The award was made in recognition of Dr Yudhoyono’s work in strengthening Australia-Indonesia relations, in promoting democracy and development in Indonesia. The official citation said he had been “steadfast and humane” in the face of terrorist attacks, while also working with Australia through regional groups such as APEC and the East Asia Summit.

For some time, many Australians have called on the Australian Government to give the same award to the people of Timor Leste for the sacrifices they made in assisting Australia during World War 2. A campaign organised by Sister Susan Connolly of the Mary MacKillop East Timor Mission had gathered 24,000 signatures from Australians who are grateful for East Timor’s World War 2 support.

Australians are also well aware of the shameful betrayal of the Timorese by successive Australian governments when they were illegally occupied by the Indonesian Army (TNI) between 1975 – 1999.

The presentation of an award to East Timor has also been supported by the South Australian Parliament after a motion supporting this initiative by by an independent member of SA’s Legislative Council, David Winderlich.

Since these moves, the Australian Government has told campaigners that the award was only for individuals.

Those supporting East Timor receiving the award cited the case of Britain awarding the George Cross to the people of Malta for enduring massive German air raids against their island around the clock in an attempt to neutralise the British bases in Malta.The George Cross had been instituted by King George VI on 24 September 1940 as the civilian equivalent to the Victoria Cross. The award is intended mainly for civilians is awarded only for acts of the greatest heroism or the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger. This award was made by King George VI to the Governor of Malta on 15 April 1942:
“To honour her brave people I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history.”, (signed) George R.I.

The East Timorese paid a heavy price because of their support for Australian soldiers during World War 2.

After the Australians left Timor, Japanese soldiers entered village after village, lined up civilians and mowed them down with machine gun fire in reprisal. At least 40,000 civilians lost their lives from these actions. Some believe that another 30,000 East Timorese died because of air raids on their villages or because they were caught between opposing forces.

The population of Portuguese Timor at the time was approximately 500,000, making this loss of life a very heavy sacrifice. The Mary MacKillop East Timor Mission on its website syas this about the sacrifice of the East Timorese:

“It need not have been that way. The East Timorese could have handed the Australians over to the Japanese, as the West Timorese did within days. As true allies, the East Timorese people suffered grievously during 1942 and for the rest of the War. Any acknowledgement of their role in World War II must be worthy of the facts”.

While it is true that President Yuhono has done much to democratise the Republic of Indonesia after 33 years of the Suharto dictatorship, he has done very little to deal with the war criminals in the ranks of the TNI who have committed gross crimes against humanity in West Papua, East Timor, Acheh and many parts of Indonesia itself.

It is inappropriate to bestow such an honour on President Yudhoyono until he has taken steps to deal with those alleged to have committed these crimes and to withdraw the TNI from West Papua and to allow its people to determine their own political future.

It is acknowledged that Indonesians have faced many threats from terrorist attacks, but it must be said that these attacks were far less severe than the attacks suffered by the peoples of East Timor and Malta during World War 2 and more recently by the people East Timor at the hands of the Indonesian dictatorship.

It is obvious that the award was given to President Yudhoyono to soften him up before talks between Australia and Indonesia about the issue of boat people coming into
the SE Asian region.

Mr James Dunn AO, the former Australian Consul to Portuguese Timor and author of the books Timor: A People Betrayed and Timor: A People Betrayed and East Timor – a rough passage to independence had this to say about the award to the Indonesian President:

“As a member of the order, I have some concerns about this award. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyo does deserve some acknowledgement of his efforts to democratise Indonesia, but in relation to East Timor, he also participated in the occupation, in 1982 or 1983 commanding one of the battalions with a less than savoury reputation. To his credit, he is a Kostrad officer, and not from Kopassus and some time ago, events in ET obviously troubled him, causing him to speak out at an Indonesian university, where I too, was a speaker. His past in ET is not too bad, but he does have a mark against him. Also, as I understand it, as a lieutenant, he took part in the brutal invasion of Dili on 7 December 1975.

As a general comment, surely it would be better for our government to have a separate order to be bestowed on distinguished foreigners.

The use of the Order of Australia is inevitablly largely a political act.

