When the IR laws are not!

As always the Road to Surfdom [check it out here] blog puts it succinctly

"If members of Mr Howard’s own party think the new IR legislation sucks, why should the rest of us have to put up with it?:

(Victorian) State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu is distancing the Victorian Liberal Party from hardline elements of the Howard Government’s industrial relations revolution.

In the lead-up to the November state election, Mr Baillieu will tell nurses, doctors, teachers, police officers and other public sector workers that under a Victorian Liberal government none of them would be forced onto individual contracts or encouraged to quit their unions.

He will pledge that as premier, and therefore effectively the biggest employer in the state, he will continue the Bracks Labor Government’s policy of negotiating collective agreements with the main public sector unions, which cover hundreds of thousands of Victorian workers.

No wait, he doesn’t think they suck:

State Liberal strategists last night emphasised that he remained a strong supporter of the Federal Government’s laws, but was keen to send a message that on industrial relations he was pro-choice rather than anti-union.

So he’s strong supporter of them, he’s just not anti-union and he’s pro-choice. In other words — and excuse me labouring the obvious implication of his words — he’s saying that WorkChoices is anti-union and anti-choice."

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