Transcript from the National Press Club, Canberra, January 30 2008

Today at the National Press Club, the National Secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Paul Howes. At just 26, Mr Howes has taken over from Bill Shorten as head of the powerful union at a time when the new Labor Government begins reshaping the workplace landscape. From the National Press Club in Canberra, Paul Howes.

AWU National Secretary speaks at National Press Club

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, CHAIR, KEN RANDALL:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the National Press Club and today's National Australia Bank address. It's a great pleasure today to welcome Paul Howes, National Secretary of the Australian Workers' Union.

Paul's had quite a bit of publicity recently. He's the much publicised age of 26 and the youngest of our newest generation of national union leaders. He was elected to the AWU Secretary's position last November after his predecessor, who's here today, Bill Shorten somewhere, was elected to the House of Representatives. Yes, thanks, Bill.

But even then Paul had been in the union movement for well over a decade and it included his previous two years with the AWU as a national vice president in charge of mining, steel and - what was it? - manufacturing operations of the union.

And the record's even more remarkable, I think, when you think about the - just what the AWU is. It's Australia's largest and most diverse union with around about 135,000 members these days and a history that goes right back to the birth of the union movement in this country over 120 years ago.

He'll tell you more about all that and more. Please welcome Paul Howes.

[Applause]

PAUL HOWES: Thank you, Ken.

The strutting and bellowing titans of November 23 became the meek and querulous dwarves of November 25. It no longer mattered what Alexander said, or Tony Abbott believed.

The encoding, the decrypting of John Howard and Peter Costello's legalistic and economic half-truths are no longer a priority.

Howard himself, like the Wizard of Oz, became a retrospective mirage. He had no authority, and, having lost his seat, he had, in a curious way, no legacy. He and his drab acrimonious mob of mediocre shysters were gone, and no-one mourned them.

There was no Last Post, no lowered flag.

Nor is there any Costello nostalgia for his always potential leadership. The tale was told, the story done,and already nearly forgotten.

They are no more.

We have an agenda, but we must work out new forms, new obligations, new responsibilities.

We have a Labor government, but it is one that looks closely, at the coming shape of the possible in the difficult times ahead.

Now is the time for responsible union leadership to confidently show we have economic credibility and we are relevant in today's economy and society.

Now we can show we have confidence in our own economic and social values.

I thank Bill Shorten for bequeathing us a strong and healthy, paid-up union of 130,000 men and women with the solidarity and buoyancy we currently have and hold, but I am apprehensive about how much can be done how quickly, as overseas events unfold.

I am concerned at the size of the challenge I face. And like the good economic conservative I am, I look first at inflation.

You know what? It keeps me awake at night,-along with the question, how can wage growth be real if the cost of things go up? How can tax cuts be real if interest rates go up?

How can the fair-go Australia we dream of happen, when the shifting numbers, none of them our fault, work so cruelly against us?

The coming tax cut, worth, on average, 21 dollars a week, to a median working family with a mortgage, will be wiped out by the two interest rate hikes, which I have no doubt are coming, and will occur this year.

To at least consider investing half of the promised 31 billion dollar tax cut, into taxpayer superannuation funds.

Funds that through investments build a better Australia. They can do this while still following the Tax Plan For Australia's Future, and bringing down the marginal tax rate for the vast majority of taxpayers to 30 per cent by 2014.

They can do this while ensuring that money goes somewhere good, by building our private savings and so growing our national savings, rather than adding to demand when inflation is already high.

They can do this, yes they can, and by doing it put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates, by building savings. They can do it, and so reduce the drag on the economy that the crazily spendthrift last months of the Howard hysterics caused in higher interest rates and market panic.

They can do it, yes they can, and so boost national savings, and boost the financial services industry, and boost the investment Australia needs, the Australian investment Australia needs, if it is to increase the speed limit on Australia's growth, as it must.

Will they cop this? They'd be wise to. I think the times demand it. And I see it as a transparent, open friendship and partnership, of unions, business, community groups and government.

I see it as evidence of good faith, and clear eyes, and the sort of co-operative economics we can no longer do without, the comradely, hard-nosed collaboration that made the Hawke-Keating years a plain success.

I have strong views on this, but we at the AWU are always open to discussion.

It means five billion this year, five billion next year, five billion the year after, into superannuation. Less spending, more saving, less inflation. More infrastructure.

More jobs that last. Less upheaval in the lives of working families.

Today the AWU launches our own Discussion Paper, on this important topic to get some debate going about this issue. I am convinced you'll agree with the anti-inflationary benefits of the AWU Plan.

The Rudd Government has a mandate for its 5 points economic plan released recently in Perth. Boosting private savings is at the core of its plan. We applaud them for this initiative, and we believe our own plan will help drive these ideas further.

