Foreign ownership of Australian dairy industry to intensify

Written by: Duncan B. on 25 August 2025

 

The degree of the concentration of foreign ownership of the Australian dairy processing industry is about to intensify with the announcement by New Zealand-owned Fonterra that they are to sell their Australian operations to the giant French dairy company Lactalis in a $3.5 billion deal.

This will leave Lactalis and the Canadian-owned Saputo in control of a large section of the Australian dairy processing industry.

A bid by Australian-owned Bega was not enough to win the race for Fonterra. The ACCC has already indicated that it will not oppose the deal, but dairy farmers are worried that the combination of the two biggest players in the industry will reduce competition at the farm gate for their milk.

This comes as it was recently announced that total Australian milk production has fallen again. Australia’s total milk production in 2024-25 was 8.315 billion litres. This is predicted to fall to 8.147 billion litres this season. Reasons for this fall include droughts and floods in dairying areas, and more dairy farmers changing to other types of farming, or leaving farming altogether because of the  increasing costs of inputs, and farm-gate prices for their milk that are not enough to cover production costs.

As many Australian farmers are abandoning dairying, Canadian pension fund PSP is becoming a major player in Australian dairying through their subsidiary Aurora Dairy. They have 450 employees and 48000 cows producing 280 million litres of milk on 54 farms.

We must oppose the continuing take -over of Australian agriculture by foreign interests which is an  attack on Australian Independence. 

 

 

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Australian people march for Palestine

Written by: Alice M and Bill F on 25 August 2025

 

On the 24th August in a National Day of Action for Palestine, massive crowds of over 350,000 marched in Australian cities and regional towns, with growing demands for strong government action against Israel.

In Melbourne and Sydney each 100,000, Brisbane 50,000, Perth and Hobart each 25,000, Adelaide 15,000 and Canberra 2,000.  Thousands more rallied, protested and marched in regional towns and communities across the country. Protests were held outside Pine Gap, the US military intelligence base. 

In Melbourne, many migrant and community groups marched with their banners demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians.  A large Unions for Peace contingent of over 1,000 unionists, led by health workers’ unions, marched from the Victorian Trades Hall under their unions’ banners, joining the main rally outside the State Library at 12 pm.

Gary Foley, a veteran First People’s warrior for self-determination and liberation of his people and the Palestinians, spoke briefly to 100,000 clapping and cheering crowd.  To thundering applause and cheering he told the protesters “In last 2 weeks I had a heart surgery, but I’m here because my heart is with Palestine. …They may have killed a few resistance fighters, but they will never kill resistance,” he told the cheering and applauding protesters.

Palestinian speakers angrily dismissed the Albanese government’s call for the recognition of Palestinian state as a deliberate diversion from Israel’s genocide, occupation and ethnic cleansing.  Speaker after speaker called for the government to implement sanctions against Israel, stop exporting arms and F35 parts used in Israel’s genocide.  They called for self-determination and liberation of Palestine.

As the march of 100,000 blocked the centre of Melbourne, chanting broke out “Hey, hey Israel, USA, how many kids did you kill today!” 

While Israeli genocide policy was condemned in speeches and on banners, the supporting role of US imperialism was also noted by many rally participants. 
US imperialism is the great enabler and sustainer of Israeli oppression – a well-armed base in the Middle East to coordinate and impose policies in line with US economic and military interests. It provides the enormous supply of weapons, political cover and UN veto protection, while generating profits for US arms companies. It denigrates the rightful and justified Palestinian resistance as “terrorists” and does nothing to even acknowledge the existence of Palestinian people. 

The “Two state solution” is not viable – a mirage to distract opposition to the Zionist agenda which has always been to take possession and occupy all of the territory for “Greater Israel” from “the Jordan River to the Mediterranean”. The two-state mirage has been further sustained by the complacent Abbas bloc in Ramallah, while the West Bank territory is being gobbled up by “settler” Zionist thugs with open assistance by the IDF and Israel government. East Jerusalem is under similar attack, with Palestinian homes seized or destroyed by “settler” mobs, family members beaten, jailed or shot.

These self-called “Settlers” are terrorists! With protection from the IDF, they steal land and water, rob houses, destroy crops and olive groves and kill any Palestinian who defends themselves, resists or objects. They operate in the tradition of the infamous Irgun and Hagenah terror gangs that murdered and expelled Palestinians from their towns and villages in 1948.

In spite of all the oppression and tremendous odds, the Palestinian people have persevered in their 77 years long struggle and have won overwhelming support from people around the world.

In Australia, more people are demanding that the Albanese government imposes strong sanctions against the Israeli government, demand an immediate end to the assault on Gaza, cut off the supply of weapons parts for the F35 jet fighter, and organise massive aid and medical supplies to Gaza and the West Bank.

These honest demands of the Australian people come up against the interests of US imperialism, and Albo and Marles will duck out every time. They will not risk being “Trumped”! That is Australia’s problem – how to get rid of US imperialist domination and make our contribution to the liberation of peoples of the world.

End the US-Australia alliance!
Close Pine Gap!
Fight for Australia’s anti-imperialist independence and socialism!  

 

 

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Australia and Japan pushed by US to further fund its Indo-Pacific ‘interests’

Written by: (Contributed) on 25 August 2025

 

(Above  Source: www.drishtiias.com )

Proposals by the Pentagon to expand the defence and security provision of their Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), have far-reaching implications for Australia. The hidden agenda behind the proposals is particularly revealing; if implemented, it is likely to foist a huge financial burden with increased diplomatic and military responsibilities upon Australia at the behest of the United States.

Throughout August a series of media releases pushed for closer diplomatic relations between Australia and Japan. It included proposals for the two countries to establish a 'formal security alliance', between the two regional hubs in the IPS for 'US interests'. (1)

The matter has entered discussion stage in Canberra, with policy considerations taking place in due course.

The moves, however, reflect the Pentagon's regional planning and their IPS: implemented over recent decades, it has placed the US-Japan alliance as an upgraded global alliance. (2)

Australia, likewise, remains an important consideration for US regional foreign policy, hosting a number of highly sensitive military and intelligence facilities which include Pine Gap.

Recent political and economic turmoil in Japan has caused the US disquiet; recent elections saw the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lose its majority. Japan, for the US, ‘for decades, has been the pillar of pro-western, democratic stability in our region'. (3) Its position is now shaky, with the ruling elite fearing opposition groups.

The Japanese economy has also not been performing well in recent decades. In fact, after reaching a peak in 2010, it has entered a period of prolonged decline. Projections for future years offer a dismal scenario whereby it has failed to even reach one per cent growth rates each year to 2030. (4) Viewed in comparison to a global average of 3.25 per cent, Japan's economic performance could be quite accurately regarded as mediocre. Official economic assessments have noted it remains in a ‘technical recession danger zone'. (5)

The US historically, however, has used Japan to maintain a ‘formidable economic presence in South-east Asia since the late 1960s'. (6) The presence, however, did not last forever.

In fact, the problem confronting the US is that ASEAN has now virtually replaced Japan as the regional economic powerhouse with serious defence and security considerations.

In 2022, for example, ASEAN members had already established a combined GDP of $3.6 trillion, 85 per cent of that of Japan. (7) Two years later the ASEAN group drew level with Japan, which proved a turning point with a $4 trillion total. (8) Projections now assess ASEAN as surpassing Japan with a nearly $6 trillion economic base by 2030. (9)  

Studies of the changing balance of forces have noted 'ASEAN and the Chinese economies are becoming inseparably intertwined'. (10) The proposals for a formal security alliance between Australia and Japan are best viewed in that light. The agenda is quite clear.

Its proposers, in fact, have already stated such as security alliance 'would help keep the Americans in the region'. (11)

The US Defence Department have also elaborated on the grand plan with a request that Australia should 'integrate … with … other Asian allies into a stronger defence framework focused on deterring Beijing'. (12) The US agenda is, however, far from straightforward.

It has begun with a demand from the White House that Australia increase its defence budgets; much of the increased expenditure has already been allocated for equipment which has facilities for 'inter-operability' with US-led mainframe equipment. The Trump administration appears to be openly pushing for increased defence budgets in preparation for 'real-war scenarios', and keeping Wall Street and the military-industrial complex afloat.

As 1,600 personnel from the Australian Defence Forces joined Philippine counterparts for Exercise Alon 25 in August, the official media release from Canberra contained much of the same dreary commentary initially presented by the Pentagon. One of the biggest ADF war-games for 2025, it was publicised along the lines that 'this is a strategy of collective deterrence against Chinese aggression … the ADF was not in the Philippines by happenstance of coincidence', as stated by Strategic Analysis Australia in Canberra. (13)

As ASEAN increases it viability over and above that of Japan, we are likely to see more and more demands on Australia to pay for the US, as the balance of forces continues to turn against it.  

By December, for example, Canberra will already have paid A$3 billion to the US-based shipbuilding industry for submarine production. (14) The AUKUS agreement is also likely, furthermore, to cost far more and be very, very expensive:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     It's time we formalise the Australia-Japan defence compact, Australian, 8 August 2025; and, Australia should push for alliance treaty with Japan, Strategic Analysis Australia, 10 August 2025.
2.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
3.     Japanese election harms region, Editorial, Australian, 22 July 2025.
4.     GDP Japan, 1960-2024, World Bank Group; and, Japan: Economic Growth Forecast, The Global Economy.
5.     Japan records modest growth, Australian, 19 August 2025.
6.     Towards an equal partnership, East Asia Forum, Volume 15, Number 3, September 2023, pp. 3-5.
7.     Ibid.
8.     GDP Japan, World Bank Group.
9.     GDP of the ASEAN countries from 2020 to 2030, Statista, 27 May 2025.
10.   Towards an equal partnership, op.cit., 2023.
11.   Australia should push for alliance treaty with Japan, op.cit., 10 August 2025.
12.   No free ride in defence of free world, Australian, 14 August 2025.
13.   Philippines exercise ADF's 'biggest for year', The Weekend Australian, 16-17 August 2025.
14.   Australia quietly pays US., The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 July 2025.

 

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Demand for Australian independence grows as US is increasingly isolated

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 22 August 2025

 

(Above: source ABC News)

The meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, between Presidents Trump and Putin was a setback for the arrogant and boastful US leader.

It came just 9 days after a 10-day deadline for a ceasefire by the Russians, demanded by Trump, had expired without any cessation of hostilities.

In what little we do know of the discussion between the two leaders, it appears that Trump gained nothing, and Putin gave nothing up. Indeed, for many observers, it would seem that Trump’s greatest achievement was getting Zelensky to wear something approximating a suit at their meeting a few days ago, given the criticism of his dress sense the last time the two met.

Putin was able to tell reporters after the Anchorage meeting that the war would only end when the conditions that caused it had been removed. Those conditions, including NATO’s eastwards expansion, the existence of Nazis in Ukraine, and complaints about the treatment of Russian-speakers in the Donbass, were the justification for Putin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine. Putin has made it clear that they will only be removed with a Russian victory over Ukraine.

Much was made of the symbolism of Anchorage as the venue. The closeness of this US city to Russia, just across the narrow Bering Strait, was said to typify the closeness of the Putin-Trump personal relationship.

What was more symbolic was the fact that Alaska had once been Russian territory, bought from the Czar in 1867 for US$7.2 million, equivalent to $162 million in 2024. It is reflective of Trump’s imperialist mindset that international conflicts can be settled by “deals” over territory. Hence his support for a French Riviera-style development of an ethnically cleansed Gaza, and his “deal” for the end of the Ukrainian war which involves recognition of Russian control of the Crimea and Donbass regions of Ukraine.

At least in the case of Crimea, there is some historical basis for its reabsorption into Russia, although not by the aggression used by Putin. When the US imperialists forced a regime change via the Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2014, Putin drew on the justifications of “protection” for ethnic Russians to retake the Crimea. It had been part of Russia since 1783 when it was seized from the Ottoman Turks. Khrushchev had gifted it to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 in a move seen as trying to win allies for his usurpation of power following Stalin’s death. It remained populated by a majority of Russian-speakers who are believed to have welcomed its seizure back by Putin in 2014.

Now, we are watching to see what plays out in the meetings between Zelensky and Trump, and between Trump and the Europeans. The contradictions between the US and Europe over both Ukraine and Palestine are growing and resulting in a significant diplomatic and political isolation of US imperialism and a weakening of its international influence. 

The US now has a significant economic stake in Ukraine. On April 30, 2025, the United States and Ukraine signed a deal to establish a joint investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The focus of the deal is access by the US to Ukraine’s mineral deposits. 

However, the indications are that Trump wants the US to disengage militarily from Europe and settle the conflict with Russia, if need be, at Ukraine’s territorial expense, so that it can continue its focus on war preparations with China.  

Those preparations directly involve Australia as a US proxy in a war with China. The AUKUS arrangements ($30 million a day for 30 years for a handful of submarines to be deployed interoperably with the US Navy), the Force Posture Agreement which cedes Australian territory to US forces, Pine Gap, and US intelligence agents embedded within Australia’s – all point to US intentions towards our region.

In effect, Australia’s acquiescence embeds our country in US preparations for war with China. 

For years we have been conned with the lie that ANZUS guarantees that the US will protect us if we are ever attacked.  That is not what ANZUS actually says, nor should it be believed given US vacillation and lack of principle in relation to the ending of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

In World War Two, Britain abandoned Australia to Japanese aggression, while our troops were fighting in north Africa. History must not repeat itself.  

If there are lessons in Ukraine for Australia, they are that we must have genuine independence from imperialism, meaning control over our economy, removal of all foreign bases from our territory, and political control vested in the people, not in the puppets of US vested interests.

We stand for an independent, socialist Australia with a peaceful foreign policy.

We must end the US stranglehold of Australia.

 

 

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"Productivity" for workers means job losses and higher workloads

Written by: Ned K. on 21 August 2025

 

(Above: There's not so much to laugh about out in the real world   Image: ABC News)

This week the federal government held its Productivity Round Table talkfest in Canberra.

In the same week the second largest stevedoring multinational DP World announced it intended automating its port operations in Australia to "lower running costs". The result will be greater profits and hundreds more MUA members out of work. The MUA members will fight this all the way. Stevedoring jobs are full time and relatively well paid "blue collar" jobs.

At the other end of the employment spectrum, some contract cleaners employed by a multinational cleaning company in an isolated outer suburban government-owned worksite started off as a cleaning team of 15 a couple of years ago. Two years later there are only 10 cleaners doing the work of 15. The multinational is in a public private partnership with a state government. These cleaners grimace when they hear the word "productivity". They experience it daily in the form of higher workloads.

 

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Let Palestinians decide!

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 21 August 2025

 

\Various proposals are circulating in relation to the recognition of a Palestinian state.

On the one hand, the Australian government’s decision is a welcome break from the slavish following of US protection of Israel at the United Nations where the US has used its Security Council veto 49 times to block resolutions critical of Israel. That veto, together with billions of dollars of arms and cooperation between the US and Israel governments and the CIA and Mossad, has been the principal source of Israel’s existence and its genocide of Palestinians.

The Australian government’s decision is an attempt to appease the growing opposition within Australian public to the genocide in Gaza.

However, the so-called democracies which have followed France’s lead in deciding to recognise Palestine as a state, have imposed impossibly anti-democratic conditions on their recognition. They include disarming Hamas and barring it from any presence in a new Palestine, and insisting that the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority be authorised to administer the combined West Bank and Gazan state of Palestine.

This is a blatant denial of the right of Palestinians to self-determine their own future.

No such prohibitions have been placed on Israel as a condition for its acceptance of a Palestinian state which presumably must be a factor in the two-state “solution” being proposed.

The governing party in Israel is Netanyahu’s Likud, supported by other far right parties. 

The 1977 original platform of the Likud Party began with the heading The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) and continued with the two following points:

a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.

b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace…

The term “Eretz Israel” originated in the Torah and was adopted by Zionists to refer to the Mandated Territory of Palestine, that is, to the entire area from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Judea and Samaria specifically refer to the area designated today as the occupied West Bank.

Continuing Israel’s expansion and occupation of the West Bank by over 800,000 violent and heavily armed Israeli settlers, backed by the IDF and Israel’s government, is intended to make the reality of a Palestinian state unviable.

It is inconceivable that conditions can be placed on the Palestinians which are not applied to the Israelis. Under these circumstances, a two-state “solution” is doomed to failure, and the only long-term basis for peace and justice from the river to the sea is a single secular state in which the rights of Jews, Muslims, Christians and people of no faith are protected by law.

For its own reasons of using Israel as a guarantor of US hegemony in the Middle East, US imperialism will never relinquish its connection with and support for the genocidal apartheid Israeli state. 

Despite the “recognition” rhetoric, Australia remains complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians so long as we refuse to apply sanctions against the Zionists, and continue to allow the export of arms and armament components either directly to Israel or through a third country.

A number of Palestinians have warned that the Australian government’s recognition of Palestine without ending the military trade with Israel, without condemning Israel’s apartheid, genocide and occupation, and without imposing sanctions against Israel, is a political fig leaf.

We must continue to exert pressure for the rights of Palestinians, such as the continuing rallies and great events like the Sydney Bridge march, but we must also target US imperialism in our own country and our own region. 

US imperialism dominates Australia economically, militarily, politically and culturally. It takes our subservience for granted. When US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee’s stated that the Australian decision to recognise Palestine was greeted within the Administration “with an enormous level of disappointment and some disgust”, he was not speaking of us as an independent nation, but as a disobedient puppet which had the temerity to try pulling its own strings.

We must fight harder to achieve anti-imperialist independence and our sovereign right to assert our own views and policies in matters of foreign policy.

The Australian people freed from the grip of imperialism and able to make our own decisions will finally be able to really support the rights of Palestinians to make their own decisions.

 

 

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AUKUS and the Australian American Leadership Dialogue

Written by: Nick G. on 14 August 2025

 

The Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD) currently meeting in Adelaide has brought two US congressmen to Australia to try and breathe life into the ailing AUKUS arrangements.

The AALD was established in 1992 by comprador capitalist Phil Scanlon as a “private diplomatic initiative” bringing together Australian and US leaders from a range of backgrounds.

Scanlon is currently working as adviser to London-based Greater Pacific Capital and New York-based P3 Global Management. From 2009 to 2013, he held the role of Australian Consul General in New York. He has been on the Business Council of Australia and spent more than three decades as a Governor of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.

Although promoting itself as an NGO, the AALD’s principal partner is the Australian Government’s Department of Defence. Other principal partners are multinational arms manufacturers Thales, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, as well as Deakin and Adelaide Universities, BHP and Doordash.

The two congressmen are both tied to US military expansion. The first, Republican Trent Kelly is the House Seapower and Projection Forces sub-committee chairperson.  His electorate includes a shipyard, as does the electorate of his Democrat partner in crime Joe Courtney. In his case it is a nuclear submarine shipyard at Groton, Connecticut.

Accompanied by SA Premier Malin-AUKUS, the two toured the Osborne shipyards 

Courtney, who is also a member of the Seapower and Projection Forces sub-committee of Congress, waxed lyrical about the “eye-watering investment that is going on in the shipbuilding sector here in Australia.”

It was not reported whether he also praised the eye-watering and non-refundable hundreds of millions of dollars that Australia has gifted the US for the sake of pump-priming shipyards like Groton which have labour shortages, supply chain problems and are currently running well behind schedule to produce enough nuclear submarines for the US, let alone fulfilling the AUKUS requirement to supply up to three US nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

Courtney praised the collaboration between Adelaide and Connecticut universities on “cutting-edge work for the US Navy in terms of submarines and unmanned vessels…all kinds of stuff we can’t really talk about publicly.”

Malin-AUKUS parroted the pro-AUKUS spin emanating from the two congressmen, ignoring the Australian people’s wish for greater independence from US imperialism, and boasting that SA was “positioning itself as a security and technology partner of choice” for the US war machine.

The only bilateral US-Australian partnership that should be pursued is that between the two peoples, based on non-interference in each other’s affairs and a common commitment to opposing imperialism and building socialist unity. Both peoples would much prefer that eye-watering amounts were spent on education, health, housing and infrastructure.

 

 

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Toe to toe with fossil fuel induced global warming

Written by: Nick G. on 12 August 2025

 

(July 30 protest against global warming at Santos offices in Adelaide. - source NT News)

Last week I went for a short walk along Seacliff Beach, one part of the unbroken stretch of suburban Adelaide beaches just kilometres form the CBD.

Every step of the way was littered with the washed-up bodies of dead marine life.

Most were benthic (bottom-feeding) species including masses of flathead, blue-swimmer crabs, abalone (with its much sought-after flesh still attached), mussels, razor fish, sea slugs, snails and worms.  There were lesser numbers of other species including trumpeters, toad fish, weedy whiting and red mullet.

And a dead swan.

Running parallel with the sea shore was a 50-metre width strip of brown murky water, part of the algal bloom which has turned much of Adelaide’s coastal waters to a marine graveyard.

The algal bloom first came to notice in March. Warmer waters and an absence of sea water disturbance during SA’s prolonged drought led to an explosion in the population of the toxic Karenia mikimotoi algae. We have reported several times on this (see here and here).

In the immediate sense, nothing can be done until the bloom dissipates through natural means.

However, the SA algal bloom is a symptom of a sick ocean system that extends well beyond SA. On the day of my walk, news came through of a massive clean-up by volunteers of the beaches of Algiers where another algae native to the Pacific Ocean, Rugulopteryx okamurae, has found its way into the Mediterranean.  While the beach clean-up was underway on the southern side of the Mediterranean, on the northern side France and Greece were engulfed in massive wildfires that had caused loss of life.

The rise in global warming, brought on by carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels, continues to endanger Australian coral reefs. 

The Great Barrier Reef has suffered mass bleaching in 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024 and now 2025. In the latest event, the Reef has suffered some of the most widespread coral loss ever seen and scientists warn that we’re approaching a moment where the coral may no longer be able to recover.

For the first time Ningaloo Reef on the opposite side of the continent suffered a bleaching event simultaneous with that of the Great Barrier Reef.  Once again, the word “unprecedented” has been used. 

Politicians ignore it at our peril.

Labor continues to wave through new coal and gas projects. The Nationals want to abandon net zero entirely. And the Liberals offer nothing. Australia remains the second-largest global exporter of fossil fuels.

Global warming is a part of capitalism’s destructive war on nature.

Capital must continue to accumulate by recreating its own value over and over again. In the process it exploits, ruins and diminishes the only two sources of that surplus value, human labour power and nature. The first can be kept alive and recreated at minimal cost to capital but the second can only be degraded and destroyed.

Biodiversity matters to the working class. Capitalism is the enemy of biodiversity and of workers. 

We must shutdown fossil fuel extraction, use and export.

We can only do that in an anti-imperialist independent and socialist Australia.

(On August 1, seven Extinction Rebellion members holding a marine life ‘die-in” were arrested at Santos offices in Adelaide.)

 

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Productivity: of what? from whom? for whom?

Written by: Humphrey McQueen on 11 August 2025

 

The Anti-labour Party administration is holding a Productivity gabfest in Canberra 19-21 August. Humphrey McQueen sets ‘productivity’ as a driver for the structured dynamics of how the exploitation of every wage-slave must be intensified if the rule of capital is to persist. 

Productivity: of what? from whom? for whom?

The drive for so-called productivity raises a central aspect of Marxism, namely, surplus-value. Militants need to understand the ramifications of that key to capitalism if we are to push back the current offensives. 

Labour-time

To win the battle of ideas in the latest contest over productivity, we should go back to what WorkChoices aimed to do for the expansion of capital. The ALP and most unions ran the line that WorkChoices combined a nasty man and wrong thinking with a fondness for wage-cuts.  Howard remains a nasty liar. However, his policies were more than another personality defect. Nor was he driven by bad ideas. Every social practice carries an ideological aspect. Neo-liberalism, for example, was more than a bad idea in the heads of nasty people. Like WorkChoices, it expressed the needs of capital, which is why we branded it WorstChoices. The needs of capital go beyond cutting wages. 

Neo-liberalism was a splendid idea for most sectors of global capital. Like Keynesianism and Monetarism, its days were numbered. How next to serve the interests of rival corporates, and their supporting nation-market-states, is being hammered out in Trump’s trade-wars.

WorkChoices was about the disciplining of labour-time. Capital buys our labour-power in units of labour-time. The productivity of capital is measured by how much value the boss-class can extract from those units.  Capital, therefore, drives up the rate of output per unit of labour-time that it subsumes as variable-capital. Managers do this through intensifying the discipline over us as their wage-slaves who embody the capacity to add value. 

Capitalists struggle to get rid of every obstacle to their freedom to have value added at any hour and under any condition. Even weak unions are a brake on the rate of exploitation of our labour. Hence, WorkChoices set out to universalize ABNs and individual contracts as barriers to our collective strength. 
Firms stand down workers without pay if there is a break in the reproduction or circulation of surplus-value. Bosses want to be free to call us in for random and/or broken shifts. That control over hours delivers a double advantage to capital. First, it pays for our labour-power only when we wage-slaves are adding value. Secondly, the uncertainty of shifts bullies unorganized employees into doing whatever they are told for fear of not getting enough shifts to eke out a living. The bosses lie that flexibility makes life easier for single mums.

Wages

On average, the personifications of capital pay us in full for the socially-necessary costs of reproducing our labour-power. That is what bosses mean by a fair day’s pay. Of course, they battle to keep all the value that is surplus to that amount. On top of enduring exploitation in spite of an equal exchange, workers know only too well how much swindling goes on. In practice, the bosses do everything they can to pay below that socially-necessary average. They will not pay super or penalty rates unless we are organised enough to force them. Here is one of the reasons why WorstChoices set out to disorganize working-people.

Of course, firms would rather pay us no wage at all, but then they would have no living-labour to exploit or buyers for those producing consumer goods, and, in the longer term, no orders would be placed with the firms that make the machines on which we make both kinds of commodities. 

Capitals are not just involved in a race to the bottom on wages. There is no point in paying a dollar a day for one pair of shoes if a worker with a machine can make ten pairs in an hour. The low-wage factories, here and abroad, combine longer hours, more intense discipline and hazardous conditions. Factory disasters in Bangladesh are driven by deadlines for foreign orders. Deadlines indeed!

The rate of our exploitation is not measured by wage-scales. A skilled worker on $130,000 a year can deliver more surplus-value than a peasant trained to snap parts together. Hence, the best-rewarded employees can be more exploited than the worst paid. 

Absolute surplus-value

Two ways to extend the length of the working-day are unpaid overtime and abolishing smokos. Bosses are also notorious for owning clocks which run fast in the morning and slow in the afternoon. Women at call centers in the U.S. of A. are forced to wear diapers instead of going to the lavatory. Stepping up exploitation by a longer day is becoming more pervasive now with mobiles, i-pads and home computers which keep workers on call 24/7. 

Capital increases its take of surplus-value by extending the number of hours we work. Its owners can benefit even if these extra hours are paid for at overtime rates. This is possible because equipment is not idle and so the overhead for each unit of output is lowered. Best of all for capital is unpaid overtime, and there is plenty of that. 

The greater the value of the plant, the more pressures on the agents of capital never to let it stand idle. Mining is a prime example, with twelve-hour shifts. Computer-controlled equipment sees RioTinto operating around the clock in the Pilbara.

Relative surplus-value

At the same time, the agents of capital try to extract more surplus-value during the standard hours. They strive to do this through piece-rates, speed-ups, and bullying.  

Occupational health and safety fall victim to productivity drives. Through speed-ups, capital passes the cost onto the worker through injury and death. The law backs them up. As Marx puts it: killing is not murder when done for profit. Year in and year out, supermarket-chains drive truckies to drugs and death to meet delivery schedules. Rio is pushing to cut sick-leave entitlements from forty-five to fifteen days a year.

Because capitalists install machines to extract more surplus-value, they invest in new technologies if they promise to lift the rate of exploitation, or to ward off rivals. The bosses favour innovation only when it protects profit. Labourers with picks and shovels produced as much surplus-value as the driver of a front-end loader when those navvies were on the dole in the 1930s.   

‘Your prize for saving time at work with AI is more work,’ declares a headline in The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2025. Who ‘owns’ the time saved? Labour or capital? The answer depends on whether we are working for wages, or are on piece-rates. If we have exchanged timed units of our labour-power for an agreed wage, all the time saved still belongs to the buyer of our capacities to add value. If you are on piece-rates, the time is yours. The catch is that the agents of capital will force down the price they pay per unit so that you will need to work longer to take home the same weekly income. By wages or by piece? Same difference.

Accumulation

Under the rule of capital, the only way to add value is through our exploitation to fund expansion. To do so, the personifications of capital first have to exploit labour to extract surplus-value; secondly, their agents have to sell the goods and services we supply so that as much surplus-value as possible can be realised as profit; thirdly, they have to invest much of that profit in resources for reproduction to hold off competitors. Only then can capital go on to extract ever more surplus-value. … and so on …. until the next crisis.

Profit-taking is not an end in itself, just as exploitation is but one step towards the expansion of capital. ‘Accumulate! Accumulate!’ Marx writes. ‘That is Moses and the Prophets.’ A capitalist who puts self-indulgence above re-investment soon ceases to be a capitalist.

Marx explains how money-capital goes into the production of commodities, which must be sold to secure a greater sum of money-capital to re-invest. The most important component in these new commodities is that they carry more value than went into their production. That extra comes from our labour. 

Market-value

If productivity is down, how is it that the ASX is going gang-busters through all previous records? And why is that happening if price/earning ratios on shares are also through the roof?

When capitalists are not rabbiting on about ‘productivity’ as if it were a universal good, they babble about ‘adding value’, blurring the one into the other. Accountants have long grappled with how to put a monetary value on businesses. One rule is to deduct liabilities from assets. But what counts as an asset? Should auditors embrace goodwill and brand recognition? If so, how to put a number of those intangibles? Nowadays, they are paid to accept whatever a corporation’s Chief Information and Financial Officers claim their ‘values’ are, and paint the bullseye around the arrow.

Piero Sraffa’s 1926 “The Laws of Return under Competitive Conditions” pondered how to measure the value of capital? In terms of its profit? If so, how to measure profit? If it is measured as a percentage of the value of capital, the process is circular. The professoriate abandoned attempts to resolve the paradox. Economics undergrads will never hear of Sraffa’s article, and most of their lecturers won’t have either. Ignorance is bliss.

Upon the announcement of China’s Deepseek in late January, the media reported that billions had been wiped off NVIDIA’s value with. Most of those billions never existed, but were one form of fictitious capital. Such figures are arrived at by multiplying the price of the last share traded by the total number of shares. Speculators erect Babel Towers of marked cards.

No sector in recent capitalism has been more innovative in this regard than finance. Yet, the world’s most successful investor, Warren Buffett, refused to buy into derivatives or collateralized-debt obligations because he could not understand them. The crash of 2007-8 suggests that traders did not understand them either. What they did understand was they had invented new ways to collar cash without going through the tiresome and risky business of making and selling commodities. Most of these financial instruments are parasitical on the capitalists engaged in exploiting us directly do so.

And so are all rent-takers, of whom two-dollar Rinehart is the exemplar. Until recently, she did not exploit mine-workers directly. Instead, she had lived off the rents that Rio paid her for the whack of leases nicked by her father from his partner Peter Wright. She had been unproductive in the worst sense. 

Producing barbarism

Under capitalism, even the most destructive enterprises are deemed productive so long as they add surplus-value. Wars and drugs are prime examples.

It is easy to see how war is productive of profit for individual corporations from Haliburton to Boeing. But war can also be productive for the whole capitalist system. The biggest example is how military expenditures kicked the U.S. out of its 1930s deflationary cycle. 

Drugs also benefit more than Big Pharma. Western imperialists used opium in the nineteenth-century as a weapon against the Chinese people to open China up to unequal ‘free-trade’ treaties. Today’s drug trade is productive of profit with cocaine and heroin just other commodities, like Coca-Cola and Holden cars. In addition, more drug money goes through the banks and other casinos than governments ever confiscate as the proceeds of crime. 

Producing communism

Within capitalism, unproductive labour is morally superior to productive labour since the latter is grounded on exploitation. Under communism, all labour will become unproductive in the sense that there will no longer be exploitation.

Communists raise tough questions about productivity: what kind of society is produced? We draw a line between what is productive under the rule of capital and what should be produced to serve the needs of working people. For capital, productivity means the addition of surplus-value. Workers struggle to produce a world without the want, the wars and the waste that capitalism over-produces.

Boosting ‘productivity’ under capitalism has landed the world with a super-abundance of material goods. Their over-production plunders the wealth of nature, leaving mountains of garbage and oceans polluted with islands of plastic waste. 

Surplus-value comes from the collective efforts of working people everywhere. Hence, no individual is responsible for all of the value that he or she adds. A lone craftsperson depends on workers in transport and power supply. Under socialism, all workers will be paid the full cost of reproducing our labour power. Some of that reward will come to us as money-wages. The closer we move towards communism, the more of our needs will be supplied as social goods, such as free public-transport, education, health and housing. 

When communists speak of boosting productivity, we hold to a vision about the kind of society that we can build together. Our collective efforts promise to enrich individual creativity, protect the wealth of nature, and meet our collective needs. Engels explained the part played by labour in the transition from ape to man. Putting the highest social value onto the productivity of social labour will make us more human.

 Appendix on the Productivity Commission

 

 

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Taiwan: internal divisions as tensions rise

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 August 2025

 

(Above: Parliamentary brawls are not uncommon in Taiwan)

 

Political controversy between the two major parties in Taiwan has carried all the hallmarks of classic US-led Cold War rivalries. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which managed to form a minority government following presidential elections last year, has recently attempted to challenge the main opposition nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). 

Constitutional attempts by the DPP to deal with the political stalemate, however, have to date failed to achieve objectives in a spectacular fashion and defeat. A further DPP-led round is, nevertheless, scheduled for late August, where another smaller group of KMT politicians will be targeted.

A recent DPP political initiative to oust 24 KMT M.P.s failed and has led to a heightening of tensions between the two major parties. (1) The electorate voted against the DPP move to overcome the stalemate: the DPP is, at present, faced with holding a minority government with 51 seats, while the rival KMT hold 52 seats. Neither party has overall control of the Taiwanese parliament; the DPP require at least six further seats at present held by the KMT to form a majority government.

Behind the scenes, however, a classic US-led Cold War scenario is being played-out. The DPP, being in line with pro-independence positions, is strongly backed by the US, the Pentagon, the US military industrial complex: the relationship is along lines of a puppet-master pulling strings over a puppet which dances and sings when required. The KMT retains a more conciliatory position toward China, and is, therefore, subject to US-led scrutiny.

The Taiwan Straits remains one of the potential flashpoints for US-China diplomatic hostilities; the Cold War is being played-out across a narrow strip of water separating China with Taiwan. The US also has a large presence in Taiwan, while officially and diplomatically recognising China, in line with the One China policy.

It is no surprise, therefore, to find the DPP regularly launching witch-hunts against the KMT, with allegations of pro-China espionage. They note, for example, that China 'has frequent contacts with the main opposition national party', implying connivance and influence with China's front organisations. (2) Another piece of supposed investigative journalism recently conducted on behalf of the DPP alleged that China had control of more than 5,000 spies in Taiwan. (3) It was designed to serve a deeper purpose than mere newsprint for casual readership.

Taiwan's spy agencies are based in the National Security Bureau (NSB), based in the Yang Ming Mountain district of Taipei. Its main focus is monitoring China. Its six divisions include: International Intelligence, China – Internal Security, Strategic Intelligence Analysis, Technological Intelligence, Telecommunications Security. (4) It permeates all level of Taiwanese society. The NSB is also authorised to 'integrate, co-ordinate and support national security-related intelligence operations conducted by various functional services within the intelligence and law enforcement community. Effectively it can act as a Joint Intelligence Organisation'. (5)

There remains little ambiguity about which foreign intelligence services the NSB retains strong links with.

The US State Department has about five hundred intelligence personnel based in Taipei; they are officially noted as being on 'temporary leave' from their employer. (6) They, nevertheless, conduct Cold War operations for the Pentagon, and push Taiwanese diplomacy into the wider Indo-Pacific region through the DPP-led New Southbound Policy. (7)

Washington is currently conducting a review 'of its military deployments worldwide – the expectation is it will lead to drawdowns in Europe'. (8) With the official position stated by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth while addressing the Senate Armed Forces committee in June, that 'Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific and the US is laser focused on strengthening deterrence across the region', there would appear little ambiguity about into which region the Pentagon is planning to deploy further personnel. (9)

In fact, it has been noted that 'Trump's view, also conveyed by Hegseth, is that the US is shifting its global priorities away from Europe and NATO to the American continental homeland and the Indo-Pacific region'. (10) Once it takes place, the strategic importance of Taiwan will be correspondingly enhanced still further.

The US intelligence presence in Taiwan is also directly linked to military arms sales and defence budgets. While the budgets vary with different US presidential administrations, they remain very large indeed when viewed with the geographical size of Taiwan.

                                               US ARMS SALES TO TAIWAN

                                                     1977-81  -  $548.7 million
                                                     1981-89  -  $1579.64
                                                     1989-93  -  $6847
                                                     1993-01  -  $17,070.6
                                                     2001-09  -  $29,938
                                                     2009-17  -  $14,070
                                                     2017-21  -  $18,047.86
                                                     2021-25  -  $7,727.4          
                                                Grand Total = $83,159.2 million     (11)

It is interesting to note, therefore, the recent heightening of political rivalries taking place in Taiwan took place after the DPP alleged that 'the KMT and its allies … blocked … key legislation, especially the defence budget, and passing controversial changes seen as diminishing the power of the executive and favouring China'. (12) The official statements are invariably timed alongside the circulation of bizarre conspiracy theories on-line which allege the KMT has been hollowed out by the Chinese intelligence services to serve the interests of Beijing.

In effect, the KMT while blocking the Taiwanese defence budget has been held responsible for challenging the US military-industrial complex. And, Taiwanese 'diplomacy', for the US, is big business. It is known, for example, that the US has 'been hoarding missiles for several years to strengthen its position in the Pacific region against China'. (13)

It was no great surprise, therefore, to find the Pentagon, with their compliant Taiwanese personnel, organised a major military exercise immediately prior to the attempt by the DPP to oust KMT M.P.s. The 2025 Annual Han Kuang exercises, run in conjunction with civilian drills, included 22,000 reservists, and were extended to ten days duration. The exercises the previous year were only of five days duration. (14) The 2025 exercises also included extensive simulations which included 'grey zone' provision, composed of tactical manoeuvres falling short of 'real-war scenarios'. (15)  

It is also highly significant to note that US intelligence assessments have predicted China will attempt to invade Taiwan in 2027. Their evidence, however, is not available in the public domain and would appear highly speculative. It, nevertheless, serves the military-industrial agenda, pursued along the lines of preserving the importance of Wall Street.

Despite influence being brought to bear upon the Taiwanese electorate to support the DPP minority government for ousting 24 KMT M.P.s, they voted to reject the plan, signifying a substantial shift has already taken place in popular opinion. It would appear the electorate favour a more conciliatory approach to dealing with China and favour closer relations.

Beijing, meanwhile, refuse to even deal with the DPP.

A statement from DPP Secretary-General Lin Yu-chang clearly reflected their disappointment at not winning the vote. He clarified their position as 'humbly accepting the results … and they had … responsibility to reflect on public sentiments more cautiously and adjust its approach to meet people’s expectations'. (16)  They had misread the electorate.

The next round of the DPP plan, however, is scheduled for 23 August, where they will target a further 7 KMT M.P.s. The influence brought to bear, this time, is that if the DPP plan fails again, the President Lai Ching-te administration will face 'strong resistance within the legislature before elections expected in 2028', the year after US predictions of China's plan to invade. (17) Whether an official presidential statement referring to the 'national direction of resisting communists and protecting Taiwan', carries any credibility with Taiwanese voters this time round remains to be seen. (18)

Is the DPP presidential administration merely clutching at straws to serve 'US interests'?

1.     Taiwan rejects bid to oust pro-China bloc, Australian, 28 July 2025.
2.     Taiwan's spy agency, AP., 12 January 2025.
3.     China might have more than 5,000 spies in Taiwan, Website: 1945 – 1 May 2025.
4.     Taiwan: Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), pp. 305-06.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Beijing keeps a wary eye on new US Taipei outpost, The Age, 18 June 2018.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Europe hopeful on troop numbers, Australian, 29 July 2025.
9.     US is carved into the landscape, The Weekend Australian, 12-13 July 2025.
10.   Trump's strategic blunders threaten US authority, Australian, 26 February 2025.
11.   Wikipedia: List of US arms sales to Taiwan, which has provided details of each individual arms sale with dates.
12.   Australian, op.cit., 28 July 2025.
13.   Missiles demand lifts US makers, The Weekend Australian, 26-27 July 2025.
14.   Taiwan launches largest drills, Australian, 10 July 2025.
15.   Ibid.
16.   Australian, op.cit., 28 July 2025.
17.   Ibid.
18.   Ibid.

 

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Thought you could stop us? On August 24, we’ll fill the worlds’ streets!

Written by: Louisa L. on 6 August 2025

 

How can you measure a crowd? The cops said 90,000, while protest leaders estimated 300,000 marched for Palestine in Sydney on August 3. 

Frequent protesters can measure crowd size by how many friends they meet (apart from those they went with).

For this writer, it was one person in the long wait before the march, another walking back on the bridge, and another heading home. GIGANTIC!

My brain compares it to other Sydney protests: first, the Vietnam Moratoriums (though strengthened by mass strikes) were much smaller; second, it was about three times bigger than the 80,000 in the Domain in 1988 against Minister Metherell’s sweeping attacks on NSW public education; third, half the size of Walk against the War on Iraq of 500,000 (estimated by the maths teacher marshal, on people passing each minute times length of time, plus aerial images of citywide human gridlock and thousands stranded roadside on route as bus after overloaded bus sailed by). So, 260,000 or so.

Guadian Australia employed an expert and came up with a similar figure.

With 94 percent of Australians opposed to war on Iraq, lack of industrial strength and worker organisation made it less powerful than the moratoriums. Some say it failed. But if you don’t fight, you’ve already lost. Our peoples united against US imperialism and its puppets. We understood our friends and our enemy. A battle was lost, but not the war.

Now, back to the bridge march.

“We’ve been instructed”

Cops systematically underestimate protest crowds. This time they did it with malice. They didn’t want that aerial picture showing wall to wall people from Sydney streets to North Sydney. 

Their much-publicised whinge “we averted a catastrophic crowd crush” at the northern end meant turning the crowd back on itself. This fake catastrophe was belied by the crowd’s self-discipline and patience, by first hand questions to cops about why they blocked access to a trickle at the northern railway station, “Isn’t it more sensible to move the barrier further back?” “Yes. But we’ve been instructed to have it here.” 

Ah! Neither common sense nor kindness will budge a cop instructed to do something, unless they have no other option. They must obey orders. They must be compliant. They are part of a force. They are organised, drilled to act for their masters.

Their role is to suppress the many on the orders of the few. 

On the Bridge, we watched train after southbound train fly by alongside us almost empty. Crowd crush, du’h.

Remember this!

For decades, police rarely tried to stop a large protest.  

In Covid, they tried it twice, the first Black Lives Matter protest, where every participant wore a mask. Then Invasion Day, where a compromise saw thousands seated in set groups in the Domain, and no march. Like August 3, police refused protest rights, and courts (still with vestiges of peoples’ rights won in historical struggles, plus a belief in a democratic façade) ruled to allow protest. 

Each time organisers said events would go ahead with or without permission.

Had permission not been granted, there’s no doubt police (drilled and armed with horses, body armour, batons and tear gas) would have systematically attacked in surroundings favourable to division and control by an organised force. But at what cost to them?

Many protesters dismissed ideas of police attack. “It’s too big.” “Why would they do it?” But they have done it again and again in this writer’s life, in the second Moratorium, the anti-apartheid protests against South African rugby tours, the first land rights protests, the Tent Embassy, and on and on it goes. Police create chaos and violence, and blame the victims. 

This time their court application failed. So, commanders ‘proved’ the protesters had to be saved from themselves and a non-existent crowd crush.

Instead of trains home, or a voluntary walk back to the city, or a drink of water or 4pm lunch or a toilet queue at Milsons Point or North Sydney, we had to walk all the way back.

Little children were exhausted, parents carrying them in relays. “What a strong girl (or boy) you are!” Tears became smiles, backs straighter. “Your little sister won’t remember this. You have to tell her! This is an important day! And you were here.”

We were all there. In downpours, we knew our footsteps were writing a small damp page in history. The next protest on August 24 will be far bigger. All those you could not come this time, because they were worried about police or the notice was too short, will be there.

Whatever the police force does, whatever its masters demand, we’ll unite for justice!

 

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We stand with Mary!

Written by: Louisa L. on 6 August 2025

 

An injury to one is an injury to all.

The day before the Sydney Bridge March, people stood for journalist Mary Kostakidis against Zionist political and legal attacks. 

While 140 early birds and oldies filled the seats in inner Sydney Atlas Club, a hundred or so more stood around the edges or on the stairs. Unlike Atlas, we didn’t have the world’s weight on our shoulders. We were elated the court had recognised both the just cause and overwhelming community support, and ruled in favour of the next day’s rally across the bridge. 

What a beautiful warm up for Sunday. Some rushed from a small Hiroshima Day march to the Defence Department in Sydney, but tiredness evaporated with brilliant speeches and inspiring music representing the cultural wealth of diasporas from South America, Greece and other places. 

Antoinette Lattouf asked a rhetorical question in the face of what (with tough personal experience) she called ‘lawfare’, ‘What can one person do?’ A lot!
It was also answered in song. ‘Well, if you stand for freedom, we can too.’

It was the answer to what investigative journalist and filmmaker, Peter Cronau, described as a series of legal prosecutions designed to ‘terrify and pacify the larger group.’

‘Mary was chosen’ he said, for telling of the bloodbath in Palestine, its history, the crimes of the IDF, of genocidal statements by Israeli leaders, for exposing lies, ‘for doing actual journalism.’

‘Our colleagues are terrified,’ he said, ‘but take heart at the battles fought.’ 

Anything you can

Iranian Kurd Mansour Razaghi from Pen Sydney condemned the Zionist ‘network of supporters’ that ‘shape what is called “the truth”’ and ‘monitor and threaten even small community outlets.’ 

‘This is everyone’s fight,’ he said, and asked about ‘the kind of society are our children going to live in.’ 

‘We need a strong network of allies,’ Razaghi said. 

From Jews against the Occupation, an Australian Jew of Armenian descent sang in Yiddish, ‘a lament for people not doing anything, telling them “You need to do anything,”’ anything you can.

Journalist and Pullitzer Prize winner, Chris Hedges, spoke from the US by prerecorded video, saying they have ‘weaponised antisemitism to shut down free speech.’ 

He stated proposed laws in the US mean ‘any kind of dissent is criminalised …  We have to stop this creeping fascism now. We are in a very precarious place. Mary’s fight is our fight.’

Mary Kostakidis herself spoke last, radiating strength and optimism. She doesn’t stand alone. She stands with, and for, all of us. 

Access video of the meeting here  https://standwithmary.org/news/

 

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Japanese imperialists disheartened by election results

Written by: (Contributed) on 5 August 2025

 

(A disheartened PM Shigeru Ishiba   www.weeklytimesnow.com.au)

 

The spectacular collapse of support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in recent elections in Japan can be attributed to two significant factors: their failure to identify important issues in domestic politics which include living standards for the mass of the population and an unresolved corruption scandal; their failure to act effectively with important foreign policy considerations which include tariffs and the Trump administration and increasing militarisation of the former pacifist country.

Japan has been governed since the mid-1950s by successive LDP administrations, apart from a few isolated instances. It has provided the political elite with a consolidation of long-term class and state power, and the ability of the US to use the country as a major hub for 'US interests' in the northern part of the vast Indo-Pacific region. In fact, the US-Japan alliance has been upgraded in recent years to be a formal global alliance; an illustration of the significance of the country for US-led defence and security provision. (1)

In recent elections, however, the ruling LDP lost control of the upper house, which followed their demise last October when they also lost control of the lower house. An official explanation about the election results has included reference to voters frustrated with price increases larger than wage offers from employers, and a younger generation who have regarded traditional leaders as ignoring them. (2)

Behind the scenes, however, a long-time corruption scandal haunts the traditional ruling elite of Japan. It carries all the hallmarks of unresolved business from yesteryear, with far-reaching implications for the present.

The assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in July, 2022, shook Japan. The
traditionally conservative country has, since that time, had difficulty adapting to political affairs without reference to Shinzo Abe. The ruling LDP has continually floundered without his dominant role. The circumstances surrounding his assassination have also remained curious. The assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, confessed immediately after the killing, to long-held grudges against the Unification Church, of which Shinzo Abe retained some involvement. Later investigations established that the shadowy religious cult had a strong foothold inside the LDP. (3) The motives for the assassination are clouded in shades of grey.

What was not so well publicised, for example, was the linkage between the Church and its leader, the so-called Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), later renamed the World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD). The two organisations were closely associated: established in the darker days of the previous Cold War in 1966, the WACL evolved from the Asian People's Anti-Communist League (APACL), which had been established by South Korean intelligence agents in collusion with their counterparts in Taiwan. (4)

An early WACL operation, soon after its founding, included moves to 'create in Japan a Korean-style anti-communist movement under the umbrella of the WACL and that would further Moon's global crusade and lend the Japanese yakuza leaders a respectable new facade'. (5)

Shinzo Abe eventually rose to become a dominant part of the respectable facade and successfully appeased the Japanese far-right with not well publicised visits to war-shrines for war-criminals and oriental fascists. The LDP turned a blind eye toward far-right members in their midst; political expedience was the name of their game.

The WACL also enabled a proliferation of new right-wing organisations globally and studies have concluded that it became a 'worldwide network of fascism … League conventions afford the opportunity for old-guard war criminals to meet, advise, and support the new-guard fascists'. (6) Japan was a central consideration; its Imperial past made it important.

It is, therefore, not surprising to find the emergence of the Japanese far-right Sanseito in recent elections. Without Shinzo Abe to provide them with cover inside the LDP, they now seek to establish their own foothold in the Japanese political system. Their popularist and xenophobic campaign slogans of anti-immigration and 'Japan First' carry all the hallmarks of fascists linked to their Imperial past pulling the puppet-strings on a younger generation of Japanese people. The far-right party, furthermore, finished fourth in the elections, and its newly elected fourteen M.P.s may eventually side with the minority LDP.  

The re-emergence of Trump in the US has also been an important factor to explain the outcome of recent elections in Japan. The country has a large manufacturing and automotive sector, which has been seriously affected with threats from the Trump administration to impose tariffs. While high-level diplomatic talks between the two countries have resolved some of the problems with a trade deal, the fate of prime minister Shigeru Ishiba hangs in the balance. He is strongly tipped to resign, and is unpopular. (7)  

A further factor being played out in Japan has been the re-emergence of militarism. Previously the country was held by a pacifist clause in their constitution restricting all military activity to only self-defence. It was conveniently ignored, however, by those who were previously associated with Shinzo Abe. A decade ago, the US and Japan subsequently reached agreement on defence and security co-operation which effectively extended Japan's reach into the wider Indo-Pacific region, on the basis of 'allowing it to act when the US or countries US forces are defending are threatened'. (8)

It was accompanied with high-level diplomatic initiatives between Japan and Australia; Shinzo Abe actively promoted the creation of an 'Australia-Japan Defence Co-operation Office' inside Japan's Ministry of Defence in April, 2014. (9) The initiative provided enhanced joint intelligence-gathering linked to US-led defence and security provision. (10)

To date, a total of 39 US-led joint military exercises between Australia and Japan have taken place during the past twelve months. (11) The fact the two countries are conducting joint military exercises every nine days has revealed strongly co-ordinated Pentagon planning for regional objectives, marked by wave upon wave of militarism.

In conclusion, the ruling LDP has been closely associated with US-led Cold War diplomatic positions since the 1950s. It has never been particularly popular with some electors who fear the re-emergence of Japanese militarism and Imperial designs, which continue to remain a taboo subject area and denial.

The outcome of recent Japanese elections remains evidence of serious disquiet taking place amongst an enlarged proportion of the electorate on issues they regard as significant.

1.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
2.     Japanese PM tipped to resign after US tariff pact, Australian, 24 July 2025.
3.     See: What are 'the Moonies', SBS News, 27 September 2022; and, 'How the Moonies took over Japan', UnHerd, 20 July 2022.
4.     Inside the League, Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, (New York, 1986), pp. 46-47.
5.     Ibid., page 69.
6.     Ibid., page 45.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 24 July 2025.
8.     Japan to extend military reach beyond self-defence, The Age, 29 April 2015.
9.     Ties with Japan amount to quasi-alliance, says Tokyo, The Age, 27 October 2014.
10.   Japan: Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), pp. 163-64.
11.   Japanese ambassador pitches manufacturing boom with $10 bn frigate bid, Australian, 23 July 2025.

 

 

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Forewarned is forearmed: Economic Reform Roundtable

Written by: on 4 August 2025

 

(Original graphic from www.artpictures.club)

An “inclusive” Australian Labor Party initiated conference, The Economic Reform Roundtable (ERR) will be held between August 19 and 21, targeting taxation and other means of making the Australian economy more dynamic.

“Inclusive” is perhaps something of a misnomer: attendance is by invitation only. Peak union and civil society organisations will be present, but the agenda will be driven by keynote speakers: the Reserve Bank on Day 1, the Productivity Commission on Day 2, and the Department of the Treasury and the Grattan Institute on Day 3.  

So here we have a focus on addressing the economic stagnation and downturn of capitalism in Australia. The Labor government, with their recent electoral victory are now setting out to reinvigorate the economy and ensure a more equitable outcome for Australian workers. At least that is how this initiative is being interpreted by a broad section of the intelligentsia and is increasingly being supported by the established media.

For example, in the Age on the 21st of July, Peter Hartcher, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald produced an article titled: “Advance Australia, richer fairer”. Hartcher, an advocate for confrontation and war with China has never been an opponent of economic rationalism and yet here we have an article extolling the

We are seeing an increasing number of articles that refer to the exploitation of workers and the need to address this through a greater proportion of the overall wealth being produced being distributed through wages.

There is a deliberate change in the messages being conveyed to the Australian people and it represents an attempt to build support for capitalism by presenting it with a more humane and caring face. For capitalism, it is a means of disguising its exploitative nature to enable and reinvigorate that exploitation going forward.

Capitalism's productivity crisis

For the Labor Party and reformists in general, this is a very good example of the role of Social Democrat parties and their followers in times of economic downturn and crises. We have a position where capitalism is experiencing what has been defined as a lack of growth in productivity.

It is important to understand how the issue of productivity is defined within capitalism. Basically it is in terms of the GDP relative to the total wages. In other words it is an issue of the price that can be realised on what is produced over the cost of its production.

To clearly demonstrate that productivity has fallen you would need to compare the actual output of commodities with hours worked over a particular period of time. And in doing this you would also need to be very clear about what components of work are actually contributing to commodity production and surplus value.

If we have a situation of over production, which is the case at the moment, capitalism needs to find a means of increasing production while lowering item costs. Initially the focus is on extracting more from workers without increasing wages. When this can’t be achieved through extending the time worked, or if it is socially difficult then increases in productivity will depend on investment in new technology.

Marx pointed out that in times of economic crisis, three changes are necessary for capitalism to revive; i) lowering of wages (the only source of profit through labour expended by labour power exceeding the labour involved in its production), ii) innovation through the introduction of new technology (AI), and iii) the resultant concentration and centralisation of capital. 

The focus over the last couple of decades has been on stagnant and reduced wages. This will continue but the emphasis is now moving to technological innovation and taxation reform.

Capitalism needs social democratic parties

In periods of economic crisis, the social democratic parties become an important tool within capitalist countries. They are the means of carrying out the changes necessary to facilitate the revival of capitalism without creating excessive social unrest. Keynesian economics after WW2 is a classical example of this. The reformist ideology of social democratic parties is an effective means of deadening the population’s understanding of what is taking place.

It is this way of presenting the issue that disguises the true nature of capitalism and encourages struggle around improving conditions with for example the common slogan “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”. It never addresses the issue that this is an impossibility as it is meaningless. To use the term fair in a relationship based on exploitation is a nonsense and simply enables the continuation of that exploitation.

Given the “cost of living” crisis of capitalism, it becomes necessary to move the focus from wage reduction to economic innovation. This is how the ERR should be understood and explained and provides the real meaning of the term “capital deepening”.  When looking at the second requirement of technological innovation for capitalism to overcome economic crises, the Labor Party is facilitating the introduction of AI and this will result in significant improvements in productivity. All the chatter about the personal impact of AI is a diversion from its real value to capitalism in terms of establishing a new base for the ongoing expansion of capitalism and exploitation of workers.

There are numerous articles related to the concept of capital deepening. An article in the Age newspaper on the 1st of August by Shane Wright, “Big cut in company tax – but it would come with a sting” draws heavily on a proposal by the Productivity Commission. An essential aspect of this proposal is a 20% cut in company tax for companies with revenues less than 1 billion and channelling investment into areas that will increase productivity. Wright quotes deputy chair Alex Robson “..the tax proposals were aimed at encouraging businesses to spend more on investment that would lift overall productivity”.

The fundamental issue here is that the Labor Party is doing what is required of capitalism at this point in time. Tax reform and technological innovation will take place within capitalist relations of production. It has nothing to do with value to individuals and everything to do with trying to rescue capitalism. 

That is not to say it will succeed. However, these strategies have succeeded in the past and they may going forward. 

Older workers will remember the Hawke government’s introduction of the Accord, which lasted in various forms from 1983 to 1996. It was Labor’s response to the inability of the previous Fraser Liberal government to successfully freeze wages. With the support of the ACTU, Hawke implemented a wage freeze in return for a “social wage” – increased expenditure on items like health and education, and wages indexed to the Consumer Price Index. The latter lasted two years. By the 3rd Accord in 1987, the move towards determining wages on productivity had been made. Workers were forced to agree to “multi-skilling”, or one worker doing the job of two or three in a scramble to boost productivity  and hence justify a wage increase. Profits were secured, but wages were not. In 1991, enterprise bargaining, related to productivity, saw unions weakened further as they were forced to negotiate at individual workplaces instead of on one industry-wide Award.  Thus weakened, unions had to face the onslaught of John Howard’s “work choices” after the 1996 election.

The scale of the current crisis is incredible as is apparent through the climate catastrophes and the escalation of wars as the different imperialist powers attempt to mitigate their decline as is the case with America or further their ascendence as is the case with China. Based on these developments there is no guarantee that capitalism can be revived, at least in its current bourgeois democratic form. There is the real possibility of overt dictatorship in the form of fascism.

Hence the need to counter such outcomes through exposing what is taking place. The social democratic proposals, supported by institutions such as the formal role of the unions needs to be understood and countered through appropriate mass work.

 

 

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For Palestine: Marching on a bridge

Written by: Louisa L. on 8 August 2025

 

(Photo Sky News)

What joy to march on the Harbour Bridge! To see those giant girders overhead, made by long dead workers, still remembered. 

History in 1932. Opening celebration in those dark Depression days. A forgotten fascist slashed the ribbon. Those workers, the real history. 

Jack Lang recut that ribbon. British overlords already preparing to sack him as NSW Premier, for refusing to slash wages ten percent. Refusing to repay ‘our’ Bank of England debt. Earned in blood and money. Earned in British loans to fight England’s war to ‘our last man and last shilling’. Debt ‘earned’ as Australia fought imperialist Britain’s first world war. 

A third one now on the horizon. A newer imperialist master today. And we refuse to pay!

More than one hundred thousand marched on Sunday August 3. Two lots of police told their bosses’ 100,000 estimate. By end of day downgraded by commanders to 90,000. That truthful extra zero deleted in their petty media lies. But we know!

We arrived from across Sydney, from Canberra, Blue Mountains, Wollongong, just those this writer met. The metro shut, light rail, some trains and buses too.

But still we came. Some still at 3pm, two hours after the stated start. 

And we waited. Quietly, laughingly, chatting, or shouting chants. Fifteen minutes to exit Wynyard Station, because streets were too full. On York Street or George or Grosvenor, 90 minutes or more, we waited. Few even knew there were the speeches, let alone heard them. 

In our hearts Palestine and its people. No one complained. We knew what others face. For nearly two years. We’ve seen. We’ve heard. We know! Truth cannot be hidden forever. In every mind and every heart, we knew this march to be a signal, that the tide has more than turned.

US imperialism. Zionism. Their end days are coming. Sanctions now. 

Whether blood or money, we refuse to pay US imperialism’s price. We fight on the other side.

For we are all Palestinian.

 

 

 

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Trump and the decline of US power-politics

Written by: (Contributed) on 29 July 2025

 

(Above; image from https://www.usatoday.com/)

Despite dominating world political and diplomatic developments since the end of the Second World War, the US now appears to be losing its cutting edge. Reliable statistical information has cast a rather different light over US claims to be a leading super-power.

It has far-reaching implication for Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and corporate sector and class and state power. There remains little doubt, therefore, that the most aggressive part of US economic system favours the Trump presidential administration to defend and further their interests. And real-war scenarios have become a serious agenda item as they fear the rise of China.

Mainstream media coverage of US politics and diplomacy have tended to concentrate upon Trump as the leading figure; he only represents, however, part of the Republican Party, which has long used far-right associates to protect select financial interests. In fact, serious studies from the previous Cold War have cast a long shadow upon recent developments. (1)

A leading critic of the Trump administration recently commented 'Trump is downright weird, if not dangerous'. (2) The character assessment may be correct, although it presents only part of the whole picture. Those associated with the administration are inevitably powerful and rich people; he represents the interests of the higher levels of the corporate sector. Trump's arbitrary and erratic decision-making procedures merely reflect a juggling of the interests of different associates amid an 'abandonment of any consistent ideology in a drive for state power'. (3)

They have serious matters on their minds: the Trump administration and their associates fear the eclipse of US power in the global arena. And they are frantic to defend their own interests. The walls, nevertheless, are closing in and the socially constructed reality created by class and state-based psychological warfare techniques, filtered through to an entire society, is now visibly cracking and under serious strain. It is unlikely to survive; the moronic rantings of the MAGA entourage are little other than a diplomatic embarrassment.

While the US remains the world's largest economy, China, a serious competitor, is quickly catching up. US GDP for 2025, for example, has already been estimated to reach about $30.51 trillion, while China's GDP will reach $19.23 trillion; the US, however, have economic growth rates of about 1.8 per cent in comparison to China which reaches 4.0 per cent with relative ease. (4)

Reliable economic indicators, forecasts and projections have also specified that the US economy 'is set to slow … with the impact of tariffs becoming more pronounced in the second half of the year'. (5) It will have considerable bearing upon the Trump administration.

Reliable studies of China's economy have also concluded 'China is the largest trading economy in the world'. (6)

China, rising from a low-level participant in global economic forecasting, displaced Japan as the world's second biggest economy in 2010, it now accounts as 63 per cent of the US total, and remains a rising star. (5) Japan, once displaced, furthermore, has now sunk to fifth place with an economy estimated at about $4.19 trillion, and 0.6 per cent growth rates. (7)

The fact that the US rely upon Japan as a leading diplomatic and military ally and have elevated the US-Japan alliance to become 'a global alliance … with the Indo-Pacific Strategy', has revealed serious economic considerations in both Washington and the Pentagon. (8)

While the US emerged victorious from the Second World War, its paramount position was relatively short-lived; following the Korean War 'the American economy was put on a permanent military footing. It did not require the outbreak of actual war to keep the economy going, the Cold War did just as well'. (9) The policy continued through the previous Cold War, the so-called New World Order and into the present Cold War.

The whole period was marked by the rise of the US military industrial complex and its ability to foist war-mongering and an arms race onto compliant allies. It was a lucrative business; fortunes were made. They now fear losing them, despite the US still accounting for nearly 40 per cent of global military spending. (10) The Trump administration fear losing the support of shareholders in the defence industries. The large, and unwieldy, military apparatus, with numerous foreign bases, facilities and logistics hubs, has become increasingly a liability rather than a display of US military might.

During the early 1950s, US defence spending amounted to 13.58 per cent of GDP, later, during the Vietnam War it fell to 9.27 per cent, reaching only 4.9 per cent during more recent military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. (11) The US economy, during the period, was growing fast. And war was, and remains, big business.

Today, however, the US economy is not as robust, and certainly not sustainable. Problems, therefore, loom on the horizon, which will include further cuts to government expenditure. It is unlikely to be popular with the electorate and society at large when the stark choice emerges between funding the military-industrial complex or more pressing concerns about living standards.

In fact, from a high spot during the mid-1960s when US GDP growth reached 6.5 per cent, it has now sunk to only 2.8 per cent last year. (12) It has been overtaken by defence budgets:
the Pentagon, for example, have already formulated plans to increase defence budgets to a projected $447.31 trillion by 2033, with over four per cent growth for each year from 2025 to 2033. (13)

It is not difficult, therefore, to assess the background to the Trump presidential administration, and where it remains based.

Demands by the US for NATO members to increase their contributions are best assessed in that light: in 2023, the 31 NATO members contributed $1341 billion, while the US contribution was $916 billion, which accounted for 68 per cent of the total. (14) As the US attempt to justify their increased defence budgets, they now expect other countries to subsidise their militarism and war-plans.

In conclusion, amid increased defence spending and escalating diplomatic tensions, the world has rarely been so insecure and the threat of war has become very real:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     See: Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party, Russ Bellant, (Boston, 1988).
2.     Could Rupert Murdoch bring down Trump?, The New Daily, 22 July 2025.
3.     Bellant, op.cit., page x.
4.     Forbes: Top Twenty Largest Economies (2025).
5.     Leading US indicators show clouds gathering, Australian, 23 July 2025.
6.     How China built a global network of ports, Australian, 22 July 2025.
7.     Forbes, op.cit., (2025).
8.     Ibid.     
9.     See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
10.   The Enemy, Notes on Imperialism and Revolution, Felix Greene, (London, 1970), page 215.
11.   US Defence Budgets, 'US Defence Spending', Econofact, 14 May 2024.
12.   Ibid.
13.   GDP Growth (annual per centage), United States, The World Bank Group.
14.   US Defence Industry Report, 2025, Yahoo!finance, 23 June 2024.
15.   Fact Sheet, April 2024, SIPRA (Sweden).

 

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Save our Oceans rally in Adelaide

Written by: Ned K. on 27 July 2025

 

On Sunday 27 July, about three hundred people from a number of grass roots environmental organizations rallied on the steps of SA Parliament House to heighten public awareness of the devastating impact of global warming and climate change on Earth's oceans.

Speakers included First Nations persons and scientists who have been warning governments for decades about the impact of algal blooms in the SA ocean waters.

The current algal bloom caused by rising ocean temperatures and changes in ocean currents has killed marine life in irreversible numbers as it spread along the coastal waters of the South-East of South Australia and gradually suffocated large areas of both the Gulf St Vincent and Spencer Gulf.

Speakers pointed out that when the previous algal bloom appeared in 2013 in coastal areas, marine biologists warned governments at state and federal level that the algal blooms would re-appear in larger more destructive forms due to the increasing impact of climate change on ocean temperatures.

In the week leading up to the Sunday rally, both the federal and state governments announced $14million each towards research about the algae and how to prevent it and also towards financial support for businesses and workers affected by the algae bloom's impact.

The federal government Minister Murray Watt did a "fly in, fly out" visit for a couple of hours with a photo shot of him on a suburban beach near some dead fish killed by the algae bloom.

The SA Premier belatedly expressed concern about the impact of the algae bloom, a brief respite from his obsession with Liv Golf and other sports events as saviours for the SA economy

Fund Our Future, Not Our Decimation

“Fund Our Future, Not Our Decimation" was one of the hand-written signs of one of the young people at the rally. It summed up what more and more young people think governments should be doing. Funding fossil fuel industries and spending money on the military industrial complex and Liv Golf for billionaire golfers are not top priorities for a growing number of vocal, active young people like those at this rally.

The devastating impact of climate change is affecting people in many walks of life. The algae bloom impact has seen united action by people from very different sectors of society.

First Nations people, commercial fishing people, recreational fishers, suburban and regional beach walkers, people who like swimming in the sea, surfers, environmentalists, tourism industry businesses and workers and whole small coastal town communities.

People from this diverse range of people were present at the rally in Adelaide. 

First Nations speakers at the rally said that people coming together from diverse backgrounds were a powerful force to save the oceans and indeed the planet.

 

 

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Israel illegally boards Freedom Flotilla Boat: Albanese must protect Australians involved

Written by: Nick G. on 27 July 2025

 

The Zionist regime’s Israel Occupation Forces yesterday stormed the Freedom Flotilla’s Handala.

Two Australians were on the boat, Robert Martin – human rights activist; and Tania “Tan” Safi – Journalist and organizer of Lebanese descent.

The boat was carrying aid for the children of Gaza.

It is believed that all 21 activists on the Handala will be taken to the port of Asdod by the Zionist navy and deported.  They have declared that they will immediately begin a hunger strike, refusing food from the Zionist entity.

So far, there has been little or no reports in Australian mainstream media of the Handala.  Indeed, our own report of July 22, posted to our X account, caused X to suspend our account with its 2000 followers with no other explanation than that we had broken its Rules. You can see for yourself whether our article was justifiably critical of Israel and not anti-Semitic.

We reprint below a statement from the Freedom Flotilla organisation on Israel’s illegal disruption of its mercy dash.

Please write to Albanese (Contact the PM | Prime Minister of Australia) and Wong (Contact the Foreign Minister ) demanding that they issue a public statement condemning Israel’s seizure of the Handala and supporting the right of Australian citizens to join the Freedom Flotilla and its attempts to break Israel’s genocidal blockade of supplies to the starving children of Gaza.

The Freedom Flotilla statement follows:

Israeli Military Attacks Handala in International Waters, Abducts 21 Unarmed Civilians

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that its civilian vessel Handala, en route to break Isarel’s illegal, genocidal blockade on Palestinians in Gaza, has been violently intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters about forty nautical miles from Gaza. At 11:43 Palestine time the Occupation cut the cameras on board Handala and we have lost all communication with our ship. The unarmed boat was carrying life-saving supplies when it was boarded by Israeli forces, its passengers abducted, and its cargo seized. The interception occurred in international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law.

Handala carried a shipment of critical humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, including baby formula, diapers, food, and medicine. All cargo was non-military, civilian, and intended for direct distribution to a population facing deliberate starvation and medical collapse under Israel’s illegal blockade.

The Handala carried 21 civilians representing 12 countries, including parliamentarians, lawyers, journalists, labor organizers, environmentalists, and other human rights defenders. The crew includes:

Human Rights Defenders Aboard Handala, by country:

United States: Christian Smalls – Amazon Labor Union founder; Huwaida Arraf – Human rights attorney (Palestine/US); Jacob Berger – Jewish-American activist; Bob Suberi – Jewish U.S. war veteran; Braedon Peluso – Sailor and direct action activist; Dr. Frank Romano – International lawyer and actor (France/US).
France: Emma Fourreau – MEP and activist (France/Sweden); Gabrielle Cathala – Parliamentarian and former humanitarian worker; Justine Kempf – Nurse, Médecins du Monde; Ange Sahuquet – Engineer and human rights activist.
Italy: Antonio Mazzeo – Teacher, peace researcher, journalist; Antonio “Tony” La Picirella – Climate and social justice organizer.
Spain: Santiago González Vallejo – Economist and activist; Sergio Toribio – Engineer and environmentalist.
Australia: Robert Martin – Human rights activist; Tania “Tan” Safi – Journalist and organizer of Lebanese descent.
Norway: Vigdis Bjorvand – 70-year-old lifelong justice activist.
United Kingdom / France: Chloé Fiona Ludden – Former UN staff and scientist.
Tunisia: Hatem Aouini – Trade unionist and internationalist activist.
Journalists Aboard Handala
Morocco: Mohamed El Bakkali – Senior journalist with Al Jazeera (based in Paris).
Iraq / United States: Waad Al Musa – Cameraman and field reporter with Al Jazeera.

The attack on Handala is the third violent act by Israeli forces against Freedom Flotilla missions this year alone. It follows the drone bombing of the civilian aid ship Conscience in European waters in May, which injured four people and disabled the vessel, and the illegal seizure of the Madleen in June, where Israeli forces abducted twelve civilians, including a Member of the European Parliament. Shortly before their abduction, the Handala‘s crew affirmed that they would be hunger-striking if detained by Israeli forces and not accepting any food from the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Israeli officials have ignored the International Court of Justice’s binding orders that require the facilitation of humanitarian access to Gaza. The continued attacks on peaceful civilian missions represent a grave violation of international law.

“Israel has no legal authority to detain international civilians aboard the Handala,” said Ann Wright a member of the Freedom Flotilla’s steering committee.

“This is not a matter of internal Israeli jurisdiction. These are foreign nationals operating under international law in international waters. Their detention is arbitrary, unlawful, and must end.”

 

 

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A Call from the Workers of Gaza to Labor Unions Around the World: A Cry in the Face of Starvation and Genocide

Written by: Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movemen on 25 Juky 2025

 

 

We are posting a message from the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement and the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza, released on July 23.  We are certain that it will further encourage the activities of Australian union members in support of Palestine , as well as of those community members picketing companies with links to the Israeli murder machine – eds.

 

 

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Gifting another $800 million to AUKUS “partners”

Written by: Nick G. on 24 July 2025

 

Above: Fremantle, April 2025

PM Albanese yesterday confirmed another non-refundable gift of $800 million to help pump-prime the ailing shipyards of our AUKUS “partners”, the US and British imperialists.

Together with an earlier gift of the same amount, it means that $1.6 billion of our money has been poured into the AUKUS black hole. More is to come.

It is no coincidence that the additional payment has been made as the US prepares to review AUKUS to ensure it supports Trump’s America First agenda. As part of the arrangement with the US, a President can cancel AUKUS if it results in any diminution of US war capacity.

With the current production rate, America will struggle to produce enough boats to meet its needs, let alone make another three for Australia.

The latest payment also comes just days after Albanese met with Xi Jinping, a gesture that had US opinion-makers (and some in Australia) suggesting that Albo was straying from the subservience required under the US Alliance.

It also comes in the wake of a disgusting display of backside-licking by Australian Ambassador to the US, and former Labor PM Kevin Rudd, who spoke effusively of his personal relation with Elbridge ‘Bridge’ Colby who will run the US AUKUS review. 

“Bridge has been around my place a lot of times, and so we have known each other for a long period of time, and that’s why I’m confident, quite apart from the mature relationship within our two defence establishments ... that we’ll work our way through this stuff,” he said.

However, others are not so confident, and some are even hoping ‘Bridge’ will burn the deal altogether.

Peter Varghese, a longtime Australian diplomat who ended his career in 2016 after running the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)  for PM John Howard as permanent secretary, wrote in an op-ed piece for the Australian Financial Review, “I hope Elbridge Colby sinks AUKUS for Australia. The US might yet save us from ourselves by adding conditions to the nuclear submarine agreement that no Australian government could accept.”

Those conditions focussed on a request from the US that Australia commit to the US side in any war with China over its province Taiwan.

Albert Palazzo, who was the longtime director of war studies for the Australian Army, argued in a mid-June discussion of AUKUS that Colby’s review, “should be welcomed by all Australians as an opportunity for the Albanese government to scrap the agreement and wean itself off US dependency.” Palazzo concluded his recent piece saying that, “AUKUS remains an affront to Australian sovereignty.”

We, and a good many others, have been opposed to AUKUS from the outset. But that opposition has grown in recent times. All opposition is welcome, no matter from whom or how early or lately it is expressed.

Our opposition is based on our fight for an anti-imperialist Australian independence and socialism. 

This is the only future for Australia if it is to avoid war, and end the injustice and inequity of capitalism.

 

 

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Resistance to Capitalist Climate Disaster

Written by: Sand G. on 23 July 2025

 

Source: www.australiangeographic.com.au/

On 15 July the federal court dismissed a case brought by Torres Strait community leaders that aimed to require the government to prevent climate harm in their communities. The court found that the colonial-capitalist government of this stolen land has no ‘duty of care’ to Australians to prevent climate related harm. 

The Australian Government, constantly singing about reconciliation, has admitted that it has no real obligation to protect unceded Indigenous land and that it’s more than happy to let corporations destroy country. It might come as no shock to many, since the Australian government never seems to demonstrate a duty of care to the people, especially to First Nations people. 

But the ruling of the judge says a lot about the future of climate action. The judge, washing the court’s hands of responsibility, said ‘this is a matter of government policy, and should be decided through political processes’. 

Source: https://anglicanfocus.org.au/

What political processes are available to the people to make sure that government prevents this climate disaster? Surely, with around two thirds of Australians agreeing for the last 20 years that climate change is an extremely urgent issue and more needs to be done to prevent it, that proper political processes would have responded to that?

Instead we have the opposite. Despite the clear will of the people to prevent climate catastrophe and protect country, successive governments bend over to big businesses, criminalise protests, and change laws to limit community appeals on projects happening on their country. 

Many Australian state governments either have, or are introducing laws to override environmental protections and prevent the public from speaking up about it. Climate protesters have been jailed and fined huge amounts of money, simply for standing on bridges or blocking trains, while the governments that allow communities to be destroyed by climate disasters walk free. 

In Boorloo Perth, protesters had guns pointed at them by policy simply for standing outside the Woodside CEO’s home.  Clearly, the political processes for the people to make government listen are not there. 

The judge, in this ruling, admitted what communists know to be true: courts, Parliament, and the Australian Government are not accountable to the people – we are in a dictatorship of capitalists.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Australian workers have quoted this for over 100 years, and it’s all the more relevant now. This revealing court case has shown that injustice is how government works. More and more doors are closed to the people as we stare down the barrel of climate induced disasters. Their answer to our calls for change is “shut up and piss off” while they let multinational corporations destroy our communities for the sake of profit. 

So how should the people respond? Our Party recently reiterated our stance on rejecting the rigged game set by the government and embracing revolutionary action. We disdain to hide this view, and we look to the example of First Peoples who have waged armed and unarmed struggle against the occupying government for over 200 years. 

Our government has no concerns about using state enforced violence on us, so how long are we going to take it? 

Our Party stands with First Peoples and other anti-imperialist anti-capitalist comrades as we work to evolve our struggle in protecting our communities from the threat of colonial capitalism.

 

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New Freedom Flotilla heads for Gaza as massacres increase.

Written by: Nick G. on 22 July 2025

 

On July 20, two events, one showing the best of humanity, and one showing the worst, took place.

At the southern Italian port of Gallipoli, the latest Freedom Flotilla vessel, the Handala, departed for Gaza with aid mainly for the children who are being killed, traumatised and wounded by the sadistic butchers of the Israel Occupation Forces.

The vessel is named after the Palestinian cartoon figure Handala, a barefoot refugee child who turned his back on injustice and vowed not to turn around until Palestine is free.

Handala is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a grassroots international network that has been sailing against the blockade since 2010.

On board the Handala are 20 volunteers including Australians Robert Martin and Tan Safi, Tunisian Hatem Laouini, ICOR Deputy Coordinator, and 77-year old US-born Palestinian Jew Bob Suberi.

These incredibly brave and committed people, carrying medicines, baby formula and stuffed toys, know what they are sailing into – the jaws of the Zionist beast.

Just hours before launching, Handala was the target of two deeply alarming incidents that appear to be deliberate sabotage intended to obstruct their mission and harm their crew.

On the night of July 19 or early morning July 20, a rope was discovered tightly wound around the boat’s propeller. This could not have occurred through normal use or by accident. It was a direct threat to the safety of the vessel and its ability to sail.

Even more dangerous, on the morning of July 20, the truck sent to deliver fresh water to the boat for washing and cooking on the journey, carried not water, but sulphuric acid. It splashed on a crew member’s leg, causing chemical burns. Another crew member who smelled the substance and opened the container sustained burns to his hand.

Flotilla members have video footage of the individuals who delivered this dangerous substance and have called for an immediate investigation and full accountability for these acts.

As the Handala was preparing to depart, one of the worst days of the deliberate shooting of starving Palestinians at the handful of food distribution centres controlled by the Zionists occurred. 

Eighty people were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, while nine others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, and four more were killed near another aid site in Khan Yunis, also in the south.

The aid distribution points are like cheese on a mousetrap, drawing in the starving humanity who are then routinely killed by Occupation Force soldiers. More than ninety in one day, (and close to 900 in total) – all unarmed and civilians, and a further 150 wounded and sent to barely functioning hospitals, represents one of the worst displays of fascist and racist violence imposed on the innocent.

We won’t get much coverage of the Handala in the pro-Zionist mass media, but its progress can be followed here: Freedom Flotilla.

 

 

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Terrorism? Where do we stand?

Written by: Lindy Nolan on 20 July 2025

 

Across occupied Australia, First Peoples have first-hand experience of terrorism. In Yuendumu the NT Intervention’s $100-million-spend on remote police stations saw a $7million police centre built before a single home was upgraded. It was a direct line from that to the slaughter of Kumanjayi Walker.

Before the damning inquest report was released, police assaulted and killed Kumanjayi White in Mparntwe Alice Springs, where the court and police centre tower over all other buildings. 

Yet, despite crushing grief, family leaders Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves and Samara Fernandez-Brown radiate dignity and defiance. 

At one point during the Intervention almost $80 million was spent on surveillance and removal of Aboriginal children compared with only $500,000 to support their families. 

Currently it costs the NT over $3,600 per day to imprison each young person. In 2022-23, 71 young people, as young as ten, were imprisoned. 93%  were on remand, 94% were Indigenous. On any night, between  44 and 59 young people  were in jail. That’s about $67 million per year! Yet, pitifully-funded programs to keep them out of jail largely survive on volunteers. It’s the same across the country. 

Last month public outrage caused the cancellation of a conference of first responders in Parramatta with Walker’s killer, Zachary Rolfe, as guest speaker.  It’s not about one or even many racist cops. It’s about a state apparatus of terror, the iron fist of military, police and jails, behind the velvet glove of deceit and so-called democracy. 

Terror spreads more widely as government complicity with US imperialist-Zionist genocide shakes peoples’ belief in ‘democratic’ lies. As Palestinian children, doctors, teachers and journalists are terrorised and massacred, here, eyes open. Here, resistance also grows against Segal’s fascist proposals, against laws to demonise protest, against the smashing punch to a female legal advisor and the trumped-up trial of journalist Mary Kostakidis, which aims to terrorise other journalists to self-censor or lie. Support Mary Kostakidis here. 

Killing innocent people

The Concise Macquarie Dictionary (named after a British Governor of the NSW colony who used terror against First Peoples) states terror means ‘1. intense, sharp or overpowering fear. 2. feeling, instance or cause of intense fear. 3. a period when a political group uses violence to maintain or achieve supremacy,’ and terrorism means ‘1. the use of terrorising methods. 2. the state of fear and submission so produced. 3. a method of resisting a government or of governing by deliberate acts of armed violence.’ All but the last meaning fits how Australia is ruled against most First Peoples, like a glove.

Language is constantly changing, with old words disappearing and new ones appearing. Meanings change over time. There’s also a difference between the dictionary meaning – the denotation – and what a word has come to mean in social usage – the connotation.

Today the dictionary meaning of terrorism has become secondary to the word’s new connotation. Across most of the world, and definitely in Australia, ‘terrorism’ is almost universally understood to be the killing of innocent people. The key word is ‘innocent’. But there is a secondary connotation – that terror usually comes from a small group of people.

Excitative terror or unstoppable mass movement?

The Red Brigades of Italy, the Baada Meinhof Gang in Germany, the Japanese Red Army called themselves Maoists, as did a section of the Weathermen in the USA. They were small ultra-left terrorist groups in the 1970s, whose members were rightly outraged by the horrors imperialism created across the world. 

Rather than having faith in the masses, these groups believed in what’s called ‘excitative terror’, the belief that ‘red terror’ comes first, that it will unite the oppressed masses and dominate enemy classes. Only then (they believed) the struggle of liberation is possible. They paid a terrible price for this mistake. All were isolated from the masses, were jailed or murdered by the ruling class, or forced into hiding. Their organisations were crushed.

Though they didn’t have the ease of electronic word searches, they knew the word ‘terror’ –appears in some of the hundreds of volumes of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other Marxist-Leninist-Maoist works.

It appears four times Mao’s A Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan from 1927. The Report’s introduction includes these words: “For the present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.” 

The huge, unstoppable mass movement of the peasants, not excitative terror, was key. This thread of reliance on the masses runs through all Mao’s writings, all his actions. He called them ‘our God’ saying with them, the Chinese party could remove the mountains of imperialism and feudalism. (Mao, The foolish old man who removed the mountains).

The highest stage of struggle

Armed struggle is the highest stage of revolutionary action, but it can’t be manufactured from thin air. Little groups, or even big ones – no matter how dedicated – can’t magic it into existence. 

In Where do correct ideas come from? Mao said of struggle, ‘Generally speaking, those that succeed are correct and those that fail are incorrect, and this is especially true of man’s struggle with nature. In social struggle, the forces representing the advanced class sometimes suffer defeat not because their ideas are incorrect, but because, in the balance of forces engaged in struggle, they are not as powerful for the time being as the forces of reaction; they are therefore temporarily defeated, but they are bound to triumph sooner or later.’ 

This is the case with First Peoples.

For 150 years they waged armed struggle. Its flame was eventually extinguished. But again and again, First Peoples resisted, no matter how crushing the circumstances. Forbidden language was whispered. Ceremony was practised despite enormous risks. 

In 1988, First Peoples announced, ‘We have survived’. It was a clarion call of unity and defiance. Like the Palestinians facing genocidal US imperialist and Zionist attacks which aim to terrorise all opposition, to crush resistance worldwide, they will one day triumph. They will remember the brutality inflicted. Their potential allies are growing in number and knowledge from each horrific blow they witness inflicted. But not all are active. Many feel powerless. We must help change that. We must help people understand their own collective strength. 

Lenin stated, “Oppression alone, no matter how great, does not always give rise to a revolutionary situation in a country. In most cases it is not enough for revolution that the lower classes should not want to live in the old way. It is also necessary that the upper classes should be unable to rule and govern in the old way”, that the ruling class must be in deep crisis at every level, and that suffering has reached such intensity that the masses are drawn into action. (Lenin May Day Action by the Revolutionary Proletariat)

Whether it succeeds or not, depends on organisation among and of those masses. 

Our party supports revolutionary violence by the masses in such a situation, to overthrow such a ruling class. We want that ruling class to feel the terror of the masses in action to overthrow their terrorist system.

We disdain to conceal our views and aims

Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party celebrated the intense fear of communism and communists haunting the ruling classes. It opened with these words, ‘A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.’ 

The Manifesto concluded, ‘The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.’

177 years later, after huge struggles, setbacks and changes, we stand by those words. We serve the people. 

 

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Solidarity with the courageous resistance against mass deportations and the establishment of a fascist dictatorship in the USA

Written by: ICOR on 19 July 2025

 

(Image source: www,lifezette.com)

The ICOR (International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations) declares its unconditional solidarity with the courageous resistance against mass deportations of immigrants and the establishment of a fascist dictatorship in the USA.

 

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Large rally and march in Adelaide to celebrate first people's struggles and culture

Written by: Ned K. on 14 July 2025

 

On Friday 11 July 2025, thousands of people in Adelaide turned out at the end of NAIDOC week to celebrate First People's struggles, recognition and culture.

In one of the largest turnouts for many years on a cloudy day with rain threatening, people's spirits could not be dampened.

The rally and march Organizers handed out Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, creating a "sea of flags" marching down the main street of Adelaide to the British colonist-built SA Parliament House.

First People's speakers included Elders, young people and women. Each emphasized the enormous potential contribution their previous generations had made over more than 40,000 years in looking after and respecting the land that colonial settler society came to call Australia.

They spoke proudly of the determination of First People's youth to continue the struggle for land rights and self-determination and to win opportunity to reach their full potential in whatever aspect of society they wanted to excel in.

Elders and young speakers were critical of the Albanese Government for going "dead" after their Voice Referendum got defeated. 

What a contrast with the Government's silence on First People's struggles and the high spirits and hope for a better future of all those who were present on this day.

 

 

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HIROSHIMA NEVER AGAIN! Five key demands for Hiroshima Day 2025

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 14 July 2025

 

This year is the 80th annual August 6 Hiroshima Day observance.

It comes in the wake of the US use of “bunker buster” bombs to prevent Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear power, enabling manufacture of nuclear weapons.

 

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We will not be silenced about genocide

Written by: Louisa L. on 12 July 2025

 

Several hundred protesters converged on SEC Plating in Belmore on Friday night, two weeks after Hannah Thomas was assaulted by police and charged outside the factory which manufactures components used in Israel’s genocide on Palestinians.

Local teacher, Liv, from Canterbury Bankstown Teachers Association which includes Belmore, spoke first, saying she grew up in Belmore, regularly watching the Bulldogs play at Belmore Oval. ‘I don’t think I could ever have imagined that in this same suburb of Sydney a company would be manufacturing parts for F35 jets,’ she said.

Two weeks earlier, she arrived anticipating another peaceful protest outside the company. Instead, she saw ‘at least ten police officers surrounding a fragile and terribly injured woman’.

‘They weren’t consoling her, or tending to her obvious facial injuries … I asked to cross the road to comfort her, and I was told I would be arrested.

‘I asked police officers if it was their daughter or their sister or their mother if it would be acceptable that they were left for half an hour waiting for an ambulance?

‘As I looked at Hannah standing alone, my heart shuddered … Where was I living? Could this possibly be Australia, where trying to draw attention to a genocide and a company complicit in that genocide will have you surrounded by police, as if you are the criminal?’ she asked.

Peace is union business
‘We cannot afford to be silent, because our silence will not protect us.’

Speaking of ‘unionised workers directly engaged in research and development, manufacture and export of arms to Israel’, she stated, ‘In capitalist society workers have very little control over what they produce. Nobody becomes a transport worker with the intention of furthering the sale of weapons to Israel’ and that ‘many are not even aware. But this work materially supports the genocide of Palestinian people.’

She praised those workers and unions supporting the Palestinian Trade Union Movement’s call to take action against complicit companies, calling out particularly the inspirational refusal of Piraeus Port workers to unload an Israel bound container ship, and the stand of both the ACTU and her union, the NSW Teachers Federation, which say ‘Peace is Union Business’.

Other speeches, several by Palestinians, were just as powerful. They targeted capitalism and Australia’s role as the wagging tail of the US imperialist dog. One pointed out the truth so often ignored, ‘Palestinians did not cause the Holocaust!’

Another told of a mother holding her daughter’s hand after another Israeli attack. Then she and her husband searching for her other body parts to be buried. Part of her body was blasted into a tree. 

What democracy?
Rightly, police were condemned. Along with jails, courts, the legal system, and ultimately the military, they form the iron fist of the capitalist state, the reality of force used to maintain that brutal system of war against our peoples. Individually, some police or judges may believe they defend democracy. But what democracy when it stands on stolen land?

First Peoples have faced treatment like that meted out to Hannah Thomas, that may still result in the loss of one eye, again and again for 230 years. And far worse.

At the start of the protest, as the commanding officer read out a section of the NSW Summary Offences Act (used to attack the poor, the homeless, and protesters since 1966 and updated since then) his voice shook. No wonder! Alongside US-Zionist puppets like Premier Chris Minns or the sorry federal crew like Richard Marles, Penny Wong and Michaelia Cash, he is on the wrong side of history. He told us not to offend people.

Liv, the teacher who spoke first, held up a picture of three little Palestinian children murdered on Thursday. Police told the protest leaders the picture was offensive. But no word about the genocide. No word about the dead children, or the father who buried on them on the day of our protest. 
No more words are necessary to show genocide and this system’s complicity.

But we will not be silent. We will not be silenced. A reckoning is coming.

 

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Thailand: Always close to a crisis

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 July 2025

 

Above: Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was suspended after apologising for her phone call to Cambodia’s Hun Sen.  (Photo by Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP)

The political crisis in Thailand is best viewed in the context of the present Cold War; its origins, however, lie in the earliest days of US-China regional rivalry and the previous Cold War. Emerging social, political and economic forces have challenged the status quo inside the conservative kingdom, facilitating a political environment marked by constant stand-offs. The popularist forces have, nevertheless, successfully challenged traditional class and state power, and correspondingly, US-led hegemonic positions.

Thailand, previously, an important part of US-led regional operations, is now regarded by Washington and the Pentagon as a serious problem. The US, therefore, appears to have reverted to covert operations reminiscent of the previous Cold War. With later military assessments now regarding China as rivalling the US, the present crisis in Thailand can, therefore, be regarded as the forefront of Cold War regional rivalries, inside their US-Indo-Pacific Strategy.

Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was suspended from office in early July following an investigation into a leaked telephone call with Cambodian leader, Hun Sen. (1) 

The pro-royalist conservative Asian country's Constitutional Court ruled to immediately suspend the PM after a petition of 36 senators alleged she had breached 'ethics' during the high-level diplomatic telephone call.

The removal of the popularist PM has plunged Thailand into further political chaos and it was noted that 'the Thai political system is grinding to a halt'. (2) The coalition government headed by the Thai People's Party was already experiencing economic problems and plans to negotiate tariffs with the Trump administration in Washington proved problematic. Earlier, in mid-June it was noted the Thai government was already on the brink of collapse following a key coalition partner quitting, leading to increased instability. (3)

Thailand is, therefore, facing a political crisis with increased instability, security considerations with separatist attacks in the south of the country, economic challenges and continued political upheaval. The Thai People's Party has already agreed to vote for a new prime minister to establish a temporary government with fresh elections to be organised at a later date. (4)

Behind the scenes, however, a great deal more is happening in Thailand than meets the eye of the casual observer. And Thailand is a country of 'trained eyes', educated by previous experience; elections come and go, the struggle continues.

Reliable sources have already noted that 'the conservative establishment don't know how to take power themselves because their proxies can't win elections. But the people that do win they don't like so they want to take them down. Every time there is an election, it gets subverted or manipulated'. (5)

The present drama has seen 'ruling coalition partners to withdraw support for her government, already teetering on the edge of collapse after coalition partner Bumjaithai withdrew support in June'. (6)

It is not difficult to establish the hidden hands of the US behind the malaise. And it has a long history. Connivance, and all which accompanies it, is the name of the game for Washington and the Pentagon.

Thailand, in fact, was the only country in south-east Asia where the military elite openly collaborated with Imperial Japan, to the extent of declaring war on both the US and UK during the Second World War. (7) After the war the US merely stepped in to fill the vacuum and maintain the military apparatus, subsequently increasing military aid to increase its viability. (8) It served 'US interests', and still does. The past has merged with the present.

Later military coups and involvement in Thai civil society were specifically intended to defend and secure 'US interests'. During the US fiscal years, 1973-77, the US were responsible for training 2,655 Thai military personnel, together with military aid, sales credits, arms sales, and further economic aid. (9) It was noted that 'increased military aid in 1976 'no doubt facilitated the counter-revolutionary coup of October 1976'. (10)

Repression and gross human rights abuses became the order of the day.

Thailand was exposed to the US Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance program, under which the notorious AR Regulation 381-20 was widely used. Declassified in November, 1993, it has provided a chilling account of the US-led counter-intelligence training. (11) It was focused upon all those regarded worldwide as against 'those who oppose the US Defence Department … during peacetime and all levels of conflict'. (12)

Whole populations were profiled with the program, and placed upon black, grey or white-lists for immediate identification; no difference was made between 'insurgents and political adversaries'. (13) Political opposition, in Thailand, tends to be secretive, past and present.

In an attempt to rid itself of its own sordid and squalid past during the period of the so-called New World Order, the Pentagon eventually purged large numbers of foreign agents with 'sordid records … the CIA seemed to specialise in hiring murderous thugs and military officers'. (14) It was merely a token gesture, however, to legitimise and enable US-led neo-colonial policies pursued through international financial institutions controlled by the US, to fling vast troves of finance capital into subject economies.

Thailand was one such economy. Its significance was largely due to the ability of the US to deeply penetrate civil society and government institutions, another was the importance of the Bangkok Stock Exchange as a central conduit for Asia.
  
And Thailand prospered; the Thaksin family also became central players. They continue to the present day, challenging the traditional power centres and authority patterns in the conservative nature of the country. The present political crisis in Thailand is merely a continuation of decades of stalemate as the two sides attempt to win power and establish a stable government.

It is not particularly surprising to find that one of the comments in the leaked telephone conversations between Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Hun Sen was her reference to the present-day political opposition to her government as 'a Thai military commander'. (15)

There remain numerous conspiracy theories about the present Thai political crisis. While it is generally accepted that Hun Sen was responsible for the actual leak, his motives remain a matter of speculation. He might have been concerned at the threat of another military coup in Thailand and US-led puppet forces on his borders; the conservative forces quickly seized upon it to serve their own agendas and remove yet another member of the Thaksin family.

Hun Sen was a long-time friend and associate of Thaksin Shinawatra, former Thai political leader, the father of the present prime minister. (16) Deposed in a military coup in September, 2006, Thaksin Shinawatra lived in exile for fifteen years. During that time, he gained full diplomatic status as a representative of the government of Nicaragua, and advisor to Hun Sen in Cambodia.

Some have suggested that Thailand's recent crackdown on on-line scam centres or the government's move to legalise casinos have been responsible for undermining Cambodia's support for the Thai government. Another matter of speculation has also been the concerns raised about the possibility that the MH370 that was shot down while passing over secret US-Thai military exercises and actually crashed in Cambodia. (17) The diplomatic silence surrounding the whole issue can be explained due to the secrecy involved. While the official position of the Malaysian government in the final July 2018 report noted they 'did not know what happened to the plane', its final resting place was allegedly found on a contested Google Map in Pursat Province, Cambodia. (18) Subsequent underwater investigations in the Indian Ocean, thought to be where the plane crashed, were quietly shelved without official explanation.

In conclusion, in light of the latest military assessments of China's rise stating that 'China is an Asia super-power, the strength of the Chinese People's Army now rivals that of the US military', the struggle in Thailand has become increasingly intense. (19)

With the US intent on imposing its Indo-Pacific Strategy upon the region, it seeks compliant governments. Anything directly or indirectly linked to the Thaksin family, however, is generally regarded as unsuitable for 'US interests' and moved aside. A substantial proportion of the people of Thailand, nevertheless, tend to see the whole matter rather differently.

A great deal more than open campaigning is likely to accompany forthcoming elections in Thailand; a trained eye in such matters, however, should be able to identify the characteristics, without too many problems. Magnifying glasses to the fore!

1.     Thailand in crisis as PM sidelined, Australian, 2 July 2025.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Thai political crisis, The Laotian Times, 19 June 2025.
4.     People's Party offers way out, The Bangkok Post, 3 July 2025.
5.     Australian, op.cit., 2 July 2025.
6.     Ibid.
7.     The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, Boston, 1979), page 218.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Ibid., page 45.
10.   Ibid., page 46.
11.   Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, The Army Counter-Intelligence Program, AR 381-20, Declassified: 15 November 1993.
12.   Ibid., Section 1.5, Mission and Policy, page 1.
13.   Army's Project X had wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997.
14.   'The CIA cleanses itself', Lead Editorial, The New York Times, 4 March 1997.
15.   Australian, op.cit., 2 July 2025.
16.   Ibid.
17.   See: Did MH370 crash in Cambodian jungle, WION, fact-check, 6 September 2023; and, Was the MH370 shot-down, FMT., 29 January 2021; and, MH370, The Independent (London), 30 July 2015.
18.   WION, ibid., 6 September 2023.
19.   See: Northern bases key to regional security, Defence Report,  Australian, 16 June 2025.

 

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The excessive cost of the US-led policies of "constructive chaos"

Written by: (Contributed) on July 9, 2025

 

Above: Damage to Tel Aviv from Iranian missile strikes       Source: www.msn.com

 

The US peace initiative between Israel and Iran is to be welcomed although it cannot be regarded as an example of skilful diplomacy by Washington. It is more in line with an act of desperation by the Trump administration; a changing balance of forces across the Middle East has had serious implications for traditional hegemonic and diplomatic relations. The terminology used by the US has carried the hallmarks of a panic stations mentality.

Secondly, the recent problems in the Middle East, caused by Israel, have been the outcome of a failed US-led regional policy. Washington and the Pentagon, therefore, plan to move on, halting too much damage to Israel, and its regional role as their loyal 'hub' for 'US interests'.

 The hasty and problematic US peace initiative between Israel and Iran in late June has shown how serious the limited war between the two countries was for Washington and the Pentagon. Conducted in a blaze of Trump-style diplomacy following his hasty departure from the G7 summit, it was what was not openly stated that was, and remains, of vital significance and importance.

It was openly stated, for example, that Trump and his entourage left early 'because of what's going on in the Middle East'. (1) In some ways it was, but not completely due to the Israel-Iran war. Other factors were at play, raising serious considerations for the US.

A changing balance of forces has taken place across the Middle East, with far-reaching implications for US-led regional diplomacy and traditional hegemonic positions.

The rise of BRICS, and their ability to recruit further members, including Iran, has presented a serious challenge to NATO countries and their traditional allies. (2) Iran is a centre of Islam. The second-tier recruits to the BRICS international trade organisation also include Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Indonesia, together with further additional 'partner states'; about forty countries have already expressed an interest in BRICS (3) One application, Palestine, is already under consideration, with a vote due to take place in the United Nations over its existence and international status, which will enhance its BRICS application.

While the Middle Eastern additional members of BRICS will enable a challenge to US ready access to oil reserves, Iran has the second biggest natural gas reserves in the world, and Gaza has similar reserves offshore. (4)

In fact, the BRICS countries, collectively, already have 41 per cent of global GDP; the G7, by comparison, have only 29.08 per cent. (5) The growing imbalance is set to grow. In the short-to-medium term it will act as a pincer upon the US and its allies, in the long-term it will render them as being on the wrong side of history. The position of the US is increasingly untenable, as the combined weight of the G7 have difficulty getting into the first hundred league of countries and their GDP growth rates.

It has caused the Trump administration to seriously re-think its options, which were traditionally based in regional foreign policy implemented decades ago.

While Israel was always intended as a regional hub for 'US interests', part of its role was to implement a policy of 'constructive chaos' designed to weaken other countries regarded as adversaries to traditional US hegemony.

During the Bush administration twenty years ago, then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, stated the US military operations in the region were designed to create the conditions for 'the birth pangs of a new Middle East'. (6) The US sought to create a new order which they could control more effectively. It emerged from the intelligence premise and assessment that 'real power cannot be exerted if one remains in the status quo, but only, quite the contrary, in the act of destroying all forms of resistance. It is only by plunging the masses into chaos, that the elites can aspire to ensure the stability of their position'. (7)

And that is what Israel has precisely done on behalf of the US across the Middle East: destabilising, bombing and illegally occupying neighbouring countries. Until, that is, a credible challenge took place from BRICS and Iran. It, therefore, sent the US into damage control, searching for further options. They continue to search.

It is no coincidence that the Trump administration has demanded NATO member countries increase their contributions to the organisation, immediately, and later, by at least five per cent of GDP by 2035. It is a way in which the US can challenge opposition. In fact, it remains the only way. The reaction of the NATO members to the demands of the Trump administration has, however, been a spectacle in itself. Most have been extremely reluctant to commit their governments to substantial increases in defence expenditure.

The fact that Iran was able to successfully bomb Israel by damaging its Iron Dome system by launching large-scale bombardments overloading the sophisticated radar has also sent the Pentagon scuttling away with their tails between their legs. (8) It was noted with alarm, for example, that, 'those new threats', had serious implications. (9) And they have, with evidence not particularly difficult to establish. The world's media are full of it.

Once able to bomb other regional countries with impunity while pursuing the constructive chaos policies, Israel is now, however, faced with its own bill for 'hundreds of buildings have been destroyed or heavily damaged, and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild or repair'. (10) Much of Israel's economy has also been 'shut-down … as a result of the Iranian strikes'. (11)

The cost of the constructive chaos policy has also proved very expensive: it was noted from reliable sources that, 'the mounting costs add to pressure upon Israel to wrap up the war quickly'. (12) Which is what happened. The media coverage of the role of the Trump administration in the cease-fire between Israel and Iran has been couched in terminology more characteristic of an act of desperation. It was not level-headed diplomacy.

But with the scale of the problem confronting the US, it was to be expected.

The fact that the Trump administration, subsequently, had to deal with a leak of sensitive intelligence material from inside the Defence Intelligence Agency which noted the US 'strike on Iran did not destroy its nuclear program', has revealed a chaotic state of affairs at the highest levels of administration in Washington and the Pentagon. (13)

The costs, for the US, likewise, have acted as a brake upon their foreign policy: a substantial part of their US$939 billion defence budget has been allocated toward the defence and security of Israel. (14) It has not proved an investment, but to the contrary, a serious drain upon their increasingly limited resources. The so-called US Operation Midnight Hammer 'saw the deployment by the US of 125 aircraft and 75 precision-guided weapons in strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities'. (15) It was not a peripheral costing.

Continued US diplomatic initiatives to defend Israel have also added to their increased diplomatic isolation in forums. Even Albanese has to pretend to be adopting greater “independence within the Alliance”.

In conclusion, with Indonesia, as a prominent BRICS member and the world's most populous Muslim nation, now pushing for 'international recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state', in a major diplomatic forum for Islamic Co-operation, the pincers are already closing tightly upon US involvement in the Middle East. (16)
 
Countries across the Middle East, excluding Israel, likewise, now appear to be weighing up their options and diplomatic positions, in terms of the dominant religion and future trade relations, between themselves and outside countries.

1.     Trump abruptly leaves G7, Politico, 16 June 2025.
2.     Medium – The rise of BRIC's and decline of NATO., Information Warfare Magazine, 4 February 2025.
3.     Ibid., and, 'Which new countries', The Birch Gold Group, 2 May 2025.
4.     Behind Israel's 'end games' for Gaza, The International Action Center, 14 November 2023.
5.     BRICS expands with new partner states, G.E., 25 December 2024.
6.     The Neo-Conservatives and the Policies of Constructive Chaos, Voltairenet, 28 July 2006.
7.     Ibid.
8.     How Iran broke Israeli air defences, VOX., 19 June 2025.
9.     Ibid.
10.   Golden drain: Bibi's $620m-a-day war, The Weekend Australian, 21-22 June 2025.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Ibid.
13.   'Loser': White House, The New Daily, 25 June 2025.
14.   Counting the huge cost of Trump's hammer blow, Australian, 25 June 2025.
15.   Trump's 24 hours of turmoil, Australian, 26 June 2025; and, Counting the cost, ibid., Australian, 25 June 2025, which has provided a full list of costs for Operation Midnight Hammer.
16.   Jakarta call for Islamic unity to halt conflict, Australian, 24 June 2025.

 

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Why Australia’s “deforestation” ranking ignores deforestation

Written by: Leo A, on 9 July 2025

 

(Source Greenpeace,org)

Environmental activists across the country were left with disappointment and confusion in late May when the European Union released its long-awaited first list of country risk classifications under the EU Deforestation Regulation, marking a step towards the regulation’s implementation.  

This listing classified Australia as “low risk”, subjecting it to the weakest requirements. This completely misrepresents the reality of the situation in Australia in regards to deforestation, and prevents the new EU law from placing any meaningful pressure on Australia’s logging industry. Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Wilderness Society confirmed that the Australian government actively lobbied for this misleading ranking.  

A closer look at which countries were labelled low-, standard- and high-risk reveals a strong pattern. Other major deforestation hotspots, such as Brazil and Indonesia, were only labelled “standard-risk”. In fact, the label of “high-risk” was limited to just four countries: The Russian Federation, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Belarus, and Myanmar. There are two key characteristics that the first three of these countries, and even to a lesser extent the fourth, share. First, these countries are geopolitically aligned against the American imperialist bloc, which the European Union is a part of. The second characteristic, which is largely a result of the first, is that they don’t trade much with the European Union, due to sanctions and other barriers. It is also worth noting that every single American-aligned country in the Global North was given a “low risk” ranking.  

Considering these patterns together we can paint a picture of a decision-making process that was designed to minimize inconvenience as much as possible to logging and related industries while still being believable to an average audience as an objective ranking (hence why Brazil, Indonesia etc weren’t labelled “low-risk”), and of course use the opportunity to throw a casual punch at some of the American bloc’s opposition.  

Environmental organisations in Australia have been quick to point out that Australia’s ranking does not accurately reflect our deforestation crisis. But they have often not been able to put the other pieces of the puzzle together.  This creates a task for our party and anti-imperialists alike to systematically help raise their class consciousness alongside them in environmental struggles, and to point out that deforestation in Australia (and the world) is overwhelmingly the result of US imperialist domination and plunder. 

The construction of an Australian united front, combining environmentalist groups with other working-class struggles, with conscious anti-imperialist leadership, is a critical goal we must aim for. In mid-June the Wilderness Society began to search for “values-aligned organisations and groups” that could become “potential allies”. It’s a small but important step in the right direction.  

 

 

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If you destroy children, you destroy hope

Written by: Louisa L. on 9 July 2025

 

Sexual abuse inside childcare centres has outraged Australians. Now 1200 children will need invasive tests for sexually transmitted diseases. It’s horrible. Those innocent little children. What despair, grief and underserved guilt their families must feel. 

Imagine their anger when they learn some centres apply minimum legal worker-to child-ratios that leave babies alone with one staff member; that most childcare workers are paid so poorly that half have less than three years’ experience and are unable to recognise warning signs; that even if they do, some feel scared to raise concerns; that some training providers churn students through online courses, where face-to-face TAFE once provided all qualifications, and TAFE teachers and other staff were often able to identify those unsuited to childcare before they graduated.

All this was exposed by Guardian Australia’s Lisa Bryant in late June. She and others had known it for years. ‘Constant turnover creates exactly the kind of instability in which misconduct can go unnoticed. A stable, valued workforce is a safer one – for everyone,’ she wrote.    

Bryant doesn’t mention that a privatised system breeds capitalism’s compulsion to chase the highest possible profit by pushing down costs.

But it’s implicit in her questions, ‘If someone wanted to harm children, might they be able to work out which settings offer them the best opportunity? The ones running on the bare minimum of staff, with constant turnover, lots of trainees, and as few qualified staff as regulations allow?’ 

A war on children

Only once before has mass testing of children for sexually transmitted diseases been proposed. It was demanded during the 15-year NT Intervention, by John Howard – with bipartisan support. Legislation was proposed and passed in just one late night sitting in 2007. 

Most doctors and many parents and caregivers refused to allow children to subjected to the abuse of mass testing.

Based on lies, it was another wave of genocide. Disguised as concern for children, the legislation didn’t mention the words ‘child’ or ‘children’ once. It was a land, water, gas and mineral grab. 

As the army poured unannounced into some bush communities, terrified adults ran to hide children, thinking they’d be stolen. Eventually they were stolen, in record numbers, there and Australia wide. 

Since then, by every measure including suicide, incarceration, illness, cultural and educational deprivation, intense poverty, housing stress, removal from families, the lives of those Children of the Intervention have been negatively impacted. It was war on children.

We know children are more likely to be sexually or physically abused in prison than outside it. Remember the footage? Young Dylan Voller, cowering in a cell alone, attacked stripped naked by guards. As a teen, strapped to a chair, a hood over his face like a wartime ‘terrorist’ suspect being tortured. 

And governments and media blaming the young victims for the despair they created! ‘Young violent criminals run wild,’ they rage. This year the NT Government lowered the age of criminal responsibility to ten.

Now every state and territory except the ACT jails ten-year-olds. They’re nearly all Black. 

If you destroy children, Black or white or brown, you destroy hope, you destroy the future. But more and more people begin to understand the truth. They know Australia, by almost every measure, is run for profit, for trillionaires, for war. 

They know Australia is a crime scene. They’re fighting back. 

 

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Did Albanese really champion Australian independence?

Written by: Nick G. on 7 July 2025

 

In his John Curtin Oration on July 5, PM Albanese is said to have invoked the WW2 Labor PM John Curtin to call for an “Australian Way” independent of pressure from certain great powers.

There is certainly a growing sentiment for greater independence from the US and Albanese has seen that it is a sentiment that he must do something to placate.

In fact, nothing in his speech lived up to the headlines in the pro-US capitalist media.

According to the ABC on July 4, “Albanese to champion 'Australian independence' within US alliance”.

The next day, it was Nine News predicting “Prime Minister tipped to 'ruffle feathers' in Washington with keynote speech”.

And on the day after the speech, when it should by then have known better, the Daily Mirror reported that “Anthony Albanese sends very unsubtle message to Trump in incendiary speech: ‘The Australian Way’”.

You can read this “incendiary speech” here.

The ABC headline at least identified the Catch-22, that the so-called “independence” would be confined to and constrained by the “US Alliance”. It was like a prisoner declaring that he was free – within his cell.

Of course, there was no mention of Labor’s slavish acceptance of the AUKUS arrangement, no apology for the sell-out of sovereignty in the Force Posture Agreement, and no commitment to an independent position on the Israeli Zionists’ campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people.

Even his invocation of Curtin and his defiance of Roosevelt and Churchill over the relocation of Australian troops from the Middle East to Australia during WW2 could not hide the fact that Curtin was not the great symbol of independence that Albanese made him out to be. He would have happily kept serving Britain had that country not walked away from us following the Japanese capture of Singapore. His statement that Australia now looked to the United States meant swapping one great power that kept us in dependency for another.

Real sentiment for independence can be seen in many who would in no way subscribe to our objective of socialism and Communism, but do subscribe to the need for a capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy and economic direction. 

These people are in all corners of social media, deriding Albanese for not matching his words with action.

For anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

 

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Unions should conduct anti-far right training

Written by: Nick G. on 5 July 2025

 

Above:  Following a gang fight in which some, including African youths, used machetes, Nazis capitalised on the event, calling for a ban on “Niggers”, not machetes.

A group of retired unionists in South Australia, the Democracy Alliance Australia (DAA), is calling on the ACTU and State and Territory peak union bodies to conduct anti-far right training.

The growth of right-wing forces is part of global phenomenon. Although serving the interests of the most reactionary sections of imperialist finance capital, fascism appeals to white working class youths who blame immigrants and followers of so-called “woke” causes for problems endemic to capitalism. They elevate men’s aggressive identity, shaped by membership of “fight clubs” in certain gyms, to a virtue, and assemble in black-clad uniforms and face masks in order to strike an intimidatory pose.

Far-right racism and attacks on migrants, demonising of “woke” issues, and the assertion of aggressive male identity serve to divide the working class. A divided working class is a weak working class. The right had success in targeting disgruntled workers when it organised a section of the CFMEU membership to attack the Melbourne offices of the union in an anti-vaxxer demonstration during the Covid lock down.

In parallel with the street thugs are the parliamentary servants of capitalism and imperialism who pass a range of anti-democratic and anti-union legislation.
The combination of these two forms is sometimes referred to as “two-track fascism”.  There does not need to be a formal connection between them: they operate from different platforms but serve the same ends. 

Overseas, several peak union groups are conducting anti-far right training. The British Trade Union Council has anti-far right training courses. The local off-shoot of a British group, All Together Now, offers paid training to challenge far-right extremism. These are welcome developments, but they are also limited in their scope to training people to identify misinformation and disinformation spread by extreme right-wing lobby groups and largely concentrate on the street thug track of fascism, ignoring the role of the parliamentary track in creating anti-people and anti-union laws.

The DAA has written to ACTU leaders Sally McManus and Michelle O’Neill seeking to discuss anti-far right union training, but so far without a response.

We believe that the voice of rank and file workers should be raised in support of the DAA’s call. Workers through their unions should call for two-track anti-fascist and anti-far right training courses to be conducted by their own union and peak bodies of unions at the State, Territory, and federal levels.

 

 

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Australia/Gaza: Opponents of repression face increased repression

Written by: Nick G. on 1 July 2025

 

In order to maintain their support for the genocidal Zionist regime ​in Occupied Palestine (aka Israel), Australian authorities are increasingly using repression against its opponents.

Police are regularly deployed to prevent and restrain demonstrations and rallies, either declaring them unlawful or imposing conditions related to the route or place chosen for the rally.

The most recent example of police brutality at a pro-Palestinian rally was at the rally in front of SEC Plating in Sydney.  The company manufactures plating, engineering coating and finishes for F-35 fighter jets used by Israel in its death raids on Gaza.

Police declared the rally “unauthorised”, although legally, there is a right to protest in New South Wales. Police issued a “move on” order then moved in to make arrests. 

Maritime Union of Australia branch organiser Shane Reside, who moved in to try and stop the police violence, was arrested. So were another three, including Hannah Thomas, a rank and file member of the Australian Services Union.

In her case, the diminutive (155cm) Thomas, who was believed to have been acting as a legal observer, was tripped to the ground, and then assaulted by arresting police, resulting in severe damage to an eye. It was reported that this would necessitate surgery and may result in the loss of sight in that eye. 

She was charged with resisting arrest (resisting assault at best) and failure to comply with officers who were throwing her to the ground.

In response to community outcry, police have been forced to declare her assault a “critical incident”, that is, an event involving a NSW Police officer that results in the death or serious injury of a person, with police required to investigate once declared.

So, the police will investigate the police! As if we haven’t seen this sort of farce played out before!

This is the latest in a whole string of repressions, not all of which have involved the police. Journalist Antoinette Lattouf has just won her case after being unlawfully sacked by the ABC which had been lobbied for her dismissal by Zionist organisations. 

So-called “anti-Semitism” laws have been passed to restrict criticism of Zionist Israel and its ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Laws against the right to support the Palestinians come from the same politicians who have enacted laws against the right of workers to organise. 

Accordingly, workers have emerged as leaders of pro-Palestinian activities. There is the umbrella group Unionists for Palestine, as well as rank-and-file organisations in individual organisations.

This is the case in other countries as well.

We should thank the politicians and the police for encouraging the workers to organise and become active.

Where there is repression, there will be resistance.

Defiance of reactionary authority is a very good thing.

 

 

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SA toxic algal bloom persists under wintry conditions

Written by: Nick G. on 1 July 2025

 

The SA toxic algal bloom, first reported in Vanguard on April 12 (see here) has shown no signs of an anticipated dissipation as colder sea temperatures and rougher seas set it.

The algal bloom began in March at the southern tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula with masses of dead fish washed up onto popular surfing beaches, and surfers and beachgoers complaining of headaches, nausea and loss of vision. 

Then the discoloured, frothy waters spread across to Kangaroo Island and parts of Yorke Peninsula. Divers at Edithburgh said all sea life was being killed. Some have described the effect as like an “underwater bush fire”.

