If you needed any more proof that John Howard has turned Australia into a meaner and more backward place, it's hard to go past the dreck over the airwaves and in the letters page last week.
The yokels were baying for blood, because the Returned Services League had the temerity to allow a young man, who had burned the Australian flag during the riots last December, carry the flag during the Anzac Day march.
Any hope that the RSL's gesture might be taken as a sign of both apology and forgiveness was soon quashed, with the few-toothed-ones telling shock jocks they would hurl eggs, beer cans and pitchforks at the kid.
Loons with the cognitive ability to write sent their missiles through the Telegraph.
Port Macquarie's Ron Nichols wrote he would "happily do time" to ensure the RSL President and the former flag burner would "not get any more than 100m down the road on Anzac Day".
David Chambers of Burwood was a little more reserved, perhaps, in claiming the RSL's decision "shows ideologies of tolerance, diversity and forgiveness have become a psychiatric illness in this country".
These are probably the same people who profess that Australia is a proudly Christian country.
They must believe the only reason Jesus turned the other cheek was to reach for another can of whoop-ass*.
And sure, burning the Australian flag might be disrespectful, but apparently threatening to maim people marching in a parade for returned soldiers is acceptable.
Clearly, the thing that has become acceptable is for these morons to get about in their Reg Regan attire, sucking back on their tinnies, having a go at anything that's different or actions that might show an ounce of compassion.
These half-wits are the same ones going around saying new arrivals have to embrace Australian values.
This is all bullshit - the values debate is a case of labelling people from non-Anglo backgrounds the "other" so the insecure can make themselves feel more Australian.
In fact, they'd prefer if newcomers would not accept Australian values, because it makes them even more convinced they are the "real" Australians.
But, the bad news for them is they aren't - they are merely the ugly Australians that John Howard has turned into our flag bearers.
* apologies to the comedian I stole that line from.
ANZ, the largest exporter of Australian jobs, threatened to pull $5 million in advertising from News Ltd after the Daily Telegraph exposed the scope of its Bangalore operations.
The vociferous response, coupled with threats of legal action, followed a front page story that wrongly identified an ANZ technology facility as a call centre.
While the gambit blunted the Telegraph campaign against outsourcing, it has failed blunt growing public concern about off-shoring, with the Commonwealth Bank becoming the first major bank to rule out any off-shoring of jobs.
Commonwealth Bank head of marketing Barbara Chapman told ABC's PM program last night:
"Right now at the Commonwealth Bank we think we've got the skills in place in Australia to do the roles that we're needing to do, particularly around delivering service for our customers. So that's the main reason.
"But also looking at this whole picture, our assessment has been that the potential cost benefits may not actually outweigh the additional risks involved in outsourcing. So we've preferred to keep jobs on shore."
Finance Sector Union national secretary Paul Schroder says this is a significant development and put san end to rumours that CBA was exploring its own off-shoring options.
"This is a great step forward in the union campaign to maintain a viable finance sector in Australia, as ANZ, Westpac, NAB and St George all pursue off shoring to cheaper labour bases like India," Schroder says.
"The Commonwealth Bank has staked out a position that sets itself apart from its competitors and more closely aligns itself with community values.
"This is a smart business move and one that may prompt other banks to revise this crude cost-cutting strategy."
In a new and ingenuous form of intimidation, Wilken Electrical Services is placing ads to employ workers on AWAs, while its current employees bargain for a collective agreement.
Electrical Trades Union organiser Dan Weizman says workers will vote in a secret ballot, one of the first under the Howard Government's WorkChoices laws, to take protected industrial action.
Wilken Electrical is demanding the workers accept a halving in the number of Rostered Days Off, loss of travel and fare allowances, an $80 per week salary cut and a five year pay freeze.
When the 12 electricians attempted to negotiate a collective agreement on their terms, the employer began bringing in workers on AWAs.
"As the industrial position of the workers has hardened, the employer has become more aggressive in recruiting new workers on AWAs," Weizman says.
"These electricians are being told they must accept lower conditions and less RDOs or they will not get any work.
"It is like they have a knife to their throats - they have families and mortgages - and to be sent the message their work will go if they stand up for their rights is just bully tactics.
The Industrial Relations Legislation policy, the centrepiece of the union effort to rebuild workers rights under a Labor Government, has been circulated ahead of the October 23 gathering of the movement's policy-making body,
It lays out a comprehensive plan based on ten principles to make the system relevant to the 21st century.
