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The smirkin' merkin, Peter Costello tried to avoid being crucified over Easter by burying the HIH Royal Commission report on the eve of the holidays, but the largest corporate collapse in Australia's history has the Liberal treasurer's fingerprints all over it.
It comes as no surprise that Costello would wish Neville Owen's findings would go away as this wasn't the Federal Government's favourite Royal Commission over the last summer. That honour went to the Cole fiasco, but the names headed for the high-jump out of this one are all mates of the Liberal party establishment.
It was Costello who approved the takeover of FAI by HIH. FAI had a dubious history. As far back as the seventies FAI struggled to get approval to operate as an insurance company, until John Wisnton Howard became Federal Treasurer and FAI magically gained approval in 1978 - against the advice of the insurance industry regulator of the time. This, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that the then FAI boss Larry Adler was a major donor to the Liberal Party's 500 club.
Fast forward to 1996 and Costello, as the Federal Treasurer institutes a major "reform" of regulation of the financial sector. This is how the Australian prudential regulatory Authority (APRA) was born.
APRA is Costello's baby. In 1998 Mr Costello gave a speech to the 10th International Conference of Bank Supervisors where he said in relation to APRA: "They have boards of directors or commissioners responsible for operation and administrative policies, and are accountable through me as Treasurer to the Parliament of Australia." It replaced separate regulators for the banking, insurance, finance and credit union sectors - allowing Costello to slash 150 jobs in the process. It's brief was "soft surveillance of these institutions, with the emphasis on working with the industries on monitoring their financial condition". APRA has admitted in the year-long HIH royal commission to being under-staffed, under-qualified and under-funded. As early as 1999 staff were internally complaining that APRA was not acting as an effective regulator. It's "soft surveillance" approach was a green light for the corporate cowboys.
It was around this time that Costello approved the HIH takeover of FAI insurance. In doing so the Federal Government has been implicated in the HIH collapse, as the Howard-backed FAI has been seen as the "Trojan horse" that contributed so much to HIH's downfall. It is also the basis on which the HIH Liquidators are suing the Federal Government to the tune of $5.6 billion in a place that will be familiar to the sensitive Costello, the very generous ACT Supreme Court.
Costello, of course, used the same jurisdiction to sue Bob Ellis and his publisher Random House over allegations in Ellis's book "Goodbye Jerusalem". How ironic that he finds himself back there again, although this time I doubt he'll be smirking in the public gallery.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Costello's own hand-picked advisory panel, the Financial Sector Advisory Council - told Treasury in 1999 that "HIH had been sharply undercutting insurance premiums in a bid to win business and that the whole sector needed monitoring".
Even so, Costello persisted with his "softly-softly" mates at APRA:
"If I sought advice on solvency issues I would seek it from APRA which is the body which is responsible for solvency issues," said clown-prince Costello in parliament. "I acted in accordance with APRA's advice at all times." The authority was so incompetent that APRA's Craig Thorburn presented a slide on a key HIH report even though he had not even read it.
Now the galoot in the suit has cooled somewhat in his enthusiasm to be responsible for corporate governance in the financial sector; on the 7:30 Report Costello found somewhere else for the buck to stop: "Let me tell you where the buck stops. It stops with the enforcement of the criminal law against 20 people who have been referred to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. That's where it stops. The buck stops with the company directors who, if they breach the law, are liable." APRA is obviously no longer "accountable through me as Treasurer to the Parliament of Australia".
A series of inevitable re-arranging of the deckchairs is now taking place, with the inferred blame being sheeted home to HIH executives and key regulatory mandarins, many of whom are now conveniently left the scene, such as Thorburn (who now is a honcho at the World Bank in Washington).
The Minister for See No Evil takes his place in the Tool Shed this week, where he can join his mates from the big end of town - some of whom will hopefully have somewhere else stay in the not too distant future.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow said Australian unions were �loathe� to write health costs into employment contracts but would be under pressure to do so if the Prime Minister restricted free bulk billing under Medicare.
"Howard's attack on Medicare will Americanise our health system," Burrow said.
"The cost of medical insurance in the US accounts for up to 20 percent of the wages bill. No Australian employer will want to see unions bargaining for medical cover, US style, but if we go down the American track, we will be forced to look at an American response."
