Shorten may be a leader of the future who knows? but there isn't enough time to promote his profile.

Trade Unionists always come with an element of baggage. As the workers are scared of Howard so the employers are scared of Trade Union big wigs. Plus with the falling numbers of unions it proves many workers don't think they get value for money from their union memberships.

The ALP must govern for all Australians (as the Libs should have) but in the eyes of many Shorten will not be pro employer. You have to earn that trust. Plus in this new modern era the trade union movement needs to be arms length not an integeral part of the Labor party.

Sorry but Trade Union leaders won't go far in this new world. Ferguson hasn't done much, Crean started out resonably until he got the leadership.

The proces for a Union Leader to become leader should be a slow one... Some unions have given all unions a bad name and so we the voters have an underlying mistrust of union leaders...

Hawke was different as he was such a high profile person and the times were different.

Just as a quick example ... my sister was a memeber of a union back in the 80's. She was retrenched by a big company and they renegged on a $7000 retrenchment package. She contacted the Union and they said just be grateful you got something many people are getting nothing. They did nothing more. Why would anyone trust a union that did that?

every one needs to take a bex and calm down. the alp is the most successful it has ever been, it has one elections in every state and territory. 8 out of nine ain't too bad.

Kim Beazley took the ALP to a whisker of winning, then Simple Simon became leader and embarked upon an unnecessary public self-flagellation over the 60/40 rule. quite frankly the average punter couldn't care less.

so bad was his leadership the party was left with no option but to find a replacement, again simple simon entered the fray to work to install latham.

we all know the success of that endeavour, now he is intent on ensuring another electoral disaster by promoting gillard

simply put we have no economic giants that can map out an economic strategy to combat costello. we won't win federally until we can achieve this, we can have the best educational, health and environmental policies but we won't win until we have an economic policy and strategy

Belly,
Aussies will not take kindly to Shorten, you seem to be one committed awu official, and I do not doubt for a second your personal committment to your members. Having said that I have been forced to become an awu member on several occasions, and know first hand what type of assistance the awu gives its members. I have also been let down by a union secretary in another union, the difference was that the other union was trying to help me out of a harrowing experience, unlike the awu, who basicly said we are on the bosses side.

If you check out the awu deal with the then MIM operation in Mt Isa, you will find the company requested the awu to replace other unions in a site deal, because MIM could rest assured that the awu would be a passive union. The time has come for unions to aggressively take up their members plight. They have no legislation with which to fight, so it will be a long difficult process for truely representitive unions, let alone the awu.

When Workchoices begin to bite, you won't find the awu in the front line of protest mate. It will be left to the C.F.M.E.U, A.M.I.E.U., N.T.E.U., A.S.U, B.L.F. and other fair dinkum unions to rally for the rights of ordinary working families.

Shonga, i too gave had less that satisfactory dealings with unions as both and employer and employee.

• What these experiences taught me was that their is a highly selective ideological culture within unions to represent the interests of its members.

• If you belong to or are well connected to the aristocracy of the Labor party (and therefore their backroom culture of industry mateships as with MIM) you can expect them to do go out of their way to help you. If you're just an ordinary member, they'll tell you to take a ticket and stand in line.

• Count the federal and state parliamentarians who got ordained through the unions and their shonky preselection processes and you start to understand why non-union people in social activism are walking away from unions and the Labor party simultaneously.

• That said, their are very few unions who wear their heart on their sleeves when it comes to broader social justice issues lest they lose legitimacy with their growing right wing members.

• Howard’s unions? This may be unbelievable to traditional unionist orthodoxies but it will soon be a fact that is born out of workplace reforms now and into the future.

• Shorten is a by-product of this ideological impurity and corruption.

• In another life he'd easily fit into a Howard front bench as he's only a small step to the 'left' of Abbott and Costello

It is so easy to find the negative side in anything or any one my union being from the less radical group suffers often from such.
However I make no effort to pretend all unions do not need reform, and that some oficials need to go ,in every union.
Yes I am commited and do not tell me some of the extreme radical actions are a reason for our curent position, today is the first in a nightmare.
Reform? how about unions do split from politics ? why would we not want conservative victims of Howard to be in a union?.
Unions must be about the workplace nothing else.
Bill Shorten will prove his detractors wrong, he is just as good as Hawk, time will make some question how could they be so wrong.
While I would never vote other than ALP come walk with me in workplaces and see those who never will leave the conservative camp for a left leaning Labor.

Belly,

I'd like to make a clear distinction between being radical and simply being supportive of social justice - this cop out explanation about being radical is used as a weak excuse by your union all the time NOT to support social justice issues that DO effect workers. Or do workers NOT have the intellectual capacity to link broader social justice issues with their sense of civil society and citizenship? I don't think so mate.

I would like to think you prefer Shorten for much more educated reasons reasons than his similarities to the Silver Bodgie.

His ridiculous claims about children in poverty still resonate in my ear. How blind was that?

What troubles me (and many others) about Shorten is his narrow understanding of the world around him. Workplace and IR issues issues are one thing but a broader understanding of what political leadership means for people who have a much more holistic sense of where this country should be going is surely a prerequisite for national leadership. Shorten is a just a union bully boy in short pants.

You and the workers your represent deserve better than to be intravenously fed a political anaesthetic by factional union line spin doctors. I’m all for unions and unionism but not while they continue to coff up born to lead, fed by silver spoon, pre-ordained apprenticeships, that end up in federal parliament.

How many more 'favourite sons' of gnarly old union bulls will we be asked to vote for in the next federal election?