Last week James Cook University announced it was closing the Library on it's Vincent (visual and performing arts) campus. This is part of a larger plan to restructure the facility, “...moving from a traditional form of art-making to a digital form of art-making.” Director of the Collage, Professor Des Crawley claims that this is because of the low employment rate of visual arts graduates.

There is a few important points in this. Firstly, is what is deemed to be employment. From what I can gather self-employment, ie working for commission, etc. isn't considered employment.

The second point is what do people expect out of a fine arts degree?

Senator Vanstone will need to look after Halliburton. They're the quickest way to generate a globally-competitive population increase.

I'm extrapolating from the story in tomorrow's Australian:

[extract]

IMMIGRATION Minister Amanda Vanstone has rejected claims construction company Halliburton Australia exploited Indonesian workers hired to work in the South Australian desert.

The Adelaide Advertiser newspaper reported that the company, a subsidiary of US giant Halliburton, had paid the Indonesians as little as $40 a day.

 With four weeks to the SA election, Rann will be busy convincing the
local citizenry how he's brought all ths defence work to the state. 
Unfortunately he's lying.

Annoouncements like this, even three months late, would be fine if the SA Labor Government had any involvement with Tenix's securing of this Defence contract. However, the decision would probably have been made by former Defence Minister Reith, who retired from the Defence portfolio into a Tenix consultancy

[from ABC News On Line]

Halliburton Australia. has a major part of South Australian business activities It's Adelaide office was fomerly the company's global headquarters for infrastruture.

Under the trading name of KBR it is employed by the State government and local councils. It has been involved in construction of the Port River Expressway and has proposed a development project for Lake Alexandrina.

Halliburton is also employed by the Department Of Foreign Affairs and Trade to carry out international aid contracts on Australia's behalf, and has many defence industry contracts.

In South Australia's outback, Halliburton has been flouting Australia's Industrial Relations laws by employing foreigners at wage levels inappropriate to Australian ethics.

Whilst Australian citizen, David
Hicks, continues to endure his 4^th year of illegal imprisonment
& torture in America’s Guantanamo Bay gulag, a new report by Joshua
Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall, has found that, based on data supplied
by the Pentagon, that "55% of the detainees have not committed any hostile
acts against the United States or its coalition allies." Lawyers: Many
Guantanamo Detainees Not Accused 

‘Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Deputy National
Security Adviser Stephen Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to
discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush
administration's intelligence on Iraq, according to current and former
administration officials. 

The officials work or had worked
in the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council in a senior
capacity and had direct knowledge of the Vice President's campaign to discredit
Wilson.'

Happy New Year, from the Democratic Audit Team. 

Whistleblowing 

In a new paper for the Audit, Dr David Solomon,
Adjunct Professor of Politics at the University of Queensland, looks at the law
protecting whistleblowing, arguing that more protection is needed.  

For a change, it's nothing to do with Scott Parkin, and I think this gentleman may be a little more aggressive in his activism techniques..Ciaron O'Reilly, who has had his photo taken with both Nelson Mandela and East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao, was, while returning to Australia last week, detained for questioning by ASIO.

 O'Reilly was reportedly was a member of the"
ANZUS Ploughshares" which disarmed a B-52 Bomber in upstate New York during the 1991 Gulf War. He was also a member of the "
Jabiluka Ploughshares" that disabled uranium mining equipment in the
Northern Territory of Australia in 1998.

‘Bush’s State of the Union included numerous references to freedom and liberty, and even denunciations of protectionism. The dishonest rhetoric persists. As usual, the Republicans like to have it both ways. They love the authority and violence of the state, from the trigger-happy cop on the street all the way up to the bomb-happy president in the Oval Office. But they also love pretending to be enamoured with protecting freedom and the little guy. They feed Big Brother steroids even as they claim to want to get him off your back.