*****
No one on their death bed ever wished they'd spent more time at work.
This is a fact that's obviously escaped the feral abacus, Silvertail Pete Costello, as he continues his life's dream of beating up on working people.
"There's going to be no such thing as full-time retirement," says the man who wants to turn the country into a workhouse. He also has his sights set on bludgeoning cripples back into low paid, insecure and menial casual work.
All this while he can't find enough jobs for the current workforce.
Costello can mouth platitudes about maintaining skilled people in the workforce till the cows come home, but the reality is he stands around picking his nose while qualified doctors drive cabs because of his government's dopey immigration policies.
For a government that's supposedly about choice, a policy of forcing people to work to their death seems like an act of sheer bastardry.
Costello claims retirees suffer boredom. Well, there's plenty of people out there slaving away for 50 plus hours a week who'd love to be bored.
And all of this is aimed at propping up the leeching bludgers from the non-industry superannuation sector. They, of course, don't have to worry about retirement, as they've never done an honest days work in their lives to start with.
Retirement is obviously not an issue for Silvertail Pete given that the biggest taxing treasurer in the country's history has his snout well and truly in the public trough. He's already allowed to cash in his extravagant haul and keep working, while the rest of us watch our cash get pissed up against the wall by the big end of town; leaving us the price of a loaf of bread by the time we're 55.
This crazed baby-boomer is no 'liberal'. He would gladly lock up anyone in this country who didn't say 'Yes sir! No sir! Three bags full of sh*t sir!' to another human being; not because that human being is better than them, but because they pay their wages. This is a man who cares about working people like others care about dog faeces on their lawn. In Silvertail Pete's world there's one law for the rich and another law for you.
When a majority of workers at the Dollar Sweets factory in Melbourne took industrial action against a company that was found to be in breach of the food industry cleanliness regulations, the Smirkin' Merkin' gleefully went into bat as lawyer for a boss prepared to shell out $70,000 for armed security guards against his own employees, but couldn't afford a piddling pay rise.
This is a man who described industrial action by Australian working families as a form of rape.
His pathetic ambitions are naked. The only person who he won't be hoping hangs onto his job is his boss. After ten years Costello desperately wants to move onto kissing more famous butts, like George Bush's, for example. Luckily the Australian people will have something to say about that.
If Silvertail Pete wants to work for the rest of his days good luck to him. Let him go into the tool shed and work away in there until he drops dead.
NSW Premier Bob Carr bowed to vigorous union campaigning when he announced former federal court judge, David Jackson QC, would head an inquiry to be armed with Royal Commission powers into circumstances surrounding the failure of trusts established by James Hardie to inherit asbestos-related liabilities.
Those mechanisms have been lashed by AMWU secretary Paul Bastian as a "sham", designed to deny compensation to thousands of dying workers and their families.
The controversy goes back to 2001 when a complex reshuffle saw the building materials giant set up, and fund to the tune of $293 million, something it called the Medical Research & Compensation Foundation. That body was to bankroll separate funds, AMABA and AMACA, to which James Hardie transferred liabilities to many of the 40,000 Australians expected to by killed by asbestosis or mesothelioma by 2020.
Shortly afterwards, the parent company completed its reorganisation by relocating, for legal purposes, to the Netherlands.
Bastian called the reshuffle an "act of corporate bastardry", and immediately called on State Government to set up an inquiry.
"First, they tried to sanitise the name of James Hardie from a product responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of workers and, second, they set out to quarantine themselves from any further litigation," he argued.
"We are not going to tolerate that. We will always hold them accountable."
The AMWU said the company knew the effects of asbestos and profited by tens of millions of dollars from continuing production.
NSW Labor Council, the AMWU, MUA, ETU and CFMEU became key players in a campaign to "unmask" what they claimed were the "real" reasons behind the reshuffle. They wrote to James Hardie Industries and politicians, organised rallies and pickets.
Late last year dozens of sufferers of asbestos related illnesses confronted shareholders outside a meeting in Sydney. They had tracked the rescheduled venue after James Hardie switched location from the plush, inner-city hotel it had originally advertised.
The company denied evading its responsibilities. It argued its Medical Research & Compensation Foundation would "manage James Hardie's asbestos liabilities and related litigation, compensate sufferers of asbestos related diseases and fund medical research to find treatments for these diseases".
