Chemical Chicken

September 28, 2009 at 8:32 am | In environment, free market economy, human rights | 1 Comment
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‘If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.’ Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

The suing of KFC by an Australian family in New South Wales for causing serious injury to their 7 year old daughter opens the whole bucket of chicken for industrial agriculture once again. This is not a localized issue of whether something nasty got into the food because of poor hygiene standards of the local store but goes to the issue of how food is manufactured in our world today.

In October 2005, Monika Samaan, now 11, collapsed and had to be rushed to hospital after eating part of a Twister from Villawood KFC. Her salmonella poisoning developed into acquired spastic quadriplegia, acquired profound intellectual disability and liver dysfunction. She is now confined to a wheel chair.

We all know that eating junk food is bad for us but the fast food chains seem to like to add an extra bullet in the game of dining roulette. In 2003, the Food Safety Information Council estimated that a whopping 5 million Australians are affected by food-poisoning every year and a 2005 report found that approximately 120 people die from food-borne illnesses in Australia every year.

KFC only stopped using partially-hydrogenated oils, one of the worst sources of trans fats which massively increases the risk of heart disease, to fry their chicken when the Centre for Science in the Public Interest took them to court in 2006. Health authorities worldwide recommend that consumption of trans fats be reduced to trace amounts. Baskin and Robbins makes a large Fudge Brownie (‘vanilla soft serve blended with brownie chunks and hot fudge’) which packs two days’ worth of saturated fat (39 grams) and almost a day’s worth of recommended calorie intake (1,900 calories) into a snack.

If that doesn’t put you off, listen to this. In the United States in 1994, health investigators found that contamination of icecream pre-mix occurred because it was transported in tanker trailers that had previously been used to haul liquid eggs contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis. The contamination was not detected until the icecream had been distributed across the nation. Researchers estimated that 224,000 people in many different states contracted gastroenteritis as a result of eating the contaminated icecream. The practice of mass-distribution and transporting food long distances contains extensive risks as well.

The principles of the fast-food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society and everyday life. Producing things in similar, standardized ways embodies four principal processes: ‘efficiency’, ‘calculability’ based on quantitative indicators, such as profit, ‘predictability’ as standard products are delivered in predictable ways, and ‘control’ through technology.

These principles seem to be applied so that even routines to ensure food safety and hygiene operate at their most economical and efficient rather than their most effective. KFC’s own internal hygiene review found the Villawood outlet, the subject of the legal action, regularly failed to comply with standards around food cooking, storage temperature and shelf life. In March, the NSW Food Authority dished out a $73,000 fine to two KFC restaurants in Sydney for poor hygiene and QSR Pty Ltd, which operates the outlets, was convicted of 11 charges of breaching food hygiene laws.

Such principles become especially problematic when applied to large-scale agricultural production from which KFC and other fast food chains source their never-ending demand for chicken and beef. The connection between flu viruses, now a source of global epidemics, and the practices of agribusiness have been strengthened by the findings of a report by Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (2009) produced in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

‘Industrial farm animal production is characterized by confining large numbers of animals of the same species in relatively small areas, generally in enclosed facilities that restrict movement. In many cases, the waste produced by the animals is eliminated through liquid systems and stored in open pit lagoons.’ This image of farms surrounded by lakes of excrement is almost enough to put you off your 2-Piece Feed.

One of the report’s damning findings is that the ‘intensive confinement production system’ or factory farming increases antibiotic resistance because of their misuse in the industry. OK we all want clean, healthy animals killed for our gastronomic pleasure. But antibiotics are administered in huge quantities, not just for disease prevention, but also for growth promotion. Tender, juicy breasts of chicken so big that the poor chicken cannot stand up and lies face down in its own excrement.

Reports show that between 17.8 to 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics per year are pumped into these animals. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70% of the antibiotics dispensed in the United States annually are used in farm animals. The practice of adding low levels of antibiotics and growth hormones has become common practice among battery farm operations.

Disease experts are investigating the links between this widespread use of antibiotics in animals and the role of antimicrobial resistance in epidemics. Benign or beneficial bacteria, which normally live in the human digestive tract or on human skin, such as Golden Staph, may pass antimicrobial resistance to harmful bacteria. Golden Staph is an enduring problem in many large Australian hospitals, attacking intravenous lines, catheters and wounds after operations.

