New Film: Constructing Fear

The film you must see before the next election!

A documentary exposing the activity of an industrial inquisition targeting building workers across Australia. “Constructing Fear” shows how these workers are the front line in an attack on civil liberties that has implications for every Australian.

Since 2005, the Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC) has targeted hundreds of workers. The ABCC conducts closed tribunals and seeks individual fines of up to $28,600. Those summonsed cannot refuse to attend a hearing; they cannot refuse to answer questions and they cannot tell anyone, including their families, what happened in the hearing. Penalty? Six months in prison!

The ABCC’s operations have been described as "…foreign to the workplace relations of civilised societies, as distinct from undemocratic and authoritarian states." (Federal Court Justice Marshall, 2004)

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WorkChoices: Howard's end!

Last night, at a speech to big business, Mr Howard let the cat out of the bag.

Speaking about WorkChoices he said:

"If the Government is returned, then I confidently predict that the reforms that have been made over the last few years will never be dismantled.

Because by the time of the next and subsequent elections, they will have become so much part of the economic and industrial fabric of this country, that will be quite impossible."

Mr Howard and the Liberals had no mandate to introduce the IR laws. They didn't make a peep about their radical workplace changes at the 2004 election.

If we allow the Howard Government to be reelected, the existing unfair laws will be entrenched. And their workplace changes will be taken even further.

Mr Howard said, "No issue will be more keenly argued in that campaign than the fate of the Government's reforms to Australia's workplace system.

Let us understand without any ambiguity and without any polite words, but there is a very clear choice."

Yes, there is a very clear choice.

A vote for a Liberal Government is a vote for no protection from unfair dismissal. It's a vote for AWA individual contracts that cut pay and conditions and reduce time with family. A vote for the Liberal party is kissing goodbye to rights at work not just for you, but for your kids and grandkids.

Read our factsheet on the clear choice we are presented with this election. Please pass it on to your friends.
www.rightsatwork.com.au/thefacts/clearchoice

Mr Howard also told the assembled crowd of big business people:

"If the Government is defeated and the reforms are over-turned, I do not believe a future government of my persuasion will again be able to re-introduce those reforms."

Please tell your friends, family, and everybody you know that this election, there is indeed a clear choice.

Making the Howard Government's WorkChoices our new reality - or getting rid of them forever.

Howard's letter to Iraq!

Women’s chances worse under WorkChoices

A national report released today demonstrates that WorkChoices isn’t working for low paid women and their families.

The report, which documents interviews with over 120 low-income women across all mainland States and the ACT, shows that many women working in sectors such as retail, hospitality, aged care and childcare are doing it tough. These sectors have been studied because earlier research on women’s wages and conditions showed these to be the sectors where women were most at risk. The report recommends changes to the Commonwealth legislative framework to redress these problems, including restoration of unfair dismissal rights and more effective guarantees of minimum conditions.

The report Women and WorkChoices: Impacts on the Low Pay Sector was commissioned by the NFAW, WEL Australia and YWCA Australia and was undertaken by leading industrial relations researchers.

NFAW Spokeswoman Marie Coleman said: “This report provides government and policy makers with vital information and recommendations on how to redress these workplace abuses. It is clear from the current advertising campaign that the Government is already aware that many employees are not receiving their entitlements. Our report bears this out and outlines additional issues. We urge the Minister to listen to the women, not to attack the messengers.”

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Howard's legacy: Judiciary stacking

What remains to be suborned to the will of Canberra? If you search the horizon it is apparent the constitution has pretty comprehensively been redesigned and state powers picked off, while distant indigenous people, the public service, the military and the press gallery are all pretty much under the thumb of the ancien regime.

Clearly, it's the judiciary's turn for a bit of refurbishment, in what remains of the mandate.

That's not to say the process isn't well under way. Already we've had some startling appointments to the Federal Magistrates Court, including a cub lawyer from the staff of Kevin Andrews, and a hardline Christian fundamentalist.

The appointment of judges to the Federal Court recently has been accompanied by overtures (i.e., lobbying) from Liberal backbenchers and even the wives of federal ministers.

With a full basket of fresh federal laws to interpret and enforce (including Work Choices, crime and terrorism, tax, administrative appeals and surveillance) judicial selection must be carefully managed. Little wonder Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has spoken up against any changes to the present method of appointing federal judges, which is "leave it all to me".

The ways in which judges are being rounded up to fulfil the Government's legislative purpose are none too subtle.

For instance, judges who sit on terrorism cases have to apply to do so and then are screened by the Government for any subversive (independent) tendencies.

Why the judiciary plays along with this insult is a mystery.

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