Page 2664 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 October 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
hard, to put his heart and soul into a business for a long-term benefit? Is it the sort of activity that is going to encourage an employee to create a career in a particular business, or will it encourage him to look for full-time work? Naturally enough, an employee, unless he wants to go on the dole, would have to start looking for full-time employment because he would know that this was only a part-time job. That is a tremendous injustice to the worker.
Ossie Kleinig of the Canberra Business Council has said that it will need a separate work force to replace people on parental leave. It will create a separate work force of part-time people. Although many members of the ALP may not know this, when you put on a new employee it is highly likely that that employee is not particularly productive for some months. It is held in many quarters that it takes six months for an employee to become fully productive. The employer has a choice here. He can decide not to put anybody on and try to struggle through with the staff he has, working longer hours. I think employers working longer hours is a common thing in Canberra, as it is around Australia. What concerns does this create? Employers do not spend as much time at home with their family, with their children. They do not spend as much time in other community activities as they might like. Why? Because of economic necessity. It is called "no choice". How is it created? It is created by coercive utopians who know better.
Let me read from The Australian Achievement: From Bondage to Freedom by Professor Mark Cooray, who is associated with Macquarie University:
The most dangerous enemies of civilisation are not necessarily evil people. They are idealists (subject to qualifications stated below) who wish to use the police power of big government to impose their views and perspectives on others. They often do not enjoy majority support among the public. They reject the evolved experience of the ages.
He goes on:
The phrase "coercive utopian" is a more apt description than "reformist". It does not however apply to all reformists. It applies to those who seek to use the power of the law beyond acceptable limits ... It does not apply to those who seek to remove necessary restrictions on freedom. Reformists (so-called) often do not enjoy community support for their legislatively imposed and bureaucratically or judicially enforced changes. They therefore hide their real aims and introduce coercive measures gradually and incrementally so that people do not know what is happening and the opposition is divided and diluted. Modern coercive utopians have developed to a fine art the ability to hide the reality of what they are doing under the cloak of moderation. Their efforts in this respect have been assisted by the general failure of liberal and conservative politicians (a few exceptions apart) and people who believe in liberal values, to mount an effective counter attack. Thus, the coercive utopians are idealists (subject to qualifications stated below), who wish to impose their views and perspectives on others. They want to use the authority of government to achieve their ends.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .