Governments and other institutions have recently been adopting definitions of antisemitism, but not to protect Jews from persecution or discrimination. They’re doing it to justify the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/feb/28/the-national-gallery-censored-parts-of-an-artwork-about-silencing-indigenous-and-oppressed-peoples">repression</a> of people who object to the genocidal policies of the apartheid Israeli state and the foreign policies of governments that support them. And they are attempting to create a moral panic about antisemitism.
In the face of media images of destruction and mass murder in Gaza, governments have had <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-toward-israelis.aspx">problems</a> convincing their populations that they should back Israel as it engages in genocide. Instead, they are resorting to the naked repression of expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians, barely covered by the tattered loin cloth of these antisemitism definitions.
<a href="https://universitiesaustralia.edu.au/media-item/statement-on-racism/">Universities Australia</a><a href="https://universitiesaustralia.edu.au/media-item/statement-on-racism/"></a> (UA), the peak body of the country’s 39 universities, in late February decided that antisemitism includes “criticism of Israel ... when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”. This parallels the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) <a href="https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism">definition</a>, which governments use as an excuse to attack Palestine solidarity activity. The alliance says that is it antisemitic to claim “that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”.
That approach has given free licence for the German government to shut down a Palestine solidarity conference, which included many Jews, and ban former Greek Finance Minister <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-germany-bans-and-arrests-israel-critics-including-jews-by-yanis-varoufakis-2024-04">Yanis Varoufakis</a> from speaking at it, even by video link. It enabled police in the United States to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/pro-palestinian-college-protests-encampments.html">break up</a> campus Palestine solidarity encampments, which included a large proportion of anti-Zionist Jews. This kind of “fighting antisemitism” involved arresting, often violently, hundreds of young Jewish people.
It is the reason that the Australian Labor government appointed a Zionist, whose main priority seems to be targeting critics of Israel, as its special envoy to combat antisemitism. The approach led to the absurd situation at Monash University in Melbourne, where security officers told Palestine solidarity activists that using the words “Zionist” or “Zionism” or accusing anyone of supporting genocide contravened university policy. The Australian National University gave a written instruction to socialists that they could not say “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” or display a banner with the slogan on it.
The conflation of Zionism with Judaism paints a bullseye on the backs of all Jews. If you object to the genocide Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians then, according to this false proposition, you should hate Jews—because they all ostensibly support the existence of Israel as a racially defined state (under the cover of religion) and, to a greater or lesser extent, its policies.
Zionists may denounce antisemitism and use it to demand that authorities target opponents of Israel. But Zionism assumes that antisemitism is inevitable. The movement to establish a Jewish state was premised on the notion that Jews and non-Jews cannot live together in peace. That remains an important rationale for the existence of Israel as a state in which non-Jews are second-class citizens. But it also apologises for antisemitism because it is, according to Zionists, inevitable and normal for non-Jews to hate Jews.
So it’s fine for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be best mates with Viktor Orban—the authoritarian prime minister of Hungary, who uses antisemitic tropes when it suits him—and for Israel to encourage Christian Zionists. Millions of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/us-evangelical-christians-israel-hamas-war">evangelical Christians</a>, many of them antisemites, are Zionists because they believe that their own countries, especially the United States, should be rid of Jews, and that the gathering of Jews in the “Holy Land” is a sign of “end times” preceding the Apocalypse and the second coming of Christ, when Jews will either convert or be eradicated.
But, of course, the vast majority of non-Jews, of different religions and none, don’t hate Jews. There is a history of Jews being persecuted in particular places and during particular periods. But there is also an extensive history of Jews and non-Jews living together, without violence, for hundreds of years, from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29779835">China</a>, through central Asia, the <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/34519?language=en">Arab world</a>, India, Europe (including <a href="https://www.neh.gov/article/ornament-world-and-jews-spain">Spain</a> and <a href="https://www.copernico.eu/en/articles/jews-poland-middle-ages-and-early-modern-times">Poland</a>), to the Americas and, down the bottom of the planet, South Africa and New Zealand.
In Australia, there is undoubtedly a minority with antisemitic attitudes and a tiny number who commit antisemitic acts. But, in a country where there has been a Jewish governor-general and Jews have held and hold senior ministries in Liberal and Labor governments, Jews are not today subject to structural or systematic oppression.
According to the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/10/07/hate-crimes-grow-in-us-since-oct-7-attacks/75501456007/">Anti-Defamation League</a>, a pro-Israel organisation, there were 150 incidents of violence against Jews in the USA in the year after 7 October 2023, during Israel’s war on Gaza. That’s bad, but minor in comparison with <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/what-happened-scholars-disciplined-over-israel-gaza-comments">police</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-30/ucla-moves-to-shut-down-pro-palestinian-encampment-as-unlawful">Zionist violence</a> against participants, many of them Jewish, in the Palestine solidarity encampments at US universities, or with <a href="https://monitor.civicus.org/explore/repression-of-palestine-solidarity-continues-raids-detentions-and-police-brutality/">German police </a>attacks on pro-Palestine events and protests in Germany.
Both the Universities Australia and IHRA definitions assert that Jews have a right to self-determination. The UA definition even claims that “all peoples” have that right: music to the ears of white nationalists. This was a claim made by the apartheid South African government to support white rule. If Jews are a people with the right to self-determination, is that also true of Christians (or members of different Christian sects), Muslims and Buddhists (as argued by religious bigots, not only in Afghanistan but also in <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/comparing-zionism-and-sinhala-buddhist-nationalism">Sri Lanka</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21567689.2023.2216137">Myanmar</a>)?
The conflation of Judaism, a religion, with Zionism, a political ideology, in definitions of antisemitism, is itself antisemitic. No matter that UA acknowledges the existence of non-Zionist Jews, while the IHRA definition is silent about non-Zionist, let alone anti-Zionist, Jews. Defining support for Israel into a Jewish identity that must be accepted, apparently in all its aspects, is racist “identity politics” along the same lines as the self-conceptions of white nationalists and religious bigots. 
Thankfully, increasing numbers of Jews, especially young Jews, are rejecting Zionism, both in Australia and the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/american-jewish-divisions-zionism/">United States</a>.
Rick Kuhn has been a Palestine solidarity activist and socialist since the 1970s. He is Jewish and opposes Zionism.

