The Digger No.31 May-June 1974

N.WCape... .Eastern riders in redneck country

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A .S.I.O . attacks Digger Diego Garcia: new U.S. lynchpin Farmers frighten Labour Women’s festival celebration

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BLANK PAGE FOR ISSUU VERSION ONLY

Page 1 I t might not be socialism b u t. . .

They've got the style

by Grant Evans

No doubt about it, the election was a corker. Three weeks of political panic and at the last ALP election rally in Festival Hall, Bob Hawke came up with the slogan “Don’t hallucinate, Gough’s great!”.

Fittingly, nobody for the first few days after the election was able to work out the state of mind of the Australian voters on the Saturday. Uncertainty as to who was the government prevailed. Cool as ever, the staid Melbourne Age handled the situation as if apolo­ gising for an interruption of trans­ mission: “We" very much regret our inability to tell our readers with any certainty this morning who won Saturday’s election” . Please re­ main in your seats ladies and gentle­ men.

Experts came on TV to tell you that basically they didn’t know who had won, but anyway here was their guess. Political journalists had to suspend their victory or defeat raves until a Labor victory became clear later in the week. And the two main political leaders had to lock themselves in their offices for a week refusing to either concede defeat or accept victory.

These elections drew large num­ bers of people rapidly into political activity and debate. Record audiences attended ALJP rallies, and an ex­ tremely large proportion of the ‘ac­ tivists were young people’ between 18 and 25. Pressure groups of ar­ tists, teachers, and you name it, moved into action and spelt out their support for the ALP in large newspaper ads. But the slumber of parliamentary politics can’t stand too much activity, or too much political awareness, or too many elections. “ Every three years, just enough to keep ’em interested and us informed, but doesn’t get ’em too interested” .

The Liberals got dumped on their ear at the end of ’72 for

not realising the world around thpm was changing. The post war baby boom rolled in on the middle ’60s as the youth revolt. Generally better educated and therefore not easily duped, this wave began to take the search for personal satis­ faction outside the boundaries of a steady nine to five job. ‘Quality of life’ issues escalated in impor­ tance. They weren’t going to get shot up on the strength of the phantasies of xenophobic politicians, and this coupled with NLF bullets drove the last nails into the coffin of Cold War ideology.

All this suddenly dawned on the Liberals after they had caused the double dissolution. So they rapidly scrambled to reformulate present ALP policies. No, Snedden wouldn’t introduce conscription again unless Australia was directly threatened.

Keeping a card up his sleeve he refused to say if he considered the war in Vietnam to be a direct threat. The changing political climate in Australia has been most dra­ matically demonstrated by the DLP’s disappearance from the parliamentary benches. And then, as if to de­ monstrate how thick headed Cold Warrists are, in the post election aftermath McManus said that what a new Labor government needed most was three ministers in charge of defence! What is amazing is that they really do wonder why they have lost out.

Political sympathies polarised sharply in the election. The Laborites tended to go strongly pro-Labor, and the Liberal voters hardened.

The election became a question of principle rather than an enacted ritual. It was a question of whether Australian society needed greater reforms. In per centage terms the majority of Australian people voted for greater reforms, but because of the gerrymander this was not auto­ matically reflected in the number of seats won by the respective parties (a question Digger hopes to examine in the future). The Fi­ nancial Review, an impeccable source by anyone’s standards, has also made

LETTER/ It’s a sad day when I can read on the front page of your paper, “ One could toss a coin for which party is better”. Do I really have to tell you why? Judging from your cover illustration it would seem you already knew.

A few words on Kate Jennings if a male may be so bold. Ms Jennings- has written some very fine poems and some not so fine prose for you in the past but what is she on about in her review of Row­ land’s poem The A nti Feminist?

Does Ms Jennings seriously sug­ gest that it might be presumptuous for a man to make a comment, publicly or not, on the work of a woman writer? If we were to follow this logic we would soon need two Diggers, one for the men and one for the women or perhaps it should be one for the liberated and another for those less fortunate.

Not to belabor the point there must surely be ways we can come together as people despite our in­ sufficiencies. And where better than in the pages of The Digger.

Yours, David Romano, Mullumbimby, NSW. I would like to print an ad. in your paper. Fm in prison and have heard of The Digger by word of mouth so I don’t know if you require a fee. Hopefully not as my financial situatipn is poor. “ Intelligent 24 year old male in prison desires correspondence with people. Write to: Steve Santini, PO Box 77 7, Monroe, Washington II, 98272, USA.” Thank you —a lot, Steve Santini, Washington, USA.

Digger welcomes mail Address to: LETTERS, PO Box 77, Carlton, Vic. 3053.

In his article on FM broadcasting (issue 29) Qreig Pickhaver tells us that the new broadcasting will be on the VHF as opposed to the UHF variety and that this decision is the most beneficial to the con­ sumer because many people already possess VHF receivers.

What Greig Pickhaver fails to mention is that a great deal of the FM VHF broadcasting spectrum is already taken up by TV, police and taxi radio. After the ABC and established commerical radio braodcasting organisations get their share of the remaining available space there will be very little left for that “ third type of station . . . proposed . . . a non profit, com­ munity access station” .

If UHF broadcasting were to be adopted an almost unlimited num­ ber of stations *could be operated.

Many and diverse interests could be catered to. This would mean a great deal more competition to established broadcasting organisa­ tions: ABC and commerical.

The decision to introduce VHF instead of UHF FM broadcasting is not a victory for diverse, non profit minority media radio at all.

On the contrary; it’s a victory for the established media monopoly and should be opposed.

Trudie Brickwood, Blackheath, NSW. This is the argument electronic monopolies have been using for years.

The argument only really applies to the Sydney metropolitan area, where the T V channels from Wollon­ gong and Newcastle confuse the FM airwaves. Even then transmission could begin on the remaining air space. The rest o f Australia could receive FM transmission tomorrow.

— G.P.

direct allegations about the rigging of the postal vote by Liberal poli­ ticians.

On the issues there was a direct division between young and old, between certainty and uncertainty if you like, and a crude division between the cities and the country side which has received kickbacks from all previous L-CP governments.

The extraordinary nature of the election put all the smaller parties and independents at a disadvantage and this was shown in the fact that support fell for all of them except the Australia Party which stood still. While the broad changes which have taken place in soicety would tend to indicate that this loss of support will be permanent for the DLP, the future of the Australia Party will depend entirely on the mutations that take place within the Liberal Party. It is im­ possible to predict definitely whether the days of the small party are finished.

If the Australian ruling class is going to stay where it is, the di­ visions, which have only just emerged as electorally significant, will have to be overcome. Not that revolution is on the cards for next week, but change has to be controlled change.

This can only bode further deep divisions within the major con­ servative parties in Australia in the coming years. It will not only be because of Anthony’s performance this time round that the Liberals will havp to make up their mind about the future of the coalition.

Their own future will depend on it, and the conflict will emerge as one between the ‘trendies’ and old timers within the Liberals. For sur­ vival the trendies will have to get the upper hand within the Party machine, and one manifestation of this will be the Liberals fielding candidates against the Country Party next election and possible closer liasion with the Australia Party.

This could only spell disaster for the first mate and his party. However the right wing within the Liberal Party (if such an expression is at all meaningful) is not going to give the trendies an easy time and wish to affect an amalgamation with the Country Party. Lynch and Anthony are already speculating about an L-CP merger. Either way the scen­ ario is not completely rosy and there is every possibility that an extreme right wing party could coa­ lesce out of the DLP, the Country Party and other right wing forma­ tions in the future. This has already

occurred in some states, and al­ though they have had little success so far, there is little ground for complacency.

Whether they are in or out of government there are fierce internal political struggles on the agenda for the conservative patties. Capitalist ideology in Australia had begun to fray at the edges and only the ALP has been able to come for­ ward with a renovation of this ideology. Not only in politics, but also in economic policy, the Labor Party is abreast of the needs of capitalist development in Australia (as much as some capitalists may dislike it). Despite the present di­ visions caused in part by ALP policies, they also have the only program that contains the possibility of overcoming them (and certainly some capitalists appreciate that).

The elections seem to register permanent the shift in the Australian political climate which has taken place since 1972. The immediate future portends a more politically conscious and active population, and more political turbulence.

But what this election also showed was the way in which this political consciousness would be Contained — the capitalist variant of the ‘cult of personality’. You only had to be at an ALP election rally and be forced to stare at five huge, enormous, mug shots of Gough surrounded by Las Vegas lights to be aware of this shift. “ Whitlam, he’s so much better” became the extent of the political content.

Outside of this was balloons, streamers, and all the excitement of a good football match. And all the ‘healthy’ participation of ‘the masses’ that an American Presi­ dential election allows.

It’s not quite as cynical as the NSW Liberals’ advertising consultant John Singleton’s view that winning an election is like selling soap powder. As the result shows with Snedden, there has to be some soap.

The day to day activity of most people continually thumps it home that there are real issues to be fought out and decided.

The present ‘Presidential’ trend however, will determine who will fight them out. Political Glitter Heavies will shadow box in front of mass audiences whose extent of allowed participation will be ‘par­ ticipatory spectatorship’.

Such is the nature of parliament tary politics, and while it’s still here it is better to have Labor, they’ve got such style._________________

Photographs taken outside ASIO offices, 469 S t Kilda Rd, Melbourne

Digger enrages A S IO On Friday the 17th of May at about 9,15 am, Digger reporter and photographer, Ponch Hawkes was bashed. Her camera, a $400 Nikon F was smashed.

This assault took place in a lift which had stopped at the fifth floor in Wellesley House, 126 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne. The first four floors of this building are occupied by business offices. The fifth and sixth floors are occupied by the Australian Security Intelli­ gence Organisation (AS 10) (see Digger Nos. 7 & 30) Ponch Hawkes tells the story, “ I was with Joan Coxsedge, who is the chairperson of the Committee for the Abolition of Political Po­ lice (CAPP). We walked into the lobby of the building, I took several photographs. In the lift as we travelled up were two men who were having a conversation about repairing a car. One man was in his late 40s, with steely grey hair, stocky build, about 5’ 8” or 5’ 9” wearing a grey suit and striped tie.

The other man was younger, in his early 30s, dark hair, about 5’ 11” slimmer build, wearing a green suit. “ When the lift arrived at the fifth floor they looked a little sur­ prised to see us still in the lift.

They got out, the younger man walked over to press the buzzer at the ASIO office door. The door can only be opened from the inside.

I raised my camera and took a photo of the office door, which was what I had come there for.

The older man without a word

turned, lunged at me, grabbed my camera and smashed it on the lift floor and kicked it into the lobby.

He punched me hard on the head with a closed fist, I turned from the blow and he punched me on the back of the neck. I made a grab for his tie and he slammed me back against the lift wall.

“The younger man just stood there looking stunned and horrified and the attacker said ‘That’ll teach you to come round here again’.

Joan let out with, ‘Fascist bastards.

Wait until tomorrow’.

“We didn’t know exactly what to do, they were after all bigger than us, my camera was lying in pieces in the lobby and we didn’t know if more men were going to stream out of the office and leave us bloodied in some gutter some­ where. We went straight to Russell Street police headquarters and laid a formal complaint.

“Since then there has been some talk of counter assault charges. The police say they are investigating.

One conversation I had last week with a senior officer went like this, ‘The Commonwealth, er, the people who have your camera wanted us to give it back to you, I told them to give it back to you themselves’.

My solicitor has written to the Attorney General, the Director of ASIO and the state director re­ questing that the camera be returned repaired to its original condition or a replacement supplied.”

The only media to report on this incident were Tribune, Nation

Review and the Melbourne Truth, which usually deals mainly in flesh and scandal, on this occasion they wrote a surprisingly straight account The straight press — the major dailies, the Sunday papers, the ABC — refused td touch the story. They tend to keep pretty quiet on ASIO; they may publish an article com­ menting on its inefficiency or out of date memos. But they usually maintain a deathly hush about how it goes about its job or just what kind of institution it is.

CAPP has been running a cam­ paign since February 1973 to exert pressure on the Labor government to abolish secret police whose func­ tion is to snoop into other people’s legitimate political opinions and af­ filiations. They have been working at uncovering, photographing, tracing, exposing .nd publicising ASIO’s of­ fices and personnel. This includes publishing names, addresses and photographs. Very little of this in­ formation is ever given any space in the straight press.

ASIO is not empowered to make arrests or seize property. They have breached their charter and com­ mitted the criminal offences of as­ sault and larceny.

While many people regard ASIO as an inefficient, slightly funny cloak and dagger mob and therefore don’t take them seriously, it would be wise not to forget that they take themselves very seriously indeed.

(For copies of the CAPP booklet send postage to 8 Leicester Street, North Balwyn, Victoria 3104.)

Prisons: On the inside out good non bullshit people have been carrying on a seemingly futile bhttle for Peter Gardiner and for all other prisoners who have, because of our archaic and outmoded sadistic sys­ tem of non justice, been subjected to unbelievable physical and mental torture in our ‘corrective institu­ tions’.

These people, although frus­ trated at every possible turn, con­ tinue to fight, because they know what is happening in these places which the straight newspapers con­ tinue to pretend are ‘Rehabilitation Centres’.

Peter Gardiner is one of a great number of poeple who have been subjected to treatment which could at least be described as inhuman and barbarically outmoded. The stories of atrocities such as Peter Gardiner have been told for years now. People know that prisoners are subjected to cruel and mind torturing actions and still they are allowed to continue.

Peter Gardiner has been through hell and I’m amazed that the man still has his faculties about him.

He’s suffered the worst kind of gestapo treatment and has managed to pull through it, through absolute will and determination that he will not be beaten. He has been kicked down, but they will not beat him. * * * They have to kill some people to Who killed John Robbins? stop them fighting.

For some time now, some really The list of people who’ve been

John Robbins was found dead in a G division cell," at Pentridge Jail, approximately five weeks ago. Ac­ cording to the authorities he had hung himself.

Robbins, who escaped from Ben­ digo prison in 1971, was subjected to vicious treatment on his subse­ quent capture. His evidence, which was corroborated, to the Jenkinson Enquiry on Prisons won him no friends amongst the warders. Like other prisoners, he suffered extreme brutality in H division before being transferred to G division, which is the path to the notorious J ward, Aararat. Peter Gardiner has been pushed along the path and is at this time incarcerated in J ward.

Digger received the following letter, which we believe to be au­ thentic. The author, who remains anonymous, was a friend and com­ rade o f Robbins and those . others still suffering He is an escaped prisoner.

From time to time I’d like to write some stuff down as I’ve been threatened with death by the Victoria Police and may not get to say any­ thing if I’m ever caught. I’d like to have you have some pertinent facts to use if ever the occasion arises.

subjected to this absolute cruelty is very, very long. They started about the time Port Arthur was established and still they continue in 1974. What’s wrong with the general public for Christ’s sake that they can continue to know of these atrocities and still do nothing about them? Do they need a public scape­ goat they can hold up and say: “ Look it’s not me; I’m good. These criminals, they’re the bad ones”?

At least these criminals have realised the capitalistic system is not the message and have in some way said “ Fuck your system” .

I have witnessed some really brilliant minds being tortured and forced into a state of vegetation.

There are at this present time some exceptionally talented and clever people residing in Pentridge who through years of uncivilised and often brutal treatment have become so bitter against the penal system that they would dearly love to have an unlimited supply of firearms and grenades for ten minutes so that they may pay back in some measure the harm and pain that they’ve en­ dured at the hands of sadistic and brainless morons — who the public allow to be their keepers. (I use keepers in the zoological term.)

It stands to reason that if the penal system beats and kicks the shit out of someone for 3 . . . 5 . . .

10 years, as soon as it’s over that guy wants to return the compliment

to the gutless swines that enjoyed doing it to him. And that is what these brainless pricks forget!!!

You bastards have created your own end by turning ordinary people into hungry revenge seekers and I’m saying to all you swine who have laughed as you kicked people in the guts on the floor and who have helped turn spirited men into vege­ tables — your fucking days are numbered. The army of people you have subjected to these treatments are waiting for D-Day!! It’s our turn and our right to avenge all the people you have wronged and are still killing in your fuckpot prisons.

I’m calling all people together who hate what has been and what is still to Join the Revolution. The time for talk is over. You swine who have made us must now get to realise what you made.

It’s too late for resignation from the Swine Penal Authorities. We’ve got all the necessary data and we’ve got the arms. Your brains will be blown right out pigs and we’ll be happy to see it, because you see we’ll be remembering the people who hung, the people who had their teeth and ribs broken, their balls squashed, the people who ODed because they couldn’t take such de­ humanisation any more; the guys you pigs kept awake all night by consistent banging on their cell doors and threats of murdering them; the guys you loaded up with

false charges to front a bullshit JP and get an automatic further term; the guys you chained to the bloody bars all night so they couldn’t lie down and rest or recuperate from the day before; the guys who were sick at night and refused any medical treatment and died; the guys who were too alert for you pricks and so you certified and sent them to a mental institute; for all those brave people still in your stinking cages who will not be beaten by you, who tell you to get fucked and will never be a part of your stupid standover tactics.

And especially for Johnny Robbins; you bastards murdered that boy. 17 he was when your precious and infallible judicial system sent him to the cages for ten years.

You bastards gave that bloke no glimmer of hope for the future at all; he was a good bloke and now you blokes have -killed him.

And we remember Stan and Donny and Paul and Peter and untold others who could have been anything — creative and feeling people who you have made into people who hate and despise all you and your system ever stood for. Your system has crushed all this and much much more and as a judge once told me — “ Now you are caught and now you must pay — violence begets violence, viciousness begets viciousness” .

It’s not a one way street, and we’re going the other way.

(

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age 2

Published by High Times Pty. Ltd., 350 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, Vic., 3051.

Phone: 329.0977.

Postal Address: PO Box 77, Carlton, Vic., 3053.

Published monthly throughout Australia.

Cover price is recommended retail maximum.

The Collective: Melbourne: Peter Britton, Terry Cleary, Bob Daly, Mary Duggan, Virginia Fraser, Helen Gamer, John Halpin, Jon Hawkes, Ponch Hawkes,Alistair Jones, Helen Keenan, Alan Smith, Jenny Smith.

Advertising: Terry Cleary.

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Advertising: Michael Zerman, 15 Avenue Rd.,Glebe, NSW. Phone: 660 6957.

i Distributors:

New South Wales: Allan Rodney Wright (circulation) Pty. Ltd., 36-40 Bourke Street, Wooloomooloo, 2021. Phone: 357.2588.

Victoria: Collins Wholesale Newsagency, 242 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, 3000. Phone: 347.1326.

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The Digger accepts news, fea­ tures, artwork or photographs from contributors.

Send material with a stamped SAE if you want it back, to The Digger, PO Box 77, Carlton,

3053.

The Digger is a member of the

Underground Press Syndicate ( UPS).

Back numbers of The Digger are 45 cents each, from “ Back Numbers", d o The Digger, 15 Avenue Road, Glebe, NSW 2037.

No. 1: Wainer's abortion epic; Gary Young exposed; the Stuart case.

No. 2 : Drug history of Australia; New Guinea cannibals; Youth seizes city.

No. 3 : Cocker interview; Don Juan; Porny pics.

No. 4: Zimmer's Essay; Football's freak; High school revolt; Being a rock star.

No. 5: People's Park; FM, radio; shared diseases; McMahon — after December?; No. 6: Helen Garner/school kids; Reefer Madness; Abortion — a colonial history.

No. 7: Abortion on request; Cosmos adrift; Marxism in Maribyrnong; Poetry supplement.

No. 8 : Labor's victory; Bisexuality; Hawke interviewed; M t. Isa. No. 9 : Prostitutes; Conscripts and re­ sisters; Libs — the abyss.

No. 10: Marg Whitlam; the gay beat; Sunshine grass label; Four letter words — teacher fired.

No. 11: Women in pubs; Nimbin; Dope laws; Ringolevio.

No. 12: Comix supplement; Angry Bri­ gade; Sunbury.

No. 13: Rolling Stones; Drug “problem"?; Porn and politics.

No. 14: Contraceptive guide; Women in •° a man's world; Sydney's junkie murder.

No. IS : Nurses; Higher Consciousness; 'a Great Moments of Rock.

No. 16: Anti-psychiatry; Fred Robinson; Port Phillip sewer; "Couples".

Ityo. 17: Silver Screen; Nimbin; Zappa; WEL. A)o. 18: Watergate; Ford; Doomsday; ** ALP: godfathers and families.

No. 19: Dalmas; medical students; wo­ men's strike; ASIO on the line.

No. 20: Omega; No. 96; Communes; Victoria Street.

No. 21: The fastest rising guru in the west;.

How Labor bought Tasmania; Body rhythms; Suburb's siege; Grafitti Gue­ rillas; Philippines.

No. 22: Gay Lib.; the Crips.; Memoirs of a Sydney cop; Dylan mystery LP. No. 23: Victorian drug squad search war­ rant racket; Two ex-prisoners and their world; Captain Matchbox; Travels of Bazza McDope; Melbourne football; South American round up.

No. 24: Customs plan to smuggle drugs; oil in Middle East; Mary Whitehouse; The Rocks.

No. 25: Students take Thailand; Metha­ done racket; Bali busts; Warrants in court and out; Soviet dissidents.

No. 26: Leunig's rude drawings; Marshal Green's sinister background; Bicycles; Children outside the nuclear family; US plans for Vietnam 1974; Victoria Street evictions.

No. 27: Inside Bathurst; New Guineans learn to fail; Kids, communes . . . and now me; Indonesia — the making of a riot; Rock Dreams; CIA in Australia No. 28: Woman sheltering from men in Glebe; Girls in jail; Three Marias; Workers' participation in action; Chile massacres; Kate Jennings on Joni M it­ chell; Portugal's empire crumbles. /Vo.29Behind the double dissolution; The collective at work; Vietnam - did you think it was over; Ideas about presch­ ooling; Womens' health centres.

No. 30: Election issue; Worker control in Wyong; Digger Guide to Heavy Re­ lating; Reports from Thailand and liberated South Vietnam; ASIO and JIO dispute; Panthers fight FBI and SLA.

May 30 — June 13, 1974

THE DIGGER

EARTH NEWS Bang bang rubber ducky The Swedish Navy will take a giant plunge into the naval history books next month when it launches the world’s first all-plastic warship.

Ridiculous as it seems, a spokes­ person for the Swedish Navy says that the minesweeper is built of fiber-glass, and that its maintenance costs will be only a fraction of that of normal ships, and besides, it won’t attract magnetic mines.

Earth News.

