The following article is abridged from a speech by Susan Austin, Socialist Alliance Hobart branch convener, to a 250-strong Indigenous rights rally on June 27 organised by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.
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One of the Latrobe ValleyÂ’²õ longest-running industrial protests has ended. Former employees at Mechanical Engineering CorporationÂ’²õ (MEC) Yallourn workshop left the site on the June 16-17 weekend after a 277 day protest.
East Timor is holding parliamentary elections on June 30. Many commentators predict former president Xanana GusmaoÂ’²õ new party, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), will form government, ousting the current ruling Fretilin party. However, a new government is unlikely to bring an end to the severe social and economic crisis besetting the country, Tomas Freitas from Luta Hamutuk (“Struggle Together”), a Timorese activist group that monitors the state budget and the petroleum fund (now worth US$1.4 billion), told Â鶹´«Ã½ WeeklyÂ’²õ Peter Boyle. Freitas is also a member of the Consultative Council on the Petroleum Fund, which is comprised of government and civil society representatives.
Dr Gary MacLennan, a long-time socialist activist and lecturer in creative industries at the Queensland University of Technology, was suspended for six months without pay on June 6. He, along with a colleague, Dr John Hookham, was charged with misconduct following the publication of an article in the Australian that criticised a PhD film project that mocked the disabled. Students and staff launched a support campaign for the two suspended lecturers which has linked up with a struggle against QUT’s decision to close down the school of humanities and human services.
A snap protest at Parliament House attracted 250 people on June 27 against the federal governmentÂ’²õ plan to send police and military into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Speakers included Greens Senator Bob Brown, who labelled the plan a “concocted pre-election strategy by a government who for 11 years has done nothing for Aboriginal people”. Sara Maynard from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre suggested that protestersÂ’ anger be directed toward the Tasmanian premier and parliament for going along with the plan, while Aboriginal activist Jimmy Everett pointed out that PM John Howard is fighting one injustice with more injustice. Susan Austin from the Socialist Alliance spoke about the “Justice for Mulrunji” campaign and said more deaths in custody would be likely under HowardÂ’²õ racist plan.
Four years after an inquiry established collusion between British intelligence, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the loyalist paramilitary killers of leading Belfast civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane, the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service (PPS) ruled on June 25 that there was “insufficient evidence” to bring charges against any police officers or British military intelligence personnel.
In a June 25 joint statement issued with his Australians All co-patron and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) chairperson Lowitja OÂ’Donoghue, former Coalition PM Malcolm Fraser attacked the Howard governmentÂ’²õ June 21 announcement that it was taking control of 60 Aboriginal communities in remote areas of the Northern Territory as a “throwback to past paternalism”.
Up to 1000 activists descended on the town of Yeppoon on the central Queensland coast for the June 22-24 weekend of action against Operation Talisman Sabre — joint US-Australia war games.
During the last year the global warming debate has reached a turning point. Due to the media hype surrounding Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, followed by a new assessment by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the climate sceptics have suffered a major defeat.
Heard the story about the last capitalist on Earth who sold the rope used to hang the second last capitalist? Well, they will try and make a buck from anything.
More than 80 people packed out the Aboriginal Cultural Centre on June 23 for a public “peopleÂ’²õ trial” of US President George Bush. The meeting, organised by the Wollongong Stop Bush committee, heard testimony from Saeb Ali from Peace for Lebanon, Maritime Union of Australia Port Kembla branch secretary Gary Keane and Walk against Warming initiator and Resistance member Paola Harvey.
After several days of intensive, sometimes heated, discussions and membership consultations, public-service unions voted on June 28 to end their national strike and accept the South African governmentÂ’²õ “settlement offer”. The strike, which began on June 1, was the longest and largest public-sector strike in South AfricaÂ’²õ history, with more than 700,000 workers on strike and another 300,000, for whom it was illegal to strike, taking part in militant marches, pickets and other forms of protest.
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