">My Big World Of Crap

Deputy PM, Mark Vaile appeared at the Cole inquiry today to give evidence about his knowledge of the AWB’s payment of kickbacks to Iraq. Once again, a witness finds himself having memory difficulties when questioned. Maybe there’s an opportunity for very mature age workers to gain new employment - Alzheimer’s Disease, senility and dementia seem to qualify you very well for senior jobs with the Federal Government, AWB Limited and plenty of other places it seems.

I watched 4 Corners tonight and it seems there were a lot of people who should have done better but instead relied on their personal impressions of AWB as “good chaps” and the company’s impeccable reputation. These failings happened both in the Australian Government departments responsible for overseeing AWB, especially DFAT, and also at the UN. I would expect Australia needs to be appointing a new Ambassador to Egypt anytime soon, as Bob Bowker came across very poorly, the way he effectively squashed DFAT’s inquiries about AWB’s dealings when alarm bells first started to be rung.

Clearly, AWB are liars …. no questions about that! What are DFAT - liars or incompetent fools? I lean towards the latter … they had a cosy relationship with AWB, could not believe that such good blokes could get up to the shonky dealings alleged, and turned a blind eye to it. What about the Ministers, Vaile and Downer? What assessment should we be making of them, their personal staff and departments - liars or fools?

Update 11/04/2006: Alexander Downer also seems to suffer memory problems. I actually do have some sympathy for these guys - once I was a witness in a court case and answered lots of questions with “I don’t recall the specifics” or similar. The respondent, acting for himself, accused me of conveniently forgetting, to which I answered that the matter he wanted to talk about was one small event out of many three or four years previously, and that while I was familiar with it at the time, I dealt with many other things and did not remember each and every one past when I needed to. It is hard to remember what you did on a busy day in a busy week in a busy year - I can hardly remember what I did last week, let alone years ago.

Technorati Tags: AWB, Iraq, kickbacks, Mark Vaile, Alexander Downer, DFAT, liars, fools, incompetent

More examples of bastardry by employers, now that the Workchoices legislation has given them freer reign to behave like pricks. I’ve said in an earlier post that I think with reasonable employers and employees, the flexibility could be used very positively. However, here are 2 examples of employers clearly behaving like fuckwits and treating their employees like shit.

First we have Pow Juice, which made employees redundant on March 29 and then rehired them (this always smells of sham, sham, sham), but under an AWA which dropped the hourly pay rate and abolished penalty rates. The new conditions have been applied by the employer even though the AWA hasn’t been signed by the employees. Great, change my employment contract without telling me upfront let alone getting my agreement. I should try that myself - tell HR when I get my next pay that I’d put a new AWA to them for agreement which doubled my salary, and please could they pay me at the higher rate (or maybe I should ask for a hundred fold increase, to give me enough to tide me over after I’m inevitably fired?)

Pow Juice obviously values its employees. According to its manager, someone called Andre,

“If they don’t want to sign, they can leave,” he said. “It’s not about what’s fair, it’s [about] what’s right - right for the company.”

With attitudes like this, hopefully Pow Juice will end up with shit employees producing a shit product that no one buys. Come on bankruptcy.

In the other example, a woman was handed an AWA by her office manager who wanted her to sign it immediately. When she refused, saying she wanted to study it, and then told her manager she had several points to clarify before she’d sign, she was terminated on the grounds of not being a team player. What sort of arsehole does this?

Hope the government has plenty of money budgeted to run the Office of Workplace Services? Its looking like it will be busy for a while.

Technorati Tags: workchoices, bastards, fuckwits, arseholes

Made a quick trip to Sydney (up yesterday, back today) to catch up with sister-in-law and mother-in-law, who were on their way to Korea. The SIL has lived over there for a few years now, and MIL is going over to visit for a couple of weeks. Saw the new niece, who’s one and a bit now, and very lively - we last saw her nearly a year ago, when she was a few weeks old. I don’t envy her mother and grandmother spending 10.5 hours on the plane to Seoul with her. No thanks.

This is the second time we’ve done this with them. Met them at the airport, booked a couple of rooms at one of the nearby hotels, hung out for a few hours, had dinner and some drinks. Given their flight was first thing this morning, my dutiful uncle/son-in-law performance didn’t extend as far as getting up at 5 am to see them off at the airport. No, did all that stuff last night. My wife and son flew the family flag this morning, that’ll do for me.

Next year, it might be our turn to visit Korea again. We’ve been once, in 2003, so its getting time to go again. Suits me, get to visit relo’s, experience Korean culture, and eat plenty of Korean food, such as my favourites dolsot bibimbap and sam-gyeop sal.

