Sydney Invasion Day march against genocide

 Written by: (Contributed) on 27 January 2025

 

Voices quiet and roaring, young and old, female and male, marked the January 26 Invasion Day speeches in Sydney. 

The younger generations are rising and organising They began threads echoed by others, that struggle must be every day of the year, not just one, that genocide continues. They spoke of intergenerational trauma, but say, ‘We’re still here!’

One young woman’s tiny daughter, spoke in language to the crowd. Unlike her mother, English is her second language. That cultural rebirth, that underpinning strength, was also a thread.

Wangan and Jagalingou have been fighting the Adani mine for a decade. Their representative, Adrian Burragubba, spoke of his and other First Peoples arising ‘from our rivers, from our water’. 

‘Don’t worry about Dutton,’ he said. ‘He’s a nobody. He’s not a patriot.’ The real patriots are those who’ve fought for their lands since British invaders came ashore. 

Corporations came under attack as inheritors and beneficiaries of invasion. 

Dunghutti man Paul Silva grew up in the struggle for justice, after his uncle David Dungay Jr, was crushed and suffocated to death at Long Bay Jail Hospital.

Paul Silva spoke of ‘fallen heroes.’

‘People said it happened 237 years ago. But it happened yesterday.’

‘We are still exposed, by this government, by this system. We are under attack.’

‘Whatever happens, we’ll still rise up. It’s what we do.’

!0,000 plus people marched in Sydney. Though it was smaller than last year, Yabun festival near Redfern, where the march finished, was booming with people and cultural strength.

 

Survival Day demands decolonisation

Written by: (Contributed) on 26 January 2025

 

(Above:  Survival Day march, Brisbane) 

Today on the 26th January 2025, in Butchulla country as well as across all of Australia, Survival day celebrations and ceremonies were held by Indigenous Australians and their allies. 

The particular one I attended had a sunrise memorial service paying tribute to the survival of the First Peoples against Colonialism and continued occupation. 

There were reflections on previous struggles like the Waterloo Creek Massacre and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. 

There was also music and dance richly steeped in culture and tradition. 

The ceremony was not only a solemn reflection on the past suffering and resistance to colonialism by the Indigenous, but an energetic show of resistance to the ongoing settler-colonial oppression and subjugation of Indigenous Australians. 

As the genocidal nationalism of Australia day, its date and the settler-colonial, genocidal nature of Australia are entered into more and more people’s consciousness, the struggle for First Peoples self-determination and resistance against settler-colonialism will grow and is growing. 

At a time when the settler-colonial occupation and Genocide of the Palestinians has become more mechanised and devastating and is also rising in the people’s consciousness, the link can clearly be drawn and seen between Palestinian self-determination and Indigenous Australian Self-Determination. 

Australia can only be truly independent and on the road to socialism when Australian settler-colonialism against its Indigenous population is smashed. 

Without decolonisation Australia can never be Socialist. 

First Peoples will never give up, nor will their allies

Written by: Louisa L. on 25 January 2025

 

2025 marks 25 years since a secretly developed Business Council of Australia (BCA) agenda was put into action. Noel Pearson – who rightly saw corporations as key drivers of Australia, but wrongly saw them as allies for First Peoples – was its spokesperson. 

Beyond capitalism’s state apparatus for suppression (its jails, police, military, courts) and deception (its parliaments, media, cultural and education systems) the BCA embodied ruling class organisation. 

Why was it jolted into action? 

On January 26, 1988 the magnificent unity, organisation and power of First Peoples, built in 200 years of struggle across this continent and its islands, told those who had systematically attempted genocide three simple words, “We have survived.” You have not destroyed us. Whatever you do, we will rise again.

Promises and lies

The unstated BCA agenda aimed to do three things to enable capitalism’s continued exploitation of First Peoples’ precious lands – divide and conquer them; crush their powerful resistance; and create Aboriginal collaborators.

