Official harassment
I was selling GLW outside the Newcastle performance of Rod Quantock's political comedy piece The Annual Report. It was at the Town Hall. I was at the entrance doorway.
Rod is a well-known supporter of GLW, and he stopped to buy a paper and give a small donation (thanks for that). I told him I was in the process of being escorted off the public's property even though I had told a city council officer “Rod would have no objections”.
Rod left to go inside and the council officer said to move away from the doorway. So what becomes part of the off-the-cuff script during the show? Rod mentions the GLW seller being forced away from the entrance. Rod expresses surprise at this because he thought this was a union town. Later, he read out the details of the coming Pine Gap 4 defence campaign meeting.
Take that officialdom! And thanks Rod.
Geoff Payne
Newcastle, NSW
Cummo
With profound grief I read today Michael Bull’s politically illuminating eulogy/feature story on the untimely death of John Cummins (GLW #682).
Like Cummo, I am a lately 50-plus-year-old and a veteran (in Melbourne at the time) of the popular opposition to the then state and federal Labor governments’ deregistration of the Builders Labourers Federation. I was among the thousands of people Cummo influenced. In closing, I have no more tribute to publish with condolences to John’s family and all his many friends and comrades, than one more anecdote illustrating just how solid a soldier of working-class solidarity has “departed our mortal coil”.
In the1980s I was a member of the then-Australian Railways Union (now amalgamated as the Rail, Tram and Bus Union).
For one particularly close-fought election in the ARU Victorian branch, we of the left-wing Express team, held a big fundraiser at the old Anthony Street Resistance Centre near Victoria Market, with significant and very much appreciated attendance and practical support from Cummo and BLF activists.
Cummo’s “troops” not only donated (and tapped) the night’s beer kegs, but John himself jumped “in the ring” and flipped the fateful two coins for us all to enjoy betting on (house proceeds to the Express campaign).
So let us all now resolve, as did Peter Lalor’s Ballarat Eureka Stockade comrades, to multiply our creative militant unity in honour of “JC”, that his vision for people’s proletarian liberation may live on forever through our struggles.
Garry Walters
Port Macquarie, NSW {Abridged]
Equity rooms
It seems that Edith Cowan University has returned to its sordid ways as one of the forerunners of inequity among WA's universities. With the recent rejection of the promised “equity rooms” by the university council, based on the claim they have “no legal obligation”, it has been made clear that ECU has no intention of backing up its claims of being a “harassment free zone”.
ECU Student Guild currently boasts no women's or Indigenous representation, and the only representation of diverse sexualities is the Exult Queer Collective and the queer officer, neither of whom have any vote or influence in the guild. The guild is seen by students to be unrepresentative and useless — demonstrated by the complete lack of representation at any rallies or demonstrations to save our dying guild.
However, this shouldn't be seen as a lesson in the futility of equity and diversity at ECU. We should take this as a rallying point, and fight to overturn the oppressive structures ECU upholds. Fight for women's rights, the rights of indigenous students, the rights of students of diverse sexuality and gender. It’s time we stood our ground, and demanded the right to have our collective voices heard. ECU's student intake gets lower every year, and soon they'll have to learn that they have to give some to get some.
Shane Cucow
Perth, WA [Abridged]
Wind v nuclear power
Rod Adams (Write On, GLW #683) describes a “math error” I made in my article on wind power in GLW #682. My calculations were based on a 1996 gif image showing Australia’s national power generation grid state by state, which I found on Google image search. I deducted the Snowy Hydro scheme’s output of 3756 Megawatts from the total figure on the gif chart, which left roughly 37500MW of installed generation capacity, which I then divided by five to arrive at what 20% of the remaining (mainly coal fired) capacity would thus be (37500/5 = 7500).
As Adams’ so clinically points out, in drawing a hypothetical plan for a shift to 20% wind power, I then made the rather substantial error of assuming that a 3MW wind turbine has a fairly consistent output of 3MW, when apparently it has on average only about 1MW output. Oops!
