Aust PM wants Pacific cash back

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Photo / AP

Public outrage is pressing down on the future of Pacific Brands, the clothing and bedding manufacturer that plans to close its plants in Australia and New Zealand to continue an already extensive move to China.

The company has become the focus of seething anger over recession-fuelled job losses and the export of local manufacturing after its decision to sack 1850 employees in Australia and almost 90 in New Zealand. About 400 staff remain in New Zealand.

Pacific's product stable includes brands such as Bonds, Holeproof, Berlei, Sheridan, Sleepmaker and Hush Puppies.

Its announcement of the redundancies came after executives received pay increases of up to 170 per cent, including a A$1.1 million ($1.4 million) rise for chief executive Sue Morphett after her promotion from general manager of the group's underwear and hosiery division.

Pacific also received about A$15 million in Government subsidies in the past two years.

Fury has not been eased by reports that Morphett's total A$1.86 million package is likely to have been hewn by up to A$1 million by a steep dive in the value of Pacific's shares.

Morphett's salary was linked to share values by the company's executive incentive payment scheme.

But anger has remained at such a pitch that extra security was last week placed around Morphett's home, and Pacific's executive salaries have sparked bipartisan political determination to devise some means of controlling similar increases.

The company's woes deepened further yesterday when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd indicated that the Government may now try to reclaim at least part of taxpayer money handed to the company.

"I think what Pacific Brands has done is, frankly, in so many respects beyond the pale," he told Fairfax radio.

"In terms of the monies they've got from the Government, we'll go through all of that in terms of what can be extracted back from them."

Former conservative Treasurer Peter Costello had earlier demanded an explanation from Pacific, telling Channel Nine that taxpayers had been duped and deserved reimbursement.

Pacific also faces growing union action, including plans for a boycott of its products and bans on removing machinery from its factories and on their transport abroad by sea or air.

This week the Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association joined waterside workers, truckers and railway workers in refusing to handle company plant.

Aviation engineers agreed to refuse to certify aircraft carrying Pacific machinery out of the country, despite Morphett's assurances that no subsidised equipment would be sent to China.

She said that while the company had received A$14.5 million from the Government, only A$2.6 million had been spent on new plant.

Her assurances, and her complaint that Pacific had unfairly become a media whipping boy, were almost immediately buried by the company's decision to ignore Government pleas and continue with its plans.

"No other option is appropriate," Morphett said.

Morphett also attacked planned product boycotts, warning that while they might make good headlines they would not fix the problems Pacific was trying to deal with.

But public outrage continues to grow, with pressure placed on celebrities such as tennis player Pat Rafter and model Sarah Murdoch to end their promotional associations with

Pacific, and widening publicity of the fact that 75 per cent of the company's "dinkum" products are already made in China.

In Melbourne, four firefighters angry that Pacific made their uniforms stripped to their Bonds undies to support a protest against Pacific's China move. And the union movement intends using Pacific as a slingshot for a planned national campaign against redundancies and the export of jobs, especially by companies receiving Government subsidies.

Australian council of Trade Unions president Sharan Burrow said public funding must be linked to the highest standards of corporate governance and accountability.

"It is appalling that some companies, such as Pacific Brands, have received millions of dollars in taxpayer support and then shut down businesses and sacked hundreds of workers," she said.