The recent death of a motorcyclist in the north Queensland city of Townsville after being hit by a vigilante chasing a stolen car has once again focussed attention on law and order in the state’s north.
The Murdoch-owned local paper, the Townsville Bulletin, dubbed the city “Crimsville” back in 2015, calling it Queensland’s “undisputed crime capital”, subject to a “youth crime wave”. According to the media, residents continue to be under siege, afraid to go out of their homes as the city is “terrorised” by “youth gangs”.
But according to Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope, there is no youth crime wave. He told the ABC last July, “The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that youth crime in this state has been falling pretty much consistently for the last 10 years”.
Townsville Indigenous elder Dr Gracelyn Smallwood also believes the youth crime wave narrative has been exaggerated by politicians, police, residents and media outlets, and has a racist element. Speaking to the Guardian in September, Dr Smallwood said the police are “always stereotyping black children ... They’re charging kids stealing a boiled lolly and a can of Coke”.
But this hasn’t stopped the Palaszczuk government announcing a number of punitive measures, including reversing the presumption of bail for serious indictable offences, giving courts the power to compel 16-year-olds to wear GPS trackers as a condition of bail, strengthening anti-hooning laws and providing police with metal detectors to use when searching people. This is on top of laws passed last June that deny bail to repeat offenders.
The impact of these measures is greatest on Indigenous young people: the government’s own data from 2018 revealed almost two-thirds of children kept in watch-houses are Indigenous, despite making up only about 5 percent of the population. A May 2019 report by the public guardian, Natalie Siegel-Brown, detailed the abuse of children as young as 10 in watch-house detention, who were “caged like animals in concrete pens”. She told ABC’s Four Corners, “I have ... seen with my own eyes children who are cold, who are hungry, who haven’t accessed any real outdoor air for two weeks or more, and who have little or no access to education”. The report emphasised that none of the children had been convicted of a crime but were being held on remand.
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government continues to force young people into this system. In the 2020 state election campaign, she promised more police for Townsville, Cairns and Mt Isa. Last September, Operation Sierra Silhouette was launched by the police to coincide with the school holidays, resulting in the arrest of at least five young people in Townsville. The proposed GPS tracking devices will be rolled out first in north Brisbane, Moreton, Logan, Townsville and the Gold Coast—all areas that are home to large numbers of Indigenous people, have higher than state average rates of youth unemployment and are disproportionately poor (except the Gold Coast).
The opposition LNP has also pushed tough on crime policies, including the introduction of boot camps, enforced remote farm stays and mandatory detention for repeat offenders. In the lead-up to the 2020 state election, with three marginal Labor-held seats in the Townsville area, then LNP leader Deb Frecklington visited Townsville regularly, vowing to introduce a curfew for children under 17 and fines for parents whose children breached the curfew.
This is the same LNP which, back in 2017, was supposedly so concerned about the welfare of children and young people being exposed to the anti-bullying Safe Schools program aimed at educating young people about inclusivity and gender and sexual difference. The Safe Schools program was “based on ideology, not on protecting kids and building stronger families”, according to the LNP leader at the time. Apparently, none of the same concern for young people and their families applies when it comes to Indigenous children being locked in cages without bail for weeks on end, based on no hard evidence that crime is increasing.
Not surprisingly, the hyped-up law and order atmosphere has fuelled violent vigilantism. Last September, the ABC accompanied a Townsville local on a “scenic drive”—a euphemism for residents patrolling Townsville’s streets at night searching for “suspicious youths”. That night, the local abused two young boys who were simply riding bikes, and told the reporter he has also intercepted young people in cars and in some cases gave them a “good flogging”.
This is also reflected on social media. One particular Facebook page, called the Townsville Crime, Alerts &amp; Discussions, has 47,000 members, more than a quarter of Townsville’s population. A 2017 study titled “Social media, vigilantism and Indigenous people in Australia” by criminologist Professor Chris Cunneen described such pages as helping to “produce and reproduce a racialised narrative of crime, which at the same time has the effect of legitimating violence against [young] Indigenous Australians”. The article cites a 2017 post as an example: “Dirty low life. We don’t want this type of vermin in our town. About time they are hunted once and for all”.
Ironically, it was the actions of a vigilante that caused the death of motorcyclist Jennifer Board and unleashed this latest wave of law and order drum beating. Yet it will be young and Indigenous people who will pay the price, not dangerous racist thugs.
“What we will have now is police arresting children, putting them in prison, and that’s going to be the only answer”, argues prisoner advocate and CEO of Sisters Inside, Debbie Kilroy, speaking recently to the ABC. “[W]e’re going to be pushing [young people] further to the margins ... the crackdown [will] help cement a cycle of traumatised children who will be pipelined into adult prisons.” The consequences of these measures will indeed be terrible and long lasting.

