Mailbag

Howard and Hockey in the bosses pocket by Alan Moir

Media maelstrom

The rabid right wing ideologue Piers Akerman was let loose by the Daily Telegraph for some serious wharfie bashing in May.

So close to life was Bastard Boys, the ABC series on the 1998 waterfront war, that a war of words - not unlike that used against working families of the waterfront in the lead up to the dogs on the docks - erupted once again.

Akerman ran off the same old tirade of abuse, from allegations of union corruption to claims of wharfies pilfering our war effort, bludging, poor crane rates and rorts.

His column was abusive, false and hysterical - in line with the sycophantic and toadying support Akerman gives to everything John Howard and his union bashing, anti-worker government stands for.

Paddy Crumlin

The following letter was first published in another Murdoch newspaper, The Australian, but censored. This is the unedited letter

Rest in Peace

Your recent editorials and columns are proof positive that there is still a well-organised team of class warriors on the waterfront - they all work at The Australian.

According to Christopher Pearson in the Weekend Australian the MUA has been "decoded" for advocating "all the lurks and rorts" Australian shipping has enjoyed in comparison to the "ultra modern commercial fleets under other flags running on lower overheads operated by less pampered crews".

These "ultra modern fleets" base themselves in countries like Panama, the land locked nation of Mongolia and Liberia - tax, regulatory and litigation-free zones in the event of environmental or other maritime catastrophe.

In the same piece Mr Pearson asserts Greg Combet is part of the conspiracy, presumably when he was brainwashed while making "his mark in the Seamen's Union". In fact he never worked for this union.

Your editorial of May 16 tied us in with the Costigan Royal Commission a generation ago, connecting the Union to "armed robberies, bashings and intimidation" among other nefarious deeds including "decades of killings, kidnapping and general crimes on the docks".

Goodness me. Pity the Royal Commission had nothing to do with our union and its predecessors the Seaman's Union and Waterside Workers' Federation, and that the main findings of the Costigan Royal Commission into the Painters and Dockers was the exposing of the Bottom of the Harbour tax rorting prevailing in sections of corporate Australia at the time. A bit wide of the journalistic mark again.

Then again in the same editorial we have our union's "shameful Stalinist history" that "undermined the war effort". Tell that to the families of one in eight Australian merchant seafarers who gave their lives in WWII in defence of their country, most in Australian waters, and suffered the highest proportionate mortality rate of any service. They can presumably rest in peace and disgrace.

These and subsequent editorial hysterics have been largely driven by opposition to an ALP Conference platform which underlines the importance of maintaining long standing legislation that provides for Australian shipping and seafarers to meet the seagoing part of our domestic transport needs - cabotage to the uninitiated.

Most countries relying heavily on sea transport in their domestic transport sector have cabotage. The US in particular has legislation preserving a domestic fleet and workforce for domestic shipping services as essential to national security, as does Japan. Maritime national security doesn't start and finish at Christmas Island.

The only danger posed by Australian seafarers working in Australian territory, security screened and working under national regulation, is to the bottom feeders in the industry relying on unscreened foreign labour from the tax-free zones of the third world where they register their "Australian" ships to scuttle the real ones.

Obviously though it is keeping a few of your old cold war warriors at The Australian awake at night, panting with anxiety. Counselling and medication may assist perhaps.

Paddy Crumlin

(first published The Australian on May 25)

And the responses on The Australian website

Well said

Well said, Paddy....well said indeed.

We are an island nation and we, like sated and too-well-fed children, quibble among ourselves, over whether we should have our own, homegrown shipping?

Gidgee

Brisbane

Virtual dictatorship

Discrediting the unions is part of Howard's strategy. Demonise the unions and by proxy discredit the Labor Party and destroy them by stealth, just leaving the Liberal Party as a virtual dictatorship in Australia.

Unfortunately some members of the fourth estate know this and yet they let it happen. The media instead of living in the past should be highlighting the good done by the unions of today. The Ansett workers only got some of what was owing to them because of the union. The asbestos sufferers were only given compensation because of the union. Howard was prepared to shut his eyes and let them rot.

