Admirers, protesters greet Cuban dissident

DISSIDENT Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has been greeted in Brazil by admirers and protesters at the start of a "bittersweet" foreign tour, after she finally won permission to leave Cuba.

Sanchez arrived in Recife, where she was welcomed by friends, supporters and journalists, and also by about 20 pro-Cuban protesters who waved signs accusing her of being "Yoani agent of the CIA".

Sanchez responded, "Long live democracy. I want this democracy in my country, too."

Later, pro-Cuba protesters disrupted a planned screening for Sanchez of a documentary on human rights in which she appears, causing them to cancel the showing, the filmmaker said.

Instead, the dissident agreed to a discussion with the protesters, who billed themselves as members of the Young Communist League, a Brazilian official who attended the event said.

The 37-year-old philologist, who found an international audience on the internet with her prize-winning blog "Generation Y", is known for her biting commentary, which has drawn the displeasure of Cuba's ruling communist party.

The government in Havana repeatedly denied permission for her to leave the country in response to invitations to speak in Brazil and elsewhere.

But it finally relented after easing travel restrictions for Cubans in mid-January, and eliminating the requirement of an exit visa.

Brazil is Sanchez's first stop on a three-month trip that will take here around the Americas and to Europe.

"I am very happy," she told Globo News on her arrival. "It was five years of struggle, of trying every path. I have that bittersweet feeling. I am happy for me, but I also have friends who didn't get a passport."

"The emigration reform brought some flexibility, simplified many things, but I have friends who were denied passports," she said.

She said she didn't think the Cuban government would prevent her return at the end of the tour.

"I want to stay in Cuba, to help the Cubans. I don't want to be a migrant Yoani Sanchez in another country," she said.

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Union boss dismisses Milne action

AUSTRALIAN Workers' Union (AWU) boss Paul Howes has dismissed Greens leader Christine Milne's decision to ditch her party's 2010 agreement with Labor as a "boo-hoo" moment.

Senator Milne told the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday the Gillard government's decision to allow mining in Tasmania's Tarkine and a push by unions to make coal-seam gas development easier meant Labor had effectively torn up its post-election deal with the Greens.

Mr Howes, whose union has campaigned for new gas developments, along with jobs in the Tarkine, said Labor would not "sacrifice jobs at the altar of green ideology".

"She is upset that she lost the campaign in north-west Tasmania. Well, boo-hoo. At the end of the day the federal Labor government has delivered for jobs," Mr Howes told reporters.

He said the region has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and the mining area would take up only one per cent of forest area.

Mr Howes said Senator Milne's declaration did not change things in Canberra.

"The Greens haven't been supporting a whole range of Labor's initiatives in the parliament," he said.

Mr Howes said Labor had stood up for the environment, particularly through putting a price on carbon.

"What is she saying? Is she saying that Tony Abbott and the coalition are going to be better for the environment than Julia Gillard and the Labor party?

"(It's) the Labor party who has introduced a price on carbon, extended the world's largest national parks in oceans.

"This is a ridiculous furphy and obviously a political ploy by a leader ... who has presided over a collapse in her party's support since she took over."

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Trauma report exposes firefighter need

VICTORIA must pass laws to recognise that firefighters have developed post-traumatic stress from working in the line of duty, a union says.

The United Firefighters Union (UFU) has written to Premier Ted Baillieu requesting a meeting and wants more resources pumped into firefighting support services.

The call follows the release of a report, prepared for the UFU, which says firefighters may be at higher risk of committing suicide, given the psychological impact of the job.

The report, by the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at the University of Newcastle, looks at the hidden cost of fighting fires.

"Given the psychological impact of firefighting, higher prevalence of PTSD, depression, anxiety and alcohol or drug use, there is a probability that firefighters may be more likely to commit suicide," says the report, released on Monday.

UFU Victorian secretary Peter Marshall says it wants the state government to introduce legislation recognising post-traumatic stress as being a workplace illness for firefighters, saying its world-first introduction in Canada has led to more firefighters coming forward seeking counselling.

"Firefighters are experiencing a very high level of post-traumatic stress and, at the same time, the support systems that were put in place, were put in place in the late '80s and they haven't met contemporary needs," Mr Marshall told reporters on Monday.

He said post-traumatic stress is an ever-increasing illness within firefighting, and follows changes to the role of firefighters.

Since 2001, firefighters now also respond to medical emergencies, including suicides, child deaths and crime-scene clean-ups.

He said legislation introduced in Edmonton, Canada, recognised the disorder as being a workplace illness for firefighters.

"A lot of firefighters don't know how to access the system," he said.

MFB leading firefighter Danny Ward says firefighters can be reluctant to seek help.

"They all think they're a little bit tough and they don't need that help," Mr Ward told reporters.

"We've lost a few through suicide. I'm not saying the job was the greatest impact on that, but certainly it would have had some sort of impact on some of them."

Deputy Premier Peter Ryan noted how the state had pushed through the second-largest budget for funding fire services.

"I reject absolutely any assertion that whatever might be the matters in the report, which the union has commissioned, in any way shape or form, are the result of or an outcome from so-called budgetary matters," he told reporters.

* Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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AWU head attacks Newman government

AUSTRALIAN Workers' Union (AWU) national president Bill Ludwig has accused the Queensland government of nepotism and criticised its treatment of workers.

