LL:INFO: 3cr
Help keep alternative radio on the air! Donate to 3CR during the 2002 Radiothon. Support the SUWA show by calling 9419 8377 between 5-30pm and 6-30pm on Friday June ? to make a donation. WHAT IS THE SUWA SHOW? The Squatters and Unwaged Airwaves program has been going to air since the mid 1980s and covers a variety of issues from a grassroots perspective. As our name would suggest we often focus on what's happening in the world of housing and welfare, but also spiral out to support just about any form of direct action that is going on be it local or global. Our basic aim is to support and promote those out there resisting the existing social order and trying to create an alternative to it. Currently the show is produced on a revolving basis and involves around 10 regular presenters plus numerous irregular ones. The collective is diverse and includes members of The Dole Army, Food Not Bombs, Grasslands, The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Anarchist Black Cross, IWW, Barricade Books and more. WHAT HAS THE SHOW DONE IN THE LAST YEAR? - Regularly interviewed local and interstate unwaged and unemployed activists. - Distributed the 2001 Melbourne Squatters Handbook. - Regularly interviewed local squatters as well as those from Sydney's Broadway and Midnight Star squats. - Vigorously plugged over 150 local and interstate protests, actions, conferences, film screenings and meetings. - Interviewed activists from Ireland, the U.K., The Netherlands, New Zealand and other near and far flung places. - Produced community announcements for Food Not Bombs, Grasslands Food Co-op, Melbourne Uni Food Co-op, anti welfare cuts protests and more. - Begun compiling a list of empty houses for people to squat (this is fairly spare at the moment, so call in if you know of an empty in your area). - Regularly given out advice about squatting, legal and welfare rights on air. - Played pre-recorded stories and pieces from overseas anti-globalisation protests and activists such as Mumia Abu Jamal and Noam Chomsky. - Had regular and live reports from the anti-Nike protests, Woomera protests, Critical Mass rides, interstate Reclaim The Streets parties and more. - Served as a regular phone contact and advice point for those having problems with Centrelink and landlords as well as those seeking information and advice on squatting. - Read out regular news reports on local, national and overseas protests and actions. - Held gigs to celebrate 3CR's 25th anniversary. - Interviewed former SUWA presenters about the history of the show and of Melbourne troublemaking in general. - Played lots of great music! THE ONLY WAY WE CAN CONTINUE TO SUPPORT AND PROMOTE THOSE TAKING ACTION IS FOR YOU TO SUPPORT US. ANY DONATION, NO MATTER HOW SMALL IS WELCOME. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:INFO: What's happening in and around the VWT
Are you interested in participating? Present But Not Counted: Rural and Urban Women's Unpaid Labour - A Pilot Project For far too long, the everyday community building work done by women has been invisible and undervalued. We know anecdotally, and instinctually, how much it contributes to our national economy. We know from people such as Marilyn Waring and Duncan Ironmonger the extent of this work and its dollar value. But good systematic qualitative research - exploring the issues from women's realities - is still needed. By commencing a study of rural and metropolitan women's labour, this pilot project supported by the Victorian Women's Trust will create new practical and theoretical frameworks to measure how women's contribution to the 'private' unpaid economy sustains the 'public' market economy. Dr Helen Johnson from the University of Queensland is looking for 15 women aged over 18 to attend a discussion at the Women's Business Matrix in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy on Tuesday 16 July from 10am to 12 noon. Morning tea will be served and childcare facilities are available. A discussion will also take place at the Bendigo Tafe College from 12 noon to 2pm on Thursday 18 July. A light lunch will be served and childcare facilities are available. Please contact Helen on (07) 336 51070 or at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alternatively, contact Trish Pinto at the Victorian Women's Trust on (03) 9642 0422 or at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:DDV:
