HEALTH GAP WIDENS

Call for greater social reform as health gap widens

Mark Metherell, smh

September 27, 2010
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Source: CHA-NATSEM Report on Health Inequalities.

The Rudd government's health reforms failed to focus on what a new report shows is the biggest factor in death and disease in Australia - social and economic disadvantage.

An analysis commissioned by Catholic Health Australia has found that the 20 per cent of Australians on the lowest incomes died on average three years earlier than others because of illness caused by unhealthy lifestyles.

The most disadvantaged people were in some cases four or five times more likely to suffer chronic illness than the comfortably-off, the report found.

Martin Laverty, the group's chief executive, called on the new Parliament to press for renewed focus on improved early childhood support, education and welfare for disadvantaged people - an emphasis lacking in the Rudd reforms.

''Health reform in the last term of government focused on hospitals, not the drivers that cause people to end up in hospitals,'' Mr Laverty said. ''The then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, missed a major opportunity and left many health professionals disappointed with the health reforms.

''If this Parliament does not act on preventive and social determinants of health, health reforms will not be achieved.''

The analysis by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at Canberra University found the health gaps between the poor and well-off were often very large. Up to 65 per cent of people in public housing had long-term health problems compared with only 15 per cent of home owners.

More than 60 per cent of men in jobless households reported having a long-term health condition or disability, and more than 40 per cent of women.

Obesity rates were about three times higher among those in public housing than home owners. High-risk drinking among early school leavers was double the rate of those with a tertiary qualification. ''This is not about access to health services,'' Mr Laverty said. ''There is strong evidence that social determinants of health - such as income level, housing status and education level - are the factors more responsible for health inequities.'' The close links between low socio-economic status, illness and harmful lifestyles like smoking and unhealthy diet showed that more preventive health television campaigns would not solve the problem. ''This report shows that policies targeting behavioural change do not work,'' Mr Laverty said.

The health reforms now being implemented by the Gillard government needed to use the proposed new structures such as the local hospital networks and ''Medicare local'' organisations to assess health needs and advocate improvements in early childhood services, schooling and welfare support where necessary, he said. Any suggestion that the health reform was complete was wrong. ''It is far from it,'' Mr Laverty said.

The report, supported by the St Vincent de Paul Society and Catholic Social Services Australia, showed that thinking on health equity had to change, said Father Frank Brennan of the Australian Catholic University and Tony Wheeler, chairman of Catholic Health Australia's stewardship board.

''We have failed as a nation to properly consider the root causes of most illness and disease,'' they say in the report

STRIKE WAVE IN CHINA

STRIKE WAVE STRENGTHENS LABOUR’S HAND
IN DRIVING A SOCIALIST PATHWAY OF DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

by Wayne Sonter

A wave of strikes swept through China between May and July 2010, centred on, but not confined to the rapidly growing auto industry.

The strikes were triggered by a dozen suicides at the monstrous Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, where Apple iphones are made and hundreds of thousands of workers, nearly all young migrants from rural areas, work 60 or more hours a week in a sprawling complex of factories, under military-style management.(1)

Foxconn’s attitude towards its employers, typically, is that, “They are here to make money, of course they have to work hard. If they want a good life here, they will have to work hard for it. It's natural.” (2)

The suicides provoked sympathy and shame throughout China and stirred fellow migrant workers to take action, first at the Honda transmission plant at Foshan, (3) then at other plants owned by Honda, Toyota and Hyundai and their supplier firms (4)

The strikes mark a period of unrest and unsettled labour relations in China, as workers seek to wrest to themselves a ‘fairer’ share of the social product they create and to lessen their exploitation. As a striking worker at the Honda Lock plant (Zhongshan, Guangdong) stated:

China! It has been promoting low-cost competition and cheap labour. Our GDP keeps growing! However, this growth relies on exploiting our cheap labour. We have created all this wealth but only get very low wages in return.… Don’t we deserve to get better pay? With such deplorable wages, just how are we going to raise the overall level of our national economy? (5)

Those in revolt are the second generation of China’s ‘new’ industrial working class, created by China’s phenomenal economic growth in the last three decades, where hundreds of millions of people have moved from country to city seeking work, feeding a growth of 400 million people in China’s cities in the past 25 years.

They come to places like the Pearl River delta in Guangdong ‘one of the world’s densest industrial estates’ with its broad, low factories and ‘thickets’ of six-storey dormitories. Turnover of workers is high and most are young, few older than their early twenties and many still in their teens. Many manufacturing workers are women and almost all in the affected factories in Guangdong have attended vocational schools, meaning they have a relatively high level of education. (6).

These young workers are determined not to sacrifice their lives like their parents did, but to make a better life:

Our parents have suffered from this cheap labour market and now they are getting old. And now, do we, the post 1980 and 1990 generation, want to follow in footsteps of our parents? I believe no parent wants this. It is because they all once walked down this road and know how hard it is. We do not want to go this way either. Times have changed! So this kind of cheap labour regime must end! (7)

They are also more spirited, and combative in advancing their interests:(8)

“We are not as cowardly and afraid of trouble (as the older workers)”, said … a cheerful 20-year-old factory girl wearing a pink dress, gently mock(ing) an older colleague in his 30s who was among a group of around 10 others gathered in her room. "We don't think so much about things," she laughed. "The risk is worth taking. Now we've started, we must finish it." (9)

With modern information-technology the new generation of workers find it easy to discover, through school networks, mobile phones and internet bulletin boards what is happening from factory to factory. This fed into the strike wave, sweeping across industry and from employer to employer, in increasingly conscious industry wide action that indicates a capability to take action to a more general level.

China’s new labour laws have made it easier for workers to organise and bargain with their employer, and the huge debate among workers and in the media before they became law in 2008, raised expectations that they would provide workers better protection. (10)

But the strikes also exposed the inadequacy of the All China Federation of Trade Unions as a voice for labour, and the comprador role local governments play in backing capital in disputes with labour. As Anita Chan, University of Technology, Sydney, reported in the China Daily:
‘during the Honda strike, in the eyes of the workers the union was “useless” because it “blatantly sided with the local government, which in turn was on the side of the employer.”’ (1)

Employers and local governments have routinely appointed workplace delegates, with ACFTU compliance:

The ACFTU has for many years had “a policy of urging workplace unions to sign collective contracts with managements” and … the government supports “an enlarged trade union role” in negotiating contracts with management … however, in foreign-invested enterprises in the Pearl River Delta region in Guangdong, workers’ representatives are appointed by local governments and are expected to support their localities’ quest for foreign investment. (12)

The top levels of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are recognising the vital role of the young, migrant workforce for China’s future and the justice of their demands on employers for higher wages and better conditions. No less a figure than Chinese Premier, Wen Jibao recently told migrant workers in Beijing:

“You are the main army of the contemporary Chinese industrial workforce. Our wealth and our tall buildings are all distillations of your hard work and sweat. Your labour is a glorious thing, and it should be respected by society. The government and all parts of society should treat young migrant workers as they would treat their own children.” (13)

Yang Shiming, vice-minister for human resources and social security, reported to the National People’s Congress on the need to safeguard migrant workers rights and improve their working conditions, (14) while Wang Yang, the highest government leader in Guangdong, has encouraged the Guangdong trade union federation to “democratize” the trade union by experimenting with election of local trade union leaders. (15)

Some reports claim the words from senior CPC figures are backed by militia ready to enforce civil order. Their warnings almost welcome the prospect of suppression of workers revolt to ‘prove’ the system has failed, or capitalist restoration is complete. (16), (17), (18).

