One of the programs at the ALP National conference is called The Fringe. The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) is putting on an event on the first day of the conference. For the right to be inside the conference and not outside with the protest groups APAN paid $2,500 to the ALP. The idea is to counter the reactionary policies of the Labor Party regarding Palestine. I would not like to be in APAN’s shoes juggling all those different political positions. On the positive side, Labour Friends of Palestine (Brisbane) will have a stall inside the convention centre and we’ll be selling Palestine fair trade products as well as encouraging p to adopt more progressive policies regarding Palestine. For that privilege the LP charged them $500. So the Labor Party conference is a money making business. Former members of the QCE like Ernie Lane would be turning in his grave. But Ernie did warn us that you cannot make figs grow on barren trees.
The Australian Labor government refuses to recognise Palestine as a state so that it can stay on side with the United States government. From the get-go when apartheid was established in 1948, the Labor Party supported Israel, a state based on race. The Australian Labor Party has always protected the racist program of the apartheid state and there are a number of people inside the party who are still openly zionist.
Currently the ethnic community broadcaster in Brisbane 4EB which is supported by the Australian Labor government. 4EB has an openly racist program despite the station’s acknowledgement of Aboriginal Australia. 4EB is a member of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA).
Both 4EB and CBAA are in breach of the guiding principle of community broadcasting, namely: “Pursue the principles of democracy, access and equity, especially for people and issues not adequately represented in other media”.
Palestinians are not adequately represented in the media and yet a program openly hostile to the Palestinian people has prominence at community radio station 4EB. – Ian Curr, Ed., 1 Aug 2023.
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The ALP National Conference is coming up in Brisbane a few weeks, APAN will be hosting an event about Palestine as part of the Fringe program. The event is at 5pm on Thursday 17 August at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, featuring parliamentarians and union leaders who were recently on APAN and APHEDA trips to Palestine.
The event is open to the public, but to attend you do need to buy a ticket to Labor Fringe ($60/$30)m, which gives you access to all the other events too.
It would be great if we could have as many people come along as possible – to show how important justice for Palestine is to the community.
Speakers:
- Senator Louise Pratt, Labor Senator WA
- Danae Bosler, Chief of Staff at Victorian Trades Hall Council and AHEDA Committee of Management member
- Shayne Kummerfeld, Assistant National Secretary RTBU
- Andrew Isfree-Irvine, Media Officer, ETU QLD/NT Branch
- Mr Nasser Mashni, APAN President and Palestinian Australian
Links: find out more; buy Fringe program tickets.
Jessica Morrison
Executive Officer
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network
0431 519 577
Please note I work Mon-Thurs
Connect with APAN: Website |Join e-list | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
I acknowledge and pay respect to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation whose land I live and work upon. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
“It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.” – George Orwell in Down and out in Paris and London.
I attended a funeral yesterday in Wynnum (Aboriginal word for the fruit of the bread tree). Over 300 people turned up, many of them homeless. This was a tribute to Rosslyn who had decided the only way to understand homelessness was to become homeless. Some may consider this an extreme step. Some at the funeral pointed to her homelessness as being a significant factor in her dying at such a young age. Ros was born in 1956.
Rosslyn died as a result of complications from an asthma attack. This was the third severe attack she had had in the past year. It made friends and family very concerned for Ros ‘s health and safety.
One of the reasons so many people turned up to Ros ‘s funeral was that she was involved in three diverse organisations that touch the lives of ordinary people: (1) Rosies – Friends on the Street (2) Orange Sky Laundry (3) Committee to expose the public trustee.
There were many people at the funeral who had connections with these organisations. There were many homeless and ‘at risk’ people present. The priest at the funeral came from Logan City where Rosslyn had a flower farm and raised her two children. The priest had been the principal at their school. As Wynnum is becoming more gentrified, poorer people have been forced out to Logan city where the housing crisis is at its peak. The Australian treasurer, Dr Jim Chalmers, represents Rankin, the seat that covers Logan City in the federal parliament.
Even Dr Chalmers’ staff members lament the housing crisis in Logan City exacerbated by successive federal governments and their counterparts in the states. The main weapon against inflation is popularly understood as being the Reserve Bank raising rates of interest. However the main weapon being used against inflation has been the driving down of real wages and policies that increase unemployment. You will not hear economists saying the real reason for inflation is the exorbitant profits made by landlords and developers.
‘Greed is still good’ in the minds of the rich and those who represent them.
One avenue for people’s anger, currently being explored, is to protest the policies of the federal Labor government. However protest has its limitations. It is unlikely to have much affect on this government or any government that replaces it while the underlying causes of poverty, homelessness, and lack of public housing remain. Rosslyn was right to identify homelessness and exorbitant rent and mortgages as a dominant feature in the lives of ordinary people. Ros chose her path of how to fight this. When she was young Rosslyn won a Duke of Edinburgh award. I can’t see Ros’s kids now grown up getting a letter of condolence from the Duke, now King Charles III.
Ros ‘s friends laid these flowers outside her shop in Wynnum as a tribute to her.
Ian Curr
3 Aug 2023
We are a group of Pacific Islanders concerned about U.S. Countinuing Military Expansion in the Pacific region. As U.S. President Biden’s first-ever visit to Papua New Guinea, U.S. is continuing stepping up America’s aid and diplomatic presence in the Pacific since China struck a security deal with the Solomon Island but failed to forge a security and trade pact with 10 Pacific Island Countries. On this trip, Biden is expected to meet with more than a dozen Pacific leaders.
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