|
Thai-ed in Knots
With all the hype, hiccups, fear and loathing around the Australia/US Free Trade agreement, another agreement all but slipped under the radar this week - a preferential trade deal between Australia and Thailand.
Interview: Power and the Passion
ALP's star recruit Peter Garrett shares his views on unions, forests and being the Member for Wedding Cake Island
Unions: Tackling the Heavy Hitters
Tony Butterfield became a State of Origin gladiator at the unlikely age of 33. Even that, Jim Marr reports, couldn’t prepare him for the knock-down, drag-em-out world of modern IR.
Industrial: Seeing the Forest For The Wood
Proposals to flog off NSW’s forests have raised eyebrows and temperatures amongst some of the key players reports Phil Doyle.
Housing: Home Truths
CFMEU national secretary John Sutton argues for a radical solution to the housing affordability crisis.
International: Boycott Busters
International unions have issued a new list of corporations breaching ILO sanctions to do business in Burma.
Economics: Ideology and Free Trade
The absurdities of neoclassical economic assumptions has never stood in the way of their being trotted out to justify profiteering and attacks on the rights of citizens. The AUSFTA is the latest rort we are supposed to swallow, writes Neale Towart.
History: Long Shadow of a Forgotten Man
Interest in JC Watson's short time as Labor's first Prime Minister should not detract from his more substantial role as Party leader, writes Mark Hearn
Review: Chewing the Fat
As debate rages in Australia about Fast Food advertising, Julianne Taverner takes a look at a side of the industry that Ronald McDonald won’t tell you about in Supersize Me.
Poetry: Dear John
Workers Online reader Rob Mullen shares some personal correspondence with our glorious leader.
Adecco in the Dock
Chubb Faces Bullying Rap
Print Company Burns Staff
Carr "Prefers" Americans
Drug Cheats’ Eye off Olympics
Unions Crack Skull
Howard Backs $7.30 Report
MCG Vet Kicks Casual Goal
Parking tickets Gonged
Safety Meets Low Expectations
Koori Building for Future
"Super Sopper" Soaks Up Funds
Kelly’s Figures go West
Activists What’s On!
Politics
The Westie Wing
As the NSW Labor Government sells its first budget deficit in nine years, the real concern for the union movement is the devil in the detail, especially when it comes to procurement agreements, writes Ian West. The Soapbox
Rubber Bullets
Labor's IR spokesman Craig Emerson launches a few characteristic salvos across the Parliamentary chamber The Locker Room
Tears After Bedtime
Phil Doyle says that it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye Postcard
Postcard from Vietnam
APHEDA's Hoang Thi Le Hang reports from the north of Vietnam on a project being fund by Australian unionists.,
History Left In The Back Of The Cab
Libs have Got To Go
A Boring Bastard
A Home Of Their Own
|
other LaborNET sites |
|
Labor Council of NSW
Vic Trades Hall Council
IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation
|
|
|
News
Kelly’s Figures go West
The Liberal MP for the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, Jackie Kelly, has created a storm by claiming that "no one in my electorate goes to uni", despite it being the home of "hundreds" of students, including the NSW president of the National Union of Students.
"It just shows she doesn't understand her electorate," says Mike Donaldson of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). "Figures show that Sydney's west has a higher proportion of professionals and para-professionals than the national average."
"They've got tertiary education coming out of their ears."
"What she doesn't understand is the knowledge industry is where the jobs are."
Kelly created outrage when she rejected the need for funding increases for the local University of Western Sydney.
"The problem at the University of Western Sydney is not that people don't want to go, it's that there's not enough places," says Donaldson.
"We're pretty outraged,' says Tim Chapman, state president of the National Union of Students who lives in Kelly's electorate. "Come election time all the students she's insulted won't forget."
"She's written off the hopes of people here who want to go to university."
Chapman also singled out Brendan Nelson's rejection of a need to combat student poverty as "a good example of the ignorance Liberals have" about tertiary education, and that they believed that "only the rich or elite" should attend university.
Nelson had claimed that "chippies, brickies and truckies" would be envious of students lifestyle.
"What Nelson needs to remember is that your average brickie or truckie probably has a son or daughter at university, and if they don't they wish they did, and they're not at all happy about what this government is doing to tertiary education," says Chapman.
View entire issue - print all of the articles!
Issue 228 contents
|