There are various sea algae. This one was first reported in Japan in 1972 and has the scientific name Karenia mikimotoi.  

Algal blooms occur when sea water temperatures rise and there is minimal disturbance of the sea by winds pushed ahead of large rain-bearing clouds, creating the perfect conditions for the growth of algae. 

Algal blooms are normally dispersed when sea water temperatures return to normal, and winter brings stronger winds and stormy weather. Over the past month, both conditions have occurred. In the most recent storm surge a week ago, jetties along the SA coast were damaged, yet the toxic bloom was not.

Not only has it not disappeared, but storm winds carried the algal froth from the open beaches of the Coorong, where mass killings of cockles (pipis) had occurred, over the high sand dunes and into the Coorong, killing fish and a leaving a carpet of dead sea worms and other sea bed creatures.

In recent days, the algal bloom has travelled north to Adelaide’s suburban beaches, possibly in search of marginally warmer water.

Marine biologist Mike Bossley has spent thousands of hours roaming the beach in his lifetime, but since Tuesday has sighted species he's never seen on the shore.

"Different kinds of rays and sharks, lots of pipefish, things called ling, which is a very unusual thing. I've never seen them washed up on the beach before, and lots of species of fish that I don't even know the names of," he said.

Scientists say that if the bloom persists beyond winter, it will spread even further as warmer weather returns.

The bloom has already persisted for four months. Normally, it lasts for less than a month. The following table shows how other mikimotoi outbreaks have fared:

The SA algal bloom is longer and more intense than other mikimotoi outbreaks and is yet further proof that as carbon-induced global warming heats the planet, the scale of ecological disaster intensifies.

Capitalism, with the big fossil fuel corporations at its core, is waging a destructive war on nature in the drive for expanded accumulation of profits, of capital.

We cannot wait until we have only our proverbial chains to lose.

We are losing the war for a sustainable environment and for the prevention of the destruction of biodiversity.

With the SA government bidding to host COP31, the 2026 United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, participants will be able to choose between visiting the world’s largest renewable energy battery or the battered beaches and seas that are the evidence for urgent action, not talk-fests, to save the planet.

 

 

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Drought

Written by: Duncan B. on 26 June 2025

 

Henry Lawson called drought the “red marauder.” Climate-change deniers and National Party politicians love quoting Dorothea Mackellar’s land of “drought and flooding rains” try to convince us that droughts are normal and natural in Australia.

There is no doubt that Australia is a land of drought. Bureau of Meteorology records show that on average, Australia experiences a severe drought every 18 years. Many droughts have been recorded in Australia from the early days of colonisation to the present. They include the Federation drought of the early twentieth century, the World War 2 drought of 1937- 45 and the Millennium drought of 1996 - 2010.

At present, parts of South Australia, most of western Victoria and northern Tasmania are experiencing severe drought. The Federal and state governments have belatedly come to the assistance of drought-affected farmers with various cash grants and plans to improve farmers’ access to hay. The Victorian Government has paused the introduction of a higher Emergency Services levy on drought- affected farmers. As usual these band-aid measures are too little too late.

Droughts existed in Australia before colonisation, but indigenous Australians managed their lives to deal with them. They moved from place to place as the availability of food and water dictated, taking only what they needed and leaving sufficient supplies for other people and for future use. They set aside areas of food plants and game as sanctuaries which were left untouched to ensure food for the future.

With colonisation came farming practices which quickly began to degrade the land and worsened the effects of droughts. Sheep compacted the soil so that rainwater ran off instead of soaking into the ground. Large-scale clearing of trees led to a reduction in rainfall, and this, combined with the destruction of native grasses by sheep led to soil erosion and fierce dust storms.

The effects of climate change will make hot days hotter, increase the severity of extreme rainfall events and increase the likelihood of droughts in Australia. Government hand-outs to farmers will not solve the problem of drought. Only reducing and reversing the effects of climate change will achieve that.

Many farmers are deeply involved in developing innovative farming practices which seek to reduce the effects of agriculture on the environment and reduce the use of inputs such as fuel, electricity and water. Many have gladly accepted wind turbines and solar panels on their farms. In embracing action against climate change these farmers are working towards making agriculture sustainable in Australia. They are leaving behind the climate-change denying, nuclear power- loving dinosaurs of the National Party.

 

 

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Public sector workers take on SA government

Written by: Ned K. on 26 June 2025

 

Public sector workers in South Australia are refusing to accept the SA Government's attempt to peg wage increases in new Enterprise Agreements at 3% per year.  Unions representing a broad range of occupations from hospital cleaners to salaried medical officers employed in public hospitals have been negotiating for new Agreements since mid-2024.

The medical officers and their union, SASMOA, have been the punching bag for the Government and Premier Malinauskas in particular.

The medical officers wage claim is for 10% increase each year for three years. Malinauskas, ably supported by the Murdoch Press with a headline "Mali slams belligerent union claims", (Adelaide Advertiser page 1, 26 June 2025) claims that such wage increases will put the State of SA Government budget "back into deficit" and that such wage increases will impede the Government's ability "to invest in infrastructure".

Workers across the public sector are not copping this argument. They know that some of the public sector jobs in SA are 20% lower pay than the same jobs in the eastern States. This includes medical officers' jobs in critical areas of patient care.

Hospital cleaners, disability workers, food services workers and nurses have all seen the above Award margin in their Enterprise Agreements shrink over the last decade as governments took advantage of the job losses in manufacturing in SA with the closure of the car industry to depress public sector wages and increase workloads.

Workers can see that the current "Mr Popularity" Premier Malinauskas has no problem in finding undisclosed money amounts for car races, Liv Golf and AFL Gather Rounds, plus corporate welfare to big business in various forms, but when it comes to frontline workers providing public services, there's a hue and cry about "greedy" unions!

The attempt to clamp down on public sector workers' incomes comes at a time when NATO countries agree to the USA's demand to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP and pressure from the USA for Australia to follow. 

In SA, the SA Government sold off land to expand the proposed nuclear submarine ship building base at Osborne in Adelaide's northwestern suburbs. More SA Government money has gone towards supporting the submarine base but the exact amounts are rarely published.

Malinauskas is committed to the submarine base as the saviour of SA's future. 

The higher the public sector wages paid, the less money to throw towards SA as "the Defence State".

There is also the reality that under capitalism, workers in the private sector know that historically public sector wages have been higher than in the private sector and have set the benchmark for many workers in the private sector to struggle towards.

So, the lower the public sector wages are puts downward pressure on wages across the board and hence increases profitability in the private sector as a whole.

Malinauskas comes from the line of politicians dating back to the days of the Groupers and the DLP. Dedicated supporters of the "freedom and democracy" of capitalism.

Keeping the working people at bay through a "bread and circuses" approach is the game the ruling class and its Premier play.

The determination in struggle of public sector workers shows that this strategy is wearing thin. 

 

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Parliamentary rightists…birds of a feather, all flocking together

Written by: (Contributed) on 24 June 2025

 

With the end of the era of globalisation in sight, it is important to study how it evolved from its origins. Moves to implement economic rationalism in the 1970s were accompanied by the creation of the International Democrat Union (IDU) in the early 1980s to legitimise the policies into mainstream centre-right parties: privatisation, de-regulation, liberalisation.

While the centre-right were quick to applaud economic rationalism they turned a blind-eye to what accompanied it and continue to remain in a state of denial; repression, far-right political involvement and widespread criminal activity, developing alongside the policies, which drew upon the opening of 'opportunities'. Some of the main players remain people of interest, carrying considerable baggage.

The IDU was officially established in London on 24 June 1983, and was composed of nineteen centre-right political parties. The Conservative Party of prime minister Margaret Thatcher was a founding member and major player within the organisation in conjunction with US vice-president George HW Bush, a former director of the CIA under President Ford in 1976. The Australian Liberal Party of Andrew Peacock, with deputy leader John Howard waiting in the wings, was another founding member. It was a tradecraft front-organisation.

The main task of the newly created IDU was to legitimise economic rationalist policies, which favoured the corporate sector at the expense of all other sectors of society. The aim was to increase the levels of exploitation of labour against those of capital, having direct implications for traditional industrial relations techniques and the role of trade unions.

The policies were unpopular with many economists who regarded the outdated right-wing philosophies of the Chicago School of Economics of the 1920s as a relic of inter-war failures. The policies had, however, been revamped for Cold War use in 1973 with their imposition by the Pinochet military dictatorship following the September coup of that year, with serious political implications. Seemingly 'democratic' countries do not favour coups.  

The role of the US behind Pinochet had been well publicised elsewhere; it has been noted that 'the junta – the new military leadership – killed 30,000 former Allende government supporters in the first few months of power. Most were arrested, tortured and disappeared'. (1) The repression, however, did not end there. General Pinochet was actually noted as stating his military policies for the DINA, the secret police, were:
                                        
                                        First, the aim was to stop terrorism,
                                        First, we kill all the subversives,
                                        then we will kill their collaborators;
                                        then their sympathisers;
                                        then those who are indifferent. (2)      

The main instrument of power adopted by Pinochet was Operation Condor, which was established by linking intelligence services across the southern half of the Americas, which, at that time, were controlled largely by right-wing military regimes. (3)

Other players were drawn into the military planning.

Established during the previous Cold War, the Taiwan and South Korea-based World Anti-Communist League (WACL) specialised in counter-insurgency and country-intelligence training, and was increasingly drawn into Latin American repression during the 1970s. (4) In fact, it was noted that in the early 1970s the largely Asian-based far-right organisation had 'created the entire Latin network'. (5)

The WACL has been described as an 'umbrella organisation for extreme tight-wing militants. It includes expatriate Nazis, Italian terrorists, Japanese fascists, racist Afrikaners, Latin American death squad leaders, a number of US congressmen and former CIA agents'. (6) The overlap between Operation Condor and the WACL has not been difficult to establish, with Argentina being a central player: the Triple A in the 1970s became 'an organisation of right-wing murder, terror and propaganda whose activity was co-ordinated with the military regime. It was also the Argentine branch of the WACL'. (7) Studies of the period, furthermore, found that 'the WACL … was … the primary exporter of the Argentine Dirty War'. (8)  

It also soon provided much of the organisational frameworks and networks which became the Iran-Contra conspiracy, when illegal arms trafficking merged with drug trafficking to sponsor covert operations. The US intelligence services were heavily implicated in the conspiracy with organised crime. (9)

The repressive apparatus was soon extended into Europe and Southern Africa with the notorious Third Phase which included 'the formation of special teams from member countries to travel anywhere in the world to non-member countries to carry out sanctions, including, assassinations, against terrorists or supporters of a terrorist organisation from Operation Condor member countries'. (10)  

The Third Phase would appear to have operated in conjunction with co-ordinated counter-intelligence activities conducted by US-trained personnel world-wide, against those perceived and profiled as opposing the US Defence Department, 'during peacetime and all levels of conflict'. (11) It was the age of computerisation of intelligence records and profiles.

It also included representatives of the West German, French and British intelligence services
visiting 'Argentina to discuss methods for establishment of an anti-subversive organisation similar to Condor' in September 1977. (12) Concerns had arisen that the 'terrorist/subversive threat had reached such dangerous levels in Europe that they believed it best if they pooled intelligence resources in a co-operative organisation such as Condor'. (13)

In Southern Africa the Argentine military regime, which was waging a Dirty War against the political opposition, enabled four Condor specialists attached to the Argentine Embassy in Pretoria in 1979 to train South African security police and counterparts where they 'exchanged ideas regarding methods of interrogation'. (14)

The timing of the creation of the IDU may also have been linked to developments in Argentina of the same year. Following the Malvinas/Falklands War in 1982, the military junta in Buenos Aires was forced to stand down and make way for a transition to democratic
elections. In December, 1983, Argentina had an elected government. (15) Some of the nineteen founder members of the IDU, and their associates, however, might have been just a little concerned about the implications of Argentina re-claiming democratic credentials and their possible disclosures about what had accompanied the Dirty War with their connivance.

When John Howard, Australian Liberal Party leader, took office as chair of the IDU, which he served for over a decade before stepping down in 2014, he must have known about the shadowy historical and highly questionable background of the organisation and their associates. Ignorance is no excuse; his own parliamentary security personnel must have known, or had access to those who did. The Office of National Assessments, likewise, must have known. That was their job. If they were competent.

In light of revelations emerging under his tenure, Howard's silence over the issue remains highly questionable. In 2006, for example, an Argentine judge ruled that Rodolpo Almiron, a former leader of the Triple A, previously employed by Manuel Fraga as chief of his personal security team, was to be charged with 'crimes against humanity'. (16) Fraga, and his Francoist People's Alliance, were among the original founders of the IDU. It happened on Howard's 'watch'; people at the top are expected to be kept informed by their supporters.

Secondly, Howard's attendance and active involvement with the WACL and later re-named World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD), has appeared to be conveniently overlooked by his supporters. In 1989, a total of 120 delegates representing fifty countries attended the 22nd WACL annual conference in Brisbane. (17) It seems almost unbelievable that 120 people representing such an organisation could be allowed to enter Australia. Or is it? The immigration department, presumably, looked the other way as the motley crew walked into Australia carrying suitcases. Was their baggage even checked?

When former Australian Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison joined the board of the IDU in 2022, just what did he know? His smug, complacent grin, had already become the hallmark of his political leadership as he portrayed himself as Mr Squeaky Clean.
Perhaps when his successor Peter Dutton stated 'I just don't care what their ideology is … I'm not getting into silly, stupid, petty arguments or discussions about that sort of interpretation', he revealed a reluctance to face the facts about the patronage system he was also part of. (18) To state it carried considerable baggage would be an under-statement. It remains a sad fact of life, furthermore, that many of those involved in the far-right organisations possessed other agendas and a readiness to be ruthless, if, and when, required.

A number of related matters subsequently arose: following his demise as Liberal leader in the May elections, a panel in the NSW Liberal Party 'which was parachuted in by Mr Dutton
… was collectively removed with the statement … this is a welcome transition on the way back to a reformed and democratically elected state executive'. (19) Who were the old one?

Australian Liberal Party financial members have until 1 August to provide submissions to a review of party policy and strategy setting, 'following the devastating election loss that saw Peter Dutton unseated as leader and member for Dickson'. (20) The review is likely to resemble a series of polite after-dinner chit-chats amongst those who remain part of the elite patronage system; their career pathways have already been mapped out, why would they want any serious change to the structures of which they have a vested interest in retaining? Employment in banking, the diplomatic service, academia, intelligence agencies and other occupations await them. They do not even have to formally apply; opportunities are offered. There is no unemployment in their circles. But only jobs for the 'boys and girls'.

It is doubtful, therefore, whether those concerned will be reviewing any of their party links with the IDU, which would appear a collection of questionable entities pursuing diverse agendas. But then, why would they? The review is far more likely to be a whitewash job, to cover over any incriminating evidence about an organisation responsible for co-ordinating the Australian-led implementation of globalisation. And with the IDU organisation seemingly intact, with Israel and Taiwan now as members, it will now be preparing for what will eventually replace globalisation, with the full connivance of the Australian Liberal Party as their faithful and obedient servants, like puppets on a string.

Birds of a feather, mate, they certainly do flock together!

1.     1968-1976, Chile: Killing a Democracy, A People's History of the CIA, Issue 43, December 2000, page 27.
2.     The CIA's secret global war against the left, Jacobin, Branko Marcetic, 30 November 2020.
3.     1976, South America: Operation Condor cross-border killing, People's History, op.cit., page 31.
4.     Inside the League, Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, (New York, 1986), page 79.
5.     Ibid.
6.     1978-1992, El Salvador: Training the Death Squads, Peoples History, op.cit., page 32; and, The Beast Reawakens, Martin Lee, (London, 1997), page 189.
7.     Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party, Ross Bellant, (Boston, 1988), page 85.
8.     Website: History of the WACL, Part One: 1945-85, reference Triple A/Argentina.
9.     Revealed: Pinochet drug link, The Observer (London), 10 December 2000; and,         The Iran-Contra Scandal, The Declassified History, Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, (New York, 1993).
10.   1976, South America, Peoples History, op.cit., page 31.
11.   See: Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, AR 381-20, Section 1.5, Mission and Policy, page 1, Declassified 15 November 1993.
12.   Intelligence Information Cable, 7 April 1978, filed 'Condor', page 1, Declassified.
13.   Ibid., page 2; and, European spies sought lessons, The Guardian (U.K.), 16 April 2019; and, CIA declassified info, teleSur, 20 April 2019.
14.   See: South Africa Truth Commission, Final Report, Volume 2, Chapter 3,         Sub-section 14, 126, Ref: Alfredo Asti; and, The Disappeared, Voices from a secret war,  John Simpson and Jana Bennett, (London, 1985), pp. 347-48.
15.   See: 40 years later, The Buenos Aires Herald, 9 December 2023.
16.   Ex-director of Triple A, El Mundo (Spain), 28 December 2006.
17.   Website: WACL/WLFD.
18.   Peter Dutton says distinctions between forms of extremism are 'silly, stupid and petty',
        Today News Posts (Australia), 4 December 2020.
19.   Autopsy into Libs' dead duck campaign, Australian, 18 June 2025.
20.   Ibid.

 

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Bunker-Buster Bomb Manufacturer to develop curriculum for SA Tech School

Written by: Nick G. on 23 June 2025

 

On the same day that the US warmongers illegally and unjustly dropped 14 bunker buster bombs on Iranian sovereign territory, the developer of the bomb, the US Boeing Corporation, was identified as a “partner” with a South Australian Technical College.

The announcement was proudly announced by SA Premier Peter (“MalinAUKUS”) Malinauskas who said “Not every child needs to go to university. We desperately need young people with a desire to work on complex machinery to protect our nation.

“They can be assured they can gain this qualification while completing high school, and be perfectly place to walk into a fulfilling career in a growth industry.

This is but one more example of imperialist weapons manufacturers invading Australian classrooms in order to hand-select bright young students for careers in the manufacture of death.

A fairly comprehensive study of recent developments was submitted to the IPAN People’s Enquiry, and looked at incursions into Australian schools by Raytheon, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.  It is available here.

Boeing and the Bunker-Busters

The bunker-busters are not cheap.  They are estimated to cost US$20 million each. From Boeing’s point of view there will be lots of happy shareholders looking for dividends to flow from the replacement contracts for the 14 bombs exploded inside Iran’s earth.

Boeing was the prime contractor for the current iteration of the bunker-busters. Boeing’s role in the GBU-57 MOP program was comprehensive — from initial design and systems integration to testing, production, and upgrades.

The weapons were carried into Iran by Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit strategic bomber.

Curriculum design

Boeing Defence Australia has signed on as an employer partner with The Heights Technical College. The College, co-located with the R-12 Heights School, will open for enrolments from students currently in years 9 and 10, for enrolment in years 10 and 11 in 2026. 

The Heights School has an Ignite Program for “gifted and talented students”, the same program that attracted Raytheon to Aberfoyle Park High School, donating computers in return for access to the school’s Ignite students. 

Boeing will work with the SA Education Department to design the curriculum to be used in its Aeroskills pathway to develop skills in students for careers as aircraft maintenance technicians in defence and civil aviation.

Both parliamentary parties serve imperialism and have sold out the country on so many occasions and in so many ways that the sell-out of the classroom to the merchants of death can come as no surprise.

It is one more reason for promoting the widest possible united front for the independence of the country from imperialism, and for its mature development in a socialist republic.

 

 

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ICOR Declaration: The USA bombs Iran

Written by: ICOR on 23 June 2025

 

Stop barbaric US imperialism and genocidal Israel!
The world is dangerously close to a global war after the attacks

The USA's entry into the war alongside Zionist Israel against Iran has ignited a fire in the Middle East that can hardly be controlled. We condemn and refuse the imperialist aggression of the USA and Israel against Iran.

 

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The Eureka Initiative

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 23 June 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) would like to extend its revolutionary greetings and solidarity to The Eureka Initiative, an organisation with the aim of spreading revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideology to the masses and youth of today.

They have stated their goals as that of creating mass interest in revolutionary ideology and practice through media and organization while advancing the cause of Australian independence, Socialism and Anti-imperialism. 

They have created some great artwork that serves as beautiful agitation and revolutionary propaganda. We look forward to the continuing great work and effort coming from the Eureka Initiative and hope for them a long and growing involvement in struggle.

Red Salute

Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

 

 

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Courts uphold government attack on militant union

Written by: (Contributed by a CFMEU member in South Australia) on 20 June 2025

 

Well, the government’s courts have made their call, fully backing Albo’s plan to take away the power of a militant union, the CFMEU.

This affects all states, including the SA branch.

This gives the puppets, the Administration, the go-ahead to further crush the strength of this militant union which includes the possible further sackings of organisers and staff that stand up for the workers, both members and non-members.

The bosses and their government learnt the mistakes in crushing the militant BLF.  

This round has a lot more thought and laws.

The developers and building bosses are rubbing their hands. Already, they will be rewriting their future Enterprise Agreements.  SA workers will be included in this, not just those interstate. 

It’s here now.  The Administration direction of non-attendance by the CFMEU at the May Day celebrations, the state governments joining in with cancelling the CFMEU’s position on industry boards.

Look at the tower cranes around the State.  Where are the Eureka/union flags?  Why are they not on the new and in particular, bigger, jobs (a visual weakening of the union).  We have flown them here in this State since the deregulation of the BLF.

The conditions and benefits in all areas of this industry – safety, financial, working conditions affecting members and their families – are there because of our unions. Over 80% of these mentioned areas are there from our unions being STRONG AND MILTANT AND UNDERSTANDING THE INDUSTRY.

Not because of laws, deals and government/employer rules.

The Administration must go.

Construction workers must control and run their union.  The members must select and vote who their leaders are.

The strongest tool you have in this fight is the worker working alongside of you and your union.

SOLIDARITY IS STRENGTH
DARE TO STRUGGLE
DARE TO WIN

 

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Condemn Israeli Zionist Aggression Against Iran

Written by: Nick G. on 19 June 2025

 

(Above;  Source https://cpiran.org/ )

One week ago, on June 13, Israel initiated military attacks on Iran.  

The attacks were described as pre-emptive strikes carried out in accordance with Israel’s right to self-defence. This was the attitude taken by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

There is no justification in international law for pre-emptive strikes.  Israel’s actions were illegal acts of unprovoked aggression, aided and abetted by its protector, US imperialism.

The Australian government must immediately declare that Australia will not join the attack on Iran, and nor will it allow Australia territory to be used by US bombers to refuel or to operate from RAAF Base Tindal near Katherine in the NT.

Wong has joined an international chorus of imperialists and their lackeys who are urging “restraint”.  All of this is directed at Iran, the victim of aggression. 

Wong would not dare urge US imperialist chieftain Trump to “exercise restraint” as he ponders whether to join the Zionists in their attacks.

There is also a chorus urging the Iranian people to overthrow the Islamic Republic “regime”.  Iranian Communists and other progressives have a proud history of struggling against the regime and have not hidden their aim of leading a mass uprising for the revolutionary overthrow of the regime. They alone will determine when the time is right to do that.

The genocidal Zionist regime has killed over 60,000 Palestinians over the past two years.

It has bombed and imposed its authority on parts of Lebanon and Syria.  It is a racist, regional expansionist and we condemn it.

Condemn Zionist aggression against Iran!
Condemn US and Australian support for Israel!
Solidarity with the people of Iran!

 

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Support BAE shipworkers’ action for same job, same pay

Written by: Ned K. on 16 June 2025

 

(BAE metal workers and electricians walk off the job.  CEPU Facebook page)

BAE workers at the Osborne Naval Base have been taking industrial action to win the same rates of pay as other naval base workers employed by the federal government owned Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC). The ASC shares the Osborne Naval Base in SA and also has a Base in WA. 

The story of the wages struggle by BAE workers is an example of how the Australian Government works with the overseas owned defence industry multinationals connected to AUKUS to suppress workers’ living standards. 

Last year ASC workers at the Osborne Naval Base took industrial action over many months to win same pay rates as ASC workers in WA.

This year it is BAE workers at the same Osborne Naval Base taking action to win same pay rates as the ASC workers.

Both BAE and ASC workers do similar work both building and maintaining navy ships. They will increasingly become involved in maintenance work on US navy vessels, both nuclear and non-nuclear-powered ones.

BAE are pulling out all their propaganda with the help of the Murdoch Press to defeat the BAE workers' just struggle for same job, same pay.

About two weeks ago, BAE workers at Osborne walked off the job and demonstrated in the streets of the CBD of Adelaide and outside BAE headquarters in the CBD.

A few days later the CEO of BAE got front page of the local Murdoch newspaper saying that if workers at Osborne got the same pay as ASC workers, their job security would go out the window. In other words, telling the workers to accept lower wages or risk no job at all with BAE doing the work somewhere else.

Both the AMWU and CEPU SA Secretaries stood up for their members’ just struggle, exposing the greed of multinationals like BAE.

About a week later, BAE tried another tack with a "heart string" article appearing in the Murdoch Sunday Mail featuring the lives of two generations of families dependent on the Osborne Naval Base for their livelihoods. The implication being that the two Unions' industrial action was threatening jobs.

The SA Labor Government Premier and Treasurer chipped in with their "concern" about the 1,000s of jobs potential at the Naval Base

BAE Profits Is Their Game:

A day later the Murdoch-owned Adelaide Advertiser runs an article about BAE expansion and upgrade of its other weapons centre in SA at Edinburgh Park, about a half an hour's drive from the Osborne Naval Base. 

The Advertiser article said "BAE's upgrade will include a new security operations centre to support the AUKUS pact and Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) along with machining facilities for extra missile production". (Monday 16 June).

The SA Government Treasurer Mulligan is quoted as describing this as a "golden era" for northern suburbs families of Adelaide. 

Perhaps BAE's expansion plans have been based on below industry standard wages to increase profits and on fear of the wage claims of defence workers at Osborne Naval Base spreading to their Edinburgh Park base.

BAE workers are highly skilled and both they and their Unions want to believe they are contributong to the defence of people in Australia. Their demands for decent pay and conditions are just demands.

BAE, Raytheon, Saab and similar multinational military industrial giants are primarily concerned with maximizing profits and are prime contributors to imperialist wars of aggression in different parts of the world.

They will build weapons of the most technologically advanced type with little regard to the needs of people in Australia.

Both federal and state governments are reliant on them and work with them.

The "golden era" predicted by the SA Treasurer is "gold" for imperialist war machines while the real needs of the working people are affordable housing for all, affordable health care including dental care and aged care and education for all children, including First Peoples.

 

 

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Book Review: Terraglossia

Written by: Duncan B. on 16 June 2025

 

Last year Vanguard reviewed the book Bina-First Nations Languages Old and New, which told of the destruction of Indigenous languages in Australia following the colonisation of Australia. A new book Terraglossia, also discusses the damage caused to Indigenous civilisation by the English language.

The author, Dr Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon woman from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory. She has worked for 40 years in primary, secondary and tertiary education roles in various parts of Australia.

Terraglossia is a word that means earth speak or tongues of the earth. It is the opposite of terra nullius, the concept which was used to justify the dispossession of the Indigenous peoples from their lands. It is a word Dr Dank coined herself to allow us to identify “the words that illustrate or define Aboriginal and Islander ways of thinking, knowing, being, doing and seeing as defined by us through our concepts, and not merely non-Aboriginal concepts massaged into something that is close enough.”

Dr Dank points out how the English language is unsuitable to describe and define Indigenous culture. She writes, “Since Cook, Aboriginal Australian lives and ways of living have been defined through the vocabularies, the concepts and the perceptions of people and languages that are not our own.”

She uses as an example of this the English word nomadic. She writes, “This word, which means ‘migratory’ or ‘moving from place to place’, does not recognise the systematic and structured ways of travelling across a defined landscape. It does not represent the thinking, knowledge and disciplined decision-making that means people can relocate to another environment, one that has had time to regenerate since its last occupation.”

Languages are critical to the continuity of cultures, but Colonisation made English the dominant language in Australia with the destruction of many Indigenous languages along with their speakers. The survivors were often forbidden to use their own languages when they were herded into missions and reservations. 

The English language, along with guns, disease and religion were the weapons that the colonial invaders used to almost wipe out Australia’s Indigenous people and their centuries-old culture. Terraglossia helps us to understand the role the English language played in this destruction.

 

 

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Party sends condolence message to comrades in the Philippines

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 14 June 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) sends its heartfelt condolences to the Communist Party of the Philippines, to Ka Coni and other members of the family of Ka Louie Jalandoni who passed away recently at the age of 90.  

His passing is of great sadness to the Filipino people and all who knew and worked with him in the revolutionary movement. 

Ka Louie rejected the class into which he was born to serve the people of the Philippines. Initially as a Catholic Priest, and then as a Communist and a revolutionary, Ka Louie embraced the cause of the oppressed and exploited masses of the Philippines. 

He devoted his life to building and strengthening the Party and the National Democratic Front, and to waging the people’s democratic revolution.  He skilfully utilised all forms of struggle, from negotiations to armed struggle. 

Our party is inspired by Ka Louie’s exemplary record and will strive to emulate his outstanding qualities. 

Ka Louie Jalandoni will be fondly remembered by Australian comrades who met him on several occasions.

Central Committee
Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
14 June 2025

 

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AUKUS reviews expose Australia’s secondary status

Written by: Nick G. on 13 June 2025

 

The Trump Administration has just announced a 30-day review of the AUKUS arrangements to make sure that they comply with Trump’s “America First” policy.

The announcement comes just days after Albanese publicly differed with US Defense Secretary Hegseth’s demand that we increase “defence” expenditure.

It is a signal to Albanese of US displeasure with Australia having the gall to think, even in a very hesitant and half-hearted way, that it should have the right to decide things for itself.

It really does expose how Australia, which is not a Third World country, but an advanced capitalist country, is quite secondary in importance and influence to the major powers.

The US joins the UK in conducting a review into AUKUS. Australia timidly refuses to conduct a review, believing that whatever happens, “she’ll be right”. So, the two beneficiaries of the arrangements are enquiring into AUKUS, but the country that has to pay for it – at an average of $30 million a day for the next 30 years – is not prepared to conduct its own enquiry.

The British House of Commons announced on April 2, 2025 a two-month public enquiry into AUKUS. The first submissions were published in early June.

In the meantime, the UK announced on June 2, 2025 its Strategic Defence Review. Among its 62 recommendations – all since adopted by PM Sir Keir Starmer – was that the UK would build for itself up to 12 SSN-AUKUS class submarines, with additional funding to production sites to produce one SSN-AUKUS submarine every 18 months.

This sounds very ambitious given a spate of reports suggesting that UK submarine production always runs behind schedule and is beset with workforce shortages.

The US enquiry, announced days ago, will be led by Undersecretary of Defense Policy Elbridge Colby. He said on March 6 that the US commitment to the AUKUS arrangements was “conditional on U.S. industry building enough attack boats to meet domestic needs first”.

Both the US and UK have “opt-out” clauses in the AUKUS arrangements and are not required to refund any of the billions (nearly $5 billion each) that Australia has committed to giving them in order to pump-prime their industries. These amounts are just gift donations - we are not buying anything with them.

It should be no surprise that Australia is at the beck and call of the imperialists controlling AUKUS.

Scott Morrison’s original AUKUS arrangement was for the sharing of technology that would enable Australia to build its own nuclear-powered submarines. It was not taken to parliament for debate.

After sleeping on the matter overnight, and not consulting his Cabinet colleagues, new Labor PM Anthony Albanese was persuaded to incorporate into the AUKUS agreement a plan to purchase three and possibly five US Virginia-class submarines. Parliament  - supposedly representing the voice of the people in a bourgeois democracy – had no say.

This stupid arrangement, however, was conditional on the US President of the day certifying that the sale of these submarines, which would be half-way through their operational life, would not compromise US submarine strength.

And that is where we are today, with Donald Trump about to say whether AUKUS goes ahead.

Maybe it will, and more’s the pity if it does.

Will Trump demand further non-refundable pump-priming of US industry for it to go ahead?

Will he demand Australia agree to follow the US into more of its unjust and unwinnable wars for it to go ahead? We currently say we will not join them over Taiwan so we can expect pressure from Trump to pull us into line there for it to go ahead.

Will Trump say the US is so far behind in Virginia-class production that it cannot afford to sell even second-hand clunkers to Australia, and that we must further expand facilities here for the basing and maintenance of US subs?

Whatever the outcome, there will continue to be complete Australian subservience to the US demands, with the Australian government claiming that duckshit has been tuned into ice-cream, jobs have been saved, and the great Alliance remains as strong as ever.

This moment presents a really clear example of our sub-imperial power status, of our Second World status, that while the government might try and exercise some sort of imperial authority in our neighbourhood (and behave ruthlessly to Indigenous people within our own country), at the moment where Australian and US policies diverge, we'll be quickly put back in our place.

Stop AUKUS now!

For an anti-imperialist independent, peaceful and socialist Australia.

 

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US to rely on military means of countering Chinese Pacific presence

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 June 2025

 

(Above: from China News Service)

Tensions and hostilities between the US and China are set to escalate following the announcement that Beijing hosted some high-level diplomatic meetings in late May. They included meetings with the Pacific Islands, ASEAN and the Gulf Co-operation Council.

The US response included movement of troop elsewhere in the region and claims by the US that China was preparing to invade Taiwan, assessed by the US as a threat to the whole Indo-Pacific region; information emerging from reliable sources has revealed Washington is reassessing various options to deal with the rising power of China.

The options have implications for US regional allies, especially Australia.

In late May the leaders of eleven Pacific Islands had high-level diplomatic talks hosted by Beijing in the eastern city of Xiamen. (1) China announced the regional summit was aimed at fostering closer ties with the Pacific; agenda items included discussions on 'comprehensive exchanges and co-operation … as well as international regional issues of common concern'. (2) China's foreign policy has remained based in mutually beneficial matters which has won increased support from diplomatic partners, with an emphasis upon 'jointly building a closer China-Pacific Island community with a shared future'. (3)

Examples of China's soft-style diplomacy has included a 'suite of new building's' as part of Vanuatu's presidential palace. (4) There are numerous other examples of similar standing:
China's diplomacy has won the country increased support across the Indo-Pacific region, presenting a credible challenge to traditional US hegemonic positions.

One noticeable addition to China's diplomatic moves has been the shift across the region of countries previously recognising Taiwan to China. In recent years Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and Nauru have switched diplomatic allegiance, thereby strengthening China's position at the United Nations. With Taiwan now being officially diplomatically recognised by only a handful of countries it has become increasingly vulnerable and, therefore, a major preoccupation with US regional diplomacy. The official US position is that China has already established plans to invade Taiwan by 2027. There is, however, little credible evidence available in the public domain. A far more likely assessment and scenario is that the US is using it as a pretext for a massive regional military expansion to appease Wall Street and the military-industrial complex.

It is not difficult to establish the hidden hands wringing their greasy mitts in glee behind the US defence department: Pentagon contractors were paid US$108 billion for services they provided in Afghanistan. (5)
  
Taiwan, furthermore, also marks the centre-point of sensitive island chains used by the US to restrict access and egress across the region, at present being enlarged into fourth and fifth chains across the Indian Ocean.

The Pacific Islands diplomatic meetings were quickly followed by a further round of similar meetings with the ten ASEAN countries which also included the Gulf Co-operation Council, composed of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.(6) An official diplomatic statement about the meeting noted 'these engagements reflect how ASEAN, the GCC and China can come together to advance their shared economic interests'. (7) It was also noted that ASEAN and the GCC 'were emerging economies in Asia, important members of the global south, and important partners in the Belt and Road co-operation'. (8) China's diplomatic influence can be seen to have moved into countries historically associated with US diplomatic hegemony, with relative ease.

Recent ASEAN diplomatic initiatives have also included moves toward incorporating both East Timor and PNG as full members; both countries have, historically, been closely associated with Australia as a regional hub for 'US interests'. (9)

The China-led diplomatic initiatives have shown their skilful nature toward dealing with the US, which has been increasingly forced out of similar initiatives. In fact, at a time when countries across the global south have proved both resilient and robust in the face of US-led challenges with the threat of tariffs, Washington has become increasingly isolationist while pushing its America First agenda. China has filled the vacuum.

The US response to these recent developments was two-fold: an announcement they were considering moving 4,500 troops from South Korea (ROK) to elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific and calling upon Australia to increase its defence budget while drawing attention to the vulnerability of Taiwan.

Both announcements are best viewed in the context of preparations for a US-led regional war.

The US has, historically, maintained troop numbers in the ROK at about 28,500. Many of the military personnel remain in the country for lengthy periods, indicating specialist positions in various capacities, including signals intelligence (SIGINT). Based in the interception and analysis of telecommunications, SIGINT has a long and secret history of espionage; shadowy spooky figures operating on the margins, monitoring the centres of societies. (10) Detailed studies of SIGINT operational inside the elite Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, for example, reveal civil liberties for ordinary people have already largely disappeared with the introduction of hi-tech equipment by governments. (11)

It is not particularly difficult to establish where the US are considering placing their SIGINT specialists. Earlier in the decade the Pentagon established a Pacific Deterrence Initiative based on a 'network of precision-strike missiles along the so-called first island chain'. (12) The initiative is now well under-way, with additional 'integrated air missile defence on the second island chain'. (13)

The proposals, which have yet to be ratified by the White House, have included official statements from the Trump administration about their intention of 'bolstering the second island chain'. (14)

Secondly, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, has called upon Canberra to drastically increase defence spending from the present 2.02 per cent of GDP to 3.5 per cent. No reason was forthcoming from the Pentagon about the magic number of 3.5 per cent of GDP, or how the extra funding should be allocated. It has, however, tended to follow a trend of frequent outbursts of speculative and erratic behaviour by the entire Trump administration, reflecting diplomatic behaviour falling well short of being regarded as professional and competent.

The US Defence Department, with a budget of nearly US$ 1 trillion, with 1.3 million active duty personnel and a further one million civilians, for example, has been described by informed and reliable observers as being both chaotic and dysfunctional. (15) It is not difficult to establish why the Pentagon is experiencing such problems; Hegseth is well known as an alcoholic. (16)

Australia, in fact, when compared to its four other partners inside the Five Eyes, already has an average defence budget:

                                               Defence Spending as % of GDP

                                                              US  -  3.4
                                                              UK  -  2.3
                                                     Australia  -  2.02
                                              New Zealand  -  1.31
                                                       Canada  -  1.3
                                                           Total  =  10.33
                           
                                          10.33 divided by 5 = 2.066  (17)

In conclusion, there is no need for Australia to increase its defence budget:

                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

*****
                                                                                           
1.     China to host Pacific leaders summit, Australian, 22 May 2025; and, China to host Pacific Islands leaders, seeking closer ties, AFP., 21 May 2025.
2.     Australian, ibid., 22 May 2025.
3.     Ibid.
4.     See: China builds a new presidential palace in Pacific's Vanuatu, AFP., 2 July 2024.
5.     Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan pocketed $108 billion over 20 years, change.org., 23 August 2022.
6.     Jakarta calls on ASEAN to make PNG a member, Australian, 28 May 2025; and, South-east Asian leaders meet to talk tariffs, truce and East Timor, Australian, 27 May 2025.
7.     Australian, ibid., 27 May 2025.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Australian, ibid., 27 May 2025; and, Australian, op.cit., 28 May 2025.
10.   Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2003), SIGINT, pp. 283-84.  
11.   See: Spyworld, How the C.S.E. spies on Canadians and the world, Mike Frost, as told to Michel Gratton, (Toronto, 1995).
12.   US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei/Asia, 5 March 2021.
13.   US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.
14.   US bolsters 'second island chain', Nikkei/Asia, 1 April 2025.
15.   'Chaos' and 'dysfunctional' reign inside Pete Hegseth's Pentagon, ABC News, 22 April 2025.
16.   Pete Hegseth's Secret History, The New Yorker, 26 January 2025.
17.   Defence Spending as % of GDP., Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2024.

 

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Trump's "Make America Great Again" tariffs a case of "be careful what you wish for"

Written by: Ned K. on 5 June 2025

 

(Above: sourced from https://www.cnn.com )

President Trump's tariffs imposed on its main enemy, China, are turning into their opposite. The tariffs imposed were supposed to revive the manufacturing sector in the USA to fulfil Trump's election slogan " Make America Great Again".

However, the Wall Street Journal reports that US-based major car manufacturers and car component companies are seriously considering relocating key car component manufacturing from the USA to China. 

The car component manufacturing most likely to be relocated to China is manufacture of electric motors to gain access to regular supply of the rare earth magnets which are essential components of the electric motors for cars. 

When the USA imposed the tariffs on Chinese made products, China responded by restricting the export of rare earth magnets to car manufacturers based in the USA. Despite the supposed 90-day freeze on imposition of the tariffs agreed between the USA and China, the supply of the crucial rare earth magnets from China has been slow, with US car manufacturers warning that they will have to close down plants.

China produces 90% of the world's rare earth elements essential for the magnets in electric motors and for other goods such as mobile phones. 

The US car manufacturing barons say they have no choice other than moving at least the electric motor manufacturing to China where there will be no restriction on the supply of the rare earth magnets installed in the complete electric motors. The export restriction imposed by the Chinese Government is on the magnets, not on the export of an electric motor manufactured in China.

The US car manufacturers see this as being better than the alternative of shutting down whole production lines in their USA-based plants.

The Wall Street Journal sees the irony in this situation between the competing big powers when it says, "If carmakers end up shifting some production to China, it would amount to a remarkable outcome from a trade war initiated by President Donald Trump with the intention of bringing manufacturing back to the US".

USA After Australia's Rare Earth Minerals

The USA is desperate to find alternative supplies of the essential rare earth minerals. Trump is trying to coerce the Australian Government to guarantee supply of rare earth minerals from the north of Western Australia, and also wants then from Ukraine, to decrease almost total reliance on China's rare earth minerals. In exchange Trump may decide to reduce the tariff on imports of products such a steel and beef from Australia.

Workers Lose Out Whether Free Trade Or Tariffs

The way capitalism in its imperialist stage arranges production and trade, it is workers who lose out. It is workers who lose jobs not only when one imperialist power imposes tariffs, but also when there are no tariffs and "free trade" wins out. Australian workers lost jobs in their thousands when "free trade" enabled manufacturers here to move plants to China and other developing cheaper labour countries in the 1980s through to the closure of the car industry here a decade ago.

Under capitalism, when workers lose jobs due to the anarchy of capitalist production on a global scale, they have to struggle for redundancy payments and have no guarantee of adequate income when redundancy pay runs out (usually capped at 12 or 16 weeks under the Fair Work Act in this country).  For workers who lose their jobs in many other countries, the situation is even worse with no redundancy payments at all.

Trade between countries will continue to occur. Under socialism, trade will still be required but the Australian economy will be based on people's needs first, not profits for a small minority. The surplus produced overall in the country will enable all workers to receive adequate income if there are any periods of unemployment due to changes internally in the economy or due to break down of trade with an external country that is still under capitalism.

 

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Reject US military interference in Australia

Written by: Nick G. on 5 June 2025

 

(Above: Marles and Hegseth.  Original image https://www.skynews.com.au)
 

The US imperialists are brazenly demanding an increased level at which Australia commits to “defence” spending.

Coming from any other country, these demands would be rejected as interference in Australian sovereign decision-making, but neither Marles nor Albanese have adopted such a principled stance.

Despite some minor differences in approach by Marles and Albanese, it really comes down to when, and by how much, the Australian “defence” budget will be altered to accommodate the demands of our US rulers.

The current level is 2.02 per cent of GDP with a projected increase to 2.33 per cent of GDP by 2034.

But Trump is demanding that it be raised to at least 3 per cent. 

Peter Hegseth, US Secretary of “Defense” told the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on May 31 that countries in our region should be looking to 5 per cent.

“It is hard to believe I can say this, but Asian allies and partners should look to countries in Europe as a newfound example. NATO members are pledging to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense, even Germany,” Hegseth said.

In our region, this is for US preparations for war against its main imperialist rival, China.

The US wants to use our continent as a base for threatening China. The Force Posture Agreement between Australia and the US guarantees the US imperialists access to whatever areas in Australia that it wants, and for whatever purposes it wants, and for Australia to cover the cost.

According to the US website Breaking Defense, “One of the ways Washington hopes to deter Beijing is by first by improving forward force posture of US forces in the region, citing the example of the deployment of more advanced US military capabilities to the Philippines and the planned live-firing of the Typhon Strategic Mid-range Fires System in Australia later this year.

“The event will take place in July during the Talisman Sabre exercise, marking the first firing of the weapon outside of the US….”

Typhon is a United States Army transporter launcher for Standard SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles.

In April 2024, the Army operationally deployed Typhon batteries to the northern Luzon in the Philippines, making its first deployment overseas. According to US Army officials, from that position in Luzon, Typhon's missiles could cover not only the entire Luzon Strait but also reach the Chinese coast and various People's Liberation Army bases in the South China Sea. According to Philippines “defence” officials, the system was not used in live-fire exercises, but Philippine troops were trained on how to handle and maintain the missile system.

Now, without any consultation with the Australian people, and with the complicity of Marles and Albanese, a live-firing of one of the two Raytheon missiles used by Typhon, namely the RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM) or the Tomahawk, will be fired in the direction of the South China Sea, setting Australia on a war course with China directed by the US.

In March 2023, the US sold more than 200 Tomahawks to the Australia Navy worth an estimated US$895 million, with a further sale of support equipment worth US$250 million in 2024.

In December 2024, Marles said the RAN had successfully fired its first ever Tomahawk missile. The missile was fired from a Hobart-class air warfare destroyer, making Australia the third nation, after the United States and UK, to acquire and fire the weapon.

Australia has not yet won genuine independence from imperialism. 

First the British, and now the US, dominate and control the Australian state and its most important institution, the armed forces.

US control of Australia and its increasing military interference here must be rejected.

This can only be done by the organised revolutionary working class with the support of the progressive anti-imperialist allies in other sections of Australian society.

More of those allies are emerging and the movement is growing stronger.

 

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Hegseth beats the drums of war

Written by: Bill F. on 3 June 2025

 

At the recent Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth beat the drums of war against China, proclaiming America’s right to dominate the Pacific Ocean and pledging to militarily combat any move by China to regain its Taiwan territory. (formal name Republic of China)

Hegseth proclaimed that such a move by the Chinese was “imminent” and that countries in the region must increase their military defence spending to meet the targets set by President Trump – 3-5% of Gross Domestic Product.

Never mind that most of the countries present have peaceful trade relations with China. Never mind that they have copped Trump’s disruptive and oppressive tariffs. Hegseth demanded they ramp up their military capabilities to augment US imperialism as it competes with Chinese imperialism a long way from the US mainland.

Australia didn’t miss out either. Hegseth got stuck into Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles complaining Australia wasn’t spending enough on weapons acquisition and demanding that Australia commits up to $40 billion rather than the current $2 billion, raising defence spending to $3.5 billion in budget estimates. This would be on top of Australia handing over to the US control and access to ports and airfields and locking the country in as a launching pad for the US war machine. Oh! And let’s not forget the $800 million already coughed up and with no guarantee of delivery or reimbursement for (unlikely) nuclear submarines in the distant future, as long as the US gets its own first!

Where would all this money go? US arms manufacturers, the military industrial complex most likely, and certainly in Australia’s case, being locked into “interoperability “with US forces and equipment. As a decaying imperialism under pressure, the US must rely more and more on overt threats and force.
Marles, the seasoned collaborator of US imperialism, grovelled and grinned, nodding in agreement with Hegseth. No doubt it was all recorded by the snoops at Pine Gap.

Prime Minister Albanese, on the other hand, publicly seemed less enthusiastic. Already a bit cranky over Trump’s tariff hike on steel and aluminium, he was well aware that large sections of the Australian people are repelled by Trump and wary or outright opposed to the AUKUS deal and war with China. He wasn’t going to openly grovel like Marles, even though he would never oppose or reject the influence and control of US imperialism.

Before US imperialism manoeuvres the country into another US war that makes Australia a nuclear target, a powerful mass people’s movement or united front must be built to unite and organise, and eventually challenge the hold of imperialism. To win, the working class needs to push up front and seize the running.

 

 

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Residential aged care - for people's needs or private profit?

Written by: Ned K. on 2 June, 2025

 

(United Workers Union aged care worker members rallying in Adelaide in 2022 - X UWU)

The residential aged care sector is increasingly owned and operated on a profits first basis.

Under the current system, aged care providers (both for-profit and supposed not-for-profit) from 1 January this year can charge a new resident an upfront bond payment of up to $750,000. This is an increase from the previous maximum amount of $550,000.

The $750,000 maximum will be indexed each year from now on, according to the Aged Care Task Force (The Saturday Paper, May 17-23,2025). For the small minority who constitute the ruling class in Australia, this amount is water off a duck's back. They pay up to the maximum bond up front and even more to ensure they get the highest possible residential care. In every capital city, you can see that the residential aged care homes in the leafy, quiet suburbs of the very wealthy offer far better facilities and care than aged care homes in the outer working class suburbs of all major cities.

In the article in The Saturday Paper, the sector accountant firm Stewart Brown found that the average bond of $500,000 for a residential aged care place to live works out to be a daily accommodation payment of $109.59. This does not include the cost to the provider of wages for nurses and carers, as their wages come from federal government funding.

This average bond figure includes bonds paid by aged care residents from the wealthiest to any resident who has any assets (including their modest family home).

The increasing number of aging people who need residential care but who have no assets to speak of is growing.

The maximum accommodation supplement paid by the federal government to the aged care provider for those people "lacking financial means" is $69.79 per day.

As higher accommodation prices continue, the gap between the quality of care and facilities for those "lacking financial means" and the wealthy in aged care homes will only increase.

The incentive for the aged care providers is to "admit" elderly Australians who have enough assets to afford at least the average accommodation bond of $500,000 and rising each year.

There are some not-for-profits who will accept those "lacking financial means" even if it means their bean counter accountants assess the place is running at a loss. Given that the providers are allowed to keep the interest they make on the bonds paid by residents, the claims of some providers that they are running at a loss are questionable when you see the directors and CEOs drive to and from work in their BMWs or Mercedes Benz!

Working people pay taxes all their lives yet they cannot be guaranteed even basic quality aged care if needed without paying a huge bond. If they are "lacking financial means" then not even basic care is assured.

Under capitalism in Australia, governments have no problem in spending $360 billion or more on nuclear submarines for use in a USA war against China. But they are quite ok with an aged care system fundamentally run for private profit of operators and a system with levels of care based on class lines. 

The immediate demand should be for the federal government to eliminate private-for-profit operators and turn them in to public ownership, with the not-for-profit sector supplementing a public sector aged care system.

The long-term solution for quality aged care is an independent socialist Australia.

 

 

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Lal Salam (Red Salute) Comrade Basavraj

Written by: ICSPWI on 26 May 2025

 

The CPA (M-L) notes with great sadness the killing by the Modi Government of Communist Party of India (Maoist) leader Basavraj on May 21. This is Modi’s reply to the ceasefire and peace talks proposed by the CPI (M) earlier this year. Although the CPI (M) is suffering great losses through Modi’s Operation Kagaar, its cause is just and will eventually succeed – Eds.

The International Committee to Support the People's War in India (ICSPWI) salute Comrade Keshava Rao, Basavraj, General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist), murdered by the repressive forces of the fascist Modi’s regime, lackey to imperialism, along with 26 other Maoist cadres in the Abuijhmad forest, Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh on May 21.

This is a huge loss for the Party, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, the proletariat and masses of India engaged in the people's war, for the International Communist Movement, for the proletarians, the exploited and the oppressed peoples in the world.

Comrade Basavraj was the founder of the People's Guerrilla Army in 2000 and has led as Commander the most important actions of the people's war in recent years, dealing bold blows to the reactionary Indian regime and imperialism. His role in the formation of the Guerrilla Bases and the birth of the People's Power Organizations was crucial.

Basavraj became the Party's general secretary in 2018. He was trained by the Party and the masses, always giving an extraordinary example of bravery, wisdom and determination. He was a master of the people's war and has given his life for the revolution.
He will never be forgotten!

The Indian Modi’s regime has murdered the comrades as part of the 'Operation Kagaar', a genocidal campaign of repression, massacres, arrests, bombings and devastation on the people, particularly 
the most oppressed and exploited masses, the Adivasis, etc., within a plan that aims to wipe out the people's war and the Party leading that by March 2026.

Now they cry victory, but the Indian masses and the Party know how to respond to this attack with adequate strategy and tactics, strengthening and extending the resistance and mobilization of the masses.

The Committee had already launched a one-year-long campaign of internationalist solidarity and support, holding a first successful week of action on April 7-12.

The death of comrade Basavraj calls us, also in his honor and name, to multiply our efforts so that this campaign is even stronger and wider and contributes to deal hard blows on the Indian regime and imperialism; all the more so because it is inextricably linked to international solidarity with the Palestinian people, who heroically face the genocidal plan of Israel and imperialism -Netanyahu is supported in all forms by the reactionary Modi’s regime- and is part of the struggle of the proletariat and peoples against the imperialist war.

Honour in all forms comrade Basavraj!
Intensify mobilization and actions against the Operation Kagaar, for the release of political prisoners in India
Extend the support to the People's War in India and to the Communist Party of India (Maoist), as important international reference point for the liberation struggle of the people oppressed by imperialism, for the world proletarian revolution, socialism and communism

ICSPWI
25 May 2025

 

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Qatar: a strategic geo-political hub for 'US interests'

Written by: (Contributed) on 24 May 2025

 

(Above: Trump at the Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar   Original image from TurDef.com)

It is possible to read anything you want into anything you want; facts, however, have considerable bearing on outcomes and assessments. Trump's recent high-level diplomatic mission to Qatar is but one example in question.

The diplomatic mission was given massive coverage through mainstream media outlets, which invariably relied upon numerous official US diplomatic communiques and mindless, wanton speculation, by the world's editorial boards. Behind the millions of column centimetres of coverage, however, a few relevant facts reveal the strategic and geo-political significance of Qatar for 'US interests'. The main media coverage provided a convenient cover for the main purpose of the high-level diplomacy.

Hidden deep within the trade deal between the US and Qatar, a non-disclosed military budget has been used to elevate the latter as a secure hub for regional 'US interests'. It has been noted that the country's ruling monarchy 'has showered billions of dollars derived from its natural gas reserves on US institutions, mainly the military and universities, while ramping up spending on lobbyists to tilt policy in its favour'. (1)

Turkey’s online TurDef.com revealed some details of the US war manufacturers’ sales successes in Qater, courtesy of super-salesman Trump:

U.S. President Donald Trump announced defence contracts worth $42 billion and an investment worth $10 billion on the Al Udeid Air Base were signed with Qatar.

The defence contract includes C-UAS systems from RTX (Raytheon) for a cost of $1 billion, THAAD anti-ballistic missile systems, MQ-9B SkyGuardian UAVs, GDLS Desert Viper 8x8 armoured vehicles, and KC-46 Pegasus tanker aircraft.

Trump announced the contract during his speech at the Al Udeid Air Base, which houses U.S. armed forces personnel. The defence contract cluster also includes investing $10 billion in the air base to improve its capabilities.
 

A brief statement from Canberra contained in a mainstream media release set the stage for endless speculation. Or was it done to deflect attention away from Qatar? It noted, for example, that, 'as Trump stormed through the region this week in a gilded display of pomp and pageantry, escorted by Arab horses, trumpets and meetings in opulent palaces, the region's key players – especially Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Gulf States – are scrambling to work out what it all means'. (2) Qatar, interestingly, was not listed as a regional key player, for non-disclosed reasons. Or was it done to avoid unnecessary publicity about a country closely linked to 'US interests'?

The regional role of Qatar has to be viewed in a historical context, with far-reaching implications for present diplomacy and 'US interests'.

Throughout the previous Cold War, Iran was an important centre for 'US interests' in the Middle East. With the opening of sensitive intelligence facilities on Diego Garcia in 1973, the Indian Ocean military base was the central part of a network stretching from Silvermine in South Africa, Kagnew in Ethiopia, Abu-Musa in Iran, Subic Bay in the Philippines and Pine Gap in Australia. (3)

The Diego Garcia facilities had long range capacity with 'communication with security personnel … for … wide area international events in the Asian and Middle Eastern scene', with continual upgrades. (4) The facilities were also linked global networks based in the elite Five Eyes signals intelligence (SIGINT) sharing provision. (5)  

While the Diego Garcia facilities and the Pine Gap connection remain central to US-led military and security provision, official diplomatic silence has been the order of the day, despite a considerable wealth of reliable data about the installation. (6)

The subsequent ousting of the Ethiopian Monarchy in 1974 and the increasingly unstable nature of the country, together with the Iranian Revolution of 1979, however, shook the very foundations of US military and security provision.

Records in the public domain have noted Iran, during the time of the Shah, hosted seven sensitive SIGINT stations, linked into US intelligence networks: Behshahr, Kabkan, Meshad, Klanabad, Astara, Shirabad, and Project Ibex. (7)

Project Ibex, which was based in a previous covert operation, Project Dark Gene, proved a particularly interesting Iranian contribution toward the previous Cold War; it was primarily based in intelligence-gathering against the former Soviet Union with some secret flights flown by serving USAF personnel. (8) Ibex included a secret alliance established between Iran and Israel regarded as highly sensitive by the US. (9) It was used to promote anti-Arab diplomacy in the Middle East; Iranians, historically, regarded as Persian, were treated as puppets by US foreign policy. The subsequent Israeli involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal is best viewed in that light. (10)

Qatar, which won its independence from the UK in 1971, was chosen as a replacement component of the US intelligence-gathering provision soon after the fall of the Shah of Iran. There is no reason to believe its duplicitous role was marked by anything other than an ally of expedience by the US; SIGINT has remained the order of the day. With a geographical location at 52 degrees east and 25 degrees north, for example, the country swings on the same arc as Diego Garcia to Pine Gap, the extended arc then reaches sensitive military facilities in the UK. (11) As a former colonial power, it should be noted that the UK retains extensive diplomatic links inside Qatar through established protocol.

Over the following decades continual upgrades to the US military facilities on Diego Garcia were accompanied by Qatar quietly ushering in a complaint political system to support US-led regional operations, including those specifically within the Middle East.

Qatari-US diplomatic relations, therefore, remain very strong; it has been noted 'multi-billion dollar purchases of arms and other equipment that help intertwine its fate with America's', have taken place. (12)

Some of the other equipment in operation in Qatar would appear to include computer station facilities with access to Echelon. (13) The telecommunications interception facilities are based upon the main UKUSA network, where 'each station in the Echelon network has computers which automatically search through the millions of intercepted messages for ones containing pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and email addresses … the Echelon system has created an awesome spying capacity for the USA, allowing it to monitor continuously most of the world's communications targeting civilian as well as military traffic'. (14)

Qatar's lobby sector has been noted to possess an 'outsize influence in Washington and has a seat at the table on numerous geo-political issues where it otherwise wouldn't even be an afterthought'. (15) Recent disclosures surrounding 'large sums of money from Qatar landing in the bank accounts of Mr Netanyahu's close aides – even during the war with Hamas in Gaza – raising the prospect of foreign penetration deep inside the highest corridors of political power', are best assessed, however, in the light of the role of the so-called Jonathan Institute. (16) The shadowy Israel-based institute was established by Netanyahu in 1979 and soon became the main link between Israeli and US government officials in an 'emblematic think tank'. (17) Studies of the Jonathan Institute have concluded that it possessed 'substantial ties to MOSSAD'. (18)

While Israel has remained politically divided over the Qatar-Gate revelations, Netanyahu saw fit to actually dismiss the head of the country's domestic security service over the subsequent investigation of the present government; the matter, nevertheless, has remained ongoing. (19) It is considered extremely sensitive although has carried many of the hallmarks of a covert or clandestine operation; influence was being brought to bear from elsewhere.

US diplomatic influence also continues to remain a major consideration with Qatar.

Qatar, for example, has US university campuses in the country, and is also 'the single largest funder of American universities, according to US Department of Education data, providing more than US$6 billion over the past fifteen years through gifts or contracts with schools including Cornell, Georgetown and North-western. Much of that money is tied to 'satellite campuses'. (20) A rising intelligentsia in both Qatar and the US have relied upon the connivance to serve other interests and agendas.

And with it, comes strings: the puppet-masters lurk behind the scenes and their puppets dance to the music; the main theme song remaining Middle Eastern foreign policy initiatives, including covert operations.

 

1.     Qatar's gambit to gain influence, Australian, 16 May 2025.
2.     Trump's bold Mid-East gambit, The Weekend Australian, 17-18 May 2025.
3.     Essential instruments in US strategy, two new gendarmes: Iran and South Africa, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1976.
4.     See: Shortwave Central, The radio scene on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, 25 July 2019; and, RealClear Defence, Shifting sands at Diego Garcia, 3 February 2025.
5.     See: The ties that bind, J.T. Richelson and D. Ball, (Sydney, 1985), The UKUSA SIGINT network, Appendix One.

6.     See: The Falcon and the Snowman, Robert Lindsay, (London, 1981).
7.     The Ties that Bind, op.cit., Appendix One.
8.     See: Project Dark gene and Project Ibex, www.spyflight.co.uk/darkgene.htm.; and,  www.acig.org
9.     Ibid.
10.   Document 72, Transactions 1-6, The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History, Edited Peter Kornblub and Malcolm Byrne, (New York, 1993), pp. 264-69.
11.   See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.
12.   Australian, op.cit., 16 May 2025.
13.   Echelon, Espionage Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett,  (London, 2003), pp. 89-93.
14.   Ibid.
15.   Australian, op.cit., 16 May 2025.  
16.   Secrets spill as Israel's spy agency is engulfed by Netanyahu row with its boss, Australian, 13 May 2025.
17.   The New Red Scare, Introduction, Covert Action – The Roots of Terrorism, (Victoria, 2003), pp. 49-52.
18.   Disinformation, ibid., pp. 162-68.
19.   Sacking of Israeli spy chief 'tainted', The Weekend Australian, 22-23 March 2025.
20.   Australian, op.cit., 16 May 2025.

 

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Labor Sweeps to Power: Now It’s Time to Deliver for Workers

Written by: D. Sand on 16 May 2025

 

Boorloo — In a historic political shift, the Australian Labor Party has stormed back into government with an unprecedented majority of over 90 seats in the House of Representatives, cementing its mandate to enact bold reforms. This landslide victory is more than just a repudiation of the Coalition — it’s a call to action. It’s time for Labor to stop being afraid of the Liberals and deliver long-lasting, transformative change for Australian workers.

At the heart of this agenda must be workplace reform — and specifically, the restoration of union-led collective bargaining.

For decades, union density in Australia has been in freefall, a trend that began during the Howard era when changes to the Workplace Relations Act allowed workers to nominate anyone — not just unions — to represent them in Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) negotiations. This shift undermined the power and legitimacy of unions at the bargaining table, enabling employers to bypass collective negotiations in favour of individual or token representative deals.

When Labor returned to power previously, there were signals of a crackdown on these practices. But employer associations, led by right-wing extremists like the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Minerals Council of Australia, acted swiftly and ruthlessly. In a legal grey zone, they orchestrated a rush of so-called “baseline agreements” — minimalist EBAs that tied wages to the award, locking workers into stagnant pay and conditions.

These baseline agreements, often signed with minimal consultation, left union organisers arriving on-site to find the door already closed. Workers, trapped in subpar deals for years, saw their bargaining power gutted before negotiations even began.

This time, Labor must not flinch.

It is fundamentally a party of capitalism, but its electoral base largely resides in the working class. Its electoral campaigning depends very much on the support given to it by unions and their ability to organise mass doorknocking to persuade people to vote for it.

The huge majority it has won in parliament almost assures it of success in the next election as well. It can take either one of two paths: feel obliged to reward its electoral base with the repeal of anti-union frameworks embedded by the Coalition and re-empower unions as the exclusive representatives in enterprise bargaining. Unions were built to defend wages, protect safety, and push back against corporate exploitation. Preventing companies from gaming the system through dodgy EBAs isn’t just good policy — it’s a moral imperative.

Or it can feel so secure in office that it feels no need to take on the big end of town in order to extend the rights of workers at work and in the community.

Nothing should be taken for granted.

With a majority this strong, Labor has no excuse for timidity. The electorate has granted them the numbers, the authority, and the moment. Now they must use it — to put more money in the pockets of working Australians, to lift standards across industries, and to restore collective power to where it belongs: with the workers and their unions.

Dare to struggle, Dare to Win

 

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Dystopia and the Sacrosanct Elephant

Written by: (Contributed) on 15 May 2025

 

(Image by chatGPT)

Dystopian: Definition Oxford Lnguages:

Relating to or denoting an imagined state of society where there is great suffering or injustice “the dystopian future is a society bereft of reason”

“Example: environmental disaster is the backdrop to this modern dystopia”

There is a great deal written about the current lack of understanding in the general population regarding what is taking place nationally and within Australia. It is a case of an overload of misinformation that is driven by political and ideological persuasions in support of powerful economic interests.

 

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A very British coup? “They have spies, we have agents”

Written by: (Contributed) on 15 May 2025

 

Moves to find a suitable replacement for the outgoing MI6 chief in London have revealed serious considerations at the very centre of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which also has implications for the elite Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network.

The fact the controversy has already spilled over into the public domain remains evidence, in itself, of the depth of the problem; MI6 would appear to be experiencing problems adapting to modern trends of intelligence-gathering, with implications for subsequent accurate analytical assessments from the world's trouble-spots and areas of interest.

Sir Richard Moore, MI6 chief, has planned for his retirement in a few months’ time and the search has already begun to find a suitable successor. Britain's overseas intelligence services
have a long history reaching back to imperial yesteryear; shadowy figures with fingers remain in pies all over the world. Controversy, nevertheless, has arisen about modern intelligence-gathering techniques which have tended to supersede 'penetration agents'. (1)

Previously the British State relied upon agents, often portrayed in works of fiction to avoid unnecessary finger-pointing and fears of prosecution under the draconian Official Secrets Act. British writer Graham Greene was but one; he wrote about 'Greenland'.  His various works, for example, portrayed a well-placed British spy in pre-revolutionary Batista's Cuba in the 1950s operating undercover selling vacuum cleaners. (2) He was never identified.

One of Greene's later works revealed quite accurately the problem confronting Whitehall when dealing with Apartheid South Africa. The country was regarded as strategic for western defence and security provision although Apartheid was not considered acceptable. (3) The book also provided a glimpse of the faceless bureaucrats who were employed in the almost unaccountable layers of bureaucracy filled from elite patronage systems which rested upon Gentlemen's Clubs and elite dining facilities where counterparts could meet for confidential and discreet 'talk' about mutual areas of interest, without fear of detection.

MI6, historically, has operated as overseas intelligence, under the head of state, and linked into the Commonwealth and elsewhere through the Foreign Office. In practice, the head of state, has relied upon the Privy Council, an executive of the House of Lords, to usually act on their behalf. MI6 was then linked into domestic intelligence, MI5, through the joint-intelligence committee usually headed by the Home Secretary, operating on behalf of the prime minister of the day. Their joint pre-occupation and obsession was/is identifying and assessing threats to the class and state power of the realm. They are, moreover, inherently right-wing and racist, which has continually interfered with their focus, judgements and opinions on numerous occasions. They are clearly not the font of all wisdom.

The two intelligence services frequently operate through other government departments and corporate entities; the Post Office in the UK was a good example. While ostensibly providing telecommunications and postal services, it provided a convenient cover for clandestine operations. It also provided technical training for foreign nations within the British Commonwealth. Its internal security system, the Special Investigation Branch (SIB), was well-known for links with the intelligence services and the preoccupation and obsession with spying on the entire workforce under the guise of 'security vetting'. (4) The telecommunications systems in military facilities used by NATO's secret armies had to be protected at all costs; the fascists they deployed operated within a culture of impunity. (5)

Secrecy, however, has shielded non-reliable sources of intelligence and their questionable assessments; Hanslope Manor estate, for example, is owned by the UK, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It is also home to the British Government Communications Centre and within easy reach of Whitehall in the City of Milton Keynes. Housing extensive archives from its imperial past, the institution has been described as 'the fortress-like warehouse for top-secret government files'. (6) Most of the estimated 1.2 million documents will never be declassified; they are generally recognised as containing incriminating evidence about Britain's imperial past. Silence remains the order of the day.

Sir Richard Moore would appear to have followed the old tradition, serving undercover in Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia before becoming British Ambassador in Turkey. (7)
The country remains one of vital interest; its former imperial past has continued to provide links into the modern-day Islamic World. Recent references in the public domain to the sensitive British-based GCHQ listening station, linked into the elite Five Eyes of the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, however, show how intelligence-gathering has tended to move away from strategically placed individual agents quietly collecting information, toward massive downloads of intercepted data from telecommunications facilities.

It has led to concerns that 'MI6 is losing its cutting edge in a world where the vast bulk of actionable intelligence is gathered by GCHQ'. (8)

Moves which began with the Echelon system in the Five Eyes decades ago which had the facilities to provide 'an awesome spying capacity for the USA, allowing it to monitor continuously most of the world's communications targeting civilian as well as military traffic', have now been upgraded to include the internet. (9)

The Echelon system relied upon computer systems in various strategically placed stations around the world which were programmed with chosen key-words, allowing 'each station to collect all the telephone calls, faxes, telexes, internet messages and other electronic communications that its computers have been programmed to select for all its allies and automatically sends this intelligence to them'. (10)

In recent years, however, the 'National Security Agency's attention has shifted to finding ways to exploit the global reach of Google, Microsoft, Venizon and other US technological powers'. (11) The NSA, at the centre of the Five Eyes, is now faced with huge troves of intelligence gathered from on-line facilities.

It has not made the work of intelligence services easier; in fact, to the contrary, it has led to the problems recently publicised by MI6. More intelligence gathered has required more analysts to provide assessments. It has not proved cost effective.

When dealing with the large-scale troves on intelligence, a former intelligence officer was recently quoted as stating 'they have lost their way … they seem to have forgotten that their job is agent handling and running and recruiting'. (12) Another former MI6 officer who applied for the top job 'called for a return to classic recruitment of penetration agents … your organisation needs a complete reset'; they did not make the short-list. (13)

Published sources have revealed front-runner for the top MI6 job is Dame Barbara Woodward, Britain's Ambassador to the United Nations, who is also the most senior woman employed in the Foreign office. A China specialist, Woodward was Ambassador to Beijing during 2015-20. (14)

The appointment takes place at a time when 'the security services have alleged that Chinese spies have penetrated the inner circle of the Duke of York, infiltrated political circles, hacked businesses and attacked Hong Kong dissidents in the UK. Intelligence officials say Chinese spying activity is on an industrial scale'. (15)

In conclusion, whether we will see a return to the days of yonder and Colonel Daintry, however, who 'had a two-roomed flat in St. James's Street which he found through the agency of another member of the firm. During the war it had been used by MI6 as a rendezvous for interviewing possible recruits … few people who walked down St. James's Street knew of the court's existence. It was a very discreet flat', remains, as yet, to be established. (16)  

The secret contribution made by Colonel Daintry and his associates to the maintenance of the British State and all which that entailed, nevertheless, has remained neatly filed away at Hanslope Manor, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The elite patronage systems of which the intelligence agents formed part, have remained intact for centuries and appear even stronger now than yesteryear. Labour governments may have challenged them, but reform was never on the horizon or even an agenda item.

In fact, Labour governments appear to have been accommodated and assimilated within the morass. Governments may come and go with the following of established constitutional procedures, the bureaucracy on which they rest and depend upon, however, has not experienced serious discord since the heady days of the English Civil War, 1642-49.

When Peter Wright wrote Spycatcher and spilled the beans on one of the oldest professions in the world, perhaps he wrote it on behalf of all of them!

1.     'Beijing Barbara' leads race to be first female MI6 chief, Australian, 12 May 2025.
2.     See: Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene, (1958)
3.     See: The Human Factor, Graham Greene, (London, 1978).
4.     Spycatcher, Peter Wright, (Victoria, 1988), pages: 7, 18, 45, 46, 83, 131, 172.
5.     See: NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, (2005); and, Late 1940s-1990s, Europe: Building Right-Wing Terror Groups; and, EU Resolution (1990) on Operation Gladio (ie., sword); and, 1950-now, Germany: 'Stay Behind” Forces and Neo-Nazism, Psywar Terror Tactics, A People's History of the CIA., December 2000, (Ottawa), Issue 43, pp. 11-12.
6.     'King Charles, Caroline Elkins, 29 October 2023.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 12 May 2025.
8.     Ibid.
9.     See: Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2003), pp. 89-93.
10.   Ibid.
11.   The intelligence coup of the century, The Washington Post, 11 February 2020.
12.   Australian, op.cit., 12 May 2025.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Ibid.
15.   Ibid.
16.   The Human Factor, op.cit., page 104

 

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Workers Strike at PepsiCo's Snack Foods Factory - An Example of The Leading Class In Action

Written by: Ned K. on 11 May 2925

 

About 150 Workers at PepsiCo's Snack Foods factory in Adelaide have commenced a series of strikes involving production workers, store persons and trades workers. Members of three Unions - United Workers Union, AMWU and CEPU - have united to win a better deal in a new Enterprise Agreement. 

The workers’ spirits on the picket lines are high and so is the unity of the workers. Many of the workers are from migrant backgrounds from Asian countries.

They know that the standard of living is higher than in their home countries such as the Philippines, but they are workers in Australia now, so why shouldn't they have enough income like their bosses to be able to pay the mortgage or pay the rent?

Enough income to buy a car to drive to and from work and put food on the table for their families. Not to mention the education needs of their children. They are standing together to have enough income for the necessities of living in this country.

They know that PepsiCo and multinationals like them exploit workers for profit, whether their factories are in the USA, Australia or any other country. 

Workers are demanding a 12% wage increase to equal what PepsiCo workers are paid performing the same work at PepsiCo's Brisbane Snack Foods factory.
PepsiCo told striking workers that they did not deserve wage parity with PepsiCo workers in Brisbane because the cost of living was lower in Adelaide than Brisbane! 

On the picket line, workers laughed when a supporter asked if due to the lower wages in the Adelaide factory, are the supermarket prices of potato chips produced at the Adelaide factory cheaper than those from the Brisbane factory?

Workers said "No way"! They said that they were organized for a long struggle if necessary.

 

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Celebrate the 80th anniversary of the defeat of fascism

Written by: Nick G. on 9 May 2025

 

Eighty years ago, victory was achieved in the War Against Fascism.

The day is celebrated on either May 8 or 9 depending on which side of the international date line a country was situated at the time of signing.

The most significant contributor to the defeat of Nazi Germany was the Soviet Union led by Stalin.

The Battle for Stalingrad was the war’s turning point. Soviet losses were enormous. Twenty million Soviet people were killed by the invading Nazis, villages burnt to the ground and infrastructure destroyed.

Australia stood proudly by the side of the Soviet Union and its Allies. The prestige of Stalin and the Red Army was high. Lady Jessie Street was president (from 1939) of the Sydney branch of the Society for Cultural Relations with the U.S.S.R. Following Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, she mobilized and chaired the high-powered Russian Medical Aid and Comforts Committee; when war with Japan shifted priorities for medicines, she organized the 'Sheepskins for Russia' Appeal. 

Despite an initial ban on its existence, the Communist Party of Australia saw an unprecedented expansion. 

With the war’s end, imperialism regrouped and began the Cold War. It was assisted after Stalin’s death in 1953 by his revisionist successor Khrushchev who perfected the art of disinformation in his secret speech to the 20th Congress which was full of lies about Stalin. Khrushchev’s authority as head of the CPSU allowed these lies, leaked to the capitalist press, to be passed off as truths which led to a demonising of Stalin and a loss of members in Communist Parties around the globe, including here in Australia.

Today, the danger of a Third World War has intensified. There are increasing threats to use nuclear weapons, and the arms race is even reaching into Outer Space.

Accompanying the threat of war is a resurgence of fascism. It takes two forms: parliamentary legislation depriving unions and progressive peoples of their rights to take action in their workplaces and communities, and the growth of fascist street thugs who foment national and racial tensions through actions designed to intimidate and threaten opponents.

The April 25 Incident when Nazis booed the First Peoples Welcome to Country at an ANZAC Day ceremony was bad enough, but for the then Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, to effectively second their motion by adding to calls to get rid of the First People’s Welcomes, was a sign of just how closely both forms of fascism can feed off each other.

Zionism has besmirched the ancient religion of Judaism. In 1931, Stalin, alone among world leaders at that time, had denounced anti-Semitism as “the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism”, and had made its expression illegal in the USSR. The Hitlerites carried out the Holocaust, killing 6 million Jews. Now Israel, as a Zionist-created state on the occupied lands of the Palestinians, is imposing its own genocidal war on the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

The causes of the genocide in Gaza, Sudan, and Congo, and the destruction in Ukraine, no matter what are the particulars of each of these conflicts, all have the same root: intensified competition between imperialist powers for market shares and raw materials. 

If we are to remember and celebrate the victory of the War Against Fascism, we must dedicate ourselves to the contemporary fight against war and fascism.
In Italy, dockworkers supporting the Palestinians, blocked the ports under the slogan: “Let's lower the weapons, let's raise the wages! Let's block the logistics of war!”

Here we must defend our rights, not let the parliamentary fascists or the street thugs pass, and break the US stranglehold on our country.

No to AUKUS, no to the US war preparations!
For the rights of all peoples to self-determination!
For an anti-imperialist independent, peaceful and socialist Australia! 

 

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Farm ownership in Australia

Written by: Duncan B. on 5 May 2025

 

The farm newspaper Weekly Times has just released the results of its annual survey of farm ownership in Australia. As always, these results make interesting reading.

Top of the list and clear leader is the Canadian Pension fund PSP Investments, which now has Australian agricultural holdings valued at $8.5 billion. They continued to spend up big in the last year and have investments in a wide variety of farming including cropping, livestock, horticulture, vineyards, cotton and nuts across many different areas of Australia.

Second is the Australian-owned Macquarie Agriculture Fund, with $4 billion in assets also spread across Australia in a wide variety of types of farming.

A US-based pension fund, TIAA & Nuveen Natural Capital is third with $2.5 billion of well-spread assets in Australia. This company’s global portfolio includes 600-plus assets valued at US $13.7 billion in 10 countries.

Fourth is the Trump-loving Gina Rinehart. Her Hancock Agriculture and S Kidman & Co has $2 billion invested mainly in cattle raising in the Northern Territory, Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Behind Gina come a number of companies with investments in the $1-2 billion range. They are a mixture of local investment funds, Canadian pension funds plus one US and one Hong Kong-based company.

One to watch is Farmland Reserve, which is an investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Acting through a local subsidiary Alkira Farms Inc., this company has been busy in the last year, spending nearly $500 million on acquisitions of Australian farms. Farmland Reserve has a world-wide investment portfolio valued at over A$300 billion. We will watch with interest at what this crowd is up to!

The wide-spread ownership of our agriculture by foreign interests puts at risk our food security and their hold over water rights will make it harder for Australian farmers to gain access to precious irrigation water.

Oppose the foreign take-over of Australian agriculture!

 

 

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Quadrant: Keith Windschuttle and Australian culture wars

Written by: (Contributed) on 5 May 2025

 

The passing of a former senior member of the Quadrant publication has provided a glimpse of how a section of the far-right managed to hide their political associations and masquerade under a mantle of respectability in order to influence public opinion. The group aimed primarily at influencing decision-makers inside the corridors of power, academia and other related bodies. A closer study of the group, however, would tend to portray them as relatively naive people manipulated by powerful political forces acting as paymasters and puppet-masters from behind the scenes.

The Quadrant publication was established during the early days of the previous Cold War by the CIA-funded Committee for Cultural Freedom (CCF); it has continued throughout the period to the present day as a right-wing magazine, attracting a long list of contributors and associates in influential positions driving right-wing political agendas and issues. (1) It has been said that 'Quadrant was on the American payroll in the service of American foreign policy'. (2)

Not all those involved with Quadrant knew about the role of the CIA as both paymaster and puppet-master. In fact, while CIA involvement was direct through the CCF, where it was noted they were responsible for 'large contributions', their support for Quadrant was deemed indirect and conducted along the lines of 'covert support of a large number of activities which it judged to be valuable'. (3) Intelligence-gathering was but one.

The CCF role in intelligence-gathering was not confined to right-wing and business organisation; in fact, the CCF launched the Encounter publication in London in 1953, which became 'one of the most influential journals of liberal opinion in the West'. (4) It was noted that those associated with the CCF network 'embraced many prominent figures in the British Labour Party' during the previous Cold War. (5)

The role of Quadrant should be studied in the context of US intelligence interference in Australian society; it has a long history. While the link between the CCF and the CIA was exposed in 1966, the Australian branch had been established in 1954 through the Paris headquarters of the organisation. (6) Quadrant was subsequently launched in 1956, heavily supported by the CCF and their CIA funding; estimates as large as $100,000 of financial assistance to 1967 have been used in serious and credible publications. (7)  

The mindset of those knowingly on the payroll have been noted to adhere to the following political position: that the maintenance of Australia's defence and security was best served by the US alliance, and therefore, there was nothing intrinsically wrong or unethical in accepting financial support for a good political cause and its maintenance. (8)

Studies of the Nugan Hand Bank in the 1970s, likewise, leave little to the imagination. Those associated with the bank were caught attempting to blackmail an Australian state minister while transferring $2.4 million to the Liberal Party. (9) The bank collapsed in 1980 with huge debts; its intelligence links are still subject to official denial by Washington and the Pentagon. As they do.

The role of the US intelligence services in Australia has been marked by a huge involvement in intelligence-gathering. Declassified documents reveal planning and methods of operation. A Clandestine Operation, for example, is established in secrecy with 'plausible denial by the sponsor'. (10) A Cover is designed to conceal the 'true nature of its acts and its existence'. (11) An Agent is 'any individual who, on a controlled basis, is engaged in the clandestine collection of intelligence or counter-intelligence, information or in support thereof, either wittingly or unwittingly'. (12)

Quadrant provided a convenient cover and mantle of respectability for those associated with the publication. The magazine pushed right-wing political agendas; its other roles and agendas were not so apparent and hidden.

The recent passing of long-time editor of the publication and chairman of the Quadrant board, Keith Windschuttle (1945-2025), has enabled those contributors and associates the opportunity of praising his role in the culture wars waged by the Quadrant against progressive and left-wing activists and movements.

It is interesting to note, therefore, that Windschuttle began a career as part of the academic left; he eventually broke with his colleagues to assume a right-wing political position. (13) Can it, perhaps, be explained by the paymasters and puppet-masters wanting him employed in another, more useful, capacity?   
 
The Australian newspaper, long a right-wing mouthpiece of Canberra, used its editorial column to label Windschuttle as 'a poster person for what this newspaper stands for'. (14) He was a leading figure and thinker of the Conservative right. A quick read of the letters page of the newspaper reveals, quite adequately, the limited and appalling mindset of the bulk of its readership.     

Others praising Windschuttle have drawn attention to his role as a historian and 'principled, fearless and absolutely dedicated to getting the facts right'. (15)

None of the commentary, however, drew any attention to the philosophical consideration that 'history means interpretation'. (16) Facts may be one aspect for consideration, how they are interpreted by analysis is what a historian does when studying the past through the eyes of later generations. Every age produces its own history, as interpretations change with the times. The context in which facts occur remains crucial for our understanding of the past.

One only has to consider the ongoing controversy surrounding Ned Kelly. To some, he was nothing more than a common criminal. To others, there were other factors worthy of consideration; his ethnicity and the dominant British class and state power of the period in Ireland and elsewhere. To be a supporter of Irish republicanism, was to challenge the class and state power of the British elsewhere, including Australia. Kelly, for some, was a hero.

Windschuttle was best known for his studies of early settlement in Australia and the Aboriginal issue. He was a well-known figure of controversy surrounding the white colonial treatment of the Indigenous Aboriginal people. Windschuttle's constant nit-picking approach to his historical account of the period did not take into account the fact that Aboriginal history is largely oral, and that Dreamtime was, and remains, a real concept. A historian? At no time was Windschuttle challenged for his white supremacist approach; to study the period accurately, however, a historian would have to take into account the colonialism of Britain during the period which was thoroughly racist.

The words of Land of Hope and Glory epitomise dominant thinking of the period: Wider still, and wider, shall thy bounds be set, God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet! The period was marked by imperialist thinking, swashbuckling bravado and theft of artefacts and land by those seeking to extend the role of Britain into the wider world. Their apologists continue, to the present day, to depict Britain's invasion of Australia in 1788 as nothing other than justifiable.  

When assessing the role of Quadrant, it is important to place it into a context of association of members with other, like-minded, right-wing organisations. There are overlapping areas of influence amongst conspicuous personnel; Slow Horses, (British slang for MI5 service rejects who have seriously failed a task but not badly enough to get sacked) however, remain behind the scenes, maintaining a low profile while representing elite patronage systems for the well initiated, their families and siblings.

Windschuttle was close to John Howard, who in turn, held the chair of the International Democrat Union (IDU) for over a decade leading to the ending of his tenure in 2014. (17)

A newcomer to the IDU board has been Scott Morrison. (18) IDU treasurer is Mike Roman, a former employee of the Koch Brothers, a far-right organisation which spent $900 million getting Donald Trump elected in 2016. (19)

John Howard is also well-known inside the shadowy World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD), formerly the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). (20) The origins of the organisation are particularly significant when viewed in the context of the previous Cold War and its present functions in the new Cold War. It was created in 1954 by South Korean intelligence agents together with their Taiwanese counterparts. (21) It quickly grew into a global organisation and central body of far-right associates, including Australia.

The WACL Australian section was noted as being 'represented largely by conservative members of parliament, interspersed with neo-Nazis, racists, and Eastern European immigrants whose roots lay in the fascist collaborationist armies of World War 2'. (22)

John Howard and his right-wing cronies were to prove a comfortable fit into such bodies.

Another figure associated with Quadrant, Tony Abbott, likewise, is no stranger to the far-right. As a board member of Quadrant, Abbott 'praised Windschuttle as one of Australia's best and bravest historians. His greatest and most unique achievement was the intellectual rigour he brought to the history of Aboriginal people and their interaction with settler society'. (23) The context in which the interaction took place, however, was not elaborated on by Abbott. The reasons, nevertheless, remain quite apparent, particularly when viewed in the context of his statement that Quadrant was 'one of Australia's premier intellectual magazines'. (24)

Both Howard and Abbott remain close and their involvement with the new right Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) was noted during their London conference in 2023. (25) Official agenda items discussed at the conference included: foundational freedoms, the importance of the family, the scientific method, market-based economics, the free exchange of ideas and a realist geo-strategy. (26) Their unofficial agenda was not publicised openly although existed all the way from the conference floor to the corridors of power in Westminster and beyond, and into the darkest corners of Washington and the Pentagon.  

In conclusion, it is not difficult to establish the right-wing credentials of such people and their Quadrant associates. Some of their agendas remain quite apparent; it is, however, the other agendas which they continue to pursue which remain worthy of greater scrutiny! Serious studies of the US intelligence services, for example, have invariably concluded with the note that 'the CIA is perfectly ready to reward it friends'. (27) And it has, and does.

                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     About Us, Quadrant, 13 September 2009; and, The CIA as Culture Vultures, Jacket 12, Cassandra Pybus, July 2000.
2.     CIA as culture vultures, ibid.
3.     Evatt – Politics and Justice, Kylie Tennant, (Australia, 1970), Appendix E, pp. 380-82; and, The CIA's Australian Connection. Denis Freney, (Sydney, 1977).
4.     Who were they travelling with? The CIA and the British Labour Movement, CIA Infiltration of the Labour Movement, (London, 1982), pp. 50-62.
5.     Ibid.
6.     The Secret State, Richard Hall, (NSW, 1978), page 197.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Ibid., page 192.
9.     The Nugan-Hand Bank, 1975, Australia: Overthrowing Whitlam's Labour Party,   A People's History of the CIA., (Ottawa, 2000), Issue 43, pp. 29-30; and, The CIA's Australian Connection, Denis Freney, (Sydney, 1977).
10.   Instructions for the coordination and control of Navy's clandestine intelligence  collection program, Top Secret, 7 December 1965, Declassified: 13 July 1990.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Ibid.
13.   The final chapter for courageous historian, Obituary, Australian, 10 April 2025.
14.   Windschuttle a fierce intellect, Editorial, Australian, 11 April 2025.
15.  Windschuttle shunned political agenda for evidence, Australian, 11 April 2025.
16.   The historian and his facts, What is History? E.H. Carr, (London, 1961), pp. 7-30.
17.   Scott Morrison signs on with global political network, The New Daily, 14 September 2022.
18.   Ibid.
19.   Ibid.
20.   Website: WACL., 9 January 1990.
21.   Inside the League, Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, (New York, 1986), page 47; and, The WACL: Origins, Structure and Activities, Pierre Abramovici, (2014).
22.   Inside the League, ibid., page 59.
23.   Culture wars warrior Windschuttle gone at 83, but intellectual impact lives on, Australian, 10 April 2025.
24.   Ibid.
25.   Howard, Abbott at global summit, Australian, 9 March 2023.
26.   Ibid.
27.   The CIA and the cult of intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, (London, 1976), page 396.

 

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Power to the People

Written by: on April 2025

 

 

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Australian Communist
     Autumn 2025

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Australia Communist Autumn 2025

Written by: on 4 May 2025

 

Australian Communist
     Autumn 2025

 

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ALBANESE DEFINES LABOR PARTY - "MAINSTREAM" and "REFORMIST NOT REVOLUTIONARY"

Written by: Ned K. on May 4, 2025

 

In the last days before the federal election, Anthony Albanese made it clear publicly that the ALP was "mainstream" and "reformist" not "revolutionary".

He did not elaborate on what he meant by "revolutionary". Perhaps he was implying that Trump type policies were "revolutionary" and Dutton liked Trump. Or perhaps he was saying to big business and middle-class swinging voters that the "market economy" (capitalism) had nothing to fear from a second term ALP government.

The outcome of the federal election showed that the majority of people, especially younger generations, rejected the most reactionary sections of the ruling class policies represented by Dutton's Liberal Party which represents the other side of the "mainstream" parliamentary political parties.

The ABC commentary after the election revealed that even die-hard Liberal voters in retirement villages in Dutton's own Seat of Dixon voted for the ALP candidate Ali France because of Dutton's nuclear power policy, his proposed cuts to public service jobs and his policy preference (later reversed) to prevent mainly women workers from working from home.

More experience of ALP in administering capitalism in Australia is a good thing. It will show people that "reforms" under the most reform-minded ALP government will not solve the problems of the people in Australia.

Through more experience of ALP in office, more working people will see that only a mighty mass movement outside of parliament for an independent, socialist Australia will provide the conditions for solving the many issues of the people in a sustainable way. Through their own struggles and experience of the limitations of "reforms", people will conclude that fundamental revolutionary change will be required.

 

 

 

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May Day Greetings from CPA (M-L)

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 30 April 2025

 

On the occasion of the 2025 May Day, the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) greets our class, the working class of Australia, and all workers and oppressed peoples throughout the world.

It is important that on May Day, the demands of the working class, independent of the electioneering slogans of the parliamentary parties vying for office, are raised and heard.

Together those demands make up an independent working class agenda and unapologetically go beyond what the Labor Party and the trade union leaderships supporting it, can tolerate.

They could not tolerate strong union militancy in the construction industry, so they placed the CFMEU under Administration. 

We demand the right of workers to belong to the union of their choice and for the freedom of action that all unions should possess, namely the right of their members to withdraw their labour when and where it hurts the employer the most.

We support the rights of workers and unions to take actions in solidarity with each other's struggles, for sovereignty and self-determination of the First People, in support of people's struggles for justice, the environment, for peace and against imperialist wars.  We support the right to take actions in solidarity with workers and the oppressed around the world and at this time particularly, of the right to stand with Palestinians against Israel’s genocidal killings.

Young workers are getting organised.  Sometimes this must be done in areas of new and often precarious employment where there has been no history of union involvement.  We salute these young workers and their courage in rising to the challenge of finding new ways to organise and struggle.

We recognise the support that comes from progressive members of other classes active in environmental, antiwar and anti-imperialist activity for Australian independence and socialism. 

There is a growing united front against AUKUS. AUKUS commits us to a $368 billion spend over 30 years – or $30 million per day over 30 years! Imagine what services could be provided to struggling communities if that money was used to address cost of living matters here in Australia.

Finally, wherever this greeting is being read in Australia, it is being read on the unceded lands of the First Peoples, and we acknowledge and respect their resilience in the face of colonial genocide. We support their ongoing struggles for self-determination.

Workers of Australia, take the lead in all our struggles!

For anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!

(Above: Art work courtesy of Olliver Tyler, Eureka Initiative, Queensland)

 

 

 

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   May Day 2025

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May Day 2025

Written by: on

 

   May Day 2025

 

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ICOR: 1 May 2025: All over the world, come out on our day – long live socialism!

Written by: ICOR on 30 April 2025

 

On May Day, the International Day of Struggle of the working class, we reaffirm our ties and solidarity with all the exploited and oppressed.

Many people are concerned about the future, and this is beginning to come to the fore in the struggles of the workers and popular masses in many countries and all continents - on the streets, in the workplaces, factories and schools. The capitalist and imperialist world domination is becoming more and more absurd in view of the possibilities and achievements of the revolutionary productive forces: a growing working class worldwide, knowledge and possibilities of science and technology before unknown to overcome hunger and many mass diseases, to provide humanity in the entire world with work, education, health, food, housing and dignity and to save the environment. But instead, imperialist domination turns these gains into their opposite. The threat of world war, rising fascist movements and racist tendencies, and a worsening global environmental catastrophe that has begun are rampant throughout the world.

The heaviest burdens of imperialist rule are borne by the worldwide working class, their families and the women. Intensified exploitation and oppression in the factories, extended working hours, mass layoffs or even entire plant closures, dangerous working conditions, wage theft and widespread violence, particularly gender-based violence, etc. endanger health, undermine the quality of life, devastate communities and exhaust the masses. This makes the conditions more difficult to become socially and politically engaged next to work. These realities also steal hope for future generations. At the same time, fascist tendencies are on the rise: repressive laws, political persecution, and state violence are being deployed against striking workers, students, revolutionaries and the oppressed. Around the world, the ruling classes respond to the crisis with terror, but also with demagogy, seeking to break resistance with prisons, bullets, and fear – but also by means of deception.

Even more important is that 1 May must be more than a day of protest and be held in contrast to division, individualism and despondency. It is not only an occasion to develop the class struggle for the improvement of working and living conditions, but also to root the idea of socialism as the only perspective for the future among the masses of workers.

Let us recall Lenin's vision from 1 May 1919:

“Our grandchildren will examine the documents and other relics of the epoch of the capitalist system with amazement. It will be difficult for them to picture to themselves how the trade in articles of primary necessity could remain in private hands, how factories could belong to individuals, how some men could exploit others, how it was possible for those who did not work to exist. Up to now the story of what our children would see in the future has sounded like a fairy-tale; but today, comrades, you clearly see that the edifice of socialist society, of which we have laid the foundations, is not a utopia. Our children will build this edifice with even greater zeal." (V.I. Lenin, Three Speeches Delivered In Red Square, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 330)

Let us take up this vision, not as a dream, but as an urgent task.

Therefore, on 1 May 2025, in the spirit of Lenin and his legacy of struggle:

For the future of the children of the world!

Workers of all countries, unite!

Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!

Workers of all countries and all oppressed, unite!

Forward with the struggle for liberation, democracy, freedom and socialism!

Get organized and strengthen the ICOR!

 

Further signing possible.

ORC Organisation Révolutionnaire du Congo (Revolutionary Organization of Congo), Democratic Republic of the Congo

UPC-Manidem Union des Populations du Cameroun - Manifeste National pour l’Instauration de la Démocratie (Union of Populations of Cameroon - National Manifesto for the Establishment of Democracy)

CPK Communist Party of Kenya

MMLPL Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line

CPSA (ML) Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

PPDS Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

SPB Socialist Party of Bangladesh

NCP (Mashal) Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

RUFN Revolutionary United Front of Nepal

CPA/ML Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

Krasnyj Klin Gruppa Kommunistov-Revoljucionerov „Krasnyj Klin“ (Group of Communist Revolutionaries “Krasnyj Klin” ), Belarus

БКП Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

PR-ByH Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

MLPD Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

UPML Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

BP (NK-T) Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

KOL Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

RM Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

UMLP União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

RMP Российская маоистская партия (Rossijskaya maoistskaya partiya) (Russian Maoist Party)

MLGS Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

TKP-ML Türkiye Komünist Partisi – Marksist-Leninist (Communist Party of Turkey – Marxist-Leninist)

MLKP Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

KSRD Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

UMU Union of Maoists of the Urals (Union of Maoists of the Urals), Russia

OAPCM Organización Apoyante del Partido Comunista de México (Supporting Organization of the Communist Party of Mexico)

PCP (independiente) Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan Communist Party (independent))

PC (ML) Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

APR Ação Popular Revolucionária (People’s Revolutionary Action), Brazil

SUCI (C) Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist)

 

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PROLETARIAN AND INTERNATIONALIST MAY DAY - Statement by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties

Written by: M-L-M Parties on 30 April 2025

 

Against the Imperialist War, Reaction, Fascism, Repression, Poverty and Oppression
Proletarians and Oppressed Peoples of the World, unite!
We Have Nothing to Lose But Our Chains and Have a World to Win!

Let’s take the streets this May 1st, international day of struggle of the working class and oppressed peoples that is being held this year in a context of sharpening imperialist system contradictions and growing repression, which is opposed by a growing resistance of the proletarians and peoples.

The furious attacks of imperialists, their States and their governments on proletarians and the masses reflect the unloading on proletarians and the masses of their general crisis that is deepening.

All imperialist States and governments are increasing military spending beyond measure and explicitly say that we must prepare for war.

The imperialist powers US/NATO/EU are equipping themselves with increasingly modern and devastating armaments and plan to use of nuclear weapons; they are strengthening their armies, militarizing their territories, developing the war economy.

Russian imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism are on the one side the target of this offensive and on the other one are riding the crisis of USA/NATO/EU imperialism to prepare a new set up more favourable to them.

The imperialist war originates from the global economic crisis of the imperialist capitalist system that demands a new partition of the world.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing genocide in Palestine by the Zionist state of Israel, the attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, the occupation of Kurdistan and massacres on the Kurdish people by the fascist Turkish state, the preparations of the US to attack and encircle China through the Philippines with alliances in the Indo-Pacific are aspects of the march towards the war of partition.

It is opposed by the action of China in the global economic arena, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and also the gradual line up of other countries in the world which their reactionary regimes aspire to become gendarmes in their areas within the imperialist system: Turkey, India, Brazil, etc.

The costs of war and rearmament are unloaded on proletarians and people’s masses with heightening cost of living, unemployment, precariousness, cuts of social spending, attacks on the rights and struggles of proletarians and people’s masses. The capitalists intensify the exploitation and more and more turn the proletarians and the most exploited sections of them into modern slaves at the service of profit.

In the countries oppressed by imperialism, poverty and oppression of the people are worsening, and they also pay for the global environmental climate crisis and the effects of natural disasters.

While externally the imperialist states and governments prepare war, internally the tendency to modern fascism combined with the crisis of imperialism advances and the tendency to a world imperialist war finds today a reference point in the Trump presidency and the fraction of the ruling class of the imperialist bourgeoisie which came to power in the US, restricting and erasing the vestiges of bourgeois democracy itself, attacking democratic freedoms and filling prisons, establishing increasingly dictatorial forms of government, within which fascist parties and modern fascism advance, according to the characteristics of the different countries.

Women's rights, freedom of thought are attacked, hatred is fomented, chauvinism and nationalism are strengthened to hit the people’s resistance, divide the proletariat and the masses, at the service of the domination of the ruling classes and their lackeys. Racism is intensified with attacks in all forms on immigrants, with deaths in the sea, concentration camps, slave exploitation, expulsions and deportations. The monopoly of old and new media is increasingly in the hands of technological oligarchies that make huge profits and more and more they seek to impose obscurantist culture in schools and universities.

All over the world the proletarians and the people are rebelling and resisting against imperialism, fascism, the worsening of living and working conditions.
Inside the imperialist and capitalist countries, workers carry out general strikes, as in Greece; they block ships that transport weapons of war, as in Italy, Greece etc., the youth take the streets against fascism and racism.

The new fascist-imperialist US presidency of Trump, with the Zionist operative arm Netanyahu, launched a plan of "final solution", of genocide and deportation of the Palestinian people. Against it, the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people develops, of their organizations that also with the action of October 7 have brought back to the center of the world attention the goal of a free Palestine, a Palestinian State "from the river to the sea". The struggle of the Palestinian people fuels the awakening of all the Arab masses for a liberation struggle from the Arab regimes accomplices of Zionism and in any case subservient to imperialism.

Internationalist solidarity with the Palestinian people is a great banner that calls the people to fight against imperialism. In Turkey, students, women, workers, oppressed masses oppose Erdogan's fascist regime, putting it more and more in crisis.

In some oppressed countries, from Latin America to Asia, from Africa to the Middle East, peoples’ protests and revolts advance, demanding the intensifying of the revolutionary battle for New Democracy revolutions marching to socialism. At the forefront of these struggles are women guerrillas, women workers, revolutionary women's organizations that fuel the fire of resistance and the necessary struggle for women's liberation united with the class struggle.
In many countries, youth are rebelling and are the front line of the opposition that demands and seeks the way of the revolution.

Among the revolutionary and anti-imperialist struggles in the world, the people's wars led by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces, particularly in India and the Philippines, inspire and show to the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world the path to a true liberation from imperialism, which requires abandoning all forms of revisionism and reformism, as well as all forms of liquidationism and defeatism, to affirm that the only real alternative to capitalist and imperialist barbarism is the proletarian revolution and the only solution is socialism. We condemn the Indian state's ongoing fascist military campaign—Operation Kagar—targeting the Communist Party of India (Maoist). This offensive is not merely an attack on a revolutionary party, but a broader assault on the struggles of the toiling masses, Adivasis, and oppressed nationalities fighting for liberation and dignity. 

To support the protracted people's wars is a fundamental duty and task of revolutionary communist parties and organizations in the world.

The proletariat is the largest army that exists, if the exploited and oppressed people unite, they can put an end to the capitalist world system.

Today more than ever we need the unity of Communist Parties and Organizations of the world based on the great teachings of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that develop, in the fire of the class struggle, their being more and more the advanced detachment of the working class, leading nucleus of the entire proletariat and people, promoters and central element of the construction of a united revolutionary front against imperialism, fascism, exploitation and oppression.

Proletarian internationalism demands the march, through unity and struggle, to advance to a new Communist International. On this 1st May it is necessary to advance this tendency and affirm it in the ranks of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples engaged in the revolutionary struggle.

THIS MAY 1st LET'S RAISE HIGHER THE RED FLAG OF REVOLUTION!

Stop the imperialist war, where it develops and breaks out, let's transform it into a revolutionary war for proletarian power!
Death to fascism in all its forms!
Free Palestine from the river to the sea!
Death to imperialism, the future belongs to socialism and communism!

 

Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan 
Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) 
Construction Committee of the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia 
Communist Party of India (Maoist)* 
Communist Party of Turkey - Marxist Leninist (TKP-ML) 
Communist Worker Union (mlm) Colombia 
Communist Unity - France 
Maoist Communist Party – Italy
 Maoist Communist Commitee - Brasil 
Proletarian Party Of Purbo Bangla (PBSP/Bangladesh). 
Red Road of Iran (Maoist group) 
People's Democratic Students Unity (PDSU) - Bangladesh

 

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NSW construction workers to march on May 1

Written by: Louisa L. on 28 April 2025

 

As attacks on the CFMEU continue, NSW construction workers and allies including electrical, plumbing and maritime workers will march on May 1, International Workers Day. 

Since 2019, when outrage about 18-year-old worker Christopher Cassaniti’s death under collapsed scaffolding saw tens of thousands walk out, the CFMEU and allied unions have struck and marched on May Day in Sydney. 

This year it comes two years after CFMEU strikes and bans forced the outlawing of deadly engineered stone, and just four weeks after 13 workers were sentenced to early deaths with silicosis after Chinese-owned John Hollands and NSW governments delayed measures to protect M6 and other tunnel workers. 

For 50 years the ruling class tried to destroy the CFMEU and Builders Labourers Federation before it.  Working-class militancy always resurfaced. Finally, in 2024 both Labor and Coalition joined forces to legislate the construction union’s complete takeover in four states. 

Three lessons

In any battle, understanding the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, and our own, are essential. There’s no room for big noting. Facts are the key. Unions are part of the capitalist system, chained to it from birth by hundreds of laws. No matter how militant, unions can’t overthrow the system they operate in. They’re part of that system because unions by their nature seek only to win the best they can within it. 

Everyone makes errors.  The CFMEU nationally now understands relying on the ALP was disastrous. The ALP is not a working-class party, never has been. It’s been an essential ingredient to successful capitalist rule by deception since it was formed under capitalist laws in 1901.  

The second lesson was the need to raise political awareness so workers understood themselves as part of the working class. Extraordinarily good wages and allowances blinded many construction workers to the possibility of takeover by governments for giant mainly US-controlled developers and building corporations. 

Finally, the union realised too late how the enemy of the working class would behave when the boom began to bust. For corporations pocketing boom-time super profits, industrial peace was worth paying for. Lendlease even took the ABCC to court! The union’s last two decades showed briefly shutting jobs and slamming on bans won high wages and good conditions relatively easily. Like many construction workers, the union now realises it couldn’t last. Booms bust.

Construction is often the first industry hit. 

Sugar coated bullets and getting fired

When Robe River mineworkers fought individual contracts in the 1980s, to divide and conquer them the company paid those who signed contracts higher wages than it paid unionists. Of course it didn’t last! Once the union was weakened, the boss slashed individual contract rates.

Late last year, when anger was dangerously high on sites, under pressure Administrators signed hundreds of Enterprise Bargaining Agreements won by CFMEU workers. It was sugar-coated poison. Cementing in high wages and allowances in the short term fooled some workers who reckon the administrators are “doing a good job.” But, a government-approved union will sell them out from here to eternity. 

Last December, when NSW delegates called a strike, the Administrators cancelled it by text late the afternoon before. Administrators informed the companies “their” CFMEU would not support sacked workers. Lendlease and other corporations threatened workers with the sack. The strike and rally went ahead, but fewer attended, fewer went on strike.

Then Administrators fired a leading organiser on Christmas leave by email for refusing to attend an immediate interview without legal representation. It deliberately instilled fear, “We’ve removed one of your leaders. Who’s next?”

If not now, when?

Marching on May 1 focusses attention and forges unity with workers nationally and around the world. It builds collective strength and spirit. This year construction worker leaders have analysed the changed situation and have chosen different tactics. Construction workers will march this May Day, but they will take rostered days off won in their agreements. 

The surprise attack on the CFMEU is a warning to all workers.

Under this capitalist system, it doesn’t matter how many battles you win, unless you prepare for and defeat the entire system, workers end up with our backs against the wall. Times are quickly getting tougher. The system is heading for chaos. It’s our time! We urgently need to learn, to listen and to organise within unions and, more importantly, beyond them. 

If not now, when?

 

 

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On May Day we celebrate First Peoples’ revolutionary potential

Written by: Louisa L. on 28 April 2025

 

On May Day we celebrate not only workers, but also worldwide revolutionary struggles for national independence from imperialism and for socialism and communism. In Australia, the CPA(M-L) recognises none of these goals can be created without the full participation of First Peoples.  

We live on stolen lands. Stolen with violence, terror and deceit. This truth has already been told again and again. NO MORE. There must be action! Those everyday Australians who still support racism must open their eyes and unblock their ears. Racism supports only those who are ripping off this country and all its peoples. 

For 130 years, First Peoples sacrificed their lives in armed struggle to defend their communities, lands, waters and cultures. Despite the most terrible oppression, their struggle has not ceased since invasion. First Peoples are just 3.8 percent of these lands’ inhabitants. Yet theirs is the richest history of resistance. Land, water, people, culture remain the heart of their inspiring ongoing rebellion. Let’s tell this truth!

Generation by generation, mountainous waves of First Peoples’ rebellion grew. After 200 years, they threatened to drown capitalism’s ability to profit from their lands and waters. Through the Business Council of Australia, the ruling class deliberately set out to divide First Peoples and create collaborators to protect its power.

Elders of struggle like Gary Foley have said of the period until 1988, “We were united, because we were all poor.”  

While most First Peoples battle day to day just to survive, some ruling class collaborators have become multi-millionaires. Many land councils undermine custodians, claim land and water they have no right to, sell them, allow them to be mined or fracked or damned and sacred sites destroyed, all for private profit. Gary Foley and many others despise what he calls “the black bourgeoisie”.

Reconciliation Australia marked the birth of the collaborationist model. Zionist penetration came hand in hand with the BCA. Today some leading collaborators belittle and demonise those many First Peoples who stand for Palestine. Such traitors target their own people for removal from jobs, universities, media and more under the banner that falsely equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. 

In 1938 Yorta Yorta man William Cooper famously helped initiate a petition to the nazi German Embassy protesting the most internationally publicised anti-Jewish attacks during Kristallnacht, when over two days synagogues, businesses and homes were destroyed and 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps. William Cooper is lauded by Zionists. Today events that drove him to support Jews would, almost certainly cause Willian Cooper to support Palestine.

Again and again, First Peoples have battled for release from crushing oppression. Again and again, they have been promised positive change. Again and again, they have been betrayed. 

Colonialism and imperialism have proved they will never allow First Peoples to be liberated. 

Action to undermine the standing of collaborators, to expose the ruling class, to shatter their anti-people alliance, to divide them all, strengthens the forces for liberation.

We support all the demands the mass of First Peoples raise for reform and their revolutionary call for the right to their own independent states.

 

 

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The challenge of environmentalism in modern Australia

Written by: Leo A. on 28 April 2025

 

In the 21st century, the accelerating environmental crisis both in Australia and globally has sparked increased interest among the masses in advocating for environmental preservation and protection. Notable relevant groups in Australia include the Australian Conservation Foundation, Lock The Gate, and perhaps most prominently The Wilderness Society. Unfortunately, the environmental movement in Australia has been hindered by several key flaws. 

Lacking a Marxist understanding of the environmental crisis and its root causes, these environmental organisations currently suffer from an all-too-common case of “focusing on the symptoms, not the disease”. As a result of this lack of a deeper understanding, they don’t know who their potential allies are, and work in isolation from other working-class movements. They seem more dedicated to organising events than to organising people. 

This lack of class consciousness hides a distant history of past successes, the methodology to which appears to have been ignored or forgotten by these organisations in their current form. For example, The Wilderness Society has gone from its successful thousands-strong mass campaign against what would have been the ecologically-devastating Franklin River Dam over forty years ago, to expecting thirty voicemail messages in the Premier’s office to save the Great Koala National Park this year.

The Wilderness Society also has runs on the board in respect of the campaigns to stop multinational oil companies from drilling for oil in the Great Australia Bight. This five-year campaign united Indigenous communities, regional Councils, the surfing and fishing communities and working people, and was successful. 

They still have a vague understanding that the masses have the power to make a difference, as evidenced by promotional material last year which claimed that millions-strong mass action could end Australia’s use of fossil fuels within a decade. But they appear to have lost the knowledge of how to build a mass movement, and are unaware of how to expand it to such a scale, how important doing so is, and the wider context the environmental struggle is a part of.  

Does the environmental movement in Australia have a good future ahead of it? If it can be guided in the right direction, yes. But that is a critical “if”, and in our age of accelerating catastrophe this matter is more important than it has ever been before. A Marxist understanding of the world, or a lack of it, can have real-world consequences even in our pre-revolutionary capitalist society. 

 

 

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US economy is not shipshape! It’s shipless!

Written by: Ned K. on 23 April 2025

 

(Image credit: Stephane Peray)

The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on other countries' goods imported to the USA has turned the spotlight on the dependency of the US economy on imports and the weakness of its manufacturing industry.

The latest industry to receive attention from the mainstream financial papers exposing this weakness in the commercial ship building industry.

 

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US trade war with China accelerates US imperialism's decline

Written by: Ned K. on 21 April 2025

 

(Source:shenglufashion.com)

The rising tariffs imposed by the Trump regime on its main rival China is arguably adding to US imperialism's decline not only economically but militarily. The financial pages of the capitalist press in Australia are quite informative on this matter.

 

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Exercise Cope Thunder 2025 and declining US regional influence

Written by: (Contributed) on 18 April 2025

 

(Above: part of the Filipino and US forces involved in Exercise Cope Thunder)

Those following the latest United States – Philippines military exercises might like to consider other related and highly relevant factors having serious implications for US-led diplomatic relations with the wider Indo-Pacific region. The US remains desperate to reassert their traditional hegemonic position in the region; evidence would tend to indicate their position, however, has already been eclipsed by China and countries diplomatically associated with Beijing.

In early April the US and Philippine air forces began Exercise Cope Thunder, running until 18 April, officially aimed at enhancing interoperability and 'strategic deterrence … and … combat readiness and elevating joint mission effectiveness' across the wider region. (1) The air-forces of Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Japan and Indonesia were also involved. The exercise closely followed other similar drills to 'ultimately strengthen the collective posture across the Indo-Pacific'. (2) It is also a precursor to the Balikatan military exercises.

The election of Ferdinand Marcos Jnr to the presidency in 2022, backed by the Marcos oligarchy, has strengthened the hand of the US in the Philippines. Studies of the country reveal the US diplomatic and foreign policy toward the Philippines has changed little since the previous Cold War. In fact, the country has remained the most reliable and central vantage point for 'US interests' across the wider region; it has, historically, dominated the Philippines economically, politically and culturally due to the very deep penetration of US capital. It is also a relatively secure vantage point for regional surveillance with nine military facilities hosting US personnel overseeing the South China Seas and the Taiwan Straits to the north.

The US also relies upon counterparts based in Taiwan as another part of the regional surveillance provision with nearly five hundred personnel, on temporary leave from the State Department, based in the so-called American Institute in Taipei. (3) It is, therefore, not coincidental that Exercise Cope Thunder has taken place amid concerns about China's longer-term planning for Taiwan. Diplomatic and military tensions have escalated across the Taiwan Straits in recent times. It is, therefore, not coincidental that Exercise Cope Thunder was planned to take place in an area of the Philippines closest to the Straits. (4)

The same US military planning has also included the Pentagon considering providing the Philippines with a second Typhoon missile defence system with capability for firing Tomahawk missiles up to 2500 kms. (5) The missiles put China's east and south coasts within range, areas regarded as hosting sensitive military and port facilities. (6)

While the US has long used security-related issues to support their economic position, history, however, has significantly moved on in less than a decade. It has been noted by prestigious US outsourced intelligence bodies that the US diplomatic position in the Asia region has been challenged by a deepening cooperation between regional countries, and the US has not adapted to a changing balance of forces taking place. (7) The same institute only six years later, recently concluded that 'the US is pretty much done in South-east Asia'. (8)

The imposition of tariffs by the Trump administration, for example, is not evidence of their ability to manipulate international financial markets, but a clear marker that the balance of forces is swinging away from them. In fact, informed opinion has already noted that Trump's policies have created the diplomatic conditions for regional trade blocs such as ASEAN to be pushed closer to China and 'it hands a pretty significant victory to China for the obvious reason that the US is effectively cutting ties with these countries'. (9)

Other factors also provide an interesting glimpse of how the US has been out-manoeuvred.

Making the acquisition of critical minerals a national security concern, has revealed just how fearful the US have become of confronting China as a credible competitor. In fact, security issues raised about a Chinese naval ship circulating Australia were not openly concerned about more usual surveillance considerations but research into deep-sea mineral deposits in international waters. It was noted, for example, that the vessel had stopped over areas thought to be rich in minerals and had used a submersible for exploration of polymetallic nodule fields containing nickel, cobalt and copper, used in the manufacturing of batteries and electric vehicles. (10)

Commentary from Washington that the US is considering building refining facilities for critical minerals inside Pentagon military bases has also revealed just how highly the US regard the matter on the grounds of national security. (11) While no specific US military bases were identified, it would be reasonable to assume that its Indo-Pacific Command facilities in Hawaii were being considered, due to their strategic geo-political significance, together with joint Philippine military facilities. They are within easy reach of the US, with secure shipping lanes across the Western Pacific.

The fact that US concerns about China's successful diplomacy with countries in the Pacific is also further evidence of their fear that Beijing will gain access to the vast Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the tiny countries across the vast region. Taiwan's regional influence, diplomatically, is continually shrinking, causing US-led diplomacy concern.

The high-level diplomatic visit to Australia of President Surangel Whipps Jnr of Palau in early April, for example, is best viewed along lines that fears exist of China's increasing influence in the tiny country and that, it too, may eventually switch diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China. (12)

Each time a country switches diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, it enables Beijing to access the EEZs of the region. At present, it already has access to about eighty per cent of the region; Taiwan's share, once based on the 50/50 basis, is now only twenty per cent. (13)

In conclusion, traditional US diplomatic hegemony in the region has been successfully challenged by China and the response of the erratic Trump administration is evidence not of their power but a panic-stricken reaction:

                                       We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Philippines and US launch drills aimed at boosting 'strategic deterrence', Australian, 8 April 2025.
2.     See: Interoperability key to security in the region, Avalon 2025 Special report, Australian, 25 March 2025.
3.     Beijing keeps a wary eye on new US Taipei outpost, From the Economist (U.K.), Australian, 18 June 2018.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 8 April 2025.
5.     America with Manila in face of 'China threats', The Weekend Australian, 29-30 March 2025.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Why America is losing the ploy in Asia, The Carnegie Institute, 28 February 2019.
8.     Punishment will push the region into China's arms, The Weekend Australian, 5-6 April 2025.
9.     Ibid.
10.   See: Chinese 'spy ship' on survey mission, Australian, 9 April 2025.
11.   See: Minerals the ultimate bargaining chip, Australian, 7 April 2025.
12.   See: Palau defies China's pressure on Taiwan.  Australian, 11 April 2025.
13.   US v. China, Japan Forward: Politics and Security,Dr. Rieko Hayakawa and Jennifer Anson, 14 February 2020.

 

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The Not-So Curious Incident of Low Wages Growth - Peetz report

Written by: Will Strike on 18 April 2025

 

(The full report by Peetz can be found here)

A recent report by David Peetz, published by the Carmichael Centre (The Australia Institute), exposes the systemic exploitation of Australia’s working class under contemporary capitalism. It highlights stagnant wages despite rising productivity, declining union power, and employer control of labour markets. While Labor’s post-2022 reforms offer minor relief and concessions for workers, the report demonstrates the limits of reform and trade-unionism, which confirms the necessity for militant class struggle towards the dismantling of wage slavery.

