En Passant

Turnbull Government intervention could save the Whyalla steel works and the Queensland Nickel plant in Townsville. By occupying the plants workers could put nationalisation on the agenda.

The Shell refinery workers at Geelong could demand, and excuse me for using the racist phraseology of the Labor Prime Minister but I hope it makes a point, that ‘Aussie jobs first’ Julia Gillard nationalise the refinery without compensation.

If Gillard won’t do that – she won’t – then workers could take the refinery over and run it themselves. There is an alternative to the madness that is the market. Occupy the workplace. There is no other alternative if workers want to defend their jobs.

Put simply why doesn’t Labor nationalise Ford, Holden and Toyota as part of a plan to turn Australia into a completely renewable energy country by 2025 and to produce not just solar panels and wind turbines but public transport in the form of buses, light rail and high speed trains? That would not only save jobs; it would create them.

So here we have the most profitable banks in the world, the big 4 Australian banks with $31 billion in profits, not prepared to pass on a 0.25% overnight cash rate reduction to their customers on their home and business loans.

Soak the bastards, Treasurer. Hit them with a super profits tax, or threaten to do that.

And when they claim that that would impact on their costs of lending and would need to be recouped, threaten them with interest rate controls and mention you might set up a people’s bank. Oh, I forgot, we used to have one of them until the previous Labor Government flogged it off.

Maybe we should nationalise the banks under workers’ control instead.

Nationalise QANTAS under workers’ control to win real wage increases and secure jobs. Tax the rich to pay for it.

Nationalise QANTAS, BlueScope and OneSteel under workers’ control.

Fight the job losses. Strike and occupy the workplaces. Organise production to satisfy human need.

So while borrowing costs did rise the Commonwealth and other Australian banks have increased their lending rates to us by more than their increased borrowing costs. They gouged us, and continue to gouge us.

Nationalise the mines under workers’ control.

$5.66 billion. That’s the obscene profit the Commonwealth Bank made last financial year. Remember back to December 2009?  The Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates 0.25 percent. The Commonwealth Bank raised its rates 0.37 percent. Remember back to the start of the global financial crisis?  In October 2008 the Rudd Labor Government guaranteed bank […]

So why don’t we just nationalise these mining companies and as a community control the exploitation of this resource and make sure the benefits go working people, not into the pockets of less profitable businesses?