Kaye Broadbent

Queensland: racist one day, police state the next

Scabby the Rat might have moved on, but the flags and booming music make it clear that the electrical union’s picket outside OI Glass in Brisbane’s south is still going strong 11 weeks after it began. All 17 Electrical Trades Union workers in the company remain on strike and intend to stay out until they get their pay rise and management agrees to formalise their existing conditions.
The manufacturing workers’ union, which was part of the picket when it started, has since accepted in principle a draft agreement from the company, and its members are back at work. The electrical union, by contrast, is holding out for the 3 percent pay rise workers are demanding. As Troy, a delegate who has been on the picket every day, said to Red Flag: “It’s the principle, we just wanted the same pay rise as the minimum wage”.
OI Glass, a large multi-national company based in the US, raked in $2.62 billion profit in Australia between 2013 and 2017, but paid no tax. Its attitude to the workers is the same as to tax. According to Brad, an OI Glass workers, the company “don’t see us as assets. We’re not assets to them, we’re liabilities. In some meetings it was like some of the people in the meetings were having to pay [the wage increase] out of their back pocket”.
It has been a long picket and it has taken a financial toll on the striking workers, but solidarity remains strong. For Darren, who has worked at OI Glass for six years, the strike has been about “doing the right thing, the company’s not doing the right thing, it’s more about principle than money to me, it’s about time they give their workers something. They don’t seem to like to look after their workers too much. They are trying to take our conditions. I’ve been through two enterprise bargaining agreements and both times we got very little out of it, so it’s about time they gave us something decent. It’s time to show them we’re not just a number, we’re the ones that actually keep the place going”.
The strikers have been overwhelmed by the community and union support they have received. Troy and his coworkers acknowledge the importance the picket has not only for them but for the broader union movement. “We know we’re like a stepping stone for future disagreements”, he says, “and want to show other members and other people that you can stand up and fight”.

Glass factory strike enters 12th week

Those of us who arrived early at Queensland state parliament to participate in the “Day of Rebellion” for the climate on 6 August were treated to a beautiful, crisp and sunny Brisbane morning. Our purpose was to draw attention to the global climate crisis and its destructive impact on humans, fauna and the environment through mass civil disobedience.
As the 7.30am start time approached, numbers swelled to about 350. Colourful outfits, banners and flags were dotted throughout the crowd, and we were soon chanting at the top of our lungs. There were high school students, university students, young workers and plenty of older folk.
After a few speeches we marched off chanting. “Strike, occupy, shut it down, tear the system to the ground” reverberated through the city. When we arrived at premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s office, we sat down and peacefully occupied the road, all the while singing, chanting and listening to speeches. 
The Palaszczuk government has so far ignored the mass mobilisations, road occupations and other actions against climate change and the Adani coal mine, clearly hoping opponents of the project would go away or give up. This time was different. 
Soon after we occupied the road, cops moved in and made arrests. They were hoping to intimidate us, but we continued chanting and singing to show we would not be deterred from our peaceful protest. 
During the arrests they cleared us off the road and forced us into a nearby plaza. Here a range of groups had set up marquees and platforms for speeches. There was an open mic, music, dancing, workshops and discussions. This was our protest base until the early afternoon. It was a lively, festival-like atmosphere and our numbers continued to grow as buses brought people from as far afield as Lismore, Byron Bay and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
With larger numbers we tried to re-occupy the road, but again the police cracked down and made arrests. They pushed us on to the foot path, but we continued to chant and give speeches for more than an hour.
Elsewhere in the city, other groups of protesters peacefully occupied different city intersections. They were treated in the same heavy-handed way by the Labor government’s police. The media reported police arrested 72 protesters, the largest number of people arrested at a demonstration in Queensland since 1985.
In that year, the conservative Bjelke-Petersen government was involved in a dispute with workers at the South East Queensland Electricity Board after the government backed the electricity board’s sacking of more than 1,000 linesman. Notorious for outlawing and repressing dissent, Bjelke-Petersen’s police arrested 96 people at the protests to support the sacked and striking electricity workers. 
With future acts of civil disobedience around the climate crisis promised, the Palaszczuk government looks set on rivalling the hated Joh for thuggery and repression. But if the Day of Rebellion is anything to go by, climate activists won’t be easily intimidated. More defiance like this is needed to inspire others to take up the fight for the planet and humanity’s future and to push aside governments that stand in our way.

