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SMH NOTES DOWNSIDE TO RECORD EMPLOYMENT
On the eve of Anzac Day, the Sydney Morning Herald found a war theme to illustrate this screaming front-page lead on Australia’s employment killing fields:
More than 310,000 Australians aged under 25 have suffered work-related injuries or diseases over the past 10 years, almost equal to the number of Australians killed and wounded during the first and second world wars.
So a work-related dislocation or cut is comparable to being killed or wounded in combat. Work is hell.
Another 500 young workers were killed in the 10 years - an alarming toll compiled by the Herald using the national workers’ compensation database.
The Herald will be kicking itself when it realises how similar is this alarming toll to the number of Australians killed in Vietnam. Chance missed, kids.
How many young workers were killed in 10 years in car accidents? Or drug overdoses?
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2006 04 24 at 03:05 PM • permalink“RECORD EMPLOYMENT” ?????????
OMG!!!!
It’s a LABOR SHORTAGE !!!!!!!!!
All hands man your hyperbole stations, woop woop woop woop woop, all hands man your hyperbole stations!!!!!!!!!Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 04 24 at 03:07 PM • permalinkOn another note:
An average of 310,000 Americans eat popcorn on any given night. The number of US popcorn eaters on any given night is almost equal to the number of Australians killed and wounded during the first and second world wars.This statistic puts the final nail into George Bush’s popularity coffin, as it highlights the influence of his religious right cronies. The same pollsters that predicted a J.F.Kerry presidential landslide victory are showing more doom and gloom. Apparently, 51% of Americans would rather ride shotgun over a bridge with Ted Kennedy driving, than admit George W.‘s plan to capture or kill terrorists is better than the *plan* for a more sensitive and diplomatic solution proposed by America’s socialist party chairman, Howard Dean (D). margin of error for this poll is 3%.
Somebody really slipped up at the copy desk - this is a grim milestone if ever I saw one.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2006 04 24 at 04:34 PM • permalink</i>I hope the Italians don’t sue due to an Italic onslaught.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 04 24 at 05:06 PM • permalinkWork-related injuries are important, of course. A friend of mine has a friend whose husband died on a construction site in a really horrendous way. Apparently, lax safety standards were to blame.
Alas, the trouble with the statistics cited is that lump in everything together (not unlike statistics that say 1 in 3 (4?) women will be the victim of violence and violence is defined incredibly broadly). The paper cut I received at work the other day, while a wee bit painful and a little bit messy, hardly rates compared to the horrific accidents that have happened to some unfortunate souls.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 04 24 at 06:04 PM • permalinkWhenever I read something idiotic that Our Betters in the Press have come up with, like this, and I start having visions of gathering these morons all onto a raft or an ice floe, and while they are droning on in their usual smug and heedless fashion, cutting them loose and watching as they drift out to sea. (I must admit I am inspired by Ford’s current ad campaign for their Escape brand of vehicles.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 04 24 at 06:37 PM • permalinkHaving just accused Churchill and others of being war criminals, the Pom writer said that there was ‘no point now’ asking this question because the war was just and was won.
What was it then, since he’s written an accusing book *now*?I suppose the ‘right’ approach was not to use ANY inaccurate bombers, and lose fairly…
NO comment on the fact that the NEW aerial bombing was the ONLY way to destroy the German war machine located in cities.
NO comment on the fact that the death camp inmates wanted bombing on their areas, but it was not done.
NO comment on how the bombing MUST have affected morale and shortened the war. Yet it was first used in support of Stalin’s defence on the Eastern Front 1942.
Did it help save Russia, OR NOT?STUPID comments made:
“The moral question was the MOST important question” to have asked - more important than whether it could help win the war?!!The ridiculous view that ‘everybody knew’ the results of aerial bombing - BEFORE even the *invention* of the large bombers that did most of the damage.
It even ended with a snide reference to the *highly-targeted* Shock and Awe War in Baghdad - an irrelevant Fran Kelly political ‘contribution’..
ABC insensitive anti-war hindsight at full bore…
This is serious and the deserves the same government policy response as the danger of guns, in fact given that guns kill and injure a lot less people than working it must be a more serious problem.
Time for a Jobs Buy Back, the government can buy back our jobs, give us all a lump sum payout for our jobs so that we wont have to go to work anymore, that way we will all be safe.
No comment on the German’s bombing of Canterbury and London?
