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Workers' Liberty'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class'Workers' Liberty Australia |
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Howard’s hypocrisy over Woomera riotsby Lynn Smith Acceptable" illegal immigrants use water cannons and riot police against "unnacceptable" illegal immigrants Just who do Howard and Ruddock think they are? When their predecessor, Governor Phillip landed in Sydney Cove in 1788 with seven ships full of settlers, soldiers and convicts from England, did he do so at the invitation of the aboriginal people? No. Philip and every member of his fleet were illegal immigrants. Everyone else who has arrived here since to live and work are also illegal immigrants. The murder of tens of thousands of aboriginal people in the colonial wars of the late 1700s and the 1800s and the subjugation of those who survived by white settlers and white police does not change this basic fact. Remember it is the Howard Liberal/National Party government which refuses to say sorry to the aboriginal people for the crimes committed against them by past state and federal governments and their agencies. This same government also refuses to negotiate a treaty, which would enshrine the rights of the aboriginal people as the original owners of the land in the Australian constitution in exchange for recognition by the aboriginal people that non-aboriginals also have the right to live here. Now this government treats those who arrive in Australia by boat without visas (as the MPs own ancestors did) as worse than criminals. People from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are locked up in compounds surrounded by barbed wire without any charges being laid, without a trial and without access to the courts to review the length or merit of their incarceration. The vast majority of people at Woomera and the other remote centres in W.A. such as Port Hedland and Curtin who are protesting against the vicious policies of the Australian government face forcible return to their country of origin where many will be jailed or killed. This is the Howard government’s system of "mandatory and non-reviewable detention" where anyone who arrives by boat without papers seeking asylum is automatically imprisoned. The tiny proportion of those people who are eventually granted visas will receive at best a 3 year "temporary protection visa" with limited access to welfare and health care. The Howard government is the only western government that practices a system of automatic and non-reviewable incarceration. It also receives and grants fewer applications for asylum (on and offshore) than any other western government. We must defend the unfettered right of anyone to live and work where they choose. We say:
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Asylum seekers protest in Britain by Daniella Vichaidith On 29 July a national day of protest was called by the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers to highlight the inequities of the voucher scheme for asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are totally dependent on these vouchers: under new legislation no-one will be able to work for the entire duration of a claim for asylum. Activists up and down the country picketed stores, which participate in the scheme. Using the stores as a focus, protesters were able to make a point about the hypocrisy of the Labour Government who on the one hand say they cannot afford to pay asylum seekers an adequate amount of cash to live on, yet on the other allow large companies that participate in the scheme the chance to increase their profits. (Stores are not permitted to give change from the vouchers; any change is therefore pocketed by the stores). Despite the Government's racist scapegoating there is generally a feeling of discontent with the Government, and many people we talked to openly said they thought the Government was wrong on the issues of asylum and immigration and that there was enough money to pay for decent benefits for asylum seekers. We did however get a few shouts of abuse from people who thought "....they should go home..." but these people were definitely in the minority. |