Elections won't defeat Abbott's agenda

Vanguard July 2014
Louisa L.

People hate Abbott. He's the face of a brutal capitalist onslaught.

Post budget, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, freely distributed in every cafe, sensed the temperature and briefly divested itself of its most pro-Abbott clothing. But by late June it was selectively attacking again.

Getting rid of Abbott's crew would strike a blow against imperialist plans. The ACTU and Labor Councils' targeted seats campaign is a part of the strategy, because people don't yet see an alternative to parliament and elections to cement gains. But re-electing the ALP isn't the answer. And people sense that too, based on bitter experience.

Straight after the defeat of Howard, Your Rights at Work community groups were disbanded. Union leaderships now call that a mistake, while organising to re-elect the ALP.

Yet capitalism has never been under threat from Labor governments, and the real mistake is having illusions about the ALP.

Underpinning it lays either a preparedness to discipline the workers for imperialist overlords or a lack of faith in the ability of people to fight back in a mass way. Both steer dangerously clear of the people's strongest weapon, industrial action.

Labor leaders were never fair dinkum

The ALP is a capitalist party, which consistently obeys foreign corporate masters. Under Labor, capitalism thrived and successive leaders used our money to stabilise capitalism and build infrastructure to support its needs.

Labor leaders were never fair dinkum. On Rudd and Gillard's watch, to use an apt U.S. military metaphor since complete subservience to US military dictates is part of their agenda, 33 CFMEU workers in WA copped big fines. The rebooted Australian Building and Construction Commission has now frozen their assets until those fines are paid.

As Education Minister, Gillard did exactly as PM Abbott did, and visited Rupert Murdoch to get her orders on education. She invited Joel Klein, now head of News Education, to Australia to sell the message.

When teachers round the country banned NAPLAN and refused to cop Rupert's dictates, she threatened those in Victoria, ACT and Northern Territory with individual fines. While breaking the back of the moratorium, she wasn't able to kill off the issues raised, due to teacher unions' leadership in struggle.

Time to cooperate

There's been a qualitative shift in capitalism since the 1970s. In part this is due to a systematic ideological reorganisation emanating from US imperialist think-tanks. In part it's over 30 years of coordinated dismantling of unions' abilities to fight effectively, something the ALP has been up to its neck in organising here.

But underlying it all is the economic compulsion of vastly more concentrated imperialist class to make an historically obsolete system function, by indebting and impoverishing ordinary people.

This gives Labor governments less ability to maintain the deception that they serve the people. Yet in opposition deception grows more easily.

March Australia has steered clear of the ALP machine, and unleashed marchers' creative energy. Its speakers expose the ruling class standing behind Abbott. Yet its spontaneity is also a weakness. The Australian people would be well served by cooperation between the organised working class and the broader community. Unions should be supporting its events.

Vast numbers of Australians want Abbott's government to be defeated. But defeating the forces behind it requires more than targeted seats campaigns. It requires not just activists, but the mass of our people, to understand just what we are up against and to organise to fight back. The anger is there. It can be channelled into united action.

Foreign investors chasing Australian agribusiness and agriculture

Vanguard July 2014
Duncan B. 

Australian agribusiness is becoming increasingly attractive to foreign investors. Private equity investors have been involved in some big purchases recently.

European firm R&R, which is owned by French private equity firm PAI Partners, recently bought Australian ice cream maker Peters in A $400 million deal.

US private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts tried a $3.05 billion take-over bid for Treasury Wine Estates, the makers of Penfolds.

In June 2013, TPG Capital bought Ingham Enterprises, one of Australia’s biggest poultry producers for $880 million.

There have several other deals as private equity buyers target packaged foods and meats, companies with strong brands that can be used to improve their own portfolios and food distribution businesses.

Most of Australia’s grain trading firms are now foreign-owned.

Large, well developed farms in the Riverina, northern NSW and southern Queensland have become targets for foreign investors. Large properties suited to grains and oils, cotton, irrigated cropping and edible nuts are in strong demand.

The source of funds for foreign investors include pension funds, insurance funds, endowment funds sovereign wealth funds, ultra high net worth individuals and families and trading houses and corporates.  All of these represent different forms of finance capital, the most rapacious and best organised section of capital in the era of imperialism.

Some foreign investors are seeking joint ventures with Australian farmers and companies. This could be more beneficial to Australian farmers and agribusinesses than direct take-overs.

For example, West Australian biggest meat processor, the Walsh family has signed a $1 billion partnership deal with Grand Farm, one of China’s biggest food companies, for 500,000 lambs and 30,000 cattle to be processed in Australia and shipped to China.

