Presumption of innocence? The cases of Pratt and Cousins

Photo: The Age

Tim Lane in to-day's The Age highlights the treatment within the AFL of Richard Pratt, who has now stepped down from the role of President of Carlton Football Club, and compares it with the treatment of Ben Cousins.

See previous post on Pratt here

~~~

When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Will Pratt fall flat this time?

O'Neill carton in The Sydney Morning Herald 071013

They're after him again. The ACCC are after Richard Pratt again for lying to them in the course of an investigation. Last year's fines are clearly not enough. Do Graeme Samuel & Co at the ACCC want their pound of flesh as well? Is the corporate Richard Pratt not enough that they are now going after the person - because it is a person who has the capability of lying? Pratt has given back his Order of Australia honours. Don't know if he has given back his Woodrow Wilson Medal for Corporate Citizenship.


Pratt has stayed on a President of Carlton. They desperately need/ed him and his money. But if the ACCC are successful in this prosecution, will Carlton be looking for a new President?


Pratt is a rather popular good ol' boy. He and wife Jeannie support quite a few good causes, not least of which is the Yarts. Former Prime Minister (doesn't that sound good) Howard spoke out in his favour after last year's verdict.


So, while the ACCC chasing Pratt again might be just legal and bureaucratic tidying up after last year's episode, it also could be designed to further diminish Pratt the person unless - to make a dreadful pun which is irresistible in the circumstances - the ACCC is using a Pratt to catch a mackerel.

~~~

When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Tony Burke takes the corporate line over and above ethical eating

Dear Reader, I don't think they get it yet. I don't think the Prime Minister gets it. I don't think the farmers and their organisations get it. And it has become patently obvious that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Tony Burke, certainly doesn't get it.

What don't they get? They do not understand, do not comprehend the interest ordinary, everyday Australians are taking in their food - its nutrition value, the way it is grown, who are the people who grow it, the impact of climate change upon it, and the impact of major domestic and international corporations on it.

It seems to me that the Australian government sees only major corporate entities: the farmers, their organisations; food distributors and manufacturers and their organisations; agribusiness and its organisations. Then there is that strange entity called "the consumer".

Now "the consumer" does not hold weighty conferences attended by all those listed in the previous paragraph plus agricultural researchers and economists. But, last time I looked, the consumer still had a brain, was still a sentient being, and is capable of making reasonable and clear decisions.

We see farmers organisations and their supporters drumming up the so-called "city/country divide". What is not recognised is the large numbers of Australians - who qualify only for the title of consumer - who have moved to the country to establish their own small holdings; who have built relationships with farmers - particularly through Farmers Markets; who are concerned with ethical eating and who are so supportive of the agricultural enterprise that they support drought appeals and angst together with rural residents over the mental health of the farming community.

Australia, with its mild climate across most of the continent, has always been home to keen growers of edible gardens. And most of these gardeners are trying to be organic. Many of them are keen students of permaculture and biodynamics. Lots of them could imagine putting Monsanto and Dupont on trial for agricultural and economic terrorism but instead support seed savers groups and heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables. They are learning not to damage Australia's fragile soils with excessive tilling and their no-dig gardens are multiplying day by day. Primary Schools are teaching children about food from seed to souffle in their own kitchens and kitchen gardens - often aided and abetted by celebrity chefs.

The Minister seems to be entirely ignorant of this movement that votes with its green and dirty thumbs. Why else would he have come out with these statements? (Please take time to read the comments!)

ABARE Outlook 2008 has been on in Canberra. The Minister made his views clear in a doorstop interview there:

REPORTER:

[Inaudible] campaigns against food miles, etc. Are you going to invest in advertising or is this something that you’re making comment about?

BURKE:
Certainly, with respect to the animal welfare campaigns, there’s been ongoing investment – and I referred to some of it today – in trying to make sure that we are not just at world’s best practice, but leading world’s best practice in overseas abattoirs and the destination points of some of our live exports.

With respect to food miles, I think we have to take, as I’ve said today, every opportunity to let people know and to let the consumers, both in Australia and internationally know – and I took the advantage today when we had international press here – to make it clear that food miles is a system deliberately designed to deceive. It does not provide quality consumer information and preys on the fact that a lot of consumers – and good on them – want to make sure that they’re doing their bit in trying to reduce carbon emissions.

The problem with food miles is that it takes one tiny [inaudible] of an equation and that’s their entire answer.

