Aha! Rudd bows to the need for flexibility in workplace laws

A RUDD government would allow any worker to give up award conditions such as overtime, shift penalties and allowances in return for higher wages, drawing union accusations that Labor's policy is little different to WorkChoices. Its plan for trade-offs between employers and individual workers emerged yesterday but was slammed as a "sop to big business" by the Unions NSW secretary, John Roberston.

Mr Robertson, who was campaigning against WorkChoices in Bathurst yesterday, said the award flexibility plan made it much less clear that Labor opposed individual contracts. "I addressed a meeting of 60 prison officers this morning and they were raising questions about what is Labor's real position and how different is it from WorkChoices," he said.

A Newspoll out today shows Labor has increased its two-party preferred lead over the Coalition to 59-41. But the Minister for Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, said Labor's industrial relation shift exposed its hypocrisy and would give employees less protection than the Government's legislation. There would be no umpire "checking to ensure that people get their full award entitlements. Under our laws you are guaranteed to get the award with full monetary compensation for any trade-offs."

The Deputy Opposition Leader, Julia Gillard, said last night such deals would provide flexibility for employers to pay more than the award but not make workers worse off. Her spokeswoman confirmed that flexibility clauses would allow "all up" pay rates to replace award conditions for workers on less than $100,000 a year. Conditions which could be traded off for pay under the mechanism for individual agreements include overtime; penalty rates for public holidays, weekends and unsociable hours; travel and tool allowances; the 17.5 per cent annual leave loading; meal and rest breaks and rostering rules. As revealed in the Herald yesterday, Ms Gillard confirmed that 10 planned legislated national employment standards - such as annual leave and sick leave - could not be negotiated away under the mechanism.

Labor's latest policy move comes despite an intensive political campaign by the ACTU against the use of individual workplace agreements under WorkChoices to negotiate changes to conditions such as overtime and penalty rates. But the ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, said there was still "a world of difference" between the individual negotiations allowed under WorkChoices and Labor's plans. "To the extent that there is a flexibility provided [by Labor] then it would have a genuine no-disadvantage test underpinning it," Ms Burrow said. "By contrast, you can drive a truck through the Government's fairness test."

But Mr Robertson said: "They need to be emphatic about saying we are not having individuals being expected to negotiate . with their employers. These sorts of things . create confusion in the minds of working people." The Housing Industry Association welcomed Labor's move. The flexibility clauses would be inserted into all awards. They would allow individual workers and employers to reach agreements on how to apply the award. A survey of small business has found that only 20 per cent believe they will be hurt by Labor's plans to reinstate protections against unfair dismissal. The Sensis Business Index, out today, found about 70 per cent thought reinstating the laws would have no effect on their business.

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"Protests" as hot air



The APEC juggernaut has finally hit Sydney. 21 world leaders and their entourages will descend on the harbour city, while protesters from various groups are determined to make their voices heard during the week-long summit. But is there a point to all these protests?

Sydneysiders are gearing up for traffic chaos and restricted movement as security measures such as a 5km fence, public transport shutdowns and clearways are implemented in the city for the conference.

According to Prime Minister John Howard, it is the potential for violent protests rather than the visiting world leaders that has led to these severe security actions. He has stepped up his rhetoric against the potential protesters, calling them hypocrites who undermine the very values they campaign for.

So what's it all for? Protest groups say that these demonstrations help to raise awareness for issues on climate change, the war in Iraq, the rights of workers - issues that they say APEC does not support. APEC delegates however, argue that these protests are pointless and do not make a real difference. Mr Howard called on protesters to "stop for a moment and consider that if they really are worried about issues such as poverty, security and climate change, then they should support APEC and not attack it".

The protesters undoubtedly add colour to these economic and political summits. Remember the 1999 protests in Seattle during the WTO summit, or the S11 demonstrations in Melbourne in 2000 when the World Economic Forum was held? What do you remember them for - the trade issues discussed or the demonstrations? Is it fair to make such a comparison when APEC comes across as a dour multilateral organisation that sets long-term aspirational targets rather than deadlines.

So the question remains - did these protests really make a difference? Did they at least create awareness among the general public on issues such as globalisation, war, poverty, climate change and the rights of workers? Or like the international summits that they campaign against, more a symbolic talking shop, all hot air and no real action?

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IQ tests rediscovered in Australia

Although he was shy, overweight and pushing 40, Paul Potts somehow summoned the nerve to perform on the show Britain's Got Talent. He appeared on stage in a wrinkled shirt and cheap, ill-fitting jacket and trembling like a leaf. You could see the three judges looking at each other, wondering what this mobile phone salesman was doing there as he prepared to sing Puccini's Nessun Dorma. But he went on to win the competition and was signed by a record company. People who do not appear to have ability sometimes go on to achieve great things. We need a university entrance system which takes this into account.

