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Issue No. 276 12 August 2005  
E D I T O R I A L

The Power of One
The power has now shifted. John Howard has control of the Senate by a solitary vote and no matter where your politics lie, the earth has definitely moved.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: On Holiday
Historian Richard White looks back on the Aussie vacation - and finds a way of life is under threat.,

Unions: One Day Longer
Nathan Brown travels to the Boeing picket line and find a group of workers with a steely determination to stick together.

Industrial: Never Mind the Bollocks
Jim Marr plays the Howard Government's industrial relations spin job on its merits.

Politics: Spun Out
Canberra�s latest campaign underlines the need for controls over government advertising, according to Graeme Orr and Joo-Cheong Tham

Economics: If the Grog Don't Get You ....
Evan Jones explains how the way we purchase alcolohol reflects the type of economy we live in.

History: Taking a Stand
Neale Towart looks at two books that chronicle how to build community support against social injustice.

International: The Split
Amanda Tattersal outsider's account of an insider's shake-out at the AFL-CIO Convention 2005

Legal: Pushing the Friendship
George Williams argues that the federal government�s constitutional powers are not sufficient to enact a comprehensive national industrial relations scheme

Poetry: Simple Subtractions
The latest blitz of taxpayer-funded advertising has revealed a crisis of arithmetic in government ranks has moved resident bard David Peetz to prose.

Review: Sydney Trashed
Sydney band SC Trash are on a mission to give new life to folk and country music � and the politics of common sense. Nathan Brown had a beer with them

N E W S

 �Disgusting� AWAs Court Out

 Andrews Agenda Rolled in DEWR

 Sick Days Get Hadgkiss Sniffing

 Fun Guy Skips Work, Docks Staff

 Nurse Launches Neighbourhood Alert

 Security Staff Bush Whacked

 Commo Bank Staff Force Smiles

 Cameron Gets �Fair Dinkum�

 Feds: Inconsistency �Not Inconsistent�

 Telstra Dials Up Cash Grab

 Howard Votes Family Last

 PacNat Troops Won't Be Railroaded

 All Aboard Vic Safety Train

 Activist's What's On!

C O L U M N S

Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite MP, Ian West, goes away for a couple of weeks and look what happens�

The Soapbox
The Last Weekend
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson's speech to the Last Weekend - how the Howard government laws will undermine the Ausrtalian way of life.

The Locker Room
A Concept Is Born
In which Phil Doyle helps the proponents of the vision thing across the road.

International
Workers Blood For Oil
A new book by Abdullah Muhsin and Alan Johnson lifts the lid on the bloody reality of US backed democracy for Iraq's trade unions

Postcard
London Post
During his recent stay in London IEU industrial officer John Shapiro was living only a few hundred metres from the site of one of the bomb blasts.

L E T T E R S
 Farmers� Best Friend
 Govt Has No Case
 Logon to IR
 Ears and Minds
 Howard on the Couch
 Which Bank?
 Kevin the Tool Man
 Tom On Safety
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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News

Howard Votes Family Last


Prime Minister John Howard has turned his back on Australian families, refusing to commit to parental leave won this week at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

In what could be the last AIRC family test case ruling, women now have the right to ask for part-time work until their child reaches school age.

It has also granted workers the right to request an extension of unpaid parental leave from 12 to 24 months.

But the gains could be lost within months, with Howard refusing to commit to the rights when it overhauls industrial relations laws.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said not only was the future of the newly won rights uncertain, but the Government had its sites set on disarming the Commission which won them.

"The Federal Government's workplace reforms will lead to reduced rights for more than 1.5 million award workers and mean this is the last award test case of its kind."

In the Coalition's planned workplace reforms, it plans to replace the AIRC with a "Fair Pay Commission" of Government-appointees.

Meanwhile, Family First Senator Steven Fielding has distanced himself from the Government's reform agenda.

Fielding said demolishing traditional social structures had enslaved people to the forces of the market.

"Where once the labour market respected the fact that workers had family responsibilities, today workers struggle to balance their paid work and family life," he said.


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