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description=4 posts published by Tara Nipe during February 2013;

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y lead to ward closures sadly though that s how are elected officials have behaved since the federal cuts were announced both federal and state governments blaming each other for the crisis ad neither taking responsibility or offering a solution a reasonable person would think that lives are risked when beds are forced to close regardless of who compels the closure apparently not because it s only the anf who s talking about lives at risk instead of money and that s why we re rallying tomorrow because while politicians focus on the money nurses midwives ambulance officers psychologists medical scientists pharmacists support staff allied health professionals doctors patients advocates and members of the community want to know what s happening to fix it this is an issue that can affect anyone who lives in is passing through or who has family in victoria think you re okay because you have private insurance think again if you re in a car accident or seriously ill you ll be taken to one of melbourne s major public hospitals if your specialist is concerned you ll go to a public hospital if you need a transplant high level intensive care specialty surgery advanced nuclear imaging an urgent procedure a public hospital and if there aren t any beds then you ll be waiting too if you can come to the rally now only 11 hours away please show the premier the prime minister and our health ministers that victorians care about our public system if you can t be there please contact your state and federal mp s and let them know that you vote and you care the longer this goes on the longer it will take to recover 666 days and a word about corruption 01 friday feb 2013 posted by tara nipe in uncategorized 1 comment tags australian politics corruption hypocrisy politics queensland unions since the news of craig thomson s arrest on fraud charges yesterday coincidentally occurring in the middle of federal opposition leader tony abbott s address to the national press council the already constant buzzing about union corruption has grown louder better writers than i have covered troubling aspects of the arrest concerns about a fair trial political motivation running the entire thing and today s neil mitchell interview with federal employment minister bill shorten and federal opposition treasurer joe hockey contains interesting comparisons and allegations of hypocrisy i do want to note the disgusting comment by nsw premier barry o farrell in response to the report that mr thomson was strip searched my focus in this post though is to analyse series of interlinking arguments that underlie this buzzing let me start by saying that my introduction to philosophical argument and structure was over two decades ago and started looking way to much like algebra before i got a grasp on it so while i m open to input on the way i ve deconstructed the buzz that aspect s not what it s about last night when i tweeted that we could perhaps wait until his case was determined before branding mr thomson guilty leftyscumbag who s not so much a fan of the alp responded of course he s bloody guilty he s a corrupt unionist typical of a labor hack when i asked if all unionists were corrupt he replied not all of them no the honest ones don t go into politics then i don t know if all labor mps with union backgrounds are corrupt but i d say it s more likely than not i ve yet to have a response to my question about whether he believes this is more likely because unions are fundamentally corrupt because non corrupt unionists are apolitical because the alp s corrupt the phantom leftist s responses iterate a common theme what i have seen most often on twitter is varieties of the following p1 craig thomson was an elected union official p2 craig thomson is corrupt c therefore all union officials and unions are corrupt and or p1 craig thomson is an alp mp p2 craig thomson is corrupt c therefore the alp is corrupt and it all comes down to p1 the alp receives funds from unions p2 all unions are corrupt c therefore the alp is corrupt untrustworthy acting at the behest of unions it seems fair to say that had they known rank and file health services union members would not have approved the use of a union creadit card to purchase goods and or services for an official s own use peter wicks notes that there were no guidelines on hsu credit card use at the time which i ll get back to in a second because he also draws attention to the fact that marco bolano s hsu credit card was used at brothels that kathy jackson s own use of hsu funds for personal gain dwarfs than of thomson and that neither of them have been charged his site is excellent and strongly recommended if there were no guideline on union credit card use nor any attempt to mask the non union expenditures as for example stationery supplies then unethical seems more appropriate than fraud the latter i d be inclined to reserve for things like billing one s employer for extortionate consultancy services by your own consultancy company but let me allow for the purposes of this discussion the claim of fraud and move on to the unstated premise that fraud also constitutes corruption the classic definition like the oxford dictionary s most commonly gives bribery as an example of dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power but i m very comfortable with the wider definition used by the nsw independent commission against corruption that corrupt conduct is when a public official improperly uses or tries to improperly use the knowledge power or resources of their position for personal gain or the advantage of others a public official acts dishonestly or unfairly or breaches public trust a member of the public influences or tries to influence a public official to use his or her position in a way that is dishonest biased or breaches public trust for the most part i d argue that just where fraud becomes corruption is unclear according to mr thomson s lawyer on e of the 150 charges is that he allegedly used a union credit card to buy 12 worth of ice cream which might be petty larceny but surely falls well short of corruption by anyone s standard that said an isolated incident is one thing a systemic pattern is another so let us once again for the purposes of this discussion grant that the charges amount to corrupt behaviour and move on to matters a little more contentious there are a couple of premises here that are accepted as facts in these arguments but aren t which is why these oft stated claims aren t valid to start with while mr thomson has indeed been charged with 150 counts of fraud he has not yet been found guilty of anything he is also currently an independent and has suspended his alp membership but i think that s a little nit picky let me make it very clear that i believe any official taking personal advantage of their role at the expense of those they represent is abhorrent and indefensible should mr thomson be found guilty of fraud he does deserve the fullest consequences of the law but for now he s not actually guilty however even in the event that mr thomson is found guilty of fraud and corruption even if he were found to have been rewarded because of corrupt behaviour that would not support the concluding leap from one to all while there is undoubtedly corruption by some in some unions as there almost certainly is to some extent in many large organisations it is quite patently