Tuesday 5th May 1998

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Recent stories exclusive to  (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:

One Nation breakfast - 4th May
Just who are the Mont Pelerin Society - 3rd May
The Internet and the DEATH of the MAI - 30th April  
Launch of Pauline Hanson's re-election campaign - 29th April  
Second One Nation protest surprises Bob McMullan - 28th April  
Sultan of Brunei buys up big tracks of Australia - then negotiates Indonesian "settlements" 25th April
Maritime Union of Australia win in the Federal Court 22nd April
Just who is behind the dock war? 19th April
One Nation Birthday Party on Pauline Hanson's farm 10th-12th April
One Nation state and federal candidates meet in Toowoomba 4th -5th April

Current topical links (available to all readers):
[Links to the MAI]
[Queensland One Nation State Election website] [One Nation Federal Web Site]
Archive of weekly features (available to all readers):
[The Canberra Column] [Economic Rationalism]

Today's Headlines
an Aussie's viewpoint on Australia's first daily Internet newspaper.
Since October 1995

Some time with Pauline.

Yesterday I was able to spend some time chatting to Pauline Hanson one to one at her farm near Ipswich. There were no photographs, no eager fans, just idle chatter about the transformation that has overtaken her life in the last two years.

I asked her how she could have coped with the radical changes and challenges in her life from a shy Ipswich Councillor who was known for her timidity and who wouldn't say "Boo" at a Council meeting in 1995 - but who was known to stick her foot down and play an almost invisible role in getting changes or resolutions passed.

No one has to be told what her life is like today, the media pursue her relentlessly and in just 24 months she has transformed, forever, what is happening to politics in this country and has taken a major hold on its direction. The major parties fear her growing support while the mainstream media do their damnedest to try to destroy her.

Pauline could not work out why she had been "chosen" to take on the immense task that she has. When I asked her she said that when confronted by an individual last week who said, "Pauline there are others who could do the job that you are doing much better than you," she replied "Tell me who and he or she's got the job". After a pregnant pause the man said "There is no-one else". Pauline replied, "When you find him or her let me know he or she can have the job".

This is the phenomenon that is Pauline. A single woman selling fish and chips, a council election loss by just 130 votes, resulting in a suggestion that she enter the federal stage to that infamous letter to the Queensland Times, being turfed out from the Liberal Party to the events of the last year. All that has happened and is happening is uncanny.

There are just too many coincidences and events that have formed a massive, complex, unwinding chain that has transformed Pauline from a shy councillor with determination to a woman of vision with guts who can speak at length from the heart to large crowds without any notes.

Personally I think the extraordinary transformation has come from the strength she gets from those who stand solidly behind her. The growing number of One Nation supporters around Australia are all that she needs to face the blinding glare of the television cameras and the distorted images continually pushed by the mainstream media.

The launch of One Nation in April last year was truly the watershed for her. She was ready to give it all away when the protesters mobbed her as she tried to get into the Ipswich Civic Centre to meet the 400 guests inside.

The standing applause she got once inside gave her the strength to go on and, indeed, to speak in a manner which One Nation director, David Ettridge,  described as "bringing tears to his eyes" in Helen Dodd's book, "Pauline, the Hanson phenomenon".

Her inspiration came from the knowledge, to put it in her words, "I realised that all those people who had come to hear me speak had had to go through the same treatment as I had. I could not let them down."

Her ability to touch on issues which the Australian nation had put in the too hard basket - intimidated by minority groups and the new class of media-driven "ethics" in society where gay and lesbian activity was somehow acceptable if not good, where you could not be a racist unless you were an anglo-saxon individual, where the ATSIC industry was accountable to no-one, where the system had been corrupted by the Canberra based lobbyists and international Australian bureaucrats operating outside the constitution.

Her ability to take control, to lead, to support, to "feel out" a situation.. is quite remarkable. I have seen this time and time again. It's not political nous - it's more than that - it's raw empathy.

We looked at the Toowoomba page - where 40 state One Nation candidates gathered. An event that she could not attend as she had prior commitments at Lightening Ridge.

I showed her a picture of the One Nation candidates gathered behind Paul Trewartha. "What's that?" she asked. I told her.... All of a sudden what she had started seemed to hit her. "Sometimes I have to pinch myself," she said. "I feel like I'm just being carried along..."

Her strength in not just raising the issues but tackling them defied logic. The media vilified her, fringe ALP groups violently protested at her meetings and yet she stuck to her guns. Here we had a new woman the woman who wouldn't say "Boo" at a council meeting now taking on the evil world of power politics.

