Elections in WA

Written by: Allan M. on 1 April 2025

 

(Above: CFMEU members in WA  - Paid Up And Proud!)

2025 is a year of elections in WA, with Western Australians being asked to head to the polls to decide their State and Federal representatives. The State election here has just occurred, and WA Labor has had a decisive victory for a third term. Opposed by a Liberal/National Coalition (whose shambolic campaign, candidates, and policies are not worth further thought) the WA Labor Party entered their election campaign promising ‘a steady hand’ for WA. When looking back at their previous terms, we can see that this steady hand was used to quietly rob Western Australians of their future while enriching mining magnates and their political cronies.

The WA Labor Party experienced a record win in 2021, securing a 4-year term with no effective opposition in either house of Parliament. With this significant majority, WA Labor has had the opportunity the address major issues in our State. But in 2025, we face a huge housing crisis, with more and more families having to choose between rent payments and food, continued attacks on our natural environment, and attacks on worker power. 

With a record majority in Parliament, WA Labor promised to address the State’s seriously outdated rental laws. Soon after making this promise to the people of WA, the Labor government was falling over themselves to placate the landlords and property developer lobby, giving assurance after assurance that their proposed new law would not impact their ability to gouge tenants. What WA renters got from this law was a requirement that landlords are limited to a once-yearly rent increase, compared to the previous twice-yearly limit. What a comfort! To the landlord class, WA Labor delivered a massive green-light to continue their daylight robbery. With the retention of no-grounds evictions and the ability to increase rent to whatever they like on a yearly basis, landlords are still able to scare renters into shutting up and paying up for the privilege of living in low-quality housing. 

Now WA, like the rest of Australia, is in the midst of a massive housing crisis. In late 2024, Perth became the least affordable capital city to rent in, while 0% vacancy rates in many of our regional centres have led to rapidly increasing homelessness. Working families are in precarious conditions, having to find ways to keep up with extortionate rent increases or risk eviction. Many have been unable to keep up, shown by the growing number of families living out of cars. 

This is what the Labor party achieves when it faces no opposition.

With a record majority in Parliament, WA Labor promised to protect the State’s natural environment and heritage, while promoting sustainable economic growth. In the wake of the tragic destruction of Juukan Gorge in 2020, that vast majority of Western Australians were eager to see the arrogance of mining companies reined in. After introducing a new law to modernise the protection of Aboriginal heritage in WA, the WA government came under increasing pressure from pastoralists and smaller mining companies to water it down. Scared of a fight with industry, the WA Labor government revoked the law overnight and reverted our Aboriginal heritage protections to rely on a law from 1972. 

This disgraceful weakness of our ‘elected representatives’ and their deference to big industry continued throughout their term. Under pressure from mining and property developer lobbyists, the WA government introduced changes to our environmental protection laws with zero mandate or public consultation. These changes limited rights of appeal for the community, and changed the composition of the Environmental Protection Authority to enable greater representation of industry interests. The egregious lack of transparency in this process caused uproar for many Western Australians, but the WA Labor government was able to use their Parliamentary majority to push through the changes unopposed in late 2024. Shortly after, it was revealed that the WA Labor government also gave special privileges to Alcoa, allowing the mining giant to continue expanding its bauxite mine outside of Perth while an environmental assessment on that expansion was ongoing. It was further revealed that public servants advising the government told them that this could poison a significant portion of Perth’s water supply. Despite this, the WA Labor government allowed Alcoa to continue mining effectively without any constraints. 

This is how the Labor party uses it’s Parliamentary majority, not for the benefit of the workers, but to bow down to business interests.

With a record majority in Parliament, WA workers might have thought that the Labor government would enact policies from their allegedly ‘pro-worker’ platform. Instead, the WA Labor government used their majority to continue an attack on workers across the state. In 2022, WA nurses went on strike as part of their campaign for a pay-rise after years of being over-worked, understaffed, and protecting our community from Covid-19. Instead of supporting the workers, the WA Labor government attacked them through the Industrial Relations Commission. After continued pressure from the government, the nurses union were forced to call off their campaign and pay a $350,000 fine. 

