Sky News reveals tomorrow’s Newspoll will show Labor leading 54-46; primary vote Labor 46 per cent (down two points), Coalition 41 per cent (up one). Details to follow.
UPDATE: Preliminary article at The Australian.
UPDATE 2: The Australian’s graphic here.
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697 Comments
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Mad cow: My brain hurts now. It’s too late to think about that, and I think too late in the election to get it out by Saturday. I think i will have it ready for the next federal election.
If I was still doing maths and physics at uni then I would think about it more, maybe if i was doing a PhD in psephology then I would do more of that too.
Take it for what it is, just a nice indicator. Once you start playing with this or that it just gets too complex. I’d put a disclaimer on this that I’m not responsible if anyone uses my results to bet their house on a win.
I wrote enterprise bargains because I meant enterprise bargains.
Where did I mention wages?
399
you are making that up ESJ
even ABS disagree with that BS
Sure Robert Bollard I have no problem with collective bargaining.
Talking about the workforce, some interesting statistics came out last week concerning executive and second in charge salaries. What they showed was that over the last ten years executive salaries have risen 237% and those who are their assistants 233%. Interesting that not a mention hardly anywhere. Pathetic.
Toby, its theoretically possible: but if undecideds broke that dramatically, one way, pre-election polls would be “wronger” than they have been over recent years.
See Possum on these issues. General view is that undecideds break with the trend, I gather.
No BBD – awards actually hold back wage increases for many,many people.
The biggest problem I have to face on election day is having to go to my niece’s 21st at some pub (in a swingable seat, by the way, in eastern Melb …). Of course, laptop needs to be connected. Having done a little research it appears that the 3 mobile USB wireless modem thingy (@$199 up-front and $29/month for 1 gig) is about the best deal – noting also that I get telstra thinband at home and whatever somewhat faster thing I get at work. Any advice guys? And yes, you people overseas can all laugh, I know how pathetic Aussie intenet connections are …
Many business deliberately pay above “union” rates to keep unions out. Also some sectors of the economy have high bargaining power regardless of unions such as skilled tradespeople.
Nonsense ESJ – awards are a floor for 90% of workers, and wage levels are set by EBAs.
When are you guys going to work out that Keating developed the IR system we’ve had through the last 10 years of boom?
Most people work under enterprise bargains.
Awards are generally for the low paid workers with low skills who can’t get an enterprise bargain to increase wages for productivity gains.
I think you should stop talking about I.R., you obviously don’t know much about how it actually works.
Speaking of fan-boy rhetoric, some of you may have missed Pancho’s earlier comment on John Howard, ‘Why I want to see blood, in about 100 words’
Here’s my version -
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-D2c0hoSmvM
If Pancho or Mr Bludger object, I can remove the end reference/source.
More from Sir Bob.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22788608-12377,00.html
Preferences will play a big role.
Family First, One Nation, Hanson and Citizens for Climate Change all flow to the Liberals. Virtually the only prefernces labor gets are the greens, which explains the libs going them this week.
If labor look like a walkover and people think of voting “independent” then these votes flow straight to the Liberals and makes it close, like what happened with Goss.
408 CL de Footscray – your fugged mate, they’ll never get to you this week, can you imagine the line-up for the broadband version of the death of the rodentocracy! Sorry, but find a TV with ABC and a cask of wine.
Lefty E – its you my friend who speak nonsense.
Awards cover about 20% of the workforce, for many of those people the employer just says what do I have to pay and looks at the award, it discourages skill development and it actually works against the employer or the worker looking at fair pay.
Wage levels are set by markets not unions. Employers pay what they have to pay to attract good people and where they want to position themselves in the marketplace.
Awards are just antiquated rubbish.