The Pew report states ‘While it is difficult to measure what percent of resistant infections in humans are caused by antimicrobial use in agriculture as opposed to other settings, it can be assumed that the wider the use of antimicrobials, the greater the chance for the development of resistance.’

The essentially unregulated use of antibiotics in US industrial farming has serious implications for the incubation of epidemics. Public health experts are studying the correlation between conditions in industrial food animal production and the spread of the influenza virus. Dr. Ann Marie Kimball, at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health says influenza surveillance may be missing the key bridging populations, such as farmers, veterinarians and meat packers. Just as avian influenza (H5N1) and SARS had connections to human contact with animals, reports point to a swine flu epicenter around a huge hog farm in Veracruz.

Industrial food animal production and fast food consumption are intimately linked. These production centres are no longer farms. We must relinquish our bucolic dreams of cows peacefully chewing in lush fields and chickens clucking contently in the farm yard. They have now been replaced by the clamour and bustle of something more like the cross between a science lab and a factory but with more shit, blood and pain. Surprisingly, these images are produced by dispassionate scientists not by animal activists in the street. Monika Samaan is a symbol for everybody on the planet. We are all at risk from this dehumanised factory system.

Western Sauce may spoil Peking Duck

July 28, 2009 at 1:28 am | In economic crisis, international relations | Leave a Comment
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This is my latest article in The Age.

PREDICTIONS of economic tsunamis always accompany downturns in Asia. Yet these economies remained resilient through the major economic meltdown of 1997 (with the possible exception of Indonesia) and subsequent reductions in growth. Does the Asian economic model have something to teach the West?

Australian Demons

June 9, 2009 at 8:52 am | In international relations | 3 Comments
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In the 1990s I was introduced to postcolonial Indian literature at university. The extraordinary characters in R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi series appealed to my own sense of youthful disorientation in the world. In ‘The Maneater of Malgudi’, the bewildered Nataraj attempts to produce business cards for the mythical stranger, Vasu. Mistakes over colours and paper quality bedevil Nataraj producing an oddly Austenesque quality. The bullying tone of Vasu, who turns out be a demon, intimidates Nataraj but, unlike Indian students in Australia, we never get the sense that he is in any real danger. This is the charming country of India I carry around in my head.

As Mark Twain so eloquently wrote, ‘The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions…’

It is hard to reconcile this world with that of the neverending dispute with Pakistan, intercommunal violence, nuclear posturing, and cacophonous call centres. When I pick up the phone and an Indian accent responds at the end of the line, I want to ask them what is your life like, what did you have for lunch, what can you see out of your window? The world of call centres suddenly seems so much more romantic. The efforts of Indian students in particular seem heroic to me. They have a reputation for studying hard, for practicality, they dominate the business and economics courses. You see them late at night in the library and at Coles stocking shelves. This is the new generation of Indians, successfully taking their place in the world and tilting at the mighty US.

However, in Australia, the spectre of past racist policies will continue to haunt us, if we fail to respond to these attacks. The support of racism in this country is now reaping its rewards in the bashing of people who represent a lucrative industry to this country, that is overseas students.

A growing number of overseas students are studying in Australia. Australian Education International (AEI) data show that in the year to October 2007, enrolments of full-fee paying overseas students in Australia increased by 19% to 437,065. Today the education industry generates substantial income for the Australian economy. ABS data show that in 2006-07 education-related spending by overseas students was valued at more than $11 billion. While students from China made up the largest proportion of overseas students in 2006, accounting for 22%, the second largest proportion was from India (11%).The number of enrolments of students from India more than tripled from 11,370 in 2002 to 39,166 in 2006, and has continued to grow.

Australians have a racist history. People of all ethnic groups were treated badly but Australia presented an opportunity to them, a new start. As Farouk says in ‘The Castle’: ‘He say plane fly overhead, drop value. I don’t care. In Beirut, plane fly over, drop bomb. I like these planes.’ Australia has, while not always embraced, at least tolerated refugees from Europe, Vietnam and Africa. We learned to live with their strange food and customs. When we hear the stories of those in their forties and fifties, of being vilified at school for their food and language, we can hardly credit it. But this era was followed by a time where we attempted to put our racist roots to bed, to smooth the dying pillow of racism: reconciliation, Mabo, the Native Title Act; it seems like a golden age, a far flung time of prosperity and generosity. Where different was not a dirty word.

