"Unite against racism" rally to challenge far-right

April 9, 2010 - for immediate release

An emergency "Unite against racism" rally has been called for 2pm this Sunday, April 11, outside Villawood Detention Centre. The rally has been organized by a coalition of anti-racism groups, in response to the far-right Australian Protectionist Party who are rallying at the same place to attack refugee rights.

"The Protectionist Party are anti-refugee, anti-immigrant and racist," rally organiser Paul Benedek said. "They letterbox leaflets that scapegoat Africans, Muslims and immigrants for crime, unemployment and other social problems. They are big fans of Pauline Hanson and the British National Party, and target 'non-white' immigration, trying to whip up racial hatred."

"Yet the major parties are also to blame. They have given a green light to racism, by also demonizing refugees & using migrants as scapegoats."

"Racism kills. While the APP cowardly taunt refugees who are locked behind razor wire, with tacit support from Liberal and Labor, refugees face deportation to their deaths. Racist attacks on international students and immigrants are increasing."

"This rally will be a peaceful show of support for refugee rights, for equality and justice. We stand with those desperate asylum seekers who have fled war and persecution – not cowardly blaming them for the problems in this country. We will let all racists know their message of hate is not welcome."

Endorsements for the anti-racism rally include: Refugee Action Coalition, Latin American Social Forum, Sudanese Australian Human Rights Association, Social Justice Group, Socialist Alliance, Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, and Resistance.

Full details for the rally are:

"Unite against racism – refugees are welcome, racism is not!"
Rally 2pm, Sunday April 11,
Outside Villawood Detention Centre, 15 Birmingham Ave, Villawood.

More details can be found on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=109582062406674

The APP's anti-refugee rally is scheduled for the same place at 3pm. To get a sense of the APP’s racist views, just take a look at their website.

For more information or interviews about the anti-racism rally, contact Paul Benedek 0410 629 088 or James Supple 0438 718 348.

Call for Sydney counter-mobilisation to far-right this Sunday

Please forward this rally to ALL people who would be concerned about the far-right taunting asylum seekers, many of whom have fled war and persecution, while they are locked behind the razor wire

UNITE AGAINST RACISM
Refugees are welcome - racism is not!

The Australian Protectionist Party have called a rally attacking refugee rights for this Sunday, April 11, at 3pm outside Villawood Detention Centre.

The APP are anti-refugee, anti-immigrant & racist. They letterbox leaflets that scapegoat Africans, Muslims & immigrants for crime, unemployment & other social problems. However, the major parties are also to blame - they have given a green light to racism, by also demonising refugees & using migrants as scapegoats.

Racism kills. Refugees are still being deported to their deaths. Attacks on international students and immigrants are increasing.

We need a peaceful show of support for refugee rights, for equality and justice - and to let all racists know that their hatred is not welcome.
Rally Sun April 11, 2pm
At Villawood Detention Centre
15 Birmingham Ave, Villawood (nr Leightonfield Stn)

Please forward this message, organise your friends, bring placards and banners in support of refugees and against racism.

Supported by: Refugee Action Coalition, Latin American Social Forum, Sudanese Human Rights Assoc, Social Justice Group, Socialist Alliance, Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, Resistance.

For information, to add your support, or if you have ideas for the rally, please phone Paul 0410 629 088 or James 0438 718 348 or email paul.benedek2@ gmail.com

“Aborigines from across the country will fight nuclear dumping”

Media Release

Goodooga, northwest NSW, 24 February 10 – Aboriginal people will be called from all over Australia to protest in the Northern Territory against any movement of nuclear waste across their traditional lands, an Aboriginal activist says.

Michael Anderson, chairman of an Aboriginal Summit Task Force recently elected in Canberra (pictured at right), says in a media release: “Nothing will move down the former American Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton railway line from Darwin to Alice Springs.”

Mr. Anderson was responding on behalf of a majority of traditional land owners to an announcement by Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, that the Federal Government will pursue the first Australian radioactive waste repository at Muckaty Station, about 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek.

Mr. Anderson condemned the Bureau of Northern Land Council for “ignoring the majority of the traditional land owners who do not want their country, Muckaty Station, used for nuclear waste dumping”.

He said the general Australian public fails to understand how much influence the federal government has over organisations such as the Northern Land Council, whose CEO is appointed by government.

“Aboriginal people are under siege from the tyranny of a Labor government who have no consideration whatsoever for our rights,” Mr. Anderson charges.

“What we have here is a repeat of the Ranger uranium mine agreement fiasco. The arrangements that are being made are illegal and the government and the Northern Land Council know full well that the traditional owners have little to no chance of fighting against this dictatorship.

“But don’t underestimate our resolve as a resistance group. It is time the Australian government woke up and understands that they are pushing us into a corner and we will come out fighting with all that we have.

