Issue 7 - September 1 2013 $3 / $5 (solidarity price) NO U.S. ATTACK ON SYRIA REDFLAG PAGE 10 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative www.redfl ag.org.au SOLE PARENTS THE LIMITS OF HIT HARD BY CAPITALIST CUTBACKS DEMOCRACY Page 12 Page 13

TWO RIGHT WING, REFUGEE-BASHING BASTARDS THIS IS NO CHOICE

ALSO INSIDE: AUSTRALIAN BOSSES PREPARE FOR WAR Jerome Small on what the rich want from a Liberal government - Page 5 2 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative www.redfl ag.org.au REDFLAG

CONTENTS EDITORIAL 3 What this election should have been about, but wasn’t 4 The media are as bad as the politicians A choice beyond the no- Diane Fieldes rates the press. choice election 5 Australian bosses prepare for war Jerome Small points to the battles ahead. Tony Abbo has been reassuring disappeared in everything but name, everyone that his will be a “no and unions are in their weakest state 6 Who’s who in the minor party mayhem? surprises” government. In a sense he’s in generations. Louise O’Shea sorts through the pack. right: if the Coalition wins the federal Le and union quiescence has election, it won’t be surprising at all allowed the ALP to shi unopposed 7 Better than Labor, but Greens are not the answer when he and his fi lth-pot conservative to the right. The more it has shi ed, mates start kicking workers and the and the more passive the union 8 Workplace and union reports poor in the teeth. movement has become, the more the In May, shadow treasurer Joe conservatives have been able to get a Child welfare workers on strike; Sydney Uni bargaining update; equal Hockey declared in a speech to the hearing. pay decision; and LNP smears Queensland unions Institute of Public Aff airs that a Just look at western Sydney. That Liberal government will usher in “the these North Shore slime suckers 10 No to a US attack on Syria! end of the era of universal entitlement might actually pick up seats here is … and the reinvigoration of the culture the greatest indictment of Labor – the 11 The reality of law and order hysteria of self-reliance”. party that made neoliberal economic The Central Park Five is a timely reminder of the consequences of He wasn’t talking about ending policy “common sense”. law and order campaigns. the billions of dollars in government The Australian ruling class subsidies to mining and energy has made no secret that it wants 12 Sole parents hit hard by cuts companies, or stopping the banks governments to increase the a acks reaping billions from dubious fees. He on workers. The voices calling to ditch Steph Price reports on the impact of welfare changes that hurt was foreshadowing, as the Financial penalty rates, to make it easier to sack women. Review’s Philip Coorey wrote, “drastic people, to stop unions ge ing into welfare and spending cuts”. workplaces, have been ge ing louder. The hypocrisy of Honi Soit censorship In the lead-up to the election, The Liberals will be more receptive to Abbo and Hockey are now saying it those calls than Labor has been. They 13 FEATURE: The limits of capitalist democracy isn’t so; we’ve got nothing to fear. But should be put below the ALP at the this is the party of the born to rule – ballot box. Sandra Bloodworth compares their democracy to ours. the caviar-munching, Gucci Brera two But voting is not the most bu oned suit-wearing, silver spoons important thing. The choice for 16 The Liberal vision for a bosses’ Queensland up their arses la-di-darlings who election 2013 is about whether we would have the rest of us on rations want to be stabbed in the back again 17 Bad sport and bad blood of stale bread and warm milk if they by the ALP or punched in the face by thought they could get away with it. the Liberals. Lindsay Fitzclarence on sport, capitalism and the AFL. Their word means nothing. More important than the election That they look on track to win outcome will be the extent to which 19 Manning and Snowden have changed the discussion convincingly is a tragedy – and one people can mobilise to resist any and Barry Sheppard examines the whistleblowers’ impact. that was avoidable. every cutback in the coming years. No For so long our side has hesitated ma er who wins, we can’t just sit and 20 OBITUARY: Amber Maxwell, a rebel and a fi ghter and wavered. Union leaders have wait for the next a ack. insisted on “boxing clever” – a We have to organise now on 22 What Socialist Alternative stands for euphemism for not actually throwing campuses, among the rank and fi le in any punches. workplaces and in the few campaigns By “boxing clever” we have more that exist. 24 Asylum to Ashes and more learned to put up with If our side continues to avoid the Trevor Grant tells the story of the refugee Australia wants to keep. a beating. It’s become so natural fi ght, we will continue to lose. There is that nobody seems to know how to nothing clever about that. fi ght any more: the Labor le has

REDFLAG WHAT IS REDFLAG ABOUT?

We live in a world where “political This politics of resistance is Telling the truth. The capitalist press is full of lies, distortions and right struggle” is a sullied phrase. The what Red Flag is about. wing bias. We need an alternative press, free from corporate interests and term evokes dishonesty and the We took the name Red Flag government spin, to provide news and analysis of major developments in kind of vacuous, self-serving antics because it represents solidarity, our world. that are on display whenever we struggle and internationalism, but Supporting resistance look at the major parties of Aus- also because it stands for socialism . Those that own and control the corporate media tralia politics. If the parliament is – a world organised to meet human are hostile to people fi ghting for their rights. They make money out of the all there is to “politics”, then it is need, not the interests of the rich exploitation and oppression of workers and the poor. Red Flag is a paper on wholly understandable that most minority that currently in control. the side of the oppressed, telling the story from our side and giving solidarity people want nothing at all to do Out of the struggles against the to those in struggle. with it. injustices of our current system, Fighting for socialism. Red Flag is about more than just highlighting problems But there is another kind of pol- we want to be part of building a with the system, or supporting individual struggles. It campaigns to win itics: the politics of resistance and new socialist movement that can people to socialism, to convince them that the revolutionary overthrow of struggle. Over the past few years mount a challenge to the whole capitalism is the solution to the problems of society. – from the Arab revolutions to Oc- structure of capitalist rule. This is Intervening in struggles cupy to the resistance to austerity an enormous task. But the courage . Red Flag’s socialist politics doesn’t just mean in Europe – people have time and of the thousands of people resist- general arguments for socialism. Red Flag is an interventionist paper, again taken to the streets, organ- ing oppression and injustice from bringing socialist arguments to the debates of today about how we can best ised in their communities and their one side of the planet to another, mount a fi ghtback, what tactics and strategies are needed to take on the workplaces, and set themselves the gives us confi dence that the future right. And while Red Flag will fi ght for the views of Socialist Alternative, the task of fi ghting for a be er world. belongs to all of us. paper is also a forum in which crucial questions on the left can be debated. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 3 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative RED www.redfl ag.org.au

What this election should have been about, but wasn’t

ly understates the real level of jobless- schools. These projects in turn would small government like the Institute Mick Armstrong ness and underemployment) is neces- generate a wave of other jobs – teach- of Public Aff airs have campaigned for sary to ensure that workers don’t be- ers to train the extra nurses and con- government deregulation of big busi- Election day is meant to be the day come too uppity and demand decent struction workers, factory workers to ness and greater workplace “fl exibili- when we get to have our say over the wages. produce the materials. ty”. This approach has been embraced vital decisions that impact our lives Yet there is no shortage of work to None of the parties want to talk by both the Liberals and Labor. The – the day we determine the future of be done. For starters, the health sys- about these sorts of initiatives. There core of Howard’s anti-worker Work- the country for the next three years. Choices legislation remains intact de- The lead-up to election day surely Neither party seriously addresses the key issues spite six years of Labor government. should be a time of great excitement, And for all the talk by the free animated discussions, vibrant debate, impacting our lives, let alone off ers genuine marketers of greater individual free- of close examination of alternative solutions to our problems. dom and ending the “nanny state”, the plans for the future and of mass mobi- reality is that there are much greater lisation of popular sentiment behind tem is chronically understaff ed. There is a consensus among the media and legal restrictions on what workers can one or another candidate. is a desperate need for more staff in the politicians that there is no mon- do at work than at any time in the last Yet for this election, most people emergency wards and more paramed- ey for such projects. Yet governments 100 years. are disinterested, bored and cynical. ics. never have any trouble fi nding bil- Under Labor’s WorkChoices-lite, Rather than millions of workers feel- Training and employing more lions of dollars to lock up refugees in the bosses have been granted “fl exi- ing this is a time when they have some nurses and doctors would dramatical- concentration camps. bility” to undermine our wages and say over their lives, they feel disem- ly cut the waiting lists for elective sur- In any case, the big banks and the working conditions and to ensure powered. gery. As well, the public health system mining tycoons are fl ush with cash. that basic safety provisions are not They rightly recognise that there should be expanded to cover dental For decades, Labor and Liberal gov- enforced. is no real choice on off er. Labor and care and support services. ernments competed to slash taxes on But if workers object to being bul- Liberal are but pale imitations of Aged care in particular is chron- the rich and big business. Australia lied or pushed around by some bas- each other. Neither party seriously ically understaff ed and poorly paid. now has one of the smallest shares of tard of a boss or are worried about addresses the key issues impacting Construction workers losing their tax paid by companies and the rich of unsafe conditions, they are legally de- our lives, let alone off ers genuine solu- jobs on mining projects could build any advanced industrial country. This nied the basic right to withdraw their tions to our problems. hospitals, health care centres, aged is another issue that none of the poli- labour. Let’s start with the issue that the care facilities and many other vital ticians want to talk about. Even holding a meeting at work is opinion polls indicate people are most projects. Why? Because all the major par- illegal. As for a strike, the labyrinthine concerned about: jobs. With the wind- One glaringly obvious project ties – Labor, Liberal and Greens – are rules and regulations that you have ing down of the mining boom and the would be a massive expansion of high commi ed to maintaining the capital- to comply with make the idea that pitiful level of the dole – just $497 a quality, low cost public housing. This ist system. All of them are commi ed we have a legal right to strike u erly fortnight for a single person – they are would both tackle homelessness and to boosting profi ts at our expense. meaningless. right to be worried. put a downward pressure on rents Vital projects that cut into profi ts, Whether Labor or the Liberals win Other than meaningless rhetoric and thus raise living standards across such as public housing, free health on 7 September, none of this is about about the budget defi cit and postur- the board. care, free child care and a decent pen- to change for the be er. We need to ing about who is the best economic There are myriad other jobs that sion, are axiomatically ruled out. change totally the framework of pol- manager, neither Rudd nor Abbo construction workers could be em- Or take another issue that impacts itics in this country so that the rights off ers anything on jobs. Both of them ployed on – childcare centres, a mas- the great majority of us – the quali- of workers and the oppressed are put accept that an offi cial unemployment sive expansion of the rail network, ty of our working lives. For decades, front and centre. rate of 5-6 percent (which signifi cant- renewable energy projects and new the advocates of the free market and 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 4 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG ELECTION 2013 www.redfl ag.org.au RED The media are as bad as the politicians

racist. Article a er article questions politicians’ Diane Fieldes A cursory glance at any news website will yield a tonne of this style and performance. But seldom is anyone Is the US Daily Show’s comedy dross: “Australia is ge ing used coverage of the Australian election – to the idea of Tony Abbo , prime seriously challenged on policy. which focussed on a idiot candidate minister”, apparently because of his who couldn’t remember his own “deliberate eff ort to throw the switch good move in terms of wedging the “If you think the class war is over, party’s policies, a sexting scandal from negative to positive, from opponent, rather than whether it will you’re not paying enough a ention. involving red wine and a racist who angry opposition leader to measured be good for workers and the poor. If The reason the well-off come down so thought Islam was a country – really potential prime minister”. you want to fi nd sharp questioning hard on those who use class rhetoric is that diff erent from that of the serious Over and over there’s the same that a empts to hold a politician to that they don’t want anyone drawing Australian media (or the Australian)? crap about confi dence and other account, you need to lower yourself a ention to how the war’s going. All When it’s not pratfalls and gaff es, intangibles. While we are told Abbo to the depths of watching billionaire of them except Warren Buff e , the we are served a diet of opinion polls has “polished and direct delivery and buff oon Clive Palmer being grilled by mega-rich American investor. ‘There’s that tell us whether more of us rate … facility for distilling messages into Lateline’s Emma Albarici. class warfare, all right,’ he once said, Rudd or Abbo as trustworthy. Article digestible ‘grabs’”, Rudd’s problem And then the calling to account ‘but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s a er article questions politicians’ appears to be that he’s “o en verbose”. is really just a calling back to planet making war, and we’re winning.’” style and performance. Why don’t we just read the entrails of Earth: is the Palmer United Party But he then went on to blame it on The “quality” press, such as the some dead animal and be done with really going to win 15 seats? Is your us: “The workers are too busy watching Sydney Morning Herald or the Age, are it? policy what’s on your website or telly to notice the ways they’re being just as much content-free zones as the Labor’s contempt for its what pops into your head during this got at. It requires a ention to boring Murdoch papers. supporters doesn’t fi gure much in interview? And so on. things like superannuation when For example, the Sydney Morning explaining why it looks like losing There is one place where the real you could be up the club playing the Herald’s 24 August editorial began like the election. Cu ing welfare benefi ts issues of which class benefi ts and pokies.” this: “With two weeks le , we know for single mothers and refusing to which class is being screwed gets There’s a much be er explanation that trust will determine who prevails increase the poverty-level dole, while some airing (apart from the pages of of why, for example, a quarter of on election day.” raising almost nothing from the Red Flag, of course). voters under 25 have failed to enrol. It concluded with that other mining tax on the super-rich doesn’t The business pages and the more An Australia Institute survey of important policy, “stability”, and who help its cause. in-house journals of the capitalist under-25s indicated that 40 percent was more likely to deliver it, and a fi nal Yet none of this fi nds anywhere class like the Australian Financial felt that none of the political parties sentence as anodyne as the beginning: near the analysis of “commonsense Review are more revealing. represented the interests of young “Abbo must prove that he deserves reasonableness”, “extraordinary The Sydney Morning Herald people. to be trusted enough to become prime stamina and growing confi dence” and economics editor, Ross Gi ins, did Professor Ian McAllister of the minister.” similar tripe. write an article titled “Rich win big Australian National University says Nothing about the fact that the The media virtually never call with class warfare in session”, which of his election surveys, “Young people only thing we can trust in is that, the parties to account over real correctly identifi es the class war are not any less interested in politics. whoever wins, their policies will be issues. The question is only whether being waged by the rich with the help They are just not interested in what is right wing, anti-working class and or not the latest development is a of the major parties: being off ered.” And so say all of us.

