A statement from the Socialist Alliance, Australia, July 2, 2009

The Socialist Alliance strongly condemns the June 28 coup d’etat by the military, members of the oligarchy and their political agents in Honduras. The violent kidnapping and expulsion to Costa Rica of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya Rosales is an attempt to deny the people of Honduras their fundamental human rights to determine their own government and political future.

The coup took place as millions of Hondurans were preparing to exercise their right to vote for the first time in a consultative referendum on the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform Honduras’ constitution. The Zelaya government’s proposal to draft a new constitution is the culmination of other measures under his presidency that have come under attack by conservative forces, including a significant raise in the minimum wage, measures to re-nationalise energy generation plants and telecommunications, signing a bill to greatly improve labour conditions for teachers, joining the Venezuelan Petrocaribe program, and delaying recognition of the new United States ambassador after the Bolivian government implicated the US embassy in supporting paramilitary groups destabilising Bolivia.

Millions of people, old and young, ethnic and religious minorities, have taken to the streets, day in and day out since the disputed election on June 12. They have bravely defied the repressive regime of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to demand the most basic of rights: the right to freely and transparently elect their representatives.

Some 27 people, including a young woman Neda Agha-Soltan whose death was captured on video, have been killed in the crackdown on protests. Several hundred have been injured, and a leading student activist is in a coma. Government officials on June 24 announced that there had been a total of 645 arrests in Tehran since June 13, 2009. Activists say that several hundred more, including journalists, editors, students, professors, party officials and unionists have also disappeared.

21 June 2009

In January 2008, in Western Australia, Aboriginal elder, highly respected community leader and grandfather Mr Ward died of heatstroke in an oven-hot prison van driven by employees of prisons operator Global Solutions Ltd, now taken over by Group 4 Securitas (G4S).

In New South Wales in June 2009, G4S, which also runs all immigration detention centres in Australia and on Christmas Island for the immigration department, is lining up to bid for the contract to run Parklea prison, marked for privatisation by the Labor government of Nathan Rees.

Parklea prison officers and their supporters have been maintaining a protest picket against the privatisation outside Rees’s electoral office in the western Sydney suburb of Seven Hills.

The justice system in Western Australia is broken

Mr Ward, a respected Warburton Elder, died of heatstroke in horrific circumstances after being transported 380km in the back of a van in 42 degree heat with a pie, less than 600ml of water and no working air-conditioning. The findings of Western Australian Coroner Alistair Hope into Mr Ward’s death in custody will be made public on June 12, 2009.

The public rally to be held on June 20 in Perth protesting Mr Ward’s death will demand that the State Government guarantee the safety of people in custody, take immediate action to reduce Indigenous imprisonment rates in Western Australia, which are the highest of any developed country, and do something real and substantial now to tackle racism in the Western Australian justice system.

EVENTS PLANNED FOR JUNE 20

We all know that privatisation means workers being sacked, higher prices, and worse services – all in the name of profits for a few. This is exactly our experience with Queensland energy privatisation, Telstra & the Commonwealth Bank. Far from solving "budget challenges", revenues that previously went to public uses such as hospitals and schools instead flow to corporate bottom lines. And once privatisation is used as a means of "balancing the budget", it is a slippery slope for more sell-offs in future years.

The Economic Crisis: an argument for more public, not private, ownership

Bligh's argument that the global financial crisis means she has no choice but privatisation is rubbish. While stating that she's not "a Wall Street banker" that caused the crisis, but has to deal with it, her sell-off would hand over more assets to the very "Wall Street banker" forces that have caused the crisis!

Socialist Alliance National Trade Union Committee

Distributed by Tim Gooden, Secretary, Geelong Trades Hall Council (pictured), as a contribution to debate at the 2009 ACTU Congress

Dear fellow unionists,

As delegates to this ACTU Congress you have piles of policy before you, but one basic decision to make.

Should you back the ACTU leadership’s support for Rudd’s Fair Work Act or oppose it?

The Congress papers say that “the Fair Work Act sees the end of the direct legislative assault on organised labour” and “represents a substantial, albeit imperfect, transition of the 2006 ACTU Congress policy into legislation.”

That’s just spin! Read the Congress’s own Industrial Relations Legislation Factsheet and the truth comes out (see the basic facts about the Fair Work Act over the page, mainly taken from this Factsheet). Workers are still losing.

