Rudd and all that jive

OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd has flown to the US to demonstrate his fitness to manage the crucial Australian-American alliance - leaving a lot of unfinished business in his wake.

While many voters still seem mesmerised by the sight of a politician prepared to trip the light fantastic with a morning television hostess – if it will get his face on the small screen – the hard questions remain. Getting up-close-and-personal with Kerri-Anne Kennerley is no substitute for concrete answers to the critical questions he has left hanging. Rudd outlined the ALP's new industrial relations policy at the National Press Club on Tuesday but, crucially, it contains nothing to ensure the current record employment levels and economic prosperity will be protected. Instead, it is a backward-looking policy designed primarily to appease Labor's traditional clients, the big trade unions, at a time when the trade union movement is less relevant than ever to the Australian workforce. Despite the trade union bosses throwing millions of dollars of workers' money into a massive recruiting program as part of its assault on WorkChoices, figures released two weeks ago revealed 125,000 workers had walked away from the union movement in the past 12 months. The number of male union members has dropped below one million for the first time, with total membership now 1.8 million. Trade unions now represent just 15.5 per cent of private-sector workers, down from 16.7 per cent in mid-2005. What's particularly worrying is Rudd's determination to kowtow to the dying union movement by abolishing the million or so AWAs that make it possible for workers to service the resources industries without the historic hassles associated with trade union thuggery. Further, despite Rudd's grandiose claims he enjoys the support of the trade union bosses and can bring Labor states into line and make them accept a uniform, national IR system, the NSW Government has already signalled it does not intend to hand over its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth. Rudd's attempt to convince business he is all smiles and no teeth is flawed. The powerful boss of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Doug Cameron, is unimpressed with Rudd's plan to reintroduce a "softer" set of unfair dismissal laws. Business organisations, which are usually cowardly when confronted by the ALP and hope that the Government will protect their interests, are plain unimpressed. Peter Hendy, chief of the nation's peak business lobby, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), warned that the rights of small business and employers would still be eroded. Kevin MacDonald, chief executive of NSW's largest employer group, the NSW Business Chamber, said business was disappointed Labor remained committed to tearing up AWAs. "Ripping up one million AWAs will do nothing for business confidence or certainty," he said. "Mr Rudd does need to move his position on this as it represents a line in the sand for the Australian business community." Small businesses with fewer than 15 staff would still be able to sack employees for any reason if they had worked for the company for less than a year – and those with more than 15 workers would have an exemption from unfair dismissal laws for six months, thresholds MacDonald said were "far too low". The other issue Rudd has evaded by jetting out is the question of his knowledge of the Sunrise – or Sunlies – fake Anzac Day dawn service. Though Nine's veteran reporter Laurie Oakes took the fight to Rudd at the Press Club, Rudd adopted the royal plural, saying "I think generally we got this wrong in recent times and I'm the first one to admit that". But it was Rudd, not others, and certainly not a plurality, who attempted to deny what everyone in his office knew – that he was to appear on Sunrise from Vietnam's Long Tan memorial on Anzac Day. There is however an even more substantial point that needs to be made about Rudd and the Seven network fools who thought they could take advantage of Anzac Day to improve the Sunrise ratings – and that is this: if Seven and Rudd really wanted to pay homage to the Vietnam veterans at Long Tan, why did they dump the plan once their shonky scheme had been revealed? Surely, if the whole exercise was primarily based on a genuine desire to salute those veterans, why didn't he and his network "family" of Kochie and Co do just that? The only conclusion that can be drawn from this odious plan is that Long Tan was seen as stage set and the Vietnam vets were to be mere props in what was to be an advertisement for Kevin Rudd and Seven. What a Koch-up.