Australia s Fraser on the run?

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AFTER THE Australian Labour Party's victory in the April 3 Victoria state elections, Malcolm Fraser faces a challenge to his leadership of the ruling Liberal Party.

Fraser, installed in power after the Governor-General ousted the previous Labour government in 1975, has pursued a policy of cuts and union-bashing on the Reagan/Thatcher model. But now the tide is turning against him. There was a 4.3% swing to Labour in the Victoria elections.

Commenting before the poll, the Australian monthly Socialist Fight wrote:

'Most workers will simply want to vote Labor in order to be rid of the Liberals, the open representative of big business. They will see a vote for Labour as a vote for the party built by the trade unions, to represent workers' interests in Parliament.

The election will take place in the midst of the worst unemployment and inflation since the Thirties. Public sector spending is being cut to the bone everywhere, and unprecedented attacks are being made on trade unions. The bosses' system is in crisis, and they expect us to pay for it.

Most Labor voters expect that a government under [state Labor leader] John Cain would go a long way towards changing all this...

John Cain sees things differently: "I reject the assertion that a Labor Party government is bound to introduce everything that appears in the mass of policy decisions at Conference, he- stated recently.

Manager

Speaking to a Financial Review reporter in late December, he made it plain who will be laying down the law, while he's running the show: "I will be informed so I may be coordinator, arbitrator, general manager, and the ultimate decision-maker with the final responsibility - it will be a Cain Labour government"

be said. stressing the word "Cain And a "Cain Labor govemment" will be decidedly BM Box 5965, London WCIN 3X X.- • right wing, Cain has way' Socialist Fight also reports on the record of the Labour state government in New South Wales, under Neville Wran:

'Not a day passes without another area of NSW state expenditure being sent for a good slashing.

Trying to outdo Fraser, Wran announced on February 18 another freeze on the State Public Service, as well as the formation oi his very own Razor Gang. The aims of the task force are the same as Fraser's, and are prompted by $13m deficit after only three months, when the estimate was $3m for the whole year.

The immediate targets of the review are the poor, sick, students, and public servants. First to go will be $8m in crisis handouts to more than 100,000 families in deep poverty.

This will take the form of: refusing cash for the purchase of food to any family on a pension or benefit; not issuing free blankets to those in need; not providing help towards burial costs or school clothing.

Aid through social workers to families in crisis after six months will cease, help for 'uncontrollable' children over 15 will stop, and appointments to see Departmental staff will be severely curtailed.

Already public hospitals and psychiatric hospitals are earmarked for 'rationalisation'.

But the most severe cutback is to the community health system itself.

Health Commission offices throughout Sydney are to have 1500 jobs eut and offices cłosed..' Socialist Fight comments *A State Labor government COULD provide an important rallying point for Fraser's on -slaught. It could refuse to action and mass street demonstrations to back up this stand, by building militant popular support for it' But Cain seems set to follow Wran's example:

'As our leaders are untrustworthy, it's up to us, the rank and file members of the ALP and the trade unions, to stop Labor doing Fraser's dirty work' ARMACH THE DELEGATION to Belfast and Armagh Women's Gaol included women from all over the world, and we were conscious from the outset why we were taking part in the delegation.

We wanted to come together as women, to celebrate our strength and our unity as women, and to commemorate InternatSocialist Organiser no. 79 April 15.173. * = -THE SPIRIT

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OF RESISTANCE "Within days of our visit, the mural will have been ruined... bombed with acid by the Britz" LITICAL NEW 2MPBE coiled from his gun in horror:

It should be remembered that they had been told to be polite with us.

On Saturday night alone, for questioning under the 37 people were picked up Special Security Laws. Almost every person that we talked to had either been inside the Brit gaols themselves, or had close friends or relatives who had been imprisoned. A man who stayed with us overnight had never been out of gaol for more than three months at a time over the past eight years.

It was accepted as fact that the RUC and the Britz would fabricate evidence, lie and torture, to extract the maximum punishment from the non-jury courts.

Every time that someone knocked at Janice's door, their identity had to be verified before they were admitted. The door itself was reinforced with locks and bolts, with the dog keeping guard constantly.

The threat of violence was ever present The adults didn't mention the names of activists or discuss political business when the children were present, to protect them from harassment and intimidation from the Britz. Joe pulled his little boy down quickly when he was playing near the window in the evening.

Another of their children, who was fascinated by our camera, told us that he had been photographed 'once, when I got shot in my head' Violence, and the threat of violence, was ever present. It pervaded everything, even the jokes and the stories that we shared, it awoke with us in the morning and it slept next to us at night. It was a measure of Janice and Joe's warmth that we slept well.

Joe had been close to death himself on many occasions. A close friend had been murdered by Loyalists when the two of them had been walking down the road. Both Janice and her . husband recognised that their lives were always at risk.

Hymns to bondage and oppression A neighbour had just been released from gaol. A young woman who had not even been involved in the war had been murdered and her breasts had been cut off. Yet another neighbour had been shot and killed.

Each of these people had lived in the same street as Janice and Joe. Their specific horror was not untypical. Each street has its own obscene and violent history.

And across this history, the Brit and RUC barracks straddle like monstrous insects, enlarged and deformed and sucking at the life about their wire and metal legs.

