Kylie Moon, Sydney
"Fightback: Resisting Howard's Agenda" was the theme of a public meeting at the Sydney Gaelic Club on December 2 that brought together 90 activists involved in many of the current campaigns against the attacks of the Howard government.
Kicking off the meeting, Aboriginal rights activist and Queensland Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson, speaking by telephone from Brisbane, outlined the growing campaign against racist police violence on Palm Island.
A short film presentation followed, showing the November 25 demonstration of 6000 workers in Melbourne demanding the immediate release of imprisoned union militant Craig Johnston.
Trade union and Socialist Alliance activist Susan Price described the Howard government's past, present and planned attacks on workers and their unions. She proposed that socialist trade unionists campaign for state and regional labour councils to hold cross-union delegates' meetings to discuss organising union resistance to Howard's planned attacks well before the Coalition takes control of the senate next July.
"The important fights, the ones that stop wars, that win rights, happen not through parliament but through the power of ordinary people. The conservatives' election victory needs to be turned into a fighting street response", she told the meeting.
This sentiment was also expressed by John Kay, a Greens Senate candidate in the October 9 federal election: "We need grassroots change to make real change. The real task ahead of us is to convince the community that there is an alternative. And that is a challenge and make what we believe will be an exciting three years."
Alanna Sherry, from Children Out of Detention, outlined ChilOut's plans for continuing its campaign to get children out of immigration detention centres.
Also present at the meeting were two refugees' rights activists whose homes had been raided by immigration department and federal police officers the previous day. Refugee Action Coalition member Mark Goudkamp said that the raids should be seen in the context of the Howard government's post-election offensive on refugees.
From Green Left Weekly, December 8, 2004.
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