WHO DO THE NATIONALS SERVE?

 

Written by: Duncan B. on 20 March 2021

The forerunner of the National Party, the Country Party, was formed after the December 1919 election by a group of MPs who had been elected to represent rural interests. In 1924 the Country Party entered into an agreement to form a coalition with the conservative Nationalist Party. Since then, the Country Party and its successors have continued to be members of  a coalition party with the conservative parties, although not always harmoniously. Today the Nationals form a coalition with the Liberal Party in the Australian Parliament.

Traditionally the big graziers favoured the Liberal Party, while the Country Party represented the lesser graziers, small farmers and other rural people.

In May 1975 the Country Party changed its name to the National Country Party, and then in October 1982 to its current name, the National Party. Today, on their website, the National Party claims “The Nationals are the Party for regional Australia. The Nationals stand for all regional Australians.”  

 

The National’s Mission Statement says “The Nationals are dedicated to delivering future security, opportunity and prosperity for all regional Australians through targeted policies that focus on stronger regional economies, secure communities, a sustainable environment and the highest possible standard of living.”

 

The reality is that the actions of the National Party don’t match the fine words of its policies. The National Party has a long history of betraying the interests of the people it purports to support.

 

The Nationals are Climate Change deniers

The Nationals leaders like McCormack and Joyce regularly deny the existence of climate change and attack anyone who supports actions in favour of doing something about climate change. The Nations are divorced from their supposed supporters. Most farmers realise that climate change is real. They have only to look out their doors to see the bare paddocks, rivers and dams drying up and another day without any rain in the gauge.
 

They know that the seasons are getting hotter and drier. They have suffered in bushfires caused by climate change. Farmers read in the rural press that according to research by the ABARES (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics and Sciences) climate change has seen farm profits drop by about 23% over the past 20 years. They are aware of the projections that not lowering emissions now will see temperatures on farms increase by 1.3-2 degrees by 2050, and rainfall to decline by 30%. Farmers have seen the suggestions that if nothing is done about climate change Tasmania will become a wheat growing area! Many farmers are active in groups such as Farmers for Climate Action.

 

The Nationals are campaigning to have agriculture excluded from any emission reduction deadline. This will be harmful to Australian farmers trying to sell products overseas if other countries introduce carbon border taxes on countries with lower emission targets.

 

Many farmers are already producing food and fibre with sustainable, low emissions techniques and tapping markets for carbon sequestered in their soil and vegetation. One grazing company recently sold more than $500,000 worth of carbon credits to Microsoft. The Nationals are lagging far behind the people they claim to support.

 

The Nationals helped sabotage the Murray-Darling Basin  Plan

The whole sad story of the destruction of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is told in Richard Beasley’s book “Dead in the Water” reviewed recently in Vanguard.  As Beasley points out, the National Party played a major role in sabotaging the MDB Plan in the interests of big corporate irrigators, many of them foreign-owned. In doing this they went against the interests of the smaller irrigators and the towns and industries reliant on water, as well as ensuring damage to the environment resulting from insufficient water flows. Barnaby Joyce deserves a special mention for his role in the sabotage of the MDB Plan while Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.

 

The Nationals constantly try to isolate farmers from potential allies

National Party leaders like McCormack regularly attack environmentalists, using abusive terms such as “inner city raving lunatics” and “pure enlightened and woke capital city greenies.” The Nationals support all the anti-union, anti-worker policies of the Government, and try to divide farmers from workers.

 

The National Party looks after the interests of mining companies against the interests of the farmers they claim to represent
The National Party’s love affair with mining goes back a long way. In his book “Capitalism in the Countryside- The Rural Crisis in Australia”, (Pluto Pres 1987) Geoffrey Lawrence tells how in the 1970’s and 80’s the Nationals sought to broaden their policies and their support base. “Its leader at the time, Doug Anthony, was conscious of the growing contribution of mining to Australia’s overseas trade and sought to ensure that conditions for the profitable sale of minerals abroad would be maintained. The upward pressure on the Australian dollar which resulted from the Coalition’s pro-mining policies subsequently reduced the competitiveness of agriculture.” (Page 10). (Doug Anthony was the leader of the party from 1971-1984. He was Deputy Prime Minister to Liberal Prime Ministers Gorton, McMahon and Fraser and held various portfolios such as Primary Industry and Trade. He supported the mining and export of uranium.)

