The first National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members meeting called after the cuts were announced (at the end of last year) had a record 580 union members at it! On the first day of O-week, as the festivities kicked off, staff assembled in the rain in front of Fisher Library to hear speeches and marched defiantly through the centre of the O-week activities.

The following week, a mass rally of over 700 was held under the vice chancellor’s window, loud chants and cheers echoing through the Quad. The next rally, attended by about 1500 staff and students, was the biggest at Sydney University in years. On the day the final notices were sent out, hundreds again turned out and marched defiantly through campus and onto the street. Students occupied spaces in the Quadrangle, and continued to show support for the staff facing an attack on their livelihoods. At the last demonstration, the police, called onto campus by the VC, acted like thugs against a small number of students who tried to get into one of the buildings.

But despite large mobilisations, and mass meetings of hundreds of angry staff members, the vice chancellor is continuing with the program of cuts. As of Monday 7 May, a total of 110 academics have either been given redundancies or teaching-focused contracts. In addition, a number of others have been forced onto early retirement contracts.

Throughout the campaign, there have been debates within the union about the strategy that can win. Officials of the union have argued again and again that Fair Work Australia (FWA) will help us. They argued that the university has contravened the enterprise bargaining agreement by applying unfair retrospective criteria to sack academic staff. By this logic, the bosses’ court should see that we are morally correct and therefore stop the process. Instead, Fair Work ruled that the consultation process suggested by the VC was inadequate and therefore should be extended. This bought the union some time, but proved in vain. As the extended consultation period expired, it was clear the VC intended to go ahead with the cuts.

As chair of the campaign committee and one of the general staff of the university, I have argued that Fair Work would be a dead end. This is not only because it ignores the 200-odd general staff also facing the axe, but that the history of FWA has shown us whose side they are on. Recently, FWA ruled that Qantas workers had to end their industrial dispute and ordered the Australian Nursing Federation in Victoria to return to work. Indeed, the fact that FWA ruled to merely extend the Sydney University consultation process demonstrated they thought the cuts were legitimate and fair enough, and that only the process was lacking.

Our only hope lies with mobilising rank and file members and, ultimately, taking industrial action. The VC will only listen if the university’s functioning is disrupted and the bottom line is challenged. Such mobilisations did occur, despite much feet-dragging and arguments from some that smaller actions were just as worthwhile and that members would tire from having yet another rally. At meeting after meeting, union members have voted to continue the mass rallies. However when talk of industrial action was raised, officials of the union have sought to shut down any serious debate.

It is worth mentioning some of the history of the NTEU. It is now quite a few years since the NTEU at Sydney University has taken industrial action. During the last enterprise bargaining period, a strike was called and overwhelmingly voted on by members. But the day before the strike the union leadership called it off, branding a victory the fact that the VC had agreed to a pay increase and other demands. The momentum that could have been used to get an even better outcome and raise the confidence and consciousness of staff was not seized upon.

Furthermore, the anti-union laws of Gillard’s Fair Work Act stipulate that workers cannot take lawful industrial action outside a bargaining period. But while the NTEU is not the kind of militant union likely to be in the forefront of breaking these laws, we have missed the opportunity to even talk seriously about the importance of legal industrial action. We need to start preparing now for industrial action when the next round of enterprise bargaining begins next month, and linking the need to do so to the attacks we’ve already faced from management.

Instead the NTEU leadership on campus seems to want to wind down the No Cuts campaign. The response of the officials has been to celebrate the announcement that “only” 23 staff will get forced redundancy notices, and ignore the other dozens who’d been forced onto teaching focused contracts, or had already succumbed to the pressure to take “voluntary” redundancy or early retirement. While the campaign so far has put management on the defensive, now is the time to keep up the pressure, and not paint the gains we have made as a final victory.

In discussions about taking legal industrial action around the new agreement Michael Thomson, the president of the union branch, reassured us that there’s a difference between a dozen staff getting redundancies and a hundred – implying that it wouldn’t be worthwhile continuing the campaign if a smaller number of staff were targeted. When challenged about the looming 200-odd job cuts facing general staff, the response of the officials and some members of the branch committee has been that the approach to getting rid of general staff will be “different”. By this they mean that general staff will be let go “locally”, therefore the union need not worry about defending them. So much for the slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all”.

Overall, rank and file activists have been angered by the attacks of the Sydney University management, and in mobilising in their hundreds throughout the semester have shown a willingness to fight. A committed core of activists has consistently put in hours of work to build the rallies, meetings and actions. Staff from various departments painted their own banners, wrote articles and passed motions in local meetings. They have participated in debates and campaign meetings.

Unfortunately, there have been times where NTEU leaders at Sydney Uni have argued that members should not be trying to influence the direction of the union’s campaign. But rank and file activity is the bread and butter of a good union. That means we need more debate, not less, to make decisions to protest or strike and involve more members. These ideas of rank and file activism and militancy as the lifeblood of unionism have to be nurtured and rebuilt.

