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It was just seven days ago that Brown grabbed national headlines and set the PM's heart a-racing with his brazen statement that he would be prepared to support the sale of Telstra in return for a few trees. Within days, the deal was off, Brown rolled by his own constituency. But the audacious bid to horse-trade a major public asset in the name of virgin forests serves as a reminder of the dangers of single-issue political parties.
It was a case of crossed ideological wires as he demonstrated his personal willingness to trade a socially cohesive and just society for the protection of the environment. Brown would argue that the move was justified on the grounds he was delivering on his environment first platform. The status of Old Growth Forests had been a cause celibre' for decades and for Brown, personally, it would have been a glittering prize.
Although the Greens claim to have a broad platform -- the reality is that their supporters expect them to deliver on the environment first and foremost. Bob's position was an honest attempt to achieve something real. He is not a Tool for doing this.
Bob's in the Shed is that he has exposed the weakness of his own single issue politics. He just couldn't see the wood for the trees. He failed to make the broader connection between the social well being of the population in general and an environmentally sustainable future.
The truth is that without a socially just society that is able to equally access the knowledge and wealth of the information age -- we are not going the achieve environmental sustainability. It is all very well to stand for a perfect world where the environment is fully protected, workers are well paid and the means of production and exchange are socialised. But the reality is not so cuddly: it is not possible to be all things to all people. In proposing the Telstra/environment trade-off Bob Brown was implicitly recognising this. He was making the call of a single issue politician; it was just that his party has loftier ambitions and they rolled him.
This fiasco exposes both Bob Brown and the Greens, like any other committed progressives, are struggling to juggle the always conflicting objectives. The difference is the Greens' belief that they are pure while the others are sullied by party politics and the compromises of Realpolitik. Bob's unfortunate foray into power-broking highlights the ongoing need for broad-based parties such as Labor -- who are better able to construct a realistic vision for a society that that is both fair and equitable and environmentally sustainable.
Brown's passion for the Tasmanian rainforests is both his strength and his Achilles Heel. National leadership is about a cohesive plan; single issues are for pressure groups. As Brown's brief dalliance with Telstra shows, the Greens still need to work out what they exactly are.
Commissioner Terence Cole reversed an earlier ruling that he would not hear evidence of safety issues during public hearings after Robin McGoldrick appealed publicly for him to hear her story.
Robin's 17-year-old son Dean died on a Sydney building site in February 2000, just weeks after he had come to Sydney looking for work. His employer, who was found to have breached health and safety laws was fined just $20,000.
After a rally of injured workers outside the Commission building, Commissioner Cole took the unprecedented step of inviting Mrs McGoldrick to address him. She was joined by Pat Portlock, a crane driver who lost a leg in a workplace accident, in 2001.
Refusing to allow CFMEU lawyers to lead Mrs McGoldrick through a statement to the Court, Commissioner Cole directly questioned her on the impact of the accident.
"There isn't a day goes by when I don't have a reminder," she said. "I don't regard this as an accident, it was manslaughter."
Commissioner Cole assured Mrs McGoldrick he would review full papers of her son's death while compiling his report.
CFMEU state secretary Andrew Ferguson welcomed the fact that the Commissioner was prepared to look into safety. But he said the Commissioner must allow more workers to have their say.
"We have hundreds of building workers who have been involved in or witnessed workplace injuries," he said. "The Commissioner must give them equal time to the long line of disgruntled contractors, many of whom have broken the law, who are being allowed to have their say."
Touch One, Touch All
Meanwhile, NSW unions will rally next Thursday to send a strong message that the entire movement is behind the CFMEU.
The NSW Labor Council has organised the lunchtime rally outside the Goulburn Street hearing rooms, where Union Song Comp finalists Urban Guerillas will perform.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says the first week of hearings highlighted union concerns that the Royal Commission was designed to attack the union movement, rather than look at broader building industry issues.
Robertson, who was himself called before the Commission, says the structure of the hearings makes it difficult for unions to challenge critical evidence.
The office, established by the Howard Government to promote and process Australian Workplace Agreements, was the catalyst for the establishment of the Cole Commission into the Building and Contruction Industry currently sitting in Sydney.
Sources inside the office say special partners, including the Commonwealth Bank, are having AWAs green-lighted in bulk in clear contravention of the required No Disadvantage Test.
Even under the Test, supposed to ensure workers are no worse off under an individual agreement than a collective agreement, the Advocate has signed off on AWAs that provide for workers to receive as much as $10,000 a year less than those previously performing the work under union-negotiated terms.
This week another shortcut, the Specified Partner Program, was revealed in the Senate.
Under this scheme the Advocate, Jonathan Hamberger, accepts employer undertakings that their AWAs pass the no-disadvantage test.
This flies in the face of Coalition workplace law saying Hamberger can only delegate the functions to staff engaged under the Public Service Act.
Yesterday it was further revealed that former OEA West Australia manager, Bruce Kingston, now operating as a private consultant, had gained access to the fast-track program for Perth-based client, Heelan & Co.
As the Cole Commission levels charges of Pattern Bargaining against the CFMEU, evidence that the OEA has been foisting pattern AWAs on workers, virutally since its inception, is being uncovered.
AWAs, theoretically, set out terms agreed by individual workers and their employers. Yet the OEA has promoted and registered identical, or very similar, AWAs across workplaces and industries.
The office even refers employers visiting its website to model AWAs which they can pick up for use.
Under questioning in Senate Estimates this week Hamberger admitted AWAs were being approved without the no disadvantage test being applied by his office.
Mr Hamberger told the committee that, under the Crimes Act, an employer's undertaking was legally binding.
He then conceded that "some judgement was involved" in determining whether the neccessary conditions had been satisfied.
The OEA source revealed that one "judgement" made by the OEA in the past was to allow employers to load wages onto the back end of two or three year AWAs in industries where staff turnover was that high there would be little expectation of a worker lasting the duration.
For example, an AWA measured against an award entitlement of $16 per hour might make provision for a worker to receive $13 in the first year, $14 in the second and $20 in the third.
The source also alleges that free drinks and video rental rentals have been offset against wages for the purpose of meeting the no disadvantage test.
International Transport Federation representatives unsuccessfully used a Victorian Supreme Court subpoena to try and have Sayadi Estahbanati, 32, removed from the vessel in Esperance.
ITF spokesman Dean Summers says they got affidavits from the vessel's Iranian skipper saying Estahbanati was unlikely to survive the journey back to the Middle East.
"The captain told our people 'I don't want to do this, I am being forced by your federal government.
"Our information is that Estahbanati was an active dissident in his homeland and that his brother, who returned voluntarily from Australia, disappeared on reaching Iran. His family says he never left the airport.
"On one hand our Government supports George Bush's assertion that Iran is part of the axis of evil. On the other, it sends back a man who has given evidence of his dissident activities in an Australian court.
"We want some assurance that Australia will use its best diplomatic efforts to make sure this man isn't killed as a result of its actions."
Sayadi Estahbanati had spent 22 months in detention at Perth and Port Hedland. His claim for refugee status was rejected by the Federal Court and he was being treated for severe depression at the time of last week's removal from Perth where he had given evidence against a people smuggler.
ITF officials claim he was dragged from detention by APS officers and suspect he was drugged.
"He was a big strong man and windows and chairs had been smashed in the room where he was being held," an ITF spokesman explained.
Estahbanati was smuggled onto the Iranian bulk carrier, Iran Mazandaran, whose complement, ITF officials allege, includes two Iranian secret service agents.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock dismissed concerns for Estahbanti's wellbeing saying "he came here as a stowaway and made claims and has been sent hom on a ship of the same shipping line."
An Amnesty International spokesman said from London the deportation was a matter of "deep concern" because Estahbanati had given evidence of his political background in open court.
They commenced action this week to rope in the Ukrainian crew of the CSL Pacific, the sister ship of the CSL Yarra at the centre of the recent stand-off over foreign crews.
The owners of the two ships, Canadian Shipping Line, caused a furore by re-flagging the Australian ships in the Bahamas and sacking the Australian crew and replacing them with lower paid Ukrainian workers.
The Maritime Union of Australia, the Australian Maritime Officers'
Union (AMOU) and the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers
(AIMPE) have taken the action in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
If successful the case would set an important precedent whereby all shipping working the Australian domestic coastal trade would be required to pay their crew Australian award rates and conditions.
The union push has the full backing of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that will also be represented at the commission. It has also attracted the attention of the Minister for Workplace Relations Tony Abbott. The Commonwealth has intervened in the case on behalf of the foreign shipowner, CSL.
CSL Boss Out of Parliament
Meanwhile, the now infamous owner of CSL, finance minister Paul Martin, has resigned his post. The resignation comes after a clash with prime minister Jean Chretien, Lloyds List Daily Commercial News reports.
Martin is one of Canada's richest men. His shipping fleet has been at the centre of a dispute with the Australian maritime unions over the flagging out of two bulk carriers working the domestic coastal trade.
The Australian Workers Union says jockeys, who are forced to insure themselves against claims by racehorse owners and other jockeys, are facing a 200 per cent increase in premiums.
With premiums up for renewal on July 1, AWU state secretary Russ Collison said the vast majority of jockeys would not be able to ride after that date if the Carr Government does not come to their assistance.
While there are a small number of highly paid jockeys in the industry, the vast majority survive on low wages and insure themselves as a group through the NSW Jockeys Association.
"The increasing cost of insurance is of great concern to jockeys as an increase of this magnitude will prevent many jockeys from re-licensing," Mr Collison said.
"The number of licensed jockeys in NSW has already fallen from 315 in 1998 to just 198 today. If the premium increase stands, the reality is that a large number of jockeys will be wiped out and the industry will be left with very few riders."
Mr Collison said the Victorian Government had intervened to assist jockeys in that state and called for an urgent meeting with NSW Racing and Gaming Minister Richard Face
Labor Council secretary John Robertson questioned the priorities of �bureaucrats� ushering in a licensing regime for persons who care for native birds while continuing to procrastinate over calls to regulate the labour hire industry.
"They can license people to protect birds but when we insist on licensing to protect the most vulnerable people in the workplace these same people look the other way," Robertson says.
"Labor Council has argued licensing is required to ensure core standards, to make sure the tone isn't set by the lowest common denominator.
"Every time this issue is raised the bureaucrats run the argument that regulation would breach competition principles. Frankly, if competition policy means ensuring the right to continue exploiting people, then we should be looking at changing competition principles."
Sources close to the state Government have suggested that National Competition Policy will be used to deflect Labor Council's latest insistence on a labour hire licensing regime.
Labour Council is seeking a common rule labour hire award for the state and Robertson said it would continue to press Government for an effective licensing regime.
Public Service Association general secretary Maurie O'Sullivan made the angry call, describing her inability to fund extra staff in the department of Community Services as a "humiliating dismissal".
"Any Minister worth his or her salt would take such an insult pretty infuriatingly and not hang around a Cabinet Room where clearly her opinion and her claims are trivialised," O''Sullivan says.
" The Department is in absolute crisis and this crisis has been drastically compounded by the Treasurer's dismissal of the Minister's request for an immediate interim substantial staffing increase in the ranks of Field Workers."
Apart form the DOCS funding, NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson says the Budget was good news for working people, with strategies to stimulate employment across the economy.
Robertson says the removal of payroll tax on apprentices would provide an incentive for job creation and skills development in blue-collar industries.
"This decision places apprenticeships on the same footing as white-collar and service industry traineeships which were already exempt from payroll tax," he says
Other initiatives that the Labor Council endorsed include:
- $1.5 million to address the exploitation of outworkers in the textile industry
- an extra judge for the NSW Industrial Relations Commission
- a trial on reduced class sizes for the first years of schooling
- and increased funding for police, education and health
But Robertson says that increases in public sector staff numbers should be on a permanent not a casual basis.
"Our biggest concern is the casualisation of the public sector. Today's Budget Papers do not provide sufficient details to gauge whether this trend will continue, but it is an issue we will continue to pursue."
The Australian Workers Union today issued the bans, which will apply to about 400 workers employed by GrainCorp. The ban will halt the export of grain indefinitely.
AWU state president Mick Maddern said the move follows a series of accidents to workers at grain silos.
"There are no safe work practices in place; we have workers loading grain three metres above trucks with no safety rails, harnesses or other protection," Mr Maddern said.
"Graincorp has told us they will be deploying new equipment in late 2003, but that it is not worth upgrading equipment before then.
"The workforce view this attitude as intolerable and will not be loading any grain until their concerns are dealt with."
The AWU made GrainCorp aware of the problem previously, but nothing had been done to address their concerns.
According to the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), the NCA's multi-discipline teams of police, lawyers, financial investigators and intelligence analysts have proved to be the most effective way of combating increasingly sophisticated national crime organisations.
CPSU spokesperson Evan Hall says, "NCA staff feel the Howard Government is leaving a dangerous vacuum which puts the fight against national organised crime back 10 years. Drug trafficker and money launderers must be laughing out loud," said Hall.
