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| Issue No 111 |  |
14 September 2001 |
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| Issue No 111 | |
14 September 2001 |
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Beazley at Ansett Rally |
The decision by Acting Prime Minister and Transport Minister John Anderson to refuse to underwrite Ansett operations as an administrator took control forced the immediate closure of the company.
Addressing a rally of Ansett workers in Sydney, Beazley called on the Howard Government to dip into the $240 million it is spending to promote itself through advertisements to keep the Australian icon in the air.
"The Prime Minister should take his advertising off the telly and spend it on something serious," Beazley said.
He vowed the Opposition would support any legislation to underwrite the administrator so Ansett could continue to trade and urged the government to put such laws before the Parliament immediately.
Beazley also called on the government to protecting Labor legislation currently before the Senate to provide 100 per cent protection for their workers entitlements.
"If this legislation were passed, you would still be out of a job today, but you would not be facing the prospect of losing everything."
Citing his own personal history with the airline, Beazley pledged to continue to campaign in defence of Ansett and their workers.
He said he had been travelling with them since he was 12 months old. "When I look around you today, I see people who have helped me for the past 52 years," he said.
"I see the faces of people working in an essential industry - we can not operate as a society without you".
National Anger Builds
Rallies were held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Launceston as anger grew over the overnight collapse of the domestic carrier.
Workers also took direct action at airports, with workers in Sydney stopping all flights for four hours demanding for assurances on their own entitlements.
In all, an estimated 17,000 workers have been thrown out of work by Ansett, with tens of thousands more jobs at risk through the failure of the airline.
Beazley spoke of how the closure would not only affect the Ansett workforce, but the tourism industry, rural and regional Australia as a whole.
Already some associated businesses, such as travel agents servicing Ansett, have closed their doors.
Help Save Ansett
Call, Fax or Email John Howard and John Anderson and let them know what you think of their inaction and how it will effect your vote at the upcoming Federal Election.
The Hon. John Howard MP
Prime Minister
Phone: 02 6277 7700
Fax: 02 6272 4100
Website Feedback: http://www.pm.gov.au/your_feedback/feedback.htm
The Hon. John Anderson MP
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Transport
Phone: 02 6277 7680
Fax: 02 6273 4126
Email: John.Anderson.MP@aph.gov.au
Also tommorrow (Saturday 15/09/01) Bruce Baird MP Federal Liberal Member for Cook will be holding a feedback session in his electorate. Why not turn up and let him know what you think of his Government's failure to save 16,000 Australian Jobs.
The forum will be held at the Shops near the corner of Port Hacking Road & Bouvardia Street, Dolan's Bay.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow sounded the warning at the Sydney rally of Ansett workers and their supporters as evidence emerged of the extent of the unpaid entitlements.
Apart from the redundancy and accrued leave entitlements, it was revealed that Ansett had not been deducting payments for health funds or union dues for some time.
"Air New Zealand must accept responsibility or we will pursue them through whatever means are necessary," Burrow said
She also called on the Howard Govt tot underwrite workers entitlements and to support the ACTU in pursuing the New Zealand carrier and the New Zealand government.
Burrow says the ACTU is seeking legal advice with a view to pursuing Air New Zealand and would be the unions in New Zealand in seeking a meeting with the NZ PM Helen Clark.
MUA Goes All the Way with Ansett Workers
Meanwhile, the Maritime Union has pledged to mobilise support for the Ansett workers on an international basis.
As an executive board member of the International Transport Workers' Federation, National Secretary Paddy Crumlin has also called on the ITF London office to mobilise support for Ansett workers from international affiliates.
Crumlin has laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Federal Government transport policy comparing today's grounding of the airline to the Government's sinking of the Australian shipping industry.
"Not content with their destructive competition policies against Australian shipping, Transport Minister John Anderson and the Howard Government are now intent on the destruction of the Australian aviation industry," Crumlin says.
"The world crisis triggered by terrorism in the US only illustrates the important national and strategic importance of key transport modes like aviation and shipping.
"Deregulation of the US aviation industry greatly exacerbated the human tragedy there this week. Yet we have a Government here in Australia determined to sell off or destroy our national transport infrastructure.
The Qantas workers marched on Ansett's Mascot Terminal to support demands that the Ansett workers be paid 100% of their entitlements in the wake of this morning's announcement that the carrier could not even afford to pay the workers' wages.
Qantas workers are currently negotiating their own Enterprise Agreement and their claim demands that their entitlements should be paid into an Industry Trust Fund.
The collapse of Ansett could lead to more than 18,000 direct job losses and thousands of indirect job losses according to unions. The Ansett workers alone stand to lose not only their incomes, but also their accrued entitlements, which amount to more than $400 million.
What started as a trickle has now become an avalanche of workers losing everything through no fault of their own and the Federal Government's excuses for not providing legislative protection for workers are now seen by everyone as irrelevant and ideologically driven.
The community believes that all workers should receive 100% of their accrued entitlements if the company they work for goes belly up.
Unions and the community are becoming increasingly impatient with the Federal Government's tinkering around the edges of Corporations Law, with no real changes being made to protect workers' entitlements.
The call by unions for the establishment of Industry Trust Funds to protect their members' entitlements cannot go unanswered. If such a scheme had been in place at Ansett, the disaster now confronting more than 18,000 families could be very different
The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union has established an Industry Trust Fund, Manusafe which was at the centre of the recent Tri Star and Maintrain disputes.
Paul Bastian, State Secretary of the AMWU, which represents maintenance workers at Ansett and Qantas said that the union would accept nothing less than 100% of what the workers were owed in accrued entitlements.
"Ansett has been a disaster waiting to happen and there is no doubt that the Federal Government has known about it for some time." said Paul Bastian
"The workers at Ansett should expect nothing less than 100% of their entitlements and it is up to Air New Zealand as the parent company to take responsibility for the debt."
"What happened to workers at Ansett should never have happened. Its no wonder that our members at Qantas are now fighting to make sure that it can't happen to them."
Robertson says unionists "must step forward in a courageous manner" when they see Muslim people being abused in the community at large, but particularly in their workplace.
There have been reports of conflict between Anglo-Saxons and Muslims in some workplaces, including a Melbourne rail depot. There have also been accounts of abuse directed at Muslim children, schools and mosques.
"We need to focus on the fact that majority of people in the world are not evil, but good," Robertson told this week's Labor Council meeting.
"These terrorists have used religion as a blanket to hide behind - it is not the religion that is to blame for these attacks."
"We need to ensure that Australia retains its reputation as a tolerant and diverse society."
Hundreds of New York firefighters, police officers, council workers, along with finance sector workers and construction workers working on the Pentagon` are believed to have lost their lives.
The Fire Brigade Union has opened an account that all Australians can pay money into: Commonwealth bank West end Branch (Qld) Account Number": 06 4131 1017 0831
Various Australian trade unions, including the FBEU, Police Association and Municipal Employees Union have written to their American counterparts to give their condolences.
"People around the world have again been reminded in not only the most horrific way, but also on the most tragic of scales, of the ever-present risk of death and injury which we firefighters face," NSW FBEU state secretary Chris Read wrote.
Delegates to the Labor Council meeting observed one minute's silence and signed a condolence book that will be forwarded to their American trade union colleagues.
Colleagues of Andrew Knox are hoping for a miracle, but beginning to resign themselves to having lost a comrade.
Knox worked as a senior industrial officer for the Australian Workers Union for some five years prior to heading overseas, where he worked with UK unions before finding work in New York.
During his time with the AWU he primarily worked around local government and workers compensation.
"Andrew is the type of guy who has the capacity to touch every person - with the demeanour and personal characteristics of someone without an enemy in the world," AWU colleague Wayne Hanson told Workers Online.
"The outstanding feature was that he was loved by the members, respected by employers he operated with, a person who very quickly established his bona fides and protection of workers within the union," Hanson says.
"There is nothing but praise about the way he conducted himself - a credit to the working class, a credit to the union and a credit to himself.
"We're still hopeful - that Andrew will emerge from the dust and the rubble - but the reality is that those circumstances are becoming more rare and remote."
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US Airline Union Members express their Solidarity with Ansett Workers |
The workers, many of whom had lost friends in Tuesday's terrorist attack, attended the Sydney rally with members of the Flight Attendants Association of Australia.
They heard a message of sympathy read by FAAA member - and former Ansett employee - Narelle Gill. It read:
As the rally is aware, on Tuesday, 11 September 2001, America was the subject of terrorist attacks using commercial airlines and innocent personnel. These attacks resulted in significant loss of life and destruction.
In addition to the personal contact made with those representing out sister and brother union, our union wrote to Ms Pat Friend, President, Association of Flight Attendants, Ms Linda Farrow, President United MEC and John Robertson Ward, President Association of Professional Flight Attendants in America in the following terms:
"It is with extreme sadness that we write to express our deepest sympathy to your country, its people and members of your Association that have lost their lives in this dreadful act of violence.
The Flight Attendants' Association of Australia sends out sympathy to you at this time and offers out support in any way we can.
Our FAAA Employee Assistance Councillors have been in touch with the United Airlines crew overnight in Australia. While it is extremely difficult to think of any practical assistance we can provide members of American Airlines, we nonetheless stand ready to assist you in any way we can.
It is incomprehensible to even begin to understand how you are approaching this situation for your members however; our thoughts are with you at this time.
Yours sincerely
Colin Coakley
Divisional Secretary
FAAA"
While welcoming aspects of the report, the Labor Council's workers compensation campaign committee this week signaled it had serious issues with the findings.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said the recommendations must be gauged against two criteria - have workers benefits been reduced?; and have workers access to benefits been reduced?
"The union movement has said from Day One that we are not anti-reform," Robertson said says.
"But we have also made clear that our number one priority is our members' interests - we are not going to compromise on their rights at a time when they are extremely vulnerable."
