*****
Just after we all stopped laughing, Peter Hendy started up again, and the comb over without a clue left us all in stitches once more.
The trade union movement's best secret weapon held his latest stand up gig at the Senate Inquiry into the WorkChoices legislation, where his performance left everyone wondering just what the man from ACCI had been smoking lately.
One of the best things to do if you're a washed up old member of the loony right is to simply make up information to back up your case. Gerard Henderson is a past master at it but old Hendy took it to new heights this week.
He had them rolling in the aisles when he presented "evidence" from the "independent" Office of the Employment Advocate.
Evidence it may well be; independent it is not.
No wonder Premature Pete liked to refer to them as the Office of the Employer Advocate in recent times, for they bowled him up this flat track beauty:
According to Hendy's industrial gigolos down at the Office of the Employment Advocate, "on average, employees on AWAs earn 23 per cent more than their counterparts working on other agreements".
It was an interesting statement, unfortunately devoid of truth. The reality is a long way south from there.
After the good senators drove a truck through and over that piece of fertiliser, Hendy persisted, claiming "women on AWAs earn, on average, 60.5 per cent more than women across the board".
Exactly which board wasn't immediately clear, as to everyone's puzzlement the statistic appeared to have appeared to emerge from some parallel universe occupied solely by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or maybe from Hendy's own fundament; it certainly smelt like it.
Just when it appeared that his next piece of evidence would appear courtesy of Mandrake the Magician, Hendy claimed that ACCI had supported a wage rise every year since 1997.
This too presented problems when matched with fact, for ACCI had supported many pay rises of exactly zero percent during this time.
Then, seeing that the good ship Reasoned Argument was listing badly to port, Hendy threw all caution to the wind, claiming that kicking people in the wallet in New Zealand had boosted productivity.
Unfortunately productivity in New Zealand has all the buoyant qualities of an anchor and has been in free fall for a decade.
Hendy's incredible source? Those wonderful chaps from the Business Roundtable in New Zealand! Who have about as much credibility as a Chocolate manufacturer arguing for three Easters a year
Who was going to be his next credible source of information? Bruce Ruxton?
So, the man with the Incredible Shrinking Argument began to duck and weave like some Sunday morning TV wrestler, trying to tag team with his Smithers offsider, Mr BarkingMad.
By this time, however, it was too late. The few strands remaining on his folliclularily challenged frontal lobes were drowning in sweat. Hendy's frontal lobe would have drowned as well, but it appears that was removed some time ago.
There was only one thing our Tool Of the Week got right in his entire evidence: "we are demonised as heartless, callous people".
Yes Peter. There's a reason for that. It's primarily because you are.
Their actions will cost Japanese woman, Sachie Murata, and thousands like her, any chance of justice.
Murata has given days of harrowing evidence, to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, in support of her claim that she was threatened with deportation if she didn't sign an AWA that robbed her of award entitlements.
Under vigorous cross examination, she maintained she didn't even know she had been employed under an AWA until informed by her solicitor, 18 months after the document was secretly rubber stamped by the Office of the Employment Advocate.
Murata's unfair contracts claim will simply die, with nowhere to go, if a tame Senate green lights "Workchoices".
There is no provision under "Workchoices" for unfair contracts actions, and it will strip the vast majority of Australians of anywhere to contest unfair sackings.
Howard hasn't even made provision for people like Murata, who have spent thousands of dollars getting their cases before Commissions, to get an outcome.
"They will simply die, it's as though they never happened," industrial lawyer Adam Searle, confirmed.
Searle has been running a pay equity case on behalf of NSW childcare workers that will also evaporate into Howard's black hole.
That case opened long before the Prime Minister admitted the extent of his workplace revamp.
"We have finished all the evidence and are due to present oral submissions from December 6," Searle said. "Under the new law, the case disappears, there is nowhere to pursue it.
"Childcare workers are poorly paid with little bargaining power. Under Workchoices they will be left with no choices at all."
Workers Online has learned that at least one employer law firm is already writing to petitioners suggesting that they abandon their cases.
Some embarrassed Coalition Senators were claiming, last week, that they hadn't realised they would be slamming the door on cases, some years old, that were already underway.
However, at least four separate submissions to their lightening-speed inquiry warned that would be the consequences of their actions.
Senators received submissions to that effect from the Electrical Trades Union, the NSW Law Society and Sydney barrister, Shane Prince, who also furnished them with a supplementary submission.
The final lie was given to their pleadings by evidence from Department of Employment and Workplace Relations deputy secretary, Finn Pratt, who told the Senate Inquiry that was both the effect and intent of the Workchoices.
"There is no accrued right to have part-heard arbitration claims determined on the basis of pre-existing legislation," Pratt told Senators who were listening, on November 14. "I understand that the government will ensure there is no doubt surrounding this issue."
The study, carried out by Dr Don Edgar, has been circulated to all Federal Senators ahead of this week's vote on the radical reshaping of Australian workplace law.