Mass arrests at climate protest in Brisbane

Kaye Broadbent in Brisbane
The O-I Glass workforce started a week of industrial action on Monday 15 July, establishing a picket outside the South Brisbane factory. Their action was in response to management’s belligerence in negotiations for a new agreement. 
O-I Glass is a US-based multinational that manufactures nearly 98 percent of glass containers in Australia. If you drink beer or soft drink from a bottle, chances are it’s made by workers at O-I Glass. It has sites in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane, where it has been producing glass bottles for more than 100 years.
The factory operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with some of the more than 200-strong workforce having worked there for more than 30 years – as electricians, maintenance workers and factory operators. Over the decades, workers have fought for and gained important conditions including overtime pay, heat and dirt allowances and confined space allowances, some on the basis of handshake agreements. 
More recently, the workers have tried to formalise and protect their conditions by securing industrial agreements, but management has resisted. As one maintenance worker told Red Flag, “We know we have good conditions because we’ve fought for them, but management is not honouring these conditions”. During negotiations, workers were told that they could pick five of their existing conditions for management to consider formalising. 
Heat exposure is a particularly serious issue because workers constantly deal with molten glass. Despite management proclaiming its commitment to safety, one electrician observed, “When safety issues are raised, management says it’s too hard”.
Management is refusing to speak to the striking workers. All 60 maintenance workers voted against management’s proposed agreement when it was put to them.
Since the strike began, production has been severely reduced, with mechanical problems causing delays and product quality affected. The strike will continue for at least a week. Pickets have so far been lively, and visits from Scabby the Rat and toots from passing motorists show the striking workers have a lot of support.
----------
Cameron Rowe in Melbourne
Melbourne’s Bourke Place boomed with chants of “Pay your taxes, pay your workers” and “Michael Brown, you’re a clown, come on down” on 25 July. 
O-I Glass workers haven’t had a pay increase in seven years, while the director of operations, Michael Brown, “earns” a salary of $11 million and travels on a private jet. Needless to say, Brown didn’t come down to address workers’ demands. 
The picket of 40 workers and officials from the electrical and manufacturing unions outside the company’s head office was the latest action by workers in Melbourne. They have also imposed overtime bans and held a series of one-day strikes. 
A worker from the company’s Spotswood plant commented, “We’re skilled workers! We make every step in production happen, and the bosses like to pretend it’s not true. They want to imagine we’re robots”. I’ve found the level of respect shown to workers by their employers correlates directly with the level of organisation, solidarity and industrial power. O-I Glass workers know this very well and have more actions planned.

