Howard Blunders On IR, Uranium

Is there something at work here that goes beyond the usual ups and downs of the political cycle? Maybe. There are some strategic issues that may not be good for the Government in the 18 months to the next election. It is not often that a Productivity Commission report explodes a key political assumption, but it happened this week with the release of its study, The Role of Non-Traditional Work in the Australian Labour Market. The report demonstrates that far from independent contractors replacing traditional employees, exactly the reverse is true; numbers of independent contractors are dropping. So claims of a fundamental political shift away from employees to a new economic and political grouping of self-employed contractors who love John Howard turn out to be wrong. Howard assumed his radical industrial relations reform would appeal to a surging new class, even if it was less attractive to what was seen to be a declining employee class. Unfortunately for him, we know now this strategic assumption was wrong. It's still employees of the ordinary kind who are politically important. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,19331117,00.html

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