Two’s a Party, Three’s a Crowd: Third Party Intervention in IR

AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten debated Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott in the Melbourne Town Hall on 22 May, 2003. Here is a transcript of the night

Introduction:
Bill O'Shea
President of the Victorian Law Institute

Bill O'Shea: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Law Institute of Victoria and on behalf of the Institute, I'm pleased to welcome you to tonight's inaugural Workplace Relations Section Debate.

I should also take the opportunity to welcome members of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and in particular, Senior Deputy President Williams, Senior Deputy President Acton, Deputy President Ives, Commissioners Holmes, Commissioner Hingley and Cribb, and Mr Brian Corney who is from Industrial Relations Victoria. Welcome to them.

Tonight's debate promises to be a provocative and highly entertaining event, particularly considering the high calibre of our two speakers to whom I wish to extend a very warm welcome.

Federal Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten, National Secretary of the Australian Workers' Union.

I wish to thank them both on behalf of us all for agreeing to take part in this evening's debate.

I would also like to thank the Melbourne City Council who has sponsored this event tonight.

We are very grateful for that support and for providing this terrific venue.

We certainly could not have got you into our Lecture Theatre at the Law Institute with a crowd of this size so we are very grateful to the Melbourne City Council for their support.

This debate has been organised by members of the Institute's Workplace Relations Section. The Section was established just 18 months ago to cater for the growing number of legal practitioners in this industry who wish to exchange information and keep abreast of developments in this dynamic area of the law.

The debate is particularly timely in the wake of the Cole Building Industry Royal Commission Report and its recommendations to establish a new third tier law enforcement agency for the building industry.

The issue of third party intervention has even more relevance in light of last week's Federal Budget and the government's proposals to link funding to the higher education system to workplace reforms.

Tonight will provide us with the unique opportunity to hear the respective views of the Federal Government and the Labor movement on some of the critical issues in industrial relations.

It is my pleasure to hand you over to the Chair of our debate, Josh Bornstein. Josh is a partner at Maurice Blackburn Cashman and Chair of the Law Institute's Industrial Relations Committee. He has the unenviable task of attempting to tip toe through the proverbial minefield otherwise known as industrial relations in Australia. I welcome Josh to take over proceedings tonight. Would you please welcome Josh Bornstein.

Josh Bornstein
Partner at Maurice Blackburn Cashman, Lawyers
Chair of the Law Institute's Industrial Relations Committee.

Josh Bornstein: Thank you very much Bill, At the outset, I would also like to extend my thanks to the Law Institute and its staff who have worked tirelessly in recent weeks to bring this event together and in particular, can I single out Karen Hermann and Sarah Rantino who are here tonight for the outstanding work that they have put in.

As Bill indicated, about 18 months age, the Law Institute announced the creation of its Workplace Relations Section and one of the first steps the Executive of that Section took was to establish an Industrial Relations Committee.

Earlier this year, we, on that Committee, met to determine a guest speaker to address "IR" practitioners at the start of the year but at that meeting, we abandoned that idea and instead decided that it would be a good idea to convene a debate and that decision was in part recognition of the fact that industrial relations is just as much about disagreement and vigorous debate as it is about the co-operative consensus.

The IR Committee proposed the debate occur between Bill Shorten and Tony Abbott, they were the Committee's first choice and were thrilled when both accepted the invitation readily. We are delighted to see you this evening.

At this point, it's probably proper that I declare an interest because Bill Shorten and the AWU provide a fair amount of industrial relations work to Maurice Blackburn Cashman. From time and time, they keep us very busy. Having said that, Tony Abbot and some of his colleagues tend to generate a great deal of work for us as well. Whether that is intended is another matter altogether and I won't say anything more.

Can I just briefly say some words about the topic of tonight's debate. Over the last fifteen years or so, the apparent consensus concerning the need for external regulation of employment relationships that had hitherto existed, had started to break down.

