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  Issue No 112 Official Organ of LaborNet 21 September 2001  

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Parliament

Opening Salvo


In his Maiden Speech, delivered this week, Costa gave vent to his views on immigration, Marx, globalisation and mental health.

 
 

Costa with Successor John Robertson

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Madame President, I come to this House with a great sense of responsibility.

The Legislative Council is an institution that on balance has served the workers of this State well.

In coming here I follow a proud lineage of Labor Council officers who have represented the workers of the State in this House.

Since the positions have become full-time, I will be the second former Labor Council Secretary after Barrie Unsworth to sit in this House.

I would also note that the Premier Bob Carr was once a Labor Council official.

I say this not to raise any expectations on my own behalf, but to highlight the critical role the Labor Council has played in the political, economic and social life of this State.

There is no doubt that the sensible and moderate approach of the Labor Council has been a critical factor in the leading role New South Wales plays in the economic and civic life of this nation.

I would also like to place on record my thanks to John Robertson who has succeeded me as Secretary - for a time, in June, it appeared he might arrive in this Parliament before me.

John is a person of enormous capacity and I am certain despite the initial fireworks John and his deputy Mark Lennon will continue the great tradition of sensible pragmatic leadership.

They are assisted by what must be the most professional and dedicated team any leader has been fortunate enough to work with. I would particularly like to thank Karen Adams and Kelly Laing.

The whole team operates under the guidance of the current President of the Labor Council Sandra Moait and the executive of the Labor Council. The presidential officers of the Council, Russ Collison, John Hennessey, Pat Ryan, Michael Williamson, Michele Hryce and until recently Alison Peters, have worked together to make the Labor Council the preeminent trade union peak Council in the country.

I doubt I will ever meet a more dedicated group of people than the trade unionists who make up the executive and delegates to the Labor Council of New South Wales.

I would like to thank all the previous Labor Council secretaries who have provided guidance, advice and counsel to me - some of which I have heeded: John Ducker, John McBean, Michael Easson, Peter Sams and Barrie Unsworth.

Michael Easson, one of the most decent people I have ever known, was instrumental in my career at the Labor Council. It was his recommendation that led to John McBean offering me the opportunity to stand for election as a Labor Council officer. He was also instrumental in both my expulsion from, and readmission to, the Labor Party. Michael remains a close friend and influence.

Peter Sams has always been a close mate. He balanced my more radical views of industrial relations with his more pragmatic outlook. Peter is an unashamed traditionalist who understands the importance of history and institutions and has taught me the need to respect tradition.

A special word about Barrie Unsworth. Over the last decade I have worked extremely closely with Barrie and the Labor Council's financial controller Jeff Priestly in managing the commercial interests of the Labor Council. Because of their efforts, the Labor Council is financially secure.

Barrie has provided me with support, advice and encouragement. Occasionally that advice was provided in the direct manner he is renowned for. I think his style may have rubbed off on me. Barrie's love for the Labor Council is heartfelt.

Having come to know Barrie so well I say without equivication that it was a great shame for the people of this State that his duration as Premier was so short, he is a man of principle, competence and vision who had much more to contribute to this State as Premier. However, the State's loss was the Labor Council's gain.

I come to this House as a dedicated trade unionist who believes the union movement despite its recent difficulties, has a critical role to play in ensuring fairness in the workplace. No issue highlights more the important role of unions than the issue of workers entitlements.

Thousands of workers confront the despair of lost entitlements annually. Yet we still don't have a system that protects these entitlements. It is a national disgrace. Without unions many workers would have lost all of their precious entitlements.

For those who doubt the broad support for trade unions in this country I strongly advise that they study in depth polling carried out on behalf of the Labor Council of New South Wales, which shows over a long polling period consistent and growing support for trade unions.

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I come to this House as a person from a non-English Speaking background. In fact I was the first Secretary of the Labor Council from a non-English-speaking background. I look forward to the day when the secretary of the Labor Council is from either an Asian or Middle Eastern background.

