Milne: The Unholy Alliance

Hansard:

COMMITTEES

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee

Reference

11 October 2005

Speech

Senator MILNE (Tasmania) (5.16 p.m.) — I am glad that Senator Heffernan just spoke about Martin Ferguson, a member of the other place. Recently the former leader of the Labor Party, Mark Latham, had this to say:

Inside the ALP, the Forestry union is a leading player, integral to Martin Ferguson’s powerbase and his many factional deals with the Right-wing unions. This web of influence means that the timber companies exercise significant power over many leading ALP figures. When it comes to Gunns, they wouldn’t say Boo to a goose. No policy issue or set of relationships better demonstrates the ethical decline and political corruption of the Australian Labor movement than Tasmanian forestry.

I repeat that last sentence:

No policy issue or set of relationships better demonstrates the ethical decline and political corruption of the Australian Labor movement than Tasmanian forestry.

That is the point of this motion today. We have endlessly talked about what is going on in Tasmanian forestry and we will continue to do so.

During the last period of government, we called for a royal commission into the Tasmanian forestry industry and, in particular, into the set of relationships. That is what has been missing in the debate so far from both Senator Heffernan and Senator O’Brien. They act as if the forestry division of the CFMEU may as well be part of the Tory government, the Labor government of Tasmania or indeed on the board of Gunns, because they all share exactly the same point of view. As former ALP leader Mark Latham said:

It’s a classic case of corporatism, with these personal relationships and side deals — an unholy alliance of labour and capital, Labor and Liberal — driving policy making in Tasmania.

And it is absolutely true. If you have a look at the history of Labor in Tasmania, its relationship with Gunns and its relationship with the coalition, you find the same thing over and over: they put the interests of the forest industry and the apparatchiks in the forest industry ahead of the public interest and ahead of the interest of workers.

The classic case of that was in 1992 when the former Labor Premier, the late Jim Bacon, went with Mark Addis from the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania and Ian Dickinson to see Robin Gray— the Liberal Leader of the Opposition, now on the board of Gunns — and said to him: ‘Can you protect the minority Labor government from the Greens long enough for us to get resource security through the parliament? And then you can go to an election.’ That is what they did, knowing full well that at that election Labor would lose and the Liberals would win a majority. There you have a former trade union boss going to the Leader of the Opposition, Robin Gray, saying: ‘Protect us from the Greens’ no confidence motions long enough to get this through, and then go to an election and let the Liberals win’ — and they happily did it. That is the kind of relationships we are talking about here.

Yet, when they are asked to identify the details of the training package, we find there are no details

Of course, Robin Gray went from being Leader of the Opposition in the Tasmania parliament to being on the board of Gunns. They move around in Tasmania quite happily. It is musical chairs. The music stops and they leave the government and go onto the board of Gunns or they go out of the Forest Industries Association straight into the chair of the Secretary of the Tasmanian Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources — and they bring their secretary with them straight into the Premier’s office or the minister’s office as an adviser and then move that person around. So you only have to pick up the phone once. There are no degrees of separation in Tasmania — pick up the phone once and you get them. That is why this lame excuse from Senator O’Brien saying: ‘Oh, it wasn’t the CFMEU forestry division talking to Mr Howard; it was NAFI.’ NAFI, the CFMEU forestry division, Timber Communities Australia, Forestry Tasmania and Paul Lennon are all exactly the same. Don’t tell me they do not pick up the phone to talk to one another. Of course they do. That is the whole point. This is what is so wrong about this set of relationships in Tasmania, and that is why this deal needs to be investigated. We have just heard a story of about $4 million being used for a training package.

Yet, when they are asked to identify the details of the training package, we find there are no details — and I quote: ‘We have spoken to them and are waiting for them to submit an industry plan.’ There was no proposition put as an industry plan; it was just a straight-up $4 million that these people managed to achieve — and, in return, they delivered a standing ovation to the Prime Minister, John Howard, which significantly affected the outcome of the election. As the industrial relations laws come down — landing right on top of them — I hope every single worker, every single CFMEU member, remembers that they have to thank for those laws the fabulous forestry division of the CFMEU, where Michael O’Connor, Scott McLean and his associates preferred $4 million and John Howard and his package to the $800 million that was offered by the Labor Party to actually address the problem of Tasmanian forestry.

As the unions lobby on the industrial relations laws, they should deal with the scabs in their own movement. Once upon a time, the labour unions recognised and dealt with people who behaved as scabs. There is no other word to describe what happened with the forestry division of the CFMEU once again, just as back in 1992 they preferred to put in a Liberal majority government in Tasmania rather than maintain a Labor minority government in order to get their outcomes — to get resource security legislation, to deliver to the companies control of public forests.

That is what this is about. The community deserves to know what went on, because the industrial relations laws that every worker in this country has to put up with are going to be delivered by a majority in both houses that was delivered to them by these union officials, by geeing up the crowd in Launceston, by telling the workers that this package would guarantee their jobs. What nonsense! They could not guarantee their jobs. They knew as well as I did that the market for old-growth woodchips had collapsed or was collapsing. It would have collapsed by the end of the nineties; the fact that it has lingered on until now is just a function of these relationships. Market forces would have seen them go down the tube years ago if not for the millions of dollars over time that have subsidised ongoing operations.

The fact is that old-growth woodchips have been displaced by plantation woodchips into the Japanese market because these plantations have come on stream from South America, from Vietnam, from Indonesia, from China et cetera. That is why we are having a pulp mill saga in Tasmania — because Gunns want to export plantation woodchips onto the export market and use old-growth woodchips in the pulp mills. This is a deception that it is not out there. They are trying to suggest that they are interested in downstreaming. They are actually looking for substitution, to use up the old-growth woodchips in the pulp mill so they can continue to export overseas and convert native forests to plantations.

