Fed: Rudd says Labor not there to appease unions, business

AAP General News (Australia)
08-29-2007
Fed: Rudd says Labor not there to appease unions, business

CANBERRA, Aug 29 AAP - Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has defended Labor's industrial
policy, saying they want to get the balance of its workplace laws right, not appease unions
or business.

Mr Rudd, who outlined the latest phase of his IR policy yesterday, said he wasn't handing
power back to the unions and such a claim from Prime Minister John Howard was a predictable
political line on the eve of the election.

He said the bottom line was that the government laws went too far with Australian Workplace
Agreements (AWAs) that stripped away penalty rates and offered no real protection from
unfair dismissal.

Mr Rudd said there was a range of different views across business.

"We can cop that on the chin. I understand that. But my job is not to please big business.

My job is not to please union leaders. My job is to get the balance right," he told the
Nine Network.

Mr Rudd said Labor's workplace relations plan featured some tough decisions on unions,
including preserving current restrictions on right of entry for union official to workplaces
and maintaining bars on secondary boycotts.

He said that wasn't popular with unions.

"So for Mr Howard to run around with that sort of rhetoric frankly is just wrong," he said.

Under Labor's plan, the changes won't fully come into effect until 2010.

"We need sensible transition arrangements between their arrangements now, to the new
system that will have no AWAs," Mr Rudd said.

"Then that's the end of the system."

Mr Rudd said the issue produced a debate within Labor, balancing the unfairness of
many AWAs and the need for certainty for business.

He rejected suggestions that Labor's plan would produce an administrative nightmare for business.

Mr Rudd said the government's fairness test required employment of hundreds of additional
bureaucrats to administer the system.

"We asked in parliament the other day to confirm whether in fact they have got a whole
bunch of English backpackers on six days training, rolled in to try and administer this
system," he said.

Mr Rudd said today marked three years since Mr Howard called the 2004 election.

"We are going to have an election very soon. I am very relaxed about the Australian
people making their decision and if they want to draw a line in the sand between Mr Howard's
industrial relations system and the proposals we have got."

AAP mb/jm/jlw

KEYWORD: WORKPLACE RUDD

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