Write on: letters to the editor

May 29, 1996
Issue 

Write on
Rally to the cause of the sick

I've been overjoyed to read about the campaign against the attacks on the public service in the pages of Green Left. Finally, after 12 years of passivity from the leadership of the union movement under Labor we are beginning to see some kind of fightback.

Another important task for the Community and Public Sector Union, and for the union movement as a whole is to remember to fight for the rights of those who face more barriers in participating in the struggle. It is harder to get involved in campaigns if you are disabled or sick.

After being sick for a year I really began to understand why it was so important for someone to take up the cause of the sick. Sickness benefits under Labor were degraded to ludicrous levels. You weren't defined as sick if you worked more than four hours a week — although the legislation supposedly allowed for eight hours a week work.

Now, under the Liberals you are only eligible for the benefit if you have a guaranteed full-time job to return to after you are sick. Students, the unemployed, casual workers, housewives (those most exploited, hence those most likely to get ill) can't get benefits while they are sick. These outrageous changes have not been publicised at all but need to be incorporated into the CPSU's campaign, just as attacks to the disabled, migrants and the unemployed need to be fought hard against.
Rachel Evans
Melbourne
[Edited for length.]

Understanding

Mr Borbidge is alleged to have entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Queensland Police Union. He has given evidence that he never read the document. What he should have added is that he understands nothing and would therefore be incapable of giving informed consent to anything.
Dr John Tomlinson
Senior Lecturer, School of Social Science
QUT Brisbane

Profit consequences

Regarding Indonesia's nuclear aspirations. Notice that our politicians, Labor and Liberal, local and federal, remain mute despite the implied threat to life and limb of Territorians. Why? Because they think there is a buck to be made by supplying Uranium from Kakadu and accept that what goes around, comes around.

Would they have us believe that giving trans-national corporations short-term profit justifies the entire population of Northern Australia acquiring the long-term consequences? Science tells us that there is no safe dose of radiation, nor does it respect political persuasion.

The attitudes of our politicians shows that the health and safety of their own families matters little to them: let alone be concerned for the rest of us, or our children's children. Years ago tribal elders warned us of the dire repercussions from not respecting the Ancient Lore. Are we now seeing the means by which those prophecies become manifest? Uranium, leave it in the ground.
Tim Bickmore
Uranium Campaign Coordinator
Territory Greens

Cancer

How do the authors of the Hunter's Public Health Unit (PHU) study into cancer in the Boolaroo area expect us to take them seriously?

Boolaroo is the site of Pasminco's lead and zinc smelter, notorious for polluting Lake Macquarie, Cockle Creek and the local area. Pasminco is responsible for the "streets without children" — an exclusion zone around the smelter where one of the conditions of rental is that children cannot live there because of the health consequences.

According to reports in The Newcastle Herald, the PHU study of Boolaroo and other suburbs in the 2284 postcode area found that: men in the area had a higher risk of contracting cancer than the state average; there are more deaths by cancer among men in the area; a significant increase in lung cancer incidence and death rates occurred among men about 30 years after smelting was recommenced (a typical time-lag for this type of cancer) and the risk of lung cancer in men decreased by about 25% for every extra kilometre lived away from the main furnace stack!

Yet, the authors of the study argue that the smelter is unlikely to be responsible for these findings! Dr Miles of the PHU is reported to have said that "[i]f it was the smelter we would see a similar pattern in men and women". Since women only have a higher than average rate of stomach cancer (and not other types) the smelter has been dismissed as the cause.

How long can governments, public officials and business leaders keep on using dubious "scientific" arguments to distort the truth? When will they admit that it is capitalism and the profit motive that are destroying our environment and killing people?
Alex Bainbridge
Newcastle

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