As the leader of this great union I worry: how do I manage the fact that my members will need wage growth through our bargaining cycles to keep up with rising costs? I also know that large wage growth will just feed into the inflation cycle, and quickly wipe out these gains.

So here we have an important Discussion Paper, to look at ways that union can deliver real improvements for union members, without having those wage improvements disappear within minutes because of raging inflation.

When you need to lift your game, to master new tools, to upgrade your qualifications, and maintain your family's way of life, the time is never there. And to address all this, what you need is what we call, in the union, portable long-service leave.

Portable Long Service Leave ( PLSL) admits what's obvious, that we all have to change as the world does, we all have to catch up, and we all need time, if we're human, to recharge our batteries. It doesn't happen easily and it won't happen overnight, but in the end it's good for everybody, and the economy too.

As inflation kicks in, and it will, we need harder and better work, and rising productivity, if we're to make the grade globally, and keep pace with the competition.

Portable long service leave when used to better our skills and our educations, helps not just the workers but the work. Portable long service leave is part of the high-road tradition of Labor's economic reforms. Like superannuation, like adjusting to free-trade, PLSL is a contemporary response, and a good one, to how we grow our economy, yet keep up our fair-go civilisation.

Long service leave rights were first available to state public servants in the 1880s, and more generally after 1951. But they were designed for an era that is not ours, the fair-go era of a job for life, high tariffs for what we grew and made and dug up, and China and India were faraway places with strange-sounding names, and not our trade competitors.

Today very few of us stay in one place, for the ten or fifteen years that we need to accumulate long service leave. That makes long service leave a virtual right, and not a real one. A theoretical right, if we fulfil conditions beyond all likelihood, and most possibility. A hypothetical right Geoffrey Robertson may prattle of, but we will never see. For too many of us have part-time jobs and casual jobs, and, in what is now a largely consumption-driven economy, jobs that vanish when the trend or fashion moves on, or the Sushi Train up the road becomes more popular, or the changing liquor licensing laws mean some small venues prosper and others go to the wall.

And we have to restore what was once a human right, to time out, a period of reflection, the spiritual gift of an overseas trip, or a caravan pilgrimage round Australia, the educative catch-up of a computer course, or a cooking course, or a course in academic teaching.

This is a right that seems to me self-evident.

We have no fixed plan of how it could be done. Educational institutions could run it (as part of an up-skilling fund), or the superannuation funds, or, for the first few years, a branch of government. At this early stage for this idea we don't want to proscribe how it is run.

To us the main thing is the outcome, an outcome that's either cost-neutral, or cost-minimal to the employers who would enter into it maybe as part of an overall collective agreement.

These collective agreements, as we envision them, could help keep inflation and interest rates down, with moderated wage-rise clauses intertwined among the long service leave provisions.

Anyone dubious about all this I point to where it's already working. In the construction industry it's been working for thirty years, for hundreds of thousands of workers. Recent schemes moreover, in the contract cleaning industry ( there's a great example here in Canberra), show it can work with fragmented careers, and intermittent, complex working calendars.

This means we need, in brief, a twenty-first century solution to a twenty-first century problem, and we need to work it out together, as co-venturers in the Australian fair-go culture. And we'll get it when Government sits down with business, with academia and unions, and hammers out decent minimum standards, consistent minimum standards across the nation and certainty, certainty for the many, not just the few.

Looked at seat by seat, the big swings to Labor on November 24 were in the regions, and the country towns, the Bush.

• Forde 14.4 percent.

• Leichhardt 14.3 percent

• Dawson 13.2 percent

• Richmond, once the preserve of that National Party aristocracy, the Anthony family, and the most marginal seat in Australia, is now a safe Labor seat ,now it sits on 8 per cent.

• Throsby, once solid, is now ultra-safe, with a unionist, Jennie George, as its acclaimed representative.

Because more than half of the AWU works in regional Australia, I have a clear and present interest in effective policies, and large outcomes in the Bush. To turn the country towns into the long-term engine-room of Australian growth, environmental protection, population redistribution, and what we currently know as the Australian dream.

To do this, we have to sort out what part the States play. We have to work out how well we're backing up the mining boom in Western Australia, and the Broadband revolution in the sticks. We have to sort out the present dire situation of drought and dust-blown towns, and boarded-up shops, and high schools closing, and trucked-in water, decaying infrastructure, and kids on the bus leaving home forever.

Like an aeroplane, a nation needs two wings to fly. It needs capital cities and provincial towns, and similar skills in both places. It needs Green consciousness in both places, in Tamworth as well as Wentworth. It needs variety and quality of lifestyle in the regions, the kind that graduating medical students would like to spend a few years in. It needs reliable power supplies from clean energy, water sources, freight networks, airports and industries, that export by good rail links overseas.

