MICHAEL MULLINS’ TINY LETTER

The ANZ Bank faces a huge payout after a class action by its customers secured a partial but significant victory in a multi-million dollar legal battle against its credit card late payment fees.

In a landmark legal decision in the Federal Court last Wednesday, it was determined that the bank had been illegally imposing penalties for late payments on credit cards.

The class action coincided with a campaign by consumer advocacy group Choice to have fees brought into line with the real costs to the banks. The bank might charge a late payment fee of $45 even if the late payment costs the bank as little as $5. 

Choice chief executive Alan Kirkland says charging excessive fees — otherwise known as price gouging — is 'a draconian measure that disproportionally impacts some of the most vulnerable consumers in our community'. He told the Financial Review: 'Fees should be an accurate reflection of the costs faced by businesses when customers are unable to make payments on time. It's not the role of a business to punish customers.'

A 45-year-old labourer who participated in the class action told AAP that a late payment of wages from an employer or a computer glitch that was the bank's fault would delay payment of his credit card bill for a couple of days. 'When you are struggling to get by each week with wages to pay your bills, another $40 to $50 out of payments puts you behind the next month.'

The class action sends a clear signal to banks — and other service providers such as Telstra and Optus — that they cannot exploit their relationship with customers without legal foundation. 

Such exploitation — whether it is illegal, or simply unethical — is closely related to the practice of usury, which refers to lending money at an exorbitant rate of interest. Usurers have been taking advantage of vulnerable people since ancient times. 

The most notorious contemporary example has been 'pay day loans', which can charge interest of 1000 per cent or more. They were partially banned in March last year but remain a problem. Many single parent families or people who have lost their jobs feel they have no choice but to go to these predatory lenders because they cannot pay rent or utilities and sometimes they cannot even afford sufficient food. 

Last month, Pope Francis described usury as a 'dramatic social evil'. 'When a family has nothing to eat, because it has to make payments to usurers, this is not Christian, it is not human! This dramatic scourge in our society harms the inviolable dignity of the human person.'

Australia is fortunate to have regulation in place to protect consumers from predatory business practices. But it's not all good news. The Federal Government came to office promising to lessen the burden of regulation to make it easier for businesses to function. That may help the economy, but it also assists unscrupulous corporations and individuals to exploit consumers.

An example is its likely imminent winding back of the hard won Future of Financial Advice reforms that were about to take effect. This will legalise deceptive conduct by financial planners and banks that provide clients with non-objective financial advice giving the best financial return to them rather than the client (e.g. commissions).

We've seen with the case against ANZ that laws can protect ordinary people against exploitation by unscrupulous corporations and individuals. We need to have them strengthened rather than weakened.

Those who understand the role of public service broadcasting in a democracy have dismissed as absurd Prime Minister Tony Abbott's accusation that the ABC is unpatriotic. 

Speaking to Ray Hadley on commercial radio station 2GB, Abbott criticised the ABC's coverage of news stories relating to Indonesian spying leaks and asylum seeker abuse claims. He said: 'A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone's side but Australia's.'

Even the Government's own Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull dismissed the comment when speaking to Leigh Sales on 7.30. 

There is nothing in [the ABC Charter] that says that it should be nationalistic. The big issue, Leigh, is accuracy and balance and this is where you as a broadcaster and the ABC have got a very different role to, say, a talkback host on commercial radio 'cause you have to be — you are bound to be balanced and objective, accurate and fair.

Turnbull should make a fine Communications Minister if he is able to impress upon the Prime Minister this grasp of the essentials of public service broadcasting, which has nothing to do with patriotism or nationalism. 

Far from it in fact. Being patriotic is about selling a nation's positive self-image within and beyond its borders. Like selling in general, it gives priority to persuasion and good feeling over truth and a balanced perspective. 

But it can be electorally rewarding for a government to have voters deluded into knowing only what is good about their nation and their government's performance. They are shielded from knowledge of ugly realities such as the country's shameful treatment of asylum seekers. Media manipulation is a successful strategy of leaders of pariah states such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who manages to remain relatively popular despite his appalling record of service to the people. 