A school of though emerged in the early 80's arguing that employers and employees should be left to their own devices and should be free from what is quoted frequently as "external interference" from trade unions, industrial tribunals, governments and more recently, the Courts have been targeted.

For example, one commentator recently said, "There is another side to the question of these serious underlying problems with judicial intervention in the contractual relationship between employers and employees.

If jurisprudence says society's demands should be recognised, why hasn't the legal arm responded to the changing spirit of the times regarding reduced labour market regulation. The legal arm should at least start to leave behind the old beliefs and myths of industrial relations and ask itself whether they really require intervention in modern society.

It should also acknowledge the interventions that by ... to the officials require that account be taken of adverse implications, particularly the uncertainty and the adverse effects on employment which have hitherto gone largely unrecognised.

Judges and Commissioners need educating in the social and economic problems arising from industrial interventionism and until they catch up with modern society, their capacity for exercising discretion needs to be reduced and at this point it is probably appropriate that I also welcome members of the Industrial Relations Commission as well.

So we can see the issue continues be a very live one for IR commentators and practitioners.

Twenty years after this school of thought first emerged, it continues to divide people on both sides of the fence. So this evening, we hope to give life to this important issue when Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten debate the proposition, "Tow's a Party, Three's a Crowd, Third Party Intervention in Industrial Relations.

I will just say a few words about some the reactions I have had since this debate was announced because they have been quite fascinating. There have been a number of people who have approached me and said, "What on earth has Shorten done, why has he agreed to do this?".

I am pleased to say that a similar number of people have expressed exactly the same concern or question about why Tony Abbott has agreed to do this. Others have reacted to the announcement of this debate by zeroing in on what they believe are belief similarities between our two speakers.

A similar education background and I can hear confirmation on my right there, experience of student politics and activism and some sort of convergence about ultimate career aspirations. Now whilst at a superficial level some common themes may emerge and I anticipate that these two speakers will debate the question from very different perspectives, this evening.

Just a few words about the protocol and the rules tonight. The debate will be opened by the Minister for Workplace Relations, Tony Abbott, and he will speak in the affirmative. He will have fifteen to twenty minutes in which to put his case. A bell will then be rung by Sarah on my right, after fifteen minutes just to warn that there is five minutes remaining. Bill Shorten, the National and Victorian Secretary of the AWU will then have a similar period of time in which to respond.

Each speaker will then have five minutes in reply and then we will open up the debate to questions, initially from the media panel that I have on my left here. At this juncture, it is appropriate that I introduce them.

Starting closest to me is Paul Robinson, the Melbourne "Age's" Industrial Relations correspondence, next to him, Gerard McManus, the Senior Political Reporter at the "Sunday Herald-Sun". On his right is Jennifer Hewett, business and political correspondent from "The Sydney Morning Herald" and at the end of the panel is Nicholas Way, Industrial Relations and Business reporter for the "BRW". Would you welcome those people.

Each of our media representatives will, at the conclusion of the debate, get one question each of either Minister Abbott and Bill Shorten and thereafter we will open up the questions to the floor and some improvisation may occur after that as we alternate between questions from our media panel and you, the audience.

Microphones should be available for people in the audience who wish to ask questions, so at the appropriate time, raise your hand and let people with the microphones know.
Now, some detailed consideration was given to the manner in which we were to decide the winner of tonight's debate. Consideration was given to a secret ballot process but after lengthy debate and discussion, this idea was rejected on the grounds of impracticality.

Instead, it was determined that the winner of tonight's debate would be determined by rounds of applause at the end of the evening. So, bear that in mind. I don't think either debate had advanced knowledge of that so any issues of stacking can't be attributed to either of them.

Following the debate, tea and coffee will be available and if anyone wants to continue the debate, there is any number of venues around Melbourne including the John Curtain Hotel which will be open this evening.

May it be a good, clean debate and I now ask Minister Tony Abbott to open the debate, speaking in favour of the proposition, "Two's a Party, Three's a Crowd, Third Party Intervention in industrial Relations".

