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August 2005   
F E A T U R E S

Interview: On Holiday
Historian Richard White looks back on the Aussie vacation - and finds a way of life is under threat.,

Unions: One Day Longer
Nathan Brown travels to the Boeing picket line and find a group of workers with a steely determination to stick together.

Industrial: Never Mind the Bollocks
Jim Marr plays the Howard Government's industrial relations spin job on its merits.

Politics: Spun Out
Canberra�s latest campaign underlines the need for controls over government advertising, according to Graeme Orr and Joo-Cheong Tham

Economics: If the Grog Don't Get You ....
Evan Jones explains how the way we purchase alcolohol reflects the type of economy we live in.

History: Taking a Stand
Neale Towart looks at two books that chronicle how to build community support against social injustice.

International: The Split
Amanda Tattersal outsider's account of an insider's shake-out at the AFL-CIO Convention 2005

Legal: Pushing the Friendship
George Williams argues that the federal government�s constitutional powers are not sufficient to enact a comprehensive national industrial relations scheme

Poetry: Simple Subtractions
The latest blitz of taxpayer-funded advertising has revealed a crisis of arithmetic in government ranks has moved resident bard David Peetz to prose.

Review: Sydney Trashed
Sydney band SC Trash are on a mission to give new life to folk and country music � and the politics of common sense. Nathan Brown had a beer with them

C O L U M N S

Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite MP, Ian West, goes away for a couple of weeks and look what happens�

The Soapbox
The Last Weekend
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson's speech to the Last Weekend - how the Howard government laws will undermine the Ausrtalian way of life.

The Locker Room
A Concept Is Born
In which Phil Doyle helps the proponents of the vision thing across the road.

International
Workers Blood For Oil
A new book by Abdullah Muhsin and Alan Johnson lifts the lid on the bloody reality of US backed democracy for Iraq's trade unions

Postcard
London Post
During his recent stay in London IEU industrial officer John Shapiro was living only a few hundred metres from the site of one of the bomb blasts.

E D I T O R I A L

Iemma�s Dilemmas
The past fortnight has seen the sort of upheaval in NSW that reminds us all that politics is a very tenuous game with few certainties and even fewer rules.

N E W S

 Carmen's Boss No Fun Guy

 Discriminating Centrelink on Charges

 Uproar Over Holiday Plans

 Do The Bus Stop

 Taxpayers to Fund Advertising Orgy

 Get Up Stands Up

 Andrews Provokes Showdown

 Thousands in Super Rort

 Constituents Don�t Trust Andrews

 Skill Shortage Fabricated

 Yanks Short Change Tradesmen

 Howard Steamroller Hits Building Sites

 CFMEU Bans Ferguson

 Activists Whats On!

L E T T E R S
 Back To The Past
 AFL-CIO Not The Only War
 Be Afraid
 Frame Up
 We Love Morris
 ANew Development
 A Readers Suggestion
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Poetry

Simple Subtractions


The latest blitz of taxpayer-funded advertising has revealed a crisis of arithmetic in government ranks has moved resident bard David Peetz to prose.

While the official statistics show that non-managerial workers on AWAs earn $23.40 an hour, 50 cents an hour less than the $23.90 an hour earned by the average non-managerial worker on a registered collective agreement, the ads that you paid for nonetheless proclaimed that "Workers on AWAs currently earn 13% more (!) than workers on certified agreements." This mathematical mayhem caused Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to kick off their world tour early, joining resident bard David Peetz to proclaim "We can't get no Satisfaction" from Minister Kevin Andrews' inability to use his fingers and toes correctly when asked to compare two numbers...

SIMPLE SUBTRACTIONS

I can't get simple subtraction
I can't do those tricky fractions
Cause I've tried, and I've tried
And I've tried, and I've tried
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm driving in my car
And there's Combet on the radio
He's telling us more and more
Of some deadly information
'Bout the impact on the nation
I can't get no, oh no no no,
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no straight subtraction
Though I've tried to make distractions
Yes I've tried, and I've tried
And I've tried, and I've tried
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm watchin' my TV
And someone comes on to tell me
How wrong my sums have been
But he shouldn't be there, 'cause he doesn't belong
To the same party as me
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get simple subtraction
There's too much dissatisfaction
Cause I've tried, and I've tried
And I've lied, and I've lied
I can't no, I can't get no
I can't get no straight subtraction,
There's bad reactions, they want retractions, it's getting fractious...


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