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Issue No. 124 | 15 February 2002 |
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Chickens Come Home
Unions: Winning the Heartland Interview: Swan's Song Corporate: Lessons from Enron Politics: What We Did Last Summer History: Solidarity in Song International: A Tale of Two Cities Poetry: Nobody Told Me Review: Labor and the Rings Satire: Rafter Named Bermudan Of The Year For Tax Purposes
The Soapbox The Locker Room Week in Review
 In Whose Interests?'International Labour's Year in Review' - A Re-ViewBelly's Broad-SideCollins Gets Cryptic
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Tool Shed Tool Overboard!
*************** Those expecting the Human Toltoy to drift quietly off into the sunset after it finally became apparent that he had become unelectable, were exposed for the na�ve dreamers they are. It has now emerged how during the election campaign, Reith became the chief propagandist of the Howard Government's win at all costs strategy, able to perpetrate the most unconscionable acts of public manipulation in the secure knowledge he would be out of public life by the time his sins came to light. So what has emerged this week? The Defence Minister explicitly ignored advice from the Defence department that there was no video of children being thrown overboard. Reith's reply? "Well, we'd better not see the video then." This was one of a series of bureaucratic briefings to Reith and his staff that were ignored as the anti-asylum seeker campaign spiraled out of control. Reith is now taking up the mantle of Fall Guy - but it is a role without honour or, indeed, credibility.
This goes beyond the day-to-day omissions and sins that characterize politics. This was calculated to mislead the Australian people and lure them down a path of fear and loathing from which they are yet to emerge. What it means is that the attitudes towards the asylum seekers were fueled by lies. These were the attitudes that were played like a song to deliver Howard a third term. Whether or not, Reith passed this information on to Howard is irrelevant. His government has no legitimacy. The story broke only days after it emerged that Reith's defence department had spied on calls made to the Tampa during the dispute. While the government denies the tapping had anything to do with the MUA or its international organization the ITF, Reith's form indicates that a full and open inquiry is the only adequate response. So much for a peaceful retirement. And Reith still faces legal action over his personal part in the conspiracy to sack the Patrick's workforce and replace them with non-union labour; the ham-fisted coup that galvanized people behind the MUA and the union movement in general. Here too, the years of bombastic denials have failed to convince any observer that Reith wasn't up to his neck in the plot. Putting to the side the corruption and deceit involved in the Tampa lies and cover up, there are other broader and more far reaching disasters being inflicted on us by Reith, Howard, Ruddock, Downer et al. They have completely degraded our political process. They have humiliated us internationally. Their misuse of the armed forces and intelligence services for partisan political ends takes us into totalitarian territory. Instead of leading a debate about the enormous challenges we face and the opportunities we must grab they have reduced political discourse to one dominated by divisive, malevolent and artificial moral panics. The truth is the last election was a complete waste of time. At that point you know your democratic structures are in shreds. As to the future, Reith has apparently landed a consultancy with Tenix, one of the big players in the military-industrial complex, where he will no doubt use his personal contacts to open doors in Canberra to argue for more military spending to deal with the very 'crisis' he has been so instrumental in fabricating. There's probably some irony there, but right now I'm too angry to see it. This is a man whose political epitaph will be the erosion of trust in public life. From the goons in balaclavas taking over the docks, to Madame X and the Telecard affair to the final ignominy of the fictitious dumping of children at sea, Reith has put the contest above the context to the detriment of us all. For these and many more reasons, he is a Tool for Life.
Nominate a Tool!
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