Monday, May 16, 2011 NEWCASTLE HERALD 11

OPINION&ANALYSIS

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ONLINE poll

VOTE NOW

TODAY’S QUESTION

Was the state government right

to scrap the solar bonus scheme?

YESTERDAY’S RESULT

NBN won’t screen Come Fly With

Me, the cheeky new TV comedy

from Little Britain’s David Walliams

and Matt Lucas, for fear of offending

regional viewers. What do you say?

It’s a ridiculous decision that insults

regional viewers. I’m with Andy

Pipkin: I don’t like it. 88.3%

Thank you, NBN, for keeping TV

nice. I’m with Emily Howard: We

regional viewers are ladies. We like

ladies’ things. 11.7%

TOTAL VOTES 555

Come off it NBNNBN’s decision to cancel thenew comedy from the LittleBritain team, Come Fly with Me,wasn’t well received.

I wonder if NBN sees the irony inthe whole thing? I doubt it . . .Worried on the one hand if it willoffend because of stereotypinggroups in the community andthen on the other hand tellingeveryone that regional viewersare different.

– Gauntlet

Come on James Joyce, this is agee up. Nobody that’s employed inthe TV industry is that stupid. Pluga show prime time for 6 weeksthen pull it. NBN the home oflaughter, well that decisioncertainly is.

– Horse

This is akin to saying that regionalviewers are unsophisticated,humourless wowsers. Thankgoodness the ABC isn’t quite aspatronising as NBN or wewouldn’t have been able to seeAngry Boys until our metropolitanbetters had decided it was OK forus. This is just insulting.

– Sarah

I hardly watch TV at the mo butstuff like this gets very smutty,someone will always air it. I tendto catch up with a bit of SBS atthe mo and it freaks me out withall the unsettled countries. Iappreciate our ‘‘distance’’ fromthe rest of the world. You canalways pick up with the quirkysmut any day. I have no objectionto a refusal of this.

– PK

Are you kidding . . . just anotherreason to download shows orwait until they come out on DVD.NBN are really going to comeundone after this.

– Really

I’ve downloaded and watched itall already ad-free. Death to theTV networks!

– MickR

What a weak excuse I love theLittle Britain characters and do notfind them offensive. Wake up NBN.

– Screen

Fair wage, safe work,worth the paperwork

TRADIES: It’s a good life if you choose it, but not for those forced to throw away legal protections.

Professor Phillip O’Neill is directorof the Urban Research Centre at theUniversity of Western Sydney.

PhillipO’Neill

I HURTLE down the F3 before dawna couple of times a week. The road isquiet until Wyong. Then the tradiesjoin at all the Central Coastintersections.

By Mooney Mooney Creek bridgethe road is a Monaco grand prix, ahelter-skelter of utes, tray-tops andvans.

I enjoy guessing what their tradeis as they rush by.

The brickies are easy to spot, evenin the dark, their mixers hanging onin the back like country dogs.

The sparkies must get paid more.They seem to have newer vans withextravagant signwriting withlightning bolts and funny names like“Ohm, sweet ohm.”

I keep well clear of plumbers’trucks, though; their extensionladders and poly pipes swaying toand fro always make me nervous. Abit like the clatter of cans in the backof the painter’s ute. And why doesthe painter always have an elbowand a ciggie hanging out the driver’swindow, whatever the weather?

What tradies have in common isthey drive fast.

I laugh, knowing all across Sydneyhouseholds wait nervously for thearrival of their tradie.

Is there any other occupationother than a dentist or anobstetrician that has so much powerover the ‘‘customer’’, who can drillwhen and where they like, leavemess all over the place for someoneelse to clean up, and present anexorbitant bill poker-faced?

Except,unlikethedentistandobstetrician, thetradieofferstoknockabitoff thepriceifyoupayincash.

However, the tradie’s love of thefolding stuff caught the attention ofthe Treasurer’s budget inParliament last week, with warningsof a big crackdown on the cash tradein the construction industry, and ontax avoidance by contractors ingeneral.

Last month the Australian Bureauof Statistics revealed that 1.1 millionAustralian workers now operate ascontractors, and the number isrising quickly.

The biggest group,of course, aremen in theconstruction industry, and

a lot of these are self-employedtradies. But thenumber ofcontractors isrising inmanufacturing as wellas in servicejobs like transport,cleaning, securityand ‘‘temping’’ onthe office circuit.

The problem here is notindependent tradies with properqualifications making good moneyin the building industry where thereare skills shortages.

The problem is with thosecompanies who force contractingonto those workers who don’t havemuch choice in the labour market.