In the Pilbara, where most of the State’s mining occurs, unions are looking to build up their membership and support mine workers who are experiencing worsening pay and conditions. Instead of supporting the unions, WA Labor has sided with their friends in the Chamber of Minerals and Energy, with the Deputy Premier stating that workers in WA ‘thrive without unions’. It should also come as no surprise that as the union presence in the Pilbara is growing, the WA Labor government joined in the attack on the CFMEU and introduced an arbitrary ‘fit and proper person’ test for any union representative seeking to enter a worksite. 

This is how the Labor party treats the workers when they fight for fair conditions.

The WA government has had a once-in-a-century opportunity to improve the lives of the WA community. With no effective opposition in Parliament and large public support, the government could have embarked on a series of reforms to ensure we have good housing, strong protections for our heritage sites and our natural environment, and good conditions for our workers. Western Australians can now see how the WA Labor government used their majority to cosy up to big business, for individuals to secure Board positions at Rio Tinto, BHP, or  FMG, and to attack the working class. The best thing to come out of this term of government has been that WA Labor has exposed to all Western Australians just how hostile they are to the working class. This is driving us to continue building the worker solidarity, to reject the bourgeois Parliamentary system, and to fight for a system that represents the working class and our interests.

The Australian economy: the continuing crisis

Written by: (Contributed) on 30 March 2025

 

(Source: freepikcom)

An OECD report dealing with the economies of member countries has revealed the fragile nature of the Australian economy. The report has been presented by economists using economic data, which can be used by politicians to provide a misleading picture of many of the problems arising.

The section of the report dealing specifically with percentage change in real household disposable income, however, has revealed how the Australian working class and lower socio-economic groups have borne the brunt of recent economic problems far more than their counterparts elsewhere.

The present OECD report has shown the global economy is in relative decline, particularly when assessed through the diplomatic hostilities between the US and China.

                                                              GLOBAL GDP

                                                              2024   -   3.2%
                                                              2025   -   3.1%
                                                              2026   -   3.0%

                                                      US   2025   -   2.2%
                                                              2026   -   1.6%  

                                                CHINA   2025   -   4.8%
                                                              2026   -   4.4% (1)

China will inevitably overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the future, sooner rather than later, if not toward the end of the present decade, then the next one. The problem arising should be assessed as remaining in the background of diplomatic hostilities between the two countries, with many of the dramas being played-out in the Indo-Pacific region, drawing Australia ever closer to real-war scenarios.

The Australian economy, meanwhile, continues to bump along the bottom, with economic growth of 2.5 per cent for the present year, with a projection falling to 1.8 per cent for next year. (2)  

The Australian figures also reveal a volatile economy; growth rates of just 0.6 per cent were recorded in the December quarter last year. (3) The growth rates do not appear sustainable, but fluctuate regularly.

The growth rates, furthermore, show Australia's fall significantly below those of the G20, where average growth rates of 3.1 per cent for this year are expected to only fall slightly to 2.9 per cent next year. (4)

Australia's inflation rate also continues to hover around 2.4 per cent, only slightly being reduced to a projected 2.2 per cent next year. (5) It continues to be a problem.

The figures also have to be studied in the context of Australia's growing debt; in 2004 gross public debt amounted to 15.2 per cent of GDP, by 2024 it had risen to 57.9 per cent. (6) By the end of this year it had been projected to rise to 60.6 per cent. (7)

When the economic data is linked to living standards, however, the real problems facing Australia can be accurately established.

The OECD report revealed that while the average gains in living standards of other member countries averaged at 5.5 per cent, Australia's had slipped by minus 8.3 per cent. (8) The figures are all the more appalling when studied in the context that they are an average for all Australians; the working class and lower socio-economic groups on basic Award terms and conditions of employment, pay far more of their disposable income for basic necessities than higher socio-economic groups.

The study, furthermore, found that on average, Australian workers were working longer than the standard working week of 38 hours, with overtime seemingly becoming essential for lower paid workers to even make ends meet.

The massive casualisation of employment has also pushed millions of workers into vulnerable positions where poverty remains a problem, looming on the horizon.

Those on the Australian Forbes rich list, however, continue to amass huge profits, up by nearly ten per cent to February this year, from last year. (9) The present economy is heavily stacked in their favour, as they exploit the working class for every last cent they can grab. Economic rationalism and the implementation of race-to-the-bottom production techniques have worked wonders for the business-classes and corporate sector.