1. consistency of rights across forms of employment, including contractors
2. a secure safety net underpinning the labour market
3. the democratic right to collectively bargain
4. prohibition of individual arrangement designed to undermine the safety net
5. transitional arrangements to protect workers currently on AWAs
6. an independent tribunal to maintain and improve the award safety net, oversee bargaining and guarantee fair treatment in the workplace
7. rights of union membership and registration
8. workers protection from arbitrary and capricious decision making thro8ugh grievance procedures
9. rights to a safe, healthy workplace free of discrimination and a harassment
10. statutory protection for workplace delegates.
Unions NSW secretary John Robinson has endorsed the blueprint as one that sets out a national vision while retaining an important role for state systems.
"Contrary to some media reports, this model actually strengthens the state system and gives workers the opportunity to return to the state jurisdiction,": Robertson says.
"But it does so with in a broader framework of harmonisation - something Unions NSW has long advocated for.
"This policy is a good, sensible outcome that recognises the benefits in having competing state systems in a dynamic national economy
"It supports cooperative federalism not Jackboot Johnnie's view of a nation controlled by Canberra."
Australian Country Choice, a Queensland meat production and processing company, recently overhauled its meat processing plant at Cannon Hill in the state's south-east to boost production of retail-ready trays of meat for Coles supermarkets.
"Coles appears to be moving out of butchering in the supermarkets more into a retail-ready products in a black tray," said Russell Carr, Qld secretary of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Association.
"Australian Country Choice built the facility with the view to supplying most of NSW and then Queensland ... their sole market is Coles."
While several hundred existing employees of ACC are covered by an award-based enterprise agreement, 40 new workers at the revamped plant - half of whom are African migrants - were required to sign AWAs as a condition of employment, said Carr.
There are plans to employ up to 300 people at the site, he said.
The AWAs strip all entitlements aside from the basic sick and holiday leave guaranteed under WorkChoices for an hourly rate of $16.20 an hour - just 29c more than the lowest hourly rate in the enterprise agreement, said Carr.
"Under the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement the maximum number of hours is 10, as opposed to 12 on the AWAs. The AWAs set no normal hours, so the workers can be asked to work any time around the clock.
"There's no shift allowance or overtime, no holiday loading or public holiday penalties," said Carr.
"The workers spend a lot of time working in freezers, but the AWAs don't contain the cold temperature allowance included in the award."
AMIEU members - there are about 350 at Australian Country Choice - are fearful about what will happen when their enterprise agreement expires next year.
"They are very worried about what will happen if this legislation is still available to employers when the agreement expires," said Carr.
South Australian activists say they have never witnessed the support that buoyed Radio Rentals technicians, during a month-long lockout, that ended with a shock announcement the company would sign a union collective agreement.
One long-term Adelaide activist doubted the workers would have done a dollar, during their month at the point end of John Howard's war on workers, due to the scale of support.
The AMWU and Radio Rentals, announced the high-profile dispute was over in the driest of joint communiqu�s, this week.
But it couldn't take the shine off a massive victory for the trade union movement.
The ACTU, Unions South Australia and the AMWU joined forces to bring national attention to the Radio Rentals dispute.
The company used AWAs, then a lengthy lockout, to try to destroy collective bargaining in line with the federal government's game-plan.
But its aggression provoked opposition that commentators believe was impacting on its business.
Protests outside the company's Prospect store drew strong support and there were reports of customers cancelling contracts.
The joint press statement, issued this week, can be read as a refutation of key arguments in favour of AWAs.
Specifically, Radio Rentals accepts the collective agreement as a route to increased wages that also delivers on productivity and customer service.
The parties would not add to the following statement:
"Radio Rentals and the AMWU are pleased to advise that the industrial dispute between the parties has been resolved.
"Following extensive and detailed discussions on a range of issues, a collective agreement has been negotiated which lays the foundations for improved relationships, increased wages, improved productive performance and customer service.
"The negotiations were conducted in a professional manner and both sides are pleased with the outcome.
"Both parties look forward to implementing the agreement and working towards building a strong working relationship built on mutual respect."
Leave Your Human Rights At The Door
The new workplace laws introduced by the Howard Government are a serious attack not just on living standards, but also civil liberties.
We already have 107 workers on a building site being prosecuted and facing fines of $28,600.00 for protesting against the unfair sacking of their union delegate.
