Rights at Work

(Image adapted from the cover of Signet books edition of George Orwell's 1984)

“It will be those people, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes … We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin."

So wrote the economist, Keynes, J.M., in “Economic possibilities for our grandchildren” in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol.9: Essays in Persuasion, London, MacMillan, 1972 [1931]

Then along came the Second World War with its fuel and weapons creation frenzy. It wasn't until the 1960s that people again began to talk hopefully about the great promise of leisure. To combat this trend of thought, the media published many articles about the competition posed by Japan's workers, who were described as incredibly hardworking, disciplined and efficient. By the 1990s working hours, particularly in Anglophone industrial societies, began to rise again and there was no longer any official promotion of leisure.[1]

Now the official message is to work harder to produce more and then to go out and shop to consume more.

In tune with our increasingly humourless and stern paternalistic society, we are cyclically subjected to these media beat-ups about how we are all taking too many sickies, as though we were so many bad children, and the folk in our media, industry and government were wiser and worthier elders - even the 'young turks'. Today it is Australia Talks' turn to get out the whips. As usual we lesser mortals are subjected to the opinions of people deemed 'experts', although if we are quick we might be able to get a short comment in on air.

Will Australia Talks challenge the 'experts' with the real scandal, that Australians are now working more hours for less money, and the promise of a generation ago, that we were going to have much more leisure, has been withdrawn. It has been replaced with panels of authoritarian experts telling us why we must work harder. Will the panel even look at the unpaid work we are forced to do in order to fill out more and more forms or the difficulty many people experience in fulfilling social obligations which are now deemed much less important than activities which make money?

The promotion of the program entitled "Sick Leave" states:

The great Australian tradition of a sickie - or doonah day - is alive and well. Despite the downturn - or maybe because of it - sick leave is on the rise. Why are Australians taking so many sickies and how are we spending them?

The line-up of guests appears one-sided. They are:

• Paul Dundon, Managing Director, Direct Health Solutions
• Cherie Curtis, organisational psychologist, Onetest
• David Gregory, Director, Workplace Policy, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
• George McEncroe, Comedian

At least if George McEnroe is, indeed, the comedian that he or she is claimed to be, one can expect of him or her to effortlessly show up the sanctimonious hypocrisy of those who would judge workers for have taken sick days for reasons other than sickness.

I responded early in the Australia Talks guest book:

The real scandal, is why, when we were promised over a generation ago, vastly shorter working weeks and longer holidays as result of improved technology, the exact reverse has occurred for the vast majority of the Australian workforce, whether overtly through award conditions, through subtle blackmail or through economic necessity.

Those who have guided the destiny of our country in this period have brought about a situation where a lot more needs to be accomplished in our own time than what used to be the case. So, for many, time off work for reasons other than sickness has become a necessity.

As so many more are working in dreary low-paid occupations for which we are overqualified, days off work are often necessary to save our sanity.

In my opinion, those who periodically beat up the question of supposed abuse of sick leave are amongst the lowest of hypocrites in our society.

If you also want to help pre-empt a new witch hunt against workers deemed to have taken too many days off sick, please make your views known on the Australia Talks guest book, or phone them tonight after the 6PM news (5PM news in Queensland) on 1300 22 55 76, or add your comments below on the candobetter site.

[1] [1] John Trevor Haworth, Anthony James Veal, Work and Leisure,Routledge, UK, USA, Canada, 2004, pp.24-26

This article was written by James Sinnamon with Sheila Newman

In recent months the Queensland branch of Electrical Trades Union (ETU) has rightly conducted publicity campaigns against policies of the Queensland Labor Government's which have been harmful to its members' interests. These include the corporatisation and privatisation of its power generation assets and the consequent neglect of vital infrastructure. The ETU has also conducted an industrial campaign for wage justice for its members and has been critical of the Federal Rudd Labor Government's delays in the repeal of the Howard Government's anti-worker “Work Choices” legislation.

In the Brisbane Times article Electricity, rail workers to picket Labor conference, ETU spokesman Peter Simpson complained of “over 12 months of frustrated negotiations” in which “the excesses of Work Choices" were used against state government employees.”

At a protest outside the Queensland Labor Party's conference on the Gold Coast on Saturday 21 June  the Brisbane Times, in its story QLD Labor stung by protests, poll, reported:

(ETU assistant secretary Peter Simpson) said the unions had received a slap in the face after supporting Labor through the November federal election.

“How have we been repaid? We have been screwed over and it is a dead-set disgrace,” Mr Simpson said.

However, whilst Simpson is correct to point this out, it would have been clearly suicidal for the Union movement not to have backed Rudd against the viciously anti-democratic, anti-trade-union John Howard government. Whatever can be critically said of the record of the Rudd Labor Government, it was absolutely necessary for the ETU to have campaigned with the rest of the trade union movement to remove the Liberal Party from office.

Peter Simpson continued:

“This may be the last ALP conference that we attend, because I don't think we'll be affiliated with them for much longer.”

