CPA - Party Statements

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) stands in solidarity with the First Nations people of Australia and their organisations in demanding an end to the systemic racism. The Central Committee extends its sympathy to the families of First Nation adults and children who have unnecessarily died in custody. We condemn the senseless loss of life and the heartache inflicted on First Nations’ families and communities.

Continuing our longstanding support for the struggle of First Nations people for their rights and against oppression, the CPA participated in mass rallies across Australia calling for justice and accountability for deaths in custody.

Despite the recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Aboriginal deaths in custody have risen steeply. There have been no convictions for any officers and leaders responsible for these deaths and no one has been held to account.

Governments complicit in a culture of racist police violence

The ongoing police violence against First Nations people across Australia is condoned by governments who are intent on continuing the suppression of First Nation peoples, their way of life and their struggle for land and cultural rights. The collusion of law enforcement, the state, and capitalism culminate in a system where First Nations’ lives do not matter.

First Nations people and their communal way of life disrupt the pursuit of private property and private profits. Capitalism fragments Indigenous societies and rights to land in the interests of mining and pastoral corporations, and multinationals. The recent destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal sacred site in Western Australia, by Rio Tinto, was excused by the Australian Government at the same time as they were voicing objections to the Black Lives Matter protest movement in Australia.

Capitalism uses racism as a tool to divide people and it profits from this division. Racism also deflects criticism away from the capitalist class in times of crisis. This is evident in the United States where the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown laws have had disproportionate impacts on the lives of Afro- American and Latino people.

Racial divisions create disunity in the community and, among workers, it weakens the struggle of the working class against capitalism. These divisions are promoted between migrant communities as well as within First Nation communities. This disunity means the bosses can intensify their exploitation of workers, reducing wages to feed their ever increasing profits. This is most blatant with the historical theft of Aboriginal workers’ wages over decades by State and Federal governments in Australia.

Colonial dispossession of First Nations’ land, killing communities, the banning of language and culture which began 232 years ago attempted to eliminate and assimilate First Nation communities so capitalists can destroy the collective nature of First Nations’ society and the communal ownership of land in Australia. This attack continues today with the Intervention in the Northern Territory where wages, control over their lives and responsibility are stolen from the community. A key action has been the theft and dispossession of land that can only benefit mining corporations.

The CPA calls for:

The immediate implementation of all the recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody by Federal, State and Territory governments across Australia
Australian government coordination with the states and territories to instigate criminal investigations in all First Nations’ deaths in custody cases. This should be done in coordination with First Nations’ families and organisations who must be funded and supported to oversee and inform these investigations.
Australian government to prosecute all law enforcement officers responsible for First Nation Deaths in Custody.
Aboriginal Land Rights and support for the communal ownership of the land by the traditional owners.

The CPA recognises that systemic racism and racist violence are indelibly linked to a capitalist system that thrives on racism. It acknowledges that the capitalist way of life is antithetical to First Nations communal societies. It is only with socialism that First Nations’ societies, lives and relationships with land can be safeguarded and honored.

CPA Central Committee

The Pandemic and the Crisis are separating

CPA CC statement

June 2020

While the infection rate in Australia seems to be largely under control the Government has set about taking further measures that will deepen the suffering of the working people.

In the transition to the return to work, the government subsidy of childcare instigated as part of the COVID-19 pandemic Emergency Relief Package is to end on 12th July. The Jobkeeper wage subsidy to “childcare services” will also end on 20th July. This breaks the earlier pledge announced in early April to keep subsidies for childcare in place for 6 months.

While in operation the system has been fraught with funding problems, with some providers not meeting the test for payments, and those that did being ineligible to claim for casual and visa holder workers. The Coalition government had promised that Jobkeeper and free early childhood education would run until September.

The government is abandoning the early crisis consensus that healthy social relationships needed to be maintained during the emergency, and is returning to its ideological stance of anti-worker, pro-capital policies that privilege reactionary attitudes to gender, race and class. This latest retraction of funds will hit women especially hard.