Rick Kuhn

Conflating Zionism and Judaism is antisemitic

The far right’s “war on woke” has been taken to a terrifying new level with Donald Trump in the White House. He has made it clear that oppressed groups will be trampled until they shut up and put up. Trans kids have no right to be addressed as themselves. Young Black men have no right to resist being murdered by cops. Women have no right to reproductive control. Immigrants are invaders. (But far-right criminals like Andrew Tate should be <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/27/europe/andrew-tate-romania-us-intl-hnk/index.html">brought back into</a> the country.) 
This isn’t just a push-back against cultural symbols; it is about winding back the clock more than half a century on the rights and expectations of the working class and all of its constituent oppressed groups. The left should oppose all of Trump’s “anti-woke” measures, individually and as a package. 
The move that has grabbed the most attention has been Trump’s orders to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and practices. Basically, DEI has been outlawed for government bureaucracies and institutions. Trump has even rescinded a 1965 executive order mandating non-discriminatory hiring practices for government employees and contractors. 
On the chopping block is everything from the high-profile cosmetic DEI government initiatives of recent years (for example, the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/cia-dismisses-intelligence-officers-diversity/index.html">CIA has dismissed its DEI officers</a>) through to <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/education/education-department-schools-cut-dei-lose-funding/">cutting vital education programs</a> for disadvantaged kids. In fact, Trump has threatened to shut the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-department-education-budget-employees-why-trump-wants-it-shut-down-2025-02-19/">whole federal education department</a> because it disproportionately assists kids in poverty or with special needs. This offensive against DEI dovetails with the DOGE campaign to trash the public service. 
Trump has also made it clear that the private sector is expected to follow suit in abandoning DEI and woke policies. The response has been more than obliging. Since the Supreme Court decision against affirmative action late in 2023, the anti-woke current has gained ground. But now there is a stampede away from DEI within corporate America. 
Walmart is ending diversity hiring commitments, shutting down its Center for Racial Equity and removing many LGBT-themed products from its website. Goldman Sachs is dropping its policy of having two “diverse members” on its board. Amazon is shutting down its “outdated programs and materials”. Google is ending diversity hiring and its observations of cultural events like Pride Month and Black History Month. Deloitte told its employees to remove pronouns from their email signatures. 
Meta is ending diversity hiring and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to bring more “masculine energy” into the company. Disney is getting rid of its Reimagine Tomorrow website, which highlights diverse employees. Talk about a bleak new order: no tomorrow for the kids. 
It’s an embarrassing turnaround, especially given the fanfare with which DEI was taken up by corporate elites just a few years ago. The craze began in response to the Black Lives Matter rebellion of 2020—the biggest demonstrations in US history. Corporations, government bureaucracies and NGOs rushed to capitalise on and contain the movement by rebranding themselves as “inclusive” and “culturally sensitive”. 
Some of the things they did were positive—like introducing or expanding non-discriminatory hiring processes. But mostly, it was about making token and well-publicised gestures, especially those that appeared to “diversify” management positions. There was also a rush to implement “implicit bias” training programs, often run by grifters such as Robin D’Angelo, who has amassed significant personal wealth by lecturing company employees about their inherent “privilege”.
It was no accident that US capitalists shelled out millions of dollars to corporate consultants like D’Angelo while opposing minimum wage rises and resisting workers’ attempts to form trade unions. 
Given the superficiality of DEI, it is no wonder that many corporate lackeys have quickly abandoned it in favour of the now trending far-right bigotry and an all-out assault on the oppressed. 
In general, the “woke era” offered only superficial reforms, at the same time as creating a sensibility that oppression is the result of cultural backwardness rather than structural and economic inequalities. It has been an era in which social solidarity and challenging the system have been jettisoned in favour of “calling out” bad ideas and the people holding them and adopting the supposedly “correct” and “inclusive” language, symbols and etiquette. 
Of course, it is perfectly legitimate to call people by their correct pronouns, rename or remove colonial monuments and so on. But we should not, especially now, go along with the liberal narrative that DEI and “woke” represented an important extension of the gains made by the civil rights movement and the liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. 
For the left, and those looking to dismantle systems of oppression, the “woke era” actually reflected a period of setbacks. It started with a turn away from the radicalism, collectivism and economic gains of the 1960s and 1970s, and towards the commodification and academisation of identity politics in the 1980s and 1990s. This happened alongside Reaganism (named after the Republican US president), which inflicted crushing defeats on working-class organisations and asserted the primacy of markets over all aspects of life. “Woke culture” represents the fusion of degenerated progressivism with the sensibilities of Wall Street financiers.
Nevertheless, while a left critique of modern identity politics and its effects is necessary, it should in no way prevent us from opposing Trump’s attacks and from recognising their much broader implications. Unfortunately, some on the reformist left have welcomed Trump’s offensive against “woke”. Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin magazine in the US, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/business/economy/trump-dei-democrats-left-unions.html">was quoted in the New York Times</a> as saying: “I am definitely happy this stuff is buried for now. What comes next might be worse ... [but] it has a chance to be better”.
This is deeply misguided. For one thing, Trump and his cronies have very different reasons for opposing “woke culture”. And in fact, the political right has, for now, won the conversation on “woke”, a term originally coined by anti-racist activists in the US but now turned into a pejorative term that encompasses every symbol of respect and dignity that oppressed groups have won, as well as our fundamental rights and protections. 
In their eyes, anyone who has even a passing concern about oppression is infected with “the woke mind virus”. And that is why Trump’s moves against DEI are far reaching and include attacks on laws and conventions established as a result of the civil rights movement. And his attacks on woke extend even further: to any individual institution or policy that defends the environment, to threats of deportation to people who dare to stand up to Israel’s attempted genocide in Palestine, to dismembering the National Labor Relations Board, opposing minimum wage increases, trashing the public service and firing thousands of workers. 
Also, the lines between cynical DEI measures and supportable measures are very blurry. The left should not call for diversity on corporate boards or support HR departments having more discretionary power. And the left should not support the punitive and censorial atmosphere that has become associated with social justice and identity politics. But more opposition to racism and other forms of oppression throughout society is a good thing—as is awareness of historical and contemporary injustices.
Rather than distinguishing between reasonable and reactionary “social justice” policies, we should recognise that the right-wing assault on “woke culture” is part of an assault on the working class in all its diversity. In fact, any criticism of wokeness that does not pose a superior way to advance the fight against oppression is a step in the wrong direction. This is especially the case when it is coming from a heinously reactionary administration that is inspiring fascists and the far right the world over. 
Trump is not clearing the path for the left to build a superior way of fighting against racism and other oppressions but throwing up more obstacles to the creation of a more caring and egalitarian society. Trump aims to create an atmosphere of fear. He wants to brutalise the most oppressed, and society more broadly, to lower all of our standards and expectations. He is about attacking the working class and any idea that workers should have rights. 
Sunkara’s comments are linked to a broader political view, termed “class first” socialism, which conflates neoliberal identity politics with all anti-racism and opposition to oppression, and which says that focusing on oppression is alienating to the working class, particularly at an electoral level. In practice, these people tend to support the Democrats. They blame the party’s adherence to identity politics when it fails and, while this is certainly a factor, their critique is aimed at rehabilitating the party. 
As well as a thin veneer for opportunist electoralism, these class reductionists sell out our side twice over: once by in effect arguing for the abandonment of the oppressed, and then again by arguing that the working class is too basic and self-interested to care about oppression. 
Yet, here we have such a clear example, in the negative, of how oppression and class are entwined. Trump wants to attack the oppressed, as a spearhead for a major assault on the working class—not one that is going to be phased in but one that is going on as we speak. In the name of the war on DEI and “woke”, vital services that workers rely on are being slashed, workers themselves are being fired, and basic standards that the workers’ movement has fought for are under threat. 
The political right has clearly benefited from defining its agenda as a “culture war” to make it seem separate from class attacks. The far-right politicians want to be able to masquerade as defenders of workers against culturally progressive elites. Liberal elites also like to peddle this idea, because it assists their class interests to present workers as culturally backwards but also to frame the struggles against oppression as classless pursuits of human progress. 
It is up to the left to reject these lies. The rights of racially oppressed groups, women and the LGBT community are inextricably bound with the class struggle. It was during high points of class struggle that oppressed groups won the most gains. Struggles against oppression have repeatedly been a lightning rod for broader working-class rebellion and advances. 
If we are going to defeat Trump’s assault, our side needs this history and political outlook. Fighting back will require mass resistance in the streets, industrial action by workers and the offering of an anti-capitalist horizon for our struggles. 
We have seen mass resistance in recent times: the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, the historic Palestine demonstrations in support of Gaza, some smaller but important mobilisations for trans rights recently. We need all these people and more to start organising, disrupting business as usual, asserting that the rights of the oppressed will be defended and expanded. 
And, crucially, we need to build links of solidarity between our struggles. Agonising about who has more privilege or whether people are harbouring implicit biases or manifesting micro-aggressions is a distraction from building these kinds of movements. 
Ultimately, to make real gains, we need the working class to move, to use its industrial power to fight for better wages and conditions and to fight like hell for the dignity and humanity that we all deserve. The workers’ movement, at its best, takes up the cause of every oppressed group because an injury to one is an injury to all. 
It is no accident that the far right and its billionaire champions want to degrade all of us: their power and wealth are based on trampling people. It is no accident that the liberal elites can be progressive only in tokenistic and superficial ways, because their power too is based on our oppression. 
In contrast to both, our power is based on solidarity and a collective drive for justice and dignity. It is this power—that of the working class and all of its constituent groups—that can one day establish a society that is genuinely diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Sarah Garnham

