On this day, June 9, 1989, Australian Labor Party heavyweight and Environment Minister Graham Richardson faced off with (then-powerful) trade union figures.
The ALP were facing a very tight election soon. Bob Hawke was ageing, Paul Keating was wanting the top job. The economy was not good (interest rates very high) and the Liberals looked credible and were making green noises. The Tasmanian election of May 1989 had seen a huge green vote.
So, it was crucial to get this right. But what about the workers??
AN ODDLY portentous scene was played out behind the closed doors of the ALP national executive’s last meeting in Canberra on June 9 by two of the party’s toughest right-wing figures: the Federal Environment Minister, Graham Richardson, and the AWU general secretary, Errol Hodder.
Hodder, who had left the executive meeting briefly, returned to be told that while he was away Richardson had spoken of how the union movement had to reassess its position on the environment, and that someone present had said that the ACTU’s attitude on the issue was “stupid”.
Never backward in coming forward, Hodder leapt up to make a strong defence of the union movement’s reaction to the growing importance of the environmental debate.
What he said, in essence, was that the unions were well aware of the significance of the issue but the Government had to recognise a few things too. A tree might be a pretty thing to look at, but the view paled when you’d been put out of a job and you’d a mortgage to pay and a family to feed.
Clark, P. 1989. Unions may as well be talking to the trees. Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June, p13
Why this matters.
Have we squared this circle yet? Really? Maybe the red-green alliance we need is at hand. I will believe it when I see it. Here’s a picture of “Richo” back in the day.
What happened next?
In order to win the next election the ALP promised an “Ecologically Sustainable Development” process. And then filed the results in the circular file, obvs (more on that in August…)
Within a few months, the ACTU had changed its tune –
Moffet, L. 1989. ACTU turns a decided shade of green. Australian Financial Review, 26 September.
The ACTU has signalled it is changing its colours and turning green by making its first major policy statement on environmental issues.
The statement – to be debated at the ACTU Congress this morning -represents a concerted attempt by the organisation to overcome public opinion that the union movement is full of pro-logging rednecks.
The ACTU hopes that by tapping into the groundswell of concern over environmental matters it will prove its relevance to the community and boost its membership numbers. ACTU delegates privately conceded yesterday that the union movement had allowed itself to become an irrelevant voice in public debate on environmental issues.
Personal disclaimer/pre-emptive statement
The “right” has been extremely successful at driving wedges between environmentalists and trades unionists, with caricatures of each. Without organisation by working class people, it is not going to be possible to do anything meaningful about climate change. It just isn’t. Unfortunately, given how hard the struggle for them to even get to organise (laws designed to make it impossible to unionise), “abstract” issues like, oh, the fate of the planet, often don’t resonate. I have, in my looong life, seen moments for red-green co-operation squandered, gulfs of mutual-incomprehension and antipathy grow. We need to do better…