Patrick conspiracy “sheer evil”: Beazley

The mobilisation of sections of the defence forces and people "looking like ninjas with dogs" against Australian workers in 1998 was an act of "sheer evil", according to former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley

Addressing the MUA dinner at Darling Harbour Convention Centre, Sydney, on April 9 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Patrick dispute, Kim Beazley spoke of his deep respect for the union movement and the stand they took on behalf of all Australians at the time.

"We like to think that we're a nation of the fair go and a nation that stands up and, frankly, we are not," he said. "We have to have a stiffening in our backbone and the stiffening in our backbone comes from the union movement and the people who are here who defend us. Because that egalitarian opportunity is never delivered free of charge. It is something that has to be fought for.

"History is not linear; progress is not inevitable," he said. "If basic democratic decencies are to be preserved they have to be preserved in every generation. In every generation you have to fight for what you think has been fought for before and won. You have no choices."

Kim Beazley recalled the first time then MUA leader John Coombs had alerted him that something was afoot on the waterfront. He described Coombs as an ordinary bloke - smart, convicted and courageous - facing the tsunami that was the war on the waterfront.

"For 11 years our political opponents have fought class war," he said. "They have fought class war and we have had to stand for the whole nation. We have not responded with class war, we have responded with a defence of democracy for everyone. The Patrick dispute was at its very core an attack on the unions. The first wave of industrial relations legislation, which preceded it, was an attack on the unions. WorkChoices was an attack on the unions. Now we understand very well that when we go out there and fight, we fight about those things in the actions of our opponents that affect all Australians; that affect their livelihoods; their ability to look forward to a bit of dignity in the workplace and a decent outcome with wages and conditions that means their families can be supported. We mobilise the community on the basis of the broader community interest," he said.

"It was not about a more efficient economy, a more efficient workforce," he said. "All of that was there as part of the camouflage on the guts of what was really the issue. And the real issue is, are ordinary Australians going to have the right to organise in the workplace?"

"Our opponents waged class war on the waterfront and class war on Australia," he said. "We didn't. They did.

"They started that fight. We finished it," he said, noting Labor could not have won the election without the union movement.

A podcoast of the speech can be downloaded below