Union blues It now seems almost definite that the Builders’ Labourers’ Fed­ eration will be deregistered. The N.S.W. branch of the Master Buil­ ders’ Association last week decided to pursue their application for the Union’s deregistration. It had earlier seemed likely that the bosses intended to drop off.

The application is being made on two grounds, both relating to the N.S.W. Builders’ Labourers. The first is the famous ‘green bans’ which are holding up $3,000 mill­ ion worth of commercial develop­ ment in the interests of the envir­ onment. The other is described as “ the general attitude of the N.S.W. B.L.F. officials” . By this the bosses mean the industrial militancy of the N.S.W. branch in relation to wages and conditions and in par­ ticular the number of “ workers’ control” struggle the B.L.s have initiated.

$60 death

Three Marias : "Only the J beginning"

On March 22 in Sydney, A.V. Jennings Industries Ltd. was fined $60 on charges arising from the death of a workingperson, painter i William Decker, who fell through a window on the sixth floor.

The company, which is one of !

Australia’s largest construction com­ panies, pleaded not guilty to a charge of not providing adequate safety measures for people working on highrise buildings. A Department of Labour and Industry inspector said a sheet of wire mesh would have prevented the accident.

When the huge profits of Jenn­ ings (development homes, portable classrooms, etc.) are taken into account a fine of $60 is nothing.

So much for the Court’s estimate of the value of a worker’s life.

Companies can’t be charged with m urder.

■ w 4.

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On their acquittal from charges of ‘offence against public morality’ on May 7 the three women known as the Three Marias, spoke of plans for organising a women’s movement in Portugal, according to Liberation News Service.

When the secret police moved to seize the book two months after publication, only 100 of the 3000 copies of the first edition remained unsold.

The trial of the three women,

Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Isabel Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa, had been going on since October 1973; it concerned the book New Portuguese Letters, published in April 1972, which attacks the oppression of women in Portugal.

Geoff Robertson, an Australian lawyer and journalist who has been working in London, is one of two lawyers working on Michael X’s appeal to the Privy Council. He explained on a recent Lateline pro­ gram on ABC radio how this case might affect Australian law, and some of the arguments being used in it — including a few provided

by Victoria’s one time hanging pre­ mier, Henry Boite.

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“ You see most commonwealth countries do have built into their constitution Bills of Rights which provide that ‘no cruel or unusual punishment’ should be inflicted on their nationals,” Robertson said.

k.*l*

Digger P ictu re P u zzle N o. 3.

Won’t you please come home?

The new military junta in Por­ tugal is trying to undo a lot of the damage caused by the recent­ ly overthrown dictatorship. The junta has welcomed back the ex­ iled leaders of the Portuguese soc­ ialist and communist parties, and so far more than twelve hundred Af­ rican political prisoners have been freed. But one of the junta’s peace offerings has been snubbed.

The junta recently announced an amnesty for the draftees who fled the country to avoid military service in Africa. Several thousand men left to avoid fighting against black nationalists.

Riot police attacked the court­ But reports from Lisbon indic­ room audience, mainly Indians, when they refused to stand for the ate that many deserters are reject­ ing the offer. They say they won’t the judge at the trial of Ameri­ accept until Portugal ceases all can Indian Movement members in military operations in Africa.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The — Earth News. trial, arising from protests in Cus­ ter, South Dakota in February ’73 was due to start on April 29 this year, but when the presiding judge, Joseph Bottum entered the courtroom, the spectators failed to rise. This ‘sign of respect’ is cus­ tom not law in the state.

Bottum ordered the court cleared and left. The Sioux Falls A subpoena has been issued Tactical Police Force then locked demanding that Richard Nixon the doors and attacked the audi­ hand over tapes of all White House ence. After the fighting, six Indi­ ans, including defendent David Hill conversations relating to the take- y over of Wounded Knee in January had to be carried away in ambu ­ 1973. It was issued on May 3 by lances. Later one of the defence Judge Fred Nichol as a result mot­ lawyers, Ramon Roubideaux, an ion on behalf of Dennis Banks and Indian, read a statement in court criticsing the judge’s action; he was Russell Means.

Banks and Means face a ten promptly «thrown into jail for 24 count felony indictment stemming hours. On May 3 Judge Bottum from their part in the 71 day oc­ adjourned the trial until May 14.

David Hill had been so badly beat­ cupation. Defence Attorney William Kunstler requested the subpoena en up that he had to be brought after noting remarks made a year in on a stretcher.

Meanwhile, also in Sioux Falls, ago by L. Patrick Gray during a Senate confirmation hearing on his the trial of three women, Tonia his appointment as director of the Ackerman, Lorelei Decora Means FBI. Gray testified that he had and Madonna Gilbert for theft in connection with the Wounded knee discussed the Wounded Knee occu­ pation with the then White House occupation opened. Previous counsel, John Dean. charges of conspiracy against the three have been dropped.

—People’s News Service - Peoples' News Service

Bottums down

Nixon: taped again

The appeal against a death sen­ tence for murder by former British black power leader Michael X may lead to the outlawing of the death penalty in Australia.

The three said that with the freedoms resulting from the coup on April 25, they would begin or­ ganising a women’s movement with the legalisation of abortion as its Michael X, a Trinidad national, first priority. Maria Isabel Barreno is appealing on the grounds that said that thousands of women re­ Trinidad’s execution laws — which sorted to abortions performed clan­ include waiting for several years on destinely ‘under deplorable condit­ death row within hearing of the ions’. ‘Today’s decision is only the gallows and the subsequent slashing beginning’, she added. The small of tendons - of the body of the courtroom was packed with wo­ executed person after death — con­ men who chanted ‘United women stitute a “ cruel and unusual punish­ shall never be vanquished’, a var­ ment” which as such is forbidden iation of a chant popular since th

by Trinidad’s constitution. the coup:'*A limited people shall never be vanquished’.

If the Privy Council rules that the death penalty is indeed a “ cruel —People's News Service and unusual punishment” it would affect the numerous commonwealth countries which, like the United States, have constitutions or Bills of Rights which forbid it. The passing of Australia’s proposed Bill of Rights would include Australia in the ruling.

An example of this “general attitude” : at a peace conference called by the Master Builders’ Association, Joe Owens, the N.S.W. B.L.’s branch secretary was asked what the labourers wanted. Joe’s reply: “The lot, mate” , caused the M.B.A. bloke to throw up his hands and walk out.

Deregistration will apply to the Federal body of the union. Thus despite Federal Secretary Norm Gallagher’s well known dislike of the N.S.W. branch’s activity, he has been forced into a position where he must defend them.

The effect of deregistration is to remove the union from the official, legalized sphere of union activity and while this poses many problems for the union, it also allows them unlimited opportunities for new struggles. The N.S.W. B.L.s are keen to take these opportunities.

They seem to view the prospect of an all-out blue without the distrac­ ting ‘refereeship’ of the bosses’ courts with some relish.

Q ueen kills subjects

Portugals crumbling outpost ?

The Portuguese coup and estab­ lishment of the new radical demo­ cratic government in Portugal will constitute a strong warning to the Brazillian regime.

Events in Portugal, beginning with the abortive revolt in March and the dismissal of General Spinola (now President of Portugal), have been fully reported in the Brazillian press in spite of tight censorship. Spinola’s book, Portu­ gal and the Future, which sparked off the unrest, was published in Brazil within a few days of its appearance in Lisbon.

Great prominence was given to the events in Portugal by the im­ portant newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, which has had strong links with what was the Portugu­ ese democratic opposition under the facist regime. The owners of O Estado, the Mesquita family, were exiled from Portugal during the ’60s and have been ardent cam­ paigners for the restoration of free­ dom of the press in Brazil. O Est­ ado published a special edition to mark the Portuguese coup and cal­ led immediately for recognition of the junta by the Brazillian govern­ ment. The implications of the Port­ uguese coup are- significant for Bra­ zil. Brazil, like Portugal has been constructed over the past 40 years according to a model devised by ex-Portuguese President Dr. Salazar.

With the final crumbling of Salazar’s ideas in Lisbon, their days may well well be numbered in Brasilia too.

Graham Jones

and rigged up a system of volcanic power.

“ And

of course hundreds of

“ There is a danger that the Trinidad government will ignore the fact that Michael’s case is before the courts and will hang him before the Privy Council has a chance to decide on the merits of his case, so we’re relying in fact on an Aust­ ralian decision. “ You may remember some years ago the Hawthorn vicarage murderer, I think it was, Peter Tait, who was insane, was convicted of murder and Henry Bolte, who was the pre­ mier of Victoria at the time was determined to hang him. There was an enormous campaign in Victoria and in fact throughout Australia, and the case went right up to the High Court. “ Shortly before the High Court deliberated on it Bolte and the Victorian cabine«, so determined were they to kill this man, indi­ cated that they were going to ignore the High Court, that they would go straight ahead and hang him.

“Thè then Chief Justice of Aust­ ralia, Chief Justice Dixon, who is one of the most highly thought of authorities on common law who has been a judge this century, in­ dicated that if that was done then the whole of the Victorian cabinet would be in contempt of court and could theoretically be put in prison. “ We’re relying on that statement and we’re relying on some of the authorities and some of the legal arguments that were used in the Tait case.” -

Iceland, you’ll remember, was the scene of a volcanic eruption last July that buried some 400 homes under hot, flowing lava.But now the remaining citizens of the island have turned disaster into op­ portunity. A large, waterfilled pipe has been dug into the outer edge of the hot lava and the water is then circulated through the nearby homes ! The lava heated water is still around 150 degrees by the time it reaches the homes of what is left of the island’s only commu­ nity. Scientists say that the lava will probably stay hot enough to heat all of the island’s 800 homes for another 20 years.

— Earth News.

Vatican gets waxed A spokesperson for the Vatican last week said that an advertise­ ment that appeared in the official Vatican daily newspaper was in bad taste and would never appear again.

The ad was a full-page, back cover promotion for Johnson’s Wax. It featured a photograph of the front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with the caption “ Truly Splendid...the Basilica of St. Peter’s, recently cleaned with Johnson’s Wax Prod­ ucts.”

The official Vatican spokesperson said that the Basilica had in fact been cleaned with Johnson’s Wax, but that the Vatican had paid for the wax and had not accepted it free in exchange for permission to While the rest of the world run the ad. Said the spokesperson: ponders the merits of solar power, “The wax was costly because it is geothermal power, wind power, nu­ a really big Basilica.” clear power and even tidal power, an island off the coast of Iceland — Earth News. has unceremoniously gone ahead

Lava pow er

‘“ Australia doesn’t have that in it’s constitution at the moment but there is a Bill of Rights which is at presenjt being discussed by the Australian Parliament; and if the Privy Council does decide, as the United States Supreme Court de­ cided, that capital punishment is cruel and unusual, then that will prevent commonwealth countries which have this constitutional pro­ vision from hanging any of their nationals.

people are executed — gassed, hanged — throughout the British commonwealth at the moment and execution warrants signed by Her Majesty the Queen, through her Governor Generals. It seems to us to be an important question of human rights and human dignity to do what we can to stop this, and if we can do this legally by obtaining this ruling in the same way that the ruling was obtaine<| in America then we feel that Michael X’s case will have made some con­ tribution to the upholding of human rights in the commonwealth.

Boering along Worms’ turn with N ato The North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ ization (NATO) has drawn up sec­ ret plans for the defense of the sea routes around the southern portion of Africa, according to the London Times. The paper repor­ ted that the NATO Supreme Com­ mander for the Atlantic has also been authorized to study possible maneuvers by NATO forces in the southern African nationsThe Times report tends to support an earlier Washington Post story that NATO had been drawing up plans for the military defense of the apartheid nation o f South Africa. Such a plan would repres­ ent a reversal of U.S. policy, which has favored only loose alliance with South Africa rather than out­ right military support.

A recent comparison of two Harris polls held to assess what people Americans think are ‘dang­ erous or harmful to the country’ produced some astonishing results, according to the latest issue of Peace News.

In 1967 the dangerous or harm­ ful people were held to be ‘those who didn’t believe in God, Hack .militants, student demonstrators, prostitutes and homosexuals’. In autumn 1973 a similar poll showed that a large majority of Americans now think that the particularly dangerous include: those who hire political spies, generals who conduct secret bombing raids, politicians who who conduct secret wiretappings, businesspeople who make illegal political contributions, and politi­ cians who use the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service for political purposes or try to restrict freedom.

—Peoples's News Service

According to the report in the Times, the reason for the NATO defense plan is simply to protect western shipping from the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, where the Soviet Navy has a strong naval presence. But the Post report gives a different - or at least additional reason. It says that the NATO planning is meant to provide pro­ tection for the nation of South Africa, where a white minority government is threatened by African guerillas from Mozamb­ ique. The Post noted that the South African government has been pushing for more open U.S. mil­ itary support ever since the Port­ uguese coup. The U.S. has been reluctant to make such a commit­ ment because of world-wide opp­ osition to the white government of South Africa.

— Earth News.

Mao com ing to N ixon ’s party ?

Chairperson Mao Tse Tung of China has been invited by Presi­ dent Nixon to attend the 200th anniversary celebration of the Un­ ited States in Washington, accord­ ing to information provided by a recent Japanese visitor to China.

The Chinese leadership, which has been following the Watergate events closely, is reportedly convinced that Nixon, bent on presiding ov­ er the bi-centennial, will never re­ sign his position. —New Asia Nqpjs

i

PageJL

THE DIGGER

May 23 - June 1 3 ,1 9 7 4

The real rural polarizations - why the tidy triers fear Labor.

jHm

H acking through electoral scrub in Eden~Monaro Many stringers are country women with obvious political views.

The Federal campaign opened unofficially in Bombala, NSW has three sawmills, three Cooma with an article on the local preschool, which pubs, and three cops, two pastoral com­ had missed out on funding. pany offices, and one picture show that Whan’s story was that the local State member opens only Saturday nights. The Imperial and the Askin government had blown it by failing to Hotel is the town’s bloodhouse; built of get an application prepared for federal funds. timber a century ago, with a verandah and The State Education Minister denied this. The paper lifted a quote from the denial into a balcony now infested with honey bees.

48 point front page banner: The local ALP Branch meets in the WHAN - EITHER IGNORANT OR CONFUSED Imperial’s backroom. * * * The Country Party ads showed Brewer with Doug After the double dissolution, the Branch’s Anthony, and mentioned the usual “ isms” — social, six members found themselves outnumbered by commun, central, bureaucrat. These themes were 15 new faces: several managers of enterprise, buttressed by a stream of half-baked letters. young male schoolteachers, and a couple of The Liberal ads showed their rather handsome breaks. candidate in thoughtful poses, with his slogan The secretary, Ginger Leigh, is a small round “Show your concern” . The copy, superimposed on bachelor who works in the post office and coaches these large, expensive blocks, was more concrete schoolkid rugby. Leigh is a man none speak ill of; than the CP “ isms” . It dealt with inflation, he checked the rulebook, waived certain rules, and shortages, strikes, Viet Cong, the Gair Affair, etc. got two schoolies and a mill manager onto the Whan’s personal policy is to never mention the Branch executive. opponents’ names, and never, perhaps, their issues.

The freaks presented an idea for a wall news­ His ads were smaller. They had a standard block, paper, to counter some of the local press. The showing him looking stern — this was effective, Branch endorsed the Suggestion. Leigh compiled a since Whan looks like Paul Newman’s fleshy balding roster for polling booth work. Frank the Butcher brother. The copy asserted he was the hard-working took on the job of running a cent game, to raise incumbent. The print ads seldom mentioned either funds for advertising. * * * Whitlam or Labor.

The Opposition dominated broadcast media; they As in most “ rural” seats, the population of had better strategies and much more money.

Eden - Monaro is concentrated in towns. These * * * towns have peculiarities of economic base.

The Labor campaign opened officially in Cooma Goulbum has a large railway vote. Queanbeyan with a meeting featuring Bob Hawke. Estimates of has a military base, and Canberra industry. Cooma the crowd vary: the Cooma paper, under attack is the home of the Snowy Mountains Engineering for “ bias” , gave it 6 0 0 .1 counted 350, standing Corporation, and like such coastal towns as Pambula room only for the Civic Hall. and Merimbula, has a tourist trade. Smaller table­ Whan gave a warm speech. His rebuttal of the land centres, such as Bombala, are timber and allegations about preschool funds was not reported, pastoral. Eden, like other coastal towns, has fisheries however. and a retired vote; Eden also has the Japanese woodHawke was the main attraction. He gave his usual chip industry. speech, citing anti-Snedden comment from the The seat was safe Labor until a Liberal redistri­ “ conservative press”. I often wonder how Paddy bution included Bega in the division. Bega’s dairy McGuiness at the Financial Review feels about this and retailing base tipped the seat to a Liberal speech: I often wonder if Bob Hawke and he ever during the 1966 khaki election. argue about who’s the most revolutionary?

In 1969, Labor’s Fraser regained the seat. He A woman ii^the front interjected when Hawke retired, and his personal vote did not transfer well spoke about the increasing farm incomes. to Bob Whan, the Labor candidate in 1972. Whan “The farmers aren’t getting the money,” she barely won, on Australia Party preferences. kept shouting.

Whan was an agricultural economist with the Hawke kept going, until the lady decided she Wool Board. The farm vote amounts to 12% of the aidn’t exist, and ceased. By question time, electorate, and he worked hard to claim a share she had passed through a psychic warp, and asked in it. He publicly opposed the lapse of the super­ Hawke a Dorothy Dix, or what turned out to be a phosphate bounty. He brought the Minister for Dorothy Dix by the time he had interpreted what Primary Industry (Ken Wriedt) into the electorate she wanted to ask for her. for a public meeting. He attended and Impressed a The* only other interjection at the meeting came number of farmers’ meetings. from a man who’d told us outside he’d “ come to The 1974 Liberal candidate, Jon Bell, was a abuse bloody Hawke.”

Queanbeyan solicitor who was unknown to most “ Crude oil prices are too low,” he yelled, electors. “ God had blessed me with an interjector!”

The Country Party fielded the sitting state Hawkfe shouted. Laughter. “ I’m just coming to R on Sr^iMer; th a t. i . ” he said. Which he did, after perhaps 1 campaigner who grabs hands and announces: another quarter hour.

“Country Party policy is perfect weather!”

Another question came from a workingman, who Whan got the Labor Mayor of Goulburn, Ernie asked Hawke, “ From what you say, there, these McDermott, to run that city’s campaign.

• oil companies are robbing us of half a million During the campaign a rumor kept cropping up dollars a day. Now here you’ve been in government that Brewer once stood for Labor preselection. * * * for eighteen months and they’re still doing if.

How come?”

Brewer was confident enough to resign his state It takes time, we’re gradually doing what can be seat. He announced a campaign budget of $15,000. done, etc. etc., Hawke answered.

He had some help from local papers in Goulburn “I sat next to him at a table in Surfers Paradise,” and Cooma. a Woman whispered, “ and he’s a terrible male These papers rely on stringers for reporting.

By a rural correspondent

chauvinist pig.”

The audience came to see Hawke. With the exception of the farmer’s wife, the stockholder and the working man, they’d sat as though they were at school for three hours. They showed their party allegiance by applauding or abstaining from applause.

Gordon Bryant (or Wal Bryant, as the local paper styled him) wound up with one of those great­ hearted Labor speeches that slow the exit of people from the hall.

Out in the pubs: a) a man who refused a leaflet on the local government referendum because the person,sho offered it was inappropriately dressed to represent any political party; b) a warder at the Cooma Prison for Homosexuals (male) who said he ordinarily voted Labor but not last time when they’d run a woman candidate (Marg Gleeson) for State Parliament. In another pub, Hawke signed autographs and exuded star, Whan stayed close to him. * * * The freak raved to the backroom boys about tliis wallnewspaper, an alternative medium to the local press, pulling out pages from a typed submission, waving three-color ¡cartoons with stipple values, suggesting that each local branch produce special editions through a plenary editorial/production group. The freak notices the backroom boys are all rubbers — when he’s talking, they begin rubbing their eyes, the gesture of anxious men, men who are more afraid of fucking up than any amount of boredom, the sort of gesture you see smong spikers on any paper’s sub’s desk.

The ultimate disposition is that the freak’s cartoons are photostatted and tacked up in pubs. * * * Labor policy has affected all country people in one way or another, if only by an increase in tele­ phone rental. But some classes of voter have been grossly affected.

Dear urban brothers and sisters, when people describe themselves as primary producers, the accent is on primary.

Outside Bombala, two brothers and their sons control land once worked by 27 families. They’ve been building their operation all their lives — they began as rabbit trappers, and they’re still hungry.

I was arguing with one of them in the store. / He put his case like this: “ The country lives on exports and imports. 7% of the population produces 68% of the exports. I’m one of that 7% — now don’t you reckon I’m pretty good?”

II pointed out by those criteria he’s seven or nine times as good as a millhand, and infinitely better than a doctor.

Outside the polling booth, some brooding later, he told me, “ I reckon my vote is worth eight or nine times some people / know.” His brother said, “ Tve done a lot, produced a lot, for this country.”

The successful cocky and his family have special problems and special privileges. Labor has attacked the privileges.

The spring song of Australia is the radial roar of Superplanes, spraying rock phosphate on paddocks.

These methods of improving pasture mean the difference between one sheep per acre, and five. The lapse of the bounty on super means $1000 to $5000 a year to most successful “ family units” .

These “ family units” are continually threatened by probate tax. They resent the special weight of this tax on landed property.

On the other hand, the bounties, tax concessions and marketing arrangements and subsidies were considered due recognition of the primary nature

the dairy board. He was part of the Morgan poll team. I had to confess that I was Grant Evans from The Digger. “ Press! Oh well it’s a left wing capitalist outfit anyway.”

In such circles it’s a bit hard to tell whether such a comment is really a backhanded compliment.

You're one o f us really!”) I smiled

Briefing at R oy Morgan $

Masquerading m ilkm an unmasked at Gallup

by Grant Evans The countdown began at sixteen hundred and fifty hours on Friday.

Roy Morgan was going to give his eleventh hour prediction for the elections to a select group of clients.

I synchronised my watch to Eastern Standard Time, checked my pulse rate (it was okay), and arrived at the Morgan briefing room dead on time.

Cool, I drifted onto the fourth floor of the building in Flinders Street, Melbourne. Pin stripe coat, all that’s left of my suit, bright

pink shirt bought from the op. shop that day, flash,! and overslung tee shirt and jeans. Go anywhere this boy, I thought.

Soft carpet and stained wood welcomed me out of the lift. The sort of place you could invite your friends to. Respectable sort of place.