At the end of 2011, workers at the Baiada chicken factory gave Australian workers a lesson in old-school union struggle. They bravely held a 24-hour picket line for 13 days, letting nothing in and nothing out. They managed to win a pay rise, safer working conditions, and the right of union representation amongst other demands. The workers at Baiada, many of them casualised, migrant women in extremely precarious work conditions, showed unionists across the country the way to win.

The experience we’ve had at Sydney University shows how quickly the mood among workers can shift. From a place that’s often been respectable and quiet, we’ve seen a serious and defiant campaign emerge within a few short weeks. Union membership grew as the campaign spread and new layers of members were involved in activity. In a period where workers across the world are facing austerity and attacks on their living standards, strong unions will need to be rebuilt everywhere to face the coming challenges. The campaign at Sydney University has been a step in the right direction.

Alma is Chair of the NTEU Campaign Committee at Sydney University.

Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan as Lenin and Trotsky? Give me a break.

Is Clive Palmer and the tin foil hat brigade devising the strategy for Murdoch’s newspapers and the Opposition?

Working class war? The facts are rather different. As Des Moore from the Institute for Private Enterprise points out in Wednesday’s Financial Review, Swan’s budget is the most contractionary in Australia’s history and the reduction in real expenditure the largest ever. 

Are Clive Palmer and the rest of the tin foil hat brigade devising the strategy for Murdoch’s newspapers and the Opposition?

We are entering or more precisely are in the age of irrationality as the last defence for capitalism and vested interests and the rotten consequences of the way the system is organised. Billions are starving or malnourished; living standards are under fundamental and sustained attack across much of the developed world; wars are waged for lies, killing millions.

The media and politicians have an antagonist and cooperative relationship. They are parasites feeding on each other.

That close relationship is highlighted by David Cameron employing Andy Coulson, former editor of British Murdoch paper News of the World in 2007.  Coulson resigned in January this year from Cameron’s staff.

At the Leveson enquiry he admitted he had £40,000 of News shares while working for Cameron but denied there was a conflict of interest. Cynics might say that is true since the interests of Government and News did not conflict. Coulson also denied he had been appointed by Cameron to influence Murdoch in his coverage and denied that part of that influence buying involved smoothing over a deal for Murdoch to buy BSkyB.

That is a question now swirling around Cameron himself.

Cameron is not the only Conservative politician to appoint a former Murdoch employee to their staff. Here in Australia Oppositon leader Tony Abbot has appointed a former News Ltd operative.

Let me quote a report in the Australian Financial Review on Friday 10 May.  ‘Creina Chapman, the long term regulatory affairs brains of the company [News Ltd - JP] has been poached by Tony Abbott and will join his staff as a senior adviser.’  (Joe Aston, Rear Window, The Australian Financial Review Friday 10 May page 56.)

Others have described her as a News Ltd corporate affairs manager.

So her trajectory seems to have been the Liberals, PBL, News Ltd and now the top Liberal and next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.

According to a 2010 Mayne Report in Crikey Creina Chapman was a former Phillip Ruddock staffer who was advising Richard Alston on IT when she landed the gig of manager, regulatory & corporate affairs at Kerry Packer’s PBL. 

That appears  a little out of date because IBT reports she joined News Ltd in 2007 from PBL.  She was the contact person for the right to know coalition, a group that according to David Salter in Crikey was a News Ltd stunt (involving other media owners and outlets too). Creina was and is listed as its contact.

No doubt former News Ltd employee Creina Chapman is the best person to be appointed a senior adviser to Tony Abbott. But shouldn’t the Opposition leader be subjected to some serious questioning about this? Who could do that? Oh I dunno, maybe Greg Sheridan from The Australian when he is next out for dinner with Abbott?

MARRIAGE EQUALITY was back at the center stage of national politics last week when President Barack Obama said in an interview with ABC News that he thought “same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Obama’s statement was greeted by a deluge of praise from organizations and individuals that support LGBT and civil rights, including the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, National Council of La Raza and ACLU.

According to the HRC’s Joe Solomonese, “Thanks to President Obama’s leadership, millions of young Americans have seen that their futures will not be limited by what makes them different.” Playwright Tony Kushner told Democracy Now! “[I]t’s incredibly moving to see the president of the United States–in my opinion, a great president–becoming the first president to say that same-sex couples…should have the legal right to marry. I’m very proud of him, if that’s not a silly thing to say.”

Obama’s reelection campaign instantly moved into action to capitalize on the announcement, featuring a quote from the interview prominently on the front page of its website and posting ads to Facebook urging supporters to donate to “help President Obama keep fighting for LGBT rights.”

The statement understandably energized many supporters of LGBT equality who hope this means the Democrats will finally get off the fence on this issue. And since one of the right’s favorite myths about marriage equality is that African Americans are generally hostile to it, Obama’s words may help fix that misconception.

But something more needs to be said: Barack Obama doesn’t deserve the praise he’s getting–nor the credit for “fighting for LGBT rights.”

Obama isn’t being a “leader” on the issue of marriage equality, as some supporters claim, but a latecomer. His position only “evolved” to an open statement of sympathy after opinion polls showed it was a politically safe position among a large majority of the population outside of conservative Republicans.