Whilst their treatment at he hands of Labor governments is indefensible and the ETU's outrage is entirely justified, their threat to disaffiliate from the Labor Party begs the question of exactly how the ETU can expect better treatment at the hands of any alternative government. Clearly, it would be ludicrous for ETU to hold out hope for better treatment at the hands of a Coalition government whether at the Queensland state or Federal level.

This conflict calls into question the whole purpose of the Labor Party.

The Labor Party was originally formed in the 1890's to be the political representative of the trade union movement. Its purpose was to form Government in order to enact legislation in favour of workers upon whose vote it would have depended upon to obtain a majority in Parliament.

The conduct of the Bligh Government, including in its dispute with the ETU, is only the latest of almost countless illustrations of how far the Labor Party has drifted from this original propose. Far from representing workers or, indeed, any other ordinary members of the community, the Bligh Government, instead, serves a small minority of corporations, land speculators and developers and acts, above all else, to transfer the wealth of the rest of the community, including electrical workers, into their pockets.

What unions such as the ETU need to consider is how to attempt to rectify this unsatisfactory situation.

One way or another, unions such as the ETU should assert their right to have representatives, who are prepared to act in the interests of its members, elected to Parliament. If the ETU sees no prospect of this being achieved by using its voice within the Labor Party, then it should seek to initiate the formation of such a party outside the Labor.

However to simply disaffiliate, but do nothing else, is likely to do little to dissuade the Bligh Government from pursuing its current course.

As much as Labor politicians enjoy the fruits of office, many act as if they consider losing office a lesser evil to actually representing the Labor Party's constituency and standing up to corporate interests. They seem to act as if confident that other at least equally lucrative careers will be offered to them by a grateful corporate sector should they lose government. So even the threat of damaging Labor's electoral prospects may do little to change the mind of Rudd and Bligh and, in fact, could backfire on the ETU if it were to result in the election of Coalition governments in the mould of the former Howard Government.

The ETU and other unions, such as the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), who are disaffected by the Bligh Government's policies should use what voices they have at the Labor Conference to loudly demand that the Bligh begin to act to serve its electoral constituency. If they did, it is hard to conceive how their voices would not resonate with the rank and file of the Labor Party and other trade unions, if not with other conference delegates. Whether or not they are able to persuade a majority of the conference, it could only help make more likely the re-establishment of an effective political voice for the trade union movement, whether it is to come from within or without the current Labor Party.

Labor Senator-elect Doug Cameron is the only Federal politician, so far, to have summoned up the courage to raise a critical voice against the Government's recently announced plans to raise the annual immigration level to 300,000. For this, he has earned the wrath of The Australian newspaper.

An editorial Closing the shop of 21 May 08 did not even attempt to dispute Cameron's warning that immigration will depress the wages of Australian workers, rather, it welcomed the prospect:

Mr Cameron's worries about migration most likely stem from fears that accepting unskilled workers from the Pacific islands and elsewhere will put downward pressure on wages for union members.

His comments reflect the fact that unskilled migration may be used to offset the inflationary impact of scrapping the Howard government's Work Choices legislation.

Those who have followed The Australian's pushing of the immigration barrow in recent days will know that, in the moral Universe inhabited by News Limited, the only right and proper end, towards which any responsible Labor government can work, is not towards controlling housing hyper-inflation, rising water and electricity charges, council rates and—all driven by population growth—but rather towards controlling 'wages inflation'. Because the Rudd government has been so enormously generous to unionists in having scrapped aspects of Howard's "Work Choices" legislation, they are now beholden to unquestioningly accept whatever other means the Rudd government decides to use in its place to erode their standard of living, including the raising of immigration levels.

The editorial raises the familiar spectres of xenophobia and the White Australia policy in order to place itself indisputably on the high moral ground:

… the immigration debate has already pricked the raw nerves of xenophobia and self interest that lie just below the surface of many within the labour movement. …

It is a rerun of the views that underpinned the ALP's support for the discredited White Australia policy, which grew out of a deal between labour and capital to protect Australian jobs from Chinese immigration.

Of course The Australian's editorial writers, who clamoured to have this country join the war to seize Iraq's oil assets, is, in contrast to ‘self interested’ Australian workers, fearful of their living standards being destroyed by the further crowding of this country, are acting only out of pure altruism and love for for their fellow human beings.

Mr Cameron's comments are held to be “proof that the extreme Left and extreme Right arms of politics join hands around the back.”

It is not known whether Doug Cameron, himself, would accept The Australian's labelling of him as ‘extreme Left’. In any case, this ignores the fact that most of the Australian far left are in agreement with The Australian's support for high immigration. For decades, anyone on the on the Australian far left who would have dared question immigration in the way that Doug Cameron is now doing would have found themselves very quickly ostracised. Members of the wider community opposed to population growth also encounter irrational opposition. #harrassment" id="harrassment">For instance, the Victorian branch of Sustainable Population Australia encountered a demonstration outside Prosper Australia and members were publicly defamed and threatened with violence by members of the Socialist Alliance and others in 2004 until they ceased to associate there.