Key findings of the Family Impact Statement include:
- reduce job security, impacting on the ability to meet family financial commitments
- create increased work hours leading to family stress
- threaten annual leave undermining family holidays
- take away workers' control over their work hours, compromising family arrangements
The report also finds the IR laws will have a negative impact on Australian children and working women.
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson, who commissioned the Family Impact Statement, said all Senators would be given the opportunity to speak to Dr Edgar before they voted.
"This is the Family Impact Statement that the Prime Minister promised but never delivered," Mr Robertson said.
"When you look at the findings its clear why - the only conclusion from any rigorous analysis is that these laws are bad for Australian families."
Twin polls, run for the News Ltd and Fairfax organisations last week, saw Howard's approval rating drop to its lowest levels in nearly five years.
More significantly, the Herald poll opened up the possibility that his government could be rolled by a rejuvenated Opposition, putting Labor ahead of the Coalition by a massive 58-42 margin in two-party preferred terms.
The Liberal-National vote was down six percent, while support for the ALP jumped seven percent.
The results, which would have seen the Coalition crushed in an election, were mirrored in a Newspoll that had the Coalition trailing 46-54 in two-party terms.
The polls recorded the most dramatic political shifts in a single month, since 2001, and the largest fall in the Coalition's share of the vote in the nine and a half years of the Howard regime.
Howard struck out badly when respondents in the Herald poll turned their attention to workplace change. Sixty percent expressed "dissatisfaction" with his agenda, based on the destruction of collective bargaining and hamstringing trade unions.
The polling, by both news organisations, was done the week after half a million Australians attended protests against "Workchoices" legislation.
Commentators, from across the spectrum, put the Coalition poll reversals down to industrial relations and the planned sale of Telstra.
Howard reacted to the reverses by dropping his long-practised routine of "refusing to be a political commentator".
``It seems obvious to me that the major reason for the turnaround in the Government's fortunes in both polls is the unease in the community about the workplace relations changes,'' he admitted.
Howard appears to have been blind-sided by union campaigning against his radical rewrite of workplace rules.
Instead of snap strikes and rowdy protests, they have orchestrated a community campaign, highlighted by peaceful mass rallies, and under-pinned by effective, targeted advertising.
This month's mass rallies were a case in point, with religious leaders, entertainers, academics, rank-and-file workers, and politicians sharing the microphone with union leaders.
Union members have taken the issue to their churches, sports clubs, schools, neighbourhood meetings and commuter carriages.
The Printing Industries Association is appealing an Australian Industrial Relations Commission decision on a skills based classification, which would boost pay for an employee's on-the-job skills.
AMWU printing secretary Steve Walsh said it was a "bloody-minded" move, cynically devised to hold out for the Howard Government's industrial relations reforms.
He said if the award was not upgraded before the reforms, the ability to introduce a skills-based classification structure into enterprise agreements would be reduced.
"We're very disappointed at the Printing Industries Association after such a long period of time trying to secure this result," Walsh said.
The AIRC's Senior Deputy President Marsh handed down the decision last month to re-classify printing workers on points earned through on-the-job skills. Previously, only formal qualifications were recognised.
The classification structure would see an extra $20 to $30 a week in the pockets of low-skilled printing workers.
It would encourage workers do develop their skills at work, as bonuses would be gained through acquiring skills across all tasks in the industry.
The Australian Industry Group backed the initiative, arguing before the AIRC it provided more precision for classifying employees.
Walsh said it was important to have the classification structure in place before the Howard Government took its razor to awards.
"It would give workers some degree of security," Walsh said.
"The Printing Industries Association is simply engaged in tactics to delay this important decision."
Bruce Bennedick and Evan Fraser, residents of a 24-hour care facility have personally thanked the CFMEU, and Unions NSW, for helping save their home.
Bennedick and Fraser made the trip to Labor Council from Lidcombe's Ferguson Lodge, which has been saved from demolition by pressure from the unions, including a CFMEU green ban that was supported by the Greens and the Labor Party.
"Unions are not recognised enough for the community support they give," says Bennedick who, along with Fraser has lived at Ferguson Lodge for the last 26 years. Bennedick, a quadriplegic with some arm function but no hand function, injured himself in a diving accident as a 21 year old in 1979, while Fraser became a quadriplegic when injured during a rugby union game.
Earlier this year, ParaQuad, the owner of Ferguson Lodge, announced it was redeveloping the land to build short term and respite care, a plan that would have caused the eviction of Ferguson's 24 long-term residents.
'They wanted to farm us out to community housing where we wouldn't get the 24/7 care we need," says Bennedick. "Some of us would have ended up in nursing homes."
However, community pressure led to the State government and ParaQuad brokering a deal under which government funding could be transferred to planned redevelopment provided long-term residents kept their accommodation.
"Without the Green Ban, the campaign advice and media contacts
provided by the CFMEU and supported by Unions NSW we would probably not have achieved this success," said Bennedick.
The CFMEU confirmed its green ban until a new purpose-built facility is delivered.
"They will be with us all the way," says Bennedick.