 

Since then the Nationals have continued to support mining, often to the detriment of farmers. They support the continuation of coal mining, including the Adani project and advocate the construction of coal-fired power stations. They support fracking and back projects such as the Narrabri Gas Project, which is opposed by a broad group of farmers, environmentalists and First Nations people. Not surprisingly, the Liberal and National parties both receive generous donations from mining companies. In 2018-19 Santos, (developers of the Narrabri Project,) gave the Nationals $38,200, while Adani gave them $121,800!

 

From these few examples we see that far from serving the interests of “all regional Australians” the National Party mainly serves the interests of corporate agribusiness including the big irrigators, and the mining companies.

 

Many country people are starting to desert the National Party. At present some are turning to parties such as One Nation and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. In some electorates Independent candidates have been successful, defeating Liberal or National Party incumbents.

 

Farmers need to learn who their real friends and allies are. They must turn away from the misleaders and join with their true allies - environmentalists, First Nations people and the workers in the city and country.

The QUAD Summit and US expectations of the Australian military

Written by: (Contributed) on 19 March 2021

The recent Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) summit in March was given widespread media coverage. A subsequent high-level diplomatic visit to Asia a few days later, however, was given extremely limited publicity despite its importance for US-led regional alliances.

The developments take place amid an escalation of diplomatic tensions where observers openly discuss war preparations, within a context of a changing balance of forces away from US-led traditional hegemonic positions.

The recent Quad summit with the leaders of US, Australia, Japan and India, took place with huge publicity. Stated agenda items included regional security issues, the South China Seas and related maritime matters, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic considerations related to climate change; it was noted the 'soft agenda … for the … Quad alliance has been extended beyond a security partnership'. (1)

Elsewhere, carefully-worded media releases have taken considerable time to emphasise the Quad is not a security alliance 'but an informal strategic forum of like-minded countries with shared interests'. (2) Other media releases noted 'the Quad is not an Asian NATO'. (3)

The ninety-minute virtual Quad summit began with a video showing how the four countries had co-ordinated a response to the 2004 tsunami; time was possibly too pressing to talk openly about other matters. Defence Ministers from the four countries were also not invited to participate in the summit, although it was noted, nevertheless, the Quad 'has a military significance'. (4)

Following the seemingly befuddled summit an official media release from Canberra noted the Quad amounted to 'the most important development for Australia's security in the past 70 years', with reference to the forthcoming ANZUS celebrations in September which have included an invitation to President Biden. (5)

US demands ramp up

Within days, however, another high-level US-led diplomatic initiative began; it would appear to have been far more important than a ninety-minute on-line Quad-chat between Joe Biden, Scott Morrison, Yoshihide Suga and Narendra Modi.

It began when Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to the region to brief allies on US military planning. A major concern has been a Pentagon military assessment that China could seek to invade Taiwan within the next six years. (6) The assessment has also included the concern that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would 'supplant the US as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific'. (7)

While the Quad has the specific purpose of 'hemming China in from all sides', the Indo-Pacific strategy is centred upon the US-Japan alliance which has also included Australia as a southern hub for 'US interests'. (8) The regional allies regarded by the US as important include: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and others as 'lower level partners'. (9)

The role of Australia was subsequently clearly defined by the Biden administration as an important logistics and training centre for US-led operations. An announcement that the US 'is shaping to ramp up ship and aircraft visits and consider more defence infrastructure, especially in the north', was followed by a commitment to build a multi-million commercially operated strategic military fuel reserve in Darwin for joint use with US and Australian forces. (10) Fuel security is of vital importance for war preparations.   

Elsewhere, it was reported that Admiral Philip Davidson, head of the Indo-Pacific Command said 'more money is likely to be spent on equipment and facilities that Australia is well placed to provide and support', together with a call to increase defence budgets to US$27 billion over the next five years including new mobile missiles, radar systems, staging areas, intelligence-sharing centres, supply depots, testing ranges and exercises 'with allies and partners'. (11)

The announcement also coincided with information about the allocation of an extra $115 million by Australia to develop Loyal Wingman combat drones with a range of 3,700 kms from ground control systems. The drones are intended for use with electronic warfare systems with guided missiles and surveillance sensors. (12) Their range provides coverage of most of the vast Indo-Pacific region through use of out-reach military facilities linked to Australia.

