(1991) Does Labour Have A Future?
Last week’s ACTU Congress was a public relations disaster. The media reporting of the congress concentrated on the decline in the representation of workers by the union movement.
Last week’s ACTU Congress was a public relations disaster. The media reporting of the congress concentrated on the decline in the representation of workers by the union movement.
In order to conceptualise what might exist beyond the process of restructuring, one must firstly identify what exactly is being restructured.
Prior to the major reforms undertaken in the 1980s under Labor, the accumulation of decades of regulation of the financial and import/export product markets effectively insulated Australian markets from external influences.
I begin by thanking the State Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the opportunity to present a union point of view to this seminar. There is a need for seminars such as this one to ensure that all users of the NSW industrial relations systems are aware of the options created by the new Industrial Arbitration (Enterprise Agreements) Amendment Act, 1990.
The Accord was originally negotiated between the then Federal opposition and the ACTU in March 1983 and it formed the basis for economic reform in Australia, once the Hawke Labor government was elected. For the first time in Australia’s history, traditional European concepts such as “corporatism” and “tripartitism” became central to the “economic jargon” of the period.
Interview by Diane Hague with Michael Easson, Secretary, NSW Labor Council on October 31, 1991 about the NSW Industrial Relations Bill, published in Education: journal of the N.S.W. Public School Teachers Federation, Vol. 72, No. 18, November 11, 1991, pp. 10-11.
The notion of ‘industry policy’ conjures various ideas, prejudices and doctrines. The debate is charged with rhetoric, polarised and constrained by key-words. We inhabit a world of picking winners and level playing fields.
The 1990 National ALP Conference rhetoric lived up to expectations. However, the mood of most delegates seemed to this participant to be fairly relaxed. Even though some of the words were fiery, the hearts of most delegates were not alight with passion.
On a Saturday morning in July 1984, shortly before the elections in New Zealand, I held a morning tea at my office for two visiting US Congressmen, Stephen Solarz and Joel Pritchard.
It was a good thing that Parliament was recalled last week as Australia’s response to the Gulf war needed to be discussed, debated and adopted. It is true that some divisions have opened on the government side. We have heard much about some Labor MPs defying the ALP Caucus’s endorsement of the Gulf resolution and abstaining on the vote. This embarrassed the government, but not much.