Graham Matthews, Sydney
The decision by the NSW Labor government to allow defence contractor Boeing exemption from the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act was slammed by NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon as nothing more than the government sponsoring racism.
Boeing's Australian subsidiary recently won a multi-million dollar defence contract with the US government, but to meet US government "security" regulations the company is required to provide information on the national origin of its employees. To facilitate this, NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus agreed to allow Boeing exemption from the provisions of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
Boeing spokesperson Ken Morton said the three-year exemption from the Anti-Discrimination Act means workers at its Bankstown plant will need to be approved by the US State Department if they want to continue working there. "We need to give them a list of the origins of the nationalities of our workers working on mainly two programs", Morton said.
Debus has "granted the airline company a three-year racism licence", Rhiannon said in April 2 media release.
"Boeing has been given an exemption under the Anti-Discrimination Act so that it can 'ask present and future employees to advise of their exact citizenship or residency status under Australian law, then identify employees accordingly, and make decisions about deploying employees on that basis'.
"In plain speak, that would seem to allow Boeing to hire, segregate, train, pay and promote employees based on their citizenship, which is clearly racist."
The Greens MP challenged Debus "to show what is right about allowing Boeing to engage in this type of behaviour without penalty", adding that the "situation is very bleak indeed when the state government supports a multinational corporation's application to make racially and culturally prejudicial decisions".
"Surely Boeing should abide by NSW laws like everybody else", Rhiannon argued. "The government should be working to banish prejudice, not promote it."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 6, 2005.
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