George W Bush: The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. ... We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt its plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. 1 June 2002 We will oppose the new totalitarians with all our power. 11 June 2002 Dick Chaney: Grave threats are accumulating against us, and inaction will only bring them closer..We will not wait until it is too late. ...it can only end with their complete and utter destruction . 11 June 2002 John Howard: Can I first of all thank the Vice President for the clarity of his message. There is a great sense of admiration regarding President Bush and you yourself in the leadership that you have given to the world's response to the monstrosity of the 11th of September last year. You have our strong support and the deep commitment of like-minded countries in governments all around the world. 11 June 2002 Dick Cheney: Thank you Prime Minister. 11 June 2002 What does the Australian Government's arse lick sycophancy to the US's new first strike policy mean for Australia? How does this impact our foreign and domestic policies? How does it affect the proposed 'terror laws' and the right to oppose it? Pine Gap Info Night Trades Hall Bar 6.30 pm Thursday 13 June 2002 (the day the US withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missille Treaty) Donald Rumsfeld: Absolute proof cannot be precondition for action, 6 June 2002 -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: John Pilger: How Britain's armaments fuel war and poverty
The following article was published in The Guardian, newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, June12th, 2002. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Guardian: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au Subscription rates on request. ** John Pilger: How Britain's armaments fuel war and poverty With nuclear powers India and Pakistan on the edge of war, the role of the Blair Government in fuelling the conflict has been critical. by John Pilger In the year 2000, the Government approved nearly 700 export licences For weapons and military equipment to both countries. These had a total value of 64 million. India, which gets the great majority of British weapons, is building under licence Jaguar bombers that are capable of delivering nuclear weapons. In January, as the two countries prepared for war, Tony Blair arrived in the subcontinent on what was called a peace mission. In fact, as the Indian press revealed, he discussed the opposite of peace -- a 1 billion deal to sell India 60 Hawk fighter-bombers made by British Aerospace. The issue of India acquiring the Hawks, reported the periodical Outlook India, was raised by Prime Minister Blair with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, Defence Minister George Fernandes said. Three weeks later, the British High Commission in New Delhi threw a party for a group of British arms salesmen in town for a major weapons fair called Defexpo, whose organisers made no secret of their aim to exploit the recent developments taking place in the south-east Asia region -- in other words, the conflicts in Kashmir and Afghanistan. So keen has the Blair Government been to exploit this opportunity of war that a British official has the full-time assignment, in New Delhi, of defence supply. He works with the Defence Export Sales Organisation (DESO) in London, an arm of the Ministry of Defence, whose sole aim is to sell weapons to foreign armies. A secret list of 22 highly valuable priority markets targeted for British arms sales has India and Pakistan near the top. British missiles, tanks, artillery, howitzers, anti-aircraft guns, small arms and ammunition are all available on buy-now-pay-later terms. But the prize is the 60 Hawk fighter-bombers, coyly described as trainers. Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt was reported to have banned this deal. It has not been banned; the delivery date has been simply put back -- which was the tactic the Blair Government used in delaying the shipment of Hawks to Indonesia when the dictatorship in that country was attempting to annihilate East Timor. Arming both sides India and Pakistan have millions of impoverished people without basic services. According to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the price of one Hawk bomber is roughly the amount needed to provide 1.5 million people with fresh water for life. Arming both sides is, of course, as British as pith helmets. In the horrendous war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, Britain did just that in company with other Western countries. At least a million people were killed. The usual hypocrisy and double standards are even more spectacular under this government. Soon after New Labour came to power in 1997, the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced an ethical dimension to foreign policy. He said that the Government will not issue an (arms) export license if there is a clearly identifiable risk that the intended recipient would use the proposed export aggressively against another country or if there was a threat to regional stability. He might have been talking about India and Pakistan, whose long-running dispute over Kashmir is, according to Cook's successor Jack Straw, potentially more dangerous than the crisis in the Middle East. From the day it took office, veiled by Cook's ethical nonsense, New Labour embraced the arms business. In his first few months as Prime Minister, Blair approved 11 arms deals with General Suharto's genocidal regime in Indonesia under cover of the Official