Talk at Eureka Rebellion Anniversary and 50 years since Gough Whitlam's dismissal commemorative meeting

Written by: Shirley Winton on 4 December 2025

 

 

On Saturday 29 November, 2025, Spirit of Eureka (Victoria) held a commemorative meeting for the anniversaries of the Eureka Stockade rebellion and the sacking of the Whitlam government.

The meeting was held at the premises of the Victorian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia. Speakers at the meeting were Gary Foley representing Indigenous Liberation, Sarah Baarini representing Palestine Liberation, Dave Ball from the MUA and Shirley Winton from Spirit of Eureka.  The meeting was MC-ed by former state secretary of the MUA Kevin Bracken.

Shirley has kindly made the contents of her talk available. 3CR community radio recorded the speeches and played them on Wednesday morning, 3rd December, after livestreaming the annual Eureka rebellion recreation in Ballarat at 6 am - eds.

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Welcome, and thank you for coming. 

We meet tonight on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. 

Tonight, we are commemorating the anniversaries of the Eureka Rebellion and the dismissal of the Whitlam government – two defining moments symbolising the long struggles of Australia’s working people for justice, democracy and independence - for a fundamental change. 

But the fight for justice and sovereignty in this country did not begin with the Eureka rebellion in 1854. It began sixty-six years earlier, in 1788, with the First People’s resistance to the British colonial invasion, the genocidal occupation, and the theft of their country. Their resistance took many forms, including fierce armed resistance in the Frontier Wars. British colonialism imposed on their country the exploitative, profit-driven class system of capitalism to serve the British ruling class. Their land and country were never ceded, never recognised by Treaties. 

This thread of struggles for justice, democratic rights and independence runs through 237 years of colonial occupation, and today imperialist control by the US. First People have always been at the forefront of resistance. 

In 1854, impoverished migrant miners at Eureka took up the fight for justice, the rights of working people and independence. They rebelled against the oppressive colonial authority of the British ruling class. They called for an independent Australian republic, democratic rights and equality for all – demands that were ahead of their time. Their struggle helped pave the way for future victories for working people, including the world’s first eight-hour day in 1856, and helped lay the foundations for Australia’s militant trade union movement and the culture of working class solidarity. 

Migrants from 21 nationalities participated in the Eureka rebellion under the Eureka flag. They included Afro-American, Jamaican and South Americans.
Seeds of working class solidarity and multiculturalism were planted at the Eureka stockade. 

The British colonial ruling class fuelled and relied heavily on racism and scapegoating to divide and control the miners and settlers. But Eureka leaders rejected those divisions. They condemned the racism promoted by British authority and called for unity of all people under the Eureka flag. In his famous speech Raffaello Carboni, one of the rebel leaders at the Stockade declared, “…Irrespective of nationality, religion, and colour, to salute the ‘Southern Cross’ as the refuge of all oppressed from all countries on earth.”

In the formation of unions in late 19th Century, workers and their unions fought under the Eureka flag for the right to organise in unions and fight for decent wages and conditions. 

The Eureka flag became – and remains - a powerful symbol of militant working class solidarity and struggle for justice, against exploitation and oppression. It excludes Nazis and racists. Attempts to malign, erase or ban the flag, or appropriate it by the nazis and racists, are not new. In 2006, under pressure from big developers and big business, the federal government tried to ban Eureka flags and insignias on building sites. But the widespread resistance by unions and workers forced the ruling class to immediately drop the ban. Workers knew that attacks on Eureka flag and Eureka insignia on building sites were aimed to crush all workers’ and unions’ struggle, not just construction workers.

The struggle for independence from the British colonial empire continued through the mass mobilisation of workers and unions against conscription and the 1914- 1917 World War 1.

After the Second World War, British control of Australia was replaced by the US control - economically, politically and militarily. The struggle for independence continued - in the mass movement against conscription and the Vietnam War, against Australia’s involvement in US imperialist war against the Vietnamese people fighting for their liberation; in the opposition to secretive military intelligence Pine Gap and other US military bases; against continuing oppression and the theft of First People’s land and destruction of their culture; in the movements for Australian progressive working people’s culture; against the plunder of our natural resources and destruction of the environment by mining corporations.

In 1972 Whitlam rode into government on the crest of this powerful people’s movement. His government put the US on notice by threatening to close Pine Gap and other US military bases, and started pivoting Australia towards the Non-Alignment Movement. They began making plans to nationalise natural resources and corporate farms; took first steps in acknowledging the sovereignty of the First People and demanded ASIO breaks connections with the CIA. These were the demands of the people that brought Whitlam to power. The tentative steps Whitlam started making towards independence were threatening the US and British economic and military control of Australia. 

The 1975 Whitlam dismissal was a US/CIA-UK engineered coup, executed by the Governor General John Kerr, Australia’s representative of the British Crown (and supported by the conservatives and reactionaries).

