THE NEXT PLANK OF MORRISON’S WORKCHOICES 2.0

Scott Morrison’s industrial relations agenda is becoming clear: smash the union movement so there’s no opposition to WorkChoices 2.0.

The Government will seek to ram it’s anti-worker “Ensuring Integrity” legislation through the Senate next week, paving the way for union officials to be expelled and entire unions to be shut down for late paperwork.

Make no mistake: if the Government succeeds it will be coming after workers’ pay and conditions next.

They have already been talking about watering down unfair dismissal laws and scrapping the Better Off Overall Test.

Now Scott Morrison and Christian Porter say the award system is too complex.

You know who else says that? Wage thieves and the lobby groups who make apologies.

Every company guilty of wage theft has tried to claim awards were too complex for them. Morrison is now accepting the argument of those who stole workers’ money.

The award system has already been simplified over the last decade - and businesses just need to get better at complying with it.

There are 122 modern awards, down from 1,500 when John Howard was in office.

Companies can comply with income tax laws, which come in 11 volumes and runs to more than 5,000 pages.

Why can’t they also comply with awards, which typically run to between 50 and 100 pages?

The Fair Work Ombudsman has a simple online awards calculator that tells you the correct hourly rates – and takes about five minutes to complete.

The real agenda here is to keep wages low, which the government has said is a deliberate design feature of its economic policies.

FRIDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2019