Workers walked out of 10 of the multi-national's outlets around Auckland city, last week, after the bosses of the Karangahape Rd store, in trendy Ponsonby, tried to draft in managers to cover the duties of strikers.
"What began as an event to highlight the poor conditions and low pay of minimum wage workers turned into a show of solidarity and strength across the city," said Simon Oosterman of SuperSizeMyPay. Com.
More than 30 workers walked out of Starbucks stores around Auckland to join colleagues from KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds in a protest outside the Ponsonby store.
New Zealand workers are organising against the effects of the 1991 Employment Contracts Act which turned their country into a low wage economy, marked by massive emigration and a big dip in productivity levels.
The ECA attacked collective bargaining by promoting individual contracts and tried to sideline trade unions, factors mimicked in John Howard's WorkChoices proposals.
Daniel Gross, co-founder of the Starbucks workers union in New York, praised the actions of the company's Kiwi employees.
"This is a signal that minimum wage workers around the world are fed up with living on the poverty line," Gross said.
"Kiwi Starbucks workers are making a stand for baristas around the world. We get paid what amounts to a poverty wage with no guaranteed hours. Starbucks has record turnovers every year, but none of that money makes it into workers' pockets."
Born in 1932, Mr Ducker began his career as a furnace man and began working for the Federation Ironworkers of Australia in 1952.
He was an official of the NSW Labor Council between 1961 and 1979 and served as Labor Council secretary between 1975 and 1979 and as a Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales between 1972 and 1979.
He also held positions as president of the NSW ALP and vice-president of the ACTU. He was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1979.,
"While he was dubbed 'Bruvver', John was in reality the father of the NSW union movement at the time when unions were at the peak of their powers," Mr Robertson said.
"Significantly he was the architect of the election of the Wran Government in NSW and was influential in the election of the Whitlam Government federally.
"John led at a time when the Cold War split many sections of the labour movement but he managed to hold the NSW movement together through those tumultuous times.
"Even in his later years John was generous with his time and advice - and he was proud of the current battle for workers rights that is being fought by a united union movement."
On behalf of the entire movement, Mr Robertson sent his condolence to Mr Ducker's wife Valerie, his sons Paul and Anthony and three grandchildren.
A spokesman for Premier Morris Iemma said laws concerning compensation would be introduced this week.
But he said the nature would vary depending on a voluntary agreement from Hardies.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma gave Hardies a deadline of the end of last week for a compensation deal.
"Our conclusion is that if we can't reach an agreement we'll legislate to provide justice to the victims," he said.
But James Hardie has refused to commit to a deadline.
"We're not going to work to a detrimental deadline that may have been set arbitrarily, which is unnecessary while both sides are continuing to make progress," spokesman James Rickards told the ABC.
The chorus of groups calling for Hardies to finalise compensation is growing, with a Canadian union warning the company faces a ban in North America ahead of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
"There's $86 billion dollars worth of work coming up in the next six years and if they're interested in any of it they'd better compensate the victims," Canadian construction union chief Wayne Peppard said.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union NSW Secretary Paul Bastion said the deadline for a commitment by Hardies was long overdue.
Bastion called on Hardies to sign a compensation agreement immediately and appoint an asbestosis sufferer to its board.
Asbestosis campaigner and sufferer Bernie Banton said at a protest last week the company had shown contempt for its victims.
"They haven't brought one cent to the table yet and it's time for Hardies to cough up," he said.
Victims are still yet to see any money despite Hardies' chairwoman Meredith Hellicar agreeing 16 months ago to pay billions of dollars in compensation over the coming decades.
James Hardie knowingly exposed workers to asbestos-containing products until the mid-1980s.
Up to 18,000 Australians are expected to die from asbestos-related diseases by 2020.
Anecdotal evidence from Unions in Victoria and New South Wales was backed up last week by a Roy Morgan poll that shows Union membership nationally may have jumped by as much as 33 per cent.
The poll, conducted by Roy Morgan in October, found that 24 per cent of respondents to a telephone poll declared themselves union members. Nationally, this represents a figure of almost 2.5 million Australians, compared with 1.8 million who declared themselves union members in August 2004 in an Australian Bureau of Statistics survey.
The Morgan polling confirms a strong reaction to WorkChoices, endorsing union claims that their numbers have been boosted by strong reactions against the proposed legislation.
NUW Victorian secretary, Martin Pakula, said his branch had experienced 10 months of consecutive membership growth with 1000 extra members joining in the past six months. Membership, he reported, was now at record levels.
Danielle O'Brien membership supervisor in NSW reports that "John Howard is the NUW latest star recruiter because the NSW branch has also recorded a significant increase in recent months".
Workers have labelled the evictions attempts by Uni bosses to suck up to the Education Czar.
The National tertiary education Union (NTEU) office at Newcastle University's Callaghan campus received an eviction notice last week.
The NTEU has sheeted home blame for the move directly to the university's Vice Chancellor, saying he has made no secret of his displeasure at the Union speaking out on issues which affect the quality of education.
