am
Judith
One small issue with your concern about appointing mates.
I think they are within their full rights as government to appoint whomever they like. I know you would have no problem with the ‘right” issue.
This is the government Australia more or less voted for and this is what we invariably end up with.
I would expect the incoming Liberal government to fire all these no hopers and appoint people friendly to their policies and ideas. In fact we should demand it if they ended up getting cold feet.
The Liars Party has pretty much set a precedent in politicizing everything they touch. Consequently we should be expecting a large number of sackings and new appointments coming on stream with the new government.
Treasury for instance should be a ghost town by the 2nd day.
JC
3 Jan 13 at 10:35 am
JC – these jobs are for life. No scope for sacking anyone.
Judith Sloan
3 Jan 13 at 10:41 am
Judith
What? Can’t legislation basically nix that?
In any event, do what I used to see done in firms that were reluctant to fire someone openly.
Give them all an office with nothing to do and make them all in charge of special projects. When I mean give them an office I don’t mean an office for each of them.. I mean one office for all of them.
I could get them to resign in a couple of days… Pipe heavy metal music in there all day. Get them to go get the secretary’s lunch and dry cleaning.
JC
3 Jan 13 at 10:55 am
So what happens if the Fair Work Act and its apparatus are abolished? Don’t the apparatchiks go as well?
The Old and Unimproved Dave
3 Jan 13 at 10:58 am
Being paid to listen to heavy metal all day. Bliss.
Country or western would have me out of there before the first song had finished.
johno
3 Jan 13 at 11:05 am
Bill Shorten, the Minister for Employment of his Relation in the Workplace, has already got his dear old mother-in-law in a sheltered-workshop sinecure job. Maybe his father-in-law also wants a lazy $350,000 p.a. from the taxpayer as well?
Bill is good at finding taxpayer-funded perks for his rello’s – just don’t ask him to do anything intellectual, like attempting to purchase a meat pie.
He is a man who has his limitations.
Up The Workers!
3 Jan 13 at 11:15 am
v. good.
Gab
3 Jan 13 at 11:18 am
What about the world yodelling champeenships?the cheapest coffe avaiable,maybe black and gold,clean your own office and toilets.torn up SMH in the dunny,no deodorant spray,late payment of salaries,full investigation of their past activities,draconian punishments for past crimes,thats a startI will think of more later.Jail All the alp ,groin and dependents and that will get rid of Half the crooks in parliament!
Borisgodunov
3 Jan 13 at 11:19 am
Conservative governments must wake up one day to these time bombs Labor leaves when it’s kicked out of office. If it’s okay for them to be appointed it’s okay for them to be sacked.
The same goes for any Labor enclaves left behind in treasury or any other department or taxpayer-funded organization. Taxes are paid for the good of the country, not political sycophants.
As for any law or any appointment being irreversible – it’s just not true. Anything done can be undone.
So much for Labor’s nonsensical gloating about the carbon tax being set in stone. They Were always worried about it being removed – that’s why they were saying this. Abbott will remove it. It’s as simple as that.
And Another Thing
3 Jan 13 at 11:26 am
So is this a loop-hole?
A bad government which is going to die at the election and that is facilitated by partisan journalists can, without recourse, appoint as many people as it likes and thereby force life long costs on the tax payer?
As JC asks, is there no recourse?
Token
3 Jan 13 at 11:47 am
Template for that is Newman’s turn-it-around demolition job created specially for Anna Bligh’s husband. Didn’t take long to shift him.
There are ways.
They will be needed too, as the snouts quickly pile into security troughs prior to the election. Natch, the little media piggies are not squeeking or squealing about this; probably trying to feed at the same bin.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
3 Jan 13 at 12:19 pm
The institutions of the Left exist to protect the interests of the Left. The Industrial System is for the elites of the Left. They are modern day Soviets, councils of the post revolutionary establishment. The old Soviets managed a form of stability by treating dissidents with a Nagant to the back of the neck. The new Soviets are still figuring it out.
Jannie
3 Jan 13 at 12:31 pm
We’ve been down this road before. Labour gets turfed out, and leaves the administration of the country white anted with apparatchiks. Liberals go to water when they sack a couple and the media screams “Unfair! The Liberals are politicising the Public Service!”
