Michael Costa, giving the unions a good whacking and disempowering the deluded backward thinking wretches

Let me explain to you the problem with Australia. It's the unions.

As a result of the union movement, we have Michael Costa as columnist for The Australian.

How so, you say? Well you see Michael Costa started off as a trainee engineman but instead of becomng a driver, he turned to union politics, and in particular the Federated Union of Locomotive Engineers.

That's right, instead of doing a decent day's work for a decent day's pay he became involved in union politics. The next thing you know he's an organizer for the Labor Council of New South Wales and the next thing after that, back in 1998, he's elected as Secretary of the Labor Council.

As a pooh bah trade unionist, you don't get better than that, and then the next thing you know, he's a member of the Legislative Council of NSW. That unrepresentative swill, Paul Keating might have said.

If you want a bit more color and movement about Costa, go to either Wikipedia here, or Costa's blues.

Now it's one of the primary theses of political life that if you scratch a hard core right winger you'll find a hard core leftie in a previous life, and vice versa. There's something about the appeal of fundamentalism to certain personalities that it doesn't much matter what the fundie belief is, provided it is appropriately fundamental and can be argued with passion.

In contrast, sooky pussy liberals with their 'either ors' and 'perhaps' and 'maybes' and 'have you thought of the other side' and 'why can't we all just share and get along' are just a bunch of tissue paper milk sops.

Need I go on to mention that way back in 1979 Michael Costa was kicked out of the Labor party for being a 'mad Trot', as shown by his membership of the Socialist Workers Party.

I just thought this little bit of background might help you understand why Michael Costa is the perfect person to turn to if you want to learn just why the unions are the cause of all the problems we face today, and might well undo everything and indeed bring down civilization as we know it today. That's right, Henry Ergas is wrong about government spending, it's the unions.

You can read all about it here under the header Unions putting ALP into reverse.

The vitriol for the comrades drips from the pen, or the keyboard, whatever and as you will, as the scene is set with Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's address to the ACTU, in which she announced plans to sell off the silverware to save the state:

The ACTU had assembled its 500 delegates to bask in the glory of its new-found relevance following the defeat of the government of John Howard. Having achieved the elimination of Work Choices and a substantial re-regulation of the Labor market in the Fair Work Australia Act, the ACTU had expected the congress to cement its self-appointed role as defenders of Australian workers and its delusion that it has a monopoly on Labor's industrial relations policy.

Unions as self-appointed delusional defenders of Australian workers? Take that, you vile former ex-comrades. Of course the role of the unions is the fault of Kevin Rudd, that almost goes without saying, but Costa will nonetheless say it for you:

True, the Rudd Government's pandering to the ACTU policy priorities in developing the Fair Work Act has fed the ACTU's industrial megalomania. The speeches to congress by ACTU president Jeff Lawrence and ACTU secretary Sharan Burrow showed clearly how out of touch the union movement has become with the challenges facing the Australian economy. Both speeches were full of the overblown self-congratulation that was expected at the first congress after the defeat of the Howard government. Burrow claimed, for example, that "Your Rights at Work was the most successful union and community campaign in Australia's history".

Lawrence, not satisfied with the victory against the Howard government, reminded delegates that the fight had to continue on a global scale. According to Lawrence "workers' rights have been watered down, deregulated and attacked in countries all over the world". With such grand ambitions you could be forgiven for forgetting the Australian trade unions are in almost terminal decline.

On and on Costa goes, taking the 'four be two' to those slippery union eels with relish. It's almost as good as snake whacking day on The Simpsons.

Luddites and retards are the themes, and how the unions have slipped in economic understanding since the glory days of Paul Keating and Bill Kelty and lordy lordy even good old Simon Crean. And of course it would be remiss not to mention that dastardly essay in The Monthly.

The ACTU resolution on the global financial crisis is full of language that reflects a throwback to the class warfare of yesteryear. Unfortunately, much of that language resembles the simplistic framework cobbled together by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in his The Monthly piece. The resolution claims that the "economic model of letting markets rip" is responsible for "mass privatisation, irresponsible tax cuts, deregulation of financial markets and, most relevant to us, the unwinding of our industrial relations system".

That would be the class warfare so beloved of the class warfare warriors in the Socialist Workers Party. Damn you Kevin Rudd, damn you to hell. Don't you realize it was Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and Michael Costa working under deep cover as the third man that reduced the unions to shreds and tatters?

What's the solution? Well abolition of the union movement would be a good starting point. Or perhaps their complete disempowerment, since they're only a vexatious lot of troublemakers deludedly claiming they represent the workers when they in fact represent the destruction of Australia. All that hot air about John Howard and Work Choices going too far, when any employee can negotiate singlehandedly a fair contract with a behemoth like Telstra. Just ask Henry Ergas about that.

As for the rest, I'm afraid Queensland is doomed for starters, thanks to Kevin Rudd. And he calls himself a toad!

Labor governments cannot govern in the public interest when emboldened unions use their gerrymander within Labor's internal administrative structures to overturn good public policy to maintain the special interest privileges of the trade union movement. If Bligh fails in her attempt to reform Queensland's finances, she can, to a large degree, thank Rudd for his shortsighted empowerment of the union movement.

Oh yes the special interest privileges of the trade union movement, which is to say nothing about the special interest privileges of the big end of town. And why would you, because the big end of town has the interests of workers at their hearts. It's all they care about. Really. Trooly.

Yes disempower the unions I say, because it's all their fault we had Michael Costa as police, transport and treasury minister running NSW into the ground, and it's not a stretch to blame them for his current venting of spleen on a weekly basis in The Australian.

You probably don't remember The Strawbs. Silly gits that they were:

Now I'm a union man
Amazed at what I am
I say what I think, that the company stinks
Yes I'm a union man

When we meet in the local hall
I'll be voting with them all
With a hell of a shout, it's "Out brothers, out!"
And the rise of the factory's fall

Oh, you don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
Until the day I die, until the day I die.

Until the day I became a Labor party politician and a columnist for The Australian that lyric should have run ...