If patriotism took hold of our public service media, we'd need to resort to foreign media to discover unpalatable truths about our country such as the living conditions of Indigenous Australians. Already we sometimes learn from foreign media hard truths about our nation that are ignored or glossed over by our own media. 

Unfortunately the ABC has muddied its own waters with its pursuit of the non-core activity of running the Government's Australia Network international television service. The network's role is described as 'soft diplomacy' on Australia's behalf, and its mission is precisely patriotism. There is no mention of truth, accuracy and balance on the 'about us' page of its website, because that's not the essence of what it's about. What matters most is the 'uniquely Australian perspective'.

So the Government could be doing the ABC a favour if it axes the Australia Network in the May Budget in line with media speculation during the past week. The ABC would be left to pursue unambiguously its mission of truth, accuracy and impartiality in reporting good and bad news about our nation and its government.

In both the United States and Australia, General Motors has been portrayed by cynicalcommentators as a government-sponsored employment agency and not a proper business. They miss the point that subsidised companies and their government patrons are investors in human capital, and that it's human capital — rather than money — that makes a society work. 

Human capital is the combination of competencies and creativity that enable a person to perform a task that produces both personal fulfilment and economic value. The idea is that the subsidies will contribute to both the wellbeing of the workers and financial profits of the company in a manner that brings mutual benefit without exploitation on either side. In the case of car manufacturing around the world, the alternative is workers without jobs and companies without profits.

Pope Francis says that workers without jobs adds up to workers without dignity. 'Work means dignity, work means taking food home, work means loving!' A society where 'money is in command' inevitably lays waste its workers, and the young and old people who depend upon them. 'We must say: "We don't want this globalised economic system which does us so much harm!"'

A successful nation doesn't need a car industry, but it must have its working age citizens employed, or they and their families will suffer the depression and economic hardship that are characteristic of a society where money comes before love. If a government kills a car industry by withdrawing subsidies, it must have in place a secure plan that will ensure those who lose their jobs retain their dignity. The best way to do this is to make sure they have jobs to go to. The government is effectively an employment agency, with employment so fundamental to the wellbeing of the citizens that make up the nation.

Because a government must avoid taking its workers for granted, decisions that have consequences for employment are among the most serious it needs to take. The reporting of the current government's actions with regard to Holden suggest it may have been cavalier in the way it dealt with the parent company General Motors when so much human capital was at stake. Moreover it has no obvious plan for dealing with the total fallout for employment, including the likely flow on for Toyota workers. 

The loss of jobs in the automotive industry has occurred against a background of rising unemployment, according to figures announced on Thursday. But the trend is even bleaker, with NSW treasurer Mike Baird gloomily predicting an extra 20,000 unemployed workers in the next financial year. He says 'this is not the time to be complacent'. 

While it seems he might be playing the role of Scrooge at Christmas time, Baird has the right attitude and a lesson for his Federal Liberal colleagues. In the end, peace on earth and goodwill to all men and women will not be a reality for those out of work.

Discussion of government assistance to Qantas is inevitably clouded by emotion, despite increasing commentary on management blunders. No patriotic Australian wants to see the ‘flying kangaroo’ go out of business, as Australia’s other airline icon Ansett did a little more than a decade ago. But if Qantas is to properly serve the Australian people, it has to be on the basis of good business and not emotion.

There is a real possibility that the world’s oldest continuously operating airline could fail, in a fast changing aviation marketplace that requires companies to have the ability to attract vast amounts of capital in order to survive. The bad news for Qantas is that the credit rating agency Standard and Poors has downgraded Qantas to junk status, which means it will lose comparatively easy access to the funds it needs to survive. 

This follows the airline’s advice to the Australian Stock Exchange on Thursday that it is in big trouble. It cited an underlying  $250-300 million loss  before tax in the six months to 31 December. This is forcing the loss of another 1000 jobs, and the share price has plunged in recent days. 

There is consequent pressure for a massive government cash injection to help Qantas return to profitability and put the brakes on its successful competitor Virgin by halting a $350 million capital injection by its foreign shareholders.

