Red Report Back - Week Ending 26/03/2023
Australian Communist Party Launches Housing Campaign
Across the country on the weekend of the 25th and 26th of March, the Australian Communist Party launched its national Housing Campaign. Events were held in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide to launch the event, with dozens of comrades and supporters in attendance to support us as we move to tackle the housing crisis for the working class.
The ACP’s Housing Campaign is a concerted effort by the Party to bring a militant, principled alternative to the current solutions posed to the housing crisis in a way that addresses the current needs and demands of the working class. In formally launching this campaign, the Party builds on our previous work and campaigns that we have contributed to around renters rights, housing justice and most importantly, the defence and extension of public housing in Australia.
Across, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane we will be building on our previous actions, organisation and outreach in key target areas where we will organise among the communities that are the most marginalised and suffering the most pressing demands regarding the housing crisis.
Our campaign plans for the immediate future centre on bringing the demand for public housing into the mainstream narrative as a means of addressing the current housing crisis, undoing the stigma and policy that has pursued the systematic degradation and dismantling of public housing. Additionally, we will be fighting for caps on private rents and housing so as to prevent the predatory profiteering that is currently the norm on the private market. The acquisition of private housing to be repurposed towards public housing for all those who seek it, to make up for the lack of current stock in public housing until construction addresses this gap.
To get involved in our Housing Campaign and the fight for housing justice today, reach out to us through our social media, email, or website today and get in contact with one of our organisers. To read more about our goals for the campaign, read our Housing Policy here: https://www.auscp.org.au/policies/housing-policy
Funding For Homelessness Services Hanging By a Thread
The Albanese Government has renewed $67.5 million in funding for homelessness services’ wage support, which will go towards assisting the more than 120,000 Australians that are currently homeless. After months of doubt about the impacts of cuts, this measure will provide temporary relief to the immense pressure homelessness services are facing with the intensification of the housing crisis.
Yet, Labor has continually threatened the continued existence of homelessness services and the lives of millions of vulnerable Australians with its unwillingness to adequately fund homelessness services. Before this announcement, Labor was set to cut $65 million in funding towards these services with its recent budget, leading to more than 230 organisations to call on the Treasurer and Housing Minister for the funding to be restored.
These cuts would have led to overstretched services losing around 650 workers nationwide, jeopardising their ability to provide effective relief to those suffering homelessness. In 2021, homelessness services had to turn away 288 people per day, and this number would only increase if these cuts are allowed to continue. Council to Homeless Persons CEO, Deborah Di Natale, said that “It’s hard to imagine a worse time to cut homelessness funding. To give you an idea of the strain homelessness services are already under, about 16,000 people who need support are turned away each year”.
While Labor has restored this funding for the next year until they implement their new National Housing and Homelessness Plan for 2024-2025, the fact remains that their plans for the future are vastly inadequate for meeting the needs of workers. We need a coordinated government response that doesn’t just provide assistance to a handful of people after they are in these desperate situations. Rather, we require planning that addresses the underlying conditions that lead to homelessness, starting with accessible public housing that is well-serviced and safe. To read more about our Housing Policy and the fight for Housing Justice in Australia, head to: https://www.auscp.org.au/policies/housing-policy
Trans Community and Allies Stand Up Against Fascists
Over the last few weeks, a menacing trend has reared its head publicly at events across Australia in the form of public fascist attacks on the trans community. As per usual, fascist groups in Australia have once again jumped onto a trending issue in an attempt to spread their hatred and coax others into joining their forces.
Them fascists have joined rallies were anti-trans speakers have been holding events, threatening and intimidating drag events and tacking themselves onto ‘Christian Lives Matter’ events in an attempt to boost their small numbers and manipulate others into their cult-like organisations.
In response to these attacks, the trans community and their allies held large Trans Day of Visibility events in both Melbourne and Sydney to show that they will not be intimidated into silence by the hatred and bigotry of a handful of fascist morons.
While these events were successes, it is important to remember that we must not limit ourselves to only reacting in response to attacks by the fascists, but we must be on the front foot taking initiative to prevent the conditions that foster these attacks in the first place. We must educate and ingratiate the broader working class on these issues so as to counter the impacts of right-wing propaganda. We must organise our most vulnerable to be able to defend themselves and to defend others. We must train ourselves and strengthen our networks so that we can crush any attacks or threats to our safety and wellbeing. Our enemies are getting more and more organised. We must learn from the past and out-organise them, or we leave ourselves vulnerable to the same mistakes of those who have come before.
Voice Question Announced
Prime Minister Albanese has announced the proposed question for the referendum that would enable an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, along with the draft constitutional amendment that would make it law. The wording of the question is as follows:
“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you want this proposed alteration?”
