Smash this system to the ground it’s built on

 

Written by: Lindy Nolan on 13 April 2021

An ex-BLF mate Lennie texted on the night of Prince Philip’s death, “$14 million a year to walk around with his hands behind his back. Are you serious? 

“Cheated death, ha, riding a horse carriage. Try scaffolding, knobhead.” 

Yet Lennie is more than a wit. Until her death in 2009, Lennie supported Letty Scott’s fight for justice for her husband Douglas, murdered in Darwin’s Berrimah Prison in 1985. Douglas Scott told Letty he was afraid for his life, because the screws said they were going to kill him.

An inmate said he heard Douglas crying out and bashing sounds from his cell the night he was hanged. 

Letty’s unceasing effort and support group, including US First Nations who funded her 25- year struggle, and a foreign forensics expert in torture victims who took on her case, mean we know more details about Douglas Scott, his life and untimely death.

Five more in one month

In contrast, the ABC cut scheduled broadcasts to grovel before the throne, tugging heart strings with Philip’s ‘great humanity’, ‘service’, ‘partnership of the era’ and ‘environmentalism’ (so ‘heartfelt’ he left it to the world’s children to protest).

But five Aboriginal deaths in custody in one month? A royal parasite’s death trumps these human tragedies. 

At Saturday’s Sydney rally marking thirty years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody brought down its much-ignored recommendations, speakers repeatedly commented on the lack of human stories to mark these five deaths, and the 470 more, compared with the outpouring for the prince. 

In acknowledging Country the day after the prince died, Uncle Dave Bell named each of the many Peoples across the state, because not one clan or family has been untouched.

The rage of Meyne Wyatt, whose father was nearly bashed to death by police in Kalgoorlie, shook the crowd. “I’m fucking sick of it! We have been saying it time and time again, but nothing happens!” 

Then he said, “Put your fists in the air. Turn around. Look at the people around you. Look how many fists are in the air. 

“Look at the person next to you. Keep them safe. Because the Indigenous brothers and sisters might not be able to go home tonight. 

“You see the boys in blue are all out here? Any other rally I’ve gone to, I don’t see them. They’re here because we are Aboriginal Peoples. I want them to know whose land this is. 

“Always was. Always will be…” to the crowd’s roar “Aboriginal Land!”

Where truth lies

Actor and artist Meyne Wyatt spoke, like Gary Foley has for years, about those of his Peoples who have been silenced or bought off. 

But hidden from most eyes are the multinational corporations doing the silencing and the buying.

Prince Philip’s wife was exposed decades ago as the biggest shareholder in mining company CRA,  which in 1997 merged to form Rio Tinto. While big on throwing a few bucks around to chosen First People, Jukkan Gorge shows just where Rio Tinto’s truth lies. 

Through the Business Council of Australia, giant corporations like Rio Tinto set out a systematic plan to divide and conquer First Peoples after the overwhelming and dangerous unity of 1988. 

Since the 2017 publication of ‘Driving Disunity: The Business Council against Aboriginal Community’ outlined the machinery of this plan, its implementation has flooded the invaders’ stolen lands. (‘Driving Disunity’ is free to download from Spirit of Eureka’s home page ) 

Reconciliation Action Plans, Native Title and Supply Nation (the certifying body for companies owned by individual or small groups of First Peoples) have been shamelessly used to open First Peoples’ lands to corporate plunder. 

These days ownership is hidden in new laws, red tape and in nominee companies that even anti-corporate crusaders like Michael West sometimes find almost impossible to unravel. 

Lidia Thorpe has these new look invaders in her sights.

Recently, she demanded answers from smug federal parliamentary officials, about why millions of dollars meant for First Peoples have been used to subsidise multinational tax avoiders like ConocoPhillips. “Aren’t they rich enough to employ a few of our people?” she demanded.

These corporations, well organised inheritors of invasion, are the real rulers of Australia. The whole imperialist system runs for them.

The colonials have not changed

Paul Silva reminded us that the death of his uncle, David Dungay will not be investigated by criminal or workplace safety processes in this corrupt system. 

No colonialist legal avenues, including an inquest, have brought more than a slight nod to truth.

