No hope, no dignity on welfare overhaul

Government changes will create a new underclass of working poor reliant on charities, family and friends to supplement low wages, church-based employment organisations will tell a parliamentary inquiry today.

Instead of creating incentives for people to find work, the biggest changes in the system in decades will force people on welfare to accept jobs with no award conditions or pay rates or face the suspension of their benefits for eight weeks.

"This is an agenda that passes the buck on poverty and inequality," the St Vincent de Paul Society will tell the inquiry.

"It contributes to greater income inequality at a time when there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that the slide into growing inequality has been arrested. Furthermore, it does nothing to really enable people to participate in work, education or the community. It does not offer dignity. It takes away hope."

Church-based members of the Job Network, including Catholic Welfare Australia, the Salvation Army, UnitingCare and Anglicare Australia, account for about 20 per cent of the employment agencies the Federal Government uses. They represent a higher number of people with disabilities than other employment agencies and are already finding it difficult to find enough suitable jobs.

The organisations have all attacked the proposed welfare changes, saying they are based on a system of fear and will result in people having to rely on charity.

A government committee will hear three days of evidence on the new welfare system before reporting back within a week before Parliament returns for its final fortnight of the year. The new welfare system is scheduled to begin on July 1.

The provisions include:

* New applicants for the disability pension will be tested to see if they are capable of working 15 hours a week.

* If they are, they will have to look for a job or be automatically placed on the lower Newstart (unemployment) payment.

* Sole parents applying for the Parenting Payment (Single) will have to look for work once their youngest child turns six.

* However, they will not be moved to the Newstart payment until the child turns eight.

Church and welfare groups are particularly concerned about the tough new rules for people who do not meet the requirements of their welfare payments and will tell the inquiry they should be abandoned.

A person's payments will be automatically cut off for eight weeks if they do not accept a job, if they do not participate in work-for-the-dole programs or if they leave a job for a reason Centrelink deems unreasonable.

The chief executive officer of Catholic Welfare Australia, Frank Quinlan, said that the proposed new system "makes no sense".

"Suspending all payments to the very poor is like sending a naughty child to their room and leaving them there for three days," he said.

Instead of taking away benefits, more money should be spent on training so people have a better chance of finding a good job and turning the work-for-the-dole program into a vocational training system, the churches argue.

The Salvation Army is also expected to criticise the new system when it gives evidence later in the week. Its national secretary, John Staite, has already said he expects his organisation's resources to be stretched as more people come for help.

However, the Government argues that moving people from welfare into work will increase employment rates and improve the lives of welfare recipients and their families.

By Stephanie Peatling 21 November 05

Related:

ACOSS urges national anti-poverty plan
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is calling for a national plan to reduce poverty.

The clock is ticking: Aboriginal Leaders
Aboriginal leaders say only immediate action will remedy the appalling state of remote communities in the Northern Territory, writes.

Poverty cycle must be addressed: Ridgeway
The Democrats' Aden Ridgeway says Prime Minister John Howard should stop beating up on people who are on welfare, and focus on solving the national Indigenous unemployment rate.

Australia: Caught in a poverty trap
ONE of the delights of watching a superhero movie, be it of the bat or spider variety, is when the grotesque machinery developed and demonstrated by the hero's foes is turned back on them with typically devastating results.

Costello's anti-Job Network weapons discovered?
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Pity Labor Couldn't be United over Social Services Cuts?
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Happy mothers day: Single mums forced to work!
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HoWARd Gov't could be slued, community warns
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members will join a rally in Victoria Square today, protesting against the anticipated changes to workplace relations.

Work for the dole and prison industry slavery
Work for the dole certainly offers a lot of variety. The impression given by the government is that most unemployed do creative and helpful work assisting the community.

'Social Services cheats' may face election next time around
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Single parents deserve a living wage and not persecution
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Labor sees problems in welfare proposals
The Federal Opposition says proposed changes to Australia's welfare system are a cost-cutting measure and will leave disability and sole parent pensioners worse off.

Dismantle the war machine, slash taxes, privatisation and keep social services The Centre for Independent Studies report says the flat-rate income tax of 10 per cent would ensure most Australians could afford to pay for essential services such as health and education, instead of relying on welfare [social service] payments.

Costello to force single mums to look for work?
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The HoWARd Government is simply robbing the disabled blind
KERRY O'BRIEN: Federal cabinet adjourned today still undecided about the final formula for what has become politically one of the toughest reform challenges the Government will face this term. For the past two decades, the disability support pension has been one of the fastest growing welfare payments [social security payments.]

Encouragement is the key to social-services-to-work programs
Corporate Welfare! I think we should start with Ingeus Company. Telling us what we already know for $$$$!

Peter Saunders shake-up is long overdue: Welfare Not Warfare
Peter Saunders: Many DSP claimants are older men with limited skills who have had difficulty finding work?

Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
John Howard: "Self-evidently we would have liked the major combat to have gone differently ... [but] coalition withdrawal or defeat is unimaginable."

Govt plots post-July strategy?
Fascist Prime Minister insists he is not on a mission to punish welfare recipients [social services.]

HoWARd 'determined' to make the disabled woRK?
The Federal Government is considering a system of "coercion" and incentive to force the disabled to work. But what happened to 6 billion-budget surpluses? Why do they need to force disabled people to work? Do they need more money and less disabled people? Or do would they rather spend the money on WAR?

Opposition pension claims valid
The Federal Governments secret agenda to cut pensions, including the disability and single parent payments while spending billions on military hardware is just too much for most disabled people to accept.

Thousands march for disability protest
"We are not prepared to go back to the dark ages. This has to be reversed," Mr Preston said. "We are hoping that the community sees that we shouldn't be taking money from people with disabilities. These people have had it tough all their lives (and) there is already more unmet need than we can cope with."

Howard's Job Network Bailout
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THE HILLSONG'S ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF ' NEO-LIBERALISM' Only a bent mind would envisage the possibility or think of the concept that a '2nd Neo-Liberal 'front' promoted by the right and posing as a Church would enter politics under the flag of "Family First Party".

Costello, Howard's Disciple
JOHN HOWARD AND PETER Costello lost their vision for Australia from the time they were elected and embarked on a vision for the neo-Liberals.

Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel?
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Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
Ever wondered why there are so many homeless, why we need a 10 pc GST, lack of services for mental disability, still paying off the Olympics, poor public transport planning etc etc etc?

Unemployed:

Work for the dole is legal slavery
Work for the dole was originally sold to us by Howard as a warm and fuzzy light work project. We would be working for nothing but we would be enjoying giving back something to the community, so it was reckoned.

FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT!
Peter Costello commended this result in his budget speech. Even if we were to believe this figure it still means more than half a million living at a level much lower than that is recognised as poverty.

Mark Latham's, token gestures for older unemployed
StandUp appreciates the fact that Mark Latham is concerned about older unemployed people. His specialist job network proposal aimed at older people might provide a bit of assistance.

Work for the dole failure for two thirds
THE Un-Australian: " MORE than a third of the people who completed the Howard Government's work-for-the-dole programs last year were in jobs or studying within three months of finishing.

Work for the dole? $10.00?
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'WORK FOR THE DOLE' REDUCES JOB PROSPECTS
A major independent study commissioned by the Government and released today under Freedom of Information by The Australian newspaper indicates that the 'Work for the Dole' program actually reduces the job prospects of unemployed people.

Youth welfare system unfair: ACOSS
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is warning urgent action is needed to fix youth poverty and disincentives for the unemployed to improve their job prospects.

Bringing up children Can we afford it?
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Federal Budget: Tax cuts for the rich!
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Private job network agency blues
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Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
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Centrelink puts the screws on prison debt
A 1999 study by the Brisbane Prisoners Legal Service revealed that on leaving prisoners had an average debt of $14,031. Almost one in five had a debt to Centrelink while in prison. This debt arose as a result inability to cancel things such as leases, Social Security payments, utilities and telephones.

Democrats approve tougher welfare penalties: But how does that pan out?
There used to be an old saying in Australia" if your hungry steal a sheep and leave the pelt on the fence.

Six weeks, six months, six years: inmates have little chance of making fresh start Even prisoners who serve short sentences are likely to suffer long-term consequences, including increased rates of homelessness and unemployment.

Military Spending

Howard: We as a nation have got to invest heavily in defence?
Fascist Prime Minister John HoWARd has indicated the Government will make major changes to work place laws, cut disability support forcing the disabled to work and increase his defence commitment.

Hill primed for war!
Australian Caretaker Defence Minister Robert Hill has announced a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Pearce Air Force base in Western Australia. Hill says $87 million would be spent on a major upgrade of the base, which is Australia's main flying training facility.

Troop deployment not a deepening of effort: Hill
Deploying an extra 30 troops to Iraq was not a deepening of Australia's involvement because they were being sent to protect those already there, Defence Minister Robert Hill said yesterday.

Auditor Generals damning defence report
The Defence Department computer system upgrade has cost Australia tens of millions of dollars in a gigantic bungle, according to the Federal Opposition. The Commonwealth auditor-general has issued a damning report into the project.

UN sees no need for hunger

The world has enough resources to feed its growing population if political leaders can get past "short-term interests", the head of the UN's food agency says.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Senegalese director, Jacques Diouf, has made the comments to mark World Food Day.

"Today the world has the resources and technology to produce sufficient quantities of food not only to meet the demand of a growing population, but also to bring an end to hunger and poverty," Mr Diouf said.

He adds that he "dares to hope" that politicians would "make decisions based on the social harmony of a world of solidarity and peace, not on short-term interests that can lead to injustice and social unrest".

The United Nations estimates that 852 million people worldwide went without enough food in 2004.

That is a rise of 10 million over the previous year, which indicates that food crises have become more frequent around the world.

Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says every day some 100,000 people die of malnutrition.

"The right to food is a human right," stated the special rapporteur, who will present his full report to the UN in New York on October 27.

The chronic lack of food in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly worrying, with over a third of the region's population now considered malnourished.

The numbers of underfed soared from 88 million 1999 to 200 million in 2001.

Mr Ziegler complains that while the 191 countries in the UN spent a trillion dollars on arms in 2004, they reduced their donations to international organisations.

This year, the coffers of the World Food Program (WFP) were $290 million down, while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees needed an extra $241 million to run his operations properly.

The WFP has had to reduce food rations for thousands of refugees over the past few months, particularly in west Africa and the east African Great Lakes region, to well below the 2,100 calories needed for survival.

By Feed the World 17 October 05

Related:

Poverty Population & Development
3 billion of the world's people (one-half) live in 'poverty' (living on less than $2 per day). 1.3 billion people live in 'absolute' or 'extreme poverty' (living on less than $1 per day).

Galloway: Cry for social change
"The only way to make poverty history is to make the G8 history.(snip) Some of the most dangerous men in the world are in Gleneagles Hotel this week. They are responsible not only for the renewed and terrifying drive to war that characterises the start of the 21st century. They also preside over a system that is itself the biggest killer in the world.(snip)

Malnutrition strikes 1 in 3 Africans: UN
One in three Africans suffers from malnutrition and a total of 852 million people in the world suffer from hunger, the United Nations says in a new report.

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World governments must embrace a broad strategy ranging from trade and debt forgiveness to handing out mosquito netting to "make poverty history", United Nations chief Kofi Annan says.

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The United Nations is appealing for help for up to 2 million people facing hunger in Kenya.

Health catastrophe looms in Sudan: UN
A malnourished Sudanese refugee child lies at a feeding centre in Iriba Town in Chad.

UN estimate of Darfur deaths soars to 180,000
More than 180,000 people have died in Sudan's conflict stricken Darfur region over the past 18 months, UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland says. The United Nations had previously estimated about 70,000 dead from the fighting, disease and malnutrition linked to the Darfur conflict.

ACOSS urges national anti-poverty plan

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is calling for a national plan to reduce poverty.

Activities have been organised across Australia to highlight hardship in Australia and overseas during Anti-Poverty Week.

ACOSS president Andrew McCallum says 2 million Australians are living in poverty and 1.5 million do not have jobs.

Mr McCallum says Australia should take note of Ireland's national anti-poverty plan, which has reduced the poverty rate there from 15 to 5 per cent.

"Two million Australians living in poverty at this time of economic growth is something that should be unacceptable to all Australians," he said.

"We're saying let the governments get together and acknowledge there is a problem, then set about looking at how we can reduce that.

"A national anti-poverty plan is something that we think should be considered."

By Hungry 17 October 05

Related:

The clock is ticking: Aboriginal Leaders
Aboriginal leaders say only immediate action will remedy the appalling state of remote communities in the Northern Territory, writes.

Poverty cycle must be addressed: Ridgeway
The Democrats' Aden Ridgeway says Prime Minister John Howard should stop beating up on people who are on welfare, and focus on solving the national Indigenous unemployment rate.