Trump’s ‘war on woke’ is a war on all the working class

In recent times, the mainstream media has been obsessed with the story that working-class communities in Melbourne’s outer suburbs are beginning to break with the ALP. Much of this has focused on their economic grievances, which are real, and which Anthony Albanese’s government has done little to address. 
As part of our federal election campaign, the Victorian Socialists are campaigning for a series of radical redistributive measures to address rampant profiteering by supermarkets, banks, developers and landlords. This message resonates in working-class neighbourhoods, where people are all too aware that big corporations are making huge profits at our expense.
Yet there is another aspect to these areas that is less well covered: they are some of the most culturally and linguistically diverse in the country. As such, there are specific racial, religious and ethnic issues that arise. Last weekend, two separate protests were held against the Labor government’s racism, targeting Andrew Giles’ electoral office in the working-class suburb of Thomastown. 
The first was a Friday night memorial for 42-year-old refugee Prathap Kunasekaram. Prathap drank himself into a coma after spending a decade waiting for permanent protection. After three years in this state, during which the government repeatedly refused his wife and child the right to come to Australia to say goodbye, he passed away on 11 February. As if this wasn’t enough, his family has been issued the bill for his three years in a hospital room—because refugees are denied access to Medicare.
Attendees articulated their rage at Labor’s failure to grant permanent visas to the nearly 10,000 refugees languishing on short-term visas. “We have protested, we have camped, we have had meetings, but Labor just isn’t listening!”, said Prashanth, a young Tamil nurse who is still hoping to win permanent residency.
Refugees explained that Giles made sense as a target because he was the minister for immigration for many years and could have fixed their problem with a stroke of a pen. But also because there is a thriving Tamil community in the area that, like so many other working-class groups, feels taken for granted by Labor. 
Many of the attendees work in local factories and complained about the terrible conditions. “Just last week somebody ruined their back trying to pick up a heavy metal sheet”, one worker explained. “And the boss forces everyone to drive the forklift, even if they don’t have a licence. It’s very unsafe, and very low wages, but [the boss] knows we don’t have any option to leave.” 
This connection between racism and exploitation is as old as capitalism itself. In Donald Trump’s America, the bigotry is at fever pitch. But Australia is far from immune. Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s attempt to blame migrants for the housing crisis—produced by decades of privatised development and low wage growth—is proof enough of that. While Labor generally refrains from the worst racist rhetoric towards refugees and migrants, the party enables it through it policies, which in their cruelty are often indistinguishable from the Liberal Party’s.
While the vigil had a sombre feel, organisers were not content to mourn the dead. Instead, they tried to mobilise the community for a political struggle in the months ahead. Vasanthan Anantharajah, a representative of the Tamil Coordinating Committee, spoke about the need for refugees to throw their weight behind attempts to challenge the racist major parties. 
Two representatives from Victorian Socialists, myself and Aran Mylvaganam, who is also a leader of the Tamil Refugee Council, were invited to speak and make the case for a socialist alternative to a system that treats human beings so deplorably. Some Tamils have already begun letterboxing for Victorian Socialists, and there are more plans for collaboration in the future.
Two days later, another crowd of locals gathered in the same location, this time to express their disgust at Islamophobia. This action was triggered by the racially motivated assault of two Muslim women at Epping Plaza last week. Both Albanese and Dutton eventually condemned the violence, but nobody at the action had any illusions in the value of such statements. 
“I don’t blame the attacker, because they’re just ignorant”, argued Dr Naser Alziyadat. Dr Alziyadat is a spokesperson for Muslim Votes Matter, a group that is organising Muslims to vote against the established parties to punish them for their support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “I blame the systematic racism of Australian society, and the politicians and the media who create the environment for this hatred.”
Imam Alaa Elzokm, from the Elsedeaq Heidelberg Mosque, highlighted the targeting of Muslim women as a specific problem: “We must stand up against all harassment of women, to defend the right to religious expression without fear of discrimination”. This is vital, as the bodies and attire of Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab are the most visible symbols of Islam and are an easy target for racists. 
As the rally’s chair, I pointed out that Labor and Liberal policies have signalled to the public that Arab and Muslim lives are worthless. This includes the treatment of refugees, many of whom are from the Middle East, but also their support for the so-called War on Terror, and now Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza. These policies create an environment in which bigots feel confident to attack Arabs, Muslims and supporters of Palestine, on the street and at work.
In contrast, the real, but far less common incidents of antisemitism have been hyped to the point where multiple pieces of legislation are being pushed through parliaments across the country. Far from opposing genuine bigotry where it exists, the bills are a significant attack on free speech in general, and the right to advocate for the Palestinians in particular. The perverse outcome is that those of us who are the most determined opponents of racism, fascism and war are labelled antisemites, while supporters of Israel are free to defend war crimes and champion Donald Trump and other far-right figures the world over.
The rally dispersed after taking a solidarity photo, with Muslim women front and centre. Halima Ahmed, one of the organisers of the event, emphasised that their goal was to see real action against Islamophobia, not meaningless motherhood statements. They are planning further actions, including a possible event at the site of the attack in Epping Plaza.
As the only political party that takes both fighting racism and organising in working-class communities seriously, the Victorian Socialists was proud to support both these actions. Our approach to electoral campaigns is that they are one aspect of a broader effort to strengthen the left and assist organising efforts in our workplaces and on the streets. We invite all those wanting to see a world of economic and social justice to join our effort to build a principled alternative to the major parties. 
Omar Hassan is the Victorian Socialists candidate for the federal seat of Scullin, located in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne. As well as being a primary school teacher in the area, he is a long-time anti-fascist and pro-Palestine campaigner.