State and federal governments are currently at loggerheads over many aspects of the plan including funding and investigative powers.
"It is widely acknowledged that the NCA is best placed to investigate national criminal activity and follow money trails across different jurisdictions. Despite this, the Government wants to strip the NCA of these roles and establish something called the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) which would simply collect intelligence and feed it to other enforcement organisations.
"At the moment the NCA has extensive coercive powers, and like the criminals it pursues, it is not restricted by state boundaries. If this work is farmed out to state police, NCA staff fear an effective, nationally coordinated way of preventing crime will be lost," said Hall.
The Federal Government want the plan implemented by January 2003 and legislation is to be put before Federal Cabinet on 17 July. However, any change to the NCA will also require joint complimentary legislation to be passed by each State.
The BTG Program is one of only 15 case studies to be selected and included in a special report to be distributed to global policy makers and practitioners by the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention.
Program co-ordinator Trevor Sharp said it's a fantastic honour to be recognised as a world leader in drug abuse prevention.
'Our program was the only workplace program in the world that was chosen by the UN -you can't get any higher recognition than that.'
Sharp says it has been a tough 13-year slog to get to the top.
'When we first started we copped a bit of stick from professionals who thought we were just a flash in the pan.'
Sharp says the success of the program is due to a simple formula.
'It works because it's designed by building workers for building workers. We asked them what they wanted and they told us.'
Sharp also gives credit to being a bricklayer, union delegate and his first hand knowledge of alcohol and drug abuse for helping to know what's needed.
'We understand the culture of the industry. Our appearance and language may seem a bit rough and ready but it's effective. Building workers can relate to us because our staff are from the industry.'
Even though Sharp says the Program is like one of his kids, he's quick to move out of the spotlight and pays credit to others.
'Pat Carr (the union's former Workers Compensation officer) was a real inspiration and our staff have always been totally committed. We have worked hard to promote the Program and to have building workers assist us in our fundraising activities.'
Sharp says the results of the Program speak for themselves.
'We've achieved what University professors and Health Departments have not been able to. Building workers built it. It's their Program and they should be proud of what their hard work has achieved.'
Mark recently won a grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council to work on his third book of poetry.
But Fremantle Hospital didn't want to grant Mark leave without pay to work on the book.
Mark, who has worked at the hospital since 1997, planned to combine leave without pay and accrued leave to make the most of the grant.
Help from LHMU
"I was very disappointed. The hospital had featured me twice in their newsletter and even organised a story in the local newspaper," Mark said.
But the hospital turned down his application to take leave to make the best of the Award.
However the hospital soon backed down and agreed to grant Mark his leave after the LHMU mounted a campaign on its website to publicise the poet's plight.
"This affects all sorts of people - I'm indebted to the LHMU for helping me out," Mark said. "This issue affects not only me but all sorts of people who are doing things outside of work."
Some of the poem's in Mark's last book, Parochial, were inspired by his experiences at Fremantle Hospital. That book won the WA Premiers Book Award for Poetry last year.
GRACE
Intently slow, crane-like
she lifts her feet
to allow me to mop
under the chair.
It's not that I couldn't
work around her
as I do with so many,
but this is a task she
can perform, a test;
this is proof.
Workers Out! will be held in conjunction with the Sydney 2002 Gay Games.
It will use the opportunity to bring together lesbian and gay workers, trade unionists, activists and other key rights organisations from around the world to develop strategies for dealing with sexuality discrimination and homophobia in the workplace.
Conference vice president and NTUE industrial officer Mark Dolahenty says Workers Out! will focus on participation and issues from Asia and the Pacific.
He says this will provide an opportunity for Australian unions to forge greater links with other unions from within the region and around the world.
"The conference also gives us pause to remember that while gay and lesbian workers in Australia suffer discrimination, our working conditions and the society in which we live bears little resemblance to the experiences of gay and lesbian workers in other regions, many of whom live in countries that still execute their homosexual citizens," he says.
Details of Workers Out at: http://www.workersout.com/
Labour and human rights campaigners are appealing to union secretaries to condemn the government's practice of detaining, without trial, labour and human rights activists.
Tian Chua is the latest labour activist to fall victim to the Malaysia's controversial Internal Security Act, which has seen many stripped of their fundamental rights and detained for indefinite periods.
Working as a research coordinator for a regional labour organisation, Tian Chua was arrested in April 2001 for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government by militant means. He has been detained ever since.
The Malaysian government has failed to produce any evidence to substantiate their allegations against Tian Chua, who has since been adopted as a prisoner of conscience by by Amnesty International and recognised as a political prisoner by the US.
Minister Mahathir Mohamad will addresses the International Labor Conference later this month.
Labor MLC Janelle Saffin told a reception at Parliament House, Sydney, this week that Timorese resistance leader, Jose Ramos Horta, had taken up cudgels on behalf of people from Western Sahara.
"In front of leaders of the world community, Jose Ramos Horta spoke of the need to address the issue of independence for the Saharawi people. He has made Western Sahara his special project and is a vocal supporter,' Saffin reported.
Other speakers include Polasario representative, Kamal Fadel, ASU assistant national secretary, Greg McLean, and Labor Council secretary, John Robertson, who committed his organisation to advocating for the disadvantaged, nationally and internationally.
"It is our business what happens outside of Australia, we are part of the global community and have a responsibility to support the people of Western Sahara," Robertson said.
Funds raised at the function will go to assisting children in Western Sahara refugee camps.
REVOLUTION ON THE INTERNET?
Does new media mean new politics? The Internet has enabled unprecedented global commerce and helped create IT oligopolies - but it has also mobilised millions of people locally and globally with very different visions of a connected world community.
How are old political tactics being used by new media activists?
What works online and what doesn't?
Pluto Institute Seminar
Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet
New Media , New Politics
featuring
McKenzie Wark: Lecturer at the State University, New York, Author Celebrities, Culture and Cyberspace, and The Virtual Republic
Grahame Meikle: Lecturer in Media and Communications, Macquarie University, Author, Future Active
and Richard Neville: Activist and independent media legend
Is the internet the new site for activism?
What's new about new media activism?
Have internet activists restored play to political radicalism?
How much is continuity and how much is transformation?
When : Weds 12th June, 6pm for 6.30pm
Where: Berkelouw Books, 70 Norton Street, Leichhardt
$15/$10
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Sufferagette City
Celebrate 100 years of votes for women in NSW at a special luncheon on Saturday 10th August from 12 noon at the WatersEdge Restaurant, Pier One, 11 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay. This luncheon is being arranged by the Business and Professional Women (BPW) and costs $48 per person for a two course meal and drinks.
For more information contact Val Buswell on 02 9719 8257. Bookings with payment close on 2nd August and should be sent to BPW, PO Box 481, Gladesville, 1675.
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2002 BILL OF RIGHTS CONFERENCE
A major conference on Bill of Rights issues will be held on Friday 21 June at the New South Wales Parliament House Theatrette at Macquarie Street, Sydney.
This event will mark an important point in the ongoing debate over an Australian Bill of Rights, and more generally on questions about legal protection for human rights in Australia.
Speakers include Attorney General Daryl Williams, Shadow Attorney General Robert McClelland, Democrats Attorney General Spokesperson Senator Brian Greig, Justice Sir Kenneth Keith of the New Zealand Court of Appeal, Dr
Sev Ozdowski, Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Larissa Behrendt of the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at UTS, Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Chair of the ACT Bill of Rights Inquiry and of ANU, Elizabeth Evatt AC and Bret Walker SC, President of the NSW Bar Association.
The registration fee for the full day (including lunch) is $99 (or $55 for full-time students and concessions). To register, or to receive the full conference brochure (with a registration form and credit card paymentoption), please email [email protected], contact Belinda McDonald on
(02) 9385 2257 or see www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au.
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THE TEMPEST at The New Theatre
By William Shakespeare
Featuring: John Grinston, Wendy Strehlow, Beth Cardier, Rosie Lalevich, Anthony Hunt, Craig Menaud, Jared Smith, Bruce Menzies, Leigh Rowney, John Keightley, Paul Lyons, Mark Dowler.
Directed by Lee Lewis
Designed by Brett Boardman
A violent storm strands a boat and its inhabitants on the shores of a remote island - casting the lives of the islanders and the new arrivals into disarray as old animosities flare and new connections are forged. How will the new arrivals be dealt with?
New Theatre presents The Tempest - Shakespeare's final play. Exploring the themes of love, betrayal and redemption, as well as the wider issues of colonisation, cultural conflict and border protection, this play is as relevant today as when it was first performed almost 400 years ago.
The Tempest reveals the contradictions and complexities inherent in human nature - Prospero, with his magical books seeking worldly ends; Miranda acquiring love and self-knowledge with the help of other-worldly creatures.
Lee Lewis and Brett Boardman (she spent several years training and working with Andre Serban and Anne Bogart in New York, he is an award-winning Australian photographer) have created a magical production, steeped in oriental influences, incorporating multi-media, puppetry, and physical theatre whilst remaining true to the original text.
This is a not-to-be-missed modern-day fairytale, set on a remote island.
What The Tempest
When 21st June - 20th July - Thur-Sat 8pm Sun 5.30pm
Where New Theatre 542 King St Newtown
Tickets $22 / $15
Press enquiries New Theatre (02) 9519 3403
Bookings MCA Ticketing (02) 9645 1611
Dear Sir,
Was this an excellent article akin to Shakespeare's' Romeo and Juliet , a true life story on reconciliation between two factional Warriors or just a public exposure of your comrades betrayal and political debauchery "The Odd Couple" By Jim Marr, in issue 138 of WOL?
As a born again Pollyanna, who through the eating of boiled lollies, still believes in the tooth fairy. I thought, if only Federal and State labour could embrace each other in a similar fashion, and then there might just be an opportunity to regain government and implement some policies which include even a veneer of social justice.
This unfortunately appears not to be; with the eye of the federal Labour politicians clearly on an election victory through attending to and dealing with the issues of which the electorate have clearly indicated is their desire.
While State Branches, particularly Queensland and New South Wales appear to be under the influence of the "Pied Piper" of Pyrrhus and victory being rewarded with martyrdom and "A sacred Heart of Jesus" lapel badge retrieved from the archives/garbage of the DLP.
But after reading the macabre political agenda of the "Odd Couple", I thought?
Is there some basket factory in Balmain that mass produces these wannabe wankers? Wankers who obviously cannot add up figures, or is it that they have they been educated at a New South Wales TAFE , and want the next generation to suffer the same disadvantages that they have suffered through the wasteful expenditure of public monies on these community centres posing as institutions of learning, or perhaps they are employed in these educational sheltered workshops and see this perversion of democracy as a way of protecting their disability allowance. As for mandatory detention, even a TAFE educated moron could figure out that in a democracy, 85% approval rating on Mandatory Detention, is a majority - that is unless you are a Trade Union member of the Queensland or New South Wales Branch of the ALP, under the illusion of your own personal infallibility, then you are always right and you know what is best for everyone else, well in your own minds and at a branch meeting if not at an election.
This demand, to open access to health and other services for wealthy foreign predators is outrageous, when we cannot look after the sick in our community, the inability of "DOCS" to protect abused children, the aged being deprived of basic necessities , or even the criminal locked in cells for eighteen hours a day, with queues in our public hospitals getting longer and longer, and waiting lists for surgery lingering into the years and almost decades for our Grandparents , and our Children having to wait for hours in emergency departments ,with 80% of child abuse cases swept under the carpet , the prisons overflowing with fine defaulters , and Bob Carr determined to increase this with new legislation giving Police discretion to impose fines. Has this man been asleep through all these police corruption hearings? I've heard of kids in the lolly shop, but this takes the candy!
Will that be the new question? "The money or the Box"?
It doesn't take an Einstein to work out why; people like Jackie Kelly get elected in the seat of Lindsay? And this behaviour giving Jim Aitken an opportunity at winning the state seat of Penrith, it certainly was not, through the "forte" of some ALP candidates, in treating the electors as idiots. It just might be that the Howard Government, no matter how unpalatable it may seem to some, it acquiesces to the wishes of the electorate. Now no matter how repulsive Democracy appears to this appendix of the ALP, the redundant parasitical bourgeoisie who somehow evaded the tumbrel, this is how you get people to vote for you!
Getting back to the "Howe & Tattersall relationship and the support base for this "Romeo & Juliet" scenario is certainly comprised of some influential figures; it's just great to see the Secretary of the Labour Council at the vanguard of these supporters, obviously "a man of all seasons". Particularly in their understanding of politics reflected through their concise statement:
"The ALP is vulnerable at the moment because its policies are poll driven rather than membership driven. This exercise was promising because it showed how members, and important party institutions, could come together to demand better policy."
This is a complete denial of the philosophy Democracy and this arrogance manifested by righteous wilfulness will ensure years in the wilderness, but then the electorate of "The Secretary", is a mere cabal more cunningly sanctimonious than the Jesuits , and more pragmatically ritualistic than the Masons, and certainly not a reflection of the Australian People.