The federal Budget acknowledges the cost-of-living crisis, but offers on limited measures for dealing with it.

An economic crisis would appear to be looming!

1.     'Serious volatility', The New Daily, 18 March 2025.
2.     OECD slashes growth forecast on global unrest, Australian, 18 March 2025.
3.     Decline in living standards undermines 'plucky rhetoric' of economic recovery, Australian, 12 March 2025.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 18 March 2025.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Debt blowout worst in developed world, Australian, 19 March 2025.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Australian, op.cit., 12 March 2025.
9.     Website: Forbes – Australia's 50 Richest, 12 February 2025.

Greetings to the Philippines New People’s Army

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 1 April 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) would like to extend its warmest congratulations and support to the New People’s Army in its 56th Anniversary. The NPA has been at the forefront of resistance against fascist regimes and corrupt bureaucrats in the Philippines for 56 years, as well as resisting American and Chinese Imperialism. We offer our upmost support to the NPA in its struggle and wish our comrades success and longevity. 
 

Red Salute and happy birthday to the NPA
 

Communist Party of Australia CPA (M-L)

 

May 3 election - Don’t leave politics to the politicians!

 Written by: CPA (M-L) on 28 March 2025

 

On May 3 Australians will exercise their democratic right to vote for whoever will next misrepresent them in Parliament.

The vote is important.  It was fought for many years ago.

But actual democracy is largely illusory.

The big end of town, with its money and its media, has powerful means of influencing and controlling public opinion such that the dominant ideas are those of the dominant class.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, there will be no sudden outbreak of independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy. There will be no withdrawal from our role in supporting US plans for war with China.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, there will be no about-turn in economic policy to solve the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis. It is not that there is not enough money for governments to act – there is too much money and it is in the wrong hands, at the big end of town. But don’t expect the selfish rich to be made to pay – politicians do not dare touch them.

It is true that Labor has passed some laws demanded by the unions, and that there are differences with the Coalition over nuclear power. Despite the hopes and progressive ideas of many rank and file ALP members and voters, the "top brass" of the ALP in government will deliver more of the same servitude to US domination of Australia. Far better to seek out Independents with progressive policies, or the Greens, than to perpetuate the parliamentary version of the “difference” between Coles and Woolworths. Better still – to rely on our united strength  in people’s struggles.

The proximity of the election to May Day will lead some opportunist elements within the union movement to try to make re-election of Labor the focus of May Day. That would be a disservice to the working class. We must stand for our own independent agenda as a class regardless of which party of capitalism is put into office.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, we must refuse to be sent back to our rooms to play.  We must not leave politics to the politicians. We must make our voices heard in our workplaces and communities, in our social media and out on the streets.

Against Zionism, and for the Palestinian people!
Out of the US “Alliance” - stop AUKUS!
Genuine self-determination for First Peoples!
For an anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

GO NORTH OLD MAN

Written by: Humphrey McQueen on 27 March 2025

 

Trump’s pledge to push the boundary of the United States of America 2,000 kilometres north is not another rush of blood but channels 300 years of imperial rivalries over resources. 

In the grip of ‘now-ists,’ all ‘News’ is fake because it comes from the ‘context of no context,’ a blight made worse by journalists afflicted with the compulsion to accuse anyone able to rub two facts together of running a conspiracy theory. Conventional wisdom around academe passes scholarly myopia off as expertise so that Clinton Fernandes can be chastised for sullying international relations with economics in What Uncle Sam Wants (2019).

 

Take up the contexts of Trump’s annexation of Canada at Britain’s 1759 victory over France at Quebec on the Plains of Abraham, securing barrels of Newfoundland cod to feed slaves on West Indian plantations and the Hudson Bay Company’s monopoly over beaver pelts.

 

Marquis de La Fayette joined the Continental Army (1) in 1777 in the War for Independence against Britain’s Hessian mercenaries. To entice the victorious Americans away from their French backers, in 1783 London talked about handing over Canada. Meanwhile, defeated Tories headed north. 