For what seems like a growingnumber of companies, contracting isa way of shifting an employer’sobligations onto a worker, a way aboss can avoid paying proper wagesand super, providing sick leave andannual holidays, and having properworkers’ compensation insurance.

The lure ofworking for yourself,and a promiseof independent riches,can come horriblyunstuck when thebusiness at the other endof a

contract goes broke,or an accidentputs aworker in plaster witha stackof medical billsand no compo.

The construction union, theCFMEU, is concerned at the growthof what it calls ‘‘sham contracting’’where workers are pushed ontocontracts to avoid regular enterpriseagreements.

Expect a stink over the newbudget measures, then. Genuineenterprise-based contractors willcry foul over the red tape andpaperwork, and perhaps they have agood case. There is no more patheticsight than a tradie’s kitchen tablespread with crushed invoices, dirtycheques and a greasy ledger,overseen by a pair of bleary eyesthat’d rather be watching the footy.Yet tradies will always find a way tokeep their wallets thick and theirbank statements thin, just like theyalways give pre-dawn highwaypatrol cars the slip.

Expect too that business groupswill attack the crackdown with

claims that this is federal Labordoing its bit to maintainmembership levels in its affiliatedunions, and perhaps there’s sometruth in that as well.

Butremindyourselfof thepersonwhodoesn’thavemuchchoiceabouttheworkheorshecanget.Sure, it’sgreat thatmanyareabletobackthemselvesandgoitalone. However,these same freedoms createopportunities for marginalisedworkers to be exploited.

Theargumentthatalwaysgetsmeonsideistheonethatsaysit iswrongforanybosstoshedtheresponsibilitythatcomeswithbeinganemployer.Afairwageandasafeworkplacearealwaysnon-negotiable.Aworkershouldneverbeforcedtochoosebetweenthemandacontract.

Enemies are who you choose them to be

Rev Douglas Haley is assistantminister at Newcastle’s St Andrew’sand St John’s Presbyterianchurches. Article supplied by theChurches Media Association.

A stone speaks truth,writes Douglas Haley.

THERE’S a block of stone on aPalestinian road, facing an Israelisettlement, that has carved upon itthese words: ‘‘We refuse to beenemies’’.

I don’t know who wrote it, andultimately it doesn’t really matter, Isuppose. What matters is thatsomeone, somewhere, is willing totake that stand.

And it really is a stand. When weare attacked, when we are afraid,when we feel abused, ormanipulated, or used, ourinstinctive reaction is to cast theprotagonist in the role of enemy.

This allows us several emotionalluxuries, like feeling ourselves to bein ‘‘the right’’ and hence somehowsuperior, or feeling justified in our

aggression or anger or hatred.But do any of these emotional

luxuries actually achieve anythingother than soothing our delicateegos and further estranging analready strained relationship?

When Jesus came into the midstof Israel, and told his listeners that,despite the fact that they werebeing ruled by the Romans; despitethe fact that basically everyreligious order around them wasopposed to them; despite years ofoppression and hardship, they wereto love their enemies, he calledthem away from any emotionalluxury and towards a very costlyand very active love.

I don’t think Jesus’ call is any lessradical or necessary today.

InaworldwherepeopleburnKoranstomakeapoint,wheretheydanceinthestreetsforjoythatsomeonehasbeenassassinated,wheretheyscream‘‘deathtothe

infidel’’at theskies,wheretheyburnchurchesandretaliateinkind,Jesus’call toloveourenemieshasneverbeenmoreneeded,normoredifficult.

To love one’s enemies in aninternational politico-religiousclimate such as ours requires farmore than just moments of good will,it requires more than cheappolitical rhetoric aboutmulticulturalism or tolerance.

It actually requires somethingakin to stubborn dogged resistanceon the part of individuals in all theirrelationships and their language.

To love those who differ fromourselves, particularly when theirself-understanding is that they areour enemies, requires a flat refusalto allow oneself to even accept thepossibility that we may be enemies.

To love one’s enemies, at its heart,involves the refusal to be enemies.

We refuse to be enemies.For the different ethnic groups

which make up our society, ourneighbourhoods, our streets: werefuse to be enemies.

For the different religious groupswho are all learning to either feareach other or pretend we’re allalike, we need to realise that we aredifferent, and yet, still, we refuse tobe enemies.

Jesus told us to love our enemies.Thatdoesn’tmeanagreewitheverythingtheydo.Whatitdoesmeanisthathoweverwemaydiffer,wewon’t let thatmakeusenemies.

If Jesus is in any way your Lord,then today, resolve to refuse to beenemies.