That sea change in public sentiment was driven not by politicians, but because masses of LGBT people and their supporters spoke up and took action. Their position on what ought to be considered an elementary right hasn’t “evolved,” and they have good reason to be frustrated when supporters of the Democrats claim that Obama is making a “courageous” statement.

Nor should we forget the damage that Obama did to the cause of marriage equality by remaining silent at best during his campaign for the presidency and his time in office so far–up to and including the successful effort that led to the passage of an anti-gay marriage referendum in North Carolina last week.

And supporters of LGBT civil rights and equality should also take a close look at how Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. He didn’t vow to take any action on the issue. In fact, Obama insisted that he was only stating his personal beliefs, and that he still thinks same-sex marriage is an issue for states to decide–like North Carolina just did, apparently–not the federal government.

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OBAMA’S STATEMENT on national television that he personally supports same-sex marriage is, of course, historic. It represents a break from the attitudes and actions of the White House over many decades.

Ronald Reagan refused to even use the word AIDS until 1987, after thousands of mostly gay men had died in a crisis devastated the LGBT community. In 1989, George H.W. Bush refused to acknowledge the NAMES Project AIDS quilt laid out on the National Mall.

In 1996, Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, allowed states to ignore the validity of same-sex marriages performed in other states, and denied federal benefits to same-sex married couples. When Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to allow same-sex marriage in 2004, George W. Bush called for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual institution.

And then there’s Barack Obama, who, as a presidential candidate in 2008, said, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman”–and whose Justice Department went to court to defend DOMA.

In fact, Obama’s position on same-sex marriage has evolved…back to what he said he believed 15 years ago. In 1996, during his first campaign for state Senate in Illinois, Obama wrote in a letter to an LGBT magazine: “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight any effort to prohibit such marriages.”

But when he ran for U.S. senator in 2003, he changed his position, saying he would oppose repealing DOMA and believed marriage must be between a man and a woman. As his presidential campaign was getting underway in 2007, Obama “evolved” a little more, stating that he now thought DOMA should be repealed, but still opposed same-sex marriage.

Obama’s decision to revert back to support for marriage equality today is an easier position to take given the vast shift in public opinion during Obama’s political career. In 1996, national Gallup polls showed just 27 percent of people supported marriage equality. Last year, polls found for the first time that a majority of respondents believed same-sex couples deserve the right to marry.

More importantly for Obama and the Democrats, two-thirds of people who call themselves Democrats and 57 percent of self-described “independents” support marriage equality. In other words, among base supporters of the Democratic Party, and even among the “swing voters” that the Obama campaign obsesses over, there is strong support for marriage equality.

This shift in public opinion is the hard-won result of years of activism at the local, state and federal level–and, more broadly, the willingness of LGBT people and those who support them to speak up in all kinds of settings, personal and public, against discrimination and bigotry. In fact, the tide of support might be even greater if leading Democrats like Obama hadn’t treated marriage equality as a political football, rather than the fundamental civil rights issue it is.

Obama and his advisers also know that his statement of support for same-sex marriage will energize supporters, despite the three-and-a-half years of disappointment about the behavior of the Democrats, even when they had a majority in both houses of Congress. For certain, the announcement resulted in a campaign donation bonanza.

The Obama campaign reportedly raised over $1 million in the first 90 minutes after news broke about his “change of heart” on marriage equality–and the day after the interview was broadcast, Obama raked in $15 million at a fundraiser hosted by George Clooney. Previously, many pro-LGBT funders had threatened to withhold donations when Obama refused recently to issue an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees.

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SUPPORTERS OF the Democrats shouldn’t be so quick to forgive Obama. His previous anti-marriage equality position has had lasting consequences.

On the night Obama was elected in 2008, the Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban passed in California by a narrow margin. Supporters of Prop 8 used Obama’s statement about marriage being between a man and a woman in advertisements promoting the ballot measure. Not only did the Obama campaign stay silent about the pro-Prop 8 propaganda, but the Democratic Party establishment failed to build opposition that could have shifted the vote.

The same thing happened in late 2009, when Maine voters passed a referendum repealing legalized same-sex marriage–and again this year with the anti-marriage equality referendum in North Carolina. In fact, Obama has already made several campaign appearances in North Carolina this year, but he didn’t say a word against the anti-LGBT referendum.

After taking office in 2009, Obama did nothing to get DOMA overturned. On the contrary, the Justice Department defended the law in federal court–in a brief filed by federal lawyers compared same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia. The Justice Department only stopped defending DOMA last year.

This pattern showed up on other issues–like repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on LGBT people serving openly in the military. Obama refused to use an executive order to end “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Even after Congress passed a repeal bill at the end of 2010, the Pentagon, supposedly under Obama’s command, continued to enforce the ban–only stopping when a federal judge ordered it to in the summer of 2011. When “don’t ask, don’t tell” was finally ended, more than 80 percent of people in the U.S. supported its repeal.

Supporters of the Democratic Party will credit Obama as a fighter for LGBT equality, but the real credit belongs to the tireless efforts of advocates and activists for LGBT rights over the years, as well as the bravery of millions of LGBT people who have come out to family, friends and coworkers, and who have spoken up against discrimination.

