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Power Plays
Depending on where you sit, the decision by a State Labor Government to sell off the division of the power industry responsible for its long-term planning is either bold or reckless.
Interview: Still Flying
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet looks beyond the bid to save Ansett to a broader union agenda for 2002.
Women: Suffrage or Suffering
Alison Peters marks International Women's Day by surveying the achievements - and shortcomings - of a century of female suffrage.
Industrial: No Coco Pops For Brenda
The working poor get short shrift from the hypocritical Minister For Workplace Relations says Noel Hester.
Unions: Back to the Heartland
Lidcombe, western Sydney. A boring cultural desert, right? Wrong, wrong and wrong again according to CFMEU officials who talked to Jim Marr about relocating their headquarters to a working class base.
Activists: Getting to the Point
Rowan Cahill reports on a development battle that has fractured a South Coast community and the role the union movement has played to drive a just outcome.
International: Push Polling
On the eve of elections in Zimbabwe, trade unionists are paying the price for their commitment to democracy.
Economics: Debt Defaulters
Amidst the colour and movement of CHOGM little was said about the pressing issue of debt relief, writes Thea Ormond.
Poetry: Those Were the Days
The Golden Wing lounges have closed. The last of the commiserating Ansett workers have long since departed those makeshift taverns.
Review: Black Hawk Dud
If you want to find out exactly what went wrong during the US Marines' 1993 peacekeeping operation in Mogadishu in Somalia, do not see Black Hawk Down.
Satire: Fox-Lew Launch Rescue Bid for Beta Video
Businessmen Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox have shocked the financial sector with a daring bid to rescue the communications giant Beta Video.
 Egan Sells His Brains
Spying Bill Targets Strikers
Dunny Wars: Will Workers Carry the Can?
Drivers Appeal To Commuters
New Tack on Asylum Seekers
Go Forth and Multiply – Unions on Women
Howard Shuts Workers Out Of Steel Talks
Questions Remain As Rio Rings Changes
Labor Hire Swifty Exposed
Unions Fight 'Industrial Blackmail'
AIRC in Contracting Debacle
Mayne Chance For A Wage Deal
IT Workers Get Their Own Geek Scopes
PNG Women Visit Australia
Brazilian Unions Study Aussie Experience
No Shangri-la in Jakarta
Activists Notebook
The Soapbox
Love Thy Neighbour
Bruce Childs explains why he's reactivated the Palm Sunday committee to take a stand for refugees. The Locker Room
Debt Before Dishonour
In a week that featured allegations of drugs in footy, fast horses and faster cars, Phil Doyle struggled to keep up. Week in Review
Bullies Rule, OK?
Jim Marr considers a week which highlighted the absolute joy of being big, rich and powerful in a lassez faire world. Tool Shed
Leader of the Free World
George W Bush barricades himself in this week's Tool Shed with the sort of double standards that gives world domination a bad name.
How to Beat the Banks
Collins Goes Cahill
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Poetry
Those Were the Days
By David Peetz
The Golden Wing lounges have closed. The last of the commiserating Ansett workers have long since departed those makeshift taverns.
But if you happen to pass one, pause, and listen silently. You might just hear the ghostly echoes of long vanished drinking songs. Sounding surprisingly like the very alive Mary Hopkin.
****************
Once upon a time there were two airlines
Their bosses used to raise a glass or two.
Remember how they laughed about the high fares;
We thought that there was nothing we could do. Those were the days my friend -
We thought they'd never end.
We'd fly to Perth and back in just a day.
We'd have from two to choose.
Engines they'd never lose,
For they were safe and sure to know their way.
La la la la la la la la la,
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days. Then the Keating years went rushing by us.
The skies were opened up and down came fares.
New airlines sprung up like new season's flowers
And when they died nobody seemed to care... Those were the days my friend -
We thought they'd never end.
We'd fly to Perth and back in just a day.
We'd have from four to choose.
They'd leave with IOUs
Yes we were young and weren't sure of the way.
Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days Just then Air New Zealand bought up Ansett
Nothing seemed the way it used to be.
The money seemed to gurgle down the drainpipe
Would that stranded passenger be me? Those were the days my friend -
We thought they'd never end.
We'd fly to Perth and back in just a day.
We'd wonder what to choose.
How much cash could we lose?
Huge airlines built out of papier-maché.
Li li li li li li li li li
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days Now at night I think about the cavern
Where all the jobs and money seemed to drain
Oh my friend we're older but no wiser,
The folk who lose their jobs are still the same.... Those were the days my friend -
Out foxed up to the end.
Last flight from Perth seemed only yesterday.
Now there's just one to choose
With sky high revenues
And in the board, they're drinking fine champagne.
Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lies
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days David Peetz
davidpeetz@yahoo.com.au
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Issue 127 contents
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