But after twenty years of rampant globalisation, security issues and terrorism have made us all more afraid, more suspicious of the guy wearing the turban on the train, of the woman in the Hijab. The threat they present in our minds was heightened as a deliberate government policy for seven years. Our fear of the different increases, as the world shrinks. But now it is time to learn to live together again. We need a new government ad campaign to make us proud of the quality of our education system which attracts students from the region and all around the world.

This is a cynical call to practicality. As the world continues to descend into economic turmoil, Australia cannot afford to cut off any sources of revenue. Let’s welcome these students, embrace them. They are members of a growing global middle class. These students are the future managers and entrepreneurs, alienating them now will only present difficulties for our trade and business relations later. Let’s not forget that India is one of the economic powerhouses of the future. The US is in decline, economically, they should be declared a disaster area. We need to turn our trading eyes to other places.

The time has come for Rudd to shuck off that grey flannel suit, and show us some flair. The man who wooed the Chinese with his knowledge of Mandarin needs to find a way into the Indian psyche. If Rudd wants to be seen as the great internationalist and Australia as at least a safe, if not actually welcoming, destination for overseas students, then we need to improve our image. Just as Nataraj’s demon eventually destroys himself, so we will be destroyed (and repeatedly injure our international reputation) if we fail to exorcise the demons of racism in this country.

Democracy, the old-fashioned way

April 29, 2009 at 9:29 am | In human rights | Leave a Comment
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Just as the grand old Windsor Hotel survived the wrecking ball and has been revived through an extensive restoration, so democracy in Australia is having new life breathed into it by the Human Rights Consultation. An Indian woman in a pink sari rises and laments the death of a soldier in war and proclaims the best way to protect human rights is to end war. A disabled woman from a peak disability body remains seated and advocates to protect the rights of disabled people to vote because the Electoral Commission has just decided that assistance to blind people to vote in privacy is beyond their resources.

Mary Kostakidis, one of the panel heading the consultation, said that the passage of a Human Rights Act represented the hallmark of a civilized society.

Various right wing and Christian groups advocated the rights of the unborn child and the right to express unpalatable religious views. One speaker referred indirectly to the controversy of anti-Islamic views expressed by Catch the Fire Ministries in 2004, as an infringement on freedom of expression and religion. Another speaker alluded to the recent debate surrounding the Victorian abortion legislation and the rights of doctors to refuse treatment. Certain groups see the requirement for doctors to refer patients to other help where they are unwilling to advise on abortion as an infringement on freedom of religious belief.

The variety and plethora of issues, causes and interest groups represented at the morning session of the Federal Government’s Human Rights Consultation in Melbourne represents democracy at its best. Numerous views of the pros and cons for a Human Rights Act in Australia were aired.

Our table heard a heart-wrenching story from a grandmother who has a grandson with a severe brain injury, unable to move or communicate, whose entire needs must be provided by another. Her concern for his welfare has fallen on deaf ears as she desperately seeks assistance in the bewildering world of human services bureaucracy and legal confusion. The concern that governments remain unaccountable was expressed over and over, as others articulated unease that a Human Rights Act would take decision-making out of the hands of Parliament into the hands of the judiciary.

As other countries, like Thailand, descend into turmoil because the people lack a voice to call their politicians to account, I felt proud of our country’s political system for the first time in many years. All listened with interest and tolerance to the views of others. Any disagreements were aired as differences of opinion, in a way that many politicians in Parliament could learn from.

While I felt ambivalent about the opulence of the Grand Ballroom at the Windsor Hotel as a venue, it seemed that the figures in the stained glass windows peered at us with curiosity and benevolence. The atmosphere of this grand room imbued the proceedings with an air of dignity which heightened the atmosphere of tolerance and rational debate.

The views expressed portrayed a Human Rights Act as the answer to many ills in our society, which of course it cannot be. We can only hope that the positions voiced will not simply disappear into some bureaucratic black hole but will inform the decision making process in this milestone in Australia’s history.

