Issue 13

News

Democrats and greens "If a Green Party forms and then almost immediately loses its identity by merging, this could prejudice the credibility of both organisations", writes Australian Democrat Senator Janet Powell in the first issue of Forest
By Frances Kelly SYDNEY — The NSW appeal court has reserved its decision on the case of Tim Anderson following a week-long hearing. Anderson was appealing against his conviction on three counts of murder resulting from the 1978 bombing of the
By Peter Boyle The Hawke government completed its wage deal with the Public Service Union and the ACTU on May 15. While it rejects the recent Industrial Relations Commission wage decision, it delivers substantially less that the aggregate outcome
By Norm Dixon According to Janet Hunt of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, an increase in the foreign aid budget would create jobs for Australian teachers, doctors, dentists, engineers, technicians and others. Given the massive needs of the
By Peter Boyle MELBOURNE — While there's talk in sections of the Labor Party about asking governments to create jobs, Victorian Premier Joan Kirner is not remotely interested. She is preparing the state's harshest budget ever, at the expected
By Tracy Sorensen and Peter Boyle Australian education has been battered almost beyond recognition by 15 years of cutbacks. Just to repair the most recent damage, the NSW Teachers' Federation is demanding the restoration of the 2500 jobs lost in
By Debra Wirth River and beach pollution, soil erosion and salinity, forest depletion, chemical contamination, disappearing wildlife habitats: all have to be put right. Thousands of jobs would be created by a determined campaign to clean up, protect
BRISBANE — "The City Heart Business Association only believes in the music of cash registers. We must not let them dictate to us what we can do in our city centre; it is the only real focal point in Brisbane", said city centre hairdresser Willy
Green calls for job funds By Bernie Brian WOLLONGONG — Greens candidate for Bulli Carole Medcalfe says local unemployment, already 24%, is bound to get worse with the completion of major construction projects at Southern Copper and the BHP
Goss tries divide and rule on land rights By Susan Price BRISBANE — Aboriginal activists set up a tent embassy in Queen's Park on May 15 to launch a campaign over the Goss Labor government's plan to push through inadequate land rights
By Steve Painter With the WA Inc and other slush funds well and truly dried up, the Labor Party hierarchy is on the run over the uranium issue. Realising that big-dollar campaigns will be beyond the party for the foreseeable future, and that some
Public comment Motorists leaving central city for home along busy Parramatta Road were recently greeted by a blunt but accurate description of the Hawke government's planned "resource security" legislation. The banner was hung by "Enviro-Cops",
Major parties lose out in Nundah By Jim McIlroy BRISBANE — Neither Labor nor the Liberals can take much encouragement from the May 18 by-election for the Queensland state seat of Nundah. Closing figures on the night indicate the seat will be
By Bob Cummins BYRON BAY — The NSW National and Liberal parties are at each other's throats over reintroduction of chemical dyes and odours into spray formulations. Lismore-based Liberal politician Dr Brian Pezzutti has called for dyes for all
By Norm Dixon The government has singled out Pacific islanders, particularly from Fiji and Tonga, in a campaign to reduce the number of "illegal" immigrants. The government claims the total number is now over 90,000. While the proportion of