Some also read into these developments the possibility of a ‘solidarnosc’ type workers movement in China, or on the other hand are critical of the extent to which present developments are not leading to ‘independent’ trade unions. (19)

Nonetheless, young workers are directly taking power into their hands through strike action in the workplace, adding to pressure within the ACFTU to start to allow and encourage workers to directly elect workplace committees and representatives, rather than appoint them by the ‘usual’ methods:

“… under the impetus of the workers’ self-organization in the auto parts industry … President of Guangdong Federation of Trade Unions, Deng Weilong, announced creation of a trade union legal services department to represent workers and activists. He also announced the union’s intention to conduct democratic elections to replace management officials with workers as union chairpersons in workplace unions. The Vice-Chair of Guangdong Federation of Trade unions, Kong Xianghong … defended the legal rights of workers to conduct economic strikes. Unions must listen to the workers, support their legitimate demands and aspirations through collective bargaining.” (20)

Workers using their rights to organise in the workplace, accords with China’s constitution and is also the most likely and direct way to empower unions and through an ‘all-china federation’ extend workers’ power across the workforce. In other words, workers, using their collective power, can make the ACFTU itself a more effective force for developing the working class’s organising and management capability at workplace, industry and economy levels. The extent to which they can do this indicates how far the present framework can support an evolving social democracy. Such understanding seemed to emerge among ACFTU officials, in the course of the strikes:

The first strike at the Nanhai Honda Auto Parts transmission plant in Foshan City succeeded in winning wage increases for both “student interns” and permanent workers through courageous actions and strategically sound tactics, but had to overcome violent strike-breaking efforts by Nanhai district trade union officers sent by the local government. Nanhai workers elected their own bargaining representatives and demanded the right to elect their own enterprise union chairperson.... a fair election procedure has been promised them by … the Guangdong provincial trade union federation …

A wave of strikes triggered by the success of the Nanhai strike swept parts plants producing for Honda, Toyota and Hyundai, with roughly similar outcomes, negotiations resulting in major wage increases and promises that workers will have the right to select their local union officers in the future. Generally the striking workers regarded the enterprise and higher level trade unions as useless or irrelevant. At the Honda Lock plant at Zhongshan, after the strike faltered when management brought in scabs and threatened strikers with dismissal, some frustrated strike leaders were reported in the New York Times to be calling for an independent trade union.

However when the strike wave reached Honda Nansha in Guangzhou, the municipal trade union federation reacted positively and pro-actively. The trade union leadership encouraged election of worker representatives to participate in bargaining, and made a public statement that the union would be on the workers’ side and represent their interests. When the local labor bureau officer asked the local union to serve its traditional role as “mediator” in the dispute between workers and management, the trade union officer refused and insisted the government’s labor bureau play that role. The union official even resisted the customary “vetting” of the elected chairperson of the worker representatives by the local police.’ (21)

The Chinese actions are already inspiring workers around the world. For example Ken Lewenza, President, Canadian Auto Workers Union, whose members work for many of the same employers as do Chinese workers, has called for popular forces to look to Chinese strikers for hope:

“Chinese autoworkers who, against all odds and possibly severe repercussions, took to the streets in protest over insufficient wages and poor working conditions … exemplify the principles and fearless spirit of trade unionism … A strong, independent and united Chinese trade union movement can support and inspire unions and workers' movements globally … (22)

Support for the striking workers has come from within China and internationally, (23), (24), (25), including from veteran communists who have called on the ACFTU to clearly stand on the workers’ side and for the CPC to uphold the constitution and its basic principles, by restoring the working class to its leading position and socialist public ownership to its central role in the national economy. (26)

The upsurge in militancy amongst China’s workers is part of an emerging, world-wide ferment of discontent following the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), whose costs the world capitalist class blatantly intends to shove onto workers.

The global auto industry is a case in point. It has undergone an extended period of rationalisation, accelerated by the GFC and recession. Automakers are rushing to China both to exploit a ‘competitive’ labour market and to be inside the world’s largest and fastest growing new car market (27)

In doing this the global corporates have ruthlessly squeezed labour costs, driving hard bargains to enforce brutal work conditions on their own employees and forcing down to the bare bone the prices they give contractors, who are then doubly driven to undercut labour to the maximum extent. Many contracting firms work on margins of less than 5 per cent, so cannot afford any real increases in costs of labour.(28).

The current wave of strikes has succeeded in revealing to China’s young workers their power, particularly when they assert it against powerful multinational corporations in growth sectors of the economy.
They perceive that they are fighting for socialism, and opposing capitalism, which they equate with exploitation by global corporations:
Honda is a Japanese company and Japan is a capitalist country. But China is supposed to be a socialist country! The Japanese companies investing in China must follow the rules of China. Implement socialism! Do not give us capitalism! (29)

This is a new development. Industrial strife has simmered for the whole period of downsizing, bankruptcy and rationalisation of public sector industry, but labour is now exercising its power in an expanding industry sector, linked integrally to the global economy.

Challenges for a socialist pathway

This eruption of strikes starkly highlights some of China’s challenges in strengthening workers’ democracy and forging a socialist pathway of development.

Many features of the Chinese state are contradictory. The 2008 labour laws may have increased labour’s power to organise, but the 2004 Congress’s amendments to the constitution also protected private ownership of property and wealth, permitted private entrepreneurs to join the CPC and recognised the merit of ‘progressive’ capitalists among its principles. (30), (31)

Development in China since the 1980s has generated great inequality and a very wealthy elite, creating a potentially explosive situation. According to an article in The People’s Daily, quoted in the China Labour Bulletin:
“China’s Gini Coefficient, … an index that measures inequality, clocks in at 0.47 – very close to the 0.5 marker, which often signals risk of instability. … from 1997 to 2007 labour remuneration as a percentage of GDP went from 53.4 per cent to 39.74 per cent. Workers weren’t the only ones to lose ground. … In 1978 urban per capita income was 2.78 times higher than rural income. By 2009 that gap had widened to 3.33. Also, in cities, the richest 10 per cent controlled 45 per cent of the wealth, while the poorest 10 per cent only had 1.4 per cent. (32)

To the extent the top echelons of the party are founding dynasties who own private and privatised productive assets, work closely with foreign investors to ratchet up economic growth, and have inheritance rights, there is a mortal danger of the state turning into an apparatus that serves a capitalist class, one that concedes to workers only what it must, to maintain stability and growth of consumption in a market economy (33).

China’s last three decades can be characterised as a form of a New Economic Policy (NEP), as well as a sort of ‘market socialism’. It invites comparison with the early Soviet Union, when the young revolution needed a massive infusion of capital to develop industry and improve living standards, and also with the ‘marketisation’ that years later helped collapse the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries.

Lenin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union saw great danger arising from the influx of global financial and industrial capital into a young socialist state economy. Lenin stressed that capital flowing into the economy had to be accompanied by a maximisation of labour’s rights and resources, so it could resist superexploitation, exert a controlling force in workplace and industry and continue to develop its social-economic role:
“(where) a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control, are now being permitted and are developing; (and) state enterprises are being put on what is called a profit basis, i.e., they are in effect being largely reorganised on commercial and capitalist lines … (then) one of the main tasks that will henceforth confront the trade unions is to protect in every way the class interests of the proletariat in its struggle against capital. This task should be openly put in the forefront, and the machinery of the trade unions must be reorganised, modified or supplemented accordingly … (34)

Where now for workers?

The revolt by young Chinese workers has inspired labour around the world. Their actions have reverberated among corporate and ruling circles in a time of global ferment and discontent with the capitalist system.
Their decisive action has hastened increases in the minimum wage in provinces throughout China, (35) in a situation where, according to the ACFTU a quarter of Chinese workers had not had a pay rise in the previous five years (36)

Their commitment and strategic thinking is forcing the ACFTU towards accepting a more representative unionism in the workplace and to taking on a new role as labour ‘advocates’ rather than ‘mediators’ between labour and capital; and gained recognition from government of their vital role in the economy and the justice of their case.

Given this, workers’ gains in some cases were little more than the minimum wage increases municipal and provincial governments are now setting. Employers have reneged on deals once the strikers were back at work, intensified work and ramped up costs and penalties for employees. They are accelerating automation, seeking lower cost immigrant labour and preparing to move to lower cost labour markets –provincial China and lower wage countries such as Vietnam, Bangla Desh and Cambodia. (37).

Employers – especially foreign investment enterprises – are accustomed to, expect and demand that the Chinese government protects their investments in China. They perceive a common interest between businesses, both foreign and domestic, and governments seeking stability. On the other hand, those workers who have recently taken direct action against global corporations are a ‘thin sliver’ of China’s total workforce. They need to be vigilant, connected and organised to maintain their gains, avoid isolation and counter these pressures.

China employs a fifth of the global workforce. Its economy is inextricably part of the global market economy. The Chinese workers’ long march to emancipation against the forces of imperialism, including their own emerging capitalist class, is of vital concern to the global workforce. The labour movement worldwide needs to work in solidarity with China’s workers if it is to effectively challenge imperialism and the world capitalist class, transform society and bring about a civilised future for humanity.