“They know the governments will allow them to get away with killing and murdering of Blak Peoples in custody.

“They was promoted three weeks after the death of David Dungay,” Paul Silva said of the prison guards who suffocated David Dungay.

“That’s why we’ve been fighting for the last five years.

“The death in custody doesn’t just impact on the individual family. It affects every Aboriginal person.

"Justice", he said, “won’t happen till we smash this system to the ground it’s built on!”

Aunty Gwenda Stanley from FISTT warned, “The colonials have not changed... The major political parties don’t give a damn about us.

“But let me tell you. We are the custodians of these lands, and we’ve always had their number!”

Say Their Names: Thirty more years of deaths in custody

 Written by: Lindy Nolan on 13 April 2021

For many of us in NSW, Aunty Leetona Dungay (pictured with rasied fist) has become the face of resistance to state murders of First Peoples in custody. 

Militant struggle and continent-wide anger brought about the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which delivered its report 30 years ago on 15 April. It investigated 99 deaths, men, women – and even children. 

The numbers have grown by 470 since then. But these are not just numbers. They are human beings whose lives are remembered, sometimes through generations.

Five more families grieve this month. 

Aunty Leetona’s son David Dungay suffocated in Long Bay Jail with a screw’s knee on his throat, five years ago. She chooses to relive his death again and again, with dignity and determination for justice. She speaks out, exposing the contempt, lack of dignity and complicity of every level of the illegal colonialist state apparatus. But above all she tells of love for a son who died before his time.

She strengthens and inspires her family, including David’s nephew Paul Silva and cousin, Elizabeth Jarrett. Lizzie Jarrett was an activist years before David’s death. She fronts many Deaths in Custody protests. She goes to inquest after inquest at great personal cost. Paul Silva has grown from a childhood of flooding emotions about his uncle to be a strong warrior.

As the Sydney Town Hall bells rang out on Saturday April 10, Leetona Dungay read her statement of love, grief and determination to the 2000 people gathered. “The life of a Blak man means something,” she said.

Greens MLA David Shoebridge, who uses the invaders’ parliament as a platform to speak out and help the people organise, said of the Royal Commission recommendations, “There isn’t even a dedicated program to remove the hanging points!” 

This refrain was repeated by the family of Tane Chatfield. Tane hanged himself in Grafton’s “heritage” jail. 

Breathing sovereignty and self-determination

Later the protest march wended its way through the city’s central streets, often stopping, not heeding police requests to get moving. 

Organisers like Paul Silva called us to “Say their names”. A small number to stand for hundreds of others.

David Dungay, Ms Dhu, TJ Hickey, Eddy Murray, Rebecca Maher, Tane Chatfield, and 16 year old John Pat bashed, and left to die alone.

As we came close to Gadigal meeting ground, Jarrbarrgalli (temporarily dubbed ‘Sydney Domain’) we sat blocking traffic again. Paul Silva called out the police, “Too many coppers, not enough justice”, telling truth to power. Tensions rose. 

As police shifted, Lizzie Jarrett called for a minute’s silence to remember those murdered by the state. That solemn quiet stilled any police momentum to enforce their violent and deceptive rule. 

These were streets sovereign to First Peoples. For over four hours all up, they breathed self-determination in action. The reality of day-to-day life across these Lands is very different.

Rape and violence are about power

At Djarrbarrgalli, Reverend Bill Cruz, whose life has been dedicated to protecting and feeding and defending the poor, said, “For every one person here, there’s probably a hundred or a thousand who would be honking their horns if they were asked. Or they’d be with you.” 

He told how he worked in Kings Cross in 1970, “where a lot of kids used to run away from all those institutions, the Black kids, where they were taken to be made white.”

One girl, twelve or thirteen he said, used to rub her skin against bricks, hoping it would turn white, so the police would stop raping her.

Rape and violence have always been about power. 

Like many other young Blak women, Lizzie Jarrett was raped as a child, her abuser let walk free. Police regularly threaten her with removal of her family.

Murder by neglect

Nathan Reynolds was born on April Fools’ Day, for his family “a joker, and a talented tradie, and a typical boys’ boy and a big softie at heart.”

