gray slated for cabinet as gillard reshuffles … · gray slated for cabinet as gillard reshuffles...

GRAY SLATED FOR CABINET AS GILLARD RESHUFFLES MINISTRY AND REPAYS BACKERS

SAM MOOY

Julia Gillard takes photos with shock-jock ‘Easter Bunny’ Kyle Sandilands, which she later tweeted, at a charity event at Kirribilli House yesterday

DAVID CROWENATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

INSIDE

TROYBRAMSTON P10

SURVEYING the wreckage, it is difficult to find a silver lining for Gillard other than again being able tocling to the prime ministership by her fingernails

HENRYERGAS P10

WITH Labor politics having ceased to be a cause and become a career, it is unions that provide the material foundation on which theparty rests

MAURICENEWMAN P10

IF the polls are a guide, September 14 will see a change in government. While the Coalitionwill rejoice, the euphoria is likely to be short-lived

Union loyalty to steer LaborUNION loyalties are helping toshape the next stage of Julia Gil-lard’s political strategy, as sheembarks on a cabinet reshufflethat will promote key allies whilesparing some of those who plottedagainst her last week.

The Prime Minister is expectedto reward the unions for their sup-port in last Thursday’s leadershipcontest by pressing ahead withpolicies that meet their demandsfor stronger bargaining rights andworking conditions.

The reshuffle, tipped to be re-vealed today, is expected to seeGary Gray promoted to federalcabinet as resources and energyminister, while a slew of Gillardsupporters wouldgain positionsasministers and parliamentarysecretaries.

Lower-house MPs Kate Ellisand David Bradbury, and senatorsDon Farrell and Kate Lundy, areviewed as among those vying forpromotion to cabinet.

Ms Gillard’s advisers seeThursday’s result as an oppor-tunity to end the leaking anddisunity that have underminedher leadership, leading to majordecisions such as media reformbeing rushed through cabinet.

Ms Gillard is seeking to bounceback from the departure of foursenior ministers last week byenforcing greater cabinet disci-pline, perhaps with a smaller lead-ership team to prevent leaks andallow more candid debate on elec-tion strategy.

She is also assuaging fears ofretribution against those who lentsupport to Kevin Rudd’s failedleadership bid last week, with keyfrontbencher Anthony Albanese,the Transport Minister and leaderof the house, keeping his position.

Recriminations over thebotched leadership coup con-tinued yesterday as caucus mem-bers took aim at Mr Albanese forstaying in office while other Ruddsupporters — Chris Bowen, KimCarr, Simon Crean and MartinFerguson — quit or were sacked.

In a new argument over howMs Gillard held her position,caucus members said that unionshad applied pressure to some MPsto reject Mr Rudd, even thoughthat meant losing a chance to holdtheir seats at the September 14election.

The accusation centres oncases where MPs told the Ruddcamp that they would have tocheck with their unions beforedeciding whether to abandon MsGillard. ‘‘She bought the leader-ship by giving the unions whatthey wanted, and that is a corrupt

process,’’ said one of Mr Rudd’ssupporters.

Another said that the outcomecontinued Ms Gillard’s debt tounions that have backed her con-sistently over recent years.

‘‘She’s always been beholden tothe unions,’’ he said. ‘‘Do I thinkthis has changed anything? No.’’

Unions blamed for influencingthe result include the AustralianWorkers Union, Transport Work-ers Union and Health ServicesUnion. AWU national secretaryPaul Howes hit back at the claimby insistinghe madeno calls aboutthe leadership to MPs last Thurs-day. ‘‘It’s a ludicrous accusation,which most anonymousaccusations are, and I haven’tmade a single call,’’ he said.