“Our communications thus far with the traditional owners suggest that a fight is looming, and maybe then the Australian public will get the picture.”

Mr Anderson, the last survivor of the four Black Power activists who set up the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra in 1972, says he is pleased that the unions are offering support.

“The New Way Summit Task Force has been asked for their support to bring this matter to the attention of the public. The Task Force puts the Australian government on notice that like Noonkanber in Western Australia in 1979, we will call upon Aboriginal people to come from every part of this country and protest any movement of nuclear waste across our people’s traditional lands.”

“If the Europeans, Americans and China along with the rest of the world want to use nuclear power, then dump your rubbish on your own soil. You take it from us against our will and you now want to return it against our wishes.”

Muckaty Station is the country of the mother of Barbara Shaw (pictured left), Alice Springs camps activist and a member of the Summit Task Force. Ms Shaw commented on uranium mining in the Northern Territory at the Canberra summit from 30 January to 1 February.

She said only some people agreed to the dump “because they saw the dollar sign”. Although Elders had long warned that the radiation is dangerous, a lot more awareness needed to be created in the area. Listen to the extract at http://www.4shared. com/file/ 228500371/ e1144837/ Barbara_Shaw_ MINING.html.

The Taskforce can be contacted through Michael Anderson at 02 68296355 landline, 04272 92 492 mobile, 02 68296375 fax, ngurampaa@bigpond. com.au

-o-o-o-o-o-o- o-o-o-o-o- o-o-o-o-o- o-o-o-o-o- o-o-

Mr Anderson’s release in full:

As Chairman of the recently elected Aboriginal Summit Task Force, I condemn the Bureau of Northern Land Council for ignoring the majority of the traditional land owners who do not want their country, Muckaty Station, used for nuclear waste dumping.

What the general Australian public fails to understand is how much influence the Federal Government has over organizations such as the Northern Land Council. In the first instance the CEO of the Northern Land Council is a Government-appointe d person as per the Federal Northern Territory Land Rights Act. This does not fare very well for its perceived independence. Aboriginal people are under siege from the tyranny of a Labor Government who have no consideration whatsoever for our rights.

What we have here is a repeat of the Ranger uranium mine agreement fiasco. The arrangements that are being made are illegal and the Government and the Northern Land Council know full well that the traditional owners have little to no chance of fighting against this dictatorship. But don’t underestimate our resolve as a resistance group.

The public must now realize what this Labor Government are doing to Aboriginal people, blackmailing them to sign over their lands for infra-structure development and housing, but the real issues are now coming to a head and this is just one example of what is coming.

We do have rights and freedoms and it is time the Australian Government woke up and understands that they are pushing us into a corner and we will come out fighting with all that we have.

It is pleasing to see that the unions are offering support and our communications thus far with the traditional owners suggest that a fight is looming and maybe then the Australian public will get the picture.

The New Way Summit Task Force has been asked for their support to bring this matter to the attention of the public. The task force puts the Australian Government on notice that like Noonkanber in Western Australia in 1979, we will call upon Aboriginal people to come from every part of this country and protest any movement of nuclear waste across our people’s traditional lands. Nothing will move down the former American Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton railway line from Darwin to Alice Springs.

“If the Europeans, Americans and China along with the rest of the world want to use nuclear power, then dump your rubbish on your own soil. You take it from us against our will and you now want to return it against our wishes. No, the energy-hungry consumers need to look to a better way of doing business, and in this case bury your own nuclear waste in your own back yards; if you believe what you are told by your leaders that it is safe then you have no fears.

Protest Feb 13 - Stop the NT Intervention

Stop the NT Intervention - Sorry means you won't do it again.

Protest: Saturday, February 13, 2010

9 am LaPerouse point, Bunnerong Rd for the walk against racism to join the Redfern rally.

1pm rally at The Block, Redfern

Speakers include:
Irene Fisher, Sunrise Health (NT)
Pastor Ray Minniecon
Mal Tulloch, CFMEU
Angeline Penrith
Jeff McMullen

Performers:
The Black Turtles
Nadeena Dixon
Michael Donovan
More tba

Supporters include:
NSW Aboriginal Land Council, NSW Reconciliation Council, ANTaR NSW, CFMEU, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning Research, Mudgin-Gal, Babana, Reconciliation for Western Sydney, Guriwal Aboriginal Corp., FBEU, MUA, Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Councils, Illawarra LALC, Bahtabah LALC, Narromine LALC, La Perouse LALC

Stop the NT Intervention
End the income quarantine - stop the national expansion
Land rights, not leases
Self-determination, not assimilation
Aboriginal controlled housing, jobs and services for all communities

On February 13, 2010 there will be a national day of action against the NT Intervention and for Aboriginal rights.

