Eddie everywheres conflict and is the AGM dead?
July 22, 2008
Here are Stephen Mayne's four stories from the Crikey edition on Friday, 10 March, 2006.
2. Another $500,000 in the kick for Queensland Labor
By Stephen Mayne
Australia's richest and most dominant political division, the Queensland Labor Party, has pocketed another $500,000 from deal-hungry business types at last night's $250-a-head dinner to celebrate Peter Beattie's 10 years as Labor leader.
Beattie is a former unionist and state secretary of the Queensland ALP who, despite some recent stumbles, has become a political phenomenon, helping Queensland Labor to build up a war chest like no other.
Mark Ludlow, The AFR reporter who last year broke the story about the $100 million-plus stash parked in Labor Holdings, did well again this morning revealing some of the 1200 names who fronted up to pay homage to St Peter at the Brisbane Convention Centre last night.
Property developers, infrastructure wannabes and promoters of private-public partnerships such as Devine, Sunland, Trinity Consolidated, Leighton, Babcock & Brown, Macquarie Bank, Transurban, Linfox and Raptis all took tables of ten, or sent their representatives, and were able to mingle with political figures including Bob Carr, Morris Iemma and Gough Whitlam.
With these sorts of fundraisers, Queensland Labor doesn't need to dip into its estimated $150 million investment pile housed in Labor Holdings, let alone spend some of the investment returns in a non-election year.
During the last Queensland state election, an outfit called Labor Resources gave $4.9 million to the Queensland branch of the ALP, but in the same disclosure period Labor Holdings recorded $10.1 million in transactions but said that none of this was political donations.
This raises the question of whether Labor in Queensland is so cashed up and dominant that it can fight elections without touching its mounting war chest. The contrast with the South Australian Liberal Party, which is arguably the most financially straitened of all major political divisions in Australia, is stark indeed.
The biggest donors to Labor in 2003-04, the period covering the last state election campaign, were as follows:
Labor Resources Pty Ltd - $4,935,000
The Brisbane's Future Committee - $153,735
Collingwood Park Developments - $75,000
Hatia Property Developments - $70,000
Multiplex Developments (QLD) Pty Ltd - $70,000
Yu Feng Pty Ltd - $69,300
Crosby Road Developments - $56,100
Alan Brendon Corporation Pty Ltd - $55,000
Meriton Apartments Pty Ltd - $50,000
Warner Village Theme Parks - $50,000
Australand Holdings - $45,000
As you can see, it often comes down to property development in the Sunshine State. Don't expect Paul Keating's call for property developers to be banned from making donations to get up in Queensland any time soon. It's just too lucrative.
However, with the strongest budget and balance sheet in the land and fully funded super, Queensland doesn't need to go down the path of getting ripped off on tollroads and other PPPs which are so popular with the corporate access seekers swarming over the Queensland Labor machine last night.
3. The rise and rise of union-ALP power
By Stephen Mayne
Are the Liberal and National Party ever going to make serious inroads into breaking the enormous financial, industrial and political power of their ideological opponents – the $500 million powerhouse conglomerate known as the union-controlled ALP?
The Liberal Party haven't got a hope in hell in the forthcoming Tasmanian and South Australian elections and the lack of support from the Federal Party in both campaigns has been noticeable.
Similarly, Nick Minchin's comments to the HR Nicholls Society reveal just how difficult it is achieve meaningful industrial relations reform in Australia. Minchin conceded that the government hadn't gone nearly far enough and that most Australians "violently disagree" with the new system.
You then have the rising prospect that the package will be taken down by the High Court. The states had a procedural victory in their challenge yesterday, winning a delay until April 7 to make their written submissions, largely because the Federal Government still hasn't produced its regulations supporting the Work Choices legislation, which was passed all of five months ago now.
Stephen Long's scoop for AM on Minchin's speech was instructive here too:
It was unbelievable, he (Minchin) told the conference. Every Cabinet meeting, the Workplace Relations minister would come back with yet another issue that had emerged from taking over the state systems.Minchin "remains nervous" about what the High Court will do with all eight Labor states and territories lining up to challenge and even Terry McCrann, someone the government would normally expect support from, has strongly attacked the legal basis of the changes.
The Finance Minister said he couldn't understand why colleagues Kevin Andrews and Philip Ruddock are so relaxed about the High Court challenge to the new industrial relations laws. He warned the Government had appointed conservative judges to the High Court, and they could well be conservative about using the Corporations Power to override the states.
Whilst commissioner Terence Cole is causing havoc for the government, AWB, BHP and various other bodies at the moment, his royal commission into the building unions appears to have changed very little. Three years later the CFMEU is as big, strong and powerful as it's ever been – making and breaking projects at a whim.
Big companies are still backing down from potential union fights every other day. Qantas baulked yesterday when it opted not to shift some of its maintenance work to China and Leighton has just reached a generous settlement with the shop steward it sacked on the Mandurah to Perth rail project after 400 workers went on strike for 12 days. Leighton and its partner Kumugai were already staring at a $100 million-plus blowout, which they're trying to pass on to WA taxpayers, before the chaos of this latest strike.
