| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: 19 Feb 2000 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 4 Number 3 |
Little Johnny's Tears Allay Big Stanley's Fears Tony Wright (The Age 5 Feb 00) writes: "The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, and other senior Government figures were moved to tears during talks with sacked textile workers yesterday, Senator John Tierney said last night. "Mr Howard and Senator Tierney met the workers in New South Wales' Hunter Valley, but refused to guarantee them financial help. "Senator Tierney, charged by the Prime Minister with responsibility for negotiations with the workers, told the ABC, 'We were moved to tears by some of the stories.'" [italics mine] Normally, that would be the end of the story, workers forgotten as always and on to the next meeting to flog Telstra. But wait! Several days later the PM comes up with a bit of magical policy on the run. Policy is something he's not well known for, beyond taxing (or otherwise penalising) the poor to benefit the rich, so it's only natural that he usually goes with the talkback flow for initiatives. This one, however, is not based on the opinions of Lawsies human rubble. It is based purely and simply on bailing out brother Stanley, National Textile's chairman. Of course Stan won't get any of the money; after all, his brother is Honest John Howard. Nope, the multi-million dollar package is meant to insure that all sacked workers receive their full redundancy package. And it comes from taxpayers. And it does not extend to Pelaco workers at Braebrook in Melbourne, even though it's the same industry and the same kind of company skullduggery. As a taxpayer, HH is happy to help anyone who has had the screws put to them, but why does he--all of us--have to bail out a company? In effect, the sacked workers are paying the payout for their sacking. Something is rotten here, but what else is new? If there were any doubts left that companies regard workers as fodder to be tossed aside at the slightest tremor of lessening profit, they are gone now. In a civilised world, corporations should be required to look after their workers before the needs of shareholders and creditors. There is no company without a work force, however small or large. Thus, we have a flouting of civilised behaviour here, just one more nail in the gigantic coffin that is globalism's march toward mass servitude. How long until the streets are full of marchers or we see a general strike? For a full indictment of this ill-conceived deal, see the editorial in The Australian, 10 Feb 00 (even though the masthead says 10 January). We want to thank Clueless John for highlighting each and every misdeed of this affair during his inordinate protestations the following day. Murdoch, Shmurdoch, the editorial simply had the guts to call John and Stan's Execrable Adventure the way most of us see it: as another example of the PM's inability to know a conflict of interest from a bucket of fan-splatter. Contemptuous Yallourn Energy CEO, Mike Johnston, is beholden to no one but the shareholders of a UK company alleged to be up for price fixing. He couldn't give a damn for the plight of Victorian householders of small business, and this was clearly shown by his reaction to Premier Bracks' threat to invoke emergency legislation. From that moment on, he sat on his hands, knowing full well that emergency legislation would only affect the workers. His refusal to accept Neil Pope's subsequent recommendations, clearly acceptable to both Yallourn Energy and the Electrical Trades Union, managed to inflame a situation which could have ended then and there. Refusing to lower himself to take part in negotiations, he instead "instructed" his flunkeys to walk away from the deal. Pope has said, "I was so angry with the way they'd presented their position I could barely look at them." In the end, Labor Premier, Steve Bracks, played into Johnston's hands, and forced the WORKERS back, with fines of $10,000 per for non compliance. The accepted philosophy of those in high places continues to be to blame the victim, whether it's the unemployed or workers about to be screwed. This was a strike brought on by Yallourn's decision to hire contract labour and get rid of the unions. Privatised companies are big business, and the primary goal of big business (beside profit) is to have a work force compliant to its will. Unions are not compliant; therefore they must be destroyed. This is the only real motivation that gets Peter "Single Issue" Reith out of bed every morning. Privateers are happy to offer inducements to workers to leave their unions and sign individual contracts, knowing that workers wages are never enough to withstand the carrot. But eventually, and history proves it, these inducements will be wound back (like John Howard's inducements of tax reductions and lower prices for accepting the GST). Eventually those contract workers will be at the wages mercy of the stick holders. When listening to Mike Johnston, or the CEO of any big company, you are being treated to today's representations of the misanthropic, cold-blooded bosses that flourished in Victorian times. When listening to the likes of Dean Mighello, ETU secretary, or the spokesman for any other union, you are being treated to the voice of the people, usually defiant, often desperate, mostly gobsmacked at the sickening regularity of people being hoodwinked by the snake oil salesmen of the right. Theory A: Most employers would be happy with a deregulated labor market where they could hold their workers as little more than slaves. Theory B: With the exception of militants (about as great a percentage as single mother welfare rorters), no worker has ever wanted to strike without a damn good reason. Anyone that thinks otherwise is either an employer or a misanthrope with his or her head up their arse. Senator Nick Riviera, oops, that's Minchin, the renowned and trustworthy Larval who ALWAYS speaks FOR ALL OF US, was on the airwaves this week spruiking