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  Issue No 46 Official Organ of LaborNet 17 March 2000  

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Interview

Bob Carr’s Awful Truth

Interview with Peter Lewis

The NSW Premier on Laborism, factions and why the Cabinet Office isn't running the state.

 
 

What does it mean to be Labor in the 21st Century?

It's about commitment to equality, a commitment to the interests of working people and their families and a willingness to revise society and its arrangements.

What's changed?

The failure of central command economies, the failure of economic planning, the limits on the size of the public sector. They're the three big changes in the past couple of decades. They're decisive changes too.

The biggest change is that there is a limit to the size of the public sector. In the 50s and 60s Social Democrats looked to expanding the welfare sector, increasing taxation, increasing government involvement in the economy. Well, when the public sector reaches 55 per cent of the economy as it does in France and Germany, it's hard to see it reaching 60 per cent or 65 per cent. You can't go on increasing taxation, you can't go on increasing government borrowing. That's the limit we run into.

But if you accept that the solutions Labor promoted in the 20th Century are no longer the solutions, where are the differences between Labor and the Liberals, except for these motherhood statements about caring for the interests of working people, where are the fault lines?

The differences are on approaches to industrial relations, on approaches tax policy - where the tax reductions are being targeted - and on approaches to social security.

Can you understand the frustration from the trade union movement about the first term of your government?

No. No. I mean the union movement supported our industrial relations package, there was no criticism of the package whatsoever. They were part of it. We delivered in that period the biggest pay increase to the public sector workforce of any jurisdiction in Australia. In that first term, I was the only government leader out on the picket lines supporting the MUA. We involved the timber industry workforce in the future of the state's forests in a way they had never been involved before. We had them campaign for the re-election of my team. We delivered huge increases to public sector outlays in health, education and welfare. In fact the increase in spending for child protection and disability services came in at 90 per cent during our first term. So I rest on my record.

In 1995 unions still had a stake in national policy through the Accord. Now Labor appears to take a more independent path. Have you felt the relationship changing?

It ebbs and flows, at any one time we might be closer to a union position -- it depends on the position. We really judge these things according to the evidence available.. I don't think you can generalise anything.

Is the relationship merely issues-based though, or are there still underlying values in common?

Well whatever we do we've got to keep NSW competitive. I'm not going to be a John Cain, but I'm not going to be a Jeff Kennett either.

There's been talk in Trades Hall, and to some extent action as well, about the need to move from a strict factional basis to having Left officials in the organisation. Is there a similar dynamic in State Parliament?

Absolutely. The Cold War is over. My arguments with the Left when I was in my twenties were mainly motivated by Cold War issues. I didn't like the Soviet model; I found it deeply offensive and I wanted them to liberate their political prisoners and allow political competition. I didn't like people who went around the trades halls in Australia arguing a more or less Soviet liner. Well, the Soviet world has been dissolved and I think we're all united in trying to find some solutions to the difficult and intractable problems we face.

A left-right divide, for example, is not really relevant to our grappling for more effective solutions on drugs. Both Left and Right want to pull investment into the State. And I'm doing and saying things on environmental protection that only the Left would have been exposing when I entered the State Parliamentary party. One of my achievements in the Labor community in NSW has been to lead, over 15 years, the right towards a green position. So I welcome the breaking down of the barriers, I really don't find them useful.

Yet the structures still exist at a branch level.

Yeah.

Do you think sufficient progress in branch reform is being made, or is there more that should be done?

There's progress in the parliamentary party, progress in the union movement; I agree that there are too many advantages for people at the branch level to maintain the rival football club structure. That's what it's like. People have their loyalties.

Although a lot seem to change sides

But it all seems to be one way traffic.

In terms of the political philosophy of the government, are you a subscriber to Latham's Third Way?

The difficulty with that term is that I've always seen the Labor party and other social democratic parties as representing the Third Way. Since 1917 we've represented that third Way between Marxian Leninism and the Capitalist road on the other. I've got a Fabian Society pamphlet at home from the late sixties that says Sweden represents a third way. So the concept has long been around. I think we need a better definition and I think where Mark Latham is making a very interesting contribution is in welfare reform. So I have difficulties with the terminology rather than the content.

Can I raise a few issues on the union agenda; first casualisation and job security. It's an issue that is resonating across the community. But how much can government really do to increase the security of workers in a global economy?

You're right, everywhere in the world there is growth in that non-traditional sector - it presents us with a huge challenge. One generalisation I would mention is that there has to be a national approach. The fact that we have Labor Governments on the East Coast of Australia provides us with an opportunity to formulate a uniform statutory response to it.

But what can a state government do at the entry point of global capital. For instance. does it concern you that a lot of jobs you are creating in this state are basically precarious, non-union jobs.

It does. It is a global trend. It's happening everywhere. We want to facilitate union activity and the protection of standards in industry without seeing the industry fly to other states where those things don't exist. That's where there's a relevance in having Labor governments along the East Coast. I'd be amenable to discussing this with my three Labor colleagues - we're likely to have Labor Governments in South Australia and Western Australia, certainly there's a strong chance. That really would provide the opportunity for national action. This is something we would put on our agenda.