Secrets Act. He has since maintained Britain as the world's third biggest arms trader, selling more lethal weapons in New Labour's first year than the Tories. More than two-thirds of sales are to governments with appalling human rights records. Britain's biggest customer is Saudi Arabia, the most extreme Islamic regime on earth, where apostates are beheaded. Women have no rights; it is illegal for a woman even to drive a car. Cherie Blair, who with Laura Bush, wife of the American President, denounced the brutal oppression of women in Afghanistan by the Taliban and demanded their emancipation, has remained silent on the medieval treatment of Saudi women in the spiritual home of al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia has most of the world's oil. Job creation myth The results of an investigation by the National
LL:ART: Knives out for Medicare
The following article was published in The Guardian, newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, June12th, 2002. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Guardian: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au Subscription rates on request. ** KNIVES OUT FOR MEDICARE The private health insurance funds are calling for greater powers and further deregulation of the private health industry. At the same time they are seeking coverage of GP services which currently are covered by Medicare. Their aim is the destruction by privatisation of Medicare. by Anna Pha In its place they seek the establishment of a managed health care system, a two-tier system based on profit with your capacity to pay determining the level and quality of health care you receive. This is along the lines of the US system. The Federal Government has responded to industry demands by setting up a review to determine the next round of reforms This is being done in consultation with the Australian Health Insurance Association (AHIA), which represents the private health insurance industry. They have the ear of Health Minister Kay Patterson. The health funds want to be able to operate along similar lines to the general insurance industry i.e. they want unfettered control. For example, a company offering car insurance decides whether a particular driver can have a policy. The premium depends on the age and previous history of the driver, the age and model of the car, its condition, risk of being stolen, the cost of replacement parts, and so on. Following an accident, the insurance company decides if and where the car will be repaired, what will be done and how much the owner contributes to the cost of repairs. That is the kind of dangerous and inequitable model the private health industry wants. If community ratings and price caps on premiums were lifted, then the health insurance funds would decide who could be covered, and the insurance premium they would pay (based on age, race, medical history, genes, lifestyle, weight, alcohol consumption, smoking, etc). The outcome would be that older people, diabetics, and others with chronic illnesses or a family history of certain diseases would be charged a much higher premium than say a young, fit person. The health insurance companies would determine whether a patient can have a transplant or bypass, where it would be carried out, who would perform it and the fee. That is, US-style managed health care. These are medical questions that should be decided by patients in consultation with their medical practitioners, not by insurance clerks and accountants. The AHIA has called for health insurers to be given the freedom to choose which hospitals will be covered. AHIA head Russell Schneider referred to escalating services in poor quality hospitals. If they don't meet quality standards, we don't want to have to pay them at all, he told the Financial Review. The Government has already taken a step in this direction with higher premiums for people who take out private health insurance over the age of 30. While these comments refer to the private health system, they are relevant to ALL patients in the public health system. The AHIA is seeking the right for private health funds to compete with Medicare -- i.e. to commence the privatisation of Medicare. At present the private funds are not permitted to give re-imbursements or pay claims for services performed by GPs. The AHIA wants this ban lifted so that funds could cover GP services and hence offer whole health care packages in competition with Medicare and the public system. This would spell the death of Medicare and the public health system with bulk billing and no-fee public hospitals. This idea has been on the drawing board for some time. When the Howard Government was first elected it set up a National Commission of Audit. The Commission's report proposed that Medicare refunds be provided through private health funds. The Commonwealth would pay a national health insurance premium in respect of eligible citizens to registered health funds, to cover public hospital and all other Medicare health services, said the report. The private funds would be required by law to cover a percentage of the Medical Benefits Schedule fee and free standard ward accommodation in hospital. (No bulkbilling.) The funds would compete for eligible members by offering greater efficiencies and add-ons to the standard package. Such extra benefits could include additional nursing home and hostel benefits, physiotherapy, dental treatment et cetera. The choice would lie with the individual. The funds could negotiate hospital charges with the States and any private hospitals willing to treat public patients, and negotiate fees with doctors. The aim is to integrate Medicare with
