In Sydney's Sun Herald there's a graph of unemployment in Europe with the title "Painful
Recovery" it has percentages from Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the overall EU.It
says "Monthly unemployment. Ireland's unemployment is no longer surging but that is
largely because 1600 people emigrate every week to find work". So apparently all that guff
about how generous social welfare is in Ireland is a lie, as thousands seek work elsewhere
and quite a few in Australia. (Sunday March 10th page 29). ---- Sydney is a vast city of
over 4 million, the economic boom in Australia is driven by the phenomenal growth of the
Chinese economy and their hunger for australian mineral resources - everything else flows
from that. Indeed the crash experienced in Europe and the US barely caused a ripple here.
Consequences of the boom however are not all positive, the mining industry has a huge
influence on government policy and the money sloshing around the banks combined with
government policy has given rise to a huge housing bubble, familiar territory if your
Irish. The average house price in Sydney is $657,000 (About 500,000 euro) so out of reach
of australian workers whose average wage is just short of $1000 per week. A consequence is
a huge increase in the rental market which is also overpriced. Consequently you have the
phenomena of immigrants living in hostels and working from them as there is a housing
shortage for low and medium priced rents. The government doesn't build a lot of social
housing either and there is a degree of social stigma attached to being a resident of same.
The Irish have arrived in numbers, about 20,000 a year on working holiday visas and
another 5,000 last year on 457visas (skilled workers sponsored by employer). Of course
there are countless others here "on holiday". There is certainly work available as the
unemployment rate is low. There is resentment building up amongst certain sections of the
population against skilled foreign labour getting jobs in the mining sector and this is
being cynically exploited by the politicians.
My own experience of Sydney is a fairly positive where being Irish is a bonus. Plenty of
sites worth seeing, the city is ethnicly quiet diverse, but it is obvious that the "White
Australia" policy of previous years did effect demographics here. After settling in I went
to visit Jura books ( http://jura.org.au/ ) an anarchist bookshop going over 30 years and
now settled on Parramatta Road. It is an impressive set up with a very good selection of
books, a library, anarchist archive, printshop and kitchen. The space is used for
political discussions, meetings, film showings, gigs etc. Staffed by volunteers the
collective has weathered many storms and is growing at the moment.
The first demonstration I was on was the 9th anniversary march for justice for TJ Hickey
on February 14th. TJ Hickey was a 17 year old aboriginal boy who died after his bike was
clipped by a police car that was chasing him and he ended up impaled on an iron fence in
Redfern where he lived and died. The Redfern riots followed his death. His family aided by
aboriginal rights activists and others have been pressing for a reopening of the inquiry
into his death that absolved the police. The march at 1030am on a working day attracted
about 300 people. His mother is still visibly grieving his loss and this was quite an
emotional occasion. Several speakers spoke angrily of the treatment of the aboriginal
community by the Australian state and it's forces.
Aborigines today make up less that 4% of the population and are over represented in terms
of social deprivation and prison population. Redfern has been largely gentrified as a part
of government policy since 2004, but the two social housing tower blocks still dominate
the area. The march was a good eye opener into the nature of the states attitude to the
aborigines, an antidote to the many public buildings that fly the aboriginal flag, shops
that sell original aboriginal art and the frequent empty apologies from politicians. The
bottom line is the land was stolen and not been given back. I promised myself to explore
more the issues around this in Australia over the next while.
I went along to a few sessions of politics in the pub (http://politicsinthepub.org.au/ )
a lefty kinda discussion night. The format is of two speakers then questions, little
tolerance for making interventions, is a little bit flawed in my opinion, but nonetheless
the sessions are informative. The first one I went to was about the issue of coal seam gas
exploration a very fraught issue here given the power of the mining industry. The session
was spoiled by the MP from the Green party on the platform who was on a re election
campaign it seemed, constantly blowing his own trumpet. The Green party have just quit
government with the Labour party here, seeing the writing on the wall, the greens are seen
as the left party here. Whilst in government, Australia continued it's military presence
in Afghanistan in support of the US and continue to hold refugees in concentration camps
on Narau and Manus Islands as part of it's racist "pacific solution" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Pacific_Solution ). The last politics in the pub meeting on
the new Chinese communist leadership was a bit more interesting. The policy of questions
rather than comments isn't really conducive to debate and the start time of 6pm militates
against workers, consequently the audience is overwhelming pensioners or those living
nearby, nonetheless an interesting evening on occasion.
Saturday March 9th saw an international women's day march in Sydney (
http://sydneyiwd.com/ ). As the anrchists hadn't a contingent organised I marched with the
James Connolly Society who were highlighting the continue internment of Marian Price. The
march had over 1,000 present and raised the issues of equal pay, equal treatment for
migrant workers, reproductive rights, violence against women etc. the march was led by low
wage women migrant workers. A few unions came along and the speakers were very good in
general, but rallying at Circular Quay under the rail lines was a mistake as it was hard
to hear and most people drifted off, even the various trotskyites left after making
concerted efforts to recruit the members of the James Connolly Society.
Sydney also has an active branch of the IWW and I hope to get along to some of their
events and activities.
That's all for now from down under.
This article is the full version of the extract published in
Workers Solidarity 129, April May 2013
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» Ireland, anarchist Workers Solidarity #129 - An Irish emigrant in Sydney - life, work & radical politics