Critical Times

Adelaide woman Andrea Madeley has called for the national adoption of industrial manslaughter laws.

This follows a $72,000 fine imposed by an Adelaide magistrate on local business Diemould Pty Ltd which had employed her teenage son Daniel until his death in their workplace on Saturday June 5, 2004.

Her call follows the state Labor government’s disgraceful attack on worker’s compensation laws last year, and the Federal Labor governments “lowest common denominator” approach to a standardised national set of worker’s compensation laws.

Two hundred and fifty Lower Lakes and Coorong residents have opened a Fresh Water Embassy at Clayton in South Australia.

The purpose of the Embassy is to provide a profile for protest against the State Government’s plans to place an earthern water flow “regulator” from Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) to Clayton in order to cut off fresh water flow into Lake Alexandrina from the Finniss River and Currency Creek.

Other regulators and a weir are planned to completely seal off both Lakes Albert and Alexandrina.

by Humphrey McQueen

Dare Australia’s Labor government gaol Adelaide builders’ labourer, Ark Tribe? Tribe’s crime is that he refuses to attend a secret hearing of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). His failure to appear renders him liable to six months in prison or a fine of $22,000. Similar penalties apply if he turns up but refuses to answer, or if he answers but then tells anyone what the questions were.

Source: Vanguard

1. Human rights in Australia are poorly defined and not well protected. There is no national Bill of Rights and international conventions and treaties on human rights to which Australia is a signatory are not enforceable under Australian law.

Hundreds of workers rallied outside the Elizabeth Magistrates Court this morning. Construction workers taking their RDOs (rostered days off) were joined by members of the Transport Workers Union, the LHMU, both education unions (public education’s Australian Education Union and private education’s Independent Education Union), the Nurses’ Federation, and the Australian Metal Workers Union.

Construction union (CFMEU) State Secretary Martin O’Malley addressed the gathering, warning that the powers of the ABCC were a danger to all working people.

by Renfrey Clarke

For governments and vehicle corporations, the charm of biofuels used to be the promise they held out of a ready-made solution to transport-related greenhouse gas emissions – a solution that might simply be dropped in, while changing almost nothing else.

Freeways, suburban sprawl, four-wheel-drive family cars – everything could remain. Only the fuel on sale at the service stations would be different.

Protest at an industry briefing about the ‘BasicsCard’ system

Wednesday June 10
1pm @ The Sebel
28 Albion st Surry Hills

On Wednesday, the government will hold a consultation meeting for
industry about the ‘BasicsCard’ system, which facilitates the
compulsory Income Management regime forced on Aboriginal people under
the NT Intervention. The government are looking for a company to
design new BasicsCard infrastructure. This process is about
entrenching income management in Aboriginal communities and spreading
it out around Australia.

Source: Rights on Site website

Ark Tribe is a construction worker from South Australia.

Like any other Australian worker, Ark just wants to rock up for work in the morning in as safe an environment as possible, do his job, and make it home at the end of the day.

Unlike other Australian workers, Ark is facing six months in jail – charged with not attending an interview with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

Source: Vanguard Leaflet given out to the ACTU 2009 Congress

Unemployment, the loss of working conditions and union rights, casualisation, cuts to working hours, and general economic insecurity is hitting the working class hard. Many workers are looking for union leadership to continue the fight against WorkChoices, still enshrined in Labor’s ‘Fair Work Australia’.

The militancy and mass mobilisation of workers that characterised the struggle to defeat WorkChoices, powerfully demonstrated what can be achieved with united and strong leadership dedicated to the working class.

Source: Vanguard May Issue

In the first decade of the 21st Century, scientists of different disciplines are alerting people and governments to a second crisis of capitalism, a crisis bigger than the current economic crisis. That crisis is the destruction of the environment caused by the ‘growth at all costs’ logic of capitalism. The enormity of the crisis is summarised in the following statement by the Swedish Talberg Foundation 2008 Report, Grasping The Climate Crisis; A Provocation:
“The world at present faces a breakdown of the global financial system.