Additionally, Australians will be asked about an amendment to the constitution with a new chapter titled “Recognition of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Peoples”, which would contain the following:
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
• 1. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
• 2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
• 3. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
With this announcement, many are asking what does this actually mean? There are a few key points to consider. Firstly, that this wording clearly demonstrates how the Voice is nothing but a simple attempt to pass the constitutional recognition of First Nations mob that was destroyed in the corporate-backed Recognise campaign. Secondly, the narrative of this referendum is being drawn up so as to frame those who fall into the ‘Progressive No’ category as radical extremists that are doing the work of right wing racists.
We have a duty to amplify the resistance to these assimilationist policies that are being pushed by the capitalist class and their corporate backers and to amplify the need for tangible change that addresses the material conditions and needs of First Nations peoples in this country. We should not allow these principles to be manipulated by the guilt-tripping narrative pushed by the liberal elements of the capitalist class and those who have fallen for their propaganda.
We maintain that there can be no Voice under colonialism. In looking back on the history of not just Australia, but across the globe, it is clear that every time oppressed, colonised people put their trust in the oppressing, colonising classes and their state apparatus, it only comes back to bite them. The constitution of capitalist, colonialist Australia will always prioritise the interests of the ruling classes over those of working class First Nations people. They will attempt to sway you with sellouts pushing their cause, but we must remain vigilant and critical. They will tell you a Voice will lead to change, but this is not the case. First Nations peoples have their own voices already, and the capitalist apparatus is not listening. It is continuing to kill them, imprison them, steal their children and poison their land. A Voice will not change that. Only revolution will. And that entails the unglamorous task of nitty gritty organising on the streets, in our workplaces and in the difficult places others will not go.
Climate Crisis and Environmental Activist Repression Intensifies
The IPCC has recently released its Sixth Assessment Report, warning that the planet is heading for catastrophic warming of over 2 degrees celsius and could by in excess of 3 degrees celsius if governments continue on their path of inaction. If this continues, there will be an increase in the occurrence of and severity of impacts from extreme climate events, including physical and mental health ramifications. We must recognise that it is the working class who are most vulnerable to these climate impacts, and heed the warnings of this report that this is our ‘last chance decade’.
It is important when discussing the issue of climate change to avoid several mistakes that impede or dissuade the working class from taking action that is geared at tangible results in addressing this issue. Despair has driven many into inaction and defeatism, accepting environmental destruction as inevitable. Others have been driven by desperation into actions that are adventuristic and tokenistic and only alienate the broader working class from getting involved in the struggle. The role of the Communist Party regarding the climate crisis is simple enough. We must educate workers that it is only through a broad struggle, that establishes its foundations in working class communities across the world, that we will be able to tear down the capitalist system that is trading the wellbeing of both humanity and the natural environment for their own profits.
For those who say this is not a class issue, one need only look at the actions of capitalist states doing the bidding of the property-owning classes in industry. For example, the recent raid by counter-terrorism officers on environmental activist Joana Partyka in Western Australia. After spray painting the logo of Woodside, the company responsible for the destruction of the worlds oldest art in the Burrup Peninsula, on a painting , counter-terrorism agents raided her home and confiscated her laptop, phone and notebooks. Partyka said that the raid “illustrates the complete control that Woodside and big fossil fuel polluters have over our government and police force,” she said.
The IPCC report shows that the worlds politicians are refusing to sacrifice their profits and wealth to protect humanity and the natural world. It is up to the working class majority across the globe to take action into our own hands and unite to bring down the capitalist system that will bring death and destruction to us all. Bushfires, floods, famines, droughts and a whole lot more is inbound if we resign ourselves to defeat. We must educate, we must organise and we must come together to bring the bastards down.
Frontline Workers Battle on Multiple Fronts in NSW as Labor Takes Over
Across New South Wales, there has been an impressive streak of industrial action by frontline emergency workers as the Minns Labor Government takes over the reigns from twelve years of Coalition power. There has been a large amount of action from unions such as the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, who are calling on the incoming government to do away with tokenistic gestures and to implement the staff-to-patient required to address the crisis in NSW’s hospitals.
Similarly, the Australian Paramedics Association has been highlighting the impact of decades of neoliberal policies and cuts that have jeopardised the health of millions across the state. Lack of staffing, poor pay, and budget cuts have led to increased wait times that harm not just those requiring paramedics, but paramedics themselves who suffer from the physical and mental health impacts their workload is unleashing upon them.
Likewise, the NSW Fire Brigade Employees’ Union has launched industrial action as it enters bargaining for its new award. As with nurses, midwives and paramedics, they have similarly suffered from a lack of staff, training and funding due to the cuts and wage caps implemented by the outgoing Liberal/National government.