The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper
of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday,
June26th, 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>
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Editorial: Last week in parliament
Several of the Howard Government's Budget nasties were spiked in the Senate
last week by a combination of the Labor Party, Democrats and Greens.
They included the Government's attempt to increase so-called "co-payments"
for medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits list. It would have
substantially increased the cost of medicines for every Australian. The
Government was set to skim off an extra $1.1 billion from the sick over the
next four years.
The real problem forcing the escalating cost of drugs is the exorbitant
prices charged by drug manufacturing companies who make obscene profits out
of the illnesses of the community. But this fact is not going to be tackled
by the Howard Government.
Another major objective of the Government was to alter the eligibility rules
for those on disability pensions able to work more than 15 hours a week. Its
intention was to force them off the higher disability pensions and on to the
lesser unemployment benefit. This could have resulted in a loss for some of
$50 per fortnight as well as forcing them to undergo the humiliating
experiences now imposed on those looking for work.
This has also been spiked by the Senate -- at least for the time being.
Another Budget measure that has been rolled is the proposal to reduce the
surcharge paid by high-income earners on their superannuation. The surcharge
was to have been reduced from 15 per cent to 10 per cent which would have
netted large savings to those with incomes over $85,242. Using one of its
usual tricks the Government linked this gift to high-income earners to
another superannuation measure which would have given some benefit to low
income earners.
But it was not only the Government's Budget measures that ran into trouble
in Parliament last week.
At last, finding some courage on the refugee question, the Labor Party
refused to endorse the Government's attempt to exorcise a swathe of islands
to the north of Australia as areas from which, if they landed, refugees
would not be able to process claims for refugee status in Australian courts.
The Greens and Democrats also opposed this measure and it was defeated in
the Senate.
This extraordinary step by the Government is an attempt to erect an "island
curtain" against refugees to the north of Australia. The measure not only
indicates the Government's inhumanity towards refugees but its determination
to go to any lengths to refuse rights to refugees to which they are entitled
under international law.
But, if the Labor Party is to regain any credibility on this issue, it must
oppose the discriminatory and racially based policies of the Government
which are also a violation of international law.
This is not only a question of regaining credibility among a large section
of the Australian people who do not agree with the Government's refugee
policies, it also means taking a stand against policies that are steadily
isolating Australia, particularly in third world countries from which most
refugees come.
The widespread objections to the Government's "terror laws" are another
positive development. But, once again, the stand of the Labor Party is
equivocal, limiting its opposition to merely proposing amendments. This is a
dangerous course and is likely to allow the Government to get away with
major parts of its neo-fascist legislation.
The Labor Party seems likely to accept legislation that would create a crime
of "terrorism" and make it a treasonable offence to assist a national
liberation struggle waged by guerilla forces and in which Australian forces
were involved.
But who is to define "terrorism"? Leaving it to the Attorney General or even
a Parliamentary majority to define would still enable struggles for national
liberation that an Australian Government was attempting to suppress, open to
being declared "terrorist".
If the present legislation had been on the books at the time of the Vietnam
War, there is little doubt that the Liberal Government and the Labor Party
leadership, which also supported the war in Vietnam until it was near its
end, would have banned support for the Vietnamese national liberation
movement and jailed those who opposed this "dirty war".
There is only one course to take and that is to reject the anti-democratic
legislation completely and not tinker with ineffective amendments.
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