
Issue No 58		16 June 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Tool Shed

Richard Alston: Economic Saboteur

In years to come this week will be remembered as the one when this Tool put through laws to kill the digital and data-casting industries dead in their tracks.

The man they call 'The Undertaker', Tricky Dicky Alston put up a package of laws that grants an effective monopoly on the application of digital technologies to the established TV network owners.

Why? We all know why politicians are scared of TV owners - they control the primary means of communications between them and the electorate.

We also know why the TV owners are shit-scared of the new technology - when anyone has the capacity to transmit images the need for (and subsequent value of) monolithic TV stations quickly deteriorates.

What defies understanding is why a government would see any short or long term interest in entrenching the power of these Industrial Age moguls.

Think about it Tricky - if the media moguls are standing over you and the technology threatens the stand over merchants, why wouldn't you just let it run?

And the problem is it's not just about dumb politics, it's really about national prosperity.

Handled properly digital and data-casting could become the engine room of the Australian economy. With a cosmopolitan, education, English-speaking workforce we have the capacity to drive the application of these new technologies to the world.

Instead, we have a government placing the types of protective barriers around a small number of players that your average farmer or textile worker could only ever dream of.

And unsurprisingly, we now see Fairfax and News Ltd both dropping their data-casting development plans, realizing there is no way they can operate with the restrictions that Canberra has imposed.

So instead of a mass of start-ups offering interesting and exciting jobs to a generation of young workers we are left with nothing but the promise of clearer TV pictures and the whiff of wasted opportunity.

Thanks, Tool.

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Issue 58 contents

Interview: After the Gold Rush
NSW building union leader Andrew Ferguson on life after the Olympics and why Che Guevara is his political hero.

Unions: MUA Women's Policy Back on Course
A hard hitting report by the Maritime Union's women's delegate Sue Gajdos prompts the union to, once again, promote its female members.

Politics: Raising the Rafters
Opposition leader Kim Beazley delivered a stirring address to last weekend's NSW ALP State Conference. Here's every word of it.

History: Time and Tide
Greg Patmore surveys the themes of Working Lives in Regional Australia in this introduction to the latest issue of 'Labour History'

International: Fair in the Land of the Free
More than 20,000 immigrant workers, union members and community and religious leaders packed a Los Angeles Sports Arena on June 10 in support of immigrant workers' rights.

Environment: Life's a Beach
Workers are invited to join an environmental campaign to protect the coastal communities and coastline from exploitation by multinationals.

Satire: More Pacific Coups Forecast
The popular holiday resort of Great Keppel Island is bracing itself for a bloody coup, following the rash of rebel uprisings in other parts of the Pacific.

Review: At the Barricades
Denis Evans' photo essay on the Patrick dispute captures the camaraderie on the Melbourne picket lines - solidarity that, like solder, welded workers and their communities together into a human barricade.

Crackdown on Fiji Workers Intensifies
Building Industry Braces for Post-Games Slump
Call Centre Battle Hots Up
More Sackings Spark Entitlements Showdown
Carr Establishes Labor Hire Inquiry
High Court Puts Workers At Reith's Mercy
Miners Hit the Streets Over Death Threats
Unions Urged to Reignite Republic Debate
Tips Rip-Off Sparks Hotel Picket
Community Workers to Lay Siege to Parliament
Water Workers Accept 14% Pay Rise
Counselling for Workplace Accidents
Korean Food Festival is Union Business
Che Helps Doctors Save Lives
Maude Barlow Public Lecture - Sydney June 27