The Labor Party will allow employees of small businesses to be sacked without any right to make an unfair dismissal claim, provided their employer reported them to the police for suspected theft or violence - even if the report was totally spurious.

Labor's policy allows small businesses - actually defined as any business with less than 15 employees - to sack staff if they first report the staff member to police for suspected theft, fraud or violence. The charges don't need to have any evidence, or result in any charges being laid.

Such businesses will also have a year to sack new staff without any risk of court claims under the ALP policy.

They will also have the right to make staff redundant without redundancy payments, no matter how long they had employed them, provided they could demonstrate a downturn in their business or a reduction in need for staff because of the introduction of new technology.

(Source: The Australian)

 

A Qantas passenger says that a flight attendant made a series of anti-Semitic remarks to him, even after discovering he was Jewish.

David Moses says that the flight attendant complained to him about another passenger, telling him that "that's what you get when you deal with Jews."

When Mr Moses told her he was Jewish, he says she replied "well, you better tell her that she's letting your team down."

The attendant added a remark along the lines of "I'll tell you who's the worst, South African Jews."

Mr Moses says he made a telephone complaint and sent two emails to Qantas' customer service, but received no answer other than an automated email reply for two weeks.

(Source: Herald-Sun)

 

Two hundred prisoners on periodic detention will be excused from part of their sentences - in order to make room for an expected mass arrest of protestors.

Two hundred prisoners will be allowed home over the long weekend of September 7-9. Federal and state police have asked the New South Wales government to make space for up to 500 protestors, who are expected to be arrested during demonstrations against the APEC summit in Sydney.

The Labor Party has criticised the decision. However they have not objected to the decision to prioritise political protestors over ordinary criminals, nor to deciding on mass arrests before any crime has been committed. Rather, shadow attorney-general Greg Smith said that "there are sporting stadiums, army disposal areas and other places they could have arranged."

The arrested protestors will also be denied the presumption of bail.

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Staff from the Prime Minister's own department have been making changes to an online encyclopedia, removing material which is critical of the government.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is set up so that any person can make changes to articles.

Staff from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet have been found to have made edits to Wikipedia's articles on topics such as the 'children overboard' affair, in which the government falsely claimed that refugees had thrown their own children into the sea.

Although some changes were corrections to factual errors, other changes involved removing material which could put the Liberal Party in a bad light, such as a reference to an unflattering nickname of Peter Costello's.

Wikipedia has a policy of 'NPOV', or Neutral Point of View, which forbids articles from promoting a single political viewpoint.

Electronic Frontiers Australia chairman Dale Clapperton said "you also have to ask yourself whether it's a responsible and reasonable use of taxpayer dollars to have public servants trying to sanitise entries on Wikipedia using taxpayer-paid resources to make their point of view more acceptable to the current Government."

However Mr Clapperton also said that Wikipedia's open and de-centralised nature was likely to protect it: "it's entirely possibly and probably likely that someone would then later come along look at the edits made to it by the Prime Minister's office and decided that the article was better as it used to be and those changes would've actually been reversed."

(Source: ABC News website, Wikipedia)

 

The Defence Minister has said that he sees no need to refer anti-Semitic and other racist emails circulating in the Defence Department to Defence Force commanders.

The emails included a mock 'rules of engagement' for pub crawls, which states that "while your commander will normally issue the first round, he may in fact be either too drunk already or Jewish" and that "you are not to back away unless a Leb is calling reinforcements on his mobile."

A seperate email claimed that refugees receive more government assistance than aged pensioners (in fact they receive less).

(Source: The Australian)

 

American authorities have refused to arrest a neo-Nazi who claimed on his radio show that he had arranged for an anti-racist activist to be beaten up.

Hal Turner said on his internet and shortwave radio show that "speaking of Floyd Cochran, he's gonna be in Newark, New Jersey this Saturday, and I have arranged for a group of guys to physically intercept him before he gets into the library in Newark. I don't think Floyd is going to make it into that library unscathed. I think he's going to get such a beating that his next stop is going to be University Hospital in Newark."

Last year Mr Turner made threats against various New Jersey judges, causing security around them to be increased. He was not charged for these threats either.

He has previously provided bomb-making instructions on his website, as well as a list of abortion clinics that he stated he hoped people bombed, again without being charged.

(Source: One People's Project [US])

 

A European academic has been arrested on suspicion of associating with a terrorist group, on grounds including that he had access to a library.

German police arrested Andrej Holm on suspicion of aiding the "militante gruppe" (mg), who are believed to be responsible for several acts of arson in Berlin.

Prosecutors cited such evidence as the fact that Mr Holm's academic work includes repeated use of words such as "gentrification" and "inequality", terms used by mg. Mr Holm's work is focussed on the subject of gentrification.

