EDITORIAL

CONSENSUS FOR WHOM?

THE consolidation of the Hawke Labor Government should make us pause to consider Australia's likely fate for the remainder of the decade. Minority groups should also be looking closely at the policy announcements from various ministers over the next six months as an indication of the new government's real commitment to equality and democratic rights. Hawke has let it be known that he intends to stay Prime Minister until well into the 1990s.

If the Government's performance on the 'big' questions of economy and foreign policy are anything to go by, then the possibility of urgent social reforms being attended too quickly is dim indeed. At the National Summit, not only were the concerns of women and minorities (who together constitute the majority of the population) conspicuous by their absence, but many undertakings to the working people of Australia were also fudged. As for the unemployed, Government estimates indicate that their numbers will continue to swell for the foreseeable future.

Hawke was swept to power on a platform of change: massive public works programs to reverse the tide of unemployed; an agreement with the trade union movement to maintain the value of wages through automatic quarterly indexation of wages; and a forward looking Front Bench ready to tackle the problems of the eighties. The first two have selfevidently evaporated, and the third looks shaky in the light of Cabinet's refusal to allow Science and Technology Minister, Barry Jones, to present a paper to the Summit on technological change. It is now difficult to know what by way of progressive reforms can be expected.

As for the specific concerns of gay people, there are three areas that have seen no announcements yet but are being pursued by movement lobbyists and activists over the coming months.

The Immigration Department is currently undertaking a review of all policies and Minister Stewart West will be asked to consider recognising homosexual de facto relationships in an extention of "family reunion" policies. West will also be asked to recognise the plight of gays as "prisoners of conscience" in creating a new category of refugee.

The Attorney-General, Gareth Evans already stated prior to the election that he would raise the question of uniform Australia-wide law repeal at a meeting of States Attorneys-General. Evans said that a minimum standard would be the current Victorian laws. If this plan, which could well prove the salvation of States such as NSW, is to see the light of day, Evans will need to be reminded and encouraged in this pre-election promise.

Finally, as pointed out in this issue, Health Minister Blewitt must take immediate action to make the new vaccine for Hepatitis B available on the National Health scheme for pharmaceutical products. Hep B can be eliminated, only Government inaction motivated by prejudice stands in the way of a successful immunisation program.

All of us have specific concerns and interests we should be raising with the new Federal Government. There are limits to what anyone of us can do, but if all the razzle-dazzle of the last election is to be more than a cynical exercise in seat-swapping we must all begin raising some of our concerns. Otherwise the Hawke consensus will be an agreement of policymakers, not of people.

4 CAMPAIGN MAY 1983

TWENTY-TEN

UNDER FIRE

བཪས་ཐུག་ན་ས༣ སྲས་! ནས་

LETTERS

I HAVE just read a copy of the press release which no doubt you received from TwentyTen and I am appalled that Garry Bennett and Peter Cardwell, signatories to the release, did not bother to mention the remainder of the resolution from the Second Club 80 Raid emergency meeting at the Sydney Gay Centre on the matter of a voting recommendation at the Federal election.

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The recommendation aimed at the Premier of this State who is the National President of the Australian Labor Party. It went on to say that if Neville Wran did not give an undertaking to repeal all antigay laws in NSW, then the meeting called on all gay people to vote for other candidates of parties with pro-gay policies in the Federal election.

The Liberals do not have a pro-gay policy. Those parties who do, all of which are minor parties, made a Labor candidate number two on their tickets except the Democrats who prefer to leave a second preference up to the individual voter.

I think Twenty-Ten is put-. ting down the intelligence of gay voters by imagining that they would vote Liberal without checking the stance on gay issues of the various parties who were standing candidates in their electorates.

When one newsreader on ABC radio stated something similar to a Liberal vote by gays, I complained to the ABC that as news disseminators they had an obligation to check the facts at source properly and not twist the truth. I also contacted all five candidates standing in my electorate and sought details of their policies in regard to homosexuality after the Club 80 meeting and before I was required to vote.

It seems too that when it suits certain people's ends, the "gay community" becomes the "gay movement". I estimated that at least 80% of the people attending the Club 80 meeting would have identified themselves as part of "the community" and not "the movement" The media claimed that about a thousand people attended the meeting and about 200 marched to Darlinghurst police station afterwards, which lends credence to my assessment of the attendance composition of the meeting.

I'm sorry Twenty-Ten appears to take the line of the bureaucrats that gay people are irresponsible and not aware of and involved in important issues other than the gay one. That view simply does not hold water.

Kendall Lovett, Woolloomooloo

THANKS FROM GAY DAY IN reference to Melbourne's Gay Day '83, I personally, would like to thank Campaign, Sydney Gay Mardi Gras Committee, The Sydney Star, Beresford Hotel and any other businesses that made a contribution to ALSO's (Alternative LifeStyle Organisation) Gay Day '83 celebrations, which was our best yet.