World

By David Easter Is North Korea being set up as the next "Iraq"? Korean solidarity activists have sounded a warning that Pyongyang may become the next "new world order" target. "There is a very striking pattern emerging in the statements of US
Hungary is on a course towards the re-establishment of a capitalist economy — but many questions remain unanswered. In this article, concluding their series on the overthrow of the country's Stalinist version of socialism, LASZLO ANDOR and PETER
A founding member of the Greens, outgoing federal Executive Committee member and member of the International Affairs Committee, JÜRGEN MAIER said the rightists will probably try to block the work of the two new left-wing party spokespeople "like
ANGELICKE WERGNER, a member of the Greens executive committee in Bochum and a supporter of Left Forum, told Green Left that the Realos want to establish a hierarchy. They want to reduce the rank-and-file members' role to casting postal votes in
A convicted kidnapper and torturer has been appointed as a member of the Fiji Army's seven-member United Nations observer team in Kuwait. Last October 24, Captain Sotia Ponijiasi led a team of soldiers that kidnapped and tortured one of Fiji's
By Norm Dixon The May 14 sentencing of Winnie Mandela to six years' jail by a juryless court, presided over by a single white judge, is sure to add fuel to the black majority's growing anger and resentment at the South African government. Her
A new US study shows that integrated pest management practices such as crop rotation and biological pest control could cut the country's pesticide use in half. The study estimates that food costs would increase US$1 billion per year (less than
For progressive politics in the advanced capitalist world, West Germany's Green Party was one of the most important developments of the 1980s. Its failure in the December 2 federal elections to elect any candidates from the West German states, along
Twelve Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military in April, according to Ali Kazak, the Palestine Liberation Organisation representative in Australia. The youngest, a child of four, was deliberately struck by a military vehicle. Ten of the
By Andrew Garton Preparations are well under way for the first ever "Earth Summit" — the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from June 1 to 12, 1992. "The primary
By Eve Sinton AUCKLAND — The United States is planning to test a nuclear-powered rocket in the South Pacific which, if it fails, could spread radioactivity over New Zealand. Copies of the ultra-secret Star Wars Timberwind project have been
On the last day of the convention, JUTTA DITFORTH announced that she and other members of the Fundis would leave the party because it has moved too far from its original aims and principles. A group around her called Ecological Left was to hold a
By Will Firth BERLIN — The Elbe is the third largest river in central Europe. It is also one of the most polluted. From its source in Czechoslovakia, the river flows 1165 km through the former two Germanies to enter the North Sea near Hamburg.
President Suharto of Indonesia officially opened a World Bank-funded dam in Central Java on May 18 despite the resistance of hundreds of farming families whose demands for fair compensation remain unanswered. The US$281 million dollar Kedung Ombo
Plowshare activists on trial By Stuart Wax Four young peace activists go on trial in New York on May 20, facing charges that could result in their being imprisoned for 15 years. Two of the defendants, Ciaron O'Reily and Moana Cole, are

Culture

Don't show me your green, gold, white, and blue em = By Robin Davidson Well i care about interest rates, unemployment and inflation, the effects of debt on third world nations, shootings, bombings, hangings and mass starvation, i care that
By Dave Riley It's a new world, I tell you, a brave new world. I know this world because I know the Labor Party like I know the back of my hand. And you know, I think the devil got into it. It's possessed. I'm waiting for Bob Hawke's head to spin
It's a Matter of Survival By Anita Gordon and David Suzuki Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990. 278 pp., $16.95 Reviewed by Phil Shannon The earth is terribly, possibly terminally, ill. Few people can articulate this with the clarity and passion of
Women who do exist By Anne O'Callaghan The Company of Strangers, being screened during the Sydney Film Festival, is an endearing film about seven women stranded at a deserted farm house in the stunningly beautiful countryside of the Mont Tremblant
By Pat Brewer The internationally acclaimed Marxist economist Ernest Mandel will be speaking here in July, it was confirmed last week. Mandel will be a featured speaker at the Socialist Scholars Conference, being held in Melbourne from July 18 to
No News would be bad news By Louise Prest CANBERRA — A band well known to Canberra's marchers and rally goers — the New New World Order — had its professional debut here last month. Formerly called the Canberra Samba Band, New New World
By Karen Fletcher Nigel Schmidt died in front of his class at Melville High school in Kempsey just before 10 a.m. on May 2. The immediate cause of death was a blast from a sawn-off shotgun he carried to school in his sports bag and turned on himself
By Melanie Sjoberg MELBOURNE — Striding across the railway tracks into the grime and clatter of the Jolimont Train Maintenance Depot is an unusual way to get to a theatre. This is, however, the home of the Melbourne Workers Theatre. "Theatre

Editorial

Editorial: Deliberately contributing to disaster Nine weeks after the end of the Gulf War, the Australian government has decided to send HMAS Darwin back to the region to help maintain the USA's blockade of Iraq. While bans on some foodstuffs have