Terrorists aren’t the real threat

‘We pledge to keep our country as safe and secure as we humanly can … I give you this assurance: As a country, we won’t let evil people exploit our freedom.”

Listening to Tony Abbott’s 14 February national address, the precursor to today’s national security statement, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an earlier, greater, more solemn and defining pledge.

It was in 1854. Peter Lalor, leader of the Ballarat Reform League, stood beneath the Eureka flag and swore an oath. He invited those present – poverty-stricken miners suffering under a callous authoritarian government – to pledge also: “We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties.”

It was greater because it was a call of the downtrodden for solidarity, a collective urging sacrifices for decency at least and at last. It was more solemn because those who made it knew that in so doing they were condemned in the eyes of the administration and would face the full force of colonial wrath. It was more defining because those who did stand truly set the bar for all future pledges, and inspired, despite if not because of their defeat, generation after generation of people who valued the ideals of freedom and democracy, and fought for their realisation.

I was reminded of this – one of this country’s greatest democratic events – ironically because the prime minister’s pledge was so contemptible, odious, duplicitous and cynical. His government is hell bent on demolishing the spirit of freedom and the democratic legacy that was built over generations. And here he stood delivering a sermon from his pitiless mount on Capital Hill about “bad people”, and not himself, being a “threat to our country”.

How galling.

Who is the threat to workers? There were 184 workplace deaths last year and 186 the year before. Not one employer responsible has been throttled, or even jailed. This government’s response instead was to launch, and extend in length, a multimillion dollar smear campaign, in the form of a royal commission, against trade unions. It has commissioned a productivity review, the aim of which is to make the case for getting rid of penalty rates and holding down the minimum wage, while the cost of living increases.

Who is the threat to the 800,000 unemployed, and the 1 million “underemployed” who can’t get enough work? What really keeps them up at night? Terrorism? That’s what Abbott would like, but no – it’s the fact that there aren’t enough jobs. It’s the below poverty dole and the onerous requirements to keep it. This government doesn’t want full employment – it wants cheap jobs, fat profits and a scrap heap for anyone who can’t get the former.

Who is the threat to the more than 100,000 homeless people around the country? Just the day before Christmas, this government defunded all three national peak bodies for housing and homelessness.

Who is the threat to pensioners? This government is trying to push down the real value of their payment, which is a pittance as it is.

Who is the threat to working class kids? This government aims to destroy finally Australia’s system of free universal health care, reduce parenting allowances and make higher education a lifelong debt sentence.

Who is the threat to Aboriginal people? This government has cut half a billion dollars in funding to Indigenous programs, including legal services.

And who was the threat to 22-year-old Indigenous woman Ms Dhu, who died in the South Hedland lockup last August? Or Mr Wallam, dead in Casuarina prison in October? Who was the threat to the more than 340 Aboriginal people who have died in custody nationally since the 1991 royal commission?

Who is the threat to democracy? At least one Liberal senator, Dean Smith from Western Australia, has publicly advocated that pro-austerity economists in the Parliamentary Budget Office should be able to overrule the programs of elected Australian governments if they deem that the latter are too generous.

Who is the threat to privacy? The government is pushing through with a plan to allow state security agencies to monitor anyone’s online communications. Every single keystroke. And retrospectively, for years.

This government, and the opposition that so often backs it, preaches freedom, democracy and fairness. This pledge is hollow, cover for a future of fear, poverty, desperation and insecurity, all in aid of giving a worthless government a mirage of strength and the rich a more pliant workforce.

The only defence from this Liberal future is a renewed pledge to stand truly by each other – in our unions, on the campuses and on the streets. That’s the other reason my mind was cast, away from the very real and grotesque voice of the PM, to the distant image of Eureka. Because our history shows that in solidarity we have strength.