As it happened, I entered through the wrong door. At one end of the long plush reception room was a bar with about five suited, gents bugging its edges. Where was every­ body? (Steady. Fasten that middle coat button and approach the bar confidently.)

"Flying Ansett."

ROBERT RAYMOND PRESENTS

'

World’s No. 1 Female Vocal Group

With famous Tamla-Motown Musicians

ONE SHOW ONLY!

Perth: Wed. June 12, Beatty Park.

Adelaide: Thu. June 13, Festival Theatre, Melbourne: Fri. June 14, Festival Hall.

Sydney: Sat. June 15, Hordern Pavilion.

Townsville: Sun. June 16, Showgrounds.

Brisbane: Mon. June 17, Festival Hall. ■-

my best Cheshire.

Mr Greg Evans; o f the Milk Board. “ Hello, how are you?” (Who are you?) said an unruffled moustache.

I could have worn my frogman’s, suit after all! “My name’s Grant Evans. I let you know I was coming.”

And then it started. “ Oh yes you’re from the dairy board. Did our contract get through?” “ Er, well you see I’m not exactly. . . ” “ Have a beer anyway.” I reached for the safety of Marlboro country. “ What was the name? Greg?”

Scribble, and slap there it was just over my breast pocket: ‘Mr. Greg Evans of the Australian Dairy Pro­ duce Board’.

I looked around at the breast pockets of the pin stripe suits, pastel shirts and paisley ties. Such and such from the National Bank, GMH, Amital, another smoothly slipped his ‘Think Again’ badge into his pocket, and before I could finish, the others turned to greet newcomers.

A brown suit housing a chunky Yank breezed up to the bar asking for some­ thing soft. The suit was labelled American Information Service. “The U.S. government would like to see the Liberals back in tomorrow, wouldn’t they,” said someone with a Watergate chuckle. Chuckle, “ Yes I’ll have something soft.”

Fortunately I had seen The Dis­ creet Charm o f the Bourgeoisie and managed to float at the end of the bar discreetly. The moustache who was dishing out the beer (and whisky if you wanted it) attracted my attention and pressed me about

This tete-a-tete was soon flooded by the rest of the guests. A Baillieu and Liberal Party label swam in and out of focus and stock market discussion rose in volume. I was outclassed, as it were.

I wallflowered for a while as the drinks slowly turned the conversa­ tion. Somebody asked me about the Milk Board, and I said it had nothing to do with us. He seemed happy with that and it got me back into the conversation, which was on drunken driving. Very inter­ esting.

However, the moustache came back to aggravate my schizophrenia and the conversation zeroed in on the underground press, bookshops and what have you. The smell of a green back and a new market was in the air. The prosperity of Ribald and the Third World Bookshop was dis­ cussed, but it soon waned. They weren’t Gordon Bartons at heart.

The eleventh hour-was upon us.

Liberal faces became more sombre, concerned, worried. Will I or won’t I sell on Monday was the unspoken question directed at Gary Morgan, slick poll compere.

He spoke soothingly. “ There will be no Labor landslide as our three opponent pollsters have pre­ dicted,” he said. “ However our poll does show that Labor could win by a very small majority. But bear in mind that six per cent of people are undecided,” he added feebly.

“The Senate will be controlled by the small parties and the referendums will be lost.” He poured out some, figures and some averages but it seemed most people were too shot by that stage to really follow them properly. For the record I managed to get in one question about the sample of 18 to 20 year old voters

of their economic role. “ They don’t realize . . . in the cities. . . that dearer super will mean dearer food.”

Cockies’ kids seldom work in sawmills. They reckon work paced by a machine, with fixed wages and all the betterment going to a boss, is a mug’s game. Dad says so.

Dad also says that the bastards don’t work.

They’re always on strike.

That’s why you can’t get barb or rabbit wire, or spare parts. And that’s why there’s all this inflation.

The cocky is a social ideal. He and his family are only a small portion of the vote in rural seats, but they can defend their objective privileges with powerful subjective appeals to their hired < help, to small marginal farmers who are emplbyed part-time in other types of work, and even to people in industry.

The ethic of hard work and sacrifice and reward has a powerful appeal to people who are afraid of and intolerant of personal failure, even if they have no special privileges. They can hope for privilege.

The local CP Branch met in the Bombala CWA Hall, and attracted new members — Apexians, young farmers with too much debt apd not enough land . . . “I decided it was time to get off my duff and do something!” : > It is a cliche that thesd tidy triers are susceptible to the leadership of established figures and to certain appeals to fear., Established interests are afraid of social change that will erase certainties, and their privileges. They talk of two possible futures. The one they desire is much like the present, or an imaginary past. The future they fear is a nightmare of Bolshie workers, pornwaves, yellow hordes, and the triumph of the Elders of Zion.

I think bright and energetic young men and couples who want to better themselves are capable of considering such a vision, such appeals, and such a leadership. If they accept that sort of leadership, they will be prepared to defend itw itharm s.

I think the left has a responsibility to these people, a responsibility to offer another vision of the future, to appeal to their sense of wanting to work on real problems, and to develop a leadership from within, from that clearer understanding of how the world works.

In the interim, it is Whitlam who provides the figure of legitimacy and authority for this type of person. The “ polarization” of Australian politics draws the energetic straights both ways, even in Eden - Monaro.

Peter Carruthers was once an office-bearer in a Liberal Party organization; his uncle was among the “ Blacktown Rash” who jammed the NSW Senate ballot paper. Carruthers spent a year and a half in a Catholic seminary before becoming a State School teacher. His fondness for responsibility, or authority, led him to activisnrin the Teachers’ Federation; in the course of struggle he decided tq join the,,Labor Party. During his first ALP meeting he wks elected Bombala Branch treasurer, convener of the media committee and delegate to the Federal Electoral Conference.

During the campaign, which coincided with school holidays, Carruthers prepared advertisements and replies to letters in the local newspaper. He organized mailings and doorknocks. He drove about the electorate attending public meetings, heckling or shouting “ Hear, hear!”

Carruthers may merely be unique. Or his

which seemed to be pretty spurious and based on assumptions of five years ago when the majority of younger people were pro-Liberal.

He dodged it with an executive toss of the head. Only Liberal ques­ tions please!

Having held out a small ray of hope to the assembled, he finished off with a plug for the company and a lament about the last year’s

particular may be an example of the sort of energy that Whitlam has generated by capturing the middle ground. That question I cannot resolve. It seems, of course, that Whitlam is becoming a Good Father for many people; those of us whose life situations cause us to be more ambivalent about responsibility and authority can see another side to the coin.

Knocking on doors in a new housing development in Eden . . . there’s a lot of expl aining to do, mainly about preschools. The Federal Government budgeted money to spend on preschools, but < Askin queered it; that’s our story and we stick to it.

No, ma’am, that’s not what you read in your local paper, but it’s the truth . . . sure it is. Your Liberal State member didn’t get the application in for the money, and now they’re saying the Federal Labor Government is responsible • . . yes, ma’am.

In the pubs, there are any number of unen­ rolled blacks. One of the young ones feigned an ihterest, on the offchance of scoring some small change or a fuck. After a while, one of the freaks told him to piss off. The black didn’t believe i t . . . it not four bob, two bob? If not a kiss, at least a hug? No Bobby, if you aren’t enrolled, nothing. . .

There’s a message that someone wants the ballot paper explained, with an address. It turns out to be a new house on the edge of a sub­ division: there’s an old, clean Holden parked in v front, and just getting out of the car is a young black, with an afro hair and very-ambivalent vibes. No, he hasn’t asked for any help. Is he enrolled? No . . .

Inside the house, it’s SNCC 1961 revisited. Two middle-aged black couples, the young black and his pregnant wife, and a lot of kids. There are different attitudes here to the white visitors. The kids are curious enough to come away from the TV for a few minutes.

The two middle-aged couples are pleased some­ one has come with The Answers: the referenda pamphlet had them confused. One of the freaks shows them that clause 25, which allows the States to deny the vote on the basis of race, can be struck by a YES vote . . . the young black couple sits across the room, as though they want to say something about Gub’s Game, but the white visitors are very intense, talking big words fast, and the old folks are nodding and smiling . . v The young couple get up, walk out of the living room into a bedroom, and shut the door. “ That’s my son Colin, he’s not enrolled.”

One of the older ladies had the idea that you are supposed to number the paper down the sheet. No — it works like this — ask for a Labor scrutineer if you have trouble. A dozen blacks have had their Experience of white Labor volunteers. The Answers?

•££ •

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;

I ' 3» j % | ' J* | fe !

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Whan, at this writing, may hold his seat on the preferences of the declining Australia Party vote. The Countiy Earty rti^chine is re-invigorated "" by this election; their candidate got not 12% but 32% of the vote. The Liberals got about 18%.

Whitlam the Good Father may hold the middle ground. Meanwhile, Labor is not yet seen to be doing much for those without privilege in rural Australia — for women, blacks, and the unorganized, or poorly organized, wage and contract labor force.

It will take some real voluntary work in years to come to reach those who do not have much ' power or hope. Who will do this work? The race-nuts, the fear-mongers have begun.

hard times as they had been pushed out into the cold by the Melbourne Herald. Everyone nodded an under­ standing nod and conversation about whether good times or bad times were a cornin’ returned to the room.

By this time I was beginning to disappear into my glass. Some­ how I got involved in a long con­ versation with the market research manager for GMH about inflation.

It was a good pub conversation, incoherent, but very earnest. In fac^ so pubbish that we didn’t notice that almost everyone had gone, and someone was making discreet move on noises behind us. It’s time’ gentlemen. “ Give us a good write-up in Digger won’t you.” said Gary Morgan, heeltoeing going down in the lift. “Sure will,” I smiled drunkenly.

THE DIGGER

’agc 4

May 30 — June 13, 1974

C o m m u n ity p o litic s - a to u ch o f class

Urban struggle in the Danish Club

by Peter Britton

fife #, tpâüÉgt m, Y’tóS& l. ipfPìm (,'#*^ |p«ìff\ li un 4«

The Emerald Hill Association (a residents’ association in South Mel­ bourne) meets in the Danish Club.

The Danish Club is a very grand and solid white cube overlooking the bay from the beachfront road, Beaconsfield Parade. Its attractive­ ness is its exclusiveness. People coming to the Association’s meet­ ings have to knock on the front door, and be peered at through the peephole.

Attendants in cummerbunds usher the visitors up the stairs and to the right. The carpets are deep red and plush. The gold patterned wall papers are lit from chandeliers and gilded lights mounted on the walls above the carefully curved stair­ case.

In the meeting room drinks are being served from the bar at the end of the room. Drinks are available before the meeting and after it.

Beers are 50 cents. Dress is either business wear or smart casuals.

An environment which only some people are comfortable in.

Like similar residents’ groups in the inner suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, the group is overwhelm­ ingly of people on the make, young but already successful professionals, executives and even civil servants ...trendy terrace dwellers, renovat­ ors to a person.

The Association seems as exclus­ ive as its meeting place. Addresses are carefully noted when introduct­ ions are made. Politically, the members are mainly Australia Party supporters and Labor suppor­ ters, including some who are very active in party branches. Some of the ALP people would probably call themselves socialists.

But involvement in the residents’ association has brought at least some of these people willingly or unwillingly into a process of finding out who in the larger comm­ unity decides what, for whom and why. Consciousness of class and interest appears to be uneven.

Their awareness of community may originate in the concern for prop­ erty values and the attempt to make the community conform to

their demands, but questions are being asked about the nature of development. About the tyranny of the motor car and the industries which depend on that: about alter­ native transport systems.

they wouldn’t pursue damages.

The executive thought the Assoc­ iation should opt for appeasement.

The members didn’t see it quite that way. Some objected that it was a retrograde step, hog-tying the Many of the questions they are ask­ Association and possibly eliminat­ ing the possibility of future actions ing are crucial questions; how they which might arise. It was a tense will answer therft depends to a point and the atmosphere was so , large extent on how resilient they restrictive that one member apolog­ are and how responsive they are in ized: “ Don’t misunderstand. I'm their awareness of class. And that in turn probably depends on for how not being radical or anything but why should we eliminate an alter­ long the other residents will tol­ native which we may regret later?” erate the Emerald Hill Association being the major voice of the resid­ ents.

There was an indication of some of the rethinking about the nature of community politics and the powers that be in the last meeting of the Association. The more rethinking and questioning there is, the less homogeneous the group.

The chair made it clear that the purpose of the motion was to app­ ease Hookers - but it wasn’t an, admission easily made.

Mover: I can’t ¿understand the opp­ osition to the motion. As The motion before the meeting was long as I’m a member of “ whether while resolving to take all this association, I would legal steps to prevent unwanted certainly hope we would destruction or development in never do anything illegal.

South Melbourne, the Association Not if I have anything to will not act illegally or invite anyone do with it. (Sniffle, or any body to act on its behalf’. sniffle.)

The motion had come from the Countless points of order later, the executive and the recommendation meeting had decided not to resolve from the chair that it be adopted never to break the law, and not to was pretty heavy handed. The indicate that they might. The motion was a remnant of the camp­ petulant outburst from the chair aign which members of the Assoc­ “I AM IN THE CHAIR...others in iation had waged to save Lanark the room are behaving as if they Terrace, a beautiful row of terraces, were” , couldn’t ward off further from Hookers’ development into a points of order and a successfully 21 storey apartment building. The applied gag motion which dismissed residents’ attempt to secure a the Executive’s motion.

Supreme Court writ to halt proc­ South and Port Melbourne together ess on demolition was unsuccessful. form a community with well def­ It was uncertain whether Hookers, ined borders...natural borders - the the developers, would sue for dam­ Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay. ages caused by delays.

They have been dormitory suburbs.

Cheap compact housing for workers A meeting had been held with at local factories and assembly Fisher from Hookers (he flew plants. But there are now ‘more down from Sydney for the meet­ ing). He explained how Hookers developed’ means of transporting had learnt to be very concerned workers to their place of work. when approaches were made to The dormitory is no longer needed the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation. and so the area is up for grabs.

The illegality of Hookers’ action in First, the Melbourne City, Council raiding Lanark Terrace at 2a.m. with tried to amalgamate the area along a demolition squad at the time of with other inner city areas. Then the Supreme Court action might only the cooperative intervention have been an embarassment to of the Federal Government saved Fisher, but it wasn’t guarantee that Emerald Hill, the area around the

Town Hall from auction by the charity, Family Care Organization.

The State Government, and the Harbor Trust have threatened deve­ lopment of dock areas in a way which would make Port Melbourne uninhabitable. Profiteering devel­ opers wanting to build high-rise blocks have been fought against sometimes successfully and some­ times not. Then there is the imm­ ediate threat of traffic, conducted either by freeways or not, flooding •through the area from the Westgate Bridge.

for reelection til, 1977, resigned after he had been involved in a brawl at the council after an ex­ change of insults across the floor of the Council.

Both of these resignations are a reflection of the bitter way the conflict between the residents association and the Businessmen’s Association is being fought out.

They also reflect increasing strength on the side of the residents.

The main thrust in taking control of the Council away from business or at least partially away from A new class of residents has moved them has come from the major res­ into the area, and have organized idents’ association...the Emerald just as they did in Carlton and Glebe five or so years ago. But they Hill Association. There is certainly a fair amount of cross-fertilization too find that they are threatened between this residents’ association by industry and business. and the ALP, but the gain has been Huge chunks of South and Port to the residents rather than to the Melbourne, the areas closest to the ALP as such. There are several ports and the river, are totally nonALP branches in the area...the saf­ residential. But the industrial est of safe Labor seats. There is estate still supplies councillors and some common membership between enjoys a massive gerrymander. the two organizations, and on Business interests in the area (local, some issues they can cooperate business and big business) are rep­ easily, on some issues: they can’t. resented by the Businessmen’s The Emerald Hill Association and Association, an informal group of the class they represent is pushing businessmen and executives. land values in the residential areas The group includes some heavy­ very high, and it is becoming more weights: Russ Evans of Australian difficult for working class people Paper Manufacturers, Colin Morley to hold out. Port and South Melb­ of Morley Ford (until very recently ourne each have large migrant a councillor) and Hicks from the populations. It-is larger in Port transport industry, who has close than in South Melbourne, and dec­ ties with South African trading lining in both as migrants move out interests and who believes that the to the outer suburbs.

Victorian Police showed admirable The largest section is Greek. This restraint in the clashes during the is a highly politicized community, 1971 Springbok tour in Melbourne. but its main political concerns are The Businessmen’s Association not to do with the South Melbourne wrested control of the Council from community, but rather with attit­ a typically corrupt and incompetent udes towards the Greek regime.

Labor machine some years ago.

Most support Papandreou or But ndw they are losing that others of the Left of him; the' control.

Committee for the Restoration of Democracy attracts a lot o f Two councillors, both of them support. The political division is former mayors and both of them paralleled within the church. The members of the Businessmen’s Ass­ Turks appear to be thoroughly cut ociated resigned last week. Arthur off. The main mark of politicizat­ Leggo, not due for reelectibn until ion is photos of Ataturk in their 197 5y was the Council’s represent­ homes. ative on the Board of Works. He had been hauled over the coals for Most councillors have been assimnot siding with Fitzroy and Collingilationist in their attitude to the wood in opposition to the F24 migrants of the area. Only now j freeway (Eastern Freeway), are migrant members of the comm­ p Councillor Colin Morley, not due unity beginning to stand for elect­

ion to Council on an integrationist policy.

The area of South and Port Melb­ ourne is a kind of holding area, not only for migrants, but also for single mothers and deserted wives who inhabit large sections of the Housing Commission estates. They are a transient population and have no voice.

It is over issues like the Housing Commission that the residents rep­ resented in the Emerald Hill Assoc­ iation might part company with the more active of the ALP in the area. No-one wants more of the high rise monstrosities which dom­ inate the South Melbourne skyline or the barracks of Garden City, but cheap public housing is a need of the community. New residents in the area, and of another class to boot, may not be sensitized to this.

But basically they are quite happy for the traffic to go elsewhere.

They call for a study into trans­ port in South Melbourne but add that if the freeway link is to be proceeded with, they would supp­ ort it. IMBEC’s attempt to change Emerald Hill Association policy failed. That the Emerald Hill policy held firm is another indication that some amount of questioning and rethinking has been going on amongst the middle class professionals in the area. The policy could have quite radical implications, but not all of those implications have been filled out yet.

The area at the moment where all­ iances are being tested and fract­ ures are appearing is freeways.

Emerald Hill Association policy on freeways is that pending a comp­ lete study of the implications of freeways and alternatives, all free­ ways should be opposed.

A further indication of the envir­ onment in which the re-evaluation is taking place is that the Emerald Hill Association insists that it is non-political. It has a special front organization for the purpose of campaigning for council: the Campaign for a Better Council.

“ The motor car should be just another option, not a product so important that all other consider­ ations are forgotten in protecting its manufacturers’ interests.”

(The Record, local newspaper.)

The. specific freeway threat at the moment is in connection with the proposed opening of the Westgate Bridge, which will channel a huge amount of traffic through South Melbourne. Council policy is to sup­ port the building of the F9 freeway linking the Westgate Bridge with Kings Way in the hope that this will channel traffic away from South Melbourne.

Another residents’ group which formed only late last year, IMBEC (Inner Melbourne Beaches Envir­ onment Committee) comprises mostly people from Beaconsfield Parade, the beachfront road. They know that the Westgate Bridge will cause a much heavier volume of traffic to pour along this beach front road...a road which has no major exit roads for quite a long way. It is a major concern

The incongruity of the radical possibilities (pretensions?) of the group meeting in the Danish Club are inescapable. King Frederick II of Denmark was head and should­ ers above the Chairperson when Noel Turnbull rose to address the meeting. Editor of the local news­ paper and a left ALPer, he deliv­ ered quite a rave. He chastized the meeting for deliberating so weightily on legality. Legal meth­ ods will achieve nothing in this society, he said. He suggests as a strategy, closing roads to unwanted traffic, putting speed traps on the other roads and pressuring Crean, local member and Federal Treas­ urer, for the money which oil companies have ‘saved’ with tax dodges, to be given to the states as a tied grant, to be used to finance studies and implementation of alt­ ernative transport systems. Jaws dropped and there was plenty of nervous tittering, but he was listen­ ed to very carefully. Notes were taken and it will be the first item on the agenda of the next meet­ ing... .. ;aR jj& fe M iS S ,

‘appropriate channels’ for two years,, everyone involved in child care at Melbourne University came to realize that bureaucratic side­ tracking was the going policy. The only possible avenue left open was public demonstration - an attempt to force the blind Admin­ istration to see the reality of student needs and acknowledge the validity of student demands.

There followed four days of escal­ ating demonstration due in part to Derham’s appalling mishandling of the situation. During this period Council Chambers were occupied.

m No kids in this Ivory Tower

Demonstrations, lock-ins, paintups, leafleting, the Administration “ not commenting” , students dem­ anding dialogue. Sound familiar?

It was, overall at Melbourne Uni­ versity in the last few weeks of term. But there were some inter­ esting differences.

Of Australia’s 16 universities, 13 have already decided that it is within their scope to provide child care, however inadequate. The right to child care is something even the community at large is be­ ginning to take somewhat seriously, as witness the Federal Government commitment to vastly expand this almost non-existent area of social welfare.

Melbourne University however, under the auspices of ViceChancellor, Professor Derham, is proving one of the more rigid bast­ ions of conservatism.

Since 1972 countless submissions have been made to Melbourne uni­ versity administration both by the Child Care Action Group (CCAGS) and by individuals, presenting the results of surveys and request­ ing investigation and action. The CCAG is in control of what happ-

ens. And this is the second area of interesting differences from past issues. The Child Care Action Group, itself composed of people with quite a wide range of polit­ ical attitudes, is the nucleus of a loose Coalition of radical forces all of which defer to the CCAG when ' it comes to the final say on strategy, tactics, etc. In other words decisive power, most refre­ shingly lies not with the ‘political heavies’, but with the people whose needs the issue centres on.

On the first day, May 6, a general meeting decided to occupy Coun­ cil Chambers (where top level dec­ isions are made) during that after­ noon’s Council meeting to try to force Council members to discuss the issue. They found all doors to the Council Chamber locked and took steps to have them opened. (Damage was minimalclaims of $1,000 worth of damage were quite unrealistic.)

The administration reacted with all the self-righteous shock only smug and comfy administrators are cap­ able of. The gist of their argument was that provision of child care, would ‘open the floodgates’ to a set of people who had already ‘had their chance’ and whose place was at home anyway, looking after their little ‘responsibilities’. To provide child care would destroy their ‘natural’ quota system.

