Welcome to the Anarchist World this Week, broadcast across Australia north to south, east to west, they tell me you can even hear it on King Island, which they tell me is part of Australia. Of course it is. This is the Anarchist World this Week, my name’s Joseph Toscano, the host of today’s program. If you’re wondering what anarchy is all about, an anarchist society is a voluntary non-hierarchical society which is based on the creation of political and social structures, which are based on equal decision making power, the people involved in the decisions making the decisions, the people appointing recallable delegates to co-ordinate those decisions at a local, regional and national level. And if the decision is changed, it comes back to the local group for ratification. Very simple process in an era of technology, direct democracy is not only needed, it also can occur. Wealth is held in common and used for the common good. What boring, boring, boring, conservative people anarchists are. They think that individual freedom comes from collective effort. They think that by holding wealth in common, and having their needs secured, then they will be able to be able to develop themselves to their full potential. Boring people really. I’d prefer to live in a monarchy, wouldn’t you? Or a dictatorship where one person where one person tells you what to do. That way you don’t have to think, do you? That’s the problem with living in an anarchist society, you need to think, you need to make decisions, you need to get organised.

Now look if you like the program good, if you don’t well it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day what you think or what I think, because real power in our society doesn’t lie in a studio, it doesn’t lie on what I have to say, real power lies in the boardrooms of national and transnational corporations and in today’s program John Glasbook will be coming in to talk about economic matters and he will show how this real power lies in the boardrooms of national and transnational corporations, not in parliament, which do a little bit more than debate in society. In today’s program we will be talking about markets, markets, markets, yes. I’m sure you’ve all been excited about the gyrations on the world stock markets, I’ll be talking about the concept of markets today. Should I or shouldn’t I? What are you going to do during the next federal election? Facts and figures, I was a little bit interested in a little bit of research which was… Look, I hate to use the word research, a little bit of propaganda which was put out by the ‘Association of the Independent Schools of Victoria’ on behalf of private schools across the country, we’ll look at that. I mean, I’ve seen manipulation of facts and figures but this takes the cake! What type of technological innovations would be developed in an anarchist community? Hm? Sounds a little bit esoteric, well it’s not. And shabby con tricks. They're up to it again, the John Howards, the Tony Abbotts, the Alexander Downers, the Abbotts of the world, the Tony Abbotts of the world, liars, cheats, frauds, charlatans, everybody’s saying it now, not just me these days, although I was saying it 10 years ago. Look at their latest shabby con trick, it’s a good one, it is a real good one.

But let’s look at markets first. Capitalism, yes, capitalism, is an economic system that’s dependent on the creation of ever increasing profits irrespective of the human, social and environmental costs. You know that, I know that, you wouldn’t find ourselves in this situation in our facing a critical change because of climate change, if the capitalist economic really was based on the satisfaction of real non-manufactured human needs, would we? It’s critical, critical, to the economic health of the capitalist system for new markets to be discovered and developed. Think of all the money that’s been made out of the world wide web. Whether these markets satisfy real or manufactured human needs is irrelevant. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is the return dividends. That’s right. Dividends to investors, speculators and shareholders. And those of you say well I don’t have any shares, think again. If you’ve got money in the superannuation fund, you own shares. You’re money is being used to bankroll the very same economic system that exploits you.

