call a the lid off the situation.
The Australian Labour Party was clected to office in December 1972 after 23 years of uninterrupted rule by the conservative Liberal-Country Party coalition. It promised vastly increased expenditure on the social services, health, education, etc, and also pledged to increase productivity in the over-protected private sector by lowering tariff barriers and thus increasing competition.
HEAVY DOSE
To these promises was added a heavy lighting the increasing penetration of overseas capital in the Australian economy, Labour campaigneu on a stogan of 'Australia for the Australians" and promisca to buy Australla back.
In its first 12 months the Whitlam Government was able to consolidate its working class base by implementing several parts of its programme. Pensions were mcreasca, colar Day lor women was granted in ramament (and to some extent in reality), wages rose faster than the cost of living, and public spending rocketed. But in mid-1974, Australia entered its worst recession since the donation of £20.
every other city and town can smash the £500 target.
of currency will do - just make sure we get it Australian workers and students in strikes, demonstrations and rallies throughout the country.
depression years of the 1930s-and Labour's programme crumbled.
The building industry collapsed. The Lene muusury went une same way. as the lowering of tariffs produced a flood or cheap pors me car dusty acyc Loped serious problems, with British Leyland closing down its Australian plant. Only the beer manufacturers avoided serious cutbacks in production.
Unemployment rose rapidly towards the 300,000 mark in a matter of months, in a country that has experienced full employment for most of the last 25 years. Increases in government spending Tuchce hauon so mar it soon roachec 20 per cent. In this situation the Labour Government adopted a solution taminat to British workers a 'social contract' which would make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis.
In return for the establishment of a rootless body to momtor bree mercases me covernment gor me support or te trade union bureaucracy in forcing through an incomes policy in the form of a wage indexation scheme. Wages rise automatically each quarter, adjusted to rises in the consumer price index. Since wages only go up after paces, on tae basis or an THAT'S BETTER!
Last week's appeal did find a response. Liverpool sent in £16.50, Coventry £10, Bristol E1.50, Hull E7, Portsmouth E3, and Huddersfield E4. We also got an anonymous That has not got us over the hill - but it is an excellent start. It shows what can we nave recovered trom a bac start and the ball is rollin up to you to increase its speed. Remember the address: Red Weekly Fund Drive, 182 Pentonville Road, London, N.1. Cheques, postal orders, pound notes, any form index weighted against the working class, this produces a gradual but significant cut in workers' living standards.
cess in implementing this policy -after a record stuke wave In the HIse Lared months of 1974, when 2½ million workme cays were los an was not wet wE! the ALP. It was increasingly evident that on ack or oramsalon and Donuca! direction was holding back the opposiHon or Lousands of minans to wate indexation. The most recent indication or this came aurug ums year s metalwor kers' wage campaign, when the leadership's recommendations were only narrowly carried at mass meetings.
SHARPENING the left-right divisions inside the ALP. The left wing opposed the rightward shift of government policy; but because of their failure to take the struggle outside Parliament they were defeated. and left-wing cabinet ministers were sacked. out me worst was verto come It is ironical that the opposition parties did not block the budget-thus producing the present crisis-because they disagreed with it. In fact they nougue i was rcasonabic paracular. the cuts in government spending and the subsidies for the private sector. They BREAK Australian Trotskyists on the march against ruine cidss orenSive LIU!
But in spite of the Government's sucThis period also saw a sharpening of clalmed that they would not pass une budget because the Government was incompetent and deceiving the people, and their evidence was the Great Loan AUStrala Has VasE muCrar ECsourCes but lacks the capital to exploit them. In an entort to keep Australla of the Aust ralians, two cabinet ministers attempted to obtain loans from Arab billionaires using shady middle-men. The affair was more of a B grade melodrama than a great scandal, but it appears to have been a carefully orchestrated plan by the Australian bourgeoisie and the LiberalCountry party- with perhaps the help of the CIA-to discredit the Government and remove it from office.