 

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No weapons for Outer Space

Written by: Nick G. on 15 April 2025

 

When the revisionists and capitalist roaders in the USSR formally ended the socialist era and reverted to capitalism, the US imperialists rejoiced. They entered nearly two decades in which they were undoubtedly the world hegemon, a sole superpower, and were able to declare that their aim was to achieve “full spectrum domination”.

 

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Will US blackmail us over AUKUS?

Written by: Nick G. on 14 April 2025

 

Kites are being flown in the US about tying the sale of second-hand Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia’s stand on a conflict between China and its off-shore province of Taiwan.

Scott Morrison’s original AUKUS arrangement was for the sharing of technology that would enable Australia to build its own nuclear-powered submarines.

After sleeping on the matter overnight, and not consulting his Cabinet colleagues, new Labor PM Anthony Albanese was persuaded to incorporate into the AUKUS agreement a plan to purchase three and possibly five Virginia-class submarines. 

This, however, was conditional on the US President of the day certifying that the sale of these submarines, half-way through their operational life, would not compromise US submarine strength.

This was confirmed on March 6 by Elbridge Colby, who has been tapped to serve as under-secretary of Defense for policy, who said that the US commitment to the AUKUS arrangements was “conditional on U.S. industry building enough attack boats to meet domestic needs first”.

The issue at stake is Taiwan.  The whole point of moving to the long-range nuclear-powered boats is to have them sitting alongside US subs off the coast of China. This was in preference to having much cheaper, conventionally-powered submarines deployed for Australian coastal defence.

However, US shipyards cannot produce enough new Virginia class subs to replace those earmarked for sale to Australia.  They don’t have the skilled labour and can’t hold on to those they do have. Trump’s tariffs on overseas steel and aluminium will only complicate the timeline for the replacements.
Which is why policy makers for the US military are threatening to block the sales unless Australia formally commits to placing its AUKUS subs at the disposal of the US (under the guise of “interoperability” and “interchangeability”) in the event of war with China over Taiwan.

Former U.S. Navy strategist Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute recently ran a previously unreported multilateral war game simulating a response by U.S. allies to a Chinese blockade of Taiwan. Australian Defence Force commanders did not use nuclear-powered submarines in the South China Sea to attack Chinese targets, instead focusing on protecting Australia’s northern approaches with airpower, drones and missiles.

According to US reports, “consternation is growing in Washington that Australia’s reluctance to even discuss using the attack submarines against China means that transferring them out of the U.S. fleet to Australia would hurt deterrence efforts in the Indo Pacific.”

These concerns were echoed in a U.S. Congressional Budget Office report in February and testimony on Navy shipbuilding delays in March, in which officials said selling Virginia-class subs out of the fleet to Australia without replacements was risky because Canberra had not made it clear whether its military would join the U.S. in a conflict over Taiwan.

Obviously, this is all heading in the direction of using the threat of blocking the submarine sales to Australia to force Albanese, Wong and Marles to agree to a commitment to join the US in a war with China. There is already such a commitment from super-sellout Dutton who has said that it is “inconceivable” that Australia would not be there with the US.

And then there is the financial blackmail. We have already handed over many millions of non-refundable dollars to help pump-prime the struggling US shipyards.

On October 10 last year, the US online InsideDefense.com reported: “Australia plans to transfer US $2 billion to the United States before the end of 2025 to bolster the U.S. submarine industrial base as part of the AUKUS partnership and fund long-lead items for the Virginia-class submarine program, a senior Navy official said today. This initial transfer will be followed by $100 million every year for the next 10 years, AUKUS Integration and Acquisition Program Manager Rear Adm. Lincoln Reifsteck told reporters.”

But even this is not enough. Reporter Kirsty Needham wrote in a Reuters despatch on April 10, “The Trump administration has asked for more funding, Marles said in March.”

How much more was not revealed.

Strategic Analysis Australia’s Michael Shoebridge, writing in the Australian Financial Review in February described AUKUS as having changed from a strategic partnership to a “deal kept on the road by Aussie cash”.  

He was commenting on Marles’s meeting with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth in Washington with “a suitcase chock-full of $800 million to “invest” in US submarine production. It came with a promise of $4 billion more in future suitcases even before Australia starts to get the bills for its first US submarine.”

In a nutshell, we can expect US imperialism to blackmail its servants in Australia to deepen their compliancy and further undermine any pretence at sovereignty by agreeing to go to war with China over Taiwan, and keep paying through the nose for the privilege.

 

 

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Fleurieu Peninsula marine deaths a sign of global warming’s existential dangers

Written by: Nick G. on 12 April 2025

 

South Australians are in the grip of a “canary in the coal mines” moment, although it is not a canary and it is not a coal mine.

In early March, suffers at the popular South Coast beaches of Waitpinga and Parsons reported suffering headaches, coughing, skin rashes and blurred vision, whilst the beaches themselves began to be littered with masses of dead marine life. A sludgy thick brown foam began to accumulate along the shoreline.

The two beaches were closed by the Environmental Protection Authority which, after some time, declared that a species of microalgae, Karenia mikimotoi, was responsible.

The marine life washing up on the beaches, which soon included some on Kangaroo Island, and around the corner of the Fleurieu Peninsula at Encounter Bay, Victor Harbor and Bashams Beach, included the less attractive toad fish (aka the puffer fish) and the incredibly attractive tourist icon, the leafy sea dragon. They included a variety of reef fish, octopi and sea slugs. 

The devastation has spread across Gulf St. Vincent to places like Edithburgh on Yorke Peninsula. Underwater photographer Paul Macdonald, who has been diving at Edithburgh for "almost 30 years", said he went diving on the weekend but was heartbroken by what he saw.

"Pretty much everything was dead, it was really heartbreaking," he said.

"We could see the water wasn't quite right, it was a brown-y colour with no visibility.

"It was just devastating to see very few fish around, pretty much everything that we did see was dead or in the process of dying."

Just six days ago, as the EPA was preparing to reopen Waitpinga and Parsons, the marine deaths extended further along the coast in the direction of the Coorong, with tens of thousands of cockles (aka pipis) and other shellfish washing up on beaches around Goolwa. 

Goolwa has an annual seven-month cockle season from 31 October to 1 June when anyone can harvest cockles (bag limits apply) either for personal consumption or for fish bait. SA Health has advised people not to eat dead cockles.

But with reports that the toxic bloom appears to be spreading south of the Coorong to Kingston in the South-East, the recreational fishers' peak-body Recfish SA, says that close to 200km of coastline will be impacted by the latest die-off, and the deaths will be in the millions, “unfathomable amounts”.  A spokesperson said marine deaths along the coastline were now at an unprecedented scale.

Global warming and increased frequency of toxic blooms

In the current lead-up to the federal election, there is necessarily a concentration on the soaring cost of living. However, there is also the cost of living on an increasingly warming globe due to profit-hungry corporations continuing to use fossil fuels. 

Toxic algal blooms are increasing in scope and intensity around the globe. So are extreme weather events. Warmer oceans produce more evaporation leading to unprecedented rainfall events. Droughts are longer and temperatures are rising. 

South Australians watch in awe as parts of Queensland and New South Wales are flooded with daily downpours of hundreds of millimetres. Suburban Adelaide meanwhile has only had 29mm over 4 and half months: 14mm over 4 days in December, 3.5mm over 2 days on January, 0.5mm on one February day, 9.5mm on one March day, and 1.5mm so far on two days of April. 

Summer temperatures and the minimal disturbance of the sea by winds pushed ahead of large rain-bearing clouds create the perfect conditions for the growth of algae. The EPA described it as “an ongoing marine heatwave, with marine water temperatures currently 2.5C warmer than usual, as well as relatively calm marine conditions with little wind and small swell.” 

They are not infrequent, but they are getting worse, a factor that many scientists attribute to climate change. They have happened along 200 miles of Florida coastline in 2018, and in 2020 along Russia’s eastern coast. 

Many algal species flourish when water circulation is low and water temperatures are high.

The blooms can last from a few days to many months. After a bloom dies, the microbes which decompose the dead algae use up more oxygen, which can lead to die-offs of fish and other marine organisms. When these zones of depleted oxygen cover a large area for an extended period of time, they are referred to as dead zones, where neither fish nor plants are able to survive.

So long as capitalism incentivises large corporations to put profits from fossil fuels ahead of people and the environment, the cost of living on a planet that is dangerously warming will rise in tandem with the temperatures.

Capitalism’s destructive war on nature must be ended. 

Socialism is urgently required to enable harmony between people and nature.

 

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USA's tariff war a sign of imperialist power in decline

Written by: Ned K. on 12 April 2025

 

(Source:shenglufashion.com)

As the tariff trade war intensifies between the USA and China, sections of big business in Australia are backing China to come out the winner, at least on the economic front.

In the Australian Financial Review on Friday 11 April, it is reported that Geoff Raby, former Australian Ambassador in China between 2007 and 2011, says that while high tariffs imposed on China by the US government will have some negative impact, "battle- hardened China can survive".

Raby is quoted as saying, "But China has laid the groundwork for a diversified trade base. They do business with every other country in the world.'

Raby goes on to say, "The world still believes that China makes t-shirts and socks, but the real growth areas of their economy are in advanced technology like electric vehicles and complex hardware."

Other spokespersons for Australian-based capitalists are warning that whichever Party wins the coming federal election, they should be aware of China's diversified trade base and its ability to dump Australia as its main source of iron ore if the Australian Government of the day decides to side with USA as the trade war between the USA and China escalates further and even in to military conflict.

Andrew Forrest, the iron ore billionaire is one who warns that China is in a favorable position to switch to African countries as its primary source of iron ore and that China has $32 trillion in cash reserves in US dollars.

The Business Council of Australia top CEOs also are urging major political parties to "ignore push for unity with US against China." (AFR 11/4/2025).

So, sections of big business in Australia can see the writing on the wall regarding the economic decline of the USA, but their solution is to attach themselves to the rising number one imperialist power China, for fear that China will abandon Australia as its primary source of minerals, particularly iron ore.

Their solution leaves workers and other sections of the Australian people in continued dependence on an imperialist power.

The way forward is for an Australia standing on its own two feet in the world. This will only occur when the working class leads the people to an independent socialist country where a balanced economy operates for the people, not profits.

 

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Summing up the US April 5 Hands Off rallies

Written by: (Contributed from the US) on 11 April 2025

 

The wave of Hands Off rallies on April 5 confirmed that where there is oppression, there will be fightback. Across the country several hundred thousand people came out to shout No! to attacks on our trade union rights, our Social Security, our health care, on our fellow federal workers who make these programs work, and on the science that creates vaccines.

Demonstrators packed twenty blocks of Manhattan. They filled the plaza in front of Oakland, California city hall. They rallied in cities big and small.

The anger no longer respects the usual political dividing lines. It has erupted in districts where voters tried Trump after suffering the Democrats’ inflation. Republican congresspersons have been shouted down at their town halls. In an Oregon county that went 68 percent for Trump, the crowd shouted, “Tax Elon,” “Tax the wealthy,” “Tax the rich,” and “Tax the billionaires.” When a representative in Indiana mentioned Social Security “adjustments,” a roar of protest silenced her.

Rallies in some smaller cities and around particular schools and workplaces were militant about fighting ICE raids. When people know each other in daily work, they see their common humanity and respond.

(Above; US citizens rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire   Source: seacoastonline.com )

The April 5 events were called by Indivisible, a fake mass organization run by Democratic Party operatives. The executive director was previously a policy man for a Democratic congressperson. Indivisible did all it could to make “democracy” the theme of the rallies, the liberal capitalist alternative to open fascism. Its plan is to repeat rallies like April 5 until the 2026 elections.

But the capitalist republic of the last 250 years is broken for good. There is no going back. Whatever happens to Trump, the ruling capitalist class can no longer work out their problems with constitutional politeness. Their solution for working people is more suffering, more insecurity, and war against other imperialists.

The only way out is forward to communism, a state of the working class, by the working class, and for the working class. Together we will replace capitalist oppression with communist liberation.

 

 

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Greenland: Trump talks tough but Vance comes a cropper

Written by: (Contributed) on 9 April 2025

 

(Above: US Pituffik Space Base)

Information about Australia providing Canada with a sophisticated long-range radar facility for Arctic defence and security provision has coincided with members of the Trump presidential administration making spectacles of themselves with outrageous territorial claims to Greenland.

It has not proved coincidental; nor has the official visit of US vice-president Vance and other high-level associates to US military facilities in Greenland.

In fact, a major anti-imperialist struggle is already taking place in Greenland; its people appear determined to defend their sovereignty and raw materials and resources.

Studies of the previous Cold War appear highly relevant for our understanding of the present one!

In late March the Canadian government announced they were buying a Jindalee-Over-the-Horizon Radar (JORN) facility from Australia. (1) The JORN facility has a 3,000 kms range and functions by bouncing radar signals off the electricity charged layer in the upper atmosphere known as the ionospehre; it is used to detect aircraft and ships entering sensitive areas. (2)

The move followed US concerns about the defence and security of the Arctic region. The US, for example, has a long history of using Canadian facilities for 'US interests' due to their lower profile overseas, together with other members of the elite intelligence-sharing Five Eyes facilities, including Australia. (3) Canadian military facilities also conduct extensive monitoring bases in numerous countries. (4)

Global warming and climate change has created the conditions whereby the uppermost region is warming at almost four times the rate experienced by the rest of the world; alternative shipping lanes are being created through what were once frozen wastelands and access to rare earth minerals is becoming likely, sooner rather than later. (5)

With China having global control of rare earths, the US has entered panic mode and seek to gain control of Greenland to access their raw materials and resources; it is little other than old-style neo-colonialism, reminiscent of the previous Cold War, being played-out in the present age.

The Trump administration have taken the matter so seriously that vice-president J.D. Vance’s wife Usha, a US-born Indian Hindu, was despatched to Greenland on a charm offensive. (5a) She announced that she was there for three days by invitation, which was promptly denied by Greenland authorities.  It turned out that the invitation was from American Daybreak, a virtually unknown U.S. organization founded by Trump-aligned investor and former government official Thomas Emanuel Dans. (5b) Knowing of the US penchant for running dogs, the Greenland resident had invited the Second Lady to the Avannaata Qimussersua dogsled race beginning March 29. However, public opposition to her presence saw her three-day visit cut back to one day, (6) when husband Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright flew in, also at the invitation of Dans, to visit the US Pituffik Space Base 1500 kms north of the capital. (7) The northernmost US military facility is used for missile warnings, missile defence and space surveillance.

Studies of US military facilities from the previous Cold War have revealed official and non-official uses, including intelligence-gathering and covert operations. (8) There is no reason to believe the Trump administration has behaved any differently toward Greenland than previous Washington administrations, which has explained the high-profile composition of the US diplomatic delegation.

Over a decade ago the Pentagon expanded their Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) 'into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA'. (9) The US preoccupation with defence and security provision would, nevertheless, appear more focussed upon neo-colonial acquisition of Greenland's raw materials and resources, and preventing other countries from developing diplomatic links with Nuuk to become competitors with the US.

Further evidence to support the view was contained in an official media release following the US diplomatic debacle with Greenland. It noted the Trump administration were considering using their military bases for processing 'critical minerals for national security … and … Danish officials have told US counterparts they would be open to more American military facilities on the islands and mining contracts for US companies'. (10)

Interestingly, the official position of the Australian government and Canberra was released in a formal media statement. It noted that the Trump administration was 'irrational … and … that the Trump administration have embarked upon a course to abuse and anger the people of Greenland'. (11) Further commentary also noted 'Australia is happy to haggle on minerals'. (12)

The brazen interference by US imperialism in Greenland has seen the new government state that it will strengthen ties with China.  On March 28, 2025, four Greenlandic parties signed a new coalition agreement to establish a new autonomous government. Vivian Motzfeldt, the incoming foreign minister of Greenland's new autonomous government, told Xinhua that strengthening ties with China will be one of her priorities. She expressed interest in deepening cooperation with China in areas such as trade, fisheries, and sustainable development while highlighting the potential for a free trade agreement between the two sides. (13)

Just where Canada’s purchase of the JORN system fits into all of this will become clearer in time. Trump’s tariff war on Canada may well frustrate any immediate access to the facility.

Canada, Greenland, Australia – all need an independent foreign policy.

 
1.     Canada trumps US in buying our $6.5 bn radar system, Australian, 20 March 2025.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Spyworld, How C.S.E. spies on Canadians and the World, Mike Frost as told to Michael Gratton, (Toronto, 1995), page 14, page 35, page 40; and, Playboy Interview, Philip Agee – candid conversation, Playboy Magazine, (United States), August 1975, pp. 49-166.
4.     Canada, The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Espionage Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), pp. 45-46.
5.     US 'going to have to have' Greenland, Australian, 28 March 2025; and, Greens and present land: Diplomatic battle is hotting up for control of the Arctic, Australian, 27 March 2025.
5a.  Usha Vance suffers fresh humiliation in Greenland
5b. Obscure U.S. group 'American Daybreak' central to controversial Greenland visit - ArcticToday
6.     See: Greenland fury and confusion at 'aggressive' US, Australian, 27 March 2025.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 28 March 2025.
8.     See: The Role of the Bases, A.   Counter-insurgency and the US Bases, B.   Springboards for Intervention in other countries, The Bases of our Insecurity, Roland G. Simbulan, (Manila, 1983), pp. 169-216.
9.     See: Pentagon plays the spy game, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 7 December 2012.
10.   Minerals the ultimate bargaining chip, Australian, 7 April 2025.
11.   Vance blunders in Greenland, Editorial, Australian, 31 March 2025.
12.   Australian, op.cit., 7 April 2025.
13. Greenlandic political leaders looks to enhance cooperation with China-Xinhua

 

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Preparing to Face a Fascist Regime From the Power of President Prabowo Subianto As the Successor of New Order

Written by: Indorev on 8 April 2025

 

(Above: "Dark Indonesia" protest February 2025    Source: https://alkhaleejtoday.co/ )

 

This document from ICOR affiliate Indorev was written as thousands of students and activists took to the streets in February to protest budget cuts of up to $19 billion announced by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. the protests were lainched on Februart 17 by the All-Indonesian Students Union. Australian Communists have a long history of standing with the Indonesian people and will always support their just struggles – eds.

Indorev, 2/16/2025

Fascism is an open terror against the revolutionary movement and the working class movement. In many ways, fascism came to power through democratic means, using the legality of the bourgeoisie. The experience of Indonesian revolutionaries has been that for more than three decades they have been subjected to the open terror of the power that calls itself Suharto's New Order. Mass killings, torture, pursuit, arrests, exile and ostracism, all without recourse to the rule of law, even if only the laws of the bourgeoisie of their own making.

Now that Suharto has stepped down, there is a fierce battle within the bourgeoisie itself, a conflict among the political elite. It is essentially a battle between the old, but still relatively intact forces backed by fascist elements within religious fundamentalist organizations and the emerging bourgeoisie that still retains bourgeois democratic values. And, like every political battle, it is actually a reflection of the economic interests of the struggling parties.

GOLKAR (Golongan Karya), which represents the interests of the big bourgeoisie, which since its birth has practiced fanatically anti-communist politics, and has been one of the pillars of the New Order's power alongside the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia and the fascist bureaucrats, and now pretends to be a “democratic” and “anti KKN” (Corruption, Collusion, Nepotism) party, cleverly uses the legality of bourgeois democracy to regain power for itself. It is as

if people are being forced to forget their past as the main supporters of the fascist New Order, which practiced corruption from head to toe.

Although there have been five presidential changes since Suharto's death, President Prabowo Subianto, who was elected as the eighth president to replace Joko Widodo who came from the military, has been a faithful successor to Suharto's New Order rule supported by Gerindra, the main party he founded, GOLKAR, and other bourgeoisie parties.

Prabowo, who was once Suharto's son-in-law, has a checkered human rights record as commander of a unit that abducted and tortured several democracy campaigners towards the end of the Suharto regime in the late 1990s. Of the 23, some survived, one died, and 13 activists are still missing. He was later removed from the military and exiled to Jordan in the 2000s. Surprisingly, when Joko Widodo was president, he gave a 4-star honorary general title to Prabowo Subianto when he was defense minister.

President Prabowo owns a number of companies in the coal mining sector in Kalimantan, such as PT Nusantara Energy, PT Nusantara Kaltim Coal, PT Erabara Persada, and PT Nusantara Energindo Coal with a total area of 45,703 hectares. Meanwhile, Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka has a mining network through his father's company, PT Rakabu Sejahtera, affiliated with PT Toba Sejahtera owned by Luhut Binsar Panjaitan. The company is also affiliated with Gibran's family, ranging from younger siblings, older cousins, to uncles.

In addition, Prabowo also emphasized that he was not only the successor of the New Order but also continued the program to maintain the Omnibus Law policy which was very pro-capitalist while harming the working class. This is done to smoothen the interests of foreign and domestic investment. One of the business sectors that received a red carpet from this omnibus law was the mining sector, with the imposition of 0% royalty for business actors. It is no wonder that this omnibus law is considered a recipe book for the structured and systematic looting of natural resources.

The impact of the implementation of this Omnibus Law is environmental damage. More than that is the escalation of agrarian conflicts. The highest cases of agrarian conflict come from the plantation, infrastructure, property, mining, forestry, military facilities, agriculture/agribusiness, and coastal and small islands sectors. The end of this conflict is of course acts of violence by corporations and state violence apparatus.

From the 100 days of Prabowo Subianto's administration, militarism has strengthened, civilian supremacy has weakened, and democracy is on the brink. The Prabowo administration has rolled out the red carpet to the military, but it has also inherited a democracy that has been weakened by the Joko Widodo administration.

During the first three months of his administration, prabowo redeployed the army into many State affairs. The deployment of the military to work on food barns is one of them. Other examples: the control of forest areas, free nutritious meals, and the organization of the Hajj. These tasks are not included in military operations other than war as stated in the Indonesian national army law.

In the next five years, the military will gain even more grip. The defense ministry plans to increase military regional commands from 15 to 37 by 2029. Every year for five years, the government will also add 100 territorial infantry battalions to accelerate development. Each battalion will have a company that takes care of livestock, fisheries, agriculture and health. As if that wasn't enough, the battalions, which will be under the command of military districts, will receive reinforcements from two battalions of reserve components recruited from civil society.

The formation of these battalions will be overseen by each major command commander. This battalion will be different from the existing battalion. The current battalion only consists of one battalion headquarters, one headquarters company, one support company, and three rifle companies. Meanwhile, the 100 battalion will be supported by an agricultural company, a livestock company, a health company and a construction company. Each unit will be equipped with modern equipment and materials. One battalion usually has 500-1000 soldiers. In addition, the formation of 100 battalions will encourage TNI to return to business. The most likely business is the security business and the security business as a guard dog for the capitalist class. This TNI territorial network will become Prabowo's political stronghold both to reduce the opposition and suppress the revolutionary movement.

The strengthening of militarism will be even more unstoppable if the government and the House of Representatives amend the TNI (Indonesian National Army) law, the revised draft of which is already on the list of the national legislation program. With active soldiers free to enter civilian positions, the military is increasingly exerting its influence in various fields and, conversely, civil society is standing on the sidelines. In 2023, there were 2,569 active TNI soldiers in civilian positions. This is in addition to 29 active officers occupying civilian positions outside the institutions stipulated in the TNI law. This military dominance risks reopening the militaristic approach to solving state problems and will pave the way for the creation of authoritarianism in a new form. In addition, mass organizations originating from thug groups began to be given legality and financed to hit the people's movement and pro-democracy activists.

(Above: "Dark Indonesia" rally February 20, 2025)

With a battered democracy, which is much weaker than the first time Jokowi became president, Prabowo immediately consolidated his power to gather parties and political elites to support his government when he was sworn in as president. Without the power of the opposition, authoritarianism can no longer be curbed.

The centralization of economic, technological and financial power in Indonesia can be explained by the fact that decisions, regulations, legislation, are essentially not in the interests of the people, but in the interests of the rulers and businessmen: the capitalist bureaucrats.

The pillars supporting the socio-economic costs for the growth of these capitalist groups, such as in the fields of education, health, environment, transmigration, and urban development, as well as the areas needed for the geographical concentration of industry, must be borne by the sweat, tears, and blood of the people, on behalf of the State so that the corporate machine continues to move for more value, for profits robbed from the working people: workers, peasants and fishermen.

And, in Indonesia, it's even worse. Representative institutions, like all other institutions, have become hotbeds of corruption! It is a waste of time trying to get into representative institutions, including curing the diseases of the bourgeoisie in them. Why, because the decision-making process is bound to be in the interests of the capitalists, and these decisions, especially in the field of industrial production, will not prioritize the needs of the masses of people.
Looking at the facts, the current “democracy” and “reform” in representative institutions and government is poison. Because democracy is like a piece of money, it has two sides, one is democracy, the other side is dictatorship. Learning from the ancient Greek era with the slavery system, democracy is a slave owner, for slave masters. Democracy only applies to slave masters, while for slaves, they are the dictators: slaves are the same as cattle, work, give birth, can be sold, and can be killed. In the days of the feudal system, democracy only applied to kings and nobles. As for the people, the kings and nobles of the dictatorship could seize the property rights of the people, even though they were no longer sold or killed. In the current capitalist system, democracy only applies to the owners of capital, they the capitalists are the dictators of the working people in the fields of production and distribution. The capitalist system is a system of trade. The dictators are the capitalists who control trade. Thus, the working people become merchandise.

Therefore, talking about representative democracy, electoral politics, general elections, regional head elections are of no use. Unless, we talk about People's Democracy, true democracy for all the people, and dictatorship in the hands of the people, the working people who determine, end and finish the system of capitalism in Indonesia today.

 

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Multipolarism – the new Kautskyism

Written by: Alan Jackson on 8 April 2025

 

It is extremely clear that US global hegemony is on the decline and sliding further into fascism as a reaction while economic formations the likes of BRICS and Imperialist powers Russia and China are growing in global dominance. 

 

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Palestinian cultural day in SA

Written by: Ned K. on 7 April 2025

 

Above: Just days ago, Torah Jews and other anti-Zionists in the US rolled out a scroll containing the names of 50,000 Palestinians killed by genocidal Israeli Occupation Forces.   Photo source: ILPS)

On Sunday 6 April, the Palestinian community in Adelaide held their annual Palestinian Cultural Day organized by Palestinian Australians at the suburban beachfront of Semaphore. Hundreds of people attended the Cultural Day. There were activities for children, Palestinian live bands and solo artists, and plenty of Palestinian food. 

Notable political attendees were one state ALP Upper House MP, the first Moslem MP in SA Parliament, a Greens Party MP and an Australia's Voice Senate candidate for South Australia, Jordan Shane. Australia's Voice is the Party started up by Senator Fatima Payman from Western Australia. 

There were also several organizations supporting the Day, including AFOPA and Health Workers for Palestine.

Australia is home to First Nations Peoples on whose land many people from many different backgrounds and cultures have come to start a new life. Cultural events are held by many of these diverse communities.

What made this Palestinian Cultural Day of 6 April 2025 so special was that it expressed values of solidarity, optimism and determination by Palestinians despite the continued attempts by the US backed Zionist regime to destroy all remnants of Palestinian culture and Palestinian life itself.

 

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Support for the people’s war in India

Written by: Nick G. on 7 April 2025

 

Today, April 7, marks the beginning of an international week of solidarity with, and support for, the Indian revolutionary movement and the people’s war led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The CPI (M) and its armed forces, the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA), have waged armed struggle for years against the Indian ruling class and established a zone of conflict often referred to as the “Red Corridor”.

They have based their mass work on the “untouchable” Dalit villagers and on the tribal peoples, the Adivasis, of the forests and jungles who, despite certain Constitutional rights, have been threatened with dispossession and forced exile so that the big corporations that have state power on their side, can move in and exploit the timber and mineral resources on Adivasi lands.

The key to corporate conquest of Adivasi lands is the crushing of the Maoist insurgency,

It was tried and failed during Operation Greenhunt, which began a decades-long campaign of extra-judicial killings, faked surrenders, forced displacement and attacks on civil liberties.

Now, the fascist Modi government has switched to an even more murderous assault, known as Operation Kagar, deploying more than one hundred thousand paramilitary forces, backed by drones, helicopters and satellite surveillance.

The CPI (M) claims that more than 400 people, including Party leaders, members of the PLGA and local Adivasis, have been killed over the past 15 months.
In response to the increased repression by the Modi government on behalf of Indian finance capital including Adani, Ambani and the big landlords of India, the CPI (M) has offered to join the government in a ceasefire providing it calls off Operation Kagar.

CPI (Maoist) Central Committee spokesperson Comrade Abhay said on April 2, “We welcome the round table organized by the ‘Peace Talks Committee’ in Hyderabad on March 24 on the topic – the Union Government and the CPI (Maoist) should announce unconditional ceasefire and hold peace talks, in the present scenario.”

“We are always ready for peace talks keeping in view people’s interests. Hence, putting forward these proposals to the Central and State governments to create a conducive atmosphere for peace talks. If the Central and State governments positively respond to these proposals, we will immediately announce a ceasefire,” Comrade Abhay said in the statement.

Comrade Abhay further declared in the statement, “The Hindutva fascist BJP-led regime at the Centre launched a military offensive against its own people in the name of Operation Kagaar undermining the lives of tribal people and fundamental constitutional provisions. This brutal offensive is aimed at crushing the revolutionary movement for Jal, Jangle, Zameen rights of Adivasis, promoting corporate interests to allow plunder of the natural resources, eventually decimate the federal system in the country and establish an autocratic unitary State.”

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) salutes our Indian comrades, and calls on all Australians, including the Indian diaspora here in our country, irrespective of caste or religious identity, to support the call for an end to Operation Kagar and for a ceasefire on the terms offered by the CPI (Maoist). 

 

 

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Only a genuinely anti-imperialist independence will protect our people.

Written by: Nick G. on 4 April 2025

 

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s recent address to the National Press Club, in which he called for Australian politicians to “get up off your knees and stand up for Australia,” represents a further strengthening of the movement for Australian independence.

Turnbull said that there should be a retaliation against Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Australian exports to the US, and that the Albanese government “could start with the $3bn or the $2.5bn left being handed over to support the US submarine industrial base.”

Attacking the AUKUS arrangements, he said “Australia was unlikely to ever receive submarines from the US given production challenges in America’s shipyards and there was a bipartisan lack of transparency about the risks to Australian sovereignty and defence capacity from the deal.”

He also said the government should consider withdrawing American access to naval bases in Perth.

He called on both Labor and the Coalition to stop being so timid and deferential, and said that “Australia needed to be more independent in the new world of brute power politics and reclaim sovereignty from the US.”

Of course, there will be some on the Left who will reject Turnbull and remind everyone of his role as Coalition PM between 2015 and 2018 when he did nothing to reclaim our sovereignty from the US, or make any reference to the need for Australian independence. 

He was then, and is now, a supporter of the so-called US-Australia “alliance”.

A person’s background and political record must not be forgotten, but whether their change of heart occurs sooner or later, the important thing is that it does occur.

The same may be said of former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser who was the beneficiary of a US-managed parliamentary coup. Whitlam had ruffled US imperialist feathers by talking of revealing the CIA role in Pine Gap, so hatchet man Marshall Green was despatched as US Ambassador to Australia to lay the ground for Whitlam’s dismissal.  Fraser secured the Australian state within the hold of US imperialism and launched attacks on the working class.

Yet in his later years, he had his own “road to Damascus” awakening and wrote the book “Dangerous Allies” in which he criticised the US hold on this country, warned about US plans to make us take Virginia class submarines, and called for the closure of Pine Gap.

Some on the Left extend their rejection of new-found allies on the Right to those progressive persons who try to establish an alternative to the US stranglehold.

The various Trotskyite groups, for example, have blasted the Greens for proposing a defence policy based on rejection of ties to the US and the development of a policy of armed neutrality, limiting Australian armed forces to the defence of Australia’s territorial integrity.

One Trotskyite organisation pilloried the Greens for “suddenly positioning themselves as defenders of the realm against an undefined enemy”.  The organisation conceded that the Greens had called for the scrapping of AUKUS, but criticised them because the demand “is not particularly progressive”.  It accused the Greens of “floating with the tide when every left-wing organisation ought to be swimming against the current.”

Another group which emerged out of the Trotskyites went further, slamming the Greens as “imperialism’s left-wing”.  

This group aimed its attack at the independence movement, in which it lumped the Greens, saying “Support for an “independent Australia” policy is not anti-imperialist in practice. Rather, it seeks to facilitate an independent Australian imperialism, liberated from its sub-imperial status under the American nuclear umbrella… An independent Australia would simply be an imperialist Australia.”

As long-time supporters of an independent Australia, we know that the question of Australian independence is fundamentally a class question.

Which class will win the right to lead the movement for independence will determine whether it moves in a genuinely anti-imperialist and socialist direction, or whether it suffers defeat and the strengthening of the grip of imperialism and reaction.

We are implacably opposed to bourgeois nationalism. But we are not opposed to strengthening and widening the anti-US movement and do not support sectarian rejection of allies who, whatever their shortcomings as firm anti-imperialists, are nevertheless welcome participants in the movement in which we are trying to establish a proletarian revolutionary main force.

 

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Kiribati and China deepen ties

Written by: (Contributed) on 2 April 2025

 

(Above: Chinese and Kiribati leaders in Beijing in 2020   Source Xinhua)

Moves by Kiribati to negotiate a deep-sea mining deal with China have closely followed similar moves by the Cook Islands. The moves have taken place against a backcloth of underlying trends in the global economy and a changing balance of forces, with far-reaching implications for US hegemony. The two tiny Pacific Island countries have, for example, geo-strategic significance for US-led regional military and security provision.

In mid-March, Kiribati, a tiny Pacific island with 130,000 residents, announced it had initiated high-level diplomatic talks with China about securing a deep-sea mining partnership of a vast area surrounding the country. (1) The seabed deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper are regarded as 'key minerals for the global battery industry'. (2)

Kiribati, furthermore, has a huge Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covering 3,437,132 square kms, in comparison to its total landmass of only 811 square kms, ensuring the former is 4,238 times larger than the latter. (3)

In fact, concerns have been expressed in US-led commentary that by switching their diplomatic allegiance to China from Taiwan, small Pacific Island states have provided China with diplomatic access to about 80 per cent of the Pacific Ocean. (4)

Many of the small islands also have a significant role in US-led regional defence and security provision; the Pentagon began a six year and $27.4 billion upgrading plan in 2021 to establish a network of precision-strike missiles along island chains in what was described as the 'Indo-Pacific theatre'. (5) The US-led military plan has also included provision for a 'fielding of an Integrated Joint Force with precision-strike networks … and integrated air missile defence'. (6)

The fact that Kiribati is half-way between Pine Gap and the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii reveals its sensitive geo-strategic position. (7) The Cook Islands, likewise, rests on similar sensitive arcs between US military facilities.

Decades of relative neglect during the previous Cold War by the US toward the Pacific sland nations and neo-colonial relations, however, assured they were 'sovereign and independent in appearance only'. (8) It was the golden age of US imperialism; in fact, the official position of the US during the period was stated clearly by John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State, 1953-59, as 'there are two ways of conquering a foreign nation. One is to gain control of its people by force of arms; the other is to gain control of its economy by financial means'. (9) That US hegemonic regional position has now become history.

The rise of China, particularly in the Pacific region has already seriously challenged US hegemony; even US analysts in Washington have concluded that the US is no longer the dominant power in the Pacific. (10) The US have been quietly pushed aside.

The changing balance of forces has been verified with economic data from within the corporate world itself; figures quoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2008 noted that while the US held about one-third of the world's financial assets with $56.1 trillion and the emerging market economies held $23.6 trillion, the latter were growing at twice the rate of the former. (11) The economic growth of the latter has also taken place with a multiplier effect.

Trade bodies, including the BRICs, have emerged as strong contenders in the global economy, particularly as they expand their membership into other areas of the world, including the Middle East. Studies of the expansion have concluded the emerging markets were collectively averaging nearly six per cent growth rates, with China and India together with 28 other countries, leading the way. (12) ASEAN, likewise, has also emerged as an influential trade bloc, with strong collective growth rates.

The US, however, has failed to reach the same growth rates; in fact, following a high-spot in the mid-1960s, their economy has hovered around two per cent growth rates for decades. (13) The problem has become a major factor behind the recent political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration and their financial advisers; they are in panic mode and frantic to deal with China, by whatever means they regard as warranted, including real-war scenarios.

The move by Kiribati to foster stronger links with China, therefore, is best assessed in the context of a subsequent changing balance of forces away from traditional US hegemonic positions. Chinese social-imperialism, in pursuing a policy promoted as supporting mutually beneficial trade and financial support, has presented a credible challenge to US diplomatic positions with tiny, and seemingly, forgotten countries, previously assessed by Washington as barely significant.

As a result of Kiribati pursuing closer links with China, its link with regional partners, Australia and New Zealand, have been noted to 'have become strained … there has been a … tectonic shift in the region'. (14) The fact that Australia's aid budget for developmental assistance has now dropped from 1.2 per cent of the federal budget to a mere 0.68 per cent remains a factor when studying the Pacific Island countries. (15)

Governments across the Pacific are now clearly looking at alternatives to traditional US-led support. More are likely to follow the lead of both Kiribati and the Cook Islands.

It is important to note that moves by the Kiribati government have also fostered some economic development in favour of the more vulnerable sectors of society in recent times. A recent government study noted poverty rates amongst the elderly, unemployed and disabled had been slashed by seventy per cent. (16)

1.     See: Kiribati floats Chinese deep-sea mining deal, Australian, 19 march 2025.
2.     Kiribati explores deep-sea mining deal with China amid global regulatory talks, The Investing News Network, 20 March 2025.
3.     China now controls 80% of the Pacific EEZ; US v. China, Japan Forward: Politics and Security, Rieko Hayakawa and Jennifer L. Anson, 14 February 2020.
4.     Ibid.
5.     US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021.
6.     US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.
7.     See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.
8.     See: The plunder of the poor nations, Why are they poor? in The Enemy – Notes on Imperialism and Revolution, Felix Greene, (London, 1970), Chapter 4, pp. 135-151.
9.     Quoted, ibid., page 139.
10.   Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Paul D. Shinkman, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
11.   Davos salutes SWFs in a celebration of global capitalism, Australian, 29 January 2008.
12.   'Nearly 6% growth', The Economic Times, 25 April 2024.
13.   US GDP growth rate, 1961-2025, Macrotrends.
14.   Pacific nation of Kiribati explores deep-sea mining deal with China, Radio Free Asia, 17 March 2025.
15.   Marles' $1bn snub for Trump, Australian, 25 March 2025.
16.   Kiribati's targeted support slashes poverty by 70%, The Tarawa Times, 19 March 2025.

 

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More on Imperialism and Religion

Written by: Duncan B. on 1 April 2025

 

In 2022, during a Papal visit to Canada, Pope Francis apologised many times for the abuse that Indigenous children suffered at Catholic-run residential schools, as well as for the Church’s adoption of policies that stripped away Indigenous culture. He said that “taking away the children, changing the culture and mentality, and erasing an entire culture was effectively a genocide.”

Indigenous Australians would welcome similar apologies from the heads of the Catholic, Anglican and all the other denominations that did the same thing in Australia, for their part in helping to destroy Indigenous culture and languages.

In Canada, as in Australia, Africa and everywhere else in the world conquered by imperialism, the invaders had a firm belief in the superiority of Christianity as a religion over all other religions. With their strong racist views, they believed that the indigenous inhabitants were members of an inferior race with inferior cultures and religion.

In Australia these racist views made them blind to the fact that they were dealing with a people who were deeply religious, with a culture profoundly influenced by their spiritual beliefs. The invaders could not comprehend the strong ties the Indigenous people had with their Country. The invaders believed that their actions were ordained by God and therefore justifiable. They saw themselves as the rightful inheritors of the land and were entitled to take it from a lower form of man which was destined to die out anyway.

Indigenous leaders are calling for churches to go beyond merely apologising for the harm caused by their past actions, but to deliver justice to Indigenous Australians. Some have called for the churches to pay reparations. Among these is Professor Anne Pattel-Gray. Professor Pattel-Gray is an Australian Aboriginal theologian and author.  She is a Bidjara/Kari Kari woman from Queensland, and the first Indigenous person to obtain a PhD from the University of Sydney. Her books include The Great White Flood: Racism in Australia. 

In 2023 Professor Pattel-Gray wrote, “Reparations are another critical part of decolonising the church, as this is where Indigenous land is given back, or Indigenous peoples are compensated for its theft. Colonial invaders stole this land from the Indigenous peoples and the collusion between the Australian government and churches has given churches  great wealth, power and privilege. It is not enough to say “Sorry”. It is important for Australian churches to act on delivering justice to Indigenous Christians. Now is the time for “Voice”, “Truth-telling” and “Treaty.” And now is the time for churches to atone for the sins of their forebears and pay reparations to the Indigenous churches and nations for the theft of land, for slavery, cultural genocide and the stolen generations.”

The call for reparations is a just one which should be supported. However, given the way churches have used every legal trick that they can to try and avoid paying reparations to the victims of sexual assault by priests, there is not much hope of the churches ever paying one cent in reparations to Indigenous people without a struggle.

 

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VALE Wallace McKitrick: cultural fighter (1950-2025)

Written by: Nick G. on 1 April 2025

 

Wallace McKitrick, perhaps still known by some by his birth name, Peter Hicks, was an advocate for, and creative artist of, progressive Australian culture.

Wallace worked for most of his life in community-based artistic and cultural activities.

He began writing poetry while at high school, enrolled for a short time at Flinders University. He then worked at odd jobs while helping to develop a street theatre collective with Margot Nash. Wallace wrote many of its scripts and performed them alongside Margot and others, not just at rallies against conscription and at Moratoriums, but also outside car plants, other large factories and schools.

Wallace was arrested in 1968 during an anti-conscription sit-in at the Department of Labour and National Service offices in Adelaide, and created an uproar in July 1969 when he announced his intention to burn a dog to show people who were not awakened to the horror of the US use of napalm against Vietnamese civilians just what was involved. “Student to burn dog as protest” was splashed across the newspaper front page, and although it was just a media stunt and never intended to do harm to the dog, Plato, it resulted in death threats for the Flinders student.

Wallace chose not to apply for conscientious objector status, and refused to register for the conscription ballot. When police summonsed him to appear on charges related to the offence, he went to New Zealand for a year and subsequently to the Spanish Canary Islands, returning to Australia when his mother sent him news of Whitlam’s election and the end of conscription.

He worked at various labouring jobs and then re-enrolled at Flinders, having heard of the Politics and Arts course offered by the Philosophy Department as part of the Marxist-Leninist course offered by Prof. Brian Medlin and Greg O’Hair. Wallace had known Medlin since the Moratorium days when Medlin was its leader.

At that time 1973, Wallace was working at the Botanic Gardens, mowing lawns, for almost a year and then was awarded a six-month Commonwealth Literary Fellowship on the basis of his record as a poet. That was the first issue of Commonwealth literary grants in Australia by the new Whitlam Government.

Then in 1975, he was appointed as the inaugural Arts Officer with the Trades and Labour Council of South Australia. That involved organising lunchtime shows in factories and building sites – musical shows or very short dramas, theatrical shows or exhibitions or films. This time he collaborated with singer Robin Archer who wrote songs about working class immigration, and sang them to workers in Greek and Italian.

Three years had elapsed between the street theatre and his forced departure from Australia.

It was following his return to Australia that Wallace joined the Worker-Student Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist). Asked in a 2022 oral history interview whether he had joined the Party, Wallace, who always strictly observed our “iceberg” organisational principle, laughed and said “If I had joined the Marxist-Leninist Party, I couldn't tell you.”

He now turned his attention to setting up the Progressive Art Movement (PAM) with Annie Newmarch and Pam Harris. It was intended to bring together working class issues and the movement for Australian independence across a multimedia collaboration which focussed largely on screenprints created by Annie and others.

In 2024, Wakefield Press published “If you don’t fight…you lose: Politics, Posters and PAM” as an illustrated retrospective on the Progressive Art Movement. In their chapter on the history of PAM, Catherine Speck and Jude Adams write: “PAM, like the Worker-Student Alliance, was a front organisation for the Communist Party of Australia (CPA M-L) which had several agendas operating. One was a campaign against foreign bases in Australia, another was against a car industry run by American companies, yet another was supporting (and joining) the Australian Independence Movement. Within this political mix, cultural workers became involved in rank-and-file operations and in the class struggle at the two major car manufacturing plants, GMH ad Chrysler.”

Another area of involvement for Wallace was the leading of the Creative Writing Workshops in Yatala Prison, which he initiated with friend and fellow poet John Healey, in 1974. It kept going for four years, initially fortnightly, and for a period of time weekly. It meant a great deal to Wallace to work with the inmates who, despite a policy of “rehabilitation”, felt they were regarded as society’s “rubbish”, but who blossomed as creative writers and artists when they felt they were treated as humans for the first time.

Wallace was also involved with the Assemblers folk group which included some of the Rank and File organisation at Chryslers. He wrote various songs and some pieces for The Independent Australian magazine. He wrote a song called 'Ballad of a Bloody Worker,' about Chrysler worker Wil Heidt's arrest and imprisonment. 

When the folk-rock group Redgum was formed by students of Medlin’s course, inspired by Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art, Wallace contributed the song Red Raggin’ to their first album. The song declared the wearing of the anti-Communist “red raggers” badge to be an act of defiant pride. The album cover, by George Aldridge, depicted a gigantic Aussie worker about to put an axe through the US spy base at Pine Gap. The back cover featured photos by Anne Newmarch. Its title was the militant union call, “If you don’t fight, you lose”.

Wallace was a founding member of the Community Arts Network of South Australia in 1979 or ‘80. In 1980 he became employed by the Arts Council of South Australia, which was a regionally-based organisation. He conducted workshops and supported community artists and writers across Eyre Peninsula at Ceduna, Port Lincoln, Tumby Bay, Port Neill and Whyalla. He also did a lot of the same work in SA’s South-East. 

In 1988, with the struggle between Patricks and the Maritime Union in full swing, he had his poem “The Slimy Patrick’s Scab” printed in Overland magazine.

Wallace was a great supporter of Indigenous cultural work and was a reference committee member (Klynton Wanganeen, Wallace McKitrick, Bill Wilson, Crystal Murray) for iDreamingTV (originally called Yaitya Makkitura), created in 1998 by the SA Aboriginal community interested in establishing an Indigenous screen and multi-media organisation. 

Wallace spent ten years representing a federal funding agency concerned with cultural initiatives in Indigenous communities.  He was Senior Policy and Program Officer, Indigenous Culture Branch, Ministry for the Arts, Australian Government 2004-14; Senior Policy Adviser, ATSIC; recipient of 1987 Ros Bower Award (then under his name as Peter Hicks).

Wallace worked with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) from 2001, where he was increasingly aware of the political importance of the Aboriginal self-determination movement. He was in Port Augusta with ATSIC for two years, and had been in Port Augusta already for almost two years before that, with a community development programme based in local government. And then he came to work for the State Policy Centre of ATSIC in Adelaide in 2003.

In 2012-13, Wallace was Senior Policy Officer for the Indigenous Languages Support scheme and its Australia-wide Master-Apprentice Language and Learning Workshop (MALLP) providing support for the revival and teaching of Indigenous languages. 

In 2012 at a Spirit of Eureka commemoration for Eureka Day on the SA Parliament House steps, Wallace heard a talk by Italian-Australian Don Longo on Eureka participant and historian Rafaello Carboni.  He mentioned it again in 2022 when interviewed by Don and Lyn Longo for the Days of Wrath oral history project. He was particularly impressed by Don’s emphasis on the multicultural nature of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion.

Following the death of his friend and comrade Brian Medlin, Wallace contributed to a book published in 2021 titled “The Level-Headed Revolutionary”, a collection of writings by and about Medlin.

Then, when his friend and collaborator from the Progressive Art Movement, Anne Newmarch, died in 2022, he wrote a moving testament to her political commitment titled “Remembering Ann Newmarch – vital contributor to an independent Australian culture”, published on the Spirit of Eureka website.

When Australia was embroiled in controversy over the referendum on Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Wallace wrote a three-part series on Aboriginal sovereignty for Spirit of Eureka under the heading “Indigenous Sovereignty movement is indestructible”.

In August 2024, despite illness, he wrote a review of the film Ḻuku Ngärra: the Law of the Land. The film was made by the Yolŋu people of the NT and focuses on the life of law custodian the Reverend Doctor D. Gondarra. Wallace said of Dr Gondarra’s analysis that it “deftly connects historical British imperialism, Australian settler-colonialism, and modern imperialism’s intensified exploitative practices, while sketching some essential ingredients of a people’s liberation movement.” The review is also on the Spirit of Eureka website.

When Wallace died on the morning of March 14, he had on his desk a copy of Carboni’s book on Eureka, placed on top of his copy of Don Longo’s Eureka Day speech. 

He had said during his interview with Don and Lyn Longo “Reading your 2012 Eureka Day speech, in fact brought back home to me, the absolute critical importance of that dimension. And that's what has to be brought forward. The multi-cultural fact, the diversity of backgrounds and political persuasions in other respects, all with revolutionary intent. This is a microcosm of what's possible.”

Wallace had told family members he intended to write a three-part cycle on Eureka, and kept his unfinished dream of using Eureka to show what is possible in terms of revolutionary intent beside him as he passed away.

Wallace’s passing is a sad loss for wife Sarah and his children and grandchildren.  We extend our sincere condolences to them.

But we rejoice in this comrade’s unblemished record of whole-of-life contributions to Australian anti-imperialist, democratic and socialist cultural work. 

 

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Elections in WA

Written by: Allan M. on 1 April 2025

 

(Above: CFMEU members in WA  - Paid Up And Proud!)

2025 is a year of elections in WA, with Western Australians being asked to head to the polls to decide their State and Federal representatives. The State election here has just occurred, and WA Labor has had a decisive victory for a third term. Opposed by a Liberal/National Coalition (whose shambolic campaign, candidates, and policies are not worth further thought) the WA Labor Party entered their election campaign promising ‘a steady hand’ for WA. When looking back at their previous terms, we can see that this steady hand was used to quietly rob Western Australians of their future while enriching mining magnates and their political cronies.

The WA Labor Party experienced a record win in 2021, securing a 4-year term with no effective opposition in either house of Parliament. With this significant majority, WA Labor has had the opportunity the address major issues in our State. But in 2025, we face a huge housing crisis, with more and more families having to choose between rent payments and food, continued attacks on our natural environment, and attacks on worker power. 

With a record majority in Parliament, WA Labor promised to address the State’s seriously outdated rental laws. Soon after making this promise to the people of WA, the Labor government was falling over themselves to placate the landlords and property developer lobby, giving assurance after assurance that their proposed new law would not impact their ability to gouge tenants. What WA renters got from this law was a requirement that landlords are limited to a once-yearly rent increase, compared to the previous twice-yearly limit. What a comfort! To the landlord class, WA Labor delivered a massive green-light to continue their daylight robbery. With the retention of no-grounds evictions and the ability to increase rent to whatever they like on a yearly basis, landlords are still able to scare renters into shutting up and paying up for the privilege of living in low-quality housing. 

Now WA, like the rest of Australia, is in the midst of a massive housing crisis. In late 2024, Perth became the least affordable capital city to rent in, while 0% vacancy rates in many of our regional centres have led to rapidly increasing homelessness. Working families are in precarious conditions, having to find ways to keep up with extortionate rent increases or risk eviction. Many have been unable to keep up, shown by the growing number of families living out of cars. 

This is what the Labor party achieves when it faces no opposition.

With a record majority in Parliament, WA Labor promised to protect the State’s natural environment and heritage, while promoting sustainable economic growth. In the wake of the tragic destruction of Juukan Gorge in 2020, that vast majority of Western Australians were eager to see the arrogance of mining companies reined in. After introducing a new law to modernise the protection of Aboriginal heritage in WA, the WA government came under increasing pressure from pastoralists and smaller mining companies to water it down. Scared of a fight with industry, the WA Labor government revoked the law overnight and reverted our Aboriginal heritage protections to rely on a law from 1972. 

This disgraceful weakness of our ‘elected representatives’ and their deference to big industry continued throughout their term. Under pressure from mining and property developer lobbyists, the WA government introduced changes to our environmental protection laws with zero mandate or public consultation. These changes limited rights of appeal for the community, and changed the composition of the Environmental Protection Authority to enable greater representation of industry interests. The egregious lack of transparency in this process caused uproar for many Western Australians, but the WA Labor government was able to use their Parliamentary majority to push through the changes unopposed in late 2024. Shortly after, it was revealed that the WA Labor government also gave special privileges to Alcoa, allowing the mining giant to continue expanding its bauxite mine outside of Perth while an environmental assessment on that expansion was ongoing. It was further revealed that public servants advising the government told them that this could poison a significant portion of Perth’s water supply. Despite this, the WA Labor government allowed Alcoa to continue mining effectively without any constraints. 

This is how the Labor party uses it’s Parliamentary majority, not for the benefit of the workers, but to bow down to business interests.

With a record majority in Parliament, WA workers might have thought that the Labor government would enact policies from their allegedly ‘pro-worker’ platform. Instead, the WA Labor government used their majority to continue an attack on workers across the state. In 2022, WA nurses went on strike as part of their campaign for a pay-rise after years of being over-worked, understaffed, and protecting our community from Covid-19. Instead of supporting the workers, the WA Labor government attacked them through the Industrial Relations Commission. After continued pressure from the government, the nurses union were forced to call off their campaign and pay a $350,000 fine. 

In the Pilbara, where most of the State’s mining occurs, unions are looking to build up their membership and support mine workers who are experiencing worsening pay and conditions. Instead of supporting the unions, WA Labor has sided with their friends in the Chamber of Minerals and Energy, with the Deputy Premier stating that workers in WA ‘thrive without unions’. It should also come as no surprise that as the union presence in the Pilbara is growing, the WA Labor government joined in the attack on the CFMEU and introduced an arbitrary ‘fit and proper person’ test for any union representative seeking to enter a worksite. 

This is how the Labor party treats the workers when they fight for fair conditions.

The WA government has had a once-in-a-century opportunity to improve the lives of the WA community. With no effective opposition in Parliament and large public support, the government could have embarked on a series of reforms to ensure we have good housing, strong protections for our heritage sites and our natural environment, and good conditions for our workers. Western Australians can now see how the WA Labor government used their majority to cosy up to big business, for individuals to secure Board positions at Rio Tinto, BHP, or  FMG, and to attack the working class. The best thing to come out of this term of government has been that WA Labor has exposed to all Western Australians just how hostile they are to the working class. This is driving us to continue building the worker solidarity, to reject the bourgeois Parliamentary system, and to fight for a system that represents the working class and our interests.

 

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Greetings to the Philippines New People’s Army

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 1 April 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) would like to extend its warmest congratulations and support to the New People’s Army in its 56th Anniversary. The NPA has been at the forefront of resistance against fascist regimes and corrupt bureaucrats in the Philippines for 56 years, as well as resisting American and Chinese Imperialism. We offer our upmost support to the NPA in its struggle and wish our comrades success and longevity. 
 

Red Salute and happy birthday to the NPA
 

Communist Party of Australia CPA (M-L)

 

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The Australian economy: the continuing crisis

Written by: (Contributed) on 30 March 2025

 

(Source: freepikcom)

An OECD report dealing with the economies of member countries has revealed the fragile nature of the Australian economy. The report has been presented by economists using economic data, which can be used by politicians to provide a misleading picture of many of the problems arising.

The section of the report dealing specifically with percentage change in real household disposable income, however, has revealed how the Australian working class and lower socio-economic groups have borne the brunt of recent economic problems far more than their counterparts elsewhere.

The present OECD report has shown the global economy is in relative decline, particularly when assessed through the diplomatic hostilities between the US and China.

                                                              GLOBAL GDP

                                                              2024   -   3.2%
                                                              2025   -   3.1%
                                                              2026   -   3.0%

                                                      US   2025   -   2.2%
                                                              2026   -   1.6%  

                                                CHINA   2025   -   4.8%
                                                              2026   -   4.4% (1)

China will inevitably overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the future, sooner rather than later, if not toward the end of the present decade, then the next one. The problem arising should be assessed as remaining in the background of diplomatic hostilities between the two countries, with many of the dramas being played-out in the Indo-Pacific region, drawing Australia ever closer to real-war scenarios.

The Australian economy, meanwhile, continues to bump along the bottom, with economic growth of 2.5 per cent for the present year, with a projection falling to 1.8 per cent for next year. (2)  

The Australian figures also reveal a volatile economy; growth rates of just 0.6 per cent were recorded in the December quarter last year. (3) The growth rates do not appear sustainable, but fluctuate regularly.

The growth rates, furthermore, show Australia's fall significantly below those of the G20, where average growth rates of 3.1 per cent for this year are expected to only fall slightly to 2.9 per cent next year. (4)

Australia's inflation rate also continues to hover around 2.4 per cent, only slightly being reduced to a projected 2.2 per cent next year. (5) It continues to be a problem.

The figures also have to be studied in the context of Australia's growing debt; in 2004 gross public debt amounted to 15.2 per cent of GDP, by 2024 it had risen to 57.9 per cent. (6) By the end of this year it had been projected to rise to 60.6 per cent. (7)

When the economic data is linked to living standards, however, the real problems facing Australia can be accurately established.

The OECD report revealed that while the average gains in living standards of other member countries averaged at 5.5 per cent, Australia's had slipped by minus 8.3 per cent. (8) The figures are all the more appalling when studied in the context that they are an average for all Australians; the working class and lower socio-economic groups on basic Award terms and conditions of employment, pay far more of their disposable income for basic necessities than higher socio-economic groups.

The study, furthermore, found that on average, Australian workers were working longer than the standard working week of 38 hours, with overtime seemingly becoming essential for lower paid workers to even make ends meet.

The massive casualisation of employment has also pushed millions of workers into vulnerable positions where poverty remains a problem, looming on the horizon.

Those on the Australian Forbes rich list, however, continue to amass huge profits, up by nearly ten per cent to February this year, from last year. (9) The present economy is heavily stacked in their favour, as they exploit the working class for every last cent they can grab. Economic rationalism and the implementation of race-to-the-bottom production techniques have worked wonders for the business-classes and corporate sector.

The federal Budget acknowledges the cost-of-living crisis, but offers on limited measures for dealing with it.

An economic crisis would appear to be looming!

1.     'Serious volatility', The New Daily, 18 March 2025.
2.     OECD slashes growth forecast on global unrest, Australian, 18 March 2025.
3.     Decline in living standards undermines 'plucky rhetoric' of economic recovery, Australian, 12 March 2025.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 18 March 2025.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Debt blowout worst in developed world, Australian, 19 March 2025.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Australian, op.cit., 12 March 2025.
9.     Website: Forbes – Australia's 50 Richest, 12 February 2025.

 

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Don’t leave politics to the politicians!

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 28 March 2025

 

On May 3 Australians will exercise their democratic right to vote for whoever will next misrepresent them in Parliament.

The vote is important.  It was fought for many years ago.

But actual democracy is largely illusory.

The big end of town, with its money and its media, has powerful means of influencing and controlling public opinion such that the dominant ideas are those of the dominant class.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, there will be no sudden outbreak of independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy. There will be no withdrawal from our role in supporting US plans for war with China.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, there will be no about-turn in economic policy to solve the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis. It is not that there is not enough money for governments to act – there is too much money and it is in the wrong hands, at the big end of town. But don’t expect the selfish rich to be made to pay – politicians do not dare touch them.

It is true that Labor has passed some laws demanded by the unions, and that there are differences with the Coalition over nuclear power. Despite the hopes and progressive ideas of many rank and file ALP members and voters, the "top brass" of the ALP in government will deliver more of the same servitude to US domination of Australia. Far better to seek out Independents with progressive policies, or the Greens, than to perpetuate the parliamentary version of the “difference” between Coles and Woolworths. Better still – to rely on our united strength  in people’s struggles.

The proximity of the election to May Day will lead some opportunist elements within the union movement to try to make re-election of Labor the focus of May Day. That would be a disservice to the working class. We must stand for our own independent agenda as a class regardless of which party of capitalism is put into office.

Whether Labor or the Coalition win the election, we must refuse to be sent back to our rooms to play.  We must not leave politics to the politicians. We must make our voices heard in our workplaces and communities, in our social media and out on the streets.

Against Zionism, and for the Palestinian people!
Out of the US “Alliance” - stop AUKUS!
Genuine self-determination for First Peoples!
For an anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

 

 

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GO NORTH OLD MAN

Written by: Humphrey McQueen on 27 March 2025

 

Trump’s pledge to push the boundary of the United States of America 2,000 kilometres north is not another rush of blood but channels 300 years of imperial rivalries over resources. 

 

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Federal government breaks critical environmental promise

Written by: Leo A, on 25 March 2025

 

(Original image from the Australian)

On February 5, the Albanese Administration’s promise to create an environmental protection agency in the current parliamentary term was finally killed off. One Labor insider admitted to The Saturday Paper that this was due to the government having "the most powerful business interests in the country screaming" over the proposed legislation. 

In our current political system, it is easy for our so-called "leaders" to easily make promises that they know won’t be kept, and face no consequences in the aftermath. Similarly, it is easy for government to follow the will of big corporations and other fundamentally undemocratic forces, again without facing any consequences for betraying the interests both of the working masses and of our natural environments. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young described the decision as "a stunning capitulation to vested interests in the mining and logging lobby". 

The legislation aimed to establish Australia’s first independent national environmental regulator to enforce environmental laws, improve transparency, and enact stronger nature and wildlife protections. This, of course, is within a context of ongoing environmental catastrophe both in Australia and across the planet. And this catastrophe is affecting both well-documented ecosystems and species, and those which have yet to be sufficiently understood. Across the Pacific, the presumed-extinct South American Tapir has recently been sighted for the first time in over a century, and this Hidden Threatened Species is just one of countless examples that demonstrate that even the long lists of wildlife at risk of extinction are incomplete.  

Under capitalism, environmental protection is an uphill struggle, as any promises can be broken and any progress can be reversed. But it is a necessary struggle. For every presumed-extinct species that turns up alive, a dozen more - perhaps even a hundred more - are truly lost forever. Under socialism vast changes to protect these species will finally become fathomable, but we must still do what we can until then. 

 

 

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Book Review: Mood Machine The rise of Spotify and the costs of the perfect Playlist

Written by: Duncan B. on 25 March 2025

 

As Vanguard recently reported, music streaming service Spotify has been accused of helping to destroy the Australian music industry. A new book Mood Machine. The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by US music journalist Liz Pelly, exposes the dark side of Spotify, and the harm it is causing musicians.

Spotify was founded in 2006 in Sweden by advertising industry men Martin Ek and Daniel Lorentzon. Since then, Spotify has grown into a $67 billion media conglomerate.

This wealth has come at the expense of the musicians who whose creations Spotify exploits. The big three companies Sony, Universal and Warner control 70% of the recorded music market. Pelly shows how Spotify serves the interests of these companies, while making it difficult for independent record companies and musicians to get their work featured on Spotify.

Spotify also uses session musicians, and more recently Artificial Intelligence, to create a lot of the music on Spotify’s playlists. This means they have to pay even less for the music they stream.

Payments to musicians for each stream are pitifully low and hidden in an obscure payment system. A figure of $0.0035 per stream is often quoted to show how low payments are. In 2021 musicians mounted a campaign against Spotify, demanding that payment be raised to one cent per stream. They also called for an end to Spotify’s programme “Discovery Mode.” This is where musicians can accept lower royalty payments in return for algorithmic promotion of their music on Spotify.

In 2014 Taylor Swift removed her music from Spotify. She was quoted as saying, “I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music.”

Another risk from Spotify is the vast amount of data which Spotify harvests from its users. This data is then sold to data brokers for the use of advertisers. Currently, Spotify derives about 13% of itsrevenue from advertising, and aims to raise this to 20%.

Like the other tech companies Amazon, Meta and X, Spotify spends millions of dollars lobbying the US government in order to protect their interests. We are seeing this lobbying in action at presentwith the big tech companies lobbying to get the Trump government to take punitive measures against Australia and other countries which try to impose any sort of regulatory controls, restrictions, taxes or payments on these companies.

In trying to find a solution to the stranglehold that Spotify has on the music industry, Pelly sees the need for musicians to come together to find independent alternatives to Spotify to promote their music. These include community-based streaming services, based for instance in libraries. Here local
artists can make their music available within their community.

She says, “At a time when the music industry has insistently sold the idea of the hyper-individualistic solo creative entrepreneur as the model independent artist—where every artist is meant to act like the CEO of their own little media empire—there’s power in collectives of artists pushing back, and asserting that true independence comes from working together with the people in your community to build an alternative.” As one independent musician told her, “The music industry is not trying to help musicians. It’s going to come down to us, but they’ll do everything they can to break us.”

Australians have been world leaders in music, whether it be classical music, opera, folk music, country music or any of the many genres of pop and rock music. We must not let foreign-owned technological companies destroy this heritage.

 

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Imperialists used religion to justify their actions

Written by: Duncan B. on 25 March 2025

 

Marx wrote about the economic structure of society and of the legal and political superstructure which arises on it. As recent articles in Vanguard have shown, culture is a part of the superstructure. Religion is another part of that superstructure.

For centuries, colonisers and imperialists, such as the Spanish Conquistadores in South America, the British colonisers of America and the British, Dutch, French, Belgian, German and Italian invaders of Africa, India, Asia and Australia have used religion as a justification for their marauding. 

They interpreted passages in the Bible to justify their conquests.(1)   From the 15th century, several Popes authorised and blessed the activities of the Spanish and Portuguese colonisers of Africa and South America with a number of Papal Bulls.

One Bull issued in 1454 allowed the Portuguese to take possession of any land they discovered in Africa, and to enslave any non-Christian inhabitants they encountered. A Bull issued in 1493, after Columbus returned from his first voyage to the Americas, defined the demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese territory in the New World.  This Bull, and another issued in 1529, gave the Spanish ruler the authority to compel the native people to convert to Christianity, by force if necessary. This the Spanish zealously did, while also enslaving or massacring thousands of Azteca and Incas.

Although the Papal Bulls referred specifically to Spain and Portugal, other European nations such as Britain and France, interpreted this “Doctrine of Discovery” to mean that they too had a divinely sanctioned, papal-endorsed right to own any lands they discovered and to colonise any non-Christian inhabitants.

The imperialists also used the so-called “Curse of Ham” as a justification for enslaving black people. In the Book of Genesis, a drunken Noah placed a curse on his son Ham, Ham’s son Canaan and all their descendants, condemning them to perpetual slavery. (2)

From the fifteenth century, religious leaders cited this “Curse of Ham” as justification for enslaving black people, based on a mistranslation of “Ham” as meaning “black-skinned” from the original Hebrew. 

The indigenous inhabitants of the countries conquered by the imperialist powers were invariably seen as being members of “inferior races”, “primitives”, “heathens”, “savages” and “cannibals”. Missionaries sought to “save their souls” and convert them to the missionaries’ particular version of the one true religion. They did not care that the intended converts had their own centuries-old belief systems. This certainly was the case in Australia. At the time of the colonisation of Australia, the spiritual beliefs of Australia’s indigenous people were tens of thousands of years old.

From the 1820’s missionaries set about trying to Christianise, “educate” and assimilate Aboriginal people into colonial society. Indigenous languages and cultural practices were banned at the missions. Children were separated from their parents so that they could not learn their language and culture from their elders. The same happened in other countries that the imperialists invaded. Cultural oppression, along with massacres, enslavement, disease and dispossession were the weapons imperialists used against the indigenous peoples wherever they set foot. A fig leaf of religion covered naked greed.

 

 

(1) For example in the Old Testament, Genesis 1:27 and 28. “So God created main in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he him. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have domination over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Then there is Psalm 2 verses 7 and 8. “Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” A justification for imperialism and its treatment of native peoples if ever there was one!

In the New Testament, St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 13:1 and 2 continues in this vein. “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” This was the fate of any Aztecs, Incas, Native Americans, indigenous Australians or any other indigenous people that resisted the colonial invaders.

(2) Genesis 9:24 and 25. “And Noah awoke from his wine and, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”

 

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Why are we paying $200 million to store torpedoes for the US Navy?

Written by: Nick G. on 25 March 2025

 

(Image source: Australia Pacific Defence Reporter)

 

Two days ago, the Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, Pat Conroy announced the purchase from the US of $200 million worth of Lockheed Martin MK-48  Heavy Weight Torpedoes. 

Conroy stated that the torpedoes would be “a critical boost to the defensive and offensive capabilities of Australia’s Collins class submarines. The MK-48 will also be used on Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines.”

He also noted that the MK-48 is the product of a “joint program between the Australian Government and United States Government. This involves the joint development of MK-48 hardware and software...”

The torpedoes will be sent in sections that are assembled and tested at the Torpedo Maintenance Facility in Western Australia, which is also certified to assemble, maintain and test the weapon for use in United States Navy platforms.

This very brief statement did not include the glowing praise for the deal outlined on the US online Breaking Defence website.

According to this website, a spokesperson from the Strategic Analysis Australia thinktank said, “Essentially you can take an RAN torpedo that has been maintained and stored at HMAS Stirling and load it into a US Navy submarine. More Mk-48 torpedoes in Australia’s inventory means we can provide them to USN submarines that are part of Submarine Rotation Force-West .”

So, we are purchasing torpedoes which we helped design and build so that in addition to placing them on Australian submarines, they can be part of a joint, shared inventory at no cost to the US.

The joint US-Australia MK48 project was entered into on March 21, 2003.

It was further defined in a Defense Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Australia signed in 2009. According to this MOU, the two countries were to share in financing the project on the basis of an 85:15 US:Australia ratio. Between 2010 and 2019, Australia agreed to pay US$61.089 million 

The testing of various iterations of the MK-48 have taken place in the US and at the Torpedo Analysis Facility (TAF), located at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Edinburgh, South Australia.  More recently, the Australian testing is to be done in Western Australia, as noted above.

Why was the torpedo purchase as a joint warstock inventory of interoperable and interchangeable US and Australia navies not mentioned in Conroy’s press statement?

If the AUKUS arrangements fall apart, as many predict, and the life of extension modifications to the existing Collins class subs do not keep them in service for more than a few years, who has operational control of $200 million worth of MK-48 torpedoes warehoused in WA?

Are we really doing anything more than once again subsidising the US war machine?

We need to break free from our subservience to the US and achieve a genuine national independence and sovereignty. 

 

 

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Trump government tries to turn back time to revive US capitalism

Written by: Ned K. on 23 March 2025

 

Donald Trump; William McKinley (Getty/Mandel Ngan/National Archive/Newsmakers)

When Trump campaigned for US Presidency under the slogan "Make America Great Again", it was not very clear what period of time of US capitalism he was referring to. Was it the pre- Biden Presidency period, or the Cold War period of the 1950s or Roosevelt's New Deal period before the Second World War?

According to Trump's Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, none of the above!

Lutnick's idea "Make America Great Again" is a 21st Century version of the pre-1900 President William McKinley period. In this period, US corporations were making huge profits supported by a government making revenue from high tariffs and a relatively low portion of revenue from income tax. Lutnick's "modernization" of the McKinley era is to add a $5 million "gold card" visas payment to be made by wealthy foreign business tycoons to live in the United States. According to Lutnick, US allies could choose to be "in or outside the tariff tent" by setting up businesses in the United States or providing the Trump administration and US multinational corporations with whatever they wanted from allies such as the Australian Government.

Hence Trump and his cronies like Commerce Secretary Lutnick expect the Australian to give US corporations primary access to minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths.

The demands of the US pharmaceutical corporations on the Australian government to dismantle the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is also part of the plan to emulate the McKinley Presidential period.

The Australian Financial Review on Thursday 20 March commented that the US demand for complete subservience of its allies was alive and well when Obama was President. According to Joe Hockey, imperialist rivalry between the US and China at the time led Obama to demand that Australian government cease all export of iron ore to China!

At that time and to this day, iron ore exports to China are about 80% of all iron ore exports which amount to over $100 billion.

40% of all exports from Australia go to China.

As imperialist rivalry between China and the US intensifies, the Trump administration is likely to turn the screws on its allies such as the Australian government even more, in order for US imperialism to try and regain its ascendency as an economic powerhouse.

There is a rising tide of resistance to US imperialism's current economic aggression towards Australia. This is reflected even by outbursts from politicians like Jacquie Lambie calling on the Australian government to hit back by closing Pine Gap and cancelling the rotation of US troops in northern Australia.

Both the current Albanese government and the "wanna be" government led by Dutton have been forced to re-define their message about acting in the "national interest". However, the defence minister Richard Marles has quickly chimed in that any counter measures by the government to the current US tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium exports to the US will NOT include any change to Australia's commitment to AUKUS, the nuclear-powered submarine agreement with the US, or the Australia- US Alliance.

People's struggle for Australian independence from US imperialism and its rival China will inevitably grow as people see that the major political parties continue to toe the US line.

 

 

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Condemn the Zionist state’s resumption of genocidal war

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 20 March 2025

 

(Above:before and after the criminal gang's resumption of bombing in Gaza)

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Israeli Zionist state’s resumption of its genocidal war to eliminate Palestinians in Gaza.

An initial estimate of 400 killed by Israeli bombing of many areas including refugee camps and health centres, has now been revised by Hamas to as many as 900, including 174 children.

The Nazi-like Israeli state always says that it is targeting Hamas militants but in fact its primary aim is to depopulate both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank so that the governing Likud Party can achieve its stated aim of Israeli rule from the river to the sea.

The resumption of bombing followed Israel’s decision in early March to suspend food, water and electricity supply to Gaza in an attempt to stare the population into submission.

The war criminal Netanyahu boasted that his latest crimes had the full support and encouragement of Trump, and the latter displayed that support with bombing of Yemen’s Houthis.

There is simply no end to the bloodlust of Netanyahu and his Zionist cronies.

He had never intended to honour the ceasefire agreement that took effect last January 19 and could not wait to reopen his war of annihilation of the Palestinian people.

Trump recently approved the delivery of $3 billion worth of bombs, missiles and other weapons to Israel. It undermined the ceasefire agreement by supporting the Israeli demand that the Palestinian forces release all its prisoners immediately, contrary to the scheduled releases agreed upon in the ceasefire agreement.  Trump’s ambition to place Gaza under US ownership and development as a coastal resort for billionaires built over the bones of 60,000 civilians (including 17,500 children) is an obscenity that outrages decent humanity.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine asserted that “the occupation has committed its crimes and massacres in Gaza with prior planning as part of a comprehensive war of extermination.”

The Front called on “all international parties to take immediate action to stop the war of extermination in Gaza.”

We are confident that Australians will support that call. 

We acknowledge the growing protests in Israel against Netanyahu and his policies. Two days ago, more than 40,000 took to the streets of Tel Aviv chanting “The time has come to topple the dictator”.

We condemn Foreign Minister Wong’s failure to identify Israel as the criminal violator of the ceasefire.  She has blamed both sides equally, calling on “all parties to respect the terms of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal”.

The reality is that one side has and one side hasn’t.

Wong contradicted herself within the space of one sentence, following up her call to respect the terms of the hostage deal by saying “Terrorist group Hamas must release all hostages immediately, unconditionally and with dignity.”

She can’t have it both ways. And if she had any integrity, she would apply the “terrorist” label to the Israelis.

Back to the streets comrades!

For the survival of Palestine and Palestinians.

 

 

 

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Forget Plan B – just dump AUKUS now.

Written by: Nick G. on 18 March 2025

 

The united front against AUKUS is definitely growing, with retired Admiral and former head of the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) Chris Barrie calling for a Plan B, and former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling it “a really bad deal”.

These developments are unconditionally welcomed and strengthen the movement against AUKUS.

At the same time, they require genuine anti-imperialists to ensure that the movement is led by people whose view of Australian independence goes further than a re-tweaking of the so-called Australia-US “Alliance”.

This leadership in turn requires the involvement of the working class in the fight to dump AUKUS.

Labor Against War’s letter to all Labor MP’s, and the passage of motions questioning AUKUS by some 150 ALP sub-branches assist in the mobilisation of Australian working people.

The Plan B calls reflect a growing awareness that the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine arrangements are fatally flawed. 

The US Congressional Research Service says the US can’t build Virginia SSNs at a rate needed to transfer subs to us. The UK Infrastructure & Projects Authority says delivery of AUKUS SSN reactors is unachievable. Even the Australian Navy agrees AUKUS is high risk; yet they stumble on. Trump adds to the uncertainty.

But Plan B proponents generally speak from a belief in the continuing value of the “Alliance” and seek better ways to protect it.

For example, Admiral Chris Barrie, calling for a Plan B on March 13, said the “US is no longer a reliable ally”. He said he had previously supported the idea of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines because of their superior capabilities but was worried there was no guarantee they would arrive under the current AUKUS strategy.

However, he did not criticise the “Alliance”.

Likewise, Turnbull’s comments did not advocate independence from the US stranglehold.

The positive message was that “The most likely outcome of the AUKUS pillar one is that we will end up with no submarines of our own.” 

“There will be Australian sailors serving on US submarines, and we’ll provide them with a base in Western Australia.

“We will have lost both sovereignty and security and a lot of money as well. That’s why I say it is a really bad deal.”

Turnbull’s prediction about how AUKUS will be implemented echoed an opinion piece in the US online Breaking Defense journal.

Under the heading "It’s time to ditch Virginia subs for AUKUS and go to Plan B", Henry Sokolski, referring to the Australian Government’s recent gift of $800 million to help pump-prime US shipyards, said “Because the submarine deal is unlikely to overcome budgetary, organizational, and personnel hurdles, that payment should be Australia’s last.”

His Plan B would cancel the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia “in light of Australia’s budget, organizational, and personnel shortfalls.” Instead, “US and UK subs operating from Australia with RAN sailors and maintained by Australian workers would serve as a sufficient deterrent. The first element of a Plan B is already underway, with US and UK nuclear submarines regularly visiting HMAS Stirling near Perth, including conducting maintenance with a visiting US Navy tender.”

This is just what Turnbull was suggesting might happen.

Sokolski then outlined how an expanded AUKUS Pillar 2, with additional partners South Korea, New Zealand and Canada, should develop “innovative projects” like uncrewed systems, AI, quantum computer science, and hypersonic weapons, which “could deliver technologies that provide most of what the Virginia-class subs would offer for Australia.”

Sokolski’s Plan B, with Turnbull’s warning of its likelihood, shows that more than a Plan B is needed.

What is needed is a break with the US and the removal of its military presence in Australia. This movement needs sufficient strength to last beyond Trump’s four-year term of office, and a recognition that whoever or whatever replaces Trump will try and maintain Pine Gap, North-West Cape, US marines in Darwin, nuclear-armed US bombers based at the Tindal RAAF base outside Katherine, nuclear-armed US and UK submarines based near Perth, US fuel dumps, access to satellite surveillance…and the list goes on.

The only alternative to AUKUS, according to former Australian Ambassador to the US John McCarthy on March 6 is Plan A. “This should not be a Plan B but rather a new Plan A – with the A standing for Australia and not ANZUS, let alone AUKUS.”

For us, Plan A means an independent and peaceful Australia that protects its own sovereignty without the aggressive belligerence that both Labor and Liberals are completely committed to. 
 

 

 

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DOGE firings may not AID Trump’s survival

Written by: (Contributed) on 12 March 2025

 

(Above: sourced from thetonymichaels.substack.com)

 

An internal memo from inside the Trump administration in Washington has revealed most of the USAID foreign programs are not scheduled to re-open after their ninety day suspension. It comes as no great surprise for informed observers, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.

News that about a third of staffers employed by the DOGE have resigned in protest at government cuts, however, was not anticipated; it shows a substantial groundswell of public opinion opposed to the presidential administration and its policies is taking place.

Information contained in a memo has revealed the Trump administration intend to save an estimated US$60 billion from closing about ninety per cent of the present USAID program, cutting 5800 of the 6200 existing programs. (1) The move marks a dramatic shift away from traditional US diplomacy which was based in foreign assistance to safeguard 'US interests'.

With the Indo-Pacific becoming a theatre for aggressive diplomacy against China, the moves, at face value, appear contradictory and nonsensical. They appear to have taken place in an air of right-wing popularism couched in terms of criticisms that the existing programs advance liberal agendas which have been assessed as not being compatible with the position of the Trump administration and its far-right policies.

The aid programs in the region have, historically, been designed to provide assistance to the most needy sections of Pacific Islands, many of which have little, if any, sustainable economic development provision. In the period 2012-2022 the US provided US$1.5 billion with the US-Pacific Co-operation program, together with a further US$810 million for expanded programs. (2)

Pacific Islands' governments have tended to remain dependent upon neo-colonial financiers which invariably exploit the mass of the population. Programs which have concentrated upon food and medical provision together with governance to provide political stability have been a useful contribution for millions of people.

Whether Australia and other countries now move in to occupy the aid vacuum created by the Trump administration remains to be seen; a statement from Canberra has already noted 'it was unrealistic to think Australia – already the Pacific's largest aid donor – could totally fill the gap left by the US … the announcement has left Australia racing to identify the South Pacific's most pressing funding needs … Australia had started auditing which Pacific programs were most at risk, with a view to shouldering some of the burden'. (3)

The moves by the Trump administration have been accompanied by similar developments in the domestic sphere inside the US; planning to literally gut government spending have already taken place, with further rounds planned in due course. (4)

The unease over DOGE cuts has extended to sections of the military. Kelly Hammett, director of the US Space Rapid Capabilities Office, said his organization risks being “inordinately impacted" by workforce reductions underway with the Trump administration. 

In a Mad magazine Spy vs Spy scenario, he revealed that the Space Force has had a secretive, orbital tool that can gather information on China’s own network of sensors that monitor American satellites. 

As a small organization with roughly 50 civilian and 20 military employees, some in at-risk categories like probationary workers, Hammett warned his office could be disproportionately affected by labour cuts that are underway by the Trump administration. He said he was losing staff, but could not “hire people back because we’re under a hiring freeze”.

Rob Joyce, former director of cybersecurity at the NSA, said "Eliminating probationary employees will destroy a pipeline of top talent essential for hunting and eradicating threats”. 

“I want to raise my grave concerns that the aggressive threats to cut US government probationary employees will have a devastating impact on cybersecurity and our national security,” he said.

Oh, wouldn’t it be a shame if the man who tried to incite a coup was overthrown in one by a military determined to maintain its numbers in the face of DOGE cutbacks.(5)

What has received little publicity, however, is that an open revolt has already started against the position of the Trump administration. In late February a third of the staffers employed by DOGE resigned their positions on the grounds that the spending cuts 'endanger millions of Americans who rely upon these services every day'. (6) Despite employees in government departments receiving emails from DOGE a mass movement of government employees have ignored the correspondence or 'downplayed the risks of not answering it', in defiance of the directive. (7) Basic trade union principles are being re-born.

The moves taken by the Trump administration also remain reminiscent of the Thatcher administration in Westminster, over forty years ago. Their initial economic rationalist policies were on the premise that the economy would 'bottom out' following drastic government spending cuts. Their distorted vision was that a new economy would then arise like a phoenix from the ashes, with trickle-down economic advantage for lower socio-economic groups. It never happened. In fact, in common-sense terms, economies do not reach rock bottom but continue to deteriorate indefinitely without responsible government support.

It is particularly interesting to note, therefore, that the statements from the Trump administration have marked a significant shift away from usual bravado and displays of splendour; they have tended to convey a view that the US is already in terminal decline and not able to lead or defend the west. Their costings appear quite drastic cast against a backcloth of hyper-delusion and megalomania.

It is, ironically therefore, a time when the demand for Australia to pursue an independent foreign policy is winnable!

1.     US to cut 90pc of foreign aid packs, Australian, 28 February 2025.
2.     Fact Sheet: US Embassy and Consulates in Australia, 30 September 2022.
3.     Australian, op.cit., 28 February 2025.
4.     DOGE exodus: one-third of Musk's staff resign in protest, Australian, 27 February 2025.  
5.    Details from US online magazine Breaking Defense
6.     Ibid. Doge exodus…
7.     Ibid.

 

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Duterte’s ICC arrest a victory for the Filipino people, but struggle for justice continues

Written by: National Democratic Front of the Philippines International Office on 12 March 2025

 

The arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by virtue of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a victory for the Filipino people, particularly the thousands of victims of his bloody “war on drugs” and his fascist attacks on the revolutionary movement. It affirms what the people have long known – that Duterte is a mass murderer who must be held accountable for his crimes. However, this does not absolve Marcos Jr. of his own blood debts as he continues the reactionary state’s counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people.

While we welcome the ICC’s move against Duterte, we also reiterate the crimes of the Marcos Jr. administration. The 2024 International People’s Tribunal (IPT) found both Duterte and Marcos Jr., as well as the US government, guilty of grave violations of international humanitarian law. The findings of the IPT reinforce the fact that state terror and impunity persist under Marcos Jr. and that the fight for justice must extend beyond Duterte’s arrest—it must challenge the continuing fascist repression being waged by the current regime.

The ICC warrant focuses on Duterte’s “war on drugs,” but his crimes extend far beyond this. His regime carried out the systematic killing of NDFP peace consultants, aerial bombings of civilian communities, and the torture and execution of captured Red fighters (hors de combat), all in blatant disregard of the laws of war. These war crimes were not just Duterte’s policy—they remain central to the Marcos Jr. regime’s counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people. Under Marcos Jr., indiscriminate bombings, enforced disappearances, forced evacuations, and extrajudicial killings continue, proving that the reactionary state will stop at nothing to crush the people’s resistance.

Furthermore, Duterte’s crimes were not his alone, nor were they simply the product of local reactionary politics. US imperialism has long propped up Philippine fascist regimes, providing military aid, training and intelligence to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP). The US-funded “counterinsurgency” programs directly contributed to Duterte’s reign of terror. Even now, under Marcos Jr., US-backed military operations continue to target both revolutionary forces and the legal democratic mass movement. The people’s movement must continue to expose and resist the imperialist role in enabling fascist rule up to this day.

We call on the international community to sustain pressure for Duterte’s immediate prosecution. At the same time, the ICC must exert all necessary measures to compel the Marcos Jr. government to surrender Duterte to ICC jurisdiction. The NDFP International Office stands firmly with the Filipino masses in their fight for justice and genuine national and social liberation. Duterte and his cronies must face the full weight of their actions – not just for their past crimes but to end the continuing reign of impunity in the Philippines. 

Duterte’s arrest, or even his potential conviction, will not dismantle the semicolonial and semifeudal system that breeds fascist rulers and US puppet regimes. Only through a national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective, led by the working class, can the roots of fascist violence be eradicated.

 

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Learning from history – workers’ collective action decisive in defeat of imperialist powers

Written by: Ned K. on 10 March 2025

 

(Above: background image sourced from iai.tv)

Since the election of Trump as US President, the two global powers, USA and China are intensifying their rivalry. The USA, an imperialist power in decline, is fighting to hold off the rising imperialist power of China. At the moment, the main arena of struggle is trade with threat and counter threat since Trump first announced an intended 25% tariff on goods and services imported from China.

This has alarmed some close allies of US imperialism, including Australia. When Trump included Australia on his list of countries regarding tariffs on their imported goods and services to the USA, Prime Minister Albanese was on the phone to Trump pleading for an exemption for Australia and the Defence Minister Marles followed up with a trip to the USA to seek assurance about US imperialism's commitment to nuclear -powered submarines.

At the same time Prime Minster Albanese has stated the importance of Australia's relationship with the rising imperialist power China, especially on the trade front.

Albanese though is locked into loyalty to the declining US imperialism when it comes to the crunch, while Dutton, the so-called " Leader of the Opposition", is an even stronger supporter of US imperialism in its rivalry with rising China. 

Neither the Albanese government nor the "Opposition" led by Dutton have a vision of an Australian independence economically, militarily and politically. 

The Black Armada

The only class that has the power to lead decisive action in the interests of the Australian people on a consistent basis is the working class.

The difference between the working class and parliamentary party leaders when it comes to decisive action against imperialist powers was demonstrated during and just after the end of the Second World War.

The declining Dutch imperialist power was losing its grip on its East Indies empire due to the rising tide of struggle by Indonesians for a Republic of Indonesia.
In the mid-1940s the Labor government allowed extensive use of Australian ports by the Royal Netherlands Navy and the setting up of a Netherlands Indies Government In Exile The government in exile tried to muster enough support while based in Australia to overthrow the new Republic in Indonesia.

The Labor Curtin Government under Chifley did not know which way to turn with pressure from British imperialism to support the continued Dutch East Indies. 
The decisive blow to the declining Dutch East empire over-turning the new Indonesian Republic was the power of the Australian and Indonesian working class.
Indonesian maritime workers went on strike, refused to carry Dutch troops or munitions and were joined by seamen from India, China and Malaya. 

Australian maritime workers put black bans on the movement of 36 Dutch merchant ships, passenger liners, troop ships, two tankers and 35 other oil industry craft.

There also black bans on the movement of aircraft and submarines and two vessels of the Royal Netherlands Navy that were built to track down submarines.

The black bans were so extensive and lasted for over 6 months. The workers were able to have such effect because the Dutch empire in the East Indies had become so dependent on Australian ports.

As Rupert Lockwood in his book, Black Armada, explained,

"All delays are dangerous in wars...The first blow for the Republic of Indonesia against the Royal Netherlands armed forces, delivered at Australian wharves, warehouses, military camps, airports, naval depots and shipyards, was one from which the Dutch could not recover."

In 1946, the Communist-led Waterside Workers Federation of Australia commissioned Dutch Communist film-maker Joris Ivens to direct a film of the struggle.  The 23-minute Indonesia Calling can be seen on Youtube here (Indonesia Calling ) 

The decisive collective action of Australian workers saw the defeat of the declining Dutch empire in this part of the world. It occurred as British and French control in South East Asia, India and China was also in decline.

The decisive action by the Australian workers was so strong that Prime Minister Chifley decided the days of the declining Dutch empire to the north of Australia and in Australia had to come to an end if his desire to maintain British and American interests in the region was to be achieved. 

However, his support for workers was short-lived, as in the interests of British and US imperialism in Australia in 1949, he turned on the coal miners.

In the coming increased struggle between the declining US imperialism and Chinese imperialism, the current Australian government and previous governments have allowed more than "governments in exile" to operate from Australia. They now allow and support US troops and bases in Australia and US domination of most aspects of the economy, following in the footsteps of Prime Minister Menzies who waved the flag for white Anglo-American "protection" for white Australia from the "yellow hordes " from Asia!

Certainly, the ruling class constantly reviews its tactics in relation to class struggle. Black bans and sympathy strikes were on their hit list, but the great 1969 struggle to defeat the penal powers of the industrial laws, led by our Party vice-Chair and Secretary of the Victorian Tramways Union, Clarrie O’Shea left the employers powerless for more than a decade. They then decided to legislate to make unions the same, legally, as persons and used the civil law of tort to begin prosecutions of unions in disputes like Mudginberri Abattoirs (1984-5) and Dollar Sweets (1985). The Trade Practices Act outlawed secondary boycotts making black bans and sympathy strikes illegal.

The Australian working class, remembering their Black Armada actions of the 1940s against the declining Dutch empire, and determined to restore their democratic right to strike, will be up to the challenge of freeing Australia from the clutches of the declining US imperialism and any of its rivals.  

 

 

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SA Government Workers in Action in Struggle Against Rising Cost of Living

Written by: Ned K. on 8 March 2025

 

South Australian Government employed cleaners, food service attendants in public hospitals and disability community and home carers are leading the struggle of public sector "blue collar" workers against the rising cost of living. They imposed work bans which did not interfere with patient care but put the Government on notice they were prepared to escalate their action if necessary to win a decent wage increase.

The Government's initial wage offer of 3% per year triggered the industrial action,

In an interview on ABC radio one of the workers' leaders said that the SA Government's wage offer amount to the miserable sum of just an 83 cents per hour pay rise for most workers. She said that hospital and disability workers were in the lowest paid group within the public sector and workers were taking action to win wage increases that took into account the rising cost of living over the last two or three years.

Negotiations for a new Enterprise Agreement had dragged on since mid-2024. The workers action received a lukewarm response from the Government. What made disability sector workers more determined was the knowledge that some of the major private sector disability providers had agreed to wage increases up to 5% higher than what the Government paid!

The industrial action is sure to escalate until the Government makes an acceptable wage offer to some of the lowest paid workers in the SA public sector workforce.

This is only one headache for the Malinauskas Government on the wages front, as other public sector workers such as Ambulance service Paramedics are also in negotiations this year for new Enterprise Agreements with wage increases and cost of living high on the list of logs of claims.

Rising Cost of Living A Key Issue For Workers On Eve of Federal Election

The industrial action taken by government support services workers is an indication of a rising tide of struggle of workers against the rising cost of living, While the official ACTU election campaign leading up to the federal election is about " Don't Trust Dutton", the resistance of Labor State Government's to wage claims of State Government workers' wage claims has many workers asking themselves -"Can I trust either a Dutton Government or the current Labor Government?" 

 

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8th March - International Women’s Day - Salute Women’s Struggle

Written by: Mary P. and Alice M. on 7 March 2025

 

 

On this International Working Women’s Day the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) extends our warm and militant solidarity to the women of the world in their struggles against oppression, exploitation and imperialist wars.  Women of Australia stand in solidarity with our international sisters in our common struggles to end injustices, inequality and the violence of capitalism against women.   Like all working women around the world, women in Australia are fighting dual battle in the workplaces and in the social sphere!

The history of IWWD is the history of working women’s liberation movements struggling against capitalist and imperialist exploitation and wars, and in the fight for socialism. 

International Working Women’s Day grew out of working class women’s struggles for decent wages and conditions, equality and against exploitation and imperialist war.  Its communist roots have been obscured through its more recent appropriation by bourgeois political sectors with their long corporate breakfasts and high teas.

 IWWD was first proposed by German Marxist Clara Zetkin at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in 1910, which brought together burgeoning women’s movements from various countries concerned with universal suffrage, women’s labour rights and gender equality in all aspects of life. Later Zetkin and her women comrades, including socialist leaders Rosa Luxemburg in Germany and Sylvia Pankhurst in England, were at the forefront of the fight against the imperialist slaughter of WW1 and its ruthless conscription of young working-class boys and men as cannon fodder.

Capitalism, Exploitation and Oppression of Women

 The CPA (ML) views the contemporary oppression of women as stemming from capitalism; its exploitation of all workers for profit, and its requirement that (largely) women perform unpaid labour to sustain the current, and reproduce the future, generation of workers, necessary for continued capitalist exploitation. This means that as well as being exploited in their workplaces, performing some of the lowest paid, insecure work, women labour for the capitalist class for no wages in housekeeping, child-raising, and fulfilling the social needs of family and community, like volunteering. This is the ‘hidden engine’ of capitalism necessary for the creation of profit for the entire capitalist class. To pull off such a swindle as getting women to work for no wages, the capitalist system is constantly generating its ideology, culture and media which serves to reinforce their role in the labour force, social reproduction and the nuclear family, socialising and conditioning women and men to comply with their designated roles as wage slave labourers, creators of surplus value and profits for the capitalist class.  

So, when capital demands female and feminised labour it’s all ‘girl power” and when they aren’t required it’s ‘look after your family’. Often, it’s both at the same time. In the process the system exploits women’s genuine love and commitment to their children, partners, their extended families and communities. We recognise that while the family under capitalism is structurally a site of inequality and additional burden carried by women, it is often too a site of refuge and selfless care, nurturing and love in a heartless world.

Despite this, women involved in class struggle in their workplaces and communities, can loosen their chains and overcome the obstacles of capitalist and imperialist oppression.  It is in the struggle for socialism that women find the path to women’s liberation, and the liberation of all humanity.

Working women shoulder the heavy costs of capitalist economic crises and imperialist wars

The world today is in deep capitalist economic and social crisis.  This crisis is intensifying the economic and political competition between imperialist powers redividing the world amongst themselves.  This is leading to military conflicts and wars in all corners of the world. Fascism and state  repression by ruling classes is on the rise worldwide. 

Throughout history women have always fought and led struggles against the ruling classes shifting the economic crisis onto the shoulders of working people. Women are the nurturers and fighters for life.  We are the unacknowledged engine powering the day to day running of society.

Women are always at the forefront of liberation struggles against colonialism, imperialism and imperialist wars.  We are indispensable in the fight for socialism and building a socialist society.

Women in Australia 

In Australia today economic conditions for working people are deteriorating.  The rising cost of living crisis and the struggle to make ends meet is putting extra burdens on working class women juggling family budgets, their jobs and trying to keep their heads above water.  Over 50% of working women are in low paid, insecure and part time work.  Most single parent women and their children live below the poverty line.  The rising prices of food, utilities, healthcare, housing, education, childcare, the basic needs of life, are creating more hardship in the day to day struggle of working class women. 

In the family it is more often women who must balance the budget and try to make it stretch to meet everyone’s food, health and educational needs. In a cost-of-living crisis this puts even more strains on women than usual.

Poverty and homelessness amongst working class women, especially amongst elderly single women, makes them the fastest increasing demographic experiencing this.

The housing crisis and housing debt hits women hard.

Exploitation of women in the workplace intensifies.  

All workers are exploited in a capitalist society.  This exploitation is intensified with women earning 22% less than men annually, including significantly less superannuation. Women earn 78 cents in every dollar men earn overall. In Australia this means on average women earn $28,428 annually less than men. And that’s an overestimated figure for the majority of lowest paid women workers who are the majority of low paid workers.   The disparities between the cost of living and lower wages hit women hardest.

First Nations Women

For Australia’s Indigenous women the oppression and exploitation is doubled and far worse.  For 237 years, from the first day of brutal colonial occupation, dispossession and racism, Indigenous women have refused to succumb to the devastating effects of colonialism on their people and communities. First nations women are pillars of strength, keeping their communities together, instilling pride in their culture and heritage.  The countless deaths in custody of their children, families and community only strengthens their resolve to continue the fight against oppression, racism and for self-determination and sovereignty. A new generation of young Indigenous women are stepping up, leading militant First Peoples struggles, teaching and inspiring the non-Indigenous young people.

Women and imperialist wars 

Just as women for centuries have fought against brutal colonial occupations and imperialist wars, today women continue to mobilise and lead the anti-war and anti-imperialist struggles and movements for justice and peace.  Globally, women are at the sharp end of the wars mainly generated by imperialist powers, fleeing the devastation, poverty, displacement and persecution to protect their children and families.

As control of Australia’s economy, politics and military is tightened in US hands it is harder for women to fight for higher wages, more social services and a redistribution of wealth.

Australia’s US puppet governments have committed to spend over $400 billion of public funds on AUKUS, the aggressive US-led military pact to contain the rise of China.  This money will be spent on 8 US nuclear powered submarines over the next 30 years.  That’s more than $30 million a day diverted from the Australian people’s social and economic needs, and the Indigenous people’s sovereignty and land rights, to prepare Australia as a US military base and a proxy in a US- led imperialist war with China. 

Meanwhile these $billions are being denied for critically needed funding for women’s health, homelessness, child care, single parents’ payments, women’s workplace rights and women fleeing domestic violence, amongst other urgently required funds to meet human needs in Australia.  

Domestic and Social Violence against Women

Despite ideology which claims that women are liberated, capitalism still designates women as inferior to men and commodifies our bodies as sexualised objects for male gratification, control, and profit making.  This leads to sexual abuse, harassment, domestic and social violence across the society.

Marxist Feminists argue that violence against women is relatively normalised by the capitalist state, its legal system and commercialised popular culture to subjugate women into accepting their submissive roles.

International Solidarity

On this International Women’s Day we pay tribute to women of Palestine, the Philippines, Myanmar, Rojava, and all other women fighting in their people’s heroic armed struggles for liberation from imperialism, colonial Zionism, capitalism and all reactionary forces.  We pay tribute to women in all corners of the world.  

We recognise the women tirelessly fighting for reforms within the capitalist system to alleviate the burden of oppression and exploitation it employs.  History has taught us that the real and lasting end to the exploitation and oppression of women cannot be achieved without abolishing capitalism and replacing it with a new socialist society where women’s potential is fully liberated.

We fight for:

Funding for decent and secure public housing

Living wages for all

Full and secure employment for all

Properly funded free public health, education and child care

Sovereignty and Liberation of Australia’s First People

Equal pay and end to gender exploitation

Scrap AUKUS and spend $368+billion on people’s needs and the environment

End the US-Australia Alliance 

No imperialist war – peace with justice

For an anti-imperialist independent and socialist Australia

  

 

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Albanese to weaken environment laws for foreign salmon farmers

Written by: Nick G. on 6 March 2025

 

(Above: Salmon farms off Bruny Island.   Source: Environmental Defenders Office)

In a move that caught environmentalists by surprise, PM Albanese has intervened in a controversy over salmon farming in western Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour by promising to weaken environmental laws to guarantee the future of the industry. Albanese wrote to industry owners in February promising to “introduce legislation to ensure appropriate environmental laws are in place to continue sustainable salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour”.

Last November, Albanese injected a further $28 million into the industry to improve oxygenation levels in the harbour following a request by conservation groups to Environment Minister Plibersek to reassess salmon farming approvals under the Environmental Protection and biodiversity Conservation Act.

Their concern was the future of the endangered Maugean skate – a stingray-like creature whose only known habitat is in the harbour. Studies had shown its numbers were falling due to low oxygen levels in harbour waters caused by the salmon pens. Another $9 million of federal funds is to assist a skate captive breeding program. This money too, should come from the companies threatening the skates’ existence.

Albanese’s intervention has effectively sunk the expected decision by Plibersek’s department to raise the skate’s threatened species level from endangered to critically endangered. Their decision has been postponed until after the federal election.

Public concern over the nature of salmon farming

Concerns over salmon farming – the raising and harvesting of fish from large pens located in open sea water – are as old as the salmon farms, but the publication in 2021 by Penguin Books of respected novelist Richard Flanagan’s Toxic – The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry gave opponents of the farms the ammunition they needed for a widespread campaign. Some people claimed that Flanagan’s devastating exposé of the industry, with its destructive practices, diseases and fish kills, and use of synthetic chemicals to dye the fish flesh, had put them off eating salmon forever.

The main problem with salmon pens is that they let fish faeces and food waste fall directly onto the ocean floor where the build-up of excess nutrients can destroy marine ecosystems. It can lead to harmful algal blooms that reduce oxygen levels in the water killing fish on the pens and marine life in adjacent waters. Diseases associated with fish in poor health are then treated with hundreds of kilograms of antibiotics which leach into surrounding waters. There they are taken in by wild fish above the allowable level for human consumption. Use of broad-spectrum antibiotics for particular fish diseases, rather than safer vaccines, could lead to antimicrobial resistance beyond the target bacteria. Despite these problems, the Tasmanian government is proposing to increase the area of permitted significant environmental impacts on sea floors under salmon farms from the current 35 metres by an extra 100 metres of legally permitted pollution.

Driven by profits and returns to overseas shareholders, the 3 foreign companies in the industry have been allowed to self-report to the Tasmanian Environmental Protection Authority and have concealed reports on nutrients, fish deaths and fish escapes, diseases and antibiotics. Lack of transparency, of secrecy, is a matter of great concern to Tasmanians.

Multinationals served by government

Tasmanian salmon farming is entirely in the hands of three foreign multinationals. They are Tassal, owned by Canadian company Cooke Inc, since 2022; Huon Aquaculture, owned by notorious Brazilian meat processors JBS, since November 2021; and Petuna Seafoods, 50% owned by Maori nations and 50% by Japanese Nissui.

According to Tax Office data, the companies have paid no tax since 2019.

However, both the Tasmanian and federal governments are bending over backwards to ensure these foreign companies are not placed on an endangered list. From reworking and weakening environmental protection laws, to injecting public funds to save these private companies to have to clean up their own mess, to hiding all of this under a professed concern for jobs – it all comes down to governments in open service to capitalism.

The industry has claimed greater numbers of jobs than really exist. The Australia Institute has criticised the figures based on census data and has been supported by Tasmanian Senator Jaqui Lambi who described industry figures as “bullshit” saying that “It’s all robotics. It’s just feed. They carry on. They overestimate.”

And on the other side of Tasmania…

Just three days after Albanese’s letter of support for the Macquarie Harbour fish farmers, the companies kicked an amazing own goal in south-eastern waters between Bruny Island and regions south of Hobart.

On February 20, masses of salmon carcasses and globules of rotted fish fat washed up on the southern beaches. This was despite large quantities of dead fish taken from pens and dumped in landfill east of Hobart.

Alistair Allan, Greens candidate for Lyons in the forthcoming federal election said, “This is now solid proof that the industry has completely lost control of the disease outbreak that is causing so much death and suffering on these factory fish farms.”

Jacqui Lambie, characteristically, says that she has had a gutful of the salmon industry, and said it must stop its Macquarie Harbour operations and either move further out to sea and transfer to land-based tanks, with the federal funding better spent on supporting the deployment of affected workers.

“You’ve made more than enough money off the arse of Tasmania. Move it on,” she said.

Postscript: Prize Catch

Capitalism’s destructive war on nature, its profit-driven disregard for the environment, its secrecy and corruption were brilliantly captured last year in Alan Carter’s novel Prize Catch, published by Fremantle Press. Needing to facilitate a takeover by a foreign company, a Bruny Island salmon farmer employs SAS war criminals blooded in Afghanistan (under the control of a very Ben Roberts-Smith type leader) to undertake a campaign of murder and intimidation of local environmentalists. Police corruption assists their endeavours. It’s as good as Australian crime fiction gets.

 

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Book Review: Culture and Imperialism

Written by: Duncan B. on 5 March 2025

 

Culture and Imperialism is a 2024 reprint of a 1993 book by the Palestinian-born literary critic Edward Said.

In this book Said examines the domination by British, French and US imperialism over most of Africa, Asia, and South America, and the resistance to imperialism by the peoples of the countries invaded by imperialism. He does this by examining the culture, in particular the literature of the imperialist countries and of the subject countries.

Marx pointed out in his Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, “In the social production of their existence, men enter into definite, necessary relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production corresponding to a determinate stage of development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which there arises a legal and political superstructure and to which there correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life-process in general.” Culture is a part of the superstructure erected on the economic base, in this case of imperialism. 

In looking at the culture of the imperialist countries, Said examines novels by Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, E M Forster, Rudyard Kipling, Albert Camus and others. He also discusses Verdi’s opera Aida. Said shows how these works helped to justify imperialism and make it normal and acceptable to the home audiences in the imperialist countries.

Kipling’s stories and poems in particular, glorified imperialism and denigrated the native peoples of the colonised countries with racist stereotypes. His poem The White Man’s Burden urged the imperialist powers to take more territory from its rightful owners.

In looking at the culture of the countries oppressed by imperialism, Said shows how books such as Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and the writings of many other Arab, African and Asian writers helped oppressed peoples to raise their self-awareness of their oppressed position, reclaim their national cultures which were dominated by imperialist culture and to mobilise for anti-imperialist resistance and struggle. 

Said points out the world-wide spread of US culture, and the stranglehold that US media companies have over the supply of news in the world. This situation is much worse now than when Culture and Imperialism was written, thanks to the spread of social media. US culture dominates our TV shows, streaming services and live and recorded music.

Streaming service Stan, owned by channel 9, commissioned almost half of the new Australian-scripted content in 2024. The federal government had promised to impose local content quotas on the streaming services such as Netflix and Disney by July 1st last year. Hollywood resisted this, claiming that any regulation would be a breach of the Australia - US Free Trade Agreement. The government let this deadline pass.

Now the Trump government has threatened retaliation against countries which attempt to regulate the activities of US companies in their markets, claiming that this a violation of American sovereignty. It is likely that moves towards quotas will remain in limbo for the time being.

Australian culture has a proud history. There have been many writers, poets, artists and musicians who have played a strong role in the struggle for socialism and against capitalism and imperialism.  Australians must uphold their struggle and continue the fight against imperialism’s attempts to dominate our culture. 

Culture and Imperialism is not an easy book to read or to comprehend. It is well worth persevering with it however, to help us gain a better understanding of the important role which culture plays in anti-imperialist struggle.

 

 

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ICOR strongly condemns the invasion of Congo by Rwandan troops and the blockade of the city of Goma

Written by: ICOR on 5 March 2025

 

The attack of the Rwandan special forces on the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo was only possible with the support of highly developed equipment supplied by Western powers. The current situation in Eastern Congo is once again leading the region into an unprecedented cycle of violence.

 

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We must have a correct understanding of Putin

Written by: on 5 March 2025

 

 

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ICOR call for International Women's Day 2025

Written by: ICOR on 4 March 2025

 

International Women's Day on 8 March is inextricably linked with the history of socialist women. In 1910, at the Second International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen, the communist Clara Zetkin launched the initiative to establish a Women's Day on which women would take to the streets for their rights and freedom. 

 

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Lessons for Australia in Trump’s Ukraine switch

Written by: Nick G. on 26 February 2025

 

(Source:   https://www.republicworld.com)

If ever any of the US bootlickers in Australian political and military circles needed a wake-up call, it has come directly from Trump’s change of US policy on Ukraine.

Trump has thrown Zelensky under a bus, demanded mineral and rare earth deposits worth 50% of Ukrainian GDP as “compensation” for its financing of Ukraine’s efforts to defeat Russian aggression, and set out to negotiate a deal for ending the war with Putin to the exclusion of the Ukrainians.

Then on February 24, to coincide with the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UN General Assembly debated two resolutions on the conflict, one proposed by the US, and one by Ukraine.

The US resolution omitted mention of Russian aggression, and only passed after a majority of Member States voted to add EU-led amendments which led to the US abstaining on its own motion and voting against the Ukrainian’s. 

The Ukrainian resolution was a three-page document that included clauses noting that “the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has persisted for three years and continues to have devastating and long-lasting consequences not only for Ukraine, but also for other regions and global stability.”

It called for a commitment to “the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders”.

Ukraine’s version was eventually passed, supported by 93 countries, opposed by 18 with 65 abstentions including China.

The US voted with Russia, Belarus and Israel to oppose the Ukrainian resolution. The majority of the remainder of the 18 were African nations, indicating Russian imperialism’s increasing influence on the continent. 

Later, the US took its original resolution to the Security Council where it was carried 10-0. Five European countries abstained while the US, Russia and China voted in favour.

US imperialism’s about-face on Ukraine must be of concern to its cheer-leaders and lackeys in Australia.

For our part, we have never believed in the US-Australia “Alliance” and have rejected calls to accept US “security guarantees” allegedly contained in the ANZUS Alliance. 

The prospect of US imperialism demanding “compensation” for such “guarantees” is now a grim reality.

Will the Brisbane Line be revived and parts to the north of it ceded to the US?

The reality is that something like that is already underway through the US Force Posture Agreement.

Trump’s demands for compensation from Ukraine were described by one journalist as a “gangster protection racket disguised as foreign policy”.

Will we also need to pay the US for its “protection”?

The reality is that we are already committed through AUKUS to pay $30 million a day for the next 30 years – or $368 billion and counting – for a handful of submarines which they and we will pretend are “ours”, but which will be part of the US Navy on an interoperable and interchangeable basis.

It is time to end the grovelling to the US by loyalists to its Empire in Australia. 

We are determined to fight for an independent and peaceful Australia.

Both independence and peaceful non-alignment are cornerstones for our future and of equal value and importance.

Smash US imperialism!

For independence and socialism. 

 

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How "highly credible" is corporate ownership of the Whyalla Steelworks?

Written by: Ned K. on 22 February 2025

 

(above: Malinauskas and Whyalla Steelworks workers    Source: InDaily)

With the Whyalla Steelworks in administration, large corporations are circling to see how much profit they are likely to make if they successfully bid to buy the Whyalla Steelworks. Corporations from Germany, South Korea, India along with Australian-based BlueScope are reported to be interested in buying and operating the steelworks. 

BlueScope is being promoted by SA Premier Malinauskas.  In the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper on 21/2/2025, Malinauskas is quoted as follows:

 

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Whyalla Workers Steeled In Struggle Deserve Job Security -Nationalise the Steel Industry!

Written by: Ned K. on 21 February 2025

 

The working-class community of Whyalla, led by over 1,000 steel workers have won a significant short-term victory. For months steel works workers and workers employed by contractors dependent on the steel works for their very existence, endured reductions in working hours, layoffs, weeks of work without being paid any wages in an economic climate of ever-increasing costs of living.

The steel workers and their Whyalla community affected allies repeatedly demanded action by the SA Government and GFG Alliance CEO, Sanjeev Gupta. Many promises were made by Gupta about the GFG Alliance commitment to the workers and to the SA Government that payment of lost wages, payment to GFG Alliance's many contractor feeder companies was just around the corner. However, the " corner" remained over the horizon!

The SA Premier Malinauskas read the mood of the town and the emptiness of Gupta's promises well. As well as the possible situation of GFG Alliance going belly-up and the steelworks grinding to a halt, he needed a fully functioning Whyalla Steelworks to be the main customer of his pre-election promise in 2022 to build a liquid hydrogen fuel plant at Whyalla.

By January 2025, the Labor Prime Minister Albanese could see disaster ahead if Australia's only producer of high-grade steel essential for the construction industry and rail transport stopped producing steel. It would cost him the loss of Seats in the federal election that he would call to be held one Saturday before mid-May 2025. 

In mid-February Premier Malinauskas pushes through SA Parliament an amendment to the 1958 Whyalla Steelworks Act to enable the GFG Alliance Whyalla Steelworks arm of its global economic "empire" to be put into administration.

The next day, Thursday 19 February, Premier Malinauskas and Prime Minister Albanese visited Whyalla and announced the much broadcast $2.4 billion "rescue package" to pay lost wages and pay contractors owed money by GFG Alliance, to keep the steelworks operating while it is under administration and to partly fund a modernization of the steelworks with a hoped-for new owner of the steelworks.

This announcement received a big sigh of temporary relief from workers and the whole Whyalla community. 

The appointed administrator Korda Mentha was also the administrator in 2017 which led to the previous owner of the steelworks, Arrium, being taken over by GFG Alliance. Korda Mentha is reported by the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper on Friday 20 February 2025 to charge $795 per hour per senior partner for administering the steelworks and sorting through GFG Alliance finances. Korda Mentha will also be making a recommendation to the SA and federal governments on which company should take over and own the steel works

The underlying cause of the current situation has been the large corporate owners of the steelworks, British-based GFG Alliance and those before it - Arrium, One Steel and its parent BHP have always put profits before the interests of the workers, Whyalla community and the Australian steel industry as a whole. 

These large corporations have not only made profits from the steelworks itself, but also from the nearby Middleback Ranges where they owned and mined some of the highest grade iron ore in the world. The iron ore from Iron Knob and Iron Monarch in these Ranges has purity of ore of over 60%. In the 1920s and 1930s before the steelworks at Whyalla was constructed, the high grade ore was shipped to Newcastle and Port Kembla steelworks. In 1939, the UK declared the ore to be the highest grade deposit of iron ore known in the world.

In the turmoil of the last few days, it was reported in mainstream media that GFG Alliance was propping up its European steelwork interests from profits made from the iron ore mines and the steel produced in the Whyalla steelworks

NATIONALISE THE STEEL INDUSTRY

Albanese in his announcement on Thursday 19 February rightly made the comment that the steel industry is part of Australia's national sovereignty. Malinauskas made the same point.

If they really believe this, rather than just sounding good before a federal election, they should take the first step towards a nationalised steel industry by placing the steelworks and iron ore mines at Whyalla into public hands.

Workers in Australia, led by the courageous people of Whyalla have the ability to operate the steelworks and the iron ore mines for the benefit of their community and the needs of Australian construction and expanding rail network construction.

Albanese and Malinauskas may say the steelworks need the "expertise" of a foreign owned multinational corporation or a nominally Australian owned company like Bluescope who operate Port Kembla steelworks. 

Or they may say Australia has not got the money to modernise our own steelworks.

Where then did the Albanese Government find the money to send to the USA to part-finance the building of more nuclear-powered submarines? Where do they miraculously find $368 billion to fund nuclear-powered submarines in coming decades?

DEMAND NATIONALISATION OF THE AUSTRALIAN STEEL INDUSTRY NOW! 

 

 

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Message to Ukrainian Australians on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 19 February 2025

 

February 23, 2025, marks the 3rd anniversary of Russian imperialism’s illegal and unjust war of aggression against Ukraine. 

On February 25, 2022, we issued a statement condemning Putin’s invasion, saying “Ukraine has become the battleground of the rival imperialist blocs of the US-NATO-EU and of the Russian Federation. A struggle over imperialist spheres of influence is at the heart of the crisis. It arises due to the uneven development of the strengths and weaknesses of the powers and of their abilities to protect their respective spheres of influence.”

On the first anniversary of the invasion, we attended rallies of Ukrainian Australians and distributed a leaflet headed Russian imperialists – out of Ukraine!

After reviewing Putin’s “justifications” for his aggression, and the role of the US in creating instability in Ukraine as part of an expansion of NATO towards the east, we concluded “Ukraine for the Ukrainians, not for the Russians, and not for the US and NATO.”

We stand firm in our belief that, as Ho Chi Minh said of Vietnam, “nothing is more precious than independence and freedom”.

Today, fresh dangers face the Ukrainian people.

The Russian authorities not only continue their aggressive ad unjust war, but impose new repression on Ukrainians in Russia itself. 

Of the more than thirty Ukrainian cultural autonomies and organisations that existed in Russia at the end of the 2010s, only a few continue to function actively. Most of them exist solely due to their complete loyalty to the Russian state authorities.

In 2024, the Russian government initiated a bill to denounce the agreement with Ukraine that regulated the activities of information and cultural centers. This decision was the final blow to the National Cultural Center of Ukraine in Moscow - one of the last legal centers of Ukrainian culture in the Russian capital.

Activists who tried to continue working to preserve Ukrainian culture and identity are under constant threat of detention, fines, or other repressive measures. 
Our comrades in the Russian Maoist Party initiated a statement, “Solidarity with the Ukrainians of Russia” which was released on January 6, 2025 and signed by ourselves and 17 other Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations. They included our comrades in the Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine.

When it was announced that North Korea was sending troops to support Russian aggression, we released the statement “Condemn the DPRK’s sending of troops to the Ukrainian conflict” on 6 November 2024.

Now, a further complication has emerged with the election of Donald Trump.

