Thousands of people joined the racist March for Australia rallies around Australia on 31 August. In Sydney and Melbourne openly Nazi speakers addressed the rallies. In Melbourne, Nazi thugs went on to brutally attack an Indigenous protest camp.
The rallies were a stark warning of how discontent over Labor’s failures to address housing or cost of living issues can be pulled in a racist direction. Labor’s failure to stand up to Trump, its attacks on the Palestine movement and its capitulation to anti-immigrant racism has created fertile ground for them.
The far right is also taking inspiration from the anti-immigration politics of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the flag protests there. The organised Nazis are a small minority of the March for Australia crowd but that’s no reason for complacency.
There is an urgent need to fan the flames of resistance and take up the fight against Labor’s austerity and the racist lies that blame migrants and refugees for increasing rents or the lack of services.
Broad anti-racist rallies uniting unions, multicultural communities, Palestine activists, Greens and Labor members will be needed to explicitly put the blame for the cost of living crisis where it belongs—on Albanese and the rich.
It is struggle from below that is the antidote to the despair of the Nazi and far right elements that are trying to capitalise on the discontent and pain of the cost of living crisis.
Sanction Israel now
Only six weeks ago, Albanese was insisting that recognition of a Palestinian state was not imminent. After 300,000 marched across the Harbour Bridge, that changed. Just days later, Albanese announced Australia would recognise a Palestine state in September.
But Anthony Albanese’s decision is an empty gesture from a government that is committed to continuing to support the Israeli apartheid state and aid its genocide. His move to “recognise” Palestine while completely opposing sanctions on Israel has only increased the anger at Labor’s complicity.
The boycott of the Bendigo Writers Festival by more than a third of the participants, in protest against the organisers’ attempt to silence support for Palestine, was yet another indication of the growing willingness to take a stand.
But the most significant development in the movement, alongside the numbers of people that marched in the August nationwide rallies for Palestine, was the official union contingents in Melbourne and Sydney.
For the first time Victorian Trades Hall organised a 2000-strong contingent, assembling at Trades Hall and marching to the rally. Individual unions called on members to join the rallies.
Even the more conservative Unions NSW endorsed the rally and belatedly called for unionists to march behind a “Unions for Peace” banner. ACTU Secretary Sally McManus marched in Sydney and President Michele O’Neil marched in Melbourne. It was a tribute to the organising in the unions that has taken place so far, and an indication that organising in the rank-and-file can push reluctant leaders to take a stand over genocide.
It was a glimpse of the power that can be mobilised to impose sanctions that can actually hurt Israel.
The government is lying that Australia doesn’t supply weapons to Israel.
Parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets that are bombing Gaza have been exported in recent months directly from Australia to Israel. Defence Minister Richard Marles admitted “We’re an F-35 country” but hid behind the claim that parts in the supply chain are “organised by Lockheed Martin in the United States and have multiple suppliers”.
In fact Lockheed Martin itself says that “Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components.” Australian companies including Quickstep in Sydney, Ferra Engineering in Brisbane and Rosebank Engineering in Melbourne all boast of being the only suppliers for crucial parts.
The movement needs to organise to deepen the understanding within unions and other networks of the scale of Albanese’s complicity and to step up the demand for “Sanctions now”. Unions in France, Italy and Greece have imposed bans on handling weapons bound for Israel.
Demonstrations outside factories like Quickstep and Bisalloy have highlighted the Australian connection with genocide, but now for the first time the Maritime Union is considering “bans on any cargo being used to perpetuate the genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Netanyahu is determined to escalate the genocide, in both Gaza and the West Bank. But sanctions can boost the campaign, isolate Israel and help force an end to the genocide.
Every supporter of Palestine needs to get behind the 10 September union rallies in Sydney and Melbourne. There is time to move resolutions and leaflet workplaces to build make sure the next national day of action on 12 October has even bigger union contingents.
Fighting for Palestine and fighting racism goes hand in hand. March for Australia wants to fly Australian flags not Palestinian flags and their bully boys attacked two Palestinian activists on a Sydney train.
Linking the struggles together will help build more powerful movements to fight Labor and the system that creates racism and war.
