If the Muslims stop fighting, there will be no more fighting.
If Israel stops fighting, there will be no more Israel.
When I worked for Vodafone in Queensland we had a reasonably substantial marketing budget. The company was the naming rights sponsor for the Brisbane Lions, Queensland Reds, The Wallabies, large parts of the v8 Super Cars including the 888 racing team, The Doomben race track as well as various government publications and competitions - especially the Premier's Business and Export Awards.
I got to know Premier Beattie and many of his ministers fairly well and I'd see them regularly at various events. One of the things that's stuck in my mind from that time was the number of boards and other entities that were associated with the Government. I had mates who were on the Tab board, electricity boards, water boards, major sporting grounds - the lists went on and on. I saw the same faces on freebie 1st class tickets at the calendar of major events every year - and looking back now they were all Labor mates or good actors.
At the time I had a personal plan to spend 3 years at Vodafone, then I was hoping to move from an executive, 9 to 5 job to a non executive lifestyle with directorships and consultancy style work. I had a few mates who put my name forward and scouted around to pass on any info about directorships coming up.
Very quickly I was appointed to the Board of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Orchestras Australia and the Chairmanship of the board of the University of Queensland Business School. Just after those appointments became public I sat next to Jim Soorley, former Lord Mayor of Brisbane on a plane. Jim was a dyed in the wool Labor man and on the flight he said "I didn't now you were a fellow traveller mate" (in relation to the Labor Party). I explained that I wasn't and Jim said, "Well you are now" and he explained a little of the patronage system to me.
I didn't listen to Jim about favours and expectations. My ego was so big I thought I got those appointments all on my own. No one told me anything about favours and patronage and payback. They didn't have to.
It was a very quick downhill slide on the boards/directorships front after I started interviewing Labor politicians and editorialising on talkback radio in 2007!
One of my fellow directors back then was Labor royalty. She was from the heartland, a highly respected trade unionist and party official - Premiers and PMs would return her call. She became a great friend and sage advisor. I had absolutely no idea about how the Labor Party worked when I first started on the radio and my friend helped me to make some sense of who was who and how the patronage system and its favour-bank operated.
I was gobsmacked that Stephen Conroy could get away with handing his mate Mike Kaiser a $450K PA job at the NBN, that an inept and deadly Queensland minister Stephen Robertson retained his ministry, that so many failures and crooks kept bobbing up again and again and again - I could not get my head around it at all. My friend told me to forget everything I knew about merit, about process, conflicts of interest - the lot. She said, "These people have never applied for a job in their life. They get on the phone and ring mates - that is the way they get everything - everything."
And that's also the way the "fellow travellers" control so much of institutional Australia. The law, academia, NGOs seem to be automatically staffed and operated to "advance the broader interests of the Labour Movement' (to quote Liberty Sanger, a partner with the law firm Maurice Blackburn in an internal email in which she set out her understanding of the firm's ultimate mission).
The Liberals are babes in the woods. They are so institutionally frightened about a whiff of nepotism that the Liberal Party's system (and its executive structure when in government) would rather cede administrative power to Sussex Street and the Labor networks than suffer the slings and arrows from the Left that inevitably follow any "incorrect" non-PC, non-diverse, Conservative appointment.
The nett effect is that even in opposition, the labour movement continues to exercise great influence over our system of government. Weak and foolish LNP leaders strengthen that natural advantage for Labor by not removing senior Labor appointees - Barry O'Farrell in NSW was a standout in that regard.
Prior to the 2010 election I spoke and met regularly with LNP shadow ministers - particularly on industrial relations. (Talkback radio is a valuable qualitative data source for politicians - not just the quantitative calls that are put to air, but the range of other metrics that are generally not known to the public; what makes the switchboard light up? What brings a preponderance of first time callers? Where is the mood and how has it shifted? etc).
I remember telling LNP people that the spectre of a return of WorkChoices was hurting them. They turned on a sixpence to kill off any prospect of IR reform at the 2010 election.
As the 2013 poll loomed I again met with senior people who would become current (or casualties of Turnbull) ministers. We spoke about the Fair Work Act and Gillard/Shorten's Fair Work Commission, i.e. the tribunal that makes and enforces decisions about industrial awards, EBAs and disputes. We all agreed the Commission was stacked with union/Labor movement card carriers - and that the appointees put in by Labor couldn't just be dismissed and replaced (unless the quasi-judicial office holder asks the ABC's 4Corners program home for a lengthy chat or otherwise gets on the front foot in the sack-me stakes).
After a few months I was told the LNP had its answer. This will be good! I was genuinely fascinated as to how the LNP would tread the minefield Labor and the unions had left loaded with time bombs like the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.
