Australia

Kino Eye: My brilliant career

Long overdue in Kino Eye: a film from Australia. Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career (1979) was adapted from Miles Franklin’s novel of the same name, written in 1901 when Franklin was only 16 years old, and published in Britain by Virago in 1980. It tells the story of Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis), who lives on an isolated farm and dreams of becoming a writer. Her parents are not exactly overjoyed at this prospect and pack her off to board with their maternal grandparents, who they hope will make her see sense. She becomes close to Harry Beecham (Sam Neill), and he proposes, but Sybylla...

Pages from a militant life: No shop steward, no hope

Teamster shop stewards in the United States. But vast numbers of US workers have no union representation at all. The same in Australia, and the UK In my life as a working-class and trade-union activist [mainly in Australia], I guess I’ve usually been described by such words as “Oh, you know Bob, he’s a militant”. For me it’s a great badge of honour, however many in the trade union movement scorn genuine militants. Another description used by both employers and more than a few union crawlers: “Oh, Carnegie, he is belligerent”. To be honest up, until about a decade ago, that side of my nature...

Open up the labour movement to socialist and class struggle politics

Union leaderships, even the best of them, are keeping a lid on any controversial demands, or criticisms of the Labor government. There is plenty of scope for common cause between socialists in unions, and active delegates to organise support for demands that the labour movement should be making. Big picture demands, such as the right to strike, can guide opposition to the Government’s Fair Work amendments that make it even harder to take protected industrial action. By raising demands in union delegate meetings, conferences and decision-making bodies, and sharing opinions and stories between...

Workers Liberty newsletter #74 Summer 2022

Contents: Open up the labour movement to socialist and class struggle politics Labor’s budget overlooks the public Union rights and low incomes Delusions about Labor’s IR reforms Climate and the budget Pages from a militant life: Richer, and with more poverty After 18 Months, Striking Warrior Met Miners and Families Hold the Line Myanmar’s sham election plan

Pages from a militant life: Richer, and with more poverty

From my childhood and mid-teens, 50 or 60 years ago, to today, people have become significantly richer in material consumer goods in the stronger capitalist economies, and, in fact, in some ways, in weaker capitalist economies too. When I was 13 or 14, in the mid 70s, TV came to Australia on a large scale. Initially colour TV in the Carnegie household consisted of plastic coloured wrap on a black and white TV. Eventually dad bowed to family pressure and bought a colour TV on the never-never, slang for hire purchase, with quite high interest rates. In 1963, a black-and-white TV had cost ten...

Pages from a militant life: Life as a casual worker

Currently I’m a casual worker seeking employment in a few different areas, mainly the traffic control industry. The job conditions are mainly governed by what we call in Australia an award, fundamentally a legal document on the minimum standards of wages and conditions in a given industry. The award system in Australia dates back to 1907: over the last 30 years, awards have been overshadowed by Enterprise Agreements in numerous industries, yet millions of Australians rely on what we call “the award rate” to survive, keep a roof over their head, and feed and educate their families. I have...

Pages from a militant life: The suburbs from the 1980s to now

It’s 21:00 hours in suburban Brisbane on 6 October, and I’m working on a traffic-control job in Brisbane’s north west, in the suburb of Mitchelton where I have some of the strongest memories of my childhood. Mitchelton in the 1960s was a working-class suburb with numerous state-owned Housing Commission homes, all three-bedroom, built of wood, on 540 sq metre allotments. They certainly were not palaces, but they left enough room in the backyard to play a game of “backyard cricket” where one of the rules were if you hit a six over the neighbour’s fence you lost your wicket. Today, and from the...

Pages from a militant life: Halfway house on healthcare

I was by no means a sickly child but I got pneumonia each year from when I was two to seven. This meant trips up to the public hospital. I was usually given some physiotherapy and an injection of penicillin. I’ll try to explain to readers about the healthcare in Australia: the good, the bad and the average . When I was young, and before the election of the Hawke Government and the introduction of Medicare in 1983, apart from a brief period of Medibank in the Whitlam years 1973-1975, Australia had a system where if you could not afford a doctor you waited in the emergency room of the hospital...

Pages from a militant life: The paradox of the 1980s

Until I reached 11 or 12, the only takeaway food I can remember was fish and chips (lapsed Catholics) and very occasionally Chinese (my favourite dish was and is special fried rice). The rise of the giant convenience food companies began in the early seventies. Kentucky Fried Chicken (now KFC) and McDonald’s dominated. In my opinion, it was only really in the mid to late eighties that these companies became part of the common experience in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. KFC had a store not far from one of the places we lived when I was a kid. We only ever visited it on a couple of...

Pages from a militant life: Ten years since the QCH dispute

October 3 marks ten years since the dispute at the construction site for the Queensland Children’s Hospital was settled , except for the criminal contempt charges I was facing. The dispute lasted for 63 days and I proudly led it for the final 45 days after the organisers of the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU union were served injunctions which made their continued presence on the picket line difficulty to maintain. I was approached by CFMEU organisers and officials to take charge of the picket line. After meetings with CFMEU hierarchy I agreed to do it as a “community organiser...

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