The joint venture includes a $200 million investment in WA and the provision of expertise in livestock production and sheep genetics by Walsh as part of $800 million being spent on the development of farms in Inner Mongolia.

Nevertheless, joint ventures between partners of unequal strength can have serious shortcomings. These can include an imbalance in levels of expertise, investment or assets brought into the venture by the different partners.  Such an imbalance has the potential to allow the stronger partner to dominate the weaker.

Capitalism is not a system that manages the contradictions between “partners” to ensure equality.

In that sense, joint ventures may represent the foot in the door that leads to a complete takeover of the weaker by the stronger.

ASPI - Australians Serving Predatory Imperialism

Vanguard July 2014
Nick G.

Darwin residents are having to get used to the sights of US tanks in their streets.

On the third weekend in June, US tanks, all decked out with weapons poised for action, put on a display that many locals felt quite confronting.

(Above: US marines take part in exercises at the Mt Bundey Training ground south of Humpty Doo in the NT last June 2013).

No doubt the US imperialists see such displays as part of a softening up process and a precursor to an expanded military presence in this country.

ASPI offers our sovereignty to US imperialism

Just such an expansion was urged at the beginning of June by the government funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

Like other right-wing think tanks, the role of the ASPI is to provide a platform from which advocates for imperialism can urge on the further subordination of this country to the US.

It provides them with the means with which to fly kites to soften up the public.

In its analysis of the 2014 “defence” budget, ASPI raises the unlikely prospect of US “disengagement” from the Asia-Pacific and puts forward a treacherous and bizarre proposal for turning the whole of our continent into a US base against the peoples of the region.

“Leaders need followers,” argues the paper.

“But there’s also something that Australia can offer the United States which goes to the heart of its economic and security interests - access to 7.7 million square kilometres of terrain stretching from the Pacific to Indian Ocean and from the Great Southern Ocean to the base of the Asian archipelago.”

“As the Western pacific becomes more contested, the value of access to Australian ports, airfields and training grounds will surely grow.  It’s arguably the most valuable thing we can offer our ally…a solid strategic base straddling the sea lanes passing from the Indian to Pacific Oceans.”

Top Army chief urges subservience to US

In a speech to ASPI on 13 February 2014, Lieutenant General David Morrison, Chief of the Australian Army, offered his own view of the role of the Australian “Defence” Forces (ADF).

He said that the ADF has “always really existed to defend Australia’s sovereignty, not its geography as defined by a continental landmass”.

And he defined our “sovereignty” as that of a “trading state”, as a state that is essentially maritime in nature, and one that must therefore be able to engage in conflicts outside of its borders.

Australia, he pointed out, has been at war for more than one third of the time since Federation in 1901, but not once has that involved fighting within the continental boundaries of the country with the exception of Japanese bombardments of northern cities and towns during World War 2.

For Morrison, aggressive actions beyond our borders in support of an imperialist-led “global order” are a necessary part of the ADF’s role.  “The real issue is not whether we need to be able to deploy military forces away from our shores.  I take that as a given.  The issue is whether they are prepared adequately to do their jobs with an acceptable level of risk.”

For Morrison, being a client state of an imperialist master is also a given.

He sees the future of the Australian ruling class as “guaranteed by the dominant maritime power of the day,” and that “area sea control is unachievable for us and it remains the monopoly of great naval powers.”

He argues for inequality in relations between countries.  “…formal inequality –where someone, or some state or group, has more authority and power than others -…prevents chaos”.

Top US commander defines our role

On April 9, 2014 Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr.(above), Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, spoke at an ASPI gathering at the Australian War Memorial.

He noted that it was his third visit to Australia since assuming command last October.

Like Morrison, he stressed maritime power as “the minimum necessary condition” for the accumulation of capital by the world’s biggest and most exploitative corporations (or for “global prosperity and trade to flourish” in his own chosen weasel words).

He painted a picture of an increasingly assertive and aggressive China and saw the role of the US and its “allies” as “fostering a rules-based system that respects international law and adheres to international norms.  This is a strategy that makes great powers great.”

That is, US imperialism will define the rules and then force compliance through its military.

He called for weapons development and procurement that “will further increase interoperability between our two navies” and praised Australia as a “truly great maritime power”. 