However lessening competition means only one thing for the Australian people, and that is higher fares. This would mean a reversal of one of the great economic miracles of recent times that has proved capitalism can promote social inclusion. That is the explosion of competition in the global aviation marketplace and the low fares revolution this has produced. 

As recently as two decades ago, low income citizens of western countries could not afford to fly. In the new age of competition and low fares, many people living close to the poverty line can fly interstate or even overseas to visit family or attend to their business and cultural needs. But if the Australian Government helped Qantas out of trouble by making it less attractive for foreign airline interests to invest in the Australian market, fares would rise significantly and flying would once again become the preserve of the wealthy.

The improvement in the access of ordinary people to the skies ranks alongside advances in health an education that have improved the lives of many. Pope Francis said as much in his recent apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium when he suggested ‘we can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications’. In the section headed ‘No to an economy of exclusion’, he insisted that ‘those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it’.

According to the pope’s critique, any government assistance to Qantas that thwarts competition will also thwart those on the margins of society who have been enabled to fly by the low fares that are the result of competition. If the flying kangaroo cannot compete, it should be put out of its misery, or at least change its management. 

Prime minister Tony Abbott chose his words carefully when he said in Parliament on Tuesday that he 'sincerely regret[s] any embarrassment that recent media reports have caused' Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. 

It is always good to express regret in these situations. But did he mean that the media was doing its job and that the embarrassment was collateral damage? Or was he regretting that the media was out of line when it published details of Australian spying on Indonesia?

Some conservative voices have made no secret of the fact that they blame the media for damaging Australia's relations with Indonesia, and they should be punished. Outspoken monarchist Professor David Flint tweeted that the Government should retaliate against the ABC by reviewing the ABC's overseas broadcasting contract. 

Significantly, Murdoch commentators Chris Kenny and Rita Panahi berated the ABC and The Guardian for what Panahi called their 'callous disregard for the consequences'. 

This utilitarian argument of Kenny and Panahi violates the fundamental principle of virtue ethics. Its ideal is that we should give priority to doing good and avoiding evil over consideration of the consequences of our actions. The same can be said for the campaign of vengeance and intimidation that Flint seems to propose, in that it targets the principle for the sake of achieving a particular political and diplomatic outcome for the nation at this time.

At stake we have freedom of the press, and the independence and integrity of the ABC. These should not be given nor taken away on the whim of political or diplomatic expediency. The same can be said for spying itself, which is a potentially justifiable offence against human dignity. As such, it is akin to the just war and cannot be sanctioned lightly.

ABC managing director Mark Scott made the distinction between the national interest and the public interest when he was before a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Tuesday. There's no doubt that publication of the Edward Snowden leaks damaged Australia's short-term national interest, but the more fundamental public interest is served by keeping intact the democratic principles embodied in the above mentioned principles.

As it happens, Scott had his resolve tested during the week when The Australian published a leaked document containing salary figures for key ABC staff members. This publication will cause untold inconvenience and embarrassment for management, and also damage ABC staff morale. But it will also strengthen respect for these principles if the ABC is dogged by them at the same time as the Government. If the ABC can avoid hypocrisy in its response to the salary leaks, the short-term pain will no doubt lead to long-term gain.

It's also important to note that adherence to these principles is not blind. The ABC's guidelines stipulate that its 'editorial decisions are not [to be] improperly influenced by political, sectional, commercial or personal interests'. 'Proper' influence might involve action to avoid endangering the lives of particular individuals. This was the case in 2010 when western newspapers blacked out the names mentioned in Wikileaks information where publication would have left the individuals vulnerable to retaliation in foreign countries. 

Guardian Australia editor Katharine Viner told Crikey that The Guardian acted responsibly in Australia this week, in the way it has overseas in the past: 'We liaised carefully with the relevant government agencies, in order to give them the opportunity to contextualise the document and to express any concerns that were genuinely about threats to national security rather than diplomatic embarrassment.'

An important early measure of Tony Abbott's statesmanship will be whether he manages to rise above the present embarrassment, and resists the temptation to punish the ABC, so that media practitioners can serve our democracy for the long term.

