There’s more work to do in IR reform — but how odd! The sky hasn’t fallen in!

Peter Norman writes: The predictably hysterical reaction to the IR changes pushed by Employment Minister Tony Burke (“The weird silence amid the shrieking of employers as government secures industrial relations bill”) comes from the mob that knows it could make a lot more profit if it could just pay workers at the entirely reasonable rate of $2 a day, and of course from its moronic supporters, the federal opposition.

Marilyn Hoban writes: As a member of a charity that deals with the unemployed, underemployed and the poor in our community, I decided years ago that when I became dictator of Australia my first edict would be to abolish labour-hire firms, private employment agencies and private higher education colleges. They are all a blight on our society, reaping millions of taxpayer dollars.

Labor has a lot more work to do.

Sally Goldner writes: Labor’s industrial relations bill is welcome in relation to fairness and human dignity. Industry/business groups as usual taking an ambit claim approach make themselves look silly, greedy and inhumane.

Colin Hesse writes: The “sky is falling in” rhetoric of employers and their mouthpieces in the Coalition obscures a mild reform that will help the least well-off. Given the least well-off in the outer suburbs and regions seem to be the Coalition’s go-to for more votes, its policies seem as unhinged as its grasp on economics and how to keep a society together.

Race to the bottom

Angela Smith writes: Re “Labor’s handling of released immigration detainees is fuelling harmful rhetoric against refugees”: Behrouz Boochani is correct in his assessment of the way Labor handled the recent High Court decision on indefinite detention. Instead of a calm, considered, proportionate response, it competed with the opposition in trying to appear the toughest cop on the block, whipping up a frenzy of moral panic about non-citizen immigration detainees.

The base politicking of both major parties on refugees and asylum seekers goes back decades. The legislation rammed through Parliament in response to the court’s decision is already the subject of fresh appeals. I only hope that this latest debacle sends more voters away from Labor to the Greens and independents who favour compassionate, principled policies on refugees.

Stephen Dunn writes: Done the crime, served the time = free. Australia releases 60,000 inmates each year, with a reported recidivism rate of over 50%. How many quickly land back in detention because that is where three feeds a day and a dry bed are easily found in their world? So why the cruelty to the few who arrive by boat? Many multiples arrive by air, with nothing being said.

Where’s our bill of rights? 

Jillian Meyers-Brittain writes: I am ashamed of our indefinite detention policies and laws. They are set up purely for punitive and political reasons and, hypocritically, we are very quick to judge countries that detain people indefinitely without trial.

I didn’t think our race to the bottom could top the No campaign, but this comes close.

People skills

Kieran Simpson writes: Bernard Keane neatly summarises the difficulty discussing immigration in Australian politics (“Immigration has joined the list of neoliberal duds”). Some time around the ’90s the left capitulated on the class war and made discussion of population and migration about identity politics and race rather than economics and the environment. It’s up there with the best Shakespearean tragedy that those who call themselves left are now kicking into Labor for wanting to reduce unsustainable population growth.

Labor should be commended for its efforts in tackling a thorny issue, unlike then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton.

Armed and dangerous

Graham McCorry writes: Michael Bradley (“Banning the Nazi salute won’t kill fascism’s re-emergence in Australia”) missed the opportunity to really ridicule the proposal — starting with the fact that its origin was in Mussolini’s fascist salute. The Italians were just too indolent to fully raise their arm when giving the salute. Which brings me to just how the Nazi salute might be defined in any legislation banning it.

If the Italian fascist salute is okay, at what angle to the horizontal must the arm be raised in order to be a Nazi salute? Horizontal to the ground is probably out, as is the arm being held vertically alongside your ear. Is there to be a range of angles — say between 30 and 60 degrees to the horizontal — that will make it a Nazi salute? Would it be one if the hand is closed into a fist like this Russian one? How about if only two fingers were raised like Churchill’s V sign? Or the single middle finger American gesture? Will the high-five greeting fall foul of the laws? Will it only be a Nazi salute if it is made with the right arm and out in front of the body? What if it is done with the left arm and raised sideways?

And while the government in its stupidity may well need to rely on foreign affairs powers to legislate, it won’t be able to rely on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination because the Nazi salute is not specifically an anti-Jewish symbol but a political one that is presumably protected by that other international convention we are party to, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.