F E A T U R E S

Interview: The Wet One
NSW Opposition industrial relations spokesman Michael Gallacher stakes out his relationship with the union movement.

Bad Boss: Like A Bastard
Virgin Mobile is sexy and funky, right? Well, only if those terms have become synonyms for dictatorial or downright mean.

Unions: Demolition Derby
Tony Abbott likens industrial relations to warfare and, like a good general should, he is about to shift his point of attack – from building sites to car plants, reports Jim Marr.

Corporate: The Bush Doctrine
For the powerful, consumerism equals freedom, and is all the freedom we need, writes James Goodman

Politics: American Jihad
Let’s get real. The origins of modern Islamic terrorist groups are in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Langley, Virginia not Baghdad, argues Noel Hester.

Health: Secret Country
Oral history recordings are an inadequate tool in trying to find out what happened to Aboriginal stockmen and their communities on cattle stations in Northern Australia, writes Neale Towart

Review: Walking On Water
On the 20th anniversary of the first AIDS-related death, Tara de Boehmler witnesses the aftermath of losing a loved one to the illness in Walking On Water.

Culture: TCF
Novelist Anthony Macris captures life on the shop floor in this extract from his upcoming novel, Capital Volume II

Poetry: The UQ Stonewall
The University of Queensland has sought to join the ranks of union-busting companies like Rio Tinto in trying to sack the president of the local union - and made the mistake of thinking they were dealing with an array of acquiescent academics.

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
I Walk The Line
American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has weighed into the Hilton Hotel dispute with this special message to the workforce.

Postcard
Mekong Daze
Union Aid Abroad's Phil Hazelton fires off a missive from Laos where he is spending a year working with the community.

Month In Review
Bush Whackers
It was a month where the world teetered on the brink of peace, no thanks to the leader of the free world, writes Jim Marr

The Locker Room
The Laws Of Gravity
Phil Doyle goes looking for the fine line that separates sport from an exercise in time-wasting

Bosswatch
Snouts in the Trough
It’s AGM season in the corporate world, and deal after shady deal is being exposed as highfliers treat company accounts like the proverbial honey-pot.

Wobbly
Songs of Solidarity
There has been a proud history of pro-worker tunes dating back to the early days of the 20th century, which will be continued in a new CD, writes Dan Buhagiar.

E D I T O R I A L

The Legacy of 11/9
From the orgy of righteous indignation that has enveloped the ‘Free World’ this week a more chilling truth is emerging: if the suicide bombers were attacking Liberal-Democracy they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

N E W S

‘Robbed Generation’ Seeks Stolen Wages

One Year On: Ansett Crash Still Hurts

Cole Exposed By Immigration Scam

Car Workers on Howard Hit List

Mystery Windfall for Hilton Workers

Shock: Abbott Backs Workers

Union Billboards Censored

Track Grab Ignores Lessons of Glenbrook

Casual Approach to Air Safety

Bosses Say No Living Wage For NSW Childcarers

Pastry Workers Tell Boss To Get Puffed

Injury Toll Mushrooms

Victorian Zookeepers Down Buckets

Pride and Safety for Workers Out!

Activists Notebook

L E T T E R S

E D I T O R I A L

Wrong Way, Go Back
The weekend machinations over the structure of the ALP are in danger of missing the fundamental point: Labor’s current malaise is caused not be an excess of core values but through a deficit.

N E W S

Corrigan Fires Shot in Rail Showdown

Fight Begins For Long Weekends

Experts to Arrest Drug Test Outbreak

Jobs Auction Hitting Bank Workers

Libs Pledge Moderate IR line

Workers Kick Grand Final Goal

NSW Screws Down Lid on Funeral Scams

Hilton Strike Break Plans in Tatters

Detention Centre Workers Demand Safety Search

Religious Teachers Win Legal Coverage

Pressure Builds on Parking Sting

US Docks Lockout Hits Sea Trade

Activists Notebook

L E T T E R S

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Bush Whackers

*******

Ever get sick of George Bush hogging the headlines? Same, but then he is threatening to ignite a Middle East firestorm, so he continues to earn his mention.

This month, Dubya, put a deft new touch on that old journalistic motto - never let facts muck up a good story. The Bush doctrine appears to be - just change the facts.

It wasn't many weeks ago that he was promoting his desire to bomb Baghdad on something that sounded suspiciously like the integrity of the United Nations. The world, Bush argued, couldn't afford to stand back and let Saddam Hussein snub his nose at international opinion, as expressed through UN resolution.

It sounded sus, to put it mildly, right from the off, given Dubya's record as an international citizen could be described, with more than an ounce of generosity, as ordinary. This, after-all, is the man who has told the rest of the international community to jam their Kyoto Protocols, World Criminal Courts, Sanctions on Torture, and pretty-much anything else that didn't serve the immediate interests of Amercian big business.

Unfortunately for Bush, he appears to have met in Hussein a man of equal, if not greater, moral flexibility.

Since Bush became a born-again UN advocate, Hussein has decided weapons inspectors on his territory are not that bad after all. His regime has gone further, negotiating terms for their return.

The American president has spat the dummy, deciding the UN can now go take a running jump if it thinks support for the stance he was pushing only a few weeks ago will keep his bombs in their bunkers.

The new Bush line is that UN credibility is on the line. Either it will line up behind a resolution making military action inevitable or it will lose US support. In fact he has gone to Congress demanding unfettered rights to decide when Iraq will be attacked, irrespective of UN support.

Donald Rumsfield, a key Middle East operative in the Reagan Adminstration that fitted Hussein out with weapons of mass destruction in the first place, talks even tougher.

Russia and France are not happy to see the UN bush-whacked again.

John Howard maintains his - US right or wrong - approach to military action but concedes American farmers are likely to scuttle the Washington-Canberra trade deal he expected in return.

..................................

Unlike George Bush, you have to admit that Building Industry Commissioner, Terence Cole, is at least consistent.

Having been unwaveringly anti-union since the off, he clearly sees no reason to change his approach after 10 months.

Cole refers Victorian CFMEU secretary, Martin Kingham, to the DPP after Kingham refused to turn over a list of delegates that had been through a union training programme, citing victimisation and employer black bans.

Kingham could be fined or imprisoned, prompting broadcaster and one-time Liberal Party activist Alan Jones to describe Cole's action as "un-Australian".

In another development, Cole rejects an application from the NSW branch of the CFMEU that he should step aside on the grounds of apprehended bias, following his recommendation for a Building Industry Task Force.

In effect, after due consideration, Cole declared himself unbiased, apparently because he had invented the word "evidences", allowing him to make "evidences" rather than "findings", prior to hearing union evidence.

.....................................

It's official - pizza is bad for you, in ways you had probably never imagined.

Phillipine military files reveal that terrorist Abu Sabaya was brought undone by infra red tracking of the heat generated from incoming pizza deliveries. Mind you, he lasted another two weeks, injured, before his eventual demise which was approximately 14 days longer than two of his three hostages, shot dead in a botched military raid.

No doubt, if Bush and Howard have their wicked way, every pizza man will have a war story to tell.

© 1999-2002 Workers Online
Workers Online is a resource for the Labour movement
provided by the Labor Council of NSW
URL: http://workers.labor.net.au/features/200210/a_guestreporter_marr.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005