Image in the June 23 issue of the Melbourne Age sums up the obscene wealth that Gina Rinehart now wields in her takeover bid for the Fairfax media empire.
Our persistent supporters who take Green Left Weekly out into the street week after week (yes, even on the chilliest of winter days) have come up with a few more smiles, nods and words of encouragement as, out there in the corporate media, the billionaire bosses have been mercilessly wielding the axe and whip.
Our growing team of new volunteers around the Green Left TV project have also been warmly congratulated and encouraged. More people now appreciate the importance of the alternative media.
In typical 21st century corporate style the bad news that thousands of jobs in Fairfax and News Ltd will go over the next few years was delivered via a video messages posted on their media websites. This is calculated to send a wave of fear through their workforces: Which of us is going to have security tapping us on the shoulder and promptly escorting us out (also 21st century corporate-style)?
The Gina Rineharts and Rupert Murdochs of the world are very conscious that they wield both an axe and a whip. Cutting jobs to “restructure, reinvent and transform” their media empires is just business to them at one level but they make damn sure that they exploit to the hilt all the potential to terrorise their workers in the process.
This is all the more important in the media business which – as Rinehart the latest media mogul demonstrates in her bid for control of Fairfax – is not just about making money. Her billions would multiply much faster being kept in digging minerals out of the ground and shipping them to China! It is about power.
And when Rinehart refused to sign the charter of editorial independence she underlined this.
As the richest person in Australia (and the second richest woman in the world) Rinehart has more money than us ordinary mortals cam comprehend. Take this as a comparison. While our supporters worked hard to raise $84,130 for the raised so far this year for the Green Left Weekly fighting fund, Gina Rinehart’s wealth increased at a rate of nearly $600 per second last year. Two million dollars per hour.
A Green Left Weekly buyer said to me in the street: “What does that money really mean? Can she really spend it? Is it really worth anything if other people like us don’t work for her.”
That sums up the real social position of these billionaires. They are like the slave owners of old. Their fabulous wealth is made and given value by the sweat of the slaves. But the slaves need to feel the whip to keep slaving and that is why the billionaires and their CEOs become specialists in inflicting terror on their wage slaves.
In the media industry such terror is also used to get journalists to present and sometimes invent the “news” in the way that their bosses. In the various media empires, the public broadcasters included, regular threats increasingly instil and internalise a culture among journalists of delivering what is demanded to keep the job
It is only through permanent struggle that alternative media projects like Green Left Weekly maintain their independence and viability. The voluntary efforts of many people, not least our regular readers and (with GLTV) our viewers, is critical to this.
As billionaires Rinehart and Murdoch strike fear in the hearts of many as they “restructure” the mainstream media, you can hit back by chipping in online to the Green Left Weekly fighting fund and do your bit in the battle to tell the truth.
Direct deposits can also be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).
Anti-war and progressive groups in the Philippines have requested Australian solidarity against a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement between Australia and the Philippines currently before the Philippines Senate for ratification. On June 6 there were two anti-war demos against this Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which is seen as part of a US-led military build up in the Asian region aimed at China.
The US used to operate massive military bases in the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship. But after he was toppled by peoples power uprisings, these agreements were revoked. However, subsequent Filipino governments have used VFAs to effectively re-base siginificant US military forces in the Philippines, particularly in and around the southern island of Mindanao where insurgent (left and Moro national liberation) groups report that US special forces and even drones have been used against them.
Filipino anti-war activists are concerned that a VFA with Australia will be used to help further repress liberation movements. Article 5, para. 1 of the Philippines-Australia VFA provides that the “Visiting Forces” may temporarily use such defined land and sea areas, air space or facilities, of the Receiving State mutually determined by the Parties, for “combined training, exercises, or other activities mutually approved by the Parties.”
According to the Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), each year Australia spends $4.0-4.5 million on “bilateral military cooperation”. These include “high level policy talks, training of approximately 130 Philippine defence personnel in Australia, and visits by senior officials”.
The military relationship, says DFAT, is “focussed on counter terrorism, maritime security and assistance to the Philippines Defence Reform Program”.
During former Philippines President Gloria Arroyo’s visit to Australia in May 2007, a bilateral Status of Visiting Forces Agreement was signed, and this pact is now being considered for ratification by the Philippine Senate.