They are implanted onto the community, dividing tiny streets and commanding acres of derelict and wasted space. Their fortifications are hymns to bondage and oppression. They not only impose their reality on the community, they sanctify a dogma with the red, white and very, very blue stamp of imperialism, capitalism and sexism. Terror patented by Britain - plastic bullets and Diplock 'Hey, Sister, don't you mourn, don't you weep, Hey, Sister, don't you mourn, don't you weep, The Women's Army is marching, Hey Sister don't you weep'.

The spirit of resistance in the Republican areas of West Belfast was unbelievable. You can almost taste it in the oxygen, and the intricate murals depict this' ANNIVERSARY OF IAITEDMILEA/Y MY FROM YOT CONCENTRAT spirit with a power and ar beauty that is impossible to deny.

Yeats termed this beauty 'terrible' , but the terror belongs to the Britz. They have patented it, and they sell it in the form of plastic bullets and Diplock Courts.

We were told that the community had always been strong, and that the people had always been warm and caring. The war has solidified this strength, and the struggle has brought people closer together.

When Bernadette McAliskey spoke to us outside the women's gaol in Armagh, she stated that women are playing the 'most important part' in the war of liberation. The importance of women, and the recognition of this importance by their sisters and brothers; was •evident throughout our stay.

On the Saturday afternoon, there was an exhibition of 'Women in Ireland' at the Si James' Community Centre in Andersonstown. The exhibition demonstrated the extent to which women have been involved in the war, and the appreciation that is felt for this commitment and involvement by the entire community.

Filme and viden tanesi were shown, and we heard women from Armagh Prison speaking I am are moralian alertost thanim hardship and their strugg-i le. They described the suff-r ering that they had gone through in the prison, thei pain that they had experienced when their sisters and brothers had been tortured and murdered by the Brits, the horror and shock of internment and imprisonment, and their own fears and beliefs for their country and their comrades.

Not only women from the delegation attended the exhibition. Throughout the day, women and men from the surrounding area came into the community centre to charr thair cunnart for their sisters.

There were cries of recognition when a close friend or a neighbour's face appeared on the film, and they told us about the role that the imprisoned women had played within the community.

Around the hall, there was a display of photographs which illustrated 'Women in Ireland'. These were not the lying images of the BBC and ITV television companies, these were not the distorted and pornographic images of Fleet Street, but images of women by women, truthful and clear beside the Brit and male version of history. and reality.

The women who fight oppression In the evening, there was a social for the women who had come across to Ireland on the delegation. We were joined by scores of women and men from the surrounding community! and we sang our songs and performed our plays.

The men who attended the social were polite. wellmannered and non-sers. It was wonderful to be able to drink and sing and cheer in the company of men without being sexually approached or molested.

It was immensely moring to be in the company of women who were so actively involved in the fight against oppression.

The most powerful moment of the evening was when the Provisionals appeared from the rear of the hall.

They were armed, masked, and wearing their uniforms. They marched to the stage, and then three of them spoke to the audience. It was completely unexpected, and the fact that the community centre was virtually opposite an RUC fort would seemingly have precluded the Provisionals from making an appearance.

The biggest shock was when the three Provisionals began speaking. They were women! It was a measure of our own sexist conditioning that we had not expected this, even though the evidence of women's involvement in the war had been around us since we had arrived in Republican Belfast.

The women spoke about the armed struggle, and about the oppression of women. They told us of the need to unite, of the need to educate our sisters in ou home countries, of the need to take home with us the full horror of British imperialism. And they told us of their strength and their power in opposing the Britz, capitalism, and sexism.

When they had finished speaking, the Provisionals presented a bouquet of flowers to a woman who was celebrating her 80th birthday. She had been involved in the Republican Movement since she was fourteen, and it was incredihlv moving to see her reaction to the presentation.

Tha falling dav

were delayed from reaching Armagh Prison by both the Britz and the RUC. They searched our coach, our bags and our luggage.

We were now strong enough not to feel intimidated by their sneers and their rifles, but we were not foolish enough to attempt to stop them from confiscating our pasters.

We assembled outside the prison gates, and our sisters on the delegation spoke to the crowd. There were speeches and solidarity greetings from our sisters in the south of Ireland, from Germany and Amerira from SWAPN and the iva, tum Troops Out Movement, from Hackney, Harlow, Kilburn, Brent East, Liverpool and London, Manchester and Tameside.

We called out the names of our sisters who were inside the prison. We sang to them, our voices echoing through the tiny streets and the barbed wire that separated us.

Women in the North of Ireland are our sisters.

Their strength and their warmth, their compassion and their commitment, is our strength, our warmth.

our compassion and our commitment.

They are oppressed not only by the capitalism and sexism that oppresses all of us, but also by the full chauvinistic power of British imperialism. They have been arrested, interned, tortured and murdered.

They have been abused, vilified, and ridiculed.

And yet they continue i fight.

Janice and Joe Austin.

and their five children, who cared for and protected us over that weekend, will one day be free, and their freedom will be our freedom.

----- pull-quotes -----

implement Fraser's cuts - and encourage industrial

-INNOCENT POL USBAND

INTERNMENT CONCENTRATION CAMPS TORTYPE

KIERIAN PADD