Confronted with the unpleasant possibility of having to talk to students as a group, Vice Chan­ cellor Derharh panicked, called the cops and had 14 people arrested, amongst them a student rep. who had every right to be at the meet­ ing. In line with his view of the whole issue being a false one, Derham had, one assumes, ‘got rid of the ringleaders’ and thus hopefully defused the whole thing.

Following the ensuing outcry at the blatant sexism and elitism of such remarks, the administration has taken cover under arguments such as that the university has no obligation or mandate to provide such facilities as child care; only The Powder Magazine: Radical Sources Guide.

No. 1: sold out.

No. 2: out soon.

F rom the Light, Pow­ der and C onstruction Works . . . a resources centre, an in fo rm a tio n agency, a clearing house.

Space fo r meeting, w rit­ ing, typ in g and talking.

A lib ra ry — lo ts p f periadicals — the po litics of people, comm unities, and countries.

Photocopying, d u p li­ cating, layout and printing, facilities.

350 Victoria Street North Melbourne 2nd floor (same place as Digger).

You'll find somebody there most of the time, but if you want to make sure, ring us on . . .

329.0977, 329.0512.

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basic requirements like library, caf., etc. which serve the whole university community. Yet plans to establish a motel for businéss people studying business admin­ istration encountered no difficulty.

The bureaucrats have also made horrified noises about cost (its inflated estimate was $1,000,000.

Top estimates of the CCAG are about $100,000) but refused to make a submission to the Austral­ ian Universities Commission which would almost certainly foot the bill.

Administration tactics have been to channel off decisions to smaller administration dominated comm­ ittees supposed to be considering the need for child care. By these means, they apparently hope to

me

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slow down and bury the issue until it ‘goes away’ (due to dispirited inertia on the part of student org­ anizers).

All this goes to show how Utterly out of touch the administration is with the university community.

It wants to see the child care

issue as one drummed up by tran­ sient student radicals to further their own ‘power-crazed’ interests,, and fails to see child care as a real and continuing student and community need that will not ‘go away’.

Having followed the maze of

of this group to keep traffic away from the beaches, prime recreation areas especially for working class residents of northern suburbs who are the main users of the inner beaches.

Later, outside the City Watchhouse, two lawyers called in to assist with the bailing out were arrested by police. One, who had been pushed down the steps was charged with “ assault” and the other who tried to get the num­ ber of the cops involved, with “ hindering a police officer in the execution of his duties

Since then yet another Committee has been set up, this time hope­ fully more open to those whose needs are being discussed. But the outcome of this in terms of real results is still far from clear.

Meanwhile, despite student att­ empts at conciliation, the Adminis­ tration has not only refused to withdraw charges but has laid further charges against 14 students, and is certainly not prepared to deal with the matter internally.

Secure in the knowledge that the group pressing for child care is cut off from support by the rest of the university community be­ cause of the vacation, the admin­ istration seems determined to dec­ imate ‘student radicalism’ before it ‘gets hold’. “We’re not going to have another 1971 again” (the time of massive support from Melbourne university students for draft resisters), they say.

Characteristically they are attemp­ ting to ignore the realities of student needs and the degree to which the CCAG is in control of what happens.

As things stand at the moment, most of the CCAG’s energies are going towards organizing and fin­ ancing defence. A Child Care Legal Defence Fund has been established and needs money. (Donations C/SRC Office, Melbourne University.)

A demonstration is planned at 10a.m. on June 10th outside the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

W ANTED Linkup Community, 59 St John Street, Prahran. 51-9129.

Linkup people give help by telephone, and have the best alternative informationTiles in Melbourne. However. . . people are heeded to help Linkup keep going/expand/ change. You can ring the above number, or come to a meeting at 8 pm on Thursday 16 May, at Linkup.

ONE PAIR PADDLES, SUIT BARBED WIRE CANOE. B. M. SNEDDEN, SHIT CREEK.

May 23 - June 13 ,1 9 7 4

by Hall Greenland A spectre is haunting humanity.

That spectre is the cockroach.

Brought face to faeces (so to speak) with the spectre by the current plague in our inner-suburbs, even the gentlest of inner-city dwellers have gone into veritable frenzies of extermination — much to the profit of chemical companies and pest exterminators.

Whether this instinctive hysteria has any validity is extremely doubtful.

Doubtless part of the fear and loathing stems from the universally and deeply entrenched conviction that cockroaches are disease carriers. The NSW Health Commis­ sion’s booklet Common Pests and Public Health is quite explicit: “although they are potentially capable of transmitting diseases. . . their activities are such that this would rarely occur.” (p. 35) Further on the conclusion is repeated: “ In other words there is a potential of disease transmission but because cockroaches do not normally move readily from infective material to foodstuffs this potential is not of major significance.”

University of NSW researcher Fred Roma, who has been working on cockroaches since 1946, agrees they aren’t much of a health hazard. “ Sure,” he adds, “ in a hospital, if a cockroach was to walk over some infected dressings, then more or less immediately go into the kitchen and wade through food there, then it’s possible it would spread infection. The germs would be carried on the hairs of its legs.

The transmission would be mechanical. The cockroach is definitely not in the same class as the malaria mosquito which doesn’t merely carry the malaria to the human, but develops the malaria bug in its body to the point where it can poison us and then injects it.”

Pioneer British entomologist Martin Burr in his Insect Legion (1938) hints that cockroaches might even be beneficial to health by reporting that “ in parts of Europe powdered cockroaches are sold under the name of Pulvis Tarakanae as a remedy for pleurisy and pericarditis. The odd part about this is that the treatment seems to have come from Russia, where the creatures are said to have been used as a cure for dropsy.” According to Fred Roma this is not something modern researchers have ever investigated.

It is true that cockroaches shit regularly and frequently. But if you notice their shit in food you are unlikely to eat it. Even if you do, it is not more dangerous to your health than eating the snot you pick from your nose.

Health risks aside, for many the

Page 5

THE DIGGER

The spectre in Sydney’s kitchensthe cockroach is clean (no shit) cockroach is unlovable because of its unfortunate proximity in shape and colour to a miniature turd. The cockroach lacks the deli­ cate fragility of the butterfly, and it is difficult to imagine anybody doing a Puccini for it and coming up with Madame Cockroach. But then beauty is only shell-deep, and it is obviously with other, and more valid, criteria in mind that the Greeks used the same word for “vivacious” and “ cockroach” : catzaritha.

The cockroach too has the charm of antiquity. As Compton's Encyclopedia points out: “ Cock­ roaches were among the earliest forms of insect life to appear on earth. During the Coal Age (300 million years ago). . . long before birds and mammals had developed, they were probably the most numerous of all insects. As their many fossil remains show, they have changed but little in the mil­ lions of years since.”

Part of their primitive charm flows from the fact that cockroaches fuck long and qften.

E. Cameron in his standard work The Cockroach (1966) reports that cockroaches fuck end to end and that copulation lasts at least an hour and a half. During the act the female’s egg case is fertilised, and when it is recalled that in the year or so of its existence the female drops about 60 fertilised egg cases, you get an idea of the regularity of ’roach fucking. Cameron adds that “ no courtship is observed” and “the act is initiated by the male moving about in an excited manner and flapping his wings.”

Cockroaches also run foul of the cleanliness fetishes rooted deep in our Protestant psyches. But as Common Pests and Public Health explains: “ Paradoxically cockroaches are clean insects and spend time cleaning any contaminants from then: legs or antenna by the use of their mouthparts. This greatly facilitates the ingestion of internal poisons if this type of insecticide is used.”

Some also consider cockroaches to be unAustralian — the girl behind the counter of the NSW Health Commission said, “Where

you get Italians, you’ll get cock­ roaches.” It is true that of the 400 varieties of Australian cockroaches, none will be found inside houses.

The types which invade our houses are all imported. In the nineteenth century emergent European and American capitalism made the whole world its marjket and on its ships to all corners of the globe went the most common of household cockroaches: the German cockroach and the American cockroach.

Sydney poet Denis Kevans takes an altogether different view of cockroaches. When he moved into his Glebe house seven years ago, it belonged to the cockroaches and he had to literally colonise it in the face of their resistance. He has got to the stage where he can kill them with his bare hands.

But to him they are the insect guerillas of the concrete jungle.

They make their hideouts in the darkest and most inaccessible recesses of that jungle. They attack only at night, while the enerriy sleeps. They have an incredible mobility but when caught in the open they are incredibly game: they’ll prop and pretend to be dead, even if you hit them and don’t kill them, they’ll fox dead. And despite all the pest exterminators’ search and destroy missions, despite all the napalm they lay down, despite all the body counts, these Vietcongs and Frelimos of the insect world fight on, apparently invincible.

It is a fantasy not without some scientific validity, as Gameron puts it: “ The ubiquitous insect attacks and competes for nearly everything which is useful to Man, either in the shape of food, clothing, or shelter, involving him in annual losses of great magnitude.”

With this more rational perspec­ tive in mind, it is appropriate now to describe the types of cockroaches we are likely to encounter.

1. The American cockroach (Perl planetta Americana) This is the biggefct of the cock­ roaches. It grows to about one and a half inches in length. It is reddish brown. The border of its pronotum (that’s the helmut covering its head) is light brown —sometimes a pale yellow. Its wings completely cover

its body and there is some overhang.

It is the cockroach of the sewers, where they can be found in fantasti­ cally large numbers. Nevertheless they are known to travel far and wide looking for variety to their diet. In these searches they will often enter houses.

Their egg cases contain between 16 and 20 eggs. The hatching period varies according to heat and hu­ midity and takes 32 to 60 days.

2. The Australian cockroach (Periplanetta Australasiae) This type is slightly shorter than its American cousin. Its pro- . notum is ringed with a yellow border and the lower parts of its wings are streaked with yellow. And its wings don’t completely cover its body. Its habits are roughly similar to the American variety but it is not nearly as common.

3. The German cockroach (Blattela Germanica) This is the most common variety.

It makes itself at home in houses and flats. It loves a warm and moist environment. Hot water systems are paradise for it.

They grow to about an inch in length. They are a lighter brown than the American variety. Its pro­ notum has two dark brown longi­ tudinal stripes. They swarm about in packs and frequently come out to feast in the daytime. Their appe­ tites range beyond food and cover labels, soiled clothing, carpets, and book bindings.

Its egg cases contain up to 40 eggs and they hatch quicker than the American’s. According to Fred Roma they have less of a maternal instinct than the American cock­ roach; they drop their egg cases anywhere whereas the American female takes care to deposit hers in some dark, protected place.

They have a life span of only four to six months, whereas the American cockroach lives at least a year and up to five years in some cases.

While other varieties eat bed-bugs, the German cockroach will not.

4. The Oriental cockroach (Blatta Orientalis) It is about the same size as the German cockroach, though a darker brown. It also lays less eggs than the

German variety. The female of the species also grows no wings.

It is both the slowest and dirtiest of the household cockroaches; it is the type which defaces walls with its shit. It is commonest in inland towns, though Flick claims it is now making an appearance in large numbers in Melbourne.

While all varieties have wings and are well equipped to fly, they rarely do. Though apparently this is a temperature thing. The warmer it gets, and the further north you go, the more likely it is that they will fly about.

According to Cameron “ the sexes can be distinguished from each other by the shape of thè abdomen. In the male it is tapered and in the female rather more rounded and bulbous.” The young — called nymphs, would you believe — are not only smaller than the adults but lack wings and genitalia.

Cockroaches can see, hear, feel and smell. Their eyes take in a . greater field of vision than the human eye, though it is weaker on focus. The eyes are also extremely sensitive — the slightest-movement will be registered. And cockroaches definitely do bite.

As well, they have the ability to walk up walls and across ceilings.

Cold weather, researchers have noted, definitely slows the cock­ roach down. But then in winter they are not likely to venture far from their warm, moist hideaways because long exposure to temperatures below 20°C will kill theip.

Cockroaches, in turn, breed their own parasites. Paul Martin advertises in all the inner-Sydney throwaway local rags as a specialist in cock­ roach extermination. His turnover is now more than $200,000 a year and he employs seven men — though he lays two off during the winter.

He went into this racket five years ago when he learnt that between them Flick and Rentokill, the two giants of the pest business, had eight million dollars worth of “ maintenanòe repeats” every year — that excludes that part of their turnover coming from one-hit jobs like fumigating a house.

Early in the interview he lets it

drop that he has had “ three years university training,” though later on it transpires that training was in mechanical engineering.

He is convinced that we are building a perfect environment for the cockroach. But he is annoyed that this is not producing the kind of business it should for him, because of people’s hang-ups about cock­ roaches. “ People think cockroaches are associated with dirtiness. They’re not. Anybody can get cockroaches.

People are always ringing me up and saying they keep their places spotless and that the cockroaches must be coming from next door. “ And then they want me to park my trucks in the back lane. They don’t want the neighbours to think . . . Christ, if my business is any indication, there must be a lot of people who can’t overcome the shame of it and ring me and ask me to park around the back.”

Paul Martin’s men spray around the skirting boards of every room and the charge for a two bedroom flat is twelve dollars. The spray leaves a residue which — he claims — operates for two months after the spray. In fact he gives a six months guarantee and is prepared to go back for a re-spray if pressed. What he charges in fact insures him against repeats, for his commercial rate for a flat is, three dollars — so the twelve dollars will bear three repeats and still leave him with the profit he gets on a contract job.

line was smashed open with a sledgehammer. A pig’s head (bearing the name Henry Bolte) and a burning effigy of Uncle Sam were thrown into the hole. The hole was filled and the crowd dispersed.

The evidence against the accused was from Bruno Lux, Special Branch, and a 16mm color movie film. The film had been commissioned by Esso. The film showed Bacon pointing to the ground where the pipeline lay and digging. Bacon was accused

by Herbert Kosh, who made the film, of saying “ It’s here.” Bacon denied this in testimony saying the cameraman had asked him where the pipeline was. He pointed for Kosh, who filmed this. The film showed Shaw digging in the hole. His defence was that he admitted digging, but denied damaging the pipeline. Byrne, who appeared in the film, w&s accused of hitting the pipeline with a sledgehammer. Bruno Lux of Special Branch, undercover agent

extraordinaire, alleged he saw Byrne doing this.

It was Jack^ Lazarus, representing Paul Byrne, who explained to the jury the sinister role in the prose­ cution played by Special Branch.

Under cross examination Detective Sergeant Blake, who was stationed at Mordialloc, admitted that he had evaded saying Bruno Lux was a member of Special Branch at the commital proceedings. Sergeant Downie, under cross examination, told the court that police held a meeting at Mordialloc police station after the demo. Present were mem­ bers of Special Branch including Inspector Currey, Detective Larkins (who is known for his friendly relations with members of the Nazi Party), Lux, Gardiner and Calligan.

In evidence, Bruno Lux denied he was a member of Special Branch, but under cross examination by Lazarus admitted working for them.

He had made reports on anti-Viet­

nam demos and anti-conscription rallies. Lux did admit to knowing all the members of Special Branch, and conceded he was driven by the Branch to Mordialloc to identify Byrne. Lazarus-suggested he had been shown a photo of Byrne so he would not fuck up in the identification line up — if so, it was unnecessary as Byrne was the only person in the line up with a bald patch. When asked who was driving the car Lux said he only knew the person as Eric. He said the only matter they discussed was fishing. At this stage confusion arose oyer the names of Special Branch members. Gallagher, O’Calligan, Callihan and Calligan had been mentioned. Lazarus interjected with, “ Not Callan” and the judge interposed that Special Branch seemed to have a “ nine­ teenth man”. Defending counsel, and the judge, decided it must be Gallagher. The jury is probably still confused.

At the end of the interview, after telling me how shit awful Labor will be, he admitted that the chemicals he uses will not be effective at all in two years.

Fred Roma thinks the time will be shorter than that.

Three types of chemicals are used against the cockroach.

1. Chlorinated hydrocarbons like DDT, BHC, Chlordane and Dieteren.

They have quite a residue but they are now almost ineffective.

2. Organic phosphates like Melghean, Diazon and Dichlothoph.

These don’t leave as much residue lying about as the first group, but are still fairly effective, though Fred Roma claims they are fast approach­

ing ineffectiveness.

3, Carbamates -like Baygon. It too leaves less residue than the first group, but as the newest chemical on the. market for cockroaches, it is still highly effective, though again Fred Roma claims it is only a matter of time before it too becomes ineffective.

“What happens,” explains Fred Roma, “ is that the chemicals kill a high proportion of the cockroaches but leave behind a minority which is immune. These cockroaches are able to break the poison down — by oxidising or chlorinisTng it — and survive. Cockroaches breed fairly quickly and you are soon back to your original population —with the important difference that this population are immune to the poisons you’re using. “ Pretty soon we’ll have a homo­ geneous cockroach population which will be immune to chlorinated hydrocarbons, organic phosphates and carbonats.

“And it should be noted that there is no chemical developed which will kill the cockroach eggs.”

But won’t all these chemicals being sprayed about harm us more than cockroaches? That, for Fred Roma (an unofficial advisor to Flick) is a “tricky question.” He says, “ It all depends how you define toxicity. Salt for instance is poisonous and will poison you if you eat a pound of it, but obviously we need it in proper amounts for our survival. And insecticides, if used in a sensible and controlled manner, are definitely beneficial.” Beneficial to whom, and for what, he found it hard to say.

If you are still into wanting to control cockroaches — at this stage of the article — there are a cpuple of unlikely biological meth methods you might try.

Wasps are the most effective predators on cockroaches. They lay their eggs in cockroach egg cases, their eggs hatch more quickly than cockroaches’, and the wasp stings proceed to eat the cock­ roach eggs. But if cockroaches freak you, then wasps are likely to too.

Chihuahuas — those mouse-like dogs — were originally cultivated in Mexico as cockroach hunters. They have to be trained, of course, and there are to our knowledge no easily obtainable manuals, though you might try the Mexican Em­ bassy. Then again they are costly: you’ll be lucky to get one as cheap j as $100.

But for 30 cents you can get this issue of The Digger and a more rational perspective.

Cockroaches have had a bad press for too long.

Two Melbourne protestors convicted

recruited scab labor (whose photos adorn the wall of thp Builders Labourers Federation office) and brought in guards armed with shotguns, alsatian dogs and barbed wire. “ Trespassers will Altona. Ecologists were, and still are, be shot” signs were put up and the highly concerned at the possibility of work commenced. It was then that equipment was firebombed, a leakage in the Bay. Because of the petrol tanks filled with sand, and volume of oil that would escape holes drilled through the unlaid before it could be stopped, there is pipes — by unknown saboteurs. no doubt Port Phillip Bay itself and The prosecution case alleged the beaches and wildlife would be that after a series of inflammatory irreparably damaged. And after all, speeches, Michael Hyde, a member who knows of any pipeline that eventually hasn’t sprung a leak? As of the Worker-Student Alliance, put a motion to the crowd of 1000: “ All well as ecologists, conservationists, in favor of digging up the pipeline, environmentalists and local residents expressed strong objections. The hands up.” After cheers and raised Mordialloc Council was one of the clenched fists, the demonstrators local councils that passed motions moved over to where the pipeline opposing it. was laid. People carried red flags, portraits of Chairman Mao, and Because of Esso’s insistence on marched behind a large banner laying the pipeline under the Bay, reading SMASH ESSO PIPELINE the Builders Labourers Federation AND DRIVE THE YANKEES blackbanned the project. EsSo INTO THE SEA. After the hole retaliated by flying in a tough red­ was dug with shovels, the pipe­ neck foreman from the U.S. He

Fine for pipe-openers

by John Halpin At the Melbourne County Court on 23 May, Jim Bacon, an organiser with the Builders Labourers Union, and Paul Byrne, an electrical engineer, were convicted of mali­ ciously damaging the Esso Bay pipe­ line. The jury of six men and six women acquitted Julian Shaw, a student. Byrne and Bacon were both fined $200 by Judge Harry Ogden, The charges arose from a demon­ stration held on the suburban Mordialloc beach foreshore on July 9,1972.

The July 9 demonstration was the culmination of a long series of protests against the laying of the pipeline across the bay. The pipeline carries the oil from the Bass Straight fields to the refineries at

Crips roll on

by Hall Greenland Last September The Digger re­ ported on the crips in Sydney’s Weemala Hospital who were making waves about the hospital bpard’s 8.30 curfew and ban on electricmotor wheelchairs.

The crips went boldly ahead and defied the curfew, which was eventu­ ally relaxed last January to the point where it became a dead letter ■ anyhow.

The hospital board has now announced that tlie crips can elect their own representative to the board — though that rep cannot be one of them. “ Sure, it’s not what we’d want ideally,” says Steve Watt, “ but it’s a concession and we’re grabbing it for starters.”

Page, 6

Me

THE DIGGER

For some time now there has been a growing movement against foreign bases on Australian soil. For many this is part of a general struggle against the anti human forces of imperialism, at this time particularly US imperialism.

In Melbourne last year people working together on the Stop Omega Committee decided to investigate the possibility of a de­ monstration which would extend over 3,000 miles to the US Naval Communications’ Base at North West Cape in north wes­ tern Australia. So the idea of the Long March (styled after the Long March by the forces of liberation across China in 1934 — ’35) was born^ and a year of hard work and the formation of anti bases groups all over the country took place before the Long March finally got under way.

“North West Cape is a general purpose communications’ sta­ tion and specifically a very low frequency communications (and navigation) station for nuclear missile carrying submarines. It is also possibly the site of an extensive monitoring apparatus di­ rected to intercepting Australian and south east Asian communi­ cations’ traffic (the high frequency receiving area is under much higher security than the rest of the base).” * The fact that, though there are many people opposed to im­ perialism only 200 people took part in the March, indicates many other people considered this an ill conceived and mistaken idea.

By Isabelle Rosenberg, Helen Garner and Philip Brooks Coming in off the desolate plain that lies between Geraldton and Carnarvon, in Western Australia, where the roadside is thickly strewn with dead kangaroos, it’s almost a relief to catch your first glimpse of civilisation: the huge, eerie, pale dish of the NASA tracking station.

But when the North West Cape marchers approached Carnarvon at 5.00 pm on Saturday May 18, they saw more than dead kangaroos along the road. 50 or so uniformed WA cops were lined up with linked arms , across the gateway and fence of the tracking station, waiting with tear gas canisters for the long heralded “ pinko bastards from the ES” (eas­ tern states). The surprised demon­ strators, who had no plan for the NASA station, sped past the line of police and pulled into the caravan park a quarter of a mile further on towards Carnarvon. *

*

By Carnarvon, the anti bases de­ monstrators were, as one of them put it, “ pretty solid” . When it be­ gan, the expedition was a mixture of disparate types: maoists (about 50%), film and video crews from Sydney and Perth, students, aca­ demics, black land rights activists, greenpeace activists, several trade union representatives, pacifists, a Buddhist, a priest from Pax Christi, a contingent of New Zealanders who’d succeeded in preventing the building of an Omega base in their country, and some alternative press journalists (ourselves included), whose credibility was by no means good enough to gain them access to meetings without being suspiciously scrutinised every time they pro­ duced a notebook.