“About 50% of the US war fleet is in the Asian region (it is projected to rise to 60% by 2020) and the anti-war movement here sees Australia as the major military partner of US imperialism in the region,” Reihana Mohideen from the Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses – PLM) told Green Left Weekly after the protests.
“The VFA with the US was signed in 1998 and it has allowed a permanent presence of US military forces in the Philippines without having permanent bases in the Philippines like there used to be under the Marcos dictatorship in Subic and Clark. It has allowed a permanent US military presence especially in the south, in Mindanao, under the guise of ongoing military exercises.
” We know they have participated with intelligence personnel in on-the-ground operations against Moro liberation movement. We have had reports, recently, of drone attacks very similar to those being carrioed out by the US in Pakistan. This is a stepping up of covert and overt military intervention in the Philippines.
“Another aspect is the question of who has legal jurisdiction over these ‘visiting’ military forces. And it has been found that the Philippines has no juridiction.
“There was a case of the rape of a young woman by a US soldier a few years ago where the US asserted its legal jurisdiction over the offender.
“In the light of this experience we now have a similar agreement that has been signed with the Australian government. It is only now that this agreement has come before the Senate that the movement has been made aware of its existence.”
Australia, added Mohideen, is the “number one military ally of US imperialism in the region” which had its own direct interests such as mining.
“Australian mining companies are ravaging Indigenous communities in Mindanao and in central Philippines. This is a real concern.
“The Senate is now deliberating the ratification bill. It has been delayed because six Senators oppose it. If eight Senators oppose it this will block the bill when it is reconsidered in July. So we are calling for urgent solidarity from the movement in Australia in our struggle to block this military agreement which is going to be detrimental to the people of the Philippines.”
PSM secretary-general S. Arutchelvan leading one of the six feeder marches at Bersih 3.0 in Kuala Lumpur April 28. Photo by Bawani K/PSM.
The breach of the barricades in Merdeka Square by a small group of the people cannot be used as an excuse for police terror on a peaceful rally… Until the police attack, the assembly was very organised, peaceful, colourful and very festive. There has been lots of speculation about who broke the barricade. It is my opinion that there is nothing really wrong in people breaking those barricades, for the simple fact that the people wanted Merdeka Square liberated and to stand true to its name ‘Independence Square’.
S. Arutchelvan, secretary general of the Socialist Party of Malaysia, is a veteran of many demonstrations. But the Bersih 3.0 mobilisation, which he estimates was between 100,000 -150,000-strong, was the biggest he’s been a part of yet in the country. “It was a huge success” he told Green Left Weekly, “and it terrified the Barisan Nasional [BN] government.”
“The BN government sees Merdeka Square as its Tahrir Square. They do not want to see – and for the public and the world to see – images of it being occupied by democratic movement. It is their political survival.
“Since 2011 PM Najib [Razak] has been worrying about the Arab Spring spreading to Malaysia. He said his government would not let it happen.
“So on April 28, the riot police was used to prevent the people from getting to Merdeka Square at any cost.
“Four hundred and seventy-one people were arrested, including media and Suhakam (human rights) observers. One hundred and seventeen people were hospitalised (including two policemen). Thousands more would have been injured sought treatment outside the hospital system.
“This government is weakening so just the symbolism of hundreds of thousands of protesters having a peaceful sit-down demonstration in Merdeka Square would have been a powerful political blow.”
Since the Bersih 3.0 mobilisation, the government has tried to blame the violence on the rally organisers and opposition parties. Rumours have been going around that provocateurs planted by the police or government may have been placed in the crowd to give the riot police an excuse to fire their teargas and water cannons.
Arutchelvan says there is some evidence of “funny business” going on during the protest.
“Some people who were arrested said that they were arrested by police wearing yellow Bersih t-shirts. There were definitely police provocateurs in he crowd. I received some funny SMS from people asking me where is the RM300 supposedly promised for them to join the rally. These were SMS from people who blocked their names or called from untraceable phone numbers.”
But he does not think that crowd breaking through the barb wire barricades placed by police on the roads approaching Merdeka Square was all the work of police provocateurs.
“For the last two weeks, people who have involved in street demos felt were talking everywhere about liberating Merdeka Square. There were very strong chanting from the crowd to open the barricade, especially from the youth.