Ukrainians must maintain their vigilance and not place any trust in the new US President.

He must not be allowed to do a deal with Putin at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

He has boasted that he will end the war in a day.

But he has also cited his own imperialist aims to absorb Greenland into the US, retake the Panama Canal from Panama, and make Canada the 51st state of the US. He has proposed the ethnic cleansing of Gaza for the sake of a US-led real estate development.

Nothing would suit him better than a deal with Putin based on a redivision of areas of influence and the seizure of territories not their own.

To that end, the February 7 “deal” presented to Zelensky by Trump, requiring Ukraine to grant the US the right to oversee Ukraine’s mineral resources, ports, energy infrastructure, and future economic projects must be rejected. The agreement would claim a larger share of Ukraine’s GDP, at $500 billion, than Germany’s post-World War I reparations under the Treaty of Versailles.

For our part, our focus as an Australian Marxist-Leninist Party is on winning our own anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

In this conflict, there is no “good” imperialism – neither Russian nor Western.

Ukraine needs to defeat the tiger that has burst in through the front door, while keeping out the wolves that lurk around the back door.

We hope that the Ukrainian working class will establish its leadership in the resistance and guarantee Ukrainian independence through a socialist state.

Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

 

 

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A Capitalist Parliament Won’t Get People Out of the Mess - Mass Struggle for People’s Power the only Solution to the Crisis

Written by: John G. on 17 February 2025

 

(Above: Keep the initiative in our own hands, and lift the level of struggle!)

 

In the economic crisis that stalks Australia, there is only one solution. The struggle of Australian workers and working people.

Struggle is against the multinationals and their collaborators, struggle for increased wages, for adequate social services, for easing workload burdens, for shorter hours, for secure jobs and for housing we can afford. The common thread is to throw foreign monopoly corporations and their collaborators off our backs and out of Australia, to establish the rule of the working and patriotic people, the vast majority

Struggle mustn’t be held back by any of the scam cures offered, restraining wages, balancing government budgets, increased spending on infrastructure, cutting spending on infrastructure, spending super on housing, lowering interest rates, multi-employer bargaining, subsidies on windfarms, cutting subsides on renewable power, spending hundreds of billions on nuclear power, and on and on. 

The grim reality is economic crisis rolls on whatever parliament has done or will do. Struggle mustn’t be held back by the parliamentary hassle that’s going on, pumped up to hoodwink people.

It’s important to get over the complete rubbish, get to grips with the fundamental reality of what’s going on, and solve it.  

The capitalist system is failing the people. Inflation of the currency has robbed people of their livelihoods, their savings and prospects for the future. Inflation is the current expression of a long-festering crisis of overproduction in the capitalist system here and overseas. After years of people’s agony with wages held way behind price rises, high interest rates and rents, business bankruptcies, countries drowning in debt, the economy will pick up sometime, at a huge cost to people. It won’t last long. The major centres of capitalist funds and power are choking on mountains of accumulated capital funds with nowhere to profitably go. That problem’s going nowhere. It’ll come out in the next problems in one form or another. 

Markets, sources of raw materials and production centres, are all dominated by monopoly corporations from the US, China, Europe, Russia and other imperialist powers. The battle between the various capitalists for markets and things to invest in has come to a peak, turning from mainly economic and political struggles to military struggles. Trade Wars may head into world wars.

Wars for oil are no news to anyone. Now its wider, with proxy wars in the Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere. The waste of war, the destruction of arms and infrastructure creates shortages and markets, offering some relief for capitalists to use their money capital to get profits, getting round the crisis of oversupply for a while. For capitalists, war’s a way out of their mess. 

The US is gearing up for war with China. Trump is concentrating on war in Asia to grab control of China and those countries increasingly dependent on it. Proxy wars head into direct warfare between the big imperialist powers. 

People find ways to stand up to US and western imperialists moves to war. People from Palestine to West Papua to Kurdistan have risen with arms in hand to win and defend their national liberation from imperialist vultures. They are showing organised resistance knocks the imperialists back, serving up defeats to imperialist conspiracies against people.

 We’ve had both Liberal and Labor governments in the last decade. We’ve had Greens in a ‘balance’ of votes in the senate. We’ve had Greens and Independents manoeuvring between the two big players. 

The tactics of Labor leaders might differ from Dutton, which has some importance, but essentially, they all look after the rich and attack the poor.  The Greens and Teals, Jackie Lambie, Palmer and others tout various different programs to get votes promising to get people out of the mess.  

Irrespective of the government, and the mix of parties in parliament coming out of an election, hardships keep cutting a swathe through working and small business people time and again, while the big foreign monopolies keep plundering Australia and the people. 

Parliament and party shadow-boxing in its chambers works to keep capitalism on our backs. 

Stop Dreaming! Parliament is no way out of the mess. 

Get organised! Build mass struggle for people’s power against foreign, corporate monopoly power.

Stand up to US and other imperialisms to win independence from foreign-moneybags and their local collaborator capitalists and bureaucrats, Canberra included.

Democratic Anti-Imperialist Revolution for Power to the People. 

 

 

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Tiny Cook Islands leans to China despite US-Aus-NZ pressure

Written by: (Contributed) on 16 February 2025

 

High-level diplomacy between the Cook Islands and Beijing has sent alarm bells ringing inside the elite US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing organisation; a heightening of diplomatic tensions and hostilities has proved easy to observe.

The matter, however, is best assessed in the context of the wider Pacific region and the recent decision by the Trump administration to suspend all foreign aid for at least ninety days.

The official five-day diplomatic visit to Beijing by Cook Island Prime Minister, Mark Brown, in early February has been officially noted as sealing a Joint Action Plan for Strategic Partnership between the two countries. (1) An official media release from the office of the PM, noted, 'This visit is about expanding economic opportunities while ensuring our sovereignty and national interests remain at the forefront … Our approach to foreign policy is clear … we engage openly and transparently to secure the best outcomes for our people'. (2)

While the Cook Islands are self-governing with a population of about 17,000 citizens, they have a 'free association' with New Zealand which provides economic assistance and defence and security; all Cook Islanders are technically New Zealand citizens. The fifteen islands and atolls straddle about 1.9 million square kms in the South West Pacific, centred upon 20 degrees south and 160 degrees west, alongside strategic land-masses controlled or administered by France.

The Cook Islands also have a defence and security co-operation agreement with Australia, signed in 2022; it was officially noted from Canberra that 'the Australian government is cautiously waiting to see the detail of the agreement' between the Cook Islands and China. (3)

The response of the NZ government was more forthright; they warned there had been a failure with official consultation procedures and demanded access to the Joint Action Plan. (4) It was subsequently diplomatically noted that NZ 'did not see eye to eye with the Cook Islands government on a range of issues'. (5)

Both New Zealand and Australia form part of the elite US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing organisation, which oversees the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) and rests upon the 'Quad', aimed at containing and encircling China from all sides. (6)

The Cook Islands, furthermore, possess some limited status inside the US-led defence and security provision, being placed upon sensitive islands chains in Oceania. The Cook Islands, in fact, also possess their own intelligence services, which official government publications have noted, 'continually gather intelligence for analysis'. (7) What facilities the Cook Islands use for intelligence-gathering has not been publicised; the Australian government, however, has historically used secret facilities on the Cocos Islands for intelligence-gathering on Indonesia and other parts of the Indian Ocean. (8)

The US, likewise, use facilities on the Marshall Islands in the form of a space surveillance radar system known as the 'Space Fence', with ability to track satellites and space debris. (9)
Using their Echelon system the US can continuously monitor global telecommunications through outlying computer stations directly linked into the National Security Agency. (10) The surveillance exists outside of territorial laws and regulations, high in the sky and inside cyber-space. The fact that both the Marshall Islands and the Cook Islands also swing on the same arc from Pine Gap in Central Australia may not be coincidental.

Silence, with such diplomatic matters, tends to be the order of the day.

The noted response of the Cook Islands government toward their NZ counterparts over the recent diplomatic spat was, nevertheless, both blunt and direct; PM Mark Brown 'dismissed New Zealand's concerns … there is no need for NZ to sit in the room with us … he … declared his government intends to sign a strategic partnership with Beijing regardless of Wellington's objections … following a phone call on Friday in which Mr Peters demanded he reveal the contents of the deal'. (11) He then boarded an international flight to Beijing from Auckland, on the northern island of NZ, 'without further consultation'. (12)

Recent developments with the Cook Islands, however, rest upon decades of relative neglect from the advanced, industrial countries, toward the small island states of the Pacific. They were absorbed into neo-colonial-type relations following political independence during the previous Cold War and expected to be passive recipients of aid packages. Things now, however, are not what they used to be; a changing balance of forces has taken place.

A recent assessment from Canberra has, for example, provided a glimpse of unfolding developments; it was noted there had been 'a fundamental shift in how Pacific nations see themselves. They are no longer content to be passive recipients of great … or even regional … power influence. Instead they actively seek to shape the regional order according to their interests. Beijing has carefully cultivated these aspirations'. (13)

Stronger diplomatic standing and organisation in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has also had an impact upon traditional hegemonic positions; the US is no longer the dominant power in the Pacific, with China emerging as a serious competitor. (14) Both collectively and independently, the Pacific Islands have questioned their traditional neo-colonial status and now possess stronger bargaining positions; they have acted accordingly with their own diplomatic initiatives.

It is important to note the diplomatic silence from the Trump administration about these developments. It is not difficult to understand why. Buffoonery has taken precedence over
common sense and sound political and diplomatic judgement, for all to see.

The US has had a foreign aid commitment with aid programs to twelve Pacific countries amounting to US$3.4 billion; the recent decision to suspend all the programs globally for at least ninety days has already been assessed as a spectacular 'own goal' by informed observers to the debacle. (15) Recipients of foreign aid now look elsewhere.

In conclusion, the decision, by the Cook Islands, to seek greater support for their economic development from China has shown how US-led diplomacy conducted through Australia and New Zealand has failed to accurately assess the changing balance of forces in the Pacific, despite huge resources used by the Five Eyes for defence and security provision.

The Cook Islands initiative has proved a timely response to matters arising, and, invariably, has far-reaching implications for future diplomatic relations and their outcome elsewhere, across the Pacific:

                                        We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     NZ fury as Cook is partners with China, Australian, 7 February 2025.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Cook Islands' Beijing pact triggers strategic waves across Pacific, Australian, 10 February 2025.
4.     Australian op.cit., 7 February 2025.
5.     Ibid.
6.     See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
7.     See: Cook Islands – National Security Policy, 2023-2026, page 27.
8.     Secret spy station on the Cocos Islands, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 2013.
9.     US v. China, Japan Forward: Politics and Security, 14 February 2020.
10.   See: Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2003), pp. 89-93.
11. Pacific paradox leaves door open to China, Australian, 11 February 2025; and, Australian, op.cit., 10 February 2025.
12.   Australian, ibid., 10 February 2025.
13.   Australian, op.cit., 11 February 2025..
14.   See: Study – US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
15.   See: Gift for Beijing: Asia-Pacific analysts warn shock US aid freeze 'an own goal', Australian, 4 February 2025.

 

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Australian culture under attack

Written by: Duncan B. on 16 February 2025

 

(Progressive Australian culture has had its ups and downs: the 1890s, 1930s and 1970s. The above is the front cover of the SA-based Australian Cultural Association’s 67-page history of its 1975-1980 activities. Maybe it’s time for another upsurge!)

 

Australian culture has come under attack on several fronts lately. In the past six months, two big multinational publishers have taken over two independent Australian publishing houses.

Simon & Schuster took over Affirm Press and Penguin Random House took over Text Publishing. The big five overseas publishing companies (Penguin Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan) now control a large chunk of the Australian publishing industry. 

These take-over deals are bad for Australian authors, Australian readers and Australian literature. We risk losing more Australian culture because of them. The big companies are cautious about what they take on, while independent publishers take more risks and support innovative and experimental writing. Text Publishing has authors who have been short-listed for the Nobel, Booker and Pulitzer prizes. Other Text authors have won the Miles Franklin and Stella Prizes. Text has also reprinted books by past Australian authors, bringing them to a new generation of Australian readers.

The Australian Music industry is also facing a crisis thanks to Spotify. This Swedish-owned streaming platform with global revenues of $25 billion per year, controls 70% of the Australian audio streaming market. Australian music is suffering as a result.

Many people now  get their music from Spotify instead of buying CDs or listening to radio stations such as Triple J. American pop stars dominate the music played on Spotify, which is not subject to any local content rules, despite promises by the Labor Party to introduce them. Three major record labels, Warner, Sony and Universal, released 95% of the music on the Australian top-100 in 2023.

Only five Australian songs made it to the ARIA top 100 for 2024. Only 18 Australian artists made it into Triple J’s Hottest 100 for 2025. Triple J’s ratings have dropped to 4.3% nationally. This is a sad result for a radio station which has done so much to promote Australian music in its 50 years of operation.

The Triple J playlist has always featured a much higher level of Australian music than the commercial stations. Programmes such as Unearthed and the One Night Stand travelling live music shows have allowed many Australian musicians to gain recognition.

Live music in Australia is dominated by overseas multinationals such as the US-based Live Nation. The three top video streamers in Australia are foreign-owned-Netflix, Amazon and Disney. Video streamers are also not subject to local content quotas.

The government is being urged to introduce local content quotas of at least 25% for streaming services. This would be a start. Much more action is needed to seize back control of our culture from the multinationals and return it to Australian authors, performers and audiences.

 

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Who the Nationals serve

Written by: Duncan B. on 13 February 2025

 

Vanguard has previously said that the National Party serves the interests of fossil fuel companies, miners and big graziers. 

The latest records of disclosure return forms published by the Australian Electoral Commission covering 2023-24, show that British American Tobacco, Phillip Morris, Adani, Fortescue Metals and the Minerals Council of Australia were among the major donors to the Nationals.

Phillip Morris donated $100,000 and British American Tobacco donated $84,000, up from $55,000 the previous year. Adani donated $66,000 and Endeavour Group which owns Dan Murphy’s and hundreds of poker machine hotels donated $22,000. 

Responsible Wagering Australia donated $25,000, as did Tabcorp Holdings, Telstra, and oil and gas company Santos. Donations to the National Party and Laneway Assets (the National’s vehicle for receiving membership fees), totalled $4.16 million.

It is easy to see why the National Party denounces climate change, opposes renewable energy and promotes fossil fuels. 

“He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

 

 

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Listen to people so as to improve mass work

Written by: Nick G. on 13 February 2025

 

(Original image from Milwaukee Independent)

In December 2022, the United States Study Centre of the University of Sydney released the results of a survey of Australian attitudes towards the “US-Australia Alliance”.

The survey identified 30% of respondents as “full supporters” with no concerns about what the “alliance’ means; 33% are described as “reserved supporters” with concerns about Australian independence and sovereignty; 23% are described as “sceptics” who are not convinced that the Alliance, in its current form, is necessarily benefiting Australia’s security and would like to see significant change; and 8% are described as “opponents”.

Kym Bergmann, editor of the online Asia Pacific Defence Reporter could perhaps be placed in that second category. Bergmann is a journalist with a commitment to the military and has an unquestionable belief in the US as Australia’s “most important security partner”.  He has held senior positions in several companies, including military contractors Blohm+Voss, Thales, Celsius and Saab. His online journal is a daily compendium of which government has given which arms manufacturer which contract, together with news of the latest in military technologies.

Bergmann has a weekly podcast in which he editorialises on the absurdity of the AUKUS arrangements and the secrecy and stupidity of the Department of Defence.

In his most recent podcast, he criticises Trump’s proposed “ethnic cleansing of 2 million Palestinians”, and Netanyahu’s rejection of a “two-state solution” and determination to cleanse not just Gaza, but also the West Bank, of Palestinians.

He doesn’t mince words when criticising Trump and Netanyahu, but says “You can’t hear anything this strong from the Australian government because for them it represents the absolute worst of two worlds: the risk of offending the Americans and the risk of offending the Israelis.”

He reviews our massively expanded military ties with the US and the money we are giving them hand over fist for what he says are a “couple of second-hand clunkers” in the form of  Virginia-class submarines, and says that if any country in the world is in a position to express mild discontent with America, it is Australia. But all we get, from the Government and the Opposition, is “vague motherhood sort of stuff.”

He says that there are other countries out there beside the US and asks what must they think of us?

He is scathing of our politicians who “still cower in terror rather than say anything that could be interpreted as criticism.”

“What must they (other countries) think of our ongoing craven forelock tugging” he asks.

“From Copenhagen, Ottowa, Panama City, we must look like the most abject, pathetic bootlickers they have ever seen.”

So here we have a person, deeply embedded in and committed to the military, to military industry and to military culture who nevertheless has major concerns about the loss of Australian independence and sovereignty and who clearly wants Australia to have a capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy.

People like Bergmann are all around us.

They are a complex of attitudes and values. Their ideas are unlikely to be 100% progressive or 100% backward.

In our workplaces, communities and families, our understanding of the massline requires us to listen to those around us, avoid immediate judgemental attitudes but carry out investigation that allows us to make appropriate categorisation of the people based on the relative balance between progressive and backward elements in their outlook.

Those categories could follow the pattern of those in the US Study Centre.

From that investigation and subsequent understanding of the categories that people in our workplace, community group or family fall into, we can improve our mass work with a view to raising the ideological level of the people concerned.

This means having the confidence to reject passivity, and the understanding to reject acting like a bull in a china shop. Not everyone will respond to our mass work with a sudden light globe moment. Ideological development takes time and is different for different people depending on their starting point.

For example, in relation to those categories of people in the US Study Centre survey, we could aim to isolate the full supporters by challenging their faith in the “alliance” and then try to shift those who can be shifted into the category of reserved supporters; within the latter group, make more of an issue of independence and sovereignty so that some change from being supporters of the Alliance to sceptics; and turn the doubts and misgivings of the sceptics into conscious opposition to imperialist domination and control.

Investigation and study of our workplaces, communities and families is a Marxist-Leninist approach that counters the danger of left-blocism where people are only comfortable in the presence of others who share their advanced views. It allows us to move within the people like a fish through water.

 

 

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US suspension of aid an "own goal"?

Written by: (Contributed) on 12 February 2025

 

The decision by the Trump administration to temporarily suspend its foreign aid program has proved controversial. It has done little to convey an enlightened, planned, balanced and well-implemented foreign policy and diplomatic position. In fact, when viewed in the context of present Cold War diplomatic rivalry with China, the decision, might, justifiably, be viewed as a spectacular own goal, with serious implications for all US allies, including Australia in the Pacific region.

In early February, within days of taking office, the Trump administration announced they were temporarily suspending more than US$60 billion of international funding through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). (1) While the reason for the suspension was along lines that the agency was being run by 'radical lunatics', the underlying reason was cost-cutting and projecting an America First diplomatic position.

The position of the Trump administration is best viewed in the context of Cold War; they seek a return to the halcyon days when the power of the US was barely challenged. Studies of the period referred to the US as 'the world policeman on the road to world leadership'. (2)
The language used by the Trump administration when suspending foreign aid was largely reminiscent of terminology frequently used from Washington sixty years ago; the prevailing balance of forces, however, has now changed. They appear oblivious.

There was, furthermore, little ambiguity in the right-wing business position adopted by the Trump administration: staff were placed on administrative leave and access was blocked to the Washington headquarters; employees were locked out of computer systems. Many of the on-line websites about USAID programs were also systematically blocked to prevent access to statistics and other information. It carried all the hallmarks of little understanding of the gravity of the situation and a swashbuckling attitude toward those regarded as subject to dictat. An official statement from the Trump administration also noted the whole USAID organisation was 'beyond repair'. (3) What will happen after the 90-day suspension remains to be seen. Many programs are likely to be terminated indefinitely and permanently.

Historically, aid programs have been used by governments to foster closer diplomatic links between host countries and those regarded as countries of interest. It is regarded as 'soft diplomacy'. While criticisms have arisen about neo-colonialism and stronger countries using aid programs to enhance their position over those categorised as emerging economies, large numbers of poor people depend upon aid programs for their everyday needs. Different governments have used various approaches to achieve diplomatic objectives: the US has tended to channel aid through official bodies, while Israel usually uses local Police as a conduit, China tends to use central government organisation while Taiwan uses a more localised provincial network to distribute their aid. Britain retains a huge aid program, most of which is channelled through the Commonwealth, other countries use different approaches.

Australia has a large foreign aid program across the South Pacific, Pacific and Asia regions, working closely with US counterparts as a regional hub for 'US interests'. During the past decade, for example, USAID has provided the Pacific region with an estimated $3 billion in aid. (4) Australia's counterpart, AUSAID, has been responsible for using $392.9 million during the 2022-23 financial year to twelve Pacific countries; PNG is a large recipient.

The aid programs are invariably aimed toward sustainable economic, social and political development, and can take many forms: many of the programs, for example, have lasted a long time, providing stability in often volatile areas. A major program in the South Pacific has been governance, and the training of local government officials in administration procedures, to deal with countries which are divided along ethnic and inter-ethnic lines. It has been noted that, 'predictability in aid is key to the effectiveness of programs … including … critical public services, medicines, food, humanitarian assistance', and a whole list of other services. (5) Staff employed with aid programs frequently have to deal with local decision-makers, which can sometimes be difficult.

The situation is the Solomon Islands remains problematic where ethnic and inter-ethnic divisions have spilled over into open warfare twice in recent times. Australia has, invariably, been left to foot the bill for peacekeeping and political stability. The Solomon Islands has remained dependent upon aid to provide many basic services as one of the poorest countries in the region. To promote economic development USAID has provided the country with $1 million to promote ten agricultural programs, several of which are regarded as key projects to support 'critical development needs in the Solomon Islands'. (6)

And this diplomatic position has been suspended by the Trump administration for a minimum of ninety days. Many of the recipients of US aid programs, however, are unlikely to possess sufficient economic reserves to fund their own programs for three months. Large numbers of local people linked to the aid programs have already lost their employment.

Reaction to the decision was immediate: it was noted from one well-informed observer that 'it's a huge gift to China … and the legitimacy question is a big one … now you have the biggest component … destroying it and moving away from its commitments and principles'. (7) In the case of the Solomon Islands, and elsewhere in the Pacific, most USAID has been used specifically to challenge perceived Chinese diplomatic initiatives; the position of the Trump administration, therefore, can best be assessed as ill-thought of and very likely to become totally counter-productive, leaving Australia to foot the bill, once again:

                                       We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Gift for Beijing: Asia-Pacific analysts warn shock US aid freeze 'an own goal'  Australian, 4 February 2025.
2.     See: The Road to World Leadership, The Police Idea in US Foreign Policy, CIA.,Chapter 5, Intervention and Revolution, Richard J. Barnett, (London, 1970), pp. 77-93.
3.     Musk tightens his grip on wheels of power, Australian, 5 February 2025.

4.     Donald Trump's foreign aid freeze, ABC News, 1 February 2025.

5.     Australian, op.cit., 4 February 2025.
6.     See: US suspends foreign aid, PINA, 29 January 2025.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 4 February 2025.

 

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China’s anti-socialist counter-revolution

Written by: Nick G. on 11 February 2025

 

(Where the People's Daily once produced lists of labour heroes, Bloomberg now produces lists of Chinese rich.)

A certain organisation has commented this week on what it calls “China’s socialist revolution”. 

The comment is little more than a repeat of the revisionist CCP’s rewriting of its own history. 

It says, for example, “In the first years following the revolution China was set back by the “great leap forward” and then, the “cultural revolution” which were implemented under the leadership of Mao Zedong, who, in the later period of his life adopted extreme “leftist” policies.”

Things allegedly took a “dramatic turn for the better” when Deng and his cronies rejected these “leftist” policies and switched China from the socialist to the capitalist road.

One assumes that it is “better” that one of the most equal and classless societies in the world has been destroyed and a society of vast social polarisation has taken its place. (See “China and the Widening of Relative Poverty” on pages 3-8 here: AC+2020+Spring.pdf )

One assumes that it is “better” that a socialist country is now a major exporter of capital to non-socialist countries where it can only function as any exportable capital in purchasing the natural resources of other countries and exploiting the labour of the workers of those countries, taking the surplus value created by those workers for the profit of its private and/or state-owned corporations. (See: “Explaining China: How a socialist country took the capitalist rod to social-imperialism” here: Explaining+China+Final+v2.pdf )

One assumes that it is “better” that China no longer seeks the restriction of bourgeois right, but rather its frantic expansion, resulting in China now having more billionaires than its rival US imperialism, and millionaires allowed to join the ruling Communist Party as one of three representatives of contemporary forces of production. (See: “Understanding the Need to Restrict Bourgeois Right” pages 14-34 here: AC+2022+Autumn.pdf )

One assumes it is “better” that when the new Chinese Deepseek AI platform is asked how China is restricting bourgeois right, it avoids any explanation of bourgeois right and doesn’t initially know what to do, twice replying “The server is busy. Please try again later.”

6 hours later, again asked “What is bourgeois right and how is it being restricted in China?” it lamely offers this non-answer:

In China, we adhere to the socialist system, where the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system with Chinese characteristics are the fundamental guarantees for China's development and progress. The Chinese government is always committed to safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods, promoting social fairness and justice, and ensuring that the people share in the fruits of reform and development. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics has been continuously improved, effectively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people. China's development practice has proven that the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the correct one that suits China's national conditions, and it has also received widespread support and active participation from the entire Chinese people.

One assumes that it is “better” that the proletarian revolutionary Comrade Mao Zedong is discredited and maligned, and that his ideology is replaced with the officially described revisionist nonsense of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

In a further post, we will look again at the revisionism of so-called Xi Jinping Thought.

 

 

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American Empire Is Past Its Prime

Written by: Ned K. on 11 February 2025

 

It is often said these days that while America (USA) is still the biggest imperialist power, that it is in decline.

A recent article in the online news service, Pearls and Irritations, provides some facts about the American empire's decline, The article is by Les Macdonald and was posted in Pearls and Irritations on February 9, 2025.

 

 

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Richard Boyle case vindictive and intimidatory

Written by: Nick G. on 10 February 2025

 

Australian Tax Office whistle-blower Richard Boyle is in the South Australian District Court today for a call-over hearing.

Boyle lost his last chance to secure immunity from prosecution when the High Court refused his application for special leave to appeal last November, after two South Australian courts previously rejected his bid. 

He is due to face the court on 3 November 2025. Today’s call-over hearing is intended to bring the presiding judge up to date on developments in the case.

Before he fronted the court this morning, Boyle released a copy of a letter he has sent to Australian Attorney-general Mark Dreyfus stating that he had withdrawn instructions to negotiate a plea-deal with the Commonwealth.

He accused the Commonwealth Prosecutor under Dreyfus’s control of not acting with integrity. 

Background

Boyle, a former ATO debt collection officer, first became an internal whistleblower in October 2017, when he grew concerned about operations in the tax office.
He told journalists at last year’s Walkely Awards Presentation that in mid- 2017, as the financial year wrapped up, ATO staff across the country, not just Adelaide, were instructed to take money out of people’s bank accounts, shutting down many small to medium businesses without due cause.

“It did not matter to the Tax Office if their debts were incorrect.

“Some months after this ‘cash grab’ in June 2017, I wrote a formal public interest disclosure to outline this abuse of power, as well as the other significant failures of administration by the Tax Office that I was observing.

“And who did I have to send that complaint to, by law?

“To the Australian Taxation Office.

“I didn’t have a chance, did I?”

When his complaints were ignored, he went public and told Four Corners about the culture at the ATO, which he said included his area being instructed to use more heavy-handed tactics on taxpayers who owed the tax office money.

Only following the Four Corners episode titled ‘Mongrel Bunch of Bastards’ did this type of vile abuse by the ATO cease.

But rather than rewarding an honest and principled employee for exposing abuse that gravely risked the health and safety of the public, and causing such practices to stop, the ATO sought revenge on Boyle.

Vindictive and intimidatory

It is typical of ruling class legal procedures that the political essence and class nature of its actions is hidden behind criminal charges that particularise and obscure what is really going on.

In Boyle’s case, the intention of the ATO as an employer is to vindictively punish Richard Boyle, and of the Government, which has the power to intervene and drop the charges, it is to use Boyle as an example in order to intimidate any others who dare to expose wrongdoing and injustice.

Hence Boyle is not charged with whistle-blowing and is not protected by the legislation and whistleblower protections introduced by Dreyfus, in 2013.

Instead, he is charged with 24 offences consisting, as today’s District Court hearings sheet lists them, of “Make A Record Of Protected Information By A Taxation Officer (6)/ Use A Listening Device To Overhear, Record, Monitor Or Listen (7)/ Disclosure Of Protected Information To Another Entity By A T/ Record Another Person's Tax File Number (2)/ Attempt To Disclose Protected Information To Another Entity (6)/ Attempt To Divulge Or Communicate Another Person's Tax File (2).”

In his letter today to Dreyfus, Boyle refers to the situation in October 2022, when Counsel for the Commonwealth advised regarding the allegation that Boyle had “disclosed confidential taxpayer information to my lawyer at the time (Mr. Finlay), that 'no such disclosure occurred'. The Commonwealth agreed that Mr. Finlay deliberately did not open the encrypted files out of an abundance of caution to protect the confidentiality of the information. After the initial shock of this statement to all present, her Honour Judge Kudelka retorted, somewhat ironically, 'Aren't you prosecuting Mr. Boyle in the criminal trial for disclosing confidential tax information?'. All parties, including the court, left the hearing that day with the full expectation that the Commonwealth would abandon these charges, considering they had scuttled their own case as they had argued the opposite of the alleged offense.”

If it had acted with any integrity, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions would have dropped the charges then and there, but 28 months later, they are still vindictively in place.

Boyle faces charges that carry a maximum prison sentence of up to 46 years.

Boyle’s case is a reminder that eternal vigilance is required against government erosion of hard-won democratic rights.

They have taken their toll on this brave and honest person.

He told the journalists at the Walkleys, “Louise and I should have been starting a family, buying a house, settling into the routines of life together.

“Instead we are here with you tonight, both completely and utterly broken.

“Louise can speak for herself, but I personally am broken, physically, mentally, and financially.”

Boyle’s charges must be dropped and proper restitution and compensation paid by the government for the hurt they have caused him and his wife.

 

 

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Unions say "Don't risk Dutton" but avoid issues of substance

Written by: Ned K. on 9 February 2025

 

On Tuesday 4 February, the ACTU held an online webinar for affiliated Unions to outline the ACTU's plan for the fast-approaching federal parliamentary elections. The webinar was run by ACTU Secretary Sally McManus and President Michelle O'Neill with support from State and Territory Secretaries.

Over 700 people joined the webinar from a diverse range of Unions covering workers from many different industries and backgrounds.

Sally McManus said that the coming election was being framed by the mainstream media and Dutton as a referendum on the how the Albanese Government has "performed" regarding the rising cost of living. The ACTU's intention was to frame the election around the theme "Don't Risk Dutton".

For Union members and workers generally, the ACTU campaign would emphasize the risk of workers losing the gains made on the workplace front under the Albanese Government term of office if Dutton and the Liberal Party were in government. Sally McManus specifically mentioned multi-employer bargaining, Same Job-Same Pay, Workers Right to Disconnect, Wage Theft laws, restrictions on use of casual labor and Delegate Rights.

McManus implied that Dutton's agenda on these workplace issues alone would see workers worse off and therefore intensify rising cost of living issues for workers.

In this respect the thrust of the ACTU campaign is similar to the Rights of Work, Worth Fighting For campaign which was a main factor in the defeat of the Howard Government in 2007.

The difference in 2025 is that the existing rising cost of living issues for workers did not subside under the last three years of an Albanese Labor Government. The exception has been significant pay rises ranging from 15% to 25% to thousands of Aged Care and Child Care (Early Childhood Education) mainly women workers and a relatively small number of labor hire workers who are already seeing the benefits of the Same Job, Same Pay laws despite vigorous opposition from the multinational mining companies.

In the webinar, there was no mention about ACTU campaigning on issues such as opposition to AUKUS, Palestinian struggle and surprisingly no mention of the specific issue of affordable housing.

The ACTU plan for their election campaign is a focus on key marginal Seats in each State and Territory and asking Unions to "lock in their membership base " to the theme "Don't Risk Dutton" by focusing on the workplace/industrial issues mentioned above.

The campaign is being launched on 18 February with Unions in each State and Territory conducting leaflet blitzes at busy public places such as train stations. This will be followed by the now familiar door knockings in targeted Seats and phone calling members and holding workplace meetings.

Union members in past elections have shown that they can be an influential force when mobilized on the ground to have conversations with fellow workers and their communities.

Many Union members are from English as Second Language backgrounds and in the western suburbs of Sydney in particular, many are from Middle Eastern backgrounds. Their main issue may be the lack of support by the Albanese Government for Palestinian people which results in them lodging a protest vote against the government. Many other workers may agree with the ACTU about a Dutton led government trying to wind back workplace rights gains made, but they also may lodge a protest vote against the current government which may mean more votes for Liberal candidates or more likely, more votes for Independents or the Greens Party.

At the webinar, there was some awareness of this possibility with the ACTU steering away from any slogan that included "Vote Labor".

How rank and file Union members react to the ACTU proposed campaign remains to be seen, with some key Unions already deciding to withdraw funding of the ALP for the election and deciding to support the Greens.

Whether it is a Labor or Liberal Party forming the next government or minority government, both will continue to support AUKUS and the Australia-US Alliance and resulting US domination of this country. There was no mention of this reality in the ACTU election campaign webinar presented on 4th February.

 

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Let's Embrace the Gains of the Rojava Revolution! Let's Defend the Women‘s Revolution!

Written by: Women’s Leadership Group, Marxist-Leninist Communist Party/ Turkey & Kurdistan on 2 February 2025

 

(Above:Jin Jiyan Azadi!  Women, Life, Freedom)

The Rojava Revolution is a fire of rebellion and a torch of hope for women in the Middle East, in the midst of the most aggressive, most slavish strongholds of patriarchy in the region based on oppressive, colonialist, fascist regimes and unbridled bourgeois patriarchal states. The Rojava Revolution, which also developed as a women's revolution, is the achievement of all the women of the world.

The Rojava revolution, in which hundreds of women fighters sacrificed their lives with the ideals of national liberation, women's freedom and equality, developed a great people's army against the rapist, slavish, political Islamist fascist Daesh, the invasion attacks of the fascist colonialist Turkish capitalist state and the collaborator gangs it organized and directed. 

The revolution raised the women's army and women's self-defence. In Rojava and Northern Syria, it has lived for years under fascist, despotic rule of various male reigns, the last of which was formed by ISIS, and has maintained women's councils, women's institutions, women's justice, co-presidency system with great persistence and will in all areas and administrative structures, including the regions where patriarchal reactionary social traditions are most dominant. 

Today, fascist colonialism under Erdoğan has once again mobilized all its power and capacity to destroy the Rojava Revolution and overthrow the popular power. He is giving orders to HTS. It is waging war through a gang of collaborator fascist traitors called SMO. It directly engages in massacre attacks. It is increasing the buildup around Rojava for genocidal occupation. It threatens the Kurdish people and the Rojava revolution with “either surrender or genocide”. Women of all ages from the peoples of Rojava and Northern Syria are responding to this colonialist fascist arrogance by resisting with weapons in hand and forming new defence batta lions. 

The Rojava revolution is one of the most important obstacles for Erdogan's fascist chiefdom regime to intensify and spread fascist state terror and massacres in order to achieve the grave silence it aims in Turkey and Bakur Kurdistan, to continue its attacks on the women‘s liberation struggle even more unbridled, to cross out all the legal gains of the women‘s liberation struggle with great arrogance, such as exiting the Istanbul Convention with a single signature, and to unleash male violence on the streets. 

The fascist chief, who threatened Rojava and the Kurdistan freedom struggle with “either you will surrender or we will destroy”, declared 2025 as the “Year of the Family” in the same days. One of the most current bases on which he connects these plans to turn women into a birth tool to provide more exploited labour force, a larger army of hungry, miserable, poor, miserable unemployed to force workers into slavish submission, more soldiers for the army of murderers for more aggressive colonial and expansionist regional policies, and to organise a family system that will keep masses of workers and labourers, youth and women under control, is the threat and aggression against the Rojava Revolution. 

The Rojava Revolution will not be defeated, no matter what threats the colonialist fascist regime makes. It will once again defeat the denialist, colonialist, occupying, male-dominated, fascist tyranny directed against it. 

As KKÖ, we will never lower the flag of KKÖ fighters Sibel Bulut, Ivana Hoffmann, Ayşe Deniz Karacagil, Sevda Çağdaş, who were immortalised while defending the Rojava Revolution and what it brought to the women of Rojava and the whole world, we will defend the Rojava revolution. We will defeat colonialism and its fascist, racist political Islamist collaborators and allies. 

We call on all women in Turkey and Bakur Kurdistan and all over the world, who want freedom, who struggle for equality and justice, to raise solidarity with the Rojava Revolution! 

Long live our Rojava Revolution! 

Long Live the Women's Revolution! Jin Jiyan Azadi! 

Rojava Will Never Fall! 

January 20, 2025 MLKP / KKÖ Women’s Leadership 

 

 

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Behind the scenes of the plan to deport Palestinians

Written by: Fouad Baker DFLP on 31 January 2025

 

(Above: Going home to vorthern Gaza.   Source: #Times of Gaza)

Fouad Baker
Palestinian politician and human rights activist
29/01/2025

The Trump plan to deport the Palestinian people from Gaza and the West Bank cannot be viewed in the same way as his rhetoric about purchasing Greenland from Denmark, merging Canada with the United States, or controlling the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico. The plan to deport Palestinians is presented with high seriousness, and preparations for it are taking place behind the scenes to move the residents of Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.

This plan is based on communications between Donald Trump and his counterparts, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Jordanian King Abdullah, as well as secret communications with other countries such as Albania, Indonesia, and some members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, especially with Saudi Arabia.

Trump Between Two Terms

During Trump's first term, from 2016 to 2021, he altered the equations that Palestinians had established, which emphasized that no regional settlement could occur without resolving the Palestinian issue. Donald Trump undermined this equation when he imposed the "Deal of the Century" in 2020, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and annexed the Syrian Golan Heights to Israeli sovereignty in 1967. He also signed the Abraham Accords, which are treaties and agreements to normalize relations with Israel, including with Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan, as well as forming a military alliance under the guise of so-called economic peace.

With his new term, since assuming office on January 20, 2025, he has reintroduced the issue of resolving the Palestinian cause, this time with his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize and end wars in the world. However, this also comes at the expense of the Palestinian people and their inalienable national rights, as outlined in international legal resolutions, including the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the right to self-determination, and the right of return as per Resolution 194.

Secret Diplomatic Moves:

The new U.S. administration, alongside Israeli diplomats, has quietly begun seriously discussing Trump's vision of deporting Palestinians. They are engaging with several Arab capitals to push this plan forward and apply heavy pressure, through the gateway of accepting Palestinians as short-term humanitarian refugees, pending the reconstruction of Gaza. This plan involves a period of receiving Palestinians between six months to a year, with their return to Gaza in 2026 once the reconstruction is complete. The plan subtly includes, though not openly stated, the possibility that Palestinians may not return to their cities and villages, much like in 1948, when their departure was intended to be temporary, but they have not returned despite all international resolutions.

According to diplomatic sources, Israel is communicating with certain countries to accept Palestinians as refugees, specifically with Albania and Indonesia. The discussions are revisiting aspects of the 2020 Deal of the Century, particularly the integration of Palestinians displaced in 1948 into the countries that hosted them, such as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Israel has also opened dialogues with some members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to resettle 5,000 Palestinian refugees annually over a span of ten years, totaling around 50,000 refugees.

Today, the Trump administration is striving to engage with Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel and to abandon its conditions related to the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative. According to sources close to decision-makers in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom has become more flexible in its approach to the Arab Peace Initiative, under the pretext that it cannot be implemented all at once, but rather gradually, starting with normalization with Israel, to open political dialogues and prospects related to the Palestinian issue.

The Reconstruction Dilemma:

The new Trump administration has returned to its previous tactics from the first term, exerting economic pressure on the Palestinian Authority. It has cut aid and support for American development projects in the West Bank and plans to use the reconstruction of Gaza as leverage against Hamas. The aim is to pressure Hamas not to reclaim authority over Gaza by stalling reconstruction efforts, holding back funds and donations from other countries, and preventing them from being transferred to Gaza. The administration also seeks to control the reconstruction fund, which is currently being organized by some European countries and certain official Arab regimes that oppose Hamas's control over Gaza.

According to technical experts, Gaza will require several years to rebuild, to erase the remnants of Israeli aggression and clear the rubble of destroyed buildings. In this context, the new Trump administration justifies the temporary humanitarian refugee status for Palestinians in Gaza for six months, while being fully aware that reconstruction would take at least eight years if it were to proceed—assuming there are no political obstacles or funding restrictions.

Possible Scenarios:

The scene of Palestinians returning to their homes in Gaza through the Netzarim checkpoint—now destroyed—illustrates the deep connection of the Palestinian people to their land, despite the widespread devastation. This shattered the illusion of absolute victory that Netanyahu spoke of. Hamas, with a tactical move involving the release of the Israeli prisoner Arbel Yehud, achieved a strategic success by securing the return of residents from northern Gaza. It has become increasingly difficult for Israel to resume the war, even if the ceasefire agreement from the past six weeks were to collapse, especially with the unsearched civilians walking through the Netzarim crossing.

Furthermore, the renewal of the war is no longer in the hands of Netanyahu or Smotrich, who oppose the ceasefire agreement. The decision now lies solely with Trump, who seeks to rescue Israel from military defeat and turn it into a political victory by deporting Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. This plan would continue the annexation of Palestinian territories, normalize relations with Arab countries—specifically Saudi Arabia—and undermine the two-state solution. The true deal this time will be American-Saudi-Israeli.

The Missing Palestinian Role:

Trump is attempting to replace the genocide that was inflicted on the Palestinian people with a political genocide. This time, it is not only aimed at the authority in Gaza but also at the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. By besieging the Jenin camp and confronting armed groups in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority seeks to present credentials to the new U.S. administration in an effort to maintain its political position and prevent its collapse.

In the absence of a unified Palestinian national strategy, Donald Trump’s plan remains intact, and it is difficult to counter it. This first and foremost falls on the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority, which refrains from implementing the Beijing Declaration, calling for a meeting of the unified Palestinian leadership, and its failure to form a national unity government that includes everyone, thus avoiding collective responsibility in confronting the American-Israeli plans.

This calls for international efforts to confront the looming danger to the Palestinian cause, with the goal of pressuring the Palestinian Authority to implement the Beijing Declaration, form a national unity government that includes competent national figures, hold comprehensive Palestinian elections, rebuild Gaza, and

Conclusion:

The Palestinian people have affirmed to the entire world, through the powerful scene of their return to northern Gaza, their unwavering attachment to their land and their rejection of the forced displacement plan, despite all the destruction and massacres committed against them. No matter how much Israel tries to impose racist and colonial policies against them, the Palestinian people will resist until their last breath. As Israeli historian Ilan Pappe states in his book Ethnic Cleansing, "the olive tree has pierced the trees imported by Israel from outside Palestine and planted in Palestinian land to reinforce their narrative that they are the rightful owners of the land." Similarly, the Palestinian people will defy all these plans with their will and rejection of colonial projects and policies of fait accompli. They will invent new forms of resistance, as they have done in previous stages, and they will amaze the world with their diverse strategies.

 

 

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For the defeat of the Burmese junta and a free and independent Burma!

Written by: Nick G. on 30 January 2025

 

(Above: BurmesePLA celebrate their arrival in a liberated township)

Very little coverage is given to events in Burma (Myanmar) by the Australian mainstream media.

However, recent developments show the military regime is increasingly besieged by a coalition of anti-regime armed forces, and has to rely on Chinese interference to maintain itself in power.

The various ethnic rebel forces and the Communist Party of Burma’s People’s Liberation Army are increasingly developing a united front and providing each other with mutual support and training.

The regime is losing large swathes of territory outside the three main cities of the Burmese capital, Naypyidaw, and Rangoon and Mandalay.

Its ability to move its army by land corridors is restricted, and it is relying on airstrikes and long-range artillery bombardment of towns under rebel control. Air-dropped troop reinforcements often fall into the hands of anti-junta forces.

Superpowers and their rivalry over Burma

Both superpowers are keen to direct the outcome of struggles within Burma.

The US imperialists have applied sanctions to the military junta since its takeover, have few direct investments to protect, but are trying to win over the democratic bourgeoisie and landlord forces through an encouragement of a return to a “democracy” within which they can meddle. The 2022 US Burma Unified through Rigorous Military Accountability Act, known as the BURMA Act, mandates sanctions against the junta, and authorises substantial humanitarian aid to support the rival, US-backed National Unity Government (NUG), but not the ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) or the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs).

Chinese interests are more substantial. Among the most important is Kyaukpyu Deep-Sea Port, a crucial part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which gives China direct access to the Indian Ocean, reducing reliance on the Malacca Strait from which it could be denied access in the event of war with the US. 

There are also the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines that run from the Bay of Bengal to China’s Yunnan province, providing Beijing with a shorter and strategically secure energy route, again bypassing the Straits of Malacca. China is financing and constructing key railway and road links to connect Myanmar with Yunnan province.

China has also invested in multiple hydroelectric dams, and built and operated several coal and gas power plants. It has a dominant presence in telecommunications and technology though Huawei and ZTE, and Alibaba and other Chinese platforms have expanded financial technology services in Burma. 

Chinese real estate companies are active in real estate projects, particularly in the junta-controlled cities of Yangon and Mandalay. China has developed industrial parks like the Kyaukpyu SEZ to attract Chinese and foreign businesses.

Imperialism, not proletarian internationalism

(Above: Villagers welcome the BPLA)

China claims that it is supporting Burmese sovereignty against threats of foreign (US) interference. A genuinely socialist country should support any state that is standing up to “outside pressure”, but it should not support a state that is oppressing its own people. 

In 2017, China supported Aung San Suu Kyi’s military offensive against the Rohingya. When she was overthrown by the junta in 2021, it flirted with support for the various anti-junta ethnic armies and allowed the return to Burma of members of the Burmese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army.

It has vacillated between maintaining relations with some of the ethnic anti-Junta armies and the regime, according to where it perceives its investments in Burma can be best protected.

For example, last September, fighters of the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, seized control of a key military base from the junta at Chipwe township in Kachin State, close to a Chinese hydro-electric power station and a Chinese rare earth mine, prompting China to pressure insurgent forces along the countries' shared border to agree to halt their offensives against the junta, and closing border crossings through which medicines and food had flowed.

China’s Customs Department said that China imported more than US$1.4 billion worth of rare-earth minerals from Burma in 2023, underscoring the importance of “stability” in regions close to its investments.

On November 6, the head of Burma’s military junta, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, travelled to China, meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Kunming.  China signalled that it desires the bare minimum stability to protect its interests and it felt the junta is the horse to back to achieve this. China has said that it will support the junta’s electoral process later this year, a clear indication that it will work to keep the junta in power.

Meanwhile, ethnic armies and the BPLA continue to take territory from the regime. The Kachin and Ta’ang, as well as the Arakan Army in Rakhine, continue to resist China’s pressure. 

Hostilities between the junta regime forces and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) have recommenced as of January 9, 2025, following the initiation of a new military operation by the junta in Naungcho township. 

The Arakan Army (AA) stated on Monday January 26 that it had seized control of the Moehti hilltop outpost in Bago Region on the previous day - five days after it launched its attack. The military outpost is located in the Arakan Mountains, known as the Rakhine Yoma. 

Of passing interest to Australians is the role of Julie Bishop as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Myanmar. The former Australian Foreign Minister will no doubt pursue US strategic interests in Burma. It should not be overlooked that in March 2017, the government of PM Malcolm Turnbull rejected a Senate vote calling for a United Nations commission of enquiry into the persecution of the Rohingya.  

Several weeks later, it reversed its position and co-sponsored a resolution at the UN human rights forum for the UN to send a fact-finding mission to Myanmar.  The change was partly fuelled by an upsurge of reported atrocities against the Rohingya on one hand, and Australia’s hypocritical push for membership of the UN Human Rights Council from 2018.

Bishop can be expected to try to do deals to facilitate China’s acceptance of the pro-US National Unity Government should the regime fall to the united resistance front.

For now, we can only support the fight of the combined Burmese resistance for national liberation, independence and democracy, and oppose all outside superpower interference that runs counter to the aspirations of the Burmese peoples.

 

 

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Interoperability under US direction and control

Written by: (Contributed) on 29 January 2025

 

(Above: US commanders are trained in managing those they control.  Source: www.army.mil/ )

The US has an obsession with the interoperability of its military equipment and that used by its allies. It is regarded as an important factor linking the Pentagon with far-flung countries in the Indo-Pacific region. Moves by Canberra, therefore, to assess the ability of various countries across the region to challenge China, if the situation arises, carry all the hallmarks of US-led fears about the threat to their traditional hegemonic position and the significance of Australia as a hub for 'US interests'.

It follows similar intelligence assessments of the Pacific region, which found the US would struggle and have serious difficulties challenging China.

Early in the New Year, a major statement issued by Canberra about regional defence and security was timed to coincide with the establishment of the Trump administration; it contained many points of interest. Australia, as a major regional hub for 'US interests', was clearly following directives from the Pentagon; compliance is the name of the game.

It followed concerns arising about 'Australia's strategic outlook', toward the vast region, with an emphasis that 'efforts should begin immediately behind the scenes to extend the solidarity proposal to a range of nations'. (1) The whole exercise would appear an additional element and component of the already operational US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS).

Central importance in the statement was placed upon Australia providing assistance 'in the form of diplomatic, economic, technical, intelligence and material support and – subject to there being in place a military alliance between nations – could also involve defence assistance'. (2) A long list of regional countries was then provided as being regarded of interest, stretching from the Maldives in the east, to Taiwan in the north, and the Pacific Islands Forum in the west, with Australia linked to New Zealand in the south, both members of the elite Five Eyes intelligence-sharing organisation. (3)

The timing of the statement remains a matter of curiosity; the horse would already appear to have bolted. Last year, for example, an official military statement concerning Australia's regional role included reference to already existing 'co-operation agreements recently signed with India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea'. (4) The same statement also drew attention to 'under existing alliances with Singapore and the US, training ranges and defence bases are being expanded and upgraded in Queensland and the Northern Territory'. (5)

The statement, however, stressed that Australia had no intention of attempting to establish an 'anti-China coalition', but to establish communiques with individual countries in order to 'make Beijing's calculations vastly more complicated'. (6) Beijing, when assessing its own regional position, will be faced with having to study individual countries and the wording of diplomatic agreements.

The moves follow decisions taken by the US over a decade ago to improve their regional intelligence, following the rise of China as a competitor. Early in the last decade the US military expanded their Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to include as many as 1,600 new intelligence-gatherers working in the convergence of military and intelligence agencies. (7) Emphasis was placed upon intelligence assessments 'focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units'. (8)  

Inter-operability would appear an important factor when assessing the expansion of the DIA; the US have made greater use of allies for basing their agents in sensitive areas.

The developments have coincided with an official announcement that the ADF has already laid the basis for military personnel from other Five Eyes countries to join Australian counterparts as serving military officials, it would appear interoperability is a fact already in working practice. (9)

The development would appear reciprocal: more than a hundred Australian military personnel, for example, have also graduated from US nuclear submarine schools and an announcement that the USS Hawaii (SSN 776) arrived in Perth, West Australia, with an Australian officer at the helm, leaves little to the imagination. (10) Future US strategy will include provision of military equipment for forthcoming hostilities, military personnel from allies will, however, be in the firing line following Pentagon directives.

The moves follow revelations that the US was no longer the dominant power in the Pacific;
a commission, established by US Congress, issued its findings several years ago. (11) Recommendations from the final US government report also included the US 'further relying on traditional allies, including Japan and Australia … and the … US military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe'. (12) Fears have now arisen that closer diplomatic relations between China with its allies, Russia, North Korea and Iran, have contributed toward an increasingly serious challenge to US hegemonic positions across the wider Indo-Pacific region. (13)

These developments, however, have been given minimal publicity and have been conducted through stealth; they have, nevertheless, far-reaching implications for Australia, which has been placed in a pivotal regional position for defending 'US interests' in the wider region. Australia has been drawn even closer to US diplomatic positions, with all the hallmarks of real-war scenarios becoming increasingly visible and looming on the horizon:

                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

 

1.     Regional security pact in our hands, The Weekend Australian, 11-12 January 2025.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Ibid.
4.     Alliances enhance domestic training, Land Forces Supplement, Australian, 11 September 2024.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Weekend Australian, op.cit., 11-12 January 2025.
7.     Pentagon plays the spy game, Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 7 December 2012.
8.     Ibid.
9.     ADF to welcome Five Eyes recruits, Australian, 30 December 2024.
10.   Bipartisan support in US helping fuel AUKUS impetus, Australian, 10 January 2025.
11.   Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
12.   Ibid.
13.   See: Afghan war exist 'was right thing to do', Australian, 15 January 2025.

 

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Adelaide Survival Day: with the masses and against the masses.

Written by: Nick G. on 28 January 2025

 

The Adelaide Survival Day march was a resounding success.

This was despite an attempt by SA Labor Premier to dismiss discussion of the appropriateness of January 26 as “Australia Day” as “becoming ‘tired’, and that Australians should have a chance ‘to reflect on how lucky we are to live here’”.

Prominent Survival Day organsier Natasha Wanganeen said on Facebook that the Premier “has now targeted our event. He didn't have to talk on survival day, he gave the trolls a target & its us. Putrid behaviour from a so called leader.”

Several thousand people rallied to commemorate Survival Day and marched through the city.

In contrast, a tiny group of Nazis marched to the War Memorial on North Terrace, chanting “Australia for the white man!” Between thirty to forty of the fascists desecrated the steps of the Memorial which includes commemoration of Australians who died during the War Against Fascism.

Their organisation, the National Socialist Network, only has a handful of members in SA. To try and disguise this, Nazis were flown in from other states. Perhaps the Australian Federal Police might be interested in who the group is funded by, including US and European fascist organisations.

Police told the group to disperse and then arrested 16, including notorious Victorian Nazi Thomas Sewell.

The arrested included a 16-year old Melbourne boy who has been bailed to appear at the Adelaide Youth Court on March 21.

Of the other 15, only one was from SA, 3 were from NSW, 4 were from Victoria, 3 were from WA, with one each from Tasmania and Queensland.  A further two from interstate were yet to provide addresses.

Eight of those arrested were charged with fail to cease loitering, and seven with possession of an article of disguise. Two were charged with possession of Nazi symbols.

The loitering charge carries a maximum penalty of $1 250 or imprisonment for 3 months; the disguise charge a maximum of $2 500 or imprisonment for 6 months; and the Nazi symbols charge a maximum of $20,000 or imprisonment for 12 months.

Of these three charges, only one is overtly political and directed at Nazis.  The other two reflect the inadequacies of bourgeois law in protecting the community against fascists. They are civil charges under the Summary Offences Act. Loitering is an excuse for punishing the poor and marginalised; disguise is in a section dealing with house-breaking. Both can be applied against progressive political action.

It was a marked contrast: a handful of racists completely divorced from popular support, and thousands of people determined to oppose racism and the ideology that excuses and supports colonial aggression and genocide.

In the final analysis, the people must rely on their own strength to keep Nazis off the streets. 

 

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Melbourne rallies around Invasion Day solidarity

Written by: Bill F. on 27 January 2025

 

A militant rally in the heart of Melbourne brought together a huge crowd of First Peoples and their allies in the on-going struggle against imperialist domination with all its colonial laws and other relics, and its racist oppression.

It was led and organised by the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) with the theme “End colonialism – Smash imperialism”.

While the media conceded 25,000 in attendance, a more realistic estimate would be at least 45,000 and predominately young people. Many brought their own placards and banners, carried the Aboriginal Flag and frequently chanted, “Always was, always will be – Aboriginal Land!” and “No pride in Genocide!”

Very prominent at throughout the crowd were the supporters of the Palestinian people, with their Palestinian flags and proudly wearing the Keffiyeh scarf. The usual Sunday rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle was merged with the annual Invasion Day rally, with the strong support of each.

This was reflected in the speeches outside Parliament House where both Indigenous speakers and Palestinian speakers recognised the commonality of their situation – dispossession and land theft, genocide, racism, on-going oppression and discrimination, attacks on children and indiscriminate jailing of the youth.

Also recognised and given great respect was the vast history of heroic struggles against this oppression and the sacrifices made by First Peoples and Palestinians in defence of their land, their culture and their people.

First peoples’ speakers strongly promoted unity among their people in the growing campaign against deaths in custody. They also objected to “Australia Day” celebrations being held on January 26 as this was the day the British invaders arrived and proclaimed the land as a British territory. For First Peoples, this is a day of sorrow.

With the distraction of the ‘Voice to Parliament’ referendum now buried; speakers called for more focus on the long-standing demand for Treaty. Even though there has been some progress with consultation about Treaty at the State level and here in Victoria, no treaty under capitalism will overturn private property ownership rights or empower First Peoples to control their own communities. Only socialism can guarantee viable land rights and respect for traditional customs.

As the rally marched from Parliament House through the city to Flinders St station, it was joined by many along the way, including even some tourists. Others waved or clapped when they realised the reason for the huge crowd.

Not waving or clapping were the hundreds of police (on overtime rates?) on duty, called out by the right-wing media in case of “violence” or “anti-semitic behaviour”. Media and State Labor government claims that such rallies were disrupting normal Sunday business were exposed as beat-up crap by the numbers of people in the take-away shops and cafes, and by rally participants dropping in to buy a cold drink on a hot day.

At Flinders St the rally was met by another crowd of supporters, some elderly but keen to welcome and show their solidarity. The efforts of all on the day were greatly appreciated and the speakers at Parliament House and at Flinders St paid tribute to the fine organisation and spirit of the day.

If one thing stood out, it was the powerful speech of Indigenous veteran Gary Foley who pointed to the future and the task ahead – “to educate, educate family, friends, neighbours, workmates – the history, the resistance, the stolen children, the sorry business …” – an inspiring call for engaging and winning even wider support.

 

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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.

 

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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. 

 

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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. 

 

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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

 

 

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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. 

 

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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.

 

 

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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.  

 

 

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Civil defence a threat to civil liberties? Well, in a word, Yes.

Written by: (Contributed) on 16 January 2025

 

(Above; ADF Reserves can be called on to control civil unrest.   Source: https://researchcentre.army.gov.au/ )

Moves to boost the military reservist forces in Australia carry all the hallmarks of an expansion of Cold War civil defence. The initiative carries considerable baggage from the previous Cold War; there are few safeguards to prevent the massive erosion of civil liberties.

Elsewhere, within the elite Five Eyes intelligence-sharing organisation, examples of previous abuses of power have been well recorded; in Australia, itself, the legacy of the Salisbury Affair in South Australia should stand as a warning to all, particularly at the present time.

Early in the New Year the Australian Government issued a carefully worded report about how Defence had adopted a new approach to recruiting and training Defence Force reservists, drastically reducing the usual two-year program to a mere six weeks. (1) Fears have arisen in Defence circles in recent years about failure to recruit and train sufficient numbers of military personnel to maintain defence and security projections into the next decade and further. (2)

Total ADF numbers for military personnel last year were 59,194; projections have suggested Australia requires about 69,000 by the early 2030s, and 80,000 for 2040. (3)

The recent announcement about reservists is contained in a 78-page report and due to be operational and phased in during February, 2025. (4) It leaves little to the imagination. A statement that 'the ability of the reserves to provide an extension base for the ADF in times of crisis', reveals personnel will receive basic training and then be kept on lists for if and when required, in times of military hostilities. (5) The intention, furthermore, is designed to re-evaluate 'the reserves workforce to better integrate it with the ADF, including a larger operational workforce … and … would focus on delivering short-notice capacity'. (6)

The model already adopted by the ADF has followed a training program specifically for Ukrainian soldiers organised by the UK; Operation Kudo included recruits being provided with basic training for five weeks which included basic war-fighting skills, first aid, explosive hazard awareness and marksmanship. (7) Intelligence-gathering was not officially noted although implicit in all military training, through the chain of command.
The trainers of such military provision do not seek professional and highly disciplined graduates as a back-up to regular forces; they are merely legitimising para-military type organisations which will then return to civilian roles awaiting their call-up. In the meantime they reside in the grey area of the eyes and ears of those wielding class and state power. 

The official government statement issued by Canberra also drew attention to military and industrial partnerships, whereby the 'civilian workforce and infrastructure with Defence at critical points in time … and the … sharing of the workforce between the private sector and Defence', was to become a standard working practice during peacetime and on operations. (8)  Trade-unions should perhaps take note: the problem of security vetting, in some industries undertaking defence contracts, is already an issue raising serious concerns.

The planned model, however, is hardly new; it amounts to a re-vamping of previous civil defence-type provision from within the Five Eyes during the previous Cold War.

Civil defence under the Tatcher regime

During the early 1980s, for example, the Thatcher government in Britain established the Home Service Force (HSF), a broad-based military reserve for former trained personnel and Defence Police Officers and others who had received basic training deemed useful elsewhere. Recruits were provided with one training course, designed to provide basic awareness, then formally attached to official military facilities with the specific role to 'guard key points and installations likely to be the target of enemy special forces and saboteurs, so releasing other units for mobile defence roles'. (9) The emphasis was upon identifying 'fifth columns'.

Concerns had arisen in Whitehall about the ability of those assessed as adversaries being able to undermine defence and security provision in times of crisis. Main roads connecting important cities were a foremost concern. Railways and power stations were another.

The main road between Manchester and Sheffield, for example, was one with which the HSF appear to have developed a major preoccupation; they were two major industrial areas. Another was the link with Huddersfield in West Yorkshire and the High Peak area in Derbyshire across the Pinnines; the road was also used for access to a sensitive communications facility at Holme Moss and a large reservoir nearby. It was also not particularly difficult for HSF personnel to be mobilised across the vicinity; they had bases in Huddersfield and Stockport, near Manchester. Both road links, furthermore, converged upon the small town of Glossop in the High Peak area of Derbyshire. Users of the roads in question may have noticed cars frequently monitoring their movements, usually driven by older, middle-aged men wearing car-coats, with a tendency to keep a relatively low profile to not attract undue attention.

During the 1984/85 Miner's Strike, however, the roads were used by striking miners and their flying pickets; it was not coincidental, therefore, to note that a helicopter would frequently be stationed above Holme Moss, early in the morning and late at night, seemingly monitoring transport movements.

Members of local Miner's Support Groups were also approached during the period by suspicious characters, who were not local people; one was informed he was on a government list for detention, if a State of Emergency was declared. (10)

The HSF was subsequently disbanded in the early 1990s with the demise of Thatcher.

Elsewhere in the Five Eyes, in Canada, between 1971-74, similar local level surveillance of those associated with protest movements was conducted by the state. The national program of 'counter-measures' was conducted under Operations Oddball and Check-Mate. (11) A later official inquiry noted political developments of the time were different to the 'Communist threat' of previous times and linked increasingly to the growth of the far-left and agitation focussed upon outside of workplace issues; extensive profiling took place. (12)

In Britain, a similar inquiry established large-scale surveillance of about a thousand different political groups and organisations over a forty-year period; the Anti-Apartheid Movement was closely monitored. (13) No doubt the notorious South African secret police were kept well informed; links between the British and South African intelligence services have been well recorded elsewhere. (14)
  
During the same period the British military were also training officers about internal subversion, for example, at Camberley Staff College. Their focus and main preoccupation and obsession were listed as: trade-unionists, Whitehall 'moles', urban guerillas and Scottish nationalists. (15) It revealed a military mindset based, not in perceptive intelligence assessments, but narrow Cold War paranoia.  

Enhanced ADF Reserves training

Surveillance techniques inside the Five Eyes and elsewhere tended to closely follow US-led training and defence and security provision. Declassified documents have revealed whole societies were routinely spied on and then profiled into black, grey or white lists in order to identify potential adversaries. (16) The US had an obsession with 'subversives'; anyone who was assessed as not being supportive. People pursuing what were deemed 'alternative' life-styles were especially liable to be targeted.  

It is, therefore, interesting to note the new Australian recruitment and training policy for reservists has followed what has been officially recorded as 'enhanced training opportunities  … for the ADF and its regional allies and partners'. (17) Some of the countries involved, notably South Korea, for example, have a strong commitment to civil defence provision which has often mobilised alongside joint US- ROK military exercises. South Korea has draconian defence and security provision, enforced through legions of spies and informants.  

Whether the ADF uses recently expanded and upgraded facilities in Queensland and the Northern Territories for the new training of reservists has yet to be established. The new Greenvale Training Area (GUTA) in northern Queensland near Townsville, for example, is already used for exercises linked to the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy. (18)

The Australian new recruitment and short-term training of reservists, it should be noted, would appear to be linked to shadowy civil defence-type operations designed for local level surveillance rather than traditional military reservist operations.

SA: Lessons of the Salisbury Affair

Australians should be aware of the dangers, particularly following the Salisbury Affair in South Australia, decades ago during the darker days of the previous Cold War. SA, at that time, had one of the most militant workforces in Australia which promoted progressive legislation and regulations.

Those wielding class and state power in South Australia, at the time, were not content, however, to merely spy on workers and trade-unions through usual workplace espionage techniques. They also used their flunkies and others on their pay-rolls inside their patronage systems to spy on all those deemed responsible for associating with them, collectively; families, friends, colleagues residing at the same post-codes and so on.

Mistaken identities and so-called 'intelligence' based little other than hearsay was commonplace.

The business classes and their Liberal Party supporters had also been responsible for recruiting Harold Salisbury, former British Chief Constable of York, and the North and East Riding of Yorkshire. He was appointed as Police Commissioner for South Australia in 1972.

The whole episode was, and remains, a classic example of the uses and abuses of power:

A subsequent official inquiry noted the following response, when information was   requested from Salisbury about those who had been spied upon and their files:

     Obviously anyone who shows any affinity towards Communism – that's common-sense -  the IRA, the PLO, and I would say anyone who's decrying marriage, family life, trying to break that up, pushing drugs, homosexuality, indiscipline in schools, weak penalties for anti-social crimes, pushing that sort of thing. Oh, a whole gamut of things like that could be pecking away at the foundations of our society and weakening it.

     Interviewer – And do you regard those people as subversives?

     Salisbury – Well, in a word, yes. (19)

Needless to say, Salisbury was eventually sacked by the State Premier, Don Dunstan; a huge number of the files for which he was responsible were subsequently destroyed due to their compilation being conducted outside usual legal procedures and processes, amounting to an abuse of power.

In conclusion, it might be worth noting that those who fail to learn the lessons of history have to repeat them, over and over again! The fact the agendas of those who organise such endeavours are never straightforward is also something which remains an important consideration when evaluating their political behaviour.

 

1.     See: Ukraine training model for reserves,  Australian, 6 January 2025.
2.     Long-term recruitment a problem for the army, Land Forces 2024 Supplement, Australian, 11 September 2024.
3.     Ibid, and, ADF to welcome Five Eyes recruits, Australian, 30 December 2024.
4.     See: Strategic Review for the Australian Defence Force Reserves, December 2023 to April 2024, Canberra, 18 December 2024. 
5.     Australian, op.cit., 6 January 2025.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Strategic Review, op.cit., page 51.
9.     Wikipedia: Home Service Force; and, Britain's 1980s Cold War Dads Army / Home Guard – The Home Service Force, website - Cold War Conversations.
10.   Confidential Source.
11.   The Ties That Bind, J.T. Richelson and D. Ball, (Sydney, 1985), page 293.
12.   See: Commission of Inquiry – Canada, (August, 1981), Freedom and Security under Law, Volume One, page 268.
13.   Undercover Police spied on UK's anti-apartheid movement for decades, inquiry, The Independent (U.K.), 5 November 2020; and, BBC – What is undercover policing inquiry?, 2 November 2020.
14.   See: Vorster's men get psycho-war kit, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 3 April 1977.
15.   BBC 1, War School, 9 January 1980; and, State Research, Volume 16, February-March 1980, pp.63-64.
16.   Lost History: Project X, Robert Parry, The Consortium Magazine, 31 March 1997; and, Army's Project X had wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997.
17.   Alliances enhance domestic training, The Land Forces Supplement 2024, Australian, 11 September 2024.    
18.   Ibid.
19.   Special Branch supply false information, State Research, Volume 23, April-May 1981, pp. 100-01.

 

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Out Of Their Own Mouths- Government Subservience To USA

Written by: Ned K. on 15 January 2025

 

The Australian Government has accepted the invitation to President -Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration as the next President of the USA.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Australia’s Ambassador to the USA Kevin Rudd will represent the Australian Government.

It is not a surprise that the Australian Government has been invited as US imperialism has economic and military interests in Australia, whether Democrats or Republicans win a US Presidential election.

What is worth noting is the Australian Foreign Minister’s clear position on the ALP Government’s relationship with the biggest imperialist power, the USA.

In an ABC radio interview on the weekend she is reported to say that the invitation to the inauguration “Is a demonstration of the steadfast alliance between Australia and the US. I am also looking forward to meeting with members of the Trump administration and congress during my visit.”

“The US is Australia’s vital ally, closest global partner and most important strategic relationship. This early visit will be an important opportunity to discuss how we can advance the benefits of our strong economic and security partnership and expand our cooperation “.

Reading between the lines,  the Albanese Government is hoping Australian Government's tariffs on Australian imports to the USA and to ensure that the military and economic investments in Australia continue.

The Foreign Minister’s words do not contain even the slightest mention of Australia having any independence from the USA militarily or economically or politically.

It may be worth remembering the Foreign Minister’s words and reflect on them in 12 month’s time if the Albanese Government is still the government after this year’s federal election.

 

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Profits first, ethics second: Foreign corporations financing Russian imperialism’s war of aggression

Written by: Nick G. on 14 January 2025

 

A report just released by three Ukrainian organisations has revealed the foreign corporations whose taxes on earnings in Russia are helping to fund Russian imperialism’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

Non-Russian companies are contributing to Russia’s war on Ukraine through the taxes they pay, the supply chains they support and the technology and training they provide. This report focuses on one specific angle: multinational company revenue and taxes associated with operations within Russia.

The Report found that in 2023, 1600 multinational corporations played a pivotal role in strengthening Russia’s economy, contributing to its illegal war of aggression in Ukraine.  They paid an estimated $21.6 billion in total tax, bringing the total estimated taxes paid to $41.6 billion since the full-scale invasion in 2022. $41.6 billion is equivalent to just under one-third of Russia’s estimated military budget for 2025,

According to the Report, banks were the largest contributors to Russian tax revenue. Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), in particular, was found to be the largest single corporate taxpayer in Russia by far in 2023. RBI’s Russian tax contributions in 2023 totalled $491m - more than twice those of the second-largest corporate taxpayer, China’s Chery Automobile, and more than the tax contributions of all other international banks put together. 

On a country basis, American firms generated the largest total revenues in Russia and emerged as the Kremlin’s most substantial contributors through profit taxes, paying $1.2 billion in 2023. Germany follows, with its companies paying $692.5 million in profit taxes to Russia in the same year.

Although many foreign corporations pulled out of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Chinese companies moved to capture market share and boost revenues, particularly in the automotive and technology sectors. Yet despite gains in these areas, it is still companies headquartered in G7 and EU countries who were cumulatively the highest profit taxpayers in Russia in 2023, representing 16 of the top 20 contributing countries. Companies from China - which is considered as a ‘friendly’ country by Russia - reported higher revenues than those from Germany, but their profit tax contributions remain lower. 

Chinese companies in the Top 20 List of foreign tax-paying corporations in Russia were Chery Automobile, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Haval Motor. Together their tax on profits in 2023 amounted to $328m, still lower than the Austrian bank’s payments.

China’s 3 companies in the Top 20 compared with 8 from the US.

Revelations of US, European and Chinese firms supporting Russian aggression through their taxes on profits in Russia are a stark reminder of companies that invested in Nazi Germany and continued operating after the beginnings of Nazi aggression and the outbreak of World War 2.

They included Ford and General Motors, both owned by anti-semitic admirers of Hitler, Coca-Cola, IBM and IT&T. Ford factories and those of GM’s German subsidiary Opal, switched to war production after 1939. After the war, GM was compensated $32 million by the U.S. government because its German factories were bombed by U.S. forces during the war. A large sum was also paid to Ford, although the exact amount was never revealed, and despite the fact that slave labour from concentration camps was used at its Ford-Werke plant.

Imperialist finance capital, throughout its history, has always placed profits over ethics. It may be one thing for corporations to pay taxes to their “own” aggressor nation, but it is scraping the bottom of the barrel of ethics when they work with and support governments to which their own are opposed or actually fighting.

Ukraine itself is a proxy of western and US imperialism, enmeshed in foreign investments and economic and military dependence on imperialists opposed to Russia’s imperialism. Zelensky and Co. have not yet defeated the Russians and should step aside to allow for a genuine revolutionary struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence from western/US imperialism and Russian imperialism.

 

 

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Greenland: The United States and its isolationist path

Written by: Alan Jackson on 12 January 2025

 

Greenland: Inuit, and not for sale or takeover.   Source: Flickr Commons

With the expansion of counter-hegemonic imperialist powers, Russia and most notably China, America is rapidly on the decline and racing to fascism as it tries to consolidate its position at the top of Imperialist domination especially against its enemies in the same market of exploitation.

On Tuesday, the 7th of January, with less than two weeks before taking office, Donald Trump has gone full mask off once again for American Imperialism in a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. Although this is not the only time Trump has been so honest about his, or rather the ruling class of America’s plan for the world, this press conference was especially isolationist and Imperialist in its rhetoric. 

First off Trump declared military action will be used if necessary to take control of both Greenland and the Panama Canal. While doing this we learnt the one thing Trump knows about ex-president Jimmy Carter, in his words, “The Panama Canal is a disgrace, what took place at the Panama Canal. Jimmy Carter gave it to them (Panama) for $1, and they were supposed to treat us well. I thought it was a terrible thing to do,”. (1.) Along with this Trump also humbly declared that the Gulf of Mexico should be changed to the “Gulf of America”. (2.) it doesn’t end here though. Trump also repeatedly declared that America’s settler-colonial neighbour to the north, Canada, should become the 51st state of the United Settler-Colonial States of America! What a roll. 

Now, let’s try and examine why Trump felt so compelled to go on an hour and a half rant that sounds like America reclaiming ‘Manifest Destiny’ from Germany for itself. While doing this we will also try to explain the historical conditions behind these decisions and the importance of the areas that America has their claws out for.

Greenland’s history, much like Australia’s, is very much a history of settler-colonialism. Greenland and its indigenous population the Inuit, made up of three major indigenous populations, have been subjected to colonialism and neo-colonialism by Denmark for centuries. Blaringly a showcase of this colonialism is that although being an autonomous part of Denmark rated 2nd for the happiest country in the world by the World Population Review (3.), Greenland has the world’s largest suicide rate. (4.) Outside of Denmark due to both its important geographical position and abundant resources Greenland has been at the grabs from keen-handed Imperialists the world over, most notably, America, Russia and China. The United States has had military presence in Greenland since WWII (5.) and has had Trump again earlier in 2019 trying to buy Greenland due to its importance. (6.) America trying to purchase Greenland has been consistent for decades, since even 1946. (7.) This is representative of the fact that Americas imperialist ambitions have been present and loud since long before Trump and that Trump is not the “great man” in Americas Imperialist past and future ambitions, Trump is merely the great puppet of the American capitalist ruling class. 

The importance of Greenland geopolitically, as I mentioned previously, is not one sided and not lost on the minds of the other great Imperialist power, China. Chinas interest has been recent but nonetheless is clear with visits from Chinas Minister of Land and Resources to the purchasing of stock in Greenland Minerals and Energy which develops a Uranium and rare-earth site at Kuannersuisut (Kvanefjeld). (8.) Both the US and China have been competing by proxy through two Australian mining companies most notably Greenland Minerals Australia’s holding company and Ironbark in extracting many valuable resources from Greenland for the competing Imperialist powers. (9.) this case is quite similar to Chinas export of finance capital through Australian mining companies in Africa. 

What is clear is why Greenland is so valued by the Imperialist powers. The problem is that it contains an indigenous population which does not wish to be dominated by Imperialism. The Inuit have not had the right of self-determination of their own country and have had to suffer the subjugation of colonial powers for hundreds of years. America, China and not even Denmark have the right to determine who controls Greenland, this right belongs to Greenland and its masses.

The posturing and absurdity of Donald Trump in his most recent press conference, let alone the history of imperialism and how It continues today, puts a clear cut through the idea and the relied upon verbiage from the ruling class of a rules-based order. There is no rules-based order, there is only Imperialism and its necessity for profit seeking abroad and the slicing up of the globe into outposts of Imperialism. There is only one rule, and it is profit. This is the inevitability of a capitalist society in its dying stages. The only solution is the scientific solution.

The only solution is the struggle of the world’s masses against Imperialism for Socialism and independence. Nothing else can bring humanity forward. 

 

 

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Book Review: Juice, by Tim Winton

Written by: Josh S. on 10 January 2025

 

Juice is set in a bleak future, severely damaged by climate change, ravaged by fire, heat and increasingly unreliable weather. The population is largely ground down, demoralised and compliant. Meanwhile, the environmental destroyers- ruthless, profiteering corporations, gangs and clans, hole up in luxury in heavily fortified citadels. 

 

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US Biden government's parting weapons "gift" to Israel and Australian government's silence.

Written by: Ned K. on 7 January 2025

 

In the dying days of the Biden Democrats government, a $12.9 billion (Australia currency) weapons package has been agreed to be sent to the Israeli Government. The weapons being sent include thousands of bombs, missiles and precision munitions. This is one of the largest weapons packages sent from the USA to Israel since 7 October 2023. The $12.9 billion has to be rubber stamped by Congress.

A Biden administration official announced the latest "gift" to Israeli Government saying, "We will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel's defense."

"Defense" in real terms means the continued bombing of hospitals and all kinds of buildings in Gaza resulting in daily reports in the 24-hour news cycle of deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza but now extending to Yemen and Syria.

The Australian Government is complicit in this continued weapons supply from the US Government to the Israeli Government through its continued support of the Zionist Israeli state, its silence on US weapons "gifts" to Israel and by allowing Australian-based weapons and weapons-related component companies to supply the US and Israeli war machines.

The Democrats government in the US and the ALP government in Australia parade as the mass parties for the worker in their respective countries! Their actions pave the way for greater attacks on the Palestinians and attacks on workers in the US and Australia when there is a change in government to Republican or Liberal parties in the US and Australia respectively. 

In the US, the Democrats have been strong backers of the Israeli state since at least 1948 when the Democrat leader Truman was elected to government on a platform committed to Israel. 

In Australia, the ALP has consistently supported the US position on Israel through the US-Australia Alliance. The ALP leadership at the moment is more concerned about being re-elected in the coming federal parliamentary election. The Palestinian people's situation will only be viewed by the ALP leadership as important if it perceives it will win it a few election votes. That is the reality of parliamentary politics of capitalism in Australia.

2025 has just begun and is sure to see continued resilience of the Palestinian people against the Israeli Zionist regime and continued solidarity with Palestinians from the peoples of both the US and Australia and indeed the whole world.

 

 

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Chinese aid to Cuba: Aid as imperialism is as old as imperialism itself.

Written by: (Contributed) on 5 January 2025

 

The UK-based and revisionist-backed Friends of Socialist China website headlined an article, "China donates 70 tons of equipment to help Cuba restore its electric system."

FOSC, run by Danny Haiphong and businessman Keith Bennett , would be better named Publicity Agents for Capitalist China. Nonetheless, their post could not hide that the gift was an example of a typical PRC ploy: negotiate a big commercial deal with a country, tack on a dollop of pure aid, and publicize the latter.

This tactic was used, for example, when Chinese companies exported COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. The donated first batch would arrive, and the Chinese side would arrange a publicity photo. The bulk of the deliveries on commercial terms would follow.

The FOSC post conceded, "The (Cuban) deputy minister also stated that the island government estimates that this donation will benefit about 53,200 homes in the country." The rest of the iceberg is hinted at: "The donations are part of agreements signed between Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, seeking to expand cooperation in strategic initiatives such as energy, transportation, food security and trade."

Two months ago a news report had more about these "strategic initiatives."

Chinese company bullish on Cuban solar drive, executive says (excerpts)

Reuters, November 4, 2024

Havana - Hangzhou Duojia Technology, which distributes solar technology to Cuba, called a Cuban plan to dramatically boost solar generation a win for both countries, touting China's manufacturing heft and the island's sunny climate.

Qiaoming Huang, president of Hangzhou Duojia Technology, told Reuters in an interview that
his company, which sources solar technology from China for small-scale commercial projects of up to 20 kilowatts in Cuba, had 10 containers of solar panels and lithium batteries on their way from China.

Cuba agreed in April for China to help it boost solar power's role in its grid, though neither government elaborated on financing details. After the October nationwide blackout, Cuba's top leadership appeared to double down on the plan, at least partially financed with Chinese development credits, according to state-run media.

Note that HJT "sources solar technology for small commercial projects." The company is a trader, not manufacturer of solar panels nor lithium batteries. HJT's principal business is as a global distributor between "more than 3000 auto parts manufacturers" in China and retailers in 50 countries. It has a large warehouse in Hangzhou for spark plugs, steering wheel covers, etc.The company obviously wants to get into green energy distribution, hence the Cuba deal.

Any donation to Cuba to break the U.S. embargo is a good thing. But let's not fool ourselves that the PRC is ambiguous between socialist solidarity and capitalist commerce. It's 98% the latter – as, for example, 53,000 homes in ratio to perhaps three million Cuban households.

 

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South Korean instability a problem for US imperialism

Written by: (Contributed) on 5 January 2025

 

Above; December 2024 and South Koreans take to the streets to demand  Yoon Suk-yeol's resignation

While government investigators sift through piles of evidence for use by the South Korean Constitutional Court following the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol, one outstanding matter will be his agenda for attempting to implement martial law in early December.

From available evidence it would appear Yoon Suk-yeon was likely to have been pursuing a longer-term agenda in order to buttress his highly unpopular conservative and business political position, against an increasingly assertive and popular and well organised opposition which have proved problematic for decades.

During his election campaign in 2022, Yoon Suk-yeol stated if elected president his administration would abandon the traditional Blue House for suitable premises elsewhere. The Blue House, however, has a highly symbolic place in the political culture of most South Koreans: having experienced political turmoil and upheaval, the presidential palace is the institution through which they have been governed since the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948. While other ROK political leaders have expressed concerns about the Blue House, none had ever managed to muster enough support to abandon the vast, sprawling estate.

After winning the presidency with a very small margin, Yoon Suk-yeol announced he was making the former Defence Ministry headquarters his new presidential residence. It was to prove highly unpopular with many South Koreans; during the earliest days of presidential administration a massive public petition of 3,600,000 signatures opposed the move. (1)

The choice by the Yoon Suk-yeol administration to use the Defence Ministry premises, likewise, were to prove unpopular with many South Koreans for reasons the presidential administration appear to not have even considered as relevant.
 
Most South Koreans, while expected to serve National Service in the country's vast military apparatus, have unhappy memories of military involvement in political and civilian affairs which are regarded as darker days in the country's history. It has been noted, for example, that 'military officers … are by now fully educated about the deep unpopularity of earlier decades of martial law … and that … South Koreans have a deep embrace of democratic values'. (2) The choice of Defence Ministry for the official presidential premises can, therefore perhaps, best be viewed as strangely incongruous; that is, if the choice is to be regarded as straightforward and above board.

What, however, proved a particular matter of concern for many South Koreans were the expensive upgrading of various facilities in the Defence Ministry premises. Security concerns had been raised although it has remained curious how such an important defence facility could be regarded as so vulnerable by those making the assessments. While upgrades were taking place Yoon Suk-yeol used his own home as the presidential premises.

With plummeting popularity ratings Yoon Suk-yeol appeared to have developed a bunker-like mentality even before moving into his Defence Ministry compound, seemingly oblivious to what was taking place in the country as a whole. Government investigators will, no doubt, have a field-day assessing the role of the country's intelligence services and their working relations with the presidential administration; the reliability and nature of the intelligence assessments and those providing the sensitive information, and whether the presidential administration took any notice of what they were being told, has yet to be established but will inevitably be called into question.  

Popularity ratings of President Yoon Suk-yeol continued to plummet to under twenty per cent of the population as his administration pursued policies of closer diplomatic involvement with the US and Japan. The US Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) rests upon its diplomatic relationship with Japan as part of a global alliance; co-ordinated involvement with all US regional allies, including the ROK, remain a US political and military obsession. (3)

The April elections saw the political opposition, centred around the Democratic Party, win 192 seats in the 300-seat parliament. While regarded as a landslide victory, it fell just short of a super majority although rendered the presidential administration as little other than a 'lame duck'. (4) Despite attempting to label his political opponents as being North Korean agents, Yoon Suk-yeol provided no credible evidence of any northern involvement in the growing dysfunctional nature of ROK political developments. They remain mere allegations.

The ROK, however, still has legislation from the previous Cold War concerning any relations and contact with the northern DPRK. It remains highly controversial and part of the US-Japan alliance of which the ROK is a component part, for rapid deployment elsewhere in time of crisis. (5) While unpopular, attempts by then President Roo Moo-hyun over twenty years ago to repeal the National Security Law proved highly controversial. (6)

The 1948 law has been seen 'as a legacy of the military dictatorships that dominated South Korea for most of the Cold War'. (7) Fears that President Yoon Suk-yeol would resort to using the draconian legislation against political opposition figures was to become a common concern following their April electoral success, until his demise with impeachment in December.

President Yoon Suk-yeol later announced his move into the new Defence Ministry premises in early November in a manner of being under siege, less than a month before attempting to implement martial law under cover of darkness on the night of 3 December. (8) Why it took those providing the required upgrade over two years to complete the construction and security work has yet to be established. The whole matter, however, looks suspicious and requires clarification, although attempting to implement martial law from inside facilities so closely associated with the ROK's darker history is revealing, in itself.

Nearly 300 ROK uniformed military personnel were subsequently directed by President Yoon Suk-yeol to seize control of the country's parliament, paving the way for full control of the political system; some arrived by helicopter on the roof of the parliamentary buildings.  

Opposition political figures barricaded themselves into the parliamentary building and sprayed fire extinguishers at the soldiers, while huge numbers of protesters lined the streets.

Government investigators later established Yoon Suk-yeol had actually authorised the military to 'fire their weapons' at those resisting the attempted coup, in a ten-page report. (9) The personnel concerned, however, refused to accept the order and the Defence Minister subsequently attempted to commit suicide, presumably from disgrace.

And the farce was all over in a mere six hours: the presidential administration appears to have completely misread both the mood of the people and those residing in the state and military apparatus over which they were supposed to have direct and total control.

As ROK government investigators collect legal evidence for forthcoming Constitutional Court proceedings, they will obviously have to consider the longer-term agenda of President Yoon Suk-yeol and his decision to use military force to deal with political opposition on 3 December. It is difficult to accept the decision was taken on the spur of the moment or a planned quick solution to a long-time problem affecting class and state relations in the ROK stretching back decades.

The subsequent impeachment of Yoon Suk-yeol's replacement, Acting President Han Duck-soo, for 'actively participating in the insurrection', likewise, has already revealed the deeper and close-knit nature of their conspiracy. (10)

The tentacles of the attempted coup conspiracy may reach very deep indeed.

1.     Explained: Why South Korea's president-elect wants to relocate the presidential palace, The Indian Express, 23 March 2022.
2.     Real-life political Squid Game offers compelling viewing, The Weekend Australian, 28-29 December 2024.
3.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
4.     Weekend Australian, op.ci.t, 28-29 December 2024.  
5.     North Korea's behaviour could threaten Australian security, Australian, 27 December 2002.
6.     See: Uneasy Korea braced for America's big squeeze, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 10-16 December 2004.
7.     Ibid.
8.     See: Yoon moves into new presidential residence, The Korean Times, 8 November 2024.
9.     South Korea's Yoon authorised 'shooting' during martial law bid, prosecutors say,   ABC News, (and AFP), 28 December 2024.
10.   S. Korean acting leader impeached, The Weekend Australian, 28-29 December 2024.

 

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2024 in Australian Agriculture

Written by: Duncan B. on 4 January 2025

 

2024 saw billions of dollars worth of Australian farmland and agricultural businesses change hands in a market dominated by institutional buyers, overseas buyers and wealthy individuals.

Canadian and US pension funds were again among the biggest buyers of Australian farm assets. Even a Utah-based subsidiary of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints paid over $300 million for a 26,885 ha cattle and cotton growing property in Queensland.

 

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Our New Year’s resolution: Keep building the revolutionary movement!

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 1 January 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) gladly extends greetings and welcome to all our friends and supporters on the occasion of New Year’s Day, 2025.

The new year will undoubtedly see a further expansion of the scope of people’s struggle and a growing isolation of all imperialism and all reactionary forces.

Armed with anti-imperialist class consciousness and united in struggle, the working class and its allies are the most powerful and unstoppable force for developing the revolutionary movement for fundamental change in Australia.

 

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Worth Reading - "NIGHT OF POWER - The Betrayal of the Middle East"

Written by: Ned K. on 26 December 2024

 

Some people are fortunate enough to find time over the Christmas - New Year period to read a book.

For those interested in the struggles in the Middle-East, the late Robert Fisk's book Night of Power - The Betrayal of the Middle East is well worth reading. It is well researched and covers the impact of the imperialist powers of USA, western Europe and Russia in the internal affairs of Middle-East countries, particularly Palestine and the settler apartheid state of Israel.

The book is written through the eyes of a westerner who spent over forty years in the Middle-East region. The clear message running through Fisk's book is that a pre-condition for the resolution of conflict and war in the Middle-East is that all imperialist powers exit the Middle-East. In the words in the book's foreword, Fisk "exposes the inescapable consequences of colonial oppression and violence in the Middle-East".

One chapter in the book, "The Dog In The Manger" exposes the attitude of the British imperialism during the British Mandate of Palestine from the Balfour Declaration days to 1948. Fisk exposes the real thinking of Winston Churchill and the British ruling class towards the Zionist "homeland" of Israel on Palestinian land. In Churchill's testimonial to the Peel Commission in 1937, Churchill is quoted as saying:

"I have a great regard for the Arabs, but at the same time you find where the Arab goes it is often desert...It is a lower manifestation the Arab". He goes on to say,

"It was for the good of the world that Palestine should be cultivated, and it will never be cultivated by the Arabs".

As I read these words I thought of how at school, we were told Churchill and the British rulers were heroes "protecting our way of life". 

I kept reading, keen to read the next words of Churchill quoted by Fisk and taken from Churchill's testimonial to the Peel Commission. Churchill goes on to expand on his views about Indigenous people generally, including in Australia. He says:

"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly, wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

In more recent times, the imperialists meddling in the internal affairs and seeking to maintain their domination over the Middle- East and indeed Australia, may use different language than that of Churchill, but as Fisk makes clear in his book, their thinking is no different to that of Churchill's and they try to "educate" people in western countries to think the same way. 
  

 

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Building a New Socialist Society

Written by: Xiang Guanqi on 26 December 2024

 

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese flock to Shaoshan in Hunan Province.  Shaoshan is the birthplace of Mao Zedong, and the family home still stands. People go there throughout the year to show their respect for Chairman Mao, with the two peak periods being Chinese New Year and today, December 26, Mao’s birthday.

Last year was significant as the 130th anniversary of Mao’s birth. Those who missed out last year are arriving in large numbers. At the beginning of 2024, in just 8 days, more than 680,000 people went to Shaoshan to pay New Year's greetings to Chairman Mao, and according to the statistics analysed by reporters, among the tourists who came to Shaoshan, the proportion of "post-60s and before" was about 28%, and the proportion of post-90s + post-00s was as high as 32%. 

Mao’s Selected Works are also being sought out, and most of the people searching for them are young people aged 20-29. Why, then, do fashionably dressed young people with trendy ideas become so interested in these old books and these things that are said to be "outdated"? 

Comrade Xiang Guanqi, now in his 80s, a noted critic of China’s restored capitalism, says in this excerpt from one of his writings, it is more than nostalgia – Eds.

Maoism stresses the need for socialist society to revolutionise the whole of society and to strive to create a new socialist society that is truly and fundamentally different from capitalist private society, as the first stage of communist society. This is an important and profound element of Maoism's theory of continued socialist revolution.

Under the guidance of the Maoist general principle and strategy of correctly dealing with internal contradictions among the people, Chairman Mao personally took the lead in advocating the development of the communist spirit among the whole nation, and in the activity of ‘Learning from Comrade Lei Feng’, led the whole nation to endeavour to bring about a revolution in their thinking; and a number of advanced and exemplary figures appeared on various fronts as models for the whole nation to follow. At the same time, taking the nature of internal contradictions among the people as a prerequisite, we implemented the formula of ‘unity, criticism and unity’ to help the backward people to overcome some of the shortcomings and errors in their thinking and actions, and to gradually strengthen the transformation of their own subjective world, so that they could achieve, step by step, the revolutionisation of their thinking, and to keep pace with the requirements of the times for building socialism.

The famous ‘May 7 Instruction’, written by Chairman Mao on 7 May 1966, is the theoretical idea of building a genuinely new socialist society, a new innovation of the international communist movement.

 It is not a long text, so it is worth quoting in full here:

Dear Comrade Lin Piao,

I have received the report from the Rear Service Department which you sent me on 6 May. I think it is an excellent plan. Is it possible to send this report to all the military districts and ask them to hold discussions of it among the cadres at the army and division levels? Their views should be reported to the Military Commission and through it to the Centre for approval. After that, suitable directives should be issued to them. Please consider this .

In the absence of a world war, our army should be a big school. Even under conditions of the third world war, it can still serve as a big school. In addition to fighting the war, it must do other work. In the eight years of the second world war, did we not do just that in the anti-Japanese base areas? In this big school, the army should learn politics, military affairs, and culture, and engage in agricultural production. It can build up its own middle- and small-size workshops to produce goods for its own use and the exchange of other goods of equal value. It can take part in mass work, factory work, and rural socialist education. After socialist education, there are always other kinds of mass work for it to do, to unite the army and people as one. The army should also participate in the revolutionary struggle against capitalist culture. In this way, it carries out military-educational, military-agricultural, military-industrial, and military-civilian work.

Naturally, should be properly coordinated and a distinction should be made between major and subsidiary work. A unit can select one or two from the agricultural, industrial, and civilian combination, but not all three. In this way, the tremendous power of several million soldiers will be felt.

Likewise, workers should, in addition to their main industrial work, learn military affairs, politics, and culture, and take part in the socialist educational movement and in criticizing the capitalist class. Under adequate conditions, they should also engage in agricultural production, following the example of the Daqing Oilfield.

The communes do their main agricultural work (including forestry, fishing, animal husbandry, and subsidiary trades), but they must also learn military affairs, politics, and culture. When circumstances allow, they should collectively set up small-scale factories and take part in criticizing the capitalist class.

The students are in a similar position. Their studies are their chief work; they must also learn other things. In other words, they ought to learn industrial, agricultural, and military work in addition to class work. The school years should be shortened, education should be revolutionized, and the domination of our schools by bourgeois intellectuals should by no means be allowed to continue.

Under favourable conditions, people in commerce, service trades, and party and government offices should do likewise.

What has been said above is neither new nor original. Many people have been doing this for some time, but it has not yet become a widespread phenomenon. Our army has been working in this way for decades. Now it is on the threshold of new developments.

When it comes to a new socialist society, the new China of that time under the leadership of Chairman Mao was indeed a new society, a new society in which the whole society was filled with the spirit of communism. It was a great creation. If we look at China at that time not only at the level of development of the productive forces, but also at the level of the comprehensive development of society as a whole, and especially at the level of development of human beings, we can say without exaggeration and in all truthfulness that China had surpassed not only the Soviet Union, but also the developed capitalist countries of the West.        

Lei Feng was learnt everywhere. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, China was truly an advanced socialist country holding aloft the red flag of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; it was a new society in which ‘one person is for all, and all people are for one person’, in which there was both liveliness and unity of will, in which the free development of each individual was united with that of the whole society; and this was the road to the realisation of the historical task of socialism and to communism step by step.        

Nowadays, many people do not understand why people of the older generation who came from that era are always nostalgic for a time when the economy was not yet developed, when life was not yet affluent, and even when many people were still poor. The answer lies in the fact that Chairman Mao led the entire nation to create a new society full of the spirit of communism and nurtured a new generation of people who adopted the communist ideology as their outlook on life.

Just as the revolutionary mentors taught, once human beings completely got rid of their animal nature and the alienation brought about by private ownership, and truly began to live as human beings, the free and happy life of human beings also began. Today's nostalgia for Chairman Mao's era is precisely a reflection of people's longing for the pursuit of this free and happy life of mankind - the life of communism.

This can in no way be described as ‘nostalgia’, but rather as ‘seeking newness’.

 

 

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CPA (M-L) extends comradely greetings to the Communist Party of the Philippines

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 24 December 2024

 

Warm congratulations on the occasion of the 56th anniversary of the founding of Communist Party of the Philippines, 26 December. The Communist Party of the Philippines is the leading force in the struggles of the Filipino working people against semi-feudalism, semi-colonialism, bureaucrat capitalism, imperialist domination and the violent puppet Marcus government.

The Filipino people’s daily struggles against exploitation and political repression, and against imperialist domination come together in the powerful united front formed under the revolutionary leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. This revolutionary leadership is bringing together all sectors of society, workers, peasants, indigenous, educational and health professionals, with a revolutionary vision of land reform, national sovereignty, and socialism. 

 

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A Tale of Two Pities

Written by: Nick G. on 24 December 2024

 

Nothing says “hypocrisy” more than a Labor politician with words in his/her mouth.

On Monday, PM Albanese uttered certain memorable words in relation to Australian man Oscar Jenkins, captured by Russian imperialist troops in Ukraine.

Filmed being interrogated and slapped, Jenkins looked miserable.

Albanese vowed to “always look after Australians” after learning of Mr Jenkins’ situation.

It was a correct and appropriate response, albeit one that revealed the PM to be lying though his teeth.

For on the same day, the very same day, his Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus confirmed he has approved the extradition of US-born Australian citizen Daniel Duggan to the loving arms of the US judicial system as it passes under the control of incoming President Donald Trump.

Imperialism means persecution and oppression.

US imperialism and Russian imperialism are alike in that respect.

Dreyfus has just as vindictively slapped Duggan in the face by approving his extradition to the US. And not just Duggan, but his long-suffering wife Saffrine and their children who have now been separated from husband and father for more than two years while he has been held by US imperialism’s branch office in Australia.  

Saffrine said yesterday she felt the family had been "thrown out with the trash" by the Australian Government announcing Dan's extradition a few days before Christmas.

It is disgraceful and a complete injustice that Duggan has been held in solitary confinement in a NSW maximum security prison for 795 days having broken no Australian law and still innocent until proved guilty of fabricated Cold War charges brought against him by the US.

It must be a difficult thing to boast about “always looking after Australians” with your tongue stuck so fast to the big brown eye of your US masters!

 

 

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People's Health and Safety More Important Than Nuclear Power

Written by: Ned K. on 23 December 2024

 

A recent article in Vanguard pointed out that the USA is busy arranging port facilities in the Indo-Pacific region where it can re-stock its warships with missiles in the event of war with China. 

Australian ports are part of its plans. The USA already use at least one Australian port, in WA, to dock nuclear powered submarines for maintenance purposes. As part of AUKUS, the USA will also have its nuclear-powered submarines docking at Australian ports for maintenance and readiness for war against China. Associated with nuclear-powered submarines is the removal and transportation and dumping of nuclear waste. 

All these activities are a threat to the health and safety of people who live in the same suburban areas where these activities are carried out.

Added to these threats to health and safety are places like Alice Springs being a nuclear target in the event of a war between the USA and China. 

What are the two major parliamentary parties doing to protect the Australian people from the various threats associated with nuclear power and nuclear weapons?

Both Labor and Liberal parties support AUKUS and the US - Australia Alliance which includes commitment to nuclear-powered USA navy vessels with or without nuclear weapons being based in Australian ports.

The Liberal leader Dutton is also a champion of nuclear power plants being built in Australia. With a federal election early next year, the Labor Party are now trying to win votes by saying that nuclear power plants proposed by Dutton will endanger Australian people's health and safety, especially those people living near the places where Dutton decides to have the plants built!

Not a word is said by either Labor or Liberal leaders about the health and safety threats of nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear warhead missiles, or whole suburbs and cities being wiped out due to Australia's entanglement in USA preparations for war with China. 

As the recent article in Vanguard concluded, Australian people need an independent foreign policy free from the USA's war preparations with China.

 

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Communists in North and East Syria Prepare to Defend the Revolution

Written by: MLKP on 21 December 2024

 

To encourage people in Melbourne to support today's rally in defence of Rojava (4pm at the State Library) we reproduce this report from the International Bulletin of the Marxist-Leninist Party/ Turkey and Kurdistan (MLKP). 

 

(Above: Demonstration in Al-Dirbasiyah/Dirbêsiyê in support of SDF on December 20. Neither Turkish occupation nor Islamist gangs will break the will to freedom of these women.)

Communists in North and East Syria Prepare to Defend the Revolution

After the occupation attack by HTŞ (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) on Aleppo on November 27, the Tur kish colonialist state, along with its militias, targeted Şehba, Til Rifat, and later Minbic and Kobanê with the same goal. The Autonomous Administration called for mobilization. The communists of Rojava responded to this call and quickly began mobilization efforts to de fend Northern and Eastern Syria, as well as all of Syria. Cemil Sîdwo, representative of the Communist Revolutionary Movement (TKŞ), spoke about the work done so far:

"In this recent period, the most urgent request from us was the defense of cities, neighborhoods, and the people. The goal of the former Syrian regime was to use Daesh (ISIS) as a tool to attack some of our cities. For this reason, the Autonomous Administration declared a state of ‘emergency.‘ We also participated in this and have been on duty to defend the neighborhoods and cities. 

“We are on guard day and night. We are also living in this revolution. The revolution is ours; we de fend it. Military-wise, some of our groups participated in the defense. If our comrades defended Şengal (Sinjar), that experience today guides us here on a broader scale. We participated in the defense and put that experience into practice.“

He added that the Communist Women’s Movement (JKŞ) and the Communist Youth Movement (CKŞ) have conducted military and political training and participated in the defense of neighborhoods. Politically, Syria has entered a new phase, and the communists are an active part of it. Sîdwo pointed out some dangers: 

"In this phase, we need to act very cautiously. Why? Because the enemy wants to play a destructive role here. They aim to create chaos, cause division, and launch psychological warfare against the people. We didn’t allow this step by the enemy. Especially the peoples of Northern and Eastern Syria, particularly those in Rojava, have united, shook hands, and stood firm against the policies being applied here. Why? Because a very dirty policy is being pursued. We can call it a politics of life or death. 

“The people are holding on to their land with all available means and have thwarted the enemy‘s plans. They wanted to create conflict between the Kurdish and Arab peoples. But we did not allow the enemy to implement this policy. With the right approach and unity, we prevented what they intended to do. We supported those who fled from Afrin and Şehba to Roja va. Whatever we had, we collected and brought it to the refugees from cities like Qamişlo (Qamishli), Hesekê (Hasakah), Kobanê (Ayn al-Arab), and Til Temir." 

Ekin İsyan, (left) spokesperson for the CKŞ, spoke about their ongoing work: 

"We continue our work in the spirit of mobilization. The goal of the Turkish occupation state is to sow fear among the people and simultaneously seize our achievements in the ensuing chaos. As children of the Rojava Revolution, we have spent 12-13 years in this revolution. We have fought for this revolution and paid a price for it. 

“The fascist Turkish state does not want us to gain our rights. Therefore, it is launching its attacks against us, the people of Rojava. This is a mobilization phase, and our actions are focused on self-defense. 

“The Rojava revolution plays a very important role. We have sacrificed many martyrs. Therefore, we need to act accordingly. Especially young people and

“The misogynistic policies of political Islamist militias want to sacrifice us for themselves and their jihadist cause. They want to enslave women again. They want to place us under the system represented by Daesh’s black flag. Turkey’s collaboration with Daesh is evident. But Rojava is our value. We stand by our values, which we have fought for and earned over the years. These attacks do not mean they can make us retreat from our will. As the children of Rojava, as young men and women living in the revolutionary lands, our greatest task is to defend the achievements of this revolution. 

“The Turkish state should know that no one can turn us away from our goal. We are ready, just as we worked for this revolution in the past, we will work with even more determination in the future. 

“Members of CKŞ continue their mobilization in cities such as Hesekê, Qamişlo, and Kobanê. Especially during the state of emergency declared by the Autonomous Administration, we focus on training our youth in self-defense and preparing them for practical self-defense. We provide shooting training and conduct street patrols and neighborhood watches. 

“I want to call on the youth in Rojava and all around the world: Defend Rojava, because Rojava is our greatest achievement. Rojava is the foundation of the revolution in the Middle East.”

 

 

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The “three constantly read articles” should still be constantly read.

Written by: Nick G. on 21 December 2024

 

(Above: Norman Bethune operating in the wounded in a field hospital in China.)

December 21 is the anniversary of Mao Zedong’s statement In Memory of Norman Bethune. 

It was written in 1939 after the Canadian doctor who had gone to China to treat soldiers wounded in the War of Resistance Against Japan, died of blood poisoning contracted from the wounds of a Communist Eighth Route Army soldier whom he had been treating.

Bethune was born in 1890. He began medical studies, but suspended them to work as a stretcher-bearer in France during WW1. He received a shrapnel wound in the Second Battle of Ypres, then completed his medical studies in 1916.

Bethune specialised in thoracic surgery and developed or modified more than a dozen new surgical tools. 

During the Depression, he became convinced of the links between the poor health of working people and the economic system of capitalism. He advocated socialised medicine and travelled to the Soviet Union to study its system of universal free health care. He joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1935.

Towards the end of 1936, Bethune went to Spain and offered his services to the forces supporting the Republican government. To better provide for the wounded anti-fascists, he developed a mobile blood transfusion service to take bottles of donated blood to the wounded.

Returning to Canada, Bethune agreed to go to China. In January 1938, he arrived in Yan’an where he met Chairman Mao. He spent the best part of the next two years on the battlefield, treating Communist soldiers and their wounded Japanese enemies alike. 

Chairman Mao’s eulogy for Bethune spoke of his personifying the spirit of Communism. He praised “his utter devotion to others without any thought of self”, and said that his “spirit of internationalism, the spirit of communism,” was “our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism.”

Mao used Bethune’s example to call on his followers to overcome bad habits born of the old society. “Every Communist must learn from him. There are not a few people who are irresponsible in their work, preferring the light and shirking the heavy, passing the burdensome tasks on to others and choosing the easy ones for themselves. At every turn they think of themselves before others. When they make some small contribution, they swell with pride and brag about it for fear that others will not know. They feel no warmth towards comrades and the people but are cold, indifferent and apathetic. In truth such people are not Communists, or at least cannot be counted as devoted Communists.”

If the example of Bethune was an inspiration during the War of Resistance Against Japan, its importance was in no way diminished during the period of China’s socialist construction.

It was placed together with two other writings, Serve the People and The Foolish old Man Who Moved the Mountains and published at the start of the Cultural Revolution under the heading “The Three Constantly Read Articles”.

Chairman Mao knew that it was one thing to bring the old society to an end, and an altogether different thing to build a new and different society.  It required the adaptation and development of the spirit of Communism from the pre-revolutionary, to the post-revolutionary situation.

That meant overcoming the old ideas, old habits and old customs inherited from the past and revolutionising people’s thinking in accordance with the requirements of advancing along the socialist road.

If people’s thinking had been revolutionised to carry out Liberation, it needed to be further revolutionised and carried to each new stage of the elimination of classes and the replacement of bourgeois individualism with proletarian collectivism.

The Cultural Revolution aimed at nothing less than the complete transformation of people’s world outlook. Without this change, without restricting the bourgeois right brought into the new world from the old, there would inevitably be a change in direction and the socialist road would succumb to the capitalist road, socialism would be abandoned and capitalism restored.

The “three constantly read articles” were promoted to support the socialist slogan “Fight self, repudiate revisionism”. This linked the survivals of feudal and capitalist thinking to the emergence of policies designed to destroy confidence in socialism and promote the reversion to capitalist economic and political methods.

The essence of the slogan “Fight self, repudiate revisionism” was the struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois world outlooks representing the concept of working for the public interest as against the concept of working for one’s own interest.

The betrayal of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line by Deng Xiaoping and others confirms Mao Zedong’s warnings about the failure to restrict bourgeois right and the consequences of adopting policies that expanded bourgeois right.

Today’s China is both capitalist and social-imperialist. It has not officially discarded socialism, and hides its capitalist restoration behind the nonsense of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and practices imperialism in competition with the US and its imperialist bloc.

Regrettably, some on the Left in Australia are enamoured of the “characteristics” fig-leaf.

Within progressive circles there are not a few who praise China’s opposition to US hegemony, failing to see the imperialist motivation of China in doing so.

For our part, we will work to prevent US preparations for war against China whilst upholding an anti-imperialist line of opposing all imperialism.

We will constantly read the “three constantly read articles” to remould our own world outlook and develop the spirit of Communism with our own ranks.   

 

 

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Re-loading missiles on ships: further integration of Australia into US war plans

Written by: (Contributed) on 19 December 2024

 

(Above: Guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey in the South China Seas.   Source: wikipedia.org)

A scramble appears under-way by the US to secure access to port facilities across the Indo-Pacific region for sensitive re-loading of armaments.

The stated diplomatic position follows revelations about how the US Defence Department has already authorised their naval vessels in September to use Australian facilities for re-loading with cruise missiles.

No comment has been forthcoming from Canberra about Australia's stated diplomatic position on the matter or who authorised the operation.

The information was, nevertheless, leaked in one single sentence of a short and official report about another, related military consideration and matter.

Fears have arisen inside the Pentagon about the US readiness to fight a war against China in the Indo-Pacific. It is possible for the US to fire dozens of cruise missiles within minutes during time of military conflict. A major consideration, however, has been the ability of US naval vessels to re-load with further missiles at sea to continue hostilities. Strategists have raised concerns that if military hostilities begin in the Western Pacific, for example, the US is faced with an 8,000 kms journey to safe port facilities for re-loading with further missiles. (1) They have noted that 'the ability to re-arm at sea will be critical to any future conflict in the Pacific'. (2)

To date, the US military have used secure facilities on solid ground in sheltered harbours for re-loading; re-loading at sea requires accurate assessments of a variety of problems affecting  
small movements which potentially have dreadful consequences in time of error.

While experiments are taking place using digital advances which include 3-D printing, specialised radar and motion detectors, the problem has yet to be resolved.

The US role in other spectacular achievements including landing a man on the moon in the late 1960s, and re-fuelling fighter jets in the air, is well-known, but they are struggling to overcome their failure to be able to re-arm missile-loaded naval vessels at sea.

The US is, therefore, seeking access to secure port facilities across the vast Indo-Pacific region. They appear to be more interested in remote places, rather than Japan and Guam which can be easily targeted by adversaries.

The news followed revelations that one of their naval vessels used Australian military facilities in Darwin to re-load missiles on-board the USS Dewey, a destroyer. (3) The Dewey has usually used a barge-like facility at its deployment base in Japan, but only used when the waters are calm. The Australian venture in September has appeared a departure from usual practice and took place with the bare minimum of publicity.

The moves, however, coincide with a short diplomatic statement from Canberra about 'China-proofing' Pacific states; concerns have arisen that China is increasing its diplomatic position across the Pacific and may seek basing facilities for its navy. (4) The concerns have arisen following revelations that the US were no longer the dominant power in the region and that China had successfully challenged traditional hegemonic positions. (5)

The region of the Pacific in question, furthermore, is geographically central to the US Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), with borders defined by sensitive military intelligence facilities in Australia, India, Japan and the US. (6)

Countries such as Nauru, Tuvalu, and other small Pacific states, have suddenly developed a highly geo-strategic diplomatic status on account of their position and historical allegiance with the US and Australia, while strengthening diplomatic links with Beijing. 

Australia is practicing blatantly colonial relations with several of these countries, purchasing the right to make decisions in relation to their foreign policy positions, The recent $600 million gift to PNG enabling it to have a team in the National Rugby League is a case in point: it is conditional on PNG agreeing to freeze China out of any security relationship in favour of Australia,

They tend to be situated along sensitive island chains which have been used by the US to restrict access and egress by China into the wider Oceania region.

The island chains have also been fortified by the US in recent times as part of a $27.4 billion Pacific Deterrence Initiative. (7)

The recent sudden resignation of Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni, for example, has been conspicuously played-down to avoid unnecessary controversy, although would appear a major confrontation between the traditional elite and the elected government. (8) Tonga, it should be noted, rests on an arc from sensitive Australian military facilities in Queensland. (9) No doubt influence, from elsewhere, was brought to bear.

In conclusion, Australians living near ports and coastal military facilities might like to consider the potential risks for their local neighbourhoods: a human error when military personnel are re-loading missiles would create massive destruction and loss of life, particularly in light of construction projects under-way for storing 300,000 tons of jet fuel just fifteen kms from Darwin's CBD together with the US-led upgrade to the Tindal air-base for rapid deployment across the Indo-Pacific region:
                                      
                                    We need an independent foreign policy!

*****              

1.     US Navy in race to re-load on high seas, Australian, 3 December 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Ibid.
4.     See: 'China-proofing' Pacific states, Editorial,  Australian, 11 December 2024.
5.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August  2019.
6.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
7.     US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposed new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.
8.     See: PM quits after rift with king, Australian, 10 December 2024.
9.     See: Peters Projection, Map of the World, Actual Size.

 

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Two new publications to promote study and guide practice

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 16 December 2024

 

 

At our 16th Congress earlier this year, a proposal was made by a young comrade that a collection of writings by the CPA (M-L) be collated to introduce the theoretical basis guiding our policies to members and other interested people.

At the same time, the decision was taken to compile some of the essential writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao Zedong to promote study and guide our practice.

The one containing writings of the Party is titled "Statements of the CPA  (M-L)"; the other is titled "Foundations of the CPA (M-L)'

Both publications are now available as downloadable pdfs in the Media and Archives/Booklets drop down menu on our home page.

We thank the comrades who have produced these booklets and recommend them to our readers.

 

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Statements of the CPA (M-L)

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 15 December 2024

 

 

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Foundations of the CPA (M-L)

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 15 December 2024

 

 

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After Trump’s election in the USA - ICOR stands ready for worldwide anti-fascist, anti-imperialist united front and socialism!

Written by: ICOR on 15 December 2024

 

(Elon Musk and Donald Trump in cryptocurrency agreement.  Source:  https://cryptorank.io/​ )

On November 6, 2024, Donald Trump won the presidential election in the USA and will move into the White House. This means that the USA, an imperialist great power and main warmonger in the world is headed by a president who from various perspectives, is described as ultra-reactionary, right-wing populist or fascist. This increases the danger of US imperialism, which has always started and waged wars and destroyed people and nature, whether under Democrats or Republicans. The monopolies around Trump want to catch up with their aggressively reactionary program, especially in the rivalry with China. This has world-political effects for the masses of people worldwide, especially in crises and danger of war.

Their program: a general attack on workers; the possibility to fire strikers on the spot; attacks on wages; a global environmental catastrophe due to a backward slide on the few environmental policy advances, forced promotion of fossil fuels of oil and gas; intensification of inter-imperialist competition through the aggressive "America first" program; General attack on the working class, the revolutionary as well as the trade union movement and its rights; all the stops of economic warfare with punitive tariffs of up to 100%; bellicosity with threats against Iran, China and everything he calls the "axis of evil"; the Trump administration will continue the Biden policy of genocide in Palestine and Lebanon and may also plan to wage military war against Iran. Racism will be taken to extremes with the planned deportation of eleven million immigrants. The program also includes: closed borders; anti-women policies; an attack on the already completely inadequate social systems; discrimination against LGBTQ people, etc. etc… At the same time, the nationalist and chauvinist program of the monopolies behind Trump is creating further problems for US imperialism itself, because it also depends on a wide range of international relationships. 

 

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Union membership and workers’ struggle

Written by: Ned K. on 14 December 2024

 

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released a report on the percentage of workers in Australia who are members of a Union in August 2024.

The Report said that 13.1% of workers were members of a Union in August 2024 compared with 12.5% of workers in August 2022. The increase in membership was due to an increase in public sector union members. 

Union membership in the private (non-government workers) sector actually declined from 8% to 7.9%.

The ABS report says that from 1992 to 2024, union membership has fallen from 40% of all workers to 13.1% of all workers. 

Union membership from 1992 to 2024 fell from 43% to 12% for men and from 35% to 14% for women.

The ABS report has a lot of detail in it, including duration of union membership with 66% of union members in August 2024 having been members for longer than 5 years.

The ABS report gives the appearance that the working class has "gone to sleep" as far as collective struggle is concerned, especially workers in the private sector.

This is not the case at all. The report does not explain that 1992 was about the time that big corporate interests, especially multinational corporations succeeded in having the then Labor Government, supported by the ACTU, introduce single site enterprise agreements as being in the best interests of workers. Initially these site-specific enterprise agreements could only be negotiated between an employer and Unions. Then the Labor Government allowed non- Union enterprise agreements. 

The new laws divided workers and more conservative governments made further attacks on workers’ collective strength with the Howard Government introducing individual contracts (AWAs) in an attempt to turn all Australian workers in to Howard's vision of millions of individual "enterprising workers" negotiating their own pay and conditions "free" of interference from "third party" Unions.

The ABS latest report on Union Membership would appear to suggest that the multinationals and the likes of the Business Council of Australia had won the class war.

However, the ABS figures hide the magnificent struggles of the working class since 1992 right up to December 2024.

It was the working class, some in Unions, some not, who took to the streets and barricades in support of the Maritime Union of Australia members struggle against Patricks' stevedores and the Howard Government. The ABS figures do not tell the story of the working class organizing Your Rights At Work, Worth Fighting For and throwing the Howard Government out of office in 2007.

More recently, the ABS figures do not show the breakthrough by early childhood education workers in winning a 15% pay rise through a collective agreement covering multiple employers across the early childhood education sector. This was the very reversal of that 1992 non-Union site by site enterprise bargaining.

The ABS figures do not show the tremendous struggle by the whole aged care sector workforce from registered nurses to carers to kitchen workers and chefs to collectively win a 25% wage increase and improved working conditions and staffing levels.

