Girt by sea

Free ebook Download: Girt By Sea

Girt by Sea is an amalgam of several street theatre performances reworked as a play for voices (or for radio broadcast). There is nothing especially ambitious about the play as it merely tries to touch on a few notions about the mandatory detention of refugees and package them in a short, sharp piece that quickly gets down to satirical business.

(One day I'll lay this down as audio...)

________________________
CHARACTERS
COOEE!
AUSSIE OI!
INTERCOM (Some amplification and voice distortion required as through a loud hailer.)
_________________



FX SOUND OF VOICES DEVELOPED FROM A BABEL MIX OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND ASIAN LANGUAGES.

AS VOICES EBB THEY BLEND WITH THE SOUND OF WAVES LAPPING ON A BEACH.

ROUGH DRUM ROLL FOLLOWED BY A SINGLE DISCORDANT NOTE FROM A PARTY WHISTLE OR KAZOO. FOLLOWED BY COUGHING AND MURMUING AS IN A HALL OF PEOPLE.




COOEE! AUSSIE OI! (TOGETHER. SINGING UNACCOMPANIED.)
Australians let us all rejoice
AUSSIE OI! For we are young and free
With ……..and
Our home is girt by sea….

COOEE! (IN TUNE - HUM/UM)
La da de da de da da da

AUSSIE OI! A beauty rich and rare

COOEE! (IN TUNE - HUM/UM)

Ummm Hmmmm Hmmm Hmmm Ummm Hm


COOEE!/AUSSIE OI : (TOGETHER)

AD vance Os tray lia fair….!


FX: DRUM ROLL. MUCH WHISTLE AND KAZOO BLOWING HAD BY ALL. SUDDEN SHARP BEAT. SILENCE


COOEE! Girted by sea.--

AUSSIE OI! Makes you think.

COOEE! To "girt".

AUSSIE OI! "Girtedness".

COOEE! Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

AUSSIE OI! Oi! Oi! Oi!

(BOTH LAUGH.)

FX: BLOW AND HUMMING OF KAZOOS. DRUM BEAT. STOP).

COOEE! Girt--

AUSSIE OI! Sea.

FX: BABBLE OF ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES.

COOEE! Land.

AUSSIE OI! Girt-

COOEE! Sea.

FX: BABBLE OF ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES.

AUSSIE OI! Land.

COOEE! Girt-

AUSSIE OI! Sea.

FX: BRIEF BABBLE OF ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES.

(AUSSIE OI & COOEE! THEN DO THIS CIRCUIT OVER AND OVER FASTER AND FASTER RAISING THEIR VOICES UNTIL…)

AUSSIE OI!: Land.

COOEE! Girt-

AUSSIE OI! Sea.

FX: BABBLE STOPS

(PAUSE.)

COOEE!/AUSSIE OI!
Refugees!

FX: DOUBLE DRUM BEAT.

COOEE! Over there,…
AUSSIE OI! Beyond the girt
COOEE! Beyond the girt… people live in garbage tips.
AUSSIE OI! Over there, they work for next to nothing.
COOEE! Over there, life is cheap.
AUSSIE OI! The root problem over there… is…
COOEE! --there's too many of them
AUSSIE OI! Over there.
COOEE! Or they're not over here.
AUSSIE OI! Over here, you can live the life of Riley if you work hard.
COOEE! But we don't want them from over there working hard over here.
AUSSIE OI! If they were over here who'd be working over there making all the stuff we buy over there?
COOEE! So all those over there need to stay over there so over here can stay the same. If they weren't over there we couldn't enjoy over here as much as we do. So we need them over there.
AUSSIE OI! And they need us over here. That's the rule, the status quo…that's geography in the market place.
COOEE! Thus the girt!
AUSSIE OI! (AGREEING)
Thus the girt!
COOEE! Without us over here, who'd buy what they've got to sell? It's a well known fact that over there you can live much cheaper than over here.
AUSSIE OI! Over here we don't live on garbage tips. Over here we've got a mortgage, a car to run and reticulated sewerage….Over there you can get by without those things.
COOEE! (ASIDE) So why don't they!
AUSSIE OI! Over here we've got problems. Over there they have them too. But the problems over there are just so BIG.
FX: DRUMBEAT.ROLL. CYMBAL.
COOEE! Over here we have a big enough task making ends meet. Over there it is probably the same…but hey! we're not over there, we're over here. And since we are over here, over there is a world away.
COOEE! Thus the girt!
AUSSIE OI! Thus the girt! So who gives a stuff, if over there gets it tougher than we get it over here.
COOEE! It's all relative. That's life.
COOEE! AUSSIE OI! (TOGETHER)
Fortunately it 's not ours.
FX: DRUMBEAT - CALL TO QUARTERS.
INTERCOM I wouldn't "jump the queue" if I was you
"Cause we got ways and means.
Of making sure we lock the door
To protect our coastal seams.

Wether you swim or drown
It's all the same
'Cause we don't give a stuff
Blather and cry, winge and complain
It's useless --- we play tough.

Girt by sea we can live with
Refugees we can't.
We secure our borders
By giving orders --
One rule for all when you approach our door
It's simple, just …piss off!
COOEE! Globalise existence if you will. We're ready here downunder.
AUSSIE OI! Restructured--
COOEE! Best practiced--
AUSSIE OI! Marketed--
COOEE! Fiscally reformed--
AUSSIE OI! Downsized--
COOEE! Privatised--
AUSSIE OI! Corporatised.
COOEE! Christ! We got a GST!
AUSSIE OI! So come on world
COOEE! Oi! Oi! Oi!
AUSSIE OI! And do you stuff:
COOEE! Send us your huddled downturns, your in-balanced sheets and your homeless capital yearning to be free!
AUSSIE OI! Oi! Oi! Oi!
COOEE! This is Australia calling.
AUSSIE OI! (SHOUTING)
Coooooooo_____ee!
FX "COOEEE" ECHOES…ENDS. THEN:
ANNOUNCER'S VOICE (FAR OFF. IN CLIPPED ENGLISH ACCENT OTHER THAN AUSTRALIAN)
Stay where you are Australia - I'm coming over!
FX: FIRST THREE BARS PLAYED BY A BRASS BAND OF ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR. THIS ENDS ABRUPTLY.
CARCOPHANY OF ASIAN URBAN SOUNDS MESHES WITH ANTHEN FROM WHICH EMERGE…CHORUS: AUSSIE OI'S AND COOEE'S VOICES EITHER PRE-RECORDED AND PLAYED IN FAST MODE OR THE SAME ACTORS EMPLOYING DIFFERENT OR DISTORTED VOICES .


