
Issue No 78		17 November 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Letters to the Editor

Cancer of the Soul

Dear Sir,

A recent study in the U.K., has revealed that cancer has overtaken heart disease as the main killer of the population, with almost one million people being diagnosed as suffering from this disease, and almost two thirds of them being women.

This survey also revealed that there is a strong link between poverty, cancer and its growth over the past 50 years to become the biggest cause of death in England and Wales.

The exceptions being Lung, Prostrate and Breast cancers, which are more commonly diagnosed in areas of affluence. It is these cancer sites, which have both higher incidence and mortality rate in Australia, with prostrate being the third highest incidence and second highest mortality. (Prostrate being 12.9% of all new cases and 7.8% of all deaths and colorectal being 14.4% new cases and 13.8% deaths.)

These figures indicate an increasingly affluent lifestyle, and one must ponder, would life not be simpler, safer and longer as one of the growing population of working poor, those living from hand to mouth on a poverty wage in part time or casual jobs. Or as one in a mutual obligation program, working three days a week in the position you were previously employed in, for twenty-five years on a full time wage, or to start at an early age a pittance of a youth wage?

Is this possibly a secret Industrial Relations plan conceived by the Minister for Workplace Relations and the present government? Could it be more disingenuous machinations to maintain our population without further immigration?

Or is it simply that - the statistics from the disadvantaged, particularly the unemployed welfare recipients, pensioners relying solely on government alms, the working poor, and our indigenous peoples are swept under the carpet?

That illusory piss stained carpet, usually displayed as the farcical benevolence of middle class Australian egalitarianism!

We are like ravenous piranhas, voraciously gnawing away at the very essence of our national psyche; and this is the real cancer of our society!

Tom Collins.

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Issue 78 contents

Interview: Doubly Blessed
With that unforgettable name, Grace Grace is making her mark as the first female secretary of the Queensland trade union movement.

Unions: On The Line
Trade unions this week entered a landmark partnership with the call centre industry to improve the quality jobs in this growing sector.

History: Conspiracy or Class? The Whitlam Sacking
Never trust a man who wears a top hat and tails in Australia, in Summer. Neale Towart considers this and other evidence of conspiracy in the great shonky dismissal.

Legal: Return Of The Lock-out
Marian Baird reports on the increasing tendency of aggressive employers to use lock-outs to reduce wages and conditions and promote individual agreements.

Activists: Waterfront Hero Bows Out
John Coombs, the man the government compared to Ned Kelly - villain to the bosses, the big land owners and conservatives, folk hero to working Australians - bows out of the union movement next month.

International: Morocco Stonewalls In Western Sahara
Morocco has new king but its old game plan of defying world opinion over its occupation of the Western Sahara continues.

Review: The Identity-Shifting Pragmatist
If New Zealand should have an Australian as its first Labour Prime Minister, then it is only fitting that Australia should have as its first a man who spent much of his formative years across the ditch.

Satire: Hackers Infect Microsoft Computers With Mysterious Windows Virus
SEATTLE, Thursday: Shame-faced workers at Microsoft admitted today that hackers had succeeded in penetrating their network's defences and had installed a sophisticated virus on the Apple Macintosh machines used across the software giant's operations.

» STOP PRESS: Global First - ILO Sanctions Against Burma

» Big Bosses Bloat While Working Poor Grows

» Union Puts Heat on Bastard Bank

» Reith Fiddles As Workers Diddled In Shelf Company Scam

» Call Centre Group Sets New Standard

» Bag The Building Union Back In Vogue

» Reith Uses the Back Door

» Big Australian Blamed As Ships of Shame Toll Rises

» Public Education Bus Donated to East Timor

» Vic Opposition Blocks Fair IR Laws

» More Reasons to Abolish the Employment Advocate

» Coca-Cola Hit by Racism Claims

» Souths or Bust!

» Fundraisers for Burma, Timor, EMILY's List