Fightback?
How serious is the Howard Government about centralising the industrial relations system? Although Howard’s speech to the Menzies association was a clear (and strange) attempt to reconcile such a takeover with the Liberal Party’s federalist tradition, it wasn’t well received by federalists.
Now the West Australian (p4) is reporting that a Liberal Senator thinks Howard’s plan is merely an “ambit claim”, and the Deputy Leader of the WA Liberals says it’s unlikely the WA branch would accept the plan:
Amid increasing signs that the WA Liberal Party will reject John Howard’s push for a national unified industrial relations regime, the State party has demanded an explanation from Federal Industrial Relations Minister Kevin Andrews.
Yesterday, WA Liberal Senator Alan Eggleston described the Prime Minister’s industrial relations push as no more than an “ambit claim”. And State Opposition Deputy Leader Paul Omodei said he believed it would be a “retrograde step for Western Australia to hand over control of our IR system to the Feds.”
On Saturday the WA Liberals demanded that Kevin Andrews fly over to explain his plans. I wonder what sort of reception he’ll get? And would Howard pay any heed to the shambolic WA Libs anyway?
With the way John Howard runs the Federal Libs, I doubt he will he care about the WA Libs concerns.
Perhaps, but since he relies on the “Labor States” bogeyman to push this particular barrow, a Liberal State branch rejecting the plan might have a significant impact on the public relations campaign.
Urgh, can you just imagine what it would be like if the Howard gov managed to get that through. Industrial relations - what’s that? Just one more step to keeping those socio-economic class structures separate. His elitism disgusts me, it’s so un-Australian.