Lizzie Jarrett read the statement from his family. “Nathan was our brother, he was a son, a father, a nephew and a grandson. He was deeply loved. Losing him has left a hole in our lives, and we miss him every single day.”

“It is soul crushing to know that at just 36 years old, Nathan died on a cold prison floor.

“We know now he died of a preventable asthma attack, because NSW Corrective Services and Justice Health failed to give him adequate health care.”

Lizzie Jarrett read how well he had managed his asthma before he was imprisoned, “until in just four months his condition deteriorated enough to kill him”. The family statement detailed, yet again, the outrage of how this deadly racism unfolded step by step.

“He was seen only as a prisoner and not as a person.” 

One officer told the inquest “that the only thing different he’d do that day, was to take a sickie.” Imagine hearing that about your brother or sister, and hearing it replayed again and again and again in your mind.

Like so many before him, it was his fellow inmates, not the prison officers, who gave him emergency care, and called for help. 

It is murder by state neglect.

Systematic cover ups

Colin Chatfield, father of Tane Chatfield, told how they received no phone call from corrective services or police, but from his daughter-in-law. At Tamworth Hospital “the moment I spotted my son was the exact moment I knew he was dead, even though they had him on a breathing machine.”

He gave evidence that everyone in the state apparatus is connected, from the police to the doctors to the forensics and the coroners, “covering it up”.

“There’s only one thing I can do is come out and fight.”  

For all those for whom justice has been denied, the determination to retell of stories keeps wounds raw.

Pressure tightens across the continent with more mandatory sentences, children jailed and new laws refusing bail, which the Royal Commission specifically condemned. Yet the pain and strength of speaking out passes down generations. 

Leila and Arthur Murray fought for justice for their son Eddie until their deaths. Their granddaughter spoke in Djarrbarrgalli, with her small children beside her. 

Colin Chatfield says, “It’s too late for us, but other family members deserve to know their families are safe. Inmates should be believed.”

Those who marched and spoke out will fight on until the ongoing colonialist system of invasion is itself dead and buried.

Save the Martuwarra/Fitzroy River!

 Written by: Nick G. on 12 April 2021

Rob McBride is a grazier and owner of Tolarno Station on the Barka/Darling River.

He and his daughter Kate have been relentless campaigners against the giant corporate irrigators whose water extraction – legal and illegal - has destroyed the Barka.

His response to proposals to turn corporate irrigators loose on Western Australia’s Martuwarra/Fitzroy River is unambiguous. 

Writing on the Tolarno Station Facebook page, he says: 

 

Please continue to fight for all the rivers throughout all Australia. The criminals killing our rivers are like cancer, they try and spread out and kill the whole rivers systems throughout our great land. Those who killed our darling barka are moving north and they must be stopped. These people do not care about the future of our rivers and lakes and their greed is their only god. Please sign petitions and support those fighting for the Fitzroy, as without all our help this river too will be dead in 10 years , like what had happened too the Darling barka.

 

It is not too late to stop the Martuwarra becoming another Barka, with reduced to zero water flow, pollution from chemical pesticide run-off, and destruction of native fish stock and wildlife.

 

Standing firmly in the way of the big corporates, including Gina Reinhart, are the First Peoples. The Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council has some excellent publications and research papers as well as a petition to the WA Government.  A documentary has also been made and a trailer version is available here.

 

And First Peoples are holding hands across the continent against capitalism’s destructive impact on the environment.  Badger Bates is an elder of the Barkindji People and made a video message to the people of the Martuwarra saying that the Barkindji stand ready to help.

 

So, what is happening now?

 

The WA Government has released a discussion paper on the management of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River that fails to acknowledge the concerns of environmentalists and First Peoples. Respected elder and Nyikina woman Dr Anne Poelina (pictured above) comments on it in this short video.

 

The discussion paper fails in critical areas:

 

• Large dams are proposed to capture surface flows from the river and floodplains via overland flow, pumps and channels.

• The impacts of pollution from agricultural development are not considered.

• The Fitzroy River is Western Australia’s longest listed Aboriginal Heritage site. This is not mentioned in the paper; nor is protection of this heritage considered.