That early childhood education should be seen as a profit-making endeavour rather than a social priority is shameful. The industry’s workforce is 97% female and among the lowest paid workers in Australia. Workers in the sector are highly skilled and play a vital role in the early years of children. To call them “childcare” workers as the government does undervalues the important role they play in society. These workers are not only undervalued for the important work and their professional skills; they are also underpaid.

A child’s early education should not be based on a family’s ability to pay for it, this simply means that the inequities of capitalism will reproduce themselves. The free early childhood education, a measure that would be expected of a socialist government, greatly benefited many women, enabling many of them to remain at work or to work at home.

The abolition of free early childhood education is a regressive measure and will not only bring hardship to workers in this sector it will punish those who have contributed to beating the pandemic. The Communist Party of Australia advocates for social provision before profit, for childcare based on children’s education and development, for families being given the best opportunities to create meaningful, stable lives for themselves. The Communist party calls for the retention of free early childhood education.

The re-introduction of fees, without warning and in contradiction of previous policy, puts “childcare” out of the reach of families struggling economically during a time of recession. It will prevent many women (the primary carers of children) from returning or remaining in the workforce and will result in the closure of centres.

This cut must also be put into the context of the current winding back of other social provisions introduced to mitigate against the worse aspects of the lockdown. With the interests of business and reducing the likely budget deficit foremost in mind, the government has begun relaxing restrictions introduced to control the pandemic. The Communist Party advocates for a society that empowers women, that gives them same opportunities as men, that recognises their essential role in building of a new world for all.

The Communist Party of Australia demands a more comprehensive set of measures to reverse the growing poverty in the community including an extension in both coverage and time of JobKeeper and JobkSeeker, and free early child education. Workers will not pay for the crisis.

Central Committee

Homebuilder Scheme Statement

CPA Central Commmittee

June 9, 2020

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Morrison Coalition government’s Homebuilder Scheme.

The politically motivated $688 million scheme was opportunistically launched in the Eden Monaro seat during the by-election, an insult as it will do little to help the fire affected community rebuild. It falls way short of what is needed to support jobs and meet housing requirements for the community across the country. Housing is a right not a commodity.

There is only one thing that will create affordable housing and address the current housing crisis: “a revival of public housing and a revolution in how it is used”. Nothing but a massive and ongoing infusion of high-quality, publicly owned and managed housing of diverse types must replace the inefficiency and choking dominance of the unaffordable private market.

It is an imperative that the proposed Homebuilder scheme be redirected to the building of public housing. The current scheme announced by the PM is a sham policy, without Parliamentary approval with the stated aim of stimulating the private construction industry. The qualifying requirements for the grants are so poorly thought through that eligible applicants will be highly restricted. Many will be unable to get the highly publicised $25,000. Those most in need will not have $150,000 to spend on renovations. The scheme only runs for six months so it will eliminate many attempting to rebuild in bush fire areas. Also, six months is a tall order to get a planning and building approvals through any council.

This scheme does not attempt to challenge or eliminate homelessness in Australia. Every night tens of thousands of Australians sleep on the streets and this number continues to rise. How can this Homebuilder scheme even start to turn around the growing housing gap?

The CPA demands that existing and new housing developments be taken over by government and turned into public housing projects urgently needed in all states and territories. This will require billions of dollars of public investment. It will create much needed well paid jobs to alleviate the precarious conditions which the market forces of capitalism have delivered to too many people.

Post pandemic, the government must take up the responsibility of lifting the country out of the recession. Only a public sector-led recovery can provide for the interests of workers and their families. Housing construction is one way to create jobs creation while also providing community benefit. Other measures include building public schools and hospitals, staffing and equipping them adequately, research and development of renewable energy sources, and providing the necessary funding that is required to save the tens of thousands of jobs that are at stake in our universities. There is a pressing need to provide such infrastructure to remote Indigenous communities.