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ONE of the delights of watching a superhero movie, be it of the bat or spider variety, is when the grotesque machinery developed and demonstrated by the hero's foes is turned back on them with typically devastating results.

Costello's anti-Job Network weapons discovered?
THE Federal Government had cut $500 million in funding to private sector employment agencies to ensure taxpayers received value for money, Treasurer Peter Costello said?

Pity Labor Couldn't be United over Social Services Cuts?
HoWARd/Costello (funny fellow) Big Mac and Small Fries. And Beazely's Kentucky Fried Two Piece Snack Box for those on minimum wages who should be enjoying - better Medicare Rebates, Public Housing, Hospitals, Education and Transport Infrastructure but instead get just $6.00.

Happy mothers day: Single mums forced to work!
AUSTRALIA can no longer sustain its warfare system, but can sustain the social dollar and that depends on where your priorities are? USA/Iraq or Australia?

HoWARd Gov't could be slued, community warns
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members will join a rally in Victoria Square today, protesting against the anticipated changes to workplace relations.

Work for the dole and prison industry slavery
Work for the dole certainly offers a lot of variety. The impression given by the government is that most unemployed do creative and helpful work assisting the community.

'Social Services cheats' may face election next time around
The Federal fascist HoWARd Government is attacking the poor and underprivileged again (on all fronts - now including social services, disabled, single mothers, Medicare rebate and IVF treatment.

Single parents deserve a living wage and not persecution
Being a single parent is hard work. It means a lot of responsibility. But you are not paid properly to do this work. You are paid way below what is recognised as the poverty line. StandUp! Believes that looking after a child is a job and should be paid for like any other job.

Labor sees problems in welfare proposals
The Federal Opposition says proposed changes to Australia's welfare system are a cost-cutting measure and will leave disability and sole parent pensioners worse off.

Dismantle the war machine, slash taxes, privatisation and keep social services The Centre for Independent Studies report says the flat-rate income tax of 10 per cent would ensure most Australians could afford to pay for essential services such as health and education, instead of relying on welfare [social service] payments.

Costello to force single mums to look for work?
SINGLE mothers would be forced to look for work once their children reached school age, under a draconian welfare package outlined last night by fascist Pastor Peter Costello to bolster funds to spend on military hardware and the ongoing illegal and degrading war in Iraq.

The HoWARd Government is simply robbing the disabled blind
KERRY O'BRIEN: Federal cabinet adjourned today still undecided about the final formula for what has become politically one of the toughest reform challenges the Government will face this term. For the past two decades, the disability support pension has been one of the fastest growing welfare payments [social security payments.]

Encouragement is the key to social-services-to-work programs
Corporate Welfare! I think we should start with Ingeus Company. Telling us what we already know for $$$$!

Peter Saunders shake-up is long overdue: Welfare Not Warfare
Peter Saunders: Many DSP claimants are older men with limited skills who have had difficulty finding work?

Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
John Howard: "Self-evidently we would have liked the major combat to have gone differently ... [but] coalition withdrawal or defeat is unimaginable."

Govt plots post-July strategy?
Fascist Prime Minister insists he is not on a mission to punish welfare recipients [social services.]

HoWARd 'determined' to make the disabled woRK?
The Federal Government is considering a system of "coercion" and incentive to force the disabled to work. But what happened to 6 billion-budget surpluses? Why do they need to force disabled people to work? Do they need more money and less disabled people? Or do would they rather spend the money on WAR?

Opposition pension claims valid
The Federal Governments secret agenda to cut pensions, including the disability and single parent payments while spending billions on military hardware is just too much for most disabled people to accept.

Thousands march for disability protest
"We are not prepared to go back to the dark ages. This has to be reversed," Mr Preston said. "We are hoping that the community sees that we shouldn't be taking money from people with disabilities. These people have had it tough all their lives (and) there is already more unmet need than we can cope with."

Howard's Job Network Bailout
Up to 670,000 people on disability support pensions will be encouraged to sign up to the Job Network under a radical new plan to get disabled people off welfare and into work.

THE HILLSONG'S ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF ' NEO-LIBERALISM' Only a bent mind would envisage the possibility or think of the concept that a '2nd Neo-Liberal 'front' promoted by the right and posing as a Church would enter politics under the flag of "Family First Party".

Costello, Howard's Disciple
JOHN HOWARD AND PETER Costello lost their vision for Australia from the time they were elected and embarked on a vision for the neo-Liberals.

Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel?
Well praise the Lord the light is Hell bent here on Peter Costello, treasurer of the Howard Government who now has his own "flock" of onward Christian Soldiers.

Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
Ever wondered why there are so many homeless, why we need a 10 pc GST, lack of services for mental disability, still paying off the Olympics, poor public transport planning etc etc etc?

Unemployed:

Work for the dole is legal slavery
Work for the dole was originally sold to us by Howard as a warm and fuzzy light work project. We would be working for nothing but we would be enjoying giving back something to the community, so it was reckoned.

FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT!
Peter Costello commended this result in his budget speech. Even if we were to believe this figure it still means more than half a million living at a level much lower than that is recognised as poverty.

Mark Latham's, token gestures for older unemployed
StandUp appreciates the fact that Mark Latham is concerned about older unemployed people. His specialist job network proposal aimed at older people might provide a bit of assistance.

Work for the dole failure for two thirds
THE Un-Australian: " MORE than a third of the people who completed the Howard Government's work-for-the-dole programs last year were in jobs or studying within three months of finishing.

Work for the dole? $10.00?
StandUp! Wishes to draw your attention to a serious attack on all of us--work for the dole. We were assured that unemployed would not be forced to work in areas where employed workers would normally be employed. This has shown to be a lie! Under work for the dole, unemployed have been forced to carry out; concreting, tiling, landscaping, repairs, renovation, painting, gardening, nurses and teachers aid work.

'WORK FOR THE DOLE' REDUCES JOB PROSPECTS
A major independent study commissioned by the Government and released today under Freedom of Information by The Australian newspaper indicates that the 'Work for the Dole' program actually reduces the job prospects of unemployed people.

Youth welfare system unfair: ACOSS
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is warning urgent action is needed to fix youth poverty and disincentives for the unemployed to improve their job prospects.

Bringing up children Can we afford it?
Peter Costello expects us to carry out our patriotic duty by going home and having more children. But for most people it is a struggle to bring up one child let alone two or three.

Federal Budget: Tax cuts for the rich!
For the Howard government, unemployed people are not even worth thinking about.