It will be remembered that Ali Alatas, who gave strong support to Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor when serious atrocities were taking place, was also awarded the AO. As far as I can recall his main act of friendship was to collaborate in that ignominious Timor Gap agreement”.

Let us not forget the terrible suffering of the Timorese at the hands of Imperial Japan during WW2 and the TNI between 1975 – 19999, during which time, successive Australian governments openly aided and abetted the aggressor.

This makes it all the more compelling that the Australian Government should now award the people of East Timor with an honour that gives full recognition and acknowledgement to their suffering during World War 2 for supporting Australia against Imperial Japan

Andrew (Andy) Alcock
Information Officer
AETFA SA Inc
andyalcock@internode.on.net

AETFA:
PO Box 240
GOODWOOD SA 5034
AUSTRALIA

Website: http://www.aetfa.org.au/

Related posts:

1. East Timor project
2. Timor murders
3. Timor review

‘How is it that we could be facing a crisis of empire, of imperialism, of war, of conflict internationally, we could be facing an environmental crisis on a scale that threatens the whole planet as we know it, and we could be facing at the same time being in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression?

And how do we deal with all these problems simultaneously?

Is it simply coincidental that all these problems arise at the same time?

I think that we have to consider the possibility — in fact for me it’s more than a possibility — that what we are facing is the crisis of capital, the crisis of capitalism.

I don’t mean in the sense that we talk about capitalism as being crisis-laden; there are always business cycles, downturns in the economy are normal in capitalism, and they have been for several hundred years. We know that.

And we are being told that this is simply another economic crisis and we’re now in the midst of recovery, that kind of crisis, and we’ll be out of it and everything will be fine. What I’m trying to suggest here is that we’re facing something else.

It isn’t simply a crisis in capitalism; it’s a crisis of capitalism.

We’re in the midst of a structural crisis of our entire civilization, which begain, I would say, in the mid-1970s. We are in the middle of it; we are not at the end by any means.

But the whole set of problems is getting worse and worse.

I think that this is crucial to understand. The problems of empire, the problems of ecology, and the problems of economy are all related to this crisis of capitalism, the crisis of our civilizaiton as it exists.

The system that we know of as capitalism — and we are foced back to the term capitalism, nobody really talks about “the free market” anymore, that metaphor is gone, and we’re forced back to the reality of the society in which we live — is facing both internal and external limits at this point, and we have to try to understand what these are.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/foster220110.html

John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review and Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon. His latest book is The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace With the Planet. This talk was delivered at “Econvergence: Northwest Regional Gathering on the Economimc and Ecological Crises” on 2 October 2009. Video by pdxjustice Media Productions. If you’d like a copy of this video, contact pdxjustice at . The text above is an edited partial transcript of the talk. A full transcript, a CD, and an MP3 of the talk are available for purchase at Alternative Radio: .

Related posts:

1. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism
2. Ecological revolution
3. Capitalist crisis:search roundtable

For those concerned with the fate of the earth, the time has come to face facts: not simply the dire reality of climate change but also the pressing need for social-system change.

The failure to arrive at a world climate agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009 was not simply an abdication of world leadership, as is often suggested, but had deeper roots in the inability of the capitalist system to address the accelerating threat to life on the planet.

Knowledge of the nature and limits of capitalism, and the means of transcending it, has therefore become a matter of survival.

In the words of Fidel Castro in December 2009: “Until very recently, the discussion [on the future of world society] revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive.”1

I. The Planetary Ecological Crisis

There is abundant evidence that humans have caused environmental damage for millennia. Problems with deforestation, soil erosion, and salinization of irrigated soils go back to antiquity.
Continue Read it in full
http://www.monthlyreview.org/100301magdoff-foster.php

Fred Magdoff is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University. He is the author of Building Soils for Better Crops (with Harold van Es, third edition, 2009), and The ABCs of the Economic Crisis (with Michael Yates, Monthly Review Press, 2009).

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. His most recent book is The Ecological Revolution (Monthly Review Press, 2009).

capitalist crisis severe

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1. Ecological revolution
2. The Crisis of Capital: Economy, Ecology, and Empire
3. The Great Financial CRISIS

When the United States first realized circa 1970 that its hegemonic dominance was being threatened by the growing economic (and hence geopolitical) strength of western Europe and Japan, it changed its posture, seeking to prevent western Europe and Japan from taking too independent a position in world affairs.