Our tertiary admissions system is like a footrace. The first students to cross the finishing line - those with the highest entrance scores - gain entry to the most popular courses at the most prestigious universities; those who run a bit slower get to study less popular courses, and so on. It sounds fair, but is it? In most races, the runners begin at the same starting line, which is rarely true in life. Some students have the advantage of private schooling while others struggle in under-resourced schools; some help out their families by working part-time while others may use the time for extra tutoring.

A fair system should take unequal starting points into account. There are two ways to do this. One is to use special "access" schemes to allow students from deprived backgrounds to enter courses they would not get into under the competitive admissions system. Because these students may displace students with higher entry scores, access schemes face substantial political resistance from those with higher entry marks. In addition, many academics worry that students admitted just because they are socially or economically deprived may lack the necessary motivation or the academic potential to succeed.

This is where admissions tests, such as the one we intend to introduce at Macquarie University this year, can help to uncover hidden talent among educationally disadvantaged students. I expect that those who will be most interested in taking the test will be students whose entry mark has been adversely affected by illness, family problems or poor schooling. This test is already being used by the Australian National University and Monash. No test is perfect, but the UniTest, at least, makes no assumptions about schooling. For example, students may be asked to read and answer questions about a paragraph. All the necessary information is contained in the paragraph, so the test assesses only reasoning, not knowledge.

Tertiary admissions tests had their debut at Harvard University 60 years ago, when the university was the preserve of wealthy students whose families could afford to send them to the best preparatory schools. James Conant, the president of Harvard at the time, believed talented students were missing out because their poor schooling did not prepare them for the curriculum-based achievement tests that Harvard used to select students. He wanted selection to be based, at least in part, on a general "aptitude" test that was not linked to any particular school experience. In Conant's view, such a test would produce an even playing field in which working-class and middle-class students could compete in a contest of brains rather than bank accounts. The test he chose was the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

By the 1990s the test was producing revenue of about $US200 million a year. But critics questioned its status as a test of innate ability. Studies found that coaching improved performance, although how much was debatable, and certainly good schooling helped students achieve higher scores. This doesn't mean the Scholastic Aptitude Test is not useful. The test predicts first-year university performance - the reason it is still widely used to select students.

Although the admissions test may help make the system fairer, it is important to remember that no test can be guaranteed to uncover every Paul Potts. There is no perfectly objective selection device and there never will be. All examinations are influenced by social and economic factors and by life experiences. The best we can hope for is that universities will use test results as part of a holistic assessment. University admissions will always be more of an art than a science and the playing field may never be completely flat, but we can make admissions fairer by using admissions tests.

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Now dams cause global warming!

Between cow farts and dams, how will we ever survive? Greenies have always hated dams, of course. In the circumstances, it would seem in harmony with their beliefs to cut off the town-water supply to all Greenies. They might actually discover where town water comes from then: DAMS

THE world's dams are contributing millions of tonnes of harmful greenhouse gases and spurring on global warming, according to a US environmental agency. International Rivers Network executive director Patrick McCully today told Brisbane's Riversymposium that rotting vegetation and fish found in dams produced surprising amounts of methane - 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

"Often it's accepted that hydropower is a climate friendly technology but in fact probably all reservoirs around the world emit greenhouse gases and some of them, especially some of the ones in the tropics, emit very high quantities of greenhouse gases even comparable to, in some cases even much worse than, fossil fuels like coal and gas," Mr McCully said.

He said when water flow was stopped, vegetation and soil in the flooded area and from upstream was left to rot, as well as fish and other animals which died in the dam. They then released carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the air. "Basically they're factories for converting carbon into methane and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas - it's less known than carbon dioxide but it's actually about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere."

Mr McCully said global estimates blamed dams for about a third of all methane emissions worldwide. The Brazilian National Space Agency estimated that was about 104 million tonnes of methane each year, or 4 per cent of the human impact on global warming, he said.

Mr McCully said that was a lot for such a small sector. But he said it was an area that was under-researched so a clearer picture of how dams were contributing to global warming was not known. The only Australian research that had been done was on Tasmanian dams, which found emissions were around 30 per cent of a natural gas plant - a much higher reading than US dam emissions, Mr McCully said. Those readings would be higher in hotter parts of Australia, especially northern Queensland, he said. Mr McCully said greater energy efficiency needed to be researched to overcome the problem, including technology that could produce energy from the methane from dams.

The 10th annual Riversymposium, Australia's largest river management conference, brings around 500 delegates from 40 countries to Brisbane this week to discuss river health, damming practices, drought and climate change.

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