Reject the idea that Taiwan is the ‘front-line of Australia’s defence’

The centrality of Australia for US-led regional military planning has also included an announcement from Defence Minister Linda Reynolds about a $1 billion investment into 'advanced guided weapons to enhance Australia's maritime security', and a diplomatic statement that Taiwan was 'in fact, the emerging front-line of Australia's defence'. (13)

With such US-led military planning already taking place it has not been particularly difficult to establish why two leading members of the Biden administration visited the region soon after the Quad summit.

Davidson and Blinken were not primarily concerned with existing defence and security agendas, but with escalating diplomatic tensions and war preparations toward China still further; the high-level diplomacy also coincided with a call from the Pentagon 'for more missiles to be placed in allied countries around China to enable the US to win the game'. (14)

Such developments push Australia into a front-line type position with US-led regional military planning, specifically designed for real-war scenarios: we need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Quad leaders take charge on security, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 March 2021.
2.     Summit to focus on China threat, Australian, 11 March 2021.
3.     Quad stepped up to leader level in response to China, Australian, 10 March 2021.
4.     Ibid.
5.     Quad our biggest pact in 70 years: PM, Australian, 17 March 2021.
6.     US reinforces China danger, Australian, 17 March 2021.
7.     Editorial: Quad summit a historic step in collective security, Australian, 11 March 2021.
8.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA, Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
9.     Ibid.
10    Western focus on Beijing makes us a Pacific power player, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 March 2021.
11.   Ibid.
12.   RAAF drone cleared for take-off, Australian, 3 March 2021.
13.   We must be ready to fight our corner as Taiwan tensions rise, Australian, 27 January 2021.
14.   Summit to focus on China threat, Australian, 11 March 2021.

 

Women's struggle is a class struggle

 

Written by: Alice M. on 18 March 2021

“A tidal wave of tears and rage sweeps the nation”

Women’s “March 4 Justice” swept across the country on March 15 as almost 100,000, mainly women, rallied against the relentless violence and discrimination against women.  For many women the national marches and rallies were about much more.  It was about the system that has betrayed women.  A system with its flowery worded constitution and its so-called unbiased legal system, claiming to uphold human rights, women’s rights, democracy, equal opportunity, is exposed to be no more than a trickery to keep women and all working people down.  This has always been a capitalist reality for the working class. A patriarchal capitalist state that keeps working women oppressed and silenced. 

The national rallies were about the 250 years of violent colonial patriarchy imposed on the First Nations Women.  The rallies were in solidarity with the First Nations Women who never ceased to resist the colonial oppression. The national “March 4 Justice” rallies were continuation of the hundreds of years of struggle against violence and exploitation of women. 

Organisers of “March 4 Justice” declared, “Women have been struggling for our rights for too long, enough is enough.”

Across the country First Nations Women opened the rallies with passionate speeches calling for recognition and solidarity from the non-Indigenous women.  They condemned the colonial patriarchy brought to their country and communities in 1788.  At the Melbourne rally Sue-Ann Hunter, the proud Wurundjeri and Ngurai illum wurrung woman, told the 10,000 strong rally she wanted the non-Indigenous women to “acknowledge those staunch blak women who came before us, so we can stand on this land today and we can speak the truth.”  Melbourne rally speakers link. https://www.facebook.com/VicUnions/videos/886974828811924

At the Brisbane rally, Aboriginal elder Aunty Deborah Sandy said it was about time women were taken seriously.  “My great grandmother was raped, my grandmother was raped and my mother was raped when oppressors came here.  When the great grandmothers tried to speak up to what those fellas did, they just moved them away like this young girl Brittany Higgins. This stuff has been going on for a long time, and it is about time it stopped for the safety and protection of women and workplaces.”

In Adelaide, Kaurna and Arabunna woman Janette Milera and other First Nations women speakers told the rally “Our women have been fighting the colonial white men from the day of colonisation, our women have been raped, they have been taken and stolen and made as sex slaves since colonisation. We all need a change as women because this man’s law that we live under, it doesn’t work for any of us.”  

Thousands demand end to injustice

Women survivors of violence powerfully recounted gender discrimination, sexual harassment and violence in all areas of society and in the corridors of power.  They vowed to refuse to be torn down and defeated.  In frustration they asked how long must we fight “this shit”; and that little has changed in past 50 years. 