Feedback that I have heard, concerning Sydney, is 'It was great to see that gay businesses from Sydney, went to the trouble to organize themselves and others, to come down to Melbourne, for our big day.' I couldn't agree more; 10 out of 10 for your effort and support.

And not forgetting the people

of Sydney who came down to GayDay, a special "Thank You' for your support. (I know a few people who are waiting for your return!)

Paul Braithwaite ALSO committee person

MOCKERY OF THE REFORMISTS

IN THE last edition of Campaign John Schwartzkoff's version of the recent events in the Sydney gay community was given a good deal of prominence, without any news article setting out the facts of the controversy. Unfortunately John's reporting of the incident is highly coloured by his pro-ALP politics and I would like to take issue with some of his interpretations and suggestions.

John criticises my motion calling on gays to vote for pro-gay non-ALP candidates as a failure to intervene in mainstream politics. Yet this motion, which was overwhelmingly carried at a public meeting,

got prominent coverage of gay grievances in the daily press every day for a week,

got the now-Federal Attorney General to say he would ask his NSW colleagues to implement homosexual law reform,

-got Neville Wran to publicly state his position on homosexual law reform, something the Premier up to now has refused to do, and

-allowed us to raise in two days from the Sydney Gay Community enough money for a prominent quarter-page ad in The Australian informing people of our ultimatum and Wran's reply, and so showing the politicians that we are serious about achieving rights.

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This is more action in one week than the gay reformists in GRL have been able to provoke in almost two years with their "be nice to the ALP" policies.

My position, as put editorially in the Oxford Weekender News, was that gay people should vote first for the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party or the Democrats, parties which have gay rights policies. Of course John Schwartzkoff and the ALP-controlled Gay Rights Lobby, of which he is a member, have a vision of politics which includes only the Labor or Liberal Parties. The GRL, which John claims "assess(es) the merits of individual candidates" and is "not seen to align itself with or against particular parties" in fact surveyed only the ALP and Liberal candidates and then came down predictably, largely for ALP candidates. An outcome I which is particularly convenient to the GRL which is made up almost entirely of ALP members and supporters.

This vision of "mainstream politics" serves to tie the gay movement to parliamentarism which is a sure dead-end for any minority group. History shows us that real social change takes place first outside parliament among real people and bourgeois governments only react to social changes-they don't lead them. The strength of the gay movement has always been our independence and autonomy, despite recent attempts in Sydney to tie us uncritically to the ALP and pursue parliamentaristic strategies. We can support the ALP only in as far as it can be influenced by the gay movement and other progressive movements. To the extent that the

ALP tries to limit and suppress people's struggles for freedom for its electoral ends it must be rejected and opposed.

John bemoans the fact that my ultimatum "led to Premier Wran's publicly turning his face against further reform of the Crimes Act". I think that it is a good thing that at least now we know where we stand with the NSW Government. Now we should stick together and demand in a proud and confident way our rights and freedom. We don't need to kow-tow for the Premier's sympathy and tolerance-the MardiGras shows us that we are a growing community which can command respect in its own right.

Wran chose to reject our request for a guarantee of law repeal in a year. Something which as Premier of NSW and President of the ALP he could easily have given. In doing so it was Wran who was daring gay people not to vote ALP. He was able to say that he did not accept that the ultimatum reflected the feelings of the gay community precisely because the GRL had raced to the papers to dissociate themselves from the decision of the community meeting. It took them another two weeks to make a critical response to Wran's statement. Wran rejected the plea for law reform and insulted us, yet it is me who has copped all the flack from the "gay activists" for daring to make such an "ungrateful", "ineffective" ultimatum.

There is one final point which John conveniently forgot to mention. On Friday, March 4, gay ALP members took legal action against me to prevent the circulation of copies of the ultimatum and Wran's reply in the gay community. This to me is the most disgusting attempt at censorship and intimidation that has ever occurred in the gay movement in Australia. It makes a mockery of the reformists' talk of "unity", "responsibility" and respect for the gay community's right to consider issues and make decisions which may not be in line with their thinking.

Brian McGahen.

LABOR CHALLENGED CAMPAIGN seems intent on fostering the myth that the ALP is the pro-gay party in Australia. The facts clearly show the opposite.

The draconian anti-gay laws in NSW where consenting activities are twice as reprehensible as rape are all the proof that is required. Remember that Wran toughened up the law in 1979. He has since made it clear that he supports the retention of the law after all, it's his baby.

It's not just in NSW that the ALP's anti-gay stance is clear. The bill which removed anti-gay laws in the ACT and NT was proposed by Sir John Gorton, a former Liberal PM. More Liberals voted in favor of it than ALP members.

The most liberal law reform in Australia, the Victorian reform, was proposed by the Liberal Government. The ALP was in office in Tasmania for 40 years until its defeat last year, and never once did they suggest law reform.

Labor was in power in WA between 1971 and 1974, and they did nothing. Not even the SA and Territory reform moved them to act.

Back in NSW, the two at(continued on page 13)