Constitutional recognition was one weapon. Yolngu leader and NT parliamentarian Yingiya Mark Guyula rightly dismissed Australia’s constitution as “just a piece of paper”. Constitutional change had been raised by First Peoples long before, but was swept aside by the Treaty movement, with its potential for deeper and more fundamental change.  The BCA promised its allies immediate change with other gains flowing on.  

Corporations demanding tougher tactics on every front were represented by PM John Howard. After his destruction of ATSIC, his term ended with the old brutality and land grabs of the NT Intervention, disguised as “saving the children”. Key BCA Aboriginal supporters helped divide opposition at its inception. Its child victims are still criminalised.

Jump forward to 2023. No matter how hard-working, sincere and honest most supporters were, the battle over constitutional change, was initiated and overwhelmingly organised and actioned by BCA corporations and operatives. By giving decision-making power to descendants of settlers, instead of First Peoples themselves, and by a Yes/No mechanism, the referendum itself was divisive. Whether it passed or failed, it did the job. Both before and after the vote, corporate profits boomed. 

Meanwhile, other landgrabs escalated, until today. In NSW BCA member Westpac trained Local Aboriginal Lands Councils to claim land to sell or develop often excluding Traditional Custodians. 
 

Truth telling

Fascism is rising worldwide. Australia will not be spared. First Peoples already feel its genocidal fire. 10-year-olds in jail? Of course, because the young are the most dangerous rebels. Their spirits must be crushed. 

Resistance is inevitable. Witness Lidia Thorpe’s thunderous truth telling, “You are not my king!” Australia is still managed through a system of colonial relics, including in the divided former colonies renamed as states.

Parliamentary Labor ‘leaders’ are increasingly discredited puppets of US imperialism, while Dutton still leads the highly organised, resurgent far right. 

Real rule is underpinned by US imperialist control of the commanding heights of our economy, by AUKUS, multiplying US military bases, deceit and more. 

Imperialism, and all those who deliberately implement its policies, are the enemy. 

Everyone else is a potential ally to be won over.

Relying on legalities or what’s ‘reasonable’ in the face of brutality and unquenchable, systemic theft, violence and suppression, is like snow in a furnace. We can’t succeed unless we unite the vast majority of the inhabitants of these lands. Unless we fight!

The working class is overwhelmingly the biggest class and most important ally. Without it nothing is made, transported or sold. Our schools, hospitals and other services cease. Workers have been systematically dis-organised, and demoralised. We must reverse that. 

But we rise

Ours is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party. We stand openly for the overthrow of imperialism, for the right of First Peoples to secede if they choose, for reparations, for culture, for land.

Reflect a moment on ruling class lies about First Peoples and Palestinians. Imagine then, the enormity of the venomous propaganda, once masses of everyday people defeated capitalism and imperialism and created socialism. 

Another simple three-word slogan, ‘Peace, bread, land’ forged unity to create the first socialist state. 

Tens of millions of their peoples died fighting imperialism, before and after victory, for over 30 years in the Soviet Union, and before the over 20 years of socialism in China. Each became lone beacons to the world. But surrounded by older, richer, better-armed capitalism, with its poisonous ideas regenerating and settling in a few “leaders” who utterly betrayed their people. Familiar?

Primitive, literally ‘the first’, communism – communism of first peoples everywhere – is rich in lessons about living collectively. How much more dignity and good health ‘savages’ (literally, people “of the forest”) had than the criminalised oppressed of Britain or their guards dumped here 237 years ago. No wonder, in what’s now called Australia, First Peoples fought an armed struggle so bravely and so effectively it held back settlement for 140 years. ‘How They Fought’ by Ray Kerkhove deserves to be read by all of us.

Right now, here, most First Peoples’ lives are also rich in lessons about how to survive on almost nothing. Many others face that same situation. Allies too.

Worldwide, armed anti-imperialist struggle is rising among oppressed peoples. France is evicted from Africa after 400 years! We are not alone.  Others are winning. Others have done it before. So can we. 

 

Canberra airport guards fight for job security while overseas owned security contractors compete in "race to the bottom" at privatized airports

 Written by: Ned K. on 25 January 2025

 

(Source: www.moneycontrol.com) 

The Canberra Times reported in their 24 January newspaper that Canberra Airport aviation security guards were fighting for job security due to a change in airport security contract services from Certis Group to MSS.