“Before April 28, the courts made an order banning people from Merdeka Square until after May 1. Bersih leader Ambiga [Sreenevasan] said we we won’t break the court order. Some people thought that the roads around Merdeka Square itself were not part of the order so that we could occupy those but not the field.
“However, on the day when we arrived we saw that even to occupy that portion, you needed to break the police barricade. So there was a lot of frustration and confusion.
“When Ambiga called on the people to disperse, maybe only around 500 people heard her. Then as her car was leaving in the direction of Merdeka Square, the crowd kept shouting ‘buka, buka’– ‘open, open’.
“The government, and even some people in Bersih, are blaming opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for inciting the crowd to break the barricade but Anwar was telling the crowd to move away from the barricades when the barricade was brought down. I was just there right in front of him.
“However you look at it, the police and the government must take full responsibility on whatever damage that happened. The PSM is totally convinced that if the ruling government had allowed the people the freedom to gather at Merdeka Square, then the assembly would have been peaceful and there would not have been untoward incidents.
“All the speeches would have been presented with a good sound system and the organisers would have been able to disperse the crowd after the assembly in an orderly manner.”
Arutchelvan added that there would not even have been any rubbish around after the sit-in, had the authorities allowed it to do ahead, as the organisers would have told the public to collect the garbage “as happened in Kuantan during the anti-Lynas [an Australian corporation building a toxic rare earths refinery against people's wishes] assembly recently”.
“The breach of the barricades in Merdeka Square by a small group of the people cannot be used as an excuse for police terror on a peaceful rally… Until the police attack, the assembly was very organised, peaceful, colourful and very festive.
“There has been lots of speculation about who broke the barricade. It is my opinion, that there is nothing really wrong in people breaking those barricades, for the simple fact that the people wanted Merdeka Square liberated and to stand true to its name ‘Independence Square’.
“This was the popular chant of the people… It was a popular demand not an isolated one. The police used discretion in allowing the people to rally from six points, though initially they said that they will not allow this. In the same manner, the police could have used their discretion in allowing the people to gather at Merdeka Square.
“Even though Merdeka Square was not liberated on April 28, there will be continuous efforts to liberate this public space in the future. Let us not forget the heroic task taken by the students and the Occupy Dataran in the last two weeks in occupying the square leading to Bersih 3.0.
“The people will continue to oppose draconian laws. Previously huge demonstrations have been held against the Internal Security Act and many other draconian laws. Fighting against draconian laws is a democratic right of the people. In this case, the court order was obtained at the 11th hour and is ex-parte [legal decision made by a judge without requiring all of the parties to the issue to be present]. It is the will of the people that matters in a democratic movement, not the will of a court order obtained in an undemocratic fashion and enforced by police force.”
A smirking shadow treasurer Joe Hockey tries to sell his plan to lower Australia to a Hong Kong-style no-welfare system on ABC TV's Lateline program.
The capitalist billionaires’ sense of entitlement to rip us off and get even filthier richer is not a problem, for the likes of Hockey. The “problem” is ordinary folks sense of entitlement decent services and an decent welfare system because it stands in the way of Hockey’s masters getting even super richer.
In his notorious April 11 speech, “The End of the Age of Entitlement”, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey made it clear that if the Liberal-Nationals are elected to federal government they intend to slash the already battered welfare system in Australia.
“The Age of Entitlement is over”, Hockey said with a sly smirk.
“We should not take this as cause for despair,” he went on. “What we have seen is that the market is mandating policy changes that common sense and years of lectures from small government advocates have failed to achieve.”
The welfare system that forces unemployed to live below the poverty line, is not mean enough for the likes of this snake oil merchant.
At 16% of GDP, public social spending in Australia is behind the developed (OECD) country average of 19.2% and lags behind 25 other countries. Even the US is ahead at 16.1%.
Not low enough for Hockey. He thinks we would be better off moving towards a Hong Kong or South Korea-style welfare system — a no-welfare system!
Under questioning on ABC’s Lateline program that night, the shadow treasurer was shifty-eyed and slipped from one evasion to another when pressed on what programs a future Liberal-National government would axe.
But he made it clear he was against taking the knife to welfare for the rich. Helping big business with subsidies is “not welfare”, he argued, nor is cutting corporate taxes and the taxes of the super-rich.