 

Blockading Napoleonic Europe thirty years later, the Royal Navy stopped other nations trading with its enemy. In response to attacks on U.S.  merchant vessels, President Madison authorised incursions into Upper Canada in 1812, which led to open warfare. The Duke of Wellington pointed to the difficulties of defending its borderless frontier. Two years later, a British force burned down the Capitol Building and the White House.

 

After the collapse of the Spanish Empire and with Britain’s unchallenged naval power after Waterloo, President Monroe in 1823 warned off European powers. His Doctrine soon turned into a land claim, starting with Texas in 1837 before annexing what became the States of Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico, (not forgetting Hawaii in the 1890s). 

 

The U.S. annexation of ‘America’ for its quarter of the Western hemisphere makes Trump’s renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America nothing new. Does anyone around the Oval Office have the faintest after whom the entire hemisphere had been named in 1507, before being reserved for the southern half in 1537? (2) While Trump is at it, he could follow Tony Abbott’s lead and rebadge the threatened annexation ‘Canadia.’

 

Financial panic distracted Washington from the 1837-8 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada before Congress agreed in 1839 to a $10m. war budget and 50,000 conscripts, reviving schemes to bring Canada into the Union. Continentalists assumed that Canadians would rush to join the Land of the Free, apparent in the accompanying map from 1888. 

 

Lincoln’s campaigns against Confederate independence involved the British whose government backed the slaveholders’ rebellion to secure cotton and to stymie competition from textile mills in New England.

 

Richard A. Preston documented the next eighty years in The Defence of the Undefended Border Planning for War in North America, 1867-1939 (Montreal; McGill-Queens University Press, 1977). 

 

In response to the victorious Union Army’s genocidal expansion westward against the Amerindians, London revived its decades-old plan to bring Ottawa, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick together as a self-governing Dominion.  

 

Within hours of Royal Assent to the British North America Act on March 29, 1867, the U.S. of A. applied pressure from the west by paying the Czar $7.2m. for Alaska. At the same time, it hoped to squeeze from the north-east by acquiring Greenland from Denmark, on which Trump also has his sights for minerals, as in the Ukraine. 

 

The conga-line of High-Tech chieftains at his second coming are after shares of the copper and rare earths to extend their energy-gobbling networks.

In the 1880s, the President of the U.S. Naval War College, Admiral Mahon, surveyed The Influence of Naval Power upon History 1660 and 1783 (1890) through the Royal Navy’s rise to global dominance, attending to its operations in the West Indies and along both the North American coastlines. As a disciple of Mahon, Teddy Roosevelt dispatched the ‘Great White Fleet’ around the world in 1908 as a warning to Britain as much as Germany or Japan.

 

Doughboys landed in France in 1917 with the battle cry ‘Lafayette. We are here,’ suggesting that although they were happy to help France, they had not forgotten who their common enemy had been.

 

No sooner had the U.S. of A. stopped fighting alongside the British Empire, than Washington strategists drew up ‘War Plan Red’ as a contingency for armed conflict against its erstwhile ally. A joint US Army-Navy force would take Halifax to block British reinforcements, seize power plants near Niagara Falls, occupy Montreal, the railhead at Winnipeg and Ontario nickel mines, while the Navy secured the Great Lakes and blockaded its Good Neighbour’s Atlantic and Pacific ports.

 

Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1937 saw Plan Red’s being abandoned since Washington no longer feared that London and Tokyo might combine against it, as Britain and the U.S. of A. had eighty years earlier to inflict unequal trade treaties on Meiji Japan. 

 

Canada became a founding member of N.A.T.O. in 1948, the U.S.-dominated GATT and then WTO, before signing up to a Free Trade deal with the U.S. of A. from 1989 before its extension to Mexico in 1994 as the North American Free Trade Agreement established a continent for a market and a market for the continent.

 

The U.S. wrote the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement which signalled an end to Imperial Preference in trade and installed the Greenback as good as the gold in Fort Knox, which it was until the late 1960s, since when its military-industrial complexes have kept the dollar Almighty, enabling it to flick the switches at the system for international electronic financial transfers, SWIFT. 

 

The U.S. of A. writes the rules for the rest of us to take their orders. Washington is not a signatory to the Law of the Sea Convention yet when China does not accept a ruling it is confronted by the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait.

 

The U.S. of A. withdrew from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in 1986 and sanctions staff of the International Criminal Court.

