VIDEO: No Sell OFF of Public Assets Rally -- Brisbane July 3, 2009

BRISBANE: Fifteen hundred trade unionists and their supporters marched through the streets of Brisbane on July 3 to oppose the sell off of Queensland public assets. The protest had been called by the Electrical Trades Union and later was supported by the Queensland Council of Unions.Addressing the rally were speakers from the QCU, AFULE, ASU and the Rail Tram and Bus Union.

Mick Carr from the Maritime Union of Australia told the rally that there was no upside for a one off fixing of the debt by selling off public assets. Peter Simpson , state secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, said that his union wont be putting one cent into the ALP coffers at the next election if this legislation is still on the books.

He said it was time to put a line in the sand.

David Matters from the Rail Tram and Bus Union told everyone that his union, with community support, had won their fight against the prisatisation of the Brisbane City Council bus service in the 1990s.To applause he said, that it was time to put Anna Bligh under the control of working people.

But the surprize from among the speakers came from ALP state president and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Secretary, Andrew Dettmar, who said that his union will not be supporting any politician at the next state election unless they make a no privatisation pledge.

The rally was followed by a march to state parliament .

• Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)
• Watch Video on YouTube

New Party Projects and Greens and Qld Privatisation

By Dave Riley, over at Left Click Blog

If you check out the video of the Socialist Alliance organised public forum here on the Qld privatisation , Drew Hutton's argument for the Green's -- and he was in fact the only Greens member I know was there in a gathering of 70 -- engagement with the campaign was very much to the point.That the crime is that there are no Greens in the Qld Parliament.

While the Greens here aren't so sparky anyway what concerns me is that Drew may not be able to deliver labour to enrich the community campaign.

This was different in NSW I gather but here that's a problem for the rest of us.

And that's important I think when we pick through the various examples of alternative partying -- that at least in Qld -- without a Greens member on the parly benches there's not much substance to what the Greens can do as a party (although individual Greens do stuff of course)

And as we negotiate our way through the terrors of climate change I think there's a real challenge for the greens project internationally to deliver more than what they have so far.

In that sense I miss the ideological engagement that existed in their milieu in the nineties and this in stead has defaulted to a sort of argument which runs: "Look at the polls. We're the only real alternative to Labor because that's what the polls say."

And many on the left have played up to that in a sort of depressed state of resignation.

The complication is, as we saw, that in the lead up to the last federal elections, the ACTU et al allowed their ranks to vote Greens (and SA etc for that matter)but this hasn't been followed up by a stronger class allegiance by the Greens. 18 months on The Greens are way away from any campaign orientation to key working class and trade union issues,.. They voted for Gillard ABCC Lite of course...but I didn't see the Greens actually challenging the ABCC in real street or on the grass time.

What is at stake however, I guess, is the possibility of some trade union forays into trade union election campaign mode with Trade Union candidates but with perhaps sharp preference flows. In a sense this was the template offered by No2EU and Arthur Scargill.

When you look at it there's precious little room left for the trade unions to manoevre and for example , here the ETU has left the ALP Left but not the ALP and they are getting abused up hill and down dale while the left that rolled over for Bligh tries to cover its dirty deeds.

In contrast, the meeting last Tuesday was a showcase of unity. Amazing it was. Everyone was saying in effect the same thing: ETU, SA, David Matters, the Greens...and when the audience started up the only argument the far left groupuscules offered were complaints about no strike being a spontaneous response.

But you see, that's all they were: complaints. Where's the DIY?

Its' in situations like this you realize how friggin marginal the socialist left(and Greens too) is because while some 84% of Qlders are on side our resources have to be more than a few selected complaints or abstract options.

You also realize that even the ETU is isolated -- cynically and brutally isolated by the Laborist gang -- and that despite that, we're all in this fight together. And the ETU has stood its ground! Amazingly it has not relented on its commitment to fight these sells offs.

As for the ALP ranks -- "not happy Anna!". So there are wild cards perhaps. As for any everyday passer by -- I've heard it, and the state government is abused and maligned in terms that to my sweet ears are shocking.

Qld campaign against privatisation takes off

Qld ETU Press Release:
ETU’s “Light on the Hill” campaign against privatisation of State Government assets starts this week

Putting labour values back into Labor

The Electrical Trades Union’s (ETU) Statewide campaign against the privatisation of State Government assets will commence this week.

The Light on the Hill campaign will include workplace meetings, rallies, public meetings in regional cities, radio and newspaper advertising and literature drops.