The NTEU has also singled out the Howard Government, saying University management is not allowed to spend Commonwealth funds on provision of union facilities on campuses under.
"The decision of the Vice Chancellor to lock the union out of its office on Callaghan campus is part of a concerted effort to silence discussion and debate" says Chris Game, NSW NTEU divisional secretary. "This decision is is aimed at flattering the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Dr Brendan Nelson.
"Other Universities have entered into commercial arrangements with the Union, but Dr Saunders will have none of that.. He wants to go the extra mile and show how compliant he is by adopting the anti-union mantra of the Government."
The NTEU has offered to pay commercial rent for the space but was rejected by the University.
The move follows two other University Vice Chancellors, at Southern Cross University and the University of New England, who have issued similar eviction notices which become effective at the end of this week.
The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union Secretary Ross Richardson said neither the government nor health authorities had consulted with the thousands of Australians who come in contact with chickens through work.
Richardson said members had contacted him with their fears about not being told enough.
"It's a little disappointing as a majority of particular parties haven't been party to discussions," he said.
Richardson said workers were also fearful consumer panic would lead to job losses if not enough was done to prevent or control an outbreak.
The union is putting together a submission to various parties, including Health Minister Tony Abbott, highlighting their demands - including that chicken workers are the first in line for vaccination shots.
"We're seeking from the government information regarding what progress and what steps are being taken to combat bird flu," Richardson said.
The submission is due to be finalised by December.
Following new chief executive Ralph Norris' identification of poor customer satisfaction levels at a market briefing last week, FSU national assistant secretary Sharron Caddie says tens of thousands of job cuts over the last 13 years, 3,700 of which were under the current "Which New Bank" restructure, are the root of the problem.
"Loyal staff simply cannot hold the place together anymore," says Caddie, adding a change of management approach is needed.
Norris, who succeeded David Murray as chief executive in September, blamed the CBA's decision to lift its bank fees and the weekly absence of around 1000 frontline staff from their counters due to internal training for the poor result, a claim which Caddie dismisses.
"Cutting 20,000 jobs over 13 years, cutting branches to the bone and severely reducing the face to face regional business banking presence, retrenching experienced staff in successive business banking, branch and other restructures while leaving remaining staff to struggle with inadequate support is not the way to provide quality service to CBA customers" she says.
Norris also identified a decade long "under investment" in the bank's business lending for a fall in market share in that sector over the last three years from 15.2 percent to 13.4 percent.
"Mr Norris says his focus is now on training staff to use CommSee [CBA's new IT system]," says Caddie. "But as this week's revelations have shown, technology alone will not equal customer satisfaction."
Power generation workers are furious at moves by Delta to follow the Victorian path and outsource maintenance at power stations in Lake Macquarie and west of Lithgow.
Since outsourcing, which accompanied privatisation, in the Victorian power generation sector, blackouts and brownouts (power surges) have become a feature of Melbourne's power supply during peak demand in summer.
Delta has just revealed that they are planning an "alliance" project with a private operator for maintenance, a move that has been labelled "backdoor privatisation" by workers. Delta CEO Jim Hennes poured fuel onto the flames when, in an article in the Lithgow Mercury, he claimed maintenance workers only worked 20 weeks in the year.
"We're very aware of the federal government system," says Les McAllister from Vales Point power station. "The company we work for is pre-empting some of that IR system.
"People are of little consequence to them. Money is the big thing."
The news comes as workers have been bristling at management pressure on staff to move to a nineteen-day month, something workers at a mass meeting in November claimed stemmed from Delta's "ideological" opposition to the existing nine-day fortnight.
"Their own surveys show that trust and morale are low and getting worse," says Matthew Winn from Vales Point.
The matter came to a head in early November when workers walked off the job, which lead to a mass meeting of Delta employees at Penrith last week.
"We have a good job but a bad employer," said one speaker at the Delta meeting.
Delta is a NSW state government owned enterprise, and senior management claimed in meetings with ministerial staff that unions had ticked off on the "alliance" proposal, a claim unions firmly rejected.
Unions are currently moving in the state industrial relations system to guarantee the nine-day fortnight.
Queensland Council of Unions General Secretary, Grace Grace, welcomed the Liberals decision to join with the ALP in an overwhelming, 79 to 7, vote against WorkChoices, in the Queensland Parliament last week.
Grace said collective bargaining needed to remain at the centre of any future industrial relations system.
Grace congratulated the Labor State Government and the Nationals on their stance and said it was about time sanity prevailed in the industrial relations debate.
"The extreme measures the Government is proposing will have immediate impacts on those people in low-skilled and low-waged areas who are already finding it hard to keep their heads above water,' says Grace.
"The Government should be sent back to the drawing board on this issue and re-think its radical re-write of Australia's workplace laws.
The full motion, supported by the Queensland Parliament, read: "That this house calls on all Queensland Senators to reject the Commonwealth-proposed industrial relations legislation when it comes before the Senate next week to protect the living standards of Queenslanders and their families."
Meanwhile, over 70,000 people have signed a petition in the last three days, calling on Joyce to vote against WorkChoices legislation.