Tony Abbott: Federal Workplace Relations Minister

Well, ladies and gentleman it is great to be here once more in the company of my fellow Jesuit illumines, Bill Shorten. Bill, if the Victorian State government had built the Scoresby Freeway, I'm sure you would not have been late to compliment the great road system put in place by Jeff Kennett.

Ah, Josh thanks for hosting tonight's debate. I'm sure you will prove to be an eminently, immoderate moderator in the great tradition of Maurice Cashman and your firm.

Bill, I have to tell you that I have, that I don't come to this debate cold. I did warm up for tonight's occasion by debating yesterday with Douggie Cameron and I'm sure it's the first time the AMWU has ever done the AMWU any favours whatsoever.

But it is good to be here and it is good to be here to share a few thoughts with an audience from the highest to the lowest from those guardians of industrial respectability.

Deputy Presidents and Commissioners of the Industrial Relations Commission to mere ministers of the crowd all the way around the industrial spectrum.

Ladies and gentleman, it seems to me that the industrial relations debate in Australia has been the bedevilled for many years by this notion of the Industrial Relations Commission as a workplace relation's umpire.

Now there might be something to be said for this if only the Commission was better able to make its decision actually stick because the role of a true umpire is to enforce the rules and not to decide who wins and it seems to me that all too often our structures and our institutions have not been umpires as such much as players in the game, sometimes running interference with those who are actually already on the field.

I ask you to consider for a moment how Australian sport would go if it operated under the same kind of rules that officially govern the Australian workplace. Competition would take place not between the teams but within them. Each player would be paid the same, each team would be forced to use substantially the same tactics and players and coaches would not be working together, they would in fact be at war with one another.

It would be double dull sport with novel players and rigged outcomes. Ladies and gentleman, I ask you to consider this scenario and the good thing about the way our workplace relations environment has changed over the years is that increasingly we have freedom and flexibility coming into the system.

The traditional system is changing and its changing for the benefit of employers, of employees and ultimately, of our economy and society as a whole. And this is not something which only began in March 1996 when the Howard Government took office.

The freedoms and flexibility that we are coming to more and more enjoy and appreciate are the enterprise focus which is more and more the place where bargaining is concentrated, did not begin with the Howard Government, it started with the Keating Government back in 1993.

What the Howard Government has done, is deepen and develop the enterprise bargaining focus that began under our predecessor. Thanks to this institutional transformation beginning under Paul Keating and which continued under John Howard, the percentage of the Australian workforce that is award dependent has shifted from about the two thirds to about one quarter.

But it is not just an institutional change which has taken place, it is also a change which has gone hand in hand with more practical benefits for the Australian workforce. What is it that the average worker wants most? The average worker most wants an extra dollar or two or three or four or ten or twenty in his or her pocket.

And that his precisely what's been delivered by the kind of freedom and flexibility which we have seen coming into our system over the last decade or so.

I'm quoting the figures from memory but the last statistics that I saw, suggested that Federal Award dependent workers averaged something like $660.00 per week in their pay packet. Those operating under Federally registered certified agreements, average something like $720.00 per week in their pay packets and those operating under Australian Workplace Agreements, the Rolls Royce of workplace arrangements, averaged no less than $895.00 a week in their pay packets. And this has been possible because the enterprise bargaining focus has increased the productivity of the average Australian worker.

In the decade of the 1980's, labour productivity increased at the rate of something like 2% a year. In the first half of the 90's under the Keating enterprise bargaining regime, labour productivity increased at 2.5% per year. In the latter half of the 90's, labour productivity has increased at 3% a year and that is what sustains the higher wage outcomes and the better profits and the healthier economy which we now enjoy.

Not only this but unemployment, structural unemployment has significantly diminished. The OECD estimates that back in the mid 1990's, the structural rate of unemployment in Australia was something like 8.5%. It has fallen to something like 5.5$ according to the OECD estimates and part of the explanation for this are the better workplace structures foundered on better productivity that we now enjoy.