• The extreme risk to critically endangered freshwater sawfish from water extraction and pollution from agriculture is not reflected in the discussion paper.

 

The discussion paper attempts to constrain and restrict people’s input to the decision-making that the WA government will undertake. 

 

The decisions will either support Gina Reinhart and a handful of monopolies that seek to exploit nature just as they exploit people, or it will support the wider community and the environment.

 

Petitions will play their part, but actions will speak louder than words.

 

Dare to struggle and win for the people and the environment.

The US Far Right, Psy-ops and Australia

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 April, 2021

The demise of the Trump administration in Washington has been accompanied by moves to maintain their far-right political agenda with psychological operations (psy-ops) in preparation for a further challenge for the presidency in due course.

Former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, for example, was recently allowed prime media space in the Australian to articulate a number of highly questionable and misleading statements in the classic style of psy-ops.

It was accompanied, the following day, by a similarly questionable prime media spread about China's involvement in political discord in part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

Other examples, elsewhere, would tend to indicate Australia is being drawn ever closer to far-right US-led Cold War positions with all the potential dangers of real-war scenarios.

It has raised serious issues about the type of media coverage being pushed in the Australian by the government and corporate sectors and their given motives.

Developments surrounding the demise of the Trump administration in Washington have revealed some sinister trends in US domestic politics which have spilled-over into a type of foreign policy overtly played-out in the Indo-Pacific region. The storming of Capitol Hill in early January, for example, was not a spontaneous gathering; it had been planned by white supremacist groups and others for weeks beforehand on social media platforms. (1) It led to a well-placed source concluding that while the US intelligence services were well-financed, they had turned a blind-eye toward the conspirators and 'what we saw … was tacit approval of the rioters'. (2)

Other commentary about the developments, likewise, concluded the storming of Capitol Hill was the natural outcome of Trump supporters already being fed a daily diet of misinformation which subsequently provided the pretext for attempting to prevent President Biden taking office.

It is particularly significant to note a great deal of the misinformation by the Trump administration was about China and an attempt to provoke a reaction, and much of the hostile diplomatic approach was, in fact, played-out on Australia's doorstep in the nearby region.

Pompeo positioning for presidential run with attacks on China

It is, furthermore, entirely in keeping with those associated with the Trump administration to be provided with prime media space to continue their diatribes at the behest of the Australian government and corporate sectors. In early April, for example, former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was allowed front-page and page two credentials for pushing spurious arguments about China's supposed biological warfare research. The major spread, which can be considered a statement of intent, was accompanied with no factual information. It was, however, noted in the same article that 'rumours are strong Mr Pompeo plans to run for the presidency in 2024'. (3)

Pompeo used the main media outlet of Australia to continue to push the line that China was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic which originated in a Wuhan laboratory. (4) The recent World Health Organisation (WHO) inquiry, however, could find no evidence to support such a view. The lack of factual information would appear to not deter the likes of Pompeo from continuing to make the baseless allegations.

In fact, research into the COVID-19 virus has established it was present in Barcelona, Spain, in March, 2019, well before it was diagnosed in China. (5) It was subsequently established to have been circulating in Italy later the same year. (6) It was noted in the reliable research that 'patients were probably misdiagnosed with common flu'. (7)  

The position taken by Pompeo has closely followed the traditional line of psy-ops, which are used to influence public opinion and to disrupt, confuse, and undermine the credibility of better-informed sources. Psy-ops are, essentially, based in anti-intellectual positions and directed toward the less well-informed; they, invariably, make use of media sources working in conjunction with intelligence services.

Throughout the extensive article Pompeo was allowed to praise the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) as a regional counter to China's regional diplomacy together with demonising the Chinese Communist Party and reaffirming a recent US military assessment that China was planning to launch action against Taiwan in the next few years.

