Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

Thomson's statement: key points

Thomson uses parliamentary privilege to name Marco Bolano, a Victorian union official, as the man he says set him up over allegations he used union money to pay for prostitutes.

"Since allegations were first raised I have consistently and on many occasions made clear that I have done nothing wrong.

"In making this statement I'm very conscious that in the eyes of many of the public I have been charged, convicted and sentenced."

"None of the allegations have been tested in any court or tribunal."

He told MPs he had been sent emails saying he should have hung himself or cut his throat.

He said the Coalition's handling of the issue had unleashed a lynch mob, and the media had fanned it.

Thomson took aim at HSU officials Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson.

He touted his reforms at the HSU but added: "I was approached by the now-national secretary Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson saying: 'What are you doing? Why don't you just collect your salary and do nothing, and do nothing?'"

Thomson said the Fair Work Australia report into the HSU was "selective and biased".

He said Kathy Jackson's partner was "second in charge" of Fair Work Australia; "what influence did he have in relation to the writing of the report... what relationship, if any, does he have with the Liberal Party?"

Thomson says he thinks Tony Abbott's "concept of guilt, of course, means trial and conviction by media".

Begins crying when recalling instance of a television reporter outside his bathroom window when his pregnant wife was showering.

Thomson finishes by saying Tony Abbott is not only unfit to be a prime minister, but "is unfit to be an MP".

This inquiry is a nonsense
May 23, 2012/the AGE

IN POLITICAL terms, Labor is sensible to agree without a fight to the privileges committee looking at whether Craig Thomson has told the truth - but the inquiry itself is surely a bit of a nonsense.

How does a parliamentary committee adjudicate on the detail of Fair Work Australia's findings versus Thomson's denials? ...<cont>

Thomson said the Fair Work Australia report into the HSU was "selective and biased".

He said Kathy Jackson's partner was "second in charge" of Fair Work Australia; "what influence did he have in relation to the writing of the report... what relationship, if any, does he have with the Liberal Party?"

...In an interview with ABC1's 7.30, Ms Jackson hit back at Mr Thomson's accusations that her partner Michael Lawler, who happens to be Fair Work Australia's vice president, used his position to go hard on him.

She said Mr Thomson's allegations against her partner were "totally wicked".

Ms Jackson said she did talk to Mr Lawler about the HSU.

"I think it's very appropriate as my partner that I ask him advice and assistance. But he is not running the case for the HSU. I tell him what I'm doing, not the other way around," she said.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Are you concerned at all about perceptions of conflict of interest?

KATHY JACKSON: That's what he's trying to do. Craig Thomson is obviously trying to smear everybody to get himself out of the hole that he has dug himself into. My advice to Craig Thomson is to you know the more he says the worse he looks.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Has Michael Lawler ever been involved with you in any of the strategy meetings with the HSU about any of the actions that you have got going?

KATHY JACKSON: Well obviously as my partner I talk to Michael about what I'm doing and as my partner I talk to him about not just HSU issues but other issues as well.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Is it that appropriate?

KATHY JACKSON: I think it's very appropriate as my partner that I ask him advice and assistance. But he is not running the case for the HSU. I tell him what I'm doing, not the other way around.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Does Michael Lawler have connections with the Liberal Party as Craig Thomson suggests?

KATHY JACKSON: Not that I know of.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Anything that might lead to you believe that he does?

KATHY JACKSON: No. But that's like when they said last week made statements against me for you know going to the HR Nicholls society. We live in a free society.

I've got links in the Liberal Party. I've got friends that are Greens. Amnesty international, you know, we live in a free society. We're allowed to talk to people.

CHRIS UHLMANN: You mentioned the HR Nicholls society, who is saying your legal bills?

KATHY JACKSON: I'm paying my legal bills. Um ... I've got a $40,000 debt already. That the union won't pay for. And Brett Shields for Reid Zafp are doing all the work pro-bono and so is Stewart Ward.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Are you still using Harmers workplace lawyers?

KATHY JACKSON: Yes I am.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Why?

KATHY JACKSON: Well, cause I went to every Labor law firm in town and they couldn't represent me, they're all conflicted.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And are they doing that work pro-bono?