This will mark the 2nd anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations, when Prime Minister Rudd committed the government to, "a future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again".

But ongoing NT Intervention policies reek of the same paternalism and commitment to assimilation that created the Stolen Generations.

The Intervention has been a $1.5 billion disaster. The government has taken control of Aboriginal lives and land - but has not yet built a single house. Shamefully, communities will not receive housing until they sign 40-year leases over their land. This policy is expanding nationally.

The income quarantine is leading to greater poverty and social dislocation. Government statistics show reports of domestic violence are up 61%, substance abuse up 77% and 13% more infants have been hospitalised for malnutrition.

Minister Macklin has said the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act has "denied dignity" to Aboriginal people. But her changes to Intervention legislation will see the RDA suspended until December 31, 2010.

Rather than do away with failing policy, new legislation will allow the compulsory welfare quarantining to be extended to "areas of disadvantage" around the country. This will start across the NT from July 2010. Draconian measures such as compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal land and extreme police powers have been rebadged "special measures" under the RDA.

Racism is not a special measure.

The demonisation of Aboriginal people at the core of the Intervention is leading to increased racism across Australia. Indigenous incarceration rates have risen 10% in the past year. Juvenile detention now stands at 30 times the national average. Aboriginal organisations everywhere face aggressive mainstreaming.

Aboriginal people have consistently demanded an end to the NT Intervention measures and resistance is growing.

Turning around the unacceptable disadvantage facing Aboriginal people requires massive increases in resourcing of community controlled organisations - not more racist laws.

No more broken promises - its time to break the intervention

Organised by Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney

Contact: Jean 0449646593 or Mon 0415410558

For the poster of the protest: please click here

For the leaflet of the protest for downloading, printing, distribution: please click here

For STICS' Fact Sheet about the new Legislation: please click here

For STICS' Fact Sheet about the Government's "Consultation" Process: please click here

National Actions in other cities on 13 Feb 2010

Adelaide: 1 pm, at the steps of Parliament House, Speakers: Donna Jackson of Larrakia/Wulna descent, local Kaurna and Ngarrendjeri people. Launch of book "This is what we said". Contact Alitja 0431112898, organized by STICSA

Alice Springs: 10 am Gathering on Church Lawns in the Mall, Speakers on Key Issues. Launch of book: "This Is What They Said", Followed by a March through the CBD, Contact Barbara 0401 291 166 or Marlene (08) 8952 5032, for further info: http://rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com/

Melbourne: 2pm Maysar,184-186 Gertrude St Fitzroy, March to Parliament House, for further infohttp://www.maicollective.blogspot.com/, for the poster: please click here

Perth: 12 noon, Wesley Church (cnr. William & Hay Sts), contact Natasha 0434 303 248 or Sanna 0417 852 628

MEDIA RELEASE: Shooting leaves "Indonesian solution" in tatters, but pressure mounts on asylum seekers in Merak

“The Australian government did not pull the trigger, but it provided the bullets and loaded the guns that were turned on Afghan asylum seekers on the weekend,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

“How ironic that in the same month there were celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Indonesian border guards have shot asylum seekers trying to get to Australia. But the stark reality is that the opportunity, the bullets, the guns, the patrol, boat and the training are provided by Australia. Asylum seekers are now fleeing persecution in Indonesia, sponsored by the Australian government.

“Kevin Rudd’s policy has made vulnerable people even more vulnerable. The demand for bribes is a common experience of asylum seekers in Indonesia.

“But the shooting of two Afghan asylum seekers has blown a gaping hole in Kevin Rudd’s Indonesia Solution and his claim for a humane asylum policy. No-one is going to accept that people fleeing the bullets of the Taliban should be shot in Indonesia by Australian-funded guards.

“Until there is adequate accommodation, reliable processing and a guarantee of re-settlement in Australia, there is no possibility of an Indonesian solution,” said Ian Rintoul.

Meanwhile, Indonesia authorities are steeping up pressure on the 250 asylum seekers in Merak. In what may the first steps to forcibly removing the asylum seekers, Indonesian authorities have restricted access to the port.

On the weekend, the Indonesia navy evacuated a woman who had fainted after the International Organsation for Migration (IOM) refused to call an ambulance and a doctor refused to board the boat to attend to the woman.

The IOM which has been providing assistance to the asylum seekers has now abandoned the group at Merak. There is now no direct medical support for the group.

“The IOM has been pressuring us to leave the boat since it arrived deserted us, and now they have left completely. We are urgently calling for the Red Cross to take responsibility for us,” said “Alex” the representative of the Merak asylum seekers.

On Saturday, a man claiming to be an Indonesian policeman called for “Alex”, to leave the boat, then threatened to shoot him.