At a meeting of affiliates NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca signaled the recommendations were up for negotiation with all stakeholders.
Threshold Too High
Primary concern revolves around the recommendation to increase the threshold to access common law to 20 per cent of the whole of body.
Sheahan would offset this by increasing the benefits under the stautory scheme to $250,000, but he has not provided any date to implement this increase - instead saying it should be upped when the scheme can afford it.
There also continues to be uncertainty about how workers with psychological damage will be assessed, the Sheahan report being silent on the issue, meaning it will be determined by a separate review of medical assessment.
The Labor Council has referred the report to its medical advisor Porofessor Michael Fernside to profile the impact of the common law threshold at 20 per ncent, 15 per cent and 10 per cent thresholds.
Some Good Ideas
Unions have, however, welcomed aspects of the report including the end to election and the universal payment for domestic care.
Justice Sheahan recommends that workers should not have to choose between taking common law action or taking benefits under the no-fault scheme. Currently a worker suing their employer forfeits their rights to statutory benefits.
And the report also recommends that seriously injured workers should receive compensation for home care, rather than the current situation where this can only be sought through common law damages.
A further meeting of the workers compensation campaign committee will be held
Click here for detailed briefing.
The measures, part of a Green Paper on workers compensation compliance, was released at the same time as the Sheahan report into common law rights.
Movement on the evasion issue - estimated to cost the scheme $150 million every year - was a key demand of the union movement during the last ropund of workers compo reform.
The Green Paper discusses strategies for improving employer compliance with their legal obligations and sets a public comment period of four weeks.
It contains proposals to;
· make principal contractors ultimately liable for workers' compensation policies,
· compel employers to make wage declarations quarterly, to ensure real evidence of employees needing insurance,
· automatically renew policies,
· prevent the use of company restructure as a way of avoiding premiums; and
· make employers inform their insurer if they take on more employees.
NSW Minister for Industrial Relations JohN Della Bosca says the proposals are aimed at ensuring every worker in NSW is properly covered for workers compensation.
"The Green Paper has been put together with the assistance of the WorkCover Workers Compensation and Occupational Health and Safety Council and the Construction Industry Reference Group," Della Bosca says.
"It is a great example of Government, unions and employers working together to solve our problems in workers' compensation."
Unions are considering their response to the Green Paper.
Lonely Planet is one of the companies facing global pressure to withdraw from Burma in accordance with International Labour Organisation sanctions over the regime's use of slave labour.
ebookers.com this week withdrew extracts from Lonely Planet's guide to Burma, replacing it with a warning about the situation in Burma.
It also features a link to an article by Burma Canmpaign UK explaining the tourism boycott and one by Lonely Planet attempting to justify tourism to Burma.
Director of Burma Campaign UK Yvette Mahon says she is delighted with the decision.
"The situation in Burma is unique," Mahon says. "Travel agents can not act as if a holiday in Burma is the same as a holiday in France or Spain. "
"ebookers have understood this. We hope it will help Lonely Planet get the message that they should withdraw their guide to Burma."
ILO High Level Team to Visit Burma
Meanwhile, the composition of a High Level Team due to visit Myanmar for a three-week period next month to assess Government actions on forced labour was announced tthis week by the International Labour Office (ILO) Director-General Juan Somavia.
The Team Is Composed Of The Right Honourable Sir Ninian Stephen Of Australia (Chair); Ms. Nieves Roldan-Confesor Of The Philippines (Vice-Chair); Mr. Kulatilaka Arthanayake Parinda Ranasinghe Of Sri Lanka And Mr. Jerzy Makarczyk Of Poland, As Members.
The establishment of the Team, which was agreed in May and considered by the International Labour Conference at its June 2001 session, is a new and significant development which follows a series of steps taken by the ILO's competent bodies to secure compliance by Myanmar with its obligations under ILO Convention No. 29 (1930) concerning forced labour.
The mandate of the Team is to make an objective assessment of the practical implementation and actual impact of various legislative, executive and administrative measures announced by the Government in response to previous ILO action, with a view to determining whether these measures have been effective in eliminating the practice of forced labour. In making its assessment, the Team will take into account in particular the views expressed recently on this matter by the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations.
In carrying out its mandate, the Team will have full discretion to establish a programme of such contacts and visits as it considers appropriate across the country. It is anticipated that it will visit Myanmar in mid-September and spend up to three weeks in the country. It is due to report to the Governing Body at its November 2001 session.
by Andrew Casey
The 150 workers, members of the LHMU, have been on strike for 5 weeks in support of their claims for a renewed enterprise agreement.
Next Tuesday, in an application before Justice Munro, the company is seeking to have the legal bargaining period terminated - thus making the union members' strike 'illegal'.
" The members at this site are strong. We will face the issue of the application once it is heard and decided in the Industrial Relations Commission," Kevin Stanley, LHMU delegate said.
" We are heartened by the fact that other paint workers in this state have voted to levy themselves to back us in our struggle.
" Paint workers in Queensland and Victoria who are employed by the same company - Barloworld's a South African multi-national - have also met, discussed our plight and shown support for our struggle.
" As well South African paint workers union members have been in contact to find out about the history of our current dispute.
" We have also heard that representatives of the Congress of South African Trade Unions have had consultations with the local paint workers' union about this dispute."
If you are in Sydney you can show your support by visiting the workers on the picket line: 9 Birmingham Ave, Villawood.
Or you can send a solidarity e-mail to the LHMU members via Kevin Stanley at: mattnkev@ozemail.com.au
by Andrew Casey
This week's four day lock out would have been on top of an earlier three day lock out of casino workers, which was just coming to an end.
However Federal Court proceedings quickly forced Casino management to back down, allowing union members to return to work on Wednesday night.
The LHMU Casino Union went to the Federal Court claiming the company was victimising union members just 'cause they were wearing LHMU union pins.
In court a compromise was agreed to get union members back to work.
The company accepted union delegates would wear their union pins until a full court hearing of the company's union pins ban is heard. The court will hold a directions hearing on this issue next week.
Union pride
" Many of our members wear their union pin badges just like their neighbours, friends and mates, might wear an RSL badge or a Rotary badge," Irene Monro from the LHMU Casino Union said.
" Rotary members are proud of their organisation. RSL members are proud of their organisation. LHMU members are proud of being members of their union."
" At the end of the three day legal lockout period the LHMU Casino Union notified Conrad Jupiters management that our members had voted to stop wearing union protest badges, worn as a visual protest against their employer refusing to negotiate a decent enterprise agreement.
" These badges had slogans on them such as: Putting the Con in Conrad; I'm Angry; Lies,Lies,Lies where's the Pay Rise? ," Irene Monro said.
Pit Boss
The company's lock out legally ended at 8pm on Tuesday, so LHMU Casino Union members fronted for work.
" As each Table Games staff member turned up for work they were grilled by the Casino Pit Boss, and asked whether they intended to participate in any industrial action.
" Each member clearly told the Pit Boss that they were not participating in any form of industrial action," Irene Monro said.
" When they answered: "No, I will not be participating in action tonight" Jupiters management asked them why they were wearing their LHMU Union pins.
" Employees responded," This is the pin I have been wearing for many months, it is my Union pin not my protest badge."
" Management then informed employees that the company considered the pins a form of industrial action.
" This was an extraordinary act. It shows a level of belligerence from a company trying to avoid negotiating a fair enterprise agreement."
Jupiters Casino is run and operated by the US multinational gaming and resort giant, Park Place Entertainment Corporation.
Visit the LHMU's Casino web-page
Read earlier stories about this dispute at the LHMU Casino Workers web-page.
Staff at the Wollongong office, where 30 jobs are threatened, will hold stop-work meetings next Wednesday, with other offices expected to follow suit over the next few weeks.
CPSU spokesperson, Michael Tull, says strike action is one part a locally focussed campaign designed to highlight the damage the cuts will do.
"Sure, our members are concerned about keeping their jobs, but there are other issues to consider here. With contractor changes, BAS and GST, the office is already struggling to keep up. Take out another 1300 jobs and it slips from sick to terminal. The average taxpayer or small business gets less support while the high-flyers rort away unchallenged, " said Mr Tull.
Members in Wollongong have been heartened by support from the community, with local Labor pollies Stephen Martin and Colin Holliss meeting delegates and pledging support.
Meanwhile in Geelong, staff welcomed a snap decision to reduce cuts from 30 jobs to ten. This back-flip was the result of the intense political and media pressure, following the threat of strike action.
"The Geelong announcement shows the ATO can be moved. Members in the Illawarra are determined to keep the pressure on until commonsense prevails here to," added Mr Tull.
Mary Bluett, President of the Victorian Branch of the AEU, says the decision is long overdue and will be welcomed by the State's 40,000 staff.
"Teachers and support staff will now be entitled to claim a tax deduction on the purchase of clothing, as well as some cleaning and maintenance costs", she said.
"For too long our members have been disadvantaged compared to industries where tax deductibility has been in place for an extended period of time".
Ms Bluett said the AEU has been lobbying the Department of Education Employment and Training (DEET) for nearly two years to achieve this groundbreaking decision. Ms Bluett also acknowledged the efforts of the Association of School Councils in Victoria (ASCIV) who were instrumental in bringing this issue to a successful conclusion with DEET.
She also commended Bizwear Pty Ltd, the corporate uniform supplier, which developed the range. Ms Bluett said "The AEU was proud to be associated with Bizwear who as a signatory to the ACTU" "Fairwear Campaign" demonstrated their preparedness to work co-operatively with the trade union movement to stamp out exploitation of workers in the clothing industry".
"Bizwear consulted widely within the industry to create a range that is fashionable, non-discriminatory in terms of age or body type, and is functional in line with the demands on teachers and support staff", Ms Bluett said.