One coach had started in Syd­ ney, picked up people in Melbourne and joined a second bus in Adelaide; both these took a long route across the country, stopping in towns to perform street theatre, hand out leaflets and discuss with towns­ people the presence of American bases on Australian soil. In Perth, a third bus joined the convoy, and the Short March, a much faster trip from the east, made up the 200 strong group which arrived at Car­ narvon on the Saturday night.

Marchers reported encouraging response to their publicising and propaganda work in towns along the way. For many of them, this work was the main thrust and purpose of the immense journey. A demonstra­ tion in Perth, at which 14 people were busted, gave some of the marchers their first taste of what was to come. The further north they travelled, the more inhospit­ able the countryside became, and the clearer it seemed that the under­ taking was a serious and sometimes frightening one.

Carnarvon on this Saturday night was a very heavy town. It was elec­ tion night, and race day. Extra­ ordinary quantities of Swan lager are consumed there on any or­ dinary Saturday night. The towns­ people had been expecting the marchers long enough for some rich rumors to have circulated, and the town was humming.

The caravan park where the marchers set up camp was about three miles north of the town itself.

Carnarvon was our first experience of the daily living style of the marchers — we’d left Melbourne late, and were held up by floods, car trouble, and a shire vigilante man, so that we joined the march at the point where everything was beginning to gell.

Overheard in men's dunnies at Carnarvon caravan park: — We don't know yet what armed struggle is all a b o u t. . .

— Camping in itself is a logistic exercise.

Logistic or not, it was done ef­ ficiently and fast — tents up, fires * From Omega, Poseidon and the Arms Race, available from AICD, Box C327, Clarence Street PO, Sydney, NSW 2000; $1.20.

fit, food cooking — and the usual evening meeting organised. There were several children on the march, the youngest being 20 months old — and people were asked to sing and argue as far as possible from where the kids were sleeping.

Just before this meeting, some of the marchers went into Carnarvon to hand out leaflets and talk to people about the bases. (The leaflet criticises cynically motivated propo­ sals by Carnarvon businessmen - in particular a councilman and local business mogul, Mr. Tuckey - to open up the US NASA tracking sta­ tion to the Russians if the US aban­ dons the station, which they are thinking of doing.)

We drove along the wide main street to the Shangri-La Restaurant.

In the streets there was the usual country town Saturday night acti­ vity: tight lipped Christians singing to an organ on a corner, drunks shouting and spilling onto the pavement under the verandahs, ordinary people strolling in family groups. Half an hour later when we emerged from the restaurant, the atmosphere had changed sharply.

Three or four dark blue WA cop cars were cruising significantly up and down the street. People were standing on the footpath edges, the singing had stopped. One of the marchers ran up to us. “ Can you get out of town?” “ Yes, we’ve got a car.”

“Pick up anyone else you see — a mob of rednecks have beaten up the leaflet people, I think one of them was kicked. We’ve got to get every­ one out of town.”

Passing the main pub, which be­ longs to mogul Tuckey and where the cops “ escorting” the march up the WA coast were staying, we saw a drunken young Doug Anthony in a white cowboy hat lurching about with his mates between parked cars.

There was plenty of shouting and shoving, but no demonstrators in sight.

West Cape the next day. It was an uneasy meeting, dominated, as others had been and would continue to be, by people with loud voices and an aggressive manner. (One feature of the whole event was the huddles of large males gathered in the darker corners gripping cans of Swan and discussing plans; inte­ rested rank and file marchers who approached asking “What’s happen­ ing?” Were frequently given innocent looks and blandly told “Nothing!” ) The suggestion that the delega­ tion should include two women was attacked by several women as “tokenism”. The black contingent by this time appeared to have with­ drawn into a tight group. The ques­ tion of black land rights was appa­ rently dwindling in importance as the major confrontation drew nearer.

At a Perth meeting when Ambrose Golden-Brown pointed out that the blacks are the only people qualified to speak on land rights, a Long March person (white) snapped that if land rights were not to be a major issue in the campaign, then there was no point in having any Abori­ ginal spokespeople.

Actually the original demand for the land at North West Cape itself to be returned to the blacks was dropped because whites, in their finest tradition, massacred a black tribe living there by pushing them off a cliff. This was in 1865 and the land has been taboo ever since. This is why, except for one who works

At this point the narrative breaks into two parts. We go straight through the small town of Exmouth and two miles further to the main base area, known as area B. The rest of the march stops at area C, about 30 miles south of the town.

The base, which covers a vast area of desert like scrub, is divided into three areas: area A (the very low frequency transmitter), area B (the main receiving and transmitting station and general base facilities), and area C (the very high frequency transmitter).

Police are obviously expecting the demonstrators to come directly to the main gates at area B and most of them are waiting there in force. Other police are standing witl binoculars on jeep tops at the many dirt road entrances on the base site.

Meanwhile, however, the mar­ chers are conducting a meeting down at area C and decided to con­ duct an on the spot raid. A mar­ cher described this guerilla like action: “There was a large black and white placard that said we were in £ prohibited commonwealth area and couldn’t go any further. We blocked out this sign so that it read some­ thing like ‘Commonwealth of the US. You must pass this sign if you haven’t got a pass. Signed Commis­ sioner Mouth’. Then we tore the whole sign down and about 50 of us walked about a quarter of a mile up the road towards the transmitter

...a beu rn naidtold us, “The:y were going to nidi Wilts VIaJ 1 here !3a1 turda;y night.

From the lamp post.” \/H T

on Learmonth RAAF base nearby, there are no blacks in Exmouth, which is unusual for a Western Australian town.

The meeting degenerated into a tuneless campfire singing of sec­ tarian songs. A dreadful song about J. V . Stalin, which begins. “ Born in Georgia/of honest peasant stock,” was a popular favorite; another anomaly was the spectacle of a group, mostly composed of stu­ dents, sitting around the fire singing to the tune of “Waltzing Matilda” , “We are the workers” . Several of the heavier cadres sang “The Rebel Girl” , a ditty which causes feminist flesh to creep, as a patronising tri­ bute to the women present, many of whom gracefully accepted it.

Ambrose left the meeting, tossing over his shoulders the ironic remark “I’m just a happy go lucky darkie” .

Back at camp the true story * * * filtered in: a young National Al­ liance woman in the pub, engaged with the leaflet people in the anti Sunday morning: The mood was “eastern states” diatribe that West quieter; more edgy, less harsh.

Australians so passionately .enjoy, People were up before the sun. Ru­ urged six or seven blokes around mors flashed that Exmouth petrol her to get stuck into the demon­ stations might not be co-operative strators. Their leaflets were ripped and that extra petrol should be up and they were roughly pushed. carried. (Nothing could have been Young punks surged out from the further from the truth. The station pool room for a stir, and a few lo­ owner was the nicest guy in town.) cals who asked to hear the mar­ The heavy macho atmosphere of the chers’ arguments were also pushed previous night gave way to what one and advised to “ go with them” . journalist described as “ reasonable­ When we passed through town ness through fear”. The genuine ef­ several days later, a bar tender told ficiency and good sense of several us “They were going to hang one of of the organisers became clear. them here Saturday night. From the Our car and that of the Sydney lamp post”. film crew were nervously in the Mick and Jenny heard of the vanguard between Carnarvon and trouble and went downtown as a Exmouth. Most of the road to the bona fide young tourist couple to Cape is dry, red dust and sand. The engage the locals in conversation. roadside, like all the country roads “ Hear you’ve been having trouble over here, is sprinkled liberally with with those ratbag demonstrators?” cans and bottles. Crows circle over A rather manic drunk declared that dead kangaroos, sheep, and even camels. This isn’t exactly guerilla all the marchers should be shot or terrain — no shelter, no water, not a hung; he claimed they would be rise or hump or hill. stopped before they reached Ex­ As we travel, police cars pass us, mouth, by an organisation of 7,000 lag behind, pass again — divvy men who had ropes and shotguns wagons, a Range Rover, unmarked and were dedicated to the eradica­ cars whose passengers see our Vic­ tion of ES demonstrators. Another torian number plates and give us beauty was the one about the 200 dirty looks or the up you sign.

Dobermans waiting for us at the “The. closer we get the more I base. It was definitely the night of think how stupid the whole thing the 1,000 rumors. is” someone nervously remarks, as a Wild though these claims were, paranoia — or rather extreme cau­ carload of locals or plainclothes tion — became the order of the day cops forces us off the narrow bitu­ back at camp. Guards patrolled all men into the floury red dust. The night, a log was laid across the buses are barely visible, a mile or so driveway, and people wandering behind us, throwing up great clouds about without an obvious purpose of dust. Cop cars outnumbered all had torches shone in their faces. It other traffic. This is madness. We’re was suggested to us that a hitch­ starting to feel scared. Custer’s last hiker who’d been travelling with us stand . . . that city cop — paranoia may have been some sort of police magnified, with reason, tenfold as agent, which seemed ludicrous at each car flashes past us. the time though . . . A couple of As we approach Exmouth we Americans who came into camp see the clumps of towers that mark that night, ostensibly to rap with the three base areas. The towers are marchers, were seen in Exmouth very high, fine and delicate. Heading next day in the company of police. towards them at 60 mph in the dry The Carnarvon camp meeting heat, it’s hard not to feel we’re elected a delegation which was to heading into the centre of a great request entry to the base at North trap.

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4"

We broke up into smaller groups and built a huge barricade across the road with sticks, logs, rocks, bushes and broken bottles. Other people were taking photos of the trans­ mitter, and the Eureka flag was hoisted.

• “Then about a dozen cops ^ *• arrived iri vans and drove up around the barricades to thé transmitter.

They just warned people on the road that they’d be arrested for trespassing if they didn’t go, which was pretty strange because we were already well within the prohibited area. The people they warned just went ahead and printed anti bases slogans on the road. Still the cops didn’t arrest them. “ About 20 of us came back to the main road to have lunch with the others. The rest hit the scrub.

Apparently a couple of press cars from Channels 9 and 7 went up the road then and rescued about half a dozen people from the bush and got them away. Anyway we were all sitting just off the road having lunch when two cars and one busload of police arrived. They drove straight into the whole lot of us with tyres screeching. We had to leap out of the way, grabbing babies. It was really close: they could have really hurt someone badly.

“They drove off into the pro­ hibited area and arrested four people for trespassing and for lighting a fire — one of the barri­ cades had been lit. The other people still up there were either already in the scrub or else got in there as fast as they could.”

Four busts resulted from these activities. Bruno tells what hap­ pened: “ I was in area C, walking along about 500 yards past the first set of towers. I could hear yelling but I kept going till I was actually on the lawn of the building. The Range Rover moved up. The cops asked me if I realised I was on common­ wealth property. Finally I said yes, and they arrested me and took me into the commonwealth office on the base.

“They asked my name and ad­ dress, and went through my poc­ kets. The commonwealth cops were really different from the state cops later — they seemed nervous, and hardly spoke. I just cleaned the burrs out of my socks.

“When I looked out through the Venetian blinds I saw Des [one of the blacks] and a commonwealth cop who had hold of him and was punching him. There’d never been fires lit and they wanted to make him admit it. He was hit with an open hand, punched in the guts, his hair was pulled, and his head hit against a wall. Des had his hands by his sides. He looked like he was used to it.

“Me and Des were thrown into a cop van and taken into state cops’ custody. They were really rough.

One of them lifted me by the hair and tried to smash me into a brick

On location through the L o n g

PINKO BASTARDS I THE RUNNING DO wall — when he threw me into the wagon he lifted me up and forward to smash me into the roof, but I ducked. All the way to town they drove fast and kept jamming on the brakes and swerving to pile us up. “ At Exmouth cop shop they finger printed us. A couple of us didn’t know that’s illegal — but I was scared of getting thumped so I let ’em print me.

“While we were in the base of­ fice, some Yank rang up — we could hear his accent — and the cop really kowtowed to him. Yessir, nosir.”

march along, march along”.

Out of the minibus step a couple of the heavier maoists on the March.

“That’s funny, fellers!” sings out one of them, in a voice that rings loudly in the peculiar stillness; “There’s a foreign flag flying on our land!”

Stillness. The March buses whirl into the car park, dust flies, the sun burns down through the clouds.

Another maoist leaps from the minibus. “ It’ll take me about 40 seconds to get that flag down,” he announces. He leaps the cyclone fence of the car park and heads for * * * the gate at a run. Our hearts are in our mouths —surely he can’t be that Meanwhile back at the gates of stupid! We remember people’s worst the Harold E. Holt US Communica­ fears —“it’d only take one maniac” tions base, whose highly inaccurate . . . but phew, it’s all right, he’s motto “Two nations’ goals — free­ reached the dotted line in the dom and peace” is emblazoned on middle of the road and his run the gatehouse between two newly peters out into a casual stroll, and erected orange and black striped now he’s standing still. Discretion is barriers, nothing much is happening. the better part of valor (Mao Tse We talk idly with two Exmouth Tung, 1925). girls who’ve come out to the base The buses quickly empty, and to spend Sunday afternoon with the area between the gate and the their American boyfriends at the car park is filled with what must be, weekly movie show. One’s from to WA eyes, a motley crew of ES Perth, the other from Sydney. They stirrers. A run of the mill demo live on the dole in the Exmouth crowd, more children than usual, caravan park; friendly, full of infor­ banners aloft, strangely out of place mation about the town, the US against a background of scrubby sailors, their perceptions about the desert and vast sky instead of grey situation. They’re mildly pissed off ,city buildings and concrete streets. to be kept outside the base. “We “ I’d like to get down there and can’t get in l^ecause of you.” Their drive straight through them — wash friends on base aren’t allowed to the blood off after,” growls a young bring in guests while “ the trouble” local, his blonde three year old kid is on. in his arms.

Not only have the striped barriers The marchers form a long line been newly erected, but a pedestrian facing the base. The cops form a crossing has been painted on the slightly shorter one, backs to the road that very morning, just to one gate. Behing them lurk blank faced, side of the gate “so they can get you plainclothes cops (ASIO?); there’s for jay walking” . Every half mile one female policeperson standing along the road there’s a brand new there who arrived earlier with the black bordered “ Commonwealth Re­ busload of WA cops. Perhaps she is stricted Area” sign. A white building the policeperson whose nephew is just inside the gate, with a rollador, on the March and whom she visits is said (by an ABC crew from Perth in camp that night, accusing him of

ignore in most of its reports.

The locals hark back continually to the fact that “The Yanks saved us from the Japs — where were you in the war? You’ve got a short memory!” — another familiar jibe.

(In fact the night before we’re due in town the local drive in screens a special, in between its two features, called Victory in the Pacific, a short film showing how the Americans saved the world from the Japanese.)

The marchers present four de­ mands: the immediate striking of the American flag and the dis­ mantling of the base; the repeal of

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Western Australian cops, plainclothes cops and Commonwealth cops guard the entrance to the Americans “Harold E. Holt'' communications base —guarding a piece o f Australian territory they and all other Australians are barred from.

who are also loitering in the car park opposite the main gate) to contain 40 commonwealth cops playing cards. On the flat roof of this build* ing, unidentifiable men squat or sit, dangling their legs, taking phoj^ps of the car park loiterers with telephoto lens. A busload of WA uniformed cops join the waiters in the car park.

A couple of cars with EX for Ex­ mouth number plates cruise into the car parki Locals step out, flexing their extremely brown and muscular legs in macho Aussie style. Their faces bear an identical expression — a contemptuous, aggressive, half leering grin.

Everything is quiet. The dry wind blows off the plain between the base and the invisible sea. A group of cops are eating lunch under a shady tree.

Then, at 2.50 pm, a minibus and some cars come round the bend in the road. A small stir of interest. The men on the roof stand up. The rolla­ dor opens and a line of common­ wealth cops marches out in single file. The girls sing mockingly: “ Look at the way we march along,

destroying the family’s honor. There is no sign of the 110 or so Common­ wealth police known to be at the ready within the base.

Speeches and chants begin. “ No Yankee bases!” A group of locals move over beside the line of demon­ strators. The women — bleached out, thin, dressed in shorts, styled hair, something vaguely sophisti­ cated in their appearance, rather like ’50s’ Americans — set up a counter chant: “ Shut-your-faces!”

Men bellow contempt and defiance.

The abuse has an oddly dated ring to eastern ears — “ have a wash” , “ you stink” , “ get downwind” , “you’re all wet behind the ears” , “ gutless wonders” , “bloody commos” , “ get a job” — all stuff dating from the first appearance of bohemian political types in Mel­ bourne and Sydney streets ten or more years ago. It bounces off these demonstrators. Thick street skins. Anyway they’re not here to tackle the locals but rather to gain their support, a fact which the straight press conveniently chose to

“It’s the gre that’s hi in Exrrio Ralph Fa his praw onto the two ye;

M arch to the N o r th W est Cape.

m W EST TO FRONT MBS AT EXM OUTH the law providing for secret trial of trespassers on prohibited areas; and the opening of the base for general inspection; an end to all other American bases, including the pro­ posed Omega base.

When Darce the speaker announ­ ces: “We’ll be back at 9.00 am to­ morrow, and we expect to see the American flag down,” there is a great roar of laughter from the crowd. Indeed, this audacious ulti­ matum, coming from such a be­ draggled throng, does have a comi­ cal ring. The chief cop in atten­ dance offers to escort a delegation to the Australian commander, but

no press (straight or alternative) is permitted to accompany them. This offer is rejected. When a peppercorn set in perspex, a symbol of the annual rental payable on demand by the US to the Australian govern­ ment for the use of the land, is passed from hand to hand, a mo­ ment’s hush falls before the pepper­ corn is hurled over the barriers on to the base.

* * * The marchers return to the Ex­ mouth caravan park, which is a good example of its type: in WA, caravan parks are a semi permanent residence for a sizeable social group.

The parks aren’t the dismal, cramped affairs of the Victorian bay coastline, but (in winter any­ way) are often pleasant areas with well watered grass, gum trees, clumps of bamboo, clothes’ lines, hot and cold water washing blocks, power supplies and regular garbage collections.

Dozens of tow headed, barefoot children whiz round the park roads on small dragstar bikes. Many of them stars and stripes T-shirts, while their dads go for the tie dyed variety. In spite of their parents’ obvious hostility, the kids are al­ most aggressively friendly — a single smile will get you a ten minute conversation about every­ thing under the sun.

When the marchers set up camp this Sunday afternoon, one woman deliberately hoses the grass where a tent is to be put. A March kid kicks a footy near a permanent tent. Its owner shouts, “If that ball goes through my annexe, you’ll have to pay $500” . Still, the camp goes up and people set about the evening’s jobs.

Towards dusk, carloads of local heavies begin to gather in the cara­ van park. Their cars line up 15 yards from ours, which is outermost on the big lawn the marchers’ tents

races around our part of the cara­ van park: the woman in the back leans out the window singing “Anchors Aweigh” in a loud, break­ ing voice. We hear tooting. .Four pissed, middle aged guys, grinning self consciously, drive round in a truck with the Australian and American flags flying. They’re sing­ ing “God Save the Yanks” , and chanting “We want the Yanks” .

The campsite manager passes and slips us the word, “I’ve arranged for the law to be here at a moment’s notice. The law? No thanks. They’d really break their necks to come and save us from the local heavies. We think about spanners and self de­ fence.

Just after dark, two rotten drunk locals come stumbling past our area, so full they can barely walk. One actually falls over. Scrambling to his feet, he slurs to his mate in a stage whisper, “ Got that four gallons of petrol^ mate, have you? I wonder how good the bastards are?” He’s wearing a black and white wool beanie turned up at the front, real Ozarks material. He looks so funny, and takes himself so seriously, that we burst out laughing. Paranoia be­ gins to fade.

After tea there’s a concert in the campsite. The woman who hosed the ground has been won over to the extent of driving marchers into town to advertise the show; she even apologises. It’s a warm, still night. The concert is a really de­ lightful event — bashful singers, Ambrose plays the gum leaf, some­ one plays guitar and harp really well, two Greek comrades sing Greek songs of struggle, a Mel­ bourne maoist reads The Geebung Polo Club with gusto, and the street theatre group performs. It is TIo Chi Minh’s birthday and a Vietnamese marcher sings a National Liberation Front song and talks about the achievements of Ho Chi Minh and international solidarity. A young, local, Mauritian bloke called Joe (in

This man travelled thousands o f miles to the north western corner o f Australia to burn the U.S. flag, throw it over the Base fence, and be arrested for creating a public disorder.

;atest thing since isi«<au ran n

2 beach ars ago.

occupy. Seven or eight Exmouth cars are parked in a phalanx, their drivers staring challengingly out the window. Gradually wives and kids gather too. They talk loudly and provocatively, laughing and staring.

The local autocrat, Colonel Mur­ doch, is seen standing amongst what some of us fear is a vigilante squad in the making. More likely, though, it’s just something to do on a Sun­ day arvo. Apparently they’ve can­ celled the weekly race meetingacross the road because all the race goers want to perve at us instead.

Which isn’t redly surprising because, as a bloke from the fisheries down the road explained amusedly: “ It’s the greatest thing that’s happened in Exmouth since Ralph Fastead ran his prawn trawler onto the beach two years ago” .

One woman drives past our area with her kids in the back. She stops right next to us, five yards away, rolls down the window and simply gapes at us as we cook, talk, read.

Half an hour later another car, with two women and some small children

spite of half jocular threats from Exmouth locals attending the con­ cert — “Wait till your father hears about this!”) plays “House of the Rising Sun” on guitar while every­ one sings.

The Sydney crew films it all.

When the locals, who are a bit drunk and rather tentatively enjoy­ ing themselves, start yelling over performers, the film lights swipg over to them and they quieten down immediately. In the middle of the festivities Ambrose suddenly de­ mands, with perfect timing, “ Give the land back to the Abo.” .

Among the local visitors are two sympathetic Americans from the base. They talk with demonstrators and leave with a Eureka flag which one of them raises on the barracks at the base early the next morning.

When the concert is over about a quarter of the demonstrators leave on a police escorted walk up to the main gates of area B to conduct an exorcism of the base. A tree is chosen as the symbol of life and

peace and the protestors sit around resented the demonstrators mainly interesting that when we were first it in a large circle, their arms linked. because they came from the Eastern arrested we asked the iCommonStates” .)

