US political crisis deepens with removal of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker

Jacob Crosse & Barry Grey

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Republican-California, leaves the House floor after being ousted as speaker of the house at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, October 3, 2023. [AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]

For the first time in US history, the speaker of the House has been removed from office by a vote of House members, leaving the House paralyzed until a new leader can be elected.

Bitter divisions within the Republican conference torpedoed California Republican Kevin McCarthy’s speakership after 269 days, the third shortest term in US history. The central priority of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, is to ensure the uninterrupted and expanded flow of money and arms to Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev so as to escalate the war against Russia over Ukraine.

McCarthy’s ouster comes less than nine months after he assumed the position following 15 rounds of voting, and exactly 1,000 days after the attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump’s far-right mob, aimed at overthrowing the election of President Joe Biden. Many of the same far-right members of the Republican caucus who opposed McCarthy’s elevation to speaker in January were behind the effort to force him out this week, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs.

The final vote to eject McCarthy was 216-210, with eight Republicans and 208 Democrats supporting the “motion to vacate” the office of House speaker.

McCarthy himself is no “moderate.” A supporter of Trump and promoter of the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” by the Democrats, he advocates an intensification of the crackdown against migrants and massive cuts in social programs. He has made one concession after another to the demands of the most far-right and fascistic elements in the Republican Party, including his agreement to allow any single House member to force a vote to remove him by lodging a motion to vacate his office.

He supports anti-abortion legislation and the “herd immunity” policies that have led to countless deaths and millions of cases of long COVID in the ongoing pandemic.

More recently, he initiated an impeachment inquiry against President Biden based on allegations of corruption in relation to the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

His conflict with the group of House members who organized his removal has increasingly centered on his support for the war in Ukraine, under conditions where a majority of Republican House members, backed by Trump, have voted against additional US funding for the Ukraine military.

The speaker of the House is an enormously important position in the US government. The speaker decides which legislation comes to the floor for debate and makes appointments to key committees. One of the few national officials listed in the US Constitution, the speaker is second in the line of succession to the president, following the vice president.

The last time a motion to vacate was filed was in 1910. Tuesday’s vote was the first time it succeeded. Previous Republican speakers in the last decade, including Paul Ryan and John Boehner, opted to resign or retire under the threat of motion to vacate from far-right members of their conference.

The motion to vacate was filed by Gaetz, a proxy for former President Trump, after McCarthy enabled Republicans and Democrats to pass a bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) on Saturday to avert a government shutdown and fund the federal government through November 17.

Following the vote to remove McCarthy, Gaetz confirmed in an interview that he had “spoken to President Trump over the last several days.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, Republican-Florida leaves a meeting on the morning after he filed a motion to strip Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Republican-California from his leadership role, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, October 3, 2023. [AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein]

While the media has presented the crisis as a conflict of personalities, Tuesday’s vote is reflection of deep divisions within the ruling class itself. Gaetz and roughly a dozen other far-right Republicans opposed the CR because it lacked social spending cuts and further appropriations for the border police.

In an interview on Newsmax following the vote, Gaetz, speaking for a faction of finance capital, rejected accusations that without a speaker the government would be thrown into “chaos” and reiterated that McCarthy was stripped of the speaker’s gavel because of his refusal to enact sufficiently draconian spending cuts.

“Chaos is the dollar losing its status as the global reserve currency. Chaos is the greatest nation in the world sitting on top of $33 trillion debt. Chaos is accepting Biden budgets that will lead to $2 trillion annual deficits...forever,” said Gaetz.

Following his ouster, McCarthy told a closed-door meeting of House Republicans that he would not seek reelection as speaker. At a subsequent Tuesday evening news conference he said, “I will not run for speaker again... I’ll have the conference pick somebody else.”

Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is currently serving as the interim speaker. McHenry said the House would not meet again until next Tuesday, with the aim of holding a vote for the new speaker on Wednesday, October 11. Several names have been floated by Republican representatives as possible candidates to replace McCarthy, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise (Louisiana), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minnesota), Kevin Hern (Oklahoma) and even Donald Trump.

While it is unclear who, if anyone, will be the speaker in the immediate future, what is clear is that Tuesday’s vote marks an inflection point in the ongoing US political crisis, which has not subsided more than two-and-a-half years after Trump’s failed coup. The ousting of McCarthy sets the stage for even more explosive political convulsions and a further shift to the right by the entire political establishment.