Ms Bluett said an information pack including catalogue, order form and supply details would be issued within the next few weeks to schools throughout the state. She urged principals and school councils to disseminate the kits widely. Ms Bluett encouraged AEU members to avail themselves of the opportunity the DEET announcement provides.
by Mark Morey
The pamphlets have been designed to address the major issues and questions initially asked by non-English speaking workers in relation to Australian unions and unionism. The pamphlets have been translated into Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, English, Filipino, Hindi, Korean, Italian and Vietnamese and are available to all unions and organisers via LABORNET. Once unions download the pamphlets they can include the names of organisers and the union details. It is intended that further languages will become available as resources permit.
The pamphlets are a result of the Labor Council's Productive Diversity Project that aims to increase the accessibility of non-English Speaking Background (NESB) workers to unions.
Prior to the launch of the pamphlets a forum, "Getting the Union Message Out: Non-English Speaking Background Workers and Unions", was held that discussed a range of issues facing non-English speaking workers in relation to work and unionism. The forum, heard from Caroline Alcorso, Sydney University, Jagath Bandara NSW Branch of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union and Debbie Carstens, Asian Women at Work [Transcripts of these talks were included in WoL Issue110]
For more information regarding the pamphlets contact Labor Council's Special Project
Delivering their pure guitar driven pop rock, successful Sydney band STELLA ONE ELEVEN will headline the night. Local singer songwriter and actor PETER FENTON will perform brand new material joined by DAVID LANE who will offer his keyboard prowess. Of course a new music initiative wouldn't be complete without some developing talent, Wobbly Radio is proud to introduce the pop hook laden locals LAZY SUSAN and Brisbane based duo GORGEOUS who recently released their debut self titled album.
Of Wobbly Radio, Cindy Ryan lead singer and guitarist from Stella One Eleven said,
"This is a great initiative particularly for emerging acts. With the exception of Triple J and community stations the quota of new Australian music on radio is very small in comparison to the swag of international hits that get aired. We are happy to support this event because the Wobbly Radio site is there to help the local music scene flourish and that's a real positive."
Wobbly Radio's emphasis is to introduce young acts and also display established acts to a wider audience. The site allows new or existing artists to upload their own MP3's, which are then added to the Wobbly play-list. The site also displays a photo and biography on each act to offer a complete package.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said,
"This is a way the trade union movement can promote Australian culture and also give support to the music industry. We'd also like to think that Wobbly will create goodwill amongst younger people who might look at what we have to offer them when they are at work."
Each week the latest Australian releases will be streamed to global online listeners, with feature albums, a featured MP3 of the week and special themed programs. MP3's and music programs distributed through wobblyradio.com are not downloadable, so there's no way the artist's music can be captured or pirated.
So if you're an Australian Music fan or an emerging band looking for some free online exposure be sure you check out the new all Australian music site wobblyradio.com Musicians can send their CD and hard copies of biographies and photographs to: Wobbly Radio, NSW Labor Council, Level 10, 377-383 Sussex St Sydney NSW 2000. Or simply follow the links on the site or email MP3s and info to info@wobblyradio.com
The Wobbly Radio launch celebrates Australian Music so we invite you to come down and enjoy a great night out with some of our finest talent. Wobbly Radio launches on Saturday September 22 - Newtown RSL with STELLA ONE ELEVEN, PETER FENTON and two new emerging acts LAZY SUSAN and GORGEOUS to kick off the night.
Tickets are at the bargain price of $10.00 and are available at the door on the night, doors open at 8.00pm. Please note Newtown RSL requires all patrons to provide photo ID on entry to the club.
Peace Vigil
The actions taken by persons unknown in New York and Washington will create echoes throughout the world.
The staff at the Nature Conservation Council are concerned that this act of terrorism does not escalate into war.
In an attempt to show solidarity with the victims and their families and as a mark of our belief that the escalation of this act into war benefits no-one we will be gathering in the heart of Sydney's financial district, Martin Place, outside the Reserve Bank at 5.30 on Wednesday 19th September and moving to the Cenotaph to hold an hour long vigil for Peace.
All who wish to see peace prevail are welcome to join us.
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PLUTO PRESS AUSTRALIA INVITES YOU TO REGISTER FOR A POLICY SEMINAR TO DISCUSS
REFUGEES GANGS AND RACIALISED PUNISHMENT
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 6.00 - 8.00 PM
EASTERN AVENUE LECTURE THEATRE SYDNEY UNIVERSITY
This seminar will bring together a number of commentators to address the underlying issues of race and punishment that have come to the forefront in public views about immigration, asylum seeking, gangs, law and order.
With these issues looming large before the federal election, the seminar aims to contribute to public awareness on immigration and refugee issues and provide alternatives to current policies.
Speakers include: Dorothy McCrae McMahon, Chris Sidoti, Paula Abood, Paul Tabar. Others to be confirmed.
Cost: $20/$10
Bookings essential: Phone: 9692 5111 or email brendan@socialchange.net.au
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Privacy/Surveillance Survey
This is an announcement of a new Privacy/Surveillance Survey which is available for anyone to complete and submit. We are looking for Australians (and others) to take part in this research so that we might be able to determine what people feel about being electronically monitored in the workplace.
At the moment, private enterprise has been asked to determine its own policies with respect to Privacy. Not many organisations are doing any baseline research like our questionnaire.
We would like publish the results of this survey and perhaps also approach the Privacy Commissioner with data for the Privacy Amendment legislation which shall be implemented at the end of the year.
The survey can be found at: >http://www.training-search.com.au/privacy/
Please feel free to take part in this important
research for Australia.
Dr. Monica Whitty and Mr Ray Archee University of Western Sydney, Australia
As we go to the web, Howard is being quoted in the media as saying he will:
(i) guarantee the Ansett workers thier entitlements, and
(ii) modify and expand the safety net scheme designed by peter Reith and backed by Tony Abbott.
In a major repudiation of both his ministers, Howard has realised that he can not defend the paltry government scheme.
It still leaves open several questions, including: why won't the government underwrite the Ansett administrators? What it will do for workers already denied thier entitlements? and why won't it protect Labor's comprehensive scheme.
It is policy making on the run that has delivered a good result for Ansett workers, but will create severe divisions within the Howard front bench.
The debate is sure to hot up over the coming weeks.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I write to thank you for your extraordinary expression of solidarity and support. It is vital at this time that workers across the world stand together against terrorism that targets the innocent.
This heinous attack was aimed at working people. These acts must be condemned by nations, by leaders, and by workers across the world. The perpetrators should find no sanctuary. We urge all workers to aid in bringing them to justice.
We mourn today the heroic sacrifice of working men and women who gave their lives while trying to save others. The full count is not in. But we know that thousands of police, fire and emergency medical men and women gave the full measure of sacrifice in struggling to save others in the catastrophe. The dedication, the solidarity, the courage, and the humanity showed by these everyday heroes will not be forgotten.
September 11, 2001 will live in our memory forever. On this day, working men and women; airline pilots and flight attendants, cafeteria staff, maintenance crews, parking attendants, public employees, secretaries and other office workers were targets of a despicable act of terror. On this day, working men and women risked and gave their lives.
On behalf of the 40 million members of working families in the United States, I want to thank you for the outpouring of support from our trade union family around the world. Workers across this country will always remember your outreach and solidarity. As we move forward in the days ahead, we know, as never before, that we are not alone.
In Solidarity,
John Sweeney
President
AFL-CIO
We were delighted to read the letter from Liz Phillips dated August 31, 2001. However, I'd like to correct one small fact from the letter: last month (August) we got more than 79,000 hits. This figure has almost trebled since January.
Further, we have a good idea of the our readers. They comprise activists, academics, politicians, public servants, journalists, students and others. We are keen for more material to balance and expand the content of the site - we believe that open, robust debate is the only way to formulate constructive, informed and coherent policies for our future. The publication is designed to be non-partisan.
Unfortunately, we are a non-profit publication and hence our supply of articles depends up on the strength of the links we form with bodies such as yours. Meeting Liz was a breakthrough as far as we are concerned.
We place a premium only on informed and considered opinion, we don't mind where or from whom it comes. If your readers are interested in helping to raise the level of public debate in this country, they should read our guidelines for contributors at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/sections/guide.htm.
Looking forward to hearing from your readers.
Regards,
Graham Young,
Editor, On Line Opinion
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Sharon Burrow |
Who should the Ansett workers be blaming for the company's collapse today?
Ansett workers should first of all blame Air New Zealand on what is appalling management. It is management that amounts to corporate crime, given that the victims are the workers - and not only their jobs but their entitlements. We understand that not only are the entitlements for working members of Ansett Airlines not secure, but they have not paid deductions that have been taken out of their wages to institutions like health societies and the like. There will be $500 million dollars at least owed to working Australians, in entitlements.
John Howard must guarantee today that those entitlements will be paid. The Australian Government has bungled the management of this crisis. They knew in June that Ansett was in some difficulty. John Anderson ignored it. They knew in August again that there was some difficulty. John Anderson ignored it. And so having bungled the solutions to the Ansett/ Air New Zealand crisis, then the workers should blame Ansett New Zealand for bad management and John Anderson directly, and the Howard Government as a whole for failing to take the issue of jobs in a national airline seriously enough to find a solution.
How long has the ACTU been aware of the problems in Ansett?
We first approached government officials ourselves some four months ago. We sent messages to the New Zealand Government. We talked to the New Zealand unions. We have known since about the same time as the chairman wrote to John Anderson - that was in June - that a solution needed to be found.
The pleas from the unions, from the airline itself, have been ignored by John Anderson, who shows that he simply does not have either the concern or responsibility for Australian jobs at heart - or he is totally incompetent. Whatever the outcome, politicians who don't take Australian jobs seriously, don't deserve to have their own.