The United States said in effect, although not in words: Up to now, we have been treating you as satellites, required to follow our lead without question on the world scene. But you are stronger now. So we invite you to be partners, junior partners, who will share in the collective decision-making, provided only you don’t stray too far on your own.

This new U.S. policy was institutionalized in multiple ways – notably the creation of the G-7, the establishment of the Trilateral Commission, and the invention of the World Economic Forum of Davos as a meeting-ground of the “friendly” world elite.

The main U.S. objective was to slow down the decline of its geopolitical power. The new policy worked for perhaps twenty years. It was finally undone by two successive events.

The first was the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1989-1991, which removed the major argument the United States had used with its “partners” that they should not be too “independent” on the world scene. And the second was the self-defeating unilateral macho militarism of the Bush regime.

Instead of restoring U.S. hegemony, it resulted in the devastating failure of the United States in 2003 to get U.N. Security Council endorsement of its invasion of Iraq.

Bush’s neocon policies had backfired entirely, turning a slow decline in U.S. geopolitical power into a precipitate decline. Today, almost everyone recognizes that the United States no longer has the clout it once had.

One would have thought the United States might have learned some lessons from the errors of the Bush regime. But it seems it is trying to repeat the same scenario with Brazil today. It will not take twenty years for this attempt to unravel.

The major geopolitical move that Obama has undertaken was to turn the G-8 meeting into a G-20 meeting.

The crucial group that was added to the meeting were the so-called BRIC countries, otherwise called the “emerging” countries. BRIC stands for Brazil, Russia (already included in the G-8), India, and China.

What the United States is offering Brazil is “partnership.” This comes out very clearly in the recent report of a Task Force of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) entitled U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality. The CFR is the voice of the centrist Establishment, and this report probably reflects White House thinking.

There are two crucial sentences in this report concerning Brazil. The first reads: “The Task Force believes that deepening strategic relationships with Brazil and Mexico, and reformulating diplomatic efforts with Venezuela and Cuba, will not only establish more fruitful interaction with these countries but will also positively transform U.S.-Latin American relations.”

And the second sentence deals specifically with Brazil: “The Task Force recommends that the United States build on its existing collaboration with Brazil on ethanol to develop a more consistent, coordinated, and broader partnership that incorporates a wide range of bilateral, regional, and global issues.”

The report was issued in 2009. In December, the CFR organized with the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) a seminar on “rising Brazil.”

By coincidence, the seminar occurred just at the moment of both the Honduran political crisis and the visit of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to Brazil. The U.S. participants in the seminar did not speak the same language as the Brazilians.

The Americans believed that Brazil should act as a regional power, that is, as a sub-imperial power. The U.S. participants couldn’t understand Brazil’s disapproval of Colombia’s military and economic links with the United States. They thought also that Brazil should assume some responsibility for maintaining “world order,” which meant joining in the U.S. pressure on Iran’s nuclear policies, whereas the Brazilians felt that the U.S. position on Iran was “hypocritical.”

Finally, whereas the U.S. participants saw Chavez’s Venezuela as being “far from democratic,” the Brazilians echoed President Lula’s characterization that Venezuela suffered from an “excess of democracy.”

In January 2010, Susan Purcell, a conservative U.S. analyst, published in the Miami Herald a critique of U.S. policy on Brazil, calling it “wishful thinking.” She may well be right. In her view, “Washington may need to rethink its assumptions regarding the extent to which Brazil can be relied on to deal with political and security problems in Latin America in ways that are also compatible with U.S. interests.”

In January also, Valter Pomar, Secretary for International Relations of Lula’s party, the PT, said that the U.S. intention in creating the G-20 was “to try to absorb and control alternative poles of power, …to maintain a multipolarity under control.”

He insisted that, in the strain between supporting world capitalist interests as a sub-imperial power and supporting “democratic-popular interests,” Brazil would end up on the latter side.

Given the increased strength of western Europe and Japan in the early 1970s, the United States offered them promotion to the status of junior partner. France and Germany opted to proceed further to an independent world role in 2003.

