In lieu of anything from Newspoll or Nielsen, this week’s very interesting Essential Research survey gets its own thread. It finds Labor at what might be an all-time low for this agency, which opened for business after the 2007 election and has traditionally provided Labor with friendly results. Labor nonetheless retains a commanding 54-46 lead, down from 55-45 last week. Kevin Rudd also has his weakest personal ratings to date, his approval down three to 52 per cent and disapproval up four to 37 per cent. Tony Abbott by contrast is up a hearty eight points to 45 per cent on approval, but down only one on disapproval to 36 per cent. The likely headline-grabber of the survey is a question on the performance of Peter Garrett who gets a resounding thumbs-down with 28 per cent approval and 56 per cent disapproval. Better news for Labor on an insightful question as to whether respondents expect a Tony Abbott government would reintroduce parts of WorkChoices: 57 per cent say likely and 23 per cent say unlikely, with large majorities across supporters of all parties.
LOL! Pope warns against full body airport scanners, says personal privacy is “essential”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/21/pope-benedict-naked-scanners-airports
Except of course when a woman wants to have an abortion, then it is the Catholic Church’s business.
47
The employer couldn’t follow a simple procedure. The incompetent so-and-so had the guy in his sights but pulled the trigger to early. It deserved to be thrown out of court. I’m sure you wouldn’t be so trigger happy in your line of work.
[He was warned verbally, several times. Apparently the worker can’t understand spoken English either.]
No the employer can’t follow the law. Simple. Give up while you are behind.
[And why didn’t the Employer have an Interpreter present when those warnings were given ?]
Well this is Australia…
[Except of course when a woman wants to have an abortion, then it is the Catholic Church’s business.]
Or a man wants to wear a condom.
imacca, it would be sensational if Obama could get his finger out and start acting on CC before our election. That would be nail-coffin for the Libs.
GP
You have to give written warnings. You can’t get around it. That’s what unfair dismissal says.
This is your final written warning. 😉
[I’m sure you wouldn’t be so trigger happy in your line of work.]
TH, on what grounds do you underestimate GP?
No 52
Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Why is it that everything has to be dumbed down? Why do employees have to be babied? (Remembering of course that they suddenly accrue much intelligence on pay day).
I Love It:
The pope probably doesn’t want to be body scanned when he travels. I don’t blame him.
The muslims aren’t too chirpy about it either.
Generic Person@59
Yet you want businesses to babyed re the Insulation Scheme 🙂
Hypocrite
This is what the House of Reps will look like after the election:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/calculator/?swing=national&national=-1.4&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringfactor=1
59
WTF was that post about?
Are you stereotyping migrants again – migrants just like your old mama and papa from Italy?
The other ridiculous part of the law is that it requires employers to take account of the personal circumstances of the employee which is just not reasonable. Employers cannot control the personal circumstances of their employees, so why should they be considered when deciding whether to sack someone?
To paraphrase the Libs, Garrett should stand down because he nowhere near enough distrusted small businesses and their industry organisations to operate safely, leagally and fairly.
[This is what the House of Reps will look like after the election:]
Looks like healthy majority to me.
So what’s your point?
BTW What’s the unemployment benefit for a single pay these days?
[To paraphrase the Libs, Garrett should stand down because he nowhere near enough distrusted small businesses and their industry organisations to operate safely, leagally and fairly.]
If you are going to give out free money(which the goverment pretty much was doing) you could at least make sure those who are getting your money are at minimum qualified.
The “trust system” doesn’t work in schemes like these.
Who is that awful Senator in the purple cardigan?
[BTW What’s the unemployment benefit for a single pay these days?]
I make over $2K a week, so I have no idea.
[BTW What’s the unemployment benefit for a single pay these days?]
Being able to blog all day on PB.
No 66
The reputable businesses that existed before the funding spike from the government of course operated legally and safely. The problem is that when the grant money is so easy to get, the sharks and shonks come out of the woodwork to capitalise on the largesse.
[Employers cannot control the personal circumstances of their employees]
But they can be expected to make some effort to be aware of issues impacting their employee’s state of mind. That’s only fair and reasonable. It’s to do with Duty Of Care, a concept you need to get familiar with if you want to get ahead in business.
No 68
Exactly.
[This is what the House of Reps will look like after the election]
LOL! A win is a win is a win!
No wonder Truthy is constantly depressed, even he realises that Rudd is going to win.
[I make over $2K a week, so I have no idea.]
Yeah, pull the other one. I reckon you’re on the dole and have this unfounded superior attitude to other members in the community like they owe you something.
[you could at least make sure those who are getting your money are at minimum qualified.]
So you mean you may write a national qualification scheme for the first time?
Generic Person@65
Does that mean you will be sacking your employees of Italian Origin who are in “Lutto” when a close family member/Relative Dies and doesn’t go to work until at least after the Funeral ?
No 73
Why should they? At the end of the day, employers have a business to run. If employers get repeated abuse for attempting to ensure that their employers are complying with OHS laws and the employee fails to heed several warnings, that is all that should be binding on whether the dismissal was valid. Whether the employee has a mortgage and kids is irrelevant. A substantial number of people in the community have mortgages and kids, that doesn’t mean they should be immune from dismissal.
No 76
Maybe everyone in your life is on the dole, but back in the real world, there are people like me and TTH who actually work for a living. Isn’t that encouraging.
GP, I’m not sure the provision would actually require anything more than the employer “taking into account” the person’s personal circumstances. As long as they can demonstrate they took it into account that’s all that’s required.
No 78
To my knowledge, sacking someone for taking compassionate leave is unlawful, not unfair, dismissal.