Edward StJohn you are right businesses fail to secure good staff because they are stuck to awards and want to pay higher but the Unions wont wear it. It’s happening all over the country employers wanting to pay above the award to secure competent staff but the Unions keep wages stuck to the award. The Unions are a relic of the past and even if KR destroys the ABCC the Unions will be finished its just sad so many of them are in the ALP quite unrepresentative if you ask me.
Mad Cow et al re expats – after a frustrating search (and discounting the UAR version of the GG) I finally found this: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22781049-5014046,00.html
GetUp and Labor have been running enrolment campaigns, but I can’t really find anything firm about the numbers who have responded. Last time, only about 68,000 overseas Australians voted, but there seems to be a suggestion that it will be greater this time. The overall numbers of overseas Australians are much larger, and quite a few are HECS refugees, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bit of a wave of voting. Pity that you can’t vote over the Web, though.
There are much smarter ways to provide fairness and equity for low paid workers whilst having economically responsible IR arrangements.
Sadly the trogs of the ACTU cant see this.
ESJ
you said union workers vs non-union in wage terms
what shows on is suggesting is that workers who are not members of a union but work in a workplace where the union is active, recieve substantially the same benefits that union members in that workplace recieve. This is a disincentive to join.
What ABS figures show is that union members on average recieve higher wages than non-union members- especially amongst women.
The fact is that those non-members in majority unionised workplaces actually drag up the average for the non-union members, but that group is still well behind.
This is why you are going against your party and employer groups in supporting neutrality. they know that workers who orgainse, win!
What the hell are you going on about!? Employers can pay workers double, triple, quadruple the award if they want! The award is the MINIMUM set of wages and conditions that you can legally employ someone under. if you want to give them 99 times the award then you can.
You’re an idiot, blame everything on the unions, including your own ignorance.
I know that Sean, I have seen them. But I wouldn’t write the Coalition off completely yet. 96 this isn’t. I think it will be closer than many think.
Scrapping awards isn’t one of them.
390
Edward StJohn Says:
November 19th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
“…BO Unions speak for about 15% of the private sector workforce and are declining by about 05-1% per annum…They are no longer representative.”
You talk about this from the perspective of an organiser or activist. I just make the observation that a lot of people still join unions, even if the days of mass membership have receded with the years. It is easy to dismiss them as ‘unrepresentative’, ‘weak’ and ‘cycnical’, but it is also just rhetoric. People are strong when they need to be , ESJ, regardless of the labels you might like to apply. And frankly, unless you are willing to join a union or the ALP and argue your case, no-one will take any notice of your prescriptions for them.
Glen
You are sooo full of it mate- you cleary have little to no idea do you?
Employers can pay workers more than the award if they chose fool!
An award is a minimum. Please tell me a case where unions have taken employers to court for paying too much.
You seriously regurgitate the most baseless crap i have ever heard.
were you dropped on the head by a union official when you were a baby?
Not if businesses are set up on Union collective agreements they can’t ShowsOn.
You’re embarassing yourself ESJ.Let me make it simple for you:
Some 25% or workers are unionised, but more like 50% are covered by union negotiated agreements, which are underpinned by awards (free rider problem – but which explains why support for unions is greater than membership)
Of those, 90% are being paid *above* award rates. These are negotiated at workplace level, in EBAs.
Awards are really only a floor for most of the union-covered workforce – only 10% of the lowest skilled are “on awards” alone.
Thats a protection for the low paid the Howard government wants to dismantle. I dont support that, and neither do 55% of Australians.
Sorry but I have actually run small businesses that employ real people so that statement is just rubbish. There’s a lot of reasons why a small business owners would prefer Awards rather than having to negotiate with every employee, etc. Some business would rather not use awards, some would. It depends on your circumstances but to just get rid of awards alltogether is not necessarily helpful.
Lefty E it’s just 15% of private sector workforce the Union movement is finished they are a relic of the past but they are dangerous because the Unions dominate the ALP.