Prime minister Tony Abbott's post-election declaration that Australia was 'open for business' needed fleshing out. Possibly it got that on Monday evening in a strident landmark address given by the chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council Dr Maurice Newman. Newman said the economy was 'running on empty' and needed radical reform and fiscal discipline to avoid 'the prospect of growth with a zero in front of it'.

He criticised Labor for 'five long years of reckless spending, economic waste, class warfare particularly aimed at business, the mindless destruction of Australia's international competitiveness and the reintroduction of workplace rigidities'. He was referring to 'common good' policies such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Gonski school funding reforms, which he believes are a waste of money (implicitly he discounts the role of education in boosting economic productivity). 

Newman regretted that the Coalition had 'limited its options' by making 'hasty' election promises to avoid necessary cuts to such reforms. He also urged measures to shift the balance of power from ordinary Australians towards big business. These include the easing of competition laws to give big companies the 'necessary critical mass in a small domestic market' to become 'national champions'. Is he talking about going soft on any collusion between Coles and Woolworths, or perhaps even allowing a merger?

At his media conference on Tuesday, Abbott denied that Newman holds sway over government policy. But Newman has been meeting with Abbott at least weekly since the election, and it's said that Newman's speech was prepared after close consultation with Abbott. 

It's Newman's job to lobby for big business against, as it happens, the common good. But even among some of his peers in the business world, he is regarded as arrogant and aloof, particularly on his unwillingness to accept the need for a reduction in carbon emissions. The Financial Review's Chanticleerobserved that 'his strident position on climate change was contrasted with the balanced views taken by Santos chief executive David Knox and Nestlé Australia director Elizabeth Proust on Q&A on ABC later the same night'.

It's to be hoped that Knox and Proust are among the 'range of voices that the Government takes very seriously', which Abbott alluded to in his media conference while trying to hose down suggestions that Newman is writing his government's business policy.

Another voice that merits a hearing is that of ANU economics Professor Ross Garnaut, who talks about 'policy making in the public interest' in his new book Dog Days: Australia After the Boom. Garnaut is one with Newman in advocating the need for fiscal restraint, but is critical of Newman's wish to 'put all the adjustment burden on vulnerable Australians when that's neither economically rational nor politically feasible'. Instead Garnaut wants what he calls 'shared sacrifice'.

Newman argues for tax reform that will shift the burden away from business towards workers, and does not mention a key concern of Garnaut's, which is the cost to our productivity of Australia's high rates of executive remuneration when compared with similar economies.

We can only hope that Abbott is in fact true to his word when he tried to assure journalists that he listens to a range of voices on how to sustain the wellbeing of all Australians, and not just big business people.

Corrupt former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid has sought public funds to cover his legal fees. In July the Independent Commission Against Corruption found Obeid and his family had made $30 million by rigging the tender for a mining licence. But Obeid and his legal team have argued the seemingly unlikely case that he was eligible for legal assistance under guidelines that take into account the public interest and the 'prospect of hardship to the witness if assistance is declined'.

The wealthy are more likely to know and exercise their legal entitlements than the poor. They can afford expensive professional advice to help them find loopholes in the law. This often involves self-delusion and spurious argumentation in an attempt to have it accepted that they are 'doing it tough'. Obeid is worried his costly legal battles are swallowing his ill gotten gains and that consequently he will end up penniless. He has already put his $10 million Hunters Hill mansion on the market.

Meanwhile those who are genuinely disadvantaged are too often crushed by poor self esteem, or are simply ignorant of their entitlements, and often fail to claim the assistance that is rightfully theirs. That is the conclusion from the recent Legal Australia-Wide (LAW) Survey that shows high levels of disadvantage are associated with a lower likelihood of taking action and seeking professional advice in response to legal problems.

The survey's key findings indicate that people with a disability, and single parents, are twice as likely to experience legal problems. The unemployed and people living in disadvantaged housing also have heightened vulnerability. The survey also found the Indigenous people are more likely to experience multiple legal problems including government, health and rights related problems.

It found a lack of awareness of free legal services, and that this is associated with lower levels of taking action and consulting legal professionals. In particular, Indigenous people are less likely to take action and use legal professionals if they live in more remote areas. 

