Saturday, August 27, 2005
Thomas McCosker, the Victorian sentenced to two years' jail in Fiji for having consensual sex with a man, has been freed.
Mr McCosker, 55, and Dhirendra Nadan, 23, were jailed for two years after being found guilty of homosexuality in a Fijian hotel room in March and for creating pornography by filming the act. The Fijian High Court has overturned their convictions.
Mr McCosker was arrested on April 3 as he waited to board a flight home to Australia and was held for five hours without charge. Within 48 hours Mr McCosker had been tried and jailed for two years on two charges of sodomy.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Justice Minister Chris Ellison both refused to comment on Mr McCosker's case, referring questions to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who said that Mr McCosker was "being afforded the normal consular assistance".
Both Ministers spoke publicly on the Schapelle Corby case.
(Source: The Age)
Mr McCosker, 55, and Dhirendra Nadan, 23, were jailed for two years after being found guilty of homosexuality in a Fijian hotel room in March and for creating pornography by filming the act. The Fijian High Court has overturned their convictions.
Mr McCosker was arrested on April 3 as he waited to board a flight home to Australia and was held for five hours without charge. Within 48 hours Mr McCosker had been tried and jailed for two years on two charges of sodomy.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Justice Minister Chris Ellison both refused to comment on Mr McCosker's case, referring questions to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who said that Mr McCosker was "being afforded the normal consular assistance".
Both Ministers spoke publicly on the Schapelle Corby case.
(Source: The Age)
Coca-Cola distributed 'free fertilzer' to people living near one its bottling plants in India, which was in fact toxic waste.
The State Pollution Control Board of Kerala ordered the plant shut down because "toxic products from the plant were affecting drinking water in nearby villages" and that the plant "has also not provided drinking water in a satisfying manner to local residents".
Local people began noticing that their wells were running dry soon after the company set up operations in 2001. Two years ago a local doctor declared the water still available in the wells unfit for consumption.
In July 2003, a BBC Radio-4 report, after carrying out tests at the University of Exeter in Britain, said the 'fertilizer' distributed for free by Coca-Cola was dangerously laden with heavy metals, especially cadmium and lead, and already contaminating the food chain. The sludge also had no value as fertilizer, the report said.
Cadmium is a carcinogen which causes kidney damage while exposure to lead can lead to mental derangement and death, and is particularly dangerous for children causing them severe anemia and mental retardation. The BBC report quoted Professor John Henry, a leading toxicity expert and consultant at St Mary's Hospital in London, warn of "devastating consequences for those living near areas where this waste has been dumped and for the thousands who depend on crops produced in these fields".
(Source: Asia Times [Hong Kong])
The State Pollution Control Board of Kerala ordered the plant shut down because "toxic products from the plant were affecting drinking water in nearby villages" and that the plant "has also not provided drinking water in a satisfying manner to local residents".
Local people began noticing that their wells were running dry soon after the company set up operations in 2001. Two years ago a local doctor declared the water still available in the wells unfit for consumption.
In July 2003, a BBC Radio-4 report, after carrying out tests at the University of Exeter in Britain, said the 'fertilizer' distributed for free by Coca-Cola was dangerously laden with heavy metals, especially cadmium and lead, and already contaminating the food chain. The sludge also had no value as fertilizer, the report said.
Cadmium is a carcinogen which causes kidney damage while exposure to lead can lead to mental derangement and death, and is particularly dangerous for children causing them severe anemia and mental retardation. The BBC report quoted Professor John Henry, a leading toxicity expert and consultant at St Mary's Hospital in London, warn of "devastating consequences for those living near areas where this waste has been dumped and for the thousands who depend on crops produced in these fields".
(Source: Asia Times [Hong Kong])
America's leading 'televangelist' has called on the US government to assassinate the left-wing President of a South American country.
Former Republican Presidential candidate Pat Robertson told his 7 million viewers that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was "a dangerous enemy".
He added that Venezuela controlled "a huge pool of oil", and that "this is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen...it's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
President Chavez has spoken of his fears of an assassination organised by the US government. US officials are believed to have at least had prior knowledge of an unsuccessful military coup against him in 2002.
