Vintage Reds were happy to welcome Frances Crimmins once again to speak to us. She has been the CEO of YWCA here since 2013.
Frances addressed the group on the increase in the numbers of older homeless women. The YWCA turns away many women, as they have no way of coping with the numbers experiencing homelessness. Many are victims of domestic violence and poverty, and like many other homeless people, are accommodated temporarily in the homes of relatives, couch surf with friends, sleep in their cars (some with children).
The YWCA has a strong advocacy role, are pushing for increases in social housing, and are working on lifting pay for the community sector after they had a freeze on funding.
Their focus is on the “missing middle housing.” Their Ainslie housing project will be completed in December. Frances noted that both the Commonwealth and ACT Governments plans for increased social housing are extremely inadequate and will not meet the demand. She also note that the Federal Government’s National Housing Plan will be released before the next election.
The meeting discussed issues affecting housing supply, the exorbitant cost of buying and renting housing.
Adam is the National Coordinator of the Southern Cross Brigade. The Brigade is linked to the Australian-Cuba Friendship Society, and has been visiting and working with local Cuban people since 1980. Adam visited Cuba with the Brigade last December – January, and gave an excellent talk about the country’s history. It is not often we get the latest on Cuba and his talk was much anticipated.
The Spanish more or less wiped out the Indigenous population along with their languages. They ruled from 1492 until 1898 when the USA took after during the Spanish-American war.
Adam covered the Cuban Revolution in 1953, and the blockading of Cuba following Castro’s success in fighting for independence 1959, as well as how Cuba is surviving today, and the main issues impacting Cuba now.
He alerted the meeting to the Cuban Latin Fiesta on April 1st, beginning at 6.30pm at the St James Church in Curtin. All were invited to attend and the funds go towards development projects in Cuba.
Dr McDonald gave an illuminating presentation to this last gathering of the Vintage Reds for the year. He is an historian of ancient Greece, and has also published on Canberra’s pastoral history (see his article, “A good sheep station ruined“).
He discussed how Canberra historians have written about the Canberra region, including their claims that there was no problem in the area in terms of massacres. However, this is clearly incorrect. There were mass killings and rapes in the Canberra region during a sort of guerrilla war. For example James Ainslie boasted about killing and shooting a lot of Aborigines.
In 1890-94 influenza killed a lot of Indigenous people, decimating what was already a small population.
James has published his work on this subject, “Canberra and the Frontier Wars“, in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, no.108, Part 1 (Jun 2022). VR members may ask the convenor for a copy.
We had an impressive lineup of three speakers, on the general topic of retired unionist groups and how to engage their membership.
Mary Yeager (Unions NSW). Mary worked with Todd Pinkerton on the Federal Marginal Electorates Campaign. She spoke about the value of retired unionists groups and is keen to learn more about how the Vintage Reds operates and the range of issues we get involved with, including State/ Territory and Federal elections. She sees real value in working at the local level and in getting more local VR type groups formed in many areas of Australia. Her current focus is on helping to organise groups in the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and Robertson.
Janine Kitson (Combined Union Retirees) outlined the work she is undertaking with Mary to refresh and expand the scope of current and emerging retire unionists groups, and to get them to work in a more activist role.
Todd Pinkerton (Unions NSW) thanked the Vintage Reds members who were active during the lead up to the recent Federal elections, especially in the Gilmore and Eden-Monaro electorates. Unions NSW wanted to pursue engaging retired unionists groups in future union campaigns: promoting fair pay, job security and working conditions.
There followed a comprehensive discussion about what the VR had to offer, their campaigning experiences and what worked during the recent elections. Critical issues were raised including some historic information about campaigns in Eden-Monaro working for the 2007 ‘Your Rights at Work’ Campaign. That campaign was well resourced by the ACTU; in Eden-Monaro the ALP Candidate Mike Kelly was elected. It was important for VR activists not to represent a political party when campaigning with unions. A good letter writing campaign and door knocking worked well and gave the campaign more of a local presence – Kelly picked up 4 booths in Eden-Monaro that had not gone to the ALP in the previous election.
Dr John Falzon is well known, in particular for his role as national CEO of St Vincent de Paul from 2006 to 2018. He is a social justice advocate and a member of the Australian Services Union. A man of many talents; on this occasion he joined us to speak about the housing crisis. We also took the opportunity to discuss with him the election outcome.
photo: percapita.org.au
Homelessness is a topic which seems to confound the best and brightest of our policy makers and politicians. Here we post a link to John’s article from January this year, in Eureka Street online, “Homelessness is caused not by poverty but by wealth“.
…You can’t keep society going without working people. We’ve noticed that the people we tend to refer to as ‘essential’ are often actually amongst the lowest paid and the most insecurely employed. We’ve noticed that you can’t do public health if you haven’t ensured that people have safe housing. And that if we can’t expect someone who has just lost their job due to the pandemic to live below the poverty line on JobSeeker, then how can we expect anyone else to?
Tom is an old friend of the Vintage Reds and we were delighted to hear him speak on his recent book (published last month) which he has co-authored with Chris Bonnor, Waiting for Gonski: How Australia Failed its Schools. (photo courtesy of Canberra Writers Festival)
Here we must confess with regret that notes from this Vintage Reds meeting have not survived. In their absence, here are two reviews of this excellent book:
“There was plenty of excitement across the political divide when the Gonski review into educational funding was released in February 2012.
Led by businessman David Gonski, and commissioned by the then-Gillard Government, the review was designed to reform school funding and lift outcomes for less privileged students through a new needs-based funding model.
It contained 41 recommendations, including an increase of $5 billion per year to schools funding with one third of it to come from the Commonwealth, and a fairer funding framework, including a “per student” funding standard.