It needs Regional Growth Zone Policies such as Victoria has, advisory services for market opportunities, like those that made such an international success of Victorian wineries. Services that in the Keating years had manufacturing growth at 14.8 per cent, and, in the last five Howard years, when they were scandalously neglected and suicidally downsized, 2 per cent. That sort of useful advice.

Unions can't dictate where business does its work. But we can entice, invite and give reasons why the regions are good places to be, with affordable housing and agreeable scenery and lower environmental damage than the cities.

We can work with the Rudd government, and the likely stakeholders,to say powerfully why good regional outcomes make great national commonsense. It's great national commonsense, too, and great global commonsense, to become, as a union, part of the post-Kyoto argument, to become a part of the greenhouse gas solution, and not, as we were seen, a part of the problem.

For us, and for me, this is personal. I will put a lot of my energy into advocating plans to rejuvenate the economic, social and community life for the people of our regions. The Bush is where we started. And the AWU won't forget that.

But with the right effort and imagination we won't need to. With the right mixture of uncommon sense, we won't need to.

We're glad there's a whole Ministry devoted to Climate Change, and Penny Wong is running it. With her in charge we can look with care and conscience, together with her, at the nation's industrial future, and at some long-term solutions that may at the moment seem counter-intuitive.

At lightweight, fuel-efficient cars for instance, Australian-built by Australian workers after government funding, five hundred million dollars in government funding, from the Green Car Innovation Project.

We can look as well at what might be done with our heavy metals industry, which under Kyoto achieved no credits for life-cycle accounting, or points for sustainable manufacturing, points due, I believe, to the world' s best-practice aluminium manufacturing industry, available here and nowhere else.

And we can look at what carbon offsets might do to our industries and their reputation: what, for instance, an industry carbon offset fund might do to their attitude, while they consider transitions to the low-carbon economy of the future.

An Industry Carbon Offset Fund could offer for purchase Renewable Energy Certificates, and match up buyers and sellers , and complement the goals of other funds proposed under Labor's Clean Energy Plan. We look forward to Ross Garnaut's findings, and how they might lead us to a domestic carbon credits trading market, not just for corporations but for workers, what we in Labor circles, and in union circles, call a fair go for all.

We must not just acknowledge, but reward our workforce, for their efforts in bringing down emissions, efficiently and effectively. We can purchase carbon offsets for wind farms too, and with their help, build a green manufacturing base that has meaning,and incidentally helps save the planet.

We in this union know there are no easy answers.Only hard-headed analysis and dauntless action will solve it, not romance and fairytales and Mother Goose rhetoric.There are no Mills and Boon solutions to climate change, and we have to try to find the right ones.

We need to ensure that in these solutions we maintain good jobs in the manufacturing sector. We need to find new, clever, manufacturing opportunities for our factories which are competitive, and also meet our climate change goals.

We in the unions are already seeing it first-hand, and we know, we already know, we must urgently look to the young, and how they must henceforth see the future and prepare for it. We must have a life-cycle focus in the unions.

Those who do not, and work only for the good of union officials, will end in the dumpsters of history very soon, and most deservedly. We must recruit in new ways, with the new technology.

We must fund campaigns in new ways, as we did in the anti-WorkChoices campaign, levying ten or twenty or fifty dollars from members who could afford it,specifically for that history-changing struggle.

With direct donation you have transparency, and better targeting.

We brought out a Facebook application last year, one already working wonderfully. In 2008 we can offer filmed advice on line, or mini-film clips for mobile phones, to let kids know how to negotiate, stand up for themselves, or get help from us fast.

A few of you will have remarked on my age, half the age, just about, of our new young Prime Minister.

It's not altogether accidental, I think, that new challenges, and a new world of difficult choice, will now be looked at by someone born in the 1980s, and hoping to be still around in the 2050s, when our present environmental problems come home to roost, and the world of employment, and job-sharing, and semi-retirement activity, and aged care, and child care, and wage agreements, and work conditions, will be configured in shapes and ways that few here today, particularly you oldies over thirty-five, can even begin to hypothesise.

I'm here for the long haul, and the union movement is in good shape, hungering to learn new ways of doing things, keen to bring back the great Australian fair-go tradition, keen to continue the battle for workers' betterment with new weapons, new horizons, new priorities, new ways of thinking, new thoughts in the world.

I thank you.

QUESTION: Ben Packham from the Herald Sun. Unions spent something like $30 million on ejecting the Howard Government. Do you think that that's bought the union movement a seat at the table of Government decision making? And what would you say to your more militant counterparts in the union movement who might threaten the current level of goodwill towards the union movement?