Mr Ludwig told the union's national conference on Monday that since Premier Campbell Newman's election, unemployment in Queensland had risen, confidence had been shattered and young people were worried about their futures.

Mr Ludwig recounted a meeting with the premier days after the Liberal National Party's 2012 election win.

As Mr Newman was explaining his plan to break up "super departments", Mr Ludwig said the premier looked him in the eye and said: "We want to go back to the future, go back to where we used to be."

"Everything is finally back to normal again - they can get back on with the job of giving plum jobs and contracts to each other," Mr Ludwig told delegates at the Gold Coast conference.

"And growing rich at the expense of ordinary working people."

Last Friday, Mr Newman lost his third minister, Ros Bates, who quit after being criticised for not declaring contact with lobbyists, taking extended leave and giving a close friend a board position.

Her son, Ben Gommers, became the focus of a nepotism scandal after he landed a plum job in the transport department. The appointment is being investigated by the Crime and Misconduct Commission.

Mr Ludwig also claimed Transport Department Director General Michael Caltabiano, who will leave his job on March 15, and Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson had done a deal over the state seat of Indooroopilly, where Mr Ludwig lives.

Years ago, both had wanted to run for the seat, but neither did.

"But this time they had an agreement - Emerson would run for the seat and Caltabiano would be the head of the department," Mr Ludwig said.

"And that's what exactly happened.

"That deal has become unstuck and Mr Caltabiano has got the sack."

Mr Emerson said Mr Ludwig's claims of a deal on the seat of Indooroopilly were fantasy.

"Mr Caltabiano lives on the other side of Brisbane, was a former member for Chatsworth, and has never to my knowledge expressed any interest in running for Indooroopilly," he told AAP in a statement.

"Bill is a constituent of mine and a Labor relic from the past, still creating mischief and unfortunately still misleading his members."

A spokesman for the minister later told AAP Mr Emerson ran for preselection in Indooroopilly before the 2006 election.

He said Mr Caltabiano had supported Mr Emerson's opponent, Peter Turner, in that pre-selection contest.

Mr Turner won the pre-selection battle by a handful of votes but could not take the seat from incumbent Ronan Lee.

Mr Emerson won pre-selection for the LNP before the 2009 election and has held the seat since then.

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Actor joins union's manufacturing campaign

ACTOR Jack Thompson has been recruited for a campaign to promote the Australian Workers Union and the manufacturing sector.

The video ad, to be launched at the AWU's national conference on the Gold Coast on Monday, features Thompson reciting part of Henry Lawson's classic poem, Freedom's on the Wallaby.

In the video, titled A Union That Makes Things, Thompson rails against the "rich getting obscenely rich" just by "moving numbers on spreadsheets".

"When some of the richest people in the world are complaining about how hard they're doing - what is going on?" he says.

Thompson gives a brief economic lecture, saying the mining boom put upward pressure on the Australian dollar and created in Australia a "safe haven, a place for others to store their money".

But the high dollar, he explains, made it harder for industry to sell on the global market.

"On the shop floor, things were very different," the actor says.

"In the past five years, 130,000 manufacturing jobs gone, because someone forgot to turn the lights on and wake Australia up.

"We used to be a country that could be proud of what it made.

"But now we're making less and watching our factories close."

Thompson urges union members to "forge a new future".

"We are often at our best when our backs are to the wall - that's now," he says.

AWU national secretary Paul Howes says in the video his union wants a future that "is more than just being a sand-pit for another country".

"A future that builds things, which makes things," he says.

Thompson featured in Gough Whitlam's 1972 It's Time election ad.

Mr Howes told AAP Thompson was the first person the union thought of when looking for an authentic Australian voice.

"We knew that Jack is a strong believer in fairness and social justice, and that he also has an interest on the poetry of Henry Lawson - who wrote for the AWU's newspaper The Worker," he said.

"Jack also was a member of the AWU as a young man."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will address the conference on Monday night.

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Royal Commission offers chance to 'purify'

CATHOLIC Bishops in NSW have signed a letter urging parishioners and clergy not to bury their heads in the sand ahead of the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

In a publication signed by 15 bishops, including the Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell, parishoners and clergy are urged to reflect upon the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

"We must not put our heads in the sand about any of this, or try to minimise or explain it away," the letter published on Sunday states.

"The fact is that our Dioceses have all known cases of child abuse."

The royal commission should be viewed as an opportunity for victims to obtain a just hearing, the letter states.

"These terrible sins and crimes, and their mishandling by church authorities have done great damage to the victims and their families," it states.

"As leaders ... we must listen to people's hurt and respond with humility and compassion."

However, it adds that as the commission begins to hold hearings and take submissions across Australia, the stories of abuse should not see people loose sight of the church's achievements.

"The current crisis is an opportunity for purification of the Church - a Lenten return for each one of us personally and all of us collectively," the letter states.

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Plane crashes into trees, injuring two

TWO men have been injured after crashing a light plane into trees near Maitland, in the NSW Hunter region.

Police say the men, a 20-year-old pilot and a passenger in his early thirties, were practising take-offs and landings from an aerodrome at Luskintyre about 11.30am (AEDT) on Saturday.

"Witnesses have reported the plane experienced difficulties before it narrowly missed houses and crashed into trees," police said in a statement.

The men have been taken to John Hunter Hospital for checks.

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