Tony (a Catholic priest), and wealth police three times what we When the marchers’ request that Graeme (a Buddhist who smokes Al­ were charged with, and under what a delegation including press be al­ pine), conduct a symbolic purifica­ Act, and each time they answered lowed to enter the base is refused, tion of the devils of war on the “Trespassing under the Securities the American flag is produced, set Act”.” base and deliver sermons on non alight and raised. violence, self control, co-operation [Anyone charged under this Act The always awesome sight of and obedience to the teachings of is tried in a closed military court. those stars and stripes blazing stops the Buddha. There are prayers, Once a verdict is brought in, all all movement for the minute or so songs, chants and meditation, and transcripts and evidence related to it takesto be totally consumed. A those of the protestors who have the trial are destroyed. A person huge marcher hurls the charred re­ been fasting now break their fast. can receive a sentence of up to mains over the gate of the base. seven years for trespassing.]

To those opposed to mysticism There’s a second of hush — then the this is the trivial highlight of the “But the charge sheet before the cops rush towards the flag thrower. trip, though participants describe it magistrate in court showed that we Quick as a flash his bodyguards as a unifying and pacifying experi­ were charged under the Crimes close in round him in a tight circle, ence and hope that it will have a Act.” similar effect on the police who were watching. Later events prove this hope ill founded.

Meanwhile, another master minded diversionary tactic takes place. Various clandestine actions have been planned for that night so a group of people set off in the dark as a decoy. They meander fur­ tively around the town in a huddle, looking dark and suspicious, their torches flashing on and off. The forces of law and order (some of whom are stationed around the campsite in their vehicles) are con­ veniently sucked in by this fishy spectacle and a good number of them proceed to diligently follow the lurkers around town all night. and an outer circle of slightly At two o’ clock in the morning the Jenny, who was in this same panicky comrades forms. The cops decoy group comes across some group, told us that at least two of knife through this, bodies fly aside, council workers white washing anti the Commonwealth female policeand the flagthrower is torn away bases graffiti off the Exmouth war people processing the arrested wo­ from his mates and shoved into the memorial. They stop and chat. The men at the base were identified as wagon- Others are seized too, police immediately leap from their having been among locals shouting wrenched by the hair (no. 2614, we the most vitriolic abuse at the de­ cars and order the council workers saw you, may you rot) and flung in monstrators outside the base. to “ Get back to your work”, and beside him, one a woman who’s so the group to move on. Albert asks * * * thoroughly bashed (“ O Christ, it’s a them: giri!” calls a cop) that she still “ Do you know what we’re here needs two people to support her for?”

Stories brought back to camp at “No, what are you here for?” out of the court that afternoon, six night include a tale of a group of “ We’re here to divert your atten­ or seven hours later. men and women running away from tion from other people who are out In the few seconds of heart cops in the scrub. They come to a doing jobs.” sickening hesitation that always creek; the men waste so much time “Well in that case we'll go and come in a demo, when the cops trying to take off their shoes that find them.” rear and strike — will I fight or run? the women get impatient and carry “Well in that case we'll go and ■— more marchers are busted than the men over the water on their do the jobs.” need be; dithering out of loyalty backs.

Once again, guards keep watch all and almost courage, they might have One of the minibuses cruises night long, walking quietly around been well away. In the van they round the base, giving water to the perimeters with torches. Two thump the sides and sing. marchers who are snooping about rather obvious plainclothes cops in The scuffles subside, the mar­ and playing annoying games with floral body shirts approach us, chers split into small groups as the police, and finally picking up making transparent attempts to try most (not all) have planned, and scratched and sunburnt stragglers. to draw us into conversation. The head off in different directions, At the Exmouth court house on “ Uncle Sam” from the street some along the road back towards Monday afternoon, a magistrate is theatre is with us: they keep calling Exmouth, others through the “ road expected from Carnarvon to replace him “ Sam” . “We’ve done nothing closed” barricades in the direction the regular magistrate, the legendary wrong and we’ve got nothing to of area A with its gigantic trans­ Colonel Murdoch, an ominously say,” says Sam, and we sit there in mitting towers, others again into the powerful local figure — Civil Com­ silence till they go away. One of hot, dry, prickly, thigh high scrub missioner of Exmouth (Exmouth is them is very much in evidence with that surrounds the base and the a Restricted Commonwealth Area, the cops the next day at the law town. and RCAs happen to have Civil c o u r t M r . Double Identity (De­ “ 16 of us headed off towards the Commissioners). In other words, he tective Chadwick, alias Detective main transmitting centre at area B. runs the joint, as locals put it. Other Fough, from Perth CIB). A little There were quite a few Yanks positions he holds are magistrate, later on these same two cops ap­ town clerk, person in charge of standing on top of that big red and proach one of the camp guards and housing (through which he’s re­ white water tank watching our pro­ engage him in conversation. One of cently made things tough for a local gress through binoculars. Then we them points out the tent peg mallet heard a siren and doors slamming. unionist sympathetic to the demon­ the guard is carrying, and when he stration).

We figured it was cops and lay low makes some remarks about its pos­ Locals and marchers start to behind a bush for about three sible use in trouble (he doesn’t congregate outside the brick cop quarters of an hour. We could make realise who they are), they up and shop/court house building in the out cops combing the area like ants arrest him for carrying an offensive still hot afternoon sun. From the for us and we could hear them weapon. cells, where 36 marchers (ten from moving through the scrub on trail the morning demo., 25 from the bikes too.

The night passes peacefully. We scrub harassment, and one who was “We were getting a bit sick of it sleep out on the dry ground. The busted for handing tobacco to one so we got up and walked a bit fur­ sky is thick with stars.. The air is of the 25) wait for the court sitting. ther. Almost immediately the guys soft. At dawn people get up and Occasionally from outside we hear on the water tower spotted us and stand quietly gazing as the sky yelled out “There they are!” . So we rhythmic thumping, and the strains changes. of “Solidarity Forever” drift on the crawled on our hands and knees in By 9.45 am, the buses and cars wind. single file back through the bush. are back on the road to the base.

Charges include hindering police, It’s hot and dry. We stop round the “We were real close to the base aggravated assault, carrying an of­ bend from the main gate, form up and we were just sitting there when fensive weapon, loitering with in­ and march towards the gate, singing there was a loud call: “ Right, Ser­ tent to communicate, creating a (to the tune of “ She’ll Be Coming geant!” and suddenly about 15 Round the Mountain” ) “ If you hate coppers lept out of the undergrowth public disorder (to wit desecrating a US flag and hurling it from the Yankee bases, clap your hands”. As all around us. We were surrounded! street into the base), and wilfully we turn the comer we see the car We didn’t even try to get away be­ destroying property. This last charge park packed with locals, for all it’s cause we figured it’d be better to all is laid against the marcher who po­ an ordinary week day morning. cop it together and anyway we had lice allege painted up the town war They’re standing on their cars a kid with us. They marched us off memorial. He was arrested at the waiting for the big spectacle. Plenty like prisoners df war — troops on morning demo., but the Common­ of children. either side of us — into the main wealth cops happened to find a can The marchers, as planned, form a base area, which was where we of red spray paint in his bag — it huge U with linked arms, curving wanted to go anyway. They were was his friend’s — and sprayed it round the gate of the base. The lo­ Commonwealth police. over his shirt which was then sub­ cals are behind us in straggling “ At the base they took our par­ mitted as evidence. groups, more of them this time and ticulars, charged us, frisk searched Among the marchers outside, better prepared. Some of the wo­ us, and illegally photographed us. who sit on the grass or argue with men (none of the men) carry neatly (Legally a person has to be convicted locals about what it all means, painted cardboard placards: one wo­ before mug shots are taken.) Then there’s dispute as to whether it’s man comes into the U shape and they locked us in the brig. It was a more politic to remain silent and walks all the way round, facing the US marine who turned the key in avoid hassles (such as further ad­ demonstrators with her sign: the lock. Very symbolic, I think. journment of the cases and longer WERE YOU HERE WHEN THE “We were in there for about delay), or to chant and shout in JAPS WERE NEAR? OUR AMERI­ half an.hour and then they bundled solidarity. The former view gets CAN FRIENDS WERE AND IT’S us all into a sort of dog catching support, especially when the magis­ THEM WE PREFER. van. No kidding, it was about 150° trate lets us know that unless we Four speakers have to shout in that thing. They took us to the shut our gobs he’ll stretch the whole against a rising tide of yells from cop shop in town and this time it thing out as long as he can. He locals. The clear and well researched was the state police handling us. allows into court ten of us and ten information at least two of them “We were processed and photo­ locals. present is pretty well inaudible be­ graphed again and then locked in A cop car pulls up. Three or neath roars of “ya dirty commos” , segregated cells from 1.30 in the four uniformed WA cops pile out, “ bloody dickhead” , “wasting tax­ afternoon till 6.00 at night. The obviously straight from the pub — payers’ money” , and “what’s Vic­ cell stank to the shithouse — there hair dishevelled, ties undone, caps toria got to do with West Australia, were two dirty shitbuckets in there. and coats off. They charge down ya wanker” .

A girl tried to pass us a packet of the path between gathering towns­ Close to the gate a local man Drum and was arrested for loitering people. One of the cops, a big grabs a marcher who’s holding a with intent to communicate. We beefy middle aged man with a beer Eureka flag, and snaps its pole. ended up getting the tobacco any­ gut, takes the lead as they approach Later, a townsperson tells us the ru­ way by sticking four foot of twisted the demonstrators. “Stand back!” mor is the cops paid $20.00 for toilet paper out under the mesh and he bellows, shoving out his chest this piece of provocation. scraping it into the cell. But when and buttoning his jacket. He abso­ One man gets into some nasty we got it in there were no papers. lutely stinks of beer. As he barges abuse of the blacks, which they ad­ So we rolled cigaretts out of dunny through, someone lets out a loud mirably ignore. A strong strain in paper — it was shithouse. cackling laugh. He whirls round. the locals’ abuse concerns the dis­ “ Lunch was peanut butter sand­ “Who said that? Who made the big tance between their town and the wiches but there weren’t enough to laugh?”

ES. “ You wouldn’t know what our go around and we didn’t even get a resources are — you get it all out of “This one,” cries an obsequious cup of tea. books,” says one. (A local paper* young constable, seizing Isabelle’s “While we were in there we the Gerladton Guardian, later states, arm and pointing at her. Before the scratched slogans all over the wall “ The Exmouth and Carnarvon locals and sang lots of songs. It’s really pompous one can decide what to

“The cops locked us in the brig.

A U.S. marine turned the key.”

do, there’s a scuffle behind the crowd. A drunken local heavy grabs a girl’s arm, pushes her, yells, “ Let’s get all the fucking demonstrators out of here!” “ I didn’t hear that,” says a cop in response to a marcher’s protest.

Another cop goes to move in and stop the trouble when cop no.

3413 (may you rot too, mate) says “ Don’t touch him, he’s on our side” . One of the marchers protests at this and no. 4313 (a huge blonde fat, pig eyed type — and the same goes for you) says, “ Shutup you dickhead” . The marcher righteously accuses him of using offensive language.

4313: “ We’ll get you lot.”

Marcher: “That’s police intimi­ dation.”

“Shut up you bastard or I’ll lay you out.”

Fough/Chadwick of Perth CIB makes a token calming speech to the local crowd and “ arrests” one provocateur for being drunk. This drunk spends the rest of the after­ noon sitting round the back of the police station having a chat and a smoke with the cops.

Rasmussem SM disallows a police request that the total of 41 mar­ chers have their cases heard in Ex­ mouth. He remands the cases to Perth to be heard the following Thursday May 23; on that day they are further remanded to dates in July, August and September.

* * Monday night: Back at the cara­ van park, a meeting votes to stay one more night. Some people ex­ pect trouble from locals, and sug­ gest everyone should leave imme­ diately; Albert argues against un­ necessary paranoia, and the case is put for further political activities during the night. One driver has an undertaking to be back by a certain date, so the Sydney bus packs up and leaves that night.

The camp is guarded again all night, by men and women com-, rades. Three plainclothes police dis­ guised as local drunks (with a sharp­ ness of eye that denotes sobriety) sit round the campfire with mar­ chers. It’s a weird cultural ex­ change: the cops tell dick and ball sexist jokes and sing raucously over and over — “Well it's 1, 2, 3, What are we fighting for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn First stop is Exmouth base.

Well it's 5, 6, 7, Open up the pearly gates.

Well it ain't no use to wonder why, Wh oopee! We're all gonna die." . . . while marchers sing “ Flash Jack from Gundagai” and “ Solidarity Forever” .

When one of these “locals” goes for some cans, someone has the nous to follow him, He gets into a cop car parked up the road.

They hang round till 3.00 am making silly remarks about roasting pigs; We suppose they’re waiting to arrest marchers returning from il­ legal clandestine actions, some of which are carried out during the night — the town is mysteriously blacked out for half an hour.

Finally the cops stumble off into the dark, by this time genuinely pissed.

* * * Early Tuesday morning the rest of the marchers break camp and head south. We stay on a few hours, to get extra supplies. In every Ex­ mouth shop we go into, people are talking about the demonstrators.

Hours after the marchers have left town, we see a cop car cruise slowly around the shopping centre. The cops are grinning out the windows, blaring the horn. Low down on the radio antenna they’re flying the big blue and white Eureka flag.

Outside the jukebox and pinball machine hangout stands a small kid wearing a T-shirt which reads “My daddy loves me — I’m a tax deduc­ tion” . John Lennon’s “ Imagine” floats out the door. “ Imagine there’s no countries . . .” .

We go back to the camp and pre­ pare to leave. While we’re packing one of the tow headed dragstar kids pauses in his endless circuit and leans against our car for a last chat.

We’re finally ready. “ . . . Anyway,” calls the kid, pedalling off with a cheerful wave, “ Yanks go home, and down with the cops!”

Contacts for anti-bases movement.

SYDNEY C AFM BA P.O. Box J73 B rickfield H ill, NSW 2000 A D E LA ID E 5 .0 . Com mittee P.O. Box 4 Norwood, SA 5067 M ELBOURNE 5 .0 . Campaign P.O. Box 215 Elsternwick, Vic. 3185 PERTH C AFM BA P.O. Box 83 Mt. Lawley, WA 6050 BRISBANE Students' Union Kedron Park Teachers' College Box 43 P.O. Kedron, Old. 4031

Page 8

THE DIGGER

May 30 - June 13, 1974

A m erica retreats to th e sea

Diego Garcia*.

Nothing to rule but the waves?

I

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the retiring head of the US Navy was a I bit of a trendy (among admirals). | Though he had been able to grab for the navy the largest share of the j American military budget, the cost | of things like battleships is severely I affected by inflation. Zumwalt tried j to get around this by getting a ! whole new line of ships a bit j nippier than the grand old style j warships, but cheaper and supposed-' | ly just as effective. This approach I meant that the American aircraft | carrier fleet — the American em| pire’s equivalent to the gunboats • that the British used to send in to } keep law and order — was listed for t reduction. The present 15 US airI craft carriers would decline to 12 by ' 1980 — including the nuclear car| riers still under construction. This ; didn’t go down too well with the ; less trendy admirals. And with Zumwalt’s retirement his policy seems I now on the way to being reversed, i It’s all connected with the argu; ment now raging in several coun; tries concerning the establishment of a major American naval establish' ment at Diego Garcia in the Indian ! Ocean. Now, Diego Garcia sounds a ; most unimpressive piece of land. It’s ' a British owned coral atoll about 14 ; miles by five which has never attrac­ ted anybody to live there except ! people running bases. But it has a ‘ lagoon which the US navy sees as [ potentially a great deep water port j with a built in 12,000 foot air strip l for B-52s, and it sits smack in the !• middle of the Indian Ocean. A big ; base there could put the United | States in a very handy position for ! commanding the triangle of shipping { lanes (Cape of Good Hope; Suez/ i Persian Gulf; Singapore/Strait of <Malacca) which have become the ' world’s oil lifelines, supplying } Middle East oil to Europe and Ja■pan., Establishment of Diego Garcia as an American base could well be the i first step towards the ‘restoration’ j of the US navy and its increased ! strategic importance relative to the

j

other armed services through the construction of an Indian Ocean fleet.

Not that the Indian Ocean has gone unattended till now. But the build up of an American Indian Ocean naval presence to replace the British navy as it retired from ‘East of Suez’ has been quite remarkably Slow and low key.

While the British held what you might call the subcontract for the job of policing the Indian Ocean, the Americans themselves gave only nominal recognition to the Indian Ocean. It came under the jurisdic­ tion of both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. And in fact, with the Pacific fleet so preoccupied with the Gulf of Tonkin, even a flag showing by the Americans was rare in the In­ dian Ocean.

Unrest in India seemed to begin the change. Remember when the war was raging between India and Pakistan over Bangladesh, an Ameri­ can task force suddenly steamed in­ to the Bay of Bengal? That was in December 1971. And that pretty well coincided with the Pacific fleet taking over the sole manage­ ment of the Indian Ocean.

Of course even before that the Americans hadn’t been entirely in­ active. The building of the North West Cape communications base goes back to 1967 and so does the one at Asmara on the other side of the ocean in Ethiopia. These bases are a part of a communications sys­ tem for the world wide operation of missile carrying submarines, in­ cluding of course subs, in the In­ dian Ocean. The Russians respon­ ded; reminding the world through the development of small forces in the Indian Ocean that they too were a real power and the US was not going to turn the Indian Ocean into a private pool.

So there had been a quiet build up, but it seems that the US De­ fence and State Departments were interested in maintaining at least publicly, a low posture over the Indian Ocean. It’s suggested too that

j

some undertaking was given to the Russians to circumvent an arms! build up and the possibility of an arms race.

Two years after the US fleet’s foray into the Bay of Bengal, during the 1973 Middle East War, all that ' delicacy of low profile was aban­ doned. A carrier task force was sent in, and since then one has been kept there most of the time.

The Russians again responded. A , recently released UN study docu­ ments the present stage of the esca­ lation.

The US has an aircraft carrier, half a dozen destroyers, some sup: ply ships, and. of course an un­ known number of submarines. The USSR has a cruiser and maybe five destroyers, maybe five submarines, plus supply ships.

The UN report warns that the

Whitlam’s Vietnam Policy tial meetings on aiding Thieu, it has tablished by the Paris Accords. played a leading role. In the last Australia is not a signatory to the round of discussions, in Paris last agreement, but according to WhitOctober, Australia’s was the largest lam, has undertaken to respect its delegation after the US and Japan. provisions.

It was led by the First Assistant On aid, Australia’s position is Secretary of the Foreign Affairs De­ that we are under an obligation to partment, Mr. H. M. Loveday, and support humanitarian aid, in Whit­ the Assistant Secretary of the Trea­ lam’s words again, “to pour tens of sury, Mr. H. G. Heinrich. The meet­ millions of dollars of aid not into ing was never announced publicly, it building up any regime but into was kept from the press. A US Se­ patching up the wounded . . . We nate committee heard of the meet­ have to overcome the effects of ing a month later, but it has never carpet bombing . . . Basically this is publicly been acknowledged by the how we have to move on our own Australian government. A further in the Indochina area”'. But the follow up meeting is scheduled for facts have been different; the aid this month or next. It has already has gone mostly into projects been postponed — it was to have closely integrated with US economic taken place earlier this year, but was planning for the Saigon government, delayed for a number of reasons in­ carried out by US-AID, especially cluding what the Washington Post projects geared to the needs of called “ reservations among some foreign capital, ie attracting the in­ countries about the World Bank’s vestment to Saigon which will en­ performing any function that might able Thieu to survive and fight. benefit the government of President There are the water supply sys­ Nguyen Van Thieu in South Viet­ tems of Vung Tau and Da Nang. nam” . $6-9 million will go into the water According to a paper circulated supply system at Da Nang which is recently which backgrounds the ‘aid to service an area to be developed to Thieu’ story, and which has as an industrial estate for foreign sought to document the Australian investors. $3 million will go into a involvement, there is unfortunately port development project at Vung no evidence to suggest that Australia Tau. Australian SEATO aid has al­ was one of the countries expressing ready built water supplies for Bien such reservations. According to the Hoa and Can Tho, sites of two of authors of this paper, David McLean the four former US military head­ and Ken McLeod, examination of quarters, now known as ‘consulates’. the facts shows that while Aust­ Other aid projects include exten­ ralia’s direct military aid to Thieu sion of the electricity grid, beach has been discontinued, Labor in of­ mining, agricultural mechanisation fice has actually increased Aust­ and a telecommunications system ralia’s total commitment to the Sai­ which appears to service the Saigon gon regime. police.

There has been talk of ‘even­ As for its preoccupation with handedness’. The Labor govern­ humanitarian concerns — not only ment has established diplomatic re­ has the Labor government chosen to lations with Hanoi; it has failed to aid the Saigon regime, it has chosen recognise the PRG on equal terms to ignore Saigon’s massive violations with the Saigon government as es­ of the Paris Accords — violations of

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course, the safeguarding of that cru­ cial triangle of oil carrying sea routes. But there’s something a little bit telling too about the increased American emphasis on sea power, about the state of the empire, the realities of American power.

First of all, US relations with Eu­ rope and Japan include a large "ele­ ment of competition. The Ameri­ cans seem to have been forced to concede that economically southeast Asia belongs to Japan. Well, alright, but with Japan as with Europe, it’s handy to control those oil routes.

Secondly, the value of raw ma­ terials in the Indian Ocean area shouldn’t be forgotten: rubber and tin in Malaysia and Indonesia, baux­ ite, copper and oil in Indonesia, minerals including iron ore from Western Australia, titanium from India and Sri Lanka, timber from

Diego Garcia — central point for U.S> control o f an ocean

E venh a n d ed n ess: S a y o n e thing, d o a n o th er

When Australians voted on May 18, it was a bit hard to work out frq,m the press whether a deeply po­ larised people were being asked to choose between two opposed philo­ sophies and clearly distinguishable sets of policies, or whether so much had changed in Labor’s 18 months of power that the Liberals were by now mouthing Labor’s own policies.

One point is for sure, 18 months of Labor has removed Vietnam as an issue. And if there is now in fact a bipartisan policy in this country to­ wards Vietnam, it is not because the Liberals have changed their position.

There has been a sell out. The war goes on. Our troops aren’t there, but our money is, right where the Americans want it, behind Thieu.

Despite the fact that the Paris Accords which the US signed recog­ nise two governments in South Viet­ nam, the Americans appear just as determined as ever to support the Thieu regime as the only legitimate government of South Vietnam, and to find ways Of ensuring its ability to continue the war.

