Let the fighting begin

PRIME minister-elect Kevin Rudd's decision to give his deputy Julia Gillard the responsibility for both industrial relations and education sends the trade union movement a confused message.

After gambling their members' money on an expensive 12-month advertising campaign in support of Rudd Labor, union leaders are concerned that IR has been relegated to a part-time portfolio. The Howard government's clunky WorkChoices legislation was central to Labor's fear message and it appears to have worked in all parts of Australia except WA, which happens to have the highest number of people employed on the Australian Workplace Agreements the Rudd Government is sworn to outlaw. Workers on those agreements are now wondering whether they can enlist the support of WA Premier Allan Carpenter to protect them from federal Labor, which they see as driven by power brokers a long way from the realities of their state's minerals boom. With the nation enjoying its lowest level of industrial unrest in living memory, IR will have to be carefully managed and Gillard will have a lot on her plate driving Rudd's promised education revolution. That Gillard won control of both key areas is a mark of the power she that wields in this Labor government. Frozen out of the traditional treasurer's slot by Wayne Swan after Rudd was forced during the campaign to name his economic team, Gillard has shown that she will make up for the slight by taking two slices of the pie. But taking IR and a second portfolio appears to downgrade that portfolio. IR was a prized portfolio in past Labor governments. It was central to the ALP power structure of the Labor movement and it had the power to affect ordinary people. Unless this is a deliberate shift in Labor philosophy, Rudd may find that he faces as many problems from the union activists of the Your Rights At Work brigade, who noisily stalked Coalition MPs during the election campaign, as he does from the new Opposition. It is unlikely that organised Labor will enjoy being marginalised by the new government as it was by the Coalition. That Gillard was given both may also reflect the reality that few at Thursday's Caucus meeting have had any experience in office and that, although Rudd promised not to pay heed to the demands of factions, there was an uncanny balance in the Cabinet he later announced. There were in fact two Caucus meetings on Thursday, the first at 10am, at which Rudd announced that those who considered themselves ready for Cabinet responsibility should self-nominate, and the second, which was called for 2.15pm, at which the good (or bad) news was to bedelivered. Rudd was late for the second meeting but the men of influence, Senators John Faulkner and Robert Ray, kept watchful eyes on the gathering and contemplated, perhaps, the possibilities for getting even after nearly 12 years in the wilderness. The four hours between the two meetings were gut-wrenching for most, with one Caucus member later saying that Rudd must have known what it was like to be the last person ever picked for a football or cricket team to have put his colleagues through such pain. Two women who considered themselves to be natural Cabinet talent were severely disappointed to receive negative calls just10 minutes before the Caucus was to reconvene. The big winners were those who supported Rudd from the start, his allies in the Victorian Left, the most radical branch of the ALP and now the most influential, followed by his supporters in the NSW Right. Senator Penny Wong, who took the tough questions Rudd did not wish to be associated with throughout the campaign, will be worth watching. She is a solid operator, who has earned a lot of respect and a lot is now expected of her. But the real fun will begin when the ideological clashes begin to surface, particularly from those in the Victorian Left notorious for their protectionist views and those of the free-market school. The task for new Opposition leader Brendan Nelson is to dispel any notion he is a seat-warmer. The Liberal party has obvious weaknesses that can be exploited, not the least being the reality that trade unions are already knocking on the doors of business and asking to know about union memberships. It is a matter of time before collective bargaining is returned and then the cry will go up that non-unionists are benefiting from union negotiations. The next step will be the requirement of a ``fee'' from non-union workers, set at just above the union charge with employers empowered to collect the fees or charges, and the unions will be well on the way to recoup their $30 million investment in the Rudd Government. With Gillard in charge of education, every private school will be looking to its funding, except perhaps The King's School, in Sydney, which apparently believes that its parents don't want help meeting its fees. The Opposition has a very good story to tell. It has created new jobs, it prevented an inflationary wage push with its regular tax cuts, and was far more active in areas like immigration, education and health than Labor would wish to acknowledge. It is now in the hands of Nelson and the Opposition to determine whether the times will really suit Rudd. [e-mail]