Swamp rat

Propaganda

We often chastise dictatorial nations, which have nationalised newspapers that essentially promote the central government and print propaganda screened and authorised by the government.

We should look in our own backyard and question why a newspaper such as The Australian will blindly promote a single political party unquestioningly.

Christopher

Elwood

Smear and Innuendo

Don't get too upset, Paddy, about issues of lack of research, out-and-out untruths, smear and innuendo. They are the stock in trade of this organ of the Liberal Party.

Des Cohen-Furneaux

Nong Khai, Thailand

Misspelling!

There is no 'M' in the painters and dockers' union. Wonder how the mistake was made?

Geomac

Victoria

Shame

Shame on the Oz for getting the MUA mixed up with the Painters and Dockers. Everyone knows that the Painters and Dockers have joined the AFL and are now known as the Fremantle Dockers.

Johnny Rotten

What's wrong

Why is it wrong to have our coastal shipping crewed by Australians? I don't see people without Australian citizenship or permanent residency driving our trucks, trains, planes, buses etc.

Danny Jackson

Fremantle

Unprofessional

I purchase The Australian newspaper every day and my first stop is the letters to the editor page. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get one printed.

Your editing of the letter "Let them Rest in Peace and Disgrace" is both unprofessional and lacking in your duty as a newspaper.

Barry Gulliford

Miriam Vale Qld

Wheatbribe Johnny

The only war effort the wharfies were undermining in the early years of WW2 was the Japanese one, which Pig Iron Bob was so eager to assist.

Obviously hampering the war effort of a country which is to be an enemy in only a short amount of time is offensive to the Liberals and their mates.

We have seen this again with Wheatbribe Johnny and AWB.

Rhys Needham

Ashgrove West

Uproar

Just imagine the uproar and arrests if a union gave Saddam a couple of hundred million dollars during an embargo.

Kurt Sandow

Perth

Like clockwork

THE future, it seems, can be blamed for the present. Or, more exactly, Labor's future shipping policy is somehow to blame for the current bottlenecks and ship queues off our coal exporting ports of Newcastle and Mackay. Or so Christopher Pearson ("Floating an export crisis", 26-27-5) would have us believe.

Now most reasonably minded people would find this as ludicrous as it sounds. The more conventional wisdom is that the current debacle has much more to do with past policies. Or, more exactly, a decade of Coalition Government neglect of ships and port infrastructure.

For the benefit of Pearson and those unfamiliar with the meaning of cabotage, it is a policy espoused by the US and many other nations which restricts (not bans) foreign ships carrying our domestic trade. Put simply, it is all about Australian ships and Australian crew carrying Australian cargo on our coastal highways, much the same as Australian trucks and trains and Australian drivers transport Australian goods on Australian roads and railways. It has absolutely nothing to do with exports, coal or otherwise. More's the pity, as the ship queues off our coast would suggest.

The only export industry Australian seafarers and ships are involved in is our multi-billion dollar liquid natural gas trade with Japan. And that has run like clockwork for decades. Not one industrial dispute. Not one accident. Not one day lost. Not one bottleneck.

Mick Doleman

(First published in The Australian, 29/5/07)

Time Lord

There is no point arguing rationally with the likes of Christopher Pearson. He gets his brief - perhaps it's the prevalence of ingrown toenails amongst circus performers - and off he goes! Within minutes it's a Leftist plot, with murky "politically correct" unionists and their "post-modern" fellow travellers at Fairfax and in the universities, behind it all.

He can twist anything to produce the ideological product required by his owners. Breaking the laws of cause and effect, even of time itself, is no problem for our intrepid Time Lord.

I expect, and look forward with relish, to more and more public unravellings, psychologically and polemically, in the near future, as the mania to return Howard, no matter what the cost, reaches hysteria. It should be quite a show!

Mulga Mumblebrain

Adelaide

Where's bin Ladin?