(Source: The Guardian [UK])
Former Republican Presidential candidate Pat Robertson told his 7 million viewers that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was "a dangerous enemy".
He added that Venezuela controlled "a huge pool of oil", and that "this is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen...it's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
President Chavez has spoken of his fears of an assassination organised by the US government. US officials are believed to have at least had prior knowledge of an unsuccessful military coup against him in 2002.
(Source: The Guardian [UK])
Monday, August 22, 2005
The Port of Melbourne has allowed water contaminated with massive levels of cancer-causing arsenic to leach from one of its properties into the Maribyrnong River for four years.
About 200 people a week fish within a kilometre of the arsenic poisoning at Yarraville, in Melbourne's inner west.
Despite a series of contamination tests, neither the port nor the Environment Protection Authority - which knew for 10 years about the extremely high arsenic levels - warned the fishermen. The EPA did not test the fish. The last time it tested the river water for arsenic was in the 1970s.
The state's environmental watchdog managed to extract a clean-up plan from the port authority only this month.
The port discovered the arsenic problem before its 2001 purchase of the Whitehall Street, Yarraville, property, one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in Victoria. But under the contract of sale, the port authority "forever released" the former owner, fertiliser company Pivot, from any legal or financial liability to clean up the site.
Taxpayers will now pay to decontaminate the land, which had housed a chemical, fertiliser and acid plant since the 1840s. The port is understood to have put aside more than $4.5 million, but the final cost could be more than $10 million.
Tests over 10 years have shown the groundwater has up to 20,000 times the arsenic level regarded as environmentally safe and 81 times the criteria for human contact. The tests measure pollution flowing to the river, not levels in the river itself.
The latest report, commissioned by the port, was conducted by independent auditor Roger Parker. It found the groundwater is leaking copper into the Maribyrnong at 154,000 times the EPA limit for the environment. Zinc is leaching at up to 5000 times the limit and lead up to 250 times. The levels of ammonia are 33,500 times the standard set as healthy for human contact.
According to a 2001 report by consultant Peter Ramsay for Pivot, the EPA has been concerned about arsenic levels in the Maribyrnong since the 1990s. In 1995 it received a report showing arsenic leaching at about 3000 times the standard. For five years it did nothing about the arsenic.
The port paid a laboratory to continue testing the groundwater during 2003, but no one was interpreting the results, which included the highest levels of arsenic in eight years of testing.
The port authority's executive in charge of overseeing the site's environmental problems, Nick Easy, has recently been made the head of the channel-deepening project.
Mr Parker's report found the contaminated groundwater had an unacceptable and significant impact on the Maribyrnong River and there was potential for the polluted water to affect aquatic life.
The ground water is also leaching cobalt, iron, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, selenium and cadmium into the Maribyrnong.
Long-term exposure to arsenic can cause cancers and organ and skin damage.
The EPA admitted it had not conducted tests on the river since the 1970s - when it had low arsenic levels - and had relied on a report from a private consultant (Ramsay), who took three samples in 2001 to feel assured that levels of arsenic in the river were safe.
The site has remained vacant since Pivot moved out in late 2003.
The contamination - arsenic, copper, lead, zinc, aldrin, dieldrin and cyanide - has made it unsafe for workers.
The site's clean-up is due to be completed in 2007.
(Source: The Age)
About 200 people a week fish within a kilometre of the arsenic poisoning at Yarraville, in Melbourne's inner west.
Despite a series of contamination tests, neither the port nor the Environment Protection Authority - which knew for 10 years about the extremely high arsenic levels - warned the fishermen. The EPA did not test the fish. The last time it tested the river water for arsenic was in the 1970s.
The state's environmental watchdog managed to extract a clean-up plan from the port authority only this month.
The port discovered the arsenic problem before its 2001 purchase of the Whitehall Street, Yarraville, property, one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in Victoria. But under the contract of sale, the port authority "forever released" the former owner, fertiliser company Pivot, from any legal or financial liability to clean up the site.
Taxpayers will now pay to decontaminate the land, which had housed a chemical, fertiliser and acid plant since the 1840s. The port is understood to have put aside more than $4.5 million, but the final cost could be more than $10 million.
