LEFT RIGHT CENTRE

LRC 90.5

1. The United States keeps seeing horrific mass shootings, often racially charged. Debates around gun control continue to transpire after these tragedies. What is your parties position? Is gun control the answer or is it rightful that people have the right to be armed? 2. EU leaders have placed a 75% embargo on Russian oil imports and it is set to increase up to 90% by the end of 2022. Russian gas supplies have already been cut off from Bulgaria and Poland and energy firms in other European countries are being shut off. EU leaders have stated they will continue to send arms to Ukraine. How should EU countries and Russia maintain their relationship that inevitably impacts the global public? 3. The University of Melbourne student union recently passed a motion calling for their university to boycott and divest from Aparthied Israel and to support for the occupied Palestine but have had to rescind their democratic motion due to legal threats by the Zionist lobby. Why did it escalate to this and what should The University of Adelaide take away from it?

Socialist Alternative | ASHRAF ABDUL HALIM

1. Mass shootings have unfortunately become a mainstay in the lives of Americans. We support actions that would reduce the power of weapons manufacturers and gun fundamentalists and keep people safe. Gun ownership should be held to the same standard of automobile ownership. There should be licensing and training. The fact that guns are a commodity that is kept from the health and safety regulations most other things have to go through is absurd. Things that are made exclusively to kill large amounts of people very quickly shouldn’t be made in the first place. There should be a prohibition of the manufacture of weapons like the AR-15.

But beyond these things, socialists want to see change at a much deeper level. We need to look at why so many mass shootings happen in a country like the United States. The recent massacre at Buffalo supermarket was perpetrated by a white-supremacist specifically targeting a black neighbourhood. These people have grown up in a country where their own police force regularly use guns to murder with impunity, and where their government glorifies the murder of thousands in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. We should not forget that the Pentagon played a role in this as well. After all, the powerful guns used in these mass shootings are merely domestic versions of the models requested by generals to inflict maximum casualties in war zones.

2. In whatever decisions get made between or by the EU and Russia, the interests of the poor and working class are barely an afterthought.

The sanctions and embargoes placed on Russia by and large harm the poor and working class in Russia, not Putin. They further exacerbate a crisis in the energy market that millions of workers are paying for around the world, and plunge people suffering a cost of living crisis into further financial insecurity. This crisis also points to the need to accelerate production of renewable energy, not double down on fossil fuels in our own country.

3. It is incredibly alarming that we have a situation where a student union has been pressured by legal threats to back down and rescind a progressive, anti-apartheid stance. There were pro-bono offers from lawyers to defend the union for its historical position, but union bureaucrats chose not to fight. Student unions should be champions of the oppressed. UoA should understand this as a step backwards for UMSU and progressive student unionism in the country in general.

1. The Australian Greens support the National Firearms Agreement and strongly oppose tactics used by gun lobbies to weaken related gun control laws. As the Greens spokesperson for democracy, Senator Larissa Waters calls for an overhaul of political donation laws to ensure that political parties are not under the influence of gun lobbying groups. Firearm interest lobbying bodies have donated over $500,000 to political parties, including both Liberal and Labor. Even a single cent from such gun lobbying groups that attempt to mimic the tactics of the ever-powerful NRA in the United States is one cent too many.

We also condemn any form of militarisation of police forces, as people’s safety and a heavily armed police force cannot coexist. For lack of a better term, there will always be an arms-race between citizens and the state. The citizens will feel they need to upgrade their weaponry to ensure their freedom from the elites, and the elites themselves will, in turn, militarise their police forces. The militarisation of police creates a neverending cycle of paranoia and will only ever result in the insecurity of citizens.

3. Israel is an apartheid state. This is an established fact that has been well documented, with the label “apartheid” officially being levied by two of the largest and most respected NGO’s worldwide, instances of racial discrimination, violence and oppression being covered by countless news organizations as well as activist groups within Israel and occupied Palestine. The Israeli government is currently under investigation by the UN’s ICERD for its breaches of international law in the establishment of apartheid. Attempts to dispute this are part of Israel’s long running tradition of targeting NGO’s and journalists who speak out against the Israeli crimes against Palestinians, with high profile cases such as the murder of Shereen Abu Akleh, and the bombing of Al Jazeera and Associated Press offices in Gaza. The rescinding of the University of Melbourne’s union motion is another example of the pressure supporters of apartheid Israel are willing to place on anyone who speaks out. We here at UofA should take this as a lesson not to bend to lobby groups of any form, least of all those who support racist colonial-settler states. 2. We know from countless historical examples, sanctions don’t harm the corporate oligarchs, nor do they motivate policy or regime change, instead, they destroy the lives of working people through collective punishment. The ever-escalating sanctions imposed by the west on the Russian federation only serve to exacerbate tensions, if the EU desires genuine conflict resolution, it must enter immediate negotiations, call for a ceasefire, end the provision of military aid in all forms, reduce rather than increase its sanctions, and begin the process of de-escalating tensions. The west must cast aside its ideas of maintaining “rules-based order” and instead focus on preventing further casualties, conflict and displacement of peoples. Many in the west feel obliged to levy sanctions in order to express condemnation of the current conflict, and ask “if not through sanctions, how can we take action?” But when we look at those who truly matter, the civilians and families who live in Ukraine and Russia, we recognize that the only action that will make a real difference is ending the conflict, not through the continuous export of weapons, and the increase in economic warfare.

Labor Club| STEPH MADIGAN

1. When Australians surrendered half a million guns after Port Arthur, murders and suicides plummeted. All that stands in the way of this happening in the US is decades of conservative psy-ops and a Congress lodged firmly in the NRA’s back pocket.

2. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. If this war teaches us anything it’s that living in a globalised world means that there are no “stringsfree” foreign policy decisions. The fact that nearly two billion people are facing poverty due to Russia’s grain blockade is unconscionable. As the African Union begs for food relief, western countries must revisit the duties we have towards humanity beyond our borders.

Taylor Westmacott | LIBERAL

CLUB FAILED TO RESPOND 3. Standing against antisemitism is a bipartisan issue. It can and should exist alongside acknowledging that Israel has an ongoing history of human rights violations and we, as students in a wealthy country, are obligated to support the restoration of human dignity in Palestine. Clearly, Israel’s actions are not representative of the Jewish community in Australia. Student unions have a tough job of promoting student interests while remaining sensitive to the broader cultural context. Perhaps our energy could be better spent targeting businesses profiting from occupied Palestine including TripAdvisor and Airbnb.

Due to vested interests, I have chosen to only respond to the first question. I would like to thank the On Dit editorial team for accepting this decision.

only be an analgesic. Gun control is a sturdy answer to a symptom, not a cause. It can

I’m currently writing my dissertation on school-shootings and mass-violence, so I am conflicted to write anything beyond this. I would like to take this opportunity to recognise that an Australian man with an Australian life committed the Christchurch massacre.