The CPA demands universal accessible public housing and the redirection of the Homebuilder scheme to the building publicly owned and managed housing as a matter of urgency.

The CPA also demands the sales of public land, public housing and public sector work be stopped, and government funds be directed to maintenance work on existing public housing stock.

The CPA calls on government at all levels and the opposition to involve the community, unions and advocacy groups currently dealing with the housing crisis to find an adequate solution to the housing crisis.

CPA Central Committee

Communist Party of Australia condemns Police brutality following Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney

CPA Sydney District Committee media release

June 7, 2020

The Sydney District Committee (SDC) of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) condemns the instances of police brutality and corresponding conduct by the NSW police force following yesterday's ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) protest in Sydney. Following the peaceful protest attendees were forced into Central Station where pepper spray was used without warning against non-violent protesters and observers, including a woman on crutches. This act of brutality by the police cannot be justified and is a contemptible act of violence.

The SDC also notes that forcing a large group of people into a tightly enclosed space and spraying noxious irritant chemicals is unhygienic and deeply irresponsible in the context of the global pandemic of COVID-19, the context that the NSW government and police previously attempted to use to outlaw the BLM protest. The SDC of the CPA condemns this flagrant disregard of public health and safety.

The massive ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest march in Sydney on Saturday afternoon was peaceful. In this context the conduct by the NSW police force later on Saturday night was shameful. The actions of protestors throughout this time consisted of the passionate chanting of political slogans and passive resistance. This was observed by CPA members. This sorry incident at Central Station was not inevitable and was escalated due to heavy handed police measures.

Over 40,000 people, including many members of the Communist Party marched yesterday in support of the black lives matters movement and in defiance of attempts by the NSW government and the NSW Police Force to suppress this march. In Australia over 400 aboriginal people have died in custody since the 1990. Aboriginal people face daily discrimination and harassment by police. Many members of Pacific Islander, African and Arab communities face similar oppressions daily. The use of violence by the police against young people, mostly of minority backgrounds will only further inflame tensions in the community.

In these times of COVID-19 where people are losing their livelihoods due to it, it is only natural the people will take to the street to voice the demand for democratic rights, economic equity and social justice. A democratic society is one that would celebrate civic participation and engagement of this kind. A truly democratic society would act on the demands of the people for justice rather than attempt to police them into oblivion. The Communist Party of Australia will always stand in solidarity with the oppressed working peoples of the world.

Contact: Daniel Fisher - 0450 787 346,
Secretary of the Sydney District Committee

THE GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED US.

THE SYSTEM HAS FAILED US

CPA statement on the government’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic

April 2020

The coronavirus was brought into Australia by travellers from other countries, yet for weeks they were simply allowed to get off planes and ships without any government screening, at most being told to self-isolate for fourteen days. The onus was put on the individual traveller. This did not work. The government’s inaction led to the virus spreading throughout the country and people dying.

Why were travellers from Europe and the US (who have contributed to seventy-five per cent of our imported cases) not quarantined much earlier on, given the early signs of cases being imported from the US, including prominent Hollywood actors and Peter Dutton? The government was complicit in further endangering peoples’ lives by its complete mishandling of the docking of the Ruby Princess cruise ship at Sydney.

Where has our government been in the need to protect frontline health workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) and resources, including ICU beds and ventilators, now with the looming health crisis? It has many questions to answer.

Where are the billions of dollars, they’ve taken out of Medicare every year; are they coming back? Why are thirty per cent of ICU beds and ventilators now transferred to the private hospitals?
Where are our scientists including the CSIRO scientists that were forced out due to government cuts? Why has science and disaster readiness been such a low priority over the years?
Where was our government when our children and teachers were left at school without screening or temperature checks, and even without adequate sanitation facilities like soap and sanitisers? Where is the government’s temperature screening and sanitising teams in the community – at schools or factories, in the mines or offices?
How can the government shut down Parliament for six months to protect themselves and avoid public scrutiny – but mine workers must continue to FIFO to keep the mineral bosses happy?