At lunchtime I joined Pauline in a plate of home made pumpkin soup... it was delicious... "Perhaps just a bit too much seasoning," she said.. I hadn't noticed!

For those who are fortunate to have got to know Pauline the person over time you will know that Pauline is very much a family woman. She treasures her children above all else and I was constantly reminded of this as daughter Lee joined us and affectionately wrapped her arms around mum's shoulders and sat on her lap as Pauline talked about the events of the last year.

These are the values that the media would have you believe are somehow "backward". The world they push is one where old-fashioned family values do not count, where kids should be allowed to roam the streets at all hours of the night, where the do-gooders rule and the victim is punished.

We talked over a wide range of issues, including unionism. Pauline's views on unions are quite clear, "They have a role to play. As long as unionism is voluntary there can be nothing wrong with freedom of choice - in fact in the face of the games that multinationals play there is a good reason for unions to be part of our workforce."

I thought of the waterfront dispute and had to agree - although the back of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) needs to be broken - the methods used by Patrick Stevedores to fire 1,400 employees could not have been combated if the employees had not been part of a union.

Pauline was most concerned about what is happening to our banking industry - the loss of jobs, the closure of rural branches and the manner in which the secret financial services agreement treaty has resulted in Australian banks, including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, to become foreign owned.

All this was a far cry from council days of roads, rates and rubbish.

Pauline Hanson had transformed herself with her new found obligations. Suddenly I realised what the Hanson phenomenon was all about. It was all about "people power". And the people had chosen the symbol of their hope. It was Pauline Hanson.

In Pauline's words, "I am here to do a job. I am just an Aussie. The day I try to become more than that is the day I get out of politics".

Liberals by name but not by preference

The desperation of the media barons seen in the latest trashy article by Hanson hunter Terry Sweetman reveals a strange and sick political viewpoint aired by Murdoch's puppets, the Chiefs of Staff at The Courier Mail:

Full article Courier Mail, May 5th 1998

Here is an extract - lest we forget in years to come.

by Terry Sweetman

"Any doubts that the Queensland Liberal Party was something of a curious misnomer appear to have been settled by its weekend decision to direct preferences to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of the Labor Party.

"And its continued failure to carve out a separate and distinctive identity for itself eventually could consign it to the ranks of historical curiosity.

"The decision to direct preferences to Hanson’s troglodytes is another indication that the Liberals are in bad shape politically, intellectually and, now, morally."

High Court decision gives the best of both worlds -
Mon, May 4, 1998

The full bench of the High Court has rejected an appeal by Patrick Stevedores against a Federal Court judgement, ordering the re-instatement of 1,400 sacked waterfront workers. The court decided by a six to one majority to dismiss the appeal.

The reinstatement of the sacked workers has now been placed in the hands of the administrator of Patrick's former labour hire companies.

Just before the High Court's decision, the Federal Government announced it was still insisting that there has to be reform on the waterfront. The Workplace Relations Minister, Peter Reith, says the Government-backed redundancy fund is contingent on genuine reform.

He says reinstated Maritime Union (MUA) members who then lose their jobs because Patrick cannot afford to keep them on will only get access to the redundancy money if there is a more productive waterfront.

"We will be emphasising to the voluntary administrators the Government's approach to reform and the context in which the redundancy funds would be available," he said.

"We continue to make it clear to all of the parties that the Government's objective is significant reform on the Australian waterfront, and the redundancy funding that we have made available is to achieve those reform objectives."

The original dispute began on Melbourne's Webb Dock in late January, where the National Farmers Federation-backed P and C Stevedores (PCS) leased a berth from Patrick to train non-union labour for its own operation.

The real winner here is common sense, because the tactics used by Patrick have been shown up for what they are while the workforce on the docks will now have freedom of choice - away from compulsory membership of the MUA.

Political:

National party refuse to commit on One Nation preferences

Following the decision by the state Liberal party to put One Nation high on its "How to Vote" card the National party have refused to disclose their plans.

"Our policy is that we decide our preferences at the time of closing of nominations when we know who is running. Our usual response is to put Labor last."

Beazley's response to the Liberal party is predictable, "If Mr Howard and Mr Fischer cannot pull the Queensland Liberals into line they'll have no hope of being taken seriously as a defender of Australia's cohesive society."

To some Liberals the truth of the matter is coming home to roost with Brisbane Federal MP, Gary Hardgrave saying, "My real concern is that One Nation has sufficient support to unseat me should they give their preferences to Labor."

This from the man who just months ago supported Beazley's call for One Nation to be put last - now Hardgrave says that he accepts the party's decision.