The research on wage bargaining show consistently and clearly that workers covered by union negotiated agreements do consistently better than workers on non-union agreements, whether individual or collective. Employers may pay above award rates to ‘exclude’ unions but the evidence is that these deals tend to minimise the conditions payments that provide workers with relatively predictable extra income – penalties and overtime payments, for example. The whole point of SerfChoices was to fragment bargaining so that wages would tend to be depressed in sectors of, or during periods of, depressed demand for labour, but be relatively restrained because of limited bargaining power by a de-unionised workforce during relatively boom times. It’s the sort of policy that is best introduced in good times, when it’s effects will be less noticeable (although they’re pretty clear to any low skilled worker who’s suffered under an AWA). Which is why Howard must think we’re all pretty damned stupid if he thinks that telling us to vote for him is a good thing because it will mean SerfChoices can never be ditched. I mean, how strange is that? (Almost as strange as appearing on that trash current affairs show tonight, pretending to look like he cares whether Costello lives or dies, i guess … )
BBD,
I have never claimed to be a Liberal (other than in jest).
I dont have a problem with unions organising or neutrality. You just wont be able to do it, sadly your time has passed in our country’s history. I mean that sincerely not in a smart aleck way.
The premises of the organising model is basically class warfare when you strip it away. Its just so backward.
I wish you well with it but unfortunately for the country’s progress the industrial arbitration system has to be removed that will be painful for you but maybe unions will survive in a better form – maybe as friendly societies or co-ops, much like the originals.
Arbitration is a uniquely bastar.dised Australian/New Zealand system.
Glen where is your evidence that businesses want to pay above awards?
What nonsense.
And if some businesses do want to i betcha that other conditions will be reduced in the process.
Talk about selfish crap.
417
Glen Says:
November 19th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
“…sad so many of them are in the ALP quite unrepresentative if you ask me.”
….
Nnd who does ask you, Glen? None but parrott and the peacock, and only then to hear the sound of their own voices….
Thanks for that Jenny. I’m hoping Antony might give that issue a mention on saturday night. By then they should have the numbers.
ESJ. Yes arbitration came in the first decade. The significance of 1912 was that that is the earliest date that the ABS established figures for union membership. Markey and his collaborators (I’m sorry I don’t have the peer-refereed article at hand) did a complex bit of detective work which demolished the previous orthodoxy that the movement had been rebuilt around arbitration.
Harvester (which btw was later overturned on appeal) was 1907 but the vast bulk of workers were not covered by federal arbitration unitl much later.
Anyway, if you want to argue that the unions will not be helped by Rudds policies, that they have to look to organising rather then help from sympathetic Labor governments, then I agree. And I look forward to winessing your comradely elation as mass pickets of newly organised call centre and supermarket workers burn the St John mansion to the ground amidst chants denouncing arbitration.
So, essentially Glen, you’re saying the unions are both irrelevant AND dangerous?
Are you starting to see why the Lib fear campaign is going nowhere?
Mr StJohn (at 416), you have written mostly nonsense about industrial relations law. Until WorkChoices (operative March 2006), awards covered almost all employees; very few were award-free. They set a base line in wages and conditions, which were updated by the AIRC every year. The next level of regulation was EBAs, which because bargaining by unions and groups of employees, wound up covering most enterprises and most employees in them. Where a workplace did not have an EBA, employees tended to rely on the award or use common law contracts of employment that sat above the award ( and usually, an EBA at a comparable enterprise). When AWAs were first introduced in 1997, they were hardly used. This has obviously changed over time but AWAs still make up a small part of the over all industrial instruments used.
The picture has not changed that much since WC. Where there is employee churn, for example in the retail and hospitality sector the picture has changed more because with new employees, employers are taking advantage of the WC options (the AFPCS etc)
Sorry about the essay.
Are you even trying tonight!?
The employer can have an enterprise bargaining agreement written with wages that are HIGHER than the award, they just can’t try and get people to work for wages LOWER than the award.
