Should Labor talk to the Greens?

Open Labor is holding a debate in Melbourne to-night. The question is Should Labor Talk To The Greens?

Miss Eagle has written to Open Labor letting her views be known.  Miss E is dyed in the wool Labor - but is rather selective. Miss E was once, but is no more, a member of the ALP.  She is a twice-failed Labor candidate but bears no animus re that. It was a significant experience and it led to her becoming an organiser with the AWU - the first female organiser in Northern Australia and only the second female organiser in its history.  

Miss E still has quite traditional Labor views on many topics, particularly on work, labour, and workplace rights - but feels she has nothing in common with Labor in relation to its ambiguous stance on environmental matters and its progressively harsher stand on the matter of refugees and asylum seekers since 1992.   Both of these items, in Miss E's view, are highly moral in nature and values.  Labor's attitudes on these policy matters do nothing to attain the moral and advantageous high ground.  They send Australia and Australians deeper into a vandalistic and inhumane mire.

In light of these views, Miss Eagle has written to Open Labor as follows:

Dear Open Labor,

My view is that The Greens should enrol in the ALP and immediately establish a faction.  It's the only way I can think of for environmental concerns to get an authentic guernsey in the development of a collective environmentally concerned mind within the ALP.  

Under Rudd and Gillard, Labor made a mess of their attempts at being 'green' i.e. the pink batts (policy would have been helped by consultation with a relevant tradesman but where are they in the ALP - does anyone even sleep with a tradie anymore?) and giving tradeable electricity to homeowners (more to the rich and the middle class) instead of including renters (clearly don't give a darn about low income people, let alone pensioners and the unemployed, who rent! And completely ignore the situation of people living in public housing).  Should I mention here how a Victorian Labor Government upgraded public housing and privatised a portion of it thus decreasing the quantity of public housing available to Victorians.

The ALP is lagging and conservative.  Its careerist politicians are concerned with the Almighty $ and assuring for themselves lucrative post-politics careers.  I won't name names - but I don't think I need to.  We can all finger Labor politicians who are guilty of this.

I don't think Labor has clearly defined and delineated its role in this post-GFC world.  Without a clear path, ideology, or compass, it means that Labor will wax and wane in its policies instead of defining a clear path, a steady compass forward.

Sincerely,

Brigid Walsh

(once an ALP member; twice an ALP Federal Candidate; once an AWU organiser)​

When are the professional unemployed in receipt of Newstart not really unemployed? When they provide professional services as volunteers in community organisations.

Picture below is from here

What is the difference between a paid job and what is carried out by volunteers?  In some cases, not much at all, if anything.  In fact, we are not facing up to things.  Should much of the activities carried out regularly by volunteers be called what it is? Unpaid Work. And should Unpaid Work carried out by Newstart recipients be measured and categorised?

This has been brought home to me by a friend of middle years who is unemployed and receives Newstart.  My friend is not short of work ethic; nor short of qualifications - a primary school teacher and IT trainer.

My friend volunteers for various organisations and has also done unpaid mentoring in a public school.

The tasks carried out by my friend under the guise of "volunteering" is work, skilled work, undergirded by professional qualifications.  It is the sort of work, in my view, that if there was no one available to volunteer to do this work, it would have to be paid for.  The only trouble is that the volunteering is for community organisations.  These community organisations tend to rely on funding from a variety of sources - all tiers of government, their own fundraising, donations.  In short, they are not able to provide the resources and investment available to private organisations.  

I'm not sure how volunteer work in community organisations is categorised or valued.  My friend is using professional skills based on professional qualifications.  Not all volunteer work in community organisations could be classed as professional but I am sure there are many other people besides my friend using professional skills on an unpaid basis who would like to be paid for their work.  

I would love someone to advise me on 

1. What is work in this context?
2. Are statistics kept in a manner that is discernible about the professionally qualified services provided by Newstart recipients?

For more on long term unemployment,

please go here

National Volunteer Week 11-17 May 2015 --- and there's a job on the Yarrowee for you with billy tea and scones to follow.

