Outraged
The item on the Swan Brewery (June 17) by Michael Rafferty has left me with a feeling of outrage at the scandalous, pathetic string of misinformation that you allowed under the heading of "news".
1. Aboriginal opinion is divided on the significance of the Brewery site. Rural tribal aborigines maintain that it is not sacred. The Brewery itself stands on reclaimed land, and the site is bisected by a four lane highway (which mainly transports the affluent suburbanites of Perth from home to work and back). The road will remain whatever the fate of the Brewery, but no-one is concerned about its effect on a significant Aboriginal site — that part is too hard.
2. The accident history of that stretch of road shows that most accidents have occurred on curves in the road that are nowhere near the Brewery. Since the road has been straightened and a barrier between the lanes built recently, there have been no accidents. It is interesting to note that the good doctors who have urged demolition do not campaign against the siting of other buildings on busy roads.
Their conservative bias shows in the attention directed at something that may embarrass a Labor government.
3. Your feature writer and others class this preservation of an old building (classified as significant by the WA Heritage Council, the National Estate and others) as a "development". The aim of the project is to restore the site to its condition as built years ago, not to "develop" a new building.
The sight of Jack Mundey, who commands great respect for the Sydney green bans, being tricked into supporting the destruction of an old building by misguided unionists, was sad and sickening.
4. The union movement is divided on the issue. Many see the opportunity for work restoring the craftsmanship of another era. Aboriginal construction workers would certainly benefit from a preference system for the project.
5. Scarce Aboriginal Legal Aid money has been squandered on this icon of middle-class guilt, while elsewhere aboriginals go undefended after being unfairly dismissed by racist employers.
Does your writer think that the degraded position of aborigines and other poor people will be materially affected by the destruction of this old building? Will they be able to eat the rubble? What we will lose is an opportunity to have an Aboriginal Heritage Museum (to house a large collection of aboriginal art stored in warehouses) and a community facility.
Multiplex will redevelop the Brewery in return for a long term low cost lease, saving the community from expenditure and ctorian-era building.
The left has been hoodwinked by well-meaning, but misguided activists. It has aligned itself with the Liberal Party and the reactionary press, without examining the issue carefully.
Gordon Payne
Perth
[Edited for length.]
Strongly object
I object strongly to your publication "Fantastic Sex Facts" — an insert in the Green Left Weekly, March 1992, being handed out to young people at Strathfield station on 25 June, 1992.
Information needs to be given in a proper context, by the right people and at an appropriate age. Handing out your paper to primary children does none of these and ignores the child's and parents' rights.
You have an important agenda with Green issues — that would seem to be a better area to direct your energies.
Br G. Giacon
Principal, St Patricks College
Strathfield NSW
Falling birthrate okay
There are many different views concerning population within the Green movement. Perhaps the majority view is that the world is already vastly overpopulated and the resources necessary to give 5
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55D> billion people any sort of reasonable lifestyle will impose too much of a burden on the planet in the long term even if extravagance and inefficiency are eliminated.
Others are concerned that the emphasis on overpopulation may be used as a distraction from the pressing problem of extravagance and wastefulness in the affluent countries and the exploitation of the Third World. There is also a concern that an overly direct focus on overpopulation may involve an element of victim blaming and may detract from more subtle methods of limiting population growth such as improved education and life opportunities, particularly for women. However, there is unanimous agreement that the world cannot go on supporting more and more people and all falls in the birth rate are welcomed.
I was therefore shocked to find an article in GLW where a falling birth rate was labelled a demographic catastrophe (Russia's population falls, 17/6/92). Indeed, the USSR has suffered a different sort of demographic catastrophe in the past. It had a higher birth rate than the USA in the past few decades and the demand created by the extra tens of millions of mouths it consequently had to feed would have been a major factor in the failure of the USSR in comparison to the USA. Labelling a fall in birth rate a demographic catastrophe would be regarded as absurd in the mainstream press let alone in a "Green" newspaper. The Green Left Weekly should immediately dissociate itself from such sentiments.
David Kault
Townsville
Sold out
Recently there have been two incidents which must be condemned by the community in general and by young people specifically. Firstly the Labor government and the ACTU's push for a youth training wage of $117 per week. And secondly Paul Keating's statement that youth unemployment was not 34.1%, but was only 10%. A few points need to be made here.1. The youth "training wage" of $117 is really a youth "slave" wage. If young people are doing adult work why not pay us adult wages. By developing this scheme the Labor government and its trade union lackeys are undermining the wages and conditions of all workers.
