Independent Senator rejects Warmist laws as too coercive

Xenophon is a successful lawyer and a genuine centrist, with some Left, some conservative and some Green positions

Key crossbench senator Nick Xenophon has stepped up his attack on the Government's planned emissions trading scheme. "The Rudd Government targets are pretty pathetic, the 5per cent," Senator Xenophon told The Australian yesterday. "What Rudd's done is overly bureaucratic and cumbersome." The South Australian independent senator is travelling in the US and Canada on budget airlines and Greyhound buses to examine carbon reduction schemes, on a trip paid for from his own pocket.

Senator Xenophon said the Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would lead to a massive churn of funds from industry and households to government and back as compensation, as well as higher-than-anticipated costs. He pointed to modelling by Melbourne consultants Frontier Economics to warn that the CPRS could collect up to $80billion a year that would need to be reallocated. "The scheme is all stick and no carrot," he said. "If the design is wrong, we shouldn't do it."

Senator Xenophon said Australia should follow the Canadian model, which granted concessions to lower greenhouse gas emitters. This would reduce churn and allow for higher emission reduction targets. "What it does is encourage investment in greener technology," he said. "The cleaner you are, the greater level of credits you get. You don't have the same degree of churn because you work at a level of energy intensity. "It's much simpler. You just don't get the same price effect."

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke defended the Government's proposals. "We've got the balance there in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to make sure that industries can deal with the challenges of the transition whilst making sure that Australia is part of the economy of the future and can credibly argue for significant emissions reductions for the major emitters around the world," Mr Burke said.

The minister sought to highlight Coalition splits on emissions trading after Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce told The Australian his party might vote against the Liberals on the issue. "Malcolm Turnbull is willing to tolerate climate change sceptics and a front bench which can't agree on anything," Mr Burke said. "He will tolerate a Coalition partner that only votes with him when it feels like it." The Opposition Leader denied that the Coalition partners were divided. "I've no doubt that we will be responding to this legislation with one voice," Mr Turnbull said.

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On our way to the bad old days

Gillard's workplace plan is a big win for union leaders

ANYBODY who does not believe we have returned to the old era of union authority should pay attention to what ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence is up to. As Samantha Maiden reported in The Australian yesterday, Mr Lawrence is angry over the Rudd Government's proposed workplace laws, saying that pattern bargaining, where unions negotiate deals that apply to an entire industry, is not allowed. He wants pattern bargaining back, so unions can protect workers' wages and conditions.

Back in the days when wages and conditions were imposed on employers and workers by lawyers, peak employer representatives and big union officials of the industrial relations club, this was called an ambit claim - an outrageous demand to distract attention from the real objective. In this case, Mr Lawrence's objective looks like being to stop people from understanding that Employment Minister Julia Gillard has already given the ACTU a great deal of what it wants, and he does not want anybody to realise this before the new workplace relations legislation goes through parliament. It is a deception that will help Ms Gillard, who knows that ostensible union anger will help her bill in the Senate, where the Government is in the minority. Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has already acknowledged that the Government has an election mandate to change John Howard's workplace laws, and union anger will make it easy not to fight Ms Gillard's bill too hard. After all, if the ACTU is upset by it, how bad can it be?

The answer is that it is very bad indeed. Ms Gillard wants to re-establish the foundation of the old industrial relations club, with a powerful quasi-court, to be called Fair Work Australia. It will have a role in setting minimum wages and resolving disputes. Unions will be empowered to get involved in negotiations in organisations where they have but one member. And in workplaces where they have none, union officials will have right of entry to inspect staff records, on the grounds that employees might want to become unionists in the future. If employers do not bargain in "good faith", defined in a set of instructions, FWA will be able to compulsory arbitrate an agreement.

The complex arrangements Ms Gillard has in place until the old Howard government laws are replaced by her legislation demonstrate how bad things will be. They are designed to keep industrial relations experts busy and business bemused. But the ACTU's biggest win is the way Ms Gillard plans to create a separate bargaining system for low-paid workers in industries such as childcare and cleaning, hospitality and security. The new legislation outlaws industrial action across these industries but does permit industrywide negotiation. That parliamentary secretary Greg Combet, Mr Lawrence's predecessor at the ACTU, pushed for the compulsory bargaining powers in the system for low-paid workers demonstrates the victory they are for the unions.

