Popped into NSW Parliament House this evening to catch Bob Hawke (boy, is he in fine fettle) deliver the annual Lionel Murphy Lecture, “From Deakin to Howard - a Tarnished Vision”. The full lecture will be posted shortly at the Lionel Murphy Foundation. In the meantime, this was the best bit:
John Howard and his government are the direct beneficiaries of those historic changes that we made and which he as Treasurer and the government of which he was a member did not have the courage - may I say “the ticker” - or the political will to make in the period preceding our terms of office. In one of the most cynical and dishonest pieces of politicking in the history of this country the Prime Minister boasts of the fact that real wages have risen more under his government than in our term.
Of course they have, because the Australian trade union movement in an act of unparalleled selflessness and commitment to the national interest in co-operation with our government, forsook their power to secure greater money wage increases by accepting improvements in the social wage - particularly in the areas of health and education - thereby decreasing cost pressures on employers and increasing Australia’s international competitiveness.
We did the hard work; trade unionists made the sacrifices which have created a strong economy which can now afford those real wage increases. Instead of being grateful, as he should be, to the trade unions and their leadership, John Howard now launches the most vicious attack upon them and their members in what is, quite simply, the most despicable and ungracious decision by any Prime Minister in the history of industrial relations in this country. It is wrong, it is unfair, it is un-Australian, it is immoral.
Of course, it is not Howard but the Australian Industrial Relations Commission which His Darkness now aims to cripple that’s mainly responsible for those wage increases, which of course is one of the main reasons why he now aims to cripple it. Be that as it may, this was Hawky’s worst bit:
Lionel Murphy fought at the Bar, in the Parliament and on the Bench against such distorted priorities and for the protection and advancement of those essential principles we had come to associate with the Australian character. We will best honour his memory if we bend every sinew of our endeavours to ensure that at the next election this most un-Australian of our Prime Ministers, and his Government, are consigned to the dust-bin of our history which they have done so much to disgrace.
I mean, it’s just so damned long to the next election …
Reading the headline I thought you were talking about the Deakin law school.
‘His Darkness’……
Come on, Chris, are we really dicing with the devil here?
As for Hawkey, he was a great PM, but that was a long, long time ago. He’s living on his memories.
…the Prime Minister boasts of the fact that real wages have risen more under his government than in our term. Of course they have, because the Australian trade union movement in an act of unparalleled selflessness and commitment to the national interest in co-operation with our government, forsook their power to secure greater money wage increases by accepting bla bla bla-bla bla bla…
Hawke abridged: we dudded ‘em for 13 years!
Wouldn’t a better header for a post on Bob Hawke and the Lionel Murphy Lecture have been: “And Now, What About My Little Mate?”
“are we really dicing with the devil here?”
I heard he dreamed he died once, and then the heat woke him up.
Sweet Jesus, the ALP are getting hysterical. Caught the news with Hawkey croaking away about Howard turning us all into Yanks and then Wran getting even croakier. Couldn’t they get Malcolm to appear because he’d forgotten what trousers were even for nowadays, let alone where he left them? I was half expecting to see old Gough nailed to the lectern, with the tape player running, before they wheeled them all back to their rooms, for their drugs and their naps. It would have been a total bloody embarrassment if one of them had wet his pants. Fortunately that was left up to the audience.
No doubt good taste was obseved by judicious editing of the bit where the spunky nurses aide runs about getting them all to put their teeth in and turn their hearing aids on, for a singalong with matron on the squeezebox. A rousing version of the Red Rag before bedtime
‘It is wrong, it is unfair, it is un-Australian, it is immoral.’ Sort of fits well with the way unionists treated people who refused to join them in the eighties. Funny how you don’t hear the words ‘black’ or ’scab’ as much these days. I hope we never have to return to that kind of unfairness and bullying in the workplace again.
Facelift you must be a scab. I despise scabs. You happy now, scab?
Ah Blue Collar, you’re stuck in the mud, unable to move with the times and have yet to realise that the unions have new and more intelligent battles to fight for fairness in the workplace, and the days of intimidation, standover tactics and scab-letting are over.
