Janelle Saffin MP on North Coast industrial relations

Federal Labor's Janelle Saffin, Member for Page, speaking in the House of Representatives last week:

Re-establishing fairness to Australian workplaces was one of the hallmarks of the Rudd Labor government, so when I hear of workers in my electorate of Page being treated more like cattle than people it makes my blood boil. One of my first jobs after leaving school in Ipswich was as an abattoir hand. It was hard, physical and sometimes dangerous work. On staggered days last year—28 November, 1 December and 2 December—up to 23 employees turned up to a south Grafton abattoir for work to be told by embarrassed foremen that they were out of a job due to 'a WorkCover thing'. They were handed a week's pay, shown the gate and thrown out on Armidale Road to uncertain futures. Appallingly, they did not receive their rightful entitlements: termination pay, redundancy, annual leave and long service—nothing. Coming up to Christmas, with mortgages to service, bills to pay and presents to buy, this was a very cruel, bloody-minded and gutless way to treat employees, some of whom had been veterans of the slaughter floor.

All of these workers tell me they were employed by Tempus Holdings Pty Ltd, a labour hire company that provided labour to abattoir owner Stuart Ramsey's company Ramsey Food Processing Pty Ltd. The sacked workers were informed in writing that Tempus Holdings would on 28 November 2008 cease to be a labour hire company supplying labour for Ramsey Food Processing Pty Ltd. The local Daily Examiner newspaper, which has been championing the plight of the affected workers and their right to entitlements, has repeatedly asked Stuart Ramsay, Tempus Holdings director Michael Considine and their solicitors about the complex corporate structure attached to the abattoir. The Daily Examiner's inquiries have been met by silence and stonewalling. I have twice written to Mr Ramsey, on 12 December and 12 January, on behalf of my constituents seeking clarification on exactly who is responsible for paying the sacked workers their outstanding entitlements, but I have had no response to date............

I have arranged for any sacked abattoir employee to get free legal advice on unfair dismissal or unlawful termination from the Lismore based Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre. I have raised this with my colleague the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations the Hon. Julia Gillard. I raised the allegations of these men with the Commonwealth Workplace Ombudsman and am heartened to say that they have given a high priority to their investigation..........

I know that the Workplace Ombudsman recently served a notice to produce documents on the director at the registered office of Tempus Holdings and that significant resources are being directed at the investigation. I am encouraging more affected workers to come forward and provide evidence so that they can recover what is rightfully theirs and perhaps discourage rogue employers out there from running roughshod over other workforces in regional Australia. I do not care what tricky, albeit legal, company arrangements may have been put in place, the person morally and ethically responsible for paying these workers their entitlements is the person who owns the abattoir—Stuart Ramsey.

The full text of Ms. Saffin's speech here.

Is local government to blame for bushfire vulnerability in villages and small towns?

As the main stream media and blogosphere begin to discuss the causes of Victorian bushfire fatalities, a voice of reason is heard in the remarks of Russell Rees, chief officer of Victoria's Country Fire Authority:

AUSTRALIANS living in the bush and in semi-rural suburbs must change the way they live or else risk dying in bushfires....................
firefighters could no longer guarantee saving the lives of those who chose to surround themselves with vegetation despite the obvious fire risks.................

"We've got to choose," .....'If we choose to live in this way, then who do we blame? My fear is that people will say the fire service failed (last Saturday) and I will go to my grave saying we fought our guts out.
"Fundamentally, our community is choosing to live in a way I can't, and our people can't, guarantee their survival. Why do we choose a system of civilisation that puts itself at so much risk?"

Mr. Rees quite rightly mentions personal lifestyle preferences.

However, we also need to remember that local government hungry for residential and business rate revenues and developers avid for less expensive land to sell on at a profit are also pushing the same dangerous (albeit attractive) lifestyle.

This same scenario can be seen playing out in the Northern Rivers coastal town of Yamba right now.

Not only is Clarence Valley Council seriously considering development of flood prone land at West Yamba, this same land sits directly above scrub and forest cover which extends further south into Yuraygir National Park.

When strong southerly winds are driving bushfires, the blaze can (and has) come raging up past Wooloweyah and begin knocking on West Yamba's door.

Which makes one narrow bridge over the Clarence estuary a very chancy exit for around 6,000 people.

Photograph from The Australian

Greed no longer rules in the corridors of power?

I've watched with growing amazement as governments all around the world have thrown money at financial institutions and industry with almost reckless abandon as everyone tries to stop the economic haemorrhaging.
I thanked my lucky stars that (with the exception of the ABC childcare debacle) money wasn't going directly to corporation bailouts here in Australia.