Psy-ops tend to be based in three distinct categories: white operations, designed as true and factual; grey and black operations which are invariably covert and designed to be deliberately ambiguous and misleading with the appearance of originating from a government source. Pompeo, as a former Director of the CIA following his active involvement in the US congressional intelligence committee, would be well aware of the importance of psy-ops as a standard method of political operation; his previous employers make extensive use of such methods. (8)

The perpetrators of psy-ops have a long history and the subsequent revelations surrounding Aginter Press in Portugal in 1974 laid bare the ground-plans of those who make use of them. Psy-ops are based in the creation of chaos inside a governmental system and society through the use of agents and false-flag operations; rumours, innuendo, and misleading information all play their part in the destruction of established order by strategies of tension. The next move by far-right organisations, to move into the political vacuum and create a strong sense of order while blaming adversaries for the chaos is also planned. (9)

The storming of Capitol Hill would appear to have been a trial run for such an operation; Trump was planning to re-instate himself in some interim position, with the backing of his supporters, on account of Biden not being officially declared president. While the far-right plan failed, it stands as a warning about the political standpoint and tactics deployed by such people. And it is important to note there is no record of Pompeo ever criticising the rioters. Politics, for such people, is all about getting other, less well-informed supporters, to do the required dirty work on behalf of their patron.

Pompeo, as an active player in the Trump administration and intelligence background, would be well accustomed to using far-right and para-military personnel and organisations for clandestine operations. There is a long history of such US-led politically expedient behaviour and their out-sourcing of 'dirty tricks'. (10) The US intelligence service bureaucracies use such tactics to distance themselves from accusations of collusion and complicity. Expertise in communications, likewise, are a speciality of intelligence services and the standard tradecraft of agents being used by their controllers. Such methods would appear to have been put to good use amongst the conspirators who stormed Capitol Hill.

As if to be seen to note be out-done, the following day the Australian continued the misleading and questionable US-led diplomatic line toward China with another major front-page spread and with additional page two information.

Solomon Islands instability

Daniel Suidani, provincial premier of Malaita in the Solomon Islands, was allowed to criticise the Solomons federal government diplomatic position of switching allegiance to China from their previous involvement with Taiwan. (11) While Suidana was entitled to his political views the position is quite serious, when taken in consideration with problems twenty years ago; a civil war erupted between various ethnic groupings. Large numbers of Solomon Islanders were displaced and ethnic rivalries led to many killings. The problem eventually led to direct Australian military involvement.

The threat, by Suidana, to have a province-wide vote on whether Malaita should secede from the Solomon Islands, therefore, has presented Australia with the problem of increased instability through ethnic rivalry in the South Pacific. There are other considerations: the present island landmass of the Solomon Islands is ratified by the United Nations and other regional bodies. The threat of succession by Malaita has raised serious questions about the legitimacy of a separatist movement organised around questionable motives and agendas which could be construed as serving only US-led regional diplomacy.

The silence from Canberra, over this delicate matter, has proved deafening: stability across the Solomon Islands was only previously achieved with a fourteen-year direct military involvement and the Regional Assistance Mission which was wound-up in June 2017. It cost Australian tax-payers an estimated $1,000 million together with other related costs.   

The recent developments have shown just how close the present Morrison Coalition government are toward the US far-right and associates of the previous Trump administration. Their corporate cronies who control the mainstream media, likewise, care little for the finesse of good journalism and accurate coverage of newsworthy events.

The problem, when viewed in conjunction with the endless series of military exercises across the Indo-Pacific region, is indeed worrying. In fact, it has already led one well-placed source inside the present Australian government with strong military connections to conclude 'the prospect of a major war in the Indo-Pacific is a terrifying but realistic possibility', as a chilling picture of the present US-led Cold War being played-out. (12)

With government departments in Canberra filled with those who pursue US-led regional foreign policy without question:

                                          we need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Storming of the Capitol, The Intercept, 8 January 2021; and, Weeks of Rhetoric, ABC News, 8 January 2021.

2.     Intercept, op.cit., 8 January 2021.

3.     Covid 'just China's first virus threat', The Weekend Australian 3-4 April 2021.

4.     Ibid.

5.     Coronavirus traces found, Reuters, 27 June 2020; and, Was Coronavirus really in Europe in March 2019?, The Conversation, 29 June 2020.