The issue resurfaced last year when AMWU and MUA officials blew the whistle on lobbying efforts by insurance giant ALLIANZ to move compensation responsibilities to the public purse.
Not long after, it was revealed that the fund established by James Hardie faced an $800 million shortfall and that the parent company had refused to guarantee future liabilities.
James Hardie says its products are responsible for only 15 percent of asbestos claims in Australia but media analysts estimate the total bill, even on today's values, will top $6 billion.
Bastian confirmed this week his union would prepare a submission to the Jackson Inquiry and work closely with both the MUA and Asbestos Diseases Federation of Australia to ensure affected workers are heard.
Wonderland boss, Steven Galbraithe, whose car boasts the personalised plate CEO 1, has rejected any form of severance payment for 200 predominantly young western Sydney employees who kept the amusement park ticking over.
Galbraithe, accused of "rorting the system" by the LHMU, has been caught out in a number of discrepancies since regaling the public with a tale of woe, worthy of the park's Disneyland theme.
Initially Galbraithe blamed a string of outside factors, including SARS, Avian bird flu, terrorism and the Ansett failure, for his company's decision to close Sydney's last remaining amusement park from April 26.
He categorically denied to staff, and the public, that the land had been sold.
Some doubt was thrown on all these claims when State Minister for Western Sydney, Diane Beamer, revealed International Theme Park Prop Ltd had, in fact, sold the Wonderland site to ING's real estate arm which planned to develop it as another industrial park.
Wonderland has capped payouts for around 40 permanent employees at a maximum of eight weeks.
Galbraithe's attitude to the plight of employees has been described as "ordinary" by the LHMU's assistant secretary Mark Boyd.
"They list the vast majority of their staff as casual but they are not casual in most people's understanding of the term and they are probably not casual in law either," Boyd says.
"They are using casualisation to deny 200 western Sydney workers any redundancy or severance payments. But these people work regular shifts, with a regular expectation of work, and set rosters. Many of them have been with Wonderland for years.
"Now that we've dismissed Avian Bird Flu and SARS from the equation, it's obvious this company has a $52.5 million pot of gold it is not prepared to share with its workforce.
"It is another example of employers rorting the system by hiding behind casualisation."
Workers at the park were angered when police were called to a stop work meeting in the car park last week.
Boyd claims Wonderland is still searching employee's bags on entering and leaving the site, despite giving the IRC an assurance the practice would cease.
ALP front bencher Wayne Swan told NSW Labor Council Costello�s rhetoric about choice for older Australians was the flip side of a commitment to force hundreds of thousands of disability pensioners back into the workforce.
"The people he is hunting for on disability pensions are nurses with bad backs and men who have been out there physically labouring - people whose bodies have worn out," Swan said.
"What he has said to those people is that this country does not value your contribution, irrespective of how hard you worked to make this economy strong."
Swan was referring to Costello's identification of 2.7 million "passive non-contributors to our society of whom only one sixth were active".
He said the five sixths Costello had targeted for re-entry to the workforce or enforced reporting, on pain of losing their benefits included 400,000 widows, mature age and disabled people, and 300,000 parents receiving income support payments to raise their children.
"When he can go out and take the axe to people on benefits because of disabilities or acquired disabilities everyone in this room should be very, very afraid," Swan said.
He said the Costello statement came in two parts and the second outlined the Howard Government's vision for two Australia's.
"The first said people of retirement age could continue to work and withdraw their Super if they wanted to. Well, who could disagree with that?" Swan asked.
"But the second which he had the hide to camouflage under that reasonable proposition was abhorrent.
"The one thing you could say about the package was that it was pretty good for those at the top end of town, for those in white collar occupations. But I will tell you what, it will hurt anyone who has spent a lifetime working in a low paid job, or anyone who wears a pink or blue collar."
Swan pledged the ALP to rejecting Costello's blueprint and developing, instead, fair policies on work, family and ageing.
He urged trade unionists to mobilise their "grassroots networks" in key NSW federal seats to ensure a change of Government at this year's Federal election.
The initiative is part of the union�s "Jobs Not Batons" strategy to support families in the troubled suburbs.
"Redfern's problems won't be solved by batons and tear gas," CFMEU secretary Andrew Ferguson said. "Greater efforts need to be made to assist unemployed Aboriginal youth to develop skills that give them real job prospects.