Footnotes
1. ‘Billionaire Terry Gou sweats in fallout over 10 Hon Hai suicides’ Jason Dean and Ting-I Tsai, The Wall Street Journal May 27, 2010 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/billionaire-terry-gou-sweats-in-fallout-over-10-hon-hai-suicides/story-e6frg90x-1225872003166
2. ‘Special Report: China's new migrant workers pushing the line’ By James Pomfret and Kelvin Soh, Reuters, Mon Jul 5, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6640QD20100705
3. ‘Honda Strikers Victorious in China’ Paul Garver, Talking Union, posted June 7, 2010. http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/honda-strikers-victorious-in-china/
4. ‘Auto Strikes Open Up Space for Union Reform in China’ Paul Garver, ibid, posted July 7, 2010 http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/auto-strikes-open-up-space-for-union-reform-in-china/
5. ‘A Honda Worker in China Speaks Out at Close of Historic Strike’, Labor Notes Staff, 06/02/2010. http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2010/06/honda-worker-china-speaks-out-close-historic-strike
6. ‘Workers in China grasp the power of the strike’ Jonathan Watts, The Observer, Sunday 4 July 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/04/workers-china-power-strike-communist
7. ibid. ‘A Honda Worker in China Speaks Out …’
8. ‘China takes hands-off approach to labour strikes’ AP, Monday June 28, 2010. http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/28/business/20100628115055&sec=business
9. ibid. ‘Special Report: China's new migrant workers pushing the line’
10. ibid. ‘China takes hands-off approach to labour strikes’
11. ‘Labor unrest and role of unions’, Anita Chan, China Daily, 18 June 2010 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-06/18/content_9987347.htm
12. ‘The New Challenge of the Strikes Won’t Go Away’ Stanley Lubman, Wall Street Journal July 11, 2010, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/07/11/the-new-challenge-of-the-strikes-wont-go-away/
13. ‘Echoes of workers’ struggle in apartheid-era South Africa in China’s factories today’, Geoff's blog China Labour Bulletin, June 14 2010. http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/100805
14. ‘China's migrant workers see some gains on labor rights’, Violet Law, June 30, 2010, Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0630/China-s-migrant-workers-see-some-gains-on-labor-rights/%28page%29/2
15. ibid. ‘Auto Strikes Open up …’
16. ‘As Chinese premier urges “respect” for workers, police prepare crackdown’, John Chan, 18 June 2010,World Socialist Website.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/chin-j18.shtml
17. ‘China strikers bypass union, organize with social media’, Michelle Phillips, June 27, 2010, Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/27/china-strikers-bypass-union-organize-social-media/
18. ‘UPDATE 1-Striking workers at Honda China supplier demand apology’, Doug Young; Fri Jul 16, 2010, Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGE66F0BD20100716
19. .ibid. ‘Special Report: China's new migrant workers pushing the line’ “But the Communist Party, which traces its own heritage to a worker's movement, has faced a policy tightrope. It must also ensure that strikes don't proliferate and scare investors or ignite broader political confrontation that erodes Party rule. Few workers blame the government for low wages, but more and more say higher pay and a larger share of China's economic pie are only fair.
While the past few years have seen bargaining power shift in labor's favor, it's virtually unthinkable that Beijing would allow workers to form independent unions along the lines of those found in Japan or South Korea, which might undermine its one-party power. When workers of struggling state-owned factories in northeast China organized protests and voiced political demands in 2002, authorities arrested the leaders and jailed them on charges of political subversion.
China's leaders have studied the lessons from Poland's solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa, which saw an independent trade union morph into a powerful opposition force that played a key role in the downfall of Communism there and in other Eastern bloc countries.
20. ‘Auto Strikes Open Up Space for Union Reform in China’ ibid.
21. . ibid. ‘Auto Strikes Open up …’
22. ‘Look to Chinese strikers for hope’ Ken Lewenza, Jun 25 2010, The Star. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/828268--look-to-chinese-strikers-for-hope
22. ‘Time to defend Chinese workers' rights’ Li Hong, June 07, 2010, People’s Daily. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90002/96743/7014872.html
23. ‘Support Honda Workers in Foshan China’, 3 June 2010, Chinese Workers Research Network. http://chinastudygroup.net/2010/06/support-honda-workers-in-foshan-china/
24. Follow the Lead of China’s Strikers’, Jim Stanford June 27, 2010 http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/06/27/follow-the-lead-of-chinas-strikers/
25. ‘[Worldwide Scholars Petition]: Support Honda Workers in Foshan China’ Fri, 06/04/2010 China Labour Net http://worldlabour.org/eng/node/358
26. ‘Position Statement of Old Revolutionaries on Present Upsurge of Worker Action in China’ 13 June 2010, Li Chengrui, et al. http://chinastudygroup.net/2010/06/old-revolutionaries-on-the-present-upsurge/
27. Automotive industry, Worldwide Trends. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry
28. ‘Apple's iPhone supply chain faces sharply increasing costs in China’ Josh Ong, 7 July 2010 http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/06/apples_iphone_supply_chain_faces_sharply_increasing_costs_in_china.html Also: ‘Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops’ Business Week, 27 Nov, 2006
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_48/b4011001.htm
29. ibid. ‘A Honda Worker in China Speaks Out at Close of Historic Strike’
30. ‘Major Amendments to the Constitution’ China Through A Lens March 16, 2004 http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/90056.htm
31. ‘Chinese regime amends constitution to protect private ownership’, John Chan, 2 April 2004 World Socialist Website’ http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/npc-a02.shtml
32. ‘People’s Daily cites gap between rich and poor as most pressing issue in China, but solution still elusive’, william's blog 13 Jul 2010, China Labour Bulletin. http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/100824
33. ‘In Who’s Interest does the State in China Serve and Why’ Mark Vorpahl, July 2, 2010 http://www.workerscompass.org/vorpahl_07-02-2010.html
34. ‘Draft Theses on the Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy’, V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, 1971. http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/DRTU21.html
35. ‘Provinces across China raise minimum wages’ People’s Daily, August 18, 2010 http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90862/7108404.html Also:
‘China Provinces Raise Minimum Wages to Curb Disputes’ Business Week July 01, 2010 http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-01/china-provinces-raise-minimum-wages-to-curb-disputes.html
36. ‘ACFTU: SOE senior Executives earn 18 times higher than grassroots workers’ People’s Daily, March 10, 2010 http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6915167.html
37. ‘With Lower Garment-worker Pay, Bangladesh Moves In On China’Vikas Bajaj, Manilla Bulletin July 22, 2010 http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/268210/with-lower-garmentworker-pay-bangladesh-moves-in-on-china

BOB KATTER IS NOT MAD!

Bob Katter is not mad. Just because he is able to offer a sustained and valid attack on the economic orthodoxies of our age, he is called mad! How dare he suggest that capitalism does not deliver for farmers and rural workers. How dare he remind those who have grown fat and rich, those who preach globalisation, economic rationalisation, and the dominance of the market economy, that after 12 years of Liberal Coalition Government there was one farmer suiciding in Australia every four days. How dare he fight to defend the members of his constituency by opposing the mining tax and advocating the greater use of ethanol for fuel. I disagree with him on the mining tax, but I defend his right to his view. Bob Katter has been returned to parliament by his constituency 7 times. How many other politicians can claim that? He is not mad, he is a politician doing his job for his electorate, however uniquely, and somewhat eccentrically.

Jenny Haines

CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM - A DANCE IN DUALITY

Lucy Turnbull recently wrote a think piece in the Sydney Morning Herald triumphantly declaring that despite the Global Financial Crisis and the market excesses that led to that crisis, that capitalism is the only viable system we have for organising our economies. Well Lucy, I wonder if that is what those who survive by scrabbling for food in rubbish heaps in the Phillipines think? Or those in the townships in South Africa who have been waiting now for a very long time for better housing, education and health services? Or those in rural Australia who don’t get heard in the babble of an election contest when they try to talk about real issues, but the electorate is too busy wondering about Julia’s hair and Tony’s ears.? Bob Katter should have shaken the apologists for capitalism with his recent statement that after 12 years of Coalition Government implementing an economic rationalist and deregulatory agenda, there was a farmer suiciding every four days. What a great triumph for capitalism!

History tells us that capitalism is nothing without its opposite, socialism. Capitalism and Socialism should live in a perpetual duality, a balance. Socialism tempers capitalist excess. Capitalism can temper Socialism. Abolish, crush, abandon socialist ideas, and capitalist excess flourishes. Lucy simplistically talks about socialism as the command economies of Stalinism, but socialism takes many more forms and philosophies than the oppression of Stalinism. Interestingly in the first few years after the Russian Revolution, before the terrors of Stalinism took hold, the economy flourished, not just through the efforts of local Russian industrial, post war reconstruction but because of the co-operation with American and European Business. Not many people now remember that Henry Ford had a car factory in the Soviet Union in the 1920 and 1930s. The prosperity of the post war co-operative reconstruction was blown away by the terrible and stupid mistakes of Stalinism and the terror economy.

