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When distress calls come from asylum seeker boats, Australia's current policy is to rescue by choice. Many of the calls come from the Indonesian search and rescue region. To its credit, Australia usually responds to these calls. But not always. Sometimes we pass them to the less well equipped Indonesian search and rescue authority BASARNAS and wait to see what happens.
For all the things Qantas stands accused of — selling out its Australian employees, uncompetitive pricing, bad management — it appears to be respectful of women. A ticket on a Virgin flight, on the other hand, brings with it the allure of sex, the commodity on which the company's brand has been built.
Pubs with boutique beer are creeping their way north. Day-old bread at the café where the yummy mummies drink lattes is $4. Gentrification. The cycle of life. I want to save my heartland from this fate, but I should first register my own complicity.
The Qantas industrial dispute is likely to make a major contribution to the history of Australian industrial relations. The important issue is whether Qantas should have been required to threaten substantial damage to itself and to the national economy before it could gain access to arbitration.
Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it.
It is a weakness of human nature that we forgive in our friends what we despise in our enemies. If Germany or Japan had achieved a nuclear weapon and launched it on an Allied city, our condemnation would be unrelenting.
The Malaysian solution is unprincipled, but it might just work — stopping the boats. If other countries try to replicate it, we will have to tear up the Refugee Convention and start again. And the plight of unaccompanied minors transported from our shores to Malaysia will be on our conscience.
Our lives will change forever as we face the creative challenge posed by the carbon tax. We will pay the real cost of producing food, and cheap and frequent overseas trips will slow. But we must not let a grasping spirit hold us from imagining an economy and lifestyle that can thrive on alternative energy.
On Tuesday the Government 'suspended' transport of Australian live cattle to Indonesia. This is not a ban, but a hiatus. Public outrage over the export of live cattle is hypocritical given the lack of outrage regarding the inhumane treatment of asylum-seeking children.
On Monday evening, Four Corners viewers reeled at images of Australian cattle being slaughtered in Indonesia. Since Indonesians are predominantly Muslim, perhaps an appeal to change their inhumane practices can begin with an appeal to the concept of halal: that which is permissible under Islamic law.
Earlier this month, NSW premier Barry O'Farrell announced he would dishonour the guarantee made to those who signed up to the previous Labor Government's Solar Bonus Scheme. Undermining the 'sacred' bond of a guarantee can seriously damage the spirit of public trust.
A company pay slip is found in the pocket of a migrant who was killed in a terrorist bombing. A nosy journo notes the company's apparent failure to notice their employee's absence, and threatens to run a story about indifference and neglect. The human resources manager slips into damage-control mode.
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