From the Opening Plenary of the Now We The People conference, 23.8.03, University of Technology, Sydney

Doug Cameron

I recognise that we are here on Gadigal land and thank you for the welcome here this morning. The question was basically where are we heading with our social, political and environmental issues and what are the consequences of the US Alliance.

The first point I'd like to make is that we really don't need the help of the US to make some pretty dumb decisions in this country. The way we have the US neo-conservatives on top of our own dumb politicians - that is a very dangerous path we are on. I'm not anti-American. I've got many fine comrades in the American trade union movement who are fighting very tough fights against the worst aspects of the market and of capitalism in the United States. But I certainly am anti-Bush, anti-Rumsfeld, anti the Pentagon and its push for international dominance.

These are key issues for the left within Australia. It is no use being whingers, as the Australian saying goes - I've learnt that over 30 years in Australia and I've even got the accent to say it properly.

We have to analyse the social, economic and environmental issues. The analysis is important - that is why we are here. But after the analysis, we need to identify the problems and to develop an alternative strategy. We just can't continue to go out there and say: 'these are the problems' without a strategy to deal with them.

Our union has an old saying: educate, organise and control. We need to educate, organise and intervene to start controlling the agenda and debate on a whole range of areas throughout Australia, otherwise we will fail against this onslaught of neo-classical economics theory and neo-cons who have such a strong position in Australia.

We need policies for industry, for jobs, for nation-building. But the road for progressive people is long and tough and we can't just say that we are going to suddenly find the answers and everyone is going to follow us in.

I talked to Eric Aarons before the start this morning. If anyone has had a long tough battle of ideas and arguments, Eric has, and he's still playing a major role. I hope that I can play the role that Eric's playing when I am of Eric's mature years in the future.
The issue for us is the US Alliance and the US Free Trade Agreement. I just don't want Australia to be a Pacific staging post for US corporate dominance. I don't want Australia to be the Deputy Sheriff for the Bush Administration and the Pentagon. I don't want our economy Americanised. I don't want our culture Americanised. I don't want egalitarianism destroyed. I don't want to see Australia's values and unique culture and our defence assimilated with American policies. I don't want to see Australia the 51st State of America.

I certainly don't want Australia to fulfill want the United States wanted some 30 years ago, and that is the 'Pacific Rim' strategy, where Australia is relegated to being a supplier of primary produce and minerals.

I certainly don't want Australia to fulfill the vision of Hugh Morgan, soon to be the President of the Business Council of Australia - you know, a mining magnate arguing for more labour flexibility. He bizarrely argues that more labour flexibility will create more jobs and more wealth, and we can then spend more on defence! That was his thesis in the Financial Review the other week.
We all see what happened in the media during the Iraq conflict. We saw what Fox did. I don't want an increased 'foxing' of the Australian media. It is bad enough as it is. I don't want a false nationalism. I don't want insecurity to be a byword for Australians. I don't want more fear and loathing, more brainwashing. I don't want us seen as rugged individuals, I want no more lies and misrepresentation defended as being in the 'national interest'. What an oxymoron is that!

I certainly don't want any more of the new McCarthyism that is happening. We have to stand behind Andrew Wilkie, a brave, determined individual who has made a significant sacrifice in the interests of truth and a better Australia. We throw platitudes around pretty easily about 'great Australians' - you wouldn't wipe your arse with some of the 'great Australians'. But Andrew Wilkie is a great Australian, keep up the good work mate, we are really behind you.

We should also be behind the Greens. It is ridiculous that the Greens are taking progressive stands on a range of issues for Australians and Labor politicians are treating them as if they don't exist. That has to stop. They are a legitimate, effective and growing part of the political voice in Australia and we welcome that. It is about bloody time.

Much of these problems we have in Australia is without the proposed US Free Trade Agreement. Just imagine what it will be like when our medical system is under attack, our education system is simply one where you get what you can afford for your kids. Look at our industrial relations system with Qantas.
This firm was built by the Australian public. We helped put James Strong and the corporate board of Qantas where they are today. They have set about to destroy that company in a way that would never have been contemplated when the Australian people agreed to establish and fund an Australian airline. We are going to fight those bastards, we are going to fight them all the way. There is going to be disruption to the Australian flying public. But this is a line in the sand. We are not going to accept these guys voting themselves multi-million dollar increases in their bonuses, while they tell the workers that they are casualised, they are contracted out, you are not important to Qantas. We are going to fight that.

When the history of the Howard government is written, its epitaph will be 'mean and tricky'. They wrote that epitaph themselves, and they are nothing different now. They have abandoned Australia's sovereignty. We have going to have a harder, meaner, more Americanised society and we are going to have to deal with that.
Identifying the problems is easy, but developing the alternative strategy and setting off on that journey is the hard part. We have to work more strongly - and Now We the People is showing the way - to develop a new alliance between unions, community groups, brave individuals like Andrew Wilkie and the political parties that are here.

No matter how many editorials, vilification, McCarthyism, we must stand tough and united. Every editorial against me in the Australian and the Financial Review means that my members know I am doing a good job. We must stand tough and united. There has to be more cooperation between the Greens and Labor. They must be seen as natural allies in defence of Australian people. That has to happen. It can't happen unless Labor returns to its core values. We will need the Left in the Labor Party to abandon personality conflict and to provide real focus for policy development and differentiation within the Labor Party. That is a major issue for the revival of the Labor Party - the revival of the Left in the Labor Party. We need differentiation on tax, trade, health, education, industrial relations, welfare, indigenous rights, gay and lesbian rights and nation-building. What an agenda for progressive people to pick up!

And we have good people in the Left of the Labor Party who should be dealing with that in a serious way and stop worrying who is going to be the next Shadow Minister. I don't care who is going to be the next Shadow Minister, I want them in as Ministers and doing a job for the Australian public.

The issues for us here are to develop a strategy, develop the policies, build an alliance across the whole community. We have to educate, organise, intervene, control - and we can do it.

Doug Cameron is the National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and Vice-President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions

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