Since then, US imperialist control has deepened with every Australian government servile to the US, clearing the way for greater multinational corporations and finance capital control of this country. 

Today, the most powerful sectors of our economy are controlled by multinational corporations. Our natural resources—gas, oil, minerals, and even water—are largely in the hands of multinational corporations (BHP, Woodside, Chevron, Rio Tinto, Exxon-Mobil, and Santos). The giant global financial assets managers such as US owned BlackRock wield enormous power through their f inancial control of privatised health services, child care, aged care and weapons corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and some mining multinationals.

In finance, all four major banks are majority-owned by US financial interests. In culture and media, the Murdoch empire stifles the culture of Australia’s working people. 

Multinational corporations use their economic power over this country through the Mining Council and Business Council of Australia - between them representing the top 100 biggest corporations in the country, mostly foreign owned or dominated. They use their power over governments to reduce or remove barriers to their plunder of natural resources on the lands of the First People, environmental destruction and exploitation of workers. People’s resistance to this plunder and exploitation is met with escalating repression through the state’s anti-protest, anti-democratic, anti-worker and so-called anti-terror laws increasingly used against the people. (eg CFMEU in Administration).

Even the few remaining Australian-owned corporations and businesses depend on powerful US capital for their survival in highly competitive cut throat monopoly capitalism. (Gina Rinehart) 

Privatised essential services—child care, aged care, and social services—are increasingly owned by global financial asset managers.

Multinational and local corporations pocket billions in profits from the stolen lands and genocide of First People, and the exploitation of all workers in this country. 
Militarily, Australia has become a major US base and a launching pad for US imperialism as it prepares for a US-led war with China. 
In the military sector, US owned Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Israel’s Elbit influence and pressure Australian governments to expand the manufacture and export of weapons for their corporations’ profit making and war mongering. Militarising our economy and education system.

Today, the US control of Australia is most visible in the deep integration and interoperability of Australia’s military and defence with US military forces and the military industrial complex. Australia is an extension of the US global military and its war machine. Thousands of US marines in Darwin, the Force Posture Agreement giving US unimpeded access to all of Australia’s defence and civil infrastructure, the AUKUS pact, the US nuclear submarines in our ports and nuclear weapons capable B52 bombers near Darwin. 

More than $400 billion of Australian public money is being poured into the US ailing economy and its military industrial complex – a burden on Australia’s working people. Public money taken away from health, education, housing, environment, and rebuilding Australia’s sovereign manufacturing industries, eg local shipbuilding. Giving away our rare earth and critical minerals, on the lands of the First People, surrenders further to the US the little sovereignty Australia has left.

As long as Australia’s economy is dominated by the US and its military, (or by any other big power for that matter), our foreign policies will always serve the profit needs of the imperialist power, the class that controls the economy. (Foreign policies always serve the class that holds state power.) (eg Palestine, rubber stamping US in UN.) 

But the impacts of this domination on everyday lives of ordinary people and the environment continue to fuel powerful movements for justice, workers’ rights, environment, against imperialist war and for genuine independence – the resistance that began with the 1788 British colonial invasion and occupation, continues today.

The wealth of this country must be placed in the hands of the First People and the working class who create it. This collective wealth must be used for the needs of the people and the environment – not by profiteering corporations and their wars, and the tiny parasitic billionaire class. 

This is what the Eureka rebellion and its flag stood for 171 years ago. It is what the Whitlam Dismissal (CIA coup) exposed 50 years ago.

A broad and united people’s movements of workers, farmers, professionals, communities from all nationalities, cultures and religions makes a powerful force in the continuing struggles for a truly just, democratic and independent Australia. 

To close, I want to quote Karl Marx writing about Eureka in 1855, only a few months after the rebellion. “Eureka was a revolutionary movement. It was a revolution—small in size, but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for a principle, a stand against injustice and oppression.” 

For 171 years the ruling class has tried to erase from history the revolutionary and progressive spirit of the Eureka rebellion and its flag which united the impoverished miners in their struggle against the oppressive British colonial ruling class. This proud legacy of the Eureka Stockade and its flag belong to Australia’s working people and continues to inspire us today in the fight for an anti-imperialist independent and just Australia.

 

 

8000 Rising Tide protesters enforce Newcastle Port shutdown

Written by: Louisa L. on 4 December 2025

 

(Above: The Knitting Nanas blockade)

For three years, Rising Tide has brought thousands to Newcastle to blockade the world’s biggest coal loader. This year, over six days, 8000 people stood firm against police and government threats. They demanded the immediate cancellation of all new fossil fuel projects; a 78 percent fossil fuel tax to fund a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel sector and to pay for climate loss and damage; and an end to Newcastle coal exports by 2030.