untrue that all unions or all union officials are corrupt the union i know most about of course is my own the official structural hierarchy has members at the top and all key decision making is rooted in the best interests of members for that reason victorian branch anf officials are paid according to the same enterprise bargaining agreement pay structure as public sector nurses and midwives i attended the most recent annual general meeting where the branch s finances were transparently laid out and explained i have no doubt there are many other unions equally as principled and professional that there is or may be some corruption in some branches of some unions is a despicable dishonourable illegal immoral breach of trust but this argument needs only one union free of corruption to be disproved that leaves us with one argument that the alp is corrupt or at least unreliable and untrustworthy because of their union affiliation there is no question that many of the ideologies of the left are also those of trade unions indeed many of the services most australians take for granted publicly funded health care and education an eight hour day weekends public holidays paid leave the existence of leave full stop employer paid superannuation occupational health and safety were once upon a time the reckless feckless ideas of unions and the left rarely do employers share holders and ceo s decide they ve made sufficient profit and will raise wages or improve conditions those changes come only through negotiation and all too often pressure in the same way that there are ideological similarities between left leaning unions and left leaning political parties there are common goals shared by business and right leaning politicians and parties in general they prefer to reduce pressures that limit business growth and thus profit and it makes sense that organisations are inclined to support those parties or politicians who they think will act in their best interests though the line between support and influence can become blurred some donors are fairly even handed westfield group gave the alp the same amount westfield ltd donated to the liberal party for example while westpac and anz gave the same or similar amounts to each party though nab gave almost twice as much to the right conversely some donors are understandably very partisan federal health minister nicola roxon stated that 97 of british american tobacco s 2010 international political donations were to the australian liberal and national parties according to adam bennett in the australian today the liberal party s biggest contributors in 2011 12 included the mining and gambling industries though the latter has also contributed to the labor party which says andrew wilkie explains why we still have no substantial pokie reform here s the thing though just as workers are represented by unions employers are represented by associations in the 2011 12 victorian public sector enterprise agreement that time forgot nurses and midwives were represented by the australian nursing federation vic branch and public hospitals and de facto their employer the state government were represented by the victorian hospitals industry association like unions the aim of these associations is to represent the interests of their members so the australian hotels association aha the australian hotels and hospitality association and clubs nsw who collectively donated almost 550 000 to the liberal and national parties source donated to the parties they thought were most likely to support gambling legislation that generates income for pubs and clubs that run pokie machines what happens if an official of an association acts contrary to the best interests of its members in some cases this may be unavoidable victoria s health and community services union for example represents all those who work in mental health so it s possible a conflict could arise between the best interests of its nursing members for example and those of mental health assistants but what about where the needs of members in unambiguous and the failure to act is not because of internal conflict but for personal gain in queensland small retailers including the independent grocers association have since 1887 been represented by the queensland retail traders and shopkeepers association qrtsa now the united retail federation urf in what the sunshine coast daily last month described as a dramatic about face the urf has decided it will no longer opposed restricted trading hours a move that benefits the supermarket duopoly and disadvantages small retailers who can ill afford to pay employees to work longer hours queensland iga chair roz white has said this move may risk thousands of jobs in what is already a shaky retail climate and this was pre floods according to a report this january metcash who supplies over 3100 independent stores nationally has been targeted by coles woolworths acting in association with iga in late 2011 metcash reportedly contributed around 50 000 matched by qrtsa for court and associated costs fighting changes to allowable trading hours less than a year later metcash recommended iga allow their qrtsa membership to lapse so why after a decades long relationship did iga disassociate and why did qrtsa urf decide to stop campaigning against extended trading hours the announcement was made on december 5th last year by current president bruce mills apparently to the surprise of queensland premier campbell newman urf claims to be the peak representative of corner stores and independents and had staunchly opposed any relaxation to trading hours but late last month it suddenly reversed its position calling on the state government to forge ahead with deregulation the national retail association which represents some of the biggest retailers is preparing a fresh push to relax trading hours with up to eight separate applications to extend opening hours across the state scheduled to be heard by the qirc so far this year nra deputy chief executive officer bianca seeto said the urf had previously been the main opponent in applications for extended trading hours and their opposition had been taken into consideration in the final judgment source but that announcement came after the better part of a year of discord between the association and iga members i ve been informed that iga store owners complained qrtsa s communication with members was largely non existent that the organisation did not provide notifications and staff were often unavailable to take calls this change coincided with then president scott driscoll s transition to government pre selected for the queensland seat of redcliffe in november 2010 the life time national party member who had been unsuccessful in previous pre selection bids won the seat last march during the state election after a hard fought 18 month campaign that saw a post preference swing of 15 6 away from incumbent alp candidate lillie van litsenberg mr driscoll withdrew from his paid qrtsa role as executive director and young nationals members and executive ben scott was appointed in his steed while also assisting mr driscoll in his election campaign a former qrtsa executive reported that mr driscoll and mr scott were running qrtsa from an office within mr driscoll s campaign headquarters mr driscoll retained his unpaid role as qrtsa president despite reports of concerns about conflict of interest from other qtrsa committee members and criticism from queensland labor members that the urf was a vehicle for mr driscoll s self promotion that foll...