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Secretary's Soapbox - February 2006

February 2006

HOWARD’S ARROGANCE KNOWS NO BOUNDS

In the face of massive ongoing public opposition to his industrial relations laws and the ongoing recent revelations of embarrassing headlines about the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) and corruption in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard had the nerve in late January to try to impose on the nation a history lesson!

Because Howard is entering his 10th year in the job, he is now arrogantly claiming he has won the debate over what really constitutes Australia’s cultural and historical identity.

According to Howard, his government, by its very existence and policy stance, has somehow “rebalanced” what constitutes our national character.  He wants our school teachers in future to teach a “structured” and “chronological” narrative about “our nation’s development”, rather than attempt to assess our history to date by studying themes and issues.

Howard, an expert, in creating and spin-doctoring the "straw man scenario” has for a long time promoted the idea that those who offer a critical analysis of our past, with the aim of improving the future, are somehow “ashamed” of it and have a “black armband” view of our history. 

In fact there is no shame in wanting to understand how colonisation post Captain Cook, badly treated the original indigenous inhabitants of the Australian continent.  There is no shame associated with anyone who believes that such treatment should be acknowledged and have something done about it in a modern context.

Further post-colonial capitalism in Australia has negatively affected the lives of both indigenous aboriginals and all working people in Australia.  The industrialisation of the economy and the impact of foreign investment has seen many struggles for social and economic justice.  The last hundred years of Australian trade union history traces those struggles, right up to the anti-industrial relations legislation campaign of today.  No one who participated in these struggles is or was ashamed of anything.  They actively and proudly joined in with many thousands of their work-mates.

John Howard has no monopoly on what constitutes “social cohesion”.  In fact many of his policies over the last ten years have helped in breaking down social cohesion.  Creating laws that force people onto individual contracts (AWA’s) and severely restrict access to union representation and collective bargaining, has nothing to do with “common values that bind us together”.

This country was built on the sweat and toil of working people, not on the mealy-mouthed utterances of conservative politicians.  Real history will record that fact.