As Michael Bachelard pointed out in The Age recently, the ABCC was ostensibly set up to deal with organised crime in the building industry — yet “almost two years after the ABCC was set up as a statutory commission, not one alleged organised criminal has been charged.” Instead, it uses its extraordinary powers to persecute [...]
An employer in the film industry has admitted paying his staff illegal, below-award wages, and has been caught on tape making threats of violence against a union official. Film producer Brad Diebert rang the MEAA’s Simon Whipp: How dare you say we have the money to pay actors more money… fuck you, spreading shit like [...]
Take a look at this breathless reporting from Brad Norington in the Government Gazette: Businesses are using John Howard’s workplace laws to strike a better balance between work and family life, with a dramatic increase in time off allowed so employees can look after sick children or elderly relatives. Almost 40 per cent of employers [...]
Wow. In April 2006 I wrote that the Employer Advisor Program was an anti-union slush fund, with the Howard Government “blatantly tipping a bucket of money into the business lobby’s coffers, to subsidise its anti-union campaigns”. A year later, in April 2007, I pointed out that Julia Gillard thought business would be expected to run [...]
An inspirational nature film. Watch what happens when the lions pick on the weakest buffalo.
John Howard made news recently by putting a couple of dull speeches up on YouTube, and Kevin Rudd has launched a big site to sells bumper stickers. As Mark has pointed out, these token efforts don’t really take the online plunge, they just move the same old campaign from talkback and letters pages to a [...]
The business lobby today launched its election propaganda campaign. The president of the Business Council of Australia, Michael Chaney, made the laughable claim that the ads are non-political, but Australians saw through the last “information” campaign and they’ll see through this one, too. The leader of the Liberal Party tells business they had better spend [...]
Last week we learned that the new head of the Workplace Authority, Barbara Bennett, was not hired because she is capable of protecting workers, but because she fit the advertising agencies’ criteria for a propaganda “figurehead”. Now we know that her face on the screen hasn’t done anything to convince people that job insecurity is [...]
A secret Government report has been leaked to the press, revealing details of research on the public’s opinion of WorkChoices. Some of the comments from focus group participants include: “It’s like there’s a guillotine over our heads. Stability is gone.” “The kids will think it’s great to get five days’ annual leave and a bowl [...]
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