1ST VOICE I don't know who they think they are fooling --
2ND VOICE We suffer and starve and go without schooling.
1ST VOICE: To make ends meet we gotta come cheap --
2ND VOICE Selling our labour till the end of the week.
1ST VOICE They told us the old days were over and gone -
2ND VOICE But everyone knows the same days live on.
IST VOICE Labour and capital, rich and poor --
2ND VOICE We don't want to live like this anymore.
IST VOICE We need some respite
2ND VOICE But what do we get?
1ST VOICE The same old "solution" -
BOTH Debt! Debt! Debt! …
FX: THIS EXTENDS INTO A BALINESE STYLE MONKEY CHANT WHICH DRIFTS INTO THE BACKGROUND WHILE AUSSIE OI! SPEAKS.
AUSSIE OI! What are we going to do? Offshore -- everywhere -- there's all these people dead set keen on coming here or any location offering a shot at three meals a day and an indoor toilet. Not that that's guaranteed, but that's the promise in the promised lands. And whether you recognise it or not what we've got here in the way of material pleasures is as good as it gets. Yesiree, it won't get any better than this. You may have misgivings. You may be one of those who harps on and on about how hard done by you are. Get a life! Instead of being born into a triple-fronted brick veneer low set and a regular breakfast of Weetbix plus choice of beverage, you could have been stuck in the household of a landless peasant from Upper Volta with early tuberculosis and a nasty case of intestinal worms. Get real, matey! You've got it good.
FX: "DEBT" MONKEY CHANT STOPS'
INTERCOM Stay away.
FX: WAVES ON BEACH
INTERCOM Stay away. Stay away.
FX: WAVES ON BEACH. STOP.
COOEE! Sheep shit in the South Pacific. With your baa lambs and your empty sky, you big fella stretched out sun baking.. Sunburnt. Sleepy. Empty. You lucky bastard of a country. You your own boss cockie. Sheep shit and blowies. My country. "Core of my heart."… My suburban quarter acre block with 3 b/rms, VJ interior, carpeted floors, refurb kitchen and all cons. You it. You girt by sea. You gloating in your wee little Aussie battlers this small. Youse the underdog. Youse all mates. Too bloody right you are… So with a sprig of wattle in our hand we celebrate from whence we came. Australians! You true blue sons and daughters of Oz! I ask you to charge your glasses and raise your voices. And let's hear it for all the dinky-dyes out there:
(ATTEMPT AT SINGING)
Australians let us all rejoice, for we are young and free ... etcetera, et…cet…tera…rah…rah…rah…rah!.
FX: MERGES INTO BACKGROUND OF DRUNKEN PARTY EXCHANGE WITH CLINKING OF GLASSWARE. TAPERS OFF.
INTERCOM Stay away!
FX: WAVES ON BEACH
INTERCOM Go back where you came from!
FX: WAVES ON BEACH
INTERCOM You're not wanted here!
FX: WAVES ON BEACH STOP.
(PAUSE)
COOEE! If we offend it is with our good will.
AUSSIE OI! We want the best
COOEE! The very best
AUSSIE OI! For all and sundry.
COOEE! For you--
AUSSIE OI! And you--
COOEE! And you--
AUSSIE OI! For all of us.
COOEE! In this dry brown land do dwell.
(PAUSE)
AUSSIE OI! But the job market is so very, very tight.
COOEE! Let us make this quite clear: Very tight.
AUSSIE OI! We're not to blame.
COOEE! Free enterprise being what it is.
AUSSIE OI! Has its ups.
COOEE! And downs.
AUSSIE OI! Here --
COOEE! As well as over there --
AUSSIE OI! Here .. there… is-simply-not-enough-to-go-around.
COOEE! Not enough land.
AUSSIE OI! Think of our carrying capacity.
COOEE! Hospital beds.
AUSSIE OI! Think of our carrying capacity.
COOEE! Pensions.
AUSSIE OI! Think of our carrying capacity.
COOEE! Money.
AUSSIE OI! No where near enough of that.
COOEE! Jobs.
(PAUSE)
AUSSIE OI! So if you are down and out ...
COOEE! We don't want to have to be lifting up our heads and shouting:
AUSSIE OI! Some wog's got my job!
COOEE! Do we?
AUSSIE OI! (ASIDE) Many lands.
COOEE! (ASIDE) One voice.
AUSSIE OI! But them --
COOEE! Them. Them's a different matter.
AUSSIE OI! Sneaking into our country!
COOEE! (ASIDE) And there's no way of telling them from the locals.
AUSSIE OI! No way.
COOEE! No bloody way!
AUSSIE OI! If they were to-
COOEE! Play by the rules
AUSSIE OI! Follow procedures.
COOEE! Join the queue.
AUSSIE OI! They'd be most welcome here.
COOEE! Most welcome.
(PAUSE)
AUSSIE OI! (AGGRESSIVELY) Don't come in the first place.
COOEE! We're not a soft touch.
AUSSIE OI! (ASIDE) Many lands.
COOEE! (ASIDE) One voice.
AUSSIE OI! But to sneak in!
COOEE! Sneak!
AUSSIE OI! Without an invite.
COOEE! We don't want people like that here…
AUSSIE OI! You never know what to expect…
COOEE! (ASIDE) It's embarrassing…smudging our picture postcard like that.
AUSSIE OI! We like to pick our own.
COOEE! It takes real effort to become a bona fide Australian.
AUSSIE OI! You don't become one by sneaking into the country, for instance.
COOEE! That's un-Australian.
AUSSIE OI! No. To become one you gotta play by the rules.
COOEE! Our rules.
COOEE!/AUSSIE OI! (TOGETHER.)
--We're searching for identity.
FX FIRST TWO BARS OF WALZING MATILDA. ABRUPTLY STOPS
AUSSIE OI! (ASIDE) Many lands.
COOEE! (ASIDE) One voice.
AUSSIE OI! COOEE! (TOGETHER. CURSORY ATTEMPT AT SINGING )
We are Aus-tray-lee-yarn.
COOEE! And just because you're here it doesn't mean you can stay.
AUSSIE OI! That's taking advantage.
COOEE! Stay away
AUSSIE OI! Stay at home.
COOEE! Go someplace else.
AUSSIE OI! Not here. Out there.
COOEE! Somewhere.
AUSSIE OI! Beyond the girt.
FX: WAVES ON BEACH QUICKLY BUILDING IN VOLUME AND POWER WITH A RISING WIND.CRY OF SEAGULLS. MUSIC RISING ABRUPTLY: 'ONEDIN LINE THEME' (THE BALLET MUSIC FROM SPARTACUS BY KHACHATURIAN.)
COOEE! (SHOUTING) Not here. Out there. Beyond the bloody girt.
FX: SEA, MUSIC AND WIND SOUNDS TAPER OFF QUICKLY TO SILENCE.
COOEE! Girt--

AUSSIE OI! Sea.

FX: BABBLE OF ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES.

COOEE! Land.

AUSSIE OI! Girt-

COOEE! Sea.

FX: BABBLE OF ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES.

AUSSIE OI! Land.

COOEE! Girt-

AUSSIE OI! Sea.

FX: BABBLE OF ASIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN LANGUAGES.

AUSSIE OI! Land.

COOEE! Girt-

AUSSIE OI! Sea.