Tests over 10 years have shown the groundwater has up to 20,000 times the arsenic level regarded as environmentally safe and 81 times the criteria for human contact. The tests measure pollution flowing to the river, not levels in the river itself.
The latest report, commissioned by the port, was conducted by independent auditor Roger Parker. It found the groundwater is leaking copper into the Maribyrnong at 154,000 times the EPA limit for the environment. Zinc is leaching at up to 5000 times the limit and lead up to 250 times. The levels of ammonia are 33,500 times the standard set as healthy for human contact.
According to a 2001 report by consultant Peter Ramsay for Pivot, the EPA has been concerned about arsenic levels in the Maribyrnong since the 1990s. In 1995 it received a report showing arsenic leaching at about 3000 times the standard. For five years it did nothing about the arsenic.
The port paid a laboratory to continue testing the groundwater during 2003, but no one was interpreting the results, which included the highest levels of arsenic in eight years of testing.
The port authority's executive in charge of overseeing the site's environmental problems, Nick Easy, has recently been made the head of the channel-deepening project.
Mr Parker's report found the contaminated groundwater had an unacceptable and significant impact on the Maribyrnong River and there was potential for the polluted water to affect aquatic life.
The ground water is also leaching cobalt, iron, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, selenium and cadmium into the Maribyrnong.
Long-term exposure to arsenic can cause cancers and organ and skin damage.
The EPA admitted it had not conducted tests on the river since the 1970s - when it had low arsenic levels - and had relied on a report from a private consultant (Ramsay), who took three samples in 2001 to feel assured that levels of arsenic in the river were safe.
The site has remained vacant since Pivot moved out in late 2003.
The contamination - arsenic, copper, lead, zinc, aldrin, dieldrin and cyanide - has made it unsafe for workers.
The site's clean-up is due to be completed in 2007.
(Source: The Age)
The US ambassador to Iraq has been accused by Iraqi and Kurdish politicians of pressuring them into accepting a primary role for Islamic law in the new Iraqi constitition.
The current working draft of the constitution stipulates that no law can contradict Islamic principles. In talks with Shiite religious parties, Kurdish negotiators said they had pressed unsuccessfully to limit the definition of Islamic law to agreed-upon religious principles.
The Kurds said current language in the constitutional draft would subject Iraqis to extreme interpretations.
Kurds contend provisions in the draft would allow Islamic clerics to serve on the high court that would interpret the constitution. That would potentially subject marriage, divorce, inheritance and other civil matters to religious law, and could harm women's rights in particular, Kurdish negotiators and some women's groups said.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had specifically supported those provisions, urging other groups to accept them, according to Kurds involved in the talks.
Salih Mutlak, a Sunni delegate who has been outspoken against some compromise proposals, said "his main interest is to push the constitution on time. No matter what the constitution has in it."
US officials have declined to comment.
(Source: The Age)
The current working draft of the constitution stipulates that no law can contradict Islamic principles. In talks with Shiite religious parties, Kurdish negotiators said they had pressed unsuccessfully to limit the definition of Islamic law to agreed-upon religious principles.
The Kurds said current language in the constitutional draft would subject Iraqis to extreme interpretations.
Kurds contend provisions in the draft would allow Islamic clerics to serve on the high court that would interpret the constitution. That would potentially subject marriage, divorce, inheritance and other civil matters to religious law, and could harm women's rights in particular, Kurdish negotiators and some women's groups said.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had specifically supported those provisions, urging other groups to accept them, according to Kurds involved in the talks.
Salih Mutlak, a Sunni delegate who has been outspoken against some compromise proposals, said "his main interest is to push the constitution on time. No matter what the constitution has in it."
US officials have declined to comment.
(Source: The Age)
Asbestos victims have renewed protest action against James Hardies as the company delays paying compensation until it can find tax loopholes to minimise the payment.
Announcing a quarterly profit of $74.1 million, James Hardies CEO Louis Gries admitted the company was holding off making payments to victims while seeking a ruling from the Australian Tax Office that the compensation be tax deductible.
(Source: Workers Online)
Announcing a quarterly profit of $74.1 million, James Hardies CEO Louis Gries admitted the company was holding off making payments to victims while seeking a ruling from the Australian Tax Office that the compensation be tax deductible.