But to refer particularly back to this: what happened with Steve Bracks when he offered the CFMEU forestry division his $3.9 million several years ago? It was promised for training services, just like we have heard today. And what did we find? They subcontracted to another company that was CFMEU owned. That company provided advice, site visits, identification of job vacancies, counselling, financial planning, advice and worker support. Most of these tasks are normally carried out by the union. That is what people pay union dues for the union to deliver. That is not a training package; that is subsidising the CFMEU so that the union apparatchiks can get more for what they are doing.

Kate Carnell may well have negotiated this deal, but who did she talk to?

I am a supporter of people collectively bargaining. I am a supporter of the rights for which people have campaigned for years. I was saying earlier today what a disaster it is that, after 20 years of campaigning for decent wages and conditions in this country, we are seeing them torn up. But that is why I feel particularly strongly about this. The workers of Australia deserve to know exactly what went on. Kate Carnell might well have negotiated this deal, but who did she talk to? Who did she pick up the phone to — her fellow board members? On this board we have Michael O’Connor — what a surprise! And there is Scott McLean — what a surprise! Did she pick up the phone and talk to them? Did she talk to Forestry Tasmania? Did she talk to Gunns? Of course, nobody is mentioning the fact that Gunns is a major supporter of the Tasmanian Forestry Industry Association and, in turn, NAFI.

This is the point. That is why we need to get to the bottom of who actually spoke to whom and when the money was guaranteed. If it was for this fabulous training package, why are there no details of this training package? Frankly, $4 million is a dirt-cheap price to sell out the industrial relations regime in Australia. I will be very surprised if, at the CFMEU conference, the CFMEU members themselves do not divorce the forestry part of the CFMEU and name them for what they are. At the very least, this Senate should investigate the deals that went on that delivered to the Prime Minister the best advertising he could ever have coming into an election — that is, unionists cheering, mobbing him at a meeting in Launceston.

Interjection

Senator Vanstone — It was great!

Continue

Senator MILNE — I can see, Senator Vanstone, why you would be delighted by it and I can see everyone on your side of the house would be thrilled to bits. In fact, we even had a situation where there was free beer flowing out of a pub in Launceston and taken across the road into the park — a public place where drinking is normally illegal. People are not allowed to drink in public places, but the police in Launceston did not seem to want to arrest anybody. They were well and truly tanked up before they got into the meeting in the hall where they were geed up by their union leaders to welcome the Prime Minister —

Interjection

Senator Vanstone — So you think the cops were part of the conspiracy, do you?

Continue

Senator MILNE — I do not regard it as a conspiracy; what I regard it as is a political deal done to achieve outcomes which resulted in the coalition winning the election at the expense of Australian workers. I see it as a complete confidence trick and a slight on those workers who are now losing their jobs — they were always going to lose them — because of market forces and the collapse in the old-growth woodchip market in Japan, which anyone who knew about the industry would already have recognised. I see it as the cabal of this group of people who consistently undermine the best interests of Tasmanian workers. If they had had the best interests of Tasmanian workers and the industry at heart they would have supported the Latham package, which would have done far more than just protect the Tarkine.

I acknowledge the Tarkine. I am grateful for the protection of the Tarkine. I am very pleased that that occurred, and I am glad that Senator Heffernan acknowledged it. But what he did not say is that, while he was proud of the Tarkine, he should feel ashamed about the Weld Valley where, at the moment, forests that are of high conservation value, that are suitable for World Heritage listing, that were recommended to go into the World Heritage area, are not in the World Heritage area because of this same cabal of men who were around 15 years ago and who kept those forests out of the World Heritage nomination. Right now, the woodchippers are in there with the support of these unions, with the support of Senator Heffernan and with the support of everyone in this chamber, it seems, except the Greens, who are prepared to stand up and fight for these forests and will continue to fight for these forests.

It is my view that the government is in breach of its World Heritage obligations by allowing the logging along the eastern boundary of the World Heritage area. The Latham package would have protected the forests right along the eastern boundary, which is what should be done, and it would have put money into transition out of old growth and conversion and into downstream processing and value adding of the plantation sector, which is also what should be done. We should be downstreaming the plantation sector and not continuing to log old growth. But this is not a debate about forest practices; this is a debate about a set of relationships. I am going to read the full quote from Mark Latham before I sit down because I think that the people of Australia deserve to know. It was published on the Crikey web site.

Interjection

Senator Wong interjecting—

Continue

Senator MILNE — It states:

Gunns is a significant donor to the ALP, plus they have a very close relationship with the hapless Forestry union. Just as Michael O’Connor and the union sold out to the Tory Government and embraced Howard during the last election campaign … they sold their souls to the timber bosses years ago. It’s a classic case of corporatism, with these personal relationships and side deals — an unholy alliance of labour and capital, Labor and Liberal — driving policy making in Tasmania. In my Diaries, I described Gunns as the new Hydro, a fair reflection on their role within the Lennon Government. The Premier is a close personal friend of the head of Gunns, John Gay. Inside the ALP, the Forestry union is a leading player, integral to Martin Ferguson’s powerbase and his many factional deals with the Right-wing unions. This web of influence means that the timber companies exercise significant power over many leading ALP figures. When it comes to Gunns, they wouldn’t say Boo to a goose. No policy issue or set of relationships better demonstrates the ethical decline and political corruption of the Australian Labor movement than Tasmanian forestry.

I think that that is an indictment of this set of relationships and why the Senate should be supporting a full, clean and clear investigation into the circumstances surrounding that $4 million deal. That is what we should be doing if we are to uphold some transparency and break open this cabal, this corporatism, which is causing so much ecological damage in Tasmania and which is damaging the body politic and the union movement as well.

The Hansard link:
HERE