Write on: letters to the editor

Help needed! Green Left Weekly has received news that Brandon Astor Jones, one of our weekly columnists, needs some help. Brandon is on death row in the United States. He is appealing against his conviction. However he has lost faith in the lawyer he was assigned and is trying, through his writing, to earn enough to pay for a lawyer more to his liking. Anyone who can help should contact him on:
Brandon Astor Jones G2-51
EF-122216, GD&CC; POB 3877,
Jackson, Georgia 30233-0877,
USA Livable cities Lord Mayor Soorley is asking people to have a say on what should be done about making the City of Brisbane more livable and acceptable, not only to its citizens but also to interstate, intrastate and overseas tourists. On three separate occasions I tried to put forward on talk-back radio the views of the supporters of a Central Park bounded by Turbot, Edward and Ann Streets. On each occasion I was switched off. Also, the Brisbane City Council refuses supporters of a Central Park permission to collect petition signatures in the Mall. This matter is of crucial importance to people who are concerned about beautifying our city. According to statistics: 60,000 vehicles pass through each intersection daily; that means 120,000 toxic exhaust fumes, making the area one of the most polluted in Queensland. By creating a barrier (i.e. a large building) on the site, would accentuate this very unhealthy atmosphere. There is a large area of space at the rear of the Historical School of Arts where such a building could be constructed, therefore allowing the rest of the property to be developed into a Central Park. When this proposition was put to Lord Mayor Soorley he cried poverty (purchase cost $3.25 million). Since then he has spent millions of dollars on refurbishing the Plaza, refurbishing everyone of the 21 floors of the Business Administration Centre, widening the footpaths of Albert and Adelaide Streets and now proposes to spend $12 million on King George Square. Seeing that there is an overwhelming support for a Central Park, would he lend support for a referendum to give Brisbane's citizens the democratic right to participate in deciding what to do, regarding the future of this very important location.
Eddie Kann, Coordinator
Central Park Project

[Edited for length.] Polluters The October 21 Australian included a four-page lift-out promoting "Greenhouse Challenges in Industry". I thought this was a progressive promotion until I read the list of the companies who had put their names to it. Apart from a couple, the bulk was a who's who of the largest and worst polluters in Australia. They included coal, plastics, aluminium, chemical, paper pulp, petroleum and fluorocarbon manufacturers. More than one of these companies has been dragged kicking and screaming after much campaigning by concerned citizens, to obey just a small modicum of environmental responsibility. BHP is on the list. In Papua New Guinea they have admitted mining in a manner that would not be considered environmentally acceptable in Australia. Do they really believe they can pollute our near neighbour like this and hope no one will notice? Most of these companies knew exactly what they were doing long before most of us had even heard the word "greenhouse". Their scientists supplied endless studies so the Corporate executives had the "wiggle room" they needed to dodge and weave, and leave us with an Environmental Protection Agency that is hamstrung by legislation. If the bulk of the companies on the list had acted responsibly in the last three decades our part of the world would be a clean and healthy place for all life. They say they care by putting their names on the list. Lets hope they do, even if just for the sake of image, because if the program is not a genuine attempt at environmental responsibility, then these companies alone, have the combined industrial power to push Australia and our part of the world over the razor's edge.
Therese Mackay
Port Macquarie NSW
[Edited for length.] Superannuation Mr Keating's reprehensible attack on the investment abilities of superannuation funds managers is designed to justify government intervention in the management and investment of those funds. If this Prime Minister, or any future Prime Minister, is able to direct the investment policy of the superannuation funds, they may disappear in the same manner as the Tricontinental funds under Victorian Labor, as the state bank monies under South Australian Labor and the taxpayers and investors funds in the WA Inc debacle under WA Labor, not to mention other public investment companies' collapses. Compulsory superannuation deductions, which are set to reach 15% of wages eventually, are not a provision for future security, but a dishonest and poorly disguised arbitrary tax for the purpose of funding the lunatic economic investment policies of the Prime Minister and his big-business associates.
Col Friel
Darwin NT Savage capitalism How do you imagine our senior citizens (of whom I am one) feel when we hear that with the new health policy of "case-mix" where funding (I understand) is given according to how many cases are "put though" in a given time. Around our public hospitals the elderly who need long term care are referred to as "bed blockers"!! How dehumanising can you get! Savage capitalism I call it.
Connie Frazer
Adelaide Cannon fodder Re "The Fight to save Sydenham" [#208 GLW], Tom Wilson refers to workers as "scab demolition workers on $300 a week". These workers are not scabs — they are the cannon fodder of the Labor government — being robbed by the system and forced to become "work experience trainees" at $300 p.w. with the approval of the CFMEU (they scabbed on their women clerks in 1992). These workers are the victims not scabs.
Ian Fraser
Leichhardt NSW DSP and ALP Doug Lorimer (GLW #208) states: "In 1994 the DSP recognised that the ALP was not a workers' party with a pro-capitalist program and leadership, but a capitalist party based on an alliance between liberal bourgeois parliamentarians and the middle-class careerists who control the trade union movement (labour bureaucracy)." Two points need to be clarified: (1) Was the DSP's changed analysis in response to a perceived change within the ALP, or does the DSP say that its pre-1984 analysis was always wrong? (2) What DSP policy changes follow from this changed analysis? Lorimer says that, after 1984, the DSP did not abandon calling for the return of ALP governments; and that the DSP has always argued that there is a need to "build organisations separate from the ALP". The DSP's policy towards NUS appears to be analogous to its policy towards the ACTU. Lorimer says "the organisation's structures and rules make it impossible to replace the Laborites' control of NUS". Could it also be clarified whether or not the DSP makes a similar assertion about the ACTU?
Roger Clarke
Carina Heights Qld