The struggles will continue in 2020 elcome to the final edition of SEARCH Johnson will now roll out a hard-line neoliberal agenda News for 2019. Inside you’ll find articles under the cover of Brexit. Britain’s progressive forces on a breadth of topics - the uprising in will need strong unity to resist the coming onslaught. Chile,W the Black - Palestine solidarity conference, Johnson will not have it all his own way. Once the UK ecological socialism and the activities of the New leaves the EU, the focus can switch to Britain’s rampant International Bookshop in Melbourne, to name a inequality and unfairness and the real agenda of the Tory few. If you read nothing else, don’t miss the article hard-line right. on the celebration of our comrade Vera Deacon’s The electoral defeats of 2019 make independent mass enormous contribution to the Newcastle region, and movements even more imperative. The strikes and mass to Australian politics and the arts more generally. demonstrations happening worldwide – in Chile, In national politics, PM Morrison has left for Hawaii, Ecuador, Brazil, Lebanon, France, Iraq, and Pakistan – while a ring of fire encircles Sydney, fires blaze across have not been reported by the mass media here (see the country, and the country bakes in record heat. The Richard Walsham’s article on page 11). But 2020 will nation is losing precious World Heritage forests and undoubtedly see more resistance, protests, and activism native animals, some irreplaceable, as well as houses and world-wide on the climate crisis and inequality. infrastructure. These issues make it more important than ever that The attempt by the climate-denying right to deflect SEARCH continues its work of linking and blame onto 'greenies', for allegedly stopping hazard enabling socialist activists through our education reduction burns, has been so disingenuous that only the programs, our publications and online presence, our most rusted on right-wingers are still trying to pursue it. events and our participation in mass campaigns. We The feeling in the rest of the community is often despair. have a very full calendar for 2020 that will rely Activists have responded with snap protests, while on our members’ commitment. organised workers on the docks have stopped work due to unhealthy smoke hazes. This week’s half-yearly Budget review, MYEFO, INSIDE revealed that growth, employment and wage forecasts > P.2 Newcastle honours Vera have all been downgraded. It shows this government to Deacon be the highest-taxing since Howard’s, while one third of major Australian corporations still pay no tax. > P.3 Ensuring Integrity Bill Wage stagnation continues, despite 33 wrong wage > P.4 Chile Woke Up forecasts. The government says nothing about inequality, > P.5 Sorry We Missed You and has no plans to raise the Newstart allowance, nor for the aged-care crisis, under-investment in public > P.5 Literacy for Life infrastructure, homelessness and housing affordability. > P.5 New International Bookshop Labour’s devastating loss in the UK election is a blow > P.6 Black - Palestinian Solidarity for the left everywhere. As in the US, Australia and elsewhere, too many working-class voters believed > P.7 Ecological Socialism Johnson’s right-wing populist lies. > P.8 2019 in images Labour will need to analyse the reasons for its defeat and > P.10 Watermelons down the Tigris work out strategies to win next time on the progressive policies that actually had wide support in many opinion > P.11 The Australian media's terrible polls. The membership will most likely continue to reporting on international events support such a program for real change and elect a leader > P.12 Review: Margaret Atwood's who will resist right-wing urgings to swing back to The Testaments neoliberalism. SOCIAL EDUCATION ACTION AND RESEARCH CONCERNING HUMANITYDECEMBER FOUNDATION 2019 1 Newcastle honours veteran activist Vera Deacon Marilla North & Brian Aarons t a ceremony on 25 September, the City of Newcastle honoured SEARCH member and veteran socialist activist Vera Deacon, Afor her ongoing contribution to the life and progressive movements of the city. About two hundred of Vera's friends and family, together with community leaders, gathered at Newcastle City Hall to celebrate Vera's many contributions to her beloved native city. Local historian, conservationist and social justice advocate for people and place - especially the rivers - Vera Deacon is a true daughter of the Hunter River estuary and the wider Newcastle region. She returned to live in Newcastle in 1997 and bought a house at Stockton, the nearest place she could live close to the river and the islands where she had been reared. She joined the Kooragang Wetlands Rehabilitation Vera Deacon and Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes. Project where she has volunteered for the past 20 years, (Photo credit: Newcastle City Council) with hundreds of other dedicated conservationists, to plant thousands of trees and reclaim the wetlands and Newcastle Lord Mayor’s Citation her beloved Ash Island as green lungs breathing for The City of Newcastle deeply appreciates the the residents of the Hunter into the future. contribution that Vera Deacon has made to the Newcastle Lord Mayor, Nuatali Nelmes, presented ongoing preservation and interpretation of our Vera with the Keys of the City, naming her a Civic incredibly rich local history. Ambassador with the title “Freeman of the City”. Vera quickly amended that title to “Freewoman of the Born on the banks of the Hunter River, Vera’s City”. The Lord Mayor’s citation on behalf of the City personal story is a remarkable insight into of Newcastle is in the box at right. Novocastrian history itself, spanning all the way from the Great Depression to this day. SEARCH member Rod Noble was one of those who provided a testimonial in support of Vera’s Lord Vera remains an activist steadfastly involved in Mayor’s award. He mentioned her longstanding progressive social and political movements. membership of the Communist Party (CPA) and noted: She is a trailblazer for women and a leading She never became obsessed with success but more cultural activist integral in the development of with getting on with whatever project she was Australian literature. involved in. If put end to end, these projects would Newcastle has long been a progressive city take up many normal lifetimes. Whether it was local where community activism and solidarity have been history, labour movement history, Aboriginal history, intrinsic in creating change for the betterment of cultural history, environmental activism and much society. more. Newcastle stories will be remembered, thanks in The ceremony also recognised the launch of a ‘chapbook’ part to the Vera Deacon Regional History Fund. in Vera’s honour, published by Yarnspinners Press. Through her generosity and passion, Vera has Many of the stories and articles in the chapbook were ensured that current and future generations of retrieved from old Tribunes dating back to the early 1950s and anthologies in the series “The Tracks We Novocastrians will be able to access the records and Travel”. accounts of those who have come before them. Singing Back the River: A Miscellany of Select- It is these stories that I hope will encourage future ed Writings by and for Vera Deacon comprises a generations of activists and progressives. signed and numbered limited edition of 250 books. It is Vera’s story that I hope will inspire The chapbook is generously illustrated with linocuts Novocastrians of all ages to remember our past for by famous Melbourne social realist, Noel Counihan. the prosperity it has created for us all. The publishers gratefully acknowledge the support for this project from the Counihan Estate and in particular Today, the City of Newcastle recognises this the artist’s son, Michael Counihan. immense contribution by naming Vera Deacon as a Copies of the book can be obtained from Vera Deacon Freeman of the City of Newcastle. herself at a cost of $30.00 plus $5.00 postage. Send a Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes cheque or money-order to: 4 Clyde Street, Stockton, City of Newcastle 2295 NSW or call her on 02 4920 1141. 2 SEARCH NEWS Where to with the fight against the Ensuring Integrity Bill? Don Sutherland indulgent, careless act by any union leader in this time ow should union movement activists define will have consequences. Whatever the thinking the first defeat of the Ensuring Integrity Bill behind the ACTU’s courtship of One Nation (ON) and its leader Pauline Hanson, this was a H(EIB)? A major strategic breakthrough, or a necessary tactical decision; not because of the significant tactical achievement? And why does headline rapprochement with Hanson, but because it it matter? paid due respect to the significant working class The May Federal election showed the limits of a cohort in the ON electoral base. However, union strategy focused almost exclusively on the ON’s rejection of the Bill at this Senate parliamentary road to fairness. vote will not necessarily be repeated. Hanson During the election campaign Morrison and the is rarely consistent or logical. Repeating our effort LNP policy showed no appetite for this Bill. But the will depend again on our movement’s effort to employers did and they wasted no time making mobilise working class ON members and hangers sure that the new Lib–Nat government would go after on to tell Hanson and Roberts to vote NO once unions in a big way, even though the current Fair more. Where Senator Lambie will go next time is also Work Act 2009 (FWA09) is heavily stacked in their an unknown. favour, loaded with what we have called its We should never forget that ON politics is based on a “broken rules”.