Kobane: Secure the Victory!

An inspiring documentary of the rebuilding of Kobane, a Kurdish town in Syria destroyed by the IS fascists. On the initiative of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), and with the support of the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organisations (ICOR), several groups of international brigadists went to Kobane to build a community health centre as an act of international proletarian solidarity.  This video tells their story:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cvBGvtp0Dw  

AUSMIN 2018: When the masters meet their minions

(Contributed)

The recent mid-July Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) summit took place while US-led forces attempt to roll-back China's influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

 

Problems, however, have arisen for the Turnbull Coalition government in Canberra.

 

The problems reveal far more than minor differences of opinion; they are about economic support and trade relations with China itself, which is Australia's biggest trading partner.

 

Progressive people should exploit these differences for all they are worth: to enable the forces of organised labour to make advances and to push for an independent foreign policy as a major agenda item.

 

Over a two-day period, 24-25 July, the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop together with Defence Minister Marise Payne of Australian Coalition government met with their US counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, for what officially has been termed an annual consultation. It was, however, a strange definition of the term; in reality, it was the way US military planning toward the Asia-Pacific region has been conducted, through a series of directives. The major US consideration remains a decades-old military plan to encircle and contain China in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere.

Australia has one of the closest diplomatic alliances with the US due to its geographical location and relative political stability, ensuring sensitive US military facilities linked to Diego Garcia and other places remain able to operate across the region without interference.

Other sensitive US military facilities including the triangular relationship with Japan as a fully-fledged northern regional hub for 'US interests' linked to Australia as a southern counterpart through massive Electronic Warfare (EW) systems has increased US military involvement through the use of proxies to defend 'US interests'.

 

The recent AUSMIN summit took place amid heightened concern that US hegemonic positions in the region are being threatened, and indeed downgraded, with the rapid rise of China's influence through accelerating economic growth rates. Studies have revealed present-day US GDP in dollar terms is about fifty per cent larger than China, but, by '2030 China will command the greatest economic force in history'. (1) The dislodging of the US as the world's leading economy, by China, will have far-reaching implications for countries such as Australia. 

 

What is remarkable about the political diplomatic discourse taking place about the issue is that many of those not usually associated with progressive standpoints and causes have made important contributions.

 

Reliable assessments of the situation from such people as Professor Hugh White of the Australian National University, for example, have suggested the failure of the US to formulate a clear regional response to China has resulted in 'America's leadership in Asia rapidly dwindling', with the very real possibility it may disappear. (2) The result will be a major problem for Canberra with, 'Australia's whole foreign policy which depends completely on US strength, in tatters'. (3) The problem in more recent times has been exacerbated by statements by President Trump that the US was planning to withdraw some military support in the region as part of their general isolationist program.

 

Secondly, the view is also supported by former trade minister Andrew Robb who recently stated 'US attempts to contain China were futile and counter-productive and Australia needed to use its influence as a middle power to ensure sensible outcomes' (4) indicating that Australia should distance itself from US foreign policy.

 

Official diplomatic media releases from AUSMIN were therefore very carefully worded and presented in an attempt to deflect concern in both Canberra and Washington, particularly when dealing with specific areas of the wider region regarded as being sensitive. It was noted for example, that 'China's growing strategic and economic activism in the Pacific islands region, as well as the disputed territory in the South China Sea, were key topics of discussion'. (5) The linking of strategic considerations with economic practicalities throws light upon the real nature of US-concerns about China and the South Pacific.

 

Australia, historically, has been the Mother Country for the South Pacific region. For generations Pacific Islanders looked to Australia for assistance and support; during the last Cold War, countries such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were incorporated into the Defence of Australia doctrine (DOA) as northern buffer-states for the defence and security of Australia. The three small South Pacific countries form a vital component part of wider defence and security planning.

 

The DOA was then linked into both British Commonwealth and US planning for military provision across the wider Indian Ocean region giving rise to the term Indo-Pacific. It was no coincidence, therefore, the Pentagon changed the name of their Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command, mid-2018, to deal with wider regional military considerations. And it was noted at the recent AUSMIN summit, that, 'the Indo-Pacific is of utmost strategic and economic importance to the US and Australia, and is the focus of our discussions at AUSMIN', although there was no accompanying statement regarding the involvement of India in military provision. (6)

 

Two related matters arising at the same time as the AUSMIN summit, however, reveal a great deal about high-level US-Australian diplomacy, in camera and behind the scenes.