"We urge him not to pass it, not to amend it and not to tinker around the edges but to throw WorkChoices out. When this many people speak up, you have to listen," says Grace.
The two-page script directs supervisors to impart the parent company's views about "hurtful untruths" in the movie, the Los Angeles Times reports.
"We believe they want to hurt our company's growth, sales momentum for the fourth quarter holiday season and, ultimately, each and every associate," the script says.
"Our critics will take everything they can and use it against us."
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price challenges the retail chain's claims about its championing of workers, the community and the environment.
The film, by Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Breaking Up), draws on interviews with small business owners, Wal-Mart managers and employees and environmental workers.
A free viewing of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price will be held on Tuesday Decmber 6 at UTS Tower (Broadway, Sydney), Building 2, Level 4, Room 413. 4.30pm to 6.30pm.
What's the Rush?
RD. (Bob) Walshe's
The Great Australian Gold Rush & Eureka Stockade
a radical re-interpretation
Book Launch, hosted by Rodney Cavalier, Chair of NSW Parliament's 2006 Celebration of I5O Years of Responsible Govt (an ALP member for 37 years, and former Minister for Education). 6.30pm, for 7.00pm, Friday, 2 December, at Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe (ph 02 9660 2333)
Bob Waishe says Eureka Stockade has been grossly underrated:
It remains the most dramatic single event in Australian history
It was a defensive action against an oppressive Government
It won many admirable results, unequalled by any later event
It launched a popular movement for reform of government
Its radical, republican, democratic tradition has never stopped
growing, as last year's 150th Celebrations showed.
"Good history", says Bob, "is more than study of the past; it's the present consulting human experience for guidance in handling today's troubles - and Eureka has heap to suggest."
Website: http://eurekasydney.com
I Dream of Johnny
A musical comedy. Opening Thursday November 24,
Newtown Theatre. Cnr King & Bray Sts, Newtown South.
The play is a riotous musical combining 60's psychedelia, Gilbert and Sullivan type songs, dance routines and guest appearances from mythical gods as it steers its protagonists- namely John Howard and Tony Abbott, towards retribution for their policies on refugees and industrial relations.
Regular ticket prices are $25/20 respectively. However, union members are eligable for a $15 ticket in week two- from Tuesday November 29 to Saturday December 3.
The play has been made with generous support from unions such as the CFMEU and the Flight Attendants' Association.
After losing his passport and his memory John Howard finds himself on a boat to Norway as part of a 'refugees for nuclear waste' scheme, devised by his government and outsourced agencies. A series of mishaps lead to him being thrown over-board and stuck on a desert island with an irate Tony Abbott, who has been using his thinking time to devise a new dastardly portfolio for himself called the 'Department of Industrial Convalescence'. After being rescued from the island both men end up in the Baxter Detention Centre and must face the consequences of their past actions which winds up in an all-in rap battle and the appearance of Amanda Vanstone to sort things out.
The play features great musical and dance numbers, choreographed by Mark Daly, with music written by producer/playwright Joel Beasant and musician Matthew Campbell. The play was written by Joel Beasant, Robert Luxford and Leslie Marsh, and is directed by Jenelle Pearce, whose work recently featured in the Newtown Theatre's 'Short and Sweet' sessions. Adam Fraser and Rhys Wilson star as Howard and Abbott, respectively.
The play cleverly uses real dialogue from figures, such as Howard and Abbott, to challenge their actions towards refugees and the disadvantaged by literally placing them 'in the others' shoes'. John Howard finds himself in a number of situations where he appeals for humanitarian treatment, by re-stating quotes he has made in the past however, instead of being delivered by them, he actually gets the treatment his government has metered out. The irony is hilarious and made even better as it is regularly accompanied by groovy singing and dancing. The shows will run from Tuesday to Saturday at 8pm, with a 2pm matinee on Saturdays. Ticket prices are:
$25 full
$20 concession
$15 special price for union-card holders in week 2, from Tues Nov 29- Sat Dec 3.
$15 special price for students in week 3, from Tues Dec 6- Sat Dec 10.
Enquiries about the show can be made to:
Bookings MCA 1300 306 776 or online: www.mca-tix.com
For further information call Joel Beasant on: 02 9797133
Iraq He Wrote
Scott Ritter speaking at Sydney University - Mon 28 Nov, 6:30pm
What: Iraq Confidential: Public lecture by Scott Ritter,
When: Monday, November 28, 6.30pm,
Where: Eastern Avenue Auditorium, University of Sydney.
Entry: by gold coin donation.
