As John Ingram pointed out in last month's "In profile", employees are important stakeholders in any business. Lindsay Fox says, "Healthy profits, satisfied clients, happy employees; two out of three and you go broke."

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The current political climate tends to obscure serious ethical issues behind the public posturing. Nevertheless, there are important questions about the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and public health in Australia, specifically the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Many poorer countries' confrontations with the large pharmaceutical companies have left these latter with tarnished ethical images. Now the debate has come to Australia.

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The recent publication of Mr. Scrafton's letter about the children overboard affair has again raised the issue of the independence, autonomy and responsibility of the public service. The question has been a running sore in the context of intelligence and the use of that intelligence and the war in Iraq. While these are political issues, they all concern the professional status of the Public Service. Many professions have codes of practice that attempt to defend the integrity and therefore the position of trust accorded by the community that constitutes a necessary element of each profession's social capital. The public service is not the only profession trailing clouds of doubt about its professionalism.

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Emerging events in the ongoing asbestos compensation dispute...

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Talk about ethics is not new but it certainly is news.
(John Sweeney, Edmund Rice Business Ethics Initiative)

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