Congratulations
Socceroos on a fine come-from-behind victory over the hapless Japanese, and the
Egyptian ref.

Also worth celebrating; unemployment below 5%. But get on with improving the working of the Labour
market as there is still a lot of hidden unemployment. That is the message of last
week’s labour market data and the excellent set of articles provided by
The
Oz.

Today, of course,
there is the disappointing message from Kim
Beazley that Labor will rollback the widespread use of individual workplace agreements –
surely one of the biggest contributors we have had to a more sensible and
efficient labour market. The Oz‘s Matthew Stevens is critical of Bomber, not for his opposition to the AWA’s,
but for the way he is going about the debate – “If Beazley had limited his
rollback urge to WorkChoices…he could have developed some traction within the
business community. Because even the
most determined workplace reformers hate the red tape of WorkChoices and fear
the power the Howard Government has delivered to the ruthless and short-sighted
employer.”

While IR seems to
be Beazley’s favoured election issue at this early stage, Howard’s apparent
desire to make a wedge of nuclear power received a boost with a new Morgan Poll showing that more Australians (49%) approve than disapprove (37%) the
introduction of nuclear power plants to replace coal, oil and gas power plants
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, the vast majority (87%) are
concerned about nuclear waste and 65% of Australians oppose expanding the three
mines policy (down 5% from 70% in October 2005), so there is still plenty of
room for Beazley to move on the issue.

The other big
story continues to be Iran. Sir Wellington
Boot endorses a radical plan, from an American military magazine (reprinted), to
rearrange the map.

Read more at
Henry Thornton.