A diplomat, they say, will tell you to go to hell so nicely that you look forward to the trip. Both state and federal politicians issued directions this week as fairness, English and citizenship tests dominated the agenda.
It never Reins, it pours
The debate over the government's industrial relations policies, and the future of Australian Workplace Agreements, had been continuing all week as Therese Rein flew into Brisbane Airport to meet her husband, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, on Friday.
News had broken the previous day that WorkDirections Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Ms Rein's company, Ingeus, took over Melbourne company Your Employment Solutions in July last year and transferred its workers over to her business.
But a Fair Pay Commission determination late last year had found that 58 YES staff had been underpaid a total of $70,000 after they were moved on to common law contracts that stripped award conditions in return for just 45 cents extra an hour.
WorkDirections had commissioned a review to ascertain the extent of the underpayment and to "make good" the back payment to the affected employees, the company said.
On Saturday, Ms Rein announced plans to sell the Australian operations of Ingeus, saying the debate about a possible conflict of interest if Labor wins this year's election had become acute.
"And there is nothing that I want to do which complicates the decision for the Australian people at the next election," she said in a statement.
The threat of a conflict of interest between Mr Rudd and his family's business interests had been an achilles heel for the Opposition Leader.
He went one step further this week, telling reporters his brother Greg's Open Door Consulting company would be denied access to ministers and senior public servants should he be elected.
But, as with the Sunrise ANZAC day debacle, a breakdown of communication was to blame for reason of the resignation of another vestige of the Opposition Leader's life on the backbenches.
The problems Ms Rein had encountered with her employees entitlements was "an honest mistake," he told reporters.
That didn't impress Prime Minister John Howard, who accused Labor of gross hypocrisy for criticising other businesses for stripping conditions in individual contracts but going gently on Ms Rein for making an "honest mistake".
"On this issue I say to the Australian Labor Party - thy name is hypocrisy," he said.
Fairness Test
While the Prime Minister has studiously avoided naming or citing Ms Rein's example, the matter has been inextricably linked to the introduction this week of the fairness test.
Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey said the new test, akin to the old no-disadvantage test which was scrapped by the government's Work Choices laws last year, would ensure monetary compensation was provided to anyone losing penalty rates, leave loadings and the like under new agreements.
It will apply to workers with a gross basic salary of up to $75,000 a year in an industry where an award usually applies.
Opposition workplace relations spokeswoman Julia Gillard recommended ALP parliamentarians pass the bill, but didn't miss the opportunity to voice her disapproval.
"No one should be fooled by this political trick," she said.
"His (Prime Minister John Howard's) laws have been 100 per cent unfair. After this bill passes this parliament they will be 99 per cent unfair. Nothing in this bill fixes the core unfairness at the heart of Work Choices."
Mr Hockey welcomed Labor's support but said it exposed hypocrisy.
"They have been criticising the fairness test from one end of the country to the other. Now they are voting for it," he told reporters.
"What a joke. That says it all. The Labor party is full of hypocrites that say one thing and do something else."
Foreign aid
Making a similar complaint, and receiving a similar government response this week was independent aid watchdog AID/WATCH, which released a report claiming that $1 billion, a third of Australia's foreign aid program, was not being directed at poverty relief programs in aid recipient countries.
Instead, as co-director Kate Wheen told ABC Radio, the money wasn't leaving the nation.
"It counts expenditure items such as our refugee programs, including island detention," she said.
"It also counts the cancellation of Iraq's debt to Australia, as well as a significant proportion that pays the full-fee scholarships for foreign students to come and study in Australian universities."
But Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Greg Hunt labelled the watchdog's position extraordinary, saying it had previously specifically praised debt relief to Iraq.
"Our flour and wheat our food and they were sold to Iraq," he said.
"They subsequently couldn't pay them so if we're wiping out their debts for food, the rest of the world includes that in their aid budget and it is money that the Australian taxpayer ultimately has to pay and it's an enormous benefit to Iraq, not just now but 30, 50, 70 years from now, it means that they're not saddled with debt and I think that's a good thing."
The news came two days before a cross-party push, lead by WA Liberal Mal Washer, to remove a ban on Australian aid workers giving advice on abortion.
The present guidelines say that "information that promotes abortion as a method of family planning or provides instructions on abortion procedures is not eligible for Australian aid funding". Guidelines also restrict education or promotion of contraceptives in these areas.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is said to be considering the group's proposal.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister John Howard yesterday signed an agreement to provide $250 million for human rights projects in the Philippines, as well as a status-of-forces agreement that enables Australia to train Philippine forces and support military operations against al Qaeda-linked groups.