My parents were Greek Cypriot post-war immigrants. Like many others they experienced the trauma of war, the confusion of displacement and the hope of a better life in Australia.

My father found work in the steelworks in Newcastle, where I was born, and subsequently in the railways, where he served for more than 40 years. My mother, a process worker, juggled long working hours with raising a family.

When I first went to school I could not understand English, I was an outsider who experienced racism first hand.

Like many of my generation I confronted the intolerance and racism of a country that was adjusting with difficulty to the shock of postwar immigration and cultural diversity.

Today it is fashionable to make light of terms like 'Wogs' and Dagos' and I myself wear the Wog label with pride. But in Australia in the fifties, sixties and seventies it was a vicious term of racial abuse that wounded and psychologically scarred many young people.

It is in this context, that some of the undertones of what currently passes as an immigration debate concern me. The notion that persons of Arabic or Middle Eastern origin are not appropriate immigrants is a subtext barely kept from the surface.

Racial and religious backgrounds have no place in immigration policy. What a prospective immigrant can contribute to the country should be the only criterion.

The racism I experienced was and still is based on ignorance and insecurity. Governments have a responsibility to deal with both these causes - there is no doubt that education and the economic opportunity mitigate against racist climates.

On reflection, my early encounters with the injustice of racism was the critical factor in my development of a strong concern with fairness and justice.

My background also informs the passionate view I have about immigration.

I support a substantial increase in Australia's immigration intake. Australia is a large land with abundant resources that require a commensurate population to ensure its economic viability.

I reject those elements in the immigration debate that use legitimate community concerns about environmental matters as an argument against immigration.

Australia requires a larger population to ensure that it has the economic wealth to afford the strong environmental safeguards which developing countries cannot afford. Economic growth and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive as some would have us believe - to the contrary they complement each other.

In this context, the recent hysteria over asylum seekers is quite misguided.

What this country needs is not a closed-door policy to the world based on ignorance, rather we need immigration policy informed by a rational assessment of its costs and benefits.

Prejudice and hysteria over the plight of refugees is not the appropriate context for this debate.

In my trade union career, I stood often alone, against calls for interventionist industry polices. These calls were based on economic confusion with their often well meaning proponents failing to understanding that these types of policies would in the long run have the diametric opposite effect on employment to that sought i.e. significant job losses.

The one industry policy I am proud to support is an expansionist immigration policy - this is an area where governments at all levels and of all political persuasions should be able to co-ordinate policy that balances the communities' legitimate concerns for their quality of life with the economic imperative to ensure critical mass in our domestic markets. Our economic security requires nothing less.

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I come to this House as someone of a blue collar background whose real education was completed on the job by my co-workers.

As one would expect of the son of Greek migrants I worked in numerous jobs where my main task was deep frying fast food, before getting full-time work as an ironworker-rigger at the Garden Island naval dockyard.

I spent five years there, learning about the real-world and daily contrasting its lessons to the theoretical world provided by my university education.

I finally ended up as a locomotive engineman with the State Rail Authority and my trade union career began in earnest when I was elected President of the AFULE.

At this point I would pay tribute to Noel Cox, former Secretary of the AFULE and Bob Plain, current President of the RTBU - two great trade union officials who had the confidence and courage to run on a ticket with me against the incumbent leadership of the Union.

The workers in the rail industry have been fortunate to have superb union leaders looking after their interest, people like Jim Walsh, Harold Dywer and Nick Lewocki to mention the most outstanding.

As the Premier has noted without the efforts of the New South Wales workforce we would not have been able to stage the best ever Olympics.

The most important thing I learnt in my time on the shop floor was that the Australian workers - in spite of often poor and inadequate management - have skills, commitment and real pride in their work and are unquestionably our greatest economic asset.

It is often ironic to hear business leaders preaching about the unproductive workplace - all my experience is that it is the management that lets us down.