Pre-election rallies against education cuts PHOTO: DANIEL TAYLOR. action on some campuses to co- Sarah Garnham incide with the demonstrations, and in Melbourne it mobilised The latest round of demonstra- at least 400 staff to a end. tions against cuts to university The demonstrations were funding, on 20 August, brought an important intervention into out students and staff across the federal election, in which the country. The biggest turn- both major parties are commit- out was in Melbourne, where ted to the cuts and to increasing 1,000 people marched through privatisation of our education the streets and delivered our system. message directly to the offi ce Both Labor and Liberal are of newly appointed education also for diverting money from minister Kim Carr. things like education in order The cuts, which were intro- to fund their cruel and barbaric duced earlier this year by the policies towards refugees. Im- Labor government, will cut off portantly, pro-refugee chants thousands of students’ much and speeches featured on the needed Centrelink payments demonstrations. and will cut some university It is now important to start budgets by more than $50 mil- to plan the next steps for the lion. This will inevitably give campaign against the cuts. Stu- universities an excuse to con- dents cannot aff ord to allow the tinue with their national agen- incoming government a honey- da of cancelling courses, in- moon. creasing class sizes and casual- We need to organise anoth- ising and sacking staff . er round of demonstrations and For these reasons, the staff we need to continue to rebuild union, the NTEU, has been op- an activist culture within the posed to the government’s cuts student body and the student since they were announced. But unions so that we can fi ght fu- for the fi rst time in the cam- ture a acks. paign, the NTEU called strike 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative 5 RED www.redfl ag.org.au ELECTION 2013 IN PLAIN ENGLISH What’s the diff erence between Liberal and Labor on workplace rights?

Our short, easy to understand guide to the diff erent aspects of workplace policy of the major parties.

Allowable ma ers ion, which makes it even easier for Under Howard’s WorkChoic- bosses to make sweetheart deals es laws, it was illegal for unions to with grubby right wing unions like bargain over issues including con- the AWU. tracting out, casualisation or labour hire. Eliminating these rules on “al- Right of entry lowable ma ers” was one of the few Under WorkChoices, union or- genuine reforms under Labor. Under ganisers had to give 24 hours’ notice Liberal policy, the Fair Work Com- before they could access a work site mission will have to be satisfi ed that to investigate a breach of employ- all union claims are “fair and reason- ment standards. They had to specify able” and that they “won’t adversely what breach had occurred, which aff ect productivity”. Almost any- made it hard to maintain the con- Australian bosses thing that gets in the way of making fi dentiality of the worker. And the a profi t can be ruled out under this boss could dictate where organisers description. were allowed to go in a workplace, and how they were allowed to get prepare for war Industrial action there – down to which route they Already, under Labor, it is illegal could walk! In the meantime, the company is shut- for workers simply to meet togeth- All of these restrictions were Jerome Small ting the mine, leaving workers to rot. er and decide to go on strike. Even maintained under Labor’s “Fair According to ABC Radio reports, the when an enterprise agreement has Work” laws. Not all unions abide by As the Liberals prepare for govern- company is hiring large numbers of expired, there has to be a series of these provisions, and not all bosses ment, some major employers are pre- security guards and potential scabs, negotiations, a secret ballot and enforce them. But they can be a se- paring for war. Australia needs “a dose in anticipation of a major dispute. three days’ notice so the boss can rious obstacle to unions trying to of Margaret Thatcher” according to The Liberals have been careful to minimise the impact of the strike. establish a presence in a workplace. Mark Adamson, the boss of Fletcher keep industrial relations policy low The Coalition will keep all this, It’s common for management to re- Building Ltd, one of the largest con- profi le in this election campaign. They and also has a policy that “protected strict union meetings to an area just struction companies in Australia. have learned some lessons from their industrial action can only happen outside the boss’s offi ce. (Labor has His sentiments are echoed defeat in 2007, following their across- a er there have been genuine and just made it legal to use lunch rooms throughout sections of corporate Aus- the-board WorkChoices off ensive on meaningful talks between workers for union meetings.) tralia. working conditions. WorkChoices in- and business”. The Coalition crit- The Liberals want to keep all the It’s not all huffi ng and puffi ng, ei- spired a number of massive set piece icises the result of the legal case restrictions, tighten administrative ther. A major dispute is brewing in the strikes and a signifi cant electoral involving JJ Richards, a transport requirements and end right of en- off shore oil and gas sector. Chevron, backlash. company that simply refused to ne- try at workplaces where unions are a global giant with over $26 billion in This time the Liberals are pick- gotiate with the Transport Workers not already party to an enterprise annual profi t, is gearing up for a fi ght ing their targets more carefully. They Union. When the union applied to bargain – that is, where unions are with the Maritime Union of Austral- don’t have to repeat the broad assault, take industrial action, the company relatively weak. ia’s West Australian branch – one of as much of WorkChoices remains in argued that this should not be al- the few unions in the country to win place through Labor’s “Fair Work” re- lowed – because there had been no Anti- union bodies signifi cant gains for its members out gime. The Liberals also calculate that negotiations! The company lost this The Liberals will establish a Reg- of the mining boom. a combination of complex but very case, but it seems that this approach istered Organisations Commission signifi cant changes to the law can will be legal under the Liberals. to police the internal aff airs of un- assist employers in smashing union ions. The Liberals and big power. ‘Greenfi elds’ sites The Liberals will re-establish the business seem to The Australian Financial Review A huge amount of damage was Australian Building and Construc- recently explained: “The Coalition’s done under the “greenfi elds” clauses tion Commission. The introduction want to take us on policy largely leaves workers’ entitle- of WorkChoices. Companies could of the ABCC in 2005 caused a sharp ments alone but the same cannot be shut down a factory or warehouse, spike in workplace deaths and inju- one union at a time – said for unions. They will be squarely restart the business at a new lo- ries, as it sued unions that stopped just like Thatcher in the Coalition’s sights.” Of course, cation and dictate terms. Decent work in protest at poor safety. Labor if unions are dramatically weakened, wages and conditions disappeared. has made things easy for the Liber- Other companies have launched employers will fi nd it straightforward Many unions signed terrible, con- als by keeping the ABCC going, with vicious a acks against their work- to trash conditions. cessionary “greenfi elds” deals just reduced penalties, as part of the Fair forces and their unions. A er a mas- The strategy of the union move- to get in the door, with the aim of Work Commission. The new ABCC sive propaganda barrage, Brisbane ab- ment for a generation has been to improving the standard a erward. will police “onshore and off shore” a oir Teys Brothers is trying to force avoid all-out confrontation, under There are still diffi culties under Fair construction, targeting the Mari- through a non-union collective agree- Liberal or Labor. That’s been a dismal Work, but unions can negotiate and, time Union as well as traditional ment that eradicates key conditions. failure, as the past 30 years of retreat if there is no outcome, unions can construction unions. Also in Queensland, global mining and defeat show. Keeping quiet un- start pursuing bargaining as soon as The Liberals have also indicat- giant Glencore-Xstrata has shut down der Labor has only paved the way for the “greenfi elds” site opens. ed support for a acks on weekend its mine in Collinsville, where coal has more signifi cant a acks. Under the Liberals, unless the penalty rates, extending “individual been mined for a hundred years. Re- The Liberals and big business unions agree to the bosses’ terms, fl exibility agreements”, scrapping opening it, says the company, will de- seem to want to take us on one un- they would be forced into arbitra- the “safe rates” road transport tribu- pend on workers abandoning long-es- ion at a time – just like Thatcher. Our tion, which overwhelmingly favours nal; and turning exploitative 457 vi- tablished conditions won by genera- best strategy is the exact opposite – to employers. Bosses would have to sas into a “mainstay” of immigration tions of militant Collinsville miners. stick together and fi ght like hell. negotiate only with the “main” un- policy. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 6 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG ELECTION 2013 www.redfl ag.org.au RED

Who’s who in the minor party mayhem?

Don’t get sucked in, smokers: there When you’re handed a Senate ballot the size of a small bed sheet, you’d be forgiven for won’t be any state funded cancer wards if these characters get their thinking there might be someone or something on it worth voting for. Surely among the way (although there will be more legal dozens of intriguingly named political groupings, the ma and pa stores of the voting world, camping areas). someone will stand for something decent. Unfortunately, this is by and large not the case. Navigating your Senate ballot is above all Bullet Train for Australia More or less self explanatory. else an exercise in avoiding inadvertently casting a vote for a far right religious lunatic or Pro-business and preferencing the worse, one of several disgruntled ex-One Nation candidates fed up with the bleeding heart Greens, who are keen on trains in an liberalism of the refugee debate. environmental rather than spo ing kind of way. A casually misplaced digit could easily have you unwi ingly fuel some nut-job’s campaign to have Chiko rolls recognised as the offi cial national food or compulsory forced labour for Pirate Party migrants. So be careful, and consult this guide by Louise O’Shea before numbering anything. Their main concerns are surveillance, data retention and copyright reform, although they also General rule of thumb placed One Nation in NSW and other go to the Liberal Party in most states. have policies in a range of other areas Anything with the word far right parties elsewhere ahead of that are broadly socially progressive. “Australia” in it – Rise Up Australia, le wing groups and the Greens. Wikileaks Party Their candidates are younger Australia First, Australian Possibly the most short-lived than most of the other parties and Independents, Australian Voice – Animal Justice Party experiment in electoral history, are generally fed up with being is likely to be a borderline fascist You’ll be surprised how many the Wikileaks Party crashed pre y governed by “a class of self-confessed grouping, if not outright fascist. It animals have political grievances early on the rocks of preference technological illiterates”. They are will generally involve some version when you read the Animal Justice deals. Suggesting that transparency part of an international movement, of a return to White Australia Party’s policies. Whether it’s day in government is perhaps not a their counterparts in Germany and and a policy platform featuring release for lab rats, be er working suffi cient basis for a coherent political Sweden a racting a signifi cant, if still compulsory Southern Cross ta oos conditions for circus animals or party, the competing interests of small, vote in elections there. They are for primary schoolchildren. You will breaking down the false dichotomy ex-Liberals, ex-Greens and some preferencing the Greens. probably recognise the candidates between introduced and native maverick personalities have rendered from the Cronulla riots. There are species, if an animal somewhere is what might have been a serious Stop CSG many of these, so be careful. suff ering, the AJP is on to it. While challenge to the Australian electoral Although a empting to tap they are one of the few minor parties scene fairly impotent. Democratic into the anti-coal seam gas feeling Sex Party that is not merely a means to channel structures that bring together people and campaigning that has been If you’re the kind of person who votes to the Liberals, the fact that with a shared political world view done around the issue in NSW and needs an entire room to store your they are more inclined to speak out are essential for a political party to Queensland, the preference allocators porn collection and resents the fact against the mistreatment of cows function, and it seems the Wikileaks have alienated whatever le wing that moral prudery and government on boats than that of human beings ethos may have been a li le too broad base they had by placing the sexist interference prevent you from does not win them any points in my and heterogeneous. The preferencing Non-Custodial Parents Party and acquiring more, this is the group book. They may also represent a of far right groups like Australia various other far right groups ahead for you. Established as the political serious threat to steak nights, if not First as well as the National Party of the Socialist Alliance and Greens. arm of the sex industry (the party’s steak in general. ahead of le wing tickets and the leader, Fiona Pa on, is also the CEO Greens in some states has not only Socialist Alliance of the industry’s peak body, the Eros Motoring Enthusiasts caused bi er internal division and The only principled le wing party Association) the party is accordingly How these lunatics got 500 people resignations from the party, but has running for the Senate. They stand for commi ed to the interests of its small to sign a party registration form for also discredited it in the eyes of many workers’ rights, against the PNG deal, business constituency. Opposing them is a mystery. Really enjoying who admired Assange and Wikileaks’ off shore processing and mandatory censorship and other government car driving is what unites them, courage in speaking truth to power. detention of refugees, in support of restrictions relevant to the sex and the non-uniformity of vehicle public education and for marriage industry gives it a libertarian gloss, modifi cation standards across state Outdoor Recreation/ equality. Their members are actively but this is solely in order to make lines is what angers them. Basically involved in various campaigns for more money from the exploitation their dream is to be able to drive Smokers Rights/Liberal social justice and workers’ rights. of sex and those who work in the sex across state lines in a modifi ed car Democratic Party They have preferenced other le industry. It takes no stand in support without worrying. They’d also like wing candidates and the Greens in a of social justice where it does not to be able to take their big cars onto All somehow nefariously principled fashion. The only drawback assist in generating greater profi ts for Aboriginal land more o en, with a bit connected to the Liberal Democratic is that you can vote for them in the sex industry bosses. This is refl ected of extra hunting and fi shing thrown Party – a pro-free market, Ron Paul- Senate only in NSW, although they are in Sex Party preferencing, which has in. Needless to say, their preferences loving right wing libertarian outfi t. also running in six lower house seats. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 7 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative ELECTION 2013 RED www.redfl ag.org.au

Be er than Labor, but Greens are not the answer

The ALP has become so MPs. Since that time they appalling that it is under- have done li le in offi ce standable that le wing but go along with Labor people want alternatives and tried not to rock the at the ballot box. boat. The Greens continue The great exception to be a pole of a raction was the anti-worker car- in that regard. They have bon tax. But on that front consciously positioned the Greens were actually themselves more to the the champion of this neo- le in this election cam- liberal piece of legislation. paign. Outside of profession- Against the inhu- al politics the party has man asylum seeker pol- become increasingly in- icies of the big parties, visible, opting to mobilise they have a empted to members mainly for elec- provide a much needed toral purposes like le er counter-narrative about boxing and door knocking human rights. They also at election time, rather advocate a range of poli- than in progressive cam- Ka er’s Australian Party cies that are more tradi- paigns. A populist outfi t able to pick up votes tionally social democratic, And it is most telling from the le and right. Ka er champions such as li ing the paltry that since their arriv- the “li le guy” and boiling billies at level of the dole and tax- al as a third force more campfi res and talks about men fi shing ing big business to fund than a decade ago, as an together a lot, but his stand against the social spending. organisation they have carbon tax and privatisation marks him Yet despite these poli- remained aloof from the as someone who also seems to care about cies, the Greens are not a workers’ movement. the economic interests of working class genuine le alternative to Things would be dif- people. His social values are conservative the ALP. The party does ferent if they had a base by 1950s standards, a acking the right have radical roots in some in the unions and were wing Qld Premier Campbell Newman, places. But the years of trying to organise a fi ght- of all things, for his perceived (although orienting to parliament, back or having a go at re- non-existent) support for marriage of running local councils building a rank and fi le. equality. and of si ing in commit- But they don’t and they’re tees at a state and federal not. Palmer United Party level have le their mark. So while the Greens The only minor party to have The most damning should be put above La- nominated a candidate in every lower event in their recent his- bor and the Liberals on house seat and a Senate team in each tory was signing the deal 7 September, we need to state, which just goes to show that money with Labor in 2010. It was look elsewhere to build a really can buy just about anything. Run clearly not about advanc- fi ghting le alternative to by the billionaire mining magnate and ing a progressive agenda, the ALP. Liberal Party defector Clive Palmer, the but simply about ge ing party stands for pre y much what you more power for Greens would expect: stopping the class war (aka smashing unions), cu ing income tax, building a stronger Australia (aka further enriching Australian bosses), as well as some things you wouldn’t, such as more government spending on social services and subsidised fl ights to Australia for asylum seekers. While Palmer’s criticisms of Kevin Rudd’s hair are fairly unobjectionable, the rest of the PUP agenda hinges on the interests of the mining industry and must be opposed.