Surely you're not suggesting that Christopher Pearson seized on a term - cabotage - that 99.9 per cent of people don't understand, in order to grossly misrepresent the Labor Party?

It's just surprising that Pearson didn't work "Al-Qaeda link" into the deal, as well.

Sancho

Coastal sea lanes

If cabotage is no good for the Australian public then let's perhaps look at other domestic transport. Domestic airline travel is very expensive so why not bring in foreign planes and pilots operating under foreign taxation and safety regimes? Let's then also bring in foreign companies and workers to operate all heavy road transport and allow them do it under their own safety regulations and income levels.

These changes represent exactly what is happening on our coastal sea lanes.

The demise of Australian shipping has resulted in a significant loss of skills in the marine industry and this will ultimately be to Australia's disadvantage.

David Cole

Bunbury

Makes sense

Apart from the national security aspect, which should be a major consideration, it makes sense to have Australian coastal shipping. I recall the promises about lower utility charges when they were sold off to foreign interests but I'm still waiting for them to eventuate.

Geomac

Victoria

Shriller and shriller

Pearson and most right wing commentators are getting shriller and shriller in their ludicrous claims as Labor surges further ahead in the polls.

Soon they'll be blaming Labor for the Great Fire of London or bubonic plague.

Swamp rat

Brisbane

Jobs overboard

If cabotage is good enough for the USA why is it wrong for Australia I challenge Pearson to investigate the actual number of Australian jobs sent offshore since the election of Howard as Minister for Chinese Employment - and while he is at it, investigate where the profits from these lost jobs are. Definitely not in Australia.

Declan Foley

Berwick Victoria

PM Lording the rings

John Howard is looking more like Gollum from Lord of the Rings every day. As for Peter Costello, he's like a Halloween pumpkin banged up on botox. Howard's Work Choices removes i.r. from fair and leaves you with sweet f.a. The essence of Howard's IR laws is to reduce wages. But the small businessman needs to do his maths. By reducing wages he is reducing the disposable incomes his workers would otherwise spend on consumables or services. Howard's IR strikes far beyond the workplace. In 1987 he said "We will be getting rid of the bulk billing system, it is an absolute rort, we will be proposing changes that will amount to complete dismantling, we will pull it right apart." No clues needed that he was referring to Medicare. Howard's legacy continues. The Medicare levy is 1.5 per cent of a worker's wage and a further 1 per cent for any person earning over $50,000 if he or she does not have private health care. Reduce wages and you reduce revenue collected for Medicare - it will collapse overnight. Obviously the Liberals believe that a human right is an entitlement to deprive a nation of health care, parade around the electorate in Nazi costumes and convert Australian workplaces into concentration camps!

Sean Ambrose, Port Botany, Union no: 9022643

Higgins' legacy lost

One hundred years ago, in Melbourne, Justice Higgins handed down a decision named the Harvester judgement.

The workers involved, having had no success "negotiating" with their employer had sought a court decision concerning their pay and conditions. An action such as this was ground breaking not only in this country but also worldwide.

During the lengthy hearing Justice Higgins sought and took submissions from a surprisingly broad spectrum. He was keen to hear from the wives and mothers of the workers. He was interested in the smallest detail - the cost of a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk. In fact the average diet of the worker was just as important as the amount of rent paid.

Higgins also sought an overview into the lives of the workers and their families outside of working hours - what we sometimes today call "quality time".

He handed down a decision universally considered fair, yet in favour of the workers, stressing their wages should not just be sufficient for survival, but guarantee a dignified and "civilised" lifestyle for the worker AND his/her family.

When delivering his findings, the judge emphasised the need to protect the lifestyle of families of the wage earner in order to protect society itself.

This finding had international significance. Scandinavian countries led a procession of overseas delegations to Australia to study, learn from and copy this wonderful example of humanitarian industrial conciliation. The basic wage was born - a concept that blossomed throughout the developed world.

The Higgins ruling also defines what is wrong with Australia's' present industrial relations laws known as WorkChoices. Despite claims from people like John Howard and the economic rationalists around him, life is not about record profits filtering down to the worker. It is about all of us being entitled to dignity whether we are board chairmen or checkout chicks.

