Throw out the corporate parasites - not the refugees!

Vanguard August 2013 p. 1

Alice M.

The exploitation of the asylum seekers and refugees by the two main parliamentary parties is a shameful disgrace.

The equally repressive policies of both the Labor government and the Liberal Party targeting refugees seeking asylum has infuriated many Australians.

The two main parliamentary parties, the media and, standing behind them the corporate monopolies, foment and incite fear against refugees arriving in decrepit boats.

Scapegoats are put up to divert attention from the real causes for the difficulties of the people – the economic system of capitalism, imperialist globalisation and wars. 

This has always been the case in times of capitalist economic crisis when working people face attacks on their economic conditions, unemployment and job insecurity, government cuts to public and community services, pensions and benefits. 

Big business demands governments divert more public funds to their profit making.  They demand more infrastructure such as freeways to improve the productivity (profits) in freight transportation and billions of dollars in hand outs to multinational car corporations.

Big business demands cuts to their taxes, and the mining corporations demand a miniscule tax or no tax at all on their super profits extracted from Australian resources and the labour of workers. Rio Tinto announced that it will not pay any tax at all for the June quarter.

Yet, the asylum seekers are treated by the Labor government and the Liberal opposition as cheats, liars, queue jumpers and a burden on Australian society. 

In this capitalist economic crisis corporate monopolies don’t want public funds spent on support for asylum seekers and refugees.  There is already an abundance of cheap migrant labour around the world.  This is the source of the problem. The two main parliamentary parties and media monopolies do the bidding for the monopoly corporations.

  

This is outrageous.  Australia is an industrially developed country with an abundance of wealth in our natural resources, diverse and large food production industries, and until recently, minerals processing, technological and manufacturing industries.  Imperialist globalisation is decimating our manufacturing industries.

We could be well placed to provide a secure and decent standard of living, not only for the people residing in Australia, but also for asylum seekers and refugees fleeing wars of aggression, foreign military occupations, repression and poverty created by the brutality of imperialism.

So who are the real parasites in Australia? It’s not the asylum seekers who want a secure life, secure work and contribute their share to the well-being of the whole of society.

The real parasites and cheats are the local and foreign owned mining monopolies; it’s the foreign owned Ford, Holden, Toyota who have pocketed more than a billion dollars in hand-outs from people’s taxes and then sacked thousands of workers anyway. Most of their profits are shipped out of Australia to their overseas corporate head offices.

It’s also the big banks who’ve made mega profits from swindling working people. 

Australia behaves like a mini colonial power. Both Labor and Liberals have resorted to colonial policies of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Labor is dumping desperate refugees on the deeply impoverished people of Papua New Guinea. The Liberals are promising a naval armada to blast the refugees out of the water all together. 

They’re trying to outdo each other in their jingoism and inhumanity.

The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees by the two main parliamentary parties exposes the decadence of Australia’s bourgeois parliament as administering the country in the interests of capital.