Meetings to prepare 7th National Conference Jan 2-5, 2010

Sydney Socialist Alliance will be holding three meetings over the next few weeks to prepare for and elect delegates to the 7th National Conference which will be held at Women's College, Sydney University January 2-5, 2010. The draft conference agenda can be downloaded here.

We need members and guests to fill out conference registration forms as soon as possible. Conference registration forms will be posted out to members or can be downloaded here. They can also be filled out at the upcoming Socialist Alliance meetings:

Sydney Central branch meeting - Wed Nov 11, 6.30pm, Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale: Introduction to conference process, discussion of Socialist Alliance's new Charter of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rights led off with presentation by Emma Murphy and Pat Eatock. The Charter ($3) which is published as a booklet and a new book The Aboriginal Struggle & The Left by Terry Townsend ($15) will be on sale at the meeting.

Sydney Central branch forum on Refugees - Sat Nov 21, 2pm, Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale: Guest speakers to be announced soon.

Sydney Central branch delegate elections for 7th National Conference - We Dec 2, 6.30pm, Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale. Come along and vote for your delegates to conference. The Socialist Alliance National Executive has set a delegate ratio of 1:10. Please check that your membership is current to maximise our branch's delegation.

More information: Peter 9690 1977 or 0401 760 577.

Latin America: Back to era of coups & US military intervention?

“The U.S. Empire ... has launched a retrograde and anti-historic counteroffensive, with the aim of rolling back the union, sovereignty, and democracy of our continent.”

- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, August 17, 2009

The recent military coup in Honduras, which deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, and the planned establishment of several new US military bases in Colombia (just next to Venezuela), has set off alarm bells around Latin America. Is this the beginning of a return to military dictators and US military intervention that blighted the subcontinent for decades?

Guest speakers on this important topic will address the next meeting of the Sydney Central Socialist Alliance branch:

• Jose Pena, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) committee in Sydney.
• Victor Hugo, Committee for Human Rights in Guatemala.
• Stuart Munckton, Green Left Weekly co-editor.

Saturday August 22, 2pm
Sydney Resistance Centre
23 Abercrombie St
Chippendale (near UTS Broadway)
More info: Peter 9690 1977/0401 760 577

2009 NSW Socialist Alliance conference agenda

Saturday August 8, 10.30am-5.30pm
Sydney Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St Chippendale
Info: 02-9690 1977
Registration fee: $10/$5 concession

10.30-11am: Welcome and opening poem

by Paul Burns (Armidale branch)

11am-1pm: Panel of speakers:

• Pat Eatock (Sydney Central branch, Aboriginal activist) - on impact of NSW Labor govt privatisation on Aboriginal communities.

• Graham Brown (ex-coal miner from Hunter Valley) on the need a just transition away from coal.

• Paola Harvey (Illawara branch, Resistance activist) on the NSW Labor government and the need to build a political alternative (presenting a slideshow of recent Socialist Alliance activities).

Aaron Roden (Sydney West branch, Resistance activist) on campaigning against coal.

• John Coleman (Syd West branch, rail union delegate) on defence of public transport.

1pm-2pm: Lunch

2pm-3pm: Climate Change play

by Kinetic Energy Theatre Company created by Graham Jones & Jepke Goudsmit (Sydney East branch members)

3pm-4.30pm: Workshops:

• Climate change & coming climate camp actions - Brianna Pike (Sydney Central branch)

• Citizen/”Barefoot” journalism in 21st century - Peter Boyle (Sydney Central branch)

• Racism in Australia today - Duncan Roden (Sydney West branch)

• LGBTI rights workshop - Maurice Farrell (Sydney East branch & Community Action Against Homophobia activist) & Ben Cooper (CAAH activist)

4.30pm-5.30pm: Resolutions & election of office bearers

6.30pm: BBQ at venue (in Marrickville) - address TBA at conference

Description of the play:

V I L L A G E S P A C E

interactive stories of global justice with a focus on

C L I M A T E C H A N G E

created by Graham Jones & Jepke Goudsmit

KINETIC ENERGY THEATRE COMPANY

Using theatre as an educational tool, we show how climate change is already happening, with dire consequences for people and the environment. As we visit various communities around the world, we first look at the impacts of climate change and how local people respond to them.

