On Saturday during the NSW state election Liberal (LiPA) Senator Bill Heffernan stole Greens how-to-vote cards and started handing them out while misrepresenting the Greens' drugs policy. Usually the LiPAs contract out their dirty work like attacks on the Greens' drugs policy to Family First (aka the Fundamentalist Front) or the Exclusive Brethren (aka nutjobs).
Just for the record the Greens' drugs policy is based on the premise that the current approach to drugs has failed, and that drug addiction should be treated as a health problem rather than a criminal one. It still requires that dealers be dealt with by the criminal justice system. It does NOT, repeat NOT, advocate giving, or selling, drugs to children or indeed anyone else.
Anyway, reportedly Senator Heffernan then threatened to charge a Greens' candidate with assault if he were so much as touched in the course of an attempt to retrieve the stolen cards. Given that one of the Greens' core tenets is peace and non-violence Heffernan was presumably fairly safe, and was merely invoking the law as a means of intimidation.
This is indeed one of the main uses for the law but its blatant use in this way by a lawmaker is disturbing, though not surprisingly so, especially from Senator Heffernan who is mainly known for using parliamentary privilege to make false accusations against a High Court judge, and more generally as Howard's number one inhouse go-to-guy for dirty work in NSW.
It is somewhat irionic that when challenged about his continuing to misrepresent the Greens even after returning the stolen how-to-vote cards Heffernan said, "Anyone who wants to have a bit of biffo with me on this point, I invite them to step up to the plate." It certainly sounds like he is desperate to charge someone with assault, or assault someone. An angry, angry man.
I don't know if Heffernan has broken any laws by misrepresenting himself as a member of the Greens, though most likely not given the loose nature of the electoral laws drawn up by the major parties specifically to allow such abuses. Ethically however pretty much par for the course for the LiPAs, and we know how they love to stay those unethical courses.
If he has broken any laws he almost certainly won't be held to account, let alone be made to pay the so-called ultimate price of losing his seat. Certainly he wasn't after the much more serious incident when he eventually retracted the manufactured accusations against the High Court judge whose decisions he didn't like. Indeed he retained his number one position on the Coalition senate ticket in NSW and was therefore of course guaranteed re-election in 2004.
So this latest incident will merely serve as a further reminder, beyond the continuing presence of Heffernan in public life, of the contempt the LiPA hold for democracy, especially and ironically a liberal one.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Plea or Else
Before his mock trial could even really get under way David Hicks has apparently entered a plea of guilty to providing material support for terrorism.
I don't know if this is one of those laws that didn't exist at the time Hicks was meant to have broken them but reports have indicated that it relates to his having trained with al Quaeda and having met Osama bin Laden. How this actually assists terrorism is not clear, though granted it isn't good. Essentially though he seems to have admitted to having met people who at the time were not on the payroll of the CIA.
Meeting bin Laden is obviously significantly worse than meeting Brian Burke which only leaves a taint but isn't as yet a crime in itself. However, Donald Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein, and then Alexander Downer helped channel hundreds of millions of dollars to him. To me that sounds more like material support, and yet charges are yet to be laid. No doubt only a matter of time.
Hicks' plea has been reported as a plea bargain but as they still seem to be talking about how long his sentence will be, and where it might be served, they seemed to have missed out significant parts of the bargain.
The Howard government, no doubt relieved at not having to go through with the whole mock trial, as it seems at this point no one is buying it anymore, has called game over and declared themselves the winners. Hicks has pled guilty, case closed, can we please talk about something else in the run up to the election.
Interestingly our behated Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has come out and said Hicks probably won't appeal his sentence. How does Ruddock come to this conclusion? Apparently an appeal would jeopardise any transfer deal, a transfer meaning Hicks serving his sentence in Adelaide near his family.
So an appeal would mean staying at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely instead of being moved to a prison in Adelaide, presumably where laws and human rights are still upheld (one can only hope). There is also a date, though yet to be determined, where it is agreed you would be let out (though possibly let out but put under a control order). Compared to eternity in Guantanamo irresistible, and not something easily given up.
The Australian and American governments in their desperation for a political fix are openly threatening that should Hicks decide that maybe he didn't get a fair trial what with the being held for years without charge, and the torture, and isolation, and so forth, he will be left to the tender mercies of those who run Guantanamo apparently beyond the reach of any law, essentially forever.
I don't want to quibble but this doesn't strike me as a fair trial. You can either plead guilty, or go before a kangaroo court and spend the rest of your life being tortured. Would you like some thinking music? Perhaps loud and played 24 hours a day until you say `Guilty'. Who wouldn't take this deal? Contrary to the governments' pr spin this just adds another chapter to the miscarriage of justice.
Hicks certainly did something wrong, but nothing that could warrant his treatment at the hands of the american government or his abandonment by the Australian government. He can never get a fair trial now. The only hope is that those who have held him, clearly also guilty, but of much greater crimes, are one day made accountable and given the fair trial they have denied Hicks. This is not a hope to pin anything to though.