Cameron Rowe

Glass workers: ‘We’ve had enough’

The website of Earle Haven Aged Care boasts that the Gold Cast facility is accredited and provides care of a high standard. But in early July, 70 of its elderly residents were dumped in the car park and assisted by only a few staff after the facility abruptly closed.
What caused this disaster? A contract dispute between two corporations: People Care, the aged care provider, and the HelpStreet Group, the subcontractors providing nursing, catering and administrative services at the facility. The residents, many of whom suffer from dementia, have been caught in the middle. 
Federal minister for aged care and senior Australians Richard Colbeck told Hospital Health he found it “simply outrageous that a contract dispute could escalate to the situation that it did”. But why would he be surprised at this outcome? He presides over an aged care system in which profits come first and cost-cutting is the order of the day.
Australia’s state expenditure on long term care is 1 percent of GDP. That is nearly half the OECD average. And the government plans $1.5 billion in budget cuts over the next four years. 
Of the remaining funding, much goes to subsidise for-profit companies. For-profit aged care has grown to take up about a third of the total industry, and it’s heavily dependent on state funding. A 2018 Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation report revealed that the six major for-profit providers received more than $2.17 billion in taxpayer subsidies – almost three-quarters of their annual revenue. 
There are meant to be limits. To continue receiving subsidies, facilities are accredited and re-accredited regularly by the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency. But when accredited facilities are dumping residents in car parks, we are left to wonder how rigorous this process is. 
The aged care sector in Australia is socially important: in 2018, 200,000 older people were living in residential care. It’s also big business, generating annual revenues of around $22 billion and annual profits of $1.7 billion. So the system is working for some.
 For-profit providers don’t just get massive handouts. They’re often major tax cheats. A recent report from the Tax Justice Network Australia and the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research found that private aged-care providers routinely practise “aggressive tax minimisation strategies”: sheltering money in offshore tax havens, concealing their corporate structures and failing to file statements with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Living in a residential aged care facility is expensive. But that money seems more likely to end up in offshore tax shelters than in staff wages. Earle Haven staff had not been paid superannuation for eight months at the time of the scandal. No laws govern staff-resident ratios, so facilities are frequently understaffed.
As Beth Mohle of the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union commented: “On the day the Earle Haven closure occurred, only one registered nurse was rostered on to care for 68 residents ... The union has repeatedly called on the federal government to stop the pain, suffering and premature deaths of elderly Australians due to understaffing and the dangerous under-regulation of Australian private aged care”.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has heard that $7 a day per resident is allocated for food, which compromises quality and quantity. Residents are sometimes left hungry. A staff member working in dementia care told the Guardian:
“Under our funding and management models they [dementia residents] are seen as a task, not as a person ... The carers are doing the best they can, but under the pressure of having to provide care for so many people within such a small timeframe, there is just not the time to make dementia patients feel at ease.”
Aged care shouldn’t be run for profit. Aged care needs a massive boost in funding, so that staff have the time and resources to care adequately for residents. But that funding shouldn’t be padding the accounts of for-profit tax-dodging private corporations. Instead, we should be massively increasing corporate taxes to fund high-quality public aged care, where staff have the pay and conditions they need, and patients are treated with respect and dignity.

Australia’s aged care hell at Earle Haven 

More than 120 people attended a rally to support 12 union members locked out by their employer, Langports Language College, on 24 May in Brisbane. The workers were locked out for 24 hours for wearing badges which read “3Rs: Reward, Respect, Recognise”.
Langports is a family-owned Australian company whose main business is providing English language classes to international students. Speakers described how management insists it respects staff because it “gives them birthday cards”. Yet three years ago the company cut wages. This action forced angry staff to form a union, and for the past 12 months they have been trying to negotiate their first union agreement.
In addition to the three Rs, the workers’ demands include fair pay for marking and preparation for both permanent staff and casuals, and a dispute resolution process. 
Langports seems to enjoy locking out its workforce. In April one staff member was locked out for five days for wearing a denim jacket. This decision was subsequently overturned by the Fair Work Commission. 
In protest against management’s heavy-handedness, staff started wearing the 3Rs badges. In response management locked out all union members for 24 hours. When staff asked why they’d been locked out management replied, “Because we can”.
Staff have since been advised that there is a new uniform policy and they can wear denim only once a month and only on a day approved by management. For the privilege, furthermore, staff are expected to make a donation to the employer-run Langports Foundation to assist disadvantaged children.
Mark, a teacher, read out statements from many of the locked-out teachers. They expressed feeling “dehumanised because we were locked out for wearing a badge” and “underappreciated for all the extra work I do”. Teachers with extensive English language teaching experience are struggling to survive on the graduate teacher wages, while casual teachers are saying, “The pay is so low I have to work three jobs to support my family”. 
Others commented that the “lockout forces us to choose between our students and our working conditions”. More than 20 students were present with signs expressing support for the teachers.

