It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.
Chapter 5, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
It was with similar incredulity that I discovered that the Australian government intends to ‘rename’ it’s controversial Work Choices legislation. As though it had been thrust into a ‘memory hole’, Work Choices has been purged from government vocabulary:
THE term “Work Choices” has been officially banished from the vocabulary of staff employed to provide the public with information about the government’s controversial workplace laws.
In a sign of the unpopularity of the laws, government newspaper ads on industrial relations issues no longer refer to the term “Work Choices.”
Staff on a Department of Workplace Relations information line have been told to stop using the term “Work Choices.”The department’s website now refers to the “Work Choices Infoline” as the “Workplace Infoline” and posters tell call centre staff “all references to Work Choices should now be changed to workplace relations”.
“If a client is confused because of the new name, you should indicate they have called the correct number and clarify that our name has changed to make it easier for people to get information,” a guide for operators says.
“In all instances a client should be referred to the workplace website, not to the Work Choices website.”
The changes come after internal Labor Party polling showed strong support for the party’s opposition to Work Choices.
This may be a case of newspeak backlash. That is, the government overreached when attempting to brand its unfair and cutthroat legislation as being about freedom and choice by labeling it “Work Choices”. The brand is so obviously an application of newspeak (thanks in part to an effective ACTU campaign) that the irony is almost explicit and reinforces the view that the whole legislation stinks.
Only in this world of the post-modern where everything is a simulacrum, and there is no noumenon, ding an sich or reality behind the world of phenomena could a ‘coalition figure‘ look at the public reaction to Work Choices and conclude:
“It’s not a popular word”.
But John Howard has never been one to sway with the breeze of populism has he?
Petrol excise, Medicare safety-net, David Hicks, now Work Choices. John Howard is a master at successfully defusing unpopular election year issues. This particular example demolishes his “I make tough choices even if they’re unpopular” persona.
Even if the statistics show that the legislation isn’t all it is cracked up to be, we have such a firm grasp on reality that we’ll show you these other statistics that conform to our view.
JULIA GILLARD: Now, if there’s a government cover-up…
JOE HOCKEY: That’s just wrong.
JULIA GILLARD: …of statistics, that’s because they know the outcome of those statistics…
JOE HOCKEY: That’s just wrong.
JULIA GILLARD: …if it was public view would tell an unpleasant truth for them.
ELEANOR HALL: Well Minister, if WorkChoices is so resoundingly positive, why are refusing to release the latest figures on how Australian Workplace Agreements are operating?
JOE HOCKEY: Can I tell you what the best indicator of the performance of our workplace laws is? The statistics that are released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the independent bureau that says that wages are up 1.5 per cent in real terms over the last 12 months, that 263,000 new jobs are being created, nearly 90 per cent of those jobs are full-time, and the fact that industrial disputation is at it’s lowest level since records were first kept in 1913.
ELEANOR HALL: These are all very general statistics.
JOE HOCKEY: Now they’re the best statistics…
…
JULIA GILLARD: What the ABS told us, the independent authority Joe has just referred to, is if you compare the earnings of men on AWAs compared with men on collective agreements, the men on AWAs earn less.
JOE HOCKEY: That’s not right, that’s actually factually not right.
JULIA GILLARD: And if you compare the earnings of women on AWAs compared with women on collective agreements, women do spectacularly worse.
JOE HOCKEY: That’s wrong too.
JULIA GILLARD: Full-time women up to $85 a week worse off, and we know that the gender gap in pay is increasing. They are all published ABS statistics, not capable of being denied.
Reality is just a ‘point of view’ after all, and tha’t s just actually factually right Joe.
As repugnant, manipulative and idiotic as this rebranding exercise sounds I could hardly believe my ears when I heard the following from the Employment and Workplace Relations minister Joe Hockey:
Mr Hockey says the recently reintroduced fairness test changed the system, so it’s not really WorkChoices any more.
From the SBS World News Transcript 2007-05-17 (LABOR FLEXIBLE ON AWAs)
The fairness test is designed to make sure employers ‘adequately’ compensate employees when signing an AWA and trading away things like penalty rates.
In a doorstop interview on the 25th of March, Howard used the linguistic subtlety of ‘fine tuning’, which means you can change something and still claim you haven’t altered any of the “fundametnals”. He was asked: “When is the fine tuning coming up?”
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it has already occurred. But don’t read into that what I think from your question you are trying to read into it. We’re not going to be making any changes of substance to WorkChoices because we believe WorkChoices is a very good policy.
As of 25/03/07, “Look I have said all along that the Government is willing to fine-tune, but we are not going to alter any of the fundamentals. There will be no change in that position.”
As of 16/04/07, “We’re not going to change the fundamentals of that policy, I’ve said from day one that if any fine tuning were necessary it would occur but nothing has changed in relation to Work Choices”.
As of 04/05/07, “I believe that with legislation as big and as important as this, you do need to monitor its operation. I always said we would be willing to fine-tune it”.
As of 04/05/07, (in the same breath!) the fairness test “is a bit more than fine-tuning, but it doesn’t undermine in any way the fundamentals of the legislation and it’s a sensible change”.
As of 17/05/07 , the “fairness test changed the system, so it’s not really Work Choices any more“.
Australia is at war with Eurasia, Australia has always been at war with Eurasia.
The first four quotes are from John Howard, the last from Joe Hockey. This may be another case of miscommunication between the boss and the minister. However, renaming two of the administering bodies on the same day you tinker with/fundamentally alter the legislation leaves the odour of ‘orchestration’ not miscommunication. Previously, and perhaps ironically Hockey signaled that changes may be made to the Work Choices legislation before the election in seeming contradiction to Howard’s stance that “this lady’s not for turning.”
Perhaps now, as then, Hockey is committing the cardinal sin of politics: being honest. Michelle Grattan argues that this fariness test “is a fundametnal change” and that,
For Howard, this was a big swallow. He had consistently said that while he was willing to tinker around the edges, he would never alter the basics.
…
“No change” went the way of that “never ever” promise on the GST.
It is with perhaps the same over-reaching newspeak that the addition of the ‘fairness test’, will remind the voters that the legislation wasn’t fair and still isn’t.
Sorry Big Brother, I don’t care what name you put on the wrapper, that still isn’t chocolate under there and I ‘aint swallowing it.
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