First published on The Drum: 25/10/2011

Every decent industrial dispute needs a villain, but it seems Qantas CEO Alan Joyce’s efforts to cast unions as corporate wreckers are backfiring badly.

With 30,000 workers, 11 unions, an iconic red and white kangaroo and the perennial headline-grabbers of aircraft safety, Aussie jobs and stranded holidaymakers, occasional high-profile industrial disputes are a fact of life at Qantas.

The airline has traditionally responded to union campaigning with a straight bat – make any claim and the airline would shut the issue down, convinced that responding would only inflame the situation.

But managing his first showdown, Joyce has opted for beat-up over hose-down. He’s grabbed the microphone off the unions, cranked up the amp and is ripping through his song-list at high volume – “A new spirit of Australia”, is followed by “Qantas pilots are greedy” with an encore of “I’m a really nice person and they’re trying to kill me”.

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First published on The Drum: 18/10/2011

As our Prime Minister and Opposition Leader continue to struggle under the weight of negative approval ratings perhaps the time has come to draw guidance from the humble hagfish.

Tomorrow is official Hagfish Day, a day to celebrate the ‘beauty of ugly’ and make the point it’s not just cute and cuddly creatures that deserve our attention.

Haikus are written, songs are sung, school kids are encouraged to learn more about the slimy deep-sea scavengers.

It’s not that our political leaders are slimy scavengers. Hang on… it’s not that our political leaders bear any physical similarities that make Hagfish Day relevant; but their pursuit of popularity does end up reinforcing all the negatives that drive our disdain with politics.

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Marriage is a deeply personal issue – as it should be. It’s a something couples decide to do, or not to do, for a whole host of reasons.

The problem is that in Australia, in this day and age, not every citizen has the right to make this private, personal decision.

Essential Media was approached by a coalition of community organisations to help broaden the campaign to rectify this injustice, and we jumped at the chance to work on such a fundamental issue of rights.

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First published on The Drum: 11/10/2011

With the carbon debate set to hit the pointy end of Federal Parliament this week, get set for more character analysis of our beleaguered Prime Minister.

With her public persona now inextricably tied to her decision to accept that her approach to carbon pricing amounts to a broken promise, it’s worth looking into what’s fuelling the ‘Juliar’ phenomenon.

After all – Politician Lies – there’s hardly a headline in that right?

Q. Which statement best reflects your view:

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We live in an internet age where news knows no borders or boundaries.

Yet most ‘international’ stories still have a strong national focus, such as one country’s sporting prowess, the economic woes of another, or political debates from countries that still dominate the news like the United States.

Recently I moved from Sydney to Brussels. It’s called for a shift in hemispheres and also a re-think of how and from where I get my daily news fix.

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First published on The Drum: 04/10/2011

Canberra will be pointy-headed heaven this week, with Dating Agency RSVP possibly the only organisation in Australia that hasn’t released a lengthy policy submission ahead of this week’s tax and jobs summits.

Pity, as RSVP’s surveys consistently show tradesmen are top of the list of men women want to date. Tradies are hot property. Tax consultants don’t really rate.

With policy, as with dating, blue-collar jobs beat tax hands down. And it’s jobs – not tax – that offer the most promise of innovative government policy this week.

On tax, the Federal Government already has an ambitious agenda with its fraught carbon and minerals resource rent taxes hitting parliament in succession.

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We may live in an interconnected world economy, but there is no reporting of how workers from China to Chile are affected by the second wave of the financial crisis or who is to blame.

This time round the wave is hitting workers with over 205 million people unemployed, and it’s not the bankers and financial institutions. It’s nurses and teachers as public sector budgets are slashed.

After 5 days in the media hub of the annual International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings in Washington DC I’ve been left wondering who rules the world and who is left to write about it. Read more »