He concluded by stating that the Pacific Fleet, with which Australia is to be a subservient and interoperable member, “must be ready to fight tonight.  From Hollywood to Bollywood, from polar bears to penguins, and everywhere in between…”

(Above: Rear Admiral Philip G. Sawyer, Commander Submarine Force, US Pacific Fleet torpedoing any thought of Australian independence at the same April 2014 ASPI Conference.)

We must end our subservience to US imperialism

The aggressive and predatory beast that is US imperialism always seeks full spectrum domination at the expense of the peoples and nations of the world.

We cannot allow our future to be determined by and tied to the self-interest of a global superpower.

We must pull down the kites flown by ASPI.

We will determine our own future and our own foreign policy in the fight for anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

We will strive to replace an army committed to subservience to a foreign power with an army committed to the true interests of the working people of this country and those of our friends in the working classes of all nations.

The Trade in Services Agreement - a new attack on the people

Vanguard July 2014
Nick G.

Yet another secret trade agreement is being negotiated.

Australians now know of some of the content of the secret Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, but thanks only to the whistle-blowing efforts of WikiLeaks.

Now Public Services International, a French-based global trade union federation operating in 150 countries, has called for opposition to the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).

It describes the TISA as “currently being negotiated in secret and outside of the World Trade Organisation rules…a deliberate attempt to privilege the profits of the richest corporations and countries in the world over those who have the greatest needs.”

“The TISA will prevent governments from returning public services to public hands when privatisations fail, restrict domestic regulations on worker safety, limit environmental regulations and consumer protections and regulatory authority in areas such as licensing of health care facilities, power plants, waste disposal and university and school accreditation.”

The negotiating countries are a self-selected group of neo-liberal adherents including the US, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Colombia and Peru.

China has asked to join the talks but this has so far been obstructed by US demands that it meet certain preconditions including a very strong commitment to deregulation of a range of services.

While the TISA would require all signatories to open their service delivery sectors to competition from corporate monopolies unrestricted by domestic regulations, there are no requirements on labour standards.  Indeed, it would be required of participating countries that there be a free flow of labour between countries, and that any measures such as labour market tests, designed to show that there is a genuine shortage of suitably trained local workers, would be abolished.

Not all countries are enamoured of US demands to open the world to its unrestricted exploitation.

On April 21, Brazil adopted an “Internet Bill of Rights” to protect itself from measures likely to be adopted through TISA on the liberalisation of Internet services designed to benefit the industry’s major players, including Facebook and Google, all of which are US corporations.

The Brazilian Bill guarantees net neutrality, regulates government surveillance on the Internet, and places limits on the data companies can collect from Brazilian customers.

Likewise, countries such as Argentina, Canada, France, Tanzania and Malaysia have seen local or national governments exercising “remunicipalisation” rights in which a previously privatised public service is transferred back to the public sector.

So, on the one hand, imperialist corporations are pushing to open public services as areas for the investment of surplus capital, and on the other, peoples and communities are fighting back.

No doubt, the federal government Review of Competition Policy, to be delivered shortly, will take the side of the imperialists and contain a number of measures designed to complement the TISA.

Unions and community organisations must take up this challenge to our lifestyles and communities and unite the many to defeat the imperialists and their local servants.

Further reading: 

http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/en_tisaresearchpaper_hqp_internal.pdf

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2014/04/why-is-the-trade-in-services-agreement-tisa-a-bad-deal/

http://speciali.espresso.repubblica.it/pdf/wikiLeaks-secret-tisa-financial-annex.pdf


Australian education unions unite to oppose TISA: http://www.nteu.org.au/degreemortgage/article/Joint-Media-Release%3A-Education-unions-call-on-the-Australian-Government-to-protect-public-education-in-trade-negotiations-17608#.VVCZqLEVsrc.email 

Drones: a new weapon in the war on workers

Vanguard August 2014 p. 6
Nick G.

In 2012, Henry Kieser was flying surveillance drones over striking workers at the Lonmin mines in South Africa.

The drones supplied intelligence on where strikers were gathering and helped identify leaders and organisers within the crowds.

That intelligence was fed into decisions that led to 34 strikers being shot and killed by security forces, and many more wounded and arrested.

Kieser is the owner of the fascistically-named Desert Wolf company whose product range increasingly specialises in unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles, or drones.  He was influential in South Africa's COPE political party, founded in 2008 as a breakaway from the ANC. When COPE president Mosiuo Lekota was ANC defence minister, Desert Wolf received a big defence contract.

In June, Kieser unveiled his newest product, the Skunk, a copter-like drone with a  lifting capability of 45 Kg from eight powerful electric motors with 16 Inch props.