Speakers pointed out we fought hard for equal pay, child care, end to sexual harassment and discrimination at work, but little has changed.  Women receive 14% less in wages than men; we are over represented in casual insecure and part time work; we are concentrated in industries with the lowest pay and highest unemployment, more women are on meagre Jobseeker allowances, Cashless Debit Card. Child care is unaffordable, and we still carry the heaviest burden of domestic work, nurturing and caring for children, the sick, the elderly and family members with disabilities. We are sexual harassed, intimidated and discriminated against in many work places.  “We are entitled to respect and equality” they demanded.

The trigger for spontaneous eruption of “March 4 Justice” movement was the public revelations of discrimination, degrading, harassment and violence against women working in Parliament, the entrenched patriarchy in the highest institution of bourgeois parliamentary “democracy”. It resonated with experiences of millions of women in their workplaces and areas of society.  Courageous Grace Tame also lit the fuse of pent-up outrage when she broke the silence of continuing abuse and violence against women in society.  The years of mounting injustices and women’s anger culminated in “March 4 Justice”.  A crack appeared in the seemingly insurmountable edifice of institutionalised patriarchy which women pushed through and vented their anger, refusing to stay silent.  

Enough of being polite; time to show some fight

‘Enough is enough’ resounded across the country.  Enough of the oppression of First Nations Women.  Enough of violence and discrimination against women. Enough of sexism and not being listened to, enough of exploitation and abuse.  Enough of decades of quietly waiting for change. And enough of being polite and submissive.  Enough of watching the even few small social gains women made in struggle 50 years ago now dismantled and disappearing.  “I can’t believe we still have to protest this crap.”, many signs proclaimed.

Fourteen months ago Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, launched Human Rights Commission’s Respect @Work Report.  It’s sitting in one of the Minister’s bottom drawers, and women are still waiting for the government to responded.  Like many other volumes of reports and legislative recommendations on sex discrimination, harassment and abuse in workplaces.

“March 4 Justice” rallies were held across the country in 44 cities, regional centres and remote townships.  In every main city, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane close to 10,000 mainly women and their supporters marched through the streets.  For many this was their first rally.  From Darwin to Adelaide, Perth to Sydney, Melbourne to Alice Springs, from Bega in NSW to Albany in WA, from Warrnambool in Victoria to Bundaberg in Qld. close to 100,000 angry women and their supporters rallied nationally as one in solidarity with each other demanding an end to violence, discrimination and exploitation of women.  One placard summed it up. “We’ve had enough of this shit. We are marching for justice”.

Women from all walks of life and ages came together.  Many unions and state and regional Trades and Labour Councils joined the rallies and marches across the country, led by women unionists from ASU, MUA, AEU, ETU, CPSU, CWU, HACSU, HSU, NTEU, UWU and others.

In Canberra 7000 women and their supporters rallied outside Parliament House calling on the Prime Minister to come out to listen to their voices and be handed a petition signed by 80,000 women.  The Prime Minister refused and instead offered to meet with a small delegation.  The women declined the offer, “More than 100,000 women and allies from every walk of life are standing up to speak,” they publicly announced,  “How could meeting with just three women be enough?  Women of Australia do not need more meetings or reports by expert bodies on what needs to be done to end gendered violence.  The overwhelming majority of views (women) said no.  We have already come to the door, it’s up to the Government to cross the threshold and come to us.” 

Fearing the 100,000 strong, rising women across the country and the 7,000 standing directly outside the doors of parliament, the Minister for Women Marise Paine, and Prime Minister Morrison barricaded themselves and sought refuge inside the walls of Parliament.

And what was the government’s response to the roar of women demanding they be listened to?   More silencing women’s voices.  Attorney-General Porter took out far reaching defamation action that would mute women, the ABC, journalists and anyone else who dared to speak the truth.  Prime Minister Morrison ignored and tried to silence 100,000 women with veiled threats, “Not far from here, such marches – even now – are being met with bullets but not here in this country”, he said.  Women replied “Special thanks to Scott Morrison for not shooting us all,” they said.  Women’s voices may not have been met with bullets here, but there is no doubt they are seen as a threat and “have been met with full force of the bourgeois law”.

The exposure of parliament penetrated even into the of Liberal Party’s loyal supporters.  The curtain over Brittany Higgins eyes was lifted.  She said “It was so confusing because these people (the Liberal Party) were my idols.  I had dedicated my life to them.  They were my social network, colleagues and family.”

For women still clinging to the illusions of equality and the recognition of rights for women in a capitalist society are more fractured.

There are dangers that this spontaneous movement of large sections of Australian women will fizzle out, unless it connects to independent working class women’s struggles for the rights of all working people.  There are dangers it will drown and disappear into the cess pit of parliamentarism. 