But socialism is much much more than this. Socialist ideas inspired the early trade unionists, and still inspire them today. Trade unionists know that they need a political party to take their demands forward in the realm of government, and so the Labor Party was formed. Socialist ideas underpin the formation of the Green Party. Small liberals in the Liiberal National Coalition espouse socialist ideas when they support welfare for the aged or single mothers. Without the regulation that socialism requires to achieve social objectives over economic rationalist objectives, deregulation allows the sharks and shonks of capitalism to rip people off. Greed is not good! And there is a price to pay down the track for all that greed, and we are now paying it. And there is more to come. The Global Financial Crisis is not yet over. On Four Corners on Monday 23rd August 2010, we were reminded that we are now living in the biggest bubble of all time. The PIGS countries, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are using borrowed monies to repay debts. The bubble is expanding. It is going to blow. And we are going to see the worst recession, if not depression since the Great Depression. And as Franklin Roosevelt taught us, the only way out of the coming recession or depression is the implementing of socialist based ideas and programs.

It is not fashionable to talk about socialism these days as the horrors of Stalinism in the 20th century equate socialism with death, destruction and economic decay. But socialism survives in all its inspirations and its forms. It must be defended, and so we must fight for the rightful place of unions in our society, and the achievement of the social democratic objectives of the left of centre political parties. The capitalist agenda of economic rationalism, globalisation and productivity and efficiency as the basis of the distribution of wealth have led us into the recent Global Financial Crisis and the coming Crisis. Unless we recognise the duality of Capitalism and Socialism there is a lot more pain in our economic life to come




http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/capitalism-is-still-the-only-system-that-works-20100808-11q55.html

WE ARE ALL BOAT PEOPLE - BOB HAWKE

Yahoo 7 News, 13.8.10

Bob Hawke says there is no way to "stop the boats" as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has claimed he will do to the asylum-seeking craft regularly arriving on islands off Australia's north-west coast.

The former Labor prime minister repeated his attack on Mr Abbott describing him as "mad as a cut snake" and said Australia needed people like those arriving by boat to claim asylum because they had initiative and courage.

Mr Hawke offered a range of thoughts across many issues to a Financial Services Council conference in Melbourne on Friday.

Mr Hawke admitted he had early concerns about Prime Minister Julia Gillard's re-election prospects but believed the Labor campaign was looking up for her now.

He also said there was no way to "stop the boats" as Mr Abbott has promised.

"We're all bloody boat people," he said.

"That's how we found the place."

Mr Hawke said he understood the frustration of many voters at "queue jumpers", but said "we have to look at the other side of the coin".

He said the coalition's approach to the boat people question was "nonsense".

"We cannot turn the boats back," Mr Hawke said.

"These people have got initiative, guts and courage and Australia needs people like that."

He pushed Indonesia as the location for an asylum seeker processing centre, saying it would be "fair enough, as long as the conditions there are humane".

Mr Hawke also spoke about his South Australian-based work with a centre focused on improving relations between the Islamic community and others, saying the real challenge for Australia in his eyes was not to "demonise Muslim people".

On the wider question of the August 21 poll, Mr Hawke was happy to admit the five week campaign had not started well for Labor, after a series of damaging leaks and the issue of former leader Kevin Rudd's rolling.

"Julia hasn't been able to shine in the first half of the campaign," he said, but he genuinely felt that Labor would win

WAGE INCREASE FOR NURSES

Red News Readers,

At last some information about what is happening with the nurses wage claim.

Jenny Haines

Public sector unions watch rail vote for wages guide

PAUL BIBBY AND LOUISE HALL, SMH.

August 11, 2010

REPRESENTATIVES of the state's rail workers will vote today to either end their bitter industrial dispute with the state government or fight on with a possible strike on the eve of the federal election.

The workers have been offered a wage increase of just under 3.5 per cent a year over the next four years, less than the 5 per cent sought by their unions.

In return, the government and RailCorp have backed down on planned redundancies among train guards and security staff, though it is understood they continue to demand increased productivity. This is in keeping with the government's policy of keeping public sector wage increases capped at 2.5 per cent unless ''productivity gains'' can be made elsewhere.

Other public sector unions preparing for wage negotiations are watching the rail deal with interest, including the NSW Nurses Federation, which is seeking a 5 per cent annual increase over four years. It has rejected a productivity deal, saying its members are already so stretched ''there is nothing else to give''.

Rail chaos was averted when a tentative wage deal was reached early yesterday.

But strike plans still exist in the event about 400 union delegates at Trades Hall vote the proposal down. They include a 24-hour strike on the day before the federal election - an action that could seriously harm Labor's chances, particularly in crucial seats in western Sydney.

The NSW secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, Alex Claassens, denied he was using the federal poll as political leverage to pressure the government.

''That's certainly not my intention,'' he said. ''I am hopeful that, even if the proposal doesn't get up, there will be an agreement reached before we have to take that action.''

Regardless of the outcome today, the rail deal raises questions about the state government's ability to keep its promise to stay under the 2.5 per cent cap.

In its 2010-11 budget, the government promised to keep expenses growth to 4.7 per cent a year - even though expenses had grown at 6.6 per cent for each of the four previous years.

Public sector employee costs - mainly wages - account for 43 per cent of the total expenses bill.

The pressure is now well and truly on, with unions unwilling, and in some cases unable, to find productivity gains to offset their desired wages increases.

The acting secretary of the nurses union, Judith Kiejda, said the association rejected the government's requirement that any rises over 2.5 per cent be offset by ''efficiency measures''.

''We believe we have put productivity savings into the system and that there is nothing else to give - that's how our membership are feeling,'' Ms Kiejda said.

The union is also seeking to have minimum nurse-to-patient ratios mandated under the award, which would force hospital managers to fill vacancies or close a ward.

Hospital managers would have to fill vacancies, including those created when staff take sick, parental or holiday leave, lessening the reliance on overtime and casual agency staff. Only a nurse or midwife of the same qualification would be permitted.

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Red News Readers,

Those members of Gen X and Y who have not registered to vote would do well to remember the words of Nelson Mandela on the day that he voted for the first time in his life. He said that this was the day that he had spent 25 years in jail for, the day on which he could vote, as a citizen in a democratic election in South Africa. They should also remember the words of UN Aid Workers in Cambodia, touched by the sight of women in Cambodia, crouched by the side of a road after having walked all night, waiting for the polling booths to open, so they too could vote for the first time in the Cambodian elections after the fall of Pol Pot. And recently I was touched by the reports of election observers in Afghanistan who observed crowds of people taking their life in their hands, under threat from the Taliban, but willing to take the risk, just for the right to vote. The right to vote is a priviledge that should not be taken lightly or ignored. Many have died and suffered for it. Register to vote and have your say. Even better, get active in a political issue that interests you. The future of this country is in your hands.

Jenny Haines

MY REPLY TO HENDERSON ON REFUGEES

Red News Readers,

Gerard Henderson in today’s SMH reviews some of the dark history of government decision making on refugees and asylum seekers. While he remembers Labor in a bad light, he tries to justify all that Howard et al did. My blog posting is below:-

“Some of what Gerard Henderson says about past governments, Labor and Liberal Coalition is true unfortunately, but past mistakes do not justify current repetition of mistakes or lack of humanity. On Amanda Tattersall's statement, Gerard, I refer you to Page 228, of Dark Victory, by Marr and Wilkinson, "But critically the purpose of Operation Relex was not search and rescue. It was a military operation to stop the boats and turn them back before they reached Australia." And you may like to turn to Page 291 of the same book to find their comment about John Faulkner, "the questioning of civilian and military officials was driven by Labor's John Faulkner in a ruthless forensic exercise extending over many months. He and his colleagues on the committee laid bare much of this story."

If you wish to add to this blog go to the link:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/before-moving-forward-have-a-look-in-the-rearview-mirror-20100712-107so.html?comments=41#comments

Jenny Haines

SUPPORT REFUGEES RALLY 9.7.10

Mandatory detention destroyed my life: refugee

SMH, July 9, 2010 - 3:58PM
.
Gillard eats her words over refugees
Abbott smells blood
Richard Ackland: Facts and furphies
What would you do?

A former immigration detainee has told a rally protesting the government's new policy on asylum seekers that mandatory detention destroyed his life.

Iranian refugee Mohsen Soltani says he lives with the scars of his detention.

"They destroy my whole life in detention," said the poet and musician, who spent four years in immigration detention centres in Western Australia and New South Wales.

