| Neville —
Two pieces of great news:
- Independent Senator John Madigan has just announced that he will vote against Tony Abbott’s new workplace laws that take away your rights at work!
- Parliament has finished for the week and Tony Abbott and the Liberals haven’t been able to bring their horrible new workplace laws on for debate in the Senate yet.
This is all due to your hard work. By making your voices heard, and calling out these anti-worker laws, making a difference.
Senator Madigan has been committed to workers rights for a long time and today is another strong demonstration of that commitment. In his statement Senator Madigan said Abbott’s laws were an attack on workers and would “leave those with the least with even less”. He also is urging his fellow Senators to support our campaign and vote against the Bill.
The government thought that passing these new laws would be simple. They thought they could push them through whilst no one was looking. You changed that.
If Tony Abbott thought he had the numbers to pass the Bill he would have put it to the vote by now. He hasn’t, and it’s thanks to your hard work. You are helping the Senators understand the serious impacts of this bill.
It’s not over yet. Here is where we think things are up to:
- Our best information is that two Senators–Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm–will almost definitely support this Bill and vote yes. David Leyonhjelm is a classical Libertarian and much of this Bill fits with to his deeply held beliefs about removing government regulation. Bob Day has been a senior figure in the extremist HR Nicholls society–one of the groups that conceived the idea of WorkChoices–and believes that workers should be stripped of most of their workplace rights and protections.
- The remaining Senators Muir, Xenophon, Lazarus, Wang and Lambie haven’t committed but seem to still have open minds on this Bill.
The Senate is back in session next week and there is a chance that the Bill will be debated then – otherwise the next time it can be looked at will be three weeks later. I know it often seems like the sands are shifting – that the laws keeping coming up for a vote and then get delayed. It’s frustrating. We don’t get a say in when Tony Abbott and his crew bring these votes on. The delay gives us more time to convince Senators to stand with us and with working people.
Across the country people have worked hard to make sure all of the Senators hear the call to stand with workers and not be a part of Tony Abbott’s attack on living standards. Victorian union members delivered Senators Madigan and Muir thousands of handwritten letters. In South Australia union members have protested outside Senator Day’s office.
The calls that you’ve made and the emails–well over 20,000 of them–that you have sent are having a big impact. As I said before – if Tony Abbott thought he had the numbers he would have passed the Bill. Instead all the Government could muster this week was a whining speech by Eric Abetz complaining about your campaign.
That’s because of you, and thousands of people like you around the country.
Thank for everything that you have been doing —
Ged |