KATHY JACKSON: Yes they are.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Are you aware that it's the same law firm that's representing James Ashby the man who has accused the Speaker of sexual harassment.

KATHY JACKSON: I am now.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Doesn't it seem odd to you?

KATHY JACKSON: No, well, why... it seems odd to me that Maurice Blackburn is representing Peter Slipper when he they are an employment law firm, why isn't that strange?

CHRIS UHLMANN: It does seems that the two big cases that are going in parliament at the moment should both be represented by the same law firm does seem at the very least to be just a touch strange.

KATHY JACKSON: Well, why isn't it strange that the federal office of the Health Services Union is being represented by Holding Redlich who are the same lawyers that Craig Thomson is using.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And why do you thik Harmers workplace lawyers is representing you pro-bono?

KATHY JACKSON: I think they are representing me pro-bono because they believe in my case. I'm not making this up. The allegations that I have taken to the police are serious and genuine. I have not made these allegations to set Craig Thomson up or anybody up.

The allegations that I have made and continue to make is that the HSU East branch is riddled with corruption, and we need to get rid of it and I'm doing that on behalf of the membership.

I am worried about Thomson's health: Liberal MP
Updated May 23, 2012 08:39:33

Western Australia's Liberal MP Mal Washer has expressed concern for the mental health of embattled MP Craig Thomson.

HSU East gags Kathy Jackson HR Nicholls talk
by: Christian Kerr
From: The Australian
May 17, 2012 12:00AM

WORKPLACE relations think tank the HR Nicholls Society has slammed the Health Services Union's East branch for stifling free speech after it voted to ban its national secretary Kathy Jackson from speaking at the society's national conference next month.

It was announced on Tuesday that Ms Jackson would deliver the keynote address at the society's conference dinner on June 12.

But the executive of the scandal-ridden union voted at a meeting on Tuesday night to ban its officials from "consorting" with the HR Nicholls Society.

The strongly worded motion slammed the deregulationist society as "the people who bought us Work Choices" and an "anti-union hate group".

"The HR Nicholls Society is an anti-worker organisation and anyone who would identify as being a union person should have nothing to do with them," the motion continued.

"HSU East acknowledges its internal difficulties but knows that there is no solution to be found in the deathly embrace of the union-busters at the HR Nicholls Society."

The society hit back, with communications director Ian Hanke slamming the motion as "intimidation". "This is an attempt to censor freedom of speech," he told The Australian. "It is intimidatory and is typical of the behaviour we have come to expect from this dysfunctional union."

Ms Jackson is national secretary of the HSU and a member of the HSU East branch, which was recently the subject of a damning Fair Work Australia report. She said last night that HSU officials had "obviously never heard of free speech".

"If anything can show you how this crew are used to running the branch, it's this," she said.

"They're attitude is, 'Do what you're told, say what we say you should say, or else'. After all the ignominy the union has suffered, they still don't get it.

"Their Soviet-era, Stalinist, command-and-control system for the union has crumbled. . . And if they're not part of the solution then, clearly, they continue to be part of the problem."

Ms Jackson exposed Labor MP Craig Thomson's alleged misuse of more than $500,000 of union member funds during his tenure at the union's helm

Judge, jury, and now executioner?

A DEFINING characteristic of civilised nations is that all citizens are afforded the presumption of innocence, a fair trial and due process. These principles are all the more important in cases of significant public interest. A public inquisition makes a mockery of that; it's the mark of a degenerate democracy.

The Coalition's witchhunt of Craig Thomson undermines our world-class system of government in a manner far more destructive than anything the man himself may have done. Mr Abbott is tearing apart the separation of powers.

When you destroy that, you've destroyed the foundation of everything that makes Australia different from every tin-pot dictatorship. What we are getting now is a circus, not justice.

Mr Abbott's suggestion that Mr Thomson's resignation would be ''the best thing for everyone'' went further than what's acceptable.

To hound someone out of office - part of a whatever-it-takes campaign - sets a dangerous precedent. Mr Abbott has been the judge, he's been the jury, and now he's pushing for the execution.

