In Labour's Cause

[As now, as then, Labor has always been the Party for enlightened laws.]

A host, extending day by day,

Stands forth in Labour's Cause,

Together pledge to clear the way

For new enlightened laws.

And I and you, and more beside,

Who feel oppression rife,

To stem its overwhelming tide

Would gladly give a life.

Yet we are slaves who dare not speak,

Denouncing what is wrong;

Around us see the poor and weak

Down-trodden by the strong.

And there are deeds that Labour seeks

For heroes to perform,

Well knowing he who strives or speaks

Must brave oppression's storm.

That they who seek for work must be

Like slaves in thought and act,

Who, daring only to be “free,”

Shall very soon be - “Sacked.”

Yet such enslaving powers to smite

Be firm and undismayed;

Who, fighting such a hopeful fight,

Dare flinch or be afraid?

Let workers then their days devote

To fight enslaving powers,

Smite as before we never smote

Until the day is ours.

Oh ! Stout, strong hearts, be true and bold

To aid the weak one's call;

Smite, strive and fight till earth shall hold

Both homes and hopes for all.

                                                                     Julian Stuart.

Brisbane March 17, 1894

United We Stand – Divided We Fall.

[It may have been 122 years ago, but in some respects a lot of the issues are the same today.]

To every brother worker

I say, now hold your own!

For the squatter's trying every means

To break our unions down.

Keep true to one another;

Stand firm, now, one and all.

United we are sure to win,

Divided we will fall.

In days gone by we made mistakes

In rashness and in haste,

Although we were defeated then

We never were disgraced,

Though traitors may betray us

And sneaks may cringe and crawl,

United and we're victorious -

Divide and we will fall.

There's some of the employers

Who with our cause take part,

While others, as their actions prove,

Are tyrants in their heart;

Their creed to crush the workers

And drive us to the wall.

Unite and we are bound to win -

Divide and we will fall.

Although we are but sons of toil,

And not the favoured few,

We now will show what willing hands

And honest hearts can do.

Although we work with shear and pick,

With shovel and with mall,

Unite, my friends, and we will win -

Divide and we will fall.

They talk about free labour,

And say they can get men,

But let them try that little game

And see what happens then.

Their talk is idle bombast;

So let them shout and bawl.

Stand firm, true, and united,

No danger that we fall.

                                                                   O. M. Barcaldine

Brisbane February 7, 1891   

TAXPAYERS LOSE $750 MILLION IN NEWMAN GOVERNMENT’S FIRE-SALE

Media Release.

Shadow Treasurer Curtis Pitt says a Newman Government’s fire-sale of state assets will see at least $750 million that could have been spent in regional Queensland communities go up in smoke.

“The Newman Government has now admitted it sold seven taxpayer-owned office blocks in Brisbane to its own Queensland Investment Corporation for $226.3 million less than their book value,” Mr Pitt said.

“As Shadow Treasurer I have previously revealed that the government will spend close to $1.1 billion over the next decade or so in leasing back the office space in the buildings.

“Given that the gross proceeds from the sale are known to be close to $562 million, this shabby and ill-conceived deal means taxpayers will lose at least $750 million over the next decade even on conservative estimates.

“The Premier and the Treasurer have spent months claiming the deal was good value when now we know it has resulted in a huge loss for taxpayers.

“The $750 million going up in smoke from this fire-sale could have been earmarked for job-creating projects in regional Queensland.

“This huge loss of taxpayers’ funds will occur simply because the Newman Government wanted to justify its self-indulgent decision to kick-start a new riverfront Executive Building for the Premier and his Ministers in the Brisbane CBD.

“The loss of $750 million once again spotlights the twisted priorities of the Newman Government that has forgotten about regional Queensland. It always puts itself first and regional communities a distant last.”

