The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

Meanwhile, back at Liberal headquarters (Otherwise known as Parliament House):

I think I'm going to be sick! Fast reaching the point where I can't stand reading the latest details on IR.:

Workplace: it's the power of one
By Misha Schubert and Meaghan Shaw
March 20, 2006/the AGE

WORKPLACE Minister Kevin Andrews has handed himself sweeping powers to monitor every workplace in the nation, forcing the Industrial Relations Commission to send him weekly reports on any application to take strike action.

He will also be able to strike out any clause that he does not like from a contract between a worker and their boss and will have broad emergency powers to order employees back to work.

The extent of his reach is revealed in hundreds of pages of regulations released yesterday, which flesh out precisely how the Howard Government's new industrial relations landscape will work. ... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/workplace-its-the-power-of-one/2006/03/19/1142703219141.html

Let's hope this is one of those "those whom the gods destroy they first make mad" things.

Yes, Deb. <sigh>






Bloody, bloody, bloody!!!!!!!
How low can they go?

An honest government ad!

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/AuthorisedBribes.asp?campaign_id=27

An honest ad, hinge?
Impossible!

(I didn't actually get to see it .... would have had to download another program to do so. Is Macromedia OK? -asks the Luddite from down south.)

Told you so!:

Bleak's response to that Indonesian cartoon.:

Hi Olgs - yep macromedia is OK (Adobe bought them - but even before that they was nice people)

Ah. Thanks for that, hinge. Will do.
But not right this minute. A lot of homework (online!) to do!

Hey, did you watch the 7:30 report tonight (Monday)? Very interesting stuff on the ramifications of the IR legislation & also the West Papua asylum seekers/Oz government's strained relations with the Indonesians as a result. Phew! Never a dull moment!

Cheers & thanks,
Olgs

Crikey on Downer, the government, and the wheat scandal:

"1. What Downer really admitted: We were only fooling about Iraq


Michael Pascoe writes:

It smirked out between the lines from Lord Downer yesterday – the federal opposition and media pack have been wrong all along in trying to whip up some outrage about AWB kickbacks because Saddam's Iraq was never really a problem for us.

That's why Downer could claim DFAT had acted professionally. That's why Downer could say “I don't recall being shocked” when he was told a year ago that Alia was part owned by the Iraq Government. That's why Downer could say he didn't think AWB “would necessarily be in great difficulties” in the UN's Volcker investigation. That's why Mark Vaile was happy doing whatever he could to help AWB sell grain to Iraq and why no-one in the Government gave a damn about the scores of suggestions kickbacks were being paid.

Quite simply, Downer, Vaile and co didn't care because Iraq was a good market paying good money and was no threat to anyone. That's what our spooks told them right up until the time they were asked to tell them something different – and even then no-one took it seriously beyond feigning a little outrage for the sake of currying favour with Washington.

DFAT's hands off attitude to AWB's Iraq trade – I think “post box” was the phrase – and the desperate government efforts to smooth things over with Baghdad when Downer first followed the Washington line with a bit of war talk testify that Canberra simply never took the Iraq sanctions seriously because Saddam's government was actually fine by us.

It turns out they were pretty much right at the time. No weapons of mass destruction, no ability to wage war, no Al-Qaeda connections. A rather brutal and corrupt dictatorship, yes, but no worse than many. And, like Tito's Yugoslavia, it kept a lid on nasty tribes just itching for bloody civil war and various cleansings.

All in all, DFAT, like most European Governments, realised Saddam was a lesser evil, so what was the point of anyone getting excited about enforcing some rather silly sanctions?

The thinking was present in BHP's original strategy in making a “gift” of wheat to Iraq. They assumed that sanctions would eventually be lifted and business life with Iraq would return to normal sooner or later. That also appears to have been the attitude of the Liberal-National Party Government by the way DFAT went limp on the sanctions from late 1996.

It was only George W Bush's mad band of neo-con warmongers who upset the game by starting to plot their invasion after September 11, 2001. We didn't get on board immediately, but eventually John Howard and his ministers had to dredge up some faux concern about Saddam for the sake of John's good friend George.

See, it's all been a terrible misunderstanding – but don't expect the Prime Minister to admit that on Thursday if he fronts Cole. It's way outside the inquiry's mandate. "


Bloody interesting, eh?

That's a pretty funny take - their only honest defence is to state their hyprocrisy in joining the coalition of the willing [to kiss Bush's ass]

The thing that absolutely disgusts & upsets me about all of this is that almost no mention is ever made in the media about who really lost out badly in this whole disgusting fiasco: the ordinary people of Iraq. Food for oil (or oil for food? I've lost track. ) was meant to assist them. They desperately needed that assistance. The AWB & the Australian government thought it was only about selling Australian wheat! Out-smarting our competitors. And the Australian media seems to think pretty much the same. How many times have you heard that everyone paid the bribes? So why not AWB, too? As if it was their money to spend as they chose! Disgusting parochial concerns, with absolutely no concern or compassion for the tragedy that the Iraqi people had to live through & somehow survive.

How dare you!

We helped invade them!

You dare say our government has no heart!

The AWB (with our government's blessing, apparently) gave Saddam a few extra million dollars ($300 million, I believe) to fight us with! Courtesy of the United Nations!




(I think I'm becoming seriously bitter & twisted, Deb. I can't face the news updates on the Cole enquiry anymore ..... such a silly & tragic farce. I can't stand it. )

Ditto.

Yes, it's all getting too hideous:

Cole, on top of:

The IR laws & latest nasty developments ...

The (appearance of) capitulation to Indonesia over the West Papuan asylum seekers.

Sale of uranium to China (then India), so long as they promise to use it for peaceful purposes only ....

More & more deportation/detention scandals ...

The savaging of the ABC ...

And all the bloody rest!

<sigh>

Poor fella, my country.

Apparently the lib/national coalition - in deference to truth in advertising legislation - is changing it's name to the :

F*ck You Jack I'm OK Party.

..... or perhaps, the Alzheimers Party?