The Guardian 15 March, 2006
Editorial
Nick Minchin:
spills the beans but backs a loser
Nick Minchin, Liberal Party Senator and a senior Cabinet Minister in the Howard Government can hardly claim that he was just expressing his "personal opinion" or that it was a "slip" or a "gaffe" when he expressed the view that the Government should take further IR reforms to the next election. His are undoubtedly his own committed views and those of many other politicians in leading positions in the Liberal and National Parties. None have come out publicly to repudiate his views — only to declare that it is not the Government’s intention to raise more "reforms" before the next election.
PM Howard’s similar denial easily recalls his loudly declared opposition to any GST — "never again", he said at the time — only to introduce the GST when the political situation suited his cause. The same will apply to the policy objectives stated by Minchin. Howard and other leading conservatives in the Liberal Party agree with Nick Minchin’s stated objectives but they recognise that it would not be "political" to take such policy ideas to the next election. Even now, as Minchin acknowledged, the current IR legislation has been met with "violent disagreement" from the majority of the population.
It has always been the objective of the most rabid sections of big capital that they want a situation in which the working people have no rights whatever, no rights or conditions established in law, no right of protest, no recourse to any Industrial Commission or even court of law. These sections of the corporations hanker after the "master/servant" relationship of the 18th century in which workers were employed in the most terrible sweatshop conditions, without trade unions, without limits on the hours of work, meal breaks, safety regulations, health care, sick leave, holidays, long service leave entitlements or anything else that has been won by the workers and their trade unions since that time.
Minchin was speaking to the HR Nicholls Society which is recognised as one of the most right-wing "think-tanks" dealing with industrial relations. The Society was formed in 1986 with Peter Costello (now Treasurer), John Stone (former Secretary to the Treasury), Ray Evans of Western Mining Corporation and Barrie Purvis director of Australian Wool-Selling Brokers as its founding foursome. Its conferences are peppered with contributions by prominent and not so prominent university right-wingers. It is a convenient marriage between big business representatives, their political placemen and economic and social gurus who pontificate on how to impose their anti-working class and anti-trade union views on the Australian people.
Bob Hawke when Prime Minister described the HR Nicholls Society as "political troglodytes and economic lunatics" while former Secretary of the Melbourne Trade Hall Council, John Halfpenny listed them as the Ku Klux Klan of industrial relations in Australia. Far from being offended by such remarks the Society seems to relish such comparisons.
However, many Liberal Party politicians although sharing the Society’s aims and objectives (and their endorsement of the most recent IR legislation proves the point) are coy about having their name publicly associated with this bunch of industrial KKK members. The Society is far from being an open organisation yet one would expect that it would be pleased to announce publicly the names of its members who hold prominent political, business and academic positions. The public only became aware of the remarks of Nick Minchin because a journalist who was invited to the meeting taped the Minister’s remarks and made them available to the ABC to broadcast.
Not only will the views of the HR Nicholls Society and the Ministers in the Howard Government come up against the majority opposition of the working people of Australia but considerable sections of the business community as well.
A recent survey of 400 Australian enterprises found that between 80 and 90 percent do not believe that the current IR legislation will help their business to grow. They were asked the question, "will the proposed IR reforms help you grow your business?" Overall, 85 percent said "no" and in the retail sector it was 92 percent.
This is yet another reason why the trade union movement should immediately re-invigorate the campaign to make unworkable Howard’s legislation and ensure that "Your rights at work" are maintained.