cars. They've never been cheaper, he was heard to say, and that's because car makers are happy they're going to get a GST, which--and don't you believe any lies to the contrary--will make cars even cheaper come GST Day, your next new holiday. Righto, Senator Nick. Now which cars are you telling us we should buy? That folk mobile of the Fraught Aughts, the $14,000 Hyundai eXcel? No? Oh, right, forgot who was on the horn. Yes, the Saab 900, of course. What was that price? Dollars 72,000 ONLY? No, worries, Senator Nick, ForAllOfUs are already stampeding to our nearest showroom. Gee, thanks for the tip! Arbeit Führer Reich's Workplace Mayhem The Yallourn meltdown is more proof that Peter Reith's Workplace Relations Act is a travesty. But don't take HH's word for it. Here is what Victorian Supreme Court judge, Justice Howard Nathan, has to say. (Article by Katherine Towers, The Age 8 Feb 00, brackets outs.) The act invokes "ritualised mayhem in which only the innocent are slaughtered" [Yallourn workers], reducing industrial conflict to a level "redolent of the Grecians and the Spartans." [And here we thought the Howard Government was only trying to take us back to the last century.] According to Towers, Nathan said courts had become the battleground for industrial conflict where the parties took to each other "with weapons customarily used in armed combat". Towers states that the act has come under strong attack by unions as encouraging individual agreements, emasculating the Industrial Relations Commission and following a New Right agenda. Nathan's outburst came after he refused to grant an injunction to Ansett Australia to prevent its workers taking industrial action over redundancies at Kendall Airlines, even though an earlier notice of industrial action issued by the Australian Services Union had been withdrawn. ABA: Full Power to Censor Small Fry; No Power to Punish Wealthy Corruption Errol Simper (The Oz 8 Feb 00) speaks of the "sinister undertone to the texture of many of these [cash-for-comment] events: extortion. Cash-for protection." Simper has been indefatigable in reporting this on-going saga. Like most of us, he can't stand the flouting of ethics in the media. He has more of that rare quality in the hair that just fell out of his head than Laws, Jones, Conde, and the rest, have in the sum total of their combined anti-evolutionary lifetimes. Simper says, "The report implies [that] Laws, Jones and 2UE are variously misleading, greedy, open to financial persuasion, unreliable with their opinions, unreliable under oath. In other words: unreliable with the truth. It says opinion on 2UE often isn't worth the breath it takes to express it. "Should this trio still be on the air? No, they shouldn't." But they are, and will continue to be for some time. Because, as Finola Burke says in the same paper, "What yesterday's 548-page report serves to illustrate is just what a toothless tiger the ABA remains. If 95 licence breaches [of the radio industry's code of practice] are not enough for the ABA to cancel a licence, it is hard to imagine what is." John Laws and Alan Jones, free of the burden of ethical standards, will continue to con their audience of talkback alcoholics, despite the ABA's finding against them of graft, corruption, extortion, you name it. Business as usual is a concept more enduring than Kubrick's Monolith. Yet on that other front, the one of Internet Censorship, the ABA has full authority to issue takedown notices to Web sites it deems inappropriate. Last week we mentioned Teenage.com.au, which shows adults in sexual acts that don't appear to have been entered into under threat of torture. It's something we all do (at least those of us who are not dwarfed by the superstitions and hatreds of organised religion and their political mouthpieces). What we DON'T do is make our living out of corrupt activities. But our role models tell us that is the way to go. And here he thought he was going to be a hero. From the initial blackout on Thursday 3 February, until 4 PM Monday the 7th, your frothing reporter was sure he would be up for a fine at the hands of the Electrical Enforcers. Then he picked up a copy of Melbourne's Herald Sun which, for the first time to his knowledge, stipulated that personal computers--heretofore on the banned list--would be allowed if used for home business. Of course SCATT is not technically a business, nor even a livelihood, let me tell you. But it isn't Bugdom either. Yet, until that perspiration relieving notice, HH felt sure he would become a martyr in the cause of intrepid justice, hunting and pecking his words of outrage during the Forbidden Time. That he would be forced to face at his front door one or more grown men in discarded Kennett Kadett uniforms--the short pants would be a boon in the hot weather, and you've just got to wear a uniform for this sort of thing. Alas, it was not to be. He is exempt! And hey, he can even slip a CD in his puter and it's legal. Let's see now, what about "Play School's Greatest Hits".... Why Australia Can't Be Taken Seriously As stated in the last issue, when the power cuts hit Victoria there was nothing to do but repair to the back verandah and turn on the Y2K radio. Terry Laidler, on 3LO, provided a wealth of information on the crisis. However, the next day, this wealth of information was sent to limbo. Sweltering in the second day of near 40-degree heat, regular listeners were summarily deprived of regular programming. Instead, they were treated to the cricket match between Australia and Pakistan being played in Sydney, where, for a change, no climactic cataclysms were taking place. How can a country be taken seriously when its NATIONAL BROADCASTER--not just any radio station--cancels all regular programming to become nothing more than a conduit for a sporting event? My question is this. If the meteor, asteroid, or nuclear missile comes in the middle of an over, will we hear about it before or after the over is over? |
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