The ACTU estimates average working families could be forced to pay between $300 and $500 extra per year for previously bulk billed GP visit and pathology tests under Federal Government plans.
Burrow said Australian unions were committed to Medicare as a universal insurance scheme.
"Our members have a significant investment in Medicare and free bulk billing as critical elements of the social wage for which, historically, pay claims have been moderated. If Medicare is to be undermined, however, we will have no alternative but to look to wage negotiations to cover the extra costs."
Burrow was responding to reports that next month's budget will introduce a co-payment of as much as $20 for doctor's visits, allowing general practitioners to receive the Medicare subsidy while, for the first time, billing patients on top.
Howard will make his proposal conditional on doctors ensuring visits by pensioner card holders and low income earners remain free.
Critics say that would effectively scupper the universality of Medicare and make it a safety net for the poor.
Unions have pledged to resist that scenario with the ACTU organsing a Medicare Summit to unite unions, politicians, health, church and community groups against the Government agenda.
The summit will be held in Melbourne on May 2. Labor Party leader Simon Crean has already confirmed his attendance, as have representatives of the Democrats and Greens, ACCOSS and health sector unions.
Medicare has always sat awkwardly with a Coalition Government strongly opposed to any social control of the market.
In fact, as Leader of the Opposition, Howard was a vigorous and outspoken critic of the scheme. He labelled Medicare an "unmitigated disaster" and promised "changes to Medicare which amount to its de facto dismantling...we'll pull it right apart."
Feds Fail Public Hospitals Test
The Federal Government has failed to meet the demands of the states for significant extra health funding, the Health Services Union of Australia said today.
HSUA national secretary Craig Thomson was reacting to the Commonwealth's first proposal for new healthcare agreements which fund public hospitals. He said the offer also failed to commit to necessary reforms of the health system.
"Healthworkers want to know not only that enough extra money is being put in the system but that areas of serious concerns are being addressed such as helping the thousands of people waiting in hospitals because there is not enough nursing home beds," he said.
"Ifmore and more families are not able to find a bulk billing doctor they will head to emergency departments in increasing numbers for treatment. We don't want the federal government to be giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
''The integration between the public and private health systems also needs to be better. Private hospitals should be able to offer more services which would help reduce the strain on public hospitals such as their own emergency departments."
Mr Thomson said that the Federal Government needed to address the concerns of the different states about shortfalls in the funding offered by the Commonwealth.
But it was also up to the states to commit to putting in enough money to ensure that the health system in Australia remains among the best in the world.
A Court has found that Troy Stratti, Sam Stratti and their company Stratti Ocean Earthworks failed to deliver on promises made to a husband and wife operation, Lefty�s Excavator & Drott Hire, then reneged on payments for work completed.
"The evidence showed that Mr and Mrs Metharis' concern about, and distrust of, the respondents, flowed from their failure to pay the applicant what was owed to it for work performed, either on time or at all," Justice Schmidt found in an IRC Court Session.
"It was not suprising that these diffculties should have given rise to a suspicion on their part, as to the respondents' motives and conduct, in relation to other aspects of the parties' relationship."
Tony Abbott's Building Industry Royal Commissioner, Terence Cole, on the other hand, chose to accept the anti-union evidence advanced by Troy Stratti in the face of vigorous denials.
Stratti is the third significant NSW witness to have had his credibility undermined since presenting evidence to the Cole Commission.
Barbara and Stephen Strong earned days of media coverage for allegations that CFMEU officials had threatened Mrs Strong, her children and solicited unethical payments. When Counsel Assisting the Commission were prevailed apon to actually check phone records and police interviews on which the Strong testimony swung, they found no evidence to support the allegations.
In fact, both sets of records supported union testimony that the alleged events had never occurred.
Much of the two-week second Sydney hearings dealt with allegations stemming from sworn statements of star commission witness, Craig Bates. However, a range of employers testified that Bates, himself, had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of corrupt payments and contested a union election, against the individuals he was accussing in the Commission, with the active and financial support of employers and at least one underworld figure.
The Stratti finding comes one week after Workers Online revealed that dozens, and possibly hundreds, of Cole Commission findings had been undermined by a Perth Court.
