US company to design Osborne submarine shipyard

Written by: Nick G. on 31 May 2024

 

US company Kellogg Brown Root (KBR) has been selected to provide concept design services for the new nuclear powered submarine construction yard at Osborne in South Australia. 

Profits from the deal will further enrich the pockets of wealthy US shareholders.

KBR has previously won massive US contracts for supporting the US military in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. 

However, its “Controversy” listing on Wikipedia is one of the longest of any multinational company, including price-fixing, bribery, negligence in relation to employee safety, sexual assault and abuse allegations, and a human trafficking lawsuit. 

As recently as September 2022, 800 Filipino workers were stranded at the remote US military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean due to an employment dispute with KBR. They alleged it had underpaid wages and denied holiday leave entitlements.

If the old saying is true that you can know a person by the company he or she keeps, we now know a bit more about the Australian ruling class and its subservience to US imperialism.

Withdraw from AUKUS!
Oppose KBR’s contract! 

.............

Update:

On Jue 6 2024, it was announced that KBR had been given an Australian government contract to "monitor space above Australia."

The announcement stated: "KBR’s Iron Stallion technology can find, watch, track and report on the movement of objects in space and now forms an integral component of the Australian government’s space domain awareness. Iron Stallion is a command and control technology that is being used by the Department of Defence to support Australia’s need for advanced space-based surveillance capabilities. It has proved its effectiveness in the US and in the UK."

The militarisation of space is a direct consequence of imperialism's striving for "full spectrum domination".  In the US, the Space Force sits alongside the Army, Navy and Airforce as part of the US military.

Protest Modi government’s genocidal killing of tribal peoples

Written by: Nick G. on 30 May 2024

 

Today, May 30, 2024, is a day of protest in India against the fascist Modi government’s war on tribal communities and fighters of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)’s Peoples Liberation Guerilla Army.

Since 1st January 2024, the Indian state has rapidly mobilised more and more paramilitary personnel into the 6 military camps established in the Abujmarh region of Chhattisgarh, a land-locked state in Central India, under a new Operation Kagar.

This region, home to the Gond, Muria, Abujmarhia and Halbaas tribes also falls in the area which contains 700 million tonnes of India’s iron ore reserves, along with graphite ore, limestone and even uranium deposits. With the onset of Operation Kagar, for every 7 Adivasi persons (members of tribal communities) in Abujmarh, there are now 3 paramilitary personnel in the hills. 

On New Years Day, the security forces attacked Muddum village, near Gangalur, in the Bijapur district, and killed a toddler- Mangli- in the lap of her mother while she was being breastfed. Relentless attacks have been regular, and killings have become routine. On April 2, 13 Maoists were killed in an encounter at Korcholi in Bijapur district. All of them were Adivasis, if not Maoists. Four months into this year, 80 Adivasis and revolutionaries have been shot dead in the name of encounters. Aerial bombing was also carried out for the fifth time on January 13 as a continuation of the aerial attacks carried out by the previous Congress government.

In the last month, three fake encounters have resulted in the deaths of 29 people in Kankar district. On May 10, 2024, 12 tribal farmers were shot dead by the army in Bijapur district. Indian paramilitary forces killed five people from Pedia village and seven from Etawar village in a fake encounter.

The villagers, out to collect 'Tendu' leaves, fled in fear at the sight of the security forces. The forces shot them as they tried to escape. Many villagers were dragged from their homes and shot dead.

This hidden war is a genocide of tribal farmers under the guise of neutralizing Maoists. A wide range of weapons, including airstrikes by Israeli-made drones, have been used in the area. 

Operation Kagar strips away from the “rock star” Modi’s fascist Hindutva government its veneer of “democracy” which is killing the tribal farmers of Bastar district who are protecting their land and water, celebrating harvest and cultivation on their soil, alongside the Maoist revolutionaries fighting against corporates, Brahminical Hindutva fascists, brokers, landlords, and mining mafias. 

The CPA (M-L) voices its solidarity with the protest day movement, and calls on the Indian diaspora in Australia to condemn the killing of tribal farmers labelled as Maoists. We call upon all democratically minded people to unite and condemn this genocide.

  

US looks to drag Australia into space preparations for war with China

Written by: Nick G. on 29 May 2024

 

Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, head of US Space Forces, Indo-Pacific, told a conference in Sydney yesterday, that the US is “working very closely with Australia” to develop the ability to crack a Chinese space-based defensive line designed to keep US forces at bay.

The cooperation of Australian military officials and civilian contractors further enmeshes Australia into the military confrontation promoted by the US against China.

Mastalir said that “a formidable new technology — a jam-resistant Link-16 that now extends to and from space” enables radios to operate across all five US military services as well as with NATO and other allies so all users can see the same up-to-the minute intelligence, and automate fire control.

