Miners and AWAs

The CFMEU, the union who cover mine workers, challenge the common view that miners are better off under AWAs. They argue that a study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that those under collective agreements in the coal industry are doing better. Yesterday, their National President Tony Maher claimed:

Mineworkers on collective agreements typically earn more than $100,00 per year, while those on AWAs typically earn far less than that.
(CFMEU Media Release 29 August 2007)

Haven't found this picked up in the mass media yet. Perhaps it is lost in the wake of Rudd's Industrial Relations announcement. A little more data might enlighten the debate.

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Kalgoorlie Update

Last night the ALP ran its first TV ad for the seat of Kalgoorlie featuring their candidate Sharon Thiel.

The line on this resource rich electorate:

the Kalgoorlie electorate is a huge source of wealth for the Howard Government while local Kalgoorlie communities aren't getting their fair share back from Canberra

This should bring a pork barreling response from the government. The current polls move the seat from relatively safe to marginal. It was formerly Labor and is held by Barry Haase by 6.3%.

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AWAs up in the air

Current political wisdom has it that the West loves Australian Workplace Agreements. Some of the pilots who fly in the mining workers might not agree. A proposed strike at National Jets System centres on the operation of AWA's.
According to The Australian yesterday:

An NJS pilot who addressed yesterday's meeting said many of the airline's pilots had been forced to sign Australian Workplace Agreements to gain upgrades and NJS had not honoured those agreements.

This is the second time this year that the Kalgoorlie electorate has seen conflict over AWA's. In June, as the ABC reported:

The Federal Government has referred to the workplace watchdog BHP Billiton workers' concerns about Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA).

More than 200 workers at the company's Mount Newman mine in Western Australia have signed a petition, saying they work in an environment of intimidation and fear the possibility of a serious accident.

The story has fallen off the radars today but then problems with AWAs are not going away. Ironically many of the workers on AWAs in Kalgoorlie do not live in the electorate and vote elsewhere.

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Mondayitis

Protecting our borders?

Is anyone in the media going to question the government about how well we are protecting our borders against disease? For a start who is responsible for quarantine? Hopefully not Peter McGauran.

Galaxy Poll

57% 43% Too good to be true. We can look forward to a season of back-flips (flip-flops seems to be out of vogue since Kim resigned as leader.) See next item.

Pulp fact

A cynic might suggest that Malcolm is a bit worried about losing his seat. Would put a dent in his leadership ambitions:

ENVIRONMENT Minister Malcolm Turnbull has for the first time declared he is "not unsympathetic" to calls for Gunns Ltd's controversial Tasmanian pulp mill to be shifted to a less-sensitive site. (The Australian 27 August 2007)

Sydney centric

It is amazing how important Tasmania becomes once ever three years. I was going to say in Canberra but of course federal government headquarters are well and truly in Sydney. And APEC is about to shut down everything, especially rational thought. Hope the police horses are ready in time.

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Howard's Never Never Energy Policy

We have waited 11 years for an energy policy from the Howard government. Their procrastination about renewable energy and carbon emissions and trading has now spread to their preferred solution - Nuclear Power. We will now wait for plebiscites some time in the never never.

John Howard knows that referenda nearly always get a NO answer. Who is going to vote for a nuclear reactor when everyone is already opposed to taking low level waste in their area. Howard thinks it won't happen for ten years. Is he suggesting ten years of planning and investment that can be scuttled as easily as a Queensland Council amalgamation. Costello commented that it wouldn't happen in his political life. What is he trying to tell us about his retirement plans? Thought he would wait forever for the top job.

Meanwhile wind power projects are being cancelled and the technology companies are leaving Australia (Herald Sun 23/08/07). Somewhere over the rainbow, if I can mix my metaphors!

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YouTube Odd Spots

#1 After John Howard

Laborview's first venture into vidcast home production. Who will be the next Liberal Prime Minister? Only 10 seconds but from little things...

#2 Internet filters: Safe Eyes

Logged onto the Australian government site NetAlert to checkout their Web censor. There are two commercial programs to choose. Safe Eyes is the only one which works on Macs so I downloaded it for a trial. ★★★ for usability. Luddites will have some problems downloading and applying settings.