It is becoming obvious that this failure of courage is going to be the Howard governments legacy.
When is the Liberal Party going to grow a pair of balls?
Winston SMITH
3 Jan 13 at 12:31 pm
Except that the parliamentary Liberal Party has the collective intelligence of a rock. You want to defend freedom and free enterprise and the rule of law, you have to speak up in their defence, not cowtow to the moochers and make out you’re just a slightly more acceptable face of socialism than the Liars Party.
The small target strategy requires that the public conversation is scripted by pieces of shit like John McTernan. The rule of the spin doctors with their 10-second sound bites for the six o’clock news is why ordinary people are so pissed off with the whole circus. No-one says what they mean any more and the conservatives are ashamed of their belief in good government and the rule of law.
You watch how the Libs squib the reform of industrial relations. And the climate scam. And welfare. And Labor’s black anti-democratic heart as expressed in the Race Discrimination Act and Finkelstein.
If Abbott gets in, that’s when the war for good government begins. First, we have to overcome the nation’s addiction to Free Stuff from Big Government. It’s going to be a close-run thing.
Tom
3 Jan 13 at 12:36 pm
It is not as easy as that JC.
First the Coalition must resolve philosophical differences within about kiddies in coal mines – some of ‘em would just as readily be Labor Pardy members; then it must look at the political fallout from brutal sackings of dedicated public servants (which they should handle exactly as a once fearless Jeff Kennett did in his first few weeks, with savage delight, but won’t); then it’s off to the lawyers to discover just how cast in stone are the terms of their contracts.
Of course this circumstance is common but in a past century the fortunate few were more willing to say “fair enough” and move on, rather than battle it out as unfair and unjust.
That raises your point about legislating them away – a government simply cannot deny natural justice or act unreasonably. Any such legislation would need to be uniquely unassailable.
Recently it took a couple of years to dismantle an appalling mess in the Victorian DPP’s office – there’s no profession more horrified (or better armed) at the impudence of it all than lawyers under attack.
You will remember it took John Howard a decade to flush the creek bed clean from the disgusting mess ATSIC created, after multiple legal rear guard actions by that impenetrable citadel.
Now Judith – I invariably enjoy your considered opinions but, being a lady, you got part of your piece quite wrong.
The correct vernacular is “youse can all go and get stuffed”. Next time look up video footage of the end of any of Jeff Fenech’s fights to remind you … “I love youse all” is another approved expression. “Maaaaate” has five “a”s too.
Then again he was a Marrickville street brawler and you’re not, good reason for me to “love youse all”
. And a Happy New Year to you.
I could go on about the fabulously well fortified and dictatorial reign of Whitlam appointee John Moore, President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, but that can wait for another day.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
3 Jan 13 at 12:37 pm
Here is the relevant article for the Newman tactic that Lizzie mentioned from The Australian :
“FORMER Queensland premier Anna Bligh’s husband, Greg Withers, today quit as a senior public servant just weeks after the Campbell Newman government disbanded the climate change office he had headed since 2007.
Just two months after his wife retired from politics, following the crushing March 24 election defeat of her Labor government, Mr Withers tendered his resignation this morning after being redeployed within the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection.
Mr Withers, a veteran bureaucrat, had been promoted by his wife to the rank of assistant director-general – earning $220,000 a year – after she controversially appointed him as head of the Office of Climate Change, which she created barely a month after she became premier in 2007.
Newman government sources have confirmed his resignation, effective immediately, and insisted there had been no pressure on him to quit the public service after the LNP swept into power.
“The office of climate change was disbanded, he helped shut it down and was then given other duties,” one source said.
Mr Withers, who could not be reached for comment, will receive a basic payout covering leave and possibly long service entitlements.
Just before the state election Mr Withers had his contract renewed for three years by his wife amid speculation he would be sacked if the LNP won power. If he had been sacked, the new government would have been bound to pay out his three-year contract.
Mr Withers’ resignation follows the rejection by Mr Newman of a request last month from Ms Bligh for the state government to cover the costs of her phone, iPad and a staff member.
Despite falling six months short of rules requiring premiers to serve five years before gaining access to such ongoing taxpayer-funded benefits, Ms Bligh has requested the “entitlements” for the two months after her election defeat.
