Write on: letters to the editor
Capitalist racketeers
On January 18 in the Brisbane Federal Court, a fire protection company was fined five million dollars with $200,000 costs for price fixing with 7 other firms including James Hardie Industries and Chubbs (Chubbs were fined 3 years ago for billing hundreds of clients and failing to give any service at all).ABC, SBS-TV and I think Channel 10 gave it coverage and the Brisbane Courier Mail reported it in a pocket-book size item on page 5. I searched the Weekend Australian and Sydney Morning Herald. They had pages of fascinating reports of how many sugars Mr and Mrs Clinton and George Bush like in their tea but not a word about the biggest fine ever of Australian capitalist racketeers.
Can you imagine the front-page publicity if a known environmentalist or peace worker were convicted of some small technical breach and fined a couple of hundred? But the $5 million fine was hidden from the public.
In Iraq last week a teenage unmarried mother was whipped one hundred lashes four months after the birth of her child. The father's name wasn't even mentioned. Such legal barbarity staggers and appals me. Please protest to the Iraqi Embassy in Canberra
Simon Bracgirdle
Kelvin Grove Qld
Blackbirding
Jean Hale, in her letter( "Black Sugar" GLW #432) exposes a dark chapter in Australia's "blackbirding" of Kanakas from the South Seas islands to provide cheap labour in the sugar cane fields of Queensland.In a word it was nothing but slavery although the term "indentured labourer" was used. After they had been here for a certain time they were then called "ticket boys", the indignity of mature men classed as "boys".
There is no doubt they did not come to Queensland willingly as accounted for by one of the sea voyagers. "Charlie said 'this fella he cranky cranky man. He play up all the time. Bye and bye they gettum on ship alonga sea. He still cranky. Bye and by they heavem along sea'. My father said 'He swim back to island all right Charlie?'. 'No fear Boss. Too many sharks alonga sea' said Charlie."
Last year with reconciliation between whites and Aborigines on the agenda I wrote to the Prime Minister about the Kanakas suggesting that they not be forgotten. Not surprisingly I did not receive a reply!
Barry Hebbard
Devonport Tas
Banks
Banks having shut branches, cut staff and no doubt restructured have had a good prosperous year. Profits up by 18% amounting to millions of dollars.There could well have been "rorting" going on, which one understands is helpful in tax cutting.
Workers who pay their taxes before they get their wages in this new age of "restructuring" are to receive, if lucky, an '8% pay rise over three years. Gone are many conditions fought for over many years.
Why should workers have to wait three years for a long overdue rise in their wages and very importantly, restoration of vitally necessaray conditions in a so-called humane and civilised society.
Jean Hale
Balmain NSW
Privatisation
An article in a Dutch newspaper mentioned the privatisation of the railway system and one of its conditions: A fine of 1000 guilders for every minute being too late!An article in an Australian newspaper described the upheaval in England with some trains being four hours late!
Prebooking necessary, as well as standing places only! Then there are the crashes of Hatfield and Paddington, caused by cracked rails and running a red light signal!
Could these too examples of privatisation be a warning for any and all privatisation going on in Aussieland? Jail systems and refugee camps included!
In a true democracy public input is of paramount importance! Be at it!
Josie Leeden
South Perth WA
Malcolm Fraser and East Timor
May I remind your readers that the Fraser government gave the green light for the Indonesian military regime to continue a program of genocide against the people of East Timor.Also, this government offered "de jure" recognition of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, the only government to do so.
It is my view that Mr Fraser has no right to take the high moral ground on human rights. The action of his government in part led to the deaths of 300,000 East Timorese people!
L Nightingale
Oxley Qld
Vilification of men
I basically support all of the campaigns promoted by the DSP.However, I cannot understand why, in this day and age, males are being vilified in your publication. It would seem to me that rather than promoting feminism you are alienating the very people you should be converting. It should also be pointed out that males too are in need of liberating and are just as much victims of corporate despotism, media, etc. (ever read a book called Stiffed?)
Bruce Terry
Hobart Tas
Palestine and Israel
I wanted to add my thoughts regarding the letter titled "Palestine and Israel" in GLW #432. The author claims that Green Left is "absurd" when it refers to Israel as occupying Palestine and urges GL to look into the facts.The facts regarding Palestine are that the description of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem areas as occupied is not absurd but completely accurate and that this description could be used in reference to the territory under the rule of the State of Israel: That Palestinians now residing in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Occupied Territories who left Palestine in 1948 were mostly from northern Palestine, Accre and its surrounding villages. These people were either forcibly removed from their homes or fled, fearing massacres such as those which occurred in Al Tantura.
My father-in-law still poses the title deed to his parents home and the front door key. The land, home, and property of his family were not sold, nor voluntarily relinquished, but appropriated illegitimately. His case is not an isolated one. Israeli government departments have admitted that the ownership of 70% of the land within Israel's 1967 borders is under dispute, with title deeds issued by the English or Turkish forces prior and to 1948 which have not been voluntarily relinquished, and separate titles issued by the Israeli government which acquired "ownership" through violence and theft.
The current situation in the Occupied Territories, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, is most certainly one of a particularly severe occupation.
There are so many points that I could list, but I fear I will be considered prejudiced. So, read it "from the horses mouth" and check out the web sites of the Alternative Information Centre (AIC), the Other Israel and the Independent Media Centre or the web sites of various Israeli human rights groups who campaign for an end to the occupation, such as Peace Now, Gush Shalom, Women In Black, Rabbis for Human Rights and bat-shalom.
Nicole Berrell
Beirut
Lebanon
Abridged