Fed: Rudd scores wins on IR, uranium

AAP General News (Australia)
04-28-2007
Fed: Rudd scores wins on IR, uranium

By Maria Hawthorne, Sandra O'Malley and Belinda Tasker

SYDNEY, April 28 AAP - Kevin Rudd stamped his authority on federal Labor today, narrowly
winning support for policy changes on uranium mining and industrial relations at the party's
national conference.

Losses on either issue would have seriously damaged Mr Rudd's fledgling leadership
just months out from the federal election.

In the end, the industrial relations policy was passed unanimously without debate,
while the Rudd camp won the uranium vote by just 15 of the 400 votes after 90 minutes
of passionate debate.

Both Mr Rudd's environment spokesmen - Anthony Albanese and Peter Garrett - spoke against
scrapping the no new mines policy to allow uranium mining to be expanded.

But union boss and incoming Labor MP Bill Shorten summed up the mood when he urged
delegates to back Mr Rudd.

"If you think that rolling the leader is a great idea then go ahead and vote for the
Albanese-Garrett amendment," Mr Shorten told the conference.

"At some point the head's got to kick in along with the heart."

Mr Rudd said he recognised that states and territories would take their own decisions
on whether to approve new mines.

"The challenge is as we debate this amendment to recognise the reality that around
the world there are so many economies who do not have and possess the rich range of energy
options which we in this country have at our disposal," he said.

"We have been supplying uranium to them for many years and this amendment seeks to
recognise that reality into the years ahead."

Mr Rudd also won support for his industrial relations policies despite union anger
at the decision to outlaw most strike action.

Unionists said while they did not agree with the whole policy, they could put aside
their differences for the greater good.

Electrical Trades Union branch secretary Dean Mighell said that for example, he did
not agree with Mr Rudd that Prime Minister John Howard was a clever politician.

"I describe him as an anti-union bastard of the last generation and a skidmark on the
bedsheet of Australian politics," Mr Mighell told the conference.

Under the slogan Fresh Thinking, Mr Rudd has used the conference to portray Mr Howard
as arrogant, out of touch and desperate to hang on to power.

But Mr Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello dismissed the claims.

"His name is Kevin and he comes from Queensland, and he's a menace to the economy,"

Mr Costello told the Victorian Liberal conference, mocking Mr Rudd's opening line to the
Labor conference yesterday.

Mr Howard said there was nothing fresh in anything that had come out of the Labor conference
so far.

"The way they talk about debates at these ALP conferences is a little bit (like) ...

how they used to talk about elections in the old communist Russia," he said.

"You know, they use to line up and cast their ballots, and they say surprise surprise,
Nikita Khrushchev got re-elected.

"Let me tell you, Mr Rudd will win the debate, of course he will, they can't do anything
else. They'll deliver him a victory on uranium mining. But in the modern world it's all
irrelevant. We resolved this more than 25 years ago."

AAP mfh/cjh/mn

KEYWORD: LABOR NIGHTLEAD (PIX AVAILABLE)

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