Technorati Tags: Sydney, family, niece, uncle, Korea, food

I was rather shocked to read today that the average life expectancy of women in Zimbabwe is only 34, and for men 37. Tragic isn’t it? And this was a country that was at one time reasonably prosperous, at least by African standards. However, the thuggish lunatic government of Robert Mugabe has succeeded in running the country right into the ground. In a few years time Zimbabwe will be like the movie “Logan’s Run” where nobody lived past 30.

Unlike his people, Mugabe seems to be going on and on - he’s now 82. Pity he wasn’t blessed with the same sort of life expectancy as his countrymen and women. Although I’d seriously wonder what might happen in Zimbabwe when he does go. Chances are that the country is so fucked after 25 years plus of Mugabe, and that whoever takes over from his is likely to be one of his cronies, so the odds are that the people of Zimbabwe are not going to be relieved of their short and (generally) poverty stricken and rather miserable lives in the short to medium term.

Mind you, speaking of short life expectancies and disadvantage, aborigines in Australia have life spans on average about 15 to 20 years less than non-indigenous people can expect. I think thats terrible, and needs action, but the plight of Zimbabweans being so much worse than even that really did shock me.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, dictatorship, thug, life expectancy

Two convicted gang rapists (who appealed the severity of their sentences) have had their jail terms increased with fresh sentences over a series of 2002 attacks in Sydney. NSW Supreme Court Justice Peter Hidden today added a minimum of five years to one’s sentence and a minimum two extra years to his brother’s jail term for two other rapes, also committed in 2002.

One of the rapists submitted he did not believe his actions were wrong because the girls were “promiscuous”, something considered unacceptable in his strict Muslim upbringing. The judge dismissed this argument. He also dismissed his claims “satanic” voices told him to rape the girls, describing him as a man “who is prepared to manipulate the system in any way he can to avoid facing the consequences of his crimes”. The other thing about this charming man is that (according to the TV news just now) he committed the first of the rapes within a few days of arriving in Australia.

What a bullshit excuse! No-one with a decent upbringing in any country would believe that their culture excuses rape. (This guy obviously has mates at the Canterbury Bulldogs whose culture does apparently condone rape …..yes, cheap shot I know). As one of the women who he raped said today after the court hearing:

“This wasn’t about culture, this was about abuse against women.”

I saw this young woman on the news tonight and think that she and the others have been very courageous in pursuing these cases right to the end. Rape trials must be incredibly difficult for the victim - there’s got to be a better way to handle them that respects the legal rights of the accused without trampling all over the victim.

Update (6/4/2006): More on this young woman, Tegan Wagner, in today’s SMH. Love what she said outside the court after the sentence increases:

“I’d like to say, have fun in prison, boys. I won.”

Same here, hoping they’ll enjoy being raped themselves for the next 20 odd years. Better still, why don’t they follow the example of their friend and fellow rapist RS, who hanged himself before he was sentenced.

Technorati Tags: gang rape, culture, victims rights

A court was told today that a man recruited by the organisers of the Bali 9 heroin run agreed to be a mule on a previous run for the thrill of it.  Danny Huang said its wasn’t the $10,000 he was paid that made him want to be a drug mule, it was the “challenge” and the “thrill of it”.

Yeah, whatever.  For real adrenalin pumping excitement, Danny, try strapping a load of heroin to your body and visit Singapore.  Ask Van Nguyen.

Technorati Tags: drug mule, Bali 9, Van Nguyen, Singapore

The ACT government is running a campaign to attract Sydney residents to come and live in Canberra.  The sales pitch revolves around housing being cheaper here, and plenty of jobs, with our low unemployment rate.

Quality of life is also an issue.  Fresh air, safety, lack of traffic congestion (I’d hate if my drive to work was longer than about the 15 minutes it takes, and even with that, I work from home a couple of days a week … that commuting is just too much hassle!).  2 hours to the coast, 2 hours to the snow, 3 hours to Sydney - fantastic.

The campaign is an attempt by the government (well, its really a council, but has grandiose visions of itself as the Socialist Republic of the ACT) here to attract skilled workers and address a worsening shortage of skilled workers.

Problem I have with the campaign is its Sydney launch was in Campbelltown.  Come on Jon Stanhope (ACT chief minister/lord mayor of Canberra), we really don’t want to be invaded by bogans.  They belong in Queanbeyan, over the border in NSW (also known as “Struggletown”).

Naturally, in the usual spirit of interstate rivalry, NSW premier Morris Iemma has bagged out Canberra, saying its a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Technorati Tags: Canberra, Sydney

Another Indiana Jones movie, starring Harrison Ford, is expected to be made in 2007.

Give it a rest, producers …surely you can find someone other than 60 s0mething year old Ford to play leading man roles like this. Also, why not think of something more original as a story … trying to rehash the Indiana Jones story with old man Ford is rather desperate, if you ask me.