FX: NO BABBLE
(PAUSE)
COOEE!/AUSSIE OI! Refugees!
FX: CICADAS, BLOW FLIES,ETC ON A HOT SUMMER DAY.
RISING FROM BACKGROUND -- FAR OFF TO OFF --IS SOUND OF ETHNIC RADIO EG: ARABIC THEN INDONESIAN POP MUSIC -- AS STATIONS ARE CHANGED. THIS IS SUDDENLY SWITCHED OFF AND REPLACED BY STERILE MUSACK. SOUND OF A MICROPHONE BEING HANDLED AND STATIC.
INTERCOM Unlawful non citizens…Unlawful non citizens….This is not a borderless society. You are not wanted here….You are unauthorized arrivals...You are unauthorized arrivals…You have chosen not to apply for a visa. You refused to line up. You should have staid at home. You have shown no respect for the rule of law in this country...You have shown no respect.
FX: BLOW FLIES BUZZING
INTERCOM (PAUSE)
You are detained as a result of your unauthorised entry, not for asylum seeking …not for seeking asylum. You should have done that before you left to come here. That was your mistake. That was your mistake...You will be removed from here. You will be taken to the place from whence you came…You cannot stay in this country. You are going to be sent home...or somewhere else. You are non citizens who have broken our laws.
FX: BLOW FLIES BUZZING
AUSSIE OI! Naughty, naughty, naughty…
COOEE! We don't like that.
AUSSIE OI! Not at all.
COOEE! Any offshore resource is similarly girt by law.
AUSSIE OI! Girt by law.
COOEE! So if any unlawful non citizen were to beach themselves on Christmas Island.
AUSSIE OI! That's girt by law.
COOEE! Ashmore reef.
AUSSIE OI! Girt by law.
COOEE! Cocos Island.
AUSSIE OI! Girt by law.
COOEE! Oil rigs at sea.
AUSSIE OI! Girt by law.
INTERCOM (BARKED AS ON PARADE GROUND)
Excised offshore places strengthening our territorial integrity.

FX THREE BARS, ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR.

AUSSIE OI!/COOEE! (TOGETHER PSEUDO SINGING IN 4/4 TIME AS SOON AS MUSIC STOPS)
Girt by law
Girt by law.
FX: BLOW FLIES BUZZING
INTERCOM (BARKED AS ON PARADE GROUND)
As your official detention service provider we have been contracted to run this immigration detention facility.
AUSSIE OI!/COOEE! (TOGETHER PSEUDO SINGING)
Girt by law
Girt by law.
INTERCOM (PROMOTIONAL)
For around $120 per person per day twin share we offer a great deal. Three meals a day. Culturally appropriate menus. A bed for all. Laundry facilities. Games room. Shower block. Unlimited chilled water, tea, coffee, milk and sugar. 24 hour medical centre. All mod cons. So if you are depressed, severely depressed or slip into psychosis on occasion during your extended stay with us…We're prepared.
FX: BLOW FLIES BUZZING. STERILE MUSACK* BEGINS. THEN STOPS
INTERCOM (VOICE MOVE FROM 'OFF' TO 'ON' AS IN PASSING BY]
No escaping… No self mutilation… No starving to death…No sitting on roofs.... No stitching of lips together…No torching facilities…No rioting … No litigation…No attention seeking…No embarrassing behaviours of any kind … None of that…You can't complain. Not allowed…That's un-Australian.
[VOICE MOVE FROM 'ON' TO 'OFF', THEN 'FAR OFF' & PART REPEAT THROUGH A FADE.]
FX: BLOW FLIES BUZZING . SILENCE. STERILE MUSACK BEGINS. THEN STOPS
INTERCOM Thankyou for waiting. Your application as an unlawful non-citizen is being processed.
FX: STERILE MUSACK BEGINS. THEN STOPS
INTERCOM Thankyou for waiting. Your application as an unlawful non-citizen is being processed.
FX: STERILE MUSACK BEGINS. THEN STOPS
INTERCOM Thankyou for waiting. Your application as an unlawful non-citizen is being processed.
FX: STERILE MUSACK BEGINS. THEN STOPS.
INTERCOM Thankyou for waiting. Your application as an unlawful non-citizen is being processed.
FX: STERILE MUSACK BEGINS. FADES. SOUND OF A DISCONNECTED PHONE LINE. TAPERS OFF. DRUM ROLL. FOLLOWED BY SINGLE LONG BLOW ON SPORTS WHISTLE
INTERCOM All men on stage!
FX: RUNNING ON WOODEN FLOOR.
INTERCOM Everybody down on one knee! Now bend down low and look battle-worn. A bit more tension there. A touch more gloom on your faces. That's it.
You there, you'll play the role of Dole Bludger. Now dance over to the others with an expression of furtive glee.
FX: SINGLE PERSON DANCING ON WOODEN FLOOR.
INTERCOM Furtive glee, I said, furtive glee! Ah, that's better.
All available female personnel. Line up!
FX: RUNNING ON WOODEN FLOOR.
INTERCOM You -- yes you! -- you're Miss Homelife. Sorry, Mrs Homelife. You seem demure enough for the role. And you're Miss Equality, because it's all the same to me whoever plays the part. And you're Miss Australia, so look stalwart and generous. Stalwart and generous, I said!
Get ready now. Let's go.
All you men there, break from your imaginary toil and rise upward toward an imaginary sun. Mrs Homelife, Miss Equality and Miss Australia, minister to them. Minister! Put some love in it! They're your little darlings, for crissake!
Men, pretend "you have nothing" and imagine "you can make it". Climb over each other, symbolising the effects of a free market economy. Excellent! Now build a pyramid with your competing bodies.
FX: STRAINED SCRAMBLE OF BODIES. SOME FALLING.
INTERCOM How about a little teamwork there! That's better. Dole Bludger, lay down flat so you can break their fall.
You on top, take an imaginary flag in your hand and wave it to the tempo of a free country, conveying the joy of being a victorious Aussie battler. Great.
All ladies stand up. Come on up you get. Hang imaginary garlands around the necks of everyone -- for trying. That's to symbolise the blooming of happiness that only comes with effort.
Wonderful! That's it. That's it! Let in the sheep. Bring up the kookaburra chorus.
FX BACKGROUND: SHEEP. KOOKABURRA CALL.
INTERCOM Add the didgeridoo.
FX BACKGROUND: DIDGERIDOO LEAD IN. ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR SLOWLY RISING

INTERCOM Now, unfold the flag. Slouch hats on. Wave the sprigs of wattle. I said, wave them -- hold them aloft and give them a bloody good shake. That's better. Now all you ethnics in the front row, face the front and smile. Good. Excellent. Send in the wombat and the kangaroo. And you, indigenous Australian blackfella-type person in a loin cloth, show us your teeth. Now we're cooking. Are we happy or what? I can't hear it? Are we happy? You bet we are.
(PAUSE)
No wonder they all want to come here.
FX ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR RISES QUICKLY IN VOLUME AND OCHESTRATION. THEN FADES. WAVES ON BEACH. BLOW FLIES BUZZING.

FINIS


*STERILE MUSACK: [Suggestion] The same few bars--repeated each time-from the instrumental version of The Girl from Ipanema (Antonio Carlos Jobim)

VIDEO:Australia Day: sheep shit in the South Pacific

Australia Day

Sheep shit in the South Pacific. With your baa lambs and your empty sky, you big fella stretched out in sun drying. Sunburnt. Sleepy. Empty. You lucky bastard of a country. You your own planet, your own boss cockie -- claiming all the sheep shit and blowies. My country, my land, my suburban quarter acre block with 3 b/rms, VJ interior, carpeted floors, refurb kitchen and all cons. You it. You girthed by sea. You John Howard. You Kevin rudd. You gloating in your wee little aussie battlers this small. You the underdog. You all mates. You hate boongs, poofs, sheilas ... but love a shag, a beer and a day at the footy. You say: Up there Cazaly! and watch the replay on the box. God! You love this country! (But never say so 'til you're pissed.) You love the RSL (same thing). You can play the pokies, have a beer and feel real proud to be an aussie. Too right! Waltzing Matilda you come a waltzing with me. Green and gold to win. You say: don't put that in your mouth, some Chinaman could have been wiping his bum with it! You say: wog. You say: we're not racist. You say: please explain. You say what they want you to say. You say: let's go for a swim. So you stretch out on the border of sand with the 15+ and the kids, and work on your melanoma. You sleep in this land of the real long smoko; work, breed, and then you die. But first we celebrate this day of all days -- Australia day. Day 1. And with chicken pox and poison baits and murder and rape we peopled the empty place downunder with those who could speak as we do and know an abo when we see one. The day we began, way back when one flag could claim it all.

