Laurie Carmichael delivers this address towards the closing stages of the shorter hours campaign and national wage negotiations for 1982, in the context of an economic recession supervised by the Fraser government, and when there was emerging a public discussion about a possible prices and incomes agreement.

The recording is in 2 parts, including his preliminary speech and his responses to questions from journalists in the audience.

Laurie Carmichael address at the National Press Club on 10 June 1982 [sound recording].

In this address we listen to Carmichael’s intellectual heft, sharp wit, combativity, and capacity to represent workers’ views on the national stage.

Note: the link requires an additional click on “I accept” to listen to the recording.

The content covers a range of issues that indicate the priorities of the union at the time as required by mass meetings and other communications with members: there is the shorter working week, wages settlement emerging, the social wage – a new concept for journalists and many others, industry development, the power of capital and how it was being exercised in the dynamics of the system, investment decision-making as workers and union business, tripartitism, and trade union rights for workers in east Asia.