Private job network agency blues
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Centrelink puts the screws on prison debt
A 1999 study by the Brisbane Prisoners Legal Service revealed that on leaving prisoners had an average debt of $14,031. Almost one in five had a debt to Centrelink while in prison. This debt arose as a result inability to cancel things such as leases, Social Security payments, utilities and telephones.

Democrats approve tougher welfare penalties: But how does that pan out?
There used to be an old saying in Australia" if your hungry steal a sheep and leave the pelt on the fence.

Six weeks, six months, six years: inmates have little chance of making fresh start Even prisoners who serve short sentences are likely to suffer long-term consequences, including increased rates of homelessness and unemployment.

Military Spending

Howard: We as a nation have got to invest heavily in defence?
Fascist Prime Minister John HoWARd has indicated the Government will make major changes to work place laws, cut disability support forcing the disabled to work and increase his defence commitment.

Hill primed for war!
Australian Caretaker Defence Minister Robert Hill has announced a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Pearce Air Force base in Western Australia. Hill says $87 million would be spent on a major upgrade of the base, which is Australia's main flying training facility.

Troop deployment not a deepening of effort: Hill
Deploying an extra 30 troops to Iraq was not a deepening of Australia's involvement because they were being sent to protect those already there, Defence Minister Robert Hill said yesterday.

Auditor Generals damning defence report
The Defence Department computer system upgrade has cost Australia tens of millions of dollars in a gigantic bungle, according to the Federal Opposition. The Commonwealth auditor-general has issued a damning report into the project.

Poverty Population & Development

3 billion of the world's people (one-half) live in 'poverty' (living on less than $2 per day). 1.3 billion people live in 'absolute' or 'extreme poverty' (living on less than $1 per day).

800 million people lack access to basic healthcare. 17 million people, including 11 million children, die every year from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition.

800 million people are hungry or malnourished. Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide. 11 million people die every year from hunger and malnutrition.

2.4 billion people lack access to proper sanitation. 1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people or nearly 2/3rd's of the world's population will face water scarcity. More than 2.2 million people, mostly children, die each year from water related diseases.

275 million children never attend or complete primary school education. 870 million of the world's adults are illiterate.

3 million people die every year from HIV/AIDS. Approximately 25 million people have died from AIDS in the last 20 years. 70 million will die from AIDS by 2020. 40 million people are currently infected with HIV/AIDS, who will die within 10 years. 13 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS since the epidemic began, and the number is expected to double to 26 million by 2010.

Over 100 million people live in slums. An estimated 25 to 50 percent of urban inhabitants in poor, developing countries live in impoverished slums and squatter settlements.

The richest 1% of the world's people earned as much income as the bottom 57% (2.7 billion people). The top 5% of the world's people earn more income than the bottom 80%. The top 10% of the world's people earn as much income as the bottom 90%. The richest 16% of the world's population receives 84% of the world's annual income.

The wealth of the world's 7.1 million millionaires ($27 trillion) equals the total combined annual income of the entire planet. The combined wealth of the world's richest 300 individuals is equal to the total annual income of 45% of the world's population. The world's 3 wealthiest families have a combined wealth equal to the annual income of 600 million of the world's people. The wealthiest one-fifth of the world's population receive an average income that is 75 times greater than the poorest one-fifth.

Poor countries (which contain 4/5th's of the world's people) pay the rich countries an estimated nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid. Africa alone spends four times more on repaying its debts than it spends on health care. In 1997 the foreign debts of poor countries were more than $2 trillion and growing. The result is a debt of $400 for every person in the developing world - where average annual income in the very poorest countries is less than a dollar a day.

By Reality 16 October 05

Related:

The clock is ticking: Aboriginal Leaders
Aboriginal leaders say only immediate action will remedy the appalling state of remote communities in the Northern Territory, writes.

Poverty cycle must be addressed: Ridgeway
The Democrats' Aden Ridgeway says Prime Minister John Howard should stop beating up on people who are on welfare, and focus on solving the national Indigenous unemployment rate.

Galloway: Cry for social change
"The only way to make poverty history is to make the G8 history.(snip) Some of the most dangerous men in the world are in Gleneagles Hotel this week. They are responsible not only for the renewed and terrifying drive to war that characterises the start of the 21st century. They also preside over a system that is itself the biggest killer in the world.(snip)

Malnutrition strikes 1 in 3 Africans: UN
One in three Africans suffers from malnutrition and a total of 852 million people in the world suffer from hunger, the United Nations says in a new report.

Annan urges UN members to 'make poverty history'
World governments must embrace a broad strategy ranging from trade and debt forgiveness to handing out mosquito netting to "make poverty history", United Nations chief Kofi Annan says.

Kenya faces hunger crisis
The United Nations is appealing for help for up to 2 million people facing hunger in Kenya.

Health catastrophe looms in Sudan: UN
A malnourished Sudanese refugee child lies at a feeding centre in Iriba Town in Chad.

UN estimate of Darfur deaths soars to 180,000
More than 180,000 people have died in Sudan's conflict stricken Darfur region over the past 18 months, UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland says. The United Nations had previously estimated about 70,000 dead from the fighting, disease and malnutrition linked to the Darfur conflict.

The clock is ticking: Aboriginal Leaders

Aboriginal leaders say only immediate action will remedy the appalling state of remote communities in the Northern Territory, writes.

Tracker Tilmouth points angrily at a tin shanty where 23 Aborigines are living in squalor. "Take a look. That's not only a disgrace. It symbolises what I believe amounts to a form of cultural and social genocide," he says. "This is as bad as anywhere on earth, right here on Australian soil."

Tilmouth knows more than most people about Aboriginal poverty, poor health, high crime, alcoholism and substance abuse.

Snatched from relatives living in an Alice Springs creek bed when he could barely walk, Tilmouth has spent most of his life in remote indigenous communities, where new research reveals that a population explosion and 30 years of underfunding in education, health and infrastructure have created a social time bomb.

"I have to speak out now because things are getting worse for people in these communities," says Tilmouth, 53, a former head of the Central Land Council, the peak Aboriginal body in central Australia. "The system delivering services to these places has collapsed. But nobody wants to talk about it. Governments have one last chance to get it right or else they will be dealing with a catastrophe."

Bob Beadman probably knows more about the problems of Aboriginal Australians than any other non-indigenous person. He also says it is time to speak out to shock Australia about the state of remote indigenous communities.

The former senior public servant, who is chairman of the Northern Territory Grants Commission, says that 30 years of multilayered policies that bureaucrats considered generous failed tragically because they denied Aboriginal people any effective role in their own lives.