(Source: Workers Online)
Melbourne City Council has been accused of abandoning he elderly and disabled by watering down proposed building access rules under pressure from the State government.
Under the city's original plans, all new residential and commercial buildings would have to be accessible by wheelchair, have room to move outside, and be adaptable for disabled people. Measures would include wider door- and hallways and no steps between key rooms.
However senior city planner John Noonan has suggested a number of changes to the proposals. The new proposals would not regulate commercial buildings at all, and require only 20 percent of new residences to be accessible. They would also remove all references to 'visitability' and 'adaptability'.
(Source: Melbourne Times)
Under the city's original plans, all new residential and commercial buildings would have to be accessible by wheelchair, have room to move outside, and be adaptable for disabled people. Measures would include wider door- and hallways and no steps between key rooms.
However senior city planner John Noonan has suggested a number of changes to the proposals. The new proposals would not regulate commercial buildings at all, and require only 20 percent of new residences to be accessible. They would also remove all references to 'visitability' and 'adaptability'.
(Source: Melbourne Times)
The Immigration Department intends to deport a man who is nearly blind as a result of an industrial accident he suffered while working Australia, without either his medical treatment or his compensation claim being finalised.
The Sri Lankan man was in Australia legally when a large metal weight fell on him while he was working at an outer-suburban factory, leaving him with severe head, back and eye injuries.
Immigration officers waited outside Melbourne's Mercy Hospital earlier this year to take him into custody after his appeal for a protection visa was turned down.
The man was at the hospital for continuing treatment of the injuries that have left him with only 70 per cent vision.
WorkCover confirmed that its insurer, Cambridge Insurance, co-operated with the Immigration Department to tip it off to details of its claimant's hospital appointment.
Another Workcover claimant, now in Maribyrnong detention centre, was called to his former employer's premises earlier this year on the pretext that the company needed to discuss his payments. When he arrived, he was met instead by immigration officers.
The 34-year old man, who has lived in Australia for 10 years, was on a bridging visa when his hand was severely injured in an industrial accident, leaving him unable to work.
Deporting the two men is unlikely to save the government any money, as people can continue to receive WorkCover payments overseas.
(Source: The Age)
The Sri Lankan man was in Australia legally when a large metal weight fell on him while he was working at an outer-suburban factory, leaving him with severe head, back and eye injuries.
Immigration officers waited outside Melbourne's Mercy Hospital earlier this year to take him into custody after his appeal for a protection visa was turned down.
The man was at the hospital for continuing treatment of the injuries that have left him with only 70 per cent vision.
WorkCover confirmed that its insurer, Cambridge Insurance, co-operated with the Immigration Department to tip it off to details of its claimant's hospital appointment.
Another Workcover claimant, now in Maribyrnong detention centre, was called to his former employer's premises earlier this year on the pretext that the company needed to discuss his payments. When he arrived, he was met instead by immigration officers.
The 34-year old man, who has lived in Australia for 10 years, was on a bridging visa when his hand was severely injured in an industrial accident, leaving him unable to work.
Deporting the two men is unlikely to save the government any money, as people can continue to receive WorkCover payments overseas.
(Source: The Age)
Friday, August 12, 2005
Working parents have have won new rights to take time off to care for their children, under what could be last national test case heard by the Industrial Relations Commission.
The commission gave working parents the right to switch from full- to part-time employment until their child reaches school age, and to ask for up to two years of unpaid parental leave.
Working fathers will have the right to take up to eight weeks leave off after the birth of their child.
Australia's 1.8 million workers on awards will have 10 days leave each year to care for sick children or other family members, up from five. And employees who have used up all their leave will up to two days unpaid emergency leave to care for their family.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the changes but said small and medium businesses would struggle with claims from employees. Spokesman Peter Anderson said "what's needed is more flexibility."
(Source: MX)
The commission gave working parents the right to switch from full- to part-time employment until their child reaches school age, and to ask for up to two years of unpaid parental leave.
Working fathers will have the right to take up to eight weeks leave off after the birth of their child.
