--
When Gough Whitlam campaigned in the seventies, political campaigning was very different.
Politicians would spend a great deal of time in contact with the public. Ray Martin was still a journalist way back then.
As Gough was a controversial leader, he was often dogged by protesters of various persuasions championing their agenda in the face of the leader of the nation. As much as we may question their sanity, there is no doubting the passion of these zealous practitioners of democracy!
One persistent woman at Blacktown repeatedly asked "But what about Abortion Mister Whitlam? How do you stand on abortion?"
The scene was brought to light when the slowest hobbit in the Shire, Danna Vale suggested that we were about to be over-run by Mohammedans intent on slitting our throats in the night.
This is no idle threat by the eponymously named Vale, who had experience of these things from her days punching a road through the last resting spot of some 19-year-old kid from the Riverina. In between that and handing out medals to her friends, faxing Alan and cutting pensions for people who had defended this nation so that her friends could burn plastic cards at Freedom Furniture, Danna found time to put together her contribution to the debate over the RUforagainst drug.
No doubt Danna agrees with the principle that Ministers should be in control of their portfolios and on top of all the issues.
The various Howard government ministries have produced talent that can only be described as unique. It is to ministerial talent such as herself that Danna Vale is asking us to entrust judgement on whether something is a therapeutic good.
Not for Danna the fingerprints of unaccountable public servants, no. No, that is to be saved for low ranking public servants who have the temerity to suggest that Danna Vale brought a proposal to cabinet that would take food out of the mouths of this nation's veterans.
Danna Vale is not fit to represent a five-cent piece.
Our Tool Of The Week has the temerity to raise the politics of blame after what's been going on further down the Kingsway, using as a primary source the Daily bloody Telegraph for god's sake!
On top of all that, her very assertion that millions of "them" are about to descend on "us" is as intellectually robust as a fish milkshake.
We could always get a blueprint of her brain if we ever wanted to build a moron.
The only refreshing thing in the whole sordid exercise is that it's the first time a Howard minister has acknowledged that there are policy issues that extend beyond the term of the next parliament.
How lucky are we that the big picture is in the hands of those like our Tool Of The Week, Danna Vale.
Oh, and Gough? After getting a good half hour from the woman while he was trying to talk about putting sewerage in across western Sydney, Gough drew himself up, turned to our questioner and said:
"In respect to abortion madam? Well, in your case I'd make it retrospective!"
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Last year more than a quarter of apprentice jockeys in NSW were young Asian riders shipped in under an arrangement with a Gold Coast-based training centre, according to the Australian Jockeys Association.
AJA chief executive Paul Innes says the shift away from local apprentices is an ongoing issue that is cutting back scope for locals and creating serious safety concerns on the track.
Last year, 20 of the 75 jockey apprentices were from Asia, predominantly from Japan. They enter Australia on work visas, paying up to $30,000 to be trained at TrainTech on the Gold Coast. They are then indentured to local trainers, often for a full four-year period.
Innes says while the AJA has no problem with the Asian riders, the system lacks transparency, with questions about why the imports are being taken on at the expense of locals.
He also says there are concerns that the young riders lack language skills, an essential element to riding safely in a tight pack.
"We have had discussions with Australian Racing Board tand expressed our conceens about the future of the industry.
"We need to have a transparent process around training, regulating and assessing apprentice riders.
Further concerns were raised last week when Racing Victoria announced it was importing a group of Turkish apprentices to ease what it described as a 'skills shortage'.
Innes rejects the idea there is a skills crisis in racing; just that young Australians are not being given the opportunity to pursue a career in racing.
Dough! More Jobs Go
The jockeys case follows hot on the heels of revelations that bakery chain brumbies was planning to import Vietnamese bakers into the country on guest worker visas.
Commenting on those revelation, which the employer said was explicitly to get around unions, ACTU president Sharan Burrow put the following questions to the Howard government.
* How many temporary worker or business visas are being issued by the Government?
* What steps have employers taken to demonstrate that local workers are not available?
* What wages and employment conditions are used to assess whether overseas workers are not being exploited and are not undermining the pay and entitlements of local workers?