Registered as Casanova and tried it out. It allowed you to open YouTube and blocked some fairly innocuous bikini dancers. Put in a Search for "John Howard" but this was blocked. All other offensive searches were also blocked. The program apparently does not block internet games or social networking but stops chat rooms. Lost interest quickly and uninstalled.

For my thoughts on Internet filtering see: Internet Lights
or an extended version at On Line Opinion

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Aspiring Globalism

Thanks to John Cumbers


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Aspiring Nationalism #1

John Howard shared his vision yesterday in Australia rising to a better future:

"My government is committed to protecting the national interest and ensuring Australia remains an anchor of peace, stability and prosperity in a turbulent world."

This follows his decision to sell uranium to India despite their refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and their intention to push on with expanding their nuclear weapons. It will be no surprise when the military government of Pakistan responds in kind.

If you who missed the SBS Dateline interview with Imran Khan the full transcript and video are essential reading. A sample:

"What is going to happen is that in the Generals will use this as a threat, India is getting stronger, so they have to have balance of power, more money will be spelt on arms, not on our human beings."

For another important interview visit the PostGlobal discussion with Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid: Bush didn’t listen

"Ahmed hopes the U.S. will start listening to people like him and take a long view in their engagement with Pakistan and Afghanistan, beyond the current 'War on Terror.' Otherwise, Ahmed says, history will keep catching up with the U.S., especially if the Americans in charge ignore it."

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History lessons

The Scoresgate scandal adds a new dimension to Kevin Rudd. He was obviously making a bid for the youth vote - the nightclubbers. Shame! Shame! How would Harold Holt, John Gorton or Bob Hawke have ever been elected if they had stayed out late at questionable locales (or is it locals). Mind you Gorton’s famous episode was as Prime Minister at the American embassy in Canberra. At least Malcolm Fraser didn’t lose his trousers until he had lost government.

It might good to see a lighter side to both Kevin07 and current politics. However, we would be better served if 10% of media time on this issue had been spent dicussing Australia's uranium sales to India or the precarious political situation in that region. This is an issue where there is a clear difference between Labor and the Coalition.

When the BBC interviewed George W Bush about his foreign policy before the 2000 Presidential election campaign, he was asked the names of the Indian PM and the Pakistan President. The closest he got was that one was a general. He has been on a fast learning curve since September 2001.

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Indigenous Betrayal

We spent four years (2003-6) teaching at Maningrida Community Education Centre in Arnhem Land. We were lucky enough to be part of the extension of mainstream education to year 12 at the school. It was an exciting and challenging time.

Twenty-three students completed their Northern Territory Certificates of Education during the past three years in their community. The eleven students who finished last year did so in the context of Monica, the extreme Category 5 cyclone that battered the town and tore the roof off three of the Senior School classrooms. Maningrida recovered from the disaster without even words of support from the Federal government.

Although he was in the NT the following week, Mal Brough did not visit or make any public statement at the time. Nor did Peter Costello who took time to burn Indonesian fishing boats in Darwin. As Ben Cubby reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (Remains of the day, June 3 2006)

The Herald repeatedly contacted the office of the federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, to discuss help for the area and ask if he intended to visit Maningrida, but Brough had made no comment by last night. A spokesman said the minister regularly visited indigenous communities.

Last year the community also uncovered and dealt with a case of child sexual abuse in a responsible and effective way.

That’s the point from which I view today’s passing of the Federal indigenous laws.

Pat Anderson, co-author of the ‘Little Children are Sacred’ report spoke of betrayal today:

What the Prime Minister (John Howard) and federal Indigenous Affairs Minister (Mal) Brough have done is just a further form of abuse," Ms Anderson told a gathering of peak physicians convened in Sydney to address Aboriginal health…What we have is a prime minister and his ministers who don't have a heart…Their approach isn't going to nurture any kind of development ... nothing.

We can only hope that Labor wins the election and stands up on this issue.