Cole had based a number of "unlawful" findings against the CFMEU Western Australia branch and its officials on Right of Entry technicalities. However, Magistrate Paul Heaney found the police wrong in law when dismissing charges of trespass, escaping, and resisting charges against assistant state secretary, Joe McDonald, and organiser Graham Pallott.
He was scathing about the charges, ruling the unionists had been wrongly arrested by police with no training in industrial law.
WA branch secretary, Kevin Reynolds, hailed the magistrate's decision as a "smack in the face for Cole".
"It has been our contention for the last 10 years that we have been unlawfully prevented going about our business. It's something Cole tried to reinforce but this case has vindicated our position," Reynolds said.
In the Sydney case, the Metharis' were claiming more than $200,000 in damages. Justice Schmidt instructed lawyers for the parties to confer on final orders that would reflect her judgement.
Confirmation came, courtesy of the Herald Sun which spoke to a Melbourne-based Indian IT worker, as Australia�s largest company denied it was paying �sweatshop wages� to foreign workers.
The unidentified worker confirmed he was receiving just $820 a month, under a contract negotiated with an Indian IT giant, whilst Australian Telstra employees on similar work received around $5000 a month.
"I'm actually underpaid because of what Australians earn for my quality and my work. There is a disparity," the worker told the Herald Sun.
Sources close to Telstra insist the company is using about 100 Indian computer workers in a bid to further cut labour costs.
The revelation confirms Telstra's reputation as the company most eager to accept gifts from Peter Reith and Tony Abbott that allow established wages and conditions to be undercut.
The giant telco, set to report a $3.66 billion profit this year, has enthusiastically picked up on opportunities to contract out, use labour hire companies, employ on AWAs and, now, import guest labour in bids to sidestep standard wages and conditions.
Telstra has slashed 50,000 jobs since being part-privatised and chief executive officer, Ziggy Switkowski, has offered the community no apologies. He refuses to rule out further job losses and unions believe he might already have another 4000 Australian families in his sights.
Unions have lashed the latest Telstra cost-cutting measure as exploitative and immoral.
CPSU national secretary, Adrian O'Connell, labelled it a "scandal".
O'Connell said the company was doing little more than the Federal Government's bidding, after the release of a report that suggested Australian companies cut IT costs by outsorcing some of their operations to India.
He called on Telstra executives to think, for once, of the long-term damage to the community of their short-term cost cutting.
Country NSW Unplugged/b>
CEPU, meanwhile, will see the corporation in the IRC as it moves to head off redundancies around country NSW.
Telstra has announced plans to chop 100 people from its IS&W Rural and Remote Fix It units, affecting Newcastle, the Riverina, Central Coast, Mid-North Coast, New England, Far North Coast, South Coast, Lithgow and Broken Hill regions.
CEPU branch secretary, Jim Metcher, said the company had been warned repeatedly that its drive to cut jobs would have "disastrous consequences" for the integrity of the national telcommunications network.
"Telephone services, expecially in rural and remote area, can only continue deteriorating," Metcher said.
CEPU has lodged a dispute against the company, over the latest round of redundancies, in the NSW IRC.
As the Commonwealth moves to take control of the area, the Labor Council has sent Debus legal advice from former Attorney-General and new Supreme Court justice Jeff Shaw that NSW should regulate at a state level.
At issue is whether the monitoring of employee emails by an employer comes under the power of Commonwealth or State Laws.
Despite promising to regulate the area more than two years ago, the Carr Government has used Crown Solicitor advice to delay any such move, claiming it would be overturned in a constitutional challenge.
But Shaw's advice questions this position, saying the status of internal emails is untested and open to argument that it is outside the 'telecommunications' power that would hand it to the Commonwealth.
Labor Council's Michael Gadiel says it's important that the Carr Government proceed with email regulation to establish a model that recognises an employee's right to communicate with fellow workers without being snooped upon.
"Importantly, we argue there should be a right for unions to send emails to members, a principle that adapts the old right to a union noticeboard in a workplace," Gadiel says.
He says the Howard Government would be unlikely to place recognise workers' rights to privacy in any legislative package, with employers' 'rights' to monitor their staff.
"At the very least, we say the state government should not throw in the towel yet," Gadiel says. "It should develop guidelines in line with its own Law Reform Commission report and then argue the case in the courts."