Ms Bligh, who retired on a lifetime pension of at least $150,000 a year, has argued the staff member is needed to help her deal with the correspondence and invitations linked to her former role.
Mr Newman rejected the request.”
The Old and Unimproved Dave
3 Jan 13 at 12:42 pm
The Old and Unimproved Dave,
What the Australian article failed to mention was that Greg Withers resigned from his Queensland sinecure in June 2012 so that he could move to Sydney and only two months later, in August 2012, take up the new senior appointment found for him by the Labor Mates in Arts NSW.
Just another senior Labor appointee in the NSW Public Sector that will eventually white-ant Barry O’Farrell out of government.
Septimus
3 Jan 13 at 1:14 pm
dave – I see on another thread comment about Comrade Carr suddenly pushing the office chair backwards and announcing “I’m outta here”, which he did in NSW with minimal comment.
In both cases my instinctive thought at the time was they’ve sent in “someone unknown and menacing, who wordlessly tabled the photos/tape recording/bank statement.”
Mick Gold Coast QLD
3 Jan 13 at 1:17 pm
Actually, that isn’t really true, Judith. Especially at the state government level, Coalition mates get appointed during coalition governments, often with even more questionable qualifications than say, a union hack being appointed to a labour tribunal who at least has some experience in the area, even if it is one sided. My experience is outside the industrial labour area, perhaps more closely aligned with coalition interests which may account for my different perspective.
The other way it can work of course is that a well qualified person can get excluded by a government because of an often tenuous connection to the other side. Politicians can be very, very tribal.
With regard to JC’s plan to park them all in a room with nothing to do until they resign, I think Newman’s approach to deal with Mr Withers used the Dr Death (aka Kevin Rudd) approach in the Goss Government as a template. Dr Death parked six DGs in a single room above a condom shop in Adelaide st with no computer and one phone between them. I think they may have had a note pad, but that may have been self supplied. The longest lasted about six months.
Entropy
3 Jan 13 at 1:40 pm
How did they notice the difference between that and their previous work?
C.L.
3 Jan 13 at 1:43 pm
They are bringing back some good IR reforms of the Howard Government (i.e. Australian Building and Construction Commission) but they aren’t returning to individual contracts, which is a shame. Even though I am not happy that the Coalition is not abandoning the Direct Action Plan, at least it is a policy that is not simply just focused on Global Warming but rather on real environmental problems.
Andrew
3 Jan 13 at 1:45 pm
CL, I suspect most DGs are Type As for which power is very important. Bossing 5000 public servants around would be noticeably different to watching young lads come out of the shop downstairs after purchasing their rooster headed frangas.
Entropy
3 Jan 13 at 1:51 pm
Greg Withers working for the public service in NSW?
The original public servants in the early Sydney colony were mostly ex-convicts. There was no-one else to do the work. Hell, the guy on the old paper $10 note (Greenway) was a ex-forger.
Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
But the Dame-Edna-spooooky thing is…the husband of a descendant of Governor Bligh is going to be in charge of the heirs of the old lags what helped the Rum Corps do him in.
He better watch his back, cos they’ll eat him alive.
Besides, I don’t think Baz-O-Faz is going to be throwing much at Th’Yarts for a long while.
The Old and Unimproved Dave
3 Jan 13 at 2:13 pm
Ease up there Judith. With a limited number of ALP safe seats and many ALP claquers to be rewarded it’s logical that FWA will be used as a parking station for the inept.
Sid Vicious
3 Jan 13 at 2:25 pm
I haven’t looked that hard, but IIRC, Fair Work Australia is a tribunal, not a court.
This means that there is no constitutional tenure until age 70, unlike, for example, the High Court.
Therefore a new federal govt. could (if it had the numbers in Parliament to pass the necessary legislation) just abolish FWA and not be required to reappoint the FWA members to any new tribunal.
John of SA
3 Jan 13 at 2:47 pm
If it is wrong for Labor to stack FWA with its mates, it also wrong for the Coalition to stack it with its mates.
Why do we need FWA? If the labour market was de-regulated, all that would be required is a normal court that could deal with conflicts over contracts. Instead of fussing over who is stacking whom, the real issue is stripping back the IR regulation so that FWA is no longer required.
johno
3 Jan 13 at 3:09 pm
Entropy, good observation on CL’s quip. I was still chortling.