According to the same story in The Age, 850 children have had medicals so far and no cases of sexual abuse have been reported. Meanwhile the government are implementing most of their indigenous policies in the name of the emergency, whether they are relevant or not, without the usual scrutiny they might have received.

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Internet Filtering #2

An extended version of Internet Lights has been posted to ON LINE Opinion, the e-journal of social and political debate. If you haven't done so yet, visit their website and bookmark it.

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White-anting the boss

At least Paul Keating had the guts to stab the boss from the front. Costello seems to do all his white-anting in private.

Which raises the ethical issues involved in private, off-the-record briefings like the one that Michael Brissenden attended. Is the public properly served by this political tactic? The journalists were clearly compromised by this secret chat. Is there a time limit on confidentiality? If the pollie makes a public denial are all bets off?

I think it was Mungo MacCallum who said he never attended off-the-record briefings. He just waited for the other journos to leak the dirt and and wasn't bound by back-room dealing.

I wonder who did leak this conversation? Was it one of the three journalists, perhaps inadvertently in the traditional slip over too many beers? Costello blamed " someone at the back of a pub who heard the barman say..." for these rumours. Was it Costello or one his cronies, with or without his knowledge?

Wilson Tuckey seems to have leaky e-mail. His call to replace Howard with Costello might do Australia a double favour. We could rid ourselves of both of them. The down side is we might wake up after the election to Tony Abbott as the alternative PM. Mind you this could be on the cards anyway if the Libs get sick of Costello's posturing.

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Fairness

You would think that this vidcast "It's the Fairness, stupid" was made in Australia by the Rudd campaign. According to the credits it's from the Rockridge Institute, a progressive group in the U.S. It was placed on YouTube by an Australian who presumably gave it that apt title.

Sound familiar:

A society based on a fair go for all
...one that extends the warm hand of compassion
A society where mum and dad will get a fair go at work
...and have their rights protected at work
Time for a change
Time for a society and a government with a heart

They might be cliches but I'd settle for some of these labor traditional values for a change.

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Internet Lights

John Howard’s announcement of a $189 million Internet filter program must be challenged on a range of grounds. Is it an appropriate role for government? Will we be getting value for money? Is it practicable? Who will control the regulators?

From a conservative government, it is a turn around from the rhetoric of the past. Isn’t this the kind of socialism we expect from Rudd’s mob? Individuals should make decisions and pay for matters related to personal privacy and family values. If parents want to buy filters shouldn’t the market provide them. Why should taxpayers foot the bill for something that is voluntary and private?

How many new teachers or police would $189 million pay for? 2500? 3000? Perhaps it is too cynical to ask how much is new money given the expenditure on the current NetAlert program. Is this a re-badging of NetAlert with some free software thrown in? Is it just another vote buying exercise?

The effectiveness of the software must be queried. The software being promised hasn’t even been finished yet. Will it block sites with particular words? This could cut off access to online dictionaries, encyclopaedia, literature and academic papers amongst a long list of important places that may contain the nominated offensive vocabulary. About five years ago I was teaching ‘Pride and Prejudice’ with Year 12 students when a key, innocuous website was blocked by the Northern Territory Education Department regulators who turned out to be in California. Perhaps we’ll ban all chat and social networking sites. Who knows what people might write.

More bizarre is how it might deal with images? Goodbye to Michelangelo’s David! Will flickr and other photo services be cut? Do we stop all video access? At least we would be protected from government announcements on YouTube and political websites and blogs like Kevin07. If you think this is joke, my political blog, Labor View from Broome, has been blocked by the Victorian Education department and the Chinese. Perhaps they were offended by the post ‘Beat me! Beat me!’ which showed Mark Vaile and Kerri-anne Kennerley whipcracking together. Apparently in Victoria they block servers not just sites. So much for selective targeting. Google who own blogger.com might be interested in that! There are many obscenities on the Web. Fast food and barbie ads, for instance. What about images of violence, war and starvation?

I almost forgot audio. How will they stop offending song lyrics and other sound files? What about the kinds of services offered now by telephone which grace the classifieds in our local papers?