This government has pursued four big objectives over the last seven years. First of all, we want to see higher pay for Australian workers and that has been delivered. Since March 1996, the real earnings of full time Australian workers have increased by 12%. Over the previous thirteen years, they increased by just 4%. Since March of 1996, basic award earnings have increased by nearly 10% in real terms. In the previous thirteen years they actually fell by 5%. A Labor Government delivered a 5% real pay cut to workers on basic awards.

We are a government, which wants to see more freedom in the Australian workplace. Why for instance, should the workers at Able Demolitions not be able should they wish to join the Australian Workers' Union.

Why should those workers be subject to coercion to join the CFMEU. Surely, you don't support that Bill? You believe that workers if they wish, ought to be able to belong to your responsible union, not the irresponsible union trying to coerce them. And why, if they wish to belong to the AWU, should their workplace be subject to the kind of violent site invasions which all too often have been a feature of the Victorian industrial scene.

Not only do we want higher pay and more freedom but we are the government which is committed to a more unified system, a more unified national system of workplace relations regulation. And Bill, I congratulate you for breaking ranks with your Labor colleagues on this very point, that you almost alone of contemporary Labor figures have been prepared to stand up and support the Howard government's desire for a more unified national system, telling the National Press Club about twelve month's ago that it was high time that we moved exactly down this path.

But above all else, this is a government which is committed to the rule of law in our workplaces. Why should we have a situation where prominent officials of a particular union should exercise their right of entry with a crowbar? Why should we have a situation where prominent officials of a particular union, should demonstrate their support for particular industries by sabotaging sites and doing hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of damage?

Why should we have situations such as that which occurred at the Patricia Bulleen Gas Plant where strikes go on for weeks and weeks and weeks in defiance of, in this particular instance, two s127 return to work orders from the Commission and three Federal Court injunctions.

Why should we see situations like this that which occurred at Saizeriya at Melton, here in Victoria, where you have a $40 million dollar initial investment jeopardised by incident after incident of mindless militancy and a potential $1 billion dollar bonanza for the workers of Victoria, jeopardised by Victoria's outdated industrial relations claims.

Now let me say this, there is a world of difference, a world of difference between third party micro-management of the affairs of a particular workplace, something which ought to be confined to the scrappery of the past and law enforcement agencies and tough minded regulatory bodies ensuring that proper rules are observed and the law is obeyed and that precisely what this government is trying to achieve is (inaudible) by the task force which is now operating in the construction industry which I am pleased to say has visited some three hundred sites, launched some fifty investigations, commenced four prosecutions, referred eleven matters to other authorities for appropriate treatment and prosecution and is headed by Nigel Patchkiss, a Senior Officer of the Australian Federal Police.

And you know, ladies and gentlemen, the interesting thing is that in trying to establish the rule of law in our workplaces, in trying to undo the baleful legacy of the Clary O'Shea case of 1969, the person who would most stingily agree with me, I'm sure, is none other than Bill Shorten himself. You see, Bill belongs to a responsible union, a responsible union. The AWU of all unions has understood that without a boss there can be no worker and that workers cannot enjoy good pay rises unless the boss is also to enjoy good profit.

Bill of all people, unlike yesterday's interlocutor, understands that Adam Smith was right and Karl Marx was wrong. In fact, Bill tends to consign his industrial thuggery to the floor of Labor Party conferences and of course, his colleague brother Ludwig up in Queensland has managed to use his numbers in such a way that he can throw some more rotten (inaudible) Than the Duke of Edinburgh's, than the Duke of Northampton did in pre reform of England.
It wouldn't be a debate without a bit of personal slanging, Bill, let's face it.

