E D I T O R I A L

With Prejudice
For anyone doubting the ability of an incumbent government to control the political agenda, this week's sitting of the Cole Royal Commission into the Building Industry made fascinating viewing.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Class Action
NSW Teachers Federation general secretary Barry Johnson on Bob Carr's election budget and what he needs to do to win back the profession.

Safety: A Mother's Tale
Robin McGoldrick relives the tragedy that prompted her to confront Royal Commissioner Terence Cole over workplace story.

Unions: The Hottest Seat in Town
Nostalgia buffs should make a point of catching at least one session of Tony Abbott�s controversial, Royal Commission, playing to increasingly thin houses in Sydney. Jim Marr sat through the opening scenes.

International: Defensive Enterprise
How can men and women working in the unprotected "informal economy" be helped to better defend their rights? The ICTU grapples with the issue in The Congo.

Economics: A Super Deal?
Neale Towart looks at the debate raging within Labor circles around savings and investment.

History: A Radical Life
Stephen Holt gives an insight into one of the Australian Labor Party�s original true believers through his examination of papers held in the Manuscript Collection

Media: Cross Purposes
Stuart Mackenzie looks at the lines spun at the recent Senate committee hearing into media ownership laws.

Review: When the Force Is Unconscious
Cultural Theoritician Mark Morey reports on how a trip to the Sydney Writers Festival became a battle for intergalactic supremacy.

Poetry: Wouldn't It Be Loverly
For seven decades, Queensland aboriginal workers working under government control were 'paid' below-award wages which were placed into 'trust' accounts which were pilfered, levied, diverted and bled dry.

N E W S

Grieving Mum Turns Cole Around

Hamberger Grilled Over AWA Scam

Government Shrugs Off Death Sentence Charge

Action To Pay Foreign Crew Aussie Wages

Jockeys Face Insurance Crisis

Birds Get More Protection Than Workers

Budget Delivers - But Not For DOCS

Statewide Ban On Grain Loading

Howard Soft On Organised Crime?

UN Honours Building Union Drugs Program

Award-Winning Poet Wins Right To Write

Workers Out For Gay Games

Mahathir Told to Release Labour Activisits

Horta Backs Western Sahara Independence

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
It�s The Members, Stupid.
Those officials obsessed with union voting power in the ALP are missing the point, writes Luke Foley.

The Locker Room
Too Good To Be True
Phil Doyle castes his withering gaze over a week in sport that featured origin square-ups, the World Game in all its glory and a few drunken jockeys.

Bosswatch
In The Cauldron
It was another week of pull-outs, profits de-mergers and takeovers in the corporate world; but some bright news with a plan to make executive pay more accountable.

Week in Review
The Black Letter
Legal mechanisms, national and international, are throwing up challenges to all sectors of our community but the law is a beast of many shapes and sizes as Jim Marr discovers.

L E T T E R S

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Too Good To Be True

*****************

Bill Harrigan is an unassuming bloke. Luckily his ego has its own gravitational pull, so he was at the centre of things following the State of Origin encounter last week.

It was important that the series is leveled, or else the dead rubber on the return leg would have turned into an even bigger fiasco than Origin one.

Despite all the hype it was difficult not to notice the swathe of empty seats evident during the opening encounter.

No such problems north of the Tweed where the annual let's-deal-with-my inferiority-as-a-Queenslander festival continues to rack 'em in.

So Harrigan was on hand to ensure that there was the appropriate result, and Rugby League's increasingly alarming financial position was kept out of the news for another month or so.

Why the problem in attracting Origin crowds in NSW? Well, after a significant amount of research this column has deduced that the four primary factors involved are; the tickets are too expensive, the tickets are too expensive, the tickets are too expensive, and the tickets are too expensive.

Also there is the unbelievably popular Stadium Australia, which has been a big hit amongst marketing executives and spin doctors for sporting organisations - which is just as well, everyone else thinks it's crap.

The absence of critical faculty that hangs like a palsy about the shoulders of western society is also infecting football.

The idea that Stadium Australia is an acceptable, let alone decent, venue for AFL beggars belief. Maybe after a number of sponsor's product the place is nice, and the train certainly gets people too and from the train station with a minimal amount of panic, crush and heart failure. If you aren't particularly interested in watching the game it is an excellent venue.

If you do take a passing interest in the game that's cost you over an hours work to pay for the ticket to see, then you may find the blocked views and military style security a bit frustrating.

Certainly it would be difficult to see the place working as a World Cup venue.

The beautiful game is soaring to new heights of professionalism as some well documented acting and a plethora of shirt tugging and obstructing of forwards contribute to make Korea-Japan 2002 as the short-term memory loss event of the year.

My sympathies lie with Poland.

Poland is a country that has no luck. Lech Walensa and the Pope pass themselves off as celebrities in this Orwellian enfant terrible.

During the seventies they faced a series of particularly trying qualification processes as no one in the Polish Football Federation got the hint that no one wanted these boorish vodka swilling lunatics anywhere near world football's premier event.

Despite these insurmountable difficulties the Poles still managed to acquit themselves with more than a little distinction, including a heart stopping semi-final appearance that saw them within a rebound off a crossbar from a finals appearance.

This time they've had to take on the tournament hosts South Korea in an outing that can't have been fun.

Those fun loving Italians look the goods, with their subtle mixture of humility and caution winning hearts and minds in much the same way as the 2nd Airborne did at Niue Dat.

This column caught up with a few jockeys last week at the Town Hall Hotel in Newtown at about four in the morning. We had a bit of a chuckle about their interesting working conditions, consoling ourselves that things could be worse.

"Horses are like bouncers." Said my eight stone companion. "The bigger they are, the dumber they are."

Phil Doyle - facing a penalty shot on goal.

***************

Read wierd libellous shit and craziness dressed up as sanity

at http://www.froggy.com.au/phildoyle

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005