Obama might never have said a thing about marriage equality or DOMA or “don’t ask, don’t tell” if not for the tens of thousands of people who got active following the passage of Prop 8 and organized grassroots protests in California and around the country–culminating in more than 200,000 people descending on Washington, D.C. in October 2009 for the National Equality March to demand full federal equality for LGBT people.

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NOT ONLY is Obama late to the game when it comes to marriage equality, but he undercut his stand by saying it should still be the right of states to decide on the issue.

As columnist Dan Savage pointed out, the ABC News report about Obama’s interview included a “straddle”–according to ABC, “The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own.” “So,” Savage wrote, “the president supports same-sex marriage while also supporting the right of states to ban the same-sex marriages that he supports.”

The idea of state’s rights, of course, has been used to defend many reactionary policies and institutions of the past–like Jim Crow segregation, which had to be overturned by the federal government over the opposition of the Southern states.

Until the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, for example, it was still legal for states to outlaw interracial marriages. No one would claim the struggle against this racist injustice was complete while states could still “decide” on the legality of such marriages. The same should be true about same-sex marriage.

Thus, Obama’s statement that marriage equality should be left up to the states raises questions about the consequences of his “change of heart.” For example, one of the main planks of DOMA is that states can choose to ignore the validity of same-sex marriages performed in other states. So what does Obama think now about repealing DOMA–something the Democrats promised in 2008, but failed to accomplish, even when they controlled both houses of Congress with strong majorities?

This position also puts Obama at odds with the current legal case against Proposition 8. Lawyers challenging the referendum say the right to marriage for same-sex couples is guaranteed by the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment, which states that “no state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Obama has taken a long-overdue step by returning to his previous position of personally supporting marriage equality. Activists may be right in hoping the statement will make it harder for Democrats to back away from future action in defense of equality.

Another positive consequence is that Obama’s statement will help to challenge the myth that African Americans are generally hostile to same-sex marriage. Polls show that public opinion in the Black community has shifted from two-thirds opposed to roughly the same level of support as the U.S. population as a whole.

Still, we shouldn’t forget that Obama left a loophole in his statement with his talk about the rights of states to decide the question.

And most important of all, we should challenge the idea that Obama led the way in this struggle. In reality, he was dragged into saying (mostly) the right thing–thanks to the actions and arguments of supporters of LGBT equality everywhere.

 
Massive School of Music Protest: ‘Ian Young Needs To Face The Music’

Nearly one thousand students, staff and members of the Canberra arts community gathered in Union Court today to protest proposed staff cuts and curriculum changes at the Australian National University School of Music writes Nakul Legha in the ANU student newspaper Woroni.

A motion was unanimously passed and presented by student representatives to Deputy Vice-Chancellor (and Acting Vice-Chancellor) Professor Lawrence Cram demanding the proposed changes be withdrawn immediately and condemning “the short-sighted financially-driven attitude displayed by the University.”

Before the main rally, music students played music at various spaces on campus, culminating in a “Protest Jam” which saw students join a brass marching band in Union Court. Staff and onlookers joined the improvised performance and lent their voices to chants of “Save our School”.

In a passionate address to the rally, Stephen Darwin, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) ACT Divisional Secretary, said: “What has become of the ANU when we have to convince the Vice-Chancellor that the best music school in Australia should stay?” He expressed disappointment that the University would view “the most incredible talent [as] disposable for the sake of a debt.”

Mr Darwin criticised the University’s emphasis on financial stability, arguing “University is not about surpluses” and that “Ian Young has to stop being an intellectual book keeper”. He argued “The people here today are here for the University; they’re not here for the surpluses…and they’re not here to fight for mediocrity.”

Mr Darwin claimed Ian Young’s future leadership of the ANU would be “doomed” if he did not back down from the cuts. “Nobody will respect his leadership”, he said. Mr Darwin also made reference to the Vice-Chancellor’s actions in delaying proposed $40 million cuts following another set of protests, arguing: “The time has come for Ian Young to back down. Again.” 

The NTEU has formally lodged a dispute arguing that the University has breached its Enterprise Agreement with staff. “Treatment of the staff has been a disgrace”, said Mr Darwin.

Mike Price, a senior School of Music faculty member since 1990 and member of the School’s Executive Committee, questioned the veracity of the University’s figures in its assertions that the cuts are necessary given the  School’s alleged $2.7 million deficit. He alleged that the Executive Committee had never seen the proposed curriculum restructure plans, even though the University claims that the proposals have been drafted over several years.

ACT Legislative Assembly members, Caroline Le Couteur (Greens) and Vicki Dunne (Liberal), both spoke about the importance of the School to music and culture in Canberra, and emphasised the role it plays in contributing performers to the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the Canberra International Music Festival. “The community and legislature is behind you”, Ms Le Couteur said. Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has said the ACT Government is not in a position to increase the annual funding from the $1.4 million presently given to the School.

The motion, presented by ANU Students’ Association Arts faculty representative Jack Hobbs, demanded that the University “commence genuine discussion to reach a performance-learning based solution.” A petition condemning the cuts has received 18,839 signatures and will be presented to Chancelry.

