E D I T O R I A L

Abbott's Rule of Law
Tony Abbott has had a bit to say about the Rule of Law in recent times; how respect for the law should be at the centre of industrial relations and that anyone who flouts it is a national traitor.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Party Girl
Former ACTU president Jennie George on women in politics, life in Canberra and the ALP-union relationship.

Unions: Touch One, Touch All
The tribes of the union movement gathered outside the Cole Commission this week to repay the CFMEU for its generosity.

Industrial: Condition Critical
Nurses have taken their claim for financial recognition from the hospital ward to the courts, Jim Marr reports

International: Innocence Lost
There are nearly 250 million child labourers in the world, and every one has a story. As the ILO launches the first World Day Against Child Labour, here are just three.

History: Strange Bedfellows
Women�s first successes in adult suffrage came without much campaigning, and was in fact supported by Mormons, in defence of polygamy.

Organising: Just Say No
How would you react if you had to run a "no vote" campaign to oppose a non-union agreement issued by a company whose 3000 strong workforce was spread over 3500 kilometres. React quickly and expect to travel is Will Tracey's advice.

Review: Choosing Life Beneath The Clouds
Ivan Sen's Beneath Clouds is a road movie of the highest order, in which the destination becomes secondary to the choosing of a path.

Poetry: Did We Make a Big Mistake
It's one hundred years ago this week that Australia gave women the vote, and jumped early onto a bandwagon than would roll across democracies world-wide.

N E W S

Building Workers Gagged By Commission

Labour Hire Veil Lifted

Unionists Hit HP Fire Wall

Combet Drives Car Industry Summit

Green Ban Protects Aussie Timber Jobs

Unions Launch Gucci Boycott

Della Picks Up Manslaughter Baton

Jockeys Crisis Worsens

Billions Of Reasons For Reasonable Hours

Swans in Dark as Lights Go Out

Workplace Wishes Walked All Over

Airport Security Flies High

Canucks Boycott Starbucks

Campaign Steps Up To Stop Child Labor

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
The Conviction Unionist
In his speech to the National Press Club, ACTU secretary Greg Combet expands on his breed of unionism and charts the resurgence in the movement.

The Dressing Room
Give Greg a New Look!
We have converted the Tool Shed into a Dressing Room to give you the opportunity to give ACTU secretary Greg Combet a make over.

The Locker Room
The Other Les Murray
Those pesky colonials have been making life difficult for the natural order of things again, reports Phil Doyle.

Week in Review
Quelle Horreur
Jim Marr drags himself away from a four-yearly fascination with people of one name � Raul, Rivaldo and co � to discover fouls are still being committed on the international stage.

Bosswatch
The Great CEO Swindle
Breath-taking figures from the USA show the extent to which executives are taing a bigger and bigger slice of the corporate pie.

L E T T E R S

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More Tom

Dear Sir,

The recent antics by our comrades in Federal Parliament and the arrogance in the NSW State Parliament cannot be allowed to pass without further comment.

The perverse paraphrasing and translation of the message given to the ALP, through the "Wran Committee", not only by the actual presentations from those that attended this gatherings of the clans, but from careful examination of the demographics of members who chose not to attend, and while I have in the past had great admiration for Neville Wran, the conclusion of this investigation, reminds me of a quote attributed to that analytical philosopher Bertrand Russell:

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

In the case of the Wran report, it is providing that which was already decreed.

As for our comrades in Federal Parliament , with adoption of policies which are in direct conflict with the majority of the population and the ease of passage with which they are being lead into a double dissolution , indicates a divided house on the precipice of irrelevance.

Even "Blind Freddie", could not fail to see the path of destruction being prepared for this gaggle of ALP malcontents who like Judas Sheep, will lead those parliamentarians who are of weak will to their political slaughter.

While the shenanigans in Parliament may like all purchased pleasures give immediate satisfaction, it is a temporary state of euphoria.

This euphoria would not be unlike a bullfight, where the picadors continually torment the victim, prior to the "coup de gr�ce". It is not the actual kill which is the muse of the spectators but the torment of the victim, and it would appear that the peonies of Howard, being Abbott and Costello, have taken over the role of the picador by continually sticking the vara in the most sensitive parts of the ALP Bulls both young and old. The success of this tactic being manifested by the response being not one of attacking the Bullfighter , peonies or picadors , but the horse , which in this case is the Parliament.

Even the most ignorant of the electorate is aware that an attack on parliament is a personal attack on every Australian, even Charles 1, with the assistance of a parliamentarian was painfully and permanently educated as to the power of Parliament.

But enough of the philosophical and historical waffle, if the ALP and the Union movement does not get its act together, and presents an acceptable face to the people of Australia, people who are weary of the treacherous resource wasting antics of some unions under the guise of duplicitous solidarity, while their selfish members and representatives appear on television programs professing only a pecuniary interest in their own circumstance, and every one else can go and get stuffed.

Do these people or the Unions that represent them honestly believe that ordinary Australians, after being treated in such a contemptuous manner would still support disruptive activities?

I think not! Even the most committed Don Quixote such asN, must eventually come to terms with the decadent futility of feeding strawberries to pigs.

Personally in dealing with aresholes and gobshites at all levels of their self aggrandisement in society or politics; I find the philosophy of G.K.Chesterton appropriate as descriptive in the appropriation of God given recourses:

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

And Nietzsche helps in handling the personal attacks:

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.

Tom Collins

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