We can learn many lessons from the Your Rights at Work are Worth Fighting For mass grass roots campaign on whose backs Labor rode and had been delivered into government.  Straight after the parliamentary victory the ALP government and top union officialdom tied to the ALP dismantled the Your Rights at Work Worth Fighting For mass movement, abandoning working people again.

In the final analysis capitalism cannot even begin delivering the justice and the rights women are demanding.   The system has to be dismantled and a socialist society where women are empowered and control the society can start to build a new society where justice and real equality triumph.

 

Book Review: The Jakarta Method

Written by: (Contributed) on 17 March 2021

The recently published The Jakarta Method - Washington's Anti-Communist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program which shaped our world, Vincent Bevins (New York, 2020). is a timely reminder of political expedience during the previous Cold War with the defence and security of 'US interests' being the core of foreign policy. Focussed upon the significance of developments in Indonesia during 1965-66 which resulted in an estimated million people losing their lives,

Bevins has accessed numerous declassified documents to establish how the toppling of the popular and left-wing presidential administration of President Sukarno became a global model for similar US counter-intelligence/counter-insurgency operations.

It is not particularly difficult to establish why the US wanted the Sukarno administration removed; the US wanted a reliable ally in Indonesia. The Sukarno administration had provided support for the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which was the largest non-governing Communist Party in the world and an  influential political organisation, edging toward levers of power. Sukarno had also hosted the Bandung Conference in 1955 which laid the basis for the later Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Indonesia, under Sukarno, was highly influential in the NAM which provided a forum for national liberation movements and countries newly decolonised.

These developments were assessed by the Pentagon as running counter to 'US interests'.

Following the toppling of the Sukarno administration the US achieved their foreign policy objectives with the establishment of the Suharto administration which governed the country until the late 1990s. The fact the Suharto administration was a dictatorship with strong military control of the political structures was of no serious concern to the US. Widespread human rights abuses were commonplace; the people of East Timor were also subject to illegal military occupation for decades.

US tutelage of the countries in the southern part of the Americas has long been a preoccupation and obsession for presidential administrations in Washington.

The Jakarta Method was subsequently used to serve similar interests in Central and Latin America, including Chile in 1973. Brazil, likewise, was also subject to similar methods to safeguard US control of a strategic ally, as a dominant player in Latin America with the added dimension of being strategically important for the defence and security of the South Atlantic.

Bevins has included reference in the publication to US military assistance programs. They were, in reality, attempts by the US to interfere in countries of strategic interest. A wealth of declassified documents has revealed just how sinister some of the CIA military plans actually were; the Army Regulation 381-20, which formed part of the Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, for example, had on page 1 reference to how counter-intelligence activities were co-ordinated worldwide … against … those who oppose the US Defence Department … during peacetime and all levels of conflict. (1)

Such clarification leaves little to the imagination; with far-reaching implications for political opposition to traditional oligarchies across the southern half of the Americas.

The notorious Project X, a series of military training manuals, likewise, has revealed how the US sought to remove any political opposition to their diplomatic standpoints in numerous countries. (2) They were not renowned for being particularly sophisticated with their elimination techniques as those who have studied Operation Condor are well aware.

Other declassified documents from the period include Counter Insurgency Operations, drafted in 1960, which included reference to US personnel with mobile training teams working in 'coordination with representatives of US Aid Mission, the military police detachment and other appropriate elements of the Special Action Force … for … training of civil police'. (3) A sub-section of the same document, furthermore, stated 'paramilitary personnel should be paid in proportion to the time devoted to the cause'. (4)  

Other references, from Australian military manuals during the same period, follow a similar line to the US training provision.

One manual, for example, dealing with military administrations undertaking Civil Affairs duties with US-led operations during the previous Cold War stated the Commanding Officer should ensure 'the most effective use is made of para-military forces', as a means by which formal military personnel were able to distance themselves from more unpalatable behaviour. (5)

It is important to note the plan to out-source terror and repression enabled governments and military commanders to distance themselves from charges of war-crimes.
 
During the subsequent period of the so-called New World Order, the US did, however, seek to distance itself from their previous political expedience by acknowledging their 'sordid records … and how the CIA seemed to specialise in hiring murderous thugs and military officers', although the declassification of highly incriminating documents was eventually dismissed as 'the bad habits of the Cold War' and quickly glossed over. (6)  

With a new Cold War now well under-way there is every reason to believe similar models of counter-intelligence/counter-insurgency are being planned, once again.

