Wikileaks: Walkley Award 2011

Wikileaks was awarded the Walkley Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism for showing a courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency.

The Walkley trustees said: “WikiLeaks applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup. Its revelations, from the way the war on terror was being waged, to diplomatic bastardry, high-level horse-trading and the interference in the domestic affairs of nations, have had an undeniable impact.”

Iran: Ebrahim Madadi re-arrested

7 December 2011

The ITUC was dismayed and incensed to hear today that Ebrahim Madadi, a courageous trade unionist and Comrade from Vahed Syndicate in Tehran, was re-arrested today after being freed only last Thursday. A move welcomed by the international trade union movement

ITUC General Secretary, Sharan Burrow, said :”this can only be interpreted as yet another crass and cynical move by the authorities to distract attention from the serious violations of trade union rights in Iran immediately prior to the ILO Regional Asia Pacific Conference which just concluded in Kyoto”.

It is absolutely shameful on the part of the regime to ‘play’ in this fashion with the lives of people and their families, for no other reason than the exercise of their fundamental human and trade union right to represent the legitimate aspirations of other workers.

ITF general secretary David Cockroft added: “We don’t yet know if this arrest is a bureacratic error or an attempt to punish Ebrahim – but either way it’s an unacceptable infringement on his rights and liberty. Like the continuing imprisonment of the increasingly ill Reza Shahabi it is an injustice that is crying out to be righted."

The ITUC will continue to denounce the callous shenanigans of such dishonourable and discredited thugs.

Source: http://www.ituc-csi.org/ebrahim-madadi-re-arrested-today.html

Japan: Whaling funding attacked

Conservation groups have criticised the Japanese government for funding this year's whaling mission in the Southern Ocean with money from the country's earthquake and tsunami recovery fund.

In all, $US28 million has been set aside to help protect the fleet.

The Japanese Fisheries Agency says it is a legitimate use of the money as whaling towns affected by the earthquake and tsunami will benefit.

But Junichi Sato, from Greenpeace Japan, says it is a tenuous link.

"It's not related to the recovery at all. It is simply used to cover the debts of the whaling program, because the whaling program itself has been suffering from a big financial problems."

The Australian Environment Minister, Tony Burke, said it was not appropriate to spend any money on Japanese whaling.

He said: "I don't think it's appopriate for any money to be spent on Japanese whaling.

"Regardless of where money's coming from our position is really simple. There's no shades of grey here.

"We believe the Southern Ocean is a whaling sanctuary and all whaling that occurs there is wrong."

Australia Network remains public

The government yesterday announced the ABC would permanently hold the $223 million contract for the Australia Network, ensuring that it remains in public hands.

Julia Gillard today said the government believed initially it was appropriate to take the 10-year contract to tender.

With the tender process terminated, it was appropriate the public broadcaster be given the contract, Ms Gillard said.

"This is an important arm of soft diplomacy for Australia," she told reporters in Canberra.
"Many other nations around the world that have comparable services have them associated with the public broadcaster."

Australia Network Chief Executive - Bruce Dover said:

"An assured future for Australia Network with the ABC means we will now be able to develop an integrated, cross-platform content offer for overseas markets. In a fiercely competitive and crowded global market for broadcasting, this will make it easier for audiences to find and use our services in a format that best suits their particular needs at any given time.

We will continue to provide the very best of high quality Australian content - children's programming, education, lifestyle, culture and world class documentaries as well as calling on our extensive international news resources to report from the region, to the region - across all platforms."

NSW: Public staff cuts deemed unfair

PSA 07 December 2011

A group of public servants have won back their right to redeployment after the Industrial Relations Commission declared their forced retrenchments ''unfair''.

The decision means 29 public servants who were retrenched under the O'Farrell government's new policies have 12 months to find other positions within the public service. Otherwise, they will be given three months' written notice and improved severance pay - a payment of three weeks per year of service to a maximum of 39 weeks.

In a judgment delivered this week, the commission said the state government's policy for managing ''excess employees'' was unfair under the Industrial Relations Act 1996.


The NSW Government has been dealt a significant blow after the NSW Industrial Relations Commission this week declared unfair its policy that allows public servants to be forcibly retrenched, the Public Service Association said today.

The decision means that the 29 public servants who were about to lose their job without any real opportunity to be redeployed within the public sector now have 12 months to find a suitable position, as per the 2008 policy.

It also puts under a cloud the treatment of public sector workers declared excess in the future.

"Since the O'Farrell Government was elected eight months ago, we have seen a vicious attack on the rights of workers in this state, and this week's decision highlights that the Government's actions are unfair and unacceptable to its workforce," John Cahill, General Secretary of the PSA said today.

"Fair workplace arrangements are necessary in this state, and the O'Farrell Government has with its changes taken away workers' rights.

"The court has said that the unfair 2011 policy that deals with excess employees is actually in breach of NSW public sector employment laws as it makes little, if any, attempt to redeploy excess staff into other jobs.

"As such, the policy has been declared unfair and will not apply to the workers who were being represented in the action.

"Instead, the 2008 Excess Employee Policy will apply to these people until the end of July 2014.

"With these orders, the court is sending a clear message that you cannot forcibly retrench people when there is other suitable work available within the public sector."