Under what law can the government shut down Parliament for six months and hand over decision-making to a group of business magnates? The government has no concern for the people, and every concern for the financial and corporate world.

The CPA reiterates our more comprehensive list of demands in our statement of the 16th March 2020, and calls for a stop to all profiteering from the people’s suffering during the emergency. The bankrolling of the private sector and the multinationals must stop. Instead, guarantee the essential areas of the economy by nationalising the health system, the banks, Qantas, the supermarkets, and other essential services like aged care and early childhood education.

MILITARY SPENDING

COVID-19 represents the biggest threat to Australian security in living memory. To properly defend ourselves, we need the full resources of the military defence budget to be used to defend the people against the virus.

We must turn the submarines into ventilators, into hospital beds and into personal protective equipment for our frontline workers.

We must turn the strike fighter jets into building surge capacity in our hospitals for the looming crisis in the health system.

Now is the time to use our taxes more wisely. It is not the time to spend them on military “toys for the boys.” Taxpayers’ money is needed to feed and house the people, and to ensure that they get the healthcare they need, when they need it.

Our government has failed us. They did it during the firestorms that raged across Australia. They are doing it now with COVID-19, but this time we will not accept a government that leaves us alone “with buckets and hoses”.

We need a people’s government.

Communist Party of Australia, CPA
Central Committee

Message in solidarity with President Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan people

CPA International Department

March 30, 2020

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) condemns in the strongest possible terms the recent trumped up charges of narco-terrorism on President Nicolas Maduro and other top government officials of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Putting a price on the head of a legitimate president is a very dangerous precedent. It can only be compared to the past overthrowing of governments and assassination of leaders, including military invasions organised, sponsored and carried out by the United States in Latin America, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

The world is currently calling for the end of blockades and sanctions imposed on some 39 countries including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, DPRK, Syria and others to help them deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Trump Administration has responded with more sanctions and other atrocities such as the accusations against the government of Venezuela for example.

Venezuela has seen their resources stolen or frozen by the financial system controlled by the United States. Billions of dollars that belong to the Venezuelan people have been blocked which could be used to purchase food, medicines and medical equipment.

The people of the world are suffering with the COVID-19 pandemic and it requires international cooperation to be able to eradicate the pandemic.

The sanctions must be lifted and these latest attempts to overthrow the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro have to cease.

The CPA joins the international community in demanding that the economic sanctions on Venezuela be lifted and that recognition be given of the legitimate government lead by President Nicolas Maduro.

The CPA stands in solidarity with President Nicolas Maduro, his government and the people of Venezuela in these difficult times of the coronavirus pandemic.

Humanity shall overcome!

The COVID-19 Pandemic

CPA Central Committee Statement

March 2020

Covid-19 is spreading throughout much of the world, largely as a consequence of the failure of capitalism to solve any crisis. The Communist Party of Australia recognises the significant contribution made by health workers at the frontline of this developing pandemic and stands in solidarity with them, along with working class victims, denied their basic human rights, and all people fighting for universal access to life’s needs.

Whilst the structural contradictions of capitalism require revolutionary transformation of society into one of ensuring the health and safety of the global population, it is necessary to combat this current crisis in ways immediately available to us. Governments across Australia have been too slow to act, relying on market forces, including manipulating the stock market to stop the haemorrhaging of the economy, instead of investing to stop the health impacts of the latest pandemic.

Reforming those aspects of the health care sector driven by the profit motive. Immediate steps can be made to eliminate the waste, speculation and commodification of private health care through the nationalisation of the entire sector. Health care is a right and the Communist Party calls upon parliament to legislate universal access to all our medical requirements.

Meanwhile, the economic impact of the virus is already hitting Australian workers and communities.

We can benefit from the experience of China in dealing with the Coronavirus involving drastic social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus. This has shown to be an effective approach with the number of new cases reducing daily. It would be wise to look to their model and consult them for advice.

