Labor – ‘s budget for war

Logan city ain’t it pretty?
Logan city what a pity
That we’re livin’ south of the freeway

Rich up north … poor down south
Rich live up there in their expensive house
Livin’ south of the freeway
– Kev Carmody in Bloodlines

Handover of Just Peace letter* to Treasurer’s representative in Brisbane on Thursday, May 9, 2023.

My name is Ian Curr. I attended the office of the Federal Treasurer Dr. Jim Chalmers at Logan City on the ninth of May 2023. Logan City is part of Dr Chalmers electorate. On the day that the budget was read out by Dr Chalmers in the parliament. The Treasurer scored nearly 50% of the vote in Rankin in the last election in 2022. The Liberal National Party (LNP) scored 30%, and the minor parties scored the rest … most of those votes went to the Greens (10%). After preferences, Dr Chalmers received 60% of the vote.

I attended the hand-over of a letter from Just Peace Queensland, which is the Brisbane chapter of the Independent and Peaceful Australian Network (IPAN), a National Peace group, comprising many other groups. The meeting lasted 17 minutes.

The letter was signed by Mike Henry, who is a member of the Kelvin Grove branch of the Labor Party. With him was Annette Brownlie, who is a convener of Just Peace, and also President of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network. We went into a fairly modest office in Logan Central. It is a very safe Labor seat. Annette Brownlie pointed out that there are 26% of youth unemployed in Logan. We went to meet Brenton (Manager of Jim Chalmers Electorate Office) to handover a letter written by Mike Henry (Just Peace) opposing the military spend in the budget of 2023.

Brenton asked me if I would turn off my microphone. The four of us (AnB, MH, B and myself) were stuck in a locked entrance with an electronic alarm that was pushing the door into my back.

In Queensland, it used to be lawful for a person who is a party to a conversation to record that conversation … even though he does not have the consent of the other party. However the legislation has been amended that puts this in doubt:

“A person who, having been a party to a private conversation and having used a listening device to overhear, record, monitor or listen to that conversation, subsequently communicates or publishes to any other person any record of the conversation made, directly or indirectly, by the use of the listening device or any statement prepared from such a record is guilty of an offence against this Act and is liable on conviction on indictment to a maximum penalty of 40 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years.” See https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1971-050#sec.45

Under the current law, the only defence for publishing the recording is that it is ‘in the public interest.’ I was a party to the conversation that followed.

The discussion focused on the opposition to the AUKUS agreement on May Day 2023 and to the purchase of Virginia class attack submarines from the United States at a cost of $368 billion.

Annette Brownlie raised specific examples of opposition to the purchase of submarines. Down at Port Kembla and Wollongong, the South Coast Trades and Labour Council organised a protest about the amount of money being spent. Especially while the Australian Government is not spending enough on public housing.

Earlier in February 2023, there had been a meeting between Annette Brownlie as a representative of Just Peace and Brenton as a representative of the Treasurer. However Annette told Brenton that after she handed over the February letter (dated 24/2/23), that it was not even acknowledged, let alone replied to. Considering the substantive objection to AUKUS and the submarine deal by Just Peace , Annette Brownlie asked Brenton to convey the message that she wanted a person-to-person meeting with the Treasurer.

Annette simply requested a reply to the current letter (dated 9 May 2023) by Mike Henry. She also mentioned strong opposition to the submarine base being in Wollongong.

Ms Brownlie said that there’s a wind farm plan just outside of Port Kembla (a suburb of Woolongong), which is going to make it an unlikely spot for a location of this type of military infrastructure.

Brenton said it’s just one of those things. There will be opposition, no matter what the issue is, and he acknowledged the purchase as ‘a prickly topic’.

Annette retorted that if the submarine base is going to be in the Port of Brisbane that there will be massive popular opposition.

I asked Brenton if he had gauged any feedback from ALP branches. I told him that, on Labour Day, there was a person chanting “More workers housing, no submarines” as the ALP Branches contingent went by as part of the annual May Day celebrations. People wearing Jim-Chalmers T-shirts looked down and looked away, shamefaced when they heard the lone call. They did not wish to engage with the heckler on such an important issue.

Annette said she knew what would be in the budget, referring to the expenditure that is required to undertake such a massive military buildup.

Brenton replied, we wouldn’t be the Labor Party if there wasn’t some disagreement or other. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, he told us, there is always going to be people in the branches who are going to be expressing their views, whether it be on the AUKUS agreement, on housing, or on social services.

Brenton said that they had inherited the AUKUS agreement / submarine purchase from the previous LNP government. He said it’s one of those tricky ones, because internal disagreements don’t mean that we don’t have to make tough decisions. Because that’s what we’re doing tonight in the budget, he said, whether it’s popular or not. He added ruefully that Labor members never shy of letting them know their opinion. And it’s welcome, he said, be the opinions good, bad or ugly.