 

Enforcing the Extra-territoriality of its laws, Washington fined France’s BNP Paribas $US8.9bn in 2014 for trading with Iran, forgetful of Reagan’s Iran-Contra deals of the 1980s.

 

Madison Avenue manifested American destiny by alerting the world’s consumers to our being latent U.S. Americans. For them, there is no ‘other.’

 

In the midst of dismantling its Department of Education, Washington is telling Australian universities that research funding will be cut off if they persist with diversity, inclusion and equality, or in being bribed by anyone but the U.S. corporate-warfare state, above all, by its commercial competitor, the Peoples Republic of China. 

 

On May 14, last year, Biden’s White House quadrupled the tariff on Chinese EVs to 100 percent. To protect the Trump-Biden tariff wars, successive administrations have, since 2019, blocked the appointment of new judges to the Appellate body of the World Trade Organisation. 

 

U.S. diplomacy remains a near-run thing between hypocrisy and mendacity. 

 

Its latest Globalism trumpets what had been true all along in Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.,’: ‘America’ first!

 

 

Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen's works include A New Britannia, From Gallipoli to Petrov, Suspect History, Australia’s Media Monopolies, Japan to the Rescue, Gone Tomorrow, Framework of Flesh and We Built This City.

 

(1) The Continental Army was created to coordinate the military efforts of the colonies in the war against the British, who sought to maintain control over the American colonies -eds.

(2) The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when it was applied to what is now known as South America. It is generally accepted that the name derives from Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer. He disproved Columbus’s claim that the West Indies and the South American continent were part of the East Asian land mass and established that South America was a separate continent – eds.

Federal government breaks critical environmental promise

Written by: Leo A, on 25 March 2025

 

(Original image from the Australian)

On February 5, the Albanese Administration’s promise to create an environmental protection agency in the current parliamentary term was finally killed off. One Labor insider admitted to The Saturday Paper that this was due to the government having "the most powerful business interests in the country screaming" over the proposed legislation. 

In our current political system, it is easy for our so-called "leaders" to easily make promises that they know won’t be kept, and face no consequences in the aftermath. Similarly, it is easy for government to follow the will of big corporations and other fundamentally undemocratic forces, again without facing any consequences for betraying the interests both of the working masses and of our natural environments. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young described the decision as "a stunning capitulation to vested interests in the mining and logging lobby". 

The legislation aimed to establish Australia’s first independent national environmental regulator to enforce environmental laws, improve transparency, and enact stronger nature and wildlife protections. This, of course, is within a context of ongoing environmental catastrophe both in Australia and across the planet. And this catastrophe is affecting both well-documented ecosystems and species, and those which have yet to be sufficiently understood. Across the Pacific, the presumed-extinct South American Tapir has recently been sighted for the first time in over a century, and this Hidden Threatened Species is just one of countless examples that demonstrate that even the long lists of wildlife at risk of extinction are incomplete.  

Under capitalism, environmental protection is an uphill struggle, as any promises can be broken and any progress can be reversed. But it is a necessary struggle. For every presumed-extinct species that turns up alive, a dozen more - perhaps even a hundred more - are truly lost forever. Under socialism vast changes to protect these species will finally become fathomable, but we must still do what we can until then. 

 

 

Book Review: Mood Machine The rise of Spotify and the costs of the perfect Playlist

 Written by: Duncan B. on 25 March 2025

 

As Vanguard recently reported, music streaming service Spotify has been accused of helping to destroy the Australian music industry. A new book Mood Machine. The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by US music journalist Liz Pelly, exposes the dark side of Spotify, and the harm it is causing musicians.

Spotify was founded in 2006 in Sweden by advertising industry men Martin Ek and Daniel Lorentzon. Since then, Spotify has grown into a $67 billion media conglomerate.

This wealth has come at the expense of the musicians who whose creations Spotify exploits. The big three companies Sony, Universal and Warner control 70% of the recorded music market. Pelly shows how Spotify serves the interests of these companies, while making it difficult for independent record companies and musicians to get their work featured on Spotify.

Spotify also uses session musicians, and more recently Artificial Intelligence, to create a lot of the music on Spotify’s playlists. This means they have to pay even less for the music they stream.