He referred to “kill chains” used by both the US and China to deny each other access to areas in the event of war. The kill chains are based on the so-called “island chain strategy” first conceived by US imperialism’s John Foster Dulles in 1951, during the US war of aggression against Korea.

The first island chain runs through Chinese territorial waters down to and including the nine-dash line in the South China Sea. The second island chain runs from Japan through Guam and Palau to the western end of New Guinea. A third island chain runs from Alaska through the middle of the Pacific to New Zealand.

Mastalir said China’s progress in strengthening its kill chain since 2019, built expressly to keep the United States well outside the second island chain, has been “breathtaking.”

But he said that testing of Link 16’s anti-jamming capability had strengthened the US’s own anti-China kill chain.

Further moves are afoot to prepare for war with China.

Mastalir revealed the military is planning to set up a US Space Forces -Japan based on their work in South Korea, where a component was established in December 2022.

“When we stood up Space Forces Korea, that’s the model that I’m using for Space Force Japan,” he said, without offering a date by which he expected the unit to be stood up. 

And a week ago, so-called “regional experts” issued a call for an Arctic Quad comprising the US, Canada, South Korea and Japan to counter a growing Russian and Chinese presence in the Arctic where there is competition for resources and new trade routes being made possible by climate change.

None of these developments indicate any lessening of tensions in our region. 

Despite the comprador media’s repeated references to Chinas “increasingly assertive and aggressive” presence in the region, it is US imperialism’s preparedness to use war to maintain its declining global dominance that threatens the future well-being of the Australian people.

Breaking news:

The embedding of US military and intelligence agents in the relevant Australian government departments underscores our subservience to the Empire.  So it came as no surprise today (May 29) when Monash University and SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre announced the  appointment of Lieutenant General Larry James, former Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a retired lieutenant general with the US Air Force, to their respective space research offices.

“The opportunities for Australia’s space sector are huge, and I hope to share my experience and knowledge with the talented teams at both institutions," Lt Gen James said. 

"I am also keen to strengthen my connections and share expertise with Defence Space Command and the Australian Space Agency,” he said.

 

May Day Talk 2024

 

Written by: Shirley Winton on 27 May 2024

 

We have had requests for the text of Shirley Winton’s speech at the Melbourne May Day event on May 5.  Shirley was speaking on behalf of No AUKUS Victoria – eds.

 

Thank you May Day Committee for inviting us to speak on AUKUS, war and imperialism.

 

I’m on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulan nation, never ceded.  I pay my respects to their elders past present and emerging and stand in solidarity with the First Nations people of this country in their 260 year long struggle against the brutal colonialism, for self-determination and sovereignty.  

 

1 May is also 78th anniversary of the heroic First Nations pastoral workers in the Pilbara walking off the cattle stations in a long 3-year strike for pay and working conditions.  And they won. Always was always will be Aboriginal land.

 

May Day is International Workers’ Day. A day when workers around the world proudly celebrate their hard won victories and the ongoing struggles for workers’ rights, for decent and secure livelihoods for all, for peace and a better world. 

 

On May Day workers and their unions pledge their solidarity with struggles of the people around the world against exploitation, oppression and imperialist wars. 

 

This year’s May Day workers around the world stand in solidarity with our heroic Palestinian sisters and brothers in their 76 year struggle against the Zionist Israeli colonial occupation and genocide.  Working people, unions, students and millions around the world from all walks of life stand shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people’s resistance and determination to free themselves from Zionist Israel oppression and its backer, US imperialism.  

 

Palestinian people’s struggle is setting the world on fire. Inspiring and giving confidence to workers, unions, students, the oppressed and exploited, in their struggles. 

 

The Palestinian struggle for liberation is exposing the face of imperialism behind the wars of aggression, invasions, military occupations, political and military coups and foreign interferences in countries.  

 

Most major military and political conflicts in today’s world can be traced to fierce competition between the imperial big powers for control and exploitation of natural resources, markets, people and the environment – the proxy war in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Latin America, in the resources rich Africa, and in our own Asia-Pacific region.     Imperialism creates wars, refugees, and whips up racism to divide the people.

 

Today, the world is on the threshold of another global imperialist war threatening to engulf workers across the world. 

 

A war that is being instigated and led by the US.  And, as in all the imperialist wars, we the working people and the environment are the casualties, the disposable pawns in the super power competition and the profiteering weapons corporations and military industrial complex.  It’s always us the ordinary people who pay with our lives, our health, our livelihoods and carry the main economic and social burden of imperialist wars.

 

In our region of Asia-Pacific, the US is preparing to start a war with China, its biggest competitor threatening to replace the US as the dominant global super power.  

 

It will be a war of aggression forced on the people of this region.  And Australia, the US deputy sheriff in the Asia-Pacific, is again marching to the beat of US war drums.  

