tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/abcc-7529/articlesABCC – The Conversation2022-07-24T09:27:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1875932022-07-24T09:27:49Z2022-07-24T09:27:49ZGovernment pulls teeth of Australian Building and Construction Commission<p>The government this week will take the first step in killing off the controversial Australian Building and Construction Commission by stripping back its powers “to the bare legal minimum”. </p>
<p>The government promised before the election that it would scrap the commission and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said on Sunday this was a “downpayment” on that commitment. Legislation for the ABCC’s end will come in later this year. </p>
<p>The ABCC has long been a political football, and has been bitterly opposed by the powerful Construction Forestry Maritime Mining And Energy Union.</p>
<p>Burke said in a statement that in Tuesday’s changes, some of the ABCC’s powers would go back to the Fair Work Ombudsman and to health and safety regulators. “Its most ridiculous powers will be scrapped altogether.”</p>
<p>He said the ABCC was “politicised and discredited”. It had been set up by the Coalition “to discredit and dismantle unions and undermine the pay, conditions and job security” of workers. </p>
<p>“Workers and their representatives shouldn’t be harassed by a body that wastes taxpayers’ money on trivial nonsense like what stickers a worker might have on their helmet or whether a union logo might appear in a safety sign.”</p>
<p>Building workers should be subject to the same rules as other workers, Burke said. But since the Coalition brought in the building code, “construction employers and workers on government-funded building jobs have been subject to restrictions that don’t apply to people in other industries.</p>
<p>"The amended building code removes these restrictions, including prohibited enterprise agreement content requirements that are not imposed on other workers. </p>
<p>"Building and construction workers will now be able to freely bargain for agreements in the same way as other workers – including agreements that include clauses promoting job security, jobs for apprentices, and safety at work.” </p>
<p>Shadow workplace relations minister Michaelia Cash predicted chaos in the industry when the ABCC was abolished. </p>
<p>“Working days lost rose from 24,000 in 2011-12 to 89,000 in 2012-13 when Bill Shorten abolished the ABCC. But since the ABCC was re-established by the Coalition in December 2016, the commission has proved effective at tackling union excesses head on,” she said.</p>
<p>“We can now expect jobs will be lost, one of the nation’s most militant unions the CFMMEU will run riot, building costs will sky-rocket and large and small businesses will fold.’’</p>
<p>The Australian Industry Group condemned the government’s move
and urged consultation with stakeholders. </p>
<p>CEO Innes Willox said it was a "backward step for the fight against bullying and intimidation and will add costs and delays to vital community infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and schools”.</p>
<p>But ACTU secretary Sally McManus welcomed “the removal of the anti-worker aspects of the building code as the first and important steps to the Albanese government implementing their election commitment to abolish the ABCC”.</p>
<p>“The code was one of the ideological projects of the previous government who spent nearly a decade attacking unions and suppressing wages,” she said.</p>
<p>The government is looking to a wide range of industrial relations changes, especially to improve the efficiency of enterprise bargaining. This will be one topic for the September jobs summit. </p>
<p>Asked on the ABC when we would see real wages growth, Burke said “we need to get wages moving and you can’t turn that around on a dime”.</p>
<p>He expressed concern that “increasingly I’m seeing reports where negotiations on bargaining aren’t simply about whether or not there should be a pay rise but some employers threatening just to unilaterally cancel agreements so that workers at this point in time could be facing an immediate real wage cut, like a dollar wage cut”. </p>
<h2>Some crossbenchers get small win on staff</h2>
<p>The government has agreed to increase the staff allocation for some crossbench senators, in a compromise that will be seen in part as a gesture to the potential importance of their votes on key legislation. </p>
<p>Anthony Albanese flagged the compromise in an interview on Sky on Sunday. </p>
<p>Albanese earlier cut back the extra staff to which non-Greens crossbenchers were entitled (above their electorate staff) from four under the Morrison government to one (or, in the case of regional lower house crossbenchers, to two). </p>
<p>His office said on Sunday two extra staff would now go to each of the two senators from One Nation and each of the two from the Jacqui Lambie Network. ACT independent David Pocock would also get two. </p>
<p>According to the PMO, new United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet, from Victoria, is not included in the compromise. A spokeswomen for Babet said his office had had no communication about staff. “We hope it’s an oversight”, she said, adding his office would be communicating with the PMO on Monday. </p>
<p>The government says the extra staff are because the Senate crossbenchers have to represent a whole state or territory. </p>
<p>Pocock is only representing a small area but he is on the progressive side of politics and could often provide the additional vote the government needs to pass legislation supported by the Greens but opposed by the Coalition. </p>
<p>House of Representatives crossbenchers plan to make fresh representations about their staff on Monday, ahead of Tuesday’s opening of the new parliament. </p>
<p>While formalities will take up parliament’s time on Tuesday, the government plans to cram as much as possible into the first sitting week, with Albanese telling the ABC it planned to introduce “18 pieces of legislation […] in our first week”. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government this week will take the first step in killing off the controversial Australian Building and Construction Commission by stripping back its powers “to the bare legal minimum”. The government…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1146182019-04-07T19:51:56Z2019-04-07T19:51:56ZWhat will the Turnbull-Morrison government be remembered for?<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/coalition-record-2019-69102">series</a> examining the Coalition government’s record on key issues while in power and what Labor is promising if it wins the 2019 federal election.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>When the “mighty Roman” Gough Whitlam died, Indigenous leader Noel Pearson delivered a memorable eulogy. Channelling Monty Python, Pearson <a href="http://www.reconciliationsa.org.au/news/reconciliation/read-noel-pearsons-eulogy-for-the-late-former-prime-minister-gough-whitlam">asked</a> what had Whitlam ever done for Australia? Pearson then reeled off a long list of achievements, including Medibank, no-fault divorce, needs-based schools funding, the Racial Discrimination Act and many more. This was a blistering set of reforms by a truly radical and activist government.</p>
<p>After close to four years of the Turnbull and Morrison Coalition government, we might well ask: “What has the Coalition done for us?”</p>
<p>It is hard to think of a single notable achievement for which the government will be credited or remembered. If we take another government as ideologically driven as Whitlam’s – albeit from a different vantage point – in this case John Howard’s, we can still recall a significant range of policies and changes. Chief among these was gun control.</p>
<p>In contrast, we are hardly likely to remember the Turnbull-Morrison governments.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-scott-morrison-struggles-to-straddle-the-south-north-divide-114461">Grattan on Friday: Scott Morrison struggles to straddle the south-north divide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2016, if we vaguely recall, there was a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/FederalElection2016">double-dissolution election</a> – but could many voters even remember why? Ah, the trigger was the ill-fated <a href="https://theconversation.com/restoring-the-construction-watchdog-abcc-experts-respond-69643">Australian Building and Construction Commission</a>, which did not even feature during the election campaign. </p>
<p>Since then, what have been the major policy achievements? </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/infographic-the-national-energy-guarantee-at-a-glance-85832">National Energy Guarantee</a>? If the government is likely to be remembered at all, it will be for the deep-seated divisions that meant Malcolm Turnbull was entirely unable to deliver a clear and coherent energy and climate policy. This was, after all, a government that chose to ignore Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s call for a Clean Energy Target.</p>
<p>Tony Abbott’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/08/tony-abbott-pull-out-paris-climate-agreement-after-all">reversal</a> on withdrawing from the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/government/international/paris-agreement">Paris Climate Agreement</a> (under Turnbull), but then arguing Australia should stay in (especially with Angus Taylor’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-05/are-greenhouse-emissions-going-up-or-down/10868910">masterful handling</a> of the data on emissions) reflected a policy agenda dogged by internal divisions and incoherence.</p>
<p>Scott Morrison’s major contribution to the debate was to bring a piece of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video">coal</a> into the parliament. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-kind-of-prime-minister-will-scott-morrison-be-102050">What kind of prime minister will Scott Morrison be?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Perhaps immigration? Turnbull was forced to rescue a deal initially brokered with the Obama administration, after new President Donald Trump mocked the deal as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video">“stupid”</a>. With the government wedded to a “tough” border policy, including re-opening the detention facility on Christmas Island, it even <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-was-defeated-on-the-medevac-bill-but-that-does-not-mean-the-end-of-the-government-111635">lost the vote</a> on “medevac” legislation to ensure medical treatment for suffering refugees.</p>
<p>Any lasting achievements that seem to have happened were only because the government was either forced to, or reluctantly accepted it needed to, make changes. On the banking royal commission, Morrison – a political leader resolutely wedded to remain on the wrong side of history – had initially described it as a “<a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/banking/the-words-haunting-politicians-after-banking-royal-commission-uncovers-staggering-misconduct/news-story/1cba401a658f6ec799fcc8c1d595c1cd">populist whinge</a>”. Any systemic changes to the banking sector will emerge, in spite of, rather than because of the government’s actions.</p>
<p>Turnbull <a href="https://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm/status/1110769410644439042**">will point</a> to legislating for same-sex marriage as one of his government’s signature policy achievements, following the plebiscite. Yet Morrison will hardly be trumpeting this achievement, given that <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/samesex-marriage-tony-abbott-barnaby-joyce-scott-morrison-and-the-other-mps-who-didnt-vote-yes-or-no-20171207-h00kwo.html">he voted against it</a>.</p>
<p>Yes, same-sex marriage should be a lasting and welcome change, but again, the Coalition did much to resist it.</p>
<p>In stark contrast, German Chancellor Angela Merkel enabled a parliamentary vote but then <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/06/30/why-angela-merkel-known-for-embracing-liberal-values-voted-against-same-sex-marriage/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.42051a9baa82">voted against it</a> – a more principled position than the unnecessary plebiscite. This was a government that consistently showed it was behind public opinion on a range of issues. </p>
<p>There is a case that underneath the general political and policy mess of the Turnbull-Morrison era, the government notched up some quiet achievements. These include a free-trade deal with Indonesia, entering the fourth phase of the bipartisan <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/women/programs-services/reducing-violence/the-national-plan-to-reduce-violence-against-women-and-their-children-2010-2022">national plan</a> to reduce family violence, and <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/education/simon-birmingham-faces-hard-sell-over-reforms-to-schools-funding/news-story/cc7691704c561782227b433ad245c1b0">trying</a> to embed the Gonski 2.0 schools funding.</p>
<p>Many public servants across a range of portfolios were busily, professionally carrying out a range of important policies and programs out of the media glare. This reflects a long-standing view of government as policy incrementalism – carrying out the everyday, important, but unglamorous work of running the country.</p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity of the Turnbull-Morrison era has been a consistent failure to adequately represent the concerns and issues of the centre-right of Australian politics. Neither Turnbull or Morrison understood the promise of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_conservatism">Burkean conservatism</a> or even John Stuart Mill’s liberalism.</p>
<p>Worse still, in the case of the Nationals, there was an almost wilful inability to offer a coherent and reasoned case on behalf of regional Australia. As Coalition MPs scratch their heads and wonder where it all went so horribly wrong, they might well look at South Australia and now New South Wales to remind themselves what a “liberal” government looks like.</p>
<p>Indeed, if we needed a lasting image of the Nationals’ mishandling of the water portfolio, then the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-20/ten-thousand-fish-dead-as-darling-river-water-quality-worsens/10635730">dead fish of the Menindee</a> will suffice.</p>
<p>As Scott Morrison most likely exits the prime ministership, a different <a href="https://historum.com/threads/the-most-incompetent-roman-emperor.91931/">kind of Roman</a> to Whitlam, his only comfort might be that he is not Theresa May.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Manwaring does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In terms of major policy achievements, the Coalition government has little to show for its time in office.Rob Manwaring, Senior Lecturer, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1026062018-09-03T12:13:26Z2018-09-03T12:13:26ZView from The Hill: To whack the CFMMEU, Morrison needs first to get the right stick<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234648/original/file-20180903-41729-apt5gf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interviewed on 2GB Morrison seized on an offensive Father’s Day tweet from John Setka, Victorian state secretary of CFMMEU’s construction and general division.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Castro/AAp</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scott Morrison has fired a broadside at the bad guys of the union movement - those lodged within the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union.</p>
<p>Interviewed on 2GB by (a very respectful) Alan Jones, Morrison seized on an offensive Father’s Day tweet from John Setka, Victorian state secretary of CFMMEU’s construction and general division.</p>
<p>The tweet had Setka’s children with a sign “GO GET F#CKED”; above the picture, the message directed to the Australian Building and Construction Commission read: “LEAVE OUR DADS ALONE AND GO CATCH REAL CRIMINALS YOU COWARDS!!”.</p>
<p>Morrison described the tweet – which Setka later took down – as “one of the ugliest things I’ve seen”.</p>
<p>He recalled “children being used … in those horrific things in relation to some of the protests around terrorism”.</p>
<p>“This stuff just makes your skin crawl,” Morrison said. Asked whether he would consider deregistering the CFMMEU he replied “of course”. </p>
<p>However objectionable, the tweet was no more than an excuse for the government to get stuck into the union and, by association, into Bill Shorten.</p>
<p>If Morrison can successfully carry through on his attack on the CFMMEU, this is potentially dangerous for Shorten.</p>
<p>Shorten has relied on the CFMMEU at key points for political support, such as the last ALP national conference. There’s little doubt that under a Shorten government the union would have the ear of the prime minister – which worries some within Labor.</p>
<p>Morrison declared that “you’re known by who you stand next to and Bill Shorten’s got his arms all around John Setka and John Setka’s got his arms all around Bill Shorten.</p>
<p>"Bill Shorten is union-bred, union-fed and union-led, and that’s how he would run Australia.”</p>
<p>(Get used to the “union-bred, union-fed and union-led” line - we’re likely to hear it many times. Morrison is fond of slogans. When Jones told him to stop talking about “dispatchable” power because “out there they don’t understand that” Morrison seamlessly moved to “fair dinkum power”.)</p>
<p>If the push for action against the CFMMEU became serious in the run up to the election, would Shorten want to be out defending the thuggish part of this union?</p>
<p>The Liberals have for years sought to make Shorten’s union background and associations work for them. They haven’t so far had anything like the success they hoped. The question is, can Morrison?</p>
<p>On 3AW, Morrison said the Setka tweet was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”</p>
