On October 26, Green Left Weekly in Canberra sponsored a forum for all candidates in the current Public Sector Union elections. The following letter was sent in reply to that invitation by PSU Alliance candidate Ross Campbell. Greg Adamson from PSU Challenge was invited to respond to Campbell's letter.
I refer to your note faxed to me on 14 October inviting me and my team, as participants in the forthcoming PSU elections, to attend GLW's 26 October forum on issues facing the PSU.
Neither I, nor any member of my team, will be attending the forum. Available evidence suggests that GLW's approach to the PSU election is not even handed and that there would be little point in us attending the forum. Articles concerning the PSU by Greg Adamson and Steve Rogers in recent editions of GLW have been based on serious errors of fact. Moreover, there has been no attempt to check information with me, despite a personal invitation to Greg Adamson. Perhaps the explanation for such a lack of diligence is that Greg Adamson is standing in the elections on a ticket opposing mine.
I have no problem at all with people having a different view to myself or publishing that view. I do think though that GLW owes it to its readers to follow a far more disciplined process than it has to date. For example, GLW should make an attempt to ensure published material is correct and that its journalists publicly declare their interests. For a journalist to attack election opponents using inaccurate data and without declaring their interest is very shoddy writing indeed. GLW should also ensure balanced treatment of the issues it reports. For example, certain members of the PSU Challenge group are members of the ALP although GLW's articles would suggest that only members of my team, PSU Alliance, participate in the ALP.
I am disappointed at GLW's approach to date and believe that a group allegedly supporting a democratic approach should do better. This is essential if people on the left are to get a balanced, truly independent view.
I ask that GLW publish either all or none of this letter.
Ross Campbell
Reply
Ross Campbell accuses me of making errors of fact in a GLW article relating to the Public Sector Union. I have contributed one article on that subject, which appeared in the August 11 issue, well before the announcement of any candidates in the current elections, and was not an electioneering article.
In that article I criticised leaders of the PSU in Canberra for involving the union in internal ALP politics, despite the fact that the union is not affiliated to the ALP. As an example I stated that Ross Campbell and other officers of the PSU were delegates at the June ACT conference of the ALP representing the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).
At a Politics in the Pub shortly afterwards, Ross denied this was the case, saying he personally was a delegate from an ALP branch. I supplied him with the Green Left Weekly fax number and encouraged him to respond in writing. This is the only issue on which Ross has ever spoken or otherwise communicated to me.
At the time of writing, I was relying on reports of where delegates were seated during the conference. Since then I have received a copy of the credentials report for that conference, including the list "Delegates to 1993 ACT Branch Annual Conference as at 25 June". Due to an oversight or for some other reason, it does not list Ross Campbell as attending in any capacity whatsoever. As ACT secretary Doug Thompson has been unwilling to talk about ALP affairs to anyone writing for Green Left Weekly, it has been difficult to clarify Ross' status at the conference.
On the other hand, matching the delegate list to the list of ACT PSU organisers in the August issue of the local union publication Spectrum showed that there appear to have been several PSU organisers as union delegates to the ALP conference: Lyn Dowrick, Celia Pollard, Justin Larkin and Sharon Kelley as delegates or alternate delegates from the CFMEU, and Brett Seaman from AMIEU.
I have no problem with officials of a union being active members of a political party. As Ross says, there are members of the ALP on the tickets of both PSU Challenge and PSU Alliance in the current ACT branch elections. What is wrong is PSU officials as union delegates (even if nominally representing other unions) to an ALP conference. Not surprisingly, most PSU members seem unwilling to compromise their union by affiliating it to the party of their employer. Ross' friends seem to be trying to achieve by stealth what they haven't won in open debate.
Greg Adamson