PAUL HOWES: Well, the union movement spent a lot of money turfing out the last government. You know, for 11-and-a-half years we had a Prime Minister who was hell bent on the destruction of organised labour in this country.

I don't think anyone in the union movement considered the Your Rights At Work campaign as buying influence, or trying to get a seat at the table with the new Government.

It was about defeating anti-social, un-Australian legislation in the form of the WorkChoices Act. I believe Labor w orks best when it consults widely and governs with the interest of all Australians.

The difference between Kevin Rudd and John Howard is that Kevin Rudd will be genuinely interested in listening to the concerns of representatives of working families - like us in the union movement - of community organisations, and of business.

The problem with Howard, and particularly his WorkChoices legislation, the thing that I think brought him down in the end - was he was only interested in consulting with one section of the economy, and one section of society.

I'm not aware of anyone in the labour movement at the moment who is advocating for any large-scale campaigns against the Government. I think we're all quite excited about working closely with the Government but also working with business to ensure that we implement a new industrial relations system in this country which restores the balance, and ensures fairness and equity is restored in Australians' workplaces.

KEN RANDALL: Question from Mark Davis.

QUESTION: Mr Howes, Mark Davis from The Sydney Morning Herald. You have put on the table a kind of wages/tax/super/long service leave trade off, and touted that as a policy for tackling inflation, containing inflationary pressures in the economy. You've spelled out what the AWU wants as part of that trade off - superannuation contributions by the Government, portable long-service leave scheme.

What's on offer, I'm wanting to know, what size of wage rises you think the unions would be willing to confine their demands to in the coming period, in return for such a trade off and how would that be delivered across the union movement, in an environment of enterprise bargaining, and decentralised wage-fixing?

PAUL HOWES: Well, to pre-empt any other questions, I mean, the accord worked well in a centralised wage fixation environment and, as we all know, we have a decentralised wage system in this country.

I am far more satisfied that we are confronting this challenge of inflation with a Labor Government in power than I would have been if the other mob was still there. And the reasoning why is that I am confident that Wayne Swan, and Kevin Rudd, and Lindsay Tanner, will sit down with business, with unions, with community organisations, and with the relevant Government authorities, to ensure that we work out an equitable solution.

Now, it's important to understand that workers, and working families, will be the first victims of a high inflationary economy. It won't be, you know, 'Twiggy' Forrest having to sell up one of his houses when the interest rates go through the roof. It will be my members, out in western Sydney, or in the western suburbs of Melbourne, who are struggling to make mortgage repayments at the moment. We live in the economy with the highest interest rates in the developed world.

So it's important that the way that the union movement approaches this issue, and the way that the Government approaches this, and the way that business approaches this, is by leaving the political footballs outside the room, and sitting down and nutting out some agreements that can work, and ensure that the nation is better off in the long term.

It's important that working families in this country have wage increases to ensure that they can keep up with the general cost of living. It will not help the economy to have a wide-scale default environment on mortgages like we've seen in the United States over the last little period.

I think it's important that the Government which, certainly listening to the Treasurer's comments last week, has a strong and clear focus on ensuring that we work together in a cooperative environment to find a resolution and fix to this crisis.

The AWU is putting out a few ideas today, some of our own thinking which we think can help solve this crisis but there won't be any fix if it's an either/or solution or if we have employers on the one hand over there and unions on the one hand over here and government somewhere in the middle, throwing insults at each other and not wanting to find out an equitable solution.

QUESTION: Who's paying for all of that?

PAUL HOWES: Well, you know, the figures in terms of wage growth in this country can be highly diluted, particularly when you look at the boom in wages in the mining industry. You know, the reality is at the moment in the north-west of Australia and even filtering through to the goldfields of Victoria and the metalliferous mines of Tasmania and far northern Queensland, you have a situation where there is an acute labour shortage. That acute labour shortage will drive up wages because there is competition for those workers.

I think what people forget about is that the vast bulk of Australian workers aren't working in the resources sector, they're in the services economy and the manufacturing economy. And there has been moderated wage rises in that industry, there hasn't been a boom in wages in the manufacturing sector or the services sector in the last 10 or 15 years. You've basically had wages keeping up with inflation.

My members in the steel industry, you know, the figures that they are earning now might be significantly higher than what they were earning in the late 1980s, but essentially, in terms of their purchasing power, it is the same amount.

I think unions have shown constraint for the last 15 years in terms of our wage outcomes. We have looked at the issue of productivity. In an enterprise bargaining scenario you can't not but look at productivity and I think that if we continue down that track but work closer and have a more holistic spirit of cooperation, then we're better off in the long term.