One must stand agape at arrogant statements such as this, "Policies are poll driven", and could this possibly be because you want the votes of those that go to the polls or is this some secret just discovered by "Test Tube Australians"?
I can recall many many years ago receiving from the church and wearing a little badge with a bleeding heart, claiming adherence to the "Society of the Sacred Heart", which was run by professed bleeding hearts, and of course this was and is in many cases just a fa�ade to cover up the many abuses by these hypocrites, is there a similarity here?
The ALP like any fractured group is vulnerable, not through any external threat, but from the greedy little maggots who with changes in leadership, are only interested in personal enmities being settled, or on expelling anyone who has a natural ability and appears to be a threat. It is embarrassing to watch the drubbing given to these amateurs by liberal clowns, the uninformed and unintelligible waffle along with the contorted facial expressions, of McMullan, must make the party cringe, the adolescent bovver boy antics of Latham only serve the purpose of Abbot and Costello, even attracting the ridicule of Downer and his buffoonery, the bleating of a Swan who should be honking, the pseudo-intelligent posturing of a bespectacled dynasty dinosaur , Ferguson ,and the collective disgraceful attacks on the speaker ,all contribute to this inappropriate self debasement. At least when the ALP was controlled by adherents to the church a moral code was binding. Not so today, as these numerically challenged but noisy special interest group activists, who represent no-one but themselves and encouraged by an haughty government, flit from ear to ear in the opposition benches whispering their venomous spite while dribbling spittle, into the ears of weak politicians who think that integrity, is an energy company and principle is capital investment that comes in brown paper bags.
Its time to deliver what the people want, not what the branch secretary or his/her little clique want, Simon Crean has not only been elected the Leader of the party, he has listened to what the people want, and to regain lost credibility, we must get behind him and get a Labour Government re-elected, then and only then can the party mercenaries and union bosses get back to their backstabbing and their silver coin collections.
And don't forget; those that feel a vocational need for a bleeding Heart this is the contact address.
http://www.ozvocations.catholic.org.au/directory/religious/msc.html
Or just do every one a favour and fall on your sword and create your own bleeding heart.
Tom CollinsNSW
Both your Issue 138 editorial and John Robertson's soapbox article made some very valid contributions to the debate surrounding the future partnership between the Trade Union movement and the Labor Party. As both a committed trade unionist and ALP branch member I can see some fairly compelling arguments on both sides.
In my view the most important thing for the ALP to concentrate on should be getting on with the business of winning elections, this being the only way we can hope to make a real difference in Australia - by harnessing the power of the state. To this end, it is imperative that the debate over the 60/40 rule be resolved in one way or another in a decisive manner, and soon. I personally do not have a firm opinion either way and could be swayed by a good argument, but I do believe that by agonising over this issue in a drawn out and very public fashion, all we are doing is giving our opponents a stick to beat us with. The general public that we need to engage with are not interested in the 60/40 rule, and a quick resolution of the debate would enable both the party and the union movement to get on with the job of producing better and fairer solutions to today's problems.
John Robertson made some interesting points about a possible role for unions in the preselection process. It would be important if any such move were to be made to ensure that the unions were represented at the local level, rather than through a central union panel of some sort. There is always disquiet, if not open revolt, from branch members about "candidates being imposed from head office" and there is a danger that any move such as this could be seen in that way. Furthermore, individuals within the party who may make excellent candidates but do not have union connections may feel "on the outer" in such a process and decide it would not be worthwhile to stand - and we may therefore be depriving ourselves in this way.
The questions of how unions could be represented at a local level is a difficult one and one that I will admit I do not have an answer to. Possibly a plebiscite of local union delegates and officials could become part of the process, although this could leave the ALP open to negative feelings from its branch members who could feel that their say is now a less important one. This issue of "relevance deprivation" of local ALP branch members should not be taken lightly in an age where it could reasonably be said the party already does not have enough members to run campaigns and have debates as well as it could.
There is, however, no question that unions should not be made to take a "back seat" within the Labor Party. To this end, the consultative process with local unionists by MPs as described in the Wran report is an excellent idea and should attract wide support on our side of the political divide.
In Solidarity,
Marco Spaccavento
Steve Murray Edwards begins his defence of Mark Latham with the sentence:
"The recent letter from Tom Collins regarding Mark Latham appears to reflect much of the pointless sloganeering that characterises many of Mr Latham's enemies."
The rest of Steve's letter can be summed up by doing a search-and-replace on the above sentence involving the words "Tom Collins", Steve Murray Edwards", "enemies" and "friends".
Paul Norton
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Steven Murray Bell's letter to WOL (Issue 138) has provided a good example of why Mr Latham's prescriptions have found less than wholehearted support within the labor movement up to now. Steven's debating style owes a lot to Mark's way of dealing with criticism-relying as it does on personal abuse as a substitute for engaging with the views of your opponents. The abuse also has eerie similarities (unintended or not?) with the style of McGuiness and Ackerman-even down to the terms 'wimminist' (whatever that might mean), 'public sector ideologues' 'basket weaving greenies'and the like. Steven's way of dealing with the actual content of this debate is also similar to Mark's. Unsupported assertions, dishonest representations of your opponents' views and a refusal (or is it inability?), to properly deal with the actual content of the work he has sought to support.
I have read much of Mark's writings-the book, the articles, the newspaper columns etc. I have also read as much as I have been able, of the writings of Anthony Giddens, Amitai Etzioni, J K Galbraith (Jnr) and Amartya Sen. Mark's work borrows heavily from these writers, all of whom are giants in their field, who have spent their lifetimes grappling with many of the issues that Mark purports to deal with. It is admirable indeed that a contemporary politician seeks to widen his/her personal understanding and intellectual vision by reading widely from among the best the culture has to offer. It is also admirable that a contemporary politician seeks to take his understandings out to a wide constituency and seek support for the ideas he has developed along the way.
What is less admirable in my view, is the way Mark deals with his sources, and with the complexities that the originators of many of his ideas openly acknowledge, including the provisional nature of many of their conclusions and their willingness to openly acknowledge the difficulties of both the required analysis and the policy prescriptions (if any) that flow from them.
Mark's work is refreshingly free of such doubt; no room here for complexities or nuanced approaches to the particular histories he constructs as much needed ballast to his arguments. Above all, what is so astonishing is his assumption that he and only he within the labor movement (widely understood) has the foggiest notion of the matters, debates and histories which inform his prescriptions for everything from schooling, unemployment, truancy, social delinquency and the future of organised labor. For Mark, to disagree is to be 'uninformed' a 'protectionist' a 'stalinist' and so boringly on.
For my part, I will remain sceptical of both his analyses and his prescriptions until he learns to do two things-Acknowledge what the giants on whose shoulders he seeks to clamber, have actually written, including their many provisos, concessions to the points of others and their actual policy prescriptions (as opposed to Mark's understanding of what they may be saying), and cease and desist from a practice that is inimical to genuine intellectual debate-the practice that his acolyte Mr Ball has so successfully adopted- personal abuse, wilful misrepresentation of your opponents, and a refusal to deal with any evidence that might need to be dealt with if you are to persuade others to your point of view.
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If I may just briefly comment on the letter "In Defence of Latham" by Steve Murray Edwards.
I can find much agreement with, Steve as to his observations, and I have also no difficulty finding consensus with Mark Latham and in fact on many issues it would appear he was listening to me 5-10 years ago. It is the petulant, childish, and incompetent manner which he and the majority of ALP parliamantry members present their arguments, opening these members up to public ridicule, which is in stark contrast to that attribute of self effacement. The reasons for this incompetence is indicative through observation of the corrupted preselection processes which totally overwhelm any attempts at meritocracy and bastardise the actual processes and those that still pretend they participate , creating situations which would put that long abandoned anachronism of English parliamentary corruption "the rotten boroughs" to shame.
English is such a wonderful dynamic, powerful and poetic language, and is wasted on the philistines now burrowed into the opposition benches fruitlessly groping their way to insignificance!
Tom Collins
As someone who is currently involved in the process of preparing a final year Political Science (at UWA) report on the issue of refugees and how they affect international affairs, I'd like to make a few comments on the current debate that rages both in and around the Labor Party.
Firstly, it has to be said that much of the comment surrounding asylum seekers is mischevious and simply untrue. I read Quadrant from time to time, and it was quite startling to see what has been a quality journal in the past allow some substantial fabrications through to the keeper.
David Flint's article in the January edition "On the Protection of Our Borders" was a pearler. At one stage in his article he appeared to suggest that we should reject asylum seekers fleeing from the likes of the mafia and the Colombian drug lords. How he can live with this position is beyond me. He then elected to state the usual argument against accepting asylum seekers from Indonesia: they could have claimed asylum there, or in a number of countries before they got there.
This claim is problematic. Whilst it is true that Article 31 of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees states that contracting states cannot impose penalties on asylum seekers who come directly from a territory where their life or freedom is under threat (it is implied many asylum seekers that seek to come to Australia are not coming from such a territory), it must be remembered this: there is not one signatory to the 1951 UN refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol, between Afghanistan and Australia. The closest signatory to the east of Afghanistan is China. Afghan asylum seekers have no guarentee of security in these transit countries (notwithstanding the shambolic state of the UNHCR's presense in Indonesia: largely due to lack of funding).
On balance it is possible (and, I suppose, most Australians support this; but does that justify anything?) that there is a case for not accepting asylum seekers from "transit countries". This can be justified as it would certainly harm the people smugglers, for whom I have little sympathy. But surely, if one was to make that case, it would have to be backed up by the obligation to ensure that the "off-shore" processing system was fair and just and resourced well (as has rarely happened). Whilst I don't always agree with Labor for Refugees, I admire them for generally calling a spade a spade; the "queue" is in bad shape (at times, non-existant)
According to a paper circulated by Senator Jim McKiernan, Labor for Refugees in Queensland wants an "end to the processing of asylum seekers off-shore".
If this is true, it raises a few issues. Are they suggesting that everyone who seeks asylum off-shore will be transported to Australia whilst processing? Or will it simply be impossible to seek asylum oversees? If the UNHCR was properly resourced, and we substantially increased our annual refugee intake (as even Paddy McGuinness has indicated was feasible) , would the objections to overseas processing persist? I shall request, for the sake of rational debate and clarity, an answer from them in due course.
On the whole, however, I believe that Labor for Refugees has mostly played a constructive role in debate on the issue. Certainly, as it is hoped we should adopt some of their recommendations, it will make for two and a half hard years of explaining our policies to the voters: a challenge we ought to take up with gutso.
Mandatory Detention is a whole new issue. I find it very difficult to see exactly how anyone who has observed these detention centres first hand could possibly defend the way in which they are run. As many detainees in those centres are fleeing the very menace that we are currently at war with (radical Islamism, for example), why we treat them in a manner that we would treat violent criminals is beyond me. Clearly there must be an alternative. Perhaps the Swedes can drop us a line?
I have, however, mistakingly indicated that much of my opposition to the "anti-refugee brigade" is based on the same Leftist sentiment that drives much of the pro-refugee lobby; allow me to dispel any such notions you may have had.
A large part of my opposition to the Federal Government's policy on asylum seekers (which is not in the least bit humane), is based on my fundamental belief that the idea of "cultural relativism" is a load of pseudo-intellectual progressivist twaddle. Our universities have been reduced to all new lows by the trendy New Class academics of the humanities and social sciences, who have (the worst examples being in Literature and English) completely debauched the public money they receive in order to indoctrinate students with their rubbish theories.
The idea that all cultures are morally equal is one of the most absurd ideas of the academic Leninists, one that must be challenged. Confucious once said that good government was attained when the people were made happy, and those from far off were attracted: clearly the West must be doing something right.
I am of the firm belief that the more people we accept fleeing tyrannical regimes, especially those of an Islamist bent, the faster those regimes will implode. We should be doing everything we can to convert more people to our peaceful, democratic way of life, to show people that they need not live in misery or desperation. I believe that instead of being apologists for rapists and murderers in the Third World, as many in the progressivist academia are, we need to assert ourselves and be prepared to accept more people to our cause; how else can we spike the growing boil of extremism?
The more we treat people, who merely want to adopt our lifestyle, in a similar manner as those atrocious countries they fled, the more the self-styled intellectuals will be able to peddle their childish theories about the evils of the West and modern life, and the virtues of so-called "traditional societies". It is unfortunate that the Labor Party has fallen somewhat under the influence of the inner-city latte set - perhaps the do-gooders (who are pushing the refugee cause very hard) will, in time, come to terms with the reasons why the refugees want to come here in the first place.
Please, for God's sake, let them in!
Dear Workers Online,
I love your newsletter, but as an English person and football fan, I have to comment on your 'Star Hooligan Breaks Foot' satire.
English football has been troubled in the past by hooliganism, however the appropriate authorities now prevent known troublemakers from travelling to international matches. The people who do go are sports lovers and ordinary people, out to have fun.