The new aviation security contract at Canberra Airport starts on 1 March 2025. The new contractor MSS plans to pick and choose who it employs from 1 March and also plans to employ security guards on less pay and conditions than the current guards won during their employment with Certis Group. The Canberra Times interviewed one guard with more than 10 years' service at the airport. She said that many of the over 100 Certis employed guards had not been offered work by the in-coming contractor MSS.

The Canberra Times also reported that the guards' union representative, United Workers Union Director Lyndal Ryan said that MSS's track record should have excluded them from the contract bidding process and that "ultimately, it's on Canberra Airport decision-makers to properly scrutinize the contractors they allow to operate in high-security risk areas of the airport, and MSS does not pass the pub test in regards to this".

Just who are the "Canberra Airport decision-makers" and who are Certis and MSS?

The Canberra Airport, like all major city airports, is a privatized airport.  The airport was built on land leased to the federal government Department of Defence in 1926. In 1930 it was handed over to the federal government's Civil Aviation Control. Between 1926 and the 1990s there were several upgrades and extensions to the airport terminal and runways.

In 1998 the airport was privatized on a 99-year lease to a company called Capital Airport Group whose front man was a local "rags to riches" Canberra businessman Terry Snow who died in August 2024. The privatization of the Canberra Airport was one of many privatized in the same decade under the Howard Government's Airport Act 1996 which enabled 49% ownership of any airport privatized under the Act. 

The Hawke- Keating governments facilitated the privatization of airports in 1988 when they set up a federal government business enterprise, Australian Pacific Airports Corporation (APAL).

Government business enterprises in aviation, like in other industries, remove ownership and direct control by the relevant government departments and their Ministers.

In the case of the Canberra Airport, the privatized owner, who appeared to be the local businessman Terry Snow is actually the Capital Airport Group whose overseas interests are Chinese aviation corporate interests based in Beijing, China!

The outgoing and incoming security services contractors at the Canberra Airport are also both overseas owned corporations. 

Certis Group is a Singapore based security company. 

MSS is wholly owned by Indian based SIS Limited, one of the Asia-Pacific's largest security personnel contractors.

Guards Taking Action

Canberra Airport security guards are taking various actions to fight for their jobs with a focus on federal politicians returning from holidays in the first week of February. 

This situation of a group of workers in Australia employed by contractors in insecure jobs owned by multinational corporations whose client in turn is a government privatized entity is all too familiar. 

The Canberra Airport guards will fight to defend their jobs, pay and conditions and are already receiving strong support in Canberra and beyond.

In a federal election year, their struggle is a microcosm of the general struggle for Australian independence and socialism. They hear the politicians talk about the "national interest". In the case of airports and airport security, is it in the "national interest" to have airports and airport security owned and operated by multinational corporations whose reason for existence is maximize profits?

To support Canberra Airport security guards, go to www.uwu.org.au/noplceformss

 

The cars that ate suburban streets

Written by: Ned K. on 22 January 2025

 

(Above; SA Govt.proposal for solving urban infill car parling crisis.  www.plan.sa.gov.au)

In the 1970s, there was an Australian made film "The Cars That Ate Paris", directed by Peter Weir, which was about the prime place of cars in lives of Australians in the fictional small town of Paris, and the unexpected impact of cars on communities.

Now in 2025, Australians living in capital cities in particular are battling the consequences of cars clogging urban streets. 

Nowhere is this more of a problem for people than in Adelaide which used to be called the Detroit of Australia because of the primacy of cars as a means of necessary transport. The primacy of cars as a means of transport in Adelaide intensified in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the political influence of oil companies like Shell and BP, and US car multinationals General Motors and Chrysler and the car component industry led to the state government dismantling the city and suburban public transport network. 

Locally made General Motors Holdens and Chrysler Valiants filled the expanding suburbs and every quarter acre housing block and even semi-detached housing trust dwellings had ample room for a garage to park the car, with room for another one in the driveway.

