Forests
Successive Governments have forced West Australia down a path of environmental destruction. It started with paying farmers to clear land to produce wheat for export dollars and is continuing with the felling of the South West forests to provide toilet paper for the Japanese.
Salinity in the wheat belt is now of concern to all of us — a levy has been proposed to fix a situation that has been caused by a lack of vision and greed. Will our children be asked for a levy to save the South West?
The Government accepts thousands of lost jobs as the result of big business chasing super-profits. But the unconfirmed prospect of a few hundred jobs temporarily lost as a result of limiting logging seems to carry a lot of weight. How many of those jobs are lost due to the use of very expensive imported tree-felling machines?
Other states have legislation aimed at keeping 30% of their land uncleared — in WA we are content with keeping 10%. We spend millions to attract tourists, picturing Elle on the tree walk in the forest near Walpole, whilst we cut down hundreds of acres within shouting distance.
Australia could be the National Park of the world, generating more (non-polluting) revenue from tourists than we can ever get from wood chipping. I urge everyone to promote realistic alternatives to the destruction of the old-growth forests.
Bassendean WA
Swing to the right
The continuing swing to the political right that began with Bob Hawke and his accord with the trade unions has now become almost a stampede with our governments contemptuously dishonouring international agreements on human rights in respect of mandatory sentencing.
In the NT, where the thought police are dominating the letters pages and airwaves, it is clear that this vitriolic campaign has at least one ulterior purpose — the acceptance by Territorians of an undemocratic constitution for statehood.
We are being hoodwinked by both major political parties in the name of parochialism dressed up as some sort of Territory patriotism to consider ourselves as a cut above the rest of humanity — except for indigenous Territorians of course!
As a delegate to the previous Territory constitutional convention I was well aware that democracy was done to death there: the majority spurned the democratic election of the head of state; spurned the democratic election of our Parliament; spurned the independence of the judiciary; spurned the constitutional protection of the environment and spurned constitutional protection of human rights.
It was ironic that many of the initiatives for democracy came from a monarchist and it was no surprise that the entrenchment of political power in the hands of the politicians, not the people, had fiercely bi-partisan support.
Now, following the success of the forces of repression in the Federal Parliament, we can expect another onslaught on our existing rights in the form of another bodgy constitutional charade.
Alawa NT
[Abridged.]
Maintaining the rot
For some of us who truly know and stand by what we believe in, it was no great shock to hear Paul Keating urging the full sale of Telstra. The disgusting and disappointing compromise of the right of the ALP began as soon as Bob Hawke became Prime Minister.
After wresting the Prime Ministerial chair from right under Bob's bum, Keating, the ruthlessly ambitious, upwardly mobile, capitalistically inclined, hot shot with expensive tastes and a penchant for the stock market, took over maintaining the rot from there. His cultivation — on behalf of Australians — of a "Special relationship" with General Suharto as a "Father figure" for us was absolutely nauseating.
Many of us will continue to hold steadfast and true what we consider non-negotiable cornerstones of Labor movement ideology and convictions. Fundamental to those is the socialistic, civilised concept of public medicine, health, education and law, and the belief in total public ownership and control of utilities, services and assets like public roads, railways and transport, telecommunications, gas, water and electricity, the ABC, the CSIRO, police, jails, etc.
People like Paul Keating should come clean and join the Liberal Party. The ALP should quite swiftly show the likes of Keating the back door — or the garbage chute — because if the garbage now rolling off the end of his forked tongue is indicative of the ALP's present ideology or policy, then people like myself are a very long way removed from being ALP supporters!
And they shouldn't even dare to presume that this has anything to do with any compromise, prostitution of, or shift in belief on our part!
Darwin NT
[Abridged.]
Private health insurance rebate
Why won't Kim Beazley promise to scrap the private health insurance rebate?
Suppose the average health insurance premium is $1200. Even if the government's 30% premium rebate were to increase the number of Australians with private from 5.5 million to 6 million — and to date the effect has been nowhere near this dramatic — $2.16 billion would have to be spent by the government to generate just $600 million more in premiums.
The $2.16 billion could, instead, have been spent on Medicare for a net gain of $1.56 billion in overall health expenditure relative to the rebate scheme. Are our nursing homes and hospitals in such magnificent shape that further funds would be superfluous?
Alternatively, the surplus $1.56 billion could have boosted pensions and benefits for low-income recipients, both with and without private health cover.
Private health insurance holders are disproportionately both wealthy and healthy. Why are our leaders so unconcerned about the poor and the sick?
Rydalmere NSW
Ireland
John Meehan complains about the "new constitutional provisions in the south of Ireland accepting the principle that partition cannot end without the 'consent' of a majority in the Six Counties". He says this means that "the 'unionist veto', long rejected by nationalists, is now accepted" (GLW #390).
But the "unionist veto" over Irish unity exists not because of some clauses in the southern Irish constitution, but because of the real balance of forces in the north.
For many decades the Irish constitution claimed sovereignty over the six counties of British-ruled northern Ireland — but this had no practical effect. The southern army did not march north to liberate the six counties from British occupation. Such an attempt would have been doomed to failure against a British army backed by an armed pro-British majority in the north.
Implicit in Meehan's article is the assumption that Protestants will always remain solidly unionist (pro-British). Unionist ideology does have a strong grip on the protestant population, including protestant workers, as a consequence of the relative privileges they enjoy under British rule in northern Ireland. But the relative privilege of one section of the working class is not necessarily an absolute barrier to solidarity with the more oppressed sections.
White Australian workers can act in solidarity with Aborigines and Asian migrants. Male workers can act in solidarity with women. Winning over a significant section of the protestant population is necessary, not only to win a referendum on ending partition, but also to weaken the social base of pro-imperialist armed groups (official and unofficial) in northern Ireland.
It is questionable whether Sinn Fein's participation in the northern Ireland executive assisted in this. As Meehan points out, Sinn Fein was a "minor partner in a centre-to-far-right coalition". But Meehan does not present an alternative strategy to end partition.
Such a strategy should include a number of elements: continuing mobilisation of the nationalist community in northern Ireland to demand social equality; propaganda aimed at protestant workers and youth, combining an appeal to enlightened self-interest (the potential benefits of a united working class outweigh the "benefits" of British rule) with a condemnation of the injustice suffered by Catholics; struggling for progressive social change in the south of Ireland to make it more attractive to members of both communities in the north; and campaigns in Britain to withdraw troops from northern Ireland, and to end the funding of repressive bodies such as the RUC.
Melbourne
[Abridged.]
Migrants
What's the difference between Pauline Hanson, John Howard and Bob Carr? Not much. Their parties have different names but when it comes to scapegoating migrants they are all the same.
Hanson and Howard blame migrants, especially refugees from the Third World, for Australia's economic problems. Bob Carr says Sydney is overpopulated and immigrants should go elsewhere.
But the 1996 Census shows that approximately 70% of people who move to Sydney are from other parts of NSW. Many people move to Sydney because of the depressed regional economy — due in part to Carr's cuts to services.
Everybody, including immigrants should be free to live where they choose.
Sydney