#3
Rally for disability services
HOBART — Fifty people with disabilities, their families, carers and supporters joined a rally outside parliament on November 17. The rally was organised by Tascare, a support organisation for young people with disabilities.
Speakers called for respite care, individual support programs, long-term supported accommodation and vocational opportunities for people with disabilities.
The Greens' Tim Morris told the rally that the government has the money for all of these programs but that health minister David Llewellyn's portfolio is so large that he is unable to implement them.
Linda Seaborn
Terry Hicks speaks
BRISBANE — "If you define a terrorist as someone destroying civilian life and property, then what is the US doing in Iraq at the moment?", Terry Hicks asked a public meeting on human rights and the "war on terror".
Terry Hicks' son David is detained in a US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Terry O'Gorman, president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, and Roy Groom, regional vice-president of Amnesty International, also addressed the forum.
O'Gorman outlined the judicial changes the Australian government has been making since 2001 under the cover of "fighting terrorism". He told the meeting that it is now legal for the government to detain a person for seven days without bail, even if he or she is not suspected of being a terrorist.
O'Gorman alerted people to the new legislation before parliament that will allow prosecutors to hide their evidence against alleged terrorists. Terry Hicks illustrated this by detailing his recent visit to the US military commission in Guantanamo Bay, where not only his family, but David himself was escorted away from the hearing so "he wasn't even allowed to hear the charges and evidence being brought against him!"
Tim Stewart
ALP pamphlet 'timely'
BRISBANE — Marxist and long-time political activist Gary MacLennan launched a new pamphlet written by Jim McIlroy, A Marxist Analysis: The Origins of the ALP, at the Activist Centre on November 11.
MacLennan told the launch: "The question of the ALP is still with us and the left must get it right. The ALP has remained constant for over 100 years but the left has continually changed its views over that time."
According to MacLennan, "There is no left in the ALP any more. Left reformism was killed off." He argued that "No matter how multicultural its official policy is, the core of the ALP mentality is racist".
McIlroy said the pamphlet was particularly timely in the light of the ALP's federal election defeat.
Robyn Marshall
Public housing tenants face eviction
BRISBANE — Public housing tenants in Queensland will be evicted or relocated under controversial proposals released on November 15 to address the state's mounting housing crisis. Skyrocketing property prices and the shrinking availability of suitable land in Queensland's south-east have resulted in a drastic tightening of subsidised housing guidelines.
The state government will seek to end the "tenancy for life" status of some public tenants, and some residents of "under-occupied" homes will be forced to re-locate. For the first time, tenants face assets tests beyond property ownership and those living in more desirable homes and locations, such as those with sea views, will be forced to pay a premium.
Bill Mason
From Green Left Weekly, November 24, 2004.
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