QUESTION: Kate Hannon from The Canberra Times. Paul, just continuing on from that question, we are heading into uncertainty with high inflation environment and you're talking about sitting down with business and government. Do you think there'll come a time when we will need to have a formalised arrangement? I know you've shied away from wanting to resurrect the accord, you've said that to me before, but do you think there will come a time when we will have to do that: formalise an arrangement with a social wage and inflation wage trade-off?

PAUL HOWES: The only way we're going to have an accord is if we have a time machine, and we can all hop into it and jump back to the economy of the 1970s and 1980s, not that I was alive during most of it but...

[Laughter]

...but I've read, and my National President Bill Ludwig's told me all about it...

[Laughter]

At the end of the day, look, I think Labor has already clearly demonstrated through the first couple of meetings of the Labor Advisory Committee involving union leaders and employer organisations, that they are committed to genuine and open dialogue.

I don't think we need to set up committees and we have to have five men walking into the Prime Minister's office and deciding the economic future of the country for the next five years. An accord will never happen again

. But what is important is that we have a spirit of cooperation, that we understand that business succeeding is in the union movement's best interests. If the economy goes to the crapper it's us that'll hurt as well. We'll lose our members, we'll lose our income. We understand, we know how important it is to ensure that we have a vibrant, strong and buoyant economy.

And so I think that Sharan Burrow and Jeff Lawrence have articulated today that they are keen to ensure that there is a cooperative approach between the union movement and business. I think we need to continue that. I'm sure that most of my colleagues from the other unions here in this room today would agree with me. The only solution to this crisis is to ensure that we have a cooperative framework where we can work out solutions and offsets, and trade-offs to this solution.

But I don't think - organisations or businesses that think that workers will be the first people to be punished in this environment have got a thing to learn about the economy as a whole. It's working families who have the purchasing power, and we are largely a consumption-driven economy in this country, particularly on the eastern seaboard, and I think business needs to take that into consideration in making their demands about wage growth.

QUESTION: Colin Brinsden, AAP, and very much of the oldie camp. Thanks.

PAUL HOWES: [Laughs]

QUESTION: Given the current shortage of skilled workers would you or are you encouraging your members to work longer when they would normally be retiring?

PAUL HOWES: The question of ageing has many multi-faceted problems. The question of retirement age I think is something we have to look at. It won't make me necessarily very popular to say that, but it is a reality.

We have an ageing workforce and we have an ageing population, and people aren't having enough kids. Me and Lucy have had two but I don't know if we're going to have a third. At the end of the day, you know, the population growth is not keeping up with the demands in our economy.

There is an issue to be looked at in terms of semi-retirement activity. My predecessor, Bill Shorten, did a lot of work on this in his last couple of years at the union.

We have an open mind to the labour shortage. We know what caused it because no one cared about apprentices any more in the '80s. No one cared about proper investment in technical education and training. The kids that had to go up to woodwork were the dunces, you know, we only talked about the mathematicians and the science geniuses.

We need to instil a culture in our country where being a tradesman is just as important to our economy as being a doctor or an academic professor. And we don't have that yet. I think that we are heading in that direction. And so the solution to the skills shortage is multi-faceted.

I do think we need to look at the issue about retirement ages and whether we can put in flexible working practices that can ensure that we have semi-retirement activity. That would have to be on a voluntary basis. Of course, you know, a lot of my members are walking out with very large superannuation accounts and they're looking forward to retiring when they're 65. You can't force people to stay in the workforce, but we can entice.

And we can give good reason why people may want to stay in the workforce that bit longer and why they should have practices and work methods put in place in their enterprises to ensure that they are able to continue to work later in life.

QUESTION: Sid Marris from The Australian. There's a couple of members of the Rudd Government here, I don't know what they think about your proposal, we're sure to ask them afterwards. Have you run this past Wayne Swan, Kevin Rudd or any of the other leadership team? What sort of feedback have you had, given that you're essentially asking them to significantly change a policy that they went to the election on?

And, again, following Mark's question about how the unions do their side of the bargain, does that mean that some form of industry-wide or pattern bargaining is sort of a way of delivering uniform or restrained wages so that you're not putting pressure on inflation?

PAUL HOWES: Well, this policy is the AWU's policy, and we are releasing it as a contribution to the national debate on this issue. The Rudd Government has a clear and undisputed mandate from the Australian population to implement the policies that they went to the election on. You know, we're not bully boys that are going to go in there and bashing them over the head with this discussion paper. We're putting it out there to promote debate, to promote discussion about alternative solutions to the inflationary crisis.

They have a clear mandate to implement what they went to the election on, we won't dispute that. We're not going to campaign against them on it. Any policy that the Rudd Government went to the election on that they have a mandate on they have a right to implement in its entirety.

There are many policies, you know, from time to time we won't always agree on but, at the end of the day, we agree that it's far better for working families in this country to have Kevin Rudd in the Lodge and Labor on the Treasury benches than the other way around.