6.     Conversation, ibid., 29 June 2020.

7.     Weekend Australian, op.cit., 3-4 April 2021.

8.     Reuters, op.cit., 27 June 2020.

9.     See: Wikipedia, Aginter Press, Aginter Strategic Document, 19 May 2019; see also, Psychological Operations, Section 16, The Division in Battle, Organisation and Tactics, (Canberra, 1967), page 49, which has provided the role, characteristics and tasks of a Psychological Warfare Unit in the Australian Defence Forces.  

10.   See: A People's History of the CIA, The Subversion of Democracy, (Ottowa, 2000), which has covered the 1945-2000 period with examples, pp. 1-51; and, Division in Battle, ibid., Section 17, Civil Affairs, pp. 50-51, which has provided the responsibilities of a military unit for stabilising a governmental system. It has included the marginalisation of the civil population together with 'the most effective use is made of para-military forces', for dealing with those regarded by the intelligence services as troublemakers.
  
11.   No thanks: the islands leader who said no to China bribe, Australian, 5 April 2021.

12.   National security at risk without unity on threat preparation, Australian, 22 February 2021.

Buy Now, Suffer Later

 Written by: Duncan B. on 9 April 2021

Recently there has been a massive increase in the use of Buy Now Pay Later. BNPL allows a customer to make a purchase and pay for the goods or service over four equal instalments linked to their debit or credit card.

There are many companies offering BNPL. The main ones are Afterpay and Zip. Others include Klara (backed by the Commonwealth Bank), Latitude Pay, Humm and Open Pay.

The value of BNPL transactions grew by 55% in 2019-20, and tripled over the previous three financial years. In 2019 BNPL companies processed $10 billion worth of transactions in Australia and New Zealand.

BNPL differs from other means of payment because customers are not charged interest, unlike credit cards. Instead, customers incur late fees if they miss a payment. These fees vary from company to company. As well as late fees consumers can also be hit with credit establishment fees, monthly account keeping fees, payment processing fees and early exit fees. 

It is estimated that one in five customers have missed BNPL payments. Fee revenue paid to BNPL companies was $43 million in 2018-19, an increase of 38% on the previous year. There are reports of people getting into financial difficulties with BNPL, especially those who make multiple purchases using several different companies at the same time. They then find themselves unable to meet the instalment payments when the time comes. They are also incurring bank charges for dishonoured direct debits and credit card fees.  Many are young people as almost a quarter of people aged 25-34 use BNPL.

BNPL companies also charge merchants fees of 4 to 6% for providing the service. Many small businesses are finding it hard to make a profit on sales, and the fees they pay to BNPL companies are another cost burden. However they find that they have to offer BNPL to match their competitors and capture extra business. Some customers who used to pay for their goods outright are now using BNPL to pay for goods, to the detriment of the merchant.

Because BNPL companies are not actually providing credit, they are not subject to the same regulation applying to credit providers. To head off possible increased regulation, the BNPL industry has introduced a Code of Conduct. This provides for an assessment of a customer’s ability to repay debt, but only for purchases of more than $2000 for existing customers and $3000 for new customers.

Missed payments to BNPL companies are also generally not included on consumer credit reports. Lenders would not be able to take this into account when deciding to provide credit. This could lead to people getting into further trouble over credit.

I am old enough to remember the days when consumer credit was almost non-existent. Hire-purchase and lay-by were about the only options. In 1974, Bankcards were introduced as the first mass consumer credit system. 

The availability of easy credit has allowed the capitalist system to sell millions more commodities, and for banks and other financial organisations to make enormous profits from fees and interest charged for supplying credit. BNPL is the next stage in this process.

 

Enterprise Bargaining System Isolates Workers - Workers Want United Action

 

Written by: Ned K. on 3 April 2021

When the federal Labor Government under Hawke and Keating legislated in the early 1990s for Enterprise Agreements to become the main method for workers to protect and advance wages and conditions, the ACTU leaders at the time told workers it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

IR Minister Laurie Brereton went one better and amended the industrial laws to enable employers to "negotiate" non-union Enterprise Agreements with workers on an individual workplace basis. 

So, the new system not only facilitated a divided and conquer strategy across whole industries and even within individual companies with more than one workplace, but it enabled companies to accelerate their efforts to smash workers' collective strength through non-union Agreements.

