What the new boy hopes he can achieve in his brief stay as the political boss of Australia’s mining and oil industry is anybody’s guess though the correct answer probably varies from very little to nothing.
The truth about Gray and his position is that he has only been parachuted in because his predecessor Martin Ferguson opted to walk away from a fractured and doomed government and that Gray himself is one of the ultimate political straw men – he bends whichever way the wind is blowing.
Ferguson was not a straw man. He has substance and, while the mining industry might have had its disagreements with the former head of the Australian trade union movement, it also had respect for his character.
Gray, sadly for him, is a Gillard man.
He has accepted the offer of a senior position in the Australian Cabinet from a deeply unpopular prime minister who has not only driven Australia deeply into debt with wasteful spending but also has alienated the industry that generates most of the country’s export income, mining and set her own departure date – the September 14 general election.
It is that combination of factors that makes it easy for The Hog to say hello and goodbye to Gary Gray in the same breath and to spend minimal time thinking about what the new resources minister might say or do because it just does not matter.
Apart from his 167 days in the job – and counting – there are other reasons to dismiss virtually anything the new boy might say or do. That relates to his highly flexible position on important issues that might be an asset for a politician but also are a reason to discount his views, opinions and decisions.
Take global warming as an example of Gray’s straw-like qualities.
A few years ago, when he was working for Woodside Petroleum, Gray was a fully paid up member of the climate-change sceptics club, a point picked up by the Australian Greens who never forget their class enemies.
Today, Gray is a fully paid up member of the climate-change believers club despite there being little change in the evidence between his Woodside days and now – there being no room near the top of the Gillard government for a sceptic.
What Gray has done with his views on climate is bend in the direction of the political winds of the day.
While that is what all politicians tend to do, his conversion on the road to the cabinet room is politics at its best, or worst, depending on your point of view.
On less politically sensitive issues, Gray is also showing his political skills by saying what his audience wants to hear, such as a promise to oppose any changes to the Mineral Resources Rent Tax and his approval of the foreign works visa scheme, also known as 457 visas.
Neither of those issues is a hot potato at the top of the Gillard government but each is an issue that the mining industry cares deeply about, therefore Gray has said what the industry wants to hear.
If there is a positive side to the new resources minister it is that he has actually worked in the resources sector, albeit very briefly and even then at a political lobbying level for Woodside. That experience and his home in Perth should give him a “feel” for mining and oil production.
But whether that is sufficient reason to promote him into a ministerial position that gives him effective control over Australia’s critically important resources sector seems highly questionable to The Hog.
Gray, in whatever shade you examine him, is a political operator – either from his time in the union movement, or as national secretary of the Labor Party, or as a man quick to see if his feet fit in the boots left by Martin Ferguson.
Anyway, who actually cares what Gray thinks or does. Since The Hog started jotting down this week’s thoughts his tenure had shrunk by another couple of hours, which means he has just 4006 hours in the job before he gets booted out, along with the rest of Australia’s most hopeless government since Gough Whitlam tried to bankrupt Australia.
