Issue No 34 | 08 October 1999 | |
NewsConference Sizzles - Now for the Meat
Successful State ALP Conference resolutions on the social audit, industrial relations reform and new guidelines for competitive tendering will be the first tests of the Premier's new high-level advisory board with the labour movement.
Bob Carr announced the State Labor Advisory Council (unfortunately known as SLAC) as he moved to dampen union dissent about government policy at last weekend's State Conference. The Council will be chaired by the Premier comprise senior government ministers, union officials and party officials and meet regularly to discuss industrial, social and economic policies. The announcement was roundly welcomed by trade unions as a way of increasing their influence with a government whose agenda has been increasingly shaped by public servants and big business. But comments since the conference by the Premier, ruling out one of the successful conference resolutions on introducing service fees from non-union members, and Transport Minister Carl Scully, vowing to push ahead with competitive tendering of road maintenance work - should set the alarm bells ringing. Even after the Premier's announcement, unions combined across the factional divide to endorse all resolutions that unions had framed in their pre-conference priorities document. And the detente failed to stop Scully copping a loud pasting, being booed of stage and leaving with a Nixonesque wave. Faction forum to New Year Meanwhile, the programmed discussion on the future of the party has been deferred until the New Year But those at the conference said the climate was markedly difference from previous years, suggesting that some cultural change may be already occurring - although there is some way to go. "Apart from the ritualised Saturday morning factional melee on branch stacking, this Conference will be best remembered for the amount of consensus between the Right and Left unions on key industrial and economic issues," Labor Council senior industrial officer Chris Christodoulou said. "This no doubt was effected by the Labor Council's initiative in having its affiliates determine priority issues before conference and seeing this as being more important to the interests of their members than the political point scoring that the factions crave," he said. Richo Interview Sparks Heavyweight Stoush Comments by Graham Richardson in an interview with Workers Online (Issue#32) were behind Paul Keating's savage conference attack on his former numbers man. Keating gave Richo the full treatment for his comments that Kerry Packer had "voted Labor a lot more in his life than he's voted Liberal" and had "only had a problem with one Labor politician - and that was Paul Keating." Keating claimed in his speech that Richo had not just been responding to these questions - but had actually offered them to the Sydney Morning Herald. Like a fair portion of Keating's dazzling conference performance, this didn't quite fit the facts. The Richo comments to Workers Online were picked up by the Sydney Morning Herald's Brad Norington who ran a piece full accrediting their source. This was the piece that Keating seized on as evidence of Richo's treachery. If only he had read the fine print he may have ended up as our latest subscriber!
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Interview: A Crack to the Skull Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Nick Lewocki took on the Carr Government�s radical rail refrom agenda and walked away a winner. He looks back on the week the trains stood still. Economics: Green Backs and Dirty Dollars Paul Ehlrich says the real culprit behind the environmental crisis isn't so much the huge numbers of people in the world or conspicuous over-consumption in the West but an economic system that confuses price with cost. Unions: Tally Ho! A landmark meat industry decision might not have the impact the reith cheer-squad hopes for. History: The Western Express West Australian historians are undertaking a project to chronicle that state's rich rail history. Republic: The Referendum: A Spot of Reading John Passant looks a the propaganda passing as information in the lead-up to the referendum. Indigenous: Australia Snubs Nose at the UN The United Nations General Assembly will be told that Australia has breached an international convention on racial discrimination that Malcolm Fraser�s Government ratified 24 years ago. International: Desert Flashpoint The United Nations has confirmed that demonstrations were suppressed in Western Sahara last month. Review: Temper Democratic Humphrey McQueen has been a fearless critic of received opinions across a range of subjects for many years, and as a consequence has been criticised or more often ignored in debates in Australia. Satire: Tax Cuts Come in the Nick of Time for Struggling Packers Welfare groups have called upon on the Federal Government to bring forward the date of proposed capital gains tax cuts. Labour Review: What's New in the Information Centre Read the latest issue of Labour Review, a resource for union officials and students.
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