 

Immediately prior to the official opening of the AUSMIN summit, US congressman Joe Courtney, co-chair of the Friends of Australia, 'called on Australia to conduct its own freedom-of-navigation-operations against China in the South China Sea. (7) Linking the request to official AUSMIN diplomacy, Courtney also stated he hoped the summit, 'would lead to Australia conducting its own exercise'. (8) Earlier, a week before the summit, a brief media release from the Australian Defence Department did acknowledge there had been a 'long-held US desire that Australia take a more forward stance' with some regional military matters. (9) The position of the present Australian government remains far from clear over the US line: while the request from Courtney was immediately rejected by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, it was nevertheless noted that 'the Turnbull government has been vocal in its support for US freedom-of-navigation-operations. (10) 

 

Australia, historically, has sent ships and planes close to the 12-mile zones around China's maritime facilities in the South China Sea. US military planning now, however, wants Australia to take a more dynamic role challenging China on behalf of the US. The matter was quietly shelved amid AUSMIN diplomacy although it has remained a worrying reminder of Pentagon planning and the systematic use of proxies to defend 'US interests'. Chinese diplomacy toward Australia has already been noted as being placed into a 'deep freeze' by Beijing and has been accompanied by a refusal to 'allow any ministerial level visit from Canberra'. (11) It is likely to deteriorate still further under present circumstances.

 

Secondly, the position of the Turnbull government in Canberra to take a stronger pro-US line with China over so-called foreign interference 'has left the government and business wildly at odds over the state of the bilateral relationship'. (12) There is a growing division between state and class power within the higher echelons of Australia. Decision-makers in Canberra are squabbling in the corridors of power as influence has quite clearly been brought to bear upon leading government departments through the alliance with the US and their Cold War position on China. A carefully-worded media release from Canberra, for example, acknowledged the recent AUSMIN summit had taken place 'at an awkward time for Australia, with relations between Beijing and Canberra at a low ebb', following the Turnbull government taking a pro-US line on perceived Chinese foreign interference in Australia. (13)

 

The corporate sector, however, remain quite content to have favourable trade relations with China, and a large section of the Australian working-class are employed either directly or indirectly with such economic relations. In fact, it has been noted from well-placed sources when dealing with Australian economic projections, that 'the economic future depends almost entirely on China'. (14)

 

An official statement from deputy director-general Damien White of the leading Office of National Assessments (ONA) has shown an attempt to play down the rift 'of simmering debate over Chinese influence in Australia', with reference to 'external engagement especially with the business community… becoming a bigger part of my job'. (15) No doubt further influence is being brought to bear.

 

Progressive-minded people should exploit these differences of opinion for all they are worth to rid this country of such pro-US clowns and sycophants. At the same time, we need to monitor the activities of pro-China comprador elements who are prepared to facilitate the exploitation of Australian workers by Chinese capital. Capitalist governments, whether Liberal or Labor, will invariably sell us out to imperialist interests. And we urgently need an independent foreign policy before we are dragged into a war-situation with China which will decimate our economy and the living standards of ordinary working-people.

1.     Gearing up for China's power rise, Australian, 31 May 2018.

2.     Australia's weak leadership will carry foreign policy costs, The Straits Times, 24 May 2018.

3.     Ibid.

4.     Bring US, Asia together or pay the price: Robb, Australian, 3 July 2018.

5.     Pompeo gives Bishop his word: no US retreat, Australian, 25 July 2018.

6.     Ibid.

7.     US call for Australia to take on China, Australian, 24 July 2018.

8.     Ibid.

9.     South China Sea high on AUSMIN agenda, Australian, 18 July 2018.

10.   Australian, op.cit., 24 July 2018.

11.   Straits Times, op.cit., 24 May 2018.

12.   Spies tap business chiefs for insights, Australian, 18 July 2018.

13.   Straits Times, op.cit., 24 May 2018.

14.    South China Sea, Australian, op.cit., 18 July 2018.

15.    Spies, Australian, op.cit., 18 July 2018.

Australia and international tensions

Central Committee CPA (M-L)

Whether it was an act of kite-flying, or something of real substance, the reports last week attributed to “senior figures in the Turnbull Government” that Trump was poised to “bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, perhaps as early as next month" was a chilling reminder that imperialism means war and the danger of war.

