The Wire

The controversy this week over the release of Mark Latham’s biography has thrown the Labor party into a spin of damage control and launched discussion of party reform. But in the midst of the confusion, Labor’s key benefactors, the workers, have been mounting a protest of their own. Unions around the nation this week have come out in force to protest the government’s proposed industrial relations reforms. Almost two hundred thousand workers have come out around the country to rally liberal party offices, stopping traffic in major city centres. The unions want to stop the federal government from relaxing industrial laws, which they say will put job security under threat. Hayley Conole spoke with Adelaide University politics lecturer Dr Carol Johnson about the effect of Latham’s book on the party and with President of South Australian Unions Martin O’Malley about the rallies.