Australia's 1.8 million workers on awards will have 10 days leave each year to care for sick children or other family members, up from five. And employees who have used up all their leave will up to two days unpaid emergency leave to care for their family.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the changes but said small and medium businesses would struggle with claims from employees. Spokesman Peter Anderson said "what's needed is more flexibility."
(Source: MX)
A vast expanse of western Sibera is melting and could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists have warned.
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
The area is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.
It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.
The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.
Dr Sergei Kirpotin said the situation was an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.
Climate scientists warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.
"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
"This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing."
In its last major report in 2001, the intergovernmental panel on climate change predicted a rise in global temperatures of 1.4C-5.8C between 1990 and 2100, but the estimate only takes account of global warming driven by known greenhouse gas emissions.
"These positive feedbacks with landmasses weren't known about then. They had no idea how much they would add to global warming," said Dr Viner.
Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. Scientists are particularly concerned about the permafrost, because as it thaws, it reveals bare ground which warms up more quickly than ice and snow, and so accelerates the rate at which the permafrost thaws.
Siberia's peat bogs have been producing methane since they formed at the end of the last ice age, but most of the gas had been trapped in the permafrost. According to Larry Smith, a hydrologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70bn tonnes of methane, a quarter of all of the methane stored in the ground around the world.
The permafrost is likely to take many decades at least to thaw, so the methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst, said Stephen Sitch, a climate scientist at the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter.
But calculations by Dr Sitch and his colleagues show that even if methane seeped from the permafrost over the next 100 years, it would add around 700m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, roughly the same amount that is released annually from the world's wetlands and agriculture.
It would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming, he said.
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said the finding was a stark message to politicians to take concerted action on climate change.
"We knew at some point we'd get these feedbacks happening that exacerbate global warming, but this could lead to a massive injection of greenhouse gases.
"If we don't take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide," he said. "There's still time to take action, but not much.
"The assumption has been that we wouldn't see these kinds of changes until the world is a little warmer, but this suggests we're running out of time."
In May this year, another group of researchers reported signs that global warming was damaging the permafrost. Katey Walter of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told a meeting of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US that her team had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia. At the hotspots, methane was bubbling to the surface of the permafrost so quickly that it was preventing the surface from freezing over.
Last month, some of the world's worst air polluters, including the US and Australia, announced a response to global warming which sets no targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
(Source: The Guardian [UK])
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
The area is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.
It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.
The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.
Dr Sergei Kirpotin said the situation was an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.
Climate scientists warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.
"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
"This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing."
In its last major report in 2001, the intergovernmental panel on climate change predicted a rise in global temperatures of 1.4C-5.8C between 1990 and 2100, but the estimate only takes account of global warming driven by known greenhouse gas emissions.
"These positive feedbacks with landmasses weren't known about then. They had no idea how much they would add to global warming," said Dr Viner.
Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. Scientists are particularly concerned about the permafrost, because as it thaws, it reveals bare ground which warms up more quickly than ice and snow, and so accelerates the rate at which the permafrost thaws.
Siberia's peat bogs have been producing methane since they formed at the end of the last ice age, but most of the gas had been trapped in the permafrost. According to Larry Smith, a hydrologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70bn tonnes of methane, a quarter of all of the methane stored in the ground around the world.
The permafrost is likely to take many decades at least to thaw, so the methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst, said Stephen Sitch, a climate scientist at the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter.
But calculations by Dr Sitch and his colleagues show that even if methane seeped from the permafrost over the next 100 years, it would add around 700m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, roughly the same amount that is released annually from the world's wetlands and agriculture.
It would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming, he said.
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said the finding was a stark message to politicians to take concerted action on climate change.
"We knew at some point we'd get these feedbacks happening that exacerbate global warming, but this could lead to a massive injection of greenhouse gases.
"If we don't take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide," he said. "There's still time to take action, but not much.
"The assumption has been that we wouldn't see these kinds of changes until the world is a little warmer, but this suggests we're running out of time."
In May this year, another group of researchers reported signs that global warming was damaging the permafrost. Katey Walter of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told a meeting of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US that her team had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia. At the hotspots, methane was bubbling to the surface of the permafrost so quickly that it was preventing the surface from freezing over.