“Australia should bring the asylum seekers at Merak and the Oceanic Viking to Australia. Rudd is prolonging the agony to save face, but he has already guaranteed that those with UNHCR refugee cards will come to Australia. One hundred and nine people on the boat at Merak also have UNHCR refugee cards.

“Reports that Indonesia may be considering deporting some of the Merak asylum seekers makes it more urgent that Kevin Rudd intervenes to ensure the safety of these people,” Ian Rintoul.

For more information contact Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul 047 275 713

Regional left groups statement on Tamil refugees

Respect human rights - free the refugees!

A joint statement of: Socialist Alliance, Australia; Socialist Party (Australia); Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM); CWI Malaysia; Network of the Oppressed People (JERIT), Malaysia; Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI); Working Peoples Association (PRP), Indonesia; National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS); Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI); Socialist Worker - New Zealand

Reject Australia's 'Indonesian solution'
Australia should welcome the asylum seekers

All respect for elementary human rights and dignity have been thrown overboard as the governments of Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia refuse to accept the latest wave of Tamil asylum seekers fleeing war and oppression in Sri Lanka and instead treat them like criminals.

The Australian government is the only of these three governments to have signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees but it is refusing to carry out its obligations to asylum seekers under that convention.

For weeks, more than 250 Tamil-speaking people, including children, remain in dire conditions on a boat in Merak, Indonesia. Another 68 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers, including children, remain on the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking off Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia. Both groups are refusing to leave their boats for fear that Indonesia will lock them up in detention centres with a reputation for brutality and/or send them back to an uncertain future in Sri Lanka. On November 1, it was reported that a boat of asylum seekers had sunk near the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, and 12 are missing feared drowned.

Meanwhile, 207 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers are being held at the Immigration Detention Centre at Kuala Lumpar International Airport, and 108 Sri Lankan refugees are being detained at Pekan Nanas Immigration Detention Centre in Johor, Malaysia. Malaysia is both a transit point and a country of permanent asylum for tens of thousands of refugees from countries such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd claims its policy is "humane" but "tough". It is neither. The Rudd Labor government of Australia is bribing the Indonesian government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to intercept the boats of asylum seekers on their way to Australia. This "Indonesian solution" out-sources Australia's obligation to asylum seekers to Indonesia just as its predecessor did to Nauru and PNG in the name of a "Pacific solution".

Many of those seeking asylum in Australia come from Sri Lanka where the Tamils have suffered from decades of brutal oppression at the hands of various Sinhala national chauvinist governments. The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa unleashed an all-out terror campaign this year, killing some 20,000 Tamil people in the month of May. Since the end of the military offensive, more than 300,000 Tamil people have been imprisoned in concentration-style camps and denied the right to return to their homes. It is estimated that 31,000 children are among those incarcerated, without proper access to shelter, food and medicine.

The Australian government, like many governments in the West and across Asia, supported the Rajapaksa regime throughout its final onslaught preferring to maintain trade links, including selling arms, rather than stop the Tamil minority from being massacred.

We condemn the Australia, Indonesian and Malaysian governments for their lack of commitment to the humanitarian problems faced by the refugees and we demand:

• That the governments of our countries withdraw financial and diplomatic support from the Sri Lankan government until it closes the concentration camps, and allows the Tamils trapped in camps to go back to their homes without fear of persecution.
• That no refugee fleeing war and persecution should be forced to return to the country they fled.
• That Australia, as a wealthy and developed country which has exploited its poorer neighbours, should immediately develop a program to settle tens of thousands of asylum seekers and take a leading role in helping reduce the misery of the world's millions of refugees, most of whom are trying to survive in desperate conditions in refugee camps in some of the world's poorest countries.
• That Australia allow the asylum seekers trapped in Indonesia to come to Australia to have their claims heard here and we condemn the Indonesian government for being a puppet for the Australian government in preventing refugees from going to Australia. This cooperation between these two governments is a threat not only to the Tamil refugees but to human rights in the region.
• That Australia must immediately close the Christmas Island refugee prison, close it down and allow those asylum seekers to live in freedom in Australia while their claims are processed.
• That the Indonesian, Malaysian and Australian governments respect the human rights of the refugees, give protection, humanitarian aid and accomodation to the refugees as long as they are in Indonesian territory and place no limitation for their rights to seek an asylum.
• That the Malaysian and Indonesian governments sign the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, release the asylum seekers they have in detention and allow them full access to UNHCR and human rights groups.

We appeal to all democratic and progressive people in Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, trade unions, human rights organisations and women's rights organisations to understand the plight of the asylum seekers and to support our demands.

November 5, 2009

[If your organisation would like to add its name to this statement, please write to the Socialist Alliance .]