The protestors concluded today’s rally with a march to Chancelry and another jam on the lawns outside.

You can find Woroni’s photos from today’s protest on our Facebook page here: http://on.fb.me/Jbeh7U

Readers might also like to have  a look at Music school sackings just the start of ANU VC’s attacks.

The highlight of the vote was the result for the Coalition of the Radical Left–known as SYRIZA, by its initials in Greek–an alliance of left-wing parties and organizations, both reformist and revolutionary. SYRIZA finished second on May 6, ahead of the center-left PASOK party that controlled the government until late last year, and close behind the main conservative party New Democracy (ND). ND was unable to form a coalition that could command a majority in Greece’s parliament, and so SYRIZA has been given a chance to do so. But SYRIZA spokesperson Alexis Tsipras insists that the next government in Greece must reject the austerity measures that have caused so much harm.

This election is the first time the people of Greece have had a chance to vote on the policies instituted in the wake of Greece’s debt crisis. The savage cuts in public spending, wage cuts for public-sector workers, privatization drive and other austerity measures are conditions for an ongoing financial bailout engineered by the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Austerity has caused a devastating crisis in Greece. But the so-called “troika” and its backers on Wall Street and in powerful governments like the U.S. want even more cuts, and the economic and political elites of Europe and the U.S. are warning of dire consequences after Greece’s election results.

The Greek socialist group Internationalist Workers Left (DEA, by its initials in Greek) helped to found SYRIZA in 2004. In this editorial from the group’s newspaper, DEA celebrates the victory for the left on May 6–and looks at what comes next.

What they mean is that not cutting company tax rates by the promised one percent, yes one percent, and instead spending the money on working class and other families is class war. 

Oh and cutting back the tax concession of 30% that those earning more than $300000 a year – one percent of taxpayers - to 15% is also class war.  

What this ‘analysis ‘ misses is that there has been class war going on for the last 30 years – a one sided class war which has shifted wealth to the rich at the expense of the poor and working class. Inequality has skyrocketed in Australia.

This is all driven by falling profit rates across the developed world since the late 60s and early 70s so that now the profit rate is about half what it was in those halcyon days. Capitalist governments – both Labor and Liberal – have responded by among other things cutting taxes on capital.

This is not about freeing up entrepreneurship or letting the ‘job creators’ create jobs or whatever other bullshit the apologists for capitalism come up with. It is about making sure more of the wealth workers create goes into the hands of the bosses.

There is no guarantee however that they will reinvest and ‘create’ jobs.

Much of the reinvestment of the past decade went into finance arrangements, things like collateral debt obligations and other synthetic debt arrangements.

These are not about creating wealth but about shifting it around among the parasites who live off our labour – the band of hostile brothers that Marx supposedly talked about.

They are all in there fighting for a share of the surplus we have made – the state, productive capital, finance capital, landlords. But all are ultimately dependent on the extraction of surplus value for their existence and survival so they cannot in normal circumstances take action that threatens or often even impinges very much on the extraction of that surplus by productive capital from workers.

So for 30 years the trends in the one sided class war have been clear – dramatically fewer strikes; the criminalization of striking and protest; a massive shift in wealth to capital and the rich from labour; less spending on public services like health, education, transport, little spending on addressing climate change; war and more spending on it, and increasing ruling class sponsored xenophobia, racism and homophobia to distract us from the realities of capitalism.

Overseas, Barack Obama has came out in support of gay marriage. So too has conservative Prime Minister John Keys in New Zealand.

Julia Gillard thinks supporting same sex marriage will lose her votes among blue collar workers so she opposes it.

If there is one principle Gillard and the rest of her motley Labor crew have it is to be in power at all cost, including not having any pretence of principles. They rule for capital. So they won’t support equal love because it is a convenient weapon of division among workers.

What else has been happening?

Craig Thompson and Peter Slipper are miring the government in it and reminding voters why you can’t trust them. Even if the two are eventually exonerated the stench of the caked on shit is reaching all the way to heaven.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama is killing more people with drone attacks than George Bush; the trial of some of the September 11 suspects is going on in secret at Guantanamo but not before revealing that the US tortured one of the suspects over 180 times in 3 years (about once  a week).  If this is a trial it is a show trial.

So too Bradley Manning’s ‘trial’.  Bradley Manning is a hero for exposing the reality behind the ruling class’s lies.

In France ‘anybody but Sarkozy’ Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande won the presidency on a mildly reforming anti-austerity program.

In Greece, elections on Sunday saw a polarisation with the anti-austerity radical left Syriza group winning 16% of the vote.

The vote of the two main parties, the conservative New Democracy and the socialist Pasok, collapsed and Syriza received the second largest number of votes after New Democracy. Polls show that a week later it is now at 27% and if elections were held in June because, as is likely, no one can form a coalition government, Syriza will will the biggest supported party and receive an extra 50 seats for coming in first. It may then be able to form an anti-austerity government in coalition with other anti-austerity groups, or maybe even in its own right.

And in the UK the Leveson enquiry continues to expose the close links between media and government, in this case Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd and David Cameron’s Tory Cabinet, including Cameron himself and his appointment of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as an advisor in 2007, a few months after Coulson resigned as editor of News of the World when phone hacking allegations and evidence had surfaced. 