Over the past few decades, 5 new markets have rapidly expanded and developed. The world wide web, mobile telephones, and mass air travel, to some degree satisfy real human needs. On the other hand, the commercialisation of childhood, that’s right, childhood. They commercialised teenagehood at the end of World War II, now looking for a new market, we’re, well not we, those people who own the means of production, distribution, exchange of communication, have now embarked on the long march of commercialising childhood and food preparation at home. These are classical examples of markets that have been created to satisfy manufactured human needs. Because remember, there is a difference between a real human need, and a manufactured human need. The commercialisation of the preparation of meals, that have been traditionally cooked at home, have created a rapidly expanding take-away food and dine-out sector that has transformed, that’s right, transformed social dynamics at home. We tend to eat tea in front of the TV, don’t we? TV dinner in front of the TV. And it’s contributed to the obesity epidemic, hasn’t it? And the associated health consequences, hasn’t it? Think of those ads, pushed to get our breakfast here and breakfast there? And what was a relatively simple process of preparing food at home, has now been commercialised. Do you know, lunch, breakfast, many people wouldn’t even know what a kitchen looks like. I mean, teenagers, as I said before, were targeted as a distinct mass consumer market, look at mass consumer market, no point finding a little niche markets. I’ve really got around this terminology thinking about this. Niche markets, mass markets, consumer markets, well teenagers we know are the greatest market during the post war years and people of my vintage, if you are listening to this program, my vintage over 50, would know what it’s like to be a market. It’s only in the last 2 decades that having exhausted the teenage market, capitalism has turned their attention to children and childhood. And our childhood is being viewed as being a distinct market people can make profits from, by satisfying manufactured needs. Do you think we’d have advertising if advertising didn’t have some influence on peoples’ patterns on consumption? And obviously the younger the person, especially if they’re a child, the more difficult it is for them to see what is actually happening. I mean over the past few years, the commercialisation of childhood is turned into the sexualisation of childhood, it’s reached epidemic proportions. It’s ironic, in an era when both private and state institutions are tackling child sexual abuse, the sexualisation of childhood is viewed as an appropriate strategy to be pursued by commercial interests, who as you know are involved in satisfying manufactured needs they have created among children and their parents.

Isn’t it strange the same moral and ethical standards that are expected of individuals and the community as a whole are not extended to the commercial sector? As long you can make a buck, everything goes. For far too long, the business and corporate sector have extended the community and the state to pick up the tab negative consequences of their activities. I mean, here we are, we’re are told about capitalism and markets when anybody can make a profit if the community and the state picks up the tab for the negative consequences of my commercial activities. Wouldn’t it be nice to pocket the profits and socialise the costs? And this is the mantra that monopoly capitalism runs under. This is the mantra, these are the laws that have been introduced, which allows corporations whose activities have negative consequences on the community, to continue to make profits at the expense of the community, because you and I are expected to pick up the tab for the creation of their profits, to satisfy manufactured human needs. Corporate welfare takes many guises. From direct grants to corporations, which we hear about every day, to special tax incentives, to allaying corporations to continue to generate profits from activities that have negative consequences on society, without these corporations having to factor these costs into their production costs. Whether it’s the litter from take-away outlets, greenhouse emissions from industry, childhood/adult obesity, problems associated with gambling, alcohol and tobacco sector of the very, and the tobacco sector, the very real problems that are created by the industries, created by the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood, created by the exploitation of limited, finite, resources to satisfy manufactured human needs. Not only are we losing these finite resources, to produce garbage, as a community we are expected to pick up the tab for their activities. Could you imagine how many of these industries would survive if they had to pay the full cost of their activities? Could you imagine if the gambling industry would be able to survive if it had to pay for the damage it caused to the community? Or the alcohol industry? Or the tobacco industry? Or the coal industry? Could you imagine how many of these industries would survive? If they didn’t socialise the costs of their activities? So next time you hear about great company profits, CEO’s who are paid in the millions and the 10’s of millions because of their astute economic judgement, ask yourself the question, ask them the question, ask the state the question, ask your neighbours the question, ask the people you work with the question, how much of their profits are due to the fact that the community has to pick up the tab for the negative of their activities. Why should private profits be pocketed by individuals in corporations and shareholders and the cost which they create to the community socialised? Spread around for the taxpayer, for you and me, to pay and if think you don’t pay taxes think again. Because with the introduction of the GST everybody in this country pays taxes and those of you say well I don’t pay much GST because I’m on a pension think why your pension is so low in comparison to the profits which are made by corporations and that’s what their economic miracle is built on. It’s built on the destruction of finite resources. It’s built on pocketing profits while socialising costs to the community. Look, we are going to have a listen to young John Glasbrook. I should say, old John Glasbrook, talk to us about another key or important economic figure whose ideas continue to have an effect on the economy.

