This week’s outrages – and by that I mean outrages particular to this week – were two in number for me:
Baillieu plans to go after nurses:
Not only does the Victorian Liberal government plan to slash nursing numbers and replace them with less well-trained and (crucially) less well-paid “health assistants”. There would still be nurses, but fewer of them, doing more work for the same pay (which would, of course, be a decline in real wages). That would be disgusting enough by itself.
Now we learn that the group representing the employers in the negotiations – presumably a law firm, although I have yet to see them identified anywhere – seems to be colluding with the government to try to provoke the nurses into industrial action that will allow the government to force a solution – and we’ve already seen how short-sighted that solution is. Welcome to Victoria, home of Crown Casino, and soon, a shiny new range of hospital casinos where you bet your life…
Doyle still a dick:
The Lord-Mayor of Melbourne, or as he now prefers to be known, Generalissimo Roberto Doyle shut down efforts to force the council to be accountable for the eviction of the Occupy Melbourne protest from City Square. Legal action is pending, however, and I can’t be the only one who wants to see the big bully blubbering like a spolit child who’s just been told “No” for the first time ever. Again. (He still holds the record for sulkist concession speech in Victorian politics from his record-setting failed attempt to become Premier back in 2002 – largest loss by the Libs ever. Those were the days).
We have a Carbon Price:
It’s a start. It is not, however, any of the things that hyperbolic Opposition members and the even more hyperbolic people who vote them have described it as. Well done, at last, Julia.