The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins is, therefore, an important historical study and contribution toward our understanding of the mind-set of those who seek to retain traditional class and state power and hegemonic foreign policy positions to serve 'US interests', at all costs. A moral compass would appear to not exist in their ethical vacuum world: a shadowy, spook-ridden place where faceless government and military officials pursue nefarious agendas.

1.     US Army Regulation 381-20, declassified – 15 November 1993.

2.     Army's Project X had wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997.

3.     Counter Insurgency Operations, A handbook of the suppression of Communist / Terrorist Operations, US Army, Foreign Intelligence Assistance, Ref: 19960709 052.

4.     Ibid., Section 117, sub-section (b)

5.     See: The Division in Battle, Pamphlet No. 1, Organisation and Tactics, Army Headquarters, Canberra, ACT., 31 December 1967, Section 17, Civil Affairs, pp. 50-51.      

6.     The CIA cleanses itself, The New York Times, 4 March 1997.

  

March 4 Justice: Women are on the move

 Written by: Louisa L on 16 March 2021

A march of strength, March 4 Justice was.

Today on my feed are pictures of rallies from all over NSW. Last night we saw and heard from round this continent. But yesterday among 10,000 or more in Sydney, I saw only a handful of friends. 

Didn’t matter. Many women in black, and some men, on the train with a sense of common purpose, of going somewhere very important.

Most of us couldn’t hear the speeches. No matter. We cheered too. And talked. The light rail down George Street was closed. We filled across that large space. A friend rang and found me on the tracks. 

You could call my friend ‘an activist’. Though she’s that and far more. Others ring her when they’re in trouble, because she’s always there.

I indicated my two small badges. The first, the land rights flag, was across the crowd. People understand that First Peoples women face the worst violence, the worst repression, rapes and abuse, state imprisonment and murders.

That evening, Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist Amy McQuire on ABC’s ‘The Drum’ said it was a sense of strength and pride, that they had never given up, that they had always resisted. What an example they live!

January 26 was their gift of power to March 4 Justice. 

Police learned on Invasion Day in Sydney, that people would come, no matter what threats police and politicians make. They didn’t try to stop us gathering. Or to shoot us either. Gotta laugh, Scotty. But they do kill, First Peoples especially.

A few Marxist minutes

My other small badge was the Eureka Flag on the red star, our party’s emblem. It stands on its own without our name stamped all over it, but my friend knows who I am and where I stand. 

I said only socialism would begin to solve the problems the protest symbolised. She said that it hadn’t solved problems. I spoke of what socialism achieved despite being under attack, just a sentence. “Yes, I know a lot was achieved, but it didn’t solve everything.” Like what? I asked. “Well mainly the things that were in the people themselves.”

“Marx said that,” I said. She expressed surprise. “Yes, he said socialism was born from capitalism and bore its marks. That’s why socialism is an historical epoch. It can’t change everything at once. It isn’t communism.” I left it at that. Just a few minutes.

Soon we marched. Police played absurd power games, randomly breaking us into smaller parts, thousands strong, and made each group pause. 

A token cop often chose sections with groups of schoolgirls at front to call a halt. Everyone could see the absurdity, and his powerlessness. Others would probably have swept around him. We were in that mood. Spontaneous clapping out rhythms, sometimes singing, rarely shouting. 

We threaded through Hyde Park to NSW Parliament. 

People are on the move

At my local suburban café this morning, Mary the owner in her sixties, said her friend also went. I said it wasn’t just about parliament. She nodded. “It’s the ones above them. The banks, big business.” 

Spontaneous outpourings don’t have the staying power to lead revolutions.

For that the working class needs reorganise, for only it has the ability to stop this corporate country in its tracks.  

We all have a job to do. To march and to organise, quietly from the ground up a workers’ party too. 

Things are shifting. Parliament’s facade cracks, exposing the power behind. People are on the move!

SA ambulance dispute flares up, sent into mediation

 Written by: Nick G. on 12 March 2021

SA ambulances are covered in anti-government slogans. Ambos are refusing to charge patients who have to be ramped outside hospital emergency services. Individual paramedics talk out their grievances on public radio and television news services, despite threats from management.

This is part of an ongoing dispute that began under the previous state Labor government and has only been exacerbated under the Marshall Liberals despite a pre-election pledge to fix ramping.