But the trouble is that now we see people like Bill Shorten making common cause with the mindless militant Marxists of the AMWU. Why Bill, just because you want to get that safe seat, mate. Shame on you. Shame on you. But Bill, why not take a more radical approach, why not break the nexus between the union movement and the ALP and then you'd be able to run for pre-selection in a decent political party, the Liberal Party of Australia. Let's separate the Siamese twins of the Labor party and the union movement so that people are able to make an unforced choice in politics as well as in the workforce.

I have to say Bill that if you were to come and seek pre-selection in the Liberal Party, you would find many good, working class people on your side. People like Ian Corsby, a former cane cutter, Warren Hench, a former crocodile shooter, you would see Jimmy Lloyd and former milkman, Bill Heffernan, a former shearer, Albert Shultz, a former itinerant meat worker, an abattoir man, Bobby Baldwin, a former fitter and turner and I have to say all too often, there aren't any real workers on the Labor side of parliament these days, they've all been too busy stacking their branches, doing their numbers, going to university so that they can become organisers and the only real workers they see are those that they might be fraternising with on the Saturday morning when they appear at the shops so that they can qualify for their tickets.

Ladies and gentlemen, it was that great man, Kim Beazley Senior, who famously said, "When I joined the Labor Party, it was the cream of the working class. As I leave this parliament, the Labor Party has become the dregs of the middle class. Bill, you're too good to join that outfit, I think you should think strongly about joining real friends in the Howard Government.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Howard Government has done a very good deal for the workers of Australia, more jobs, one million new jobs since March 1996, higher wagers, 12% is a real increase for full time weekly earners and since the budget the other night, lower taxes. More jobs, higher growth, lower taxes ... Australia have won the trifecta.

Bill Shorten, AWU National Secretary

It is nice to be back in the Town Hall again so soon after Saturday and Sunday. We will make sure all the doors remain open. It is also great to be here at the Law Institute of Victoria. As a member of the Law institute of Victoria, I commend you on one of the last closed shops going. Why should you have any free riders, we say?

Despite Tony Abbott's spurious and heart felt invitation to defect, to rat on the workers, nothing will ever make me do that and I tell you what, if you ever wanted to see a reason why you'd never vote Liberal, look at the last seven years of the John Howard government.

And I tell you what, I vowed not to get distracted, Tony Abbott's a plausible sort of speaker but to compare John Howard's contributions to the working class of Australia and that of Bill Ludwig who is sitting in the audience, you've got to be kidding.

Thirty-five years of service to shearers in the working class, John Howard has never supported a pay rise for workers.

He's never done anything for the workers and the AWU and Bill Ludwig and plenty of officials like him in this room, don't worry. Some of us appreciate what you do.

The best thing I do like about being an AWU rep, is that you get to meet your members. The members are what make the job worth getting up for in the morning. You listen to their insights, you witness their pride and their job. You learn from your members. Like all the union reps of all the unions in Australia, I assist people to empower themselves so they have some control over their working lives.

AWU members, they dig ditches, they shear sheep, they cast steel, they look after the aged in the community, the monitor Council lawns, they scrap horses, you name it, an AWU member is probably doing it somewhere right now as we speak. In fact, all of Australia's 1.8 million unionists, they live in the same communities as everyone else.

They raise families, they send their kids to university or at least they aspired to until the last budget. They take holidays, they pay off mortgages, they coach the junior football and netball teams. They contribute.

About tonight's topic, they don't need to come here to hear the answer, they know the answer. Without the AWU, without all unions, without the Commission, they know they would not do as well as they currently do.

Now why do they think about this? They, and indeed any middle of the road Australian, and many Australians not in unions, also know this. They know that the workers exercise their fundamental, human and democratic right to be collectively organised.

Then they gain a real voice in their workplace. Then they are empowered. Then they no longer have to rely on the goodwill of the employer alone.

Ladies and gentleman, tonight the case of third party intervention is as simple as this. It turns the theoretical right of the Australian "fair go" into a reality. Now we have heard the government case tonight, nothing startlingly new. The usual cliched quadrella of intellectual storemen. One, unions, Tony forgot to run this argument but we will run it for him and dismiss it.

