After reports that Liberal leader Tony Abbott is considering a taxpayer-funded paid maternity leave scheme, the ACTU has come out swinging, criticising the Liberal leader for his previous stance on the issue.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said the Howard Government’s WorkChoices had undermined pay and conditions for women, and it was simply not credible that Mr Abbott believed in supporting working mothers and would actually deliver on such a scheme. She said that when it came to women in the workforce, Mr Abbott was an unreconstructed traditionalist who was now attempting to court the female vote.

“After years of entrenched views antagonistic to the interests of women, Tony Abbott is now trying to con the electorate,” Ms Burrow said.

“His real views are contained in comments he has made in recent days that housework and ironing are the role of women.

“During his years as Employment Minister under John Howard, Mr Abbott never made any attempt to introduce a paid parental leave scheme. He is on record as opposing it.”

In 2002, he told a Liberal Party function in Victoria:

“Compulsory paid maternity leave? Over this Government’s dead body, frankly.”

Can the Liberal party leader change his stripes? Or is the ACTU just an extension of the Labor party political machine?

The awards finalists for 2010 were chosen in January with Voting is open to all AIMIA members. The most popular entry from the total pool of 122 finalist entries will be the winner of the People’s Choice Award. The winner will be announced at the Awards ceremony in Melbourne on Friday 5 March 2010. AIMIA members can vote for their favourite entry by visiting http://www.aimia.com.au/awards/peoples-choice

The Annual AIMIA Awards are the longest running and most prestigious Awards in Australia’s Interactive Media Industry. Entries are judged by a panel of global industry experts, drawn from all facets of the interactive media industry. Known affectionately as “The Amys” by the industry, the AIMIA Awards showcase work undertaken by Australia’s Interactive Media and Digital Content sectors across a broad range of categories.

To vote, click here.

To view the list of AIMIA finalists, click here.

To purchase tickets to the AIMIA 16th Annual Awards, click here.

APRA currently collects royalties for songwriters for the public performance of music and most composers in Australia assign their rights to APRA to issue licences and administer on their behalf. The ACCC proposes to allow APRA continued protection from the Trade Practices Act’s competition provisions for another three years for its arrangements for the acquisition and licensing of performing rights, subject to a number of conditions that the ACCC is seeking comment on.

APRA controls in Australia virtually the entire worldwide repertoire of performing rights for musical works and generally offers music users ‘blanket licences’ allowing them to publicly perform any work in APRA’s repertoire. “APRA offers composers and music users significant benefits by providing users with a one-stop shop for licences to play music and ensuring songwriters are rewarded for their efforts through royalties,” ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said.

“However, APRA is also a monopoly – with the power to price accordingly – and has rules that appear to unreasonably restrict direct dealing between composers and music users,” Mr Samuel said.

The ACCC invites further submissions from APRA and other interested parties. In particular the ACCC is interested in views about the draft conditions it is proposing. Submissions should be provided to the ACCC by 26 February 2010.

The draft determination will be available from the ACCC website www.accc.gov.au/AuthorisationsRegister

You can select the neighbourhood, cuisine and price you desire, or search and browse restaurants. Keep spinning the app until you land on a restaurant you want to try. Users can even check out professional critics’ reviews about each restaurant and add their own reviews.

Blackberry users can download the app from Blackberry App World on their computer, or with their Blackberry by visiting the mobile Blackberry App World with their Blackberry.

Google is set to announce the service at a launch event tomorrow with expectations that this revamped Gmail service will be similar to a Twitter updates stream that ties in with all of Google’s other properties such as Youtube and Picasa. No mention is made of Google’s existing social networking service Orkut, which despite struggling to find an audience in the English speaking parts of the world is the number one social network in India and parts of Latin America.

Google, by integrating an update streaming feature directly into Gmail will instantly convert the services nearly 50 million users into a live update stream that at launch, will rival the believed 75 million users of the Twitter community. This is the same kind of Trojan horse packaging of services that allowed Microsoft to usurp the then dominant ICQ instant messaging service as the largest instant messaging platform when Microsoft bundled MSN instant messaging with their popular Hotmail email service.

This is an interesting move by Google, though may only be an attempt by the search giant to capture more of the live-stream search data floating around, giving Google another bargaining chip when it comes time to renegotiate the terms of their $25million deal with Twitter to index their data for search.

