IR will damage the opposition

The federal Budget was delivered last Tuesday but the real political milestone was passed on Thursday and it was not during Opposition leader Kevin Rudd's lacklustre address-in-reply.The telling moments occurred in Question Time when Rudd attempted to quote Prime Minister John Howard and found he wasn't quite sure what Howard had said, and when Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey enumerated Labor's IR backflips

The growing list of errors which have seen Rudd and his deputy, Julia Gillard, back and fill like P-platers attempting a three-point turn is starting to have an effect on an increasingly demoralised ALP. The clumsy process has left senior Labor frontbenchers hanging on issues upon which there should be a settled and agreed position. Just ask frontbenchers Stephen Smith and Jenny Macklin who were left dangling when Rudd changed tack on full-fee-paying university students in the space of eight hours. This was the week Labor planned to demonstrate its sound economic credentials but was forced to reconsider aspects of its controversial industrial relations and education policies. Usually taciturn Labor MPs are now offering their opinions of their Dream Team leadership, and they're not flattering. While there may not be a lot of unity on many issues within the parliamentary wing of the federal ALP, there is near-unanimity among many of the most experienced Labor hands that Rudd has shown himself to be a more severe disappointment with every passing day. As one senior Labor MP said: "If industrial relations and education are our most treasured policies, issues at the heart of our set of values, how did we come to stuff them up so completely?'' That particular MP was referring to Rudd's Press Club appearance made in the wake of his botched Vietnam Anzac Day stunt, a set piece which came unstuck when Rudd unveiled a policy that was a complete surprise to other MPs and to the ALP's bridge-to-business Sir Rod Eddington. Rudd subsequently admitted not being across the detail of the policy, and it would appear that Gillard, who drafted it in concert with ACTU boss Greg Combet, isn't into fine print, either. Gillard has come in for particularly scathing treatment from her colleagues who ask how she, a former industrial lawyer with some of the largest Labor law firms in the nation, could have so little understanding of the basics of industrial law. Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey zeroed in on Rudd and Gillard's inadequacy last Thursday, wittily enumerating Labor's policy problems in a manner that left many on the Opposition benches struggling to keep straight faces. "It is hard to keep up with the alternative views, because the Labor Party keeps changing their alternative views,'' he began. "Just as I am getting across this wonderful document, Forward With Fairness, it changes _ in fact, it has changed five times in 10 days.'' Mercilessly, Hockey listed the changes in Labor's unravelling policy: "Policy number one: they said they were going to have a one-stop shop. Within 24 hours, the Labor Party realised that they were in breach of the doctrine of the separation of powers. "So now, the one-stop shop is a two-stop shop. Secondly _ oops _ they set down 10 minimum standards but they forgot to add in the minimum wage! The minimum wage _ how could you forget that! "You can imagine Greg Combet and Julia Gillard sitting there and negotiating on Greg Combet coming into parliament. They forgot to put in the minimum wage. They are so concerned about the workers out there that they forgot to put in a minimum wage! "After The Australian asked the deputy leader of the Opposition's office about that, it reported: `Ms Gillard's proposed 10 legislated minimum standards also omitted a minimum wage, but her office insists there will now be 11 conditions.'' Eleven! Imagine Moses coming down from Mount Sinai. He has been carrying these tablets. He has got 10 commandments. Someone is there with a hammer and chisel, belting away the minimum wage! Hard work! "The third reversal is on page nine of their policy. The ALP will: `... guarantee that Australian working families have the flexibility of up to 24 months' unpaid leave to provide care for their child.''' God bless! Where's the member for Rankin (Labor's Dr Craig Emerson)? We need him at this moment. He says that if a small business cannot accommodate a request for an extension of parental leave, it need only write a letter giving its reasons. That does not sound like a guarantee to me. "So it is not 24 months guaranteed parental leave; it is the 12 months guarantee which is already in the Coalition's legislation. This must be hurting!'' The Budget was a quiet winner for the Government, but its biggest bounce will come over the next month from IR, thanks to the Opposition's mishandling of its own key policy. [e-mail]