It appeared to place the blame on working people with the statement “2017 has so far been the year workers refused to be the ones to pay the price.”

On the contrary, it is workers who are being forced to pay the price while corporate profits continue to increase. A quick check of ABS figures will show that in the March quarter 2017, there were 32 disputes, 16 fewer than in December quarter 2016. The number of employees involved in industrial disputes was 22,700, a decrease from 37,500 in December quarter 2016.

Industrial disputation is falling, not increasing. Even the Reserve Bank has warned that wages are stagnating at levels that are harming the economy. The economy is facing what the Reserve Bank governor calls “a crisis of low pay”.

In contrast to to the statement “from public service to manufacturing, many industries are going through tight financial times” company profits are increasing. Once again ABS figures show Bureau of Statistics business indicators data for the December 2016 quarter show a massive 20.1 per cent surge in profits over the quarter, while wages fell 0.5 per cent.

Traditionally unions and employers had easy access to an independent commission who would arbitrate to solve protracted industrial disputes. While this may have seen the Wisdom of Solomon applied at times It generally spared the community and employees the pain we see so often now. Now access to arbitration is severely limited and the “Fair” Work Commission is a body that is willing to cut penalty rates of low-paid workers and engenders no confidence that any justice can be found there.

Current laws compel employees to take industrial action to get a pay rise, there is no other option. In this Gladiatorial system the strong win every time and the state of our current laws give employers the upper hand.

Our current laws allow employers to lock out their workers indefinitely and starve them and their community them into submission as we saw at Carter Holt Harvey at Myrtleford. Our current law allows employers to apply to dissolve enterprise agreements and cut workers wages by up to 50 per cent.

Our current laws allow companies to create an Enterprise Agreement with the agreement of three people and then win a contract and apply that agreement to another workplace even if it cuts wages by up to 35 per cent as has happened at the Esso site in Gippsland. Our current laws allow Dorevitch Pathology to offer workers who have not had a pay increase in 10 years a gingerbread biscuit as a pay rise.

Our current laws are broken.

Since Malcolm Turnbull announced the postal survey (to call a spade a spade) through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there have been many claims about religious freedoms being trampled if marriage equality is legalised. However, I can't help but note the hypocrisy of Denis Hart when he said that employees of Catholic institutions, such as teachers and nurses, would be sacked if they married their partners.

What really annoys me also is that Denis Hart thinks it's OK for the church to break the law and not report a morally repugnant act of which the Catholic Church has been tarred with raised in the “confessional”. The church is free to preach its views on marriage, and morality more generally.

But I don't think there’s a moral leg to stand on when you threaten to sack parishioners because of loving, consenting relationships while disregarding the law when crimes are committed by, confessed to or reported to institutional hierarchy.