SP Newsletter No.381

With the European debt crisis entering a “dangerous new phase” ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan says: “The risk is rising further that these stresses spread outside of European countries, including Australia. Indeed, the two key transmission mechanisms to Australia from this European crisis - China and funding pressures - are now worsening”

As the global financial crisis worsens, its negative effects on the Australian economy are becoming clearer. Despite government statements to the contrary, Australia is not insulated from the crisis by the mining boom.

The mining boom continues, but its exact nature and its effects on other industries are misconstrued by the government. Constant references to the ‘strength’ of the Australian dollar are misleading.

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SP Newsletter No.380

Almost a third of Australian workers are employed in casual jobs. If you include labour hire and short-term contract work, insecure jobs make up 40% of the workforce. Some of us have spent our entire working careers doing casual work, and if you’re under 24, you’re twice as likely to be casually employed.

The ACTU, which until now has been largely silent on the process of casualisation that has unfolded over the last 30 years, has launched a media campaign to draw attention to the injustices of insecure work.

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SP Newsletter No.379

Last month saw the Labor Government organise a two-day tax forum. The forum was attended by big business leaders, welfare agencies and trade union officials. Many labelled it a talkfest given that the mining tax, the carbon tax and the GST were not on the agenda to be discussed.

It is true that nothing concrete was agreed but perhaps the most interesting aspects of the forum were the ideas put forward by those who represent the Australia’s rich and powerful.

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SP Newsletter No.378

The Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was held in Perth last weekend. This useless and outdated organisation has not made a meaningful decision for decades. It has no impact on anyone except for the huge expense that is burdened on tax payers.

The Queen attended to open the meeting and a welcoming ceremony for her cost a staggering $2 million. The police, army and secret police employed was overwhelming. Who knows how many millions of dollars they spent on the security budget despite the fact that there was no threat of any kind. The only arrests that were made were of a few workers who had crossed barriers to buy cigarettes!

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Socialism 2011 will be held at RMIT University in Melbourne on October 28, 29 & 30. The event, which is sponsored by the Socialist Party, will showcase the socialist alternative to a world in crisis.

Featuring a range of local and international speakers, the forum will examine how large parts of the world came to be engulfed by an economic, social and political crisis. Meetings will also look in detail at the situation in Australia and in the Asia Pacific region.

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By Emma Davey, Socialist Party Melbourne

I was introduced to socialism as a concept in University and found it made so much sense, as I had always been frustrated by the issues that surround a capitalist society, but had not found an outlet for that which I felt represented my views of the world.

I started attending the occasional Socialist Party meeting, and had been to the stalls at various times. I was instantly impressed and interested in knowing more about what the party stood for, outside what I’d seen happening in the community.

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SP Newsletter No.376

Fight capitalism – For a socialist alternative to the failed profit-driven system!

On 15 October, all around the globe, the “enraged”, the “indignad@s”, the “occupiers of Wall Street”, demonstrators all over Portugal, in Santiago Chile and in Cairo – and many, many more – will take the streets to challenge the power of big business. The magnificent movements of young people and workers in these struggles, with common causes, methods and demands, instinctively reach out to each other across borders and continents.

After more than three years of ongoing capitalist crisis, the capitalists and their politicians show their inability to offer any way out of ongoing misery for the vast majority, called the “99%” in the movement in the US. Instead, the ruling elites want to make workers and youth pay for the failure of their system, to continue to bail out bankers and millionaires. That’s what this rebellion is against and where the demand for fundamental change, the demand for “revolution” as the youth movement for example in Spain puts it, comes from.

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SP Newsletter No.374

The Gillard Labor government was thrown into disarray in late August when the High Court of Australia ruled its latest refugee policy ‘unlawful’.

Rather than reflecting on the fact that the policy of sending refugees offshore represents a gross breach of human rights, the Gillard government has instead decided to try it’s luck at changing the law!

Proposed changes to the Migration Act would see the Minister for Immigration given executive power to decide where asylum seekers can be sent offshore. This decision cannot be challenged either in Parliament or through the courts, and includes the ability to deport unaccompanied children.

There is no doubt that this represents a new low in the race to scapegoat and demonise asylum seekers for political gain.

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SP Newsletter No.373

Welfare quarantine measures, introduced as part of the racist Northern Territory Intervention, are now to be spread to other parts of Australia. These measures will stigmatise up to 20,000 people, forcing them to shop at “government approved” shops, purchase only “priority items”, and face the prospect being segregated into separate queues under an apartheid-style system.

The Socialist Party opposed the introduction of welfare quarantining when it was imposed on the NT, and now opposes the expansion of this discriminatory policy. We warned that the NT would be used as a “testing ground” before these attacks were spread to other areas of Australia.

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SP Newsletter No.372

Trillions of dollars were lost from stock markets last month as the world economic situation took a turn for the worse. It has become increasingly clear that far from ensuring a recovery, the measures put in place by capitalist leaders have only deepened the crisis. A global double dip recession is now very much on the cards.

The stock market losses were the worst since the collapse of the American bank Lehman Brothers in 2008. This collapse was the trigger for the financial crisis which spread across the world leading to bank bailouts and the need for huge stimulus packages. This comparison shows how serious and precarious the current situation is, as the world economy stands poised to slip into a prolonged slump.

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