So much for the end of the age of entitlement. The capitalist billionaires’ sense of entitlement to rip us off and get even filthier richer is not a problem, for the likes of Hockey. The “problem” is ordinary folks sense of entitlement decent services and an decent welfare system because it stands in the way of Hockey’s masters getting even super richer.
There is one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us.
Green Left Weekly believes that communities have a legitimate sense of entitlement for hard-won welfare rights. Hockey’s ideological barrage are preparation for a new offensive on our social gains. And if that there is one thing that is true about rights, it is that they only exist because ordinary folk have collectively fought for them.
This column came together in a exchange on the Facebook social network website and I want to acknowledge the arguments contributed by some 15 members of the progressive “community” on Facebook. I mentioned that this would become a column for the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund and immediately one of these FB friends, Kyle, donated $50 online!
Direct deposits to the fighting fund can also be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).
For many months now, major party politicians and the big business media have sung paeans to the Lucky Country’s luckiest mining bonanza yet, riding the coat-tails of the rapid industrialisation of China and India.
“But the demand for resources is just the first taste of the economic transformation that’s under way in the Asian Century.”
Paddy Manning wrote in the March 17 Sydney Morning Herald: “Australia is on track to become the world’s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas, overtaking Qatar, perhaps as soon as 2017 … In total, well over $200 billion of LNG projects are in the pipeline.”
One of the mining boom’s winners is Australia’s richest person, and the world’s 29th richest, Gina Rinehart.
The WSJ said: “According to a report last year from Citigroup, which analysed 400 of the world’s top mining projects, her net worth could eventually approach $US100 billion if output of iron ore, coal and commodity prices continue to rise.”
And yet there is a growing unease among the ordinary people in this country, expressed not just in opinion polls but in lower retail sales figures. People are struggling to pay off their credit card debts and build up their savings.
This has led to repeated pleas from retail kings Gerry Harvey and Solomon Lew for people to start spending big again.
The Treasury and the Reserve Bank have accused the Australian public of having “gloom-with-boom” false consciousness.
China's industrial production & iron ore prices (Graph from AlanKohler.com.au)
But suddenly last week, there was a change in the wind. Business jitters struck with reports that Europe was headed deeper into recession. Hopes of a recovery in the US may have been a false dawn and the Chinese economy is slowing down. As a result, the prices for Australia’s mineral exports were falling.
So perhaps the public was wiser than the business media and the politicians? While we are all still hostages to corporate greed, we’ve learned not to trust their spin. We’ve learned that we have to ignore their sales pitches and plot a course for ourselves.
But that can take us only so far. We try to prepare ourselves for the next economic storm, but we remain anxious hostages to corporate greed.
Green Left Weekly fights for the liberation of humanity and the planet from corporate domination. But we need your help to keep going.
Farmers join with environmentalists to oppose CSG drilling at Jondaryan Qld on February 21. Photo by Max Reithmuller.
“Something is badly amiss when Queensland bushies embrace Green Left Weekly, and the opposite ends of the political fringe, the Greens and Bob Katter’s Australian Party, find a common cause” began a February 22 editorial in Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian, the only national daily newspaper in this country.
The Australian was ranting against the growing urban and rural alliance that has come together against coal-seam gas mining which is spreading like a cancer in many parts of the country, especially in Queensland and NSW. This is a broad alliance that Green Left Weekly strongly supports.
As Liam Flenady, a Socialist Alliance candidate in the coming Queensland election explained in a February 24 media release:
“The Queensland coal industry is already massive and is expanding rapidly. CSG companies are planning to drill 18,000 wells across the state.
“What this all means is that our food and water security is severely endangered. Farmers are mobilising against the incursions of the giant corporations onto their land and environmentalists are alarmed that precious natural habitat is being destroyed at a furious pace.”
In last week’s issue, we published an article by Jess Moore, a leading activist in the Stop CSG Illawarra, which refuted the lies being told by the CSG mining companies through its multimillion dollar advertising campaign “We want CSG”. Moore is also a member of the Socialist Alliance.
On February 23, Moore was on Channel 10 news exposing the latest approval of a CSG drilling site in Sydney’s main water catchment.
“This approval advances a project that risks the drinking water of 4.3 million people in NSW,” said Moore.
Murdoch’s hacks were horrified to report on February 21 that at an anti-CSG protest at Jondaryan on Queensland’s Darling Downs the previous day, “An old bushie who’d brought his own chair leaned back in it and perused a copy of Green Left Weekly, a publication he was unfamiliar with.”
