Past Awards
Collective
Award to James Hardie Board and ex Directors, ex-Chief Executives
Officer and ex-Chief Financial Officer for trying to avoid compensating
asbestos victims.
Germaine Greer, expatriate author. Awarded for
lectures from afar on our shortcomings. Increasingly bizarre fresh
gimmick every year,
John Pilger, expatriate journalist, way out
left, features prominently in print and TV. Awarded for suggesting
Australian troops are legitimate targets in Iraq.
Guy Rundle, editor of left wing magazine Arena. Awarded for supporting Iraqis against our troops.
Issue No 5 - Autumn 2005. No suitable candidate was nominated for this issue.
Issue No 4 - Summer 2004 sets a precedent - a collective award - to the Directors, ex- Chief Executives Officer and ex Chief Financial Officers of James Hardie, even though some deserve individual awards.
Asbestosis
was known to be a significant health risk for years before James Hardie
gave up using it in 11987. In effect they consolidated all claims into
the Medical Research and Compensation Fund (MRCF), which they left with
about $300 million to meet all future claims on the basis of some
wishful thinking, to put it kindly. James Hardie then relocated to the
Netherlands in 2001.
In doing so they promised the NSW Supreme Court
that $1.9 billion in partly paid James Hardie shares would be available
to cover any further needs of MCRF. Today $1.9 billion seems about
right, indicating that they knew all along the scale of the
liabilities. Somehow or other James Hardie had the shares cancelled
quietly in 2003.
A scathing report was handed down by Commissioner
Jackson. The reaction was to appoint a woman as chair to deflect
criticism and to eventually terminate the CEO and CFO, but with
enormous payouts. If the board were not complicit in the plot to evade
responsibilities, they were incompetent. The new chair was on the
board committee that had recommended the share cancellation, which was
never publicly announced.
History shows that James Hardie will only
pay up, as little as possible, only under extreme pressure. The company
can afford the full compensation without going broke, so there is
absolutely no reason for prolonging proceedings. They are dealing with
people with a wasting disease, made worse with worry.
Is it any
wonder that people rail against the capitalist system when we see such
attempted evasion of responsibilities by the ‘captains of industry’?
Issue No 3 - Winter 2004. Germaine Greer receives an ORBS award for her outbursts of rubbishing Australia.
Not
that she is any worse than a lot of other expatriate Australian self
proclaimed intellectuals who rubbish Australia. Sometimes they do it on
the occasional visit, usually funded by the taxpayer directly or
indirectly, when they give a talk to like minded locals who hate
Australia. Sometimes it is in the overseas press to give the locals a
chance to sneer and laugh at the expense of Australians. Since it is
printed overseas, it is good enough to be reproduced here by our
cringing media.
Greer’s proclamation of affinity with Aborigines
(greeted with a mixture of bewilderment and hostility by the latter),
her purchase of Queensland rainforest and her adulation of boys all
seemed gimmicky.
The latest essay, ‘Slack and Insufferable’ tells
why she could not abide to live in Australia. Her main problem seems to
be the old story about drab suburbia. (Living abroad, she perhaps
hasn’t realized that a great many locals are busily defending the same
suburbia against over-development! In suburbia, family and community
living flourishes.) Those of us who have got away from the tourist
track of ruins and quaint villages in Britain will be surprised that
the row after row of houses, often drab, or grim housing blocks is more
uplifting than suburban Australia.
Greer had earlier shown an
Australian larrikin spirit when her work at least showed off beat
independent thinking, whether you agree with the ideas or not. Recent
outbursts have become progressively sillier. Perhaps she is indulging
in the time honoured trick of pulling our leg, laughing quietly at the
outrage, while taking the money, which gives her a chance to maintain
her life style without having to do the serious research as she used to
do.
Issue No 2 - Autumn 2004. John Pilger has gone further than Guy Rundle,
inaugural ORB. Yes, Pilger is an Australian, another pontificating
expatriate, who has written books and produced loaded documentaries
from a hard line way out Left position. His ORBS award is for this
exchange on Lateline, in which he was supporting the Iraqi terrorists
as patriots.
Tony Jones: Can you approve in that context the killing of American, British or Australian troops who are in the occupying forces?
John Pilger: Well
yes, they’re legitimate targets. They’re illegally occupying a country.
And I would have thought from an Iraqi’s point of view they are
legitimate targets, they’d have to be, sure.
Tony Jones: So Australian troops you would regard in Iraq as legitimate targets?
John Pilger: Excuse me but, really, that’s an unbecoming question.
The
Macquarie dictionary defines unbecoming as improper, unseemly. The
questioner is deemed unseemly when he seeks the straight answer that
he knows will be unseemly. Pilger tries to duck away from saying
straight out that he supports the killing of Australians by the
terrorists.
Issue No 1 - Summer 2003. The inaugural award goes to Guy Rundle for the following excerpt from his newspaper article published in The Australian (10/4/03):
‘Had
the Iraqis fought back tooth and nail against the coalition, my support
would have been with them and against our troops - for whatever that is
worth to anybody.’
What support? Does it mean that Rundle would
have cheered on his valiant Iraqis if they were ambushing and shooting
Australian troops?
Rundle is the co-editor of Arena, a
well-presented magazine devoted to fashionable leftist causes. There
were many contenders for inaugural award, but Rundle was a clear
winner. From now on he is entitled to call himself Rundle ORBS, and
certainly will be in this magazine.