I entered the Labor force in a period of economic uncertainty where the great scourge was the specter of stagflation.

My generation was the first of the post-War period to experience mass unemployment.

An appreciation of unemployment and its demoralizing and dehumanizing impact on people and families, has remained a major influence on my political outlook.

The attempt by some politicians to cast the unemployed as willing architects of their own fate only trivializes what is a major economic problem.

It is my strong belief that governments have a core responsibility to provide the circumstances that maximize job opportunities.

It was my disillusionment with the lack of economic opportunities associated with stagflation that politicized me.

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I come to this House as a political being, who started off by accident on the far left and in more recent times have been regarded by my political opponents as being on the far right. I reject, particularly in the post Cold War world, attempts to characterize people's politics as either left or right.

I believe a much better framework to understand the political differences that exist is provided by political theorist Thomas Sowell.

Sowell argues that underlying political conflicts is a fundamental conflict of two irreconcilable visions which he terms the constrained and unconstrained visions.

Underpinning the unconstrained vision "is the conviction that foolish or immoral choices explain the evils of a world - and wiser or more moral and humane social policies are the solution". In contrast "the constrained vision sees the evils of the world as arriving from the limited and unhappy choices available, given the inherent moral and intellectual limitations of human beings". I place myself in the tradition of the constrained vision.

My real political education began when, by accident with a group of high school mates, I attended a Marxist education camp.

The experience was critical in my political development.

It introduced me to serious debate about economic and political issues. Whilst I came to reject Marxism as dogma, it left a legacy in my interests in economics and politics.

In retrospect, the problem with Marxism as a political philosophy was not Marx's original ideas which bear the limitations of his era, it was the Marxists, his self styled followers who turned a political theory, that needed testing and refinement in the face of new realities, into destructive dogma.

Marx - though wrong on many issues - was in the tradition of the great classical economists and prided himself on dealing with facts in a scientific way and not dogma.

I have no doubt that if Marx were alive today he would, given his understanding and interest in economic systems and technological development, support economic policies that promote prosperity and indeed would be an vocal advocate for globalisation and in all probability would be a member of the Centre Unity faction of the Labor Party.

I take this opportunity to acknowledge my fellow officers of the NSW branch of the ALP, Eric Roozendaal, Mark Arbib, Steve Hutchins, Ursula Stephens, Darryl Melham, Damian O'Connor.

Eric Roozendaal and Mark Arbib are in my view the most professional officers the Labor Party has ever had, they have dramatically transformed the operations of the NSW branch. I thank them for their support and friendship.

During my trade union career I was often the only voice arguing for free trade. Which given the history of the labour movement always puzzled me. I have constantly had to remind my colleagues that the first Labor members elected to this parliament had amongst their number a majority of free traders.

Free trade has always been critical to the economic prosperity of this country. Today nearly 2 million Australian workers depend on exports for their jobs.

It is pleasing that at its last national conference the ALP returned to its free trade roots, and reaffirmed its commitment to an open Economy.

In recent times we have seen an almost hysterical reaction from some in response to what they perceive to be the evils of globalisation. The bulk of these concerns are no doubt genuinely felt, though as always occurs in these situations professional political agitators have sought to exploit ignorance and uncertainty for their own advantage.

History clearly shows that we should not fear the success of globalisation, rather its failure.

Globalisation is not new. What we are witnessing today is the renewal of an economic process which began in the early 19th Century and brought with it tremendous increases in living standards. This process was interrupted by the extraordinary brutality associated with much of the 20th Century's history.

Economic stagnation associated with protectionism, destructive nationalism, xenophobia and wars are the consequences of globalisation's initial failure. If globalisation fails this time, we face a return to these destructive forces.

The key to its success is to ensure the benefits are spread widely. Contrary to the views of some, governments have not been regulated to a secondary status in the global world, they have a critical role in ensuring the success or failure of the historically improtant process of globalisation.

Good government is more important that it has evern been. Much of the failure of globalisation in the developing world as Hernando de Soto persuasively argues in "The Mystery of Capital" is the result of government and not market failure.

