Comments on: Stern Hu and the unpleasant truth about Rio Tinto

By: tee

tee — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:07:19 +0000

rio hasn’t changed one whit in almost 150 years.

Same management too. Even the secretary at the front desk is the same and hasn’t put on any age at all.

Good one.

Next time I hope Clive does his Playboy impression that he did in the Oz last year. It seems he could have another career as a porn writer.

Anyone see it? It went on for paragraph after paragraph of the most explicit detail about the type of porn you can get on the web.

By: Elise1

Elise1 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:04:29 +0000

Mr Squid, are you saying that we should agree with punishing 4 current employees with possible death or life imprisonment on the basis of a company’s history? If not, then what ARE you saying?

By the same logic, do you agree with punishing current German citizens with life imprisonment for atrocities committed by other people in WWI and WWII?

In any case, where is your proof that “rio hasn’t changed one whit”? What have you studied to deduce this sweeping conclusion?

Please note that I am NOT suggesting that Rio is some wondrous knight in shining armour on a white horse. No multinational approaches such virtue, IMO. Some of the executive decisions from Rio London in recent times leave a lot to be desired, regardless of what previous executives may have done.

What I AM saying, is that there is a lot of loose talk starting with the lead blog, which is apparently supposed to justify incarcerating 4 employees without charge and without legal representation.

Think cause and effect guys - where is the thread linking the loose talk to the 4 employees, beyond reasonable doubt? What sort of lawless system of revenge are you inferring with such remarks?

By: Mr Squid

Mr Squid — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:35:04 +0000

rio hasn’t changed one whit in almost 150 years.

By: tee

tee — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:18:12 +0000

Ray:

No never thought I needed counseling, however I reckon Clive does. This is the person who thinks what happened several decades ago is somehow pertinent in the functioning of that same company today.

In other words he doesn’t seems to understand or is mendaciously dishonest in implying a company has the same standards that it it did 70 or 80- years ago when a firm like RIO resembles nothing like that same company of that time.

I really don’t know how on earth Crikey publishes this complete nimrod, as he seems unable to understand the modern world, residing in some parallel universe.

Rio ought to go after him and force the twit to apologize in the same way other firms threatened legal action against the Australia Institute when the twit was writing egregious things about them too.

He just can’t help himself.

By: Elise1

Elise1 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:35:55 +0000

Clive Hamilton seems to think that a company is unpleasant if it works in a country ruled by an unpleasant leader, or if the Norwegian government says it doesn’t approve.
.
Sooo, where do you stand on the fact that the Norwegian state-owned and half-owned oil companies (Statoil and Norsk Hydro) have been actively seeking projects in countries like: Venezuela, Iran, Iraq (including under Saddam Hussein after Gulf War 1), and assorted African countries with unpleasant leaders?
.
Do we have an unpleasant truth about Norwegian companies too? And the Norwegian government for that matter, as a substantial stakeholder in these companies? Does their view on Rio then hold any water for your argument about Rio, since they work in similarly dodgy countries themselves?
.
While you are at it, you may as well condemn the majority of international oil companies as being unpleasant, and probably most international mining companies as unpleasant also, since most of them would be working in places ruled by unpleasant leaders.

By: jacks

jacks — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:45:39 +0000

I see Crikey! So its ok not to care about a man being held captive in a dictatorial state because the company he worked for has done some bad things in the past? Personally im wondering where those hypocrites at GETUP! are. The only australian citizens they seem to care about are those who trained with terrorists.

By: Ray Adams

Ray Adams — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:26:11 +0000

@Tee: Have you sought counselling? Seriously. Following your logic is like chasing a flea on a blanket.

By: Friedrich E

Friedrich E — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:10:02 +0000

My superannuation fund trustees are much reassured by your evidence that RIO may have some of the toughness needed to deal with the Chinese government after the appalling misjudgments last year when BHP made its big offer. I trust that the Chinese government’s extreme means of stealing confidential information - for giving itself a plausible reason to examine Hu’s computers seems to be a major reason for the coup - is at least going to ensure that those working for us super fund beneficiaries will do what it takes in the way of computer security and paying enough danger money to keep the best and brightest of Chinese brains working for us.

By: tee

tee — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:04:52 +0000

Hey Clive,

Last time you blogged about banning porn and advocating internet restrictions it didn’t appear to be a very nice experience for you, seeing that nearly every comment attacked you. In fact judging but those commenters I would have voted you the most unpopular person in the country and possibly won a bet if a poll was taken. So I can now see that you’re back to your old tricks of corporate baiting, knowing of course you can always get a chorus for that appalling little song you sing and it may get you back from the bottom of the popularity stakes although the stench of the swamp won’t go away.

However it may get you some deranged commenters linking commercial mining activities with sexual predators, as that loon has done above (I bet you wish you had thought of first). It appears to me that whatever you’re going to try to peddle it isn’t going to work so much any more, as reasonable people know how you operate and what you believe in. In other words you’re only ever going to attract the deadenders from now.

Keep up the great work Clive and don’t try to hard.

Can I suggest that your next blog piece ought to be about the Victoria’s Secret catalogue and how Victoria in the 30’s was trying to women’s lingerie to Stalin’s Russia and later she was found to be selling various lines of lingerie to the Pinochet regime. That ought to get the gang really upset.

By: j-boy57

j-boy57 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:16:02 +0000

multinational companies that incorporate in the west and then use their economic imperative as a reason
for the policy of “when in Rome” fall into the same category as sexual predators on kiddie tours in places where
the dollar counts more than the law.
Australia has rightly enacted laws to prohibit this and charge these people under our laws for an offence committed
overseas.
Its high time we started to look at companies that as a mater of course act corruptly overseas,. sometimes in the name
of this country as in the AWB disgrace .
Business as usual for Rio whose defence in this case seems to be “thats how business in china is conducted” like throwing
a dog to the wolves so the sled can keep moving.
Rio they didn’t like the first Stern report and the second one looks even worse for them.

By: Mr Squid

Mr Squid — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:15:57 +0000

many years ago a very senior rio executive described to me in detail freeport’s complicity in the murder of west papuans by dropping them, in shipping containers, into the sea from helicopters.

Notwithstanding rio’s knowledge of these murders and other gross violations of west papuan human rights, as well as environmental destruction on a horrendous scale, the company went ahead and bought into the mine.

It remains a shareholder in the mine, and remains a party to continuing human rights abuses, including the murder of an Australian citizen, by its other partner in crime, the Government of Indonesia. It also remains a party to horrendous environmental destruction.

of course you won’t read these facts in newscrap publications.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:34:06 +0000

A vitally important article, thanks Clive.

Are the papers and TV news telling this story? Hardly. THe majority of big news media in Oz can’t resist the Xenophbic posturing and the “Big Bad Chinese” angle that presses all the usual simplistic, emotional buttons with the audience.

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:20:18 +0000

Mmm, tectonic plates of ruthless powermongering indeed. I wonder how many folks have their superfunds invested in Rio Tinto, or State owned Chinese companies for that matter, whether they know about it or not.

One thing not discussed here is China’s long history of dictatorship, and human rights abuses and distortion of foreign exchange rate to under cut manufacturing of say steel production here in Australia. That is, to maintain it’s ‘factory of the world’ status at almost any cost to their environment, increasingly the global commons re GHGs, or fair trade concerns.

For anyone who has watched the Brad Pitt, Robert Redford vehicle “Spy Game” which was shown as inflight fodder when I saw it, those scenes in the Chinese prison system are not pretty.