"The violence and drug and alcohol problems we read so much about are a response to feelings of despair.
The 2004 course follows the successful 2003 Indigenous Job Ready program initiated by the union and fronted by senior Aboriginal official, Les Tobler.
Tobler said every graduate who stayed the distance last year had been placed in a decent, well-paying construction industry job. Some were labouring on city building sites and a number had begun carpentry apprenticeships.
"One-way or another every successful student from the March-April course who wants a job and is willing to work will be placed in employment," Tobler said.
NSW Labor Council and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), meanwhile, are seeking to turn around University of Western Sydney policies that have led to a drastic cut in Aboriginal involvement.
Labor Council secretary, John Robertson, wants UWS vice-chancellor, Jan Reed, to consider representations from himself and NTEU representatives before acting on a decision to shut the university's Aboriginal Educational Centre.
The recently announced closure heightens the fears of Indigenous academics that say their culture, and opportunities for their people, are being steadily eroded at the institution.
A meeting of UWS Indigenous staff, last week, expressed "anger" that the number of Aboriginal employees had plummeted from 30 to just 13 in the past four years.
The problem is that both days fall on weekends this year, meaning workers would miss the holiday loading because they were not rostered to work on those days.
In previous years when this has occurred both the Carr and Greiner Governments agreed to grant workers the public holiday on Monday of the next week, meaning the Christmas cheers extends to the pay packet.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says he'll approach Della Bosca and make the case and was confident he would stand by the precedent set previously.
Meanwhile, a stoush is brewing over Carr Government plans to remove staff, student and parliamentary representation on university governing councils.
The National Tertiary Education Union has raised concerns that the legislation, being sponsored by Education minister Andrew Refshauge would strip staff input into the tertiary institution's governing bodies.
NTEU state secretary Mike Donaldson says staff representation of boards is a union movement objective and one that has helped universities stay on track in recent years.
The ground-breaking report by the ILO�s World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation 'A Fair Globalisation� brings together the views of unions, employers and governments to warn the benefits of economic change are unevenly spread.
The World Commission report calls for better conditions for workers in Export Processing Zones, which employ in excess of 50 million workers worldwide, in countries as varied as the Dominican Republic and the Philippines - and on Australia's doorsteps in Fiji and Indonesia.
These are often a hotbed of anti-union activity, where fundamental trade union rights are denied to workers, most of whom are women, as the zones are often beyond the reach of national labour laws which may themselves be weak.
"It is high time that the international community supported us in our struggle for decent work in EPZs," International Council of free Trade Unions general secretary Guy Ryder says.
"We need to halt the "race to the bottom" that all too often dictates working life in EPZs where competition is based on poor labour standards and daily violations of fundamental rights"
The World Commission report underlines the essential role of collective bargaining in promoting productivity, ensuring equality and giving workers a voice at the workplace.
The report targets the responsibilities of the international institutions, like the ILO, and stresses the role they must play in ensuring that fair labour standards are not undermined.
"All organisations in the multilateral system need to deal with international economic and labour policies in a more integrated and consistent way as a foundation for economic development and social justice," Ryder says.
"This of course needs to be backed by an ILO which is equipped fully with the authority it needs to bring about respect for core labour standards. But the significance of this report is that it offers all of us the chance to make a new start on globalisation".
Read the report at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/wcsdg/index.htm
The Botany-based IT support staff will take direct action if Equant, a subsidiary of French Telecom, fails to meet three key demands, including entering good faith EBA negotiations with the ASU.
The other requirements voted up by 25 of the 27 staff rostered for work last Friday afternoon were ...
- lifting its16 week cap on redundancy payments
- providing workers with technical retraining
Equant Sydney will cut 20 of the 150 jobs the company is relocating to Egypt, internationally. Analysts say that skilled Egyptian IT professionals earn the equivalent of about $1US400 a month.
The main job of Botany call centre workers is providing technical information to airlines.
"We have been trying to negotiate an enterprise agreement for 18 months but Equant has just refused," ASU organiser, Gabi Wynhausen told Workers Online.
"We are not opposed to Egyptian workers but we are opposed to losing our jobs, fullstop. Given their decision we want them to remove the cap on redundancy and to provide technical training to improve our members chances of getting other work."
