Cage Fight: Why Queensland doesn’t need the unions at all...

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    Cage Fight: Why Queensland doesn’t need the unions at all





    Unions are Labor’s biggest strength, its soul and its backbone – but they can also be like an embarrassing relative at a barbecue.
    JOIN regular columnists Des Houghton and John McCarthy in our weekly Cage Fight debate from 6am.
    Have your say in the comments section below
    John McCarthy says ...

    UNIONS are the soul of the Labor Party and without them Queenslanders would be living with Work Choices, widespread asset sales and a crippled Medicare.
    Without doubt the unions killed off those conservative policies and helped shape Labor’s opposition to them.
    Unions are Labor’s biggest strength, its soul and its backbone — but they can also be like an embarrassing relative at a barbecue.
    Without unions, Labor would be a slightly more lively version of the Democrats.
    The fact that Queensland Labor MPs have links to the unions is no more a concern than the LNP links to groups like the National Civic Council, Agforce and the various churches.
    They are all influences and prejudices that a great deal of the public also have.
    The test for the Palaszczuk Government will be how it balances that.
    For all their power at the ballot box, unions also have the power to taint the party with corruption.
    Look to Craig Thompson and the Health Services Union for evidence.
    And there are unions bordering on militant, the CFMEU and the Maritime Union lead the list. Their activities cast a dark shadow over the party.
    But life without unions would be much worse.
    One of the most powerful Australian unions is the Australian Medical Association, whose membership would not be dominated by those among the left of politics, but helped kill off the Liberal plans to decimate Medicare.
    If unions want payback for their support of the Queensland MPs they will have to stand in line and pray like everyone else because the only thing that is more powerful than links to a support group is the prospect of being voted out at the next election.
    That, above all else, is the driving motivation of an MP.

    Des Houghton says ...
    THE union movement is hovering like a death star over the minority Palaszczuk Government.
    Thanks to some fine reporting by my colleague Jason Tin, readers of The Courier-Mail now know just how much the ALP in Queensland is in hock to the unions.
    Tin reported on Monday that union bosses are boasting about their undue influence over the party.
    The unions bankrolled the ALP election and now they are demanding union-friendly policies from Palaszczuk and her Cabinet.
    Meanwhile a federal inquiry into unions has found serious allegations of criminality against CFMEU bosses with strong links to Palaszczuk and Labor.
    The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption found there were bribes, extortion, secret commissions and ‘other unlawful payments’’ involving members of the CFMEU, a militant union and Labor backer whose members include Police Minister Jo-Ann Miller and Jim Pearce, the Member for Mirani.
    There were no suggestions of impropriety by Miller or Pearce although Justice John Dyson Heydon’s interim report to Parliament was scathing against their union.
    The CFMEU has been fined more than $5 million for breaches of various laws since 2000. In the same period the CFMEU donated more than $9 million to the ALP.
    What does the union want in return, Ms Palaszczuk?

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...he-unions-at-all/story-fnn8dlfs-1227311883854
 
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