The biggest problem in recent years has been police in foreign nations expecting trouble and meeting it half way, if not in fact wading in with their boots on and actually causing the trouble in the first place. With Japan and Korea being inexperienced in hosting football matches and not used to dealing with exuberant (drunk) fans, I'm quite worried that trouble will be unnecessarily sparked and some innocent football fans will end up with their heads kicked in.
What we don't need at the moment is media commentary that fuels the perception of the English football fan as a hooligan.
Yours sincerely,
Judith Leask
by Peter Lewis
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The State budget came down this and it was obviously an election budget. As far as the Teachers Federation concerned, was it a good budget for public education?
Well it was good in parts, but it didn't address other issues that we would have thought should have been addressed. Clearly in terms of capital works it provides a large increase in the budget over what was previously provided and that's on top of the $70 million provided earlier this year for school maintenance. So in terms of capital works, we would say the budget has delivered, albeit on some of things that are long overdue, but its certainly on track to deliver the sorts of capital works program that schools have needed for quite some time.
Having said that, our major campaign this year is around the reduction of class sizes in the early years of education, years K-3. The first part of the Vinson Inquiry that was released on the May 22, indicated that a reduction in class sizes ought to take place. The disappointing part of this budget is that it provides only $5 million for a pilot, the details as yet unannounced, presumably so that Australian research can be done into the benefits of such reductions.
The overseas experience would indicate that reduction of class sizes in the early years of education is without doubt of benefit to kids across their education years from Kindergarten right through to year 12. So we would say there is no need for an Australian pilot to look into this matter. The Government if it had been serious would have announced a much bigger amount of money to fund it. If it had provided $12 million they could have reduced the size of kindergarten classes in every disadvantaged school in New South Wales. Five million is a drop in the bucket.
It's no secret that you had a really difficult relationship with the previous Education Minister, John Aquilina. Now there is a new boy on the block John Watkins. What does he need to deliver for your members before the next election to regain some sort faith?
Well, I think in terms of those areas where we are currently campaigning, clearly John Watkins has said that he knows that we will judge him on what he delivers. So far in terms of capital works in this budget he has started to deliver but in the area of class sizes, he hasn't. Our concern is that a pilot scheme is in fact one way of avoiding the real issue and thus avoiding a debate about the issue in the lead up to the next state election. We are concerned that indeed the Government will give no further undertakings about implementing a reduction of class sizes until well after the state election.
In terms of the sorts of disagreements we've had with his predecessor, I have to say that, this minister does welcome dialogue, he does meet with the Teacher's Federation. His predecessor certainly did not meet with us and obviously avoided dialogue at every opportunity. So, I guess it's true to say that if the lines of communication are open, then that's a positive outcome from the change of ministerial portfolios.
The other concern for our members is that the bitterness of the dispute a couple of years ago over salaries, has not gone away. It doesn't matter where you go, teachers raise the issue of salaries and particularly the way in which they saw themselves being denigrated by the then minister and the Carr Government in that dispute. I was at a meeting of teachers on the north coast last evening and they raised with me the next salaries campaign, and a lot of what they had to say is based on the angst they still retain from the previous dispute.
I think this Minister is going to have to make, and this Government is going to have make, a statement about teachers' salaries before the next state election. He is going to have to give a commitment about teachers' salaries before the next state election because the Government has not been forgiven for the previous dispute.
It is a perennial issue, the under funding of public sector jobs, important public sector jobs when you compare what's paid in the private sector. What should a public school teacher be paid? What is a fair wage?
Well that's one of those questions you just can't answer. You could say a classroom teacher should be paid $60,000 a year. Look at other professions and people who are in the early years of their profession are being paid those sorts of rates of money. Teachers in the early years of their profession are paid much, much less than that, and it's only by the passage of time that they actually start getting to figures like that.
At this stage our classroom teachers at the top of their scale will earn just over $50,000 when this salary agreement expires, and that's not acceptable. The community has to decide what it thinks teachers are worth, to borrow a phrase from our colleagues in the Nurses Association, and certainly if people think that teachers with four years of training at university are going to stay in a profession which at the top of the pay scale as a classroom teacher is going to pay them just over $50,000, well I don't think that's going to be the case. The stats are showing, quite clearly that teachers leave the profession in the first half a dozen years of their employment as a teacher. I think there are a couple of reasons for that, but one of them clearly has to be they are not being paid enough.
Should teaching be a profession someone does for life, or should it be a profession maybe that everyone does for a bit of their working life?
I don't think it's a profession that anyone can do for a bit of their working life. I think you have to have people in the profession who are committed to it, and most public school teachers are.
Opposition Leader John Brogdon this week actually said that he criticised Michael Egan for not funding decreases in class size. What is the attitude to the Liberal opposition. There's obviously some baggage there as well?
It was a previous Liberal Minister who in fact changed the staffing formula without consultation. Terry Metherell changed the staffing formula in a way which meant class sizes increased. Now obviously the Leader of the Opposition is jumping on a bandwagon. Our deep fear about Opposition policy, is not about class sizes, it's about what their intentions are with public education generally. I would say that not too far beneath the surface is lurking the spectre of a voucher system in this state if the Opposition gained the treasury benches. A voucher system would accelerate the drift away from public education, and would certainly mean the funding that would go to public education would decrease in comparative terms rather than increase.
The Teachers Fed has seized the public agenda through their commissioning a funding of its own enquiry into public education. What was the thinking behind doing that a what's been the cost benefit analysis of that project?
It occurred because we had been calling on the Government for some time to do a proper analysis of the needs of public education and of students attending public education institutions. The Government simply refused to do so. In making that call we had the support of parent organisations in this state.
Our call was based on the fact that successive governments had started to accumulate, what I call, bright blue shiny objects. Somebody would have a bright idea about establishing a certain model of education here and somebody elsewhere in New South Wales would say, well we should have a collegiate group here, but we want to be different. So something else would be established over there. None of this was based on any good educational research but was simply political decision making, and as I said, bright shiny objects to give the appearance that something good was happening when in actual fact nobody knew what the educational outcomes would really be. The continual refusal of the Government to undertake proper research into the needs of public education system, led to us and the parent organisations to decide, that we would do it.
Hence we commissioned Professor Tony Vinson to head an independent inquiry into the needs, structures and other organisational matters for public education in this state. Tony has brought down findings in the first three chapters of what will be his ultimate report. There are some things in there which may cause difficulty for the teachers union, but a lot of what he is saying in his report are things that teachers and parents have been saying for a long time. I think that's based on the fact that the teachers union in this state is a very democratic organization. It's in touch with its members, the parent organisations are in touch with their members, we're all in touch with our schools. So we know what people have been saying and they've been saying the same sorts of things to Tony Vinson - they've been saying the sorts of things that governments over a large number of years now have wanted to ignore.
You actually levied your members extra to come up with the funding for this enquiry. How tough a sell was that?
Well, it wasn't a tough sell. For some time our members have been saying that they believed the Federation should undertake a publicity campaign around the needs of public education and the positive promotion of public education. At our annual conference three years ago we increased our fees by providing a proportion of those fees, 0.035%, to what we call the Public Education Fund. That Fund has been used to pay for our television commercials and our radio commercials, and other activities, such as the public education convention last year. These activities have been planned to extol both the virtues of public education as it exists and to say it could be even better if governments properly funded the system. Last year we made a decision that some of that Public Education Fund would be used to pay for the costs of the independent Vinson Inquiry, so that's only one part of what we've been doing in terms of promoting public education.
In terms of, cost benefit analysis, well we haven't really done a cost benefit analysis in those terms, but I have to say that just from the impact surrounding the launch of the first three chapters of the Vinson Inquiry, it clearly has made people sit up and take notice. The government is taking notice, and the Department of Education and Training is taking notice. We've certainly got very good support from the community, expressed to us in terms of the outcomes of the recommendations Vinson released on the 22 May, and there's more to come.
The teachers are one of the Labor Council's largest affiliates, but they are not an affiliate of the ALP. It must be interesting view to sit back and watch the current debate going on between the role unions should play in the ALP. Do you have a perspective on that?
It's one of those times when you have the luxury to sit back and watch other people have their different point of view about something which indeed might be close to yourself, but not in any official way. I come at it from an individual perspective as the Federation does not have a position on the matter since we're not affiliated with the ALP.
But from my perspective, I would say that the ALP was born out of the union movement and it owes a lot of its success to the union movement. I'm absolutely amazed that it would want to turn its back on the organisational strength and support it has drawn from the union movement. The niceties of the debate seem now to be coming down to words about 60/40 representation or a 50/50 representation. But underneath that layer there really is a view that's been around in some circles for some time about making it a party of the membership, as opposed to a party that has union input. My view of the ALP, and I must say I'm not a member, if the ALP was only to depend on its rank and file membership, I don't think it would be doing very well at all.
Do you think there's a sense amongst the non affiliated unions, that that ties actually a burden when it comes to you selling the virtues of unionism amongst your membership, that your tarred by the ALP brush, as it were?
It hasn't been expressed to us that the Teachers Federation has a problem because other unions are affiliated to the ALP. Our membership generally realises, certainly our activist membership knows, that the union is affiliated with all sorts of organisations, such as the Labor Council of NSW and via the Australian Education Union, with the ACTU. Where regional Labor councils exist, we've actively encouraged our local associations to affiliate. That is a well-accepted policy amongst our membership. We've never really had it said to us, that because a lot of other unions which are affiliated with those organisations are affiliated to the ALP, we shouldn't. That's never been expressed to us, its never been a matter for debate amongst our membership.
Finally, how do you think the teaching professions going to look in another 20 years time.
Well, the teaching profession is one of those that adapts most readily to all sorts of changes in our society. I think that's one of the things that makes it a fairly stressful occupation. Changing community expectations are reflected in our schools and colleges. For example community demands about drug education are met in our schools.
Education will clearly change. Our schools and colleges are at the forefront of educating for the IT revolution. I'm constantly amazed that my eight year old son knows a whole lot more about the computer than I do and he learns that at school. In fact, I might say that one of the good things in the budget, was an additional $56million for IT in schools.
It is true to say that the profession of teaching will change. It will keep pace with and lead the knowledge revolution and the IT revolution. Our schools and TAFE colleges will continue to meet the increased demands placed upon them. But at the end of the day the most important part of the education system, no matter what evolves in terms of IT or the demands of the knowledge revolution, will still be the teacher.
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On January 4, 2000, Dean McGoldrick and a friend hitched to Sydney to live out a dream fired by junior athletics trip to the big city. Less than one month later Dean returned to Tamworth in a coffin, another victim of the building industry's callous disregard for human life.
His parents, Robyn and Tim, still struggle to understand how they lost their youngest son. Criminal convictions and a $20,000 fine on an employer who failed to carry out safety induction or supply safety harnesses did little to ease their pain.
This week Robyn McGoldrick insisted on telling her story to Building Industry Royal Commissioner Terrence Cole, forcing him to reverse an edict which would have relegated the dead and injured to discussion papers.
The McGoldrick's told Workers Online that Dean's death had changed their lives forever.
Robyn prefers to leave the phone off the hook because it was the telephone that brought the fateful news. The television in their Hilton St home is rarely switched on because hospital programs, news bulletins and WorkCover adverts bring memories of that awful day flooding back.
But you can't program everything. The sound of an ambulance or sight of scaffolding still fill the eyes with tears and the minds with unanswered questions.
It's those questions that haunt the McGoldricks two and a half years down the track.
Why did their son have to die?
Why wasn't he supplied with a safety harness or provided with training?
How come, as a rookie, he was on the roof without protection?
Why were ropes recovered from the site worn and frayed?
What will become of Dean's childhood mate, Andrew, who hitched down from Tamworth with him, was sacked after the accident, and hasn't worked since?
How can a court return seven convictions against an employer and impose only a $20,000 fine, given union estimates that he saved $8000 every time he failed to provide proper scaffolding?
Why doesn't NSW enact industrial manslaughter laws to protect the innocent?
The McGoldricks' pain has cost them friends of 20 years.
Tim explains: "Some people just don't have the courage to come up and express their sympathy, just a handshake from an old friend can make a difference. They leave you for months and then it's too late.
"On the other hand, you get flowers and cards from people you didn't even know. Other people who have been through similar situations come into your lives and fill the gaps.
"I would say we've lost some friends but we've gained better ones."
They were especially moved when the publican from nearby Curububula and his wife arrived for Dean's funeral on a Harley motorcycle to represent people from a township where their son had camped and tramped the hills since childhood.
Another new friend came in the unexpected form of the CFMEU, long-time battlers for building site safety.
Their son, having just arrived in Sydney hadn't even joined the union, but that didn't prevent a call from safety officer, Brian Millar.
Robyn McGoldrick, a nurse, and her brickie husband agree the CFMEU's concern and understanding has gone way past the professional. It has become personal and helped them through coroner's court and WorkCover investigations, along with criminal hearings.
"We didn't understand any of those things, they were new to us," Robyn explains.
"I suppose we have something in common with building workers. A lot of them know what we are going through. They have lost friends and workmates and can relate to our situation."