"We are now on the rocks," he says. "We need to fundamentally set a new course and abandon the old tiller settings. People need to be shocked. They need to be moved from their tacit acceptance that everything is OK. A huge task confronts the nation, and particularly Aborigines themselves."

Beadman says people need to abandon political correctness and tackle the taboos of indigenous communities such as "child molestation, family violence, or even diet or personal hygiene. Only when the dirty linen is put out for the wash will it be washed."

But above everything else Aboriginal people need to become re-engaged so momentum for change comes from them, Beadman says. "They have been encouraged to think inadvertently that government would prefer them to be paid to sit down rather than to work," he says. "Billions of dollars have been thrown at this problem and we still have a deteriorating outcome."

Steve Sunk, a lecturer at Charles Darwin University, has decided to blow the whistle on what is happening in remote indigenous communities, where he has worked for the past eight years. He told the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Clare Martin, in a letter that some children in the communities are starving and begging for food from teachers. Appealing for urgent government action, including providing protection and daily meals, he said children were being raped and "there is a lot of molesting and incest going on with the kids and it's too disgusting to mention the facts".

"They [children] are sleeping on concrete floors, they don't have the luxury of a mattress even to share with a camp dog," Sunk said in the previously unpublished letter. "Kids have sores all over which are not healing up because of lack of proper food."

The Australian National University's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research has found that fertility rates in 1300 remote indigenous communities are so high that the present total population of about 100,000 could double in 20 to 25 years. John Taylor, a senior fellow at the centre, says that unlike the rest of rural Australia, where economies are shrinking and populations declining, the "clock is ticking for remote indigenous communities".

Speaking in Wadeye, the largest remote community, 420 kilometres south-west of Darwin, Taylor warns that unless there is an immediate response from governments the cost of trying to fix the inevitable social dysfunction in the future will be enormous. He says the communities have remained largely out of sight of mainstream Australia, which for years "managed to avert its glance, so to speak".

But he says that as the communities become increasingly accessible and open to the outside world "Australia cannot afford to avoid them any more".

The problems confronting Wadeye, a former Catholic mission with a population of about 2100, are similar to those of other remote communities. An average of 17 people are living in each sweltering, graffiti-covered house such as the one Tilmouth pointed out. Almost half the population is under 15 and most of the teenagers cannot speak English. Infant mortality is four times the national average and life expectancy is 20 years less than that of non-indigenous Australians. Up to 80 per cent of the prisoners in the Northern Territory's jails are indigenous, many from remote communities.

The administrators and elders in almost all the remote communities complain about a lack of basic services that are available to other Australians.

Many of the communities look like Third World refugee camps. There are no banks, high schools, libraries, bitumen roads, child-care centres, restaurants, nursing homes or even privately owned service stations, milk bars or hardware stores, the sort of facilities you would see in a town of similar size in other parts of Australia.

While thousands of well-paid public servants from federal and territory departments work on indigenous matters in air-conditioned offices in Darwin and Alice Springs, administrators in remote communities complain that their pleas for help go mostly unanswered.

Ngukurr, a community at the edge of Arnhem Land, asked for eight months for help on chronic petrol sniffing among teenagers. One social worker with expertise on the problem visited for one day.

Wadeye, which has a new invigorated governing body based on centuries-old traditions, has declared that enough is enough. It is planning to sue the Territory Government for years of neglect of its children's education.

A report written by Taylor says the community receives less than 50 cents in the dollar for the education of a local child, compared with the full dollar distributed to children on average across the Territory. But the average is weighed down by other remote communities and Taylor says a direct comparison between Wadeye and Darwin is likely to be many times worse.

The revelations about remote communities come amid signs that a bold experiment by the Howard Government to trial a "whole of government" approach to delivering services to 10 indigenous communities, including Wadeye, is faltering.

In early August, the federal Minister for Family and Community Services, Kay Patterson, was taken aback when she was told during a visit to Wadeye that community elders were close to quitting the second stage of the Council of Australian Governments trial.

Patterson, whose department leads the trial in Wadeye, was not aware that the community was missing help from government departments it should have been receiving because it was wrongly believed it was getting all the help it needed from COAG.

A report written in August by Wadeye's Thamarrurr council told COAG the trial was "placing unsustainable pressure on council members and staff and on council resources". The report suggests the trial has caused the community to chase its tail. "We have come across our own tracks many times," the report said. "Our people ask how can this be?"

Of $1.3 million allocated to another COAG trial in the far-east Kimberley region of Western Australia, only $327,000 was spent on Aboriginal people and programs over 2? years. The rest went on salaries, travel and other related administrative expenses of the Department of Transport and Regional Services, which administers the program.

Tilmouth describes COAG as a Band-aid solution and a waste of time. "There are so many meetings they have to hold more meetings to discuss the problem of so many meetings," he says.

As the Howard Government pushes shared responsibility agreements it has negotiated directly with communities such as Wadeye, Aboriginal leaders and administrators in central and northern Australia question how much of the federal funds sent to the Territory Government to tackle Aboriginal disadvantage actually reaches the communities.

Norman Fry, chief executive officer of the Northern Land Council, the peak indigenous organisation in northern Australia, says spending on indigenous health, housing and other social indicators within the Territory Government remains a "deep, dark secret" that his organisation wants investigated. He says the truth about Aboriginal funding "must be exposed so that the true causes of dysfunction in remote communities may be addressed".

The council's chairman, John Daly, told the National Indigenous Times last month that "every indicator and every report points to serious concerns with the NT Government's expenditure of monies targeted for Aboriginal disadvantage".

Indigenous leaders point to reports that just over $1.5 billion of the $4 billion of the GST revenue expected to be collected in NSW and Victoria in 2005-06 will go the Territory Government to meet the needs of Territory Aborigines. They say that $1.5 billion is more than the entire national budget of the now dismantled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

They point out that while the commission's taxpayer funds were spent primarily on work-for-dole and infrastructure maintenance programs, the Territory Government is responsible for education, health and infrastructure.

Indigenous leaders in the Territory regard education as the most important priority and want to see an exact account of where the money is being spent. Taylor says that only 25 per cent of children of school age in remote communities actually sit down behind a desk on any one day at school. But the Territory Government continues to receive 100 per cent of federal funding for the education of these children.

The delivery of health services is another area of concern. The Territory receives about $115 million from the Federal Government for Aboriginal health.

The Northern Territory's Aboriginal leaders believe that after the demise of ATSIC the Howard Government should establish regional authorities that would receive and distribute Commonwealth funds earmarked for Aboriginal disadvantage rather than send them first to mainstream government departments and agencies.

