E D I T O R I A L

Chickens Come Home
For anyone who believes in karma, the events of the summer show how bad Australia's is right now.

F E A T U R E S

Unions: Winning the Heartland
John Robertson unveils new research on attitudes to refugees and argues it's time for unions to mount their own propaganda war.

Interview: Swan's Song
Federal ALP front-bencher Wayne Swan expands on his ideas for rebuilding the Party in the wake of the Tampa election.

Corporate: Lessons from Enron
Jim Marr looks at the shock-waves the collapse of a US corporate heavy-weight are having around the globe.

Politics: What We Did Last Summer
We look back over a summer when it all went pear-shaped. Some events, at home and abroad, look set to have ongoing ramifications.

History: Solidarity in Song
Mark Gregory looks back on the annals of labour songs and offers some hints for those planning a tilt at the Labor Council's worker anthem comp.

International: A Tale of Two Cities
New York and Port Alegre are poles apart – but they both played host to important conferences on the future of globalisation over the summer.

Poetry: Nobody Told Me
Labour academic David Peetz commits the Prime Minister's current woes to verse.

Review: Labor and the Rings
Tolkien’s epic tale provides a timely reminder that that there are forces of good and evil in the world – and that they are not necessarily where we expect to find them, writes Michael Gadiel.

Satire: Rafter Named Bermudan Of The Year For Tax Purposes
Australian of the Year Pat Rafter was last night also named Bermudan of the Year, in a simple ceremony held in Bermuda's Parliament.

N E W S

Unions' Commit to Battle for Hearts

Carr on Notice - Expectations Up

Mad Monk Sides With Angels … Briefly

Maritime Union Acts on Spy Scandal

May Day Play-Off for Workers' Anthem

Burmese Links Shroud Winter Olympics

New Phone Venture One.Tel In Drag

Two Million Face Rights Downgrade

Enron Collapse Hits Share-Owner Agenda

Corrrigan Snaps Up Rail Bargain

Kinko Clowns With Workers' Rights

MPs Face Security Checks

Telstra's Tragic Delays Of Its Own Making

Burrow Puts Case to World Economic Forum

Shangri La Protests Hit Melbourne

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Chinks in the Armour
The ACTU's Michael Crosby argues that Mark Latham's attack on the Labor for Refugees movement is the betrayal of Party values.

The Locker Room
Off-side in Korea?
With the World Cup set to kick off in a matter of months, South Korea's treatment of unions is under the microscope.

Week in Review
Cloak and Dagger
In the first of what will be a regular column, we place the week's labour news into a nutshell.

L E T T E R S

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Letters to the Editor

In Whose Interests?

I must have an awfully bad memory of NSW politics 'cause I thought the last time the NSW branch of the ALP had a proper debate on the floor of its conference it voted overwhelmingly not to deregulate the electricity industry in NSW.

Well I must be mistaken as I just got a letter in the mail telling me that the NSW Electricity Industry is now deregulated. So much for the Trade Union movement having too much influence within the ALP.

Having read this letter I thought I would have a look at what rationale the ALP has for deregulation, and I found that the rhetoric of cheaper prices for consumers has now disappeared.

All of a sudden we are being told that we will have "choice" and haven't the screams for choice just been deafening. We don't even hear the 'New Labour' line that private capital will build us new power stations. Thousands of workers in the electricity industry will now loose their jobs when they are told that they must become more competitive.

Thousands of families will have their incomes slashed just like the La Trobe Valley in Victoria, an area that saw the demand for food parcels increase twenty fold after Kennet deregulated the Victorian electricity industry. Victoria is now facing a winter of electricity restrictions and blackouts thanks to the free market in electricity.

So in whose interests has the electricity industry been deregulated?

Electricity deregulation has led to a 300-400% increase in electricity prices for consumers in California. Hundreds of Californian families have been bounced by power companies for failing to pay their bills and are now on black lists that deny them connection to the power grid.

I cast my vote at the last state election against Kerry Chikarovski and her hair brained scheme to give everyone a thousand bucks so she could sell off the power industry.

This was the primary issue that Bob Carr ran on in the last state election.

Where is the democracy in the NSW Parliament, and when are our political and trade union leaders going to grow some back bone and say enough is enough. At least 51% of the voters in NSW dont want deregulation.

Simon Flynn

United Firefighters Union

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