Dirty tricks on Grocon site
On June 29, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) steward Nazza Ottobre was moving the union office in Grocon's Eureka Towers construction site from the basement to the next level when he found a strange black box with an aerial stuck to the wall behind a filing cabinet.
Luckily, the person helping Ottobre was an electrician who recognised that the black box was an electronic listening device. The "bug" had a capacity to pick up conversations within a six-metre radius and then transmit them to a receiver up to a kilometre away. The batteries on the bug had to be replaced every 14 days.
Who would do such a thing and how long had it been there? All entrances to the site are guarded 24 hours a day and whoever planted the bug had to have a good knowledge of the building site. The union office could only be accessed by going through a rabbit warren of darkly lit passages, and then the person would have to know which of the sheds was used by the union.
This has raised suspicions that the giant Grocon construction company may be the culprit.
It's also possible that the bug could have been the product of a joint effort between Grocon and the Coalition government's building industry taskforce.
Three-hundred workers on the site showed their disgust by walking off the job after the discovery of the bug.
Sue Bolton
Picket opposes US base plan
BRISBANE — Protesters gathered outside the state executive building on July 7 to oppose Premier Peter Beattie's support for the US-Australian plan to construct "joint military training facilities" in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The picket also condemned the signing of the military base agreement and Australian involvement in the "Son of Star Wars" missile defence system.
The protest was initiated by Just Peace and a number of other organisations, with a statement noting that, "We want both the Queensland government and the federal government to know we do not believe this militaristic stance will create the opportunities to build positive relations in Asia".
"This is to be the first foreign military base on Australian soil since World War II", Drew Hutton, Greens Senate candidate for Queensland, told the picket. "We don't want this alliance with the most aggressive power in the world today, the USA."
Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett said: "This is a dangerous path the federal and state governments are heading us down. With no consultation with the public, we are being locked into the Star Wars program and a US training base, risking a new arms race in the Asian region."
Bill Mason
From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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