 

Australia has joined AUKUS, an aggressive war pact between US, UK and Australia, created and led by the US, to start a war with China.  AUKUS and its nuclear powered submarines are not for the defence of Australia and peace in the region.   It is an instrument of aggression to protect the US dominance in this region,  not for the defence of the people of Australia, nor for “peace and prosperity” in the region.

 

AUKUS is more deeply enmeshing Australia politically and militarily into the US war plans and its multinational weapons corporations.  

 

Australia, a US deputy sheriff doing the bidding for the US, enforcing the so called US global rules based order in our region, rubber stamping US actions in the UN and supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.  

 

AUKUS and Australia’s involvement in a US-led war with China will syphon off more than half a trillion dollars of Australian people’s taxes from urgent needs of Australian people in health, education, housing, social services, aged care, child care, and urgent action to tackle climate crisis.  $368 billion on nuclear submarines and tens of billions more on US military and propping up the US and UK economies.

 

The only beneficiaries are the US economy and the hugely profiteering military industrial complex and fossil fuel corporations. 

 

The winners from AUKUS and nuclear submarines are the multinational weapons and fossil fuel corporations – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, the military industrial complex – raking in $trillions of dollars in profits from suffering of people and destruction of the environment.   

 

The only imminent threats to the Australian people’s safety and security come from the aggressive AUKUS war alliance, the US military bases across the country, the secretive US controlled Pine Gap spy base, the nuclear weapons carrying US bombers and warships in our ports and airfields, the AUKUS nuclear powered submarines in our ports, the deadly nuclear waste stored on the lands of the First Nations people, the US-Australia Alliance and the devastation of climate crisis These are the real threats to our safety and sovereignty.

 

Australia’s manufacturing industry is being turned into a production line for multinational weapons corporations and imperialist wars.  This is because workers in this country are not in charge of what our labour produces.   These are the weapons used in the horrific genocide of Palestinian people and against our sisters and brothers in other countries fighting for their rights and against oppression. 

 

Multinational weapons corporations are embedding themselves in our universities and our schools.  Public funds and universities are handed over to weapons corporations for research and development of their deadly weapons for wars of aggression.   These are public funds much needed for scientific research into health and wellbeing of people and the environment.  Australia’s military and defence are now deeply integrated into the US imperialist war machine. 

 

Our fight is not against workers of other countries. Our battles are right here – for secure and decently paid work for all, for workers’ rights, for safety at work, for affordable and secure housing for all, for properly funded health care and education and tackling the climate crisis.  For urgently needed funds to support women fleeing domestic violence and to end the violence against women epidemic.

 

Australian people don’t want Australia to be involved in another US war.  

 

Workers, unions and people from all walks of life are coming together, uniting, working together and speaking out against AUKUS, for peace and against war.

Australian workers and their unions have always stood up for peace and against imperialist wars.  Peace is Union Business.

 

We need an independent and peaceful foreign policy that upholds the sovereignty of all countries and builds solidarity with workers and the oppressed around the world.  We must build a broad anti-war movement and fight for peace. The heroic Palestinian people are showing that protracted struggle will unite and mobilise the people against injustice and tyranny. 

 

• Pease is Union Business 

• Scrap AUKUS and nuclear powered submarines

• Remove all foreign military bases from Australia

• Close Pine Gap

• Cut ties with multinational weapons corporations assisting Gaza genocide 

• End US-Australia Alliance

• End the Israel Zionist occupation of Palestine

• Solidarity with Palestinian people

• Solidarity with all workers and the oppressed around the world

• Touch one Touch all!    Palestine will live! 

 

Shirley Winton

May 2024 

For peace and an end to inter-imperialist wars!

Written by: Nick G. on 26 May 2024

 

It has become a truism in contemporary politics that you cannot believe anything until you’ve heard it denied by a US spokesperson.

A case in point was last week’s denial by US General Stephen Sklenka at the National Press Club that Australia would automatically be dragged into any US war with China over Taiwan.

Sklenka had been questioned about a statement by the director of naval submarine forces for AUKUS in the United States, Dan Packer, that the US Navy would have 440 Australians serving on board 25 American submarines under the first stage of AUKUS.

"We are completely, 100 per cent integrating them into our crew, from a complete and utter perspective – they will do everything that we do," he said.

Packer’s comments come after comments last April by US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell that Australian nuclear-powered submarines acquired under AUKUS could eventually be deployed against China in any military conflict over Taiwan.

The US online magazine, Breaking Defense, sponsored by arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman, said that General Sklenka’s reply was designed to “mollify” Australian critics of AUKUS.

Sklenka said "I think the Australian government, the policymakers in your government will determine whether or not those Australians will participate or not.”