LL:URL: Day 1 - Trust the Women Convention Day
TRUST THE WOMEN: WOMEN'S CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION Opened in Canberra after lunch today. The available papers presented at the Convention today are now on the web at http://www.wcc2002.asn.au/program/index.htm If you have visited the site before press reload or refresh on your web browser to see the new page. A summary of the themes from the day will be available shortly and the papers that will be presented on 12 June will be available on the web, at the same location tomorrow night. And thanks to Ros Dundas for providing the following: From Today's Sydney Morning Herald Australia was one of the first countries to give women the vote. One hundred years later, Cynthia Banham and others consider the franchise. Contributors... KIM RUBENSTEIN - Senior lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne. EVA COX - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney. ROSLYN DUNDAS - Leader of the Democrats in the ACT Legislative Assembly and, at 23, the youngest woman elected to an Australian parliament. DENESE GRIFFIN - Network co-ordinator for the National Network of Indigenous Women Legal Services. KIRI HATA - Chairwoman of the Australian National Committee on Refugee Women. SANDY KILLICK - National chairwoman of the Women's Electoral Lobby. For the whole article check out www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/10/1022982820112.html or for those without internet - read below... Equal opportunity June 11 2002 It took until 1983 for NSW to elect a woman, Jeanette McHugh, to Federal Parliament, while the first indigenous woman to be elected to any parliament in Australia was Carol Martin - in 2001 in Western Australia - 39 years after Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders got the vote. Such tardiness in electing women representatives may come as a surprise to many, for tomorrow is a red-letter day in Australian democracy. It marks the 100th anniversary of the day Australian women received the right to vote. The legislation also allowed them to stand for parliament, a world first. Yet Australia's poor record for electing women to parliaments highlights how long it has taken to turn rights into reality. A conference beginning in Canberra today will look back over a century of women's suffrage and try to ensure the future health of Australia's constitutional system. Erica Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Women's Constitutional Convention, marking the passage of the Commonwealth Franchise Act on June 12, 1902, which gave white women the right to vote, says the event will re-examine how far women have come and acknowledge we have worked really hard, we as the women's movement, to make a difference. We have been successful on so many fronts but there's so much more work to do, she says. Meredith Burgman, President of the NSW upper house, says that despite the 100-year-old legislation it has taken 90 years for women to be seen as legitimate political activists, noting that they did not get into parliament in any real numbers until the last decade. She says preselection remains the biggest hurdle to women getting elected today. The party processes ... still favour the sort of skills men get in Australian society and women don't, like ... self- assurance, public speaking practice and plenty of time. Jeanette McHugh says Australia needs to acknowledge how progressive it has been in certain areas - with the passage of the Franchise Act it became the first country to allow women to both vote and stand for parliament. But she says: You make that wonderful leap forward 100 years ago and then do nothing about it. Carol Martin, the Labor politician from the Kimberley elected to the WA Legislative Assembly last year, says the barriers to the election of indigenous women - gender and racism - have largely been overcome, and describes herself as living testament to reconciliation. Women do make up 50 per cent of the population and so really parliament should reflect that but it doesn't, which as we know is a sign of the times but things have moved on. KIM RUBENSTEIN Senior lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne. Hindsight reveals massive trickery in the hoodwinking of women to support Federation and the Commonwealth constitution of 1901. The crafting of Australia's fundamental legal and constitutional document was, of course, a male-only affair with women in minor support roles. South Australian women were the only women with democratic influence in Australia, having miraculously emerged with the vote in 1894. Coveting that rare right, they threatened to withdraw their support should Federation result in their losing the vote. So the male delegates craftily drafted what became section 41 of the Constitution, which precluded the Commonwealth from legislating to prevent them from voting. But an all-male, all-white High Court (praise the arrival of Justice Mary Gaudron to unsettle the previously all-male preserve) has since interpreted section 41 as a transitional guarantee only. The
