E D I T O R I A L

Affairs of State
For those of us on the left of politics it�s been a week where there is more joy in thinking global rather than focussing on the local.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Common Ground
Nature Conservation Council director Cate Faehrmann on the fight against global warming and how unions and greens can learn from each other.

Industrial: A Low Act
The Low Paid. The Fair Pay Commission knows who pays them. We can do something about it as they will not.

Unions: The Number of the Least
Forget 666 - 457 is looming as the scariest number for Aussie workers and their families, Jim Marr writes.

Politics: The Smoking Gun
Hayek's henchman, Raplph Harris, goes to free market heaven, writes Evan Jones

Economics: Microcredit, Compulsory Superannuation and Inequality
They are supposed to ensure the wealth of well-being of individuals. Whats wrong with that? asks Neale Towart

Environment: Low Voltage
Nuclear Power and Prime Ministerial pronouncements are seriously short of a few volts, wrties Neal Towart

History: The Art of Social Justice
Tom Martin was a terrific cartoonist and part of a great tradition in labour movement history and culture, swrties Neale Towart.

Review: Work�s Unhealthy Appetite
It pays the bills � usually � but going to work should come with a warning, wrties Jackie Woods.

Culture: A Forgotten Poet
There is little information on the public record about the radical working class poet Ernest Antony, writes Rowan Cahill.

N E W S

Abrasive Giant Pinged on Sackings

Offshoring Good for CV: Qantas

Records of Convenience

Construction Lives Going Cheap

Suncorp in Dee Why Denial

States Fall to Unions

Bisshop Looking for Converts

Guestworkers Off the Menu

AAPT Hangs Up on Country Jobs

Super Funds Fight Telstra Perks

Taxing Times for Compo Cheat

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Robbo Goes Green
John Robertson's speech to the Walk Against Warming

Parliament
The Westie Wing
Ian West takes a look at a former public institution and its contribution to NSW.

L E T T E R S

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Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

*****

Gee, do you think Howard and his cronies might pull out the race card in an attempt to swindle another election?

First we had the hot air about values and citizenship tests, brought up a few months ago by the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Andrew Robb.

Now, with all the subtlety of a suicide bomber, Robb has announced he wants to take the word multicultural out of the dictionary.

One gets the feeling this is the last throw of the dice for a Government whose credibility with Joe Six Pack is seriously on the wane.

They've been caught out on their bald-faced lies about interest rates from the last election and their work laws are the biggest attack on working people since the Bubonic Plague.

So, the scoundrels are down to their last refuge.

Expect to see flags waved around in the next 12 months like it's the Nuremberg rallies.

And Robb, the brains behind the 1993 Hewson campaign and the republican referendum, has appointed himself the Joseph Goebbels of the Howard Government.

He says the move away from multiculturalism - no doubt a vote grabber - is because the term has negative connotations.

These negative connotations are largely a result of people like Robb and Howard, who have abandoned anything positive the policy might offer.

It's no accident that any problems we might have with multiculturalism have happened after 10 years of Coalition rule.

Recent tensions prove that the problem has been with the Coalition's approach to multiculturalism - or lack thereof - than multiculturalism itself.

Note that there was nothing like the Cronulla riots on Whitlam, Frasier, Hawke or Keating's watch.

Team Howard has dropped the ball and now Robb is calling for a penalty. They are seeking to capitalise on their own failure.

At least they hope it will take the crowd's eye off what is happening in back play.

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Last Modified: 10 Nov 2006