<p>He wouldn’t “rush into anything [against the union]. But I am looking very seriously into it”, and would discuss action with the Minister for Industrial Relations, Kelly O'Dwyer. Pushed on the process, Morrison was not precise, saying: “that’s what I’ve asked the minister to look at and come back to me with a plan.”</p>
<p>But “the plan” is likely to show that talking about having the union deregistered is one thing; actually achieving that is something else.</p>
<p>One route is for the minister to apply to the federal court.</p>
<p>Registration may be cancelled if a union is found to have engaged in continued breaching of awards or agreements, been guilty of illegal action, or flouted legal orders.</p>
<p>But the complication is that the case must be made against the whole organisation rather than one branch or division. And the court would have to be satisfied that the matter was serious and that cancelling registration would not be unjust.</p>
<p>It would probably be hard – to say nothing of unfair – to run the case against the union overall. The CFMMEU is the curate’s egg. It is bad in part – its construction division.</p>
<p>The obvious way to deal with that part of the union would be via the Ensuring Integrity legislation. This allows for applications to the federal court for the suspension of the rights and privileges of a section of an organisation, and for particular individuals to be disqualified from holding office.</p>
<p>The problem here is that the legislation is still before the Senate.</p>
<p>There are strong arguments that can be made for action against the construction division of the CFMMEU – the Setka tweet is not among them - although it might be more practical to disqualify the offending officers.</p>
<p>If the government wants to take on the lawless part of this union it would have to get its bill through the Senate fairly soon – but that means mustering the numbers. If you want to wield a stick, you need the right one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Liberals have for years sought to make Shorten’s union background and associations work for them. They haven’t so far had anything like the success they hoped. The question is, can Morrison?Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864162017-10-26T10:50:50Z2017-10-26T10:50:50ZGrattan on Friday: Cash takes a hit in the government’s pursuit of Shorten<p>In his opening statement to a Senate estimates committee on Wednesday night, Mark Bielecki, the head of the Registered Organisations Commission, which is investigating the Australian Workers Union’s A$100,000 donation to GetUp, declared he wanted to correct a “misapprehension”.</p>
<p>“This investigation is not into Mr Shorten. It is into the AWU and it is into the AWU’s processes for approving donations, including political donations,” Bielecki said.</p>
<p>Whatever the Registered Organisations Commission might think or say, there’s been no doubt in the minds of the government what the inquiry is about. When Employment Minister Michaelia Cash referred the donation to the commission in August, she and her colleagues knew it was all about Bill Shorten.</p>
<p>The 2005 donation was made when Shorten, a founding director of GetUp, was AWU secretary.</p>
<p>Once again the government was trying to put Shorten in the frame over his behaviour in his union days. Previous attempts have fallen short of hopes.</p>
<p>It would always be a toss-up whether the Registered Organisations Commission investigation would yield dust or a trace of political gold. But no-one could have predicted it would blow up spectacularly in the face of the minister who sent the reference to the newly created watchdog.</p>
<p>Cash is still in place but it was excruciating to watch her performance when, as chance had it, she was appearing in Senate estimates this week and had to face forensic grilling – laced with sarcastic comments – from Labor senators.</p>
<p>The events are now well-known. The media were tipped off so the cameras could be present for Monday’s police raids on the AWU offices.</p>
<p>In front of the Senate committee, Cash denied through Wednesday that her office had anything to do with alerting the media. But around 6PM <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliceworkman/afp-raids?utm_term=.ts52rWGKQ#.irLEO3BG2">BuzzFeed reported</a> journalists had said Cash’s office was responsible for the tip-off. When the committee resumed after the dinner break, Cash announced her senior media adviser had just fessed up and resigned.</p>
<p>It seemed extraordinary that Cash could have been left in ignorance all day. Even more odd was that she (and the staffer in question, David De Garis) attended Malcolm Turnbull’s pre-Question Time briefing on Wednesday, when she assured him she had not given the tip-off, but neither he nor others present asked the obvious question: “what about your office?”</p>
<p>When media are being alerted, it is rarely by a call from the minister – it’s done by the media adviser. Everyone at the briefing would have known that. Assuming we’re hearing the truth, failing to ask was sloppy at best.</p>
<p>Not that the answer would necessarily have elicited the facts – because Cash says she’d already inquired of her staff and at that stage no-one admitted putting out the word.</p>
<p>Until recently Cash was receiving good reviews, as a hard worker, an effective negotiator on legislation, and skilled at carrying a brief.</p>
<p>But even before this week, her reputation had started to tarnish, when the head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), Nigel Hadgkiss, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/industrial-relations/abcc-chief-nigel-hadgkiss-resigns/news-story/45621f514f95d59e9a5e0f0b2af36f8f">had to resign</a> after admitting to breaching the Fair Work Act while in his previous position. Cash was aware of the civil proceedings against him when he took over the ABCC.</p>
<p>The GetUp affair revolves around whether the donation went through the proper process under the AWU rules – as distinct from being generally known about and accepted by the union hierarchy at the time.</p>
<p>The government – which, incidentally, is on a jihad against GetUp, a campaigning body far too effective for its liking – would point out it is important to ensure unions are accountable and transparent when giving away members’ money. No-one could reasonably disagree with such a proposition.</p>
<p>But the government’s obvious attempt to use the recently established Registered Organisations Commission for political purposes is an abuse of power – and potentially damaging to the fledgling organisation. </p>
<p>Cash points out that she can’t direct the Registered Organisations Commission but when the minister refers something to it, that will obviously be taken up. And, as has been widely asked, would this matter, more than a decade old, have been referred if it hadn’t involved Shorten?</p>
<p>De Garis’ action in tipping off the media also shows the political prism through which the government sees these issues. Turnbull on Thursday described what De Garis did as “wrong” and “improper”. But if the affair had not backfired on the government, would it have been unhappy with the TV pictures of the raid?</p>
<p>Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/police-raids-show-liberals-using-state-power-against-labor/news-story/1eb102e0477d86186375771da7585948">wrote this week</a> that the raids “seem part of a disturbing pattern of the Liberals using state power to persecute a political enemy”.</p>
<p>Bolt is a perennial critic of Turnbull but in this case he highlighted what had happened from the start of the Coalition government, referring to “the Liberals’ astonishing record of dragging Labor leaders before commissions and royal commissions created – at least in part – to humiliate them”.</p>
<p>In parliament on Thursday Turnbull kept firing at Shorten, mustering what chutzpah he could. But the bullets looked rubbery, after those days in which one of the more competent ministers was winged and the new Registered Organisations Commission found itself in rather too much spotlight. To say nothing of the fact that Shorten once again remained one step ahead of his pursuers.</p>
<p><strong><em>POSTSCRIPT</em></strong></p>
<p>There has been some debate among journalists about whether BuzzFeed should have reported that the media tip-off came from Cash’s office.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my view is that it’s fine to report what happened if you didn’t get the tip-off – rather like Laurie Oakes reporting what Turnbull said at the press gallery ball that Oakes didn’t attend.
It’s not OK to reveal your source if you get a tip-off and it’s on a confidential basis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government’s obvious attempt to use the recently established Registered Organisations Commission for political purposes is an abuse of power.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731292017-02-17T03:21:28Z2017-02-17T03:21:28ZWork councils could be the future of Australian industrial democracy in an ABCC world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157080/original/image-20170216-27421-1f9vi8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ABCC’s reintroduction has little to do with reforming the building and construction industry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Work councils are one model of industrial relations that could potentially fill the enormous gap in Australian industrial democracy left by precarious employment and the decline of the union movement.</p>
<p>Canberra was once again the scene of further blows against construction workers and their union when the federal government this week <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_LEGislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r5806">passed legislation</a> to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-08/government-negotiates-deal-with-derryn-hinch-on-abcc-laws/8251100">hasten the onset</a> of laws linked to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/restoring-the-construction-watchdog-abcc-experts-respond-69643">Australian Building and Construction Commission</a> (ABCC).</p>
<p>In something of a one-two combination for the Australian union movement, the ABCC’s return accompanies <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/trade-union-membership-hits-record-low-20151027-gkjlpu.html">reports</a> that national union coverage has dwindled to its lowest ebb. Union membership now stands at around 15%.</p>
<p>In Australia, the growth of casual jobs outstrips the creation of permanent jobs by nearly <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0">two to one</a>. Such precarious employment prevents workers putting down roots in their workplace, joining a union or engaging in enterprise bargaining. </p>
<p>The wane of the union movement need not sound its death knell, nor the end of collective bargaining. So long as there is work, there is a future for the rights of workers and unions. But such a future in Australia may look very different to the current industrial relations landscape. </p>
<h2>What is a work council?</h2>
<p>A work council is basically a “shop-floor” panel of employers and employees that convenes to negotiate and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany">co-determine</a> labour and business relations within a company. </p>
<p>Co-determination has flourished in Germany since the late 19th century. More recently, the European Union has embraced work councils. </p>
<p>Since <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Social_Institutions_and_Economic_Perform.html?id=R1HtAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">their implementation</a> across Europe, work councils have overseen increases in production and decreasing industrial disputation while affording workers a seat at the bargaining table, alongside unions.</p>
<p>In practice, work councils rely upon civic participation by workers within their workplaces to collectively negotiate their rights with employers, with or without union presence. In most cases, union representatives are present at negotiations. And yet personal participation in work council meetings has increased union membership.</p>
<h2>Could it work in Australia?</h2>
<p>At the heart of this model is a shift from an adversarial system of industrial relations to one based upon co-operation and social partnership between labour, capital and government.</p>
<p>Over the course of the 20th century, German manufacturing firms such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and BASF yielded impressive profit margins by adopting the work council model.</p>
<p>Mercedes-Benz <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-end-of-poverty/why-are-bmw-and-mercedes-so-rich">has taken</a> a long-term view of the benefits of co-operation between management and workers. As part of this compromise between workers and the company’s bottom line, trade unions and workers have increased productivity, exercised wage restraint and reined in union militancy. In exchange they have received enhanced workplace safety, small pay increases and protection of jobs from mechanisation. </p>
<p>A work council model for Australia was <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781862874442">originally proposed</a> by the Evatt Foundation and then discussed by industrial relations scholars and labour lawyers some 15 years ago.</p>
<p>Work councils are not without their faults, however. It is precisely the system’s “co-operative” nature that <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=commwkpapers">may not transplant</a> easily from Europe to Australia. If the past 20 years of industrial relations in Australia demonstrate anything, it is that employers and the federal government have consistently and radically tipped the balance in the industrial framework toward employers.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there are a <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781862873469">range of examples</a> from the 1990s in which similar arrangements to work councils were tried and tested on Australian construction sites. Results were equally successful to those in Germany.</p>
<p>The framework of the impending ABCC legislation would not legally impede implementation of work councils in Australia. But the ABCC will do nothing to promote the kind of mutual trust, respect and agreement between workers and management that a co-determinist system requires.</p>
<p>The 2006 <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2006/52.html">WorkChoices case</a> led to a major shift in the constitutional underpinnings of the Australian industrial relations system. Previously, it relied on arbitration and conciliation, or the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html">labour power</a>, which was a federalist model in which the states retained separate industrial jurisdictions. It shifted to a system underwritten by the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html">corporations power</a> – a centralised system in which the Commonwealth unified labour law.</p>
<p>While WorkChoices was abolished in 2009, the centralised constitutional framework remained.</p>
<p>Well before 2006, however, advocates of industrial democracy such as Professor Ron McCallum <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781862874442">suggested that</a> in a climate of diminishing unionisation, the work council model might do well – if it were centralised and built into the workings of Australian companies through the corporations power. </p>
<p>Accordingly, the existing Australian constitutional legal framework is now ripe for the introduction of a work council system.</p>
<p>As unions and workers are increasingly stripped of their power in Australian workplaces, the spirit of a fair go will not simply disappear through harsh industrial legislation. It must be channelled somewhere. Whether that happens through an increasingly under-represented system of enterprise bargaining, or something like the German model of work councils, remains to be seen. </p>
<p>But a major shift to a model that benefits all parties, such as the work council system, will only happen with the utmost co-operation of Australian workers, unions and – most crucially – employers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eugene Schofield-Georgeson is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).</span></em></p>A major shift to an industrial relations model that benefits all parties will only happen with the utmost co-operation of Australian workers, unions and – most crucially – employers.Eugene Schofield-Georgeson, Lecturer, UTS Law School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697842016-12-02T06:21:02Z2016-12-02T06:21:02ZABCC amended local content rules will help Australian steelmakers compete against low-quality imports<p>Senator Xenophon deserves a Christmas card from the nation’s steelmakers, after his negotiation with the government to deliver their Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) legislation. The deal saw significant changes made to government procurement rules.</p>
<p>The changes require that companies bidding for government projects worth more than A$4 million <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r5129">will need to outline</a> in their bid:</p>
<ul>
<li>how much locally-produced material is included</li>
<li>how their proposal would contribute to local employment</li>
<li>how their proposal would grow local skills</li>
<li>the whole-of-life cost of the project</li>
<li>that the materials used comply with Australian product standards.</li>
</ul>
<p>These new requirements should work in favour of local steel producers not only because of the emphasis on local content but because of the clauses around standards and whole of life costs.</p>
<p>Creating high quality steel isn’t easy and high quality isn’t uniform through the international industry. For many grades of steel, ensuring the steel is “clean”- which for a steelmaker means keeping non-metallic impurities (called “inclusions”) to a minimum and preventing excessive dissolution of gases into the metallic structure – is important for ensuring high quality performance and minimising unexpected cracks and failures.</p>
