Labor

PEACE IN OUR TIME? Feeney/Shorten peace deal challenged by CFMEU egomania

Rick Wallace at The Australian has written an intriguing tale about the rebel Ambition Faction’s deal with CFMEU.

It touches on a question that many familiar with these arrangements have asked which is if the Feeney-Shorten brokered peace deal is as close as it appeared to be, why did the NUW and CFMEU push so hard to conclude their own deal when it had the risk of unmaking the peace?

There are all manner of possible reasons, according to those familiar with the waltzing alliance dalliance partners of the sub-factions and fractions:

■ Revenge. Kim Carr and Alan Griffin both did much – by entering into their alliance with Labor Unity in January – to smite the NUW/SDA/Feeney forces. By backing up Carr/Griffin’s own rebels, the Right rebels get to kick them back as they were kicked. Wallace’s piece says that Griffin’s preselection could be under threat, no idle threat given the strength of feared warlord Adem Somyurek’s local numbers in the federal seat of Bruce. Griffin survived the 2006 preselection wrestle-mania by one vote, allegedly on the orders of then Opposition Leader Kim Beazley who’d been supported by Griffin for years.

■ Industrial imperatives, sorting out a political alliance has helped cement industrial agreements between the NUW and the CFMEU to their mutual benefit. Some have interpreted this as a corrupt scheme to get the government to allocate them memberships, NUW sources tell VEXNEWS though it’s much more innocent than that, saying that on some issues they’ve worked out what amounts to a demarcation agreement between the unions on certain sites. They say – and they’re right – that this is not greatly unusual. Where opponents of the deal say they get into trouble is when ministers aligned to that union – or their staff – become involved. It’s certainly not a good look if they have. A man-crush between the NUW’s Antony Thow and CFMEU’s Bill Oliver is one thing, the distribution of government given privileges in return for preselection votes is another entirely. We understand that Bill Oliver’s wife is an NUW shop steward, so the bonds between them are strong.

■ A convincer for the Short-Cons. A desire by the NUW/SDA group to remove scepticism that they had formed an alliance of this kind by making it formal and publicly known. They also say that it had the effect of empowering Shorten within his group to encourage some of the more combative elements within Labor Unity of the need for a peace deal with their NUW cousins.

■ A desire to appear Macho/Strong. The NUW were seriously embarrassed earlier this year. They had been strong-armed by avaricious sub-factional allies into supporting a blow-in candidate in Kororoit. They had then gone along with what they perceived to be a fatwah issued by Brumby COS Dan O’Brien on the party secretary Stephen Newnham. Neither was their fight, NUW sources insist. They had just joined Labor Unity and were keen to both appear peaceful and decent while also maintaining their unprecedented and potentially very powerful voting bloc with the SDA and SDA affiliates. When the whole thing imploded on the NUW there was considerable internal concern that their alliance partners had led them astray. Being practical people, they didn’t waste time on recriminations, instead looking for a way out of being isolated politically and left to the mercy of the one they regard as the Great Satan, Bill Shorten. So they have attempted to regain their mojo through a deal with extreme left union officials from the CFMEU and AMWU. Their base has grown from low thirties to just about forty per cent of the Victorian ALP, making them less vulnerable to preselection “purges” and also making their people feel like they’ve had a much-needed win.

■ More bums on seats on Parliament. The CFMEU and certain officials of the AMWU Metals division have complained that Carr and Griffin have shut them out from the parliamentary feasting table depriving those unionists, their girlfriends, sons and friends access to Labor’s Ladder of Opportunity into Parliament. They see their votes have been taken for granted by politicians and that their vote should be equal to everyone else’s, notwithstanding adverse findings of Royal Commissions, none too infrequent criminal prosecutions and a culture in the construction industry of bullying, intimidation and sometimes corruption.

None of these reasons are necessarily illegitimate. Indeed they are entirely understandable motivations, even if we don’t necessarily agree with them.

NUW sources say none of their arrangement with the CFMEU necessarily jeopardises the Memorandum of Understanding drafted in detail by the precise Senator David Feeney. It covers almost every conceivable area of conflict within the Labor Right and attempts to sort out every dispute before it happens. A worthy aim that Feeney and Shorten have worked tirelessly towards. We believe it was a mistake for two of the state’s largest moderate and most respected unions to risk their reputation by doing any deal with the CFMEU in any public way. And while some would dispute that, few would question that the timing of their semi-public celebration of their arrangement was all bad.

Some Labor insiders say that despite the bad timing, Feeney and Shorten will ensure that Premier John Brumby and his office put considerable pressure on all party players to ink the MOU prior to the State Conference to avoid figurative bloodshed between the warring clans. Key to this will be the Premier’s senior staffer Tom Cargill, a close friend of Feeney’s and Yorick Piper, who hails from the Forestry division of the CFMEU who is by no means necessarily a friend of the Construction division.

But many see some conflict at the conference as inevitable, particularly a looming dispute about the composition of the Health Services Union delegation. The Pauline Fegan controlled Branch Committee of Management has appointed ALP state conference delegates, so too has the union secretary Jeff Jackson. There are two Popes, ordering their forces to gather. Conflict of some kind is inevitable.

So while John Brumby’s power is supreme in many things, not even he can order the combatants of the HSU to make peace. So watch out for that nasty fight quite early in the conference while some will still be sleeping off hangovers from the HSU Trivia Night fundraiser for the three of their deposed officials. The high stakes, months of seething conflict and the shots of sambuca still going through people’s systems should be enough to guarantee a feisty debate.

Otherwise, a quiet conference is anticipated by those mindful of a state election in 2010 and a need to muscle up against a Liberal Opposition that is at least feeling slightly better about itself in Spring Street. The state Libs felt like they had a very good week in Parliament last week and are looking to keep the heat on. That unusual phenomenon could be enough to stop Labor navel-gazing and head-kicking, for at least a while.

© 2009 VEXNEWS 2010©.