So far Equant has agreed to buy five technical manuals amongst the 70 call centre operators from whom it will cull the jobs going to Cairo.
The company is also refusing to include overseas toward severance calculations.
"They say - we are global, we are global," Wynhausen said. "Well, what about showing some consistency and recognising global service?"
The Equant offshoring comes only months after Telstra, or contractors to Telstra, announced they would sell more than 600 Australian tech jobs to low-cost overseas providers, and gave notice that more than 1000 others were on the block.
Unions NSW projects officer, Amanda Tattersall, described initial responses at UTS and the University of NSW as "highly encouraging". The orientation week project will expand to Sydney University, and the Penrith and Parramatta campuses of the University of Western Sydney, next week.
Tattersall and activists from a dozen affiliated unions are approaching students with questionnaires that seek responses about paid employment, work problems and attitudes to trade unions.
The object of the exercise, she said, was to establish a network of campus organisations that will highlight and organise around issues facing young workers.
"The idea is that students will drive the clubs and the unions will help them organise forums, barbecues and other events," Tattersall said. "We hope to have an ongoing union presence, not one limited to a few orientation week stalls."
She called the survey response "overwhelming" and said there was a clear indication emerging that young workers were uncertain about their rights and, in many cases, did not know about the existence of unions in their industries.
A year after the accident the widow, Karen Boland, and her three children, Kate, Tara and Jordan, were on hand for the unveiling of a memorial at the Michael Boland Bridge, just off Sydney's Princes Highway.
"The bridge naming in memory of Michael is welcomed but the best thing the state government can do to show respect for workers killed is to pass industrial manslaughter laws," says Karen Boland.
Other family members, friends and union delegates attended the ceremony to unveil the memorial plaque and name the bridge.
"This was not the first fatality on a State Rail project," said Construction Forestry and Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) secretary Andrew Ferguson. "The CFMEU is demanding that the state government and all its departments establish better systems to monitor safety on their projects."
A NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Serious Injury and Death in the Workplace has received thousands of petitions also calling for industrial manslaughter laws.
The petition was coordinated by Kim Williams a teenage friend of Joel Exner, who was killed on a building site in Sydney's west in October last year.
"Like negligent car drivers who drink drive and kill, employers who cut corners for profits and kill must be held accountable," says Williams.
Public In Danger
The recent collapse of tonnes of pebbles from a synthetic bag at a suburban building site in St Leonards has led to the CFMEU moving to protect the safety of construction workers and members of the public.
"We were fortunate no one was killed," says CFMEU Secretary Andrew Ferguson. "If this is not addressed we face the prospect of workers and members of the public being killed or seriously injured."
The CFMEU intends to eliminate the threat by demanding changes to the way materials are handled. If builders do not cooperate the union has recommended that workers should "sit in the sheds until this safety problem is fixed".
The national survey, conducted by Dr Marian Baird from the University of Sydney School of Business, finds men more likely to work where there is paid maternity leave but women still missing out with 57% of Australia'n workplaces offering no maternity benefits.
The report finds that low paid mothers, many employed in casual or part-time jobs, are the least likely to have access to paid maternity leave.
"This [study] suggests that large numbers of low and middle income parents simply can't afford to take unpaid leave," says ACTU president Sharan Burrow. "In the absence of better financial support from Government and employers they are choosing to either use up entitlements to paid annual leave and long service leave, or resign their jobs."
"The research casts serious doubt on the capacity of current workplace arrangements and leave provisions to allow parents and especially fathers to spend adequate time at home with their children."
The findings come as the ACTU launches a test case on work and family before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, with hearings due later this year.
The ACTU has renewed its push for more family-friendly workplaces pushing a national paid maternity leave scheme that provides all mothers with 14 weeks pay at the minimum wage.
The peak union body is also seeking to extend leave to mothers employed as casuals.
"Currently two out of every five working mothers who are employed casually do not have access to leave even when their child is sick," says Burrow.
Staff at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) will strike on March 1 in support of enterprise bargaining claims. This follows a stop work last week by University of Western Sydney (UWS) staff and more action flagged by NSW TAFE teachers.
UWS staff have rejected the University's pay offer, stance on parental leave and outsourcing. They are also protesting the failure of management to give a commitment continue an Indigenous centre.
