Maurie O'Sullivan's farewell - Maurie's speech

Speech given by Maurie O'Sullivan at his farewell dinner, 9 July 2003 - a classical Maurie speech.

In trademark style Maurie introduced his remarks with an acknowledgement to the Eora Nation of County Gadigal spoken in Gaelic.

"There is a rumour that Maurie is retiring because he is getting old and grey and full of sleep and nodding by the fire and stumbling and forgetting things and just becoming hopeless. Such is not correct. Were that the case, I would have retired ten years ago. I am now on the bell lap but for those persons who may frequent Harold Park on Friday nights, do not assume that I have gone to the trots.

This is the first time in my professional life that I have had trouble with a microphone. It is not mechanical trouble; it is just that I am not too sure what to say or how to say it. But whatever is said or not said, I want to place on record the demands that I have made on my family over many years. As a Field Officer with DOCS and as a trade union official there have been decades, I repeat decades, where my family have had to come second to the demands of the job. It might seem pretty paltry now to be saying how much I appreciate their sacrifice. Let me place on record that without their willing sacrifice, I just could not have done it and I thank them.

I have been blessed over recent years in having had some magnificent people around me. When I joined the PSA in 1967 it didn't take me long to be sometimes a little bit embarrassed when the union showed an invertebrate streak. I was one of many people who complained, in the tearoom, in the pub, at meetings. The PSA saw itself as a Gentlemen's Club with very few women involved. Then, some 20 years ago, a few people from Wollongong became interested in the Sydney scene and I was one of those people. In 1987 I was elected by popular vote as Deputy President to Janet Good who was the President. In 1989, Janet and I lost office. I like to feel that we did not lose because we were hopeless. One reason we lost was that our campaigns were run by those who thought themselves to be immensely more politically savvy than John Cahill, Janet Good and myself. There is a lesson for anybody here who wishes to look at it. When you are running for office, be effectively involved in your own campaign. Never give control to somebody else.

Janet Good and myself won back our positions in 1991 and we have been there in one capacity or another ever since. The Greiner/Fahey Government amendments got into gear in 1996 and John Cahill stood with us on the ticket and he has been elected Assistant General Secretary ever since. However, John's position is about to change and I am delighted now to publicly invite John to act as General Secretary while I shall be undergoing surgical restructure and following that, to be appointed properly as General Secretary for the remainder of the term.

I could not be asking a better man to come on board. For nearly 20 years John and myself have been involved in scheming and plotting, sabotaging and promoting, scuttling and building and I say to you now, John, I shall miss you. Nevertheless, I want to make it very plain to you and to everybody here that I have no intention of hovering around like an Elder Statesman with gratuitous, unwanted advice. If I felt like that, I would not retire but I retire in the knowledge and confidence that the PSA can only get better.

In all my years as a senior official one way or another, I have managed to have at least one woman in a senior capacity with me. There was Helen Twohill who was General Secretary, Janet Good was President and General Secretary and now, Sue Walsh is here as a splendid President and I am delighted that the PSA for all its archaic conservatism and its cobwebbed history of male chauvinism can boast Sue as President and two women as Vice Presidents. We have come a long way and so we should because about 53% of our members are women.

There are two other foot soldiers who has been with me for years and whose advice and whose calm judgement are commodities that are priceless. George Dennett is a splendid trade unionist. Laurie Brady has never been a "yes man" which makes me value all the more his constructive advice.

PSA staff have changed a bit over the years. As General Secretary of the PSA you have to deal with the ASU which, as the clerks' union, covers our Admin Staff and then the Industrial Staff Union, a registered trade union which is affiliated to the Labor Party and has 61 members. You try dealing with a trade union whose every member is an industrial specialist. But in those 61 people, there are some incredible souls who have not just got a trade union, legalistic approach to people, they have a human approach and their hearts are very much in it and it is such people that make the PSA today a union of which I am so proud. That pride is not something that I monopolise. Thank you.

