Issue 454

News

BY SHANE BENTLEY NEWCASTLE — The chief executive officers of Westpac, the National Australia Bank and ANZ earn between $1.6 and $2.4 million a year — but bank staff earn as little as $25,307 a year, or $12.76 an hour, and contribute between
BY CHRIS SLEE & GRAHAM MATTHEWS MELBOURNE — On June 30 Socialist Alliance activists took their campaign in the federal electorate of Aston to the streets to protest the first anniversary of the GST. The Aston by-election, to be held on July 14,
Protest opposes military ties @box text intr = DARWIN — Members of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor held an action during the June 25 visit of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, opposing any federal government attempt to
BY TIM GOODEN GEELONG — After two months of fruitless attempts to negotiate a pay increase, workers at Geelong Windows decided that only industrial action would make their boss see reason — and got what they were demanding after a week of
BY MATTHEW EGAN & BRONWYN POWELL SYDNEY - More than 100 student activists from across Australia discussed the way forward for the anti-corporate movement at the June 29-30 Globalise This: Student Anti-Capitalist Conference. The conference began
BY BILL MASON BRISBANE — Reinforcing long-held suspicions about scams in the Howard government's Job Network, one of the largest private employment organisations in the network, Leonie Green and Associates, has been ordered to repay $70,000 it
BY DAVID BOYD & DANIEL OOI SYDNEY — The University of New South Wales University Council has announced plans to merge the Faculty of Life Science and the Faculty of Science and Technology, a move which has staff and students worried about the
BY DANNY FAIRFAX Imagine this: you've had a bad day at school, bullies have pestered you, and your teachers don't do anything to prevent it. Finally the bell rings and you can go home, where you decide to vent your rage — by writing a revenge
BY TIM STEWART BRISBANE — Members of 20 organisations came together on June 26 to plan protests outside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane. The meeting unanimously decided that a march "to the gates of CHOGM" on the
LISMORE — Chanting "no-one is illegal, free the refugees!" 20 Socialist Alliance members and supporters held a speakout on June 26 to highlight the federal Coalition government's (and ALP opposition's) policy of locking up refugees in remote
BY ROB MILLER MELBOURNE — The Socialist Alliance continues to expand with a new branch set up on June 28 in the federal electorate of Melbourne. Attended by 50 people, the Melbourne meeting brought together activists from a wide variety of
BY DAVE MURPHY & RUTH RATCLIFFE DARWIN — Police will have the power to stop any behaviour they interpret as "anti-social", under new laws introduced into the Northern Territory parliament on June 7. The legislation will also widen police powers
BY SHUA GARFIELD HOBART — Teaching staff at the University of Tasmania have voted to hold a 24-hour strike on July 18 after negotiations between the National Tertiary Education Union and university administration on a new enterprise agreement
BY STUART MARTIN WOLLONGONG — In stark contrast to the vague talk from officials in meetings elsewhere, the South Coast Labor Council's June 27 stopwork meeting on the campaign to save WorkCover debated a definite course of action — and was
BY SANDY WHELAN ADELAIDE — "It's probably the first time I've ever really enjoyed a whole day at work", postal worker John McGill said of his first day back at Adelaide Mail Centre after winning an appeal against unfair dismissal on June 25.
BY TOM FLANAGAN "Whilst we might be the first trade union to walk away from the ALP this week, we also hope for the sake of injured workers in this state that we won't be the last", said Chris Read, the secretary of the NSW Fire Brigade Employees'
BY JESS RODGERS "Who did the killings? Who did the killings? Downer doesn't know — he hasn't even condemned them!", James Vassilopoulos, a representative of the Socialist Alliance told protesters in Canberra on June 29. The emergency protest

World

BY SEAN HEALY What started as a peaceful student sit-in against privatisation may yet erupt into a nationwide uprising against Prime Minister Sir Makere Morauta, after police shot dead at least three students in what some have dubbed "Papua New
BY BORIS KAGARLITSKY To judge from opinion surveys, newspaper reports and simply from conversations on the street, Russian society is moving leftward. To judge from the statements of politicians and the relationship of forces within the elite,
BY DAVID BACON OAKLAND, California — Last month 14 men and women left their coffee farms in Veracruz, Mexico, and began the journey north. Within days, their bodies were found on the hardpan of the Sonora desert. At first glance, they died of
BY KERRYN WILLIAMS JAKARTA — "It's become much worse since the economic crisis. There are more homeless people, more street singers, and more street sellers", Onie told me, before turning back to his battered guitar and filling the tiny office of
The Cuban government has announced the capture of three Cuban-American terrorists from Miami, a small victory in its efforts to stop ongoing terrorist attacks against the revolutionary island country. State security official Manuel Hevia told a

It is only three weeks since Tony Blair led New Labour to a landslide victory in the British elections. But the future looks grim for the government, with members of the largest union in the country openly questioning their allegiance to the Labour party and pledging a full-blown fight against Blair's privatisation plans.

