New Opposition Leader Speaks Out

I just wanted to be the first person to give this sort of headline to Justice Michael Kirby's new foray into activism -

Those who wanted to abolish the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) were living in a fantasy world, High Court Justice Michael Kirby said today.

Justice Kirby, a former deputy president of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, made the comments in a speech at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission Centenary Convention in Melbourne today.

Hitting out at opponents of Australia's present industrial relations system, Justice Kirby said some wished to see the IRC "closed down lock, stock and barrel" or "converted into a mediatory body with no legal powers of arbitration or intervention".

"Persons of such views tend to live in a remote world of fantasy, inflaming themselves by their rhetoric into more and more unreal passions, usually engaging in serious dialogue only with people of like persuasion," Justice Kirby said.

[from The Age]

To suspend judgement slightly, I suppose Kirby might be talking about elements even more radical than the Government...