Bernie Banton: State Funeral

The details for Bernie Banton’s funeral are as follows:

Wednesday, 5 December, 10.30 a.m.
ACER Arena,
Olympic Boulevarde,
Sydney Olympic Park

We will meet at the front of ACER Arena main entrance at 9.30 a.m.

There will be a union guard of honour after the service for Bernie. Once the service is completed there will be a designated area for union members and supporters to meet outside the arena. We will then be directed where to form up for the guard of honour.

In lieu of flowers the family has asked that donations be made to The Asbestos Diseases Research Fund, C/- Marketing Unit, Concord Hospital, Concord NSW 2139, or by direct deposit at any Westpac Bank BSB032 – 001, Account: 115359.

Anyone wishing to send cards to the family can do so by forwarding to: Mrs Karen Banton, C/- Unions NSW, Level 3, Trades Hall, 4 Goulburn Street, Sydney 2000.

Kelly's Bush activist: Betty James, 1918-2007

Kelly's Bush, on the border of Hunters Hill and Woolwich and on the banks of the Parramatta River, was the first green ban in the world. Betty James, who has died at 89, was the inspiration behind the defence of the bushland against the developers and the NSW government. She became president of the Battlers for Kelly's Bush, a group of middle-age women who joined with trade unions led by left-wingers and communists to win a famous victory.

more

Julie Bishop: no asbestos apology

Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop has defended her efforts to deny compensation to workers at the Wittenoom mine in her role as a corporate lawyer in the 1980s.

In Australia's greatest single industrial disaster, an estimated 1000 people living and working near the West Australian mine have died from asbestos-related diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Ms Bishop, the federal Opposition's industrial relations spokeswoman, confirmed her role as an instructing solicitor for mine owner CSR in cases involving three asbestos victims who worked at the mine.

But she rejected a plea from the Asbestos Diseases Society to apologise for her actions. Ms Bishop said on Friday she commiserated with those affected, who included CSR executives, whom she had represented.

more

WA: election analysis

The Age has analysed Australian Electoral Commission figures recording booth-by-booth results in north-western Australia, which show that even highly paid miners on AWAs swung strongly against the government in Saturday's election.

And in most mining towns, a majority voted for Labor in two-party preferred terms.

The figures show the 796 voters in mining town Newman swung almost 9% towards Labor, Port Hedland's 986 voters swung 10%, Dampier's 667 swung 4% and Karratha's 1358 swung more than 5% against the Liberal candidate, Barry Haase.

These iron ore mining towns are big beneficiaries of the minerals boom, and by far the majority of workers are employed on salaries of $100,000-plus under Australian Workplace Agreements.

Yet all these towns voted Labor, with an average two-party preferred vote of about 54%, higher than the national average.

In working class South Hedland's two polling places, the swing was much bigger, and 64% of the 1525 voters at the South Hedland Baler booth voted Labor.

Kalgoorlie also swung towards Labor, but the gold mining town overall remains a powerful Liberal stronghold, with up to 62% favouring the Liberals in one booth.

The figures show Mr Haase lost in the iron ore mining towns in the north of the state, but he survived a seat-wide swing of 4.72% towards Labor, with strong support from the rural south of his electorate.

The Howard government had argued that the 90,000 voters on AWAs in marginal seats would be a problem for Labor because they loved their individual employment agreements.

But West Australian ALP state secretary Bill Johnson said this was a myth.

Internal Labor research had shown households with one or more people employed on AWAs were more likely to vote Labor, he said.

"Miners are clearly happy to get a very high income … but it doesn't mean they have been won over by the psychology of the 19th-century master and servant relationship".

more

Ecology: cooperate or die!

The demise of the neo-con Liberals ushers in a new urgency.

Steve Biddulph in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests this scenario:

'What will be the new polarity in future elections? It's the ecology, stupid. The Greens will emerge as the new opposition, though this will take probably two election cycles. By the 2010 election, 20 per cent will vote Green, simply because peak oil and climate catastrophe will have proven them right, and thinking people will see the need for austerity now for our children's tomorrow. The Liberal Party will be lucky to attract 30 per cent, which is the habitual, rusted-on portion of the community that thinks greed is good.

By 2014, we will have a struggle between a new left and right - Labor and Green - and the issue will be simply how green, how to balance the need for a much simpler and more communal kind of life, with the need to give people comfort and amenity now. This issue will continue to define life for the rest of this century.

Climate change will bring horrific costs this century unless a global effort is rallied in a way that has never been done before to regulate our gluttonous use of the air and water. Perhaps a billion lives are at risk, let alone 2 to 3 billion refugees, as agriculture and water supplies collapse across southern Asia and elsewhere, and producer countries, like Australia, find they can barely feed themselves.

The big lie of Liberal supremacy was economic management. In fact, they knew how to generate income, but not how to spend it. We could have been building what Europe built in this past decade - superb hospitals, bullet trains, schools and training centres, low cost public transport of luxurious quality, magnificent public housing. We pissed it all away on tax giveaways and consumer goods. On bloated homes that we will not be able to cool or heat, or sell, and cars we won't be able to afford to drive. A party based on self interest may evaporate along with our rivers and lakes, and have no role to play in a world where we co-operate or die.'

more