Bill Shorten

Julia Gillard is prepared to take on the unions, something John key hasn’t yet been prepared to do with his previous Labour minister being in the thrall of them.

Simon Bridges is yet to say or do anything, here’s hoping they find some courage from what Gillard is doing:

Union officials face limits on the number of visits they can make to factories and worksites under the latest changes by the Gillard government to the Fair Work Act.

Big employers, such as BHP Billiton, have complained that unions have been abusing right-of-entry rules and in some cases have made hundreds of visits to their sites.  Read more »

As regular readers will already know I am not a fan of the anti-jobs, anti-people, anti-progress Green taliban. They are luddites. Unfortunately they manage to hoodwink plenty of people into their clutches.

In Australia, Julia Gillard has attacked them:

A FIERY Julia Gillard blasted the Greens as being anti-jobs as Tony Abbott revealed the Coalition was drawing up contingency plans if Labor made Kevin Rudd, Bill Shorten or Greg Combet leader.

The Prime Minister said it was the Greens who had walked away from their agreement because their policies would hurt jobs.

“At the end of the day, the Greens party is fundamentally a party of protest rather than a party of government … a party that would prefer to complain about things than get solutions,” she said.  Read more »

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

All parties need a “No Dickhead” Rule…in particular the ALP. Bill Shorten could have saved all this bother is he had just blown on the pie:

All he wanted was a pie. Sometimes what a man needs is just that: a pie.

But when federal workplace minister Bill Shorten walked into Carlton North Foods in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon to satisfy his straight-up longing for a tasty stew of mince meat encased in a crisp pastry shell, what he got was a hot serve of back-chat.

The putative pie purveyor, shop-keeper Annie Huang, said she informed the Cabinet minister she was all out of hot pies. She would be happy to microwave one for him, she said, but it would be soft.

Not everyone likes a soft pie.

Upon hearing this disappointing news, Mr Shorten became abusive, Ms Huang told Fairfax radio.

If true, he would certainly not be the first man thrown into a rage when so denied, but Mr Shorten narrates the story differently.

He says that Ms Huang told him that the pies were ”soft, like Julia Gillard”. He took this as an insult to his leader, exited the shop and told her that he would no longer be purchasing her pies, or darkening her doorstep at all.

Not even for a pastie or a mini-quiche.

As with all great contemporary mysteries, CCTV footage was released.

The film shows a mannish figure, unmistakably Shorten-esque, entering the shop, perusing the goods, and then walking out soon after, in what may or may not be a huff. Oh – and look now! – there he pauses at the door, swivels his head and retorts something in the direction of the cash register.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Bill Shorten, after recently denying his missus had done a runner due to a little problem with a secretary and an unplanned pregnancy, decided to raise a whole heap of money for Tony Abbott. Unfortunately for Bill he is on the other side to Tony, being a former union boss and a member of the Gillard cabinet.

The government has turned on the BHP Billiton chairman, Jac Nasser, suggesting he clean up his own backyard before blaming the workplace relations laws for the increase in industrial disputes in the mining sector.

The Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, said claims that killing Labor’s Fair Work Act, which replaced WorkChoices, would boost productivity and economic growth was ”a conservative fantasy”.

”That is a lie and should be called for the lie it is,” he said.

On Wednesday, Mr Nasser delivered a blistering attack on the government’s industrial relations and taxation policies, saying they were fuelling investment uncertainty.

Some friendly Liberal bag man will likely being having a word to BHP and Jac Nasser in the very near future.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said he hoped claims that Liberal operatives had been spreading rumours about Mr Shorten were wrong. ”Quite frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of this stuff comes out of some of the union rivals,” he said, adding that in politics ”there is no place for rumour”.

What a load of bollocks. If rumour had no place in politics how would Trevor Mallard function? He has never come across a rumour he can’t embellish and hide behind parliamentary privilege to promote.

ᔥ The Guardian

Bill Shorten has to be the most loyal politician in the world. It doesn’t even matter that he has no idea what Julia Gillard has said, he is sure she is right.

Australia‘s Julia Gillard gets a minister happy to tell a TV interviewer that whatever his prime minister said, he agrees – even if he doesn’t know what it was.

Bill Shorten, the Australian workplace relations minister, was asked by Sky News Australia whether he felt the parliamentary speaker, Peter Slipper, should be allowed to go back to his job after being accused of sexual harassment and misuse of funds.

Aware Gillard was abroad, but unaware of what she’d said on the matter, Shorten replied: “I haven’t seen what she’s said, but let me say I support what it is she said.” Pressed by an astonished presenter to confirm he backed his boss even though he didn’t know what she’d said, he nodded: “I support what she said … My view is what the prime minister’s view is.” A new record in on-message obedience?