So with a sprig of wattle in our hand we celebrate from whence we came. Australians! You true blue sons and daughters of Oz! I ask you to charge your glasses and raise your voices. And let's hear it for all the dinky-dis out there: Australians let us rejoice, for we are young and free ... etcetera.

--Dave Riley

Happy Invasion Day 2010 from Fear of a Brown Planet on Vimeo.

Malcolm, Adolf & the Big Lie Share

By Peter Boyle
[Thanks to Alex Bainbridge for doing the photoart. The actual Liberal billboard can be seen here]

In his notorious Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler explained the political device of the big lie:

“...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously...”

If Liberal federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull wasn't consciously taking Hitler's political advice when he unveiled his party's new mobile political billboard blaming Labor for building up a $315 billion debt through “reckless spending”, he was acting on a similar political instinct.

The big truth that Turnbull's big lie seeks to obliterate is that the $315 billion debt is just part of the social cost being forced on the Australian public to bail out capitalism from a crisis that follows decades of greedy speculation and social and environmental vandalism.

Since the late 1970s in Australia, both Labor and Liberal governments alike have been culpable in feeding capitalism's profit frenzy by pursuing a common neoliberal economic and political agenda. The culmination of this frenzy of greed and speculation is the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. And now the public is being forced to pay.

Despite all the spin about economic recovery, 21,900 full-time jobs went in just the month to June, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Meanwhile, ordinary families are being hit with bigger bills for childcare, rent, health, water and electricity.

Around the world, many trillions of dollars of pain is being inflicted on ordinary people to pay for unbridled capitalist profiteering.

At a time like this, capitalist politics becomes increasingly a campaign to shift the blame away from the system itself. Scapegoats are set up. And given Australia's racist history, it is not surprising that underbelly of capitalist politics today is the targeting of racial minorities. Mass SMS messages inciting violence against Indians, Lebanese and Muslims sweep through the most recession-hit suburbs of the big cities – sometimes with bloody consequences. Sly racist tracts work their way into email inboxes.

Small neo-Nazi groups are fanning racial hatred against immigrant communities and are trying to regroup and relaunch themselves as an electoral force under the name “Australia First”. These far-right goons have taken heart from the rise the the electoral support for anti-immigrant parties in Europe and they seek to capitalise on the deepening recession.

With such menacing developments afoot, a publication like Green Left Weekly, which is committed to exposing the big lies that permeate capitalist politics, is essential. Please make a donation today to the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund at: Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. You can also post a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or phone in a donation through on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).

QLD: Build the July 3 No Sell Off Rally

We finally have a venue for Brisbane. 12.00 noon, Emma Miller Place (Formerly known as the Roma Street Forum) for the QCU Queensland is not for Sale/Light on the Hill rally. A meeting of QCU Affiliates has been called for this Friday to plan a possible march etc. Please let everyone on your network know of the time and new venue for this.

• Download rally flyer
• Read rally flyer online
• Socialist Alliance Stop the Sell Off pages

Friday 3rd July
12 Noon
Roma Street Forum/Emma Miller Place

NO to Privatisation now

The Flyer argues:The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) is sponsoring a Statewide community campaign against the sale of public assets, including most of Queensland Rail, by the Bligh Labor Government.

The Light on the Hill campaign gives ETU members and their fellow Queenslanders a chance to speak out against the privatisation of State Government assets.

During the last State election campaign the ETU warned the Liberal National Party it would campaign against them when they announced, “a LNP government would not oppose privatisation of public assets”. The announcement was made in the LNP’s economic platform: Addressing our Economic Objectives.

Well the same applies to the Labor Party, which has now embarked on a massive program of privatisation – and we do not believe it will stop at Queensland Rail if they get away with it.

Electricity and water might be ruled out at the moment, but they will be next if Queenslanders don’t say NO to Privatisation now.

Queensland electricity prices have already jumped signiicantly since the privatisation of the retail electricity market. Actually 17 per cent in two years and in December another 14 per cent rise was announced by the Queensland Competition Authority.

This is what happens all the time with privatisation. The community is spun a line about the virtues of private ownership and competition, most of which never eventuates.The big winners in privatisation are over-paid executives and brokerage irms, while consumers are left to ind the extra money for rising bills. Hasn’t the global inancial crisis taught us anything about this type of behaviour?

We are continually being told the global financial crisis will end at some time and that economic growth will return. So there is no need to panic and start selling off things to fund a temporary problem.

The State Government should hold its nerve and not respond to conservative economic pressures to balance the books in the short term at the expense of the State’s long-term interests.

Haven’t governments, especially Labor governments, learnt the lesson of the 1930s, which is to put the needs of people and the community ahead of the socially-destructive expectations of conservative inanciers and economists.

HISTORY: Communism in Australia

By Dave Holmes

[This talk was presented at the A Century of Struggle — Laborism and the radical alternative: Lessons for today conference, held in Melbourne, Australia, on May 30, 2009. It was organised by Socialist Alliance and sponsored by Green Left Weekly, Australia’s leading socialist newspaper. To read other talks presented at the conference, click HERE.]

The original Communist Party of Australia ceased to exist in 1991*. So it is a long while gone. Many comrades here would have had no experience of it. Yet for most of its 70-year history the CPA was Australia’s major left party. At times the party had a significant impact on Australian politics — especially in the grim years of the Great Depression, during World War II and during the Cold War. Cynics used to make cracks about the “party” of ex-members of the CPA being the biggest political formation in the country but what is true is that over these seven decades probably scores of thousands of people saw the party as the vehicle with which to fight for a better world.

For decades the CPA was a strong militant force in the trade union movement. It played a key role in supporting various national liberation struggles (Indonesia in its independence struggle against the Dutch after World War II and much later East Timor in its fight); it fought hard for civil liberties (we can mention the Egon Kisch case in the 1930s and the fight against Menzies push to ban the party in the early 1950s). In the field of culture the CPA — through writers such as Jean Devanny, Frank Hardy, Dorothy Hewett and Katherine Susannah Prichard — developed a strong influence.

However, despite the many undeniably positive chapters in the CPA’s history there was another side. The CPA was created to fight for socialism and it recruited on that basis. But a gross contradiction developed. At the end of the 1920s the party became Stalinised. This meant that on all fundamental questions its politics were subordinated to those of the privileged conservative bureaucracy which had usurped power in the Soviet Union.

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House insulation, survival and sustainability.

New Zealand houses: draughty and deadly [ABC Science Show]

Houses in New Zealand don't protect their occupants from the temperate climate of high rainfall and strong westerly winds. The houses' designs are based on those from other parts of the world. And now adverse health effects have been measured. More people die in winter than summer, a higher proportion than in other countries. Even Siberia's houses offer more protection from winter conditions.

The same could be said about Australian housing and how the norm here is neither comfort suited to the climatic conditions nor the pressing rigors of sustainability in the face of Climate Change.

The question is, I suggest, how useful is Rudd's Energy Efficient Homes Package?