"I run away from torture and execution in my country, but here they crush all my spirit."

Mr Soltani was sent to the Port Hedland detention centre in WA in 1999 and was later transferred to Villawood, in Sydney's southwest, before being released in 2003.

He told about 60 people outside the Immigration Department offices in Sydney's CBD today that detention centres were "hell".

The rally was held to protest against Prime Minister Julia Gillard's proposal for a regional offshore processing centre for asylum seekers.

Protesters waved banners and chanted: "Say it out loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here".

Mr Soltani told the rally that Ms Gillard's proposal showed she was the same as former prime minister John Howard and his immigration minister Philip Ruddock.

"We don't want the same history repeated with more mandatory detention - with more mental people released from that bloody hell," he said

"I have a huge mental illness from the detention."

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is also proposing a return to offshore processing of asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

Jenny Haines, spokeswoman for Labor for Refugees, said Ms Gillard's proposal was an election tactic.

"To cave into that idiot Abbott's idea that we can offshore process and then send (people) back to dangerous places like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka is reprehensible," she said.

Mark Goudkamp from the Refugee Action Collective castigated both sides of politics.

"It seems like its a debate on who can be ... more tough in terms of stopping asylum seekers even getting to Australia," he said.

Ms Gillard this week announced East Timor was a possible location for a detention centre, but later had to tone down her remarks after Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao responded negatively.

The government has since had discussions with Papua New Guinea.

AAP

GILLARD: THE EAST TIMOR SOLUTION

Red News Readers,

Having just read Gillard’s speech, my view is that she seems to be trying to walk the middle path in the first part of the speech and then she lurchs towards Abbott with her East Timor processing centre. Why does she need this centre? She has Christmas Island and the onshore processing centres on the Australian mainland. East Timor I presume is in addition to what we have, not in place of? .

I agree with John Dowd who I heard on ABC 702 yesterday morning. He said that if the people that have recently arrived were white South Africans or white Zimbabweans, no one would be raising a murmur. But because they are brown and from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan there is a problem. John Dowd said this is racism. And it is, and Gillard should be ashamed that she is caving in to such forces in our community.

Mind you it is a good thing that she is not sending the Hazaras back to Afghanistan immediately. William Maley, an Australian National University expert on the Hazara, said in the SMH today: ”On the day Julia Gillard became prime minister, 11 Hazaras travelling in a vehicle in Oruzgan, the province where our troops are deployed, were waylaid by the Taliban and had their heads cut off.” He said it would be extremely dangerous to send any Hazara back to Afghanistan at present, and that no Afghan specialist in the world would say that the situation in Afghanistan is improving.

But pity the Sri Lankans. At the very moment that the EU is cutting off trade benefits to Sri Lanka because of the failure of its government to improve human rights, at a time when human rights organisations are reporting continued human rights abuses, Australia is planning to send vulnerable applicants for refugee and asylum seeker status back to Sri Lanka. Will Australians be satisfied when some, or god help us all of these returning refugees are imprisoned, or worse executed on their return? I hope Gillard, Abbott and those advocating their return can lie easy in their beds, because I can’t knowing what may very well happen to the Sri Lankans on their return.

Jenny Haines

Gillard on asylum seekers: time for an East Timor Solution

by Bernard Keane, Crikey 6.7.10

Australia will establish a revised “Pacific Solution”, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard flagging a “regional processing centre” for asylum seekers to be based in East Timor, to where asylum seekers who arrive by boat would be redirected as part of a “regional protection framework”.

In an address to the Lowy Institute this morning, the Prime Minister moved to establish a tougher line on asylum seekers by announcing her intention to pursue an East Timor processing facility with President Jose Ramos-Horta, the New Zealand government and the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees.

She also flagged that improved conditions in Sri Lanka now meant Tamil asylum seekers were likely to be sent home, and that negotiations were proceeding with the Afghan government on the repatriation of failed Afghan asylum seekers. Gillard also indicated unspecified measures to strengthen penalties for people smugglers whose actions lead to death, and committed to ensuring that successful asylum seekers would receive no “special treatment”.

Gillard explicitly denied that the proposed East Timor facility would be “a new Pacific Solution”, instead insisting it would be a “sustainable, effective regional protection framework”, but the difference with the Howard government’s approach of spending large sums of taxpayer money to send asylum seekers to locations such as Nauru for processing is unclear, beyond the promised involvement of the UNHCR.

The Prime Minister indicated that, in light of the UNHCR’s overnight report indicating a significantly improved security and legal situation in Sri Lanka, most Tamil asylum seekers faced being put on a plane back to their homeland if they attempted to reach Australia, although acknowledging that case-by-case determinations would remain. The present suspension of claims by Sri Lankan asylum seekers, put in place by Kevin Rudd just under three months ago, would be lifted.
The present suspension of processing of claims for Afghan asylum seekers would remain in place, but Gillard appeared to suggest this awaited the resolution of repatriation arrangements with the Afghan government. She emphasised that nearly three-quarters of Afghan asylum applicants had been refused in recent months.

Gillard also sought to address the persistent community myth that refugees are given extensive and special taxpayer assistance. “When newcomers settle in our community, they accept their responsibilities as members of the community — to learn English, enter the workforce, and send their kids to school like everyone else. Most refugees fulfil these obligations and are grateful to be able to make a new home in Australia … But the rules are the rules. We will ensure refugees shoulder the same obligations as Australians generally.”

What action this would entail remains unclear.

Earlier today, the opposition sought to further toughen its own stance on asylum seekers by indicating those who “deliberately destroyed” identity documentation would be denied asylum, an approach that appears unworkable given Australia’s international commitments and the practicalities of establishing “deliberate destruction” in the context of escape from brutal regimes and people smuggling.

The opposition also proposed to move the Minister for Immigration back into asylum claims processing, suggesting the minister be given the right to intervene in any asylum claim. The Secretary of the Department of Immigration would also be required to sign off on all asylum claim determinations, rather than lower level officials, although the power could be delegated.

US NURSES STRIKE OVER RATIOS

Largest Ever Nurses' Strike Could Be Sign of Future Unrest

Robert Lowes

June 11, 2010 — A 1-day strike of 12,000 nurses in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota — said to be the largest in US history — ended as planned this morning, but experts expect more labor unrest to roil the hospital industry.

The nurses on strike from14 hospitals in the Twin Cities belong to the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), an affiliate of an ambitious new "super union" with 155,000 members called National Nurses United (NNU). The NNU advocates nationwide adoption of nurse-to-patient staffing ratios that it deems low enough to ensure good patient care and prevent nurse burnout.

Staffing levels figure heavily into continuing negotiations between the Minnesota nurses and their hospitals over a new labor contract. Other points of contention are wages and the Minnesota hospitals' proposal to reduce the nurses' pension benefits.
The Minnesota nurses set their strike date of June 10 about 2 weeks beforehand, giving hospitals time to prepare. Maureen Schriner, a spokesperson for a trade group called Twin Cities Hospitals, said the 14 affected hospitals brought in 2800 replacement nurses on Thursday. Some hospitals rescheduled surgeries.

"Things ran smoothly," Schriner said. "The level of patient care was the same as it always had been."

The strike is the third major labor battle waged by the NNU this year. Members of an NNU affiliate in Philadelphia went on strike from Temple University Hospital for 28 days this spring, and just this week, a state judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop members of the affiliated California Nurses Association (CNA) from walking off their jobs yesterday at University of California medical centers and student health facilities. The NNU was formed last December when the CNA merged with the Massachusetts Nurses Association and United American Nurses.

NNU leaders say they will take aggressive action wherever hospitals put profits above patient care and the well-being of nurses.

"This phenomenon is not just in Minnesota," NNU co-president Jean Ross, RN, told Medscape Medical News. "In this recession, employers expect everybody to sacrifice whether there's a need to or not, or whether it's prudent or not, and it always comes on the backs of nurses.

"This union is prepared to do what it needs to do to get its needs met. What's good for nurses is good for patients."

Labor Historian Expects More Strikes in Era of Consolidation

Over the past 10 years, strikes by nurses have been "sort of rare," Peter Buerhaus, PhD, RN, a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told Medscape Medical News. Dr. Buerhaus said the drive to unionize nurses comes at a time when many aspects of the hospital workplace have improved, leading to higher job satisfaction.

"It's a much better picture than it was in the 1990s," said Dr. Buerhaus, referring to surveys of nurses that he has helped conduct over the years.