While Mr Lawrence says none of this is good enough, in fact, suddenly it's the 1970s. Ms Gillard is pointing us towards a time when employers were obliged to organise their workplaces in accord with centrally set wages and conditions, regardless of local circumstances, or capacity to pay. Certainly, her new pattern bargaining under another name is restricted to specific industries, and Ms Gillard is right to remind us that striking in support of claims is not permitted. But FWA's authority to oversee negotiations means employers will answer to an organisation with the power to set wages and conditions. And once the principle of industrywide negotiation is accepted, the unions will push to increase it across the economy.

Ms Gillard has been very clever in giving the unions as much authority as they need to impose themselves on workers and employers who have no interest in their assistance, while talking tough about keeping union power under control. She has got away with it because Kevin Rudd pays attention to industrial relations only when he has to. The Prime Minister intervened when Ms Gillard went too far with her first draft of the industrial relations laws in April 2007. But he failed to intervene when she, with Mr Combet's counsel, drafted the present proposals.

Mr Rudd needs to intervene now, as we face the biggest threat to employment in a generation. To preserve jobs we need a system where wages and conditions are set at the enterprise level, without the uninvited interference of union officials or Ms Gillard's quasi-court. For Mr Rudd to amend the workplace legislation would upset Mr Combet and generate genuine outrage from Mr Lawrence. Tough. This is a time when the interest of all Australians must come first. And if he doubts it, Mr Rudd should ask the first prime minister of modern times to take on the unions, that master of consensus, Bob Hawke.

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Maggots in public hospital ICU

This must be about as charming as it gets. But the NHS got there before us, of course

Maggots have been found falling from the ceiling of the Royal Hobart Hospital's intensive care unit. The maggots were discovered on Tuesday in a male staff toilet not accessible to the general public. The hospital attempted to play down the grubby find yesterday, saying only a small number of larvae were found by a staff member, who reported them immediately.

Spokeswoman Pene Snashall said patient hygiene was never at risk. "The Environmental Services Team and the Infection and Prevention Control Team responded immediately with a thorough clean-up and investigation," Ms Snashall said. "Patient safety and care was always our top priority." But even after virtually gutting the toilet block, the source of the infestation remains a mystery. The hygiene team ripped out ceiling tiles looking for possible sources of the maggots, including dead rodents in the air-conditioning vents, but found nothing. "There have not been any further discoveries [of maggots] as of today and we are confident we have eliminated the problem," Ms Snashall said.

Maggots are sometimes used in medicine to eat dead flesh and speed up the healing of wounds -- but not in this case. Ms Snashall said the hospital had a year-round pest control program to control spiders, ants and cockroaches.

Australian Nursing Federation Neroli Ellis said the incident showed the ageing hospital was virtually rotting. "I do think it is a one-off -- the cleaning staff are vigilant," she said. "But it is reflective of the state of the building and the age of the building that these issues are occurring and there needs to be strong monitoring and a review of maintenance to ensure this situation doesn't happen again." Ms Ellis said building a new hospital would not fix the problems at the old facility in the short term. "Whatever is decided politically about building a new hospital, there must be an ongoing upgrade of the current building in the meantime because it is falling down around them," she said.

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Must not criticize Muslim garb

A Brisbane radio station may have to explain why it should keep its licence after an announcer was accused of making anti-Islamic comments. Former Victorian police officer, now 4BC drive-time announcer, Michael Smith called for Muslim women who wear an Islamic hijab in public to be fined for offensive behaviour. He made the remarks on-air and on the 4BC website, saying: "Any reasonable person would find this offensive."

Islamic Council of Queensland president Suliman Sabdia said Mr Smith's remarks amounted to "a clear case of intolerance".

Under the Commercial Radio Code of Practice, a licensee must not broadcast a program likely to incite hatred against or vilify any person or group on the basis of age, ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual preference, religion, or disability. Christine Donnelly from the Australian Communications and Media Authority said Mr Smith's comments could be a breach of the Code of Practice. 4BC general manager David McDonald said Mr Smith's remarks were not intended to be anti-religion or anti-Muslim.

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