BY VANYA TANAJA LIQUICA, East Timor — Amidst the rubble of government offices which the jungle is starting to reclaim stands a flagpole flying, not the Indonesian red and white, but the red flag, the flag of the Socialist Party of Timor. This
BY IGGY KIM The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has called its members out for a one-day national strike on July 5, in a determined response to an unprecedented wave of government repression which has included the arrest of several top union
BY ASAD ABUKHALIL Quiet has apparently returned to the Lebanese-Israeli border after violent incidents in mid-May marked the first anniversary of Israel's forced withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Israeli forces shot two Lebanese men who were
BY SEAN HEALY Not even a decision by the World Bank to cancel its Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics was enough to divert the anger of 40,000 Catalans, who on June 24 demonstrated against the World Bank and its devotion to corporate
BY DAN CONNELL Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent four-country tour of Africa produced a flurry of press coverage on renewed US interest in ending the 18-year Sudan civil war. Despite US President George W. Bush's nomination of a special
BY MALIK MIAH On June 8, the United States Civil Rights Commission issued a divided report on the electoral process in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. By a partisan vote of six to two, the eight-member commission voted along party
BY SEAN HEALY Some of the world's largest corporations came under fire in the southern Californian city of San Diego on June 24, when 1600 environmentalists marched on the annual convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, to protest
BY JENNIFER WANJIRU NAIROBI — Environmentalists in Kenya have threatened court action to stop the filming of the US television show Survivor Series III, that formally begins on July 1 and runs to September 30. They accuse the filmmakers of

Culture

REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON @detail = Lenin: A BiographyBy Robert ServicePapermac, 2001561 pp, $33 (pb) Vladimir Lenin has too often been the much-abused meat in the biographical sandwich, mangled and distorted between the turgid adulation of
The Big AnimalDirected by Jerzy StuhrStars Jerzy Stuhr, Anna Dynna2000 Sydney Film Festival REVIEW BY MARGARET ALLUM The big animal of the title is not one often found in small towns in Poland. A circus camel has been left behind and attached
REVIEW BY MARINA CARMAN The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the post-Apartheid stateBy Richard A. WilsonCambridge University Press 2001271 pages $39.95 Finally, the story behind the "miracle" transition in
101 ReykjavikDirected by Baltasar KormakurStars Victoria Abril, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Hanna Maria Karlsdottir2000 Sydney Film Festival REVIEW BY MARGARET ALLUM 101 Reykjavik is the postcode for the part of Iceland's capital that is off the

General

By Ian Rintoul "A great start!" That's how the convenors of the English Socialist Alliance describe the result of the June general election, the first general election campaign of the Socialist Alliance. The Socialist Alliance and Scottish
NSW Blue Mountains bluemountains@socialist-alliance.org Info: 9687 5134 Lismore lismore@socialist-alliance.org Info: 6622 5050 (Edda) or 6622 0103 (Nick) Newcastle newcastle@socialist-alliance.org Info: 4926 5328 (Steve)
By Ian Rintoul & Dick Nichols, national convenors, Socialist Alliance The Socialist Alliance was formed last February by nine socialist organisations to meet the burning need for a real alternative in Australian politics: An alternative for all
Every Socialist Alliance supporter can help the Aston by-election campaign: If you live in Victoria, you can hand out how-to-vote cards and then join us at our election night party! To volunteer for July 14, ring (03) 9386 4815, 9639 8622, 9388
Socialist Alliance has now been launched in all capital cities, and a round of regional launches began on June 15 when 40 people attended the launch of the Newcastle Socialist Alliance. The audience was a cross-section of the sort of people who are
"Best wishes to the Socialist Alliance and your campaign. So serious is the domination of the transnational corporations and economic rationalist ideology, all socialists and environmentalists must fight harder to link economics and ecological
To the founding conference of the Socialist Alliance Saturday, August 4 and Sunday August 5, Trades Hall, Lygon Street, Melbourne The founding conference of the Socialist Alliance will adopt the platform and constitution of the Alliance and set
By Rebecca Lemay The GST has got to go! It's not just a tax, but part of a system of taxation, which in the words of Business Review Weekly "is about shifting the burden of taxation from capital to labour." The GST widens the gap between rich and
By David Glanz, Aston by-election campaign manager "Scrap the GST — vote Socialist Alliance!" That's the message SA supporters have been taking to the streets of Aston for the past six weeks. The Aston federal by-election on July 14 is our
Axe the GST! The Socialist Alliance's June 30 anti-GST pickets received saturation media coverage. The ABC, SBS and three commercial TV channels all highlighting the only nationwide protests against the hated tax. Our pickets explained the real
By Linda Waldron "I'm not interested in the mobile phone or being addressed as 'Councillor'. What is important is to give the city back to the people. It's time the council reflected the interests of residents, small business, the poor and the
Public need not corporate greed: Fund Medicare and end government funding of private schools, hospitals and health insurance Axe the GST, tax the rich: Introduce a highly progressive tax on incomes, profits and wealth of the rich. Jobs not