Former State Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Howard Guille, spoke at the Brisbane Labour History Association (BLHA) forum: “From Gough to Albo and beyond: Is progressive Labor reform possible‘. The forum marking the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Government, was co-hosted by Vintage Reds (Qld) and the Brisbane Labour History Association. Guest speakers were former Senator John Faulkner, and panellists; Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, Rod Welford, and Howard Guille. It was chaired by former Senator Claire Moore and held at the Queensland Council of Unions building, on the 26th October, 2022.
Howard Guille identified:
• a settlement with First Nations’ people
• a settlement with the planet and all other sentient species
as being the two most important political issues facing Australia today.
Perhaps Howard Guille would have been better placed identifying the current failure of the market in Australia as being the main problem. Recently, intervention in the market was necessary to prevent the collapse of electricity supply, Australia-wide. We are witnessing similar failures of the market in housing, gas prices, aboriginal land rights being subverted by mining companies, climate change, the impending AUKUS war with China, refugees from war and so on.’
Guille said later in his speech:
Regenerating progressive politics in Australia faces substantial impediments. One is the extent of and scope of ‘markets’. Another is the level of wealth and income inequality. Wage inequality in Australia is substantially larger than in Nordic and Western European countries, in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Labor Party economism
But isn’t this to fall victim to economism in the same vein as did former Labor senate leader, John Falkner, in his speech at the forum? Faulkner was one of the main Labor ministers who undermined the Rudd super-profits tax that planned to use the money to increase superannuation to 15%.
True, capitalism is the most important issue facing people globally. The downfall of the Labor Party is that it has never challenged the rule of the market. Keating floated the dollar, Hawke and Keating sold the Commonwealth Bank, the airports, the first tranche of Telstra. Labor subverts everything in the eternal compromise of winning government at the expense of worker organisation, all to become electable.
The Accord which destroyed mass union membership, the de-registration of the Builders Labourers Federation, the use of the air force against the pilot strike in ’86, the failure of the Hawke government to introduce Land Rights legislation as promised, the Keating government introduction of enterprise bargaining, the Whitlam and subsequent Labor governments’ desertion of the East Timorese people when they were invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and put to the sword. Howard Guille said ironically: “Pity about the privatisation of railways and forests under the government of Anna Bligh!“
Labor’s sell-out of sacked SEQEB workers in 1985
It was Labor leader Nev Warburton that turned the lights back on in Queensland not Joh Bjelke-Petersen thus dispatching 1001 workers to the scrap heap. Howard Guille said “All the high-minded values in the world are worthless if you can’t keep the lights on.” But at who’s expense did Labor conspire to sell out SEQEB workers in order to keep the Accord in place between big government (Hawke-Keating government) and big business?
Capitalist Corruption: the environment and first nations people
Howard Guile then went on to give the audience a salutary lesson . He said:
“It’s not by chance that our Environmental Impact Statement processes, such as the one for Toondah Harbour that I’m working on, or our coal mine approval processes in Queensland, have been corrupted by the market and by consultants.
And it’s not by chance, I understand that 25% of the ‘Building Better Regions’ funding, which thank god this was abolished yesterday, that 25% of that goes into the pockets of the top four management consultants for preparing submissions, and evaluating submissions.
I would just say I’ve never been more shocked in my union political life, I was doing some work for an aboriginal land corporation, some of you will know which one, when we were asked to make a application for a ‘Building Better Regions’** grant to build a cultural center. It required us to produce a .. what’s called cost benefit analysis … Now, I have done quite a lot of those I am reasonably well qualified. However, we were advised by the Regional Development Agency, that it would stand a much better chance if we employed one of the top four management consultants to produce that cost benefit analysis for us. So myself and the person working with me handed our numbers over to Price Waterhouse Coopers, somebody signed a big cheque, and we got our numbers written up under a Price Waterhouse Coopers label. The project was then evaluated by another management consultancy company, and we didn’t get the money.“
Notes
Toondah Harbour is a RAMSAR* wetland which the federal environment department said should not be the subject of a big development of a modern coastal village that will destroy the wetlands the mangroves: the ecology of that region in the Redlands. Both Jackie Trad (former Labor deputy Premier) and former LNP Federal Environment Minister Hunt had overruled objections to Toondah Harbour by their respective departments. An EIS statement has been prepared for current environment Minister Tanya Plibersek who is under a lot of pressure to knock the proposal on the head.
The Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF) was the LNP Government’s slush fund designed to deliver funding for regional infrastructure projects and community development activities to shore up the vote for the LNP in the regions.
