Well, this is unhelpful: an ex-Labor minister urging a new Coalition government to get tougher on workplace relations. Speaking at an energy conference in Perth today, Martin Ferguson pushed Tony Abbott to go further than his “modest” proposed reforms:
“We must get serious about closing the competitive gap that has opened up between Australia and our rivals. A workplace relations system that drives investment to other countries is in nobody’s interest — certainly not those union members and their families who will be bargaining themselves out of a future.”
Of course, Ferguson would say that — he now sits on an advisory board to APPEA (“the voice of Australia’s oil and gas industry”) and was speaking in that capacity today. Perhaps Labor could have pushed its former resources and energy minister to uphold the spirit of the ministerial code of conduct, which states:
“Ministers are required to undertake that, for an eighteen month period after ceasing to be a Minister, they will not lobby, advocate or have business meetings with members of the government, parliament, public service or defence force on any matters on which they have had official dealings as Minister in their last eighteen months in office. Ministers are also required to undertake that, on leaving office, they will not take personal advantage of information to which they have had access as a Minister, where that information is not generally available to the public.”
If Ferguson didn’t have his plum new job to spout industry lines on industrial relations, Bill Shorten could have avoided the embarrassment.
Bill Shorten’s embarrassment is not because Martin Ferguson has made these comments, but because Bill Shorten is totally refusing to hear the will of the electorate. Ferguson’s words that you have quoted, say it all. It is Shorten who is threatening jobs by his niaive positioning on IR.This whole current mess be it Qantas, GMH or any other example comes down simply to the fact that under Labor, Australia got all its priorities wrong, and that’s what killed these formally great businesses. Your very commentary, using words like unhelpful and embarrassment, indicate your bias in these matters, but that’s OK. At least Ferguson has the common sense to call things as they are, and you try to convert to a vested interest issue. Wrong,wrong,wrong!
I didn’t much care for this bloke when he was in office – Even less so, now.
Maybe he’s not merely “spouting industry lines” but actually believes what he’s saying.
It’s so easy and superficial to ignore the substance of what someone says by criticising his or her associations.
He’s all Right. He got what he wanted out of the party.
I felt for a long time that Ferguson was in the wrong party. Whilst in Government he always seemed more on the side of big business, especially in the resources industry, than of the workers. He still prosecuted a class war but it was not against the bosses but against ‘greenies’ which was anyone who questioned resource developments. He is now in his natural home.
Bill Shorten shouldn’t feel too embarrassed about him. He should be relieved that he is no longer a member of the parliamentary party.