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Original audio source (ssw_20090606_1213.mp3)

New UNITY journal: 'The Great Implosion: Global crisis and the left'

New edition of the Socialist Worker group journal ( New Zealand).

It's been a bit of a gap between UNITY Journals, but it's at least worth the wait, because the contents of this one will make it a must read for activists in Aotearoa.

To arrange postage of a copy email organiser@sworker.pl.net. The cost is $6.50 (including postage).

The Great Implosion: Global crisis and the left

CONTENTS

• 5 Crisis, danger and opportunity --Daphne lawless, editor of UNITY
• 10 Financial implosion and stagnation --JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER and FRED MAGDOFF
• 40 Will the global economy recover? --Alex Callinicos, Socialist Workers Party (Britain)
• 42 Trade unions and New Zealand’s economic crisis -- GRANT BROOKES, Socialist Worker (New Zealand)
• 59 The housing crisis revisited --PETER DE WAAL, Socialist Worker (New Zealand)
• 67 Responding to the crisis - VAUGHAN GUNSON, Socialist Worker (New Zealand)
  
• 78 The rocks of opposing class interests -Don Franks, Workers Party of New Zealand
  
• 84 Venezuela: New measures to confront crisis -JIM McILROY and CORAL WYNTER, Green Left Weekly (Australia)
• 87 France: The anti-capitalist hope-- PIERRE-FRANÇOIS GROND, New Anti-Capitalist Party (France)
• 89 Fighting the financial crisis --Die Linke (The Left party), Germany
• 91 New left openings in Britain --ROBERT GRIFFITHS, Morning Star (Britain)
• 94 The People’s Charter for Change
• 97 Challenges facing Québec solidaire -- RICHARD FIDLER, Socialist Voice (Canada)
• 103 Defend jobs, not profits! --Socialist Alliance (Australia)
• 107 Fighting the bloggers on their own turf - DAPHNE LAWLESS
• 112 A handbook for the downturn --GRAHAM MATTHEWS, Green Left Weekly (Australia)
• 115 Feedback: Letters from Ondine Green, Bronwen Beechey and an Auckland union activist

Unity 10

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Magazines & Newspape socialism

Stolen wages: still very much stolen from Indigenous Australians

In Queensland, it was the law for 70 years that Aboriginal people were sent to work but were paid only a fraction of their wages, while the government held the rest of the money in trust. During the Protection Era the government gave itself the power to send Aboriginal men, women and children out to work where and when it saw fit. It was the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children under the age of 21 and dictated where and how people lived, whom they could marry, even what they ate. In 2002 the Beattie government made Aboriginal workers an offer. Those still living who could pass an eligibility test would be entitled to a one-off payment of between two and four thousand dollars. In exchange, those workers would sign away their rights to future litigation to recover their wages. Now that the government wants to settle the issue, we listen to the stories of some of the three generations who worked under 'the Act'. This program was shortlisted in the audio/visual category for the 2008 NSW Premier's History Awards.

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Victorian bush fires and climate change

By Dave Riley

I was wondering if any one has hazarded an estimate as to the immediate and long term ecological and climate consequences of the Vic bush fires.

QUESTION:The total amount of biomass burnt and the consequent carbon tonnage emitted?

Reports suggest that the ash will now pollute Melbourne water supply as several key dams are within the bushfire catchment-- Maroondah for one. However, recent CSIRO research indicates that a forest while recovering from a bush fire takes up 20 % more water to sustain regrowth over the NEXT 20 YEARS and so 20% less water is harvested by the catchment for downstream take up. (Research done on the Snowy Mtns burn)

The irony is that places like Marysville included many ferny glens and ancient rain forest stands. Much of that biomass: fuel!

Similarly, ABC radio caught an element not so clear from the TV coverage: in places like Kinglake and Flowerdale many of the homes incinerated were back to nature and 'environmentally sustainable' mud brick style homes. At stake here is not only the long term bush interface that runs as a thread through Australian colonial history, but the culture of the new tree change demographic who argue that they bring back to the land sustainable farming and accommodation practices 'at one' with nature. What good is individual permaculture projects or environmentally friendly house design, for instance,(even with complicated bush fire design principles in place) if the land so cherished is as prone to burning as the rest of the landscape and the fires proceed by spot outbreaks kilometres in advance of the fire front?

The Vic media were bandying around the figure that 1 million animals may have died in the fires.I assume that includes livestock as well as fauna?It is hard to imagine what species could have out run the fire or survived as it came over them. So the ecological significance of these blazes are going to be long term in these areas. Many native animals can live through most fires, but this one was a bit different, I'd think.

And while there is a commitment to rebuild these townships surely there is going to be both a major cultural and financial shift. Not only will insurance premiums rise steeply but the resale value of these properties are sure to fall -- and these homes would need to be rebuilt where much infrastructure has been destroyed.

Assuming the location are correctly referenced, today's bushfire map on Google Maps suggest that the continuing outbreak of fires follows a pattern that relates directly to human habitation and urban sprawl.(There are no fires east of Mt Buller and Mt Beauty for instance) In fact its urban sprawl that is the main arsonist rather than individual pyromaniacs.

So I'm suggesting, that the underlying question raised by these fires in a time of galloping climate change -- for Australians -- is shocking indeed such that a major sociological shift may be called for. The floods to the north raise a similar quandary.

There is no bargain to be had with climate change, no little niche you can grab, that will spare your existence from its impact. That in fact, maybe unbeknown to us yet, we may be as vulnerable in many ways as the people of Kiribati.

Dorother Mackellar, the Firestorm and the Deluge

By Dave Riley

A considered and conservative report by David Karoly on Real Climate --Bushfires and extreme heat in south-east Australia -- concludes that yes indeed climate is a'changing.

But Karoly doesn't address the ecological irony that as Victoria (still) burns both New South Wales and Queensland are drowning. Dry old Bourke is now a disaster area as the Darling has consumed the town.

This post antediluvian scenario is only missing a plague of frogs...(With such a weather pattern , we'd only get cane toads anyway).

When you look at the satellite picture (right) the land mass looks like its about to be shifted someplace else by dint of climatic forces.

I am reminded of Dorothy MacKellars' nationalistic poem My Country

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.

and wonder how much pay back presumably exists in this national contract she has so much confidence in. Writing in 1908 (the summer of 1907/08 registered 246 deaths caused from the heat wave in the Southern States) she would have been familiar with the massive ecological consequences of the Federation Drought (1896-1901) which totally altered the colonization pattern of Australia as the sheep and wheat belt was massively rolled back for lack of pasture and water.

Dust blown from Australia was turning snow on the mountains along the spine of New Zealand's South Island red.

The Federation Drought signaled a major climate shift across eastern Australia from the wet period of the nineteenth century to a dry spell lasting until the middle 1940s (the Good Friday fires were in 1939) and generally has continued through the post war period but more starkly over the last 25 years -- going back to the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983.

For today's experience, Wikipedia now has an excellent summary of the Victorian Fires this month.

When you check out the figures for worst disasters in Australia's history -- while these February fires top the bush fire death toll, the figures for numbers dead due to heat wave are frightening:

1939.......438
1895/96.....437
1907/08..... 246
1920/21....147
1911/12... 143+
etc...

