Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of the last sitting fortnight, a group of pro-coal Labor MPs outed themselves with a mock gotcha set-up that didn't fool too many political insiders. The ringleaders of the so-called Otis group seemed pretty comfortable with the message getting out there. Here, in 2020, in the face of a climate emergency, there's an organised group in the federal parliamentary ALP that is unashamedly pro-coal. There has been little, if any, denying or recanting by those named in the story—from which I can only assume that the story that was run by Peter van Onselen was pretty accurate.

What I want to talk about today is: just who is the Otis group? A number of members of the Otis group do represent coalmining electorates—chief among them being the member for Hunter. I might disagree—in fact, I do—with their political response to the structural decline of thermal coal and counsel them against selling false hope to their electorates, but I can see their logic—flawed though it may be. But these Labor members and senators, who by sheer geography can be linked to coal, don't of themselves explain the Otis group. What is perhaps most curious about the Otis group is the prominence of members and senators aligned to the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association—the 'Shoppies'. Let's go through the list. Senator Ciccone is a Shoppie; Senator Polley, a Shoppie; Senator Kitching, well, perhaps an honorary Shoppie by virtue of factional prowess; and of course Senator Farrell is probably the senior Shoppie in this parliament. From the House: Mr Mulino, a Shoppie; Mr Champion, a Shoppie; Ms Rishworth, a Shoppie; Mr Gosling, a Shoppie; and Anthony Burke, a so-called Mod, which is a new factional grouping Guy Rundle has described as 'quantum Shoppies, existing in two factional states simultaneously'.

By my count, that's nearly half of the pro-coal group of ALP parliamentarians who are Shoppies. A number of these Shoppies come from places like South Australia, the Northern Territory and my home state of Tasmania, where the coal industry is either quite small or non-existent. How very, very curious—not from coalmining unions, not from coalmining states but with the numbers in a pro-coal faction. The Otis group could easily be known as the new National Civic Council. What on earth are these Labor members, who've found themselves in the parliament because of their affiliation with a union that represents retail workers, doing spruiking for coal?

I've spoken previously on the political-industrial complex that is the SDA—how consistently they've acted as a handbrake on progressive politics within not only the Australian Labor Party but, by extension, our country itself. As the keepers of the flame for the religious extremism of Bob Santamaria, it's been the Shoppies who have so often and for so long held Labor back on social issues. Witness the final vote on the marriage equality bill in this parliament, on the back of a clear result of a nationwide plebiscite less than three years ago and after railroading Labor national conference after national conference on the issue. There, standing against progress, standing alongside prejudice, were a good number of Shoppies, voting no to marriage equality—parliamentarians aligned with a union that's been so close to the corporates that the Fair Work Commission found that they'd struck an agreement that left 500,000 Coles workers worse off than if there'd been no agreement at all. Senator Abetz once described Joe de Bruyn, the National President of the SDA, as:

… a role model of trade union officialdom. He is the type of official that gives trade unionism a good name.

Well, I'm here to tell you that if you're a trade union official and you've got Senator Eric Abetz's endorsement, you are in a whole lot of trouble!

But I've got to ask those members and senators who are Shoppies: of what benefit is hugging coal to the hundreds and thousands of people, many of them kids, who are members of the SDA and who gave the SDA the power to put those very members and senators here into the parliament? In other words, exactly what is the connection between retail and coal? I just can't see it.

What I do see is a malignancy within the factional system upon which the modern Australian Labor Party is built. Not content with having used their factional power to suppress social progress and to protect the dominance of the big corporate retail sector in this country, the Shoppies are now using their factional power to put a handbrake on climate action. What I see is that, as a bloc, the Shoppies are signalling to the coal barons that they are their friends in this place—that they are Senator Canavan's and Mr Joyce's equivalents inside the Australian Labor Party. What I see is not members and senators guided by some deeper philosophy heading for the light on the hill but simply a power base that is roving around looking for the next industry group to leverage off. What I see in the Otis group is—yet again to the detriment of this country—a demonstration that, for the Shoppies, it's all about the numbers.

I also want to turn to another matter: Minister Dutton's comments yesterday about terrorism. It's worth giving those comments some context. Both Minister Dutton and his government have pursued a racist agenda which has given strength and comfort to Neo-Nazis and Nazis in this country. This is the minister in charge of Australia's racist and punitive offshore detention system—