These laws are extreme and unprecedented in Australian workplace relations.
6.00pm, Wednesday November 1st 2006
NSW Teachers Federation Auditorium
39-41 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills
Speakers
John Robertson - Unions NSW Secretary
Bernadette Peters - Partner of one of the 107 WA workers being prosecuted
Andrew Ferguson - NSW CFMEU Secretary
Maree O'Halloran - NSW Teachers Federation President
Chris Harris - Greens Councillor City of Sydney
Julian Burnside - QC and Human Rights advocate (TBC)
City of Canada Bay Your Rights At Work Committee
Time: 6:30pm - 8pm,
Date: Monday 20 November 2006
Venue: Concord Bowling Club, 1B Clermont Ave, Concord
Since the Howard Government's radical new workplace laws were introduced many unscrupulous employers have attacked the rights of workers. Tens of thousands of workers have been forced onto AWA individual contracts, with most losing pay and basic conditions. Workers from companies with less than 100 employees have been sacked unfairly, but have no legal recourse.
As a community we have an obligation to stand shoulder to shoulder with the victims of these laws and defend their rights at work. We must also fight for fairer work laws that protect basic rights, rather than the Howard Government's 'dog-eat-dog' U.S. style system.
For these reasons concerned community members from the City of Canada Bay have joined together to form a committee to defend the work rights of all local people, and to hold the Howard Government accountable for their IR laws.
You are invited to attend the inaugural meeting of the City of Canada Bay Your Rights At Work Committee. Your support is vital to protect working families now and to defend the future working conditions of our children.
More info: [email protected]
The true nature of the legislation was drummed into Bass Strait platform workers when the AIRC ordered them back to work, although the stoppage they voted for by 31-4 in a secret ballot, was barely one fifth of the way through.
"It was just starting to bite," AMWU organiser, Greg Warren, explained. "Now they've been forced back to work and we are all back to square one.
"There is no incentive for employers to bargain in good faith under this process."
Under the WorkChoices bureacracy, it took 39 Quality Maintenance Service employees on Bass St rigs, six weeks to complete their WorkChoices industrial action ballot.
They voted, overwhelmingly for a series of bans, to be followed by a 100-day stoppage, if the company did not address their issues.
However, barely 20 days into the stoppage, the company won an order to suspend their bargaining period for a month form AIRC SDP Acton.
The decision renders any industrial action illegal and punishable by hefty fines and damages. It also forces the offshore fitters and service operators to begin the whole process again.
Key sticking points included classifications and union access.
Warren said members thought they had an agreement on classifications after an agreed, arbitrated process involving industry training body, MISTAS, and employer organisation, AIG.
"QMS has reneged on the deal. There was stuff in there we didn't like but our guys accepted it as a way forward," Warren said.
"These laws are stacked in favour of the employer. The SDP has a new Act she has to apply and it is a deliberately anti-worker Act.
"Companies can lock people out for ever and a day but, even after we jump through all their hoops, they overturn secret ballot decisions if they look like being effective."
The revelation confirms Canberra has been green-lighting the importation of guest workers on contracts that breach Australian law and human rights conventions.
Workers Online has sighted a contract, signed by a guest worker sacked after breaking both writst at work, that makes union membership a deportable offence.
It backs up the claims of numerous ripped off immigrant workers that they were forbidden from joining a union as a condition of entry to Australia.
Workers Online first revealed the development, in March 2003, when South African tradesmen were adamant they had been barred from union membership by agents that arranged their visas.
They complained after being farmed out to sites around WA by a labour hire company, associated with the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where some earned less than a third the rates of Australians working alongside them.
Confirming the union ban, at the time, spokesman Ronald Oliveira, likened their situation to "slavery".
Now, hard evidence is available, that agents in the Philippines and China are also forcing guest workers to sign agreements that undercut their human rights.
"Under no circumstances shall the employee participate in riots, strikes, political, union or radical religious activities," reads a clause in the contract Fu Zhi Hong signed with Shanghai Overseas Employment Service.
Article 6 of the document, states Fu Zhi Hong will be in "breach of contract" if he organises or incites political activities "such as strikes".
The same contract obliges the worker to pay the agent approx $A27,000 for its services, and prescribes a minimum annual income of $38,000, including overtime, for his four years in Australia.