So we, you know, we haven't consulted with the government on this, we're happy to discuss it with them. We want to have a public debate and discussion about some of our proposals. We think it's important that unions are thinking outside the square and thinking about things other than wages, in terms of how we advance our social agenda.

Unions have played a very key role in our nation's history, in the economic reforms that have ensured that we have a buoyant economy today. And I see this as continuing our tradition of being able to put out economic platforms and economic positions which might not be within our direct CVs or job descriptions but actually add to national debate and discussion on the issue.

I forgot the second half of your question.

QUESTION: Pattern bargaining.

PAUL HOWES: Look, there are great myths about pattern bargaining that the last government perpetrated. You know, I mean, AWAs in most workplaces was pattern bargaining by the employer.

You know, AWAs weren't genuine individual negotiations between employers and employees. I mean, it was pattern bargaining by Microsoft Word. You know, you had a HR manager sitting in the IR superintendent's office, typing out on a Microsoft Word template the exact same agreement over and over again.

You know, the last government made some significant changes to ensure that farmers and agricultural producers could pattern bargain, to ensure that there was consistency in their areas.

Now pattern bargaining is illegal and that's not going to change, and our union won't engage in illegal activity. But I do think there is an argument from time to time, when you have a crisis like we have at the moment, in a high inflationary environment, to look at the whole gamut of legal and social restrictions that are placed upon unions and employers in terms of how we reach deals to ensure that the country and the economy is better off as a whole.

QUESTION: Steven Scott from The Financial Review. I was just wondering whether you envisage there may be some problems in selling your superannuation plan, particularly to younger members - younger workers, who you've identified as the demographic that unions need to attract and encourage to join if the union movement is going to grow?

PAUL HOWES: I'm not expecting a mass rally of my members out the front of this building after I'm finished here, applauding me for telling them they should have some of their tax cut put back into their superannuation.

But, you know, unions sometimes we have to take hard decisions and I've always been of the belief that union leadership is not always about being popular, but it's about what's doing right in the long-term interest of our members.

There are many of our members who don't like the fact that we campaign and bargain for increased superannuation contributions in their enterprise agreements. In some workplaces, where there's younger workers in particular, it can be quite unpopular because they see it as money that's theirs being put away, which they can't access for another 30 or 40 years.

The important thing though, is that the union - the union has to advocate policies which are in the best interests of our members and the economy in the long term. So it can, on occasion, be unpopular. I'm sure there will be plenty of my members who won't agree with this but I'm happy to have the debate. And I feel confident in my own beliefs and views on this issue enough to actually raise this publicly and I'm happy to go out there and talk to all the union movement about this issue.

Superannuation savings need to be improved. Nine per cent is not enough. Now we don't have an accord. We don't have a centralised wage fixation environment. How do we increase superannuation contributions in today's economic environment? Fifteen per cent is the target. We all know that, because that was the original plan. You know, if the Howard Government had continued the Keating plan from day dot, we would be at 15 per cent right now. And 15 per cent would give working families a liveable income when they retire after 30, or 40, or 50 years in the workforce.

So superannuation as a whole we need to look at. It can be unpopular. There are many issues which we advocate from time to time which would be unpopular. If it's incredibly, incredibly unpopular, I'm sure they won't be re-electing me in two years time. But I'm confident in this issue enough to raise it publicly and I know that we'll be able to win over the support of our membership on this issue, because what it's about - it's about what's right, not only for them, for the economy, for their industries and their communities.

QUESTION: Malcolm Farr from The Telegraph. You've advocated, or proposed that half of $31 billion in tax cuts go to super. Two aspects of that. Isn't that a demonstration then, in looking at that issue, you've concluded that the full whack of tax cuts, the full $31 billion would themselves have been inflationary?

And secondly, have you calculated the full ongoing cost of such a measure? It wouldn't just be $15 to $16 billion, because that would have been - there would be foregone tax, because of the very effective tax rates on superannuation. At the moment, wouldn't it cost more than just the $15 or $16 billion?

PAUL HOWES: Well, no. What we're advocating isn't changing the tax rates on superannuation contributions and so on. I mean, at the end - what we're advocating is this. You know, along the lines - same lines of Labor's current policy. You know, a reduction of three rates of current, to four - sorry, to - reduction to three rates from the current four. Reduction of the current 45 per cent rate to 40 per cent. Reduction of the 40 per cent rate to 30 per cent. And this would benefit everyone in the long-term. We see this as a short term solution, which we think would add to an anti-inflationary environment, where you have national savings and national savings that can be spent and invested in Australian infrastructure and Australian technologies.