- Well, you’re back for another round.
- Yes, back to talk about John Maynard Keynes.
- Well tell us about him
- He lived from 1883 to 1946, when Adam Smith become the father of classical lassie-faire economics John Maynard Keynes marked the beginning of neo-classical economics. Now listeners should also be aware that neo-classical economics is also referred to as neo-liberalism in some countries and here more recently neo-classical economics is referred to as economic rationalism by people like Mike Palsy who wrote his famous book Economic Rationalism In Canberra. Now, John Maynard Keynes agreed with Adam Smith on some basic points. That the market is the centre of power, competition and efficiency and that determiner of prices. John Maynard Keynes, he wasn’t really worried about competition or monopolies, he wasn’t concerned about how incomes were distributed, he accepted Adam Smith’s theories that the marketplace was motivated by self-interest and that prices were a reflection of competition in the marketplace, or the invisible hand, if you like. He wrote a book in 1936 the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Keynes was focused on unemployment in the Great Depression. Adam Smith argued that the economy would find its own equilibrium, that’s lasse-faire, and during the Great Depression, and the Wall St crash which had a contagious effect throughout the world, growth of poverty, mass unemployment, the classical comments at the time always counselling governments is not to intervene, that the economy would eventually correct itself. So the problem just got worse and worse and you had mass poverty in Australia, America, Europe, UK, and large lines of unemployed people. So to his credit, Keynes said that something needs to be done and in his book, he outlined a serious way of doing it and the way to do it was for governments to increasing purchasing power
- Excuse me, did you use the word governments? Have you ever had an economist says that we are going to resolve economic prices through the government, the people, through their taxes, they are going to bail out the capitalists?
- That’s right
- That’s what he’s saying
- That’s right. Well Keynes was about making the lassie-faire system work better. So he come up with this concept that the economy could still reach equilibrium but you would have an underemployment equilibrium. So that the economy wasn’t self-correcting, that the government needed to intervene to increase purchasing power, to not engage in mass wage reductions which the classical economist wanted governments to do because that would be detrimental to overall purchasing power, that the government had to become more interventionist, that they had to manage demand, use various budgetary techniques, also investment strategies, and engage in wholesale public investment projects to provide more employment, to provide more money, provide more purchasing to workers and consumers
- He sounds like a heretic. In Victorian 21st century government we’re told that the government needs to be kept out of all this.
- Yep. Well the interesting thing is that there were Keynesians before John Maynard Keynes came along and it’s not surprising that Adolf Hitler was actually a Keynesian before John Maynard Keynes in a fascist state. He solved the problem of unemployment with huge public works programs and remaining evidence of that today is the autobahn
- Yes and Mussolini before him
- Yes and then other states were Sweden and in Austria you had more progressive or liberal-minded economists who were challenging the classical orthodoxy, not to sit back and wait for the market to correct itself, that the government had to take interventionist action. And this worked. It also worked because in the stage of WWII and the governments were prepared to set price controls. So along with Keynesian ideas, which were begrudgingly accepted at first but became very popular, especially after during the last stages and after WWII Keynesian ideas were implemented in most Western countries throughout the world.
- So was he responsible for the new deal, Roosevelt’s new deal
- That’s right. And another economist who I’ll be talking about later on, John Kenneth Galbray, was a supporter of the new deal, and also John Maynard Keynes’ ideas were the first significant step towards analysing an orthodoxy which eventually crippled government policy and was responsible for the growth of inequality through the western world. Even so, there was a modification of classical economical theory in the significant sense, Keynes was very much a capitalist. He was a very successful financially, successfully played the money markets, stock markets, so he came from quite a wealth middle class background, his father was an economist and he was an intellectual who was driven by ideas, not so much by passion or revolutionary feelings for changing the system. He didn’t talk about monopolies. He believed that despite the failure of the capitalist system to deal with unemployment, that capitalism was the best form of economy that you could get and that it could be patched up, cold be reformed.
- So as long as you can use taxpayers money you can bail them out, basically, the system will chug along.
- The neo-classical economics gave rise to the separation from micro-economics which was all about the market being the source of power and micro-economists study markets and their relationships to prices and consumers and spending. But the Keynesians developed the idea of macro-economics which was concerned about total performance, aggregate performance and they developed this instruments like gross domestic product and national income and these have been taken to be accepted even today be politicians and the public and of course newspaper editors as being sound and healthy measures of a healthy society. Gross domestic product and national income, it doesn’t tell us a lot of things about things that aren’t included as measures or have important economic activities like housework, childrearing or volunteers but it includes a lot of dodgy things like sales from pornographic materials are included in GDP, also other measures which can be seen as a refection of big problems of our society, for example one of the biggest growth industries is security, so if the security industry is becoming so prosperous it is probably a reflection that we have more crime and violence. Same as the pharmaceutical industry is included in GDP. Some of the big sales in the pharmaceutical industry are things like Prozac and Ridelen where lower class kids have to be tranquilised to go to school.
- So as long as it makes a profit, it doesn’t matter.
- That’s right, that’s Keynesian economics. And the Keynesians developed GDP as a measuring standard. If your output increased, albeit Prozac or Ridlelin, tobacco and the growth of diet and weight loss pills, or the growth in security and police forces, and never mind the fact that we are getting more pollution and environmental problems, the economists and politicians will tell us that we were much better off than last time.
- As long as Moody ticks it off, we’re all right.
- That’s right
- Right. Now would you like to summarise about Mr Keynes.
- Well, he was characterised as having brought about a revolution to economic but, it’s got to be remembered that Keynes basically was a capitalist himself and that he was in favour of lassie-faire economics but in so far as you could modify it to deal with problems like mass unemployment, in which he was able to successfully do with his strategy of demand management, investment by government and intervention by government to create public works projects to deal with growth of unemployment. When the classical economic system is unable to develop an equilibrium. And it could even include problems that needed to be dealt with by interventionist roles within government. But the problem with a lot of his things, the system became more focused on economic growth, it was not concerned with the distribution of income, was not concerned about exploitation, and it was not concerned about control of prices by monopolies and cartels, they still believed in the myth that prices and resources were best allocated in the market economy, by the invisible hand of the marketplace, by the competition by the buyers and sellers, this is still very strong. From the times of Adam Smith through to John Maynard Keynes and even today.
- Right, good thankyou very much and round 4 next week and who will you be talking about?
- Next week I will be talking about John Kenneth Galbray.
- Good we’ll see you in the studio next week. Thankyou very much John.
- Thankyou