The example was one of several abuses of Commonwealth traineeships outlined before a Senate Committee last week.
Others include
- the airline ticketing operation that flew off with $60,000 after employing 44 staff as trainees and sacked the lot before their 13 week traineeships expired
- the fast food franchise which picked up $1375 for a trainee, who received no training and was sacked just prior to the end of the training contract
- the utility company which transferred 200 existing staff members to traineeships and picked up around $275,000 from the public purse for its effort
ACTU president Sharan Burrow told committee members of bogus training schemes, underpayments and the routines dismissal of trainees when subsidies expired.
"Training is being dollar-driven rather than skills-driven because of the federal government's failure to properly target incentive payments," she said. "In many cases training is being funded for existing workers who are already competent.
"Existing employees should have the benefit of a genuine assessment of their sills needs instead of token training measures designed to attract government subsidies."
The Senate Committee hearing in Melbourne heard that less than 11 percent of Australian employers were funding training to meet skills shortages.
Department of Public Works officials have refused to disclose to unions where textiles used in NSW hospitals are being sourced from, in breach of the Department�s procurement code.
That information is vital to understand how the Health Department decided to take the contract to produce hospitals gowns and linen away from NSW prisoners and replace them with (even) cheaper foreign imports.
That decision will not only leave maximum security prisoners without work, but cost the jobs of local textile workers who have previously provided the raw material.
Unions remain amazed at how prison labour could be undercut by contractors if the Procurement Code were being met.
The Procurement Code was struck with then Public Works Minister Maurice Iemma, promising to make available to unions information about all government tenders, including sub-contractors. Responsibility for the code now falls under Della Bosca's new super-ministry of Commerce.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson has written to Della Bosca outlining Labor Council's concerns, notably:
- that the Department of Public Works seem unsure of who will be manufacturing the textiles.
- without this information there is no way of knowing whether the goods are being produced in sweatshop conditions
- and that the information is vital in ensuring that the contract complies with basic ILO Conventions on child labour and forced prison labour.
"We question how the community can be assured that proper monitoring procedures are in place if such a veil of secrecy hangs over where the goods are being manufactured," Robertson says in the letter.
WHO insiders have labelled the threat "blackmail" and worse than any pressure ever applied by the tobacco industry, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper.
In a letter to WHO's director general, the Sugar Association says it will challenge the "dubious nature" of the diet and nutrition report, including lobbying against the continuation of $US400 million in American funding on which the international organisation depends for its survival.
Guardian Health editor Sarah Boseley says the sugar lobby is "furious" about guidelines which recommend that sugar make up no more than 10 percent of a healthy diet.
It is also incensed at the new report having been published in draft on the WHO website for consultation purposes. It wants a full economic analysis of the impact of its recommendations on all 192 member countries.
The report, Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of chronic Diseases, has already drawn fire from the soft drinks industry which rejects its conclusion that sweetened soft drinks contribute to the obesity pandemic.
The WHO strongly rejects sugar lobby criticisms. An officials said a team of 30 independent experts had considered scientific evidence and its conclusions were in line with those of 23 ntaional reports which, on average, set targets of 10 percent for added sugars.
The ACTU and Business Council of Australia have agreed to work together to try and ensure better "mature age" employment opportunities in the wake of a joint report - Age Can Work: The Case for Older Australians Staying in the Workforce - which points to massive upheaval if Australia doesn't plan for a rapidly ageing population.
The peak bodies have agreed to promote workplace changes to combat age discrimination and support older workers.
ACTU president Sharan Burrown and Business Council chief executive Katie Lahey pointed out that over the past 10 years 1.4 million new entrants had joined the workforce while that figure would fall to only 120,000 for the decade beginning 2020.
"As a result, while there are currently six working Australians supporting each retired person, by 2025 the ration will be one to three," they said.
"Estimates put the cost of Australia's ageing workforce at $27 billion in lost economic growth and spending each decade. Health, welfare and pension systems will be ill-equiped to support a growing class of retired Australians," they warned.
Burrow and Lahey called for "signficant cultural change" to bread down stereotype about older workers and retirement and urged support for those who want to stay at work longer, whether to maintain or incomes or for fultillment.
The joint report, authored by University of NSW Emeritus Professor Sol Encel, found that older workers were discrimated against despite anti-discrimination laws in all states and territories.