You know the argument, the decline in union membership not what it was in 1975. There are no more children down coal pits, no brewing mills dotting the landscape. Two, unions are run by the three 'Cs' careerists, criminals, communists. There are 1.8 million Australians, ladies and gentlemen, the people in unions. Do you know what they are? They're prisoners of conscience. They don't want to be there do they. Tony's going to set them free. It's a conservative catch-cry. Everywhere workers are born free to contract. But everywhere they live in collective chains of bargaining.

Now we are all at odds, that's the third argument. Do we really need to have someone else telling us how to conduct our affairs, especially the three"Cs". The Commission, who enforce archaic awards about paint brushes and docking of tail sheep's tails.

The fourth argument is that but for unions and this one did emerge, but for unions, we'd have full employment, but for unions there'd be a Lexus in every garage. In fact, we didn't hear a little bit of credit to Saint Paul and Saint Bob, most credit to John Howard. Life's been getting better in the 90's. That's the argument against unions.

I'm going to return to these slogans a little later but I want to drill down to what I believe is the fundamental problem in this debate.

The Howard Government simply misunderstands or misrepresents why unions and the Commission exist. Unions exist to rectify power imbalances in the workplace. Of course, we want the workers to get an extra dollar. We want them to get a fair go. We don't believe all bosses are bad, there's a couple I can think of. The unions exist because the market if left to itself will produce a very unequal result on many occasions. It isn't because we believe we need to tell workers how to think. Unions exist because the market does not always deliver a fair go.

Most Australians won't get a $20 million dollar layout, they're not going to get the share options. Most Australians won't get a lifetime parliamentary indexed pension. Most Australians aren't happy that three million Australians currently live on welfare. But most Australians don't blame the victims.

They're not job snobs. We don't blame people because they are poor, that they choose to be poor. These are old-fashioned values. They're my values, they're AWU values, they're union values, they're Australia's values.

Now I've got four arguments to support the proposition I've put forward. Now lets look at some contemporary examples and statistics. Let's have a look at the last hundred years, not just the last ten.

And have a look at the actions of the Howard Government and his Minister for Industrial Relations and show and there was a nice little bit of finesse here, probably anticipating this point, some do pardon intervention, so long as it isn't union intervention or equally micro-managing what happens at work.

Finally, I want to take a brief look at the global view. Let's have a look at some of the nations where they don't have free independent views if we take strike action.
Turning to my first proposition, the first of my four pillars of logic.

Third party intervention is good because it works. The ABS statistics speak volumes. Union members are 17% better off than non-union members. Well let's take a real world example that our National Executive was discussing, yesterday. It's a simple question.

Can an underground copper miner in Queenstown in Tasmania's Northwest ever bargain equally, individually with a relevant mining multi-national. Answer, no. End of debate.

But of course, you may believe Bill Foster, our member, thirty-seven (years of age), two kids. He is forced to be given an Australian Workplace Agreement with family unfriendly and irregular hours. You might say he's got a choice. What choice? Either be exploited or be called a "job snob".

Second example, another real world case. Did you know what? We'd love you not to have a couple of these blokes in the audience. We've got some shearers here. Spud Ellis from Benalla and Gary from Attungamah. Salt of the earth industrial athletes.

But what I can say about them is this, but for the union, they wouldn't have had a pay rise in the last twenty-five years. They wouldn't have got one in the last eighteen months or the three that we won for them. Good on you.

To be fair to the NFF they actually agreed this time for once, no doubt, someone will lose their job over that. But you know what, they'd never have one of these Rolls Royces offered to them. They haven't even had a pay raise offered by the NFF in the last twenty-five years. Now we won. We got them a fair go. These shearers deserve a fair go.

How else could the system, all the employers have had the choice assistance in the last seven years and do you know what, we're the only way that these people can get the chance to earn a decent living.

