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  Issue No 73 Official Organ of LaborNet 13 October 2000  

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Tool Shed

Penthouse Pete Laid Bare


Self-styled rort buster Peter Reith is writhing on his own sword this week but this isn't the first time the megatool Minister of Double Standards has cocked his nose at public responsibility and personal ethics.

Back in 1997 it was revealed in The Australian that the Minister for Double Standards had approached Ron Walker, to buy a penthouse in the exclusive Domain apartment building on St. Kilda Road, Melbourne.

Reith paid $385,000 for his posh pad with a generous $43,500 discount courtesy of his mate, Ron, the Liberal Party bagman and Hudson Conway supremo. Later that same year the Daily Terror estimated that Reith had racked up a staggering $100,000 windfall gain on the property. Well blue bloods of the world unite! (It's nice to know he's got the money to pay back the 50 grand phone bill he tried to dump on us.)

Not surprisingly the Minister for Double Standards has maintained an interest in property/mates/speculative profits. He has since made a $5000 down payment on an apartment in the Grollo Tower, the grotesque, phallic, megalomaniac project planned to dominate the Melbourne skyline. On reflection, an entirely appropriate abode for our smug, testosterone-driven megatool.

The ReithCard scandal, with all its sleaze brings with it the smell of death, the terminal decline of this government.

A story of a Government Minister's telecard being used over 11,000 times by an unknown number of unknown people over five years would stop you in your tracks even if that story came out of Nigeria or some other corrupt banana republic.

Reith's brazenness and Howard's obstinacy show just how contemptuous they are of democratic conventions and of the Australian public. They are the Generals in the Labyrinth, power drunk plutocrats who just don't give a shit.

Arch Bevis had the hit-the-nail-on-the-head question for Howard.

"Given the well-publicised view of the minister for employment, workplace relations and small business, Peter Reith, concerning managerial prerogative, what action do you think he would propose be taken against an employee who gives his company credit card to his son, to then find his company has a bill for unauthorised expenditure of $50,000 as a result of that action?

"If the employee then offered to repay only $900 of the $50,000 (the amount Reith has repaid as the claimed total of his son's misuse) what remedy, do you think, Peter Reith would recommend that the employer avail itself of?

Margot Kingston points out on the Sydney Morning Herald website http://smh.com.au/news/0010/12/pageone/pageone2.html that 'the Telecard scandal is no longer just about Peter Reith. It is a story about the probity of Prime Minister John Howard and his fitness to remain in office.'

'The political atmosphere since the revelation of the misuse of public funds by a senior minister, and the Prime Minister's cover-up of a $50,000 fraud on taxpayers and his utter failure to clean up the system which led to the mess is, quite simply, Nixonian,' she says.

ReithCard wasn't the only stench of sleaze coming out of the government this week. We also discovered we've been paying for the Minister of Health's fags and cholesterol-rich gourmet meals to the tune of $35,000.

And the most damaging of all is yet to come with the Federal Court ordering the release of consultancy reports on the waterfront. Reith's relentless, systematic lying about his level of knowledge and his proactive role in the organizing of the Dubai mercenaries and the whole waterfront dispute will then come out into the public arena. (Were there any calls from Dubai on the Telstra ReithCard?)

Reith has bounced back from all sorts of setbacks in the past but this time he's gone and good riddance to the pig. And let's count the days till the rest of his blueblood mates follow him into oblivion.


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 73 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Righting The Wrongs
Improving the lives of Aboriginal people can't be taken out of the context of the economy, welfare and other areas says Bob McMullan, Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
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*  Economics: At The Mercy Of Gamblers
The plunge of the Australian dollar relative to the greenback has consequences for Aussie workers according to Frank Stillwell.
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*  History: Labour History Under Seige Again
The Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre have recently been informed of proposed changes to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBAC), changes that will cut staff by more than 50% and leave the Archives mothballed in the tunnel where the repository is situated.
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*  Workplace: Fighting The Flexible Firm
We are told that hardship and exploitation at work is dying out, and the new economy offers opportunity, freedom and job satisfaction for all. Richard Sennett unveils the true nature of the flexible workplace.
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*  Safety: Being bossed around is bad for your health
A survey of more than 3,000 Australian workers has revealed that some 54% of workers experience intimidating behaviour in their workplace. In almost 85% of cases it is employers, managers and supervisors who are identified as the culprits.
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*  Unions: Discrimination
New to the union and the maritime industry and with only a few days casual work to live off, Stephen Rolls courageously spoke up against individual contracts during a job interview with Burnie Port Corp.
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*  International: Serbian Workers and Their Unions Fight for Freedom
Serbian workers and their unions have been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in Yugoslavia as they led a general strike in response to attempts by President Slobodan Milosevic to nullify the defeat he faced in the Sept. 24 election.
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*  Satire: A few more years of civilised brutality will advantage Aborigines: Ruddock
CANBERRA, Tuesday: The Minister for Reconciliation Philip Ruddock has defended his comments to French newspaper Le Monde claiming that Aborigines were disadvantaged because they were late in coming into contact with developed civilisations.
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*  Review: Poetry For Workers By Workers
Poems about the trials and tribulations of a waitress and what you learn in a chocolate factory are among the gems from the 925 anthology.
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News
»  Rorter Reith's Gotta Go Say Unions
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»  Reith's Wharf Secrets Return To Haunt
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»  Unions And Community Groups Call For Bank Social Charter
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»  Landmark Victory Extends Severance Pay To All
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»  5 Day Strike Burns BHP Coal
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»  Parramatta Workers Enjoy Union Chill Out
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»  Report Finds Fatigue Fatalities Avoidable
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»  Queensland Peak Union Body Elects First Female Secretary
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»  The Joy of Burning Rubber
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»  dot.humanservices
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»  Unions Raise A Motza To Combat Youth Suicide
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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
»  Not a Fan
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»  No Justice-No Peace
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»  Blow Up the Councils
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»  Vindicated
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