He kept his 40,000 shares in News while working for Cameron who became PM in 2010. He resigned in  January this year.

One can only guess at the reasons for the appointment. ABC’s Lateline reporter Emma Alberici said this:

‘The chief counsel for the inquiry suggested Mr Coulson only got the government job because of his contacts with the Murdoch media empire.’

I note too, quoting a report in the Australian Financial Review on Friday, that ‘Creina Chapman, the long term regulatory affairs brains of the company [News Ltd - JP] has been poached by Tony Abbott and will join his staff as a senior adviser.’  (Joe Aston, Rear Window, The Australian Financial Review Friday 10 May page 56.)

This is the same News Ltd stable running, like Abbott, the line that Labor has launched class war. At least they have  a common fantasy to share to help hide the unrelenting ruling class war against workers.

They should have a lot to talk about in Fantasia along with stopping the boats, no carbon tax and other smug slogans of distraction.

Murdoch is the man who has  70% of Australia’s newspaper market share.

Sometimes the Australian newspaper seems like a Liberal Party rag. OK, not just sometimes. It is a Liberal Party rag.

 Oh, one last little thing. Didn’t senior Australian newspaper journalist Greg Sheridan have dinner with Tony Abbott in Carlton recently?  How often do the Opposition and News Ltd journalists and management meet?

What with common themes, close associations and now a cross over senior employee, and given the media market dominance Murdoch has, maybe, just maybe, the links between the Liberals and News are just a little too close?

Anyone for a Leveson in Australia?

That’s the line coming from Tony Abbot and the various fruitcakes at The Australian.

It is true there is class war in this Labor Government’s Budget.

Sacking 12000 public servants is class war.

Forcing single mums off parenting payment and on to the dole and making them $60 a week worse off is class war.

In fact there has been a one sided class war going on for 30 years – the war of the bosses against workers.

So successful has this bosses’ war been, in the main led by Labor Governments and their lackeys in the trade union movement, that the share of national income going to capital is at its highest ever and that to labour its lowest ever.

Let’s look at the facts. Yes, I know; it’s just me fact mongering again. In the age of bourgeois irrationality the ruling class ostracises and vilifies facts and the working class fact mongers who present them.

The strike figures in Australia for 2011 and previous years are at historic lows, not withstanding minor blips in 2011. As Michael Janda, writing for the ABC, put it:

When one smooths out the volatility, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) figures show industrial disputes have declined steadily and significantly since limited protected industrial action was introduced in 1993.

The typical rate of work days lost per thousand employees at the start of the 1990s was between 40 and 60, for most of the 2000s it has been under 10. For the last half-decade, generally less than five.

Comparing strike days lost now to the 1960s and 1970s shows an even bigger decline. As Jade Eckhaus wrote in Socialist Alternative ‘… in the 1970s annual strike days per 1000 workers varied between 600-1200…’

Remember – today it is ‘generally less than five[!]’

It is this loss of class combativeness, of class struggle, this lack of struggle that explains the neoliberalisation of Australia and the shift in wealth from workers to bosses.

It also explains how Abbott and his fruitcake faction can argue with a straight face that Swan’s  Budget is a class war.

It would be class war if instead of five strike days lost per thousand workers the figure was five hundred strike days per thousand workers.

Class war would be if Swan taxed the rich in a real left wing Budget.

It’s well past time we gave Abbott and The Australian the class war they say is going on. It’s well past time we gave Gillard and the bosses she rules for real class war. 

Class struggle is the only way to win back some of the wealth the bosses have been stealing from us and putting a more equal and just Australia back on the agenda.

Madame Deputy Speaker, I am tonight presenting the most left wing Budget in Australia’s history.

This Budget will squeeze the rich till their pips squeak. This is a Budget for the battlers and working class.

It is a budget which unashamedly targets the parasites of capital who live off our labour and give us poor wages, few jobs and a crap environment.

I make no apologies for this class war. For over 30 years there has been a one sided class war in Australia waged by the rich and powerful against the poor and working class.

It is time our side fought back. This Budget is part of that fight back.

Madame Deputy Speaker, inequality in Australia has grown markedly over the last decades as neoliberalism became the ideology and practice of the ruling class and its two main parties, the open party of capital, the Liberals, and Labor, the disguised party of capital, or the capitalist workers’ party.

The ALP’s commitment to managing capitalism has led, Madame Deputy Speaker, the charge to austerity and attacks on jobs, wages and a social policy of repression, demonisation and racism that we will begin to fix.

We will set up refugee welcoming centres for a quick transition of any who want to come here into the community. A special Serco tax and workers’ take over of ‘detention’ centres to turn them into places of merely temporary stay before our new friends are relocated in the community will begin tonight.

Madame Deputy Speaker, we in the Left Front say enough is enough.

The magnificent strikes which broke out earlier this year in Australia against Labor’s Unfair Work laws have changed the political environment and the election of a Left Front Government under my leadership and that of comrade Leonie Bronstein marks a new era in the struggle for socialism and the overthrow of the dictatorship of capital.