Doubtless there will be options to turn the filter on and off so that adults can use the Internet. This will inevitably lead to a competition to develop a hack to get around the censors. Teenagers will know how to get around the filter within a week or find computers without the blockers. Censorship doesn’t stop curiosity, it encourages it. Blockers may help against the worst aspects of the Web but they are not a substitute for the kind of openness and values that help young people to deal with modern media.

The PM’s media release says that we will be able to block websites selected by the Australian Internet regulators. Who are these regulators? What criteria and guidelines will they use? Will their responsibilities be confined to pornography? Who will oversee our guardians? Federal Ministers like Kevin Andrews? Will the regulators decisions be subject to appeal? Will we even be able to find out who is censoring our websites and blogs without going through expensive freedom of information processes?

We must question the cost and effectiveness of this latest vote grabber, which has not been thought through properly. The Minister for Communications Helen Coonan has previously rejected a similar idea "Clean Feed" from Labor.

Just as light cigarette filters didn’t stop cancer, we cannot filter out all the evil aspects of modern society. Finding solutions to an increasingly confronting world will not be as easy as clicking a mouse.

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Regrets: he has a few

Learning how to say sorry

Well, he finally said he was sorry but not that he was wrong, about rising interest rates. At the last election John Howard did not say that interest rates would stay at record low levels or that they would not rise. He choose his words carefully, cleverly. He presented a conundrum. Rates would go up more if there was a Labor government. Not just hypothetical but also hypocritical.



The PM knew that this claim could not be tested. But more importantly for his current political fortunes he allowed the rest of the coalition politicians and advertising to present the extreme view that rates wouldn't rise.


Howard is the master dissembler. He selects his words very craftily, very cunningly. He leaves a general impression, but the subtle equivocation allows him to say later that he did not actually say what people thought he meant. He doesn't always tell lies, just half-truths. Children overboard?

Howard's technique has become tired. He wonders why his government is no longer popular. It is because voters have seen through his deceptions.

Mind you, he might have said he was sorry, but he didn't really mean it. He just regrets getting caught out.

(Thanks to John Cumber for the badge graphics.)

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American liberals: a different rose

After the Hiroshima day badge, it is time to remind ourselves that the U.S. is a very pluralist place, where liberal is used by conservatives as an insult, a bit like left-wing in Australia. So today a link worth bookmarking.

The Huffington Post

If you haven't caught up with this progressive site with news and provocative blogs, now is the time. A sample from Richard Eyers: How to lose a war, 7 August 07

We have experienced this before, of course. Vietnam. Yes, the United States was defeated, whipped, driven out in a humiliating manner. But in the years afterwards, the politicians and rulers slowly, relentlessly, built their case, built their edifice of lies and deceptions. At first it was simply a comment that, "We won't be having another Vietnam," a tacit admission that it was a defeat. But then over the years the myths were built up. We could have won except for the cowardly politicians. We would have won except for the antiwar movement that was mean to the poor G.I.'s and spat on them. We actually did win but the liberal media never let us know....But the new disaster demands that we revisit the lessons of Vietnam and now of Iraq. If we had properly faced the lessons of Vietnam, the US would not be bogged down in Iraq.

John Howard has a sense of history. As I've mentioned before he still thinks he and the Liberal government of the time were right about the Vietnam war. He is winning the Iraq war too, of course. He's never wrong and he's never sorry. His new History curriculum for schools will no doubt contain the revisionist version of both wars if he wins the election. It's time the electorate made some history. Make Howard history!

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Constitutional vandal

Howard the populist! I wrote the other day that we need a sense of history in these times. While those with mortgages and credit cards wait to find out if interest rates will rise today, tricky John is trying another diversion. Plebiscites for proposed local council amalgamations in Queensland. It's like asking people if they want tax increases.

In the early 1980's the Cain Labor government tried comprehensive consultation about amalgamations and abandoned the process following one hostile town hall meeting after another. In opposition Jeff Kennett promised no forced amalgamations. As soon as he was elected he amalgamated every local government area except Queenscliff! Plebiscites? Consultation? Forget it!

