Issue 238

News

By Bill Mason BRISBANE — Conservation groups are outraged at the federal government's July 9 decision to give the go-ahead for the controversial Hinchinbrook resort project, subject to developer Keith Williams signing an agreement to use "best
Chris Williams, 18, student at Victorian University of Technology, joined Resistance during the conference I have been active in the campaign against education cuts in Melbourne. It's a campaign I feel very strongly about. Through working with people
By Eva Cheng Internationalism stood out as a central feature in the conference, which was attended by an unprecedentedly large contingent of guests from around the world. Eleven guests from six countries — Indonesia, Germany, the Philippines,
By Bruce Marlowe The Community and Public Sector Union, which covers workers in the Australian Public Service, is to hold a round of mass meetings on July 23 to vote on a CPSU national executive motion for a 24-hour stoppage onr July 25. The move
By Kim Linden MELBOURNE — Some 7000 building workers took to the streets here on July 10 as part of a statewide strike in protest against the federal government's proposal to tax travel allowances. The workers were mainly from the construction
By Marina Cameron SYDNEY — Judgment was reserved by the Classification Review Board on July 12 on the appeal of four former editors of the La Trobe University student newspaper Rabelais. The editors face criminal charges under the National
By Chris Slee Members of the Community and Public Sector Union employed by the Australian Taxation Office will meet between July 15 and 19 to vote on recommendations for work bans put by the union's Tax Division executive. The proposals include a
By Jennifer Thompson July 4 media reports revealed the first concrete information to most Telstra staff, unions and the public of Telstra management's planned job cuts — put at 24,000 — to prepare the company for privatisation. The
BRISBANE — The Queensland Association for Mental Health held a protest on June 24 against proposed funding cuts to the mental health reform initiative Project 300. The joint initiative of the departments of health, housing and family services is
By Margaret Gleeson In their final appearance of a one-week tour which included meetings in Melbourne and Brisbane, Nicaraguan FSLN members Alejandro Bendana and Zoilamerica Ortega addressed a meeting of 70 in Sydney on July 12. Bendana, former
By Sue Bolton MELBOURNE — On July 3, the Victorian Trades Hall Council called a second delegates rally to discuss the campaign to protect award pay and conditions, and to discuss attacks on apprentice and trainee wages. Some 1500 workers and
By Liam Mitchell SYDNEY — The NSW government has been forced to abandon its plan to slash 1800 jobs, close a number of hospitals and cut the funding to others in order to increase the number of hospital beds in outlying suburbs. Health minister
The Coalition's attacks appear to be politically as much as economically motivated. As Arthi Patel from the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre points out, the government's "cost savings" justification for cutting family reunion migrants, whose
By Melanie Sjoberg ADELAIDE — Plans for the national day of action on August 19 are well under way here with an organising committee comprising most unions, as well as involvement from the South Australian Education Network. The rally theme, "For
By Dave Mizon GEELONG — On July 5, a mass picket was held at the E.P. Robinson wool scourers site to mark the end of the strike and picket line. Workers were locked out by management 21 weeks ago because they signed up with the Shearers and Rural
Resistance plans fight against Howard By Marina Cameron "The capitalist system, based on riches for the few and poverty for the rest of us, can provide no solution to the crisis", noted a feature report at the 25th National Conference of the
By Corinne Glenn PERTH — "Challenge, Change, Choice" was the theme of the Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference, held July 8-12 at Edith Cowan University. Some 350 women attended each day's plenary and a plethora of workshops.
By Leo Wellin In an effort to address staff concerns about privatisation, the Chief Executive Officer of Telstra, Frank Blount, has been touring the country with his "staff road show" for the last two months offering his opinion on the "change in
By Anne Pavey FREMANTLE — Some 60 people attended the launch of the Democratic Socialist Party's new branch here on June 28. Crowding into the new office, activists from a variety of campaigns and organisations gathered to hear toasts and plans
By Lisa Macdonald SYDNEY — An alliance of peak environment groups released a Forest Reserve Plan for NSW on July 10. It was submitted to the state government as part of the public consultation phase of the Carr government's forest policy. The
By Lisa Macdonald On July 3, federal cabinet approved a 12,000 cut in the 1996-97 immigration program. In a tone reminiscent of his 1988 One Nation policy which called for reduced Asian immigration, John Howard announced the latest changes,
By Kim Linden and Sue Bolton MELBOURNE — Workers at the ACI glass plant AGM Spotswood are continuing the fight for their jobs. The dispute could become a test case for the Howard government's industrial relations laws. On June 3, ACI's parent