Michaelean O'Donnell, Riddells Creek


Stop brainwashing

MICHELLE Grattan states that ''we have a public that wants the government gone'' (''When enough isn't enough'', The Saturday Age, 26/5).

I overheard a loud discussion in a shop recently. The people supported their beliefs by quoting Andrew Bolt as though he was an infallible political expert - which he is not as far as I am concerned.

I say ''no'' to Ms Grattan. It isn't that the public wants to oust the government; media commentators are brainwashing the public into believing this. For reasons I don't understand, many people hang on to their every word. I even heard someone say recently: ''But Derryn Hinch said so - he should know, so it must be true.''

The public decides who runs this country, not the media. It's time journalists became more objective about what they write.

John Cummings, Anglesea

Why Labor gets no credit for economic management
Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT, ECONOMIC PERCEPTIONS, ESSENTIAL REPORT

Perceptions about the high cost of living, and voter distrust of Julia Gillard, are the key reasons the government gets no voter reward for a well-performing economy, data from Essential Research shows.

Labor's inability to capitalise politically on an extraordinary series of economic figures showing the economy performing better than virtually any other in the developed world has frustrated the government and even vexed political commentators, who assume that economic management is central to voter expectations of political parties. Last week Essential asked a series of questions in an effort to elicit why.

There are two threshold issues before we get into the reasons. First, a key reason the government remains unpopular despite its economic success is that it's, well, unpopular. Partisanship strongly influences how people view the economy. Labor voters think the economy is doing well -- 56% think it is doing well compared to 13% who don't. Greens voters have a similar view.

But Liberal voters can see little but gloom -- 42% think the economy is poor while only 24% think it's good. Interestingly, independent or "don't know" voters split almost evenly on the question, although the sample size is very small. So while ever the government's polling is poor, it will struggle to get acknowledgement of its economic record.

So, voters only see what they want or expect to see -- that's not surprising. But partisanship also extends, though to a lesser degree, to how voters view their own financial situation -- 53-27% of Labor voters describe their household financial situation as "satisfactory"; 49-17% of Greens voters feel the same way. But only 39% of Liberal voters are satisfied, and 30% are not, despite the fact that satisfaction rises with income.

Being unhappy with your financial situation doesn't appear to stop some people from spending. Nineteen per cent of people who expressed dissatisfaction with their financial situation took an overseas holiday in the past 12 months; 9% undertook home renovations, 30% bought a major household item; 5% even bought shares. More of that in a moment.

Once we get beyond the filters of partisanship and (mis)perceptions of financial security, we can start to answer the question of what creates the disconnect between voter sentiment and economic management. There are two strands to follow -- voters who don't agree the economy is doing well, and those who do. The second most commonly cited reason voters don't think the economy is doing well takes us back to circularity -- 27% think the economy isn't doing well because it is being badly managed by the government -- although that is almost entirely Liberal voters.

The reason most commonly cited by voters as to why they disagree on the strength of the economy is "increasing cost of living" -- 34% of voters identify that as the main reason the economy is not doing well. Critically, the sentiment is unaffected by partisanship -- the Labor/Liberal/Greens split is 34%, 32% and 40%.

We've frequently canvassed why the perception of cost of living pressure is, for voters outside the lowest income quintile, simply wrong. When even the Herald Sun explains why incomes have surged well beyond inflation in recent years, you know we're nearing consensus on the subject.

Regardless, voters appear wedded to the idea that they can't keep up. As the data above suggests, of course, for many people this is more about high levels of consumption and lifestyle expectations than about really doing it tough -- when you can afford an overseas trip but complain about your financial situation, or buy shares while moaning about the cost of living, you're problem is your lifestyle, not rising costs.

But here's the problem for Labor: every time Wayne Swan or Julia Gillard tell voters that they understand families are doing it tough, they're reinforcing the strongest reason that people don't think the economy is performing well. Whenever Swan attends a press conference following low inflation data and declares that "families are doing it tough", as he did earlier this month, he exacerbates his political problem. In effect, the government is repeatedly telling voters the economy isn't doing well, then wondering why they won't give it credit for economic management.