At the brief meeting of the House Republican conference following the vote to remove McCarthy, the deposed speaker reported that Democratic House leaders had approached him on a possible deal to keep him in office. McCarthy reportedly claimed that he refused to discuss any such deal.

However, the present chaos does not foreclose the possibility of the Biden White House and Democratic leaders striking such a deal as part of the election of a new speaker, based on an agreement to continue funding the US war against Russia in Ukraine.

The unprecedented removal of the House speaker follows the debacle of the “spring offensive” in Ukraine and comes in the midst of a massive upsurge of working class struggles in the US and internationally, including among US autoworkers, actors and healthcare workers.

As Tuesdays’ vote was being held, Trump was in New York City for the second day of his civil trial, during which he was ordered to stop issuing violent threats against the judge and the judge’s clerk. President Biden, obviously in failing health as he approaches his 81st birthday, is cratering in the polls while facing an impeachment inquiry. His son, Hunter, pleaded “not guilty” to three federal firearms charges on Tuesday.

As the intersecting political, economic and social crises mount, the central concern of the Democratic Party is to maintain a working relationship with its “Republican colleagues” in order to prosecute the war against Russia in Ukraine, prepare for military conflict with China, and suppress working class resistance to continued attacks on wages and jobs, social cuts and ever increasing levels of social inequality.

The main concern of the bulk of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party is that the political conflict within the House will stall a massive infusion of funds for the war in Ukraine. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the existing funding was only enough to “meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield needs for a bit, for a bit longer.”

Spanish-Russian journalist Pablo González still in “Polish Guantanamo” 18 months after arrest

Alice Summers

Pablo González [Photo: #FreePabloGonzález]

A Polish court has extended for a further three months the imprisonment of Spanish-Russian journalist Pablo González, arrested in February 2022 on unsubstantiated charges of spying for Russia. This is the sixth time his “provisional detention” had been extended. González’s lawyers will be able to appeal the decision, although the court is expected to uphold it. 

The journalist has now been left to languish in a Polish jail for more than a year and a half by the far-right Polish government, Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government and all the NATO powers. He has not been found guilty of any crime, or ever faced a criminal trial. No date has even been set for him to face the charges in court.

His continuing detention exposes the NATO powers’ claims to be defending “human rights” against Russia in Ukraine and China in the Pacific. 

González was arrested only days after the NATO-provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, as he covered the influx of Ukrainian refugees into the Polish border town of Rzeszow. If convicted, González could face up to 10 years in prison.

His conditions resemble those “enemy combatants” detained by Washington at the notorious Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. He spends 23 hours per day in isolation in a five-metre cell, with one hour of walking across a 10-metre patio. Every time he is taken out of the cell, he is searched and handcuffed. Upon entering, he is frisked again. Since his detention, he has only been able to receive a visit from his wife twice, the last time in November. Both visits took place in the presence of a jailer and an agent of the Polish intelligence services.

The arrest of a reporter on baseless spying allegations is an assault of freedom of the press, aiming to intimidate journalists and silence reporting on the Russia-NATO war in Ukraine. 

It has far-reaching implications for the ability of journalists to cover and criticise the actions of the imperialist powers, as NATO mounts a concerted campaign to obscure the origins of the war in Ukraine, instead presenting it one-sidedly as a Russian attack on defenceless Ukraine.

No substantive proof has been presented that González passed information to Russian secret services, or that he ever had any intention of doing so. Neither has any information been given to the journalist, his family or his lawyers about what the specific charges against him are, or what evidence the charges are based on. 

Polish authorities still refuse to provide evidence that the reporter is a Russian spy. The only “proof” cited on his arrest was that González, who has dual nationality, was in possession of two passports bearing different names, one Russian and one Spanish—implying that one was a false identity used for espionage. 

In reality, this proves nothing. González’s Russian passport names him as Pavel Rubtsov, using his father’s surname, while his Spanish document identifies him as Pablo González Yagüe, using his mother’s two surnames. Pablo is merely the Hispanicised version of the Russian name Pavel. 