Human Rights and Corporate Responsibility

April 29, 2009 at 9:10 am | In human rights, labour rights | Leave a Comment
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The debate in the Australian Parliament over the Fair Work Bill, earlier this year, highlighted some important issues on corporate responsibility and human rights. Rachel Nicholson from Allen Arthur Robinson law firm argues that under the Victoria Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, in certain circumstances, businesses already have a responsibility to protect human rights. The continuing small business exemption from unfair dismissal violates the rights of these workers to a fair hearing. Despite any legal ambiguity, it seems the drive for a culture protecting human rights is gaining force and business needs to be prepared.

Under the WorkChoices legislation, some businesses have been a little too eager to abandon corporate responsibility and impinge on labour rights, working conditions and fair pay. Internationally, companies have invested massive resources and money into countries like Indonesia and Burma, turning a blind eye to gross human rights violations, including the use of child labour.

A growing body of evidence details human rights violations due to corporate activities in poor communities in developing countries. A study undertaken by the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net) in June 2008, found that in 159 cases from 66 countries, business enterprises have had significant negative impacts upon the enjoyment of all types of human rights, in different political systems, around the world and across industries. Professor John Ruggie, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights in 2006 found that the oil, gas and mining extraction sector were responsible for two-thirds of reported abuses. The damage caused to company image in the past has been severe and lingers on even when the company cleans up its act.

Rachel Nicholson from Allens Arthur Robinson law firm, at the Everyday People, Everyday Rights Human Rights Conference on March 17, argued that a national human rights charter may make it possible to pursue human rights violations committed offshore by subsidiaries and related entities of companies incorporated in Australia.

In its Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Fair Work Bill 2008, the Australian Human Rights Commission raised concerns that the Bill fails to fully implement Australia’s international human rights obligations. The continuing exemption of small businesses from unfair dismissal procedures violates the rights of more than a third of the workforce (36%) to procedural fairness and a fair hearing. It recommended that employees of all small businesses be entitled to the same protections from unfair dismissal as all other employees. The WorkChoices legislation seriously eroded the labour rights of Australian workers and the current government is continuing these appalling practices.

However in a seeming contradictory move last year the government launched a consultation process on how best to promote and protect human rights. Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Australia is the only modern democracy without a national charter of human rights. Rachel Nicholson argues that under the Victoria Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, in certain circumstances, businesses already have a responsibility to protect human rights.

Under the Charter, where a company wins a government tender or otherwise receives government funding, it may be acting as a ‘public authority’. It is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way that is inconsistent with human rights set out in the Act and it has an obligation to give proper consideration of the impact of any decision on the rights protected.

Councils, Government Ministers and public officials have an obligation to act consistently with and give proper consideration to human rights in relation to all acts, omissions and decisions of a public nature, including the granting of contracts, project approvals and licences and the reviewing of impact assessments. Thus businesses applying for contracts, projects and licences are likely to be required to take human rights into account in the development of their project and be able to demonstrate that they have done so.

Telstra has expressed a general interest in having better protection of human rights in Australia. In its submission to the federal government last year it called for a national charter of rights, similar to the charters introduced in Victoria and the ACT, based on the statutory model adopted in Britain in 1998. However Telstra’s manouvering around negotiating a new enterprise agreement since June last year does not suggest a great respect for employees’ rights to freedom of association.

Ben Schokman of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre asserts that there is a sound economic case for a human rights charter. ‘When you look at human rights violations, whenever you’ve got the violation of a human right, that’s essentially a real cut to any human potential, it’s a cut to the economic potential of their society.’

With the passage of the Fair Work Bill, the arrangements for unfair dismissal procedures still fail to apply to significant numbers of the Australian workforce. If a human rights charter is passed, it leaves corporations in doubt as to their legal position. In spite of any legal uncertainty, it seems the movement to protect human rights is gaining momentum and business needs to be in position to meet the challenge.

Business Out, Government In

February 18, 2009 at 11:58 pm | In economic crisis, free market economy | Leave a Comment
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For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1935

As the Federal Opposition snarl and gnash their teeth and ardent neoliberals sigh and shake their heads, it seems that the Rudd government is willing to reclaim the role of government as the provider of social investment. The Federal Government’s stimulus package provides long overdue funding to schools and housing, social infrastructure long neglected during the Howard years. As business is unable or unwilling to sustain its social investment with the global economic crisis, in the style of ABC Learning and Rio Tinto, it becomes clear that government has an important role to play in providing this. But not only during crises. Government’s investment in social infrastructure must be ongoing and significant and if business cannot sustain its input during bad economic times then they need to be forced to provide in the good times.

