IR reforms ads, please go away!

I'm getting tired of the government using out money to help rip us off.

These Industrial Relations ads have got to stop - no-one's falling for them, anyway. And all of their shiny let's-be-so-happy-that-we're-going-to-be-screwed-over-you-never-needed-to-spend-time-with-your-family-and-who-needs-weekends talk is just so see-through. Adding the word "fair" to the mix doesn't make it so any more than adding "a genuinely nice chap with the interests of Jews far and wide at heart" to the Hitler biography would.

We've already seen that John Howard has lied to the working public of Australia about these reforms, as well as a whole lot of other things. Saying that public holidays will be safe and now that they're on the chopping block is just another thing to tick off on the list of long broken promises and utter piffle the Howard government has come out with.

If the government seriously wanted us to believe anything about the potentially impending Industrial Relations Reforms, they should have started advertising long before the trade unions did. That's something that you'd have to call fantastic timing on the trade union's behalf - being released long before the reforms were even being seriously considered and debated by the Australian public. The government left it months before they bothered to start advertising.

Their loss.

Although the trade unions have isolated themselves somewhat from the general public in recent years. A lot of this has to do with legislation that restricts the activities of unions, though. Unions used to do a lot for the environment, other unions not related to their own specific area, rights of women for maternity leave, community and so on, but a couple of years ago, the Howard government pushed through laws that saw unions restricted in what they can do and say (generally meaning they're stuck to their own immediate area of interest now).

The IR reforms are potentially something that could be a good boost for trade unions here in Australia. It'd be an excellent opportunity to remind people of what the unions are there for, other than squabbling amongst themselves. They could organise some protests (even though we all know that regardless of how many people turn up for them, the Howard government refuses to listen. The entire population of Australia could march in mass protest against something planned by the government and it'd still be pushed through as legislation... psh...), do more ads, help people to truly understand what costs there might be for people in real terms and move away from the emotive ads to giving people more information and facts.

The Labor party also needs to work on a really public level with this and make sure that it's making noise about the reforms. This could finally be a time for the Labor party to truly represent the general Australian public who are concerned about the IR reforms and want to make sure that their jobs will be secure. They also need to show how the government has disregarded the needs and wants of the Australian public. If they can be seen to represent the people, then I think there could be a resurgence in popularity for the party, which has suffered a bit of a battering lately.

Let's see what they can do.

*ponders* And if they can't manage it, then maybe it is time to see that Kim Beazley isn't a good leader and there's a reason he's lost the leadership of the party before... Hmmm.