Now I accept that the government doesn't always recognise the power imbalances occur, not on an individual basis that is. I've got no doubt that the Minister here and Peter Costello have got a power imbalance as to who's got the numbers in caucus to replace John Howard. That's a power imbalance.

I don't mean any disrespect individually but its blue-sky theory. They've got blue-sky theory about the world that without the strong unions and the Commission, life would be better. You know, these people have never had to negotiate a minimum wage. They've never had to worry about if they're causal workers, will they be granted work the next day. Most Australians, however, are not like the people in the government. They lack individual bargaining power. They rely on collective strength.

And I don't laugh at you (Tony Abbott) saying that our unemployment has improved in Australia. Let me tell you about Mr Howard and Mr Abbott's new jobs. Eighty seven percent of them are less than $26,000.00 a year. Over half of their new jobs are less than $15,000.00 a year income job. Most of them are part-time and casual. How can Abbott congratulate me in a sort of half serious fashion about supporting a national system.

I would never support a national system while this government is in power because they don't have a vision for Australia. Their vision of Australia would (inaudible), the dumb economy where we compete, try and compete with the other parts of the world based purely on our labour costs.

That isn't going to work and that argument is a dangerous argument to advance. And as for the productivity that has been gained in the 90's with the enterprise bargaining, who do you think was doing the bargaining? You know the bargaining wasn't

Mr Abbott, did you know that ninety-one percent of all enterprise agreements are done with unions. Only nine percent have been LK and as for that Rolls Royce of IR agreements, the AWA what a Skoda of an agreement that is.

Only 130,000 exist in the whole of Australia, most of them are public sector and we now see politically skanky behaviour by trying to force higher ed workers to get more grants by going to AWAs. You may coerce your way to increasing AWAs, but don't expect a medal from us.

My second argument about generating a fair go is the runs are on the board. I will come back to that sporting illusion that was used before but the runs are on the board. The Union movement has commissioned most of these changes, our score is 100 years not out and we are still ahead.

I mean we do have a uniquely Australian system of industrial relations. Now I appreciate that that mightn't appeal to people who are monarchists but I don't see anything wrong with that, after all now we've got two governor generals.

In fact why can't we all be a Governor General. I think we have all seen Monty Python's "Life of Brian", when in doubt, resort to asking what have the Romans done for us?

Whilst I'd love to see John Howard's cabinet stick around and say what have those unions ever done for us. They won't be dressed in the Arabic head gear of course, of Monty Python's act, its far too serious for that, but lets go through the list.

The eight hour day, not bad.

Annual leave, one week 1941, three weeks 1963, four weeks 1973. Very good.

Long service leave

Sick Leave

Public Holidays

Superannuation.

The Liberals have voted. Family leave, parental leave, we should all be for the family. Um, the minimum safety net. In fact, they even take credit for increased earnings for the last four years!

The Howard Government has opposed every minimum wage increase that has been granted. They've rarely supported a national wage increase.. Let us remember, all these things on this list, its all been fought for. None of it was ever given and once it was fought for, do you know where it was settled?

In the Industrial Relations Commission. A fair, independents umpire arbitrating community standards. And indeed, there is still plenty more to be done. But let's look at some of the other achievements, not just talk about the industrial. Occupational health and safety, from asbestos through to Workers' compensation. We are the pioneers. Unions solving these problems.

More Australians are better off because of the contribution of the union. Top that one, Mr Abbott.

Immigration, post-war. After World War II, Australians unions had never experienced full employment. Those great union officials Curtain and Chifley pioneered immigration, supported at that stage by Menzies and Holt.

I wonder if that would happen now? It was the Unions that didn't take that sectional, narrow view of immigration, do you know what they said? Bring them in and bring them on.

Seven million migrants in the last forty years and Holt and Menzies at least had the grace to recognise without the leadership of the trade union movement, that would never have happened.

And there is still much more to fix. I challenge Tony Abbott to a debate in five years if he feels like it. I bet you then, we'll have paid maternity leave. I bet you then we'll have raised the minimum ceiling on superannuation and I'll bet it will be like drawing teeth out of the collective mouths of the Howard Cabinet to achieve it.