* What checks are the Government making about the qualifications of the sponsored workers?
* What access do temporary workers have to independent help from unions and other agencies to ensure they are being properly paid, have the appropriate qualifications and are aware of the relevant health and safety requirements?
* Who is overseeing the program and ensuring abuses do not occur?
Other recent cases that have involved either the abuse of foreign workers or Australians being denied job opportunities, include:
* The Immigration Department is currently investigating allegations that US Vice President Dick Chaney's former company Halliburton imported Indonesian workers to work 12 hour shifts for 80 days without a break digging ditches at its gas operations in the South Australian desert.
* Foreign workers being treated like slaves in well-known Canberra restaurants. The workers were recruited from the Philippines and 'sold' to their employers for $6000 to $8000. One of the workers said she was underpaid, worked 'dangerously excessive workloads' and her employer refused to give her medical treatment when she suffered third-degree burns.
* Unions have also raised concerns about the case of 34 Croatian and Slovenian workers who have been issued with temporary labour visas to build a paint shop at Holden's plant at Elizabeth, SA - an area which has high unemployment
These overseas worker abuses highlight the ugly side of the Howard Government's deregulated job market," Burrow says.
"The Prime Minister needs to intervene immediately to first make sure that employers look to fill these jobs with Australians. He then needs to make sure any temporary worker is paid decent wages and conditions."
ACTU President Sharan Burrow has called for a conscience vote on the proposal, which she says was �further evidence that the Government's temporary overseas worker program is out of control�.
"No where on the proposed visa application form is there a requirement that the employer advertise the job locally," she said.
Burrow said the Trade Skills Training Visa would encourage exploitation of workers from other countries in Australia.
Under the Visa, foreign workers are whacked $3000 in Government fees, as well as the full cost of tuition fees, living expenses, travel and health insurance.
And in a separate development the Council of Australian Government has agreed to free up the vetting process for overseas tradespeople after anticipated opposition from Labor state leaders never eventuated.
This means the federal government now has the power to off-shore skills vetting to foreign providers.
"Almost daily there are new examples coming to light of employers being issued visas by the Government to bring in temporary workers from overseas - many of whom are exploited with low pay and poor employment conditions," Burrow said.
"These overseas worker abuses highlight the ugly side of the Howard Government's deregulated job market."
The ACTU is calling on the Prime Minister to make sure employers look to Australians first when filling apprenticeships and to ensure temporary workers are on the same standards as other Australian workers.
The Prime Minister needs to intervene immediately to first make sure that employers look to fill these jobs with Australians
CFMEU NSW secretary Andrew Ferguson said construction sites around Sydney were turning people away for apprenticeships, proving that there is demand in Australia.
Individual workers are suing the University for $33,000 each on the basis that they were provided 'false and misleading information' about the Australian Workplace Agreement.
Maurice Blackburn Cashman are running the case on behalf of an National Tertiary Education union member, Jeremy Smith, and several hundred other workers who were offered the contracts.
NTEU Victorian secretary Matthew McGowan, who is backing the action, says the case - due on court next week - is a new approach for unions in an environment where unions have fewer rights to enforce industrial agreements.
The approach has been masterminded by MBC partner Josh Bornstein, who was also the architect of the successful legal strategy in the 1998 Waterfront Dispute.
At the centre of the action is an email the University's Vice Chancellor Kerry Cox sent to employees last December claiming there would be no loss of conditions or job security for those who signed the AWAs being offered.
But the workers will argue the final contracts provided inferior redundancy entitlements for both academic and general staff, while almost all of the protections available to staff facing dismissal, suspension, or disciplinary action under the certified agreement have been removed.
The AWA also removed the ability for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to arbitrate disputes.
If successful, McGowan says the workers will argue that penalties of $33,000 for each breach of the federal workplace relations Act should go directly to the workers.
The Maritime Union smelt a rat after the company made a bizarre bid to strike a three-month non-union agreement rather than negotiate with its workers.
The company is refusing to negotiate with the MUA despite requests from a largely casualised workforce who want the union to act as their bargaining agent.
"We've got a lot of members who are employed at Captain Cook Cruises and they want us to represent them in this dispute," says MUA Sydney branch secretary Robert Coombs.