Right, that was John and he’ll be in next week and the week after. Facts and figures. Now, talking about dodgy statistics. I mean, private schools are still concerned, I don’t know why because they own both major political parties, the issue of the government of the day to private schools could, and I can’t see how, re-emerge as an election issue. Now Julie Bishop, the federal education minister, was spruiking the joys of private education earlier on this week. The minister launched a report commissioned by the association of Independent Schools of Victoria that made the claim that private schools save the taxpayer $5 billion dollars per year. Now normally I let this type of garbage go to the keeper, but this time the 4th estate was lapping it up. Maybe, because most of their children go to private schools or maybe because the federal education minister launched this report. Could you imagine Mr Joe Hockey launching a report which had been commissioned by the ACTU telling people what a con Work Choice legislation has concerned? Well this is on the same level if you think about it. Let’s look at the figures. The Commonwealth government gives $4,419 of your money for every child in a private school, to the private education sector. It gives $937, yes you heard correctly, I haven’t missed one before it, it gives $937 per child per year attending a public school. So there’s a difference there of 5 to 1. When you add state funding to Commonwealth funding, public school students are educated on $9,262 per year. While private school students receive on an average per child per year the private education sector, $6,054. So I assume the $5 billion dollars which they have calculated is the difference between the $9,262 which is given to the public school and $6,054 which is given to the private schools. When you add the $40,000 per year parents who send their children to the more prestigious private schools pay in school fees, you can see the huge difference in the amount of money that’s allocated to educate students in private schools in comparison to state schools. Again it’s again 5 to 1 ratio.

So if you can educate a public school child for $10,000 why do you need $45,000 to educate a private school student? What’s it all about? The $5 billion dollars saved by the taxpayer because 30% of children of children attend private schools, is a totally illusory figure. The billions of taxpayers dollars pumped into private education by Commonwealth and state governments is taking money away from the public sector, not saving the taxpayer money. I mean those parents who want to send their children to private schools should pay for the privilege. Why should some of the richest families in this country be subsidised, while the poorest are denied government funding for public education? Why do you think there isn’t enough government funding for public education? Very simple. Billions of dollars are poured into the coffers of private schools which provide education for around 32% of children in this country. It’s tragic that such a skewed interpretation of the data is given so much prominence. The facts are simple. I mean, the 30% of Australian children whose parents can afford to buy them a private education are being subsidised to the tune of 15 billion dollars per year, while the 70% of Australian children and their parents, who can’t afford a private education. No wonder the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria is so concerned about the inequality in these figures, they have been forced to massage reality by putting spin on the situation that can no longer be justified. The issue of funding the private schools will not be an issue in this election. End of story.

