QLD Election

On the face of things, the results from the Queensland state election on Saturday were nothing short of remarkable. The previously ruling Labor party were decimated, left with 7 seats in an 89 seat parliament, down from a total of 51 at the previous election. The conservative Liberal National Party picked up an unprecedented 78 seats, catapulting Campbell Newman into the premiership.

 The Labor Party had blown itself into oblivion shortly after the last election, announcing the privatization of vital state assets, most notably Queensland Rail. This left them completely and utterly indistinguishable from the LNP, and waiting for the eventual beating at the election. It was an interesting election for more reasons than one, foremost being the demonstration of the absolute bankruptcy of the ALP as a working class party, and subsequent punishment. Secondly, the fact that the majority of metropolitan working-class voters punished the ALP by voting LNP, demonstrates the stark disenfranchisement of the Australian working class. By the virtue of the LNP machine now having total dominance over the resource rich Queensland state, and the ALP having done their privatising dirty work for them, Queensland is now primed for even further imperialist penetration and domination. It would be unreasonable to expect the ALP to oppose this, which brings us to the next point of interest from the election.

Bob Katter's Australian Party managed 11% of the vote and took 2 seats in the parliament. While Katter and his party may hold some reactionary social positions, it stands in stark opposition to the neo-liberal agenda promoted by the ALP and the LNP. Their two MPs stand to be the real opposition within the Queensland parliament. It stands to oppose further imperialist penetration of the Australian economy, seeks to halt privatization and renationalise privatised assets and develop jobs and a sustainable economy through the development of a state-owned biofuel producing area in the canefields of Queensland. Significantly, Katter was the only MP apart from Adam Bandt to support the complete removal of political police targeting building workers. It is hard to agree with them on some points, but their success represents a genuine anti-imperialist sentiment amongst the electorate, and we must aim to work with this, educate and take this sentiment to a whole new level.

Enough!

When Hawke and Keating began to tell us about the wonderful opportunities that globalisation and economic
liberalisation would give us, one of the main selling points was the promise that we would become ‘the clever
country’ or ‘the knowledge nation’.That their economic programme would provide future generations with plentiful educational and training opportunities that would lead to equally plentiful highly skilled jobs. The way that the last twenty five years have unfolded has proven this to be a lie. Not only have our manufacturing and other kindred industries been stripped bare and our farmers sold out, but the very jobs we and our children were promised, the ‘clever country’ jobs, are now being cut.

Telstra recently announced that it is axing 255 highly skilled ‘clever country’ jobs and outsourcing them
to India. Adding insult to injury, the last act of these workers as Telstra employees would be to train the
new workforce. These sackings were seen as emblematic of the lies that we have been told about economic
liberalisation. In response to the wave of outrageous sackings, a community campaign called Enough! has been launched in defence of workers’ jobs, against casualisation, and to halt the march of privatisation and off-shoring of jobs.

A rally was held outside the Telstra building on Collins Street on the 25th of January. The lobby of the building was occupied by 25 union members and supporters relaying their position to the public and handing out leaflets in order to gain publicity before a two week vigil in Collins Square starting on the 6th of February.
The vigil was an unprecedented success, with the Enough! message receiving a great response from workers
who would normally not be exposed to such explanations of our current crisis.

The causes of the job losses at Telstra were linked to the 1000 jobs being cut at ANZ (right next door), and the 600 jobs in danger at Alcoa, amongst many other dire forecasts. Significantly, the problems being discussed were presented as a matter of national sovereignty and the need for Australians to have a much greater say in the way the country is run, rather than the current sham democracy we have in which many of the critical decisions are made in overseas boardrooms.

The only opposition to the campaign, tellingly, came from a small group within the left itself. These ‘super-
revolutionary’ groups commented that this was a campaign built on petit-bourgeois nationalism, and playing
to xenophobic sentiments. Such ideas are completely detached from reality, and the experiences on the ground during this part of the campaign proved that. Gradually the working people of Australia are learning that the issues that Enough! is raising are due to a complete lack of national sovereignty, and that there is no way these decisions are in the interests of the people. This was something that came across in conversations with working people during the two week vigil.