High Tea on the Yarrowee - Saturday 16th May

High Tea on the Yarrowee National Volunteer Week - Working Bee Saturday 16th May, 2015 Yarrowee River Hummfray Street, South (footbridge), Mount Pleasant 1:00 - 3:30pm   More than 6 million Australian volunteers give happiness to others each year. And research says that that those volunteers are happier as a result. So this National Volunteer Week (11-17 May 2015), help us make Australia the happiest place on earth, by giving as much of your time as you can. Give Happy. Live Happy. To celebrate the Leigh Catchment Group will be holding a working bee on the Yarrowee River. We will be doing some maintenance on a planting completed in 2014 and preparing some ground for planting in June 2015. All volunteers will be rewarded with 'High Tea on the Yarrowee' . This will include scones with jam and cream, tea, coffee and bush tea for those who would like to try something different. BYO: Gloves and sturdy footwear We will meet at the footbridge on Hummfray Street, South, Mt Pleasant (near the Prest Street bridge). For a map of our meeting site click here For further information contact: Kate Constance Mobile: 0409 585 998 Phone: 5341 2364 e-mail: katelcg@iinet.net.au For further information on the benefits of volunteering click here

Forward Facebook Website

Letters with the Committee for #Ballarat in their sites - an organisation whose actions contradict their words

I have to-day posted this letter on my Facebook site ~~~ Miss Eagle

Before and after pix on the Western Hwy Duplication

The people are Isobel Mackenzie (aged 91 years)

and

Helen Lewers 

who tied themselves to a redgum in protest.

Trees scheduled for destruction are draped with silver collars

by the roadworks people.

Brigid O'Carroll Walsh

4 mins · 

Helen Lewers of WHAM has had a marvellous letter published in The Courier here in ‪#‎Ballarat‬ to-day. http://www.thecourier.com.au/…/committee-all-for-growth-a…/…

Clearly, the Committee for Ballarat doesn't give a fig about what is actually happening out on the Western Highway duplication as it moves steadily from‪#‎Beauffort‬ to ‪#‎Stawell‬.

On the Committee's website they say this of themselves:

Committee for Ballarat tackles the social, economic and environmental issues of our time and envisions innovative ways to address them. We employ intellectual rigour and strategic thinking to solve the problems we face now and into the future. We connect and engage with stakeholders, involve and inform the community and seek expert advice. And we use our influence and connections to guide and progress key projects and programs of that are of benefit to our region.

I wonder where the 'intellectual rigour' was in regard to the environmental issue of the destruction of ancient vegetation and current animal habitats on the duplication of the Western HIghway. I wonder how many of the Committee's board members live in areas of #Ballarat covered by a heritage overlay or in areas where historic oaks and elms are covered by heritage laws. If this is the case, I'll bet they would kick up a fuss if this urban heritage was to be damaged and/or destroyed. No amount of argument about progress or profit would keep them quiet. But of course, they live nowhere near where the Western Highway duplication damage is being done. The site of the destruction is out of sight and out of mind to them. It is not rigorously in their sight.

... and, dear Committee for Ballarat, if you think you are dealing with just another "mob of Greenies", I would draw your attention to the number of rural landholders involved in protesting the Western Highway destruction; the number of people involved in rural businesses; the number of people with tertiary education. In fact, the demographic of WHAM is, in the main, of the sort that would line up for a committee such as yours ... but only if it has the environmental rigour your organisation falsely professes to possess. You, dear Committee, are so short-sighted you can't see the development of a treeless desert in your neighbourhood

Miss Eagle and Isabel Mackenzie 

on their way from #Ballarat to #Ararat for a WHAM meeting

Read here to find out about the destructive roadworks

and how Isabel and Helen tied themselves to trees in protest.

Activism through Climate Art - Art+Climate=Change 2015

For more about this please go here

A step too far: Woolworths puts its foot - and its trademark - in Anzac memories

From Inside Retail

Woolies pulls pin on controversial Anzac site

Woolworths have apologised after its Anzac commemoration website caused social media outrage by inviting users to share war tributes under the slogan “fresh in our memories”.