Rising Tide has the backing of 86 percent of Newcastle’s people, according to Newcastle Mayor Ross Kerridge. On water protesters defied possible $22,000 fines and two years jail under Section 214 of the Crimes Act, to block three coal ships. Many ships were diverted to other ports. 155 people were arrested. 

Mr Kerridge, a scientist, called for people to discuss respectfully with open minds and rely on overwhelming scientific agreement to achieve community consensus. 

‘I love this planet,’ he said. ‘I live in hope for its future.’

A Rising Tide spokesperson, 26-year-old Zack Schofield, told Guardian Australia, ‘I grew up in Newcastle. I learned to count by counting the coal ships on the horizon with my mum.

‘We have in Newcastle a responsibility at a global scale to do everything in our power not just to protect the livelihoods of Hunter workers, but to protect the future generations of the entire planet,’ he said.

This message convinced 22-year-old Zac Tritton, a Newcastle coal industry worker to join the blockade.

One older woman had a different reason, ‘It’s the grief’ of inaction. No wonder, when in four years the chance to limit average temperatures to a 1.5 degree increase will pass. 

There’s always money for US war, for mining, and for Australian police. In June the NSW Government promised $46.6 million to replace the current police Class 1 Vessel (Nemesis) that protesters faced in Newcastle. 

‘It looked like a warship,’ remarked one protester.  

A prominent placard on Horseshoe Bay quipped, ‘Now Albanese’s married, it’s time to divorce the Minerals Council.’ Its members are overwhelmingly foreign owned, mostly by US corporations and finance houses.

Night and day

On Day One, three of the 69 Knitting Nannas at the protest, plus a clown (obviously a climate change denier) and a driver broke through in a tinnie. Police chased, the tinnie turned and, while hundreds of swimmers flummoxed police, it broke through again. The tinnie captain was arrested, and police dumped the wet Nannas, with no money or phones, on the city’s edge. They walked into a pub. Patrons cheered and ordered an Uber to for them to rejoin the protest.

Every night was a dance party, with pop group Lime Cordiale and brilliant Murrawarri Filippino musician Dobbie two of the headline acts. 

Lime Cordiale hit the water in the Greenpeace breakout. While two unfurled a banner and locked-on to the anchor, the musicians demanded a timeline for action on the coal ship’s hull. Chinese crew members lowered speakers so they had music to paint to. The crew pointed out China’s record- breaking expansion of green energy, but acknowledged the issue with its new coal-fired power stations. It’s one of the reasons this risen capitalist power is beating its crumbling US imperialist rival.

122 volunteer affinity groups did everything from feeding everyone to cleaning toilets to supporting those arrested. Every morning was a decision-making big circle with volunteers reporting back to their groups.

In all, three ships were turned back, and the port was closed from Sunday lunchtime. 

By the end grief was replaced by exhilaration, the young by the determination of the old, and the old by the energy of the young.

A Nana told me, ‘I’m as high as a kite! I want to build the struggle!’

Adventurist Class War Rejecting the Working Class

 

Written by: John G. on 2 December 2025

 

There have been some activists putting forward adventurist strategies for direct action, for class war today.

Such ultra-left developments are understandable when there has been such a long period of relatively uninterrupted capitalist development in Australia, while there have been extensive capitalist crises creating turmoil around the globe and spurring great increases in liberation struggles outside the imperialist homelands. It also arises in conditions where Communist organisations in Australia don’t have the extent of connections and strength to be in a clear position to be the leading element in the struggles of the working class. 

The Communist movement in Australia has faced various difficulties and made errors in dealing with them. Sectarianism has been a recurring error. Sects find their justification in what differences they have from the working-class movement. The sects’ creation relies on subjective errors, basing thinking on hopes and wishes rather than the facts and material conditions. Ideologically it is founded on idealism rather than dialectical and historical materialism. 

The calls for immediate Class War and for ‘Peoples’ War are current cases where the working-class movement is a long way from the point of difference these calls represent. 

Calling the objective ‘Class War’ is actually a misnomer. These ultra-lefts actually have a justification which leads to them rejecting reliance on the working class. The call is actually for a war without the working class, for initiating petty bourgeois violence. The problem is not with Class War or Peoples War as a general maxim of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or with power growing from the barrel of a gun, but with the call for it to be now, to be immediate, when it is so far beyond any sense in the hearts of the working class now.   

Not only do the calls isolate them from the working-class movement, they set out systematically to reject the working class and its movement. Politically and ideologically, they arrogantly declare the great mass of the working class ‘reactionary’, ‘aristocrats of labour’ as a class, traitors to the revolutionary movement.

Some identify a tiny section of destitute First Peoples workers as forces ‘ready for revolution’. So too they look at some students as ready. Some have identified some First Peoples as targets for their hollow rhetoric. Some have even put forward tactics of conning petty bourgeois elements and some workers to organise around petty bourgeois reformist politics. 

