Are you walking around in sweat shop clothes?

The international charity Oxfam has released its March 2009 report concerning the clothing industry: Transparency Report II: Have Hong Kong Companies Improved Their Reporting On Labour Standards?

The report was produced by CSR Asia and is essentially positive in outlook. Noting increased company sensitivity to the need to be seen as socially responsible with sustainable manufacturing.

However, there is a long way to go before reasonable working conditions for clothing industry workers are achieved.

According to ABC News:
Oxfam is calling on Australian companies to publish the names and addresses of the factories where goods are made and monitor labour conditions.

Of those Hong Kong-based companies and subsidiaries studied Chickeeduck, Esprit, Giodorno, Blue Star Exchange, Blue Navy, Jeans West, Quicksilver Glorious Sun, PMTD, and Li & Fung produced clothing lines sold in Australia or manufactured for Australian clothing companies.

These companies scored between 0 and 33 out of 100 per cent on the Oxfam manufacturing industry report card, based on governance and risk management, code of conduct, stakeholder engagement, management, auditing and reporting.

Li & Fung reportedly manufactures garments for Australian companies Pacific Brands, Just Jeans and Myers.

Now would be a good time to look through your wardrobe and see just how much of an ethical purchaser you actually are.

Senator Conroy and Mr. Hyde

You've just gotta love that Senator Conroy, he is both a blogger's and journo's dream at the moment.
His thin secular veneer over a heart of Opus Dei (if Wikipedia is to be believed) turns this hapless pollie into a modern day version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Age yesterday:
THE Government will begin trawling blog sites as part of a new media monitoring strategy, with documents singling out a website critical of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for special mention.
Soon after Senator Conroy praised Singapore's Government for reducing monitoring of blogs, tender documents issued by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy reveal it is looking for a "comprehensive digital monitoring service for print and electronic media".
The department later attached a clarification confirming the term "electronic media" included "blogs such as Whirlpool".
Whirlpool, the only blog site mentioned, has criticised Senator Conroy's plans to filter internet content and his handling of the Government's $15 billion national broadband network. It is a community-run internet forum devoted to discussing broadband internet access.
Senator Conroy this month told a conference in Germany that it was a "really positive sign" that the Singaporean Government had given up monitoring blogs.
But the documents suggest the Australian Government is just about to start. Senator Conroy's spokesman said it was "only natural" that the tender include services for monitoring relevant blogs.
"Whirlpool is a long-established online platform for news and information covering a wide range of topics across the telecommunications sector," the spokesman said. "It and other websites provide valuable insight into the industries in which we work."

The Whirlpool discussion boards are of course already having fun at ol' Hyde's expense:

User #144693 968 posts iCE654 BAN CENSORSHIP! Whirlpool Enthusiast

NufffRespeKtZ writes... I wonder when Whirlpool will appear on their blacklist. Probably next week. I mean after all, WP links to a page that links to a page which links to a another page which links to a page with a link to dentist porn. A new term should be inserted into the Oxford dictionary; Dentist Porn A fictitious term which originated in Australia during the first decade of the 2000 millennium. It is used to refer to something that has been blocked/censored ridiculously and arbitrarily without explanation. Context example: A moderator deleted a post which didn't contain any breach of the rules. Oi, Mr moderator, you deleted dentist porn wtf!!?!?

herring anchor Reply to this post Send whim posted Saturday at 12:50 am

Statistics at twenty paces............

In The Far North Coaster last week, Nationals State MP for Ballina, Don Page, went into print crying out that the sky is falling in New South Wales and like lemmings people are abadoning this state.

The latest ABS population figures should be a cause of great concern for the NSW Labor Government, Shadow Minister for Small Business and Regulatory Reform, Don Page, said.
"The ABS figures showed that in excess of 22,000 people had fled NSW in the year to 30 September 2008 while Queensland increased their population by around the same figure," Mr Page, the Member for Ballina, said.
"The NSW Labor Government is doing nothing to stem the tide of people leaving the highest taxing and highest regulated State in Australia, which also has one of the highest unemployment rates.

Forgive me if I smile.
Mr. Page obviously took one look at a recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) media release and thought this was the entire story or at least the story he should run with to produce some political mileage.

He neglected to mention that despite interstate movement, the New South Wales population actually rose to 7 million people.
Which gave it the highest total population of any Australian state or territory (as of 30 September 2008) and that the state had experienced its highest growth rate since 2000-01.

He also neglected to point out that population numbers on the Northern Rivers have risen as well, with the Richmond-Tweed region having the highest 2006-07 NSW growth rate (outside of Sydney) at 1.3% which represents 3,000 or more people.

Perhaps his failure to mention the fact the Ballina local government area growth rate was up 1.7% and Coffs LGA up 1.4% was due to the fact that this was indeed an inconvenient number for his argument.

Indeed, the Member for Ballina was very silent on a number issues relating to population.
Like the fact that population movement in the period covered by the statistics was obviously affected by the mining booms in several states and the prolonged drought.
These were important enough factors for the ABS statisticians to mention, but seemingly strangely irrelevant to Mr. Page.

Don Page should ask himself this question.
At what point does selectively quoting population numbers morph into an effort to deceive?

No-one would deny that New South Wales is likely to feel the impact of the current economic downturn sooner and perhaps harder than those states which up to recently were experiencing a mining boom.
It doesn't take dodgy use of official statistics to bring that point home.

