why our public health and public education systems are being starved of funds

why our public transport systems are being run down and privatised

why rural and regional Australia is neglected

why Australia’s indigenous people are denied their rights

why refugees fleeing to our country are imprisoned in concentration camps

why our democratic rights are under attack

and that’s why workers’ wages and conditions are under constant attack.

Industrial Relations laws

With its industrial relations legislation the Howard Government has launched an unprecedented attack on workers’ wages, conditions and capacity to take action. This is not an isolated event but part of a wider attack on the working class in the interests of big business.

Other elements of this attack include the wave of privatisation, deregulation, militarisation, taxation changes and abuse of the environment in the interests of maintaining rising profits.

The Howard Government’s agenda is not simply an attack on trade unions. It is an attack on the working class as a whole, it is an onslaught on working families and other members of the community — including small business which will suffer when wages go down, pensioners whose payments are linked to the minimum wage, and sport, culture, charities and churches which will be deprived of support when workers are forced to work longer hours.

It will be legal to reduce wages and conditions below what is in awards.

The IR legislation aims to seriously weaken the bargaining power of the working class and leave individual workers at the mercy of employers with virtually no protection or redress to gross injustices.

If this legislation is passed, the only thing then standing between workers and the loss of working conditions, massive wage reductions and the destruction of collective bargaining and collective agreements will be the strength of the union in the workplace and the courage and determination of workers.

The CPA gives its full support to the current union and community IR campaign and will be working hard into the future to see that the proposed changes made by the Howard Government on behalf of their big business mates are defeated.

The CPA pledges its full support in carrying out the continued building of this opposition movement.

War

Communists say that capitalism leads to war — and we are seeing this now.

The US is the most dangerous nation in the world, brandishing its high-tech weaponry at third world countries and threatening pre-­emptive strikes if they fail to comply with Washington’s directives.

The United States’ missile defence program is a space battle system which aims to allow the US to attack other countries without fear of retaliation. It is also a plan for stationing weapons in the heavens for the first time in human history.

In Australia the Howard Government’s fawning and submissive relationship with the Bush administration is leading to the accelerating militarisation of Australian society and escalating military spending.

The Government gave military and political support to the Bush administration’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The Howard Government is spending billions more buying three specialised warships with long-range anti-missile capabilities, upgrading radar facilities for the US "missile defence" program, establishing three new US "training" bases in the NT and Queensland, setting up facilities for US warships to change crews in Fremantle (WA), and buying new aircraft and tanks.

The cost of all this is a staggering $60 million a day.

At the same time Prime Minister Howard claims we cannot afford Medicare. Nor apparently can his government afford to upgrade public schools, cut university fees, support childcare, tackle poverty or create jobs. But the diversion of only ten days military spending — about $600 million — to public hospitals would overcome most of their critical problems.

Environment

The private, profit-making system of capitalism is killing the planet.

Capitalist globalisation has resulted in massive damage to the world’s environment. The corporations pollute the water, soil and atmosphere, rip out the planet’s resources, and destroy its vegetation and biodiversity in their criminal drive for profits irrespective of the consequences for the long-term survival of life on earth.

Threats are real and urgent — global warming, loss of bio-­diversity, air pollution, toxic lake and river systems, poisoned ocean waters and shores, degraded soils, the earth’s last major forests under serious threat, falling water tables, urban sprawl, traffic, and garbage problems, and accumulating nuclear wastes.

While we fight for the environment today, we also recognise that only liberation from capitalism will open up new possibilities for a fundamental change in humanity’s relationship with nature.

In Australia there are vital struggles for sustainable development, for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, for protection and care of river systems and water supplies, for land care, to stop salination, for environmentally sound waste management, against urban and workplace pollution, to stop loss of bio-­diversity, and for the protection of rain forests and old growth forests.

Democratic and human rights

The attack on democratic rights is worldwide. At the time of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of fascism, the German Government declared the Federation of International Resistance Fighters (FIR) an "extremist organisation of the left" and an "enemy of the constitution". FIR is a federation of 25 organisations in 14 countries and includes all those who fought the Nazis and fascists in the war years.

