Hundreds attend Social Forum

August 10, 2005
Issue 

Jim McIlroy
& Mike Byrne, Brisbane

Prominent Indian anti-neoliberal globalisation campaigner Arundhati Roy's saying, "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way", was the theme for the fourth Brisbane Social Forum (BSF), held at the University of Queensland Student Union on the weekend of July 29-31.

Up to 300 people attended the BSF 2005, which was sponsored by unions, environment organisations and other political and community groups.

The opening Friday night forum was addressed by Jacqui Katona, well-known spokesperson for the Mirrar Aboriginal people in their campaign against the expansion of the Northern Territory's Jabiluka uranium mine, and Dita Sari, president of the Indonesian People's Democratic Party and a leader of the militant FNPBI labour federation.

Katona told the audience: "Defeating institutionalised racism is going to be a long and difficult process ... Disempowerment of young people is a major problem. We need work to help reawaken a strong need for change in the youth of the country, both Indigenous and among the general community."

Sari explained that the progressive movement in Indonesia had faced a number of challenges in recent years. The millions of unemployed and poor people in Indonesia "need an immediate national movement to challenge the neoliberal agenda of the ruling forces and the remnants of the old dictatorship", Sari said. This movement needs to be "not just issue-based, but needs to step forward to a strategic unity — to challenge for political power".

Major sessions during the BSF were held on the fight against the Howard government's anti-union laws; women in prison, the state of the environmental movement; future activities for the progressive movement; and the role of the media. Workshops were held on refugees and multiculturalism; the fight to oppose police violence against Aboriginal people; the problems facing low-paid workers; democracy in the Middle East; and the crisis in universities.

Other keynote guest speakers included well-known Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen; Cam Walker from Friends of the Earth; Deb Kilroy from Sister Inside; Chris Richards, Australasian editor of the New Internationalist magazine; and Julian Morrow from the TV comedy show CNNN.

One of the BSF 2005 sessions — titled "The Way of the Working Poor" — featured as speakers Elizabeth Wynhausen, a senior journalist on Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper; Korrina Nolan from the Fairwear Campaign/No Sweatshops; and Lynda Hansen, a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Socialist Alliance.

Nolan outlined the Fairwear Campaign's initiatives over the last few years to improve working conditions for outworkers in Australia and overseas. The campaign brings together trade unions, migrant and community groups and churches.

Wynhausen told the audience that in her new book, Dirt Poor, she revisited her time working her way around Australia in low-paid jobs such as being a kitchen hand and a factory worker.

Hansen recounted her everyday working life in a car-parts manufacturing plant, operating dangerous machines and only earning $12.74 per hour. She also explained how the Howard government's proposed new industrial relations laws would make most workers worse off.

From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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