And Japan, in its national election in 2009 and its mayoral election in Okinawa in 2010, seems to be opting for it now. Brazil, given its increased strength, was offered junior partnership only in 2009. It seems to be insisting on an independent world role almost immediately.

http://www.zcommunications.org/the-united-states-misreads-brazils-world-policy-by-immanuel-wallerstein

capitalist crisis severe

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By Grace Lee Boggs

‘Last week veteran Detroit activist and TV producer Ron Scott shared his thoughts on the recent massive demonstrations in support of the Jena 6.

Emphasizing the distinction between organizing and mobilizing, he reminded us that the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began fifty-two years ago on December 1, 1955 and lasted more than a year, was the culmination of years of organizing by local activists like NAACP stalwarts E.D.Nixon and Rosa Parks.

“Had the people of Montgomery merely come out for one day and gone home, we would have nothing to write about today.”

This distinction between organizing and mobilizing is especially important in this period when in Detroit and other parts of the country and the world, we are in the very early stages of building a 21st century movement to rebuild our communities and our cities, while also addressing the interconnected issues of planetary emergency, the imperial presidency and the calamity of the invasion of Iraq.

To help us think about the distinction with the seriousness it deserves, I recommend reading and discussing the chapter on “Slow and Respectful Work” in Charles Payne’s I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Struggle and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (University of California Press, 1995).

Many Minds, One Heart, a recent book by Virginia State University Professor Wesley C. Hogan, also emphasizes the importance of patient one-on-one organizing, although, surprisingly, Ms. Hogan makes no reference to Payne’s groundbreaking book.

The civil rights movement had such an enormous impact on this country and the world because prior to mobilizing huge marches and demonstrations, members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (mostly black, mostly southern, mostly from working class backgrounds), not only had a vision of “beloved community” but were ready to spend a lot of time doing the spadework of building relationships with people in the black community.

Convinced that there are individuals in every community whom others look to because they have an unconquerable faith in their own humanity, refuse to see themselves only as victims and take pride in thinking for themselves, the members of SNCC set out to find these natural leaders.

The method they used was simple. They talked with people and got to know them by listening patiently, in conversations at the post office, the market, at meetings and church services.

At the same time they gave people in the community daily opportunities to get to know them as individuals who were respectful to women and the elderly, who kept their word and lived up to values respected in the community.

It was only after the legitimacy of the “movement” had been established by this kind of “slow and respectful” organizing in the community that they began to mobilize large numbers in marches and demonstrations.

Today few people understand or appreciate the role of this patient, beneath the radar community organizing because we know the civil rights movement only in its later period when it had begun to attract the attention of the national media, So we think of the movement mainly as mobilization: as marches, demonstrations, violent events and personalities or charismatic leaders.

The Detroit City of Hope campaign is today in the community organizing stage. In 2007 we hosted two events to commemorate the 40th anniversary of MLK’s anti-Vietnam war speech and the 1967 Detroit rebellion.

Through these events, endorsed by 32 very diverse community organizations, we made the community aware of our intent to mount a campaign to rebuild, redefine and respirit Detroit from the ground up.

Now our challenge is to help the individuals and groups already engaged in this work or eager to embark on it create ways and means to connect with, learn from and support one another. ‘

Books by James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs
Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century / The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook

Living for Change: An Autobiography / Conversations in Maine: Exploring Our Nation’s Future

Manifesto for a Black Revolutionary Party / Racism and the Class Struggle

US labor against war

No related posts.

Democratic responses to the social and ecological failure of global capitalism.

Alliances between environmentalists and unionists that show the way forward.

The Left and its strategic direction 12 Workshops and 4 Participatory Forums.

International speakers – from the Philippines, Venezuela, India and South Africa.

The SEARCH Foundation’s program of ‘left renewal’ has convened Roundtables in Adelaide, Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney over the last three years. This national conference will bring all those efforts together and reach out to more people across movements, organisations and political parties.

The national conference will focus on two levels of change – addressing the global crisis and the need to move to a green future, and the need for the left movement in Australia to change and renew itself as part of that process.

The Cosmpolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, set up in 2007, is an interdisciplinary research initiative at the University of Technology, Sydney, that brings together scholars from a range of disciplines in the broad social sciences and humanities to investigate the practices that are crucial in enabling social cohesion and change in cosmopolitan societies.

