John Passant

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Gillard's gender pay gap
Evidently Julia Gillard has the interests of working people and retirees at heart.  So I ask her to explain her role as Employment and Workplace Relations Minister and Deputy Prime Minister for almost 3 years in addressing the gender pay gap? Under Labor it actually increased to 18.2%. So apart from platitudes, what will Prime Minister Gillard offer to redress the imbalance and cut the gender pay gap to zero by 2013 if she is re-elected? Or could it be that such a policy would be too costly for her key supporters – business? So she will talk about equal pay for equal work but do nothing.  Add equal pay to the mining tax, climate change. WorkChoices Lite, the Australian Building and Construction Commission and many other examples of Gillard and Labor not being prepared to upset their real masters – the rich and powerful. (0)

The grate debate
I am  looking forward to the grate debate and the victory of the worm over the two grubs. (0)

The worm will win
My prediction is that the worm will win tonight’s debate, not the two grubs. Vote for the worm, not the grubs. (0)

Build a socialist alternative

Labor and the Liberals have the same policies on war, refugees, attacking living standards, cutting public services like schools and hospitals, screwing Universities and doing nothing about climate change. They both run the system for the bosses and their profits. It’s time for a real alternative – a socialist alternative of democracy where production is organised to satisfy human need. The first step in that process is fighting against the attacks of whichever party is managing capitalism for the bosses. Come along to hear John Passant from Socialist Alternative argue the case against capitalism and for socialism and why you should be a socialist on Thursday 22 July at 6 pm in room G 40 Haydon-Allen Building ANU.
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Refugees are welcome here
If a regional processing centre for refugees is such a good idea, why not set it up in Australia? With safeguards for refugees  like community housing rather than locking people up. (0)

The real face of the mining maggots
Remember those nice mining company people who opposed the Resource Super Profits Tax for purely altruistic reasons – the economy, their workforce, mine workers’ jobs and wages? Xstrata workers have gone on strike and set up a five day picket line to win a decent deal from these caring sharing bastards. (0)

Canberra meeting: Onine interview with Sherry Wolf

Canberra Socialist Alternative forthcoming public discussion:
 
Politics and LGBTI rights today: online interview with US activist and author Sherry Wolf
 
Thursday 8 July 6 pm Room G 31 Copland Building ANU 
 
Sherry Wolf is the author of Sexuality and Socialism, an American socialist and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Intersex rights activist. In her book Sherry argues that to see a world free of sexual oppression, it is essential that we get rid of capitalism. It is the politics of looking to the working class that is key to this, and she reminds us that “What humans have constructed, they can tear down”.
 
(0)

Equal pay for all women
Will Julia Gillard be paid 17% less than Kevin Rudd? Equal pay is the right of all women, not just bosses like Gillard. (0)

A sick system
Know how when you are sick you lie in bed on one side and then after a while roll over to the other side? Then after a little while you roll back again? But rolling around from one side to the other doesn’t cure the illness. Politics in Australia is like that. At the moment. (0)

An early election?
The Sydney Morning Herald today shows first preferences for the ALP up 14 percent to 47 percent after the leadership change. The Greens are down 7 percent. On a 2 Party Preferred it would be 55 to the ALP and 45 to the Opposition. On these figures Labor would romp home.  The Gordon Brown effect maybe? Gillard must be tempted to go very soon. Perhaps in August before the footy finals begin? ‘To legitimise my leadership and give us a fresh mandate’ no doubt. (0)

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War criminal Ehud Olmert welcomed in Canberra

Posted by John, November 27th, 2009 - under Australian politics, Ehud Olmert, Israel, Palestine, War crimes.

Former Israeli Prime Minister ordered the invasion of Gaza. He is a war criminal.

This is just not the ravings of a mad leftie like me. The UN Goldstone report found that Israel and Hamas had potentially committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

This is how Ian Black from the Guardian put it:

The development of universal jurisdiction has been boosted by the Goldstone report, which urged Israel to conduct an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes. Failing that, other governments were advised to try suspects using universal jurisdiction. Another option was for the UN security council to refer allegations to the international criminal court. Israel refused to co-operate with the report, which also accused Hamas of war crimes.

Universal jurisdiction just means that we could arrest Olmert and send him to The Hague for trial.

It won’t happen. 

The Australian Federal Police spent $8 million pursuing Dr Haneef for supposed terrorist links. Yet when a real terrorist like Olmert visits our shores they do nothing.

Australia voted against the UN motion accepting the Goldstone report.

As a colonial settler state built on the dispossession of the original inhabitants this is not surprising.

Just as we supported apartheid South Africa, also a colonial settler state, we have consistently supported Israel, another outpost of western imperialism built on the genocide of the original inhabitants, the Palestinians in this case.

That genocide is ongoing as the concentration camp that is Gaza and the expansionist settlements in the West Bank show.

So instead of leg irons, Olmert got a warm welcome in the Prime Minister’s Office in Parliament House on Thursday, in between a scrum forming for news of the Turnbull destruction.

Australia has a long history of not only welcoming the war criminal leaders of ‘friendly’ nations – think George Bush – but of supporting the activities of the dominant imperialist power with our own troops to protect the insurance policy that is the Alliance.

Arguably every Australian Prime Minister since the second world war is a war criminal or has been a party to crimes against humanity.

Our support for war criminals, and our own war crimes, are not going to disappear even if we elect men and women of goodwill. As Barack Obama shows, that strategy just replaces one hated war criminal with a less hated (or even loved) one.

Our support for war criminals and ongoing invasions around the world is systemic. It arises from the nature of Australian capitalism in the region and the world.

Only a radicalised democratic mass movement of working people can overthrow the barbarism that is Australian capitalism and end our leaders’ war crimes.

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Comments

Comment from Arjay
Time November 27, 2009 at 9:09 pm

Obama will soon head the UN Security Council.It is against the US Constitution that their President hold a foreign position that could compromise his dedication to the US people.

Obama has failed to rescind the patriot act,Bush’s Presidential orders and habius corpus.

The US is one step from being a totalitarian state.We are following in their footsteps.Why should we not welcome Ehud Olmert?

Pingback from All In One Information » En Passant » War criminal Ehud Olmert welcomed in Canberra
Time November 27, 2009 at 10:11 pm

[...] here to read the rest: En Passant » War criminal Ehud Olmert welcomed in Canberra This entry is filed under History, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the [...]