How business is turning the work-power reset into ‘controversy’ — with media help

Industrial relations is Australia’s big political skirmish that just refuses to go away. It’s defined the fault lines in Australia’s national politics since Federation.

Look through the detail. The debate right now is pretty simple: how does the balance of power at work get reset? How can it be tilted back to boost real wages in an environment when labour/capital income shares are so seriously out of whack?

As ever, the to-and-fro over the government’s proposed legislation is acting as a spotlight, showing the serious fractures and hypocrisies in Australian politics — and the struggles of our media in grappling with them.

Politics over policy

There’s one thing Australia’s media are good at: a she-said, he-said tick-tock of the politics of the moment. Trouble is, this leads them too quickly to prioritise the reporting to the political harrumphing around an issue rather than the implications of the policy itself.

The draft bill is one of those rare things in legislation: it’s overtly and deliberately about power, about shifting the bargaining balance from business towards workers, particularly by allowing simultaneous bargaining across a sector, enabling workers to take combined strike action and empowering the Industrial Relations Commission to break deadlocks when employers just say no.

The theory (and the historical evidence) is that If workers have more bargaining power they will be able to bend the curve of the labour/capital share.

To be fair to the employer opposition, it’s saying the same thing, although covered up with a lathering of productivity and workplace collaboration to deliver real wages. It’s unwilling to yield any of the power the current legislative framework gives it.

It’s messy. Confronting. Conflict-ridden. Safer to magic the clash away with a bit of “controversial” adjectiving and chatter about parliamentary tactics and anti-mining tax-style campaigns.

News Corp sets the agenda — again

The “controversy” is driven by News Corp’s front page criticisms and the Sky News commentariat pushing out business talking points. It’s partly about mobilising their base, partly about keeping the Liberals and Nationals in the trenches, and partly about intimidating the Senate crossbench.

It’s about using the look and feel of traditional media to mislead with a laser focus on detail that can readily be controversialised. It’s designed to lead the eye away from the non-controversial intent of the policy: raising real wages, particularly in disadvantaged, often feminised, sectors.

Seems not all pre-election promises are equal

Was it really just the past week or so that Australia’s media — particularly the News Corp media — were lecturing the political class about the high morality of keeping to one’s pre-election promises?

Of course, that was about tax cuts, largely for high-income earners. Now that Labor is attempting to implement the policy it laid down before the election to abolish a couple of the layers of industrial regulators implemented by the conservatives, it’s being urged to reconsider.

It’s easy to point at the hypocrisy of de-regulationists: the entire point of both the Registered Organisations Commission (unions being organisations that are registered) and the Australian Building and Construction Commission is to tie unions up in red tape and to criminalise legitimate union action and campaigning.

Won’t hold my breath for the essentialists of promise-honouring in relation to tax cuts applying the same high-minded principle to steps that make it easier for unions to do their job.

Are the teals blue greens, or green blues?

The intensity of the lobbying is wedging teal independents, forcing them to clarify their identity: are they blue conservatives, moderated by their green environmentalism? Or are they environmentalists reaching out to conservatives?

No wonder they don’t really want to have to say — particularly in the Senate where their votes look like making a difference. That’s why they’re eager to have the controversial parts of the legislation (that is, those parts big business lobbyists don’t like) put off.

In Australia’s media discourse it’s not the done thing to be critical of independents. They provide an entertaining diversity, after all. But when it comes to workers’ rights, they are going to have to decide just how different from the Liberal Party members they replaced they intend to be.

Are the Liberals hypocrites over Labor’s “broken promises”? Write to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.