If it horrifies The Australian it must be a good thing!
There are quite a few “bushies” who subscribe to Green Left Weekly and have become strong supporters of this fiercely independent media project. But there is always room for more. If you know a “bushie” (or indeed a “townie”) who might appreciate getting a Green Left perspective every week, why not buy them a gift subscription today?
More and more people from all backgrounds are beginning to stand up against the corporate-profits- at-any-cost madness that Murdoch’s media empire relentlessly promotes through systematic lies, manipulation and character assassination. By supporting independent media projects like Green Left Weekly you can make sure an alternative voice continues to be heard (and continues to alarm the Murdoch editors!).
You can donate online to the Green Left fighting fund here. Direct deposits can be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).
Jondaryan protest demonstrated the broad front against CSG mining. Photo by Jim McIlroy.
If changing the f* leader would change f* government policy to support the f* 99% instead of the f* 1% then we’d be f* interested in this f* soap opera!
This tongue-in-cheek Facebook status I posted last Tuesday ended up sparking a lot of political discussion.
It expressed what a lot of ordinary people were thinking as Round 2 of Kevin Rudd v Julia Gillard came to a head this week.
But is there a significant political difference, apart which of the two might have a better chance against Tony Abbott’s Liberal-National coalition in the next election?
OK, some people will say this is the only political difference that counts, both in the vote in the federal ALP leadership spill on Monday and to those who fear a right-wing blitzkrieg should Abbott become PM. But if there are political differences beyond who has the best chance against Abbott, it appears that most journalists not interested in finding out.
Not one of the questions posed by the journos at the press conferences of Rudd (in Washington) and Gillard (in Adelaide) on February 23. Check for yourself (see here and here). There’s not one effing question about their political platforms! The journos have embraced the soap opera lines (some of which they themselves scripted) and they are deliriously spinning in the spins.
Yet at these two press conferences, Rudd and Gillard each claimed a political record and staked out a set out a political platform.
Rudd’s platform
Before Rudd got to his record he cued the main themes in his campaign:
1. His claim to be the “best prospect” to “save the country from the ravages of an Abbott Government”.
2. Tapping still strong public revulsion by the alleged “faceless men”, the ALP faction chiefs.
3. Tapping strong public aversion to “politics of division” associated with Abbott and the internal party feud in the ALP.
He then claimed credit for Australia’s escape from the GFC:
“Remember it’s through that period of Government, when I had the privilege of being Prime Minister, that Australia got through the global financial crisis without going into recession and without generating mass unemployment. A single achievement among all the major developed economies. And not only that, but we emerged with among the lowest debt and lowest deficit rates of all the developed countries in the world.”
All the work of Kevin07? Not true. Every developed government bailed out banks and tried to stimulate the economy when the GFC struck – and many are now facing debt crises as a reward. But Australia, “escaped” this mainly because it was a major supplier of raw materials to China and other industrialising countries in Asia.
Rudd then summed up the rest of his record as :
A “massive new investment in education”;
A “massive new investment” in the public health and hospital system”;
“The launching of a National Broadband Network”;
Dealing with the “challenges of climate change” (well he talked a lot about it);
The “apology to the first Australians” -though Aboriginal people are saying: You said sorry , and then?
Finally, Rudd set out his program of action should he win the leadership spill on Monday:
“Business generates jobs. It’s fundamental that there is confidence in the business community to invest and to continue to create jobs. That is critical. And a policy area where I want to see new work for Australia, by the continuing Government of Australia, is in the area of small business and what we do to encourage directly small business to invest in their businesses’ future and turn them into the big businesses of the future. And that means changes to the way in which we deal with them on tax.”
We are clear about this. Labor will help the corporations make big profits and the rest of us will have to hope for the fabled trickle down. Labor’s corporate profits-first policy is reaffirmed.
“Second, a big policy challenge for the future is manufacturing.
“I have said before, five years ago when I first contested the leadership of the Australian Labor Party, that I never wanted to be Prime Minister of a country which didn’t make things any more – that remains my enduring passion. I do not share the view that manufacturing is somehow old fashioned and belongs to the old economy. It’s never been my view. We have to be smarter about manufacturing, but can I say loud and clear, I believe fundamentally in the importance of a strong Australian industry for the future and as a result a strong industry policy for the future as well.”
