LL:ART: CAMPAIGN TO REPEAL GST
Campaign to Repeal the GST The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, March 15, 2000. 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. ** The Central Committee of the Communist Party at its meeting last weekend called for a mass campaign to force the repeal of the GST legislation. It said that the GST is an "unfair and regressive tax. Its aim is to transfer taxes even more from the wealthy and from big business to the shoulders of the working people, students, the unemployed, pensioners and small farmers. It will boost the profits of big business while imposing huge compliance costs on small businesses, trades people and professionals. "Let's work together to repeal the GST", said the Party's resolution, while calling on all party organisations and every member of the Party to become active in the campaign. "We call on the ALP to declare NOW that, if elected at the next election, it will REPEAL THE GST. It is not acceptable that the GST be merely `rolled back'. It must be repealed in its entirety", said the Party statement. What can be done? * Step up all forms of party activity -- use MIThe Guardian, leaflets, bulletins and newsletters, press releases, petitions, letters and deputations to members of parliament, letters to newspapers, emails, street tables, badge sales, organise meetings for party speakers, etc. "The development of a mass campaign of action by trade unions and others, starting now, could force the repeal of the GST", declared the Central Committee resolution. * Raise the issue in your trade union seeking adoption of policy resolutions and a campaign among members to REPEAL THE GST. * Initiate resolutions to go to the ACTU Congress to be held in Wollongong in June of this year. * Approach ALP members of Parliament and urge a commitment to REPEAL THE GST. * Support and join coalitions also campaigning to repeal the GST. The legislation was introduced by the Howard Liberal-National Party Government with the support of the Australian Democrats in the Senate. It could and should have been stopped in the Senate but the Australian Democrats ignored the wishes of the Australian people and connived with the Coalition to make it law. The ALP voted against it. While calling for the defeat of the GST, the Central Committee supported an alternative economic and tax policy. Main points should be: (a) terminate any form of a general goods and services tax while recognising the justification for special taxes on luxury items; (b) orient the tax system so that the tax rate for high income earners and big corporations is increased while the rate for wage and salary earners and those on low incomes is lowered; (c) close corporate tax avoidance loopholes; (d) levy normal taxes on profits earned in Australia but sent overseas; (e) cut back government handouts to the wealthy corporations in the form of direct grants and tax concessions; (f) support and maintain publicly owned enterprises and services; (g) crackdown on family trusts which are used by high-income earners to avoid tax; (h) raise the tax-free threshold from $5,400 to $13,000 ($250 per week); (i) ensure that the tax system is simple to operate and transparent; "REMEMBER, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FAIR GST", declared the CC resolution. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: DISMEMBERING TELSTRA
Dismembering Telstra The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, March 15, 2000. 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. ** Telstra's announcement that it will cut a further 16,300 jobs is part of the Howard Government's strategy to privatise the national telecommunications service provider. The Government knows its legislation to privatise outright the remaining publicly-owned 51 percent of Telstra will be blocked in the Senate. by Marcus Browning The tactic is instead to break Telstra up piecemeal by selling its most profitable sections and, where necessary, contracting out its various operations. In this way Telstra as an integrated whole is being dismembered, creating a group of small, isolated service providers that will eventually be dwarfed by the likes of Optus. Widespread staff reductions are central to this break-up strategy, with last week's announcement bringing the number of redundancies to almost 38,000. A large number will come from the closure of Telstra call centres, many of them in country centres with high levels of unemployment. At the same time as the government-appointed Telstra chief executive, Ziggy Switkowski (the former head of Optus), dropped the jobs bomb he also revealed that Telstra has had a record profit year, $2.09 billion, and that its Network, Design and Construction (NDC) division was up for sale. NDC specialises in telecommunications infrastructure and was set up last year, not primarily as means to develop and advance Telstra's technology, but to gain contracts in the private sector. It now has a $1 billion sales tag with the likes of construction giants Leighton or Transfield expected to be given the nod in the bidding. The Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union pointed out that