Penalty rates, sick pay and other loadings and conditions (all gradually disappearing from individual contracts under WorkChoices) are just as much about compensating the kids, when Dad misses Johnny's footy game, as they are about money.

Disappearing work conditions adversely affect the lowest socio-economic groups in our society the most. Men and women with less valued skills or none at all, and those with little experience are often required to work six days per week.

These people most need the peace of mind that if they get sick they will not lose their job; if they say no to an extra shift they will not get the sack.

What was born as the basic wage, admired, copied, evolved and lauded world wide, has been misrepresented and then mutated by people like Howard into a "minimum wage" with ever shrinking protection.

Australians like to believe that we have a lifestyle the world envies. In the past Australia did have bragging rights. But with WorkChoices we are in danger of slipping behind the real world leaders. Even the Kiwis have more compassionate IR laws.

A good definition of a civilised society is one which truly cares for the old, the young, the sick and all those who cannot fend for themselves.

Many workers have suffered under Howard's legislation and this is inexcusable in a booming economy.

When our commodities-driven boom goes bang and unemployment inevitably rises we will see the real effect of these dreadful laws.

Your Rights at Work ARE worth fighting for and voting for, not just for yourself but for your grandkids too.

I urge all MUA members to get active in their electorate. Do it now, we're running out of time. Another term for Howard will mean a return to Dickensian conditions for workers.

Kerry Farrell

Union No 6455

Nasty little creep

The nerves may be on tenterhooks but the passion hasn't dimmed

Howard's intimidation will not work, as our numbers haven't thinned

As a matter of fact our resolve has grown and our determination is strong

We are going to fight the government all the way to overthrow this wrong.

If you think the threat of prison will bring us to our knees

You won't see us cave in and submit guilty pleas

The government legislation is designed to destroy our Aussie culture

It won't allow workers to protect their mates - like a flesh eating vulture.

I can see the diggers so old turning in their graves

While this vicious piece of legislation aims to turn us into slaves

A fair go for all is what our heritage bred

'Look after your mate's back' is what the diggers said.

And that value was instilled in us since the colony was born

Has launched a new meaning for the word convict, in this country's darkest dawn

The Master Servant Act has been resurrected from the ashes

And unleashed upon hard working families it continually bashes.

You wouldn't think you would ever see these Draconian laws in our nation

Where working class citizens are jailed under this bastard's legislation

Are you proud of what you have created Howard? Look and look deep

I'd like to see you face the families you nasty little creep.

But a grub like you would have no conscience - I'd even believe you'd gloat

Until a hungry worker wraps his finger around your f****ing throat

Rest assured construction workers we are with you all the way

When you touch one you touch all is all we've got to say

We want you to know from the coal miners in the eastern states

You've got our support as long as needed for however long it takes.

Frank Baker

Nest of Vermin

Since winning the last federal election the rat with big ears (Howard) and his nest of vermin have set out to destroy the working class of Australia. They sold off Australia's assets at bargain basement prices, made life impossible for the down and outs and lied profusely.

It's not necessary to explain and go through the list of broken promises, the bullshit and retracted statements. They're exposed every other day.

What new list of lies and promises has the Rat with Big Ears in store for Australia during the next 12 months?

I personally can't believe the Australian voter would be so naive to be hoodwinked again! Their conscience and self-preservation should have started the alarm bells long ago.

Ask yourself what has the Rat with the Big Ears in store for the trade union movement - the organisation you are a member of? It's the same organisation that established decent living and working condition for all Australians.

It's your prerogative as a free Australian to choose your place of residence, your partner and lifestyle regardless of your culture or background. Don't think for one minute the trade union movement will be defeated. Out of adversity comes unity and out of unity strength.

The Howard government will be defeated at the next federal election. Those who marched under the banners of the ACTU, the MUA and the CFMEU will hold our heads high, no acclamation necessary, just our inner sense of achievement. It's that Aussie you beaut feeling.