"Staff are angry at management's offer, which will erode the retention of quality staff and undermine its supposed commitment to equity for staff and students," says Robyn Moroney, President of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) UWS Branch.
TAFE Teachers across the state will strike on March 10 in an effort to get the NSW Government to reduce TAFE fees and reverse the cuts to TAFE's budget inflicted over the last two years.
Terrorist Teachers?
Meanwhile teachers in the US have been outraged by comments from Bush's Secretary for Education labelling the teacher's union, the National Education Association, a "terrorist organisation".
"This is the kind of rhetoric we have come to expect from this administration whenever one challenges its worldview,' an NEA spokesperson responded.
The Health Services Union has slammed the plan for a Private Public Partnership to work on the Mater, after learning that staff in the new facility will be denied public sector employment conditions.
HSU state secretary Michael Williamson says the plans amount to privatisation by stealth and is an insult to the Newcastle community that raised millions for their hospital last year.
"There is no rational argument for this - it is just a view taken by Treasury that public investment in health is a waste of money," he says.
Williamson has called for an urgent meeting of the State Labour Advisory Council to deal with the mater issue.
Conference Resolutions Gather Dust
Also on the agenda, will be the swathe of resolutions passed at last October's ALP State Conference which are yet to be acted upon.
Top of the list is government procurement, with an Easter deadline for the establishment of a working party to ensure that NSW workers are not undercut by products made by exploited labour when the government awards contracts.
Also on the books are support for industrial manslaughter and government endorsement of the union movement's Secure Employment Test Case.
"ALP policy must be taken seriously," Labor Council secretary John Robertson says, vowing to convene a SLAC meeting to clear the air.
Officers from the Borallon Correctional Centre have been offered a 1.9% pay rise and asked to give up sick leave by MTC who operate one of two private prisons in Queensland.
"Each week we've increased the length, and intensity, of the walkout," says Ron Simon from the LHMU Prison Officers Union. "Members want to negotiate a decent agreement. We should not be constantly asked to give back basic working rights such as sick leave."
Union members are concerned about MTC demands to slash sick leave entitlements and its inadequate wage offers. MTC claims that the Queensland State Government funding to run the prison will not cover wage increases.
Stoppages mean the prisoners will have trouble getting both breakfast and lunch, and some essential morning supplies will not be delivered.
MTC is also currently trying to undermine the working conditions at its only other unionised facility in Canada where correctional officers voted to reject the multinational's latest contract offer by over 95 per cent.
"Prison officers here have resolved to back the Ontario, Canada, workers,' says Simon.
RALLY TO CELEBRATE THE SAHARAWI NATIONAL DAY
Australia Western Sahara Association
To call on UN to organise the promised referendum for self-determination in Western Sahara.
Senator Kerry Nettle will addrress the rally.
WHERE: UN Information Centre, 46-48 York Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
WHEN: Friday 27th. February, at: 12.30-13.30
On 27 February 1976 the Saharawi Republic was proclaimed, while their war of national liberation was taking place. By celebrating this day we are supporting the Saharawi struggle for self-determination and an end to Moroccan occupation of their country, Western Sahara.
13 years have passed since the UN should have organised a referendum in Western Sahara to give its people a chance to decide their own future and exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.
The Saharawis have waited too long and have been very patient and helpful to the UN efforts to organise the promised referendum while the Moroccans have got away with obstructions and delaying tactics.
We want to express to the UN and the Australian government that 29 years of exile and suffering are enough. It is high time the UN assumed its responsibility and implemented its own resolutions and the Peace Plan for Western Sahara.
More delays mean more suffering for the Saharawi people.
ORGANISE THE REFERENDUM NOW, FREE WESTERN SAHARA
For more information please contact:
Lesley Osborne, AWSA Secretary: 02. 9810 5372
Gareth Johnston: Mobile: 0433108391
Adelaide International Workplace Conflict Conference - 21-23 April 2004
Holiday Inn on Hindley (formerly the Novotel Adelaide), Hindley Street.
The workplace mirrors the world - dealing with conflict at work
Conflict is a characteristic feature of most workplaces and has many manifestations. Its impacts can be positive or negative. The conference will look at the sources of workplace conflict and its management. It will be of interest to human resource practitioners, advocates, legal practitioners, health professionals, conflict resolution professionals, educators, OHS&W practitioners and representatives, workplace change consultants, unions, employers, government agencies, academics and policy makers.