He expects large claps from the car company bosses and the union bureaucrats who tail behind them.
Then he added a few more vague promises:
1. Continuation of health reform because Gillard had “squibbed on some of the hard decisions”. But no detail.
2. Reinstatement of his policy, axed by Gillard, to “halve the HECS fees of maths an sciemce students going to universities” and halve them agains if they purue a career in these areas.
3. An emphasis on teaching Asian languages.
4. Reform of the ALP to make it a party that is “not governed by the faceless men”.
Rudd went into rhetorical overdrive about the “faceless men” of the ALP — “the future government of Australia is not about the power of factions, it’s about people’s power” — but he was vague on detail about what he would do. And “people’s power”? By rights, an egotistical autocrat like Rudd who has shown no respect for his own party policy, its ranks let alone the 99%, should have choked on those words!
Gillard’s case
Gillard laid out her case for retaining PMship at her Adelaide press conference about an hour after Rudd’s press conference.
First, she too sought to tap public aversion to the infighting, promising that if she lost the vote on Monday she would go to the backbench and “renounce any further claims to the leadership”. She pointedly asked Rudd to make the same commitment, underlining his undermining of her leadership.
Then Gillard claimed credit for:
1. The “carbon tax” and gradual introuction of a carbon emissions trading scheme.
2. The Mineral Resource Rent Tax (of course, she didn’t mention the estimated $100 billion in potential taxes forgone through her deal with the big miners!)
3. The health reform agreement withn states.
4. The deal with Telstra to get the national broadband network going (which, she didn not explain, will also create a massive new communications monopoly to be privatised in the future).
5. Education reforms (which teachers and education experts say will set back education in schools).
6. Tax cuts for low-income workers.
7. Plans to deliver a budget surplus in 2012-2013.
Gillard’s promises for future action included:
1. “Work flowing from” (she was careful not to say implementation) of the Gonski review into school funding , which urged a major increase in school funding directed according to need (instead of the 82% increase in funding to rich private schools for profit that Gillard and Rudd Labor helped deliver).
2. Giving school principals more power (including to sack teachers).
3. A vague priomise to preserve a “diversified economy” (I guess this refers to more subsidies and tax breaks to manufacturing and other non-mining corporations).
4. Unspecified promises to help people with disabilities and the “older Australians”.
Finally, rather timidly came to Rudd’s big argument about being a better protection against an Abbott government.
“Now I note that Kevin Rudd in his media statements yesterday and today has very consistently referred to the need to defeat Tony Abbott at the next election.
“I want to be clear about this too. I believe that we can win the next election and defeat Tony Abbott. I believe I can lead Labor to that victory, provided that the Labor Party unites and we get on with the job.”
So all up what is the political difference between Rudd and Gillard’s “platforms” for Monday’s leadership spill?
Not much, beyond a bit of emphasis on this or that program. Both are firmly committed to a corporate profits-first agenda and both seek to assure the non-mining corporations that they will help spread more of the profit from the mining boom to them. The 99% willl just have to hope that some benefit trickles down to us.
There is no real vision to tackle the climate change crisis from either of them. There is not a whisper of difference between them on Aborginal affairs, refugee policy, same-sex marriage rights or on the ongoing imperial wars.
Opposition supporters outside High Court in Kuala Lumpur. Photo by Abah Anas.
On January 9, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) was acquitted by the country’s High Court of the second round of politically motivated ‘sodomy’ charges. He was jailed for six years under the former Barisan Nasional (BN) government of Mohamed Mahathir on similar charges.
Police dispersed jubilant opposition supporters outside the court using the excuse that three small bombs were exploded nearby.
Green Left Weekly‘s Peter Boyle interview Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) MP Jeyakumar Devaraj about the acquittal.
* * *
What do you think is the significance of the court’s acquittal of Anwar Ibrahim?
Politically it was the smartest thing for the government to do. Convicting Anwar would have generated more sympathy for him and deepened the antipathy against the government. The acquittal however will be used by the PKR and Anwar as a vindication of their claim that this was a politically motivated trial. It definitely will give a boost to the opposition.
We think it is also good thing too because we are freer to focus on the real issues affecting people. If Anwar was convicted or worse denied bail, then there would be a lot more focus on him!
Was there a big mass mobilisation organised in support outside the High Court?