So clearly the Minister has a limited understanding of the concept of "food miles": of being near enough to your food to shake hands with the farmer; of caring about freshness and nutrition and value-for-money goodness; and of cruelty free animal lives.

Miss Eagle's solution to these sort of things is - organise. After all, that is what the major corporations and their hangers-on have done. But Miss Eagle looks around and sees organisation: the organisations devoted to permaculture and biodynamics and organics; the increase in retail outlets distributing these types of food products; the countless books, blogs, journals and websites promoting the good, simple, healthy and sustainable life.

Such a mind-set takes one beyond the suburban picket fence mentality and the four walls of a boxy apartment. It takes one into a wider world where nature is valued, treasured, and studied with a view to greater understanding.

Perhaps one day this understanding will reach as far as the board table in the Cabinet Room of Federal Parliament (who will water a Prime Minister's and Minister's edible garden?) and find a forum at ABARE.

Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry

Minister's Web Site

The Hon Tony Burke MP Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

PO Box 6022

House of Representatives

Parliament House

Canberra ACT 2600

Tel: (02) 6277 7520 Fax: (02) 6273 4120

Email: Tony.Burke.MP@aph.gov.au

Ethical eating: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Miss Eagle has just posted on Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle over at Oz Tucker. Pop over and have a read.

When will they ever learn...?

When will they ever learn? There is a dictum in the Christian tradition - and its sentiment appears in a number of other faith traditions - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Philip Martin has spelt out some facts of life at Aurukun.

Miss Eagle asks if Andrew Fraser and Warren Pitt are prepared to live and work in Aurukun. If not, why not? And, if Aurukun is not good enough for Fraser and Pitt, why do they think it is good enough for other Australian citizens. Yes, that's right. Aboriginal people living in Aurukun are citizens of Queensland and Australia and have the same rights, responsibilities, and needs (well, actually more given Aurukun's history and neglect) as other Queenslanders and Australians.

BTW, correction Philip.
Judy Spence is Queensland's Police Minister and has been for many years. Not Andrew Fraser.
Judy Spence is currently Minister for Police, Corrective Services and Sport

Andrew Fraser was Minister for Local Government, Planning and Sport and is now Treasurer.

Warren Pitt was Minister for Communities, Minister for Disability Services Queensland, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Minister for Seniors and Youth.
He is now Minister for Main Roads and Local Government.

One would think, if Pitt and Fraser were really listening and paying attention at Aurukun, that Aurukun could get a look in with the following:

1. Funding across all relevant departments


2. A decent all weather road connecting it with Cairns - probably through Pitt's electorate of Mulgrave?


3. Improvements in Local Government (Aurukun Shire Council site is here) and its ability to meet the needs of its constituents.


4. Pitt could personally mentor small business in Aurukun.

But then again...

WHY THE LIBERALS LOST

Maybe someone in the Liberal Party of Australia will do a proper, official report of what went wrong at the Federal Election of 2007 which resulted in a loss of confidence in Liberals and the election of a Labor government.

However, reality seems to be a bit slow to sink in. Now, remember, dear Reader, that this was a government who had been in power for eleven years. They had countless polls delivering the wisdom of the electorate over all that time. There were enough of them to cover the length and breadth of the nation with their ears to the ground to pay attention to what people were saying and thinking.

• One report says that a Liberal staffer has blamed the "f...ing Chinese". Did this person not recall Howard's stance of Asian immigration? Why would anyone from Asia vote for Howard? Of course, there was the rampant, blatant racism of the Liberal Party in the seat of Lindsay supported by staff at NSW Head Office.


• Climate change has done it says Malcolm Turnbull and he says the Libs should have signed Kyoto. Water drying up across the nation and anything that would store water commanding pretty solid prices in the hardware stores and the Liberals expected that everyone was a climate change sceptic?! True, some movement on climate change -but too little, too late and with no conviction nor credibility.


• Work choices was THE issue - and why did the Liberals think it wouldn't be?

Do the Liberals understand how many voting Australians come from the Middle East and Asia? Do the Liberals understand how many tolerant voting Australians there really are? And did they not realise how enthusiastically urban Australians have embraced water saving? Did they not stop to think that such people might have had a positive view of Kyoto? And could they not count heads in the population to comprehend that most of us are not West Australian miners earning thousands of dollars in a week? Did they not hear the discussions on radio of work/life balance and, if they did, did they not consider consider that people for whom work/life balance was an issue might have a view on the impact of Work Choices on the intensification of work and the large amount of unpaid overtime worked by Australians?