The Sydney Morning Herald, this week, reported that another contract, signed by a Filipino, nominated "insubordination" and "engaging in trade union activities" as grounds for dismissal.
Unions have renewed their calls for tens of thousands of workers, imported on Section 457 visas, to be granted Australian rights, conditions and pay.
"The treatment of these people is a national disgrace," AMWU official, Jim Reid, said. "They are being ruthlessly exploited and the government does nothing about it.
"By doing nothing, it is giving license to the worst employers in Australia. "
Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, told the West Australian newspaper, earlier this year, that Section 457 visas were being used to hold down wage rates.
Multi-national Serco Sodexho has had to import people from Wollongong, and put them up in a hotel for weeks, because it couldn't find Canberra cleaners desperate enough to wear its individual contracts.
The farce is laid bare in a Defence Department memo appealing for staff to escort cleaners who don't have required security clearances.
Victor Platen of the Defence Department's Re-Tender Team Project asks supervisors to alert staff to overtime "opportunities".
"The security escorts will be required for possibly the next three weeks, Monday to Friday from 1700 to approximately 2200 hours, with the possibility of some weekend security escorting from 1000 to 1800 hours," he writes.
The escort appeal came as the Office of Employment Advocate continued to sit on its hands over allegations that Serco Sodexho AWAs were illegal.
The LHMU informed the advocated of its concerns on September 22 but has not had any response.
Dozens of Defence Department cleaners quit their posts when Serco Sodexho insisted that they sign its AWAs.
"Our members warned the company it would not be able to find enough cleaners in Canberra prepared to accept these AWAs," the LHMU's Lyndal Ryan said.
"Now, it seems, the taxpayer is paying for a service that is not being delivered and may well be asked to pay overtime to Defence personnel in an attempt to cover up Serco Sodexho's failed IR policies."
Ryan alleged the company was refusing to pay cleaners who started working at the Russell complex before signing AWAs.
Monday's launch of the T3 share offer was delayed as Telstra and the Government locked horns over the appointment of ex-Howard advisor Geoff Cousins to the company's board.
The previous Friday as American CEO Sol Trujillo launched the much-vaunted 3G network, the sprinkler system malfunctioned, leaving Sol and a crowd of financial analysts soaking wet.
However it was workers in Queensland who found themselves high and dry when Telstra announced the closure of call centres in Cairns and Maroochydore, leaving 160 people out of work just in time for Christmas.
CPSU spokesperson Louise Persse said the company had "hung up on its own staff while floating T3 shares."
"Telstra claims its all part of their plan to improve customer service. Both these call centres are winners of excellence awards. If you want customer service, you need
customer service operators," Persse said.
Government MP Warren Entsch, whose electorate covers the Cairns call centre, said he was 'furious' with Telstra.
"There was no absolutely no consultation. The first I heard of it was when an employee called me in tears after being told they were being given a redundancy," Entsch told Workers Online.
"I put in a call to the Minister's office and they hadn't heard anything either. Telstra claimed that their failure to consult with us was an oversight. I don't believe them."
"These call centre workers have been extremely loyal to Telstra. It's a pity that Telstra didn't show any loyalty to them," he said.
Entsch said that there was a missed opportunity for Telstra to sit down with local stakeholders, workers and their union to explore alternative arrangements in order keep the jobs in Cairns - allowing Telstra to fulfil their community obligations as one of the largest local employers.
"Sadly, Telstra never gave us that chance," he said.
A ship, chartered by the Board, was stuck off South Australia this week when Filipinos refused to sail until pay and conditions were improved.
Sailors on board the Liberian-registered 'flag of convenience' ship Boreal had been paid just half the internationally accepted rate in more than six months at sea.
Eight crew members contacted the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to complain about pay and conditions on the ship, which was loaded with 72,000 tonnes of Australian wheat destined for Sudan.
During a 24-hour standoff, the ship's German owners Orion Bulk Ships threatened to set sail and leave the eight Filipinos stranded at South Australia's Port Lincoln, said ITF's Australian coordinator Dean Summers.
In a resolution reached late Wednesday the sailors would be backpaid to the ITF minimum standard for developing world crews, and would be repatriated to the Philippines, Summers said.
Flag of convenience ships - owned by one country but registered in another to take advantage of lower tax and registrations standards - commonly operate with appalling labour practices as the crews are isolated at sea for many months, Summers said.
"Some of them are good ... But many of them are absolute pirates, and we see some of the worst ways bosses treat workers."