Despite pleas from the government to maintain employment, Rio Tinto abruptly closed its WA mining operations and sacked 2000 workers in spite of WA government money put into the project. Until recently the orthodoxy has been to reduce the size of government to a far smaller percentage of GDP. One argument is that governance functions can be performed by other institutions such as corporations, non-government organizations, and communities. The collapse of ABC childcare and the current Connex debacle seems to demonstrate quite clearly that the private sector has a limited role to play in the provision of public services. This is clearly the role of government. The government is finally showing some leadership in this direction but they must go further.

This package reverses the trend of the last 10 years of transferring government debt to personal debt. The government instead of expecting individuals to carry the burdens of the State is shouldering these responsibilities and ultimately the government has greater resources, particularly if it requires business to make a fair contribution. In 2005 the Senate Economics Committee found that the large current account deficit in 2004-5, which exceeded 7% for the first time, was primarily driven by household debt in housing finance. The household sector made a dramatic move between 2000 and 2005 from saving to borrowing, resulting in a large rise in household debt. In the same period, credit card debt also increased by a similar order of magnitude.

According to associate professor Steve Keen from the University of Western Sydney, Australia’s debt has grown rapidly from less than 80% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the early 1990s to now stand at almost 170% of GDP. Forecasts of rising unemployment and a slowing economy mean an increasing number of Australians will come under pressure due to problems repaying debt. And to top it off, a recent Dun & Bradstreet survey showed that many people expect to increase their level of indebtedness over coming months.

And while Australia’s level of household debt continues to increase, in common with many other nations, Australia has been running down its stock of public assets. The public investment share of GDP has declined quite dramatically from just less than 8 percent in the 1960s to under 4 percent in the 2000s. This reflects the diminishing priority given to government investment into electricity, gas, communications, infrastructure, education and health over recent decades. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated the shift from productive to unproductive government spending negatively impacting on productive private investment. Productive government spending tends to crowd-in private investment, while unproductive provision of transfer payments for subsides and handouts crowd-out private investment. Thus, Australia-along with the US, UK and others- has insufficiently built a public regime of accumulation for long-term investment.

Government spending in Australia is the third lowest of the 30 OECD countries and our tax collection, as a per centage of GDP, is the eighth lowest in the OECD. Dr Richard Denniss argues if Australian tax rates were equal to the OECD average, tax receipts would increase by about $50 billion dollars per year. We could use that to pay for the government’s stimulus package.

The corporate tax rate has been reduced from 49 per cent in 1987 to 30 per cent in 2001. In 2008, the corporate tax rate was 21st lowest among OECD countries. While lowering the corporate tax rate may not impact on tax revenues, they do little to bolster social infrastructure. For every $1 billion spent on reducing the corporate tax rate, three quarters of it is captured by the wealthiest 20% of citizens.

Speculation and private investment have failed to deliver solid sources of revenue for public investment. As the tide turns in the coming years, we would do well to move away from the ‘masters of the universe’ mentality. It is time to repair the damage of the past years of madness and the government’s stimulus package takes a few small steps in that direction.

Shorting the Regulation

February 15, 2009 at 12:23 am | In economic crisis | Leave a Comment
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Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Conservative (1842)

Biblical images of people scrabbling through the dirt for food in Colorado seem to capture the essence of this economic downturn. Lines stretching down the street for charity food parcels certainly remind one of images of soup kitchens during the Great Depression. But unfortunately Western leaders look more like Nero than FDR. The best they can come up with is more interest rate cuts to encourage people to borrow more and spend more; more tax cuts so once again people have more money to spend. It’s time to introduce the ‘R’ word: Regulation on financial markets. If banks cannot decide what is in their own best interest (as was pointed out by the guru of the free market, Alan Greenspan), let alone the broader public interest, it is time for the government to step in and tell them what is.