A further rally was organised outside the Telstra shop in the city on the 17th of February with speakers from
the CEPU and Enough! as well as Greens MP, Adam Bandt. The most heartening thing about the rally was the amount of Telstra and ANZ workers who found out about the rally during the earlier vigil and came along to make a stand. Different proposals for action were presented at the rally. There was strong support for taking the campaign to work places and communities where working people face the attacks on jobs and their livelihoods by the multi-nationals and imperialism. It is a material fact that most parliamentarians are lackeys of the imperialists and their agents in Australia. Parliament is there to administer imperialist rule in Australia. That’s why it will not look after the true interests of the people. Building a mass campaign on the ground is primary.

It was stated by Enough! that they would continue to build a movement to achieve greater sovereignty, greater
rights and a fairer, more democratic society for Australian workers, thus attempting to channel the voices of the voiceless. In the face of ever growing attacks on the working class by imperialism, emboldened by every job they manage to slash, every condition they cut and every promise they are allowed to renege on, the need for initiatives like this and the building of a stronger people’s movement just continues to grow.

Happy new year.

A big year is facing the working class and it's allies in Australia. As was seen in spotfires throughout 2011, such as the Qantas dispute (tied in directly with ambitions to shift Qantas into a foreign company), the big blue and eventual victory of the workers at the Baiada chicken plant in Laverton and finally to the lockout of workers at the Schweppes plant in Tullamarine, the imperial capitalist class is looking toward 2012 as the year in which they make even more open their intent to dominate the working class and indeed the majority of Australian society. So, in 2012, we must heed the words of the slogan of the old Builder's Labourers Federation: 'Dare to struggle, Dare to win!, if you don't fight you lose!'.

60 years since the defeat of the outlawing of the Communist Party.

It is now sixty years since the victory of the people against the most vicious attack on civil rights ever made by an Australian government. Menzies and his Liberal government proposed a referendum that would have banned membership of the Communist Party, made it a criminal offence. At first it appeared as if this referendum would get up easily, but fortunately, wide sectors of the community realised that this issue was about more than simply sticking it to the reds. This was an attack on everybody, this bill would have given Menzies (a man who had expressed sympathy for Hitler as late as 1938, some food for thought) the power to essentially outlaw any association or grouping he saw as subversive. Wide sections of the community mobilized into the broadest united front possibly ever seen in Australia, and in the end the bill was narrowly defeated. In the face of current attacks on fundamental democratic rights in Australia, through bodies such as the ABCC and with issues facing us such as the ever increasing imperialist domination of our 'democracy', there are many lessons to be learnt from the work of communists within this united front, and how it relates to our experience today. All Australian  Marxist-Leninists should take this opportunity to reflect upon the experiences of 1951, and think about what lessons can be gained from this. One of the ideas that flows out of this is that we need to establish the broadest unity we possibly can, beginning amongst ourselves. We nee to work closer on the issues that unite us, and focus on these, not the questions and issues that divide us.

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ETU Elections

The results for the Victorian ETU election are not too far away and this will be a short and sharp analysis. Dean Mighell and the Full Charge team have over the years been proven to provide greater representation and victories for their constituents as compared to interstate, all within the scope of independence from the ALP, the ingredient which other state branches do not bring to the table. This proves that it is not only possible to survive life outside of the pocket of the ALP, but that it is indeed many times better for workers. The Reconnect team is using independent rhetoric in order to confuse workers, but make no mistake, they are being funded by ALP heavies and industrial fat cats to bring the ETU away from militancy and back into the party line. They are using bald faced lies and hypocrisy to accuse the Full Charge team of corruption. I call it hypocrisy as the Reconnect ticket is built bringing back to the Victorian ETU the gravest form of corruption that afflicts most of the union movement in Australia, that of handing over member's union fees to the ALP, a party that outright opposes their interests and pursues a blatant anti-worker, pro-imperialist, pro-capitalist agenda. A victory to the Full Charge ticket creates an opportunity to espouse the advantage of militant, independent leadership to the broader mass of workers and create a movement for workers to take back control of their unions from the ALP and their associated lackeys.