Book: Gleebooks - 02 9660 2333 [email protected]
https://secure.weblink.com.au/gleebooks/events/booking.asp?event=Scott Ritter
Scott Ritter, the former United States marine and United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, will give a free public lecture at the University of Sydney on Monday, November 28 at 6.30pm, presented by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Scott Ritter is the author of a new book, Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's Intelligence Conspiracy (I.B. Tauris $A35) which reveals how the CIA manipulated and sabotaged the work of UN departments to achieve a hidden foreign policy agenda in the Middle East. The foreword is by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
More information on the University of Sydney website:
http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=776
The Sedition Condition
MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY GROUP for 2005
SBS and things SOCIO POLITICAL AND SEDITOUS
The on-going saga of SBS and the Documentary Commissioning Editor: A debrief and discussion
FOLLOWED BY
Premier Screening of the "THE LAST VALLEY", a social political documentary by Peter Vaughan, with filmmaker Q & A.
In these trying days for documentary filmmakers, the MDG presents a program to get it all off your chest and view a film that will make your production difficulties seem like a romp in the park
DATE: Tuesday December 13
TIME: SBS discussion: 6.30 pm
Screening: 7.30 pm
VENUE: Cinema 2
VCA Film and TV School
Grant St, South Melbourne
RSVP: [email protected]
NOTE: RSVP is a must due to limited seating. No RSVP, no entry
THE LAST VALLEY
It's social, it's political and it may be seditious
SYNOPSIS
Peter Vaughan's "The Last Valley" challenges the myth that Australia is a land with a limitless frontier and inexhaustible natural resources. The film is set in East Gippsland, a remote region in far eastern Victoria far from the eyes of the world. For fifty years it has been logged unsustainably to supply the bulk of Victoria's timber needs, and as a source of cheap woodchips for the Japanese paper industry. The Last Valley chronicles the conflict and change that accompanied the closing scenes of Victoria's old-growth logging era."
BACKGROUND
Peter Vaughan followed the events that unfolded in some of the old growth forests of East Gippsland, from 1999 to 2003. For 3 years he lived locally in Orbost, and gained access to the stories of the loggers, the conservationists and the townspeople. The film examines what happens to a community when the resource that had supported it runs out. It also examines the political/environmental consequences of government mismanagement of a finite resource and the conflict that results.However the story of the film is only half the story...
ATTEMPTS TO STOP THE FILMING: THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!!!
During the making of the film the logging department, then the DNRE, now renamed DSE (Dept of Sustainability and Environment), went to great effort to prevent its completion. Tactics ranged from trying to insist that the production pay a retrospective "license fee" of $5000 per day for any filming that had already been undertaken in state forests or National Park (both publicly owned areas). The DSE also insisted that the filmmakers get release forms from any government officer that had been filmed, before filming anywhere else in state forests. They threatened legal action if there was failure to comply. The production received legal advice that these demands had no legal basis.
Peter was arrested by the DSS on two occasions whist filming, but was not charged. However in early 2003 the DSE began a legal prosecution against him alleging that he had assaulted one of their officers. He was also charged with "littering'; "obstruct a lawful logging operation" etc, etc. The matter went to two trials and the DSE withdrew all charges on the second day of the second trial after Peter screened his unbroken video record of the events. Peter will attend the screening to talk about these and many, many more issues that surrounded the making of the film, not the least being the long and wearying attempts to secure a broadcaster (it is now with ABC TV) and financing.
Wally-Mart
Wal-Mart the High Cost of Low Price
Released in the USA on 1 November, be the first to see it in Australia
Tuesday 6 December
4.30 - 6.30pm
UTS Tower
Building 2, Level 4 (Broadway entrance Level)
Room 413
FREE
What is WalMart?
� The first WalMart opened in 1962.
� In 2004 it reported $285 billion in sales.
� It is the largest employer in the United States with 1.2 million workers (associates) in the US and 1.6 million worldwide
� It has 3,700 facilities (stores) in the United States and 2,400 in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Central America, Germany, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and the UK.
� Its market capitalisation is twenty times larger than General-Motors and double that of Google.
� It has transformed the retail industry and local communities in the US.
� It is resolutely anti-union and has closed down stores in Canada rather than let unions cover its employees, evenafter workers have voted to join the union.
WalMart says it supports communities; provides jobs, good wages, career opportunities and health care; creates jobs overseas and the biggest employer of minority groups in the US; and protects the environment.
Robert Greenwald's film systematically examines each of these claims drawing on accounts of small business owners, WalMart managers and employees and environmental workers.
The film has come under a major attack campaign from WalMart attractin media coverage not only for its content but for its guerrilla promotional campaign. Why?
You be the judge.
Robert Greenwald previous films include documentaries - Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004) a film exposing the right-wing bias of Fox News and features such as Breaking Up, starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek.
His films have earned 25 Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, the Peabody Award, and eight Awards of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board.
The possibility that it might become a cult hit like Michael Moore's 1989 unsympathetic portrait of General Motors, "Roger & Me," has Wal-Mart worried.
New York Times, 1 November 2005
Because today, we're the focus of one of the most organized, most sophisticated, most expensive corporate campaigns ever launched against a single company.
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, 6/3/05
Wal-Mart's announcements about its health care plan are nothing more than a desperate publicity stunt to salvage a faltering public image.