Then there is 2009 Southeastern Australia heat wave. Nine day heatwave with Adelaide recording a record six consecutive days over 40 °C (104 °F) and a record high of 45.7 °C (114.3 °F) with a record overnight minimum of 33.9 °C (93 °F) on January 28. So far, 126 have died so far from the heat alone -- and this in the era of air conditioning, electric fans, refrigerators, trips to the beach or ambient air shopping towns and social services.

Much as I smirk at the sentimental nationalism in MacKella's poem -- a rote nationalism every child in primary school had to learn --on this re-reading I recognise that she did in indeed have a feel for the massive ambivalence the climate imposes on those who live here:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of drought and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!

"Her beauty and her terror!" Terror is hardly an attribute that is bandied about in standard chauvinistic parlance. People do not normally say," Quite. But then I'm frightened of my country. It scares the begeebers out of me!"

But if MacKellar can write these lines after the experience of the Federation Drought (she began writing the poem in 1904) what sort of relationship are we now entering into with this land and the weather that wafts over it?

We now know that there is a demon loose and feral in the South Pacific -- the El Niño-Southern Oscillation -- but do we truly comprehend its awesome power for chaos, especially in the context of a major world wide climatic shift? As Mike Davis has pointed out -- - Imperialism, El Nino and the Third World -- this is the stuff that changes history and destroys civilisations.

So when I look at the firestorm that was Victoria on February 7th. I am in awe and scared shitless. If you don't understand what I'm on about, go now and watch the fire storm footage captured in the Four Corners documentary .

I've seen fires but nothing like that and while video won't expose your flesh to radiant heat and your lungs to smoke, these images also don't give you any idea of the sound -- except for one survivor's comment,"it was like 10 Jumbo jets taking off."

Imagine that coming at you at 80 kmh per hour....

So yes, let's be very wary of this country's potential to foster "terror" in the heart's of its inhabitants in this epoch of galloping Climate Change!

Go home Springboks: the 1971 South African rugby tour of Australia

ABC Radio: Hindsight --In 1971 the South African Springboks rugby team toured Australia amid controversy and chaos. Anti-apartheid demonstrators attempted to disrupt the games because the team had been selected on racial grounds. Protesters clashed violently with police and Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen declared a state of emergency in Queensland, where police charged at and beat up demonstrators. They also had creative forms of protest; like having Aboriginal people wear the 'sacred' Springboks jersey, and getting a mixed race couple (Zimbabwean and white Australian) to stay in the same hotel as the Springboks to draw attention to the fact that their marriage would be illegal in South Africa. The Aboriginal protesters also raised the nation's awareness of racism in Australia. The event ushered in a more militant form of protest in Australia and it kicked off our sports boycott with South Africa -- the Springboks did not return for 22 years.

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Coconut Revolution (Bougainville: Our Island, Our Fight)

This is an incredible modern-day story of a native peoples' victory over Western globalization. Sick of seeing their environment ruined and their people exploited by the Panguna Mine, the Pacific island of Bougainville rose up against the giant mining corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army began fighting with bows and arrows and sticks and stones against a heavily armed adversary. In an attempt to put down the rebellion the Papua New Guinean Army swiftly established a gunboat blockade around the island. But with no shipments allowed in or out, how did new electricity networks spring up on the island? And how were the people of Bougainville able to drive around the island without any source of petrol or diesel? Watch as the world's first eco-revolution unfolds within the blockade. A David and Goliath story for the 21st century. A multi-award winning documentary«

Tokelau: Still Afloat on the High Seas

Scoop Documentary: For the people inhabiting Tokelau - one of the most remote and beautiful islands of the Pacific -- their want, their determination, is to be a living breathing example of climate change adaptation rather than become a case-study of catastrophe. Produced by Selwyn Manning.

Another soldier dies in Afghanistan: withdraw the troops now

Sydney Stop the War Coalition is calling for immediate withdrawal of all Australian troops from Afghanistan in light of death of 25-year old Sean McCarthy.

On July 10 at 8am the Sydney Stop the War coalition will hold a picket outside the Department of Defence, 270 Pitt Street Sydney.

The Coalition will be marking the death of Signaler Sean McCarthy of the Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan, and calling for the immediate withdrawal of all Australian troops.

"Our thoughts are with the family of Signaler Sean McCarthy. His death, the sixth Australian in Afghanistan, highlights once again the futility of Australia's ongoing involvement in the occupation", said Alex Bainbridge, spokesperson for the Sydney Stop the War Coalition.

Shannon Price, another spokesperson, said the Coalition was holding the protest outside the Defence Department to send a message to the Rudd government that "this tragic event is not in vain".

"The best way to ensure that no other family faces such a loss is to immediately withdraw all Australian troops from Afghanistan, as well as the troops that remain in Iraq", she said.

Mr Bainbridge said: "The Pentagon has finally admitted the obvious: Afghanistan is in a state of crisis. We call on Kevin Rudd to do the same. Since his election Rudd has been singing the praises of the war in Afghanistan. This sober occasion should spark a reassessment."

Ms Price said: "There is no end in sight to the occupation, despite the fact that 2008 has been the bloodiest year of occupation since 2003. There is a simple, logical way to end this bloodshed — withdraw all troops now."

NSW Greens MLC Silvia Hale, who will address the protest, said: "The Greens express their sympathies to the family of Sean McCarthy. This is not Australia's war, and we should never have become involved. The troops should leave."

Information: Alex Bainbridge 0413 976 638 or Shannon Price 0422 802 984

Photos of April 30 taxi drivers blockade in Melbourne

With tactics which are more commonly used in South Asia, Melbourne's taxi drivers demonstrated how a movement can win its demands.

If the cabbies complain of harrassment to the police, the police treat the Indian or Pakistani driver as the criminal.

The Indian & Pakistani drivers showed enormous guts in their protest and threats to blockade parliament house (why didn't this happen during the anti-WorkChoices campaign?) and Melbourne airport.

-- Sue Bolton

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
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Tipping point in New Zealand politics at the grassroots: The Residents Action Movement

The Residents Action Movement (or RAM) is a left wing local government electoral ticket in the Auckland Region of New Zealand that is in the process of becoming a national-level political party to contest the 2008 elections. RAM can be characterised as as broad left coalition, stretching from social liberals, community activists and former National Party members to social democrats, democratic socialists and left-wing radicals. Its chairperson is currently Grant Morgan, who is also a leading member of Socialist Worker (Aotearoa). [Source Wikipedia]

This is an interview with Grant Morgan (RAM chair), Daphne Lawless (a RAM candidate in last year's Auckland Regional Council election and is a current member of the RAM Executive) and Oliver Woods, RAM co-organiser. It was recorded by telephone on May 1st.

• RAM's Official website
• RAM campaign material (pdf)
  
• Electoral Analysis of RAM's performance in the 2007 local elections
• A common cause for grassroots visionaries
• RAM's GST off food campaign
  

Original audio source

Top NASA scientist, James Hansen, calls on Rudd to end coal fired power stations

JAMES HANSEN

27 March 2008
The Hon Kevin Rudd, MP
Prime Minister of Australia
Australian Parliament
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2600

Dear Prime Minister,
Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants and carbon dioxide emission rates in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today's children, and especially the world's poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate.

For the sake of identification, I am a United States citizen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute. I am a member of our National Academy of Sciences, have testified before our Senate and House of Representatives on many occasions, have advised our Vice President and Cabinet members on climate change and its relation to energy requirements, and have received numerous awards including the World Wildlife Fund's Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from Prince Philip.

