Maritime Diary

Paddy Crumlin National Secretary

By National Secretary Paddy Crumlin

Deception, distortion, dissembling and straight out falsification are important tools in his government workshop. Such duplicitous behaviour figured heavily in building the waterfront conspiracy against our union. It was also important in building Howard's electoral support in the last election. We identified the 'children overboard' saga at the time as another crappy trick to manipulate racial fears and prejudices within our community at a particularly shaky moment in history following 9/11.

Sex, Lies & Videotapes

You can usually spot a bullshit artist. Especially when they're caught out. The eyes roll back a bit and they go into automatic. Not guilty, didn't do it, don't know what you're talking about. Compulsive liars sometimes are masking deeply rooted personal problems and insecurities. And sometimes they are smothering behaviour that is not acceptable. John Howard fits the latter stereotype.

Deception, distortion, dissembling and straight out falsification are important tools in his government workshop. Such duplicitous behaviour figured heavily in building the waterfront conspiracy against our union. It was also important in building Howard's electoral support in the last election. We identified the 'children overboard' saga at the time as another crappy trick to manipulate racial fears and prejudices within our community at a particularly shaky moment in history following 9/11. The videotape in so-called support was clearly vague and inconclusive. All the evidence and reports at the time indicated it was drummed up by the splitters and fear mongers in our Prime Minister's ragtag gang of the New Right.

One always suspected he was in on the joke, as they say. And now we know. He was in on the joke over weapons of mass destruction, and again on the avoidance of taxation and other rorts in the government's campaign against its own shipping industry.

The Government has consistently blocked attempts to get the truth out on what the PM and others knew about the Patrick conspiracy. They've stymied ALP frontbencher Lindsay Tanner's Freedom of Information application. And the PM laughed with the rest of his mates when Peter Reith got his pay-off from the public purse followed by other ex ministers trading in their political and public authority for personal gain. The boss of scab stevedoring company P&C Stevedores, Don McGauchie recently got another giggle when they made him chairman of Telstra.

Sex, Lies and Videotapes was the title of the movie. Well, that's the IR lies and videotape covered, but what about the sex? At this stage it's enough to say it's an ordinary thought. But at least that's a joke that is for us not on us.

Civil wrongs

The Howard Government, not complacent about their huge contribution to the devaluation of moral, ethical and community standards, has seen fit to introduce legislation requiring background checks on maritime workers. The checks are designed to deny anybody a job in our industry who has ever been found guilty of something and honestly and determinedly done their time or paid the fine to set matters right. It probably reflects a contempt on the Government's part for anybody who gets caught, having got away with so much themselves.

Dishonesty, violence or threatened violence and any drug conviction are amongst the crimes that you and I can presumably not do our time for or ever leave behind, regardless of what the price we have paid. Subsequently, any so-called illegal action on picket lines would probably exclude workers from further employment in our maritime industry. We might as well all be herded up and sent out to the detention camps in the South Australian desert to remove us as a threat to national security. It's an idea they probably fondly consider from time to time. It would probably be a privatised concentration camp run by Flag of Convenience ship operators -- a Siberia for MUA members, other unionists, activists and free thinkers. But taking our jobs away for youthful indiscretions or paid for lapses will do for a start.

The union will not accept that the issue of crime, punishment and rehabilitation has anything to do with national security. It is a further attempt to weaken individual civil rights by a government which believes that big business is the only interest worth protecting.

In our union we believe in mutual support and co-operation to achieve better lives and better futures for workers. Our history demonstrates a commitment to international workers, to nations and to people in need. We support the disadvantaged and dislocated in our own society, genuine charities and individuals seeking support to keep their lives and their families lives on track during hard times.

We have kept this country safe and secure in times of war and have been vigilant in maintaining the highest standards of safety and social conscience in times of peace. Our waterfront and maritime industry is free of organised crime, thanks to a union and membership that has been willing to defend workers from every form of exploitation.

There are only workers in our industry and they pose no threat to anyone but the industrially or politically corrupt or arrogant. We are proud Australians and will fight hard for our vision of genuine freedom in our society. And that includes the right of any person to gain and keep employment without artificial or contrived obstacles put in their way for politically motivated reasons. If dishonesty was a criteria for being a threat to national security, John Howard would become Public Enemy Number One.

Flea bitten

Every dog has fleas from time to time, and if you are not careful they can make the poor dish-licker's life a living nightmare. It can even become a threat to its overall health. The HR Nicholl's Society are the fleas in the pelt of our country's industrial relations system. It is an organisation that continues to work away at the award system and collective agreements. It stands for enhanced access to AWAs and other forms of individual contracts and further removal of unfair dismissal legislation. The Society wants further legal prohibitions on workers in unions being able to protect themselves from unfair or discriminatory work practices and procedures from employers. In fact the Society believes employers should not have to be accountable to their employees on any matter including safety.

The future in flea heaven is a Free Trading society with the workers doing what they're told or else and the lowest bidder on employment standards getting all the contracts, including from industries in the Third World. The little fellas are then free to suck away on our economic bloodstream to their little hearts content, without any risk from the Frontline of anti-flea treatments - the union movement.

The HR Nicholls Society award prizes to the biggest and best fleas amongst them, and in this Maritime Workers' Journal we report on the latest from these pests and what we should do about the government that encourages them to breed. The thought of getting rid of the lot of them this year is enough to make any tail wag.