The site was taken down on Tuesday night after receiving widespread criticism on social networking site Twitter, with users labelling the marketing stunt crass and insulting to Australian diggers.

In a statement issued after the campaign was taken down, the supermarket giant apologised for branding the site.

“We regret that our branding on the picture generator has caused offence, this was clearly never our intention,” Woolworths said on its Facebook page.

“Like many heritage Australian companies, we were marking our respect for ANZAC and our veterans.”

Woolworths urged people on the site to share stories and profile style pictures of veterans by uploading images to the website, which then branded them with the Woolworths logo and the phrase “Lest we Forget 1915-2015. Fresh in our memories”.

The food retailer said the site was developed to give staff and customers a place to put their stories to mark the centenary of Anzac.

“We continue to be proud supporters of the RSL and Camp Gallipoli in this important year and look forward to working with them into the future,” the company added.

On Wednesday morning, the fallout from the furore continued on Twitter.

“I’m still amazed at the utter ghoulishness of Woolworths shoehorning the word ‘Fresh’ into community memories of war” one user tweeted.

“@woolworths very on the nose and in bad taste Woolies. Sack the person who approved of this campaign,” another tweet read.

RSL president rear admiral, Ken Doolan, labelled the Woolworths campaign “unfortunate”.

“I think they have taken the right action … pulling it down,” he told Network Nine.

“There is a very fine line to be judged here, where you are dealing with such sensitive issues and the Australian public speak very clearly and very loudly when that fine line is crossed.

“On this occasion unfortunately it was crossed, it was insensitive, it has been taken down.”

Australian minister for veterans’ affairs, Michael Ronaldson, said Woolworths did not seek permission to use the word ‘Anzac’.

Under law, permission is needed for the use of the word Anzac in any such material and it must be granted by the Australian Government.

“In this instance, permission was not sought by the campaign proponents, nor would it have been approved,” he said in a statement.

As soon as the Woolworths campaign was brought to his attention, he contacted the company to end it.

The word Anzac cannot be trivialised or used inappropriately, he said.

NSW minister for veterans’ affairs, David Elliott, described the Woolworths campaign as “distasteful”.

He said Anzac Day is to be commemorated, not celebrated.

“For these firms, and there a number of examples, to use the Anzac and the veteran and the whole notion of sacrifice and service for their own commercial gain, or indeed personal gain, I find highly distasteful,” he told Fairfax Radio.

AAP

What a surprise? Former military personnel (looking much like bikies) display racist, Islamophobic behaviour in the company of Pauline Hanson

This picture from The Guardian
Please read the article that goes with the pic for more info

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC)

We share your disbelief.

Wilson Security Nauru Detention Centre Emergency Response Team pictured here with Pauline Hanson at Anti - Muslim, racist "Reclaim Australia" Rally.

Remember the Abbott Government wants to give guards in detention centres the right to use physical force against asylum seekers with total impunity. Imagine that. What do you think?

The men have been temporarily suspended (because it's become public). 

Here's the source, the Guardian newspaper

(which has named these people in the photo):

 http://www.theguardian.com/…/detention-centre-guards-suspen…

P.S Wilson Security is the same company that owns and runs Wilson Parking.

You may not have personal contact with Wilson Security

but it is not difficult to have personal contact with Wilson Parking.

Please consider before becoming a customer of Wilson Parking.

TYRANTS IN SECRET: Australia hides behind secret information from foreign governments - which may well be tyrants and truth slayers!

Walking for Freedom are at it again! 

We will be walking for 30 hours for the 30 ASIO negative refugees who are still indefinitely detained in Australia. So get your walking shoes ready and join us this May! 

We will be walking in Melbourne CBD starting at the ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) offices, and walking down the city streets (walking route to be announced closer to the date!) And just to be clear, we are not requiring anyone to walk the entire time! We will be walking in shifts!

Australia has found these 30 people to be refugees fleeing war and persecution. However, ASIO have given these people negative clearance assessments- claiming that they may be a security threat to Australia. ASIO do not have to inform the people of why they think they are a threat. The refugees are not given any chance to dispute or explain the claims against them.