Finally, the ABS figures do not show that despite the decline to 7.9% membership density in the private sector, private sector workers employed in Woolworths dared to struggle and strike for over two weeks to prevent Woolworths from using artificial intelligence devices to increase surplus value from workers every second of their shifts.

Unions are part of the capitalist system as the system is based on a class war between the owners of capital and the workers who produce the wealth of goods and services. Every collective win by workers strengthens the power of the working class as a whole and gives more workers a taste for the decisive struggles that lie ahead

 

 

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Oppose Israel’s plans to annex the Occupied West Bank!

Written by: DFLP on 13 December 2024

 

An important message has been received from the DFLP urging widespread opposition to Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank.  The message is reprinted below.

 

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Remain firmly opposed to Zionism, anti-Semitism and all forms of racism

Written by: Nick G. and Alice M. on 11 December 2024

 

(Above: Nasser Mashni denounces synagogue arson at last Sunday's rally)

Ever since the start of the current Zionist Israeli aggression against Gaza, on October 7, 2023, attempts have been made to equate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.

The Zionist lobby in Australia is particularly vociferous and influential in using allegations of anti-Semitism to attack supporters of the Palestinian people and critics of Israel’s genocide, many of whom are Jewish people. 

People in the media and politics who have defended “Israel’s right to defend itself” by committing wholesale genocide have rushed to condemn any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism every time the Zionist lobby has demanded it. They have sent their police to harass and arrest demonstrators against Zionist crimes.

The arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne’s South East is a case in point. 

This was real anti-Semitism at its worst. 

It is a hate crime just as was the mass killing of Muslim worshippers in New Zealand. There is silence surrounding other hates crimes targeting Muslims in our community.  A replica bomb was left on a car in the driveway of a house flying the Palestinian flag in Sydney.  

The family home of the founder of the Burgertory chain, Palestinian activist Hash Tayeh, was firebombed last April in Melbourne, the second time in the past five months that arsonists attacked a property connected to him. 

A driveway of a Melbourne house, displaying Palestinian flag and calls for a ceasefire, was graffitied with abusive language.  There are many unpublicised political and racist acts against Palestinian supporters.

Last Sunday night a school bus belonging to Adelaide Islamic school IQRA College was set on fire and badly damaged in a blatant act of Islamophobia.  It was parked outside bus driver’s house, and deliberately lit before midnight.

Quite correctly, the Muslim community and supporters of Palestine have denounced the synagogue attack.

The Islamic Council of Victoria said it was “saddened” by the attack, and “reiterates that the right of Australians to practice their faith and worship without fear must be upheld, and that places of worship should be respected as spiritual and community havens.”

Hash Tayeh, angered by the double standards surrounding treatment of hate crimes in Australia, nevertheless tweeted “My heart breaks for the synagogue that was firebombed, and I want to help rebuild it.”

At the Palestinian solidarity rally on December 8, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni addressed the crowd, condemning the attack. “Whoever set fire to that synagogue is a racist, is a fascist, is a Nazi,” Mr Mashni said. 

The message to anyone who took part in the firebombing who may have come from the ranks of Palestinian supporters was clear: “Piss off!”

At all pro Palestine rallies held every Sunday since 7 October 2023, Mashni and other speakers repeatedly condemn anti-Semitism.  “Anti-Semitism and all forms of racism have no place here!” they loudly proclaim to thunderous applause and cheering by tens of thousands.

There is little point speculating about who may have been involved: Nazis, or those who mistakenly think that they can show support for Palestine by using Nazi methods.  

The act itself was wrong and only plays into the hands of Zionists by lending credibility to their accusations of anti-Semitism and calls for what are essentially protections of Zionist advocacy.

It is provocation and lays the ground for calls to ban Palestinian rallies, roll out more so-called “anti-terror” powers for the state and armed forces, and jailing protestors.  Most of these state powers will continue to be used against the people in many struggles.

From this it can be expected that there will be further surveillance and harassment of those who denounce Zionist aggression and genocide. 

As Communists, we have always condemned anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms and disguises.  

In the 1930s, and in the shadow of Nazi attacks on Jews, many political leaders of the day were asked to denounce anti-Semitism. Most were silent. Only Stalin made the statement that Jews wanted to hear.

Replying to an Inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States, on January 12, 1931, Stalin said: “National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

“Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.

“In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.”

No other major world leader made such a forthright condemnation of anti-Semitism or explained its dangers to working people. Not only did Stalin strongly condemn and denounce anti-Semitism in words, the USSR was the only country to open its borders to persecuted Jewish people fleeing Nazis occupations, pogroms and the holocaust.  No other European country would let in Jewish people seeking escape from the Nazi holocaust.

Rather than pandering to the Zionist lobby, the authorities must take the lead in treating all racist hates crimes with the severity they deserve. 

Supporters of the Palestinian resistance cannot be silenced or intimidated.

They are firm in their opposition to Zionist aggression.

They are firm in their opposition to anti-Semitism and all forms of racism.

 

 

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The reactionaries must condemn all terrorism, including their own

Written by: Nick G. on 10 December 2024

 

Current events in Syria, and the fire-bombing of a synagogue in Melbourne, have seen the label “terrorist” applied.  In particular, it is applied by people in the media and the government who have justified the genocidal terrorism of the Zionist occupation forces against Palestinian civilians, and Palestinian and international health workers, educators, journalists and aid workers. 

There are two ways to use the term “terrorist”. They are explored in the following statement from the Political Report to our 14th Congress in 2015.  It helps clarify the distinction between a Communist way of viewing what terrorism is, and the 'War on Terror' which was a pretext for all kinds of repression.

We agree that the rebadged al-Qaeda and al-Nusrah forces now operating as the Islamist HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) in Syria and likely to be its new government, were terrorists, and need to show cause why they should not continue to be called terrorists. We agree that ISIS forces attacking the democratic autonomous region of Rojava in North-East Syria were and still are terrorists. But equally, so are the US imperialists and the Israeli Zionists.

So too, for that matter, are persons committing arson against communities in Australia. So too, are young Australian Zionists being recruited into the Israeli Occupation Forces, knowing full well the extent of its terrorist activities in Gaza and the West Bank.

The extract from the Political Report follows:

Groups like ISIS have emerged as a type of international lumpen-proletariat.  In advanced capitalist countries the lumpen-proletariat consists of people who cannot or will not live as members of the working class, people broken in spirit by poverty, lack of education and opportunity, health failure, and drugs. Their escape route from all of this is criminal activity and criminal violence through which they seek to empower and enrich themselves.  They aspire to live like the idle rich they see at the top of society.  ISIS recruits come from all strata of society and include educated and articulate youths. They hate imperialism for its wanton random violence against the communities from which they come and for its failure to embrace the Prophet, but they are not conscious anti-imperialists.  They aspire to have an empire of their own, the Caliphate and murder and terrorise any who stand in their way.  Their open fighting is directed at armed opponents, including genuine anti-imperialists, but their terrorism is directed at non-combatants, at innocent civilians, including in the imperialist and developed capitalist countries.  Theirs is the personally brutal mirror image of the impersonal brutality of imperialist drone attacks and the rain of Zionist phosphorous bombs over Gaza.  Whether you behead the person next to you or simply feed coordinates to a drone from the safe distance of Pine Gap, you are equally a terrorist as far as your victims are concerned.

ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks in Australia, France, Britain and elsewhere give the ruling classes of those countries the excuse to intensify surveillance of all progressive politically active people. We have already seen a vast expansion of police and security powers in this regard. We are also seeing the roll-out of a campaign encouraging teachers to identify potentially “radicalised” youths.  A number of case studies are presented including a young girl who leaves her supportive family to become an environmental activist.  Of course, there is the obligatory case study of a Muslim youth, but the lumping together of people exercising legitimate democratic rights with those coming under the influence of ISIS shows how terrorism enables the ruling class to spread its repressive net ever more widely. The goal of “deradicalising” ISIS followers can never succeed so long as it denies the existence of imperialist violence and terror.

Marxists eschew terrorism. The terrorism of imperialism is the much greater and the more dangerous and perfidious of the two terrorisms we have discussed.  It will be directed at the revolutionary anti-imperialist movement when it develops to a particular level of influence in Australia.  It will come from the authorised state agencies of violence and it will come from fascist thugs to whom the state will turn a blind eye and encourage.  We will only be able to defend the advances we make in the development of the movement for independence from imperialism by countering the violence of the state with the organised resistance of the revolutionary movement.  Our activity will arise as a defensive measure and gradually assume an offensive capacity, but it will always be organised against identified agencies of the capitalist state and will never take the form of indiscriminate and random violence in which members of our own class become victims.  We will never practice terrorism or endorse terrorist activity.

 

 

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Australia: a hub for “US interests”

Written by: (Contributed) on 6 December 2024

 

(Source: www.asd.gov.au )

Residents of Perth may have noticed the opening of some offices for the Australian Signals Directorate in September. Some limited publicity was forthcoming. What was not so well publicised, however, were the finer points of the Cold War nature of the everyday business of that department: sensitive telecommunications linking the Australian government with their US counterparts, elevating Australia ever further as a regional hub for 'US interests' across the Indo-Pacific and enhancing US-led intelligence-gathering and surveillance facilities.

In September a brief announcement on an official Australian Government website included information concerning the opening of a new Perth State Office under the Redspice program, focussed primarily upon cyber security and signals intelligence. (1) The exact location of the office was not so forthcoming.  

The government department, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), however, has a noted presence in West Australia with their Kojarena Geraldtown military facilities which are directly linked into the sensitive Five Eyes, US intelligence and the Echelon system and form part of a global US system of satellite communications. (2) Kojarena is a ground station for satellites stationed above the equator and used for interception. (3)  

Like nearly all Australian-based military facilities, upgrades in recent times have followed US-led Cold War directives in wave after wave of militarisation.

A brief announcement in late November, therefore, was perhaps to be expected; Google were following planning to expand its $1 billion undersea cable to 'connect Darwin and Singapore with Christmas Island, a move it says will boost the reliability and resilience of Australia's internet connectivity and provide a new link between the US and Asia … via a … link to the Homomoana cable system which connects with the US' (4)

It noted, furthermore, that, 'new digital pathways for Australia, enhancing the reliability and resilience of the internet within the country and throughout the Indo-Pacific region … via a … new interconnection point between the US and Asia'. (5)

The media releases were carefully edited to avoid unnecessary publicity; information already in the public domain, however, would tend to indicate high-level military and diplomatic planning inside the Pentagon for upgrading Australian-based facilities.

The diplomatic role of the US toward Australia has a long history, dating from the earliest days of the previous Cold War. In mid-1947, for example, Australia was directed to accept its regional responsibilities toward Madagascar, a then French colony on the far side of the Indian Ocean. It was diplomatically noted that 'the direct bearing of events in Madagascar on Australians is in its strategic position … any power that controls the entrances – the Cape of Good Hope; the mouth of the Red Sea; the seaways south of the Malayan Peninsula and of Australia, controls the Indian Ocean'. (6)

And foreign policy responsibilities thrust upon Australia by the US also included wholesale domestic interference inside sovereign affairs: a diplomatic report prepared by US Naval Attache Commander Stephen Jurika Jnr., dated 6 August 1948, noted, 'Australia, its life and history, are dominated by the Communist-controlled unions … until the parliamentary Labor Party is removed from office there is not one chance in ten million that any effective action against Communism can, or will, be taken … Communism was rife in the highest governing circles in Australia'. (7)

Later the same month the new US Ambassador, Myron Cowen, arrived in Australia with the specific instruction from the president and under-secretary of State to do 'everything possible in connection with the Communist problem in Australia'. (8)

With the onset of the present Cold War the US diplomatic mentality has changed little in eight decades. The recent developments with Australian signals are merely the systematic strengthening of a strategic regional hub for 'US interests', with all which that position entails. It is interesting, therefore, to note the threads connecting the previous with the present Cold War.

A reference to Christmas Island has revealed the strategic nature of outlying islands; the island in question has also been closely linked to the nearby Cocos Islands which have been noted as highly strategic territories which possess 'a valued capability which Australia could offer the use of in a major contingency, as those sites would be a genuine gap filler between major bases in Guam and Diego Garcia'. (9)

The fact Guam and Diego Garcia are hubs for 'US interests' on an arc from Pine Gap in Central Australia is not coincidental. They have been upgraded many times.

The strategic location of the Cocos Islands and Christmas Island both resting on an arc from Australian military facilities at Geraldton, likewise, is not coincidental. The islands are located at the entrance of the Sunda Strait and South Java Sea. Even in the previous Cold War the capacity of the military facilities covered a wide area, including West Africa, the Middle East, former Soviet Union and China together with the Indo-Pacific. (see diagram)   

Studies of the period concluded with the observation that 'the US has a world-wide network of electronic listening posts engaged in eavesdropping on other nations’ radio traffic and pinpointing the location of transmissions'. (10) Modern mobile telephones also have specialised radar and motion detectors built into their programs, ensuring they are easily traceable using specialist monitoring equipment. (11) The role of the US using the elite intelligence-gathering facilities within the Five Eyes should also not be overlooked; the US regularly out-source intelligence-gathering to their partners. (12)

The intelligence-gathering is now set to be expanded still further through higher levels of US control of the internet; with the onset of the present Cold War it was already noted that the US National Security Agency had 'shifted to finding ways to exploit the global reach of Google, Microsoft, Venizon and other US technical powers'. (13) The military planning would now appear well under-way, with Australia a strategic regional hub for operations.

The US is also planning to expand their three-stage Island Chain Theory based in the Asia-Pacific region to the larger Indo-Pacific arena with fourth and fifth chains; it is not particularly difficult, therefore, to establish the timing of the present implementation of higher level signals intelligence facilities for future and more comprehensive uses across a wider arena of all those countries bordering on the Indian ocean. (14)

Studies of the strategic significance of Christmas Island have already established the ADF have submarine monitoring facilities for access and egress into the Indian Ocean. (15) They, too, would now appear set for an upgrade.

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     See: Australian Government – Australian Signals Directorate, 10 September 2024,  Australian Defence Force expands footprint with new Perth State Office.
2.     See Wikipedia: ASD.; and, Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station, Kojarena, The Nautilus Institute, 23 October 2024.
3.     Nautilus Institute, ibid.
4.     Google expands US-Asia sea cable, Australian, 27 November 2024.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Madagascar's Future Concerns Australia Security, Talk, Monthly Digest of A.B.C. Broadcasts, June 1947, page 64.
7.     The Spycatchers – The Official History of ASIO, 1949-63, David Horner, (NSW, 2014), quoted: pp. 78-80.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Strategic potential of the Cocos Islands and Christmas Island, Airpower / Defence Today, Dr. Carlo Kopp, March 2012.
10.   Indian Ocean Zone of Peace, Australian Left Review, Owen Wilkes, (1976), Edition 55/56, page 32.
11.   See: US Navy in race to reload on high seas, Australian, 3 December 2024.
12.   See: Spyworld, How the C.S.E. spies on Canadians and the world, Mike Frost as told to Michel Gratton, (Toronto, June 1995).
13.   The intelligence coup of the century, The Washington Post, 11 February 2020.
14.   Wikipedia: Island Chain Theory.
15.   Christmas Island, Military Significance, GlobalSecurity, 9 July 2018.

 

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US - China Trade War Already Intensifying

Written by: Ned K. on 5 December 2024

 

Rivalry between USA and China has been well under way on many fronts, including trade.

This week the trade war took another turn. On Monday 2 December, the Biden Administration added another 146 Chinese entities to the trade blacklist.

Among the entities are large domestic chip toolmakers and semi-conductor manufacturing plants. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the fourth time in three years that the US Government tried to restrict China's access to high performance semi-conductor technology.

Just three days later, the Chinese Government imposed a ban on export to the USA of rare earth metals gallium, germamium and antimony. 

Gallium is essential for production of semi-conductors and electronics manufacturing.

Germamium is vital in defence and space applications.

Antimony is a brittle silver-coloured metal used in rechargeable batteries, especially in car batteries.

In the last two years, US corporations imported nearly all gallium and nearly 50% of its required germanium. China has been a main supplier to the USA of these minerals. When US corporations cannot import enough of these minerals they have to rely on the US recycling industry of them for supply.

According to the Wall Street Journal, what surprised US authorities this time was the rapidity of China's retaliation with its new trade bans.

The trade war between the USA and China may intensify further under the Trump administration making job security for workers in the USA even worse than it is now.

As for China's rapid retaliatory response to the USA's expansion of its trade blacklist, this is arguably an indication that Chinese social-imperialism sees itself as more than a match for the huff and puff of its declining imperialist rival.

 

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Woolworths Warehouse Workers' Strike Shows Strength of United Workers

Written by: Ned K. on 4 December 2024

 

Warehouse workers, members of United Workers Union (UWU), have been on strike since Thursday 21 November 2024.

The strike by 1500 workers across four large Woolworths Distribution Centers (3 in Victoria, 1 in NSW) is "protected industrial action" under the Fair Work Act. Workers are demanding above inflation wage increases and a safe work environment. 

21st Century Taylorism

A safe work environment means no implementation by Woolworths of an artificial intelligence "productivity framework" which records a worker's every move and demands a 100% pick rate at all times by all workers.

As one worker explained, "you wake up, you think, 'how am I feeling today? Can I go to work and can I hit 100%?"

This use of technology by Woolworths is the modern-day form of Taylorism, which was used in car factories from the early decades of the 20th Century to ensure that every minute of a worker's time on the production line contributed to an increase in the surplus value produced by each worker and the workforce as a whole.

While striking workers and their UWU Delegates have said they are prepared to negotiate further on wage outcomes in the new Agreement, Woolworth's 21st Century Taylorist "productivity framework" is just not on.

Over decades of site-by-site enterprise bargaining, Woolworths warehouse workers wages have varied from site to site. One of the demands of the 1500 striking warehouse workers is that the base rate for warehouse workers across all four distribution centers be $38 per hour. 

Over the decades since the individual site enterprise bargaining has been in place Woolworths have played the divide and conquer game to keep wages as low as possible on each site. The lower the wages, the higher the surplus value extracted from workers. 

Their "preferred" union the Shop Distributive and Allied Trades Union (SDA) has been a subservient Woolworths partner by accepting low wage outcomes while members of the more militant union with coverage of warehouse workers (UWU formerly National Union of Workers), in the large Victorian Woolworths warehouses have a history of fighting on for better outcomes.

The current enterprise bargaining situation enabled warehouse workers to take collective strike action at four distribution centers simultaneously, placing the workers in a stronger position. This has been borne out by the growing shortages of goods at Woolworths retail outlets across Victoria, NSW and ACT.

Despite the workers being in a stronger position in their class struggle against the giant retailer Woolworths, the SDA still recommended their members accept Woolworth's low wage offer and the company's "productivity framework". 

This attempt to divide the workers had no real effect as the vast majority of workers are not members of the SDA.

In the second week of the strike, Woolworths announced that they were going to open their Dandenong warehouse.

Workers picketed all three entrances and their solidarity and determination resulted in Woolworths retreating. The warehouse never opened and the bus load of scabs that Woolworths planned to drive through the gates to start working never eventuated.

Then Woolworths did the predictable thing of applying to Fair Work Commission to order that the pickets be declared illegal. The Fair Work Commission hears this application on Friday 6 December.

Support For Striking Workers Widens

The attempts by Woolworths to break the picket line only widened the support for the striking warehouse workers. The Building Industry Group of Unions (CFMEU, ETU and AMWU) pledged support in large numbers at the warehouse gates if Fair Work Commission banned UWU members from the picket line.

By this time the federal Labor Government was sticking its nose in behind the scenes and urging both Woolworths and UWU to let the Fair Work Commission find a resolution of the dispute. This is usually code for getting workers back to work before an acceptable outcome to workers is reached.

Working Class Is the Advanced Class

This strike by 1500 workers shows the power of the working class when they take collective action and keep control of their own struggles. The ruling class, on this occasion represented by Woolworths and the federal government will try and steer the struggle out of workers' hands by using other arms of the capitalist state, such as the Fair Work Commission. 

So far, the UWU through its National Secretary Tim Kennedy has stuck by the workers. Even the ACTU Secretary Sally McManus made an appearance at the NSW Woolworths warehouse where workers are involved in the strike.

The strike by the 1500 workers is a visible reminder of which class is the socially useful class in society and shows that the ruling capitalists are not needed for a society to operate. It is the working class that produces and distributes the goods and services in society.

Lenin once commented that workers learn more by their own collective actions about their power as a class for themselves than a thousand speeches or leaflets.

As objective conditions for workers deteriorate further under capitalism in Australia, and more workers inevitably take collection actions, more will question the nature of the society they live in and recognize that there is an alternative - an independent, socialist Australia where the likes of Woolworths owners no longer exist as a class.

 

 

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The strange case of the replacement for the JP9102 satellite system: who made that decision?

Written by: (Contributed) on 4 December 2024

 

(Source: www.news.satnews.com)

Those observing the unfolding drama of the replacement for the Australian Defence Force JP9102 satellite system, which was cancelled by Canberra during early November, may have noticed the seemingly contradictory nature of official statements and explanations from government departments.

Serious questions would appear to have arisen about decision-making at the highest levels in Canberra; accuracy and authenticity of media releases remain a matter in question. That is, if the actors in senior positions in Canberra want to be regarded as straightforward and taken at face value.

Satellite systems are invariably about defence and security provision and intelligence-gathering; secrecy surrounding their very existence is inevitable. The stated range of the JP9102 satellite system, nevertheless, revealed areas of interest for Australian-based facilities, operating under US tutelage. With a range from US intelligence facilities on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to the Solomon Islands, and the Artic to Antarctica, the JP9102 was designed to be the pride and joy of the ADF. (1) It was noted that the JP9102 satellite system had been designed to provide 'an uncrackable data network across the ADF, providing communications and data links for its advanced fighter jets, naval assets and the army's land forces'. (2)

With the US pushing their Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) to contain and encircle China it is perhaps no surprise to find the Solomon Islands was geo-strategic point of interest for the JP9102 satellite system; Cold War military hawks based in Canberra have already assessed the past and present government along lines of 'the trenchantly pro-CCP clique in Honiara surrounding Solomons leader Jeremiah Manele and his predecessor as prime minister, Manasseh Sogavara, China's main man who, as Finance Minister, holds the purse strings'. (3)

US-led Cold War hawks are particularly concerned at the Solomon Islands establishing a security agreement with China 'that allows Chinese forces into the Pacific nation in exchange for significant investment from Beijing'. (4) Assessments from Cold War military intelligence are, therefore, not ambiguous; it has been noted, for example, that 'the US recognises China's attempts to expand its network of dependent vassal states into a quasi-military security pact designed to foil US-led alliances and existing multi-lateral security frameworks'. (5) The US fear, furthermore, that the Solomon Islands will be drawn closer to the 'Dark Quad', composed of Russia, Iran and North Korea through closer diplomatic relations with China, which may also eventually include Venezuela. (6)
 
While the proposed JP9102 satellite system was subsequently cancelled in early November, following five years of military planning, its replacement was shot into space within days.

No doubt the residents of the Solomon Islands now await increased surveillance of their everyday lives, with vast amounts of personal data being used by US and Australian intelligence analysts to profile the whole population to identify supposed 'Chinese interests'.

With the minimum of publicity, SpaceX sent an Optus satellite system into orbit using Falcon 9 rockets; described as 'a secretive military communications satellite … headed into geostationary orbit some 36,000 kms above earth … with a payload that has been shrouded in secrecy to the point of not disclosing any specifics of the mission'. (7)

The event was hardly accompanied by straightforward media releases; in fact, they appeared confused and downright misleading. Or was that the intention?

Following the cancellation of the initial JP9102 system a brief statement from Canberra concluded 'there was no word on when the alternative system would be delivered or how much it would cost … it claimed … the ADF would continue with its current satellite system, which involves purchasing bandwidth from the US military and a commercial provider'. (8)

Even the best made secrets, however, can be difficult to keep under wraps, particularly when the label JP9102 proved to be the name of the project, not the actual satellite system.

An official media release noted, for example, 'Defence confirmed that it will use the Optus-X satellite launched by SpaceX on Monday morning Australian time … and … it will complement our future multi-orbit satellite capabilities to be delivered under project JP9102'. (9) The stated satellite co-ordinates presumably remain the same, across at least 89 ADF military facilities and various ground stations; its geo-stationary orbit, furthermore, are stated as 87.75 degrees. (10)

Publicity surrounding the cancellation of the JP9102 satellite system, nevertheless, proved particularly interesting, following lines highly critical of the federal government from opposition figures only too pleased to push the US Cold War political and military line. They noted 'the looming cancellation is yet another blow to the government's plans to re-arm the ADF to prepare for a potential war with China'. (11) And, the decision is 'a seriously blow to Australia's credibility with the US and other strategic partners'. (12) Another stated 'Labor scrapping the satellites takes sovereign risk to a new level. It will also undermine Australia's defence credibility, just as the US and Britain were relying on Australia to boost Indo-Pacific surveillance'. (13)

Nothing, however, would appear further from the truth!

What has not been so well acknowledged, for example, is that the Pentagon got exactly what they wanted from the new JP9102 replacement satellite system: complete control and inter-operability between the Pentagon and Australia:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Satellites out: defence $7bn hit, Australian, 4 November 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Beijing's Solomons strategy has outflanked Canberra, Lead Editorial, Australian, 12 November 2024.
4.     Pacific leader's rejection queried, Australian, 12 November 2024.
5.     'Dark Quad' threat demands urgent action, Defence Report Supplement, Australian, 31 October 2024.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Secrecy over Musk launch for ADF., Australian, 20 November 2024.
8.     Diggers get $40,000 to hang about, Australian, 5 November 2024.
9.     Defence to use 'Optus-X satellite launched earlier this week, itnews, 20 November 2024.
10    Australian, op.cit., 4 November 2024; and, SpaceX launches secretive 'OptusX' spacecraft, Space Connect, 18 November 2024.
11.   Australian, ibid., 4 November 2024.
12.   Ibid.
13.   Satellite cancellation shows Labor's priorities are wrong, Lead Editorial, Australian, 5 November 2024.   

 

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All foreign belligerents must withdraw from Syria and stop seizing its territory!

Written by: Nick G. on 4 December2024

 

Recent events in Syria call for the condemnation of the seizure of territories by proxies of regional expansionists Turkey and Iran.
Syrian government forces have relinquished control over Aleppo and other regions. 

 

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Reply to a reader

Written by: Nick G. on 4 December 2024

 

Dear Ken,

I am replying to your comments on our Facebook page about our attitude towards China.

I know you are a long-time reader of our material, and that you were, for a while, a leading member of our Party. They are both good reasons for listening to your criticisms and taking them seriously.

I also acknowledge your personal connections to China through family and friends as a strong basis for your defence of China.

One of your comments is: “At a time when we are facing a hot possible nuclear in Europe and the Middle east i would suggest that the CPAML concentrate on the activities of the United States Israel and their satraps including Australia instead of joining in China bashing.”

Ken, we have posted, to date, 212 articles and statements this year. Four of them have specifically criticised China, and the vast majority have “concentrated on the activities of the United States, Israel and their satraps including Australia.”

In the context of attacking US imperialism’s preparations for war with China, we have sometimes referred to China as an imperialist rival of the US, but that is in the context of depicting US imperialism as the main source of regional and global tensions, and as the number one enemy of the world’s people.

Ken, I don’t dispute that you “personally have seen the great rise in living standards under Xi Jinping”.

Like you, I have been to China many times, and have seen the same thing.

When I first went to China, the Cultural Revolution was still in full swing. Yes, there was poverty, but the power of the landlords had been broken and the wealth of capitalists confiscated. Whilst people were living frugally, the Party was committed to eliminating the gap between town and country, and the bourgeois right manifested in the gap between mental and manual labour.

It is wrong to say that the Cultural Revolution kept the Chinese in poverty. I was in China just after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and could see that living standards had gone up.  My belief is that if the socialist economy of China had continued past Deng’s restoration of capitalism, it would have continued to improve, and people’s living standards with it, but without the yawning gaps of contemporary China’s class structure.

You say that “Poverty is only glamorous for people who don't have to live in it”. For our part, we do not glamourise poverty, either here or in China.

What we have said (for example, in our Spring 2020 Australian Communist article China and the Widening of Relative Poverty  - AC+2020+Spring.pdf ) is that a socialist society committed to the elimination of class differences has become a capitalist society with one of the world’s largest Gini Coefficients, and that whilst many people have been lifted out of absolute poverty, they have been placed into the relative poverty of an entrenched capitalist class system.

Your comment on our post about Banana Man and his flaunting of wealth over a worthless piece of non-art is that we are “China bashing”.  Even if we had wanted to, there is no need to when China does such a good job of bashing itself through the ostentation and extravagance of the billionaires who have crept out from under Deng’s reforms.

Ken, you have shared Comrade Xiang Guanqi’s criticism of Xi Jinping Thought 12 times. Yes, we do need to have our profile raised, and may even get more followers thanks to your efforts.  However, we question why you have sent it to two pages that support the Palestinian people. What other reason is there for this than to try and undermine our standing with supporters of Palestine? Is it because you think that China supports Palestine, and that any criticism of China is a criticism of Palestine? China played a positive role in bringing together 14 organisations representative of the combined Palestinian resistance. As we said at the time, this was a good thing but China had its own agenda, achieving a united Palestinian statement supporting a “two-state solution” involving a state with which it has had diplomatic relations since 1992 and is currently Israel’s third largest trading partner globally.

You state that “China under Xi Jinping is supporting the Palestinians”. Diplomacy, and China’s vote at the UN, is important, but to send our material to Palestine support groups implies that we are more interested in “China bashing” a friend of the Palestinians, and are therefore not supporting the Palestinians ourselves.

Forty of this year’s articles on our website have been specifically in support of Palestine. That’s an average of a bit more than three a month. They have included reports on rallies, analyses of Zionist aggression, the posting of calls for the release of the long-imprisoned Georges Abdullah in France, and statements by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  Regrettably, you did not point this out in your sharing of our article on China with Facebook pages supporting Palestine.

Ken, as you know, there are three nominally Communist parties in Australia, only one of which supports “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and the Thought of Xi Jinping.

One of its leaders was recently interviewed on Chinese television supporting Xi’s multipolarity and peaceful coexistence with US imperialism.

It is important that we seek to cooperate with the other two parties in the interests of our working class, but we do so on the basis of acknowledging our differences.

We have a clear-cut stand on China as a capitalist and social-imperialist country.

It is our right to use the evidence that is available to us to explain that position.

We take your criticisms seriously, hence the length of this reply.

We will, however, have to agree to disagree on China.

Regards,

Nick G.

3 December 2024

 

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Health Workers For Palestine Lead Adelaide Rally

Written by: Ned K. on 2 December 2024

 

On Sunday 1 December, Health Care workers from Adelaide's public hospital system led the fortnightly Free Palestine rally at Parliament House steps and then demonstration along busy North Terrace.

The Free Palestine Sunday rallies in Adelaide entered their 14th continuous month. Each rally focused on different aspects of the heroic Palestinian people's struggle against the genocidal occupation by Israel, supported by the USA and other western powers including the Australian Government.

At this rally two public hospital Health Care workers spoke about the many hundreds of hospital workers in Gaza killed from Israeli bombings of hospitals and the thousands of women and children in particular they were caring for in those hospitals.

The speakers strikingly contrasted working as a Health Worker here in Adelaide compared with working in a hospital in Gaza. They led a minute's silence for all those Palestinian Health Workers who lost their lives and for all the children killed by Israeli bombs or missing presumed dead under the vast urban areas reduced to rubble by the bombing of civilian targets.

Then a student nurse addressed the rally and characterized his response to the genocide of the Palestinian people as "attack one, attack all". He said although thousands of kilometres away, he said he felt more solidarity with the Palestinians than any of the politicians of the major political parties in Australia.

Before the demonstration along North Terrace, one of the convenors of AFOPA, Mike Kazam, said that the resilience of the Palestinian people and the raising of voices by thousands of Australians in many different places and organizations and communities had been the main reason why Albanese and Penny Wong had come out with a slightly less pro-USA position on the decision of the International Criminal Court regarding arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his top cronies for war crimes.

He emphasized that people's actions in support of the Palestinians do make a difference and urged all present at the rally to continue participation in the struggle.

 

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New Government Housing Scheme - Does It Create Affordable Housing?

Written by: Ned K. on 1 December 2024

 

(Image: www,express.co.uk)

On Thursday 28 November 2024 the Albanese Government's Housing Scheme, to be known as the "Help To Buy Scheme" passed through the Senate. 

Without even reading the fine print, it appears to be providing both hope and depression for people desperate to buy their own homes.

The Scheme provides a government financed "equity contribution" of up to 40% of the cost of purchasing a newly built house and up to 30% of the cost of purchasing an existing house put up for sale.

A potential home buyer needs to have a minimum 2% of the price of the house as a deposit.

The home buyer does not have to pay rent on the government owned equity contribution towards the purchase price of the house.

The Scheme will run for 4 years and be available for up to 40,000 eligible low- and middle-income earners. What happens at the end of the 4 years is a case of "your guess is as good as mine".

To be eligible for the Scheme, an individual potential buyer must have income of no more than $90,000 per year. For a couple as potential buyer, their combined income must be no more than $120,000 per year.

If the new home buyer sells the house, the Scheme enables the federal Government to hold a 30% on the property. This means that 30% of the proceeds of sale would go to the Government.

A home buyer under this new "Help To Buy Scheme" will be able to buy back the Government's equity on the house after the first 2 years of occupancy by the home buyer. 

The risks for people participating in the Scheme are higher if house prices drop, or if interest rates rise or if the new home buyers' income declines due to insecure work and insecure income levels.

The new Scheme may enable more people to scrape enough money together for the initial purchase of a house which they would not otherwise have. Once having purchased the house, they will be like all other middle- and low-income home buyers who battle to pay the house off as well as all the other aspects of the rising costs of living under capitalism.

Whether working people try to rent or buy, they are always faced with years of housing insecurity, The fundamental cause of this is that the whole housing industry from the design of a building to its completion is based on building and maintaining housing for profit.

Only under socialism will housing of people be affordable and a basic human right rather than a way of capitalists in all the components that make up the housing industry making profit. 

 

 

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Banana billionaire emerges from Chinese “socialism”.

Written by: Nick G. on 1 December 2024

 

Once upon a time, there was a socialist country called China. It proudly proclaimed in the song “The East is Red”, that China had “brought forth a Mao Zedong.”

Today, as a capitalist country, the East must be red with embarrassment, for China has brought forth a Justin Sun (Sun Yuchen).

Last week, Sun ate a banana, cunningly disguised as a work of art, that he had bought at auction for 45 million yuan, or $A9.5 million.

Marie Antionette, whaddya reckon?

Sun was born in July 1990. At his age, many Chinese have only experienced hardship and exploitation under the restored relations of capitalist production.
Conditions are bad enough in China’s sweatshop factories, but even “brain-power proletarians” in white collar jobs are subjected to 9-9-6 conditions: working from 9am to 9pm six days a week with unpaid overtime an extra burden.

But Sun managed to get into the prestigious “Beida” (Beijing University) from which he graduated with a history degree.  This opened doors to study at the University of Pennsylvania, and from there, a job in 2013 with Silicon Valley’s Ripple Labs, returning to China as its sales rep.  

On 2017, Sun began his own blockchain-based operating platform TRON and launched the TRX as its cryptocurrency.

Shortly afterwards, Sun left China following its decision to ban cryptocurrencies.

In 2018, Sub bought out BitTorrent, Inc for $US140 million.

Sun has continued to amass great wealth. And like most of China’s new rich, he is given to ostentatious and extravagant displays of that wealth. 

In June 2019, Sun placed the winning $US4.6 million bid to have a private meal with Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

In December 2021, Sun announced that he had previously bid $28 million to be the first paying passenger on Blue Origin's first crewed mission into space on the New Shepard. Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos. Although he had won the auction, he was unable to attend the July 2021 flight due to a scheduling conflict.

On November21, Sun won the banana art auction. He then ate the million dollars banana at a Press conference. 

On November 26, Sun announced “We are delighted to have invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial @worldlibertyfi by investing $30 million, making it its largest investor. The US is becoming a blockchain hub thanks to support for Bitcoin by @realDonaldTrump  .” 

World Liberty Financial, was launched by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in September as his family's cryptocurrency venture.

Sun said in the post that his platform, TRON, is "committed to making America great again and leading innovation." Following his investment in Trump's venture, he became an advisor of World Liberty Financial.

But it is not as though Sun has broken his ties with his homeland and its capitalist-engendering social system because of its cryptocurrency ban.

According to Baidu’s online dictionary, Sun is a member of the 14th Guangzhou Panyu District CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference), Vice President of Guangzhou Youth Internet Development Association, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Davos Forum Global Distinguished Youth Beijing Community, all of which ensure that he has political capital as well as personal capital.    

So, this is where Deng Xiaoping’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” has led.

Instead of a Mao Zedong, we have a Sun Yuchen. 

And yet there are still people saying they support this phoney “socialism”.

Perhaps they are, poltically, as bent as a banana!

 

 

 

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Criticising Xi Jinping Thought

Written by: Xiang Guanqi on 1 December 2024

 

Above; A Quotation from Chairman X     Source: https://news.cgtn.com/

In Australian Left and progressive circles, there are some people who believe that China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” really is socialism, and that China’s social-imperialist rivalry with US imperialism really is anti-imperialism. Over the next few months, we will provide some of the writings of Comrade Xiang Guanqi, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, now in his 80s, who was a leading Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. We have added some footnotes to our translation of his work where we thought they might be useful – Eds.

Criticism of Xi Jinping’s Thought
Taking the 19th National Congress Political Report as an example

General Secretary Xi Jinping is the biggest revisionist in China, the biggest capitalist-roader in China, and the political representative of the biggest bureaucratic, authoritarian, and monopolistic bourgeoisie in China. When Chairman Mao was alive, the labels and criticisms that were put on revisionists are now very appropriate for General Secretary Xi Jinping.

With such class status and political identity, it is inevitable and understandable that General Secretary Xi Jinping attempted to develop the revisionist "Theory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" on the basis of betraying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and put forward the so-called "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" (hereinafter referred to as "Xi Jinping Thought").

I have long said that "time will prove that Deng Xiaoping Theory has no theory, while Mao Zedong Thought has real thought". Now, I still hold this view. Like all revisionists, from Bernstein and Kautsky to today, from "movement is everything, there is no ultimate goal", to "beef stew with potatoes is communism"(1), to "it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat", "development is the hard truth" (2), etc., what theory do they have?

None, not at all. Similarly, the arrogant General Secretary Xi Jinping has no theory. Is the dream, the Chinese dream, a theory? Of course not. In fact, if we carefully analyse the so-called "Xi Jinping Thought", we can't find any thought - the thought of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. At most, it is a hodgepodge of some bourgeois fashionable empty words and the dregs of feudal autocratic traditions. These things can only be the opposite of the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the opposite of the theory of scientific socialism. We Communists who adhere to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism must criticise them. I am now fulfilling this obligation.

Revisionists have always claimed to be Marxists. However, they do not really understand Marxism. Deng Xiaoping and his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao did not violate this law. Now, General Secretary Xi Jinping is also like this, and he appears to be more sincere, more high-profile, more innovative, and therefore more deceptive. In this case, we cannot but put the criticism of "Xi Jinping Thought" on the agenda. 

Please understand, General Secretary Xi Jinping

Asking Xi Jinping for permission to criticise

Article 41 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China clearly states: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or state employee; they have the right to file complaints, accusations or reports to the state organ concerned regarding any illegal or dereliction of duty behaviour by any state organ or state employee, but they must not fabricate or distort facts to make false accusations or frame others.

“The relevant state organs must investigate the facts and handle citizens' complaints, accusations or reports in a responsible manner. No one may suppress or retaliate against them."

This is a fundamental law that every citizen of the People's Republic of China should abide by. Calling the criticism of the masses "unwarranted discussion" is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution and is a gross violation of the Constitution.

As a Communist, we should have a good style of criticism and self-criticism. Chairman Mao said that the presence or absence of criticism and self-criticism is a distinctive mark that distinguishes Communists from other political parties. This is also the difference between a true Communist Party and a revisionist party. Revisionist parties are fascist parties, as Chairman Mao said, and they implement bourgeois fascist dictatorship and do not allow the masses to criticise or even speak. We cannot learn from the revisionist party and cannot do the fascist thing. We should act according to Chairman Mao's correct opinion.

Nowadays, people like to talk about "political rules". Normally carrying out criticism and self-criticism is the political norm for Communists. Whether the party's political life is lively or not depends mainly on whether there is criticism and self-criticism within the party. We still have to listen to Chairman Mao's words, "If people are allowed to speak, the sky will not fall, and we will not collapse. If people are not allowed to speak? Then it is inevitable that one day we will collapse." (People's Daily, June 21, 1967) Especially at present, for such an important and line-significant "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" and the "Political Report of the 19th National Congress" prepared according to this thought, criticism and self-criticism should be allowed throughout the party.

To just brag, and to brag without limit, is not the style of the Communists, and even the bourgeois parties would not bother to do it. I am afraid it is still our feudal national essence. This is a vulgar regression. In his late years (February 11, 1891), our ancestor Engels wrote to Karl Kautsky, "It is also necessary to make people stop being overly cautious in treating party officials - their servants, and stop treating them like perfect bureaucrats, obeying them in everything and not criticising them." It seems that this is an old problem, and it is not surprising that the old disease has recurred now. We can only cure them according to the prescription prescribed by our ancestors - criticism.

Criticism must be based on facts and seek truth from facts. Everyone is studying the "Political Report", and several members of the Standing Committee have also asked the whole party and the people of the country to do the same. Well, let's comment directly on the "Political Report". Naturally, our opinions are mainly critical, because we think this "Report" is poorly written. It has neither the high-level theoretical style of our party during the Chairman's era nor true insights. Instead, it is full of errors and even the writing level is very poor. It is a genuine revisionist report, which is both a product of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" and a typical example of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era".

Viewed in this light, perhaps the only value of this report is that it is a very good negative example. Criticizing it from the perspective of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is of positive significance for the entire Party and the people of the country, as it enables them to once again recognize the fundamental differences between Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and revisionism on the question of China.

There are only two possibilities for criticism. One possibility is that the criticism is right, and the other possibility is that the criticism is wrong. We cannot only demand that the criticism is right. We should also allow criticism that is wrong. Following the important advice given by Comrade Xi Zhongxun (3)  before his death means protecting different opinions. This is an important summary of the party's historical experience and a major issue concerning whether the party's style is right or not. I hope that General Secretary Xi Jinping, as the core of the Party Central Committee and the core of the Party, will set a good example and handle this issue correctly. We must not be unhappy when we see "little people" raising opinions, and we must not make a fuss, suppress, block, or even arrest people. Let's try it and test whether there is the minimum democratic style that a Communist should have. The fate of this criticism can also be regarded as a small touchstone.

These days, it seems that everyone is too busy to read long articles. It may be because of the fast pace or the impetuousness. Whatever the reason, I have to give in. So, I divide the long articles into sections and titles to make them shorter, and publish them one by one, which may be easier to read.

The term "moderately prosperous society" is not a scientific concept of Marxism

General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated in the "Political Report of the 19th National Congress": "The theme of the Congress is: Never forget the original aspiration, keep in mind the mission, hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, win the decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, win the great victory of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and work tirelessly to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

More than 2,000 years ago, the concept of "moderate prosperity" from the Book of Rites had a great influence in China. It briefly describes the transformation of human society from the primitive public ownership society of Datong (4)  to the moderately prosperous private ownership society. This is the memory of ancient history by mankind and the genius summary of thinkers. As far as the moderately prosperous society described in the Book of Rites is concerned, it is nothing more than a relatively self-sufficient and relatively stable class society based on private ownership. The "moderately prosperous society" pursued by later generations is also roughly the same.

What does this have to do with the ideals of the Communists, and with Marxist concepts of socialism and communism, which are scientific socio-economic and social forms? 

Nothing at all. 

This is not a scientific concept about socio-economic and social forms at all.

According to Deng Xiaoping's explanation, a "well-off society" is nothing more than a society that has solved the problem of food and clothing. For a Communist Party guided by scientific Marxist theory, it is ironic to use such a term as a "well-off society" as its own struggle program. Only Deng Xiaoping, a "big party boss who doesn't read books or newspapers", can do such a stupid thing. This reminds us of the famous saying of another clown, Khrushchev, "Beef stew with potatoes is communism." It is really a coincidence that the two revisionist leaders have such a consistent understanding of communism.

It is sad that the CPC, which bears the name of ‘Chinese Marxism’ and the signboard of ‘socialism’, can accept such a programme. Isn't it obvious to what extent this party has degenerated?

What is even more pathetic is that four decades have passed, and the Political Report of the 19th National Congress, which claims to have ushered in a ‘new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics’, still sets the goal of ‘building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects’ as its current goal of struggle. Doesn't this seem to be a deliberate attempt to vilify Xi Jinping Thought, which is written into the Party Constitution?

Do we still need to popularise Marxist common sense to the revisionist masters? 

In the eyes of Marxists, the proletarian communist revolution is, in the final analysis, a change of social system, a revolution to replace the outdated capitalist system that is bound to perish with the communist social system necessary for the new historical development.

This is a social revolution, not a productivity revolution, and certainly not a food and clothing revolution. In the eyes of Marxists, this is a replacement of the socio-economic and social forms. The productivity revolution is the inevitable premise of this social revolution. It is wrong and absurd to set the level of social productivity development as the goal of the Communists. According to the theory demonstrated in the Communist Manifesto, the bourgeoisie has prepared the productivity premise for the realization of socialism and communism. Naturally, the fact of subsequent historical development is that this productivity premise sometimes needs to be supplemented. However, even so, the goal of the Communists' struggle must not be just to put forward the productivity requirements.

As far as China's revolutionary practice is concerned, after the proletariat and the broad masses of working people seized power under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, due to the backward national conditions and backward productivity, there was a very urgent task of developing productivity in order to build socialism. Even Russia, which was much more advanced than China, also had huge deficiencies in productivity. Therefore, Lenin said that Soviet plus electrification is communism. It is not possible to not have electricity. The establishment of a socialist and communist society cannot be solid without its own economic foundation. Developing the economy is the basic task of all socialist countries. This is not a mysterious theoretical issue, it is common sense. As Marx said, human beings cannot survive if they do not produce for a week. People need to eat, wear clothes, and live a better and better life. This is the natural desire of human beings and a matter of course.

However, humans are not ordinary animals. They live in society and in groups. While pursuing material life, humans also pursue spiritual life and social life. In the long history of human private ownership class society, while creating their own material life, humans also created their own social life and spiritual life.

However, as Marx liked to use the "alienation" viewpoint in his youth, all the progress of productivity created by humans has in turn brought endless suffering to humans. It seems that the progress of productivity has brought humans their own regression and the loss of human nature, that is, alienation. This is the fundamental characteristic and fundamental weakness of human class society. The great discovery of Marxism tells us that only when human history has developed to this day can we defeat the last class society, the capitalist society, and create a socialist society and a communist society through hard efforts and struggles. If we only talk about productivity and food and clothing, we will completely deviate from the actual process of human social historical development, and of course we will also deviate from the Marxist view of historical materialism.

The great ideal of communism is to eliminate the historical limitations of class society, eliminate private ownership, eliminate classes, and eliminate the superstructure and ideology corresponding to these foundations through the proletarian communist revolution under the possible conditions provided by history. This is what the "Communist Manifesto" calls for to achieve "two breaks", thereby enabling mankind to reproduce its good nature at a higher historical level and truly realise human freedom, equality, and fraternity (as Engels said at the end of "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State").

This is a difficult historical process of continuous revolution. The Communists exist and take on the responsibility of leading this historical process. In this historical process, any principles, policies, and programs formulated by the Communists cannot deviate from the ultimate goal of achieving communism, which is the overall basic goal of struggle.

Marx discussed socialism, Lenin combined practice with more discussion, and Chairman Mao proposed the theory of socialist continuous revolution. In summary, the discussion of the revolutionary mentors explained that socialism is a process of continuous revolution of the social system from the perspectives of politics, economy, ideology and culture. We should not only talk about the development of productivity and the solution of the problem of food and clothing, but also talk about the historical conditions for the elimination of classes from the perspectives of economic relations, political relations, ideological and cultural relations, and we should also talk about the issue of people, that is, the issue of human liberation. As Lenin said, socialism is the elimination of classes. The elimination of classes is not just a matter of productivity, nor is it a matter of food and clothing. When defining their historical tasks, the Communists must not only have economic indicators, but also, and even more so, political indicators, ideological and cultural indicators, indicators for the transformation of people, and indicators for the entire society. However, the word "moderately prosperous" has obliterated all of this. If we only talk about food and clothing, even pigs and dogs need food and clothing. How can this be written into the Communist Party's program? Isn't this too insulting to the Chinese Communists and the Chinese people?

It is neither surprising nor accidental that such a foolish act has occurred. First, these revisionists are not communists at all. As Deng Xiaoping himself admitted, he himself did not know what socialism is. He was not clear about socialism, let alone communism. In their minds, boosting production is everything, and the so-called "development is the hard truth" means this. This is obviously contrary to the Communist Party's goal of struggle solemnly declared in the Communist Manifesto. 

Second, these revisionists do not understand the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism at all. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a revolutionary doctrine, but this revolutionary doctrine is based on scientific theory, not a subjective good wish and pursuit. For more than 40 years, from Deng Xiaoping to the present, where is the theoretical cultivation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism among the revisionist rulers? They only have pragmatism, not scientific research, so they can only say things like "cat theory", "touch theory", "breakthrough theory" (5) , and even "moderately prosperous" which is a vague statement, and they use their power to impose it on the whole party.

Third, the fundamental problem of these revisionists is still their class standpoint. The theory of communism is ultimately for the proletariat and the broad masses of working people to rise up and seek liberation, to replace private ownership with public ownership, to eliminate exploitation and classes; the dictatorship of the proletariat is also for this purpose. Therefore, every step forward in the cause of socialism and communism, the first and foremost consideration is the emancipation of the proletariat and the masses of the working people, which is not just a question of material productive forces or the level of economic development, but a question of what kind of society is to be constructed, or, as it is often said, the question of why the people are there. Deng Xiaoping and other revisionists have no concept of the masses in their minds. Their position is that of the bureaucratic, autocratic, and monopolistic bourgeoisie. Their “don’t care” means that they don’t care about the life and death of the working people, or their liberation. Their “hard truth” results in letting the bourgeoisie get rich first, especially letting the bureaucratic, autocratic, and monopolistic bourgeoisie get rich first. Their so-called “moderately prosperous” is just to give the people “food and clothing”, a minimum condition that can guarantee the reproduction of labour, but they themselves are more than “moderately prosperous”? They have long been wealthy tycoons and big bourgeoisie with huge wealth in their hands. Therefore, they will not and dare not disclose their property. 

When we say "never forget our original aspiration", what is the "original aspiration"? It means building socialism and communism. However, the concept of "moderately prosperous society" cannot express the scientific concept of socialism and communism, the ideal of the Communists, and the "original aspiration" that truly belongs to the proletariat and the broad masses of working people. To paraphrase the words of the revolutionary mentor, throw away the dirty shirt of "moderately prosperous society"! It damages the noble image of the Communists.

We must hold high the red flag of communism and implement into practice the specific requirements of every step forward, from politics, economy, ideology and culture to the development of society as a whole. This is what our great cause of communism requires, this is what embodies the scientific thought of continuous revolution of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and this is the right path for mankind.

This is not a small matter, but a major one, the so-called ‘what flag to hold and what path to take’. Whether or not we can draw a clear line with Deng Xiaoping's revisionist line, and whether or not we are going back to Deng Xiaoping's evil path of restoring capitalism, are all centrally reflected in this question of the programme. There can only be one choice, and there can be no compromise. Whether to build a ‘moderately prosperous society’ or a socialist or communist society is a test for General Secretary Xi Jinping, for every member of the Communist Party, and for the entire nation.

The correct answer of history is clear and unshakeable: socialism and communism are the only correct choice for the Chinese people.

We want a socialist and communist society, not a ‘moderately prosperous society’!

                                                                                             10th November 2017

(1) Following the 1956 Hungarian Counter-revolution, Hungary’s revisionist leader promised an increase in living standards, referred to approvingly by Khrushchev as “goulash communism” – Trans.

(2) On his infamous Southern Tour at the star of 1992, Deng said “It is necessary to pay attention to the stable and coordinated development of the economy, but stability and coordination are also relative, not absolute. Development is the hard truth. This question needs to be clarified.”  A similar expression in English is “the last word”.  He was advocating that economic development must take precedence over socialist principles – Trans.

(3) Xi Zhongxun  (October 15, 1913 – May 24, 2002) is the father of Xi Jinping.  He became a member of the Communist Party of China in 1928. In 1932, Xi Zhongxun launched the Liangdang Mutiny, and then successively served as the chairman of the Soviet Government of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region and the secretary of the Guanzhong Special Committee of the Communist Party of China. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Xi Zhongxun served as secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and political commissar of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningjin-Sui Joint Defense Army. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xi Zhongxun served as a member of the Central People's Government, and a member of the People's Revolutionary Military Committee of the Central People's Government. Xi Zhongxun was criticised during the Cultural Revolution and emerged from it to follow the revisionist line of Deng Xiaoping – Trans.

(4) Datong is both the name of a city in Shanxi Province and also the title of an ancient book, translated as “The World of Great Harmony”. The book depicts an ideal world where everyone is virtuous, everyone respects the elderly, everyone loves the young, there is no unevenness, and no one is lacking warmth – Trans.

(5) “Cat theory” refers to Deng Xiaoping’s encouragement to ignore the colour of the cat “so long as it catches mice”; "crossing the river by feeling the stones", also known as “touch theory”, was a Chinese folk expression popularised by Chen Yun, an associate of Deng Xiaoping, and advocated ignoring theory and the experience of predecessors to fid one’s way by pragmatism and experiment; “breakthrough theory” is Deng Xiaoping’s call for the courage to try and dare to break into the world as the practical method underlining all reform. Deng said “reform and opening up should be more bold, dare to experiment, do not be like a woman with small feet. If you see what you want, you should try boldly and break through boldly” – Trans.

 

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US Capital Eyeing Rented Apartment Market

Written by: Ned K. on 30 November 2024

 

(Above: Gladstone apartment block, South Melbourne  Photo: www.thegladstone.com.au)

On Thursday 28 November the federal Government's Housing Scheme and Build To Rent Scheme passed through the Senate with the last-minute support of The Greens. 

The two Bills became law in the same week that there were more media reports of examples of people having to live in over-crowded, unhygienic rented rooms within flats to avoid living on the streets. The room renting is called "hot bedding" which is sharing the same beds in over-crowded beds of up to 20 people per room and living rooms partitioned for more sleeping places. Sub-letting in large cities like Sydney is also common where there is no written lease, rent paid in cash, no return on bond deposits and no proof to fight evictions. In the same week, it was announced that Perth had overtaken Sydney as the most expensive city to rent with one-bedroom flats being rented for $550 per week.

Prime Minister Albanese was visibly relieved to see the housing and rent related Bills become law. Will they solve the affordable housing and rental crisis in Australia? Not likely. The fundamental reason the Bills will not solve the crisis is that the schemes arising from the Bills obey the private for-profit engine of capitalism.

Build To Rent Scheme

In this article, let's take a look at the Build To Rent Scheme. In a second article to follow, we'll have a look at the Government's new Housing Scheme. 

The Build To Rent Scheme opens the gates for imperialist capital investment in the housing apartment sector. This follows its presence in Australia in the overseas student accommodation market and in commercial and industrial property markets. The Scheme is called a "tax reform" because big overseas capital investors in apartment blocks will get the with-holding tax rate of 30% reduced to the same 15% rate that applies for commercial and industrial property.

At the same time, foreign capital investors in building apartment blocks will get a capital works tax reduction increase from 2.5% to 4%. This allows expenses to be depreciated over a 25-year period rather than the current 40 years. The only restriction on the foreign capital investors is that tenants must be what is called long Term Rental which means a minimum of three years with the same tenant. 

There are no conditions placed on the rent price of the apartments, so the Scheme's "carrots" offered to foreign capital do not guarantee that the rents will be "affordable". 

An example of the foreign capital "interest" in the apartment rental market is Greystar, from Charleston in South Carolina in the USA. Described as an "American juggernaut" by Real Commercial, Greystar has already built its first "built to rent" apartment towers in Gladstone Street in South Melbourne and called the three-tower apartment block Gladstone which has 700 units in all. 

Greystar has real estate investments in apartments valued at $US315 billion.

Greystar boss Bob Faith wants to "team up" with pension funds and other sources of finance capital to build more apartment towers and attract middle-income earners to occupy them as long-term renters. Greystar is also planning to enter the overseas student accommodation sector in Australia through a takeover of Singapore based GIC.

The Albanese Government and previous governments are well known for being tied in so many ways to US  imperialism. Now the apartment rental sector in Australia can be added to the list!

Affordable housing for working people, retired people, students, unemployed will only be possible to its fullest extent when Australian economy is owned by the people and all sectors of the economy run for people's needs, not profits.

 

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American mining giant destroys Australia’s native forests

Written by: Leo A. on 29 November 2024

 

For generations, Australia’s natural resources have been plundered by foreign bourgeois interests. As the nation currently playing the largest role in preventing our true independence, it should come as no surprise that the United Sates plays a large hand in this.

Jarrah forest is a unique ecosystem consisting of tall, open forest dominated by the Jarrah tree Eucalyptus marginata. This ecosystem can be found in exactly one location on the entire planet, in the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia. American aluminium giant Alcoa, which is based in the state of Pennsylvania, has been mining the land this ecosystem sits on for bauxite since the 1960s. A new scientific review published in the journal Restoration Ecology has revealed that damage to the affected land may be permanent. 

Alcoa is officially required to rehabilitate the land it mines, but hasn’t completed this for any of the 280 square kilometres it has cleared. The company claims that the land it has mined can be restored, but the new review casts doubt on this, describing Alcoa’s efforts as “substandard” and on a “poor to declining trajectory”. Endangered species affected include Carnaby's black cockatoos, quokkas, and western ringtail possums. 

Jess Beckerling, executive director of Conservation Council WA, stated that it is “absurd” that Alcoa is permitted to continue evading environmental legislation, adding that “once these forests are gone, they’re gone forever”. Of course, none of the company’s key figures in Pittsburgh care about this. Even back in America, Alcoa has been criticised for its environmental record, and in 2008 was ranked 15th among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States. For comparison, Boeing ranked 47th. 

At both the state and federal level, Australia’s so-called “leaders” allow the natural ecosystems of our landmass to be torn up and trampled over for the sake of profit, by both foreign and domestic interests. While efforts can and should be made to slow down this ecological tragedy under the current system, only an independent and socialist Australia will be capable of ensuring the permanent preservation and recovery of our environment. 

 

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A Message from the Foreign Affairs Department of DFLP Regarding the ICC Decision

Written by: DFLP on 25 November 2024

 

The First Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued two arrest warrants on November 21, 2024, against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They are charged with committing crimes against humanity, including murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, as well as war crimes, such as using starvation as a method of warfare. These decisions were made unanimously by the court's 18 judges. Additionally, the court issued two unanimous rulings rejecting requests submitted by Israel on September 26, 2024. The first challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction over the situation in the State of Palestine and its applicability to Israeli citizens, while the second sought to suspend proceedings concerning arrest warrant requests.

In January 2024, Mexico and Chile referred the situation in Palestine to the ICC Prosecutor, requesting an investigation into potential crimes under its jurisdiction. This was followed by submissions from several countries and human rights organizations accusing Israel of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. In mid-May of the same year, the ICC Prosecutor requested the First Pre-Trial Chamber to issue arrest warrants related to the situation in the State of Palestine. This development triggered significant pressure from some Western countries on the ICC judges to influence judicial processes and prevent the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli officials. Israel, meanwhile, was reassured by Western promises that no such warrants would be issued.

However, given Israel’s failure to investigate war crimes committed by its forces in Gaza and the West Bank, and as the crime of genocide in Gaza became a global public issue due to widespread demonstrations across world cities demanding an end to the killing of the Palestinian people, the ICC judges—bound by their legal oaths—had no option but to issue arrest warrants. This decision was based on available evidence, documents, and data, particularly as the ICC Prosecutor had previously attempted to visit Israeli settlements near Gaza but was barred from entering the area, in what appeared to be an Israeli effort to obstruct the ICC’s work.

Although the ICC has issued arrest warrants in the past, the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant have garnered significant attention worldwide due to the growing international importance of the Palestinian cause and the extensive protection provided to Israel and its leaders by Western nations. These leaders have long avoided accountability before international justice despite committing numerous crimes against the Palestinian people in particular and the Arab peoples in general. This marks the first time in the history of international justice and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that arrest warrants have been issued against Israeli officials—a historic precedent that all countries, including those not signatories to the Rome Statute, should respect and implement. The warrants represent not only a victory for Palestine and the families of the martyrs who fell in the ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank but also a victory for justice, international law, and humanity’s values.

The significance of these warrants lies in their targeting of Israeli officials at the pinnacle of the state’s fascist hierarchy, demonstrating that "Israel as a state," through all its institutions, is responsible for crimes committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. This carries several implications:

First: It is clear that these arrest warrants will spark debates in some countries, despite the high professionalism demonstrated by the ICC judges, who hail from states that are allies of Israel. This reflects the double standards and political hypocrisy in addressing similar issues, particularly when compared to the widespread approval by the same countries for the arrest warrant issued against the Russian president.

Second: Mere declarations of respect and commitment to ICC decisions by the international community, particularly Western states, are insufficient. These must be accompanied by punitive measures against the occupying state, similar to sanctions imposed on other nations, which targeted government institutions and individuals linked to official authorities.

Third: Countries supplying weapons to Israel must halt such support. Germany, for instance, explicitly stated that its stance on arms deliveries to Israel remains unchanged following the ICC's decision, raising the need for increased pressure on arms-supplying states and companies. This issue extends to military companies and civilian institutions that provide equipment used by the Israeli army for military purposes.

Fourth: International organizations, especially UN agencies and regional bodies, must refuse to allow Netanyahu and Gallant to address their platforms or participate in any political discussions or forums. Civil, health, educational, and cultural organizations worldwide should sever all relations with Israel and its institutions, reassessing these ties to avoid supporting a state now pursued by the highest international court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Regardless of the fate of these warrants, they remain an indelible mark of shame for Netanyahu and his supporters, even in death. The warrants restore some credibility to international judicial and legal systems, which had eroded due to their failure to hold Israel accountable for defying international will to the extent of enacting laws labeling UN organizations, such as the UNRWA, as terrorist entities. This places the world at a crossroads, testing the credibility of systems established post-World War II to ensure global security and stability.

While there is much speculation about the ICC's motives behind issuing these arrest warrants, it is undeniable that the court’s move would not have been possible without the sacrifices and steadfastness of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This is a definitive indictment of the fascist nature of the occupation state, led by Netanyahu and his coalition partners, the pillars of contemporary fascism (Ben-Gvir and Smotrich).

These arrest warrants target the apex of Israel’s criminal hierarchy, but this hierarchy rests on a broad base. It is therefore imperative for the ICC to expand its pursuit of other war criminals within the occupying state, including ministers, officers, and security officials whose responsibilities for the crimes against the Palestinian people are no less significant than those of Netanyahu and Gallant.

If Israel is confident in its claims of innocence and compliance with international law, it should allow the accused to stand trial and present their evidence. However, Israel’s frantic appeals for immediate support from the United States and Western allies indicate that it has little to present in its defense, resorting instead to repeated accusations of antisemitism and other tactics designed to divert attention from its crimes against the Palestinian people.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Foreign Affairs Department welcomes the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister. We consider this step the beginning of a long journey of tireless struggle involving all advocates of freedom, democracy, and international law, including both general and humanitarian law, to uphold the principle of "no impunity," which has historically allowed the Israeli army to continue its crimes since 1948. Failure to hold perpetrators accountable would amount to complicity by international political, legal, and judicial frameworks in these crimes.

We simultaneously condemn the U.S. administration’s stance against the ICC, its judges, and rulings. This position reveals the true intentions of the United States, which seeks to undermine the international system and its institutions—such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the ICC, and other agencies—replacing them with a U.S.-dominated global order based on militarized relationships and alliances, in direct opposition to the principles of democracy and the rights of peoples to live in peace and security on their land while developing their economies and resources.

The international community must defend its institutions and confront U.S. policies, thwarting its plans in favor of a multipolar world order that respects cultural diversity and the rights of nations to choose political systems that serve their interests.

We call on all states, signatories and non-signatories to the Rome Statute, to support the ICC as a tool of international justice, shielding it from Western and U.S. pressures aimed at paralyzing its role or obstructing the execution of arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and others proven to have committed war crimes against the Palestinian people. Popular movements, political parties, and unions worldwide are urged to intensify their efforts to pressure states hostile to international law, advocating for justice and accountability while cutting all ties with Israeli war criminals.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- Foreign Affairs Department –
November 2024

 

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Revolutionary Fighting Program

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 25 November 2024

 

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

For an Independent, Socialist Australia!

REVOLUTIONARY FIGHTING PROGRAM OF THE

COMMUNIST PARTY OF AUSTRALIA (MARXIST-LENINIST)

 

 

 

The Australian people are facing a crisis of rising cost of living, housing, healthcare, aged care, climate change, attacks on workers, unions and democratic rights and threat of a major war, and much more.  

At the same time the enormous wealth created by working people of this country is taken by multinational corporations, the dominant section of the capitalist ruling class. The main contradiction in Australia is between the Australian people and US imperialism. 

The Australian people demand, are entitled to and we fight for:

1. Australia to be free from all foreign and local corporate control

We must take control of our national resources, industries, banks and institutions to run society in the interests of the people, not multinational corporations.  Only then can people’s needs and protection of the environment be met and communities flourish for the benefit of all. 

2.   An Australia that guarantees full, dignified and secure employment for all

The immense wealth created by the labour of millions of Australia’s working people must be put in their hands to build local, sustainable industries and secure employment for all. Australia’s wealth belongs to the Australian people, not the multinational corporations.

3. The right of every Australian to have secure and dignified housing

We fight for a society that guarantees access to decent and dignified housing for every Australian. Homelessness, housing insecurity and poverty have no place in a modern society. 

4.  Universal, properly funded public education that serves the wellbeing of all people and needs of society. 

We believe in a system of education that empowers the people, to build a society that benefits the people. 

An education system must serve the peoples’ needs as members of modern society. Through public education, the people must be able to fully develop their own intellectual capabilities and gain the practical skills necessary for each to live empowered and enriched social lives. The Australian education system must be guided by the needs of its peoples’ intellectual and practical development, not by the needs of private investment, private industry nor for the preservation of conservative and reactionary ideologies.

5. Free and high-quality health care of all Australians 

We fight for free, high quality public healthcare system for all based on public need, not private profit.  

Health care should be a social service, not for private profit.  

The Australian people deserve and require full access to a high-quality health system that allows them to lead physically and mentally healthy lives.

6.  The rights of all working people to a decent standard of living

Every worker has the right to a decent standard of living, safe working conditions and economic security.  

In today’s capitalist society the benefits of surplus value (including profits) created by the labour of workers don’t go to the working class, the biggest class in our society.  These huge profits are pocketed by a tiny but powerful capitalist class which privately owns the means of production.  

The wealth created by working people needs to be taken out of the hands of this tiny corporate class and put in the hands of working people to ensure this wealth goes to the provision of decent and secure standards of living, free health care, education, childcare, proper housing, aged care and protection of the environment.

The advances in industry, technology, natural and medical sciences must be controlled and guided by working people, to provide full and secure employment, to lift the well-being of people and the environment, not enrich a handful of corporations.  

7.  We stand in struggle with the working class

For the right to strike, to organise, for decent wages and conditions, for justice, peace, and solidarity with working people around the world.  We fight for independent working class demands not tied to parliamentary parties.

8.  End Australia’s subservience to the USA.  

We fight for Australia’s independence.

Close all US and foreign military and intelligence bases; expel all US troops.

Cancel AUKUS and the Force Posture Agreement and develop a foreign policy that stipulates the sovereignty and independence of Australia while respecting and upholding the sovereignty of all countries and peoples.

The US-Australia military “alliance” embodies the dominance of US imperialism over Australia and its subservient ruling class. 

The subservient Australian government is spending hundreds of billions of people’s taxes in turning Australia into a US base and a launching pad for US-led imperialist wars.  The hundreds of billions of dollars of public funds must be used for the needs of the people, not for embedding the military industrial complex in Australia’s industries, economy and education.

Build Australia’s sovereign defence industries for the self - defence of Australia, not for US imperialist wars.  The US-Australia alliance is the real and only threat to Australian people’s peace, security and sovereignty.

The Australian people want no part in US-led imperialist wars of aggression.  

9.  Sovereignty and liberation of Australia’s First People

With the First Peoples we fight for the decolonisation and liberation of Indigenous Australians. This means economic and political self-determination, genuine land rights, reparations, the rights to autonomy and genuine and enforceable Treaties.  Australia will never be genuinely independent without the First Peoples winning their sovereignty and self-determination.

10.   We fight multinational fossil fuel corporations to protect the environment and biodiversity.

The damage to the environment as a result of capitalist plunder has reached potentially catastrophic proportions for humanity and the planet.
The united struggle of the people can challenge and resist the domination of multinational fossil fuel corporations and hasten their demise.

11.   Independent Socialist Australia

End US imperialist domination of Australia economically, politically, militarily and culturally.

Establishment of an independent Australian socialist republic, run by and for working people of this country. Socialist Independence means also an end to foreign interference by sub-imperial ruling class at the behest of U.S Imperialism.

The Australian parliament serves the international corporations that robs the country and its people of its wealth and fails to invest this wealth back into public healthcare, education, housing and all other people’s needs.  We believe that the real democracy and people power will grow out of people’s own grass roots mass organisations and movements based on participatory democracy under the leadership of the working class. 

12.   Independent people’s mass organisations and struggle

A people’s united anti-imperialist mass movement will free Australia from foreign and local corporate control and build the country to meet the needs and wellbeing of the people and the environment.

Australia’s people have a rich and proud tradition of struggle against oppression and injustice.  It began with the First People’s armed resistance to brutal British colonisation of their people.  It was taken up by the impoverished miners in the 1854 Eureka uprising against the oppressive British colonial authorities.

The rebels fought for justice, a decent standard of living and independence from Britain.  Australian people’s resistance to exploitation and the struggle for a better life and justice continues today.

The Australian people refuse to live in a system that concentrates obscene wealth to the apex of society while condemning ordinary Australians and workers to insecurity, poverty and oppression. The Australian people know what sort of society they want to live in.

We continue the fight for an independent socialist Australia.

Link to full General Program: Vanguard - Communist Party of Australia Marxist Leninist  

This CPA-ML Fighting Program is published in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle and other anti-imperialist struggles around the world. 

 

 

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The financial black hole that is AUKUS

Written by: Nick G. on 22 November 2024

 

Former Australian Defence Force head Sir Angus Houston, has warned that without a significant budget boost, the AUKUS arrangements will cause the government to “cannibalise” other “defence” projects.

He warned of signs of budget pressure emerging already. Earlier this month, Australia killed a $5.3 billion satellite contract with Lockheed Martin, with one analyst saying more cuts will likely have to happen as the true cost of AUKUS emerges. (“True cost” is an admission that there will be substantial blow-outs beyond the current projected cost of $368 billion, or $33.6 million per day over the next 30 years).

Houston is a loyal servant of US imperialism’s stranglehold on Australia and was not criticising AUKUS.

He was calling for an increase in the “defence” budget to accommodate the cost of AUKUS. 

As co-leader of the recent Defence Strategic Review, he had projected a $55.5 billion budget for 2024-25, rising to $67.9 billion in 2027-28 — roughly 2.2 percent of GDP. 

The government of US empire loyalists has pledged to increase defence spending by $50.3 billion over the next decade, with the plan being to hit $100 billion by 2033. That would put the country at 2.4 percent of GDP.  

Now Houston is calling for “defence” spending to be raised to “3% plus” of GDP going into the next decade.

“Three per cent plus” by 2030 would add tens of billions to the “defence” budget, billions that would have to be diverted from housing, health, country roads and other socially urgent budgetary requirements.

This is at a time when the economy is slowing, not growing.

Recent polls indicate that a growing number of Australians are questioning AUKUS.

We have to focus our mass work on raising questioning to the level of demands for the cancellation of AUKUS.

The goal of anti-imperialist independence and socialism is being brought into AUKUS discussions.

 

 

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G20 – Chinese social-imperialism on the march

Written by: Nick G. on 21 November 2024

 

(Above: Xi Jinping addresses the G20 in Brazil.   Photo: Xinhua)

Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks at the 19th G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he called for building a fair and equitable global governance system and outlined China's eight actions for global development, outflanked rival US imperialism, currently floundering between the final days of the Biden administration and the aggressive protectionism promised by incoming President Trump.

The soft diplomacy and honeyed words from the Chinese President hark back to the days when under Khrushchev’s phoney “communism”, the world was promised “peaceful coexistence”. Khrushchev’s “peaceful coexistence” assumed that imperialism, and US imperialism in particular, would give up their butcher’s knives and turn into Buddhas just because the Soviet Union was now promising to peacefully accommodate their demands by ceasing support for national liberation and other revolutionary struggles.

Lenin and Stalin correctly saw peaceful coexistence between countries with different social systems as desirable and necessary for the Soviet Union’s peaceful construction of socialism. But they had no illusions about the inevitability of wars so long as imperialism existed, and placed, alongside their policy of peaceful coexistence, their internationalist duty to support revolutionary struggle.

“Soviet Russia,” said Lenin, “considers it her greatest pride to help the workers of the whole world in their difficult struggle for the overthrow of capitalism.”
Xi Jinping said nothing about the dangers of imperialism from his G20 platform.

"We should keep in mind that mankind lives in a community with a shared future, see each other's development as opportunities rather than challenges, and view each other as partners rather than rivals," he said. 

He fed the illusion that imperialist rivalry could somehow benefit humanity, asking US imperialism to work with his own Chinese social-imperialism to “promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization."

Fighting hunger and poverty has become a priority issue at this year's G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, with the first session of the G20 Summit focusing on the issue and a Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty launched, with China having decided to join as a key participant. 

Sometimes praised for lifting hundreds of millions of its own people out of poverty, Chinese social-imperialism portrays itself as a champion of global poverty alleviation through its “partnerships” with countries of the Global South.

But China exports capital for the same reason as the US and other imperialist countries: to capture sources of raw materials and to extract surplus-value from the labour-power of workers in countries made dependent on Chinese capital.

China itself is a negative example of capitalist “poverty alleviation”. In Chairman Mao’s time, advancing along the socialist road, it was one of the world’s most egalitarian and least socially polarised countries. 

China is a wealthier country today than it was at any time during the era of Chairman Mao. The capitalist mode of production, however, ensures the unequal distribution of that wealth. The social relations of China, the great gaps that socialism was successfully reducing, have deteriorated as the material wealth has increased.  Capitalist methods in China have resulted in a faster elimination of absolute poverty, but at the cost of entrenching massive relative inequality and a new class structure. 

China’s contribution to “global poverty alleviation” will impose the same development pattern of wealth for a few and a widening of the gap between the lucky few and the mass of the people.

It is regrettable that in our country, the same sort of people who fell for Khrushchev’s phoney communism and “peaceful coexistence” have also fallen for “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “stability through multipolarity”. 

In the absence of a clearly proletarian class outlook, and without a conscious struggle to understand and repudiate revisionism, the illusions spread by Xi Jinping fall on fertile ground.
 

 

 

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The strange case of the JP9102 satellite system

Written by: (Contributed) on 18 November2024

 

 (Above: A March 2022 statement by Boeing of its investment in the JP9102 satellite    Image from www.ex2.com.au/)

Controversy surrounding the decision in Canberra to cancel research and development of a sensitive satellite system has raised interesting issues and divisions within the corridors of power. Reliable information in the public domain from elsewhere, however, has already revealed that the decision was taken following US research and development of different systems, raising serious concerns about interoperability between the Pentagon and Australia.

In early November an official Australian government announcement that the proposed JP9102 satellite system was to be cancelled led to a prolonged series of controversial statements surrounding defence and security provision. (1) The initial research for the development of the sophisticated satellite system began in 2019, and was placed for tender in 2021; Lockheed Martin had been selected to deliver the system last year. (2)

Information emerging about the JP9102 system has revealed it was to have included 'multiple ground stations across Australia … and … two new satellite operations centres'. (3)

It was also recorded as operational 'across a vast region, from the central Indian Ocean (Diego Garcia) to Solomon Islands, and from the Artic to the Antarctic'. (4)

The range and the capacity of the JP9102 system was centred on an area of Indonesia where planning for a new capital city, Nusantara, is also under-way; controversy has already arisen due to the role of China with the planning and construction and their later diplomatic role. Nusantara is strategically placed midway on a sensitive US intelligence arc from Diego Garcia to Guam from Pine Gap, over the line, and below the actual straight line from Diego Garcia and Guam. (5)

Composed of three to five satellites specifically for the Indo-Pacific region, the JP9102 contract was hindered by delay leading to its eventual cancellation. (6) A Senate committee was recently informed that '$90m of taxpayers' money had been wasted on the project'. (7)

Initial planning for the JP9102 geosynchronous system, nevertheless, included provision for it to be stationed at about 36,500 kms above earth, and to provide a multitude of roles including an 'uncrackable data network for communications and data links for our advanced fighter jets, naval assets and land forces'. (8) It was officially noted, however, that the whole JP9102 system was assessed as increasingly vulnerable due to 'increasingly aggressive and provocative Chinese and Russian counter-space operations across the full range of Earth orbits'. (9)  

Reports that China had recently test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in the Pacific, also heightened fears of the vulnerability of the JP9102 system. (10)

While the decision taken by Canberra to cancel the JP9102 system resulted in tidal waves of finger-pointing and controversy, reliable information elsewhere provided the main reasons for the decision.

It has been noted that the US has developed a tendency to move away from single-orbit constellations due to their vulnerability; moves are already afoot for the Pentagon to prioritise multi-orbit capability and low-earth orbit communications systems. (11)

Interoperability between the US systems and that of their allies appear to have been the main reason for the decision to cancel the JP9102. A statement from Canberra following the controversy noted, however, 'the ADF needed a more resilient system than the one that was originally planned because of new technology which enables satellites to literally be shot out of the sky'. (12)

An official statement from Canberra noted, furthermore, 'the project (JP9102), which would have been the nation's biggest space investment – was originally envisaged as a sovereign owned and operated system, but that might no longer be what the ADF would get. Under the revised plan … the ADF could potentially pay for guaranteed access to a satellite system operated by an ally or commercial vendor'. (13)

It was noted, furthermore, the 'US Space Development Agency (SDA) has awarded contracts to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to build satellites for the SDA's Transport Layer low-earth orbit communications system'. (14)

In conclusion, during the meantime, the Australian government and Defence will be using the following systems for regional military and security provision:

                                1.     Optus C-1 satellite;
                                2.     Intelsat IS – 22;
                                3.     US Space Forces SATCOM., WGS network. (15)

An accompanying statement from the Chief of Joint Capabilities, Susan Coyle, stated 'the department would work with partners and vendors next year to provide advice on an accelerated pathway to deliver alternative capability to the ADF by the early 2030s if not sooner. (16)

The decision to cancel the JP9102 system was taken, however, to comply with the Pentagon-led interoperability:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Satellites go out: defence in $7 bn hit, Australian, 4 November 2024.
2.     Diggers to get $40k bonus to hang about, Australian, 5 November 2024.
3.     Lockheed Martin to deliver, Australian Government – Defence, 3 April 2023.
4.     Satellites go out, Australian, op.cit., 4 November 2024.
5.     See: Indonesia's new capital city, Monash University, 12 September 2022; and, Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.
6.     Satellites go out, Australian, op.cit., 4 November 2024.
7.     Budget 'prioritisation' in satellite plan axing, Australian, 7 November 2024.
8.     Moving toward control of our space domain, Defence Report Supplement, Australian, 31 October 2024; and, Letter, Ross McDonald, Gordon, NSW., e Australian, 6 November 2024.
9.     Moving toward control of our space domain, ibid., Australian, 31 October 2024.
10.   Chinese missile launched in Pacific, Australian, 26 September 2024.
11.   Defence confirms JP9102 cancellation, ADM., Hanwha Defence Australia, 4 November 2024.
12.   Budget 'prioritisation' in satellite plan axing, op.cit., Australian, 7 November 2024.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Defence confirms JP9102 cancellation, op.cit., ADM., 4 November 2024.
15.   Ibid.
16.   Budget 'prioritisation' in satellite plan axing, op.cit., Australian, 7 November 2024.

 

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Nullarbor Plain Environment Threatened By Proposed "Green" Hydrogen Energy Hub

Written by: Ned K. on 18 November2024

 

"Developers" Intercontinental Energy and CWP Global are planning one of the largest "green" hydrogen energy production hubs on the Nullarbor Plain north of Eucla. The project involves building a desalination plant, use of ground water in the Basin below the Nullarbor, 3,000 wind turbines and 60 million solar panels. The multinational corporations involved claim it will produce 3.5 million tonnes of "green" hydrogen a year for the Australian and international market.

According to The Weekend Australian of 16-17 November, the corporations involved in this proposal formed a "partnership" with Korea Electric Power Corporation, the largest South Korean electricity provider. 

Venture capitalists Paris-headquartered Hy24, and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation GIC have together sunk equity investment totalling $US115 million ($180 million) into the project.

The project will involve hydrogen electrolysers, water and hydrogen pipelines, a new port and the clearing of over 27,000 hectares of Nullarbor Plain land.

The corporations involved claim 10% of the venture will be owned by the First Nations Mirning people who have native title rights to the area. InterContinental (46 per cent), CWP Global (44 per cent) account for the remaining 90% ownership.

Intercontinental Energy and CWP Global had previously begun a similar-sized green hydrogen project in the Pilbara, the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH). In 2022, British multinational BP bought into the project and took over its operations, renaming it the Australian Renewable Energy Hub.

Scientists say that the project will be a disaster for the Nullabor Plain environment which includes extensive underground caves and unique fauna.

The corporations and WA Government of course say that "avoidance of impact" on environment and marine life is their highest priority!

The scientists say "The caves have preserved ancient underground landscapes, environmental histories and fauna that have remained frozen in time for hundreds of thousands and even millions of years".

The network of the cave system and groundwater system is so interconnected that scientists say that the project cannot avoid or mitigate harm to this environmentally fragile area. 

In 1994 the area in question in a report to the UN found that the Nullarbor karsts met World Heritage criteria.

The message from the scientists is "go build your ‘green’ hydrogen hub somewhere else"!

In the hands of multinational corporations and their governments at state and federal level, "development" for profits come first, especially when they throw in the argument that projects like this one are renewable energy projects and not fossil fuel projects.

This puts traditional owners, the Mirning, in a difficult conflict-of-interest situation.

The Mirning are the traditional owners of the Nullarbor, and Mirning Green Energy, whch holds 10% equity in the project, is the commercial arm of the Mirning Traditional Lands Aboriginal Corporation (MTLAC).

In 2017 the Mirning People were granted native title over the land on which the developers now want to build, which means before any development can go ahead, an Indigenous Land Use Agreement must be negotiated.

"Our cave systems are our storylines," MTLAC chair Shilloh Peel said.

"Each family is connected to each cave, as well as the rock holes that provide water to the caves.

"We need to bring our people along with us … and we would have to make sure that all our cultural sites, heritage sites are protected."

However renewable energy projects are not much use to the struggle against capitalism's global warming crisis if the projects destroy the environment, including the cultural heritage of First Nations peoples.

What's the answer then?

As an interim demand, all renewable energy projects should be nationalised rather than in the hands of "developers" and only proceed by agreement with First Nations peoples.

Only an independent socialist Australia will maximize Australia's contribution to saving the planet.

 

 

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Out for International Environmental Day of Action: November 16, 2024

Written by: ICOR on 14 November 2024

 

COP29, the UN’s yearly Climate Change Conference, is currently underway in Baku, Azerbaijan. The International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organisations (ICOR) recently released a call for action on the environmental implications – Eds.

 

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Media and CFMEU Administrators threaten rank and file fightback

Written by: Louisa L. on 14 November 2024

 

Multi-sided attacks against NSW CFMEU members increased in the lead-up to a strike and rally organised by rank and file workers on Tuesday 12 November. Yet thousands of fired-up ETU, CFMEU and Plumbers Union members still lit up Sydney streets with their demands.

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) labelled NSW “Australia’s most lawless” branch. In two editions it targeted a leading delegate of 30 years standing. The failed and now disbanded Construction Commission (ABCC) also systematically targeted him for “illegally” refusing to speak to its inspectors. It once charged him for refusing to take down a crane’s Eureka Flag. It also threatened construction company managers for not taking action against him. 

AFR intimated he was a thug and criminal. Yet his father, who became honorary President of the NSW Builders Federation as a rank and file worker, fought in the lead against gangster control of the union, alongside Jack Mundey and Norm Gallagher. Like father, like son, both incorruptible, both putting the needs of construction workers before their own.

Invitation to sack workers

The two NSW Administrators also got in on the act. First, they instructed organisers not to support the strike. 

Next, they texted all members demanding a law designed to cripple or completely destroy unions (its giant legal bills paid with CFMEU members’ money) “must be decided in court”. 

Warning members not to attend, they pretended concern, “We do not want to see any member …  put at risk of losing their job.” But it’s also a disguised threat to construction companies and subbies to keep their workers under control, in attacks that benefit billionaire developers and their trillionaire financiers. 

Administrators then directly extended the invitation to employers to sack workers, telling them any sacked worker would not be assisted by the Administrator-controlled, so-called union. Giant developer Lendlease immediately threatened any worker who walked out with the sack. 

A parade of nominee companies make up Lendlease’s Top 20 security holders. Nominee companies invest on behalf of multiple different corporations and individuals. They are mostly run by foreign banks and finance companies, some with Australian offices. Investors use nominees to hide their identities. 
Lendlease’s 2023 Annual Report also revealed the five biggest “substantial security holders” within these hidden holdings. Number one is Aware Super, holding 8.56%. 

But most importantly the second, third and fourth biggest are three closely linked US finance corporations – State Street Corporation, BlackRock Group and the Vanguard Group, who control 19.19% of Lendlease. As a bloc, it gives them great power to make decisions. 

Defend workers and challenge Administrators

Many workers and even delegates were cowed by intimidation and deliberate misinformation. At knock off time the day before, the Administrators, calling themselves “NSW CFMEU”, sent every member a text saying there was “no CFMEU rally” the next day.

In the wash up, Australian Financial Review again attacked the most prominent rank and file leader, after he called for members to prepare each other for massive industrial action if the High Court challenge to ALP-Coalition legal threats and thuggery against workers failed. It also deliberately named his employer company, to pressure its managers.

Rank and file delegates are leading this critically important fightback. United, they have the collective experience to defend each other and challenge the Administrators’ attempts to divide and conquer. 

Community outreach by support organisations is informing the general public of truth of this dangerous legislation, which looks and smells exactly like the Nazi Labour Front of the 1930s. There’s clear untapped interest and support among the general public, and plenty to be done.

 

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Dare to struggle, dare to win against Administrator: CFMEU Sydney Rally

Written by: Tovaris on 13 November 2024

 

More than 2000 construction workers courageously defied the fascistic administrator to march in Sydney on 12 November. This was despite a desperate letter sent from CFMEU NSW administrators and class traitors Chris Christodoulou and Philip Pasfield urging members not to join the rally, which was followed up by a pathetic text message sent to all members stating that there was no rally on 12 November.

The rally was strongly supported from the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU), the Meat Industry Union (AMIEU) and the Plumbers Union (PPTEU). Despite the lower numbers of this rally compared with the last few CFMEU rallies in Sydney, the tone and mood was significantly more militant.
CFMEU representative Denis McNamara clearly and correctly called for support from the rest of the Australian working class: “If all workers are beside us, we will never be defeated!” This statement was met by thunderous applause from workers in attendance. McNamara also addressed members on the need to strike indefinitely if the sacked union leaders of the CFMEU lost their High Court challenge to the fascistic administration. 
 

Allan Hicks from the ETU spoke of the scourge of the Masters Builders Association who teamed up with CFMEU administrators and visited NSW job sites in the lead-up to the rally to convince union members not to come to the rally. Hicks stated that threatening imprisonment of unionists who defy the administrator would not deter workers from fighting for their rights.

 
Loukas Kakogiannis from RAFFWU told of the traitorous nature of the ALP and ACTU in not supporting retail workers against rampant wage theft from corporate giants Coles and Woolworths. Kakogiannis had a great reception from workers when he stated “At RAFFWU, we know what side we are on!”

Meat Workers Union representative Jacqui read out a statement denouncing the sacking of the 270 officials of the CFMEU without trial and spoke of how the legislation used against the CFMEU will certainly be used as a blueprint to attack other unions, especially with a Federal election looming in the near future.

Chris Seet from the Plumbers Union spoke out on the need to stick together with the CFMEU “who are courageous and standing for their rights and dignity”. Seet pledged support from the Plumbers union all the way in CFMEU members combating the fascistic administrator imposed upon them. 

Elected NSW CFMEU Secretary Darren Greenfield, who was removed by the fascistic administrator from his elected position, spoke of his immense pride in the courageous actions of CFMEU members acting against the administrator. Greenfield correctly spoke of the utmost need to get the CFMEU back in control by union members and gave a warning about the fascistic administrator organising “ALP hacks on a union ticket to run the CFMEU that suits their aims”. 

Placards from the ‘Democracy on Trial’ campaign group were proudly held overhead by CFMEU members, with the message ‘Our right to innocence until proven guilty in under threat’ – referring to how the capitalist class can remove the so-called rights of people at any time. 

Importantly, rail workers, nurses and teachers have met to plan to fight back against the cost of living crisis imposed by the capitalists against the Australian people. Only when all Australian workers politically run the country will we see a system where workers’ labour provides healthcare, education, transport and housing for all people as a guaranteed right. The struggle of CFMEU members against the fascistic administrator is proving a great training site and ultimately instructive for all workers to unite against the capitalist ruling class. 

 

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Richard Boyle: Hero not Criminal

Written by: Tom R. on 12 November 2024

 

On Monday 11 November, Richard Boyle  appeared in the Adelaide District Court where a date was set for his trial to start in November next year. The Alliance Against Political Persecutions organised a rally outside the court in support. Around a 100 people turned out to back him. Barbara Pocock Green's Senator, Jodie Sard from Adelaide for Assange and Amnesty International, and Derek Burke from IPAN-SA spoke about Boyle's case and the importance of whistle-blowers. Singers from Stay Human Project sang songs of satire against the unjust treatment of those who speak truth to power.

The following is the speech given by Derek Burke, Convener of IPAN-SA.

Over 12 months ago, we were all here to protest the persecution of the whistleblower, Richard Boyle. He has been dragged before the courts for divulging the Australian Tax Office’s unfair and unethical debt recovery practices.
Richard exposed how his area of the ATO was instructed to use heavy-handed tactics to recover money from those with tax debts.
Now that his bid in the High Court has failed, he appears set to stand trial over those charges. He is now facing 24 charges and the charges carry a maximum sentence of up to 46 years.

The Australian whistleblower protection and the Public Interest Disclosure Act are a failure. In fact they are a sham. The Act only applies to the act of disclosure rather than steps taken to make that disclosure.

How else are you able to disclose malfeasance if you can't take steps to disclose it? The law is an ass!

The Public Interest Disclosure Act is a contradictory Act, a Catch-22. It is only there for optics and ends up protecting the powerful rather than the powerless.

Our Rule of Law equally reflects what our so-called democracy is; a big sham! The Rule of Law protects the power of elites and the wealthy. Similarly, with our so-called democracy, we have the worst elections that big money can buy. 

Have you noticed that the corporate donors always win after an election and the ordinary voters get next to nothing? In effect we are ruled by a plutocracy.

Richard Boyle, Julian Assange, David McBride, Daniel Duggan, Bernard Colleary, Witness K and J have had to face authoritarian law that is in place to hide the truth and entrench injustice. 

Julian Assange suffered 7 years confinement in the Ecuadorian Embassy and 5 years solitary imprisonment in Belmarsh prison until he pleaded guilty to one felony count of violating the Espionage Act in exchange for immediate release. This the penalty for exposing US military war crimes.

David McBride, the Australian Army lawyer and whistleblower who provided the Australian Broadcasting Corporation with documents that contained information about war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, was prosecuted for unlawfully disclosing Commonwealth documents. 

For his trouble with speaking truth to power, he was sentenced to 5 years and 8 months in prison, with a non-parole period of 2 years and 3 months. Once again, the act of taking steps to make a disclosure is what has criminalised McBride. This is plain and simple authoritarianism.

We can see authoritarianism at work with the Albanese Labor government cracking down on unions and their enterprise agreements. Labor's plans to destroy the CFMEU and place it under administration have got little to do with the union's alleged involvement with organized crime. 

Victoria's Labor premier Jacinta Allan made that clear when she terminated existing enterprise agreements moments after the federal government moved against the CFMEU and placed it under administration.

In reality, the Labor government is doing the bidding of the construction industry bosses to end pattern bargaining under government administration. 

Compare this to the treatment of the banks who were never put under administration nor broken up when they were found guilty of criminal behaviour and corruption by the Royal Commission.

Now we see Richard Boyle being sacrificed on an authoritarian alter in favour of the powerful Australian Tax Office for exposing their crimes. 

The lesson is quite clear: do not embarrass or expose crimes of the powerful or else they'll make an example of you so that others will not dare be a whistleblower. 

We must not tire of supporting Richard Boyle, David McBride and Daniel Duggan whatever happens to them. The real criminals should be put in gaol, the powerful who cover up their crimes, not the brave whistleblowers.

 

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West Australia's Rare Earth Metals to Feed US Department of Defense Refinery in Texas

Written by: Ned K. on 10 November 2024

 

Above: Lynas’s Mt Weld mine, WA.  Photo: lynasrareearths.com/projects/

High grade Rare Earth minerals mined at Lynas Mt Weld mine in Western Australia are in demand from both US and European corporations and governments. Both the US and European governments are very keen to usurp China's control over the Rare Earth minerals commodity. 

Lynas Rare Earths, a nominally Australian owned corporation, also owns the world's largest single Rare Earths processing plant in Malaysia where the Rare Earth oxides mined at Mt Weld are processed and exported to Asia, Europe and the USA.

The final processed products include minerals vital for electronics, wind turbines, hybrid and electric vehicle and magnets used in high-tech military equipment and defence applications.

Last week, the federal Labor Government Resources Minister Madelaine King officially opened the Lynas owned $800 million Rare Earths cracking and leaching plant in Kalgoorlie.

The end product from this plant is bound for a refinery in Texas financed by the US Government.

This "partnership" started under Trump's first term of office as US President.

The Albanese Labor Government and the CEO of Lynas are banking on the new Trump administration continuing the import of the Rare Earth mineral from the newly established cracking and leaching plant in Kalgoorlie, rather than the Trump administration building its own cracking and leaching plant under Trump's "Make America Great Again" story.

The Rare Earth mineral deposits in Western Australia and other areas of the country are in US and European corporations’ and governments' sights. They want the minerals so they can decrease their dependence on China's Rare Earth minerals.

Rare Earth minerals should be used primarily for development of advanced manufacturing for peaceful purposes for the benefit of Australian people and people of developing countries rather than for use by the US and European powers' military arsenals.

The Australian Government is subservient to US imperialist interests in the latter's competition with China. This subservience is reflected in the destination of Rare Earth minerals to the US Department of Defense refinery in Texas.

Australia's Rare Earth minerals and their processing (the new "gold") should be nationalised and used for peaceful purposes, not for the benefit of the US war machine.

 

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Sleepwalking to war?

Written by: (Contributed) on 8 November 2024

 

(Abandoned since 1946, and largely taken over by the jungle, US imperialism plans to  re-commission the airfields from which they sent the planes to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.  Photo - news9live.com)

 

Dramatic increases in Australia's defence budgets planned for the next decade, are best assessed in the context of interoperability with US-led regional military planning; being an ally is not a cheap option.

US-led defence and security planning for Indo-Pacific region, likewise, has a direct bearing upon Australia's active participation as a major ally for 'US interests'.

The announcement that Canberra will be increasing defence budgets has revealed a heightened preparation for regional 'real-war scenarios':

                                                 TOTAL DEFENCE FUNDING

                                                      2024/25 - $55.7 billion
                                                      2026      - $58.4 billion
                                                      2027/28 - $67.4 billion
                                                      2034/35 - $100 billion (1)

The projections have been designed to enhance the position of the US-led military-industrial complex and Wall Street with their cohorts in the 'Defence State' of South Australia.

Australia, despite its geographical position, has been continually pushed higher up US military agendas for regional operations for 'US interests'. In fact, it has been openly acknowledged that 'Australia would still be a strategic backwater for the US if China had not developed such long-range offensive weapons capable of hitting Guam and other US bases in the region'. (2)

A high-level diplomatic statement from Michael McCaul, chair of the US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, furthermore, stated 'Australia had become the central base for operations for America's military to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific'. (3) An official statement from Canberra, for example, included reference that 'Australia has gone from being the periphery in importance to the US to the essential core'. (4)

The moves have included large-scale US troop rotations through Australia and upgrades to military facilities for 'enhancing a ring of military bases spanning the coastline from Perth to Townsville to make them available to US forces in a conflict'. (5)

The moves rest on earlier sensitive US intelligence facilities based at Pine Gap in the 1970s;
control, and even accountability, by Australian governments was considered controversial by the Pentagon. It set the Whitlam administrations in Canberra on a well-publicised collision course with the White House and Pentagon which eventually led to the sacking of Whitlam by the Governor-General. (6)

The later publication of a top-secret telex revealed just how fraught the diplomatic relations between the US and Australia had become during the period: three points emerged; the CIA was bypassing the Australian government, they had deceived Canberra and were threatening to break diplomatic relations. (7)

The controversy still continues to the present day; it has never been resolved. Later studies of the Pine Gap facilities have concluded with the point that they provide 'a vital contribution to the US war-fighting mission … and they integrate … Australia into US war-fighting machinery'. (8)

Hidden within the recent defence budgets lie references to interoperability with Australian-based equipment and facilities being compatible with US-led models. It is not difficult to find examples in numerous defence publication in the public domain. (9) The Pentagon, furthermore, remains preoccupied with retaining their control over that of their allies; political leaders in Canberra and provincial states have willing accepted the 'deal', reducing Australia to a regional sub-imperial power for 'US interests'. (10) References in a recent Australian military publication actually referred to the Western Pacific, a vast area many thousands of kms from Australia and composed of numerous 'independent' countries as recognised by the United Nations, as 'our front yard'. (11) So much for their sovereignty.

The continued failure of the Pentagon to cede control of equipment and facilities based in Australia has, however, raised serious questions about our sovereignty. Statements issued by the Pentagon, therefore, about 'pooling of sovereignty … and … increasing enmeshing of the military forces of both countries' are best viewed as political spin, devoid of meaningful content and designed to deflect public opinion and controversy. (12)

Moves by the US to re-establish sensitive military facilities on Tinian (15 degrees north, 145 degrees east), a remote Pacific Island in the Northern Marianas, have revealed just how close Australia has been drawn into US-led planning for 'real-war scenarios'. It would appear not coincidental that Tinian is strategically and centrally placed within the boundaries of the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy which is defined by the linking of intelligence facilities at Pine Gap with counterparts in India, Japan and on the west coast of the US. (13)

With the bare minimum of publicity, the US has begun moves to create a major military hub on Tinian, which was abandoned in 1946 following its landing strips being used by the USAF for bombing Japan at the end of the Second World War. The 39 square mile island, with three thousand population who are US citizens, has been officially earmarked to 'become an extensive facility'. (14) With a budget of US$78 million, the USAF are seeking to transform Tinian as part of a network of 'smaller, dispersed locations … to … provide more options for joint force commanders' with larger airbases such as nearby Guam being assessed as susceptible to attacks; the proposed Tinian facilities can be regarded as a Pentagon-planned fall-back position in time of war. (15)
 
Other details about the Tinian planning reveal a great deal about the mindset of those who lurk inside the corridors of power inside the Pentagon, and their planning. The extensive US$409 million jungle clearance contract was awarded to Texas-based Fluor, which has historically been closely associated with oil and gas exploration; the area of the Pacific is regarded as rich in natural resources. (16)  

Secondly, Tinian rests on the same arc which swings from Diego Garcia to Guam from Pine Gap in Central Australia. (17) Both remote US intelligence facilities have been upgraded in recent decades to become hubs for military operations, with Darwin Harbour as a support centre.

No doubt, somewhere in the recent $7 billion allocated by Canberra for use over the next decade to 'revolutionise its air and missile defence systems under a new agreement with the US … for … strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific', recent US-led developments in Tinian will be taken into account. (18)

                                            We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Defence's big budget boost, The Financial Review, 14 May 2024.
2.     See: US forces get the nod to help contain China, The Weekend Australian, 14-15 September 2024.
3.     Ibid.
4.     Ibid.
5.     Ibid.
6.     See: The Secret State, Richard Hall, (Australia, 1978), page 144, 146, 169, 173, pp. 176-77, pp. 184-86, page 202.
7.     See: The CIA's Australian Connection, Denis Freney, (Sydney, 1977), Chapter 6, The CIA and the Kerr coup, pp. 26-31.
8.     Sub-Imperial Power, Clinton Fernandes, (Melbourne, 2002), page 43.
9.     See: Indian Ocean Defence and Security, Special Report, Australian, 24 July 2024; and, Land Forces 2024, Special Report, Australian, 11 September 2024.
10.   See: Sub-Imperial Power, op.cit., Clinton Fernandes.
11.   AUKUS nuclear submarines will also be a game-changer for the army, Land Forces 2024, Special Report, Australian, 11 September 2024.
12.   Weekend Australian, op.cit., 14-15 September 2024.
13.   See: Diagram, US Indo-Pacific Strategy, The Reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
14.   US Air Force to reclaim Pacific airfield, CNN., 21 December 2023; and, US Air Force scatters to survive, Australian, 22 October 2024.  
15.   Ibid.
16.   US Air Force issues $409 m award, Asia-Pacific, 11 April 2024.
17.   See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.
18.   $7 bn deal to bolster missile, air defence, Australian, 23 October 2024.

 

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Condemn the DPRK’s sending of troops to the Ukrainian conflict.

Written by: Nick G. on 6 November 2024

 

(Source: CNN.com)

First reports are arriving of fighting between Ukrainian and DPRK troops.

As much as we have always supported and praised heroic North Korea’s defiance of US imperialism, we cannot endorse its support for Russian imperialist aggression against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian conflict was born of rivalry between the US and European imperialist bloc on one side, and the Russian imperialists on the other.

Its origins can be traced back to the string-pulling exercised by Virginia Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, at the time of the Maidan Rebellion that brought down the Ukrainian government. Nuland directed the subsequent coup, declaring who should, and shouldn’t be in the new regime, and monopolizing the conspiracy so as to exclude the European Union and telling US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt “Fuck the EU.”

In the face of provocations instigated by US imperialism and NATO, the Russians unleashed a so-called “limited” action, in the form of a “special military action”, against Ukraine. Ostensibly this was to protect the interests of Russian-speaking separatists in Eastern Ukraine, whose declarations of independence had long been ignored by Moscow, and to root out the influence of open Nazis and their influence within Ukrainian political and military circles. 

Despite this complicated situation, the fact remains that Russian imperialism committed an act of aggression. That act determined that theirs was an unjust war, and the Ukrainians’, irrespective of the capitalist nature of their ruling class, and its embrace of the US/NATO imperialists, was a just war.

Putin’s “limited” action has required the suppression of civil liberties in Russia and a massive cost in armaments and lives. These both represent significant drains on Russia.

Putin has now had to seek reinforcements.  Despite supporting Putin politically, the Belarusians have resisted direct involvement in Ukraine. The DPRK’s involvement may, however, induce the fascist leader of the Chechen Republic President, Ramzan Kadyrov, to follow through on his threat to send 80,000 “volunteers” to support the Russians in Ukraine.

In an act of desperation, Putin signed a treaty on military assistance with the DPRK on Jue 19, 2024. According to the Treaty, North Korea and Russia “shall immediately provide military and other assistance” to the other party if it “falls into a state of war due to armed invasion from an individual or multiple states.” 

The Russians claim that the Treaty came into operation because the Ukrainians have waged war against the four counties in the east of Ukraine that Russia says have “voluntarily” supported their annexation to Russia. According to the logic of the Russian imperialists, their war of aggression against Ukraine has now become a “war of defence” against Ukraine’s invasion of its own territory. 

Russia can also claim that the Ukrainian’s August seizure of Russian territory in the region near Kursk also constituted “armed invasion”. 

However, given Russia’s original sin of having first invaded Ukraine, the counter-incursion by Ukraine is not the beginning of a new “armed invasion”, but a continuation of a war begun by the Russians.

It is believed that DPRK troops have already clashed with Ukrainian forces inside the Russian zone taken by Ukraine.

Far from being close to ending, everything points to the Ukrainian conflict intensifying and dragging on with further unspeakable suffering on both sides. The US has so far been content to only supply Ukraine with arms sufficient to tie the Russians down so as to exhaust them in a prolonged war. 

There are signs too, particularly from the Trump camp, that the US should let the Russians win so as to engage with greater focus on preparations for war with their main rival, Chinese social-imperialism.

Russia's aggression against the Ukrainian people is bound to fail, and North Korea's joining as an ally at this time means it will only share the consequences of such defeat with Russia. 

Whatever the outcome of the US election, the system of US imperialism will remain in place, and ensure that the people of Europe and the world will face being sacrificed in the interests of defending and expanding US global hegemony.

 

 

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NSW Teachers Win New Award

Written by: Seb A. on 6 November 2024

 

Above:  NSW teachers vote for new Award October28.  Photo: NSWTF Facebook

New South Wales public school teachers have held mass meetings across the state to vote for acceptance of an offer for a new award. 97% of NSW Teachers Federation members attending the meetings voted in favour of the new award on 28 October. 

The pay rise is 9% over the three years of the Award, and 0.5% superannuation increases each year, which is the baseline offer the NSW government announced for public sector workers in NSW after the 2023 election of the Minns ALP state government. 

While this pay rise keeps NSW teachers up with official inflation figures, the real significant gains of the new award are to workload and conditions. With teachers leaving in droves because of the piling up of unsustainable workload since 2012 under the regime of the neoliberal Department of Education Local Schools, Local Decisions agenda and the worst teacher shortage in decades, these improvements are vital in ensuring teachers’ work health and safety and a healthy work-life balance. 

Around twenty improvements have been achieved, with some of the more significant including a one hour weekly limit to before and after school meetings enshrined in the Award. Over recent years, schools have seen dramatic increases in after and before school meetings with hours often spent weekly in meetings before and after school with no real benefit to teachers or students. This win will significantly decrease the unsustainable workload burden that is seeing so many teachers leave schools. 

Classroom teachers themselves will now determine 50% of what they do on the eight student-free School Development Days each year. These days are when teachers engage in professional learning and development and prepare for the school year; however, all too often they become opportunities for irrelevant top-down determined professional learning, no consultation, and teachers doing all their real preparation outside of school hours. This means that now classroom teachers will have much more opportunity to use these days for what they are most useful for: actually preparing quality lessons for our students. 

These wins would never have been made without the committed and unified strike action members took during the More Than Thanks campaign that won NSW teacher unionists the previous award last year, and which made them the highest paid teachers in the country. 

From the perspective of building teacher union strength, the improvements won in the new award will be an opportunity to empower union activists to push back locally and put power in teachers’ hands to have a say in determining what their work day looks like. 

The new award will also see the development of a new consultation framework that will mandate that teachers have a say when there are proposals to change or add to their workload at the school level. 

While a major objective of the union was not achieved in the new award, the granting of an additional two weekly hours of release from face-to-face teaching to deal with the increased administrative workload that teachers have been burdened with, the wins discussed above place teacher unionists in a strong position to further build union strength and be ready to campaign for those goals as yet unachieved. 

 

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Unionists In SA Celebrate 140 Year Anniversary of United Trades and Labour Council

Written by: Ned K. on 2 November 2024

 

CFMEU members in SA staying strong: delegates' training a couple of days ago (CFMEU Facebook)

On Friday 1st October over 150 Union Organizers attended the annual SA Unions Organizing Conference which also celebrated the 140th anniversary of the SA United Trades and Labour Council which formed in 1884.

In 1884, the name "Trades and Labour" was fitting because at that time most of the recognized Unions consisted of trades people and most of them were men.

140 years later, the same body goes by the name SA Unions which is more appropriate as the make-up of union membership is far broader now than workers with a trade. There are many more union members who do not have a formal trade and about 50% of members of Unions in SA are women workers.
That fact was reflected in the large number of women Organizers at the SA Unions Conference on Friday.

The Conference came at a difficult time for the relatively new SA Unions Secretary Dale Beasley. He has had the task of uniting the affiliated Unions at the state level following the federal Labor Government's disgraceful attack on construction workers by placing their Division of the CFMEU into the hands of an Administrator.

To Dale's credit he demonstrated for all to see, including two ALP MPs who were guest-speakers, that workers’ collective organizations are quite capable of discussing differences and working out problems internally through democratic processes. 

There were strongly held views among Organizers at the Conference regarding the actions of the federal Labor Government against the CFMEU. Everyone had a chance to speak and despite differences of opinion, everyone's view was respected.

One of the guest-speakers at the Conference was the Industrial Relations Minister Murray Watt. He copped plenty of criticism from Organizers about the implications for workers of a Labor Government interfering in the internal affairs of a Union, paving the way for deeper attacks on workers' mass organizations by future governments particularly a government led by Dutton. Murray Watt did not retreat from the official Labor Government position that it was united with Unions as the political arm of the "labor movement" and that the Government's aim was to ensure that the Construction Division of the CFMEU returned to running its own affairs no later than 3 years under an Administrator!

One of the women Organizers at the Conference said to Watt in so many words that if he and other Labor MPs wanted union members' support in the coming federal election campaign, he and they had better take on board that many union members are extremely concerned about the Government's interference in the internal affairs of a Union.

Murray Watt did appear to be quite surprised at the level of anxiety among Organizers and he left the Conference with plenty to think about. He was particularly surprised and embarrassed to know that in SA there was no Union Official with the authority to go on to a building site to investigate a health and safety issue on the site. The reason for this was that the Government's new laws against the CFMEU resulted in all the relevant Officials of the Construction Division being given "the bullet" by the Government appointed Administrator!

This dangerous situation of construction workers in SA not being able to have their Union Official come on site to investigate a safety issue was seen as absurd by Conference Organizers.

They had just heard from the first guest-speaker, Kyam Maher, the SA Labor Government Attorney General about recent reforms to the Health and Safety laws in SA. The new laws enable a Union to take a safety issue caused by employer neglect to the South Australian Employment Tribunal (SAET), effectively as an industrial matter. 

Organizers at the Conference were under no illusions about the coming attacks on workers if a Dutton led Coalition wins the fast-approaching federal election. They acknowledged the changes to the Fair Work Act mentioned by Murray Watt in his speech, such as Same Job - Same Pay, Multi-Employer Bargaining, Delegate Rights and tighter laws around definition of a Casual worker. 

They also realized that workers’ and their Unions’ solidarity and collective strength is needed irrespective of which political party forms government under capitalism.

 

 

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Israel's Approval of the Law Banning UNRWA: A Declaration of Total War on the United Nations and Palestinian Refugees

Written by: Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 30 October 2024

 

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Foreign Affairs Department: Either respect the charter or get expelled from the United Nations.

Ladies and gentlemen in political parties and parliaments worldwide,

Dear friends in international community, media, human rights, and trade union frameworks,

To all free individuals and those with a living conscience in our world,

In a dangerous precedent, the Israeli parliament (on November 28) passed a law banning the activities of one of the United Nations agencies in Israel, namely the "United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees" (UNRWA), which employs around 30,000 staff members. The parliament had previously voted in July 2024 to classify UNRWA as a "terrorist organization."
Days before the new law's vote, the UN Security Council, the United Nations, and dozens of countries and international institutions—including some allied with Israel—called for the project to be withdrawn and not approved due to its legal violations and humanitarian consequences that would affect millions of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who depend on UNRWA for health, education, and social relief services. Despite this, Israel insisted on its position and proceeded with the law, disregarding global opinions and the humanitarian fallout.

What does banning UNRWA's activities in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza mean?
Since its establishment in 1949 by the UN General Assembly under resolution 302, UNRWA has operated freely in the West Bank and Gaza to provide education, health, and relief services to refugees. After Israel's occupation of all Palestinian territories in 1967, an agreement was signed with UNRWA to regulate its work and grant it freedom of movement and necessary exemptions. However, this agreement has effectively been annulled by the law's approval, depriving UNRWA of many rights and privileges that would prevent it from operating, including:

The cancellation of all privileges and immunities granted to international diplomatic missions, including the cessation of tax and customs exemptions, lifting protections for UNRWA staff, facilities, and vehicles, severing communications with it, and barring it from any activity in areas Israel considers "sovereign."

The classification of the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem as illegal, housing over 100,000 Palestinian refugees, which will adversely affect the camp's legal status and gradually facilitate collaboration with armed settler gangs to displace its residents in preparation for dismantling it.

UNRWA facilities in the West Bank will be targeted by the occupation army based on Israeli laws purportedly for combating terrorism, allowing settlers, who have previously besieged UNRWA offices and called for their burning, to invade them.

Beyond the legal descriptions of Israel's step, which not only violates the conditions for Israel's admission to the United Nations but also contradicts the UN Charter, which mandates respect as a fundamental principle and a condition for membership—particularly in Articles 2 and 105 that state: "All members shall provide every assistance to the United Nations in any action it takes in accordance with this Charter" (Article 2), and "The organization shall enjoy in the territory of each member such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfillment of its purposes..." (Article 105). This means facilitating UNRWA's work and granting it the privileges and exemptions is a fundamental requirement outlined in the Charter, not a decision of the occupying state to revoke at will.

The Israeli law is akin to a declaration of true war against the United Nations and its various institutions, following the Israeli foreign minister's declaration of the UN Secretary-General as "persona non grata," among other UN officials. It presents the international community with a genuine challenge regarding its reputation and credibility, as UNRWA is one of the organizations under the UN, both in terms of its foundation and its regular program renewals. Thus, defending Palestinian refugees in this case is also a defense of the international organization’s reputation.

Despite the considerable risks posed to refugees and the services provided to them by UNRWA, the law's impact on the right of return will remain limited, especially if the UN and Arab countries show the will to confront it and nullify it. The right of return derives its strength not only from the existence of UNRWA—important though that is—but primarily from the natural and historical right of refugees to their land. This right, as affirmed by numerous international resolutions, and I say by courts and international legal scholars, does not expire with the passage of time, no matter how many years go by, especially as millions of refugees still carry its banner. Secondly, it is a right supported by UN resolution 194 and dozens of other international resolutions that do not grant a right to refugees but rather affirm an existing, established right that predates resolution 194.

Since UNRWA constitutes one of the foundations upon which the right of return is established—including resolution 194, the existence of camps, and the legal definition of a refugee—these elements will remain even after the law is enacted. What the law proposes is the opening of a new battle added to the series of struggles waged by the Palestinian people and freedom-loving individuals worldwide. Because while Israel may impose the law's implementation through its military and occupying force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it cannot do so in areas where refugees reside outside Palestine, numbering over six million.

The world's silence over Israel's crimes and the pressure on international courts and judicial frameworks have led Israel to feel protected under the American veto and support from Western and allied countries, facilitating its persistent violations of the UN Charter and human rights. This has encouraged it to continually challenge the international community and reject its resolutions, including tearing the Charter apart at the United Nations platform by the Israeli representative last May.

The approval of the law reflects a disregard for what remains of the international system, and it would not have occurred with such arrogance were it not for the unlimited support Israel receives from the United States in particular, and the silence or even complicity of Western countries in allowing Israel to evade accountability for decades for its breaches of international resolutions and its continued criminal acts and genocide against the Palestinian people.

Moreover, Israel's insistence on continuing its comprehensive war against the United Nations, represented by UNRWA and other international organizations and institutions, necessitates more than condemnation and denunciation. The time has come for the United Nations to take swift responsibility in enacting measures to expel Israel and isolate it from the UN.

On behalf of the "foreign Affairs Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine," as we present this overview of the Israeli law declaring war on the UN and UNRWA, we are confident that this serious development will be on your agenda in your future movements opposing the genocidal war perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, and in favor of supportive stances from your governments, aimed at isolating Israel and forcing it to respect the international community and its supportive positions for the Palestinian people and their national rights, rejecting the fascism represented by Israel with direct support from the United States and some Western countries that continue to practice political hypocrisy in their public rejection of Israel’s actions while providing it with unlimited support for its policies of killing, terrorism, and rebellion against the international system and its political, legal, human rights, and humanitarian foundations.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine's foreign Affairs Department

-30 October 2024-

 

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Geelong rally builds solidarity with Palestine, slams war industries

Written by: Bill F. on 27 October 2024

 

On Saturday 26 October, a lively rally in Geelong attracted more than 200 people opposed to the slaughter and shameful murder of the Palestinian and Lebanese people by the Israeli Zionists.

The rally was organised by local anti-war and anti-AUKUS groups, IPAN Geelong and Vic SouthWest, with assistance and participation from other organisations with similar concerns.

Location for the rally was a local strip of parkland directly opposite the electoral office of Richard Marles, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Defence, and number one collaborator with the war plans of US imperialism. Needless to say, there were more cops protecting his office than concerned about the “safety” of demonstrators.

If Marles happened to be looking out the window at his fine view across the park onto the harbour, he would have seen a host of Palestinian flags, anti-war banners and placards, stalls, a barbeque, and heard loud anti-war songs. It got even more lively when a 15-car motorcade of Palestine supporters arrived from Melbourne, honking horns and waving to the crowd as they circled the median strip between Marles’ office and the park.

Speakers at the rally included a local Geelong councillor, anti-war activists and Palestine-Lebanon activists. As well as condemning the Israeli genocidal agenda, they exposed the role of US imperialism as the main enabler and apologist for the ongoing war crimes.

Maritime Union Deputy Branch Secretary David Ball reported on the International Transport Workers Federation Congress in Spain, which had passed a resolution of solidarity with Palestine.

