E D I T O R I A L

Looking for the Light
As Labor searches for its Light on the Hill at last a senior Labor figure has come out and said it: the main game for the ALP should not be about shedding union involvement but making the movement � and that involvement - stronger.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Packing a Punch
Former Hawke and Keating Minister Gary Punch injects some sanity into the debate over unions and the ALP

Bad Boss: Basher Takes Back Passage
A new contender for our Bad Boss has emerged as 140 Stegbar workers confront a boofhead with bad attitude, writes Jim Marr

Unions: Five Star Shafting
What is twenty three years of unbroken, fulltime service worth? Eight weeks, according to Tony Abbott, the Federal Government and the cheapskates who run Sydney�s posh Hilton Hotel.

Economics: TINA � Rest In Peace
Sydney University�s Frank Stilwell argues that the �There is No Alternative� school of economics should be consigned to the dustbin of history

International: Against Bush's "War on Terrorism"
Washington has become the first State Labor Council in the U.S. to call on the AFL-CIO to seek repeal of the USA Patriot Act and oppose the Bush Administration, reports Fred Hyde.

Environment: Saving the World
After a ten-day talkfest, are we any closer to saving the world, asks Nick Lucchinelli

History: A Radical Scribe
John Shields loks at the life of Lloyd Ross' brother, Edgar, and his work as a journalist and activist in Broken Hill

Poetry: With A Little Help From My Friend
Even oil giant BP Australasia came out and supported the Kyoto Protocol - but that was not enough for our beloved Prime Minister.

Satire: Colonel Gaddafi Promotes Himself to General
After years of ribbing by his Axis of Evil peers, General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran and General Than Shwe of Burma, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi has finally promoted himself to General.

Review: Workplace Dictatorship
Award-winning journalist Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover in low-wage America to see how people live on six bucks an hour. And what did she find? They can�t.

N E W S

Cole Comfort: I�m Not Biased

Grassroots Drives Safety Campaign

Deloittes Curry Favour on Sub-Continent

Ansett Workers Short-Changed

Rail Workers Buck Individual Contract Wage Bribe

Carr to Drive Hilton Deal?

Bush Regenerators Weed Out Dodgy Deal

Insurers in Redfern Rort

Hairdresser Wins Fight For Wage Justice

Cabin Crews Argue for �Safety in Numbers�

�Slave Labour� In Insurance Industry

Westie Fires Up Over Durries

Beattie Plods into Risky Territory

Sydney to Host Social Forum

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Ian West on Suncorp Metway
NSW MLC Ian West lifts the lid on moves to impose 'start before you start' clauses in the insurance industry

The Locker Room
Terrible Terry and the Nice Guy from Fitzroy
As the debate over the new coach hots up, Phil Doyle believes that all is not as it seems on the good ship Swan.

Week in Review
War on Terror
Next Wednesday, September 11, marks the anniversary of one of the most brutal acts of terrorism in modern history. Jim Marr�s picking it will pass by virtually un-noticed

Bosswatch
Broken Trust
The corporate world is holding back the waves of accountability with a crackdown on trusts rubbished and resistance to a new plan to increase corporate disclosure.

Women
All In the Family?
Labor Council�s Alison Peters went looking for a family friendly workplace and got caught in a cheesy smokescreen.

L E T T E R S

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Terrible Terry and the Nice Guy from Fitzroy

There is a documentary called "Year of the Dog" which illustrates perfectly the pressures faced by modern football club.

The documentary was made about Footscray's 1996 season. Footscray are now known as the Western Bulldogs. In 1996 the Bulldogs sacked their coach, Alan Joyce and installed his assistant, Terry Wallace.

Wallace left the Bulldogs in dramatic circumstances the other week, the most notable feature of which was the coach ejecting his mobile phone out the window of his vehicle.

Anyone who has owned a mobile will recognise and appreciate this behaviour.

Since then speculation on his appointment as the Swans coach for 2003 has grown, leading to no small support for the temporary incumbent, Paul Roos.

Several scientific surveys conducted at the Court House Hotel in Newtown have revealed levels of coaching support for Paul Roos of up to 100%. This is all very well and good, but people should understand the consequences of this decision.

Paul Roos is a Royboy. He played over 250 games with the Fitzroy Lions, when they were Fitzroy and god was in heaven and life was good and the sun shone on the faces of smiling children. Or something like that.

Paul Roos is a Royboy, and as such he is cursed.

Royboys have no luck. Fitzroy ended up being sold to Brisbane as part of a job lot for $18.75 and a slab of beer. The alternative would have been to take Fitzroy out the back behind the shed and put a bullet in it. That would have been a more merciful course of action.

But Royboys are cursed; of this we can have no doubt.

Grown men would weep and mother's eyes cloud with anger upon hearing their offspring had embraced the most lost of lost causes.

Those who were born into the Royboy fold treated it as some kind of congenital disorder, like inherited madness.

This is Paul Roos fate. It is why he inherited the mantle of the Swans, who continue to suffer from the curse that continues to afflict the ghost of South Melbourne.

Wallace will bring with him the albatross of Footscray.

Since 1945 the combined luck of Footscray, Fitzroy and South Melbourne has realised one premiership.

If it was not for bad luck they'd have no luck at all.

If a contract has been signed then Wallace will come to coach the Swans next year and there's nothing Swans fans can do about it, after all they don't have a vote. The Swans' board can act with impunity with no threat of recall from any quarter, except the AFL, but more on them later.

Wallace is all right as a coach. He is an interesting guy who thinks about the game, and he has the added advantage that he is not Rodney Eade. No one in Brisbane wanted Robert Walls either. There were North Melbourne diehards who never trusted Ron Barassi despite the fact that he more or less gave them a premiership.

Paul Roos has brought the luck of Fitzroy with him, which will help.

Sydney supporters will now learn the humility that stems from having their hopes dashed over and over again. This is a good thing. It will be much like as before, only this time it will have a spiritual resonance.

The Swans are doomed. It is better to accept it now and come to terms with it. Denial will only bring grief. As the Bhudda says, "when you are eating, know that you are eating".

If Sidartha Gautama had of coached Fitzroy he would have said, "when you are being beaten, know that you are being beaten".

Any idiot can run a club that can attract quality players, many supporters and have a history of unbridled success. It takes a special genius to start with a giant market, passionate supporters, tremendous goodwill and years of tradition and then run it into the ground.

Which brings me back to the AFL.

As a bloke said to me in the RobRoy hotel in Gertrude Street Fitzroy one sunny Saturday afternoon, "you'd have to work really hard to bugger up football, and they are".

Phil Doyle - breaking serve early in the second set

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005