Beadman, a former head of the Territory Office of Aboriginal Development who has written a report on the future of Aboriginal youth for the Menzies Research Centre, says the establishment of strong regional authorities would be a "better co-ordinating mechanism for state and territory-level funding and federal funding".

Leon Melpi, a Wadeye elder, is fed up with bureaucrats coming to the community with pieces of paper to discuss one solution or another. "They should stay away and do their business and not come back until they have a final solution," he says. "All I will say is that we want to deal directly with the people who actually make the decisions that affect us. We want to cut out the middleman."

In the meantime, Melpi plans to build an ecologically friendly motel on his land above a magnificent white sand beach that few non-indigenous people have ever set foot on.

"We just want to be a normal part of Australia with all the services and opportunities that are available to the rest of you," he says.

"Remote?"

Apartheid Australia?

Absolutely

By Lindsay Murdoch posted 18 September 05

Related:

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Indigenous Law Centre public forum: After ATSIC?
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Report seeks nationally elected body to replace ATSIC
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Govt accused of isolating Indigenous public servants
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NSW pledges to repay Indigenous wages
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Vanstone defends asking Aborigines to wash for fuel
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Clark crashes Indigenous affairs ministers' meeting
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Long says journey far from over
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Indigenous welfare plan breach race act!!!!
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) has issued a warning about the Federal Government's plan to link Aboriginal welfare to behavioural change.

HoWARd's 'attitude' to Aboriginal welfare racist
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UN rates Indigenous health poorly
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Poverty cycle must be addressed: Ridgeway
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"MESSAGE STICK" NEWSLETTER:
1. ATSIC abolition: the story so far. The last few months have seen both major parties buying into Indigenous Affairs in destructive and politically opportunistic ways. First the ALP and then the Government announced they would abolish ATSIC, but now the decision has been referred to a Senate Committee so the full implications of the Government's proposal can be examined. For more information on the Senate Inquiry into Indigenous Administration call 02 6277 3419 or go to:

AMA calls for extra health funding for Aborigines
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is asking for an extra $450 million a year to be spent on the health needs of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.

Labor to request Senate inquiry into ATSIC's future
The Federal Opposition has announced it will call for a Senate inquiry into the Government's plan to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Reconciliation dreaming
Djerrkura had witnessed the collapse of ATSIC, which he led from 1996 to 1999, with sadness. Despite the peak indigenous organisation's flaws, which he did not deny, its abolition, he said, had been done in "the classic imperial fashion, without negotiation, without understanding and with little empathy".

Amnesty sees lack of progress on reconciliation
Amnesty International says the Federal Government must be held accountable for its commitments to Indigenous services.

The bone has been pointed at Howard
A Queensland Indigenous leader says an ancient Aboriginal curse placed on Prime Minister John Howard is no laughing matter and could even have deadly consequences.

Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
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Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research: Aboriginal Crime
In 2001 more than forty percent of the Aboriginal male population aged 20-24 in NSW appeared before a NSW court charged with a criminal offence. One in ten Aboriginal males in NSW aged 20-24 received a prison sentence.

Inquiry told reforms will decimate Indigenous education
A Senate inquiry has been told the Federal Government's proposed higher education reforms will decimate education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The National Indigenous Postgraduate Association Aboriginal Corporation says Indigenous students will be the hardest hit by increases in student fees, interest on postgraduate loans and attacks on student representation.

Australian Greens Senator Responds To: Social Services Cuts

Dear Kerry Nettle,

I am writing to you because I am concerned about people living in poverty in Australia. In Parliament, legislation will be introduced to put many people with disabilities and single parents on unemployment payments. If this law goes ahead unchanged, more people will live on less money after July 2006.

Many people who apply for payments will be around $20-40 a week worse off. It is good that the Government aims to help more people gain access to paid work but I think this process should not make people poorer.

I have two specific concerns that I ask you, in your party room and in Parliament, to advocate for.

- Don't make more jobless people live on less

Legislation must be modified so that people with disabilities, who often have high health and travel costs, are not struggling to pay their bills. Jobless single parents must have the time and money they need to care for their children if they are studying or looking for work.

- Give them a chance

Any one can lose their job or have trouble finding one where they live. As part of this bill, some jobless people could lose their payments for two months. This is too long to leave people in difficult circumstances without money to live on. Rather than punishment, jobless people need training, advice and support to get ready for work.

You have an opportunity to do something for people who are struggling to make ends meet in our electorate. I will be watching to see how you respond to their needs and my concerns.

Kind Regards,
Just Us

This letter was sent using ACOSS's Action Network.

Senator Kerry Nettle

Thank you for your email about the proposed changes to welfare rules that were detailed in the federal government's 2005 Budget in May.

The Australian Greens support helping people with disabilities, sole parents and low-income parents, long-term jobless and older unemployed people to find paid work. However, we do not support the measures in the government's plan because they:

- Will leave people worse off financially, even if they can find part-time paid work. This is partly the result of withdrawing income support at a higher rate compared with the payments people will be moved from.

- Are not backed by adequate assistance. The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) estimated that $2 billion per year is needed to make a serious investment in helping people find employment but the government provided only a quarter of this.

- Fail to address some of the main barriers to long-term reliance on welfare, such as discrimination, extra costs for work equipment and transport, and lack of training and education.

- Provide insufficient affordable childcare which is critical to parents, especially those who can find only casual work at irregular hours.

- Punish jobless people by imposing harsher work-for-the-dole rules, including automatic eight week suspension of payments and up to 10 months work at $8 an hour, two-thirds of the minimum wage.

- Treat sole parents and low-income parents less favourably than middle and high income couple families. The government makes a regular payment (Family Tax Benefit B) to households where one partner is a full-time carer, regardless of whether the household has a high income. Yet the government wants to remove the choice of sole parents and parents of low-income partners to be full-time carers. The decision about when children need less supervision and care should be left to parents because every family's circumstances are different.

Congratulations on your lobbying efforts, I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Yours sincerely

Kerry Nettle
Australian Greens Senator for NSW

By Just Us 8 August 05

Related:

Costello's anti-Job Network weapons discovered?
THE Federal Government had cut $500 million in funding to private sector employment agencies to ensure taxpayers received value for money, Treasurer Peter Costello said?

Pity Labor Couldn't be United over Social Services Cuts?
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Happy mothers day: Single mums forced to work!
AUSTRALIA can no longer sustain its warfare system, but can sustain the social dollar and that depends on where your priorities are? USA/Iraq or Australia?

HoWARd Gov't could be slued, community warns
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members will join a rally in Victoria Square today, protesting against the anticipated changes to workplace relations.