When the Yanks began to put together their latest stimulus package I thought that some sanity might be returning, for President Obama was making a lot of noise about stopping these big corporations spending some of that enormous pile of taxpayer funding on their own salary packages and bonuses.

At first it seemed that my optimism was premature and greed was still stalking the corridors of power and board rooms across America because it appeared that the move to cap these often multi-million dollar payouts is in trouble.
"Congressional efforts to impose stringent restrictions on executive compensation appeared to be evaporating yesterday as House and Senate negotiators worked to fine-tune the compromise stimulus bill."
Another day brought other news however and the U.S. Congress has gone even further than the conditions suggested by Obama as it applies the cap retrospectively.
"The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign into law next week, limits bonuses for executives at all financial institutions receiving government funds to no more than a third of their annual compensation. The bonuses must be paid in company stock that can be redeemed only when the government investment has been repaid. With the measure, lawmakers seek to address public outrage over extravagant Wall Street paydays even as taxpayers bail out the industry."

Perhaps Sol Trujillo may decide to stay with Telstra after all - he now milks a more productive cow Downunder.

Across the Pacific: links comparing two economic stimulus packages

For all those political tragics out there this weekend.

From Open Congress last week the Obama Administration's $789.5 billion economic stimulus package in its final form:

H.R. 1 – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:

Text of the Conference Report-Division A

Text of the Conference Report-Division B

Joint Explanatory Statement – Division A

Joint Explanatory Statement – Division B

From Com Law the Rudd Government $42 billion economic stimulus package passed by the Australian Parliament last week:

Appropriation (Nation Building and Jobs) Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009

Appropriation (Nation Building and Jobs) Bill (No. 2) 2008-2009

Household Stimulus Package Bill 2009

Tax Bonus for Working Australians Bill 2009

Tax Bonus for Working Australians (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009

Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Amendment Bill 2009

As the stimulus package amendments which the Rudd Government was forced to concede do not yet appear to have made it into publication, here is the Senate Hansard transcript for 12 February 2009.

Are hot days melting the Internetz?

Almost marching side by side with rising summer temperatures across Australia since late January - early February has been the strange behaviour of my Internet connection.

Now either (i) the heat is so severe that the Internetz are melting, (ii) I've suddenly developed the most wayward Internet connection, or (iii) some of the 6 ISPs identified as taking part in Conroy's ISP-level filtering trial (or a number of the other 10 small ISPs rumoured to be involved) are currently gearing up.

I telephoned Senator Conroy's Canberra office on Thursday 15 January and was told that the ISP applications of expression of interest were still being assessed and that the entire matter was behind a Chinese wall as it involved a commercial tender process and therefore was commercial-in-confidence.
I was further informed that the ISP-level filtering trial would not start for a couple of weeks at least.
This would of course take the staggered startup for the live trial right into the high volume of Net traffic as business entered its first full trading month for 2009.

Last Monday 9 February when I telephoned again I found the Senator's office was in a whimsical I don't THINK it's begun yet mood.

However, on Wednesday 11 February Senator Conroy finally announced that the trial was all go with six ISPs involved: Primus, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1.
Though he was careful not to give a start date for the trial. Here are Senator Conroy's weasel words in the media release.

So who do I believe here - the first staffer's very polite Sergeant Shultz defence, Conroy's sidestepping, or my suddenly erratic Internet connection?

Examples of the high number of Windows/Internet Explorer messages I have been seeing so far this past week:

The Requested Page Could Not Be Found

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Proxy Error

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request *******************************.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

The webpage cannot be found

HTTP 404

Most likely causes:

There might be a typing error in the address.

If you clicked on a link, it may be out of date.

(Er, say again. It was the Google search engine I was trying to access)

403 Forbidden (WTF. It was an international news site)

403 Forbidden (For heaven's sake it was a picture of a beach, minus people!)

Server Error

The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
Please see Google's Terms of Service posted at http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html
(Oh dear, and all I was trying to do was read Still LIfe with Cat)

The web site you are accessing has experienced an unexpected error.
Please contact the website administrator.

Navigation to the webpage was canceled

Information Alert
Status : 504 Gateway Time-Out
Description : Unable to connect to origin web server. The web site you are attempting to access is currently unreachable. This may be due to a network outage, or the web site might be experiencing technical difficulties.

You are not permitted to browse this view (The Attorney-General's department has a hissy fit?)

And no, before anyone suggests it, my PCs don't appear to be infected with anything according to the checks I've run.

Sunday's LOL catting about

Clarencegirl has been out LOL catting again and sent me these.

