TAFE Teachers strike: Thursday 11 February

Meetings of teachers will start at 11am.

In Sydney, a meeting will be held at Sydney Town Hall.

Regional venues are shown below.

Teachers Federation President, Bob Lipscombe said:

"TAFE teachers are striking in protest at the imposition of Workchoices type conditions on TAFE teachers, and Premier Keneally's unfilled promise from 18 December last year to meet with the Teachers Federation.

"I call on the Premier to meet with us immediately to negotiate a settlement to this dispute."

Regional Meetings will be held at:

• Albury - SS and A Club
• Armidale - Armidale Ex-Services Club Function Room
• Bathurst - Panorama City Hotel / Motel
• Bega - Bega RSL Club
• Broken Hill - Musicians Club
• Coffs Harbour - Coffs Harbour Ex-Services Club
• Cooma - Cooma Ex-Serviceman's Club
• Dubbo - Dubbo RSL Club Jacaranda Room
• Griffith - Gemini Comfort Inn
• Inverell - Royal Club Hotel
• Kingscliff - Cudgen Leagues Club
• Lismore - Lismore City Hall Dance Studio
• Moree - Post Office Hotel
• Orange - Ophir Tavern
• Port Macquarie - Panthers
• Tamworth - West Diggers Long Tan Room
• Taree - Taree Railway Institute Bowling Club
• Wagga Wagga - Wagga Commercial Club

For further information

Contact :
NSW Teachers Federation

Phone : 02 9217 2100
Fax : 02 9217 2470
Email : mail@nswtf.org.au
WWW : http://www.nswtf.org.au

Kookaburra sits ...

ABC Radio National interview with Warren Fahey



The Federal Court found that the flute solo in Men At Work's 'Down Under' infringed the copyright of Larrikin Music Publishing, the current owners of the song 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree'. Blogs, letters to editors and Facebook sites are full of angry musicians and fans who feel that the ruling is wrong, and that the breach of copyright was insignificant if not non-existent.

Parental leave - Abbott's track record

ACTU 09 February, 2010 | Media Release

Reports that Liberal leader Tony Abbott is considering a taxpayer-funded paid maternity leave scheme must be treated with extreme suspicion given his track record as a supporter of WorkChoices and previous hardline opponent of helping working mothers, say unions.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said the Howard Government's WorkChoices had undermined pay and conditions for women, and it was simply not credible that Mr Abbott believed in supporting working mothers and would actually deliver on such a scheme.

She said that when it came to women in the workforce, Mr Abbott was an unreconstructed traditionalist who was now attempting to court the female vote.

"After years of entrenched views antagonistic to the interests of women, Tony Abbott is now trying to con the electorate," Ms Burrow said.

"His real views are contained in comments he has made in recent days that housework and ironing are the role of women.

"During his years as Employment Minister under John Howard, Mr Abbott never made any attempt to introduce a paid parental leave scheme. He is on record as opposing it."

In 2002, he told a Liberal Party function in Victoria:

"Compulsory paid maternity leave? Over this Government's dead body, frankly."

Ms Burrow said women fared extremely badly under WorkChoices, which took away job and income security, and made it harder for mothers to balance their work and family responsibilities.

"To its credit, the Rudd Government has committed to a fully-funded, universal scheme that will start next year," Ms Burrow said.

"Will Mr Abbott support this legislation – or block it, like he does with every positive initiative from the Government?

"We already know that Mr Abbott wants to re-introduce WorkChoices policies into Australian workplaces.

"Working parents simply cannot trust him to do the right thing."

Iraq war enquiry needed

Age Editorial: 30 January, 2010

No act of a national government is more momentous than the decision to commit the nation to war. That is why the constitutions of many countries - though not of Australia - require the government to obtain the consent of parliament before doing so. And in the past decade, no military action has aroused more opposition within the countries supporting it than the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US-led ''coalition of the willing''. In Australia, the Howard government's decision to participate in the coalition sparked rallies and street marches on a scale not seen since the Vietnam War.

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The remarkable thing about the Chilcot inquiry for Australians, however, is that it is being held at all. Australia has not conducted its own inquiry and does not seem likely to do so, yet the war was as divisive here as it was in Britain. The questions raised at the time about the evidence on which the Howard government relied in making its decision, about the kinds of pressure that may have been exerted on it by the Bush administration, and about its readiness to accept US assurances of the war's legality have never been satisfactorily answered.

The Rudd Government's lack of interest in allowing the record to be set straight publicly cannot arise from any bipartisanship about the war, because Labor opposed the invasion. Trade Minister Simon Crean, who was opposition leader in 2003, was criticised at the time for telling troops about to leave for the Gulf that the opposition did not believe they should be going. Such criticism now seems like one more attempt to stifle debate about the war, and Mr Crean's remarks are acknowledged as a brave refusal to be browbeaten into silence.

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RadioLabour: Solidarity News

The labour movement has created a new tool in its efforts to build national and international solidarity: an audio news show on the Internet.

The show, called Solidarity News, is available on http://www.radiolabour.net/

It is 20 minutes of news about workers and their organizations from all around the world.

The newscast is made available every Sunday morning and is kept on the RadioLabour website throughout its current week.

Solidarity news is both a journalistic and educational project.

In terms of labour journalism, it reports news about unions using its own team of reporters.

But, also, it encourages anybody related to the labour movement to contribute audio reports.

These reports could cover particular events, such as a strike or convention, or the point of view of labour organizations on particular issues.

People wanting to contribute audio reports can do so by using inexpensive recording equipment (usually just a headset) and editing software that is available free of charge.

Even more easily, people can supply reports by leaving a message on RadioLabour's voicemail box on Skype, a voice-over-Internet service.