None of the $US700 billion ($1 trillion) financial rescue package provided to US banks will be used to assist homeowners facing foreclosure or business even though the legislation authorises it. US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who has made about half a billion dollars from the deregulated system, has clashed with Congress, telling them it was designed to stabilise the financial markets, not as a panacea for economic difficulties or to help beleaguered homeowners and automakers.

Deregulation means that we have wildly fluctuating markets operating on rumour and sentiment rather than hard data. Michael Heffernan, senior client adviser at Austock argues that the sharemarket drops have ‘a lot more substance to them that we thought 6 months ago.’ Many commentators claim that the market is suffering from a loss of confidence as if there were no structural reasons like deregulation, speculation and over-leveraging causing instability in the market.

The G-20 Study Group on Global Credit Market Disruption concluded in their report last year that regulatory gaps encouraged the increased use of securitisation and the spread of the ‘originate and distribute’ mortgage model that resulted in insufficient attention being paid to credit quality. Weaknesses in risk management systems and regulatory oversight saw these lending practices continue even as credit quality continued to decline and risk exposures increased. The spread of these losses was caused largely by high levels of leverage in the system, including insufficient capital held against loans. This in turn was partly a product of failings in the regulatory system to apply adequate risk capital to the off-balance sheet entities that securitise loans on behalf of the banks. The complex nature of structured finance products also resulted in some investors having an over-reliance on credit ratings instead of undertaking adequate due diligence. This complexity also meant that exposures to subprime lending were difficult to determine, which contributed to difficulties in assessing risks. Weaknesses in accounting rules meant that off-balance sheet entities did not require clear and transparent disclosure. It seems a significant part of this problem is a lack of regulation.

The main reforms being offered are patently inadequate. The G20 countries advocated greater oversight of ratings agencies and stronger regulation of hedge funds. Consumer protection is to be bolstered and international financial institutions should be reformed. In addition, there should be clearer accounting standards and a review of the way managers are paid.

Many observers believe that Obama will be more open-minded about regulations that strengthen international institutions or that put an end to tax havens. But the incoming president will likely resist ambitious plans for a global financial regulator. ‘Even under a President Obama, the US government would not accept any kind of global supervisory authority for the financial markets,’ said Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. It seems America remains committed to free trade and deregulated markets.

Proposed changes to financial regulation require brokers to ask their clients whether an order was a covered short sale, and market operators to publicly disclose short-selling data they received from brokers. David Enke, Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Tulsa, argues that by making short data public, others might be tempted to increase their short positions, and so too the selling pressure on the shorted security. In the end, this may do nothing to decrease market manipulation, while still allowing the funds to profit from the falling prices.

According to AEF Rofe, Chairman of the Australian Shareholders’ Association, the new regime fails to address the past failure by the market operator and the regulator to effectively monitor and enforce the disclosure requirements. Advisers at DLA Phillips Fox also seem doubtful about the veracity of these changes. Traders have been selective about disclosure laws for years so asking them to disclose more appears rather pointless. At bottom financial institutions have shown themselves to be exercising reckless judgment when they think there are easy dollars to be made.

It is clear that short selling is a problem and needs to be regulated, but focusing on extreme speculation practices fails to take account of the myriad other causes of the financial meltdown. Companies which collapse due to high leveraging, such as Rubicon, have nothing to do with short selling. Deregulated lending resulting in shoddy lending practices and the inclusion of these bad mortgages as part of investment packages, which was not disclosed, has not even made it onto the agenda. The markets have run away and are now causing the economy to collapse, throwing thousands of people out of work, destroying local businesses, forcing people to seek charity. Markets need to be controlled by governments, not the other way around.

Guantanamo to close

January 26, 2009 at 9:56 pm | In human rights, international relations | Leave a Comment
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President Obama signed executive orders to close Guantanamo Bay and end the use of torture. This means an end to CIA secret detention centres around the world, an end to torture such as waterboarding, and an end to human rights abuse in the name of the “war on terror”.

The first 100 days of Mr Obama’s term in office is a unique opportunity for America to reclaim its role as a leader for human rights. In February Amnesty International will present a global petition to President Obama. It will urge the US Administration to establish an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the US Government in its “war on terror”.

Your name will stand alongside thousands of others from around the globe. Please sign your name to the petition now – and call on the President to achieve positive and lasting change.