Organised by the SEARCH Foundation and the Cosmpolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, UTS. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre
Level 3, MaryAnn House, 645 Harris Street Ultimo NSW 2007
ccs@uts.edu.au

SEARCH Foundation
Level 3, Suite 3B, 110 Kippax St Surry Hills NSW 2010
www.search.org.au
admin@search.org.au

capitalist crisis severe

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She interviews Dr Helen Caldicott:

“Its supreme scientific arrogance to say that we’ll find a way to store radioactive waste safely for 1/4 million nyears, let alone 1/2 million years.”

Minister Ferguson is going ahead despite the nomination of the Muckaty site is highly contested. The Senate is now receiving submissions.

It is essential that the Senate Committee pay due respects to the Traditional Owners by travelling to Tennant Creek to take evidence from them directly.

The nomination of the Muckaty site by the Northern Land Council was highly controversial and is strongly contested by many Traditional Owners.

Resouces Minister Martin Ferguson claims that Ngapa Traditional Owners support the nomination of the Muckaty site but he knows that many Ngapa Traditional Owners oppose the dump — as well as numerous requests for meetings, he received a letter opposing the dump in May 2009 signed by 25 Ngapa Traditional Owners and 32 Traditional Owners from other Muckaty groups.

Mr Ferguson is also aware of the unanimous resolution passed by the NT Labor Conference in April 2008 which called on the Federal Government to exclude Muckaty on the grounds that the nomination “was not made with the full and informed consent of all Traditional Owners and affected people and as such does not comply with the Aboriginal Land Rights Act”.

Mr Ferguson also knows that fellow Ministers Jenny Macklin, Kim Carr, Peter Garrett and Warren Snowdon among others have acknowledged the distress and opposition of many Muckaty Traditional Owners.

“All along we have said we don’t want this dump on our land but we have been ignored. Martin Ferguson has avoided us and ignored our letters but he knows very well how we feel. He has been arrogant and secretive and he thinks he has gotten away with his plan but in fact he has a big fight on his hands.” -

- Muckaty Traditional Owner Dianne Stokes

This bill is highly coercive

Section 11 of the bill explicitly overrides any state or territory laws that would hinder site selection.

Section 12 then eliminates Aboriginal interests (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984) and environmental interests (the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999) from the process of choosing a site.

Section 13 eliminates the property rights of any individual unlucky enough to be in the path of the dump or its access corridors.

Once a site is chosen, it will be assessed under commonwealth environmental legislation which has almost no mechanisms for preventing the project from going ahead.

All discretion in the hands of the Minister.

The Bill places enormous power in the hands of the Minister to assess whether or not the Muckaty site should go ahead. No information is given to how this assessment will be carried out, and the bill makes it clear that local people have no right of appeal.

The case for a remote dump has never been made.

Nuclear waste should be moved as little as possible, and should be stored above ground close to the point of production, close to centres of nuclear expertise and infrastructure.

The Lucas Heights nuclear agency ANSTO is by far the biggest single source of the waste, and all the relevant organisations have acknowledged that ongoing waste storage at Lucas Heights is a viable option — the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, the Australian Nuclear Association and even Mr Ferguson’s own department. Additionally, requiring ANSTO to store its own waste is the best — and perhaps the only — way of focussing the Organisation’s collective mind on the importance of waste minimisation principles.

Any site selection process ought to be based on scientific and environmental siting criteria, as well as on the principle of voluntarism.

In 2005, the Howard government chose the NT, and ruled out NSW, for purely political reasons.

When the federal Bureau of Resource Sciences conducted a national repository site selection study in the 1990s, informed by scientific, environmental and social criteria, the Muckaty area did not even make the short-list as a “suitable” site.

Jim Green B.Med.Sci.(Hons.), PhD
National nuclear campaigner – Friends of the Earth, Australi
jim.green@foe.org.au

Please consider making a submission to this important Senate Inquiry concerning plans for a national nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the NT.

Make your voice heard on the nuclear waste dump!

The Federal Government has finally announced that it will repeal the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act. But resources minister Martin Ferguson’s replacement legislation – the National Radiaoctive Waste Management Bill (NRWMB) – is as coercive and unfair as the bill it replaces.