I write, however, as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, USA. I was assisted in composing this letter by colleagues, including Australians, Americans, and Europeans, who commented upon a draft letter. Because of the urgency of the matter, I have not collected signatures, but your advisors will verify the authenticity of the science discussion.

I recognize that for years you have been a strong supporter of aggressive forward-looking actions to mitigate dangerous climate change. Also, since your election as Prime Minister of Australia, your government has been active in pressing the international community to take appropriate actions. We are now at a point that bold leadership is needed, leadership that could change the course of human history.

I have read and commend the Interim Report of Professor Ross Garnaut, submitted to your government. The conclusion that net carbon emissions must be cut to a fraction of current emissions must be stunning and sobering to policy-makers. Yet the science is unambiguous: if we burn most of the fossil fuels, releasing the CO2 to the air, we will assuredly destroy much of the fabric of life on the planet. Achievement of required near-zero net emissions by mid-century implies a track with substantial cuts of emissions by 2020. Aggressive near-term fostering of energy efficiency and climate friendly technologies is an imperative for mitigation of the looming climate crisis and optimization of the economic pathway to the eventual clean-energy world.
Global climate is near critical tipping points that could lead to loss of all summer sea ice in the Arctic with detrimental effects on wildlife, initiation of ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland with progressive, unstoppable global sea level rise, shifting of climatic zones with extermination of many animal and plant species, reduction of freshwater supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and a more intense hydrologic cycle with stronger droughts and forest fires, but also heavier rains and floods, and stronger storms driven by latent heat, including tropical storms, tornados and thunderstorms.

Feasible actions now could still point the world onto a course that minimizes climate change. Coal clearly emerges as central to the climate problem from the facts summarized in the attached Fossil Fuel Facts. Coal caused fully half of the fossil fuel increase of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in the air today, and on the long run coal has the potential to be an even greater source of CO 2 . Due to the dominant role of coal, solution to global warming must include phase-out of coal except for uses where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. Failing that, we cannot avoid large climate change, because a substantial fraction of the emitted CO 2 will stay in the air more than 1000 years.

Yet there are plans for continuing mining of coal, export of coal, and construction of new coal-fired power plants around the world, including in Australia, plants that would have a lifetime of half a century or more. Your leadership in halting these plans could seed a transition that is needed to solve the global warming problem.

Choices among alternative energy sources - renewable energies, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil fuels with carbon capture - these are local matters. But decision to phase out coal use unless the CO 2 is captured is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being.

Although coal is the dominant issue, there are many important subsidiary ramifications, including the need for rapid transition from oil-fired energy utilities, industrial facilities and transport systems, to clean (solar, hydrogen, gas, wind, geothermal, hot rocks, tide) energy sources, as well as removal of barriers to increased energy efficiency.

If the West makes a firm commitment to this course, discussion with developing countries can be prompt. Given the potential of technology assistance, realization of adverse impacts of climate change, and leverage and increasing interdependence from global trade, success in cooperation of developed and developing worlds is feasible.

The western world has contributed most to fossil fuel CO2 in the air today, on a per capita basis.

This is not an attempt to cast blame. It only recognizes the reality of the early industrial development in these countries, and points to a responsibility to lead in finding a solution to global warming.

A firm choice to halt building of coal-fired power plants that do not capture CO 2 would be a major step toward solution of the global warming problem. Australia has strong interest in solving the climate problem. Citizens in the United States are stepping up to block one coal plant after another, and major changes can be anticipated after the upcoming national election.

If Australia halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the CO 2 , it could be a tipping point for the world. There is still time to find that tipping point, but just barely. I hope that you will give these considerations your attention in setting your national policies. You have the potential to influence the future of the planet.

Prime Minister Rudd, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.

For your information, I plan to send a similar letter to the Australian States Premiers.

I commend to you the following Australian climate, paleoclimate and Earth scientists to provide further elaboration of the science reported in my attached paper (Hansen et al., 2008):

Professor Barry Brook, Professor of climate change, University of Adelaide
Dr Andrew Glikson, Australian National University
Professor Janette Lindesay, Australian National University
Dr Graeme Pearman, Monash University
Dr Barrie Pittock, CSIRO
Dr Michael Raupach, CSIRO
Professor Will Steffen, Australian National University

Sincerely,
James E. Hansen
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania
United States of America

Fossil Fuel Facts

Remember: Mr. Rudd is a man of the political left.

And don't you forget it!


by Dave Riley

How would you summarizes the Rudd Labor Government? If you were given a 25 words more or less option what features would you tease out?

The Wall Street Journal in the space of a delightfully insightful commentary marks Comrade Rudd off as an icon of what surely is indeed a very "responsible left".

This is power portraiture. Within these pages the movers and shakers who rely on the Wall Street Journal for their world weary POV can get their perspectives engineered.

So does Comrade "responsible lefty" Kevin Rudd tick all the right boxes? You bet he does!

So Ruddism -- herein summarized for the world stage -- is given the imprimatur by the WSJ. For those still caught up in the Labor promise this snippet is a coarse reminder that maybe things aren't what they seem.

Left, Right and Down Under

Kevin Rudd, Australia's new Prime Minister, is sometimes billed – not without a little glee – as the latest thorn in the Bush Administration's side: a pro-Kyoto Protocol, anti-Iraq War, left-of-center leader of a major U.S. ally. But the 50-year-old Queenslander seems determined not to play to media type.

We recently met with Mr. Rudd in New York, following his meetings in Washington with President Bush and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, among others. If Mr. Rudd intends to be an "ally" in the mold of Germany's Gerhard Schröder or France's Jacques Chirac, he wasn't letting on. "The ballast that America provides in terms of global security and global economic order is overwhelming," he said, adding that the U.S.'s reflexive critics should "take a step back."

Despite his early opposition to the war in Iraq and his decision to remove Australia's combat troops, Mr. Rudd will still deploy his forces to the country in noncombat roles. He also intends to maintain Australia's presence in Afghanistan "for the long haul" and, at this week's NATO summit in Bucharest, will urge European countries to bear their fair share of the Afghan burden. Australia is not a member of NATO, but its troops, unlike those of most NATO members, are deployed to Afghanistan's dangerous south.

Mr. Rudd is also a realist about the threat posed by Iran, in terms of its "active financing of terrorist operations," its "entrenchment in Syria" and, above all, the nuclear issue. "I wouldn't like us in the future to play footsie" with the Iranians, he says, which sounds to us like an implicit rebuke of the West for the game it has been playing with Tehran. "This is baseline stuff. The Iranians are a real problem."

As for China – where he spent years as a diplomat and learned fluent Mandarin – he will urge President Hu Jintao at their coming meeting to engage directly with representatives of the Dalai Lama. But he opposes a boycott of the Olympics. "Historically, boycotts of the Olympics don't work," he says, recalling Jimmy Carter's feckless pullout from Moscow in 1980. "This will always be a two-steps-forward, one-step-back relationship. Let's be realistic about it."

Mr. Rudd is equally clear-eyed on economic issues. He inherited from John Howard the best economy in memory and doesn't intend to squander it. Sounding very much like his predecessor, he promises to reform welfare and cut taxes. Remember: Mr. Rudd is a man of the political left.

Finally, Mr. Rudd understands, in a way that must come naturally to someone whose country relies heavily on commodity exports, the benefits of free trade. As he told a Manhattan audience after our interview, "The successful conclusion of the Doha Trade Round would give the global economy a much needed psychological boost at a time when there is a heightened risk of protectionism." He added that "I was pleased that President Bush and I saw eye-to-eye on this point."