A society that cares for its citizens should ensure that publicly funded legal assistance is delivered to those who need it, and not to those who simply want it. It seems our system is geared towards people who are capable and practised in helping themselves, such as Eddie Obeid, and that it leaves out in the cold those who live a more passive existence, often involuntarily. These people are the ones who really struggle to make ends meet and to resolve the conflicts that life serves up to them. They need our help.

TV viewers are alarmed that they can so easily identify with Ja'mie King, the studiously unlikeable comic creation in Chris Lilley'sJa'mie: Private School Girl, currently screening on ABC1. The 17-year-old school captain at the fictitious Hilford Girls Grammar on Sydney's North Shore is proudly racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and more. 

Lilley developed the character with the use of recorded interviews with private school girls and a certain amount of strategic eavesdropping. It seems he also consulted textbookdescriptions of narcissism that point to shamelessness, distorted thinking, arrogance, envy, entitlement, exploitation, and lack of respect for the boundaries of other people.

There's another critique of educational privilege in Christos Tsiolkas' new novel Barracuda. The character Danny Kelly is from the other side of the tracks and was sent to a prestigious private school in Melbourne's east. But he remains an outsider. He calls the school 'Cunts College' and ruminates on the finer points of his classmates spending their summer holidays at Portsea and Sorrento as opposed to Rye and Rosebud. 

The novel reflects on a society that is crippled because it is beholden to a privilege that fosters class division, racism, and hostility to Indigenous Australians, asylum seekers, and others on the margins. 

But privilege can also work the other way. If the privileged are so disposed, their resources can be shared with those who are disadvantaged. But what matters most is not the amount of the resources that are shared, but the attitude of the privileged persons doing the sharing.

Ja'mie showed the wrong attitude when she appeared in the earlier series We Can Be Heroes (2005). She was sponsoring underprivileged Third World children about whom she knew little and cared less. The fundraising was all about her, and not the other people who could use her help. She could not feel their need.

People like Ja'mie have a pathological disability when it comes to being genuine in their attempts to do things for others. A few years ago, some privileged schools started to encourage their students to be 'men and women for others'. There were students who mocked this. Perhaps they shared Ja'mie's disability, or maybe they were just having fun at the expense of their more earnest teachers. Either way, some students took the message to heart and into their lives and careers, and found what it led to deeply satisfying.

While the character of Ja'mie is set up to be judged for her callous disregard for the feelings of others, it is not for us to judge her and people in real life who are like her. In time, they come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with their lives when they constantly feel empty when not performing for their friends.

For us, it is better to allow those who are 'men and women for others' to inspire us towards a life of empathy. Whether or not we ourselves are economically and socially privileged, the ability to feel the pain and discomfort of others is a personal asset that leads to deeper contentment and a life fully lived. 

Most people will not miss Mark 'Chopper' Read, because of his reckless attitude to human life and law and order. The 58-year-old standover man died from liver cancer last month. In his last interview, screened last night on60 Minutes, he boasted about killing four people, speaking in a manner reminiscent of the subjects of the current film about the 1960s Indonesian genocideThe Act of Killing.

Read's pride in his criminal exploits, and indeed Channel 9's giving him a platform to boast about them, stands at odds with much of what we value in a civil society. It is hard to conceive of him as anything other than a seriously negative contributor to the community. Yet at master of his own destiny, he had an ability to maintain his dignity, and in that sense it is possible to argue that he was — like Ned Kelly — a partially positive role model for today's prisoners, and indeed all human beings whose behaviour makes them an outcast and an object of scorn. 

The majority of prison inmates have come to crime through circumstances not of their own making, such as mental illness or a disadvantaged upbringing. They are further crushed by the system and objectified as 'monsters' by the media and public, even though in fact they are 'people like us'. Joe Caddy writeselsewhere in Eureka Street that labelling people as criminals denies that we have a good deal in common with them as fellow human beings. 

It is good that Read overcame this 'other-ness' but regrettable that he remained unrepentant and thoroughly evil in character. He was able to win a kind of public respect that is routinely denied to prisoners who are contrite but lack Read's celebrity. 