Omar Hassan

Anti-racism protesters target Andrew Giles

For left-wing people, it has long been uncontroversial to welcome into Australia refugees and migrants. 
Perhaps not any more. In a recent Instagram post, Keiran Stewart-Assheton, president of the Black People’s Union, an Indigenous activist group, claimed that “economic migrants” (those seeking a better life away from poverty in the underdeveloped world) participate in the colonial occupation of Australia and therefore “reap the fruits of colonialism and imperialism themselves” and are “agents of empire”. 
The post was particularly bizarre, given the context in which it was made. In recent months, refugees have set up protest camps outside government offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The encampments are attempts to highlight the federal government’s inhuman treatment of refugees. Stewart-Assheton’s post was in response to an Indigenous activist’s speech at the Melbourne protest, welcoming both refugees and migrants to Australia. 
Stewart-Assheton’s anti-migrant prejudice is shameful. Indeed, the label “economic migrants” has long been used by the political right to generate hostility toward immigrants and to turn working-class people against each other, distracting them from the crimes of big business and politicians. 
Yet hostility towards so-called settler migrants isn’t a random quirk of the Black People’s Union. It flows from some of the fundamental weaknesses of contemporary “anti-colonial” politics. 
The dominant framework on the left for understanding anti-Aboriginal racism is settler colonial theory, first popularised by the academic Patrick Wolfe. Activists influenced by that framework present the main divide in Australia as being between Indigenous people and a homogeneous “settler” population. Anyone who is not Indigenous—no matter how exploited or oppressed they may be themselves—is considered to be a privileged settler and coloniser reaping the benefits of Aboriginal people’s oppression. 
This idea downplays the fact that the majority of so-called settlers suffer from gross forms of exploitation and oppression. After all, can we really believe that poor migrants working shitty jobs in the outer suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne have more in common with CEOs or politicians than they do with refugees and Aboriginal people, just because they happen to have moved to Australia? 
What utility does the concept of “settler” have when it can be equally applied to Peter Dutton, who calls for people waving Hezbollah flags to be deported from the country, and people of Lebanese heritage who defy the pervasive racism of the politicians and the media—and harassment from the cops and the security services—to protest against Israeli terrorism? By the logic of modern “anti-colonial” politics, whatever the differences between them, both are part of a privileged settler population.
The movement of people worldwide has been a constant feature of human society, particularly in modern times. Some migrants move to flee poverty, only to be met with horrendous racist treatment in their new country—if they are admitted at all under the many migration laws that determine whether or not they will be of use to capitalists. 
Migrants can be horrendously paid and work in precarious workplaces, while their rights as workers are not respected at all. On top of this, they are often used as scapegoats to cover for the failures of the capitalist system. 
For example, in Australia, the Liberals are now blaming the housing crisis on migrants, when it’s the government-designed housing market that has turned shelter into a vehicle for making one section of the (disproportionately Liberal-voting) population incredibly wealthy through perpetual asset-price inflation. 
The housing crisis affects almost all working people, particularly those with lower incomes and families lacking accumulated wealth. Yet supporters of settler colonial theory would have migrants slaving away in shitty jobs and living pay cheque to pay cheque “pay the rent” as though they are no different from Rio Tinto. 
Of course, there have been periods when migration has occurred as a part of brutal processes of colonisation—as in the history of colonial Australia. However, to condemn anyone as an evil settler and coloniser for having left the country in which they were born to go somewhere else that has an indigenous population—that is foolish in the extreme. As in the case of Stewart-Assheton, it can just dovetail with the anti-migrant bile of the racist right. 
The problem isn’t just that it can lead activists to counterpose the interests of refugees and migrants. To follow the logic of the argument would mean condemning the hundreds of millions of workers living in Canada, the US, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand as lackeys of imperialism and capitalism.
In some situations, the strident denunciation of settlers has been used to justify the most reactionary crimes. In Myanmar, Buddhist nationalists have unleashed waves of violence and forced expulsions of Rohingya, who have been categorised as “migrants” rather than native to the country. 
In her book Home Rule, Nandita Sharma shows that conflicts in Africa have often been framed as racialised struggles between supposed “Black African natives” and “light-skinned Arab migrants”. Sharma argues that the infamous 1994 Rwandan genocide had its roots in “the self-identification of Hutus as the National-Natives of Rwanda and the categorization of Tutsis as colonizing Migrants” who had to be violently removed from a country that they apparently did not “belong” to. 
Sinhala chauvinists in Sri Lanka similarly argue that Tamils are basically foreigners, and far-right Hindu nationalists in India want to expel Muslims from the country on similar grounds. 
None of this is to deny the very real oppression suffered by indigenous peoples in many countries around the world, particularly here in Australia. However, when activists and theorists try to set up a world view based on the idea that the whole planet is a struggle between settlers on the one hand and radical indigenous peoples on the other, it can only lead to absurdity. 
Many activists influenced by settler colonial theory would reject Stewart-Assheton’s conclusions. But conceptualising the fundamental divide in the world as a battle between indigenous peoples and settler populations makes it easy to see why people can dismiss the rights of migrants and the struggles of workers.
In many ways, settler colonial theory is a form of indigenous nationalism. Like all forms of nationalist politics, it views the world in a classless and sectional manner. This is clear from Stewart-Assheton and the Black People’s Union argument that the key divide in Australia is not between bosses and workers but between Indigenous people and settlers, and that, therefore, an anti-colonial revolution by Indigenous people (who make up just 3 percent of the population) is supposedly the first step to both Indigenous liberation and socialism. 
It’s on this basis that Stewart-Assheton says that all anti-racist, progressive and working-class struggles should be subordinated to Indigenous struggles (and therefore subordinated to the Black People’s Union) and that any failure to agree with such a program or its theoretical underpinning springs from a settler mindset.
This so-called radical program is incapable of securing either Indigenous liberation or socialism. In the end, all it does is take the focus away from the capitalist class and pit the struggles of oppressed people against each other in an Olympics-style game of identity politics, in which the starting point is figuring out who is most oppressed, rather than thinking about how we can best unite to beat our common enemy—the capitalist ruling class and its repressive state.
Oskar Martin is the Indigenous representative on the Student Council at the University of Melbourne Student Union.
Jordan Humphreys is the author of <a href="https://shop.redflag.org.au/products/indigenous-liberation-and-socialism">Indigenous Liberation &amp; Socialism</a>.

Oskar Martin

Jordan Humphreys

Are migrants colonisers?