Remember last week we said that if you’re a person whose concerned about obscene words then you shouldn’t be listening to this program, especially the next segment because we are going to using the P-Word. If there’s one thing that’s obscene in 2007, it’s using the P-word. The PUBLIC word. Talking about the public interest, public housing, public transport, public health care, public education. Disgusting obscenity as far as state and federal governments are concerned and Her Majesty’s loyal opposition. Now I’ve just seen one of the shabbiest con tricks I’ve ever seen in politics and many people are haloing that this is some type of godsend. Now anybody who believes that perennial wallflower Mr Costello, Mr Peter Costello, believes the federal treasurers assurances, that proposed 2.5 million dollar health and medical infrastructure future fund will have more the minimal impact on the Australian public health centre, isn’t looking at the whole picture. They are just looking at the propaganda that’s being pumped out by the federal government. Even if the fund generates 10% income per annum, only 250 million dollars per year will be available to update public medical infrastructure. That’s right, 250 million dollars per year, even if it generates 10% return and we don’t take out of the running costs, the costs of the beaucracy needed to administer such a fund. I mean, this amount wouldn’t even cover the costs of a half a dozen Mercy hospital interventions by the Commonwealth government. It takes a billion dollars to build a public hospital these days. The health infrastructure future fund, like the higher education future fund, is a giant government slush fund that will be used to carry political favour in marginal electorates. Instead of given money to the states, to upgrade the public health sector or the public education sector, you put money in these great slush funds, which the government of the day controls and dishes out the goodies to it’s ideological soul mates or those sections of the community that are willing to jump through the hoops to fit into the governments ideological agenda. I mean, if the Howard government and the perpetual wallflower Peter Costello was serious about improving the public health sector, they could stop directing $4 billion per year of taxpayers money to help subsidise the health care costs, insurance costs, of the 40% of Australians who can afford to take out private insurance. If there are so concerned about the ability of people on low incomes to afford private health insurance they could pay the private health care costs of old age pensioners single parents on benefits and disability support pensioners. I mean these Australians have the greatest health care needs, but don’t have the ability to buy private health insurance. Especially if 4 billion dollars is ripped out of the system, and given to the 40% of Australians who can afford to buy private health insurance. Access to health care in Australia of all places should be a right not a charity or a luxury, you shouldn’t have to wait for 6 months on a hospital system for a bypass surgery whilst somebody with private health insurance can get that bypass surgery performed next week. Public funds should be used to support and extend the public health sector not subsidise the private health sector as we are currently seeing. Any government that is serious about the public health sector or public health should allocate funds on the basis of need not ideological peccadilloes. Setting up a health infrastructure future fund that is not managed by an independent board, who are directed to allocate funds on the basis of needs, is little more than cynical pork barrelling. Australians deserve more than Abbott and Costello’s’ shabby con trick. And you’ll continue to be inundated with shabby con tricks from the gang of 4 – Peter Costello, John Howard, Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer. 4 senior members of this government who forgotten what it is to tell the truth. And if the biggest con is the establishment of the slush funds, which are controlled by the minister, to fund initiatives in marginal electoral seats, pre-election, nothing is more cynical, disgusting, than the establishment of these trust funds which are not managed by independent boards whose members are chosen not by the minister but by 2 thirds of parliament. Whose mission statement is not based on need, but the need to ensure themselves against political defeat.

You’re listening to the Anarchist World this Week, broadcast across Australia on the National Community Radio Satellite. My name’s Joseph Toscano, for a complementary copy of this weeks’ Anarchist Age Weekly Review, issue 752, which broaches some but not all of the subjects on this program, and obviously broaches many more subjects, the number is (03) 8508 9856. You can download the weekly later today or early tomorrow from anarchistmedia.org You can write to us at PO Box 20 Parkville 3052. I encourage you to go outside and start shouting the P-word. Because if you want this election to mean something, you want something to be debated of substance, it’s important that we rehabilitate the P-word. Public transport, public education, public health care, public service and the list goes on and on. Let’s get rid of this private cancer which has spread across this country.

