Letters to the Editor

Issue 

Indigenous health

The bland comments made by Hamish Chitts in his article, 'Australia's Indigenous health shame' (GLW # 706), on the Close the Gap report without any questioning repeats the usual familiar lines of reporting on Indigenous health — no questioning of the existing problems of inequalities in the distribution of funding for Indigenous health and no questioning of the lack of independent scrutiny of actual health service delivery in remote Indigenous communities.

Yes, poor health outcomes are related to social and economic factors. They also could relate to discrimination and an underlying racism that allows sub-standard practices to be acceptable and allowed to happen in remote areas. Could there be any significance in the part of non-Indigenous people, including health professionals, in perpetuating the disadvantages experienced by Indigenous people?

There is the usual outpouring of empty platitudes that single out a prominent health service and give a glowing account that is typical of any health service where gatekeepers want (and need) to be portrayed as "successsful". Read any self-congratulatory health service report and the phrases "best practice", "leading edge", etc., flow loosely and effortlessly (and superficially).

Check, for example, the May 18 Koori Mail) and note the call by one woman for an independent review of the "community-controlled" health service. Check how generously paid and housed are the layers of predominantly non-Indigenous bureaucracy in the health service and note the disparity in conditions under which most Indigenous people live. Whose "health" is being protected?

For GLW to avoid or ignore the contentious issues relating to Indigenous health services is inconsistent with the standard of critical reporting that is found on its pages on international issues where the denial of rights and the struggles of oppressed peoples is exposed.

Jennifer Cramer

West Perth, WA [Abridged]

Anarchists and protests

Benjamen Standing (Write On, GLW #710) quotes his organisation's open letter (that organisation being the anarchist group Mutiny) on protest tactics, "If any groups were planning confrontational actions, it would of course be essential that they worked with respect alongside others so that those who did not want to be involved wouldn't be drawn in against their will"

How can an anarchist, who presumably has no respect for the police, believe, and expect others to believe, that the police will discriminate between protesters who engage in "confrontational" actions and those who are engage only in peaceful mass assembly and related non-violent activities?
It is my experience, and that of many others, that anarchists of various varieties (but not all) have a blatant disregard for the views of the majority at protests and choose on many occasions to act in a deliberately and counterproductively provocative manner when in the presence of police. I have seen anarchists throw dangerous projectiles at police and even deliberately charge at a peaceful picket line at S11.

Standing quotes the open letter further, "Our fear is ... that a small group will attempt to define what is 'legitimate' for the entire protest rather than working to ensure mutual autonomy, safety and effectiveness."

I think it is entirely legitimate for an organised protest movement to set collectively decided limits on protest behaviour at rallies when these limits are justified by the need for safety and unity. Likewise it is entirely legitimate for a small group to make proposals about what these limits should be.

Anarchists who believe in "mutual autonomy" may choose to describe this process as the "tyranny of the majority", whereas oftentimes at protests anarchists form a tyranny of the minority.

Rohan Gaiswinkler

Hobart, Tas

Fiscal management

In 1966, the Australian government received one peppercorn rent from the US government for Pine Gap. In 2005, the government of Singapore signed a treaty with Australia governing its military use of the World Heritage Shoalwater Bay Training Area for a rent of $1 per annum. Is this what John Howard calls responsible fiscal management?

Gareth Smith
Byron Bay, NSW

Sydney APEC shutdown

With three train stations, as well as areas of the centre of Sydney, shut down for the duration, would it be worthwhile to have a demonstration/march on the Saturday or Sunday before the arrival for the APEC summit of the so-called leaders? A major reason for this shutting down is to discourage protesters, who, in any event, won't get anywhere near the action: huge numbers of police will be there to ensure this.

Further, should any protester manage some way or another to get a peaceful message across, these days (after the Packer demonstration of February last year), there may well be the courts to deal with. All this, quite understandably, puts people off attending a demonstration which they would otherwise be prepared to go to. What do people think?

