Help needed
Brandon Astor Jones has asked me to pass on the information that the prison authorities in Georgia have just introduced new regulations regarding sending money to prisoners.
Anyone wishing to send him money may now send cheques direct to Mr Jones. However, only cheques issued by Citibank are accepted. Other banks should be able to obtain these cheques for you — in US currency.
Brandon is currently desperate for writing materials and postage stamps. If you can help him, he will truly appreciate it. Please send a cheque to him: Mr Brandon Astor Jones, G2-51, EF-122216, GDCC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, Georgia 30233, USA.
Thank you for anything you can do.
Stephanie Wilkinson
Co-ordinator, Australians Against Executions
Business Council
Much energy and time is wasted by people who believe that it is the personalities such as Keating, Downer, Fahey and Carr responsible for the decisions of government which they feel are wrong. All of us have fallen victim to the "personality cult" of politics; a cult that politicians and their backers perpetrate as a means to distract people from effective action, which begins with understanding who really makes the big decisions.
Beyond Keating, Downer, Fischer, Fahey and Carr is a thick wall of bureaucracy. Almost impregnable and generally obstructive; preparing endless discussion papers, forming committees to inquire about other committees; producing glossy large print "reports". Looking like a massive hive of bees with their own symbolic language incomprehensible to all but the initiated. Like many of us I could not estimate the wasted time spent playing the game in genuine hope that I would receive honest, open treatment, because I was helping to pay their wages.
Consider the real decision makers in Australia. Non-political, except at election time, moving the Keating-Downer chess pieces as needed. Enter the Business Council of Australia, a body of 87 top business managers and directors of the largest businesses in Australia, national and multinational. Small business and farmers are excluded from the most powerful decision making body in Australia. It would be a most foolish politician who "seriously" opposed the combined might of these business giants. These business monopolies systematically arrive at their collective interest and convey that to "their" government.
The above makes me suspicious that the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, with its new and highly publicised catch cry of "Competitive Pricing Policy" (Hilmer report) which all state governments have agreed to, may have been largely pre-determined. This policy will open up public utilities, such as transport, water and hospitals to corporatisation. My understanding of corporatisation of government services is that it separates them as a corporation so they run as a business, with all the shares being owned by the minister, under Corporate Law. They are then not accountable to public service mechanisms and there is no Freedom of Information. Despite government claims to the contrary, corporatisation has often been a major step before privatisation of these public utilities. This would suit the Business Council of Australia very nicely indeed, thank you very much.
If this concerns you, I urge you to contact your local MP, asking the MP to provide you with a full list of all 87 BCA members and the companies that they represent. You will then know just who makes the decisions in Australia.
Therese Mackay
Port Macquarie, NSW
[Edited for length.]
DSP on Labor
I refer to contributions by Roger Clarke and Tristan Ewins in Write On, GLW August 24.
The Labor party's record in Australian politics, especially in the last decade and a half, should provoke angry polemics. Its role in attacking the rights of workers, the unemployed, women, Aborigines and the people of Asia-Pacific more than deserves our contempt.
While there are still some well-meaning supporters of the left in the ALP, this does not alter the fact that its main role today is to serve as cover for the ALP right.
This is no conspiracy theory but a reality confirmed by a lot of painful experience. What was the ALP left's role in the uranium debate, the smashing of the BLF, the 1989 pilots' strike and the selling of the Accord? How serious is the ALP left's fight against privatisation? Is the deferral of the privatisation of ANL a hard-won victory of the ALP left or has it more to do with the fact that the Australian Financial Review editorialised against the privatisation of ANL (AFR, August 15)?
Of course we know that members of the ALP left have many different individual motivations for being where they are. Anyone interested in reading the DSP's full analysis of the ALP can read Labor and the Fight for Socialism (available from PO Box 515, Broadway 2007 for $3). Our analysis of the ALP is not just a "rehash of the Stalinist 'Social-Fascist' theory".
We reject the view that the way to build the movement for radical social change today is through factional manoeuvres in the ALP. With an aggressively economic rationalist Labor government in Canberra leading the right-wing offensive against our rights and living standards, that approach would be suicidal. Instead we call on serious lefts to break with the ALP and help build a mass left-wing party. In addition we actively seek to work with anyone (inside or outside the ALP) in campaigns against the right-wing offensive.
Max Lane
Sydney
Gay law reform
On Thursday August 24 I attended a public meeting to debate gay law reform for Sixty Minutes. I was not naive enough to believe it would be calm, but I was astounded by the hate that surrounded me.
At the start of the meeting Richard Carleton asked for a show of hands of those who would publicly identify themselves as homosexual. He then estimated that we were a rough 5% of the audience. This was completely irrelevant for a couple of reasons. One, because there were many people in the room afraid to publicly identify. Two, because the number of out lesbians and gay men is no indication of the level of support for gay law reform.
The lies and misinformation about lesbians and gays, the "gay agenda", and HIV/AIDS were amazing. It was claimed that Tasmania had the lowest transmission rate of HIV/AIDS because it has laws that outlaw anal intercourse. The fact is that the laws do not stop anyone from having anal intercourse. What they do do is spread fear and hatred, and prevent adequate information dissemination.
One of the worst things about the meeting was the way that the Federal ALP government emerged as the saviour of gay men and lesbians. The right wing were so right wing the Labor Party looked positively left. While I welcome the Federal Government's long delayed action on gay law reform, they have not gone far enough. Until there is thorough national anti-discrimination legislation and community education, the invalidation of Tasmania's laws is only a hard fought for symbol.
The meeting reaffirmed my conviction that it is about time the progressive community in Tasmania and the rest of Australia unite to fight for lesbian and gay rights. An economic boycott is not enough by itself. What is needed is visible political actions that raise awareness and pressure the governments to act. In Tasmania, the Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Coalition is organising a march and rally for gay law reform. It will be held the Saturday before the ALP National Conference (September 24) and will be an extremely important chance for people to publicly state that lesbian and gay rights are human rights. For further information phone 346 397.
Jen Crothers
Hobart