I guess I’m left asking though, how can a society be expected to make democratic decisions about energy policy when the level of public information on options like wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, etc., is so scant? Why is it that J. Bloggs gets a pamphlet from the government about terrorism and the supposed fight against it, but not one about climate change and the different options available to combat it?
The same companies mining coal now want to mine uranium for “clean, safe” nuclear power.
Scarce informed debate on the inevitable need for a transition to renewable energy is occurring in our society. I believe this is because the agenda is being set by pro-corporate interests like the super-rich families that own the mining corporations.
Zane Alcorn
Newcastle, NSW [Abridged]
Steve Irwin
Three weeks after Steve Irwin’s watery demise, the corporate media is still sensationally milking his death. The fact that his death was reported internationally before his wife was even informed, and his autographed T-shirts were selling on E-bay for $500 each, says much about the sick society we live in.
Many have been bored witless by the saturation media coverage over Irwin’s life and death. Don’t get me wrong, no-one deserves a death like that.
I disagreed with Irwin’s opposition to hazard reduction burns to reduce the fuel load before the bush fire season starts. I also disagreed with his praise of PM John Howard as a “great world leader” after Green senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle protested against US President George Bush in parliament in 2003.
Irwin was also a great fan of Howard’s anti-worker Work Choices laws, and a strong advocate of Australian Workplace Agreements — notably at his zoo.
It’s fair to say Irwin was a conservationist: he bought tracks of native bush to build his wildlife foundation. But can anyone tell me when he spoke out against greenhouse gas emissions? It’s one thing to be an environmentalist, but you need to be more that in the times we live in.
John Tognolini
Blue Mountains, NSW
Lebanon war
During the demolition of Lebanon, the Israelis repeatedly said that the Hezbollah fighters were cowards for hiding among the civilians, that they deliberately fired the grand total of 3900 mickey mouse rockets to murder civilians and that the IDF were the most moral army in the world.
Then US journalist Seymour Hersh belled the cat that the Israeli assault had been planned for many months in advance and suddenly the atmosphere changed. Now Israel’s Haaretz daily has reported that all the Hezbollah rocket launchers “hidden in the houses and then moved” were in fact in fixed positions close to the border.
Jonathan Cook has reported from Nazareth that it was the IDF was firing at Lebanon from the port of Haifa, which is where Hezbollah targeted most of its rockets.
Marilyn Shepherd
Kensington, Vic [Abridged]
Terrorism
On the anniversary of 9/11, PM John Howard called on “moderate” Australian Muslims to be more critical of terrorism. Last August, 51 Muslim organisations released a statement that included the following: “We denounce all acts of violence targeting innocent victims. We confirm that it is the civic and religious duty of Muslims to work tireless to protect the lives of all civilians. We are committed to supporting all efforts to weed out harmful elements within our community.”
Howard should use his influential position to speak out more vigorously against the unfair generalisations about Muslims that are circulating in sections of the community. These attitudes make life needlessly unpleasant for thousands of decent and peaceful Muslims and stronger leadership would help combat them.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
Sydney water
There was 1085mm rainfall in Sydney in the 12 months to September 13. An average house using five 1 kilolitre rainwater tanks (one for each downpipe giving 5KL storage capacity) would have yielded 100KL of water — enough to supply two-thirds of household water used indoors each year.
Rainwater will cost under $1.50/KL if tanks are installed in all houses and buildings. Mains water costs $1.20/KL but it won’t be long before mains water costs more than rainwater. Recycled stormwater is unlikely to be cheaper because of the cost to collect, treat and pipe it back to the buildings it came from. Large-scale manufacture and installation of rainwater tanks will guarantee a cost of $3000 per house.
Reduction in mains drinking water consumption can become mandatory at point of sale of a building (enabling simplest, lowest cost financing) with rainwater tanks complying. Most houses can have rainwater supply within seven years because this is the average turnover of houses.
Rainwater tanks are Sydney’s cheapest and most sustainable source of additional water supply.
Greg Cameron
Benalla, Vic