Annette Brownlie asked Brenton to share with his local branch members (in Rankin) that there are people here in Queensland, who are very concerned about the allocation of funds to AUKUS submarines, and the actual policies that lie behind them, including their shameful mis-allocation. Especially when we have tent cities popping up all over the country, she said, people who are working who cannot get into homes, that this is something that needs to be addressed immediately, not put off for some hope that we’re going to have the public housing built in 10 years time.

After the floods, when housing was made available to people who lost their homes, she said, why can’t that be happening now for people who are living in tents in Musgrave Park, and in the parks in his own electorate (Logan City). Brenton volunteered that people are living in garages in Rankin, and Annette said that it is a shameful thing that this is happening. It’s a third world kind of condition, she said.

Mike Henry told Brenton that he’s a member of the Labor Party in a progressive branch, the Kelvin Grove branch (KGB) at Newmarket. He said he was not exactly terrified, but he is very disturbed by the prospect of the Australian Labor Party having problems at the next election, based on the issues that he was concerned about, and that his branch was concerned about particularly the $368 billion spend on nuclear submarines. He was aghast at the amount of money and could not, despite looking, could not find where that money was coming from.

Mike said that the prospect of going to war with China was a very, very difficult thing, given the ramifications of such a war, which would devastate the economy of Australia. He said: “I’m very concerned. I want to keep the Labor Party in office for years and years to come.” He added that these issues will turn the electorate against them. He blamed the media for the scare mongering that is going on in the last five years about China being a threat.

He reminded Brenton that there’s no evidence of an attack from China, on Australia. In spite of that, we’re prepared to arm up and allow the United States military to come in and call this place their own and set up missiles for war, he said.

He added that it’s clear that China does not physically pose a threat to us.

I said we don’t want another Ukraine.

Surely people can see that it’s not a good way to go.

Brenton replied, Yeah, I don’t … and then he paused.

Annette said: ‘Here’s the letter (as she handed it across) that they had brought for the Treasurer. Brenton had been entering some notes on his phone or, possibly, texting. I’m not sure.

Annette told Brenton that it’s a letter from a local peace group, Just Peace, one of the organizations that make up the National Peace Network (IPAN). She asked if they could get some notification on this occasion, that the Treasurer had actually received the letter in his hand. She said that Mike Henry is one of the co-conveners of Just Peace and that’s why his signature is on the bottom, signed on behalf of the entire organization.

She said, ‘Look, we’d really appreciate it if you give your staff here, one of these leaflets that we handed out on Labour Day’.

And Brenton then said I wish I could say more. He said that he was tied down. But yes, certainly there are a lot of issues there. And a lot of things that they’re trying to address especially on the point of housing. He said that he wished we could get more sense out of what is going on down south in Canberra. We’re certainly trying to do stuff here in the electorate, he said, and it’s an issue that is close to all of their hearts, in the office and in the local region.

He said that we’re trying to do what we can in a very difficult set of circumstances.

Annette asked about interim housing so people are not just left sleeping out in tents with no toilets, no showers, nothing to cook on. A third world issue situation.

Brenton then opened up and said that politics these days has somehow gotten ridiculously over-complicated. He said that he took the point that the ALP is being ‘out-flanked on the left’, and that the emergence of the TEAL movement has thrown a spanner in the works.

He said that he was trying to do things, but that this made it very difficult. And he said, it’s very easy for TEAL independents to push for a particular agenda when they’re not going to be in a position to actually have to deliver it in government. He said that’s the predicament that the Australian Labor Party government faces.

“Labor – back to Methuselah: “Life is not meant to be easy under Albanese”

Annette then said quoting Malcolm Fraser said, ‘Life was not meant to be easy‘. Brenton didn’t like the implication because this was the Liberal party slogan in the disastrous 2022 election which Labor won. Mind you, Annette could well have been quoting the George Bernard Shaw play, Back to Methuselah: “Life is not meant to be easy“. Annette then said that the Labor Party is a working class party, that it identifies itself as being socialist, and the Labor Party needs to follow up these core issues, basic social justice, but that people are still being left behind. I was thinking Labor is about as far away from the working class as Bernard Shaw was from Irish Republicanism. She correctly stated: “it’s not good enough to be sideling up to the United States, in their adventurous efforts to stay on top of the world”.

Annette told Brenton that there’ll be more Greens, there’ll be more TEALs and that, if you think it’s hard now, come the next election, it’ll be even harder.

Brenton thanked us for being so easy to deal with. Annette thanked him saying we want to make sure that Dr. Chalmers has an opportunity to read the document. Annette then said that we were going to go outside and have a little talk to the people who were protesting outside.

We said our goodbyes and Brenton said ‘who knows when we will meet again’.

As the Queensland coppers always say in the witness box: “I have an independent recollection of the conversation held with the accused on that day; but I wish to refresh my memory by referring to my notes.” I therefore seek leave to the unedited recording of the events I made on that day.

Ian Curr
11 May 2023

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