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Issue No. 195 12 September 2003  
E D I T O R I A L

Coalition of the Swilling
As the world stopped to mark the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks and its horrendous human toll, attempts at writing new rules for global trade were hitting their own immovable object

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Crowded Lives
Labor frontbencher Lindsay Tanner talks us through his new book on the importance of relationships and why politics is letting the people down.

Activists: Life With Brian
Work by men like Brian Fitzpatrick is exposing new Australians to old truths. Jim Marr reports

Industrial: National Focus
A showdown looms in Cancun, Qantas gets bolshie, casual and lazy in its response to aviation challenges, and long festering disputes fester on in Victoria and Tasmania reports Noel Hester in this national wrap.

Unions: If These Walls Could Talk
Trades Hall is preparing for a major facelift but first, Jim Marr reports, it must bid farewell to the colourful bunch who have populated its dusty corridors in recent years.

Economics: Beating the Bastards
Frank Stilwell looks at some of the proposals for building a fairer finance sector.

Media: Three Corners
So its come to this. Four Corners, one of the world's longest running television programs is now under pressure from an ABC Executive that is less cultural visionary than feral abacus.

History: The Brisbane Line
Percy Spender was Menzies' foreign minister, but, Neale Towart asks, was he also prepared to serve as Prime Minister in a Japanese controlled Australia?

Trade: The Dumping Problem
Oxfam-CAA helps set the scene for this month's World Trade Organisation in Cancun.

Review: Frankie's Way
In The Night We Called It A Day Frank Sinatra learns 'sorry' Down Under is a loaded word and refusal to say it when due will lose fans in important places, writes Tara de Boehmler.

N E W S

 Teachers Attack National Stitch-Up

 Safety Off The Rails

 Lion King Delivers for Kids

 Five Grand Extra for Unionists

 Telstra Gets Curry for Take Aways

 WTO Trips on Cancun Hurdle

 Workers Kicking Goals

 Dial NRMA for Stuff-Up

 This Is Your Operator Freaking

 Millionaire Takes Candy from Carers

 Working Women Get New Voice

 Community Burns Rubber Giant

 Grass Roots Campaign Beats Bush

 Unions-Council Strike �Clean Hands� Partnership

 Call For Campaign To Save Bush Trains

 Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Staking Our Territory
ACTU secretary Greg Combet argued for a fairer Australia in his keynote address to last month's ACTU Congress.

The Locker Room
Seasonally Agisted
Spring is a season when a person�s thoughts turn to�horse racing. Phil Doyle reports on the fate of nags and folk heroes.

Housing
Beyond the Block
We are wild about the people who live in The Block but not too interested in those who are on the streets outside, writes Michael Rafferty.

Politics
The Westie Wing
Workers friend Ian West MLC, reports form the Bearpit about a project to raise awareness about trade unionism amongst young people.

Postcard
The Awkward Squad
Paul Smith meets one of the new generation of British union leaders who is taking the ball up to the Blair spin team.

L E T T E R S
 Life Wasn�t Meant To Be Frankie
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Everybody's getting ready for the Union Aid Abroad

APHEDA Spring Feast

Wednesday October 1

6.30 for 7pm

Marigold Restaurant 5th Floor , 683 George Street Sydney

$50 each or $450 per table of ten

For bookings please contact Sally on 02 9264 9343 [email protected]

Debbie Spillane is MC and there will be live music, raffles with fabulous prizes, a seven-course banquet, an auction, wine, lucky door prizes, games & free parking!

The night will be a testimonial dinner for Tas Bull with proceeds to the Cuban Children's Fund and Union Aid Abroad APHEDA

Friends of the ABC

Concert and Picnic in the Park to support the ABC

Sunday 14 Sept

12.00 noon

The Domain - Crescent Precinct

(on the southern side of the Art Gallery)

Meet ABC personalities, film and TV performers & enjoy school chairs and performers; leading Acapella singers, and picnic on the lawn

It's also a CALL TO ACTION!

Once again the ABC is under siege, the target of a hostile Federal Government.