USA Today 6 November 2005
What a Shocker
p o p c o r n t a x i
S y d n e y P r e s e n t s
SPECIAL RETROSPECTIVE SCREENING of AUSTRALIAN CLASSIC
BARRY McKENZIE HOLDS HIS OWN
+ Q&A WITH
STAR BARRY CROCKER (BAZZA HIMSELF) + SPECIAL GUESTS
'Hasn't everyone, at one time, held their own? I certainly have.'
- EDWARD GOUGH WHITLAM, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA, 1972-1975
AT SPECIAL VENUE
PADDINGTON RSL
THIS PROGRAM IS PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
SYDNEY FILM SCHOOL
Popcorn Taxi is proud to present a special retrospective screening of Bruce Beresford's 1974 classic Barry McKenzie Holds His Own to help celebrate the launch of writer Tony Moore's new book about this chunderful Aussie legend, The Barry McKenzie Movies.
After the screening join Tony Moore and Bazza himself, BARRY CROCKER for an interview and audience Q&A live on-stage with film writer Jane Mills...PLUS there's a chance you might get full as a boot with our Special Guests PLUS there's prizes to be won in our Best Bazza McKenzie Costume Competition!
Before Warnie. Before Latham. Before even Paul Hogan there was Barry McKenzie, the marauding ocker innocent abroad who outraged all decent Australians and poms back in the 1970s. Bazza spouted Aussie-isms non-stop, gargled with Fosters, was a dab hand with the sheilas and chundered his way to glory in his big-screen debut in the spectacularly insensitive The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.
Barry McKenzie Holds His Own is the riotous, wide-screen sequel to 1972's Aussie-mega hit in which Bazza (Barry Crocker) rockets off to Froggyland to save his Aunt Edna (Barry Humphries) when she's mistakenly kidnapped by this Commo Vampire dictator who mistook her for the Queen of England. Cop That!
Co-written by comic genius BARRY HUMPHRIES and director BRUCE BERESFORD the sequel rips into the Poms, the 70s 'cultural rennaisance', snobs and anyone that gets in Bazza's way. Even Australia's then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam appears to help Bazza out of some realstrife...imagine that happening today!
And there's a cracker supporting cast including a hirsute CLIVE JAMES, a semi-clad LITTLE NELL, ED DEVEREAUX and DONALD PLEASANCE.
Says Tony Moore, author of The Barry McKenzie Movies (Currency Press), 'they were a watershed in Australian cinema and culture. Bazza was the catalyst for the rise of the ocker, the 70s larrikin. Forever talking about sex, but never actually losing his virginity, Bazza, his one eyed trouser snake at the ready, was also a trail blazer for the sex 'n sin 70s. But the movies are also a satire on our relationship with the poor old poms, class snobbery, Aussie males, sexual permissiveness, racism, artistic pretension and politics.'
AND REMEMBER ALL YOUSE SHEILAS AND BLOKES come dressed in ya best Bazza Clobber...there's bonza prizes to be won!
So don't be like a spare tonk at a knock shop wedding...get your tackle in gear and come see Popcorn Taxi let Bazza loose.
THIS PROGRAM IS CO-PRESENTED WITH
CURRENCY PRESS
Thanks to CURRENCY PRESS and PADDINGTON RSL for help making this program possible.
popcorn taxi
Rating: M 15 +
Time: 7.30pm
Date: Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
Where: The Auditorium, 1st Floor, Paddington RSL
Address: 226 Oxford Street, Paddington (Opposite Paddington Town Hall)
Entry: $15 / $13 conc.
ADVANCE TICKETS
To purchase a ticket to this event online go to www.popcorntaxi.com.au
Please Note: Online sales will close sharply at 5:00pm on the night of the event.
Any remaining tickets will be available directly from the cinema box office from 6:30pm on the night.
The IR laws needs to be demonised as anti-teenage worker, then the chant must be "Sack the Lib's not our kids"
Duncan Macphail
I, as a fully paid up, voting member of the ALP, honestly believe that the current IR changes (WorkChoices et al), are an attempt to return Australian Workers to the economic prosperity they enjoyed prior to the 1890's.
Therefore I suggest that the ALP and the Unions adopt a similar policy. All unions should retreat from being incorporated, licensed participants in Industrial Relations (This would absolve them of the majority of penalties which they could otherwise incur). They should instead re-register as employee advocates for OH&S, thus allowing for multi-industry strikes (even general strike action) without incurring any penalties.
Moreover, I suggest a return to the identification of SCABS, with clandestine action once so identified. In order to facilitate this it will be necessary for any person involved to be a member of the ALP, in order that they may not be culpable for incitement of rioting, or of sedition. I also propose that any employer that takes lockout action should be identified, and the name, address and pictures of them, their family and their business be published on a website for all to view (if any take action on the base of this, be it upon their own head).
Remember comrades, strikes were illegal for a long time, let 'em do it if they wish - they simply need to be reminded why s.51(xxxv) was inserted into the Constitution to begin with.
Troy Small
As a 54 year old who has worked all her life & has come from a background of labor suporters & union membership I am fearful of the proposed IR changes not for me but for my children & grandchildren
My husbands family have a history with the union movement & labor in the early 1900s as do my family & would be turning over in their graves at Howards backwood motion.