The above groups are just a selection of what is on off er in this election. Sadly, more options in this case do not correlate with more choice. The plethora of small, mostly right wing tickets that have somehow managed to complete the necessary paperwork and assemble the requisite supporters does nothing to make our society more democratic. It simply aids the electoral interests of the larger right wing parties and gives conservative cranks a platform they don’t deserve. What’s sorely missing is any sort of serious electoral grouping based in the labour movement that is commi ed to standing up for workers’ rights and making their top priority the day to day economic and political pressures on working class people and the oppressed. 8 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG WORKERS & UNIONS www.redfl ag.org.au RED

Equal pay decision means nothing without a fi ght

Cecilia Judge, Chair of ASU Metropolitan Delegates Commi ee, Melbourne

Whoever said that ba les are won in the street, not the courtroom, had sage advice for community sector workers. More than a year a er a sig- nifi cant legal victory, we’re still fi ght- ing for equal pay. Last year, Fair Work Australia (now the Fair Work Commission) rec- ognised that workers in the commu- nity sector are paid considerably less for doing the same work as workers in other sectors like government and health. It was a historic decision. The commission accepted that the wage disparity was due to the fact that most community sector workers are women. The win came on the back of a fi ve year campaign that drew in thousands of workers. We rallied, we argued, we recruited to the union (Australian Ser- vices Union) and we made equal pay an issue that wouldn’t go away. Our campaign undid the idea that commu- nity workers are in the job for an emo- tional reward and should be grateful for whatever we get. The ASU grew at struggle for equal pay is continuing in a rate that defi ed the trend in union Equal pay for community workers suddenly the workplace. ASU members at the membership. It became relevant to Tenants Union of Victoria took strike many workers for the fi rst time be- ma ers less than padding the bo om line of action and set an important prec- cause it became a union that fought. the organisations they work for. edent for an enterprise bargaining However, our fi ght is far from clause to protect equal pay and pre- over. The legal decision, signifi cant as vent the absorption of extra funding. it was, le a loophole, a way out for the phase-in period set down by the They wrote le ers to politicians, and Workers at Mind Australia have also community sector bosses. The word- commission’s equal pay decision. some even let workers a end the taken industrial action. They are right ing means that community sector All of this will chip away at the street rallies in paid time. now in the middle of a ba le for an agencies can try to absorb extra fund- pay and conditions of workers who But that was when an equal pay enterprise agreement that preserves ing that is supposed to pay for our are currently paid above award rates campaign meant a fi ght with gov- the benefi ts of the equal pay decision wage increases. and se ing the standard for the sec- ernment for more funding for the as well as their existing conditions. Furthermore, workers in the sec- tor. This, in turn, will lower pay and sector. That’s a fi ght that community These struggles serve as important tor are currently being transitioned conditions for everyone. workers and our union have largely examples and lessons for all of us. to a “modern” award as part of the What makes these a acks particu- won. Now the bosses have changed As long as our bosses continue award “modernisation” process start- larly loathsome is that they are com- their tune. Equal pay for community their fi ght, ours too does not end, not ed by the Labor government in 2008. ing from the very agencies that once workers suddenly ma ers less than until every last cent of equal pay is in A number of agencies are using this claimed to be partners in the fi ght for padding the bo om line of the organ- our pockets, not theirs. as a chance to reclassify workers at equal pay. In the lead-up to the court isations they work for with the extra lower levels. Lower classifi cations will case, most community sector bosses funding meant for wages. mean workers lose thousands over signed on as supporters of equal pay. However, it’s not all bad news; the Queensland LNP no friend to union members

be subject to the same require- interests at all times and that Paul DM ments. our unions have democratic Union members should re- structures that ensure we have Under the guise of making ject outright any notion that the control over union activities. unions more “accountable” to LNP is acting in our interests. But the priorities of our un- their members, the state Liberal Unions are correct to argue that ions, including how they spend National Party government is this is simply the latest in an our dues, are no one’s business forcing Queensland unions to ongoing smear campaign aimed but ours. It should be for union publish their spending details at further weakening the abil- members alone to pass judg- online from this month. In the ity of unions to fi ght the LNP’s ment on the performance of our latest a empt to undermine the agenda. Given the LNP’s track offi cials. key force in the state that can record, with mass sackings and Campbell Newman and his resist its a acks on workers and constant a acks on our unions, cronies want a union move- the poor, the LNP is accusing it is contemptible for it to feign ment that is weak, divided and unions of “wining and dining” at concern for the interests of un- unable to mount a serious fi ght members’ expense. ion members. This is a cynical back. Those who want strong Under the new rules, credit a empt to foster discontent and united unions that can push card statements, along with de- among members as a means of back his agenda should not be tails of political donations, cam- breaking down unity in our or- fooled by LNP posturing about paign costs and salaries of union ganisations. accountability. We need to be employees, must be uploaded Members have every right clear that the LNP is no friend to a publicly viewable site each to demand accountability from to union members and reject month. Predictably, employers our unions. We should insist its feeble a empt to fool us into and their organisations will not that the leadership act in our thinking otherwise. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative 9 RED www.redfl ag.org.au WORKERS & UNIONS

Standing up to University workers make it six in a row transphobia in the have not had a pay rise in 18 months Alma Torlakevic, branch disagree. commi ee member, Sydney In response to the ongoing union workplace University NTEU campaign, senior management have now hired a public relations team to achieved the right for a transgender Nearly a year into bargaining at Syd- sell staff and interested parties the Angela Domingos speaks to employee to dress as they chose pro- ney University, the fi ght has come idea that a pay cut is the only way to Red Flag’s Liz Ross viding they followed the company down to wages. A strike on 20 August fi nalise negotiations. Scaremongering dress code. was held to send a clear message to emails about the union sending the “Divide and conquer” has long been “In addition, we were able to se- management that a pay cut is unac- university bankrupt and threats to the watchword of the ruling class. cure the right for our fellow worker ceptable. This action brings the strike job security are being sent to staff . Capitalism forces workers into to be addressed by their preferred tally for the campaign to six. A cheat-sheet designed to help competition with each other – local name and without any need for gen- The campus was deserted, with university executives answer tough versus foreign-born, skilled versus der references. Then we were able many classes cancelled and traffi c questions at staff forums advises that unskilled etc – exploiting every op- to negotiate the abolition of gen- disrupted at university entrances. At when asked about their own 15 per- portunity to keep workers divided. der identifi cation requirements on the Ross Street gate, more than 65 cent “performance bonuses”, senior While unions are the fi rst line forms. cars were turned away in a couple of management should defl ect by point- of defence against a empts to di- “This was further validated by an hours, and even delivery truck driv- ing out that the Sydney University vide us, to a ack our conditions, announcement received by employ- ers with no particular connection to vice-chancellor is only the 10th high- not everyone is in a unionised work- ees from the CEO stating that the the university chose not to cross the est paid VC in the country! place. company stands for ‘gender equali- picket. In fact, reportedly earning a mere That’s the case for Angela Do- ty’.” Management once again called $899,143 a year, they would just about mingos. “I grew up with the belief The CEO tried to implement riot police onto campus to fi ght their call Michael Spence a volunteer if that working people from all walks longer working hours (without pay) ba le. In one scuffl e, a student who they thought they could sell that. of life need to join a union in order outside the current signed work stood up to a Liberal supporter was Right now, there is a debate going to obtain a voice at work”, but she is agreement. So at another morning arrested. on over the issue of “performance bo- the only union member among hun- tea, “Workers in my section agreed to The unions involved in bargaining nuses” and managerial salaries. While dreds of other workers. take action, to walk out at the stated have rejected management’s latest staff are threatened with job losses However, that didn’t stop her time with a copy of the signed agree- off er of a 2.9 percent annual wage in- and a pay cut, the union campaign standing up for what was right. “I ment in hand.” crease. This is up from the 2 percent will continue. couldn’t ignore a empts made by my However, “Management was not that was put a year ago. Management employer to divide and bully us, the just going to take this on the chin claim the off er is generous. Staff who workers. I couldn’t wait for a union without retaliation. So they have body to represent us, simply because taken away the ‘lunch room’, but we there is none on the job!” have now reclaimed the very public Deciding she couldn’t close her space of the foyer for our get-togeth- Child welfare workers eyes or shut her ears to the unjust ers – much to management’s dis- treatment of a transgender col- pleasure!” league, she decided to get her work- As Angela says, “Not all workers strike over shortages place together to talk about what fi nd themselves in workplaces with was happening. Without union pro- high union membership, a delegate tection, it was a risky move to dis- structure and so on, but this shows cuss workplace issues with a group that it need not be a barrier to begin- of fellow workers. ning to raise workplace issues with So, under the guise of a special co-workers and to start to build a morning tea, Angela took up the presence as a union activist. question of transphobia. Challeng- Indeed, taking even small steps ing others to “walk a mile” in their of organising regular opportunities co-worker’s shoes, she asked them to talk to colleagues about whatever how they’d feel if people mistreated issue you can fi nd to relate to is an them because they came from Italy important step in laying the basis or had red hair, were le -handed, for future recruitment to the union.” Catholic or Muslim and so on. And even fi nding an audience for “Not everyone was supportive. I Red Flag. didn’t expect such a ‘utopian’ result.” leave. The remaining workers are le But it certainly helped change a i- Kate Doherty, member of to pick up the slack. tudes. “What is important is that we PSA Central Council (elected The extra strain on the remaining on Progressive PSA ticket) caseworkers is taking its toll. “I’ve got a number of staff across the region Pru Goward, the NSW minister for that are really stressed, they’re hang- community services, has been caught ing on by the skin of their teeth”, PSA lying about staffi ng shortages in her spokesperson Steve Meares told the Help Red Flag provide the best department. media. industrial reporting from the struggles Workers in the Department of Staff shortages are a chronic prob- Community Services, members of the lem across the NSW public service, in Australian workplaces Public Services Association, shone and with the government slashing a the spotlight on Goward’s lie when further 15,000 jobs, the problem will Red Flag aspires to be the go-to publication for working class militants who they walked out in stop-work actions only get worse. The pressure on work- want to know about the issues facing Australian workers, and the struggles across the state on Tuesday 20 August. ers to do more with less is immense, in workplaces big and small. To do that, we need your help. If you have a tip Goward has repeatedly claimed and the government has shown a about a brewing fi ght we might want to report on, or can contribute an article that there are more than 2,000 case- complete disregard for the services or just give us a line on a story – let us know! We want our paper to bring workers across the state, despite now public servants provide. together the news about union issues that you won’t read in the corporate admi ing that she received a report This latest strike is a reminder of press, from the perspective of those actually on the ground standing up for which detailed that the real fi gure is why the union campaign against staff their rights. much lower. Striking workers in Par- and funding cuts needs to intensify rama a carried placards represent- in order to tackle the understaffi ng, ing those who had disappeared from overwork and insecurity that are dai- EMAIL: reports@redfl ag.org.au the department, explaining that col- ly life for NSW public servants. PHONE: (03) 9650 3541 leagues were not being replaced when they le the job or went on maternity 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 10 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG www.redfl ag.org.au RED

No US a ack on Syria!

