The Guardian 17 May, 2006
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Letters to the Editor
Shame on Labor leaders
Labor party leaders should be ashamed. First Kim Beazley and then Warren Mundine have decided to drop support for public education and called for tax incentives and childcare support for parents who send their children to private schools.
Warren Mundine says that parents of children in private schools sacrifice their lifestyles to send them there. Should they be elevated to sainthood for doing so? I don’t think so. Private schools get a great financial support from the government.
It’s public schools that keep on struggling with inadequate funding and the responsibility of educating ALL children to the regardless of race, religion or income. It is disgustingly offensive to imply that only those parents who send their children to private schools are "good parents" that care about their education.
It is the public education system, downgraded as it is at present, that is one of the most important things in our society. It’s in public schools that children mix with kids from different backgrounds and learn to respect each other.
If Mundine and Beazley think that they could get some votes by dumping on public education they are mistaken. For this kind of policies we have Howard and Co. Public education is too precious to be used in political games.
Matti English
NSW
How Parliament
overrode the Constitution
On Wednesday, February 8, the Federal Parliament overrode Australia’s Constitution to give John Howard, or any future prime minister, a new power to call out the defence forces against Australians on Australian soil.
The Greens’ amendment, to ensure either house of parliament could immediately over-rule any abuse of this power, was voted down.
The Defence Legislation Amendment Act (Aid to Civilian Authorities) Bill 2006 passed without publicity. The press gallery was distracted by RU486 and AWB. Labor’s acquiescence helped mute the media watchdog.
Australia’s Constitution deliberately limited the federal government’s domestic military powers to protecting us from invasion.
When the six colonies gave up their armies and navies, less than 50 years after the Eureka rebellion, they insisted that the new national defence forces could not be deployed against Australians. The exception would be a rebellion so vast that the police forces of state faced being overwhelmed and, only then, if the state government called for help.
So Section 119 of the Constitution reads: "The Commonwealth shall protect every State against invasion and, on the application of the Executive Government of the State, against domestic violence".
That follows Section 118: "Full faith and credit shall be given, throughout the Commonwealth to the laws, the public Acts and records, and the judicial proceedings of every State".
The people of this democratic nation have not voted to change the Constitution. But, short of a High Court challenge, the executive will assume the new powers.
It does not matter that the present Labor state premiers may have volunteered to give away their Section 119 powers or that the Prime Minister has ignored Section 118 (under the new bill the defence forces would not be subject to state laws).
The Howard Government says that the "war" on terrorism vindicates this new law. But the bill does not mention terrorists. What it does do is open the way for a prime minister to put down any protest that could threaten life or property.
Democratic process is enlivened by rallies, blockades, obstructions and boycotts. They are a part of our nation’s healthy fabric and Australian soldiers have never been called to turn their guns on their fellow citizens.
Our founding fathers did their best to ensure that would not happen. However, Canberra has just legislated to make such a terrible event more likely, and 15 million Australian voters were oblivious.
Senator Bob Brown
Tasmania
Parasites at the gates
Reading the local bourgeois rag I saw how Bill Gates visited Vietnam and how, according to the report was given a hero’s welcome at Hanoi University.
While there was undoubtedly bourgeois hyperbole given, it was a little unsettling.
While it is imperative socialist countries learn as much as possible from capitalist innovations, one should also recognise that Gates and his kind are capitalist parasites and enemies of the proletariat.
It reminds us that Marxist-Leninist education is one of the essentials of the dictatorship of the proletariat and that it is never ceasing, and that in the betrayal of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Khrushchevite revisionists reduced Marxist-Leninist education, replacing it with rubbish about the class struggle being over, the Communist Party being a party of "the whole people", and slandering great Marxist-Leninists like comrade Stalin.
Let’s hope our Vietnamese comrades remain diligent in this area.
Mark Window
SA