Last month, some of the world's worst air polluters, including the US and Australia, announced a response to global warming which sets no targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
(Source: The Guardian [UK])
The head of Telstra has threatened that Telstra will be reluctant to invest money in rural services, if government regulations are not eased.
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo has proposed a plan in which Telstra will pay part of the $5 billion cost of improving fibre cable, wireless and satellite services in rural areas. Part of the cost would be paid by public money. The government would also be expected to ease government regulations in the industry.
The Liberal and National Parties have both welcomed Mr Trujillo's plan.
Telstra has announced a record profit for the past financial year.
(Source: The Age)
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo has proposed a plan in which Telstra will pay part of the $5 billion cost of improving fibre cable, wireless and satellite services in rural areas. Part of the cost would be paid by public money. The government would also be expected to ease government regulations in the industry.
The Liberal and National Parties have both welcomed Mr Trujillo's plan.
Telstra has announced a record profit for the past financial year.
(Source: The Age)
Friday, August 05, 2005
A survey of young workers in New South Wales has shown that they could easily be exploited under the government's new industrial relations laws.
The survey of 5000 workers aged between 12 and 25 was commissioned by the NSW Department of Industrial Relations and conducted by Sydney University's workplace think tank, accirt, in March and April.
The survey found that
. Half of those who thought they were in permanent work in fact received no paid leave.
. Half had not received any written information about pay, hours of work or safety when they started their jobs.
. A quarter never got pay slips.
. One in seven casuals worked unpaid overtime.
NSW Workplace Relations Minister John Della Bosca said the survey showed that young people could easiliy be exploited under the Federal Government's proposed workplace changes.
"Given their vulnerability, young people will fare much worse if they are forced to negotiate individually with their employers - which is what it appears the Government wants," Mr Della Bosca said.
"This survey demonstrates that even with the existing safety net in place, young, vulnerable employees are in no position to negotiate their own overtime, penalty rates, holidays or redundancy arrangements."
20 year old Seval Oksuz was promoted from the checkout counter at IGA supermarkets to store supervisor. For more than two years she remained on the same pay grade of $7 an hour, with only an extra $5 weekly allowance. She said she should have been receiving about $17 an hour.
Earlier this year, the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court found that that her employer, IGA Express Waterloo, had not awarded her the appropriate grade. She was awarded more than $14,000 in unpaid wages and interest. Another employee, Corina Powell, was awarded more than $19,000.
"All of the casual workers were being underpaid," Ms Oksuz said. "We were able to get some help because we were in the union."
23-year-old Anne Shean was told by her employer, a Sydney nail salon, that she would have to work without pay for three months to get the job.
"We did a four-day training in the city and they didn't pay us," Ms Shean said.
"Then I started working with them and they said they would pay me and after two weeks I hadn't received any pay.
"I spoke to the owner and they said there would be no pay for the first three months' probation period." Ms Shean left the job and later received about $700 in unpaid wages after the Office of Industrial Relations sent the company a letter.
(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)
The survey of 5000 workers aged between 12 and 25 was commissioned by the NSW Department of Industrial Relations and conducted by Sydney University's workplace think tank, accirt, in March and April.
The survey found that
. Half of those who thought they were in permanent work in fact received no paid leave.
. Half had not received any written information about pay, hours of work or safety when they started their jobs.
. A quarter never got pay slips.
. One in seven casuals worked unpaid overtime.
NSW Workplace Relations Minister John Della Bosca said the survey showed that young people could easiliy be exploited under the Federal Government's proposed workplace changes.
"Given their vulnerability, young people will fare much worse if they are forced to negotiate individually with their employers - which is what it appears the Government wants," Mr Della Bosca said.
"This survey demonstrates that even with the existing safety net in place, young, vulnerable employees are in no position to negotiate their own overtime, penalty rates, holidays or redundancy arrangements."
20 year old Seval Oksuz was promoted from the checkout counter at IGA supermarkets to store supervisor. For more than two years she remained on the same pay grade of $7 an hour, with only an extra $5 weekly allowance. She said she should have been receiving about $17 an hour.