Who turned on the RWDB magnet? A two-thirds majority of Australians are against these changes, and only some 10 per cent are positively for them. Note ‘FaceLift’ is anonymous. Is the disproportionate commentary a paid-up part and parcel of the government advertising account? And blue-collar is right. ‘Scab’ is a great Australian word. Use it all the time. Hear it all the time. What country do you live in pal?
observa, don’t be rude. Currency, you miss the point, deliberately, of course.
observa, not sure if you’d noticed, but Fraser was actually a Liberal Prime Minister. I guess old age catches up with us all…
My mate CL has never heard of real wage overhang.
It is something howard could never get rid of when he was treasurer and why the Accord came into existance and succeeded splendidly.
You Howard lovers continue to live in the dark dreamland and so blindly loyal, can’t accept, that without the great Australian economy handed to Howey, he would have only lasted 2 terms. Before you jump in on interest rates when Howey took over was 9% and going down after a small correction in Dec.95. Off course unfortunately because of the lack of hard work by Frazer and Howey in the early 80’s interest went over the moon in 1989-90, as did the rest of the world.
Lucky Howard was prepared to give Keating economics tutorials back in the 70s.
Paul was always in his office.
sorry CL but that is noot true.
Keating was mainly spokesman for minerals and energy and was usually in the boardroom explaining what the ALP would ddo and how different it was to Rex Connor in 72-5.
He also produced a green paper. He was so successful Fraser moved the portfolio frrom the haapless Kevin Newnam in the House to john Carrick in the Senate.Unfortunately Ne wasn’t up to the job either.
Keating was known for his relentless energy and enthusiam in Opposition.
He really is the benchmark to look at if you are in Opposition.but then again you were in nappies then!!!
Keating was minister for minerals and energy in the last three weeks of the Whitlam government. He achieved nothing in that role.
Sounds doubtful, CL. Do you have a source?
For the Howard-Keating tutorials, that is.
wrong again CL.
he was minister for Northern Development
Can’t find one online. Fyodor. It’s well known that Keating and Howard got along pretty well in the pre-Hawke era. Howard was one of the many people from whom Keating actively sought to learn things. That was the Keating modus operandi from the beginning. Homer knows this but it’s part of the PJK story that often gets left out - along with Keating lifting one-liners from Jack Lang and being fairly intellectually malleable in the hands of John Stone and others.
Still, as I’ve always said, I liked Keating a lot. I tend to believe in the same crazybrave ‘great man theory of history’ as he did and his butchery of the robotic Hewson was a thing of beauty. He just became Whitlamesque in the end. He knew he had little time to achieve great things as PM and didn’t want to be forever associated with Treasury affairs. He pushed things in a contrived, hurried sort of way and his prime ministership must be regarded as a failure.
As for Christopher’s post - sorry to go AWOL Chris - I don’t support the IR proposals at all. But Hawke has always been an annoying, sanctimonious twerp when he argues it was OK to impoverish workers just because his government and the unions were co-operating during the process. Moreover, if his government’s reforms had been as stymied as Howard’s have been, things may not have turned out the same way. The responsibility of the Opposition between 1983-1996 helped maintain political stability during an era of rapid economic change. The electorate could see that whatever their differences, the two parties were abandoning the old standards of the Australian Settlement.
For good or ill, Howard deserves a lot of the credit for the essentially bipartisan nature of economic rationalism’s triumph in the 80s and 90s. What’s more, he had been an advocate for such reform dating back to the 70s - back when Keating was still sulking and Hawkie was still a three quarters-pissed demagogue most of the time. Howard couldn’t get over the top of Fraser and the big man wasn’t ever prone to a spill motion. But he was a pioneer in the rise of the Drys in Australian politics.
Labor’s approach has been more divisive and ruinous in 1996-2005.
Sorry - mention of Big Rex threw me. Ergo:
Keating was minister for Northern Australia in the last three weeks of the Whitlam government. He achieved nothing in that role.
now now CL, there is a lot of difference between getting on with each other in which you are correct and Paulo being in Howard’s office doting on his every word!