<p>There have been significant advances internationally over the last two or three decades in getting steel “clean”. In particular, around engineering the chemistry of steel to ensure the inclusions that are too small to remove from the steel when molten, don’t weaken the structure of the steel excessively once the steel is solid. </p>
<p>Low technology steelmakers with lowly trained workforces don’t generally aim to make high-value steels, instead aiming at lower grades of steel where such levels of control are not required. Reinforcing bar (used in concrete structures) is an example of such a product, where price and availability are the prime issues in the marketplace. The steels required for the new submarine fleet are at the opposite end of this quality control/cost continuum.</p>
<p>Local steelmakers have complained about the quality of imported Chinese steel that has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-17/safety-warning-over-fabricated-chinese-steel/6949506">recently flooded the local market</a> and there is lots anecdotal evidence to support these claims, though it must be acknowledged that it’s difficult to find an objective study of the problem. Not all Chinese steel is low quality, as there are clearly many advanced and high tech steel producers in that country.</p>
<p>This new requirement around quality means the onus will be on the company bidding to demonstrate that steel being used meets appropriate standards. In simple terms, if Australian companies like Arrium and Bluescope can make good quality steel locally, this clause should place their product ahead in the bidding process. This is compared to any company (Australian or otherwise) that costs their projects based on using cheap steel that is being dumped. </p>
<p>This clause also puts pressure on Australian steel companies to maintain high standards of quality, as a means of distinguishing themselves in the market. Which sends the right message to an industry that will need to focus on quality if it wants to have a successful future.</p>
<p>The whole of life clause could also work in favour of steel producers, depending on how this requirement is interpreted. In general, steel has much lower environmental impact in its production compared to other materials. For example, the production of one tonne of steel results in about <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652606002320">one tenth of the impact on global warming compared to the same quantity of aluminium</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cleanup.org.au/PDF/au/steel-and-aluminium-factsheet.pdf">Aluminium and steel also share a good record in recycling</a> compared to plastics and composites, as these materials can be recycled many times, where as plastics and composites are often degraded in the recycling process. Several classes of these materials do not have a recognised recycling route <a href="https://www.cleanup.org.au/PDF/au/cua_plastic_recycling_fact_sheet.pdf">and end up as land fill</a>.</p>
<p>These materials look attractive compared to steel, in terms of environmental impact when their lightweight properties are used to save fuel, such as the case of transport. But for large structural projects (as associated with government tenders), the whole of life analysis is likely to favour steel over other materials because of the lower environmental impact and high recyclability, combined with strength and durability.</p>
<p>These more recent changes to the procurement rules are good for the long-term future of steel production in this country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Brooks has previously received funding from OneSteel for research into fundamental aspects of steelmaking and supervises students projects associated with OneSteel. He is actively involved in the Association of Iron and Steel Technology. </span></em></p>Changes to construction material requirements from negotiations on the ABCC will give Australian steelmakers a chance to step-up.Geoffrey Brooks, Professor of Engineering, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697812016-12-02T03:11:29Z2016-12-02T03:11:29ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the final week of parliament<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jU-4Lz6J9pI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the final fortnight of the parliament for the year the government clinched some deals on major pieces of legislation. Michelle Grattan tells University of Canberra deputy vice-chancellor Frances Shannon that it was important for Malcolm Turnbull to get the bills that triggered the double-dissolution election through.</p>
<p>“Given the need to be seen to be delivering I think that he would feel reasonably satisfied with these last couple of weeks. Although the backpacker tax, which finally was clinched in a deal with the Greens, was a very messy process,” Grattan says.</p>
<p>“I think that the government next year will have to show that it can get more things done and also that the things that it does get done are relevant to the average man or woman in the street.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the final fortnight of the parliament for the year the government clinched some deals on major pieces of legislation.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraFrances Shannon, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696432016-11-30T23:31:55Z2016-11-30T23:31:55ZRestoring the construction watchdog ABCC: experts respond<p><em>The Turnbull government has finally got its way and will now re-install the construction industry watchdog, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). We asked a panel of experts what this means for the industry and its workers.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>David Peetz, professor of employment relations, Griffith University</strong></p>
<p>Amendments agreed to by the government mean that the ABCC looks like it will, in effect, have virtually no more powers than Labor’s Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate.</p>
<p>The main difference between the two bodies (as staff will simply transfer) is that the ABCC legislation will give effect to the government’s building industry code. That requires all companies doing construction or related work for the Commonwealth to follow the code’s policies on trade unionism, especially in the content of their enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs). If firms don’t comply, they won’t get any Commonwealth work.</p>
<p>However, the code itself will be delayed. Whereas previously it was, in effect, retrospective, employers will now have until the end of November 2018 to negotiate new EBAs, so most existing EBAs will not be affected. </p>
<p>The prospect that there would be a rush to reopen existing EBAs has now passed. So too, therefore, has the associated fear that this would lead to higher wage increases, to compensate for provisions unions would have to give up to enable compliance with the code. There might still be wage effects in the future, but there certainly won’t be the rush.</p>
<p>There is still the prospect that the code itself may be disallowed — the Senate has the power to do that. <a href="#http://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/nick-xenophon-flags-new-concerns-over-abcc-bills-20161020-gs6t6m">Senator Nick Xenophon may still be troubled by</a> giving too much power to one body, one that would be “investigator and assessor of compliance and … responsible for … sanctions”. Others in the Senate would be even more concerned.</p>
<p>Even if the code survives, the new ABCC won’t lead to any major productivity benefits, despite claims made along those lines for almost a decade. The research basis for those claims has <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=fb74c8ce-5257-4297-9108-800fef48f91e&subId=31985">long since been found to be defective</a>. </p>
<p>And with so much of the ABCC’s time to be spent on managing new Australian content and local worker rules in construction (forced upon the government by the Senate), costs in the industry are likely to go up, not down. After all, if local workers and materials were cheaper, firms would already be using them.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull invested so much political capital in the ABCC bill that he had to get it passed, no matter the cost. The headlines may be favourable for a day or two. But these developments could further undermine his credibility with the Liberal Party base, particularly if the code is disallowed.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Eugene Schofield-Georgeson, lecturer at University of Technology Sydney law school</strong></p>
<p>The laws that have re-established the ABCC will not help the workers who have already lost their lives because of failed safety precautions. Five Australian construction workers <a href="https://www.cfmeu.org.au/news/black-armband-day-thursday-3rd-november">have been killed</a> on building sites over the last five weeks during the debate on the Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC) bills. Another 25 workers have lost their lives in the construction <a href="http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/swa/statistics/work-related-fatalities/pages/worker-fatalities">industry this year alone</a>. In fact, by reducing the power of unions to inspect and operate on building sites and by persecuting unionists in a quasi-criminal tribunal, a revived ABCC jeopardises safety protections for construction workers and waters down workplace rights in the industry.</p>
<p>The political horse-trading that has led to the passage of these bills has done little to rehabilitate them into something that is worthy of an advanced and reasonable industrial democracy. Indeed, these laws place Australian workers in the construction and allied industries at a significant disadvantage to their employers as well as workers in other industries. No comparable law regulates other industries in such a manner.</p>
<p>In this legislation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/bikies-unions-and-the-abcc-spinning-the-policing-of-work-22479">the union-busting</a> and potential for <a href="https://theconversation.com/fair-work-or-more-productivity-revived-abcc-will-deliver-neither-21353">civil rights infractions</a> that characterised the introduction of these laws into parliament by the Abbott government in 2013 remain mostly intact. These laws include increased penalties for unions in the construction and allied industries in respect to unlawful industrial action (similar to those under corporations law) and compulsory acquisition of information in relation to suspected contraventions of the Act or a building law (meaning no “right to silence” or privilege against self-incrimination). It also means retrospective prosecutions for infractions of ABCC legislation; a civil standard of proof for quasi-criminal prosecutions; reduced powers for unions to inspect and operate on building sites; and deregistration of non-compliant unions.</p>
<p>Cross-bench senators David Leyonhjelm and Derryn Hinch, who voted with the government in support of this legislation, did manage to secure a number of concessions to ensure some compliance with the rule of law. These include: no reverse onus of proof for defendants prosecuted by the ABCC (like most criminal jurisdictions); a requirement that the ABCC be subject to judicial review (in accordance with Chapter III of the Australian Constitution); and annual reporting provisions for the ABCC as an executive branch of government (like any other branch of executive government).</p>
<p>The United Nations condemned the former ABCC from the Howard era for breaching international labour law conventions. The revived version is similar in most respects.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Phillip Toner, senior research fellow in the department of political economy, University of Sydney</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=fb74c8ce-5257-4297-9108-800fef48f91e&subId=31985">Research shows</a> that the ABCC has no discernible effect on construction industry labour productivity. Instead, long-running trends in labour productivity are governed by a multiplicity of factors. The key point is that the factors determining the rate of productivity growth in the construction industry are outside the scope of activity of the ABCC.</p>
<p>Labour productivity in construction is pro-cyclical, meaning it typically increases when activity picks up in the sector and the existing stock of employed construction workers is fully utilised. Similarly, it diminishes as a building boom accelerates. This is because less efficient firms are drawn into production, and there are inevitable inefficiencies are created by logistical and work scheduling problems. Construction sites become more crowded as work progresses. </p>
<p>The ABCC is not in a position to influence this as its remit is to monitor and enforce industrial relations through the Fair Work Act. Its role is not to evaluate the productivity performance of construction firms or tell builders how to build. </p>
<p>Another important factor in explaining low productivity growth is the corporate strategy of major constructors and construction clients. This is one of intensifying subcontracting and shifting risk down the contractual chain.</p>
<p>This results in a fragmented industry structure, or a proliferation of very small firms and self-employment. The predominance of small firms and self-employment constrains productivity as they <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/10/46970941.pdf">have a much lower propensity to invest</a> in R&D, innovation, capital equipment and training compared to larger firms. </p>
<p>This explains why, despite accounting for over 10% of total employment, the construction industry accounts for <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/5204.02014-15?OpenDocument">less than 2% of the total national capital stock</a> (the total value of productive equipment, and buildings used for production). The construction industry capital to labour ratio is less than 20% of the economy wide ratio.</p>
<p>The role of the ABCC is not to examine the investment behaviour of firms in the construction industry and tell them how to invest, so it wouldn’t solve this problem either.</p>
<p>The bad relations and competition between head contractors, contractors, and subcontractors and then self-employed workers reduces the incentive to invest in productivity improvements. Businesses further up the contractual chain use their market power to absorb the higher margins, productivity improvements and cost reductions made by subcontractors further down the contract chain. </p>
<p>The role of the ABCC is not to monitor contractual relations between these contractors in the construction industry. Issues to do with the abuse of market power, for example between a head contractor and a subcontractor, are governed instead by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69643/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz receives funding from the Australian Research Council and, as a university employee, has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments from both sides of politics, in Australia and overseas, employers and unions.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eugene Schofield-Georgeson is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the New South Wales Council of Civil Liberties (NSWCCL).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip Toner has done consulting work for the CFMEU and the Australian Industry Group. </span></em></p>A group of experts dissect what the re-introduction of the ABCC means for the construction industry and its workers.David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith UniversityEugene Schofield-Georgeson, Lecturer, University of Technology SydneyPhillip Toner, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696672016-11-30T12:24:51Z2016-11-30T12:24:51ZTurnbull is happy to horse trade if it gets the nags over the line<p>Malcolm Turnbull didn’t actually trade his first-born this week but it felt like it might come to that.</p>
<p>In a whatever-it-takes frame of mind, the government conceded a great deal to get its legislation to resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) through on Wednesday.</p>
<p>So much so that Labor finds itself caught between its attack lines. Does it concentrate on arguing this is draconian legislation hitting the workers, or on claiming it has been emasculated by government backdowns?</p>
<p>Labor spokesman Brendan O'Connor did both. “It would have been a lot easier for Malcolm Turnbull just to change the name of the Fair Work Building Commission because of the backflips the government entertained,” he said.</p>
<p>But “we don’t support the ABCC, we’ve never supported the ABCC, so of course we won’t be looking to continue its conduct and its operation in government”.</p>
<p>This final parliamentary week is replete with contradictions and competing imperatives. It’s not a time for the politically pure.</p>
<p>Turnbull likes to portray himself as a pragmatist who wants this parliament to work. To achieve that he’s had to let a vigorous tail, in the form of assorted crossbench senators, wag the dog.</p>
<p>There have been few limits. The idea of telling the ABC and SBS boards they must have regular public forums, as part of the bid to get David Leyonhjelm’s vote on the ABCC, was little short of bizarre.</p>
<p>That’s not to deride the idea of the forums. Indeed Turnbull may wish he had thought of them when communications minister.</p>
<p>Then for Nick Xenophon there was the elevation of the Murray-Darling water issue to a permanent item on the Council of Australian Governments agenda, where it can be regularly monitored.</p>
<p>Xenophon got nothing of substance on water but decided to be happy enough with having its oversight raised to the level of first ministers (take that, Barnaby Joyce), with some extra scrutiny at Senate estimates.</p>
