Labor has peddled many ludicrous claims in recent times about how “they” are the only government that can take Australia into the future. How ‘they’ have all the plans and ideas to fix health, education, the economy, (I didn’t know it was buggered), unemployment, (already the lowest it’s been in thirty years), inflation, (averages 2.4%) under this government, and the family debt crisis.
They have bullshitted to every news outlet, lied, that our economy is under pressure and that nothing the Howard government has done since coming to power had anything to do with our strong economic growth or our ability to pay off Labor’s $96 billion debt. More lies.

Mr. Latham himself is an unproven entity except for his one and only jaunt into the political limelight as a leader at Liverpool Council, and we all know how that turned out!
His party itself though has been tried and tested in government under the stewardship of Paul Keating and found to be seriously lacking. In fact they were negligent in their duty and totally destroyed the Australian economy, with extremely high inflation, massive unemployment and interest rates that sent many thousands of homeowners to the wall. They also sent many small to medium businesses to the waste bin in the process with business interest rates reaching 27% and uncompromising “Unfair Dismissal” laws.

Labor’s policy on Old Growth forests would mean a loss of around 8,000 jobs in Tasmania alone with a possible 66,000 more on the mainland, just to win preferences from the Greens. Their changes to Industrial law has the resources sector claiming that it will in all probability shed 77,000 to 100,000 jobs if Labor were to win government and implement these changes. Now Labor are going even further in their industrial reform, this time targeting the Franchise sector.
Labors Shadow minister for Small Business Bob McMullan has proposed changes to the Franchising Code of Conduct, which will affect the $80 billion industry. He makes claims, based on advice from litigious driven commercial markets, that the code is failing Franchisees and that further change is required.

Unfortunately for the dithering simpleton, the very people who he claims are under pressure by the Franchising Code do not support his views or recommendation for changes to the current code. There is absolutely no market evidence that suggests that franchising is any form of trouble with numerous submissions to government forums finding to the contrary. This is also a view supported by the ACCC and the Office of Mediation Advisor, the authorized dispute resolution body.

It could well be that Labor and McMullan are trying to undermine a substantial improvement to Franchise law reform since the Franchising Code’s inception in 1998 under the Howard government’s watch. “Growth is high and disputation is at its lowest since the implementation of the Code in 1998 and forecasting amendments may apply the brakes to this growth” says Richard Evans FCA CEO.

A recently released survey by the Griffith University. Franchising Australia 2004 also rejects McMullan’s allegations that changes are required. In fact, the survey supports the opposite view, stating that fewer than 2% of franchises are involved in substantial disputes. The franchise industry itself comprises of 64,000 franchisee’s employing more than 600,000 staff with an exponential growth rate of 160 jobs daily and they reject the claim that a change is necessary. The industry employs many staff as casuals, which suit both employer and employee. Other suggested industrial changes from Labor are to move those casuals into the permanent employee bracket so that these people, who otherwise would be unemployed, would receive full worker entitlements, including holidays, leave loading, sick pay and superannuation, (at least there won’t be any co-contributions).

This would be disastrous for small to medium operators just coping and would mean further retrenchments in the employment sector, an increase on the welfare system and upward pressure on taxes, not to mention that the employees themselves would be out of work.

A “vision for the future” Latham claims and “a time for change”. Well his vision is suffering “political glaucoma” and will wind back industrial reform 20 years.
The notion that Labor is the Harbinger of economic growth and industrial reform is fanciful given their historical track record. Current members of the Latham lead opposition have already tried and failed this country under the Keating government and yet they say a change is needed. Are people really claiming that Bob McMullan and Simon Crean could actually handle this country’s finances and industrial policies? That’s a dangerous prospect indeed.
If a change indeed happens then this country is in for a huge downturn in economic growth and a return to high inflation. Just sit back and watch that interest rate figure rise and hand over your home.

To quote a friend of mine. “Labor are the fairy’s in the bottom of the garden”.