I had thought the difference being the DA’s above the busy condom shop rather than their usual directing condom project designing, distributing freely under cultural grants and festivals.
Jessie
3 Jan 13 at 3:11 pm
The Old and Unimproved Dave,
Are you not from NSW?
Septimus
3 Jan 13 at 3:37 pm
Yes, after visiting the condom shop, you could say the lads had less currency.
Entropy
3 Jan 13 at 3:40 pm
Oh, I don’t know. Michael Lawler has put in a lot of good work on the HSU
Grey
3 Jan 13 at 4:32 pm
In the long run it will end with their heads on pikes – politically and metaphorically, if not actually – and the dead eyes in those metaphorically severed heads will be left to gaze over the ruin of their work as it is all undone.
Until then, God f*** the lot of them.
perturbed
3 Jan 13 at 7:59 pm
Am I missing something? Am I just one of the few who (like the ALP job-creators) realise that even with an overwhelming move to government in the House of Representatives, any incoming coalition government will be with a hostile Senate for years? Probably for its whole term, no matter how long it was (unless the carbon tax kills everything or the electricity taxes demands the Greens overthrow)? A hostile, Green-assisted Senate which has shown by its eagerness to follow the Finkelstein and anti-discrimination tyranny that nothing is beyond its bloody-mindedness?
In fact, to my mind, unless Abbott has a sure-fire issue to take to a double dissolution quickly, an Abbott-led government will be prisoner to all these (and future) moves by the ALP, including, perhaps, the tyranny of free speech suppression. Unless they can defund them somehow in a budget, how stupid does their overreach on WorkChoices seem now? Their naiveté in not having a No Disadvantage Test? Tainted for years?
M Ryutin
3 Jan 13 at 10:16 pm
It sounds like the FWA will be an organisation that becomes more and more rotten at the core ….resembling perhaps the AWU ? …….and will implode without the Coalition Government needing to do anything but put it out of its misery ….if its established by this bunch of incompetents it’s likely history will be that of a black hole ……and hopefully it will take its creators into it
Btw I agree with M Ryutin above ….the Coalition will need to develop a strategy to deal with a hostile (and bewildered ) Senate
Gerry
3 Jan 13 at 10:45 pm
“The small target strategy”
Is intuitive, and that’s what’s wrong with it. It seems absurd, but a large target would be to create 100s of fires at once, keeping the fuckers busy trying to put them all out at once. Their constant whining would quickly become background noise. All they could do is target one issue, which, after a suitable period of fighting, could be conceded, yet all the other fires would have done their job in the interim.
The Beer Whisperer
4 Jan 13 at 1:00 am
M Ryutin
The Liberals(sic) only have to introduce legislation to sell off the ALPBC and bingo! instant double dissolution issue. And if they don’t bite allow the states to reintroduce native forest harvesting, merge the ACT with Queanbeyan Local Council…
Forester
4 Jan 13 at 7:06 am
After the Federal Election, when all those A.L.P. politicians not yet in prison will be looking for jobs, Short Willy would make a good employee at the Public Trustee.
After all, he looked after the Ludwig Family Benevolent Fund (a.k.a. the A.W.U.) for years.
His work kept Big Bill and Little Joe Ludwig benevolent and rolling in cash until the Gillard/Wilson Gang (a.k.a. “Bonnie and Clod”)were caught with their fingers in the Ludwig’s till.
Having stolen over $1 million of Little Joe’s inheritance, you’d have to wonder why the Ludwig’s haven’t “boned” Juliar, but I guess the Ludwig’s must have an awful lot of dirty laundry which they desperately do NOT want to be aired.
Up The Workers!
4 Jan 13 at 7:33 am
Even Hawke and Keating are Very Worried,when the alp is consigned to the rubbish bin,the Real People might Force the LNP to Thoroughly Investigate the alp State and Federal and ALL Unions! Much though the LNP may Not want to do this,in case it exposes someof their “Little Tricks “in the past and present.i
If the People force it and All the alp mob end up in Jail,we will have rid politics of about halfof the crooks in politics,only 50per cent to go! ,
Borisgodunov
4 Jan 13 at 8:30 am