"For too many mature workers retiring early is not always voluntary," Encel said. " Older workers, particularly men, have been vulnerable to downsizing and restructuring."
FSU state secretary Geoff Derrick said the result was a credit to the ANZ workers who have worked to maintain customer service levels in the face of reduced staff numbers.
"This is an opportunity for ANZ management to reward staff and customers by re-introducing full-time tellers," Mr Derrick said.
"Profit results such as today are built on the back of loyal workers and customers; a gesture to increase full-time sustainable services would be welcomed on both sides of the counter."
Mr Derrick challenged the ANZ to match the 44 cent per share dividend to shareholders with a similar investment in additional frontline staff.
"The long-term value of ANZ shares is dependent on public satisfaction in service.
"The only way to maintain that is to view increase staffing as an investment in the bank's future."
On the International Day of Mourning for Deaths in Workplace, Mr Robertson said it was time for the government to show that the existing criminal code could capture negligent employers.
"In the last year more than 100 workers lost their lives in NSW to accidents and workplace illnesses - that is more than two deaths every week.
"The government has an important role in reducing this toll, through more stringent inspection and tougher laws.
"The Minister for Industrial Relations John Della Bosca assured us last year the existing laws were adequate and we took him on his word.
"He even set up a specialist unit within WorkCover to consider criminal prosecutions, but nearly 12 months later and we have not seen any action out of this unit.
"There may be reasons for this - there is a time lag in investigating cases, including the need to have the coronial process run its course, but the lack of action to date is a worrying sign.
"If the Minister for Industrial Relations can not demonstrate that this unit has the firepower to apply the criminal law to negligent employers, then we will campaign for specific laws that will."
The historic exhibition, an artistic trip through labour history, will show at the Wollongong City Gallery from September 15 - 23.
When Workers Unite finished its debut public outing in Sydney the week before Easter. The UTS showing was the first time such a large collection of union posters, badges, and banners had been exhibited together.
Alban Gillezeau and the Labor Council of NSW's Neale Towart were the driving forces behind getting the exhibits together.
More than 100 posters covered issues including sexual harassment (most popular with the various TAFE student groups), the eight-hour day, environmental issues (green bans, oil spills and pollution), anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigns, political actions (posters on Joh and Co in Qld, Howard and Reith) and occupational health and safety issues capped by a graphic photo of a worker painting the harbour bridge whilst holding on with one hand, perched above The Rocks with no harness in sight.
There were 20 sets of Australian badges grouped by themes such as amalgamations, annual membership, May Day, union representatives, delegates and shop stewards15 large banners of various unions, plus memorabilia and a great collection of British mining union badges chiefly from the 1970-1 and 1984-85 coal strikes.
Banners included a beautiful reproduction of the Sydney Labor Day Committee's Eight Hour Day banner, originally designed by Edgar Whitbread.
Other interesting "ephemera:" included a Gauloise cigarette packet in the unusual red colouring. Gauloise are always blue but in 1982 the worker took over the factory and a way of gaining strike funds was to continue to produce cigarettes. They did this in a special red packet. Our international man of collections, contacts and knowledge of all things union, Bill Pirie managed to get hold of one of these packets.
Negotiations are underway for a Newcastle season after the exhibition finishes in Wollongong.
They have already imposed work bans on a range of administrative duties in support of the claim.
Nurses want the hospital to endorse 24-hour clerical assistance so they concentrate on patient care.
Nurses Association secretary, Brett Homes, said nurses were happy to see a ward clerk shared between the two departments but were unhappy with the hospital's refusal to address their concerns.
"Workloads certainly warrant extra staffing," Holmes said. "It would be better for patients, mothers and new-born babies if nurses weren't distracted by clerical duties."
Holmes says Maitland emergency usually deals with 15-22 patients over the 11pm - 6am night shift hours. There are two nurses on duty and each patient requires at least 15 minutes of paper and computer entry work, effectively removing half the nursing workforce for five hours.
"If one nurse has to leave to retrieve records, then only one nurse is left with the patients. This is unsatisfactory," he says.
"Clearly there is enough work across maternity and emergency for a fulltime ward clerk to be appointed. This would allow nurses to get on with their job of nursing."
Nurses were expected to vote on escalating their action at a meeting at Maitland Hospital today.
