Labor pledges to push up penalty rates, yet Shorten said he’d back umpire

Labor leader Bill Shorten in Sydney, yesterday:

I will reverse the cuts to penalty rates.

Shorten hates flexible workplace rates but he’s limber in other areas. Melbourne’s 3AW, April 21 last year:

I’ve said I’ll accept the independent tribunal (on penalty rates) …

The Opposition Leader’s ability to bend multiple ways is, frankly, superhuman. Sydney, yesterday:

Reporter: Wouldn’t it undermine confidence in the independent ­umpire?

Shorten: Not at all. Essentially, we support having an independent umpire. But in this case they just got the decision wrong.

That’s a decision by the independent umpire you said you’d back? Yeah? Shorten on 3AW, April 21 last year:

Neil Mitchell: So even if the Fair Work Commission … recommend that (a cut to penalty rates), you’ll ­accept it?

Shorten: I’ve got my opinion. At the end of the day, though, the way wages get set in this country is through ­evidence, it’s through the submissions of workers, their representatives and employers.

And Fairfax Media’s Latika Bourke on how gay marriage could still get up. ­The Sydney Morning Herald online at 10.47am, yesterday:

Under this scenario, with the government’s majority reduced to just one … it would only take a couple of pro-gay marriage MPs to be caught in the loo or fail to make the chamber for standing orders to be suspended and a private members’ bill brought forward.

Peta Credlin in The Australian yesterday (published online 10 hours and 47 minutes before Bourke):

… the other way to bring it on is by suspending standing orders … Under this scenario, assisted by the Leader of the House — who might, let’s say, give supporters a heads-up … a successful suspension vote would enable an immediate vote on same-sex marriage.

Bourke gives us more of her sparkling, original analysis in The Sydney Morning Herald online yesterday:

It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would be done, the source said. In this situation questions of a free vote or a party room meeting to discuss a private members’ bill are completely redundant. All the government and crossbench would need is just a few Liberal MPs, many of whom are on the record as saying they believe the issue is one of conscience, to cross the floor.

Sound familiar? Credlin in The Australian yesterday:

To get the suspension vote up, an absolute majority is required (76 votes), and while precedent requires that all MPs support policy even on procedural votes, a handful of Coalition MPs such as (Trent) Zimmerman may be tempted to cross the floor to make LGBTI history.

If only Latika had written about this earlier. Bourke on the Herald’s website yesterday:

Late last year a very senior Liberal source privately floated the prospect of gay marriage happening by ­“accident”.

Must be hard for Canberra reporters to check The Australian’s opinion pageswhen they live overseas. Bourke’s Twitter biography:

Latika M Bourke — Fairfax Media Australia journalist filing from ­London …

Luckily, Latika, we’re online too. You’ll never have to wonder if someone has published the same thing as you, hours before, again:

theaustralian.com.au/opinion