The load capacity allows the Skunk to be equipped with 4 high-capacity paint ball barrels releasing at up to 20 paint balls per second each, with 80 Pepper balls per second “stopping any crowd in its tracks”.

Each Skunk can carry 4000 paint, pepper or compressed plastic balls.

A remote operator has full control over each marker. According to a blurb from Desert Wolf, “He can select the RED paint marker and mark the protester who carries dangerous weapons, he can select the BLUE marker to mark the vandalising protestors and if needed the Pepper balls to stop the advancing crowd before they get into a ‘Life threatening situation’.

“He can also set the releasing frequency of each marker from as low as 1 ball per second up to 20 balls per second. If all markers releases at maximum rate, then you disperse 80 balls per second. This high frequency will only be used in an extreme ‘Life threatening situation’".

Lasers and strobes included

The drone also includes on-board speakers to give orders to crowds, as well as bright strobe lights and "blinding lasers" to disorientate victims. Blinding lasers are prohibited for use in war under the Geneva Convention but included on the Skunk for use against striking workers.

The “good” bourgeoisie

Kieser justifies this high tech weapon of suppression as a safe and human alternative to the violence that occurred at Marikana.

“Our aim is to assist in preventing another Marikana. We were there and it should never happen again.”

"Anyone who was at Marikana would rather have this technology than live ammunition," he continued. "People who say it's inhumane compared to 9mm bullets are idiotic."

Taking away the right to strike

What is really idiotic is being driven by commercial greed to develop military-style weaponry to suppress striking workers and people engaged in demonstrations and protests.

James Nichol, a British lawyer representing the families of dead strikers at Marikana, said: "It's absolutely outrageous. Using pepper spray like ammunition to scatter the crowd. People are entitled to be on strike. Who would make the decision? It's absurd."

He added: "What we know about drones is in Pakistan they have killed funeral parties and they have killed wedding parties. Innocent people would be caught up in this. It seems to be the thin end of the wedge.

"One of the lessons of Marikana is that the state should stay out of industrial disputes. If they want people firing back at drones which then crash and hurt innocent people, be it on their heads. It's disgraceful."

Rehad Desai, spokesperson for the Marikana Support Campaign and director of a documentary film, Miners Shot Down, said: "The government are increasingly turning to authoritarian methods instead of dialogue and mediation. It's to be expected that they would adopt such equipment to quell dissent. But the more violent the equipment, the more violent the reaction will be.

"Why would it be more 'humane' to pepper spray people on their way home than to shoot them? I don't see the analogy."

Tim Noonan, a spokesman for the International Trade Union Confederation, told the BBC: "This is a deeply disturbing and repugnant development and we are convinced that any reasonable government will move quickly to stop the deployment of advanced battlefield technology on workers or indeed the public involved in legitimate protests and demonstrations."

Orders already placed

Kiesser is set to make big money.  He already has an order for 25 Skunks from one mining company, which he refused to name.

At 500,000 South African Rand per Skunk, that’s 12,5000,000 Rand (or $A1,250,000) as a starter.

But 25 Skunks from just one mining company?  That’s a lot of “crowd control”.

South Africa's platinum belt is currently deadlocked in a strike which, after five months, is the longest in the history of the country's mines and has pushed many workers and their families into dire poverty and hunger. Maybe those workers will be the first to be on the receiving end of Mr Kieser’s “humanitarian concern”.

Other orders are being finalised from "mines in South Africa, some security companies in South Africa and outside South Africa, some police units outside South Africa and a number of other industrial customers."

Taser drones

Desert Wolf is not alone in thinking up new ways to harass and attack the people.

A Texan company has developed CUPID (Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone) to identify and taser individuals from the air.  A regular police hand-held taser delivers a charge of around 50,000 volts, but in a gesture no doubt designed to show the power of love, CUPID will up the ante to 80,000 volts.

People cannot be stopped

The logic of class struggle is inexorable. 

The bourgeoisie exploits the people and the people fight for justice.

The bourgeoisie imposes repressive measures and the people develop resistance.

The more violent the repression, the more violent the resistance.

The more sophisticated the repression, the more sophisticated the resistance.

Ways will be found to stop the drones.

Public schools, not corporate schools!

Vanguard
Nick G.

In November 2008, US weapons manufacturer Raytheon entered into a three-year sponsorship deal with a South Australian high school.

The school was one of three hosting a special course for students of high intellectual potential, drawn from all over the state.

Raytheon, one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world and fourth largest contractor with the Australian Defence Forces, provided $450,000 over three years to “mentor” the students as future employees.