Equally worrying was their preparedness to admit that the US base at Pine Gap would be part of any attack, identifying Iranian targets and directing US forces to them.  No “senior figure” in the Turnbull government (or in the loyal Opposition, for that matter) spoke up for an independent and peaceful Australian foreign policy.

We must not be side-tracked by the clownish behaviour and personality quirks of Donald Trump.  Whilst he is having a major effect on current US strategic directions we must nevertheless concentrate on the system of US imperialism and the steps it is taking to maintain its domination of the world by military means. Conflicts within US ruling circles may reflect a difference of opinion on whom to take on first: Russia or China. It was revealed last week that the old war-horse Kissinger  supports closer relations between Us imperialism and Russia in an attempt to isolate and counter China.

In any case, US imperialist forces represented by Trump are leaning towards instigating war with China, first.   Hence Trump berating EU/NATO, historically a very loyal and subservient ally of US imperialism in Europe against Russia and formerly the Soviet Union.  Another section of the imperialist ruling class (represented by the Democrats) prefers war with Russia and is dependent on NATO/EU. There are big divisions within US imperialism on strategies in dealing with China and Russia, driven by the severe economic crisis domestically.  The situation is very complex and fast moving.  All developments need to be viewed as multifarious and interdependent, not in isolation and disconnected. Appearances are deceptive.

War is necessary for imperialism to resist the inevitability of changes that threaten its dominance. Imperialist politics is war without the use of weapons. Trade war is imperialist politics lifted to a level at which real war is a potential next step. It is like a card game in which the gamblers have raised the stakes so high that a desperate recourse to the gun under the table becomes the only answer to an “all or nothing” outcome.

It may well suit Trump to have the world focus on his relationship with Putin. It diverts attention from US imperialism’s arrangement of those of its proxies closest to China in the event of war in our region.  Speaking at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney on July 19, Penny Wong quoted a 2017 PWC report The World in 2050 which projects the four largest economies at 2050 to be China, India, US and Indonesia in that order. That is, we are moving from a Euro-centric view of world power to one in which the four largest economies will be those of Indo-Pacific nations, with two of those predicted to be greater than the US is now. She said that within a decade, the Chinese economy is set to become nearly twice as large as the economies of the US, India ($20.9 trillion) and the EU ($23.3 trillion) and seven times larger than the economy of Japan. These predictions indicate that current tensions (subject to the law of uneven development) are unlikely to subside, but will rather increase and that therefore, so will the danger of war.

The increasing instability and transition in international conditions (the power and strength of international capital moving towards China as a base) impacts on local Australian conditions – economically, politically and militarily. Tony Abbott has called for a doubling of our “defence” expenditure, in line with Trump’s demands on NATO members. Penny Wong addressed in part the “re-configured way the US is setting about conducting itself in the management of global affairs”.  She nailed the Labor Party firmly to the mast of “US values” but refrained from detailing the elements of Trump’s “reconfigurations”.  We recently published the article “US imperialism gathers its proxies and prepares for war” which analyses how US imperialism is lining India up alongside Japan and Australia as part of its encirclement of China. We need to keep in mind the impact of US-China rivalry on the various parts of the Australian ruling class, monitor the emerging pro-China comprador elements and listen closely to how the Australian people are expressing their discontent with “selling off Australia”, especially resources and public utilities and infrastructure.

US imperialism’s grand designs in relation to China are the biggest threats to world peace, but hot spots exist in many local conflicts whether of a secessionist nature, or arising from the aggressions of an imperialist-backed regional power such as the Zionist regime in Occupied Palestine, or from tensions between near neighbours (Turkey and Greece), or from social contradictions arising from the revival of actual fascism in countries like Poland and Hungary.

The theoretical basis of our analysis has to be grounded in materialist dialectics, and Mao Zedong’s “On Contradiction” in particular.

Overseas students want “Jobs you can count on” too!

Ned K.
         
Following the racist, anti-immigration mantra of US imperialism's mouthpiece, Donald Trump, sections of the ruling class in Australia represented in the media by the Murdoch press are extending their anti-immigration attacks to overseas students.

