And look! Finally, on page 10 of Rudd's speech (after the key labor priority areas of Economic Prosperity, Productivity Growth, and Business Regulation), Labor reveals its plan for replacing WorkChoices. With its exciting, differently-named version of the same thing!
There can be no going back to the industrial culture of an earlier age.
That is why a further reform for the industrial relations system we propose will be to outlaw industrial action unless there is a secret ballot.
The only time industrial action will be legally permitted is if it is taken in pursuit of a collective enterprise agreement during a bargaining period. And even then it will only be protected from legal penalty if it is authorised by the employees who will be taking the action through a secret ballot supervised by the independent industrial umpire.
Under our laws, employees will not be able to strike during the term of a collective agreement. They will not be able to strike unless there has been genuine good faith bargaining. They will not be able to strike in support of an industry wide agreement. And they will not be able to strike unless it has been approved by a mandatory secret ballot.
Labor has never before required mandatory secret ballots to authorise the taking of industrial action.
Labor's new laws will require it.
...Industrial action comes at a cost to the economy. It therefore should not be without cost to those engaged in it.
That's why under Labor's new laws it will also be unlawful for employers to pay strike pay.
Talk about sticking it to the Man. Take that, Business Council of Australia!
The Liberals have responded to Kevin's new IR plan with fury, and a desperate round of meetings to figure out how to counter it.
But we're the party of caving in to everything business demands, not the ALP! What else can we offer the BCA? Seriously, guys, don't forget us - we're even more on your side than Labor is! We gave you the "WorkChoices" legislation first! Screwing the workers over was our policy before it was theirs!
What about our unfair dismissals plan? We've done some fantastic work in making sure you guys have no restraints on unfairly dismissing workers at the drop of a hat, and Labor can't possibly compe... what's this?
For businesses employing more than 15 people, employees will be exempt from unfair dismissal laws for six months.
Damn that Mr Rudd! That's almost as cravenly open to abuse by unscrupulous large companies as OUR policy!
And the BCA was equally as confused. Hang on - I think we've just won everything we ever wanted. We set our sights too low. Hey, let's ask them for the right to whip employees before we sack them! In this climate, one of the major parties is bound to seriously consider it...
Elsewhere, working Australians, well. Meh. Who cares about them? If they needed basic hard-won rights for which the labor movement had fought for over a hundred years, I'm sure there'd be some party out there* who'd be standing up for them.
So obviously they don't.
*Other than the Greens, obviously. Those principled people (we disparage them as "idealists") are constantly worrying about people's basic rights. Hippies. Let's ignore them some more.
UPDATE: I'm not saying this isn't smart politics, of course. Staking out the centre will win him votes, and the ones he loses to the Greens will come back as preferences anyway. It's the classic dilemma in progressive politics - if you try to stay too ideologically pure, it's hard to win power; but then on the other hand if you win power by jettisoning your principles, then what was the point? It's fairly clear which option anyone who joins the ALP (See: Garrett, Peter) has taken...
What disappoints me about this is that it's politics by demographic rather than politics by argument. Labor's decided that it can't persuade the voters away from the BCA's view through articulating why its policies are better and more fair than theirs; so it just gives up and joins them instead.
