Politics: The Liberal Mandate: Nice Work Australia.

Well, parliament is back in session. The pollies have flown down to Canberra, ready to see what the Liberal government – high on the heady delights of a national ‘mandate’ – has in store for them.

Last Tuesday, Governor-General Michael Jeffery outlined the Liberals’ priorities. The full sale of Telstra was up there, as well as the abolition of unfair dismissal laws. Oh, and of course, the ubiquitous war on terrorism.

The Telstra sale has been a government priority for a while now. Back when they didn’t hold the power in the Senate, all those months ago, the Libs tried to pass a full sale more than once, like twisted perverts attempting to spike the national drink. Despite the opposition of Nationals leader John Anderson – the deputy prime minister – John Howard is hellbent on pawing Telstra off to the highest bidder. And with good economic reason. Number-crunching business geeks are saying that if the government’s majority stake in the communications giant is approved by the Senate – and clearly it will be – the float will raise around $30 billion dollars. That’s a lot of cash. The business community – apart from communications competitors like Optus – are no doubt stoned with delight at the prospect of that kind of cash floating around.

But predictably, and justifiably, most Liberal non-supporters are against the deal. Full privatisation assures that regional and rural punters won’t get close to the level of service they should expect. A private business has no reason to fund enterprises that won’t make a profit, and as such, more isolated areas in Australia – and much of Australia is isolated - are pretty much assured that they won’t see full broadband coverage any time soon, assuming they even have a working phone line now.

But then, the isolated ruralist vote for the Coalition was pretty bloody high, so maybe the bastards asked for everything they’re about to get, right?

The abolition of unfair dismissal laws is a real problem. It represents the logical conclusion to a battle the Liberals have been waging on workers for years. We’ve seen the increased casualisation of the workforce, which ensures people don’t have job security, which ensures the economy can’t grow effectively as people don’t feel secure enough in their unprotected jobs to fork out big wads of cash. We’ve seen Australian Workplace Agreements, which were brought in solely to lessen the strength of Australian unions and increase the power of the employer over the employee. Now we’re seeing unfair dismissal laws annulled for small businesses.

This could have a devastating effect on huge numbers of workers, who are now opened up to the possibility of being sacked without reason or recompense. The danger is that small businesses will no longer have to answer to anyone. Whilst the theory behind the abolition is sound enough – that small coffee shops shouldn’t face the same stringent workplace regulations as multi-national businesses – the end result is a weakening of the rights of Australian workers. The trade off isn’t worth it. Sharan Burrow from the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said the legislation is ‘…basically a licence for bullying and harassment in the workplace that will not create one extra job,’ and she’s not wrong.

And as for that other Liberal priority, the war on terrorism? Uh, I think we know how well that's going...

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column. Written while drunk on justifiable Liberal-hating passion).

(Photo: Liberal man Joe Hockey, who has never played ice hockey).