Crucial to American strategy is to seek to legitimate the Thieu regime, as well as to offset the cost of keep­ ing it afloat, by involving as many other countries as possible in a vast economic support program channel­ led through Amierican dominated in­ ternational financial agencies — in particular the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Secret re­ ports revealed by the World Bank, and leaked to the press recently (see Digger, no. 29) revealed the enor­ mous economic task of enabling Thieu to survive and continue the war and the recognition by the World Bank of the political role that it is playing in violation of the Paris Accords.

Australia has not only partici­ pated in the World Bank’s confiden­

establishment of a major American base at Diego Garcia would liavei to be matched, “the other great power will then almost certainly search for a similar báse in the area, and a new strategic naval race will have begun” .

If the US navy gets its Diego Garcia base, it will have virtually won approval for a permanently stationed task force in the Indian Ocean. And logistically that means that the projected winding down of the carrier fleet would have to be reversed. For every carrier on sta­ tion, according to the navy, two have to be held in reserve. So at three billion dollars a pop, the cost of an Indian Ocean fleet would be ten billion, a hefty underlining of the navy’s role in American strategic planning.

There is a fairly clear logic be­ hind the Indian Ocean exercise of

the spirit, not just the letter "of the agreement. Whitlam has refused even to take a stand on the release of ci­ vilian prisoners taken by Australian troops and now in Con Son Island prison, on the grounds that it would constitute ‘outside interference’.

Australia’s Labor government seems always to have had a some­ what.starry eyed approach to insti­ tutions as the World Bank, helping to maintain the myth of their poli­ tical neutrality. Yet their role has been shown again and again to be that of hand maidens of US policy — setting conditions which ensure adherence by borrowers to the rules of the game of the international capitalist economy, rules set and policed by the US. Labor took over Australia’s participation in World Bank/IMF rescue operations for the notoriously repressive regimes of Suharto in Indonesia, Park in South Korea and Marcos in the Philip­ pines. After Labor had come to power in Australia, our representa­ tives in Saigon continued to meet with the IMF and ADB representat-

I say — I thought that whacking obscenity fine would've stopped the DIGGER in its tracks!

tives, in Robert Nooter’s words, “ to talk about aid requirements and to coordinate the aid that/is being pro­ vided” . (Nooter is the US-AID of­ ficial in charge of Vietnam.) The meetings take place under the aus­ pices of Saigon’s Ministry of Planning.

Australia has also been prevailed upon to increase its ‘replenishment’ funds for the soft loan operations of the World Bank affiliate the Inter­ national Development Association (IDA) and the Asian Development Bank Special Fund, which are in­ creasingly oriented to aid for Sai­ gon. In 1972 the ADB supplied „ $6-5 million to Thieu in soft loans.

In 1973 it is up to $13 million. As well, it has been suggested that Australia increase its, per centage of the total funding for those bodies, crucially important at a time when the IDA is trying to increase its total capital and Nixon’s funds for it are being blocked by Congress.

Pressure has certainly been brought to bear — in the first place through top level bureaucrats who

trip on man when you re offing oppression you have to handle a few heavies

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philip­ pines, copper from Zambia which goes out through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean and South African coal which a major power conglomerate in the south of the US is beginning to import. It has a lower sulphur content than Ameri­ can coal and of course it is a whole lot cheaper even though it has to be shipped 9.000 miles because labor for producing the coal is conscripted mainly among black South Africans for an average pay of $66 a month.

This vast and varied reserve of material wealth is matched by the potential for political turbulence.

The United Nations report on the Indian Ocean emphasised the po­ tential for conflict between states and the disastrous results if a super power arms race is superimposed on the area. (The areas bordering on the Indian Ocean include India and Pakistan, Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia.) “ Any attempt to derive advan­ tage from this unstable situation by one great power will inevitably lead to a counter move by the other great power. Moreover,” the report continued, “ any attempt by one of the countries in the area to obtain^, undue support from one super­ power will probably in turn lead to some other state seeking counter­ vailing support from the otlier.”

No wonder that the countries of this area, even those with staunchly pro US governments, have appeared somewhat squeamish about the pro­ ject.

Whether the Russians will, as the UN report assumes, feel it necessary to find an equivalent to Diego Gar-

cia remains to be seen. But given the present clear superior power of the Americans through their system of alliances and bases over the Russians with only foothold bases and supply lines going back to Vladivostok and the Black Sea, that the Americans seem so serious about Diego Garcia, prepared to risk provoking a much more serious penetration of the area

by Russia, raises a big question mark. > /.....

The answer seems again to lie in the changing shape of the empire.

American alliances in the Indian Ocean, as throughout the ‘Third World’, are built upon ‘enclave re­ gimes’, governments based on the wealthy elite of the great cities, governments whose survival depends on the containment of political un­ rest arising out of the impoverished peasant populations outside the cities. The less secure a regime, the stauncher ally it becomes. But the Indochinese experience has demon­ strated that the Americans cannot hold the hinterlands — they can help the enclave governments to ride it out. But they can’t count on being successful. Which means draw­ ing a new line of containment — a new definition of what is strategic — potentiálly viable, reliable and de­ pendable enclaves. It’s not worth fighting for the lost allegiance of the peasants; it’s only necessary to have the facilities from which to terrorise revolutionary regimes into submitt­ ing to the empire’s demand for its enclaves. Diego Garcia looks a pretty impressive American initia­ tive. But it could be the kind of desperate move that means America is retreating into the sea.

represent us at routine meetings of the banks. The task of winning over these officials is probably not too difficult, given the attitude of de­ ference to the US which prevails in departments such as Foreign Affairs and Defence. It seems likely how­ ever that Ministers too have been subject to personal persuasion by World Bank President (and former US Defence Secretary) McNamara.

Treasurer Frank Crean attended the last meeting of Governors of the World Bank in Nairobi last Sep­ tember. The Bank’s secret report on Vietnam was certainly circulated and discussed there. And without doubt it wasî,on the agenda when McNamara visited Australia early this year.

So far however, with the govern­ ment just not talking about the whole issue, it is impossible to know what the opinion is in cabinet circles, or what arguments are being put. Un doubtedly càbinet has been impressed very firmly with the im­ portance of Australia’s participation in the, scheme to Australia’s rela-

tions not only with,the US but with the international agencies. McLean and McLeod suggest that participa­ tion in the aid scheme for Thieu has been linked to the provision of in­ ternational agency funds which Australia has sought for projects in its own sphere of influence, particu­ larly Papua New Guinea.

The role of the World Bank and Asian Developemnt Bank in Viet­ nam has been shown to be a Saigon rescue operation. Firstly to provide massive aid from non US sources to fund the economically unviable non military sector of Saigon’s economy and thus subsidise the US effort to enable Thieu to carry on the war.

The second object is to undermine the Paris Accords by denying the existence and legitimacy of the PRG. For economic and political reasons, the operation has to be multilateral. And it is the US con­ trolled ‘international banks’ which are the fronts doing the job.

Australia’s willingness to participate is a direct contribution to the sa­ botage of the Paris Accord.

T h e Digger is appealing against the crippling $1,350 obscenity fines we copped last month. (The issues in question, numbers 3 and 6, are still avail­ able, 45 cents each by post — other back copies too — from 15 Avenue Road, Glebe 2037). Meanwhile, donations to our staggering-on fund are gratefully received. }

The hardest part of our whole operation is getting the Digger distributed to our Victorian readers. If it isn’t readily available near you, you can ask your newsagent to contact our Victorian dis­ tributor, Collins Newsagency, who will supply any outlet that asks for the Digger. ïïmf&iiÀ

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I I 4

May 30 -

June 13, 1974-

Out o f the Frying Pan — a ten day festival of women’s creativity at the Pram Factory, Melbourne, opened this week to packed houses.

The last few months have seen a woxpen’s theatre group emerge that has been strong and enthusiastic enough to generate three original shows which have audiences queuing to get in.

What started as a spontaneous generation of performing energy has jelled to produce women writers, musicians, production people, a street theatre group, an ensemble work­ shop and a pool of actors.

The festival haS two plays, The Love Show, an ironically hilarious look at love, and the Documentary Theatre, also a group created show which uses factual material to com­ ment on the plight of young women in protective institutions. There are almost daily movie showings, films that have made us what we are, films that show us what we are, and films that show what we can do.

Women who take photographs rarely get to show them unless they have already made it in a man’s World. The festival has provided a huge space for a photographic ex­ hibition and what, has emerged is a distinct difference in style and imagination.

Also on the program are a wo­ men’s jam session, a poetry reading with music, a concert and talent show (which are reviewed below).

The festival finishes on Saturday June 1 with a forum on women and creativity which asks the ques­ tion — Is there a female sensibility?

And on Saturday night a rock dance with a women’s band and bake off.

This festival has consolidated a strong, viable and continuous wo­ men’s performing group, probably the first of its kind in the world.

by Lesley Blackwood Opening night of the Women’s Festival in Melbourne . . . a pro­ gram by all women singer-musicians ranging from soft folk ballads to the heavy soul sound of Wendy Saddington. The concert was booked out three quarters of an hour before it was due to start.

First to perform was Di Hollings, who played guitar and sang a selec­ tion of traditional folk ballads. A dear, resonant voice and the wistful sound of early Joan Baez, but lack­ ing any sort of ideological com­ mittment .in her chioce of material, making little concession to the im­ portance of the occasion. The au­ dience became restless.

Glen Tomasetti swept on to pro­ vide the political relevance we were waiting for. Within minutes she had the audience laughing, tapping time,

THE DIGGER

Page 9

World shaking w o m e ?

Out of the frying pan singing along with such rousing choruses as “ Are you a gangster’s moll, doll, are you a gangster’s moll — who me?” and “ Horrors, not Doris, not a womb in the room!” (a song protesting the exclusion of Doris Condon, mayor of South Mel­ bourne, from the Lord Mayor’s Annual dinner).

After a short break an all woman electric band — two acoustic gui­ tars, electric bass, dulcimer, flute and bongos — Jane Conway and Scarlet. Their first ever stage per­ formance and the group obviously nervous. They played g^od hand clapping foot stomping blues/rock songs, showing a musical versatility in the way they shared around vocals and instruments. The au­ dience was sympathetic towards the group’s inexperience (after all it was a new experience for an audience too, 1to be hearing an Australian all female band), and loud in applause. Good vibes all round.

Margret Roadknight followed Scarlet, and gave us an example of professionalism as a woman per­ former. She had selected a range of women’s blues songs from Bessie Smith to a contemporary Newcastle poet, and her voice interpreted each one with sensitivity as well as hu­ mor and joy.

Finally we saw Wendy Saddington and friends, making a rare stage appearance, with Scarlet backing. It was an incongruous combination . . .

Wendy straight out of decadent 1920’s Hollywood in black silk pedal pushers, fishnet stockings, sti­ letto heels, oriental black silk jacket and turban, Scarlet grass roots in blue jeans/long skirts and one or two whimsical jug band type caps . . . the three voices wailing, soaring, improvising around each other in the age old. negro blues stylej while the music stayed gently on the ground in soft, ordered rhythms . . . two totally different trips, impossible to blend. And yet in the end it wasn’t important — the event could have run more smoothly, the acts could have been

better planned and coordinated, but what was being communicated was not that women are capable of organising and putting on a concert with no male help in any aspect of it (we all know that anyway), but rather the vast range of ex­ perience and emotional responses and capacities for growth and joy that we all need to find out about each other and ourselves for a true awareness of the strength gained through solidarity. . And therein lies the significance of the Women’s Festival, njade clear from its first public expression — Melbourne women have started the célébration for us all to join in, in our own ways.

'Are my ears on straight?'

by Kate Jennings The Great Frying Pan Talent Show was a ripper. The idea of a talent show for the festival of women’s creativity was originally thought of as an evening where women could do things in front of an audience they couldn’t do anywhere else. Literally not any­ where else! Women talented on for two hours or so, ingeniously and ingenuously, creating an atmosphere of infectious warmth and hilarity, and producing a show which was, I thought, insanely surreal.

What was really good about the Talent Show was its humor. Fe­ minists have been accused for so long of lacking a sense of humor.

After all the greatest comedian (comedienne!) of all time was Mae West. But women haven’t had much to laugh about, or the time to cultivate Wit (a malé trait if ever there was one). When they do their humor is of an entirely different kind, a humor which is not at the expense of destroying other people, a sense of humor which shows them capable of laughing at themselves and their more serious moments.

The Talent Show was held to­ gether by an officiating Lady Mayor­ ess, and a Laurel and Hardy gag pair who kept telling inane, ri­ diculous jokes and intervening at all the right - moments, but how they kept it up! The show was opened by Australia’s very own Raelene Harris who did a delight­ ful painting, complete with whistl­ ing. The painting was the women’s liberation symbol.

The finals of the ironing com­ petition had the lady from sunny Queensland disqualified because she was using Fabulon. The same lady kept sniffing underpants and ironing her crotch. The Macho Band was the big moment of the evening.

They swaggered on, all leather, chains, ripped denim and four letter words and wowed the audience with a brilliant two chord number.

At the end of the talent show the Women’s Weekly street theatre group did their Take Off Inter­ national Beauty Concert show.

Well, that’s the gist of it. My favorites of the evening were the

send up of Bob Dylan’s I Want You, the Methodist Ladies’ College group singing alma mater songs (they asked other old girls to join in, and it turned out that the lead singer of the Macho Band was an old girl . : . just look what becomes of some of them), and the soap opera where the shower girls kept forgetting the scenario.

There were also the Egg Family (beyond description), the coy Junior Tapettes (“ Are my ears on straight” ), Teresa the Original, a Brechtian opera on abortion, a magic tablecloth trick (the trick was not only could she whip it off the table, but put it back again), a beautiful card trick, or, I should say, a beautiful card trick woman in silk and fishnet, and an assortment of songs, satirical and rude. But listing it all, or trying to tell you about is, is lame. The show defied description. You should have been there. Women having fun!

And now for something com­ pletely" different . . . the festival seems to be based on the shock of the completely different . . .

the Epic Theatre. The Epic Theatre a valuable form of political com­ was a documentary play on what munication.

The performance itself was very happens to girls in what are euphe­ mistically called protective homes. simple, a minimum o f props, with Originally the group of women the actors switching roles, alternately wanted to, ambitiously, portray a being the oppressors and the op­ whole series of institutions oppres­ pressed. It showed very efficiently sive to women. That task was just why and how gills end up in these too mammoth, and over a series homes, and it demonstrated how of workshops they put together a archaic the Exposed to Moral Danger documentary based on the real ex-- laws are. It showed us how humiliat­ periences of women who have been ing police interrogations are (“ Did in places like Bidura and Winlaton. he put his private part up your To them, the content and not the private part?” ), and how outrageous performance was important, and one virginity testing is. But most of of the most important parts of this all it conveyed to us how lonely theatre was the discussion after the and demeaning girls’ homes are, how lonely the girls are who end up show. in these places, and how seemingly The Epic Theatre was amaz­ insoluble are their problems, in or ing, because it evolved t not out of ¿these .institutions. After the from a group of actors, but from overthrow of the capitalist state . -.?

The performance relied entirely a group of women involved with the problems of oppressive political pn the tension and energy generated institutions. It seems very important by the women because of their in­ that political groups realise that tensity of feeling and their involve­ there are means of getting a message ment in the problem they were across other than by polemical stating. It is a new kind of theatre, written pieces, that art forms are and it is women’s theatre.

For Adults Only :T he latest and greatest in torture traces and less variables in the breakdown point. “ Among the ex-prisoners I’ve treated was a 20 year old law student, a girl arrested in 1972, accused of communist sympathies.

The treatment to which she was subjected is typical. First comes a process o f depersonalisation. No one says anything to the prisoner.

Nothing is said about the arrest or the charge. Photo and finger * * * prints are taken, hair Shaved, glasses, personal clothes and belongings re­ When the headquarters of the moved. Then starts the isolation.

Portuguese secret police, the DGS, “ The prisoner is left alone in were raided by soldiers in Lisbon a featureless cell without any inter­ last week, they found police in­ action with other people. The only structors’ films and phootgraphs of way out is to write to the police torture demonstrations. Dr. Alfonso on the paper provided for, the pur­ de Albuquerque, a British trained pose: This isolation can last from psychiatrist who treated Portuguese two days to two or three months. ex-prisoners, has been compiling If the victim is called for inter­ dossiers on victims of DGS tor­ rogation, it’s always in the first ture for the past five years and hours of sleep. According to the not long before the military coup case, pressure is brought to bear he spoke to a member of the by threat to job or family security, People's News Service collective reinforced by threats of physical about trends in torture. and sometimes sexual violence.

Three special ‘detention centres’ Sleep deprivation and long periods for the isolation of political pri­ of standing in the ‘Christ’ position soners are known to exist in West facing a blank wall, are introduced.

Germany; comparisons between me­ The prisoner hears voices behind, thods formerly used in Portugal, though isn’t allowed to turn. and those known to have been prac­ Meanwhile, the feet swell. ticed in Northern Ireland, are in­ “The accusations and threats be­ evitable. In Norway, the !Human Rights Commission is at present come more and more inflated; the holding a secret hearing of evi­ price of release is kept the same. dence of torture in Ireland, We Sign your confession, you need only publish below part of his account give us one name. As anxiety mounts, consciousness is diminished. of Portuguese methods.

The prisoner experiences confusion in time and space, loss of con­ * * * centration and memory and ab­ “ Intensive research inta sensory normal perceptions, especially visual. deprivation sponsored by western Moving walls/ and horrific insects governments officially passed for a are among the commonest. These long time as part of manned space illusions are encouraged by broken flight programs, though it actually teeth, blood splashes and the like, started long before any such flights part of the decot of the interrogation got off the ground. In Portugal, room. “ A man who they knew had where there is officially no public opinion on such matters, research sexual problems was subjected to into the effects of isolation gave recordings of hysterical women the secret police a sophisticated screaming; a peasant didn’t fyreak method of “ interrogation” far su­ until he was taken down to the perior for their purposes to crude basement and told that the plumb­ physical torture. There are no ing, the like of which he’d never “Thp day has'com e when we can combine sensory deprivation with the use of drugs, hypnosis and the astute manipulation o f re­ ward and punishment to gain al­ most absolute control over an in­ dividual's behavior."

Professor James McConnell of the Department of Mental Health Research, the University of Michi­ gan.

seen, was an American terror ma­ Some of the technqiues which chine.”

Schein suggests for the prisons of the USA include: “ social disor­ ganisation and the creation of mu­ * * * tual mistrust” , achieved by “spying Meanwhile back in the American on the men and reporting back terror machine, the latest issue of private material” ; “ tricking men into Winter Soldier, organ of the Viet­ written statements” which are then nam Veterans Against the War/ shown to others; with the object Winter Soldier Organisation,, re­ being “ to convince most men they ports on the increasing use of could trust no one” ; “ undermining similar kinds of ‘behavior modifi­ ties to home by the systematic cation techniques’ in US prisons. withholding of mail” plus the seg­ The following are extracts from regation of natural leaders, and the physical removal of prisoners to the article. isolated areas so as to break or weaken close emotional ties. * * * The standard procedure previously Since the early ’60s, federal and used in prisons to break a pri­ - state corrections’ departments have soner’s spirit has been physical bru­ been investigating ways to modify tality. However, this approach has the behavior of prisoners who pre­ recently been proved unsuccessful sent any sort of threat to the order and prisoners have continued to of prison life. As prisoners have resist such treatment as can be become increasingly politically aware seen in the uprisings of Attica, and developed a history of resis­ Leavenworth, McAlester, etc. tance to the oppression which Of the new “sophisticated” tech­ stifles them every day, prison authorities have found it “ necessary” niques of dealing with “ trouble­ to provide facilities for “ aggressive some” prisoners, one of the most' and manipulative prisoners who are widely used methods of modifying resistent to authority” , according behavior and breaking the prisoner’s to the outline of Project START spirit has been “ drug assaults” .

(Special Training And Rehabilitative Prison officials, with the help of Treatment), a behavior modification psychiatrists and drug companies (Updike, Squibb and Lederie Labs.) project of the Springfield, Missouri have been experimenting for several federal prison.

The basic philosophy guiding years to find ways to modify be­ these behavioral projects is well havior through the use of powerful and dangerous drugs. One such expressed by Dr. Edgar Schein, associate professor at .the Massa­ powerful drug is Prolixin, a drug which has been used in prisons chusetts Institute of Technology, and a behavior modification en­ such as Vacaville, California; Patuxtent, Maryland; and the Illinois thusiast. Schein explains: “My basic argument is this: in order to pro­ Security Hospital, for several years. duce marked change of behavior and/or attitude, it is necessary to Prolixin is a more powerful weaken, undermine, or remove the counterpart of Thorazine and is a supports to the old patterns of depressant which lingers in effect behavior and the old attitudes” . for two weeks. According to its This may be done “ either by re­ manufacturer, E. R. Squibb, Pro­ moving the individual physically lixin is a “highly potent behavior modifier with a markedly extended and preventing any communication with those whom he cares about,! duration of effect” . Side effects include: “the induction , of a cata­ or by proving to him that those tonic like state, nausea, loss of whom he respects are not worthy appetite, headache, constipation, of it and, indeed, should be actively blurred vision, glaucoma, bladder mistrusted” .

paralysis, impotency, liver damage, while his penis is wired. When the hypotension severe enough to cause prisoner becomes sexually excited, fatal cardiac arrest” . It can also his penis is shocked. Emetics (drugs lead to a persistent palsy like dis­ which induce nausea) are used in order. On top of this, “ the symp­ the same manner as shock treat­ toms persist after drug withdrawal, ment. A prisoner will be shown and in some patients appear to be a movie of a bank robbery and injected with the drug which makes irreversible” .

An even more frightening drug her/him violently sick. If this pro­ is Anectiné, a derivative of the cedure is repeated often, the pri­ South American arrow tip poison soner will become nauseous at the curare. When Anectine is injected very thought of robbing banks.