It is to be hoped that Doug Cameron will stand up to the Murdoch newsmedia and resist the pressure to become corralled with all of his fellow Labor Parliamentarians into supporting Chris Evans' high immigration program.

See also Doug Cameron: guest workers threaten Australian wages and conditions of 20 May 08, Is it reactionary to oppose Immigration? of 16 Dec 07 (also on Web Diary)

Note: This article was also published on webdiary on 19 December 2007. It had attracted 69 comments by 24 December 2007.

Andy Kerr, former president of Alternatives to Growth Oregon, posed these questions, "To those who support generous immigration, I ask you this: Why are you are on the same side as Microsoft and the other huge computer corporations and of Archer Daniel Midland and the rest of the agribusiness lobby? How can you support a policy that helps ensure that our existing poor will never be adequately valued for their labor."

Kerr's questions could well be asked of so many left-wing critics whose first reflexive response to closed border arguments are that they are "right-wing", "reactionary", "racist" or "xenophobic", despite the fact that historically the first beneficiaries of mass immigration to North America, and several other localities, have been cheap labour employers. Naomi Klein, in "The Shock Doctrine" blemishes her excellent analysis with this commonplace attitude.

If Klein wanted to probe the shock therapy applied by big capital by using immigration as a battering ram to break down the working class, she need only have looked to the history of British Columbia, where her brother Seth labours for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In the nineteenth century Chinese labour contractors imported labour to the point that perhaps one-third of the entire workforce had become Chinese. Working for half the wages, paying no taxes, they were prepared to ignore safety regulations, so the Dunsmuir Coal Company used them to break a pivotal miners' strike in 1883.The Miners Union then presented a resolution to government to restrict Chinese labourers from working underground, and another one stating that these labourers were a menace to underground safety, had lowered wages, deterred other Canadians from seeking employment in B.C., offered unfair competition and were provocative to public peace.

In 1907 five Tokyo immigration companies filled an order to bring 6,000 Japanese labourers to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) when the province was experiencing a recession. B.C. workers were against the ropes, so the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council met to form an "Asiatic Exclusion League". Two days later a Japanese ship arrived with 1177 labourers. The chemistry was right for the infamous Vancouver anti-Asian riot of September 7, 1907, an incident which has been retroactively depicted as a simple and despicable act of racism. In fact it was a reaction to B.C. businesses which were then using Japanese cheap surplus labourers instead of their Chinese counterparts. It should be known that Native Indians also seethed with resentment at the Japanese presence.

Chinese immigrant labour had finally been slapped by a "head tax" by the federal government in response to decades of lobbying by the B.C. to level the playing field with Canadian labourers. But they wouldn't they wouldn't follow suit with a similar tax on Japanese labour for fear of jeopardizing trade arrangements with Japan. Hence the end run by employers and the pogrom by B. C. workers. To demonstrate labour's outrage at the collusion between now Lieutenant-Governor Dunsmuir and the C.P.R.to orchestrate the Japanese influx, a Socialist legislator moved a motion in the B.C. House that Dunsmuir be impeached.

It should also be noted ---and this is always omitted by revisionists-the Oriental Exclusion Act was actually a misnomer. It was in reality, the Oriental Labourers Exclusion Act. Chinese merchants and their families continued to enjoy access to Canada. The purpose of the omission is obvious, to foster guilt and shame so that an agenda of "justice" an restitution can be pursued by Canada's immigration industry so that corporate Canada can have its labour requirements satisfied in the same way that robber baron Robert Dunsmuir's was. Just 30 miles from where he used Chinese labour to break the miners strike of 1883, the corporation I was working for used Chinese labour to try and break my strike a century later. As waves of Chinese, fresh from Hong Kong, passed through my picket line, escorted by police, it occurred to me that I was having a "multicultural" experience. I was so enriched. Like the miners were in 1883.

The same misrepresentation and spin was made of the "Komagata Maru" incident where East Indians were denied entry at the Port of Vancouver. Does this mean that racist antagonisms did not alloy with legitimate economic grievances? It would stretch credulity to argue that case, particularly in light of the outrageous internment of Japanese-Canadians in 1942, the fact that Chinese-Canadians were denied the vote until 1948, or the right to own property in the exclusive British Properties among other indignities. But should illegitimate motives discredit and invalidate the very cogent arguments of working people to defend their livelihood?

These arguments have been made by socialists and trade unionists not only in Canada but in America a century ago by Jack London, Socialist Party leader Victor Gerber, and the legendary Samuel Gompers. They were also made by the heroic Cesar Chavez who was committed to restricting immigration. Chavez even picketed the border and reported illegal aliens who served as strike-breakers against United Farm Workers.

