You are currently viewing the archive for January 2003.
Nobody likes a rat: “Simon Crean says Mr Hanna should remember he was elected to the South Australian Parliament on Labor policy. ‘The Australian public is sick of being treated by people who stand under one banner and switch to another,’ he said.” More…
Jeez! The losers at Capitalism Magazine actually describe Aborigines as “pre-Neolithic” and “noble savages”, based on Windschuttle’s work. Talk about a colonial comeback… Via Catallaxy
It’s regularly trotted out by the pro-war crowd that an American invasion of Iraq would be all sweetness and light for the innocent Iraqis who are currently subjected to Saddam’s brutal regime. Perhaps they should consider this:
One of the most respected nuclear weapons analysts in the United States says he has been shown documents which confirm the US military is considering using nuclear weapons in a war with Iraq.
Professor William Arkin from John Hopkins University in Washington has told ABC radio’s PM program the Bush administration has removed the special status from its nuclear arsenal and has put them back on the shelf alongside conventional weapons.
“I think there’s no question the Bush administration has given nuclear weapons a new shine, that they have decided that not only are nuclear weapons important to deter Saddam Hussein or other opponents of the United States from possibly using nuclear weapons, but but also that those nuclear weapons might be useful military instruments to actually thwart them from using weapons of mass destruction, and that’s really the departure from what we’ve seen in the past,” he said.
It’s really quite disturbing that a nuclear attack is being considered. I shudder to think what life would be like for those Iraqis who are “saved” by irradiation — not to mention the risks posed to Australian troops serving in the region.
War should be a last resort. In this case, it seems to be Bush’s first resort, and now he’s trying to work backwards and gain the Security Council authority that he should have had in the first place.
Today was great — media training, a talk from John “Rivo” Gandini on international labour and child labour, and a discussion with a lady from ATSIC. For the next three days, I’ve been placed with a law firm, which should be interesting.
Ugh. It was tough reading McGuiness’ masturbatory self-congratulation. But this caught my eye: “there have been plenty of crooks, political fixers and intellectual frauds already included, and to attack my appointment is to bring attention to the imperfections and past abuses of the system.” So which is he? A crook, a political fixer or an intellectual fraud? All three, perhaps? He got a mention on Crikey’s dodgy gongs page.
Yesterday was the Hottest 100, which I don’t think was that bad. It was Invasion Day, too. Like Gareth, I spent the day on the foreshore, and in the evening I watched the fireworks. I didn’t burn any flags, but the bloke next to me did and I gave him a well-deserved thumbs-up.
I stumbled across an article of a few days ago in the Courier Mail today (not a newspaper I regularly read, but oh well), that claims to have made an important discovery in Australia’s history of murder and dispossession of the Indigenous population:
A former Queensland police commissioner slaughtered hundreds of Aborigines, according to his own hand-written files.
The Courier-Mail found the notes in the State Archives while investigating claims by historian Keith Windschuttle who released a book last year denying claims of widespread slaughter of Tasmanian Aborigines.
The personal reports of Sub-Inspector Frederick Urquhart who rose to become Queensland Police Commissioner from 1917 to 1921, show Aboriginal men, women and children were slaughtered on his orders after the death of a white pastoralist.
He led native police in what is reputedly Australia’s biggest massacre of Aborigines — the 1884 Battle Mountain attack on Kalkadoon people in northwest Queensland. …
The Urquhart reports refer to “dispersal” of Aborigines, a term of the era for killing.
He wrote: “I gave the order to fire and 30 of the blacks were shot”. In another he described how his group surrounded a “large number” of blacks and opened fire. He noted “none escaped”.
I’m not sure what this has to do with Windschuttle’s The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, which restricts itself to Tasmania’s supposedly bloodless past, but my best guess is that the paper has assigned someone to study the archives ahead of Windschuttle’s next book, which will likely deal with Queensland.
While it would be nice to read more than just this short article about it (perhaps John Quiggin has seen something more substantial?), the find suggests an official policy involving the slaughter of innocent men, women and children based solely on their race. In my opinion, that amounts to genocide.
I got my online feedback onto Sharran Burrow’s piece yesterday. The other half of my comment related to somebody else’s feedback, which was blatantly wrong. They were comparing a unionist’s $99 annual pay differential to a once-off $500 bargaining fee. Trouble is, unionists average $99 per week — or about $5000 per year — more than non-unionists. His feedback has mysteriously disappeared.
Spoke to Carmen Lawrence for a few hours this morning. She’s a very intelligent, articulate and passionate women. It’s a pity there aren’t more like her. Tomorrow, it’s off to the CFMEU training rooms in the morning and the industrial commission in the arvo.
From what I hear, industrial relations law in Australia has just taken a shaky step down a very dangerous path. A union leader has apparently been charged under the Criminal Code with extortion for a threat of industrial action.
The background, as I understand, is that a construction company is on the verge of insolvency and is going into administration. A union leader, Joe McDonald of the CFMEU, exercised his legal right of entry to a site, threatened industrial action and was subsequently arrested and charged. I think it is most likely that he was demanding that workers entitlements be protected in the event that the company went under. He probably threatened to strike if workers lost out. (I must stress that this only happened this afternoon, and allegedly. I haven’t heard any media coverage, just a relayed account of a phone conversation.)
