Fifteen of the 20 workers at the Esselte site in Minto, in Sydneys south-west, have been on strike for four weeks. The stationary company has been trying to force its employees onto Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs individual contracts) for two years.
Issue 717
News
July 5 marked 196 years since Venezuela declared its independence following a long struggle led by the countrys Indigenous people and a black slave revolt. To mark Independence Day, the embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela hosted a public conference in Sydney on July 7.
During the visit of US aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk to Sydney, Stop the War Coalition activists held two anti-war protests on July 5 and 8. Under the gargantuan shadow of the Kitty Hawk activists handed out anti-war material, held a banner calling for the end of the occupation of Iraq, and spoke out for the withdrawal of Australian and US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
A report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC), launched on June 22, recommends that laws discriminating against gays be removed. The report comes at a time when record numbers of Australians are in favour of gay marriage.
In an unexpected backdown, the Queensland University of Technology agreed in the Federal Court on July 12 to continue paying the salaries of the two lecturers who were suspended after they criticised a documentary titled Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains, produced by QUT PhD student Michael Noonan.
Some 80 people packed the Resistance Centre on July 1 for a Latin America solidarity conference organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), Australia Solidarity with Latin America (ASLA) and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) committee.
Arumugam Rajeevan, an Australian cirizen of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, was arrested in Sydney on July 10 on terrorism charges. This follows the May 1 arrest of two Tamils in Melbourne on similar charges.
The annual rally for NAIDOC week on July 13 drew a crowd of 1500-2000 people. While officially a day to celebrate the survival and revival of Indigenous culture and heritage, outrage at PM John Howards recent intervention in the Northern Territory was palpable in the crowd. A sea of placards and banners made reference to the importance of protecting land rights, and fears about children being taken away.
On June 30, 45 people met to prepare the next phase of the Save Ralphs Bay (SRB) action groups campaign against a proposed canal housing estate being built by the Walker Corporation, owned by billionaire Lang Walker, inside the publicly owned Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, in the Derwent river estuary.
Thousands of people rallied on July 13 and 14 around Australia during NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) week. Around 400 people gathered in Brisbane on July 14. Speakers from as far away as the Torres Strait Islands spoke out against Howard’s invasion of the Northern Territory, Aboriginal deaths in custody, inequality in health and housing, and the Beattie government’s plans to forcibly amalgamate councils. New Zealand activist Julia Espinoza spoke about Maori solidarity with Aboriginal people.
On July 14, Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef was charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation after 12 days in detention without any charge. His detention without charges or a trial shows the danger to civil liberties posed by federal and state anti-terror laws.
In a judgment against the police that was describing as scathing by Sydney Morning Herald journalist David Marr, magistrate David Heilpern dismissed all charges against the two tranny cops who were violently arrested at a protest against US Vice-President Dick Cheney on February 23. This brings to four the number of Cheney protesters who were charged and acquitted.
A gathering of 150 unionists and political activists stood outside the Queensland ALP conference held at Brisbanes Exhibition and Convention Centre on June 30. Organised by the state branches of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union, the protest called on the ALP to maintain the promise made at the ALP national conference to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). After the national conference, Labors industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard announced that a Labor government would keep the ABCC until 2010.
Analysis
PM John Howards new intervention policy in the Northern Territory has begun with federal and state police storming into Indigenous communities.
Three years after extending its moratorium on the commercial growing of genetically modified (GM) crops, the Victorian ALP government appears poised to remove the ban when it expires in February 2008.
It is often thought that concern for the interconnection of living systems is a modern development. But Karl Marxs talked about it repeatedly throughout his Capital.
John Howard is more than happy to welcome war criminal George Bush to Sydney in September, but he wont even give the time of day to struggling workers, such as Botany Cranes union delegate Barry Hemsworth, who is still on the grass more than 300 days after being unfairly sacked, Socialist Alliance activist Pip Hinman told Green Left Weekly.
PM John Howard and ALP leader Kevin Rudd have both attacked Unions NSW secretary John Robertson for comments, secretly recorded and leaked to the media, made at a Bennelong Your Rights at Work meeting in late June.
Weve tried to enter Palestine by land. Weve tried to arrive by air. Now were getting serious. Were taking a ship.
In last months elections in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Workers Rights team took all positions against a ticket led by an alliance between the unions print and vehicle divisions. Some Workers Rights candidates received over 80% of the vote. In the Victorian branch, where most positions were strongly contested, 40% of members voted.
The 10th national Labour History Conference on June 4-6 delved into the labour movements past, but also featured interesting debates about present-day concerns.
Ali Humayun, the queer Pakistani locked up in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, is suing VIDC management and the federal government for negligence of care.
Pressure from unions over the exploitation of foreign workers employed under the 457 visa scheme for temporary workers has forced the Howard government to tighten some of the regulations.
A bill recently pushed through federal parliament has the potential to threaten state moratoriums on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by granting new powers to the federal agriculture minister, a WA anti-GMO activist told Green Left Weekly.
