Refugee rows and Senate skirmishes over
Government’s moves to disallow the ACT same-sex union laws are drawing oxygen
away from Labor’s IR attack – but it’s still the biggest show in Canberra this
week.

All stops were pulled out for the attack in
Parliament yesterday, with Kim Beazley attempting to move a motion on penalty
rates, overtime, holidays and leave loading as soon as the House sat. He was
gagged, but the onslaught resumed at Question Time.

“Beazley has put up in lights the
difference between Labor and the Government,” Michelle Grattan writes today.
“But this comes with a bag of risks. He is being accused of flip-flopping,
being economically irresponsible, and acting as cat’s-paw of the unions. Who wins the argument over AWAs will
depend on how well he and John Howard make their cases.”

Both leaders followed predictable lines
yesterday – as have the media.

Firstly, it’s unfair to condemn Beazley as
a fence sitter – then to condemn him for getting off the fence.

Second, Labor’s opposition to AWAs is
hardly the new development the media is portraying it as. Labor is not
proposing the abolition of statutory individual contracts. It’s a question of
detail – of minimum conditions and the like in contracts.

Thirdly, for all the Prime Minister’s
rhetoric about how “AWAs are the preferred employment instrument of
aspirational Australians,” only a very small minority of the workforce are on
AWAs – for now. Abolition of AWAs as they now stand will hardly be disruptive. And
other Australian workers – aspirational or whatever – can consider the matter
between now and the next election.