She contrasts the CFMEU attitude with that of other agencies.
"Dean's bosses knew about the accident but didn't come near us until after the hospital rang. They said the police told them not to come and tell us."
Tim adds: "The police still haven't informed us to this day."
Other than the CFMEU, they say, no person or organisation had the time or inclination to help them through a maze of intimidating experiences.
Robyn lists Miller, state secretary Andrew Ferguson and organiser Phil Davey amongst new friends the tragedy has brought into their lives.
She was incensed by Cole Commission reports painting the unionists as villains and wanted to tell her side of the story.
On Thursday she spoke to a rally of injured workers, pressured Cole into granting her her day in the Commission, then tired, weary and needing a drink, turned up to Labor Council to thank delegates for their ongoing support.
Robyn concedes that some in her hometown think she should let the matter rest, while others wonder if her sorrow and anger aren't being manipulated.
She rejects both suggestions.
The matter won't be left to lie because she insists "Dean is still with us" and deserves to have his case heard.
As for being used, forget it.
"If we can help the union then I am very happy because they have helped us but, more importantly, we want to help other mothers and fathers around Australia," she says.
"We are committed to exposing the shocking things that happen on building sites because we don't want other parents to go through the pain that we suffer every day."
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If you're over 50, you will probably remember fiery stump speeches about class warfare. Well, the atmosphere might be a little plusher, but the subject matter is a throwback to those simple, even simplistic, days.
The bloke playing Old King Cole, steals the show. He's grey, got a few miles on the clock and hooks into the public purse as though he was a fair-dinkum member of the royal family, but a merry old soul he is not.
This Old King Cole is a one-dimensional character. The contributions of assorted commoners parading before his austere gaze are merely incidental .
The opening statements seem to suggest that deregistration or, at the very least, a task force capable of limiting the ability of building workers to win better deals for their families, is where this show is headed.
Before the Sydney session even opened, issues that might have provided balance, and interest - safety, tax rorts, immigration scams and the like - were written out of the script.
Thus, The Commission becomes a one-dimensional attack on organised labour. When, for example, it deals with wagebook investigations there is nary a mention of the $4 million recovered annually in underpayments. Instead, the insinuation is that forces of evil use such investigations to chase and, presumably, intimidate employers and potential members.
Nor do the authors of The Commission waste sympathy on the families of killed or maimed building workers. Well-publicised CFMEU concerns are painted, not so much by witnesses as commission members themselves, as opportunities to inflict damage on battling businesses.
There is one discordant scene in which a mother pleads for greater workplace safety. But while she is convincing, her pain palpable, the effect is lost. It is almost as though she is an after-thought, hastily added to the script to soothe audience sentiment, rather than a considered part of the polemic.
The subject matter is fasinating but Abbott's ideological certainty, transmitted through Cole, prevents it being developed into anything that might move the viewer.
Colour and movement are absent. There are no shades, and characterisation disappears down the same shallow hole.
The central figure is more caricature than character. He's strong and resolute but, looking down on efforts to boost wage packets by $30 a week from the comfort of $660,000 a year, plus perks, hardly helps him resonate in human terms.
Ditto the Nick Green character. He is slim, pale, angular and not much prone to understanding another's point of view. Green looks like the sort of bloke who would regard a hard hat and a pair of work boots as very bad form, indeed.
Still, it would be wrong to write off The Commission as a complete waste of time and bus fare. Buried in the early exchanges are some gems, even if you get the impression they are more accident than design.
Some of the exchanges between Green and Andrew Ferguson are exquisite examples of two worlds failing to connect to the point where we descend into farce. But who came up with the bright idea of Ferguson playing the villain? It doesn't work and with so many better qualified candidates in the troupe ranks as very poor casting indeed.
Green, a man with a touch of the Basil Fawlty's, is Pythonesque in some of his questioning. Appearing not to understand simple, brief responses he searches for alternative constructions that might elicit the answer he wants.
Lengthy discourses on the failings of trade unionists are led from an assortment of bit-players without any consideration of their own possible failings.
One interesting sub-theme that bubbles away without resolution is male sexual dysfunction. Apparently, someone called the Employment Advocate is "impotent" but the term got an even more significant workout when cast member Brian Seidler, who played a Master Builder in opening scenes, was reviewing his performance on ABC Radio.
Seidler explained if he, and the commission, got their ways "the union would find itself impotent".
This production is not subtle but it is interesting in that it argues passionately for the type of activist, us-against-them, approach to industrial relations which most commentators felt had gone out of fashion decades ago.
The big question, which only history will answer, is whether or not Abbott's work overplays its hand.
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That priority concern for the union movement is on the agenda of the International Labour Conference, which opened in Geneva on 3 June. At the grass roots level, the unions are establishing contacts and tackling the "most urgent" problems, so as to ensure the survival of workers subjected to harassment and dangerous and undignified working conditions. Illustrations of just how difficult it is to organise people in this sector are given by Anne-Marie Mambombe and Marie-Jos�e Lokongo who are responsible, respectively, for the informal sector and women's issues at the Congolese UNTC. The sectors they cover range from palm oil production in Kinshasa, to the fishing industry in Mbandaka or farming in the Lower Congo.
How and for how long have you been in contact with these workers?
A-M. M: Several government measures, such as the "Za�ration" of our economy in 1973 and the structural adjustment measures of the early 1980s, have completely destroyed the country's economic structures. Many businesses have been wound up, involving mass redundancies, particularly of women and leading in all cases to unemployment. Many of the people affected have then tried to survive by setting up their own businesses, however they have lacked start-up capital and management skills and the businesses have not tended to last long. Since the union was also losing a lot of members we thought about how best to contact such workers, some of whom were ex-members, in three specific sectors: small businesses, fishing and agriculture.
What kind of help have you given?
A-M. M: We want to help these workers with more than just answers to straightforward questions on employment contracts. You should bear in mind that such people get a lot of problems from the administration and the police, since they are not registered as employees and do not, of course, have contracts. Nonetheless, they also have to pay heavy taxes to the State. We would like to help them with health care, via our health insurance mutual society ("mutuelle"), but we cannot afford to fund such services at the moment. So in 1998 we set up an "enterprise unit" geared to training these people. I'm personally in charge of the unit and was trained for the job courtesy of ILO funding. Everyone working in the informal sector is living from day to day and we need to convince them to look beyond mere survival. We need to tell them that if they are to be successful they will need to run their businesses better, and that will also enable them to get credit. So far we have trained 54 "entrepreneurs", as we like to call them, both to boost their confidence and to teach them self-reliance. And though it might seem paradoxical for a union to be training employers, we regard it as a vital task, since through them we will get new members. All the people we have trained are now members of a close network and pay fees to our union. With that money we are able to provide some of the credit requested by other workers in the relevant sectors.
Could you give us some concrete examples of this work and its results?
A-M. M: I'm sure you will laugh, Marie-Jos�e, but I want to quote her as an example, since it shows what kinds of problems Congolese workers have to tackle if they are to survive. I met Marie-Jos�e at a market. At the time Marie-Jos�e was already working with the union, but she didn't earn enough to make ends meet so she sat on the ground selling palm oil from a 5-litre can, using a jam-jar as a measure. I asked her why she didn't try to make a few improvements by selling her products in a little store and getting some training? In the end I managed to convince her and today her little shop is known throughout the town and business is going well. She is registered with the authorities, sells her products in much better sanitary conditions and is able to employ a few other people when she is away. We have also contacted several village communities in Bandundu through a project to fight a disease that affects manioc, which is the staple food in the Congo.
Here the UNTC's rural development and farming cooperative department has taken charge, with some promising results. We have managed to persuade the villagers to work in a cooperative set-up and from the income generated from the fields managed by the community they have been able to pay for a village clinic. We are now looking at ways of improving transportation of the harvested products to other places. Since the roads are very bad, cycles are the current mode of transport. But if money could be found to pay for oxen and a cart it would be much more efficient. We also want to set up a canteen to enable the village communities to purchase basics like salt, sugar and clothes at more reasonable prices. At the moment, for instance, to get a beaker of salt they have to give a bag of manioc in return, which is totally out of proportion.
And how has the women's department got involved in this work?
M-J. L: We have had a women's committee in the UNTC since 1979. It became a full department in 1981. One of its tasks is to "help women contribute to the economic development of the country" and that is why we got in touch with men and women workers from the informal sector. One of our most recent projects has been to create a cooperative for salting fish in Mbandaka, on the banks of the river. We initially realised to our horror that the people there were suffering from malnutrition although they had valuable resources at hand. Many were unemployed, others were civil servants who were not receiving their wages and many families had been wiped out owing to financial problems and the nearby war. Thanks to external funds, we were able to set up a cooperative. Our donor organisation insisted that men should be involved in the project, so we formed a group of 18 women and 12 men. The business involves catching and salting the fish on the spot and then sending them to Kinshasa by boat. The UNTC then takes charge of selling the fish and the profits are sent on to the workers. We also have a sowing project with 5 villages, 3 of which are in the Lower Congo. We provide seed to the farmers who also work together in small groups of 6 or 7 people. Based on a contract we signed with them, they send us back 1/3 of their harvest.
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Collective involvement in ownership of capital is one way of looking at superannuation. There has been a massive extension of this form of ownership since 1987. However is it in reality just another version of Mark Latham's suggestion of having a first shareowners scheme? Slightly better for workers in that the risk is spread across a few different investments, but there is no emphasis on the collective outcome of this massive pool of savings. The emphasis is rather on the level of individual returns. The money paid into funds on behalf of individuals is allocated by fund managers using capitalist criteria ie return on investment. Any notion of the public good in any medium or long term does not get a look in.
Many workers will have seen a very disappointing rate of return in the last 12 months or so. Some funds have been total failures. The superannuation industry, according to Ian McAuley (in Dissent magazine), point to these failures as only being 0.004% of funds in the industry. However for the workers with savings in them, they represent 100% of their superannuation investment. Thus we see that the privatisation of retirement incomes (away from any universal pension entitlement that we are told is not affordable) is just another example of the risk being transferred to the individual taxpayer/worker, the person who is least able to afford to hedge against such risk.
Liberal theorists fashionably claim that we now live in a "risk society" where choice and risk are intertwined. I guess it's true if we look at Enron. As Slavoj Zizek puts it in the London Review of Books "Thousands of employees who lost their jobs and savings were certainly exposed to risk, but without any real choice: what was risk to those in the know was blind fate to them. Those who did have a sense of the risk, the top managers, also had a chance to intervene n the situation, but chose instead to minimise the risk to themselves by cashing in their stocks and options before bankruptcy - actual risks and choices were thus nicely distributed. In the risk society, in other words, some (the Enron managers) have the choices, while others (the employees) take the risks. " Extend this to HIH, One-Tel, National Textiles, Ansett.
Enron's collapse led to losses of between $US5-10b for public pension funds in the US, According to Robin Blackburn writing in New Left Review
Enron employees had more than half of their $US2.1b of assets in the 401(k) retirement plan invested in Enron itself. When board members sold over $US117m of stock between January and August 2001, employees found their assets frozen. Blackburn notes that one Enron concern, Portland Electric, showed the truth of the overall company reputation of being good to employees by hiring grief counsellors for those who had lost all. The biggest public fund in the US, California Public Employees Retirement System (CALPERS) also lost a great deal through its dealing in other complex financial products that Enron was trading in.
The collapse of Enron and other US bankruptcies highlighted that those in funds could suffer greatly even if their fund isn't going down the drain. It also showed that insider knowledge was crucial, and that not only workers were on the wrong side of the information divide about what was the real state of corporate finances, but that many shareholders were too. The creation of this investment culture has been highlighted and praised by John Howard, but it does not mean that shareholders are automatically in the know. Rather it pays those in control to ensure that they are not, and financial regulations allowed this situation to continue. The insider knowledge of trustees, often drawn from big financial institutions like the former Arthur Anderson, does not get in the public domain and compromises reporting and auditing, as we have seen all too clearly with Enron and HIH.
That the new shareholders are greatly disillusioned was highlighted by a Business Week survey in February 2002 where 81% said they lacked confidence in those running "Big Business".
Could a switch to socially responsible or ethical investment policies by a way forward? Blackburn reports that CALPERS has reviewed its permissible country criteria for the investments it makes. CALPERS size ($US151b) means that it can have a big impact on investment decisions by companies it invests in. Countries targeted are those with export processing zones where workers rights are non-existent and places that the anti sweatshop movement has been most vocal about. Another example of funds and groups of workers using their market power to possible change corporate approaches has been the ICEM group of unions targeting the policies of RIOTINTO.
The finance community tut tutted about Enron but generally its response came back to the point that there is risk involved in all investment and other pension schemes could also collapse as industries faded (the steelworkers in the US who saw their industry decline and their pension funds with it were used as the example).
This is true, as far as it goes, but it also brings us back to the point of the privatisation of risk into the hands of those who have the least assets and who depend on the jobs and these funds to ensure a decent retirement. Their risk comes with no choice as they have no control.