As we speak the unrepresentative swill that is the Senate has been disbanded  for its reactionary obstructionism by workers’ militias. The abolition of that bastion of backwardness will save over $250 million a year, offset by an increase in members of this House to 501 to allow for adequate local representation.

Madame Deputy Speaker, I am pleased to also announce that all Australian troops are on their way home from Afghanistan as we speak or will be within the next 3 days. That imperialist war of destruction and subjugation is over from our point of view.

Madame Deputy Speaker, the $2 billion we save from this folly and misadventure will go towards increasing immediately our foreign aid spending to 0.7% of GDP. In fact Madame Deputy Speaker we believe this itself is not enough and aid will be given to organisations of national and social liberation around the globe in their struggles against US and, until today, Australian imperialism.

Madame Deputy Speaker, the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in this country is nothing short of a disgrace. We will impose a Twiggy Forrest tax on the rich miners to pay for a program of health and education devised and run by local people, not senior bureaucrats.

This is the first step in a treaty with the original inhabitants, recognition of prior sovereignty and setting up a process for paying the rent. 

Madame Deputy Speaker, my colleague the Minister for the Liberation of Indigenous People will provide more details in her speech to the House later tonight, including of an election process to elect representatives of the original inhabitants to begin the treaty negotiation process.

Madame Deputy Speaker, one of the key tools for equity in our society is the tax system.

Ever since the election of the Hawke Keating Labor governments the tax system has become an instrument of the one percent. Tax inequality in Australia has increased to such an extent that the bottom 20% of income earners pay 26.7% of their income in tax while the top 20% of income earners pay only 34.5%.

We will reverse that trend tonight. All those earning salary and wages or similar remuneration that is more than $180,000 will be taxed on that extra income at 100%. Those earning salary and wages income between $120,00 and $180000 will pay 45% on that bracket. From $80,000 to %120,00 the figure will be 30%. Those earning below $80,000 will pay 20%. Anyone earning less than $30,000 will pay no tax.

All unearned income such as capital gains, interest, dividends and rent, will be subject to a tax rate of 50% for the first $20000, $75% after that up to $70,000 and 100% above that.

Madame Deputy Speaker we will impose a super profits tax not only on resource companies making super profits but all companies making such profits.

The big 4 banks and supermarket duopoly will pay extra tax worth, we estimate, ten billion dollars per annum on average under these new arrangements, along with other monopoly or oligopoly industries and entities.

A comprehensive rent tax across all industries will raise at least $20 billion a year, money which will be spent on public education, public health, public transport and addressing the environmental catastrophe looming under capitalism.

Madame Deputy Speaker, we will abolish the neoliberal carbon tax and instead devote on average $10 billion a year to making Australia a carbon dioxide emissions free economy by 2020. We will adopt the Beyond Zero Emissions plan to do this and begin work immediately.

We estimate this will create 500,000 new jobs, reducing unemployment from its current real 10 percent to around 5 percent.

Madame Deputy Speaker, using just some of the rest of our fair tax approach we will employ and extra 50,000 teachers on premium wages for all teachers using the Finnish model of cooperation to help make Australia’s education system the best in the world.

We will employ as many nurses as needed, again on premium wages for all nurses in recognition of the great job they do, to reduce nurse:patient ratios to 3:1 in the short term and 2:1 long term.

For too long teachers and nurses have been treated as the cheap training and caring workers of our country. That ends tonight.

We celebrate their contribution not just with words but with money, money taken from the rich who have had an easy ride in our society for too long. It’s time for the billionaires and millionaires to pay for their privileged unearned position.

To that end negotiations have already begun with the teachers’ and nurses’ unions across Australia to implement our plans.

Madame Deputy Speaker, according to the Treasury Tax Expenditures Statement released earlier this year, last year business and the rich, the bastions of free enterprise and competition, received over ten billion in grants through the tax system. These disguised grants include superannuation concessions for the rich, capital gains tax concessions for business, fuel rebates, accelerated depreciation, immediate write off of mining exploration expenditure, massive international tax concessions, to name but a few.

These concessions are abolished immediately, and the revenue will gain an extra $21 billion as a consequence and the tax system will become fairer.

We have set up a workers’ tax reform committee with representatives from the most militant unions to develop a tax program that really does tax the rich till their pips squeak. Included in their terms of reference will be proposals to tax the family homes of the rich, a wealth tax and a death duty.

The workers’ tax reform committee will also investigate the goods and service tax with a view to abolishing it and replacing it with further taxes on the rich and powerful. In the interim we will the rate to 5%.

Madame Deputy Speaker, tax policy follows the wider struggles in society . During the last 30 years of working class subservience tax policy, indeed all government policy, has become, under both Labor and the Liberals, the plaything of the rich. This has been driven by the fall in profit rates from the early 1970s in the developed world.

Those days end tonight.

Tax and other policies can only redress inequality that arises as a consequence of growing inequality in the workplace. A progressive tax policy can only be built on the back of class struggle to win wage increases and defend jobs.

Madame Deputy Speaker, despite the recent magnificent strikes across Australia, led by the 17 militant unions, the share of national income going to capital is still almost at its highest ever and that to labour its lowest.

