Practically Lathamesque is the best way to sum up the Labor Party's week. One of the enduring memories of Mark Latham's brief and inglorious ALP leadership was his press conference denouncing the Australia-US alliance. A few days later, standing in front of an American flag, he issued an almost complete retraction.
What Julia Gillard has achieved this week would do the former leader proud. Announcing the details of Labor's industrial relations policy at the weekend, Gillard in effect said that she didn't care what employers thought of her policy. She didn't apologise for the fact that while she had consulted the ACTU she hadn't bothered to talk to business. Finally, for good measure, the potential deputy prime minister threatened companies that if they campaigned in favour of the present industrial arrangements they would suffer "injuries".
By the end of the week the long march back to sensible policy had begun.
Following the reaction from business, Gillard is now proposing to "fine tune" Labor's policy. She would have realised that things were getting serious when even BHP Billiton, a company renowned for studious indifference to most things controversial, was roused to issue a statement of concern.
On Wednesday Gillard met representatives of the resources companies and engaged in "constructive discussions". She even went so far as to acknowledge that the business community and the mining sector were generating "so much of the nation's wealth". Labor's message at the week's end was very different from its message of three days earlier. There was no retreat from the promise to abolish Australian workplace agreements, but the rhetoric had shifted. Of course, there's nothing new in politicians changing what they say and how they say it. That's what politicians do. But in the case of the ALP's industrial relations policy, seldom has there been such a change on such a major issue in so short a space of time. (The speed with which Labor went into reverse was comparable to the speed at which John Howard acted to force an apology from Liberal senator Bill Heffernan following Heffernan's remarks about Gillard's personal life).
The problem for Australian businesses is not Labor's policies, it is Labor's attitude. Business might win this battle, but there is no guarantee of success in the war against those who believe Australia should return to a pre-1970s industrial relations system.
It is easy to change policies. Changing ideology is more difficult. The fear is that Gillard's initial reaction revealed what she really thought of business. So far there hasn't been much of an indication from Gillard that she regards industrial relations as anything other than a zero-sum game -- either bosses win or workers win. There's not much comprehension that these days when a mining company puts an electrician working in the Pilbara on an AWA and payshim or her $100,000 a year, both the company and the employee think they are getting a good deal.
On Wednesday ACTU president Sharan Burrow declared that "greedy corporations" should "back off' from criticising Labor. Those comments were as helpful to Kevin Rudd as George Bush would be to John Howard if the US President told the Australian public to vote for the coalition because of its policies on Iraq. The only thing the ACTU could do that would be worse for Labor would be for Greg Combet to announce that he looked forward to receiving the industrial relations portfolio in a Rudd government.
Invoking the image of "greedy corporations" might rally the troops at a Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union rally, but it doesn't do much more. It is thanks to "greedy corporations" that Australia's unemployment rate is at its lowest level in 30 years. If the people who have a veto of the ALP's industrial relations policy really want to start a class war, it is not only business that should be concerned.
Latham's behaviour over the US alliance didn't cost Labor the 2004 election, and Gillard won't all by herself cost Labor the 2007 election. But Latham's actions contributed to the creation of a perception, just as Gillard's have.
It is unfortunate that just as federal Labor was regaining a degree of policy credibility, its industrial relations policies undo all of its previous good work.
In recent months ALP shadow ministers have made more than useful contributions on issues such as the coalition's spending priorities, performance pay for teachers and the red tape burden for small business. All of this is now forgotten.
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