As they were granted refugee status, Australia cannot deport them to their home countries and because of their negative assessments from ASIO, they cannot be released into the Australian community.

For some it is now the beginning of their sixth year in detention. Six years of their lives have been taken from them. No one knows when they will be released.

This is will be a peaceful event, conducted in the spirit and tradition of nonviolence. Feel free to come and participate for however long you are able!

MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD ON THE CRISIS FACING ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES. ACT TO STOP THE FORCED CLOSURES

The text below is from www.concernedaustralians.com.au.

Will You Help to Prevent a Crisis? 

The Commonwealth’s commitment to Homelands and Outstations was surely sealed by the 1967 Referendum. How can it be then that the federal government can consider abandoning their long-held responsibilities by cutting essential funding to these especially vulnerable areas? 

What is clear is that the Commonwealth knows full well that the consequences of the cuts will fall with brute force onto Aboriginal communities least able to defend themselves. Such behaviour is contemptible. 

It is quite clear that state governments do not have the resources 

to simply replace Federal funding.

Mr. Barnett in Western Australia has responded by indicating that he will close up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities by simply cutting off their essential services – water, power etc. Arrangements with the South Australia government are still to be determined but at this stage the outstations fear their fate will be similar to those in the West. 

The results of such actions are perhaps too great to contemplate, just as there is no real attempt to understand the cultural implications of moving people from their traditional homelands. 

What does closure mean? 

The relationship between Aboriginal peoples and their lands is acknowledged but little understood. The connection to land is the embodiment of Aboriginal cultural identity. It totally embraces a sense of belonging without which there is a life long sense of grieving and loss. 

It is only on your own land that you have rights – once you move these rights are lost and you become simply a squatter on somebody else’s land. Forced removals in the past have proved devastating and costly, not only to the communities themselves but also to the surrounding communities responsible for resettlement. Nearly all outback Aboriginal communities are under-resourced, have inadequate infrastructure and are grappling with social problems. 

To burden these communities further is unthinkable. Such action would place Australia in conflict with international law. "...forced evictions are ... incompatible with the requirements of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and could only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances...." UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, General Comment No.4, (1991) 

Pope Francis warns Australia of socio-economic disaster when he states, “severing the ties of Aboriginal people from their land and thus their culture, spirituality and very foundation of their being, is unethical, immoral, un-Christian and heartless.” 

We strongly believe that the Federal funding decision should be reversed. 

For this we need your urgent help. 

Can you either send letters or telephone Tony Abbott and Nigel Scullion and tell them that it would be totally unacceptable for funding to Remote Communities to be cut. The Uniting Church, guided by Congress and local synods, opposes the closure of communities and forced removals. Many of the points they have made are included in the list below as a help for those who wish to write letters. Contact details of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs are also below.  

Points for Letters –Writers Opposing Remote Community Closures: 

(you may like to focus your letter on one or more of the below points) 

• The unconscionable failure of the Federal Government to maintain its responsibility for the safety and future of Aboriginal Peoples from Outstations/Homelands.

• To close communities will create a wave of dispossession denying people the ability to stay in touch with their land and their culture. 

• There has been no attempt by government to understand what such forced community closures and movement of people means for people’s social, mental, spiritual and physical life. 

• There has been no consultation with Aboriginal people or the organisations which represent them regarding alternative solutions, and 

• The movement of so many people would put enormous pressure on the communities they go to – housing, education, health facilities, and community relationships. Nothing has been done to plan for and deal with such impacts. 

Hon. Tony Abbott: 

Parliament House, 

PO Box 6022, 

Canberra ACT 2600 

Tel: (02) 6277 7700 

Electoral Office: 

PO Box 450, Manly, NSW, 2095 

Telephone: (02) 9977 6411 

Hon. Nigel Scullion: 

Parliament House, 

PO Box 6100, 

Canberra, ACT 2600 

Tel: (02) 6277 7780,  

Electoral Office: 

Unit 1, 229 McMillans Road, 

Jingili, NT 0810 

Telephone: (08) 8948 3555 

Telephone Calls to Oppose Remote Community Closures: 

If you decide to telephone your concern to the offices of Mr Abbott and Mr Scullion please give your name and address while leaving a message stating your strong objections to these funding cuts that will lead to the closure of homelands/outstations. Demand that the decision is reversed. If you have the energy, please do also inform your Local Member of your concerns.  