Price Waterhouse Coopers prepared a submission to BBRF on behalf of QYAC (Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation) for an aboriginal cultural centre on Minjerribah. PwC is a corrupt international consultancy business for the purpose of minimising tax for the rich. Its partners in Australia have been stood down amidst allegations of fraud. See The PwC scandal, the Big Four, and the real elephant in the room. What’s next? If QYAC had approached anyone with any nous concerning the advice by the Regional Development Agency to hand over their cost benefit analysis to PwC they would have said: “Don’t.” Why throw out your union principles by handing over such important business to one of the big four consultancy firms?
Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC)
QYAC wants to build a 3D printed facsimile whale and have it erected under a large roof on the heritage-protected Mulumba (Point Lookout) where you can see real whales every minute during their migrator season. A microphone is to be placed on the ocean floor to allow tourists to hear the whale’s songs. However, if you listen carefully from the Point (only a few metres away) you can hear the whales singing and blowing. This tourism project by QYAC has the support of the Labor-in-government, Queensland University and the museum. It is government’s way of replacing sand mining with tourism on Minjerribah. Their plans are being challenged by First Nations People on the island. The area is a heritage protected site. Howard Guille was involved in the heritage listing of the Mulumba foreshore. There are some places that should be left alone with minimal impact by industries like mining and tourism. Mulumba is a sacred place and should be left alone.
Parliamentary Democracy
John Faulkner kept insisting Labor must win government to bring about change. Has he forgotten that the era of the mass party is over? The two party system is also under threat. It is almost impossible for Labor to win a majority of seats in the parliament when there are so many Greens and independents.
Labor-in-government routinely ignores policies put up by its branches. You only have to look at the annual May Day march to see how paltry the numbers of ALP branch members are. This is not democracy. It is little wonder that Labor-in-government rules for business and not for workers. It is a brave soul that would try to reform this Labor Party. The Governor General sacked Whitlam after he made only modest reforms. Essentially, the parliamentary road is a complete waste of time for anyone interested in change for workers, the environment and social justice.
There were even people inside the Whitlam government who did not believe in the system of democracy that brought down the Whitlam government – for example, I do not think Lionel Murphy believed in the legal system as a means of bringing about progressive change, Murphy often wrote judgements in the High Court at odds with the constitution and with black letter law.
If George Georges and Tom Uren believed that being in government could change things why were they both arrested with the extra parliamentary opposition during the street marches (1977-79)? True, they both defied Petersen, but Georges also defied the Labor Party state executive who promised to dis-endorse him if he marched with the democratic rights movement organised by the Civil Liberties Coordinating Committee (CLCC). Georges was often dragged up before ALP executives (state and federal) to show cause why he should not be expelled from the Labor party. Perhaps Georges was trying to build the socialist left inside the Labor party. As a tactical manoeuvre this met with some success. But there is no socialist left in the Labor party anymore.
Thanks to the efforts of thousands willing to risk arrest on the streets, Queensland now has the most liberal public assembly laws in Australia (just look at the terrible assembly laws the that old liberal state of South Australia has introduced). Even the LNP is afraid to make changes to the Peaceful Assembly Act in Queensland. This change resulted from the longest period of mass defiance of a government in Australian history, 1977-79 (with the exception of the Aboriginal Land Rights struggle). Only then could Rod Welford as Queensland Attorney-General (with the help of Matt Foley who was arrested on 11 Nov 1977 on the eve of the state election) introduce the Peaceful Assembly Act (1992).
Where to?
Contrary to what all the Labor speakers maintained, progressive politics is about socialism. Is there an alternative to socialism?
A more pertinent topic for the BLHA may be the current weakness of the organised Left in Australia and how to rebuild socialist organisation. It is the failure of socialist organisation that has made it possible for the Labor Party to move so far to the right. Labor Party members may also find this topic interesting because of how the global markets are subverting even modest reforms by recent and current government i.e. Resource Rent Tax on gas exports subverted by Woodside Energy, Santos and Shell. (see Gas cartel launches operation ‘Destroy Albo’).
Thanks to the BLHA for putting on this event and thanks to Lachlan Hurse for recording it on YouTube.
Ian Curr
31 May 2023
You can read Howard Guille’s full speech below or view it on YouTube:
*A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, also known as “The Convention on Wetlands”, an intergovernmental environmental treaty established on 2nd February 1971 in Ramsar, Iran by UNESCO, which came into force from 21st December,1975. [from Wikipedia].