Ramping occurs when ambulances are forced into a queue at hospital emergency departments (EDs) and have to wait because their patients cannot yet be admitted. This in turn deprives the community of the services of the ramped ambulances and increases call-out times to people in distress.

Not just SA under Libs – look at WA under Labor

Ramping is not unique to South Australia, but the problem has been more acute and over a longer time than elsewhere. And it is a problem of health systems administered by both parties of capitalism. In Western Australia, where everyone expects the McGowan Labor government to have a landslide victory in tomorrow’s state election, ramping is a serious and neglected problem. 

September 2020 marked a dark month in Western Australia’s history – for the first time ever, ambulance ramping exceeded 3,000 hours in a calendar month. “Catastrophic” and “terrible” is how the AMA (WA) characterised 3,000 hours of ambulance ramping, particularly for the elderly, who are the most likely people to be stuck on an ambulance trolley out the front of our emergency departments. The crisis worsened as the year rolled on: October 2020 levels exceeded September 2020 levels by 7 per cent and November 2020 levels exceeded October 2020 levels by 12 per cent.

“Efficiencies” pushed by multinational consultants

More ambulances and trained crew are required, but so are more hospital beds, expanded EDs and nurses and doctors. However, reviews of SA health services conducted by big-end-of-town multinational economists like KPMG and PwC have seen “efficiencies” prioritised over emergencies, with staff cuts, including senior practitioners “let go” (only to be snapped up by private hospitals). Staff cuts at three of the state’s largest public hospitals are being driven by slash-and-burn administrators KordaMentha which was appointed by the government to take over financial control of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN).

Doctors across the public hospital system are being pressured to send patients home early. Bernadette Mulholland CEO of the SA Salaried Medical Officers Association (SASMOA) says that “winding down of staffing, equipment, resources and consequently services to the women of SA and their babies at the current Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH)” is causing staff burnout and trauma and inconvenience for the public. In one case recently, parents who had driven 460km from Kimba on Eyre Peninsula to the WCH for an operation on their 10-month-old child were told as they sat in the waiting room that the operation had to be cancelled because the WCH could not budget for the staff to attend an intensive care recovery bed. (For full details see here.)

The failure to properly resource public hospitals obviously compounds the problem of ramping. And ramped ambulances cannot get back out to service the community. Two nights ago, a short-of- breath newborn baby waited 55 minutes in the Adelaide CBD for an ambulance on a lights-and-sirens response. The same night, an elderly female with chest pain waited 1hr 27 minutes for an ambulance on a lights-and-sirens response. 

The following night, just after 8pm, yet again, the ambulance service has declared an OPSTAT White event. (OPSTAT White: ‘Operational capacity, capability and/or resources are insufficient to maintain effective service delivery for high acuity cases’ … ‘Patient safety is directly affected’.)

There were 7 emergency cases and 26 urgent cases waiting in the community with no ambulance available to send. 

Robert Snell who originally wrote the OPSTAT and managed many instances of surge, said: “It's a bit like a fire alarm in a multistorey apartment block going off but the sprinkler system is switched off and fire service doesn't come.”

Following a bad night on Monday 22 February when there were 88 patients waiting for a bed and 15 ambulances ramped at the Royal Adelaide Hospital at around 8pm, members of the Ambulance Employees’ Union decided they had no choice but to speak out. They told of 12-hour shifts with no meal breaks, of patients being ramped for up to four hours, of patients being placed at risk as they waited for ambulances.

Ambos won’t be bullied into silence

This drew an immediate response from SA Ambulance Service Chief Executive David Place. He sent a letter to paramedics on Tuesday, warning employees they “may commit misconduct” if they speak out in violation of the public service code of ethics. He threatened them that speaking out publicly could put them in trouble with ICAC, the state’s anti-corruption watchdog.

The union responded that its members would not be bullied into silence, and the ICAC Commissioner Ann Vanstone QC said Place had wrongly construed her role and criticised the health executive for invoking her name. In a rare public statement, she said “…it is unhelpful for senior public officers to invoke the name of ICAC in an attempt to control the behaviour of their staff.”

With the situation developing very favourably for the ambos, the Marshall government painfully losing the media war, and the state Treasury losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue every day depending on the number of uncharged ramping cases, the South Australian Employment Tribunal (SAET) has ordered the SA Ambulance Employees Association into mediation with the government. 