Pollies taking advantage - quelle surprise!

Now I can understand the Federal Parliament taking one day away from ordinary business to offer condolences and show support for the Victorian bushfire victims.
I can almost understand Question Time being abandoned by both houses two days in a row.
But not for the entire week.
No real Question Time scrutiny of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan before it passed through Parliament and now I read that the Rudd Government is using the bushfires as an excuse for not handing down its "report card on the government's efforts to close the gap between black and white living standards this week as promised".
Kev, voters can feel the rough end of the pineapple when it's shoved towards them.
They recognise political skyving when they see it.
After all, most of them lived in Australia throughout the Howard years.

Valentine's Day cynic

Unless that's chocolate in your pocket don't bother..........

A word on climate change from a Crikey reader

In Crikey on 3 February:

Bruce Hore writes: I am no climate change scientist, but I do know:

• In Adelaide, we are having a week of temperatures over 40 degrees, peaking at 45.7 (hottest in 70 years). It's really f-cking hot!
• 20+ people a day are dying here due to heat related conditions. Why? Because it is really f-cking hot!
• We will have another 5-7 days over 35 degrees. It ain't 45, but it is still f-cking hot!
• Last year, we had 15 days in a row over 35 degrees (a record for an Oz metro centre). It was really f-cking hot then too.
• It is so f-cking hot that technology used by railways, tramlines and power companies all over the world, is failing here on a daily basis over a several week period.
• Adelaide had 100mm (15%+) less rainfall last year than on average.
• Adelaide had 1mm last month, 33+ mm less than usual. Its 2009 and, like financial redemption, there is no rain here either.
• The Murray and lower lakes are pretty much empty down this way (the Coorong is a mess), which I suspect doesn't get any coverage east of Bordertown. Old timers call it the worst it has ever been.

I am no climate change scientist, but I can tell you it is much hotter than it used to be with much less water around and the environment is suffering. We really need to change the way we use/treat the environment.

Bluescreen gives us the good oil on Conroy's internet censorship plans

From Alex Kidman and Bluescreen in a rollicking "It's a joke Joyce" mood yesterday:

"Bluescreen's Canberra correspondent got talking to some colleagues, who talked to somebody in the janitorial department, who then approached the department-of-leaking-stuff-to-the-opposition for the official word as to which filtering technology had been pre-approved to win the trials, in accordance with standard Government operating procedure.

Except that this time, there genuinely isn't just a single one.

Filtering technologies being assessed, so our janitorial spy tells us, include everything from the aforementioned whitelisting and image scanning all the way up to the mandatory introduction of Google Nothing. It's alleged that certain rural members of the Labour party were of the impression that Internet filtering involved Barramundi and lots of cheesecloth, but that couldn't be confirmed in writing, as apparently the individuals involved can't write yet, and had eaten their crayons again.

Bluescreen did stop to ponder over the chosen ISPs and consider contacting them, until he remembered that they'd probably be under a gag order anyway. In the case of Webshield, Bluescreen's email might not get through on the grounds that the company filters everything anyway, and one of Bluescreen's close relatives once fell foul of an Internet filter that viewed his blog as highly pornographic**.

There's always the one moderately large ISP in the list, Primus, and as Bluescreen was about to go ferreting around, the company pre-empted this by releasing a statement. Apparently the filtering technology will "be offered on an opt-in basis and customer participation will be totally voluntary. The ability for the customer to opt-in to the trial provides them ultimate freedom over their internet experience.***".

Bluescreen can't write comedy like that, but it wishes it could. If customers can opt out, will Primus gather any useful filtering information at all? What's the point in opting out if it's going to be a mandatory filter? Moreover, didn't the previous government offer exactly the same kind of Net filtering under an opt-in arrangement, only to have three families actually take them up on the offer. And didn't at least one of the teenagers affected just crack the filtering within five minutes anyway?

** Once again, utterly true. Apparently naked stick figures are hardcore filth. Who knew?
*** A genuine quote."

.....and Nick Broughall at Gizmodo says we're f##ked!

"Riiight... This whole ISP-level filter thing is becoming an even bigger joke than we'd previously thought. Not only did the government only select half a dozen tiny ISPs to trial the effectiveness of their filter technology (ignoring the fact that the country's second and third largest ISPs were prepared to play along to give some meaningful data), but the largest of the selected ISPs is going to trial the filter as an opt-in option for customers......

One can only hope that the farcical nature of this trial process is because the government is slowly pulling away from the whole idea. Because if this is the best the government can do, we all need to be really, really scared for the future of our freedoms online..."

Pic from Gizmodo on Friday 13th.