Payments to musicians for each stream are pitifully low and hidden in an obscure payment system. A figure of $0.0035 per stream is often quoted to show how low payments are. In 2021 musicians mounted a campaign against Spotify, demanding that payment be raised to one cent per stream. They also called for an end to Spotify’s programme “Discovery Mode.” This is where musicians can accept lower royalty payments in return for algorithmic promotion of their music on Spotify.

In 2014 Taylor Swift removed her music from Spotify. She was quoted as saying, “I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music.”

Another risk from Spotify is the vast amount of data which Spotify harvests from its users. This data is then sold to data brokers for the use of advertisers. Currently, Spotify derives about 13% of itsrevenue from advertising, and aims to raise this to 20%.

Like the other tech companies Amazon, Meta and X, Spotify spends millions of dollars lobbying the US government in order to protect their interests. We are seeing this lobbying in action at presentwith the big tech companies lobbying to get the Trump government to take punitive measures against Australia and other countries which try to impose any sort of regulatory controls, restrictions, taxes or payments on these companies.

In trying to find a solution to the stranglehold that Spotify has on the music industry, Pelly sees the need for musicians to come together to find independent alternatives to Spotify to promote their music. These include community-based streaming services, based for instance in libraries. Here local
artists can make their music available within their community.

She says, “At a time when the music industry has insistently sold the idea of the hyper-individualistic solo creative entrepreneur as the model independent artist—where every artist is meant to act like the CEO of their own little media empire—there’s power in collectives of artists pushing back, and asserting that true independence comes from working together with the people in your community to build an alternative.” As one independent musician told her, “The music industry is not trying to help musicians. It’s going to come down to us, but they’ll do everything they can to break us.”

Australians have been world leaders in music, whether it be classical music, opera, folk music, country music or any of the many genres of pop and rock music. We must not let foreign-owned technological companies destroy this heritage.

Imperialists used religion to justify their actions

Written by: Duncan B. on 25 March 2025

 

Marx wrote about the economic structure of society and of the legal and political superstructure which arises on it. As recent articles in Vanguard have shown, culture is a part of the superstructure. Religion is another part of that superstructure.

For centuries, colonisers and imperialists, such as the Spanish Conquistadores in South America, the British colonisers of America and the British, Dutch, French, Belgian, German and Italian invaders of Africa, India, Asia and Australia have used religion as a justification for their marauding. 

They interpreted passages in the Bible to justify their conquests. (1)  From the 15th century, several Popes authorised and blessed the activities of the Spanish and Portuguese colonisers of Africa and South America with a number of Papal Bulls.

One Bull issued in 1454 allowed the Portuguese to take possession of any land they discovered in Africa, and to enslave any non-Christian inhabitants they encountered. A Bull issued in 1493, after Columbus returned from his first voyage to the Americas, defined the demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese territory in the New World.  This Bull, and another issued in 1529, gave the Spanish ruler the authority to compel the native people to convert to Christianity, by force if necessary. This the Spanish zealously did, while also enslaving or massacring thousands of Azteca and Incas.

Although the Papal Bulls referred specifically to Spain and Portugal, other European nations such as Britain and France, interpreted this “Doctrine of Discovery” to mean that they too had a divinely sanctioned, papal-endorsed right to own any lands they discovered and to colonise any non-Christian inhabitants.

The imperialists also used the so-called “Curse of Ham” as a justification for enslaving black people. In the Book of Genesis, a drunken Noah placed a curse on his son Ham, Ham’s son Canaan and all their descendants, condemning them to perpetual slavery. (2)

From the fifteenth century, religious leaders cited this “Curse of Ham” as justification for enslaving black people, based on a mistranslation of “Ham” as meaning “black-skinned” from the original Hebrew. 

The indigenous inhabitants of the countries conquered by the imperialist powers were invariably seen as being members of “inferior races”, “primitives”, “heathens”, “savages” and “cannibals”. Missionaries sought to “save their souls” and convert them to the missionaries’ particular version of the one true religion. They did not care that the intended converts had their own centuries-old belief systems. This certainly was the case in Australia. At the time of the colonisation of Australia, the spiritual beliefs of Australia’s indigenous people were tens of thousands of years old.