His work for newspapers including the Basque Gara, which Madrid has alleged is funded by the Russian state, his ability to speak Russian, and his credit card from Caja Laboral (“Workers Fund”), a Basque credit union, were also cited as evidence of alleged “pro-Russian” views.

In May, just over a year after González’s arrest, the Russian opposition publication Proekt (formerly known as Agentsvo) reported that the Polish authorities had found documents supposedly proving that the journalist was a Russian intelligence agent. These documents allegedly consisted of several reports on González’s mobile devices. However, little information has been given about what these reports contained, to whom they were addressed, or if they were ever sent to anyone.

Proekt claimed that these “reports” included information on Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition politician assassinated in Moscow in 2015, and on others linked to the foundation Nemtsova set up in her father’s memory. González’s lawyers have so far been prevented from reviewing any of the documentation allegedly found on their client’s phone and computer.

None of these allegations offer any further proof that González was engaged in espionage for Russia. Even if they are true, they merely show that the reporter had collected information on one or several Russian citizens, which does not constitute criminal activity and is not beyond the remit of his role as a journalist reporting on Eastern Europe and Russia.

The Polish government could not act with such impunity were it not for the support of Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government, NATO and the EU. In August 2021, in a clear sign that González’s arrest was part of a broader NATO campaign, the head of British secret services MI6, Richard Moore, defended the arrest of the journalist at the Aspen Security Forum in the United States. Moore alleged González “was trying to enter Ukraine to be part of Russian efforts at destabilization.”

The PSOE-Podemos government, meanwhile, has been central to González’s arbitrary detention since the beginning. The day before he was arrested by Polish police, the Spanish National Intelligence Centre (CNI) visited the homes of his family members and asked them about his “pro-Russian” views.

Podemos, has made a few empty protestations, without ever demanding González’s immediate release. This is the character of the letter sent to Polish Minister of Justice Zbigniew Zobro by 14 social-democratic, Green, and pseudo-left European Members of Parliament.

Their letter denounces the conditions in which the journalist has been detained in Poland for over a year and a half and demand that the Polish Government hand over González to Spain, so he “may return to Spain under provisional freedom, near his family and with guarantees of respect for his rights as a citizen of the European Union and the support of the Spanish Government to make this possible.”

Signatories of the letter include social-democratic MEP Nacho Sánchez Amor and members of the Sumar electoral front containing Podemos, such as María Eugenia Rodríguez Palop, Sira Rego, Manu Pineda and Idoia Villanueva. These are members of parties that have ruled Spain over the past four years, imposing austerity at home and supporting NATO’s war in Ukraine. Their letter is a toothless request aimed at covering for their war policy.

Sumar Movement is led by Spain’s acting deputy prime minister and labour minister, Yolanda Díaz. Díaz and Sumar have refused to make any statements on González. In reality, all the ministers, senior officials and deputies of Podemos and Sumar have supported the US-NATO war.

Mass demonstration in Warsaw against right-wing Polish government

Martin Nowak

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in the Polish capital Warsaw Sunday for the removal of the far-right PiS (Law and Justice Party) government. Under the slogan “Marsz Miliona Serc” (March of Millions of Hearts), opposition leader Donald Tusk of the right-wing Citizens’ Platform (PO) called for the demonstration two weeks before the parliamentary elections. The leaders of the social democratic Nowa Lewica, Włodzimierz Czarzasty and Robert Biedroń, and the peasant movement Agrounia, Michał Kołodziejczak, also supported the demonstration. Thousands took to the streets in other cities such as Krakow, Szczecin, Toruń and Lodz.

Part of the demonstration in Warsaw [Photo by X / Platforma Obywatelska ]

The organizers declared that a million had participated, while the police estimated hundreds of thousands. According to the organizers, the demonstration was twice as large as the one held on June 4, one of the largest since the end of the Stalinist regime and the reintroduction of capitalism in 1989. The trigger for the June protest was the adoption of a repressive law to establish a special commission against “Russian influence.”

The PiS government’s repressive policies played a central role in the latest demonstration. At the end of July, it was revealed that Joanna, a young woman, had been denounced in Krakow by her psychiatrist and mistreated by the police for taking an abortion pill. Three years ago, the PiS government tightened the abortion law in order to strengthen its followers in the arch-Catholic and right-wing extremist milieus. Prior to that, Poland was already one of the countries with the strictest abortion laws. Since the new law, legal abortion is almost impossible.