Now now, Homer. I didn’t say he was doting on his every word. He sought out Howard to pick his brains on treasury matters and economics. He learned from Howard. This is well known. What, you think Paul went around to Howard’s office all the time to discuss cricket?
Cl, first of all if you don’t start writing on your blog soon I am sending ssomeone around with a Pellogram!
Get to it as I need to read you at least once every second day.
Keating discussed things with Howard but little economics.
Keating really didn’t understnd ecoonomics very much until he had to after being appointed Opposition Treasury spokesman by Hayden.
Will try to return when I work through a backlog of other stuff, Homer. Thanks. I’m already being bad by commenting on blogs so much.
I don’t support the IR proposals at all. But Hawke has always been an annoying, sanctimonious twerp when he argues it was OK to impoverish workers just because his government and the unions were co-operating during the process.
It’s the “impoverish” bit that sticks Currency. There were many important compensating payments in the form of the ’social wage’. One only has to note the great benefit of Hawke’s reintroduction of Australia’s national health insurance in comparision with the total absence of same for the US working poor to see how very tangible and valuable this benefit is. And there was of course much more - the first serious provision of child care (critical for working women), the invention of the home and community care program for oldies and people with disabilities, the supported accommodation program, the first superannuation for working stiffs, and so on.
Now, you may argue this was not sufficient compensation, but it is intellectually dishonest to ignore these real benfits while arguing that workers were ‘impoverished’ simply because money wages didn’t increase as fast as they otherwise would have without the sacrifices of the trade union movement.
“observa, not sure if you‚Äôd noticed, but Fraser was actually a Liberal Prime Minister.”
Sure was Bill, but for a long time now most of us have put him with the soggy head brigade. When he had a good cry on TV and then started brown-nosing Mugabe, his reconciliation with the luvvies was complete. For we RWDBs now, he simply reminds us of the days when Kim Hughes was cricket captain. Shudder!
Mmh. Not much to work with there, CL. God help me, but what Homerkles said.
My impression of PJK’s record is that he was a blank slate on the economics front before the Treasury nabobs got their hands on him. I can’t see what Howard could have taught him, particularly given Howard’s egregious incompetence as Treasurer.
Interesting how the ALP drags out Hawkie for the nostalgia trip down memory lane on IR, while the Beazer gets on with the big ‘ticker’ item like tax reform http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,17051678-31037,00.html
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said middle-income earners would be the likely beneficiaries of any tax cuts introduced by a Labor government.
He said the tax system was broken and in need of major reform to boost economic growth.
“It has to be tackled root and branch, the taxation system, it has to be reformed,” he said.
“At the moment, now, there are major disincentives to people going into the workforce.”
What a ticker for reform this boy has, but notice that last particular line of his. Now just what do you reckon Howard is on about with his IR reforms eh?
Observa,
either you believe howard is going to introduce family tax credits or he is going to cut mimimum wages.
If either of those two proposals are not contemplated then it means diddly sqat for the unemployed.
He wasn’t really a blank slate, Fyodor. Howard had scribbled on him a bit.
Dubious, CL. What do you reckon he wrote?
“Come over for a key party - Janette does a bitchin’ fondue”?
Well, exactly (sort of). They weren’t discussing fondues, clocks or cricket.
Not dubious. It’s a well known fact.
“Not dubious. It‚Äôs a well known fact.”
If it’s so well known, where’s a credible source to back it up? Doesn’t have to be online - an offline source would be OK.
Oi, CL - you got time to hang around here talking crap, you got time to write a real post.
You may find this hard to believe Fyodor but I don’t carry a portable library everywhere I go. I used to - but migrant porters are more expensive these days, alas.
Paul’s economics:
If Howard’s, were they designed
Intelligently?
Pffui. You’ve gone soft, CL.
You’re obsessed with me, Fyodor. But it can only end in disappointment. And you must tutor yourself - you can do it!