To Peter Rachleff, PhD, a labor historian at Macalester College in St. Paul, this week's 1-day strike illustrates how the nursing profession is responding to a healthcare industry marked by consolidation among health insurers and hospitals. "A new generation of nurses sees collective action as necessary to develop national standards for how they work," Dr. Rachleff said.

Asked if he expects to see more nurse strikes in the near future, Dr. Rachleff replied, "Absolutely."

In one sense, said Dr. Rachleff, nurses are trying to fill in the details of healthcare reform legislation enacted by Congress.

"The nurses are addressing issues of delivery of care that weren't clear in the larger macro discussion," he said. "They're taking it to the next level."

Opinion Divided on Value of Mandatory Staffing Ratios

One detail of healthcare reform dear to nurses in the Twin Cities is staffing levels. Their union is asking hospitals to maintain a ratio of 1 RN to 4 patients in medical and surgical units, and 1 RN to 2 patients in critical-care units, for example.

NNU co-president Jean Ross said some hospitals in the Twin Cities assign 3 patients per nurse in intensive care units instead of the 2 patients sought by the union.
"When things get more hectic, you're more likely to miss fine changes in a patient's condition," she said. "You can't be as watchful. You're afraid you're going to maim or kill someone."

The NNU maintains that mandatory staffing levels — already the law of the land in California — will not only save lives, but also solve the nursing shortage by improving job satisfaction. However, the nursing profession is divided on the effectiveness of mandatory staffing levels, with supporters and opponents pointing to research that supports their respective positions.

The trade group Twin Cities Hospitals argues that there is no objective evidence linking specific staffing ratios and patient safety. It calls the union proposal inflexible and expensive, adding at least $250 million to the annual expenses of the 14 affected hospitals.

Maureen Schriner, the spokesperson for Twin Cities Hospitals, said that previous contracts between the hospitals and nurses contained detailed language on staffing levels that in some cases exceed what the union is demanding.

"Instead of trying to work with what we already had, they came forward with their own ratios," said Schriner.

THE LESSONS OF PATEL

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/seven-years-for-jayant-patel-fails-to-ease-the-anger/story-e6frg6nf-1225886908290

Sent to the daily papers but not pubished:

The lessons that should be learnt from the whole Dr Patel and Bundaberg Hospital saga is that rewarding managers through performance based pay based on the achievement of productivity and efficiency targets can produce terrible outcomes in the health system. But sadly, with the current economic and human resources theologies in the health system, I doubt if this will be the lesson drawn. Interesting to hear a spokesperson of the Queensland medical fraternity say that there were plenty of doctors willing to go to Bundaberg to take the surgical position Patel held, but it was considered more cost efficient to employ Patel.

All credit to Toni Hoffman, the Nursing Unit Manager who kept going to senior management of Bundaberg Hospital over a 2 year period raising concerns about Dr Patel’s standards of care only, to be rebuffed and told that she needed to learn how to get on with overseas born doctors. All credit to Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland, who today paid tribute to Toni as a whistleblower, and recognised the suffering that Toni has undergone because she was a whistleblower.

It is not all over yet, as there is to be an appeal and the suffering of Patel’s patients, and the families of the patient’s who died, continues. To those patients and families, I pay tribute. Despite the callous indifference of some, there are many in the health system who are thinking about you, and send you our sympathies.

Jenny Haines

REFUGEES AND THE WEST

REFUGEES AND THE WEST

Julia Gillard as part of her intial policy statement as Prime Minister said that she understood the concerns of the Australian people about the arrival of refugees by boats, and would move to address those concerns, signalling that she intends to adopt and even harder stance than that of Kevin Rudd’s Government. She seemed to particularly target her message to the western suburbs of Sydney.

When I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1950s through to the 1970s, life was not easy. The post war boom was in progress, but families struggled. In more recent times the western suburbs is now a mix of those struggling, but also the aspirational middle class. If I could summarise the apparent concerns of people in the west, it would be that they are concerned that those refugees and asylum seekers arriving by boat are queue jumpers, taking advantage of their apparent wealth compared with those still waiting in countries of origin to pay people smugglers to get to Australia on leaky unsafe boats. The taxpayer of Australia then pays for their detention while they are processed.

The big problem with this view is that there is no queue. The Australian Ambassadorial staff in the countries of origin do not put on their pith helmets and go out to the refugee camps and set up a table and chairs and take names on an orderly list. If you are unlucky enough to be in opposition, or an unwanted activist in one of these countries of origin, you probably leave in the dead of night, to avoid attracting attention to your departure. You leave behind whatever family you have, and you don’t want to imperil their continued existence after you leave. You may have sold everything you have ever owned to pay travel expenses. Your travel to a second country, and maybe a third. If you get to Indonesia, and your presence as a refugee and asylum seeker comes to the attention of the authorities there, you may be interned. You pray that you are interned in an Indonesian government run facility, as the standard of accommodation and treatment is better than the Australian run and paid for facilities. In the latter, the guards can threaten you with injury or death, and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are not interned in Indonesia, and can still afford it from what you have sold, earned, or borrowed, you find a people smuggler who will offer you a place on a boat in exchange for the last of your money. You then arrive at the dock to find the boat heavily overloaded, but you have paid you money and the people smuggler does not do reimbursements to dissatisfied customers.

If you are fortunate your fishing boat arrives off the north west coast of Australia, where you are met by Australia’s navy, and taken to Christmas Island for mandatory detention while you are processed. Having left your country of origin in the dead of night, you may not have brought with you your birth certificate, passport and all of the documentation required to identify you, so processing can take some time. Then there is the ASIO check to make sure you are not a terrorist. Mind you what self respecting terrorist would travel this way? ASIO processing takes a very long time. Even ASIO says they are understaffed. Then under the Howard Government system, even if recognised as a refugee under international conventions, you were placed on a temporary protection visa, but allowed out of detention into the community. But the trick of this was that you could not work or receive Medicare health benefits. So to survive, you relied on the goodness of charities, churches and friends. Thank heavens the Rudd Government abolished TPVs, and may they never return. Such bureaucratised cruelty!!

Life on the refugee trail is desperate and disorganised. You do what you have can to survive. Refugees who came to Australia before and after World War Two will recognise these circumstances, and no doubt be able to tell similar stories of pushing their way forward to a new life, against all of the forces arrayed against them.

Refugees arriving in Australia by boat constitute 4% of those seeking refuge in this country. The other 96% come by plane. QANTAS –Australia’s own people smuggler? The numbers of refugees arriving in this country are no threat to anyone, particularly people in the western suburbs of Sydney. I recently saw an election leaflet for one of the conservative parties. It said that the people of the electorate were being deprived of health, education and welfare services because money for these services was being spent on servicing refugee and asylum seekers arriving in this country by boat. Budget stringencies by State and Federal Governments in relation to health, welfare and education services have a multitude of other causes that have nothing to do with refugees and detention centres.

I am a member of Labor for Refugees. Labor for Refugees has become a rank and file organisation within the Labor Party that has improved party policy several times since the dark days of the Tampa Election in 2001, at National and State Conferences of the Party, I wait with interest the next moves by the Gillard Government, but remind the Government and the parliamentary leadership of the party of party policy, plus of course, the real politik that up until Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party was haemorrhaging to the Left ie the Greens, on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers and it is the real politik that matters on election day, not populism.

Jenny Haines

MY REPLY TO ANDREW BOLT

Dear All,

The ever revolting Andrew Bolt is out dog whistling in the Daily Smellograph today. He has a blog you may wish to contribute to. It would be good to get some balance on this blog, as it seems to be full of the refugee haters, which seems to be Andrew’s purpose. But if you can’t stand the stench of their arguments, don’t go there!

Jenny Haines

“Andrew Bolt where have you been? Or do you have a hearing problem? There are plenty of organisations and persons having a go at Rudd and his inner cabinet over their treatment of asylum seekers. Take for example Pamela Curr who was on Lateline two nights ago talking about asylum seekers in an Australian funded detention centre in Indonesia being tasered and threatened with death. And Ian Rintoul of Refugee Action Coalition criticising Rudd transfering boat people to desert detention centres yesterday. And Labor for Refugees criticising Rudd in a front page newspaper article only 2 weeks ago. And Labor for Refugees Victoria printing off a very telling criticism of the Government for the Victorian State ALP conference which was very well received by conference delegates. And Project Safe.Com beavering away in Western Australia on all aspects of the injustices of the refugee and asylum seeker system in this country. For someone who is supposed to be an on the ball journalist, how have you missed all this, and more? Mind you, your column seems to have worked in being a dog whistle call to all the asylum seeker haters to come out and bray against the Rudd Government.