At the time, hundreds of thousands across the country spontaneously demonstrated for weeks against the ban on abortion. Again, widespread disgust with the government’s far-right agenda drove masses onto the streets. The PiS, which has led the government since 2015, has been working systematically to establish an authoritarian regime by forcing the courts and the media into line. At the same time, it strengthens fascist and antisemitic forces in particular, most recently with the smear campaign against film director Agnieszka Holland.

But the platform of former EU Council President Tusk, who was Polish head of government from 2007 to 2015, offers no alternative. To call Tusk’s party, the PO, “liberal” would be an absurd euphemism. As the election campaign has confirmed, he too is pursuing an ultra-right agenda. He supports NATO’s war against Russia, fully supports the European Union and attacks the social policy of the PiS from the right. As the election campaign comes to an end, he has become increasingly aggressive against refugees and presented himself as a “better” nationalist and militarist.

Tusk accuses the PiS of not closing the border with Belarus effectively enough, not effectively rearming, insulting Polish officials and secretly serving Russia. Like all parties in the Polish parliament (Sejm), the PO also voted in favour of the governments multibillion-dollar rearmament programme, which also provides for the militarisation of society. At the same time, the PO criticized the PiS’ limited social measures, such as the child benefit.

At the core of its economic program are extensive tax breaks and deregulation in favor of the corporations. For example, companies with a turnover below a certain annual limit would be exempted from continued payment of wages in the event of illness. This responsibility is to be taken over by the state social security program (ZUS), whose additional expenditure would serve as a pretext for further cuts.

The coronavirus pandemic has shown that the Polish health system is largely broken, provoking mass protests and strikes by doctors, nurses and paramedics in 2021. The same goes for the Polish education system. The entire working population is ultimately being made to bear the enormous costs of rearmament and war in full. Inflation, which rose to 18 percent at its peak, is still above 8 percent.

According to official OECD figures, the average purchasing power of Polish wages has fallen by 7 percent in the past year alone. Increased food and energy prices exacerbate the consequences of these massive real wage cuts.

All parties in the Sejm, from right to left, agree on these attacks on the working class. This also applies to the Polish left-wing Lewica party, which according to surveys could win around 10 percent of the vote. The party has subordinated itself to the right-wing PO to such an extent that even the news magazine Polityka describes its campaign as “silent and lackluster.” It merely pursues the goal of not losing too much and staying in the Sejm.

Trzecia Droga (Third Way), an electoral alliance of the right-wing peasant party PSL and the new party PL2050 of Szymon Hołownia, distanced itself from the demonstrations of the PO and has positioned itself in the election campaign between PiS and PO. It could serve to secure a majority for either of the larger parties given the 9 percent of the vote it is expected to win, according to the polls.

Support for the fascist Konfederacja is fluctuating between 8 and 15 percent in the polls. It benefits from the discrediting of the old political establishment and, according to surveys, attracts an above-average number of young voters. The two new leaders of the fascist party, Sławomir Mentzen and Krzysztof Bosak, are both in their mid-30s and enjoy constant media attention.

The rise of 34-year-old young entrepreneur Mentzen is strongly reminiscent of Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni, who gave their fascist parties a modern facelift and were embraced by the media. He sums up the party’s program with the formula: “We want a Poland without Jews, homosexuals, abortions, taxes and the European Union.”

Konfederacja is the only major political group in Poland to question support for Ukraine. It also leads a campaign against Ukrainian refugees and attacks German leadership in the EU even more sharply than PiS. It calls for far-reaching relief for companies and attacks the PiS’ coronavirus policy, which has claimed 120,000 lives, from the right because the government-imposed lockdowns at certain stages.

Whoever wins the elections in two weeks and forms the new government will continue the war policy, social attacks on the working class and the profits-before-lives pandemic policy. Any incident at the border with Ukraine could be used as an excuse to “enter the conflict,” as Poland’s ambassador to Paris, Jan Emeryk Rościszewski, explained in March.

Cost-of-living, jobs and social crisis deepening in Australia

Mike Head

Recent economic data point to the intensifying financial pressures being deliberately applied to working-class households by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Albanese Labor government.

Unemployed workers registering to receive social welfare outside Centrelink office in Sydney in 2020.