The historic role of Muslims in the development of Australia. Something for those who pursue hate against Islam to think upon.

Cross-posted with Beside The Creek

The ABC program, Compass, last night and to-day, broadcast a wonderful program about the role of Afghan cameleers in opening up The Outback of Australia in the 19th century.

The program, By Compass and Quran, will be available on ABC iview until 7.30pm on 26 April 2015.

It is a wonderful insight into another world.  The cameleers married Australian women - white women, Aboriginal women.  Their descendants speak strongly and fondly of their Afghan forebears. There is also film of original mosques in which the cameleers prayed. And there is also a comment on why camels are now a plague in outback Australia.

This Q&A is now closed. Thank you for all your questions. 

Thank you very much Kuranda.-------Please give a warm...
Posted by Compass on Sunday, 12 April 2015

The Outback so often in reality becomes The Outback Outofmind. Forgotten - economically, socially, politically.

Time and time again, remote Australia is ignored and forgotten --- and yet so much of our wealth has come from there. Even those corporates who grow fat on The Outback tend to ignore it too.  I have spent a fair slice of my life in remote Australia on the Barkly Tableland - on both Queensland side and Territory side.  Its spirit is embedded in me, a part of me, a part of my persona.  

Thank you, Paul Quinlan for this poem.  

Hope you are keeping well and busy.  

The photo below is by Keith Vipond

and is published on Tennant Creek Friends.

Tennant does have some wonderful sunsets

and this site is one of the best places to view them.

Paul Quinlan posted in Tennant Creek Friends Paul Quinlan 11 April 20:53 LET'S GET IT RIGHT. It's not the town that makes the people, but the people that make the town, I've seen them come, and also go, and the weak ones left with a frown. Some have lived here more than 50 years they have seen happy times , and also the tears not like those that pack up, and leave they work for the town in which they believe. Some came with only the shirt upon their back looking for a fortune somewhere up the track they stopped at this oasis , known as Tennant Creek' met some of the locals, and stayed a bloody week. They found some work, and said "I think I'll stay". then in no time had their own business on the way Electricians, plumbers, fencers, welders, and the like along with their women, didn't cheat or pike. A fair days work for what it was worth these ones were the salt of this earth some of them you'll never know they sadly passed on some time ago. There's still many friendly people living here that hold this little town so dear so if you find yourself down, and out one day befriend a local , and you may even stay. Quino 2006

Women and the corporate world in Australia - all push and no give

Picture from here

This was in The Age this morning. http://goo.gl/kJAPoQ - 

so I want to put the bleeding obvious out there 

which is constantly and consistently overlooked.

1. Australia has had a Sex Discrimination Act since 1984 - as part of Australia's ratification of United Nations Human Rights and the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

2. A decision was made - which has turned out to be less than really useful - to encourage Australian employers to do the "right thing" by a carrot and stick method which has proved, over time, to be almost completely ineffective.

3. At this stage in time we should not have targets like wouldn't it be nice to have 30% of women on boards. What would make more sense to me would be to have 50% of boards with only 30% of men on them.

I can see that Nicola Wakefield Evans and the @Australian Institute of Company Directors http://goo.gl/Uiee57 might want to do the right thing - but they are merely setting themselves up for yet another failure to effect any meaningful change. In fact, it is all too little and all too late. If someone wishes to make an argument for gradual change, so be it. But what is it worth after more than three decades of failure?

New target set: 30pc women on boards by 2018

The Australian Institute of Company Directors wants ASX 200 companies to voluntarily meet a target of 30 per cent of board seats to be filled by women by 2018.

THEAGE.COM.AU