Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My friend Kevin Maher recently announced that after 25 years he had decided to pull up stumps in his role as Secretary of the Newcastle and Northern Branch of the Australian Workers Union, a role he has been elected to since 1998. He joined the Federated Ironworkers Association, the FIA, at the Electricity Commission’s Eraring Power Station, where he was working as a trades assistant. In 1983 he was elected as a union delegate. He became an official of the union in 1984, becoming assistant secretary in 1989 and branch secretary in 1998, following the untimely death of another great Ironworker leader, Maurie Rudd OAM.

Kevin has served on the FIA and now Australian Workers Union national executive since 1988 and was elected the AWU New South Wales president in 1998. He led in an era when rationalisation caused economic downturn in the manufacturing industries in Newcastle and the Hunter region. He was a senior player in the negotiations for redundancy provisions for AWU members at the BHP Newcastle Steelworks up to 30 September 1999, at OneSteel Pipe & Tube between October 2007 and May this year and at the OneSteel bar mill this year. He presided over one of the longest disputes the AWU has had since the shearers dispute—the Boeing dispute, which went from June 2005 to February 2006. I know firsthand that AWU members were locked out and on strike for 265 days over unfair individual contracts and members wanting a collective agreement and the right to be represented by a union. The outcome at the end of the day was that Boeing accepted nine of the 11 original claims.

Kevin has been a member of the Australian Labor Party for 26 years. He is Chairman of the Newcastle Branch of the Industrial Relations Society of New South Wales and a director of the Mechanical and Electrical Redundancy Trust Fund. Kevin has also been heavily involved in his community with the Hunter Westpac Helicopter Rescue Service, raising approximately $120,000 a year—in fact, the union’s logo is emblazoned on the helicopter—and also with International White Ribbon Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Kevin told the Newcastle Herald on 12 November this year that it was important to know when to move on in life. He said:

If [John] Howard was still in power I probably wouldn’t be going … but with the Rudd Labor Government in power in Canberra, it seems like a good time for the Newcastle branch of the AWU to have some new leadership.

I have previously told the House of the important role that modern unions play in our society. As a union organiser you see firsthand the huge potential that individuals exhibit. You see examples of cooperation, compromise and pragmatism delivering dividends all round. In his time, Kevin displayed all of these traits. In conclusion, if I may paraphrase George Bernard Shaw: Kevin Maher knows his people, Kevin Maher knows his language, Kevin Maher knows his town, Kevin Maher knows that an honest bargain is a square deal for all, Kevin Maher knows industrial relations is about people and Kevin Maher knows to never overpromise and to never give up. I am proud to say I had the privilege of working with Kevin, and I always valued his commitment and wise counsel. He will be missed by the AWU, but he leaves the branch and, indeed, the union in strong hands, led by Mark Stoker locally and by Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig nationally. I wish Kevin and Kerrie well in the next phase of their lives.