History will judge Andrews on Belt and Road, warns union leader
A powerful Labor-linked trade union has warned Premier Daniel Andrews that “history will judge” him over his actions on China.
The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association wrote to the Premier, telling Mr Andrews that the union “stood on the side of the Chinese” people and not the communist country’s “authoritarian government”.
SDA state secretary Michael Donovan: “We want history to judge that we stood side by side with the Chinese people.” Credit:SDA
The “Shoppies” have long been a formidable presence in Labor's right, counting Deputy Premier James Merlino and newly-minted senator for Victoria Raff Ciccone among their number.
The union’s letter did not mention Mr Andrews’ controversial Belt and Road deal with China that is the subject of an escalating row between the Victorian Labor government and Canberra. The Morrison federal government says the agreement undermines the national interest and should be scrapped.
But Michael Donovan, the head of the Victorian branch of the SDA, which has a long history of social conservatism and anti-communism, reminded the Premier of the union’s fierce opposition to the Soviet Union and its subjugation of eastern Europe during the cold war.
“We played our part in bringing down the Iron Curtain and giving human rights to the people of eastern Europe and Russia,” Mr Donovan wrote.
The union leader told the Premier that the SDA national executive had adopted a motion supporting the civic, labour and religious rights of the Chinese people, areas that have been flashpoints between the regime and the international community.
“We reject the notion that somehow Chinese people need and want an authoritarian government because they are too immature to govern themselves and are not deserving of the same rights we have,” Mr Donovan said.
“History will judge all of us.
“We want history to judge that we stood side by side with the Chinese people.”
The Premier continued on Monday to defend the Belt and Road arrangement, saying there were many agreements between the state and China and that they were all about promoting jobs and economic growth.
“This is one agreement among many agreements,” Mr Andrews told ABC radio.
“They [the Chinese] are our biggest customer, we've never done more business with them than we know we are right now, and that underpins not one job or hundreds of jobs or thousands of jobs.
“It underpins tens of thousands of jobs, and there are examples all across the Victorian economy.”