So save your time, Liberals, on official reports: these were the reasons that the Liberals lost. Of course, these were not the only reasons. These were just the main, very personal reasons. Others included a lack of ethics, immigration, refugees, AWB corruption, non-core promises inter alia.

THE WEEK OF ROOSTING CHOOKS: Friday

The last day of the campaign to-day in what - one way or another - is an historic election. Miss Eagle wound up her small and anonymous role in the campaign with two and a half hours of leafletting in Rowville. To-morrow will be an early start as Booth Captain at Upper Ferntree Gully School for Your Rights At Work and a late finish at Kent Park School, Ferntree Gully for The Greens.

John Howard's career in government is coming to an end with the same cloud hanging over it as it began: RACISM.

There have been countless decisions by the Howard Government which have displayed a meanness to humanity beyond belief. But let's recall the inherent racism of Howard.

• Remember those dreadful political advertisements where Howard was shown with a map of Australia in black and white which purported that 70% of Australia would be in Aboriginal hands under Native Title. A false, racist beat-up.
• Remember his views on Asian immigration and that he had to swallow big and change his tune. Were his original views the views he held in his heart of hearts and he only changed for political expediency?
• Remember how Pauline Hanson was rebuffed so close to election day that the ballot papers could not reflect the fact that Howard had dis-endorsed her? And remember how many concessions were made to racist Hansonite views to ameliorate the near wipe-out of the National Party by One Nation.

The fact is that, under Howard, the Liberal Party is racist. Miss Eagle does not suggest that all Liberals or even Liberal Members of Parliament are racist. Miss Eagle believes that there is a dominant strand within the Liberal Party under Howard which means that racism is always bubbling away beneath the surface and influencing policies such as those on immigration, national security, citizenship, defence, foreign affairs and trade.

Howard and his team have long stood accused of dog-whistling. The term "dog-whistling" derives from the fact that dogs are able to hear high-pitched whistles and sounds that human beings cannot. Dog-whistling in its political context refers to being able to enunciate or signal views in a way that larges slices of the body politic don't detect the full meaning being enunciated or signalled but those who are on the right wavelength do.

So when Howard has slammed into "political correctness", the sub-text or dog-whistle message is that there are all those left-wing people out there who stop us saying what we want to say. What we want to say just happens to be slanderous, libellous, racist, discriminatory, hurtful, unkind and mean but we must have the political freedom to say it. All those politically correct lefties are wrong and are to be despised.

Similarly, Howard despises a black armband view of history. Woe betide the historians who have opened up Aboriginal history to scrutiny and outlined the massacres and other disasters that have befallen Aboriginal people since their contact with white settlers. This sort of activity is to be despised and those who challenge the black armband view are to be rewarded - even unto seats on the board of the ABC.

And now there is the written form of dog-whistling as practised in the seat of Lindsay whose retiring member of parliament, Jackie Kelly, has been such a great favourite of John Howard. Notice that Chijoff, whose husband was one of the ringleaders in this escapade, has not been nor will be dis-endorsed. Howard does not want a repeat of the Pauline Hanson episode, does he. Howard condemns it - and the rest of it is left with the NSW branch of the Liberal Party to deal with. Ethics are not high on the list of the Liberal Party in the seat of Lindsay - and, perhaps, in the NSW branch of the Liberal Party.

So Howard has finished as he had begun - a dog-whistling racist.

The Centre for an Ethical Society has conducted a survey of the political parties. For details of the questions by the CES, the responses, and the analysis go here.

But, dear Reader, there is more to ethics than questions to political parties. If you are going promote ethics and preach ethics then you need to live ethically too. This goes for individuals like your correspondent (and I'm sure there are holes in my personal ethical framework) and for organisations.

When you go here and look at the people listed as Boards and Members, it immediately raises questions. And, Miss Eagle has asked those questions by emailing CES to-day. Below is the content of the email:

I have been in and out of the CES website in recent days and feel compelled to write to you about the constitution of your Board and the Members listed on your site.

I am stunned by the people you have listed. One woman! One black woman! Does she have a disability and immigrant heritage as well - so that everything and all that is tokenism rests on her shoulders?

It is not only the gender bias of your organisation that brings me to write in protest but also the clerical dominance of the people listed on your site. Surely, two of the great lessons of the late twentieth century are the negative fruit generated by patriarchy and professional clericalism - both of which dominate religions of all varieties to this day.

