BY SUE BOLAND
A few months ago, federal minister for workplace relations and small business Peter Reith told a meeting of the Financial and Treasury Association (SA branch) that "political correctness" in the media meant that businesspeople were portrayed as "greedy or self-interested".
Public debate, Reith told the June 16 gathering, was too often centred on "what unions want by way of distribution of wealth and not the creation of wealth". "We should not be apologists for wealth creation", Reith said. It was important "to speak out loudly for the values of entrepreneurship, risk-taking and profitability".
Reith was highlighting the function of himself and his fellow politicians — to help corporations make big profits and make sure the rich stay rich. Double standards are the order of the day, and politicians make the laws accordingly.
It's fine for corporations to lock workers out of their jobs, but it's not for workers to go on strike. It's fine for a company to steal workers' entitlements when it collapses (while the directors own other companies) but it's not for workers to steal from their employer. It's fine for CEOs of big companies to rake in multi-million dollar salary packages annually, but not OK for workers to campaign for a $20 a week pay rise.
When the Coalition federal government was elected in 1996, Prime Minister John Howard made a big song and dance about how his government was going to be honest, accountable and transparent. He tabled in parliament a ministerial code of conduct that required ministers "to divest themselves of all shares and similar interests in any company or business involved in the area of their portfolio responsibilities". It required that there be "no conflict or apparent conflict between interests and duties".
During the Coalition's first term, five ministers (Jim Short, Geoff Prosser, John Sharp, David Jull and Peter McGauran), two parliamentary secretaries (Brian Gibson and Bob Woods) and several senior staff members were found to have flouted these standards, and consequently lost their jobs (of course, the MPs kept their seats in parliament).
Two other ministers (John Moore and Warwick Parer) and parliamentary secretary Warren Entsch escaped dismissal because the government was paying too high a price for enforcing the code of conduct. Former resources minister Warwick Parer's conflict of interest arose from having $2 million invested in coal mines when his ministerial portfolio had responsibility for that industry.
A number of ministers were felled in 1997 when they were exposed as having rorted the generous travel allowances that politicians enjoy. The Labor Party was planning to expose more ministers for rorting travel allowances when the Coalition exposed Labor politicians who also had their snouts in the travel allowance trough. The Labor Party suddenly fell silent on travel rorts.
Guidelines
Howard changed the ministerial code to stem the loss of ministers and parliamentary secretaries. In 1998, the code became a set of guidelines. In 1999, Howard introduced a new set of guidelines that allowed ministers to retain ownership of assets relevant to their portfolio interests as long as they did not directly manage the assets. Control could be devolved to an adult family member. Perceived conflicts between ministerial duty and private gain are now acceptable.
In the tradition of one law for the rich, and another law for everyone else, Reith abused parliamentary guidelines regarding the use of his telecard. Until public anger became red hot, Howard asserted that there was no problem with Reith having given his telecard PIN number to this son.
It's "not a hanging offence" said Howard. Yet, In Howard's and Reith's eyes, if a welfare recipient does not notice a Centrelink overpayment worth a lousy few dollars and fails to notify Centrelink, they deserve everything they get under the social security department's harsh penalties.
Despite having been found guilty of false travel allowance claims by ACT courts, former Liberal Party senators Bob Woods and Noel Crichton-Browne and former National Party MP Michael Cobb were not sentenced to jail. Former Labor senator Mal Colston avoided having to be tried on fraudulent travel allowance claims because of "ill health".
In contrast, ACT courts in 1999 sentenced 18% of people convicted of welfare fraud to prison, and a further 25% were ordered to undertake community services.
While federal parliamentarians consider it acceptable that they not receive jail sentences for rorts costing thousands of dollars (and often tens of thousands), they refuse to overturn laws in the Northern Territory which result in mandatory sentencing for the most trivial offences such stealing towels or biscuits.
Even if Howard sacks Reith from the cabinet, Reith will not be forced to give up his parliamentary seat. But when it comes to workers, however, Reith opposes unfair dismissal laws and upholds the right of businesses to sack workers at will.
Since the "telecard affair" became public, newspaper editorials have been baying for Reith's blood — but only a little. They have been calling for him to be sacked, but not charged.
Disrepute
The Australian editorial on October 12 declared that, "Repayment [of the $50,000] would restore some moral authority to the government. But it could never mend the damage caused by the hypocrisy of Mr Reith's conduct, in light of his attacks on union rorts ... Neither could repayment remove the offensive double standard. He has kept his job, while demanding employers have a right to sack errant workers for less."