Many government in the developing world either through corruption or incompetence have failed to maintain, the rule of law, and system of property rights underpinned by a strong safety net . Without these development is impossible.

In our system state governments have a critical role in all these areas.

I have been described at various times by my political opponents as an economic rationalist. It is not a label I seek. Nevertheless, if by the label they seek to imply that I believe it appropriate that government's use the latest economic tools to inform policy positions, I am happy to accept the categorization.

Whilst it is true that I respect the power of the market mechanism, I reject market fundamentalism which places all market outcomes above social concerns. Market fundamentalism is as much a dogma - and an intellectual straightjacket - as it's antithesis command economics.

Market fundamentalists fail to recognise that markets are social constructs, in other words products of human activity.

Markets are a tool for allocating scarce resources, not the end goal of an economic processes.

Societies structured on markets that don't deliver social outcomes, supported by the majority of the community, are doomed to collapse.

My ideas on political economy have been refined by numerous discussions with my close friend and intellectual soul mate Mark Duffy. Mark is one of the most talented people I have ever met, and has a passion which I share for good public policy.

My political journey has taught me that outcomes are the most important thing and that values are more important than ideology.

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I come to this House as someone who believes that the political process does improve the lot of its citizenry.

I am committed to playing a constructive role in this process.

I have a particular interest in issues related to mental illness - which my own family and I have had to confront first-hand.

I draw Honorable Members' attention to the recent Report released by St Vincent De Paul titled "A Long Road to Recovery". This Report dramatically details the clear connection between mental illness and homlessness.

According to this Report, amongst the inner city homeless, 75 percent have at least one mental disorder compared to 20 percent in the general population; 23 percent of men and 46 percent of women have Schizophrenia compared to a prevalence in the general population of between 0.5 and 1 percent; 33 per cent have depression compared to 6 percent of the Australian community; and 93 percent reported at least one experience of extreme trauma in their lives. These statistics are disgraceful. It is time we recognised that we have not handled the problem of mental illness properly.

This situation has its genesis in the anti-Psychiatry movement of the sixties and seventies which had the laudible aim of humanising appalling mental institutions, but resulted in wholesale abandonment of people in need. This is an area that requires immediate government attention.

The silent victimes of mental of illness are the carers of the mentally ill. They receive inadequate support and are expected to perform caring functions which in many cases are beyond human endurance. Support for these carers should be a priority.

There are enormous advances being made by medical science in understanding mental illnessess such as Schizophrenia. I congratulate the government for the support it has provided to the Neurological Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders.

For those Honorable members interested in this area I highly recommend a recently published book by David Horrobin titled "The Madness of Adam and Eve - how Schizophrenia shaped humanity". This book advances the novel thesis that mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia are what separates humans from our nearest primate relatives.

Issues such as mental illness highlight the need to think more broadly about the role of government in dealing with social issues.

I am not one who believes the State should run everything, but I do believe that the State has responsibilities. That is why I have supported a Social Audit of government activities.

My friend the Treasurer has pointed to the difficulty of conducting such an audit at a state level given the complexity of Commonwealth State financial arrangements. I accept his wise counsel on this matter and am now convinced that the only sensible way to conduct such an audit is at the national level.

A national social audit is critical to public confidence in government service priorities.

It is pleasing to note that Federal Labor has accepted the principle of a Social Audit.

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Madame Speaker

I look forward to working with and occassionally working against, discussing, and sometimes arguing, matters of import with Honorable Members on both sides of the House - and those who sit on the cross-benches.

I am fortunate that I come to this house to join a number of existing members that I regard as friends, not just colleagues, some of whom have guided me to this point. In this context I specifically mention the Honorable Michael Egan, the Honorable John Della Bosca, the Honorable Eddie O'beid and the Honorable Ian West.