The five housing workers, servicing Grafton, Lismore Clarence and Tweed, had been targeted for dismissal as part of a cost-cutting campaign but they joined the ASU, boycotted restructuring meetings and threatened strike action with the support of 16 fellow employees.
Management has backed away from a sacking scenario which was to have involved readvertising the positions at lower pay rates but workers have taken the initiative with a five-member management committee to build community support for the housing service.
"Workers will strike if management attempts to abolish their jobs and rehire them under new titles on lower pay," ASU Northern NSW organiser, Colin Lynch, says.
"As this is a community service we're holding a public meeting next week to discuss its on-going viability and possible impacts on the 369 community homes under its care."
The PMU, battling to establish a union presence in a hostile environment, has run a six-month campaign to have superannuation contributions assessed at nine percent of total ordinary time rates rather than the 13 percent of basic earnings, decided on by the company.
Organiser Steward Edward and other PMU activists had been encouraging workers to fill in pro-forma letters urging the ATO to ensure all super contributions were paid at correct rates.
The six-month campaign culminated with a company review of its superannuation procedures that this week decided the union had been right all along. It will pay at the correct rates from July 1 and back pay for 12 months.
Union officials say the decision could earn individuals an extra $1000 a year in super and the back pay total, across Hammersley Iron plants, could amount to $1,000,000.
"Individual workers at HI have been asking management for the superannuation changes for a number of years," Edward said. "This is a significant victory for the PMU and unionism at HI as it shows how the collective efforts of workers can change management decisions where previously it could choose to ingore the concerns of individuals."
In 2002 the Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson began yet another review of tertiary education.
The results of this review will form the central domestic platform for the coalition in this years May budget.
The planned attacks on universities and TAFE are an attack on the rights of workers and their families to access the education system paid for by our taxes.
Since the election of the Howard government in 1996 the participation rates of working class students in universities have dramatically fallen. This is likely a direct result of tuition fee increases introduced by Howard since 1996. Australia now has some of the highest university fees in the world for students. A likely part of the government's agenda is deregulating university fees, allowing for further fee increases.
Evidence is already appearing that the massive study debt for students is affecting young workers life choices. Graduates are starting families and buying homes much later in life as they repay their debt to the government.
It now appears the government considering introducing university style fees and loans for TAFE students.
In 1997 the Liberals introduced a scheme to universities where students willing to pay fees of up to $150 000 up front were given access to university with a much lower mark. This scheme has functioned as a back door entry scheme for the wealthy and elite to access universities.
The government now plans to introduce a new loan scheme for these full fee paying students. The introduction of a full fee loan scheme will change this system from being a mechanism for the wealthy to jump the entrance queue to a mechanism where aspiring battlers gain access to higher education by incurring full fee costs. It is likely to create a system where will we end up with a student contribution system that in practice acts to make the poor and disadvantaged pay more than the wealthy.
The government also intends to attack the right of university staff and students to be unionised. The government's policy is likely to include an end to universal student unionism and legislation preventing university staff having the right to strike. The government is likely to also attempt to force academics on government research grants to be on AWA's. The government has a clear agenda of destroying students and staff unions so that they can continue their agenda of privatising public education.
Defending public education is about defending the rights of workers and their children. The government's reform agenda is aimed at locking average Australians out of tertiary education. Workers have a key role to play if we are going to protect young Australian who aspires to TAFE or university from what will be a lifetime of debt repayments.
The National Union of Students and the Tertiary Education Alliance are organising a public forum in Sydney City Town Hall on Thursday the eighth of May. The forum starts at 5:30pm and will include speakers from the community, unions, Greens, Democrats and ALP. This is an opportunity for workers to voice our support for public education.
Contact
Anna York NUS NSW Branch President for more information on -
Ph: 0402 025 703
Email: [email protected]
May Day Toast
Where: South Sydney Leagues Club, 256 Chalmers St, Redfern
When: 01 May 2003 - Start time: 6.30 pm
Speakers: John Robertson (Labor Council of NSW) and Amanda Perkins (AMWU Printing Division)
Cost: $20 a ticket - organise your table of 10 now (buffet/refreshments).