Howard used to be a constitutional conservative. With the exception of the monarchy he is now a constitutional vandal, meddling wherever and whenever he can take a short term political advantage or make a grab for power.

News Extra: Rate rise we had to have

The Reserve Bank have buried the coalition. My advice for Howard: invade Queensland while you still have time.

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ODD SPOTS 2

I fish and I vote!

Apparently Mal Brough has changed his legislation banning alcohol in indigenous communities to allow grog on boats when people are fishing. It was at the request of the NT government. Presumably aboriginal people will be able to enjoy this privilege too. Who said they were making it up as they go along.
For more: Drinking Allowed

If you're not outraged by the total absence of time for parliament to look at the new legislation then you're visiting the wrong plog. It smacks of the way Bush had the Patriot Act passed in the U.S. Congress without anyone reading it first.

Do as I say!

Workplace ad pulled over bad boss claim

You have to admire Joe Hockey's sense of humour, announcing an emergency review of the background of all actors involved in the Work Choices ads. Where will he stop? The Liberal Party's ad agency for the election? Government advertising? There must be a cast of thousands given the endless stream of campaign propaganda in the media.

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The bomb to end all wars!

It's isn't quite All the Way with LBJ but today's hegemonic virtual badge entry from John Cumbers has a sense of history. Could be worn when W visits APEC in September.

Any more entries? Any comments?

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The blame game

Whatever happened to the cooperative Federalism Howard has been promoting for several years? The PM surrounded by smiling Premiers, solving the nations problems together. He said he could work with the Labor States better than Federal Labor.

We didn't need leaked Liberal Party polling to figure out that the Mersey Hospital, sending the army into the NT communities and house prices attacks are part of an deliberate strategy. If you can't beat Rudd, stick the wedge into the States. Must be an election coming!

I went to Windjana Gorge for the weekend so I missed the detail about the government's anti-States ads blaming them for future interest rate rises. Who is paying for the ads? Seems anything goes these days at a Federal level. It is okay for Federal parliamentarians such as the member for Kalgoorlie Barry Haase to abuse their printing and postage allowances. His recent mail-out included an invitation to join his re-election campaign. A little research revealed that Howard changed the rules in 2004 to allow pollies to use their allowances on their own election campaigns. This is not a trival issue as the annual expenditures run as high as half a million for some MP's. Ironically Western Australian State laws are much tougher on the use of public funds for political propaganda purposes.

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Howard's new clothes

What 's your vote worth No.1?

We have been fed the same line for years. Labor needs policies to win government. But to keep government Howard knows that you don't need principles. Remember Federalism. Gough Whitlam should demand an apology from Howard and Abbott now. Johnny used to use the term centralist as a synonym for satan. Now centralist intervention is the new creed of the conservatives.

Can you imagine Tasmanians swallowing that during the 1983 election when Hawke promised to override the State government to stop the Franklin dam? Labor was trounced in Tassie. Guess who was a strong proponent of States rights at the time? Howard was clothed in principles in those days. His new attire is more interesting.

Yesterday Tony Abbott described the States as the seconds or thirds teams. Has Abbott only read the part of the Constitution that mentions the monarchy?

Whether Health should be a Federal responsibility is a matter for debate and constitutional change. Not pork barreling. The States have claimed that Hospitals have been under-funded by the Commonwealth to the tune of $1 billion a year. It is much cheaper and politically more astute to target the funds. At marginal electorates! Even the estimated $45 million a year for the Mersey would only cost $720 million if it were spent in all 16 marginal seats needed to retain government. Discount vote buying!

You have to keep a sense of history and of humour in these times. Gough, it's time again!

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Beat Me! Beat Me!

Follow-up to yesterday's odd spot about Mark Vaile and his substitute for policy making. Click on the photo or this link http://media.smh.com.au/?rid=30379&category=Breaking%20News to see our Deputy PM teach Madame Lash his political tricks. Earlier in the interview he was stumped for a credible answer on petrol prices. Watch out Laurie Oakes. The plog title "Beat Me! Beat Me!" is a quote from Kerri-Anne Kennerley.

Don't forget to enter the Labor Badge Competition. Click for details.

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