Education under Capitalism

While I’m typing this article doubtless many VCE students will be furiously pounding the pen and paper in an effort to ace their mid-year exams, and I wish you all well in your endeavour to pull as high an ATAR as you possibly all can, in order to land yourself a plum degree/’job ticket’ and land a job post university. I do, however, regret, that the whole educational process as ordained by Western society, including the integral role played by exams, has sapped the education system (in particular the universities) of what should be its fundamental and absolute function, that being the quest for knowledge, learning and advancement. In the place of everything the education system should be, we currently have the complete anti-thesis of this, a network of  ‘degree factories’, where from early on students are moulded into all the different pawns that this overtly competitive society requires.

Right from the beginning, in primary school, students are taught the basics that are needed to hold down the most menial of jobs, without the slightest bit of attention paid to their emotional, artistic and broader cultural development, as of course, these qualities are not required and independent thinking and learning would simply distract students from the tasks at hand. The sorry state of organized sport as part of the curriculum at primary schools only serves to compound this. The further developed students are identified as useful and are sifted through into accelerated programs, whilst less able students are embarrassed and chastised as a consequence of poor NAPLAN results, while kids with developmental issues or lack of ability to cope with emotional issues, perhaps compounded by the nature of their schooling are slapped with the tag ADHD and are medicated into submission, in part to cover up the inadequacies of such as system in relation to such children. 

Once the ordeal of primary school is through, the student is pushed on into the great societal sorting factory that is secondary school. Here is where, through the examination process, the future administrators of society are sorted out from the plebs, and everything in between. Our erstwhile protagonist is forced in choosing from what may appear to be a broad spectrum of subjects, which in fact allow no room at all for independent though or learning. This enables generation after generation to acquire the skills to keep things going as they currently are and practically nothing else. A common phenomena is that of being frowned upon if a career path is not decided upon very early in the piece, thus perpetuating this culture of sticking on the straight and narrow and not indulging in what interests you but is not relevant to your pre-ordained path. A common tactic employed nowadays are SRC style committees, which simply provide a similar diversion to the great ‘democratic’ institution of parliament, which cunningly perpetuates the grand illusion that the direction of society is actually moulded by the broad mass of people, and not in the high-powered boardrooms.

Back to exams, if you do get the score you require, you will head to university presumably, where you will be exposed to another 3-5 years of the same bullshit being regurgitated over and over again, still no room for independent thinking, a period of intellectual monotony that essentially equates to a lengthy application process for a ticket to whore your fertile mind out to a system and it’s benefactors that don’t care for you, the just want to suck out what you’ve got to give intellectually for their own gain. Sure, you may end up quite ‘well off’, but in terms of using that fertile mind of yours, nothing will go on. Your superior mind will be used to perpetuate this vicious cycle for years to come.  Others above you will gain far more from this bondage than you, those who effectively hold your mind to ransom will be in excess of twenty times better off . But the universities are independent entities some may argue! A simple look at the big business interests that reign supreme on university boards are all that are needed to refute this dead duck.

All this, and the prospect of NOT getting what you want hasn’t even arisen yet! In all likelihood you will slip into a dead end job, which involves no intellectual reward, but instead hours upon hours of monotony in service of capital. You could potentially end up working in a bank, for example. The boss will promise you that if you work hard, and be persistent, you too can rise to the top! The objective fact is that, in spite of effort, only a small percentage can rise above the rest of the subordinates. You will spend your working days in service of such an institution, an institution which is, in a sad irony, an integral part of the society that coldly rejected you at exam time.

The same applies no matter where you work, no matter what situation you are in. The same interests that dig out our minerals and expropriate what wealth belongs to us all, the same interests that are in charge of the parasitic banks, the same interests that directly influence all government policy are one and the same as the interests that set the educational agenda. They seek out suitably capable minds to act as the effective ‘human computers’ of capital, to keep it running smoothly, while the rest are tossed aside on a heap, and the mansions of the rich are kept clean on the back of the surplus value they generate.

Such a stifling and inhibiting system cannot and will not be allowed to last forever.