Write on: Letters to the editor
East Timor
This is to congratulate GLW, once again, on its East Timor coverage. More than any other publication I can think of, GLW challenges our assigned role as the "window-shoppers and clock-watchers of history" (with thanks to Billy Bragg).
We also write to celebrate the recent acquittal of four people who were arrested while occupying the "public" part of Paul Keating's office before the election. The protest was against the complicity of his government in the illegal and bloody occupation of East Timor, as well as in support of the "Jakarta Nine", the appallingly treated East Timorese young people who were occupying the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
The case was won purely on "freedom of speech" grounds. Essentially it means that we cannot be "moved along" or threatened with arrest while demonstrating in a public place. We have a right, guaranteed under the constitution, to (for instance) give out leaflets in shopping malls, to hold banners up on pavements, to carry out any number of peaceful protests in public places. Harassment while we are doing this, by police and others, is a result of ignorance, or is a form of intimidation. Even seasoned activists among us fully expected to be found guilty of a form of trespass (under the Enclosed Lands Act) or, perhaps, to get off on a technicality.
This is most important ... we have the freedom; if we do not exercise it, we may as well not have it; or we will lose it. Free East Timor!
Stephen Langford
secretary AETA NSW
Paddington NSW
Deep sleep
Congratulations on finding the space to print in GLW #239 the comprehensive article by Barry Hart on the sufferings he endured and continues to endure because of his having deep sleep therapy in Chelmsford Private Hospital in 1973.
The most revealing part of Barry Hart's article is his revelation how the bureaucracy of the NSW health department, and presumably the state government, considered protection of the medical profession as taking priority over protecting patients from abuse.
A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald noted that scientists are now coming to the view that belief in psychiatry is unscientific. Barry Hart's article reveals that the alleged medical treatment at Chelmsford Hospital was a racket protected by the medical establishment. How many other rackets are they continuing to protect?
I'm glad that Barry's article mentions Pat Rogan, the Labor MP who first raised the issue in the NSW state parliament in 1984. He certainly got no support from either ALP cabinet members, or most of the backbenchers, during the period of the Labor government from 1984 to 1988. Despite his obvious competence, the Carr leadership made sure that Pat did not get elected to cabinet when the ALP won office in 1995.
George Petersen
Shellharbour NSW
Blue murder
Some companies were getting away with blue murder even before the election of the Howard government.
Since mid-1995, the company which runs the North Park mine at Parkes has increased its level of stealing from workers. If a worker takes a day off without prior arrangement, it is classified as a "blown shift". The company penalises workers for "blown shifts" by deducting 15% off your contract earnings for a fortnight.
If you take two or more consecutive days off without prior notification, the company considers that you have signalled your intention to seek alternative employment.
Workers at the North Park mine have been completely at the mercy of the company because they don't have a union.
The election of the Liberals will be a green light for companies to lay the boot into workers unless the union movement develops a campaign to defeat the Liberal government's attacks on workers. Just calling on the ALP, Greens and Democrats to amend the industrial relations legislation is not enough.
Sue Brooks
Canberra
Ethics and economics
How often have we heard the view that it doesn't matter if Indonesia is persecuting its populace as long as our trade relations are protected and we are making money. However, should the current situation change and our favourable trade relations were to be degraded by the ruling powers in Indonesia how quickly would we start fulminating about human rights abuses.
Ethics is an area of philosophy that has existed since Plato. Discussions of what constitutes ethical behaviour often centre around notions of not passively condoning behaviour where one individual or group of people oppress or inflict suffering upon another.
In the new MBA ethics; Corporate ethics; business as usual ethics; such an idea has been suspended and the word "ethics" has been supplanted by the word "economics". The ethical dimension is defined by profit and loss, establishing favourable trade relations, and assessing your "stance" on what use to be an ethical issue in terms of "how much can you make from a situation".
It now appears that human rights is only an issue when a neighbour not only engages in human rights abuses but is also failing to establish favourable trade relations with us, or, where they are not allowing corporations operating out of Australia into their economy to make money and establish an Australian Corporate economic hegemony. The days of right and wrong are long gone and we are now in the age of profit and loss.
Mark Dullow
Jannali NSW
Sydney 2000
It's a great joy to be able to read the virtual edition of Green Left on the World Wide Web. When you're on the road, as I am presently, it's an excellent way to find out what's happening back home.
I heartily concur with Norm Dixon's astute critique of the Atlanta Olympics (#240). After the recent bomb attacks there, and the many other recent terrorist attacks around the world, we can be certain that Sydney will be turned into an armed encampment in the year 2000.
Of course few of us will oppose legitimate attempts to prevent injury and death. But what is reprehensible is that since the 1972 Munich Games, the Olympics have been used as a pretext to crack down upon the poor, "social undesirables", radical movements and the Left in general. And they provide a unique opportunity for the state and big business to violate our basic human rights, including our freedom of movement and association.
Few of us have lived in a city which has hosted the Olympic Games. But in 1976 I lived in Montreal during the Summer Olympics, and I witnessed the city being transformed into an armed zone, while the poor and gays were rounded up by the police, and socialists, like myself, were fired from the Olympic Games Organising Committee.
Aboriginal leaders have already called for mass protests during the Sydney Olympics. As I have argued in the Alternative Law Journal, published in Australia, the trade unions, the Left and social movement must begin to organise across Australia to ensure that our basic rights are not stamped out during the 2000 Games.
Stuart Russell
Edinburgh Scotland
"All the way ... "
We knew that a Howard government wanted to turn the clock back. The recent announcement by Defence Minister McLachlan of massive new joint US-Australia war games and an upgrading of the US spy base at Pine Gap in Central Australia confirm this step back. In the 1960s we went "all the way with LBJ" (to Vietnam), perhaps in the 1990s we'll end up "pushing shit up hill — with Bill!".
Greg Ogle
Adelaide