Attention: Rudd, Rees, Roxon, Saffin, Elliot. This mouth has been almost a decade on the Australian public dental treatment waiting list

This is the mouth of a NSW North Coast pensioner who has been on the public dental treatment waiting list for the better part of a decade.

A third world image of poverty in the Lucky Country.

When is the Federal Government going to finally fulfill its constitutional obligations and take full responsibility for public dental health services across Australia?

On threatened frogs, rare snails, small hills, public land and developers

In the Tweed Valley:

* A bunfight over the identity of a frog’s mating calls and the extinction of a rare snail population provide an insight into a long running legal dispute involving Tweed Shire Council and the shire’s biggest landowners, Gales Holdings.
The frog-and-snail imbroglio centres on just one parcel of Gales’s extensive holdings between Kingscliff and Chinderah which have been the subject of rezoning battles ever since the company acquired them seven years ago.
Conflicting claims about the frog’s identity and the fate of the snails typifies the complexities involved in a string of court cases initiated by the company in a so far failed bid to rezone the bulk of their land for a district shopping centre.

* Tweed Shire Council’s general manager, Mike Rayner, braved a crowd of more than 300 people protesting against the proposed closure and sale of part of Bay Street on Saturday to deny that any secret deals were involved.
Rally organisers invited Mr Rayner to stand on the back of a tray-top truck parked in the Chris Cunningham Park to speak to a bigger-than-expected turnout of people upset over the sale and possible loss of up to 4,000 square metres of parkland and dozens of trees.

In the Clarence Valley:

* AN impending rescission motion against the sale of the Maclean car park may be made all the more interesting with Clarence Valley Council set to decide on the expansion of the area to include more parking spaces.
Council's civil and corporate committee will tomorrow consider recommended approval of the reconfiguration of the car park and Centenary Drive, following a public consultation period.
Despite all the interest that has been aroused with the car park and possible sale to build a new supermarket complex, only four submissions were received in relation to the concept.
If accepted, the car park will increase in size by another 84 car parks, with three car and caravan vacancies to be included.
It will also signal the loss of about 240m² of green space, another gripe from those opposing the sale of the land to private developers.

In Byron Shire:

* Suellen Watson started an avalanche. When she heard that the north face of Mt Chincogan was up for sale she decided to write to The Echo and encourage the community to join together to buy this iconic piece of North Coast history.
‘I just thought there had to be something the community could do,’ says Suellen. ‘If you keep talking about it and communicating, something’s got to happen. If we can save some local history, particularly aboriginal history, then it must benefit the community.’
Now it seems the idea is beginning to take hold with missives from the vendor and Rainforest Rescue (see letters pages) encouraging locals to take the opportunity to return the mountain to the community and enable access to its walking tracks and dizzying heights.
Mt Chincogan looms large in Mullumbimby history. The town’s name is thought to derive from the language of the Bundjalung people with ‘muli’ said to mean ‘hill’. The full name has been interpreted as meaning ‘small round hill’ – a reference to the mountain beneath which the town is situated. Even the road to Mullum was carefully designed to frame Mt Chincogan on entry and exit.

How to recognise a North Coast property developer:

1. Wears jeans, a business suit or an akubra hat, depending on how he wants to present his 'image' to the community and local councillors.

2. Is observed on occasion to suddenly develop an intense interest in the future career prospects of council town planners.

3. Only believes in democratic methods if he feels the vote is going his way and throws tantrums in the local media if he doesn't get what he's after.

4. Sometimes promises potential objectors to his plans a 'sweetener', such as an all-expenses paid holiday on the quiet.

5. Brags about successfully altering development consents eg., by exchanging the promise of a couple of park benches, picnic table and a concrete path for the return of a few million dollars worth of waterfront land.

6. Secretly considers local government an impediment and often makes large political donation to state government.

7. Has a history of cultivating candidates at local government elections or encouraging a business partner/close friend to stand for election.

Steve shrilling.....and Nick pontificating

Sometimes a glimpse of Family First's Senator Steve Fielding breaks a fella out in hives and sometimes it just brings on a burst of laughter.
His shrill impotence in the Senate last Wednesday was a joy to behold; "I am deadset serious about this. This is just a joke. I may not be the best negotiator. I am just a kid from Reservoir, but, sure as all heck, I know when someone is stuffing around.....We need a stimulus package. It is just a shame that the government think that they need no other ideas except their own. It is very sad. It is a very sad day."
Yer - you tell 'em Little Stevie. Twist and shout, drum your heels into the carpet while the adults look the other way.
Fair dinkum, it's a joke.

