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Socialist candidates protest Kodak closure
MELBOURNE — On September 21, two Socialist Alliance candidates in the October 9 federal election — David Glanz (standing in Wills) and Sue Bolton (standing for the Senate) — participated in a protest outside Kodak's Coburg factory against its planned closure.
Kodak claims that the 600 workers who stand to lose their jobs in the areas of manufacturing of paper, film and chemicals have fallen victim to the "digital age". The shift to digital photography is supposedly the reason that the workers will be unemployed when the plant closes in November. Yet the Australian market will now be supplied by Kodak plants in other parts of the world.
In 1989, Kodak received a $36 million subsidy from the Hawke Labor government after threatening to move its production offshore. Kodak was also one of seven companies which received a $63 million subsidy package provided by the Victorian state government in 2002-03. In 2003, Kodak's worldwide sales totalled US$13.3 billion.
Bolton told Green Left Weekly that Kodak had provided "another example of corporate welfare, which has not prevented workers from being thrown on the scrap heap when it suits the company". The Socialist Alliance is calling for Kodak to hand back the public subsidies the company received in the past or commit to retooling the plant to handle digital technology.
Vannessa Hearman
One Mile Dam community demands answers
DARWIN — Residents of the One Mile Dam Aboriginal community are demanding answers from the Northern Territory government regarding the tenure of their long-standing camp just outside Darwin's CBD. The camp has been under threat by the development of apartments in the surrounding area. Developers have indicated that they want the camp to be replaced by parkland.
In a September 12 letter to NT Chief Minister Clare Martin, the Kumbutjil Association stated that the community's right to "be aware of our government's plans involving our future is being denied to people already suffering decades of neglect. That the government could compound such long-term neglect by forcibly moving people from the OMD community is an ever present fear [for] the people here.
"Further delay to an already long overdue decision about One Mile Dam's tenure must be seen as continuing a discriminatory and unjust regime against people who still have the lowest social outcomes of all 'Australians'."
The association is awaiting a reply from the chief minister. Letters of support can be emailed to the Kumbutjil Association at <kumbutjil@yahoo.com>. For more information, visit <http://www.onemiledam.org>.
Kathy Newnam
Burnside demands justice for asylum seekers
BRISBANE — Almost 300 people attended a public meeting on "Justice and human rights for asylum seekers in Australia today", featuring prominent QC and refugee-rights campaigner Julian Burnside, on September 21. The event was organised by the Refugee Action Collective, Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support Qld, the Hazara Association and Australia at the Crossroads.
Introducing Burnside, former Amnesty International president Ross Daniels pointed out that every single United Nations body associated with human rights had criticised Australia's recent record in the area of refugee rights.
"Refugees are not 'illegals'", Burnside explained. "We lock up innocent people. Is Australia being 'flooded' with asylum seekers? We are talking about an average of only 1000 boat people a year over the last two decades.
"The so-called 'Pacific solution' has cost $1.5 billion, and Australia has perverted the sovereignty of the island of Nauru. Now the government has abandoned [Australians imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay] David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, and increased ASIO powers as part of the 'war on terror'.
"This election has the possibility of pulling us back from the brink of disaster", Burnside concluded, but only if the popular pressure to support refugee rights and civil liberties can be maintained.
Jim McIlroy
'We want freedom'
PERTH — The Refugee Rights Action Network held an overnight vigil at the Perth Immigration Detention Centre on September 18. Greens candidate Dave Fort and the ALP member for Swan, Kim Wilkie, attended.
Detainees in PIDC were active and vocal, standing on chairs and holding up banners on broom sticks so that they could be seen above the razor wire-topped brick walls of the exercise yard in Stage One. Detainees chanted "We want" and those outside replied "Freedom!".
Detainees told Green Left Weekly that they appreciated the presence of the supporters and expressed thanks for the attention brought to their plight. One detainee, who did not want to be named, said: "It's not just the asylum seekers, in fact most people in here are not asylum seekers, but we are still locked up without charge or trial. We still get deported, splitting up families. I have been in immigration detention for nearly five-and-a-half years."
Peta Johnston
From Green Left Weekly, September 29, 2004.
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