Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

Why is Abbott so spooked by the WorkChoices bogyman?
Peter Reith
June 28, 2011/the AGE

Peter Reith is a former deputy leader of the Liberal Party. He was also a minister in the Howard government.


'Even if WorkChoices had never happened, workplace relations has always been a difficult issue.' Photo: Craig Abraham

Labor market reform is too important to be left in the Liberal political closet.

EVEN though I have spent many years as an activist promoting labour market reform, I promised Tony Abbott I would suspend my interest in this if I became federal president of the Liberal Party. I thought that was the best way I could support Abbott and the team and quietly encourage good policy.

So I was more than surprised to learn after the ballot on Saturday that Abbott chose to throw his support behind Alan Stockdale; I have no idea why, and I am sad that he did.

I never liked the contest, because I thought it might be a problem whoever won, and so I offered a compromise three weeks ago. At that stage I calculated that I had the numbers. My clear understanding was that Stockdale wanted the Liberal presidency for another 12 months, so I suggested he stay for the first six months, that we work together to push through some reforms and then we change over and continue the work together with him in the role of immediate past president. It would have been an unusual arrangement but he rejected it.

Now, I can resume my interest in reform knowing that Abbott respects my right to do so based on a conversation we had earlier this year after I had publicly called for the reintroduction of individual agreements.

It was good that Abbott publicly called for the business community to make the case for reform. I hope he means it. Since that call, the voices from business have been growing louder. Julia Gillard's retrograde changes to workplace relations law are slowly burning our economy and in time the voices of embattled business will be heard across the country.

The Liberal Party has to take responsibility for labour market reform in Australia because the Labor Party is hopelessly compromised by the fact that it is owned lock, stock and barrel by the unions. Labour market issues are at the heart of productivity and, in the end, about living standards. Australia's productivity performance has been poor in recent years. We cannot pretend that this problem does not exist.

Too many people are worried about WorkChoices. WorkChoices is obviously buried and no one wants it back. Even if WorkChoices had never happened, workplace relations has always been a difficult issue. If we jump in fright every time Nick Minchin says the ALP is salivating at the thought of the Liberals doing something necessary, then Australia's prospects are not looking good.

Attitudes to labour market reform by Liberal leaders could be seen at the Federal Council in the contrasting positions of three state premiers and Abbott.

In the weeks before the council meeting, the two new Liberal premiers (Ted Baillieu in Victoria and Barry O'Farrell in NSW) announced workplace relations initiatives.

In both states, poor behaviour and excessive wage demands have been driving up costs and putting pressure on state budgets. Budget pressures inevitably end up as higher tax burdens on families already feeling the pinch.

Both initiatives have been attacked by Labor with the claim that these are examples of the bogyman at work. ''Watch out'' they cry, ''the WorkChoices bogyman is coming to get you!'' Luckily, these premiers have not been deterred by a scare campaign and they will act in the public interest. By addressing practical problems with specific reforms, these premiers are demonstrating an approach that Abbott could emulate.

When West Australian Premier Colin Barnett was asked if he would follow suit with Baillieu to curb militant unionism in the construction industry, he said it was not necessary. My hope for WA is that Barnett will, sooner rather than later, want to help the 450,000 people working in one of the most over-regulated, pro-union state systems in the country. The small business community would certainly be assisted by reforms on right of entry, agreements and unfair dismissal, all of which were drafted by the previous WA Labor government.

And of course the fourth player was Abbott. His current policy is that the issue is "dead, buried and cremated".

It seems that the reformers on workplace relations were also supporters of party reform; once a reformer always a reformer. I assume Baillieu voted for me; that was the assessment of the Victorian delegates and they know him well. O'Farrell would have voted for me because he said publicly that he would. Barnett seems to have voted for Stockdale.