The reply was far from satisfying. The LNP would leave the Labor structures in place - but it would insert an appeal body over the top of the FWC to hear appeals and to bring "balance" into the system. The superior body would set precedent and thus control the "tone" of the industrial relations system.
That all sounds like a great idea in theory - just like perpetual motion machines.
I will never forget the look on the face of one the Abbott government's most senior ministers when I asked the bleedingly obvious question - who would you put on it? There is no "movement" of the conservative side from which appointees can be chosen. Conservatives are doing their own thing, making money, proudly exercising free will and their own judgement. Not only is there no loyalty to the "side" - there is something approximating the opposite, an institutional prejudice against like-minded appointments.
Turnbull is the personification of the problem. He is obviously much happier in the company of The Left - embarrassed to acknowledge that the party of Tony Abbott and Cory Bernardi put him in office. The current parliamentary Liberal Party and the Turnbull Government are a reflection of the Chairman's trendy-ness.
There's an insight into the Turnbull psyche from his childhood. Even as a kid Turnbull hungered for power without knowing what he wanted it for. As his personality was forming, when lots of children his age might start thinking about being a policeman, astronaut or doctor, Turnbull's career ambition was to be the boss of the Australian Workers' Union.
What an apt career choice. A job with immense power - power that's used to keep the incumbent and his mates in power. And very, very well looked after.
The SDA's Joe De Bruyn told ThePowerIndex in 2012 ‘You have far more impact as a union leader than being a member of parliament—absolutely, especially at a union like ours.’ Power - but for what?
Scary union corruption is all around us - on constructions sites, with the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, the stalled fraud investigations involving Gillard and the scores of unactioned prosecutions arising from the TURC.
When union corruption costs the economy money - that's bad. But money is only money, we should manage it well, but there are more important things.
A man or nation with a strong character and determination to build his fortunes again can recover from monetary loss.
Union corruption in Australia is costing us a lot more than money. Because it is directly linked to the Labor Party and the country's government, union corruption is changing the character of the country.
That is the battle that should be at the centre of the next election campaign. Tragically that won't be the lopsided contest it could have been and should now be.
The contest between good and bad is now far too evenly balanced.
In one corner, the unions can rely on one of their own in Bill Shorten - the selfish, ambitious child who became leader of the AWU and owes his all to it.
And in the other corner? They can also rely on Malcolm Turnbull, the selfish, ambitious child who wanted to become leader of the AWU and now "doesn't want to declare war" on it and its ilk.
When the 3rd most expensive building in the world is a hospital in Adelaide, Australia has a visible IR and economic problem.
But we have a much bigger problem when the country's leaders lie and steal, when police, prosecutorial and judicial decisions appear suspect, when records routinely disappear, when dreadful crimes go unpunished - and worse still, when all of those behaviours are glorified as part of the "whatever it takes" justification for keeping the Labour movement in power.
Here is the report from the IPA that I set out to introduce with just a few words several hours ago! The power structures it describes benefit only the powerful. The rest of us deserve much, much better than seeing Australia's dreams and potential projected through the murky prism of union leaders and their corrupt interests.
Please go to the report's website to read the whole report - it's fewer than two dozen pages and well worth your time.
Here, as an example, is the section on the Fair Work Commission (pre 4 Corners).
And here are a few paragraphs on the Andrews CFMEU Government in Victoria. A Government which appointed its own police commissioner. And its own Solicitor for Public Prosecutions, the Labor Scion John Cain Jr Jr.
If it can do the things you'll read here, use your imagination about what else it is capable of in answering its master's call.
This is courageous. You'll get the sense of what Pamela's up against a few minutes in - about 30 minutes in the questions start, it's worth fast forwarding to that point to get a feel for the audience composition.
And just in case you want to know what's coming for you, inbreeding-with-eyes tells us what fate awaits those who upset the paedophile.
Bill an internationalist? I heard him say he's not, but as for the Labor Party's translation......
Appears the Federal Court has ruled that the Minimum Payment Order 2016 is to go ahead:
http://www.bigrigs.com.au/news/twu-to-push-in-todays-federal-court-hearings-for-s/2987634/
An update at 3:51pm today JUST IN: THE Federal Court has denied NatRoad's application to have the stay held until Monday.
The decision means that the Contractor Driver Minimum Payments Road Safety Remuneration Order 2016 is in effect.
More details to come.
UPDATE: THE Federal Court has decided today that the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal's decision not to delay the commencement of the order for contractor drivers should stand.
However NatRoad immediately have told the court they would appeal to the high court over the decision and have asked for the stay to be continued until Monday.
