He wants to do away with the current independent umpire (the Australian Industrial Relations Commission - AIRC) that determines the minimum wage by hearing cases made by the unions vs the case put by business & government. Under Howard, the case of business and government have been one and the same. Since coming into power in 1996, Howard has opposed every single wage rise brought in front of the AIRC. A testament to the strength of that independent umpire is that in most cases the government has lost, or there has been a compromise on the size of the wage rise reached. As you can see from the above article, it's hardly been gargantuan over the last 10 years - but if Howard had had his way, the poorest Australians would be $2000+ a year worse off right now.

Can we stop him? Well, in the October 04 election, the Howard government got a majority in both houses of parliament - previously the opposition parties held the majority in the Senate when they worked together, and had consistently blocked further attacks on our Industrial Relations laws. That major obstacle to Howard has now gone. The result is that this is going to be one of the most public and bloody fights between unions and government in a generation.

I'm going to cover the specifics of the changes, implications etc. next diary.

cheers, Imogen (myriad)

"This can't possibly get more disturbing!" - Willow