Logging On

Criminal intent
Who could possibly imagine the feelings of our indigenous communities when the first squares of canvas punctuated Sydney Heads? Or how the tribes that saw the first colonial expedition appear from the wavering heat of the inland horizon felt?
As non indigenous communities grew up in these isolated areas – farming, mining and trading to facilitate those endeavours – what were the fears, exasperations, debates and decisions made by the women and men of the tribes who had merged their identities with their land? Land, which had been thought of so remarkably differently through the timeless years before colonisation? Not very different from today probably.
This massive head on collision of cultures and the drama of adjustment for Aboriginal communities at the time and since has great historical and cultural importance that will continue to gather research, interest and speculation for a long time to come.
You don’t have to have a degree in sociology from Oxford University though, to work out that the endemic poverty, crime, substance abuse and dysfunction of many of Australia’s Aboriginal communities is a direct result of how that collision of cultures has been managed since the late 18th century by colonial administrations in the first instance and, since Federation, state and federal administrations of every political persuasion.
Whether it was the first unofficial but pervasive local policies of genocide, murder and displacement or the officially sponsored polices from segregation to assimilation, it amounted to institutionalised paternalism at best and criminal negligence or intent at worst. Legally the High Court has exposed the injustice of what was done through the Mabo case, throwing out for good the idea that no one was resident here when the Poms turned up with their seabags and convict slave labour.
The land was acquired illegally and in defiance of the original landowners’ rights.
Injustice has an almost mathematical quality that compounds in its intensity. So the original abuses pile on further outrages, ignorance and racist prejudices in a 200-year spiral throwing off lives, families and whole communities as it accelerates with a destructive centrifugal motion.
The evidence of it has been visible to even the casual observer for generations. High child mortality and pervasive health problems generally, low literacy, alcohol and substance abuse, welfare dependency, high crime rates, and low individual and collective self-esteem are directly linked to extreme racism and policy dysfunction.
So indigenous community crime rates and extreme violence against yourself and others is inevitable and observable in any group or community that is baking in an oven of mounting tension, neglect and abuse.
The administrative response has been equally identifiable – violent shock and rejection. Deaths in custody. Historically institutionalised brutality and emotional separation – particularly in policing the problems. These responses only further neglect the roots of the problem and inevitably produce further responses of ignorance and fear.
Welfare has been misdirected and is in need of reform, not removal or force-feeding. It’s a fine line
Denying Aboriginal people a right to vote until late in the 20th century was a pretty typical reflection of prevailing policy. Stealing their children was another high point of immoral leadership.
The MUA, many other unions, churches and occasionally a state or federal government, have sought to work with the leaders of indigenous communities to support them through the long walk to reconciliation so they can rebuild the personal and collective confidence in their culture and its economic and political applications.
Wharfies and seafarers have long acknowledged the responsibility to take direct personal account of redressing a long period of criminal action and inaction by others. That’s been done by assisting and supporting land rights, Aboriginal industrial rights, job opportunities, education and economic empowerment, including through the Australian and Torres Strait Islander Commission and other examples of political independence.
The key to the respect our union is held on this matter is due to the fact that we have supported indigenous rights and independent decision making rather than being party to any judgemental manipulation.
Complex indigenous issues can only be successfully resolved through liberating finer human qualities, not by mandatory imprisonment and confinement. Or by police and troops imposing an artificial presence on the last vestiges of what is left in some cases to indigenous Australia in order to get through another election by dividing Australians even further on racist and populist platforms.
We know Howard is a proven moral coward and opportunist on these things.
‘Sorry’ is a good start. And not just leaving it there.
200 or so years on, who could possibly ignore the feelings of mistrust of our indigenous communities when Howard’s first army of shock troops and trucks rolled into their townships? Déjà vu.
Media bosses
Sacked from the ALP for swearing and getting stuck into the boss! What politically correct and timid rabbits the industrially biased media has made of Labor. The Murdoch press in particular have been outrageous in the duplicity of their reporting. Their unrelenting front page and editorial prejudices seeking the public condemnation of unions and the connection between the industrial and political sides of the Labor Party has been a hysterical and breathless effort by any media standards.