Keynote Speakers
Dale Bagshaw, University of South Australia, Australia.
Richard Bonneau, Los Angeles Police Department, US.
Pat Ferris, Organisational Consultant, Canada.
Eric Lee, LabourStart, UK.
Patricia Mannix McNamara, University of Limerick, Ireland
Mark Thomson, Author, Australia.
Dieter Zapf, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
Conference Themes
Privacy & Confidentiality - "Email is Forever"
Workplace Cultures & Managerial Fundamentalism
Workplace Grievance & Dispute Procedures
Training for Managing Conflict
Conference Registration Information:
Registration fee: $545
More information, including registration forms, can be found at the conference web site:
E v e n t S t r a t e g i e s P t y , P O B o x 4 8 6 , U N L E Y , S O U T H A U S T R A L I A 5 0 6 1
T e l : 6 1 8 8 3 7 3 4 5 8 0 E m a i l : c o n f l i c t c o n f @ e v e n t s t r a t e g i e s . c om. a u
WHEN WORKERS UNITE - FOUNDATIONS OF TOMORROW
An exhibition of banners, badges and posters produced by trade unions, and original artworks by Jeff Rigby highlighting the strong historical role unions have played in the creation and conservation of our built environment, whilst May Day materials emphasise the workers' achievements in gaining and maintaining the rights and conditions of those who built it.
From: 1st May to 16th May 2003 at Braemar Gallery, 104 Macquarie Rd, Springwood
Friday, Saturday, Sunday 10.00am to 4.00pm
Dear Editor,
Thank you for printing my letter, but couldn't you have printed the first one instead or mentioned what I am trying to do. Just one mention of the email address [email protected] would have been constructive and of assistance! Why couldn't you have told people to contact me at:
P.O. box 460
Dallas, Vic 3047
if they were victims, it would have been one small helping hand, to try and put a stop to these cowardly bosses!
Regards Kaye
[Apologies Kaye, it was not an intentional mistake - Letters Person]
Dear Sir,
On reading your recent letters to the editor (Issue 209), I noticed comment as to the embrace of Buddhism by the Minister of Utilities Frank Sartor; this comment appeared to me, as not so subtle sarcasm casting some of its reflection on the philosophy of Buddha and his followers.
As it has been known for some ascetics to drink their own urine so perhaps if more were to follow this austere path, it could go some small way to alleviate the water crisis.
Of course this just might be the secret ingredient that the electorate is being continually showered with, by faded and tarnished Golden Boy Carr and his despotic form of Government.
Yours sincerely
David Penbury
This for Mr Latham:
Good heavens sir, Vanstone has already worked over single mums and frankly the return of the great moralist and the reworking over of young men smacks of a return to the middle of the last century values. Note the image. Shucks! Ya got my attention and a lot of depressed labour voters...but lay off family matters and talk about running a government for the people. In the meantime spit the dummy about real things like the way the government has manipulated truth at terrible cost. Or is it the same old game? Hope not!
Reinhold
While it is indisputable that the landscape of State and Local government politics is littered with many self promoting pigs ,these complimented by intellectual, moral and incompetent political derelicts, the letter,
�Bailey a tireless representative�, Press February 20 , 2004 , although reflective of community appreciation, and is indicative of his alienation from this group , it certainly does not do sufficient justice to the �Dion Quixote� efforts of Councilor Bailey , who has on many occasions and perhaps to his personal cost, personified the altruistic individuality which epitomizes the Australian or Anzac spirit.
These attributes contrast even more favorably when compared with much of the past present and future landscape of New South Wales parochial politics, these behaviors acted out in front of or on behalf of a chaotic backdrop of Machiavellian intrigue and subterfuge which appears to be in the process of disenfranchising all New South Wales ratepayers through, forced Council amalgamations for no other apparent reason than an perceptible gerrymander of the electoral boundaries , this giving one political party a control far in excess of that sought by the notorious Boss Tweed of New York�s Tammany Hall.