job losses would hit rural areas early with the closure of call centres. "We warned last year that Telstra was moving to close many of its call centres", said the union's Communications Division President, Colin Cooper, "but the company kept denying it had any specific plans to do so. Now they have identified this as a key area for cost savings." He said that most of the employees who worked at the call centres were women who would find it especially difficult to gain other employment. The union had also forecast the NDC sell-off. "We have always anticipated that Telstra would float part or all of NDC, and that they would choose a moment when the share price needed to be shored up. That's what we're seeing now." Mr Cooper stressed that the further loss of staff would inevitably effect service standards. "There is a limit to what you can achieve through automation and working staff harder. "Telstra's customers know this already through the decline in service standards that has occurred since the big job cuts began." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:DDV: Public transport: book launch at NIB
At the New International Bookshop, Sunday 19 March, 2.00 pm. Tim Costello and Paul Mees on public transport, economic rationalism and the environment. The Rev Tim Costello and academic Paul Mees join forces to launch Paul's book "A Very Public Solution: Transport in the Dispersed City". "A Very Public Solution" compares Melbourne's public transport system with the highly successful system in Toronto -- a 'dispersed' city very like Melbourne with its suburban sprawl -- and sheds new light on a century-old debate. "A Very Public Solution" is the first serious work on public transport planning ever published in Australia. It is essential reading for everyone concerned with urban sustainability and our growing traffic problems in post-Kennett Victoria. For more information ring the bookshop, 9662 3744. LL.VC -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: Work for (all) welfare on the way
Work for welfare on the way By TOM ALLARD, Economics Correspondent Sole parents and the disabled would be required to make themselves more employable or forfeit their full payments under a radical overhaul of welfare being considered by Cabinet ministers this week. In what would be the biggest shake-up of the welfare system, the preliminary report of the Welfare Reform Reference Group also recommends that jobless and parenting benefits, and the disability pension, be rolled into one payment. As unemployment benefits are $20 a week lower than sole parenting payments and the disability support pension, this raises the question of whether some payments will fall or rise. But the report dodges this dilemma by not setting a rate for the new payment. The report has already been sent to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Family and Community Services, Senator Newman, and ministers have received a briefing paper. Sources said sole parents with school-age children would be expected to undertake activities such as career counselling and other job preparation programs or risk losing their full payments. It is understood that this would also apply to those on disability payments who are not severely incapacitated. The number of people on disability payments has more than doubled in past 10 years to nearly 600,000, raising concerns within the Government about rorting of the payment. It is understood that the report also recommends that money be spent on helping sole parents and the disabled meet their new obligations, including assistance for transport, housing and child care. The Government is also urged to address the rapid rate at which unemployment benefits taper off when income is earned, discouraging the unemployed from taking up part-time work. The report also recommends one-to-one assistance for the bulk of the more than 1.5 million people receiving the payments. This could lead to the tendering of these services along the lines of the Job Network, stripping Centrelink of its responsibilities in this area - or its privatisation - thus dramatically expanding the Prime Minister's notion of a "social coalition". Such a coalition sees the Government working with the non-profit and private sectors to deliver government services, while requiring those receiving benefits to "give something back". The idea will be at the centre of discussion at the Liberal Party conference next month. The preliminary report of the Welfare Reform Reference Group has had a difficult birth. Last year, Senator Newman was scheduled to make a landmark address on welfare reform that was subsequently scuttled by Mr Howard amid claims by the Opposition parties that the sole parenting and disabled pension would be cut. Instead, welfare reform was given to the reform group - chaired by Mission Australia's chief executive, Mr Patrick McClure - for consideration. Submissions were made, but the report is said to have been heavily influenced by Mr Howard and the Department of Family and Community Services. A spokesman for Senator Newman declined to answer questions on the report's details, saying only that "it will be released shortly". "This is an independent report [but] as a matter of courtesy it has been passed to the Government in advance, just as the Ralph report [on business tax] and others have been." After further public discussion, a final report would be released by the end of June. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:DD: Tour: Indonesian and East Timorese progressive leaders -