There was little need to park the car in the street, leaving room for visitors to park their car in the street right outside the house of the friends they were visiting.

The size of the "average" Holden and Valiant meant that even when cars were parked in suburban streets, there was plenty of room for a reasonable traffic flow of passing cars.

Fast forward to 2025 and the situation has completely changed. 

The local car industry was shut down by the car multinationals who then made profits from Australians by marketing imported larger and larger cars (commonly called SUVs) to replace the previously locally made ones. 

At the same time, governments and property developers saw an opportunity to build at least two new dwellings on properties in the suburbs that previously had one house. These new dwellings each have an attached garage but often the garage was too small for the larger imported SUV type cars!

An additional problem in 2025 is that many of the new smaller dwellings have young adult children of the parents still living at home and they all have their own car. Inevitably this has led to many suburban streets being clogged with parked cars and in some cases no room for all the residents of a street being able to find a car park in front of their actual home!

To add insult to injury the ABC radio reported that the car multinationals have a vested interest in marketing large cars imported into Australia to offset the trend in other "developed" capitalist countries for people's preference for smaller EV and hybrid cars.

The South Australian government has just announced a proposal to legislate for property developers to be required to build new dwellings with larger garages to accommodate the large cars that the multinational car companies dump on the Australian market. 

The Government has gone one step further and proposes that every new dwelling must have a minimum number of car spaces on a new dwelling based on the number of bedrooms in the place!

The developers, represented by the Property Council have said this will increase the cost of housing which is not the response the government wanted at a time when people, especially young people, have the choice of renting forever or buying a new home that will cost at least eight times their household income.

The government solution is a band aid solution at best as it does nothing to alleviate the current problem in established suburbs where parked cars make it impossible for a reasonable flow of traffic along the street without risk of a head on collision with a car coming in the opposite direction with a stressed - out driver in a hurry to get to or from work or pick up the children at the local school.

Since the multinationals successfully pressured the SA government to close down the suburban tram network and also reduce the train network, no government in SA and perhaps in other cities as well has planned a public transport system adequate for the ever-expanding suburbs.

More recently governments of Labor and Liberal have said that "urban infill" is the way to solve the housing crisis and the developers chime in by demanding that high rise apartment living at various hubs across the city suburban limits is the way to go. The problem with high rise apartment living for people is that there is an inadequate public transport system in most of the suburbs so the people who have no choice but to live in a high-rise apartment will need a car for necessary travel and of course somewhere to park the car when they are at home!

Multinational car companies are continuing to flood the Australian market with large cars with competition between the multinationals for market share as fierce as ever.

The issue of cars clogging suburban streets is linked to the problems of affordable housing, inadequate public transport and poor social infrastructure in urban communities. These are all problems that have existed under capitalism in Australia in one form or another for generations. 

The band aid solution proposed by the current SA government is an example of the impotence of parties of capitalism in solving basic problems of living day to day that people face. The Premier Malinauskas may have the best intentions in solving these problems, but he will not succeed due to the nature of the capitalist system that he attempts to administer. 

Trump’s inauguration – continuing US imperialism’s decline

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 20 January 2025

 

The US Presidential election was won by the Republican Party's Donald Trump. Trump's campaign was financially supported by key sections of the US ruling class including finance capital, arms industry, some sections of the fossil fuel and gas monopolies, and information technology.

Trump paraded as the champion of the working class battling rising cost of living, unemployment and homelessness. His appeal to some sections of the working class and small business was that he blamed the “establishment”, represented by the Democrats, and scapegoated "illegal" migrants and China as the cause of their problems. Unlike the Democrats, Trump trumpeted that he would round up "illegals" and send them back over the US - Mexican border and place a 60% tariff on imported Chinese goods. This would "Make America Great Again".

The US working people do not see the Democrats as providing an alternative to the increasingly difficult economic and social security issues they are experiencing.

The very phrase "Make America Great Again" is in its own words recognition that the US empire has been in decline for decades and the election policies of Trump reflect the desperation of a declining imperialist power.