Today leading labour economists have carried on the fight. Dr. George Borgias of Harvard University is most notably among them. It is his contention that native-born American workers lose $152 billion annually because of job displacement and wage depression caused by immigration. And yet, how does the labour movement respond? This is what the Carrying Capacity Network asks:

"The AFL-CIO, the biggest labor union in the country, is AGAIN urging Congress to give amnesty to as many as 13 million illegal immigrants. Result: depressed wages and lost jobs for Americans while rewarding lawbreakers with the right to work and potential citizenship. Isn't the AFL-CIO sanctioning lawbreaking by pushing for an amnesty?"

Where does the Canadian labour movement stand? You can guess. In a letter dated May 4/06 to Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day and Minister of Immigration and Citizenship Monte Solberg, Secretary Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) Hassan Yussuf complained about the "zealotry" of the Canadian Border Services Agency. "(They) aggressively deported a number of undocumented residents, particularly those from the Portugese community as well as targeting members of the Asian, Chinese, Caribbean and Latin/Central-American communites. The manner in which those deportations were handled exposed a government acting with excessive zeal, hardness, and in some cases, an inexcusable lack of humanity.

I suppose the more "humane" course of action for the CLC would be just to let everybody who wants to come to Canada stay. Open borders. One world. John Lennon's dream. Just imagine. But that's globalism isn't it? Who will speak for the Canadian workers whose wages and working conditions are being hammered by this vision of brotherhood? Why, the CLC of course. Like its political arm, the NDP, it claims to represent them. Yussuf's letter concludes: "The CLC representing more than 3 million workers, joins with those calling for a moratorium on all CBSA deportation/detention activities."

How about a moratorium on immigration instead? That would do more for those 3 million workers. And more than a swift process, in the CLC's words, to "regularlize undocumented workers.whose skills are in need and who have been contributing to the economy." You have to love the CLC's politically-correct language. Calling an illegal immigrant an "undocumented resident" is like calling a drug-pusher an "unlicensed pharmacist". How does the labour movement like it when people call scabs "replacement workers"? And why doesn't the CLC just call "regularize" what it is---amnesty for law-breakers, or, as Geoffrey Blainey once put it, "an incentive for others to arrive, hoping to benefit from further amnesty."

Contemporary socialist and trade union affinity toward international solidarity even at the expense of national well-being can be traced to a Marxist legacy that sees class, not nationality, as the primary divide. Even social democracy taps into this tradition which combines as one strand in a muddled xenophilia with Christian and environmental thought. The latter mutation is expressed quintessentially in the Canadian Green Party line that since global warming is a global problem requiring global cooperation, to obtain this we must not send out an unfriendly message of "fear" by closing our borders, but on the contrary drop them instead. Presumably a radically downward adjustment in consumption habits and greener technology will compensate for all the extra millions who would swarm in. Instead of "workers of the world unite", the Greens offer us a new rallying cry: "more and more people, consuming less and less".

What is interesting is that American icon, Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate for President, does not share this Canadian love affair with the world. He had this to say in 2000: "We cannot have open borders. That's a totally absurd proposition. It would depress wages here enormously, and tens of millions of people from all levels, including scientists and workers, would be pouring into this country."

Australian political scientist Frank Salter had this to say about the socialist attitude to nationalism. "The Left, as it has evolved over the course of the previous century, looks down on the ordinary people with their inarticulate parochialisms as if the were members of another species. since they care nothing for the preservation of national communities. Ethnies are considered irrelevant to the welfare of people in general. It would be understandable to Martians to be so detached from particular loyalties. But it is disturbing to humans doing so, especially humans who identify with the Left."

Such is the European Left's identification with the Other at the cost of the resident national that, in the name of anti-racism, it was possible for left-wing novelist Umberto Eco to declare his hope that Europe would be swamped by Africans and third world emigrants just so to "demoralize" racists. And such is the identification of the AFL-CIO with 13 million illegal immigrants as potential recruits that it supports amnesty and essentially a corporate welfare program that reduces wages for the lowest of American workers. A scheme which advocates call "liberalism" but American workers call an invasion. The CLC (Edgar Bergen) and its social-democratic parliamentary arm, the NDP (Charlie McCarthy), sing the same tune. Crocodile tears are shed for "undocumented" workers who allegedly make great contributions to the economy, according to their hire-a-left-wing-think-tank. But Statistics Canada's conclusions about the effect of immigration on the Canadian work force echo those of Dr. Borgias for American workers. Except the May 2007 Statscan report showed that in Canada, it was the educated workers who were really taking a hit. Between 1980-2000 their wages dropped 7%. And in Britain, careful analysis revealed that the Trade Union Congress was wrong in its contention that amnesty would net the Treasury one billion pounds annually. Rather it would cost taxpayers 1.8 billion pounds a year.

