Since the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, First World governments have exploited the fear that was generated to justify the diversion of government funds from programs that benefit working people and the poor to the military and police.
The Australian government's 2002 budget, due to be released on May 14, will be an attempt to do just that.
The government has begun leaking its proposed budget cuts. They include:
- denying pensions to thousands of sick people who would be eligible under the current rules;
- increasing the cost of medication and providing "incentives" for doctors to prescribe cheaper drugs, even when the drugs have greater negative side effects;
- cutting training for the unemployed and creating more obstacles for the jobless to not be cut off the dole; and
- scrapping a scheme, promised in the government's 2000 election campaign, to allow people on the dole to earn more money before having their allowance cut.
The government is also expected to pass legislation that will allow Telstra to increase line rental charges by a whopping 50%, as long as it decreases timed call costs. This will send phone bills soaring for most pensioners, and those who use telephones frugally, but will cut costs significantly for businesses — the heaviest users of timed calls.
Federal treasurer Peter Costello claims such funding cuts are necessary to fund the fight against "terrorism" and the "protection of our borders". These are just more xenophobic lies from the government.
The money taken from the poor will be given straight to secret agencies such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Federal Police and the defence forces. A large swag of it will go to the navy to trawl the high seas looking for boats to turn away and refugees to vilify, as well as to enforce a blockade which deprives the people of Iraq access to vital medicine and food.
Some of this money may go towards setting up an SAS unit in Sydney for domestic law enforcement — raising the frightening spectre of trained killers policing demonstrations.
ASIO's share of the booty will help it to increase harassment of migrant communities, including late night raids on people's houses, spying and, if new anti-terrorism laws are passed, detaining suspects incommunicado for days at a time.
None of these measures are necessary to protect Australians from terrorism. But they will help the Australian corporate elite — including its governments — silence its critics, blame social ills on refugees and support the US economic and military domination of the globe.
If the government was serious about ending terrorism and violence, it would start by condemning Israel's mass murder of Palestinians and begin to compensate Third World countries for the wealth Australian corporations have plundered.
The government could find plenty of money to do this without hitting the disadvantaged. Allowing asylum seekers into the country would save the $1.3 billion a year spent to keep them out. According the Australian Council of Social Service, cutting the private health insurance rebate to high-income earners would save another $2 billion.
If the company tax rate was just returned to its 1990s level — 49 cents in the dollar — it would raise an extra $17 billion. Raising it to 60 cents in the dollar would raise $27 billion. And that's without closing the numerous tax loopholes available to the super-rich.
Prime Minister John Howard, US President George Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon all peddle racist propaganda designed to convince working people that the world is divided between democracy-loving white nations and "dangerous, terrorist Arabs". These lies are designed to convince us to abandon our democratic rights and to allow them to kill, torture and exploit the poor peoples of the world.
The protests in every Australian capital city on May 1 (M1) offer a chance for these lies to be answered and for thousands of people demonstrate their solidarity with all those under attack from the corporate elite and their governments.
M1 is a chance for us to argue that "we are all Palestinians, refugees, union members and the unemployed"; that all working people are suffering under capitalism's offensive. M1 gives us another chance to fight back. See you there.
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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