This is the role of bourgeois institutions under the capitalist state: to defuse struggle, and in particular, to take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the rank-and-file. The President of the tribunal Justice Steven Dolphin, once played an honourable role as the lawyer for persecuted construction worker Ark Tribe, but the further up the ladder of a state career one goes, the harder it is to stay on the side of the workers. 
……………………
For previous comment see: “Ramping” - a Third World problem in a First World setting

Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Register of Foreign-Owned Water Entitlements

 

Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

Preamble

In responding to the invitation to the public to offer submissions to the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into the Register of Foreign-Owned Water Entitlements, the CPA (M-L) acknowledges that the following matters are outside the scope of the inquiry:

1.     Whether or not there should have been the commodification of water that led to the existence of a market in tradeable water entitlements;

2.     Whether or not that market should have been opened to non-consumptive speculators in general, and foreign entities in particular.

To ensure that our submission to this inquiry can not be interpreted as an acceptance of the water market and of foreign investment in it, we emphatically state:

1.     Our Party is totally opposed to the commodification of water that led to the existence of a market in tradeable water entitlements;

2.     Our Party is totally opposed to the opening of that market to non-consumptive speculators in general, and foreign entities in particular.

Response to inquiry

The Treasurer has established the following three points as the scope of the inquiry.

To:

·       assess whether the information provided in the Report delivers on the policy objectives of the scheme of increasing transparency of foreign ownership of water entitlements;

·       identify the direct and indirect costs and benefits associated with maintaining the Register and producing the Report; and

·       identify the direct and indirect costs borne by foreign owners of water entitlements to ensure compliance with the Act.

 

Point 1

The Register fails to increase transparency of foreign ownership of water entitlements in several significant ways:

1.     Access to information in the Water Register is currently restricted to certain Commonwealth Government Ministers and their departments. There are proposals for access to be extended to officers in other jurisdictions and other countries. However, one of the purposes of the Register is to promote more informed public debate. This requires all information in the Register to be accessible to Australian researchers and the Australian public. The scope of the Report should be enlarged to reflect this.

2.     The Australian Tax Office (ATO) which manages the Register defines “foreign persons” for the purposes of the Register according to three criteria. One relates to the per centage of interest in an entitlement of a foreign corporation or foreign government. This is set at 20 per cent or more. This differs from the ATO’s standard of 10 per cent used to compile foreign direct investment statistics.  Any foreign water entitlement holder with less than 20 per cent investment in an entitlement is not captured in the data. This is not conducive to greater transparency and must be changed.

3.     The confidentiality provisions of the ATO in respect of its data prevent the identification of individual investors. This is also contrary to informed public debate, particularly in respect of a foreign investor’s social license to operate here with the consent of the Australian community.  For example, the largest known foreign water entitlement holder is the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP). Towards the end of last year, it became one of the top shareholders of the controversial US security contractor, Palantir Technologies, after its recent IPO. PSP’s massive purchase of water entitlements for the growing of almonds (for export in the main), is controversial in its own right, and that controversy is now compounded by its investment in Palantir. PSP is known because of media interest in its purchase of water entitlements, but who are the other foreign owners, and what is their track record in terms of social and environmental responsibility? Australians need to be able to access this information.

Point 2

We have no comment on this point beyond stating that the direct and indirect costs associated with maintaining the Register and producing the Report must not be used to restrict the information that foreign water entitlement holders are required to provide to the ATO, nor must they be used to restrict the information on foreign water entitlement holders that can be accessed by the Australian public.

Point 3

Not only must all direct and indirect costs be borne by foreign owners of water entitlements to ensure compliance with the Act, but there must be an immediate change to their exemption from paying capital gains tax on the profits they make out of those entitlements. According to the ATO:

“Water entitlements are generally separate from the underlying land and not taxable Australian real property. This means that a foreign resident would disregard any capital gain from the sale of a water entitlement. In contrast, Australian resident entities are required to account for gains or losses on their worldwide assets, which includes assets in Australia like water entitlements.”

It is simply unacceptable that Australian farmers must compete with giant multinational corporations who are given tax breaks that cannot be enjoyed by Australians.

It is hard to see why the Treasurer’s inquiry should focus on the costs to foreign investors of compliance to a Register administered by the Treasurer’s own ATO, when that ATO is exempting foreign holders of water entitlements from capital gains tax on profits from trade in those entitlements.

 

Nick G.

Chairperson

Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

March 6, 2021

www.cpaml.org

info@cpal.org