Rise and shine, Julia, it's Groundhog Day. Again

Eric Lobbecke

A SIX-WEEK break from this page after some unexpected back surgery, and nothing has changed. It is Groundhog Day in Canberra. Again.

Another week, another fractious caucus meeting, another Gillard government stuff-up with no one to blame but the Gillard government. The 1993 movie Groundhog Day may rank among the 100 funniest movies, according to the American Film Institute, but there is nothing funny about Gillard's Groundhog Day prime ministership.

So what lessons are there from Gillard's monumental mishandling of the announcement of an enterprise migration agreement for the massive Roy Hill iron ore project? A project that will provide 457 visas for up to 1700 foreign workers in Western Australia. To coin the PM's favourite phrase, settle in, because there are plenty of lessons to be learned. In fact, under Gillard, Labor is fast writing the definitive textbook on how not to run a government, let alone a country.

Let's start with Labor and the unions. Last week, Paul Howes, National Secretary of the Australian Worker's Union, vented his spleen in the most moronic manner by saying, "I mean, I thought we were actually attacking these guys at the moment. Whose side are we on? This is a big win for Gina Rinehart. I just still can't get my head around what political genius thought this was a good idea." Last Friday, Howes told ABC radio's PM program, "it is just sheer lunacy to give Gina Rinehart the massive pat on the back and free Christmas present they did today".

Playing to his east coast union audience, the union leader seems unable or, more likely, unwilling to recognise that what can be good for a major resources project such as Roy Hill, can also be good for the nation. His union rhetoric abut Christmas presents for billionaires is a classic zero sum game. In fact, EMAs are critical to attracting skilled migrants to work for large resource projects in remote places like the Pilbara. How do we know that? The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, told us so in his 2011-2012 budget when $10 million was set aside over four years to prioritise the processing of 457 visas. The PM likes them too. In January last year, she announced the fast-tracking of these migrant visas for employers involved in Queensland flood reconstruction work.

We have also learned how criticising your own good policy is about as dumb as it gets in Canberra. But when a PM is so consumed by the politics of survival she becomes detached from reality. What follows are plenty of rotten policies, corrupted processes and dreadful decisions. We know them all by now. Key words will suffice. The Carbon Tax lie. The East Timor non-solution. The Malaysia non-solution. The knee-jerk reaction to ban beef exports . The Australia Network tender debacle. Her office antics and the violent Australia Day protests. The bungled Future Fund chairman appointment. The Wilkie betrayal. The Slipper schemozzle. The Thomson affair.

Instead of the PM setting out the facts of why this nation needs to import foreign workers through the 457 visa program for projects in excess of $2 billion and requiring more than 1500 employees, Gillard sided with unions. She let it be known she was "furious" with the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's decision to grant Roy Hill, owned 70 per cent by Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting, the right to import up to 1700 foreign workers. Here was the Prime Minister caving in to vested interests, otherwise known as the union power brokers who will determine how long she remains in the prime minister's office until the next election.

Of course, we know what unions fear most. Foreign workers may choose not to join a union. Instead, these new workers may choose to join a trend already under way in Australia, where less than one in five workers are now becoming union members.

Selling the message of a sensible policy is a critical job requirement for any prime minister. Instead, that job was left to Bowen, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, WA-based Special Minister of State Gary Gray, and most recently, Climate Change and Industry Minister Greg Combet. On Sunday morning, Combet told ABC1's Insiders that it was important to "stay calm and have a look at the facts".

Combet pointed to the need to ensure a labour supply before investors will have the confidence to commit the sort of funds necessary for enormous resources projects. Another fact: EMAs have been a firm policy of the Gillard government approved by cabinet and announced at the last budget. There has been plenty of consultation with industry and unions about the shortages of skilled labour and the demand for labour particularly in the West, and the enormous pipeline of investment coming our way from these remote areas.

Another fact: it was no secret within government that Bowen and Ferguson have been negotiating this first EMA for the $9.5bn iron ore project for some time. Yet another fact: Australians will have the opportunity to apply for the jobs before any foreign workers can. And another fact: foreign workers will be employed on the same wages and conditions as Australian workers.

More facts, not from the PM but this time from Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations: Australia is suffering from a patchwork economy where the population is in the south and the east, while economic growth is taking place in the west and the north.

As Combet told Insiders host Barrie Cassidy, it is just too simplistic to imagine that those people who have suffered job losses in manufacturing industries in NSW or Victoria are willing to move to remote areas of northwest Western Australia.

Oh. A few more facts. This $9.5bn project will create 6700 jobs for Australians, including up to 2000 training places, 200 apprenticeships and will employ 100 indigenous workers.

The claim by the Prime Minister that she was not told of this decision beggars belief. It sits right up there with the school kid excuse of "the dog ate my homework". Certainly, if it's true, it suggests that the dictionary definition of dysfunctional is the present Labor government. It also suggests that rarely have we seen the leader of a government shrink so fast in office. Perhaps Gillard was not told about the EMA for the Roy Hill project because the responsible ministers couldn't find her, so small has she and her legitimacy as leader shrunk.

Another lesson: always listen for the dog that didn't bark. Once again, Kevin Rudd is left the quiet winner after yet another Gillard government stuff-up, with his backers left to suggest the unimaginable. Like I said, it's Groundhog Day. Again. A Rudd return is on the books again. Now, that much is funny.