Forrest Report: Union Members and Community Activists Unite and Win in South Australia

Ned K.

On the weekend of the G20 meeting in Brisbane in mid-November, there was for working people and those reliant on welfare payments in SA far more significant meetings being held in Adelaide.

The state branch of the ALP held its annual Convention meeting at (of all places) the Hilton Hotel. Outside the entrance to the Hilton, people from the northern suburbs community group, Stop Income Management In Playford (SIMPla), greeted the in-coming Convention delegates.

The ALP Conventions are pretty staged-managed affairs, usually to reinforce the position of the existing ALP leadership, in this case the leadership of Jay Weatherill.

However in SA, community groups and some of the more progressive trade unionists affiliated to the ALP have taken action which has upset these stage-managed affairs. A few years ago, former Premier Rann and Treasurer Foley felt the power of community and unions taking a stand at an ALP convention against their reactionary attack on workers compensation entitlement s and long service leave.

On this occasion, the SIMPla group successfully demonstrated against Premier Weatherill’s enthusiastic embrace of corporate boss Andrew Forrest’s proposal to put Aboriginal people and other welfare recipients on an Income Management Scheme. The proposal would see all welfare recipients other than those on aged and veterans’ pensions de deprived of cash payments, that they have 100% of their welfare quarantined onto a debit card that can be used at any ATM that uses Visa and Mastercard, and that purchases of goods and services such as alcohol and drugs (but not tobacco!) and gambling be automatically blocked through the card.

Back To The Future?  - Not This Time!

A flyer distributed both outside and inside the ALP Convention by supporters of SIMPla quoted from a statement from ACOSS which said the Forrest scheme would “take our nation back to the 1930s when unemployed people did not get cash benefits and had to work on the roads or beg for charity to survive” .

The flyer was well received by passers-by and the majority of delegates inside the ALP Convention. The community group action attracted media and police attention.

In an example of how a community group can work well with progressive trade union leaders, including SA Unions, their leading body, not only was the flyer distributed widely inside the Convention, but the following resolution was passed near unanimously.

“Convention opposes the Weatherill Cabinet’s rushed embrace of the Forrest Report. Of note, Convention is concerned with the Report’s advocacy of financial penalties for welfare-recipient parents as a means of improving school attendance, its attack on TAFE funding and its replacement by vouchers that would only fund training for employer-approved courses, its call to block cash payments for welfare recipients via the Healthy Welfare Card, and its bland acceptance of increased crime in the community that will flow  from the implementation of its recommendations. This rushed support of the Forrest Report has been made without consultation with the Aboriginal people whose lives will be affected and is contrary to Labor values.”

Premier Weatherill was forced to back track inside Convention in the face of overwhelming support for this resolution. The resolution and the media attention was only possible because of the tireless activism of the people from the working class northern suburbs over many months with support from progressive unionists.

Despite his apparent back down inside the ALP Convention, reports on the ABC new web site after the resolution was passed seemed to indicate that the Premier is maintaining his support for implementation of the Forrest Report!

Has he learned nothing from history, from what happened to Rann and Foley?

Or does he see storm clouds of rebellion brewing in the northern suburbs on the welfare front with thousands of workers to soon to be jobless due to the end of the car and car component industry not far away?
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Listen:  radio interviews with Aboriginal spookesperson Christina Abdullah, SIMPla spokesperson Pas Forgione, and Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen at the protest:
http://www.thewire.org.au/storyDetail.aspx?ID=12221  


Further reading: 3-year study says NT CIM does not work:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/25599098/income-management-a-failure-according-to-three-year-study-which-contradicts-findings-of-forrest-review/