That, of course, is hardly reassuring at all.  The policymakers in our government are empire loyalists and betrayers of our sovereignty and independence.

It was entirely predictable of Prime Ministerial aspirant Peter Dutton, for example, when he said in November 2021, as Defence Minister, “It would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the U.S. in an action if the U.S. chose to take that action. And again, I think we should be very frank and honest about that, look at all the facts and circumstances without pre-committing and maybe there are circumstances where we wouldn’t take up that option, but I can’t conceive of those circumstances.”

And cheerleader for US imperialism within the current government, Richard Marles Labor’s Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, said in October 2023, Australia could not be a “passive bystander” in the event of conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

And in any case, when General Sklenka isn’t trying to “mollify” people, he sings a different tune, as he did in Darwin, in August 2022, when he said “We can talk all day long about trade deals and policy deals, but what says a heck of a lot more is who is by your side when you are in a fight. Australia is always on our side when that time comes, and we will always remember that.”

There is no doubt that inter-imperialist rivalry between China and the United States is intensifying. US imperialism is the main danger of war and the main driver of regional tensions driving the push towards war with China. 

Australia must insist on the peaceful resolution of differences with China and pursue an independent and peaceful foreign policy. US imperialism wants war to try to arrest its decline and secure its position as the head of an empire that feeds off the control of the people and resources of other countries, including Australia. Its major industries are addicted to warfare and the profits that come from the sales of arms. 

Australia must withdraw from AUKUS, expel all US military forces from Australia, and close all US military bases in our country. 

Workers must take the lead. They have nothing to gain from empire loyalism and the sale of Australian sovereignty and everything to lose by being dragged into another unpopular and unjust US war.

For socialism and anti-imperialist independence!

 

Freshwater sawfish: Iconic species threatened by capitalist development

Written by: Nick G. on 23 May 2024

 

Photo credit: Alex Westover

Gina Rinehart should stop obsessing about destroying an unflattering portrait of herself by acclaimed Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira, and concentrate on how to stop destroying the Martuwarra Fitzroy River and the critically endangered freshwater sawfish!

Of seven sawfish species known to exist in the world, four are found in Western Australia. These species – the freshwater, dwarf, narrow and green sawfish – are mainly found in the Kimberley and Pilbara. The freshwater sawfish can grow to 7 metres in length and are thought to live to 30 years or more. Their relatively low rate of reproduction means that sawfish stocks are slow to recover if depleted.

The freshwater sawfish is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is totally protected from recreational and commercial fishing under WA State legislation. In addition, the freshwater sawfish is protected under Federal legislation.

Rinehart

Rinehart, Australia’s richest person with an estimated net worth in excess of A$37 billion, is a mining magnate with extensive pastoral properties.

She has a license to pump water from a tributary of the Martuwarra for her Liveringa Station, a 2,650 square kilometres property with a carrying capacity of over 22,000 head of cattle.

Last November, 17 critically endangered freshwater sawfish died in a dry creek on Liveringa Station. The news has only just been revealed. It is the second mass sawfish kill on the station. Forty sawfish died at the Kimberley pastoral station in December 2018.

Those deaths were initially covered up to protect Hancock. Documents obtained under freedom of information showcased internal government communication, with concerns about a "negative story" and a manager from a government department "trying to prevent the issue getting out to the media".

First Peoples and freshwater sawfish 

The sawfish has cultural significance for First Peoples across northern Australia. 

They are a traditional food source for Aboriginal people living along the Fitzroy River. The species features in stories and beliefs. Bunuba people call freshwater sawfish ‘galwanyi’, the Gooniyandi people call it ‘wirridanyniny’, the Nyikina, ‘pial pial’ and the Walmajarri people, ‘wirrdani’. A traditional way of catching sawfish and other species by the Nyikina and Walmajarri people is to put bark from a freshwater mangrove tree in a waterhole. This removes oxygen from the water, causing the fish to float and become easy to catch. It also makes it vulnerable to declining water quality caused by over-extraction for pastoral and other irrigation purposes.

In early 2017, Gurindji girl Lisa Smiler caught a 2.7metre sawfish in Wattie Creek near Kalkarindji, 800 kilometres south of Darwin. Gurindji elders were surprised that the fish had come so far south, but, known as "kunpulu" in the Gurindji language, it has been documented in the area in Indigenous rock art found on Revolver Creek, a tributary of the Victoria River, near Kalkarindji. The same word is used in languages along the Victoria River.

Manage water for the environment, not Rinehart’s profits
 
The Martuwarra/Fitzroy's massive catchment area spans 40 cattle stations, including Mrs Rinehart's Liveringa, Fossil Downs and Nerrima stations.

Hancock’s company reportedly wants to harvest 325 gigalitres of surface water when the river is in flood to "supercharge" the region's cattle industry.

