Of Joe Hockey, WorkChoices and Prettiness

Yesterday I was surprised to see Joe Hockey, Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, admitting that they "bungled" their industrial relations overhaul by not being careful about key aspects of the "WorkChoices" laws. Even more surprised to hear him say that the reason Julia Gillard, shadow minister for the same portfolio, is more popular because she's "prettier" than he is, as I heard on the news this morning.

Rather peculiar, and can we move on from how female politicians look or how many kids they have to what policies they present now please? If our politics were based purely on looks, I don't think John Howard would have been Prime Minister for quite so long - not with those eyebrows at least. But while on the topic of looks, Joe Hockey is rather cuddly-cute...

So it should be that we're looking fairly and squarely at "WorkChoices," which are seeming more and more like "WorkInflictions" when you hear more and more stories about rights of workers being abused by employers around Australia, with penalty rates being stripped, along with other employment conditions you'd think would be pretty standard to have included in any job - things like overtime, meal allowances, public holiday loading...

Also don't understand how making the laws more fair or getting rid of them would root the economy beyond repair as the government is saying would happen if Labor repeals the laws. It seems silly, seeing how it would really just take worker's rights back to around 2004 or so, not send our nation hurtling back into the middle ages - although I'm sure the way the government of the day handles thing does have an impact on the economy, surely so does the global economy, exports, imports, employment levels, natural resources, etc. The changes the government itself is introducing to its IR laws apparently aren't impressing many people anyways.

All that comes after the PM saying the other day that the current government is facing "annihilation" at the coming election, which was surprisingly frank. Although I think it comes mostly as an attempt to grab the underdog status and try to make voters think voting for the Liberals would be a good idea because of how long they've served us. His point that after 11 years of the Liberals leading the nation, Australians are looking for a change is right, has some merit though.

Personally, I used to be a supporter of the Liberals back in the day. But over the years I've drifted significantly toward the Labor party, although I haven't always liked their leaders (prime example being one Latham, Mark). This has occurred because I don't believe the Liberal government is doing the right thing in the areas of education, health care, social justice, the environment and so on and so I'm optimistically hoping Labor can provide real alternatives on these things.

In the past, Labor's looked strong in polls leading up to elections and still been thrashed.

Of course there was some news about the way Australians seem to be wanting the current government out on its ear come the election on the news this morning. I believe it was Tony Abbott, Federal health minister and roasaries vs ovaries debate-stirrer-upper extraordinaire, who was saying something about how disasterous a change of government would be if Australians chose to elect Kevin Rudd. We've had changes of government before and somehow the country hasn't fallen in a screaming heap, so I think that sort of line of argument is rather ridiculous. "The risk of Rudd" to Australia's economic prosperity and future seems a fatuous argument.

But then, I'm a person who works with words, not money, so who knows.