On Sally McManus

Joe Boswell writes: Re. “While conservatives kick the CFMEU, employers get a free pass” (Thursday)

Charlie Lewis’s piece makes some useful points about the fuss following ACTU secretary Sally McManus saying “I believe in the rule of law, when the law is fair and the law is right, but when it’s unjust, I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.” On the other hand, Christopher Pyne popped up on Radio National frothing wildly about anarcho-Marxists and the 1980s.

It seems unlikely Pyne has ever heard of pillars of Western thought such as Saints Augustine and Aquinas, who somewhat predate the 1980s. Neither was noted for espousing either anarchy or the works of Marx. They were quoted by Martin Luther King in 1963: “One may well ask: ‘…one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all’. Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

On Richard Di Natale

Richard Barlow writes:  Re. “Oh dear God, I might actually have to vote for the Greens now” (Thursday)

While the Greens are moving in more or less the right direction ,  I do not think a ‘universal dole’ is really the right approach.  Workers now have a standard 38 hour week. It used to be 40, before that, 44 and 48, and back in the distant past even more.  In the past we reduced hours without loss of pay.  Business adjusted, life went on, we worked less and we got richer.

Instead of us rolling over for the rent seeking bastards who run the show now and going on the dole, let’s take our fair share through collective industrial and political action.  As John Connor would say: “The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.”