About 8,000 I would say. There would have been a much larger mobilisations had they convicted him and denied bail.
Who do you think is behind the three bombs that were set off and what do you think was their likely purpose?
Either right-wing racist groups or a faction of the police. The likely purpose to give ammunition to the factions that would like such mobilisations to be denied permission on the excuse that they are “too dangerous”, that there is a “risk of public disorder”, etc.
Does this reflect a BN government is on the front or back foot in the lead up to the next general election?
The fact that they let Anwar off is an indication that they feel that the tide is turning against them. We also see the BN handing out “goodies” to the public. They are desperate because the indications are that even the Malay majority is swinging towards the opposition coalition.But they will still use every dirty trick they can if they feel they can get away with it.
So Anwar’s release should not be taken as a sign that the government is becoming more “ethical”! I think they are just being realistic and are cutting their losses on this one.
Despite a significant, if partial, win on marriage equality for the movement, the right-ward shift of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) continued apace at its recently concluded national conference.
The tone of the 10,000-strong demonstration for equal marriage rights for same-sex couples outside the conference in Sydney’s Darling Harbour on December 4 was more angry than celebratory even though the conference had just voted to accept marriage equality in ALP policy.
The protesters knew that the policy change had been won despite PM Gillard’ s opposition. They were also furious that the conference then gave in to Gillard and the party’s Right faction by allowing Labor MPs a so-called “conscience vote”, that is the right to vote against party policy in Parliament.
“Julia Gillard, ALP, we demand equality! Shame, Julia, shame!” the huge crowd shouted outside the convention centre.
“If you are a politician there is no where for you to hide”, campaigner Kerryn Phelps told the protest outside the ALP conference.
“The only way to get rid of us is to introduce marriage equality and do it now.”
This was met with thunderous applause.
Not that ignoring party policy is anything new for the ALP. Just about every Labor government has ignored some part of official ALP policy, especially when it cuts against the interests of the corporate rich Labor governments have loyally served for more than a century.
The equal marriage rights protesters weren’t just moaning or whining that they were cheated out of a bigger win despite the fact that polls have shown that up to 7 out of 10 people support marriage equality in Australia. They were aware that the change in ALP policy was a won by the thousands who have taken to the streets for years in the biggest and broadest mass campaign for a democratic right seen in this country for many years.
Indeed, the movement used the weekend not just to protest but to organise. A “1Love – Equality, Marriage, Freedom” conference held in Sydney the following day planned two continue the mass protests with a cavalcade to Canberra for the first sitting of Parliament with a “Have a Heart, Vote for Marriage” action.
This was a practical recognition that there was now an opening to take the pressure to the Parliament even in the framework of the ALP conference’s “conscience vote” concession to the right.
Sole Greens federal MP Adam Bandt and Labor MP Stephen Jones have both said they’ll move private members bills to allow same-sex marriage rights when Parliament re-convenes next year.
“It is disappointing that Labor has failed to adopt a position of complete support for marriage equality,” Bandt said.
“However, Labor support for a conscience vote provides us with an opportunity to test Parliament’s support for marriage equality.”
“Labor’s decision now puts marriage equality in the hands of those Coalition members who have the courage to stand by their convictions.”
Equal marriage rights protesters at ALP's 2011 conference. Photo by Peter Boyle.
A recent Galaxy poll shows that the other traditional parties of government are equally pressed by growing public support for marriage equality. It found that 76% of people who support the Liberal-National coalition now support equal marriage rights. Popular former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has called for a conscience vote in the Liberal party which could free an estimated 10-20 of its MPs to vote against their party’s policy and support same-sex marriage rights bill.
The angry reaction of religious conservatives to the ALP’s policy shift indicates that this was a significant win for the progressive movement. They know what this opens up.
Most political commentators think that with the ALP allowing its MPs to vote in Parliament against the party’s new pro-marriage equality policy, there will not be a parliamentary majority for a same-sex marriage rights bill.
If equal marriage rights activists outside the ALP conference on December 3, and their supporters among the delegates, were not celebrating (rather echoing these lines from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir’s moving rendition of We Shall Not Give Up The Fight at the end of the protest: “We shall not give up the fight, we have only started…”), the mood of refugee rights and anti-uranium mining and export protesters who marched on the ALP conference the next day was angry and bitter.