But we will get there because we've got the people on our side and we've got the right things to fight for a fair go. In fact, the Australian Trade Union movement is owed a lot by Australia. Never has so much been achieved for so many, by so many.

I quickly want to talk about the third pillar of logic that supports Third Party intervention. The double standards of the Howard Government. I mean, I understand that Tony Abbott did briefly say the AWU is a good union.

Obviously, he has never done anything to help us but we will take high praise none the less. But, you would have to be a bigger optimist than the Iraqi information Minister if you are going to try an convince us that he has ever done anything for unions than you are as deluded as the Iraqi Information Minister who told the world's media Iraq was winning the war, even as the cameras were filming the tanks rolling into Baghdad.

Tony, open your intellectual window and have a look outside. Building Industry Royal Commission. Sixty-six million dollars and climbing. Good fees for the barristers. No question. It is a monument to I have to say, that Tony's ambition, Tony Abbott's ambition to be in The Lodge. Good luck but let's not throw out the achievements of the Australian building industry in the process.

Higher education. Touched on that. Very skanky third party intervention. What about the waterfront? John Howard wrote a letter to John Sharp (and I have circulated copies for those who never got to read the book). It said, "Dear John". Of course, John's gone now. "Dear John from John. I support the interventionist strategy on the waterfront. I'll have intervention when it suits. They have even attached unions in everything they do from payroll deductions, union education, bargaining fees. What other organisation in Australia has to service people, look after their conditions as we do, remember there is a million more people covered by certified agreements than are in unions.

We are doing the hard work, the heavy lifting and when we ask them to pay bargaining fees, look better pass a law, that's illegal. Wouldn't happen to Stan Howard's business. What do you mean we're not writing tax off?

What do you mean, you've got sixteen million dollars in owing in entitlements. No worries. See you at Christmas, Stan.

Finally, lets talk, I mean let's not talk about Chris Corrigan. Anyone can reform the waterfront with $350 million dollars to pay the redundancies.

Look finally, let's have a quick look overseas. Do you know that the strong the Australian trade union is, its Iran. They can't go on strike there. In Zimbabwe, can't go on strike there. In Syria, North Korea and Cuba. You don't have free independent unions there but don't worry, they can't go on strike.

It doesn't matter if you remove the right to strike by the gun or by law, it's the same conclusion. It is the slippery, sneaky, sliding path down to the sort of undemocratic society that none of us want to live in.
So in conclusion, my case could be described as this. There for the Tasmanian miners, the shearers, Spud Ellis and Gary from Tungamah, all AWU members.

My case could be described as the millions of Australians covered by certified agreements. It's the 1.7 million working poor on the minimum wage, its 1.8 million Australians in unions, they can't all be prisoners of conscience, it's the thousands of shop stewards and safety reps every day who show leadership in the workplace to look after their mates. Its casual workers, its part-time workers, it is the three thousand people who are still dying of work or industrial disease or traumatic injury. It is everyone who gets superannuation.

I tell you what my case is called, its called Labour Day, its called Picnic Day. Its called the CFA. Its called Jury Service until they neck it. Its people improving their lot in life, its people seeking a fair go. I'm going to leave you with just one quote, I've got plenty, but I've got one more quote.

A famous person, said forty three years ago:

"Unions are not narrow self seeking groups, they've raised wages, they've shortened the hours, provided supplemental benefits through collective bargaining agreement procedures they bough just and democracy to the shop floor. But they haven't just fought for their own jobs and beyond our borders. Our unions have fought for education, better housing, the development of natural resources, they have spoken not for narrow self-interest but for the public interest in the people."

And in this next paragraph is the kicker.

"Those that would destroy or further diminish the rights of organised labour, those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organisation of the unorganised, do a disservice to democracy."

These were the words of John F. Kennedy. He was right when he said that then, and he's still right now.