They also referred to the fact that he had twice met two men, who had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in an arson attack and who are accused of belonging to mg. Prosecutors claimed that it added to the "conspiratorial circumstances" that he did not take his mobile phone to the meetings.

As he had access to a library, he is also said to have been "intellectually in a position to compile the sophisticated texts of the 'militante gruppe'."

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

Quotes of the Moment:

"Well, again, let me just make sure that we're clear on facts. Our employees choose to enter into these agreements (Australian Workplace Agreements or AWAs) and they do it voluntarily. I have a chance to go out on trucks with our employees that are on these plans, I have chances to go into our call centres and talk to employees that are on these plans and they like 'em because it's a choice that they've made which helps them and their families do the things that they want to do. "

Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo.


"When Sol came to our call centre, only management were allowed to attend. We were not permitted off the phones, and I dont know anybody whose opinion was actually sought. When I completed my 'Employee Engagement Survey', I was bullied by the call centre manager who gave us minimal time to do it, and read what I was saying over my shoulder as I typed it. We asked to do the survey again, but our requests were ignored.

Bullying is standard management practice, as is disinformation. Morale is exceptionally bad in our call centre, and you dont have a choice about AWA's. You are required to put 25% of your wage at risk, and then they use that lost wage to employ more people on AWA's. There are only so many calls (potential sales) to go around. The more people they employ, the more wages you lose. And then they manipulate the sales targets so that people fail, and lose their 'at risk' component.

If you speak negatively about Telstra, you are instantly dismissed, and immediately escorted out of the building. I have never worked in a worse environment, and it shows in the staff turnover, which in our area is at record levels. So bad in fact, that the plan is now to replace us with agency temps or outsource our work."

A Telstra employee.

 

Two former workers on the construction of the US embassy in Baghdad say that foreign workers were deceptively recruited and trafficked to Iraq, where they experienced physical abuse and substandard working conditions.

The workers spoke at a US Senate Committee hearing on allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in the construction of the new US embassy, which cost nearly US$600 million ($715 million Australian).

John Owens, an American who worked for the First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co. as a foreman, said that the labourers lived in tightly-packed trailers and had "insufficient equipment and basic needs - stuff like gloves and shoes."

He said they worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as little as US$240 a month, were "verbally and physically abused" and had their pay docked for petty infractions.

Rory Mayberry testified that he had been told to escort a group of Filipino workers on to a flight in Baghdad, even though "all of our tickets said we were going to Dubai."

Mr Mayberry said that a First Kuwaiti manager told him not to tell any of the workers they were going to Iraq.

He said the men were essentially "kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work on the embassy", with their passports taken so that they were unable to leave.

First Kuwaiti won the contract after no US company could meet the US government's terms.

(Source: Washington Post [US])

 

Quote of the Moment:

"Those heroes [the Iraqi soccer team] showed the real Iraq. They've done something useful for the people as opposed to the politicians and lawmakers who are stealing or killing each other."

Iraq has no running water, electricity or safe streets, but its education system is apparently world-class.

 

Quote of the Moment:

"One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney 'explains' why neither of his children are in the armed forces.

 

Ex-pupils of an exclusive British college have made a video in which they pretend to hunt poor people.

Former students of Glenalmond College posted the video 'Class Wars' on YouTube.

The video shows tracksuit-wearing teenagers being chased and shot by mounted huntsmen.

The video, which was partly filmed on the school grounds, also shows a teenager in a baseball cap being pulled out of a river and given a mock beating by two tweed-wearing attackers.

(Source: MX)

 

Victorian Labor Premier John Brumby has said that the fairness of Federal workplace laws is "irrelevant" as he prepares to use them against unions making wage claims.

Mr Brumby said that "if workers take industrial action, and that includes work bans, then their pay is docked. That's the law under Work Choice."

Teachers, police and nurses are in pay disputes with the Victorian government.

(Source: MX)

 

Court orders for property re-posession have more than tripled since 2001 in Victoria, 12,000 housing loans are at least three months in arrears, and home ownership in many suburbs is out of the reach of most people who live there, according to new figures.

The Victorian Supreme Court issued 2734 possession orders in the year to June - a rate of 52 a week. That is up from from 897 orders in 2001.

A Reserve Bank submission to the Federal Government's inquiry on home lending says there has been a rise in the number of people behind in their loan repayments.

In March, 12,000 of the 5.5 million housing loans in Australia were in arrears by three months or more.

The Reserve Bank said that the rise is partly due to the fact that lenders "have broadened the range of households to which they are prepared to extend credit".

A report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia found that just 9 percent of homes in inner Melbourne were "affordable" last year, relative to household incomes. The figure was 42 percent in 2001.

For example, the report found the average borrowing capacity of an inner-suburban family was almost $400,000, but the median house price was $640,000.

