I am disappointed. The Howard and Costello team played a large part in growing Australia’s economy – they abolished the debt their government inherited from Labor, they took unemployment to a 33 year low, and they had the guts to implement change where it was needed. Yet the majority of Australians decided that they’d prefer a beaming, inexperienced Kevin Rudd to lead us through (at least) the next three years.

But, Australia has decided, and this is what it wants. Howard’s political career is over (prematurely if you ask me) and Costello is going to be an opposition backbencher that we’ll probably never hear from again. That’s how democracy works though, so I’m going to have to accept it!

Right up until the results started coming in last night I was still standing by my earlier prediction that Labor would pick up about 10 seats, 6 or so shy of the amount they needed to easily form government. And it never even entered my mind that John Howard would be defeated in his seat of Bennelong – but now that looks incredibly likely (I will be very surprised if he hangs on to it now, after the 5000 or so postal votes from the seat are counted).

My predictions probably were hampered by wishful thinking. So I turned out to be wrong, and disappointed at the result at the same time!

The biggest issue of this election, aside from the leadership, was undoubtedly WorkChoices. I firmly believe that the attitudes of unions and those who stand by them are uncooperative and unproductive, and it is my dream to see a workplace culture in Australia where each side – both employees and employers – can see the other side’s point of view and can work together for mutually beneficial outcomes. Of course this view comes from the fairly good working life I’ve had – from running my own micro business (although without any employees), from working in management for a small business where the owner of the company was focused on his staff before anything else (bar of course the customers), and now from working in a very small business with a manager who wants decision making to be as far down the line as possible. So I know it’s possible. I know I’ve had it fairly good. And I also know that alot of Australians don’t have it so good at work – they work for the money then go home, back into their normal life, and dread going back to work again. How great it would be if everyone enjoyed their jobs – the employers enjoyed working with the employees and the employees enjoyed working for the employers. If everyone could see what the other person’s situation was like, and could empathise with it, how much more would everyone enjoy their working life, and therefore their life in general?

It’s about being a reasonable person. And of course there are lots of people that are unreasonable, and there probably needs to be laws in place to keep them in check. I think the activities of unions are completely unreasonable, and do nothing but agitate the people on the other end of the bargaining stick which ultimately results in a very sour relationship. It is not very easy to see the other person’s point of view, empathise with them and act reasonably if they’re doing the exact opposite to that.

WorkChoices certainly wasn’t perfect, and it still left room for unscrupulous employers to have the upper hand on their employees. That’s a fault of the employer, not of WorkChoices. The employee is always free to leave their job and find an employer who actually cares about them. So sure, there was probably more WorkChoices could have done. I’m not quite sure how you solve that problem. But the thing was it was a start – it was a big start, which means it’s going to cost a lot of money for business to go back on it (and, hmm, that’s bad for the economy, isn’t it?).

So it will be interesting to see what happens to our workplaces and our economy now. I’ll be watching intently. Now that I’ve had a part in deciding the government of Australia, I’ll be watching them even closer than I have over the last year, and next election… well, I don’t know what it’s going to look like yet. With what I know now though, I am still very disappointed that Costello and Howard weren’t given the opportunity to continue the good work they have done over the last 11 years. But best of luck to the new Rudd-Gillard government.

Joe Hockey, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, was interviewed on Hack, Triple J’s youth current affairs program, on Thursday (listen here). I’ve just been listening to the podcast of it – he was very down to earth, and made some very good points. I wrote a message on his Facebook wall to let him know what I thought.

Since I haven’t been contacted by the AEC yet, I’ll assume that my application for work for this election was unsuccessful, and thus I’m going to start making political comments again. Actually, they don’t really say anything on their site as far as time frames go, so maybe I should make my comments a bit more subliminally just in case they’re still organising themselves? I mean, I can always start refraining from it if I’m offered a position, right? Don’t vote Kevin Rudd.

So, Joe made some good points in the interview.

On unfair dismissal laws he said “we removed the unfair dismissal laws because we found small business was not prepared to take a punt, particularly on young people”. He goes on to say that small business wanted “only people with experience”, and didn’t want to employ people with a “chequered employment history”. Once the Coalition removed unfair dismissal laws for businesses employing less than 100 people, they found employment surge because small business said “we’re going to take a punt on these people; if it doesn’t work out we can get rid of them”! Whereas before… the chance to get into the job was never there!

Joe later said to a caller: “We didn’t remove the unfair dismissal laws from business to make it easier to sack people, we removed them to make it easier to hire people”. Labor obviously doesn’t think so though – by scrapping WorkChoices, they’re going to send the unemployment rate right back up…

Later in the show there was a caller who spoke about a promotion he was offered – to act as a supervisor for a period of time – without being given any real extra remuneration for the extra responsibility. To that, Joe said “if you’re given the chance at a promotion, run for it!” I completely agree – and I think it’s simply a case of attitudes. I cannot comprehend how someone in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to gain more experience and move further along in their career just because they’re not not offered enough money for it. Isn’t that making a mountain out of a molehill? Taking issue with a non issue? It’s asking for money because you believe you’re entitled to it, and when unsuccessful, stubbornly refusing to help the company when it’d be helping yourself too – and it’s simply out of spite!

I’d take the promotion, write down the experience on my resume, and if the company did take a turn for the worse and ended up leaving a sour taste in my mouth, I’d move on to somewhere else where my skills and experience would be appreciated (they’d be worth more if I’d done time in that new position than if I hadn’t).

This is one of the major problems I have with the Labor party – and with their supporters. It’s all about attitude. I know this is a generalisation, but I believe it’s generally true – Labor supporters have a “woe is me” attitude. They want all they’re entitled to, and will stop at nothing to get it – even missing out on a good opportunity for themselves just to “punish” the other side. This is why, at this stage, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to vote Labor. I don’t agree with the attitudes of the working class. Don’t vote Kevin Rudd.