Refugees in <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/refugees-fighting-for-permanent-protection-in-sydney">Sydney</a>, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/amid-tragedy-refugee-protest-encampment-continues">Melbourne</a>, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth have set up permanent protest encampments outside the offices of Labor MPs to demand permanent protection for all refugees in Australia. Red Flag spoke to Kalyani Inpakumar, NSW Tamil Refugee Council coordinator and an organiser of the Sydney camp outside Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke’s office, about the situation facing refugees, how the protest has developed in recent weeks and plans for the future.
What inspired you all to organise the encampment here in Sydney and what did the beginnings of it look like? 
The encampments started in Melbourne because of Claire O’Neill, the former minister for Home Affairs, being there, and when Tony Burke got the portfolio, we got a call from the Melbourne Tamil Refugee Council asking if we could start something here. I got the word out within the community and asked people if they were interested in doing it. About 40 of us had a Zoom meeting with the Melbourne organisers, and the consensus was that we should go ahead. Then I held a meeting with about 70 people to start organising the Sydney encampment. These are refugees I’ve been working with for the past two to three years, and I told them that it was important they all take ownership of the encampment. 
They decided to nominate ten people from the group who would be at the forefront of organising different aspects of the encampment, like talking to the media, getting the word out and arranging food and water. From the beginning, we didn’t want to accept food from people unless they come and stay at the encampment, because we want people to be a part of the protest and not feel like they are just donating to charity. 
For the first couple of weeks, all of the ten leaders stayed every night, and now we rotate so that three will be staying at the encampment on any given night. On their encampment night, it’s their responsibility to bring a group of friends along, so there will be about fifteen people camping every night. Some of these leaders are part of cricket or soccer clubs, so they have been going to their clubs and asking if people can come and do a night. They do a 24-hour shift at the encampment, and the following day, the next three leaders and their group of contacts will stay, and so on. That way people only have to take a day or two off work a week and the encampment is sustainable. 
What has the experience for all the refugees participating in the encampment been like for the last 37 days? Could you describe particular challenges you’ve encountered or notable experiences?
What I’ve found is that the refugees have risen to the occasion; they have been so organised and proactive. They come up with solutions to issues at our daily camp meetings and plan what we need to do to go forward. At first, we had challenges with the police, but that’s more or less sorted now. The most challenging thing is not knowing when it’s going to end because we are waiting for something that is not within our control. 
What kind of response has the encampment received from the general public, either here in Punchbowl or more broadly? And what about Tony Burke’s response to your protest?
This is a very multicultural area, so it’s been good. We’ve had people from the shops downstairs come and give us water and fruit, and the general public has been quite helpful. 
Tony Burke told us, “I’m working on it, but I can’t make any promises because I like to keep a promise”. One positive thing that came from Tony Burke speaking with us though is that in the past we’ve had issues with getting refugees to attend rallies because there is this perception that if you come to a protest then you could be sent back to your old country. 
So it was good for refugees to see that wouldn’t happen. When Tony Burke came to speak to us about the noise of our chanting and drumming, we said that the issue we have is with the government, not with the people who live here in Punchbowl, and that he needs to understand we have been pushed to do this after fourteen years of waiting.
 The only reason the minister or anybody is listening to us is because of the encampment. If we stayed at home and kept quiet, nothing would happen, another few years would have come and gone. It is sad to see that he is not able to give us a deadline for when things will happen. When he says to us, “You know, I’ve only had the portfolio for one month”, we say, “Yes, but you’ve been in power for two and a half years. You’ve known about this issue for fourteen years. You were the minister for immigration in 2013!”.
A few weeks ago, you organised a rally that brought 700 people to the encampment. Could you talk about how this came together and what your plans are for future protests?
Yes, we pasted the flyers all over. The Bangladeshis and Iraqis helped get the word out all around Toongabbie and Pendle Hill. We handed out flyers and got on community radio stations. We are hoping for even more people at the next rally, which is happening here on Sunday, 22 September. We will be starting at Tony Burke’s office at 2pm for speeches, then marching through Punchbowl. 
Could you please speak about the Sydney encampment’s reaction to the death of Tamil refugee Mano Yogalingam a few weeks ago? 
I think all of us were shocked, because he was somebody we knew, somebody who was organising the encampment in Melbourne. What I found really upsetting was that the media attention we got was only after Mano died. Why is it that somebody must die to bring something to attention? Why can’t you do something as a prevention? It’s no secret how refugees have been feeling. We’ve been saying all along that refugees are feeling suicidal and are having mental health problems, so why can’t something have happened before Mano’s death? We were really angry and really sad. 
Could you touch on what you see as the future of the Sydney encampment and the national refugee protests? And now that there are so many encampments, how are they all influencing each other?
We are determined to stay here until there is an answer and a pathway to permanency. There has got to be an announcement from the government for us to leave, and when a decision is made, it won’t just be made by Sydney people. A decision will be made by all the interstate encampments together, because we are doing this together. I have been communicating with Melbourne, but also with the encampments in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. 
We speak almost daily. Last week a group of refugees from the Sydney encampment went up to visit the people in Brisbane for a few days. I think that is all important because what we are doing is a coordinated action, we all have the same vision, and we all want the same outcome. So we will all have to make a decision together as to when we stop. It must be a joint decision because all of the refugees are facing the same problem, and the refugees will make that decision themselves.

Annabel Pettit

Fighting for permanent visas: an interview with refugee rights activist Kalyani Inpakumar

The letter that Cleveland Dodd wrote to his father just weeks before taking his own life in a Western Australian youth detention centre was never delivered. Cleveland, a 16-year-old Yamatji boy from Meekatharra, was awaiting trial when he was transferred from Banksia Hill, the state’s main youth detention centre, to Unit 18, a second facility established within an adult jail in 2021 to house “disruptive” detainees. 
Cleveland made eight calls to staff on the night of his death, asking for water and Panadol, and to see the nurse. Staff told him to be patient—but he had run out of that. Cleveland had been in Unit 18 for nearly three months when he hanged himself from a broken air vent on 12 October last year.
A coronial inquest has now heard how and why Cleveland became the first Aboriginal person to die in youth custody. While the coroner’s findings have yet to be released, eyewitness testimony and admissions on the stand in recent months have painted a picture of the callous neglect, racism and brutality of Western Australia’s juvenile detention regime. Now, as the inquest adjourns before a third session later this year, another teenager, whose name has not been released, has died in custody.
Located in the maximum-security adult prison Casuarina, Unit 18 was established in response to rebellions against the awful conditions at Banksia Hill—conditions so bad that Children’s Court President Hylton Quail preferred to sentence offenders to time served or send them to adult prisons to keep them out of the place. 
The WA Supreme Court has twice found that Banksia Hill and Unit 18 violated state and international laws against solitary confinement. Even the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services was forced to concede that Banksia Hill’s Intensive Support Unit, nicknamed “the cage”, violated detainees’ human rights.
Long before Cleveland’s death, youth justice advocates and organisations such as the Aboriginal Legal Service had criticised the government for failing to address the prevalence of self-harm at Banksia Hill and Unit 18. There were twenty attempted suicides and more than 350 instances of self-harm in Unit 18 alone before Cleveland killed himself. 
Responding to criticisms last year about the facilities, Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia said: “This particular cohort of young people regularly self-harmed wherever they were”. The insinuation is that locking young Indigenous people in jail makes little difference.
“That’s basically a slap in the face”, Megan Krakouer, a Noongar woman and director of the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project, told Red Flag. “[Papalia is] a very inhumane person who has no idea about the grim reality, who is not immersed in what the challenges are that face First Nations people, and most certainly the most vulnerable cohort.”
Krakouer and Gerry Georgatos, a university researcher and human rights advocate, have worked on programs to combat self-harm and suicide at several prisons across Western Australia, including Banksia Hill and Unit 18. But they have been shut out for encouraging youth detainees to join a class action against the government’s youth detention regime. 
“We couldn’t sacrifice our morality”, Georgatos told Red Flag. “We wanted the funding; we wanted to keep on working. But we were going to call out, on behalf of all those others, all the crap we saw on the inside. All the racism, all the classism, all the inhumaneness.” 
They both expressed grave concerns about the institution and the people running it. “How can we believe anything that the government says? Particularly with what we’ve heard at the Cleveland Dodd coronial inquest, where they’ve been very untruthful and have misinformed the public”, Krakouer said. 
In April, the first session of the inquest focused on Unit 18 staff. Some of them spoke about chronic dysfunction and a culture of negligence. Guards regularly watched movies on shift, logged false welfare checks hours in advance, and routinely failed to carry their walkie-talkies, the inquest heard. The senior officer on duty the night Cleveland died reportedly was napping. Maintenance was repeatedly deferred. When Coroner Urquhart visited the facility six months after Cleveland’s death, seven of the unit’s sixteen cells had similarly broken air vents that could be used as ligature points.
Negligence is why Cleveland was not visited by any mental health professionals during his thirteen weeks in Unit 18, despite him being diagnosed with major depressive disorder and a language disorder. It is also why his complaints about the pain in his left ear (from an infection), recurring headaches, bronchitis and untreated dental issues weren’t taken particularly seriously. Staff admitted that his dental care was repeatedly postponed.
Over two days of testimony, nurse Fiona Bain described the situation in Unit 18 as desperate, with up to 50 threats of self-harm or suicide per day. Officers routinely checked on detainees in person or through monitoring cameras installed in their cells. The teenage detainees would cover the cameras with wet tissue paper to maintain some privacy. In response, the guards would leave them restrained and alone in their cells, sometimes for hours. 
Detainees who “acted out” were not given water after their evening meal, despite the requirement under international humanitarian law that prisoners be given water on request. Senior officers also reportedly denied medication to frustrated and aggressive detainees.
The second session of the inquest, held from 22 July to 16 August, investigated the role of senior officials in the Department of Justice. Former Director General Adam Tomison had to be subpoenaed to appear. Dr Tomison, an internationally renowned expert on child abuse and family violence, accepted that the facilities he had helped to create were perpetrating “institutional abuse”. Counsel assisting the coroner read extracts from letters that the department sent to family members of the detainees and others, falsely claiming that Unit 18 would have all kinds of dedicated services for inmates. Tomison admitted that these assurances were lies.
The inquest then turned its attention to a briefing note given to Justice Minister Bill Johnston before the creation of Unit 18, which Tomison admitted contained “a series of grievous lies”. The note, drafted by the department’s strategic communications team, passed unchallenged through the hands of both former Corrective Services commissioner Mike Reynolds and former deputy commissioner for Young People Christine Ginbey. By the time Ginbey made it to the stand, she had hired a lawyer.
Ginbey appeared just hours after the inquest heard that the State Solicitor’s Office had released a trove of documents, including her statement. The documents included a Unit 18 operating manual and further information about the genesis of the unit. “The court must have real concerns about whether we have got everything that is relevant”, counsel assisting the coroner said. 
Unit 18 was supposed to be open for only one year, from July 2021 to July 2022. Cleveland died more than a year after the facility was planned to be shut. Ginbey revealed on the stand that, at the time, no steps were being taken to close the facility.
Due to the delay in Ginbey’s testimony and the submission of new material to the inquest, a third session will be held in October.
“I have more confidence than ever before in terms of the way we are managing our juvenile detention facilities ... I believe that we can say that those children are safe”, was Premier Roger Cook’s line at a press conference on 31 August, which was called to announce a second death in youth detention.
“The comments were insensitive, unconvincing and offensive ... They seem not to understand that a child died last night at Banksia”, Kurin Minang Noongar woman Dr Hannah McGlade, a human rights advocate and lawyer, told Red Flag after the press conference. “Aboriginal children’s lives matter; we want our premier to meet with us and live up to his commitment to reform youth justice.”
At the press conference, Corrective Services commissioner Brad Royce said: “What we need to spend more time [on] and will take generational change is the young people themselves. When they come to me, I have very short periods with them ... for me this is going to take a significant piece of work and it will be generational to get through this”. 
In other words, it’s tragic, but it’s up to the young Aboriginal people themselves to stop dying in custody. One hundred and ninety-five years after the Swan River colony was established, the government is still blaming Aboriginal people for their own oppression.
“It’s not just about moral and political will; it’s cowardice”, Georgatos said of the excuse-making. “It’s not just the ministers who have the portfolios and the cabinet who have responsibility; it’s every politician in the party room. It’s every politician on the back bench. It’s every politician in the Labor Party that should hang their head in shame that they haven’t raised the alarm bells when they’ve seen so much wrong and injustice go on, so many lives put at risk—it’s every politician.”
The inquest resumes in October.