A week after commencement of the Government’s new workplace relations laws, we’re hearing some backing away from the harsher examples of employers using them. Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews was standing firm against bosses, warning them they’ll be caught if they invent false reasons to sack employees.

John Howard has also warned employers not to be too zealous in citing “operational reasons” to justify dismissals. But he also defended the new laws:

“You don’t hear the good stories, you haven’t heard so much of the firms that say, ‘I now feel free to take a risk with two or three new employees because I know if one of them doesn’t work out, I can let him go,’

“That’s the upside of getting rid of the unfair dismissal laws and I think there’ll be more of those [stories] and that will tend to be measured over a longer period of time.

“These things always take time, you don’t get the productivity dividend in a matter of months.”

It seems to me that the government is being embarassed by some of the cowboy employers who want to take the new laws to extreme - and effectively they are telling them to pull their heads in. According to Kevin Andrews:

“I think all should take a deep breath, particularly the employers themselves, because I suspect some people believe that the union rhetoric, that this is a totally deregulated workplace, is correct, and that’s not right,” “People should educate themselves … rather than just presuming that what they read in the media is necessarily the full extent of the law.”

I think the employer groups are also giving out the same message. According to Gary Brack of Employers First, companies wanting to sack staff for operational reasons need to have genuine reasons. He said:

“If a company is trading brilliantly and their profits are massively high … then it may be difficult to substantiate this is an operational reason,”

“Plainly it’s not as wide as anything you ever wanted to think was an operational reason in the whole wide world.

“Those people who say it could mean anything to anybody plainly are wrong.”

“I think the smart money would be waiting to see other people go along and set the standards unless of course you are in very difficult circumstances.”

The message is don’t go overboard and embarass the government into watering down some of the concerns of workers and unions, when the political pressure gets too much. And political pressure is what the government has set itself up for - it will be blamed for every adverse consequence an employee suffers, and if the unions are smart, they will feed the media with hundreds or thousands of individual case studies, and create doubt in peoples’ minds - people who may think “that won’t happen to me”.

The ACTU of course is scornful of the government’s attempts to distance themselves from the actions taken by employers under the new laws. Greg Combet, ACTU secretary, said:

“I mean what these people have done is bring in laws that allow business to sack people for no reason, or if you’re a big business for an operational reason.

“You then have no protection against being unfairly sacked and the laws then allow the business community to offer people their jobs back at lower wages, like these Cowra workers.

“As soon as the laws came in, the company’s taken advantage of them and just terminated people, I mean that is what these laws allow.”

I’ve always thought that good companies need to have good, loyal employees, and they don’t get these by screwing them over. I’m also confident that in the hands of reasonable employers, the new laws no doubt remove restrictions and provide opportunities to improve their business performance. For example, who hasn’t had to work alongside some arsehole not pulling their weight, and who keeps a job because its more trouble than its worth to get rid of them? Now its a lot easier to fix those problems. What about inflexible rosters and shift arrangements that might have been ok years ago but just don’t work today? There are all sorts of good flexibilities that potentially can be gained using the new laws.

I was very comfortable with the workplace relations changes the government introduced in 1996 - as a manager in a blue collar workplace, it was great to have more power, and avoid being held to ransom by union delegates. I was comfortable with negotiating an AWA for myself. I thought those laws redressed a balance which had been too far on the side of unions. I’m concerned these new laws now have pushed the power too much in the favour of employers. As I’ve said above, with reasonable employers and employees, thats probably fine. However, there clearly are employers who are simply not reasonable and who are prepared to treat employees like shit. Hopefully, mine is not one of those … its track record since I’ve worked for them suggests not, and I expect it will continue to treat employees well. For professionals like me whose skills my employer sells, and who has reasonable choices in employment, I expect the new laws to have a fairly minor impact. The consequences are going to mainly fall on the less skilled, lower paid workers.

Update (04/04/2006): The Cowra abbatoirs at the centre of media attention last week have bowed to pressure and un-sacked their employees. It will be interesting to see where this goes. My thinking is they’ve been told to lay off the extreme use of the legislation for now. Bet you the workers will find themselves out of a job sooner or later this year.

Saw this today, really interesting I thought. I like movies and books that present visions of the not too distant future that have some back story to them. This one had a right wing Christian conservative authoritarian government, and the main character, V’s, struggle to bring it down.

Well executed, plenty of good British actors (John Hurt, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry among them) with the lead characters V, played by Hugo Weaving (under a mask the whole time …almost) and Evey, played by Natalie Portman. Good also to see the Wachowski Brothers back to form - “The Matrix” was a pretty good movie, the two sequels pure crap.

Tags: V for Vendetta, movie, Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Wachowski Brothers