The bloody price of playing with prejudice

By Peter Boyle, October 28, 2009

Every time the capitalist politicians play with racist prejudice against asylum seekers there are violent consequences. I'm not just referring to the threatened forceful disembarkation of the Tamil refugees from the Oceanic Viking, which is outrageous; the bi-partisan anti-asylum seeker rhetoric in Canberra is very likely provoking more racist violence across Australia.

“Next time an Indian student is bashed up, Rudd and Turnbull, should be charged as accessories to the crime”, Sue Bolton, a respected Melbourne grassroots political activist told Green Left Weekly.

PM Kevin Rudd's I-make-no-apology stance was pinched from the hated former Liberal PM John Howard, who used it to advance a raft of reactionary positions. Howard used this rhetorical technique to steal Pauline Hanson's appeal to established reactionary prejudices.

Now Rudd is doing the same and it is having a very nasty and widespread effect. Rudd has repeated over and over again that he makes “no apology” for being “tough” on refugees, raising racist anti-refugee prejudice to a new high. But that is not all Rudd is unapologetic about, as Sydney Morning Herald columnist Annabel Crabb noted on October 27:

“In May this year, he declared himself an 'unapologetic optimist about this region's future'.

“By July, he was also an 'unapologetic supporter of the United States'.”

When politicians play with prejudice there are always violent real-life consequences. But even Crabb, a young and general socially progressive columnist, has so far ignored the real-life price of this latest bi-partisan exploitation of racist prejudice. If you can still bear to watch the ABC TV's Q & A, there is the same inescapable message that it is “civilised” politics-as-usual in Parliament House, Canberra. The nasty bipartisan campaign to fan racist hysteria is being treated as just some political game of pass-the wedge.

A similar thing is happening with the public debate on climate change. Political wordplay has displaced serious discussion about how to deal with this global emergency. Truth has become a casualty, as politicians and right-wing commentators fulminate against “climate alarmists” and rally behind the denialist' ideological leader (and mining company mouthpiece) Ian Plimer’s declaration that environmentalism is just another belief system.

David Spratt, the co-author of Climate Code Red notes in a message of support for Green Left Weekly's Spring Offensive fund appeal.

“In a world where politics and the media are the triumph of form over content, Green Left Weekly stands in contrast as a paper dedicated to publishing the news, analysis and ideas at the core of today's community, labour and social movement concerns. Whether it be the banking crisis, what is really happening in Afghanistan or environment and climate issues, GLW plays a unique role in digging and prodding and cajoling and stirring and pushing debates and actions.”

A final burst to finish off Green Left Weekly's Spring Offensive is needed. Our supporters have raised $192,042 so far this year. That's 77% of our $250,000 target for the year. Please reach for your wallet, credit card or cheque book now and help us get there!

DBL: Local law 8 and the ban on public drinking in Yarra

Done By Law, October 27, 2009

This week on Done By Law we take a look at the recent decision by Yarra Council to place a ban on public drinking. Local Law 8, was passed at a heated Council meeting last week and will give police the power to pour out opened drinks and issue on the spot fines of $100. We’re joined by Councillor Steve Jolly, the only member of Council to oppose the ban, and Belinda Lo from Fitzroy Legal Service.

LOCAl law 8 and the ban on public drinking in yarra: | Download

RAC: Gillard's actions on refugees reminiscent of Tampa

MEDIA RELEASE

GOVERNMENT STANCE ON ASYLUM SEEKERS IS UNSUSTAINABLE
JULIA GILLARD BRINGS SHAMEFUL REMINDER OF TAMPA

“Julia Gillard’s claim that the Sri Lankan Tamils taken to Indonesia are Indonesia’s responsibility is a shameful reprise of the Tampa incident in 2001,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

“The longer this episode goes on the more the Rudd’s policies mirror those of the Howard government. The Rudd government is letting the Liberals set the political agenda. It does no credit to a government that promised to establish a humane refugee policy in place of the divisive policies of the Howard era.

“It is an unseemly and unnecessary political fiasco. What’s more, it is a stance that is unsustainable,” said Rintoul

“Indonesia does not have the resources to deal with asylum seekers. The Rudd government has spent hundreds of millions of dollar to buy Indonesia’s silence, but that can’t last. In the end, just like those detained on Nauru, the world community will judge that the Sri Lankans and other asylum seekers in Indonesia are Australia’s responsibility.

“It is a dilemma and political crisis of the Rudd government’s own making. Rather than bluster about people smugglers and border protection, Kevin Rudd should face up to the fact that asylum seekers are a fact of life. They are not illegal immigrants. There is no flood. Just as the Fraser government took responsibility for Vietnamese refugees, surely it is not beyond the Rudd government to provide similar leadership.