PRD/PST Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 16:37:53 +1100 Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Loop: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Comrades It would be appreciated if you can publicise this exciting opportunity to hear the latest developments for the movement in both Indonesia and East Timor. We can also provide a sample advertisement for your journal if you prefer. National speaking tour April 10-17, 2000 Unfinished struggles for freedom in Indonesia and East Timor Budiman Sujatmiko, Chairperson of the Indonesian People's Democratic Party (PRD) and Avelino da Silva, General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Timor Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) is honoured to be able to tour these prominent campaigners for freedom and justice and we invite you to support and attend the public meetings in your city (see below for the details). Please see the short biographies below give you an idea of the campaigns Budiman and Avelino are currently involved in. We would like to take this opportunity to appeal to you to support the tour by making a financial donation to go towards meeting the tour costs. Any additional monies raised (apart from the tour costs) will be forwarded to the People's Democratic Party and the Socialist Party of Timor. You can send your donation to: ASIET, PO Box 458, Broadway 2007 NSW or address cheques or money orders to ``ASIET (national tour)'' Commonwealth Bank, Broadway Branch, NSW, Account number: 2003-1002-3247. For more information, please contact Pip Hinman on (02) 9690 1230, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] or check our web site on www.asiet.org.au Budiman Sujatmiko Chairperson of the People's Democratic Party Budiman Sujatmiko, the national chairperson of the People's Democratic Party, will tour Australia in April. This will be his first international tour since being released from prison last December. His party, the most outspoken critic of the former regimes of Suharto and Habibie, is now gaining a reputation for being the voice of the Indonesian people, as it campaigns against the IMF-driven economic restructuring program about to be implemented by the so-called reformist Wahid-Megawati government. Budiman Sujamiko joined the student movement in 1988 while studying economics at Yogjakarta University of Gadja Mada. That same year, he decided to join the peasant movement and went back to his home town to organise small farmers to resist attempts by the Shell-owned company Olephine to take over their land. In 1994, Budiman was one of the founding members of the Indonesian People's Democratic Party, set up by student activists to link up with and provide assistance to the growing mass protests against Suharto's dictatorial regime. At the time the PRD organised many mass actions through workers, students and small farmers committees. In 1996, the PRD became the first political party to openly declare its opposition to the Suharto regime. For these activities, Budiman was arrested in 1996 and charged under the anti-subversion law. In 1997, he was tried and sentenced to 13 years' jail. During his court room appearance, Budiman used to opportunity to condemn the Suharto regime for its corruption, nepotism and cronyism and violence against the people. His court room speech, in front of Suharto's crony judges and military, was broadcast around the world. Budiman believes that if the student movement hadn't overthrown Suharto in May 1998, and a worldwide campaign for his release hadn't been launched (he became one of the Amnesty International's prisoner's of conscience), he may still be in prison today. The Gus Dur-Megawati government released Budiman and other political prisoners last December. Today, Budiman is a prominent spokesperson for the People's Democratic Party, and receives regular press and TV coverage inside Indonesia for the party's campaign against the government's decision to cut subsides to fuel and electricity. The party still faces harassment and threats from police and military at every public action they organise. But they are used to this having been the most consistent campaigners alongside the East Timorese students demanding Jakarta's withdrawal from East Timor; and for real democracy inside Indonesia. Today the PRD is campaigning that the Wahid government solve the country's economic problems in a different way: The PRD argues that the government: cancel the foreign debt; refuse to rescue insolvent banks, nationalise Suharto and his cronies' assets at home and abroad (Time magazine estimated Suharto's assets to be worth US$16 billion), nationalise the military's enterprises; reduce the military budget (which is larger than the education, social welfare, agriculture and forestry budgets); clean up corruption and state-owned enterprises and the bureaucracy and put all corrupt officials on trial. The PRD are also campaigning for an international war crimes tribunal to be set up to bring the