In the UK there has also been a clamour to privatise retirement, as in Australia, and the backers of private super or pension schemes all claim higher rates of return than public ones. McAuley shows this is a pretty far-fetched claim in Australia, and Blackburn shows that it is a trick with figures and tax laws in the US and the UK.
However the momentum in the US is to divert their existing method of funding one level of pensions - payroll tax - from a social security system to individual accounts.
These schemes and taxes paid by workers have been seen to date as a way of contributing to their parent's retirement and they see their own retirement based on the continuation of such methods. However the way finance capital operates with a big claim on supposed future returns, and large fees for operating funds makes it difficult to see this as being a way to ensure secure retirement incomes in the US and UK. It also, as Frank Stilwell argues, ensures that the inequalities during peoples working lives are perpetuated and magnified on retirement. The well off are able to use super as a way of minimising tax during their careers and afterwards, by diverting a sizeable part of their disposable income into super investment schemes. The privatisation of pensions in this manner is at odds with the supposed aims of a universal work based superannuation system, the excuse given for its establishment by Hawke, Keating and Kelty in 1986. Also forgotten are the many who are not in superannuation funds.
How then to ensure a fairer scheme without making inroads into existing tax revenues, which are already facing big demands and face resistance from tax payers at any suggestion of increases?
Stilwell argues for a change in the tax advantages that are biased to the wealthy in superannuation tax arrangements, thus using the extra revenues to improve state provided retirement income.
He also argues for collectivist approach to investment. A substantial portion of savings should go to a national investment fund. Workers capital could be invested with a view to long-term aims. Here the ethical approach mentioned above could come into play with priority given to ecological sustainability. Clive Hamilton from The Australia Institute has proposed another supplementary method using revenue from a carbon tax to contribute $500 each year everyone's retirement savings. He doesn't say it should be used collectively, but these is no reason why not, as this would sit very well with ethical investment criteria for collective worker funds.
The Howard government has openly expressed its concern about workers super funds having "undue influence" in the stock market. So the idea is clearly on the right track. After all, as Felicity Wade says in a talk on the Perspectives program on ABC Radio National, "Why shouldn't workers' investments insist that workers' interests are served?" What a radical idea?! Her gripe was the fact that union officials refuse to see the sense in the idea, and act just like any capitalist investment manager, the only thin we need to worry about are unit returns. "There was a time when workers had interests beyond simply acquiring wealth" as Wade put it.
It also links in with the craze for public private partnerships. If these things are on the agenda, then lets look at ways they could be done that are really in the public interest, rather than the way they operate now to transfer vast tranches of public money to a few shareholders, with little responsibility. If we had ethical driven, superannuation funds with a longer than five minute view of investment, then investments in schools, hospitals, universities and public transport for example, would be truly publicly owned and not driven by the bottom line of a corporate construction company.
Blackburn goes further than this. "Unwittingly, senior executives have themselves come up with a device--the stock option--that could raise the huge sums necessary to cover future pension provision, both for company employees and for the citizenry as a whole. In effect these stock options, often combined with soft loans, represent a gift from the company to its senior executives and favoured employees. While severely restricting such options, legislation could require that all publicly listed companies issue shares equivalent to 10 or 20 percent of annual profits to the Social Security trust fund (in the US), or to a mixture of national and regional pensions boards (in both UK and US)." The pension boards would have control over their own investments, but close social auditing would be used to ensure that it follows ethical criteria on sustainability. This is in effect a way of using the employer contribution, as we have in Australia, as a collective investment, rather than it going to individual accounts, as it presently does.
Blackburn notes that this is similar to the Swedish plan of the 1980s, developed by Rudolf Meidner. This scheme foundered in the face of corporate resistance, which just goes to show that it was a system that worried capital, unlike the current Australian system, where, despite the various statements that its workers control by stealth, the control by capital is not challenged, and in fact is given a vast pool of money to play with, with all the risk borne by the workers.
See:
Robin Blackburn (2002). The Enron Debacle and the Pension Crisis. New Left Review; 14 (March-April).
Frank Stilwell (2002). "Labour's Capital: individual or collective?" Arena magazine; no 57, February-March. (reproduced in Workers Online no 126 )
Ian McAuley (2001-2002) "Superannuation and the Public Purpose", Dissent, no 7 (Summer)
Felicity Wade (2001). "Another Interesting Story About Superannuation"; Perspective, 26-11-01. ABC Radio National.
Clive Hamilton (2002). "The Super-Carbon Scheme-saving the environment, saving the environment", The Australia Institute (TAI)
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For half a century Don Cameron, a migratory socialist, was a leading, almost totemic, figure in the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He was hard to ignore. In 1917, for example, he was seen as the obvious substitute when personal problems forced John Curtin, Labor's future inspirational leader, to move from his native Victoria to Perth.
In documenting Cameron's contribution to Australian history a valuable resource is available in the form of his political papers, held in the National Library of Australia's Manuscript Collection. These allow us to delve into a fascinating Australian career.
Born in North Melbourne in 1878, Cameron migrated to Western Australia in the 1890s and worked as a compositor for the Coolgardie Miner. In 1901 he volunteered for the Boer War. From newspaper reports kept in his papers it seems that he embraced left-wing notions largely as a result of witnessing violence and brutality in war-torn South Africa.
Back in Perth after the Boer War Cameron worked as a plumber before taking over as secretary of the local plumbers' union. Soon he was a figure of political consequence. He attended national Labor Party conferences during World War I and participated in the two referendum campaigns which thwarted the Federal Government's attempts to introduce military conscription. He was a fearless speaker at public rallies. His papers contain an anti-conscription how to vote card that conveys Labor's basic message which was 'keep Australia white'. Australian men, if conscripted, would be replaced, it was feared, by coloured labour.
In the course of his activism Cameron befriended R.S. (Bob) Ross of Melbourne, a fellow socialist. His papers contain wartime Christmas and New Year's greetings from Ross and his wife Ethel. John Curtin's move to Perth was arranged when Cameron and Ross helped to secure his appointment as editor of the Westralian Worker. Ross then looked to Cameron to fill the gap left by Curtin. Cameron, in response to an offer from Ross, agreed to become organiser of the Victorian Socialist Party (VSP). His brief was to make the VSP an energising force within the larger and more pragmatic ALP.
The VSP petered out during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Cameron's radicalism was undimmed though. He was regarded as a tireless exponent of socialism. A letter in his papers indicates that in 1931, when he attended an Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) congress in Sydney, he was invited to 'chip into' a public discussion on 'the economic crisis and its causes'.
Cameron, along with Arthur Calwell, dominated the Victorian branch of the ALP in the 1930s. Sensing the power of myth and tradition, he invoked the imagery of the Eureka Stockade as he sought to rekindle anti-conscriptionist �lan. He needed to do this to head off a new breed of activists associated with the Communist Party who, rejecting xenophobia, advocated an internationalist agenda focused on promoting solidarity with nations (Abyssinia, Spain, China) menaced by anti-Soviet dictators.
Cameron was keen to hit back. He contended that a policy of collective security, which the Communist Party advocated, was bound to lead to war and, equally inevitably in his opinion, a second attempt to impose military conscription. Conflict between the two camps surfaced in 1935 at a Melbourne ACTU congress where militant delegates were outvoted when they advocated support for sanctions against Italy after Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
The challenge to his hegemony infuriated Cameron. In a letter in the E.J. Brady Papers in the Manuscript Collection he singled out the left-wing New South Wales railways union leader Dr Lloyd Ross, the son of his former VSP mentor, for particular criticism, claiming that it would not take much to make Ross 'wildly hysterical and stupidly fanatical'. Ross's having a doctorate in Australian labour history did not impress the self-educated Cameron who felt that 'book knowledge' always needed to be 'fortified by the lessons of practical experience'.
In 1935 Cameron also stood as the ALP candidate in a Federal by-election. He was defeated by the future Liberal Party leader Harold Holt but picked up unexpected newspaper support in the form of unstinting coverage of his campaign in the Melbourne Herald. His papers contain revealing correspondence with the Herald's owner, Keith Murdoch (Rupert's father), in which Murdoch expressed the wish that Cameron would make it into parliament one day. There was, Murdoch considered, 'a lot of work to be done in the future by a Left Wing Party'.
Carried away by the magnate's words, Cameron briefly harboured the unrealistic hope that the journalist Edgar Ross, Bob Ross's younger son and a closet Communist, might be given a plum job in the Murdoch newspaper empire.
Cameron finally got to Canberra when he became a Victorian Senator in 1938. He was appointed as Minister for Aircraft Production when John Curtin became Prime Minister in 1941 and was made Postmaster-General in 1945. In this latter capacity he stirred up a furore when he banned the popular radio personalities Jack Davey and Ada and Elsie from the airwaves because they indulged in ribald humour. This act of prudishness reflected Cameron's belief in the need to raise 'the general cultured level of the masses'.
At all times Cameron was keen for Labor not to forget its ennobling objectives. His papers show that during World War II he pushed for the implementation of socialist policies. Labor's success in 1943 in winning majorities in both Houses of Federal Parliament emboldened him to approach Curtin's Treasurer, Ben Chifley, to suggest that the Government should rely more on taxing company profits and less on bank credit. Correspondence on this matter concluded abruptly with Chifley spurning Cameron's suggestion.
Cameron went into opposition when Labor lost the 1949 election. The 1950s were a bleak time for the Federal party with the electorate enjoying unprecedented prosperity and contentment. Nonetheless Cameron clung to his political faith. Now sporting silver hair, a pinkish complexion and steel rimmed spectacles, he increasingly came across as 'the Sage of the Senate' but his zeal had not departed with his youth.
It is clear from Cameron's papers that he did not regard the traumatic Labor split of the mid-1950s as a major setback. Instead he dismissed the breakaway Democratic Labor Party as a bunch of 'deviationists' and felt that their absence would allow the ALP to be more forthcoming in promoting progressive policies. His friends saw him as the only senior Labor politician who was not prepared to dilute core party values and views. Principal among these was opposition to conscription, a position forsaken by Labor governments in the 1940s despite forceful criticism from Cameron.
Prolonged years in opposition did not sap Cameron's work ethic. He regularly rose at five o'clock in the morning to spend time on formulating ways to advance Labor's cause. He was keen, he told a reporter, to avoid the 'mental stagnation' that seemed to afflict so many of the Federal politicians who wended their way to and from Canberra.
Cameron's papers contain a list of suggestions drawn up in 1957 in which he summarised his commitment to bold immediate domestic measures including greater press control and censorship to prevent newspaper proprietors creating 'false fears and panics', tighter regulation of the financial sector, increased pensions and a levy on capital gains. Unfortunately Cameron's democratic socialist program presupposed a Labor majority in both Houses of Federal Parliament, a situation made virtually impossible by the 1949 ALP decision, masterminded by Arthur Calwell, to base the Senate election process on a form of proportional representation.
Australia's road to socialism was stymied but Cameron, even when he became an octogenarian, was still able to enrich his party's sustaining sense of historical destiny. He donned the mantle of a seer. His papers indicate that in the course of a Collins Street lunch in 1960 he told a friend that by the end of the decade his much younger parliamentary colleague Gough Whitlam was certain to be Australia's next Labor prime minister. Cameron praised Whitlam's aptitude for hard work and frank speaking.On being told of this conversation after he became party leader in 1967 Whitlam sent a note to Cameron's family in which he said that the comments provided 'great encouragement'.
Cameron never witnessed Whitlam's accession to power. Beset by deafness, he retired from the Senate in 1962. Within less than two months he was dead. His estate included a collection of some 764 pamphlets on a range of topics including religion (he was a freethinker), finance, economics, war, international relations and the rival brands of socialism. In 1963 the National Library acquired this collection.
Don Cameron's studiousness reflected his status as one of federal Labor's ultimate true believers. He personified its ethos from its infancy at the start of the twentieth century when it was saturated with racism through to the first stirrings of its transformation under Gough Whitlam. His personal papers in the National Library provide a series of lively and unique insights into a rock-like, and sometimes ruggedly expressed, Australian credo.
STEPHEN HOLT is a Canberra author
by Crikey
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"There's no public outcry I have seen in this country for no cross-media ownership restrictions. It's only coming from the corporations who will benefit," Steve Kimber, former Halifax Daily News columnist and director of journalism at University of King's College, Nova Scotia, told ABC's Lateline.
In his evidence to last week's Senate committee hearing on the media ownership bill, Kimber advised Australia to stick to the current cross-media ownership regulations and not make the same mistakes as Canada, which has no such restrictions.
The big end of town has other ideas, however.
Their positions of on the federal government's proposed changes to the media ownership rules are widely known and have been dutifully reported in their own news outlets.
News, Fairfax, Publishing and Broadcasting, Network Ten, the Seven Network all believe the current regulations are not needed to ensure diversity of opinion and are restricting their ability to compete in the global media market.
As public companies, with a primary duty to shareholders and at the mercy of the analysts' spreadsheets, their arguments assume that what's financially good for a corporate media owner is best for the Australian public.
