“Life’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Macbeth, Act V sc v)
Posted by
Stephen Booth
on 7 Jul 2011
While I don’t want to be quite as nihilistic as that at the prospect of more political “debate” on IR, seeing Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin and Peter Reith manoeuvring last week about Coalition’s IR policy does suggest impending sound and fury, signifying not very much. Ever since the lead up to WorkChoices in 2005 and 2006, the political debate about this has diverged from reality because, once past the Howard Government’s radical step of nationalising the IR system, there has been much more continuity from WorkChoices (Mark II at least) to the Fair Work Act than you would imagine, given the heated rhetoric.