http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia Neither Australian PM John Howard nor anyone else in the Australian government speaks for the Australian people. Howard and his partners-in-crime are simply corporate puppets who have been manoeuvred into power by the mass media, which has played a key role in attaching the tiny percentage of Australians whose votes determine election results - those living in a handful of marginal seats - to the so-called Liberal (but actually, Conservative) party. Since the Australian people therefore find themselves deprived of a voice, I thought I would take it upon myself to represent Australia to the world. Why not? Nobody else does. en socialdemocracynow socialdemocracynow Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:12:57 +0100 daily 1 I never thought the day would come when I would post the text of a John Howard speech to my own website. Yet the Prime Minister's website is currently carrying a speech he allegedly delivered to the Deakin Society in Melbourne two days ago. If this speech is authentic, it represents the bravest statement by an Australian prime minister on American foreign policy ever made, even if Howard states that he is speaking as 'private citizen' rather than in his capacity as prime minister. (Let's face it, he IS the prime minister. Whenever he appears in a public forum he is surely present AS prime minister.) Anyway, back to the speech: Howard is saying, effectively, that the Americans have lied to him all the way . He also implies that British PM Tony Blair shares this view. Now I find myself wondering if the Prime Minister's website has not been hacked. I for one find it almost impossible to imagine that Howard could say such things, and that even if he did hold such views that he would also make public Tony... Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:12:57 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/Amazing-John-Howard-speech-this-has-hoax-right/5/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/Amazing-John-Howard-speech-this-has-hoax-right/5/ A widely-publicized report in the Washington Post addresses the fact - long known to most people who have studied the issue - that while Americans spend more on health care than anyone else, they derive far less value for money. 'The survey, published in the journal Health Affairs, questioned 6,957 adults who had recently been hospitalized, had surgery or reported health problems between March and June of this year.' The respondents came from the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and Germany. ( SOURCE ) The report's conclusion, albeit one I would have expected, seems to me incontrovertible proof that in many respects central to our lives, welfare state solutions are by far the most efficient.* Indeed, out of the countries surveyed in a study those who seem most contented with the quality of their health care are the British, whose national health care system is usually depicted by conservative ideologues as a little more than a joke. A hitherto unremarked aspect of the survey... Sat, 05 Nov 2005 03:33:54 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/Australia-ideologically-triggered-health-care-crisis/4/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/Australia-ideologically-triggered-health-care-crisis/4/ The other day, greatly to my surprise, I learned from one of my students that Australia has the 'highest minimum wages in the world.' I instantly demanded to know where he had obtained his information, and discovered that he had derived his views from an article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph that sounded very much like a precis of what the Australian federal government is currently telling Australians by way of propaganda for its hugely unpopular Industrial Relations reforms. Although I don't know whether the federal government is actually making such claims, many employer groups do seem to think that minimum wages here are much too high. One writer for the Murdoch press, Mike Steketee, actually claimed recently that 'minimum wages as a proportion of average incomes are higher in Australia than in most other Western countries.' ( SOURCE ) Whether or not the matter is directly relevant to the Howard government's projected IR reforms, it is important to know how Australia measures up in... Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:46:10 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/The-minimum-wage-deception/3/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/The-minimum-wage-deception/3/ The story reproduced below, taken from the website of Melbourne's Herald Sun , which is apparently the largest selling newspaper in Australia, illustrates the point made in the previous post that the gloves are really off these days, as reactionary elites from different countries co-operate with one another in an effort to suppress opposition. This particular incident, involving the inexplicable arrest, detainment (five days in solitary confinement!) and deportation of 36yo American peace activist Scott Parkin - or, more to the point, anti-Halliburton activist -  shows how the so-called war on terror has furnished the pretext for the suppression of individuals who have  done nothing wrong whatsoever. In fact, according to Australia's Attorney-General, Phillip Ruddock, Parkin has been deported not because of anything he has done, but because he has received 'an adverse security assessment,' something that resulted in the instant cancellation of his visa. ( SOURCE ) This is... Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:16:37 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/ANOTHER-DISMAL-EPISODE-THE-LIFE-AMERICAN-PUPPET-STATE/2/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/ANOTHER-DISMAL-EPISODE-THE-LIFE-AMERICAN-PUPPET-STATE/2/ The World Socialist Web Site is one of the very few places - on the Internet or anywhere else - where you can find insightful, critical commentary on contemporary Australia. It is truly sad that virtually the only intelligent thinking about current Australian society and politics comes from a source which believes utterly and dogmatically that the only hope for mankind is something which can never possibly occur, that is to say, an international proletarian revolution. Leaving this crank ideology aside, you really won't find anyone who can lay the facts as plainly before you as WSWS writer Mike Head does in this devastating indictment of the descent of Australia's parliamentary state into the worst kind of despotism. And this is all occurring without any opposition whatsover from the opposition Labor Party or the mainstream media, which, like that in the U.S. and the U.K., has long surrendered whatever pretensions it had to the status of critical 'third estate.' Because pieces as good as this... Tue, 13 Sep 2005 07:43:06 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/THE-WAY-THINGS-ARE-NOW/1/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/voice_of_australia/THE-WAY-THINGS-ARE-NOW/1/