Following the company's attempts to register the three-month non-union agreement the Maritime Union was granted leave to give reasons why it should be a party to the agreement.
"No one wants a three-month agreement, unless they've got an ulterior motive," Coombs, said.
Captain Cook Cruises then attempted to withdraw its application for the EBA but was stopped by Commissioner Raffielli who decided to hear the matter at a later date.
Coombs says this shows how Captain Cook Cruises is prepared to put up every obstacle it can to avoid negotiations and suggested that the company was simply waiting until the regulations were in place so that it could take advantage of WorkChoices.
Workers Online contacted Anthony Howarth CEO of Captain Cook Cruises but he was unavailable for comment.
A decision is expected in the next few weeks on whether Qantas will send jobs to cheaper locations overseas including Indonesia as part of a shake-up of maintenance operations.
But the Qantas Sale Act imposes several conditions on the privatised airline, including rules about the location of facilities Qantas uses, such as maintenance and housing of aircraft.
The Act requires "the facilities located in Australia, when compared with those located in any other country, must represent the principal operational centre for Qantas".
Australian Licensed Engineers Association Industrial Manager Chris Ryan said he wouldn't be surprised if Qantas tried to subvert the act.
"It's a big hurdle for them," Ryan said.
The Qantas Sale Act was defended in 2002 when Federal Cabinet knocked back a proposal to allow foreign investors own more than a 49 per cent stake in the company.
The questions arise amidst media reports that Qantas was considering merging with one of the world's dodgiest airlines.
Garuda Indonesia, considered to have one of the world's poorest safety records, has faced trouble in recent times, struggling to pay off debts and deal with cheaper Asian carriers.
The owner, the Indonesian Government is keen to see an overseas operator take the reigns.
Qantas may see it as a potential base for cheap maintenance. Since 1970, Garuda has had nine accidents where at least one person was killed. The most deadly was a 1997 flight which left 12 crew members and 222 passengers dead.
The corporate victory lap, designed to raise money for the Liberal, will travel; from Federal Parliament's Great Hall, to a swank Sydney hotel to the Toorak mansion of one of Australia's wealthiest families in the first week of March.
Media reports this week suggested the guest list at the $10,000 per head dinner at the Myer family mansion in Melbourne will include Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo, NAB managing director John Stewart and Transurban's Kim Edwards.
That event, slated to earn $200,000; will be the culmination of a tour that is looking at placing half a million dollars in the Liberal party coffers.
The trough will be laid out first on March 1 when 600 Coalition politicians and business figures attend a dinner in the Great Hall, with tables of 10 selling for $10,000.
The following night, 800 people will check their cheque books into Sydney's Westin Hotel, before the serious money turns out in Toorak.
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson says he has yet to receive an invite to any of the events; and wonders how many working families will be in a position to kick the can.
"This really shows who the Prime Minister has been governing for - those who will now put money in their pocket."
The Australian Workers Union National Secretary Bill Shorten has welcomed the release of the report of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission inquiry into the 262 day strike by Boeing employees who maintain the Airforce�s F/A-18 Hornet jets at the Williamtown RAAF base near Newcastle.
The NSW Industrial Relations Commission Full Bench today found that it has jurisdiction to resolve the dispute and recommended an immediate arbitration and that the workforce return to work whilst it is arbitrating the matter.
The AWU will recommend to the striking Boeing workers that they return to work on Monday morning and will be supporting the application to arbitrate the dispute immediately. The AWU will also cease all actions in the Federal Commission.
AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten said he was pleased that the NSW Commission found in favour of the Union's and NSW Government's claims and appealed to Boeing to abide by the independent umpire's decision.
"The NSW Industrial Relations Commission has found in the favour of the AWU and the NSW Government and we thank them for that - now it is time for Boeing to get serious and sit down at the bar table and negotiate a solution to this dispute that is fair and reasonable for all parties involved.
"These workers were not asking the world of Boeing, they were only seeking to get a fair day�s pay for a fair day�s work and the fact that the Commission found in their favour is testament to the fact that their claims were not unreasonable," Shorten says.