Music: Allstars & Urban Guerillas
Reservations: 9267-3801
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May Day International Struggle for Peace & Worker's Rights
Where: Hyde Park North
When: 04 May 2003
Start time: 12 pm
& Worker's Rights Rally & March
12 noon Hyde Park North - March to Town Hall Square
Speakers
Kerry Nettle (Greens Senator)
Doug Cameron (AMWU)
Cameron Murphy (Civil Liberties Council)
Letters to the Editor
Workers Online
What a cunning plot by that closet Maoist and refugee from the sixties , Tom Collins . A radical who has still in his posession and regards as Holy Scriptures Maos' little Red Book and Libyas, Muammar al- Qaddafys' Green Book..
His suggestion to offer refugee status to Saddam and the Ba'athist party is an obvious attempt to enlist, for the Labor Party, the wiles and loyality of Mohammed Saead al Saffah, former Iraqi Information Minister and War Spin Doctor, in a clumsy attempt to give Simon Crean and the Australian Labor Party some added credibility and obviously loyal support.
But the question remains, as always. What sort of deal will the Labor Party do to swap preferences with the tyrant and his remanants?
David Penbury
Leichhardt Street
Darlinghurst
To: Peter Hartnell
I read you letter about Robert Conquest being a 'marxist' and I must say you have a very funny idea of just what a 'marxist' is. I doubt that even trots like Leonie Bronstein would want to claim Robert Conquest as one of their own.
Ray
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Re: Peter Hartnell's letter 'Taking Stalin's Crime Seriously'
The next time you decide to copy an article ( http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/johann_hari/story.jsp?story=383871 ) and publish it elsewhere, at least have the decency to include the original author's name: passing it off as your own work is considered plagiarism in most parts of the world.
Dear Sir,
In being as objective as one possibly can, and with total disregard of any apprehensions or concerns as to integrity, transparency, Good Faith or the lack thereof, and conditional on an aggressive, hostile and openly confrontational opposition, congratulations and an acknowledgment of successful electoral manipulation cannot be denied the newly elected New South Wales government.
Sadly this government only weeks into its new term, continues to treat the electorate with contemptuous arrogance. Is this a reflection of the bourgeoisie type of appointees to ministerial positions, and one can from a cursory glance of new ministers r�sum�'s the revelations as to manifiested personal beliefs such as:
When the bourgeoisie sees power slipping from its grasp, it has recourse to Fascism to maintain itself."
While some toadies may be impressed with crumbs selectively tossed from the Ministerial Banquet table, there are others who are either sublimely ignorant or prepared to risk the effects of the Peter Principle, where in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence.
This principle is based on the premise that new members typically start in the lower ranks, and when or if they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the member reaches a position where he or she is incompetent. It is then that the process stops, since the established rules of bureaucracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted a lower position. The result is that the majority of the higher levels of a bureaucracy / government will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing different and usually easier tasks than the one they are expected to do.
It is in all probability the immutable actions of this principle in relation to the ALP structure that created a vacuum into which Cheryl Kernot fell into and was then unfortunately lost to Australian politics forever.
One ponders, who recently elevated to the first front bench of the 53rd parliament will be first to fall before the inevitable application of the Peter Principle.
Although I disagree, it has been suggested that the planned privatization of the Electricity industry will create a pit in which the Minister for Energy, will unfortunately fall.
The experience of the current Minister in Union management, particularly the main union player in the New South Wales power industry, and his excellent professional relationship with the CEO of Energex Queensland., and a past General Manager of Sydney City Council, an executive with an extremely forceful management style which was manifestly appreciated by the Unions involved in the implementation of Competitive Tendering during his tenure at Sydney City Council.
While the Privatization of New South Wales power industry does not necessarily mean a takeover by Energex , sadly it will mean job losses , and put quite succinctly many years ago by Issac Torrans Union Convener at Short and Harland "While the invisible hand looks after the private sector, the invisible foot kicks the public sector to pieces "
Was the John the Baptist style , 100day protest outside the New South Wales Parliament by the Gosford Foghorn, Edward James from Umina on the issue of "Liability Shedding" being a precursor to this proposed fire sale of a public asset, was this why some cowardly members from this house of ill-repute made complaint to the New South Wales police in an attempt to silence Mr James , through what he claims was an improper and inappropriate use of the Protection of the Environment Act 93 section 276 Noise Abatement Directive, for 28 days , In an attempt to silence his accusations and allegations.