Work for the dole and prison industry slavery
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'Social Services cheats' may face election next time around
The Federal fascist HoWARd Government is attacking the poor and underprivileged again (on all fronts - now including social services, disabled, single mothers, Medicare rebate and IVF treatment.

Single parents deserve a living wage and not persecution
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Labor sees problems in welfare proposals
The Federal Opposition says proposed changes to Australia's welfare system are a cost-cutting measure and will leave disability and sole parent pensioners worse off.

Dismantle the war machine, slash taxes, privatisation and keep social services The Centre for Independent Studies report says the flat-rate income tax of 10 per cent would ensure most Australians could afford to pay for essential services such as health and education, instead of relying on welfare [social service] payments.

Costello to force single mums to look for work?
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The HoWARd Government is simply robbing the disabled blind
KERRY O'BRIEN: Federal cabinet adjourned today still undecided about the final formula for what has become politically one of the toughest reform challenges the Government will face this term. For the past two decades, the disability support pension has been one of the fastest growing welfare payments [social security payments.]

Encouragement is the key to social-services-to-work programs
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Peter Saunders shake-up is long overdue: Welfare Not Warfare
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Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
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Govt plots post-July strategy?
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HoWARd 'determined' to make the disabled woRK?
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Opposition pension claims valid
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Thousands march for disability protest
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Howard's Job Network Bailout
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THE HILLSONG'S ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF ' NEO-LIBERALISM' Only a bent mind would envisage the possibility or think of the concept that a '2nd Neo-Liberal 'front' promoted by the right and posing as a Church would enter politics under the flag of "Family First Party".

Costello, Howard's Disciple
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Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel?
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Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
Ever wondered why there are so many homeless, why we need a 10 pc GST, lack of services for mental disability, still paying off the Olympics, poor public transport planning etc etc etc?

Unemployed:

Work for the dole is legal slavery
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FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT!
Peter Costello commended this result in his budget speech. Even if we were to believe this figure it still means more than half a million living at a level much lower than that is recognised as poverty.

Mark Latham's, token gestures for older unemployed
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Work for the dole failure for two thirds
THE Un-Australian: " MORE than a third of the people who completed the Howard Government's work-for-the-dole programs last year were in jobs or studying within three months of finishing.

Work for the dole? $10.00?
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'WORK FOR THE DOLE' REDUCES JOB PROSPECTS
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Youth welfare system unfair: ACOSS
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is warning urgent action is needed to fix youth poverty and disincentives for the unemployed to improve their job prospects.

Bringing up children Can we afford it?
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Federal Budget: Tax cuts for the rich!
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Private job network agency blues
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Centrelink puts the screws on prison debt
A 1999 study by the Brisbane Prisoners Legal Service revealed that on leaving prisoners had an average debt of $14,031. Almost one in five had a debt to Centrelink while in prison. This debt arose as a result inability to cancel things such as leases, Social Security payments, utilities and telephones.

Democrats approve tougher welfare penalties: But how does that pan out?
There used to be an old saying in Australia" if your hungry steal a sheep and leave the pelt on the fence.

Six weeks, six months, six years: inmates have little chance of making fresh start Even prisoners who serve short sentences are likely to suffer long-term consequences, including increased rates of homelessness and unemployment.

Military Spending

Howard: We as a nation have got to invest heavily in defence?
Fascist Prime Minister John HoWARd has indicated the Government will make major changes to work place laws, cut disability support forcing the disabled to work and increase his defence commitment.

Hill primed for war!
Australian Caretaker Defence Minister Robert Hill has announced a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Pearce Air Force base in Western Australia. Hill says $87 million would be spent on a major upgrade of the base, which is Australia's main flying training facility.

Troop deployment not a deepening of effort: Hill
Deploying an extra 30 troops to Iraq was not a deepening of Australia's involvement because they were being sent to protect those already there, Defence Minister Robert Hill said yesterday.

Auditor Generals damning defence report
The Defence Department computer system upgrade has cost Australia tens of millions of dollars in a gigantic bungle, according to the Federal Opposition. The Commonwealth auditor-general has issued a damning report into the project.

Galloway: Cry for social change

"The only way to make poverty history is to make the G8 history.(snip) Some of the most dangerous men in the world are in Gleneagles Hotel this week. They are responsible not only for the renewed and terrifying drive to war that characterises the start of the 21st century. They also preside over a system that is itself the biggest killer in the world.(snip)

You can't make poverty history by writing off some of the debt of some of the countries in Africa and pretending you have made up for centuries of exploitation and injustice."

To: intellectually curious

Subject: George Galloway - Battle cry for radical change

What do sweatshop workers in Bangladesh have in common with the people who work in your local supermarket? More than you might think, writes George Galloway, Respect MP The only way to make poverty history is to make the G8 history. I don't mean simply the annual jamboree for the leaders of the world's richest and most powerful states. I mean the whole nexus of exploitation and privilege that the G8 and its attendant institutions represent.

They are a gigantic siphon sucking up vast quantities of wealth from the poor - whether they live in the poorest countries or in the G8 states themselves. The G8 is not the solution - it is the problem.

Some of the most dangerous men in the world are in Gleneagles Hotel this week. They are responsible not only for the renewed and terrifying drive to war that characterises the start of the 21st century. They also preside over a system that is itself the biggest killer in the world.

Why does a child in Africa die every three seconds of preventable causes? Why did the tsunami last Christmas devastate so much of south and south east Asia? Because the people there are poor. There is no other reason. And why are they poor? It's because a tiny number of people standing at the head of the multinational corporations that bestraddle the globe are obscenely rich.

Not enough

We assembled in Edinburgh, London and many other places at the weekend to make poverty history. But it's not enough.

You can't get slim by eating low fat chocolate - it has to be part of a calorie controlled diet. You can't make poverty history by writing off some of the debt of some of the countries in Africa and pretending you have made up for centuries of exploitation and injustice.

Most countries in Africa are not included in even the limited debt reduction plan. Those that are included are being told they will have to privatise, deregulate and turn further towards the neo- liberal policies that are impoverishing them if they are to qualify.

Most of the world's poor don't live in Africa. They've been scandalously disregarded this week.

More than half the world lives on less than $2 a day. Cows in western Europe are subsidised by $2.40 a day. Add to that the cost of feeding the cow, and it comes to $6.40 a day. It's a similar picture in the US.

Tony Blair and George Bush are pushing for free trade because they know that it favours the already wealthy. Forcing people in the poorest countries to open up to the world market means accelerating the conveyor belt that transfers wealth into the hands of the multinational corporations.