The administration of a large union is not easy. April Acheson did a splendid job over the years, but she left around the time I became General Secretary. She had done brilliant work and I was a bit worried about how we would manage after she went. Money is always a problem but in that area, I have been very fortunate in being able to work with perhaps the finest accountant in Sydney. He does not let me get away with a penny and I can say to those who follow me that there is no more astute or committed person to the welfare of the PSA and its members than Lasantha Wijesingha. Thank you, Lasantha.

To all the clerical people who do so much, can I say thank you. You don't know how proud I am when I see TV news bulletins and you guys marching around town with your red and white PSA flags. May my God, and your Gods, bless you.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to introduce you to a hidden species of humanity, the "Bitch Sisters". Without the Bitch Sisters, we would not be eating here tonight and I have tried to keep at arms length and just be a guest invited like everybody else here, but I know that their desks have been like something from a Tourist Bureau, like a hotel reservation office, the past couple of weeks. The confidence and the confidentiality and the genuine and caring support you have given to me over so many years is beyond description and treasures pale into nothing compared to your decency towards me. I love youse all.

Somebody asked me the other day to recount a few landmark things that have happened in my time and it was not too difficult because there were many.

The PSA has a history which shows a willingness to go to the Industrial Relations Commission when troubles are afoot. I remember the time some ten or 12 years ago when the Government of the day tried its damndest to scatter and shatter the Industrial Commission, as it was then known. All types of euphemisms and metaphors were bandied around but the aim was pretty obvious - do away with the Commission and do away with the PSA. The Government failed on both counts. The PSA would not accept the Government's parsimonious offers and we spent a long time before the Bench in 1993, opposed every inch of the way by a Government that was mean and cruel and niggardly and very very impatient for the sacrifice that it never obtained.

We sought a ten percent salary increase that the Government fought every inch of the way against and the Full Bench handed down seven percent. The Treasurer at the time had apoplexy and said he wouldn't pay the money and he offered nine percent for people to go on individual agreements. There were no takers. These were known at the time as Enterprise Agreements and were a hybrid production of anti-union efforts within the University of NSW. They are pretty much the same sort of stuff that Peter Reith and Tony Abbott have been flogging around the place. We rejected them and in the end, Peter Collins just had to pay up. I am delighted that we won that case and I am also delighted that we showed confidence in the Industrial Commission. Indeed, we retain that confidence today, even when things don't go our way.

I would give anything to have a single-issue union. There are times when I envy Sam Moait and Brett Holmes, or Maree O'Halloran and Barry Johnson. They have a union where everybody is a nurse or where everybody is a teacher. My union has the greatest miscellany of people on the highways and the byways of this State and pretty often, what is of concern to Mr W in Department X in Moree is of little concern to Mrs Y in Department Z in Albury. There is, however, one thing which brings all those disparate members into the same bullring and that is salaries. In 1998 the Government of the day had a bit of amnesia about a pay deal and Treasury refused to pay a total of four percent of the deal.

We had Sky Channel meetings across the State, a hundred-odd meetings, with the major meeting in the Sydney Town Hall. I walked down Clarence Street to the Town Hall with John Cahill and we nearly s*** ourselves. We saw four or five people standing around having a smoke in Druitt Street and we thought, this is going to be lovely, TV cameras focussing on rows and rows of empty seats. We got to the Town Hall door and we nearly s*** ourselves again. We could not get in and the security people were worried about the size of the crowd and they had shut the doors. There were several thousand people standing around in St Andrew's Square who could not get in. One way or another John and myself got in and we knew we were on a winner. Within a week, with the Assistance of the then Industrial Relations Minister, who is here tonight in his capacity as Supreme Court Justice Shaw, the problem was resolved in our favour.

Another clear memory I have was an issue a few years ago just before Easter, when Naomi Steer rang me. All stations alert. The Maritime Union had been locked out and thugs and dogs were manning the wharves. I have never forgotten being on the back of a truck down in Darling Harbour. Russ Collison finished speaking and Jim Donovan gave me the megaphone and there I was, in the middle of a group, John Hennessey, Sam Moatt and Paddy Crumlin and I looked at the sea of faces, all shapes and sizes, but all ready for revolution at what had happened.