Facing higher mortgage repayments and rent hikes, resurging prices for essentials and falling real wages, increasing numbers of people are depending on credit cards and pay-later services to survive. Statistics show inflation rising again, especially for petrol, housing and food, household savings falling for the first time since the 2008 global financial crisis, and job cuts spreading.

This deepening social crisis is fueling discontent with the Labor government, reflected in media opinion polls reporting collapsing support for the government, and correspondingly for its Voice referendum to entrench an indigenous advisory body in the country’s 1901 Constitution.

The government’s bid to use the referendum to divert attention from the deteriorating working-class conditions is unravelling. The claims that a yes vote for the Voice would lead to “better outcomes” for indigenous people have become just as unbelievable as Labor’s May 2022 election promises of a “better future.” The reality is that workers and youth—indigenous and non-indigenous alike—are suffering the greatest cut to living standards in generations.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the value of household deposit accounts decreased by $6 billion in the June quarter, the first decline in 16 years. “This was the first fall in deposit balances since the global financial crisis and indicates that the household sector was tapping into cash reserves amid rising cost pressures,” the ABS said.

The household saving-to-income ratio fell for the seventh consecutive quarter to 3.2 percent, its lowest level since the June quarter of 2008. That is another indication of the historic reversal in household finances since December 2021, which accelerated after the Labor government took office.

New figures from the RBA last Friday showed the stock of personal credit jumped by 1.6 percent in the five months to August. RBA documents about mortgage stress reveal that the National Debt Helpline is receiving an increasing volume of calls from people who have never before experienced financial hardship nor drawn on social services.

An internal RBA email in July, obtained via a freedom of information request, said the helpline “reported a significant number of callers experiencing hardship who are accruing additional debts via credit cards, Buy Now Pay Later, borrowing from friends and family, and increasingly unpaid obligations to the ATO [Australian Tax Office], their utilities providers and council rates.”

These documents demonstrate how conscious the central bank, backed by the government, is of the suffering being caused by 12 interest rate hikes since May 2022. This is a calculated offensive by the ruling class to trigger an economic slump in order to drive up unemployment and further cut real wages.

That agenda was spelt out by multi-millionaire property developer Tim Gurner at last month’s Australian Financial Review Property Summit.  “We need to see pain in the economy,” he told his audience. That included “massive layoffs” to cause “less arrogance in the employment market.”

In line with that blunt statement, the RBA expects a “mortgage cliff” to worsen over coming months as tens of thousands more households come off fixed interest rates to much higher variable rates, and the time lag between rate rises and arrears shortens.

“All of this meant that there was a long lag between households making significant adjustments to their personal finances as they become more stressed (especially if they had managed to ‘roll over’ a hardship arrangement for up to 12 months), and falling into arrears as reported in the official data,” the RBA email noted.

Mortgage payments as a proportion of household income are already at record highs. The minutes from the central bank’s board meeting last month said “scheduled mortgage payments rose to 9.7 percent of household disposable income in July, a little above the estimated previous historical high… Members noted that aggregate payments were set to increase further as more borrowers with fixed-rate loans roll off onto higher rates.”

Those minutes warned of further rate hikes “should inflation prove more persistent than expected.” Even if the bank holds off on another rate rise this week, the financial market players expect at least one more this year.

Last week’s ABS monthly inflation report showed that consumer prices increased by 5.2 percent in the year to August, up from 4.9 percent in July, with the rising cost of fuel, power, insurance and rents adding to the pressures on working-class budgets.

Childcare workers demand higher wages at Melbourne protest in 2022.

The most significant contributors to the August annual increase were housing (+6.6 percent), transport (+7.4 percent), food and non-alcoholic beverages (+4.4 percent) and insurance and financial services (+8.8 percent).

Treasurer Jim Chalmers falsely claimed that “it’s clear the peak in inflation is behind us,” citing the 8.4 percent monthly figure last December. But the August result gave a glimpse of the intensifying impact on working-class households. Automotive fuel costs have surged by 15 percent over the past two months. Rents rose 7.8 percent in the 12 months to August, up from 7.6 percent in July, following the government’s refusal to introduce rent caps.

