Issue 709

News

An industrial relations forum on May 8, hosted by the Socialist Alliance, brought together trade union and political activists to discuss their responses to the ALP’s recently released IR policy and the campaign against Work Choices.
On May 10, 60 people attended a public meeting opposing the closure of the humanities department of the Queensland University of Technology. The meeting was held at QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus.
On May 8, 150 unionists rallied outside the NSW parliament to protest against the move by the John Holland construction company to abandon the NSW workers’ compensation scheme in favour of the federal government’s Comcare.
The federal budget includes a multi-million package of extra spending on "security" during coming years, according to media releases from the attorney-general's department.
On May 3, Adelaide lost one of its strongest defenders of human and Indigenous rights with the death of Aunty Veronica Brodie, a widely respected and loved elder of the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri peoples of South Australia. On May 11, more than 500 people attempted to crowd into the small Centennial Park Cemetery chapel to farewell her. To accommodate the hundreds of people who had travelled from around Australia to pay their respects, chapel staff took the remarkable decision to broadcast the commemorative service over the PA throughout the foyer and hallways.
Well-known left-wing academic Dr Gary MacLennan and his Queensland University of Technology colleague John Hookham are facing possible suspension or dismissal without pay on charges of “straight misconduct” over their public criticism of a PhD project approved of by the QUT ethics committee.
Two Chinese detainees have been on hunger strike in the Villawood detention centre for more than 40 days. During that time, an asylum seeker in Stage One has stabbed himself. His condition is deteriorating.
Two blockades halted logging in high conservation value native forests two hours east of Melbourne on May 8, Friends of the Earth reported.
From the end of May to July 2, the largest military training exercise in Australian history will take place, involving 14,000 US and 12,000 Australian military personnel. The Talisman Sabre ’07 war games will be held at joint US-Australian “training facilities” — Shoalwater Bay in Queensland and Bradshaw and Delamere Range in the Northern Territory.
The proposed Anvil Hill coalmine in NSW is rapidly becoming a central battleground in the fight against climate change.
The proposed Anvil Hill coalmine in NSW is rapidly becoming a central battleground in the fight against climate change.

Analysis

While there are treatments to slow the progression of AIDS, adding decades to sufferers’ lives, access to them is a case study in the vast gap between rich and poor nations. Few deny that HIV/AIDS is a massive health crisis. What is now clear is that it is also a social one, exacerbated by the contradictions of a world dominated by the wealthy minority of First World countries.
On May 5, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its final working group report, the third in a series, as a part of its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), aimed at evaluating global warming. The IPCC published its first assessment report in 1990, a supplementary report in 1992, a second assessment report in 1995, and a third in 2001.
Treasurer Peter Costello's May 8 federal budget was aimed at investing in the future of big business. It cements the government's privatisation agenda, further running down already neglected public services and throwing money at private-profit alternatives. It fails to even begin to address global warming, and contains a further major hike in military spending. At the same time, the government feathered its re-election bid with a rash of small to middling tax cuts.
I held such hope for the Sydney Coroner's inquest into the death of Brian Peters, one of the Balibo Five in East Timor in 1975, because we were promised an open court. But now the rules have been changed to allow vital evidence to be given "in camera", which gives Commonwealth bureaucrats the opportunity to censor that evidence.
A high-speed rail network powered by 100% renewables would eliminate greenhouse gas emissions produced by long-distance air travel in eastern Australia. Based on a rapid implementation of the French TGV system, Matthew Wright from Beyond Zero Emissions, wants Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane to be linked in this visionary project.
Women’s unqualified right to control our own bodies remains a critical question for feminists. An unwanted pregnancy can have a massive impact on all aspects of a woman’s life — her financial situation, employment, mental and physical health, and relationships.
Ali Humanyun, a Pakistani queer refugee seeking asylum in Australia, has been incarcerated inside the Villawood detention centre for two years and four months. He was refused a Protection (Class XA) Visa in May 2006 and rejected by the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) in October. Humanyun was not granted legal aid for a Federal Magistrates Court appearance, and so the RRT’s decision was upheld on February 19.
Climate change is a dire threat to human existence. Yet the plans to tackle it put forward by the Coalition and Labor fall far short of what is necessary. Politicians present as "common sense" that renewable energy can play only a peripheral role in Australia. However, Zane Alcorn explains the potential for a renewables-based transformation of Australia's electricity grid, beginning in 2008.