The seven Brisbane office blocks sold by the Newman Government are:

• David Longland Building, 63 George Street - $37,000,000
• Education House, 54 Mary Street - $66,000,000
• 61 Mary Street - $90,000,000
• Primary Industries Building, 62-80 Ann Street - $37,000,000
• 111 George Street - $143,000,000
• 33 Charlotte Street - $78,500,000
•  Mineral House, 41 George Street - $75,500,000.

They were sold in a private deal with the QIC in March and gross proceeds including stamp duty totalled $561.98 million.

“An Opposition Right to Information search revealed a huge difference between the sale price and the book value of the buildings which has only now been revealed to be close to $230 million,” Mr Pitt said.

“I have always suspected the sale price was less than market value and now we know just how much taxpayers have lost.”

Tony Abbott warns Labor not to 'commit suicide twice' by blocking repeal of carbon tax

Extract from ABC News Website:

By chief political correspondent Emma Griffiths

Updated 1 hour 39 minutes ago

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has warned the Labor Party it would be "committing suicide twice" if it tried to block his efforts to repeal the carbon tax.

Labor says it will not "cave in" to the Coalition's moves to replace the tax with its Direct Action policy if Mr Abbott wins Saturday's poll, adding currency to the Opposition Leader's threat to hold a double dissolution election next year.
Mr Abbott is standing firm, again indicating that he will retain the option of calling a double dissolution election on the issue.
"A Labor Party which persists in support of the carbon tax is just setting itself up to lose not one election but two," he said.

Key points

• Tony Abbott says Labor would lose a double dissolution if it blocks repeal of carbon tax
• Mr Abbott reiterates view that election is 'referendum' on the issue
• Labor's Mark Butler says party will not 'cave in' to Coalition demands
• Labor says Direct Action policy 'a complete dud'
• Greens pledge to hold both major parties to account

He added that "no sane political party" would stand by a tax that had become such "electoral poison".
"If the Coalition wins the election on Saturday, the carbon tax will go," he said.
"No ifs, no buts, it is gone.
"We will do whatever is necessary to abolish the carbon tax.
"I tell you this, if we win the election, which is a referendum on the carbon tax, the last thing the Labor Party will do is commit political suicide twice by continuing to support this absolutely toxic tax."

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said "absolutely" carbon pricing is an article of faith for the ALP. "Carbon pricing is fundamental to how you deal with climate change," he said.
"Any alternative response to that is just intellectually dishonest."

Mark Butler says Labor won't cave in on carbon tax

Earlier, Environment Minister Mark Butler said Labor would maintain its long-held support for an emissions trading scheme and would not support Direct Action.
"This mandate argument that says that if you lose an election, hypothetically, you junk all of your long standing policy positions and simply cave in to the government of the day is an utter fallacy," he told Radio National Breakfast.
"It's never been that way, and frankly it never should.
"Why have an opposition if you're not going to have opposition MPs argue strongly for policy platforms that you took to the election?
"And if we happen to lose on Saturday that is what the Labor party will be doing on climate change, and on industrial relations and on a range of other core policy positions that we've had for years."

Labor seizes on Tony Abbott's Direct Action comments

Yesterday, in his National Press Club speech, Mr Abbott conceded the Opposition Direct Action policy may not succeed in cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the stated aim of five per cent by 2020.
He said a Coalition government would not spend more than what has been budgeted, which on its 2010 document was $3.2 billion over four years.
"We will get as much environmental improvement as much emissions reduction for the spending that we've budgeted," he said.
Labor says it has shown up the policy for what it really is.
"The Direct Action policy is a complete dud," Mr Butler told RN.

"Experts have now been saying for months that the only way Tony Abbott could actually achieve the sort of reduction in carbon pollution he's signed up to is by spending literally billions and billions more than he's budgeted."

*          *       *

Great stuff Labor stand firm, it is the right thing to do, the emissions trading scheme is one of the only ways that we know of to reduce the effects of Climate Change, in Abbotts mind he still thinks the Earth is flat!

James Hansen explains Climate Change and the Solution: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM5-recP7-E

The Worker

WE STILL ARE LOYAL UNIONISTS.