Additionally, attendees and developers will be able to learn about developing and marketing their own apps at a series of iPhone-dedicated training sessions.

Apple will be surprisingly absent from the Macworld exhibition, having pulled out of the 2010 event just prior to the 2009 show. Whether the exhibition can garner enough interest from the rest of the Apple ecosystem remains to be seen. When IDG World Expo tried to run shows in Boston and New York without Apple, the events were a shell of their former selves.

It is hoped however that given the recent launch of the iPad tablet and the billions of iPhone applications sold to date will give Macworld the injection it needs to be a success without Apple’s active participation.

Industry & Investment NSW has produced the directories through its Australian Technology Showcase (ATS) program to profile NSW companies working creatively in mining, freight and logistics, and ICT services to Government. The Australian Technology Showcase (ATS) is a national networking program aimed at promoting and developing export markets for innovative technology based products. The program aims to encourage exports and increase employment by promoting member technologies on the domestic and international markets.

“This is about promoting our smartest small businesses to generate work and jobs to help grow our $360 billion State economy,” Mr Primrose said.

“These three new directories highlight our best technology companies and their applications to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of our mining, freight and logistics and government sectors.”

Mr Primrose said the new directories will complement previous directories prepared on leading technology companies working in our financial services, security, environment, and digital media sectors.

The downloadable technology directories are available online at: www.business.nsw.gov.au/industry/industry_directories.htm

The new website and iPhone application is like eBay with a big twist: everything must be free, locally picked up and there is no bidding – the first person to “Yoink” an item from someone wins it instantly. People, cities and countries are ranked on a worldwide scoreboard determining who is the most generous at giving items away.

This follows a trend by services such as FourSquare and other social gaming platforms (Facebook, with the infamous Farmville) towards internet services that incorporate gaming elements and a sense of competition between friends, or in this case, cities to increase user participation with the site in order to increase their status relative to other participants.

“We made Yoink so that it only takes 30 seconds to either give something away or find free stuff from people near you,” said Ben Hamey, Bonobo’s
co-founder. “Grab something you don’t need anymore, put it on Yoink and its available for anyone in your community.”

For more information on Yoink, or to try the service:

Twitter @Yoink
Web http://www.yoink.com/
App Store http://itunes.com/app/Yoink

Coach trainer and communication expert, Maureen Pound from Performance Toolkit said the results were disappointing for the Australian economy as the
issue could have been proactively avoided.

“When the GFC hit, organisations simply went into survival mode and failed to protect their most vital asset, their employees. People need to feel purposeful,
valued and clear about where the organisation is going and their role in that.”

Figures from the study include:

• 95% of respondents are looking for work, of which 73% are actively looking and 22% are passive or open to offers, with most candidates (57%) optimistic they will find a role in the next three months (32% of which are very optimistic).
• Top reasons given by candidates for seeking new jobs were limited career opportunities (41%), feeling undervalued (24%) and losing faith in the current organisation (18%).
• The most important characteristics candidates are looking for in a new role are: job security (91%); and work-life balance (86%). Overseas posting opportunities (25%) and bonus structure (48%) are the least likely to be rated as important.

Given these results, it is important for employers to communicate a clear vision to their employees on where the company is headed and the important role that the employees play in future efforts. This will assist in increasing job security and employee morale and will go some of the way to reducing the number of employees considering leaving for another role.

The study surveyed a sample of 1,010 Skype users, distributed throughout Australia and asked them about their use of Skype over the Christmas and New Year period with an aim to better understand how users were using the service to bring family and friends closer during the holiday period.

Highlights of the research include:

• 84 percent of Skype users in Australia reported similar or increased usage of Skype this holiday period over the same period last year.
• 78 percent used the software to wish their family and friends a “Merry Christmas”.
• 55 percent used Skype to wish their loved ones a “Happy New Year”.
• The first people to be contacted on New Year’s were typically family members (76 per cent). Friends accounted for 19 percent of Happy New Years Skype calls and boyfriends/girlfriends just 4 percent.

While respondents indicated email was the favourite way to keep in touch with friends and relatives, mobile phones (25 percent), followed by Facebook (19 percent) and Skype (17 percent). Around half of respondents used video calling, seeing this as an important way to connect with geographically spread family members.