From time to time we all make mistakes but to keep making the same mistake time and time again is downright foolish.

Look at the next generation of Australians. What quality of life will they have? Going to the funeral of their grandparents would be a $200 fine and dismissal. Asking a union official to represent you will be a $300 fine for both of you.

Curly Ross

Stand strong

I call on all members of the MUA, past and present, to stand strong against Howard and his evil team who are hell bent on turning this great nation into a third world country.

Howard wants to break the back of the trade union movement. It haunts him. This mob of evil doers will not only erode your pay packet it will destory your way of life. We can't let this happen. We won't let this happen. Remember as our Maori cousins say Kia Kaha.

Stand Strong!

TV Ted Kelk

Life member: 2187

Savour the win

Southern Queensland Branch unanimously congratulates Robert Coombs on his resounding win in the polls to take Swansea and assist in securing the return of the NSW Labor Government.

All the best comrade, to yourself, Jas and family. Hopefully the effort can be repeated in the federal polls later this year.?

Mick Carr

Maritime Union of Australia

Congratulations

Officials, staff and the membership attending the Port Kembla monthly meeting congratulate Robert Coombs on his election to the seat of Swansea in State Parliament.

The union looks forward to working with Robert to oust the Coalition government at the forthcoming federal elections and oversee a return of a federal Labor government that would put in place a fair and just workplace law, for working men and women and their families.

Yours in Unity

Mark Armstrong

MUA

Thanks comrades

I've been off sick for about six months with severe pneumonia and spent 14 days in a coma. While I was waiting for my salary, the boys on the ships and tugs got together, paid all my medical expenses and gave me some cash.

Robby Patience and Jackie at the Hibernian Hotel got together and held a turnout to raise money for Johny Sinclear - another seafarer who had a bad accident - and me.

Thanks to all my comrades for standing by me. It says a lot about unions. We'd be lost without them.

Peter (Pongo) McGrath

Spirit I

Going Bush

Rusty Smith always said the best part of Adelaide was through the rear vision mirror, so when he retired, he made the move to the country lifestyle he loves so much. Born Russel John Smith, he left a job as a surveyor's assistant to go to sea in 1964. His first job was on the old Iron Baron shipping steel form Adelaide to Whyalla, Port Kembla and Newcastle. Then it was on to the old Age and the Troubridge as deck boy. He graduated to bucko on the Iron Sturt and did his first trip overseas to New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Rus's other ships include the Japarat, Iron Monarch, Mt Keira, Lake Colac, Accolade, Esso Macquarie, Selana, MP Enterprise, Macedon, Troubridge, Mobile Flinders and Port Adelaide tugs.

Russ married in 1969 and moved to Port Brougton in 1980. His last job as a proud Australian merchant seaman was on the Port Pirie tugs, where he took redundancy.

Dan Wakeling

SA Branch

Crossword King

Rewi Caines, who went to sea at the age of 15, has retired after clocking up a rare 50 years of service in the union.

A retirement function for Rewi, organised by P&O terminal delegates Len Cox and Shaun Sutton, was held at the Waterloo Bay Hotel in Brisbane.

Members signed an MUA polo shirt as an item of memorabilia for Rewi and the branch presented him with an MUA clock.

Rewi made an inspiring speech stating that he was proud of his union membership -and also of the fact that no one could ever insinuate that he had "given up" a fellow worker in his time as a foreman, 'buck or panno'.

Rewi will be sadly missed by his comrades, particularly in regard to his well-earned reputation as the fountain of knowledge and crossword king.

Rewi came ashore as a member of the Australian Foremen Stevedores' Association, which was absorbed, via amalgamation into the Waterside Workers' Federation in 1991, now the MUA.

The Branch, on behalf of the whole membership, wishes Rewi and family all the best in the next retirement phase of their lives, which we hope brings them happy times, fond memories and long lasting health.

Rewi's son, Rewi Junior continues in the union as a seafarer.

Mick Carr

Southern Qld Branch Secretary