Progressive culture since 1954
It takes years for me to notice myself doing it whenever I’m with her – the scanning of crowds, the haughty expression on my face, the way I shadow her every step, putting myself between her and other people as often as possible. It’s not just me, either – my sisters and brother are similarly protective of my mother. Where does this defensive stance come from? My mother is not a well-known public figure, nor is she a person given to triggering controversy.
In recent years United Voice, the Australian Education Union, and the Independent Education Union have run equal pay campaigns, fighting for wage increases for qualified early childhood workers – 97 per cent of whom are women – who earn as little as twenty-one dollars an hour. On 6 February, the Equal Remuneration Order application was rejected. Five years of bureaucracy has us back at square one.
I was struck not only by the stories that were presented on the night, but also by those that weren’t – so often our community is considered to be a monolith of identity and of opinion, when in fact even this small slice of life showed our deep and beautiful diversity.
Clive Hamilton, well known for his books on global warming, has tackled a different topic in Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia. He claims that China’s Communist Party has gained so much influence in Australia that it’s ‘taking over’. The book is worth reading for one reason at least: the light that it sheds on the beliefs, goals and methods of John Hu’s ‘Australian Values Alliance’.
On 6 March 1970, an immense explosion tore through the basement of 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village. Two young activists were killed by the dynamite bomb they were constructing. Twenty-two-year-old Terry Robbins, one of the most vocal advocates of revolutionary violence in the Weather Underground, was practically vapourised.