The advertising starts in north Queensland this Thursday, with the first public events being held in Cairns next Monday, 22 June. The campaign will then work its way down the coast over the next two weeks with a major rally scheduled for Brisbane on Friday July 3.

Today’s ETU announcement coincides with the unveiling of the State Government’s 2009-10 budget, which is expected to include proceeds from the sale of a number of State Government corporations including most of Queensland Rail.

ETU secretary, Peter Simpson, said the campaign is about stopping this fire sale of State Government assets and putting labour values back into the Labor Party.

“ETU members strongly oppose the sale of public assets such as Queensland Rail and the port authorities. We are far from convinced that selling off important public assets is a sensible long-term response to these short-term economic difficulties.

“We also believe that if the State Government gets away with this then things such as electricity and water will be next. That would be an even bigger disaster for the people of Queensland,” Mr Simpson said.

Ongoing Light on the Hill campaign details will be released ahead of each event.

Media inquiries: Peter Simpson 0419 721 041
John Moran 07-3366 9010, 0410 603 278

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See also:
Brisbane Socialist Alliance public meeting: Stop Bligh's Sell-off!
For anyone angered by the Bligh government's plans to privatise Qld public assets.

Speakers:
Peter Simpson --State Secretary Electrical Trades Union
Paul Benedek -- Socialist Alliance
Worklife -- Speaker to be confirmed.
(plus further speakers to be confirmed)

6.30pm Tuesday June 30 @ CEPU Hall, 541 Peel St, QCU Bldg, 16 Peel St, Sth Brisbane South Brisbane

Ph: Paul 0410 629 088 email : brisbane@socialist-alliance.org

ETU Campaign Resources

• Media releases
• Economic Management & Infrastructure Draft Platform
• Flyers and posters
• Workplace Petition

Stop the SELL-OFF! - Qld Socialist Alliance

How we can defeat Bligh´s privatisation plan

• Download this leaflet for printing/distribution.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s announcement that her government plans to sell off public assets including rail, ports, forests & roads is an outrage that has rightly angered workers, unions, pensioners and the Queensland public in general.

Your browser may not support display of this image.We all know that privatisation means workers being sacked, higher prices, and worse services – all in the name of profits for a few. This is exactly our experience with Queensland energy privatisation, Telstra & the Commonwealth Bank. Far from solving ¨budget challenges¨, revenues that previously went to public uses such as hospitals and schools instead flow to corporate bottom lines. And once privatisation is used as a means of ¨balancing the budget¨, it is a slippery slope for more sell-offs in future years.

The Economic Crisis: an argument for more public, not private, ownership

Bligh´s argument that the global financial crisis means she has no choice but privatisation is rubbish. While stating that she´s not “a Wall Street banker” that caused the crisis, but has to deal with it, her sell-off would hand over more assets to the very ¨Wall Street banker¨ forces that have caused the crisis!

And what is the crucial motive that justifies serious harm to workers and communities? Getting back Queensland´s ¨AAA¨ rating from Moody´s - the same Moody´s which has been complicit in the financial crisis! There is nothing sacred about ´AAA´ - even sections of NSW business criticize that State´s obsession with a AAA rating.

Rather than sacrificing communities to privatisations, we need to fight for the expansion of the public sector, in order to create a sustainable Queensland, moving to renewable energy as quickly as possible and radically expanded public transport.

Democracy? We never voted for privatisation!

Queenslanders are clearly opposed to the Bligh Government plan. Even Bligh´s own ALP branch in South Brisbane has voted for her expulsion from the party! Such moves are to be congratulated and should be repeated across the state and at the ALP Conference.

Yet it is clear that Bligh will ignore both her own party and the Queensland people - if she can get away with it.

How can we stop the sell-off?

Even if the ALP State Conference rejects the plan – which it should – the Government will try to ignore the conference decision. What is needed is a massive campaign that mobilizes the enormous opposition to the sell-off, and makes it impossible for the Government to implement their plan.

Such a campaign would include public protests to demonstrate the level of opposition, plus serious industrial action against any privatisation attempts. To build such a campaign we need a union-community alliance that involves all those opposed to privatisation.

The campaign in NSW against electricity privatisation, which brought down Premier Morris Iemma and has forced a partial backdown, shows what is possible.

The Queensland Council of Unions rally outside the ALP conference to show our opposition is a great start - but it´s only the start. A further step would be a mass rally and industrial action on June 16, the day of the state budget. This would send a strong message to the Government of what is coming if it persists with the privatisations. If they don´t back down, Bligh should meet the same fate as Iemma.

Our campaign must continue until the Bligh Government plan is shelved completely - we need to kill off all privatisation.