And Abbott? He played "show and tell". This is the opposite of a secret ballot and much favoured by Labor party factional bosses who like to see the ballots to make sure that their lackeys vote as directed or as agreed in a deal. It was a pity that the Liberal federal director did not accept my suggestion that we needed polling booths because some delegates felt they were being pressured. Anyway, that was not a problem for Abbott. Sitting at the top table in the full glare of the media, he filled out the form and showed it to Stockdale, who was sitting next to him. Stockdale looked pleased.

The ambivalence about workplace relations reform on show at the Liberal meeting is a continuing concern not just for me but for a growing number of Australians running businesses large and small. The Liberals must win the next election but winning is not enough. Let's aim higher than a rerun of the Fraser years. In the same way that Baillieu and O'Farrell have put aside fears about the bogyman, the next federal government also needs to be pro-reform. I fervently hope that is the case, because otherwise our country is in for a rougher ride than it deserves.

he Labor Party is hopelessly compromised by the fact that it is owned lock, stock and barrel by the unions

If we jump in fright every time Nick Minchin says the ALP is salivating at the thought of the Liberals doing something necessary, then Australia's prospects are not looking good.

No wonder the vote was so close - the party's choice was between a nonentity and a fool.

Reith is already on the case - yesterday a nervous Abbott waited, alerted by a Reith tweet on Sunday that he was preparing an article on industrial relations. Reith writes in The Age today that ''I can resume my interest in reform'', adding that ''Gillard's retrograde changes to workplace relations law are slowly burning our economy, and in time the voices of embattled business will be heard across the country.''

Alan Stockdale (left) is congratulated by his challenger, Peter Reith, after securing a further term as Liberal Party federal president. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott looks on. Photo: Graham Tidy

Alan Stockdale was Jeff Kennett's treasurer, who masterminded the ruthless privatization/corporatization of public asserts in Victoria.

video report: Labor's gay marriage debate
Source: 7.30 Report
Published: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 7:46 AEST
Expires: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 7:46 AEST

The Labor Party is under increasing pressure to support gay marriage at its upcoming national conference. However, many within the ALP still remain unconvinced - including the Prime Minister. 7.30's Heather Ewart investigates.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd would be the only Labor frontbencher in Queensland left with a safe seat if an election were held today, based on recent Newspoll figures.

Fairfax is reporting a group calling itself the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance is preparing a $10 million advertising campaign, similar to one which successfully ran against the mining super profits tax a year ago.

Declining Labor may have to tie knot with the Greens
July 2, 2011/the AGE


Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown. Photo: Andrew Meares

HAVE Australians already seen the last majority national Labor government? The question acquires great potency now that the Greens have assumed the balance of power in the Senate. The comfortable, conventional view of the 2010 election result, which denied Labor and the Coalition an outright lower house majority, is that it was a one-off, born of the peculiar circumstances in which both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott became leaders of their parties - and the limited ways they exercised leadership.

Supposedly, following the difficulties and inbuilt uncertainties that go with a minority government, things will return to normal at the next election, with either Labor or the Coalition securing a majority. At best, this looks like being only half-right.

The Coalition would be able to manage it, but the ALP will struggle - even if it stages a stunning recovery between now and the second half of 2013. The harsh truth is that Labor can no longer rely on its natural level of support to keep it competitive. In the four general elections held so far in this century, the ALP's primary vote has been: 2001 - 37.8 per cent; 2004 - 37.6; 2007 - 43.4; 2010 - 38.

Labor does itself and its dwindling band of supporters a disservice if it chooses to ignore the pattern. It lost in 2001 and 2004, won in 2007, as voters got tired of John Howard after four terms, and managed to hold on to office as a minority government last year. What's happened since the 2010 election merely serves to underscore and compound the argument that Labor's critical mass of electoral support has vanished. Failing a political collapse on the other side, 38 per cent looks to be the ALP's natural level of support - not enough to give it power. The published opinion polls now suggest this figure has fallen to 27-30 per cent.

