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The Oz Landscape in 2006 and Beyond.....

"The new industrial relations legislation is supposed to be about flexibility, choice and the creation of thousands of jobs. There's no doubt it will give employers more freedom, but, in the time-honoured phrase, what about the workers? The repeal of the unfair dismissal laws, for instance, certainly makes the workplace more flexible, but for whom?"

So starts an excellent opinion-piece in the SMH by Hugh MacKay, well-known psychologist, social researcher and writer - and hardly a radical.

More depressing is his analysis of what the outcome and fall-out of the IR legislation will be for ordinary workers and those most vulnerable in the community. It certainly gives the lie to the Government's pronouncements - spin, if not downright lies - that the new IR laws will be family-friendly and advantageous to all Australians.

As if MacKay's piece isn't sobering and depressing enough another excellent opinion piece, also in the SMH, by Adele Horin, spells out the long-term effect on Australians with the passing of the IR and welfare-for-work legislation.

Howard and Co are blatently driven by blinding idealogy. Just witness the obsession to do away with University student union fees. What Australians are about to see unfold in 2006, and beyond, will be a country ever so much poorer, on many levels, for what the Government has wrought through the passing of the recent legislation. It won't be Cry Argentina - it should be Cry Australia!

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