AWU Newcastle Branch Secretary Kevin Maher thanked the NSW Government and in particular Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca for their assistance on this matter and said that meetings will be taking place with the Boeing workers immediately.
�We will be conducting mass meetings of the Boeing workers immediately and are recommending that they will be returning to work on Monday whilst the matter is arbitrated� Mr. Maher said.
The Boeing Dispute in Newcastle arose in February 2005 when Boeing management initially refused to negotiate with their workforce on their employment conditions. Since that time the AWU representing the workers have before the Federal Industrial Relations Commission three times where the Commission was unable to resolve the dispute due to John Howard�s unfair Industrial Relations laws.
The NSW Government referred the dispute to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission after NSW Commerce Minister John Della Bosca became concerned that Boeing did not intend to negotiate with their workers or seek to resolve the dispute.
The 25 workers and their families have been on strike without pay since 1 June 2005 when they were initially locked-out after taking legal industrial action by refusing to fill in their time sheets.
Evidence before the Inquiry indicated that AWU members were being paid up to $15,000 less per annum than comparable workers in the Australian aviation industry including other Boeing workers in Australia.
Sika has agreed to negotiate a collective agreement after 20 workers at its Wetherill Park plant in Western Sydney went out on strike.
National Union of Workers state secretary Derek Beelan said Sika was one of many companies trying to hold off on workplace negotiations ahead of the introduction of the Howard Government's Work Choices legislation.
"The situation at Sika has highlighted the most basic point in the relationship between employers and employees - bosses need workers for production, and workers have the ability to withdraw labour," Beelan said.
"No matter how many changes John Howard imposes upon working Australians, all workers and their unions should always bear this basic point in mind."
Meanwhile union pressure has forced many employees into negotiating new collective agreements.
Almost 3400 union-negotiated agreements were certified in the second half of last year, more than double the 1450 certified during the first half of the year.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet said this was due to a concerted effort by unions to protect conditions following the majority gained by the coalition in the Senate.
Combet told The Age newspaper many companies did not want to be guinea pigs for the new laws.
"They want to get on with their business, make sure their workforce is organised, that pay and conditions are equitable and that there's a decent agreement in place," he said.
Conceding the minimum wage could be heading south, professor Ian Harper told a BCA dinner this week, that he will not be looking at the minimum wage as a worker's sole source of income.
"An important part of what we do is thinking about how minimum wages actually articulate with the tax and social security systems, so that we can think separately about incomes and the wage," he said.
"Now you can't just totally separate the two but understanding how those two are connected is one of our priorities."
Harper says he will also focus on the plight of the unemployed rather than minimum wage earners - a clear indication that he wants to bring the minimum wage down in real terms.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet says there is no justification for cutting the real wages of award workers and the new pay Commissioner should rule this out immediately.
"It is wrong for the Commissioner to flag the prospect of a real wage cut when he hands down his first decision due later this year," Combet says.
"The economy is performing well and minimum wage workers deserve a decent share of national productivity. Living expenses keep going up and so wages for hard-working award workers should go up as well."
Combet also called on Professor Harper to take into consideration the dignity of work. "People must be able to receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and should not be forced to rely on welfare to maintain a decent standard of living."
Under the arrangements, all foreign workers will be exempt from tax paid on their shares and bank account payments.
The Business Council of Australia campaigned for the exemption on the basis of attracting skilled workers to Australia, but the law will strongly favour those on large incomes.
This comes hot on the heels of research showing chief executives earn more in a week than most workers make in a year.
The average CEO in Australia trousers $3.4 million a year, 63 times the average for the rest of the workforce and six times more than they were earning in 1990.
The research is based on salaries at the top 50 share market-listed companies whose CEOs are current members of the Business Council of Australia.
Author of the research, John Shields from the University of Sydney, said the Business Council of Australia was saying one thing for lower paid workers, consistently arguing against substantial increases to the minimum wage, and another thing for execs.
"These fellas can't lose," Shields told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
"It's heads I win, tails you lose - almost all the time."
Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten said the figures were hypocritical in light of the BCA's support of the Howard Government's Work Choices changes.