As a practising Christian, I am more than pleased when I come across organised Christian voices espousing balanced public policy directions but an organisation trying to preach ethics needs to provide balance socially and politically in accord with wide-ranging skills, work experience, and life experience within all its constituent parts.

I understand that you are small and new and, undoubtedly, struggling for financial support but, in all honesty, is this the best constitution of Board and Members that you can come up with in the whole nation to represent an ethical organisation for an ethical society?

Subsidies for the political parties - and the rich and enticements for voters

Are you over it, dear Reader? Well and truly over it? Miss Eagle certainly is? Last Saturday - all day - she had one recurring thought: can I vote now, can I, can I? Yes, dear Reader, I know that pre-polling is open, but I wanted desperately for last Saturday to be The Day, Election Day, the day to vote and have my vote counted and, in the best of all possible worlds, John Howard to be chucked out.

In this world of eternal polling, do you notice how we have annual buy-your-vote exercises in each Budget? This has been ably assisted by the S for Services in the GST (Goods and Services Tax). You will recall, dear Reader, that services were never taxed prior to the introduction of the GST by John Howard. This is what gives the Federal Treasurer healthy budget surpluses through which he displays a fake largesse of buying/retaining your vote annually.

You know as well as I don't you, dear Reader, that there is an alternative: salting it away to spend on infrastructure and rainy days as Norway does. Under Howard - as well as some state Labor governments - infrastructure comes a bad last. Miss Eagle does not understand why.

Conservative governments - supposedly keen on free trade and market forces - bleat about lack of subsidies to business which patently is not true. Some years ago, price-fixer Pratt and his company, Visy, received a three million dollar subsidy by the Howard Government when threats were made to take its factory to Vietnam.

It is possible to provide even-handed no-picking-winners-or-champions business subsidy which benefits not only business but the whole community including consumers and workers. This can be done by infrastructure investment. High standard efficient infrastructure - particularly in relation to ports, communications, and education - brings benefits in the form of competitive pricing, quality products, speedy delivery of exports, and jobs.

But, dear Reader, show me where this has been a high priority of the Howard government - which has been hell bent on the politics of exclusion: exclusion of the other - whether they be refugees or the peoples of the First Nations of Australia; exclusion of the majority of workers from the benefits of highly profitable employers through draconian workplace legislation.

Now, we are immersed in what could prove to be the stupidest election campaign in Australia's history because the election has been hostage to the whims of an increasingly ineffective and unpopular Prime Minister who is, arguably, the meanest person ever to lead our nation.

It is time for the common sense of the Australian body politic to intervene and call a halt. How can it do this?

The election campaign begins in earnest when Parliament is prorogued. But then there is the set piece theatre of the the official election campaign launch by the political parties involved. And when do these happen? With less than a fortnight to go, the Liberals held their launch yesterday and Labor will hold theirs to-morrow. Meaningless. Nothing but photo and pork-barrelling opportunities.

This is where some sense is needed - and we can do that by hitting the hip pocket of political parties. We can enforce short, sharp election campaigns by hitting the political purse instead of the taxpayers.

You see, dear Reader, even though Parliament has been prorogued by the Governor-General for the purpose of a general election, taxpayers are funding the campaign. To put it more accurately, taxpayers are underwriting huge amounts of dollars for the two major parties to campaign. And, dear Reader, we are not just talk about printing and mail-outs. We are talking about charter flights and accommodation - not to mention government subsidised advertising. All big ticket items.

Some taxpayers money is going to the minor parties but if they don't have many members of Parliament they are not going to get much money. It is possible for minor party candidates and independent candidates who are not members of Parliament to get some reimbursement of expenditure if they obtain a minimum amount of support at the ballot box. But the political parties have set up campaign regulations so they can milk private contributors for all they are worth - and hide and disguise who contributes to whom - and milk taxpayers at the same time.

For the past month, sitting politicians have been able to campaign the length and breadth of the country - and use the resources of their electorate and ministerial offices and staff - at taxpayers expense. Once there is an official campaign launch, then the parties have to provide all funding themselves. So this is why official campaign launches bear no relationship in time to the real campaign launch after that final sitting of Parliament. Political parties have a vested interest in staging official campaign launches as late in the campaign as possible.

It protects their funds and expends ours.

