Action updates

ADELAIDE — The Anti-Racist Alliance, a broad organisation of community, progressive, peace and union groups and individuals, scored a small victory over racism when the fascist National Action group cancelled a rally it had scheduled for April 30. ARA had called its own rally to counter the racist demo.

BRISBANE — A meeting to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the election of Fred Paterson, the only Communist to be elected to an Australian parliament, was held in the Parliamentary Annexe on April 16. The meeting, organised by the Brisbane Labour History Association, was attended by about 100 people, most of them former members of the Communist Party of Australia. Academics and former CPA members presented talks on topics including industrial relations in the 1930s and '40s, the role of women in the CPA, the history of the Militant Minority Movement and Paterson's life and political career.

HOBART — Well over 250 people gathered on the Parliament House lawns on April 19 in support of gay law reform. They were addressed by eight speakers, with Rodney Croome, campaign officer with the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group, and radical priest Father Julian Punch being given the most enthusiastic hearing. The rally finished with protesters encircling Parliament House and loudly demanding justice.

MELBOURNE — An enthusiastic crowd of around 200 people attended a public meeting on the political situation in Brazil on April 16. Organised by the Committees in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean, the meeting featured Dulce Maria Pereira, a Brazilian Workers Party (PT) leader and black and feminist activist. Pereira gave an account of the PT's challenge to the status quo and discussed the likelihood of a PT election victory in October. She also talked about racism towards the country's black and indigenous peoples, institutionalised sexism, alarming environmental destruction and the catastrophic consequences of a politics driven by private profit and neo-liberal policies.

From GLW issue 140