On Saturday 4 April, about 1,000 people gathered at Adelaide’s Elder Park on the Torrens Lake for a rally organised for various right wing and racist groups including the Australia First Party.
The message from the banners and placards was that Australia needs to be “re-claimed’ from the evils of multiculturalism and Islam in particular.
An Australia First Party leaflet distributed at the rally was headed “Multiculturalism Means Death” and warned against the “over breeding hordes of Asia, Africa and the Third World”. Some placards said “All Moslems Are Terrorists” while a person carrying the Israel state flag said that the Greens were supporters of ISIS!
More concerning than the wording on banners and placards was the make- up and mood of the crowd. Most were white Anglo Saxon males carrying the Australian flag.
A section of the rally confronted a group of about 30 people who kept their distance from the rally but expressed views in favour of immigration and in favour of multiculturalism.
Included in this group were a few young Indigenous Australians who made the point that the Reclaim Australia supporters could not ‘reclaim’ what was never theirs in the first place!
At midday the Reclaim Australia rally marched to the steps of Parliament House where they directed all their vocal energy at the small group of 30 people who wanted to make a point in support of multiculturalism and against racism.
Several passers-by of Non English Speaking Background were amazed that such racist banners and placards were being displayed in the streets of Adelaide. One African passer-by likened them to white supremacist behaviour of Apartheid times in South Africa.
Countdown To Closure
On the same day the April edition of the free magazine Adelaide Review was on display in the cafe at Elder Park frequented by those attending the rally. In the magazine there was a timely article, “Countdown To Closure” about the economic and social consequences of the destruction of the automobile industry in Australia and Adelaide in particular.
The article, written by Adelaide University based researcher John Spoehr, said that Adelaide had lost about 30,000 manufacturing jobs in the last three decades and the closure of Holden in the northern suburbs in 2017 or earlier will add to this job loss malaise.
Many of these workers feel let down and abandoned by political parties of both Liberal and Labor variety who have been unable to stem the de-industrialisation tide in Adelaide.
How many of these workers were at the Reclaim Australia rally today or how many know family members or neighbours who are victims of this de-industrialisation? While not knowing the exact number, it is reasonable to assume that there were more than a few.
Progressive people within society and especially within the trade union movement need to develop a stronger message and education campaign that it is not multiculturalism or people of Islamic religion who are responsible for the current situation of declining living standards and destruction of industry jobs.
BUILD A BETTER FUTURE
The campaign to defend and extend living standards initiated by the ACTU can build and unite working people on the same scale as the Your Rights At Work Worth Fighting For campaign against Work Choices.
The ACTU initiated campaign , “Build A Better Future, Fight For Our Living Standards” focuses on six key demands on the current and future governments –
1 Workers’ Rights
2 Medicare – universal healthcare
3 Education – highest quality for all
4 Public Services – owned by everyone for the benefit of everyone
5 A Secure Retirement
6 A Fair Go For All
Such a campaign if based on grass roots conversations within working people’s suburbs, communities and workplaces can at worst neutralise and at best dismantle the right wing, racist appeal of the Reclaim Australia group within working class areas that it targets.
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