World

Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) general secretary Farooq Tariq was released from detention in the early hours of May 7. Tariq and more than 1000 others were rounded up the previous Friday in a failed attempt by the government of General Pervez Musharraf to weaken a mass reception for a visit by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to Lahore. Chaudhry was suspended for being too independent of the Mushurraf regime and too respectful of the rule of law.
The second round of East Timor’s presidential elections, held on May 9, resulted in the victory of Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta. Ramos Horta, running as an independent, had won 73% of the vote with 90% of ballots counted. He won a majority in 10 out of 13 districts. However, Fretilin, the party of defeated candidate Francisco Guterres Lu’Olo, has alleged Australian interference in the elections, including the intimidation of two campaign rallies in the final week of the campaign by Australian troops from the “International Stabilisation Force” (ISF).
Some 100,000 protesters flooded Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on May 3 to call for the ouster of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. But after surviving three no-confidence votes in parliament a few days later, it appeared that Olmert would hang on.
The National Emissions Trading Taskforce is due to present some sort of design scheme for an Australian national emissions trading scheme in the second half of 2007, and PM John Howard has announced a task group to look at how Australia could participate in the global market.
Nine hundred police were used in simultaneous raids across Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and other cities on May 9 as part of a pre-emptive strike against anti-G8 protests planned for June 6-8. Some 100,000 protesters are expected to demonstrate against the summit, which will be held in the northern seaside resort of Heiligendamm. The G8 draws together eight of the world’s largest industrialised powers — the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and Canada.
Max Lane spoke to Avelino Coelho, general secretary of the Socialist Party of Timor (PST) about East Timor’s presidential election, the second round of which was held on May 9.
In the May 3 elections to the Scottish parliament, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won 47 seats out of a total of 129 — a rise of 20 seats compared to the 2003 election. Labour lost four seats, emerging with a total of 46; the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost one seat apiece, winning 17 and 16 seats respectively. The results mean that for the first time in Scottish political history, the SNP won more seats that any other party, although not enough to command a working majority in parliament.
On April 29, eight solidarity groups from across Europe adopted a Public Appeal of International Lawyers issued in December that calls on the US government to honour its responsibility towards the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. Used during the Vietnam War, this dioxin-rich defoliant is still seriously contaminating pockets of Vietnam’s environment and food chain, with devastating human consequences.
On April 29, the Indonesian National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas) again suffered intimidation and disruption of a planned meeting in Sukoharjo, on the outskirts of Solo in Central Java. Members of the Islamic Community Militia prevented the meeting from going ahead by blockading surrounding roads and occupying the venue of the meeting. The district chief of Sukoharjo, Bambang Riyanto, asked Papernas to cancel its meeting, even though the party had obtained the necessary permits.
Air attacks by US and NATO forces that killed dozens of villagers in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on April 28-29 sparked angry protests by thousands of residents of the province’s Shindand district. The Inter Press Service news agency reported that on April 30 protesters torched the district headquarters of the US-installed Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.
In early May, Green Left Weekly’s Emma Clancy spoke to Ciaran Quinn from Sinn Fein about the new power-sharing agreement between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which restores power to the Northern Ireland Assembly, ending London’s direct rule of the six counties. From 2003-06, Quinn was Sinn Fein’s deputy general-secretary, and he is a member of the party’s Ard Chomhairle (national executive). He is currently living in Sydney, where he is coordinating Friends of Sinn Fein Australia.
Iraq's 28,000 oil workers are due to stop work on May 14 to protest against a draft oil law that would pave the way for Iraq's nationalised oil industry to be taken over by US and British oil corporations.
Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez threatened a round of new nationalisations when he announced fresh plans on May 3 to develop Venezuela’s economy along pro-people lines. This followed the May 1 nationalisations of oil projects in the Orinoco Belt, believed to be home to the world’s largest oil reserves, which gave the state-owned oil company PDVSA at least 60% controlling share of existing ventures owned by five oil multinationals, worth US$17 billion.
“Venezuela’s community health program Barrio Adentro made important strides yesterday with the graduation of the first group of Venezuelan doctors” trained in the Cuban-developed system of “general integral medicine” (GMI), according to an April 11 article on Venezuelanalysis.com.

Culture

This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983
By K.S. Inglis
Black Inc., 2006
525 pages, $39.95 (pb)
Having recently slated Ian Thatcher's woeful 2003 biography of Trotsky (GLW #696), I approached David Renton's contribution to the Haus Publishing "Life and Times" series with some trepidation: would this be another piece of incompetent anti-Trotsky hackwork?
The "Third Way" is an economic strategy supposedly standing between orthodox neoliberalism and socially orientated development. It's an attempt to sustain capitalist accumulation, and ameliorate the problems that capitalism creates.

General

It’s like having one of those nightmares that seems to grow more horrible as it drags on. We’ve been looking forward to the next federal election for a chance to get rid of John Howard, but with each day federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd sounds more and more like Howard.

Letters

Depleted uranium While there are some beneficial uses of radiation such as for X-rays and anti-cancer therapy, expanding the uranium industry to cater to a world greedy for electricity is fraught with great danger. Most people are not aware

Resistance!

Students across NSW are getting organised for a “Stop Bush! Stop Howard!” student conference on June 1 aimed at building the protests when the US president comes to Sydney for APEC in September.
As PM John Howard prepares to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) in Sydney in September — to which US President George Bush and around 21 world leaders have been invited — a debate has opened over tactics for protests against the summit.