From the 1820’s missionaries set about trying to Christianise, “educate” and assimilate Aboriginal people into colonial society. Indigenous languages and cultural practices were banned at the missions. Children were separated from their parents so that they could not learn their language and culture from their elders. The same happened in other countries that the imperialists invaded. Cultural oppression, along with massacres, enslavement, disease and dispossession were the weapons imperialists used against the indigenous peoples wherever they set foot. A fig leaf of religion covered naked greed.

(1) For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis 1:27 and 28. “So God created main in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he him. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have domination over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Then there is Psalm 2 verses 7 and 8. “Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” A justification for imperialism and its treatment of native peoples if ever there was one!

In the New Testament, St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 13:1 and 2 continues in this vein. “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” This was the fate of any Aztecs, Incas, Native Americans, indigenous Australians or any other indigenous people that resisted the colonial invaders.

(2) Genesis 9:24 and 25. “And Noah awoke from his wine and, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”

Why are we paying $200 million to store torpedoes for the US Navy?

Written by: Nick G. on 25 March 2025

 

(Image source: Australia Pacific Defence Reporter)

 

Two days ago, the Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, Pat Conroy announced the purchase from the US of $200 million worth of Lockheed Martin MK-48  Heavy Weight Torpedoes. 

Conroy stated that the torpedoes would be “a critical boost to the defensive and offensive capabilities of Australia’s Collins class submarines. The MK-48 will also be used on Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines.”

He also noted that the MK-48 is the product of a “joint program between the Australian Government and United States Government. This involves the joint development of MK-48 hardware and software...”

The torpedoes will be sent in sections that are assembled and tested at the Torpedo Maintenance Facility in Western Australia, which is also certified to assemble, maintain and test the weapon for use in United States Navy platforms.

This very brief statement did not include the glowing praise for the deal outlined on the US online Breaking Defence website.

According to this website, a spokesperson from the Strategic Analysis Australia thinktank said, “Essentially you can take an RAN torpedo that has been maintained and stored at HMAS Stirling and load it into a US Navy submarine. More Mk-48 torpedoes in Australia’s inventory means we can provide them to USN submarines that are part of Submarine Rotation Force-West .”

So, we are purchasing torpedoes which we helped design and build so that in addition to placing them on Australian submarines, they can be part of a joint, shared inventory at no cost to the US.

The joint US-Australia MK48 project was entered into on March 21, 2003.

It was further defined in a Defense Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Australia signed in 2009. According to this MOU, the two countries were to share in financing the project on the basis of an 85:15 US:Australia ratio. Between 2010 and 2019, Australia agreed to pay US$61.089 million 

The testing of various iterations of the MK-48 have taken place in the US and at the Torpedo Analysis Facility (TAF), located at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Edinburgh, South Australia.  More recently, the Australian testing is to be done in Western Australia, as noted above.

Why was the torpedo purchase as a joint warstock inventory of interoperable and interchangeable US and Australia navies not mentioned in Conroy’s press statement?

If the AUKUS arrangements fall apart, as many predict, and the life of extension modifications to the existing Collins class subs do not keep them in service for more than a few years, who has operational control of $200 million worth of MK-48 torpedoes warehoused in WA?

Are we really doing anything more than once again subsidising the US war machine?

We need to break free from our subservience to the US and achieve a genuine national independence and sovereignty. 

 

Trump government tries to turn back time to revive US capitalism

 Written by: Ned K. on 23 March 2025

 

Donald Trump; William McKinley (Getty/Mandel Ngan/National Archive/Newsmakers)

When Trump campaigned for US Presidency under the slogan "Make America Great Again", it was not very clear what period of time of US capitalism he was referring to. Was it the pre- Biden Presidency period, or the Cold War period of the 1950s or Roosevelt's New Deal period before the Second World War?

According to Trump's Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, none of the above!

Lutnick's idea "Make America Great Again" is a 21st Century version of the pre-1900 President William McKinley period. In this period, US corporations were making huge profits supported by a government making revenue from high tariffs and a relatively low portion of revenue from income tax. Lutnick's "modernization" of the McKinley era is to add a $5 million "gold card" visas payment to be made by wealthy foreign business tycoons to live in the United States. According to Lutnick, US allies could choose to be "in or outside the tariff tent" by setting up businesses in the United States or providing the Trump administration and US multinational corporations with whatever they wanted from allies such as the Australian Government.