The ABC is obliged to shed programs. The Government's impact costs the community Behind the News and erodes the ABC's educational stream of programs; youth and children bear the brunt of the cuts; current affairs programs are trimmed; other programs suffer or disappear ... and the Minister, Senator Alston, is at war with the corporation.

IT'S TIME TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD

JOIN THE RALLY AND THE DAY

Sponsored also by -

Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Public Schools Principals Forum, NSW Teachers' Federation, Federation of P&C Associations and NSW Primary

Principals Association

FABC NSW Web site http://www.fabcnsw.org.au

From A Just Australia

Former Australian cricket captain Ian Chappell's activism on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers was triggered by his anger over the Tampa crisis in August 2001. Ian's involvement with A Just Australia and the refugee cause was the subject of a recent episode of Australian Story broadcast on July 14th.

Following on from this television program Ian Chappell will be joined by award winning author Hanifa Deen, and Howard Glenn, National Director of A Just Australia at a public meeting to be held on the 18th September at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta. This forum will provide the opportunity for members of the public to meet and discuss with Ian and the other speakers the issues arising from current policies towards refugees and asylum seekers.

Please join us and bring along your friends and family for a stimulating evening of discussion and entertainment. The evening is free, but we will be seeking a donation and explaining how to support our work on a long-term basis.

The details of the evening are as follows:

18th September 2003, 7.30-9.00pm Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, cnr Church and Market St.

Speakers:

Ian Chappell

Hanifa Deen

Howard Glenn

and special guests

If you require any further information contact mail@justrefugeeprograms or 02 9310 3900.

FAIR TRADE TO A PEACEFUL WORLD How the WTO undermines peace

A public meeting making the connection between unjust trade and war

Saturday, 13th September, 2003

Pitt St Uniting Church, 264 Pitt St, Sydney

Chaired by Elizabeth Evatt AC

Speakers: Father Brian Gore, Jubilee - Developing country debt and unfair trade: a peace issue

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union - Workers, trade and peace

Rev, Dr Ann Wansbrough, Uniting Care - Trade in services and peace

Cr Gillian Deakin, Medical Association for the Prevention of War - Peace means fair access to medicines

Then 1.00pm assemble on Town Hall steps for a short public statement.

Admission by donation

For more information contact Louise Southalan at AFTINET on (02)9299 7833 or email: [email protected]

FIESTA FOR FREEDOM

Saturday 13th September. Rally at 2.00pm, Town Hall steps, Sydney. Bring pots and pans, puppets, banners and costumes for Mexican "Day of the Dead' inspired march

FUNDRAISER FOR IRAQ

Home Bar Cockle Bay is holding a fundraising event for Iraq. Money raised will be used for continuing relief operations as well as providing clean water, sanitation and food to Iraqi people in need.,

Where: Home Bar, Cockle Bay (right next to Imax Theatre)

When: Sunday 7th September, 2003

Time: 7.00pm til late

Donation at the door.

NEW Melbourne On Screen

A celebration of Melbourne writers, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Australian Writers' Guild.

September 15 - 19 Australian Centre for the Moving Image Federation Square

Remember when Grace Sullivan was killed? When Scott and Charlene walked down the aisle? When Mrs H was sacked from Channel 12? When Lizzie died in the Wentworth Detention Centre? When Tommy Carson was shot dead?

Homicide, Stingers, The Games, Fast Forward, The Sullivans, Halifax fp, And The Big Men Fly, Phoenix, The Box, The Secret Life Of Us, Moving Out, Death In Brunswick, Spotswood, Prisoner, Music Jamboree and Kath and Kim.

These are just a few of the productions that were born in Melbourne. It's a retrospective look at the enormous impact Melbourne writers have had on the industry, a trip down memory lane, looking at the productions that were conceived and produced in Melbourne.

The event includes FREE public screenings of classic Melbourne film and television productions in the form of:

Lunchtime Screenings - Daytime TV for Melbourne Workers.

Each session will be feature a discussion with the program's writer.