The NRWMB leaves Muckaty, north of Tennant Creek in the NT, as the only site that will be initially considered under he NRWMB despite widespread opposition and a flawed, secretive nomination process for the Muckaty site.

Please make a submission to a Senate Inquiry on the proposed legislation and email it on or before MONDAY MARCH 15, 2010. That’s NEXT MONDAY

Send your submission:
By email: legcon.sen@aph.gov.au
By post: Julie Dennett, Committee Secretary, Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee, PO Box 6100, Parliament House, Canberra, ACT, 2600.

More information:

Senate Inquiry (including a link to the text of the NRWM Bill, explanatory memorandum, etc):

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/radioactivewaste/index.htm

Muckaty Traditional Owners, submissions 95 and 95a to the 2008 Senate Inquiry:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/Committee/eca_ctte/radioactive_waste/submissions/sublist.htm

Beyond Nuclear Initiative:

http://beyondnuclearinitiative.wordpress.com

Senator Scott Ludlam:

http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/greens-fight-nt-nuclear-waste-dump

Friends of the Earth

http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/nontdump

right to strike on the environment

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2. Against nuclear weapons
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But DPM Gillard is ruthlessly pushing ahead with her lower national OHS ‘harmonisation’ model approved December 2009, despite major union criticism (see earlier blogs).

One feature of the 2007 election was the Howard government and capitalist press underestimated the underground organising force of the YRAW community campaign. I argue the same for the Rudd government for OHS in this election year.

As readers know I am an admirer of our DPM. But I do question certain of her decisions.

DPM Gillard is aware of previous resolutions carried by unions, ACTU Executive and Congress and State branches that State and ACT OHS standards are to be maintained in this national ‘harmonisation’.

(Like many, I cringe at the use of ‘harmonisation’ used often by e.g bullying work managers or the Communist Party of China against dissidents.)

The ACTU has been campaigning, largely unsuccessfully up until December 2009, on the key principle that ‘harmonisation’ must not reduce protections and rights for workers and their unions.

By December 2009 this did not happen.

Minister Gillard was not moved by union substantial evidence-based criticisms and ACTU dissent.

But by march 2010 national OHS politics changes.

What does the Minister do after Garrett and the workplace deaths?

We shall see how this goes for insulation.

But prevention of deaths and injuries at work is now a national political issue.

What the DPM has to be aware of is that union OHS activists, trainers and union organisers as well as the community, and working families and OHS business and professional specialists are even more determined to place the lives of workers before profits.

The community supports at government implementation level not to have injury and ill-health and death at or in connection with your employment.

The DPM’s disgraceful National OHS model politically is in trouble.

Its structure provides for less compliance, for legal loopholes for employers to avoid responsibility, laxer standards and for profits to be priority over lives and health at work (see earlier posts).

We can say that many deaths at work are inevitable.

Some in the unions refer to the DPM as ‘Killard.’

These weak national OHS ‘harmonisation’ regulations does little to hold back, let alone prevent, the worst capitalists’ practices.

Business already bears only 3% of the total costs of work related illness and injury, with 97% borne by workers, their families and the community.

The National model focus on further cost reduction is fundamentally flawed.

(Some fudge by claiming capitalism’s practices as excuses, that management risk strategies and Ministerial responsiblity has its limits within capitalism’s growth and profit imperatives.)

Union activists reject Governments’ approaches to ‘harmonisation’, as the outcome is a dismantling of legal protections (legislation, regulations and codes) which have been developed over many years with the aim of protecting the lives and health of workers.

Governments committed to a 10 year strategy to reduce injuries, this will be unobtainable it these decreased protections are adopted.

The widespread support for greater OHS compliance, not less, means the ACTU Executive can condemn the DPM and State Governments for failing to honour undertakings that OHS ‘harmonisation’ would not result in lower standards and reduced protections for workers.

The OHS 2010 campaign is necessary to meet union objectives and by ensuring we work at all levels of the union movement in a coordinated way.

Essential provisions not in OHS model.