We are unduly obsessed with Gallipoli while another big story remains untold in the mainstream - that of our AIF in France under the command of John Monash, whose successes were such that he was knighted on the battlefield, and many felt that the Australians had done more to end the war than any others. Their big advances from Hamel to the Hindenburg Line broke the German resolve and led to the armistice. Politically, back in Australia, Hughes felt vulnerable and did not want too much made of Monash’s position, and the respect for him from his troops was huge. So much so that insurrection was talked about.Yeah, shame on you Aussies for bombing German cities… er, wait a minute…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 04 24 at 08:12 PM • permalinkI know a girl who got workman’s comp for falling off her 1” heels. Did the numbers reveal how many “injuries” were dodges to get long weekends or excused from unpleasant duties. Somehow I don’t think the injuries reported in war stoop to the level of most workplace injuries—unless John Kerry did a stint with ANZACs in addition to his CIA missions. Now the Chinese mining industry is a whole ‘nother story.
I wouldn’t denigrate (is it racist to use that word?) paper cuts if I were you. Three of them, or the equivalent, got John F’n Kerry out of Vietnam.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 04 24 at 09:20 PM • permalink‘Work safety’, a field that the government has taken on itself to manage and administer, is horrendously confusing. ‘Targets’ are continually set by some members of the Work Cover bureaucracy, and as a result, the conditions under which ‘safe work’ can occur in the workplace are perpetually changing.
In typical bureaucratic fashion, the conditions set for ‘safe work’ affect those people who are most disadvantaged: people in economically backward areas, or people with little work experience/education. These people generally start out in areas such as construction, and labouring - areas which are continually being targeted by the ‘work safety’ bureaucrats.
Small business owners and entrepreneurs who have the misfortune to work on a contract basis in different states run into other difficulties: what is ‘safe’ in one state may not be ‘safe’ in another.
This article by the Herald is a pointless attempt at creating hysteria.
#19 - Blogstrop, there’s similar ignorance of the Australian triumph against the Japanese at Milne Bay in 1942. A small contingent of mostly raw and poorly-equipped troops were defending the local airstrip. Located at the southeast tip of New Guinea, it had considerable strategic value.
The fighting lasted through several days and nights, and the Diggers and Japs were reduced eventually to hand to hand combat. Milne Bay was the first real defeat Japan’s land forces suffered, and it was crucial in breaking the myth of their invincibility. This is a battle that deserves at least a share of the attention given to Gallipoli.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 04 24 at 10:26 PM • permalinkWhat a jarring read on any day, let alone ANZAC day.
I’m not close to a large number of people in the “young” demographic, other than my daughter and son-in-law. I would never have imagined that if either of them was killed at work that it would lead to immediate sneering and jesting, by anyone.
But, on a brighter note, isn’t a good to know that some Aussies would promptly break out with jokes and jeering if their parent, sibling, spouse, or child was killed at work.
CK, I am IN that demographic, and I find this a bit amusing. We don’t find the deaths amusing, of course. We find the bizzare juxtaposing of “workplace injuries” which can be almost ANYTHING with the numbers of dead and wounded in the Wars. I had to fill in a “workplace injury” report because a dictionary fell on my head a few years ago. I wouldn’t exactly compare this to being wounded on the battlefield, though. Would you?
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2006 04 25 at 12:47 AM • permalinkMike - The MSM uses “compare & contrast” figures all the time – it’s just what they do, in order to assist their “idiot” readers with understanding the magnitude of something.
More people die from heart disease & strokes than cancer; more people are permanently incapacitated in some way from car accidents than those killed. Blah, blah, blah.
The Herald Sun continues to publish road deaths next to heroin deaths. It’s bizarre and tells us nothing at all.
Ranking & rating deaths is a strange and obscene practice. Yes, some are worse than others; yes, some are noble and some not.
I gather that no-one enquired whether or not the dictionary had knocked any sense into you?
With the form filling – oh yeah, it’s a legal requirement; and some other person may have made a compo claim for headaches, nightmares, inability to concentrate (duh, who the hell CAN concentrate at work, eh?), fear of flying books, etc, so the organisation had to have their paperwork in order, otherwise they’d cope a fine on top of a claim.
O/T
Old news, but do you think Habib Sues will get him some money?
He prolly just wants to buy common-every-day laundry products with the proceeds.
God Bless the brave Australians and New Zealanders for their heroic sacrifices.
Australia has always, always, been our country’s most steadfast ally. Yes, more than Great Britain and certainly more than Canada.
We over here won’t forget your fallen heroes.
Posted by Kathy from Austin on 2006 04 25 at 10:28 AM • permalinkCK: “I gather that no-one enquired whether or not the dictionary had knocked any sense into you?”
Wow. Random attack. Thanks, I feel so loved now.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2006 04 25 at 09:12 PM • permalink
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This is the kind of thing that makes SMH readers stay awake at night? Can’t they find something worthy to worry about?