We will immediately raise the minimum wage to $1000 per week. All pensions will be paid at the rate of 125% of the minimum wage and other welfare payments adjusted accordingly.

One way to recognise the great contribution of labour to the wealth of Australia is to reduce working hours. We will cut the working week to 30 hours with no loss of income, effective immediately.

We have set aside $5 billion for  a prices watchdog with real teeth, and that watchdog will control prices currently set by big business. Its guiding principle will be people, not profit. 

Madame Deputy Speaker, from tonight the retirement age will be 60 if workers want to leave the workforce then.

No profitable big business will be able to sack workers.

The company tax rate for big business will be 39% up to $100,000 and 50% on profit above that. Dividend imputation is abolished. The tax lurk that is trusts will also end tonight. All trusts will be taxed as companies.

If big business resists our policies the relevant workers and their unions will take them over and run them to satisfy human need.

Madame Deputy Speaker, to stop capital fleeing the country we at 6 pm tonight closed down all electronic transfer mechanisms. Members of the Finance Sector Union have occupied key financial organisations and centres.

I am advised that attempts have been made by some major sections of capital to send their money offshore. These companies are now nationalised and we will put them under workers’ control.

The same will apply to any capital which attempts to leave the country in the days, weeks and months to come. You will be nationalised under your workers’ control.

Madame Deputy Speaker, one of the blights on Australian society has been the ANZUS treaty. I announce that we have tonight withdrawn from the treaty. My Foreign Affairs Comrade  Bill Nile will be making a statement to the House in the next few hours. We believe, Madame Deputy Speaker, that such a move will save us about $5 billion a year.

The abolition of the secret police, ASIO and ASIS, will save almost a billion dollars a year and countless lives here and around the globe.

Madame Deputy Speaker, we have abolished the defence forces and the police. This will save approximately $50 billion a year. A people’s militia, already in formation, will receive $20 bn in funding, a saving of over $30 billion a year.

I am advised, Madame Deputy Speaker, that workers at the News Limited papers have seized control of their companies and begun producing The Liberated Australian. I look forward to reading its first copy tomorrow morning free of the malign influence of the Murdoch robber barons.

I am further advised Madame Deputy Speaker that Andrew Bolt has bolted.

Madame Deputy Speaker, this is just the tip of the iceberg. More details can be found at the Free Treasury website.

I will now hand over to the Commissioner for Working Class Spending. She will outline new spending on public health, education, transport and addressing climate change among other important issues.

Madame Deputy Speaker I commend the Bill to the House and to the working class.

Contrary to media reports, this Budget isn’t about soaking the rich.

In fact under the Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments the tax to GDP ratio and the government spending to GDP ratio are and have been lower than under the Howard Government.

Let’s look at some of the detail.

Business didn’t get a one per cent tax cut and they are screaming blue murder. They aren’t any worse off.

And those earning more than $300000 a year will have their superannuation tax concessions reduced a bit.

That affects 1% of taxpayers – the famous one percent – just a little. Instead of getting a 30% tax concession on superannuation, they’ll get a 15% tax concession.

The Budget papers predict unemployment will rise from 5.2% to 5.5%. Those extra unemployed will pay for the surplus and government inaction on employment.

They will also have to live on $234 a week, an impossibly impoverished amount. The government rejected or didn’t take up arguments to increase it by $50 a week, still a poverty level payment.

The government has abandoned its proposal to introduce a standard tax deduction which would have been fitted low income earners the most. This will save the revenue (ie cost low income and other taxpayers) just over $2 bn in 4 years.

It also won’t now introduce a savings concession effectively applying to low and middle income earners, saving the revenue (ie costing low income earners) almost $1 billion.

The Government has cut $2.9 billion from foreign aid over the next 4 years. Now that is a real loss – possibly, according to Tom Costello from World Vision, 200,000 people will die who would not have.

Most foreign aid is connected to Australian imperialism in the region.

Single mums will be forced on to the dole when their kids turn 8 and so lose the parenting payment 8 years earlier than at present.

Even when it does give benefits it looks more like a sleight of hand. The Government is rebadging its education tax offset to pay the money direct to households. If they fully funded public education parents would not need to have to pay these amounts.

Defence spending of $5 bn has been deferred. At the same time there will be an extra 1100 or more soldiers.

4200 public service jobs will lose their jobs in the coming financial year, and it looks like that will continue next year and the year after.

The Liberals are promising to get rid of 12,000 public servants when they win power. And Labor is getting rid of how many? 12,000 public servants. Spot the difference.

Now that Labor have matched the Liberals on 12,000 sackings (although Labor’s will be over 3 years not one) comments last night by Joe Hockey, the shadow Treasurer, were that the Liberals are now talking about sacking 20,000 public servants – about one-sixth of the workforce. So Labor’s attacks on public servants have pushed the Liberals to new and even further extremes.

Increases in unemployment, disguised and not so disguised attacks on the poor and low wage earners – oh this is a Labor Budget alright. It’s another example of Labor’s neoliberalism and lack of progressive vision, making workers and the poor pay for its surplus fetish.