"The moral of the story coming from the big end of town seems to be "do as we say, not as we do'," Shorten said.
While congratulating Costa on realising his long-held ambition this week, his successor as Unions NSW secretary John Robertson called on him to remain true to the causes he has championed.
A simple search of the Workers Online archive shows Michael was vocal in protecting workers rights - and particularly the standards of public service - while working for the union movement.
As Labor Council of NSW secretary (now Unions NSW), Mr Costa publicly campaigned for:
- budget allocations based on community need rather than the fiscal bottom line
- maintaining the levels of public servants
- opposed the contracting out of government services
- opposed the competitive tendering of government services
"These principled positions are the foundations of Michael's political career," Robertson says. "All NSW workers will be hoping he remains true to these principles in his new position.
"I will be working hard to convince him that these policies are in the best interests of the people of NSW - and of the NSW Labor Government.
Announcing the win, Tony Sheldon, State Secretary of the Transport Workers Union, said that the only reason Gate Gourmet was able to avoid its financial responsibilities was because the Federal Government refused to legislate to protect workers entitlements when a company goes bust.
"This is a story of how unions can successfully apply enough pressure to win back for workers what is rightfully theirs," Mr Sheldon said.
Gate Gourmet's former employees staged a five-year campaign, which included singing Christmas carols outside John Howard's Kirribilly mansion.
"All it takes is persistence," former Gate Gourmet employee, Phil Green said, "it's like putting a stone in someone's shoe; eventually they get sick of it and want to shake it out."
The outstanding entitlements will be repaid in two tranches. The first, which is 60 per cent of the amount owed, has already been paid and the second, which will take the amount up to 90 per cent of the money owed, will be paid in April.
A report by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency found most Australian women are a long way short of the recommended 14 weeks leave, set down by the International Labour Organisation.
"It doesn't surprise me in the least," said Unions NSW deputy assistant secretary Alison Peters, adding that Australia is one of the few first world countries that still doesn't have a national minimum standard of paid maternity leave.
The report found that over half of Australia's employers provide no paid maternity leave at all, while 40 per cent of those that do provide 6 weeks worth, which is less than half of the ILO recommendation.
"This has been a long, ongoing saga," said Ms Peters. "The Government's baby bonus may be equal to 14 weeks pay of minimum wages at best, but it is not the proper paid maternity leave Australian workers should be getting."
Previous research by the Agency shows more women return to work for employers that provide paid maternity leave (67 per cent) than those that don't (56 per cent).
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union helped five of the workers find new jobs, after finding out about their conditions.
"There were ten people living in a four-bedroom house," AMWU Queensland secretary Andrew Dettmer said. "Some were sleeping on the floor."
The Filipino workers were on contract with an engineering company for 12 months and were missing out on overtime, as well as having their pays skimmed by the boss.
"The company was taking out $150 for rent, $100 for food, and also charging inflated interest on the ticket for a one-way flight from Manila."
"When they kicked up about it the boss tried to get them on a bus to the airport."
Dettmer met the workers last week to talk about the situation.
Five of the 10 workers who were brought over will now be working at a unionised site in Queensland.
"They will be working, I hope - and they will be working in a unionised workplace - at the going rate under a certified agreement," Dettmer said.
"I'm also hopeful we will be able to recover lost wages."
Dettmer said the problem came back to the Federal Government's controversial section 457 visas.
"We've been complaining about them for some time."
"Companies should be looking at attracting people from here and, if they're not, they should be asking 'why am I not attracting people?'," Dettmer said.
"It's also part of a continuing racist government agenda to not let people have permanent visas."
Section 457 visas, or long stay visas, allow business to bring specialist workers into the country on the basis that their skills are not available in Australia.
The company offered a 10 per cent increase to workers at its Washington depot, in North East England, if they gave up a union-negotiated collective agreement.
An employment tribunal found this broke labour relations laws and ordered the company to pay �2500 to each of the 340 workers.
The conflict began when Asda took over the depot and tried to bring conditions into line with nearby distribution centres.
A union agreement was drawn up under the new management, allegedly prompting the retailer to entice people away from the union.
