Socialist Alliance calls for no Telstra sale

[On June 1, the Socialist Alliance sent the following letter to the
Greens national council.]

Dear comrades and friends,

Last night, at its regular monthly meeting, the national executive
of the Socialist Alliance voted to contact the national council meeting
of the Greens as a matter of urgency in order to directly express our opinion
to you on the issue of Telstra privatisation and old-growth-forest protection.

We vehemently urge you to reject outright the suggestion made on May
31 by Senator Bob Brown that the Greens consider supporting the final privatisation
of Telstra in exchange for a commitment from the Howard government to ban
the logging of old-growth forests.

Such a deal, which would be made in direct violation of Greens' policy
on Telstra, would certainly guarantee the final liquidation of Telstra
as a public entity, but with no certainty of guaranteeing the survival
of what remains of Australia's precious old-growth forests. Who, after
all, can believe the word of politicians who promised not to introduce
the GST and told us that asylum seekers throw children into the sea in
order to provoke rescue by the Australian Navy?

But the main danger in Bob Brown's proposal is not that of being outsmarted
by Prime Minister John Howard and Co. in any parliamentary horse-trading
over these issues. Much more dangerous is the political approach adopted,
which fails to grasp that Telstra can be kept in public ownership and old-growth
forests saved, provided the Greens look for support and alliances in the
right place.

A majority of Australians oppose the final privatisation of Telstra
and also oppose further logging of old-growth forests. The Greens should
look first and foremost towards mobilising all the constituencies that
oppose these reactionary and destructive policies. For example, why not
pledge Greens' support for a campaign to block Telstra privatisation that
draw<%0>s in the Telstra unions as well as telecommunications users
and all opponents of privatisation? For its part, the Socialist Alliance
would be 100% behind such a campaign.

The same approach holds for old-growth forests. A broadly based campaign,
involving environmentalists, communities and unions, and which was sensitive
to the issue of alternative employment for affected forestry workers (such
as has been suggested by organisations like Earthworker), would stand a
much better chance of ending destructive logging than deals with a government
that didn't even know how to spend the environmental “dividend” that the
previous phases of Telstra privatisation were supposed to produce.

If the Greens threw their weight behind such campaigns for these two
entirely just causes, Bob Brown's time and reputation could then be spent
building and championing them, both in the Senate and “out in the country”.
The increased vote received by the Greens at the last federal elections
was in part due to your stand on Telstra and old-growth forest protection,
which typify the growing rejection in this country of the Coalition and
Labor versions of standard neo-liberal politics.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians voted Green in the belief that
you represent an alternative to the “profit before people” approach of
the major parties. If Bob Brown's suggestion were adopted by the national
council it would be a signal that the Australian Greens are beginning to
tread the path followed by too many of their overseas counterparts, of
sacrificing one of the four founding Green principles (social justice)
for marginal or imaginary gains in the area of the environment.

The Socialist Alliance earnestly hopes that you will reject such a course,
because we are convinced that the best hope for building the political
alternative to neo-liberalism in this country lies in closer collaboration
between all forces that stand for peace, social justice and environmental
sustainability.

We believe that it is vitally important to open a dialogue between our
two organisations on the fundamental questions involved in building the
alternative, and we look forward to beginning discussions as soon as is
mutually convenient.

Yours in solidarity,

Dick Nichols,

National co-convener of the Socialist Alliance

From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.

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From GLW issue 495