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Liberals victory means big changes

By Bill Deacon
Editor

MOST sections of Australian society are in for a major shake-up following the Liberal Party's massive Federal election victory, last month, which also gave them control of the Senate.
Celebrating his fourth straight election victory, Prime Minister John Howard said he would focus strongly on industrial relations law.
The country's trade unions, which have steadily lost membership and power will be further under the hammer for the next three years, at least.
Mr Howard promised to:
* Take control of unfair dismissal laws from the State Governments;
* Exempt small businesses from the unfair dismissal laws;
* Order compulsory secret ballots before strikes;
* Ban industrial action during the life of enterprise agreements (agreements between companies and individual workers);
* Give innocent third parties the right to ask for strikes to be suspended if they are being harmed.
Giving his reasons for getting tough on industrial relations reform, Mr Howard said: "Industrial relations to me is the biggest single driver of productivity.
"We run the risk in this country of a shortage of employees because of the shrinking participation rate and the shortage of skilled people."
Many of these polices have been planned for years but this election victory was different in one major respect to the others - the Liberal and the National Party coalition will control the Senate (the Upper House).
Previously this has been controlled by the opposition Labour party and various minor parties. Unlike the House of Lords, the Senate can effective block Government Bills for the life of the Parliament.
This election victory was also different in another vital respect - the Liberals' victory was so crushing that it will probably take the opposition Labour Party a further two elections (six years) to get back on track.
With a handful of seats still in doubt (due to postal and absentee votes) the Liberal/National coalition had a massive 85 seats in the House of Representatives, against Labour's 57 seats. Previously the Coalition had 82 seats and Labour 65 seats. Independents control three seats.
In the Senate the Coalition controls 39 seats (previously 35) with Labor holding 27 seats (28). The Democrats hold four seats and the Greens 2. Both of these could vote with the Labor Senators.