Workplace relations system - you can’t get the facts
Barbara Bennett, the head of Workplace Authority and the star of Howard government's ads singing praises to Workchoices, is doing her best to prove that the popular beliefs about Workchoices may not be as mythological as the ads would have us believe and that getting objective facts about the impact of Workchoices and the application of the "fairness test" may not be a simple matter.
One of the best ways to assess how the fairness test works in practice would be to look at the AWAs themselves and evaluate their content. But there is a little problem. Barbara Bennett refused to provide AWAs (with names of the parties masked) to the Victorian workplace advocate. The reason given? - providing access "would breach the "spirit" of the law".
No doubt, Barbara Bennett is right. Openness and accountability would certainly be against the spirit of Workchoices or the intent of the government in how the Workplace Authority should apply the legislation. We should not have any access to real information. We should just listen to the government ads and trust that the Workplace Authority, which proved that it is a political institution when Ms Bennett chose to appear in the ads, will administer the system fairly and objectively. We should just trust that backpackers sourced from nearby hostels, with a week of training, will be able to fairly and correctly administer the flawed and complicated "fairness test" (and lets remember that there is no review or appeal). We should just trust that the authority which refuses to release information on AWAs is protecting the employees, rather than pandering to the political agenda of the Howard government.
Yes, just like those Workchoices ads, the "trust me" line is a bit hard to swallow. Especially when, days after promising transparency, Barbara Bennett proved that transparency and accountability is a myth by refusing to disclose actual information behind the propaganda. Especially when this refusal is ever so convenient for the government and is reminiscent of the government's own practice of keeping information from the public. Barbara Bennett would have been aware that her conduct is likely to attract public attention. Therefore, whatever the Workplace Authority is trying to hide must be more damaging than exploding the myth of impartiality, transparency and accountability of the Workplace Authority.
There is only one myth that could be exploded by provision of the AWAs - and that is the myth that the Workchoices system is protecting the employees. No wonder the Authority and the government may want to keep it under wraps.
RSS