We understand the Government has their policy, which they went to the election on. And if they implement it, they should. That's fine. But we're happy to add to the debate and have a discussion about superannuation savings and what we need to do and think outside the square and the box, in terms of how we solve this inflation problem.

I think in the long-term, if we don't address the issue of superannuation, enforced savings, then we will be - in 10 or 20 years, we will be facing a social crisis in terms of our ageing population. The pension is not enough to live on. There are no large scale Department of Housing projects in most states any more. You know, government welfare is not a liveable wage any more. People need their own incomes in retirement to live on, and if we don't seriously look at the question of superannuation in the long term, we'll be dealing ourselves out of a long term future.

QUESTION:Mischa Schubert from The Age newspaper.

I'm just wondering why this sort of innovative thinking is being done by an individual union, rather than say the ACTU and what, if anything, that tells us about the leadership of the ACTU at this point in our history, just to be a little controversial.

And secondly, can you take us through whether you are completely comfortable with what Labor has proposed in terms of keeping the Howard Government's right of entry restrictions on union access to work sites?

PAUL HOWES: Well, I have full confidence in Jeff Lawrence and Sharan Burrow as leaders of the ACTU. I've discussed this with Sharan and with Jeff and I know that they have some views on it and I think it's important that unions in their own individual capacity are able to go out and make their own positions on policy matters.

You know the AWU, I mean we occasionally have a bit of an independent streak, to put it mildly, but you know - and we like to do things ourselves sometimes. But we also are team players. I think it's reflected in the fact that there's a large number of other union leaders here today, and people that I widely consult with on where we go.

The ACTU today announced some measures in how they're going to address the inflationary issues. We support them fully, and I think that Sharan Burrow and Jeff Lawrence are demonstrating clear and concise responsible union leadership in this environment. And it's very hard, you know, managing a peak council, to ensure that you live up to the expectations of your affiliates and that you ensure that some sections of the movement who might want to be moving a bit faster, are looked after and some sections of the movement who want to be moving a bit slower are looked after.

I think that the union movement has gone through some generational change in the last couple of months. You know, you've had people like Greg Combet and Bill Shorten going to Parliament. You've had state leaders in other states like Mark Butler, moving into Federal Parliament, and you've had changes in leaderships in those unions. That's fine. I mean the union movement's gone through many generational changes over the last 120 years. It hasn't led to a massive crisis. It just means a change in style.

The substance of what we're always about is always there. You know, we're there as advocates for working families and I think we've never shied away from that and we in the AWU haven't either.

In terms of the Rudd Government's Forward with Fair - Forward with Fairness plan, the AWU supports that entirely. If we were writing it, it would probably have looked very different, you know, but I mean we're not the party and we're not in government. You know, government needs to rule in the in - the Labor Government needs to rule in the interests of both unions, business and the community. And Labor will only work best when industrial relations truly becomes a cooperative framework again.

I mean we had bi-partisan support for the conciliation and arbitration system, essentially from 1930 through to 1996. You know, both parties realised there was benefit in getting unions and employers sitting down at the table together and nutting out solutions and minimising industrial disputation.

Labor's essential thrust of their policy is minimising industrial disputation, and that is something that my union supports wholeheartedly and confidently.

There are certain aspects of the policy which we probably want tougher but I'm sure there's certain aspects of the policy businesses will want being weaker. You know, that's the nature of a democracy. But I'd much rather be dealing with Julia Gillard and the Forward with Fairness plan than with the succession of Liberal Party IR Ministers and WorkChoices and the reforms to the 1996 Workplace Relations Act.

KEN RANDALL: Paul Howes, let me take you back over a couple of points that have been raised already but possibly could do with a bit more expansion.

You talked a lot about the union movement and their contribution to economic policy and debate, what about the attraction of the union movement to new members and particularly with the sort of workforce we've got now? How do you envisage that you'll increase your membership and, therefore, your potential influence over these debates?

And the other thing that struck me about your long service leave portability scheme was prompted rather by one of those typical commercial radio airheads in Sydney this morning who said on radio, it's totally unworkable, how could you ever make it work? They obviously haven't heard of the fact that in the construction industry, as you said, it's been going for nearly, what, 30 years?

PAUL HOWES: It wasn't just the commercial radio in Sydney, even good socialists like Jon Faine were saying that today. But, at the end of the day, I mean, you know, business conservative commentators said the same thing about industry superannuation, oh, you're going to put the - you know, you're going to put the business community out of work, it's the end of the world as we know it, putting three per cent into super.

If you look here in the ACT, in the ACT you have a construction long service leave scheme where traditionally they had to put two per cent in of all wage payroll, to ensure that those construction workers get their long service leave. Now the employers are only having to put 1.5 per cent in. Now they're only putting 1.5 per cent in because the fund works well, it invests its money wisely, and the returns ensure that the overall cost on the employer goes down.