So this is really a case, where in the interests of, I guess Australian investment with lots of Australian jobs, do we need to re-think about the way we think about foreign investment in Australian companies?
We need to think about a number of things. Competition policy for example. The unions for more than six years now have said that the Australian market is too small to have a de-regulated approach. Governments ignored that. They have proceeded with competition policy. The result we see, is not in the case of the airlines - the Two Airlines Policy - but will eventually be almost a single monopoly in terms of a major player, with some crumbs for minor players.
That is not about serious competition. It certainly isn't in the interests of Australians or the traveling public globally.
We need to think beyond that. We do need to think about foreign investment. We need to think about what the regulations are that protect Australian interests. When a major airline like Australia (sic) which goes down - not only resulting in the loss of some 17,000 direct jobs, but up to 60,000 indirect jobs.....
Beyond competition policy, we certainly do need to think about other issues. Foreign investment is something that companies pursue, so there must be a regulatory framework which government controls, that makes sure that Australian interests are protected. First and foremost Australian jobs, but also Australian investment by other companies, servicing in this case the airline industry - or indeed, the tourism sector that depend on the airline industry - or any other supply enterprises associated.
Isn't it one of the problems that it was a Labor government that (a) privatized Qantas and (b) moved to de-regulation in the airline industry? I know Kim Beazley was saying fantastic words today - but what sort of responsibility should he be taking at the moment?
If you have a look at Labor's competition policy, they have obviously had a re-think. They have looked at the impact on regional Australia. They have seen that the issues we talked about in terms of a guarantee of working conditions; wages; entitlements - all those issues across transmission of business - the risks that we predicted some six or seven years ago have absolutely been affirmed.
And Labor has now said there will be regulations. That competition policy will come with a sensitivity around Australian jobs, Australian investment, round particular Australians' interest.
Now, the Labor government has acknowledged that there needs to be some stronger regulation in this area, but what we have seen is a Liberal government who has taken no responsibility for regulation, whether it is regulation in the financial sector, preceding the collapse of HIH; the telecommunications sector - One.Tel; or now the airline industry and Air New Zealand, and of course the consequences for Ansett.
It's definitely been a traumatic couple of weeks. We've had Tampa, terrorism and now Ansett collapsing. How do you think it has changed the political landscape in this country?
I think people are confused about issues, or I suppose foundations, they thought were solid. The terrorist acts against America have certainly frightened people. It is not an adequate response that we have seen from our government here, where they talk about somehow tightening up our borders. What we need to do is make sure that people are tolerant of each other, and strongly opposed to terrorist acts, or any acts against people's freedom. But acts against people's freedom doesn't justify that we take away the freedom of others. And of course I refer to the experience of some of the ethnic communities in our midst - particularly communities from the Middle East. As unionists and responsible Australians we couldn't condone people actually accusing others of some sort of lack of respect for fundamental freedom. All too often these people have fled countries where fundamental freedom has been denied to them.
So there has got to be a sensitivity and a re-commitment to the multicultural nation that we are. The issue of refugees I think has been handled appallingly by any humanity standards.
You have to say that aside from matters of law, the only person to give people hope to those foundations around law and around humanity and around tolerance, has been Justice North - and of course the government is appealing his decision.
It does raise an interesting issue for union officials. We've got a poll saying 70 per cent of people support the government's position. What responsibility or role do you see unionists and union officials having in running what can be quite unpopular lines out in the broader community?
Union leaders made it clear that we feel there has been a lack of moral leadership. That you don't deny asylum seekers the right to seek refugee status. You don't treat asylum seekers - people fleeing from terror - as disposable cargo in a political game that appears to be in John Howard's interests but not in the interests of a fairer Globe.
The issue of refugees is a worldwide issue. It can only be dealt with, with nation's leaders and other stakeholders in our society, sitting down and talking about how we deal with the problem. It can't be dealt with by taking 300, or 460 as in the case of the Tampa or an extra 200 people picked up off Indonesia last week, and saying you can't come here - you can't have legal rights to seek refugee status.
There are lots of things we could do about this, and what is missing from the debate is that moral leadership that might turn around some of those 70% of people who are operating from often a lack of understanding of the Rule of Law, a lack of knowledge about the countries from which these people have fled.
But most of all, they are operating on the basis of a Prime Minister's word - of the word of a Prime Minister, who has sought to use sensational mechanisms against refugees in his own political interests.
Finally, do you feel it is going to be harder for Labor to win the election after the last couple of weeks?
I think there will be genuine debate in our country that could possibly be a good thing. I think if we can open up the debate about what kind of nation we want to be, and it is genuine, and there is strong leadership. If we can shoot home to the government their lack of responsibility for jobs if we lose thousands of full time jobs every month. If people can say, well, what is the mix of policies we want from a government and make a decision based on a decent future, then John Howard can't win.
If John Howard is to win, then it will be a continuation of the use of wedge politics, where he frightens people; he takes no responsibility either for starting jobs; or indeed for the world's most disadvantaged communities - but seeks to use those things in a way that amplifies people's fears. And that will be unacceptable.
So, from where we sit of course, our nation can't afford John Howard for the next term of office, but it will certainly be, I think, a very close election, and the community will be challenged to debate issues they probably had not thought would be part of this campaign.
by Neale Towart
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Terror in the US |
The impression from the mainstream media conveys the need to strike back. The Australian media seems to uncritically accept the administration view. Many American people and others are expressing another approach. A look at the alternative media on the web (thankfully there is a space for alternative sources on the Net) gives some perspective, without denying the tragedy that has befallen thousands of workers.
As Noam Chomsky puts it
"as to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators."
He refers to Robert Fisk, the unmatched western journalist based in Beirut, who for many years has been the lone voice of a real view of events in the Middle East, as opposed to the US Administration line. Fisk has personally interviewed the chief suspect Osama bin Laden. Fisk notes
"So it has all come to this. The entire modern history of the Middle East - the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Balfour Declaration, Lawrence of Arabia's lies, the Arab revolt, the foundation of the state of Israel, four Arab-Israeli wars and the 34 years of Israel's brutal occupation of Arab land - all erased within hours as those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population struck back with the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people....Some of us warned of the explosion to come. But we never dreamed this nightmare."
Fisk has sat in front of bin Laden as he described how his men destroyed the Russian Army in Afghanistan. He (bin Laden) claims to have had a religious experience during that war when a Russian shell landed at his feet. The US must leave the Gulf he would say every ten minutes. America must stop oppressing the Palestinians. His Arabia that he wanted to create would have more, not less, head chopping and no western style government.
The atrocities, Chomsky points out, are major, a horrendous crime, almost reaching the levels of Clinton's bombing of Sudan, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and unknown numbers of people (the US blocked a UN inquiry).
Fisk again - "ask an Arab how he responds to 20 or 30 thousand innocent deaths and he or she will respond as good and decent people should, that it is an unspeakable crime. But they will ask us why we did not use such words about the sanctions that have destroyed the lives of perhaps half a million children in Iraq..." Others have also made this point
Also many commentators, included Michael Moore point out that the prime suspect was trained by the CIA to act against the USSR in Afghanistan.
Chalmers Johnson in Blowback (published last year) argues that in the last decade,
"the US has largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force and financial manipulation.
The world is not a safer place as a result.
World politics in the 21st century will in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the second half of the twentieth century - that is, from the unintended consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision to maintain a Cold War War posture in a post Cold War world."
Other comments come from a member of the US based Coordinating Committee of the National Network to End the War Against Iraq and on the Board of Directors of Peace Action, Rahul Mahajan.
"Nothing does, nothing can, justify the brutal terror attack that may have killed thousands of innocent civilians". However, he goes on, "Let us not pretend that this was the only harvest in history never sown."
Massive retaliation will just keep us locked in a cycle of violence. We have come to the sharp limits of the security that can keep the boot on the neck, and must, if we are to be secure, try what can come from an open hand.
Mutual disarmanent and peace based on global justice are the only way. Let us be first in peace as we have been first in war so long."
Robert Jensen from the School of Journalism, University of Texas makes the same point well:
"we all must demand of our government - the government that a great man of peace, Martin Luther King Jr., once described as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" - that the insanity stop here."
Don Delillo in Libra, his book about the Kennedy assassination and the various scenarios around that, has one of the characters say about Kennedy something like "Jack put himself out there in the path of blood and pain". Fortunately for American people, Kennedy was the sole victim on that occasion (not withstanding the scar on the US psyche tat seems to have remained). On this occasion the US administration actions have put many others in that path.
Having just heard that the US Congress has voted $40billion to combating terrorism (twice what Bush asked for) we seem destined to, as a comment from War Resisters League expresses it, "live in a state of fear and terror". The alternative is "we shall move towards a future in which we shall move toward a future in which peaceful alternatives to violence, and a more just distribution of the worlds resources. As we mourn the many lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge."
For lots of comments and links calling for a halt to the cycle of violence, try Jay's Leftist and Progressive Internet Directory at http://www.neravt.com/left/
Also some great writing at http://www.counterpunch.org from Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair who note that in the heyday of hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s the US was very concerned about the possibilities of attacks on skyscrapers, and who also provide interesting information about things US Intelligence services had found in the weeks before the attacks.
The Nation at http://www.thenation.com has an impressive archive of events in the Middle East and Afghanistan and current commentary.
ZNET has its commentary and many links at http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm
Also Common Dreams News Center at http://www.commondreams.org
Chalmrs Johnson. Blowback: the costs and consequences of American Empire (Henry Holt, 2000). Excerpts on the web at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blowback_CJohnson/Blowback_CJohnson.html
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L-R Maurice, Sue & Greg |
At the Sydney rally, three Ansett workers spoke of how they felt about the collapse of the airline.