This has motivated many political and social commentators to suggest that voters indicate their displeasure to these faceless political and highly strung social engineers, by voting for anyone but the nominated ALP candidate in the looming local government elections. This, while an understandable point of view , is ; even with the acceptance of the Labor controlled state governments refusal or inability to deal with the collapse of the infrastructures , such as Hospitals , Roads , Rail , Electricity , Schools , and with these failures increasing needless deaths in States Hospitals , exacerbating the already unbearable frustrations of the traveling public , who then take to the unsafe roads which are crumbling through lack of maintenance , inadequately funded government Schools churning out poorly educated children unable to survive in an increasingly competitive Global economy , and the point blank denial of a Water Storage crisis with a blatant refusal to provide the! very necessities of life such as consistent affordable power and ample clean drinkable water , not a view I personally advocate.
I am sure like many others on the electoral roll, aware of our limitations, will unquestionably accept, that those whom are elected or who are brazen enough to be self appointed know what is best for us, and will in all instances look after our interests ignoring the powerful cash strapped lobby groups such as developers, Trade Unions, big business and or their own political self interest.
So while Councilors Baileys departure will be a loss to the Penrith community, he will be well served if he brushes every speck of dust from his clothes as he, head held high walks away from politics, and I for one am a better person for any brief interaction I have had with him, and I wish him well in any venture he embarks upon.
Well done Councilor Bailey!
Tom Collins
P.O.Box 304
Emu Plains
NSW 2750
Dear Sir,
�What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun�
Your readers may be familiar with these words as reminiscent of a Bob Dylan song from the sixties but of course it is from the polemic biblical book of Ecclesiastes which was written by Solomon and to answer the by now frustrations of your readers as to the relevance of this letter to Socialism, Trade Unions or even Politics particularly in the context of that great con on the Australian working class, the Australian Labor Party.
They might also, as I have done question the relevance of the Crucifixion of Christ as to this same subject?
That was until I watched the latest Mel Gibson�s movie �The Passion of The Christ� a violent, bloodthirsty depiction of sadomasochism practiced by those in power to further entrench their power.
It was obvious to me that the script for this movie was not as George Pell and Rabbi Apple suggested a true depiction of a biblical chronicle, but rather a contemporary narrative of the internal machinations of the
Australian Labor Party, and the Trade Unions , as they continually crucify or otherwise persecute any tall poppy that dares to bloom above mass of human excrement that continues to suffocate the democratization of the party.
Tom Collins
P.O.Box 304
Emu Plains
2750
Faced with an issue two generations in the making - the size and longevity of our Baby Boomer population base - the government has offered us nothing more than a quick fix, a means of shifting the aging population into a different column on the national balance sheet.
There is no argument that the superannuation system - the enduring legacy of the Accord years - is a national asset that should be freed up to maximise its utility to those who contribute during their working lives.
But allowing people to access their super while still working is nothing more than a tool to soften the impact of this demographic shift, not a solution in itself.
That requires real vision, such as shown in the rejected and recently released Cabinet paper prepared by the government's own inter-generational task force - a document that tried to grasp the reasons Australia population was not replenishing itself.
The reason it hit the dust bin was that it recognised that to expand our population base, we need to make it easier to have families - things like paid maternity leave, child care and reasonable working hours.
The Howard Government regards these types of measures as anathema - intervention in the labour market, the sort of system those pesky unions promote and which, in the Holy Grail of conservative thought stifles 'flexibility' and managerial prerogative.
Howard is blinded by his own small view of the world: these are not work issues, but life issues and the stress and demands, including the unpaid overtime we are all expected to work in the course of holding down an average job, all feed into our declining birth rate.
In this deregulated, casual, contract driven world of work, who has time for a relationship, let alone a family? It is not about linking work and family. It is about recognising they are intertwined.
And so Protestant work ethic becomes the only solution to the fact that fewer of us can pursue the Catholic family ethic.
Of course, the other solution is increased immigration, but the deep-seated racial insecurity that the PM tapped so cynically at the last election precludes him from going down this alternate path.
So we are left with this tinkering of superannuation laws, wrapped up as a vision - a vision that will not even tackle the real super issues of adequacy of contribution, taxability of retirement income and the exorbitant creaming that most funds indulge in through fees and charges.
While the PM will bang on about respecting older people and tapping into their wisdom (code for the claims of one older Australian, perchance?) one wonders to what degree the message 'keep working' will resonate with those who have put in for 40 years and reckon they've earned a breather.
As the old jingle went, if the Answer is Liberal, then it must be a stupid bloody question.
Peter Lewis
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