Now 1.5 per cent of payroll for the construction industry in long service leave is far less than what the rest of general industry has to pay in the ACT in terms of accruing long service leave entitlements and paying it out. I would rather be a construction company in the ACT than any other enterprise having to pay long service leave.

You've got the same issue here now with the cleaning industry. I know the LHMU worked very closely with the ACT government in assuring that there was a portable long service leave scheme put in place for cleaners, and it is working wonderfully.

You know, significant economic reform is never easy but what we are demonstrating with policies like this, and if we actually have it implemented, is that we can transform our workplace systems to ensure that we keep up with today's economy, and the reality of today's society.

In terms of the growth of the union movement, well, it's a worry, you know? We grow, regularly, but our density continues to decline. As the workforce rapidly expands, it means that we need to recruit on the same percentage level to ensure that our density remains the same and, at the end of the day, that's the figure that matters, density. And density is where we have to prove our credibility and relevance in today's society and economy.

Now there are no quick fix solutions to the growth of the union movement, you know, we've tried many different experiments, it's not the free steak knives, it's not - in my belief it's not having roving packs of growth teams around the place, I think there is a model that our union is trialling at the moment in different places where we can ensure that our existing membership are well serviced and that when people, when there's turnover in those companies, that those new people start - join the union when they start.

But it's also getting out there into those new industries, and proving that unions actually deliver social benefits, not only just for the employees but for the employers as well. Most of my large, heavy manufacturing companies know that there is more value in having their workforce unionised and collective, than as individuals. And I think that's a fundamental question the union movement needs to work out.

But I actually do think we're in good stead, we demonstrated over the last two-and-half years that we can run large, effective, public campaigns, that have the support of the entire community.

The election was made by the Liberal Party as a referendum on the role of unions in our society, and we won. At the end of the day, it's our job now as union officials to take advantage of that goodwill, that was generated in the campaign, to prove ourselves, not only prove ourselves in our growth, but prove ourselves as being economic, socially responsible players in our society, and organisations that add to Australian culture.

I mean, you know, we in the AWU probably get a bit arrogant sometimes, and we kind of think we built the whole country, but you know, we are the union of Banjo Patterson, we are the union of Dame Mary Gilmore, of William Spence, we are the union of the Great Strike of 1891, and the Tree of Knowledge of Barcaldine, that led to the formation of the Labor Party, and our union has been there in all these significant fights and disputes, that have led to the formation of Australia as it is today.

And I foresee a strong future, so as we sit here today, 122 years old, I'm confident that we'll be here in 100 years time, talking about the same struggles. And the workforce of 1886 was dramatically different to the workforce in 1930, as it was to 1960, as it is to 2008, and that means we have to change our strategies, change our tactics, but always ensure that we're there fighting to make sure that working people in this country get a fair go, and if we stick to that principle, we will always win.

SPEAKER: Thank you. Let's end today with another question from Sid Marris.

SID MARRIS: You mentioned increasing superannuation, and how you'd like to see it invested in the infrastructure that's needed in Australia. Do you have any thoughts about how you might direct that? We've seen a lot of superannuation companies who have a responsibility to their members in getting the maximum return, go overseas and I mean, are you looking at putting some - would you like to see the Government direct where investment goes, or will we see more - is a nuclear power station in China, albeit supplied by uranium dug up by AWU members, a better investment sometimes?

PAUL HOWES: Always got to have your uranium, it's the best quality uranium in the world, but at the end of the day, you know, I think they need a - I think we actually do need a wide-ranging review and discussion and investigation into how we run superannuation.

Now, I mean I've only been a director of a superannuation fund for a couple of months, and so I don't want to get in too much trouble with my colleagues, but you know, there's people in this room who have far more experience on it than I do. But at the end of the day, I think, you know, if we are to have true innovation in our society, if we are to have true - if we are to have a true venture capitalist market, if we are to have funding for new technologies, that can be provided by large institutions, the only place where they can come from is the superannuation industry, and industry superannuation funds.

So I think there is an argument for at least looking at the way that we structure our funds, what role the sole purpose test plays, and how we actually channel our investment of that money, into ensuring that we build our economy, and that Australian money is used for Australian investment into Australian jobs.

And I do think we can get good returns, and who knows, Sid, with the current economic crisis overseas, building an odd road or two in Australia might be a far more wise investment than a nuclear power station in China.

Thank you very much.

[Applause]

KEN RANDALL: Paul Howes, thank you very much for appearing here today. From what you've said today about ageing and retirement, we'll probably see you around for another 50 years or so, so for the first one of them, here's a membership ticket, we hope you make good use of it, a little security device for your briefcase, in case you ever do have any secret documents. Thank you.

[Applause]