ACTU: Jeff Lawrence outlines dangers

The outgoing head of Australia's union movement has decried the nation's growing inequality and warned of the "real danger" of an Abbott Government, in his final speech as secretary of the ACTU.
Jeff Lawrence said that in the last 30 years the richest one per cent of Australians' share of national income had almost doubled.

"Now nine per cent of national income belongs to just one per cent of Australians," Mr Lawrence said.
"It is shameful that Australia, a country that prides itself on the fair go, as being egalitarian, is more unequal than most OECD countries.''

Amid the unfolding saga of Craig Thomson and the Health Services Union, Mr Lawrence said that corruption within unions was not acceptable and allegations that HSU members' money has been misused were alarming.

He warned around 1000 union leaders, gathered at the Sydney Convention Centre this morning for the union movement's triennial Congress, that the Coalition's industrial relations policies are being put together to favour employers interests alone, not employees.

"I have no doubt that employer groups are currently writing the Coalition's industrial relations policy," Mr Lawrence told delegates this morning, in his final speech as secretary of the ACTU.

Mr Lawrence also said this morning that every union delegate at the Congress should be "alarmed at the allegations that [HSU] members' money has been misused. It is not acceptable. And will not be tolerated," he said.The ACTU suspended the HSU indefinitely last month, because of the allegations swirling around it and its senior officers.

Earlier, ACTU president Ged Kearney received a rousing round of applause from delegates when she said that the HSU's "arrogance and contempt" for accountability and its members were unacceptable.

Mr Lawrence warned that many employer groups around the country were using the Howard government's WorkChoices policy as "their new benchmark" for industrial relations.
He said employer groups wanted to end penalty rates, cut unfair dismissal protections, and reinstate the Australian Building and Construction Commission.