So consider this, dear Reader. What if we organised a national petition to the Federal Parliament asking that, from the time when Parliament is prorogued for the purposes of a general election, all expenses are born by political parties and candidates?

Now I reckon that would focus the debate no end. Campaigns would be short and sharp and to the point. There would still be the carry on of the election campaign you have when you are not having an election campaign which has been going on all this year. Don't see how that can be avoided. And, from here, I can't see that my suggested changes would increase the effect of that dramatically - but maybe a politician will find a way.

In the best of all possible worlds, there would be no private donations to political parties whatsoever. In fact, donations by corporations and individuals would be illegal and deemed to be corrupt. All candidates would be funded individually on an equitable basis - giving first timers a better go. At the moment, you and I, dear Reader, are funding the entrenchment of the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party as our only end-choices. It is very difficult for independent voices to enter Federal Parliament. And don't the big guys like that!

Christine Milne - an impressive Green

Stephen Crittenden of the ABC's The Religion Report did yet another brilliant job yesterday on a episode titled Australia's Christian Vote. Miss Eagle was particularly impressed by the contribution of Green's Senator Christine Milne. The Centre for an Ethical Society rated a significant mention so you might like to drop by its site.

Hell hath no fury like a preference deal scorned...

Family First got one Senator up at the 2004 Federal election. With a primary vote of one-point-infinitesimal-per-cent and an array of very c-u-t-e preference deals, they got their man in Victoria up.

They were so chuffed about this that they are r-e-a-l-l-y determined to get some more of their people into the Senate - especially since s-o-o many people have tried s-o-o hard in 2007 to get the Christian vote and its family values (well, a certain brand of Christian vote and a certain brand of family values) up front and taken seriously in the political debate. Seems that there's a lot of Christians out there determined to give it to Caesar!

And Preference Deal Season - or, at this stage, its final results - is upon us. Family First is most amusing. Probably they are so amusing because they were so clever last time, their Senator so energetic and determined to be Everywhere Man on his trendy scooter, they are so publicly Good, and - it now becomes clear - so DETERMINED TO WIN AT ANY COST.

It is being reported that Family First preference deals have been made with the Liberty and Democracy Party (a bunch of libertarian nutters) and Pauline's United Australia Party. This is the evidence for Family First putting winning above anything else. Funny that. I thought Christians were against an "ends justify the means" attitude.

You see, dear Reader, Pauline Hanson's political adventures have always carried racist undertones if not, indeed, full blown overtones. Now there is a report that a Liberty and Democracy Party candidate in Tasmania has spoken out in favour of decriminalising incest. In regard to the latter, I am waiting for the jokes from all those funny people out there. You see, if you are an overseas reader, you may not know that there have long been jokes in Australia about Tasmanian family life, incest, and people with two heads. These unkind jokes relate to the fact that Tasmania is an island with a small, insular population. Now we have someone in a political party who has taken the whole thing seriously and turned it into a political policy. Wow!

Please note: If you go to the comments, dear Reader, correspondence has been entered into by Terje of the Liberty and Democracy Party. Based on his comments, Miss Eagle has issued a non-John-Howard type apology and agreed to forbear from references to nutters and the legalisation of incest in relation to the Liberty and Democracy Party. Miss Eagle has issued a full reply in the comments section. Thursday 8 November 2007 4.40pm

Well, if Pauline having another adventure and keeping her name in front of the Australian public - perhaps she wants a reprise of Dancing with the Stars - and the Liberty and Democracy Party turning an Aussie joke into political policy were not funny enough....

then amuse yourself with the idea of the good Christian supporters of Family First entering into preference deals with such racists and libertarians. OK, dear Reader, up off the floor. You are making a display of yourself.

But, on second thoughts, dear Reader, stay there a while longer while I tell you that Family First is outraged. Absolutely outraged. Its rage is out and there. Why, you ask dear Reader? Because there is a preference deal between the ALP and The Greens. Ooooh-wah! Naughty aren't they. And why, again you ask dear Reader? Because of the drug policy of The Greens!

How outrageous! Harm minimisation policies in relation to drugs are beyond the pale - but racism and incest are not! Not when it comes to Family First winning it seems.

Miss Eagle - as well as a lot of others in that tiny factional group known as Rusted-on Labor Who Vote Green - will be pleased to know that the ALP has listened and noted that the ALP constituency prefers its preferences (ok, Lexicon Harlot, I can hear you listening!) to go to parties of the left - not parties of the ultra-right. This howl of protest was heard loudly in last year's Victorian election when the Demo(n)cratic Labor Party (the dreaded, historic enemy of the ALP, the DLP) got one of theirs into the Upper House on the strength of ALP preferences.

