The Guardian 27 April, 2005
Dingo bytes
The News Ltd Daily Telegraph and Australian newspapers carry a lot of advertising decked out as news items. So much so that they have become utterly contemptuous of their readers. Last week the Telegraph ran an ad-as-article for a biscuit company. “Tim Tams are comfort, not danger, zone” ran the headline (April 19), a 400 word promotion of a “new range” of chocolate biscuits in which Eleanor Sprawson comes out with such investigative reportage as, “…the true spirit of the Tim Tam, which is the spirit of sitting on the couch in your pyjamas deep in your comfort zone. If Tim Tams were footwear they would be Ugg boots.”
In NSW a textile company has had to close its doors because the Department of Corrective Services outbid it for a long standing contract using dirt cheap prison labour. World of Curtains lost the $500,000 a year contract which went to the Long Bay and Silverwater prisons. The prisoners get 86 cents an hour. Meanwhile, out at the Dillwynia women’s prison at Windsor, south of Sydney, prisoners are working in a Gloria Jean’s coffee franchise for 86 cents an hour under the guise of skills training. The franchise is owned by two Hillsong Church members who claim it’s “not about profit” but about instilling Gloria Jean’s “family values and ethics”.
As John Howard was making a media event out of fare-welling 450 extra troops on their way to Iraq, the Defence Department was busy cutting medical services to navy personnel. The Balmoral Naval Hospital has had to cancel surgery lists because of lack of staff after the Department carried out a ruthless campaign to force them all onto individual work contracts. The aim is to employ all staff through agencies. Medical staff with ten years experience were not offered further employment and have been replaced by inexperienced and cheaper doctors. And at the last minute the nurses discovered that signing up with the private agency would see them take a 25 percent pay cut.
CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: is Nestlé. The giant food transnational is running ads promoting a campaign that it’s running with the Australian Institute of Sport which it claims will help “your children develop the skills they need to lead healthy and active lives”. The program is being pushed into schools. It should be recalled that Nestlé during the 1980s was responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of babies in developing nations through its aggressive promotion of infant formula. They wormed their way into hospitals and doctors’ offices to dissuade new mothers from breast feeding and encouraged them to use the Nestlé formula. In addition to the babies missing out on their mother’s health giving breast milk, parents had no clean water available and were forced to wash bottles in contaminated water in many cases. It was a vicious cycle perpetuated by Nestlé, the same company that now says it wants to “help” children stay active and healthy.