Millions of pages have been written about the issue, particularly the lies in which Peter Reith submerged himself. There is no need to go over this, chapter and verse, except to say that the trade union movement probably owes Mr Howard and Mr Reith a vote of thanks. Their actions galvanised the trade union movement into action and into solidarity.

One other thing I would like to remember is the establishment of the Aboriginal Unit within the PSA. Three times over 15-odd years I tried to kick it off and sadly, three times it fell apart and then Mal Cochran came on the scene and we have the benefit today of his drive and his enthusiasm and it is just immense pleasure for me to see the pride that Mal has in running the Aboriginal Unit.

There are three other groups with whom I have had close and meaningful relationships over many years. I know there are many lawyers here this evening in various guises. I deeply appreciate your attendance. There is one group of lawyers whose support and whose enthusiasm has done so much not just for my trade union but for the trade union movement in general, over the years, and that is Jones, Staff and Co., And to that Company, made up of splendid people, I say thank you and well done.

To all the trade union representatives that are here tonight, I say to you all, take a bow and be very proud of the role you play in achieving dignity and justice for your members and for society in general. You have so much about which you should be very justifiably proud and this State and indeed, this nation, is the better for you.

To the NSW Labor Council, words cannot express how happy I am with the fruitful way we deal with each other. There was a time when the PSA was absolutely unrepresented at the Labor Council and for a long time, Brian Jardine was our conduit. Today, things are a little bit different. There are two people from the PSA on the Labor Council Executive and when I go, I shall be nominating Sue Walsh for election as my replacement. To Robbo and Mark and all your troops, let me say that the job you do, not just in the trade union area but in the whole social and political arena of NSW, is second to none. You were at the forefront in the recent anti-war marches and the commitment you show for social justice and against injustice, is a credit to the world. I am very proud to have been involved with you.

Today, more than ever, if for no other reason that the inertia within the Opposition in Canberra, Australia needs the trade union movement. It galls me to remember the lies and the deception that surrounded the Tampa issue before the last federal election and it galls me to watch the prevarication and the lies and the deception that surround the war in Iraq and what really does get up my nose is that the Australian people know they have been lied to and they are fully aware that they have been deceived and yet there is no mobilised objection to the liars and to the deceivers. Maybe it might be a good project for the trade union movement to raise the consciousness of the nation along those issues. A nation that accepts the indignity of being lied to without kicking up a storm, is pretty sad.

And now, who are the saddest people of all? The saddest people of all are the people who incur the wrath of the trade union movement because they scab and refuse to join the trade union and yet pick up the benefits of salaries and conditions of employment etc that the trade union has won. I am talking about the people who refuse to join the union and yet accept everything the union makes available to its members. It is a bit more than saving the price of a membership or avoiding paying a contribution. It is a fundamental character deficit. I know there are quite a few Chief Executives here tonight. Can I say to you, if you have such people on your staff, people who are employed under awards that the PSA or other unions may have achieved, sometimes at great expense to the union, be very wary of them because within those people there is a fundamental failure. It is like the man who goes into the pub and when it is his shout, he always runs away. They may be brilliant and they may be whiz kids, but fundamentally they are the people identified by Jack London a long time ago and they are characters of very little substance and should not be trusted. They are flawed.

I come from a long line of trade unionists myself, from Ireland, where memories are centuries old. Indeed, Dennis Reynolds told me recently about the Irish memory championships. There were three contestants; the first contestant said he could remember the first time his nappy was changed and he got a great round of applause. The second contestant said he could remember being born and he got a lot of applause and he thought he had it won. And then the final contestant said that he could remember one night going out with his dad and coming home with his mother.

People thrive on devastation and sadness in Ireland. The history of sadness will never be finished and tonight, before I came in here, I got the SBS news about another tragedy; a little two-seater plane crashed in a remote area in West Cork, crash-landed in the local cemetery. At last count, 795 bodies had been recovered.