Get involved - Join the Socialist Alliance
($60 high wage, $30 waged, $15 conc, $5 school student, $100 solidarity)
Ph 07 3831 2644, 0410 629 088.
www.socialist-alliance.org

Stop Bligh's sell off! -- Community Rally

UNION & COMMUNITY RALLY
STOP BLIGH'S SELL-OFF!

Rail - Not for sale * Ports - Not for sale * Roads - Not for sale * Forests - not for sale
Sunday June 7, 11am

Brisbane Convention Centre, cnr Merivale & Glenelg Sts, Sth Brisbane

Outside the ALP State Conference where Anna Bligh will be pushing her privatisation agenda.

The Bligh Government wants to sell off our public assets to fill in their budget black hole. Help stop this shameful fire sale of Queensland's rail, ports, roads & forests. Bligh's privatisations would mean worse conditions for Queensland workers & communities. Multi-national mining giants would gain control over entire regional economies, jobs would be axed, services cut for profits, and prices would rise. If the Bligh Government can get away with this mass privatisation.....what will be next?

Queenslanders did NOT vote for privatisation - don't let Bligh sell Queensland

Rally called by Queensland Council of Unions.
To help with the community campaign contact Dom 0431 638 772 or Paul 0410 629 08

Queensland Politics: the Watermelon or the Pineapple?

Followers of politcs in the "Red North" (as Queensland was once known, usefully) will be aware of the impending Anschluss (sorry, "merger") of what's left of the Queensland National Party and the Liberal Party in that state. It's not really news, having been on the table (in the fruitbowl) for years.

Apparently driven by the desperation of realising that the right-wing union mafia (sorry, "Qld ALP") could rule the state for another century, if not longer, these clever folks are now on the verge of deciding whether to get together and form something with the imaginative name of the "Liberal National Party". Some sharper wits are calling it "the Pineapple Party".

However, all is not well in tropical paradise, as has been pointed out at Larvatus Prodeo and elsewhere. Queensland National (and supposedly "maverick") Senator Barnaby Joyce told us why only recently. He's more positive on the project for a People's Pineapple Party (or whatever such a beast might be known as) than some are. As Joyce points out, though, the two parties are odd bed-fellows:

"The National Party is a party based on agrarian, socialist principles, as can be seen in the single desk for the orderly sale of wheat, drought aid and regional development.

The Liberals believe in the free market and it is probably in their economics where they are truly liberal. They believe in pure market principles and that the consequences of what happens next are, in the long term, the best outcome.

The Nationals believe greed is a higher order driver than market principles and market power ultimately destroys market theory. The Liberals believe the market will look after you; the Nationals believe, unguided, it will walk over you."

That's right folks. Forget the Greens - the biggest socialist party in Australia outside the ALP is the National Party! (I always knew they were secretly state socialists).

And all those cane-farmers accusing the Greens of being watermelons (democratic Green on the outside, Moscow-red on the inside) have never seriously been worried about a Bob Brown-led communist revolution (Queensland is, after all, the only state to have elected a Communist Party member to State Parliament).

No, in actual fact, they know that the Greenies are inner-city latte-sipping wannabe-Maoist types, who wouldn't know how to administer socialism or manage the environment if their life depended on it. Certainly not like Uncle Joh did, anyway...

Of course, Queensland Socialism suffered a harsh blow with the fall of the Soviet Union and Uncle Joh, and the rise of the social democratic ALP. Many Nationals lost their way, caught in the false, revisionist, hope of John Howard's "battler politics". But now Howard has gone, and the crisis has worsened (farmers in the bush are starting to vote Green for Chrissakes!!! Must be all that rhetoric about saving the Murray).

The final liquidation may have begun.

Of course, faced with such a betrayal of principle by the leadership there is also the danger that disaffected Nationals, outraged by their leaders selling them up the river to the Free Marketeers of the Liberal Party, might jump ship and form "a new One Nation-style force".

Perhaps out past Roma, on Finland Station, north of the Brisbane Line, the Henry Lawson is back on the shelves, the Kingaroy peanuts are being sharpened, the pumpkin scones are being stacked, and the rifles are being oiled for the last battle. Perhaps.

But down on the pineapple plantation, it looks like all stations go. The merger is apparently being driven by the Nats, particularly party leader Lawrence Springborg and some of those shady figures from the "Joh for PM" campaign from all those years ago.

In the meantime then, we must wait to see if the new party becomes a Red Pineapple (that's: Ananas b.), or some kind of insipid, suburban bromeliad, gone feral. Watermelon Greens, look out!