Max Vickery

Inquest shines a light on Western Australia’s youth injustice system

There was uncontrollable energy as refugees led a march of hundreds of activists from a permanent protest encampment outside the Home Affairs Office in Docklands to Southern Cross Station, Melbourne’s biggest transport hub. The march, held on Friday night, grew as it made its way down Bourke Street. Passengers on trams waved and raised their fists in support.
The rally was the largest mobilisation for refugee rights in years. It comes after refugees have become increasingly active in the past year. There has been an <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/charged-for-protesting-for-refugee-rights">occupation of a Labor Party office</a>, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/why-i-walked-melbourne-canberra-refugee-rights">a march from Melbourne to Canberra</a> by a group of Tamil women and now the 40-day Tamil, Iranian and Afghan refugee <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/refugees-still-fighting-under-labor">encampment outside Home Affairs</a> in Melbourne. Their demands have always been clear: permanent protection for all refugees.
The rally, organised by the Tamil Refugee Council, the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, and Unionists for Palestine, was called not only to show solidarity with the refugees, but also to stand against racist attacks they have endured—and resisted—since establishing their camp. Only a week ago, they had to stand up to a <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/refugees-push-back-nazis-in-melbourne">neo-Nazi group that turned up to intimidate them</a>. 
Yet, while we beat the Nazis last week, the real villains of this drama are in parliament: the Liberal and the Labor parties, which are responsible for the policies that have devastated so many refugee lives and that have normalised a regime of cruelty. 
In 1992, Paul Keating’s Labor government <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/1311498/upload_binary/1311498.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">established mandatory detention</a>. The ALP has never rescinded this diabolical policy. But because the Liberal Party is viewed as even worse, many refugees have campaigned for Labor on its promises to deliver justice. 
After the Albanese government was elected in May 2022, it did offer permanent protection to 19,000 refugees. But 12,000 were left in limbo after being deemed ineligible to be part of that deal. The government has indicated it doesn’t intend to lift a finger for these people.
Many of them are angry and feel betrayed. Now they are getting active to demand permanent protection. 
As Friday’s march progressed, chants of “Labor! Labor! End this limbo!” and “Shame! Shame! Labor shame!” echoed. 
The defiance has inspired refugees in Sydney and Brisbane to set up encampments outside the offices of Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Treasurer Jim Chalmers. 
The Tamil Refugee Council, the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, and Unionists for Palestine have called another rally at the encampment outside Home Affairs in Docklands for this Friday, 30 August, at 5:30pm. 
The refugees say that they will continue their encampment until they win.