To put that in perspective, Perth's total overall annual water use is 395GL, according to the WA Department of Water's Water for Growth report.

The Martuwarra’s flow is already impeded by Camballin Barrage, 150 kilometres upstream from the limit of tidal influence. It is thought to obstruct the upstream migration of juvenile freshwater sawfish during much of the year when the river level is below the height of the weir. Originally built to divert water for farming, the weir is now a fishing and tourism spot.

Discussions over the future of water extraction along the river must be separated from capitalist commercial considerations. 

The mighty Martuwarra Fitzroy River is the last stronghold for the sawfish and its last great nursery – which is why protecting the river is crucial for its survival.

This latest fish kill is a sad reminder of why the surface flows of Martuwarra Fitzroy River must be left alone and not put at risk for large-scale development.

Last October, under pressure from campaigners for the Martuwarra, the WA Government announced a commitment for no further surface water take from the Martuwarra Fitzroy River.  This is good, but not enough. The existing water take must be adjusted downwards as the two recent fish kills have occurred under its arrangements.

Local campaigners are determined to stop the Martuwarra becoming another Murray-Darling disaster.

Free Georges Abdallah!

Written by: Campagne Unitaire G Abdallah on 21 May 2024

 

At the request of our French comrades, the CPA (M-L) has signed an appeal for the release of imprisoned Lebanese communist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah (born 2 April 1951), the longest held prisoner in Europe. 

Abdallah was arrested in 1984 by French police and convicted of the killing of a US military attache and an Israeli diplomat in retaliation for the Israeli Zionist regime’s 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon.
 

In 1999, Abdallah completed the minimum portion of his life sentence, but several requests for parole were denied. In 2003, the court granted him parole but the US Department of State objected to the court decision. Again, in 2013, Abdallah was granted parole. The US State Department’s Victoria Nuland intervened to stop his release.

The appeal reads:

At a time when the Zionist entity relentlessly pursues its genocidal historical project of annihilation of the Palestinian people from the sea to the Jordan; at a time when Western imperialists are working today as yesterday, and for more than 76 years, to politically and militarily support this entity – their organic arm in the region – and to tirelessly justify the unjustifiable; at a time when the French State is not a mere ‘accomplice’ but a fully involved player in its support for this ethnic cleansing of the land of Palestine; at a time when this same State is using all the means of its liberticidal violence to gag and criminalise any expression of denunciation of this crime against humanity and all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people; finally, at a time when, in the very camp of this legitimate solidarity with Palestine, some are still hesitating about the form of resistance to support or are censoring themselves, Georges Abdallah - from behind the walls and after 39 years of detention at the hands of the enemy - and with him all the Palestinians involved in or alongside the Resistance are proclaiming forcefully and unambiguously: ‘Gaza will never carry the white flag of surrender! 

Georges Abdallah himself always refused to make this white flag his own, choosing never to leave the camp that was and remains his: that of the ‘historic Resistance’, of all the Resistance, of the ‘promise of the Fedayeen’. It is for this unwavering support for the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people, but also of all peoples who have joined the resistance against oppression and for their emancipation, that Georges Abdallah remains in detention today. It is for this unwavering support, this refusal to give up and this determination to stand firm that Georges Abdallah remains in the hands of the enemy - for the symbol of resistance that he remains in Lebanon but also for the example that he has always been and remains even more so today for all his supporters in France and internationally.

Today, this support is ever more massive, and ever more people are taking action to ensure that any solidarity with Palestine must also include the demand for the release of one of its most loyal fighters. Just as we did so brilliantly at the 14th demonstration in Lannemezan on 6 April in support of our comrade and the prisoners incarcerated with him, we, the signatories of this appeal, pledge once again to coordinate all our forces in support of the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people and of Georges Abdallah during the next international week of action from 8 to 15 June and to mobilise massively for the new national demonstration organised on 15 June in Lyon to support the 10th request for the conditional release of Georges Abdallah and to demand his release.

The aim of this year's demonstration will also be to express our active solidarity with two comrades from the Ligue de la Jeunesse Révolutionnaire who are supporting Georges Abdallah and who will stand trial in Lyon on 18 June for having displayed the Palestinian flag and a T-shirt calling for the release of Georges Abdallah on 7 October 2022 on the pitch of the Olympique Lyonnais stadium during a football match with the Toulouse club, which was interrupted for several minutes and broadcast on every screen. 

‘Gaza will never carry the white flag of surrender... Neither the Zionists nor any criminal force will ever succeed in breaking the will of the Resistance in Gaza’ (Georges Abdallah). 

Neither the French state nor any criminal force will ever succeed in breaking our determination to snatch our comrade from the hands of the enemy. Free them! Let us free him!

