What kind of Australia do we want?

This speech was delivered by AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten to the AWU Victorian Branch's Annual Ball on October 28, 2006.

On behalf of the AWU, I would like to propose a vote of thanks to our 2006 guest of honour - The Honourable John Brumby.

It is fair to say, I think, that the past few weeks have been significant ones in the present chapter of the Australian story.

The war in Iraq has become deeply unpopular everywhere.

The atomic test in North Korea shows that America's present leaders don't scare anyone much anymore.

The present drought, and the present blazing summer heat all over Australia, have shown voters that global warming is real.

And Bush and Howard, with their head in the sand denials for all these years, are wasted years, critical years when it might have been turned around.

And the cult of corporate excess, as expressed in the off-shoring of so many jobs.

And the punishment of so many ordinary working parents by the unfair IR individual contracts is losing its lustre fast.

Politically, Australia's come to a tipping point or perhaps a crunch point, where we choose one philosophy, and it does have its temptations, or we choose another, and it does have its drawbacks.

The State Election on November 25 will scare John Howard, or it will comfort him.

The State Election will daunt him and his cluster bombs on our decent way of life, or it will encourage him.

The State Election will make plain that John Howard and his Coalition's philosophy is wrong, or it will show that he and they are onto something.

For the Liberal-National Coalition philosophy says it doesn't matter:

· If local communities go to the wall

· and the shop windows are boarded up

· and the local football/netball teams give up hope and go into decline

· and the local schools close

· and the young people get on buses and move to the city

Just so a select few make more millions than they ever did before.

The Liberal-National philosophy says it doesn't matter

if mortgages can't be paid

or children properly schooled

or families go on holidays this Christmas

or children anymore grow up in the same town as their grandparents

The Howard-Baillieu philosophy says it doesn't matter if the Australian fair go is a thing of the past, and the Australian decency of heart a fading memory, just as long as their unfair IR laws favour the few over the many.

Just as long as we, that have lost out, applaud them for their federal government-pitched enterprise and their government-assisted smash and grab raids on

the media

and health insurance

and the teaching profession

and what's left of the universities

and the good life

and the Australian weekend they have now and we don't

But there's the other philosophy, the labour movement philosophy, the Bracks/Brumby philosophy, captured tonight by Mick Eagles, Cesar Melhem and John Brumby, which is:

· Rewarded work

· And a decent life for everybody willing to shape up and put in the hours

· And not too many ugly surprises

· Not too many devastating interruptions

· Not too many blatant injustices

· Not too many punishments of those not at fault, when things go wrong in the workplace

For at the heart of the Liberal National Coalition philosophy is YOU pay for THEIR mistakes.

· A wrong call on ASX, you lose your job

· A wrong call on the strength of underground mining safety in a gold mine, tragedy occurs, and 52 of your grieving mates lose their jobs

· A company is insolvent, profits of investors down from $4 million to $3 million, 80 jobs in jeopardy

That's how they pay; and that's how you pay for their mistakes.

For a long time it was accepted, or sort of accepted, that this was not the way things should be, because with union intervention

And union tenacity

And union combativeness

And union strength

And an arbitration court built on an unchanging doctrine, a very Australian doctrine, of a fair go and a living wage

And fair compensation, if you lost your job, and your town, and your local hopes.

But now, with the IR laws, it is clear there's no limit to how much worse things can get and how many good solid local jobs can go to India, Kiev or Nauru, or whoever is prepared to take less for the work we used to do.

There's no limit because of Howard/Baillieu's commitment to IR laws that are not only unfair but stupid, and starve customers of the money and confidence to buy the things, in the marketplace, that drive the Australian economy which then goes on to ruin for the want of it.

Aside and above this is the big picture, what we might call the astronomic picture, of climate and water supply

and what we eat and drink in the century to come

and where we educate our children and what for

and the sort of hospitals that maybe save our lives

and the sort of nursing homes we die in

The Howard/Baillieu view is all these things should be

Marketed for profit,

And trimmed back,

Made leaner and meaner,

To ensure a larger profit,

And made more expensive and scarce,

Just so the big end of town can get unbelievably richer.

But this is the union view or the Beazley/Bracks/Brumby view:

I think it is labour's view that some things - whose maladministration occasions human death, or lifelong human disadvantage - cannot be run solely by marketplace rules and will not be, if labour values triumph, state and nationally.

The AWU and unions generally stand for safety everywhere - in health, in education, in environmental endeavour, in jobs security, and in the sum total of the journeys we make in life.

Tonight, the AWU, our friends, unions with John Brumby, we are a formidable force with optimism about Victoria and Australia.

John Brumby shows close attention and knowledge that reality is local and particular.

And we live in a wonderful part of Australia and the world and a wonderful, various place to live that should be cherished and looked after.

John Brumby's words tonight display, I believe, the same forensic capacity for detailed prioritisation, and lateral thinking and local cunning, as the AWU and unions have for 120 years.

John Brumby can see - as John Howard has not seen for these last 10 ½ smug, oblivious years - that the race to the bottom in wages and conditions is no plan for the future of Australian families.

John Brumby can see - as John Howard has not seen - that there is no economic consideration larger than the end of human life on earth, no corporate bottom line that outweights, as a profit-and-loss calculation, the death of the earth

And the ways we re-treat used water or recycle water or transform industrial uses or how we transport it and deliver it, will consume better minds than any of the pretenders dawdling through the fundamentals in the Howard Government, including Malcolm Turnbull and the State Opposition.

The outcomes of the State Election are a signal for John Howard on how well he is doing, or not

And how much of what he has done is remembered and regarded.

If you believe wrongdoing should be punished

And if you believe his part in the destruction of the safety net, for instance, and it is not any less than that, is wrongdoing

If you believe the failure to sign up to the Kyoto agreement with the rest of the civilised world is wrongdoing

If you believe the massacre of the resources of our universities and our local schools is wrongdoing

And the driving overseas of many, many, many of our jobs is wrongdoing

If you believe that the introduction of AWAs - which are the employment version of solitary confinement - is wrongdoing

If you believe the running down of our aged care and the number of doctors in our country towns is wrongdoing, in a year when the $14 billion surplus could have been spent on these things

And in an era when $2 billion spent on a shaming, unclear war and not other things important to Australians

If you believe wrongdoing should be punished, and a signal should be given of that punishment to come, then we need re-elect Steve Bracks and John Brumby on November 25.

This is a tipping point time we are at, and this is a campaign and a federal election next year which, lost, could encourage John Howard even further down the path of unfair outcomes to which he is addicted and could lose us forever the last elements of the Australia we treasure for good and all.

John Brumby's speech tonight is a commitment to a return to that good Australia which is like a song triggering our memories, and makes us think of how good we were as a country once and could be again.

Let's thank John Brumby and let's leave tonight, strong, united and determined to fill the G on 30 November, to re-elect State Labor Governments and to defeat John Howard next year.

All Australians everywhere receive the benefits of trade unionism, and therefore as an Australian, I am proud to say I am a unionist.