BAE Drops A Bomb On Human Rights

You may have heard about Adelaide based Defence contractor BAE Systems and it's request for exemption from the Racial Discrimination Act. This outrageous request was granted in the Equal Opportunity commission today, giving BAE the right to refuse employment to applicants based on race, and to prevent current employees from working on some 'top secret' contracts. Workers from countries such as China, Iran, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea, Syria (and no doubt many others), will be denied the chance to work on lucrative U.S contracts despite holding Australian Citizenship.

As one might expect, BAE are seeking to take full advantage of this ruling by pursuing it's extension to the other Australian States.

True to form the Rann Labor Government, along with Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has welcomed the decision. It's clearly their position that the universal application of basic human rights shouldn't stand in the way of capitalist greed.

The Attorney-General made no apologies for supporting the ruling. "Billions of dollars in defence contracts for SA are now assured and I think more will come to SA now that this difficulty has been removed".

The CPA would like to congratulate our pro-business Labor Premier for placing South Australia in a position of subservience to the world's most dangerous imperialist power.

Citizens from one of the countries on the blacklist, Cuba, are about to go to the polls to elect new representatives to government. If those elected fail to represent their constituents as promised they can be quickly removed from their position at the will of the people. A similar system here would have seen Mike Rann packing his bags a long time ago.

When reflecting on this country's recent record on Human Rights, today's disgraceful decision in the Equal Opportunity Commission comes as little surprise. Here in South Australia the State Government has supported the building of illegal detention centres, it has aggressively pursued the construction of uranium mines on traditional lands (Arkaroola being the latest example), and it hasn't taken a single backward step in promoting S.A as the 'head office' of Australia's military industrial complex.

The question must be asked: Is this what Australian democracy delivers to its people?