Book review: A View from the Horizon, Peter Duncan, Wakefield Press 2024

 Written by: Nick G. on 20 May 2024

One evening in 1970, a tall, sandy-haired young man came down the stairs to the basement of the Adelaide Revolutionary Socialists building in Dequetteville Terrace, Kent Town.  It was surprising to see him there as he was not a revolutionary but a well-known member of the Labor Party and of the pacifist-aligned Campaign for Peace in Vietnam.

What was more surprising was the handgun he was carrying, which he proceeded to show to his friend Rob Durbridge, leader of Students for Democratic Action at Adelaide University.

Why he had the gun, and what he later did with it, I’ve never known, but it didn’t impede his political career. Three years later, he was elected to the SA Parliament, and two years after that, at age 29, was sworn in as the State's Attorney-General.

Several days ago, I attended the launch of his book of anecdotes and memoires, A View from the Horizon.

Peter Duncan, the author, was later elected to Federal Parliament in the Hawke-Keating era.

He is justifiably proud of his record as a reformist social-democrat although it was never his intention to do away with capitalism: his legislative achievements were all in the area of social policy and did not, nor could have, done away with the economic base of capitalism.

Still, working with a premier who wore pink shorts to Parliament, he was able to achieve the abolition of capital punishment, the abolition of drunkenness in public as a crime, the criminalisation of rape in marriage, the abolition of legal consequences for illegitimacy, recognition of de facto couples, the criminalisation of racial discrimination and drug law reform. But it was his Private Member's Bill, the first in the world, to decriminalise homosexuality and establish equal rights for homosexuals with heterosexuals for which he is best known.

As a reformist social-democrat, Duncan is scathing in his book about the SA Labor governments that came after his and Dunstan's. He writes:

Some people may not be aware of the phrase 'went to water': its origins lie literally in what happens to ice when it melts from a robust solid state to a malleable and wet state. My comrade, Bob Mac, wittily observed that it must have been extremely hot in those Labor Cabinets under Bannon, Rann and Weatherill, because when good people entered those Cabinets, they 'went to water'. Sentiments I endorse entirely.

Later he writes:

Labor government either try to reform society or to manage it. Unfortunately, in the past 40 odd years, the managerialists have held sway. They could just as easily have left it to the Liberals.

It would be unfair to say that these views reflect illusions about capitalism. Both reformism and managerialism accept the permanence of capitalism and the legitimacy of bourgeois parliaments as the sole avenue for both reformism and managerialism. Duncan's post-political forays into business ventures, also examined in the book, illustrate his acceptance of capitalism.

Duncan was one of the few Australian state politicians to successfully move to the federal sphere. He was the federal member for the SA seat of Makin from 1984 to 1996, holding several ministerial positions under Hawke, but having any real influence blocked by the powerful Right and Centre Left factions of the ALP.

One of his first blues with Hawke, a cigar smoker, was over a ban on cigarette smoking on domestic airlines. Duncan gave his Transport ministerial support to a private member's bill introducing the ban. He writes:

…Hawke was furious and carpeted me, to no effect…Hawke’s anger must have been on behalf of the tobacco lobby. Of course, if he had ordered a backdown from what was a very popular initiative, it would have looked as if he was under the thumb of the tobacco lobby, which was the case, since they were significant donors to the ALP at that time. 

In the same year, 1987, he recalls going into Hawke's office as the PM was on a special red phone call to transport boss Sir Peter Abeles, long acknowledged as a personal friend of Hawke. He "told Bob that as one of his ministers, I wouldn't mind having that 'red phone number', to which Hawke replied agitatedly, ‘

'And when you’ve done as much for me as Peter Abeles, you’ll be entitled to it'."

Duncan had been summonsed by Hawke to explain why his department had awarded a contract for northern coastal surveillance, on behalf of Customs, to a small operator, Amann Aviatics. The contract had previously been held by Sky West, but Amann had the superior bid and had won. 

Unknown to Duncan, Sky West had been bought cheaply by Abeles who was furious to have lost the government contract. Hawke and Gareth Evans fabricated a narrative about Amann being unable to fulfil its contract which conflicted with the department's legal advice. According to Duncan, Abeles "lobbied Hawke to get the Amann contract rescinded" and that Hawke "colluded in this perfidy". A subsequent High Court challenge by Amann upheld its right to the contract.

This is not the only example of Hawke using an official position to look after, and curry favour with, influential capitalists. Duncan records that in 1975, when Hawke was still president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, he brokered a deal between Rupert Murdoch and Jimmy Hoffa, notorious boss of the Teamster's Union in the USA, to transport Murdoch's new US newspapers across the USA at a rate which undercut his competitors.

What grease was used to achieve this deal and what benefit Hawke obtained, I have no idea. What is clear that the leader of the ACTU at the time facilitated a deal that cut US workers' income and conditions.