I also pay special tribute to the Honourable Johnno Johnson. Johno is and has always been first and foremost a committed trade unionist who over his political has made numerous important and historic sacrifices to ensure the stability and survival of the institutions and structures he believes in. It is not true that he has left me his raffle books and I thank Sam Moreton for Herculian efforts in restoring Johno's office to its former glory.

Friends and family are critical to the vocation of politics. I would like to thank a special group of people for their support, my two wonderful children Matthew and Ellana and their mother Helen Ward, my brother George and sister Mary. My special friends, John Whelan, Deborah Robinson, Joe Tripodi, Peter Lewis, Conrad Staff, Joe Di Leo, Colin Cranson, John Signorle, Jennie George, Bernie Riordan, Chris Christodoulou, Naomi Steer and Michael Gadiel.

Finally I dedicate this speech to the memory of my two closest teenage friends Spiro Kikilas and Ralph Pisacane who both died in separate tragic circumstances in early adulthood.

Barrie Unsworth advised me that this inaugural speech was an important speech because it provides a public benchmark to judge ones contribution to public life.

I hope at the end of my time in this House I will be judged as having contributed to prosperity, opportunity and fairness.

I thank the House for its indulgence.


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 112 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Exit Interview
Michael Costa looks back at his 14 years with the Labor Council to chart the highs, the lows and the bits in between.
*
*  Parliament: Opening Salvo
In his Maiden Speech, delivered this week, Costa gave vent to his views on immigration, Marx, globalisation and mental health.
*
*  Scandals: My Evil Twin
Co-conspirator and 'intellectual soulmate' Mark Duffy recounts the legendary 'Leaked Paper' Affair and how its predictions soon came to pass.
*
*  Politics: An Agent for Change
Former secretary Michael Easson argues that Costa was instrumental in redefining the factional balance in NSW in the wake of the Cold War.
*
*  Review: The Thoughts of Chairman MC
Neale Towart trawls the collected works of Michael Costa and looks at his love-hate affair with Marx.
*
*  Factions: Kyoto Sunset
Naomi Steer - the first left-winger to work at Labor Council in decades - recalls how she discovered the real Michael in a Karaoke lounge.
*
*  History: A Proud Tradition
Former Premier Barrie Unsworth argues Costa enters Parliament as the best qualified Labor Council leader ever to make the transition.
*
*  Psychology: The Man Behind the Mask
Costa's predecessor Peter Sams argues that behind the bluff facade lay a loyal and caring friend.
*
*  Seduction: Michael and Me
Chris Christodoulou recounts how Costa convinced him to cross the factional divide and take up residence in Sussex Street.
*
*  Satire: Ode to Leon
Long-time sparring partner, Peter Botsman submits this lyrical tribute to Costa's career.
*

News
»  Muslim Schools Targets of Hate Attacks
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»  Up, Up and Away � Where Does Howard Stand?
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»  Revealed: Anderson Ignored Ansett Early Warnings
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»  ACTU: Administrator Had to Go
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»  Union Official Tragic Victim of Ansett Collapse
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»  Entitlements Version 7.0 Still Falls Short
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»  Pasminco Latest Entitlements Scare
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»  WorkCover: Privatisation Still On the Books
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»  Fatigue a Life Threat
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»  Egan Faces Prod Over Maternity Rights
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»  Patricks Workers in Job Security Win
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»  Safety Fears Go Through the Roof
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»  Ragged Trousered Scientists
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»  Tougher Safety Legacy of Tragedy
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»  Stellar Drops Unionism Ban
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»  Paint Workers Hit With Injunctions
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»  Rort-Friendly Proposals Draw Fire
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»  More Sackings But 20,000 Faults To Fix
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»  Howard Erects More Voting Hurdles At Eleventh Hour
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»  Activists Notebook
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
*

Letters to the editor
»  In Defence of Kiwis
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»  UK Unions Mourn Knox Loss
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»  Premature Analysis
*
»  Belly's Turn
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»  Rally for Peace
*
»  John Wayne is Dead
*

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