Companies chartering the ships share the responsibility for treatment of crew members, Summers said.
"Organisations like AWB, Rio Tinto and BHP charter many of these vessels. We've asked them to include in their contracts an ITF agreement for crew pay and conditions - all we want is for them to subscribe to minimum conditions."
As Workers Online went to press, a Panamian-flagged ship carrying pipes for the oil and gas fields off Western Australia was refusing ITF access on board at Henderson Port South of Fremantle.
"This must be one of the most profitable industries in the world, what have they got to hide in the treatment of their crew?" asked Summers.
The South African-owned company has attempted to stop employees from seeking to protect their entitlements should the company go bust.
But the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has upheld a previous decision - appealed by Heinemann - that seeking protection for employee entitlements is not 'prohibited content' under Howard's new laws.
Under WorkChoices, all content not directly pertaining to the employment relationship is banned from workplace agreements.
Heinemann sought an order to stop members of the Electrical Trades Union taking protected industrial action on the grounds the union was pursuing prohibited content.
But the AIRC's full bench said a claim protect employee entitlements in the event of liquidation did pertain to the employment relationship, similarly to claims for employer superannuation or insurance against loss of earnings.
In August, while attempting to negotiate an enterprise bargaining agreement which guaranteed their entitlements and granted a reasonable pay rise, the workers stopped working voluntary overtime for a week, but continued to work normal hours.
Heinemann - which wanted to slash penalty rates for overtime and shift work - refused to pay 54 Victorian employees for that week's work, owing them $33,000 in total.
The workers are continuing to fight for a fair collective agreement.
Australian unions are joining the International Transport Workers Federation in calling on a full investigation into the sinking of the Panamian-registered Giant Step.
The ship - crewed by Indian nationals - was carrying 190,000 tonnes of iron ore to the Japanese port of Kashima when it sank. Fifteen crew members were rescued and of 10 others missing, three bodies have been found.
The International Ship and Port Security Code provides that under the international convention all crew must have access to visitors, shore leave and welfare providers.
But private ports like Port Walcott - operated by Pilbara Iron, majority owned by Rio Tinto - are barring welfare checks of crews, said Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten.
"As a country, we bear a responsibility to ensure seafarers who are transporting Australian goods around the world are working in safe conditions," Shorten said.
Pilbara Iron doesn't allow ITF welfare officers access to crews arriving at Port Walcott, said ITF Australian co-ordinator Dean Summers.
"The ITF have long held concerns for the welfare of crews in isolated ports who are a vital link in getting Australia's products to international markets," said Summers.
"When was this 21-year-old ship last checked by port state control to ensure it was sea worthy?"
The owners of Giant Step, the international shipping company MOL Line, has lost three ships in the past few months suggesting its vessels suffered serious safety problems, Summers.
"We are calling for a full investigation of what happened on this ship from the time it was loaded in Western Australia. The process of loading of 190,000 tonnes of rock is very important, to ensure it doesn't place to much strain on the ship."
Crew members from developing countries were being treated as expedient commodities, free of any support when they come into a privately-owned port, said Paddy Crumlin, national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia.
WA building worker Michael Bonan challenged the powers of Australian Building and Construction Commission investigator Nigel Hadgkiss to reject his right to choice of lawyer, while conducting a secret interrogation into alleged industrial action.
Hadgkiss made the ruling on the basis that the lawyer was representing other workers in relation to the same matter.
In his decision, Justice Besanko ruled that the ABCC had the power to deny the worker the choice of lawyer during the secret interrogations.
The court did, however, rule that the ABCC had exceeded its power when Hadgkiss attempted to prevent Bonan using his preferred lawyer outside the secret investigation.
CFMEU Construction Division National Secretary Dave Noonan says the decision shows how extreme the Howard Government's anti-building industry laws actually are.
"What the court has said is that a government official can deny a worker the basic right of choosing their own legal representative.
"The effect of this decision is that workers can be called before a secret hearing of Howard's hand-picked political appointees and forced to answer questions under the threat of six months jail - without a lawyer of their choice.
"This decision reinforces the repressive nature of these laws, which have been enacted with minimal public scrutiny or debate.
"These laws are bad for workers, bad for democracy and bad for the building industry, which has always thrived when employers and employees work together cooperatively," Noonan says.
AMWU national president Julius Roe said the $837 million, to be spent over five years, would go nowhere near making up billion cuts to TAFE and university funding, Canberra had presided over.
