Here are some snippets from the Saturday papers.
Pressure on Hockey over Tristar
Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey is under pressure to appear before an inquiry into car parts maker Tristar after denying yesterday he told company directors to break the law by sacking workers and rehiring them on individual contracts.
Coonan desperate for broadband deal
The Weekend Australian has learned that talks between Communications Minister Helen Coonan and Telstra have resumed at the instigation of the Prime Minister's office. The talks have gained new urgency since Labor leader Kevin Rudd this week announced a plan to tip $4.7 billion in taxpayers' funds, including a $2.7billion contribution from the Future Fund, into a high-speed broadband network.
"Coonan's office is in meltdown," one person familiar with the talks said. "They'd like to stitch together a deal, but they have little room to move."
Promoted senator rebuked for tardy declarations
Newly appointed parliamentary secretary Brett Mason sat on four share investments, one for more than 18 months, before declaring them this week.
When he was promoted to parliamentary secretary, Senator Mason was asked whether he had any undeclared shares. He told the PM no.
Thinking small: the local shop view on WorkChoices
At Melissa Cakes in Altona, everyone is on an AWA, which means they have lost award conditions of penalty rates for weekends and public holidays. The cafe employs 14 staff — two full-timers and the rest casuals. Manager Salim el-Hassan says that without the agreements, the cafe would not be viable.
"If you had to pay every staff (member) time-and-a-half, there's no point in being open," he says. "At the end of the day, you've got a business to run."
Most staff, he says, had no objection to AWAs because most were students who "just want some pocket money for their studies".
This pretty well sums up WorkChoices. Great for employers, relieved of all responsibility for quality of life for their workers, and not bad for students working for pocket money to help defray the costs of staying at home until their parents die of old age. They'll never be able to afford to buy a home or even rent an apartment or room unless four or five others join in, but that's life in John Howard's Australia, where the rich get richer and everyone else works for pocket money.
-- Olney Garkle
Thanks for filling me in, Olney. If the spider had not bit me on the same side of my neck as the tendonitis, I would have caught that. Too bad that the van now needs an indulgent forth head job, otherwise a liepaper might have been bought. At least the computer now works and I found an amp at the tip for 5 bucks that means I can now listen to all my ol' music.
It's good Olney, all good, but watch me celebrate, big time, when
"Johny goes marching home again.
Hurrah! Hurrah!"
........and thanks, as always, for keeping us all informed.
Posted by joe2 on March 24, 2007
Welcome back joe2. I know how you feel. What's the old saying? "First the mossies bite you where the eczema is, then you die." Speaking of puter problems, mine routinely have a hard disc life of two years. That means that in two months this one is due for heart failure. Luckily I raided our local tip for an Albanian-made external hard drive. That'll teach the bugger.
Posted by Olney Garkle on March 25, 2007