Mr. James depending on family health concerns taking up his position outside parliament during parliamentary sittings in 2003 , and some encouragement from union members concerned about dictatorships and over legislation verging on repression by a tier of government that should be condemned to the dustbin of history.
As for the New South Wales parliament library most popular books,Goethe was the author of the classic "Faustus", which must be a well, read book along with Nicolo Machiavelli's' The Prince.
Goethe (1749-1832) - "Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers!"
Mr. James has a rather in your face Web Site with his views at:
http://gosfordcouncil.tripod.com
Tom Collins
P.O.Box304
As Australians and New Zealanders prepare to honour our servicemen and women, we should join the dots on our Prime Minister's political heritage while he struts the Anzac podium.
We should remember that our current ruling party was formed in 1944 by bunyip aristocrats looking forward to the fruits if an Axis defeat.
But it was led by a craven, fawning creature who had openly admired and supported Hitler's "peacetime" decade of persecuting Jews, trade unions and the left. The postwar "Liberal" government courted Nazi murderers like Konrad Kalejs, the Ustashi and others as migrants. It was very matey with the pro-Nazi racist elements of South Africa's ruling Nationalist Party. It feted Vietnamese satrap Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, also an open admirer of Hitler and Nazism.
Now Liberals are in bed with the Bush family, whose grubby banker forebears were done by President Roosevelt for wartime trading with the enemy, and who, with the Nazi billionaire Thyssen, spent the 1920s and the 1930s financing Hilter's Brownshirts while working relentlessly to subvert the League of Nations.
All this is acceptable to many Australians, obviously, but is it good enough for the 1939-45 generation? And it must sicken our Kiwi brothers and sisters.
Peter Woodforde
Peter,
Once again a very well voiced editorial. I didn't get a chance to walk on the 26th Feb but my family went to Sydney to walk. We will be walking again to-morrow.
Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Mike Dickson
With John Howard's self-appointed date to consider his political future fast approaching, the federal ALP should be applying maximum political pressure on him to end his dismal and dangerous rule.
Instead, it is as though they were begging him to stay on, secure in the knowledge that the hardline conservative agenda that he spent so long hiding, can finally flower in the broad daylight.
Howard has already succeeded in killing off the Republic, halting the drive towards Reconciliation and removing our regional interests from Asia to create a US-sponsored Fortress Australia.
Domestically he has introduced the GST,launched the most concerted attack on organised labour ever witnessed, rivalled only by his assault on welfare recipients.
He now turns his attention to the remaining two legacies of the Whitlam and Hawke-Keating Governments: universal health care and access to higher education.
With Medicare, Howard's oft-quoted ambition to gut Medicare is within his grasp; by lifting restrictions on the fees GPs can charge so that only the Medicare rebate is a universal right, Howard will have killed universal health care by stealth.
What this means for workers is almost inevitably a US-style system where there are two tiers of labour market, those with access to health care as part of their salary package and those who are forced to rely on a substandard public health system.
Of course, those with access to private health care will be those with access to higher education - the other target in the Howard cross-hairs.
The threefold agenda of full tertiary fees, research funding tied to a radical IR agenda and voluntary student unionism, combine to create a user-pay system where the wealthy can buy their way into degrees and knowledge becomes a line item on the balance sheet.
Both agendas will be a focus of the upcoming Federal Budget session and will become political issues when enabling legislation hist the Senate.
Community alliances are already building around both issues, but the big questions remains whether they will find an effective political advocate who will not only oppose the Howard agenda but propose their own ideas.
Having just witnessed a state election where health and education - as personified by nurses and teachers - were the dominant issues, it's hard to see how Howard can be in anyway comfortable
That he is, is partly due to the War on Iraq, but also the failure of Labor's federal leadership to stake out its territory beyond that of defender of the status quo who will wait for the political tides to change to surf back into office.
At the end of the day, the federal ALP leadership should be a question of who has the grunt - intellectually, politically and popularly - to translate these issues into electoral capital and force Howard to retreat into retirement.
It's more than a battle for the next term of government, it's a fight for the gains that previous Labor Governments made for ordinary Australians - those same Australians who no longer see the ALP as their party.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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