The Greens' 2010 election return, which saw them taking a lower house seat from Labor and boosting their tally of Senate places to nine, was, in all likelihood, a ground-breaking result. In 2001, the Greens' lower house vote was 5 per cent. Last year it was 12 per cent and 13 per cent in the Senate. While Labor last year could not manage to win a majority in the lower house, the two-party preferred vote still favoured the ALP - only just, at 50.1 per cent. And the combined Labor and Greens primary vote was 50 per cent. In other words, what can generically be called the left-wing vote was still healthy, it's just the Labor Party that's in real strife. ...<cont>

Meet Australia's new Senate powerbrokers
Updated Fri Jul 1, 2011 1:55pm AEST


The Australian Greens have assumed the balance of power in the Senate. (ABC News: Ben Spraggon)

The Australian Greens assume the balance of power in the Senate today(July 1st) , with four new Greens senators who were elected last year starting their terms.

That means there will be nine Greens senators, with newcomers Larissa Waters, Penny Wright, Lee Rhiannon and Richard Di Natale joining their five re-elected colleagues.

The Senate has 76 seats, and as of today it will be comprised of 31 Labor members, 29 Liberals, the nine Greens, five Nationals, one independent and one senator from the Democratic Labor Party.

That means no side of politics can win a majority of 39 votes in the Upper House without the Greens.

Following are details of the Australian Greens senators who will help shape any future decisions in the Senate.

Bob Brown (Tas) - party leader

* First elected: 1996
* Term expires: 2014
* Portfolios: Prime Minister and Cabinet; Treasury; Foreign Affairs; Defence and National Security; Schools and Education; Forests; and Whaling and Antarctica

Bob Brown has been a member of the Senate for the past 15 years and became the Greens parliamentary leader in 2006. The 66-year-old former doctor and Tasmanian Wilderness Society director has been recognised as the first openly gay member of Australian Parliament. He has campaigned against deforestation and nuclear energy, while backing same-sex marriage, the rights of asylum seekers and action on climate change.

Christine Milne (Tas) - deputy leader

* First elected: 2005
* Term expires: 2017
* Portfolios: Climate Change; Resources and Energy; Trade; Finance and Administration; Competition Policy and Small Business; Arts; and Food Security and Regional Australia

Christine Milne, who was Tasmania's Greens leader from 1993 until 1998, was jailed for three days over the Franklin Dam blockade in 1983 and was known for her staunch opposition to the development of a pulp mill during the late 1980s. Before jumping from state to federal politics, she was an adviser to Senator Brown and was vice-president of the World Conservation Union. ....<cont for the rest of the Greens senators>

My support for a carbon tax is not based on climate change but on the necessity of transitioning the world economy to a renewable fuel source as smoothly as possible. Which means not waiting until petrol is $10 a litre and food is rotting 1000s of ks from markets.

We'll have to transition anyway. It makes sense to start walking the road before the cracks appear.

It’s time we refocused the carbon pricing debate back on what really matters: making the big polluters responsible for the environmental damage they cause.

.... Greenpeace, along with the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and Environment Victoria were in Canberra today to present four of Australia’s dirtiest companies – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Woodside and BlueScope – with a tax bill for their pollution. Even if the carbon price begins at a very modest $26 per tonne, these four companies alone would owe $1.28 billion to the Australian community next year in the form of their carbon tax bill.

These companies can easily afford to pay – BHP Billiton alone recently posted a first half-year profit of $10.6 billion so they’re not short of a buck. Rather than inflating the profits of polluting companies, the revenue from a carbon price could be used to drive a massive cleaning up of the Australian economy, allowing us to produce and use energy cleanly and efficiently while minimising the climate impact of other polluting industries.

That will only happen if big polluting companies are liable under a carbon price. But today in Canberra the big mining companies like BHP and Rio along with LNG producer Woodside will be lobbying Treasurer Swan to exempt their emissions from a carbon price. .....