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Sue Johnson
I have been a proud Ansett employee for 15 years. Myself and many of my work colleagues have seen Ansett come through some milestones. The de-regulation of the airline, the pilots' dispute, the coming and going of many competitors.
We have enjoyed exciting times with Ansett. We have been there doing the Sydney Olympics when we were the proud airline sponsors of those Games.
We have been experiencing devastating times, mainly due to bad mismanagement in the past when our 767 fleet was grounded last Christmas, and again last Easter.
We are a company of dedicated and loyal employees, who over the years have been asked when difficult times have been on our company, to dig deep, work harder, work better, work faster, work smarter. And I believe we have done that when it was needed!
The only people who it seems at these times weren't prepared to work harder, faster, better were our managers or our owners.
Ansett Airlines: The icon, the airline, the employees have been sold out! We have been sold out, not only by executive management, either past or present, but by governments on both sides of the Tasman.
Air New Zealand made an enormous fuss when Singapore Airlines wanted to buy News Limited's holdings of Ansett, because they reckoned they already owned significant ownership of our company and they should have been given first opportunity.
Although they had to borrow an enormous amount of money to do so, they were given the go ahead by our government - our Australian government - to block the Singapore Airlines deal and basically leave us in the predicament we are in today!
An enormous case of classic over-developed ego on Air New Zealand's part - I believe they bit off more than they could chew, where an enormously bigger operation than they ever imagined, or their own operation is.
A few weeks ago Singapore Airlines was still interested in holdings in the Air New Zealand/Ansett Group, but the delay of the New Zealand Government to make a decision as to whether to allow their proud national airline to fall into foreign ownership hands, caused Singapore Airlines to lose interest.
Air New Zealand have managed to bail themselves out, but at the cost of their national pride and I believe ownership. The end result will probably be the same. They will be looking at foreign ownership, but with one major exception - the demise of Ansett Australia.
They have bled us dry basically, to the extent of not paying our union dues to our unions that are owed them. To the extent of not paying health insurance that has been deducted from employees' wages.
More disturbing is that they have made no attempt to save Australian jobs, nor show any concern for the Australian traveling public.
To quote a phrase made famous by one of our previous chief executive officers, Mr Rod Eddington (and don't let him off the hook, he owes a lot too) "Ansett Australia is a great airline but a bad business". Well, who bears the responsibility for that!
I'll tell you. Basically, previous past executive management as far back as TNT and News Limited, as well as Air New Zealand and the Australian federal government.
Ansett employees at the front line! I'm talking flight attendants; pilots; reservations agents; sales agents; check-in staff, baggage handlers; aircraft cleaners.
We can make Ansett a great airline again! What we need is ownership. People who have management skills to take care of the money and are able to manage a great business!
Thank you.
Maurice Bouloux
This is from the heart.
We have been raped! And while we have been raped some people have been standing by and watching the rape take place.
We are a dedicated group of people. We have always come through when things have really gone down. We are passionate about our jobs. We are passionate about the people we deal with - our customers. We are passionate about everything we do.
What has happened is that the government has had ample opportunity to be able to retrieve the damage that was being done to Ansett. They stood back. They did nothing. And they said "we can't do anything".
Anybody can do something. What we need is we need direction. We need somebody who can say we will help you out of this mess.
We allowed a takeover by Air New Zealand, when they could ill afford to take us over. Bigger and better companies like Singapore Airlines came onto the forefront and said, we can help. What did our government do? Say "No, we can't do anything about it, because we need to protect New Zealand."
It's not fair! I'm in an easy boat. I am a single employee. I feel for everybody else who has a child and who has a wife, who has a family and a mortgage.
We need sustained help and I am hoping that those that can do it for us - and it certainly isn't the Howard government, or the Andersons of this world, who don't care! The only thing they care about is themselves.
We need help. We need it badly. We need it now. PLEASE HELP US!!!!
Greg Tosi
I am angry! We have been robbed and plundered, not only by Air New Zealand, by the New Zealand Government - and just to put the knife in - by the Australian government!
We stand here today as a combined unit, willing to fight, and if we let the Australian government know that we are not going to go away, we will win.
This morning I met with the Prime Minister, John Howard, who feels sorry for us. Well, John, that is not good enough. We want our money and we want our jobs!
Thank you.
by HT Lee in Dili
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FRETELIN |
This election is for an 88 member Constitutional Assembly which will be sworn in on 15 September and their task over the next three months is to discuss and formulate East Timor's constitution. The Assembly consist of 75 nationally elected representatives and 13 from the districts. The national representatives are elected on a PR system while the district representatives are elected by the first past the post system.
Although FRETELIN topped the poll nationally with 57.37% of the votes giving it 43 national representatives and 12 from the districts, FRETELIN was five seats short of the absolute two-third majority and will have to depend on the minor parties to push
through the constitutional changes and reform it wants.
FRETILIN's votes fell short of expectation--a minimum of 70% of the votes with a minimum of 60 seats.
The newly formed party--PD (Partido Democratico) did well capturing 8.72% of the votes.
PD was only formed two months ago by former members of the resistance movement in East Timor and the RENENIL students--East Timorese students who studied in Jakarta and who played a crucial role in the lead up to the 30 August 1999 ballot. The chairperson of PD, Fernando de Araujo was in the same goal as Xanna Gusmao in
Jakarta.
PD is perceived to be a party without any connection with the Indonesian authority when they were in East Timor, and a party whose members played a crucial role in the independence struggle and have not been tainted. They were able to use their network to mobilise the people.
This is a party to watch out for in the future. This election also saw the elected 23 women to the Assembly.
Political sophistication
The UN send in a big team mainly from Europe to try to teach the East Timorese to 'suck eggs'--they thought because the East Timorese are mainly uneducated they do not understand the 'democratic' process of elections we in the west understands.
However, they forgot that the East Timoresse had participated in elections under Indonesian occupation, although they were forced to vote for 'Gokar 1,' 'Gokar 2,' and 'Gokar 3.' And before that they were under Portuguese colonial rule for over 400 years--this has made them politically street-wise.
They might not be as educated as we are, but when it comes to political sophistication they can teach us a few tricks. They gave FRETELIN a big working majority because FRETELIN had been fighting against the Indonesian occupation since 1975. But they were not prepared to give FRETELIN an absolute majority--had we been put in a similar situation we would have given FRETELIN an absolute majority.
The results
· PDC (Partido Democrata Cristao) 1.98% - 2 seats
· UDT (Uniao Democratica Timorese 2.26% - 2 seats
· PD (Partido Democratico) 8.72% - 7 seats
· FRETELIN 57.37% - 43 seats
· KOTA (Klibur Oan Timor Asuwain) 2.13% - 2 seats
· PNT (Partido Nasionalista Timorense) 2.21% - 2 seats
· PSD (Partido Social Democrata) 8.18% - 6 seats
· UDC/PDT (Partido Democrata-Cristao de Timor) 0.66% -1 seat
· PPT (Partido do Provo de Timor) 2.21% - 2 seats
· PST (Partido Socialista de Timor) 1.78% - 1 seat
· ASDT (Associacao Social-Democrata Timorense) 7.84% -6 seats
· PL (Partai Liberal) 1.10% - 1 seat
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E-Change |
Western law has come a long way. From the system of rules developed in Europe through the Middle Ages to safeguard the things deemed important at the time - personal property and protection of the moral health of the nascent society - the law has evolved into a beast that permeates nearly every aspect of our lives. Our leaders set laws, the state enforces them and the courts dispense them, all in the name of justice.
Yet how effective has the law become in safeguarding the things that really matter to us?. As prison populations grow, criminologists cast doubt over the effectiveness of criminal law in reducing crime levels. Property rights become increasingly blurred as the property ceases to be concrete chattels and become instead ideas and information that swirl around the collective consciousness. All the while the top end of town hire the best legal brains money can buy to skate around the corporate rules and tax regulations that are meant to keep those bastards honest. And with information technologies blowing the notion of national sovereignty out of the water, the traditional legal system is, sidelined as an anachronistic vestige of the great nation states of the Industrial Age.
What if our positivist legal heritage - that there can be a right and wrong determined by an objective evaluation of the truth by an independent party - is no longer the most appropriate vehicle for dispensing justice? Isn't the legal system, yet another hierarchy that must inevitably flatten out under the weight of the Information Economy? Can we defend it? Should we? And if it does collapse, what takes it place?
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Fade To Grey - Democratising The Law
The law, at its essence, is a way of dealing with a vast array of subjective facts and coming up with an objective truth. That theory is now under challenge because it assumes that these principles that underlie our system are stable, so that in every situation there is always an objective right and a wrong. What it misses is all sorts of shades of grey that blur those rights and wrongs and cast doubts over the ability of any one party to determine who's right and who's wrong.
These are questions of jurisprudence. But they are also questions of politics. We are currently seeing a dissatisfaction - not quite a rejection - but a dissatisfaction with the idea that one person or one panel - generally, male, white, older, can make an objective decision that should bind us all. You see the dissatisfaction in everything from the tabloid newspapers' treatment of law and order issues to the perception that corporations are free to evade tax. There is a feeling that the courts and judges are not the representatives of some higher authority but are themselves subject to all of their own constructions of the world; their own biases - and that's what they apply when they purport to apply the law.
What we are now seeing is a yearning to place justice ahead of rules; a democratisation of the law which says that you can have input from a diverse range of perspectives to get the fairest decision rather than relying on a judge or a legislator in Parliament to set out what the law should be.
Law has always been a difficult area to democratise because of the inability of ordinary citizens to get access to the law. There are issues of cost, culture and opportunity that restrict new entrants in the legal field and mean it is still predominantly an old man's world. It's been dominated by conservative forces and set interests for a very long time, but we are finally seeing it being challenged by much more open discussion of law, driven by a broader awareness of legal issues across the population. Legal studies is now being taught in school. People who are involved in litigation are setting up websites and posting all the documents and inviting people to chat about the rights and wrongs of what's happened. And a lot more people are running their own cases rather than having to rely on QCs and expensive lawyers to get things through the court.