So - if Pauline gets up - will Family First take responsibility? If people with two heads (do they get two votes), vote for the Liberty and Democracy Party will Family First publicly apologise?

What is taught at City Life Church, the second biggest Christian church in Australia after Hillsong, where Senator Steve Fielding and his family worship? Traditional Christian ethics?

Enslaved by chocolate: addiction or exploitation?

OK, dear Reader, time to experiment with the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword. Dust off those ethical thoughts. Chocolate and the child slaves who produce it is the issue. For more extensive information, please go here and here.

You might, dear Reader, like to start with the following:

Cadbury

Cadbury Consumer Services, PO Box 200, Ringwood VIC 3134

Feedback link is here.

Are you interested, dear Reader, in doing a factory tour with Miss Eagle during which we can ask the question on the premises about where Cadbury's cocoa comes from and what they are doing about the exploitation of children? Currently, it would appear that their website is concerned only with obesity in children. But there are children involved in the chocolate process who will never grow fat - even though they might never go out to play!

Nestle

Consumer Services Department, GPO Box 4320, Sydney NSW 2001

You can email Nestle from here.

As you would be aware, dear Reader, Nestle has been the focus in the past for the promotion of breast milk substitutes in Africa. You will find them expounding their corporate philosophy of Good Food, Good Life here. A portion of Nestle's website is devoted to a discussion about coffee. You might like, in your correspondence, to ask them about their attitude to Fair Trade coffee. There is no mention of that on their site.

Mars

Mars Australia, Wodonga (Australian Headquarters), Petcare Place, Wodonga Vic 3690

Snackfood/Mars, PO Box 633, Ballarat VIC 3353 - Ballarat Ring Rd 3350

You can email Mars from here.

On the Mars site, there is this section, The 5 Principles. Mmmm....

• Quality: this segment says : "The consumer is the boss". So, dear Reader, use your consumer power to tell Mars who is the boss and that you do not want your love of chocolate to hold other human beings to ransom.


• Responsibility: Mars said it recruits ethical people. Challenge them to put their ethics on show in relation to child labour and child slavery.


• Mutuality: Mars says its "actions should never be at the expense, economic or otherwise, of others with whom we work". Now Miss Eagle understands that the child slaves are not direct employees of Mars but they are stakeholders in the industry nonetheless. Without companies such as Mars there might not be a cocoa industry to be exploitative. So Mars needs to put its actions in the ethical framework of how do we expect all children to live and enjoy life.


• Efficiency: Here Mars talks about its pursuit of "the least possible cost". To the child slaves there is a very high cost - loss of childhood development, loss of education. The least possible financial cost should not require the exploitation of sentient beings or the despoliation of the planet.


• Freedom: Mars claims for itself "We need freedom to shape our future: we need profit to remain free." Well, guess what! So do African children. Enslavement - even if it is the only hope for survival in an environment of despairing poverty - does not provide freedom and does not bring any profit to the people so that they can remain free of exploitative practices. The Christian adage of doing unto others as you would have done unto you needs to be extended by Mars to the poverty stricken people caught up in the cocoa economy to provide luxury goods for those with great economic freedom.

And then there is the industry body to contact, too:

Confectionery Manufacturers of AustralasiaConfectionery Manufacturers of Australasia,PO Box 1307 (Level 2, 689 Burke Rd),Camberwell VIC 3124

Email Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia (CMA) at cma@candy.net.au

When you have completed this task, dear Reader, you might like to keep Miss Eagle informed.

Richard Pratt and social capital

Somewhere in this story, there appears to be a whole new meaning to the term, Social Capital.

Kevin Rudd, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Ethics of State

Martin Flanagan has to-day questioned Kevin's Rudd ethics particularly in the light of his admiration for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Miss Eagle is reflecting on this issue here.

Woolworths, Safeway, Liquor and Fuel - but not food

Miss Eagle has sent the following email to Liz in Victorian Regional Office of Safeway (the name used by Woolworths in Victoria). It is self-explanatory. If you, dear Reader, agree with Miss E, please feel free to write to Woolworths in your state. If you are writing in Victoria, please send to ejamieson@woolworths.com.au.

