"The Coalition recognises the political realities we now find ourselves in,"

Why don't they both just go for the one Labor-Liberal coalition monoparty and be done with us voters once and for all before it gets to a 50-50 vote.


Let's not do what would be good for the country, let do what gets us elected by an ignorant ABC force fed voter

So did the AWA's, so what is the difference ???
Apart from one being ALP, one LIBs, and this one costing millions to bring online.



"A MINING industry body says changes to the federal government's new interim individual work agreements will provide welcome flexibility for bosses.

The government today accepted 24 amendments to its Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008.

The bill starts to dismantle the Howard government's controversial Work Choices laws.

It bans the creation of new Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), initiates changes to the award system and imposes transitional employment agreements for workers on existing AWAs.

Under the amendments, bosses will be able to extend the use of Individual Transitional Employment Agreements (ITEAs).

Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) spokesman Chris Platt said his group, which had lobbied for the change during the now completed Senate inquiry, welcomed the amendment.

"It means that if, say, a construction company has built a project and then the employees have left the employment between that project and the next one, under the original submission ... those employees would not be able to be engaged on an ITEA because they were to be regarded as an existing employee,'' he said.

"What the amendment change means is that ... employees will be able to be employed on ITEAs so long as there was an AWA in place (on) December 1, 2007."

Mr Platt said while it was expected that in the resources industry the majority of employees would use collective agreements, there were some resource sector employers who had a preference to use statutory individual contracts.

"The expansion of ITEAs will give them additional flexibility in the period leading up to 2010," he said.

"It's a submission that we put to the Senate committee in recent times and it's pleasing to see that the government is listening and improving its legislation as a result of feedback."


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23396531-5014046,00.html