 

On Tuesday 17 July, 2018 Murdoch's The Australian included an article blaming "surging overseas student numbers" for increasing net immigration to more than 240,000 per year and for "putting downward pressure on wages and pushing up accommodation costs in major cities".

 

The Australian refers to a report from Bob Birrell of the Australian Population Research Institute which claims that overseas students could "game the immigration system to extend their stay for years."

 

Shock horror! Fancy migrants coming to Australia and wanting to stay here!

 

Isn't this the main trend in migration to Australia for at least 100 years that many who come to Australia for whatever reason want to stay and build a decent life here?

 

From the Tampa experience in the early 2000s the reactionary, racist elements of the ruling class and their spokespersons such as Howard, Abbott, Dutton and Pauline Hanson have ranted that asylum seekers are not the right type of people to come to Australia echoed in a milder form by Gillard and Rudd and now Shorten. Then they broadened their attacks to minimise the opportunity of migrant tradespersons on temporary work visas to extend their visas or become permanent residents.

 

Now their focus shifts to overseas students. Birrell goes so far as to say that "overseas students able to work for 20 hours a week were 'the elephant in the room'...the major factor driving poor working conditions and low wages in the entry level labour market area".

 

This is turning facts on their head. Poor wages and conditions in the "entry level labour market area" are caused not by overseas students or migrant workers but by the ruling class who are compelled by the very nature of capitalism to maximising profits and minimising labour costs. The big corporations fight tooth and nail and all sorts of tricks to oppress and swindle the "entry level labour market area" in jobs such as farm workers, hospitality, labour hire workers to compensate these same corporations for the better pay and conditions they are forced to concede to their "core" workers who are often better organised.

 

Overseas Students Need “Jobs You Can Count On”

 

This pattern of super exploitation or swindling of migrant workers is not new and it is a misconception to think that overseas students are "happy little vegemites" regarding their working conditions and pay. Union campaigns in a range of industries have featured a high level of activism by overseas students with the 7-Eleven underpayment campaign being the one given the most publicity in recent years. Much more work needs to be done by unions in this area who need to find ways to become more in reach for migrant workers in general, overseas workers in particular. 

 

Contradictions Within the Ruling Class

 

Some sections of the ruling class must surely be nervous, to say the least, about blaming overseas students for the ills of the capitalist system. The overseas student temporary migration in Australia is a growth export industry for some sections of the ruling class. Many capitalists profit from it, including the ever-expanding universities. Many of the building industry cranes in the capital cities sit on student accommodation high rise buildings. Construction companies and developers haul in big profits. The accommodation industry charges high rent which forces many overseas students to live in over-crowded "dog boxes" masquerading as “apartments". The food services, department stores and supermarket industries benefit financially as well: as strange as it may seem, overseas students have to
eat and cloth themselves too! What would happen to the "growth" strategies of cities like Adelaide if the hundreds of thousands of overseas students from mainly developing countries stopped arriving each year? 

 

Shorten Joins the Anti-Migrant Chorus

 

What does Bill Shorten the aspiring Prime Minister have to say about all this? His comments about the growing number of temporary visa holders in Australia, many of whom are overseas students, sounds like a 21st century version of Labor's attacks on Chinese migrants during and after the gold rush days of the 1850s and 1860s who were marginalised and required to pay a $10,000 (today's equivalent of the 1840s ten pounds) fee to land in the port of Melbourne!  Many were temporary migrants and those that stayed were not
welcomed to join unions.

 

In language reminiscent of those times, Shorten is reported as saying, "What they (meaning the Liberals) don't tell everyone is that under the Liberals, the number of people coming here temporarily with visas that give them work rights in Australia has blown out to 1.6 million".

How will history judge these remarks? What will come out of the reactionaries' mouths when climate change migrants, not overseas students become the growth sector of migrants to Australian shores?

One thing is sure: our future as a united working class lies in the defence of the rights of all!

Death threats to Aboriginal elders in mining dispute

Nick G.

A Melbourne-based mining company has been linked to death threats against Aboriginal elders in Western Australia.

Hawthorn Resources carries substantial Chinese investment, has a six-person Board of Directors which includes three Chinese as well as infamous anti-worker die-hard Chris Corrigan who led Patrick Stevedores in its massive attack on the Maritime Union back in 1998.