"Australia is the only country in the OECD which has cut real spending on education and training in the last decade," Roe said. "The average, across other developed countries, has been a real increase of more than 30 percent.
"This package, less than $200 million a year, goes nowhere near making up the shortfall cause by the Howard cuts."
The program is based on vouchers, worth up to $3000, for Australians aged over 25 who haven't completed Year 12 education.
Workers can use the vouchers to cover courses and training programs.
Roe said they were really about undermining TAFEs and genuine qualifications.
"We don't need to destroy the apprenticeship system to tackle skills shortages," he says.
"There are far more people applying for trade apprenticeships than there are available places. The key is to increase the number of places available and to increase completion rates.'
Roe said the "miserable" amount of money provided would not go near meeting that goal.
A noble man once stated that "to test a mans character give him power" that man was Abraham Lincoln, a man who carries the distinction of never telling a lie or abusing the power that was entrusted to him.
Earning the title "Honest John" Mr. Howard has continually lied, denied and concealed his intentions from the Australian people, for the duration of his Parliamentary career.
When "Honest John" was Treasurer in the Fraser Government, he returned a $9.6 Billion dollar deficit and the Hawke Labor Government inherited the blame.
When Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister "Honest John" vocalised the need for Australian's to boycott the Moscow Olympics, however, Mr. Howard hid under his rock in Bennelong and remained quiet while Malcolm Fraser allowed part of his farming produce to form part of the burgeoning Australian Soviet export trade. Patrick O'Brien, 1985, Factions, Feuds, Fancies the Liberals, Viking publication.
Prior to the 1996 federal election "Honest John" stated that "No Australian will be worse off under his Government and that there will never ever be a GST, its dead, its finished". On average Australians are $10,300 per person worse off from GST, not mentioning the 174 "extra" taxes implemented by the Howard Government.
In 1998 "Honest John" introduced his first wave of Industrial Relations changes, legislation that was condemned by International jurists of the International Labor Organisation for Human Rights violations. The ILO was the first specialised agency of the United Nations.
In 2001 "Honest John" claimed that he had received intelligence advice that "asylum seekers threw their children into the water" This claim was later destroyed in a Senate inquiry with Military and Intelligence officers submitting evidence refuting Howard's assertions to the contrary.
In 2004 "Honest John" came home with "Weapons of Mass Deception" and more alleged advice from US and Australian intelligence agencies (the same intelligence agencies no doubt that provided misleading information regarding asylum seekers).
"John Howard is a war criminal, Ive branded Bush, Blair and Howard as war criminals. It is the greatest act of aggression by any western nation since the days of Adolf Hitler. The slaughter and aggression is still going on, they have unleashed war and destruction, maiming the Iraqi people". John Valder former National President and NSW
State President of the Liberal Party, Springwood Civic Centre 24th July 2004.
The Interest rate scare campaign asserting that "Interest rates would rise under a Labor Government" is the greatest play upon the intelligence of the Australian people.
Recalling the value of real estate during the nineties with properties averaging $100,000 and interest rates averaging 15%, under "Honest Johns" illusion of low interest rates at an average of 5% properties are now valued at an obscene $500,000. This is denying the majority of younger Australians the opportunity from obtaining their first property and impregnating a negative frame within the minds of younger generations you do the math upon interest repayed!
Wages may have increased under the Howard Government, however it is not attributed to their generosity- they have opposed all wage increases brought forward by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, apart from bonuses Enterprise Bargaining Agreements negotiated by Unions deliver a 12% increase in wages over a three year period.
In 2006 "Honest John" introduced his vision for Australia titled Workchoices" a delusion of grandeur and ruling class mentality. "Honest John" would have the Australian people believe that he had a mandate to introduce these reforms, however there was no announcement prior or during the 2004 federal election.
"Honest John" is not only out of touch with working Australia, he is out of touch with his own membership and office bearers!
In a Liberal Party publication titled "The Way Ahead" by a former NSW Liberal MP and now President of the Gosford branch of the Liberal Party, Mr. Malcolm Brooks stated; "many who voted for Mr. Howard are cutting loose over the Industrial Relations laws.
Mr. Howard then deceived the National Party with his "Workchoices" legislation as Andrew Stoner National President of the Nationals stated after it was introduced that he had "no idea of the content".