The reason why the media moguls want Reith's head is because he has brought the institution of parliament into disrepute, exposing its double-standards. The owners of the Australian, the Murdoch family, and other capitalists are opposed to blatant rorting by politicians because it makes it difficult for governments to justify their attacks on the rights of workers, Aborigines, refugees and welfare recipients.
The capitalist media was cheering Reith on when he conspired with Patrick Stevedores and the National Farmers Federation to sack Patrick's entire work force of waterside workers and replace them with scabs, breaching his own industrial relations in the process.
The double standard was illustrated in the Australian on October 12. Dennis Shanahan wrote: "This [telecard affair] is a big problem for a minister who has attacked unionists, particularly waterfront workers for rorting the system. Of course, it is nowhere near the magnitude of the waterfront rorts but the principle remains the same and allows Labor to run the campaign of a hypocritical, heartless government."
Shanahan and Reith have a hide to talk about waterfront "rorts". Unlike Shanahan and Reith, waterside workers have to work double-shifts with dangerous machinery in all sorts of weather and at all times of the day and night. A wharfie's job is extremely dangerous, and they're not entitled to the special privileges that politicians get such as a big income, early access to superannuation, free telephone usage and free petrol.
In December 1999, the Remuneration Tribunal recommended a 10% pay rise for all federal MPs. The recommendation was subsequently passed by parliament. The increase brought the base salary for backbenchers to $90,000, up from the $81,856. On top this every MP receives annual an electorate allowance of at least $27,000.
The annual salaries for various office holders are: prime minister, $234,000; deputy prime minister, $184,500; treasurer or government leader in the Senate, $168,750; leader of the house, $157,500; other cabinet ministers, $152,250; other ministers, $141,750; parliamentary secretaries, $112,500; opposition leader, $166,500. These incomes don't include the various lurks and perks of office.
Politicians get special superannuation privileges which ordinary workers are not entitled to. For example, when National Party senator Bill O'Chee left parliament after nine years service at the age of 33, he took $1.39 million in superannuation (5% from his own contributions and 95% from taxpayers).
When ordinary workers leave a job before the age of 55, they only get back their own contributions plus interest. In contrast, retired politicians can start to draw on their superannuation immediately and still be eligible to take another job.
All these perks flow through to the judiciary, top public servants, state MPs and their bureaucracies, and eventually percolate down to local government, countless government boards and public corporations and commissions at all levels.
Capitalism
Why, when governments and big business are preaching austerity and demanding cutbacks in government spending, is a blind eye turned to this runaway gravy train? In the view of Max Lane, a former research officer employed by the Senate and now a member of Democratic Socialist Party, the answer is simple: it gives MPs, regardless of their party or the social class of the people who elect them, a direct stake in the capitalist system.
"Once comfortable in parliament, newly elected MPs are initiated into an exclusive and very luxurious club. All the club privileges serve one purpose — to bring MPs closer to the wealthy minority that controls real power in capitalist society, the owners of the big corporations", Lane told Green Left Weekly.
"How is somebody who is able to spend well over $100,000 every year, with access to free first-class air travel and an endless list of other generous handouts — and all the comfortable facilities of a $1.5 billion building — capable of identifying with the needs and aspirations of people on $15,000, $20,000, or $30,000 a year?
"How far apart are the worlds of MPs — and their spoiled offspring these days, it seems — with paid unlimited telephone expenses and those who have to scrimp and scrape to pay their Telstra or Optus bills? The whole of the operation of parliament is aimed at keeping apart the 'representatives' and the represented.
"If you have been receiving $120,000 plus for five or 10 years, very soon you have the capacity to make investments and buy shares or real estate. You might invest in a big commercial piggery, like former PM Paul Keating did. You learn to like expensive Italian suits or antique clocks, or quaff ridiculously priced wine as if it were soft drink.
"As time goes on, well-endowed members end up with the same interests as other rich investors. 'What's good for business is good for everybody' becomes your motto. When you leave office, corporations line up to appoint you to lucrative directorships because of the connections you have."
New system
The current parliamentary system needs to be abolished and replaced with an entirely different system — one in which elected representatives share the interests of the vast majority not the tiny wealthy capitalist elite.
Such a system would sharply reduce parliamentary incomes and allowances to the level of an average worker, prevent parties from being funded by large corporations, limit how much political parties can spend on advertising, decrease the size of electorates, and enable electors to sack their parliamentarian if necessary.
Combined with this, working hours for all workers would need to be radically reduced (with no reduction in pay) to enable workers to participate in political decision-making.