Anne Horan

Blackheath, NSW

UWS queer officer

I would like to clear up some of the inaccuracies in Rachel Evans' article in GLW #710 on the removal of Shelly Dahl from her position as co-queer officer by the University of Western Sydney's Student Representative Council (SRC) on May 8 (not May 10, as Evans reported). Firstly, the motion removing Dahl was not at all controversial. In fact, not a single member of the left-run SRC argued or voted against the motion.

Nor was the motion "in the context of a campaign against course cuts". Actually the "campaign" (which involved only Dahl and one other SRC member) had disappeared after the April 4 protest outside the UWS Board of Trustees meeting. That protest attracted not a single student other than Dahl and the other SRC member.

These two students handed out leaflets to Board members claiming, among other things, that UWS was cutting the amount of student housing (absurd given that this is a cash cow for UWS) and that the Australian Bureau of Statistics had estimated that this would reduce student retention at UWS by 40% (obviously made up as the ABS does not do estimates of retention rates at particular universities if certain policy measures are taken).

Criticism of made up policy decisions with made up statistics in the name of the Students' Association (UWSSA)did indeed undermine its ability to get its funding increased as it made it look as if it was run by lunatics.

Nor was Dahl's removal "the result of manoeuvring by UWSSA officers opposed to the campaign". The call for Dahl's removal came from her co-queer officer, all the campus-based queer officers and all active members of the queer collective. They were concerned that her erratic behaviour was turning people away from the collective. Other SRC members cited her hostile and bullying interactions with UWSSA staff and officers in explaining their support for the motion.

Evans also claimed that Dahl's removal comes on top of the resignation of "around 20" UWSSA officers opposed to the SRC's direction. In fact, there has been exactly one resignation for this reason (out of 80 elected positions).

At a difficult time, UWSSA's SRC is working hard to save the organisation. It's not easy but the positive atmosphere that has been built since removal of the ALP-linked management and Dahl is making it seem more possible now than ever before.

Luke Fomiatti

UWSSA education officer [Abridged]

'Rude and inappropriate'

The Indonesian government is claiming it was "rude and inappropriate" for the NSW coroner's court police to enter the Sydney hotel room of Lieutenant-General Sutiyoso and hand deliver a letter requesting him to provide evidence at the coroner's inquest into the Balibo Five.

Was it not "rude and inappropriate" when Team Susi and the rest of Indonesian Kopassus paramilitary units entered East Timor in 1975? Why did Sutiyoso "cut and run"? Was it memories of how one of his fellow generals had to cut and run from the US when a court granted "punitive damages" to Helen Todd for the loss of her son (Australian student Kamal Bhamadaj) in the Santa Cruz massacre in Dili in 1991?

The Australian government should apply to Interpol for an arrest and extradition order to be placed on all former Indonesian officers involved in the 27 years of massacres inside East Timor and have them face an appropriate international war crimes court. This kowtowing to Indonesia military leaders with blood on their hands must stop
Jeff Lee

via email

Dean Mighell

I write to support past and future efforts of Dean Mighell, secretary of the Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union to use whatever strategies and tactics are available to him to win wages and conditions for workers in the electrical industry.

It must always be remembered employers apply similar tactics in some instances to reduce wage increases and conditions of workers.

The job of a union secretary is first and foremost to look after the members and their families. Take the politics out of this much publicised issue and this is exactly what Mighell has done.

As far as using colourful language, it occurs everyday of the week in meetings such as the one he was addressing. For someone to be politically mauled for swearing in a meeting and improving the entitlements of members is nothing short of ridiculous.

While it might suit some people to promote the view that his behaviour is thuggish nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true that Mighell has a healthy ego and some may suggest he is a bit of a larrikin, however it always must be remembered that this is accompanied by an enormous amount of commitment and ability, a proven capacity to lead the ETU along with a record that clearly displays that he delivers for its membership. Just ask the vast majority of ETU members.

Graeme Shearer

Ballarat, Vic

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