The role of the unions goes tothe heart of Labor’s internaldebate over its future strategy, inthe wake of calls from Mr Creanand Mr Ferguson — both former

Continued on Page 2

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SPECIAL 12-PAGE LIFTOUT

The nation’s best resources writers on the role of gas in our future

PERSONAL OZ

SOMETHINGIN THE AIRThe fight against asthma { P14 }

A GAS-FIRED FUTUREFUTURE

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

www.theaustralian.com.au/futureofresourcesBooming Gladstone

builds for the future { P5 }

Women’s role in beating

a skills shortgage { P4 }

Woodside’s

Pluto onshore

liquid natural gas plant at

Karratha, Western

Australia

WOODSIDELNG’s moment of truthThe questions that

remain include whether

Australia is tooexpensive to attract

further investmentAustralia’s place in a

gas-fired future is

clouded by cost woes

MATT CHAMBERS

THE nation’s gas-fired future — which

at least for the export sector is not

in doubt — is rapidly becoming

the present.After a 20-year liquefied natural gas

history in which three projects have

been built and only one, WoodsidePet-

roleum’s Pluto plant at Karratha, has

started in the past 10 years, a flood of

new projects is set to come online.

Next year, three new projects in

Australia and one in Papua New Guin-

ea are due to start, followed by another

in 2015 and two more in 2016.

Australia will become the world’s

biggest LNG exporter, with the extra

plants forecast to bring in $20 billion in

annual export revenue.

But while most analysts and indus-

try figures agree the world’s future is

gas-fired and demand will remain

strong, Australia’s place in it and the

role of gas inside our shoreline are

still uncertain.The questions that remain include

whether Australia is too expensive to

attract further investment, what the

impact of big Queensland coal-seam

gas export projects will be on the east

coast domestic gas scene, and whether

vast amounts of gas trapped in shale

across South Australia, Western Aus-

tralia, the Northern Territory and

Queensland can be released in any

sort of replication of the US shale

revolution.The head of the nation’s biggest

LNGoperator,WoodsidePetroleum, is

optimistic about Australia’s role, de-

spite his company’s recent moves to

look overseas for further growth.

Peter Coleman, an engineer born in

Sale, Victoria, who started his career

with ExxonMobil in Bass Strait, then

worked around the world with the oil

giant, sayswhilemajorsoperatinghere,

such as Chevron and Shell, areContinued on Page 2

D

Remote housing rowEXCLUSIVE

AMOS AIKMANNORTHERN CORRESPONDENT

ONE house will need to be builtalmost every day between nowand the end of June if the North-ern Territory government is toavoid financial penalties for miss-ing federal targets, amid alle-gations it is bungling its contri-

bution to the nation’s premierindigenous housing scheme.

On-site construction for thesehomes has yet to begin, and con-tractors are refusing work as con-cern grows that Darwin’s man-agement has rendered its owndeadlines and budgets unachiev-able. Some tenders have been re-placed with a ‘‘select’’ process, inwhich bureaucrats pick firmswithout competitive bidding.

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Green tape ‘risks choking $200bn in export projects’EXCLUSIVE

DAVID CROWENATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

EXPORT projects worth $200 bil-lion are being shackled by overlap-ping state and federal laws, ac-cording to a new report, whichchallenges both major parties toremove ‘‘green tape’’ that discour-ages huge investments.

Gas exporters are warning oflong-term damage to the nation’sresources boom as the federalgovernment adds to duplicateregulation rather than removing itin the way it promised less than ayear ago.

The industry report arguesfederal and state officials oftenrepeat each others’ work to checkon projects before approvingthem, leading to lengthy delaysand adding to projects costs.

Adding new heat to a long-

running dispute, industry execu-tives are infuriated at the govern-ment’s move last week toimplement new powers over coal-seam gas projects in a deal struckwith regional independent TonyWindsor.

Part of the new regime includesa provision that would prevent afuture commonwealth govern-ment from streamlining some ofthe rules — those specific toconcerns over water quality — byreferring the responsibilities to the

states. While Labor and theGreens have the numbers to getthe legislation through the Senatein May or June, industry execu-tives are urging the Coalition tofind a way to stymie the changes orrepeal them if Tony Abbott winspower.

Environment Minister TonyBurke stood by the changes andsaid there was no point delegatingany of the CSG water safeguardsto the states given the point of thelegislation was to act on problems

in state safeguards. Mr Burke saidthe federal government wasfunding work to check the impactof CSG projects on water suppliesand should have the power tomake that a factor in approvalsunder federal environmental law.