Lee Sustar the Assad regime began in March 2011 not be to choose between on one side for military intervention. – the overwhelming majority of them the USA and Saudi Arabia, and on the Secretary of State John Ker- civilians killed at the hands of Assad’s other side Iran and Russia. Our choice ry played to the outrage over the Evidence of a horrifi c chemical weap- forces. is revolutionary masses struggling for use of chemical weapons when he ons a ack by the Syrian regime At least 1,000 people have died in their emancipation,” Daher said. denounced the Syrian regime: “As a against civilians has revived liberal the Ghouta region from the chemical US policy, therefore, is contradic- father, I can’t get the image out of my calls for “humanitarian” intervention weapons a ack. Yet it wasn’t the hor- tory. It tolerated Gulf state Qatar’s head of a father who held up his dead by the US military – despite the US ror of the weapons that caused Wash- support for Islamist fi ghters even child, wailing,” he said. armed forces’ own recent record of ington to prepare military action. As while declaring the Syrian rebel But Kerry lacks credibility when it mass death and destruction in Iraq, the Foreign Policy website reported group Jabhat al-Nusra to be a “ter- comes to speaking out against the sav- Afghanistan and beyond. August 26, “[A] generation ago, Ameri- rorist” organisation. Washington has agery of the Assad regime. As chair of For example, Washington ca’s military and intelligence commu- also insisted that Islamists take a the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- Post columnist Eugene Robinson nities knew about and did nothing to back seat in the latest version of the tee, he made outreach to Syria a per- wrote that President Barack Obama stop a series of nerve gas a acks far mainstream Syrian opposition, the sonal project, in the name of encour- should “punish Syrian dictator Bashar more devastating than anything Syria National Coalition of Syrian Revolu- aging Assad’s pro-market economic al-Assad’s homicidal regime with a has seen” – when Iraq, led by then-US tionary and Opposition Forces. The reforms. Even a er the regime moved military strike” because “any govern- ally Saddam Hussein, used such weap- US and its ally Turkey, moreover, have to repress pro-democracy protests in ment or group that employs chemical ons against Iran in the 1980-88 Gulf blocked heavy weapons from reach- early 2011, Kerry continued to praise weapons must be made to suff er real War. ing the fragmented opposition. Assad as a reformer. consequences. Obama should uphold The US, still struggling to recover The bo om line is that the US Key to Assad’s staying power is his this principle by destroying some of ability to whip up fears among eth- Assad’s military assets with cruise nic and religious minorities that they missiles.” “[S]omebody,” says Robinson, A US-led military strike will not only add to will be slaughtered if Sunni Islamist “has to be the world’s policeman.” groups come to power – as well as his The New York Times editorial the killing, but will play into the hands of claim to be the defender of the Syrian board cautioned against an open-end- the regime as it uses nationalist appeals to nation against foreign powers. ed intervention, but said that because A US-led military strike will not Obama had made the use of chemi- justify still more barbaric repression. only add to the killing, but will play cal weapons a “red line” that would into the hands of the regime as it uses trigger a US response, the president from its failed occupations in Iraq and would like to contain the civil war in nationalist appeals to justify still more now had to “follow through”. In other Afghanistan, is highly reluctant to put Syria, hoping for an outcome accept- barbaric repression. Already, the US words, the credibility of the US em- forces on the ground in Syria. But poli- able in Washington – like an ex-gener- and its ally Turkey are trying to bring pire is now on the line, so a military ticians and military leaders appear to al taking power who can preserve as Syrian Kurds into the embrace of the strike is unavoidable, according to have reached a consensus on a lim- much as possible of the existing state. pro-US regime in Iraqi Kurdistan. US the Times. ited a ack, possibly with Tomahawk The mass killing in Ghouta was so intervention will only aggravate eth- But the threatened US military missiles fi red from warships and sub- awful that it forced the debate on Syr- nic and sectarian violence, as it did in a ack on Syria is motivated solely marines. ia to a head. The warheads fi lled with Iraq, which is suff ering through the by Washington’s imperial aims in the US policymakers are not only wor- sarin gas were targeted not at rebel worst sectarian violence since 2008. Middle East, not by any desire to save ried about al-Qaeda-linked jihadists fi ghters, but women and children in While Western imperialist powers civilians from further repression by a taking power. They’re also concerned their beds. Their lungs fi lled with fl u- and their regional allies might like to brutal regime. The US objective is to that the revolutionary movement, id, suff ocating them. Hundreds more see Assad go, they are willing to toler- contain and roll back the democratic the Local Coordination Commi ees suff ered severe and crippling injuries. ate his rule for now in order to fore- revolutions of the Arab Spring, a pro- (LCC), will bring to power a popular Anyone with a sense of justice will be close the possibility of revolutionary ject it shares with allies Israel, Saudi democratic government in the wake incensed by such a calculated eff ort to change in Syria. As the Revolutionary Arabia, the Gulf State monarchies of Assad. terrorise a vulnerable civilian popula- Le Current put it in a statement af- and, now, the Egyptian military that As Joseph Daher of the Syrian tion. ter the Ghouta a ack: “Our revolution has reasserted its power. Revolutionary Le Current points Now Western politicians are cyni- has no sincere ally, except for the rev- Certainly the US hasn’t been out, the LCCs are the wellspring of the cally trying to turn this horror to their olutions of the peoples of the region stirred to consider military action by revolutionary movement and have political advantage. British Prime and the world and the militants who the fact that Syrians are dying in large challenged the Islamists’ repression Minister David Cameron and French work to free themselves from obscu- numbers. An estimated 100,000 have and a empts to impose sharia law on President Francois Hollande are join- rantist, oppressive and exploitative perished since the revolution against areas they control. “Our choice should ing Obama in preparing the ground regimes.” 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative 11 RED www.redfl ag.org.au

The reality of law and order hysteria

Yusef Salaam was one of those wrongfully convicted.

about the decaying fabric of society. overlook the fact that the state’s case Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Louise O’Shea The term “underclass” had just against the accused as not invulnera- Santana and Antron McCray charged been coined to describe the growing ble.” with rape and a empted murder. The “I’m always behind. Those years that numbers of youth, mostly Black and The case unleashed not only racist boys had been messing around with it took from me, I lost a lot. And even Latino, at the margins. Gentrifi ca- hysteria against the fi ve, but a law and a group of twenty or so other boys in now at the age of 36 when I should be tion driven by a super wealthy pro- order frenzy. This culminated in the the park on the night of the a ack, fully in a career, have a house, a car, fessional class continued unabated extension of policing to schools, the and were apprehended for “disturbing maybe married, I don’t have any of just blocks away. Central Park, the notorious stop-and-frisk laws which the peace” as part of routine harass- that. I don’t know how to regain any of location of the rape and assault the targeted Black and Latino youths ment by police. that stuff anymore. So I’m just here.” fi ve were wrongly accused of, was the and a range of other measures which When news of the discovery of the – Raymond Santana, one of the symbolic space that brought these strengthened the repressive appara- jogger’s body arrived at the precinct Central Park Five disparate elements together. tus of the NYPD. It set the scene for the teenagers were still in custody, The impact of the wrongful con- “The park,” as academic and au- the “Giuliani era” of zero tolerance of and the police decided they had the viction and jailing of fi ve teenage boys thor Kristin Bumiller puts it in her perpetrators. They then proceeded for a 1989 rape cannot be quantifi ed. book In An Abusive State “is the focus The case unleashed to coerce confessions from the boys The 41 years they collectively served for the clash over the ownership of throughout the night and into the in prison cannot be given back to public space between a woman who not only racist following day. The description in the them. The devastation their families represents the hopes of a new pro- hysteria, but a law fi lm of how this was done should turn experienced, the breakdown of re- fessional class and teenage boys who any viewer into a lifelong hater of the lationships and the grief, cannot be represent young lives wasted by the and order frenzy. police. reversed. The emotional trauma and forces of racism and poverty.” This culminated in It is fairly widely acknowledged abuse at the hands of the criminal So while 3,254 rapes took place in today that the treatment of the Cen- injustice system, politicians and mass New York in 1989, the rape of a young, the notorious stop- tral Park Five represents a gross mis- media can never be fully compensated white, professional woman jogging in and-frisk laws which carriage of justice, despite their ex- for. Central Park on 19 April 1989 became, oneration receiving shamefully li le But a documentary by fi lmmakers according to then Mayor Ed Koch, the targeted Black and publicity (especially when compared Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David “crime of the century”. For Governor Latino youths. to the circus surrounding their con- McMahon at least gives them, along Cuomo, it was “the ultimate shriek of viction). with the rest of the world, the truth. alarm”. crime, including heavy penalties and As tragic as the Central Park Five’s The Central Park Five documents The law enforcement apparatus, prosecutions for pe y off ences such story is, their eventual exoneration in heart-wrenching detail how fi ve political establishment and mass me- as graffi ti, turnstile jumping and can- may make them some of the lucky Black and Hispanic teenage boys, dia saw in the Central Park Jogger nabis possession. ones. Statistics from the Innocence all of whom lived in the Schomburg case an opportunity, as Bumiller de- Adding to the hysteria surround- Project indicate that coerced confes- housing project in Harlem, were in scribes, to “stimulate the passions of ing the case, millionaire tycoon Don- sions were involved in a quarter of April 1989 rounded up by police, co- mass audiences while reassuring this ald Trump took out full page ads in all cases of wrongful conviction. The erced into making false confessions, audience of the state’s capacity to re- four New York newspapers calling continuing racism and inequality of convicted on rape and a empted mur- spond to the threat”. for the teenagers, all of whom were 16 the criminal injustice system means der charges and sent to jail for a crime The mass media played its part in years old or younger, to be executed that innocent people will continue to they did not commit. generating a lynch-mob mentality by and for the death penalty to be rein- be victimised, and for most the crimes Their actual crime, like so many of splashing headlines like “Teen Wolf stated in New York – which it was two commi ed against them by the state those who make up the over 2.25 mil- Pack Beats and Rapes Wall St Exec years later. will never be publicly acknowledged. lion-strong prison population in the on Jogging Path”, “The Jogger and the In the immediate a ermath, the As the coercive apparatus of states United States, was being young, Black Wolf Pack. An Outrage and a Prayer”, NYPD’s main concern was ge ing everywhere are strengthened as part and working class. “None Of Us Is Safe” and “Fiendish charges laid quickly. For them, fi nd- of neoliberalism and anti-crime hyste- New York in 1989 was a city divided Crime of Negro Brutes”. ing the perpetrator within days of the ria, The Central Park Five is a timely by what New York Times reporter Jim The victim, on the other hand was rape was, as Dwyer says, “a home run reminder about the consequences Dwyer calls in the fi lm “a social moat”. portrayed, as Joan Didion described from a law enforcement standpoint”. of such developments. It is essential The economic downturn of the late at the time, as “New York’s ideal sister, The guilt or otherwise of the fi ve viewing. 1980s, the arrival of crack cocaine and daughter, Bacharach bride: a young teenagers charged was a secondary the associated crime on New York’s woman of conventional middle class consideration. streets, and the onset of the AIDS epi- privilege and promise whose situation This was the tragic confl uence of demic had created mass social anxiety was such that many people tended to events that saw Yusef Salaam, Korey 12 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG www.redfl ag.org.au RED Sole parents hit hard by cuts

children have been widely a acked. Around 90 percent of people impacted by the changes are women.“There are single people who don’t have children that can’t aff ord to pay rent on New- start. How on earth is someone who needs that extra bedroom or two go- ing to survive? Rents have skyrocket- ed, and it’s no longer as simple as mov- ing out further … people are scrimping and cu ing back and cu ing back but there’s no future for people who are doing that, there’s no hope”, said Kerry Davies, spokesperson for the Council for Single Mothers and their Children, speaking at a recent rally against the changes. In Victoria, latest fi gures show that eviction rates are spiking in many of Melbourne’s outer suburbs. For many sole parents, there is nowhere further out to go. One woman posting to an online forum said she felt for- tunate to have found a small country block where she can camp with her children until she can pay down some of her bills. Minister for families Jenny Mack- lin has told single mothers to pull their socks up, get a job and “show their children a strong work ethic”. Most women hit by the changes were already in paid work. The government Steph Price sole parents because their youngest if they had remained on the parent- well knows this. or only child has turned eight. ing payment. But a shrinking basic The government also knows that Tens of thousands more whose income is just part of the picture. poverty is cu ing deeper and deeper Turning eight doesn’t usually mean youngest or only child hasn’t yet Many sole parent families will lose into the lives of sole parent families. much. If you’re lucky, it might be turned eight are now racing against the health care card that gives them Its own much maligned Social Inclu- worth an extra half an hour of televi- a clock they can’t beat. “I’ve got a few access to discounts on medication sion offi ce points to Melbourne Uni- sion at night. Maybe it’s when you’re years le , but as soon as she turns and utilities. Most will no longer be versity’s latest “Household, Income fi rst allowed to walk to the milk bar eight, then I don’t know”, says a single eligible for the education supplement and Labour Dynamics in Australia” on your own. Nothing special, it used mother, looking at her three-year-old, that was available to help single par- survey, which reports that the num- to be just another stop on the slow who’s running in circles around us ents with some of the costs associated ber of one parent families in poverty march towards counting your age in both as we talk. Another with a seven- with study and training. has jumped by 15 percent in the last double digits. year-old son describes feeling “as if a Though they are by defi nition decade. The Australian government has cloud of doom is approaching”. working as the primary carer for their Labor has calculated that the lives set about fi xing all that. No longer Sole parents forced off parenting children, single parents on Newstart of sole parents and their children are an also-ran in the birthday stakes, payments have been redefi ned as “job will also have to juggle parental re- worth about $728 million in savings to turning eight is now life-changing for seekers” and told they can apply for sponsibilities with the laborious and the budget bo om line over the next thousands of children and their par- Newstart allowance, be er known as degrading run-around that Centrelink four years. This is much less than the ents. the dole. calls “participation requirements”. government has budgeted to spend on Since January this year, the federal Under the changes, a sole parent The magnitude of the cuts and “income management” since it was in- Labor government has cut off parent- on Newstart will receive anywhere their disproportionate impact on the troduced. ing payments to an estimated 84,000 between $75 and $110 a week less than living standards of women and their The hypocrisy of Honi Soit censorship he events surround- li le white fucker(s)”. Neither the intent of the cover was Honi Soit The editors of , Sydney University’s student paper, ing last week’s Vagina of these accusations is true. not to depict genitalia in an recently ran a front cover featuring photographs of 18 vulvas. T Soit controversy serve Women’s oppression is a empt to sensationalise or Each of the vulvas belongs to a different Sydney University stu- as a reminder that sexism is o en an intersectional issue sexualise the female body. In dent, all of whom volunteered. rife in contemporary socie- – meaning that their oppres- fact, that was the very point Shortly before publication, the editors were warned that, ty; women’s bodies are still sion is compounded by racial that we were trying to make were they to print and distribute the paper, they would likely looked upon with contempt and economic inequalities. – most of the time when we be guilty of publishing “indecent material”, an offence under and scrutiny. Although the The “privileged li le white see vulvas, they’re either in a NSW criminal law. They were ordered to censor the “indecent” intent of the editors (the pro- fucker(s)” line particularly highly sexualised context or images by printing a black bar over each photograph. ject was driven autonomous- stung me, as I am a Hispanic they are being scrutinised to However, this proved an insuffi cient safeguard for decen- ly by the female editors) was woman with working class fi t into socially constructed cy. The humble black bar failed to obscure enough of each to publish the vulvas without roots and was one of the sub- ideals of beauty, which are vulva. All 4,000 copies of the paper were quickly pulled from censoring them, the possible jects on the cover. omnipotent in a capitalist so- distribution and locked away until they could have their front legal repercussions of pub- The reaction to Honi Soit’s ciety where women’s unpaid covers guillotined off. lishing – God forbid – a body publication of censored vul- labour is routinely exploited. The editors report that some 200 papers were put to the part belonging to half of the vas elicited the usual diatribe Hopefully Vagina Soit has guillotine before a compromise was reached with lawyers act- population forced us to put of sexist reactions from con- at least made a dent in the ing for the Students Representative Council. The paper was bars over the vulvas. servatives (“You clowns just sexist status quo of our socie- returned to circulation in sealed plastic packets and labelled The project’s partici- let the champ know when ty. The fi ght for the liberation with a R 18+ rating, the same restrictions that apply to the dis- pants were accused of being you’re doing a male genita- of all oppressed social groups, Mariana Podesta-Diverio tribution of pornography. , one of the everything from “bourgeois lia cover”; “men’s bodies are however, is far from over. Honi Soit editors of , here explains why they chose to publish. individualists” to “privileged stigmatised, too!”). Of course, REDFLAG 13 FEATURE

The limits of capitalist democracy

The federal election has revealed just how limited our democracy is. In this issue’s feature, Sandra Bloodworth looks at the history of the struggle for democracy, and the way in which capitalism limits meaningful democratic control of our society.

