Rudd, Rein and witch-hunting Howard government style
Yesterday I wrote about the political attacks on Kevin Rudd's wife, Therese Rein. One of companies owned by Rein mistakenly underpaid 58 of its employees. When the error was discovered, the underpayment was rectified. The Howard government and its supporters took advantage of the issue in an attempt to undermine Rudd's position on industrial relations. They also sought to manipulate Rudd's statement that his wife was an independent human being an not his "appendage."
Last night Therese Rein decided to sell the Australian arm of her business, which she built up from scratch over the previous 18 years, in order to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest. She said she took full responsibility and apologised for the mistake made by her company. Whether or not this move was premature, it is sadly understandable in light of the shameless smear campaign by the government and its supporters.
If Rein thought that her decision and frank acceptance of responsibility for the error made would end the witch-hunt, she was mistaken. John Howard used Rein's predicament to claim that Labor should stop criticising businesses who engage in unfair work practices, such as forcing employees onto AWAs and Mark Vaile went a step further, suggesting that Labor should apologise to businesses they've criticised. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad - two Liberal party heavies claiming that a mistake made (and remedied) by a company owned by Mr Rudd's wife means that the Labor party should not be allowed to point to examples of employers using Mr Howard's IR laws to deprive employees of their rights. Of course identifying such employers is a simple way of rebutting Howard's disingenuous suggestions that employers will not abuse the almost unfettered power granted to them by his government, so Howard and Vaile's "concern" for the businesses criticised is not exactly selfless.
Vaile did not stop there. In what appears to be an attempt to justify the attacks on Rein which led to her decision to sell a part of her business he stated:
"We all make sacrifices to become a part of the political process and if you aspire to high office in this land, there is a great expectation of total transparency"
Lets leave aside the fact that the person who has had to make sacrifices is not a part of any political process and does not aspire to a political office, she's just married to someone who does, and consider the extraordinary hypocrisy of this statement.
"A great expectation of total transparency" - this coming from a deputy leader of a government that has been anything but transparent! Perhaps Mr Vaile has forgotten the government ministers failing to disclose company directorships or share portfolios, or the unknown intelligence received by the government regarding the existence of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, or the children (not) overboard affair, or the repeated and increasing use of "conclusive certificates" to block the ability of the media to obtain documents under FOI (notably when those documents relate to politically sensitive or embarrassing matters), or abolition and/or stacking of Senate committees, preventing references to these committees, suppression of parliamentary debate, failure to answer questions on notice, or the refusal to reveal the full extent of government spending on political advertising (the government refused to provide the information to a Senate committee).
The government's hypocrisy is mirrored by conservative commentators, who have managed to find a few discontented former employees of Therese Rein to paint her as a boss from hell, who "does not practice what her husband preaches". Andrew Bolt has managed to dig up an advertisement from Germany where one of Rein's companies is advertising for engineering and mining experts on behalf of an Australian mining company. This is supposedly evidence that Rein is driving down the wages of Australians by "importing" workers (the fact that it is the mining company, not Rein, who is trying to employ foreign workers seems to escape Bolt, as does the simple truth that you don't get cheap labour from Germany, but you might get experts you can't find locally).
I don't know what sort of a boss Rein is or how she conducts her business. However, I do think that by acknowledging and taking responsibility for the error made she demonstrated more integrity than has been the norm with the Howard government, which has consistently blamed its shortfallings on departmental errors (responsible government be damned), or the commentators who laud Howard's anti-worker policies one day and pretend to be concerned with employee rights the next.
Almost as disturbing as the witch-hunt itself, is what it says about the position of women in Australian political scene. The underlying ideology appears to be that a politician's wife who does not stay home, unseen and unheard, is fair game, even if she does not venture into the political arena. Anything that she does do is a reflection on her husband and can be (mis)used as such. US and UK have had their Hillary Clinton and Cherie Booth, but Australian politicians are still struggling with the concept that a politician's wife is not the same person as her husband.
And of course there is the inevitable outcome that when the two careers come into (perceived) conflict, there is no question as to who makes the sacrifice. I am not suggesting that Therese Rein did not make her decision independently. Hopefully Kevin Rudd remembers that he owes her big time. And if her sacrifice improves Rudd's election chances, those of us who are hoping to see Howard government dislodged will probably owe her some thanks too.
Thanks for reading
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