English tests and Citizenship tests
Training was also on the agenda for Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, who this week said the government was considering quarantining welfare payments to ensure Aboriginal children went to school, and said it should be compulsory for them to learn English.
But Labor's indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said the Government should first improve teaching resources "to actually act to improve the English language of Aboriginal children, not just talk in empty political rhetoric".
WA indigenous affairs minister Michelle Roberts had a different take, saying the Commonwealth was exaggerating the problem in an effort to win votes.
"It's populist, I think they're desperate," she told the ABC.
This week also saw the introduction of a citizenship test for prospective Australians, needing 60 per cent to pass with no limit to the number of times it could be taken.
The test would require citizens to have a basic level of proficiency in English, and an adequate knowledge of their responsibilities and privileges, Citizenship Minister Kevin Andrews told parliament.
"A citizenship test will ensure a level of commitment to these values and way of life from all Australians, regardless of where they may originally come from," he said.
Opposition backbencher Daryl Melham has described the test as absurd, offensive and obscene -- saying it was designed to limit the origin of new Australian citizens to certain countries while excluding others.
"This test is based on an ignorant view of the world, a view of the world that basically sees people of a different colour, different race, different language, as just that, different," he said.
Bits and Pieces
- An AAP story on the report handed down yesterday by the Prime Minister's emissions task group, is available elsewhere on the site.
- Len Buckeridge's BGC won the contract to build the Perth Arena for $335 million, in a high-profile win for an organisation which has been seen to be something of a pariah to the state government.
- Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan pushed back the finishing date on the Perth-Mandurah rail line to October at the earliest, saying the project was at the mercy of contractors.
- Kevin Rudd confirmed he will address the WA Labor Party's state conference on Saturday, after speculation he may choose not to attend.
- The ALP reversed its policy by promising to retain the Howard Government's Australian Building and Construction Commission until 2010, earning the ire of WA CFMEU boss Kevin Reynolds, who said the Labor leader was out of touch and had been "spooked" by big business.
- And in hatches and dispatches, former Howard government minister Jackie Kelly, who holds the Western Sydney seat of Lindsay, announced she would retire from Parliament at the election, saying she could not face another period of 100 days per year away from her children, aged seven and five.
- Meanwhile, the WA Liberal Party nominated employment and industrial relations lawyer Michaelia Cash for the third place on the party's Senate ticket, following the appointment of Mathias Cormann to the casual vacancy created by Senator Ian Campbell's retirement, which he confirmed this week.
- And the candidate for the senate vacancy created by Senator Amanda Vanstone's retirement, lawyer Mary Jo Fisher, is facing a challenge for her nomination by businesswoman Maria Kourtesis, who has appealed the decision to a party tribunal - which began hearings on Tuesday and is yet to report. South Australian Premier Mike Rann, who has the constitutional power to make the appointment, has suggested drawing names out of a hat to resolve the issue.
The final word.
In a week where Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade deputy secretary Doug Chester said Australia's ambassador to Italy was given two hours notice before being sacked in favour of Senator Vanstone, but that he thought that "he had some expectation from all the various media reports that something may be afoot," the final word goes to Gary Hardgrave.
The Queensland MP hasn't had a great time of late, telling The Bulletin he'd been left "hanging like a tea bag on the sink" as a probe into whether he and two other MPs had used taxpayer-funded allowances to prop up the state Liberal party's election campaign continued.
Whether it was the fatigue, or just saying what many in his party were thinking, Mr Hardgrave raised a few eyebrows when speaking in Parliament on Wednesday about potty-mouthed Electrical Trades Union NSW state secretary Dean Mighell.
Mr Mighell was told to quit the ALP this week after a taped speech in which he bragged about conning employers into paying huge wage rises was made public.
Mr Hardgrave was telling parliament that he believed the ALP would not discipline the unions because of the party's traditionally close ties to the movement.
"They are not worried about workers. You do not hear anything from the members of the Australian Labor Party about workers," he said.
"They don't represent workers; they represent -- I was going to say 'w*****s,' but I guess that is unparliamentary, so I had better not."
While Arch was unable to write the censored word in its entirety due to WA Business News' policy on such phrases, he nonetheless notes that Mr Hardgrave was incorrect in his assumption.
The word, taken off all accessible coverage of the incident on mainstream news sites, remains legible in all its glory on page 18 of hansard from the House of Representatives, May 30, 2007.
It does much to anchor Arch's belief in accurate reporting.