We only wish Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would see eye-to-eye with Mr. Rudd on the subject, too. And while we'll cheerfully admit to our own disagreements with Mr. Rudd – especially on a cap-and-trade "solution" to global warming – it's good to be reminded that there is such a thing as a responsible left. America could use more of it.

Labor loses its Brisbane stronghold

Greens ascendancy stifled
by Dave Riley

I doubt that you've missed the news or its relevance to the punch drunk Coalition but the ALP has lost its once dominant position as long time rulers of the Brisbane City Council. The Liberal Party and the incumbent mayor -- Campbell Newman -- won a landslide victory at the poll on March 9th.

Former deputy mayor and ALP leader in the last council, David Hinchliffe, is still waiting to see if he will be representing Central ward as this is the only seat yet to be decided.

While the last council was an odd mix -- a Liberal mayor and a ALP majority in council -- this resolution certainly pronounces electorate judgement on the ALP's dream run in Queensland since the early nineties. Labor had regained council and the mayorship in 1991 after a Liberal ascendancy of one term under Sally Anne Atkinson-- but no sweep has been as savage and as brutal as this.

This loss is sure to impact on the ALP's capacity to deliver selective largess at the grassroots level and shake up the party's ability to sustain a community profile across Brisbane suburbs.

While it can be read as a shot in the arm for the fortunes of the Liberals -- now seemingly in the toilet after the recent federal loss -- no one is actually saying that this result was a vote for Newman's Liberals. In effect very little separated the two opposing parties and the campaign for City Hall was very much a me too affair.

Nonetheless the result is a shade indicative of a break down in the rigid consensus that has ruled Brisbane local government for so long as Queensland is way out of step with other states in that no third party has achieved electoral office at the local level despite the massive support for the One Nation at the state polls during the mid nineties.

The Greens failed to win any ward and the poll figures are, what you'll have to conclude as, disappointing:

Jo Bragg - Lord Mayor - 8.11% (40,542 votes, 9 candidates)
Indicative ward results:
Anne Boccabella - Central - 16.31%
Angela Dean - Holland Park - 13.65%
Sean McConnell - Tennyson - 14.20%
Drew Hutton - The Gabba - 26.08
Robert Hogg - The Gap - 16.21%
Stuart Skabo - Toowong - 21.24%
Daniel Crute - Walter Taylor - 14.58%

The Socialist Alliance stood against Hinchliffe and garnered 1.82% of the vote.

The poll result also marks off more clearly than last time the end of the era of Jim Soorley -- the ALP mayor who was elected in 1991 and who's administration ( until his retirement in 2003) engineered a savvy mix of neo liberal corporate restructuring and green washing (although more effectively green washed than most other ALP fiefdoms) .

So while the Soorley's green credentialing effectively kept the Greens at bay --green rhetoric at this most recent poll was mild indeed and very consensually adhered to between the two main parties so that the green jeni didn't get out of the bottle.

An indication of this was the race in the Gabba where high profile Greens member, party leader and founder, Drew Hutton tried to push his party's envelope by harnessing support from the inner urban left community based on suburbs like West End and Dutton Park.

HUTTON, Drew	GRN	4,614		25.44
MYERS, Matthew	LIB	6,686		36.86
ABRAHAMS, Helen	ALP	6,591		36.34

While Hutton challenged the support base of the major parties what was surely the Greens best chance of winning enough electoral support to take office failed to occur and only entrenches further the electoral impasse the greens have faced in Queensland.

In 2004 the Greens polled 42,243 votes 8.14 % in the wards and received 52,995 votes 10.13% for mayor. I haven't got the final ward figures for the recent poll but for mayor this time around the Greens Jo Bragg pulled in 8.11% (40,542 votes, 9 candidates).

Stop Iemma’s sell-off of NSW energy!

Keep public assets in public hands!

The Socialist Alliance supports the Unions NSW campaign against the privatisation of the state’s electricity generation. Privatisation is a threat to our services, jobs, pockets and environment. But by working together, unionists, workers, students, political organisations an d the community at large can stop the Iemma government’s privatisation plans—just as we defeated the Carr Labor government’s attempt to sell off electricity in 1997 and the attempted privatisation of Snowy Hydro in 2006.

Here’s what we should all be doing:

• Sign and distribute the Unions NSW petition against the proposed privatisation (download from here)
• Discuss in our workplace and community the real costs of this latest attempt to sell one of our basic services (read Dr Sharon Beder’s submission for Unions NSW to the Owen Inquiry into Electricity Supply in NSW—download it from here )
• Support local rallies and public forums (see Green Left Weekly for details)
• Ask our union to call for a mass delegates meeting before Parliament resumes to discuss the next steps in the campaign (see model motion below)
• Campaign to stop the sale of other public assets targeted by Iemma—ferries, water, waste services, superannuation and Lotto.
  

Join the protest outside Parliament House, February 26!

Model Motion for union meetings
This meeting of [details of meeting]:
1. Supports the Unions NSW campaign against the threatened sell-off of power provision in NSW,
2. Calls on the [name of union] to support the campaign launched by the electricity delegates on December 19 last year (see below) and 3. Calls on Unions NSW to call for a mass delegates meeting of all unions before NSW
Parliament resumes to discuss the next steps in the campaign.

Together we defeated Work Choices,
Together we can defeat Iemma and Costa’s sell- off!

For more information: Bea Bassi 0411 614 495 (NSW Trade Union Committee) Steve O’Brien 0409 878 485 (Newcastle Socialist Alliance), Alex Bainbridge 0413 976 638 (NSW Socialist Alliance co- convener)

Public Assets Sold = Services Lost
Privatised Energy = Soaring Electricity Prices
Privatised Energy = Job Losses

Private Energy Providers = Increased Global Warming Threat
Electricity Delegates’ Motion (adopted by December 19, 2007 mass meeting convened by Unions NSW)

Electricity workers in NSW condemn and oppose the NSW government’s proposal to privatise the retail section of our industry and lease the generators to the private sector.The electricity industry belongs to the people of NSW. It is an essential service that should not be sold off to private companies. The NSW government does not have a mandate for the proposed reforms and said nothing about electricity privatisation at the 2007 state election.They do not have the right to change this important policy and sell off assets that belong to the people of our state.Selling and leasing the state’s electricity assets will result in workers losing their jobs and Australian electricity workers jobs being sent offshore. Families will pay more for their electricity, and services to households will be cut. Also privatisation will be bad for our environment as private companies have an incentive to sell more electricity to boost their profits.We demand that the NSW government cease all dealings to privatise the state’s electricity industry.

We commit to:

• Workplace meetings of electricity workers to endorse a campaign of opposition to the reforms; and
• Campaigning in the community to inform the public of the consequences of privatisation; and
• Holding public meetings, rallies and community events to highlight the dangers of electricity privatisation; and
• Working with Rights at Work groups throughout NSW to campaign against the proposed reforms; and
• Working with other community groups to from an alliance of organisations against privatisation; and
• Lobbying state Members of Parliament and campaigning in targetted marginal seats to reverse the proposed reforms; and
• Working within the Labor Party to highlight the damaging effects of the government’s proposal both electorally and socially.
• Unions NSW convening a meeting of public sector unions to discuss a broad public sector campaign against privatisation of government services.We believe that the government should keep electricity in the hands of the people of NSW.