In Australia the struggle for the maintenance of democratic rights is a major issue confronting all progressive organisations.

We seriously believe it is no exaggeration to talk of a slide to dictatorship. We believe a process is underway and is being slowly implemented by the Howard Government which must be stopped before all means to resist it have been taken away.

Fundamental democratic rights have already been taken away under cover of anti-terrorism laws and the Howard Government has locked up asylum seekers in privately operated, secretive prison camps.

Muslims may be the first to feel the weight of this sort of political oppression. Other Australians and particularly the labour movement must stand with them because, if these attacks are not defeated, they certainly will not be the last to be muzzled in this manner.

Education

In Australia, exposing the Howard Government’s real priorities, the 2005 budget allocated $17.5 billion for the military and $15.7 billion for education.

Education Minister Brendan Nelson crudely claims that the three Rs being taught are not reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic but "refugees, republic and reconciliation". Not that Nelson would mind if he thought that anti-refugee, anti-republican and anti-reconciliation viewpoints were being taught.

All schools already have, as a condition of their government funding, a commitment to a national values framework through which the Federal Government demands such things as schools flying the Australian flag.

The Howard Government is rejecting diversity and multiculturalism on behalf of Christian fundamentalism and extreme nationalism. The government wants more control over what is taught in schools in order to inculcate the right-wing views they are committed to. They want to create children who come out of the education system with their heads filled with the tub-thumping nationalism of Howard, Costello and their friends.

Capitalism can’t deal with crisis

The leaders of the capitalist countries can never adopt policies that would undermine the capitalist system of which they are the captains. They will never act against their system and that of the big corporations that see that they remain where they are. It is their capitalism that creates poverty. That is why they can never adopt policies that will really eliminate poverty. They have failed, their policies have failed, their system is a failure.

If we need any proof that capitalism is unable to solve the problems people face around the world, Hurricane Katrina provides a clear lesson. The parallels between the world’s biggest capitalist economy and a small under-developed socialist economy in times of a natural disaster crisis are worthy of reflection.

In September 2004, Cuba endured Ivan, the fifth largest hurricane ever to hit the Caribbean, with sustained winds of 200km/h. Cuba evacuated almost two million people — more than 15 percent of the total population.

Within the first three hours 100,000 people were evacuated. And 78 percent of those evacuated were welcomed into other people’s homes. Children at boarding schools were moved. Animals and birds were moved.

No-one was killed.

The UN declared this to be a model of disaster preparation.

In the USA, in contrast, the free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and its residents. Armed with advanced warning of hurricane Katrina, officials played the free market. They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means.

Many people "refused" to evacuate, media reporters explained, because they were just "stubborn".

In reality those who didn’t have the ability to flee or the means to finance their own evacuation were left to perish. Without cash, credit cards and cars, thousands of people had to sit tight and hope for the best. It is the working class, particularly black Americans, who are suffering the most from this disaster.

The fact that no preparations were made for their evacuation and that no thought was given to meeting their basic emergency needs in the wake of the storm, lays bare the brutal class consciousness and racism at the core of US society.

Socialism

We are convinced that socialism is a better economic, political and social system than capitalism. It is a system that is committed to meet the needs of the working people and not the selfish interests of exploiters. It means jobs, more democracy and public ownership, environmental protection, better education and health services, more for young people and real economic and social equality for women. Instead of the individualism propagated by capitalism, socialism brings a cooperative society into existence.

Socialism is a young system. It has however achieved much for the many millions of people who have lived under and built socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries was not in our view a failure of socialism but more a failure in the application of socialist principles. These changes have not diminished the validity of socialism. Those socialist countries that have been beset by external and internal crisis have provided valuable lessons for the remaining socialist nations who have used the experiences of others to benefit and develop their own societies.

Socialism is the logical answer for us and for constantly growing numbers of others around the world.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told delegates to the recent 16th World Festival of Youth and Students in Venezuela that the fate of the planet is at stake and that socialism is the only hope for humanity.

