From: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/index.asp?URL=/national/4143790.htm Business gets call-up from Reith By RICHARD McGREGOR Chief political reporter 8mar99 BIG business leaders have been enlisted by Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith to lead the campaign for an aggressive new wave of industrial reform. In speech to a closed session of the Business Council of Australia last week, Mr Reith told corporate chiefs they had to back the Government in putting more "grunt" into the debate to counter Labor Party and union policies. After he agreed to softpedal on the issue during the election campaign, Mr Reith's speech to the council's annual strategy session is more evidence he intends to press his tough agenda. The speech was also successful, with the council leadership saying Mr Reith's presentation had helped persuade it to make workplace reform a priority this year, alongside tax. Council chief David Buckingham said: "We are embracing it as a core priority." Mr Reith's push dovetails with a rethink on the issue by the council, which will publish a radical plan for companies to opt out of the industrial relations system later this month. An alliance between the Government and the council on industrial relations will also counter tensions in other areas of their relationship, including tax. Last week, the Government rejected a council paper that backed the use of a Labor policy, tax credits, to reduce unemployment. Mr Reith's call for the council to lead the debate mirrors the strategy used by the Government in its first term on tax, when business ran a public campaign for the GST prior to the release of the Coalition's policy. Mr Reith warned business leaders that gains from workplace deregulation were at risk without the council's active support. "The reform debate must run � and be run � ahead of the legislative changes and the regulatory framework," Mr Reith said in the videotaped address obtained by The Australian. "If an organisation with the status and the resources and networks of the council cannot make a case for the ongoing benefits of reform, then everything that has been achieved so far is at risk. "If the nation's principal network of chief executive officers does not promote this debate, in the business and public interest, then who will?" Mr Reith reminded business leaders that the 1998 election result was "seven seats from washing away all the council's efforts over the past decade and jeopardising the nation's achievements in handling the macro-economy". Mr Reith's enlistment of the council will return it to the heart of a debate that it dominated in the 1980s. But he acknowledged it was not without risks for business to take the lead in a volatile area. "I am aware of the sensitivities of a business organisation putting its shoulder to the reform task when it is exposed and when each member is exposed to some response in each of their workplaces," Mr Reith said. But he played down the likelihood of a backlash, saying their problems did not demand as tough a solution to the methods employed in the waterfront dispute. "To make real gains within the statutory framework, you do not need a 1999 version of the 1998 waterfront dispute," Mr Reith said. "Your problems, for all the cost to business and their negative impact upon the quality of workplace relationships, are probably not in the category faced by the stevedoring industry. "Yours are lesser problems." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