<p>One can take the view that amending bills often produces a better result, and removing some of the harsh edges of the ABCC legislation falls into that category.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the amount of power in the hands of this or that crossbencher at any particular moment, all of them claiming their own mandates and some with very specific demands outside the legislation being dealt with, is a worry.</p>
<p>Not that it’s new. Tasmanian independent Brian Harradine extracted huge largesse from the Howard government for his home state, and other things besides.</p>
<p>And it could be argued that in the last parliament there was not enough trading to make it functional.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the water and ABC trade-offs, the following were among the concessions made to get the ABCC bill through:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>agreement to a security of payments working group to help protect subcontractors;</p></li>
<li><p>a requirement for preferred tenderers for government building work to provide information about the use of domestically sourced materials and the impact on jobs and skills growth;</p></li>
<li><p>changes to government procurement policy across the board – Australian standards will have to be met for procured goods and services, and for procurements of more than A$4 million the economic benefits to the Australian economy must be considered. This has a distinct whiff of protectionism;</p></li>
<li><p>a two-year grace period for companies seeking government contracts to get their enterprise agreements to comply with the new building industry code. Originally the new code would have applied retrospectively to enterprise agreements struck since April 2014, disqualifying some companies from government work;</p></li>
<li><p>a requirement for employers in the industry to show that no Australian worker is available before they can take on a foreign worker. This was the one successful Labor amendment, passed in the face of government opposition;</p></li>
<li><p>preservation of a number of the existing civil liberty safeguards available to a person subject to examination, which the original legislation would have knocked out;</p></li>
<li><p>a review of the act within the next year;</p></li>
<li><p>making decisions under the act subject to merit review; and</p></li>
<li><p>accepting the onus of proof should not be on employees to prove they held a reasonable concern about health or safety when ceasing work.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Labor denounced Turnbull as a “horse-trader by nature”, which he is. He’s about outcomes. In business he was about deals. When he was seeking the leadership, he “traded” earlier positions on climate policy and the same-sex marriage plebiscite as part of his pitch for votes.</p>
<p>When Leigh Sales on Wednesday night pointed to the deals he’d done on crossbenchers’ “pet projects” and asked “is your legislative agenda, looking forwards, going to be held hostage by all of the niche interests that all of the crossbench has?”, Turnbull replied: “Well Leigh that’s the nature of politics. We don’t control the Senate and so to secure the passage of our legislation through the Senate we have to negotiate with the crossbench.”</p>
<p>In this case, it was vital for Turnbull to end the year with substantive legislative achievements, which he has obtained. The two double-dissolution bills are through, with tougher union governance rules passing last week.</p>
<p>But having played ball, albeit at a price, on the ABCC, the Senate immediately delivered Turnbull a slap when it rejected the 15% rate for the backpackers tax, and instead voted for 10.5%.</p>
<p>So it was back to the trading room, with Treasurer Scott Morrison – who is so far not budging from 15% – trying to turn around the numbers.</p>
<p>Leyonhjelm has now accepted 15% – in return the government has agreed to drop publication of the names on the planned register of farmers and other employers of backpackers. Morrison was also working on Derryn Hinch and One Nation’s Rod Culleton – he needs one of them.</p>
<p>Failure to get the backpacker tax legislation passed this week would take some of the gloss off the win on the ABCC. Most obviously, it would infuriate the farmers.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/n7w2w-6510a3?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/n7w2w-6510a3?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Malcolm Turnbull didn’t actually trade his first-born this week but it felt like it might come to that. In a whatever-it-takes frame of mind, the government conceded a great deal to get its legislation…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/694052016-11-25T00:52:14Z2016-11-25T00:52:14ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on One Nation’s troubles<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HnAntSnWY-A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Tensions between Pauline Hanson and her beleaguered One Nation senator Rod Culleton have been on open display this week, raising the question of whether the party will be able to hold it all together. </p>
<p>Michelle Grattan tells University of Canberra vice-chancellor Deep Saini that it’s going to be quite hard for Hanson to keep her senators well disciplined.</p>
<p>“At the same time it’s obvious that both sides of politics are now really fearing Pauline Hanson’s electoral power. We heard George Brandis caught on an open mic telling the Victorian Liberal president that One Nation really was going to be quite significant at the next state election [in Queensland] and I think that both sides of politics feel that,” Grattan says. </p>
<p>“You have this paradox in a sense – rising importance of One Nation electorally but difficulties in keeping the show together in Canberra, in the Senate, where of course it’s also powerful.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tensions between Pauline Hanson and her beleaguered One Nation senator Rod Culleton have been on open display this week, raising the question of whether the party will be able to hold it all together.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraPaddy Nixon, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681872016-11-03T12:28:42Z2016-11-03T12:28:42ZGrattan on Friday: Industrial bills test Turnbull’s negotiating skills – and backbone<p>Malcolm Turnbull laughs off the suggestion that this week’s extraordinary developments mean the Senate is in chaos. Okay, let’s humour the Prime Minister. The upper house looks a teeny bit messy and the future composition of the crossbench a tad uncertain, right?</p>
<p>To strip this down to its essentials – here’s the situation.</p>
<p>Family First’s Bob Day, from South Australia, is gone, exiting amid the financial disaster of his business, which turned out not to be his only problem.</p>
<p>Depending on how the High Court rules on whether he was eligible to be elected on July 2, his party could get to choose Day’s successor (then likely be Rikki Lambert, Day’s former staffer, or Robert Brokenshire, a SA MP); the second candidate on the Family First ticket (Lucy Gichuhi) could be installed; or the seat could go to Labor.</p>
<p>The first scenario is if Day wins the case; the latter two are if he is found to have been ineligible. ABC electoral analyst Antony Green predicts the most likely outcome is the elevation of Gichuhi, a Kenyan-born lawyer.</p>
<p>If One Nation’s West Australian senator Rod Culleton doesn’t survive the judgement the High Court will make on his eligibility, his place will go on the recount to the next candidate on the party’s ticket, Peter Georgiou, who is Culleton’s brother-in-law, neatly keeping the seat in the family.</p>
<p>When the Senate resumes on Monday, Family First will have no one there. To pass bills opposed by Labor and the Greens the government will need eight of ten crossbenchers, where previously it required nine of 11.</p>
<p>The government is putting to the Senate next week its legislation for the same-sex marriage plebiscite, destined to go down. But unless it has a change of heart, the industrial bills – to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and toughen union governance – would be waiting until the final sitting fortnight, starting November 21. That is, if they are to be considered this year.</p>
<p>Turnbull on Thursday left up in the air whether the bills would come to a vote before the parliament gets up for the summer recess. “It will depend on our discussions with the crossbench. The reality is, as John Howard always said, politics is governed by the iron law of arithmetic,” he said.</p>
<p>The government would present the industrial legislation “when we believe there is a majority that will support it and on terms that we will accept”, he said. “It is important that we commit to a vote that we can win in the Senate.”</p>
<p>There is another important consideration in politics and that’s demonstrating leadership and resoluteness. The government made these bills triggers for a double dissolution. It has previously been very hopeful of getting them through. Turnbull’s own credibility surely requires that the bills go to a Senate vote before Christmas, whatever the outcome.</p>
<p>At worst the government suffers a defeat, which admittedly would be a blow for Turnbull. But at least he would be making a gesture on the legislation he argued is so critical.</p>
<p>As double dissolution bills, they are eligible to go to a joint sitting, but the government believes they would fare worse there than in the Senate.</p>
<p>Turnbull desperately needs some policy achievements by year’s end, and these bills are the obvious candidates. If they are pushed to a vote, this would concentrate the minds of the crossbenchers, who otherwise might just procrastinate endlessly.</p>
<p>The prospect of success is not likely to be much improved by delay and there is the outside risk that, if things turn out badly for the government, the ALP might pick up an extra number in the Day replacement.</p>
<p>The negotiations underway on the bills will be watched closely after the revelation of the horse trading on migration legislation that Abbott government ministers did with Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, giving him a sunset clause on the Adler import ban (which the government later got around, to Leyonhjelm’s anger).</p>
<p>The government has made it clear it is willing to be flexible on amendments. It knows that is its only chance.</p>
<p>As matters stand on the ABCC legislation, which is the more difficult part of the industrial relations package to get through, One Nation is mostly on side, although there is confusion about whether and how Culleton (who has been critical) would vote. At the other end of the spectrum, Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambert won’t support it.</p>
<p>Nick Xenophon has a plethora or amendments. Leyonhjelm, still smarting over his “dudding” on the Adler, had discussions with Turnbull on Thursday. “I could go either way at the moment,” he said afterwards. He is looking for a trade off on some other issue on his economic or social agenda. Derryn Hinch, who has concerns, will have amendments and demands.</p>
<p>Labor is also busy lobbying the crossbenchers, trying to prevent them being swayed.</p>
<p>Turnbull on Thursday was again attacking the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, describing it as “a union whose lawlessness is one of the great scandals, one of the great handbrakes on economic development around Australia”. If, after all the talk, he didn’t stand up and let the numbers be counted on these bills by year’s end, it would surely be seen as a lack of backbone.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/f6fth-64330b?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/f6fth-64330b?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Malcolm Turnbull laughs off the suggestion that this week’s extraordinary developments mean the Senate is in chaos. Okay, let’s humour the Prime Minister.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672492016-10-18T08:19:55Z2016-10-18T08:19:55ZTurnbull walks right into Shorten’s gun-sight<p>The government has a new buzzword. In the partyroom on Tuesday Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce urged the troops to make the Coalition’s policies “tactile”.</p>
<p>In less-fancy terminology, what they mean is showing people how the benefits of policies are tangible and real.</p>
<p>Turnbull instanced talking about health savings being about providing funds to make available expensive drugs. In industrial relations, the government’s preferred topic of the week, Turnbull casts the government’s tough industrial relations legislation as “economy-boosting” and “job-creating”.</p>
<p>The government is increasingly confident that the two double-dissolution bills – to resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and to toughen union governance – will pass the parliament. But it will have to compromise when the bills reach the Senate in order to get the required crossbench support.</p>
<p>It is willing to do so, because that is likely to lead to a better end than the riskier course of a joint sitting.</p>
<p>Mostly this will involve changes to the detail of the bills themselves. But Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm plays a wider game. He wants the ban on the importation of the Adler seven-shot lever-action shotgun lifted as a quid pro quo. He claims he was previously dudded because the ban was just reimposed once a sunset clause he had extracted last year came due.</p>
<p>Two seconds worth of thought would tell you that a trade-off between issues around guns and the industrial relations legislation would be a bad path for Turnbull.</p>
<p>But interviewed on Tuesday morning Turnbull did not flatly shut down the Leyonhjelm demand, as he should have. He didn’t want to get drawn on negotiations or further irritate Leyonhjelm, who already describes himself as “grumpy”.</p>
<p>“We will be dealing respectfully with all of the crossbench senators,” he said on the ABC. Later he told journalists: “I’m not going to speculate about negotiations with senators. I’m certainly not going to negotiate in advance.”</p>
<p>Of Leyonhjelm’s gripe he said: “David Leyonhjelm and I have discussed the matter and I’ll be working hard to ensure that any concerns or disappointment he has is addressed.” Leyonhjelm went to Turnbull to complain during the first week of the new parliament.</p>
<p>Labor, so much more agile than the government on tactics but under pressure over industrial relations, saw an opportunity to switch the heat off itself. It proposed a motion in parliament saying Turnbull “has on at least five occasions just this morning refused to rule out trading away John Howard’s gun laws to pass the Abbott government’s industrial relations bills”.</p>
<p>Tony Abbott, also sensing an opportunity, tweeted: “Disturbing to see reports of horse-trading on gun laws. ABCC should be supported on its merits.”</p>
<p>Turnbull, who had gone into the House to train the fire hose on Labor’s motion, was still trying to gain control of the issue in Question Time.</p>
<p>He declared there was “no chance” of the government “weakening, watering down John Howard’s gun laws”.</p>
<p>He said that presently lever-action shotguns were in the most easily acquired category of guns. After a proposal last year to import a significant number of the beefed-up version in question, there had been a need to get federal-state agreement on a reclassification – which hasn’t yet been reached.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth had imposed the import ban, pending an agreement, “to hold the ring and prevent the lever action guns of that capacity to be imported at all”. The ban would continue until the classification was sorted.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the opposition was pursuing the fact that in Abbott’s time Leyonhjelm’s obtaining the sunset clause had secured his opposition to Labor amendments on migration legislation.</p>
<p>By now what Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek called “guns for votes” had taken over the political battleground. The opposition had shifted the conversation from union bad behaviour, on which Labor is vulnerable, to whether Turnbull might play footsie on guns.</p>
<p>It was yet another demonstration of how, in the initial weeks of this parliament, the government is frequently outwitted by its opponents.</p>
<p>Earlier, in the Coalition partyroom, MPs had canvassed the possibility of an electronic system for parliamentary votes, raised by former minister Kevin Andrews. For example, members would still come into the chamber and take seats, but then they would insert personalised cards into machines at the desks. Turnbull is having Leader of the House Christopher Pyne bring forward a submission.</p>
<p>While the government was worrying about saving the moments, Turnbull was throwing away a day.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/t2i8v-63a385?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/t2i8v-63a385?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/3jqqj-63ac0a?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/3jqqj-63ac0a?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The government has a new buzzword. In the partyroom on Tuesday Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce urged the troops to make the Coalition’s policies “tactile”. In less-fancy terminology, what they mean…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672322016-10-18T05:42:47Z2016-10-18T05:42:47ZPolitics podcast: Stirling Griff and Skye Kakoschke-Moore on life in the Senate<p>Nick Xenophon’s two new Senate colleagues, Stirling Griff and Skye Kakoschke-Moore, are no strangers to the political process, having both worked with Xenophon behind the scenes.</p>
<p>In a joint interview, they tell Michelle Grattan about their contrasting experiences in becoming politicians. Kakoschke-Moore says she has had the benefit of being around Xenophon for nearly six years. “So I understand the way he operates,” she says. </p>
