Graham Matthews

On October 21, the day of the “great debate”, Labor leader Kevin Rudd announced Labor’s latest policy to help “working families”. He promised, if elected, to increase the federal government rebate on child care costs from 30% to 50% and to pay the rebate quarterly rather than annually. This promise stands alongside Labor’s pledge to allocate $2.5 billion dollars to allow “working families” to claim 50% of educational costs up to $750 per year for primary school kids, or $1500 for high schoolers. And of course, let’s not forget the “education revolution”.

In his frantic bid to secure a fifth consecutive election victory for the Coalition, Prime Minister John Howard has fired up the amp and is loudly proclaiming his message that growth and increased private wealth will solve all problems. Howard is presenting his message — pump-primed by a lavish promise of personal tax cuts (largely for the already wealthy) and proclamations that economic growth can proceed unhindered (in spite of growing environmental concerns and increasing inequality) — like a spruiker at a country sideshow: enjoy the fairy floss and don’t mind the smell of bullshit.

The socialist movement lost a strong supporter with the death from cancer of David Matthews — my father — on September 30 at the age of 79. David joined the Socialist Alliance soon after its formation and remained a financial member and a strong supporter of the campaign to bring the fractious left together.

“I think all these unfair tribunals and all this unfairness have to be removed”, Derek Belan, NSW state secretary of the National Union of Workers, told Green Left Weekly in response to Labor’s release of its Forward with Fairness Policy Implementation Plan in late August. “If Labor is elected, people are voting that they don’t want this stuff. There is a mandate to remove it. People are aware what this stuff means and people want it removed and Labor has to listen.”

On August 23, NSW education minister John Della Bosca announced the state Labor government’s intention to close Macquarie Boys Technology High School in Parramatta by 2009. The school occupies a large site near Parramatta.

Green Left Weekly’s Graham Matthews asked a number of protesters at the Stop Bush rally in Sydney what motivated them to take part.

The National Business Action Fund Limited, a collection of some of the largest business peak groups in Australia (including the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA)), launched a series of ads earlier this month, aimed at scaring voters away from supporting parties that did not support the Coalition’s IR “reforms”.

Warren Small and Norman Ham, striking workers from Esselte — a stationery company in Sydney’s south-west — spoke at the August 13 Parramatta Your Rights at Work meeting on their struggle against individual contracts (AWAs).

The August 8 announcement of the Reserve Bank board’s decision to raise official interest rates by a further 0.25% focused renewed media attention on the non-affordability of housing. The interest rate rise — the fifth since the 2004 election and the ninth since 2002 — increased mortgage repayments for home owners with average mortgages by $50 a week, placing extra pressure on already stretched budgets.

The front page of the July 25 Australian gushed with a headline making the astounding claim that the Australian Building and Construction Commission(ABCC) had delivered “a $15 billion boost to the economy” by improving productivity as a result of reining in “thuggish union behaviour”.

On July 23, the Australian published extracts from a leaked internal Australian Council of Trade Unions report that described unionisation in the private sector as being at “crisis levels”. The report, authored by ACTU assistant secretary Chris Walton, warns unions against any expectation of a “golden age” should Labor be elected at the forthcoming federal election, and proposes continuation of a levy on all members to build a war chest with which to rebuild the movement.

Pressure from unions over the exploitation of foreign workers employed under the 457 visa scheme for temporary workers has forced the Howard government to tighten some of the regulations.