The opposition environmentspokesman, Greg Hunt, warnedagainst the CSG amendments andsaid they should not prevent afuture government from strikingbilateral agreements with the

Continued on Page 4

MillionswastedtrainingteachersEXCLUSIVE

JUSTINE FERRARINATIONAL EDUCATIONCORRESPONDENT

TENS of millions of dollars arebeing wasted training teacherswho do not enter a classroom,with federal and state govern-ments spending at least $16,500on each student teacher everyyear despite up to 90 per cent insome states failing to find a job.

Universities graduate about16,000 new teachers every yearacross the nation, half of whomare primary teachers, but anoversupply in the workforcemeans the vast majority of newteachers struggle to find work inschools.

Shortages exist in maths andscience teaching, but across therest of the profession universitiesare producing more teachersthan required, particularly inprimary teaching, with tens ofthousands of teachers on waitinglists in the biggest states.

The true extent of the imbal-ance in the teaching workforce isunknown, with a ProductivityCommission inquiry last yearunable to compile a nationalpicture.

But about 90 per cent ofteachers graduating universityin NSW and Queensland fail tofind a job, while about 40,000teachers in NSW and 16,000teachers in Queensland are ondepartmental waiting lists for apermanent job.

The Victorian education de-partment says it employed abouthalf its teaching graduates lastyear, but this still left about 2500new teachers looking for a job.

The issue was highlighted bythe Productivity Commission inits report on the schools work-force released late last year,which says surpluses, and short-ages, in teaching can impose‘‘considerable costs’’.

‘‘A sizeable part of thecommunity’s investment inteacher training is providing nodirect benefit to the schoolsworkforce. Further, the specificinvestment by schools in provid-ing practicum (practical trainingplaces) for students who do notfind employment is largelyunproductive,’’ it says.

Of the 5500 teaching gradu-ates every year from NSW uni-versities, only 450 obtained jobsin state government schools andabout300 found a job inCatholicor independent schools. It’s asimilar story in Queensland,where more than 1600 new tea-chers graduated last year butonly about 200 have a perma-nent job and about 350 gainedtemporary employment.

In a bid to control teachernumbers, and raise the standardof people entering the pro-fession, the NSW governmentthis month outlined reforms

Continued on Page 4

Misogynist? No, that’s the other Mr Rabbit

TEN NETWORK

Tony Abbott on Ten’s The Bolt Report yesterdayADAM ARMSTRONG

Kevin Rudd and wife Therese Rein in Brisbane

RICK MORTON

FOR a woman who can spot amisogynist at 10 paces —‘‘misogynist Tony is back’’, shemuttered across the parliamen-tary chamber last week — JuliaGillard is spending a lot of time inthe company of Kyle Sandilands.

The radio DJ who questioned a14-year-old rape victim on-airabout her sexual experiences, andwho called a journalist a ‘‘fat slag’’without enough ‘‘titty’’ to carry offa low-cut blouse, is fast becominga favourite with the PrimeMinister.

On Friday, Sandilands and his2DayFM offsider Jackie O landedone of only two radio interviewsgiven by Ms Gillard after theLabor caucus had re-endorsed herleadership the day before.

Yesterday, she fulfilled a prom-

ise by inviting him to her officialSydney residence, KirribilliHouse, to take part in an Easteregg hunt for a children’s charity,even posing with the DJ, who wasdressed as a giant Easter Bunny,

for ‘‘selfies’’ pictures that she laterposted on Twitter.

(Ms Gillard’s only other radiointerview on Friday was with ABCMelbourne’s Jon Faine, who dur-ing the2010electioncampaignac-

cused the Prime Minister of del-iberately mangling theOpposition Leader’s name tomake it sound like ‘‘Mr Rabbit’’.)

Labor elder and former primeminister Bob Hawke yesterday

implored the current leadership ofthe party to ‘‘get on with the busi-ness of governing’’.

But the toughest woman inpolitics opted for the soft-boiledapproach to strategy after highdrama divided her government intwo last week.

As the vanquished backers ofKevin Rudd headed home to theirelectorates for the weekend to licktheir wounds, the Prime Ministerissued a photo-op only alert forfluffy pictures.

Leader of the house AnthonyAlbanese, who kept his role andportfolio despite his status as aRudd supporter, was one of thefew to go to work in his commu-nity, attending the 10th anniver-sary celebrations at St Matthew’sAnglican church in Ashbury.

Mr Rudd kept to a familiarroutine, attending church, but

Continued on Page 2