"Rudd softens IR message to woo business", headlined the Australian Financial Review on 2 February.
Kim Beazley had promised to "rip up" Howard's new anti-worker laws. Beazley was vague about exactly what he would replace those laws with, and how much of the content of the laws would remain in force, but he used the words "rip up".
Ah, declared Rudd to Southern Cross radio on 1 February: "That may have been Kim's sort of form of making a point".
Metaphorical, you see. Young Kevin doesn't go for that sort of vigorous language. "All I'm saying is, we're not going to support these laws in office. They don't get the balance right".
The same day, Rudd told a Business Council of Australia dinner that "Labor would consult business leaders... He would bring business leaders into his cabinet through a council of corporate advisers... [In the meantime] Labor shadow ministers willbe expected to consult chiefs of multinational companies..."
Rudd's proposals here were pioneered by Beazley, but the emphasis on them is new to Rudd.
Deputy leader Julia Gillard was still using the words "rip up" on 1 February, but doubtless she will soon adopt Rudd's new-speak.
The pattern since Rudd and Gillard took office in December is one of piecemeal, vague, but unmistakable nibbling-away at the ALP's already-weak promises on workers' rights. Bit by bit, Rudd is trying to shift the goalposts, and to ensure that he comes out of the ALP conference at the end of April with as few hard commitments as possible.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet told the AFR that he was "not worried" about the ALP backtracking on workers' rights.
"You can completely get rid of an act of parliament by completely amending it, so I don't mind the mechanism that's adopted to get decent IR laws... It needs to be ripped up in a figurative sense, but the particular mechanism you use... is neither here nor there".
Remember Winston Churchill's famous speech on 4 June 1940, after Dunkirk. "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..."
Suppose the old Tory imperialist had said, instead: "We shall seek a better balance on the beaches. We shall readjust things on the landing grounds. We shall combine fairness with flexibility in the fields, in the streets, and in the hills. We're not going to support the Nazis. They don't get the balance right".
Who wouldn't have concluded that Churchill was going along with the (then quite popular) idea that Britain should seek a peace deal ceding Hitler control of Europe in return for a promise by Hitler to leave the British Empire intact?
What Combet of the day would have commented: "You can see off an enemy by clever military tactics, so I don't mind the strategy that is adopted to counter the Nazis. They need to be defeated in a figurative sense, but the particular way you express that is neither here nor there"?
Combet is not stupid. Privately, he must know what Rudd is doing. However, like most top union officials, he sees backroom pressure and corridor manoeuvring as the way to get things done politically - not open appeals to the rank and file.
Only a bold drive to educate and mobilise the rank and file can counter Rudd.
Martin Thomas