In 2001, the Australian government called for international assistance for an asylum seeker boat in distress. After the Norwegian flagged vessel MV Tampa answered the distress call the then Howard government promptly tried to coerced the Captain, Arne Rinnan, to transport his cargo of asylum seekers to Indonesia. The Indonesian government, understandably, refused. The asylum seekers were eventually dumped on Nauru - so began the so-called Pacific Solution.

“What is not admitted by the Howard government, or stated clearly by the Rudd government, is that the Pacific solution collapsed because of opposition from the Nauru government in spite of million dollar bribes. More particularly it collapsed because no third countries, like Canada or New Zealand, were about to take asylum seekers who were clearly Australia’s responsibility.

“Kevin Rudd’s ‘Indonesian/Indian Ocean solution’ will also collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. But further damage will be inflicted on asylum seekers and the social fabric of Australia if the government does nothing to take a lead to stem the anti-refugee histrionics. Indonesia should let itself be blackmailed,” said Ian Rintoul.

“The Refugee Action Coalition is calling on the government to recognize its responsibilities and bring the Tamil asylum seekers to Australia.”

For further information contact Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713

June 20: Aboriginal rights, the NT Intervention and DIC

This Saturday, June 20, there will be national protests to mark the second anniversary of the racist Northern Territory Intervention, introduced under the Howard government but continued under Rudd.

Coincidentally or not, a number of developments have emerged this week that heighten the political and social importance of forcing real action on Aboriginal issues. (It seems to be a repeating motif, both under Howard and Rudd, that official announcements concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander matters occur in clusters around days, anniversaries or events affecting the same populations. Under Howard, it could possibly be put down to a malicious attempt to counterpoint celebrations of indigenous survival with right-wing attacks against them. Under Rudd the correlations are harder to define, yet appear to exist none the less).

Marion Scrymgour - the highest ranking Aboriginal member of any government in Australia - quit the Northern Territory Labor Party over its Aboriginal policy on June 4. As an independent, she now holds the balance of power.

On Monday, the ABC's Four Corner's program carried the heart-wrenching and infuriating story of Mr Ward, an Aboriginal elder in Western Australia who died in the back of a police van while being transported through the desert in extraordinary heat. Details can be found here.

Then, on Tuesday, the Queensland Court of Appeal ordered a new inquest, with a new coroner, to re-examine the death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004, with four broken ribs, a burst spleen and a liver torn in two. As the SMH article points out:

"In 2006, deputy state coroner Christine Clements found Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley was responsible for Mr Doomadgee's death in custody after he was arrested for public nuisance."

While Hurley was charged on Invasion Day (the symbolism reeking of political spin), he was acquitted of the charges of manslaughter and assault. Then:

"At the conclusion of a review of the matter in Townsville late last year District Court Judge Bob Pack overturned Ms Clement's ruling and ordered the inquest be reopened.

Last month Mr Doomadgee's family and the Palm Island Aboriginal Council fought to have Judge Pack's decision ruled invalid in the Court of Appeal."

The Court of Appeal decision found Judge Pack's reasoning to have been "flawed", but still ruled Judge Pack was still correct in ordering the inquest be reopened, essentially trying to exonerate Hurley of any responsibility.

As Aboriginal activist and Socialist Alliance spokesperson Sam Watson said outside the court, yet another example of "police trying to rewrite history". The struggle against systemic racism continues, and needs your help.

The details for this Saturday's rallies are:

Sydney: 10:30am Belmore Park, (opposite Central station). Protest, march and concert - marking two years since the announcement of the NT Intervention. March to the Block in Redfern for family and culture day concert. More information can be found here.

Darwin: 11 am, Raintree Park: Speakout by people from communities and Town Camps throughout the Northern Territory and short speeches from invited guests. 8 pm: Rock Against Racism, Brown's Mart. For more information or to help with transport, go here.

Brisbane: 11 am Queens Park, corner George and Elizabeth Streets, City. Organised by the Aboriginal Rights Coalition - Brisbane.

Perth: 12-2pm, Forrest Chase. Public protest rally: "Never Again! Nor More Deaths In Custody!" More information can be found here.

Melbourne: 12 noon: Rally against the intervention at the GPO; 3 pm: public meeting at Trades Hall with George Newhouse, lawyer for the NT group against the Intervention. Organised by Melbourne Anti-Intervention Collective.

• Click here to read or download the Socialist Alliance leaflet for June 20

...Surely That's Not Racist?

Jon Stratton and Suvendrini Perera write over at New Matilda:

There is a direct link between the 'harmless' little gag which we often let slide and the appalling racist violence which we quickly condemn, write Suvendrini Perera and Jon Stratton

It was probably a year or two ago that one of us — the one who looks Indian but isn't — heard her first call-centre joke from a fellow academic. Registering that she was somewhat taken aback, the joker protested, "Oh, come on, you know that's not racist. People just get annoyed about all the jobs going to India. Nothing personal." Right. Nothing personal.