I don't know if this is one of those laws that didn't exist at the time Hicks was meant to have broken them but reports have indicated that it relates to his having trained with al Quaeda and having met Osama bin Laden. How this actually assists terrorism is not clear, though granted it isn't good. Essentially though he seems to have admitted to having met people who at the time were not on the payroll of the CIA.
Meeting bin Laden is obviously significantly worse than meeting Brian Burke which only leaves a taint but isn't as yet a crime in itself. However, Donald Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein, and then Alexander Downer helped channel hundreds of millions of dollars to him. To me that sounds more like material support, and yet charges are yet to be laid. No doubt only a matter of time.
Hicks' plea has been reported as a plea bargain but as they still seem to be talking about how long his sentence will be, and where it might be served, they seemed to have missed out significant parts of the bargain.
The Howard government, no doubt relieved at not having to go through with the whole mock trial, as it seems at this point no one is buying it anymore, has called game over and declared themselves the winners. Hicks has pled guilty, case closed, can we please talk about something else in the run up to the election.
Interestingly our behated Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has come out and said Hicks probably won't appeal his sentence. How does Ruddock come to this conclusion? Apparently an appeal would jeopardise any transfer deal, a transfer meaning Hicks serving his sentence in Adelaide near his family.
So an appeal would mean staying at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely instead of being moved to a prison in Adelaide, presumably where laws and human rights are still upheld (one can only hope). There is also a date, though yet to be determined, where it is agreed you would be let out (though possibly let out but put under a control order). Compared to eternity in Guantanamo irresistible, and not something easily given up.
The Australian and American governments in their desperation for a political fix are openly threatening that should Hicks decide that maybe he didn't get a fair trial what with the being held for years without charge, and the torture, and isolation, and so forth, he will be left to the tender mercies of those who run Guantanamo apparently beyond the reach of any law, essentially forever.
I don't want to quibble but this doesn't strike me as a fair trial. You can either plead guilty, or go before a kangaroo court and spend the rest of your life being tortured. Would you like some thinking music? Perhaps loud and played 24 hours a day until you say `Guilty'. Who wouldn't take this deal? Contrary to the governments' pr spin this just adds another chapter to the miscarriage of justice.
Hicks certainly did something wrong, but nothing that could warrant his treatment at the hands of the american government or his abandonment by the Australian government. He can never get a fair trial now. The only hope is that those who have held him, clearly also guilty, but of much greater crimes, are one day made accountable and given the fair trial they have denied Hicks. This is not a hope to pin anything to though.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Mammonite Mining Magnates
The Australian Mines and Metals Association have released a report saying AWA's are not eliminating worker's conditions. However it becomes clear that this report is in fact based purely on the mining industry. So conditions have not in fact worsened in an industry desperate for workers to satisfy the booming Chinese influenced market. Have these champions of industry forgotten about the basic concept of supply and demand, or are they as seems more likely lying mammonite bastards.
How surprising that on average in an industry currently renowned for how desperate it is to get ever more workers, to the extent that there are consequent labour shortages in many professions and trades, especially in WA and Qld, conditions for workers aren't worsening. Mining companies aren't in a position to screw over much of their workforces just at the moment. Hooray, how very reassuring. Likely these figures also include generous contracts for management skewing the averages. To generalise this figures to the economy as a whole is just a blatant lie.
Bizarrely the report seems to suggest that while wages in the mining industry have indeed gone up they have not kept pace with increases in productivity. So apparently miners are indeed still getting stiffed. This constant call from management to link wage increases to increases in productivity has always been manifestly unfair because it means workers have to continue working harder and harder just to keep pace with inflation. Real wages stagnate while companies reap the benefits of increases in productivity and don't pass them along to the people who actually do the work. It's a con.
More so of a con when wages don't keep pace with increases in productivity, so workers are working harder but any increases in reward do not correspond. And what happens when the boom is over, or the labour shortage situation is stabilised and supply starts to catch up with demand? What will happen to people's working conditions then? Nothing good. They will be at the mercies of the kind of people who will peddle this kind of bald faced lie to the public.
How surprising that on average in an industry currently renowned for how desperate it is to get ever more workers, to the extent that there are consequent labour shortages in many professions and trades, especially in WA and Qld, conditions for workers aren't worsening. Mining companies aren't in a position to screw over much of their workforces just at the moment. Hooray, how very reassuring. Likely these figures also include generous contracts for management skewing the averages. To generalise this figures to the economy as a whole is just a blatant lie.
Bizarrely the report seems to suggest that while wages in the mining industry have indeed gone up they have not kept pace with increases in productivity. So apparently miners are indeed still getting stiffed. This constant call from management to link wage increases to increases in productivity has always been manifestly unfair because it means workers have to continue working harder and harder just to keep pace with inflation. Real wages stagnate while companies reap the benefits of increases in productivity and don't pass them along to the people who actually do the work. It's a con.
More so of a con when wages don't keep pace with increases in productivity, so workers are working harder but any increases in reward do not correspond. And what happens when the boom is over, or the labour shortage situation is stabilised and supply starts to catch up with demand? What will happen to people's working conditions then? Nothing good. They will be at the mercies of the kind of people who will peddle this kind of bald faced lie to the public.
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