Mar'n Ferguson was always one of the more sensible Labor ministers. This in the paper today:
FORMER Labor frontbencher and union leader Martin Ferguson today will back changes to industrial relations laws, including allowing the use of contractors and restoring the building watchdog, warning that productivity must improve or unemployment will rise and living standards will fall.
Mr Ferguson, a former ACTU president and leader of the factional Left, will support elements of Tony Abbott’s industrial relations and deregulation agenda and reject government subsidies for “unsustainable industries”.
His comments, in a speech to be delivered today in Perth, are at odds with Bill Shorten’s opposition to the government’s plan to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and with criticism of the government’s refusal to provide subsidies to SPC Ardmona and further assistance to General Motors Holden.
He will also call for special-purpose agreements for capital-intensive projects to provide long-term certainty on workforce costs and accuses the Maritime Union of Australia of threatening Western Australia’s economic prospects through outsized wage claims.
Mr Ferguson will say that Australia risks pricing itself out of $180 billion worth of new LNG investments that would create 150,000 jobs.
Arguing that “Australia’s future economic strength will not be underpinned by the propping up of unsustainable sectors or by any government subsidy or handout”, Mr Ferguson will declare that reform must make it easier for business to invest with certainty.
He will call for a reduction in red tape, for government to commit to market-based policy and for it to “re-evaluate how our workplace relations framework influences access to labour and how it affects the economic viability of new projects”.
FORMER Labor frontbencher and union leader Martin Ferguson today will back changes to industrial relations laws, including allowing the use of contractors and restoring the building watchdog, warning that productivity must improve or unemployment will rise and living standards will fall.
Mr Ferguson, a former ACTU president and leader of the factional Left, will support elements of Tony Abbott’s industrial relations and deregulation agenda and reject government subsidies for “unsustainable industries”.
His comments, in a speech to be delivered today in Perth, are at odds with Bill Shorten’s opposition to the government’s plan to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and with criticism of the government’s refusal to provide subsidies to SPC Ardmona and further assistance to General Motors Holden.
He will also call for special-purpose agreements for capital-intensive projects to provide long-term certainty on workforce costs and accuses the Maritime Union of Australia of threatening Western Australia’s economic prospects through outsized wage claims.
Mr Ferguson will say that Australia risks pricing itself out of $180 billion worth of new LNG investments that would create 150,000 jobs.
Arguing that “Australia’s future economic strength will not be underpinned by the propping up of unsustainable sectors or by any government subsidy or handout”, Mr Ferguson will declare that reform must make it easier for business to invest with certainty.
He will call for a reduction in red tape, for government to commit to market-based policy and for it to “re-evaluate how our workplace relations framework influences access to labour and how it affects the economic viability of new projects”.