Resistance growing

The profound crisis of the capitalist system provides the necessity and the basis for fundamental change. The growing resistance to capitalism and the TNCs can become the revolutionary movement that brings down capitalism and makes the 21st Century the century of socialism.

More and more people are becoming involved in anti-capitalist struggles. The power and importance of the organised working class in these struggles cannot be underestimated.

There have been huge anti-­globalisation demonstrations and millions in the streets around the world protesting against the attack on Iraq.

Close to a quarter of a million people took part in rallies and marches across Australia on June 30 and July 1 against the Howard Government’s industrial relations agenda. As they marched they chanted "Workers united will never be defeated".

These demonstrations reveal the growing understanding of the real nature of the world we live in. More and more people are resisting Nike, Nestlé, Mitsubishi, Shell and the many other transnationals with their criminal exploitation and abuse of workers, farmers and the environment upon which we all depend for survival.

All these movements have to link up to form a united national political alliance. Alliances are effective and powerful, and can create enthusiasm and win considerable support.

We need a popular democratic movement, diverse and unified, and committed to mass action if we are to change the conditions of our lives.

We have an urgent task to accomplish in Australia. As a first step to reconstructing Australian society in the interests of the working class and the people, we need a new type of government in this country made up of representatives of the working class, of the people’s movements, of the left and progressive parties, answerable to the people, and with a program of reconstruction in the interests of the people. A government which really represents the people can only succeed if it is backed by a powerful, united people’s movement, with the working class and its organisations at its core.

A profoundly encouraging and moving example comes to us from Venezuela where the Bolivarian revolution is bringing direct participation by the people in the decision-­making process, in the process of change.

The government has organised "Bolivarian Circles" throughout the country to mobilise citizens to help improve education, health, housing and public services.

A literacy program was launched involving 1.2 million people. About 12 percent of the population was illiterate two or three years ago but now about 95 percent of the people are literate. Education is free to university level.

There is a popular program which provides free health care to poor people. International solidarity is at work. Cuba has sent thousands of medical personal to help with this program.

The revolution protects indigenous people’s rights, has stopped further privatisation of the state-run oil company and limited foreign penetration of the industry, and has approved new conservation measures to protect Venezuela’s marine resources. Five new banks for women, small enterprises and farmers have been set up. US military advisors have been expelled.

Worker-state co-management has a major role in the nation’s revolutionary project, together with producer cooperatives, stepped-up industrial productivity and land reform.

Despite weekly killings of peasant leaders, land reform is going ahead. Since January, almost two million acres of once privately held land has been transferred to 452 agricultural co-operatives. Peasant farmers receive considerable educational, financial and technical support.

The "Mercal Project" has been launched to store, distribute and market food. Using the army and money from oil sales, the government has developed thousands of new food outlets through which masses of poor or infirm people are gaining access to nutritious, inexpensive food.

The Party

Our Party works for a society where people’s needs come first. Publicly owned enterprises must play a major role in the economy. People’s participation and democratic decision making are paramount. In our vision of an alternative society, the purpose of the economy must be to fulfil people’s needs, not to produce ever increasing wealth for private corporations.

We look forward to working with you in the future and we hope that some of you will also join our ranks in the struggle.

The aim of the Communist Party of Australia is the establishment of a society that is fairer, co-operative, more democratic and far more enriching for the people than the present society. Such a society can only be a socialist one.

Our goal is the creation of a society that will resolve the problems inherent in capitalism.

This goal is not something just for the future. People are suffering from capitalism now! Increasingly, people are rejecting capitalist values and institutions ... they are looking for answers, for an alternative to war, environmental destruction, exploitation and poverty. Many more of us are needed who can explain and fight for such an alternative.

The struggles against the military, political and economic forms of corporate globalisation are the dominant and defining political issues for the foreseeable future. This movement is what is new, what is coming into being and what will be the fundamental determinant of this new century, a century of socialism.

The above report has been abridged
the full text will be available on the CPA website http://www.cpa.org.au
or from the CPA office, 74 Buckingham St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010.

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