Jenny Haines of Newtown (Reply)”

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/column_why_no_tears_now_for_dead_asylum_seekers/desc/#commentsmore

MOST PREFER PACIFIC SOLUTION

Red News Readers,

What sobering reading, that two thirds of those surveyed would be happy with a Coalition Government re-establishing the Pacific Solution, and it appears, the same percentage favour re-introducing temporary protection visas. As a capuccino drinking city voter (I hate lattes!) I can understand that these voters want orderly entry into Australia by everyone, and that fishing boats bringing refugees to our shores is seen as a disorderly way to arrive in this country. I wonder how many of these voters realise the casual cruelty that the Howard Government Pacific Solution inflicted on those detained, and on those who lived for years with the insecurity of temporary protection visas, not being allowed to work or have access to Australian health facilities, reliant on the kindness of charities and strangers.

It is sobering that so few people in this country take the time and effort to understand international law on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees and asylum seekers have the right by whatever means of transport to seek asylum in a second and third country. Natural justice and procedural fairness, which all citizens of Australia claim for themselves, also applies to refugees and asylum seekers who arrive, and have the right to due processing of their claims. The refugee and asylum seeker world is not an orderly queue. It is desperate and disorganised. You do what you can to survive. We are not being swamped with refugees and asylum seekers. We are not being threatened by terrorists coming in by fishing boat. No self respecting terrorist would arrive by boat, they would come by plane. How many Australians would say to the Jews and refugees who came to Australia before and after WW2, go home, you didn't arrive in this country in an orderly way?

Jenny Haines

Most prefer 'Pacific solution', poll finds

PHILLIP COOREY AND YUKO NARUSHIMA, SMH.

June 7, 2010

ALMOST two-thirds of voters support the Coalition's decision to reintroduce the Howard government's ''Pacific solution'' for dealing with asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

The latest Herald/Nielsen poll also finds the Coalition the preferred party overall to deal with asylum seekers which is looming as a central issue in this year's federal election.

The poll of 1400 voters, taken between Thursday and Saturday, came after the announcement by Tony Abbott that a Coalition government would once more detain asylum seekers indefinitely in locations such as Nauru.

The Coalition would also reintroduce the controversial temporary protection visas which Labor abolished on humanitarian grounds.

The poll found 62 per cent of voters supported ''the Howard government's policy of processing asylum seekers in countries outside Australia''. A minority of 33 per cent opposed the policy.

Asked which party had the best asylum-seeker policy, 35 per cent nominated the Coalition while support for Labor and the Greens was 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.

''A majority of Australians are likely to support policies presented as tough and uncompromising and are less likely to support policies perceived as soft,'' said a Nielsen pollster, John Stirton.

So far this year 133 boats have arrived in Australian waters and Labor MPs reported to caucus last week the arrivals were becoming a dominant concern among voters.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said he would not engage in a policy race to the bottom with Mr Abbott but promised to explain the facts more often to offset some of the myths and fears being perpetrated.

For example, Australia took about 13,000 refugees a year, whether they arrived by boat or air. If boat arrivals increased, the net intake would not, he said.

The Opposition claims the government has lost control of the borders. It said the arrival of four boats in two days over the weekend showed the three-month and six-month processing freeze the Rudd government placed on Sri Lankans and Afghans respectively had failed to deter asylum seekers.

Asylum seekers found on the most recent boats were intercepted north of Ashmore Island and Scott Reef. They are en route to Christmas Island where 2436 people are detained in facilities with space for 2500.

The government has budgeted for the arrival of 2000 asylum seekers by boat in the year to June 30 next year. This is a drop on the year before but costs will double as more people fight their deportation and spend longer in detention to do so.

The rates of rejection are increasing, with almost half of the 480 who arrived last year rejected as refugees by the Immigration Department in the past two months.

As the government postponed the transfer of about 30 families to the remote mining town of Leonora yesterday, it prepared the detention centre in Curtin to receive hundreds of asylum seekers affected by the April 9 suspension.

''The policy has been as ineffective as it is discriminatory,'' the opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said. The first transfer of 90 people to Leonora, scheduled for yesterday, was cancelled.


Source: The Age

Abbott rescues Pacific solution

May 28, 2010, Editorial

TONY ABBOTT sees himself as John Howard's political heir; in announcing that he will bring back Howard's ''Pacific solution'' as Australia's policy on asylum seekers, he has emphasised the connection. Yet it says a good deal about Tony Abbott's view of his own party in the post-Howard era that he chose to announce the policy without submitting it to a full party-room discussion first. It is hard not to conclude he wanted to sidestep the internal opposition he knew he would face. Far better to ambush his own MPs and then hope for the best, as he had done earlier with parental leave. Liberal MPs will be wondering why they went through the trouble and pain of ditching Malcolm Turnbull for his lack of consultation.

Abbott announced four parts to his policy - temporary protection visas, offshore processing (which he called ''rigorous'' several times), good relations with source and transit countries - and a fourth element, which can be paraphrased as: send 'em back. Turning boats around is not new: "It was done quietly in co-operation with other countries through the extraordinary professionalism of our armed forces,'' he said. ''Now, I don't see why it can't be done again.'' What is new, however, is the explicit promise to repeat it.

Abbott analyses the problem in simple terms - as a problem of markets. People smugglers under the Rudd government's more humane policy have ''a product to sell''. He is going to deprive them of their merchandise.

We believe action against people smugglers is certainly called for - but not at the expense of refugees, whom the policy ignores.

With its emphasis on rigour and toughness and its simplicity, Abbott's policy is pure populism. It may curry favour with some sections of the community; what it will not do is reduce the number of illegal immigrants and visa overstayers in the country. It is well-known that far more illegal immigrants enter Australia by air. According to the Immigration Department, there were 48,700 illegal non-citizens in Australia last June. Compare that with the 6000 seaborne arrivals Abbott cited. The four biggest source countries - China, the United States, Malaysia and Britain - contributed more than a third of the total. It is the boats, though, that must be stopped, because although they carry the most desperate individuals fleeing the worst circumstances, they evoke a visceral fear in some Australians. His policy amounts to looking tough by punishing the most vulnerable. They are to be a symbolic sacrifice on the altar of xenophobia.

WHEN MOTHERS CRY OUT FOR CARE

Red News Readers,

This letter of mine was published in the SMH today 18.5.10:

Tanveer Ahmed has done the world a favour in cutting through the hype that now surrounds birthing, and addressing the issue of class in relation to the provision of public mental health services for women suffering post natal depression. What a disgrace that there are no public mental health beds that specialise in the care of these women!! Why is that? Is it because our society still does not understand the seriousness of post natal depression? Is it because those who suffer post natal depression are women? Is it because many think they should be happy at the birth of the child and they will "just get over it"?

The need for specialist public bedsand services for women suffering post natal depression has long been recognised as a dire need in our public health system. These women are often cared for at home by distressed husbands and families, with no appropriate health and welfare support. Some couples are ashamed and hide the mother. But you can't hide a severely depressed or psychotic woman who kills her baby. Even hospitals need to rethink how they support these women. I can well remember a mother who threw her baby over a hospital balcony, only a couple of years ago. That woman was placed in a mental health admission unit with persons suffering all sorts of mental illness and disorders. These women need specialist care. It is a great heartlessness in our health system that they don't get it.

Jenny Haines.



When mothers cry out for tender care
Author: Tanveer Ahmed - Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar at St John of God Private Hospital, Burwood.
Date: 17/05/2010
Words: 713
Source: SMH
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald
Section: News and Features
Page: 11


I have treated mothers who have thought of killing their babies. The illness is rare and usually improves rapidly, but it has resulted in tragedies.
There are few more confronting conditions than this one, grounded in a misguided love where mothers feel their babies are better off dead than growing up without them.

I work in a hospital that has the state's only private, post-natal unit. Patients are often transferred from public hospitals, where they are inappropriately treated alongside sufferers of intractable drug addictions or schizophrenia. They usually arrive traumatised by their experience.

Only a minority can afford private health insurance.

NSW does not have a public psychiatric unit for mothers and their babies. It did have hospital beds funded for such purposes several years ago, but they were abolished due to safety concerns.

Phillip Boyce, professor of psychiatry at the University of Sydney and a peri-natal expert, says that was not based on evidence but to save costs. Mothers suffering post-natal mental illnesses require extra, highly trained nursing care to monitor both them and their babies.