Part of this is a reaction to the specialisation of the law. The law has journeyed down the path of specialisation until we have a system that is so tightly compartmentalised that real life situations are reduced down to a series of abstractions that always leave you one step removed from the issue of justice, fighting over nuances and technicalities. And the law has become so different in each country, that a simple case of, say, insurance fraud in one jurisdiction, might not even fit the definition of insurance in another jurisdiction. Whereas underneath that there is a general principle of fairness in any insurance contract which can be applied across the board once you get away from some of the procedural and black letter law problems.
The Net provides a new opportunity for people to complain. In the past the courts were the sole avenue to express dissent regarding the actions of an individual, public official, or corporation, After all, what noise could one lone voice make? People have always known when they have been wronged, they just often have trouble fitting it into the technical requirements of the law in Australia, or the USA or the Canary Islands. But they know they have been wronged and they basically know how it could be righted and they just want to take that forward. And there are a lot of new opportunities to do that through internet communities
Legislators are, to an extent, recognising this. Freedom of information law, for example, is a legislative response to the demand from people to get openness and transparency about issues that affect them. So even though you can't use old fashioned property law to sue to make sure your right to access the internet is somehow safeguarded you can often expose unjust practises using other sorts of laws. You can expose what is going on behind the scenes to stop access to your online rights, and that's been shown recently in FOI applications made about ASIO'S Walsh report on what the government might do about cryptography. We are talking about a major new, online right to be able to encrypt your messages and your content, challenged by the government. No actual right is written into our Constitution - we don't have a Bill of Rights for example. But by using Freedom of Information and exposing what the government was planning to do, and using other lobbying tools and using the democratic processes you can ensure that that right is maintained.
Social Consumerism
Where does this democratisaiton of the law lead? Away from the positivist trade in black letter law to something that combines some very basic written laws - trade practices laws, privacy legislation, FOI - with a recognition of people's rights to pursue issues of justice. The movement is called 'Social Consumerism' and it's tailor-made for network technologies.
Social Consumerism is driven not only through law, but through actions, boycotts, and getting bad publicity for businesses who are doing the wrong thing by consumers. Public space is used to exchange information about what products are good; what products are bad; and who is behaving well and who is behaving poorly, and becoming active. Where in the era of broadcast technology this type of discussion was the preserve of highly-paid marketers and the odd TV current affairs show, with the network technology available it can become a new part of the consumer experience. Imagine, while purchasing goods - either at a real shop or online - having the chance to check out the latest corporate practices of the suppliers?
Social consumerism is seeking to become something other than the law as we know it. People are taking legal principles and legal procedures and using them for new purposes. And instead of being bound by the strict laws of precedent and the strict laws of evidence that we see in court, we are getting back to the basic principles of why we have laws in the first place. That notion of justice - which everyone must define for themselves - and resides in our hearts as much as it resides on a statute book.
There is a tension between pure consumerism, which says I want the product at the lowest price possible and social consumerism. We have seen that in Australia in debates about everything from CD prices to the garment industry. If you just want everything at a lower price you probably aren't worried about sweatshops or the impact on the local industry, or the environmental impact. But if you follow Social Consumerism - you say yes, we want things to be priced efficiently, but we are also expressing an interest in how the good is made; who has a role in making it; how the environment is affected; and how the workers' rights are protected during that process.
Improved communications mean we can - if we want to - take more responsibility for making our decisions about what's just and unjust. It also means we can make our own decisions as consumers based on those judgments. So instead of having a company sued in a court and fined, they may find themselves subject to a consumer boycott campaign which leads to a drop in revenue. And the important thing is that instead of paying the fine and forgetting about the incident, the firm will face the penalty imposed by the community until it changes the abhorrent practice.
And example is the application of Trade Practices Law. Why do we have Trade Practices Law? Because consumers are weak and businesses are powerful and markets aren't perfect. So you take those three principles and you apply them through a whole range of advocacy and activities. You embrace new ways of disseminating information to consumers, and you forget the Evidence Act and the actual procedural requirements for using Trade Practices Law because you can't afford a lawyer anyway. But you use those three basis principles and develop a new form of law which says that businesses can do the wrong thing but here's how we fight back. So you keep the principles of justice in the law but dispose of the black letter application that has defined the law for the last 200 years
The courts are part of the problem. As a consumer, for example, you have got a right not to be misled. But instead of going to court when you are misled, you can use that information and share it through the Internet to build a community of interest amongst people who might also have been misled. You take action against the company, which might not be legal action. It could be as simple as an e-mail campaign or getting them bad press. But you do eventually use the same principles as those informing the law - justice, fairness, equity.
There are consumer watchdog groups gaining in strength, and there's also the role of the popular media. When you get ripped off today, instead of going to a lawyer you can go to A Current Affair. Using the same principle, you get ripped off, you set up a home page - which takes things a step further When people watch A Current Affair they think "Oh gee that company is doing a bad thing." But they just sit on their sofa and don't do anything. If it is done through internet channels the person who sees bad behaviour can react, they can send an e-mail straight away, they can withdraw their services, they can withdraw their accounts, they can join a boycott.
Three Responses from the State
This sort of thinking has obvious implication for the role of the State as legislator, particularly in a world where national boundaries take on increasing insignificance. The States can react in three different ways. The first is that they sit back and hope that this all goes away. And quite a few countries are doing that and they are not changing their legal system - and the legal system will very quickly fall behind, and only apply to offline transactions. (any examples??)
The second way is that they can be scared of the democratisation the internet provides and they can react in quite Draconian ways and set up bans and licensing requirements and very strict legislation on what can and can't be said, distributed, or copied, on the Internet. This is the Howard censorship model - but there are even more hardline examples. If you look at countries like Singapore where a direct link is made between your ability to act as an Internet Service Provider and your compliance with incredibly strict laws. To get an ISP licence - of which there are only three or four in Singapore - you have to promise that you will have strict content control over things like gaming and racing, homosexuality, palmistry - nothing that can bring the Singapore government into disrepute. It's probably completely unrealistic because Singaporeans will find ways to get access to content that goes beyond what the government expects them to see.
The third way is for States to see that the Internet is something different, in that it is an international community, and that the best thing that they could do is act as intermediaries - negotiators on behalf of their citizens - in all of the international fora - like the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, and the OECD, etc., that are trying to promote internet trade, consumer protection, privacy protection. And the best thing the government can do is say well, we will give up on our national borders to the extent that we agree with what is happening on the international stage and we will go and fight on behalf of our Australian consumers for good privacy protections, good consumer protections; good freedoms in these international fora, which will be the real guardians of how behaviour is conducted on the internet.
This is not an argument for a pure laissez faire approach, it's more an argument for coordinated regulation on an international basis, coordination of the things which the internet community want. And this is where we see a real conflict because governments aren't very good at listening to what the internet community wants. It's a challenge to government to think long-term and put the interests of net users first, even where these are in conflict with traditional policy priorities. Users demand privacy for instance, whereas government interests might lie in providing wanting law enforcement agencies access to people's e-mail content. Whose interests should be put first? If they promote the latter, they may end up catching a few criminals, but they'll block people using the Net in ways that add to the nation's broader prosperity.
The best way to ensure that the internet thrives and that communities can find their own way through what needs to be regulated and what doesn't is for governments to have a role of listening and negotiating international agreements on what can and can't be done. There is a real problem when governments think that they know best and place their old fashioned interests like law enforcement and security and intelligence at the front of their thinking and push those agendas rather than listening and reflecting the agenda of the internet community.
Corporate Interests
Of course there is another party in this game, the big corporations that are trying to harness the information revolution to maximise their profit. Where do they fit into the equation? Initially as a threat to the internet community, because they're interests are so at odds. We currently have the opportunity for something new to emerge from the Internet - something new in terms of a community of equality - where you have all got the ability to participate and have access to influence policy and decision making - to have your say to exercise your various freedoms. But just as this has emerged with the potential to really blossom, the commercialisation of the internet has intervened.
This raises the spectre of a rich and a poor internet community, excluding those who can't afford access - determining that the internet should really be about shopping and investment advice and things which are of benefit to business, rather than a free flow of information which is of benefit to consumers. We are currently watching business commoditising a whole range of information on the internet which has been free and which has been accessible, into information which can be packaged and sold and targeted just to those people who will be profitable consumers for business.
Secondly, business is becoming the vehicle for government to regulate the internet in the way that government would like. So that commerce on the internet should be taxable; speech on the internet should be controlled through various broadcast points to meet government licensing requirements. And we will get back into the old fashioned model of media being in a way controlled by government and certainly heavily influenced by government.
So they are the two initial roles of business, and the third one which they will always promote but which perhaps we need to be more cynical about is that business has the opportunity to innovate and develop new ways of accessing the information and new ways of people on the internet meeting each other and talking to each other and communicating. That was happening anyway, without the commercialisation of the internet. It was developing very fast and of course there were just a lot of bright individuals on the internet who were interested in communication and were finding ways to go forward and a lot of it was driven out of universities rather than out of big business.
Through The Consumerist Prism
There are specific legal issues that are emerging which appear confusing when looked at in the old compartmentalised manner. Lawyers may see censorship, privacy, secondary boycotts as new areas of the law to master; through the consumerist prism they are merely vehicles for ensuring individuals get a fair go in the virtual world.