ne outan reasons averare cer tainly not the only ones. Federal elections were not due until the middle of 1977, and this would have given the Government time to call an election when an anticipated economic recovery would have improved the chances of its re-elecPRESSURE The conservative parties were also under strong pressure from the Australian bourgeoisie, who recoiled from their brief flirtation with Whitlam as they saw their profits declining. Their hurried moves TO DusA Labour our or once expressCu d primitive and somewhat short-sighted class tenex, pernaps renecting the crisis or bourgeois political leadership- Fraser is the third opposition leader in as many Certainly, whatever the GovernorGeneral's motives for sacking Labour, A picket outside the public entrance to A Us mala House n me Stand wilDe held on Monday 24 November from 12 to 2 p.m. to protest the frame-up trial of Denis Walker, a leading black militant, Lionel Lacey (Fogarty), a young black porter of the black movement. On that way cummar nearings wal recommence on charges against them of attempting to obain the services orme men president of the University of Queensland Union with threats. If convicted, they face up to 14 years in jail.
This is no ordinary criminal trial, but Dan or me Austan rule class s con sistent attempts to destroy the black and working class movement in Australlaattempts that are very much in evidence at the present time. All three militants were leading a campaign to abolish the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait sanders acts. an extreme racist piece of legislation that compares unfavourably with South Africa's apartheid laws. the prospects for the Liberal-Country Party are not too good. If they win the elections, the social contract will be destroved and they will have to battle with a militant and well-organised working class. If they lose, they will be racked by further inner-party dissension and it will be some time before they can once more present themselves as a viable political force.
The ALP leaders are in a contradictory position. They did not expect the spontaneous mobilisations of workers and students that followed the blocking of the budget, and they have every reason to fear them. Bob Hawke, president of both the Australian Council of rade nons and the All, appealed to the workers to stay calm, saying: We are on the verge of something terrible, and it is important for the unions to respond to leadership."
Whilst only the active support of the working class can return a Labour Government, this activity threatens the very basis of the class-collaborationist social contract as the trade union bureaucrats feel the heat turning on them. It also shatters ine Labour rarty s cram to be a respon sible (bourgeois) party.
The working class still has many illusions in the Labour Party. But the present heightened feeling of working class power creates many possibilities for revolutionary propaganda and agitation. While defending the Labour Government against attacks by the ruling class, the Australian Trotskyists will use this opportunity to expos the fraud of bourgeois democracy, putung forward demands and forms o. struggle that lead une working class to understand that the only solution to the crisis is workers' power.
LIONEL LACEY The campaign in defence of the three is gaining wide support. The Brisbane Trades and Labour Council passed a resolu tion that the charges be dropped. Support has come from the Federal Counci of the Miners Federation and the president or me Austran CouncE oe rade Unions, Bob Hawke. Demonstrations have been held in Tokyo and Hong Kong, and support has come from New Zealand Maoris and students unions. A picket held in London on 14 August was given good TV and press coverage in Australia and was greatly appreciated by the three.
The demonstration is being organised by "The Committee in Defence of the Brisbane 3'. For further information write to: PO Box 60, 197 Kings Cross A 1,000 strong demonstration in solidar ity with the struggle of the Spanish working class against the dictatorship took place in condon last saturady Delegations came from all across the country to this demonstration, called by the Action Group against Repression in Spain and the 'Iberian 19" Defence Com mittee. Among the speakers were Ernie Roberts, AUEW Assistant General Secre tary, and a Hull docker.
While the demonstration was not the
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Subscribe RALLIES NEEDED TO → LIBERALS The most remarkable thing about Australia's constitutional crisis has been the direct action of
For months the Labour and trade union leaders had prevented any major outburst against rising unemployment and the effects of skyrocketing inflation by arguing that any attempt to rock the boat could well dislodge the Labour Government. Now the sacking of that Government has taken
LEAGUE SYBINGT -BRANCH
SPANISH SOLIDARITY DEMO WEEKLY
PROTEST FRAME-UP TRIAL OF BLACK MILITANTS