From Amnesty International

President Obama: A new era of responsibility

January 21, 2009 at 2:15 am | In human rights | 1 Comment
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Since his election Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantánamo Bay and rebuild “America’s moral stature in the world”. The next 100 days in office offers the opportunity to make a clean break with the past.

In his inauguration speech US President Obama promised a “new era of responsibility”:

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, America has committed grave human rights violations around the world under the banner of the ‘war on terror’.

Suspects have been abducted and covertly transported to secret US-run facilities or to other governments where they have faced torture and ill-treatment. Individuals have been victims of enforced disappearance and some still remain unaccounted for.

Hundreds of people have been unlawfully detained in conditions that have amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. US officials have admitted the use of torture and other ill-treatment and have reserved the right to do so again.

By closing Guantánamo, ending torture and setting up an independent investigation into US ‘war on terror’ abuses, President Obama can make concrete human rights reforms a reality.

We’re not expecting miracles, but we do expect President Obama to stand by his commitments.

We’ve produced a checklist if actions we’d like to see President Obama take in his first 100 days in office. These include:

  • Announcing a timeline for the closure of Guantánamo Bay
  • Issuing an executive order to ban torture and other ill-treatment
  • Ensuring an independent inquiry into the US’s detention and interrogation practices in its ‘war on terror’

You can help bring to an end the previous administration’s seven-year assault on human rights in the ‘war on terror’.

Please join Amnesty International members in calling on President Obama to uphold his promise to restore justice and accountability within his first 100 days in office.

Learn more

From Amnesty International

The Road to Child Neglect

January 19, 2009 at 9:44 pm | In economic crisis | Leave a Comment
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When I read George Orwell’s extraordinary essay on poverty The Road to Wigan Pier in 1982, the world it displayed seemed a sad remnant of the 19th century. However after 25 years of economic liberalisation as a global movement the infamous scenes of human degradation are reappearing. Shocking cases of child neglect demonstrate that the social fabric has become so threadbare under the strain of the subprime crisis that we can no longer hide the squalor in which some live.

Orwell’s essay recognises the structural nature of the degradation he describes. Our answer to neglect is not to ask why did this happen but to criminalize and gaol individuals. The woman arrested for neglect in Adelaide recently was living in a house with her sister and their numerous children. Having worked in the community housing sector, I have found her story is a common one. So many are evicted because they are unable to pay the rent due to the ridiculously low level of Centrelink benefit. Emergency housing is often unable to help due to the parlous state of their service delivery owing to chronic underfunding. They may have encouraged her to move to Adelaide to live with her sister. Unable to cope, with inadequate income, little social support, the family descends into the sort of poverty and deprivation not seen since the 19th century. She ends up being arrested for being unable to care for her children in a system which no longer cares for the weak.

These cases are the tip of the iceberg. Maree Faulkner from the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect says, ‘There are enormous numbers of families that are just not coping and providing and caring for their children.’ With almost 310,000 notifications each year and 58,000 substantiated cases of abuse or neglect, Brian Babington from Families Australia says child protection workers are overwhelmed.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s ‘Child Protection Australia 2005-06’ reveals some serious trends. Over the last five years, the number of child protection notifications in Australia has almost doubled from 137,938 in 2001–02 to 266,745 in 2005–06. Between 30 June 2005 and 30 June 2006, the number of children in out-of-home care in Australia rose 7%. South Australian Families and Communities Minister Jay Weatherill is calling this a crisis which is worsening. With the rising costs of food, petrol and rent are we really surprised by growing figures of child neglect?

The institution of economic liberalization and its associated welfare reforms has played an important role in creating and criminalizing an underclass in Australia. Dr John Falzon, Chief Executive Officer of the St Vincent de Paul Society, draws a connection between the 25% increase in numbers in custody over last decade and the welfare reforms of the Howard years.

Economic liberalization has created a welfare system based on narrow notions of individualism and self-reliance. In the early 2000s Australia’s welfare system became centred around the concepts of ‘welfare dependency’ and ‘mutual obligation’. Dependence on welfare is constructed as an addiction like dependence on drugs or alcohol. Supporters of economic deregulation construct welfare recipients as fundamentally different from the rest of the community. The policy of mutual obligation relies on the 19th century distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. The deserving poor — those who have become briefly dependent on poverty relief through no fault of their own, and who with some assistance, could return to independence — are to be cared for. However, the undeserving poor whose poverty is the result of laziness or moral failure are to be disciplined and punished. Mutual obligation has been associated with a punitive approach to the unemployed, applied in withholding social security benefits and heavy fines. Income security is considered a privilege rather than a right.

