Anthony Albanese entices Left faction aboard for AUKUS
The PM will promise almost 10,000 ‘secure, well-paid unionised jobs’ in SA and aspire to a ‘world without nuclear weapons’ in a last-minute AUKUS deal with unions.
Anthony Albanese will promise almost 10,000 “secure, well-paid unionised jobs” in South Australia and aspire to a “world without nuclear weapons” in a last-minute AUKUS deal with unions to block attempts by Left-faction delegates to embarrass the government.
The Prime Minister on Friday will stare down threats from union officials to cast doubt over the defence pact and remove AUKUS from the ALP national conference policy platform.
Defence Minister Richard Marles and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy – senior Right and Left faction powerbrokers – sealed deals with union and factional bosses on Thursday to insert a 32-paragraph statement on AUKUS and nuclear submarines in the national platform.
The Electrical Trades Union, AMWU and CFMEU on Thursday backed down from threats to undermine the government’s support for AUKUS after winning investment and policy pledges on an Australian version of US President Joe Biden’s multi-billion-dollar clean-energy Inflation Reduction Act, thousands of new manufacturing jobs and housing.
Senior government sources said they expected robust debate on the AUKUS motion, which could be amended by delegates, but were not predicting major changes to the statement on Friday morning. The national Right faction endorsed the statement with minimal amendments at a meeting on Thursday.
The Australian understands that while the ETU and the CFMEU’s construction and maritime divisions would seek to remove any references to nuclear submarines in the platform statement, senior union officials conceded they would fail to secure the numbers.
In his opening address to the 49th ALP national conference in Brisbane, Mr Albanese did not reference AUKUS but said his government was “not here for mere gestures; we are here to change the country”.
As the Prime Minister urged the party faithful to support the “patient work of ensuring lasting change”, ALP national president Wayne Swan defended governments running deficits.
The former treasurer, who was criticised by the Coalition for failing to deliver surpluses in the wake of the global financial crisis, attacked conservative critics as “deeply psychotic”. Speaking at a fringe event titled “How to win an argument with a right-wing shock jock”, Mr Swan said conservative commentators and politicians were grasping on to culture wars because the pandemic had quashed the notion that “all deficits are inherently bad”.
“We went through a period of hysteria over deficit … that was the standard narrative prior to Covid in Australia and the narrative when I was treasurer,” Mr Swan said. “It’s not the standard narrative anymore.”
Mr Swan also endorsed the big spending on AUKUS.
In his speech, Mr Albanese said his government was committed to “demonstrating our responsible approach on everything from the economy to foreign policy and national security, and showing we are capable of bringing people together, in the national interest”.
“This may not always grab every headline,” the Prime Minister said. “It might not suit the agenda of those who prefer protest to progress, who imagine grand gestures and bold declarations are better than the patient work of ensuring lasting change.”
The AUKUS statement, which does not replace the one-word reference to the defence deal in the 114-page draft platform and is included as a formal attachment, details the Albanese government’s reasons for supporting the tripartite nuclear submarine pact.
The pledge, which will ease the concerns of US and British officials, includes commitments on nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament efforts and a “world without nuclear weapons”.
It reaffirms Labor’s plan to build the SSN-AUKUS nuclear submarines, which are projected to cost between $268bn and $368bn, in South Australia and commits to “secure, well-paid unionised jobs”.
“Labor commits that Australia’s SSN-AUKUS submarines will be built by Australian workers in South Australia, with a peak of 4000 workers employed to design and build the infrastructure at Osborne and a further 4000 to 5500 jobs created to build the submarines,” says the AUKUS statement in detail.
The motion strongly commits Australia “to the collective security of our region and to the maintenance of the global rules-based order – so fundamental to Australia’s prosperity”. It says such a move is “at the heart of Australia’s strategic intent behind acquiring a conventionally-armed, modern and fit for purpose nuclear-powered submarine capability”.
The CFMEU, which protested at the Brisbane Convention Centre on day one of the ALP national conference, retreated on demands to include a 40 per cent super profits windfall tax on companies with turnovers above $100m to bankroll almost one million homes.
Construction union bosses were promised ongoing and increased investment in housing to douse their concerns.
The ETU and AMWU won concessions on a Biden-style Inflation Reduction Act to boost investment in renewables and thousands of green-energy manufacturing jobs.
ETU national secretary Michael Wright and his AMWU counterpart Steve Murphy, whose unions had raised concerns about AUKUS and nuclear submarines, claimed a major victory after the government backed their motion committing to a smaller-scale US Inflation Reduction Act clean energy package, which offers billions of dollars in tax credits.
On the first anniversary of Mr Biden’s IRA, the ALP national conference endorsed a plan to develop an Australian fund, which could be based on models in the US, Europe and Canada where 2 to 3 per cent of GDP was committed to help fund the transition to renewables.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, who backed the ETU-AMWU motion, described the US measures as the most important environmental legislation in a generation and warned it should be used to genuinely offset additional emissions.
Mr Bowen said the government was forming its own response to the IRA, which also allows for Australian businesses to access the tax credits and grants on offer.
CFMEU construction boss Zach Smith – whose call for a super profits tax to fund housing projects was watered down to Labor supporting a “progressive and sustainable tax system, including corporate tax reform” – said this was not everything that the union was demanding.
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