Ada Pascoe

Refugees keep protesting in Melbourne

Fifty-three-year-old Tamil asylum seeker Uthayakaran Periyathamby died in his sleep on 16 July. Officially, the cause of death is unknown. Yet to those who gathered for his funeral in Melbourne’s south-east on 25 July, it was clear this was another life claimed by Australia’s depraved anti-refugee policies.
There was sorrow as his closest relatives wept over the body. But in a hall filled with members of Melbourne’s refugee community, there was also anger. Even one of the Hindu priests presiding over the funeral gave a speech in which he tearfully condemned Australia as “an open jail for Tamil refugees”.
Uthayakaran, or Uthayan as he was known, fled the Sri Lankan government’s genocide of the Tamil minority and came to Australia by boat in August 2012. He was one of the first people sent to Manus Island after the Gillard Labor government restarted the policy of offshore detention, which led to a decade of abuse and torture for thousands of refugees. Released into the community in 2013, he was denied permanent protection by Tony Abbott’s Liberal government, which had implemented a bureaucratic system to “fast track” asylum applications (by making it faster and easier for the government to reject them).
Uthayan spent the rest of his life in limbo on a short-term bridging visa, faced with the threat of deportation each time it was up for renewal. He had no access to Medicare, nor the right to work legally. He was forced to survive on the kindness of those in the community, or by working cash-in-hand jobs for employers who were only too happy to exploit his situation.
When he fled Sri Lanka, his wife and children remained there, expecting to follow him once he had found safe refuge. Instead, Australia refused them the chance to reunite, and now his family will never see him again.
We won’t ever know exactly how Uthayan died. But we know what killed him. 
“He wasn’t like an ordinary person, mentally”, said Moganathas Nagarasa, a refugee activist and friend of Uthayan, after the casket had been taken away. “He was tortured. He didn’t have good contact with his family. Mentally, it’s something like madness, because of his visa issues. He shared it with his friends ... he was thinking about that all the time.
“If he had a visa, his family could be here. He became an alcoholic, and finally it ends up like this.”
The priest didn’t mince words: “I can’t accept people dying without explanation. These are murders, not natural deaths. This country is responsible for his death”.
As someone the Australian government branded an undesirable, Uthayan’s death won’t attract attention from politicians or the mainstream press. There have been no studies or investigations into the deaths of those subjected to the onerous conditions of bridging visas, so we don’t know how many refugees have died in similar circumstances.
Yet Uthayan’s experience of life in Australia is one shared by thousands of asylum seekers. “We have 10,000 people suffering the same as Uthayan”, said Nagarasa. “Even me too, I’m on a bridging visa. I can’t sleep—my mind is awake even though my body is getting weak. I keep thinking about something, and something, and something. I don’t know how it’s going to end up.”
Tamil Refugee Council founder Aran Mylvaganam says that, for activists and the community, the link is clear between refugee deaths and the hopeless circumstances asylum seekers are placed in: “Under the Liberals, every fortnight you would hear of refugees dying. The change in government gave people a bit of hope and made a difference. The deaths stopped for a while. Uthayan is a sign that people are losing hope again under Labor”.
When Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party came to power in 2022, one of the new government’s first acts was to grant permanent protection to the family of Tamil refugees Priya and Nades, who had been fighting their deportation with the support of a nationwide activist campaign for several years. Labor went on to grant permanent residency to the 19,000 refugees who were living in Australia on temporary protection visas. That decision excluded an estimated 12,000 people on bridging visas who had been denied refugee status by previous governments. Still, after a decade of rule by the Liberal Party and figures such as Scott Morrison, who notoriously kept a trophy celebrating his record stopping refugees in boats, it’s understandable if there was some optimism that Labor would do more.
Labor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/19/factcheck-is-labors-policy-on-asylum-seekers-and-refugees-any-different-to-the-coalitions">made it clear</a>, however, that they intended to act no differently than the Liberals when it came to “border security”. Even before they ran the country, Labor MPs consistently voted en bloc with the Coalition government to extend and reinforce the regime of offshore detention and boat turn-backs known as Operation Sovereign Borders.
Now that they’re in charge, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-sets-the-agenda-on-refugee-torture">they’ve gone even further</a> by attempting to introduce new laws that would lay criminal charges against anyone who resists their own deportation (like Priya and Nades). When the legality of the indefinite detention of asylum seekers came under question in a series of recent High Court cases, Labor rushed to participate in the storm of anti-refugee racism, cooking up a swathe of draconian measures that would make unbearable the life of anyone released from detention.
After two and a half years, many refugees are realising that this government has no intention of carrying out further acts of mercy, and some want to fight back. Mylvaganam explains that some refugee families prefer to stay silent when a relative dies, fearing detention or deportation if they speak out. In contrast, Uthayan’s funeral was an open attempt to shine a light on the brutality of the Australian government, as well as a call to action.
One speaker was Rathi Barthlote—an activist from the group <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RefugeeWAVE">Refugee Women Action for Visa Equality</a>—who played a leading role in setting up a protest camp outside the office of Labor Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, inspired by the student encampments for Palestine. (On 28 July O’Neil was shifted from the home affairs portfolio to housing, and the protest camp moved to the front of the Department of Home Affairs in Docklands.) Barthlote stood by Uthayan’s casket and argued that remembrance isn’t enough: “Australia’s government and its refugee policies are responsible for Uthayan’s death ... Justice for his death means you should be involved in fighting for refugee rights. That’s the way you remember him”.
Two refugee-led protest camps are, at time of publishing, under way. One is in Melbourne outside the Department of Home Affairs, 808 Bourke St, Docklands, and one in Sydney outside the office of newly appointed Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration Tony Burke at 1 Broadway, Punchbowl. Some quotations in this article were paraphrased from the original Tamil with the help of an interpreter.

Oscar Sterner

Another life claimed by Labor's refugee torture regime

The Albanese government is attempting to introduce legislation that would allow for the prosecution of refugees who try to prevent their own deportation. The proposed laws would also allow the government to stop processing the visa applications of citizens from countries that do not accept refugees involuntarily deported from Australia. 
Under the proposed Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill, asylum seekers would face mandatory jail time of anywhere from one to five years and/or a fine of $93,000 for not complying with government directives to deport them back to their home countries. The draft bill acknowledges that there may be some “reasonable excuses” for non-compliance, but states that genuine fear of persecution is not one of them. 
In a press conference last week, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said that the amendment would apply only to asylum seekers who have “exhausted every legal option” to stay in Australia. 
But <a href="https://alp.org.au/media/2594/2021-alp-national-platform-final-endorsed-platform.pdf">Labor’s own national platform admits</a> that the current screening processes used to assess asylum seekers’ claims are not “fair, thorough and robust”. People facing persecution have already been denied refugee status and deported, or placed on temporary visas that will be the target of any new legislation. 
The Refugee Council of Australia has <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/new-legislation-puts-refugees-failed-by-fast-track-process-at-risk/">expressed concern</a> that Labor’s bill will likely lead to the deportation of refugees “who have strong claims, but have not had a fair hearing or review”. What’s more, there is every chance that the legislation, if passed, will apply to people who have had their refugee status successfully recognised by the Australian government. 
According to the explanatory memorandum accompanying the draft bill, “it may be necessary to revisit the protection finding” of refugees when “the circumstances of the person or the country in relation to which a protection finding has been made have changed”. It’s as if being a refugee, from this perspective, is tantamount to a holiday, and deportation threatens all those who overstay their welcome. 
Even more alarming is the proposed introduction of ministerial powers to designate “removal concern countries”. This bureaucratic euphemism means outright bans on protection applications from any
citizens of countries that will not accept involuntarily deported refugees. If implemented, the measure would effectively make the capacity for involuntary deportation the yardstick of Australian refugee policy. 
Although the bill passed the lower house, opposition from the Greens and the Liberals blocked its progress in the Senate, resulting in a six-week inquiry due to conclude in May. This is a setback for Albanese’s government, which had hoped to ram through the legislation before the High Court meets on 17 April to make further rulings on the legality of indefinite detention. 
Since the High Court ruled against indefinite detention last November, anti-refugee racism has yet again returned to the centre of Australian politics. Under the leadership of Peter Dutton, the Liberals have <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/the-liberals-and-labors-history-of-competition-over-racism-and-refugee-cruelty?fbclid=IwAR2WHaqwtQKxDu0roa6gnOIUJTR_HtQRj7X8NVs-WLOygv-WvUvR-OrwVMc_aem_AUvu2izWJpLI0A5oBWT-xXKVHaOxD_1AgOLHhEjsfdr0chFSGxXzjteOGsstQ_Z0kGVoE5GhdhrSU1uGygaKxMyf">unleashed</a>
a rabid political campaign casting refugees freed from detention as criminals and sexual predators. In response, the Labor Party has pioneered draconian restrictions on the formerly detained refugees. 
With another High Court case on refugee detention looming, the Labor Party is now designing more repressive legislation to pre-empt and mitigate further right-wing, racist political attacks from the Liberals. Greens federal Senator David Shoebridge <a href="https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/media-release-labors-cruel-new-plan-people-seeking-asylum-desperate-and-futile">claims</a>
that the Labor government is “trying to outflank the Coalition to the right, in a cruel contest they can never win”. But in the cruel contest of refugee torture, the Labor Party is not just a half-hearted participant; it is a conscious co-creator. 
Long-term refugee activists and refugees have learnt this first-hand. For Aran Mylvaganam, a member of the Tamil Refugee Council, Labor’s new legislation is sickening, but not surprising. 
“Labor is always like this”, he told Red Flag. “They try to make themselves look good, but they end up behaving exactly like the Liberals—if not worse.”
That the Labor Party maintains the support of significant community organisations adds insult to injury. “If the Liberals were to introduce something like this, more people would already be on the streets fighting”, Mylvaganam said. “But instead, there are many organisations providing cover to the Labor Party or maintaining silence about them.”
The proposed legislation should shatter any illusion that the Labor Party is a friend of refugees. With anti-refugee racism likely to strengthen as the High Court challenge to indefinite detention continues, it’s time to reinvigorate grassroots activism for refugee rights and against the decades-long bipartisan torture regime.