At the same time Independent Senator Nick Xenophon tried and failed not to sound pompous as he threw his political weight around; "Do I support the package? My biggest concern about the package has been not simply what we are spending but also what we are buying. I do know that targeted infrastructure spending will serve generations to come, which is important because, if future generations are going to pay off this debt, the deal we do now must benefit them too. When faced with complex global crises and equally complex economic responses as we deal with this response package, it is important to be clear about what we know, what we do not know and what we cannot know. I believe this is an important point to make even if I risk sounding a little like Donald Rumsfeld."
And then later smug when interviewed on the 7.30 Report.

What is amusing in all this is that the Senate Inquiry into the Nation Building and Jobs Plan (on which both these men sat as participating members) recommended in its final report that the Senate pass those 6 bills immediately.
As the Committee hearing evidence was evenly balanced between Labor and Coalition senators whose votes along party lines cancelled each other out, then some of the remaining 6 minor party/independent senators must have voted to recommend that the Senate pass the second stimulus package post haste.
I wonder if somebody was overcompensating here?
Of course the plaintive mewing gave him away - it was bound to be Fielding.
However, Xenophon is by far the more cynical pollie of the two.
He honestly thinks that no-one will dare utter so much as a peep when he repeats the supposed rational for his blatant money grab ie., that throwing water buyback money at irrigators in the Lower Murray Darling (for water that doesn't yet exist) and similar measures will make the skies open and the rain fall.
He is happy to blackmail the country and can't hide the frisson as he contemplates the power he has greedily grabbed with both hands.
Yup, the man sounds and acts a lot like Rumsfeld.

* Possum over at Pollytics hopes that Xenophon will come to his senses later today Friday 13th;
"In 15 hours we’ll know whether Australia passes a package that minimises the economic and human costs from the GFC induced slowdown, or whether these blokes [Xenaphon, Turnbull and Joyce] become the 3 Stooges of the Recession.
Parochial Stooge, Political Stooge and from watching the Senate committee on this package, a bloke not too far removed from a bag of hammers.
I’m flabbergasted - let’s hope Xenophon comes to his senses tomorrow or he will carry a very heavy burden.
The real irony here is it’s the bloke in the middle that’s probably the one completely sh*tting himself, because if this package fails to get through the Senate, the fallout against Turnbull by the public will be enormous. Every piece of bad news will become his fault in the mind of a huge chunk of the public - Labor will make sure of it. That better economic manager series we looked at earlier might become a nostalgic golden age for the Coalition."

UPDATE 1.10pm:

The Federal Government's $42 billion economic stimulus package will pass the Senate after a deal was struck today between Labor and the independent Senator Nick Xenophon.
Senator Xenophon said he would vote for the package after winning $900 million in extra funds for the ailing Murray-Darling basin and other water projects.
It involves bringing forward an extra $500 million over the next three years for water buybacks, $200 million in grants to assist local communities save water and to better manage water and $200 million in stormwater harvesting projects.

Friday the 13th

A sop to superstition from Photobucket

Paid good money for a gig and been denied entry?

If your answer is "YES", then this should be of interest.


inthemix.com.au reports that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are said to be investigating claims made by disgruntled punters following the Laneway Festival in Melbourne earlier this month. The Age report that the ACCC are following up on accusations made against the event’s organisers after several hundred ticket purchasers were left stranded outside one of the festival’s stages, unable to gain entry to see artists they’d paid up to $100 to see.

At 7.30pm access to the Little Lonsdale Stage was closed for “safety reasons”, meaning many festival goers did not get the chance to see headline acts Girl Talk and Architecture In Helsinki. Following the event, organisers laid blame on a small number of punters who were causing trouble, as well as on an eleventh hour issue which forced them to greatly reduce capacity to the area. Complaints lodged with the ACCC contend that it was not noted on tickets that there would be limited access available.

In the days following the event groups began appearing on Facebook, with many irate punters demanding a refund on their ticket purchase. One group in particular, named ‘Cheated by St Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2009 – I want a refund’, has almost 800 members and included direct links through to the ACCC website for disgruntled fans to lodge complaints.

Laneway’s directors, Jerome Borazio and Danny Rogers, were understandably upset by the unfortunate incident at their Melbourne event, and are said to have promised a ‘personal phone call’ to any punter who complains to them direct. “Danny and I have read every single complaint,” Mr Borazio told The Age. “We care about what has been said and we’re looking at the reality of what we can do to restore faith in the festival. We’re devastated.”

Send your emails to :info@lanewayfestival.com.au

Image above from http://www.lanewayfestival.com.au/main#l=news/15