Crispin Hull

Australians are working too long, according to a study published yesterday by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. It may well be that the study will be used for self-serving ends when the ACTU puts it in a submission to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in a test case on work hours due to be heard in November. Nevertheless, the study points to some alarming trends. Moreover, it was conducted by Sydney University and Adelaide University’s Centre for Labour Research, so it has an element of independence about it which gives it credibility demanding attention.

The study found that more than a third of full-time employees in Australia work more than 48 hours a week, which it would be illegal in Europe. Australians have the second-longest average working week of any developed nation, and is one of the few countries where hours are increasing. The study showed that employees’ lives were becoming narrow as they gave up hobbies and sport, spent less time with friends and family, and were too tired or simply did not have enough time for sex. The long working week was causing rocky marriages or marital breakdowns, health problems and fatigue-related accidents at work. It seems that the long working week is not due to the pursuit of money because 60 per cent of overtime goes unpaid. Much of the overtime appears to be done because of employees’ commitment to the job, under-staffing and fears of reprisals or loss of employment.

It seems that the pendulum has swung it too far. In the 1960s and 1970s Australia had a reputation of having a lazy workforce plagued by industrial strife, powerful unions and an attitude of us and them. It may well be that the great power of the unions caused a reaction that has resulted in a diminution of the quality of employees’ lives. The reaction against union power came in the form of legislation, structural changes in the economy and employees turning away from what they saw as unresponsive self-serving organisations. It now appears that many employers have taken advantage of the weaker position that employees find themselves in.
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As the 438 asylum-seekers are transferred from the Norwegian freighter Tampa, which rescued them, to the Australian naval vessel HMAS Manoora, questions arise as to why the government is engaging this expensive and humiliating operation.

Yesterday, Federal Court judge Tony North lifted a temporary injunction that would have prevented a transfer of the asylum seekers from Australian waters. He did so after the Commonwealth government gave an undertaking that it would abide by any court ruling when the case is fully heard during this week. The Victorian Council for Civil Liberties and others are seeking court orders to have the asylum seekers brought to Australia for processing. The Government’s position is that they should not be brought on to Australian soil.

Instead, the government proposes to use its naval vessel to take the asylum seekers on a 10-day day voyage to Port Moresby. From there some will be sent to Nauru and others to New Zealand for determination of their refugee status. Whatever happens, the Government must abide by its undertaking to the court. If the court orders the asylum-seekers back to Christmas Island, they should be turned around. It may well be that many of the asylum-seekers will ultimately end in Australia if that they are found to be refugees. The question arises why does Australia not just bring them on to shore immediately and process them as if they had landed on Australian soil in the first place.
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Out of the blue last week, the Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston, announced that the Government was prepared to consider an overhaul of the media-ownership laws. He said he was in favour of a comprehensive review of the laws which at present prohibit the owner of a newspaper to own a broadcasting licence in the same city and which restrict foreign ownership in newspapers, television and radio.

There is quite a lot wrong with the present legal regime for media ownership. It is obvious that it has failed dismally in its primary objectives of retaining Australian ownership of major media assets and of having a diversity of media ownership. For a start, one foreign citizen controls the major circulating newspaper in five Australian capitals and the leading national newspaper. For a time, another foreign citizen in effect controlled the Fairfax group, which dominates the classified advertisement market in both Sydney and Melbourne.

But this does not mean that we should applaud it Senator Alston’s new stand. The timing is appalling. It is only a couple of months before a federal election. There would not be sensible consideration of any proposals. The highly charged atmosphere just before an election is not an appropriate time for such a debate. It seems that Senator Alston’s move was a naïve attempt to curry favour with the major media owners in the hope of more favourable coverage for the Coalition during the campaign. If so, it will not work. The Coalition made a similar promise in 1996, but after attaining government did not deliver. The Government did not do enough to ensure Opposition or Democrat support for a new regime. Given the acknowledged failure of the present regime, that should not be impossible. But playing stunts like last week’s announcement is not the way to go about it.
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There is an historic and religious context to the horrific events in the United States.