Recent attacks on the organic food industry are about discrediting it to soften up the public to accept genetically modified (GM) crops, Dr Maggie Lilith of the Conservation Council of WA and the Say No to GMO campaign told Green Left Weekly.
Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq. This was how the BBC reported Nelsons July 5 comments to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the release of a review of Australias defence strategy.
The following is abridged from a letter sent by Dean Mighell, Victorian secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, to ALP leader Kevin Rudd following Mighells forced resignation from the party on May 30.
We mourn our friend and comrade Gail, who lost her valiant battle with cancer on July 2.
On June 25, Russell Miles, a proud member of the International Socialist Tendency and widely-loved community activist, ended his life.
World
In the two weeks following the Sharm el Sheikh Summit on June 25, at which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners from Israeli jails, Israel abducted more than 300 members of Fatah in the West Bank.
Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional US and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41% higher in June than in January, according to unofficial health ministry statistics, the July 4 Washington Post reported.
The June 30 election has resulted in neither of the two main contenders the ruling party Fretilin and the recently formed CNRT (National Congress for Timorese Reconctruction) gaining an outright majority for a new parliament. Fretilin secured 29% of the vote, followed by CNRT with 24%. After the result was announced by the National Election Commission on July 9, a process of wrangling ensued within the East Timorese elite over how the government shall be composed and who shall lead it.
On June 27, Tony Blair finally stepped down as prime minister, exiting Downing Street to the sound of loud jeers from anti-war protesters and families of soldiers killed in Iraq. His successor, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, gave a brief speech at the door of Number 10 in which he used the word change no less than eight times. Many British trade union leaders have been hoping that Blairs departure and Browns ascendency may signal a move away from the neoliberal agenda pursued by three successive Blair governments. This was always a vain hope, as Brown was Blairs treasurer for the entire 10 years of his reign and architect of many of New Labours most reactionary policies, including the infamous Private Finance Initiatives that have brought many National Health Service trusts to the brink of bankruptcy.
Coinciding with the release of a report by Human Rights Watch exposing endemic human rights abuses in West Papua and the refusal to allow a member of the US Congress to visit the province, protests featuring the Morning Star flag were held.
Indonesian police routinely torture, rape and kill with impunity in West Papua and risk fanning separatism there, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on July 5.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) ruled on June 28 that the 2001 conviction of Libyan citizen Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi — sentenced to 27 years’ jail for allegedly bombing Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people — “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”. The SCCRC referred al Megrahi’s case to Scotland’s appeal court.
Like the rest of Latin America, Venezuela’s history is scarred by colonialism’s racist legacy — Venezuela’s people were dispossessed in 1520 following Spanish settlement. In the following centuries, they were systematically killed and their land exploited. Slavery, which allowed the colonisers to plunder Venezuela, existed until 1854, and at the time of the 1830 constitution neither indigenous people nor those descended from Africa were recognised as Venezuelans.
Culture
Joanna Blythman exposes the hype about the recent British food revolution as a myth.
Lucky Miles
Directed by Michael James Rowland
With Kenneth Moraleda, Rodney Afif and Srisacd Sacdpraseuth
In cinemas from July 19
Directed by Michael James Rowland
With Kenneth Moraleda, Rodney Afif and Srisacd Sacdpraseuth
In cinemas from July 19
The Monster at our Door: The Global Threat of Bird Flu
By Mike Davis
The New Press, 2006
216 pages, $22 (pb)
By Mike Davis
The New Press, 2006
216 pages, $22 (pb)
Smoke suffocates charcoaled slabs of continents while
Uncertain politicians hesitate to make unpopular precedents.
Now or never.
Sunshine energy abounds, but rejected as being economically unsound.
Heat melts the ice as white bears drown in spreading seas but
Industries cling to destructive, established technologies.
Now or never.
Evolution? or extinction?
@auth poem = Selina OBrien
Uncertain politicians hesitate to make unpopular precedents.
Now or never.
Sunshine energy abounds, but rejected as being economically unsound.
Heat melts the ice as white bears drown in spreading seas but
Industries cling to destructive, established technologies.
Now or never.
Evolution? or extinction?
@auth poem = Selina OBrien
General
I am sure readers would agree that the real swindlers were exposed in the discussion after the much-watched screening of Martin Durkins Great Global Warming Swindle on ABC TV last week.
Letters
'Speciesism'
While I can agree with Richard Blumer (GLW 713) about the horrors of intensive capitalist animal farming and the need for reform to prohibit cruel and unnecessary suffering of animals, I cannot agree with his argument that "speciesism
Resistance!
Internationalism was a strong theme of the 36th Resistance conference held in Sydney over July 5-8. Apart from hearing from Julia Espinoza from Socialist Worker in New Zealand and Gusti Galuh Ratna Sari from the Indonesian National Student League for Democracy, the whole conference took part in a separate one-day forum on July 7 organised by the Venezuelan Embassy.
My university, the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), has given 22 student and staff records to the Australian Federal Police, the NSW police and the Australian Taxation Office.