Ark Tribe case adjourned until October

(Dave Noonan, National Secretary of the CFMEU, promises a campaign of retaliation if Ark Tribe, about third from left in black top, is jailed)

As the song says, something like fifty men a year are killed in construction industry accidents around Australia, but I've never yet known a boss to go to jail for industrial manslaughter.

Yet a worker who took issue with slack safety standards on his job found himself required to answer questions about a meeting to discuss the issue: who said what, and to whom.



This is under laws bequeathed to the nation by the previous Prime Monster Liberal John Howard, and kept alive by current Prime Monster Rudd and his Deputy Julia Gillard, of the so-called Labor Party.

Ironically, both were put into office by an electorate demanding the protection of rights at work.

Ark Tribe attended his second court appearance yesterday, out at Elizabeth, north of Adelaide, charged with failing to appear at a compulsory interrogation.

The penalty for non-appearance at an ABCC interrogation is six month's jail!

Three hundred work mates, community activists and members of other unions were there to support Ark. It was a great turn-out for mid-morning on a working day.

As the supporters gathered, the Ark Tribe song was played over a scratchy speaker system.

State Secretary of the CFMEU Martin O'Malley described Ark as "this generation's Ned Kelly or Ben Hall...he's a hero."

He introduced speakers including SA Unions leader Janet Giles, and parliamentarians Mark Parnell (Greens) and David Winterlich (Democrats).

"Where's the bloody Labor Party," someone from the crowd yelled, to ironic cheers.

Then it was Ark's turn to again face the courts, his lawyers winning an adjournment to Adelaide on October 30.

Don't expect any bosses to be standing in the dock with him - that will have to wait until we've got people's courts and a people's legal system.

And it will be an Ark Tribe then who sits in judgement on the murderers and maimers of workers!

(Above, Rex with his "MUA - here to stay" flag: "they tried it on the wharfies, with scabs and thugs and lost..." To the far left, as you'd expect...brace yourself...it's Joe from WA!)

(Above, Bob with the Oath of the Eureka Stockade, still an inspiration in the struggles of today together with the Stockade's magnificent blue and white flag).