The other strand, voters who agree the economy is doing well, were asked why they thought the government got no credit for it -- a slightly meta question but intended to avoid the issue of partisanship directly determining responses. The most frequent response was that voters don't trust the Prime Minister -- 28% -- a view shared across party lines: 21% of Labor voters say voters don't trust her, 35% of Liberal voters and 44% of Greens. The impact of the carbon price was the second most frequent reason (17%), a view shared by Labor and Liberal but not Greens voters, then 15% who think the economy is doing well for reasons other than the government.

Voters, therefore, don't want to give credit to the government for the economy even if they think it is doing well, because they don't like Gillard and they dislike the carbon price. Things may improve come July when it becomes clear the carbon price has had minimal impact, but that's unlikely to significantly shift voter sentiment, given that at 17% it doesn't play a dominant role even for people who acknowledge the economy is going well.

Other measures to improve voter appreciation of the government's economic performance, however, would appear to be in its own hands.

Abbott flees as Thomson votes with Coalition
Phillip Coorey, Judith Ireland
May 30, 2012 - 12:07PM/the AGE


Gotcha ... independent MP Craig Thomson votes with the opposition during a division in in Parliament this morning. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The exiled Labor MP Craig Thomson sent Coalition MPs running for the doors this morning as they sought to negate his support when he voted with the opposition.

In extraordinary scenes just after 9am, the opposition tried to suspend standing orders to debate the issue of debt.

The government moved to gag the debate and Mr Thomson, who has always voted with Labor since being exiled a month ago, instead joined the other crossbenchers who, on principle, never support a gag motion.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, and the manager of opposition business, Christopher Pyne, made for the doors but Mr Abbott was ordered back by the Speaker, Anna Burke, because it was too late to leave. His vote was counted.

A fleet-footed Mr Pyne made it out before being noticed by Ms Burke, thereby negating Mr Thomson's vote.

Despite the fact that the House live minutes show Mr Abbott did vote in the first vote this morning, Mr Abbott would not confirm that he was in the chamber for the vote.

"I’m not going to go into the precise details of who was what where," he said.

Greens Leader Christine Milne said Mr Abbott's behaviour today demonstrated that he could not be regarded as a responsible candidate for the prime ministership.

"You're not allowed to run out of the House when a vote is called," Senator Milne said.

Back in the house, Labor again tried to gag the Coalition motion to debate debt and Mr Thomson voted with the Coalition a second time. This time, Mr Pyne returned to the house, but sat in the adviser's box and did not vote, while Mr Abbott stayed in his office in protest.

Mr Thomson taunted Mr Abbott, saying he should cross the floor and sit on the Labor side "if he is truly negating my vote".

Another gag was called at 9.45am, and another at 9.55am. Mr Thomson voted with the Coalition a third time and fourth time.

Mr Abbott's abstention was designed to negate Mr Thomson's vote and reinforce his principle that the Coalition would never accept his support on anything.

The opposition does not want to ever accept Mr Thomson's vote, fearing it could create a precedent in which it may have to grant him a pair in case he takes extended leave from the Parliament, thus negating any numerical advantage it would achieve from his absence.

Mr Abbott has also been demanding the government never accept Mr Thomson's vote, claiming it is tainted.

Sitting in his office while the numbers were being counted, Mr Abbott told the National Times Labor should refuse to accept Mr Thomson's vote just as John Howard used to refuse the turncoat senator Mal Colston's vote by having a Coalition senator abstain.

He said the Coalition would never be trapped into having to grant Mr Thomson a pair.

"We don't give pairs to independents and we will never accept Thomson's vote under any circumstances," he said.

Mr Abbott later said that Mr Thomson's decision to side with the Coalition was a stunt.

"It was obviously a stunt orchestrated by Craig Thomson, Anthony Albanese and the government," Mr Abbott told reporters in Canberra.

The Opposition Leader said his hasty exit from the chamber was to prevent the Coalition accepting Mr Thomson's vote.

"Christopher Pyne and I suddenly realised he was in the chamber," he said.

"As soon as it became it apparent [that Mr Thomson was siding with the Coalition we] absented ourselves from the chamber," Mr Abbott said.

The Opposition Leader said the Coalition would "absent one of our members" whenever Mr Thomson chooses to vote with the Coalition and called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to do the same thing: "this is a tainted vote".