Does Julia Gillard enjoy going dining and/or shopping?

The answer to the above question in the context of Julia Gillard's proposed changes to the industrial awards system, is most probably a big "NO"!

But let's hope and pray she does! For the sake of anyone who enjoys dining out, meeting over coffee and shopping when time permitting, let's hope her spin doctors and advisers encourage her to do so prior to introducing her highly manipulated legislation on awards and entitlements to the Lower House next week.

Because if she does enjoy shopping and strolling down the road for a quick coffee or lunch on weekends, then she would probably have some understanding of how drastically the retailing and hospitality sectors will be affected by the proposed substantial hikes in the minimum award wages, penalty rates, casual rates, shift loadings and allowances.

Introduction of this legislation will simply take Australia back to the gloomy days of not having any restaurants, cafes or other retail shops open after 5.30pm or on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Retailers and Cafe/Restaurant owners will simply be unable to operate at a reasonable staffing and service level at the new proposed penalty rates and entitlements. In fact many may simply go out of business.

This legislation has as many debatable issues about its fairness as the Work Choices did. If Work Choices legislation was accused of "Removing Choices", then Julia Gillard's "Award Modernisation" is also ironically termed and a major backward step towards the past! Potential massive job losses amongst casual workers, and shops and cafes going out of business and/or closing after 5.30pm and on weekends and public holidays sound like anything but modernisation.

Julia Gillard's admission this weekend, as quoted in the Australian Newspaper on Saturday 30th May, that restaurants and cafes would have to be dealt with differently, has to be extended to most other retailing sectors such as retail pharmacy. The Minister was quoted in the paper as finally having intervened to help restaurants and cafes by writing to the AIRC (Australian Industrial Relations Commission) to create a new award covering the industry that would offer cheaper rates to the sector. She was also quoted in the same article as ..."specifically requesting the commission to establish a penalty rate and overtime regime that appropriately recognises the restaurant and catering industry's core trading times and the labour intensive nature of work in the industry."

There are many other retail sectors who are also subjected to the same difficult conditions such as what the Minister refers to in her statement above. These sectors must also be granted a more affordable award structure. For example, retail pharmacies are by law required to have at least one fully registered pharmacist present during all opening hours, and if located in shopping centres, which many are, to trade seven days a week. The point is that most successful small business retailers rely on their labour intensive service levels as their main competitive advantage, a point which is in fact essential in case of provision of service in community pharmacy.

Where is the fairness for small business owners? Many (eg pharmacies and hair dressing salons) will still have to rely on labour intensive business structures and will simply be forced to pay the proposed hikes in penalty rates; and stay open and operate seven days a week! Under Julia Gillard's proposals, not only their overhead costs will increase by as much as 20% in some sectors, they won't even have the option of reducing staff levels in order to try to serve their businesses as the new unfair dismissal laws since the last elections are yet to be tested in courts.

But Julia Gillard must not rely on the current unfair dismissal laws as a way of hoping that her legislation does not have the potential to cause a massive wave of unemployment. The inherent nature of the legislation has the potential to force businesses to sack their casual employees and reduce services in order to survive, and in the process disadvantage many younger voters who voted for Gillard and Rudd in the last election.

There's is of course a carefully crafted propaganda turned urban myth that is the cause of all the anxiety about the issue of awards and entitlements amongst workers and labour politicians, and here it is:

Unlike what the unions want everyone to believe, not every employee wants or needs to work Monday to Friday till 5.30pm and be at home every evening and every weekend! Not in the retailing and hospitality sectors anyway! The ACTU and various unions have cleverly and successfully made this perception the minimum benchmark standard of any IR debate! And whilst true in some cases, specially employees with families, it is simply not applicable to the majority of the younger casual workforce in the retailing and hospitality sectors.

These two sectors are the main providers of employment opportunities for many workers who due to their circumstances are considered casual employees. For example, secondary and tertiary students find their best chance of supporting themselves whilst undergoing their studies through casual employment in retail or hospitality sectors.

These employees are more than willing to work when shifts become available regardless of time or day of the week as their availability varies regularly subject to their other engagements. On top of this, the various award systems in both sectors have rigorous casual holiday and sick leave loading provisions for casual rates. Julia Gillard's proposals substantially increase the costs of employment and therefore risk many job losses amongst these casual workers.

Therefore, the opposition has every right to oppose this legislation in the Senate next week and ask Julia Gillard what she actually means by constantly stating that ".....neither employees nor employers should be disadvantaged under this legislation"......?

The good news however, and it must be acknowledged, is that both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have so far demonstrated a pragmatic approach to most of the Government's major policy debates. They are both skillful political negotiators and seem to be willing to listen to concerns of business groups.

And hence my hope, that Julia Gillard does get to spend some time dining or shopping! If she does, I'd welcome her at my store at Macquarie Centre so that I can explain the ramifications from a retailer's point of view.

Neither the Government nor the opposition seem to instill confidence

The Rudd Government's Budget ended up as vague, soft and politically palatable as any crafty political adviser would have dreamed of. That must have irritated the Opposition immensely. Therefore, the spin doctors unnecessarily caused a headache for the Government by advising Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan not to mention the "$300b".

A quick look around most OECD countries (except Germany) provides a disturbing trend. It seems that regardless of political persuasion, most parties in Government are dealing with the finanicial crisis in pretty much the same manner as the Rudd Government is, i.e. with a combination of stimulus packages, infrastructure spending, budget deficits and in some cases tax cuts. And interestingly enough, most opposition parties are screaming and calling these strategies catastrophic and claim superior political management skills! But they are not exactly uttering any numbers when they are asked about how much they would borrow in the short term to stabilise and deal with the current crisis.

Why is this a disturbing trend in my view? Because it demonstrates that neither the sitting governments nor their oppositions are confident in their respective policies in dealing with the situation. To make the matters even more muddled, neither side seems to want or in fact know how to deal with the long term negative effects of their respective and hap hazard policies either. This applies not just to Mr Rudd and his government, but also to the opposition. Otherwise Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey would come up with properly backed figures themselves rather than pushing the $300b agenda.

Therefore, overall, in the absence of specific and credible policies and figures by the opposition, there can be little criticism of the Government's approach at the moment.

However, the opposition does have a point which merits further debate. The Government has offered very little tax relief for small to medium businesses in the short term. Mr Turnbull at least offered a tax roll back against losses program in his response speech, which Mr Rudd would be wise to take note of. Other than that, life goes on and Kevin Rudd will retain his high popularity rating and Mr Turnbull will comfortably hang on to his leadership position for teh time being.

It seems the only thing that can hurt both sides is in fact a double dissolution election. Surely the electorate would see an early election as a self indulging escape route before the storm for Mr Rudd, and would hold the opposition to task for their stubborn determination to block a popular Prime Minister who claims to have a mandate in several issues.