Perhaps the most frightening into a persdn in a conscious state, it slows heartbeat, causes respira­ method of “ modifying behavior” tory arrest, and'will make the sub­ is the use of lobotomy and electro­ ject feel as if she/he is dying. Dr. shock to the brain. Lobotomies Arthur Nugent, chief psychiatrist leave people in a totally passive at Vacaville Prison, says that Anec­ state — a human robot — who tine includes “sensations of suffo­ will perform tasks with no emo­ cation and drowning” . The subject tional response: Lobotomies may experiences feelings of deep horror also be performed by implanting and terror, “ as though he were on radioactive radium seeds in the the brink of death” . Nugent claims, brain. By using electrodes, a lo“ even the toughest inmates have botomist can destroy the brain cells come to fear and hate the drug. gradually and can stimulate areas I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t of the brain in order to cause have one treatment for the world” . pleasure, pain and reflex actions Both of these drugs (two of in the prisoner. The purpose of many such drugs used in prison psychosurgery is to stop “ aggres­ “experimentation” ) reduce the pri­ sive beahvior” and characteristics soners to' vegetables and make them which do not conform to prison unable to think clearly or react life. with emotion. Because of the vul­ The above described techniques nerable frame of mind that the used in ‘behavior modification’ are prisoners are placed in while Tinder becoming increasingly common prac­ such treatment, they are scolded tices. They have been used in for their behavior and told to shape Amerikan prisons in Morgantown up or they will be given further and Alderson, West Virginia; Clin­ doses of thé drugs. The spirit of ton, New York; Fort Worth and the prisoner is so drastically broken Seagonville, Texas; Terra Haute, In­ that the prison psychiatrist then is diana; McNeil Island in Washington; able to control a person who will Lompoc, Terminal Island and Vaca­ be more readily amenable to be­ ville; Patuxent, etc. All of these havior conditioning. programs have met with courageous resistance by those people who have * * * been considered as “ candidates” for Another method of behavior them (those sisters and brothers conditioning which has been con­ who have refused to be moulded sistently used in prisons and mental into the submissive beings demanded hospitals is adversive conditioning. by prison officials). Resistance has This method gives negative reinforce­ taken the form of hunger strikes, ment for behavior which is to be work stoppages, and court liti­ changed, including the use of elec­ gation on the part of the prisoners. tric shock and emetic drugs. By This has been successful to the ex­ the use of electric shock, prison tent that the START program at psychiatrists have attempted to Springfield has been cancelled. The “cure” homosexuals by showing administration at Springfield and the individual “ homosexual movies” the Department of Corrections have

cited “economic reasons” as res­ ponsible for the termination of the START project, but in reality its closure was due to public pressure and the resistance of the brothers on the inside.

But evèn though START has been defeated, the largest fear in the field of behavior modifica­ tion projects is still to come. Some­ time this spring, a special $14,000,000 facility will be completed in Butner, North Carolina. The 200 bed institution has stated its in­ tention of using its inmates for experimentation and research in be­ havior modification. The objective of the project is to set up a small microcosm of the outside world; the prisoners will be taught to “ get along” in that world and to conform to everything in it. This objective is a complete denial of all ’human and legal rights of the people who will be selected to participate.

It completely vvoids the right to resist oppression and injustice which is constantly growing in Amerika. | The prisoners to be housed at Butner include “security risks, mi­ nority groups, management prob­ lems, etc.” . To translate these terms into normal language, those people most likely to be sent to Butner will be those sisters and brothers now being held in Segre­ gation Units throughout Amerika.

These are people who have par­ ticipated in work stoppages, prison rebellions, and other forms of re­ sistance to the oppression of prison life. Butner will consist of the politically conscious sisters and brothers who have begun to fight back against repression in prisons, particularly black and third world prisoners.

Letters on behalf of all the pri­ soners in the ÜS should be sent to: Norman A. Carlson, US Bureau of Prisons, Washington DC 20537, USA, demanding an end to the terror tactics of behavior modifi­ cation.

ij HI

May 30 — June 13, 1974

THE DIGGER

Page 10 L ea d g uitarist R e d S y m o n s interview ed

without any particularly bad fea­ tures. She’s a perfect blank. A blank for identification.” Suzi Quatro is Britain’s latest female pop star; her recorded voice sounds like razor blades hacking through hessian — to the tune of a power drill. “ Liberace’s my favorite. He’s identified by his expensive clothes.

After that everything else about him is flippant. The thing of value in his performance is his clothes. In Skyhooks McAinsh plays this absurd, tough blank. Mechanised and asexual.

Blank. My character is one that has sort of evolved over a couple of roles; I guess it’s arrogant and foppish. I have no personal fears about whether I appear absurd or not. Similarly McAinsh and to some extent Freddy [the drummer] don’t have themselves tied up in their roles as far as favor or disfavor goes.

“The comment I’d like to make is that people bind so much up in style. But as soon as you start dressing up, like them, you realise that your own style, and others, is just a distraction from the bore­ dom of having a whole lot of ideas

the niaterial of his, own that the world got to hear, would be the one phrase, ‘In the bog’.” ;~ * “ You have to make certain con­ cessions to get into a recording studio in Australia. vYou become involved in a company that binds you to certain restrictions inherent in its power structure. Like appearing to conform to community stan­ dards of decency. You become in­ volved in a business that has a of ‘you’d better get a grip on competitive ethic as opposed to a yourself. That phrase has that absurd collective one. You’re competing Latin American chorus behind it. with businessmen which is a bit A single phrase that when given of a drag. You become very con­ the right coloring insidiously jus­ scious of their function.” Red reckons Michael Gudinski, the owner tifies itself.”

Set in a band where every other of his record company, should not song has a strong basis in personal pretend to be anything but the businessperson that he is. Gudinsjri experience, you’re tempted to look laughs guardedly and says he likes at the song closely. Red laughs and sparring with Red. cites the case of Lee Neale, a favorite “ I’d like to satirise PR. I don’t figure who played keyboards in think I concede too miich. PR Mike Rudd’s Spectrum during their makes the complete product out heyday. Neale only had one of his of a band. Take Suzi Quatro. She’s own songs performed by Spectrum, presented as one thing. Her body an instrumental with but one spoken is simplified by the leather clothes. phrase. “The synthesis of Lee Neale’s She has straight hair, she’s flat onstage personality, if you go by chested and has a . pleasant face

Ectomorphic rocker 1

I |:

by Alistair Jones Blind Date is a wholesome tele­ vision show of the variety that hands, out prizes and plays with mystery guests. A panel of uncoupled con­ testants answer silly questions, and if Fate plays its chocolate coated hand you’ll have the same matinee dreams as the suave but approach­ able mystery guest. If your num­ ber’s up, it’s off to the Tropicana Room or up to Tinsel Towers for a whacko night out, at a table so close to the floorshow you get showered with sequins. And the mystery guest. Wow! What a dish.

What a dream boat.

Last week on Blind Date the moment came for Cheryl, or per­ haps it was Moira — whatever her name was she said she wanted a white wedding and described her hair as medium length — to meet her blind date and collect a kiss.

The said blind date sprang from behind the partition and tried to bite her neck. The date was wearing lame and drapes, his leering face was heavily made up in lines of muscular innuendo after the fashion of a racy and irrepressible spidesnake. The girl — who’d flung a bit of purple glitter over her outfit to go on telly — recoiled in horror.

The date never got his box of choco­ lates; they were whisked away very smartly. Two mothers wrote in and suggested that people from church dubs are perhaps better choices for guests. And there* has been no fur­ ther mention of that projected night of whoopee at Dirty Dick’s spit and griddle.

The mystery guest on that night was Red Symons, a tall,, ectomorphic guitarist from a hard rock glitter band, Skyhooks. Skyhooks did the opening spot on Blind Date, and Symons did the personality appear­ ance. His initial entrance was in dark, sightless glasses and tapping cane. He wriggled and leered all over his chair. Never answered straight, took the time to fall asleep and grunt awake mid sentence, adopted a heavy Italinate accent here and there and eventually bit the girl. Other artists in the studio later abused his recklessness, the audience shrieked and giggled ;and compere Bobby Hanna, perpetually smiling Bobby Hanna, just kept smiling. “ I’ll always perform,” smiles Red. “ You just do. Sometimes it’s hard to find any other assurance of your own worth.”

Red is approaching 25, was once a science graduate, has been acting and playing for the last couple of years in the Carlton/Fitzroy area, played lead guitar for the first

Melbourne performance of Steve Spears’ Africa, and has been playing with Skyhooks for about six months.

Previous to Skyhooks he had his own band, Scumbag, which played around Carlton for a while, per­ forming some of Symons’ own bi­ zarre compositions, tinkering around with Dan Hicks’ material and playing with some musical sophistication.

Not widely heard. Before that Red played in “ Carlton bands” , which involves sitting around in warehouses all day, just playing. “ We rehearsed for six months and performed once.

Ah, we didn’t want to sully our hands with promoting work. Carlton bands are afraid of working class and business and that’s what a large part of being in a regularly playing band is about — the kids in the outer suburbs.”

Skyhooks is a pop band. They wear elaborate costumes and make up. They present a surreal, super style image and play repetitive songs bound more by points of intensity than melody. Greg McAinsh, who plays bass, writes almost all the material. “The songs are discon­ nected from the stage performance.

They’re incidents from McAinsh’s personal experiences that aren’t sur­ real, although the band is. I play guitar mostly; I don’t write the songs.”

The songs could make high energy pop radio music. “ It’s funny with radio music. There’s a definite split between lyrical content and musical content. Radio’s lyrical content is totally banal. Pick a phrase out of a song — a chorus maybe — that asserts an idea. Often the idea isn’t even very interesting. Forget about what the words are saying and pick the bits you like the sound of. Those lyrical statements are orchestrated in such a way to justify them.”

Skyhooks’ songs are marked by hook lines, usually the same as the title. Songs like “What ever happened to the revolution?” , “ You only love me because I’m good in bed” , “Toorak cowboy” , and “ You talk about love on the radio” .

Skyhooks is heading into the studio to record an album for Michael Gudinski’s MushroomHabel.

Ross Wilson, the original advocate for Skyhooks and publisher of Greg McAinsh’s songs, is producing it.

One of Red’s songs will be oh the album, and Skyhooks has recently begun including it in the onstage repertoire. The song, “ Smut” , is complex and constructed, a witty series of observations about going to see a sexy skin flick. “ It's! strictly light entertainment. It has the basis

Japanese Pankhurst Yonezu Tomoko, a graduate of the Tokyo Art University and a childhood sufferer from polio, was arrested on May 10 after she sprayed red paint on the bullet proof glass enclosing the Mona Lisa (on loan to Tokyo’s Uneo National Museum), as a protest against the extraordinary segregation of handicapped people from the mainstream of ‘normal’ Japanese life.

She spent 18 days in jail and has now been released to face charges of ‘creating a public disturbance’. , - .

Her protest, prompted by the exclusion of handicapped people from the exhibition, is reported here by a freelance journalist in Tokyo who interviewed Yonezu Tomoko recently.

In anticipation <?f massive crowds flocking to see the Mona Lisa, whose loan to Japan was one of the few fruits of Premier Tanaka Kakuei’s recent visit to France, Japan’s CulturalAffairs Ministry issued an order pro­ hibiting entrance to the exhibit of handicapped people with crutches or wheelchairs and women with small children. “ Safety” was cited as the reason for the prohibition, but when one of Japan’s leading newspapers questioned the justice of denying handicapped people access to the work of art, the decision was modified slightly and a “ Special Day for the Handicapped” was designated.

While handicapped citizens would continue to be barred on ordinary viewing days, on the “ Special Day” they would be permitted to enter the exhibition free. Entrance of women with young children was also permitted, but only if the women carried the children in their arms.

The “ Special Day for the Handi­ capped” took place as scheduled on May 10. Thousands of victims of polio, cerebral palsy, nervous diseases, and injured war veterans arrived in buses from all over the country, entered the museum, and enjoyed a few seconds in front of the Mona Lisa before being prodded on.

On the same day;' Ms Yonezu and a small group of other handi­ capped people and women activists staged a protest outside the gates

I

of the museum. They carried leaflets, posters, banners; several times Ms Yonezu lay down in front of the museum gates, symbolically demon­ strating her condemnation of a society which enforces segregation of the handicapped and the “ normal” even in the appreciation of art.

Media coverage of Ms Yonezu’s protests has been discriminatory and chauvinist. A graduate of Tokyo Art University, she was described in newspapers covering the events in terms which suggested she was not only physically handicapped but psychologically disturbed. Japan’s unique male oriented semipornographic comic magazines have been quick to subject her to ridicule.

An issue of Big Comic shows a cross eyed young woman spraying paint on the picture “ unable to contain her jealousy” — until she is carried off the scene (naturally, upside down with her bare legs waving) by two policepeople.

The interview was conducted in the Shinjuku Lib. Centre, a centre for activists in the women’s move­ ment, where Ms Yonezu is a member of a women’s collective. She is slender. and delicate, soft spoken and slightly tired after 18 days in jail and preparations for her defence.

She occasionally rested on a pillow while she talked, but answered ques­ tions with speed and precision. A childhood victim of polio, her right leg is in a brace.

“My purpose was not to prevent ^»andicapped visitors from viewing

that people don’t want to think about. So you dress up and think nothing. Skyhooks has picked up on the identity fetish.

“If the audience is made up of younger kids you tend to be more sensational. With an older/university intellectual audience you adopt the guise of being mysterious because an intelligent audignee will always project that there’s something there, and wonder what it is.”

History. “ My dad used to play guitar so there was always one lying about the house. I stumbled across a few things. Ah, “Gloria”, “ House of the Rising Sun” and “ Fortune Teller” in that order. Got a tape recorder. Started picking things out of songs. Got didactic. Interests then would have been Latin American music because of its rhythms and chord colors. It’s ludicrous really, but you are at the mercy of what your ears fall prey to. After a while it gets mutually exclusive so that anything that isn’t a 12 tone scale sounds oppressive; insidious, but it happens. After that there’s bands. “ I have been lucky in that I’ve lived with people who play. I guess

Above: Red inBrightonfU.K.) in the coronation year. “My father was a smudge worker - you know, taking people's photos and never sending them the prints after you've taken their money.

That's part o f the reason we came to Australia Left: Scumbag at La Mama Theatre. “Ah, a sensitive inverted period. ”

the Mona Lisa, but to express my outrage at the speiety which forces them to see it alone. Since April 20 ‘healthy people’ have been purchasing tickets and viewing the Mona Lisa, while handicapped people have been turned away. On May 10, the one day when handicapped people were able to enter the exhibition, ‘healthy’ people were turned away. “ In this sense, while my primary motive was to protect discrimination against handicapped people, my ges­ ture was on behalf of ‘healthy’ people as well, who are also victims of discrimination against the handi­ capped. In Japanese society, with its emphasis on superproductivity and speed', where every healthy, capable person is more 'or less worked to the bone, ordinary people will inevitably come to feel that handicapped people are in the way, require too much time, and so forth, and will gradually cool and harden their attitudes toward them. We, of course, often see this in the case of working mothers with babies,, too. It is the false barrier that a rapacious industrial machine places between human beings that I want to protest.

“The ‘Special Day’ was symbolic of the ‘divide and isolate’ process which goes on in Japanese society in other ways, too. The government graciously waives the 200 yen ad­ mission fee for its handicapped citi­ zens, while refusing to spend the money necessary to give them the kind of life where they could afford to pay that 200 yen just like any­ body else.” (Note: The Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry’s monthly stipend for handicapped citizens if 7,500 yen [about $17 Australian].)

“The government saw to it that the ‘Special Day’ was publicised well enough, but I don’t think the pub­ licity was really aimed at the handi­ capped people themselves. It was just to improve the image of the government among the public at large. Actually, I don’t think most handicapped people entered the mu­ seum without certain anxieties such people feel in places they don’t know well. Would they be able to use the bathroom facilities,' for

example, or emergency exits? But all of this was overlooked in the attempt to ‘dispose of the problem efficiently’ by herding them all through on one day.

institution above that with their families and friends. But they have no say. Their parents are just urged to think of them as a nuisance they would rather get off their hands.

“My act was a gesture of protest — no outrage — against the way the Mona Lisa was exhibited and the distorted values the exhibit re­ presented. ‘Shut out’ — those were the words that crystallised in my mind. The exhibition was just an­ other occasion to shut us out of the rest of society. “ Naturally many people found the action shocking. In fact, it was

“The whole idea ls like the scheme for ‘disposing of the problem’ of handicapped people in daily life by herding them into institutions so they won’t be in people’s way. You’ll notice in Japan that all propaganda about institutions for the handi­ capped is addressed to the parents.

Obviously, because if anyone con­ sulted the handicapped themselves, they would not choose life in an

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only after quite a bit of thought that I came to feel it was necessary for me to carry out this action.

It was in no way directed against the Mona Lisa as a work of art.

There seems to be undue confusion on this point. Although I maintained silence, the police were able to learn that I graduated from Tokyo Art University. ‘And you an ait student!’ they blinked self righteously.

“Why did I feel that I should be the one to challenge the insult to all handicapped Japanese? I felt that it was easier for me to act and accept the consequences than

I’pi at the stage where I’ve stopped listening to récords. After that it’s your contact with other poeple who play that’s important; people who have picked up a different single idea from diverse places. That’s the way it is with Skyhooks.”

Red Symons is very precise on stage. His solos sting and flick in spiralling lines. He slinks forward and pulls faces in sympathy with the notes. Sometimes a grimace, sometimes a sneer, a smug grin, a brief smile. “ It’s largely involun­ tary. I play much faster in Sky­ hooks than I have in any other band. But I feel free tò pull a face. You see other cultures where people have expressive faces that suggest a personal feeling. A straight face is a style, anyway. I sometimes feel like pulling faces at an audience because their faces appear so blank.

And it makes them giggle. Loosens ’em up a bit. “ I often feel that I should ra­ tionalise the situation of playing in a band, and its social implica­ tions. But that constrains what I feel I’d like to be doing. All I want to do is play enough stuff and learn enough, stuff to justify what I’m' doing. Like, Fm not making any money. But I can live quite 'easily on 30 bucks a week — I have for three or four years now. I buy nothing, really — per­ haps a bit of equipment. Life gets more expensive. This is the age of ' style and style is very throwaway. “ I suppose I’m guarded. You only have to look at what style is to see that most behavior is á shielded performance. People take on a particular persona because that’s what they want other people to see of them. In a band like Skyhooks you decide to become a particular character. You must be yourself but it’s a self in con­ text. I only take on that self when I’m playing. Of course it’s an act, like everything else. “ I remember quite vividly, the moment before going onstage on Blind Date. The floor manager came round the corner and spotted me in dark glásses with a blind man’s cane, in spite of our earlier con­ versations. “ Alright,” he said, “you can wear the glasses but don’t tap the cane. Of course I did but they shot it in close up and you couldn’t see the carie. I knew they weren’t going to like it, I’d suggested it earlier as some sort of initial at­ tempt at communication — you know, you’ve got a few ideas, I’ve got a few ideas — and they’d knocked it on the head. Most people in situations like that show comply out of involuntary nervousness. The conditions,you’re working, under are so strong. -But" I knew I’d just have to assert it; assert that I have a few ideas too. After all, I wouldn’t want to appear trapped.”

And at the end of the show smiling Bobby Hanna came up to Red and slapped him on the back. “ Not hard enough to cause pain, just enough to notice it. And as he smiled he said, “ You bugger!” ”

for most other handicapped people.

Since I am able to walk, I could enter the exhibit myself, while others would have been turned away. I have no children or family, who would suffer by my absence in jail.

And I knew I could rely on my friends in the collective for help and support. But I don’t want to justify the action as haying been merely personally necessary for me.

In the final analysis, it was Japanese society which demanded and made necessary the action by its inhuman, treatment of handicapped persons.”

—New Asia News.

tangerinedream

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THE DIGGER

May 30 — June 1 3 ,1 9 7 4

Page-11-

WILLIEDIXON-agoodshow

20BUCKSINATRA Sinatra.

Tickets - there are three sorts, $20, $15 and $10 - will be sold by mail order only. There’s a four seat limit on each application.

Applications:

For 20 dollars we’ll be able to hudd­ le amongst the rats and rotting gymboots in the front section of Festival Hall and hear the grand old chairman of the board, Frank Sinatra. “ I knew that I had to play Australia when I returned to the world of one-night stands.” said Frankie baby. lsTo me, Australia is the new frontier...the new world... and I’m anxiously looking forward to the dates there.”

The Australian tour will begin on July 9 and 10 at Festival Hall in Melbourne and then move to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on July 14 and 15. Each date will be for one concert only. Don Costa and his orchestra will accompany

with Carey Bell’s harmonica. It good show. tool? some time for the band to Unfortunately we didn’t hear Funny thing about Australian Buster Benton sing again and the warm up. Dixon looked around bands, they just start to get good darkly when Lafayette Peak came in band used Bell for a second voice. and then they decide to split up.

Benton then seemed to stay in the with a weak piano lead, and he What is it that keeps some bands background except for a couple of came in better next time. Freddie going for 20 years before they make Dixon on electric bass looked and B. B. King breaks. He seemed un­ it? After being together for five comfortable when not out in front, stayed lost for the rest of the night. years Chain played its last bracket as did Bell, which caused some Then guitarist Buster Benton at Festival Hall at the Melbourne rough patches. I guess they weren’t brought it together with a tough Willie Dixon concert. Lead guitarist “ Sweet Sixteen” . as good as the Muddy Waters Blues Phil Manning was playing much Band, that’s all. Drummer Clifton Willie Dixon leaned over the more smoothly than when I last saw microphone and began to sing James is likely to get lost as he’s a him at the Muddy Waters concert. real backing musician, but he kept “ Little Red Rooster” as it was Maybe he learnt from that tour. solid all night. before 1965. And then to lay the Chain were all over the place then * * * audience back, “ Spoonful” . It was a and it was embarrassing to watch the Muddy Waters Blues Band just glide on and slide into really smooth blues.

We got to the concert a little late hoping that ‘Australian singer of the blues’ Matt Taylor was on first. He was on second and we ‘copped the lot cobber’. A harmonica played like it was a trombone, a chunkity guitar and a raucous voice took us to Queensland and Beechworth. For­ tunately I had decided it was time for a smoke just as he came on, so most of it missed me.

The grand piano was wheeled up, the drums adjusted, and on rolled Willie Dixon and the Chicago Blues All Stars. A heavyweight boxer in the late ’30s, and at 60 a big big guy, Willie Dixon walked on with his double bass tucked under his Osibisa — tour starts June 2 at Festival Hall arm. They moved into a meet the group number and then took off

by Grant Evans

Sydney — Hordern Pavilion GPO Box 4317 Sydney. 2001.

Me lb — Melbourne Sports Depot, , GPO Box 804F, Melbourne. 3001.

Yes, ol’ moneybags is back and will be mining his blue eyes through this, the new frontier in the second week of July. * * *

M e lb o u rn e M - is F b W o r k s h o p ,.

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Willie Dixon — a heavyweight boxer in the ‘30’s. Now 60,

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