Now the court has adjourned while they decide whether to hold the stay over to Monday or in fact lift the stay, effectively starting the RSRO.
First, here's a very young widow from the United States, Stephanie Lembo on PTSD.
Reader Brett and I have been in a bit of correspondence of late. I fessed up to him a bit about my own black dog demons and Brett dropped me this proposal for the Australian Government.
He'd love to know what you think.
Dear Minister,
I was discharged medically unfit (PTSD) from the ADF in 2007 after 27 years’ service. I was diagnosed with PTSD however in 1996, I served with the illness for 11 years, including command, operational service and representational service in Afghanistan (where we met in 2002), Malaysia and Papua New Guinea (PNG). I didn’t tell the ADF because I knew what would happen. When I finally crashed, in PNG, I was indeed, kicked out. Like many I was shunned, pushed to the door, a dreadful way to end a long and otherwise happy career.
We both know that PTSD is a problem; we both know that many have committed suicide; we both know that many are suffering but have not put up their hand for help, and we both know why.
Studies show that soldiers commit suicide in significant numbers. Many struggle to revert from being warriors to being civilians. Many struggle after discharge from being alone, remote from the system they understand. Many feel shame and do not seek or use professional help. We do know that those we engage get a better result.
The current system however does not work well. The myriad of private organisations that have sprung up, Mates for Mates, Soldier On, Employ a Veteran etc are proof. Informal accounting reports that 260 Australian soldiers have killed themselves since 1986. 35 last year alone, 1 this year already.
The current system identifies you and medically discharges you. Within months you are out, stripped of your rank, your uniform, your mates and the system. You are stripped of your wage and though deemed unable to perform as a specialist, you are awarded a percentage disability, often granting just a few hundred dollars a fortnight. It is also often the case that the spouse of the serving soldier is better off financially if the soldier dies. We might be unwittingly incentivising suicide.
You are thrown into a civilian world that just does not look after you. The psychologist I was allocated saw me for five minutes every three months – he just gave me a prescription for drugs that did not work. I flushed the drugs, I stopped going to the psychologist. Its pure luck that I’m not also a suicide statistic.
Soldiers need to be part of a team, they need to do important and valuable things or they get bored, bored soldiers are not good things.
So the solution to the PTSD problem does not lie with a medical discharge. It’s just unacceptable to the people suffering to know that the job they love will be gone. They will not report ill. They will get worse and more importantly; they might make a mistake, a critical one.
With the PTSD health flag on your file you will not be promoted, you won’t be deployed and you won’t have a career of value. Serving on as an office worker may appeal to some but most join the Army because they do not want to sit in an office shuffling files. So, again, you are better off not reporting ill at all.
We have a massive problem that essentially falls into 2 areas, health and waste of talent. The health problem is significant and not one to be taken lightly. It’s that contract between the Government and the soldier, where the soldier will go and do awful work on the Governments behalf knowing that the Government will look after them when they return. It’s an expensive contract for the Government but one that really cannot be walked away from or the soldiers of the future will never be found.
The soldier’s health must be monitored, counselling must be available and better still, restorative work must be undertaken as many can be saved with good psychological help. The most efficient way, surely, would be to have them all together; one could help another in a buddy system. They would also benefit from maintaining their dignity as serving soldiers and psychologists could see them working so as to better inform their needs.
The other problem is the waste of talent. Soldiers are incredible. Not only do they have skills that everyone can see, cooks, drivers, pilots, electricians etc but they have soldier skills. Soldiers can live in the field, they can operate in environments that lack infrastructure, they can think, quickly and accurately, they can work under pressure and on top of all that they can laugh, they can be the most compassionate people and they can organise things, from detailed operational events to a BBQ or a game of footy.
A PTSD Regiment where the Commanding Officer has PTSD, the Regimental Sergeant Major has PTSD and every soldier in it has PTSD. No longer will the soldier be shunned, no longer mocked or belittled, they will be welcomed, understood and valued. No longer will the soldier feel alone, no longer also will the soldier be able to hide away and withdraw and not get help.
We cannot deploy this Regiment, we can’t send it to a warzone; so what do we do with it?
We need to think slightly out of the box now.
The Government allocated $16 Billion to Aboriginal Affairs in areas labelled Safe Community, Health and Environment. The Green Army was allocated $360 Million. Disasters “cost” the nation $1.2 Billion per year. Farmers across the nation are committing suicide through loss of earnings and inability to get help, this “costs” the nation millions per year. We have a foreign aid budget of $4 Billion.
The PTSD Regiment can be deployed to all of these.
