Originally Posted by sunfish
The HSU scandal is just a symptom. The Labor party these days is just a tool for corrupt unionists to begin a new career.
There are plenty of witnesses to it all. The key reason Thomson is being protected is not the publicly portrayed story that he is required to keep the Govt alive, but because if he goes down then he takes several others with him, including some potential ALP leadership candidates.
The Union movement does hate exceptionally well. Battles with management are one thing, generally they are fought out on relatively fair grounds. But woe betide anyone in the union movement who crosses someone else who later gains power. That is what started the whole HSU debacle in public when the unions and ALP have always been far better than the Liberals at the quick knife to turn over a leader (refer Howard-Peacock, Howard-Costello, post Howard leadership as three examples of where the Libs are fundamentally weaker than the ALP - along with campaigning capability).
There are certain ex senior officials of unions pouring stories in to the media. They got shafted out of their particular union(s) and now they are looking for payback. If there's ever a Royal Commission into the union movement nobody in their right mind would ever join a union in its current form again.
In this area SP gets credit. I can't say if he's squeaky clean or not, I simply have no knowledge of anything negative. But unlike certain other officials it was never a precondition of any meeting with him or the ALAEA that a woman/women had to be provided at a hotel room at a certain time prior to the meeting.
Anyone who believes the vast majority of unions are actually about representing their members' interests is kidding themselves. There are certainly some idealogues out there who are actually that way inclined, I'd say SP is probably one of those, but the majority are just out for themselves and their faction on the basis that the faction will look after its loyal soldiers. The HSU screwed it up because they were amateurs looking to feed a the trough like some of the big kids.