[The Queensland colonial Government of the time was anti-unionism and all for the rich and powerful.]

We still are loyal unionists,

Resolved to win this fight,

Despite the hybrid Government

Arrayed in all their might,

With laws framed in a barb'rous age,

The souls of men to crush,

Who dared to ask for justice,

As we now do in the bush.

Though they arrest our delegates

And load their limbs with chains,

We're all prepared to follow

Whilst one unionist remains,

Their dungeons have no terrors,

Of their guns we're not afraid,

And we'll yet show our rulers

Of what metal we are made.

Though with Nordenfeldts and Gatlings,

At the pastoralist's behest,

They bring forth the skuiking blackleg

'Gainst the free men of the West.

The blackleg is a failure,

Whilst the country's debts increase,

Ere long those bumptious gentry

Will be glad to sue for peace.

Let the Government remember

We are men, not eringing slaves,

That before we'll cede our rights as men,

We'll sink in free men's graves,

And let money-grabbing vampires

Estimate the future loss

Through the struggle they themselves have forced

Beneath the Southern Cross.

                                                                     T. D. O'Conner

Brisbane May 30, 1891. 

FREEDOM OF CONTRACT!

[The 1890's version of Workchoices]

Oh! Freedom is a glorious thing,

And so the squatter say;

But they seldom practice what they preach

It's all the other way.

They're trying hard to crush us now

By every move and act;

But our cry is “No surrender” to

Their “Freedom of Contract.”

“Twas little justice that we got

In days that now are past,

With wages coming down each year

We knew things could not last,

The working men who grumbled then,

How quickly they got sacked

By the self-same men who talk to-day

Of “Freedom of Contact.”

Some squatters for a week's hard graft.

Would pay you fifteen bob,

And then you'd have to cringe and crawl

To hang long in your job.

I am talking from experience.

I can prove it as a fact.

No wonder that I don't take stock

In “Freedom of Contract.”

Then, brothers, in our noble Cause

Stand firm and act as men.

Be cool and still determined,

And we are bound to win.

Although the squatters' Government

The squatters' game has backed,

Our cry still “No surrender” to

Their “Freedom of Contract.”

                                                                        

                                                                     Owen Maguire, Hughenden.

Brisbane April 4, 1891

FAREWELL TO PRISON WALLS.

By Julian Stuart (one of the Union Prisoners).

[The Industrial Relation Laws that we take for granted today , are hard one conditions by the Labour Movement.]

To-morrow the gates of my prison unfold;

To night is my last in the cell;

The lingering years to their climax have rolled,

I hear with emotins that cannot be told,

The clang of the midnight bell.

I am thinking of those of a similar fate -

Of my mates in the gaol by the sea -

And I picture their eagerness while I await

For the dawn that shall come to my prison gate,

To wake me and set me free.

When we entered the prison, a captive band,

At the close of a bloodless fray,

'Twas like marching for years in a desert land;

But we travelled in unity, hand in hand,

Till one grew faint by the way.

But though days of imcurement have left their trace

On body and brain and heart,

Yet I feel more of pride than I do of disgrace

At being condemned to a criminal's place

For acting a freeman's part.

The loss of my birthright I bore as long

As the criminal gard I wore -

'Twas for aiding the feeble against the strong -

And to lighten the burden of human wrong

I'd suffice it all once more.

I will not brand them as barren days,

Nor days to be linked with regret,

For after the future its verdict displays,

When the scroll of Time shall unroll to our gaze,

They may yield a harvest yet.

I can find no thanks for the debt I owe

To the friends who have been so true;

Oh! friends, when I know not, and many not know,

But whose kindness shall cheer me where-ever I go,

What thanks can I tender you?

But this – To endeavour, in days to come,

Through all that our fates may unfold,

To merit your trust till my lips grow dumb;

To fight in your fights till my heart grows numb,

And the Blood in my veins grows cold.

                                                                                                              

                                                                                         Queensland Railway Times.

Brisbane December 16, 1893.