Socialist Alliance commends the strong protest action called yesterday by the Federation of Indian Student Associations (FISA) following a recent spate of violent attacks against students of Indian origin. Similar attacks against students and cab drivers have been happening for far too long – with no adequate response from the government and police.

Socialist Alliance condemns the police use of force to break up the protest and arrest people. The police actions are a violation of the right to protest peacefully.

We call on trade unions and community organisations to support these protests and mobilise supporters to attend. The largest possible peaceful rallies send a powerful message to the community to stand up against racism.

Sam Watson, Socialist Alliance Indigenous Rights Spokesperson

28 May 2009

In his Sorry Speech, delivered on February 13, 2008, Kevin Rudd said "We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians."

More than a year later, the Rudd government has joined this list of successive governments, having not only failed to end Howard's racialist Northern Territory Emergency Response, but also expanding it and forcing Aboriginal housing agencies to sign away their land or miss out on much needed funding.

Sunday 17 May 2009 - For immediate release

Socialist Alliance candidate Sam Wainwright has hailed the victory of Adele Carles in the Fremantle by-election as "A breakthrough for the entire progressive movement and a testament to the Greens’ consistent efforts to raise a progressive alternative to Labor."

"We in the Socialist Alliance have long known that workers deserve better than Labor but the Greens’ victory in Fremantle has proven that this is possible to achieve," said Wainwright.

"Labor’s choice of running millionaire investor Peter Tagliaferri as their candidate, against the wishes of the rank and file of their party, just goes to show how far removed Labor is from the concerns of ordinary workers," said Wainwright.

Please find below a model letter [Download it here] I've drafted on the severe and incurable shortcomings of the Rudd government's rejigged Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Unfortunately, it has won the support of the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Climate Institute and the World Wildlife Fund.

...]]> http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=841 To add your signature go to: http://fastuntoaction.wordpress.com/sri-lanka-crisis-statement-of-support

We are Australian citizens who share a deep concern about the escalating civilian crisis in Sri Lanka.

We call on the Australian government to demand the Sri Lankan authorities and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam declare an immediate ceasefire.

We are deeply conce ...]]> http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=840

STATEMENT BY DR BRIAN SENEWIRATNE (MD, FRCP, FRACP)

May 7, 2009

I am a Sinhalese from the majority community in Sri Lanka, not from the brutalised Tamil community. I have campaigned for some five decades for the right of the Tamils to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. I am releasing this media briefing as a concerned Australian (here for 32 years), and as a member of the Socialist Alliance, the only non-Tamil organisation to support the struggle of the Tamils for justice.

Last week the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) succeeded in its immediate aim of ending the armed resistance of the Tamil people, who live in the North and East of the country. "Bloodbath on the beach" was how the United Nations described the battle and we are yet to see the full extent of this major humanitarian catastrophe.

May 5, 2009

The Socialist Alliance has condemned and totally rejected the Rudd Government’s modified proposal for a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). "It is fatally flawed", the Alliance’s National Environment Coordinator David White said today.

"The retention of the unconditional 5% target reduction, the new $10 cap on carbon pricing and more free trading permits for big polluters make the proposed CPRS more unacceptable than ever", White said.

2 May 2009

Ironically, it was the first of May — workers’ day — and we were protesting against privatisation outside the NSW Labor Party offices.

Inside was a meeting of the state ALP administrative committee. Correctional services minister John Robertson, formerly the secretary of Unions NSW, was trying to force through a “finding” that Labor Party policy that saying “Labor will oppose the private contract management of prisons” actually allows the Labor government to privatise prisons!

Just last year, Robertson led a campaign against the privatisation of the NSW energy sector. The then Labor premier, Morris Iemma, lost his job as a result of this campaign and the 80% public opposition to the plan. Then “Robbo” was offered a parliamentary seat.

The recent tragic explosion and loss of life on board an asylum seeker boat off Ashmore Reef has put refugee issues back near the top of the Australian political agenda.

Predictably, the Coalition and its attack dog immigration shadow minister Sharman Stone have jumped at the opportunity to revive John Howard’s successful “wedging” tactic from the days of the Tampa.

The Rudd government immediately retreated: indeed, when PM Kevin Rudd invites people-smugglers “to rot in hell” he already sounds like 2001-vintage Howard.