Then you've got the government's attempts to weaken the union-backed industry funds through its superannuation choice legislation. Gary Weaven's team of former unionists, who run the majority of these low-cost funds, have waged a smart, aggressive and expensive campaign and they're winning the market share battle against the high-commission private operators.
Even the waterfront war was hardly a case of "smashing the union", because the MUA remains cashed up and powerful and workers on the docks still get huge pay packets, albeit after substantially lifting productivity.
Finally, consider the $500,000 raised by Labor last night as the Who's Who of Queensland business turned out to celebrate Peter Beattie's ten years as Queensland's Labor leader. Anyone who suggests Australia's union-ALP conglomerate is on the wane has rocks in their head. Truth be known, they've never been stronger.
5. The Liberal connections of Tom Harley
By Stephen Mayne
BHP's corporate development manager Tom Harley has egg all over his face today as his silly coded memos about wax donations to Italy were splashed across the nation's papers as Terence Cole turns his attention to BHP's ham-fisted grab for a slice of Iraq's oil riches whilst Saddam Hussein was still in power.
So who is Tom Harley and where did he come from? For some reason the media have yet to focus on his deep connections with the Liberal Party because Harley is in fact the great grandson of Alfred Deakin and is one of the Trustees of the Alfred Deakin Lecture Trust.
Indeed, Deakin's Wikipedia entry concludes as follows: "His descendants are still active in Melbourne political and business circles, and he is regarded as a founding father by the modern Liberal Party."
That's a reference to the cigar and pipe smoking Tom, who has been lunching regularly at the Melbourne Club ever since he first joined BHP in 1984. Tom was prominent in the Young Liberals during the 1970s with Michael Kroger and Peter Costello and David Kemp appointed him as chairman of the Australian Heritage Commission in 2001. Check out this December 2003 speech by the PM which points to the role Harley was to play in the so-called culture wars.
He also has deep connections with the media, which might perhaps explain the reluctance of some outlets to do him over. When Fairfax went into receivership, Tom was one of the founders of the AIM tilt at the company, which was not favoured by Bob Hawke or Paul Keating because it was "the Melbourne establishment bid".
I well remember taking a call from him about 15 years ago when he argued that institutions would back the AIM consortium because they were still angry with how Kerry Packer had ripped them off in the 1982 privatisation of PBL.
Many heavyweight journalists such as AFR publisher Michael Gill and The Age's business columnist Stephen Bartholomeusz are close to Tom and his political connections, particularly with Liberal moderates such as Robert Hill, are also very tight.
Whilst clearly not a member of Bruce Teele's cultish Fellowship, Harley is at the very heart of Melbourne's establishment and its liberal heritage, all of which should be pointed out as he gets dragged through the Cole inquiry.
17. Melbourne and the mixing of business and religion
By Stephen Mayne
Geoff Hutchison produced a solid story on Wednesday night for The 7.30 Report on the so-called cult which has finally been tackled at the Trinity Presbyterian church in Camberwell.
Whilst some former members of The Fellowship opened up on camera for the first time, Hutchison baulked at mentioning either JB Were or Bruce Teele, the reputed head of the controlling group since 1996.
The mixing of religion, business and politics is getting pretty interesting at the moment, especially in Melbourne. We all know that Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews is a devoutly religious man and Peter Costello also attends church most weekends, which is not surprising given the prominent role his brother has taken in Melbourne's church community over the years.
However, Terry McCrann has this morning gone into bat defending Professor Ian Harper, the devoutly religious new head of the Fair Pay Commission, who was presumably championed around the Cabinet table by Costello and Andrews. McCrann's column included the following:
Appointing a "practising Christian" in Harper to head the FPC ratcheted the controversy up a decibel or 10. Quite why, defies the most basic common sense. First off, the fact that his Christianity raised a single eyebrow confirms a virulent and persistent form of secularism in our society which so easily and so often degenerates into what might be termed religionism.McCrann might live in Camberwell but despite the passion displayed in today's column, he's no regular church goer. However, it would be interesting to know what if any dealings Costello, Andrews and Harper have had with Bruce Teele or other members of The Fellowship over the years.
But especially bizarrely in this context. For heavens sake, he isn't becoming the arbiter of abortion or homosexual marriage. But one of five to set the minimum wage. But further, if anything, you would think the suggestion of being a "God-botherer" would appeal. That such a person would seem likely to be more compassionate than a completely cold-blooded analytical secularist.
We're not for a moment suggesting they were members, but this comment from Reverend Rob Thomas, the moderator-general for the Presbyterian Church, to The 7.30 Report was interesting:
Another factor in it is that this group is a group of highly intelligent and highly placed and influential men. We're talking influential doctors, academics, stockbrokers, lawyers and they know how to operate.There's a lot of speculation around Melbourne at the moment about just how far The Fellowship's tentacles reached. Who exactly are all these influential men?
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