What does this mean in real human terms? I went to Bangladesh this year and visited a sweatshop. There were hundreds of workers, mainly girls of 15 and 16, sleeping in quadruple bunk beds in the sweatshop compound.

They work from 6am to 7pm, six days a week, for 60p a day. Most of them do not leave the compound. Tesco jeans What were they making? Tesco jeans. They made hundreds of pairs every day for Tesco, which made £2,000 million profit last year selling things that other people make.

How are their profits that huge? Through the exploitation of workers in Britain, the exploitation of suppliers at the lowest margin and the exploitation of workers abroad, like in the sweatshops in Bangladesh.

Poverty at home and poverty abroad are connected - there is no separation. The hard pressed worker in a Tesco supermarket or depot, deprived of the basic right to sick pay, may not be on the edge of starvation - but they share a common bond with the girl in the sweatshop in Bangladesh.

Did Tesco behave illegally? No. What they are doing is their duty - to maximise profits for shareholders. They are behaving like upstanding capitalists.

In fact, shoring up their power means turning to far more direct methods of killing people. War and capitalism are interlinked. We are unlucky to live under two of the worst leaders in the world - the messianic, fundamentalist Tony Blair... and George Bush. But that isn't the reason for war. War comes from capitalism.

There are five Arabian Gulf countries containing vast amounts of oil, which is very important to the US. It has 4 percent of the world's population but consumes 25 percent of its energy.

Puppet presidents

That oil is too valuable to be left to Johnny Foreigner. Puppet presidents and corrupt kings might fall to leaders who would kick the US out, oppose Israel and use their money to develop their own countries.

They might also stop buying the West's arms. In September the arms dealers will be coming to an arms fair in east London.

They'll sell weapons to dictators who in future our government might oppose, and send British soldiers to fight and die against weapons sold by British arms companies and paid for by the British taxpayer under the export credit guarantee department.

In the old days you had plain, naked imperialism. We went in and took everything we could carry. In Africa we took people too, in holds of ships to become slaves.

Then there came a time when the colonies said, "We want to become independent and free." Now we are returning to the colonies we were driven out of. The most significant of these is Iraq.

We cannot go on like this. We have to change course, not only abroad, but also at home. For the same disastrous policies are being inflicted on people here in Britain.

It is possible

Take something as fundamental as housing. Constituents are coming to my surgery in Tower Hamlets every week with appalling problems of overcrowding, unfit conditions and endless waiting lists.

The neo-liberal answer from the government and local council is to privatise what is left of the council housing stock. The ineluctable result will be tenants made more insecure and more exploited as they are put at the mercy of private companies.

That will make it easier for millionaires in the City and Canary Wharf to get their hands on the land and housing, completing a process of social cleansing of the East End. What's modern about that? What's Labour about that? This year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Within a few years this country built a vast number of council houses to make good the destruction of the Blitz and end the slum conditions of the 1930s.

Now, with the country much richer, why isn't it possible to have just such a building programme today? Of course it's possible. Just as it's possible to have a minimum wage set at the European decency threshold.

To accomplish any of this we need two things. The very fact that the issue of world poverty has been put on the agenda of the G8 summit meeting at all is testimony to the tremendous movement to oppose corporate globalisation and war we have built over the last six years.

Unaccountable figures

There are those who want to derail this movement, to blunt its radical edge, take it off the streets and transform it into a handful of unaccountable figures seeking crumbs from the rich and powerful on behalf of the mass of suffering people in the world.

That way lies disaster. No good has ever come of supplicating the likes of Bush and Blair. Progress has only ever come through the mass of people struggling for it.

Confronted with just such pressures to demobilise at the critical moment of the black civil rights movement in the 1960s, MartinLuther King said the key thing was "to keep the movement moving". We should heed those words today.

The second thing people are crying out for in Britain is political representatives who are of the movement and who seek to crack the neo-liberal consensus of the main parties.

I've just been part of an immensely successful speaking tour organised by the Respect party. We held some of the biggest political meetings for many years in towns, cities and at union conferences.

At each there was tremendous enthusiasm for what Respect has to say. The rallies helped breathe life into dozens of local campaigns and the G8 mobilisation.

They were also a significant step forward towards our goal of mounting a major challenge at next May's council elections. In shaking up the cosy political consensus at the general election, Respect has added to the sense of revolt in Britain.

We have drawn together pensioner activists, students, immigrant communities, trade unionists, anti-debt campaigners, anti-war activists -people who have been shut out of official politics.

We are a work in progress and we are a vehicle for radical change. The most pressing problem we have is that we are not big enough.

You can do something about that.

Respect website

By G. Galloway posted 9 July 05

Related:

The Secret Rulers of the World - New Link

• 1. The Secret Rulers of the World - Present/Past
• 2. The Secret Rulers of the World - Only the Start
• 3. Secret Rulers of the World - Profiting from 9/11
• 4. Secret Rulers of the World - Hidden Empire
• 5. The Secret Rulers of the World - Vatican Hoarding
• 6. The Secret Rulers of the World - Amen Pharaohs
• 7. Secret Rulers of the World - Forbidden Link
• 8. Secret Rulers of the World - Oceans of Blood
• 9. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Queen
• 10. The Secret Rulers of the World - King of Kings
• 11. Secret Rulers of the World - The Empire
• 12.The Secret Rulers of the World - The Cult of Amen
• 13. The Secret Rulers of the World - Committee of 300
• 14. The Secret Rulers of the World - Rothschild
• 15. The Secret Rulers of the World - New World Order
• 16. The Secret Rulers of the World - Freemasonry
• 17. The Secret Rulers of the World - Money Control
• 18. Secret Rulers of the World - Credit Monopoly
• 19. The Secret Rulers of the World - Bush Nazis
• 20. The Secret Rulers of the World - Palestine Israel
• 21. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Butchers
• 22. Secret Rulers of the World - The Asses of Evil
• 23. Secret Rulers of the World - Drug Running
• 24. The Secret Rulers of the World - War on Terror
• 25. The Secret Rulers of the World - Iraqi Dates
• 26. The Secret Rulers of the World - The AntiChrist
• 27. The Secret Rulers of the World - Enslavement
• 28. The Secret Rulers of the World - Tax Enslavement
• 29. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Power
• The Fabian Society, the Freemasonry and the Beehive
• The Fabian Society: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
• The Round Table: World Overview & Control
• Tavistock Institute: Global Mind Control
• Zeitgeist, The Movie - Remastered

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