Cartoonist Bruce Petty at that time more accurately summed up Enterprise Bargaining when his cartoon had the caption "Enterprise Bargaining - How To Stuff The Worker Completely"!

Future Governments after Keating had gone went even further through Work Choices and then the various forms of Fair Work Act termed “Work Choices Lite” by many workers.

Workers’ struggles continued despite the limited options to take strike action and there are examples right now of these courageous struggles which at the same time show the need to break through the shackles of enterprise specific bargaining.

For example, in Victoria McCormick food production workers have been on strike for over five weeks to defend conditions such as rostered days off and to break the company's five-year wage freeze, a real wage cut.

In NSW and SA, workers at Symbion Pharmaceuticals went on a 48-hour strike in pursuit of better conditions and a pay increase. This was the first strike action of these workers for many, many years. However, the workers under the Enterprise Bargaining system come under two separate Agreements. An example of divide and conquer within the one company.

Meanwhile in industries such as security, workers performing the same type of work across hundreds of worksites by multinational companies like MSS and Wilson Security are not able under the Fair Work Act to collectively bargain for even a company-wide Agreement let alone an industry or multi-employer Agreement.

The defenders of the Fair Work Act will cry out, "No this is not true, workers can negotiate a multi-employer or industry wide Agreement".

However, what they don't say is that the Fair Work Act, brought in by the ALP after Work Choices, does not allow workers to legally take ANY industrial action in pursuit of a multi-employer or industry wide Agreement.

Even in the State industrial relations jurisdictions, enterprise bargaining mirrors the federal system in that the major employer in the State systems, the State Governments, use the enterprise agreement system to divide and conquer.

So, we see the situation now in South Australia where ambulance officers, fire brigade workers, hospital workers are all fighting for safer workloads, increased staffing, shorter working hours and safe rosters and wage increases. However, each sector of these government workers has its own Enterprise Agreement.

Just before Easter break in South Australia, the ambulance officers/paramedics and the firies from the Metro[plitan Fire Services organised a stop work and rally and demonstration in the streets of Adelaide demanding increased staffing in particular for their own safety and for better service to the public.

Workers from all other areas of the public sector, including duty police at the demonstration who were clearly sympathetic to the demonstration's cause, joined the ambulance officers in solidarity.

Labor's mantra for the next Federal Election is that they stand with the people. Assuming they win the next federal parliamentary election, a mighty mass movement of workers will surely test them out. 

One area of struggle that workers will put Labor under the microscope, if they are next government in Canberra, is to what extent Labor supports workers' right to struggle collectively across industries, across multiple employers and across the bosses' supply chains to defend and advance workers' collective interests.

Interesting times ahead!

 

Global Warming: The threat to Australia's agriculture

 

Written by: Duncan B. on 1 APRIL 2021

The leadership of the National Party can deny the existence of Climate Change as much as they like, but there is no denying the reality of Global Warming. Worse is yet to come.

In a report recently released by the Australian Academy of Science, leading Australian scientists considered what a 3-degree rise in global temperatures would look for Australia.

They paint a grim picture of the effects of a three degree rise on Australian agriculture. A 3-degree would reduce the yields of key crops by 5 to 50%.

Reductions are expected in oil seeds (35%), wheat (18%), fruits and vegetables (14%), plant fibres (7%), rice (2%) and fibres (11%). Crops such as wheat and barley have fallen in profitability by up to 22% since 2000.

Damaging storms are expected to increase while rainfall overall will be reduced. The report predicts between a 13 and 21% drop across the Murray Darling Basin. Hotter areas would become far drier.  A 3-degree rise would lead to a massive increase in extreme fire days with fiercer bushfire seasons. Heatwaves would be more frequent and longer, causing increasing harm to livestock and to farmers and other rural people.

Professor Hughes of Macquarie University said “heatwaves are the silent killers in Australia. They’re responsible for more deaths than any other climate-related disaster but they also affect our agricultural productivity.”

The report details many other effects of rising temperatures on Australia, including damage to the Great Barrier Reef, coastal flooding and the loss of many species of wildlife. Australian workers, farmers and everybody else affected by Climate Change need to unite and take action to ensure that Australia plays its part in preventing Global Warming.