There are various ways of dehumanising people, and it is always wrong to do so, no matter what the circumstances are. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is doing this with his instruction that departmental and detention centre staff must publicly refer to asylum seekers as 'illegal' arrivals and as 'detainees', and not as clients.

Asylum seeker advocates work tirelessly to restore the dignity that these people have lost through being outcast in this way. The asylum seekers are being made faceless through government policy. 

The creator of the sievx.com website Marg Hutton attempts to reverse this objectification of asylum seekers with her publication of names of some of those who perished in the SIEVX tragedy in 2001. 'Ghazi Alghizzy — wife Fatima Jabbar Alidawi and four children, Mohammed (age ten), Hussein (age seven), Zahraa (age eight) and Alyaa (age four) all drowned.' Her meticulous research has yielded names for many of the ''illegals, and this brings home the humanity we share with these people. Like us, they all have their own stories.

There is also the example of one asylum seeker who has been able to resist this objectification. Hazara refugee Barat Ali Batoor is a photojournalist, and his image of a group of asylum seekers emerging from a makeshift gap in the deck of a timber boat bound for Australia was last week named Photo of the Year in the 2013 Nikon-Walkley Awards for Excellence in Photojournalism. His story is in The Global Mail, which published the award winning photograph.

Batoor is no longer an unnamed asylum seeker. He is an inspiration, in that he was able to rise above his circumstances, and in that sense he has won public respect like Chopper Read. Some would say that he simply jumped a few queues in order to be accepted as a refugee by UNHCR and gain resettlement in Australia, but it's also true that allowing human beings like him to master their own destiny will bring out the best in them and us. 

Canada's conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has put Australia to shame by confirming that his country will boycott next month's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka over human rights concerns.

Canada has criticised the Commonwealth for 'accommodating evil' by allowing Sri Lanka to host the event, while Tony Abbott has said simply that 'different countries have different national priorities'.

After returning from a visit to Sri Lanka in August, UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay expressed grave concern about the lack of accountability, unresolved enforced disappearances, and decreasing fundamental freedoms.

This prompted Human Rights Watch to urge Commonwealth heads to boycott CHOGM, with Asia director Brad Adams declaring Sri Lanka's government should be shunned — not rewarded — for failing to hold anyone accountable for war crimes during the country's recent conflict. 'Attending a summit in Sri Lanka so soon after the UN rights chief decried a worsening situation sends the wrong message to the government and to victims.'

Abbott made it clear that Australia has no intention of following the lead of his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper. 'Look, I explained to him that I think the Commonwealth is important and that's why I'll be there. Obviously, Australia has some significant bilateral dealings with Sri Lanka over people smuggling as well.'

At least the Australian Government has come clean and admitted that it is conflicted. In saying we have 'different national priorities' to Canada, Abbott has conceded that securing and maintaining Sri Lanka's cooperation in our efforts to 'stop the boats' trumps using the leverage we have at this moment to try to persuade Sri Lanka to respect the human rights of its citizens.

That is the impression given by Peter Arndt of the Brisbane Catholic Archdiocesan Justice and Peace Commission, who has just returned from a visit to Sri Lanka as part of a group of 30 Catholic justice and peace workers from across Asia and the Pacific. He said: 'It is outrageous that Mr Abbott is prepared to ignore the suffering and fear which is rife in the north of Sri Lanka in order to keep his commitment to stop the boats.'

Arndt suggested that the systematic way in which Tamil men are being arrested and detained indefinitely 'looks suspiciously like ethnic cleansing'. 'I wish Mr Abbott could meet with the women I met whose husbands and sons have been detained, tortured and, in some cases, killed over the last four years. I wish he could have heard the pain in their voices and seen their tears.'

Perversely it seems Australia's vow to push ahead with CHOGM in Colombo is largely about mateship. The Commonwealth, Abbott says, is 'amongst our oldest international associations'.

'There is, I suppose, familiarity amongst members of the Commonwealth which doesn't always exist in every other forum and I think it's important that those friends we have, we should keep. You do not make new friends by rubbishing your old friends or abandoning your old friends.' 

If mateship had prevailed during the apartheid era in South Africa, the apartheid regime might still be in place.