1. Elected Worker Health and Safety Rep rights/powers
a. HSR to have the power to issue to the employer a Provisional Improvement Notice and cease work upon election;
b. HSR to have choice of training provider;
c. HSR to notify employer with at least two weeks notice of intention to attend training.
d. Rights to number of training days as per the South Australian provisions.

2. Workers obligations: removal of reference to employer policy and procedures to be replaced with reference to workers knowledge;

3. The use of the loophole “so far as reasonably practicable” to be deleted;

4. Removal of the right of the regulator to disqualify HSR;

5. Risk management processes for all risks to be a Regulation, noting that is not in the Model WHS Act which is the ACTU policy position.

Risk management regulation must include requirements re consultation, review and monitoring of risks as well as application of the hierarchy of control;

6. Right of victims and their representatives to initiate prosecutions;

7. Genuine tripartisim.

As OHS laws largely reside in state jurisdictions, state Labor Councils (TLCs) and their affiliates are to campaign to influence the law or regulations and ensuring the important gains in each state and territory are not diminished by the national process.

Key unions have expertise and experience in specific areas of the regulations that relate to their industry and this expertise will be utilised in the process.

Union OHS resources have to improve. Greater consultation has to occur with and feedback to TLCs and Unions during the process of regulation review.

I have yet to see a 2010 analysis of the draft Model Act in relation to ACTU and State and territory TLCS which clearly outlines the shortfalls in standards. This analysis ought to be collated and made available as soon as possible.

Despite this election year politics,the ACTU can identify and provide to affiliates and TLCs a detailed timeframe of the regulation review to enable unions to provide quality feedback on proposals for change and state TLCs time to adequately lobby and influence state officials and campaigns to block draft legislation in state parliaments.

ACTU representatives ought to make it clear and have it recorded that we cannot endorse the Model WHS Act as our threshold issues have not been met.

The current drafts of the Administrative Regulations (which include requirements for HSR Elections, HSR training and Union right of Entry) and the Hazard Specific Regulations will provide lesser protections than exist in current law, are deregulatory and that this must be rectified as a matter of urgency.

Given the disease and cost burden caused by psychosocial risks (Productivity Commission Report 2009) ACTU representatives are to insist that psychological risks be addressed by regulation and supporting codes of practice.

Now is the time for an OHS YRAW. More to come…

yraw voting-badge

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‘Information Communication technologies (ICT) including social networking and games provide new opportunities for education a review of research released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) argues.

But, according to Australian Education Review 56, the ‘off the shelf’ mentality which currently underpins the provision of computers in Australian schools may be stifling rather than enhancing innovation.

The review Building Innovation: Learning with technologies by University of Canberra academic Kathryn Moyle explores national and international policy priorities for building students’ innovation capabilities through information and communication technologies (ICT).

Releasing the review ACER’s chief executive Professor Geoff Masters noted that the importance of ICT literacy is now widely recognised in education policies across the world.

“ICT literacy is increasingly being given the policy status previously allocated only to literacy and numeracy,” he said. “We need to use the research to make the necessary changes to enhance the capabilities of students and teachers in this vital area of learning.”

The review’s author Kathryn Moyle said when used well technologies such as Web 2.0 social networking sites can help to develop literacy skills, critical thinking, teamwork and problem-solving skills.

“They can also provide students and teachers with opportunities to include social and explorative aspects in their learning,” Moyle said.

“Despite fears to the contrary, children could well be reading and writing more than their peers 20 years ago, albeit through a variety of media.”

The review argues that ICT must be used in learning environments in which students can take risks and experiment. It is critical of the largely unquestioned use of proprietary and off-the-shelf software packages.

Moyle argues for greater use of open access software and calls for recurrent funds paid for software licences to be redirected away from commercial vendors to the professional development of educators.

“This would create more innovative and creative education environments than we have in our schools at the moment and put money and resources where it is urgently required – into the development of the human infrastructure of schools.”

Kathryn Moyle is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Canberra. She has published extensively in the fields of technologies and their implications for school reform, curriculum assessment, teaching and learning, and school leadership.

Australian Education Review number 56, Building Innovation: Learning with technologies, by Kathryn Moyle, is available for download from the ACER website at
http://www.acer.edu.au/aer.

Print copies can be purchased from ACER Press. Contact customer service on 1800 338 402 or via email on sales@acer.edu.au

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