It is time again for all working men & women to show their strengh, join a union & unite in the fight for equality & fairness in the workplace.
We should all remember our forefathers & the struggle that they had to give us our rights at work today & do everything in our power to stop our country going backwoods 100 years
Workers unite
Lesley Henderson
Thank goodness our Prime Minister has assured the 12,000 Telstra workers being sacked over the next few years that he is the best friend and protector of Australian working people and families.
They can sleep well in the knowledge that this is the way forward for our country and, apparently, they won't need to worry about the complicated things of life such as food, clothing or shelter and education for their children.
As for the rest of us, we won't have to worry about the sackings, loss of service in the bush or any big hike in Telstra charges because, with "Robin Hood Howard" and his "Band of Merry Men" robbing from the poor to give to the rich, who will be able to afford such luxuries as a telephone anyway?
Roslyn Carnes
I understand that the TAFEs have been told by the federal government that they will not be funded unless they put their employees on AWA's. Where's the choice in that?
Kaye Felgate
This week it was reported that "The former financial director of a billion dollar paper company faced court for trial on fraud charges, including writing more than $6 million worth of dud cheques."
We are hearing more and more of these stories whilst being asked to be flexible and accommodating to new industrial laws that increase corporate power over workers? Imagine how much more creative some of these companies will be able to be when they get the urge to cut costs.
I am convinced that Mr Howard has tried to put the cart before the horse by trying to introduce his IR reforms in their current form. In fact, if he focused on addressing major corporate governance issues, red tape, and taxes, by the time he got around to addressing IR, the glaring holes and opportunities for abuse would probably reverse his thinking drastically.
The mechanics of business and politics are worlds apart - just look at the deals being brokered between the NSW government and private enterprise - unintended consequences are rife and proving to be very expensive lessons. Let's not let workers become the next victims.
John McPhilbin
I have a great solution for when you get those annoying telemarketers ring you, especially those that are from overseas callcentres/sweatshops. It works.
Ask them if they
- get $18-20 AuD an hour as they would in Australia - refuse to answer their questions until they answer
- tell them they are being exploited and
- sell them on the power of belonging to a union
Some like the idea of unionism, others hang up, but I am recieving far less calls since I started this unionism promotion.
Lorraine Muller
As the execution by Singapore of an Australian drug courier approaches, there has been an increasingly desperate public clamour to have an appeal heard by the International Court of Justice.
It has spoken to an almost quaint faith that when one nation's legal system leaves us unsatisfied, surely there must be something we can appeal to, some higher authority to enforce justice.
At the same time as we are looking for salvation from the hangman, a ruling this week by the United Nation's International Labour Organisation that the Howard Government's construction laws breach international treaties has been all but ignored.
The ILO's Governing Body ruled the laws, which can lead to workers being jailed for refusing to disclose the contents of union meetings, were a breach of core labour standards as laid out in ILO Conventions 87 and 98, both of which have been ratified by Australia.
The government and media have shrugged off the concerns of the ILO as if they come from some cell group of Trotskyists, rather than the world's longest standing international body, established after WWI to erect a system of basic work rights.
It won't be the end of the issue either - the ILO has also put the government on notice that WorkChoices will also breach the treaties guaranteeing Freedom of Association and the Right to Bargain Collectively.
These rulings confirm what unions and church leaders have been arguing, these laws place Australian workers outside the international, turning them into a sort of neo-con experiment in labour market deregulation.
And the breaches of ILO standards are not just academic, as labour lawyers from ICTUR warned the Senate, Australia faces the prospect of being kicked off the ILO's governing body.
Apart from undermining our ability to pressure governments like Burma over their abuses of workers, this expulsion could also harm Australian businesses seeking to operate in the global economy.
One of the less notable international stories of recent years has been UN secretary-general Kofi Annan's efforts to forge a global compact that would incorporate human rights and labour rights into the global trading framework.
Under the Annan model companies from nations in breach of these principles would face barriers to trading with countries that did comply.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks in this project has been the attitude of the USA, with the Bush Administration's UN appointment John Bolton seen as being on a mission to sidetrack the Compact all together.
On many levels the Compact is a challenge for developed nations that attempt to flex their muscles and play politics with global issues - because it is actually an attempt to give some consequence to breaches of treaties
But it is a worthwhile project, the disastrous invasion of Iraq is just the most obvious example of the pitfalls of unilateralism in such an inter-dependent world.
For Australia, which blindly followed the Bush Administration into Iraq, the broader implications of thumbing our noses at international law should be one of the things a Senate inquiry, with a responsibility to scrutinise the actions of the executive, would be expected to consider.
Of course it hasn't; it's merely fiddled around the edges and let the Howard Government walk all over its international obligations. After all, when we thumbed our noses at the Tampa and all we got was another Howard Government.
Breaching ILO standards, in itself, won't create any immediate pain. But as long as we stand outside the international legal system, we should not expect it to work for us when we want it to.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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