LL:ART: Apologists are revising history to absolve Jakarta
The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/2315/A9144-2000Mar14.html Apologists are revising history to absolve Jakarta By SCOTT BURCHILL Wednesday 15 March 2000 Indonesia would not have been able to illegally occupy and terrorise East Timor for a quarter of a century without the support it received from the West, particularly Australia. The tactics employed by pro-integrationists in Australia to ensure Canberra's diplomatic collaboration with Jakarta were often crude, but they were remarkably effective. Death toll figures in the early years of occupation were revised down to mitigate Jakarta's crimes - an act of denial that would have made David Irving blush. Subsequent and regular atrocities, such as the 1991 Dili massacres, were untruthfully described as "aberrant acts" in an attempt to hose down public outrage. The victims were blamed for their "tribal war-like disposition", even as they were being slaughtered by Indonesia's military forces (TNI). Canberra claimed that East Timor was entitled to self-determination provided it was under the umbrella of Indonesian sovereignty, a meaningless and insulting gesture. When this formula was rejected, the concept of self-determination itself was attacked as a threat to regional stability and "not a sacred cow". On its own, East Timor was said to be economically unviable, a reasonable conclusion if you steal its only significant natural resources. As the violence reached a level beyond the apologetics of even the most loyal commissar, the perpetrators were described as "rogue elements" in an effort to exculpate the Indonesian state that the "rogues" themselves claimed to be serving. Meanwhile, critics of ongoing human-rights abuses were branded "racist" and "anti-Indonesian" by servants of power who inferred the only alternative to appeasement was estrangement. Their most recent tactic is even more brazen. Rewriting recent history to shift the onus of responsibility for the collapse of relations between Canberra and Jakarta on to the Howard Government has become the latest modus operandi of the Jakarta lobby. One might have been forgiven for thinking that, as a consequence of its state terrorism in East Timor, Indonesia bears most of the blame for the downturn. Not so. According to ANU Indonesia specialist Harold Crouch, Howard's response to the slaughter in East Timor "was offensive to many Indonesians". The Prime Minister's limited cultural understanding of our northern neighbor means he "doesn't quite know how to convey things to Indonesians" - true enough given that messages such as "stop the killing" fell on deaf ears in Jakarta last September. Former diplomat Tony Kevin also worries about Australia's "provocative" behavior. "Indonesian military and strategic elites will not quickly forgive or forget how Australian foreign policy cynically exploited their weak interim president in order to manoeuvre Indonesia into a no-win situation," says Kevin. Australians may be surprised to learn they were seeking TNI's forgiveness for rescuing a defenceless civilian population from yet another Indonesian military attack. They may also wonder why Jakarta is absolved of the exclusive legal responsibility it sought to maintain law and order in East Timor before, during and after the August ballot. However, raising these questions would only indicate just how "mired in anti-Indonesian attitudes" the Australian public had become. If only Howard stopped basking in "jingoistic self-satisfaction over East Timor" and said sorry, bridges with Indonesia could be repaired. But, according to Kevin, Canberra isn't up to the task. "This Government would not know how to apologise for the way in which our diplomacy exploited and aggravated their president's misjudgment and the TNI's subsequent brutality." Kevin's message is clear. The East Timorese should never have been given the choice of independence and it was Canberra, not Jakarta, that encouraged the TNI to turn the territory into a charnel house. Support for this revisionism has come from Jakarta's new ambassador to Australia, Arizal Effendi, whose recent National Press Club address suggests that Jakarta "doesn't quite know how to convey things to Australians". Effendi claimed to be concerned about the "jingoism of using the humanitarian pretext to justify unilateral armed intervention into the internal affairs of a developing country, including by way of a coalition of nations outside the framework of the UN". He didn't apparently know that InterFET was a coalition of 20 nations, authorised by the UN Security Council and, ultimately, the Government in Jakarta, and that the issue of "intervention" arose only for those nations that had granted Indonesia the right of territorial conquest. In the absence of any legitimate claim to sovereignty by Indonesia, most of the world saw the UN as finally administering one of its own non-self-governing territories.