That deal has now run its course.

But under a plan announced by Abbott during his recent visit to the US, the government will promote whole schools to be placed under the control of giant corporations.

He revealed the plan after visiting a New York school funded by the government but effectively run by IBM.

IBM “shapes” the school curriculum and creates a pathway into a two-year tertiary degree in applied science.

The IBM sponsorship guarantees the company a compliant workforce trained to its immediate specifications. 

It means that these students have a narrow curriculum designed to meet the skills demand in information technology.

Australian Education Union researcher Mike Williss said “This is not what education is meant to be.

“Sure we want kids with job-ready skills, but we also want kids with life-ready skills.

“We need more skilled critics of society, more skilled advocates on behalf of the marginalised, more skilled defenders of the common good, more skilled organisers for social progress, more skilled leaders of movements for social justice.”

Abbott has opened the door to corporate devastation of a child’s right to an all-round education.

He has opened the door for Raytheon, BAE Systems, and any one of the big end of town’s major players to run whole schools.

Communities must fight for the right to high quality, comprehensive public education in a local school.

Public school, not corporate schools!
.................
Further reading:

AEU Federal President slams corporatized education:
http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Media/MediaReleases/2014/1206.pdf 

More Aboriginal kids stolen than ever

Vanguard
Louisa L.

Sorry Day, May 26 on Gadigal land in Redfern, begins.

Aunty Denny, a Luritja Yakuntjajara woman, stolen as a baby and never reunited with her mother, stands with 100 others outside the Family and Community Services (FACS) headquarters.

Uncle Ray Jackson understands. At just two he was taken from his Aboriginal mother because his white father died on the Kokoda Track. “This pain is a constant. It eats at you every day. Who? When? Where? Why? For me those questions are unanswerable.”

But a new generation will again face those questions. As Greens MP David Shoebridge says, “We need to put some meat on the bones of the word 'sorry'. We are removing Aboriginal kids at a rate higher than in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, at the height of the assimilation era.”

Says Uncle Ray Jackson fiercely, “Some of what's happening now beggars belief. A FACS worker wanted to take a boy because he didn't have any shoes. Give him some shoes! Don't take him from his family!”

Sorry means you won't keep doing it

Aboriginal people are looking for solutions to intergenerational trauma that began with the British invasion, whilst too often the authorities punish poverty instead.

Former FACS caseworker Debra Swan told the protest, “I couldn't bring myself to go to work any more with the way this department is mistreating Aboriginal people.”

According to an article by John Pilger, “In 2012, the co-ordinator-general of remote services for the Northern Territory, Olga Havnen, was sacked when she revealed that almost $80 million was spent on the surveillance and removal of Aboriginal children compared with only $500,000 on supporting the same impoverished families.”

And, despite widespread opposition from Aboriginal communities, service providers and legal networks, amendments to the Children and Young Persons Act of 1998 passed by the NSW Parliament in April, will fast track adoption, privatise ‘guardianship’ of children and make reunification of families close to impossible.

They account to us!

 According to Gunnedah Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR), “We have virtually no rights within the current system. The rules of evidence do not apply in the Children's Court. Welfare workers can file statements full of anonymous stories and have magistrates approve removal without any chance for parents to be heard. Many parents are not represented in court and those who are often have to wait months to put their case forward.”

 Aunty Hazel from GMAR told ABC's Kelly Fuller, “They told me I had to be a qualified carer [to look after my grandchild]. Why am I not qualified under kinship? I've been a mother all my adult life. I'm a non-drinker. I don't take drugs. How am I not suitable?”

This undermines any notion of pre-existing Aboriginal knowledge, traditions or skills. Richard Trudgen's, “Why Warriors Lie Down and Die” powerfully documents how the reverse is essential for Aboriginal people to overcome the huge tragedies engulfing their communities.

A GMAR statement reads, “If there is a crisis situation and children are unable to remain in a household, options for care should be negotiated with the family group and the broader Aboriginal community, not be enforced through non-indigenous foster care. The ultimate goal must be self-determination for our people in the care and protection of our children.”

To ensure this, GMAR has proposed the creation of an Aboriginal Community Liaison Committee (ACLC). Under grassroots community pressure and negative publicity, FACS agreed to respond by mid-June and meet the GMAR team in Tamworth. 

Aunty Hazel says, “They are failing our children. They rip our babies out of our arms. Who protects our babies? They have failed us in every way imaginable. Aboriginal people will make them accountable! They account to us!”

See www.whywarriors.com.au