The meaning of democracy is contest- to constrain the rights of the masses fi ne and enlarge the public views, by which enabled representation but ed. On one hand, it was invoked by and entrench their own power and passing them through the medium no control was the Supreme Court. George Bush and then Barack Obama privileges. In 1660, one parliamen- of a chosen body of citizens”. Intense A layer of law professionals grew up to justify wars in the Middle East and tarian in London was explicit in his competition for a few government which ensured that “private property Afghanistan. Every fascist party in justifi cation of the reinstatement of seats supposedly ensures a body of became truly sacred, inviolate from Europe today either has democracy in Charles II as head of state: “The gov- the most talented. state and anarchism alike”. Howev- its name or as part of its rhetoric. ernment of a king though tyrannical The actual agenda was to ensure er, this separation of powers is not On the other hand, striking work- is far be er than the usurping tyran- the rich would retain power commen- unique to the US. It is a feature of how ers, movements from the student and ny of many plebeians.” surate with their economic privilege. capitalists rule. worker rebellions of the 1960s to the In the US War of Independence, Madison was completely transparent, anti-capitalist protests at the turn while they mobilised the masses to arguing that the protection of the of this century, to the Occupy Move- defeat the British, the capitalists em- “rights of property” was to be “the fi rst The struggle for ment of 2011, have taken democracy ployed more radical rhetoric than object of government”. A pure partic- universal suff rage to include the right to organise, the their predecessors. Just as the French ipatory democracy like the Athenian right to protest, free speech and equal would raise the banner of “Liberty, democracy of antiquity, in which peo- The se lement a er the English civil rights irrespective of class, race, Equality, Fraternity”, the US founding ple in government positions were se- Revolution was not seriously disrupt- gender or sexuality. And they have ex- fathers talked of the “rights of man”. lected by lot, would be fatally fl awed ed until the “Great” Reform Bill of 1832, posed the severe limits of represent- The Declaration of Independence pro- because they are “spectacles of tur- which granted the franchise to the ative government as a vehicle for the nounced that governments derived bulence and contention [which] have new middle class emerging in the in- defence of any of those rights. “their just powers from the consent of ever been found incompatible with … dustrial revolution, bringing the pro- the governed”. the rights of property”. The ideolog- portion of adult males able to vote to But the capitalist elite faced the ical justifi cation for this was articu- about 18 per cent. The history of question of how to consolidate their lated by Alexander Hamilton, a law- On another note, dozens of Lud- democracy rule. The masses expected to be in- yer and banker who helped to bring dites and others – including Glas- cluded in the outcome of the revolu- about the Constitutional Convention, gow weavers in 1820 and the famous Capitalism emerged from revo- tion they had backed – and they were a ended it and then was infl uential in Tolpuddle Martyrs who formed a un- lutionary struggles against the old armed. And so, as New Zealand histo- ge ing the Constitution ratifi ed: ion in 1834 – were transported to New feudal order. In the English Civil War rian Brian Roper put it in his book The “[A]s riches increase and accumu- South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. of the 1600s, the US War of Independ- History of Democracy, “[T]he framers late in few hands … virtue will be … Five hundred agricultural labourers ence and the French Revolution, the of the Constitution embarked on the considered as only a graceful append- were transported in 1830 in response new capitalist class that aspired to fi rst experiment in designing a set of age of wealth … the advantage of char- to the Swing riots, famous for their rule employed the language of democ- political institutions that would both acter belongs to the wealthy. Their arson and machine breaking across racy and universal rights to mobilise embody and at the same time curtail vices are probably more favourable to the rural south of England. They were the masses to fi ght beside them. popular power.” the prosperity of the state … and par- not over until 1848, by which time the But in every revolution, the cap- Selection by voting, as James take less of moral depravity [than the Chartist movement had become the italist class moved, as soon as they Madison, one of the authors of the poor].” fi rst working class movement for uni- thought they could get away with it, US Constitution, put it, it would “re- One of the key US institutions versal suff rage. Between 1839 and 1847, 14 REDFLAG

FEATURE: The limits of capitalist democracy

No elected government actually controls what happens at the point of production. We do not vote for unemployment, what kind of cars to produce, which companies will collapse in a fi nancial crisis.

Part of a mural celebrating the Chartist movement in Newport, Wales. There is currently a campaign by local residents to prevent the council demolishing the mural to make way for developers.

102 Chartists also sailed to Australia one of the main reforms which most istocracy relied on brute force to seize as convicts. Chartists expected to follow from the enough for their own consumption. The Chartist movement regularly gaining of the Charter.” Capitalism, by contrast, has separat- mobilised hundreds of thousands de- However, the vote would not be ed workers from any control over the manding suff rage for all males over extended beyond a tiny layer of men means of producing wealth. 21, payment of MPs and other reforms until 1867, and even in the reform act Separated from any control over that would enable working class men of 1884 only two of every three men what will be produced or how, work- to enter the political arena as never got the vote. Women would not get the ers confront employers seemingly before. It refl ected the growing recog- vote until 1928. It would be more than as equal citizens. Marx pointed out nition that the poverty and exploita- a century before most male workers, in Capital that they are “free” to take tion the vast majority suff ered could women, blacks and Indigenous people their labour power to the market, not be ameliorated by trade unions in other capitalist countries would forced only by “the dull compulsion and protest alone. Governments, win the vote. The southern states of of economic facts” to work for capi- made up of representatives of the rich the US were eventually forced by the talists. The reality of exploitation and and privileged, sided with the exploit- federal government, a er the massive the resultant unequal power hidden ers at every turn. civil rights movement, to allow Afri- by this transaction is what forces In this great movement we see can Americans to participate as vot- workers to unite in trade unions. the emergence of what has become ing citizens in 1965. No elected government actually the alternative to capitalist democ- In Australia, invaded and colo- controls what happens at the point racy. Marx and Engels were inspired nised with the hard labour of con- of production. We do not vote for un- by this and other workers’ struggles victs, many political and trade union employment, what kind of cars to pro- and came to see this very struggle as activists, South Australia granted uni- duce, which companies will collapse in the means by which society could be versal male suff rage in 1856, the fi rst a fi nancial crisis. In other words, while founded on a new basis. Mass organ- government in the world to do so. Fed- government legislation can purport to isations mushroomed, inspired by erally, Australia was the fi rst country exert controls, the fundamental deci- the idea of a stand by the vast masses to introduce universal suff rage for the sions that determine the lives of mil- against the tiny layer of rulers. This non-Indigenous population, in 1903, lions are taken in the boardrooms and sense of a common identity led to an but all limitations on Indigenous peo- on CEOs’ yachts. unprecedented sympathy of British ple’s right to vote were not removed Fritz Thyssen, one of the capital- workers for Irish immigrants, whose until the 1960s. ists who bankrolled Hitler, explained suff ering was now recognised as part It is no coincidence that universal why capitalists can live with repre- of the general oppression of workers. suff rage became a reality in a string of sentative democracy: Some of the most determined and re- European countries between 1918 and “An industrialist is always inclined spected leaders were black, in spite of 1920, when revolutionary sentiments to consider politics a kind of second the dominant racism invoked to justi- spread like wildfi re a er the 1917 Rus- string to his bow … In a well ordered fy slavery not long ended. sian Revolution and the horrendous country, where the administration is Even though the Charter called experience of the World War. sound, where taxes are reasonable, only for male suff rage, many leading and the police well organised, he can male Chartists wrote pamphlets and aff ord to abstain from politics and de- articles calling for workers to support Capitalism and vote himself entirely to business.” female suff rage. One, in his pamphlet democracy It is this separation of economics Rights of Women, wri en in jail, crit- and politics that provides the context icised the men of the movement for There are social scientists who ar- for representative democracy that too li le a ention to women’s po- gue that capitalism necessarily brings ensures the continuation of rule by litical and social rights. Hundreds democracy. The truth is, capitalism an exploiting minority. But even lim- of thousands of women organised creates the conditions in which rep- ited democracy is not inevitable. State and a ended meetings. According to resentative democracy is possible but force hovers behind the facade of de- Dorothy Thompson, a historian of not inevitable. Under feudalism, the mocracy, o en used simply to intimi- the movement, “[B]y the early 1840s peasants produced their basic neces- date and warn. [women’s suff rage] seems to have been sities on the land, and the landed ar- A system of recurring crises and REDFLAG 15

war, capitalism cannot always main- savage austerity, which governments viets in Russia, workers’ councils in tain the facade, and the state can be subject to the pressure of actually get- English, shoras in Iran in 1979 before The history of used to maim, jail and even kill those ting elected might baulk at adopting. they were smashed by the Islamist who refuse to accept the barbarities In Australia four decades of ne- clerics – have been created in many parliamentary of capitalism. Capitalists have turned oliberalism laid the basis for an in- revolutionary workers movements to fascism or military dictatorship creasing negation of democracy. So- since. They bring the administration democracy in times of crisis – Hitler’s Germany, cial policy and notions of public good of economic and social aff airs into the Mussolini’s Italy, Spain and Portugal are now openly determined entirely representative bodies, a point Marx makes it clear from the late 1930s until the 1970s, by reference to what they imply for drew out as of great signifi cance in that if mass Pinochet in Chile 1973, the Greek colo- the Treasury. Increasingly, govern- 1871. Workers create the wealth that nels’ junta 1967-74, Suharto’s regime mental tasks have been devolved to can be used to enrich the whole of poverty, war and in Indonesia a er 1965 – when they unelected institutions. society. So they cannot separate polit- judged it necessary. These regimes ical rule from control over the process oppression are to were hailed as saviours of civilisation of production the way exploiters can. when they infl icted mass slaughter Workers’ And the revolutionary struggles that be eradicated, an on their populations – until of course produce workers’ councils, like the the West went to war with Hitler. Paul democracy Chartist movement, change workers, alternative form Keating, the ALP elder statesman and The history of parliamentary de- making them “fi t to rule” as Marx put former prime minister, wrote that Su- mocracy makes it clear that if mass it, overcoming divisions, becoming ca- of democracy harto’s massacre of possibly a million poverty, war and oppression are to be pable of building a new humane soci- was one of the best things to happen eradicated, if the environment is to be ety – unlike numbering a few boxes in is absolutely in Australia’s “neighbourhood” be- saved, an alternative form of democ- elections. cause it brought “stability”. racy is absolutely necessary. The his- There are those who say that so- necessary. The present crisis has produced tory of workers’ struggles illuminates ciety is too complex today for work- mass unemployment at levels not what this alternative looks like. ers to organise it. But alongside the seen since the 1930s Great Depression In 1871 the workers of Paris rose growth of a literate, educated, skilled in countries across Europe. A acks on up, took control of the city and re- working class, capitalism has devel- workers in even the US, the most pow- placed the old state machinery with oped immense systems of communi- erful imperialist state, have forced car the Paris Commune. Marx saw that cation. In Poland in 1981, workers used workers to take cuts to their wages of workers had found the answer to the the telephone system to broadcast up to a third. As a result, new methods question of how to replace capitalism through the factories the proceedings of limiting democracy have come into and its systems of power. Workers in meetings between their represent- play. had created their own genuinely dem- atives and the bosses. Today it’s not In November 2011, George Papan- ocratic organisations – not the result diffi cult to imagine workers’ councils dreou, the Greek prime minister, pro- of abstract theory, but of the actions in workplaces linked up not just city posed a referendum on a “rescue pack- of the revolutionaries who seized Par- or nation-wide, but internationally. age” – a brutal austerity programme is. Then in 1905, when the workers of There would be no need for secrecy; negotiated with the European Central Russia rose in revolution, the working delegates could be made accountable Bank (ECB) and IMF. The whole of class was more a force in its own right, and replaced if they did not carry out European respectable society react- giving us an even clearer picture. policies their electors supported. ed with absolute fury. The very idea! In Paris, delegates to the Com- Of course there would be disagree- Giving people a vote on managing the mune were chosen by geographical ments about how to achieve a be er economic crisis! Within days Papan- area, giving middle class reformers world. But once the power of the cap- dreou was replaced by the unelected undue infl uence. In Russia in 1905, italists was broken, those discussions Lucas Papademos. The media call workers created representative bod- could be conducted by people with this former governor of the Bank of ies made up of delegates from work- common interests. In a class society, Greece and vice-president of the ECB places. This brought the question of where exploiters live off the labour of from 2002 to 2010 a “technocrat”. democratic control into the work- the majority, the confl icting interests Then, as the Italian debt crisis places where society’s wealth is pro- cannot be resolved by debate; that is mounted, Silvio Berlusconi resigned duced. Delegates were recallable at why the capitalists rely on a repres- and was replaced by another unelect- any time, unlike our politicians who sive state to impose their interests ed “technocrat”, Mario Monti – actu- are secure in their fi xed terms. They when necessary. ally a European commissioner and were paid the wage of a skilled worker Capitalist democracy is a com- an international adviser to Goldman and remained at work, where they ex- promise between the classes, a con- Sachs and Coca-Cola. He was appoint- perienced the consequences of their cession won generally by workers’ ed “senator for life” and a week later decisions beside those who voted struggles. While democratic rights sworn in as prime minister at the for them. Think how much more ac- have to be defended at every turn, head of a “national unity government” countable this makes delegates than they should be seen only as the basis of bankers and businessmen. the people we vote for but never meet on which we can fi ght for rule by the In the situation of extreme eco- face to face unless we are pounding on people for the people. We could hardly nomic crisis, the democratic “right” of their offi ce door to protest – and even make as big a mess of it as the present the people to elect their government then you’re unlikely to meet them. mob who rule. was simply “suspended” to impose These kinds of structures – so- 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 16 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG www.redfl ag.org.au RED