The Albanese government also copped a good swipe for its slavish echoing of US foreign policy, its AUKUS war-alliance and its promotion of a new weapons industry in the name of revitalising Australian manufacturing. Following on the Elbit contract between the federal government and the Israeli weapons company, the city of Geelong is now being promoted as a weapons manufacturing centre. Not only Marles, but the Geelong City Council and a mob called Geelong Defence Alliance is pushing this barrow.

With the US Presidential election only days away, the situation is fluid. Nevertheless, sections of the Australian people are becoming more aware of the threat of war and the risks of the US alliance/AUKUS and are increasingly uneasy about the future. This was also reflected by the good number of passing cars that waved or honked the rally as they drove by.

 

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Building industry and parliamentary squabble over how best to exploit construction workers

Written by: Ned K. on 27 October 2024

 

Last week the extreme right wing think tank H.R. Nicholls Society held a conference in Melbourne. At the conference one of the Liberal Party leaders, Angus Taylor said if the Liberals won the next federal election in 2025 it would deregister the CFMEU as a way of controlling construction workers.

The Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn contradicted Taylor's position by saying that administration was a better way to control construction workers.

Wawn said, "If they (CFMEU) were deregistered, they (construction workers) would still have the opportunity to be a bargaining agent under the current laws, and, as such, it is a far more effective way to control their behaviour and to become a lawful union by administration." (The Australian 26-27 October)

The Master Builders Australia CEO position aligns with the current Labor Government position of putting the CFMEU in administration and then having the "independent" Administrator preparing the way for a new CFMEU "responsible" leadership under the guise of ridding construction worksites of bikies,

New Industrial Relations Minister Watt said the federal government "took swift action to clean up the union"!

So, at the moment it looks like the federal Labor Government gets the tick of approval from the big builders, while Dutton and Taylor and the Liberal "Opposition" are left out in the cold - for now!

Meanwhile the mainstream media report that workers who ride motor bikes (bikies) are still working in construction jobs and that they are even helping getting construction jobs for people they know who have just completed a prison sentence!

What do the Murdoch press and other mainstream media expect people coming out of prison to do? Apply for a CEO job somewhere perhaps instead of returning to the type of jobs they are skilled at, such as construction work? If construction workers returning from a prison term are banned from the industry, how do they survive without resorting to stealing to buy a loaf of bread, so to speak?

 

 

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Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS

Written by: Nick G. on 27 October 2024

 

More than 120 residents of the Port Adelaide area attended a meeting yesterday, called by the Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS (PACOA).

The meeting began with MC and local resident Eileen Darley introducing former WA Senator Jo Valentine by video link. Jo expressed solidarity from WA opponents of AUKUS and gave a detailed account of developments over there.

The meeting closed with messages of solidarity from the Wollongong Against War and Nukes (WAWAN) group which has held very large protests against a suggested nuclear submarine base at Pt. Kembla harbour.

Residents then brainstormed ideas for further developing their campaign against AUKUS and the radioactive waste it brings.

Speakers at the meeting included former SA Senator Rex Patrick (who will be standing as a Senate candidate with the Jacqui Lambie Network – Lambie herself was seated in the audience), economist Prof. Al Rainnie, Michael Williss (speaking as a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, IPAN), Amanda Ruler from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War), and co-leader of the Greens in the SA Parliament, Tammie Franks.

We are reprinting here the talk by Michael Williss. 

Talk at the Take Action Against AUKUS meeting October 26, 2024
Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS

Thank you for inviting me to speak on the unceded lands of the Kaurna people. What a pity Australia is not an unceded independent nation state instead of a grovelling puppet of the United States.

But let’s start in the traditional way…with a pub quiz. 

I’m going to list ten wars, and I want to know the odd one out: Sudan Campaign, Boxer Rebellion. Boer War, WW1, WW2, Korea, Malayan Emergency, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.

Yes, the odd one out was WW2 – the only one of the ten in which our national independence and sovereignty were threatened. Japan bombed northern Australia at least 111 times between February 1942 and November 1943. The first time Darwin was hit, 262 aircraft killed at least 235 people and caused immense damage.  Other places hit over a nearly two-year stretch included Broome, Katherine, Townsville, Wyndham, Port Headland, Mossman, Milingimbi, Exmouth, Horn Island, Bathurst Island.

Every other war, in my opinion, has seen us surrender our capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy, and blindly follow either the British or the US imperialists into wars not required for Australia’s defence.

That is why AUKUS and talk of war preparations by the US against China don’t unduly worry some people.  Apart from WW2, our wars have been fought “up there” or “over there”.  A war with China, some think, will follow that pattern. If we follow the US into war with China, it is unlikely that these people have considered Australian cities looking like parts of Ukraine or Gaza or Beirut. Osborne and surrounds are just such a potential target.

Bur Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Morrison and Albanese have almost guaranteed that as a continental-sized air craft carrier for the US military, we have cities and suburbs that will almost certainly be hit in a Chinese retaliation against our participation in a US war against China.

Post WW2 we have had US bases here: Pine Gap and North West Cape spring to mind. But a qualitative change occurred when Obama’s pivot to Asia was married to Gillard’s cheerleading for the US Empire.

Obama’s pivot occurred in the first year of Gillard as PM. Starting in 2012 with 200 Marines, their Darwin rotation has grown to around 2,500 Marines.
U.S. aircraft, including bombers and surveillance planes, use Australian airbases, such as RAAF Base Tindal and RAAF Base Amberley.   US B-52s can be nuclear armed, and Wong accepts this as the US’s right not to disclose. US B-2 bombers just recently bombed Yemen having used Australia as a stop-over.

The Force Posture Agreement (FPA) between the United States and Australia, signed in 2014, significantly enhances the U.S. military presence in Australia by formalising and expanding military cooperation between the two countries. It provides US forces with access to critical Australian military bases and infrastructure, including ports and airfields and allows them to station fuel dumps, equipment, and munitions wherever they like.

We are upgrading submarine docking facilities in WA at a cost of $20 billion, chicken feed perhaps alongside the $368 billion submarine arrangements.

Our country has been handed to the US on a plate.  You have no doubt seen statements by Paul Keating, Gareth Evans and Bob Carr deploring the surrender of our independence through the AUKUS arrangements.

As much as Morrison likes to boast of his role in creating AUKUS, it was really a rerun of an idea first put to Australia by the US in October2013 after Tony Abbott had defeated Kevin Rudd. Morrison was in Abbott’s Cabinet and would have known of the US proposal that Australia operate 10 or 12 Virginia class submarines. Under AUKUS he simply tweaked the proposal for leasing the submarines into purchasing them. 

Former PM Malcom Fraser saw the dangers to Australia of such a submarine deal, saying that “The reliance by Australia on the United States for military communications in reality means that we cannot conduct operations unless the United States approves of them. That is a derogation of sovereignty” (Fraser, Dangerous Allies p. 256).

He would no doubt laugh at the idea that flying an Australian flag on an AUKUS sub would allow us to make our own decisions.

We must stand up for the independence of Australia and break the US stranglehold on the decision-makers in the Liberal and Labor parties.

Thank you.

 

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Fight Against Inequality Forum – 16 October 2024

Written by: Shirley Winton on 26 October 2024

 

We reprint a talk given by Shirley Winton at a public forum in Melbourne on 16 October, Fighting Inequality.  Shirley's talk addressed military spending in Australia and the US Alliance.   

Shirley spoke as a member of No AUKUS Coalition Vic and Independent and Peaceful Australia (Vic).

 

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Support Rojava – condemn Erdogan’s attacks on the liberated region

Written by: Nick G. on 25 October 2024

 

(Above: destruction casued by Turkish bombs, Rojava, 24 October 2024)

With the world focussed on the continuing atrocity of Zionist Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, and its aggression against Lebanon, the Turkish authorities have resumed intensive bombing of the mainly Kurdish stronghold of Rojava in neighbouring north-eastern Syria (NES).

For the last couple of days, the Turkish fascist regime has carried out airstrikes on 42 sites in NES, including Qamishlo, Kobane, Amude, and Derik. To date, 12 civilians have been killed and 25 wounded. The strikes are still ongoing, and included several power stations, 2 bakeries, a health centre, and grain silos. In past months, the Turkish forces had burnt large areas of food crops in an effort to starve the Rojava people.

These attacks indicate Turkey’s intention to control these areas and displace their residents, in order to crush the democratic and progressive Rojava revolution. Itis contrary to what was being promoted about the peace talks between the Kurds and Turkey that were expected to start this month. The attacks show that Turkey is not seeking peace with the Kurds, but rather seeking to exterminate them under the pretext of fighting terrorism. 

This repeated targeting of service facilities is leading to a humanitarian disaster in an area that is home to millions of people, who are already suffering from severe fuel and gas shortages as a result of Turkey’s repeated targeting of infrastructure facilities in previous years.

The same Erdogan who correctly condemns Zionist genocide against the Palestinians is head of a fascist government whose values are threatened by the example of the Rojava revolution. 

“The only reason Turkey attacks is because we are a threat to their fascism. The society here is the antidote to the state's poison!” said one resident of Rojava.

(Above: the people of Kobane protest the bombing, October 24,2024)

 

 

 

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The US, UK and the sufferings of the Chagos Islands

Written by: (Contributed) on 25 October 2024

 

Above: September 2018  Chagos Islanders protest at the Hague

An intelligence-type assessment and report about the Indian Ocean region has revealed just how close Australia has been drawn into US-led regional military provision.

In early October the Starmer government in Westminster announced that Britain was ceding sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius; a new 99-year lease for Diego Garcia, however, was also part of the package thereby allowing the US to continue to use the island for its sensitive intelligence facilities well into the next century. (1) The agreement was officially greeted by US President Biden, with the announcement, 'I applaud the historic agreement and conclusion of negotiations between the Republic of Mauritius and the UK on the status of the Chagos Archipelago'. (2)

Moves will soon take place to enable Chagos Islanders the right to return to islands from which they were displaced decades ago. Those former residents of Diego Garcia, however, will not be allowed the right of return.

The decision follows decades of legal proceedings and court cases. It would appear that the continued British colonial-type control of the remote islands was eventually regarded as increasingly untenable.

Situated about halfway between Africa and Indonesia, the Chagos Islands remain highly geo-strategic and central to the Indian Ocean. No reference was made in the report about recent Pentagon proposals to enlarge their present three-stage Asia-Pacific Island Chain Theory to include fourth and fifth chains across the wider Indo-Pacific; the Chagos Islands are, potentially, an important part of the proposals and more useful to the Pentagon when inhabited by local people who possess first-hand knowledge of the terrain, rather than being uninhabited and vulnerable to incursions from elsewhere. (3)

The Chagos Islanders were forcibly removed from the homelands in the late 1960s, when the British government began high-level diplomacy with the US to eventually use Diego Garcia for intelligence facilities. Opened in early 1973, the facilities were linked to similar facilities at Silvermine, South Africa, Argentina and Pine Gap, Australia, as the Southern Ocean Defence Plan (SODP). (4)

On a Peters Projection World Map, Actual Size, the four nodes of the SODP are all equidistant, revealing the range and capacity of the satellite and radar system. (5) The SODP was primarily concerned with the military control of the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and came to include numerous further formal and informal military agreements. (6)

There has remained little controversy about who controlled the intelligence network; fixed direct radio communications with Whitehall were routed through Mauritius, and the US through Puerto Rica. (7)  

The US-led intelligence facilities have been subject to almost continual upgrades for hegemonic purposes. (8) The basic function of the facilities, however, has remained the same, from the previous Cold War to the present one. More recent upgrades have included both Diego Garcia and its counterpart in Guam becoming hubs for US-led military operations, with Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia being the support centre; both hubs rest on an arc from Pine Gap, Central Australia. (9)

The US, however, has had problems, historically, with the whole SODP; the role of South Africa raised serious questions about US support for Apartheid, the inclusion of Argentina, likewise, was difficult due to the Dirty War and later invasion of the Malvinas. Those in control, therefore, hid behind diplomatic silence as a matter of course. It continues.

The matters, however, came to a head during the 1975 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kingston, Jamaica, where Gough Whitlam, representing Australia, played a significant part in supporting the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace, normalising diplomatic relations with Cuba, and supporting national liberation movements in South Africa, Angola and Mozambique. (10) They proved controversial.

The moves were also reinforced by the British Labour Government of the time, led by Harold Wilson, not renewing the Simonstown Agreement, and thereby isolating Apartheid South Africa.

The fact that Whitlam was dismissed later the same year and Harold Wilson, also suddenly announcing his retirement early in 1976, has left little to the imagination about hidden hands at work inside the corridors of Commonwealth power and the displeasure they had caused the faceless wonders who maintain the huge bureaucracies through which their patrons wield class and state power.

The intelligence-type assessment and report from Canberra did not take any of the above into account; it began, nevertheless, in classic Cold War-style with an opening sentence 'that Australia and the US are livid with the Starmer Labour government in London over its giveaway of a major military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean that is vital to Western interests'. (11) So much for the well-publicised Biden statement, quoted above!

In an indignant, terse writing style the statement then continued, noting, 'for Australia, Diego Garcia is a strategic asset available for military operations in the Indian Ocean and beyond. It anchors Australia's presence in the Indian Ocean and provides a friendly port in the vastness of the region'. (12)

Throughout the whole statement concern was raised that the present government in Mauritius 'is under increasing Chinese influence … with fears arising that … Chinese surveillance ships, no doubt disguised as fishing fleets, will be able to monitor the US long-range bombers stationed at the base'. (13) No recognition was given to the fact China has, more likely than not, used satellite surveillance of the US intelligence facilities based on Diego Garcia for decades.

Fears apparently exist that Mauritius will follow the lead of the Maldives which has a government supportive of China, alongside Beijing's moves across the Indo-Pacific to establish the String of Pearls of useful outposts in Ski Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. (14)

In order to reinforce the Cold War nature of the assessment and report attention was drawn to noted left wing influences; references to Trotskyist groups inside the British Labour Party  were used together with criticism of Foreign Secretary David Lammy who was quoted as labelling Donald Trump as a 'woman-hating, neo-Nazi sociopath'. (15) The Australian, furthermore, takes every opportunity to applaud Trump, despite his continued appalling behaviour and attitudes. Elsewhere, a massive five column highly critical feature spread about the Starmer government and its declining popularity in another edition of their newspaper, did not contain a single reference to the Chagos Islands controversy. (16)

In conclusion, the intelligence services have used a classic ploy to 'leak' an assessment and report into mainstream Australian media in order to polarise opinion against Labour governments, both in the UK and Australia. They then sit back from their hidden vantage points in government bureaucracies and use the eyes and ears of their agents in secret networks to assess the political fallout before moving onto their next project. The real life Slow Horses have been at work with a covert operation. It has also shown vividly how those lurking within the corridors of power recruit from right-wing groups and compliant media outlets to serve the interests of those wielding class and state power:

                                            We need an independent foreign policy!

 

1.     UK cedes key islands to China ally, The Weekend Australian, 5-6 October 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     See: Wikipedia -Island Chain Theory, Fourth and Fifth Chains, Indian Ocean.
4.     Wikipedia: Diego Garcia; and, 'Maritime Operational and Communications HQ', The Star (South Africa), 10 March 1973; and, Security in the Mountain, The Star (South Africa), 17 March 1973; and, Not in Europe Alone, John Biggs-Davidson M.P., Brassey's Annual: Defence and the Armed Forces, (1972), pp. 78-89; and, Essential Instruments of US strategy – Two New Gendarmes: Iran and South Africa, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1976; and, The UKUSA SIGINT Network, The Ties that Bind, J.T. Richelson and Des Ball, (Sydney, 1985), page 323.
5.     See: Map of the World, Peters Projection, Actual Size, New Internationalist.
6.     See: The politics of South Atlantic Security: a survey of proposals for a South Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Andrew Hurrell, Journal of International Affairs, February 1983, pp. 179-93.
7.     Star, op.cit., 17 March 1973.
8.     See: Diego Garcia and Africa's Security, Oye Ogunbadejo, Third World Quarterly Journal, Volume 4, Number 1, December 1982, pp. 105-20.
9.     US intensifies military presence in the Indo-Pacific, The Global Times (Beijing), 24 July 2018; and, Map of the World, Peters Projection, op.cit., Actual Size.
10.   CHOGM, Kingston, Jamaica, 29 April-6 May 1975, Final Communique, Sections: 13-26.
11.   China's boost in the Indian Ocean, Editorial, Australian, 18 October 2024.
12.   Ibid.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Ibid.
15.   Ibid.
16.   See: Trust in flames as Kier Starmer hurtles to earth, The Weekend Australian, 19-20 October 2024.

 

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Urgent Appeal from the DFLP

Written by: Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 24 October 2024

 

The CPA (M-L) has received an urgent request for assistance from the Foreign Office of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).  No doubt ways will be found to support this request. Smash Zionist aggression! – eds. 

Urgent Appeal from the "Department of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Front" to all free people in the world to provide humanitarian support to displaced 
people from the Palestinian and Lebanese populations.

Dear comrades and brothers,

Political parties, activists, and free people across the world,

The "Department of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine" sends you its greetings and expresses its appreciation for your constant  support for the Palestinian people, their national and human rights, and your rejection of the genocidal war being carried out by the fascist government in Israel. We address you while the scent of death spreads across Lebanon and the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing barbaric Israeli bombardment of civilian residential areas and the popular environment that supports the resistance. Despite the immense human suffering, the resistance continues to raise its banner, understanding the objectives of the aggression and recognizing the involvement of Western countries, particularly the United States of 
America.

Given the ongoing Israeli aggression on Lebanon, which has lasted for more than three weeks, resulting in the displacement of more than 1.2 million people from southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon, it represents one of the largest displacement movements Lebanon has witnessed.

The humanitarian suffering has dramatically worsened as the relevant authorities are unable to face the challenges imposed by this aggression, especially the Lebanese government, which developed a national plan to confront the humanitarian repercussions. However, due to the scale and brutality of the aggression, the state is unable to fully respond to the massive humanitarian needs, especially as Lebanon was already suffering from a severe economic crisis prior to the war, owing to the collapse of the Lebanese currency against the US dollar.

As for the Palestinian refugees, a large number of them, particularly from Palestinian camps in southern Lebanon—such as the Rashidieh Camp, the Buss Camp, and the Bourj al-Shamali Camp—and Palestinian communities in southern Lebanon, like Shabriha, Qasmiyeh, Aitaniya, Wasta, Abu al-Aswad, Jamjim, and Kfarbadda, have also been displaced. In addition, many have fled from Palestinian camps in the southern suburbs of Beirut, such as Shatila and Bourj al-Barajneh, and some Palestinian residential clusters in the Bekaa region.

Most of these Palestinian refugees have left their homes and camps after some of them were bombed, leading to casualties. The number of displaced Palestinian refugees is estimated to be more than 60,000. Most have taken refuge in areas like Sidon, where Ain al-Hilweh Camp has received more than 1,500 families, while Mar Elias Camp in Beirut has received 360 families, and Nahr al-Bared Camp has welcomed over 3,000 families in northern Lebanon, along with the al-Bada Camp.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has established shelters for displaced people in several areas, including Siblin Institute, Yaebod School in Bir Hassan, and some of its schools in Sidon and northern Lebanon. However, some of these shelters were closed within 72 hours of opening due to the inability to meet the refugees' needs, as UNRWA lacks the necessary funding. Previously, we and other popular bodies had warned of the shortcomings of the emergency plan announced by UNRWA, and its inability to meet even the minimum repercussions of the displacement, due to inadequate funding and perhaps flawed estimates by UNRWA's management.

The catastrophic situation faced by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who have fled their homes exceeds the capacity of UNRWA, social institutions, and popular committees. Often, aid from civil society and associations is distributed to Lebanese displaced persons and shelters that house people outside of the Palestinian camps, including UNRWA's shelters, which accommodate Palestinians, Lebanese, and individuals from other nationalities.

Therefore, displaced Palestinian refugees from the camps and Palestinian communities need basic life necessities such as sleeping mats, food aid, medical supplies, financial assistance, and cleaning materials, especially as we approach the winter season. The continuation of the aggression for an extended period will likely exacerbate this issue, making it a real problem that must be addressed on multiple levels and from now on.

We call upon you to provide as much relief support as possible to the displaced families to meet their daily needs, by coordinating with social institutions working among the displaced. We have full confidence that our comrades, friends, and all supporters of the Palestinian and Lebanese people will respond to this call. Any support, no matter how simple or modest, is a significant contribution to thwarting the goals of the Israeli-American aggression.

"Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine"
- Department of Foreign Affairs –
- October 23, 2024

 

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Book Review: Nature, Culture and Inequality

Written by: Duncan B. on 21 October 2024

 

Thomas Piketty, the author of Nature, Culture and Inequality is a French economist who specialises in the study of global inequality in its various forms. He was an editor of the World Inequality Report 2022, issued by the World Inequality Database.

Inequality of income and inequality of wealth are two important measures of inequality in a country. What percentage of income and wealth go to the top 10% of society compared to the bottom 10%? We see that in most countries, especially countries like the US the top 10% have the biggest share of the income and wealth of the country. The bottom 10% have only a very small percentage of the income and wealth. In Australia the top 20% control 48% of the income and 64% of the wealth. The bottom 20% have 4% of the income and 17% of the wealth.

In many countries the difference in income and wealth possessed by the top 10% is actually increasing at the expense of the bottom 10%. The level of inequality in a country can be influenced by government policies such as taxation systems that favour the richest individuals and companies over the ordinary people. Tax cuts for the highest income earners and numerous concessions for companies are examples of this. In Australia we have taxation concessions around housing such as negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions which favour investors who may own many houses over would-be first home buyers, contributing to inequality in the housing market.

The spokesmen for capitalism try to tell us that inequality is inevitable. Piketty says, “Those who benefit most from a system tend, for obvious reasons, to see inequalities as part of the natural order, and they are apt to characterise disparities as permanent and inevitable, warning against any change that might threaten the existing harmony.”

He cites Sweden as an example of country that went from being a highly unequal country to an extremely egalitarian country, thanks to the policies of social-democratic governments from 1932 to the 1990s.   (As Marxists we say that this does not alter the fact that Sweden is still a capitalist country.)

The neo-liberal policies pursued by governments overseas and in Australia greatly increased inequality as health, education, aged care, transport,  energy and other sectors of the economy were handed over to  the “market” for capitalists to extract billions of dollars in profits from them. Piketty calls for all of these to be taken back out of the market and returned to the public sphere.

 

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Support for Palestinian people's struggle continues to grow.

Written by: Ned K. on 20 October 2024

 

The recent assassination of Palestinian leader Yahya Sinwar by the Israeli Defense Force has not dampened the spirits of the Palestinian people, nor the level of support across the world for the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Zionist Israeli regime and its imperialist backers.

Even in the relatively small city of Adelaide, attendance at this Sunday 20 October rally following Sinwar's assassination increased in numbers. Speakers from Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) and Adelaide Sister's Association pointed out that the struggle of the Palestinian people did not start on 7 October 2023 and the mass media portrayal of the assassination of individual leaders of the Palestinian resistance movement since that time as a decisive victory for the Israeli Zionist regime ignored the fact that the struggle of the Palestinian people against the imperialist created Zionist state of Israel has been going on for over 70 years.

In fact, if the makeup of the people at the Adelaide rally is any indication, there are more people than ever from different backgrounds and communities attending. 

One AFOPA speaker pointed out how quick off the mark was Foreign Minister Penny Wong and PM Albanese to champion sanctions against Iran, but no sanctions on the Zionist state of Israel. The AFOPA speaker said it was plain for the people of the world to see that for the Australian, US and other western governments, Palestinian lives are worth less than Israeli lives.

The AFOPA speaker also reported that on this same weekend as the Sunday 20 October rally, the ALP annual State Convention finally passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire and end of occupied territories by Israel and for recognition of a state of Palestine.

He said this resolution was welcome news and although not the strongest worded resolution in support of the Palestinian people, it reflected the growing dissatisfaction of rank-and-file ALP members with the ALP leadership support for Israel. 

A University student leader also spoke at the Adelaide rally and said that it was important to support future protest rallies, including rallies at a conference of arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Saab, BAE and others being held at the Marriot Hotel in Adelaide in mid-November
  

 

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Meat…the worker!

Written by: (Contributed) on 14 October 2024

 

Above: Meatworkers' union at Brisbane Labor Day rally

The following statement from a meat worker was posted to the reddit internet platform. We are reposting it because it is a powerful statement about the class structure of capitalist Australia. The general resides in the particular: this one workers’ awakening is true of many workers whose next step is to find and join the revolutionary party of the working class – eds.

When I started to read about socialism a lot of things started making sense. 

I work in a meat factory, and I've experienced first hand how the capitalist system is unbalanced. We do 12-14 hour days, and our bodies are wrecked. 
I work primarily in small goods production, and my back is already at a point where I can feel it deteriorating as is my right shoulder, from all the heavy lifting of 20 - 30kg tubs of meat, and I'm only 31. 

The older, experienced butchers though… man, their hands are completely mangled. All have carpel tunnel syndrome. All need to have buckets of hot water on standby to dunk their hands in just to numb the pain of their repetitive work. We are, quite literally, wrecking our bodies to earn a pittance to just live in society and get by. 

Meanwhile, the bosses are millionaires with giant houses, expensive cars and $700 pairs of RM Williams'. 

Then I factor in that I am one of the luckier ones with a stable and full-time job, and that many are struggling in worse financial situations than myself. 

Working here these last few years is what has slowly built my interest in socialism. I was completely apolitical before, but now I have experienced first hand how flawed capitalism is, and how unsustainable it is, and socialism seems to be the answer to me. 

Exactly what kind of socialism, I am not sure yet. 

 

 

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On the death of Dr G.N. Saibaba, fighter for freedom.

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 14 October 2024

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) joins comrades around the word in mourning the death of Comrade Dr. G. N. Saibaba, an outstanding fighter for the liberation of the Indian people.

The wheelchair-bound Saibaba, who was 90% disabled due to a childhood bout with polio, was undergoing treatment at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Telangana’s Hyderabad district, where he was admitted 10 days ago due to ill health. His aides said he suffered a heart attack around 8 pm and was declared dead by doctors at the hospital at 8:30 pm.

Dr. Saibaba, who had been employed at Delhi University and had long campaigned for the rights of the poor and working masses of India, was arrested on May 9, 2014 for alleged ties to the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and involvement in activities deemed as waging war against the nation. His arrest came under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

At that time, Dr. Saibaba was convenor of the ‘Forum Against War On People’ against Operation Green Hunt, the military campaign against the armed fighters of the Maoist Party.

Dr Saibaba was acquitted by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court on March 5 of this year, nearly 10 years after he was first arrested. The Bombay High Court found that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. Of course, the real cause for his acquittal was the campaign, Indian and international, that had been waged for his release.

Speaking of his ten years in gaol, Dr. Saibaba said: “Prison is a microcosm of the external world, where all the societal evils are even more pronounced than outside.” 

“Caste-based discrimination is rampant in prison, and works are assigned based on the caste of inmates. In fact, assignment of jobs based on caste is mentioned in the jail manual too,” Dr Saibaba said.

The amended Prisons Act 1894 allows ‘mild bodily torture’ as a means to control and discipline prisoners. While there is no way one can protest against such a system except through a hunger strike, even that would yield no result unless amplified by voices outside the prison.

Under the pretext of mild torture, all prisoners are beaten up upon arrival without reason. The only exceptions are gangsters, politicians of repute and ‘Naxal cases’, Dr Saibaba said.

We express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and comrades of the outstanding fighter for freedom, Dr Saibaba.

 

 

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A voice from the women of Gaza

Written by: Dr. Maryam Abu Daqqa on 14 October 2024

 

Children slaughtered by the Zionists, Deir al-Baleh, August 20, 2024

The following statement was presented at a webinar of the International Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Fascist United Front last night. There were 88 participants from 23 countries. Ours was one of the participating organisations. First speaker was Comrade Fouad Baker from the Foreign Office of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The author of the following statement, from Gaza, could not, of course, attend in person – eds.

 

Contribution to the United Front webinar on October 13, 2024

Webinarbeitrag 13.10.24 Dr. Maryam Abu Daqqa from Palestine, Gaza Strip

Dear brothers, Dear sisters, Dear comrade Monica 

Greetings of steadfastness and struggle. I would like to update you on the situation in our region and our activities to meet the challenge.After a year of war of extermination in Palestine in general and Ezzat in particular, now it is continuing in our brotherly Lebanon. 

The Zionist occupation and the actual participation of global imperialism led by the United States of America means the Lebanese people are threatened with completing the genocide of all Arab countries and the axis of resistance that supports our people.

Amidst the suspicious silence of the international community, the fascist occupation aims to kill women and children and justifies this by saying that children are the future and therefore they must be killed. Women are killed because they give birth to heroes, so their lineage must be cut off. There have been 42 thousand martyrs, 72% of whom were women and children. 18 thousand children lost their mothers or fathers, or both. 15 thousand cancer patients, most of them women, have no treatment and are banned from traveling from the country. 97 thousand have been wounded, 73 percent of them women and children More than 29 thousand missing people are under rescue. They destroyed the hospitals, the bodies of the victims were devoured by dogs. They did not leave a wall or a road without bulldozing it. They killed everything, trees, people, and pilgrims.Their goals are clear: to eliminate our people, displace them, and seize our land. 

They want the reoccupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the displacement of our people in the West Bank They do not recognize that there is a Palestinian people and they aspire to achieve their dream of Greater Israel and oppose the implementation of the peace process. The oppressive Zionist leadership is expanding its expansionist ambitions and committing border crimes.There is no deterrent to it. Neither the UN Security Council, nor the General Assembly, nor the International Court of Justice, nor the International Criminal Court can stop them.The American veto is ready to support the entity and continue the massacres in Palestine and Lebanon. 

Now in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, the Asna fronts, despite the siege and destruction, despite the ongoing massacres Palestinians, and at the forefront, the Palestinian woman has endured and continues to endure what mountains cannot bear. It's unfair. It takes volumes to talk about the suffering of our people, especially women and girls, whose dreams we have lost.They are now in dire need of support in all areas.They are fully aware that freedom is theirs against the presence of occupation, so the struggle for women’s freedom requires freedom for men.Therefore, we find Palestinian women taking initiatives to care for children and trying to support them psychologically and teach them. And helping the wounded and their families in addition to seminars and broadcasts about female prisoners and women's special needs. And the suffering of our people, children, wounded and the siege. Not for the first time, Palestinian women are raped, and there is systematic torture of male and female prisoners. More than fifty male and female prisoners were killed under torture in the prisons during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. We continue to participate in various Arab and international conferences to expose the Zionist entity and its agents. We continue to help bereaved families and orphans.We can do nothing but this. 

Dear sisters, let us build a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital!

End the occupation to the corners. 
Freedom for our families and our brave prisoners. 
Glory to the martyrs and a speedy recovery to the wounded. 
Victory to our people and all struggling peoples! 
Shame on the Zionists and global imperialism, led by America, the head of the snake. 

 

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US imperialism strengthens grip on class and state power in the Philippines

Written by: (Contributed) on 11 October 2024

 

Above; Filipinos protest the visit of Austin and Blinken on Juy 30, 2024.  Source  KMU website

Controversy surrounding members of the Duterte family in the Philippines has raised serious considerations about their longer-term viability as a political dynasty. The former president, Rodrigo Duterte, would appear to have lost much of his support and faces an uncertain future. The resurgent Marcos oligarchy, backed by the US, has returned the Philippines to its past Cold War diplomatic status as a compliant participant for 'US interests'. What the outcome of these developments means for the Philippine working-class and their progressive organisations remains unclear; their struggles, nevertheless, continue!

An official statement from Philippine academic and social commentator, Antonio J. Montalvan II, that, 'we are seeing the end of the Duterte dynasty … it … will emasculate the once-untouchable power of the Duterte's', has captured both the timing and the gravity of problems facing Duterte family members and some of their closest associates. (1) Duterte's daughter, Sara, who is currently vice-president of the country, is facing the prospect of criminal charges, together with former president Rodrigo, facing charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Rodrigo Duterte was elected to presidential office with a huge majority in 2016, successfully pushing oligarchies away from the centre of the political power they had dominated for decades. Within a short time of taking office Duterte announced the Philippines would be pursuing an independent foreign policy. (2) The country had been previously a central regional part of US-led foreign policy, with both Washington and the Pentagon dominating decision-making. (3)

The US, historically, regarded the Philippines as the centre of an arc as the most reliably vantage point, with one wing swinging toward the more developed countries of North-east Asia and the other swinging toward the lesser developed but natural resource rich countries of South-east Asia. (4)

While the US and other allies had troops stationed in the Philippines, control was more often than not exerted through oligarchies and Triads at almost every strategic point inside the ramshackle governing administration in Manila and elsewhere in the provinces. The presidential election of Duterte, at a superficial level, was a rejection by the mass of the Philippine population to end political chicanery and rampant corruption and begin afresh.

The ensuing period was marked by optimism and an upsurge in worker's militancy and the struggle for raising the basic minimum wage; a large part of the Philippine working class, for example, works in the informal sector of the economy, where important industrial struggles for trade-union organisation and recognition for basic wages remain of central importance for the whole movement.

Those retaining traditional class and state power were initially thrust back onto defensive tactics. The strongly anti-Communist state apparatus, including the armed forces and their associates, continued, nevertheless, to follow US hegemonic positions, wherever possible. On 7 May 2018, for example, the Philippines engaged in the Balikatan joint military exercises with the US which included: participation with Australia and Japan; the start of building construction inside existing military bases for five US facilities 'wherein the super-power can preposition military equipment and supplies for its exclusive use in operations in the Asia-Pacific region'. (5)

The military facilities accessed by the US included:

a military warehouse in the Basa Air Base, Pampanga;
Antonio Bautista Air Base, Palawan;
Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija;
Lumbia Air Base, Cagayan de Oro City;                        
Mactan-Benito Air Base, Cebu City. (6)

While Duterte's moves to negotiate a peace settlement with the Communist-led New People's Army (NPA) was initially greeted, it eventually led to very little being achieved. In fact, the NPA used the period to expand their guerilla operations and recruit large numbers of younger people. The diplomatic position of the US toward the NPA has been, historically, conducted along lines of 'low-intensity' methods; US military intervention, however, has always been an agenda item if the NPA were able to 'achieve enough momentum to create significant destabilisation or even victory'. (7)  

Throughout the whole period the Marcos oligarchy surreptitiously recouped their famous 'Marcos millions', huge financial assets amassed by Marcos senior during the previous Cold War. The Philippines, during that time and the present, remains a 'kleptocracy', with widespread corruption. Having repossessed their ill-gotten gains the Marcos oligarchy then set about regaining political power which they had lost with the tumultuous upheavals of 1986. Their objectives were achieved following the Duterte presidential period.

After winning the 2022 national elections Ferdinand Marcos Jnr. established his presidential office to quickly swing the country back into its more traditional US-led role with a compliant administration in Manila. To date, the administration has slavishly followed US-led diplomatic hostilities with China, largely in the South China Seas.

The US and their Philippine associates, however, appear to have now set their sights on removing any lasting support linked to the Duterte family, which continues to be seen as an obstacle to US-led supremacy. It had shown just how high the stakes have become for Washington and the Pentagon when dealing with countries inside their sphere of influence.

By using a convicted drug trafficker and former customs intelligence officer, Jimmy Guban, allegations have been levelled at some of Duterte's associates, including his son, Paolo, who is a congressman, and Manases Carpio, husband of Sara, that a total of 355 kgs of crystal methamphetamine was smuggled into the Philippines. (8) Whether he has been a credible witness remains, as yet, to be established by usual legal procedures, which in the Philippines can best be viewed as highly questionable.

Elsewhere, further allegations levelled at Apollo Quiboloy, head of a spurious quasi-religious cult, the Owners of the Universe, for involvement in fraud, currency smuggling, human trafficking and a child sex ring, have ensnared Sara Duterte who has been one of his most conspicuous supporters. (9)

Rodrigo Duterte, furthermore, is also being considered for possible legal proceedings with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his sanctioning of extra-judicial killings of about 13,000 alleged drug traffickers; the ICC has been actively involved in extensive investigations of the killings since 2017 as crimes against humanity. (10)

With the Philippines safely back inside the US fold, its linkage into the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) has also taken place; it is now fully incorporated as a lower-level partner alongside South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and others, with the US-Japan alliance having been upgraded to a global partnership. (11)

The IPS is one of the main regional mechanisms through which the US pushes the present Cold War, which has serious implications for all levels of subject societies. A particularly relevant additional factor has been the recent high-level military-diplomatic talks between the US and the Marcos administration whereby the Pentagon have provided US$500 million of 'foreign military financing'. (12)

Declassified military-diplomatic documents from the previous Cold War reveal a great deal about US positions toward their compliant allies. US-led intelligence agents were trained and instructed to infiltrate every organisation open to penetration, with intelligence-gathering aimed at profiling whole populations for identification. (13) The main target for special attention, however, were those identified responsible for opposition to the US Defence Department 'during peacetime and all levels of conflict'. (14) With the US preoccupied with provoking hostilities and a confrontation with China in the South China Seas, the Philippines has been placed in a front-line position of US-led military planning, with all which that position entails; criticism of the US-China hostilities is very difficult.

It is important to note that while the military documentation was declassified, it was also subsequently updated to serve more recent developments which obviously include interception of on-line telecommunications. The basic parts of the military directives remain fully operational.

Subsequent Pentagon intelligence material which was also leaked during the early years of the so-called New World Order of the 1990s, for example, revealed just how high the US had placed the Philippines onto their agendas for the retention of traditional hegemonic diplomatic positions. The period was marked by the triumphalism of capitalism and imperialism, and the closure of prominent US military facilities in the country. In February 1992 the leakage of highly classified intelligence material, nevertheless, revealed US-led preparations for a regional war 'to defend the lives of US citizens threatened by instability in the Philippines', if, and when, required. (15)

One notable feature of Cold War politics is the difficulty, therefore, for progressive organisations to operate openly without outside external interference; the eyes and the ears of class and state power intrude from every possible vantage point, with almost unlimited amounts of finance for bribery and corruption which stifle all levels of Philippine society.

In the Philippines recent studies of the US-led interference and its effect upon the working-class have included waves of eliminations and disappearances of local trade-union activists and other repression.

At the level of employment, the Philippine working-class operate within an economy which has retained many features of neo-colonialism and semi-feudalism, dependent upon foreign investment through international financial institutions controlled largely by the US.

Recent studies have found that while official unemployment statistics record it affecting only 3.1 per cent of the workforce or 1.62 million workers, in reality it is not particularly accurate; the informal nature of much employment is hidden through bureaucratic manipulation. (16) The problem is compounded by massive under-employment of a relatively well-educated workforce which has risen to 12.1 per cent of the workforce and 6.08 million workers. (17) Many workers require more than one job to survive.

While the main Philippine trade union organisation, the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), has demanded the government implement the P1,200 basic minimum wage, many employers openly flout the regulations and seek to contain and isolate trade-union activists. The KMU operate in extremely difficult, and dangerous, circumstances.

The struggles of the Philippine working class and their progressive organisations, nevertheless, continue unabated from the previous Cold War to the present one:

                                                     Ever Onward to Victory!

1.     Manila's Duterte dynasty on the brink, Australian, 18 September 2024.
2.     See: Tightening Phil military involvement with the US, The Philippine Star, 5 May 2018.
3.     See: The objectives of the US., The Guardian, 6 August 2003.
4.     Ibid.
5.     Philippine Star, op.cit., 5 May 2018.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Tracking covert actions into the future, Philip Agee, Covert Action – the roots of terrorism, Edited - Ellen Ray and William Shaap, (Melbourne, 2003), page 13.
8.     Australian, op.cit., 18 September 2024.
9.     Ibid.
10.   Ibid.
11.   See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
12.   Austin-Blinken visit,  KMU., (Philippines), Official Website, 30 June 2024.
13.   See: Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, Army Regulation 381-20, Declassified 1993; and, Army's project X had a wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997; and, 'The CIA cleanses itself', The New York Times, 4 March 1997.
14.   AR 381-20, ibid., Mission and Policy, Reference 1.5, page 1.
15.   Tracking covert actions into the future, Philip Agee, op.cit., pp. 9-10;
16.   See: On the June 2024 Labor Force Survey: Low quality jobs, meager wages, KMU Official Website: posted 8 August 2024.
17.   Ibid.

 

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IPAN Conference 2024: Sleepwalking into War

Written by: Allan M. on 9 October 2024

 

ETU Queensland Branch presentation at IPAN Conference

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network's (IPAN) 2024 conference took place in Perth on October 4-6. The conference, titled Sleepwalking into War, focussed on combatting the increasing subservience of the Australian political class to the military, political, and economic demands on the United States of America. 

Opening with a peaceful protest at the entrance of HMAS Stirling naval base, the epicentre of our government's ambition to become a nuclear vassal state, the conference continued into a three-day program where speakers and attendees from around the country gathered to discuss Australia's involvement in the violent U.S imperial system and formulate actions to build an independent and peaceful nation. 

With speakers ranging from First Nations leaders, student activists who led university encampments, and to Senators such as Fatima Payman and Jordan Steele-John, the conference heard an incredibly diverse range of voices and perspectives on the impacts of the U.S led imperial capitalist system. 

The talks laid bare the reality of Australia's situation on the international stage. The Australian capitalist class, and their politician collaborators, are willing hostages to U.S interests. Our government has sold out our sovereignty in exchange for a handful of board positions, meagre investment in a select few Australian companies, and the empty promise of some killing machines. 

The U.S has now received political assurance that Australian industrial capacity will be increasingly folded into the U.S military-industrial supply chain, without any say in how their outputs will be used. 

Our government would be hard-pressed to back out of this deal and regain our national self-determination, not that they have any interest to do so. Speakers clearly articulated how our government's willing subordination to the U.S results in their complicity to the crimes perpetrated by the imperial regime. Australia's involvement in the F-35 fighter jet supply chain, and our participation in the revolving door of import and export contracts for weapons, means our government has allowed our country to participate in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and the destructive war being inflamed in the middle-east. This is despite the Australian people clearly wanting an end to this brutal, criminal conflict and wanting our country to make free and independent decisions. 

Many speakers presented alternative pathways for Australia that demonstrated how our country can be safe and secure without relying on the U.S. 

An independent future was shown as not only easily attainable, but vitally important in allowing us to develop the things important to Australian communities, such as health, education, and meaningful employment. Organisers facilitated discussions to formulate future actions in building a movement to end Australia's role in imperialism and lead an independent and peaceful country. 

The organisations comprising IPAN will be drawing lessons from these discussions and putting it into practice. 

What is immediately clear, as always for our work, is that the capitalist political cartel of Labor and Liberal will not change the violent status quo. It is people power that will provide peace and independence for our country. 

 

 

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Retired military leaders – “Climate, not China, is Australia’s main threat”

Written by: Nick G. on 9 October 2024

 

A group led mainly by retired military personnel has just released a new report that says climate change is the “greatest security threat to Australia and to societies around the world”.

The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG) is headed by Admiral Chris Barrie (Ret’d), Chief of the Australian Defence Force from 1998 to 2002, and includes three other senior retired military leaders, and three civilian including Ian Dunlop, former chair of the Australian Coal Association.

In releasing the latest ASLCG report, Protect, Prevent and Prepare, Barrie said that "climate, not China, is the biggest security issue”

While not directly mentioning the $368 billion AUKUS spend, Barrie said  “All the billions of resources being put into confronting China will not help one iota in dealing with the greatest threat to our future security in Australia and the region — and that is climate disruption. We have just seen Hurricane Helene in the US cause damage estimated at $A230 billion in costs—equivalent to nearly 40% of Australia’s annual federal budget. In just one storm! And with only 2-6% of affected properties insured, the financial and social toll is immense.”

The ASLCG report criticises Australian governments past and present, saying “Inadequate action by Australian governments has left our nation poorly prepared to face global warming’s consequences, and Australia remains “missing in action” on climate-security risks”.

“…right now climate-security risks are not being fully assessed or understood in Australia. There is a poor understanding of the systemic security risks posed by climate change, which constitutes a major strategic gap. As a result, Australia is failing in its responsibilities as a global citizen, as a major strategic defence ally, and to protect people. Our nation is ill-prepared for climate impacts and the security implications in one of the highest risk regions in the world, the Indo-Pacific.”

The ASLCG report comes just two weeks after the Albanese government gave the greenlight to three massive coal mine expansions in NSW that will operate as far into the future as 2066 and fuel over a billion tonnes of carbon emissions. This is more than three times Australia’s current total annual emissions.  

We can expect the report to be either ignored or attacked and discredited by Murdoch’s unAustralian newspaper and his paid stable of reactionary hacks at Sky News.

As for the current government, we can expect Albanese, Marles and Wong to continue their disgraceful service to US imperialism and its preparations for war with China.

In anticipation of the ASLCG report being ignored, Admiral Barrie said: “The analysis we have done is so shocking people don’t want to believe it, but that is what the evidence from senior security experts as well as the world’s best scientists is telling us, and I think they are right. A national conversation about the need to ‘Protect, Prevent and Prepare’ is beyond urgent.”
  

 

 

 

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Would Albanese call Pemulwuy a “terrorist”?

Written by: Ned K. on 7 October 2024

 

Monday 7th October 2024 was the anniversary of the Palestinian Hamas attack on Israeli settlers just north of Gaza. These armed attacks by Hamas were called the acts of a "terrorist organization" by Albanese and his government, echoing the words of the USA President Biden and many other western countries. 

On this same day 7th October 2024, The Australian newspaper headline quoted Israel's Ambassador to Australia as saying "Israel Protecting free world" by the Israeli state's bombing of Gaza and now Lebanon with the thousands of people killed as a result. 

Resistance by the indigenous Palestinian people to the settler state of Israel created by the Zionists backed by British and USA empires has been labelled as "terrorism" by them. The Australian Prime Minister Albanese automatically follows them.

In 2023 the Prime Minister Albanese and his Government put a great amount of time into the Voice for First Nations Indigenous people in Australia. His actions, we are led to believe, were his way to show his support for Indigenous people in Australia.

He prided himself in his support for Indigenous people in Australia.

On this same day 7th October 2024, I was reading "Always Was, Always Will Be" by First Nations person and MUA Assistant National Secretary, Thomas Mayo.

In his book, Mayo talks about the armed resistance by First Nations people to the British colonial settlers in then New South Wales in the late 1700s and 1800s.

One passage from his book showed similarities between the armed resistance of First Nations people in New South Wales at that time and the armed resistance of Indigenous Palestinians against the Israeli Government forces and Israeli settlers in 2023-24. 

Thomas Mayo writes,

"To the west of Sydney in the fertile lands of the Burramattagal clan of the Dharrug nation, the British established their first inland settlement, along with government farms that were vital to supporting a growing population of colonists...From 1792, Pemulwuy led his warriors in guerrilla warfare across Bidigal lands, strategically burning buildings, taking crops and attacking travellers.

At the height of these raids, in March 1797, he and 100 warriors fought in what has become known as the battle of Parramatta against armed soldiers and settlers".

Pemulwuy was shot in the head during this battle, captured by the colonial settlers but escaped to courageously lead his people. Eventually on 2 June 1802 he was shot dead by a colonial settler. He was decapitated and his head sent to the fascist Sir Joseph Banks in England to add to a skull colllection of Indigenous people from lands that became British colonies.

I asked myself, would the Prime Minister call Pemulwuy a "terrorist"? If he would answer yes, then how shallow was his Voice campaign? If he would answer no, Pemulwuy was a fighter against settler colonialism, then how hypocritical to call any Indigenous Palestinian organization, or individual Indigenous Palestinian leader, "terrorist"?
  

 

 

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Defending the CFMEU in SA

Written by: (Contributed) on 7 October 2024

 

Currently the Albo government and the Liberals (with the support of the ACTU) are rolling over to the employers and attempting to totally crush militant workers organisation, in this case the CFMEU. Through parliament they passed a bill giving extraordinary powers to stamping out strong worker organisations (CFMEU), workers’ right and conditions.

With one TV show and a total anti-worker media the puppets have stood up in Federal parliament to attack the whole membership of the CFMEU. All this with the support of the bump me into parliament ACTU and a few other weak union officials. All under the guise of getting rid of John Setka and a few bikies. No, this is a planned task to rid workers of their power to organise, particularly with strength in a strong union.

Here in South Australia there was a belief we should be ok. WRONG. Our Premiere Peter Mali acted early, called on the police to get in and investigate find the bikies and corruption and bullying. This was done, a report was given to government. It wasn’t tabled wasn’t told to members of the CFMEU or the media. Why not? Probably because the report said there was no evidence of corruption, bikies or bullying. It came out after the report was leaked.

Doesn’t end there. The premier has asked for the administrators to also include the state arm of the union, the Australian Building and Construction Workers Federation (ABCWF), this is after the police report. Even more the same man and government has sacked the representative of the CFMEU off the CITB (Construction Industry Training Board) along with the CEPU (although it is still on board). Together they represent the bulk of workers in the industry.

In SA we are affected like the other states. We have had sackings with life time employment bans including our secretary Marcus Pare sacked by the administrator Mark Irving, supported by the appointed state administrator. Here according to the police report these people are not guilty or accused of any wrong doing. Neither administrator has any onsite experience of construction.

While some weaker unions have gone silent along with some members of the ALP others haven’t. The CEPU have held joint meetings with the CFMEU and joint plans are in progress on how to oppose this bill and work towards looking after and improving the working conditions of all SA members. Members are urged to stay financial and to encourage work mates to join.

EBA’s and site visits will still happen but without strong elected leadership the daily struggle will be harder. Bosses have already started to push back on EBAs and their entitlements.

The CFMEU membership have used the call “IF UNDER ATTACK FIGHT BACK!”

It’s now time to put these words into action

When a Labor government attacked and deregistered the BLF in the 80’s the union may have gone but the spirit and fight didn't. Many of those members and ideas formed part of the CFMEU.

Long live the spirit of Eureka!

DARE TO STRUGGLE!
DARE TO WIN!

A union member since the 1960’s

 

 

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Another Dairy Industry Casualty

Written by: Duncan B. on 4 October 2024

 

(Murray Bridge News  Photo: Peri Strathearn)

In late September this year South Australian dairy processor Beston Global Foods was placed into administration, making it the thirteenth dairy processor to suffer the same fate since mid-2022.

The company blamed high operating costs, including interest costs, energy, labour and the farm gate price paid to farmers for their milk. They also blamed a high level of dairy products being imported into Australia.

About 160 jobs in two factories are at risk, and farmers who supply the company are in limbo. In July the company sold its meat processing section, Provincial Food Group, to raise some cash to pay down some of its debt to the bank. Unfortunately for Beston, a proposed buyout of Beston’s dairy processing arm by Japanese company Megmilk Snow Brand fell through.

Beston joins other high-profile dairy companies in trouble, including the famous King Island Cheese factory, owned by the Canadian dairy giant Saputo, which wants to close the King Island factory down in mid-2025. King Islanders are worried about the effects this will have on jobs on the island, other King Island businesses and the prospects for the island’s young people.

Another famous Australian company at risk was dessert manufacturer Sara Lee, which went into administration last November. Fortunately for Australian sweet-tooths a rescuer was found for Sara Lee. It is also uncertain what the effects on dairy processing in Australia will be if New Zealand dairy company Fonterra goes through with its proposed sale of  its Australian assets.

As we have previously reported the Australian dairy industry has seen a reduction in the amount of milk produced in Australia, as many dairy farmers leave the industry due to rising input costs and receiving payment for their milk from processors that barely allows them to break even, let alone make a profit.

The chief financial officer of Saputo recently sparked outrage among dairy farmers when he said that the company wanted to keep farm gate prices low for as long as possible. He said, “We’re hopeful that this milk price will stick for as long as we can.”

In early September, ACTU secretary Michele O’Neil joined striking Saputo maintenance workers outside Saputo’s Burnie (Tas) plant. She lashed Saputo, saying that the company had badly treated workers and farmers time and time again. She said, “Saputo is a huge multinational. In the past two years they’ve made more than $1bn in profit globally. Between 2022 and 2023, they paid their CEO more than a 300% pay increase, where his pay went up from $1.6m to $5.1 m-so they’re not showing good faith. This shows a disrespect for farmers as well as workers.”

Michele O’Neil’s comments reinforce what Vanguard has been saying for a long time. Farmers and workers have the same common enemy. There is a strong basis for unity between these two important sections of Australian society.

 

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CPA (M-L) October 7 Statement

Written by: Alice M. on 6 October 2024

 

Power to the Palestinian National Liberation struggle!  
People of the world unite and fight against Zionist Israel colonialism and US imperialism!
Condemn the Australian government complicity in the mass slaughter of people of Palestine and Lebanon!

The 7th October, 2023, Palestinian break out from the Gaza concentration camp signalled a turning point in the courageous Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation and self-determination. 

 

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Australia not so lucky country for migrant workers

Written by: Ned K. on 6 October 2024

 

(Above: migrant workers are an imrtant part of the Australian working class.  UWU Facebook page)

Migrant workers have been coming to Australia since the earliest times since British colonialism first invaded the lands of First Nations people in the late 1700s. After the Second World War, new migrant workers from predominantly European countries were able to find full time jobs in government departments, large government projects or in factories in manufacturing industries. 

Public housing was more accessible and affordable and with plenty of overtime available, many workers had enough savings for a deposit to buy a modest house in a working class suburb. 

The concentration of large numbers of migrant workers in large workplaces enabled them to organize in unions to win relative job security and improvement in wages in conditions. For many, the "Australian dream" of owning your own home which they had heard about when making the decision to migrate to Australia seemed like a reality.

In the 21st Century, there are still many new migrants coming from Europe but also many more coming from Asian, Middle-Eastern, African and South American countries.

They come with the same aspirations of building better lives for themselves and their families as previous waves of migrants. On arrival they also see the expansion of suburbs and strive to become new home buyers. In fact, they see this as more of a necessity than migrants who arrived in the second half of the 20th century because of the collapse of public housing by governments across Australia. 

They also find an Australia where full-time jobs for are the exception for their communities rather than the rule.

So they are forced to often work two or three jobs to make enough money to pay the rent and bills, let alone to save enough money for a deposit on a house. 

Most of the available jobs for them are via labour hire agencies or with contractor capitalists who themselves live a precarious existence competing with other contractors to win work from governments (who have outsourced work) or large multinational corporations who dominate most industries in an Australia stripped of its manufacturing base by overseas-owned capital and compliant Australian governments.

Despite the difficulties they face, new migrant workers strive to "make it" in their new country they now call home. So they walk the thin line between maintaining and improving their economic situation and economic disaster due to the decisions made by the big corporations in pursuit of profit maximization.

Recently I saw an example of how precarious the situation is for some new migrant families and communities.

About 40 migrant workers were working for a cleaning contractor in a large shopping center owned by a Queensland based property developer. The contractor had won work at the center at a lower price than that of their competitors. The workers employed by the contractor were mainly part time workers with a few full-time.

Many of the workers took the job because it enabled them to work their second job which was also part-time. For example, some would work three days a week in the evening for about 4 hours so they could work a second job in the morning. A few had full time hours and had set themselves up as self-employed in another occupation as well outside of their full-time job. A couple of these workers had been balancing this workload of about 16 hours a day in total which enabled them to save enough to buy and pay off a house, their new home in a new land.

Then one day out of the blue their contractor boss announced a whole revamp of the roster system which reduced the total working hours of the 40 workers.

More of the work was moved to reduce shift rate hours worked and hence income of workers. This was not the main impact though of the changes to the roster system. The main impact was that it meant a lot of workers would have to give up the job completely to keep their second job or the reverse, give up their second job to keep the shopping center job. 

Problems for workers did not stop there. Even if some workers were able to keep both their part-time jobs, the new roster system meant they had to re-arrange with their partners who would look after the children, and would the new roster system mean their partner then had to give up their job or cut their hours to make sure one parent at least was able to look after their children. One worker was beside himself. He had thought that with the hard work and long hours of three jobs between himself and his partner that it was safe to really live the "Australian dream" by buying a second house and renting it out as part of building some economic security for his family. Now a roster change was throwing all that up in the air. 

Their contractor boss made the roster system changes to make-up lost profits caused by their company winning the contract with the property developer on such a low price that the only way to make a profit was to cut labour costs.

As the workers were only employed under the minimum conditions of the Award, there was no such legal requirement that rosters could only be changed by agreement. All the boss had to do (reluctantly apparently) was go through a process which had the appearance of consultation with the workers and their union.

Workers in their desperation to block the new roster system met with the property developer to see if they'd tell the contractor to leave the rosters as they were.

However, the property owner washed their hands of the whole matter "satisfied" that the contractor had sufficiently "consulted" with the workers.

These migrant workers are very resilient and their communities stick together and support each other and they will live to fight another day.
Wen seeing this happen, I thought what a cruel system is capitalism but also for the large majority of people, what a useless society it is. It just doesn't work for people on so many different levels. 

Time is now for an independent, socialist Australia where First Nations and working people run and organize society for the benefit of people, including new migrants like those working for this contractor in the shopping centre.

 

 

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SA Ambo’s election shows workers want their unions to fight regardless of who holds office

Written by: Nick G. on 4 October 2024

 

The election of a new leader for the Ambulance Employees Association in South Australian reflects the desire of union members for their union to pursue their objectives free of any alignment with the Labor Party.

Like ambulance services around the country, SA ambos and the community are angry at continuing problems with ramping where unwell or injured persons are delivered to hospitals but are unable to be admitted, so are kept for hours in ambulances parked at the doors of the hospitals.

The problems in SA became so acute a couple of years ago under a State Liberal government that Labor ran a single issue campaign, promising to fix ramping and was duly elected.

Despite opening a half a dozen new 24/7 ambulance stations across the metropolitan area and in several country locations, and despite an extra 27 ambulances added to the fleet over last two years and extra beds created for hospitals, ramping not only remains a problem, but has worsened.

In the lead-up to the last election, the ambulance union ran a highly visible campaign. Ambulances carried chalked messages damning the Liberals and calling for public support, and stories of critical incidents, including of people dying while being ramped, filled the media.

But after the election, the heat was lifted from the incoming Labor government, the AEA disappeared from the media, and ambulances went unchalked.

But the crisis kept on delivering bad news. Last December, a 54-year-old man died after waiting more than 10 hours for an ambulance. In July, an 83-year-old woman spent 12 hours waiting to be admitted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital overnight. The same month saw the worst ramping on record, with more than 5500 hours of ramping for the month - equivalent to 15 ambulance crews ramped, unavailable for the community, every single day.

The crisis continued into August when at one point up to 54 ambulances were ramped across Adelaide Hospitals, 17 of which were ramped at Flinders Medical Centre alone, some for up to 7 hours.

Meanwhile 23 emergency cases remained uncovered in the community. 

Paramedic Paul Ekkelboom contested the AEA election for the General Secretary position on a campaign headlined by the promise of re-establishing the AEA’s political independence, and including promises to empower AEA representatives, have a stronger stance and advocacy on ramping, and a preparedness to take legal and industrial action. He won the election with 801 to 342 votes.

The election result clearly shows that workers want their union to have the capacity to fight for their interests regardless of which party holds office. 

We say “holds office” rather than “gets into power” because real power resides in the boardrooms of the giant local and overseas monopolies that control the economy, and hence the political and legal structures that sustain their rule.

The demand that unions adhere to an independent working class agenda, not “go soft” on Labor when it holds office, and even disaffiliate from it to secure their independence, is bound to grow.

 

 

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CPA (M-L) paper: International Theoretical Conference on Economic Crises of Imperialism March 2024

Written by: CPA (M-L) on March 2024

 

 

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Murdoch media’s blindness and indifference to the far-right

Written by: (Contributed) on 1 October 2024

 

Two recent developments have shown just how obtuse so-called informed opinion and government departments have become when dealing with the resurgence of the far-right in Australia. Both developments reveal an intellectual blindness and indifference to violent political actors who seek to enforce their far-right ideologies upon civil society by targeting ethnic minorities, other vulnerable people and using terrorist strategies of tension. The problem is particularly important when assessed in the context of recent developments in the Middle East and their bearing upon Australia.

In mid-August the Australian newspaper published a large feature spread about the UK riots, which had been caused by far-right groups. (1) The article formed part of a typical right-wing analysis of the far-right, without any reference to the philosophical basis of their reactionary thought; economic problems, for the far-right, are measured in ethnic and racist criteria with immigration invariably seen as the sole cause. Ethnic-based analysis also forms part of elitist thought and white supremacy, with other ethnic groups down-graded as less able and worthwhile for meaningful social inclusion.

The Australian article then followed the standard right-wing diversion tactic of ignoring the very real economic problems at the heart of the issue, caused by over four decades of economic rationalism which was used to pillage and plunder British society. Politicians and financiers had a field-day implementing user-pays economic philosophies designed specifically to destroy the welfare state and essential services and therefore penalise the working-class.

The Australian article then went to considerable lengths to praise the work of Margaret Thatcher, the main architect of economic rationalism; she was regarded as being responsible for restoring traditional authority patterns in British society, without any reference to class and state repression which was the order of the day during her Conservative administrations of the 1980s in Westminster.

A closer study of the Australian article has revealed strong underlying links to the so-called National Civic Council (NCC), an Australian far-right political group. In fact, emphasis in the article is remarkably similar to that presented on official NCC websites. (2) The organisation portrays itself as 'centrist', with an emphasis upon reason and family values; it is, however, anything but that, and a classic Cold War-type front organisation with a common pattern of operation symptomatic of intelligence agencies. 

Established in the 1950s, during the previous Cold War, the NCC was essentially an anti-Communist organisation with strong links into the Catholic hierarchy. It ran anti-Communist campaigns through highly secretive and shadowy networks in Australia which proved highly divisive for the ALP and trade-union movement, thereby strengthening the hand of those wielding class and state power by weakening political opposition.

The NCC also found a place for war criminals and those who had colluded with fascist and neo-Nazi organisations; those wielding class and state power conveniently turned a blind eye to the connection, as it clearly served their interests. (3)

The NCC also served Canberra and their US-based patrons well. Its linkage with ASIO and wider regional US military and intelligence operations, have been well recorded. (4) At a regional level the NCC, for example, was one of the main players behind the establishment of ASEAN, then a staunchly anti-Communist trade body designed to isolate Vietnam and strengthen US hegemonic positions. (5)  

The NCC is best viewed in the context of inter-war clerico-fascist organisations which drew upon extreme religious positions to enforce class and state power in an era when economic malaise created the conditions for political upheaval. General Franco, the Spanish despot, would appear to have been their role model for an effective leader. Peron, in Argentina, was another.

With the demise of the previous Cold War and subsequent present day one, it is no great surprise to find the NCC has relaunched itself in the manner which it has, using deceitful and duplicitous methods of operation. Under new national president Luke McCormack, elected in March last year, the NCC aims to revitalise the decentralised model of its founder, BA Santamaria. The fact it is able to preach its advocacy of strong government in a major Australian media outlet is evidence, in itself, of their continued threat; strong government, for the NCC, is achieved by weak and ineffective opposition.

The recent investigation into the 2022 killing of police officers at Wieambilla in Queensland is another example of the same official mind-set of those residing inside the corridors of power when dealing with the far-right. The whole investigation has remained riddled with contradictions. An official position of the investigators noted those responsible were a Christian fundamentalist group who believed in 'premillennialism'; they believed in the second coming based on a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation. (6) 

Elsewhere, quirky covers for far-right terrorism have not been difficult to establish: references to 'Justiciar Knights' and other fringe dwellers, for example, have been officially assessed by intelligence services and found to be directly linked to terrorism. (7)

Great stress, throughout the Wieambilla investigation, has been placed upon the nature of the autonomous cell of terrorists responsible for the killings. The three members of the Train family were regarded as an insular group, with the denial 'that there is anyone else in Australia that participated or assisted in this attack'. (8) But what about the international terrorist connections? Elsewhere, for example, it was officially noted that at '6am on the day of the attack, they had been attempting to convince a woman to move from the US and join them'. (9) She was presumably regarded as an asset for the far-right cell of terrorists.

Another investigator was responsible for the official denial that the Train terrorist cell was not linked to the far-right Sovereign Citizens Movement (SCM), the far-right movement which has pushed a political line that government institutions and their laws and regulations are non-legitimate and they, therefore, become legitimate targets for terrorist action. (10)

Evidence to the contrary about the Train family has not proved difficult to establish: it has been recorded from reliable sources that Gareth Train was 'an active participant in Australian fringe conspiracy forums and websites'. (11) It was noted, furthermore, that 'Gareth Train … had been … unable to find fulfilment from fringe political and SCM's … as early as … June 2021'. (12) Train was regarded as espousing SCM views on-line in a large number of emails. (13)

While the investigation has received a statement to the effect that the Trains 'were suffering shared delusions linked to their Christian beliefs when they ambushed four officers who entered their property at Wieambilla', very little time has been spent acknowledging the direct linkage between the terrorist cell and far-right political movements. (14)

In conclusion, the two recent developments reveal an ideological blindness and indifference by those wielding class and state power when dealing with the far-right.  

Questions, therefore, arise: official commentary from Canberra from December 2022, for example, highlighted problems arising with so-called 'new forms of terrorism … which represent … a significant departure from religious fundamentalism that historically accounted for most of ASIO's caseload'. (15) While there was no specific reference to radical Islam, it was presumably the main factor concerned. Related commentary has revealed, for example, a narrow focus of 'persons of interest', while disregarding other, highly relevant criteria, about far-right terrorism and strategies of tension. Who were the analysts? And what interests were they serving?

The problem, furthermore, would appear to have considerable relevance for the present-day federal government when dealing with issues arising in the Middle East which have a direct bearing upon Australia. The present Israeli government in Tel Aviv is of a far-right political nature. A great deal of the political discourse from Canberra has revealed an almost mediocre level of understanding of basic issues and slavish adherence to US diplomatic positions and those of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. The significance of intelligence assessments and who is actually providing the analysis is, for example, a foremost consideration; particularly when those concerned got it wrong.

Whether those up yonder will provide any meaningful answers to the problem of the resurgence of the far-right in Australia, remains, as yet, to be established. It would appear from their present performance to be highly unlikely.  

1.     Crisis of authority, identity politics at heart of UK riots, Australian, 13 August 2024.
2.     See Web-site: The National Civic Council – For a Stronger Australia.
3.     See: Sanctuary! Nazi fugitives in Australia, Mark Aarons, (Victoria, 1989), with specific reference to pp.239-40, pp. 293-94; and, Obituary: Lyenko Urbanchich, (1922-2006), Ardent Nazi took Liberal to extremes, The Weekend Sydney Morning Herald, 4-5 March 2006; and, A fight against the Right, The Weekend Australian, 22-23 September 2007.
4.     Catholic spies in ASIO's network, Australian, 11 August 2017; and, Ted Serong, Anne Blair, (Victoria, 2002), numerous references, pp. 1-203.
5.     Benign spymaster built global network, Australian, 3 March 1998.
6.     Fatal attack on cops 'religious terror', Australian, 17 February 2023.
7.     See: Justiciar Knights, The Global Intelligence Files, ref: https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/15/1548871_-ct-justiciar-knights-.html
8.     Australian, op.cit., 17 February 2023.
9.     Trains 'recruiting among Christian extremist group', Australian, 14 August 2024.
10.   Australian, op.cit., 17 February 2023.
11.   See: Experts renew warnings, Crikey, 13-14 December 2022.
12.   Australian, op.cit., 14 August 2024.
13.   Ibid.; and, Crikey, op.cit., 13-14 December 2022.
14.   'Police ambush was an act of terror', Australian, 29 August 2024.
15.   Right-wing extremist fears drive gun reform, The Weekend Australian, 4-5 February 2023.   

 

 

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Workers' Struggle Goes Well Beyond "Protected Industrial Action"

Written by: Ned K. on 27 September2024

 

Hardly a day goes by without workers somewhere in Australia taking "protected industrial action" to win unresolved claims from Enterprise Agreement negotiations with their immediate employer.

Workers who are union members continue to use the "protected industrial action" provisions of the Fair Work Act to protect and/or advance their incomes and working conditions. Use of these provisions has led to some workers taking collective industrial action for the first time against a single employer across different worksites.

A current example of this is warehouse workers employed by German multinational logistics company DHL.

These workers are taking rolling strike action in pursuit of wage increases of up to 10% per year just to catch up to average wages in warehousing enterprise agreements. Workers in the iron ore and coal mining industries in WA and Queensland are using the new multi-employer bargaining provisions of the Fair Work Act to increase wages across large sections of these industries. The big multinational mining companies are desperate to prevent these workers from uniting across their industry.

Eventually these types of struggles around new enterprise agreements are resolved. Sometimes the workers win all their industrial demands in full, sometimes in part.

However, the longer-term win for thousands of workers who have union enterprise agreements is that the agreements often contain clauses which increase their capacity to remain organized through the whole life of their enterprise agreements. Many agreements now contain clauses that force the boss to recognize workers' elected representatives and provide paid time meetings of union members and paid time union induction meetings with new starters.

Workers have also won clauses in agreements that require the boss to maintain the status quo if there is any workplace issue in dispute. The better organization on the job that workers maintain during the life of an enterprise agreement, the less chance of the boss clawing back workers’ hard won gains.

These organizing rights clauses that workers win in agreements are important to frustrate the boss's attempts to disorganize workers during the life of an agreement.

The Fair Work Act does not allow workers to legally take industrial action during the life of an agreement. The Act protects the boss from workers' industrial action for all but the limited bargaining period for a new agreement.

For example, no matter what the industry, many bosses who are forced to agree to higher wage increases in an enterprise agreement, will try and claw back their total labour costs during the life of the agreement by not replacing workers who leave or changing rosters to avoid penalty rates or increasing workloads. 

The multinational corporations and other large employers and their governments (Labor or Liberal) are well aware that the current Fair Work Act gives them a dream run of preventing workers’ collective action for nearly the whole cycle of the enterprise agreement process. 

A campaign to force the government to scrap the "protected industrial action" provision and replace it in the Fair Work Act with provisions for workers' right to withdraw their labour at any time they deem it necessary is long overdue.

The chances of such a campaign being initiated by the ACTU current leadership are well non-existent for fear of getting too off-side with the current government. Such a campaign will need to be generated by workers themselves.
  

 

 

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Zionist genocide and its Nazi character

Written by: Alan Jackson on 27 September 2024

 

(From the X account Torah Jews by Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism)

As of writing, Zionist genocidal escalation has rapidly increased its pace and has once again spread its industrialised killing of Palestinians to Lebanon. They have done this through a kind technique showing how truly advanced the Israeli Offense Force is at apartheid and genocide. The techniques used are villainous and could come out of a ridiculous over the top spy B movie.

The most recent attacks have consisted of a shipment of pagers intercepted by the IDF that was headed for Lebanon. This was “targeted” at Hezbollah, so the Zionists say, but they seem to fail to realise or mention that Hezbollah is a governmental body and as such distributes and works with public services. Pagers are most used in hospitals and because of this hospital workers and many other public servants were injured and killed. This can only be defined as indiscriminate - there is no other word. This was terrorism from the top to the bottom. The next day walkie-talkies began to blow up with some blowing up at funerals being held for people murdered in the pager attack the previous day. Israel has given up on its more intricate dealings and dark arts heading straight back to what it knows best. Blasting Lebanon with missiles and slaughtering another Arab population. 

Israel’s escalation is being treated in a vacuum by Zionists and mainstream media alike and is being blamed on the Al-Aqsa flood. It is all being explained as Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of October 7th, which is being treated as a terrorist attack. The Al-Aqsa flood was not a terrorist attack and was meticulously planned and executed. Most importantly as Israel has shown, meticulousness does not remove genocidal intent, the Al-Aqsa flood was a national liberatory resistance from Palestinians in the world’s largest concentration camp. The Al-Aqsa flood was a resistance to settler-colonialism that the Australian government, regretfully living in a settler-colony, must uphold. The industrialised genocide of the Arab population within and around Palestine since the 1940s with beginnings in the 1920s, can only be compared with the Nazis and their industrialised slaughter of the Jewish population. 

Israel being a Zionist and mostly Jewish state has used the memory of the holocaust to justify apartheid and cast the antisemitism of the Nazis onto the resistance. This is not only a disgusting use of the history and memory of the holocaust, but also purposefully disingenuous and incorrect. The Al-Aqsa flood is as justified as the Jewish ghetto uprisings during Nazi occupation. 

The most important thing to understand about the Al-Aqsa flood is that events don’t happen in a vacuum. Especially an uprising. This is a response to decades and decades of Zionist attempts at occupation since the 1920s. The Zionists often either deny the 1947-8 Nakba or try to explain it in a gentle way. They Gish gallop and pamper their words, despite the evidence that the Zionists are and were completely intent on the ethnic cleansing and displacement of the Palestinian population. 

Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and political activist born in Haifa in 1954. His book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine 2006 Oneworld Publications, London (2023 edition) contains many examples of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine.

Referring to the December 1947 Hagana (Zionist paramilitary organisation founded in 1920 and forerunner of the so-called Israeli “Defence” Forces in 1948), the Hagana second-in-command Yigal Allon said: “We could have taken Jaffa by now easily and should have attacked the villages around Tel Aviv. We have to go for a series of ‘collective punishments’ even if there are children living in the houses.” (p. 64-5) 

On 1 January, 1948, the leader of the Zionists and “founder” of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, approvingly copied these words of Allon into his diary: “There is a need now for strong and brutal reaction. We need to be accurate about the timing, place and those we hit. If we accuse a family, we need to harm them without mercy, women and children included. Otherwise, this is not an effective reaction. During the operation there is no need to distinguish between guilty and not guilty.” (p.69) 

Pappe provides extensive evidence of orders to the Israeli army for the extensive destruction of whole villages and for the destruction of hundreds of houses in Palestinian residential areas of Haifa and Tiberius, as well as the poisoning of Palestinian water supplies with typhoid germs (p. 100-101), and mass executions of Palestinian village “males between the age of ten and fifty” (p.110). 

The complete destruction and utter disregard for human life has been consistent and has been a necessity for the settler-colonial state with its specific goals and ideology. Being in a perfect strategic position in the middle east with similar values to the imperialists, Israel became a running dog for Yankee imperialism much like Australia. Israel is so vital to US Imperialism that the president of the United States Joe Biden has outright said “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”

The industrialised ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Arabs by Israel and Zionists can only be compared with the Nazis. There is no other comparison in recent history. It is indiscriminate yet ethnically targeted. Their creativity in their murder devices is absolutely reminiscent of the Nazis. 

Israel is enforced by settler garrisons that are armed by the Israeli government and act as armed units surrounding the cities making sure Palestinians stay far away. They act as the Native Police did during earlier colonisation of Australia. The reason they are so similar is because they both were participating fervently in settler colonial projects. They were on the frontier and were the most radicalised as a result. 

The liberal argument is that Netanyahu and the far right ‘Likud’ are the issue and once they are ousted or removed from power, all will be good. This argument doesn’t understand why this is happening. This argument ignores upwards of 100 years of history of the displacement and obliteration of the Palestinian people. What they don’t understand is that settler-colonial and fascist violence is inherent and imbedded in Zionism and the Israeli state by extension. 

It must be understood that Palestinian resistance is justified, and that “political power grows out the barrel of a gun.” The Al-Aqsa flood should be upheld and learnt from. 

Have you ever thought to yourself what side of history you would’ve been on during Nazi occupation, the Holocaust or Apartheid South Africa. Now is your chance to choose and know you are on the right side of history. History will absolve the resistance. 

 

 

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US, Japan and the Indo-Pacific Strategy

Written by: (Contributed) on 24 September 2024

 

(Above; Danjo Islands  Source: voiceofalexamdria.com)

 

A big increase in Japan's defence budget can be regarded as a move by the Pentagon for allies to make substantial contributions for involvement in US-led military and security provision and the Indo-Pacific Strategy. Recent diplomatic hostility by Japan toward China, over an alleged incursion into airspace of strategic islands in the East China Sea, is best viewed in the context of the IPS as the basis of US regional foreign policy.

In August, Japan's defence ministry requested 8.5 trillion yen ($87billion) for the next fiscal year; it has amounted to their largest ever request, forming part of a five year 43 trillion yen budget, to March 2028. (1) The request was approved, although appears to have been a significant factor in the resignation of Prime Minister Fumio Kishada, whose approval rating slumped drastically. (2) Moves by successive Japanese governments to re-interpret clause 9 of their pacifist constitution have not proved particularly popular with many voters.  

The 2024 Japanese defence also rested upon a previous one, whereby a 16.5 per cent increase the previous year, was allocated for realignment with US military forces. (3)  

It is important to note that an estimated third of the 2024 defence budget has been allocated for 'satellite constellation', aimed at China, Russia and the DPRK. (4) Espionage and intelligence-gathering has become a Cold War obsession with the Pentagon; the US-led IPS, for example, also includes the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), 'which effectively allows for unlimited sharing of all military information'. (5) What actually constitutes military information is also categorised by what might be useful, not what is necessarily the case.

Elsewhere, across the vast Indo-Pacific region, many countries are following similar military upgrades, with increased budgets. In Australia, defence budgets are likely to place huge burdens on successive generations, effectively placing the country into almost unpayable long-term debts.

The moves closely follow the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) which has included Japan being upgraded to the diplomatic position of a global alliance partner; the IPS then rests upon the 'quad', encircling and containing China from all sides. (6)

The significance of Australia within the IPS should not be under-estimated; recent high-level diplomacy between Canberra and Tokyo has included an official invitation for elite marines from the Japanese Rapid Deployment Brigade to participate in trilateral exercises with Australian and US counterpart in northern Australia. The move was accompanied by an official statement that 'this is a really huge opportunity for our three defence forces to operate in an amphibious context'. (7)

Other countries as US allies are then placed inside the IPS framework as lower-level partners, with specific responsibilities for hosting sensitive US military facilities. (8) The placing, by the US, of networks of precision strike missiles on island chains, has become commonplace; the so-called Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), has formed part of a large budget allocation of $27.4 billion. (9)

A recent official media statement from the US acting Under-Secretary for the Navy, Tom Mancinelli, has left little to the imagination: the Indo-Pacific has been described as the US 'priority theatre … and … the US Navy was laser-focussed on the Pacific region'. (10)

US intelligence assessments have continually drawn attention to the closer diplomatic relations between China and Russia as problematic. The balance of forces is swinging away from traditional US hegemonic positions; China has become the largest trading partner of most countries across the Indo-Pacific region.

A recent allegation by Japan that a Chinese Y-9 surveillance aircraft had violated their sovereignty off the strategic Danjo Islands, however, has shown just how tense diplomatic relations have become between US-led positions and China. The tiny Danjo islands, in the East China Seas, are uninhabited although close to China's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). (11) Situated at 32 degrees north and 128 degrees east, the sovereignty of the Danjo islands is not contested and face the important Chinese port of Shanghai; the five islands are not inhabited and cover an area of 4.7 square kms, rising to 281 metres above sea level.

Other islands in the area are contested between China and Japan and other countries, and remain sensitive and potentially problematic. Moves by the US to establish the IPS, for example, were accompanied by Japan nationalising 280 islands, of a total of an estimated four hundred strategic land-masses which have served as demarcation lines for territorial waters; they were referred to in government papers as 'important national territories'. (12)

While the alleged Danjo incursion was of only two minutes duration, the Japanese air force scrambled a full alert. Later commentary suggested the incursion had taken place as 'China was probing Japan's air defence network, seeking to obtain intelligence … as Japan … expands defence co-operation with the US and other countries in the region'. (13)

The speed of the Japanese air force reaction to the alleged incursion would tend to indicate the whole area of the East China Sea was under close surveillance. Japan is known to possess extensive Signals-Intelligence (SIGINT) facilities and a network of listening stations with extended range. (14) Whether sensitive military facilities are based on the Danjo islands was not, however, officially divulged. The fact the alleged incursion was also given high-level media coverage in Australia has, nevertheless, also remained a factor in assessing its diplomatic significance in the context of the IPS.

1.     Back off, Japan and Philippines tell China, Australian, 2 September 2024.
2.     Japanese PM jumps before he's pushed, Australian, 15 August 2024; and, Japan's Defence Ministry seeks record budget, Military,com, 30 August 2024.
3.     Japan approves 16.5 per cent increase in defence spending for FY 2024, The Diplomat, 22 December 2023.
4.     Military.com, op.cit., 30 August 2024.
5.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIAS., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Top End to host elite Japanese marines, Australian, 6 September 2024.
8.     Hankyoreh, op.cit., 12 November 2019.
9.     See: US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei Asia, 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.        
10.   Indo-Pacific is our priority theatre: US Navy boss, Australian, 4 September 2024.  
11.   Australian, op.cit., 2 September 2024; and, Chinese spy plane, The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August 2024.
12.   Japan to nationalise 280 islands, The Age (Melbourne), 10 January 2014.
13.   Japan says Chinese aircraft incursion, The Star, 27 August 2024; and, Janes: Chinese Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft infringes Japan air space, 27 August 2024.    
14.   See: Japan – Naicho – Cabinet Research Office, Intelligence Services, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), pp. 163-65.

 

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"When we stand together as the working class, our victory is assured” — ‘Line in the Sand’ rally, Melbourne, 18 September.

Written by: Ashley C. and Tony A. on 21 September 2024

 

More than just an option, defiance is our duty: we truly have a world to win.   Construction Unions Dare Workers to Struggle 

On Wednesday, over 50,000 construction union members walked off their worksites and onto the streets of the Melbourne CBD to mark the beginning of the ‘Line in the Sand’ fighting campaign led by the CFMEU, ETU, PPTEU and AMWU. 

The ‘Line in the Sand’ fightback will last for the five-year period of the CFMEU’s administration and will form a concerted action by unions to ensure that the conditions of workers are not torn away from them during this latest attack against organised labour by capital. 

The decision to hold the Wednesday rally was voted up by 700 delegates at the Building Industry Group’s joint construction union delegates’ meeting last week, along with the Target 1000 campaign to sign Victorian construction workers onto 1000 EBAs (enterprise bargaining agreements) across the state.

The sunny September morning in Melbourne saw workers and community supporters congregate before the columns of the Victorian Trades Hall, where powerful speeches were delivered by union officials and members pledging united and protracted struggle to defend the CFMEU and all unions. 

“How good is this? Tens of thousands of construction workers hitting the streets yet again” said Zach Smith, National Secretary of the CFMEU's Construction and General Division, “This is why this union and building workers in this state and across Australia will never be defeated, because tens of thousands of workers have walked off the job today and are standing here for their rights and conditions.” 

Troy Gray, State Secretary of the ETU Victoria Branch, told the rally that the CFMEU’s administration would not be the main focus of the rally, and instead the rally is demonstrating the unified industrial power of workers in the construction industry. “By turning up in big numbers today you are putting all the politicians on notice. We’ve had enough. We’ve drawn a line in the sand,” said Gray. Pointing to the precarious and dangerous nature of work within the construction industry, Gray outlined the importance of fighting for EBAs, particularly as opportunistic employers have sought to erode wages and conditions amid the CFMEU’s forced takeover by the government. 

Mass mobilisation sweeps aside anti-worker laws

Speakers at the rally sent a strong message to bosses and the government that workers and their unions will not be intimidated by the anti-worker laws, and will continue to take illegal industrial action. “If there is a continued attack on the working conditions and living standards of Victorian construction workers for the building industry group of unions, we will call a third rally, and that third rally will be on a Wednesday, and there’ll be a call for a 72-hour stoppage.”

A proud CFMEU member bravely gave her first public speech to her comrades, highlighting the importance of workers safety and conditions, and the importance of the union to the advancement of non-male construction workers. She led the chant “Line in the sand! United we stand!”

Tens of thousands of workers proudly marched under the flags of their unions and of the Eureka southern cross towards Flagstaff Gardens, completely filling across 5 blocks along LaTrobe street from Victoria street to the Gardens. The mass rally was led by an enormous banner CFMEU HERE TO STAY. 

The 50,000 eventually gathered directly across the road from the Federal Court building, where less than a month ago the CFMEU had been mounting its case against Fair Work’s appointment of an administrator before the ALP overrode the proceedings and changed the law with the ACTU’s blessing. The ACTU building itself stands within earshot of the Gardens, and if Sally McManus had just stepped outside, she would have heard the cries of ‘Union Power!’ reverberating through the streets. 

Line in the Sand

The solidarity of mass rallies defying unjust laws will give more confidence to workers in the great power of organized working class standing up and fighting back, as the campaign builds further momentum. The Line in the Sand campaign is inspiring struggle carried in Zach Smith’s message to all workers:

“It’s the message that today’s rally will echo far beyond the construction workers that are here, it will echo through the halls of parliament and across the boardroom tables of corporate Australia. 

“Today we’re drawing a line in the sand. That’s what we’re doing today. As working people, when we stand together as the working class, our victory is assured if we stand together and fight together, and today we will be sending a very clear message across those corporate boardrooms, across the halls of parliament, that we’re drawing a line in the sand. 

“So what does that mean? It means that we’re not going to let any employer use administration to take wages and conditions backwards. We’re not gonna let any business use this situation to take our hard won safety rights backwards and put workers at risk. The line in the sand also means that politicians, that parliaments, will not take our conditions backwards either, or introduce draconian anti-worker laws. The line in the sand means that you won’t touch our delegates, our shop stewards, and our HSRs who are the backbone of representation on site and are the backbone of our union. That’s what the line in the sand is all about. 

“We’re not going to take a backwards step! We’re not going to let administration mean that any worker goes backwards, loses hard-won wages and conditions. 170 years of struggle, and there’ll be 170 years more because we will stand together, we will come out of this period and we’ll be stronger than ever!”

Fight for an Independent Working Class Agenda

Let this be an example to all workers that it is possible to take back our unions, and clear the way for a truly independent working class agenda. 
It is certainly a welcome and impressive act of defiance. The relative lack of commentary from senior ALP members on the developments emerging since their brazen takeover of the union suggests that they were certainly caught off guard.

It was in the lead up to the 2022 election, Anthony Albanese appealed to the audience of the Australian Financial Review business summit: "If Labor is successful in the coming federal election, I will take my lead from Bob Hawke and his successor Paul Keating". Indeed, first as tragedy, then as farce. Continuing to showcase the extent of his disengagement from the increasingly precarious conditions faced by workers in Australia, it certainly appears that the possibility of stoking the wrath of 140,000 construction workers across the country was, if considered at all, an afterthought. 

He certainly embodies the smugness and arrogance of the very class he serves, as it has become increasingly obvious that his confidence and cocksureness in executing such a brazen declaration of class warfare stemmed purely from the magnates of finance and business to whom he addressed his electoral appeal. Of course, he knew the move would rustle a few feathers, maybe cost him a few votes, but to him and his ilk it would seem the working class represent little more than passive subjects, who will sit down and take whatever is thrown at them. It is increasingly difficult to imagine that he seriously considered the possibility of the situation unfolding as it has. 

 

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All power to construction workers : CFMEU Sydney Rally

Written by: Tovaris on 20 September 2024

 

 

 

Around 7000 construction workers walked off the job in Sydney to rally against the ongoing fascistic 'administration' of their union. 

At the previous rally, CFMEU representative Dennis McNamara stated in his speech: "This is the spark that the working class needs to light fires everywhere!" This view has gripped the masses of the CFMEU members - many spoke of the need to forge the broadest possible alliances with other unions, members of the public and other progressive organisations.

So far the Electrical Trades Union NSW Branch (ETU) has provided the most support on the ground - while officials, delegates and members of the Maritime Union of Australia Sydney Branch (MUA), Plumbers and Pipes Trade union (PPTEU) and Australian Manufacturers Workers Union NSW Branch (AMWU) were also in attendance and gave speeches in support. 

Multiple CFMEU members spoke of the need to welcome struggle - especially when wages and conditions are attacked. CFMEU members are aware that the attack on the CFMEU is a ruling class reaction to their successful EBA campaign rather than accusations of corruption which is the narrative the traitor capitalist media is going for. 

Cries of 'Reinstate Darren Greenfield', 'Reinstate Rita Mallia', reinstate 'Michael Greenfield' and 'Our Union, Our Choice' were generally well received on the ground. 

We applaud the CFMEU leadership-in-exile for their exemplary focus on militant trade unionism protecting and serving their members. We also applaud the growing understanding within the CFMEU membership that only when workers run the country that they built will they see an end to the parasitic politicians attacking their union, livelihoods and wages and conditions. 

Only when construction and all other workers who built this country run the country will they see a system where workers' labour provides healthcare, education, transport and housing for all people. At the moment in the capitalist system, CFMEU members are unwillingly paying an unelected bureaucrat 'administrator' over $500 000 a year to destroy their union for the 'crime' of being a successful and militant union. 

We call on all power to us, your construction comrades and the broadest possible support to us and back to all workers with the understanding that we are all struggling against the ruling class who are waging a campaign against the wages and conditions of every worker in Australia. "

 

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Book Review - BINA

Written by: Duncan B. on 16 September 2024

 

 

Bina- First Nations Languages Old and New is a book everybody should read.

 

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Vietnam complicit in Zionist genocide

Written by: Nick G. on 16 September 2024

 

(Above: The MV Kathrin   Source: www.presstv.ir )

The international arms trade that helps sustain Israeli Zionism’s attempted genocide of Palestinians was recently revealed to have a surprising participant.

Surprising, that is, for the millions of people around the globe who actively campaigned for Vietnam’s defeat of US imperialism during the US War of Aggression Against Vietnam.

Defying all the odds, the Vietnamese people led by Comrade Ho Chi Minh, persisted in their people’s war, liberated the South, and drove the US imperialists ignominiously from their shores, proving the truth that “A weak nation can defeat a strong, a small nation can defeat a big. The people of a small country can certainly defeat aggression by a big country, if only they dare to rise in struggle, dare to take up arms and grasp in their own hands the destiny of their country. This is a law of history” (Mao Zedong). 

This is the law of history that is on the side of the courageous Palestinian people.

Why then has Vietnam sided with the Zionists and attempted to provide them with explosives for use in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip?

The answer is that Vietnam has taken the road of capitalist development, and places the growth of capital above the growth of the Palestinian resistance.

Money doesn’t talk, sang Bob Dylan, it swears.

So, what is the obscenity in which Vietnam has participated?

On July 21 the MV Kathrin left the port of Hai Phong, Vietnam, loaded with 8 containers of RDX (Hexogen) explosives destined for Israel. RDX is the explosive agent in C-4 plastic explosive and a key ingredient in Semtex. It is a component in Elbit’s explosives.

The ship was also loaded with 60 containers of the explosive TNT.

The RDX was manufactured by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence’s Factory Z113 and loaded on the ship in Hai Phong. 

UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese said on August 31, “These explosives are reportedly key components in the aircraft bombs and missiles that Israel is deploying against besieged Gaza and in its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.”

Imperialist capital makes this trade possible

A complex web of intersecting capitals, each hungry for profits, makes Vietnam’s trade in explosives with Israel possible.

German capital is utilised through the ship’s owner, Lubeca Marine Germany GMBH. It is operated by Danish capital in the form of Ocean 7 Project through AGL (Africa Global Logistics). AGL, a logistics operator in Africa, is headquartered in Puteaux, France and owned by French capital.  AGL operates independently but is part of the Cargo Division of the Italo-Swiss MSC group.

Portugal gains revenue from German capital by registering or flagging the ship.

Israel has two ports, Ashdod and Haifa, capable of docking the MV Kathrin, but its destination is the Slovenian port of Koper. Slovenia profits from the exercise with docking, unloading and transportation fees. This is the second time in the last few months that the Slovenian port has been involved in the illegal weapons transfers to Israel, despite the International Court of Justice’s decision that it was plausibly perpetrating genocide. It raises the question of what is being evaded or concealed by unloading its cargo in Slovenia.

Once it was revealed that the Kathrin was carrying Vietnamese explosives to Israel, world opinion took a stand in support of the Palestinians. The Kathrin sought permission to dock in Namibia’s port of Walvis Bay.

On August 24, after approaches from the Palestinian BDS Committee and Namibian human rights organisations, the Namibian government cancelled the docking permit for the Kathrin. 

Over the next five days, Portuguese Palestine solidarity organizations and parliamentarians called on their government to de-flag the Kathrin.

On August 29, the Portuguese Foreign Minister claimed that the Kathrin is not transporting ready-made weapons, is not headed to Israel, that Portugal in all cases carries no responsibility, and that this arms trade has “commercial purpose” – a flimsy excuse not to take action.

Portuguese activists are still campaigning for Portugal to deflag the ship.

Meanwhile, denied access to the Namibian port, the Kathrin headed for Angola, which, on September 5 refused to dock the ship. This meant no Southern African state had given harbour to the vessel carrying military supplies for apartheid Israel’s ongoing Gaza genocide.

It remains to be seen when the Kathrin will dock at Koper, Slovenia and what arrangements will be made to transport the explosives to Israel.

The Vietnamese-Israel arms trade

Israel and Vietnam have developed a significant arms trade relationship in recent years, driven by Vietnam's efforts to expand its regional influence and Israel's advanced military technologies.

Israel and Vietnam have signed several military cooperation agreements, leading to growing military ties. These agreements focus on technology transfers, training, and the sale of military equipment.

Israel’s SPYDER (Surface-to-air PYthon and DERby) surface-to-air missile system is one of the major deals, helping Vietnam enhance its military capabilities. Rafael is the prime contractor and Israel Aerospace Industries is the major subcontractor for the SPYDER program.

Israeli drone technology has also been provided to Vietnam, strengthening its surveillance and reconnaissance capacities.

Vietnam has procured Israeli small arms, such as rifles and machine guns, to modernize its infantry forces.

Drawing on its field experience in oppressing the Palestinians, Israel provides training for Vietnamese military personnel, focusing on the use of advanced weapons systems, cybersecurity, and intelligence. Additionally, Israel has assisted Vietnam in setting up domestic production lines for defence equipment through technology transfers, allowing Vietnam to produce Israeli-designed weapons locally.

Israel is known for its expertise in cybersecurity, and Vietnam has been keen to acquire Israeli technology and expertise to bolster its cyber capacity. The Israeli company Cellebrite has sold its surveillance and phone hacking technology to Vietnam for use against critics of the regime.

Vietnamese revisionism complicit with imperialism’s war on the people

The last word deserves to go to Vietnamese online blogger Hồng Thủy Lưu, who, on August 30, wrote:

As a “Communist” Party, trained by Chairman Hồ himself, through 45 years of waging the National–Democratic Revolution, the “Communist” Party of Vietnam should also stay true to its name and its history.

On the contrary, the “Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, led by the “Communist” Party of Vietnam itself, is a trusted ally of the genocidal Zionists and anti-people Hindutva…

If the Party doesn’t stand on the side of the people of the world, then it doesn’t deserve the title “Communist Party”. They are more the Revisionist Party of Vietnam. The government they rule directly assists the reactionaries in doing genocide. That proves that the Party and the Government itself are the biggest reactionaries in Vietnam.

They also express antagonism with their own “comrades” (this refers to the genuine Communists in struggle; for the Party declares itself Communist). Back in May, the electronic newspaper of the Gia Lai province Party Branch praised the Indian reactionaries for “killing many Maoists”. They call guerilla soldiers “terrorists”. This is not the only case where this has happened. They have called the Palestinian, Indian, and Filipino freedom fighters “terrorists” many times. This demonstrated how antagonistic they are to the world revolution. 

OPPOSE ACTIONS THAT AID GENOCIDE!

THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM STAND WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD!

DOWN WITH THE VIETNAMESE REVISIONISTS!

LONG LIVE THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE IN PALESTINE

REVOLUTIONARIES ARE NOT TERRORISTS!

 

 

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Support grows for CFMEU

Written by: Nick G. on 13 September 2024

 

The SA Branch Executive of the Communications, Electricity and Plumbing Union (CEPU) voted on Wednesday night to disaffiliate from the SA Branch of the ALP.

The vote came as a tragic accident on a Queensland building site confirmed the dangerous nature of the industry and the consequent need for a union prepared to defy restrictions on right of entry.

And a newsletter from Left faction unions and members of the SA ALP said of the CFMEU being placed under Administration that “The object of this exercise is not to punish the guilty. It is to shut down a militant trade union which the Government (and its friends in the construction industry) find an inconvenience. If there were actual, evidence-based, allegations of criminality in the industry, then surely there are enough laws to bring charges and court cases to deal with them. That’s how the law is meant to work – rather than accusation and trial by media, followed by Government decree.”

The newsletter concluded that “if the Party leadership is going to start attacking unions that it doesn’t like or that get in its way, socialists in the Labor Party might have to consider whether they would be better off in a Party that actually defends working class interests.”

John Adley, SA Branch Secretary of the CEPU said in a message to members: “The damaging impacts of this legislation on workers will be felt wider than just the construction industry. The legislation is a ‘how to guide’ for any future government to destroy any trade union.”

Meanwhile, in Queensland, a worker was seriously injured on the taxpayer-funded Centenary Bridge Upgrade project after head contractor BMD repeatedly restricted union officials from accessing the worksite.

On Tuesday afternoon the worker was impaled in the neck after falling over a trip hazard and landing in a sheet of mesh.

CFMEU officials were onsite to investigate on Wednesday morning, ending several months of having their access to the site restricted by BMD.

Of the several thousand alleged acts of illegality by CFMEU officials raised by the capitalist media, the vast majority arise from CFMEU organisers courageously defying the restrictions on their right of entry to building sites precisely for the purpose of servicing the needs of members, with health and safety in the dangerous industry first among their concerns.

Rank and file members of the CFMEU are organising to defend their union.

These are early days in what will be a long struggle.

The ruling class and its anti-worker government have done their homework this time, and we are in for a protracted and drawn out struggle.

 

 

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BOOK REVIEW---CULTURE IS NOT AN INDUSTRY

Written by: Duncan B. on 12 September 2024

 

Justin O’Connor, the author of Culture Is Not An Industry - Reclaiming Art and Culture For The Common Good is Professor of Cultural Economy at the University of South Australia. The book is one of the Manchester Capitalism book series. This series of books investigates various aspects of the capitalist system.

Culture Is Not An Industry tells the story of how twenty-five years ago the British Government, following neo-liberal policies, rebranded art and culture as “creative industries.” Culture went from being “a public good to a private commodity economy driven by individual sovereign consumers.”

The author says that “the key argument of the book is that culture, as an object of public policy, should be moved out of “industry” and back into the sphere of public responsibility along health, education, social welfare and basic infrastructure.”

A considerable part of modern culture is controlled by mainly US media and technology companies such as Disney, Amazon, Google and Apple. They control streaming services such as You Tube and Spotify. Recording labels, cinema theatre chains, amusement parks, concert promotion and event ticketing are owned by a handful of companies. At the same time many artists, writers, musicians and other cultural workers are poorly paid and lead precarious existences.

Culture Is Not An Industry discusses many different aspects of culture and the need to get it out of the hands of the bureaucrats and bean counters. It is worth reading by anyone working in culture or who is interested in culture. 

However, I do not agree with the author’s criticism of Marx’s theory of class society having a legal, political, and intellectual superstructure erected on an economic base, which Marx put forward in his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. This theory is central to our understanding as Marxists of the structure of class society, and the place of culture in the superstructure. 

Culture is an important component of the struggle for independence and socialism in Australia. It must be taken out of the hands of the capitalists and returned to the workers and their allies in the struggle.

 

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Hervey Bay Sheraton leaflet

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 11 September 2024

 

 

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Disrupt War - YouTube

 

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Disrupt Land Forces

Written by: Nick G. on 11 September 2024

 

A great rap by Red Menace on the Land Forces 2024 death expo.

Watch here: Disrupt War - YouTube

 

 

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Exercise Kakadu begins in Darwin

Written by: Nick G. on 11 September 2024

 

(Above: Three German Airforce (Luftwaffe) EF2000 Eurofighter Typhoons and a NATO Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport Aircraft (MRTT) fly over HMAS Hobart during Exercise Kakadu 2022.  Photo: www.navy.gov.au )

 

From Melbourne in the south, where tens of thousands are protesting the Land Forces death expo, to Darwin in the north, where Exercise Kakadu is getting underway, the dangers of imperialist war are becoming ever clearer.

Exercise Kakadu is a maritime naval exercise held every two years. 

Growing in size and complexity since its inception in 1993, this year’s exercise includes warships, helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft from participating nations with more than 3,000 uniformed personnel participating.

This year's exercise, scheduled for Sept. 9-20, will involve 13 warships, including a Collins class submarine, and aircraft from navies and air forces representing 11 countries.

The exercise is held concurrently with a commanders' conference, where military leaders from more than 30 countries are represented.

Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond said “This year the focus is on interoperability with greater integration of our international partners in all aspects of the exercise.”

This is simply code for ensuring that “partners” all are prepared to operate under the dictate of the US imperialists in whatever provocations they design against their imperialist rival, China.

This was confirmed by the US side.

"Thank you to the Royal Australian Navy for bringing this group of nations together to conduct important training in the region," said Vice Adm. Fred Kacher, commander of U.S. 7th Fleet. "The work we are doing here provides our navies a valuable opportunity to advance interoperability and address shared maritime security challenges."

Exercise Kakadu has nothing to do with the defence of Australia, and everything to do with the maintenance of US regional hegemony.

Any increase in the “interoperability” of Australian armed forces with those of the US represents a further weakening of our independence and sovereignty.

For genuine anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

(See our Leaflets page for an agitationallealfet being distributed aroud Hervey Bay)

 

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The Torquay Towers and The People of Hervey Bays struggle against it

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 September 2024

 

(Above - The proposed development.  Photo: www.theurbandeveloper.com )

 

A coastal city with a focus on tourism must consistently strive in a capitalist economy to keep its worth for its profiteers. How can this city survive on tourism when what generates its worth in the for-profit economy will also inevitably destroy it? Tourism is not a sustainable pillar of a city's economy and is a short-term profitable source for its investors. There must be a focus on all essential factors to creating an effective and balanced economy that has its people in command. Only this can ensure health and longevity for the city and its population. 

Hervey Bay, the unceded and traditional land of the Badtjala People, is undergoing large developmental projects. Development is not necessarily bad, and Hervey Bay needs development, so what is creating uproar within the community? Why is it that there has been constant backlash against the local and state government for the developments in Hervey Bay? Should not the community be rejoicing in the city’s much needed development? The answer lies in the question and answer of who this development is for, and what its impacts are for both sides. 

The most recent construction that is affecting the people of Hervey Bay is the development of the 18 storeys ‘Torquay Towers’ or the Sheraton Resort. The people of Hervey Bay clearly see the destructive socioeconomic and environmental impacts of this construction and therefore are extremely concerned with the consequences it will bring. The Torquay Towers are not only destructive but are not in the interest of the people of Hervey Bay. 

The government, local profiteers and landlords have put a focus on Hervey Bay as a city for tourism and retirement. As a result, there are limited educational options past grade 12, and students pursuing an education are apt to leave and not come back.

When a city is built on being a place for tourism and retirement, gentrification Is inevitable and there is no mobilisation for its youth. The youth leave and there is more focus placed on tourism and retirement to combat this contradiction. As you would expect this further exacerbates the contradiction and more material and finances are contributed to the very thing creating the unevenness in the contradiction. 

The Torquay Towers are a prime example of this contradiction. This 18-storey monstrosity makes it “the ‘largest’ hotel development north of Brisbane”. Not only will this look ridiculous compared to all other buildings around it, with the current largest in the bay being 6 storeys, not even being close to its size and offensiveness, it will bring devastating environmental impacts to the reef due to its two towers that will shine over the reef causing coral bleaching it will almost be out of a Tolkien novel.

Mayor George Seymour is well aware of the public outrage to the point that at a council meeting with some of the public, due to heckling, he threatened to close the meeting. It has already been apparent Seymour doesn’t care for the residents of Hervey Bay or their wishes and demands with this being one of the most blatant, opportunistic and sell-out of his actions yet. It is clear that he will not be swayed in his convictions and the people must demonstrate their outrage of this. 

Hervey Bay is facing a housing crisis, the government and profiteers are struggling to house its own population, yet the profiteers and government have the audacity to green light its largest tourism project yet. Under capitalism housing becomes a commodity and becoming homeless, which despite the many injustices of past economic systems, becomes a possibility. Even under Feudal systems homelessness was not something the people had to face. Housing must not be a commodity; it is a right. 

Australia is facing a cost-of-living crisis nationwide and yet they have the audacity to greenlight a $450 million dollar tourist venture. 

We the people of Hervey Bay who are struggling in these desperate times must not relent in the struggle against this development. We have already been mobilised against it with an inspirational spirit, but we must not relent. 

The corrupt and bureaucratic Landlords, Profiteers, Government and Seymour must feel the power of the people in unity. They must be challenged. For the longevity of Hervey Bay and the spirit of resistance nationwide. 

We must challenge the development of the Sheraton Hotel/Torquay Towers and all future developments that are putting profit over people and environment. Be creative, be persistent and challenge the destructive status quo. Hervey Bay is symptomatic of a nation-wide issue of Capitalism and settler-colonialism and its destructive and irreversible effects we as a country must change. 

Do we really want the rich to sip champagne at the Sheraton while the people ponder prosperity?

 

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DFLP calls for arming West Bank Palestinians

Written by: Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 10 September 2024

 

A message from the Foreign Affairs department at DFLP to the world’s parties about the crimes of Israeli settlers.

For these reasons... we call for the arming of the Palestinian people in the West Bank to combat Israeli settlers’ terrorism.

The terrorist acts committed by Zionist settlers in the West Bank under the protection of the occupation army cannot be seen as a reaction to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. 

Rather, one of the reasons for this operation is the ongoing and past actions of the occupation army and settlers against the land and people of Palestine in the West Bank, including the repeated aggression against Palestinian cities and camps. In this context, numerous crimes committed before October 7 can be cited, such as the burning of the town of Huwara in Nablus Governorate in February 2023, the kidnapping and burning alive of the boy Mohammed Abu Khdeir in Shuafat, Jerusalem, in 2014 by settlers, the burning of the Dawabsha family's home in the village of Duma in Nablus, leading to the martyrdom of an 18-month-old infant, in addition to dozens of Palestinians who were martyred by settlers in their homes, fields, roads, schools, and public places.

The United Nations, the European Union, and Western countries have condemned the crimes of the settlers. Some described their criminal actions as horrific and a direct result of settlement policies and repeated instances of impunity. Others demanded the Israeli government to immediately stop these unacceptable acts, while some said that the settlers’ attacks on Palestinian civilians must stop. However, these positions and statements did not stop the crimes or curb their fascism. On the contrary, some Zionist gangs increased their defiance of Western positions by expanding the scope of their criminal acts and settlement activities. The result on the ground is that the settlers are becoming more ferocious and fascistic, and their leaders are expanding restrictions on the Palestinian landowners, whether through “laws” from Israeli bodies that have no legal authority to deal with another people and occupied Palestinian lands, or through military and administrative decisions from the army and its various apparatuses, or through field procedures that impose a new reality of occupation and settlement by legalizing land theft or expanding the granting of permits to settlers to build in the West Bank while restricting Palestinian construction and demolishing their buildings under the pretext that they are illegal.

While the occupation army continues to commit genocidal crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip for more than ten months, political genocide continues in the West Bank by imposing the annexation and resolution plan by official bodies and settlement institutions working according to their own agenda, disregarding international condemnations. Since October 7, for example, Palestinian and international institutions have recorded more than 300 attacks against Palestinians by settlers, including shootings, vehicular assaults, house and field burnings, invasions of cities, camps, and remote communities, uprooting of trees, and road closures, in addition to the army’s operations of bombing, invasions, destruction, and arrests.

The goal of these practices is no longer a secret. Dozens of Israeli officials, including ministers and security and military officials, openly take responsibility for these crimes and their goals, which aim to expel the largest number of Palestinians. The recent plan by Smotrich to expand the scope and powers of security, military, and civil control for the army and its institutions is just one example of dozens of plans overseen by senior officials in the Israeli government and army.

Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich speaks of a clear plan to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by increasing the number of Jewish settlements and settlers in the West Bank. Security Minister Ben-Gvir calls for unleashing more settlement outposts and launching a large-scale military operation to eliminate thousands of Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Israeli government tries to portray to the world that it is enforcing the law in the West Bank, through the Prime Minister’s criticism of the crimes committed by the settlers against Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s positions do not change the fact that the fascist and racist right-wing government in Israel, with all its components, oversees the arming of settlers, whether through ministers in the government and settlement institutions or through the occupation army itself and security institutions. Ben-Gvir has admitted more than once that through his ministry, he has armed 100,000 settlers and that there are 300,000 requests on the ministry’s table, in addition to approximately 165,000 weapons that were distributed to settlers before the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. This confirms that Israel’s crimes, by its army and settlers, are not isolated from the plan that Israel seeks to impose in the West Bank, which is the annexation plan, ignoring the condemnations, appeals, and international and UN positions rejecting Israel’s practices in the West Bank.

What the media and Western embassy reports present about the increasing severity of settler crimes only reflects a small part of the reality that all Palestinian cities, camps, and communities in the West Bank are daily subjected to settler aggression and crimes, which are accompanied by repeated aggression carried out by the occupation army in many cities and camps. This indicates that there is a real partnership and division of roles between the army and settlement organizations that are unusually active in the West Bank, heavily armed with the latest weapons and an extermination and fascist ideology that believes only in killing and terrorism as a means to achieve its plans, repeating the experience of 1948, when Zionist gangs committed dozens of massacres against Palestinian civilians, resulting in the displacement of more than three-quarters of a million Palestinians who are still refugees in neighboring Arab countries and within Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian people view the positions of some Western countries, especially the United States, which consider settler crimes against Palestinians as mere violence, as partners in the crime, practicing political hypocrisy daily, in comparison with their positions on Palestinian resistance and the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, which came as a natural and necessary response to Israeli crimes and terrorism in various forms accumulated over the past decades. They ignore the fact that settlement and occupation are the highest forms of terrorism according to international laws, and that imposing individual sanctions on a small number of settlers is nothing but encouragement for the occupying state and the leaders, organizations, and militias of the settlers to continue committing their crimes. All forms of settlement are illegal and terrorism, as is the occupation that sponsors, encourages, and legitimizes the theft of Palestinian land.

For all these reasons, we in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine call for the arming of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the formation of defense committees for Palestinian cities, villages, and camps to confront settler gangs and the incursions of the occupation army, to be the protective shield alongside the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatuses so that they together defend the land and national dignity, raising the cost of Israeli colonial and occupation presence on Palestinian land, and sending a message to the international community that our people are tired of unanswered appeals, complaints, and positions, and will take their cause into their own hands, no matter the price and sacrifices required, to make the occupation understand clearly that our land will not be desecrated, and every inch of it will cost the occupier dearly.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
-Department of Foreign Afairs-
08/09/2024
 

 

 

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Inspiring Speakers At Free Palestine Rally In Adelaide

Written by: Ned K. on 9 September 2024

 

Supporters of the Palestinian people continue to take to the streets in cities all around the world.In some cities such as London, the numbers of people attending is in the hundreds of thousands.

In smaller cities such as Adelaide in South Australia they are much smaller, but no less important and effective.

On Sunday 8 September supporters of the Palestinian people rallied as they have done every second Sunday since October last year when the Israeli Government and its Defence Force commenced their intense attacks on the Palestinians in Gaza.

This latest Sunday rally, although small in numbers, was even more important and notable for the following reasons

1. It follows the Israeli Government’s expansion of its military offensive targeting Palestinians in the occupied territories of the West Bank

2. This Adelaide rally was addressed by an Australian Services Union member who outlined the support for Palestinian people from union members from a growing number of Unions, even those like her Union that are affiliated to the ALP

3. A Palestinian woman who lives in Adelaide spoke with amazing clarity about what life in Australia is like for the Palestinian diaspora. With incredible feeling expressed in her voice, she explained that the Palestinian diaspora are not ok here. They feel completely alienated due to the Australian Government’s support and indifference for the Zionist regime’s genocide against the people of Gaza.  She said the Palestinian people here despair that while feeling ignored here, they can hardly somehow return to their Palestinian homeland.

So, she asked “What can we do?”

She said the Palestinian diaspora will never give up fighting for the liberation of Palestinians from the Israeli Zionist regime and thanked people across Australia and the world who stood alongside Palestinians in their struggle for liberation.

Many people at the rally went to her side to personally express their support and congratulate her on speaking with such passion combined with clarity of why Palestinians will never give up!

 

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CEPU exercises right-to-disconnect

Written by: Nick G. on 9 September 2024

 

(Above: CFMEU members in Perth supporting their union)

When ACTU Secretary Sally McManus announced at the end of August the very welcome win of the right-to-disconnect, she probably had no idea that unions supporting the CFMEU would exercise it to disconnect from the ACTU and the ALP. 

That is just what the 100,000-strong Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union has done, voting to disaffiliate from the ACTU and to withhold more than $1m in donations to the Labor Party ahead of the 2025 federal election. 

The tactic is reminiscent of the period in the union movement in Victoria where in 1961 the more militant industrial unions created a bloc called the Trade Unionists’ Defence Committee to oppose the influence of the right-wing National Civic Council, and subsequently of the Victorian Trades Hall itself when it came under the control of the NCC in 1967.Two years later, the THC refused to oppose the gaoling of Tramways Union Secretary (and Vice-Chairman of our Party), Clarrie O’Shea.  A group of 27 “rebel unions” coalesced around the Socialist Left of the ALP in Victoria.  

The 27 "rebel unions" defied the ACTU directive to all unions and workers not to join the strike in support of striking Tramways Union members and their Secretary Clarrie O'Shea.

Today’s action by the CEPU is a measure of rank-and-file workers’ anger at the ALP and ACTU for their attack on, and attempt to destroy, the CFMEU. 

The move to no longer make donations to the ALP has been welcomed by many workers. More unions and their members are calling for/considering  disaffiliation from the ALP. Unions must be free to pursue the interests of their members regardless of which party of capitalism holds office. There should be no holding back on actions on the grounds that they might prevent Labor from gaining office, or embarrass it when it is in office. 

The right of workers, in their unions, to pursue an agenda independent of the parliamentary fortunes of the ALP, must be fought for. 

Time will tell whether disaffiliation from the ACTU is supported by enough unions to be worth pursuing. For the moment, it reflects workers’ anger at the treachery of the ACTU, and that is a good thing. 

This is not about John Setka, or bikies or criminals.  It is about defending the working class and their unions from the coordinated attacks by capital.

The SA Police Commissioner has just reported to the SA Government that as far as bikies or organised crime goes within the SA Branch of the CFMEU, there is “nothing to be overly concerned about”. 

Yet the million-dollar man Mark Irving, (he is being paid $1.9m of CFMEU members' own funds over 3 years to destroy their union), has placed the SA Branch under Administration and sacked the popular State Secretary, Marcus Parè.   

It is all about destroying a tough union and leaving its members to the tender mercies of a bunch of tough employers.  

 

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Deep-Sea mining could quickly destroy marine ecosystems for profit

Written by: Leo A. on 9 September 2024

 

(Above: Capitalism is not interested in nodules’ oxygenating of the seas, but only in those components that grease the wheels of private profit. Image from Flickr Commons) 

 

It is common in our current time that the pursuit of profit will irreparably damage or destroy a unique ecosystem before it can be protected, or before it has even been properly studied. Of all Australia’s ecosystems, the least studied by far is the deep sea which surrounds our nation’s coasts. Over a third of the seafloor within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone has yet to be mapped, and globally this figure is even higher. 

Much of the abyssal seafloor is covered in polymetallic nodules. These are pebble-like objects containing large amounts of manganese and other metals. A deep-sea mining industry based on the harvesting of these nodules is already inching toward production. Tests conducted in the 1980s showed that collecting them off the seafloor can be accomplished on a large scale – and the sections of seafloor harvested by these tests are still “dead zones” to this day. 
 
This is because the nodules aren’t just rocks. A research study published in late July has shown that they play a critical role in keeping the deep sea habitable for its wildlife. Specifically, the nodules produce oxygen in the water which deep-sea organisms consume. It appears that this is due to the high voltage potentials of the nodule surfaces, which cause seawater electrolysis. In other words, the nodules split small amounts of the surrounding water into hydrogen and oxygen, the latter of which “dissolves” back into the water. This allows the environment to stay oxygenated without the need for photosynthesis. 
 
Now imagine what will happen if this vital component of the abyssal ecosystem is harvested en masse. Without enough dissolved oxygen in the water, marine animals could suffocate to extinction. Many of these could go extinct without ever being discovered at all. Australia has more abyssal seafloor in its territory than almost any other nation, and so it is critical that we make the efforts necessary to protect our deep-sea environment, before greedy capitalists destroy it for a profit. 

 

 

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The fraud of the Healthy Forests Foundation

Written by: Leo A. on 9 September 2024

 

(Above: Blinky Bill says "Hands off our forests!")

In late June, a new environmental NGO launched which calls itself the Healthy Forests Foundation. Within a matter of weeks, an ABC investigation exposed the true nature of this organisation – a front for some of the most powerful logging interests in Australia. 

This is not the first time that big industries directly involved in causing environmental harm have created puppet organisations like this. Back in 2018, the federal government gave a $444 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Attention was quickly brought to the corporate interests involved with the foundation, such as the obvious presence of major fossil fuel executives. Something similar is now happening here. 
 
The Healthy Forests Foundation was registered on June 28. Two days later on June 30, one of Australia’s biggest logging companies, VicForests, shut its doors and ceased to exist following controversies of widespread and systemic illegal logging, and of spying on activists. The connection between the two groups is easy to spot. For example, the CEO and managing director of the Healthy Forests Foundation, Monique Dawson, was also the CEO of VicForests. Within weeks, several other former staff from VicForests joined the company, along with the CEO of a major logging lobby group in Victoria. Another powerful logger that’s found its way onto the board of the foundation is Pentar, a private company that both runs its own logging operations and also processes native timber. 
 
The Healthy Forests Foundation says it's a not-for-profit environmental organisation, focused on protecting and restoring the health of Australia's forests. But it’s just a front. It’s just a way of keeping the logging industry going, with all the same industry players as before. 
 
Meanwhile, there are many organisations in Australia who truly do have our forests’ best interests at heart. We must understand the distinction between true environmental activism and the trojan horses the capitalist class throws in our path to mislead us. Ultimately, the restoration of our forests to a truly healthy state will only be possible in an independent, socialist Australia.

 

 

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People's culture against imperialist Land Forces

Written by: Red Menace on 9 September 2024

 

This banger by Red Menace expresses all our rage, frustration and determination to dismantle the war machine in 2024. 

