It's rather naive to believe Beazley would turn back the law on any issue, that is assuming he or Labor ever win at the Federal level.

Once such major changes are made the change back is usually impossible leave alone remembered at the subsequent election. Is there anyone here who actually thinks Beazley should be leader, or have a chance to win the next election? If the big B stays where he is we can expect Howard for life. Beazley has to go, now to give Australia a chance to try and claim back some of what we have lost already. Not the least being dignity.

Anyone still want the GST rolled back? I'm sure many hate it but we also know it's here and no government is going to get rid of it.

As to the plight of those three miners, haven't you all noticed? It's merely a reality show and used as such by the media on every level. Kochie getting a souvenir over which he swoons? Dear God what tripe, my stomach churned when Channel 7 used that litle event as the advert for their news shows. Announced as "What they said to Kochie in the ambulance". Give me a break!

The only real interest the media had was in how long they could keep running on the back of other people's lives.

The Union too was exactly the same. Why did Shorten have to spend all that time sitting on his backside while the other miners tried to save those trapped? Doesn't he have a real job? No, it's simply public appearances for Labor's next big hope, not for me though.

It's clear that Howard loved the show, he was in first with a Canberra reception offer and had a chat as soon as they started breathing fresh air. Beazley was totally absent as he lost the plot, again. He chose to try and use Beaconsfield as a platform for himself and as usual failed.

The tragedy at Beaconsfield wasn't a political event, it was another media body count with Naomi's make up trailer and all.

Unlike some who post here I am a trade unionist and in fact an oficial, much anti union comments are true.
Gee that was not hard, but it may yet hurt me, some have harmed the movement and are unfit to wash the floors of a union ofice.
But not all unions are in any way radical, Bill Shorten heads such a non radical union.
Had he not been there for these blokes I think the very same people who insult him here would again do so, for the opersite reason.
Unions have a place in the world that will be much stronger as they adopt the very changes men like Bill Shorten and his young lions like Paul Howe bring , the AWU traditionaly was and is not radical but with you at work is indeed its mantra Shorten is entering parlement next year Australia would be a better place if his seat saw a by election now we need him in the house.
And last spend those first five days with those two men in the dark and full of fear no one knew if they lived or not, if they make a quid out of it or even laught or cry in public let them.
Some posters are hard hearted and unjust.
I like most Australians shed more than one tear as the emerged unions are forever, the Howard goverment is not.

I submit that if any of us want to counter Howard's ploys to oppress workers, we have an excellent weapon at our disposal.

We can insist on zero net migration (whilst maintaining the same refugee intake as a proportion of this, until we have regained decent protection for labour here.)

REASONS FOR STRATEGY & HOW IT WILL HURT HOWARD'S GOVERNMENT

The Howard Government has greatly increased immigration to this country over the past three years, notably so-called 'skills immigration'. By depriving workers of their industrial rights and means to enforce these, the government has opened unrestrained competition by entrants with nothing to lose and everything to gain by competing against Australian workers. It was this very situation that the Australian constitution was set up to guard against in 1903.

The only way to combat this is to have strong labour protection laws in the country that receives immigrant labour. (For the international socialists who believe that nothing should fetter the movement of people, it might help to realise that Marx and Engels recognised the impossibility of defending labour if national labour protection did not exist.)

HOW IT WILL HURT HOWARD'S GOVERNMENT:

The Howard Government has increased skilled and other immigration (but not refugee or asylum seeker immigration) because the corporations want

a) just docile workers who have been trained at the expense of overseas governments, b) well-heeled new-comers to maintain demand for housing and high housing prices which benefit rich land-owners, mortgage providers, building materials producers and overseas investors.

So, what can we do, as unionists?

We can militate for a moratorium on immigration. - Let immigration be equal to emigration (maintaining current refugee intake)

UNTIL

We have regained the industrial law protection for workers' rights to
- collective bargaining
- protection for wages and conditions as negotiated by collective bargaining
- laws and State awards reinstated and administered by State Departments of Labour detailing basic conditions and wages drawn up and agreed to in industrial tribunals as they were a decade or more ago and had been for many many years.

Sheila Newman
smnaesp@alphalink.com.au

Kanga I find your post interesting however a bit wishfull, we the union movement and the ALP can do little from our side of the house.
Change nothing, from the NSW Labor right I commend the word solidarity to some.
While miners in Tasmania worked along side many from the rest of Australia to bring those blokes to the top others today dig holes under both movements.
Bill Shorten acted like we would want him to and from our side grubby remarks are made he was grandstanding.
Howard must love this grade of solidarity!,have no fear Labor and unions will rise helped by workchoices.
Planed to creat weath by creating poor this act is one day to be the start of a longterm Labor goverment
solidarity for workers united can never be defeated I promise you.

Belly,

What does solidarity mean? Have you seen solidarity from Unions towards those that kept paying over the last three decades?

What have unions done for most in that time? Many unions have been simply vehicles for creating future ALP members and the members get very little for their contributions. That's why membership fell through the floor and that's why Howard could just change the IR laws with basically just a whimper.

It's too late to cry solidarity today Belly, the war's over. We're just counting casualties now or hadn't you noticed.

Forget the past and look to the future. Rebuild the ALP, get rid of the deadwood and cut the ties to the union movement as they simply restrict the ALP's chances of appealing to more than they do.

I too detest the changes made Belly but reality tells me these changes will be enforced for another 18 months and then an election will determine any changes to what's been done. I see no chance for the ALP with Beazley clogging up the party at the top level.

I too detest Howard's government but I feel the same about Beattie's government and all the other Labor governments today that act exactly the same way as Howard does. They treat us with contempt. Why support that?

Answer the question about whether Beazley should lead now and till the next election, please.

Open your mind to the flaws in both sides and you will see that neither side is always right or always wrong. It's not black and white, we need grey.

Excellent article, Steven Miles.

kanga (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4452#41358) is absolutely correct in regards to the issue of immigration.

Already, population increase, driven by immigration, has been the major factor in driving down living standards by raising the cost of housing to their current near stratospheric levels as has been openly acknowledged by property speculators.

Now, on top of that, immigration, in conjunction with the 'Work Choices' legislation, is being blatantly used to destroy the wages and conditions of Australian workers as recently occurred in Ballarat at the MaxiTrans metal factory (http://www.abc.net.au/southwestvic/stories/s1635000.htm). There, 37 Australian workers were sacked just over a year after that company stopped offering apprenticeships in favour of the importation of skilled workers from China.

I don't condemn the Chinese workers who are probably only doing what many of us would do, if in their shoes. However, what should have been the commonsense rule that charity should begin at home seems to have been lost on nearly all left wing activists for at least the last three decades. They have effectively advocated open door immigration and ignored the adverse consequences for the poorest people in this country as well as for this country's ecological carrying capacity.

Any group, such as Sustainable Population Australia (http://www.population.org.au), which has tried to point this out, has been falsely accused of racism and xenophobia.

As a consequence of this moral blackmail, the Labor movement has been effectively paralysed as John Howard has cynically ramped up migration to unprecedented levels of around 140,000 per year whilst many middle aged workers including even experienced IT workers are left on the scrap heap. The left groups, supposedly defenders of the working class, has nothing to say about this. (Try a search using either the terms 'MaxiTrans' or 'migration' on http://www.greenleft.org.au and see what comes up.)

This Government has shown no loyalty to the ordinary people of this country, and the same also appears to be the case with just about all of Australia's supposedly socialist groups.