HELLO! Where did that come from, CL? I ask you to back up a dubious statement and you accuse me of obsession? Sounds like another catholic lad is wrestling with inner demons.
Besides, it’s hardly an obsession if it starts off with disappointment, let alone ends with it. But I suppose you’re used to that sort of relationship.
Catholicism reference - tick
Inner demons (see also Zoe thread) - tick
Not dubious. It’s well known.
What is interesting about people giving credit to Keating for being a reformer is that the truth lies somewhere else. Keating was credited with floating the Dollar and deregulating interest rate controls. The truth is he had to as there was no other choice. I saw it first hand as I was a currency trader.
Speculation against the Australian Dollar was massive at the time. In fact if you had a cent in your pocket and the wherewithal to do so you would have sold it for US dollars. Interest rates were at over 150% for overight money rollovers. It was impossible for the RBA to starve off the attack as the Aussie Dollar was set too high to begin with (we had a fixed exchange rate at the time). Reserves were being depleted in this massive onslaught.
So Treasury did the only thing it could do. Devalue.
They next tried a semi fixed/ floating method of setting the Dollar rate (they thought they knew better than the market of course). This too failed. They finally floated when there was no choice left.
Floating the currency also required deregulation of interest rate markets.
The rest is history and Keating was credited for being the world greatest Finance minister. Maybe the speculators should have been the ones getting the prize- as a group- with Keating handing out the award. He sure never deserved it. .
He was carried along by events, Joe, as you say.
Yes, fair enough Chris. But Hawke does tend to overstate the consensuality of his governance. Unions then were corporatist, centralised and personality-cultish. A lot was done over the heads of ‘the workers.’ Hawke has always condescended to praise the sacrifices of trade unionists but the reality at the time was that those were sacrifices Kelty and others made on their behalf - like it or lump it. That’s not so far removed from the depersonalised approach of Howard, excepting the latter’s rhetorical ineptitude compared to the always melodramatic Hawke.
It was a polemical war for several years in those days and ‘the workers’ and the left were usually on the outside looking in. It was Keating who fought the cultural war, not Bob. And Howard - from about 80-81 - was ahead of the game on the need for micro-economic reform. As I said, Hawke and Keating both benefited from a polity in which the Opposition looked for advantages at the margins but generally supported the reforms. This is in quite stark contrast to Labor’s approach in recent years.
Joe, didn’t the float take place against the advice of then Treasury secretary John Stone?
Soooo, Joe it is right, Howard was a big failure in the way he left the economy.
CL maybe Howey and PJ were watching all the companies sinking down to the bottom of the harbour.
Young Paul preferred to call them ‘the sinkings we had to have.’
Willaim:
I think Stone did tell them not to float. Great advisor hey? We were paying this guy’s salary.
I think he said the same to Mal.
Mick:
If you want me to say Howard was responsible for a bad ecconomy at the time I will answer it this way.
I guess, if you want attribute repsonsibility to Howard for the bad economy in the very early 80’s, you can attribute responsibility for the great economy over the last 10 years.
The silver bodgie is just clearing a bit of dirty water off his chest, centre stage was always his forte, back in the good old ACTU days he preached on how the multi-nationals were eroding workers rights and stealing Australia, now he spends much time in China & Asia representing business (with a pocketfuls of unexercised options to keep his energies up)
You are a logical dog, I mean rog. The world is stuffed. To maintain my integrity I must be poor. Only the poor can criticise the world for being stuffed. I am dog. I have blown out my arse, for some reason I hope someone can folow somehow.
For shame Blue Collar, drunkening while comment.
And y’know y’all it’s a well known fact Peter Costello learnt all about being Treasurer from reading Paul Keating’s media releases.
Blue Collar, you’re James McConvill, right?
Steve Edney wrote:
Ha! Me too!
Sorry comrades. I’m new round here, and was following rog’s argument. He says you cannot talk if you have made money from what you oppose in principle. This means you can only protest if you are poor. Because the real poor are too poor or vulnerable to protest, he says nobody can protest, the way I read him. This makes him a fascist.