The two other headline policy retreats by the ALP in this conference were on refugees and uranium export to India, a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a country with nuclear weapons.
The retreat on uranium export to India comes in a long line of rollbacks for anti-uranium mining and export policy forced by a mass movement on the ALP when it was in opposition in the second half of the 1970s. In 1983, the policy was watered down to a “three mines policy” which allowed the Ranger, Narbelek and Roxby Downs uranium mines to go ahead. The three-mine policy was abandoned in 2007 and ironically one of the arguments for this was that uranium exports could only go to NTP-signatory nations. Now the ALP has dropped that condition.
On refugee rights, the ALP conference reaffirmed the policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers arriving illegally by boat and support for “offshore processing”, opening the door to revisiting the notorious “Malaysian solution” (a plan to deport asylum seekers to Malaysia that was defeated in Parliament earlier this year). An earlier Labor governent introduced mandatory detention of asylum seekers, a policy that has left thousands of desperate refugees (including 882 children at the last count) detained indefinitely without trial in ever-more detention camps around the country.
The fury of the crowd was palpable as Dianne Hiles from Children Out of Detention (Chilout) read out a list of the desperate refugees who have recently suicided in detention.
Notes on the conference by Nizza Siano (the secretary of Labor for Refugees), circulated around the movement by ALP member and refugee activist Jenny Haines, captured the bitter defeat of a reform motion by 27 votes.
Supporters of the governments inhuman refugee policy focussed their arguments on “people smugglers” and inferred that “somehow, if our amendments were supported, that would encourage people smuggling.”
“They also used the ‘queue jumping’ furfie without actually calling it that and claimed that we’d lose the election if our amendments were adopted. Strange that the Party leadership was prepared to push for a conscience vote in Parliament for same sex marriage but not for refugees/asylum seekers – an issue of life and death for some refugees. I’m trying hard not to feel bitter.”
Refugee activists too were not just moaning but used the mobilisation around the ALP conference protest as an organising point. Representatives of 10 groups from across the country met in the wake of the conference decision to discuss a campaign framework to escalate the campaign to free the refugees over the coming year. This will include a national convergence over the Easter weekend next year at the refugee detention camp in Darwin.
“The amendments are a step backwards for the Labor Party and the Labor government. The move to increase the refugee intake only on condition of the government implementing the Malaysia Agreement was an shabby piece of domestic politicking,” said Ian Rintoul, speaking on behalf of the national consultation of refugee activists.
“Any plan to expel asylum seekers to Malaysia, or any other third country is a fundamental Australia’s obligation to provide protection for who arrive on our shores fleeing persecution. But Chris Bowen is locked in an anti-refugee race to the bottom with Tony Abbott. Abbott says ‘Nauru’, while Bowen says, ‘Malaysia,’ ” he added.
Despite the ACTU’s promise that the ALP conference would deliver workers “enhanced rights to bargain for better pay and conditions and secure jobs” there was little to show for this except a bit of posturing. The construction unions’ planned motion to outlaw the hated Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) industry “Gestapo” special inspectors who have been victimising construction workers was reportedly withdrawn even before conference started because it didn’t have the numbers.
The ABCC was set up by the former Howard Coalition government to smash militant unions in the industry and it is ALP policy to abolish it but the Gillard Labor government has failed to deliver. Amendments moved this year to the legislation fall short of the promise to abolish it.
Grand promises to deliver a democratic reform of the ALP at this conference came to nothing and morphed into the ongoing leadership tussle between Gillard and former PM Kevin Rudd. The ALP’s membership has reportedly fallen from about 50,000 in the 1990s to 31,208 today. This still leaves it the biggest party in Australia though its ranks have not had control of the party for a long time.
The general pattern of policy change at this latest ALP conference follows the steady right-ward trend of conferences since the early 1980s. ALP leaders now boast that it was an ALP government that did what Margaret Thatcher did in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the US – began the push for neo-liberal “reform”. In the process they’ve soured and debased the word “reform” in public discourse.
ALP politicians have sometimes looked for costless social reforms to cover their consistent betrayal of working class interests in the intersts of making the corporate rich even richer. It appeared for a while that they may have been hoping to use a turn on marriage equality as a way to re-sell the party as a party of popular reform. But when this reform is won, it will have been won by the activists in the streets and not delivered by the politicians.
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