Down near the back of the annual May Day march, where the Labor Party contingent was, a lone voice from the footpath rang out: “Workers housing, not submarines“. I was holding up an Australia Cuba Friendship Society banner which read “End the US blockade on Cuba”. I could almost reach out and touch the shame on their faces as the small contingent of ALP true believers cast their eyes downwards.
No matter how the deal makers in the Labor Party cut it, their rank and file know that we should not be buying submarines. And they know also that the Labor Party has failed to provide adequate housing in a time of economic crisis. The construction boom and the profiteering is coming to an end. But neither Labor Queensland nor Labor Federal government have done nearly enough on public housing. On the way home on the train one of the Vintage Reds reminded me that it was Whitlam who provided affordable urban housing for working people in the cities.
I remember Tom Uren, a minister in the Whitlam government, stopped the north-east freeway going out through Bowen Hills in Brisbane. Then local government minister preferred housing to freeways. This is how the battle for Bowen Hills was won. Back in 1972, inner-city residents of Meanjin/Brisbane struggled against the Queensland Government’s plan to build a freeway that would destroy their community. They occupied public-housing owned by the Department of Main roads. The government used police to carry out the evictions. Scab labour was brought in to demolish houses right before people’s eyes. The residents ultimately won the battle. The freeway was never built. Unfortunately their victory came at a price, with the partial dismantling of their community in the process.
When we arrived at the Exhibition grounds in Gregory Terrace in Bowen Hills, we could see the tall buildings surrounding the old showgrounds built by the CFMEU workers. It is these workers who built our cities. So it is little wonder that the biggest contingent in the May Day march was the CFMEU (construction division).
For some reason the Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) does not consider a section of the march as being part of the unions and so allocated a space across the road from the showgrounds for what they called ‘community groups’. Included here were: Labor Friends of Palestine, Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, Vintage Reds, Solidarity, Socialist Alliance and the Brisbane Labour History Association. It wasn’t a bad spot, because a lot of the union members from the main pavilions brought their kids across the road to come to the kiddies rides. So adults and children mingled with lefties at their stalls displaying produce from Palestine, Labour History books and banners and leaflets opposing the AUKUS agreement over the submarines.
However there was a sour note at the end of the day when an officious manager from the Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) asked security to prevent vehicles from leaving. That person called police to take their vehicle number plates so that they could be fined for having vehicles on the site. She gave safety as her reason. There were some safety concerns but not from this crew. A security guard told me that someone had let three vehicles into Gregory Terrace from the top end near Bowen Bridge Road. These drivers had raced down the closed road where there were people crossing.
No matter what Prime Minister Albanese said in the showgrounds. his Labor government has done not anything to provide adequate affordable public housing. Albo was trying to put a left face on his government’s achievements in its first year in office, but it falls well short.
Only a week before May Day, on Saturday the 22nd of April, members of the South East Queensland Union of Renters (SEQUR), the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) joined with renters and organised a rally and march where speakers made demands of state and federal governments about the housing crisis.
Ian Curr
2 May 2023