After 10 months of struggle to #freepalestine from genocidal occupation, we plan to take on the military industrial complex at home - to #disruptlandforces.

While weapons corporations are making a killing, the people and the planet suffer again and again and again. This time, we are drawing a line in the sand. No more! No more flesh for cash or blood for oil.

No. More. War.

Watch on Youtube here.

Or here on Instagram. 

 

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Freedom for Georges Abdallah!

Written by: United Campaign for the Release of Georges Abdallah on 9 September 2024

 

We have previously mentioned the campaign for the release of Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese Communist who worked with the Palestine Liberation Organisation.  He was sentenced to life imprisonment in France for killing a US military attache and an Israeli diplomat. He is now the longest-serving prisoner in Europe. Hs case comes up for review, coincidentally, on October 7. 

We reprint below a call for his release by the Free Georges Abdallah Committee. We have signed the call. The Committee, in thanking us for our signature, has indicated the importance of every expression of proletarian internationalism.

They wrote: “Good evening comrades, Thank you for your signature and for your constant and unconditional support for our comrade Georges Abdallah. Your commitment helps make this cause visible on the international level and this has a very important echo here. Long live proletarian internationalism! Let's continue the fight! Let's free Georges Abdallah! Solidarity greetings.”

Their statement follows -  eds. 

 

Freedom for Georges Abdallah!

October 1984 – October 2024: 40 years in prison is enough! On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released!

October 7! The news is official: on October 7, 2024, the sentencing court will hold a hearing in Lannemezan to rule on the request for release on parole and expulsion from France filed more than a year ago by Georges Abdallah's lawyer. 

October 1984 - October 2024: this decisive hearing will confirm, to the nearest few days, the 40 years of detention in France of our comrade. 

October 1984 - October 2024: we expect this hearing to result in the decision to release Georges Abdallah, this exceptional prisoner, the oldest political detainee in France and probably in Europe. 

October 1984 - October 2024: 40 years of detention after a conviction handed down following an iniquitous political-police setup and a first lawyer betraying his client by working for the secret services, 40 years of detention despite the end of his security sentence 25 years ago, 40 years of detention while his requests for release were twice accepted at first instance... then rejected on appeal by the prosecution under orders from the government!

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He who has had to face from the beginning the exceptional measures and laws aggravating the standards of the "rule of law" (special assize court, preventive detention, etc.). 

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He whose perpetual detention has been denounced by many institutions and even former senior officials of the country. 

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He who has already filed nine requests for release. The last one, dating from 2012, having been accepted... on condition that the Minister of the Interior sign an expulsion order, which E. Valls (like his successors) refused to do. This denial of a court decision was thus commented on in 2022 by the public rapporteur of the administrative court: "Such a solution is hardly satisfactory, but no other seems conceivable to us within the legal framework. We must hope that the situation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah can evolve by other means." […] "It is quite obvious that the continued detention of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, for almost thirty-eight years, obeys considerations of an extra-legal nature that escape you." 

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He who has therefore constantly been the object of pressure from political power, as when a Minister of Justice, J.-J. Urvoas, allowed himself to announce that "real life imprisonment" applies to Georges Abdallah. He who has also been repeatedly subjected to pressure from the highest authorities of the United States, demanding that the French government find a way to keep Georges Abdallah in prison. 

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He whose return his country, Lebanon, has been officially demanding for a long time. 

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! We, the signatories of this text, proclaim and demand it and we will not stop chanting it, writing it, posting it and demonstrating it during a new and powerful month of mobilization, until this date of October 7.

This balance of power, a decisive issue for the release of our comrade, we have been building for many years. Today, there are thousands and thousands of us, in France and around the world, mobilizing, in various forms and respecting our diversity, to achieve our sole objective: to free Georges Abdallah.

As our comrade says: "Victory or victory!" This is why we will not give up until this victory, and this while fully respecting the political identity of Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese revolutionary activist, communist, fighter in the struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people. The one who will be freed is indeed a symbol of resistance to oppression, who has never denied himself throughout these 40 years behind the walls. But it is in this lifelong struggle that we also recognize the indispensable internationalist solidarity with the struggles of peoples for their liberation and their legitimate right to free themselves from exploitation and domination.

In the final stretch of this new legal offensive launched by Georges Abdallah, all of us, signatories of this text, commit to supporting his approach by making it resonate wherever we are, until the hearing on October 7 - and if necessary even after, in particular on October 26 where a new national demonstration will take place in Lannemezan - to increase the pressure on the French State and finally succeed in making it give in.

So, let's increase the pressure even more to snatch victory, keeping in mind what Georges Abdallah told us in 2022: "The various solidarity initiatives that you have developed in this international campaign for a month provide a stinging denial to those who were banking on the loss of momentum of your mobilization." 

May a thousand initiatives flourish from September 7 to October 7, 2024 for this international month of coordinated actions, everywhere in France, in the streets and in the neighborhoods, in the universities and even in the Assembly, on the walls and in the media, and internationally in front of French embassies and consulates.

May a thousand initiatives flourish to finally obtain the freedom of Georges Abdallah by making our solidarity cry heard: "Georges Abdallah, your comrades are here!" 

40 years in prison, a whole life of fighting! Freedom for Georges Abdallah! 

On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be freed! On October 7, Georges Abdallah will be free!

Paris, August 22, 2024
United campaign for the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah

 

 

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CPA (M-L) concludes 16th Congress

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 8 August 2024

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) recently concluded its 16th Congress.

 

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Message from the "Department of Foreign Affairs at DFLP": Aggression on the West Bank

Written by: DFLP on 3 September 2024

 

(Above: The war criminal Netanyahu points to a map from which the West Bank has been erased, as per the policy of his Likud Party.)

In response to the desires and pressures of the fascist and extremist wing-right in Israel, the Israeli occupation army launched a military aggression on August 28th, targeting several cities and Palestinian camps in the West Bank. The stated goal was to eliminate the Palestinian resistance and its military arms. In line with this goal, the aim is to reshape Palestinian areas to align with Israeli plans, which involve emptying certain areas of their inhabitants to expand colonial settlement areas

This operation cannot be viewed as a reaction to any specific event, but rather as a new aggression that continues the systematic killing practiced by the occupation army against the Palestinian people in various areas of the West Bank. According to international law, United Nations resolutions, and the recognition of hundreds of countries around the world, these areas are Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. The Palestinian people have the right to resort to various forms of struggle and resistance to liberate these lands and exercise their national rights freely, far from all forms of occupation and dependency.

This aggression also occurs within the framework of two interconnected issues: the first being the genocide committed in the Gaza Strip, where Israel continues to benefit from the support provided by the Western and NATO international alliance to achieve the greatest possible ground gains. The second issue is the attempt to impose the Zionist plan known as the "Decisive Plan" through blood and fire. This plan has been openly announced by several Israeli officials, in clear defiance not only of the Palestinian people but also of the entire international system, which has failed to translate its resolutions into reality on the ground and has also failed to provide protection to a people living under occupation.

By examining the general outlines of the "Annexation and Decisive Plan," it becomes clear that Israel is working to detail this plan, which confines Palestinians to distant cantons on a very small geographical area. According to Israeli visions, this area only needs an improved living reality, which Israel will work to develop, completely ignoring all Palestinian political and national rights. Based on this, Israel presents the Palestinian people with three options:
The first option is to accept the annexation plan and "peacefully" coexist with the occupation and its future projects, with the possibility of creating job opportunities and open commercial areas, as was suggested by the Manama Workshop held in Bahrain in 2019 as part of the arrangements for the American Deal of the Century.

The second option is the opening of the door to "voluntary migration" with Israeli financial and administrative facilitation. This will be done after several steps that Israel will take, which are likely to force the majority of Palestinians to choose this option. These include laws and decisions that restrict Palestinians in their land, and harassment by heavily armed occupation soldiers and settlers.

The third option, for those who reject the first two, is persecution, killing, and imprisonment. This is what is currently happening in the cities and camps of the West Bank and on the roads and streets connecting the Palestinian cities and camps.

Therefore, the invasions of cities and camps, the displacement of residents, the destruction of infrastructure, and the perpetration of mass massacres are part of a well-thought-out process that shifts the war of displacement, annexation, and ethnic cleansing to its comprehensive bloody phase. In this phase, the occupying state resorts to all types of weapons, from warplanes to tanks, bulldozers, artillery bombardment, the imposition of blockades on hospitals, the obstruction of medical teams, and turning the northern West Bank, in particular, into a theater of gratuitous killing, extending the brutal aggression happening in the Gaza Strip.

The successive massacres and crimes against the Palestinian people throughout the years of occupation, which have escalated in recent years with the rise of the fascist right to power in Israel, accompanied by the deliberate destruction of infrastructure, will not succeed in breaking the will of the Palestinian people or in implementing the displacement and annexation plans pursued by Israel and some of its officials. Instead, they will only ignite and expand the resistance, increasing its creativity in its forms.

The occupation has previously carried out a similar operation during the "Defensive Shield" aggression in 2002, when Israel mobilized more than 30,000 soldiers, fulfilling an electoral promise made by Ariel Sharon to his voters under the slogan "Let the army win," with the aim of crushing the intifada. However, after about five weeks (from March 29th to May 10th) of killing, bombing, destruction, and using all of its immense power without any restraints, Israel failed to achieve a decisive victory despite the heavy human losses among the Palestinian people. It also failed to crush the resistance, which only increased its intensity inside Israel. The only thing Israel succeeded in was violating Palestinian Authority areas and breaking the geographic divisions imposed by the Oslo Accords in the distribution of security, military, and functional control between the Authority and Israel. This reasserted Israel’s direct occupation, ignoring the agreements signed with it, confirming the true intentions and goals behind those agreements.

Today, what the occupation army and its settlers are committing in the West Bank can only be seen as collusion and partnership by some Western powers, led by the United States of America, and a disgraceful Arab and international silence that provides the occupying enemy with all the reasons for strength and arrogance, encouraging it to continue the genocide, which is nearing the end of its first year in the Gaza Strip, aiming to liquidate the Palestinian cause in service of Western imperialist countries and the Zionist movement's dominance over the Middle East and the world.

Israel's practices and its method of dealing with the Gaza Strip, through siege, wars, destruction, and humiliation, were among the reasons, along with others, that led to the eruption of resistance and the development of its capabilities, culminating in the "Al-Aqsa Flood." What is happening today in the West Bank is a prelude that requires all components of the Palestinian national liberation movement, led by the security institutions affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, to defend the Palestinian land and its owners who face the dangers of death, displacement, imprisonment, and abuse as part of the ethnic cleansing operations committed by the Israeli occupation. Every free person in the world must understand that the volcano of revolution in Palestine may cool down a bit, but its fire will never go out. The great explosion is inevitable and will be a major revolution that will burn all those who conspired, shirked, and contributed to the crime committed by the Israeli fascist army against the Palestinian people.

We, in the "Department of Foreign Affairs at DFLP”, place this information in the hands of political parties and social frameworks of all kinds. We call for expanding their actions and deepening their engagement with what is happening to exert pressure on their governments for more balanced positions that align with the minimum humanitarian, ethical, political, and legal standards, all of which are being violated by the Israeli fascism supported by the United States and Western countries.

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
-Department of Foreign Affairs-
02/09/2024

 

 

 

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Culture Serves the Ruling Class

Written by: Duncan B. on 1 September 2024

 

 

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Pacific Islands Forum beset by problematic scenarios.

Written by: (Contributed) on 3 September 2024

 

The officially stated agenda of the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), 2024, hosted by Tonga, was couched in various criteria and concerns relevant for their eighteen member countries. Other US-led considerations were not, however, openly publicised, and subject to official diplomatic silence.

Specific issues arising from a US-led agenda, nevertheless, proved difficult for them to hide amidst their regional Indo-Pacific defence and security provision and escalating diplomatic hostilities with China.

The 2024 PIF took place during the last week of August in a region racked with US-led diplomatic hostilities toward China. The influential Pacific body, nevertheless, issued briefly stated agenda items couched in language designed specifically to not create division within the organisation and a regional environment fraught with problems. (1) Recent developments have been important: the Pacific, historically, was regarded by the US as a backwater; a multitude of small islands and countries with low levels of economic development that did not attract much diplomatic attention from Washington and the Pentagon. (2) There was not much of an assessed threat to 'US interests' and hegemony.

The rise of China as a serious regional and global competitor to traditional US hegemonic positions, however, has resulted in the US increasing their defence and security provision following revelations from a US Congress commission in 2019, 'that the US is no longer clearly superior to the threats it faces around the world … and the US … would struggle to win a conflict against China'. (3)

The enlarged Indo-Pacific region has also been subdivided by the US into island chains planned to restrict China's access and egress across the wider region, with newer plans in place to add fourth and fifth chains across the vast Indian Ocean. 

The issue of Taiwan and its recognition by some PIF member countries has also remained a pressing and divisive consideration. Three Micronesian countries, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau, officially recognise Taiwan, with full diplomatic links. Other PIF member countries across Polynesia and the South Pacific recognise China.

An attempt by the Solomon Islands to exclude Taiwan proved unsuccessful, although revealed deep divisions inside the PIF, which also have direct bearing upon US Island Chain Theory. Taiwan, which hosts a large clandestine US diplomatic presence, marks a central position with the first and second chains, restricting China's ability to openly access and have egress with Oceania. (4) The fact Oceania includes Australia and New Zealand, two member countries of the elite Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, reveals the importance of ICT for the Pentagon's military planning.

Moves by the US to push the Philippines into a central role with hostilities toward China in the South China Seas, likewise, has some direct bearing upon the PIF. (5) About twenty per cent of Palau's tiny population are ethnic Filipinos. (6) Elsewhere, across the PIF member countries, large number of Philippine guest workers provide essential services. All PIF member countries have large Chinese ethnic minorities, some with several centuries of standing; the US-led Cold War has had serious implications for the Pacific.

The 2024 PIF, therefore, has taken place in a regional environment which can best be described as problematic. PIF member countries, for example, acknowledge climate change is an issue of central importance, and the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres attended the forum 'to demand fresh efforts by the world's biggest carbon emitters to phase out fossil fuels … with outcomes including … extreme weather events from raging tropical cyclones to record ocean heat-waves'. (7) Guterres, in fact, used the PIF opening ceremony to propose a ' fossil fuel-free Pacific … as a … blue-print for the world. (8)

A diplomatic statement issued by Fiji in June contained a warning for PIF member countries with 'poly-crisis in which climate change, human security, trans-national crime, and geopolitical competition were reinforcing and exacerbating one another'. (9)  

The US, meanwhile, represented by Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary of State and well-known China hawk, did not even bother to openly discuss the PIF diplomatic statements; the US had other agenda considerations, 'as Washington moves to strengthen engagement with Pacific nations'. (10) While the US placed great emphasis upon diplomatic recognition of 'the centrality of the grouping to the region's future in recent AUSMIN talks in Washington'; the US position can hardly be regarded as diplomacy in good faith. (11) It is little other than an attempt by Washington and the Pentagon to maintain the Pacific as a region of 'US interests', marked by political interference and neo-colonial economic relations. The region is rich in natural resources and mineral deposits, including rare earths.

It is, however, the manner in which the US has pushed its Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) into the Pacific that has become a major diplomatic issue for PIF member countries. Silence has prevailed. The moves, however, have been accompanied by a massive US-led upgrade and build-up of their presence in northern Australia. 'Australia … it has been officially announced in Washington … has become the central base of operations for America's military … a recently announced boost to US bomber deployments to Australia's Top End bases would enable America to project power across the region'. (12) The moves have also been accompanied by proposals to upgrade US troop rotations in northern Australia from the existing 2,500 a year, to a 'full expeditionary force of 16,000 personnel'. (13)

Marked by the elevation of Japan as a major global US alliance partner, the IPS rests upon the so-called 'Quad', consisting of the US, Japan, Australia and India; China has been effectively hemmed in from all sides. (14) The recent incorporation of the Philippines into the IPS on the basis of a lower-level partner was marked by references to military-to-military engagement and a 'defensive web of partners and allies'. (15)

PIF member countries have been watching these developments with a sense of unease; they stand to be drawn into escalating US-led diplomatic rivalries with China, which remains their largest and most important trading partner.

Recent developments in Palau, for example, reveal just how high the stakes have become for the US in the Pacific.

Palau, with a population of 18,000 spread across five hundred small islands and atolls, is directly linked into US diplomacy through the Compact of Free Association (CFA) together with the Marshal Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. Palau has huge strategic significance for the Philippines, marking the boundaries of the Philippine Sea which are contested by China and patrolled by US marine forces responsible for security provision.

A recent decision by the US to use Palau for an 'over the horizon' radar system designed to be fully operational in 2026, has been accompanied by the upgrading of local airfields across the Pacific. (16) The $120 million system is composed of Receiver and Transmitter terminals, based in the northern part of Palau in Babeldaos and in the south at Angaur, at opposite ends of strategic island chains.(17)

The new Palau radar system also forms part of a matrix linked to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, two hubs for 'US interests'. The former is then linked directly to US intelligence facilities based in Pine Gap, Central Australia which swings on an arc to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; Guam and Diego Garcia have been upgraded as hubs for military operations, Darwen, in northern Australia, is the support centre. (18)

All US defence and security 'hubs' are correspondingly linked to 'spokes', their formation extending the power of the US deeper into the Pacific and Indian Ocean, enhancing their IPS. (19) There is little ambiguity about the role of the IPS facilities based in Palau; it has already been noted it has been designed to boost the US role in the Pacific. (20)  

While it has been noted there has been political opposition to the new US facilities in Palau, it is also important to note Australia has provided a significant role for the establishment of US-led regionally controlled intelligence facilities, including the IPS:

                                       We need an independent foreign policy!

  

1.     See Website: Pacific Islands Forum, Release: 12 April 2024, Joint Media Release: Tonga, 10 April 2024; and, China proxy pushes Taiwan ban, Australian, 26 August 2024.
2.     See: Pacific Forum, The US Indo-Pacific Strategy, 23 February 2021.
3.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
4.     See: Beijing keeps a wary eye on new US Taipei outpost, Australian, 18 June 2018.
5.     South China Sea raises fear of a super-power war, Australian, 21 August 2024.
6.     Philippines vows to resolve maritime dispute with Palau, The Philippine Star, 24 September 2021.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 26 August 2024.
8.     ALP gas plan irks Pacific leaders, Australian, 28 August 2024.
9.     Australian, op.cit., 26 August 2024.
10.   Ibid.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Deterrence starts at the Top (End), The Weekend Australian, 17-18 August 2024.
13.   Call to boost US marines' presence in Top End, Australian, 7 August 2024.
14.   See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
15.   Manila adds to its security network, Australian, 26 July 2024.
16.   See: US missile defence proposal, Reuters, 21 December 2023; and, US plans, RFA., 1 November 2023.
17.   A new radar installation in the Pacific, Popular Science, 5 January 2023; and, RFA., ibid., 1 November 2023.
18.   See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size; and, US intensifies military presence in the Indo-Pacific, The Global Times (Beijing), 24 July 2018.
19.   Palau-based radar, Geo-Indo-Pacific, 27 July 2024.
20.   Reuters, ibid., 21 December 2023.

 

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Turkey: Freedom for the Prisoners of the Kobanê Case!

Written by: Solidarity Initiative for Figen Yüksekdag on 2 September 2024

 

We have been contacted by the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey and asked to publicise the case of leaders arrested in 2016 for supporting the Kurdish revolutionary forces in Kobane in neighbouring Syria. 

The HDP is a social democratic party with representation in the Turkish parliament. It is not a revolutionary party but has opposed the reactionary, fascist Erdogan regime.

In 2014, it called for demonstrations in support of Kobane, whose majority Kurdish people were fighting a life and death battle with ISIS.  They were ultimately successful but the region they have liberated in north-east Syria presents a threat to Turkey, which keeps its own Kurds under draconian control, and is today bombing the Syrian Kurds.

We support the right of the HDP to support Kobane and to oppose the Erdogan regime – eds.

.....................

Freedom for the Prisoners of the Kobanê Case! 
 

On May 16, 2024, the protracted “Kobanê Case” in Turkey concluded with an immense verdict of 407 years in prison for former board members and leading figures of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), including former co-chairs Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş, who have been detained since November 4, 2016. Those convicted in this trial stand as symbols of the relentless fight for equality, justice, and freedom in Turkey. 

The resistance of the people of Kobanê against the brutal ISIS attack in October 2014 garnered global sympathy and political and practical support. Thanks to the heroic resistance of the Kurdish freedom fighters and international solidarity, Kobanê did not fall; instead, it marked the beginning of ISIS's defeat. The HDP's solidarity with the people of Kobanê and its call for support for this people is a completely democratic and legitimate right and cannot be used as a pretext for this trial. 

The Kobanê Trial has clearly demonstrated that the judiciary in Turkey is not independent and has become an extension of political power. Ongoing bans against the HDP, arrests and suppression of democratic opposition, restrictions on assembly and demonstration rights, the isolation of prisoners and denial of their medical care, and media censorship are all manifestations of the multifaceted attack on democratic freedoms in Turkey. This is also evident in the non-implementation of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments, such as those in the cases of Yüksekdağ, Demirtaş, and Kavala. 

We view the trials and lengthy sentences against the HDP's leading figures as expressions of the Erdoğan dictatorship's efforts to suppress democratic opposition. We express our solidarity with Figen Yüksekdağ, Selahattin Demirtaş, and all those convicted in this trial, who steadfastly stand against this injustice and for democracy and political freedom. 

We demand the annulment of the sentences for the prisoners of the Kobanê show trial and the immediate release of Figen Yüksekdağ, Selahattin Demirtaş, Alp Altınörs, Ali Ürküt, Aynur Aşan, Bülent Parmaksız, Dilek Yağlı, Günay Kubilay, İsmail Şengül, Nazmi Gür, Pervin Oduncu, and Zeynep Ölbeci. 
............
Who is Figen Yüksekdağ? 

Figen Yüksekdağ is pioneering advocate for freedom and equality and a representative of the socialist movement in Turkey. Born on November 9, 1971, in Adana-Ceyhan, she was introduced to socialist ideals during her school years. Her political activities led her into conflict with the Turkish state at a young age, resulting in arrests and repression. As a student, she was involved in various student associations advocating for democratic and social rights, including the High School Students' Association (LÖB), the Working High School Students' Association, and the Association of Democratic High School Students. 

During her university years, Yüksekdağ founded student unions and later worked as a journalist for various socialist publications such as the youth magazine Özgür Gençlik and the weekly newspaper Atılım. Her commitment to women's rights was evident in her role as editor of the magazine Sosyalist Kadın (Socialist Woman). 

Her political activities intensified in 2002 when she became the spokesperson for the Socialist Platform of the Oppressed. Despite serving a one-year prison sentence in 2006, she continued her work and contributed to the founding of the Working Women's Association. Her participation in the funeral of the socialist intellectual Kutsiye Bozoklar in 2009 led to another arrest. 

In 2010, she played a key role in founding the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and became its chairperson. Amidst a period of global political upheaval, including the Arab uprisings and the Gezi Park uprising in Turkey in 2013, as well as growing social protests against the global economic crisis, she participated in the founding process of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). In June 2014, she was elected as co-chair of the HDP alongside Selahattin Demirtaş. 

As a Member of Parliament for the Kurdish region of Van from 2015 to 2018, Yüksekdağ faced constant attacks and repression from the Turkish government, which viewed her position and the role of the HDP as a threat. On November 4, 2016, she was arrested along with other leading HDP representatives as part of the so-called Kobanê trial. 

Even in prison, Yüksekdağ continued her resistance. Her poetry collection The Walls Will Collapse, written in prison, was banned and confiscated. Yüksekdağ remains a symbolic figure in the fight for women's freedom, the self-determination of peoples, and against exploitation and oppression, both inside and outside the prison walls.

 

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Study of Marxism-Leninism is the key to understanding the role of the ALP and unions

Written by: Nick G on 29 August 2024

 

The magnificent response by construction workers to the attempted destruction of their union has included disgust at the perceived betrayal of workers by the Labor Party. That disgust has extended to all but a few in the leadership of the union movement for failing to show solidarity with, and to support, the CFMEU.

We understand the labelling of Albanese and McManus as class traitors.

People who have to work for a living and who join the ALP believing it will advance their interests are entitled to feel betrayed. Union members who are organised by their union to spend hours door-knocking for Labor in the lead-up to an election, or who loyally stand at polling booths handing out Labor “how-to-vote” cards are entitled to feel betrayed.

It all fits a pattern.

For such people there is hope for parliamentary means of achieving “fairness” through a Labor (or Greens) party. The sentiment behind this hope is quite resilient. 

Despite all the betrayals by Labor governments, some people seem unable to break out of a cycle of hoping for a better deal than they are going to get from the Liberals, and then losing heart every time Labor wins office and backtracks on its promises to the point where it seems indistinguishable from the more open party of big business. We respect this sentiment, but do not share it. We need to break out of its dead-end cycle. 

As a Marxist-Leninist Party, we believe that study of revolutionary theory is the key to really understanding the role of the Labor Party and of unions.

We could (and do) refer interested readers to the writers of the classic texts of this theory.

But at the present time of Labor’s attacks on the CFMEU, and of the failure of most unions to repel those attacks, we strongly recommend two texts that are immersed in the reality of Australian conditions. They are embedded in the reality of the need to understand the Labor Party and of the unions associated with it.

In 1965, one year after the founding of our Party following a split in the original Communist Party of Australia (CPA), our founding Chairperson Ted Hill wrote Looking Backward: Looking Forward (Revolutionary Socialist Politics Against Trade Union and Parliamentary Politics).

Hill disputed the view then dominant in the CPA that the Labor Party was a “two-class” party, that it was simultaneously a party of the working class and a party of the capitalist class.

He examined the circumstances under which unions had created the Labor Party.

It was born from the defeat of the prolonged strikes of the early 1890s when workers looked for other ways to take on the capitalists.

“They wanted to use the bourgeois parliament to enact measures that would satisfy the workers’ demands to improve their own lot.”

There was insufficient experience to understand that the state was an apparatus for the suppression of the working class by the capitalist class, and insufficient experience to understand that parliament was a part of that state apparatus and not a neutral institution independent of the capitalist state.

“Thus, they accepted capitalism in two ways: (1) their demands accepted the social system of capitalism, (2) their methods of achieving them accepted the social institution of capitalism – parliament.”

These acceptances meant that although born from and based in communities of working class people, the character of the Labor Party was not “two-class” but “one class” - that it would be a party of capitalism and would work to make capitalism more acceptable to the working class on one hand, and the working class more acceptable to capitalism on the other hand.

That latter function of the Labor Party is the reason for its attempted destruction of the CFMEU.

The reluctance of unions affiliated to the Labor Party to embarrass it in any way, to endanger its chances of winning office, or, in in office, of retaining it, explain their collusion with a party of capitalism that attacks the working class.

But it is more than that. Unions are required for their legal existence to be tied in a thousand and one ways to industrial rules set up by the capitalist class. And they become part of capitalism through their accumulated assets, including investments and property, all of which they hold on the condition that they do not break the rules, that they accept the decisions of bodies created by the capitalist class to play the role of “independent umpires”. 

All of this is the subject of Looking Backward: Looking Forward.

In October 1974, while the Whitlam government was still in office, and had the task of taking the country out of the stultifying era of conservative party rule, Hill wrote The Labor Party? Dr Evatt – The Petrov Affair – The Whitlam Government. 

It drew on Hill’s collaboration with Evatt as a lawyer representing the Communist Party at the Petrov Royal Commission, and the first years of Whitlam’s government, to make a closer examination of the nature of the ALP as a party of capitalism.

In our introduction to a 2023 pdf of the book, we wrote: “Since this book was written, additional experience has arisen of Labor in office, including its attacks on the workers through the Accord, its pioneering of neo-liberalism under Hawke and Keating, its keeping the unions under control through Fair Work Australia, its further opening of Australian territory to the US military under Gillard, and the continuation of that treachery via AUKUS under Albanese, Wong and Marles. All these later phenomena can be best understood by learning from the example set by Hill in his analysis of the Labor Party.”

For interested readers, Looking Backward: Looking Forward (which we have just republished) is available as a pdf and an e-book here: Books & Pamphlets — E F HILL .

Hill’s The Labor Party? is available as a pdf here:  EFHs+The+Labor+Party+FINAL2.pdf (cpaml.org)

 

 

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Attacks on Greens MP reveal ruling class distortions and weakness

Written by: Nick G. on 28 August 2024

 

Yesterday’s massive rallies by construction workers took place under conditions of an ALP and ACTU direction that no unions should attend or otherwise show their support.

With the exception of a few defiant unions including the Maritime Union and the Electrical Trades Union, union leaders complied with the directive. Some organisers from other unions did attend, but were forbidden to carry union flags or wear clothing that identified their union. 

In their place, a few brave politicians did speak. In a previous article we have referred to SA Upper House member Connie Benaros, the first to speak at the Adelaide rally. Also present was Greens upper house member Tammy Franks, a long-time supporter of progressive issues and union rights.

In Brisbane, the Greens federal MP, Max Chandler-Mather, expressed his support for the CFMEU, and said that Labor’s placing of the union under Administration and sacking of 270 officials and delegates was “an attack on every worker in the country”. 

From the ruling class point of view, the Greens MP had broken ranks. He had showed that the allegations of criminals and bikies having infiltrated the union just did not wash. He did not believe that they justified the destruction of the most militant union in the country. 

He had to be punished.

Chandler-Mather was interviewed that night by the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson. There was really no pretence at an interview at all. Ferguson was aggressive, spiteful and concerned only to interrogate Chandler-Mather about why he would share a stage with the CFMEU, allowing him only a few seconds to respond before interrupting him and aggressively repeating the same question over and over. 

(Ferguson: wrong to stand with Aussie workers, but OK to snuggle up to notorious US far-right fascist Steve Bannon) 

Chandler-Mather seemed astounded by the vitriol, but gathered his wits to explain that the Labor government had acted on the basis of unproven allegations that should have been referred to a court of law and not subjected to trial by the media.

He did not apologise for supporting CFMEU members.

But the attack on Chandler-Mather did not stop there.

On this morning’s (Wednesday) AM program on ABC radio, reporter Rachel Mealey returned to Chandler-Mather’s attendance at the Brisbane rally, saying he had accused Labor of “turning its back on all workers by putting the CFMEU into administration”.

She then stated that Workplace Relations minister Murray Watt “says he's appalled the Greens would share a stage with organisers in front of a crowd where nazi symbolism was on display”. 

Then we heard Watt saying it was “very, very disturbing that we saw a Green MP, Max Chandler-Mather, decide to share a stage with the construction union in Brisbane yesterday, despite those placards invoking Nazi references, despite the coffins with the Prime Minister’s face…”

To try and discredit Chandler-Mather in this way shows just how desperate the government is to stop any support being expressed for a union they are hell-bent on destroying in the interests of big foreign and local capital. 

Readers can see the content of the “Nazi symbolism” and “Nazi references” in the photo above.

Even blind Freddie can see that it is anti-Nazi. It is condemning Albanese for setting out to destroy militant unions just as Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany.

There is nothing sympathetic towards, or supportive of Nazism. 

In the same photo is a placard depicting ACTU leader Sally McManus as “Sally McThatcher”.

Does that make it an expression of support for the union destroyer Maggie Thatcher?

We applaud Max Chandler-Mather.

As for the placards drawing parallels between Albanese and Hitler, we say the more the better.

As for those gutless union leaders and their leader Sally McThatcher, we remind them to revisit the words of Germany’s Pastor Niemoller, imprisoned by Hitler from 1937 to 1945: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out…”

 

 

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Sacking of CFMEU rank and file reps a wake-up call for all workers

Written by: Ned K. on 28 August 2024

 

(Above: CFMEU members take to the streets in Melbourne)

The new industrial laws enabling the CFMEU to be put in control of an Administrator are a wake-up call for all Unions and all workers.

On the first day of his new job, the Administrator sacked over 200 elected construction worker union representatives, most of whom are workers, not Union Officials.

A few weeks earlier, industrial Awards and the Fair Work Act included Delegate Rights to be inserted in Awards and to apply as a minimum standard in enterprise agreements.

The Delegate Rights were hailed by the federal government as evidence of its support for democracy for workers in their workplaces. They now had the right to elect their workplace Union representative. Many workers support the new Delegate Rights as a step towards organizing in their workplace and across whole industries and sectors of the economy.

Many must now be thinking the new Delegate Rights will be at risk, along with their whole Union, if the employers and their governments think workers' leadership on the job and collective strength is getting too powerful.

Workers are getting the government's message loud and clear - "You can have your Union, but we and the employers hold the upper hand. We can appoint an Administrator and prevent all your active workplace Delegates from being on committees of management or councils of the Union ".

It is true that bosses have always tried to terminate workers' leaders in workplaces who are effective and who cannot be "bought off" or moved out of harm's way to some isolated position in the workplace. However, the new industrial laws aimed initially at construction workers take the armoury of laws and measures aimed at diluting or destroying the collective bourgeois legal rights to another level.

The new laws are showing workers the limitations of official Union organizational structures, even at the workplace level where workers elect their own Delegates. The current situation for CFMEU members is that while they may still have a Delegate in their workplace, the official organization of the Union across worksites and the whole country is now dismantled. 

The rallies held by CFMEU members and supporters on Tuesday 27 August in capital cities showed that construction workers are determined to remain united as CFMEU members. They will find appropriate ways to organize to protect pay and conditions.

 

 

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CFMEU members defy threats to defend their union

Written by: Nick G. and others on 27 August 2024

 

Many tens of thousands of construction workers around Australia walked off the job to attend rallies called to fight the attack on their union, the CFMEU. They did so in defiance of Labor Prime Minister Albanese and his Ministers, who had threatened workers with a range of penalties for taking “unprotected” industrial action. 

 

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Attack on Construction Workers' Union Is All About Profits and Destroying Workers Collective Power

Written by: Ned K. on 26 August 2024

 

On Friday 23 August CFMEU members experienced the first day of their Union being in the hands of federal government enabled Administrators. As soon as this happened two hundred elected Officials and Councillors of the CFMEU from all over Australia were terminated from their roles by the Administrator.

The day before, Thursday 22 August the big business finance capital mouthpiece Australian Financial Review had front page article with headlines, " Builders act to take on CFMEU".

The article was most informative. It reported that at least some major building companies that had Enterprise Agreements with the CFMEU intended to remove "CFMEU vetoes and other restrictions" which enabled the Union to have some degree of influence on which sub-contractors the primary building company engaged.

One of the builders named is the WeBuild Group who are the principal contractor on the largest infrastructure project in NSW, the Sydney Metro Western Airport line.

The article also quoted the Master Builders Association NSW Executive Director Brian Seidler saying,

"In the last two weeks, there's been a groundswell of contractors that have indicated they've been dissatisfied with their enterprise agreement, not so much with the rates but the imposition of having to consult the union before letting subcontracts on even though they've won the job".

Seidler went on, "This fundamentally gives the union the power of veto and to dictate who is on the job and eventually to control the job. We're already seeing a trend where the union is saying, “You must choose from a list of union EBA subcontractors."

Seidler said builders did not want to be bound to " use union-sanctioned labour."

Initially, construction workers on a large site may maintain their current pay and conditions to give the appearance that the bosses and federal government are not after the workers, just the elected Union reps, from job site Delegate to the Union executive level.

However, the rot is likely to set in earlier for construction workers employed by the subcontractors on a large site or project. Eventually with turnover of labour, the big builders hope to destroy the collective strength of the workers through employment of non-union labour.

Their strategy is bound to fail. The very nature of construction work and the contractors' quest for extracting more surplus value from workers to realise more profit will unite workers and move them to appropriate collective action to protect their own pay and conditions and importantly, health and safety on the job.

The other dilemma for the bosses is that while they dream of having a docile, hardworking workforce, the reality is that they need workers who know what they are doing and thousands of them are CFMEU members and likely to stand by each other no matter what. 

 

 

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DFLP statement on "educational genocide" in Palestine

Written by: DFLP on 22 August 2024

 

Above: Palestinian school children killed by Israeli bombing of Deir al-Balah

We are making available a statement sent to us by the Foreign Relations Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on Israel's deliberate policy of destroying the educational infrastructure and curriculum of Palestinian education. Staff and students are frontline victims of Israel's reduction of schools and universities to rubble - eds.

 

Israel targets all components of education, and we will defend our present and future with all forms of resistance

The term "educational genocide" has been widely used since it was used by a group of United Nations experts in a report published last April. In this report, the experts defined the meaning of this term as "a deliberate effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an act known as educational genocide," which expresses "the systematic erasure of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and employees, and the destruction of educational infrastructure."

Through the atrocities committed by the fascist occupation army in the Gaza Strip, the scale of the genocide has exceeded in its brutality all the limits of legal and humanitarian descriptions. There is a comprehensive destruction of everything on the land of the Strip, from civilian facilities (more than 150 thousand of housing units were completely destroyed, 200 thousand were partially destroyed, and 80 thousand became uninhabitable), the destruction or damage of 195 heritage sites and hundreds of hospitals and health centers, 227 mosques and 3 churches, the destruction and damage of 13 public libraries, in addition to the destruction of dozens of centers that house displaced persons and UNRWA warehouses, including areas that the occupation army designated as safe, not to mention the destruction of the headquarters of government and media institutions and cutting off water supplies and destroying water wells with the aim of making the war of hunger and thirst declared by the Israeli occupation army a success.

Since 1948, the Zionist gangs, which played a fundamental role in displacing civilians from their cities and villages by force of terror and massacres, have placed education as a direct target, by targeting schools and educational institutions that were spread throughout Palestinian cities and towns, and worked to destroy and loot them and turn some of them into military centers, as happened in the schools of Jaffa, Deir Yassin and Tantura. Which the gangs have taken as military headquarters to carry out their crimes..

At the present time, schools and universities have not been spared from the crimes of the occupation, and the criminal record of the occupation records the storming of hundreds of schools and universities and the arrest of students and members of the teaching staff, not to mention the destruction of some of them and the besieging of others, as happened in 1992 when Al-Najah National University was besieged for 4 days with more than 5,000 students, teachers and workers inside.

The occupation's war on education has increased in intensity since 2011 when it began a process of distorting the Palestinian curricula specially in East Jerusalem, and launched a propaganda campaign against these curricula, claiming that they incite terrorism, violence and hatred. On this basis, the occupation has waged numerous wars in international forums against the Palestinian curricula, and has placed the curricula of the UNRWA in the circle of direct targeting in an incitement campaign that we have never witnessed before, which has led to some countries aligning with false Israeli narratives, and making the matter of funding subject to political conditions that some European Union countries, the United States, Canada and others have begun to set.

During the previous years, the occupation threatened to demolish more than 50 schools, and actually demolished many of them in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Cases of assault on students at checkpoints were recorded, in addition to the occupation army attacking schools, throwing tear gas at them and vandalizing their contents, as well as attacking and storming universities several times, vandalizing student housing, classrooms and student bloc offices, and pursuing students and capturing thousands of them while they were in their homes or on their school benches, most of them without any charges. The occupation also refused to grant permits to renovate schools unless the occupation's official curricula are adopted at all educational levels.

Through the war of extermination that the occupation forces have been waging against civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip for (18 years), the occupation is taking education and educational institutions as direct targets, since education poses a threat to its security, as it claims.

 The result is that more than 630,000 students have been deprived of education during the current year (88,000 of whom are university students). The occupation also destroyed more than 400 educational institutions, including schools, universities and institutes in Gaza, using some university buildings as military barracks. More than 400 university professors were martyred (20 of whom held the rank of professor and 59 held doctoral degrees), and nearly ten thousand school and university students were martyred as part of the university genocide war. For the first time since the beginning of secondary school exams in Palestine, Gaza is out of the exams, after the fascist war deprived more than 36 thousand students from taking the secondary school exams that qualify them to enter university.

 According to experts, the educational process in the Gaza Strip will not return to what it was and this requires great efforts, due to the extent of the destruction and sabotage that befell the educational institutions that the occupation intended to sabotage and destroy. A number of experts have described the occupation’s aggression by the United Nations Human Rights Council as “a systematic pattern of violence aimed at dismantling the foundations of Palestinian society.” “When schools are destroyed, hopes and dreams are destroyed as well.” Isn’t what is happening in line with the UN’s definition of “educational genocide”? Indeed, what has happened on the ground is almost more widespread than the previous definition.
.
 The systematic aggression and comprehensive war carried out by the Israeli occupation targeting all aspects of life and the future in the Gaza Strip, including education and culture, is something we place first in the hands of international organizations concerned with education, childhood and society issues, and even those concerned with humanitarian issues, and second in the hands of the countries allied with Israel that still claim to defend the human being and his rights, including his right to obtain education.

The "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation and the operations that preceded it and the forms of Palestinian resistance and rejection that will follow it, come within the framework of defending the present and future of the Palestinian people and their right to their land, homes, schools, universities and hospitals.. Their right to resort to all forms of resistance in order to remain free and proud, deciding their future away from occupation, colonialism and dependency. Palestine, which has been free and proud throughout history, will remain struggling for its freedom, rejecting all forms of submission and slavery.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- Department of Foreign Affairs -

 

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US Indo-Pacific Strategy heightens Korean Peninsula tensions

Written by: (Contributed) on 21 August 2024

 

Yoon suk-Yeol at the US Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - Flickr

Relations between the two Koreas have reached their lowest diplomatic point in decades. The escalation of diplomatic tensions on the Korean peninsula, however, are best viewed in the context of the South Korean (ROK) presidential administration of Yoon Suk-yeol locking the country securely within the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). It has led a situation where the northern DPRK has responded by dropping their established doctrine of peaceful re-unification across the peninsula and subsequently increasing the likelihood of even greater hostilities.

In early August the northern DPRK began military initiatives which included the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers near to its border with the southern ROK. (1)

 

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Vanguard (vanguard-cpaml.blogspot.com) 

 

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Statement of the Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Written by: Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 17 August 2024

 

We have been sent an important statement by the CentralCommittee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.We reproduce below the DFLP's own summary of the statement, the full version of which will appear on our blog: Vanguard (vanguard-cpaml.blogspot.com) 

14 August 2024

"The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine" in a full session of its Central Committee:

• Fieldwork and collaboration with allies to pressure the occupying state into implementing UN Security Council Resolutions 2735 and 2728, ceasing hostilities against our people, and fully withdrawing from Gaza. 

• Immediate efforts to implement the outcomes of the Beijing Declaration, including convening the Temporary Leadership Framework and forming a National Unity Government. 

The Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine held a comprehensive session named after "The Martyr Leaders: Ismail Haniyeh, Talal Abu Zarifa, Fuad Shukr." The session produced a political statement that praised the resilience and sacrifices of our people, united with the valiant resistance in Gaza and the West Bank. The statement emphasized: 

• Collaborating with brothers, friends, and international organizations to enforce Resolutions 2735 and 2728, halt all hostilities, and withdraw from Gaza. Practical steps should include breaking the siege, providing aid, returning displaced persons, rebuilding the health system, and initiating a national reconstruction project. 

• Structuring all forms of struggle to confront the Israeli annexation war in the West Bank, undermining the foundations of the national project through a series of field and "legal" measures that violate international laws and legitimacy, including the Knesset's decision to reject the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to perpetuate administrative autonomy over the people as an alternative solution under occupation. 

• Calling on the political leadership of the Palestinian Authority to abandon the policy of relying on American promises, free itself from the constraints and obligations of the Oslo Accords, and act according to the decisions of the National and Central Councils of the Palestine Liberation Organization by reassessing relations with the occupying state, withdrawing recognition of it, stopping all forms of security coordination with it, and disengaging from the Israeli economy in favor of the national project under a comprehensive national struggle strategy, and to work in the field to structure the struggles of comprehensive popular resistance under a unified national leadership that includes everyone. 

• Rebuilding the Palestinian political system on democratic foundations through general elections based on full proportional representation, with a national solution to the issue of elections in Jerusalem. • Affirming the Democratic Front's initiative from 16/01/2020 as a temporary measure to include all factions in the Central Council until general elections can be held. 

• Continuing efforts to hold Israel accountable through international courts, affirming the illegitimacy of its occupation, and prosecuting Israeli war criminals. 

• Condemning Israeli and American policies targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the right of return for refugees to their homes and properties and confronting the policies of demonizing and financially besieging it. 

The Central Committee also sent its revolutionary greetings to the state of South Africa and all the countries participating in its complaint before the International Court of Justice. It also saluted our heroic prisoners, emphasizing the need to internationalize their cause and continue defending their political, social, and human rights in the face of the enemy state's policy of oppression and abuse. 

It also extended its revolutionary greetings to the heroes of the resistance and all the fighters in the field, and to the families of our prisoners and martyrs. By naming its session "The Martyr Leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Talal Abu Zarifa, Fuad Shukr," the Central Committee pays tribute to the martyrs of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and everyone who was martyred on the land of Palestine in the face of the occupation and its settlers.

 

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Attack on CFMEU attacks every Australian worker

Written by: Clarrie Broz on 17 August 2024

 

When examining a media frenzy, it is useful to first investigate who stands to gain from the story presented. Blackrock, the biggest United States investment firm in construction has $8.7 trillion in assets. The second highest US investment firm is Vanguard group who have $8.6 trillion in assets.

These obscene profits and levels of commodity accumulation come largely from the labour of Australian construction workers. This is indisputable – without the workers, the sector stops.  Construction workers have engaged in relentless struggle for union member input on their wages and conditions. It is instructive to quote from Paddy Malone, who was elected as Secretary of the Victorian Builders Labourers’ Federation in 1941, who wrote the following in a letter to construction workers:

“Your day to day struggles referred to are never ending due to the present cruel system of capitalist exploitation. The constant drive for profit by employers and especially by the big monopolies intensifies with each passing month and therefore the living standards of you and your family are continually being depressed.

"Because of this we must continue to build strong organisation on the job so that we can effectively fight to maintain and improve our living standards; but still more important is the need to begin in a more conscious way than ever before to strike blows at the root cause of our day to day problems, and that means to challenge the social system of capitalism itself.       

“Only by doing so and by taking part in the wider working class struggle to establish working class political power shall we be able to have things organised for the benefit of the people and not for a few billionaire organisations.”

The struggle to defend the union of construction workers is deeply tied to opposing the biggest criminals in Australian society – not the small-time alleged bikies, ex-convicts or thugs on construction sites given a trial by media – but the parasites at the top of Blackrock and Vanguard Group who pull the strings behind the scenes.

 

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Instability of Capitalist Economy Is Ever Present

Written by: Ned K. on 17 August 2024

 

Photo: Whyalla Steelworks by Mangrove Rat, Flickr Commons

Australia is a capitalist economy in which capitalists compete with each other for markets and market share to increase profits. Capitalists also look for ways to increase exploitation of workers to increase surplus value produced by workers. The relative strength of the capitalists and workers is uneven across different industries and within an industry.

This situation is even more precarious for workers when their employer is highly dependent on overseas markets to sell their products and realize profits,
The iron ore and steel industry is a current example of how precarious this situation can become.

At the Whyalla Steel Works, the UK based multinational owner, GFC Alliance announced the sacking of 50 workers and blamed "poor conditions in global steel markets". GFC Alliance recently closed one of its steel works in Eastern Europe. At Whyalla, subcontractors report late payments by GFC Alliance.

The main union at the Whyalla Steel Works is fearful that more sackings will come.  The Mayor of Whyalla is talking up GFC Alliance's commitment to the steel plant and its plan to produce high quality "green steel". 

There is some truth in GFC's statement that the conditions in global steel markets are poor.

On the following day of the announcement of the 50 sackings, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) ran an article headed "Iron Ore crash dims budget surplus hopes". Iron ore prices have dropped 30% this year which may lead readers to think that a drop in iron ore prices should be good for steel makers like GFC Alliance in Whyalla by lowering their cost of production. 

However, the reason for the drop in iron ore prices according to the AFR is that the demand for iron ore to Australia's main iron ore export market has declined due to a drop in production of steel by China's massive steel works. The drop in demand for steel in China is due to the collapse of the new housing market in China. 

Australia's capitalist economy in earlier times depended greatly on export of wool to the UK in particular.

Since the mid-20th Century, reliance "on the sheep's back" became "reliance on iron ore". 

For the economy as a whole and the Australian Government's economic plans leading into a federal election year, what happens to the iron ore and steel industry in Australia and indeed in China may be the difference between winning and losing the election.

The AFR article argues that a $US10 a ton drop in (iron ore prices) below what has been forecast inflicts a $2.4 billion hit to revenue in 2024-25 and $4.5 billion over two years." 

The chairperson of China's huge Baowu steel works in Shanghai, Hu Wangming, said the challenge for the iron ore producers could be worse than in 2008 and 2015 when iron ore prices fell below $40 a ton.

US finance capital corporation, Morgans, estimates that iron ore needs to trade at between $80 -$100 a ton for the supplier to break even.

In Australia, the iron ore "suppliers" are multinational corporations like BHP and Rio Tinto. While the iron ore industry is under their control, the job security of both iron ore and steel workers is at risk and the Australian Government budget forecasts are guess work, a wing and a prayer at best.

Workers and their families in towns like Whyalla and their surrounding iron ore mines have a long history of class struggle and they produce some of the highest steel in the world from iron ore mined in Australia.

A progressive Labor Government would nationalize the iron ore and steel industries to eliminate Australia's dependence on iron ore exports and import of inferior quality steel from places like South Korea, Japan and China.

The monopoly capitalists’ economists in Australia keep a close eye on international market trends. They advise governments on what is coming, but they never advise governments to nationalize key industries for the well-being of Australians and the country's economic stability. 

That is why working people and their allies need to fight for an independent, socialist economy for Australia.

 

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Cracks Within ALP Ranks Widen Over AUKUS

Written by: Ned K. on 16 August 2024

 

 

First there was former Treasurer and PM Paul Keating despairing over the ALP leadership's AUKUS "marriage". Now he is joined by former ALP Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans.

An article in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on Friday 16 August is headed, "Evans torpedoes Marles, Albanese over AUKUS".

 Evans is quoted by the AFR from a talk he gave at a conference on AUKUS held recently in Canberra at the Australian National University.

Evans characterized Richard Marles' "love for the US" as "so dewy-eyed as to defy parody."

As for Albanese, Evans is quoted as saying he "is still preoccupied with avoiding being wedged as weak on security and has never given great attention to the complexities of foreign and defence policy and that seems unlikely to change." 

As for Penny Wong, the current Foreign Minister, Evans generously said that she was "far more beady-eyed, and instinctively wary of overcommitment to America's view of itself". However, according to the AFR article, Evans also said that she had been "unwilling to rock the boat".

It is possible that there are contradictions between Albanese and Marles on the one hand and Penny Wong on the other hand on how they try and "sell" AUKUS to the Australian people. However, they are united in their support for AUKUS and Australia-US Alliance and the growing military presence of the US in Australia, not to mention their siding with the US and Zionist regime in Israel.

Evans clearly distanced himself from all three ALP leaders when he said at the conference, AUKUS would "likely prove one of the worst foreign and defence policy decisions our country has made, not only putting at profound risk our sovereign independence, but generating more risk than reward for the very national security it promises to protect."

Evans and Keating express the views and concerns of many people in Australia, including rank and file members of the ALP in sub-branches and members of a growing number of Unions affiliated to the ALP.

Albanese's family were migrants from Italy. He talks a lot about acting in "the national interest".

How different is his subservience to the modern-day colonial/imperialist powers of the USA and UK compared with another Italian migrant and scholar, Rafaello Carboni, who shouted to the diggers at the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat in reference to British colonialism,

"I hate the oppressor, let him wear a red, blue, white or black coat!" 

Carboni called on the miners at the Eureka Stockade in 1854, irrespective of nationality, religion or colour to salute the Southern Cross flag, the symbol of independence from the then colonial power.

 

 

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Book Review: The Invisible Doctrine - The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How it Came to Control Your Life)

Written by: Duncan B. on 15 August 2024

 

The Invisible Doctrine. The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came To Control Your Life) by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison is a small book in size and length (162 pages plus endnotes), but it gives an excellent summary of the history of neoliberalism and its origins in the 1930s in the theories of economists such as Friedrich Hayek.

Neoliberalist policies advocate the relaxation of financial controls, privatisation of public services and utilities, reduction in taxes on the wealthy and reduction of social services. Neoliberalism seeks total freedom for capitalists to do whatever they want, free from trade unions, labour laws, environmental regulations or any other restraint on capitalism.

Neoliberalism was quickly accepted by many big corporations such as General Motors, and widely promoted by supposedly independent think tanks. Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK adopted neoliberalism whole-heartedly. Neoliberal policies were carried out to their fullest extent in Chile after Pinochet’s coup in 1973, enforced by Pinochet’s fascist dictatorship. The short time as Prime Minister of the UK by Truss, and Trump’s presidency of the US are modern examples of neoliberalism in action.

The Invisible Doctrine exposes how the promoters of neoliberalism hide their activities behind a smokescreen of conspiracy theories, culture wars and phoney environmental campaigns. We are currently seeing one of these in Australia, being whipped up by the National Party to try to get farmers to oppose wind farms, solar power sites and the transmission lines which they require.

The book’s scope does not cover neoliberalism in Australia, but Australians have suffered from the adoption of neoliberal policies by a succession of both Labor and Liberal governments.

The damage from neoliberalism reached its peak in Victoria under the Kennett Liberal government (1992-1999 ). Victoria suffered from the privatisation of the State Electricity Commission, public transport and other utilities and the forced amalgamation of local councils. Thousands of workers lost their jobs and Victorians continue to experience higher prices and worse levels of service as a result.

The Invisible Doctrine offers a wealth of information about neoliberalism, but offers little in the way of solutions. The authors propose to “enhance democracy” through what they call “deliberative participatory democracy.”   This sees people coming together in community assemblies at the municipal level to make decisions about their communities. These theories of course offer no challenge to capitalism. Only the workers and their allies engaging in revolutionary struggle can overthrow capitalism.

The CPA (M-L) fighting Programme gives us a way forward in uniting the people in opposition to the harmful effects of neoliberal policies on the Australian people.

 

 

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Bangladesh: Eradicate Hasina-Awami-Indian fascism completely and utterly.

Written by: Proletarian Party of Bangladesh on 13August 2024

 

 

(Photo by Shaharik Istik Raz on Flickr.)

Bangladesh: Eradicate Hasina-Awami-Indian fascism completely and utterly.
Struggle for the Establishment of the Governance of the Struggling Students, Workers, Peasants, Poor, Middle class.

(August 5, 2024. Extended reprint: August 8, 2024)
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The 15-year Hasina-Awami misrule has finally come to an end. The students have won a great victory in their fearless movement. To achieve this goal, many different political forces and masses have made immense sacrifices and conducted valiant armed and unarmed struggles for the past decade and a half. In this continuation, around 350 lives were lost to achieve this feat at the last minute. Several thousand people were injured. Over five hundred people lost their eyes. Many more have become permanently crippled. 15,000 or more people were taken into custody. In addition to that, thousands of political activists and common people have been killed, and millions of people have suffered oppression and unjust arrests in the past 15 years. False cases have been filed against hundreds of thousands of people.

However, this victory is not the end of the fight, rather it is just the beginning. There is still a long way to go. Because the oppressed cannot be liberated until the power or rule of the bona fide struggling masses is established. That has been experienced many times in the past—in '69, '71, '75, and '90. Even after shaking off the main enemy sitting on the neck, the puppets of the ruling elite bourgeoisie have seized power. To prevent this, the struggling masses must struggle for the right political agenda. Currently, an "interim government" has been formed under the initiative of the military and the bureaucrats. We shall rationally insist that the hopes of the oppressed students for emancipation from fascism be fulfilled. In light of this, we would like to draw attention to a few key points below.

1. To establish a provisional government composed of representatives of all anti-fascist classes, professions, communities, and democratic political forces instead of an externally imposed government led by pro-western ex-military, civilian bureaucrats, bourgeois intellectuals, professionals, and elite bourgeoisie representatives.
- Strongly oppose the imposition of martial law, so-called army-backed governments, or the imposition of a state of emergency.
- Complete repeal of the constitution that allows fascism.
- Promulgation of a new constitution and basic principles of a state system favourable to the democratic system.
- Abolition of the district council, sub-district, and UP formed on the blueprint of fascism.
- Formation of “mass committees” of farmers, workers, labourers, students, youth, middle class, religious and ethnic minorities, progressive and democratic intellectuals at all levels of society starting from village/neighborhood, and having the administrative work done by them. To form an armed “Mass Militia” under them to counter any anti-Mass threat and attack.
- Creating an environment for fair elections based on the elimination of fascism, the development of mass power, and the urgent demands of the anti-fascist democratic forces, especially the workers, peasants, students, and masses.

2. Arresting and punishing all Awami godfathers who are the main pillars of Hasina-India fascists and have dominated all spheres of state and society for the past 15 years.
- Hasina's fascist allies included cabinet members, parliamentarians, powerful bureaucrats, powerful military officers, tyrannical officers of Police-RAB-DB, big businessmen, media magnates, so-called student-youth terrorists, abominable and identified elites among judges, professionals, cultural leaders, etc. Publish a list of names of all these people and arrest them. Disarm them all.
- Immediate release of prisoners in "Aynaghar," a torture prison maintained by the Hasina-loyalist DGFI. Publish a white paper on this.
- Immediate abolition of the murderous RAB force.
- Publishing the list of public enemies involved in murder, disappearance, rape, and money laundering, and prosecuting them under the speedy trial law.
-Banning the Chhatra League, Jubo League, and Hasina-Awami League as terrorist and fascist organizations. Depriving them of their political rights.
- Confiscation of all properties of the above. Confiscation of all agricultural lands, wetlands, residential plots, and commercial plots occupied by Awami fascists. Free distribution of agricultural land to landless-poor farmers. Opening of reservoirs to fishermen.

3. The immediate release of all political leaders and activists of all political parties and struggling people who were tortured and imprisoned during the last 15 years of fascist rule, especially in the last July movement. The withdrawing of all cases brought against them.

4. Opening universities and educational institutions immediately. Lifting the curfew, sending the army back to the barracks. Deploying of BGB immediately to guard the borders. Having the university halls managed by student committees. De-fascistization and reformation of the administration of universities.

5. Publishing the list with the names, addresses, and ages of all those killed during the fascist regime, especially in recent movements. The state should provide compensation to the affected families. All injured should be provided with medical treatment at state’s expense. Those who have already undergone treatment at their own expense should be compensated. A white paper on the injured should be published. Those responsible should be punished severely.
- Listing the general police—Ansar—BGB and army personnel, and common people killed in various anarchic activities that followed the fall of Hasina and honoring them socially.

6. All anti-national agreements and understandings with foreign countries, especially with India, by the Hasina-Awami government in the last 15 years must be cancelled.
- The Rampal Power Plant destroying the Sundarbans should be stopped immediately.
- Immediate cessation of providing India with train and road corridors through Bangladesh, giving them the responsibility for the Teesta project, buying electricity from India at a high price etc.
- Announcing no new agreement or compromise with India until India publicly apologises for supporting Hasina's fascism.
- To be fully alert of subversive or potentially aggressive activities of Indian expansionists. Condemning their harbouring of Hasina/Awami fugitives in India and demanding their handover to Bangladesh.
- Strictly opposing all imperialist meddling and conspiracy, including those of America, China, and Russia, on internal matters of the country.

7. Immediate repeal of all black laws, including the Service Act, Digital Act, and Industrial Police.

8. Accepting the legitimate demands of workers, farmers, fishermen, poor and working urbanites, tenants, students, teachers, and musicians. Implement stringent measures immediately to break up syndicates and regulate commodity pricing. Taking strict measures to stop extortion and bribery by the Hasina-Awami Fascist bureaucrats and police regarding sidewalk traders, hawkers, transport workers, markets, buying and selling land, building houses, getting government jobs, etc. Strictly controlling the change of hands of extortion and of expropriation. Taking strict measures to prevent persecution and attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.

If the interim government is not formed and run in the above way, it will be a imperialist-comprador bourgeois government based on the existing fascist structure, which will not be able to fulfil the aspirations of the struggling masses.

The above demands are not a complete program. Rather, these are only some preliminary outlines for creating an anti-fascist environment and system. Hence many more amendments may be made to it, and specifications have to be made that can be finalised based on the opinion of the serious anti-fascist fighting forces.

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Our proletarian party has not only fought relentlessly against the recently expelled Hasina fascism but also outlined a genuine revolutionary program for real liberation from all imperialism, including that of America-China-Russia, Indian expansionism, and their crony elite bourgeoisie, semi-feudal exploitation-control. The party is thus conducting a continuous struggle for the real independence of the country and the empowerment of the masses of people, including the workers, peasants, and middle class, and the establishment of a truly democratic society. The ongoing anti-fascist struggle is a part of this. We are working to fight to the end and lead it to victory. The ultimate goal of the fight is to establish a society without exploitation in the country and move towards communism worldwide.

To advance that goal and to achieve a real revolution, the oppressed people must take up arms, build an army of their own, and build a rural-based people's war based on the program of agrarian revolution. All struggles should be conducted based on this aim and work. The advanced section of students and youth must be equipped with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. They should be organized into a revolutionary party. Only then can their today's sacrifice and struggle progress towards success. 

-Central Committee, Proletarian Party of Purbo Bangla.

 

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What do wine industry and early childhood education workers have in common?

Written by: Ned K. on 11 August 2024

 

(Above: Winery workers in the Barossa take action. Source UWU facebook page)

Wine industry workers employed by Pernod Ricard in the Barossa Valley last week escalated industrial action to strike action. They are using the limited rights of workers to take "protected industrial action" during a bargaining period for a new Enterprise Agreement. Their key demands are for above inflation rate pay increases and a three-year Enterprise Agreement. 

In the previous Enterprise Agreement workers accepted wage increases below the inflation rate. Cost of living pressures on wine industry workers are no different from those experienced by any other worker and in their view, Pernod Ricard is a French owned multinational corporation whose profits go into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pernod Ricard want a one-year Agreement so that the sell off of their wineries in the Barossa Valley to Accolade will make it easier for Accolade to force through changes they want to workers’ conditions when they become the workers' employer. Accolade has been owned by the Carlyle Group, an American private equity company, since 2018.

So, the strike by wine industry workers is also very much about job security of conditions they have won over many years of previous struggles. 

The workers have a lot of community support in the Barossa Valley. They also are well organized on the job with good networks of leaders in the wineries, enabling them to make collective decisions on when to intensify their "protected actions" in a way that keeps pressure on the employer to agree to their key demands.

At the same time as wine industry workers took strike action against multinational Pernod Ricard, the Albanese Government finally announced that Early Childhood Education workers would have their wages increased by 15%. Labor had dragged its heels in showing their hand on funding wage increases for Early Childhood sector workers, with this procrastination extending back to the days of Rudd and Gillard Governments.

The 15% increase will be split into a 10% increase from December 2024 and another 5% increase from December 2025. The increases, funded by the federal government, are conditional on Early Childhood Education Centres increasing fees paid by parents to a maximum of 4.4% over the next year. The Centre employers will only be provided with increased funding for the wage increases once they complete Fair Work approved enterprise agreements with their workers and their Union.

Why did the Albanese Government make the announcement for a 15% wage increase to these workers at this time?

Early Childhood Education Centres have become essential for the operation of capitalism in Australia. Employers in all industries require both men and women workers, and parents with young children need Centres to be able to both work. Whether two parent or single parent families, workers need to work to survive and keep up with rising living costs. 

However, the wages in the sector are so low that turnover of labour is high, and attracting new workers to Early Childhood Education has reached an all-time low.

So, the Albanese Government did the sector's employers a favour by raising wages of the workers.

What the Albanese Government announcement of the 15% wage increase did not say was that the Early Childhood workers had forced major private sector employers in the sector to negotiate a multi-employer Enterprise Agreement with a demand for a 25% wage increase. 

Workers elected hundreds of Delegates across Australia to represent them in the negotiations and like the Pernod Ricard Delegates in the wine industry, they and their members were well organized and in a strong enough position to take sector wide strike action ('protected industrial action') if the Government did not announce a substantial funding of wage increases for the sector.

The mainly women workers also knew that the Albanese Government has an election coming up pretty soon. Early Childhood Education workers on the war path at election time would be a headache for any current government.

The actual industrial action by winery workers and the threat of sector wide industrial action by Early Childhood workers show that vastly different sections of the working class relying on the power of the collective are a mighty force.  

 

 

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ICOR statement: Full solidarity with the workers and the broad masses in Kenya!

Written by: ICOR on 11 August 2024

 

(Above: anti-Ruto demonstrators in Nairobi. Photo/Courtesy)

The revolutionary world organisation ICOR declares its full solidarity with the workers, the broad masses and the Communist Party of Kenya (CPK). The CPK's detailed and profound information to all ICOR organisations (printed in full on the ICOR website)  shows how valuable transnational revolutionary cooperation is: The bourgeois media show clashes between the masses and the police at best mention the trigger. But they cover up the deeper connections in the imperialist world system and even more so they conceal the justified demands and the socialist way out of capitalist conditions.

 

 

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Department of Foreign Affairs department at DFLP: “Targeting Children in Gaza is a crime that requires legal prosecution”

Written by: Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on 10 August 2024

 

(Above: It is hard to believe that descendants of the victims of Nazism could place such statementson Twitter/X)

Since its foundation as a political theory of settler colonialism by Theodor Hertzl in 1896, Zionism has attempted to cloak itself in the religious teachings of Judaism. This has continued to the present time when, in justification for the current war of genocide, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cited Old Testament storied of the destruction of the Amalekites, a people that the Israelites were ordered to wipe out in an act of revenge. The Israelites, according to the Torah, were instructed “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” On October 29 last year, he called on Israelis to “remember what Amalek has done to you”, and added that Israeli soldiers were part of a legacy that goes back 3,000 years. This is the background to Israel’s war against children, referred to in the statement from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine below – eds. 

.......................

 

Department of Foreign Affairs department at DFLP: “Targeting Children in Gaza is a crime that requires legal prosecution”

We call the international organizations to use the weapons of the law to protect childhood and prosecute the leaders and soldiers of the occupation

The number of children martyrs in Gaza has surpassed the number of murdered children on the span of 4 years in all conflicts around the world.

The number of “UNRWA” workers who were martyred in this conflict is the highest ever since the establishment of the United Nations.

During the early days of the genocidal war on the Gaza strip, the prime ministers of the Israeli enemy said: “There will be no civilian authority in the Gaza Strip that teaches its children to hate Israel”. This is a diplomatic statement that aligns with the Israeli saying: “A good Arab is a dead Arab”. It also resonates with historical and religious Jewish myths and with religious edicts that explicitly call for killing of Palestinian children. Numerous Jewish rabbis have previously called for the “killing of Gazan children and women, even if a million or more were killed, because that is in accordance with Jewish teachings.”

Based on this, there is no need to elaborate on the fact that the Zionist project is not merely a colonial, settler, exclusionary, and replacement project but also a genocidal project that originates from the belief that the human factor is the decisive factor in the conflict. Therefore, every opportunity to terrorize non-Jews must be seized. This is what justifies the Israeli army’s insistence on mass killing and targeting of women and children. It is no coincidence that the majority of the martyrs in the Gaza Strip are women and children.

The numerical data confirms that there is a clear targeting not only of children in Gaza specifically and Palestine generally but also of the infrastructure that supports childhood, like the education sector and its facilities, including staff and schools. And according to figures from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees “UNRWA”, “The number of murdered children in Gaza in only 4 months (from November 20, 2023, to February 20,2024) exceeds the number of murdered children in all of the conflicts around the world in the last 4 years.”

To ensure the killing of as many children as possible in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army adopted a scorched-earth policy of mass destruction, including homes, civilian facilities, hospitals, schools, places of worship, refugee camps, international and press offices. This is confirmed by a statement from the commissioner-general of UNRWA, which summarizes Israel’s intent to kill as many Palestinians as possible. The commissioner-general says: “since the start of the war, we lost 202 of our employees in the Gaza strip. These people were teachers, doctors, nurses, relief and social worker, engineers, logistics and support staff, and professional in technology, media, and communication. This number of fatalities is the highest among workers killed in a single conflict since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.”

Throughout the first seven months of the aggression, Israel killed approximately 6649 school students, in addition to the martyrdom of 547 university students, and 334 school teachers and around a 100 university professors. 

According to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 286 public schools, 65 UNRWA schools, and 31 university campuses in the Gaza Strip were destroyed. 57 schools in the west bank were also raided and vandalized. 133 public schools were used as shelters in the Gaza Strip, a huge number of which got bombed with tons of explosives.

Educational Institutions were targeted and destroyed either partially or completely, which resulted in around 630,000 school students and 88,000 university students being deprived of their natural right to education.

These reasons, among others, prompted the UN Secretary General to include Israel on the UN’s “list of shame” for the Israeli army’s violation of children’s rights in the conflict. Especially since there is a strong belief amongst international organizations concerned with education that Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian education sector completely, known as educational genocide. This involves the systemic eradication of education by arresting, detaining, or killing of the students, educators, workers, and destroying educational infrastructure. This constitutes a violation not only of international and humanitarian law, but also of the minimum of ethical and humanitarian standards which have collapsed under the rubble of houses that sheltered children, women, and civilians.

We do not highlight anything new when we shed the light on the occupation’s crime against the Palestinian people in general and against children and childhood in particular. We are confident that the concerned international organizations and institutions possess much more information than mentioned in this brief letter. This is only a simple attempt to awaken some remnants of international conscience and to restore justice and international and humanitarian law that turns a blind eye when it comes to a crime committed by Israel.

On behalf of the “Department of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” we call on the UN Secretary-General and the Commissioner-General of UNRWA to use the weapon of law to protect children and childhood in Palestine by filing lawsuits in international and local courts against occupation soldiers and their leaders, both on the political and military level. We also urge “UNICEF” to continue its work not only in exposing Israel’s practices against childhood and education in Palestine but also in seriously striving to secure a healthy environment that ensures a dignified life for the children of Palestine. This will never happen as long as Zionist fascism, which thrives on criminal and terrorist ideology that fueled by historical and religious myths, persist. Thus, every possible international effort is required to eliminate it now rather than later, given its significant threat not only to Palestinians but to the entire world.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
-Department of Foreign Affairs-
- August 2024 -

 

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Dreyfus must release Dan Duggan

Written by: Nick G. on 8 August 2024

 

US-born naturalised Australian citizen Dan Duggan was seized by the Australian Federal Police 18 months ago.

He has been held in maximum security solitary confinement ever since whilst the US imperialists seek his extradition to face charges under US law.

The main charges relate to his perfectly legal training of pilots in South Africa, some of whom were Chinese. He had broken no Australian law. 

A secondary law is a trumped-up charge of money laundering, brought against him by the US to prevent his wife selling a property they own to finance his legal costs.

Our Party has provided $500 to assist with those costs. Others who can afford to do so should consider it as part of the fight to defend Australian sovereignty and the rights of our citizens against arbitrary interference by a vengeful US imperialism. 

Rather than explain the politics of this injustice ourselves, we refer readers to this excellent piece on the Sydney Criminal Lawyers website: Dan Duggan: Another Australian Citizen the US Is Questionably Seeking to Extradite (sydneycriminallawyers.com.au)

 

 

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Defend Australia from the US!

Written by: Nick G. on 7 August 2924

 

The 2024 AUSMIN (Australia-US Ministerial) Talks have just concluded. Attended by each countries’ Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs, what has not concluded is the steady occupation of Australia by US forces readying for war with China.

The two sides announced today a series of joint initiatives including new “operating locations,” more frequent troop rotations, more frequent B-52 nuclear armed bomber rotations, and the formalisation of plans to coproduce two key, long-range missile systems.

Canberra has agreed to “new and longer-term operating locations” for “force posture cooperation,” a senior US Defense official said.

“We’re also expanding our logistics cooperation by assessing places where we could locate an enduring logistics support area in Queensland, Australia,” the official said.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said there would be an increase in rotational forces, to include more maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft and more frequent rotational bomber deployments.

Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said that put together, those kinds of moves are “greatly going to enhance the United States’s ability to operate in Australia.”

Not one of these increases of US military activity in Australia have been discussed with the Australian people.

This betrayal of sovereignty runs through the decision by Menzies to sell pig iron to Japan before WW 2, to his approval for the British to test atomic weapons in Australia, to the CIA setting up its spy base at Pine Gap, to our lap dog obedience to every call by our US masters to follow them into unjust and unwinnable wars, to Gillard’s approval of a “rotational” US marines base outside Darwin.

This betrayal of our sovereignty has only hastened under the AUKUS arrangements.

What sort of thinking is behind the betrayal?

US marine, B-52 bombers and nuclear submarine bases in Australia are the realisation of a proposal by US armaments industry-funded think-tank ASPI. It is an organisation of Australians Serving Predatory Imperialism.

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

“Leaders need followers,” argued the paper.

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

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

ASPI, which has an incredibly powerful voice in the media and in government circles, was advocating allowing US imperialism to use Australia as a giant aircraft carrier, all the better with which to project force into Asia, and at China in particular.

That treacherous thinking has been totally embraced by the US loyalist Marles who boasted today that “American force posture now in Australia involves every domain: land, sea, air, cyber and space.”

These are all areas in which Australia has surrendered any capacity for independent judgement and action.

We need an armed people to defend this country, to defend it from the forces of US occupation.

For anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

 

 

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Imperialist hypocrisy on display

Written by: Nick G. on 6 August 2024

 

We have known all along that imperialism practices rampant hypocrisy. It tramples on people’s rights under the guise of “defending democracy”, and oppresses peoples and nations under the guise of “fighting for freedom”.

These are general manifestations of its hypocrisy.

 

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Makarrata: Bipartisan approach to stop truth-telling commission

Written by: Nick G. on 5 August 2024

 

(Above: from ANTAR Victoria)

Labor’s eternal fear of being wedged on matters of principle by the Opposition was revealed at this weekend’s Garma Festival.

It surprised no-one when the ex-Queensland copper who runs the Opposition came out and said that if elected, there would be no telling the truth, or Makarrata, under his government.  

Dutton thinks he is on a winner by pledging to keep Australians comfortable in the cotton wool wrapping of willful ignorance, allowing them to slumber on under the blanket of denial.

Well, as soon as the dog barks, Albo runs inside.

He disavows a central objective of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, telling ABC interviewer David Speirs that Makarrata simply means “the coming together after a struggle”.

Yes, that is how the word is defined in the Statement, but the action that followed from adoption of the word was: “We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.”

These were the words, and that was the action, promised by Albanese on the last election night. 

He has now broken that promise and has chosen to stand with Dutton against the aspirations of Australian First Peoples, against opening an opportunity for a formal truth-telling about the violence, and threats of violence, by which Australia was seized from its owners.

Albanese says that he will now concentrate on closing the gap between outcomes experienced by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, gaps that have kept widening under his government.

The only gap that he has closed is that between himself and the racist Right at the top of the Opposition.

 

 

 

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Indo-Pacific: New US Joint Force Command

Written by: (Contributed) on 5 August 2024

 

(Source: US Joint Forces Command powerpoint)

Two seemingly unrelated and carefully worded official Pentagon media releases in Australia have revealed their regional military planning for war with China. The planning has included upgrading the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) and using the Philippines as a central consideration as a potential 'theatre of war'. The role of Australia was downplayed.

In late July the Pentagon announced it had established a new Joint Force Command with Japan led by a three-star general with the specific plan to 'co-ordinate military operations with the Japanese, plan joint exercises and participate in the defence of the country if hostilities erupt'. (1) The command system has been placed at the forefront of US-led regional defence and security provision and has a special status with the Indo-Pacific Command based in Hawaii. (2)

Other publications with compliant pro-US journalists elsewhere also covered the upgraded US-Japan alliance. It was noted that 'Tokyo pledge to act as America's global partner … and that … Japan was to have a direct leadership role over American forces … with deeper interoperability … although … US forces in Japan would be reconstituted as a joint force headquarters reporting to the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command'. (3)

The upgrade to the already existing IPS has revealed how far diplomatic tensions have been continually escalating. The IPS consisted of the US-Japan alliance being central to global considerations; resting upon the 'Quad', China was effectively hemmed in from all sides. (4)
Other regional allies including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and others, were included in the IPS as lower-level partners. (5)

The US is clearly concerned at the changing balance of forces across the Indo-Pacific and the ability of China as a major competitor, backed by strong diplomatic links between Beijing and Moscow. The announcement about the new command, for example, stated that ''the US and Japan also have to contend with increased military co-operation between Russia and China'. (6) It coincided with a major diplomatic statement issued from Vientiane, Laos, that 'Russia and China should join efforts to counter interference from external forces in South-east Asia … as … the strategic partners push for strong co-ordination in the region as a counterweight to the US'. (7) It was also noted that 'the two also discussed implementing a new security architecture in Euro-Asia … and … Beijing was ready to work with Russia to uphold the ASEAN-centred, open and inclusive regional co-operation architecture in the face of external disturbances and obstacles'. (8)  

A few days earlier another Pentagon-issued regional diplomatic statement drew attention to the Philippines signing a new defence security agreement with Singapore, a 'fortnight after finalising a landmark pact with Japan'. (9) The IPS was not referred to, although remains the central framework through which the US conduct their regional planning. The new Philippine-Singapore security agreement was also categorised as going 'beyond broadening military-to-military engagement, the deal adds heft to Manila's strategy of building a defensive web of partners and allies as it contends with growing Chinese hostility in its maritime waters'. (10)

In recent times the Marcos presidential administration has been moved by the US to a central regional consideration; the Marcos grouping are little other than compliant puppets with every US-led move. Almost daily diplomatic hostilities between the Philippines and China are openly applauded by the US, who pull the strings of their puppets.

The fact the Philippines rests upon an arc with Singapore which also swings through the South China Seas, the Straits of Malacca, military facilities in Japan, Guam and sensitive areas of the South Pacific, shows clearly why the US regard a compliant government in the Philippines so highly, and necessary for their regional operations with allies. (11) Australia, for example, has also recently upgraded its military links with Singapore; in June Australian-based facilities were used by the Singapore Air Force for joint training accompanied by an official media release stating it 'represented the close and enduring defence ties between the two countries'. (12)

Singapore has also hosted the sensitive Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) for intelligence-gathering which have AI facilities for using 'data from these different sources … fused … to then be … analysed to produce operations intelligence as the basis for decision-making on response', linked to the Quad. (13)
 
No reference, however, was made in the media release to the role of the Australian-based regional Jindalee (JORN) radar facilities, which include Singapore; they are, at present, subject to a $1.2 billion upgrade to ensure 'Australia remains a world leader in maritime and air defence'. (14) The Philippines, through Singapore, would now appear part of the JORN facilities.

It is interesting to note a significant part of the two Pentagon media releases contained reference to the military-industrial complex: the new US joint force command was diplomatically noted as including 'Japanese efforts to shore up the West's industrial base ... while … Tokyo has agreed to help Manila acquire more coastal ships and radar capacity'. (15) No doubt the shareholders in the Australian defence industries, including Australian universities which provide much of the necessary expertise, are quite content to uphold such developments so long as they are supported by generous state and federal government grants:
                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Pentagon to set up joint HQ in Japan, Australian, 29 July 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     See: In historic move, US to upgrade, The Japan Times, 28 July 2024; and, US to revamp military forces in Japan, CNN., 28 July 2024.
4.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Australian, op.cit., 29 July 2024.
7.     Moscow, Beijing's joint bid to keep US out of Asia, The Weekend Australian, 27/28 July 2024.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Manila adds to its security network, Australian, 26 July 2024.
10.   Ibid.
11.   See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.
12.   Singapore deploys combat jets to WA., The Indian Ocean Defence and Security Supplement, Australian, 24 July 2024.
13.   AI revolutionises maritime intelligence, The Indian Ocean Defence and Security Supplement, Australian, 24 July 2024.
14.   See: Wikipedia – Jindalee Operational Radar Network, Footnote reference to 'Rough Seas', ABC World Today, 16 December 2010; and, JORN., BAE Systems.
15.   Ibid., and, Australian, op.cit., 29 July 2024.

 

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Anti-Poverty Activists Rally at Social Services Minister’s office

Written by: Nick G. on 5 August 2024

 

Last Friday, SA Anti-Poverty Network activists living in or near the southern Adelaide electorate of Federal Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth held a short rally outside her electorate office. 

They were there to remind the community, and her, that no one deserves poverty.

But after 2 years in power, Federal Labor, clearly, have left behind people on JobSeeker, the lowest unemployment payment in the developed world, as well as other people living below the poverty-line.

After several speakers, a bundle of hand-written letters from job-seekers, students, and other people on Centrelink payments were taken inside the office and presented to her staff.

They were politely received, and office staff spent several minutes discussing the issues with those present.  While a polite reception is better than rejection, it left the group wondering what needed to be done next so that the Minister and her staff were placed under pressure, rather than being able to politely absorb the issue.

Today, August 5 begins Homelessness Week.  The APN SA is planning to rally outside the electorate office of Premier Malinauskas this coming Friday.

In a media statement released today, the group says that SA government claims to have built 500 affordable homes are a “drop in the ocean” when there are 15,000 people on the public housing waiting list, and over 6000 homeless.

Spokesperson Samantha Skinner said that while the State government could not build thousands of homes overnight, they must raise their level of ambition to meet the unprecedented levels of need. 

 

 

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The Proletarian Party of Purbo Bangla (Bangladesh) -statement on current crisis

Written by: Proletarian Party of Bangladesh on 4 August 2024

 

(Above: Protests continue in Bangladesh on August 3.  Photo by Shaharik Istik Raz on Flickr.)

Intro:  We are reprinting this statement from the Proletarian Party of Purbo Bangla (PBSP)/Bangladesh. In the two weeks since this statement was released, more killings have occurred as protests continue against the government. We offer the following notes of explanation.

Sheikh Hasina is described by the Economist magazine as “Asia’s Iron Lady”. She was prime minister of Bangladesh from June 1996 to July 2001 and again since January 2009. She heads the Awami League, the oldest existing political party in the country. It played a large role in achieving Bangladeshi independence and relations with India through Awami League. The Awami League has close ties to India’s Modi government.

The quota system of the Bangladesh Civil Service reserves 30% of positions for descendants of the freedom fighters of Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan. They are mainly loyal to the Awami League and students object to the system for denying their opportunity to win jobs on merit.

The Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) is the Awami League’s main rival for office on behalf of the Bangladesh ruling class. To try and discredit the student movement, the government has declared the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and all its affiliates banned for their alleged involvement in this and earlier anti-government movements. 

The Chhatra League is the student wing of the Awami League. It is a violent, fascist supporter of the government.

The 9-point demands are reformist demands advanced by sections of the current anti-government movement – eds.

 

A Call to Struggling Students-Mass People - Proletarian Party of Purbo Bangla(PBSP)/Bangladesh

The Quota Reform Movement may have been triumphant, but the blood debt has not been paid.
Fight to overthrow genocidal, murderous Hasina-fascism!

Over the span of five days from July 16 to 20, Hasina-Awami-Indian fascists drowned the student movement, which gradually turned into a mass people's uprising, in an ocean of blood to suppress it. However, they have also been forced to surrender to the fair demands of the students. As a result, a significant triumph has been achieved in this bloody struggle. At the same time, Hasina-fascism has survived, for the time being, due to the limitations of the movement. Thus, the movement failed to achieve real political success.

These fascists have taken nearly two hundred lives in this brief period. More than a thousand students and young people were wounded by bullets fired by the police, BGB, army, and League terrorists. Many of them are dying in hospitals. The killing frenzy is still going strong, involving the Chhatra League, terrorists of the Awami camp, the Police-RAB, and finally the army. The state apparatus has brutally suppressed this movement. The army deployed sound grenades, tear gas, and fired shots from helicopters to put an end to the student protests in the streets for the first time in the history of the country. They opened fire on the processions. Martyr Abu Saeed, who bravely bared his chest in front of the police's raised guns, was fatally shot by direct gunfire in Rangpur.

Fearing the loss of power, Hasina-Awami fascists have confined the movement with a curfew. They have continued their fascist, one-sided propaganda by blocking access to the internet and censoring the news that the media reports. They have tried to disunite the leaders of the movement. They have arrested and abducted the movement’s leaders and tried to repress them through intimidation. They have spoken of the bogeyman of BNP-Jamaat since the beginning. This is how they want to hide their defeat by the bravery and struggle of the students. They are trying to protect their fascist power by any means. Cases and attacks against the protesters have already been initiated. They are arresting any opposition. All these will increase in the future. Large-scale terrorist operations against the protesters have already begun as they attempt to bring the situation under their control.

However, this government is still trembling with the fear of its fall. The babbling of their leaders has decreased. Their mouths are dry. Many of them are keeping the way to escape abroad. Until now, they have maintained their power only with the support of India and the force from the weapons of the army and bureaucrats. But even they might reject Hasina and bring a "Third Power" to the throne if they see too much danger. On the other hand, all opposition political forces and individuals, except the Awami League and their few sycophants, are seeking the downfall of this government. It is evident to all that the hands and feet of this regime are red with the blood of the students and the masses. They are deceivers, hypocrites, and liars. They are enemies of all students and all people.

Why is this fascist government able to survive despite being so hated and excluded? One reason is that they control the state apparatus (the army, BGB, and police) and are directly supported by India's expansionist, Hindutva fascist Modi government, as well as foreign imperialists. Another reason is that the anti-quota movement so far has shown immense valor in the student movement, but it was devoid of any political aims. They themselves called it an “apolitical” movement. A fascist administration such as Hasina's cannot be overthrown by an apolitical movement. As a result, it was largely deprived of the participation of all the struggling classes of society, especially the large urban working class. If the working class of the city had joined the student movement, this government would have been thrown into the dustbin by now. The people would have crushed the barbarous fascist Awami leaders, including Hasina, beneath their feet.

However, the extremely angry students have added a new dimension to this movement. They have ousted the terrorist Chhatra League from many universities, even if temporarily. They have resisted armed attacks by these government-backed thugs and retaliated heavily against them. The Leaguers who carried out armed attacks on the street movement were driven away like dogs by the students. Much-hated leaders were beaten up; the PS of Gazipur's ex-mayor Jahangir, who fired at protestors' marches, was killed and hanged from a tree, and a policeman or two faced the same fate in some places. They attacked a number of police posts and stations and set them on fire. They even broke into the Narsingdi jail, freed all the prisoners, and looted hundreds of weapons from there. Even though there was no organized, centralized leadership behind these events, the entire ruling class was stunned by this spontaneous outburst of public outrage. They were rendered helpless in the face of mob power, albeit very temporarily.

This uprising temporarily immobilized the fascist regime in almost the entire country. This movement has demonstrated how brutally oppressive fascists can be. It was just a very rational, demand-oriented movement of the students. So it is easy to imagine how brutally they can deal with the struggle to overthrow the fascist regime.

The people's power has never been established in this nation's history through a mass movement or mass coup. Sometimes the government is forced to resign, and some of the demands of the people are forced to be accepted, but in the end, others of the ruling class take over, as happened in '69 or '90. The reason for this was that these movements were not equipped with a political program to capture state power by the people. The ruling class has weapons; they have various forces, which these political forces of the people did not have. That is why we from our proletarian party say with the utmost importance that the people must take up arms and build their own forces. This barbarous fascist power and their state apparatus must be defeated by violent means. It is not a crime to bear arms against the arms of the enemies of the people. Destroying the enemy's lair or killing the barbarous scoundrels among them is not something to be frowned upon. But it has to be planned and part of a political agenda. The people have every right to counter the barbaric terror of the ruling fascists with revolutionary terror.

The true freedom of the people lies in the growth of the people's war through rural-based guerilla warfare and the creation of a new democratic state composed of workers, peasants, and middle-class citizens. Mass movement and mass upheaval must be linked with rural-centric mass warfare. Only the urban-centric mass movement and mass upheaval, which will be built based on this people's war, will be able to establish people's power.

But it is a protracted struggle. Therefore, it is not possible to stop various types of mass movements, and neither will they stop. Besides, not only the workers and peasants but also the people of all levels of society and even the bourgeoisie are struggling against fascism. This is seen in this ongoing movement.
As a result, the mass movement that is currently underway needs to continue and be focused on the political goal of toppling fascism. The workers and peasants, especially the working class, must join the urban movement. Programs should be brought forward with the aim of building a real democratic society and state by eliminating fascism. All revolutionary, democratic, leftist, and progressive forces and political parties must unite in that cause today.

We call on the struggling students, the combatants on the front lines, to shake off the confusion of so-called “apolitical” gibberish. Awami fascism will not accept your 9-point demands yet. They have only taken a strategy to secure their throne by retreating a bit through quota reform. They will not spare the vanguard of the movement. They and their terror gang 'Chhatra League' are preparing weapons for revenge. You must also prepare your weapons. That weapon is the political agenda, the target of which now is to oust Hasina-Awami fascism. This is the way to fulfill the 9-point demands. To fulfill the dreams of martyrs. To fulfill your duty to the families of the martyrs.

- Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
- Establish a truly independent and democratic society free from imperialism, India, and foreign exploitation and control!
- Long live the agrarian revolution!
- Long live the People's War!

 

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Israeli murder of Australian aid worker whitewashed

Written by: Nick G. on 2 August 2024

 

The murder of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, including Australian citizen Zomi Frankcom, has been whitewashed in a report by Special Adviser Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin.

At the time of the federal government’s announcement of Binskin to investigate the crime, we warned that his appointment came with a major conflict of interest.

We pointed out that “Binskin is a non-executive director for Defence and National Security Policy of BAE Systems Australia. Its UK parent company is literally making a killing out of Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians.”

We added: 

It is not good enough that someone working for genocide profiteer BAE Systems will investigate the World Central Kitchen murders.

If it was thought that someone of his military seniority was required to get past Israeli obstructions, then he should have been appointed as part of a team that included war crimes legal specialists and human rights lawyers. The World Kitchen killings are not an isolated incident and should be investigated as part of the murders of nearly 200 aid workers by the Zionists, of their deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza, attacks on food convoys including the so-called “flour massacre” on 29 February 2024 when at least 118 people were killed and 760 injured after Israeli forces opened fire on civilians seeking food from aid trucks.

Anything less than an investigation on this scale will miss the whole point of the Zionist genocide.

If Binskins returns a report that is in anyway inconclusive, that in anyway refuses to see what even Blind Freddy can plainly see, then it will have no credibility given his conflict of interest.

As it turns out, BAE Systems non-executive director Binskin’s report is worse than “inconclusive”: it actually backs Israel’s account of the killing of the aid workers. The UN now says that over 250 aid workers have been killed by the Israelis in Gaza.

In his report, Binskin said it was his assessment that the Israeli strike on the WCK aid workers was not knowingly or deliberately directed against the WCK.

"It is my assessment that Israel’s acceptance of accountability for the 1 April WCK incident, and investigation, reporting and responding has, to this point, been timely, appropriate and, with some exceptions, sufficient," Binskin's report said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has accepted Binskin’s report.

Openly fascist Opposition leader Peter Dutton who has all along backed Israeli genocide, said the report should never have been commissioned, saying that the decision was “frankly a disgrace”.  

The real disgrace is that a top official of the Australian Defence Force has stood with BAE Systems and their good customer Israel, to whitewash the murder of an Australian that took place in plain view.

 

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Condemn the murder of Ismail Haniya

Written by: Nick G. on 1 August 2024

 

(Above: Ismail Haniya together with anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews.  Source: Torah Jews on X)

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) unequivocally condemns the murder of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya on July 31 by the Israeli Zionists.

The assassination, by an Israel air strike in Teheran, Iran, is designed to frustrate moves towards a ceasefire in Gaza. 

Ismail Haniya was instrumental in negotiating the terms of a ceasefire, which the Zionists have opposed. Israel has been increasingly isolated in its opposition to an internationally backed ceasefire proposal for which Hamas had expressed support.

Haniya also encouraged the overcoming of divisions within the Palestinian resistance, and particularly those between Hamas and the West Bank Palestinian Authority led by Fatah.

Just over a week before his assassination, Haniya had encouraged the meeting of representatives of 14 Palestinian organisations in Beijing.

This reconciliation dialogue resulted in a recognition by all participants of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 

The declaration also stated that a temporary national reconciliation government will be formed according to the consensus of Palestinian factions and the current Basic Law of the Palestine, to undertake Gaza reconstruction and prepare for general elections as soon as possible in accordance with the adopted electoral law. It endorsed the principle of “Palestinians governing Palestinians”.

For the sake of unity, all representatives endorsed the “two state solution”, also favoured by “honest broker” Beijing. China favours Israel’s continued existence. China has been Israel's third largest trading partner globally; bilateral trade volume increased from $50 million in 1992 to over $10 billion in 2013. Technology and armaments are major components of this trade relationship.

Israel immediately denounced the agreement within the Palestinian resistance, and imperialists led by the US reaffirmed their rejection of any governing body for Gaza which included Hamas. In this way do the great “defenders of democracy” show their contempt for the will of the people.

Israel’s “right to defend itself” has always meant its right to commit aggression against its neighbours, and to conduct targeted assassinations and bombings within their borders.

Within hours of murdering Haniya, Israel launched an airstrike on a southern residential suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, claiming to have killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in retaliation for Hezbollah’s alleged bombing in the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Days War.

Israeli genocide is not limited to the targeted assassination of the leaders of resistance organisations. Whole families are murdered in an attempt to intimidate the leaders and break their will.

In Haniya’s case, fourteen members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on his family home in Gaza City, among them a brother and nephew in retaliation for October 7. In November 2023, a granddaughter of his was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Later that month his eldest grandson was killed in an Israeli strike. Three of his sons and three grandchildren were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on 10 April 2024. On 25 June 2024, ten members of his family, including his 80-year-old sister, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in al-Shati refugee camp.

This terrible price had not intimidated Ismail Haniya, nor broken his will.

And neither will Haniya’s assassination stop the Palestinian people from continuing their fight for freedom. 

 

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We will resist the occupation. We will defend the soil of Kurdistan!

Written by: MLKP on 29 July 2024

 

(Above: MLKP rally Source:MLKP International Bulletin)

We are making avalable to Australian readers this statement from the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Turkey/Northen Kurdistan (MLKP). We support the right of the Kurdish nation to exist within its own borders and condemn the efforts of Erdogan's Turkey to destroy the Kurdish people.  We have added several footnotes for clarity - eds.

 

 

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Indian Ocean Defence and Security Conference 2024, and AUKUS in Perth

Written by: Allan M. on 29 July 2024

 

 

Between 24-26 July 2024, Perth was host to the Indian Ocean Defence and Security (IODS) Conference. Promoted as the place "where AUKUS meets the Quad", IODS 2024 was a who's who in industrial murder.

Representatives from the governments, militaries, and arms industries of the United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan, and of course Australia, were rushing to applaud the escalating arms race. The focus of IODS 2024 was clearly the AUKUS arrangement and Australia's involvement in the US led 'Quad' military partnership. However, a significant amount of time was made available to speakers from weapons manufacturing companies in order to promote their lethal products.

Perth workers and students rallied in protest against this celebration of killing for profit and were disgusted by the attendance of arms manufacturers, particularly RAFAEL Systems, who produce and sell weapons currently being used to perpetrate the genocide in Gaza. Protests organised by a coalition of unionists, activists, and students were held over the course of the IODS conference to demonstrate Perth's anger at hosting facilitators of crimes against humanity.

On 24 July, Perth workers and students opened their week of action against IODS 24. Standing in the cold and surrounded by police, activists were there to disrupt the arrival of IODS attendees, letting them know their efforts to militarise Australia and continue the murder in Gaza were not welcome. Many IODS attendees scuttled to the conference centre door with their heads down, some sneered and laughed between themselves, and others pretended to not to notice. However, none were able to walk past without hearing from the powerful speakers and the shouts from the angered Perth community. Speakers included Palestinian activists from Friends of Palestine WA, who spoke to the clear connection between Australia's integration in the imperialist military industrial complex and the bombing of civilians in Gaza. Other speakers included WA Greens Senator Dorinda Cox, and union activists who spoke to the building of worker power to end systematised violence for profit and building a more peaceful society.

Protests continued on 25 July to disrupt speakers from RAFAEL Systems, culminating in a march through the city to make it clear that war criminals, and their enablers, are not welcome here. Weekly protests against Australia's complicity in the war in Gaza continue.

AUKUS in Perth

As IODS 2024 was being prepared, the Australian Government announced its plans to house a radioactive waste facility on Garden Island, off the coast of Perth, to store waste from America, British, and eventually Australian nuclear powered submarines. These plans, and its announcement, come in spite of vocal opposition from community members closest to the facility, with Rockingham residents consistently expressing their disapproval of the project.

Defence Industry Minister, Pat Conroy, was quick to dismiss large-scale community concern over this announcement by downplaying the purpose and extent of this facility, and making a deceptive comparison to radioactive waste handled by hospitals. This is a blatant and disrespectful lie from the Defence Industry Minister. Australian hospitals are not powered by nuclear reactors, unlike the American and British submarines that require highly enriched uranium for fuel. The vice-president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War has pointed out that nuclear waste from hospitals, usually generated from medical imagery, are short-lived and usually only need to be stored for 2-3 months, while nuclear waste from submarines will need to be stored for 300 years. The hospital comparison is all the more egregious as these medical facilities are intended to save lives, and are entirely necessary to support the health of our population, while the AUKUS endeavour has been made through the choices of a tiny minority of political elites that are focussed on ending lives in the Pacific.

Rockingham Mayor, Deb Hamblin, was also quick to dismiss her constituents, noting that the safety assessments indicated that in a 'worst case scenario' any radioactive hazards off-site were "negligible". Worst case scenarios were noted as being, among others, bushfires. Mayor Hamblin may have forgotten that we are in a climate crisis, and WA's bushfire season now extends to 8 out of 12 months in a year. She may have also forgotten the recent bushfires in the south of Perth that threatened the homes of thousands of people, or that Garden Island has significant areas of bushland. The residents of Rockingham certainly have a right to feel concerned about the "negligible" radioactive hazards and the presence of nuclear reactors on their doorstep. Unfortunately, their concerns have fallen on deaf ears, with submissions to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) being kept from the public eye. Mayor Hamblin commented on the secretive and limited consultation process, saying she was satisfied with the level of consultation.

Instead of advocating and elevating the concerns of Rockingham residents, the Mayor commented on the numerous benefits that the AUKUS project would bring, including housing (for American and British military personnel), advanced manufacturing, and most bizarrely, tourism. Many Australians may struggle to see how AUKUS would deliver any of those benefits to the residents of Perth, except for the select few who live on Garden Island and work for the AUKUS alliance. Most Australians would probably also struggle to see how those benefits would be realised in the event of a nuclear conflict. Mayor Hamblin has not commented on that point.

Finally, the Mayor commented that Rockingham residents will support the AUKUS announcement as Rockingham has always been a "defence city". This author has been a Western Australian all their life, and has never once known Rockingham as a "defence city". To most Western Australians, Rockingham is known for its beautiful coast, marine environment, and quiet lifestyle. It is also well known for its wealth inequality and socioeconomic disadvantage. The billions of dollars wasted on the AUKUS project would certainly be better spent on fighting against poverty and disadvantage. The residents of Rockingham are continuing to fight for just that, and despite the repeated dismissals and lack of consultation, are still advocating against militarisation on their doorstep.

 

 

 

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People's Struggle in Australia for Palestinians Continues

Written by: Ned K. on 28 July 2024

 

(Above: Adelaide rally 280724  Source: AFOPA on X)

On this latest weekend of 27-28 July 2024, demonstrations in support of Palestinians in Australians were again held, as they have been since Israel's bombardment of Gaza intensified last October.

Numbers of people attending such demonstrations and those able to attend varies from week to week and fortnight to fortnight but their cumulative impact should not be underestimated.

The latest weekend's demonstrations were supplemented by demonstrations outside the NSW state ALP conference and also inside the conference itself. 

In smaller cities like Adelaide and Canberra, the organizers of the demonstrations have been able to provide many different speakers, some with recent first-hand experience of the current situation in Gaza and some Palestinians who lived in Gaza before having to flee for their lives.

In Adelaide this last weekend, the 1500 people at the demonstration listened to a young Palestinian person who fled Palestine with his parents when he was just nine years old. He calmly recalled his memories of what it was like living in the apartheid-like conditions in the West Bank, with endless checkpoints, scarcity of food, electricity, fresh drinking water, destruction of Palestinian homes one by one by Israeli settlers and resulting homelessness. He finished speaking by saying that the Western Governments, not Hamas, were responsible for what happened on 7 October last year, as these governments had supported for decades the colonial invasion of Palestine by Zionist Israeli regimes.

It is the voices of thousands of people in Australia that the Australian Government has been unable to stop. 

Now the Government is fearful of losing Seats in western Sydney due to its pro-Israel position. So, we see Foreign Minister Wong announce last Thursday, three days before the NSW state ALP conference, that the Australian Government was following the USA in placing sanctions against seven Israeli individuals and a youth group, Hilltop Youth, for assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank,

Wong said the sanctions included revoking of visas, travel bans into Australia and seizure of any property or assets held by the individuals or youth group in Australia. 

These measures are like hitting the Israeli Government with a feather duster with three feathers in it!

Wong said the assaults by these Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank "increased tensions and further undermines stability for a two-state solution".

However, she and her Prime Minister Albanese do not support Palestinian statehood and still parrot the USA's line of "Israel has the right to defend itself"!

However, she and the Albanese Government do not support the right of Palestinians to defend themselves against an imperialist backed Zionist invading regime.

This is coming back to bite them, especially as it may contribute to the end of their existence as the executive committee of the imperialists in Australia at the next federal election in 2025!

 

 

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“We’re fighting for something that’s so much bigger, so much bigger than any one person.”; Nine workers on five-day strike.

Written by: Ashley C. on 27 July 2024

 

On Friday 26 July, unionised journalists and media workers at Nine newspapers (The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, WAtoday and Brisbane Times) walked off the job and marked the beginning of a five-day strike.

The strike comes after protected action was voted up by 90% of union members following a breakdown in negotiations with management for their next enterprise agreement. Under the banner of their union, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA), workers are fighting for salary increases that keep up with inflation and job protections as Nine seeks to cut production costs following the recent termination of an advertising revenue agreement with parasitic US behemoth Meta (Facebook). 

 

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Mirarr people have won their battle against Jabiluka

Written by: Nick G. on 28 July 2024

 

The NT government has refused to extend Energy Resources of Australia’s (ERA) Jabiluka uranium mining lease.

The lease is located within Kakadu on the lands of the Mirarr people.

Mirarr Traditional Owner Corben Mudjandi welcomed the news: “This day will go down in history as the day the Mirarr finally stopped Jabiluka. It is great day for the Mirarr people, for Kakadu, the Northern Territory and for Australia. This proves that people standing strong for Country can win. We look forward to welcoming all Australians to share our cultural heritage for decades to come.”

Kakadu traditional owners have long opposed uranium mining in Kakadu.

In 1969, uranium was discovered at a site that became the Ranger Uranium Mine in 1980.

Uranium was also discovered in 1971 at nearby Jabiluka 1, with a much larger Jabiluka 2 discovered in 1973. At both mines, capitalism’s destructive war on nature and the people was on display.

Kakadu was proclaimed a National Park in several stages between 1979 and 1991. However, the Ranger and Jabiluka mines were excised from the Park so that mining could occur.

Mining ceased at Ranger in 2012 although stockpile processing continued until 2021.

At Jabiluka, preparations for mining were made following the purchase of the mine by ERA, majority owned by the multinational Rio Tinto.

In 1998, Mirarr Senior Traditional Owners Yvonne Margarula and Jacqui Katona called on activists to help blockade the construction of the mine. An eight-month blockade followed as supporters from Australia and around the world came to lend their numbers to the blockade. The machinery of state, owned by the capitalists, was thrown at them and more than 500 were arrested. 

When the current lease expires on August 11, the Mirarr will expect the mine sites to be incorporated by the federal government in the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park, keeping Jabiluka protected from mining.

Mirarr leader Yvonne Margarula said: “We have always said no to this mine. Government and mining companies told us they would mine it but we stayed strong and said no. Today I feel very happy that Jabiluka will be safe forever. Protecting country is very important for my family and for me.”

We understand the politics of traditional owners and conservationists expressing thanks to the NT and federal governments for these decisions, but without the decades-long struggles led by the Mirarr, and supported by Australia and international friends, it is doubtful that the new protections would have emerged.

Labor has had decades to deliver on Ranger and Jabiluka, and sat on its hands until finally forced to act.

Rio Tinto’s ERA must fully rehabilitate the mess that their activities have created on Mirarr Country.

 

 

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“It’s an attack on us, our wages, our conditions, our right to organise.”

Written by: Louisa L. on 24 July 2024

 

State and federal governments, courts, cops, media, the ALP and ACTU are backing some of the world’s biggest developers, banks and finance corporations against the CFMEU and its members. 

Right now, building workers say, “It’s an attack on us, our wages, our conditions, our right to organise.” 

It’s an attack on the whole working class.

It comes after multiple deregistrations and royal commissions against the old Builders Labourers Federation and its CFMEU offspring first led in Victoria by the CPA(ML)’s incorruptible comrade John Cummins. Next, workers crushed the 14-year Australian Building and Construction Commission’s attempt to destroy the union by outlawing basic democratic rights for construction workers and their representatives. 

Eyewatering profits

At stake are eyewatering profits to be made from the surplus value created by construction workers. While developers take the least risk and the most money, building companies and subcontractors are squeezed.  

net worth of Meriton’s owner Highrise Harry Triguboff is $23.8 billion. Goodman Group, worth $59.24 billion, is number one of the top ten multi-billion dollar developers on Australia’s stock exchange. 

BlackRock, the biggest US investment firm is one of the biggest security holders in eight of these top developers.  Its CEO and founder Harry Finke has $US8.7 TRILLION in assets. The second biggest US investment firm, The Vanguard Group with $US8.6 trillion assets under management, is one of the top five investors in every single one of the Australian Top 10 listed developers. 

Where does such obscene wealth come from? Plundering nature and exploiting workers’ labour power.

One rule for bosses, another for workers

In the huge MUA-led 1998 waterfront dispute, images of guard dogs and shipyard owner enforcers in balaclavas outraged journalists and public alike. 

Hundreds of thousands joined solidarity actions. 

This time, journalists join the corporate attack, labelling industrial tactics protecting safety in a notoriously dangerous industry ‘criminal’. The best wages and conditions in the country? Also ‘criminal’. 

These journalists have been key in exposing big end and government corruption, like Scott Morrison’s Robodebt that illegally sent debt notices to 443,000 of Australians most vulnerable people, stealing $1.8 billion! No-one charged! 

Or investigating PwC, which designed the Federal Government’s response to minimise tax avoidance and then told corporate clients how to get round them. No one charged! Or KPMG that sent fake invoices to the Defence Department, and was then awarded $70 million contracts in one week! Government contracts despite insider information. No one charged!  

They never mention the good

For decades governments have allowed construction companies to shift money to new companies, and declare the old ones broke – without paying workers entitlements or subcontractors’ bills, then start again with a new company. Zero action for decades!

CFMEU EBAs ensure leave entitlements are paid monthly into industry redundancy trusts and superannuation into industry fund CBUS and, so workers aren’t robbed. Where’s the praise?

As a worker told us, “They never mention all the good the union does.” That good is beyond the seven percent yearly pay rise, double time for all overtime, site, travel and other allowances. It’s beyond the battles that forced governments to outlaw deadly engineered stone, or the NSW mass stopworks after 18-year-old Christopher Cassaniti was crushed to death. 

What about the union’s extensive mental health and suicide prevention work in an industry where excessive hours undermine health? What about its drug and alcohol programs, including residential ones for members and families at Sydney’s Foundation House, and places like it, interstate? 

In the 1950s and early 60s, the Builders Labourers Federation activists overthrew gangster control of the union and industry. 

Living with dignity

Governments, and giant corporations, have been giving contracts to gangsters for decade. Bribes could be paid and received, but it’s impossible for any CFMEU money to be syphoned to them. 

Nationally difficulties arose when the CFMEU made systematic moves into the government run infrastructure sector. An experienced NSW delegate told us, “You can’t pick up a brick or shovel in the civil sector without confronting gangsters and bikies.” Where was the fury while the right-wing ALP Australian Workers Union was covering it all for lousy conditions and pay?

Today construction is the only industry where former prisoners can work and create a new path to controlling their own lives with dignity.

Meanwhile First Peoples, the mentally ill, homeless, those whom an education system divided by wealth has failed, the poor and those who were physically or sexually abused as children are jailed at alarming and escalating rates. In every state, children can be sent to youth prison at 10 years old. But the cabal of super rich and privileged targets an industry and union that might give them a second chance. What’s the real crime here?

The CFMEU works in this whole corrupt system, but unlike the old BLF, never challenged its right to exist. It’s time to build organisation to challenge that system.

Workers should be able to run their own organisations, democratically and fairly.

The CFMEU is one of Australia’s last unions prepared to take unprotected industrial action. If it goes under, it will undermine rising struggles among workers, when membership is at rock bottom and most workers have their backs to the wall. We call for solidarity. 

 

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The ABC and Indo-Pacific psychological warfare

Written by: (Contributed) on 23 July 2024

 

(Source: pacificausttv.com )

A major funding boost for the ABC has coincided with Canberra announcing the Pacific AUS TV Initiative designed to provide extensive media coverage across the Pacific, in line with traditional psychological warfare techniques.

Fears have arisen about China having upgraded their regional media coverage in recent years, enabling Beijing to enhance its diplomatic position in a more favourable light.

The Australian initiative, however, is not original and remains remarkably similar to previous initiatives designed to protect the UK Commonwealth and US hegemonic diplomatic positions and 'interests' through compliant Australian involvement.

In mid-July Canberra announced a $40.5 million upgrade with the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster; a total of $28.4 million has already been allocated over the next five years for the Pacific-Aus TV Initiative marked by enhancing ties between Australian and Pacific Islands media outlets to enable 'Pacific Islands people to access Australian content … and … creating additional news content for Pacific audiences'. (1)

The initiative has placed the Pacific region into the larger Indo-Pacific area 'with efforts to bolster Indo-Pacific media capacity and its ties to Australian-based media … the ABC will also provide support for media partners in the Pacific, South-east Asia and South Asia, and boost its radio transmission across the region'. (2)

The initiative has been established following fears arising about China's 'media foot-print in the Indo-Pacific region … and … to fend off growing Chinese cultural influence across the region'. (3) The initiative forms part of a classic psychological warfare technique, designed to shape favourable opinion toward the US and its allies, to the detriment of adversaries. (4)

The initiative, furthermore, fits comfortably and is best assessed in the context of the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) where 'the US, Japan, India, and Australia form the Quad hemming China in from all sides' while other countries allied with US-led diplomacy are included as lower-level partners. (5) Australia, historically, has been a close US ally with strong involvement in surrounding Asia and Pacific countries. As US diplomatic hostilities with China have increased in recent years, Australia's importance has been  elevated.

The Australian initiative, however, is not new; in fact, it is merely a continuation of similar moves by both the US and UK to use Australia as a regional conduit through which hegemonic diplomacy has been conducted. Australia, it should be noted, has historically maintained the diplomatic position of being a sub-imperial power. (6) The AUKUS relationship is best viewed in that light.

Recent research following the declassification of various government documents about the highly secretive Information Research Department (IRD) has revealed how Australia was quietly drawn into the organisation; initially established as Britain's 'covert Cold War propaganda arm between 1948 and 1977 … the IRD covertly collected and disseminated material to the media to discredit human rights figures, undermine political opponents overseas, help overthrow governments, and promote UK influence and commercial interests around the world'. (7)

The IRD also 'maintained a strong relationship with the BBC. It supplied material, 'provided it was neither quoted directly, nor attributed to the government as being official policy. The BBC was an ideal conduit for IRD material because it was … in a class by itself'. (8) The stifling nature of British society with class privilege merging with state power, was also an ideal recruiting ground for spooks whose designated role was to use Commonwealth positions for ulterior motives and spurious agendas; the past Cold War and merged with the present one, as seen with the recent 'Australian' initiative.  

Australia was initially drawn into the IRD network following a visit by Norman Reddaway to Canberra in late 1970 for a Four Power Information Meeting 'on defence and security strategy in the SE Asia, involving Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the US'. (9) Reddaway was an influential British spook: having served in the Second World War he was recruited to the Foreign Office and was influential in the creation of the IRD. (10) During the 1960s he was assigned to Indonesia as 'the co-ordinator of political warfare', designed to overthrow the progressive and pro-Chinese Sukarno presidential administration. (11)

By 1970, Reddaway was increasingly concerned about threats to traditional hegemonic positions in Asia, which had become a theatre of war and Cold War diplomatic tensions. The Vietnam War was, at that time, well under-way and regarded as a component part of the far-right domino theory of spreading influences across the region; Australian military involvement has been well recorded. The political position of the Labor administrations of Gough Whitlam and their troubled diplomatic relationship with their US counterparts  has been well recorded elsewhere.

Following further high-level diplomatic meetings between Australia, the UK and US, a Department of Foreign Affairs official, Ross Smith, was selected as Principal Research officer for the newly established 'secret propaganda unit', in October 1971. (12) Smith, not surprisingly, had been previously employed as the Information Attache in the Australian embassy in Jakarta during 1962-65, 'providing contacts and information to Australian reporters and media outlets. His time there had coincided with the period when the IRD was very active in Indonesia producing propaganda designed to undermine left-leaning President Sukarno'. (13) Gross human rights abuses following the 1965 Suharto military coup did not appear to have caused either Smith, or his Australian employers, any concern whatsoever.

Declassified documents from the Australian national archive have revealed that involvement from Canberra was largely concentrated on the South-west Pacific area where the main IRD lacked contacts. It was noted, however, 'the Australians are working up distribution of their material in South-east Asia, and beginning to cultivate potential recipients in the UK through Australia House, who have sought our advice'. (14)     

Once operational the Australian IRD 'distributed … unattributed research briefs and articles written for newspapers and journals, and the potential recipients would have been co-operative journalists writing on the region'. (15) A declassified document from the period has shown how Australia was supposed to organise 'information operations', spoon-feeding
journalists with material designed to influence events in the Western Pacific and South-east Asia region. (16)

Following the elevation of Smith to the position of Consul-General in Lae, PNG, in October, 1974, shortly before independence, control of the IRD passed through the hands of two further spooks who were both well versed in Indonesian affairs. Richard Butler took immediate control of the unit, having been appointed by Richard Woolcott, who later served as Australian ambassador to Indonesia during the period of the brutal invasion of East Timor. Australian support for the military invasion was well known, and despite over 180,000 East Timorese losing their lives in massacres and genocide, the 'problem' was glossed over and subject to diplomatic silence for decades. Canberra, subsequently, only declassified intelligence documents from the period very reluctantly and has proved hesitant about openly discussing any of the revelations, including those surrounding the deaths of the Balibo Five.

It is interesting to note the main IRD organisation was subsequently closed by then British Foreign Secretary Dr. David Owen, in 1977, due to its 'contacts with right-wing journalists and propagandists who were actively anti-Labour'; those involved in the shadowy, spooky world in which they operated, merely took further, and similar, appointments and moved elsewhere. (17)

Its Australian IRD partner also appears to have ceased operations at the same time. It is important to note the whole period of its existence coincided with the rise and fall of Gough Whitlam and his Labor administrations, together with the unification of Vietnam.

It has now, however, been resurrected; to serve similar objectives. But then, that is what they do.

It is also interesting to note official media releases from Canberra about the Pacific Aus TV Initiative have drawn specific attention to the assessed problem of the Solomon Islands, one of Canberra's favourite countries of interest and obsession. They allege the Solomon Star has been accepting funding from China for favourable coverage. No doubt Solomon Islanders, together with their Pacific Island counterparts, are now eagerly awaiting endless streams of dubious Australian media commentary ...

1.     TV push to combat China play for power, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 July 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Ibid.
4.     See: The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John D, Marks, (London, 1976), with specific reference to Sub-section Part 2, Number 6, Propaganda and Disinformation, pp. 183-209.
5.     See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
6.     See: Sub-imperial power, Clinton Fernandez, (Victoria, 2022); and, Island off the coast of Asia, Clinton Fernandez, (Victoria, 2018).
7.     Revealed: Australia's Secret Propaganda Unit, John Mcevoy and Peter Cronau, 16 June 2022, website: https://declassifiedaus.org/2022/06/16/revealed-australias-secret-propaganda-unit/
8.     MI6, Stephen Dorril, (London, 2002), page 78.
9.     Revealed, op.cit.
10.   MI6, Dorril, op.cit., which contains numerous references to both Reddaway and the
        IRD.
11.   Revealed, op.cit.
12.   Ibid.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Copy: Australian IRD, Mr Reddaway, Secret, Declassified, ibid., page 7.
15.   Ibid.
16.   See: Secret IRD, 1971, File – FCO168/4481, Reference – 36/11/1 1972,      Declassified.
17.   MI6, Dorril, op.cit., page 80.

 

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New Delegate Rights Clause in Awards - A Small but Significant Win By Workers

Written by: Ned K. on 22 July 2024

 

 

From 1 July 2024 a standard Delegates Rights clause was included in Awards which provide the minimum wages and conditions for workers in most industries and sectors.

The new clause was one of the changes to the Fair Work Act that workers in unions had demanded the Albanese Government support through legislation prior to its election in 2022.

When the Fair Work Act 2009 replaced the Howard Government's industrial laws, it was called by many workers "Work Choices Lite" as it unsurprisingly still favored the capitalists, not the workers, reflecting the reality of capitalism.

One example of this was that the Gillard and Rudd Government's Fair Work Act did not even mention the word "Delegate" in the whole Act! Yet Gillard said the new Act had "got the balance right" regarding the competing interests of capitalists and workers!

The new clauses in Awards from 1 July 2024 about Delegate Rights provide workers in any workplace or employed by any employer with the entitlement to elect Union Delegates to represent their interests regarding any issues that need to be taken up with the boss.

The wording of the new clause in Awards is such that it enables workers who are members of a Union to elect Delegates provided the Delegate works for the same employer as the Union members. In practice this means that workers who work for one employer but in different locations such as Road Traffic workers or contract cleaners who work in several workplaces in the same day, are still entitled to elect their own Union Delegate. This is important for workers in industries where mobility is par for the course.

In the early to mid-2000s a progressive researcher David Peetz did a study of the impact of the employer and Howard Government attack on workers’ capacity to act collectively in their own interests. He found that where there were active elected Union Delegates representing and uniting workers around issues, the impact of the hostile employer and Government attacks on workers was much less effective.