The duty of the government in this scenario is three-fold: protection of the people from the COVID-19 virus, responsibility for providing the necessary treatment for those who are hit by the virus and protection of the people from the economic impact of the virus.

We strongly believe that a 2-week shut down must be implemented now alongside the following:

Governments, State and Federal must implement a sound containment policy. The health and safety of the people must be the top priority in implementing such a policy, especially those most vulnerable. Ensuring hoarding of essential items, price gouging and other deliberate profiteering must be minimised to the extent possible through legislative change. Continuously rewarding greed must be abolished now.
The government must ensure a public educational outreach about the disease using electronic and print media to subdue the current confusion that has come with the panic and media overload.
Unions must be at the forefront of working-class responses to this latest failure and crisis. It is essential that workers at the frontline such as health care workers be involved in the decision-making processes through their unions. Legislating for workers ability to strike against unfair employer practices during this period is essential to minimising abuses, exploitation and further employment insecurity and attacks on wages and conditions. Workers must not pay for capitalisms crises.
Many people are already feeling the brunt of the pandemic losing jobs or having their hours reduced resulting in lost income. We demand the government abolish waiting periods for unemployment benefits. We support the demand for an increase of $95 to Newstart as an immediate measure to reduce the pain experienced by working class people. We demand that no worker is disadvantaged as a consequence of this crisis made worse by government inaction.
The CPA endorses the ACTU demand for special paid leave for all workers in case of quarantine or lock down, including casual and labour hire workers. The government’s stimulus package with a one-off payment to welfare recipients falls short of the assistance required, and does nothing but provide a band-aid instead of meaningful distribution of wealth protecting the vulnerable and minimising community.
Governments must also ensure people are not forced into homelessness through an inability to pay mortgages or rent. Banks must be forced to suspend mortgage/rent payments. Emergency housing must become a top government priority, programs such as these will not only ensure a persons’ right to housing, but also significantly increase employment and affordable housing.
Testing and treatment of the virus must be universally accessible and free. Governments need to redirect funds towards health care centres and hospitals as a top priority. Bulk-billing by doctors and pathologists should be compulsory and the government must temporarily convert private hospitals for public use as long as the crisis lasts.
Employers and in this instance the government are required to provide a heathy and safe workplace. Workers and workplace health and safety is a crucial issue that workers need to be consulted about and new protections put in place to protect workers and the public. This is a key industrial issue across all industries. This requires the immediate developed new safety practices, supply of resources and workers compensation recognition.
The Australian government also has a global role. Currently there are countries under sanctions limiting access to medical supplies, including Cuba, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In light of the global pandemic Australia must play its role to end these criminal blockades and allow these countries to import the much-needed supplies.
We salute the efforts and solidarity of Cuban, Chinese and Venezuelan doctors and other health professionals who despite the US economic sanctions are working in Italy helping the people with care and medicines such as Cuba’s Interferon 2b to overcome the current pandemic.

The government appears to have no logistical planning in place to develop the capacity required to deal with the crisis confronting the health system in Australia. Without the critical planning for emergency beds, staffing, face masks and respirators in place to treat the potentially thousands of critically ill patients’ we risk having to make choices like in Italy as to who will live or die. Who will confront the panic and guarantee supplies and support to people in the community stranded and isolated when sent home without an income?

The Communist Party of Australia will work with all organisations seeking to ensure that the working class does not pay for the crises being inflicted upon us all as a result of capitalist exploitation of the people and nature to secure riches for the ruling class. We will work with all organisations nationally and internationally who will defend universal access to life’s needs including best available health care to protect us against these escalating global crises.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Communist Party of Australia (CPA)
Central Committee
16th March 2020

Climate Emergency Fighting for our lives!

CPA Statement

February 2020

The chaotic nature of capitalist markets has brought the planet to the current predicament of growing poverty, growing water and food stresses, spreading desertification, ocean acidity and more frequently occurring natural disasters. As well we see the rapid extinction of many species of animals and plants that fall victim to the disasters or can’t adapt quickly enough to the changes.