Supporters of economic liberalisation are hostile to state-guaranteed income security and have had a consistent preoccupation with returning the provision of welfare to families, private charities and churches, some of which emphasise the moral rather than the structural causes of poverty. Consequently, the Howard government placed charities at the centre of a number of government projects including the Job Network. These measures demonstrate opposition to reducing poverty or promoting greater equity. Social expenditure has been channeled into the Family Tax Benefits system, the Maternity Payment, and the Childcare Benefit: much of which ends up in the pockets of middle and upper income earners.

Not only is the individual demonisation of welfare recipients having a detrimental impact on child welfare, it is well recognised that factors associated with poverty and social inequality, such as a sense of powerlessness, lack of money and other resources, parental stress caused by unemployment and financial problems, in themselves, increase the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. Parents under stress can transfer their feelings of frustration onto their children. The stress can also affect their judgment and decision making as a parent. Political and economic decisions which increase poverty and worsen its effects, particularly in times of economic difficulty, have a significant impact on child welfare.

The presence of protective factors may reduce the risk of abuse and neglect. One of the best recognised strategies is to provide community support for children in socially isolated families and to weave a protective social fabric around them. Such measures include income support and supplement, access to information, advice and support from a wide range of health, education and community services, child care and respite care, and accessible public transport. Repressive welfare measures undermine social programs by isolating and shaming people and driving them to despair. People are extremely reluctant to beg from the charities. Instead, they will hock their furnishings, their personal possession and turn to loan sharks and payday lenders: entre the subprime crisis.

Repressive welfare measures also compound the impact of the subprime crisis. The Consumer Price Index hit 4.2 per cent for the year to March, but wages rose only an average 3.2 per cent in a comparable period. ACOSS estimates that two million people live in poverty today – one in ten Australians – (based on a poverty line of 50% of average disposable income, as used in UK &Europe). NATSEM research about the poorest 20% of families in Australia indicates most of these families are jobless and rely on social security payments as their main source of income.

Fuel price rises come amid estimates that almost 25 per cent of homebuyers are under mortgage stress, contributing more than 30 per cent of their income to repayments. Last year, the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology reported that there are 1,186,000 or 15% of Australians in housing stress, defined by the bottom 40% of income earners paying more than 30% of their income in housing. Of these, 52% are renters and most of these are on Centrelink payments. To cope people are forced to sell or pawn possessions, forgo adequate dental or health care and have sometimes gone without meals. 120,000 homeless people in Australia. In 2006, the UN declared Australia in a state of housing crisis.

People teetering on the brink are now plunging over into degradation and squalor. Having overcommitted ourselves on mortgages and credit, the impact of rising interest rates is being felt, even among the aspirationals. Families in new development areas such as Kellyville Ridge, Rouse Hill and Bella Vista in NSW are increasingly accessing emergency community resources such as food packages, clothing and cash hand-outs. Jennifer Tisdell, executive officer of The Hills Community Aid and Information Service, said 16 per cent of her clients since the beginning of 2008 had come from such new estates. The NSW government has been required to provide emergency funding to community services which is used to provide vouchers for food, transport, medical prescriptions and assistance with rent/accommodation, and part-payment of utility bills. With the sudden spike in the cost of living there is a substantial shortfall for families.

The severe erosion of community services, health care and education in Australia under the mantra of fiscal responsibility and economic liberalization is having a devastating impact on families. Without policies to redistribute wealth, increased economic growth has a very limited capacity to alleviate poverty and social problems. The market will not help a family who cannot afford to pay for child care and even food for their children. In the language of the market, the poor are silenced. We can blame the parents and boggle at the carelessness and irresponsibility of ‘some people’ but we are all to blame for this situation. We elected the leaders who refuse to maintain adequate funding to our communities. It is time to make a real investment in our communities again and it is well beyond time to increase welfare payments, dump Centrelink breaching policies and improve services.

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