The Liberal vision for a bosses’ Queensland ed sexual health services, subjected to Paul DM the loss of 30 jobs, despite health care professionals warning that this will Campbell Newman’s Liberal National lead to “a public health catastrophe”. Party (LNP) has made clear its vision Although Kevin Rudd has since for Queensland: one inspired by the announced, as part of the federal elec- neoliberal method of a acking work- tion campaign, funding to keep servic- ers and defending the interests of the es going for another year, the Queens- bosses and their profi ts. land health minister has dismissed Newman has slashed jobs and the move, describing it as “ridiculous”. services, a acked workers at every Such is the LNP’s disdain for the opportunity and legislated to make it community sector that it completely increasingly harder for our unions to rejected a similar $2.5 million lifeline fi ght back. So at this half way mark, from the commonwealth that would it’s worth taking stock of the story so have allowed the state’s Tenancy Ad- far. vice and Advocacy Service (TAAS) to remain open. Ongoing job cuts As a result, the service was forced From the very beginning, the LNP to close its doors on 30 June, despite has had Queensland workers in its increasing demand, including from cross hairs, with public sector work- a growing number of homeless. One ers bearing the brunt of the a acks. Brisbane TASS offi ce described the Although promising no forced redun- service as being for many “the dif- dancies, once elected, Newman ap- ference between having a roof over pointed Peter Costello, former How- your head and homelessness”. Clearly, ard treasurer, to head an “independ- those living under the constant threat ent” audit of the state’s fi nances. of eviction, or who are already living A er the audit warned of a loom- rough on the streets, are another “low ing budget crisis, Newman declared priority” for the LNP. he had li le choice but to slash public spending. First to go were up to 3,000 A acking unions temporary staff , axed together in one Newman’s vision includes a strong fell swoop on what became known as state that stamps out dissent and “Black Friday”, 30 June 2012.However, supports the bosses against any fi ght even permanent employees were not back. Newman quickly moved to in- safe, as the budget for the 2012-13 fi - troduce cumbersome balloting proce- nancial year included 14,000 cuts of dures, making it more diffi cult to en- permanent staff from across the pub- gage in protected strike action. From lic service. To facilitate this, Newman 1 July 2013, the LNP introduced a new unilaterally removed job security pro- code of practice aimed at cracking visions in the existing EBA, which he down on union activity in the build- enshrined in legislation despite union ing industry following a heroic and protests. successful nine week strike over equal Those public sector workers who pay at the Queensland Children’s Hos- Queensland Premier Campbell Newman. managed to keep their jobs are now pital late last year. subject to “contestability”, which The new code aims to prevent ma- contempt of parliament a er he was Newman describes as “testing wheth- jor projects being “held to ransom by heckled when he tried to address the Newman’s vision er someone else can do it for less mon- militant unions” – in other words, pre- rally. And of course Brisbane has the ey, do the same job or an even be er venting unions taking similar success- G20 to look forward to in November includes a strong job for less money than is currently ful action in the future. Newman has 2014, when police and security powers occurring”. even taken away the offi cial May Day will be bolstered and local residents state that stamps This paves the way for outsourc- holiday, long celebrated in Queens- will require passes just to access their ing to the private sector, with treasur- land, as a deliberate insult to unions own homes. out dissent and er Tim Nichols declaring, for example, and an assertion that we should rec- Newman’s government is an ex- supports the that Queensland’s TAFE institutions ognise just who’s boss in this state. pression and reinforcement of exist- are at “the top” of the government’s hit Newman has also passed legis- ing class divisions within the state, bosses against list. Contestability is also being used lation requiring unions to get mem- Newman’s “reforms” clearly target- to drive down wages, as is occurring bers’ approval before embarking on ing workers and the disadvantaged. any fi ght back. in WorkCover, where 188 positions are campaigns that will cost more than With moves to continue outsourcing being downgraded, workers having to $10,000. Under the guise of empower- government functions and services, choose between accepting an average ing members, this measure is aimed including handing over control of the of $10,000 less per year and being re- solely at making it more cumbersome $1.8 billion Sunshine Coast University trenched. for unions to campaign on behalf of Hospital currently under construc- their members. Although rejected by tion to private sector interests, it’s also Services savaged the Industrial Relations Commission, clear that the LNP will continue to Newman also stripped funding Newman went so far as to a empt to serve the interests of business at our from a range of community organi- ban the Together public sector union expense. sations that provide services to some from communicating with its mem- Meanwhile the LNP parliamentar- of the most disadvantaged sections bers or adversely commenting on cur- ians have their snouts well and truly of the population. Under the $260 rent EBA negotiations. in the trough, pocketing a 42 percent million Grant Funding Effi ciencies Such is the arrogance of the LNP pay rise while crying poor and off er- program, savings are being made by that one MP even threatened on his ing public servants a measly 2.2 per- “ceasing or reducing funding for lower Facebook page to have organisers cent. The trend will continue until our priority projects and services”. of a demonstration against the clo- side can build a sustained fi ght back Such “low priorities” have includ- sure of a nursing home charged with in our unions and on the streets. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative 17 RED www.redfl ag.org.au

Bad sport and bad blood

the essence of the evolutionary spirit. clubs, which are tightly controlled a label for the processes designed to Lindsay Fitzclarence The architects of neoliberal capitalist units. And further down still are the secure and grow the AFL brand with- sport have reworded Gekko’s axiom elite athletes, who are shaped as ac- in the sport/entertainment market. The Essendon Football Club (EFC) into the belief that “sport is greed”. tive but docile machines and as com- The problem, as this scandal high- “supplement scandal” has been the Third, the brand rules. While the modities for the mass market of the lights, is that this process of market burning issue of the AFL 2013 season. spectacle of tight contests and fi erce AFL brand. management and manipulation also During the long period of investiga- competition is of upmost importance, Australian Bureau of Statistics generates serious contradictions and tion by the AFL and the Australian the growth and security of the brand, data off er one measure of the success perhaps unintended eff ects. Primarily, Sports Anti-Doping Authority, the not the sport itself, ma er most. This of this branding process. The AFL, in- players have been used as high perfor- corporate media have focused primar- means that the context of competi- cluding its incorporated sub-leagues, mance guinea pigs. Individual clubs, ily on the tensions, ambiguities and ir- tion must be carefully managed by a racts more spectators than other within the managed market, under- regularities between the AFL, the EFC sharing success between competitors sports. Under the two network broad- stand that their time in the spotlight and coach James Hird. in order to guarantee ongoing inter- casting arrangement, including Fox of success, at the top of the league ta- The issue has o en been reduced est in and loyalty to the brand. Policy Footy and Network Seven, television ble with the chance of a premiership, to a very public soap opera. The wid- audiences continue to grow. is limited. er public has been deprived of critical The AFL has actively courted state In order to achieve success, clubs insights about the incorporation of The process of market and federal governments as well as must carefully harness their collec- sport into the master frame of “the management and private corporations to help fund tive resources, manage their playing market”. A deeper analysis, acknowl- manipulation also code infrastructure. Some examples list wisely and, all going to plan, cap- edging the social roots of this prob- of these fi nancial and market-driven italise on their chance for a premier- lem, is required. generates serious relationships include “partnerships” ship when their turn arrives. It is contradictions and in the Gold Coast Stadium, Sydney around this imperative to win within The myopic culture of perhaps unintended Olympic Park, Adelaide Oval, the re- a narrow opportunity that tempta- capitalist sport development of the Great Southern tions to push the envelope arise. eff ects. Stand at the MCG and the SCG. Understood in these terms, cap- There are fi ve key elements to the The AFL has enacted a range of italist sport is designed to generate neoliberal transformation of sport. designed to eff ect “equalisation” be- initiatives designed to create “equali- contradiction. Obvious examples in- First, the key principle in grow- tween clubs has been one lever used sation” across the clubs. Equalisation clude the growth of illegal gambling ing a market in sport is to establish to help manage the tension between involves measures and controls de- and the burgeoning use of drugs a brand that will a ract and hold competition and tangible equity. signed to foster revenue sharing as by athletes. In turn the health and spectators and participants. Prior to Fourth, sporting specialists of all well as limiting the extremes of per- well-being of participants caught establishing a viable competition, ba- stripes must be mobilised to the max formance between clubs. It involves up in this maelstrom of incentives, sic “plant” in the way of facilities and and unite in the cause. These include devices such as early dra picks for inducements and pressures are put infrastructure is also required. In the administrators, coaches, medical staff , lower placed clubs and the enforce- at risk, and so is the public’s faith in case of football, this means appropri- sports scientists and the media. They ment of “salary caps” on player pay- sport itself. ate stadiums and playing facilities. In are the essential technicians behind ments. The Essendon supplement scan- selling the brand, active involvement the quest for the “winning edge”, In August 2013 a deputation of of- dal raises an alert about such so- of mass media, with the associated “competitive advantage” and the “one fi cials from the AFL visited the US to cio-political contradictions. Within benefi ts of advertising, then follows. percenters”. study methods of equalisation in the the burgeoning framework of capi- In securing such basic infrastructure, And fi nally, athletes’ bodies and major sports of football and baseball. talist sport culture, supplement use endorsement and material support minds must be controlled, commodi- On return, AFL deputy chief execu- is a stark example of clubs, offi cials, follow from the state, through policy fi ed and, it seems, medicated. tive Gillon McLachlan said he saw experts and obedient players striving and regulation. eff ective strategies designed to pro- to fi nd that small edge of competitive Second, hyper-competition is the The AFL as a prime mote competition equalisation and advantage. ultimate code. Hard-edged competi- example thus to give all supporters hope that Neoliberalism, as a meta-ideology, tive practices shape interactions be- their club would be competitive. His fosters this ugly climate within which tween codes and, within each code, be- The AFL understands itself as a summary comment is telling: “Very such contradictions fl ourish and fes- tween clubs, inside clubs and into the leading brand in sports entertain- capitalist endeavours support these ter. In the end, we get good entertain- hearts, minds and bodies of athletes. ment. Its branding process reaches socialist policies.” ment but bad sport and bad blood. In the 1987 fi lm Wall Street, the princi- across a wide range of symbols, ac- Here we detect vital clues about pal character, Gordon Gekko, asserted tivities and sub-units. Further down the dynamics behind the Essendon that greed is good and that it captures the corporation are the independent supplements scandal. Equalisation is 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 18 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG www.redfl ag.org.au RED 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative 19 RED www.redfl ag.org.au

Manning and Snowden have changed the discussion

Manning and Snowden have met their objective of initiating a serious discussion nationally and internationally, whatever further crimes may be infl icted on them.