Hence Trump and his cronies like Commerce Secretary Lutnick expect the Australian to give US corporations primary access to minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths.

The demands of the US pharmaceutical corporations on the Australian government to dismantle the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is also part of the plan to emulate the McKinley Presidential period.

The Australian Financial Review on Thursday 20 March commented that the US demand for complete subservience of its allies was alive and well when Obama was President. According to Joe Hockey, imperialist rivalry between the US and China at the time led Obama to demand that Australian government cease all export of iron ore to China!

At that time and to this day, iron ore exports to China are about 80% of all iron ore exports which amount to over $100 billion.

40% of all exports from Australia go to China.

As imperialist rivalry between China and the US intensifies, the Trump administration is likely to turn the screws on its allies such as the Australian government even more, in order for US imperialism to try and regain its ascendency as an economic powerhouse.

There is a rising tide of resistance to US imperialism's current economic aggression towards Australia. This is reflected even by outbursts from politicians like Jacquie Lambie calling on the Australian government to hit back by closing Pine Gap and cancelling the rotation of US troops in northern Australia.

Both the current Albanese government and the "wanna be" government led by Dutton have been forced to re-define their message about acting in the "national interest". However, the defence minister Richard Marles has quickly chimed in that any counter measures by the government to the current US tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium exports to the US will NOT include any change to Australia's commitment to AUKUS, the nuclear-powered submarine agreement with the US, or the Australia- US Alliance.

People's struggle for Australian independence from US imperialism and its rival China will inevitably grow as people see that the major political parties continue to toe the US line.

 

Condemn the Zionist state’s resumption of genocidal war

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 20 March 2025

 

(Above:before and after the criminal gang's resumption of bombing in Gaza)

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Israeli Zionist state’s resumption of its genocidal war to eliminate Palestinians in Gaza.

An initial estimate of 400 killed by Israeli bombing of many areas including refugee camps and health centres, has now been revised by Hamas to as many as 900,  incliding 174 children.

The Nazi-like Israeli state always says that it is targeting Hamas militants but in fact its primary aim is to depopulate both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank so that the governing Likud Party can achieve its stated aim of Israeli rule from the river to the sea.

The resumption of bombing followed Israel’s decision in early March to suspend food, water and electricity supply to Gaza in an attempt to stare the population into submission.

The war criminal Netanyahu boasted that his latest crimes had the full support and encouragement of Trump, and the latter displayed that support with bombing of Yemen’s Houthis.

There is simply no end to the bloodlust of Netanyahu and his Zionist cronies.

He had never intended to honour the ceasefire agreement that took effect last January 19 and could not wait to reopen his war of annihilation of the Palestinian people.

Trump recently approved the delivery of $3 billion worth of bombs, missiles and other weapons to Israel. It undermined the ceasefire agreement by supporting the Israeli demand that the Palestinian forces release all its prisoners immediately, contrary to the scheduled releases agreed upon in the ceasefire agreement.  Trump’s ambition to place Gaza under US ownership and development as a coastal resort for billionaires built over the bones of 60,000 civilians (including 17,500 children) is an obscenity that outrages decent humanity.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine asserted that “the occupation has committed its crimes and massacres in Gaza with prior planning as part of a comprehensive war of extermination.”

The Front called on “all international parties to take immediate action to stop the war of extermination in Gaza.”

We are confident that Australians will support that call. 

We acknowledge the growing protests in Israel against Netanyahu and his policies. Two days ago, more than 40,000 took to the streets of Tel Aviv chanting “The time has come to topple the dictator”.

We condemn Foreign Minister Wong’s failure to identify Israel as the criminal violator of the ceasefire.  She has blamed both sides equally, calling on “all parties to respect the terms of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal”.

The reality is that one side has and one side hasn’t.

Wong contradicted herself within the space of one sentence, following up her call to respect the terms of the hostage deal by saying “Terrorist group Hamas must release all hostages immediately, unconditionally and with dignity.”

She can’t have it both ways. And if she had any integrity, she would apply the “terrorist” label to the Israelis.

Back to the streets comrades!

For the survival of Palestine and Palestinians.