"Last year Asda offered GMB members in Washington a pay rise of 10 per cent if they would give up their membership, but our members rejected this," Shane Kenny, acting secretary of British union GMB told the BBC.
"Asda have been found guilty of trying to bribe their way to a union free company."
Asda is considering an appeal.
American retail giant Wal-Mart is notorious for its anti-union stance.
Last year the chain was accused of closing a Canadian store because workers joined a union.
According to a survey conducted by the Financial Review, 19 per cent of people rate the ethics and honesty of union officials as high or very high.
This compares with 15 per cent for both federal MPs and business executives.
Unions NSW Secretary John Robertson said the figures are the result of people's scepticism about Work Choices.
"You wouldn't buy a used car from these people, let alone trust them with your rights at work," Robertson said.
Topping the survey were heavily unionised professionals, with nurses at 89 per cent and teachers at 74 per cent.
Human Rights...Negotiable?
Community Forum: What would an Australian Bill of Rights do for you?
Presented by the Port Jackson ALP State Electorate Council
Saturday 11 March 2006
Leichhardt Town Hall 2- 4:30pm
Cnr Norton & Marion Sts, Leichhardt
Guest Speakers
o The Hon. Rob Hulls MP Victorian Attorney General
o Julian Burnside Queen's Counsel, Refugee Rights Advocate, Author
o Tim Palmer Walkley Award Winning Journalist, ABC Jakarta
o The Hon. Susan Ryan Chair of the New Matilda Human Rights Campaign
RSVP: SEC Secretary Verity Firth on 02 9692 8761 (leave a message) or at [email protected] by 1 March 2006
Sick of marching in a straight line?
The Queers in Unions group - Workers Out - invites you to be involved in our float and parade entry for Mardi Gras, Saturday 4 March.
We're looking for all sorts of union members from all sorts of unions to come along and join the fun.
You can be a dancer, help us build our fabulous float or get a group together and come along and be part of the parade entry on the night.
Contacts
Dancers and other performers: Bronwyn Winter on 0412 770 424
General parade entrants: Dominic Quigley on 0424 007 638
All other enquiries: Email [email protected]
John Howard: 10 Years On
It is now 10 years since John Howard was first elected as Australia's Prime Minister.
This forum will consider the Howard Government's 10 years in power and the impact it has had on Australia.
With:
* Julia Gillard MP, Shadow Health Minister
* Gerard Henderson, columnist with the Sydney Morning Herald
* Judith Brett, Author
When: Wednesday 22 March from 6.00pm to 7.30pm
Where: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
Cost: Free
Chair: Senator John Faulkner, President of the NSW Fabian Society
In spite of numerous warnings that wheat 'kickbacks' were being paid prior to the Iraqi invasion, Mr Howard says:
"I do not disguise for a moment the fact that the Government has sought the involvement of Mr Flugge in post-Saddam Iraq," "It was because our principal concern at that time was to stop American wheat growers from getting our markets."
So concerned with U.S. competition (post invasion) did our Government reject repeated claims of corruption prior to the Iraq invasion? Well, no serious investigations were launched into reviewing the allegations, were they?
Were the allegations of 'kickbacks' dismissed because ministers believed they were an attempt by U.S. wheat growers to take over our wheat markets prior to the Iraq invasion? Quite possibly.
Combine a complete failure by our Government to investigate more thoroughly allegations prior to the invasion with comments relating to post invasion views such as ',It was because our principal concern at that time was to stop American wheat growers from getting our markets' along with constant denials that our Government knew nothing of 'kickbacks prior to the invasion',wears a little thin, in my opinion. Continue to protect our wheat contracts at all costs, seems to have been the Howard Government's stance (pre and post invasion)
Among other concerns that seem to run counter to Mr Howard's constant denials of having any knowledge, is the fact that " an AWB document released yesterday by the Cole inquiry into the UN oil-for-food scandal revealed that an AWB manager, Michael Long, boasted he had secured a position for the former head of the Iraqi Grain Board, Yusef Abdul Rahman, "to top post in the Ministry of Trade and ensured his survival through the de-Baathification of upper levels of Iraqi civil service"
AND nobody in the Howard Government was aware of the direct and long standing arrangements between AWB executives and the Iraqi government prior to the invasion?...INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE, if we are to believe the PM.
