IR bill
Section 170XA of Howard and Reith's industrial relations reform Bill guarantees some minimum conditions of employment, such as sick, recreation and long-service leave. It is not proposed, however, to continue with the retrenchment provisions, usually two weeks' pay for each year of service, minimum notice and consultation, now included in most awards.
Clearly, the trade union movement will oppose this omission as well as many of the Bill's others provisions.
There is particular anger in the community, however, towards those major corporations who persist with downsizing whilst making record profits and paying executives ridiculously high salaries.
The fight should not just be to keep the existing community standard but to extend it. Any corporation or enterprise which renumerates a director, executive or any employee with an annual salary package of more than $500,000 should be required to pay all retrenched employees a minimum of six weeks pay for each year of service.
To be effective, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission would need to have the power to determine the rate at which sick leave is payable. Executives will attempt to hide the cash benefit of their salary or could transfer employees to dummy companies prior to retrenchment.
Reith's IR Bill has been referred to the Senate's Economics References Committee. It is important that all progressive people make submissions to this Inquiry, through its Secretary, Mr Robert Diamond, at Parliament House, Canberra. But 50, or even 20, submissions in favour of more generous retrenchment benefits for employees dismissed by greedy executives will put the issue on the national agenda.
Noel Baxendell
Macgregor ACT
[Edited for length.]
Stopping terrorism
The death of 18 young men is a tragic event, especially for their friends and loved ones. That almost goes without saying.
But hang on: if we were fair dinkum about stopping "terrorism" we should stop helping the Indonesian regime in its occupation of East Timor and campaign of terror (in its "legal occupation") in West Papua.
That would be a lot safer, Mr Howard and General Baker, than sending men over rough terrain, at night, in helicopters.
Stephen Langford
Paddington NSW
Deficit
Prime Minister John Howard really knows how to stretch the truth on the "Deficit" issue.
The Lib/Nat Party claim we have an $8 billion deficit. There is not an $8 billion deficit and there never was. The facts of the deficit as at 1 May 1996 are: 1995-96, $280 mill deficit; 1996-97 $4.9 bill deficit. Total $5.18 billion over two years.
The only way to make up $8 billion is to then add on Labor's "projected" surplus, 1995-96's $720 million surplus and 1996-97's $3.4 billion surplus. The grand total then becomes $9.3 billion with only $1 billion (deficit plus projection) this financial year, and $8.3 billion (deficit plus projection) for next financial year.
The real deficit, ie the cut that must be made to return the budget to surplus (even this is arguable), is $280 million this year and a possible $4.9 billion next year.
Our attention is being drawn away from that fact that $200 billion in foreign profit leaves Australia each year, tax free. If this $200 billion rort was taxed at 25%, it would yield $50 billion annually. Over 1995-96 and 1996-97 this would be more than 20 times as much as the real deficit.
Rather than less government expenditure on core services, selling assets or more taxes, we cold stop borrowing money from overseas and tax foreign enterprise profits leaving Australia, like every other country in the world does.
Don Mackay
Port Macquarie NSW
[Abridged for length.]
Tradeable pollution
I have been told many fairytales in my economics classes similar to those advocated by Dr Clive Hamilton in Green Left Weekly (#234). Hamilton argues in favour of the NSW government's "truly historic" scheme of tradeable pollution permits. This would allow energy distributors to buy and sell the "right to pollute".
Hamilton says that the scheme would create more flexibility for the distributors. Surely though, environmentalists should assess the scheme on the basis of how effectively it would actually reduce emissions.
The main criticism Hamilton (correctly) makes of the current system of licensing and fines is that "polluters who exceed their limits may end up with nothing more than a ministerial slap on the wrist". However, there is nothing about the tradeable permits scheme that would force profit-oriented energy distributors to obey the rules any more than they do(n't) now.
And why should we herald a mere 20% cut in emissions by 2005 as a great leap forward?
If the Carr government was really serious about reducing Greenhouse emissions from the energy sector, it wouldn't be privatising electricity distribution. There is no reason why a state controlled energy sector couldn't work out the most technologically efficient way to reduce emissions, allocate appropriate funds and implement a plan to achieve it. But then, that would require that the government was actually committed to saving the environment — and as long as Labor and Liberal run the show, that too will remain a fairytale.
Alex Bainbridge
Newcastle
Guns and capitalism
Early in the gun debate Howard defended his gun law proposals saying "I want to see a violence-free society". Nice sentiment, but impossible under capitalist rule. What the gun debate seems to have so far left out is that the root cause of violence is systemic.
Racism, sexism, homophobia and alienation are products of a class-divided society. The rich ruling class, to secure it's domination and maintain the status quo, needs to have the working class divided.
Abuse in the home, suicide rates, homocides, and racist and sexist attacks are all on the rise. As capitalist governments slash and burn the public sector and legislate greater rates of exploitation to meet the profit needs of business, workers get more stressed. With higher stress levels and capitalism's divisive ideological barrage, come higher levels of violence.
If the government really wanted to deal with gun abuse they'd deal with youth suicide which make up the majority of deaths by guns. However, dealing with mass youth alienation is harder than banning semi-automatics. Capitalist leaders will not liberate women, stop scapegoating Aboriginals or fulfil the needs and aspirations of young people. Ensuring increasing private profits for the rich comes out ahead of tackling these social issues.
To deal with violence in Australia we must seek to build anti-capitalist campaigns and fight for a socialist future.
Rachel Evans
Melbourne
[Edited for length.]