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Issue No. 145 19 July 2002  
E D I T O R I A L

Two Wings Flapping
The one element missing from the current debate about the relationship between the labour movement and the ALP is any discussion about what's in it for the unions.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: In The Tent
The Australian Services Union's Martin Foley on the dilemma facing trade unions affiliated to the Labor Party.

Bad Boss: The Desk Nazi
Everyone�s mail is on the money this week. Yep, Australia Post, courtesy of the born-to-rule attitude so beloved by the Workplace Relations Minister has been nominated for the Tony Award.

Media: Hold the Presses
The withdrawal of mainstream news outlets from the reporting of industrial relations is playing right into the bosses' hands, writes Andrew Casey

Workplace: Putting Bullies In Their Place
Ever wonder where the schoolyard bullies from your formative years ended up? Chances are they are still making someone�s life hell in an Australian workplace today. Even worse, one of them might be your direct supervisor.

Industrial: Women and Work
The last fortnight may well prove a turning point for working Australian women and their families, argues ACTU President Sharan Burrow

International: Whine and Dine
The political and industrial wings of British labour are at each other's throats, reports Andrew Casey.

History: Black Adder
Old King Cole had good tutors. Roger Milliss captured the style of conservative government witch-hunts in Serpent�s Tooth, his cathartic apology to his father, Bruce.

Review: Bad Movie
While the search for Australia's worst boss is well underway, Joel Schumacher's Bad Company seems to point the finger squarely at the US Government - albeit accidentally.

Poetry: I Remember
Dermott Ryder knocks our Resident Bard off his podium this week with a little ditty about a bloke called Honest John

N E W S

 Builder Blows Whistle on Kangaroo Court

 Alarm Over Unis in Detention

 Unions Spark New Super Push

 Abbott Trips on Entitlements - Again

 Picnic Day for Union Members Only

 Memo: John Travolta - Come Fly With Us!

 Cole Comfort to Bodgey Builders

 Unions Eye SA Casuals Victory

 Burrow: Paid Mat Leave Just First Step

 Mayne Warning � But Will They Listen?

 Drought Relief Should Extend To Rural Workers

 Coca Cola Action Bubbles Globally

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
The Royal Circus
CFMEU organiser Terry Kesby gives a first hand account of his experience before the Cole Royal Commission.

The Locker Room
Bravely Running Away
Phil Doyle is bewildered by the Australian Cricket team�s reluctance to join John Howard�s War On Terror.

Bosswatch
Nothing Exceeds Like Excess
As the world market lurches under the weight of its own amorality, regulators and business lobbies are locking horns over the need for more rules.

Week in Review
A Share of the Action
Sharemarket jitters produce mea culpas from the magnate set but, as Jim Marr discovers, loyal followers in the Howard administration aren�t likely to join the chorus any time soon.

L E T T E R S
 Make My Week!
 Real Reform
 Hooray for Frank!
 Reform or Die
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Nothing Exceeds Like Excess


As the world market lurches under the weight of its own amorality, regulators and business lobbies are locking horns over the need for more rules.
 

ASIC Targets Management Greed

Australian Securities and Investment Commission chairman David Knott has called for an end to management greed, asking boards to avoid short-term pay-offs in rewarding executives. Knott says the structuring of executive payment packages was an affront to good corporate governance. He says executive options should be expensed in company accounts and that disproportionate option issues were an affront to shareholders. He also noted that all countries should be committed to ensuring that options tied to remuneration packages were properly accounted for. (Source: AAP)

Brokers Eye Register For The Bad Boys

The stockbroking maxim "know your client" could be turned on its head if a radical proposal to make information about advisers more easily available is implemented. The Securities and Derivatives Industry Association has formed a working group to examine a proposal that would allow employers, and possibly the public, to search the register before taking on an adviser. Variously described by broking sources as a "rogue traders register" or an "undesirable advisers list", the proposal is based on the US model, which makes professional information about advisers publicly available. While the idea is still in the conceptual stages, SDIA policy executive Doug Clark said the present system made it difficult for members to get comprehensive information about individual brokers. (Source: SMH)

Business Group Urges ACCC Curbs

But talk of greater regulation does not wash with Australian business. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry this week attacked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, claiming its use of the media is aggressive, damaging to firms and should be strictly limited by a code of practice. In its submission to the review of the Trade Practices Act, ACCI has lashed out at the ACCC's use of the media to enforce the act. Such behaviour needed to be constrained by a code of practice, limiting the ACCC's ability the use the media, the ACCI said. (Source: The Age)

Good-Time Guys Enjoy The Good Ship HIH

Far more than an insurance company, HIH appears to have been a benevolent society for young men on the make. According to evidence before the HIH Rroyal Commission this week, Brad Cooper, a Rodney Adler protege who ran an HIH subsidiary, scored $250,000 for his club, Collingwood - weeks before the insurer went belly-up. The money was paid, with no firm arrangements in place for its use, when Mr Cooper was running for election as a club director as part of the team of his mate, Eddie McGuire, the Collingwood president and a Packer protege. With HIH struggling in the six months before it collapsed on March 15 last year with debts of $5.3 billion, deserving creditors were sent chasing up many a dry creek gully. Meantime, what Mr Martin termed "rivers of money" were flowing to Mr Cooper, a man the QC described as "less-deserving" precisely because he was in debt to HIH at the same time he was being paid millions by it. (Source: SMH)

Rivkin Faces Insider Trading Trial

Flamboyant Sydney stockbroker Rene Rivkin was this week committed to stand trial on one charge of insider trading. The high-profile broker was taken to court by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The commission alleged Rivkin bought Qantas shares just hours after being told by the head of the now defunct airline Impulse that it was likely to merge with Qantas. Counsel for the corporate watchdog, David Yates, SC, told a committal hearing today in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court that Rivkin bought 50,000 Qantas shares just hours after speaking to Impulse Airlines owner Gerry McGowan. Rivkin must now face a jury in the NSW Supreme Court on a date to be fixed. (Source: AAP)

Lights Off At Opentel And Spike

And a couple of dot.com fairytales came to end this week with two long-suffering dot coms, Spike Australia and Open Telecommunications, laying off around 260 staff between them. Web designer Spike - which was placed in the hands of insolvency experts Ferrier Hodgson last week - sacked most of its staff at noon yesterday and by 3pm had closed its doors. Less than an hour later, one-time Packer favourite Open Telecommunications told the stock exchange it was also in the hands of administrators. Its 200 staff were stood down pending the outcome of a creditors' meeting next week. (Source: SMH)


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