Last word from David Oldfield who said that the Conservative parties needed to "heed electoral reality" saying, "It's a matter of them simply coming to their senses."

You say:

Subject: multiculturalism & the ALP

So THAT'S how Mary Delahunty got preselected!

Isn't it pathetic how the Labor party, the party that is supposed to represent the working men and women of Australia, is increasingly reliant on 'stars'. It ruthlessly overlooks its faithful rank and file for the likes of sneaky Cheryl Kernot and now Delahunty. What contempt it has for ordinary people.

I am shocked but not surprised at the ethnic branch stacking. I have always detested the very word, 'multiculturalism'. It is an un-English, un-euphonious, seven-syllabled monstrosity. And its meaning is just as bad. Its introduction as government policy was a gross insult to the Australian people who, up until then, had coped remarkably well with the natural stresses of migration. Live and let live was the unspoken ethos of the time.

This natural response of true tolerance, based on manners and simple human goodwill was formerly a hallmark of the Australian character. I have heard many elderly migrants recall with pride how they worked on the Snowy River Scheme or Warragamba Dam, and how wonderful it was that people from so many nations worked together in harmony. This was the old Australia which is now reviled as a racist, xenophobic, discriminatory society by pig-ignorant elites who weren't even part of that great post WW2 migration experience.

All I can say is that old Australia sure as hell beats the new multicultural Australia in outcomes. I mean Sir Peter Abeles must have really been discriminated against to have ended up a tycoon, mustn't he. And all those migrant shopkeepers. Just think of the hostility they would daily face from vicious Australians who are only prevented from throwing rocks through their windows by the policy of multiculturalism.

Perhaps it's time for a reality check. What's wrong with these pc crackpots? Are they just intellectual masochists?

Antonia Feitz

Subject: Comments on Australian  News of the Day

Hear Hear, R Darben

regards
Steve Nichols

Subject: efficiency of the waterfront

We’ve been fed a diet of inefficient warfies responsible for all the corporate and rural problems in Australia for about 30 years now. Recently Peter Reith has justified the sort of James Bond style operation undertaken by the NFF at Dubai and Port of Melbourne on the grounds that there is a need for an improvement in efficiency. So we’ve seen the guard dogs, the former SAS guys turned warfies and confrontation on our TV at home and so has the rest of the World.

The funny thing about all this is that Globalists such as the National Party support the Multinationals one hundred percent . However when it comes to Trade Unionist they don’t seem to understand that they are also part of a Global village. To put it bluntly it’s no point loading a ship in Australia with non-union labour (something which Mr. Reith calls “waterfront reform”) if you are unable to get it unloaded at the other end. This occurs because of legitimate and predictable union action in the receiving country and most of the richer countries which we sell our meat, dairy products and manufactured goods to, have trade unions.

So let’s look at the alleged inefficiency of the Australian waterfront. Yes we all want to see improvements in efficiency and any unnecessary over-manning avoided. However we’ve got to be practical and realistic about it - blaming the Wharfies for the inadequacies of the Australian Waterfront is simplistic in the extreme. Ships offloading in Australian ports generally travel to a minimum of three ports (e.g. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) before they are completely loaded. This compares with the European and American situation where they may unload and load again at the same port. Our situation is different from that in Europe and America especially when a ship has to be unloaded and reloaded to ensure that cargo remains stable - additional handling costs.

Cargo and container handling is a complex issue - you would need access to a tremendous amount of data and computer models to make any really worthwhile observations about relative efficiency. Certainly politicians making statements on the run such as some of the remarks of Peter Reith should be seen as what they are - political ideology and nothing to do with genuine efficiency. Rather than employ consultants to destroy the Unions it would be better to employ researchers to undertake and solve the problem.

Tony Price

Subject: High Court Ruling on OZ Docks dispute

DearSir,

The High Court of Australia has dismissed the appeal by Patricks against the orders of the Federal Court regarding reinstatement and the finding of a prima facie case of unlawful conspiracy to dismiss the workers in breach of legislation protecting people from dismissal on the ground of union membership. However, the High Court has varied the orders in part by balancing the injunctive relief granted to the MUA members with greater recognition of the powers of the administrators of the Patricks labor hire companies which were stripped of assets by the parent company.

This is the last court of appeal for the employers and notwithstanding the variation strengthening the administrators powers with respect to the implementation of the injunctive relief, unions and commentators are claiming victory. It is however a 99 page judgement and the assessment of union victory should be treated as a provisional one pending an analysis of the judgement.

Ted Murphy
National Tertiary Education Union

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Another perfect day in paradise. Rain overnight... cloudy today.

Have a good one.

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