Now I don’t usually make negative comments about other political activists but occasionally you’ve got to look at what’s happening. Now I don’t who else would know about Terry Lane is, apart from listeners in Victoria, but Terry Lane is a columnist in Melbourne, some people may know him through his Radio National Program. He’s been a little bit of a political activist over the last few decades. It was a bit disappointing to see that he’s thrown in the towel as a Sunday Age columnist last Sunday. And he was pretty pissed of about the convergence politics in this country. The fact that real power lies in boardrooms of national and transnational corporations not in parliament and he didn’t really think this election is going to make much difference, and he had enough and he said ‘up yours’ and he took his pen and went. Now obviously Terry is getting a bit long in the tooth, I think he must be nearly 70, but it is interesting how a political activist of some standing has come to this position. In a society where both power and wealth lie in the hands of a powerful minority, the only way to stop convergence of political thought is by agitating for democratic reform. There is no point in whinging, we need to agitate. Parliamentary democracy, rule of the people by the people for the people, has as much to do with democracy as the AFL has to do with promoting Soccer Australia. Instead of riding off into the sunset, Mr Terry Lane could have had some impact if he had spent his time promoting parliamentary reform instead of whinging. 2 reforms that can make parliamentary reform accountable to the people, are as we keep saying on this program, the power of recall and citizens initiated referendums. If 20% of the electorate were not happy with the performance of their parliamentary representatives in between elections, a fresh election could be triggered to see if the current representative still enjoyed the support of the electorate, giving the electorate the power of recall, makes parliamentary representatives more accountable to their electorate than their party, the media, or business interests. In Australia, only parliament has the power to call referendums. And the current constitutional logjam, and we do have a constitutional logjam, could be broken if people had the power to call referendums. In Switzerland, if 10% of the electorate sign a petition demanding a referendum on a particular issue, that issue must be put to the people on that issue. There is nothing radical about the power of recall and citizens initiated referendums. They are tools that are used in many more advanced democracies across the globe, including the USA. There is no reason why citizen initiated referendums couldn’t become a feature of the Australian democratic system. Giving the people the power to call referendums puts a brake on those elements in society who own the means of production, distribution, exchange of communication, and again makes politicians more accountable to the electorate In Australian society, there is not accountability. Every 3 years you give a signed blank cheque to a parliamentary representative on your behalf when you know that real power doesn’t lie in parliament it lies in the boardrooms of national and transnational corporations and that’s why we have a convergence of political thought because if you don’t sing the same tune, you don’t get elected, end of story. Because those people who exercise real power make it their business to ensure that you don’t get elected if you don’t sing their tune and the only time the Labor Party as we are seeing will be able to be elected is if it sings the same tune as the John Howard government. A well educated public and recent technological innovations make it possible for the electorate to make decisions and appoint recallable delegates to co-ordinate those decisions at a regional and national level. Electors no longer need to give their representatives a signed blank cheque to make decisions for them for the next 3 years. It’s disappointing that a man of Lane’s proven intelligent ability, was unable or unwilling take up the struggle for democratic reform. If he had done so, he may not find himself in the difficult position he finds himself in today. Think about it. The problem in our society today there is a lot of people that carp and whinge and complain but very few take the next step and organise and agitate for change. Coz if you don’t have the vision, if you don’t have ideas, you don’t know what direction you want change to go in, we’ll continue to get more of the same and more of the same leads to cynicism, real cynicism, the dark arts. Trust a man with a biblical passion to raise the dark arts.