He believes any savings are merely costs being transferred to other agencies such as the Department of Community Services, or to families and charities through the necessary out-of-home care.

The developments coincide with recent reports that the number of very young babies being taken into care has risen by almost 70 per cent in two years. Each day in NSW an infant under four weeks old will be removed from the mother, according to government data provided to Parliament last month.

Professor Boyce says a proportion of these mothers suffer mental illness, and believes they could have retained custody of their children if better quality peri-natal services existed. "Once babies are taken, magistrates are very reluctant to give them back to their mothers," he says.

This all coincides with a time when the nature of motherhood, pregnancy and delivery has undergone dramatic changes.

Boyce thinks expectations of pregnancy and motherhood have never been so unrealistically high. "Their grandmothers had a very real risk of dying while giving birth but women today feel pregnancy and delivery are virtually risk free."

Tanya Evans, a social historian of motherhood undertaking a PhD at Macquarie University, says the current generation of women are used to controlling every aspect of their lives.

"Becoming a mother is often the first time when some of that must be relinquished," she says. The decline in the extended family, she believes, combined with the disappearance of affordable domestic services and a commercialisation of motherhood through an explosion in mummylit, prestige prams and other baby products places enormous pressure on new mothers.

Instead of the threat of death, the backdrop to the modern delivery is a thorough birth plan, whale music, digital photos and delivery suite discussions about who is going to cut the cord. These bourgeois aspirations are unlikely to apply to the average patient who may require a public psychiatric bed. Nor is the same demographic likely to be pushing their babies in expensive prams.

But regardless of social class, the experience of modern motherhood can be lonely and isolating. When combined with a mini baby boom - state figures indicate a 9 per cent rise in births over the past five years - the demand for peri-natal services of all kinds has never been greater.

The most common cause of maternal death, defined as a mother dying within 42 days of giving birth, is psychiatric illness, according to a British study in 2004, Why Mothers Die.

Statistics in Australia suggest suicide remains the greatest cause of death among pregnant mothers, but reliable statistics after delivery are yet to come.

A spokesman for the state minister responsible for mental health, Barbara Perry, says the government is focusing on funding community services to screen for vulnerable mums and treat them in the community.

While this is an important plank in an overall strategy, there will be a proportion for whom hospitalisation is unavoidable.

NSW has fallen behind in many areas after a decade of a shabby government. The lack of a high-quality mother-and-baby unit is depriving a needy and poorly understood group. For some, this gap means they will lose custody of their children forever.

REVIEW "BENEATH HILL 60"

A REVIEW BENEATH HILL 60. A FILM ABOUT THE TRUE STORY OF AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS ON THE WESTERN FRONT. NOW SHOWING AT THE DENDY AND ADVERTISED THEATRES.

BY JENNY HAINES.

Those who have been to war know that it is a dirty, messy, horrible business, where life is cheap. There is no glory in mud, endless mud. There is no glory in the loss of friends, limbs, lives, body parts. There is no glory in making the unethical decisions that war demands. War is the serious business of killing the enemy by whatever means you can, while doing your best to stay alive. Fate and chance play a big part in whether you survive.

Beneath Hill 60 tells the story of Australian Army Engineers on the Western Front in 1916. They specialised in blowing up German positions from underground. They were a squad of men who were miners back home in Australia, formed especially for the tasks that they were given. They were grateful to be underground. Being on the surface only meant more horror.

But this is not just another war story. Jeremy Hartley Sims and the production team make clear their distaste for the slaughter that took place on the Western Front in WW One. The thundering sound of the Western Front guns booms in your ears as it must have done for the frontline soldiers, day and night. The horrors of war are there in all their bloody detail, but not overstated. But there is also impish Aussie military humour, and ranking officer and soldier distaste for the British, and army command. Chris Haywood plays a bumbling commander with his usual mastery of his role.
Brendan Cowell plays the lead role of the Captain of the squad. We follow his journey into the army through flashbacks to his life before the war and his courting of his young lady, the daughter of Queensland farmers. The gentility of the Queensland farmland life contrasts sharply with the grim portrait of European farmlands, which by 1916 were acres and acres of pitted mud.

Hill 60 is a strategic site for the British Empire forces. Optimists hope that by blasting Hill 60 away, the end of the war will be hastened. The blast when it comes is so huge, it is heard in London and Berlin. But sadly, even though 2000 Germans were killed that day, they retook Hill 60 several months later.

But the film also tells the story of the squad of men, some hardened and embittered by the war, some too young to be there and are terrified, some driven to madness by the insanity around them, some generous and caring even with the war all around them. “A landmark achievement, harrowing, moving and brilliantly suspenseful” Evan Williams , The Australian.

MENTAL HEALTH MISSES OUT!

This is my Crikey Blog following this article

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/21/waiting-for-ruddo-mental-health-misses-out-at-coag/#comment-69114

“Now that the rugby scrum of COAG is over and the dust is settling, it is becoming more clear that areas like mental health and aged care may not have done as well as advocates for these services would have liked. This process has been huge, and has been struggling to meet big goals. Despite what some commentators have said, the $5.4 billion is welcome in a system that desperately needs the money. The focus on increasing hospital beds is welcome if we are ever to get the pressure off Emergency Departments. But where are the extra doctors and nurses and allied health staff coming from to staff these beds - a very critical issue if we are to get better outcomes? And will these staff have sufficient skills to ensure quality of care?
Mental health advocates have every right to cry foul over this deal. Once again, mental health services have been treated as the poor relation. Is that because too much effort was put into taking advice from a small range of medical organisations throughout the process? Probably, I think. Governments and politicians must realise that health services are a complex, multi layered beast, and that there are many more professionals and professional organisations that should be consulted when changes are mooted . Community mental health teams in NSW are very run down and struggling along on minimal resources, doing the best they can. EDs are coping every day with mental health patients who should not be there, or not be there for as long as they are. Memo to politicians - mental health is just as important as physical health, perhaps even more so. Pay some attention to Ian Hickie and Patrick McGorry and the author of this article. Mental health services need more resources, now !!!”

NSW SAYS YES TO HEALTH REFORM

Keneally says 'I do' to Rudd's health deal

Emma Rodgers, ABC

April 20, 2010, 10:20 am

New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally is willing sign up to the Commonwealth's plan to overhaul the nation's health system, after extracting a range of concessions from the Federal Government.

After a meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this morning, Ms Keneally announced that NSW is willing to hand over a third of its GST to the Commonwealth so it can fund a 60 per cent takeover of public hospitals.

NSW Government sources say Ms Keneally approved the plan after Mr Rudd agreed to hand over $686 million to pay for implementation costs of the proposal.

It is also understood Mr Rudd has guaranteed that the GST funds are only spent on hospitals and that New South Wales gets a say in how the money is spent.

It is believed the funds will be put into some kind of state pool for distribution.

Sources say Mr Rudd will also allow for block grant funding for small rural and regional hospitals.

Ms Keneally's decision moves Mr Rudd closer to clinching a deal as Council of Australian Governments (COAG) talks begin for a second time today.

But he still faces major resistance from Victoria and Western Australia who are ignoring pressure to capitulate and allow the deal through.

Speaking before she went into the COAG meeting, Ms Keneally said the states and Commonwealth are likely to get an agreement today.

"We are in a position to be able to have the Commonwealth retain a third of our GST for direct funding of hospitals for NSW," she said.

"We have also been able to progress discussions with the Prime Minister and with the Commonwealth of the governance arrangements of a fund, as well as appropriate safeguards around the GST.

"It is in my view these things enable us to be in a position to support that the Commonwealth will retain the GST, but with these important safeguards in place and with the right governance arrangements around the operation of a fund."

The states have been arguing for a pooled fund to distribute Commonwealth and state funds to hospitals and today Ms Keneally urged resistant states to reconsider their position.

"I would just encourage all of us as first ministers to consider what's in the best interest of our states... but also what's in the best interest of national health reform," she said.

But Victorian Premier John Brumby and Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett are holding out on surrendering their slice of GST.

And Mr Brumby also wants more money on the table for hospital beds.

Fronting the media together before the COAG meeting started, the two said they were willing to put a third of their GST revenue into a funding pool.

Mr Brumby says he has shifted in his negotiating position by dropping his demand that hospitals funding be spilt evenly between the states and Commonwealth.

"We've given a bit. I hope the Prime Minister can give a bit," he said.

"I always said today would be harder. I think it's hard to tell actually how today will turn out."

Mr Barnett says they are offering the Prime Minister exactly what he wants.

"It is within the Prime Minister's grasp to achieve his reform very quickly," he said.