The Guardian 28 June, 2006
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Letters to the Editor
Empty gestures and home-grown fascism
The Howard Government has rejected the key finings of a scathing report on its terrorism laws. The government-appointed committee — the Security Legislation Review Committee — recommended that the power of the Attorney-General to ban organisations be removed. So far 19 organisations have been banned, making it a serious crime to belong to them or even to associate with or even accept help from them.
The committee found that the offence of associating with a terrorist organisation "transgressed the fundamental human right of freedom of association and interfered with ordinary family, religious and legal communications". The committee also warned that events since the attacks in the US in 2001 have had a profound impact on Muslim and Arab Australians.
The biggest impacts on these communities "are a considerable increase in fear, a growing sense of alienation from the wider community and an increase in distrust of authority."
The committee said a fairer and more transparent process should be devised for proscribing an organisation and that organisations should be warned that a ban was being considered.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock tabled the report in Parliament last week and while doing so rejected most of its recommendations.
Why bother to commission a report in the first place, then? The answer is that the government is trying to give the impression that it is open and accountable but after ten years of lies, corruption and nepotism this charade has now worn paper thin. The shift towards absolutism — towards a form of home-grown fascism — has now reached the point where empty gestures are all that are left for Howard and his cronies.
You only have to look at the wholesale attack on the trade union movement to see the most ruthless offensive on the fundamental rights of all Australians. Building workers have been singled out as the target of laws that take away basic rights, such as the right to silence and the assumption of innocence. Those are the seeds of fascism that are being sown on building sites around Australia.
Marcus Browning
Sydney, NSW
Remember Gorby?
You never hear about Mikhail Gorbachev much these days, yet there are still people who sing his praises. Just recently, I encountered one such person who thought that Gorby was a pretty moral sort of bloke because of the process, of arms reduction. A process that was completely lop-sided, because, the Americans conceded nothing.
It should be remembered that peace was achieved through nuclear parity, which you might say, neutralised both sides, yet Gorbachev went to Malta in 1989, bent over and allowed the Americans to kick him in the butt, again and again. Having said that, I think that most people would agree that no country should possess nuclear weapons.
What else did that moral sort of bloke do? Well for starters he "handed over" his allies to the detriment of the USSR, at a time when the Yankees were interfering in the Philippines — and a few days later, actually invaded Panama. His action was a gift to NATO, nothing more and nothing less.
Disgustingly, he then agreed to continue reform in the USSR (a euphemism for the restoration of capitalism), which was completely in accordance with the United States plan of demolition.
Finally, he then promised that force would not be used to protect the territorial entity of the USSR. This is generally speaking, an impossible promise to make by any national leader, yet Gorbachev did it. And, what was the legacy of the so-called, moral man’s actions? Disintegration of the state, collapse of the economy, unemployment, poverty, inter-ethnic conflict, rampant crime and finally, a rails run for Imperialism.
The overall tragedy is that there had been since the time of Khrushchev a neglect of ideology, to the point that by the time Gorbachev arrived, it was well and truly dead in the water. I cannot stress enough, the importance of the class struggle of which ideology is a part.
Kevin Watkins
Belmont, WA
Paternalism and theft
Tony Abbott, Minister for Health seems to be offering advice on all sorts of topics. His latest pronouncements about a "new" approach to Aboriginal policies, a "paternalistic" approach is nothing new, of course. For decades Aboriginal people had to fight for their rights to be heard and be treated with respect and understanding. Since the Howard Government came to power ten years ago there has been a continuing attack on Aboriginal organisations, Aboriginal leaders and under funding of Aboriginal communities.
Mr Abbott’s ideas seem to imply that Aboriginal people cannot be trusted with money, cannot possibly know how look after their young and old and look after their health and wellbeing. The government knows best.
The government should be reminded of the "outcomes" of this approach when it comes to stolen wages, for instance. Throughout Australia, from 1900 right up to the 1980s, Aboriginal people had their wages withheld. Can you imagine yourself in a position when your pay packet goes to the authorities and you never see the money again?
If this is not disgusting robbery, officially sanctioned, I don’t know what is. Even now Aboriginal people have to fight hard to get back what is theirs. I have not seen Tony Abbott and company raising their voices in support of Aboriginal claims for stolen wages.
It was not only wages that had been withheld — child endowment, pensions and even soldiers’ pay finished up in somebody else’s pockets.
People were condemned to lives of poverty while their money was used as public revenue or disappeared through fraud, negligence or both. Nobody seems to be responsible for that.
It was welcome news that the Senate is to inquire into the non-payment of wages to Indigenous workers over the decades. Under the terms of inquiry, proposed by Andrew Bartlett, the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee will conduct a broad-ranging inquiry and report back by the end of the year. Let’s hope that this inquiry will be speedy and fair.
Judith Hill
Brisbane, Qld