After Work - Acclaimed Melbourne Writers (Everett de Roche and Jan Sardi) and their work under the spotlight.

September 15 - 19 Australian Centre for the Moving Image Federation Square

Daytime TV 12 - 2pm Monday to Friday

After Work 7 - 10pm Monday and Wednesday

Free admission. Information and session details: 03 8663 2200 www.acmi .

breakfast briefing - fixed term contracts or ongoing employment? choices and pitfalls

Presented by ACIRRT, University of Sydney and law firm Cutler Hughes & Harris

These briefings aim to give participants a focussed and detailed analysis of latest trends combined with an assessment of the current legal issues relating to topics.

Date: Thursday 2 October 2003

Time: 8.30 - 11.00am

Venue: Quality Hotel SC Sydney (formerly the Southern Cross Hotel), cnr Castlereagh & Goulburn Streets, Sydney

Cost: $155 inc gst, continental breakfast and notes

Alternatives to the traditional model of the permanent or ongoing employee have become increasingly popular over recent years. Casual employment has been growing, but so has the use of fixed-term contracts. However, the number of fixed-term employees in Australia remains relatively low by some international standards. This situation may change dramatically if proposed limitations on casual employment proceed. This briefing is designed to explore issues including:

What will happen if restrictions on casual employment are introduced?

What are the pros and cons of various forms of employment, permanent, casual and fixed term?

What are the key legal issues with fixed term contracts?

What do workers think?

Why is the fixed term contract model of employment most popular and why?

What are the legal remedies for employees dismissed during the course of a fixed term contract?

Cross Media Laws

Is a Free Press under threat? Packer and Murdoch a threat to democracy? Does The ABC have a future?

All these questions will be discussed on Sunday the 21st of September at 2pm at the Tudor Hotel Redfern St. Redfern

The panel will be Margo Kingston Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Manning former head of ABC news and current affairs and channel 7 witness program now an adjunct professor of media studies at UTS. A spokesperson from friends of the ABC has been approached.

South Sydney speaks - A series of community forum on issues of

importance

Sunday the 19th of October

Tudor Hotel Redfern St Redfern at 2pm

Ethics values and integrity and principals 3 areas in public life that some say have very little are Politics, Business community and the Church community

3 guest speakers

Bill Moss - Macquarie Bank

President of the nsw upper house Meridith Burgman

And the Rev Bill Crews Uniting Church

Chair Alex Mitchell Sun Herald Journalist

Australia's Pacific Solution

In conjunction with ChilOut, the NSW Nurses' Association is proud to host a free screening of this important documentary.

What drove well-known Melbourne artist, Kate Durham, to Nauru in June 2002 in the company of an English journalist and an illicit video camera? Find out on Wednesday 1st October, when the NSW Nurses' Association hosts a free screening of the end product, the (never screened on Australian TV) BBC documentary, "Australia's Pacific Solution." At 43 Australia Street, Camperdown

Kate, the founder of Spare Rooms for Refugees, will give an address on the conditions in which she found asylum seekers detained on Nauru. 1,228 asylum seekers were originally ensconced there, many transferred after the infamous Tampa episode 2 years ago. Now their numbers are down to 400. They include 5 unaccompanied minors, and 9 women and 14 children whose husbands or fathers are living in Australia on Temporary Protection Visas. These women and children have to prove their own case for asylum. They are not automatically allowed to be reunited with their menfolk. Instead, they are languishing at a cost of millions of our taxpayers dollars in camps on Nauru where conditions are hard and mental health problems rife.

Kate, together with her well-known barrister and human rights advocate, Julian Burnside, will field questions before the 45-minute film is screened.

This event is being hosted in conjunction with ChilOut, Children Out of Detention, a mums and dads and caring citizens' group which has been campaigning for the release of Children -and their families - from immigration detention. ChilOut came into being in August two years ago after the screening of a 4 Corners Program on the psychological breakdown of 6-year-old, Shayan Badrai, then detained in Villawood. They are aghast that two years later children, including ones with mental and physical disabilities, are still treated in this way.


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