Let us assume that it does not turn out to be an Oklahoma-style, anti-government attack by US nationals and that the attack was launched from the Islamic world.

For a trifling 50 years we have had the ideological battle between communism and capitalism. Bt it has been a secular battle. After the fall of the Wall, the main conflicts in the world have been a religious ones: between fundamentalist Islam and Christian-capitalist.
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This time three years ago excitement was generated by a high-profile challenge to ACT Liberal Senator Margaret Reid. Former National Farmers Federation chief Rick Farley was nominated by the Australian Democrats to run for the ACT Senate seat.

He did not make it, despite much commentary that the detestation of the Liberals and absentee Prime Minister John Howard in Canberra would cause Senator Reid grief.

Now high-profile wine-maker and former Yass Mayor Ken Helm is making as similar challenge, but as an independent.
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Just before every ACT election there are calls for a council-style government or some fundamental change to the system. Usually, it is someone making political capital out of what they think is a residual no-self-government feeling.

This time, Chief Minister Gary Humphries said he wanted a council system with a separate election for a mayor. And Independent MLA Paul Osborne called for an end to the formal recognition of the Opposition.
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New York’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is not permitted to stand for a third term. So at the upcoming election the field is wide open. Despite many commentators in New York saying it is a dull election, there is active interest in the city. The newspapers, the air waves and the chatter in taxi cabs make constant references to it. For the people of New York it is an important election. Among the issues are whether an incoming mayor can maintain the law-and-order success of Giuliani without causing what are seen as major breaches of civil liberties.

New Yorkers are interested. They were also interested in the contest at the federal level, both in Hillary Clinton’s pursuit of a Senate seat and the major White House contest.

Similarly, there was an election last year in the City of London. Londoners were intensely interested, first as to whether Jeffrey Archer would be the Conservative candidate and secondly as to whether the endorsed Labour candidate would defeat the previous Labour head of local government, Red Ken Livingston. It was an exciting tussle. The issues included references to Livingston’s previous attempt to ban harmless children’s books because they were homophobic and his campaign to make London’s transport more accessible and affordable at the cost of high-income-earning Londoners.
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A friend of mine at Law School had a Fiat. It was one of those tiny Fiat Bambinos which she said she could park anywhere. Indeed she was known to park it nose to the kerb squeezing between two cars in a parallel-parking street and climb out the sun roof.

Fiat also has another meaning. It is an authority given by the Attorney-General into a person or organisation to engage in court proceedings that they otherwise might be excluded because they had no standing in the eyes of the court.

This week, the Federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, granted a fiat to the Australian Episcopal Conference of the Roman Catholic Church to give the bishops standing to challenge a Federal Court decision over in-vitro fertilisation. Some might say it was just like my friend’s Fiat — poking its nose into places where it had no business to go. Others might argue that if you have to get out of a tight spot a Fiat can be very handy.

The granting of the fiat by Williams has given the church a special place which has not been granted to other bodies who hold a contrary view.
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Often our elected representatives set out to do something and end up doing precisely the opposite.

They proclaim that they are acting to achieve a result that is in our best interests. They then pass a law which is it put into effect often at large cost. And they use feel-good phrases, like “world’s best practice” and “”think globally, act locally”, to make us think that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Some examples are the Government’s policies on outsourcing. The aim was for greater efficiency and cost savings and we now learn that the Federal Government will lose millions in excess rent costs of buildings it so foolishly sold at under value. Governments prohibit the use of a heroin with the aim of eliminating the drug from society, and their policy has the reverse effect – – it causes an increase in heroin use.

A government funds a car race in order to promote economic activity and greater wealth in the territory. And at the result is money going from ACT taxpayers to interstate concerns diverting precious funds from a hospital which is needlessly in “crisis” when there is no war, epidemic or other health scourge.

It happens so often that Churchill’s statement on democracy in under threat.

The example in this column is more petty, but none the less a classic of our elected representatives setting out to do a worthy thing only to achieve exactly the opposite.

During the fuss over the Kyoto protocols, I was engaged in a couple of property transactions for sundry family and friends. Two were in the ACT and one in NSW.
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