LL:DDV: World Refugee Day Rally Sunday June 23
-- PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL!!! WORLD REFUGEE DAY - MARCH + RALLY SUNDAY | JUNE 23 | 1PM ASSEMBLE @ THE STATE LIBRARY, MELBOURNE corner of swanston latrobe streets ph: 9659 3505 for more information | download the poster from www.rac-vic.org | | pick up leaflets colour posters from trades hall | _ _ _ _ June 20 is World Refugee Day- on June 23 refugee actions will be held in every Australian capital city as well as regional centres including Byron Bay, Shepparton and Newcastle. This will be the largest show of support for refugees rights in Australia since the Palm Sunday activities earlier this year. The Melbourne rally will begin on June 23, 1pm with people assembling at the State Library. As well as live entertainment there will be a range of speakers representing temporary protection visa holders, ethnic communities, detention centre workers and religious groups. The event has been endorsed by dozens of organisations including the Victorian Ethnic Communities Council and Victorian Trades Hall Council (see below for full list). in melbourne speakers on the day will include: - Arch Bishop Hilton Deakin - Fahim Fayyazi, Afghan tpv holder - Felicity Martin, Refugee Action Collective - Marion Lau, chairperson of Ethnic Communities=92 Council - Arnold Zable, writer journalist with more to be confirmed. There will also be live entertainment and an action to commemorate those people who died trying to get to Australian shores. The rallies are being organised under the slogan: welcome refugees, end mandatory detention, with additional demands including money for community settlement not the Pacific Solution and full rights for refugees, not temporary protection visas. CAN YOU HELP? - download a black white poster from http://www.rac-vic.org - forward this email or include information about the event to contacts, email lists and colleagues - there are a limited number of colour posters available: call 9659 3505 to arrange a time to pick them up from trades hall - pick up help distribute leaflets, call 9659 3505 - include information about the event in newsletters, mailouts, calendars or websites you are associated with - translate this information into other languages and help in distribution amongst migrant communities, newletters papers WORLD REFUGEE DAY ACTIONS have been endorsed by a range of organisations nationally including: the Victorian Trades Hall Council; Ethnic Community Council Victoria; National Union of Students; Rural Australians for Refugees; Victorian Alliance for Refugees; Refugee Action Coalition (NSW); Free the Refugees Campaign (NSW); Refugee Action Collectives in SA, Qld, Lismore, Byron Bay, Illawarra and Victoria; Refugee Rights Activists Network (WA); Refugee Action Network (Darwin); Justice for Refugees (Armidale); Newcastle Refugee Rights Group; Tasmanians for Refugees; Search Foundation; Labor For Refugees; Jesuit Refugee Service; Lebanese Muslim Association; Margaret Reynolds, national pres United Nations Association of Australia; ChilOut (Children out of Detention); Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP); The Greens; Socialist Alliance; Friends of the Earth (Vic); Wayside Chapel (NSW); Edmund Rice Centre; AMWU Activists Network; Show Mercy (NSW); Progressive Young Hazaras; and many, many others... In Melbourne the World Refugee Day rally march is part of a Refugee Rights week of action, culminating in a festival outside Maribyrnong Detention Centre on June 28 29. For more information contact Refugee Action Collective phone: 9659 3505 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web:www.rac-vic.org Issues regarding speakers or wrd logistics call arun 0438 244 438 or email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:DDV: Public Meeting - West Papua
WEST PAPUA: TROPICAL PARADISE SOAKED IN BLOOD An eyewitness report by Kel Dummett. Including slide presentation and 5min film screening. THURSDAY 20 JUNE @ 6.30PM New Ballroom, Trades Hall. Sponsored by: Free West Papua Collective Asia Pacific Human Rights Network Australia West Papua Association Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific Further information from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