The company is currently in conflict with the Indigenous managers of Pinjin cattle station, 145 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie.

Its open cut gold mine is just 150 metres from the Pinjin Station homestead where between 6 and 20 Aboriginal people live, depending on the time of the year.  The station is Crown Land, leased to Indigenous company Tisala Pty Ltd and managed for Tisala by Wongatha elders Leo and Lawrence Thomas.

Hawthorn has ridden roughshod over the Pinjin people since it began testing there more than three years ago.  The WA Mines Department has had to instruct Hawthorn to remove its sample bags littering local roadsides, and to reduce dust and disturbance to Pinjin’s infrastructure.  What it has not dealt with (“outside our scope”) is the racist attitudes of Hawthorn employees and the company’s disrespect for the Pinjin people.

Matters came to a head late in June when Leo Thomas discovered racist signs, including death threats, on the walls of his homestead and on fences nearby.

Signs accusing “black nigars” (their spelling) of holding up mining, and claiming to have the WA Mines Minister’s support for the company (“So eat our dust and put up with noise or piss off”) were bad enough.   “We destroy black nigars” and “Leo and Lawrence will end same as Elijah” left no doubt as to the nature of the threats thrown at the Pinjin people.  The “Elijah” reference was to Elijah Doughty, the 14-year old Kalgoorlie boy run down and killed in 2016 by a white fella subsequently acquitted of manslaughter.

Hawthorn’s Chinese connection is to three state-owned and one private enterprise. In 2012 the company entered into an agreement with Feng Hua Mining Investment Holding Limited to secure $15 million in investments. Feng Hua is comprised of Chinese state-owned Guangdong Feng Hua Advanced Technology (Holding) Co. Ltd., Guangdong Rising Assets Management Co. Ltd, and Guangdong Corporation of Geology and Mineral.  A non-state-owned entity, Lite Smooth Investment Limited completes the Feng Hua quartet.

Given the exemplary attitude of China during Mao Zedong’s time towards combatting great Han chauvinism and protecting the interests of China’s minority nationalities, you would think that a company, half of whose Directors were from China, might have shown greater sensitivity towards relations with Australian First Nations peoples. But that was then, and this is now.

Hence, the website of Hawthorn Resources makes no reference to Pinjin Station in its description of its mining activity there. It merely says its operation “is located 140 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie and is centred on the historic Anglo Saxon Mine.” Nor is there any reference to or condemnation of the racist attacks on the Pinjin people.

On June 26, Hawthorn Resources stated to National Indigenous TV News “that a number of threatening and highly offensive signs have been placed on Crown Land immediately adjacent to its mining lease”, a statement that was itself highly offensive by ignoring that the so-called “Crown Land” was the homestead occupied by Leo Thomas.  It said that as the matter was before the police, there would be “no further comment”.

Two days later, following a public outcry, including an accusation by One Nation upper house MP Robin Scott that Hawthorn Resources was responsible for the racial taunting of Leo and Lawrence Thomas, a further comment was made, a belated condemnation of the signage and a disclaimer of any responsibility: "Hawthorn, its officers, its employees, its partners and contractors had no part in creating or erecting the posters and categorically deny any allegations of this nature."

What other Australians would be expected to have mine blasting 150 metres from home?  What other Australians would expect to have 40,000 tonnes of ore per month excavated and loaded onto trucks 150 metres from home?

This is allowed to happen because the only people directly affected are Indigenous Australians.

According to Leo Thomas, the WA State Labor government should be ashamed of itself.

“The Mines department has allowed Hawthorn Resources to continually and on a growing scale destroy over the last seven months hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and infrastructure,” he told the Koori Mail.

“While these pictures are disgusting and sickening, what is even more sickening is the Mines department, despite being given photographic evidence, has allowed Hawthorn Resources to breach tenement conditions relating to dust, surface water flow, uncapped drill holes and small bags left on the ground affecting the wider environment.

“No other person or mining company would be given the special benefit of breaching all these laws over such an extended period of time. As far as I am concerned the Mines department is corrupt as they do not have morals of what is right and wrong to support a mining company doing massive destruction of infrastructure and equipment on Pinjin Station.”