But alas, socialist thought is not monolithic. The Leninists were wrong. For the working class, national identity was as important as class identity, or as Orwell put it, "in all countries, the poor are more national than the rich." If they can't find a voice on the Left, in desperation they will look to the Populist right, as they did recently in Switzerland. But just when it looked like the field was left entirely to globalists, maverick social-democratic and socialist leaders in the tradition of Berger, London, or Canada's J. S. Woodsworth are staking a claim for national, as opposed to international, solidarity. They are doing so after their constituents have been battered by one of the greatest migratory waves in history, that saw the United States for example import the equivalent of three New Jerseys in the 1990s alone, or 25 million people. One would have thought that Naomi Klein, a Canadian, would have known that the Father of Canadian democratic socialism, the Saint of Canadian politics, the Rev. J. S. Woodsworth steadfastly opposed immigration throughout his leadership in the 1920s and 30s. Woodsworth understood that his constituency was in Canada, not overseas. His motto was no doubt that of Vancouver Rev. Edwin Scott: "We are not universal nations yet. Universal nationality and universal brotherhood are two different things."

The Democratic Socialist Senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has begun to make some noise about the disaster that is the illegal immigration invasion in the United States. His voting record in reducing chain migration, fighting amnesty and unnecessary visas rates B-, B-, and A+ respectively from Americans for Better Immigration. "If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don't know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are now." To Sanders the American working, middle class is caught in a squeeze. "On the one hand, you have large multi-nationals trying to shut down plants in America, move to China and on the other hand you have the service industry bringing in lower wage workers from abroad. The result is the same-the middle class gets shrunk and wages go down." Five million people have left the middle class during Bush administration, Sanders observes.

Other social-democratic leaders have spoken out against open borders. Former Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt now admits that immigration under his government was excessive and damaging to Germany. In a book published in 1982 he confessed that "with idealistic intentions, born out of our experiences with the Third Reich, we brought in far too many foreigners." Dutch Socialist leader Jan Marijnissen is strongly opposed to the practice of importing East European workers to undermine the position of Dutch workers. East Europeans are hired as "independent contractors" to circumvent labour law. Marijnissen wrote "It is unacceptable that employers pay foreign workers 3 euros per hour and have them live in chicken coops as they were in competition in the nineteenth century of Dickens. The unfair competition and displacement of Dutch workers and small business is intolerable. Therefore we shouldn't open the borders further, but set limits instead."

Setting limits. Acknowledging limits. That is the great divide. In the past those limits have been perceived to be economic by those with the sense to perceive them. Now, some on the left are beginning to realize that the more unforgiving and immutable limits are set by nature. Former Labor Premier of NSW , Bob Carr, and his fellow Laborite retired veteran MP Barry Cohen joined environmental leaders Tim Flannery and Ian Lowe in exposing the myth of Australia as a big empty land begging to be filled up with people. Said Carr, "our rivers, our soils, our vegetation, won't allow that to happen enormous cost to us and those who follow us." Carr and Cohen call for severe immigration cut-backs and a population policy put in place.

In Klein's Canada, meanwhile, the phrase "carrying capacity" is as unknown in the socialist lexicon as it is the corporate. Biologists and ecologists might as well be speaking ancient Aramaic to leftists to make them understand that their human rights agenda cannot be built on an environment that will not sustain it. Canada cannot become the soup kitchen to tens of millions of refugees, nor can vital biodiversity services coexist with a population of 50 million Canadians. In economic jargon, its called "diseconomies of scale". In the language of real science, its called a "limiting factor".

This essay began with two questions from Andy Kerr. It will end with six or seven of mine.

Why? Why has opposition to a policy of mass immigration, a policy that drives down the wages of marginal workers, middle-income workers and professional workers been characterized and vilified as "right-wing" and "reactionary". Why has earlier socialist and trade union understanding of the negative consequences of this policy been overtaken by "love thy neighbour" zeitgeist of the post-war era? Why is the "Left" on the same side as the "Right"? The same side as Microsoft, ADM, the real estate developers and the cheap labour employers?

It is high time to challenge this labeling and to challenge those who use it to prevent thoughtful discussion. The question that needs to be posed today is not the conventional one, is it Left or is it Right? But rather, do we accept that there are Limits, or do we continue to persist in the fantasy that this country, and others, is a massive treasure trove of boundless resources waiting to be unlocked by an endless number of people who can exploit them without ecological consequences?

History shows, sadly, that the latter delusion is shared equally among the devotees of both Adam Smith and the Communist Manifesto and its derivatives.

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, B.C.
Canada
December 16, 2007.

"The Latham Diaries" published in 2005 reveal how figures within the Labor Party and the trade union movement undermined the election prospects of Federal Labor Party in recent years and have prolonged the misrule of the Howard Government. State Labor Premiers, the Forestry division of the Construction Forestry and Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), in league with the woodchippers who are destroying Tasmania's old-growth forests, and even members of the Federal Labor caucus acted as if they found the prospect of Howard ruling after 2004 elections preferable to the prospect of a Latham-led government.

Now in 2007, many who had admired and supported Latham in the past will be dismayed to have read "Latham: Beware the Polls and The Swinging Voter" the second of two articles for the Australian Financial Review published on Saturday 17 November. Just as he had shown that people within the Labor Party had acted to undermine Federal Labor when he was its leader in 2004, Latham now appears, himself, to be acting to undermine Federal Labor's chances in 2007.