The capitalist economic system ignores the material realities that all production ultimately depends on the use of materials drawn from the natural world, and all waste from production and consumption eventually finds its way into the environment. The current state of climate instability is the greatest ever market failure.

Sustainable development must be a priority goal, not only for the survival of the human race but also for life as we know it. This is only possible through the democratic social control of the means of production, rational planning and production for people’s needs.

These issues are completely antagonistic to capitalism; a system that generates environmental disasters, unemployment and wars. Socialism offers the scope and means that capitalism does not have to solve the environmental crisis and to deliver a sustainable planet for all.

Workers must be part of climate solutions, and benefit from just and equitable transition programs. To free themselves from the climate chaos workers and trade unions must be bold and join with other groups to fight for system change. This will not happen without struggle.

The history of the coming decades has to be one of massive environmental struggles, alongside the struggles for workers’ rights and to save humanity from exploitation and oppression. Workers and their communities must draw on the tactics of working-class struggle to win urgent action on climate change and material wins for the working class.

Governments doing the bidding of their corporate masters are running fierce political and media campaigns to confuse and divide the people about who are responsible and who are victims of the environmental problems.

Large capitalist media lobbyists point the finger at the working-class families for their habits while the interests of certain sections of monopoly capital are left untouched. This dangerous idea lulls otherwise socially minded individuals into the illusion that individual-level decisions alone are the solution to the environmental crisis. The Australian government talks about mitigation and adaption.

Adaption as a solution is flawed by the same false premise as growth being without limits and mitigation through technology while bound to profits will not deliver.

The scientific and technological development of technology for reducing carbon emissions, mitigation and renewables remains in the hands of the big corporations whose primary reason for such technology is profits. Western governments have failed to provide the means for such technology in developing countries in line with their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. These developments have the prime objectives of fuelling profits and green-washing their supply chain to appear as environmentally friendly to their consumers.

The Communist Party of Australia demands for technological development to address the climate crisis be in the hands of the people. There must be a redistribution of wealth to combat global inequality created by climate change and a process of a just transition for workers.

The CPA demands the Australian government to commit to zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The CPA campaigns for an end to the capitalist system, an end to the wars that see the US military emerge as the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in history.

The CPA calls for global cooperation, a sharing of knowledge and technological resources, the immediate commencement to building the infrastructure required to support an energy and transport system based on 100 percent renewable energy.

Communist Party of Australia.

Coronavirus

CPA statement

February 2020

The Chinese government has set an outstanding example to the world with its measures to tackle the novel coronavirus and act with transparency. These outstanding measures include the building of two hospitals in weeks, staffing and equipping them, which only a country governed by a communist party could do.

China has put the health of people first, acting to limit the spread to contain the virus to Wuhan City and Hubei Province through high level preventative measures.

Residents in the epicentre of the epidemic have been quarantined in an attempt to contain the virus. The government is stressing the importance of preventative measures and hygiene. The China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing is about to lead a clinical trial on the treatment of the virus with the drug Remdesivir in Wuhan to fight the epidemic there.

China wasted no time in notifying the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the outbreak and has since kept the international community up to date.

According to health authorities only two percent of cases reported have resulted in death and most of these were associated with people the elderly or those with pre-existing health issues such as compromised immune systems.

Western governments, Australia included, instead of being among the first to offer assistance and show compassion have turned the coronavirus into a political weapon for China-bashing. They are using the situation to fuel racism and xenophobia that not only divides the working class but serves their wider political and military agenda.

The evacuation of Australians from Wuhan Province to Christmas Island is a political exercise, one that cynically reinforces the beat-up that can later be used as justification for keeping open detention facilities on Christmas Island at great expense to Australian taxpayers.

