By Graham Matthews
More than 40 people attended the Brisbane Fight Back conference organised by the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance here on September 1. The day featured discussion by trade unionists, students, migrants and Aboriginal people, on how all those under attack from the Liberals can build a combined campaign.
The first session discussed Howard's "workplace relations" bill and its impact on organised workers. Claire Moore, Queensland state secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, discussed the union's campaign against the federal government's attacks on the public service.
Resistance member and apprentice metal worker Bernie Wunsch argued that the Liberals' plans for apprentices and trainees would take conditions back to what they were in the 1940s. The Liberals were merely "completing the work of [former ACTU executive member Laurie] Carmichael", Wunsch said, in denying payment for time spent in study or "unproductive" work.
DSP Brisbane secretary and CPSU delegate Jim McIlroy called on the trade union movement to call a national fight back conference, involving trade unions, students, the unemployed and all groups under attack from the government. "We also need to win the ideological fight back against the whole neo-liberal agenda of Labor and the Liberals", McIlroy said.
Queensland Greens councillor Angela Jones addressed the workshop "Saving Telstra and the Environment". "We need to build an extra-parliamentary campaign", against the Telstra privatisation, she insisted. Trusting the ALP and other senators not to bend to the Liberals' privatisation plans ignores the history of privatisation carried out by Labor in office.
Other highlights of the day were a workshop entitled "Stop racist attacks on migrants and Aboriginal people" addressed by Aboriginal activist and lawyer Sam Watson, John Nebauer from the DSP and Jorge Rodriguez from the Committee for Economic Justice. Watson condemned attacks by the Liberal government on Aboriginal funding, but was also critical of the role played by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), arguing that it was unnecessarily bureaucratic and alienating to Aboriginal people.
Speaking on the day as a whole, Jim McIlroy described it as a success. "In a small way we have begun the discussion of a genuine fight back against the Howard government's attacks on working people", McIlroy said. "The next step is to generalise this discussion and for all groups fighting individually to unite against the Liberals' cuts."