Off thread a bit but…
After many months of unrelenting and intellectually dishonest attacks on climate science and climate scientists, ‘The Australian’ faces a small moment of uncomfortable truth (The Nation, p5. feb 22):
‘Gobally, the three months to January were the hottest on record, according to satellite data, while this month is on track to be hottest February on record.’ Fairly straightforward, I would have thought.
But here’s the thing. You would think that ‘The Australian’ would be capable of reporting a simple temperature record over a period of 3-4 months without fiddling around with the interpretation. No way. The journal of record that brought you the insightful information that glaciers are ‘illogical’ and ‘random’ can’t let a simple temperature record go. Not when it flatly contradicts what Abbott has said about temperatures ‘not warming’; nor when the data tends to contradict much of the CC twaddle peddled by the intellectually dishonest rag itself.
The satellite is not named but I assume it is NOAA-15 (for years the Coolers’ favourite, but a bit on the nose, lately, for obvious reasons).
A reasonable analysis might focus on how the lack of an El Nino and the lack of sunspots may have masked underlying trends between 1998 (the big El Nino year) and the current temperatures which are running way hotter than 1998. No way. What we get served by way of analysis is The Australian’s usual CC twaddle.
First, the OO states that the World Meteorological Organisation reports 1998 as the hottest year on record. (By way of background, 1998 was a big El Nino year which created a hot spike and remains the favourite cherry of the Denialist cherry pickers.) There is no mention in the article of the last decade being the hottest decade on record. There is no mention of the startlingly high increase in the same-day year-on-year global temperatures over the last four months. There is no mention of the latest daily data available from the NOAA-15. (On 20 Feb 2010, the near surface temperature was .87 degrees F hotter than the same day last year. At 4.4km height, the temperature was .78 degrees C hotter than the 20 year average).
Oh, and the other bit of intellectual dishonesty? Remember all the recent CC articles? Many articles, big articles, page one articles? This article, which is essentially about a rather important point – that it is way, way hotter than ever – is three paras long, and is tucked well away in a bottom-right-hand corner.
I agree that daily temperatures, monthly temperatures and annual temperatures are statistically irrelevant for climate. But if the denialists and their organs, including The Australian, pick cherries and throw them at the public, they have some sort of duty-of-care to ‘fess up when their cherries turn out to have been rotten.
I usually expect better of Asa Wahlquist.
GP
As usual you avoid the issue – it was a paper recycling plant – surely they had a scrap of paper to write on?
No 81
Why should they “take into account” those circumstances? That’s what I’m questioning. It makes no bloody sense unless you want whole swathes of the workforce to be ineligible for sacking.
[Why should they “take into account” those circumstances?]
Because it’s common human decency?
No 84
read the judgment – the dismissal was “just and reasonable”, but what swayed in the favour of the employee was the burden the dismissal had had on his personal circumstances.
[whole swathes of the workforce to be ineligible for sacking.]
They’re not ineligible from sacking. Their personal circumstances have to be taken account of. That’s all.
[Why should they “take into account” those circumstances?]
Because as hard as it is for Liberals to understand, workers are people, not commodities like barrels of oil. Working at one place for 20 years should count for something.
No 86
Rubbish. If an employee is flagrantly in breach of safety regulations and ignoring the legitimate instructions of his employer, they should be sacked without further ado.
[the dismissal was “just and reasonable”, but what swayed in the favour of the employee was the burden the dismissal had had on his personal circumstances.]
Oh no! How dare they take into account the full circumstances of the case!
SHOCK HORROR!
Ms Krug at the Senatre Committee is handling herself very well. Quite formidable actually.
ShowsOn went:
[So you mean you may write a national qualification scheme for the first time?]
Yeah:
Rule 1: Read instructions
Rule 2: See rule number 1.
This is insulation batts people! Everyone is acting like it’s brain surgery.
If we are going to force qualification standards for this, are we going to create training and accreditation schemes for digging holes? Mowing the lawn? Sweeping the footpath?
This stuff is so simple that even Truthy could do it. The fact that people died is terrible – but only because they managed to die in the first place!
If they couldnt read basic instructions – the fault is definitely with the employers who apparently couldnt ask the question “can you read?”
No 89
Why does it only count one way though? If the employee worked there for 20 years, he should know better than to abuse his employer and breach safety regulations. In fact, the 20 year veteran has no excuse for such behaviour given the intimate knowledge of how things work.
[Yeah, pull the other one. I reckon you’re on the dole and have this unfounded superior attitude to other members in the community like they owe you something.]
Bullshit.
I have never collected an unemployment benefit in my life.
There is unlimited amount of work out there, even lazy bastards who claim they “can’t get a job” are full of crap. ANYONE can get a job, it all depends on how hard you will try to get one.
I personally run my own business so I simply need to sit back and wait for the work to come to me. 🙂
No 91
Yes, shock and horror, that a worker who was “justly and reasonably” dismissed is reinstated with $16,000 compensation. Shock and horror, indeed.
Possum.
Spot on. The Libs must answer the question, “How much government oversight of any commercial activity is required?”
No 93
Sorry Poss, but you’re no better than some government spin doctor defending Garrett. You’re only doing it because you believed in the virtue of the stimulus package, and thus having more stringent measures in place would subvert the requirement to get money out of the coffers as soon as practicable. At least admit it and stop pretending Garrett is some high priest of safety and virtue.
79
[Why should they? ]
I’ve told you once. It’s called Duty Of Care. Like it or not it’s one of the responsibilities of an employer.
[I personally run my own business so I simply need to sit back and wait for the work to come to me. ]
So you are an “order taker” that, dear Truthy, is the road to ruin. You will be creamed by the hard working guy or gal who does not crack a tooheys ’cause its hot.