Free speech in the company town

 

Apparently criticism isn’t welcomed at Middlemount, a coal mining town in Central Queensland roughly 240km’s west of Mackay. The story of the post office's licensee, Louise Hawkins and husband Chris Griffiths being evicted from the shopping centre which is owned by Anglo American coal has received media attention. This article was published in the APN chain of regional newspapers, Middlemount Post Office couple evicted over sign.

“The sign copied the local telephone directory featuring a child's drawing that said everyone was welcome at Middlemount.

Mr Griffiths added, "except families, except children, except visitors" prompting the breach of lease notice.

"They are limiting the number of families and children who can live here and making it hard for them," he said.
"The media is partly to blame for what's happening in small mining towns…no one is prepared to ask the hard questions and they get away with it."

Mr Griffiths, who has lived in the area since 1971 and served his apprenticeship at Utah Mine said he was pro mining.

"But I'm pro Middlemount as well and pro Dysart and Tieri, and pro agriculture.”

It’s my view that the core issue here isn’t pro or anti mining; in the quote above Chris Griffiths has said that he is pro mining. There is a debate to be had over a fly in, fly out (FIFO) workforce whose effects was what the post office operators were offering an opinion about. No the core issue is the basic right of freedom of speech.

 The sign offered an opinion, you may not agree with it as have some other locals as quoted in this follow up news story; but was it offensive, racist or sexist, did it denigrate any individual, and was it 1metre high spray painted graffiti next to the shopping centre entrance? No it was an A4 piece of paper stuck on a notice board in front of their own business. The message could have been presented childishly, perhaps, but is that a crime? Why has Anglo American got such a corporate glass jaw over this issue?  

 

Although this web page is obviously designed to offer a positive view of family life in mining towns it does provide an insight into who Anglo American are and just how much they do own the town of Middlemount.

“Anglo American’s Metallurgical Coal business owns most of the 700-odd houses in town and rents the accommodation back to employees at subsidised rates, so the town is a great place to save money.

There's a fairly balanced mix of residential families and FIFO/DIDO workers and at the last count the population was 3,500.

Anglo American has seven mines in the area: Capcoal, Foxleigh, Central, Southern, Bundoora, Grasstree and Lake Lindsay mines. They're all located within about 15 minutes from town.

Macarthur Coal has Middlemount Mine and their workers also live in town.

If you're thinking of buying a house, think again. There's only a very small number of privately-owned homes so it's hard to live in the town if you're not employed by the mines.”

It may have not entered their calculations, but by evicting the couple Anglo American has created the opportunity for them to enlarge on their opinion about the effects of FIFO to a now interested media. In the Australian Mining magazine Chris Griffiths expanded by saying:

“Griffith said he is “pro-Middlemount” but growing up in the area he is concerned about the effects mining camps are having on the region.

“We think [the sign] is true, families and children aren’t welcome,” he stated.

He explained the increasing number of mining camps and the transient nature of the workers means there’s “not a lot of families and children here”.

“It’s creating a culture that denigrates the region.”

Alan Jones interviewed Chris Griffiths on his high profile national radio program where Griffith having lived in the area since 1971 said that once FIFO camps were once only for temporary construction and only used as single workers quarters on a permanent basis. Nowadays there are camps everywhere; families no longer move to the mining towns rather the mine worker is housed in a camp while the rest of the family stay behind usually in urban centres on the coastal strip. With fewer families and children in the likes of Middlemount, Griffiths believes it creates a social dysfunction. Those few families that do try and move to Middlemount find this prevailing culture too hard and often move away again.

This CFMEU statement says in part:

The sign was a reference to the explosion of temporary worker accommodation camps in Middlemount and Anglo’s preference for housing workers in camps over family housing.

“Instead of addressing the concerns raised in the sign, Anglo’s heavy-handed approach is to shut down the post office,” said Mr Pearce.

“There are currently about 160 company-owned family homes sitting empty in Middlemount, while the company packs people into camps.

“This is severely undermining the social fabric of the town.

“The company is housing married couples in single men’s quarters. It is dissuading families from moving to Middlemount to settle.

“It is pocketing tax concessions for using FIFO workers and housing them in camps, rather than supporting the local community.

 

I have done no research into if it’s true as the union maintains that tax concessions have influence the rise in using FIFO camps. If you read the comments in the various links above there are people involved in the mining industry offering differing views. It’s the ability to offer a different view that I wish to return to; surely even in a company owned town we still have freedom of speech

 

 



IPA : Anti-Discrimination Bill

There has been some worrying comment about the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill that the Federal Gillard Labor government wishes bring into effect. A series of articles in The Australian newspaper and elsewhere has given a number of reasons to be concerned.

Today the Institute of Public Affairs has released its submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. Printed below is the Executive Summary from IPA’s submission. To read the entire submission go to the following web address http://ipa.org.au/library/publication/1356055327_document_211212_submission_-_anti-discrimination.pdf 

The exposure draft of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 [“the draft Bill”] represents a dramatic and radical attack on Australians’ fundamental freedoms under the guise of reforming anti-discrimination law.

The draft Bill makes government the arbiter of behaviour within a substantial range of private political and personal activities. The draft Bill would politicise and regulate private interpersonal relationships in a way they never have been in Australia.

In a very real sense, these laws are not anti-discrimination laws. They are laws designed to give the government authority over our lives in completely new and unjustifiable arenas. This is an excessive and indefensible increase in state power.

The proposed laws give the government explicit power to interfere in almost all facets of human interaction including eighteen areas of public and private life, such as political opinion, religion and social origin. The government is also required to decide what falls into these categories, making the state the total and final arbiter on our most fundamental liberties.

By redefining discrimination to be anything which “offends, insults or humiliates” the proposed law will extend the infamous provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act that led to the Andrew Bolt case to almost every area of public and private life. By expanding the grounds on which people can claim to be discriminated against to include areas such as “political opinion” the law will stifle genuine discussion on almost every topic for fear of legal consequences.

This draft Bill has deservedly been criticised from across the political spectrum as a massive overreach and an unjustified curtailment of individual freedoms.

Democratic governments rely on the free exchange of opinion for their legitimacy. This draft Bill, if enacted, would dramatically limit freedom of speech in Australia.

This submission also raises other concerning elements of the draft Bill. The draft Bill substantially reverses the burden of proof onto the defendant. It introduces a large amount of uncertainty and ambiguity into anti-discrimination law.

The draft Bill introduces a subjective test for decisions about whether the law has been breached. Subjective tests are impossible to comply with and should never be used by the courts.

There is no justification for such a dramatic overhaul of anti-discrimination law, and no place for such extraordinary limits on freedom of speech.