This morning as I was driving to work I heard HoWARd say (in reference to the Paris riots) that he saw a direct correlation between highly regulated labour markets and high unemployment.

"We see the domestic misery of the French people at the present time, and, unlike the Labor Party, I am not going to blame the riots in Paris on the industrial relations system that France has – but I do point out that one of the reasons for a feeling of alienation and disadvantage is the persistence of high levels of unemployment in this country against a background of other European countries with less regulated labour markets that have experienced much lower levels of unemployment."

As I swerved back into my lane I waited for the second half of the analysis.  I waited and waited, but no mention from HoWARd of the endemic racism, police violence and the policy of the French political establishment towards the rioters who are first and second generation French nationals predominantly from the North African and African immigrant community. Ok. Let’s follow HoWARd’s thinking on this.  IR reform and the WorkChoices package is going to solve unemployment rates for Australia’s alienated and disadvantaged.  How?  Not by stripping worker’s rights. 

As usual HoWARd gives us fear.  

His message is if Australia doesn’t embrace his IR bill we’ll have riots in our cities.  Australia does not have a large former African or North African group of residents so he can’t be referring to them.  The United Kingdom and New Zealand comprise the largest group of New Australians, but I don’t think that he’s referring to them either.  I think he is referring to Australians born here to parents whose first language isn’t white.

You know your leader is lying when he has to pile up such a wobbly stack of tenuously related data and play the race fear card.

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On the same day that Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews tabled the Work Choices Bill, HoWARd, with his wingman Ruddock has told Australians that there is a specific terror threat to Australia.

During the press conference, after fending off specifics, HoWARd implored Australians to just get on with their day-to-day events.

Really, in what order should I worry in an Australian-kind-of-way.

Should I start with collecting my daughter and her friends so that they do not travel by train through the heart of Sydney?

Or should I start with working through lunch and staying back late so that I impress my employer so that when the next round of supervision comes I will be assessed as a triple A rated worker?

Or should I start by telling all my peaceful, intelligent, olive-skinned young male cousins to never ever run with a backpack…

The alert levels do not need to be officially raised for me (and mine) to be alarmed.

Update: Very Alarmed.

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Professor Ian Harper, HoWARd’s choice to head the Fair Pay Commission (FPC) which sits within the government’s planned industrial relations reforms has a personal Christian faith which he will be using to guide him in how he reads the evidence and how he votes around the commission table.

"For me as an individual, I will be resting on my faith and my belief in God in helping me reach balanced decisions." – Professor Harper.

Is this the same god that speaks to George W. Bush, I wonder?

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If someone comes into your workplace and says we are here to promote health and safety, ask to check their credentials. There is nothing safe in having a worker feel furious and embarrassed when her face appeared on television advertisements for WorkChoices and she did not agree to it.

"I was lied to and deceived. It’s been put to me that I’m just a Liberal Party pin-up girl. But that’s not me. I’ve protested against the Liberal Government. I’m into social justice." – Phelia  Grimwade.

Phelia’s statement alone tells me she is legitimate in her fury.  No one who is into social justice could possibly support our current Liberal Party.  

Tom Cooper, the account manager for Dewey Horton, the agency hired by the Government to produce the ads, denied his staff had given vague descriptions of the purpose to mislead people into appearing in the advertisements.

"Anybody who participated in the advertisements signed a talent release form that stated clearly that the client was the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and the issue was industrial relations. I can’t understand what all the confusion is about." – Tom Cooper.

The confusion Tom seems to be about the lack of details in the contract.
Something we will come to call workplace "Billying" alongside of workplace bullying.
 

The poultry industry has called for John Howard to eat duck in public to highlight the message that Australian poultry is safe from bird flu.

John Millington, the manager of Luv-A-Duck at Nhill in Victoria, says the Prime Minister should follow the lead of other countries in reassuring consumers.

“The prime minister in Turkey, he ate chicken salad at a traditional dinner to break the daily fast of ramadan, and that was really to show his confidence in the control efforts by the authorities in Turkey. So what we need now is our prime minister to do the same thing. Sit up heartily to a duck dinner.”

While our PM sits down to one formerly feathered feast, why not two?

I propose that a more suitable dish to be served to our PM is crow.

Adding weight to the groaning table of his statements that have been proved wrong is WorkChoices and the Anti-terrorism Bill 2005.

“Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life” – John Howard, 25 August 1995.

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