Tristan said
"After the ACTU campaign to bring down Howard one would have thought unions would have more influence under Rudd Labor".

Why? where was the evidence that Labor would? If you took notice of what did occur prior to the 2007 election from the words of Rudd and others, you should have realised that Labor was not going to return to the past, at least not to the extent that many on the idealistic left had hoped.

It will take an economic disaster for the types of policies you want, but given you still do not have any real ideas about how to balance national and international aspirations, I suspect even your wishes will not be without serious consequences.

Should have happened a long time ago. The ALP is no longer solely worker focussed, in the same way the Coalition is no longer a small business enterprise party.

Membership fees should not be wasted on the ALP (or any other party) and would be better spent via cheaper membership rates or to support workers who need assistance after dodgy retrenchment deals or similar worker benefits.

Unions fail their membership by not advocating on their behalf to both major parties. Some unions do, like the police unions, and it makes sense given corporate bodies and industry associations (business unions) work both sides of the fence.

Chris: what precisely do you mean here?

"I suspect even your wishes will not be without serious consequences."

It's not impossible to interpret it as a threat of sorts - but I'm hoping that's a misinterpretation...

For my own part - I believe in participatory liberal social democracy. I respect the rights of my political opposites to have their say - and I hope the same goes for their part in regard to me also...

Tristan, you said

It's not impossible to interpret it as a threat of sorts - but I'm hoping that's a misinterpretation...

You referred o my words "I suspect even your wishes will not be without serious consequences."

I don't know how you come to such a conclusion.

Please refer to the whole statement "It will take an economic disaster for the types of policies you want, but given you still do not have any real ideas about how to balance national and international aspirations, I suspect even your wishes will not be without serious consequences".

My statement implies, and I probably should have made it clearer for you at least, that your solutions (and general tone) will have consequences at the international level. Greater union power will inevitably mean greater industry protection, which means less opportunities for poorer nations.

As usual, your comments and statements do not indicate how we can balance national and international considerations. Maybe I am wrong, and you can show me why, but surely a return to the past will have consequences for many around the world. While i am a critic of china, I remain a supporter of freer and fairer trade which may mean serious policy adjustment by Western nations in the future rather than an ongoing reliance upon debt and consumption.

It is one thing to make silly statements like "The Liberal Party in Australia was not always so dominated by factions of the “hard right” as is the case today", but such words are an injustice to their efforts and representative of biased simplicity that has little grasp of the complex issues faced by Western nations in recent decades.

Chris - glad to have that cleared up - from my perspective the way you phrased your response was ambiguous... It's now much clearer exactly where you're coming from...

You say that greater union power would mean more protection - and less opportunities for poor countries...

I think there must be a balance here. Without strong unions co-operating at an international level; that is - without solidarity - generally workers will be at the losing end of the equation...

re: Protection in the Australian context - I don't believe in 'across the board' protection - but I think it's reasonable to protect strategic industries... All countries should have the ready potential to feed their own people; should be able to provide for their basic defence needs. And competition is not necessarily the best solution when it comes to infrastructure - where consumers can end up paying for duplicate cost structures. And the knowledge base associated with some industries can also reasonably be supposed to have consequences for national security.

Strategic protection can also be justified when it comes to maintaining a reasonable balance of trade, providing for a 'transition' in the economic mix, and responding to structural unemployment.

Increased world trade can be important in the sense of providing a 'win-win' - that is - economic growth in developing economies will ultimately provide us with export markets that buouy our own economy.

But if competition generally drives down the rights and conditions of workers internationally - instead there can arise a 'lose-lose' situation.

From our perspective, we have an interest in providing support for high-wage, high skill industries: and also ensuring an economic mix that provides for our national interests, maintaining full employment, providing support for 'transition' in the case of 'sunset' industries...

Tristan, that was a thoughtful piece. I think ultimately the pragmatic approach to IR by Gillard will see two tribes emerge from the pragmatists, the real 'modernisers' and the real 'left'. I don't think their interests are easy to appease, which is why we had a debate the other day. The real 'modernisers' will ultimately view Rudd as big ideas and little follow through on market reform and public service delivery reform and the real 'left' just think he hasn't done enough culturally, economically and socially to reduce the operation of markets in the distribution of resources.

'Strategic' industries, I'd say that is closer to a rent seeking cabal. Clearly Kim Carr's been persuaded that the car industry is strategic despite it being in decline for years and likely to decline as necessary so the economy can re-allocates resources in a time of very low unemployment. Clearly re-structuring is painful but it is better to do it in good times than bad ... see how difficult it was in the 80s for manufacturing workers who were made redundant.