By Andrew Phillips, 21st February 2006
Following months of silence from the unions and a misguided, misleading campaign by the media, Australian Protectionists felt the public should be informed of the socially irresponsible actions of T&R Pastoral, the Murray Bridge Council and the Murraylands Development Board.
A leaflet was produced and distributed around the city. One copy was also sent to a reporter at the Murray Valley Standard, in order to let the paper know that not all Australians would lie down and allow “Big Business” and vested interests dump Aussie workers onto the scrap heap and import cheap foreign workers without some form of protest.
Strangely enough, within 4 days of receiving the leaflet, the same paper ran a frontpage headline “T&R Under Fire!”. After months of conspicuous silence, suddenly the union movement considered this an issue to address and apparently is venting it’s pseudo-Marxist spleen with self-righteous fury all over the place. T&R’s workers will be neither fooled nor amused by this sudden display of interest by just another organization seeking a borderless world with a deregulated labour market….
The change of heart by the newspaper’s editor Travis Simmons was even more startling. Suddenly he has gone from being a supporter of inundating the area with cheap foreign labour, to someone with a social conscience who believes charges of importing cheap labour are “very serious allegations”. He is calling for Amanda Vanstone’s office to investigate and make all findings readily available. Likewise, in his deep concern for local workers and displaying a steadfast sense of decency, he has also called for T&R to be punished accordingly if found guilty of this foul behaviour.
Not once, has our existence been mentioned by the mouthpiece of the vested interests whose only desire is to maximize profits at the expense of the living standards of helpless ordinary Australians. That is fine, we had not expected accolades form such people. However the whole exercise has exposed the hypocrisy of the media and proven that if you want to make change all you must do is ACT.
T&R’s actions are not isolated. We have witnessed an increasing degree of victimization and exploitation of powerless Australian workers by greedy unscrupulous multinationals. Identical behaviour has been exhibited by firms once regarded as decent Australian companies who at one time appeared to value and respect their local workforce. Holden have come under fire for using foreign labour, Teys in Naracoorte have also shunned their local workforce in favour of Chinese coolies, Dana are also threatening local workers with replacement by foreign workers if they do not accept a pay cut of 5% with new employees facing a pay offer 20% less.
Certainly one can rely on the unions to periodically make “all the right noises”. However, every 3 years they go crawling back to the Party that bears as much blame for the plight in which our nation finds itself as the Liberal Party. Labor embraced de-regulation and open borders despite open opposition by the Australian people and the blatant evidence that Australian workers would suffer.
We offer the challenge to the Union Movement to put up or shut up. Face reality and step up to the fight for the country alongside committed nationalists. Alternatively the unions can continue supporting the parties selling out the Australian people, trampling our freedoms and security, wiping out our pay, conditions and standard of living.
The choice is there for the union membership. Self-determination or national annihilation?
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