Howard’s anti-union attack ads fall flat
The Government has pinned its hopes on industrial relations, and especially the union movement’s influence on Labor. But it was caught lying about some ALP members, and pretending that student politics counts as industrial unionism.
Besides, voters know that the Liberal frontbenches are stuffed full of business lawyers, while union leaders bring a range of skills to the Parliament. In the Financial Review on Wednesday, Steven Scott reported (p14):
He has degrees in mining engineering and economics, had a board seat at a $26 billion super fund and recently negotiated the largest personal injury settlement in Australian legal history.
More than 80 employees worked for his oprganisation which had a turnover of about $10 million and he was the top executive for much longer than most chief executives run large listed companies.
Greg Combet may be public enemy No.1 in the federal government’s campaign against Labor’s union dominated front bench but he has a CV that in some ways could be mistaken for a company executive, raising questions about what skills former union leaders bring to politics.
John Howard even claimed his 90-minute debate flop was worthwhile because it gave him a chance to repeat a ten-second anti-union soundbite. Unfortunately for him, “[t]he Worm appeared to be particularly critical of Mr Howard when industrial relations was discussed”, and went through the roof when Kevin Rudd talked about workplace fairness.
The most recent opinion poll has Labor gaining major ground on the economy, which shows the public is not falling for the “unions are anti-business” scare campaign. And maybe voters want someone to stick up for ordinary workers, anyway. Crikey recently reported that the Australian Election Survey has shown decreasing fears about unions (15.5% in 2004) and increasing fears about business power (27.1%).
The construction industry scare campaign is unravelling, too. The managing director of John Holland, one of the nation’s biggest construction companies, admitted, “Whoever wins, we don’t factor that sort of stuff in. I don’t think the world’s going to end, I don’t think the sky’s going to fall in.” Meanwhile, the Government launched a new YouTube ad about Joe McDonald — on the same day a court vindicated the CFMEU official’s entry onto a construction site to chase unpaid wages and investigate safety concerns.
Of course, the Government will continue to put heat on Kevin Rudd over Labor’s union support, including Joe McDonald’s membership. Yesterday, Bob Hawke said what Rudd should be saying:
Mr Howard’s attack on the unions was “the most disastrously unfair and baseless accusation and propaganda that has ever been used by any leader in the history of Australian politics. I say that deliberately, that’s not exaggeration,” he said.
“Every single Australian is indebted to the Australian trade union movement. How dare this man attack the trade union movement. There is no institution in Australia which has done more to flesh out the concept of a fair go, to give it reality, than the Australian trade union movement.”
Hawke has hinted that Kevin Rudd will “soon speak out” along similar lines. If he doesn’t, he can expect more voters to follow the Fireys and turn Green.
Well Rudd needs to nail his colours to the mast pretty soon. It’s all very well expelling ALP members for using language like ‘I’ll be back’, while not commenting on Abbott’s use of the term Bullsh*t, and the bullying and outragous behaviour of employers in the building industry, but Rudd is actually the leader of the Australian Labour Party, and his inability or unwillingness to ‘own’ the contribution that the union movement has made to the standard of living of every Australian, whether member of a union or not, is beginning to ‘grate’ on me.
All those who wish the ALP would dump its union connections should have a look at how well the Democrat party in the US defends the interests of working people, as opposed to the big donors that fund it, and might reflect on why such a large proportion of the white working class in the US turns to Evangelicals for political mobilisation, as opposed to the labour movement and votes against its economic interests every time, by either not voting at all, or voting for politicians who cloak frankly reactionary policies with the soothing ecomiums created from a toxic mix of religion and patriotism .
The forces that are encouraging this move in Australia, and the forces that want unions to become little more than partners in the business of business, whether they know it or not, are ensuring that there is no real political alternative to the kind of neoliberalism we have seen in the OECD for the past twenty years. This is unfortunate, because whether the current ALP leadership team knows it or not, the next twenty years will not like the last twenty.
They are beginning to look Generals fighting the last war, and Rudd risks damaging the ‘brand’ which he has been so kind to his own persoanl ambitions.