Across the ditch they refuse to make the same Internet censorship blunder as Rudd & Conroy

The NZ National Business Review Friday 20th March:

"Those nervously watching the chaos across the Tasman can breathe a sigh of relief.
"We have been following the internet filtering debate in Australia but have no plans to introduce something similar here," says Communications and IT minister Steven Joyce.
"The technology for internet filtering causes delays for all internet users. And unfortunately those who are determined to get around any filter will find a way to do so. Our view is that educating kids and parents about being safe on the internet is the best way of tackling the problem."
In October, Australian Communications and IT minister Stephen Conroy announced a $A42 million plan to make internet content filtering compulsory for all Australian internet service providers."

Who's crowing now? 2009 Queensland State Election results at a glance

Despite a 4.2% swing against Labor (provisional estimate), last night Queensland Premier Anna Bligh became the first Australian female state premier to win an election in her own right.
Her government looks to be returned with at least 50 seats in an 89 seat parliament.
This was definitely not the close election predicted by many political pundits.
Those members of her family who live on the NSW North Coast are celebrating I'm sure.

Winners and losers in the 21 March 2009 Queensland State Election.

Parties ahead on the primary vote on election night by number of seats won:

Australian Labor Party	ALP	50
LNP	LNP	35
Other Candidates		4

Final results by seat on election night:

Albert Algester Ashgrove Aspley Barron River Beaudesert Brisbane Central Broadwater Buderim Bulimba Bundaberg Bundamba Burdekin Burleigh Burnett

Cairns Callide Caloundra Capalaba Chatsworth Clayfield Cleveland Condamine Cook Coomera Currumbin Dalrymple Everton Ferny Grove Gaven

Gladstone Glass House Greenslopes Gregory Gympie Hervey Bay Hinchinbrook Inala Indooroopilly Ipswich Ipswich West Kallangur Kawana Keppel Lockyer

Logan Lytton Mackay Mansfield Maroochydore Maryborough Mermaid Beach Mirani Moggill Morayfield Mount Coot-tha Mount Isa Mount Ommaney Mudgeeraba Mulgrave

Mundingburra Murrumba Nanango Nicklin Noosa Nudgee Pine Rivers Pumicestone Redcliffe Redlands Rockhampton Sandgate South Brisbane Southern Downs Southport

Springwood Stafford Stretton Sunnybank Surfers Paradise Thuringowa Toowoomba North Toowoomba South Townsville Warrego Waterford Whitsunday Woodridge Yeerongpilly

Changing seats according to Antony Green.

Saffin calls Hartsuyker on his scaremongering but diplomatically ignores Williamson's dog whistles.

The Labor Member for Page, Janelle Saffin, quite rightly called the Nationals Member for Cowper on his scaremongering about the fate of regional airline services on the NSW North Coast.
In particular, services operating out of the Grafton airport and access to Sydney Airport.

She should have also taken a swipe at Nationals protégée, Clarence Valley Mayor and 2GF breakfast disc jockey, Richie Williamson, who dutifully echoed Hartsuyker in The Daily Examiner on 19 March:

This week Clarence Mayor Richie Williamson raised concerns that a recommendation from Sydney Airports Corporation Ltd to a Federal Government green paper on the future of Sydney Airport could force regional airlines to use Bankstown Airport.

His dog whistles in the local media are becoming a little too obvious - The Daily Examiner frontpage headline last Tuesday Mayor fights for Rex to stay was based on a superfluous piece of nonsense from the mayor as the Rex Airlines decision to continue services (around 60,000 seats per year since 2007) was made weeks ago and was well-known to the valley if not formally announced.

Here on the North Coast we expect to read that old chestnut about loss of air services whenever a local politician wants a few column inches.

Unfortunately for Mayor Williamson we are also very aware that levels of patronage for Grafton Airport (on which continuing services depend) have as much to do with lack of public transport to and from this airport as they have with timetables or ticket costs.
That public servants and business representatives arriving in the Clarence Valley are often astonished to find themselves stranded after landing, at an airport with no permanent taxi or hire car presence and no buses (taxis can of course be arranged through the flight hostess if you happen to be aware of these difficulties).
Clarence Valley Council has studiously avoided facing this ongoing problem as did the cluster of smaller councils it replaced.

It has not escaped local attention either that Sydney Airport Corporation Limited would love the chance of a limited congestion fix by re-routing regional airlines away from its airspace and so had taken the opportunity to express its view in a submission on the Aviation Green Paper.

However the fact remains that both the previous federal government and the Rudd Government through the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government gave commitments to ensure regional airline have access to Sydney Airport.

The currrent minster told the House in March 2008:

And the third objective of the current act is to guarantee access for operators of New South Wales regional services by establishing a ring fence around the slots held by regional operators to Sydney airport at the onset of the demand management regime.

The Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Act 2008 came into effect in January 2009.

It is interesting to note that for all Mayor Williamson's expressed concern, Clarence Valley Council appears to be one of those local government areas having an airport which did not bother to make an individual submission on the green paper.
Thereby ignoring an opportunity to lobby the minister and his department on behalf of residents' interests, unlike Ballina Shire Council which did take advantage of this opportunity.

Earth Hour, Saturday 28 March 2009 between 8.30-9.30pm

Remind the Rudd Government that it was elected to do something meaningful about the climate change impacts which are bearing down on Australia - turn off all your household lights as part of the global vote for Earth for one hour between 8.30-9.30pm on Saturday 28 March 2009.

Photograph found at Redbubble