Censorship, for instance, is an issue which under the traditional model would be administered by the government. It would either decide for itself what is best for its citizens to see or hear - or would pass this task off to a supposedly independent third party, like the Office of Film and Literature Classification. They would have the task of prescribing how any information might be described to the public, so that the public could decide for themselves; or in extreme cases, ban material from public display
Through the prism of democratisation of information and the democratisation of the law you would start with basic principles, which might get back to a freedom to see and hear and disseminate whatever information you want, but also the ability to be informed about what information you might be about to see and hear and be able to at least be empowered to take steps yourself to choose whether or not to use that information.
This is the model that's emerging for the Internet, because central censorship authorities are unable to control the vast array of information available on the internet without chopping off at some point, access to the internet itself. The Australian model of content regulation in the online world is a fairly half-hearted attempt to apply this traditional model to the internet with the full expectation that it won't work in practice. Consumers are already empowered to make decisions about what information they want to see and hear, but most of the technical ways of cutting off access to information are just too blunt. They are not sophisticated enough for the internet community that has emerged. The resources and time and effort spent on that regulation could have been better spent on education and for general dissemination of information.
Censorship is one of those issues, where, at the international level, there might be some things that could be done to promote education about the fact that all sorts of information is out there on the internet, and the fact that consumers need to take care. But there is unlikely to be anything that an individual country can do. If Australia seriously wanted to promote its interests it would have listened to the internet community and promoted those interests on the international stage and in international negotiations, rather than trying to go out on its own and set up a regime that is really just there to please short term political interests.
Sleeping With the Enemy
The government's performance on online privacy is marginally better because it is one of those rare instances where business and consumer interests actually coincide. If electronic commerce privacy can be protected consumers will feel more confident in entering into electronic commerce and that will boost returns for industry. The problem is that industry wants to have its cake and eat it, in that they want to tell consumers that your privacy is safe - that you can shop at our online mall and we won't sell your information without your consent - but at the same time they quite like the idea of downloading a small, non-intrusive program onto your computer, just to monitor where you go during your time in their shopping mall, and perhaps keep that information without letting you know about it.
Privacy will win out in the end on the internet because those companies who protect privacy legitimately and who offer consumers the protection and confidence that consumers keep saying that they want will be the companies that succeed. People wil go to sites where they can trust their information won't be mishandled. Those firms will become so successful that privacy will be seen as a winner on the internet.
Where the law comes into play is a difficult question, at the moment it is pretty much a case of caveat emptor. You go to a website and you have to look yourself to see whether they have got a privacy policy, to see whether you need to opt out of any direct mail that you might receive as a result of visiting that site, to see whether they have got a relationship with organisations you don't like for example, and whether one of the big web advertising agencies might be advertising on that site and might be tracking you.
So the ball is in the consumers' court.
The formal law, probably has a role in helping to formalise the standards consumers want in a clear code. But instead of enforcing that law in court, compliance with the law becomes a marketing plus for the web sites that comply with it. Sites that meet the legal standards might display a logo saying that this is privacy compliant. Or all ".au" sites might be covered by Australian privacy law that is recognised world wide - giving local sites a market advantage over competitors. Or there might be an international privacy regime. There are currently guidelines which are voluntary. In the future they might be tightened up - because both consumers and businesses demand it.
Unfortunately there are a lot of other areas of law where it is not so clear that consumers will get a win. A good example is access to information and services on the internet for people with disabilities. It's open for countries to say that under our discrimination laws your web information should be accessible to people from diverse backgrounds with a range of abilities and disabilities. And certainly in Australia we do have that law, but whether that will be carried through onto the internet for a range of government and commercial web services is less clear.
Because those people will, by definition, be in a minority, they won't have access to the consumer and market power that an issue like privacy has. Businesses will either do the absolute minimum required by law or simply break the law and risk the wrath of some consumers and throw up a whole lot of procedural and jurisdictional problems for anyone who does complain. It's an area where perhaps consumer interests and the internet community need to move from being passive and thinking - oh well that doesn't affect me because I don't have a disability - to being quite proactive and becoming advocates on behalf of all net consumers before we do end up with that situation of having internet abled and internet disabled
Getting the Ground Rules Right
The law does retain an important role in setting up a framework that will allow people to take the sort of action we have been talking about. Unfortunately, the Australian Government seems to be going in the opposite direction. Secondary boycott laws, for instance, prohibit trade unions from calling for consumer boycotts of corporations. Firms that are targeted can actually take action to recover their losses against the union calling for the boycott. In an era where the tools are there to disseminate information, it seems the government is trying to nip this sort of action in the bud.
The actual written laws that we have in a country like Australia - and it's worse in the US - appear to damage consumer rights rather than promote them. In Australia we have watered down a lot of our consumer laws and trade practices laws and we still don't have best practice privacy legislation for the private sector. We've got antiquated laws on things like cryptography, so even if you try to get those laws reformed, it is incredibly difficult and might be a waste of time.
The other way to go is to leapfrog the bad laws and turn to promoting consumer initiatives which can happen with or without the law in place. With secondary boycotts, for instance, it may be that a trade union is unable to promote to its members a boycott of products based on some bad behaviour by the business, but that a third party with common interests, some of whom may or may not be trade union members, can promote such boycotts and can disseminate that information through the Internet, the media or at a more local level. The Transport Workers uUnion, for instance, has established Concerned fFamilies of Australian Truckies to run these sorts of campaigns. Likewise, techers unions are forming stronger alliances with parents and citizens associations.
What the Internet Means
There are elements of internet which might become quite important because it gives any individual an opportunity to express an opinion. The idea of being able to put a virtual post-it note on any web site, for instance, and provide personal feedback on whether that was a good site, or whether you are being ripped off there or whether there was a breach of privacy, not only allows individuals to speak up, but promotes a culture of inquiry as other people go and look for those post-it notes. We won't have to wait for front page stories in the newspaper about a bad product. We won't need people like trade unions to go to a huge amount of trouble to issue press releases about the working conditions behind big sports companies making running shoes. Individuals will be able to do that just as well.
The model of social consumerism sees the internet as doing more than just providing a new means of communication. It sees network technologies as actually providing a new culture of people becoming interested in that sort of information. Rather than just shopping blindly they will actually take an interest in the story behind what they buy. Partly this is a response to a few people and a few key organisations getting out there and promoting those sort of ideas. But part of it is a general cultural shift to - not just noting that information is easily available - but that reading such information is the right thing to do. It actually makes sense for consumers to take an interest in the background behind what it is that they buy, because it will, in the long term effect them too.
This chapter is based on a conversation with Chris Connolly a lawyer and consumer advocate who runs the Financial Services Consumer Policy Centre
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MV Tampa |
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PM John Howard's action against Norwegian freighter & asylum seekers amounts to an act of war, a breach of maritime law &, ultimately, a cynical re-election ploy
The Australian crew of the Norwegian flagged Enterprise held a meeting of ratings, officers and master in Sydney during the height of the Tampa crisis. Word has reached them that the Norwegian fleet worldwide are flying their flags at half mast. They agree to do likewise as the vessel sails out of Sydney and on to Newcastle, Port Kembla and Hobart.
"It is in mourning for all the people who could now die at sea because of the actions of PM John Howard," said bosun Terry Munday.
It was a fitting protest against the Australian Government's cynical contempt of maritime law all for political gain in the lead up to a federal election.
The saga began in the Indian Ocean 150 kilometres north of Christmas Island on August 26. An SOS from a sinking ship. Search and rescue authorities in Australia pick up the message spelt out on the deck of a wooden boat during a routine flight. Coastguard broadcasts the May Day to all vessels in the region. True to maritime tradition and the law of the sea the Captain Arnie Rinnan master of the Norwegian ro-ro Tampa, on route from Fremantle to Singapore takes the call.
With more than 12 centuries of maritime history in his veins and 45 years as a mariner all the the Norwegian masterıs instincts and maritime wisdom led him to change course, without reservation, and rescue the men, women and children from certain death. His second instinct was to head for shore. Duty bound he headed for the nearest port, Christmas Island.
This was no ordinary rescue. A crew of 27 successfully helping 440 exhausted men, women and children 20 metres up a gangplank onto the ship at sea. The asylum seekers on board the sinking boat had been drifting in the tropical heat for days and were about to be sucked under the ocean when the giant 44,000 freighter came alongside. Once on board the Norwegian ship the ill, injured and desperate far outnumbered the crew of Norwegian officers and Filipino ratings.
A desperate mass of humanity huddled on deck among mountains of containers under the tropical sun. Dehydration, dysentery, fevers, cramps, heat exhaustion and hunger had taken their toll. Victims of organised criminal syndicates operating out of Indonesia, these people mainly Afghani, had handed over their life savings on the promise of a safe journey and sanctuary in Australia. Victims of persecution in their own land, victims of extortion and misinformation on the high seas. Desperate they threatened suicide and worse if the ship did not turn back to Australia.
"You know about the genocide and massacres going on in our country," the refugees later wrote to the Australian Government. "We have no way but to run out of our dear homeland and to seek a peaceful asylum... Why have we been deprived of refugee rights?"
Yet despite Australia calling on the Norwegian ship to take the people on board, the Howard Government refused to allow the ship to bring them ashore.
Australian seafarers attending the monthly stopwork meeting understood too well the predicament of fellow seafarers aboard the Tampa. Many had taken part in rescue missions themselves. The crew of BHP freighter Iron Newcastle won an international medal for their rescue of the Burmese crew from the sinking Panamanian MV Carolines in January 1999. The Federal Government was acting in contravention of maritime law by shunning a ship and crew in distress.
Members of the MUA, condemned the actions of the government in refusing to offer assistance to the besieged Norwegian freighter.
"Australian seafarers understand that it is a seafarerıs responsibility under the law of the sea to aid any person or persons in distress at sea," said National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. "This is fundamental to human rights and the application of international law."
By refusing assistance to the master and crew of the vessel the Federal Government was opening the way for the international shipping industry to turn their back on people or vessels in distress at sea.
The MUA called on the Government to take urgent action to assist the crew of the Tampa.