I had to laugh when the health minister Mr Tony Abbott, claimed he was concerned about the hypocrisy surrounding the ALP suggestion that the Coalition government have launched a dirty tricks campaign against Mr Rudd. Of all the people familiar with the dark arts of politics, Abbotts statement, not mine, Abbott has a proven track record as a muckraker. When Defend and Extend Medicare, and group involved in peaceful, legitimate political activity, before the 2004 federal election, was having an impact on the government’s re-election strategy Mr Tony Abbott had a dossier that had been compiled by government’s security agencies on members of the group by the previous health minister, passed on to News Limited. Fact. He boasted about the fact that they had compiled the dossier. The dossier, as those of you with long memories will remember, was used by News Limited to launch a series of scurrilous attacks on prominent members of the Defend and Extend Medicare, in an attempt to neutralise them as a political force. The Victorian Trades Hall Council passed resolution, condemning the attacks, questions were asked by the ALP and federal parliament about the use of security agencies in preparing dossiers on people involved in peaceful, legitimate activity and a number of investigations were commenced into whether the health minister overstepped the mark. 3 years later it’s laughable that Abbott the muckraker is positioning himself on the high moral ground. The man is concerned that people may think that the federal government’s dirty tricks brigade, which was active 3 years ago, is back in action. He’s concerned about the use of the dark arts of politics. Abbott, our beloved health minister, has few peers in federal parliament, his political career has been built on innuendo, intimidation and deceit. When it comes to hypocrisy, Abbott has a thing or 2 to teach Machiavelli. It’s interesting that News Limited is once again being used to peddle the government’s propaganda. It seems to be the newspaper of choice. The incestuous relationship that exists between News Limited and the Coalition government tarnished the reputation of both parliament (you couldn’t tarnish the reputation of the Howard government, they do that themselves) and News Limited. As soon as News Limited stops acting as Howards propaganda art, the sooner people may consider actually believing the little bit of what they find in Rupert Murdochs considerable newspaper outlets in this country.

I just thought I’d finish off with a little bit of a court case, just to show you how wonderful the type of democratic society we live in. Although the word democracy is the most overused word in this country. To me the word democracy is by the people for the people of the people, it has really nothing to do with parliament representation.
In November 2005 4 peace activists, members of the group Christians Against All Terrorism, (the key is All Terrorism) walked into Pine Gap to conduct a citizens inspection of Australia’s’ most secure military base to highlight the role Pine Gap, a giant United States/ Australian joint military instillation which is situated outside Alice Springs, plays in the United States terrorist bombing campaigns in Iraq and other parts of the world. It is an important part of the US military industrial complex. Although, the 5 members of Christians Against All Terrorists, the whole 5 of them had notified the Pine Gap authorities, that they were going to conduct a citizens inspection, and got into a VW somewhere in Qld and made their way to Alice Springs being shadowed by secret police, although they have notified the authorities that they would illegally enter the base, they were not discovered until 4 hours after they had entered into Australia’s most secure base. 18 months later, 4 of the group, Donna, Adele, Brain and Jim, faced the Supreme Court in Alice Springs. They were charged under a 1952 law created to protect nuclear testing at Maralinga and Montebello. The charge has 7 years maximum penalty for trespass. An interesting thing is, only the attorney general, like the sedition laws, Mr Phillip Ruddock, had the power to give permission for the charges to be laid. So here we see, government intervention, Ruddock giving the authorities permission to lay these trespass charges which have a maximum penalty of 7 years jail. During the 3 week trial, where the defendants defended themselves, they crossed sword with 6 Commonwealth barristers, including 2 Queens Councils, courtesy of you and me the taxpayers, we footed the bill, obviously. Despite not being fully able to conduct their case because the $500 a day QC’s made it plain to the judge, that although witnesses an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, they were prevented from answering many of the questions asked by the defendants, because their questions in the court of law, threatened national security so although you swear an oath on a stack of bibles and Korans, you don’t have to tell the truth! Fascinating, isn’t it. The jury took 5 hours to reach a verdict. Direct quote, all the jury had their heads hang down and one or two may have been crying, as the verdict of guilt were read out by the foreman. The prosecutor immediately jumped up and asked for prison sentences for their peaceful entry into Pine Gap. The Supreme Court Sally Thomas thought otherwise and fined Donna and Adele $450, Jim $1000 and Brian $1300. They are also ordered to pay $250 each, that’s 10 grand for a few holes they’d made in the parameter fence to get in. All in all, not much joy for a government that used the threat of terror as one of the major electoral planks. Post script: last week, the Commonwealth, keen to extract a little bit of political mileage from the case, has appealed against the leniency of the sentence, so next time Adele, Donna, Brain and Jim will be in front of the full bench of the Supreme Court in Darwin. Wonderful, isn’t it, how you’re taxpayer money is used.

You’re listening to Anarchist World this Week, broadcast on the national community radio satellite streaming live on 3cr.org.au this program is podcast, you can beam it down at any time, listen to it at your leisure, the last few programs have also been podcast, and hopefully in the next few weeks we’ll actually be able to have transcripts of the program on the Anarchist Age Weekly Review. The number once again, (03) 8508 9856. Listen in to the Anarchist World This Week, next week.