Deploy a Squadron to an Aboriginal Community for an extended period; they have trades to fix plumbing, houses or even cars. They have medics to run clinics, they have electronics trades to install/maintain radios and or satellite equipment and they have the energy to set up touch football competitions, excite the kids about going to school knowing that only after attending school can they play with the diggers later. They can clean up the area; start up economic opportunities perhaps, a small store, a painting centre or just be a big brother or sister. They might even recruit a few new soldiers.
Deploy a few soldiers, perhaps bushies themselves, to a farmer under stress, they can help with fencing or animal care while all the time giving the famer needed help, company and a laugh. Someone cares, someone is there to help. Someone that brings their own food and accommodation and doesn’t need looking after as well.
Deploy a pilot and/or a medic to the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) or a helicopter pilot to a farmer.
Deploy soldiers to the Green Army. Their skills in leadership, project management and logistics would be invaluable. Their work ethic would be emulated by those in the team; the skills the Government spent thousands developing in those soldiers would be passed on by osmosis.
Of course the Regiment could be deployed to disaster work. Soldiers are used to living rough. They are empathetic and they have the skills needed to pair with the local community, Telstra and the local Councils to get things fixed, to get the community back working.
Deploy the PTSD Regiment to perform specific aid tasks in PNG or the Solomon’s, Kiribati perhaps. They could be useful in training, health, communications, policing or just helping as manual workers on an existing project.
It is recommended that the Regiment stay under the Department of Defence. The soldiers should stay in uniform. Defence funding will need to be amended to absorb their costs, they will need rations while deployed, the occasional RAAF flight, uniforms, vehicles and salaries. This cost will be significant but cheaper overall than the costs the Government pays already into different Departments.
The goal is to get all of its members discharged; but in the best possible way. By staying part of the military, part of a known system for the short term, the soldier will maintain their dignity. By being a part of a team they understand, they will not be shamed. By undertaking valued work they will gain pride. They will also get contacts, they will also be exposed to opportunities outside Defence and they will leave, when they are able, to take those opportunities.
They will also get help, with a Commanding Officer who knows and understands and teammates that also know and understand. They will know that sometimes someone will have a bad day, and that’s fine. They know that counselling is there for them without shame; they know they have a buddy to watch their back.
The goal will be to have a credible path to health or success for soldiers with PTSD. The soldier will know they are ill, and will know that their career will be ending, but using this model, it’s not over yet. They will know that they can get help without it being shameful. They know they will be doing good, valuable, useful work so they maintain their dignity and their pride. And they know they will be transitioned, not fired. The ambition will be to have zero suicides, and as close as possible to 100% transitioned within a time window, perhaps 2 years.
This may also be an avenue for Police, Fire, Ambulance and other uniformed workers. They could join the ranks of the Regiment and add their skills to the mix should the model work.
Soldiers cost a lot of money to train. Soldiers with PTSD retain skills; they can operate effectively just not to operational levels. Soldiers do not want to be medically discharged and dumped into the community. Soldiers thrive in the system, but not when they are mocked or belittled for being ill. Soldiers want to get better.
Creating a system, within the system to use the soldier removes the operational concerns from the ADF but it also frees the soldier to be used by the Government to perform other tasks; tasks that cost the Government billions to do. By keeping these soldiers together, looking after them becomes more efficient and by employing them and not discarding them, soldiers just might get better. Some might be moved back to online duties, some might transition into productive work outside Defence and some might retire honourably. Some might choose life.
A PTSD Regiment, a place for soldiers, sailors and airmen and women to go to be repaired, or transitioned with honour and dignity.
A way to say to service personnel, we still respect you and we still value what you can do.
A stepping stone to the next stage of a satisfying and productive life.
The Honourable Con Sciacca AO
Sciacca's and Co Lawyers
Level 4, 270 Adelaide Street
Brisbane, Queensland, 4000
The Honourable Con Sciacca AO,
In February/March 1993 Slater and Gordon of Melbourne acted in the conveyance of a property at 1/85 Kerr Street Fitzroy Fitzroy in my name.
This conveyance and the mortgage which financed the purchase are now the subject of separate police and Law Society of Victoria investigations. I am cooperating fully with police and the LSV.
As a result of proceedings initiated in the Supreme Court of Victoria by Slater and Gordon I now know that Sciacca's and Co was involved in this matter.
On 26 August Justice Digby made orders in the Supreme Court in relation to a range of documents held by Slater and Gordon.
One document is a facsimile from your firm dated 18 March 1993 and described in Annexe A (e) of the orders below.
REQUEST
Who was Sciacca's and Co acting for on 18 March 1993?
If the firm believes it was acting for me, please provide me with a copy of my file.
Kind regards,
Ralph Blewitt