http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/ged-kearney-/ Ged Kearney is the current president of the ACTU. Ms Kearney became a registered nurse in 1985, and has worked in many settings across the public and private acute sectors, predominantly in Melbourne, and has also been a nursing educator, including manager of the Clinical Nursing Education Department at Austin Health. She has a Bachelor in Education. Ms Kearney was elected the Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation in April 2008. She has been an elected official with the ANF since 2003, also serving as Assistant Federal Secretary, Federal President and Victorian Branch President. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Deep-down-were-all-unionists-even-the-haters/ Bill Kelty made a memorable speech last week. Addressing the ACTU Congress Dinner in Sydney, the legendary ACTU Secretary who helped shape the Accord in the 1980s and 1990s, explained why he became a unionist. “It was the underdog you always sided with in our family,” he told a hushed audience that included former Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. “The Aboriginal on death row, the Gurindji people, women not getting equal pay. It was Australia of whom you were proud, but not the Australia who sang God Save the Queen. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Deep-down-were-all-unionists-even-the-haters/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Deep-down-were-all-unionists-even-the-haters/#item8556 Mon, 21 May 2012 20:00:26 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Job-insecurity-is-a-bigger-stress-than-the-cost-of-living/ “Most of our people have never had it so good”, is what British PM Harold MacMillan bluntly told his country in 1959. Maybe Harold was right, Britain had emerged from the gloom of the war years into a booming economy. But if you told Australians that today you’d get blank looks, if not downright hostility. Every survey, and most of the anecdotal evidence I hear, show that cost-of-living issues are the main worry for the average Australian household. But last week someone challenged this and effectively told the country to stop whinging. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Job-insecurity-is-a-bigger-stress-than-the-cost-of-living/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Job-insecurity-is-a-bigger-stress-than-the-cost-of-living/#item8418 Sun, 06 May 2012 19:35:01 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Oh-what-a-feeling-no-future/ We throw away last season’s clothes, older-model cars and mobile phones that are out of date. But is our disposable society starting to throw away workers? Last week Toyota laid off 350 workers from its Altona plant in Melbourne. It did so in a way that showed a total disrespect for their dignity as people. I accept that it may have been necessary for Toyota to reduce its workforce – times are tough for manufacturing – but I do not accept that it was necessary to publicly humiliate them. I do not accept it was necessary to frogmarch employees out of the building, in front of TV cameras. I do not accept it was necessary to label the retrenched workers as underperformers without right of reply. I question why so many members who had roles with their union were retrenched. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Oh-what-a-feeling-no-future/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Oh-what-a-feeling-no-future/#item8308 Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:40:11 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/spare-a-thought-for-those-havent-clocked-off-this-easter/ If you’re reading this on your break at work this Easter Monday, commiserations. If you worked over the weekend, or on Good Friday, double commiserations. For many Australians Easter is a solemn religious occasion, for others it a chance to spend four uninterrupted days with family, or to visit relatives interstate. Like Christmas Day, it is a safety valve that reduces some of the pressures of work, and allows us to focus on the deeper values that we sometimes forget in the day to day flurry of activity. Those of you who run our public transport, or staff our emergency rooms, or the restaurants and cafes that feed the rest of us over Easter - thanks. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/spare-a-thought-for-those-havent-clocked-off-this-easter/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/spare-a-thought-for-those-havent-clocked-off-this-easter/#item8190 Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:55:40 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/some-super-stuff-actually-happens-in-parliament/ I sometimes think there are two kinds of politics in Australia. The stuff that gets reported, and the stuff that actually affects people’s lives. The 24-hour news cycle has created constant demand for new content, no matter how trivial. Much of the demand has been fuelled by punditry, pontificating and poll-analysis, rather than actual news. While the political journos are obsessed with the state of Craig Thomson’s stomach, Peter Costello’s Future Fund dummy spit, and Wayne Swan’s Three Stooges jokes, you could be forgiven for thinking that is all Parliament ever does. Conflict, not matter how confected, is the fuel that drives media coverage. