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           Shipping Stevedoring Port Services Hydrocarbons Diving  May-Jun 2008        |
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Labor exposes Howard's LNG lies29 June 2006By MUA news -
Media release by Opposition leader Kim Beazley in response to PM John Howards' comments that "Labor and the unions IR changes are a dagger at the throat of the successful resources sector"
John Howard has been caught out in China absurdly trying to claim that abolishing AWAs would derail Woodside's North West Shelf gas project. In China, discussing the NWS project, Mr Howard claimed Labor's fairer industrial relations system would jeopardise the gas project. "Why put all this at risk?" Mr Howard said, before meeting the Chinese Premier. Woodside has blown the whistle on John Howard's AWA lie. Woodside says it gets all the productivity it needs out of collective agreements, not AWAs. Woodside IR manager, Ian Masson, said yesterday collective agreements: "provided stability for Woodside over many years and deliver the flexibility and systems we seek" These comments expose Mr Howard's lies for the pure rubbish they are. For example, it has also been confirmed Woodside workers delivering the gas to China from the North West Shelf - on tankers and rigs - are covered by collective agreements. When Mr Howard was celebrating the delivery of Australian gas to China, he should have also celebrated the collective agreements that got it there. Mr Howard must also admit he is lying about AWAs in the Western Australia resources sector. When a Beazley Labor Government phases out Mr Howard's AWAs, Australians who want a fair individual contract can enter a common law contract, just like 30 percent of the workforce. The miners of WA can keep their generous pay under a common law contract. When Labor wins Government, common law contracts will be underpinned by new minimum standards that will allow flexibility up, not down. There will be sensible transitional arrangements in place for current AWAs to run their course if both parties genuinely want them to. John Howard's lies from China are nothing more than the desperate claims of a desperate man who has gone too far. John Howard's AWAs aren't about the WA resources industry - they're about slashing the wages and conditions of the mums and dads of middle Australia.
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