gust how Laura Poitras, a journalist information of US spying on Brazil, and fi lm-maker, who worked with where he is living, was the deten- Snowden and Glen Greenwald to get tion at London’s Heathrow airport of his revelations out to the world. Greenwald’s companion David Miran- Her photo was on the magazine’s da for nine hours. cover, with the headline “How Laura Miranda was on his way back to Poitras helped expose what the Amer- Brazil from a meeting in Berlin with ican government does in the name Laura Poitras, who is working with of security”. The article portrayed Greenwald on further Snowden re- Snowden, Poitras and Greenwald as leases. not only quite intelligent in how they The British political police claimed circumvented the US repressive ap- they were acting under a law to ferret paratus, but was sympathetic to their out information about terrorism. cause. Poitras deserves more credit, “What’s amazing is this law, called and I urge readers to look up this ar- the Terrorism Act, gives them a right ticle. to detain and question you about your Another aspect is freedom of the activities with a terrorist organisation press, even the capitalist press. The or your possible involvement in or Justice Department is seeking to force knowledge of a terrorism plot”, Green- New York Times reporter James Risen wald said. to testify in its case against former But the spooks didn’t raise an- CIA offi cer Jeff ry Sterling. It alleges ything about terrorism when they hen Edward Snowden Manning’s lawyers say she will be that Sterling leaked classifi ed infor- grilled Miranda. “The only thing they gave his fi rst public in- eligible for parole in about seven more mation to Risen, who used it to write were interested in was NSA docu- Wterview in Hong Kong, years, having been given credit for the about the CIA. So far Risen has resist- ments and what I was doing with Lau- he said his greatest fear over three years she has already been ed testifying, but he might face con- ra Poitras”, Greenwald noted. was the possibility that his revela- held in prison, which included some tempt of court charges. The British cops then confi scated tions would fall on deaf ears. months of torture. The administration would like to all Miranda’s electronic documents Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Man- Her defence now moves into a new move against the Times and other pa- and equipment. A court later ruled ning and Snowden have paid a steep phase. A er she was sentenced, Man- pers for printing some of Manning’s that his computers and records would price for their revelations of the war ning issued a strong open appeal to and Snowden’s revelations. It fears to have to be returned to Miranda, but crimes and massive violations of the President Obama for a pardon. That create a backlash, however. gave the police seven days fi rst to Bill of Rights by the US government will be pursued legally. Now some offi cials and people in copy them. against its own citizens and its vast Then Manning came out publicly Congress are seeking to put organisa- The Brazilian government strong- collection of electronic communica- that she would now live her life as a tions like WikiLeaks in a new category ly objected. Obviously, London didn’t tions worldwide. woman, and changed her name to of “non-legitimate” journalism, and so do this on its own, but in collaboration Manning was sentenced to 35 Chelsea. She said she would seek med- not protected by constitutional guar- with Washington. years in a military stockade for tell- ical treatments to change her physical antees of freedom of the press. The British political police also ing the truth, and Snowden has been body accordingly. The army immedi- Such a move would raise its own threatened to shut down the Guard- forced into exile, hunted down by the ately responded that it would allow problems for the ruling class, for ian newspaper, its editor, Alan Rus- criminal administration in Washing- no such treatments. Now Chelsea is example for reporting by social me- bridger, has revealed. This was in ton. challenging that in the courts. This is dia. Would a teenager who posted retaliation for the paper’s publishing But their sacrifi ce has not been part of the fi ght for her to receive fair Snowden’s documents be fair game material from Wikileaks and Green- in vain. In a real sense, Manning and and good treatment in prison in gen- for the spooks? wald. Snowden have met their objective of eral. It is quite likely that Julian As- The police said they would shut initiating a serious discussion of these These campaigns will help keep sange is already under secret indict- down the Guardian unless it turned ma ers nationally and international- her case in the public eye, and pre- ment, probably citing the Espionage over its hard drives containing the ly, whatever further crimes may be pare, if necessary, to fi ght for her ear- Act, for publishing Manning’s materi- leaked material, or destroyed the hard infl icted on them. ly release at the fi rst opportunity for al as well as aiding Snowden. drives. Rusbridger decided to do the Snowden’s revelations, coming parole. A section of the ruling class la er, and destroyed them under the a er those of Manning, changed the doesn’t want to go that far in tearing watchful eyes of three police thugs. context of Manning’s court martial. Ruling class worries up the Bill of Rights. This might seem ridiculous since the The exposure of the secret NSA pro- The New York Times editorialised material on the hard drives exists grams caused many to begin to call that Manning’s sentence was “exces- Repercussions elsewhere. The intent was clearly to into question Washington’s real inten- sive”, while saying she deserved some Another cause for concern in rul- intimidate. tions in prosecuting the soldier. punishment. The Times’ position re- ing class circles has been the wide The credibility of the US admin- Julian Assange said Manning’s fl ects a division in the ruling class international repercussions of Man- istration has been damaged, both by sentence was a partial victory, in that concerning the Manning-Snowden ning’s release of State Department ca- what Manning and Snowden have it was much less than the administra- revelations. bles, and the wide international net of revealed (and there is more to come), tion wanted. The prosecutors argued Another indication was the close the NSA’s spying. and by the violent way it has respond- strongly for a life sentence without vote in the House of Representatives, A recent release of Snowden docu- ed to the leaks. the possibility of parole for “aiding the which almost defunded the NSA’s pro- ments by Greenwald, reported in Der That this has caused consterna- enemy” – in essence, treason. Having gram of monitoring every phone call Spiegel, of new information of US spy- tion at the top presents new opportu- lost that in the atmosphere created by in the US. ing on Germans has created conster- nities to expose the truth about Wash- Snowden’s revelations, their fi nal de- The Times also ran a lengthy ar- nation in that country. ington’s crimes. When the thieves fall mand was a sentence of 60 years. ticle in its Sunday magazine of 18 Au- Adding to Greenwald’s release of out, we should take advantage. 20 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG www.redfl ag.org.au RED

OBITUARY Amber Maxwell, a rebel and a fi ghter A survey in the USA found that 32 Lewis Todman percent of transgender people inter- viewed had a empted suicide. The revolutionary socialist move- It’s not hard to see why. Amber ment lost a great fi ghter on Saturday, faced discrimination at every turn. 24 August. When applying for a room to rent, she Amber Maxwell lived a diffi cult was told several times that only “real life. As a transgender woman, she girls” were wanted. One homelessness found it impossible to fi nd permanent service hung up on her a er inform- work or accommodation. But through ing her that they “only had room for all her hardship, she put everything females”. She was consistently re- she had into the fi ght for socialism. jected when she applied for jobs or Amber seemed to have boundless apprenticeships. Even when she was energy and enthusiasm for politics. able to fi nd a hostel to live in, she suf- Every week she would catch the fered from demeaning paternalism, bus from the homeless youth hostel including a curfew which o en made where she lived to the University of it diffi cult for her to come to political Western Australia to help us build the meetings at night. organisation, sell Red Flag, fi ght cuts Amber was killed by the system to higher education and campaign for she despised so much. Her death is a refugee rights. tragic reminder that institutionalised Amber was always the one leading homophobia and transphobia cost impromptu paper sales, organising ex- lives. As Amber herself wrote in issue tra chalking and postering for demon- 4 of Red Flag, “Life as a transgender or strations, selling far more copies of gender diverse person is o en charac- Red Flag than anyone else on stalls. terised by diffi culty and discrimina- Even when she was in her most de- tion. Family rejection, homelessness, pressed state, she always told me that depression, a empted suicide – these socialist activism and fi ghting for a are a regular part of our existence.” be er world was the one thing that Amber was a well-known activist made life worth living. Rarely have for equal marriage rights, a fi ghter PHOTO: ALEX BAINBRIDGE. I met a comrade so determined and against the discrimination that killed read of unemployed workers’ protests, cared about off ending anyone. Amber dedicated. her. She chaired the Equal Love rallies wildcat strikes and ba les against the could always be relied on to give off - Amber took her own life at the age with her typical fi ery tone and could fascists. the-cuff speeches about police brutal- of 20, unable to deal with her oppres- electrify crowds of hundreds with her She especially loved the songs of ity the moment anyone was arrested sion any longer. Her death should not anger. On every demonstration, Am- the Industrial Workers of the World, on a demonstration, to give the fences be viewed as a random tragedy, but as ber was the fi rst on the megaphone Australia’s fi rst serious revolutionary at refugee detention centres a solid a product of transphobia and a lack and the last off . organisation, and would bust out the kick with her steel-capped boots or to of essential services for young people. In her spare time she fanatically anti-Labor Party classic “Bump Me start up a controversial chant on the Suicide is an epidemic among LGBTI researched Perth labour history. She Into Parliament” whenever the oppor- megaphone. She was a true revolu- youth. Studies in Australia show the wrote some wonderful articles, in- tunity arose. tionary. a empted suicide rate among LGBTI cluding the one published below on She had the most wonderfully ir- You will be missed so much com- people is between 3.5 and 14 times that the 1910 tram strike. She would enthu- reverent a itude towards all authori- rade. Rest in peace. of their heterosexual counterparts. siastically regale us with stories she’d ty and her political enemies; she never When workers put the brakes on Perth

appealed, the presiding judge declared department stores resorted to hiring The resumed service was also disrupt- Amber Maxwell that he had “no business regulating private cars to ferry wealthy custom- ed by sabotage, including the cu ing industry”. Incensed, the workers vot- ers in and out. The tram company, of crucial power lines and the at- Perth is o en portrayed as a city with ed to take action. One by one they unable to fi nd many scabs, proceeded tempted demolition of the tram depot li le interesting history. It may sur- stopped work and presented overtime to board up trams inside the depot to and line with dynamite. prise some people to learn that Perth claims to the company when they prevent sabotage. For all this, however, the strike was once brought to an almost total There was mass public support unfortunately ended in defeat. The standstill by a six and a half week for the strike. The “Le ers to the ed- workers were forced back to work on tram strike, from July until Septem- For the duration itor” section of the West Australian the conditions of the award that they ber 1910. was full of le ers urging people to had rejected at the start. The defeat An appeal to the arbitration court of the strike there boyco scab trams. The Westralian almost broke the union. The leader- for a new award (se ing out the wag- was, in eff ect, no Worker (the paper of the Western Aus- ship bowed out of the dispute and ad- es and conditions of employment for tralia Labor Party) devoted considera- vised the men to make their own deci- all workers in the industry) had led to tram service at all ble space to coverage of the strike. sions about a return to work well over one with very loosely defi ned clauses. in Perth. Mass meetings were held on the a week before they fi nally capitulated. It allowed for the slashing of workers’ Perth Esplanade and in places as far A large number of non-union wages and conditions. afi eld as Kalgoorlie; a lot of money workers were also now employed on A new roster was issued for with reached their specifi ed maximum was raised for the relief of the fam- the trams and were given seniority workers on split shi s that poten- hours per fortnight. They even pulled ilies of the striking workers. When over the returning strikers. An at- tially put some on call for well over in one freeloading scab who had up to the company a empted to train some tempt to begin a second strike a short 14 hours a day. This was legal because that point refused to join the union. scab drivers in August, a riot broke time later in protest against this was the award specifi ed the number of For the duration of the strike out, and the scabs were pelted with quickly wound down. hours to be worked but not the num- there was, in eff ect, no tram service at fruit and various other objects. Despite the defeat, the strike ber of hours “on duty”. all in Perth. At a time when most peo- When the company was fi nally stands as an inspiring example of The award specifi ed a new mini- ple did not have their own vehicles, able to restore a limited service, police workers’ struggle. We can take from it mum wage, to which the Perth Tram- this meant that the city was brought on horseback had to escort the trams important lessons of the need for rank ways Company promptly lowered all to a virtual standstill. Many shops up and down Hay Street to prevent and fi le organisation and the need for workers’ wages. When the workers did not open, and some of the larger hostile crowds from a acking them. workers’ solidarity across industries. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 21 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative RED www.redfl ag.org.au

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY WORLD OF STRUGGLE Land Rights protests at ‘82 Commonwealth Games

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, 21 August: to make teachers the scapegoats for Striking teachers clash with police a neoliberal agenda in which invest- outside the Congress building in ments in areas like education, health Mexico City. More than 70,000 teach- and welfare appear as trifl es in com- also for that most vital of demands ers, mainly from the southern states parison with the main game of sup- Liam Byrne for any form of justice for Australia’s of Oaxaca and Michoacán, partici- port for big business and the rich. fi rst peoples, land rights: for control pated in the strike, shu ing down Fortunately, the teachers aren’t tak- 26 September 1982. The streets of of their land to be in the hands of around 24,000 schools at the start of ing it lying down. Brisbane are clogged with thou- Indigenous people, not the mining the new school year. The clashes outside the Congress sands. The Commonwealth Games bosses and the pastoralists. The focus of teachers’ anger is occurred as up to 20,000 teachers laid are in town, promising a bonanza On 26 September, at least 2,000 proposed changes to education laws siege to the building to disrupt vot- for business and the best seats in the marched past the grim stares of Bjel- that will subject them to stringent ing on the new laws. Following these house for Queensland’s corrupt po- ke-Petersen’s cowboy cops to make new performance assessment meas- clashes, on 23 August, 7,000 teachers litical elite. their demands heard. It became ures. Mexican politicians, led by participated in a blockade targeting The gangster state was headed known as the largest Aboriginal President Enrique Peña Nieto, claim Mexico City’s main international air- by the infamous Joh Bjelke-Petersen, rights march in Queensland’s history such measures are necessary to im- port. In April, teachers a acked and the most dictatorial ruler in Austral- and sparked a fl urry of protests and prove the education system. Teach- burned government offi ces in the ia since Robert Menzies. marches for the games’ duration. ers around the world will be familiar state of Guerrero a er offi cials there Queensland was a virtual police On 30 September a demonstra- with the script, whereby the prob- approved the changes. state as the Commonwealth Games tion during the opening ceremony lems of a system ground down by The militancy and determina- arrived, with special laws to prevent resulted in 39 arrested. On 4 October, lack of funding and incompetent and tion being shown by teachers in their embarrassing protests. Bjelke-Pe- 109 were dragged to police cells dur- o en corrupt offi cials are blamed fi ght against neoliberal “reforms” in tersen even declared a state of emer- ing a peaceful sit-in. Two hundred solely on teachers. Mexico provide an inspiring example gency to deter any form of public and sixty were arrested three days The Mexican government wants and lesson for workers everywhere. defi ance. later. But special laws were not enough Despite this a empt at intimi- to block the courage and determi- dation, the courage and the pride of nation of the Indigenous people the protesters were not dented in the and their supporters who defi antly slightest. Against the batons and the marched through Brisbane, bring- darkened cells of the Queensland ing their struggle into international police, backed by all the legislative focus. power of the government, the In- The Indigenous struggle had digenous protesters demonstrated been one of militant protest, particu- that they could not, would not, be larly over the previous decade. The ignored. protests were against racism, but

CHOCONTA, Colombia, 22 August: rupting the wider Colombian econo- Small farmers and agricultural work- my, mainly through blocking major ers march along a highway in Choc- transport routes. In many places, onta, around 75km north-east of strikers have fought off police at- the capital Bogota, during a general tempts to dismantle their blockades. Now they tell us strike that has paralysed Colombia’s The power of the movement in “[US] widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both rural economy for over a week. rural areas has inspired solidarity ineff ective and unsustainable.” – US A orney General Eric Holder. The US has Colombia’s arch-neoliberal Pres- actions in the cities, students joining 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the prisoners. ident Juan Manuel Santos is deter- together with teachers and other un- mined to push through policies that ionists in providing support to the Vote of confi dence will entrench Colombia’s status as a strike. A “vote of confi dence from the Department of Business, Innovation and honey pot for multinational capital, The demands of the strikers are Skills.” – British company Off shore Group Newcastle, when it won a £4.5 particularly in mining and agricul- straightforward: the rolling back of million government grant last October. Since then, the company has given ture. Over the past few decades, hun- free trade agreements and other pol- the Tories £140,000. dreds of thousands of small farmers, icies that have benefi ted big business miners and other rural workers have at the cost of small farmers and ordi- How to become a billionaire been forced off the land to make way nary workers, along with adequate “The fi ve largest employers in the US, including Walmart and McDonald’s, all for large scale, export-oriented indus- investment in rural infrastructure, pay minimum wage, or close to it. They only succeed in this strategy because try. Those who remain are struggling in education, health, housing, public they’re massively subsidised by the government through food stamps and to hold on. services and roads. Medicare.” – Professor John Mason, of William Paterson University in New The current strike is the culmi- In the cu hroat world of multi- Jersey. nation of growing unrest over the national capitalism, even the most past year. It has drawn in hundreds marginal reforms are likely to be re- Clear choice of thousands of workers – including sisted tooth and nail by those at the “It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their coff ee, coca, potato and rice farmers, top. Resolution of the issues under- interests and ours when the balance shi s in their favour.” – General John alongside truck drivers, gold miners lying the strike will require escala- Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff , on how the US should and many others. The workers have tion of the struggle in the weeks and interfere in Syria. participated in actions aimed at dis- months ahead. 22 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 Newspaper of Socialist Alternative FLAG www.redfl ag.org.au RED What Socialist Alternative stands for

1. SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE is a revolutionary 11. THE IMPERIALIST phase of capitalism has Marxist organisation. We stand for the overthrow of ushered in an era of military confl ict that has no capitalism and the construction of a world socialist precedent in human history. The core element of system. imperialism is the confl ict between imperial pow- ers, or blocks of capital, which a empt by military, 2. BY SOCIALISM we mean a system in which socie- diplomatic and commercial means to divide and ty is democratically controlled by the working class redivide the world in their own interests. In the con- and the productive resources of society are chan- fl icts between imperial powers (open or by proxy), nelled to abolishing class divisions. Only socialism revolutionaries do not take sides, least of all with can rid the world of poverty and inequality, stop im- our own ruling classes. Nor do we call for the reso- perialist wars, end oppression and exploitation, save Who is behind Red Flag? lution of inter-imperialist confl ict by the “peaceful” the environment from destruction and provide the methods of international diplomacy. Instead we conditions for the full realisation of human creative Socialist Alternative is the organisation behind fi ght for international working class solidarity and potential. A system under the democratic control of Red Flag. We are a revolutionary socialist group unity, and embrace Lenin’s revolutionary call to the working class is the only basis for establishing that sees class struggle, not parliament, as “turn the imperialist war between nations into a a classless, prosperous, sustainable society based on the key to changing society. We are organised civil war between classes”. In the case of wars waged the principle “from each according to their ability, to very differently to the main political parties or diplomatic pressure exerted by military threat by each according to their need”. like Labor and the Greens. Our members don’t the imperial powers against colonies and non-impe- just hand out how to vote cards for candidates rialist nations, we oppose the imperial power and 3. STALINISM IS not socialism. We agree with Trot- in elections. We are activists wherever we are, defend the right of national self-determination. sky’s characterisation of Stalin as the “gravedigger” trying to organise others, build solidarity and en- of the Russian Revolution. The political character of courage resistance – in workplaces, on campus- 12. AUSTRALIA IS an imperialist power in its own the regime established by the Stalinist bureaucracy es, in progressive campaigns, and on the street. right. Through its own economic and military in Russia most closely resembled that placed in strength, and in alliance with US imperialism, Aus- power in capitalist countries by victorious fascist As well as being involved as unionists and activ- tralian capitalism seeks to politically and militarily movements – an atomised population ruled over by ists, it is crucial that we build an organisation dominate its region and project power more broadly. a ruthless bureaucratic dictatorship masquerading that can combat all the lies and justifi cations for This gives revolutionaries in Australia a special behind social demagogy. We stand in the tradition of capitalism that spew out of the media, the edu- obligation to stand in solidarity with struggles of the revolutionaries who resisted Stalinism, and we cation system and from the government. That’s workers and the oppressed in our region against fi ght today to reclaim the democratic, revolutionary why we also hold meetings to discuss political Australian imperialist intervention and control. politics of Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky ideas, the history of the struggle, and the issues and others from Stalinist distortion. of the day (see our upcoming events on the next 13. WE RECOGNISE Aboriginal and Torres Strait page). Islander people as the fi rst people of Australia. We 4. SOCIALISM CANNOT be won by reform of the acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and current system or by taking over the existing state. The following are the principles of Socialist condemn the crimes of genocide and dispossession Only the revolutionary overthrow of the existing Alternative. They provide the foundation for the commi ed by European colonists and the Austral- order and the smashing of the capitalist state organisation’s broader political positions and ian state. We support the struggle for land rights, apparatus can defeat the capitalist class and per- analyses, and guide our political practice. sovereignty and economic and social justice for manently end its rule. A successful revolution will Indigenous people. involve workers taking control of their workplaces, dismantling existing state institutions (parliaments, bility for united action in practice and demonstrate 14. WE OPPOSE all immigration controls and courts, the armed forces and police) and replacing to all workers in a non-sectarian way the superiority support open borders. We fi ght to free all refugees them with an entirely new state based on genuinely of revolutionary ideas and practice. We support all from detention and for the right of asylum seekers democratic control by the working class. demands and movements that tend to improve the to reach Australia. We oppose racism towards position and self confi dence of workers and of other migrants. In particular we reject racism towards 5. THE EMANCIPATION of the working class must oppressed sections of the population. Muslims, whose right to religious and political free- be the act of the working class itself. Socialism dom is routinely a acked on the spurious grounds cannot come about by the actions of a minority. The 8. SOCIALISTS SUPPORT trade unions as the basic of “fi ghting terrorism”. struggle for socialism is the struggle of the great defensive organisations of the working class. We mass of workers to control their lives and their soci- stand for democratic, militant, class struggle union- 15. WE OPPOSE all oppression on the basis of sex, ety, what Marx called “a movement of the immense ism and reject class collaborationism. We also stand gender or sexuality. We oppose all forms of dis- majority in the interests of the immense majority”. for political trade unionism – the union movement crimination against women and all forms of social should champion every struggle against injustice. inequality between men and women. The struggle 6. FOR WORKERS to be won to the need for rev- for freedom from exploitation and freedom from all olution, and for the working class to be cohered 9. CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION of the working forms of oppression includes the liberation of les- organisationally and politically into a force capable class and the natural world has created a situation bians, gay men, bisexual, transgender and intersex of defeating the centralised might of the capitalist where the profi t system threatens the habitability people. We fi ght for an end to all legal and social dis- state, a revolutionary party is necessary. Such an of the planet. We oppose a empts to halt climate crimination against LGBTI people and all forms of organisation has to cohere in its ranks the decisive change and environmental destruction through sexist discrimination. We support full reproductive elements among the most class conscious and mili- measures that place the burden on working class freedom for all women. tant workers. Laying the basis for such a party is the people and the poor. We demand instead funda- key strategic task for socialists in Australia today. mental social and political change that directly 16. ALL THESE forms of oppression, and others challenges the interests of the ruling class. The envi- like the oppression of the young, the disabled and 7. IT IS NOT enough for a revolutionary party to ronmental crisis can only be solved under socialism, the elderly, are used to divide the working class and organise the vanguard of the class. For capitalism where the interests of people and the planet are not to spare capital the expense of providing for the to be overthrown, the majority of the working counterposed. needs of all members of society. Combating them class must be won to revolutionary action and the is an essential part of building a united working socialist cause. It is not enough to simply denounce 10. SOCIALISTS ARE internationalists. We reject class struggle that can win a socialist society. Only the non-revolutionary organisations and political Australian patriotism and nationalism and fi ght for a socialist revolution can bring about the genuine currents in the workers’ movement. Revolutionaries international working class solidarity. The struggle liberation of the oppressed and the ability of every have to engage reformist organisations via the against capitalism is an international struggle: human being to realise their full potential. method of the united front in order to test the possi- socialism cannot be built in a single country. 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 23 FLAG Newspaper of Socialist Alternative RED www.redfl ag.org.au GET INVOLVED

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If you too hate the Liberals and despise the ALP, don’t despair in front of the TV. Instead, join us to discuss how to build a real opposition to the major parties and the system that they serve. Come along to the Socialist Alternative election night party in your city!

Melbourne Sydney Saturday 7 September 6pm Saturday 7 September, 6pm Socialist Alternative election night party! Socialist Alternative election night party! AMWU building, 251 Queensberry Street The Gaelic Club, 64 Devonshire Street Carlton South Surry Hills (entry: $5) Perth Brisbane Saturday 7 September, 6:30pm Saturday 7 September, 6:30pm Socialist Alternative election night party! Socialist Alternative election night party! State School Teachers Union Kurilpa Hall, 174 Boundary Street, West 150-152 Adelaide Terrace, East Perth End (entry: $5 unwaged, $8 waged) Adelaide Canberra -no party but: Saturday 7 September, 5pm Thursday 12 September, 6pm Call James for details: George Orwell and the surveillance state 0412 906 978 Hayden-Allen G050 @ ANU For more details on how you can get involved with Socialist Alternative, simply visit sa.org.au or contact us at: [email protected] A twice yearly journal covering key political debates and issues from a Introduction revolutionary Marxist standpoint. To order a copy or to subscribe visit to Marxism MARXISTLEFTREVIEW.ORG discussion groups

Interested in left wing ideas? Want to You can join in any week. Each know more about the fundamentals of session begins with an introduction, JOIN SOCIALIST Marxism and the politics of Socialist followed by small group discussion. It Alternative? is a great way to familiarise yourself with the revolutionary ideas of ALTERNATIVE We host a series of discussions for left Marxism. wing people to learn about the Marxist If you agree with what you read in “what Socialist Alternative critique of capitalism, and about Melbourne: stands for” on the opposite page, and want to get involved in the socialist project to change the 6:30pm every Monday @ Socialist helping to build a fi ghting socialist organisation, why not join world. Every week we discuss topics Alternative Centre, Trades Hall. us? Fill out the application form below and send to including: Sydney: SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE, • What is capitalism? 6pm every Thursday @ Socialist BOX 4013, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY, • The working class and trade Alternative Centre, 246 King St VIC 3052 unions (upstairs), Newtown. You can also apply to join at www.sa.org.au • The capitalist state and how it Perth: works 6.30pm every Tuesday @ Citiplace • Revolution and socialism Community Centre, Perth train YES, I WANT TO JOIN SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE! • Imperialism station. NAME • Oppression Brisbane: • The Russian Revolution 6:30pm every Monday @ 136 Boundary Street (upstairs), West End. • Why we need a socialist PHONE organisation

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Red Flag, Issue 7, September 1 2013. ISSN: 2202-2228 Published by Red Flag Press Inc. Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton South, Vic, 3053 ADDRESS Email: info@redfl ag.org.au, ph (03) 9650 3541 Editors: Ben Hillier and Corey Oakley Editorial Commi ee: Ben Hillier, Corey Oakley, Steph Price, Jorge Jorquera Production: Diane Fieldes, Viktoria Ivanova, Allen Myers Cover design: Vinil Kumar Subscriptions and publicity: Steph Price. Email subs@redfl ag.org.au Someone from your nearest branch will be in touch soon. REDFLAG Issue 7 - September 1 2013 $3 / $5 (solidarity)

From asylum to Ashes

Australian cricket’s next great hope was on the verge of being deported as a failed refugee. If he wasn’t good at cricket, he could be dead. Many others aren’t so lucky.

pieces in a bag. of power in Canberra to lobby for 92 percent for Pakistanis. “When it Trevor Grant Pakistan-born Ahmed fl ed his Ahmed. comes to these threats on your life, homeland in 2010 a er receiving con- It was a successful campaign. The you don’t have options”, Ahmed said, Australian cricket’s six-year search stant death threats from religious fa- then minister for immigration, Chris emphasising that economic reasons, for the next Shane Warne has gone natics because he was coaching wom- Bowen, used his ministerial discretion including cricket, had nothing to do through a conga line of promising en cricketers and promoting women’s to grant Ahmed a protection visa late with his fl ight to Australia. “I just prospects who disappear as quickly education and health. “They terrorised last year. Bowen’s successor, Brendan came here to live as a normal human as they emerge. Fawad Ahmed, 31, an me, they made death threats to me”, he O’Connor, fast-tracked Ahmed’s citi- being, as a safe human being.” asylum seeker from Pakistan, is the said in an interview with Melbourne zenship application in time for him to Carr has not backed off his cam- latest leg spinner to have this crush- media earlier this year. He spoke of play for Australia in England. paign of demonisation against refu- ing burden thrust upon him. He’s no the death of his friend, Nauman Ha- Cricket aside, the Ahmed case has gees, continuing to claim that people Warne, but he’s a talented bowler who bib. “We played together. He was a done much to highlight the ability following the same path as Ahmed was selected in the Australian squad good friend of mine. They kidnapped of the government to do one thing were ge ing an easy ride under a le- for the one-day series in England in him. A er a few days somebody found and say another on refugee policy. As nient assessment system, the same September. him in a bag in pieces.” O’Connor was welcoming Ahmed as a system that, but for the high-powered At fi rst glance, it’s a feel-good story Ahmed also told his story to the new citizen at a ceremony at the MCG intervention of the elite cricket es- about big-hearted Australia welcom- Immigration Department several a couple of months ago, and person- tablishment, would have sent Ahmed ing a desperate, frightened human be- times but, a er being initially rejected ally validating his claim that he was back to the terror from which he fl ed. ing with open arms, and who is about and then failing through two stages of a victim of persecution, his federal Had a tougher approach on refugee to repay his adopted country by tak- appeal, he was told to prepare for de- cabinet colleague Bob Carr was on a assessments been in place a year ago, ing precious English wickets. portation last September. media blitz to signal a tougher policy our “next Shane Warne” could very As usual, the reality is more com- As he made clear, the only reason on refugee applications. Carr claimed, easily have ended up in pieces in a bag, plicated. Without being lucky enough he managed to avoid deportation was among other things, that all recent not in an Australian cap. to have the powerful lobby of Crick- the actions of offi cials at his district asylum seekers to Australia were eco- [Trevor hosts Refugee Radio at et Australia to plead his case, Ahmed cricket club, Melbourne University. nomic migrants. 3CR in Melbourne. Visit 3cr.org.au/ would now be back in Pakistan, fear- They called on James Sutherland, a The most recent Immigration De- refugeeradioshow to listen to the ing that he would end up like a friend former bowler at the club and cur- partment fi gures show that 91 percent podcasts] and fellow cricketer from his home- rent CEO of Cricket Australia, who of asylum seekers arriving by boat are land – tortured, murdered and le in no doubt used his access to the halls granted refugee status. The fi gure was