Language teachers locked out for wearing badges

Henoko, a small seaside town in Okinawa, has for months been the site of daily demonstrations against the construction of a new US military base.
On 14 December, private contractors hired by the Japanese government were to begin the final phase of building an offshore airstrip by filling in Oura Bay with dirt and rocks. The protesters are focused on the damage to the marine environment and local fisheries that will result. 
According to a recent editorial in Japan’s Asahi newspaper, “More than 5,800 species of living things, including 262 endangered species, have been confirmed to inhabit Oura Bay off Henoko. It should not be forgotten that the dumping of earth and sand would cause immeasurable damage to this fertile sea”.
The proposed base, which is a relocation of an existing Marine base at Futenma, was first announced in 1996 to diffuse anger over the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl in Okinawa by three US Marines. But a referendum at the time revealed 89 percent of Okinawans wanted a reduced military presence and a review of the Henoko relocation plan. 
Since 2014, candidates opposing the construction of the base have been elected to local councils. In 2017, the Okinawa local assembly voted unanimously for a resolution calling for the removal of all US Marines from the island. Last year, the Abe government’s preferred candidate in the gubernatorial elections, a fierce advocate of the new base, was defeated by 70,000 votes. And in August, 70,000 Okinawa residents and supporters protested against the presence of US bases but particularly the relocation and construction of the base from suburban Futenma to Henoko.
A second referendum is to be held in February, and it is expected that opposition to the base relocation will remain high.
The Okinawa Peace Network of Los Angeles reports that, since 1972, about 4,700 crimes have been committed by US military personnel in Okinawa. 
The US has stationed troops in Okinawa since the 1950s. US concern with the USSR and “containing communism” meant Japan and especially Okinawa gained greater military significance. The US embarked on a huge base construction program. While the majority of Okinawan landowners refused to give up their holdings, bulldozers were moved in, stealing the land.
The US military controlled Okinawa until 1972, when it once again became Japanese territory. Article nine of Japan’s post-war constitution states that Japan renounces war and will not have its own military – but this did not rule out a continued US presence. 
Okinawa has more than 30 US military installations and nearly half of the 50,000 soldiers stationed in Japan. 
Successive US governments have reaffirmed their determination to maintain bases in Japan and Okinawa. And the Japanese ruling class is keen for the US to remain, particularly as a bulwark against China. 
But the commitment and tenacity of the Okinawan people and their supporters should not be underestimated. It has been a long fight, but they are determined not to be cowed by the US military or pressure from the Japanese government.
Recently, one veteran protester was quoted in the Asia-Pacific Journal as saying: “No matter how much they bully us, we will never change. I’m going to keep up the fight until I drop. And I’m in this fight with the intention of winning”.