Provided you understand the difference between HIGHER and LOWER you will realise that what you have said is wrong.
The award is a SAFETY net, a BARE MINIMUM. Unions would LOVE to say to their members that they secured $25 per hour during an E.B.A. negotiation, when the award is $12.50!
Your proposition that unions are trying to keep wages low contradictions all the Liberal propaganda during this election campaign.
Shows ON
As you well know if an award provides for $600 for a 38 hour week it will provide for penalties and O/T. If an employer says look I will give you $700 per week every week but you need to work some O/T unions can come along and say you need to pay O/T and penalties on that.
Secondly as you also know a typical manufacturing business with 20 employees may be covered by 4 or 5 awards all with different conditions.
Thirdly the awards come with arbitration etc etc
Union members do not get higher wages they get capped wages. the ACTU runs this line but its just propaganda. No need to worry about it.
You seem well intentioned get out while you still can!
ESJ, EBAs essentially made arbitration a minor part of the IR system.
Keating did all this reform work ages ago.
Howard’s stuff is just anti-union nastiness, not economic reform.
54-46 is bad but it could be worse it could aways be worse, you think this is tough we tories were behind 53-47 in the last week of the campaign in 1998 and we clung on, we may if we’re lucky hang on on Saturday to discount that possibility will leave you angry and bitter should you be defeated.
A defeat for your side will hurt you more than if our side cops it, i’ve anticipated defeat since early this year as a real possibility so being defeated won’t hurt so bad providing it is not a landslide.
Organising also mean this- but i am sure you could discount that in some wierd way
http://www.workplaceexpress.com.au/news_selected.php?act=2&selkey=35343&hlc=2&hlw=
“There are much smarter ways to provide fairness and equity for low paid workers whilst having economically responsible IR arrangements.”
Yup, like taking whatever is offered, and if you don’t like it leave and find another job. You peasants you!!
That’s a great way to make sure that company profits stay high, and that directors and managers salaries keep getting higher, and shareholders returns stay healthy.
Bit of a shame about employees and their families having no security, and pay they can barely afford to live on, but cant have them getting to comfy or productivity will drop eh???
Its lowlife, selfish, parasites like those that have created and endorsed and encouraged WorkChoices that need to have a really good look at their values. Its one of the most stark expressions of the, “bugger you, i’m right” mentality that has ever been expressed by our nation.
Luckily, it looks like it will be gone before too much more damage is done.
“A defeat for your side will hurt you more than if our side cops it, i’ve anticipated defeat since early this year as a real possibility so being defeated won’t hurt so bad providing it is not a landslide.”
…it’s only a flesh wound.. come back… I can still fight with my toes….
You’re a nihilist.
Fortunately we’ve got lots to show for it wages, conditions, and the social wage, things like Medicare and superannuation.
Democracy is pretty old, should we get rid of that as well?
No, it is going to be great. Because Labor will be able to go to elections in the future completely wedging the Liberals on things like increasing minimum wage and conditions. They’ll do it on maternity leave first most likely.
lEFTY e
If Keating made arbitration such a minor part of the system why do we have a $200 million dollar arbitration apparatus in this country?
My point is you can give people fairness in a much smarter way than arbitration, set a minimum wage, some other minimum conditions and introduce a negative income tax – everyone is better off.
Glen,
Are you sure of that???
Trust me, Glen: it’ll still hurt, landslide or otherwise.
We know – lots of practice at it since ‘96.
But thats democracy.
ESJ
So you are saying US workers are better off than Australian workers?
they have that system you are suggesting.
Jenny @ 299. Sorry for the delay, I had to go out. I can’t remember what Schultz said in his add, it didn’t sink in. I was just surprised at his appearance.
I don’t know how loyal he is to JWH. Not very, I surmise. My opinion of him is that he has the loyalty of a goldfish. You feed him, he’s yours. He also has the intelligence of a goldfish, and the charm of a tiger snake on a bad day!
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