The shutting down of Australian borders to people coming from China unless they are Australian citizens or residents is another political act that reeks of hypocrisy. These people returning to Australia will be trusted to self-quarantine for two weeks on their arrival. Where is the logic in allowing them in and not, for example, allowing Chinese students in and trusting them to self-quarantine?

There is no logic. It is part of the hype that is being built up to frighten the public. The government should instead be putting its energy into expressing solidarity and cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, as requested by the World Health Organisation. It should also be directing its energy into educating the public about basic health measures such as washing hands and sneezing or coughing into elbows.

Tourism, agriculture and education are amongst Australia’s top exports to China. The multibillion-dollar tourism and education sectors are already feeling the pinch from the travel restrictions imposed by the government. The toll of the bushfires on agriculture is yet to be revealed, but it looks set to be considerable.

The Communist Party of Australia extends its heartfelt sympathy to those affected by the virus and demands the Australian government put aside its ideological and political differences with the Communist Party of China and offer to assist.

We also ask, does Australia have the plans and facilities in place to deal with such an epidemic here? Christmas Island is not the answer.

Vinnie Molina
International Department

The TKP and the people of Turkey

Solidarity

January 2020

Communist Party of Turkey, TKP
Central Committee

Dear comrades,

The Communist Party of Australia offers its condolences for the precious lives lost as a result of the earthquake in Elazig province of Turkey. We also extend solidarity to our comrades in the Communist party of Turkey, and the Turkish people in general, who are working to deal with the devastation caused.

It is no surprise that your capitalist government paid no heed to the warnings of experts. We have experienced it recently as Australia’s government ignores warnings of climate change-induced disasters and refuse to heed the experts. We see it is not human welfare but the private accumulation of profit that drives the policies of our governments.

In dealing with this catastrophe the CPA sends its working-class solidarity, please let us know if we can be of any help.

In solidarity,

Vinnie Molina
International Department

The assassination of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani

CPA statement

January 2020

Another US act of war The Communist Party of Australia condemns in the strongest possible terms the US assassination of Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani and 12 other people in Iraq.

On 2nd January 2020, the Trump Administration recklessly escalated its aggression against Iran by the drone assassination of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, Commander of Iran Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force. The assassination, ordered directly by President Trump, is a war crime by any definition, violating both Iraqi sovereignty and international law. This criminal act carelessly risked sparking a wider, catastrophic war that would involve many nations and put millions of lives at risk.

The US claimed the assassination was an act of pre-emptive self-defence. Tehran called it an act of international terrorism and vowed revenge. Massive demonstrations mourning the death of Soleimani and the Iraqi militia commanders, also killed in this attack, were held in both Iraq and Iran.

The action of the Trump administration takes place when he is on the verge of an impeachment trial in the US Senate for his abuse of power; and Americans have entered into a presidential election year.

The US has invaded and initiated war on more than a dozen countries since the beginning of this century and has imposed coercive sanctions — economic warfare — on dozens, all in violation of international law. We should recognise that today the US is the greatest threat to peace in the world. The US undertakes regular acts of terrorism to disrupt peaceful development and to advance capitalism and military industrial complex.

Iraq's Parliament held an extraordinary session on Sunday 5th January, directing the government to end the presence of foreign troops and to lodge an official complaint against the US over the killing of Qassem Soleimani and its citizens. The Prime Minister revealed that he was scheduled to meet with Soleimani the same morning the general was killed in an airstrike in Baghdad. The PM said, that the US assassination was a "flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty" and an insult to the dignity of his country.

The Communist Party of Australia offers its condolences to the people of Iran and Iraq for their losses.

The CPA demands the Morrison government withdraw Australian troops from Iraq and any support troops from the Straits of Hormuz.

The CPA demands an end to the US military alliance and the end of joint military operations and US bases from Australian soil.

The CPA calls upon all of the progressive, freedom and peace loving people from Australia and across the world, to further their efforts to mobilise world public opinion against the escalation of tensions and the dangerous and lethal military conflicts that could endanger more than just the Middle East region.

No to War on Iran!

Communist Party of Australia

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