Okinawa continues resistance to US bases

Queensland senator Fraser Anning was the only parliamentarian to turn up to a fascist demonstration in Melbourne in early January. Organised by leaders of the far right white supremacist group United Patriots Front to “reclaim St Kilda” from “African gangs”, the protest, which included people doing Nazi salutes and displaying Nazi paraphernalia, was the latest attempt to whip up racist hatred towards the African community.
Anning is no stranger to far right events. Last year he appeared with Canadian Lauren Southern, who regularly rails against feminism, immigration and Islam. In October, he spoke at the anti-Islam group Australian Liberty Alliance’s “Rally for Free Speech” because, he wrote in a post, he has been the victim of the “ongoing censorship of conservative political commentators”.
In November 2017, Anning was declared elected to the Senate as a member of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, after a recount following the disqualification of Malcolm Roberts on citizenship grounds.
Just before being sworn in, he split from One Nation and joined Katter’s Australia Party. After a short stint, he was dumped by Katter, who briefly defended Anning’s “final solution” maiden speech. He now sits in parliament as an independent. 
In defending his attendance at the fascist rally, Anning said he was “representing the concerns of Queenslanders”. He told Channel 10: “ [Queenslanders] are very concerned with what is happening in Melbourne and Victoria with the African gangs, so it has now spread to Queensland … The Queensland people are quite concerned about that, and so are the people I represent”.
Does Anning represent Queensland? He was number three on the One Nation ticket and got only 19 personal votes. Sure, One Nation has some support, but it is limited to rural areas out west and regional towns in the north. And Anning isn’t a member of One Nation. He represents no-one and has zero chance of being re-elected.
Yet his claim that African gangs are a threat is part of a national racist offensive spearheaded by Hanson, home affairs minister Peter Dutton, backbench Liberal MP Tony Abbott and Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper. They use every opportunity to fabricate a “law and order crisis” and “concern over Sudanese gangs”.

Fraser Anning doesn’t represent shit

Waiting lists for public housing are increasing nationally, and the stock of housing has dropped in the past 15 years.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 190,000 households nationally are on public housing waiting lists. 
With many households juggling paying bills, rent and food, the Northern Territory government recently announced it would increase public housing rents. From October, rents will increase annually.
The cost of living in the Northern Territory is already high, and rents have been pushed up by the boom in construction and resource projects. Affordable housing is out of reach for many in the territory, yet there is an eight-year waiting list for public housing.
Peter McMillan from NT Shelter told the ABC that 3,000 territory families suffer rental stress, including one in four low to moderate income households.
Amy Howard and her two teenage daughters are only one struggling household. She told the ABC, “I was living out of my car, one of my girls had to sleep on a friend’s couch, the bills kept piling up and I couldn’t sleep because of the stress”.

Rent increases in Northern Territory public housing create financial stress

In his introduction to the 2018 “Closing the Gap” report, Malcolm Turnbull wrote that the government would “recommit and renew our collective efforts and focus on improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”. 
It seems he does not consider the Northern Territory towns of Laramba, Willowra and Wilora worthy of this effort or focus. 
The NT government’s own water provider, Power and Water Corporation, has found that drinking water in Laramba, 200 kilometres north of Alice Springs, contains more than double the level of uranium considered safe. 
Willowra and Wilora have similarly contaminated drinking water. Shockingly, this has been the case in all three towns for 10 years. 
A recent investigation by the ABC’s 7.30 program revealed that drinking water in seven NT communities is unsafe “due to elevated levels of contaminants including uranium”. Yet residents’ complaints have been ignored. 
The ABC quotes an NT government spokesperson explaining that it is “a significant challenge to provide uniform quality of supply to our 72 remote communities”. 
A basic human right like clean, uncontaminated drinking water is “a challenge” that cannot be overcome in an advanced first world country like Australia? This is politician-speak for “It is going to cost too much money and the investment is not worth it”. 
But as Billy Briscoe, a resident of Laramba, asked, “If there’s no water, how can you survive?”
Just imagine if the drinking water in the prime minister’s wealthy electorate of Wentworth in Sydney was contaminated with high levels of uranium. You could bet that the “challenge” would be met instantly, regardless of the cost. 
Why are people living in Indigenous communities treated differently? In the words of Arrernte elder Bob Liddle, “Because they’re bush people and not a concern to politicians, [the politicians] don’t worry about it”.

Queensland: racist one day, police state the next

Glass factory strike enters 12th week

Mass arrests at climate protest in Brisbane

Glass workers: ‘We’ve had enough’

Australia’s aged care hell at Earle Haven

Language teachers locked out for wearing badges

Okinawa continues resistance to US bases

Fraser Anning doesn’t represent shit

Rent increases in Northern Territory public housing create financial stress

Shameful inaction on contaminated water in NT communities

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