There were probably to many pages to read (1400) within the legislation and he was more concerned about the findings of the Cole Inquiry!
"Honest Johns" credibility was totally dismantled in an interview with Gerard Henderson When Mr. Howard asserted that at the fall of the Chifley Labor Government his father had a bombfire and burned petrol rationing vouchers, Gerard Henderson later questioned John Howard's brother Bob, however he does not recall such a famous event that occurred
in the Howard household! A Coalition Government? 1995, Harper and Collins.
To say the least, the Howard Government are incompetent, dishonest and comic book Nazis attempting to resurrect the failed policies of Margaret Thatcher!
Sincerely
Sean Ambrose
Stevedore, Port Botany
I have just read your article based on Leon Gettler's book "The Unpromised Land". In your article you say the Conservative Menzies Government rejected the Kimberley Propsal for jewish colonisation. In fact menzies never got around to making a definitive decision as the war intervened and he lost office to Curtin.
IT WAS THE CURTIN government that rejected the Steinberg proposal after the Interdepartmental Committee refused to "depart from the long established policy in regard to alien settlement in Australia, and therefore cannot entertain the proposal for a group settlement of the exclusive type contemplated by the Freeland League." Despite the A.C.T.U. and others urging the CURTIN GOVT to change its mind, the LABOR GOVT. never did, even after CHIFLEY took office on Curtin's death.
If you are going to write an article, tell the whole story or else you could be accused of propaganda!
Carolyn Cotman
The lightening rod was a subbing glitch in Sydney's Daily Telegraph that turned an ANZ IT centre, housing 1400 workers whose work was once done by Australians, into 'a call centre'.
The response from ANZ to this error was ferocious - immediate threats to pull five million dollars in advertising from News Ltd, threats of legal actions, demands for retractions.
Australia's largest exporter of jobs to India used this tactical advantage to construct a straw man and then burn it down. ANZ does not export call centre jobs and had no plans to and any suggestion that it would do so was wrong.
But hold on, who but the sub-editor had ever mentioned call centres?
For weeks the Finance Sector union had been raising concerns about the off shoring of IT and data processing jobs, from the skills drain from Australia to the security of sensitive personal information that is no longer subject to Australian privacy laws.
The reporter involved, Luke McIlveen, is no patsy of the unions; in fact he was the reporter responsible for the scurrilous and damaging attack on the ACTU's IR advertising campaign a few months ago.
But to his credit, on this one he had picked up the story and run with it, all the way to the source of the story, Bangalore, where he discovered the real driver of \off-shoring - university trained graduates who see a $100 per week job as a passport out of poverty.
And there was so much more to find in Bangalore, until some one decided to beat a story that didn't need any embellishment.
Now the broadsheets are having great time at McIlveen's expense, after all he is a big target who has never been scared of hitting up a story. But on this one they are wrong, the same story appeared in other News Ltd titles without reference to the 'call centre'.
But while these high-brow outlets were indulging in a bit of old fashioned one upmanship they were missing the real story - a leading corporate exerting legal threats and commercial pressure to end a campaign that is clearly hurting it.
Off-shoring is one of those classic issues that define the gap between the business world and the Australian people - we know the public hate the idea of off-shoring - they hate the double standard soft Australian companies training on patriotism and then sacking locals; and they hate the idea their information is in foreign hands. We know because when we poll the issue it is not a 45-55 split it is a 90-10 split, crossing political and social divides.
But we also know that business is its own logic and easy ways to cut labour costs, regardless of the human impact, are just too compelling.
After this week we know something else - although the ''quality' media chose to ignore it - the Prime Minister thinks this is all OK.
This is what he told Federal Parliament this week when asked by the Opposition leader his position on the off-shoring of Australians' personal information.
"Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition appreciates it when it suits him, but on occasions when it does not suit him he does not appreciate that in a globalised world lots of tasks flow across borders from one country to another.
" Just as this country wants the advantages of globalisation, so it should be that we must accept that part of a globalised world is a much freer flow of information, and the idea that you can have an effective regulatory regime of the type he is talking about ignores the realities of the modern world."
Sounds suspiciously like Paul Keating on manufacturing jobs just before he got punted from office.
Off shoring is news and, subbing glitches aside, it won't go away.
This is the story that our leaders and business do not want the Australian public reading: humans are economic units; for whom they bear no responsibility. Let's hope the Tele takes the hit from ANZ and keeps on top of this killer yarn.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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