This afternoon, I was in the Safeway store at Burwood Highway, Ferntree Gully (not the Mountain Gate store). I was stunned to see an advertisement stating, that if customers purchased $60 of goods from Safeway Liquor, they would receive a 20c a litre discount on fuel.

I am amazed at the ethics of such a campaign. I have been told by Kerry in the Area 5 office that this was part of a national campaign organised by the Marketing Division of Woolworths.

The campaign has certainly not been well thought through. It sends very mixed messages to the community:

1. Alcohol is more valuable than food because it attracts a larger discount on fuel at the bowser.
2. $60 worth of alcohol far outweighs in value at the bowser any amount large or small spent on food.
3. The campaign links alcohol to driving in an encouraging way - in more or less the same way that large car parks at suburban hotels encourage a drink and drive mentality.
4. Woolworths, whose income is derived - in the main - from families, encourages a significant slice of the family budget to be devoted to alcohol.
5. The campaign seeks to encourage a significant amount of spending on alcohol which is the root cause of violence and road deaths in our society and ties the name of Woolworths/Safeway to it.

I would ask you to immediately withdraw this marketing campaign from all Woolworths and Safeway stores and to refrain from any similar type of marketing in the future.

I also wish to complain about the way complaints are handled within Woolworths and Safeway.

I am told that the Woolworths system means that someone in the local regional office will email someone in Sydney but that the system does not allow for me to be cc'd. So I have no way of knowing the accuracy of material forwarded to the responsible person regarding my complaint. I have rung the corporate office in Sydney who referred me back to the local regional office. Sydney refused to give me the name of the person with responsibility for the campaign. I then asked for the title, the phone number and the email of the person responsible for the marketing campaign. This too was refused. There is clearly no way for the customer to be in direct contact with the person with corporate responsibility. I am told that the matter will take two business days and I am familiar with the time limit that Woolworths sets itself to respond.

I fear that the manner in which Woolworths deals with complaints means that the complaint will not be acted upon in a positive manner leading to the withdrawal of the campaign and that Woolworths will go on its merry way regardless.

Yours sincerely,

[Name supplied] [address supplied]
Email: [supplied]
Phone: [supplied]
Blogs: Oz Tucker at http://oztucker.blogspot.com/
The Trad Pad at http://tradpad.blogspot.com/
The Eagle's Nest at http://eaglesplace.blogspot.com

We'll wait to see what - if anything - happens.

Shopping: therapy, festival, compulsion, illness, manipulation

Ramada - Mall of America

Shopping is better than sex.
If you're not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.

Adrienne Gusoff

Shop Til You Drop Magazine

What is it about shopping? What is it about shopping and the female of the species? Can we live with it? Can we live without it?

We talk about retail therapy. There seems to be a word for shopping til you drop: oniomania. Melbourne - which has more than its fair share of bread and circuses - is contemplating, as Miss Eagle has mentioned before, a shopping festival. Dubai actually has one and so has Hong Kong.

It is lovely to walk through beautiful shops selling beautiful things - even if one doesn't spend. Miss Eagle can still dream about Prada and Bulgari even if she can't afford it. This is why, even though she has not spent a cent there, Miss E was thrilled by the refurbishment of the Ground Floor at David Jones' Burke Street Mall store.

Could there possibly be a down side?

There is the illness. The cultural distortion which sees Hot Cross Buns - an Easter tradition - on sale before Epiphany. Advertising manipulating our children. The sexualization of our children. And for more information on how, when we consume, we are consumed go here.

Then there is the economic impact. Some see the globalization of retail and commodities which it sells as a positive thing. This article - brief as it is - comes out on the positive size while mentioning social disruption and the loss of jobs in some sectors of the economy.

We need to remember that when we purchase all that stuff from China and India it is great for their economies. And they really do need jobs. But when we lose jobs in this nation, we also lose skills - skills that are not always readily replaced with new ones. We can also lose access to jobs and personal economic development for women and young people.

So what is the solution? Miss E has none except the caveat emptor (buyer beware) provisions. Be aware! Demand accountability - not just from individuals but from governments and corporations.

If we become aware and demand accountability, we will become smart, ethical shoppers.

And for increasing numbers of us, we will go this way to the opp shop.

Promises, promises

There are optimists in the world and they are at The Truthmaker. Their current focus is on the NSW election trying to keep Morrie and Mates and Peter and Pals and assorted hopefuls to their word.