Furthermore, if as he says in his article, that the outcome of the Federal election is still undecided, then the anti-Labor views propagated in that article may yet make the necessary difference that would deliver Howard a fifth term in office.

The article contains a surprisingly one-sided blinkered pronouncements against the union movement's "Rights to Work" campaign against the Howard Government's "Work Choices" legislation, which Latham implies is the one factor which would prematurely end the rule of a Government which is capably managing the national economy. As Latham put it:

Throughout this year most commentators have been surprised by the Howard Government's poor showing in the polls. Conventional wisdom says a government presiding over a strong economy, with no reputation for corruption (my emphasis) should be safely re-elected.

I would have thought that many others would perhaps have expressed even greater surprise that a Government such as Howard's could enjoy even that much support, given its record.

Evidently, the rorting of the regional partnerships grant scheme against Latham's own bid to become Prime Minister in 2004, the AWB bribery scandal in which $296 million (all dollar figures given are in AU$ unless otherwise stated) was paid to the regime of Saddam Hussein and the spending of an unprecedented $1 billion on saturation-level Government self-promotional advertising since the 2004 elections, the abuse of the Government's absolute Senate majority do not technically amount to 'corruption' so should not concern Australian electors.

If not for the trade union movement's campaign against "Work Choices" which Latham labels a 'scare campaign', the Howard Government in which Latham finds surprisingly little fault would easily win on 24 November:

The breakthrough has been the labour movement's capacity to run a long-term scare campaign on an issue affecting the hip pocket nerve - Work Choices. This has been the most expensive and sustained television advertising campaign in Australian political history. Since 2005 the trade unions have raised large amounts of money, selling off assets and raiding their slush funds, in one last push to get rid of the coalition and return to the patronage of a Labor government, and the campaign has worked, creating fear and misunderstanding (my emphasis) in the community about the industrial relations laws and hostility to the Howard Government

It's notable the language Latham uses. He now apparently disputes the right of unions to organise effectively and to engage in politics for the benefit of their memberships. Union funds have become 'slush funds'. The union movement's aspiration to bring about the election of a government more sympathetic to its wellbeing than the current government is denigrated as seeking 'patronage' as if somehow the relationship between the Howard Government and the big business interests that it serves is not 'patronage'. This paragraph sadly demonstrates how the line between legitimately criticising the anti-democratic practices of some trade unions as he did in "The Latham Diaries" and simply being opposed to unions outright is an easy one to cross.

If it is, in fact, true that unions have been forced, by the introduction of "Work Choices" legislation for which this government had no mandate and the subsequent lavish spending of taxpayers' funds on blatantly misleading partisan political advertising, to sell of their own assets in order to be able to counter the government misinformation, then a massive injustice has been perpetrated against many unions and their memberships, and they should be entitled to seek reparations from the Liberal Party, but this obvious point appears to have been lost on Mark Latham.

Latham continues:

For two years, the union ads have stirred emotions and hip pocket nerves, with powerful images of single mothers forced to work at weekends, young people coerced into signing contracts and middle-aged couples sacked for no reason after years of loyal service.

Here, Latham seems to be implying, without actually stating it explicitly, that the claims of the "Rights at Work" campaign are either false or a beat-up. He makes no acknowledgment of the fact that the claims have been borne out by numerous independent academic studies, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as copious anecdotal evidence. He does not acknowledge that in "John Winston Howard: The Biography" by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen it has been revealed that Howard knew perfectly well, contrary to undertakings he made and contrary to the claims of the initial saturation level $55 million "Work Choices" advertising campaign, that workers would be worse off as a result of his industrial relations legislation.

Having thus established that "Work Choices" as it now stands is of no great concern to Australian workers, Latham goes on to dismiss any suggestion that a re-elected Howard Government might take "Work Choices" further:

During the campaign, Labor's advertisement have added a new dimension of fear, that a re-elected Howard/Costello government would take Work Choices further.

Latham claims:

No-one on the Labor side honestly believes that the coalition would take Work Choices further, just as in 2004, no-one in the coalition believed that would keep interests rates down.

How Labor Party insiders can know this and how Latham can know that they know this is not explained.

The Australian public were never told by John Howard of "Work Choices" during the 2004 election campaign. Peter Costello, for his part, has said that the removal of protection against unfair dismissal should be extended to all employees and not just restricted to those working for companies employing less than 100 employees. Finance Minister Nick Minchin told a meeting to the HR Nicholls Society on 8 March 2006, "we do need to seek a mandate from the Australian people at the next election for another wave of industrial relations reform". Industrial Relations Minister Joe Hockey told ABC Radio's AM program on 18 October that the role of unions in Australian society is "essentially over"

As some employers are already loudly complaining of the complexity of the "fairness test" amendments to the "Work Choices" laws. Whatever might be said before the election, we can expect that once Howard is returned to office the campaign to remove or else water down the "fairness test" will be intensified.