Kind regards
John McPhilbin
As an LHMU member, the article " Capital Punishment on the Menu" made clear that it is the calm before the storm. The vulnerability of Filipino guest workers are a sharp example of Federal government IR policy to return Australia back to the regime of individual contracts under the Masters and Servants Act of the 19th century.
Its not just foreign workers. Indigenous people were put on
Work-For-The-Dole labour programs ten years before non-Indigenous workers. They have always been underpaid, treated like slaves and racially vilified. Indigenous public servants are leaving the government bureaucracy running Aboriginal affairs in droves because of the taken position they play.
The paternalism of Australian governments results in racism that is all pervasive in the lives of every single Indigenous person. For 218 years there has been rampant land theft, stolen wages and children, and the decimation of entire Aboriginal nations. This has been, and continues to be an ongoing genocidal war.
The Stolenwealth Games in Melbourne, and the spin congratulating our so-called multiculturalism hides a dark history, and the present reality of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. The Black GST, which stands for Genocide to be stopped. Sovereignty to be restored. Treaty to be made has an Indigenous leadership bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We will be opposing the Games as part of our convergence in Melbourne from all over Australia.
There is unfinished business between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, and that is the reason to support the Black GST.
Craig R Hall
Indigenous Social Justice Association
( Melbourne Supporter's Group )
The current outbreak of stories about the importation of low paid foreign workers, be they Croat car makers, Vietnamese bakers or Japanese jockeys are no coincidence; they are the product of a conscious government policy justified by the ubiquitous 'skills crisis'.
This wave is about to gain further momentum: further loosening of visa requirements are set to be approved by the Federal Parliament, while the PM and (sadly) Labor Premiers last week signed off on a regime that will offshore skills accreditation, a potentially fatal wound to our trade apprentice regime.
The whole story illustrates the vicious cycle that emerges when one hands the national interest over to big business.
First the training of young Australians is halted as the public sector is privatised; the new corporations floated and the investment in young workers for the future deemed unviable in the short-term business model that defines economic success.
Then big business cries 'crisis' - they can not be expected to train young workers - that's the role of the government's who sold them the asset; and anyway there are far too many 'rigidities' in our training regime.
So the clamour begins to grow for 'freeing up' immigration; address the 'crisis' by scouring the globe for workers from societies with a lower standard off living, who are so desperate for economic security that they will travel around the world for a better paying job.
And then the final gambit; destroy the award system and hack at the minimum wage so that these new workers, to fill the jobs that Australians are no longer trained to do, need not cost as much as the local workforce.
These are arguments that the union movement and, hopefully, the ALP will prosecute vigorously, although with more thought, compassion and nuance than the Hanson juggernaut.
There are dangers, none the least that these questions of economic rationalism are side-tracked into a cheap form of economic nationalism, one step away from the racism that trivialised the quite reasonable request Pauline posed in the mid-90s. Please explain. Please explain because we can't understand; what's the logic behind this? Who wins? Who loses? What's the game plan?
To avoid this, today's debate around guest workers and skilled migration should be premised on the following three principles.
First, no individual is to blame for leaving their home and family in order to get a better life; indeed there is much to be admired in the sacrifice involved in moving to an unknown land, often alone, without the security of citizenship.
Second, this is not a debate about 'protection' of privilege - it is about respecting the working rights that have been fought for by our forebears and being curious about the interests of those who would tear them up and flush them down the toilet.
Third, the end game has to be Australia's long term national interest; and that means the opportunities we are creating for the next generation; who need to aspire to more than a spot on a reality TV show in a country that has more going for it than a resources dump for China.
If we off-shore our apprenticeships, undercut our lowest paid and outsource our national soul to the lowest global bidder are we building a stronger economy or letting the white ants loose?
Yes, the debate is a delicate one and the dangers of isolationism and xenophobia must always be in our consideration; but if we do not resolve these issues now, within the framework laid out above, I fear the demons the PM has so skilfully brewed and then uncorked in the past will be at his disposal again.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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