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Issue No. 311 | 16 June 2006 |
Big Target
Interview: Rock Solid Industrial: Eight Simple Rules for Employing My Teenage Daughter Politics: The Johnnie Code Energy: Fission Fantasies History: All The Way With Clarrie O'Shea International: Closer to Home Economics: Taking the Fizz Unions: Stronger Together Review: Montezuma's Revenge Poetry: Fair Go Gone
Esselte Occasioning Workplace Harm Indonesian Guards Occupy Office Leafy Council Rewards Choppers
The Soapbox The Locker Room Parliament Education
Career Opportunities A Nuclear Error
Labor Council of NSW |
Tool Shed The Man Who Loved Goats
***** Piers Akerman was on Insiders the other week, expressing an interest in the possibilities of men being able to marry goats. It shows the sort of cosmopolitan man of the people that Piers really is. Never one to be swayed by public opinion, or common sense, or even reality, his exchange with David Marr was truly inspiring - providing the sort of stimulating debate that has made him the foremost satirical writer of our times. Normally Piers' foray into the realms of the bizarre would be merely run of the mill - old Piers banging on as the Grandpa Simpson of Australian politics - yet he followed up his goat-love effort this week in the august pages of the Daily Telegraph, with a fascinating insight into the geopolitical role of Australian Workplace Agreements. Apparently, according to Piers, without AWAs Australia will become the next Albania. It's good to see that old Piers has extended his interest in foreign countries beyond his favourites, Columbia and Bolivia. Piers was railing against the Marxist regime of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, himself a fan of many despotic regimes such as Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Belgrade. In fact Uncle Enver has followed many different forms dictatorial Marxism over the years, not unlike Piers himself. Piers is alarmed that, without AWAs, Beazley will have free license to invade Macedonia. Piers central beef is that Beazley has woken up and smelt the coffee. Anyone with half a brain can see that having someone take a machete to your pay is not considered a good thing. Meanwhile, Piers begs to differ. Akerman is perturbed that we aren't using China as a benchmark for global labour standards, which must be reassuring for everyone in the mining industry given the safety standards of your average Chinese mine, and for Chinese keen to raise their own living standards. Obviously Piers is not just disappointed that working Australians are overpaid, they're obviously not being killed off enough as well. But Piers bloodthirsty loathing for ordinary working Australians is not his only source of disquiet - he is worried that the ALP is a dangerous Marxist-Leninist organisation hell bent on forcing us all into work camps to prop up the trade union movement. This unique take on reality provided a greatr deal of mirth for everyone in the real world, as we saw by that (obviously in Piers view) fellow travellwer with Marxist Leninist demagoguery, Alan Jones. Jones tore strips off an increasingly crestfallen Peter Costello, who was forced to chew long and hard on the brown sandwich, as Jones hammered him over the reality of what AWAs meant for ordinary Australians that are trying to put a roof over their family's head and food on the table. Unfortunately Piers doesn't get it: not the ordinary family, the reality of the modern workplace, what WorkChoices means or how damaging this will be The only thing missing from his diatribe was a fulmination against pot smoking dole bludgers and we could have been able to diagnose him as having flashbacks to a bad acid trip form the seventies. Piers may have edited a leading national newspaper, had the ear of the Prime Minister, walked the halls of power with captains of industry - but you sleep with one goat...
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