Sunday, January 08, 2006

2006: threats, challenges and opportunities

Unions NSW secretary, John Robertson

"I think the way we have campaigned this year has been sensational in regards to dealing with some of things that we have been talking about for the last 10 years, we have finally done it and the other thing is it has given us the capacity to push the envelope in the way we have campaigned. Things like running ads, actions on the ground, the Last Weekend, the Sky Channel broadcast, the targeted seats campaign.

It hasn't just been the ads that have moved people, it's been the bus around NSW, community meetings, and setting up the regional networks. All those things are about building political power, but it also builds a presence within those regional areas. With every threat comes a lot of opportunities and the outcome of this is to grab those opportunities and make them work.

I'll gauge success two ways. One is that the public opinion on these changes continues to stay where it is, that is that people continue to be concerned about it and it continues to be at the forefront of people' minds. Effectively, this campaign will be successful if we go to the next election with industrial relations is one of the top five election issues. I'll gauge success by the number of people who are involved in the campaign, rank and file people that are actively involved in our campaign in the regional networks in the targeted seats. The most obvious guage will be if our unions continue to grow as they have done this year, that would be success.

That said, the whole point of this campaign isn't simply about growing union membership, it's about raising public awareness and providing people with an opportunity to have a voice. Far and away for me, success would be reaching out to the broader community, to the faith organisations, the sporting groups and other community organisations and standing shoulder to shoulder with them in this campaign for a decent Australia."

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