2. With the help of the accord, over 100,000 young workers earn less than the poverty line of $183.60. Yet this abysmal level of youth wages has not decreased youth unemployment.
3. Mr Keating is trying to divert and downplay the real issues. Why doesn't the Labor government have an action program for creating real jobs? The higher secondary student retention rates are simply prolonging a huge social crisis for young people. Once people have finished being educated and trained will we have a job?
Both Labor and Liberals (the Liberals want to throw people off the dole after nine months) represent the politics of no choice for young people. We need a new politics which takes up the interests of young people, women, the poor, blacks and workers.
Resistance is planning a demonstration outside the "youth" summit in July. We are demanding real jobs for real wages.
Ambrose, Liam, Rohan, Lara, Heidi, Karl, James
Resistance
Canberra
Ill-informed homophobes
The Australian Military has once again shown itself to be a reactionary body of ill-informed homophobes with its ruling on homosexual soldiers.
Gay people are once more being told that their contribution to the defence of Australia is unwanted. They are once more being told that they are security risks and child molesters. They are once more being given the message that if they want to retain their jobs they have to keep their sexuality under wraps; and many of them will accept these unempowering stereotypes with often tragic results. This ruling will reinforce the oppression and self-hatred that many gay men and women already feel.
Homosexuality is not an inherent security risk. If there is a security risk involved in having gay people in the Armed Forces, it stems directly from the attitude of the Military itself. By once more forcing gay service men and women to keep their sexuality secret, they are opening the way for these people to be blackmailed. If they could say "we welcome gay people into the Forces, no-one need fear exposure", the risks of blackmail would be automatically lessened.
The ADF Policy states that "there may still be a stigma activity". Yes, there is and it is reinforced by that same policy. The policy that implies that gay people are lesser people and likely to affect morale.
Another reason given for this retrograde and discriminatory policy is the old myth about "recruitment" of minors into "aberrant" lifestyle. This is not based on fact in any way! Gay people are no more likely (and some studies show much less likely) to molest children or to be sexually attracted to under-aged people; and there is not one grain of proof to suggest that exposure to openly gay people will lead to homosexuality in heterosexual people (although it might, by giving closeted gays positive images of other gay people, lead to more people being open about their sexuality). If it were possible to change a person's sexual orientation by exposure to people with different sexual identities, there would be no gay people at all!
The ADF claims to be "protecting" young people, and morale, with this ruling (although this is neither necessary nor possible), but have they even spared one thought for the morale of young gay men and women who want to be able to protect their country? Have they considered the impact this ruling will have on the already battered self-esteem of many gay people? Have they thought of the heartbreak they have caused, and the suicides they may have prevented by being more open and caring in their approach to people whose only crime is to love members of the same sex?
This policy demeans all Australians. It is wrong and must be changed now.
Lee-Gwen Booth
Tasmanian Gay & Lesbian Rights Group
Hobart
Outlawed aliens
Neither Liberal or Labour want young unemployed people at their hyped-up jobs summits because they believe they can speak for us. But I'm going to tell them what it is like to be an outlawed alien unemployed and homeless at 17.
The Department of Social Security doesn't believe that young people have any right to independence until the age of 18. They don't believe you when you explain you can no longer live with your parents because they are beating you or restricting your activity. If you want them to allow you to leave home officially and receive Job Search Allowance you need to have a declaration signed by your parents, and a witness of the event and a social worker, and a doctor's examination.
The Department of Social Security also does not believe that you need to eat or pay high rent until the age of 18. Unless you can obtain all these above mentioned signatures and pass the stringent guidelines to prove your need for independence you may receive a maximum of $64.15 per week after a 12 week waiting period. Hardly enough to live on!
If you do prove independence from your parents or are lucky to find a job and work full time for more than six months, you may receive the large sum of $105.90 per week. (The current poverty line is $194.08 per week.) You have no entitlement to rent assistance and are refused many of the other benefits.
Then the government whines about the lack of education amongst us. So you diligently try and receive Austudy once you've left home so you can eat bread and water but at least finish high school. However they have worked this one out too and will not let you receive Austudy unless you pass the same strict guidelines as when applying for Job Search Allowance. And now they are telling us we should be happy to receive an Austudy loan when we turn 21 instead of 25!
At the Prime Minister's job summit if we are not let in to hobnob with big business we will scream and shout our demands until they are met. Action speaks louder than words Paul Keating — and we're fed up being outlawed aliens.
Danielle Moortel
Carlton Vic
[Edited for length.]