It’s been a fine juggling act for these sultans of spin. They get a bit muddled in their fervour to ping us though. One line they love is unions are unrepresentative and unpopular in the workplace (pretty rich given that ‘union bosses’ unlike the corporate bosses are popularly elected). The other is of the unions nefariously manipulating the good corporate offices of the free market mainly through a terrible exercise of will by ‘union bosses’. It’s a bit hard to sell both stories.
Of course, in this paranoid world all these ‘union bosses’ dress in Che Guevara T shirts, hold their pants up with skull and cross bones braces and have trouble with any verbal construction that is longer than one syllable and four letters.
The Murdoch press tries to rock the kind little corporate babies asleep at night promising these terrible ogres will not darken their sunny dreamtime pastures of high double digit profits flowing onto triple digit executive pay rises.
The morbidly obese Piers Ackerman (at least from the journalistic perspective that objectivity equals fit and proper) and the equally hysterical John Pearson lead the Murdoch marauders ringing the bell of public alarm against industrial terrorists of the trade union movement.
Getting anything up in their news rags untouched and unedited in response or in defence is the equivalent of getting the quaddie up on a Saturday afternoon.
Why are they so rabidly against unions and for Howard? Because they use AWAs to beat their employees up. Talk about a conflict of interest.
The free press? More like the tree press. They seem to believe that the evolutionary order has been reverted in press somehow and the best way to communicate with their readers is monkey say, monkey do.
Maybe that’s why more and more of us go to the internet – or the MWJ – to find out what’s really going on. Like the fact that WorkChoices is stealing from ordinary Australian workers and their families every day. And unions are standing up for them.
Down on the docks
It’s been particularly hard work down on the docks lately. The approaching federal election seems to have brought many of the issues affecting Australian shipping to a head in recent months.
It’s ironic that after 11 years of Howard’s shock and awe tactics against the industry, the joint remains in remarkably good shape. The biggest problems have been the lack of investment in maritime training leaving both the offshore and hydrocarbons industry and blue water shipping subject to a big skills shortage. They’re problems that are easer to fix though than too many seafarers and not enough jobs. We can’t keep a blue water industry going if seafarers leave it for the offshore industry for example.
CSL continue their rapid-fire assault on all conventional and perhaps even non-conventional views of the domestic industry.
The move to turn a geared bulkie – the Capo Noli – into a self-discharger by merely imagining it could, was greeted by bemusement that turned to controversy.
Over the last few weeks their endeavour to take over the ownership and the operation of the three Cement Australia vessels has been equally perplexing.
AMSA haven't helped things with their attitude of all power and no responsibly. Their intense interest in the three vessels when they were flagged in Australia seemingly dissipated immediately the Cementco was flagged out to Barbados. That’s notwithstanding the fact that the vessel was going to continue to be Australian licensed, trading solely between Australian ports and with an Australian crew and conditions. Barbados had a similar lapse. Neither regulator saw fit to talk to each other and it was not surprising to find out both came up with different views as to safety aboard the vessel. Not surprising really considering the nature of flags of convenience, but very surprising if you don’t consider Australia is flag of convenience.
But maybe it is, when you consider AMSA is prepared to stand by aimlessly while the Department of Transport –which AMSA is responsible to and acts on behalf of – licensed the vessel for coastal trading without taking any responsibility for how it safely operates in regards to its crew. Maybe they’re scared of upsetting the Minister by supporting Australian shipping.
A change of government is urgently needed at AMSA as well, if we are to secure a domestic shipping industry and the safety and security that it brings to the nation. Not the inspectors who are the engine room of port state control, but management.
New term
Congratulations to all the new office holders elected in our quadrennial ballot. It’s a tough time to be a union official, and not for the faint hearted. Representing workers in a union like the MUA is an outstanding achievement. It opens the possibility to give real support to maritime workers and their families – support that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
To those officials not elected or standing down, on behalf of the membership, staff and elected officers, thank you for your hard work and commitment. Your work and the support your families have given it, has left a strong union and one more able to deal with the many pressures upon us.
Thanks as well to the returning officers who have tirelessly laboured to make the process clear and accessible and consistent with our rules.
And if you didn’t vote, you should have. It’s your union and we’re all in the front line.