Peetz found this was even more the case when the Delegates were elected rather than appointed by the (sometimes) more remote Union Organizer or Union Executive or Secretary.

Interestingly, the new Delegate clause in Awards says that a Delegate can be "elected" or "appointed" by higher levels of the Union!

Progressive union leaderships will surely ensure that ALL Delegates are elected by members and endorsed by relevant Councils or Executive Committees of their Union.

The only reason a Delegate elected by members they work with is NOT endorsed by higher bodies of their Union would be that the elected Delegate had a history of behaviour and values unacceptable to members of the Union as a whole. For example, proof of criminal activities, racist towards certain workers, evidence of being a boss's stooge!

Now that the Delegate clauses are law, it raises the question of whether an appointed administrator of a Union by a Government or Fair Work Commission had the capitalist legal system power to declare any Delegate elected by members to no longer be a Delegate!

 

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Labor Minister Confirms “No refund” at NATO Summit

Written by: Nick G. on 19 July 2024

 

Labor’s Assistant Minister for Defence Matt Thistlethwaite has embarrassingly confirmed that the two amounts of $A4.7billion gifted to the US and UK miliary machines in an effort to pump prime the AUKUS arrangements will not be refunded if the arrangements fall apart.

Australia is a partner, not a member of NATO, but the government deemed it important that it strut its stuff at last week’s Washington summit.

While there, Thistlewaite was interviewed by US online Breaking Defence magazine.

Their first question raised the issue that that under a new administration and Congress AUKUS might “lose some steam.”

Thistlewaite referred to” conversations that I’ve had with congressmen and -women yesterday from both sides of the aisle” and believed that regardless of who won the US election, AUKUS’s future was assured.

“They see the strategic importance of it for security and peace in the Indo-Pacific” he said, “but they also see the industrial uplift that will come from Pillar II, and that means jobs in their districts.”

A few questions later, Breaking Defence asked: “There was some question in Parliament recently about the $5 billion payment to the US to bolster the sub industrial base, and what would happen if the AUKUS deal for Virginia-class subs falls apart. What would happen to that money? Is that actually a concern at all?”

Now that matter arose from a Senate Estimates hearing on May 6 when Greens Senator David Shoebridge questioned the Head of the Australian Submarine Agency, Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead, who refused to answer a series of questions about whether Australia will get its money back if the US fails to transfer Virginia class submarines in the 2030s.

The government has had nearly 3 months to work out how to spin this matter, or if it wanted to, how to reply honestly to the question.

But Thistlewaite seemed clueless in his response, adding nothing to Mead’s earlier unsatisfactory answer.

“There’s been no indication at all to us that the Virginia classes aren’t going to be delivered,” mumbled Thistlewaite. “So we’re working on the assumption that we will acquire that capability from 2027. The planning is in place, including, importantly, the people transfer. So the deployments of US submariners, all that planning is starting to take place already. So there’s been no indication at all that that commitment won’t be met.”

Yes, you idiot, you can assume there are fairies at the bottom of the garden too, but the question was, will we get our money back if the submarines are not delivered. 

The government will still not say either “Yes” or “No”.  Just one of two words, Matt Thistlewaite. We don’t need any more than that.

Comforting for the US submariners who will be rotated through Fleet Base West, WA’s HMAS Stirling, Thistlewaite reported that “We’ve got a body called Defense Housing Australia. They’ve just gone out to the market for a tender to build 550 homes around the base for submariners and their families, and the response to the tender has been great.”

The government was “working at speed” on this and other infrastructure, he said.

It’s a pity the government is not “working at speed” to address the acute housing shortage facing its own people. 

 

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Salute the heroic comrades of the Rojava revolution.

Written by: Nick G. on 19 July 2024

 

On  July 19, 2012, armed fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) captured the city of Kobane from government forces in north-east Syria.

Further victories against Syrian government forces and those of ISIS saw the creation of Rojava as an autonomous region in which the cultural, religious and political freedom of all people has been established. Significantly for the region, its Constitution also explicitly states the equal rights and freedom of women and also "mandates public institutions to work towards the elimination of gender discrimination".

In celebration of the 12th anniversary of the Rojava revolution, we encourage our readers to download the book Rojava: People in Arms to gain an understanding of the Kurdish people’s struggle. It can be downloaded at the bottom of this page:  Rojava: Peoples in Arms – #RiseUp4Rojava

 

 

 

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The Bezosmoth

Written by: Humphrey McQueen on 17 July 2024

 

(Above: A 10ft tall Bezos is he target of workers engaged in a March 20, 2021 international day of solidarity with Alabama Amazon workers.  Photo by Joe Piette  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0)

 

This article is republished with the kind permission of the author, Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen.  It first appeared on the Pearls and Irritations website on July 13, 2024-eds.

 

Behold, now behemoth … Behold, he drinketh up a river …
The Book of Job, 40: 15 and 23. 

‘Most of us don’t know 95 percent of what Amazon is doing,’ Amy Webb warns in her The Big Nine (2019). While Amazon Prime is diverting audiences with its rom-com, The Idea of You, the Australian Signals Directorate is paying Amazon Web Services two billion dollars to store secrets in three locations on the Cloud with a golden lining for Amazon which holds the largest slice globally, at around a third. 

(Will the ASD sites need Dutton’s nuclear plants to power them?)

Jeff Bezos began by distributing books in July 1994 to customers with discretionary incomes to build into ‘The Everything Store,’ helping to put 2,500 bookshops out of business. (Brad Stone, The Everything Store, 2013) First called Cadabra, as in the slight-of-hand magic spell ‘abracadabra,’ then rebranded Amazon within a few months to match the mightiest river with its expansive delta. 

The tributaries to Amazon’s reported income of $6.7 billion for 2023 have a common spring in the labours of 1.46 million ‘Amazonians’ employed as wage-slaves in warehouses, on piece-rates for the Mechanical Turk, or as ‘in/dependent’ delivery drivers for Amazon Flex. 

In Management-Speak, Amazon warehouses are ‘fulfillment centers,’ which is true for packages but not for the pickers and packers who endure them as ‘hellscapes.’ Unlike chattel-slaves who could run off into the Amazon delta, wage-slaves have nowhere to hide from the all-seeing-eye of devices which have patrolled ‘Scamazon’ for twenty years. 

The Wall Street Journal parades ‘Besozism’ as an advance on Taylorism and Fordism for its ‘mix of surveillance, measurement, psychological tricks, targets, incentives, sloganeering … and an ever-growing array of clever and often proprietary technologies.’ 

On the frontier of Telematics, Amazon patented a wrist-band which reports hand-movements, before sending vibrations back to nudge the workers into being more productive. 

Along with other distributors, Bezos had rented the first-generation KIVA robots ‘to increase the output capacity of their warehouses; store and ship a wider range of product; shorten the amount of time required to fill an order; and ultimately either lower the cost of their services, increase their profits, or both.’ In 2012, Bezos bought KIVA’s manufacturer for $775m., rebranding it Amazon Robotics. He did not renew its contracts with competitors such as the now bankrupt Toys’R’US, which had to set up its own. One product-line which his ‘Everything Store’ does not sell is its labour-slaving technologies. 

An Amazon recruit takes a couple of days to learn to pull sticky tape at the maximum speed from its dispenser without twisting it. The dispenser is programmed to extrude the exact length but workers out-performed the device at fastening the tape around cartons of multiple shapes and sizes. A novice who does not pick up that knack by the third day is ‘set free.’ The Bezosmoth did not rack up his cool trillion by dispensing with fixed-capital at that rate. Like every agent of capital, he juggles outlays between equipment and wages in pursuit of more than the average rate of profit. 

Workplace-wide sensors track every move of every Amazonian down to the milli-second to determine the floating average ‘rate’ at each warehouse, helping to lift the pick-rate from 100 to 300 per hour per worker. AI devices report in real time the pick-rates around the planet, globalising labour-times. Saving one milli-second is nothing. To do so 1,000 times per second on a 10-hour shift piles up on the bottom line.   

What the Bezosmoth insists on as ‘the rate’ confirms Marx’s recognition that ‘everything that shortens the necessary labour-time required for the reproduction of labour-power, extends the domain of surplus labour’ to realise as profit

Cardinal automatic scanners replaced scanning by hand in 2021. Loaded with Augmented Reality ID vision and AI, they pluck items of up to 22kg., read the labels, place them in the correct bin before they are moved further along the shipping process. Promoted by Amazon as a boon to the ‘pickers’ by reducing repetitive strain, Cardinal is a blessing for a boss suffering workforce churn because of those injuries, or who are burnt out after two weeks of 10-hour days. Gift vouchers cannot retain recruits.

Amazon’s conglomerations of labour rival those at Detroit auto-makers before the 1980s. Once brought together, workers can become ‘dangerous classes’. Bezos’s determination to block unions is more than his ‘trademark hard-charging attitude towards work.’ Even a tame-cat union might negotiate legally-enforceable agreements which hamper Amazon’s redirecting of labour to increase the ‘rate.’ 

Amazon’s acceleration machine does not clock-off at the warehouse gate. Its monopsony clout compels suppliers to drive down the labour-times required for the units that their workers produce. Amazon’s abuse of its labour-force points to how effects from its practices spread back down its supply chains and across to competitors. 

Amazon runs flexibility-scheduling platforms which let its full-time workers choose their shifts. Should they fail to put in thirty hours during the week, they lose one point. Chalk up eight points for a range of faults, and you’re fired: ‘expectation of the sack is pervasive.’ Nothing is ‘flexible’ in that power relationship, any more than there is in ‘the rate’ set in Amazon hellscapes. Nonetheless, ‘the rate’ remains ‘flexible’ in that its victims are pushed to go ever faster. 

These congeries subject ever more full-time permanents to the conditions of a gig economy. Bezosism will not mean that all jobs will become gigs but that they all will be managed as if they were, as David Weil explores in The Fissured Workplace (2014).  

For the 2023 mid-year sales in Australia, Amazon recruited 1,000 drivers with their own vehicles, thereby externalizing fixed-capital costs, as does UBER. Cost-of-living pressures boosted the number of applicants willing to accept low rates of pay since an Amazon gig was not their principal source of earnings but what their recruiters called ‘extra cash,’ and the applicants experienced as desperate measures. 

Low wages at Amazon help to keep them down at DoorDash and Uber, while all three benefit from their employees’ being driven to chase two or three jobs to cobble together a living income.

Next year, will open a four-storey fulfillment centre, the size of the eleven  Melbourne Cricket Grounds, on Macaulay Rd, North Melbourne, while installing robots at both north Melbourne and the Craigieburn site, close by Tullamarine, the better to despatch to regional centers adding a threat to their street-front outlets.

The Bezomoth makes local governments in the U.S. of A. compete with offers of tax concessions and the like for the privilege of having a warehouse built in their district to the detriment of existing distributors and retailers. 

Amazon drops suppliers for ‘no reason’ other than a encourage les autres – thereby reminding all of them that no one of them is indispensable and so they had better cop whatever terms Amazon dishes out. It shifts the costs of holding inventory back to suppliers by making them wait for payment. Amazon’s behaviour is worse than that from Supermarkets here.

Amazon employs 7,000 Australians, 4,000 in the Cloud and 2,000 ‘permanents’ in its six fulfilment centers; 1,300 are body-hire, and 3,000 more in/dependent delivery contractors. To protect their rights at work, how much due diligence did AustralianSuper exercise before its ‘ethical’ investment in Amazon’s robotic fulfillment center at Craigieburn?

In like vein, under which kind of labour relations will the Australian Cloud staff be employed: Bezosism or FairWork? Will the ‘Labor values’ of Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, ensure workers’ rights to unionise and to disconnect?

Gender equity should also be a concern given Kristi Coulter’s 2023 memoir, Exit Interview, that throughout twelve years as an Amazon executive she had been bullied and never given a top job. 

Given how easy it was for PriceWaterhouseCooper to bamboozle Tax Office sleuths, what chance will Defense boffins have in a showdown with the Bezomoth? Hard bargaining assumes that the prospect of post-retirement consultancies for politicians, bureaucrats and top brass does not make them a soft touch. After all, they are safe from another whistle-blower after the jailing of David McBride. 

One certainty is the contract will be another commercial-in-confidence trick. 

He who sups with The Bezosmoth, should have a long spoon. 

 

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The Imminent Catastrophes behind Elon Musk’s “Starship”

Written by: Leo A. on 17 July 2024

 

(Above: Elon Musk at the Kennedy Space Centre in 2020 with then President Trump in preparation for the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.  Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/   Public Domain)

An often-overlooked way in which Australia is kept dependent on foreign powers is through access to space. Since this country currently has no orbital launch ability of its own (this could change later this year with Gilmour Space’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport granted Australia’s first orbital launch facility licence), Australian satellites must be launched on foreign soil by foreign, typically American or French, space programs. 

One of these programs, Elon Musk’s American corporation SpaceX, has been regularly making their way into the news headlines. The most recent topic of discussion concerns test flights of the “Starship” launch system, the most recent of which took place on June 6. There are two key causes of concern that should be considered in light of these recent developments. 
 
A New Greenhouse Gas Catastrophe 
 
First, the environmental impact of this new rocket has been mostly overlooked – perhaps due to the assumption that Starship is no more environmentally harmful than similar rocket systems, or perhaps due to the assumption that anything sufficiently “futuristic-looking” can’t possibly have a catastrophic environmental impact. Both of these assumptions are false. 
 
What sets SpaceX’s Starship apart from previous heavy-lift launch vehicles is the chemical reaction used for its propulsion system. All large rockets are powered by a combination of an oxidiser and a fuel. Like similar systems, Starship uses liquid oxygen as its oxidiser, no problem there, but unlike similar systems it uses liquid methane as its fuel (this combination is sometimes referred to as “methalox”). 
 
Methane is an extremely strong greenhouse gas, dozens of times as effective as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere. While the methane is intended to be burned in the ignition chamber during launch without leaking into the air, there are many steps in the process in which this could happen. Consider all the moments during the production, storage, transportation etc of the methane in which some of it can escape containment. Not to mention how much of it might not even ignite when it’s injected into the chamber and could simply exit the nozzle into the air, or how much of it may be released into the air during an explosive launch or re-entry failure (of which there have already been several). Even for the methane that does ignite as intended, the combustion reaction produces carbon dioxide as an exhaust product, so either way thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases are being released with every launch. Now multiply that by the thousands of launches that are being planned, and a very serious problem begins to emerge. 
 
And why was such a devastating fuel chosen for the Starship programme? This question was answered in detail in a 2016 presentation when the programme was pitched in detail for the first time. Three fuel options were originally considered – kerosene, hydrogen and methane. Kerosene cannot be manufactured using the available resources of any worlds besides Earth, so the choice was primarily between hydrogen and methane. Reasons given in the presentation for choosing methane over hydrogen included several “disadvantages” of hydrogen that have already been resolved across decades of aerospace experience in using hydrogen in rocket propulsion. But one line in the comparison chart sticks out like a sore thumb: “Cost of propellant”. 
 
That’s what it’s really about. Methane was the cheapest of the three rocket fuels to mass-produce. As fancy and “shiny” as Elon Musk’s projects depict themselves, in the end they’re driven by the same motivations as any other bourgeois entity. 
 
The rejected fuel option, hydrogen, may deserve a closer look. At the present time, nearly all of the world's current supply of hydrogen is unsustainably created from fossil fuels, however there are methods of producing it in a clean, renewable manner, and these methods could theoretically be scaled up during a transition away from fossil fuels. It appears doubtful that clean hydrogen could itself become a major energy source, as some capitalists such as Twiggy Forrest claim, however it does not have to be in order to be used for space travel. Unlike methane, hydrogen itself isn’t a greenhouse gas, and in any case doesn’t remain in Earth’s atmosphere for long. And the combustion product of hydrogen and oxygen is water. In other words, the exhaust forms a tiny, temporary artificial cloud during launch. There are other environmentally-friendly methods of reaching space as well, some of which do not involve traditional rockets at all. 
 
American Tools of War 
 
Musk’s venture, like other parts of the space program, is intimately tied to Imperialist warfare - both supporting current wars and preparing for future ones. This has always been true, in fact the American space program began as little more than a military project for developing ICBMs aimed at the Soviet Union, China, and their allies. In the present day, military satellites serve numerous functions in support of the war machine, ranging from long-distance communications to spying on an opponent’s actions. SpaceX already regularly launches military satellites, and isn’t even against repurposing non-military satellites into tools of war. For example, the “Starlink” satellite network, supposedly designed to assist in giving internet access to remote communities, has been used by Ukrainian forces in the ongoing inter-imperialist proxy war so regularly that the one time Musk didn’t allow it’s use became newsworthy. 
 
Unlike any orbital launch vehicle currently in use, Starship has the capability to launch over a hundred tonnes of payload into low earth orbit at once. Such a capability in American hands can, and will, be used for malicious purposes. In the immediate, short-term future, this will play a role in the ongoing campaigns of imperialist aggression around the world. In the more distant, long-term future, the roles of military satellites may expand to encompass, for example, the ability to directly strike targets on the ground from orbit, and this may be seen in the larger conflicts that Australia will likely be dragged into. 
 
Looking deeper into the future 
 
We shouldn’t lose sight of another risk that could emerge if the Starship programme is successful at establishing regular interplanetary travel for profit-oriented purposes. Environmental destruction will follow wherever the interests of capital are given priority, and there’s no reason this trend would not continue offworld. By now lead, microplastics, and other pollutants have been found in every rainforest, glacier and deep-sea trench on Earth. Even Low Earth Orbit has been polluted by the Kessler Effect over the past few decades (and the Starlink project has made this far worse in recent years). Deep Space remains the one place that has yet to be corrupted by capitalism, and it should remain that way. One world has already been devastated by careless exploitation, we should hope that number does not increase. 
 
This does not mean that space travel itself is inherently reactionary or counterrevolutionary. If anything, history shows us the opposite. While many of the Soviet Space Program’s most infamous accomplishments took place during the 1960s, Soviet superiority in space already began before this. For example, in July of 1951, the Soviet Union launched the first mammals to survive a flight into space. Three years later in 1954, a developmental plan was proposed for the world’s first artificial satellite – what we now know as Sputnik 1. The foundations of a powerful space program had already been laid by the time of the revisionist takeover.

We should also remember the PRC’s “two bombs one satellite” programme. As early as 1958 Mao Zedong formally announced the development of a Chinese orbital space program. In April of 1970, China’s first satellite was successfully launched into space, making China the fifth nation to put a spacecraft into orbit using its own rocket. So no, the corruption of space travel by bourgeois interests does not make space travel itself inherently negative. 
 
Nor is the often-discussed ambition of populating other worlds (the term “colonization” is often used but appears unsuitable as this has little in common with the deadly colonialism of the past and present) counterrevolutionary either. In fact, this concept was first seriously promoted by a Soviet rocket scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. A few short years after the establishment of the USSR, he published a plan for the long-term expansion of the human species into space. 
 
And this will likely happen in the future. Other worlds will likely be populated, not as a result of some billionaire’s side-project, but as the result of a socialist endeavour – likely of an international collaboration of socialist states. If the struggles of the present day are eventually won, this will be just one part of the bright future our children and grandchildren can look forward to. 

 

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Israel’s Apartheid Practice

Written by: (Contributed) on 17 July 2024

 

Discussions taking place at the highest levels of the Israeli state have revealed planning for prolonged control of Gaza and the West Bank along neo-colonial lines. While various policy options are being considered, none have included any reference to granting recognition of a Palestinian state in accordance with United Nations recommendations decades ago.

In fact, those closely associated with the Netanyahu grouping in the Knesset have already opted for a bantustan-type model for Gaza, based on the former homelands of Apartheid South Africa.

Serious political differences, nevertheless, are emerging inside Israel; some of those which have been not as conspicuous as the mass demonstrations in opposition against Netanyahu, have far-reaching implications for political stability.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected in the US in late July where he is expected to address Congress on 24th about his government plans for the Gaza Strip. Discussions have already started taking place inside the Israeli corridors of power, with various submissions from senior figures. Some of their proposed policy options have already been openly stated: they follow closely the models drawn up by white supremacists in South Africa for containing the black population. (1) With little ambiguity.

The South African homelands, which evolved from the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936, became a government priority following the imposition of Apartheid policies in 1950. The white elite sought to permanently remove non-whites from what they regarded as their country. The Bantustans, as they were called, were central to Apartheid policies; they were, furthermore, never intended to be economically sustainable, but dependent upon the white economy with a source of cheap labour for use along lines of a colonial-settler type model.

While differences exist between the Israeli policy options, a common strand running through many of them is a similar preoccupation with 'geographical islands … and … bubbles', designed specifically to atomise the Palestinian community and control the population. (2) Not one proposed policy option has recommended the recognition of a Palestinian state, in line with United Nations recommendations in the late 1980s.

 
While the Bantustan policies never worked effectively in South Africa, there were, nevertheless, forced re-locations of non-whites from numerous areas. Many non-whites, however, managed to stay in predominantly white areas while subject to government classification as 'non-people'. Needless to state, the Apartheid policies were considered by most reasonable people around the world as odious, and led to opposition and a massive reaction and, eventually, the toppling of the whole segregationalist regime in 1994.

The whole issue of Apartheid has remained highly controversial inside the Israeli state, although there were and remain marked similarities; Israel, for example, retained strong diplomatic links with Apartheid South Africa throughout the duration. (3) Trade links were accompanied by defence and security provision. (4) It was noted that 'much of the efficiency of the South African security services must be placed at the door of Israel, for both army experts and specialists in counter-intelligence operations and interrogation from the MOSSAD have been placed in South Africa in a permanent advisory capacity since 1976 … in that year they … agreed on a pooling of intelligence information'. (5)

In fact, studies of the diplomacy have concluded 'the blatant similarities of these two birds of a feather were vividly illustrated by the worlds of Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd – former South African prime minister and architect of 'Grand Apartheid. In 1961, when expressing his deep admiration for Israel's foundation and socio-political architecture – and, more especially for its character as an exclusivist, ethnic state, with special privileges in law for Jews, and the displacement of native Palestinians by foreigners – stated that: The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel like South Africa is an Apartheid State'. (6)

Similar studies, likewise, have also drawn attention to the colonial-settler basis of the Israeli state. (7) The continual expansion of the Israeli settlements across the West Bank is evidence, in itself, of the problem. While the settlements are regarded as illegal by 'much of the international community … Israel has declared control over its single-largest swath of land in the West Bank this year'. (8)

It has also included acts of extreme violence by Israelis toward Palestinian people before the events of 7 October 2023. In April it was officially recorded that 'five Israeli security units committed gross violations of human rights prior to the outbreak of war with Hamas in Gaza … they included … extra-judicial killings, torture and physical abuse'. (9)

One continual problem confronting the Palestinians has been accurately establishing their longer-term planning for their relationship with Israeli motives and designs. Political spin from the Knesset is an everyday occurrence; assessing the Israeli designs, however, would appear a rather different matter. It is not a politically open system, particularly for Palestinian people who are systematically excluded from decision-making processes.

One policy making group, composed of those close to Netanyahu, for example, 'are backing another, security-focussed plan that seeks to slice up Gaza with two corridors running across its width and a fortified perimeter that would allow Israeli's military to mount raids when it deems them necessary'. (10) No reference, however, has been openly given about the massive oil and natural gas reserves off the Gaza Strip and their viability and the geographical significance of the two proposed corridors. The fact that some of the Israeli think tanks are pressing for 'an outright Israeli occupation' of Gaza might best be assessed in that light. (11)
 
Meanwhile, massive demonstrations and protests have taken place across Israel, backed by political opposition to the Netanyahu administration.

Some of those not so conspicuous opposition figures are, however, in pivotal and powerful positions.

Differences of opinion amongst those who have provided assessments for how Israel should deal with Hamas are important to note; Israel's military leadership, apparently, 'wants a ceasefire in Gaza, even if it means leaving Hamas in charge'. (12) The development has shown a widening difference of opinion between those supporting Netanyahu and those siding with the armed forces. Israel's former national security advisor, Eyal Hulatu, has openly supported a hostage deal which has included a ceasefire. (13)

It has been noted, furthermore, that top Israeli military officials and generals 'see a truce as the best way to secure the release of the hostages, even if Israel's war goals are not all met'. (14) While the position has not been accepted by the Netanyahu administration, it has set the military and its reservists and their associates against a political leadership which is far from secure. In fact, the Netanyahu government is increasingly vulnerable and resides in daily fear of collapsing outright, leaving the military poised near the levers of power.

Other regional figures, including King Abdullah II of Jordan have commented that the exclusion of Palestinians by the Israelis 'will not lead to a real peace'. (15) Jordan clearly has a vested interest in pursuing policies of a peaceful settlement with the Palestinian issue; the country hosts an estimated three million Palestinian refugees in various camps across the country, and is virtually dependent upon the US for defence and security provision. Major developments on the West Bank and Gaza Strip inevitably spill over into neighbouring Jordan; it is not politically secure and in a precarious position.

While the killing of innocent Palestinians continues in Gaza, the Israeli leadership have shown little concern about International Court of Justice recommendations about their war crimes and genocide. (16) The US and their allies continue to support Israel and a culture of impunity. (17)

With world opinion polarised over the issue, however, it remains to be seen what reception Netanyahu and his entourage receive in Washington later this month and whether the Pentagon continues to provide sophisticated armaments for use without conditions, against an unarmed civilian population.

1.     See: Israel plans for Gaza 'Day After', Australian, 1 July 2024; and, The Homelands, South African History On-line.
2.     Ibid.
3.     See: The Unnatural Alliance, James Adams, (London, 1884), page 23, pp. 79-80, page 85.
4.     Ibid., page 19, page 23.
5.     Ibid., pp. 86-87.
6.     Israel and South Africa, The Many Faces of Apartheid, (London, 2015); Birds of a Feather: Israel and Apartheid South Africa – Colonialism of a Special Type, Ronnie Kasrils, pp. 23-41.
7.     Ibid., Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
8.     Record West Bank 'seizure' for settlers, Australian, 5 July 2024.
9.     See: US determines five Israeli security units, CNN., 29 April 2024, and, Reuters, 30 April 2024; and, US backs Israel over claims of war crimes,  Australian, 1 May 2024.
10.   Australian, op.cit.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Israeli military calls for ceasefire in Gaza, Australian, 4 July 2024.
13.   Ibid.
14.   Israel evaluating new Hamas 'ideas' on truce, Australian, 5 July 2024.
15.   See: Jordan, MEM., 23 September 2024.
16.   See: Deadly Israeli strikes hit Gaza, Australian, 8 July 2024.
17.   See: Western moral credibility fractured, Pearls and Irritations, 24 May 2024; and,  Adelaide Voices, May-July 2024.

 

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Australian Dairy Industry News

Written by: Duncan B. on 9 July 2024

 

Twenty Australian Manufacturing Workers Union maintenance workers employed at the Burnie (Tasmania) plant of Canadian-owned dairy processor Saputo have been on strike for a month.

They are seeking to be paid the same as Saputo employees doing the same job on the mainland, claiming they are receiving 21% less than their mainland colleagues. They have called for a boycott of Saputo products, which include the Cheer, Devondale, Cracker Barrel, Mersey Valley and several other brands of cheese.

The majority of the Australian dairy processing industry is foreign-owned, with Saputo (Canada), Fonterra (NZ) and Lactalis (France) the main players. Bega is the only major Australian-owned dairy company, along with some smaller companies such as Norco.

The same dairy companies that exploit Australian dairy factory workers also exploit Australian dairy farmers. Recently the processors announced this year’s farm gate price offers to dairy farmers for their milk. The prices offered are actually less than last year’s, being around $7.80 to $8.30 per kilogram of milk solids. 

These prices are around the farmers’ cost of production or even less. It is estimated that dairy farmers will be $200,000 to $300,000 worse off, as they are also being hit by rising costs for water, electricity and all their other inputs. More dairy farmers are expected to leave the industry.

Dairy farm numbers last year were 4163, down from 4420 in 2022, and 6308 in 2014. Australia’s milk pool has shrunk to around eight million litres. It is not surprising that we are seeing a massive increase in the import of dairy products into Australia from Europe, the US and New Zealand. In 2022-23, dairy imports rose from around 293,000 tonnes to around 344,000 tonnes over the previous year. This was an increase in value from $2.1 billion to $2.7 billion.

Farm gate prices paid by processors to dairy farmers in New Zealand are about 30% lower than in Australia, giving New Zealand companies a considerable price advantage over Australian processors, allowing them profit from exports to Australia.  Last year Australia imported 47,500 tonnes of butter, mainly from New Zealand. Much of the imported butter and cheese is being sold by supermarkets under their own house brands. 

In a move which will shake up the dairy industry in Australia, New Zealand-based Fonterra has announced that it will put its Australian operations up for sale. Fonterra employs 1600 people at eight sites in Victoria and Tasmania and processes 1.4 billion litres of milk each year.

The Canadian-owned superannuation fund PSP is deeply involved in Australian dairy farming through its company Aurora Dairies. This company has 450 employees and has 48,000 cows producing 280 million litres of milk on 54 farms in Australia. Aurora’s economies of scale will allow them to make a profit from dairying while small farmers struggle to make a living. It will be interesting to see if PSP makes a bid for Fonterra’s factories. This would give them control over the whole dairy business from cow to consumer. 

Australia’s small farmers and workers have the same enemy. Only unity in struggle will end the exploitation.

 

 

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Why is it so hard to get by?

Written by: John Gerard on 11 July 2024

 

(Cartoons from TNC Workers Research Brief 13 1986)

 

Why in one of the richest countries in the world do we have to scramble to get by?

People have trouble paying for the roof over their heads, stressed by the costs of putting food on the table, fuel in the car and paying power bills.
Why? 

Why, when Australia is a resource powerhouse, first or second in the world in gas exports, first in coal, huge in iron ore, one of the biggest suppliers of rare earths for the electronic digital world and important in so many others resources?

Why when farmers, working with nature’s bounty, produce more than enough to feed everyone in the country a few times over.  

Who isn’t sick to death of the scramble people are forced into just to get a decent living. 

Discovering that profits come before people won’t win you the Nobel Prize. Its slapping us in the face all the time. 

An old maxim goes: It’s the rich that get the pleasure, and the poor that get the pain. In this system of producing and selling for profit, the super-rich getting richer and richer. The people doing the work struggle. That’s capitalism, the capitalist economic and political system. 

But there’s more to it than a ‘system’. More than some elusive, invisible, shadowy thing we can’t get our hands on.   

There’s capitalists. Real people. Visible, flesh and blood, that run this system, that own it, that prosper from it, that unleash forces to defend it and expand their reach.  We don’t often see them because they don’t do much and most of them don’t want us to know them. 

It’s important to be clear about capitalism and capitalists. It’s not just an abstract haze of a system. 

Capitalists are behind this disastrous system

This is the CAPITALISTS’ SYSTEM. A system of capitalists. There’s people who run the system and that it runs for. 

Be clear about the capitalist system producing our problems, but don’t stop there. Get down to the people behind the system, CAPITALISTS.

Capitalists are more than local people like Gina Rhinehart and Andrew Forrest. We need to look past appearances. Australia Institute research in 2022 found Forrest’s Fortescue Metals was 94% foreign-owned. They also identified the mining industry was 85% foreign-owned. 

Identifying the actual people who are behind the system in Australia needs to be checked out in depth or we’ll be pointing at the wrong people and wasting a lot of effort. 

But let’s get the basics clear about who we’re dealing with.

Blame the capitalists and call them out. That crew of people are what stands between us and decent lives.

They have quite a few people they employ to look after them and their interests. They have governing administrations, the legal systems, CEO’s, police, armies and other institutions lined up looking after their system of capitalism and the pipeline of riches into their hands. 

Those people are agents of the capitalists, not the people owning and driving the system. 

The set up is a lot like in the ‘noble sport’ of horse racing.

The ‘sport’ involves owners, trainers, strappers, jockeys, breeders, and institutions including racing clubs, and has governing bodies and government regulations. Feeding off and sponsoring races are bookmakers and betting corporates, along with media empires. We’ll leave the wider industry aside for this illustration.  

The horse side of the ‘industry’ has lots of people with lots of roles. The hierarchy operating between them mirrors capitalism in some ways. 

At the top of the ‘industry’ are horse owners, and not just any old owners in a syndicate who bought a nag hoping they would get lucky. The industry’s dominated by the super-rich, the business tycoons, emirs, sheiks, kings and the like. Just look at the position of Godolphin Racing owned by Sheik Maktoum .

The horse side of the industry is run for the horse owners.  

They employ or contract trainers, who are their top managers as in a corporate structure. The trainers manage the horses, their feed, exercise, health, well-being and other activity. The big owners employ managers of their racing interests, often across the globe. The managers advise and ensure owners’ decisions and interests are carried out and the trainers and their systems are performing. The big owners also employ or contract horse buyers and breeders, sometimes owning their own breeding studs. 

Trainers employ a lot of people, pre-trainer/horse educators, stable hands and strappers, trackwork riders, stud grooms, office managers, book-keepers, clerks, assistants, farm managers, transport drivers and contract others like vets, construction/maintenance workers, jockeys. Significant numbers of people work in a big stable like those of Chris Waller, the Hayes, Cummings, Waterhouse, or Freedman families. 

Chris Waller directly employs just over 100 people in 4 big stables across the eastern States.  All those people are employees or paid one way or another to work for the trainer or trainer’s business to keep the horses healthy and prepare them to race. 

Jockeys ride horses to trainers’ instructions and their own racing skills to try get the best result out of the horse, when they’re operating honestly (for the owner who gets the prizemoney and some kudos). 

The trainers’ job is to get the best out of the horse for the owner, just like the manager of any business.  So do all the people employed by the trainer.   

The owners do nothing or next to nothing in handling the horse.

But they are the ones calling the shots, picking up the winnings, and who the whole industry rotates around. The talk in the form guides is about the trainers and jockeys, with the owners getting mentioned in passing. 

On race day, sometimes, owners jump into the limelight. Owners of Australia’s major corporate empires hide from the limelight but they call the shots just the same. Their interests drive capitalism in this country.  

Capitalism is not just some system, it’s capitalists exploiting workers 

It’s capitalists who prosper while we struggle. And not just some general amorphous rich faceless mob. They have names. They have businesses. They are actual people whose wealth is gained from our work. 

It’s capitalists behind the laws crushing unions. It’s capitalists getting rich from the minerals dug out of the ground and sold overseas while we do the work. It’s capitalists grabbing the money that could provide housing, healthcare, good education, roads, etc. 

A reduction in the standard of living while production ploughs on increases this or that capitalist’s riches even more. More of what workers produce goes to bloating

capitalist riches, leaving us struggling to get by.  

Think of some tanned tycoon basking on a super yacht in the Bahamas or Monaco while miners dig coal, train drivers haul it to ports, operators scoop it out of piles and others load ships full of coal, one after the other. That’s capitalism in Australia, or one major part of it. 

If we’re going to get rid of capitalism from Australia, we need to be much more aware of the capitalists who are prospering from the value workers produce. 

If we’re going to overthrow capitalism, it means overthrowing the people who rule over us. 

In their 18th century revolts, French peasants got rid of feudalism, and they knew they had to get aristocrats’ necks under the guillotine to do it.  

We also need to know who. Otherwise, we’ll just be striking out blindly, often at the management monkey or the political hack, not the organ-grinding capitalist.

It would be a great use of an academic’s time, to delve deeper into who these capitalists are. Where they come from is covered to an extent in the booklet “Who Owns Australia”  . There’s work to be done on who they are. 

What is clear is that 85% of the mining, oil and gas industries in Australia are foreign-owned, with the biggest portion American. There’s similar levels of foreign-ownership in many major sectors of the economy, banking and finance, chemicals and others. Foreign capitalists are at the heart of capitalist ranks in Australia.

The US stranglehold over the country is apparent in how little tax they pay, in billions devoted to preparations for another war to defend and extend the American empire while people are struggling with bills. It points the way towards hitting foreign capitalists as the first step in giving the system a whack.

Moaning about an abstract system doesn’t cut it.  

It’s not just capitalism, its capitalists. We have to target the actual people and the forces that keep them safe from us.     

Appendix:

Godolphin Racing and its super-rich owner, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

One of the biggest and richest race horse owners here and across the world is Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister ruling over Dubai, with horses racing in the royal blue silks of Godolphin Racing. 

He’s the Chief Executive of Emirates Airlines, Chair of Dubai Real Estate Corporation, with his family owning various tremendously lucrative enterprises. 

Godolphin Racing was set up in 1992. By 2018 they’d won over 5,000 races in 14 countries including Australia, the US, UK, France Germany Japan among others.  

The Sheik has two racing stables in Sydney, one in Melbourne, two in Newmarket, UK, and two in Dubai, as well as horses in training with contracted trainers in the UK, Australia, France, Japan, the United States, and Ireland. James Cummings of the famous family of trainers is Godolphin’s head of operations in Australia. 

The Sheik got into racing through owning horses in the UK in 1977. He set up Darley breeding studs in the UK in 1981, subsequently expanding them to Australia, France, Ireland, Japan, and the United States. He owns Channel 4 racing media in the UK. 

Sheik Al Maktoum’s position at the top of the racing tree involved in setting the rules, is apparent in Maktoum’s Godolphin having representatives on the boards of governing bodies on three continents.

One sits on the board of the Melbourne Cup organisers, the Victoria Racing Club, alongside bankers, media execs, corporate accountants and lawyers. Not a stable hand or trackwork rider in sight. 

A former Godolphin CE sits on the board of the British Horseracing Authority as an owners’ representative. An appointee of Sheik Maktoum’s as General Manager of Emirates Racing Authority, Mohammad Saeed Al Shehhi, has been elevated to vice-chairman of Asian Racing Federation’s Board. The Sheik’s sons serve as Chairs of Dubai’s two horse racing clubs.

Through all the studs and stables, as one racing journalist put it: ‘Each horse has a race path to follow and a commercial purpose to fulfil, from winning prize money to earning a lucrative post-career at stud.’ It’s all about Maktoum’s ‘commercial purpose’ to create value for the Sheik. 

Along the way there’s a dash of horses being this tycoon’s playthings in operation, a display of his wealth delivering prestige among the super-rich while it delivers the money as winners of top races and value as breeding bloodstock. 

 

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Important webinars build the movements against imperialism.

Written by: Nick G. on 9 July 2024

 

 

 

Two important webinars, one recently held and the other still to come, are building the people’s movements against imperialism.

On July 4, the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition (AAAC) presented a webinar titled “Independence – Breaking the US Stranglehold in Australia.”

In publicity for the event, the AAAC stated:

 

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Young ALP Female Senator Stands Strong For Palestinian People and Palestinian State

Written by: Ned K. on 8 July 2024

 

ALP Senator Fatima Payman resigned from the ALP last week after courageously "crossing the floor" of the Senate to support a Greens motion that Australia recognize a state of Palestine. 

Over 100 other countries have already taken this position. The ALP leadership could not bring itself to do so. The Albanese Government was more concerned about not getting out of step with the USA and Zionist Netanyahu Israeli Government.

Senator Payman, only 29 years young, went into the Senate on an ALP ticket with the genuine belief that she could make a difference by being a member of a political party that stood for social justice, for solidarity with oppressed peoples both within Australia and internationally.

She came into the Senate supported by United Workers Union where she was an Organizer and where union members learned through their own experience that there is real strength in diversity.

She must have been bitterly disappointed when she found that the same values were not practiced by the ALP leadership when it came to the issue of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli Government backed by western powers led by the USA.

We do not know exactly what was said to her by Albanese and key Ministers to try and "persuade" her to toe the Party line.

However, they met their match in Senator Payman when she announced her resignation from the ALP, but her continuation in the Senate as an Independent Senator.

When she made this decision, it was easy for her to see who her enemies are and who are her friends. 

The ALP leaders joined the Murdoch Press with the idea that she may be ineligible to be a Senator due to dual citizenship with Afghanistan and Australia. 

Of course, the ALP never thought this when Fatima Payman was put on the ALP Senate ticket. 

At that time, the leaders probably thought it would add to their appearance as supporting diversity in representation in parliament to have a young, female, Muslim woman in ALP Seante ranks "under the wing" of Senators Wong and Farrell.

What a contrast between this barrage of hate against a Senator standing her ground and the hundreds of cheering unionists and diverse communities that greeted Senator Payman when she arrived at Perth airport from Canberra!

 

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Report on Russia by Russian Maoists

Written by: Union of Maoists of the Urals on 7 July 2024

 

Last May we published an analysis of conditions In Russia by our comrades in the Union of Maoists of the Urals. Today, they have sent us the following update which will be of interest to Australian anti-imperialists. Long live the proletarian friendship between the workers of Russia and Australia-eds. 

Hello, dear Australian comrades!

Dear comrades, we would like to inform you about the situation in the economy of our country in order to better show the prospects for the imperialist war waged by Russia and the likelihood of revolutionary changes. 

Until relatively recently, sanctions worked extremely poorly. Everything was on the shelves and regularly arrived at industrial enterprises for various purposes: both civilian and military. In fact, Western products prohibited by sanctions are imported into Russia from Turkey and Kazakhstan. This happens extremely freely and without serious problems. This primarily concerns industrial electronics and a number of food products. What cannot be imported through them is imported from China (cheap industrial goods) or has been replaced by Russian production. However, in recent months, due to the threat of sanctions against Chinese banks, it has become much more difficult for Russian enterprises to purchase products from China. Deliveries of many types of goods from China are severely delayed. However, we cannot yet say that this is somehow affecting Russian industry or consumers, and therefore we cannot assume that this is what will revolutionize Russian society or create a strong crisis in industrial production.

The 2022 mobilization and continuous Nazi pogroms against migrant workers have led to a huge labor shortage in Russia. Highly skilled workers are constantly leaving Russia after the start of the war - we are talking about hundreds of thousands of anti-war Russians. Capitalists don't like this very much. Bourgeois politicians talk about a shortage of 5-10 million workers. Officials regularly discuss programs for the return of specialists with anti-war views, and anti-abortion initiatives are also promoted with the emphasis that there is no one to work in Russia. 

The massive involvement of prisoners in military service also plays a role in the labor shortage. Russian prisons are engaged in industrial production and now there is no one to produce prison products either - mass repressions in Russia do not keep pace with the physical extermination of criminals. 

The labor shortage is leading to rapidly rising wages for Russian workers. We are talking about a doubling of wages over the past year. The growth of the military industry due to the war plays a role. As a result of this, Russian workers are now happy with their situation, they enjoy the fruits of imperialist policies and prosperity from the blood of their more unfortunate dead fellow citizens. They change jobs as soon as necessary, it is common for capitalists to lure workers away from each other, and bonuses for workers bringing new workers to fill vacancies are extremely common. There is no unemployment.

The Russian army is holding on because of the forced involvement of migrant workers in it and because it pays wages 10-15 times higher than in other areas of employment. Huge military spending, a social sector for the military, the growth of the military industry - all this is paid for from a deficit state budget. There are expert estimates that there will be enough money in the budget for a year and a half (including the state reserve accumulated before the war is now being wasted; Russia did not spend it during the Covid epidemic), after which the country, if the war continues, will begin an economic crisis and today’s prosperity will end a very rapid decline in living standards, indignation of the popular masses and the rapid growth of revolutionary sentiments. However, forecasts for the duration of the economic crisis may not take into account Russia's ability to inflate public debt.

In any case, it is extremely dangerous for the Russian imperialists to prolong the war; they need peace on their terms, and therefore they are trying in various ways to push through an agreement to suspend the war until Russia again accumulates reserves. Or they immediately propose recognition of Russia’s military claims in Ukraine and the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from a number of Ukrainian regions, the population of which will then be assimilated by the Russians.
Under these conditions, we are trying to analyze the situation, carry out organizational work among the masses and promote Marxism-Leninism.

With revolutionary proletarian greetings from Russia,

International Department of the Union of Maoists of the Urals

 

 

 

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Kenya - Too Little, Too Late: Ruto Must Resign

Written by: Communist Party of Kenya on 29 June 2024

 

Too Little, Too Late: Ruto Must Resign

Statement by the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Kenya
27 June 2924

In the wake of intense demonstrations against the Finance Bill 2024 and the consistent, resolute demand for the resignation of President William Ruto, the President has made a belated and insincere about-face, declaring that he shall not consent to the bill and ostensibly acceding to the people's demands. This disingenuous capitulation comes only after Ruto ordered the brutal murder of more than 10 confirmed protesters and unleashed death squads to massacre more innocent lives in Githurai.

We must not allow Ruto to escape accountability for the innocent blood he has shed in the streets. These demonstrations have clear and simple demands that we insist the President comply with. During the post-election protests, Ruto was responsible for the murder of l many innocent souls. It is imperative that the police bosses, all of Ruto’s henchmen, and Ruto himself be held legally accountable for these crimes. 

We also demand restorative justice for the survivors of the avoidable massacres orchestrated by the corrupt Ruto regime. 

Let’s tell Ruto we are aware that the President is legally unable to withdraw a bill that has already matured for assent. His options are limited to returning it to Parliament with a memorandum for the inclusion of his proposed amendments, which, if rejected by a two-thirds majority, would become law. 

Why dupe Kenyans into imagining he can withdraw it in totality? This is a legal conundrum, a deceitful ploy to buy time and distract Kenyans from their urgent demands.

Moreover, this morning Parliament went on recess until June, so how will the bill that has been referred to a Parliament on recess be amended?

We, today, put forth the following ten collective demands to sum up the temporary pause of protests:

1. A total cessation of taxation on basic commodities such as food, healthcare, and education, and the complete rejection of the Finance Bill 2024. We totally reject window dressing paltry amendments that may happen with the bought crowd in parliament 

2. An immediate end to the interference with our national sovereignty by foreign institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, NATO, and their financiers.

3. The provision of decent jobs, sustainable livelihoods, and the implementation of Article 43 within six months.

4. Quality housing and compensation for all those illegally evicted.

5. Free and quality education for all.

6. Free and quality healthcare for all.

7. An immediate end to state violence in the form of abductions, excessive use of force by police during demonstrations, and extrajudicial killings.

8. The return of all stolen public land and a clear plan for food sovereignty.

9. Fair compensation for all workers providing essential services to the country.

10. An immediate end to the privatization of public institutions and state-owned enterprises.

President Ruto, your time is up! The people of Kenya reject your bloodstained hands and your corrupt administration.  

#RutoMustGo! 

No IMF ! No World Bank! 

Signed,

The Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Kenya

 

 

 

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Thailand: Looming political crisis

Written by: (Contributed) on 29 June 2024

 

(Above: The Royal Thai Army suppreesed 2010 "Red Shirt" rallies.  Photo: Flickr Commons)

A brief political assessment about Thailand in the Australian business press has revealed widespread concern about a likely resurgence of opposition forces in one of the most important US-led centres for regional defence and security and trade. Thailand, historically, was and remains a major diplomatic player in South-east Asian affairs, including the ASEAN trade bloc. Any return to previous widespread opposition to the traditional centres of Thai power are likely to cause serious issues for the US and their allies across the wider region.

In mid-June, limited media coverage about Thailand carried an unambiguous warning that 'in reality, the South-east Asian constitutional monarchy is on the brink of another round of convulsive protests by young Thais who have had enough of the cheating and distorting of an ageing establishment that refuses to acknowledge its time may be coming to an end'. (1)

Thailand has maintained a shaky democratic facade for decades under the nominal control of a monarchy although it has also experienced thirteen military coups in the past ninety years.

Previous widespread opposition to the monarchy and political establishment took the form of supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra who wore red-shirts and demonstrated in their millions against perceived corruption and political chicanery. The supporters of the status quo wore yellow-shirts to identify their allegiance to the monarchy. There were violent clashes.

While the political divisions between the red and yellow shirts have officially been regarded as a problem of yesteryear, bitter divisions still exist beneath the surface of Thai political culture. Following the coup of 19 September 2006, which deposed Thaksin Shinawatra, he fled into exile, his political party was outlawed and he was banned from political activity in the country. Remnants of his supporters, nevertheless, re-grouped and continued to operate behind numerous front organisations.

Returning to Thailand on 22 August last year, Thaksin Shinawatra was able to prove he still retained huge popularity with ordinary Thai people. (2) He is now set on a collision course with the Monarchy and political establishment after being 'formally indicted for defaming the Monarchy while the failure of the current Prime Minister and main opposition hang in the balance'. (3)

While the legal status of Thailand's political opposition forces remains under legal consideration following months of court hearings, fears have been raised that a further round of banning opposition 'will not only mark the end of the country's shaky democracy, but trigger more political uncertainty'. (4) The centres of traditional Thai class and state power now appear increasingly vulnerable, being out-manoeuvred by opposition forces.

It has already raised serious concerns for Washington and the Pentagon's Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) whereby Japan has been elevated to the US-led diplomatic position of a global alliance, while other countries including Thailand, are linked as lower-level partners for 'US interests'. (5) Political upheaval in Thailand is, therefore, likely to have far-reaching implications for the IPS; effective intelligence-gathering rests upon political stability.

The US intelligence services regarded Thailand as an asset during the previous Cold War, and there is every reason to believe it continues to be so during the present Cold War; its close proximity with Cambodia and their close diplomatic relations with China is considered by the US as problematic. (6) Thailand also has a large Russian diaspora, most of whom settled in the country after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

The political crisis in Thailand has also come at an unfortunate time for the US and their allies; moves by the US to attract support for their trade war with China have been seen to not be particularly well supported. In fact, while the US seeks to 'isolate Beijing on the global stage', numerous allies have been noticeably reluctant to follow suit. (7)

Meanwhile, China's foreign trade has increasingly focussed upon South-east Asia and elsewhere in the emerging economies, as exports to the US have dropped. (8)

Thailand, historically, has been a major player in traditional US-led hegemonic positions in South-east Asia. A founder member of the ASEAN trade bloc during the previous Cold War,
Thailand hosted one of the largest US diplomatic missions of anywhere in the world in Bangkok. As with other countries in the near region, however, its rapid economic expansion followed the emergence of China as a major diplomatic player. China's GDP, likewise, rose from $397 billion in 1990, to an estimated near $15 trillion by 2020. (9)

During the 2007 to 2014 period, for example, ASEAN nearly doubled its GDP ratings, as a result of closer links with China. (10)

Thailand, however, has entered into a period of economic uncertainty and decline in recent years; in 1960 it had a GDP rate of a little over five per cent, falling to slightly above two per cent during the early 2020's. (11) While its high-spot was the late 1980s, when Thai growth rates rose to over thirteen per cent, massive fluctuations followed together with a general decline to only 1.9 per cent last year, possibly rising to an optimistic projection of 2.2/3.2 for this year. (12) The optimism may sour with a political crisis.

Thailand, nevertheless, has remained a central player inside ASEAN, which collectively has continued to regard little benefit from siding totally with either the US or China. They gain benefits from both, using skilful diplomacy.

The Thai big bourgeoise has also positioned itself to make a killing from neighbouring Burma/Myanmar’s bloody suppression of anti-regime and ethnic liberation struggles. Thai banks have become the main supplier of cross-border financial services for Myanmar’s military government, enabling its purchases of arms and equipment despite sanctions against the regime. (13)

ASEAN, in which Thailand has a major influence also presents the US with a major problem: its status has grown to be a central player in regional diplomacy. Studies have noted the 'ASEAN and Chinese economies are becoming inseparably inter-twined'. (14) And, while ASEAN is navigating an increasingly challenging regional environment … China's surging influence raises concerns, as do US responses, which increase strategic tension and gives short shrift to economics and regional prosperity'. (15)

The extremely limited nature of coverage in pro-US media outlets would tend to indicate the sensitive nature of recent developments in Thailand! More, nevertheless, may follow in due course if the political tensions beneath the surface rise to the fore.

1.     Thailand bonfire waiting for match, Australian, 13 June 2024.
2.     See: Thaksin Shinawatra, BBC News, 22 August 2023.
3.     Political crisis grips Thailand, BBC News, 19 June 2024.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 13 June 2024.
5.     See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
6.     See: From the Shadows – The ultimate insider's story, Robert M. Gates, (New York, 1996), page 312.
7.     US seeks EU's support in trade war, Australian, 22 May 2024; and, Europe takes new strategy to China Shock 2.0, Australian, 25 June 2024.
8.     China's export machine moves on, Australian, 14 June 2024.
9.     AUKUS a strong hand in a region under threat, Australian, 26 June 2024.
10.   What is ASEAN? The World Economic Forum, 9 May 2017.
11.   GDP Growth (annual percentage) Thailand, World Bank Group.
12.   Ibid., and, Executive Summary, Perspectives, Global Inflation Cools, Deloitte.
13.  Thai banks are the top suppliers of financial services to Myanmar’s military, UN expert says, Washington Times, 26 June 2024
14.   Towards an equal partnership, East Asia Forum, Volume 15, Number 3, September 2023, pp. 3.5.
15.   Japan as a diplomatic asset to ASEAN, East Asia Forum, Volume 15, Number 3, September 2023, pp. 6-8.

 

 

 

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Kanak independence struggle cannot be defeated

Written by: Nick G. on 29 June 2024

 

(Above: "We are allTein Bichou"  Source; Suport Internacional Kanay on X)

Following French President Macron’s decision to withdraw the “thawing” of citizenship in New Caledonia, the vindictiveness of the French bourgeoisie has only heightened.

The French proposal was to include all French citizens with more than ten year’s residence in New Caledonia as citizens of the French territory, effectively bolstering the votes for opposition to independence.  

It was a clumsy manoeuvre to restrict the growing influence of Chinese and Russian imperialists within New Caledonia.

The Kanaks erupted in defiance and lives were lost.

But French imperialism was not reconciled to its defeat. 

On the morning of June 19 in Nouméa, a raid by the police took place on the premises of the Caledonian Union (UC) in Magenta and the main leaders of the CCAT (Coordination Cell for Field Actions) were arrested on their way to a press conference. A search took place and eleven members of the CCAT, most of whom are also political and trade union leaders, were placed in police custody on several very serious charges, relating to organized crime, for a period of 96 hours (4 days).

On Friday 21 June, Kanaks rallied throughout New Caledonia in support of arrested CCAT leaders, including General Commissioner Bichou Tein. The arrested leaders have been deported to France to stand trial depriving them of the right to defend themselves before a jury of their peers.

This is kidnapping, pure and simple.

Far from taking advantage of Macron’s withdrawal of the citizenship changes to de-escalate tensions in New Caledonia, the French imperialists have only lifted a heavy rock to drop on their own feet.

Already meetings in support of the deported Kanaks have been held in large towns in France.

(Above: Support arrested CCAT leaders, June 21, 2024)

And in New Caledonia Kanak activists have continued to rally and demand the return of their kidnapped comrades.

They will not be intimidated by French colonial troops or pro-French armed militias.

They want all charges dropped against the leaders of the CCAT, and the entire Kanak independence movement.  

Solidarity with the entire Kanak independence movement!

 

 

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Class struggle at nuclear submarine site

Written by: Ned K. on 26 June 2024

 

(Stopwork at Osborne, June 3, 2024.  Source: CEPU SA Facebook)

For the last few months union members of the AMWU and CEPU have been taking industrial action against the federal government owned Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) at Osborne Naval Base in South Australia.

Members of both unions have been taking short stoppages and work bans. Members are demanding wage parity with ASC workers in WA who are paid 17% higher rates than SA workers for performing same and similar work.

The workers actions are having an impact with ASC forced to make higher wage offers but so far, still short of wage parity.

Now the ASC reactionary management are in a bit of a bind. They need to dry dock a Collins Class submarine which is tied up at the Osborne wharf.

ASC want to proceed with dry dock maintenance of the submarine but the likelihood of work stoppages in the process of moving the submarine to dry dock is a thorn in their side.

AMWU and CEPU workers have a long, proud history of class struggle at the ASC and are sure to win a significant victory in their current struggle for wage parity with WA ASC workers.

How a Labor Government can justify such inequity in wages between workers performing the same work will not come as too much of a surprise to the thousands of privatised workers in both federal and state government services where contractors pay minimum Award rates and sometimes not even the Award minimums.

A win for ASC workers at Osborne will be a win for all workers providing government services

 

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The wars the US are not winning with China: trade and diplomacy

Written by: (Contributed) on 25 June 2024

 

(Above: Ahmoot Iranian Flickr.com)

 

The recent state visit by China's Prime Minister Li Qiang to Australia took place under intense media scrutiny. The media coverage, nevertheless, was highly misleading, as was intended. The US-led trade war with China, for example, was not openly discussed yet remained the main factor behind the high-level Australia-China diplomacy.

Australia is a sub-imperial power with regional responsibilities thrust upon it by Washington and the Pentagon. The diplomatic relationship has proved problematic: and the US is clearly losing the trade war with China; their aggressive imperial foreign policy has seriously backfired.

In mid-June China's PM, Li Qiang, arrived in Australia, greeted by a nineteen-gun salute and full honour guard. The greeted was not out of place, taking into account the agendas of the high-level diplomacy scheduled to take place. While the contents of the agendas have remained confidential, it is not particularly difficult to establish what was going on behind the pomp and ceremony.

The legacy of the previous Trump presidential administration and its US-led Cold War trade war with China hangs like a millstone around the necks of western political leaders. Like most of the foreign policy of the Trump administration, it was established with an air of buffoonery and difficult to take seriously. And it has not worked; in fact, China's economy has continued to surge ahead, leaving the US and its allies behind and in a quandary.

Longer-term the US GDP growth rates, measured from 1960 to 2022 reveal a general decline, largely as a result of Washington and the Pentagon pursuing endless foreign policy adventures without costing the debacles accurately. Studies of US diplomatic involvement and their general intrusion into the sovereignty of numerous other areas of the world, reveal a general trend:

                                          US GDP GROWTH RATES, 1960-2022
                                                           
                                                           1962     -     6.10 %
                                                           2019     -     2.29 %
                                                           2020     -    -2.77 %
                                                           2021     -     5.95 %
                                                           2022     -     1.94 %     (1)

Studies of US allies, including Australia, reveal similar trends due to accompanying US foreign and diplomatic policies elsewhere, across the globe:

                                                AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY, GDP
                                                          
                                                          1963     -     6.22 %
                                                          2020     -   -.0.33% 

                                                          2021     -     2.11 %

                                                         2022     -     4.2 %     (2)                                                          

                                                          2023     -     1.9 %
                                                          2024     -     1.8 % (projection)     (3)
                               
China's economy, however, has continued to surge ahead; in 2023 China had about 14 per cent of global exports, up 1.3 per cent from 2017, when the US-led trade war began. (4) China's trade surplus, likewise, is estimated at about $823 billion, nearly double the 2017 estimates; trade surplus is defined when exports exceed imports. (5)

In May, as an act of desperation, US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, requested the EU to follow the US-led line of imposing tariffs upon Chinese trade and goods. (6) It was accompanied by an official diplomatic statement from the Biden presidential administration noting, 'Washington … sees European support as a critical way to isolate Beijing on the global stage'. (7) And they have tried very hard to implement the policy.

China, however, in recent years has shifted attention away from advanced, industrial countries toward the Global South. It has become the 'crucial economic partner for many emerging economies' and has been accompanied by numerous diplomatic initiatives. (8)

China's trade with ASEAN, for example, grew 8.1 per cent in the first two months of 2024. (9)

The China-ASEAN economic data also rests upon earlier dynamic trade: using World Bank economic data it can be established that ASEAN member countries have a combined GDP of $3.6 trillion, and that their economies are 'inseparably intertwined' with China. (10) It has also been noted that 'China's surging influence raises concerns, as do US responses, which increase strategic tension and give short shrift to economics and regional prosperity'. (11)

Similar studies have revealed 'China has been selling less to the west and more to South-east Asia and Latin America'. (12) In fact, during the first five months of this year 'China exported seventeen per cent less to the US. In 2023 alone, China's exports to the US dropped fourteen per cent'. (13)

China has also developed trade hubs in recent times, by using countries including Vietnam and Mexico, to reroute trade to include third parties into regions of economic interest. (14)

While US coverage of these developments has been subject to diplomatic silence, due to the sensitivity of the whole matter, forthcoming policies will be interesting to monitor. Under the existing balance of forces, China has successfully challenged the neo-colonial relations between the US and its allies and the emerging economies. The diplomatic implications are far-reaching both in the short and longer-term.

As the US and its allies fail to win the present trade war, military options and real-war scenarios would appear to have become ever more likely.

The high-level diplomacy between Australia and China in June has to be assessed along these lines; the former is a major diplomatic player with the ASEAN and South pacific countries and has therefore been used by Washington to further 'US interests'. There is no reason to think the position allocated to Canberra by the US has changed in any way whatsoever in recent times; the present diplomatic line remains based in damage limitation, with business continuing to be conducted as 'normal'.

It has not been difficult to find examples to support the position: within hours of Li Quiang and his entourage leaving Australia, a Canberra initiative saw an official government delegation including seven senior cabinet ministers conduct high-level diplomatic relations with PNG in Port Moresby. (15) The size and composition of the delegation has shown quite clearly how the US expects Australia to use diplomatic initiatives to serve 'US interests'.

It was accompanied by incoming Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele being invited to Canberra for high-level diplomatic talks following a rushed meeting in Honiara two weeks after their change of government with Australian deputy PM Richard Marles. (16) Manele, however, is already on record publicising his government's 'Look North' policies whereby the economic future of the country 'depends on China, rather than its traditional partners like Australia'. (17) The policy is not ambiguous.  

Coverage of recent regional developments have concluded that 'Australia is at the cross-hairs of this big shift. It is frozen out by Beijing which is also making a power play in Australia's own backyard in the Pacific Islands – that's why the Solomon Islands matters … China has surpassed Australia in terms of two-way trade with Pacific Islands nations'. (18)

In fact, while the recent 'soft diplomacy' between Australia and China has been noted as standing in 'contrast to the deep suspicion in government, and the national security establishment … about China and its long-term threat to Australian interests', it was, in reality, little other than a theatre production designed specifically to serve other earlier agendas in line with 'US interests' in Australia's designated areas of the wider Indo-Pacific region. (19)

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

   

1.     US GDP Growth Rates, 1960-2022, Macrotrends.
2.     Australian GDP Growth Rates, 1960-2024, Macrotrends.
3.     Wikipedia: Economy of Australia.
4.     Why the US can't win the trade war with China, The Japan Times, 5 June 2024.
5.     Ibid.
6.     US seeks EU's support in trade war, Australian, 23 May 2024.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Four key Take-ways emerging from China's trade data, The Diplomat, 26 March 2024.
9.     Ibid.
10.   Towards and equal partnership, The East Asia Forum, Volume 15, Number 3, September 2023, pp. 3-5.
11.   Japan as a diplomatic asset to ASEAN, ibid., pp. 6-8.
12.   China's export machine moves on, Australian, 14 June 2024.   
13.   Ibid.
14.   Ibid.
15.   Wong takes China fight to PNG, Australian, 20 June 2024.
16.   Solomons PM poised for first visit overseas, Australian, 21 June 2024; and, Marles' diplomatic dash to Solomons, Australian, 21 May 2024.
17.   PM hails new Solomon Islands leader, Australian, 3 May 2024.
18.   As the Solomon Islands heats up, SBS News, 28 November 2021.
19.   Beware the Beijing wolf in panda clothing, PM., Australian, 17 June 2024.   

 

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Assange: Free at last!

Written by: Nick G. on 25 June 2024

 

(Above: Rally in London in February 2024 demands Assange's release)

Imprisoned Australian journalist Julian Assange is free - bar the formality of an appearance before a US court in the US Marianas Islands tomorrow.

In a plea deal struck with the US authorities, Assange has agreed to plead guilty to one charge under the US Espionage Act. His sentencing is likely to include a jail term which will be subsumed within the time he has already spent in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison.

Assange’s release is a victory for the many people here and abroad who have campaigned for his release and for the dropping of US charges against him.

Though some might see his release as a victory for Albanese and Wong’s “quiet diplomacy”, it rather reflects their abject failure to stand up to the US and secure Assange’s unconditional release.

Worse, by making it a condition of his release by pleading guilty to a crime of which he is innocent, the US imperialists have created a precedent for the citizen of any foreign country to be charged, tried and convicted under US laws. 

This is a threat to political activists and journalists of all countries who use US sources to expose US crimes.

This is not to criticise Assange. He has been held hostage by the British inside a jail designed to house murderers and terrorists, and subjected to inhuman conditions, pending a threatened extradition to the US.

Our Party has supported Assange since he first faced charges.  In 2012, we wrote:

HANDS OFF ASSANGE!

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have performed a huge service to the people of the world by providing a platform for the publication of information that our rulers want kept from us.

Information released to date substantiates US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the existence of death squads and corruption in Kenya, of crony capitalism and speculative manipulation behind the financial collapse of Iceland and of unethical behaviour on the part of Sarah Palin.

Closer to home, Kevin Rudd has been outed as a cheerleader for the use of force by the US against China. In his March 24, 2009 advice to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the then Prime Minister called for a readiness to “deploy force” unless China “integrated itself effectively into the international community”. This is tantamount to declaring that China’s diplomatic pursuit of its own national interests, particularly if they challenge US global leadership, is the action of a rogue state that must be dealt with militarily.

Agents of imperialism

Wikileaks has revealed the existence of senior Labor politicians who report to the US embassy on matters that they are not even prepared to share with the Australian public. It is a master-servant relationship that stinks to high Heaven.

Julia Gillard’s condemnation of Assange represents the sacrificing of yet another Australian civilian to the interests of the US imperialists. 

We remain of the view that Assange has performed a huge service to the people of the world, and that if anyone should be in the dock, then it should be the US imperialist warmongers and assassins and those who collaborate with them.  

It now remains for Albanese and Attorney-General Dreyfus to turn their attention to Dan Duggan, the US-born Australian citizen who has been locked in solitary confinement for 20 months in Australian jails despite facing no charges in Australia while the US attempts to have him extradited to face charges in the US.

Assange is out, now let us get Duggan out. 

 

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India: Hands off Arundhati Roy!

Written by: Nick G. on 19 June 2024

 

Arundhati Roy was the youngest winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 for The God of Small Things. Then aged 36, she emerged as an activist campaigning on behalf of India’s poor and marginalised, the same people whose lives she had written about in her novel.

They are also the same people largely responsible for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s humiliating failure to win outright victory in a promised electoral landslide. 

The Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha has 543 seats. Modi, whose BJP party held 303 seats prior to the 2024 general election, boasted that the BJP would break through the 400-seat ceiling and sweep to victory. However, the BJP lost seats, winning only 240 and losing its ability to govern in its own right. It has entered a coalition, but lost face at home and abroad.

The main areas where the BJP lost votes were those populated by the Dalits (Untouchables) and adivasis (tribal peoples who have been the main support base for the people’s war led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist)). 

How better to punish these people than to criminalise their fiercest champion, Arundhati Roy.

So, last week, 14 years after complaints about her references to Kashmir, Delhi's most senior official granted permission for Roy to be prosecuted under India’s stringent anti-terror laws. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) is notorious for making it exceptionally challenging to get bail, often resulting in years of detention until the completion of trial.

Roy was hated by the far-right Hindu nationalists for whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks. She also made an enemy of the revisionist Communist Party of India (Marxist), whose hold on state power in West Bengal and Kerala saw it serving the bourgeoisie and landlords, when she criticised their behaviours and lifestyles in her novel.

She has written one other novel, but mainly she has published collections of political essays and an account of her travels in 2010 through Communist Party of India (Maoist) liberated zones in the forests of Chhattisgarh with fighters of the Peoples Liberation Guerilla Army.

In October, 2010, at a conference in Delhi, organised by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, she enraged the far right by declaring that Kashmir “has never been an integral part of India.” Her opponents demanded that she be tried for treason. But she remained defiant.

In 2019 she delivered a lecture to an audience in New York just months after Modi suspended Kashmir’s autonomy and imposed a lockdown on Kashmir that included the withdrawal of mobile phone and internet services, and a curfew that saw thousands imprisoned. She said:

The horror that Kashmiris have endured over the last few months comes on top of the trauma of a thirty-year old armed conflict that has already taken seventy thousand lives and covered their valley with graves. They have held out while everything was thrown at them – war, money, torture, mass disappearance, an army of more than half a million soldiers, and a smear campaign in which an entire population has been portrayed as murderous fundamentalists. 

India is not the model democracy so beloved of people like Albanese and Wong.

Assassinations of Sikh supporters of an independent Khalistan have reached as far as Canada and the United States. Pogroms by right-wing Hindu mobs have seen hundreds of Muslims beaten to death and lynched in the streets. The disgusting caste system remains firmly entrenched.

Indian novelist and journalist Siddhartha Deb, who has also championed India’s poor, place the prosecution of Roy in context. Interviewed on Democracy Now on June 17, he said:

But the point isn’t really about Kashmir. The point is really about the fact that the Hindu right don’t want anyone like Arundhati critiquing the government, critiquing its policies, not just on Kashmir, but that it is completely — it’s a fascist political party. It is against all minorities. It is against women. It is against the poor. And that is what Roy has been speaking up and writing about for over 30 years. And that’s what they’re against. And they want to shut down not just speech. They want to shut down thought. And that’s what this is about.

The CPA (M-L) calls on the Indian government to cease the prosecution of Arundhati Roy.

The CPA (M-L) calls on Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong to convey to the Indian Government their support for the human rights of Arundhati Roy.

We encourage people to write to the Indian Embassy and to Albanese and Wong, in support of Arundhati Roy.

 

 

 

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Save the nation’s natural resources for the people

Written by: John Gerard on 18 June 2024

 

The national anthem lies about our country. There’s golden soil in Australia but the natural wealth is not for toil.

It’s like there’s two Australias: a corporate wonderland for foreign investors and a labour camp of battling to make ends meet for hard working people in the one nation.

Exports of coal, iron ore, natural gas, and some other resources from Australia are the largest in the world. 

The mining, oil and gas industries produce more than half Australia’s goods exports. The industries’ exports of $455 bn are equivalent to 24% of the country’s economic output. Corporate monopolies plunder the country’s resources.

The mining, oil and gas corporations are making a bundle. Those corporations alone picked up a cool $241.9 bn operating profit before tax in 2022-23. 

Corporate thrive while people struggle

Citizens are told the country is on its knees, in debt and struggling. More and more people are battling with bills, rent or mortgages. The cost of living has gotten away from people. 

In 2022, over three million (3,319,000), of the nation’s 26 million people lived in poverty, including 761,000 children. That’s based on a measure of 50% of median household income, $489 per week for a single person, $1,027 per week for a couple with two children.

More than one in eight people (13.4%) and one in six children (16.6%) lived below the poverty line after taking account of their housing costs. 

That was before the inflation/ interest rate crisis took hold. Things got far worse in the first half of 2024. 

That’s built on top of the situation of the workforce being on the slide since the mid-1970s. Then the labour share of national income was just over 60%. Now its down near 50%. Capital income, the corporations, picked up what people lost and some more, jumping from 23% to 38% of national income. .

We’re told the government is doing what it can. There’s not great comfort in that sales pitch but it’s doing more than the miserable Libs would do. Still its paltry compared to what could be done if our natural resources were used to look after people, not load profits into billionaire corporates. 

There are two Australias. Our country is on its knees but the rich mining, oil and gas corporate monopolies’ country is rolling in billions. 

Aladdin’s Cave of Treasures for the Foreign Corporates

Our nation is the world’s sixth largest in area after Canada, Russia, China, the USA, and Brazil. The economy, at $1,702 billion, is the 13th largest in the world according to the IMF with just 0.33% of the world’s population. Australia ranks around 55th on national population counts internationally. The country is full of natural riches, a capable workforce and lots of modern infrastructure. 

Exports of coal, iron ore, other fossil fuels, gold, copper, aluminium and other minerals amounted to $406 billion in 2023. [Australia’s Top 25 Exports, Goods and Services, DFAT;]

Australia has been the world's largest exporter of iron ore, coal, unwrought lead, 2nd largest exporter of aluminium ores, beef, lentils and cotton, the 4th largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (2017) and 5th largest exporter of wine . 

Since then, Australia overtook Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of LNG for the first time in November 2018 . Australia now vies with Qatar and the United States as the world's biggest LNG exporter, having boosted export capacity over the past decade, mainly by building three export terminals on the east coast, which use coal-seam gas as a feedstock.

Foreign owners are at the core of the plundering

Contrary to perceptions encouraged by big mining monopolies, major ‘Australian’ mining companies are not Australian owned. They don’t even have large minority Australian-owned shareholdings. An Australia Institute study in 2022 drew the curtain on that nonsense. 

The ‘Big Australian’ BHP Group Ltd with a market capitalisation of $252.81bn is 94.41% foreign-owned. Rio Tinto Ltd’s shares, valued at $182.08 bn, were 95.16% foreign-owned. That mightn’t surprise but even a corporation with a prominent local face, Fortescue Metals Group, much touted as owned by ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, was 89.16% foreign-owned in March 2022 [Foreign Investment in Australia, Australia Institute, revised 10/2023; ]

Across corporations generally, that study found an overall figure of around 30% identifiable Australian ownership of Australian companies, and in turn, around 70% foreign ownership of listed companies in Australia. Even often-touted household shareholdings amount to less than 10% of ownership and have little or no real say. Superfunds investments are only a smidgen more, according to the Australia Institute. And despite making huge profits, 1 in 3 big corporations still pays no tax. 

The mining, oil and gas industries including exploration and support services, employed 220,000 people in June 2023 of the total national workforce of 14,355,100 employed. That’s just 1 employee in each 67 who are employed by the resource plunderers. [Australian Industry, ABS, 31/5/2024; and Labour Force, Australia, ABS 13/6/2024]

There’s more people involved in the supply chains for the mining, oil and gas industries needed to build mines, etc, and get the resources out of the country.  The Minerals Council reckons that all adds up to 1.1 million people. But those numbers are a fair bit of smoke and mirrors. [Mining sustains Australia in uncertain times, Mineral Council of Australia Media release, 9/1/2023]

Mining, Oil and Gas corporates' best interests are to let most people starve

The resource corporates are 85% foreign-owned, and they need just 1 in 67 of us to get the stuff out of the ground and to ports. They make billions from the business. 

Mining, oil and gas corporates don’t have to give a damn about how hard the other 66 workers here are doing in a cost-of-living crisis. And they don’t. 

Look at what they paid in taxes and royalties last year. “The mining and minerals industries paid a record (sic) $74.0 billion to federal, state, and territory governments in taxes and royalties.” Talk about a pathetic record when compared to their exports of $406bn and profits before tax of $242 bn. [Australian Minerals Sector Achieves Record Tax and Royalty Payments, Mineral Council of Australia Media release, 26/5/2024]. The figure paid leaves out the $14 bn of government subsidies paid to the oil and gas monopoly corporates.

In fact, the resources corporates have interests in making sure nothing is done to make things better for people across the country. That would eat into profits the corporate monopolies make from their mining operations here. 

They can keep plundering Australia’s natural resources with the fraction of the local workforce they employ whatever is happening to the rest of us. It makes the mining monopolies among the most reactionary enemies of the working class in this country alongside their finance sector corporate connections. 

Make the rich mining, oil and gas corporates pay for our natural resources. 

For now, the foreign-owned corporate monopolies rule over the people, workers included. They made $242 bn before tax last year. 

Hit them up for half that, $120 bn. They pay out $60bn now. That would add an extra $60 bn to the Federal budget, a big addition to the $698 bn budget this year. It’s a lot of extra government services. 

If workers were in charge, just think about what those billions the corporate mining monopolies would be paying over to help out people in trouble could do; fix up Medicare and the NDIS, free public education, childcare and universities, open up free health clinics all over the country, free up public transport. With the workers supported and freed up from cost of living squeeze to an extent, small and medium consumer businesses could thrive, allying their interests with the workers. 

First Nations communities should have first call on funds for their communities, given their country being exploited was seized from them and never ceded. The harms are graphically revealed in numerous incidents like the Rio Tinto destruction of Juukan Gorge, let alone First Nations people’s conditions of life. 

The Queensland government recently increased coal royalties to 20% to 40% depending on the level of international prices. They promised to invest in hospitals and housing. We’ll see what comes of that but the increase is a first and an overdue change from the Liberal National Party 10-year freeze on coal royalties at piddling 7% to 15% rates.   

The taxes and royalty being paid by mining, oil and gas monopolies are pathetic next to countries like Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and even the UK. 
Saudi Arabia charges royalties on production values at international pricing of 20% of the value of production up to a base level ($70 per barrel for oil), stepped up to 40% for the next portion of higher prices ($30), stepped up to 50% for prices at the next level ($100/barrel). At a 20% rate, the mining, oil and gas exporters in Australia would pay $93 bn in royalties alone.

The UK charges a windfall oil and gas profits tax when prices spike above historic standard rates. The UK Energy Profits Levy is charged at an extra 25 percent on top of the UK headline tax rate of 40% Corporation Tax. The rate of corporate tax on oil and gas enterprises in the UK is 65%. Here its nominally 30% but the tax paid is a small fraction of that. 

Make the rich mining, oil and gas corporate monopolies pay up. 

These monopolies plunder the nation’s natural riches. 

Their interests are currently decisive in the running of the country. They have no interest aligned with the welfare of the country, let alone the people, working people, First Nations, professionals and many small and medium businesses. 

Foreign-owned corporate monopolies have no right of ownership over the natural resources of the nation. 

The call to make them pay and use the funds to benefit the people is the least we can raise.

It has very widespread support, and greater support at a time when many people are doing it so tough. People need these changes. 

The working class can stand together to build working class power here against foreign-corporate monopolies, and bring forward others to join the front against foreign corporates.

 

 

 

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Communist Party of the Philippines: Expose and reject US-manufactured anti-Chinese hysteria

Written by: Communist Party of the Philippines on 17 June 2024

 

(Above: image courtesy of CPP website)

We are reproducing a June 15 statement by the Communist Party of the Philippines. The parallels with anti-Chinese hysteria manufactured by US sycophants in Australia are plain to see.  Here, a so-called “former spy for China’s secret police network” alleged on ABC’s Four Corners that there were 1200 Chinese spies targeting Chinese dissidents in Australia. In 2021, Australia's intelligence chief Mike Burgess, without naming India, said his agency had investigated a "nest of spies". Media speculation was allowed to run rampant with China and Russia thought to be responsible. When it turned out to be the Modi government, a key ally of the Australian ruling class, outrage was muted and media comment diluted. 

Like the Communist Party of the Philippines, we oppose Chinese social-imperialism, the imperialism it has projected after restoring capitalism but still claiming to be socialist. We hold both China and the US responsible for ramping up tensions in our region. But the man obstacle to a genuinely Australian independence is US imperialism. The US, not China, is the main source of the danger of war. The US, not China, is trying to drag us into another of its unjust and unwinnable wars. 
 

Let there be no place for attacks on the Australian Chinese community.

No US bases in Australia!

Smash the AUKUS arrangements!

...................

Communist Party of the Philippines: Expose and reject US-manufactured anti-Chinese hysteria

 
Marco Valbuena | Chief Information Officer | Communist Party of the Philippines
June 15, 2024

Synchronized and bank-rolled by the US State Department and Pentagon, officials and agents of the Marcos government, officers of the military, police and coast guard, senators and congressmen, corporate media, “think tanks,” some “civil society” groups, and social media mercenaries have recently ramped up their campaign to foment anti-Chinese hysteria and Sinophobia among Filipinos.

They fuel speculations and conjure stories of Chinese spies, sleeper cells, infiltration, hacking, and penetration, as part of the so-called Chinese “invasion playbook.” Marcos tops off the hysteria campaign with his “growing external threat” that clearly consider China as a hostile force.

This campaign hypes up valid concerns over overbearing tactics of China with regard Filipino fishermen, as well as criminal operations behind the POGOs (long supported by corrupt government officials of the Duterte and Marcos regimes). But this anti-Chinese hype has also come up with a slew of made up stories.

This campaign to stoke hate against China and the Chinese people is part of the US strategy to use the Philippines to heighten tensions and provoke armed confrontations in the West Philippine Sea. The US imperialists wants the Filipino people to consider China as their enemy, and obscure the fact that US imperialism is the primary national oppressor of the Philippines.

As in all its wars, from the colonial conquest of the Philippines, to its wars of aggression in Korea and Vietnam, to Afghanistan and Ukraine, the US imperialists manipulate public psyche to favor US military intervention and wars. This is pure and simple mass brainwashing.

This campaign to whip-up anti-Chinese hysteria in the Philippines is not new. A recent Reuters investigation exposed how the Filipino public became victims of a US Pentagon-funded campaign on social media to spread misinformation and cast doubts on the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine Sinovac. Hundreds of social media accounts were used by the US to influence Filipinos to favor vaccines made by US companies such as Pfizer and Moderna. This willful campaign of misinformation endangered public health and the lives of Filipinos amid the pandemic.

In the same way, the present campaign to whip up anti-Chinese hysteria is putting at risk the lives of the Filipino people and the country’s security. It is aimed at inflaming disputes between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea, which, in fact, have long existed and managed in a diplomatic way. This information war is being carried out by the US while heightening its military presence in the South China Sea and adjacent regions around China, with the aim of creating conditions for armed hostilities with its imperialist rival.

The Filipino people must repudiate this US-orchestrated anti-Chinese hysteria and reject the scheme to stoke war. They must vigorously demand that diplomacy, legal action and negotiations be carried out more robustly in line with the 2016 arbitral ruling along the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS). They must urgently call for dismantling Chinese military facilities in the West Philippine Sea, the withdrawal of all US naval forces, as well as all US military bases in the Philippines.

The Filipino people’s progressive and patriotic forces must consciously expose and fight the spread of anti-Chinese hysteria and Sinophobia. They need to persevere and be indefatigable as they are up against the disinformation machinery of the biggest imperialist power in the world. They must expose and fight the US-Marcos regime’s war-mongering and its rush to instigate armed hostilities with China, as part of the US imperialist plan to drag the Philippines to its conflict with China.

 

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Chinese presence remans in Solomon Islands despite Marles’ visit

Written by: (Contributed) on 17 June 2024

 

(Above; Marles in Honiara at Australian ad project.  Photo: Richard Marles MP Facebook)

Diplomatic statements invariably reveal far more than they contain; the recent high-level visit by Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles to Honiara proved no exception to the general rule. Timed to coincide with the establishment of a new Solomon Island's government, the diplomacy highlighted the strategic significance of the small South Pacific country for Australia's specific Cold War military and security considerations and general 'US interests'. 

Another important factor, however, was not an open agenda item, although it can be regarded as a serious consideration for Australian diplomacy following a recent US global directive to allies when dealing with relations with China.

In late May, Australian deputy-prime minister Richard Marles made a high-level diplomatic visit to the Solomon Islands to meet the incoming prime minister in Honiara, Jeremiah Manele. It was explained in an official media release as 'Australia seizes the opportunity for a relationship reset with the South Pacific's most pro-China nation'. (1) Diplomatic relations between the two countries have proven problematic following a decision by then Solomons' prime minister Manasseh Sogavare to switch from diplomatic recognition of Taiwan to China in 2019.

Subsequent high-level diplomacy between Honiara and Beijing included fears being raised in Canberra of China being able to move at random in the South Pacific country, which has long been used by Australian military planners as a base for projecting influence in the region. Traditional Australia-Solomon Islands diplomacy has been conducted along neo-colonial lines. The challenge presented by China has, therefore, been assessed as a serious problem for Canberra.

A diplomatic statement issued by Canberra noted 'it is a new government that has been formed there. We want to be there very much at the start to talk about how we can take our bilateral relationship to the next step'. (2)

While Canberra openly greeted the demise of the Sogavare administration, little, however, has changed, or will do so. The new Manele government is unlikely to change political course; Sogavare is also the new Finance Minister. A prompt media release from Honiara accompanying the high-level Australian diplomacy noted 'Australia and China as equally important partners for Solomon Islands … its security agreement with Beijing will remain'. (3)  

Elsewhere, however, another statement issued earlier noted the new government and 'its Look North policy, embraced by Manele, says the Solomon Islands' economic future depends upon China, rather than its traditional partners like Australia'. (4) It followed recognition that 'Manele is committed to maintaining his country's China-friendly policies … China is already deeply enmeshed in the country's political fabric'. (5)

The Solomon Islands is a desperately poor country; its 800,000 population live on six major islands, with over nine hundred smaller landmasses. Since achieving independence from the Australian colonial administration in 1976, little meaningful economic development has taken place since that time. Per capita GDP remains at about $600 pa, with more than 75 per cent of the population employed in subsistence agriculture.

The Solomon Islands is dependent upon foreign aid which, invariably, arrives with strings. Some of this is not considered particularly problematic by the Solomon Islands.

Serious studies have concluded 'the neo-liberal framework within which Australia has engaged with the region has not delivered optimal social outcomes. Why would it, given its track records? … Chinese aid is attractive to the Solomon Islands because it largely stays in the Solomon Islands; Australian aid does not … it … is a form of boomerang aid that simply returns to Australia … Australia was the largest direct recipient of its own aid funding'. (6)
   
Australia, therefore, has difficult diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands. In fact, it has been noted that 'Australia is at the cross-hairs of this big shift. It is frozen out by Beijing which is also making a power play in the Pacific islands … that's why the Solomon Islands matters … China has surpassed Australia in terms of two-way trade with Pacific islands nations'. (7)

Accompanying the recent high-level diplomatic visit from Canberra to Honiara, a brief media release was issued from Washington, about US foreign policy initiatives to deal with China. It contained information about the Biden administration raising tariffs on Chinese exports and a request that allies should do likewise to ensure the success of the US-led trade war diplomatic position. (8) Washington has embarked upon classic Cold War diplomatic initiatives 'as a critical way to isolate Beijing on the global stage'. (9)

Due to Australia's close diplomatic links with Washington, it would be almost unthinkable that Canberra would not also follow suit. It is obliged to do so with usual diplomatic protocol. 

The US agenda item did not, however, form part of the stated reason why Australia's diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands were seemingly being re-booted afresh, although would appear the main factor explaining why such a senior government figure travelled to Honiara: Marles, is also Minister for Defence, diplomacy is usually conducted through Foreign Affairs;

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Marles' diplomatic dash to Solomons, Australian, 21 May 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Ibid.
4.     PM hails new Solomon Islands leader, Australian, 3 May 2024.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Sub-Imperial Power – Australia in the International Arena, Clinton Fernandes, (Victoria, 2022), pp. 94-97.
7.     As the Solomon Islands heats up, SBS News, 28 November 2021.
8.     US seeks EU support in trade war, Australian, 23 May 2024.
9.     Ibid.

 

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Why we have a beef with capitalism…

Written by: Alan Jackson on 12 June 2024

 

(Above: Meat Industry Employees Union, 2007 Queensland Labour Day March. Photo by  David Jackmanson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

Do you remember the last time you saw the iridescent wings of a Christmas beetle bring in the summer? As much as I try to conjure the image or even the thought of the last time, I fall flat. In the younger years of my life, I remember them flying into my house in abundance. There were so many it was a normalised but appreciated event. 

Now their abundance has turned into its opposite, now I no longer see these harbingers of the summertime. What is the cause of this? Why is it that these beautiful, fluorescent scarabs have stopped showing? 

There’s a multitude of reasons with one root cause being the catalyst. What is this mysterious big bad? Capitalism! More particularly Capitalism and its destructive effects on nature and the exploitative agriculture practises it promotes in its procurement of profit. 

What other social, political and environmental effects does this haemorrhaging cause? 

What is one of the main drivers of deforestation in Australia? 

Looking through a report by Greenpeace, we will see that one of the worst contributors is cattle. Is this to say that cows are prancing on their cloven hooves holding our country at gunpoint? Absolutely not, that would be ridiculous. Although they are ‘cows’, the forces responsible are the multibillionaires and monopolies running this country to ruin for profit. 

Whether this is a conscious decision is irrelevant. The mere fact that they operate and exist in a Capitalist system forces them to exploit both land and people alike. 

Look at the main finds from the Greenpeace report. Some key findings from the get-go are “Australia… is the second largest beef exporter in the world behind Brazil. Beef cattle farming covers about 50% of Australia’s landmass, which explains the disproportionate impact of the industry on Australia’s forests and natural ecosystems.” (1.) 

In addition, “Approximately 30% of Australian beef is consumed domestically”. (2.) 

The report also tells us what companies are the main contributors. Those companies being Retailers – Aldi, Coles, Hungry Jacks, McDonalds, Metcash, Woolworths and Processors - JBS, Teys, Tyson and ComGroup Supplies. 

Those that are foreign multinationals, or tied to foreign capital, include:
Aldi -German
McDonalds – US
JBS – Brazilian (3.)
Tyson- US (4.)
Hungry Jacks – Australian/US (5.)
Teys – Australian/US (6.)

Startlingly put, Australia is undergoing a sustained, mostly hidden deforestation crisis of a globally concerning scale. WWF names eastern Australia among 24 global deforestation fronts, alongside places like the Amazon, the Congo and Borneo. This is because currently an MCG-sized area of forest and bushland is bulldozed every two minutes. This is killing tens of millions of native animals each year, while harming the land, polluting rivers and damaging the Great Barrier Reef. Australian deforestation also contributes considerably to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.” (7.) 

Many operations are centred in Queensland, the state I am from, that faces terrible bushfires yearly with one of the recent most devastating being the fires earlier this year and the bushfires of the 2019-20 black summer. For more see Vanguard Article – ‘For a United Front Against Fossil Fuels and Feral Species.’ (November 2023). 

The last devastating finding I’ll add is “This deforestation is occurring without state or Federal Government controls. In Queensland this is largely, but not exclusively, due to a loophole in the Vegetation Management Act 1999 that makes large areas of land previously cleared as exempt “Category X” land, even if the forest has regenerated to a healthy state and is home to threatened species. Meanwhile researchers have demonstrated that over the course of nearly 20 years the Federal Government has only assessed less than 10% of all deforestation under the national environment law.” (8.) 

Our reliance on the cattle industry results in us producing far more beef than needed for self-sustainability and leads to an overconsumption of beef socially pushed as a result. This puts us into the upper echelons of worldwide heart diseases, cardiac arrests and obesity worldwide. 

With our reliance on the cattle industry the myth of the Australian small farmer is invoked, the masses are appealed to in order to create a fake caricature of a true-blue Aussie farmer struggling on their farm instead of the reality of Corporations paying Migrants peanuts for labour due to their easily exploitable circumstance. 

A recent case was the horrible mistreatment of Chinese meatworkers in Australia’s Visa factories with one specific worker in mind bearing the scars, Wang. “The abattoir clock had ticked into overtime when Chinese meatworker Wang pressed his foot on a button to lower a platform to better cut into a cow carcass. Instead of gliding down, the platform shuddered to a stop and caused a tank of near-boiling water to spill over him. The next day, Wang turned up for work as usual: he did not want to disappoint his employer because soon he would become eligible for permanent residency in Australia. Months later, though, his body still in pain from the workplace accident, Wang found himself without a job anyway, his hope of a better life in Australia in ruins.” (9.) 

If you’re hoping for a happy ending there is none. “Wang is now back in China but is keen to speak out about his experience at Teys Australia’s Biloela abattoir in Queensland. He wants to tell Australians how vulnerable the migrant workers are who come to Australia to do jobs the rest of us shun.” (6.) Wang goes on to say “If you are Australian local people, you don’t have to worry about this. You have equal position with the factory like anyone else. We are poor people. We have no power when we talk with factory.” (10.) Links for more stories on the Migrant Workers plight for the right to work safely in Australia can be found below. (11.)

What stopped the Christmas Beetles? Insecticides, more particularly Imidacloprid and other terrible toxins known to cause ‘Insect Armageddon’ used to protect cotton. Who would’ve thought, inextricably linked to our terrible cattle practices are our cotton practices and with that our agricultural and industrial practices as well. 

This all comes down to Capitalism and its need for profit. With this need for profit, it will put all else before profit even the very thing that is making them profit whether they know it or not. 

Cattle can’t graze a land that is destroyed. The capitalists don’t care. Capitalists only think of profit in the quickest way possible. There is no time to grow trees that our children will see prosper under capitalism. We fell those trees so we can be comfortable, and our children can figure it out for themselves. This is not right. What is needed in Australia is the defeat of Capitalism and Imperialist domination. Economic freedom, self-sustainability, independence and Socialism is the only way we can be free of this turmoil. 

 

 

 

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European elections and dissolution: the fire of crisis consumes French bourgeois democracy

Written by: La Cause Du Peuple on 12 June 2024

 

Much has been made in the Australian capitalist media of the “swing to the right” in the French elections to the European Parliament.  They concentrate on the votes won by RN, the right wing National Rally, but not on the staggering rejection of the parliamentary charade as witnessed by the number of abstentions from voting. We reprint this translation from the website of La Cause Du Peuple in the interest of a better understanding of French and European sentiment -eds.

European elections and dissolution: the fire of crisis consumes French bourgeois democracy
June 10

The ‘European elections’ circus has played out its final act in France. The results are clear: like all the elections since Macron took over the presidency, the rejection of the electoral system (abstention, blank votes, invalid votes) is the big winner with 25 million votes. This is the historical tendency of the broadest and deepest masses in France: to reject the bourgeois state, its government, its system. That is the main lesson.

Bourgeois commentators dwell on the ‘historic turnout over the last 30 years’. They consciously forget that the European elections in France in 2019, 2014 and the 2000s had a ‘European’ character, i.e. the bourgeoisie incited the masses to go and vote in relation to the ‘European parliament’, this powerless instrument where 705 actors (MEPs) play tasteless parts for the benefit of the struggle and collusion between the imperialist powers of Europe and all the monopolies and their lobbies.

2024 was different: after the election of 2022 and the great year of revolt of 2023, in a situation of economic, social and political crisis, the European elections were used by the bourgeois parties, led by the RN and the presidential party, as a rehearsal for the confrontations to come at national level. That's why Prime Minister Attal debated with the RN. That's why Jordan Bardella, who received 7.7 million votes (15% of the electorate), i.e. 1 million less than Le Pen in 2022, immediately called for the dissolution of the National Assembly.

The results speak for themselves: the RN's victory means that its electoral base voted. It's not a meteoric rise. Bardella's popularity is only high because all the parties around him have collapsed. Macron's party has lost 1.5 million voters compared to 2019.

In 2017, Macron opened a period of political crisis in the French bourgeoisie by consolidating a new bourgeois party on the smoking ruins of the PS (Socialist Party - eds.). In his first five years, through his prime minister Édouard Philippe, he managed to bring LR (Les Republicaines-eds) to its knees. He took the king's share of the spoils and became the ideal standard-bearer for the French imperialist bourgeoisie. In 2022, alone against Le Pen, he was re-elected. Today, he is declaring the dissolution of the National Assembly.

The bourgeoisie as a class fights in parliamentary fractions: the interests of French imperialism are defended in common by the presidential party and the RN. These are two parties of the bourgeoisie. There isn't a fireman on one side and an arsonist on the other: they are both arsonists in the service of a reactionary state.

The bourgeois media and politicians are hungover today: how could Macron dissolve the government? What for? According to them, there is nothing logical about it. For the most Machiavellian, it would be a ‘political stunt’, a ‘risky gamble’. For the naive, Macron has simply ‘put the ball back in the people's court’ after the ‘shock’ of the European elections... which shocked nobody because the polls had said it all before the ballot box!

They ignore the reality of the class struggle in France and the process of reactionarisation of the bourgeois state. The bourgeoisie wants to stave off the crisis at all costs, and is prepared to accept any recomposition, any party in power, any regime, in order to maintain itself as the dominant class in the face of its inevitable decline and overthrow by the proletariat.

So to claim that Macron dissolved the National Assembly, one of the exceptional powers of the French president, ‘lightly’, is an outright lie. The only people who sincerely believe it are the outgoing MPs, from both left and right, who are slapping their legs and blinded by the loss of their privileges.

Le Monde revealed on 10 June that a cell had been working at the Élysée for several months on the dissolution. So it was a prepared plan. In France, the President, even with a minority in the Assembly, retains immense power. That's what the French bourgeoisie decided when it chose De Gaulle in the last century. Macron has thrown out the projects of the end of the five years (such as the thawing of the electorate in Kanaky (New Caledonia), which led to the great revolt of recent weeks, but also the end of life or the plans to reform unemployment) to get to the bottom of the crisis.

The early parliamentary elections he has called are not a campaign: with 20 days to prepare them, he is taking everyone by surprise, even the RN, which was calling for them in its speeches. It's a real electoral farce, pure and simple. After 2 years of circus in the Assembly, where the masses were able to understand what ‘parliamentary cretinism’ actually meant, dissolving it is no loss for Macron. If he wins the election with a coalition, he closes a period of recomposition and opposition and can prepare for 2027, which is the real next deadline. If he loses and the RN gets into government, it will move forward with the same reactionary plans, only more assertive, and it too will fail to avert the crisis: just as Meloni is failing at the moment in Italy. Reactionarisation will progress and the French imperialist bourgeoisie will contemplate, as it already does, its possibilities of stripping bourgeois democracy of its trappings during a crisis of regime.

As for the trumpets and bugles of the Left, they are miserable. They think that an opportunistic, unprincipled electoral alliance will bring the broad masses, the 25 million who have turned their backs on the bourgeois chambers and the polling booths, to vote for them. They want to make these ‘disappointed’ and ‘disinterested’ people feel guilty en masse. It's all a waste. In the decomposition of imperialism in which we live, the proletariat has only one policy: boycott the elections, prepare seriously for revolution.

 

 

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Can laws control cyber crime and disinformation?

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 June 2024

 

(Above: a screenshot from the home page of Israeli company STOIC,offering to create automated disinformation)

Draft legislation about fraudulent use of the internet and social media due to be introduced into the legislative process in Canberra over the next few weeks is long overdue. Australians have been targeted by on-line criminal elements and their associates for decades.

Other, related fraudulent use of on-line provision, such as Israeli firm STOIC’s work in spreading disinformation through fake social media accounts, has raised serious concerns about security-related matters and general interference inside political systems and espionage.

Draft legislation scheduled to be tabled in Canberra within weeks is set to bring the giants of the internet and social media to account and ensure they are legally liable for fraudulent and criminal activities, with compensation. The binding codes will impose strict obligations upon those who control provision. The draft legislation has followed revelations that Australians lost $2.74 billion last year in various criminal scams. (1) Social media giants including Meta, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will also be required to establish disputes resolution procedures for victims of scams to enable accountability. (2)

The rapid escalation of the problem remains evidence that criminal elements and their associates have been quick to seize upon opportunities opened with on-line provision. In 2020 it was officially reported that Australians had lost an estimated $851 million in scams, rising to $1.8 billion in 2021 and $3.1 billion in 2022. (3)

Australians appear to have been targeted by criminal elements and their associates based off-shore largely in Asia. (4) Recent revelations about sophisticated cyber-crime facilities on the Myanmar-Thai border where computer-based workers were 'being taught about Australian culture and social media uses of Facebook, WhatsApp and dating sites', leave little to the imagination. (5)

Recent disclosures from the German police, however, have shown how Australians have been targeted by other, European criminal groups. One criminal syndicate monitored by the German police found 34,000 Australians had been defrauded more than $200 million; a decision taken by Canberra-based Australian Securities and Investments Commission leaders continued to regard the information as 'for intelligence purposes only'. (6) Victims, therefore, were not officially notified by Australian government departments. Whether the failure to disclose information by ASIC was undertaken to not compromise those 'the regulator was looking at … individuals … based in Australia … who are believed to have assisted the scammers', or for other motives, has not been divulged. (7)

It is, however, the other, related problem of shadowy players accessing personal information for profiling which remains a serious concern.

Revelations the Andrews government in Victoria used vast amounts of personal data to run a secretive program for election purposes has raised a number of concerns with far-reaching implications. (8) The Melbourne-based administration appears to have been extensively involved in intelligence-gathering about voter opinions in the six weeks prior to the November, 2022, state elections. Questions appear to have arisen about the security of large amounts of data collected and whether it could be re-used for other, non-disclosed purposes.

Disclosures surrounding a shadowy, intelligence-type organisation based in Tel Aviv, STOIC, have, however, raised serious concerns about social media being programmed to mould public opinion about the present Israeli-Gaza war. Consisting of more than five hundred Facebook and 32 Instagram accounts in the US and Canada linked to more than two thousand further profiles, the social media facilities were praising 'Israel's military actions and criticism of radical Islam and campus anti-semitism'. (9)

The STOIC organisation appears to have actively targeted political parties, ministries and municipalities together with advocacy groups, public relations campaigns and lobbyists with the specific intention of moulding public opinion in favour of the Israeli government. (10)

While the official media release from Meta regarding their closing of the STOIC websites could find links with the Israeli government, the use of proprietary companies and business fronts is common throughout the so-called 'intelligence-community'. (11) The standard practice is used to distance governments and their intelligence organisations from controversy should embarrassing disclosures occur.

While the subject did receive some limited media coverage in western and Israeli media outlets, there was no official comment from either STOIC or the Netanyahu administration in Tel Aviv; diplomatic silence would appear the order of the day for those concerned.

It was noted, nevertheless, that STOIC was 'a political marketing and business intelligence firm … using their products nefariously to manipulate various political conversations on-line'. (12) It was also noted, furthermore, that the company provided 'models for tasks generating comments, articles, social media profiles, and debugging code for bots and websites … with fears about … covert social media campaigns'. (13) 

STOIC is also believed to have contracted out its services to support the Hindutva fascist BJP party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (14) The US-Canada operation was ordered and financed by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. (15)

Covert operations, invariably, have a long history linked to intelligence agencies and diplomacy; studies of the US intelligence services conducted by former agents concluded, long ago, that, 'the CIA's primary task is not to co-ordinate the efforts of US intelligence or even to produce finished national intelligence for the policy-makers. Its job is, for better or worse, to conduct the government's covert foreign policy'. (16)

 

The use of on-line provision would appear to have broadened the scope of intelligence-gathering for covert foreign policy and provided spooks with the ability to pry into the daily lives of the mass of the world's population. Intelligence agents now how little use for opening and reading correspondence to and from those assessed as 'people of interest'. Technological developments have led to past practices being superseded and others revolutionised with on-line facilities. (17)    

Information emerging from reliable sources has revealed the US National Security Agency (NSA) sought to use the internet from its earliest days of operation and that 'the NSA's attention shifted to finding ways to exploit the global reach of Google, Microsoft, Venizon and other US technical powers … including … monitoring cell-phones'. (18)

The tracking of mobile telephones and interception of calls has become standard practice with Australian government departments. A marathon fraud court-case in the NSW Supreme Court, for example, included 'some 130 hours of conversations between the six accused men, captured during tapped phone calls or by strategically placed listening devices … as part of their national investigation into the alleged payroll fraud'. (19)  

Problems, however, arise with the shadowy links between on-line criminal activity and that of official government departments and their intelligence agencies. They would appear blurred, to state the very least. The genuine concern for defence and security considerations and downright political muck-raking, likewise, is also blurred in the eyes of some actors, whether with officially sanctioned state or non-legitimate non-state categories.

Whether forthcoming legislation to deal with the problem is effective, therefore, remains to be seen.

In light of Australia's alliance with the US and their allies, including Israel, and the Five Eyes, it would appear unlikely, however, that any moves will be taken to disturb or interfere with existing 'US interests' and their intelligence-gathering:

                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     See: Fines over social media scams, The Weekend Australian, 25-26 May 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     AI helping hackers to scam better, Australian, 3 June 2024.
4.     Fighting Asian scammers, Australian, 30 May 2024; and, Billions stolen as Big Tech enables deepfake scams, Editorial, The Weekend Australian, 25-26 May 2024.
5.     Editorial, Weekend Australian, ibid., 25-26 May 2024.
6.     ASIC says hands were tied on scams, Australian, 5 June 2024.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Data security 'assured', Andrews team told, The Weekend Australian, 1-2 June 2024.
9.     Fake accounts of Israel tech firm deleted, Australian, 31 May 2024.
10.   Ibid.
11.   The CIA and the cult of intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John D, Marks, (London, 1976), pp. 162-181.
12.   Meta and AI say they disrupted influence operations linked to Israeli company, NBC News, 31 May 2024.
13.   Open AI says it disrupted covert influence operation by Israeli firm STOIC, The Times of Israel, 4 June 2024.
14.   Who’s behind the Israeli startup blacklisted by Meta and OpenAI?, Calcalist.com June 3, 2024
15.   Israeli influence operation highlights global disinformation industry, Cyberscoop.com, June 5, 2004
16.   The CIA and the cult of intelligence, op.cit., page 132.
17.   Ibid., page 121.
18.   The intelligence coup of the century, The Washington Post, 11 February 2020.
19.   Juror in $13m fraud case arrested, Australian, 6 June 2024.

 

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PNG: Wealth for Foreign Exploiters – Sweet FA and Destruction for the People

Written by: J. Clarke on 9 Jue 2024

 

Above: Opposition to sea bed mining in PNG. Photo Civicus.org

While the eyes of the world are focussed on the devastating tragedy of the Enga Province landslide in Papua New Guinea (PNG), it is timely to reflect on the environmental and development issues that foreign investment has brought to the country.

PNG is a country abundantly rich in natural resources. The Indigenous people have utilised these resources for their essential needs sustainably since their arrival in ancient times (estimated to be some 50,000 years ago and agricultural practices commencing around 7000BC).

On the other hand, with the arrival of Europeans and the accompanying colonisation, the exploitation of resources for profit rather than needs intensified with little regard to sustainability. In modern times, exploitation has intensified even more dramatically, resulting in severe damage to the environment.

What caused the devastating Enga landslide in which so many lives were lost? There are multiple reasons. Firstly, PNG is located on an earthquake zone, which creates the conditions prerequisite for landslides. In a nutshell the ground is loosened and water penetrates, creating something akin to a massive sponge. A deluge of rain can make the “sponge” release its contents, with devastating consequences for those living nearby.

The other reasons are man-made. You guessed it! - Deforestation by foreign companies acting to extract as much timber as possible in the shortest time for maximal profits, with little or no subsequent remediation work. There is no substantial vegetation remaining to hold the soil in place, so when a landslide occurs, its damaging effects are amplified.

Add to this, the effects of climate change – more storms, more intense rainfall, therefore more frequent and severe landslides.

Not much can be done about the natural causes (earthquakes) however the last two causes are preventable if a sustainable approach is taken. This will never happen under capitalism, but the people of PNG are valiantly opposing the activities of the foreign plunderers.

The volume of logging has consistently exceeded the target limits. The government appears to be doing very little to curb this. The people, with the assistance of NGOs, are putting pressure on the government to act. In response, logging companies threaten activists with litigation. This is despite the activists exposing not only the over-logging, but money laundering practises by the industry as well1.

An appallingly unscrupulous practice used by foreign companies to obtain access to land for logging is to illegally con traditional holders of customary land into handing the land over to them. As a result, a significant percentage of customary land has become permanently inaccessible to the traditional landholders. This land-grabbing is facilitated by corrupt government officials and others in PNG for selfish gains. (Corruption is rife in PNG, and it is estimated that up to 50% of the government annual budget goes missing as a result. Consequently it is a walk in the park for foreign companies to get what they want.) Such lands are then rubber-stamped as “Special Agriculture and Business Leases” under the Land Act. The categorisation as “agriculture and business” is a con in itself. Essentially it means all out logging.

The government copped a lot of flak from traditional landholders about this illegal land-grabbing practice and in 2014 the government promised to return the lands stolen in this way to their original owners. However, there has been limited progress in this direction. Further, compensation to traditional landholders for being deprived of the use of their land and the destruction of forests on these lands is yet to be agreed to.

Here’s another example of ruthless business practices which are enabled by corrupt government officials. A Malaysian company (actually a logging company) applied to set up the “Wasu Cattle Farm Project” and got the nod. Local people report that they have not sighted any cattle but that there is an awful lot of logging going on!

It is not only the forests that are being intensely exploited by foreign companies. PNG is rich in mineral resources and oil and gas – both on land and sea.

A case in point is the proposed Frieda mine project for the extraction of gold and copper. If it goes ahead, it will be the largest mining project in the history of PNG. The project will operate along the mighty Sepik River. The river traverses some 1100km and is one of the few remaining untouched large rivers on the planet. It provides sustenance, both spiritual and material, to the tens of thousands of people who live in traditional communities along its length.

The mine threatens all this and the people know that it will end their traditional way of life. They have seen it in other communities in PNG. Promises of benefits are made (schools, hospitals etc) but they end up losing everything, including their independence, spiritual life, links to their ancestors and sense of belonging.

The people of the Sepik want to avoid another Bougainville, but the communities are not taking this lying down and are currently organising to oppose the mine. Death threats have been received but people have stated that this river is so important to them that they will die for it.

The foreign corporations are not limiting themselves to mining the land, but also have in mind to mine the sea bed for minerals such as gold, copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese. Sea bed mining has not taken place anywhere in the world yet, due to insufficient knowledge of the environmental, social and economic consequences and the lack of laws to govern its practice.

The PNG government has placed a moratorium on sea bed mining until 2029. However, coastal people living in the vicinity of the proposed sea bed mining area have grave concerns that the government will not live up to its promise. The PNG government has its own vested interests in the project proceeding. The people living here practice their traditional way of life and rely on the sea as their main food source. They are already organising against this project2.

The people of PNG face the same enemy as other Indigenous populations the world over, threatening their traditional existence and the destruction of the lands which they have nurtured over the eons.

Whether it is in PNG, West Papua, Palestine or the First Nations people of Australia there is common ground for the struggle against imperialism and colonialism.

Oppressed people of the world unite!

The CPA (ML) supports the struggle of the people of PNG for justice.
The CPA (ML) supports the struggle of the people of West Papua for independence.

 

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Benny Wenda: West Papua’s path to liberation

Written by: Benny Wenda on 7 June 2024

 

(Above: In March 2024, a shocking video emerged of Indonesian soldiers torturing a West Papuan man confined in a barrel of freezing water. He was repeatedly kicked, punched and stabbed. )

Our near neighbours, the heroic and long-suffering peoples of West Papua, are continuing their fight for liberation from the Indonesian colonising regime. Their struggle has our ongoing support. We are posting a statement from May by their leader Benny Wenda – eds.

 

President Wenda: The United Liberation Movement for West Papua Agenda is West Papua’s path to liberation 
May 14, 2024 

On behalf of the ULMWP and the people of West Papua, I call on all our supporters to renew your support for West Papua and stand behind our agenda for independence: 

A) A visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; 

B) ULMWP Full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG);

C) An internationally-supervised self-determination referendum. 

The ULMWP has a clear agenda for liberation, and our solidarity groups have a vital role to play in helping us fulfil it. Our agenda has been democratically endorsed by the people of West Papua through the 2023 ULMWP Congress, the first people’s mandate the ULMWP has ever received. When you fight for our agenda, you are fighting for the West Papuan people.

Our solidarity groups, artists, musicians, filmmakers, journalists, lawyers, rugby players and other sportspeople, NGOs, Churches, academics, individuals and families, can help by rallying their representatives in Parliament to support a visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. As part of our new campaign for a UN visit, we have held meetings in the UK, EU, Dutch and Scottish Parliaments, and launched the Brussels Declaration directly accusing Indonesia of refusing the UN access. The call for a UN visit has gone up across the world, demanded by over 100 UN member states, including all member states of the Pacific Islands Forum, Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States, and the EU Commission.   

Since Indonesia first invited the High Commissioner into West Papua in 2018, over 100,000 Papuan civilians have been displaced by genocidal military operations. At least 1200 Papuans have died, killed by Indonesian soldiers or left to starve in the bush. Many of my people have been tortured or arbitrarily arrested. Indonesia gets away with its crimes with impunity partly because they hide West Papua from the world, banning journalists, NGOs, and international bodies like the UN. To force Indonesia to open West Papua to the world, we need to create even greater public pressure. Solidarity groups can be the voice of the voiceless people. Where we cannot speak, you must speak for us.  

We also need our friends in Melanesia to lobby their leaders and Parliamentarians to do more to support ULMWP full membership of the MSG. The ULMWP gaining full membership is an essential step on the road to peace and justice in the Pacific. Only as full members will we be able to sit across the table from Indonesia and peacefully discuss the status of West Papua on an equal footing. With the war criminal Prabowo Subianto soon to take office as Indonesian President, West Papua needs full membership to defend itself and expose Indonesia’s crimes. Full membership is our guarantee of safety from annihilation. 
Full membership would prove we are a responsible state-in-waiting, ready to manage our own affairs. Like our brothers and sisters in the FLNKS, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), or the Polisario in Western Sahara, we are a political organisation with a cabinet, constitution, and governing structure on the ground. We are ready to take control when our independence arrives.  

The ULMWP is not an NGO: we are not asking Indonesia for internal dialogue, to improve their democracy, or take better care of our forest. West Papua is not an internal matter. We state clearly that all violations of our human rights and environment are rooted in the fundamental and continual violation of our self-determination. Self-determination is the start and the end of our journey. Merdeka is the only answer to our situation.  

To Indonesia, we say that you have nothing to fear from West Papuan independence. We are not fighting to destroy Indonesian sovereignty but simply to reclaim the sovereignty that was stolen in 1961. Our sovereign state was declared that year and recognised by nations including Netherlands, UK, and Australia. It was taken from us and we are fighting to win it back. 

To our people back home, activists, women’s groups, church groups, Indonesian solidarity groups, the Alliance of Papuan Students and KNPB, I ask that you rally behind the ULMWP and the Congress resolutions. We need unity if we are going to defeat our enemy and reclaim our sovereign state. 

Thank you to everyone who has stood behind us in our anti-imperial struggle. Please continue to unite behind us, support our agenda, and support our independence. 

Wa wa wa. Papua Merdeka! 

Benny Wenda
President
ULMWP 

 

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We swim in a toxic sea of capitalism. But we needn’t drown: Humphrey McQueen’s powerful new pamphlet on Capital launched

Written by: Lindy Nolan on 3 June 2024

 

Marking our party’s 60th anniversary, Vanguard invited Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen to Sydney to lead a discussion of his new pamphlet, on Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’. 

The pamphlet’s cover ‘invites job reps and community activists to share insights from Capital into how we are exploited, how nature is plundered and how to put an end to both.’
Veteran comrade Lindy Nolan introduced the discussion.

We’re on Gadigal land, never surrendered, paying respects to all First Peoples for their sacrifices and ongoing resistance. May they grow in unity and strength.

Humphrey! Humphrey McQueen. I doubt there’s an Australian alive who’s studied Capital more deeply, or given more practical guidance from it. But thanking him means thanking Peter Curtis, for connecting us with this rebel with no phone or internet. Humphrey’s in person, so I’ll be relatively brief.

We swim in a toxic sea of capitalism. But we needn’t drown. 

To chart a way forward, we seek truth from facts, not from wishful thinking.

The struggle for communism in the world – and in Australia – is littered with mistakes, rich with lessons. And with inspiring victories. Vanguard and the CPA(ML) are 60 this year. We’ve just reprinted the party’s first book, also from 1964. 

Hogtied to capitalism

Emerging from the most bitter split in our movement’s history, a split destroying lifelong friendships and even families, EF Hill’s Looking Backward: Looking Forward, Revolutionary Socialist Politics against Trade Union and Parliamentary Politics, analysed collective errors, based on deep study of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao. The key was it analysed Australia. 

Hill proved that, despite working class support, Labor was a capitalist party. The left labelled him “sectarian”. 

Workers rightly hate when the left cannibalises itself.  We were all guilty, for the stakes were high, liberation or exploitation, destruction and endless wars for profit. But real sectarianism is separation from the people.

All of Australia’s left grouplets are growing now, but none of us is capable yet of leading a revolution. 

In 1964, Hill also challenged trade union politics, because while trade unions at their best teach workers that if you don’t fight you’ve already lost, and teach them to organise as a class – touch one, touch all – at best unions only win crumbs from the capitalist feast. Now more than ever, unions are hogtied to capitalism. Dialectically, new laws enforcing permanency, applied to those few unions like the NSW Teacher Federation whose members still elect its organisers and officers, now demand, once elected for over two years, members won’t be able to remove them.

Betraying workers for the new US boss

After WW2, the communist party here was over 20,000 strong.  Hill’s book also showed how the anti-Marxist, class-struggle-denying ideology of US “communist” leader Earl Browder gripped the Australian party, paving the way for our new best buddy to shove British imperialism aside, betraying the workers and allies who could have fought this new master.

We’re now little more than a US imperialist puppet. It holds the commanding heights of our economy, our military is a wing of US forces, its culture poisons Australian minds. 

It dominates through division and conquest, deception and force. What ever-diminishing peoples’ rights we still have, were won and defended in hard struggle.  

In 1964 Hill showed Australia was a capitalist dictatorship, with parliament its “democratic” window-dressing.

Examples are endless. 94% of Australians opposed the war in Iraq. Howard joined the US invasion. This week 30% of the NSW prison population is Aboriginal. If the laws, courts, police, military, jails are independent, above classes, why are the biggest criminals living in unimaginable luxury instead of in jail?

The ruling class chooses violence

Resistance is growing. Palestine opens ever more eyes to reality, of who rules, who benefits. Who in their right minds would choose violence, invasion, destruction of the planet? The capitalist class, over and over again. 

Mao Zedong said communists must be like fish in a sea of people, because it’s the masses who create revolutionary change, not small groups of likeminded people isolated in left blocs. We listen, take the ideas of the masses, collectively concentrate them into theory, take them back to the people to be tested in practice, in an ongoing spiral of learning for revolutionary change. Underpinning this, constantly enriched in struggle, are 170 years of Marxist theory. The voice of peoples’ needs demand action from Humphrey McQueen’s new pamphlet.

Marx said there’s no crisis capitalism can’t recover from, until workers and oppressed peoples organise to defeat it. US imperialism and its hangers on will never willingly surrender. If threatened, they will choose violence. 

Right now we need to listen, to study, to organise, to build the peoples’ forces in struggle, build a party steeped in humility serving them, like fish in as sea of people. Our party strives and organises to be one day worthy of the Australian working class and its allies. 

We’re glad Humphrey is a friend of our party.

Today we’ll listen and ask and collectively learn from each other.

My party had the good fortune to marginally contribute to the first version of this profound pamphlet for workers and community activists, then an extraordinarily skinny summary of Marx’s monumental three volumes.

This second bread and butter version launched today is far richer, collectively created from 14 years of group study in Canberra. Humphrey says The Communist Manifesto is poetry that begs to be read aloud. His new pamphlet is an epic poem, for understanding, for organisation, for liberation, for survival.

As Rosa Luxemburg wrote, the choice is simple socialism or barbarism.

 

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