So too the International Transport Workersı Federation. ITF General Secretary David Cockroft called on the Australian Government to allow the Tampa to proceed to Christmas Island due to the unacceptable risk to crew and asylum seekers. The ITF has also contacted the International Maritime Organisation Secretary General William O'Neill to urgently resolve the situation and put in place binding international rules for such crisis.
But for PM John Howard it was an election year. Inflated with small minded racist, xenophobic and parochial sentiments voiced on talk back radio he denied the ship entry to Australian waters. Racism was a vote winner.
On the world stage the drama about to unfold not only shocked mariners the world over, it outraged the international community.
The Tampa was designed for a metal cargo not a human one. It was not licensed to carry more than 30 passengers and its 27 crew. Itıs toilet facilities life jackets, lifeboats, accommodation and food provisions were inadequate. On day one the captain reported 15 people unconscious on its deck. One woman is eight months pregnant.
The crew could not cope without help
"I donıt think we can hold out any longer," the ships radio operator Mr Ramesh Iyengar said. The crew issued a PAN PAN distress second only to May Day at 8pm on August 28.
On Christmas Island community leaders were ready to welcome the ship in port.
"Our community expresses sympathy for those who come to Christmas Island seeking a safe haven from war, famine and oppressive regimes in their countries of origin,² the Union of Christmas Island Workers said in a statement signed by community organisations and shire councillors.
"The elected representatives of the people of Christmas Island are ashamed of the actions of the PM of our country. We call upon the Commonwealth of Australia to enter international agreements aimed at providing an orderly system of accommodating asylum seekers and refugees...."
They were ignored.
Captain Arne Rinnan aware of his rights under maritime law decided to wait no longer. People were threatening to jump overboard if no shore based medical treatment was forthcoming. The situation, he said, was getting out of hand. After issuing a May Day, he headed closer to port.
"Please be advised we are approaching Christmas Island to take shelter," he radioed as he entered Australian waters at dawn on August 29.
But again the PM's response was a brutal disregard of maritime tradition, international convention and human decency.
Sniffing an opportunity to win votes on the eve of an election, the PM ordered in the troops. They boarded carrying machine guns, wearing helmets and face masks. A further 200 troops occupied Christmas Island.
'Iron Fist' the Daily Telegraph applauded John Howardıs Thatcherist "firm stand".
"Shame on you Australia", the masters wife called from Norway.
"I think your PM is a hard man," Mrs Rinnan told The Telegraph. "I don't understand Australians. How can they live with themselves?"
Her husband, she explained was due to retire. He only had one trip to go. He had been sailing since he was 15 and was one of Wilhelmsen Lines senior masters.
The SAS storming of Tampa was a deplorable act. It was essentially a military invasion of a friendly ship in peace time, the MUA media release broadcast the next morning.
National Secretary Paddy Crumlin described the action of the Howard Government as inappropriate, inhumane and deserving of international condemnation.
"People smuggling has to be combated," he said. "But the perpetrators are the ones who need to be targeted, not the innocent victims, the master and crew of a vessel answering a distress call from a sinking ship. Nor pregnant women and children. This is nothing less than a cynical reelection gambit - Mr Howardıs Falkland War."
(The Falklands members may recall was a war the Thatcher Government, facing certain electoral defeat, drummed up in 1982 to win back government.)
The next day the ITF warned the Australian Government that turning away the vessel was illegal under international treaties to which Australia is a signatory.
In a letter to the Australian Prime Minister ITF General Secretary David Cockroft advised Howard that his Government was in clear breach of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention, the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, and the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Finally the ITF warned the Australian Government that: "the unwanted and unrequested occupation of the sovereign territory of Norway - a friendly country < by Australian soldiers is dangerously irresponsible. It is difficult to see how this, let alone any use of troops or a frigate to turn around the Tampa, is anything less than a technical act of war. Were it to have been carried out on the high seas, rather than in territorial waters, there would be a good case to be made for calling it piracy."
Then there were the moral issues, David Cockroft reminded Howard.
"Like it or not Australia must abide by its humanitarian duty and accept these migrants. Until then it is endangering everyone on board the Tampa - including the innocent crew members whose only mistake appears to have been to respond responsibly and promptly to an Australian call for assistance."
Outraged maritime lawyers, academics and immigration experts joined the cries of condemnation.
They include Dr Michael White, QC, executive director of the Centre of Maritime Law, University of Queensland, Professor Gillian Triggs, International Law Department, University of Melbourne, international law expert Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill of Oxford University, Dr Sarah Derrington barrister in maritime commercial law, The International Chamber of Shipping, The Baltic and International Maritime Council, Robert Richter QC, Geneva United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) refugee policy officer Rachael Rile.
"No one in the history ... recent history of international ship owning would do what the Australian governmentıs doing, you know. Not one nation," Paddy Crumlin told national television that night. "Because they understand that every country at every time is subject to this type of refugee problem or ship in distress."
'Time to end the sorry saga', called the Australian Financial Review, 'PMıs refugee bungling defies reason and decency,' said The Australian. "We must accept these stranded people on our shores."
Not before time Opposition leader Kim Beazley took a stand, with Labor joining the Democrats and Greens in the Senate to block draconian legislation enabling the Government to forceably remove ships even those in distress, from Australian waters, including, in effect, authorisation to shoot the captain.
The move was welcomed by ACTU President Sharon Burrow.
Then on Friday, August 31, the Federal Court granted an injunction to the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties restraining the Government from taking any steps to remove the Tampa from Australian waters.
The court heard that John Howard knowingly broke the law and acted unconstitutionally by using shock troopers to block the Tampa entering Australian waters and prevent the refugees seeking legal representation.
On September 3 the Tampa was provisionally permitted to sail for PNG, while the Federal Court hearings continued. This week Jusitice North ruled against the Government, ordering the asylum seekers to be returned to Australia. But the Howard Government lodged an immediate appeal. The full bench of the Federal Court is expected to hand down its decision on Monday.
Meanwhile Norway reported Australia to the UN, branding us all inhumane and in violation of international maritime rules which allow ships to go the nearest port in an emergency, calling for a ban on Australian wine imports. And Wilhelmson were warning of damages for the $30,000 a day the delay was causing the ship.
"I would not say anything if the ship was in the vicinity of a banana republic," said Tampa owner Wallenius Wilhelmsen. "But I mean this is supposed to be a civilised country."
Even our closest allies in the US and UK were shocked and mortified, raising the ghost of the White Australia policy.
Why should we claim our country is OEswampedı with refugees when last year Australia took only 12,713 applications compared to the UK's 97,600 or the US's 1.2 million.
The United Nations too spoke out against the Australian stance. But for the Maritime Union and its members, who can all too readily identify with the crew and its human cargo, the Tampa is but another sorry chapter in maritime policy under a Howard Government.
"It's a catastrophic situation because the Federal Government has cut itself adrift from the shipping industry," said MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. "Transport Minister John Anderson appears to have no commitment or ability to understand shipping issues. He's never employed anyone with any expertise or background in shipping. Instead he relies on economic rationalists and ideologically driven public
servants like Feeney. The damage this is causing to Australia's international standing is an inevitable outcome. After five years of inaction, two reports never released and Anderson's refrain that we are a shipper nation not a shipping nation, our international standing is in tatters."
Crumlin said that the perception coming from international shipping forums is that the Australian Government is incompetent in shipping policy matters.
"The view from people in the ILO and the IMO is that Australia is losing the plot," he said. "We've lost the solid reputation developed over generations as a seafaring nation. Around the time of the Ships of Shame parliamentary inquiries Australia was providing leadership in world shipping reform, setting international benchmarks in the law of the sea. Under the Howard Government this international standing has all been squandered. It is an embarrassment to us all.
"The question is," Crumlin asked. "How has this come about. If it is merely ignorance or incompetence thatıs bad enough. If it is bloody mindedness it is all the more scandalous."
In more than one way the Tampa debacle was eerily familiar to maritime workers. Once again we have men and their families demonised and attacked (OEillegals, queue jumpersı), a pugnacious Peter Reith ordering in the troops and Justice North of the Federal Court handing ruling against the government and in favour of QC Julien Burnside. And once again we have a community assembly of unionists, clergy and civil rights activists taking a stand on high moral ground.
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I Work & I Vote |
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The report of the Commission of Inquiry into Workers Compensation Common Law Matters ("the Sheahan Inquiry) was published on 12 September 2001. Copies of the report (totalling 49 pages in addition to annexures) are available from Workcover, ph; 131050, or from the Workcover website, http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au.
A meeting of affiliates was held on 12 September 2001, to discuss the recommendations of the Sheahan Inquiry. Minister Della Bosca attended the meeting of affiliates and confirmed the Government was keen to have the reforms to the Workers Compensation scheme in place and operating by 1 January 2002.
The Minister indicated to the meeting that the report of Justice Sheahan was 'more thorough than the Government had anticipated and was well researched'. The Minister went on to say it was the hope of Government that the new Workers Compensation Scheme could be brought into effect on 1 January 2002 and that any issues of dispute could be resolved amicably between Government and the unions.
The report contains a number of recommendations which, if implemented, will improve benefits to injured workers. These recommendations include:
Ĝ "that the requirement of 'election' be repealed, but that the recovery of economic loss damages preclude the receipt of any further statutory benefits."
The unions will urge the Government to implement this recommendation. It will mean an injured worker will no longer be forced to "choose" between a common law action and an action under the statutory scheme. The danger has been if a worker chooses to pursue a common law action and is ultimately unsuccessful in that action, the worker was then not able to pursue an action under the statutory scheme. By removing this "election provision" an injured worker will not have to suffer the anxiety of making this choice, knowing if they are unsuccessful in a common law action their right to benefits is extinguished. This recommendation means a worker can pur
