Campbell Newman an ‘employee basher' - Bob Katter
From: AAP
May 25, 2012 10:15AM
Herald Sun.
FEDERAL MP Bob Katter has branded the Queensland premier an "employee basher" for warning striking coalminers they are putting the state's economy at risk.
Mr Katter will fly to the Bowen Basin on Friday to join a picket line amid a week-long strike that has halted production at six mines run by BHP-Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA).
He says Premier Campbell Newman revealed his true colours on Thursday when he told mine workers cash-strapped Queensland would suffer under the weight of ongoing industrial action.
"The new premier is an employee basher, a worker basher," Mr Katter told AAP.
"He's there to look after the corporate interests of his bankrollers, people such as Clive Palmer. He will find out that people don't react well to that."
He said Queensland would be left with little more than holes in the ground once foreign mining companies, and Australian mining companies that were fronts for foreign money, were done with the state.
The picket line at the Bowen Basin mine is the latest move in an 18-month dispute over working conditions.
Mr Katter said war must be waged against the escalating use of fly-in, fly-out workers in Australian mines.
He said the model was a ruse aimed at limiting opportunities for workers to get together to discuss workplace problems.
"One mining executive said to me ... this is all about workers spending their days off mowing the lawn instead of going down to the pub and saying what a bastard the boss is," he said.
Comment is being sought from Mr Newman, who on Thursday said now was not the time for industrial action to be putting further pressure on the cash-strapped state.
His deputy, Jeff Seeney, said the ongoing industrial action at the coalmines has already cost the state more than $50 million.
A BMA spokeswoman says the company is focused on finalising an agreement with its workers soon.
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Mr Newman Is A Employee Basher Says Bob Katter. (Read 397 times)