Do you see merit in the idea of regulating independent contractors and labour hire firms, which is an element of the package of reforms the union movement has proposed?

Yes. But I just need to approach it in a way that doesn't see a flight of jobs out of this jurisdiction.

Another issue: what do unions do about the problem that you have a lot of people who free-load off there services when you have common rule awards; people are getting pay rises negotiated by unions, without paying their union fees.

It's very hard. I don't think any government would allow non-union workers to be hit with a fee; this has got to be settled in the realm of persuasion and argument on the shop floor. ... I think we are seeing entrepreneurial unionism, we're seeing unions offering services to members.

By the way, I want to put this on the record. One of the advantages that NSW has got is that I think we have a smarter union movement and that's going to see more jobs come into the state. It means we can promote a post-2000 jobs plan in this State with the unions' support. The bulk of projects in that plan, if not all of them, are generating traditional, that's going to be covered by trade unions. We've got 1,000 jobs created at the Tumut pulp and paper mill; a lot of jobs in the major post-Olympic construction projects. This is the traditional unionised sector. And I'd urge my friends in the trade union movement to look at our post-2000 plan, I think it's to the credit of the government that we have come out well before the Olympics talking about what's happening to the state's economy after the Olympics.

One other issue - the social audit: you were cold on this idea last year. Has anything happened in the last 12 months to reinforce your view that we don't need an overview of where the money and services are going?

Look the overview, I'd entertain to be carried out by the Council on the Cost of Government. We've hugely increased spending on the social budget, we've increased expenditure on health, education and DOCS by anything between 30 and 90 per cent, depending on the category. That's a huge and unprecedented increase in social spending. the only social audit that I'd contemplate is one that tests that increased expenditure as to whether it delivers value for money.

What's the concern with having, out there for all to see, the distribution of government money?

Nothing, but there's nothing hidden about that. The argue for a social audit was a different one: it was about identifying needs. I have a different view - we should be asking whether taxpayers have got value for money.

There is a view that the Cabinet Office has too much influence on the government - that bureaucrats are having a bigger say than real Labor people. Do you own all your policies?

I own them all. I see any recommendation from my Ministers. If a proposal from a Minister doesn't get up, it's because I haven't been persuaded it is in the interest of the State. The Cabinet Office is under instruction from me to run this test across any policy proposal: do the benefits outweigh the costs?

But this was one of your original election promises in 1995, wasn't it? You were going to disband the Cabinet Office yet it remains

Yes, because it does my bidding. And my bidding is to test every proposal from my ministers. If a proposal doesn't succeed it's not a bureaucrat has blocked it, it's because a Minister hasn't persuaded me. There's not a single example of a proposal that's been blocked by the Cabinet Office against my wishes. In the end the primary role of a Premier or Prime Minister is to be traffic cop for the movement of policy, for the movement of policy items up and down the agenda.

Finally, your thesis was on workers newspapers and one of your early proposals as an ALP member was to set up a paper.

It was the first motion I moved at a Labor Party branch meeting ..I was 15 ...

If you were editing a workers newspaper today, what would you be writing about the Carr Government? What would be your headline for an interview with the Premier?

Carr Government Once Again Achieves the Impossible: Reconciles Economic Growth With Social Justice. We might call the paper 'Truth'.


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 46 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Bob Carr’s Awful Truth
The NSW Premier on Laborism, factions and why the Cabinet Office isn't running the state.
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*  Unions: The Stellar Experiment
The agenda for the future job-shedding program by Telstra has been revealed via it's bastard child, Stellar.
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*  Technology: Roboboss is Watching You
Behind the hype of the information age is a sinister side where workplace surveillance robs employees of all privacy and dignity. Sometimes, though, it provides welcome security.
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*  International: Kiwi Reforms To Spark Union Revival
The head of the New Zealand trade union movement is optimistic that workers will come back to unions once a fair industrial relations framework is put in place.
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*  Politics: Ethical Politics and the Clinton Affair
The vote by the US House of Representatives in December, 1998 on whether to impeach President Bill Clinton could be regarded as a debate about the acceptability of dirty-handed politics.
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*  History: Living Library
Sydney’s Mitchell Library archives house some of the most extensive records of our political heritage.
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*  Satire: Reconciliation, Aussie Style
The majority of Austrlaians want Aboriginals to adopt ‘our’ values: “Why can’t they be ignorant racists too?”
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*  Review: Casino Oz
Laurie Aarons' new book puts the spotlight on the growing gap being the rich and the poor.
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News
»  Carr Vows to Move on Casuals
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»  NSW Government in Hot Seat Over Individual Contracts
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»  Telstra Troubleshooter Bombs Stellar
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»  Illegal immigrants Working Next Door to PM
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»  Education Department Hit By Massive Fine
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»  Victims Comp Changes Exclude Traumatised Worker
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»  SOCOG Agrees: Ceremonies Not an Eisteddfod
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»  Senate Guts 'Ships from Hell' Bill
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»  Campaigners Seek Dissident Web Domains
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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
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Letters to the editor
»  The Real Big Fella
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»  That's It For Labor
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»  Join Australia's Gas Out
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»  Tribute to Jennie
*

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