This colleague's bad joke has come to mind as we have watched the burgeoning catalogue of acts of violence against Indian students on the news: stabbings, bashings, beatings, muggings, burnings.

It's not racist. It's just that they work late at night. It's just that they travel by train. It's just that they have iPods. It's just that they look vulnerable. It's just that they act different — not like the good Indians who are such marvellous contributors to our multicultural society. It's just that they stand out. Right.

The violent attacks on international students in Australia have apparently been happening for a number of years. Commonwealth and state politicians, as well as the media, have sprung to attention recently thanks to a series of increasingly public interventions by the Indian Government. Students from India, however, are by no means the sole targets of the violence nor have the attacks been limited to men. International students from China have been raped. Young Chinese women students in Sydney and Perth were murdered, including the awful case of Jiao Dan who was raped and murdered in Perth in 2007.

A couple of years ago one of us visited the library of another university. In the men's toilet he was astounded to find a large scrawled graffito that read: "I raped an Asian and she loved it." Even more shocking, it was still there when he returned a few days later. He complained to the librarian that, while toilet walls are frequently the site for graffiti of questionable taste, this was completely beyond the bounds of acceptability. The next time he went there, the graffito had been painted over.

How long had it been there? Why had no other man complained about it?

Part of the answer is that racist jokes and comments have become normalised as unremarkable aspects of daily life in Australia. It's "everyday racism", the kind of unthinking racism that is so accepted that we don't consider it racism. It prevents us from seeing the racialised discriminations that happen all the time in Australia. The question is, can it inure us even to the extreme forms of violence that are enacted before our eyes?

This outbreak of violence against international — read Asian — students needs to be placed in a wider landscape that takes in a whole raft of changes to immigration policy that have accompanied the increasing neoliberalisation of Australia. These changes have everything to do with race.

Read the full article here.

A town like Alice: alcohol and the Intervention

Sue Gilbey
Green Left Weekly, 12 December 2008

Alice Springs, the heart and pulse of Australia. While that is true in terms of location, few Australians know very much about their heart.

Alice is a harshly but strikingly beautiful place, full of spectacular rocky outcrops, gaps and red, red dust, and not far from a mammoth rock. It is a city unlike any other in Australia.

I have family there so visit about twice a year and each time the unique beauty of the view takes my breath away. Each time now, though, I leave with a heavy heart.

Pine Gap, the United States’ tracking facility, operates from just out of Alice and there is something bizarre about the prevalence of left-hand drive, petrol-guzzling SUVs in the rich part of town. You can often see US personnel washing their cars with a power hose, blissfully unaware that they are living in a drought-ruined country.

The very existence of Pine Gap is bizarre: US-owned and operated, but on Aboriginal land. Few Australians have any idea of the appalling Third World conditions endured by Central Australia’s Aboriginal population.

Last year, under what now seems like stage-managed action for maximum impact theatre, the Coalition government’s John Howard-Malcolm Brough leadership team sent the Australian army into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities and suspended the Racial Discrimination Act under new “NT intervention” legislation. They stridently announced that this was not race-based legislation, despite the fact that it only applies to one race.

Since then, much has been written about the pros and cons of the NT intervention. For me, it is breathtakingly racist and designed to blame the victim.

However, the immense relief we felt when the new Kevin Rudd Labor government made the wonderful apology to Aboriginal Australians soon after taking office was misplaced. Rudd and the new minister for Indigenous affairs, Jenny Macklin, are extending the Intervention. They are not in a hurry to restore the Racial Discrimination Act.

One major so-called justification for the NT intervention is alcohol abuse. Do Aboriginal people have a problem with alcohol?

Comparative studies of alcohol consumption by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people conducted in rural and remote areas have shown that:

* up to 35% of Indigenous men do not drink alcohol, compared with 12% of non-Indigenous men;

* up to 80% of Indigenous women do not drink alcohol, compared with 19% to 25% of non-Indigenous women; and

* in the NT, 75% of Aboriginal people do not drink alcohol at all.

However, among those Indigenous people who do drink alcohol, the level of consumption is very high. A survey of Indigenous drinkers in Australia showed that 22% of Indigenous people drink at harmful levels, compared to 10% of non-Indigenous people. In the NT, more than two-thirds of Aboriginal male drinkers are classified as “binge drinkers”.¹

In order to curb the bad effects of excessive drinking, some Aboriginal communities have chosen to limit the availability of alcohol to their members, or have elected to be dry. They were policing this themselves.

There is no doubt that for those who have real alcohol dependency problems, the choices are very limited. There are no rehabilitation units or help to lure people away from alcohol; just prohibition.