They reject the revolutionary tactics of Marx, Engels and Lenin to “any real working class movement, accept its ‘actual’ starting points as such and work it gradually up to the theoretical level by pointing out how every mistake made, every reverse suffered, was a necessary consequence of mistaken theoretical views in the original programme; they ought in the words of the Communist Manifesto, to represent the movement of the future in the movement of the present.” Engels Letter to Wischnewetsky, Marx-Engels Correspondence, Lawrence & Wishart, p. 453. 

Immediate Class War and ‘Peoples’ War advocates also reject basic tenets of Marxism, particularly Marxist political economy. Their program denies the inevitable crunch in the contradiction between the capitalist class and the working class. The working class is the leading revolutionary force because of its place in production and the relations of production in capitalist society, which Marxism exposes as inevitably leading to the working class taking up its role of leading the Australia revolution in a real class war.

This error exposes as well as failure to grasp core elements of political economy, failure to understand dialectical and historical materialism, things in their movement and change, errors in getting a grip on Mao’s On Contradiction.  These ideological and political failures represent a lack of commitment to serve the people, to work tirelessly for the mass of working people, and to protracted struggle to build the Party among the working class and other working masses step by step. 

Efforts are made to gather militants into a sect, separate to the working class in Australia. The slogan is accompanied with a wave of sloganeering and attachment to Communist giants, particularly Mao and a few renegades like Lin Biao and Tan Malaka.

Some who take up such ideas want to stand out from the masses around them, to have their politics being their point of difference, making them important people, not just ‘ordinary workers’ or ordinary activists. There can be a wish to be special, to be leaders not followers, to be organisers not the organised. 

The problem of standing out, of being above those around us, is not the same as being different in having communist political and ideological understanding and immersing yourself among the masses, bringing revolutionary politics to people as one of them. Communists must be fish in the sea of the people. Sure communists strive to be of use, to provide insights into the troubles we face as workers and people, not to be outsiders offering pearls of wisdom as outsiders, however valued these might be at times. 

And sure communists are different to those who aren’t communists. We have different ideas. The Party doesn’t shove its views on people who we work with.

We have been mocked for organising in ways that enable communists to be at one with the people they work with, with their communities. We strive to not stand out for anything but our ideas and suggestions. We don’t bark orders. We don’t tie people up in endless internal meetings and work so communists have little time for those around them. Communists must be engaged in their workplaces, unions, communities, in fighting organisations and organisations helping with difficulties people face. It is generally not glamourous, high-profile, though some is. It serves the people, brings people together, confronts their problems and their enemies. It draws lessons from success and failure. 

We also organise to advance the ideas and strategy of national independence from imperialism, for socialism. The Party circulates and applies these ideas, ideology and political program in mass work and people’s struggles.  

We walk on two legs, both integrated within the working class and other patriotic classes and elements, sharing their experiences and working with people to resolve their problems, reviewing what is wrong and right, exposing the path forward, and at the same time promoting in various forms our ideas, politics and program, and organising as a party for study, analysis, allocating tasks and developing our politics and ideology. 

Farm Numbers Down - Farm Debt Up

Written by: Duncan B. on 26 November 2025

 

The number of farm businesses in Australia has been falling for many years. In fact, since 1974, almost 100,000 farms have gone.

In 1990 there were 83,000 broadacre farm businesses. By 2024 there were 49,000. Despite the inroads of locally owned and foreign agribusiness investors, 95% of the remaining farms are family owned.

There are many reasons for the decline in farm numbers. In the 1990’s some politicians urged farmers to “get big or get out.” Droughts and floods took their toll as did rising prices for inputs versus static or declining prices for produce. Farms were sold as farmers died or retired. The changes in Government support to farmers and de-regulation in industries such as grain growing and dairying are other factors contributing to the fall in farm numbers.

At the same time as farm numbers are falling, farm debt is increasing at a rapid rate. In the year to September 30, farm debt was about $140 billion, up from $135 billion the previous year. These figures come from the 2025 Banking in Agribusiness report by the Australian Banking Association. 

According to this report, grain and beef cattle farmers have accounted for the largest increases in rural debt, with grain growers increasing their lending by 40.1 % between 2019 and 2024, from $36.2 billion to $50.8 billion. Credit to beef cattle farmers grew by 48.1% from $21.4 billion to $31.8 billion in the same period.

In 1996 the average farm debt was $304,776. In 2024 the average farm debt was $1.2 million. Reasons for the increase in debt include farmers expanding their operations by buying more land and new equipment. No doubt some farmers incur debt to struggle to stay afloat in tough times. 

Farmers have increased their average capital from $2.4 million to $14 million, because the value of farmland has grown at a record rate in recent years. Purchases by foreign investors, particularly Canadian pension funds have helped drive the demand for farmland.