The Money Men by Chris Bowen (superbooks4u .txt) 📕

Liberal leader Bruce McDonald in the 1981 NSW election. Tanya and Costello engaged in a long-distance romance, which eventuated in their marriage in 1982. The Anglican archbishop of Sydney officiated at the occasion.

The Law and the Liberal Party

Costello became an articled clerk with the government-owned Gas and Fuel Corporation. It was around this time that Kroger convinced Costello to sign up to the Young Liberals as a vehicle for the pair’s political activities; he arranged for Costello to be elected as president of his branch at his first meeting. Costello eventually transferred to Malleson’s Solicitors and was offered a partnership there in 1983, but he elected to go to the bar instead. It was here that Costello made his name and came to national prominence, for his role in a fight between a radical union that refused to accept the strictures of the ACTU and an employer who was disinclined to be bullied.

In 1985 the small confectionary manufacturer Dollar Sweets was in dispute with the Federated Confectioners Association (FCA). The FCA was controlled by a group of radicals who eschewed the Accord and insisted on aggressive tactics to win better working conditions for their fellow members. The FCA demanded a 36-hour week, as well as pay rises, whereas the ACTU standard claim was for a 38-hour week. Dollar Sweets was owned by Fred Stauder, who refused to meet the union’s demands and withheld Industrial Relations Commission (IRC)–approved wage rises unless his workers agreed to make no further claims. But this was a condition the FCA was never going to accept. Stauder was not getting any traction with the IRC either, whose orders, in any event, the FCA would have simply ignored.

On the advice of Andrew Hay, the chairman of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, Stauder visited Costello, then a 28-year-old, fresh-faced barrister who had developed relationships with key opponents of centralised wage fixation and of the ‘industrial relations club’ that had been identified and excoriated by Gerard Henderson, former staffer to John Howard. Costello had an inventive approach to Stauder’s problem: instead of relying on the IRC, which was the standard process, he suggested the highly unusual step of bringing a common-law action against the union in the Supreme Court to lift the picket that it had imposed. Costello advised Stauder that he needed a solicitor who could in turn brief Costello, and he suggested that Kroger be engaged. Duly briefed by Kroger, Costello in turn briefed QC Alan Goldberg to argue the case that he had prepared. It was successful, with the Supreme Court ordering the union to pay damages to Dollar Sweets because of the disruption caused by its illegal picket. It was the first time that the common law had been used against a union. In the words of Costello biographer Shaun Carney, ‘In a single stroke it introduced the legend of Costello and Kroger to a wider audience.’4 The case achieved great prominence and led other employers seeking relief from union action to approach Costello. Costello also became a founding member of the HR Nicholls Society, a discussion and advocacy group calling for the decentralisation of the wage-fixation system, a radical notion at the time.

It was Kroger who was the more politically active of the two, seeking and winning the presidency of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party in 1987 by 351 votes to 165; Costello managed his campaign. Kroger was determined to attract fresh blood at both the state and federal levels to bring about the defeat of the Hawke government and the Victorian Cain government, and Costello was high on his list of potential candidates. High on Kroger’s list of deadwood to be cleaned out, meanwhile, was Roger Shipton, who had held the safe Victorian seat of Higgins since 1975 but who was never going to serve on the Liberal front bench. Defeating a sitting member of any political party in a preselection is rarely easy, but Costello used his powers of oratory, honed from years spent listening to Baptist preachers and then making successful arguments in court, to win over the panel, attracting ninety-six votes to twenty-seven.

Costello was the highest-profile first-time candidate since Bob Hawke had entered parliament in 1980, and he was given a shadow minister’s schedule of travel around the country. When Peacock resigned the Liberal leadership after losing the 1990 federal election, he endorsed the shadow treasurer, Dr John Hewson, as his replacement. Costello the new MP did not endear himself to the putative leader by suggesting that Peacock should have stayed on as leader for another twelve months, to allow the party more time to consider a replacement (Costello was not convinced that Hewson was a better option than the former head of the National Farmers’ Federation and fellow industrial relations reform advocate Ian McLachlan). Hewson did appoint Costello to the front bench in his first term, but he gave him the most junior position available: that of shadow minister for corporate law and consumer affairs. In 1992 Costello was promoted to shadow attorney-general, but Hewson kept him out of the shadow Cabinet, which amounted to a snub given the seniority that the attorney-general role normally attracts.

Costello’s big break came after the unexpected defeat of the Coalition at the ballot box in 1993, when he was appointed shadow minister for finance, working for the new shadow treasurer Alexander Downer. Costello had run for deputy leader but was defeated in the final round of voting by Victorian MP Michael Wooldridge, by forty-five votes to thirty-three—the first political defeat Costello had ever experienced. Costello threw himself into the shadow finance minister role and used it as an opportunity to lead an attack on the besieged sports minister Ros Kelly, who was under fire because Labor-held seats had benefited from a sports infrastructure funding program more than would be warranted by demographics alone. Costello was methodical and relentless in his attack, and three-and-a-half months later, Kelly resigned from the Cabinet and the Keating government lost substantial political capital.

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