Hawthorn Resources should immediately end its mining operations at Pinjin. There is no excuse for subjecting Australian people to the noise and dust of an operation 150 metres from their home. It must cooperate fully with police in determining authorship of signs made in its name that promote racial hatred and convey death threats. Its Board of Directors should assume full responsibility for the hostility shown by racist elements towards the Pinjin Station managers, and resign.
 

The deeper reality of fracking

Arrernte Kaytetye elder, Christine Palmer, speaking in Sydney at rally marking the 11th anniversary of the NT Intervention

Louisa L

‘We have to ventilate our homes so they don’t explode’

Gamilaraay man Raymond ‘Bubbly’ Weatherall is at the Redfern Community Centre. On this Friday night in early June, rain smashes down outside as he recounts how his countryman Nathan Leslie threatened to arrest police, who’d come to arrest him for trespassing on his own land. 

Weatherall’s audience has just watched the outstanding documentary ‘Sacrifice Zone’ on anti-fracking struggles against the Santos Narrabri Gas Project in north western NSW. 

They’ve seen Leslie on screen. His bearing shows someone to be reckoned with, because he stands in the Law. The battle is “bigger than me,” says Leslie. “Our Ancestors are always watching.” 

The police backed off and left, Bubbly gleefully tells the audience.

Struggle spreads

Huge struggles up to 2015 reduced the percentage of NSW open for fracking from 60 per cent to 5 per cent till, as the documentary states, “all that is left is Santos land.” Work has begun on Gomeroi land in the Pilliga.

The battle is Australia-wide. Only Victoria, which has banned it, Tasmania and the ACT are currently unaffected. According to Guardian Australia’s Michael Evershed, “The vast majority of land in both the NT and South Australia is covered by either current tenements for petroleum exploration and development, or applications for exploration and development,” leaving them vulnerable to shale gas mining.

When the ALP mis-government recently approved 51 per cent of NT for shale gas mining and fracking it became clear that Aboriginal lands are being particularly targeted.

Before the go-ahead, NT First Nations’ youth group, Seed, stated, “Over 60 community members from across 13 regions came together on Larrakia country in Darwin, 18-20 November 2017, to yarn about how to stand together and stop fracking from destroying the NT.  

“Never before have this many Aboriginal community members been brought together on the issue of fracking.

“People came together from every corner of the Territory” 

This spearhead of powerful opposition ensured 135 requirements were promised, but the fight is not over by a long shot. 

For our children

Shale and coal seam gas mining creates huge amounts of poisoned waste water and can contaminate rivers up to 1000km away. 

Borroloola’s McArthur River has already been poisoned by mining giant Glencore using conventional mining.

A statement from Elder Nancy McDinny, Yanuwa & Garrawa from Borroloola reads, “Those four rivers on Garawa country; we’re going to fight for that water for our children and ban fracking.” 

“We want this land to be strong and healthy for our children so they can go out bush hunting and fishing in the clean environment. Our water has to be clean and healthy for everyone to drink,” she says.

To the east, the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) covers an area the size of Queensland, straddling four states. Once contaminated, underground resources like GAB which communities rely on into the future, damage can’t be undone. 

‘We let this go without so much as a whimper in our country’

Lisa Cox writes in Guardian Australia, “Alliances have been formed across groups that have traditionally been at odds – the environment movement, Indigenous groups and conservative regional and farming communities.” 

Drew Hutton, former President of the Lock the Gate Alliance, says, “The only thing stopping them is this magnificent fortitude.”

When corporations came knocking in the US coal seam gas belt, communities believed the hype.  US farmer, John Fenton says, “We let this go without so much as a whimper in our country. We can’t drink the water out of the wells any more. We have to ventilate our homes so they don’t explode… Our property is worth nothing now.”

In Queensland, producing gas fields already cover more than 30,000 square kilometres.  The results are laid bare; industrialisation of rural and remote areas by an insidious, deceitful and destructive industry. Those affected have begged Australia to listen and learn.

Struggle reveals the bloodless icy heart of capitalism; that only profits matter. The interests of the people and those of giant corporations are diametrically opposed. Those on the front line of struggle will never look at capitalism in the same way again. Many begin to sense that this antagonistic and irreconcilable contradiction needs a final resolution. 

‘Sacrifice Zone’ is free to view at https://vimeo.com/257444267