World

The Boycott Burma Campaign in the US succeeded last year in pressuring multinational companies such as Macy, Levi Strauss, Reebok, Liz Clairborne and Eddie Bauer to pull out or stop doing business with Burma as a sanction against the military
By Nico Warouw On July 8 in Surabaya, east Java, an action by 20,000 workers in the Tandes industrial zone was attacked by the military. Under the banner of the People's Democratic Party (PRD), workers from 10 different factories rallied to demand
By Peter Montague In late 1993 the Governing Council of the American Public Health Association unanimously approved Policy Statement 9304, urging US industry to stop using the chemical chlorine. APHA is a professional society, founded in 1872,
By Norm Dixon The results of the twice-delayed KwaZulu-Natal local government elections, held on June 26, were a blow to the Inkatha Freedom Party and its leader, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. While the IFP won the largest share of the vote
Racism's long history By Barry Sheppard Imagine this scenario: A 19-year-old black man, Dick Rowland, works as a shoe-shine "boy" in a high-rise department store. He takes a break to go to the "coloured" bathroom, and has to take an elevator
By Eva Cheng wenty thousand people attended an "open trial" in Erzhou city in the Chinese province of Hubei on May 30 to hear the judgment of 70 defendants, four of whom received death sentences and were executed shortly afterwards. In mid-May,
By Israel Shahak According to most Israeli pollsters, the electoral power of the left (composed currently of the Labour party, Meretz and the "Arab parties") and the right, usually allied with the religious parties and comprising the rest of the
By E.A. Selvanathan Some commentators have predicted that since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) lost the Tamil heartland of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka to the Sri Lankan armed forces, it is the end of the liberation struggle for the
By James Balowski In the wake of large demonstrations against government manipulation to remove Megawati Sukarnoputri as leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), questions over President Suharto's health have again brought the issue of the
By Wayne Hall ATHENS — Andreas Papandreou died on June 23, only days before the fourth conference of his ruling PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Party). The conference, which was to have elected a new deputy-president, was suddenly confronted with
By Sue Bull CANBERRA — Tamil activists and supporters from around the world attended the Peace with Justice Conference in Canberra on June 27-28 to discuss solutions to the war in Sri Lanka and the Tamil people's struggle for self-determination.
By Boris Kagarlitsky MOSCOW — The second-round presidential elections on July 3 began inauspiciously for the authorities. Throughout the morning, the population of St Petersburg, a city considered a major stronghold of the regime, failed to turn
By Zeynep Tufekcioglu Turkey is a country on the edge of turmoil and collapse. It has a familiar story, often repeated in many countries around the world. During the post-World War II policies of import-substitution under the ever watchful eye of
By Eva Cheng On July 2, the Consumers Union of Japan launched a consumer boycott campaign against Chinese products in an attempt to pressure Beijing against conducting more nuclear weapons tests. Beijing's test planned for September is the

Culture

Sumner Locke Elliott: Writing LifeBy Sharon ClarkeAllen and Unwin, 1996. 292 pp., $24.95Reviewed by Brendan Doyle Sumner Locke Elliott was born in Sydney in the year of the October Revolution and died in New York in 1991, a city he had chosen to call
The Tan FamilyBy Rithy PanhSBS Television. Sunday, July 21, 8pm (7.30 in SA)Previewed by Allen Myers This is a stark documentary of a Cambodian peasant family repatriated from a camp in Thailand in 1992 as part of the UN-supervised elections which
Dyirbal Song Poetry: Traditional songs of an Australian rainforest peopleLarrikin through FestivalAmerican Indian DancesARC recordsReviewed by Norm Dixon The songs, music and dances of the world's indigenous peoples have become somewhat trendy in
Night on Bald MountainBy Patrick WhiteCompany B Belvoir and the State Theatre Company of South AustraliaBelvoir Street Theatre until August 4Directed by Neil ArmfieldSet design Anna Borghesi. Costumes Tess Schofield. Music Carl VineReviewed by Helen
RootsSepulturaRoadrunner RecordsReviewed by Ben Courtice I suppose quite a few reviewers must have had a bit of a scratch of the scalp whilst trying to describe Sepultura's latest album. No longer do they play the straight "speed" or "death" metal
By Corinne Glenn The ABC has become the latest target of the coalition government's austerity drive. Mark Brook from Friends of the ABC (WA branch) says, "The Howard government claims that the current ABC is elitist; therefore public funding should
A Veritable Dynamo: Lloyd Ross and Australian Labour 1901-1987By Stephen HoltUniversity of Queensland Press, 1996. 196 pp., $29.95 (pb)Reviewed by Phil Shannon Lloyd Ross made "a lasting contribution to genuine social — but definitely not socialist

Editorial

The federal government's June 11 announcement to increase the woodchip export quota by 1 million tonnes from public forests and an unlimited amount from private land spells disaster for what remains of Australia's native forests. While the