<p>Working as a Xenophon adviser, she learnt the ropes of the Senate. “It is so rule-driven and so procedure-driven that I have a great deal of sympathy for people coming into this who have had no exposure at all to the inner workings of Senate procedure.”</p>
<p>Stirling Griff, on the other hand, has had a “huge learning curve”. </p>
<p>“I’m following behind Skye like she’s the mother hen and I imagine I’ll be doing that really for another few more weeks,” he says. </p>
<p>With the government’s industrial relations legislation before the parliament, the Nick Xenophon Team is looking for some amendments. </p>
<p>“Particularly in relation to the building code and requiring building projects, to the greatest extent possible, to use Australian goods and services. So we’ll be looking at the bills closely but we’ll also be keeping an open mind to amendments,” Kakoschke-Moore says. </p>
<p>The pair are dismissive of any move by senator David Leyonhjelm to push for concessions on gun laws in exchange for passage of the industrial relations bills.</p>
<p>“They’re not related and we don’t want to play those games,” Griff says.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nick Xenophon's two new Senate colleagues, Stirling Griff and Skye Kakoschke-Moore, are no strangers to the political process.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/655032016-09-15T12:29:48Z2016-09-15T12:29:48ZGrattan on Friday: The Turnbull government begins to wash its face<p>Finally – though who knows for how long – we see signs of the Turnbull government pulling up its socks. Or, to adapt a phrase often used by Scott Morrison, it started to “wash its face” in this second week of the new parliament.</p>
<p>The deal with Labor to secure the passage of its omnibus bill, which will now produce A$6.3 billion in savings, and the (albeit belated) announcement of a compromise superannuation package that won the support of the Coalition backbench were positive signs for a prime minister whose first anniversary received mostly bad reviews.</p>
<p>Both tone and focus were better from a government that’s been all over the place as well as ill-disciplined – although the need for a filibuster when the Senate lacked work on Monday was untidy.</p>
<p>On the other side of the ledger it seems nearly certain the legislation introduced on Wednesday for the same-sex marriage plebiscite is doomed, because Bill Shorten has flagged Labor is readying to oppose it. But even that has some upside for Malcolm Turnbull, who could do without the distraction of a campaign.</p>
<p>Despite the spotlight on the Senate crossbench, the first legislative pact of the new parliament – on the omnibus bill – was between government and Labor. They also agreed, to the anger of the Greens, to sit the Senate as late as necessary on Thursday to get the bill through before parliament rose for a three-week break.</p>
<p>The big question is whether this will be the start of further government-Labor co-operation on the key issue of budget repair. Shorten doesn’t want to give Turnbull any breaks, but Labor also has to keep burnishing its economic responsibility credentials.</p>
<p>The government needs to tot up more wins, and quite quickly – and not just on budget matters but on other issues too. The signs are its approach will be more pragmatic than pure, as we have seen on the omnibus bill and super.</p>
<p>With speculation that it will split its company tax cut to get the easier part passed – the relief for smaller enterprises – Morrison was asked on Thursday how flexible he’d be on the tax plan. “We’ll work with the parliament to maximise everything we can achieve in this parliament,” he said. “And where I can get 100% of 100%, I will go for 100% of 100%, but 100% of nothing is not the sort of pragmatic approach that I think the Australian people expect of this government.”</p>
<p>If the government is to get through its double dissolution trigger measures to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and toughen union governance, compromises will be needed, and those will have to be with crossbenchers rather than Labor. Employment Minister Michaelia Cash will be working on this during the parliamentary break.</p>
<p>So far the non-Green Senate crossbenchers haven’t had to do anything difficult. It’s been their peacock time, when newcomers have flaunted colourful and controversial claims and opinions in maiden speeches.</p>
<p>Derryn Hinch spoke for more than 45 minutes – the usual is 20 – and named alleged paedophiles. One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts called for an “Aus-exit” from the United Nations, with its “unelected swill”. </p>
<p>Pauline Hanson, in a twist on her original maiden speech, declared Australia was being swamped by Muslims and Muslim immigration should be stopped.</p>
<p>To stretch a concept mostly associated with issues, Hanson presents a “wicked problem” for the government. She’s a player with substantial power. She heads a Senate party of four; for the government to get measures through that are opposed by Labor and Greens, Hansonite votes will be needed. On the other hand, Turnbull abhors her offensive and divisive signature stands.</p>
<p>So the government has to deal with her on a day-to-day basis, but also distance itself from her extremism. If it robustly contests her views it amplifies her voice, and may make negotiations over legislation more difficult. If it pulls its punches, for expediency or to deny her oxygen, it fails both to defend decent values and to adequately reassure the Muslim community that she is attacking.</p>
<p>Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sinodinos told the ABC on Thursday: “We are not going to fall into the trap of beating up on her, increasing her prominence which then attracts more people potentially to her.”</p>
<p>A lot of eyes are also on Hanson’s team members. Will the loose ties holding them together come apart? Observers noted this week that already the Hansonites weren’t always voting as a bloc.</p>
<p>The next parliamentary sitting will give a better idea of how well the government is coping with this 45th parliament. In the meantime Turnbull, after his recent successful summit round, is now off to New York and Washington, where he will address the UN, attend US President Barack Obama’s summit on refugees, and meet with heads and experts from intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>On the eve of the trip, Turnbull paid an unexpectedly strong tribute to the man he overthrew a year ago this week. With Abbott sitting on the backbench, Turnbull referred in Thursday’s Question Time to “the debt” owed to him “for the leadership he showed on coming into office as prime minister in working to galvanise the strongest possible international response to the evolving threat of Daesh” and “the strength of purpose he brought to the task of restoring the integrity of our borders”.</p>
<p>The words, however, would not be a salve for the unreconciled former leader, for whom this week was the bleakest of anniversaries.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/fa8k8-62a3b1?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/fa8k8-62a3b1?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Finally – though who knows for how long – we see signs of the Turnbull government pulling up its socks.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646812016-08-31T09:24:30Z2016-08-31T09:24:30ZIn search of authority, Turnbull can’t afford to lose the industrial relations bills<p>Dressed predictably if absurdly in a fluoro vest, with Employment Minister Michaelia Cash sporting matching gear, Malcolm Turnbull was out first thing on Wednesday spruiking his industrial relations legislation, which he introduced in the House later in the morning.</p>
<p>How important this legislation is to Turnbull was reinforced when he told reporters he might join Cash in some of the discussions she and crossbenchers will have.</p>
<p>With every sign the new parliament will be difficult, Turnbull needs early wins on important measures. One is the omnibus bill of about A$6 billion in savings (where the opposition discovered a $107 million error). Others are these industrial relations measures – the double-dissolution bills to resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to toughen union governance, as well as (added in the election campaign) the bill, arising from the Victorian stoush, to protect volunteer firefighters.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the firefighter legislation, there are two possible routes for passing the other bills: the normal avenue or a joint sitting.</p>
<p>Before they can go to a joint sitting, they first have to be put to parliament in the same form they were previously considered and rejected pre-election.</p>
<p>The government is anxious to try to get them through at this first stage. If that can’t be done, a joint sitting would be problematic on the numbers. Much better to make a few compromises – which is what the government is signalling – to attempt to win crossbench senators’ support so it doesn’t come to that.</p>
<p>If he can get these bills passed, Turnbull will have given some succour to various constituencies, including the conservatives in his ranks as well as business. If he fails, he is in even deeper trouble than now.</p>
<p>While these and other bills are coming in with a flurry the votes are a while away. Parliament has next week off, when Turnbull is out of the country on the summit round. For Turnbull this initial sitting week is one for starting processes – and having the fire hose out.</p>
<p>Labor began parliament’s initial workday by moving its well-previewed motion urging a royal commission into the banks. The government’s numbers held to vote it down. It threw a bone to those in its ranks concerned by banks’ bad behaviour by ordering the small business and family enterprise ombudsman to examine specific cases of abuses and recommend whether more reform is needed. An existing inquiry is looking at a possible disputes tribunal.</p>
<p>It will be harder for Turnbull to close down the backbench pressure to revisit Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, given that all but one Coalition backbench senators has signed up to a private member’s bill to amend the section. Turnbull reiterated in the House that the government has “no plans to change Section 18C”. But the conservatives see this as a signature issue and will keep it on the agenda.</p>
<p>Labor seized on a report from a new book by Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen saying that Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison had argued in cabinet to tighten negative gearing concessions but were later persuaded otherwise by ministerial supporters of Tony Abbott. It was potentially manna for the opposition but Turnbull’s denial of the account took some steam out of the attack.</p>
<p>Labor’s push for a royal commission on banking and the conservatives’ pressure over 18C were well-flagged. But an embarrassment for Labor came out of the blue this week.</p>
<p>ALP senator Sam Dastyari has achieved a high profile for prosecuting issues of corporate bad behaviour. Given he has been so out there, one would have thought he’d have been more careful with his own affairs. </p>
<p>Having a Chinese company, Top Education Institute, with links to the Chinese government, pay the $1,670 he overspent of his travel budget is extraordinary. He declared the payment on his pecuniary interest register but on any view it was inappropriate for him to send on the bill. </p>
<p>In a move to limit the damage, Dastyari on Wednesday admitted his error and announced that he was sending the amount to charity – only to be embarrassed further when the first charity declined it. Dastyari on Wednesday evening tweeted:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"770884853432619008"}"></div></p>
<p>Apart from the immediate problem, such an incident invites wider scrutiny and is there to be brought up later. Critics are poring over other benefits Dastyari has received from the Chinese; his credibility has received a knock.</p>
<p>The Dastyari affair took some edge off Labor’s day. More broadly, Labor had its tail up but didn’t manage to sink its teeth into the government.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/hhp9v-623f59?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/hhp9v-623f59?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/v6jnr-622f76?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/v6jnr-622f76?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Dressed predictably if absurdly in a fluoro vest, with Employment Minister Michaelia Cash sporting matching gear, Malcolm Turnbull was out first thing on Wednesday spruiking his industrial relations legislation…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623452016-07-12T19:45:29Z2016-07-12T19:45:29ZExplainer: what happens now to the bills that triggered the double-dissolution election?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130136/original/image-20160712-9264-1gcgs0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joint sittings of federal parliament are rare, usually only taking place for addresses by foreign leaders.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia has just had a <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-explainer-what-does-it-mean-that-were-having-a-double-dissolution-election-56671">double-dissolution election</a>. The election was called after <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-the-abcc-and-registered-organisations-bills-56676">two industrial relations bills</a> twice failed to pass the Senate. This triggered the deadlock provisions in the Constitution. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s57.html">Section 57</a> of the Constitution sets out what happens in the event of a disagreement between the House of Representatives and the Senate, when a bill fails to pass the Senate twice. </p>
<p>In this situation, the governor-general (with the prime minister’s advice) can trigger a double-dissolution election, where both the Senate and the House of Representatives are simultaneously dissolved. In a normal election, only half of the Senate is dissolved. </p>
<p>Australia’s founders envisaged there would be disagreements between the houses of parliament. The double-dissolution election procedure was intended to break any deadlocks by giving the people a say when our elected representatives in parliament cannot agree on important policy matters. </p>
<p>Following the election, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jul/05/coalition-will-put-abcc-bill-to-joint-sitting-despite-lacking-numbers-to-pass">has committed</a> to try to pass the bills. </p>
<h2>So, what happens next?</h2>
<p>Now that we have had the double-dissolution election, the next step is for the government to attempt again to pass the bills through the House of Representatives and Senate. </p>
<p>The government appears to have the numbers to pass the bills in the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/federal-election-results-2016-coalition-will-be-able-to-form-government/news-story/1058a620130d9fdf7d4e1fa72bc3c1f5">House of Representatives</a>. If the newly composed Senate refuses to pass the bills, the governor-general, on the prime minister’s advice, may convene a joint sitting of both houses of parliament. </p>
<p>In this joint sitting, the bills will pass only if they are supported by an absolute majority – that is, more than 50% of the total number of members of both houses. </p>
<p>If the bills still fail to pass, then the deadlock provisions in the Constitution are completed. This means that if the government wants to reintroduce the bills again, it can do so, but it will have to go through the whole rigmarole of the constitutional deadlock provisions from scratch. </p>
<p>This means trying to pass the bills through the Senate twice more and then going to a double-dissolution election once again, and then trying to pass the bills through both houses and, if the bills still don’t pass, convening yet another joint sitting. </p>
<p>It is difficult to imagine that the government would want to go down this path.</p>
<h2>Has this happened before?</h2>
<p>Australia has previously <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/house_of_representatives/powers_practice_and_procedure/00_-_infosheets/infosheet_18_-_double_dissolution">had only six</a> double-dissolution elections. </p>
<p>A joint sitting of both houses has only ever happened once in Australia. In 1974, the Whitlam government convened a joint sitting to pass six bills introducing territorial representation in the Senate, Medicare and the Petroleum and Minerals Authority. These bills were passed at the joint sitting with the required absolute majority of both houses.</p>
<p>Another infamous double dissolution took place following the <a href="http://naa.gov.au/collection/snapshots/dismissal/index.aspx">Whitlam government’s dismissal</a>, after the Senate refused to pass the budget bills to provide funds for the government to operate. This provided a double-dissolution trigger. </p>
<p>Controversially, the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, dismissed Gough Whitlam for being unable to secure money to govern. Kerr appointed the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker prime minister. Fraser then called a double-dissolution election, which he won by a large majority. </p>
<p>All the other deadlocks were resolved by either the government losing the election, thus rendering the bill moot (in 1914 and 1983), or gaining power in both houses to pass the bill (1951). A government has also chosen once not to proceed with a joint sitting for a double-dissolution bill following an election, in 1987.</p>
<h2>What is likely to happen?</h2>
<p>With a Senate that looks <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/australian-federal-election-2016-who-is-on-the-new-senate-crossbench-20160703-gpxgjj.html">even more difficult and unwieldy</a> than before the election and fewer government members in the House of Representatives, it is unlikely that the Turnbull government has the numbers to pass the industrial relations bills in a joint sitting. </p>