During his book launch, which included a discussion with friend and former SA Premier and Vietnam Moratorium Committee leader Lynn Arnold, Duncan was only once interrupted with spontaneous applause. That was when he volunteered his view that SA’s anti-protest legislation, introduced by the Malinauskas Labor government, was "despicable". It was a strong statement, made in the presence of the current Attorney-General, Kyam Maher, who had overseen the lifting of penalties for "obstruction" from $750 to $50,000 and up to three months' gaol.

Two nights later, on May 16, on the anniversary of the rushed, overnight passage of the anti-protest laws, police arrested eight people who were among hundreds who occupied and held a sit-in at a city intersection to protest the legislation. 

Significantly, and as a measure of popular opposition to the anti-protest laws, the eight were not charged under the new obstruction legislation, and were each fined only $156.

The task of removing the "despicable" legislation still remains. 

Albanese Government Facing Charges of "Supporting War Crimes"

Written by: Ned K. on 19 May 2024

 

Last week ALP Senator Fatima Payman broke ranks with the official Party line when she spoke up in the Senate against Israel's acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. She also defended the supporters of Palestinian people's struggle using the chant, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free."

Albanese and his Cabinet Ministers quickly tried to shut down her comments and isolate her.
However the situation only got worse for the Albanese Government as it tried to shut Senator Payman's comments down.

The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network's AMAN Foundation was endorsed as a deductible gift recipient in the May Budget last Tuesday. A couple of days later AMAN wrote an open letter to the Senate opposing a motion in the Senate which tried to condemn the chant "From the River to the Sea..."

The AMAN letter said " From the River to the Sea is a call for freedom from Palestinians and their allies, fundamentally different from the annexation and colonization promoted by Netanyahu’s ruling Likud under the same phrase." Likud’s founding statement in 1977 said “between the sea and the Jordan river, there will only be Israeli sovereignty”. This expressed Zionist religious exclusiveness and supremacy to be achieved by the extinction of Palestine and its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

The AMAN letter was followed by a director of AMAN, Moustafa Kheir leading a legal move to refer the Prime Minister to the International Criminal Court as an accessory to genocide, sending aa 92-page paper explaining the PM's complicity.

The media commentaries that Albanese may go to an early election are not surprising as each day the PM and his Government become more isolated from the people, especially western suburbs of Sydney where support for Palestinians is high.

Workers Take Action at Osborne Naval Base in South Australia

Written by: Ned K. on 19 May 2024

 

Above: On May 9, ASC workers picketed the entrance to confront their CEO as he was leaving the base.

AMWU and CEPU members employed by the federal government's Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) have been taking industrial action against ASC to win better pay and conditions.

ASC is the federal government entity which employs highly skilled workers to build submarines and other navy vessels, including the proposed nuclear-powered submarines.

ASC also employs workers at its naval base in WA. 

However workers at ASC's naval base in Osborne are paid 18% less than workers performing the same type of work at the ASC base in WA.

AMWU and CEPU members at Osborne are taking industrial action to win "wage parity" with workers in WA.

For the last three weeks AMWU and CEPU members have held rolling stoppages but ASC has not yet agreed to workers' wage parity demand. Industrial action is sure to escalate until workers win.

ASC has had a contemptuous attitude towards workers for many years resulting in numerous disputes. 

The Australian Government says that the Osborne Naval Base workers and other defence bases are vital to the defence of Australia of Australia. However, their class position as primarily a representative of the interests of big business comes to the surface when one examines how they treat workers. At the Osborne Naval Base, the poor treatment of workers applies to support services workers at the Base as well. Most support services such as ground maintenance, security, catering and cleaning are contract workers on the low Award minimum pay. AMWU and CEPU members have been informed that in some cases the ASC cherry picks to enable contractors to pay wages on the lowest paying Award they can find.

All this is going on while the current and past federal Governments throw billions of dollars towards AUKUS and nuclear submarines designed to support a US war with China, which is little to do with defence of Australia's vast coasts and lands.  

 

Ukraine: Comic actor, serious scenarios

 Written by: (Contributed) on 17 May 2024

 

Russian military advances in the Ukraine have been viewed with alarm in Kiev and the western backers of the Zelensky presidential administration. Ukraine is faced with a long, drawn out military struggle it is unlikely to win in a straightforward manner. The development has also been accompanied by a classic Cold War spy scandal as Zelensky seeks to consolidate a reliable power-base of support with declining popularity amongst many Ukrainians and little sign of any resolution to the war.

