- Considering the social and gender equity benefits of a reduced working week with no loss of income;
- Investigating establishing Christmas Eve after 6pm as a public holiday,and considering reinstating the Workers Family Picnic Day;
- Working with the federal government to deliver the Outer Metropolitan Ring Rail Line,a proposed freeway connecting the Hume Freeway at Kalkallo north of Melbourne to the Princes Freeway south-west of Werribee. Infrastructure Victoria has identified the project as a priority to improve freight connectivity and reduce congestion on the roads;
- Advocating to the federal government for a national social housing agreement,as well as taking steps towards universal dental care;and
- Ensuring 15 per cent of total parking spaces remain free for fast-food and retail workers.
On Friday,September 16,the draft platform was emailed to rank-and-file members,who were given 10 days to provide their feedback. The platform is expected to be finalised in October.
The arguments over the document’s creation have angered unions involved in major Left and Right factions.
The United Firefighters Union and some right-wing unions out of favour with the dominant factional groupings were not consulted even though they pay affiliation fees to Labor to have a stake in its policies.
Mem Suleyman,assistant branch secretary of the powerful right-wing Transport Workers Union,wrote to Labor officials on Thursday,saying:“The Labor Party is the democratic sum of its membership and its affiliated unions. Its policy platform should not be written by faceless advisers who clearly have little regard for union members.”
In an email obtained by The Age,he claimed a “ministerial adviser hiding behind Spring Street towers continues to remove” a policy to establish a transport safety tribunal.
The document also claims Labor will maintain ownership of public assets and consider the benefits of returning privatised assets into the hands of the state. But the Australian Services Union secretary Lisa Darmanin lashed Labor over its decision to sell off the licensing and registration division of VicRoads.
State Labor has also privatised the Port of Melbourne and the Land Title’s Office since it came to power. The Victorian government disputes the licensing and registration division is fully privatised,but Darmanin described it as “weasel words”.
“It’s a privatisation of a public asset that hasn’t been done in any other state,” she said. “We take the platform seriously and when the government makes decisions that don’t fit with its platform it is highly disappointing.”
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The United Firefighters Union,who campaigned heavily for Andrews in the 2014 election,criticised the process of drafting the platform as well as the contents of the document,which union secretary Peter Marshall described as “scant”.
In a letter to Labor state secretary Chris Ford,obtained byThe Age,Marshall accused the party of ignoring paid firefighters by not committing to ensuring the Fire Services Property Levy collected in growth areas goes directly to resourcing professional fire services.
“The UFU was not contacted,and was not provided an opportunity to comment,on the draft that was released – despite the UFU being affiliated to the Labor Party since the 1930s,” Marshall toldThe Age.
“This demonstrates the hypocrisy of the ALP. If the ALP wants something,they won’t hesitate knocking on your door. Yet,despite being Labor-affiliated,the door allowing the UFU to be consulted as an affiliate was shut tight.”
A government spokesperson said the ALP Platform Committee,chaired by Corrections Minister Sonya Kilkenny,“works with the ALP policy committees and ministers in a collaborative process to develop the draft platform”.
Labor’s $120 million forestry scheme is part of an agreement with private plantation company,Hancock Victorian Plantations,which will almost match the government’s investment.
The company will lease and manage the estate of more than 14,000 hectares of softwood plantation.
The government said the plantation would “underpin” 2000 new and existing jobs in regional Victoria with the plantation area to cover the equivalent of 7000 MCGs. The plantings are expected to begin next year.
In 2019,the Andrews government announced native forest logging would bephased out in Victoria by 2030 and the logging of old-growth forests would cease immediately.
But conservationists are concerned that areas of the state’s forests that don’t qualify as old-growth but are still mature and provide valuable habitat,could be logged in the coming decade.
The embattled state-owned logging agency,VicForests,recorded a $4.7 million loss in the last financial year,which it attributed to an unprecedented number of court challenges from community environment groups and the destruction of timber in the Black Summer bushfires.
With Benjamin Preiss and Miki Perkins