Under the NT intervention, half of all welfare payments are now quarantined. Once rent and other essentials are taken into account there often is no money left, just vouchers, which can only be used in government-designated stores (such as K-Mart, Woolworths and Coles) via plastic store cards. Nothing left for treats for kids, shoes, clothes or birthday presents — nothing left of individual choice.

The store cards have no PIN numbers and can be easily stolen or lost, and often require extensive travel, sometimes several hundred miles, to be able to be used. The travel expenses often use up the other half of the welfare money.

The Rudd government is moving to quarantine all welfare payments. I shudder to think of the implications.

In Alice, if you go shopping on food voucher day you will see an apartheid-like system of separate aisles for proscribed store card holders. When I tried to join a card-holders queue out of a sense of solidarity, I was told to get in the other aisle.

“The white aisle”, I thought to myself. However, Aboriginal people who do not come under the intervention laws can join that lane, so I guess it is for whites and honourary whites. Nothing like a bit of divide-and-conquer to keep people quiet.

When I was in Woolworths once, my heart went out to one old woman who must have been shopping for the family. She had the wrong card and she clearly did not understand why the food she had put in her trolley and queued for ages to buy was being put back on to the shelves. She ended up wailing and was escorted out by security. When I got through the checkout she was still outside crying.

The quality of the food in the big chains has deteriorated too. One woman with a loud US accent told me that since the intervention she shopped there only for toilet paper and cleaning products. The reason, she said, is that the “Abos” had to shop there and since they don’t really care if food was fresh or not the quality of the fresh food had gone downhill.

So the broccoli is yellow and the lettuce brown on the edges, but it costs the same! On the other side of the same coin, many local retailers are facing closure. Small grocery outlets, and second-hand clothing and furniture stores, previously patronised mainly by Indigenous people, have been hit hard.

Alcohol ‘abuse’

It is hot in Alice and I don’t mind a cooling drink, so I’ve made a few treks to the bottlo. The first thing I noticed was that you have to show picture ID to buy grog now, even just one stubby. Every purchase of alcohol is also recorded.

At last, I thought, they are keeping track of the amount of grog that Territorians drink. But no, they couldn’t give a fig how much people drink; it’s all about controlling what some of them drink.

When I went to a retail outlet at 4pm one day to buy a two-litre cask of wine for a sup over dinner and a bottle of green ginger wine to make my favourite dessert, I was told that neither could be bought until after 6pm. I tried to argue, asking whether I could buy brandy for my dessert instead and the answer was yes. In fact, I could buy enough brandy to make dessert for an army, and scotch and vodka too, indeed any spirits.

And I could buy wine by the bottle too, as much as I wanted — all so long as I showed ID and signed a statement saying I wouldn’t on-sell it to Aboriginal people.

Surely, I asked the store worker, a carton of whiskey is worse for you than a two-litre cask of wine? Then it dawned: green ginger wine, like port, is fairly cheap and is fortified. Blackfellas drink it. They drink cheap cask wine too.

Another facet of the intervention that is unfathomable to me is the practice of erecting signs outside people’s homes marking them out as part of a prescribed area. They are like giant bar codes, telling everyone passing by and the inhabitants that the people living behind the signs are different, implied boozers and users of pornography. It doesn’t matter if it is a house full of women and children, there is no getting away from the implications of the sign.

This practice also implies that it is OK to be a substance abuser and a pornographer anywhere else, just don’t do it in a prescribed zone.

So given all that taxpayers’ money, all that inconvenience, not to mention the total inhumanity of it all, is the intervention working? If it is, it is not evident. But prohibition has never worked, anywhere.

One side effect, though, has been the large number of Aboriginal families who have left Alice.

For prescribed people, the intervention follows them, even interstate. However, many Aboriginal people who live in private accommodation, do not receive Centrelink payments and therefore do not come under the prohibitive rules of the intervention, have family members who do.

Providing alcohol to a prescribed person is illegal, even if that person is your brother, cousin, daughter or whoever, and even if you used to regularly have a few beers with them around the barbeque on a weekend. Now, when your relatives turn up for the regular barbie, you can be fined for giving them a drink, and jailed if you repeat this “offense”.

Rather than accept the indignity and shame of it all, families have quit their jobs, pulled their kids out of school and left for friendlier environments.

Nothing good can ever come from racism and the NT intervention is racist in the extreme.

1. References:

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Alcohol Report, AGPS, Canberra, 1995.

Northern Territory Liquor Commission, Australian Bureau of Statistics, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey 1994, AGPS, Canberra, 1995.

Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, National Household Survey on Drugs, AGPS, Canberra, 1996.

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Aboriginal Alcohol Use and Related Problems, Expert Working Group Report, 1991.

d’Abbs P., Hunter E., Reser J. and Marlin D., Alcohol Related Violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities: A Literature Review, Commonwealth Department of Health, Housing, Local Government and Community Services, 1993.