Maria Dabbas

Labor sets the agenda on refugee torture

On the night of Labor’s 2022 election win, Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese delivered his victory speech with an air of triumphant confidence. Just a year and a half later, the same man was giving a different speech, this time with the teary-eyed face of defeat as he conceded the loss of the Voice referendum. 
Labor’s approval ratings tell a similar story. In the first week after the referendum, the Roy Morgan Poll showed that the Coalition was leading the ALP for the first time since the election, with ALP two-party support dropping 4.5 points to 49.5 percent. While this has since gone up, there is no doubt Labor’s support has slumped, as has their enthusiasm for talking about Indigenous issues. 
The No campaign spearheaded by opposition leader Peter Dutton was able to tap into racism and discontent with the cost-of-living crisis using the racist argument that Indigenous people have it too good and are getting unfair advantages. In the face of this, Labor had nothing to offer but milquetoast appeals to unity and respectful debate. 
In the weeks after the referendum, Dutton leapt from one racism-fuelled victory to the next. After the High Court ruled that the indefinite detention of refugees was illegal, Dutton seized on the opportunity to wedge Labor on an issue that combined anti-refugee racism and moral panic about crime. Claiming that “84 hardcore criminals have been released into our communities from detention”, Dutton called on Labor to do more to prioritise the supposed safety of Australians, to which Labor characteristically obliged, rushing through a bill that imposed draconian restrictions on those who had been illegally detained. Dutton and his allies also called for an audit of spending on Indigenous programs and railed against Indigenous welcomes to country. For all this, the Liberals have been rewarded handsomely in the polls.
Using racism to shore up or improve its electoral prospects is a tried-and-true strategy of the Liberal Party, one it has been heavily dependent on to win office in recent decades. Labor’s well-worn duck-and-cover response only reinforces the strategy’s success.
In 2001, Liberal Prime Minister John Howard made a hard turn to anti-refugee racism in the lead-up to the November federal election. When a small, sinking boat of 400 mostly Iraqi and Afghan refugees was picked up by the Norwegian cargo ship Tampa, the government entered into a high-seas stand-off in order to prevent them from arriving on Australian shores. The navy was sent out to intercept the ship and force it to re-route to the island of Nauru, where the refugees were thrown into an Australian-funded concentration camp. Labor’s response was to support the interception of Tampa and vote in favour of new laws making it harder for people to claim asylum in Australia. 
Then came the 11 September terror attacks, after which Howard doubled down on anti-refugee racism as his key electoral strategy, whipping up fear about the threat of terrorism from Arab and Muslim people arriving by boat and painting the ALP as unreliable defenders of national security. After going into the election seriously concerned about their prospects, by 10 November the Liberals had been able to win a sweeping victory. 
In the wake of the 2001 election, and in the context of the ongoing US interventions in Afghanistan and later Iraq, the Labor Party would proceed for years to come to engage in a race to the bottom with the Liberals over asylum seekers from Muslim and Arab countries. 
When the 2004 election came around, Howard once again brought border security to the fore. Labor leader Mark Latham had taken a hard stance against refugee rights to neutralise the issue, calling for even stronger borders and questioning why Australia doesn’t just “arrest the people smugglers and throw them in jail?”. But this hardline stance received criticism from the Labor left at the ALP national conference in Sydney. A resolution moved by none other than Anthony Albanese called for an end to temporary protection visas once refugees’ status was proven and opposed mandatory detention for refugees who had passed health, security and identification checks. While Latham had the numbers at the conference, Howard jumped on the debate to criticise Labor for being “weak and divided on national security and in the war against terrorism”. Once again, the Coalition was able to win after making racist arguments about national security the focus of the election.
The 2007 election bucked this trend to some degree. Over the two years leading up to it, a union-led campaign against Howard’s anti-union WorkChoices legislation had drawn hundreds of thousands of people into the streets on a class basis. While Howard had attempted to foment a racist moral panic with dubious claims of child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities, he failed to distract attention from WorkChoices sufficiently. Class issues remained central, and the Liberals lost the election. 
Unfortunately, this did not mean an end to the use of refugees as a political football in electoral politics. Soon after Labor’s win, the Liberals attempted to regain lost ground by attacking Labor over a moderate loosening of border protection and subsequent increase in asylum seeker arrivals by boat. When Julia Gillard replaced Rudd as prime minister, she quickly neutralised the issue by reopening the notorious offshore detention centres on Nauru and PNG’s Manus Island. Upon Rudd’s dramatic return to the prime ministership in 2013, and with another election approaching, he doubled down on a hardline stance towards asylum seekers. Under an arrangement with the PNG government, the Labor government announced that “as of today asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia”. 
In the wake of defeat by the Liberals under Tony Abbott, Labor’s opportunistic race to the bottom over refugees continued apace. When Abbott introduced even stricter anti-refugee laws through Operation Sovereign Borders, which had the Navy turning back boats carrying refugees into Australian waters, it received bipartisan support from Labor, now under the leadership of Bill Shorten. The 2015 national Labor conference endorsed boat turn-backs, and by the 2016 election the rhetoric of the ALP mimicked that of the Liberals. 
It is telling that even Malcolm Turnbull of the supposedly progressive wing of the Liberal Party was just as willing as arch-conservative Abbot to demonise “boat people” for political gain. A week out from the 2016 election, in a last-ditch attempt to boost Liberal support, Turnbull announced that the government had re-routed a boat with 21 asylum seekers on board. But as a report written after the Liberals’ re-election noted, by now the ALP’s approach to asylum seekers was so similar to the Liberals’ that it had barely been an issue of debate.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Liberal Party is quick to jump on racism as an electoral strategy. As the main party representing Australian business, it is in the Liberals’ interests to generate a sense of national cohesion that cuts against class consciousness and potential hostility to the employers. The more powerless the enemy against which the nation unites, the more effective the strategy. 
Racism also disguises the fact that the Liberals have little to offer the mass of people. Their policies are primarily about enriching the elite they represent, so beat-ups about crime, illegal immigration or vulnerable groups getting “special privileges” all help distract people from this reality and give the Liberals something about which to connect with broader layers. 
For the social layer they represent, racism is frequently in their immediate economic interests: they rely on super-exploitable migrant workers to generate ever greater profits or indifference towards Indigenous people to get control of land for mining or other money-making purposes. Corporate Australia might not always want to admit it openly, but racism is good business.
But what about the Labor Party? While the workers who vote for it have no stake in demonising refugees, as a party that wants to run Australian capitalism, the ALP does have an interest in upholding racism. Labor doesn’t want to offer the genuine reforms—like higher wages and better social services and welfare provision—that some of its base still expect, because such reforms would antagonise the bosses and threaten their profits. Squeezed profits and a capitalist class intent on sabotaging an unfriendly government are not good for Australian capitalism, or the ALP’s electoral prospects. 
So Labor is as keen to jump on issues that distract from inequality, poor working conditions and inadequate social services as their opponents are, if for slightly different reasons. If a choice must be made between taking a principled stand against racism and risking electoral defeat or taking the easy road to electoral support, for the Labor Party it’s a no-brainer.
The Voice referendum only reinforced this approach. Labor hoped the Liberals would feel they had to fall in behind the proposal, as they did with Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations following the 2007 election. When they didn’t, and instead used it to drum up opposition to Indigenous people and the inner-city elites who back them, the ALP was immediately on the back foot, with disastrous results for both Indigenous rights and the ALP’s political fortunes. 
For those of us who despise racism, 2023 was an important reminder that the Labor Party cannot be relied on to fight it. To do so, we need to be equipped with the sort of politics that is not beholden to doing what is required to run capitalism, and that will not put electoral gains ahead of a principled commitment to standing with the oppressed.

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