The Australian Election Thread

[Griffo]

Im voting for the first time this year and I would like to see an opinion poll on here, please do not vote if your not from Australia or under 18

Rudd or Howard and Why?

Im voting against Rudd not for Howard because he seems to continually shift the blame for things to other people and thats not going to swing my vote as well as an incident which occured when he came to my college which made the papers

 

[Adarsh]

Surely you want people over 18 to vote ?

Besides, there aren't too many over 18 Australians in here are there ?

 

[Griffo]

Lol typo sorry its 6am and im watchin the rugby give me a break Edited

 

[Hooper]

Rudd because he is a sexy little nerd.

Nah, I dont care, not 18 yet (2 more months!). Don't think it will affect me personally all that much.

 

[MattW]

This thread provoked me to update my sig, which should confirm that I'd be voting Labor if the election was held this time next year.

 

[Hooper]

Lol, nice sig!

 

[Gilly Fan]

If I could vote, I'd vote for Rudd. Johnny has been in too long. One thing that needs to go are those IR laws.

 

[Griffo]

I have no problem with the IR laws... Ive been working at the same job for about 2 years now and ive noticed no difference and my type of staffing is what people seem to be worried about

 

[Hooper]

Yeah because you work in a Reject shop lol Working in my industry sucks...the IR laws affect people, not our age.

 

[Sureshot]

Rudd because he is a sexy little nerd.

Nah, I dont care, not 18 yet (2 more months!). Don't think it will affect me personally all that much.

How can politics not affect you?

Also IR = Inland Revenue?

 

[MattW]

Also IR = Inland Revenue?

Industrial Relations. Ms Thatcher made similar changes in Britain, and Rudd is pretty much copying Blair's New Labour.

 

[Sureshot]

So how do they work in Australia?

Oh and it's Brown's New Labour now btw.

 

[Hooper]

How can politics not affect you?

Also IR = Inland Revenue?

Well they do, but I don't notice them enough to upset me

 

[M.Di Venuto]

Interesting topic... Of the people who said they would vote Rudd or Howard, who actually can vote for either of these two? Because they do have to be in your electorate before you can vote for them.

 

[MattW]

Oh and it's Brown's New Labour now btw.

It was more a comment on style, Rudd is taking a lot of cues from Blair's 97 election campaign.

So how do they work in Australia?

Well basically the new laws, 'WorkChoices' as they were called', are designed to encourage the use of individual contracts (or Australian Workplace Agreements) over collective bargaining. Reducing collective bargaining means that the Unions are largely unnecessary, and considering that Labor is the Union associated party they obviously don't want any further reduction to Union power.

Labor are proposing a sort of half-way house between the last Labor government's (Keating) laws and Howard's current ones, which remove AWAs, but promote their replacement with Common Law Contracts, which are bound by awards just like collective agreements are. Unions have a large role in setting industry awards. Under Labor people earning over AU$100,000 wouldn't have that award requirement (which essentially makes CLCs over $100,000 AWAs). This limit was a concession to the mining industry, where AWAs are most common and about 1/4 of the workers earn over that mark, and most earn over $75,000 (for comparison the average wage is just over $55,000, pre-tax of course, and the minimum wage works out to something like $27,000 working full time, pre-tax)