PBL's written submission contends, "Quality, quantity and diversity of the media are guaranteed by the need for for-profit media companies to maximise returns to their shareholders."
But there was some interesting evidence given to last week's hearings about the cross-media proposals that has gone largely unreported in the mainstream media - evidence about public interest, diversity of opinion and the dependence of regional communities on local news content.
Network Ten executive chairman, Nick Falloon, does not see that diversity of opinion would be reduced by changes to the ownership rules.
"If the rules were changed and the Ten Network owned a newspaper group or a radio group, would I think that the opinion that we were putting out from those two avenues would change because they were commonly owned? I do not," he said.
Falloon said he had not been following "...to any great degree..." the controversy surrounding his controlling shareholder, CanWest's editorial policies, which he understood to be "...some minor editorial issues..." raised by some journalists.
This was despite Stephen Kimber outlining the extent of CanWest's media dominance to the committee earlier in the day.
CanWest owns 14 daily newspapers in every major Canadian city except Toronto and Winnipeg. In nine of those cities, it also owns a local television station.
It owns the National Post - one of two national newspapers - four other television stations, 126 smaller daily and weekly newspapers, six digital cable television stations, a television and film production company and Canada.com - the third most popular Internet site in Canada. The television network reaches 94 per cent of Canadian households.
Kimber explained that CanWest requires all of its metro daily newspapers to publish regular national editorials prepared by the company's head office. The local papers are not allowed to criticise or take positions different from the national editorials, regardless of regional conditions or interests.
This has resulted in the Asper family's well-known support for the Canadian federal Liberal party, for military spending and for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being presented consistently across the country.
Asked by Liberal Senator Tsebin Tchen why this was any different from the days when famous journalist-proprietors pushed a viewpoint, Kimber replied, "There were lots of other voices out there for them to compete against. In the case of the Aspers, what I think makes a big difference is that they own the game."
"The fewer the owners, the less likely it is that readers will have access to a wide variety of viewpoints," he said.
While the federal government's bill removes the barriers to investment by foreign entities in Australian media that are contained in the Broadcasting Services Act, the cross media rules would remain.
However, owners of two or more media entities that would otherwise breach the cross-media rules would be able to apply to the Australian Broadcasting Authority for an exemption certificate, providing they meet three mandatory tests of editorial separation.
These are the existence of: separate editorial policies; appropriate organisational charts; and separate editorial news management, news compilation processes and newsgathering and interpretation capabilities.
Questioned by senators, ABA chairman Professor David Flint believes he could objectively administer the exemption provisions despite his view that there is no point to cross-media ownership restrictions.
The bill also proposes to rely on competition law, including the Trade Practices Act 1974 to maintain competition, choice and diversity.
However, Professor Allan Fels, chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said in his evidence that public interest issues, such as diversity of opinion and ideas are outside its scope.
"I have to be quite clear and frank about this. Whether even I like it or not, the fact is that, under competition law under the Trade Practices Act--under competition law everywhere--you would only look at the narrow economics question."
This view was supported by evidence from Dr Derek Wilding, director of the Communications Law Centre.
He said the UK government, when releasing its recent bill on media ownership had warned, "For the time being legislation must address the present situation, where most people engage with the media in their traditional forms, and media ownership rules remain the best way of doing this. Competition law alone is not sufficient. It can address issues of concentration, efficiency and choice, but it cannot guarantee that a significant number of different media voices will continue to be heard, and it cannot address concerns over editorial freedom or community voice."
Wilding added, "The approach that is taken in the United Kingdom still rests on the requirement to regulate ownership. That is fundamentally different from the approach that is taken in our media ownership bill which rests on an approach based on content."
Wilding dismissed claims -attributed to Peter Yates of PBL - that the media is just another market like that for beer or toothpaste.
"The nature of media products is conceptually different to other products--and that is not something that is simply recognised in Australia but is something that is recognised around the world," he said.
"The capacity of media owners and media organisations to structure debate or to influence opinion simply does not apply to products like beer or toothpaste."
Wilding also doubted the effectiveness of the proposed rules for editorial independence.
"We have seen Kerry Packer, Rupert Murdoch and Robert Holmes a Court all dismiss charters of editorial independence as either being unworkable or not being relevant to the activities of their business."
"If that is the case, there is a real question over them. I really question whether there would be any commitment to the scheme that is proposed within this bill."
Wilding's concerns were supported by Stephen Kimber's evidence that the Canadian Radio Television Commission, which is similar to the Australian Broadcasting Authority, has already tried and failed with similar measures.
"Quebecor - a publisher of 15 daily newspapers - was required to keep its newspaper newsrooms separate from a newly acquired TV network. Less than a year later, its web site boasts that the 'synergies between the internet, cable television, broadcasting, newspapers, telephony and publishing media are now a reality.'"
"In Halifax, the editor of the Daily News and the news director of the local [CanWest] TV station now regularly discuss which local stories each will cover and how they will be covered. [The TV station] uses Daily News reporters on its newscasts to provide coverage of events its own reporters no longer attend, meaning the variety of perspectives its readers and viewers gets is reduced, " said Kimber.
A number of regional media operators argued in their evidence that the ownership debate was being driven by metropolitan considerations that did not necessarily apply to country areas. However, there are opposing views on the need for cross ownership regulation.
Giving evidence jointly, RG Capital Radio, WIN Television and Rural Press claimed that existing regulations were preventing them from growing and that maintaining local content was becoming "incredibly difficult".
RG Capital managing director, Rhys Holleran, said rural media organisations were at the "crossroads" in terms of local content and staffing and decisions were being made about dumping local programs from rural markets.
Holleran claimed that thousands of rural media jobs would be at risk if the cross media rules were not abolished.
John Rushton, chief executive of WIN Television, said cross-media ownership restrictions should not apply to regional media and cross-media expansion in regional markets should not be conditional on minimum levels of localism.
And he wants a government handout.
"The government should encourage the provision of local news programming through rebates against licence fees and taxes for companies who employ local people to gather and present news and information in regional and rural areas,' he said.
Holleran claimed that they would be in a far better place to produce local content if they could develop "synergies" with other companies.
Challenged on whether these synergies meant job losses, Brian McCarthy, managing director of Rural Press, said that he wanted to increase revenue opportunities while maintaining the costs they already had.
Labor Senator Sue Mackay had some difficulty understanding this argument and why amalgamations of regional media companies would not result in the same job losses that had been seen in rural bank branches.
Chris Warren of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance echoed this concern.
All his experience, he said, showed that consolidation through change, including at APN and Rural Press, leads to a serious reduction in jobs in regional Australia.
In 1985, a Communications Law Centre survey showed that the number of radio journalists had dropped by something like half as a result of the consolidation into radio chains and the loss of local news production, he said.
Grant Broadcasters, a privately owned family company that has been in regional radio for over 60 years and owns 15 commercial stations, mainly in NSW and Victoria, has a strong view about the regional market.
Managing director Janet Cameron told the committee that her objection to the elimination of the cross-media rules "...is based on the simple premise that I cannot see any benefit for the public in such a change. The only benefits, in my view, would be that those already very large media groups would grow even larger, and those who may wish to sell would have a greater number of buyers and therefore would gain a better selling price."
Another Grant director, Alison O'Neill, added that she couldn't understand RG Capital's argument that job losses would result unless the rules changed.
"I think that everybody recognises that part of the reason for the relaxation of the rules is to allow for some acquisitions and mergers to allow for economies of scale," she said.
"The reality is that there have to be job losses--70 per cent of all costs in radio are staffing costs. The only way to save money is to reduce staff."
Grant's operate full-service radio stations with minimal networking of content and Janet Cameron believes this is the only way to fully participate in the community.
Kevin Blyton, president of the Australian Association of Independent Regional Radio Broadcasters (IRB), told the committee he could see no public interest benefit at all in the bill.
"I do not know what benefit someone living in Cooma gets from the radio station, the newspaper and the television stations all being owned by the same people," he said.
"It seems to me that this bill benefits about 12 companies in Australia. It is about allowing them to grow."
Advertising revenue in a regional market is only so big and the only way that they can grow is to either increase their revenue or reduce their costs, Blyton said.
"The only way to achieve the economies that they want is to cut costs, and that has to be cutting staff. There is no other way to do it."
Asked about the potential of new media in regional areas, Stephen Everett of the IRB said it was largely irrelevant.
Pay TV and the internet do not offer any local news services. There are three sources of local news: the radio station, the newspaper and the television, and 99.9 per cent of people get their local community information from those three, he said.
"Perhaps in 10 years time it will change, but certainly not in the foreseeable future."
After this week's Senate hearings, all the players have now run up their colours.
The global media owners believe that their financial success on the world stage will deliver a diverse, quality media in Australia.
Local owners claim that growing their domestic business through takeover, economies of scale will save regional media jobs.
Some regional independents - who want to stay that way - take a more altruistic approach to their businesses and their community involvement.
And how does the public's view on this get heard?
Isn't there supposed to be an institution that keeps a check on the powerful and gives a voice to the voiceless?
What conflict of interest would that be then?
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So there we were, all ready for John Ralston Saul having studiously listened to any radio interview in order to prepare ourselves for the intellectual onslaught. Having saved oneself for the Wharf Theatre on Sunday, one began to get the feeling that something was not quiet right, the force was out of balance. Upon arrival we were greeted by the usual sway of scarves, kaftans and generally tie-died attire that surrounds these types of festivals. You could smell the power of change in the air, either that or Resistance had set up another street stall.
As all good Australians do we joined the first thing that looked like a large queue and started reassuring ourselves that it was not that long and this would not disenfranchise us from participation in such an important even. Within ten minutes the disheveled and unhappy faces started to pass us by until one kind women stated, in a very post modern way the "fucking thing is full".
So what is one to do when your yearning to be enlightened and fulfilled is not met? Find the Force in the latest Star Wars film of course. Being an ardent Star Wars fan I must say I was a little disappointed by this one. Despite the fantastic graphics and action scenes I had the feeling that there was too much plot development preparing us for Episode III. The gaps between action scenes were just a little too far apart. When they did arrive they were great. The chase by Obi-Wan and Anakin for the assassin is fantastic although a little reminiscent of the Fifth Element, you keep looking for Bruce Willis to pop out. Yoda's fight scene is absolutely fantastic and worth the wait.
However, Hayden Christensen just doesn't do it for me nor does the stupid little ponytail at the back of his head. Once its got your eye it's hard to concentrate on anything else its so bloody annoying. He also fails to deliver a sincere performance as he appears too caught up in the whole angst of nice guy turning bad blah blah blah scenario. It just wasn't that real. Ewan McGregor on the other hand provides a lively and earnest performance as Obi-Wan. As the Jedi mentor, he is battling not only the issues before him, but also his charge, Anakin. He is a man sensing change but unable to identify or control it (sort of like Simon Crean). Natalie Portman is well, breath taking, wonderful, a delight etc, etc as Senator Padm� Amidala. Except for a couple of flaky scenes with the joke Christensen where the chemistry of the two lovers is something to be winced at, her performance is excellent.
Other human roles in the film are solidly played by actors such as Samuel L Jackson and Jimmy Smits. The best part is identifying the various actors know to use in Australia such as Jay Laga'aia and Joel Edgerton who well, apart from a couple of words and identifying himself as the half-brother of Anakin who will raise Luke, ain't no Oscar candidate.
The final part of the movie is, as always, the best. This is why you see it on the big screen. The battle scenes are filled with Lucas brilliance. The computer graphics are out of this world literally, and the individual one on one fight scenes are great, especially Yoda's.
Action is what we want, not substantial plot and character development. I want action, death, darkness, evil, light and then the world saved. Save the deep relationship and love scenes for the English Patient. I'm sure that now George has set the plot development out of the way Episode III will be worth the wait. Episode II is probably the weakest so for but then we all have an off day now and then. All in all, it's George Lucas and Star Wars so it never disappoints. Worth the money and make sure you see it on the big screen - 7/10
by David Peetz
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Some 27 years have passed since underpayment of aboriginal workers was made illegal, and the State Government has offered each surviving worker just $4000 which, according to Dr Ros Kidd, is less than what many workers lost in a single year. They have until 9 August to accept this offer or receive nothing. With the Government wanting to Doolittle for these workers, we turn to My Fair Lady (with music by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner) for a response...
WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY
All they want is the pay they're owed
Not just crumbs that we want to throw
What have they got to show..?
Oh wouldn't it be loverley..!
Lots of cold nights without no heat
Lots of funds seemed to just deplete
We worked them off their feet...
Oh wouldn't it be loverley..!
Oh, so loverley to be getting their back pay at last
Just twenty seven years have past
Since equal pay, what a blast!
Someone said it's because they're black
That the funds to pay we seem to lack
Surely we'll pay them back?
Oh wouldn't it be loverley...!
By David Peetz
We've all heard the claims that the Commission seems more concerned about allegations involving the CFMEU than more general considerations, but you have to sit inside the court-room to understand the nature of the unfairness inherent in the Royal Commission process.