<p>So Australia is hurtling toward new constitutional territory. This may be the first time that a joint sitting of parliament will be convened only for the bill to ultimately be rejected. </p>
<p>It is possible that Turnbull will go down in constitutional and political history as being the first prime minister to take a double dissolution all the way to the end – and fail.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yee-Fui Ng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Now that we have had the double-dissolution election, the next step is for the government to attempt to pass the industrial relations bills through the House of Representatives and Senate again.Yee-Fui Ng, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/582802016-04-22T03:12:09Z2016-04-22T03:12:09ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the unofficial election campaign<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yD039d5ZHoM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>With the defeat of the government’s industrial relations legislation in the Senate, politicians are gearing up for the July 2 double-dissolution election. But while the nation moves into unofficial election mode, Malcolm Turnbull is quick to emphasise he is still in a governing phase.</p>
<p>University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the idea of an election caretaker period, the competing bids to build Australia’s next fleet of submarines, and the public’s mood on bad behaviour by the banks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the nation moves into unofficial election mode, Malcolm Turnbull is quick to emphasise he is still in a governing phase.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraStephen Parker, Vice-Chancellor, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/580762016-04-19T13:01:25Z2016-04-19T13:01:25ZIn election countdown, Turnbull has to juggle ‘governing’ and ‘campaigning’<p>Malcolm Turnbull was in full lawyer mode when he confirmed on Tuesday the July 2 double dissolution, hedging his wording to meet constitutional niceties.</p>
<p>He said that “an appropriate time” after the May 3 budget he would ask Governor-General Peter Cosgrove to dissolve both houses of parliament “for an election, which I expect to be held on 2 July”.</p>
<p>Pressed by frustrated reporters on why he wasn’t being more explicit, Turnbull said he was paying due respect to the governor-general.</p>
<p>In Question Time – the last before parliament resumes for budget week – Opposition Leader Bill Shorten briefly surfed in on this prime ministerial pedantry. Shorten accused Turnbull of being “paralysed”, although he’d have known this was nothing more than a courtesy – and perhaps a subtle contrast with Stephen Conroy’s discourtesy to Cosgrove on Monday.</p>
<p>In seeking a double dissolution election, a government presents its “trigger” bills to establish there is a deadlock between the houses, so the constitutional conditions have been met for the governor-general to act.</p>
<p>The Turnbull government has undisputed triggers in the rejected industrial relations legislation, including restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).</p>
<p>While what formally triggers such an election is often not much in evidence in the campaign, the government is linking its commitment to the ABCC into both its broad economic story and its anti-union message.</p>
<p>In Tuesday’s news conference at a Canberra building site, Turnbull said the ABCC’s restoration after an election win was part of the government’s economic plan, every element of which – including innovation, free trade, competition reform, the defence white paper, shipbuilding investments – “is focused on delivering jobs”.</p>
<p>The government’s immediate challenge is juggling “campaigning” with “governing”. “Governing” carries more authority; besides, the Coalition wants to avoid a Labor argument getting traction that this is a semi-caretaker period so it shouldn’t be making controversial decisions that could commit a successor government.</p>
<p>“I just want to be very clear that we are governing,” Turnbull said. “We have a lot of decisions to make, not least of which is the budget.”</p>
<p>In the Coalition partyroom, Treasurer Scott Morrison erected a high bar for that budget, saying it wasn’t a “normal or typical” one because it would be “a jump-off point for a federal election”, providing the foundation of the economic plan to be taken to voters.</p>
<p>Morrison listed three tasks for the budget: to stick to the government’s plan for jobs and growth; to support a sustainable tax system, focused on investment, that would support expenditure; and to ensure the government lived within its means, just as households must do.</p>
<p>Anticipating whatever tax changes are in the budget – the trimming of superannuation concessions has been widely canvassed – Morrison allowed for altering the mix of taxes but not the overall burden.</p>
<p>As it prepares its election pitch the government has to urgently address the need to be seen to be doing something about banks’ bad behaviour.</p>
<p>Backbenchers talked banks in the party room, with a couple urging a royal commission – to which the government remains adamantly opposed – while others complained about the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).</p>
<p>Aware it is bleeding in the debate about a royal commission, with Shorten painting the Liberals as “defending vested interests and the big banks”, the government is about to beef up ASIC, responding to a report commissioned by Joe Hockey.</p>
<p>Morrison told the party meeting ASIC had to be more “focused”; it required greater surveillance capability and a more prosecutorial attitude. He said the government had accepted the recommendations of the financial systems inquiry for increased penalties and a capacity for ASIC to intervene in financial products.</p>
<p>On Wednesday the government will announce a package of about A$120 million over several years for ASIC’s operations. The banks will be stung to recover the cost.</p>
<p>Turnbull is also moving to fill in gaps in Coalition education policy. While at the recent Council of Australian Governments meeting the government indicated what funding it will provide to the states for hospitals, it left hanging the money for schools, which did not have to be settled so quickly.</p>
<p>But given Labor is making a big schools offer, the government can’t go through an election campaign staying mum. Nor can it avoid detailing its higher education policy – so botched in the 2014 budget.</p>
<p>Asked about these areas Turnbull said: “You can be very safe in assuming that our education policy will be clearly set out between now and the election.”</p>
<p>While the government has public gaps in its education plans, Labor is yet to spell out its health policy. One question – which Shorten dodged on Tuesday – is whether Labor would leave the health insurance rebate intact.</p>
<p>Another question he avoided is whether a Labor government would restore the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, scrapped by parliament this week. The tribunal might be an article of faith with the opposition’s union base, but a pledge to bring it back would give ammunition to Turnbull, who claimed the abolition saves 50,000 jobs.</p>
<p>Shorten told caucus that beyond Turnbull’s popularity, the government had nothing.</p>
<p>At a news conference he boiled down Labor’s pitch. “Labor is ready for this election because we know what we stand for. Decent jobs, well-funded education, quality health care, protecting Medicare, renewable energy encouraged to take up the burden of climate change, and a fair taxation system.”</p>
<p>Despite Turnbull’s popularity – still high though it has progressively declined – Labor is not shying away from directly targeting leadership. “Australians are getting increasingly sick and tired of a prime minister who dithers and does not deliver,” Shorten said. “In the last seven months plus, we’ve seen a prime minister slowly shrink into his job.”</p>
<p>This targeting is a mark of how far Shorten and Labor have come. </p>
<iframe id="audio_iframe" src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/wm9y6-5e8e62?from=yiiadmin" data-link="http://www.podbean.com/media/player/wm9y6-5e8e62?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Malcolm Turnbull was in full lawyer mode when he confirmed on Tuesday the July 2 double dissolution, hedging his wording to meet constitutional niceties. He said that “an appropriate time” after the May…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/579882016-04-18T20:12:33Z2016-04-18T20:12:33ZExplainer: the road to a July 2 double-dissolution election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119078/original/image-20160418-1514-gaop2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malcolm Turnbull appears to have built his government’s electoral strategy on contesting a double-dissolution election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia appears set for a double-dissolution federal election on July 2 after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-the-abcc-and-registered-organisations-bills-56676">government’s bill</a> to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/apr/18/polls-on-a-knife-edge-as-parliament-resumes-for-a-special-sitting-politics-live?page=with:block-57149a5fe4b0f7944b3e3e76#block-57149a5fe4b0f7944b3e3e76">failed to pass</a> the Senate – again.</p>
<h2>How double dissolutions work</h2>
<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull appears to have built his government’s electoral strategy on contesting a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-double-dissolution-elections-and-why-might-we-soon-have-one-56134">double-dissolution election</a>. <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s57.html">Section 57</a> of the Constitution allows the governor-general to dissolve both the House of Representatives and the Senate and hold fresh elections if the Senate twice rejects a bill.</p>
<p>This, according to Westminster tradition, can only be done if the prime minister advises the governor-general to do so.</p>
<p>If the government is returned after winning the subsequent election (and the houses disagree again on the same bill), a joint sitting of both houses may be held to resolve the matter.</p>
<p>Unlike the House of Representatives, in which all seats are up for election, only half of the 12 senators from each state are up for election at a normal poll. At a double-dissolution election, however, all 12 senators are up for election from each state.</p>
<h2>What about the budget?</h2>
<p>Despite apparent <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/treasurer-scott-morrison-emasculated-by-malcolm-turnbulls-budget-timing-labor-20160321-gnn6ov.html">miscommunication</a> between the prime minister and treasurer, the budget has been brought forward a week to May 3. This is the biggest opportunity for the government to try and set its policy course and demonstrate to the electorate why it deserves another term in office.</p>
<p>Bringing the budget forward will also bring forward the budget reply speech, which is usually delivered by the opposition leader a couple of nights after the budget is handed down. </p>
<p>This speech will present Bill Shorten and Labor with a platform to present themselves as an attractive alternative to the Coalition. It would serve as a campaign launch of sorts. Labor could signal the policies it would pursue if elected to government.</p>
<h2>Calling the election</h2>
<p>With the budget and reply speech out of the way, the government will be free to call the double dissolution by May 11 and hold the election on July 2.</p>
<p>Doing so will ensure the government reduces the potential complications of <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2016/03/senate-electoral-reform-double-dissolutions-and-section-64-of-the-constitution.html#more">backdating Senate terms</a>. </p>
<p>A July 2 double-dissolution election would also mean that the government would have the full three years to govern.</p>
<h2>The exodus from Canberra</h2>
<p>Having a clearer sense of the election’s timing, MPs will leave Canberra and return to their electorates to embark on the final stage of campaign preparations.</p>
<p>Traditionally, it’s the MPs who hold seats with fine margins (from about 5% and under) who will engage in vigorous campaigning to head off their challengers.</p>
<p>This will be <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-retail-politics-16997">most evident</a> in the shopping centres, cafés, small businesses and a range of community spaces that will be awash with candidates meeting with constituents, hearing their concerns and kissing their babies. Hard-hats and hi-vis jackets will be donned and sleeves will be rolled back. Partisan volunteers will be enlisted. The traditional stuffing of mailboxes with party paraphernalia will ensue.</p>
<p>A challenge for candidates, their staff, the media and commentators will be the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-long-election-campaign-is-not-necessarily-a-big-risk-for-turnbull-56666">length of the campaign</a>. Usually, a federal campaign is around five weeks but this campaign will go beyond seven, if called for July 2 on May 11. With more campaign time comes more potential for gaffes and voter fatigue.</p>
<p>Australia’s 44th parliament may be coming to an end, but there will be plenty of political action before the 45th can start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zareh Ghazarian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s 44th parliament may be coming to an end, but there will be plenty of political action before the 45th can start.Zareh Ghazarian, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/569012016-04-18T20:09:53Z2016-04-18T20:09:53ZBudget explainer: the problem with measuring productivity<p>Productivity seems to be one of the measures the Federal Government is using to justify its policy decisions in the lead up to the budget. </p>
<p>The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull invoked this little understood term in relation to the bill to resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://theconversation.com/turnbull-ultimatum-july-2-double-dissolution-unless-reconvened-senate-passes-industrial-relations-bills-56586">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the Australian Building and Construction Commission was last in force, productivity in the sector grew by 20%. Since it was abolished productivity has flat-lined.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether that is true or not depends mostly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/22/does-malcolm-turnbulls-claim-the-abcc-will-increase-productivity-stack-up">on who you ask</a>.</p>
<p>That’s because productivity is a very rubbery concept, enormously tricky to measure and highly politicised. In fact, of all the tasks given to national statistical agencies, measuring productivity is one of the most difficult. </p>
<h2>How the changing economy affects productivity</h2>
<p>As countries like Australia move from an industrial economy to an economy that is largely made up of various services, the challenges in measuring and understanding productivity growth become more complex. </p>
<p>In an agricultural economy, the two resources that determine growth are land and labour, when the population rises it drives an increase in what is produced. However if labour and produce are at the same rate there is little or no increase in productivity, because productivity is when the ratio of produce increases in relation to labour.</p>
<p>The creation of an industrial economy in Australia required lots of investment in infrastructure. This combined with labour, resulted in a higher rate of productivity growth than previously possible. As that higher growth rate was sustained over decades of industrialisation it allowed <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/income-distribution-trends/income-distribution-trends.pdf">incomes and living standards to rise</a>.</p>
<p>Many economists attribute the high rate of productivity growth in the 1990s to the <a href="http://archive.treasury.gov.au/documents/1633/RTF/4_Productivity_Growth_Submission.rtf">rapid development of information technology</a> and telecommunications industries. There was a surge in investment in these industries as these technologies became more widely used in other industries, and were adapted for a wide variety of uses.</p>
<p>It’s likely that <a href="http://www.acola.org.au/PDF/SAF04Reports/SAF04%20Role%20of%20SRT%20in%20lifting%20Aus%20Productivity%20FINAL%20REPORT.pdf">new technologies</a> like nanotechnology, molecular biology, genetic medicine, artificial intelligence, additative manufacturing (3D printing) and remote sensing will be the drivers of growth and productivity in the coming decades. These industries need highly skilled people and lots of investment. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/knowledge-economy">knowledge economy</a> intellectual capital is as significant as physical capital. Nowadays, investment in workforce skills and training has joined infrastructure as a driver of productivity. </p>
<p>Estimates of annual growth are calculated by immense amounts of data and are <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/productivity-update/pc-productivity-update-2015">typically around 1-2% a year</a>, plus or minus.</p>
<p>It’s much harder to measure the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-innovation-fails-to-fix-our-finances-53876">emerging digital and knowledge economy</a> with this data, so statistical agencies are developing new sources that use information such as business tax information and other digital data. If this data is underestimating what is being produced, while the workforce is increasing, the growth rate and level of productivity will also be underestimated. </p>
<p>This might be part of the reason Australia seems to be in economic slowdown. </p>
<h2>Productivity and government policy</h2>