For Latham to expect Australian workers to trust a re-elected Howard Government not to further reduce the rights of workers given all this and given its past record of deceit, lies, 'core' and 'non-core' promises and contrived excuses to dishonour pledges such as the "Beazley black hole", on the basis of his supposed insider information, not from the Government, but from the Labor Party is an extreme test of the credulity of the electorate.

Latham's article contain within it some pertinent observations about the health of Australian democracy. He makes a good case for making voting voluntary as far too much effort seems to be expended by both a major parties in order to win the support of apathetic people, whilst those who really care have relatively little impact. If voting were not compulsory this could change.

However, Mark Latham appears to have completely missed a far more basic question in regard to the operation of democracy.

We have in power a Government which has taken the practice of government to levels which would have previously been unimaginable. This includes, notwithstanding Latham's own attempt to belittle its impact, the introduction of the "Work Choices"legislation which had not even been put to the Australian public in the previous election which has changed the very fabric of our society. Had Howard been forthright about his plans in 2004, he would not be Prime Minister today. Having announced in 2005 his intention to introduce legislation, which he knew perfectly well would harm at least hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians Howard used taxpayers' money to indoctrinate the public into acceptance of this legislation. The initial campaign had a massive budget of $55-million and inflicted a an unprecedented degree of saturation level advertising on the public. The claims made in the campaign that various workers' entitlements were "protected by law" were later shown to have been false, when the Government subsequently, under the threat of losing office made the "fairness test" amendments to the legislation. A further saturation-level advertising blitz, ostensibly to 'inform' Australian workers of rights supposedly safeguarded by the "fairness test" that they all had enjoyed back in October 2004 and which most had assumed were not at risk when Howard was re-elected, was then launched. Even at that the second advertising campaign still misled, because, amongst other things it neglected to point out that if a worker does not have protection against unfair dismissal, then no other right is worth anything anyway. If a worker does not agree that a proposed AWA is fair what is to stop his/her employer from sacking him/her one month down the track for any concocted reason, anyway?

The all up cost of the Work Choices propaganda stands at over $120 million of taxpayers' dollars. Total taxpayer dollars spent since Howard was re-elected in 2004 stands at $1 billion.

Whilst being prepared to spend copious amount of taxpayer dollars in order to 'inform' the public about "Work Choices" John Howard has refused to publicly debate the legislation, firstly with Beazley and then with Rudd. Only finally, during the course of the election campaign in the limited debate of 21 October did Howard openly confront Rudd and lost the debate. Had he agreed to when he first announced the laws, their harmful effects would have been far too obvious for anyone to deny and the unions would have been spared the necessity for much of the expense entailed in their rights in order to win the public.

Somehow, none of this has any bearing on the health of Australian democracy in Latham's eyes. The article concludes:

Next Saturday, people will be contemplating a change of government when what Australia when when what Australia needs is a change to its democracy

What Latham fails to point out is that if the Australian people fail on 24 November to take advantage of the opportunity before them to throw from office the worst Government by far that this country has had since federation, then a very dangerous precedent will have been set.

If the amount of time energy and money spent by opposition parties, trade unions and grass roots political movements cannot this time bring about the defeat of such a government, then when can they ever hope to succeed?

If Howard gets back in, there will be almost no limit to how much harm it will be capable of inflicting upon the public interest from now on, and their will be almost no limit as to how much an incumbent government can abuse its position of incumbency in order or cling to power.

In covering up this basic reality, Latham is, himself, undermining the very democracy he claims he wants to see rejuvenated.

#speech" id="speech">Liberal Party Workplace Relations

Senator FAULKNER (New South Wales) (1.38 pm)-There is a long and disturbing story in Australian public life, a tale with its origins in a political and economic framework that ignores longstanding Australian values of fairness and opportunity. It is a tale that has unfolded more rapidly since the 2004 election, and the most recent chapter in this story is now before us.

The 2004 federal election saw the Prime Minister's party gain control of this chamber. That was the same election when the Prime Minister promised Australian families that he would keep interest rates at record lows but made no mention of an extreme agenda of stripping away the take-home pay and conditions of hardworking Australians. But, once Mr Howard had control of the parliament after the 2004 election, he used that control to force through the unfair industrial relations laws that later became known as Work Choices. With those laws, the Howard government also introduced two extraordinary programs of promotion: the promotion of these unfair laws and the promotion of the Howard government's re-election hopes.

The first Work Choices advertising program, the one that ran at the time of the introduction of the Work Choices laws, was a monolithic $55 million promotion exercise. It was impossible to turn on a television without seeing the Work Choices ads, and they were brought to the TV screen by the Liberal Party's own ad man, Ted Horton. But their spending program did not end there. In early January 2006, employer organisations were slamming the advertising campaign. The then Chief Executive of Australian Business Ltd, Mr Mark Bethwaite, said:

TV advertisements have not worked ... What we need is practical, solution focused materials which allow employersto apply Work Choices to their workplace.