The (presumably) relevant part of Section 397 of the WA Criminal Code is the following:
Any person who, with intent to extort or gain anything from any person, –
(2) Orally demands … that anything be procured to be done or omitted to be done by, any person, without reasonable cause, with threats of any injury or detriment of any kind to be caused to any person, either by the offender or any other person, if the demand is not complied with,
is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 14 years.
I have highlighted two phrases there, which are likely to be central to the success of any case brought. The second is presumably the justification that employers will use for bringing the charges. Industrial action is “detriment of any kind” to the employer, therefore it potentially falls under this section. A court might find that industrial action is not considered “detriment of any kind” according to the intention of the statute. However, there is a strong chance that this will not be the case.
More important, though, is the first phrase: “without reasonable cause”. It is entirely open to a court to suggest that an employer’s refusal to meet an industrial demand is reasonable cause for the threat of industrial action. I would suggest that that is the most appropriate decision to be made. Nonetheless, there is a risk that a court will find against the unionist (and common sense). From that point on, to threaten industrial action would be a criminal offence.
That would be an outrage. The fact that the charge has been laid at all is an outrage. It is perhaps the single most serious attack on labour’s fundamental human right to organise in recent history. You can bet that if an employer threatened to sack a worker over an industrial claim, they would not be charged with a criminal offence, and the reason is clear: we have a well developed industrial relations framework within which such disputes should be resolved. It might involve arbitration or charges under IR legislation, but the Criminal Code should certainly be left out of things.
Employers have been fighting a consistent battle to destroy workers rights in WA by going around IR laws. The most recent case was the attempt to issue a restraining order against the same union official. He had entered a site legally (according to right of entry provisions) and was subsequently restrained under civil law from being there.
Urgent action must be taken by both workers and the Government to prevent this going any further.
Today was interesting. In particular, Stephanie Mayman of Unions WA. Tomorrow is a day at the Miscos.
A few days ago, the West Australian had an interesting article on the construction industry. In fact, it was a very depressing article, demonstrating the total disregard that many — most — employers have for the safety of their workers, despite fatal consequences:
A WorkSafe blitz on tilt-up constructions will continue after inspectors found serious safety breaches on more than half of Perth worksites.
Minister for Consumer and Employment Protection John Kobelke said yesterday random inspections would be carried out and prohibition notices issued.
The blitz comes after the death of tilt-up construction worker Des Kelsh when a tilt-up panel collapsed in September last year.
In fact, WorkSafe found safety breaches at fifty-nine per cent of tilt-up workplaces. Given that this is not a minor problem, but a widespread an life-threatening one, I would have thought that something more substantial than just random inspections would be desirable. Indeed, that is what Big Kev is arguing:
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union State secretary Kevin Reynolds said yesterday that more WorkSafe inspectors were required.
Mr Reynolds, who has been highly critical of the Government over the issue, said the blitz and new safety regulations were a step in the right direction.
But he said it was not good enough simply to toughen the rules. There had to be enough inspectors to enforce them.
The CFMEU would mount its own blitz and had employed a tilt-up construction safety officer who would visit sites.
Mr Reynolds said the union would act at sites deemed unsafe.
The CFMEU gets a very hard time in the West for its militancy. It is prepared to stand up to bosses who get in its way. In this case — when Reynolds practically stated his intention to barge onto work sites and call work bans — the paper did not go into conniptions. Apparently wannabe shock-jock (and former West Australian editor) Paul Murray went even further, declaring on air that the CFMEU’s militancy was not just tolerable but necessary.
It’s a pity it takes the horrific death of a worker to demonstrate to the media that unions provide a vital service to the community. It’s a bigger pity that 59% of bosses care so little about their workers that even a death won’t convince them to change their ways. As long as this attitude prevails, the red flag will fly.
The ABC reports that the Liberal backbench is a bit concerned about Howard’s pre-emptive stance on Iraq:
A Federal Liberal backbencher has raised concerns about Australia joining a war against Iraq without UN backing.
The member for the Queensland seat of Moncrieff, Steven Ciobo says if war is declared, it would not be ideal for Iraq to be attacked without United Nations’ approval.
Mr Ciobo says it would set a bad example for war to be waged without the backing of the world community.
While the parliamentary debate on any Australian troop commitment will be token (Howard will send our boys to kill and die regardless), it will reveal just how willing our MPs are to ignore an overwhelming proportion of the Australian public. 30% are opposed to war in any circumstances, while a further 60% are opposed unless there is UN support.
The Coalition will probably have a tighter rein on its members (after all, it would be fatal for the PM to go to war without even the whole Government’s support), but they might express reservations. And I’ve been informed by a WA Labor Senator that some Labor MPs will cross the floor unless war is opposed outright.
John Birmingham slagging off Tim Blair — that’s a book worth reading!
What else is there to say, but OUCH! Good luck, Neale.