We travel to the Arctic North where the Inuit people struggle with drastic changes threatening their livelihood and culture. And to Bangladesh where people are having to cope with increasingly severe cyclones. To Kiribati, whose many islands will soon be inundated by the rising sea, making the people of Kiribati into climate change refugees. And in Australia we witness how the aboriginal custodians of Kakadu are fighting an uphill battle against the salination of their world heritage listed wetlands, while in the red centre the Ozzie farmers are struggling with drought after drought.

Then we look at the science behind climate change. Our ‘special guest’, the world renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen from USA clarifies the complexities of climate change in a lively science demonstration.

Next we have a look at some of the so-called solutions, like carbon off-setting, and biofuels. Firstly, we follow the woes of a Brazilian community whose land and livelihood is destroyed by World Bank approved reforestation projects. Secondly, we are tempted to buy a clean conscience by a climate-change-candy-man brought to us by CarbonIndulgencesDotCom!!! And finally we go to Mexico, where the ethanol industry is causing food shortages, to see how the Mayan people are dealing with that crisis.

Throughout these dramatised stories it becomes clear how climate change is fast becoming a ‘driver’ of poverty. Since most people in developing countries are not able to speak out against the injustices in their lives (or if they do, they are ignored, or silenced) we speak out on their behalf. All the stories we enact are true stories, based on real events and real people.

At the end of the show, some true solutions are suggested: shifting to renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, saving energy, saving forests and replanting trees, recycling, less consumerism.

Shameless in Kevin Ruddbot's ALP

"If you are still in the Labor Party today, you should be ashamed of yourself", 71-year-old Aboriginal activist Pat Eatock called out to delegates returning to the stage-managed proceedings of the first day of the 2009 ALP national conference after the lunchbreak.

Most delegates scurried past Pat, but a few, including Linda Burney (community services minister in the NSW Labor government) felt compelled to stop and give her a hug. Another delegate squeezed out an embarrassed "Good to see you are fighting on, Pat," before rushing on.

"I recognised a few people who I once fought alongside in the struggle for land rights", Pat, a veteran of the 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy in front of Parliament House, explained later to Green Left Weekly.

"Now they remain members of a Labor party that is trying to force Aboriginal communities to give up land rights. They should be ashamed."

"What part of the word 'perpetuity' don't you understand?", Pat asked the passing delegates. "Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory was granted in perpetuity to communities. Perpetuity means 'forever'. And now you are trying to force us to give that land back in return for promises to build houses, promises that have not been kept, to add insult to injury.

"It's not blackmail, it's whitemail!"

The corporatised conference venue was a long way from the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine, Queensland, where following the Great Shearer’s Strike of the 1890s the ALP was formed by, among others, the grandparents of Pat Eatock.

"My grandmother Lucy Wakenshaw and her husband William Eatock were unionised Aboriginal shearers and drovers and during the Great Shearers Strike they acted as liason between the striking shearers and Chinese and Aboriginal workers who were being used by the squatters as scab labour.

"They helped form the ALP but when the first Labor government in Queensland subsequently introduce the racist 'Protection' laws my grandmother became disillusioned with the ALP."

Today the federal Labor government imposes a new Apartheid-style regime in the NT that return Aborigines to the racist humiliation of early 20th century "Protection" laws.

If Pat was pricking the consciences of delegates, they did not show it. They just filed in like bloodless robots to do their duty as a cheersquad to Kevin Ruddbot.

Just 50 metres away from the Darling Harbour convention centre, gleaming luxury yachts were on display in the Sydney International Boat Show. A wit among the protestors outside the conference remarked: "We're stuck between a hard place and
an expensive place!"

One delegate brushed past Pat and then, from a coward's distance, screamed back at her: "Why don't you join the Liberal party, then!"

But Pat is a proud member of the Socialist Alliance, a new party that supports the Green Left Weekly project. Pat Eatock will be one of several keynote speakers at the NSW Conference of the Socialist Alliance, which will be held in Sydney on August 8.

• See photos of the protests outside the ALP conference here.