Within days, in late January 2006, the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations announced:

The WorkChoices Employer Advisor Programme (EAP) is only one element of a wider information and education campaign that will ensure all workers, their families and employers are aware of the changes and receive information about how WorkChoices may affect them.

He went on to say:

The aim of the EAP is to ensure that there are advisors around Australia, including rural and regional areas, able to educate and assist employers to implement the reforms on an industry basis.

The two initial stages of the Employer Advisor Program were provided with funding of more than $20 million throughout the 2006 calendar year. A subsequent fund of $20 million has been provided for a further round of the EAP in the 2007 calendar year.

Then we came to another chapter in the Howard government's shameless self-promotion rort. That chapter started in April, when the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications approved the Open Mind Research Group to undertake workplace relations research. These reports were received in late April and have formed the strategy of the government's repositioning in industrial relations over the past four months. Thanks to leaked research detailed in the Australian, we know this research drove the dropping of the title 'Work Choices' from the government's lexicon, the renaming of its IR institutions, the establishment of the so-called 'fairness test' and the use of an 'appropriate figurehead' of the Workplace Authority in advertising.

It also lead to a new blitz of advertising - advertising that started before the full drafting instructions for the legislation had been sent to Parliamentary Counsel. And the cost for this round of advertising is $23 million, and still counting. At that time, a detailed research report by Crosby Textor was leaked to the media. In that research report, the Liberal Party's campaign directors noted:

The arrival of Kevin Rudd into the Labor leadership has also given voters renewed confidence ...to express their reservations about WorkChoices; and especially in the absence of counter claims or information to the anti-IR messages being disseminated by the unions.

But in June, when the Liberal apparatchiks down at Crosby Textor were preparing this report, they were also preparing a second research report for the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry pro-Work Choices campaign. In their research report for the business campaign, they proposed advertising that would be 'a counterpoint to the one-sided ads of the unions' as well as being 'immediate countering of Labor's and the unions' scare campaign'. Sounds familiar? Well, just yesterday, The Age newspaper detailed the fact that VECCI president Richard Holyman wrote to his board supporting the business campaign. The article read:

Holyman tried to convince fellow board members to support the advertisements. He linked the call for a donation to the fact that the Government had given grants to VECCI under the Employer Assistance Program to run Work Choices seminars.

[Holyman wrote] "It is apparent that the key contributors are not wanting a blatant political campaign, but believe that so much effort went into supporting the Work Choices package, we have to help defend it now ... we have had in excess of $600K in grants to help implement Work Choices."

This brings us to the most recent chapter in this story. This chapter concerns the advertising being undertaken by the self-styled Business Coalition for Workplace Reform. This is the group of employer organisations, led by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, supporting a campaign of television advertising. It is important to acknowledge that only one part of the business community supports this campaign. In fact, many employers and employer organisations do not support this campaign. Many employers and employer organisations present their views in a more mature and appropriate manner. But the Business Coalition for Workplace Reform have a different agenda. They are not running advertisements advocating a specific policy position or providing important information. They are political ads. They use the partisan and pre-election messages, imageries and strategies of the Liberal Party. These organisations have received millions of dollars to promote Work Choices, and now the government calls on them to cough up money for advertising.

We now have media reports of a link between the Employer Advisor Program and the business advertising campaign. We have the role of Crosby Textor - the firm of the Liberal Party and Mr Howard's personal pollster, Mark Textor, and former Liberal Party Federal Director Lynton Crosby. They are the election strategists for the Liberal-National coalition and the advertising campaign strategists for the business coalition, and they advocate the same communication and electoral strategy for both of their clients. This is on top of a $120 million - that is $120 million, and counting - Work Choices campaign by the government, spending the tax dollars of hard-working Australian families.

This is a deeply disturbing development. It is disturbing that the BCA and ACCI have chosen to behave in this way. It is disturbing to suspect that the membership of the BCA and ACCI does not have the full story of what is being done in the name of these organisations. It is disturbing that all three campaigns - the campaigns of the government, of the Liberal Party and of the business coalition - look like they are actually just one campaign. And it is deeply disturbing that this political, partisan advertising campaign is designed to promote and argue for laws that hurt working Australians and their families.

This is just one more example of the Howard government's shameless exploitation of taxpayer funds and resources in a desperate attempt to cling on to office; one more example of shameless rorting by the Howard government; one more aspect of a taxpayer-funded reelection advertising splurge that, between the last election and the upcoming election, will come to between $800 million and $1 billion on advertising alone. Unsurprisingly, Mr Howard will not reveal just how much he will reach into the wallets and pockets and purses of taxpayers - of ordinary working Australians - to fund his re-election epic campaign. That is because after 11 years in office, I think Mr Howard actually believes that taxpayers' money is his own. It has been 11 long years of arrogance and incompetence from the Howard government, and I say again that it is time - it is long past time - that it is brought to an end.