Trump is supporting or progressing the movement towards fascism rhetorically in his support for authoritarian policies and the people he is putting in positions of power.

This is a logical progression for the ruling class of an imperialist power in decline. There is growing realisation that they can no longer operate under the guise of bourgeois democracy and will increase attacks on the working class and those who represent them.

What does the election of Trump as US President mean for the working people and First Nations people of Australia?

US imperialism's rivalry with the rising economically more powerful Chinese social imperialism will intensify, especially on the military front. The new Trump administration will continue the US - Australia Alliance to its advantage and demand that the Australian Government (whether Labor or Liberal) continues to lock Australia in as its launching pad and Deputy Sherriff in the Asia Pacific region.

On the economic front, US corporations will continue to dominate the Australian key economic sectors, including defence, mining of rare earth minerals and finance. In the event that Trump imposes significant tariffs on some goods imported from China into the USA, that decision will be made without any consideration by the Trump administration for any negative impact on the Australian economy and more importantly on the working people of Australia.
In the likely event of intensified rivalry between the US and China under the new Trump administration, the US - Australia Alliance and the increasing presence of US land and naval bases in Australia will make Australia a military target.

In essence the presence of Trump as President of the US will intensify the rivalry between a declining imperialist power and a rising social-imperialist power.

The new situation will inevitably see a rising tide of struggle by First Nations people and working people. It will provide significant opportunities for advancing struggle for an independent, socialist Australia and end white Australia's long history of subservience to colonial and imperialist powers.

 

Woolworths and Coles face working-class backlash

Written by: Leo A. on 16 January 2025

 

(Source: Wilderness Society | Protecting nature and wildlife)

Within the past two months, the retail companies Woolworths and Coles have both faced serious backlash in response to decisions made by the ruling boards of both entities.   Late November and early December saw more than 1500 Woolworths warehouse staff in both New South Wales and Victoria go on strike, seeking better pay and safety conditions. Unsurprisingly, government-imposed administrators of the NSW CFMEU told corporations they “wouldn’t defend any worker sacked for striking”. 

At around the same time, the Wilderness Society – an environmentalist organisation with a nationwide presence – performed a campaign of activism against Woolworths’ and Coles’ policies contributing to deforestation. Australians shouldn’t have to worry that their groceries are coming from the destruction of our forests and bushland, but every day these supermarkets are exposed to deforestation, from some of the beef mince they sell being raised on recently-cleared land, to some of the timber pallets the products arrive on. 

Such action is critically important in the context of the ongoing environmental crisis across Australia. As a reminder of the severity of the crisis, as recently as late November it was revealed that a whopping 35 known species of freshwater fish that aren’t yet on Australia’s threatened species list should be. And we can’t pretend that our ecosystems exist in isolation from one another.  

Who is really in charge?  
 

Of course, Woolworths, Coles, and similar companies couldn’t care less about that. In fact, we should consider the fact that, despite being headquartered in New South Wales and Victoria, these companies aren’t as “Australian” as most of their customers believe. The three largest shareholders of both are Blackrock Group, State Street Corporation, and Vanguard Group – American banks, all headquartered an easy drive from each other in the Northeastern

This is technically public knowledge, although like much “public knowledge” it’s carefully buried in reports that the average person isn’t going to hear of. While it’s far less subtle than, say, the construction or expansion of an American military base, it is still an element of the ongoing contradiction between the greed of American power and the struggle for Australian sovereignty.  

Woolworths and Coles are two of the most hated corporations in Australia, because they squeeze farmers and whole primary industries for the lowest wholesale prices, while hitting customers with higher prices and pretended price cuts. The Wilderness Society could tap this opposition in a united front targeting them.    

It must be noted that some opposition to Woolworths and Coles has come from the right, who are exploiting the ongoing contradiction for their own gain. We must remind ourselves that, as Mao explained in 1937, the existence of a common opponent does not erase the fundamental contradiction between revolutionary and reactionary forces. If we keep this in mind, we can exercise a healthy level of caution when assessing the groups claiming support for the working-class movement against these companies.