Lasting values: the pearl of great price

The topic of ethics is to the fore in Australian public life these days. Time for a reality check, Miss Eagle thinks.


The Hope Pearl, a 450-carat natural pearl that was owned by nineteenth-century gem collector Henry Phillip Hope. Loaned by Christie's. (Chip Clark / Smithsonian) Click image to enlarge.

The Pearl.

Matthew 13: 45



I know the ways of Learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason has from nature borrowed,
Or of it self, like a good housewife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forced by fire;
Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of Honor, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
In vies of favors whether party gains,
When glory swells the heart, and molding it
To all expressions both of hand and eye,
Which on the world a true-love-knot may tie,
And bear the bundle, wheresoe'er it goes:
How many drams of spirit there must be
To sell my life unto my friends or foes:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of Pleasure, the sweet strains,
The lullings and the relishes of it;
The propositions of hot blood and brains;
What mirth and music mean; what love and wit
Have done these twenty hundred years, and more:
I know the projects of unbridled store:
My stuff is flesh, not brass; my senses live,
And grumble oft, that they have more in me
Than he that curbs them, being but one to five:
Yet I love thee.

I know all these, and have them in my hand:
Therefore not sealéd, but with open eyes
I fly to you, and fully understand
Both the main sale, and the commodities;
And at what rate and price I have your love;
With all the circumstances that may move:
Yet through these labyrinths, not my groveling wit,
But your silk twist let down from heaven to me,
Did both conduct and teach me, how by it
To climb to thee.
George Herbert

An historic letter?

Davo over at Wombat's Waffles has published THE letter from Iran. You can read it there or here. Now there can be all sorts of views on the letter. Who are the Iranians to tell others what to do? Do the Iranians understand how the Americans think? Are the Iranians being sincere but naive?

Now turn that around, shall we? Who are the Americans to tell others what to do? Do the Americans understand how the Iranians think? Are the Americans being sincere but naive?

Now for the answers:

• Both Iran and the U.S. indulge in state-sponsored violence and incursions on the sovereignty of other nations.
• Both Iran and the U.S. need to have a greater objectivity about their history and their place in the world and among the nations. As Robert Burns said: O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.
• Americans have some self-seeking and self-agrrandizing national myths which do not serve them well internationally. Perhaps, Iran does too. National myths without the objectivity of broad and deep knowledge can not only breed naivete when placed in a wider context but, without such objectivity, other dangers come: ignorance, bigotry, national superiority, notions about racial, ethnic, typological superiority.

George W. Bush professes Christ. Significant sectors of the American polity do too. It therefore behoves the President and all Americans to have a look at the theology of The Letter from Iran. There is much to think about. Equally, the Iranian President will need to be held to his spiritual ideals expressed in The Letter.

The Abrahamic religions do have common ground. The Abrahamaic heritage of the One God. A sense of justice. A sense of compassion. A demand for an ethical life. The facts are that so often governments operating within this heritage do not live out the ideals and demands of the heritage. We are not ignorant. Yet we build faultlines of bigotry, racism, and prejudice out of a common heritage. And then we complain when, into our self-built difficulties, comes another with a capacity to build the ultimate weapon of the current technology.

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has outlined the basis for a closer relationship and for a common understanding. Whether the U.S. likes it or not and whether the Iranian President is genuine or using empty grandstanding rhetoric, the path has been shown which could lead to a bridge. Miss Eagle is reminded of what Maya Angelou once said that God sends pebbles into our lives. If we ignore them, he then sends a rock.

Is that the sound of a passing buck whistling on by?

Prime Minister John Howard appeared at the Cole Inquiry this morning and it appears to have been a damp squib affair. Any Australian who thinks its government is astute, on-the-ball, accountable and transparent has surely been proved wrong in evidence given to the Cole Inquiry by Howard, Downer and Vaile. While Miss Eagle does not wish to prejudge Cole's findings, she does not have great confidence. AWB is almost certain to bear the brunt of any findings with the likelihood of the distant and uninvolved (as far as the Cole Inquiry has been concerned) UN getting some opprobrium. As Mike Steketee says, "if no minister is to be held to account, that points to something very rotten in our system of government. "

Miss Eagle believes that time is an element that is frequently discounted. The three ministers along with Commissioner Cole and Counsel Assisting the Inquiry, John Agius SC, have their actions or lack of action exposed through this Inquiry. Miss Eagle likes the old Buddhist saying -"you may forget your actions, but your actions don't forget you".