<p>The reason <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/industry-and-services/oecd-compendium-of-productivity-indicators-2012_9789264188846-en">productivity</a> is such a central idea in both economics and politics is the role it plays in long-term economic growth and development. Productivity growth comes mainly from invention and innovation, and these in turn come mainly from new knowledge in the form of scientific and technological discoveries.</p>
<p>This is why the political agenda linking research, development and innovation to productivity, incomes and living standards is so attractive. It seems to be a bottomless source of growth and prosperity. This is not really the case, because productivity growth also requires substantial <a href="http://www.sgsep.com.au/assets/productivity-and-agglomeration-benefits-COAG-report-final.pdf">investment</a>.</p>
<p>The benefits from increasing productivity are similar to the gains from compound interest – small annual amounts can, over enough time, lead to large gains. However, because it is incremental and compounds slowly, productivity is not really suitable as a policy target. There are two main reasons for this.</p>
<p>First, unlike other targets such as business investment or employment, the long-term nature of productivity growth means year-to-year rates should not be used as a policy target. There is no direct method of quickly affecting productivity growth, long-term planning is always difficult because it crosses the election cycle, and government policies constantly change. Further, the <a href="http://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/054be8804db753a6843aa4ab7d7326c0/INR+Note+1+-+The+Impact+of+Infrastructure+on+Growth.pdf?MOD=AJPERES">benefits</a> of improved productivity are spread very unevenly across industries and regions. </p>
<p>Second, there are also short-term fluctuations due to the business cycle. The productivity growth rate tends to move up and down with <a href="http://archive.treasury.gov.au/documents/1304/HTML/docshell.asp?URL=03_Recent_productivity_outcomes.asp">GDP</a> growth rates, rising during expansions and falling in contractions. </p>
<p>Productivity can be used to support a wide range of policy options. It can support arguments for more infrastructure, tax breaks for business, more spending on education, energy diversification, enabling start-ups and venture capital, microeconomic reform such as competition policy and labour markets, increasing connectivity and so on. </p>
<p>All these policies can support improved productivity, if they are well designed and implemented. However, many of the current policy settings were put in place when we had an industrial economy and are not really suited to the emerging post-industrial economy of the <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/global-flows-in-a-digital-age">21st century</a>. </p>
<p>If raising productivity is the goal, many different policies need to work effectively and reinforce each other. And these policies will only work over the medium to long-term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerard de Valence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voters will hear a lot about productivity in the lead up to the budget. The key thing to remember is that it’s a very rubbery concept, enormously tricky to measure and highly politicised.Gerard de Valence, Senior Lecturer, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/580112016-04-18T14:08:18Z2016-04-18T14:08:18ZTurnbull looks like a sprinter but is in a marathon<p>When the politicians arrived in Canberra for their special parliamentary session, it was obvious everyone wanted to do what was necessary for a July 2 election, and do it quickly.</p>
<p>Instead of taking weeks to consider the industrial relations legislation, the Senate by dinnertime Monday had given the government its second double-dissolution trigger, by rejecting the resurrection of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).</p>
<p>Then the legislation to scrap the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which the government only introduced on Monday morning, passed both houses in the day.</p>
<p>Government and opposition have been priming for weeks for the July 2 double dissolution. The pivotal crossbenchers, who held the election in their hands, had variously decided a double dissolution was in their interests or resigned themselves to the political oblivion it will bring.</p>
<p>With the government’s support uncomfortably low and in danger of further erosion without a circuit-breaker, Malcolm Turnbull has every interest in getting to the polls ASAP. After the build-up, it would have been awkward if the Senate had capitulated and the election had had to be rescheduled some months on.</p>
<p>Labor, with the numbers to defeat the ABCC bill, had the motive not to delay. It didn’t want many days of well-aired debate about union bad behaviour.</p>
<p>As it was, Labor embarrassed itself on Monday, thanks to the extraordinary attack by its deputy Senate leader Stephen Conroy on Governor-General Peter Cosgrove.</p>
<p>Conroy’s comparison of Cosgrove’s proroguing the parliament with John Kerr’s sacking of Gough Whitlam was absurd as well as offensive. Cosgrove acted, as he properly should have, on the advice of his prime minister, and Turnbull’s advice to him was perfectly in order under the Constitution. Kerr defied and deceived his prime minister.</p>
<p>We will remember 2016 as the endless election campaign.</p>
<p>We’ve been in a faux campaign for nearly a month – ever since Turnbull gave the Senate the ultimatum to pass the industrial relations bills or face the people.</p>
<p>A double dissolution was thought from the start to be Turnbull’s preference. Some crossbenchers say the government wasn’t serious about negotiating on the ABCC legislation, although certain demands were out of the ballpark even if the government had been receptive.</p>
<p>While we are now sure of the election’s date and nature, we’re still a while from its formal calling. That will follow budget week – probably on the weekend of May 7-8.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the government is going hell for leather not only to get the budget finalised but to deal with outstanding items including whatever it intends to say about the submarine contract, so vital to South Australian seats.</p>
<p>Budgets are always important but seldom quite as crucial as the one that Treasurer Scott Morrison will deliver on May 3.</p>
<p>It would sour the start of the formal campaign if it were off-key, got a thumbs-down from the media, and the public reacted negatively.</p>
<p>This week’s Newspoll indicated voters want an economically cautious budget. Asked what the priority of the next government should be, 39% said reduce spending to pay down debt, 26% said reduce spending to cut taxes, while 23% said increase spending on government programs.</p>
<p>But what people say when talking in a poll and how they react to specific measures can be quite different.</p>
<p>The government needs its budget to be seen as both responsible and robust. It has to satisfy the fiscal imperatives – and the rating agency Moody’s delivered a sharp warning about the dangers of debt last week. It should not be a do-nothing budget. Among other areas, eyes will be on tax, where initial sweeping ambitions have shrunk muchly.</p>
<p>With polling showing Turnbull has disappointed the hopes and expectations of many voters, he and his team can’t afford to do so again on May 3. No pressure, Scott Morrison, but you are headed into the test of your political life.</p>
<p>Despite the polls, most observers see Turnbull as favourite to win the election. But Shorten enters the coming weeks very well placed – an extraordinary turnaround given his earlier position.</p>
<p>Labor has been strategic and bold. It has not just released a body of policy but been willing to take risks with it. Ultimate judgements about those risks – especially whether it has gone too far on negative gearing – must wait.</p>
<p>But most significantly, Labor has been able to nail what has emerged as Turnbull’s vulnerability – his failure so far to articulate clearly what he stands for, to set out a course and hold to it. The opposition has developed a narrative about Turnbull’s lack of narrative.</p>
<p>The length and the unusual nature of this campaign, with its stages – pre-budget, then from budget to formal announcement, followed by the campaign proper – will require extreme stamina and steadiness from both Turnbull and Shorten. It will be hard to find enough content to fill all those weeks. Without sufficient content, there is the danger, especially for Turnbull, of wandering into quicksand.</p>
<p>It is not just the leaders’ standing as they go into a campaign that’s important. How the campaign evolves week by week can be decisive. Given Turnbull’s tendency to a discursive style, one would think a short sharp sprint might be safest. Instead he has to run a marathon.</p>
<iframe id="audio_iframe" src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/xdwwc-5e609a?from=yiiadmin" data-link="http://www.podbean.com/media/player/xdwwc-5e609a?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
When the politicians arrived in Canberra for their special parliamentary session, it was obvious everyone wanted to do what was necessary for a July 2 election, and do it quickly. Instead of taking weeks…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/564292016-04-17T20:12:33Z2016-04-17T20:12:33ZIdeas for Australia: Improving democracy for workers is not easy but it must be done<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117574/original/image-20160406-28989-16dr9a7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Employees need to have more say at work, which means tackling all forms of corruption and law-breaking.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation has asked 20 academics to examine the big ideas facing Australia for the 2016 federal election and beyond. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ideas-for-australia">20-piece series</a> will examine, among others, the state of democracy, health, education, environment, equality, freedom of speech, federation and economic reform.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>There’s a phrase you sometimes hear about the workplace: “leave your brains at the gate”. </p>
<p>Workers use it to summarise the dismissive view their bosses have about the contribution employees can make – and about how much say workers have in what they do at work.</p>
<p>Not all bosses are like that. But it seems most employees want more say at work – sometimes called “voice” or “participation in decision-making” or even “workplace democracy”. </p>
<h2>Having a say at work</h2>
<p>Two trends have affected employees’ ability to have more say at work.</p>
<p>The first is the decline in union membership over the past three decades. It has fallen from over 40% of employees in 1988 <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6333.0">to 16% in 2014</a>. </p>
<p>Unions were the workers’ “voice” at work. At times they forced managers to take account of, or even accede to, what workers wanted. </p>
<p>Lower union membership and lower union power mean less worker say at work. Internationally, higher rates of union membership had been <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/27/3627959/unions-income-inequality-2/">linked to lower inequality</a> and union bargaining to <a href="http://wes.sagepub.com/content/28/2/265.abstract">better gender equity practices</a>.</p>
<p>The second trend is how managers have changed their handling of employees. Some are seen by employees as tightening their grip over them. Barcode measurement of workers’ task times in warehouses, their scan rates in supermarkets, how many seconds they take between calls in a call centre, are all illustrations of that.</p>
<p>But some bosses are seen as giving workers more say. It’s hard to tell, but the latter group <a href="http://vital.new.voced.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/ngv:33717/SOURCE2">seems to outnumber</a> the former. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/quality-circle-QC.html">Quality circles</a>, “open-door” policies, consultative committees and the like promote that perception. Sometimes it’s for real. Sometimes employers do it to discourage workers from joining a union.</p>
<p>Often, though, it is a mirage, and lasts only until the next round of redundancies. Starbucks called its employees “partners” until it <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/starbucks-axes-partners/2008/07/29/1217097227287.html">sacked 685</a> of them. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/9/25/1136113/-Union-Busting-You-Wal-Mart-s-Handy-Guide-to-Preventing-Union-Organization">Wal-Mart</a> calls its employees “associates” unless they start using words like “grievance” or “seniority”; that could make them ex-“associates”. </p>
<p>You can try to stop employees thinking about their rights as employees by calling them “members” or something else, but that doesn’t make much difference when the pink slips go around.</p>
<p>And therein lies the problem with management-driven initiatives to give employees more say at work. What the boss giveth, the boss can take away. </p>
<p>The problem runs even deeper than this. Within the workplace, there are major concerns about working hours, work intensity, work-life balance, pressures on women, “overemployment” and underemployment, demands on employees for flexibility, job insecurity, micro-management of time and managerial efforts to control “culture”. This wouldn’t be happening if power was shifting towards workers.</p>
<p>Since the 1980s, Australia, like many other advanced industrialised countries, has experienced rising inequality and a <a href="http://www.tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/50497Aus21InequalityinAustraliaReportComplete_FA3LoRes-1.pdf">growing concentration</a> of income, wealth and power in a small group sometimes referred to as “the 1%” or, more accurately, “the 0.1%”. </p>
<p>Before the global financial crisis, members of the financial elite even spoke of the rise of “<a href="http://politicalgates.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/citigroup-plutonomy-memos-two-bombshell.html">plutonomy</a>”, an economy “powered by the wealthy”. </p>
<p>The physical <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/">climate is changing</a> because those who financially benefit from carbon pollution have externalised the costs onto the rest of society, and are now <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet-2/report/2010/3/dealing-in-doubt.pdf">resisting</a> change with all their resources.</p>
<p>All this reflects a major shift in power.</p>
<p>Whatever employers have done voluntarily about employee voice, there is little doubt that the underlying trend is towards less worker power in the workplace. And less power for the multitude means less democracy.</p>
<h2>Giving workers a voice</h2>
<p>So, what should be done about it?</p>
<p>At one level, laws encouraging or mandating specific mechanisms to increase employee say at work would help. In parts of Europe, and for large firms across Europe, laws require the establishment of “<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=707&langId=en&intPageId=211">works councils</a>” that give employees some say on defined workplace matters. </p>
<p>It’s a good idea and Australian unions were rather short-sighted when they ran cold on it some decades ago. But as worker power has declined in Europe, so too has the <a href="http://www.iab.de/764/section.aspx/Publikation/k140605v04">incidence</a> of works councils. </p>
<p>Workers need ways to increase the reality of power at the workplace, not just the formal appearance of it.</p>
<p>In the end, that means increasing the influence of worker organisations, which in Australia has mostly been unions. </p>
<p>That’s not the same as increasing the power of union officials. Unions themselves need to become more democratic — not just because democracy is a good thing in itself, but also because <a href="http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/30100/59865_1.pdf?sequence=1">union democracy seems likely to enhance the power of workers at work</a>.</p>
<p>You can’t have power in the workplace if you don’t first have power in the union.</p>
<p>A lot of this is up to unions themselves to fix. I’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/unions-part-of-the-solution-or-part-of-the-problem-37365">written</a> <a href="http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2015/02/peetz.html">elsewhere</a> about that, and won’t repeat it here. </p>
<p>They’re not likely to do this on their own. There are many organisations or movements, constituting what’s sometimes referred to as “civil society”, representing various groups that are disadvantaged or disenfranchised — even the environment. In a world where wealthy interests dominate politics, if these parts of civil society act individually they won’t get far, but acting together would be a potential game changer. </p>
<p>There are also questions about what public policy should do. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Unions_in_a_Contrary_World.html?id=c7n3UGcuLJ0C&redir_esc=y">Changes in</a> <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/current-affairs-politics/Brave-New-Workplace-David-Peetz-9781741148657">policy</a> have had no small part in union decline – in particular, by making it easier for employers to avoid or displace unions – and in the redistribution of power to a small group. </p>
<p>Industrial relations laws that made it more difficult for employers to avoid unions, and simpler for employees to unionise, would therefore be a worthwhile step.</p>
<p>So, too, would laws that genuinely facilitated democracy and prevented corruption within trade unions and other bodies. That’s the <a href="https://theconversation.com/bringing-back-building-watchdog-helps-a-political-agenda-but-not-concerns-about-union-corruption-54051">opposite</a> of what the government proposes in reintroducing the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/explainer-what-is-the-australian-building-and-construction-commission-20160321-gnn8nm.html">Australian Building and Construction Commission</a>. This has nothing to do with corruption (except in government rhetoric) and would instead reduce workers’ ability to unionise.</p>