Earlier this year, the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court found that that her employer, IGA Express Waterloo, had not awarded her the appropriate grade. She was awarded more than $14,000 in unpaid wages and interest. Another employee, Corina Powell, was awarded more than $19,000.
"All of the casual workers were being underpaid," Ms Oksuz said. "We were able to get some help because we were in the union."
23-year-old Anne Shean was told by her employer, a Sydney nail salon, that she would have to work without pay for three months to get the job.
"We did a four-day training in the city and they didn't pay us," Ms Shean said.
"Then I started working with them and they said they would pay me and after two weeks I hadn't received any pay.
"I spoke to the owner and they said there would be no pay for the first three months' probation period." Ms Shean left the job and later received about $700 in unpaid wages after the Office of Industrial Relations sent the company a letter.
(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)
The government will spend up to $100 million of public money for an advertising campaign promoting the new industrial relations laws.
The main messages in the forthcoming TV, radio and print campaign will be that the changes will protect workers' rights, create jobs and retain the Australian way of life.
Mr Robb said while some workers had flexibility at the moment to hold on to their way of life, the point of the changes would be to extend that flexibility to the whole workforce.
Public servants in the federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, who will administer the new laws, have gone on strike. They reject the government's plans to remove their access to the Industrial Relations Commission, and to cut redundancy benefits enjoyed by staff who have more than 20 years' service and for those aged over 45. The Community and Public Sector Union said the policy of forcing new employees to sign individual contracts was also a cause of the industrial action.
(Source: The Age)
The main messages in the forthcoming TV, radio and print campaign will be that the changes will protect workers' rights, create jobs and retain the Australian way of life.
Mr Robb said while some workers had flexibility at the moment to hold on to their way of life, the point of the changes would be to extend that flexibility to the whole workforce.
Public servants in the federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, who will administer the new laws, have gone on strike. They reject the government's plans to remove their access to the Industrial Relations Commission, and to cut redundancy benefits enjoyed by staff who have more than 20 years' service and for those aged over 45. The Community and Public Sector Union said the policy of forcing new employees to sign individual contracts was also a cause of the industrial action.
(Source: The Age)
The chairman of the fundamentalist Christian Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, is under investigation for breach of reporting requirements after failing to lodge financial statements that would reveal his earnings and assets.
The Office of Fair Trading was yesterday preparing a letter asking why the association through which Mr Houston received all income from the church, book writing and speaking on the lucrative pentecostal circuit had failed to file financial accounts for three years.
A spokesman for the OFT said Leadership Ministries Incorporated, of which Mr Houston and wife Bobbie are directors, was incorporated in October 2001 but had so far lodged no financial statements.
Under the NSW Associations Incorporation Act, LMI must report annual income and expenditure, total assets and liabilities, the number of employees and any mortgages and charges, the spokesman said.
Mr and Mrs Houston sold two properties to the not-for-profit association for a total personal gain of $693,000.
LMI paid Mrs Houston $650,000 in February 2002 for a Bondi Beach apartment in the same block as one owned by Jamie Packer, and last year paid the couple $780,000 for a 1.278ha property on the Hawkesbury river, north of Sydney. Hillsong Church Ltd's accounts noted last year that the church paid LMI $69,041 for contracted services.
(Source: The Australian)
The Office of Fair Trading was yesterday preparing a letter asking why the association through which Mr Houston received all income from the church, book writing and speaking on the lucrative pentecostal circuit had failed to file financial accounts for three years.
A spokesman for the OFT said Leadership Ministries Incorporated, of which Mr Houston and wife Bobbie are directors, was incorporated in October 2001 but had so far lodged no financial statements.
Under the NSW Associations Incorporation Act, LMI must report annual income and expenditure, total assets and liabilities, the number of employees and any mortgages and charges, the spokesman said.
Mr and Mrs Houston sold two properties to the not-for-profit association for a total personal gain of $693,000.
LMI paid Mrs Houston $650,000 in February 2002 for a Bondi Beach apartment in the same block as one owned by Jamie Packer, and last year paid the couple $780,000 for a 1.278ha property on the Hawkesbury river, north of Sydney. Hillsong Church Ltd's accounts noted last year that the church paid LMI $69,041 for contracted services.
(Source: The Australian)