Similarly, families in less central suburbs such as Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston could afford to borrow about $300,000 on average. But the median house price in those suburbs was $377,000.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

The Federal government has withdrawn one of its ads promoting the new WorkChoices industrial laws, after an actor who appeared in it as a concerned parent was accused of failing to pay a young worker $2000.

Damien Richardson appears in the ad as a concerned father who has been told that employers can rip off young workers. The message of the ad is that this isn't true.

Mr Richardson formerly ran a business, which engaged 18 year old Erin Gebert as a subcontractor. Mr Gebert says he is still owed $2000 worth of wages and superannuation.

Mr Gebert's father Peter said that Erin "explained this is the bloke that he worked for just under 12 months...and over that period of time, Erin got to the point where he had to resign effectively from an apprenticeship this bloke had signed up for him because he just continually wasn't getting paid."

(Source: ABC News website)

 

Western armed forces have lost track of about 190,000 weapons issued to pro-Western Iraqi forces since 2003, according to a government report.

The report by the United States government's accountability office said that the Pentagon and the multi-national force responsible for training 'cannot fully account for' about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets.

This means that the majority of the AK-47s, body armour and helmets issued to Iraqi forces are missing, as well as nearly half of the pistols.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

John Howard has described a video where an Australian soldier appears dressed as a Ku Klux Klansman as just 'letting off a bit of steam'.

The video, which was posted on YouTube, features repeated shots of a soldier dressed as a member of the KKK, along with footage of recruits drinking and vomiting.

Mr Howard said that "I have some understanding of the disposition of people in these situations to let off a bit of steam."

The Prime Minister said that the public should "let the military deal with those things in their own way."

"I just think people can over-react with these things. People get into a lather and sweat and so on...let's be sensible about this."

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

A new study of the costs to Australia of migration has found that the costs are few and short term, with most immigrants learning English and being on average healthier and less likely to be dependent on welfare than the average Australian citizen.

The 18-month study, The Social Costs and Benefits of Migration into Australia, was conducted by a research team from the University of New England's (UNE) Centre for Applied Research in Social Sciences.

The costs of migration were found to be low and mainly associated with migrants adjusting to Australia after their arrival.

Professor Kerry Carrington, who led the project, said that "there are few social costs associated with migration and most of these are short-term integration issues."

The report also said there was no evidence of "ethnic enclave ghettoes".

(Source: The Age)

 

Iraq war veterans have sued the US Department of Veterans Affairs, saying that the department has deliberately worked with the Pentagon to misclassify Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder claims as pre-existing disorders to avoid paying benefits.

The complaint seeks to represent between 320,000 and 800,000 veterans of the Iraq war who lawyers say are at risk of having PTSD.

As of March 31, roughly 52,375 Iraq veterans were evaluated at VA facilities for suspected PTSD, according to an internal quarterly VA report.

In July a federal appeals court in San Francisco issued a strong rebuke of the VA in ordering the agency to pay retroactive benefits to Vietnam War veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and contracted a form of leukemia.

"The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame," the opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals read.

In the lawsuit, the veterans note that government investigators warned as early as 2002 that the VA needed to fix its backlogged claims system and make other changes.

Yet, the lawsuit says, VA officials still insisted on a budget in 2005 that fell $1 billion short, and awarded senior officials $3.8 million in bonuses despite their role in the budget shortfall.

Today the VA's backlog of disability payments is between 400,000 and 600,000, with delays of up to 177 days to process an initial claim and an average of 657 days to process an appeal.

The lawsuit claims that "unless systemic and drastic measures are instituted immediately, the costs to these veterans, their families and our nation will be incalculable, including broken families, a new generation of unemployed and homeless veterans, increases in drug abuse and alcoholism, and crushing burdens on the health care delivery system."

(Source: Washington Post [US])

 

Police and security agencies will be given new powers including the ability to search suspects' homes and computers without their knowledge, monitor communications equipment without an interceptions warrant, seize equipment, and plant listening devices under new legislation introduced by the Federal government.

The new laws give Federal police the right to monitor communications equipment without an interceptions warrant.

Officers from the Federal police and other agencies would also be able to execute "delayed notification warrants", allowing them to undertake searches, seize equipment and plant listening devices in businesses and homes.

Police and security officers will be able to assume false identities to gain entry and conduct the surreptitious searches.

The person affected by the raid does not have to be informed for at least six months, or for 18 months if the warrant is rolled over.

The warrant is to be issued by the head of a police service or security agency without the approval of a judge. It can also be extended for more than 18 months.

The warrant can be issued for any offence that carries a prison term of 10 years or more.

The bill also allows foreign police and intelligence agencies to take part in undercover operations and to use false identities.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)