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Interview: Staying Alive
CPSU national secretary Adrian O'Connell talks about the fight to keep the public service - and the union movement - alive.
Bad Boss: The Ultimate Piss Off
Wollongong workers on poverty-level wages are losing up to $5000 for taking toilet breaks, according to the union representing staff at a Stellar call centre.
Industrial: Last Drinks
Jim Marr looks at the human cost of the decision to close Sydney’s Carlton United Brewery
National Focus: Around the States
If Tampa told us that John Howard circa 2003 is the same spotted rabid dog from 1987, this week’s assault on Medicare confirms it reports Noel Hester in this national round up.
Politics: Radical Surgery
Workers are vitally interested in Medicare, not least because they traded away wage rises to get it. Now, Jim Marr writes, the Coalition Government is tearing apart the 20-year-old social contract on which it was founded.
Education: The Price of Missing Out
University students and their families will pay more for their education following the May Budget, writes Tony Brown.
Legal: If At First You Don't Succeed
Love is wonderful the second time around, goes the famous torch song. But is the same true for legislation? Asks Ashley Crossland
History: Massive Attack
Labour historian Dr Lucy Taksa remembers the general strike of 1917 to put the recent anti-war marches into perspective
Culture: What's Right
Neale Towart looks at a new book that looks at the failings of the Left, while reasserting the liberal project
Review: If He Should Fall
Jim Marr caught Irish folk-rock-punk legend Shane MacGowan at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. He was surprised but not disappointed.
Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man
Through a distortion in the time-space continuum, we have found a recording showing how people a few years into the future will deal with health care.
Satire: IMF Ensures Iraq Institutes Market Based Looting
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to monitor the Iraqi economy to ensure that the reintroduction of looting into the economy conforms with free-market theory.
The Soapbox
What May Day Means to Me
Reader Marlene McAlear penned this tribue to May Day and worker solidarity.
Solidarity
The Toast
Labor Council secretary John Robertson's toast to the annual May Day dinner in Sydney. The Locker Room
The Numbers Game
In life there is lies, damned lies and sporting statistics, says Phil Doyle - but who’s counting. Postcard
Brukman Evicted
ZNet's Marie Trigona reports from the streets of Argentina in the rundown to last week's presidential election. Bosswatch
The Costs of Excess
Some tall business poppies had their heads lopped this week as the laws of economic gravity applied their always chaotic theory.
Solidarity Forever
Another May Day, another year gone, another year to look back on our history and celebrate the past and talk about how we can make our movement strong again.
 Mystery Men Behind Pan Bungle
Charities Brace for Medicare Backlash
Court Throws Out Cole Prosecutions
Child Actor Dodges Broken Voice
Rio Tinto: $40 Million for Boss, Eviction for Workers
Child Care for Oldies Too
Winning Poster Shouts at Freeloaders
May Day Tragedy Claims Union Lives
Westfield Cleaners to Down Mops
Question Marks Over Nursing Home
Burn Payout Highlights Compo Fears
Costa Blows Whistle on Canberra Raid
Hoops Bet on National Body
Tear Us Down, Buttercup
Activist Notebook
Is Labor History?
Bob Gould Sprays Gerard Henderson
War and Peace
A Strange Light
A Little History
Does It Have To Be?
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Poetry
If I Were a Rich Man
By David Peetz
- Resident Bard
Through a distortion in the time-space continuum, we have found a recording showing how people a few years into the future will deal with health care.
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When they looked back on how Australia ended up with an American-style overpriced and inefficient health system, the people of 2020 thought about the man who fiddled with Medicare while bulk-billing burned. And when they sang about it, it was only fitting that they chose a tune from Fiddler on the Roof (originally written by Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick), though the fiddler was actually in the House.
IF I WERE A RICH MAN
If I were a rich man,
Daidle deedle daidle
Daidle daidle deedle daidle dum
All day long I'd biddy-biddy-bum
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard,
Daidle deedle daidle
Daidle daidle deedle daidle dum
If I were a biddy-biddy rich,
Daidle deedle daidle daidle man...
I'd go and see a doctor down in his rooms
Right in the middle of the town,
A waiting room where all the rich men would go.
I'd say my temperature was just going up
My blood pressure it was coming down,
My hairy tongue I'd stick out just for show.
Oy!
But I'm not a rich man,
I've been diddle diddled,
Fiddle-diddle-diddled like I'm dumb
My health care was fiddle-diddled down
Just to help the wealthy men.
It wasn't hard to work out,
Not much of a riddle
How the fiddle diddle came about
Makes me sick like spittle coming out
Bulk billing was whittled down and out
Medicare was skittled bar a shout
By one little fiddle diddling man.
Oy!
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