Maritime Diary

By National Secretary Paddy Crumlin

You have to worry about what's going on in our country at the moment and what has led up to it. Our national sense of ourselves has been as a fair minded, fair go people, who look after battlers in our own country while also being prepared to back the people of other countries in need in the world at large... Well we're doing a mighty job of disposing of that.

WEAPONS OF MASS CORRUPTION

Our involvement in two world wars was as much about concern for others and their rights as it was for our own. Australians have always overwhelmingly rejected despots and bastardry against human beings by other human beings. That's evident for instance in our strong stance against apartheid and US and colonial thuggery in Vietnam for instance. After a considerable internal debate we repudiated our own Government's weak and sycophantic support there, got rid of it and Gough Whitlam got us out as one of the first decisions of his government. Inevitably the US followed. We are not a perfect nation for sure, but one whose people stacked up on the big issues over a long, long time, better than any I reckon.

It really has been a generational identity, proud of who we were partly because we could say we were a forthright people who have by and large put others before our own interest at key points in history. Part of that identity made it easier to communicate, share and support each other. It wasn't only realised in us being one of the first countries to have things like unemployment and old age benefits, but also translated into an easy familiarity in our local communities whether through footy, charity or school regardless of ethnic background, or even differences in material wealth. Not a nation without social classes, but one that came very close to it, and was widely admired internationally because of that identifiable trait.

Well we're doing a mighty job of disposing of that past. Everything we didn't like about the elitism and individualism that drove the worst aspects of US culture for example, is increasingly becoming a feature of our own. Gross consumerism for those individual needs is now the high altar of national persuasion and motivation. That change inevitably makes us insular to the point of selfishness to other people, whether to the needs of others either inside and outside our country. From the unemployed and uneducated or elderly or otherwise disadvantaged (too often labelled losers or bludgers) to the refugees and victims of a hard and sometimes cruel world, for the first time in our history outside war, languishing in our concentration camps (privately owned of course)

Good Sports

Like most of us, I love sport - all of it including the Commonwealth Games - and equally like most of us was pretty good at it when young, as was my family. But it didn't sustain our family or any family alone. Any more than the type of car we drove, the size of the TV or the plans we made for holidays or the size of the home we had. Australians as much derived their self esteem from a spirit of helping a mate, not letting someone go without, If we were to have a blue with someone, it was because a right was being denied, or an injustice was prevailing. Many of our internal national debates were around those things. Better rights for our indigenous people. A fair go on the job through strong unions. National healthcare. Seafarers, wharfies and their families were particularly recognised by our commitment to these qualities, even when it gave more conservative advocates the shits (or maybe particularly if it did).

Historical evidence abounds. Wharfies and seafarers were alongside the international human rights activists fighting for Spanish democracy, against Hitler's hoons in the Spanish Civil War, many of our members gave their lives doing their job in WWII as merchant marine or Darwin wharfies, but blew up at the Menzies Government in the lead up to the war for sending Australian pig iron to Japan who were clearly bent in sending it back in a less friendly manner. We stopped guns to Vietnam and Nelson Mandela said our sanctions against apartheid played a pivotal role in freeing his people.

When the Menzies Government tried to bust unions in the fifties it made us battle all the harder for the rights of all workers in all industries. That type of union set us apart in many ways, and notorious I suppose.

Were we a union made up of saints then? I don't think so, maybe I keep the wrong company. We were just working Australians, even if we were a bit more knock around than the average. Sure , at the various times we had our critics, particularly in the media (Frank Packers newspapers particularly hated us, Murdoch's now). Being at the front of the fight for social justice and a better go for all will make enemies in the elite and privileged areas, and hard knocks come with that. However we persevered and most Australians are now proud of the realisation of many of the causes we championed, and generally recognise the union's role in the process. As a member, if you don't take special pride as well in that history, you don't know it.

Supersize Us

The Howard Government is the political cook mainly contributing to this corruption of values by fattening our egos and blunting our perceptions. The documentary Supersize Me gives an insight into the tactics of the McDonalds fast food chain. This government is Supersizing our national identity through a junk food diet of selfishness and individualism. Advertising and commercialising news and events, both written and broadcast, with a heavy editorial bias towards legitimising the governments elitist agenda adds to diminishing firm understanding of it. Government and corporate spin doctors ensure the 'information' on their decisions is a highly sophisticated form of lying at worse and misinforming at best.

Try these Supersize Meals from the John Howard fast food chain - Work Choices is good because it means flexibility and flexibility means new opportunity and jobs. 100 per cent fat and sugar! What this anti-worker legislation really means is you get sacked if you give cheek or even question the all powerful rights of your boss. Profits will go up for companies because labour costs will go down with penalty rates, the minimum wages and annual leave. The only thing that will go up is the hours you stay on the job.

Unions are a health hazard. 100 per cent fat! Unions are really only the sum total of workers and by extension their families. Very powerful international companies aren't in competition of interests with other companies really, they're generally more interested in getting bigger. But they are often in opposition to their workforce. Simple maths why. The less rights you have, the less you earn and the less you expect and the less you can do about anything, the better the profits and the higher the management rake off. There's a world of difference between what Howard wants to do with workers, and what he won't do with executive salary packages.

The war in Iraq was against Weapons of Mass Destruction - more like a burger made from shit than fat! This lie and the dreadful consequences of it will bring down the Bush and Blair administrations, already increasingly vulnerable because of it. Even those two partners in the Coalition of the Willing didn't go as far as bribing the same people they had declared a so called just and moral war on. It's frightening that the Howard Government's contempt for the Australian people's worth extends to legitimising a war while funding the opponent. The Australian Wheat Board did not do a thing without the full understanding of their political cronies in Canberra. Too rich even for a world political digestive system used to almost any rotten or decayed leftovers. John Howard will continue to lie about it because he believes his government has supersized our national identity into mass and stupefying laziness and self absorption, and really we don't care or will soon forget.

Playing the Game, not watching it

Maybe that's why we rely so much on our young sports people to distract us from the harsh facts of these things. But national fitness can not be sustained by sitting back and watching someone else do it. The sporting values of an equal start, honest endeavour, courage, teamwork, playing fairly and by the rules has to also apply to our personal lives, our community, our politics, our workplace and internationally to have any meaning. The Howard Government has supersized our national identity with not one, but an arsenal of his own Weapons of Mass Corruption. If we have to fight someone, best we as a nation look in the mirror see what we're becoming and start fighting this government and fighting to become the sort of people we so admire and once were ourselves. I reckon our union and membership is pretty well placed to have our say on where Australia's going today, particularly since not much has stopped us finding our voice in the past.