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  Issue No 68 Official Organ of LaborNet 25 August 2000  

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.  LaborNET

.  Ask Neale

.  Tool of the Week


Tool Shed

Born to be a Tool


It's remarkable. Alexander Downer has never before been our tool of the week. When you've been born a tool, behave like a tool all your life and toolness is a principle feature of your personality it's hard for an action or piece of your behaviour to jump out and remind people that you're a tool.

For Billy Bunter it's a useful piece of political Teflon. He can float around the world in self-important self-delusion and we're all happy he's not here making us all cringe. We can laugh at his toolness and of course this is a good thing.

Until it dawns on you that this lightweight, fairy floss, upper class spoon along with his ruthless, racist Tory master are actually our public faces to the wider world.

Just stop and think about that for a moment. Stops you laughing doesn't it? In fact it's as sobering as an ice cold shower.

You have to hand it to SBS. They do everyday TV ideas and add a large dollop of class. As a piece of real TV following Alexander Downer around an ASEAN ministers' chinwag this week was a bigger cringefest than Survivor meets Shipwrecked.

(I digress for one moment. My favourite moment on Survivor: one of those wacko Americans is spit roasting a rat over a fire. A token black on the show, watching with a look of absolute horror says: 'No matter how poor we get in the ghetto we never eat the rats!!')

Downer was embarrassing from his smug pronouncements on Fiji to his speech to the Thai-Australian Business Association. There was no one there!! And can you blame them. There have to be more interesting ways of getting anaesthetised in Bangkok than listening to the Pompous Windbag.

Is my memory playing tricks? Didn't Downer used to be leader of the Liberal Party - part of a 'Dream Team'(!) with Peter Costello. (Now there's a great concept for a TV comedy.)

Downer's career says everything about the deplorable historical legacy this Government will leave. Among the wreckage of their reign will be the memory of when Billy Bunter fucked up so badly as leader, the Liberal's idea of harm minimisation was to put him in charge of our image on the world stage. The man you see in a suit you always picture in drag. A genetically engineered tool.


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 68 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: New Unionist
Britain's Trade Union Congress secretary John Monks on life under Blair and why the future of unionism could well rest in Europe.
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*  History: The Victims of Whiggery
George Loveless, the leader of the rural workers who became the Tolpuddle Martyrs, recorded his ideals and experiences in a pamphlet that brings his story to life.
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*  Economics: The Final Station
Corporatisation was first introduced into Australia by the former Greiner Coalition government. What is 'corporatisation' and who should we hold to account under its prescriptions?
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*  International: Massive Union Win in American Telecom
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) announced on Thursday a settlement with Verizon Communications ending a fifteen day strike by 87,000 telephone workers from Maine to Virginia.
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*  Unions: A Vital Community Service
What keeps the engine of the Australian economy running? Manufacturing productivity, the stock market, exports? Try child care.
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*  Satire: Putin copies Clinton: dead seamen stains reputation
MOSCOW, Tuesday: Russian naval authorities today faced staunch criticism, and the anger of a nation gripped by tragedy, as they conceded that all 118 Russian submariners trapped in the nuclear submarine, the Kursk, had died.
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*  Review: Blow Up The Pokies
Whether it arouses public debate about Gambling is best left to the public but Peter Zangarri thinks Tim Freedman is on a winner with the Whitlam's latest CD.
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News
»  Public Sector Workers Win $1.50 An Hour Olympic Allowance
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»  Olympic Vendors Cream Boss
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»  Child Care Workers Pick Up 10% Pay rise
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»  Boston Bags Bonus While Teachers Wait on Back-Pay
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»  Super Saga
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»  Homecare Workers Hit Streets
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»  CPSU Logs On Internet Providers
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»  1 Million Reasons to Belong to a Union
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»  City Rail Security Guards Win Olympic Bonus
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»  Making a Difference in ICANN Elections
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»  Sydney Hotel Stoppages Throughout Next Week
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»  Scientists Protest IT Outsourcing
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»  Dealing With Workplace Deaths
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Columns
»  Away For The Games
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»  Sport
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Sticking Up For Family Values
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»  How far is Farr enough?
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»  From Cryptoneoliberal to Careless
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