Dingo bytes

The Queensland Government has introduced legislation, the Summary 
Offences Bill, which will hit the State's most vulnerable and 
marginalised people — people with impaired capacity, and the 
poor, homeless, young and Indigenous. The legislation follows the 
introduction of public nuisance laws last April, which have seen 
the number of prosecutions for trivial behaviour, such as 
swearing, yelling or waving one's arms, increase by 200 percent. 
The new Bill will reinforce those laws. The Rights in Public 
Spaces Action Group (RIPS) warns that the police are already 
targeting Aboriginal kids and other vulnerable people and that 
many of those charged are homeless, poor and young. RIPS' Scott 
McDougall points out that the new Bill makes no effort to address 
the causes of homelessness or poverty.

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A business man with a social conscience may not be such a rare 
bird, but one that puts actions to his words, certainly is. Ian 
Melrose spent $2 million on advertisements during the federal 
election campaign to raise public awareness of the Howard 
Government's theft of East Timor's oil and gas. The ads contain 
useful and damning information, such as Australia withdrawing its 
recognition of the International Court, the body which would 
determine who owns the oil and gas in the Timor Straits, so close 
to East Timor. And that the Government has received $2000 million 
in royalties from East Timor's resources, and has returned only 
$400 million in aid. And that East Timor is a country so poor 
that eight out of every 100 children die before they are five 
years old.

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We have a Government that is deep in denial. It takes no 
responsibility for anything: the only bucks that stop at its door 
are the ones you stuff in your pockets. So it was with 
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone who has rejected out of hand 
a report to the UN which says the Government deported at least 35 
asylum seekers into "dangerous situations". The report, compiled 
by the Edmund Rice Centre and the Catholic University, also says 
that immigration officials used chemical restraints on deportees, 
gave them money for border bribes and helped them get false 
passports.

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CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: is the owner of the Ranger uranium 
mine, Rio Tinto. The farcical nature of the "safety measures" 
taken by the managers of the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern 
Territory has been exposed over and over again. The operator of 
the mine, Energy Resources of Australia, is now being sued by the 
NT Government over a uranium leak earlier this year which 
poisoned 149 workers. After the leak the workers drank and washed 
in water that was contaminated with 400 times the allowable limit 
of uranium. The mine not only threatens the environment of the 
Kakadu National Park, but is also arrogantly squatting on the 
land of the Mirrar people, the traditional owners. The Australian 
Conservation Foundation has called the government's legal action 
"the beginning of the end" of Ranger.