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/some-super-stuff-actually-happens-in-parliament/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/some-super-stuff-actually-happens-in-parliament/#item8087 Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:50:54 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/unions-represent-millions-mining-giants-only-a-few/ In the same way that fish don’t really understand what water is, most Australians (except perhaps those who have come from dictatorships overseas) take democracy for granted. We don’t often ask what democracy means, beyond the obligatory exercise of turning up to vote every three years. Part of Australia’s strong democracy is the civil rights that we all possess; to say what we want, to associate with who we like and own our own property. But in another sense democracy is an ongoing conversation between all parts of society, the rulers and the ruled, the rich and the poor, in an attempt to discern what our national priorities should be. In this conversation, not all voices are equal.  feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/unions-represent-millions-mining-giants-only-a-few/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/unions-represent-millions-mining-giants-only-a-few/#item7985 Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:35:12 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/while-labor-self-immolates-workers-want-answers/ Most of you political junkies might skip over this piece because it doesn’t involve a hard-edged analysis of who-hates-who in the ALP or speculation about where numbers will fall at 10am this morning. The reason I’m not writing that is because for me, it’s not the main game. Despite the myths about the influence of unions on the Labor caucus, what really motivates me and my colleagues is representing Australia’s workers and improving their lives, regardless of who runs the government. In the end the decision will be made by 103 elected Labor members of Parliament. I don’t envy their position. The level of internal anger, now spilling into the public arena, has made it harder for Labor to win the next election. The jibe “if you can’t govern yourselves, how can you govern the county?” is one of the hardest for any political party to shake. The 90 per cent of the population that is too busy to pay more than casual attention to politics sees the unholy mess the ALP is in and turns away. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/while-labor-self-immolates-workers-want-answers/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/while-labor-self-immolates-workers-want-answers/#item7864 Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:40:05 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/are-you-feeling-insecure/ Is your job less secure than the one you had five or 10 years ago? Are you a casual worker, or on a fixed-term contract or getting temporary work through a labour hire company? But, at the same time, are you working harder and longer hours than you were? If so, it’s not just you, it’s the Australian workforce as a whole. Today, the reality is that 40 per cent of Australians are in some kind of insecure work. That’s the combination of people who are casual (which is a quarter of the workforce alone), on contracts, and in labour hire, as opposed to the normal definition of standard, permanent jobs. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/are-you-feeling-insecure/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/are-you-feeling-insecure/#item7745 Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:50:23 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Multiculturalism-its-as-Aussie-as-a-lamb-roast/ Christmas is long gone, New Year is a distant memory, the tennis is on TV and the summer break that saves the sanity of so many Australians is almost over. As usual in the lead up to Australia Day it’s time debate the health of the nation: where we stand internationally, and the slippery issue of our national identity. I don’t think there are many countries that spend so much time trying to define exactly what they stand for. While navel-gazing isn’t always healthy, one of the reasons for this debate is that we do not feel that our national identity is fixed, or tied to events of the past, but something that is always changing and improving. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Multiculturalism-its-as-Aussie-as-a-lamb-roast/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Multiculturalism-its-as-Aussie-as-a-lamb-roast/#item7580 Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:40:06 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/And-the-Scroogie-goes-to/ I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas yesterday, whatever you ended up doing. I spent the day, as I do every year, with my large family, which seems to grow every year. Like many Australians, I’m looking forward to spending the next few weeks, relaxing, doing some reading, hanging out at the beach, catching up with family and friends – and doing a few chores around the house that I’ve been putting off for far too long. But, of course, many others worked yesterday, and will be working during the summer break. When I was a nurse, I often worked on public holidays, including Christmas, which gave me a real appreciation of the penalty rates unions have won as compensation for those rostered on at those times. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Ged Kearney ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/And-the-Scroogie-goes-to/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/And-the-Scroogie-goes-to/#item7444 Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:55:36 +0000 Ged Kearney | Author bios | The Punch