Ten years on, some are saying the Gonski review has failed and that, since it was commissioned, educational outcomes have gone backwards.
Vintage Reds were happy to welcome Roslyn to speak on the Disability Royal Commission.
Advocacy for Inclusion is a grassroots advocacy group, located in the Criffin Centre in Civic, providing individual and systemic advocacy, and training services, for people with a disability.
Roslyn is working with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, as an individual advocate for people with disabilities to encourage and enable them to make a submission to the Royal Commission. She outlined how this works and some of the difficulties faced by those wanting to make their views, experiences and advice heard.
The Royal Commission started its work in 2019, has six Commissioners and grew out of evidence of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. The Terms of Reference are broad and the work has been extended to September 2023.
Roslyn’s presentation and her responses to questions were warmly received. There was some discussion about the overlap with the Aged Care Royal Commission.
Photo: Keegan Carroll, Canberra Times, July 2021: Advocacy for Inclusion policy officer Stacy Rheese, ACTCOSS head of policy Craig Wallace, Women with Disabilities ACT chief executive Kat Reed, & Mental Health Community Coalition boss Bec Cody.
Jane T introduced Dhani Gilbert, an indigenous activist and 2018 Young Canberran Citizen of the Year, who was also more recently named the 2021 ACT Young Woman of the Year. She spoke on the significance of NAIDOC Week.
Dhani is a Kalari Wiradjuri woman from central New South Wales. In this part of the country the main river systems are the Lachlan [Kalari], the Macquarie [Wambuul], and the Murrumbidgee; and then further south, the Murray [Milawa]. Dhani spent her childhood living on these traditional lands, and at the Tent Embassy in Canberra. Both her parents are activists and Dhani considers she has activism in her DNA!
Dhani is currently studying at the ANU, in her second year of a double degree in Science and Environmental Sustainability. She is also undertaking a certificate course in Indigenous Culture and Language through Charles Sturt University in Wagga. In her spare time, she is the co-chair of the Aboriginal Youth Advisory Council in the ACT!
This year’s theme for NAIDOC is “Heal Country”. Dhani discussed First Nations ways of caring for country. Theirs are the best ways to manage the Australian landscape. Certain landscapes require particular inputs to thrive. The goal was to work within the landscape to maintain the ecology, especially the rich fauna. Dhani spoke of ‘cultural burning’ vs ‘hazard reduction’ and bushfire, as an example of traditional management of country. ‘Cultural burning’ is a ‘cool burn’ which preserves seeds, allows for green shoot regeneration and provides escape routes for animals. Bushfires are ‘hot burns’, destroying all before them and providing little means of escape for animals, and little feed for those animals which do survive. Like the land, Dhani noted that First Nations people have a lot of resilience.
Dhani spoke of ‘seven generations planning’ – important in today’s decision making, as decisions made today will impact seven generations down the line – good or bad.
Jane welcomed Matthew Harrison (Secretary, UnionsACT) who spoke on Injured Workers.
Matt started with an overview of occupational health and safety (OH&S), a very important part of the union movement. Unfortunately the data don’t give a good picture of what’s happening. Bosses are still behaving badly and putting profits before people’s welfare. The data are hard to find, and hard to line up to make use of. [Jane: Worksafe Australia used to keep data.]
The most recent data come from 2019. Only deaths at work are counted; not deaths to and from work, or by natural causes at work, including cancers or suicide (a particular concern of the CPSU). Most deaths are men, and blue collar jobs predominate. The age group most at risk is 55-64, followed by 45-54. There were no workplace deaths in the ACT in 2019; some since. Nationally there were 43 deaths. The NT and Tasmania have low rates; NSW has the most.
Transport is the area with most deaths (including postal workers and warehousing); vehicles in general were a huge source of injuries and deaths.
There are big holes in the system: people are scared to report an injury; people are told by their boss that a report would prevent promotion; non-English-speaking people are oblivious to risk they can’t read about; there are bad OH&S practices everywhere. Injuries which keep people from work less than 5 days are not reported; but this can be a serious injury all the same. And mental stress is of course extremely under-reported.
Professor Amin Saikal is a specialist on the politics, history, political economy and international relations of the Middle East and Central Asia. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, Cambridge University and the Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex), as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in International Relations (1983-1988). In April 2006, he was appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to the international community and to education, and as an author and adviser.
Jane welcomed Amin, who spoke to us in the Tradies’ Club dining room.
Amin’s summary of his talk: The US, Iran and the Gulf
The Joe Biden administration faces numerous domestic and foreign policy challenges. On the external front, one of them is how to deal with Iran. Biden has indicated the reduction of tension between the two sides, which had been inflamed by Donald Trump, as a priority. Yet, both parties have serious demands, which will make the process of reaching a mutual accommodation of interests arduous, but not necessarily insurmountable.
The main points of concern for Washington are Iran’s nuclear program, missile capability and regional influence. Spurred on by these issues and by like-minded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some Gulf state leaders, especially Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammad bin Salman, Trump pursued a policy of ‘maximum pressure’ and nurtured an Arab–Israeli front against Iran. He demanded a renegotiation of the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), a signature achievement of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump cancelled America’s participation in the JCPOA, imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, beefed up US military deployment in the Gulf and threatened Iran with ‘obliteration’.
As could have been expected, Tehran remained totally defiant. In retaliation, it withdrew some of its commitments to the JCPOA, and accelerated its uranium enrichment.
However, Trump’s approach failed to produce any positive results. While sharing Trump’s concerns, Biden wants to de-escalate tensions with Iran. In so doing, he would remove a sore point in America’s relations with three traditional European allies and signatories to the JCPOA—Britain, France and Germany, which have strongly wished to see the continuation of the agreement—and focus more on Russia and China as the main diplomatic and strategic battlegrounds.