News coverage about Russian military advances in the north-eastern part of the Ukraine around Kharkiv and their seizing of several villages was met with alarm in Kiev; Ukraine is still waiting for further military aid from US-led western supporters of the Zelensky administration. (1) It has been generally acknowledged that Ukraine is confronting a much better equipped Russian military, which has also made recent advances in the east of the country. (2)

A recent announcement from France's President Macron that 'Europe should consider sending troops to help defend Ukraine if Russian forces break through their defence lines', has been taken seriously by European leaders. (3) Increased aid to Ukraine in the form of military personnel would now appear an agenda item for consideration. The move has also been accompanied by European leaders agreeing last week to using billions of Euros seized from Russian central bank assets being allocated for Ukraine for arms sales and post-war reconstruction. (4)  

Macron also provided a bleak analysis of the problems confronting Europe: aggression from Russia in both military and cyber-warfare, it was also falling behind in the economic and technological race between the US and China, the latter being allied with Russia. (5)

Escalating diplomatic tensions between Britain and Russia have also taken place: in early May the British government expelled Moscow's defence attache on allegations of espionage
incompatible with usual diplomatic status and also removing diplomatic status from several Kremlin-owned properties which Whitehall claimed were being used for intelligence-gathering. (6) Discussions appear to have also taken place in Whitehall about confiscating the properties and donating them to the Ukraine.

The British government has apparently been deeply concerned at Russian attempts to 'choke off support for Kyiv … with … hostile state activity in countries including Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland'. (7) The recent official high-level diplomatic meetings in Budapest between China's President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is also likely to be viewed along similar lines, particularly in light of a recent statement from the Hungarian Foreign Minister that the country would not support the proposed $100 bn EU fund for Ukraine. (8) A statement from the Belgian Royal Higher Institute for Defence issued immediately after the diplomatic visit acknowledged 'Hungary as the most likely pawn of Beijing inside the EU'. (9)  

While visiting Hungary President Xi Jinping also used the opportunity to provide a diplomatic position regarding areas of interest: China believes in a multi-polar world, although not all countries have equal status; China should be allowed to be 'a dominant power in Asia, as the US is in the Americas – and as Russia wants to be in Eastern Europe'. (10) It met with complete diplomatic silence from the US and their western allies; there was, undoubtedly, a great deal of discussion behind the scenes inside western corridors of power about the proposed global blue-print!

The present situation in the Ukraine, likewise, is also causing the US and their western allies considerable concern; the announcement that the Ukrainian Security Service had foiled a plot to assassinate Zelensky in early May, has also raised serious issues about the stability of his presidential administration. (11) It was noted 'the involvement of senior officers in the alleged plot highlights the persistent problem of collaborators and moles in Ukraine's security services'. (12) It has been a matter of serious concern that since the beginning of the military hostilities following the Russian invasion, over 2,000 Ukrainians have been found to have committed treason by providing Moscow with co-ordinates for military targets and monitoring the movements of senior government officials in Kyiv. (13) Many of the bombings of infrastructure by Russia would appear not random, but targeted in order to make the Ukraine dysfunctional as a state.

While sacking the head of the security department in mid-May, Zelensky stated one of the two conspirators 'had personally provided rocket rounds, drones and anti-personnel mines for an agent to carry out the attack'. (14) The nature of the military equipment and the ability of the conspirators to access it, raise serious questions about the whole internal security system and accountability of armaments and sensitive equipment.

During the past two years since the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky had apparently survived five or six similar conspiracies aimed at assassinating him. (15)

The developments have also coincided with Zelensky's popularity falling from previous heights of 90 per cent, to around 60 per cent in recent weeks. (16) While he remains the most popular Ukrainian politician, the former comic actor is now facing some serious scenarios, as are the US and their western allies. With US-led military planners and analysts expecting Russia to ramp up offensives during the northern summer aimed at seizing large areas of the eastern Donetsk region, the unresolved issues surrounding the initial invasion in 2022 are now set to become even more problematic and show little sign of any resolution in the foreseeable future.   

1.     Russia opens new front in Ukraine, Australian, 13 May 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     We may have to fight in Ukraine: Macron, The Weekend Australian, 4-5 May 2024.
4.     Europe to buy Kyiv arms with Russian money, Australian, 10 May 2024.
5.     Weekend Australian, op.cit., 4-5 May 2024.
6.     Britain expels Moscow attache, Australian, 10 May 2024.
7.     Ibid.
8.     See: Xi vows help for 'all-weather' friend Hungary, Australian, 13 May 2024.
9.     Orban rolls out red carpet for Xi as the money rolls in, The Weekend Australian, 11/12 May 2024.
10.   Xi vows, Australian, op.cit., 13 May 2024.
11.   Ukraine foils plot to kill Zelensky, Australian, 9 May 2024.
12.   Ibid.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Zelensky fires bodyguard chief after kill plot foiled, The Weekend Australian, 11-12 May 2024.
15.   Ibid.
16.   Australian, op.cit., 9 May 2024.