In an extraordinary admission, the Howard Government today conceded it “got it wrong” when Work Choices laws were introduced without proper protection for those losing benefits.
This is cynical, desperate behavior, bad politics and bad public relations. In my view it’s also a lie that the government didn’t know that was a possible consequence.
“We got it wrong. We under estimated what would have happened if we put in place a system that may lead to people trading away penalty rates without fair compensation. We are now putting in place a stronger safety net. We are ensuring that people get more, not less, insofar as the law can,” Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey (right) said.
I’ve said previously that industrial relations policy was the last ideological battleground in Australian politics.
I believe the Liberal Party succumbed to ideology over pragmatism on this issue for the only remarkable time in John Howard’s tenure.
I am personally aware of businesses that exploited Work Choices and their employees to deliberately drive down wages and conditions. It was no secret that this possibility existed.
I am also aware that many workers and businesses have benefited from the flexibility of Australian Workplace Agreements through higher wages for employees and increased productivity.
It would be a travesty if the Liberal Party got the politics of this so badly wrong that there is no legacy on the positive side of the equation.
There is a belated attempt happening now to introduce the safety net which should have been there from the beginning.
As a business manager myself I have always insisted on compensating new employees under AWAs for their loss of entitlements. I fear others have been less scrupulous.
So why do I think Hockey’s statement was bad PR and bad politics.
In public relations it is right to acknowledge your mistakes if they are serious. It is also good theoretical practice to blame someone else.
Hockey has blamed his predecessor Kevin Andrews (pictured).
“I wasn’t the minister for workplace relations in the past, but if you’re saying to me that we got it wrong in the past, well we did.”
The PR problem with this is that nobody will believe Kevin Andrews was responsible. Anyone with the ability to process logic will know that Work Choices was a whole-of-government decision.
In terms of being bad politics, well the Liberal Party has just admitted to the Australian public that the Labor Party is right.
The spin doctors are obviously trying to defuse industrial relations as an election issue, but I don’t think the current approach is the right way to go about it.
I believe the government acted correctly to modify Work Choices recently, by saying that lost entitlements must be financially compensated. That was enough, in my view. Changing the name of the policy and admitting past failure just doesn’t seem very smart to me.
If the Coalition wants to win the election they should focus on their economic record and roll out the pork barrel.
I’m also starting to believe there should be a leadership handover to Costello sooner, rather than later.
The departure of Tony Blair as British Prime Minister, and the impending compulsory retirement of George W Bush as American President, leaves Howard looking lonely as an old man who stayed past his time.
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