<p>The “other bodies” part is very important. A lot of attention has been given to union law-breaking or corruption of late, but many other examples have emerged of law-breaking or corruption in <a href="http://www.grantthornton.com.au/en/client-alerts/2015/fraud-and-corruption-in-banking-financial-services/">banking</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/03/07/4417757.htm">insurance</a>, <a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/2/10/financial-services/swinging-pendulums-ir-and-financial-advice">financial advice</a>, politics and administration in <a href="http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/3813681/liberal-donations-scandal-highlights-icacs-important-work/?cs=4733#!">NSW</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-18/damien-mantach-ex-liberal-charged-over-$1.5m-taken-from-party/6951592">Victoria</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-07/corruption-watchdog-chief-blasts-tasmanian-government/6680968">Tasmania</a>, the <a href="http://m.smh.com.au/interactive/2016/the-bribe-factory/day-1/the-company-that-bribed-the-world.html">oil industry</a>, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2015/7-eleven-revealed/">franchising</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-04/supermarkets-food-outlets-exploit-black-market-migrant-workers/6441496">agriculture</a>, <a href="https://panamapapers.icij.org/">international business and politics</a> and many other areas. It seems odd that a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-22/long-why-is-no-one-questioning-the-turc-narrative/6868102">royal commission</a> focused on just one area. </p>
<p>Democracy requires that all areas of law-breaking and corruption be addressed. It also means placing constraints on the ability of those in positions of power to draw upon all the resources they might have to influence policy and policymakers. </p>
<p>So fixing up the problem of declining democracy at work means action both within and outside the workplace. The former without the latter would have minimal effect.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ideas-for-australia">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz receives funding from the Australian Research Council and, as a university employee, has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments from both sides of politics in Australia and overseas, employers and unions.</span></em></p>Workplace democracy is declining, but the idea that this is the fault solely of unions or employers is misguided. Widespread reform is needed.David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/566762016-04-15T03:28:59Z2016-04-15T03:28:59ZExplainer: what are the ABCC and Registered Organisations bills?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117799/original/image-20160407-10004-zckc24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The government argues its industrial relations bills are necessary to deal with widespread corruption uncovered by the trade union royal commission.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joel Carrett</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Federal parliament will convene for three weeks from Monday for a special sitting to consider the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and the Registered Organisations bills. Crossbench senators are <a href="https://theconversation.com/turnbull-ultimatum-july-2-double-dissolution-unless-reconvened-senate-passes-industrial-relations-bills-56586">facing the threat</a> of a double-dissolution election if the bills do not pass.</p>
<p>The government’s case for the bills is essentially that they are necessary to deal with widespread corruption uncovered by the <a href="https://www.tradeunionroyalcommission.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx">trade union royal commission</a>. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-21/malcolm-turnbull-brings-budget-forward-threatens-election/7262898">argues</a> the ABCC’s restoration is a “critical economic reform” and will reduce the high levels of industrial disputes on building sites. </p>
<p>But what is actually provided for in the two bills? And to what extent would they actually deal with union corruption or criminality if passed?</p>
<h2>What is the ABCC bill?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/Building_and_Construction">ABCC bill’s</a> main purpose is to re-introduce the Howard-era regulator for the construction industry.</p>
<p>In 2012, the Labor government replaced the ABCC with <a href="https://www.fwbc.gov.au/">Fair Work Building and Construction</a> (FWBC). It has reduced powers and lower penalties for breaches of prohibitions on unlawful industrial action and coercion.</p>
<p>The current arrangements have, <a href="http://www.constructors.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ACA-Media-Release-ABCC-and-Related-Legislation-11-August-2015.pdf">according to some</a>, allowed damaging and unproductive practices to re-emerge in the sector.</p>
<p>The powerful Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union <a href="http://www.standupspeakoutcomehome.org.au/abcc-will-try-silence-workers">continues to oppose</a> the ABCC’s ability to subject construction workers to compulsory interrogations under threat of imprisonment (among other features of the bill).</p>
<p>In addition to restoring the ABCC, the bill would:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>expand the definition of “building work” subject to ABCC oversight to cover the transportation or supply of goods to building sites and offshore resources platforms;</p></li>
<li><p>create new prohibitions on the organising or taking of unlawful industrial action, or unlawful picketing. This is a response to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cfmeu-signs-35m-grocon-payout-20150619-ghsbgi.html">disruptive pickets</a> by building unions such as that which took place on the Grocon Myer Emporium site in 2012;</p></li>
<li><p>increase penalties for unlawful industrial action from A$10,800 to A$34,000 for individuals, and from $54,000 to $170,000 for corporate entities – including unions – with the same penalties applying to unlawful picketing;</p></li>
<li><p>remove the current limitation preventing the regulator from initiating or continuing enforcement action where the parties involved have settled a dispute; and</p></li>
<li><p>give legal effect to the government’s <a href="http://www.corrs.com.au/publications/corrs-in-brief/abbott-government-releases-new-construction-code/">procurement framework</a> that enables further Commonwealth control over the industrial practices of companies tendering for federally funded projects.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What is the Registered Organisations bill?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r5422">Registered Organisations bill</a> seeks to implement the Coalition’s <a href="http://www.liberal.org.au/better-transparency-and-accountability-registered-organisations">2013 election policy</a> to impose higher standards of regulation on union officials – mainly in response to the <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/inside-the-corrupt-culture-of-the-health-services-union/news-story/3e6ef215ecdbd1daeb142795f0472ec6">Health Services Union corruption scandal</a>.</p>
<p>Under this legislation, a new specialist regulator, the Registered Organisations Commission, would take over responsibility from the Fair Work Commission for oversight of registered unions and employer associations.</p>
<p>In addition, the bill would, in many respects, align the regulation of registered organisations with that applying to corporations. This includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>increasing the obligations of office-holders in registered organisations with respect to the disclosure of material personal interests, and decision-making where officers may have such interests;</p></li>
<li><p>strengthening the financial, disclosure and transparency requirements applicable to officers in financial management matters; and</p></li>
<li><p>increasing civil penalties and imposing criminal liability for serious breaches by officers of their statutory duties.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The Senate has already rejected this bill twice.</p>
<p>The government is expected to introduce a new version of the bill to include some of the royal commission’s broader recommendations. This may include new criminal offences relating to the payment of corrupting benefits/secret commissions, and increased regulation of union-run “slush funds” (as the royal commission described them).</p>
<h2>Will they combat corruption?</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/gg/2016/Documents%20relating%20to%20proroguation%20of%20the%20Parliament%2021%20March%202016.pdf">letter to the governor-general</a> requesting parliament’s recall, Turnbull described the bills as necessary:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… to deal with widespread and systematic criminality in the building and construction industry.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, the ABCC bill mostly imposes only civil penalties for workplace law breaches in the construction sector – with the exception of the criminal penalties for not participating in a compulsory witness examination. It does not include <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/politics/7-out-of-8-crossbenchers-ready-to-talk-on-abcc-bill-20160329-gnsu5m">any measures</a> to tackle union corruption.</p>
<p>The Registered Organisations bill deals with union corruption but in a broad sense, rather than anything specifically focused on the construction industry.</p>
<p>Much of the current debate also overlooks the existing building industry regulator – the FWBC – and that it has some of the former ABCC’s coercive powers (until May 31, 2017).</p>
<p>We will know soon whether the crossbenchers will bow to government pressure and pass these two controversial bills.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Forsyth is a Consultant with the Employment, Workplace & Safety Team at Corrs Chambers Westgarth. He is/has conducted commissioned research for organisations including the Victorian Government, CFMEU (Mining and Energy Division), Business Council of Australia and Fair Work Commission.</span></em></p>To what extent would the ABCC and Registered Organisations bills actually deal with union corruption or criminality if passed?Anthony Forsyth, Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578792016-04-15T02:51:42Z2016-04-15T02:51:42ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Clive Palmer<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3DQcM5AbOgE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>An administrator’s report into Queensland Nickel released earlier this week suggests that Clive Palmer may have acted as a shadow director of the company before hundreds of workers were sacked. </p>
<p>University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education Nick Klomp and Michelle Grattan discuss how it all went wrong for the businessman-turned-politician. Meanwhile, as parliament prepares to return next week, the government has been dropping hints about what can be expected in the May budget.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education Nick Klomp and Michelle Grattan discuss how it all went wrong for Clive Palmer.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578052016-04-14T20:48:15Z2016-04-14T20:48:15ZGrattan on Friday: Turnbull sees even a difficult new Senate as an opportunity for a fresh start<p>Malcolm Turnbull says bluntly that he expects the coming special Senate sitting to reject the industrial legislation. Labor’s Penny Wong indicates the opposition won’t be playing silly buggers by trying to delay the bills.</p>
<p>As parliamentarians prepare to return to Canberra next week, both sides just want to get to the double dissolution now regarded as virtually certain.</p>
<p>Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, with carriage of the legislation, has been catapulted centre stage just months after she was one of the three women promoted to cabinet when Turnbull became leader.</p>
<p>Experienced in industrial law from her solicitor days, Cash was in the small group at the Lodge the night Turnbull finalised his strategy to have parliament recalled, with the threat of a double dissolution if the Senate refused to pass the industrial relations bills.</p>
<p>One government source says Cash has “surprised on the upside” in her performance in the Turnbull ranks.</p>
<p>The bills at the centre of the double-dissolution play resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and toughen trade union governance.</p>
<p>But recently added to the agenda for the special parliamentary session – though not relevant to the double dissolution – is the government’s move to scrap the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, following a new pay decision that small operators say would send many of them out of business.</p>
<p>This is also in Cash’s bailiwick. The government initially intended to put the ruling on hold until early next year, while promising that if re-elected it would abolish the tribunal. But then, sensing it could get the Senate numbers, it decided to push ahead at once with abolition. This adds to its anti union, pro small business election narrative.</p>
<p>While it is fairly confident it has the needed support, the government is also adopting a belt-and-braces approach by putting forward the delay option too.</p>
<p>It’s a different story with the industrial relations bills. Although the Registered Organisations legislation is already a double-dissolution trigger, it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that the required six crossbenchers could be persuaded to support it with some compromises. But it is nearly impossible to see the coming weeks bringing a deal on the ABCC.</p>
<p>Anyway, the government has no incentive. The momentum is now so strong for a July 2 double dissolution that it would be quite awkward if the industrial legislation were passed, forcing Turnbull to back off and re-gear for a later normal election. In these circumstances extra time might harm rather than help him.</p>
<p>Yet the benefits of a double dissolution for Turnbull in terms of the Senate are debatable. ABC election analyst Antony Green calculates that, even with the recently reformed voting system, there is a strong prospect a re-elected Turnbull government would face <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2016/04/the-turnbull-governments-senate-position-would-be-little-better-after-a-double-dissolution.html">another potentially difficult upper house</a>.</p>
<p>“There are serious questions whether a double dissolution would be of any benefit to the government’s Senate position,” Green wrote. “A double dissolution is unlikely to deliver the Coalition more Senate seats than it currently holds. The government would still need the support of up to half a dozen crossbench senators to pass legislation.”</p>
<p>But the government takes the view that a new Senate, regardless of its crossbench component, would present a fresh start. It sees the present upper house as the “Abbott” Senate, afflicted by the former prime minister’s broken promises and fractured relationships. Turnbull could argue to a new Senate that his re-elected government had a mandate, and launch a charm offensive.</p>
<p>Cash is in the fortunate position that whatever happens to the industrial relations legislation, she won’t look bad.</p>
<p>If, contrary to all indications, the crossbench senators caved, it would be a victory for which she as negotiator would be able to claim some credit. If, as expected, they don’t, the government moves on to the double dissolution considered all along to be Turnbull’s preferred position.</p>
<p>Turnbull on Wednesday anticipated the industrial relations bills’ defeat: “every indication we have is that they will be rejected”. The Senate had voted against the ABCC once, and the Registered Organisations bill three times, he said. “So if the past is any guide to future performance then you would expect it wouldn’t be passed.”</p>
<p>Wong, Labor’s Senate leader, on Thursday confirmed Labor will not try to prevent the bills being considered, as some had speculated. “We will deal with these bills. We won’t be delaying,” she said. “If Malcolm Turnbull wants a double-dissolution election, we’re ready for an election.”</p>
<p>Turnbull’s tactic of the special sitting is not risk-free for him. The Coalition is limiting the dangers presented by multiple Question Times by having the lower house sit only two days next week and not at all the following one.</p>
<p>But Labor already has a boxful of ammunition for the lower house Question Times on Monday and Tuesday. The government is on the back foot in resisting a royal commission into the banks’ bad behaviour. More serious is this week’s assessment from Moody’s credit rating agency, ominously highlighting the debt issue – “a credit negative for Australia” – and contesting Treasurer Scott Morrison’s repeated insistence there is not a revenue problem.</p>
<p>Meanwhile at week’s end the hyperactive Cash was in Townsville, to deal with another issue on her crowded plate – the fallout for workers of the collapse of Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel.</p>
<iframe id="audio_iframe" src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/xdwwc-5e609a?from=yiiadmin" data-link="http://www.podbean.com/media/player/xdwwc-5e609a?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57805/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Malcolm Turnbull says bluntly that he expects the coming special Senate sitting to reject the industrial relations legislation. Labor’s Penny Wong indicates the opposition won’t try to delay the bills.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.