While a phalanx of lawyers are on hand to represent the interests of various parties, there are really only two players in the Commission - Cole in the chair, and his counsel assisting Nicholas Green.
Green controls the agenda and runs witnesses through their statements. For employers with a gripe against the CFMEU, this comprises a series of friendly leading questions to squeeze out maximum scandal.
In contrast, when a CFMEU official enters the stand the tone changes with the Counsel Assisting setting out to lure the witness into a contradiction or, better still an admission of guilt.
Green's performance questioning Andrew Ferguson this week was extraordinary, he was probed on everything from statements in his university thesis of 20 years ago to whether officials have ever sworn on building sites.
At the time the primary evidence is elicited, the lawyers for the CFMEU are not allowed to cross-examine witnesses on the statements they provide the Commission; their involvement is limited to intervening on points of legal order.
They are allowed to cross-examine at a later date, but only on matters witnesses receive prior notice of - and long after damaging allegations have been aired publicly.
This is where the real injustice of the Royal Commission lies; with the restrictions imposed on union lawyers to challenge evidence at the time it is given.
By controlling the agenda and the evidence, Cole and his Counsel shape their inquiry, rolling out untested allegations with all the quasi-judicial trapping of impartiality.
The media assigned to report on the case, wait breathlessly for the juiciest morsel each day and faithfully reporting it - without the risk of defamation. The Commission provides a steady source of anti-union stories presented in a forum where there is no right of reply.
Even when the Commissioner showed his compassion in allowing the mother of a dead worker to address him directly, it was unfortunately the exception that proved the rule.
The key issues of union concern - that is safety, tax fraud and use of illegal immigrants - have been hived off to a paper inquiry rather than presented in this very public manner.
Make no mistake, what is going on here is the manufacturing of a 'crisis', every bit as cynical as the Children Overboard affair - a calculated use by the Howard Government of the judicial processes to control a media agenda to meet defined political ends.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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When Neville Wran announced that he was stepping down as Premier at the 1986 NSW ALP Conference, a handful of Party powerbrokers retreated to a small room under the stage of Sydney's Town Hall. They emerged some time later to tell the citizens of New South Wales who their new Premier would be. The State Labor Government never recovered.
16 years later the same small room was in use again. Last Sunday week a handful of union Secretaries from the ruling faction of the NSW ALP fronted Labor's Federal leader to warn him against any change to the rule that gives unions 60 per cent of the vote at the Party Conference. When it comes to NSW Labor, backroom politics still rules.
The current argument over union representation is a classic insiders debate. The formal ALP-union link is characterised by the dominance of entrenched hierarchies on both sides of the movement, dealing with each other to the almost total exclusion of their respective memberships.
Those union leaders who are giving Simon Crean a working over are just as likely as Labor MPs to be viewed in the eyes of the wider community - including their own members - as insiders in the political process.
Both ALP branch affairs and the Party-union link are characterised by a democratic deficit, at odds with the modern political demand for direct involvement and participation.
On this page last week, Labor Council Secretary John Robertson argued for changes to Party rules to give unions 50 per cent of the vote in preselecting ALP candidates. When Robertson writes of giving "unions" preselection votes, read union Secretaries rather than union members themselves.
What particular wisdom would a small group of almost exclusively male, middle aged union Secretaries bring to the process of choosing Labor's parliamentary candidates? Are these the people who should determine who is best equipped to take the fight to Larry Anthony on the far north coast, or to Jackie Kelly in Sydney's outer western suburbs?
Neville Wran's review of the New South Wales ALP found massive disillusionment among the Party's members. Across the state, one clear message came through: we're not listened to anymore. To further centralise decision making by moving to a system where Labor's local candidates are chosen in that small back room at the Sydney Town Hall, rather than locally, would be a step in exactly the wrong direction.
ALP membership and union affiliation will be given real meaning again only when the Party embraces one core principle: let individual ALP members and members of ALP affiliated unions talk for themselves.
Defenders of the ALP-union nexus argue that union affiliation gives the Party a formal link with close to 2 million working Australians. This is true. Let's go further, and actually give those unionists a say in the decisions of the Party that their union membership financially supports.
I have no problem with giving union members voting rights in Party preselections in the electorates they reside in. Under such a system, thousands of working people in every state and federal electorate would have a direct vote for who their ALP candidate is.
Aspiring Labor MPs would be forced to concentrate on communicating a message to a broad cross section of the community. Candidates would be far more likely than now to campaign on real issues affecting people. Issues based advocacy would become more important than the ability to cleverly manage ALP branch books.
The role for full time union officials would be very different to now. Rather than wielding block votes and factional power, union leaders would need to concentrate on organising their members to campaign on the issues affecting their lives, in order to have candidates respond to them.
This would be a healthy development for unions. The union renewal agenda concentrates on workplace leadership and member activism, and consciously seeks to devolve power. Yet for all the emphasis on organising and campaigning in the workplace, Australian unions' approach to politics hasn't changed at all.
The empowerment of union members in the affairs of Australia's only trade union based political party is long overdue.
Luke Foley is the Secretary of the Australian Services Union.
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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.
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Read wierd libellous shit and craziness dressed up as sanity
at http://www.froggy.com.au/phildoyle
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Telstra Departs East Timor
Telstra will pull out of East Timor after declining to bid for a tender, fuelling concerns the company took more out of the fledgling democracy than it was prepared to put in. A Portuguese company is now poised to win the $28.4 million contract to set up East Timor's new telecommunications network, further consolidating Portugal's commercial influence in the new nation. Australia's Telstra had declined to bid for the contract, even though it has been running East Timor's entire phone and Internet network since 1999. And another Australian-led consortium failed to submit its tender documents on time. This left Portugal Telecom International as the only bidder. Last year Telstra officials here were criticised by the UN, which alleged the company has taken substantial revenues out of East Timor and put very little back in. (Source SMH)
Macca's Takes a Profit Bite
McDonalds Australia has opened 2002 with "extremely strong" profit and sales after a second consecutive earnings fall last year. Latest financial results show the hamburger giant's net earnings fell 7 per cent to $67.2 million in the December 31 year on lower revenue of $766.4 million. The fall reflects a lower contribution from the company's property arm rather than any erosion in its core fast-food business. McDonald's supplements its restaurant earnings with franchise fees and rental income, the latter collected by McDonald's Properties (Australia) Pty Ltd, one of the country's biggest landlords through its ownership of the 710-plus Australian restaurant sites.The accounts, filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, also show executive remuneration, including gains on stock options, rose 20 per cent to $16 million last year.
Dick Smith Teams Up With Sanitarium
Cereal manufacturer Sanitarium will take over the operations of Dick Smith Foods, saying it aims to turn the company into one of Australia's main brands. Dick Smith announced yesterday he had granted a 10-year licence to the Sanitarium Health Food Company to run the everyday business of his food label from July 1.The Dick Smith Foods philosophy, he said, would continue to support Australian-owned businesses and Australian farmers. Smith says he approached Sanitarium, which is owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, because he wanted to lift sales and expand the product range. Sanitarium qualifies for tax concessions because it is a religious, non-profit organisation and operates charitable institutions. It has set up a subsidiary to run the Dick Smith business. (Source SMH)
Qantas In Secret Talks For Air NZ
Qantas Airways Ltd has been secretly negotiating for a minority stake in Air New Zealand over the past 12 months, it's been revealed. Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon confirmed the Australian carrier was holding discussions with Air NZ "on a wide range of business issues, including a minority Qantas shareholding in Air NZ".
Market watchers believed Qantas had shelved its ambitions for Air NZ when the NZ government knocked back its bid for a 25 per cent stake late last year. But Air NZ chairman John Palmer this week revealed talks with Qantas had been ongoing since last May. (source Nine MSN)
Gilbertson Sharpens The Knife At BHP
A sagging share price and renewed pressure on the commodity price front has stirred BHP Billiton's chief executive-elect Brian Gilbertson to give the merged group's cost-cutting campaign a sharper edge. The new range of cost-cutting measures was decided at a meeting of the group's executive committee in Mr Gilbertson's home town of Johannesburg and will cost 100 jobs on top of the 1300 non-operational positions shed since the merger. The measures include the sale of two corporate jets - a $40 million Bombardier Challenger 604 parked at Essendon airport and a more upmarket $75 million Bombardier Global Express based in Johannesburg. (Source: SMH)
Mayne Pulls Out of Transport
Mayne Group has stunned the market by hiving off of its transport business, worth between $700 million and $735 million. Analysts have welcomed the demerger of the logistics business: "My view has consistently been that having a hospital group and an armoured car business together just doesn't make sense," one said. Meanwhile, CEO Peter Smedley has announced he has made a "personal decision" to leave the healthcare group when his contract as chief executive finishes at the end of this year. He had been expected to take over from Mark Rayner as chairman of Mayne but a shock profit warning last month and revelations that his aggressive cost-cutting strategy was alienating doctors had put pressure on the former Colonial boss. (source: SMH)
Flak Flies Over Austar Execs
Long-suffering small shareholders of struggling regional pay-TV operator Austar United Communications staged a symbolic revolt at the company's annual meeting on the Gold Coastthis week. Small investors sought to defeat a motion to award company executives more than 10 million share options, but were swamped by big stockholders who voted overwhelmingly in favour of the plan. The backlash came despite assertions by chairman Michael Fries that Austar, which lost $690 million last year, was "back on track". The move follows revelations Austar paid executives performance bonuses last year despite reporting a $682 million loss and confirming yesterday its cash reserves had fallen to $59.6 million.
(Source: The Australian)
Disclosure For Executive Packages
Disclosure requirements for director and executive remuneration have been beefed up in a proposed accounting standard. The plan, released for public comment by the Australian Accounting Standards Board last week, recommends increasing disclosure of such remuneration to bring Australian rules into line with practices in the United Kingdom and the United States. It also would require companies to value share options and other equity-based remuneration so investors can assess the value of a remuneration package. Other proposed requirements for director and executive disclosures include an increase in details of loans to directors and five top executives where indebtedness to the company exceeds $100,000, and new disclosures relating to the equity interests of the specified executives. (Source, The Age)
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The Federal Court delivers controversial Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock a curt "please explain" in the wake of repeated attacks on the judiciary. The court's most senior judges say his politically-driven rhetoric could be read as an attempt to pressure them, raising the fundamental issue of separation of powers.
Meanwhile, the Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, henceforth known at the Inquisition, opens in Sydney with widely-reported claims that people swear on building sites.
...............
While The Inquisition hammers away at its pet theory that workers should compete individually in a free labour market, claims of electricity price rigging sparked by the first cold snap of winter, pass through to the keeper. A detailed analysis of a price hike from $40 a megawatt hour to $6000 is passed to the ACCC.
Under toughened eligibility rules Government expects to carve $751 million out of the pockets of welfare beneficiaries over the next four years, figures reveal.
Meanwhile, at The Inquisition, CFMEU state secretary Andrew Ferguson confesses to having been a university student but, under cross examination, is unable to recall chapter and verse of a thesis he wrote more than 20 years ago.
..............
Millions of dollars spent tarting up outback detention centres in the days preceeding a visit by UN inspectors appears to have been wasted when the Government is sternly rebuked by a group which includes international jurists.
The UN expresses disgust at Australia's mandatory detention system, describing the Howard Government policy of locking up asylum seekers for long periods as a gross abuse of human rights.
Meanwhile, the organisation responsible for the establishment of The Inquistion, has something of an identity crisis. A senior officer of the Office of Employment Advocate fronts The Inquisition, not representing the office you understand but in a personal capacity. He claims building workers make life difficult for the OEA and doesn't disagree when an inquisitor suggests the office has been rendered "impotent".
Makes you wonder why he didn't represent the OEA in the first place. Once a private investigaor, always a private investigator, maybe?
..............
On a day when lawyers prepare another attempt to force the Government to come clean over its 1998 watefront dispute dealings, hidden away from repeated FOI requests, Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, rubbishes the afore-mentioned UN findings.
"We do not run off to the UN asking how Australia should be run," Downer tells Parliament. Giving as good as he gets, UN delegation head Justice Louis Joinet, says criminals get a better deal than asylum seekers under the Howard regime.
Meanwhile, union pressure forces The Inquisition to give some airtime to the issue of building site safety, albeit brief. A mother travels from Tamworth to tell inquisitors of the death of her 17-year-old son and urge improved workplace safety. At least one Sydney daily prefers to lead its report of that day's events with the claim of an ageing male contractor that he knew what it felt like to be raped. His claim, like most others, was subject to no supporting evidence or cross examination.
...............
Following faithfully in the footstep of George Bush, Australia formally announces it will not ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. "It is not in Australia's interests to ratify the Kyoto protocol," Prime Minister Howard says.
Howard's Government signed the treaty but has steadily distanced itself from ratification since the election of energy industry-friendly US president Bush.
Meanwhile, in a Sydney courthouse the $60 million Inquisition, follows its predictable, pre-determined course.
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