Electricity prices rose 12.7 percent and gas prices rose 12.9 percent in the year to August, making a mockery of the government’s claims to be providing financial relief. Prices for bread and cereal products and dairy products rose over 10 percent in the 12 months, while the supermarket chains made huge profits, although fruit and vegetable prices dropped 8.3 percent due to improved agricultural conditions.

The relentless cost-of-living squeeze is forcing a generational cut to retail spending. The ABS said a 1.3 percent annual trend growth rate in retail sales recorded in ­August was the lowest in the history of its records. If not for inflation and population growth, sales would have fallen outright in real terms.

“Considering how high inflation and strong population growth have added to retail turnover in the past year, the historically low trend growth highlights just how much consumers have pulled back in response to cost-of-living pressures,” ABS head of retail statistics Ben Dorber commented.

On a per-capita basis, the economy fell into recession in the first half of 2023, with only an increase in net migration marginally lifting economic output.

Other recent ABS figures point to a declining labour market, an early indicator of rising unemployment. The number of job vacancies fell by 8.9 percent in the three months to August, the fifth straight quarterly decrease. Vacancies have dropped by 18 percent from a peak in May 2022.

Job cuts in September included steel manufacturer Molycop announcing it would slash 250 jobs, around half the workforce, at its plant in Newcastle, a large regional city north of Sydney. Optus, a major telecommunications company sacked up to 150 workers—nearly half the workforce—from its call centre in Adelaide.

Despite making record profits, the banks are eliminating more jobs. The Bank of Queensland is axing up to 250, the National Australia Bank 222. Westpac has destroyed more than 1,000 so far in 2023, and the Commonwealth Bank has cut more than 300 since June.

Meanwhile, big business—including the banks, retail giants and mining conglomerates—is funding the Voice referendum Yes campaign to an estimated tune of more than $50 million. For the corporate elite and the Labor government, the referendum is an attempt to give a facelift to this underlying agenda of making the working class pay for the global capitalist crisis. It is also to fashion an equally false pitch for “national unity” for the purposes of preparing to join a US-led war against China.

Labor government starves Aboriginal schools of funds in Australia’s Northern Territory

Leith Smith

In the midst of the Australian federal Labor government’s campaign for a yes vote in its Voice referendum, claiming it will improve the lives of indigenous people, data has emerged showing that the Labor administration in the Northern Territory is grossly underfunding schools in Aboriginal communities.

Falling school attendances in Australia's Northern Territory (NT), particularly in remote areas. [Photo: Facebook/NT Department of Education]

The territory Labor government is continuing to impose a punitive schools funding model based on attendance, not enrolment. This regime was initially implemented by a Country Liberal government in 2015, but Labor has maintained it since taking office in 2016.

This has exasperated the vast social inequality involved, creating a cycle of worsening literacy rates. Indigenous people make up nearly 30 percent of the Northern Territory’s population of about a quarter of a million, and almost 8 percent of Australia’s indigenous population. About 45 percent of the territory’s young people are indigenous.

Many schools are not receiving adequate support, with attendance rates as low as 20 percent in some cases. This has resulted in 58 percent of all students and 85 percent of indigenous students in the Northern Territory falling below minimum literacy and numeracy standards.

Remote Aboriginal homeland communities have been hit hardest. Many students are learning in buildings without power or water, and 78 of these communities have no access to local secondary education, resulting in high dropout rates and crime.

This is a breach of the basic social right that every child has access to free, high-quality education. In some instances, students are receiving only a part-time education, with a registered teacher providing classes just once or twice a week. Many local assistant teachers are forced to run classrooms for months.

The Australian reported that a remote school at Gamardi, in central Arnhem Land, had its first registered teacher appear on May 18, over three months after the start of the school year.

One in five Northern Territory students have no money spent on their education and over half the student cohort lack funding at some schools. In 2022, it was reported that a school in Gunbalanya had not received any funding for 121 of its 229 students and a school in Yuendumu had 89 unfunded students out of 165.

In 2021, 34 of 151 government schools received less than 50 percent of the allocated income in their school budgets. Every school but three of these had an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island student population of more than 95 percent.

Students and teachers from Yuendumu School, Yuendumu, Northern Territory, Australia. [Photo: Yuendumu School Facebook]

The Australian claims that the budget shortfall is due to a bloated education department bureaucracy and proposes reducing employment in the territory’s public service by 10,000, as suggested by former senior economist Rolf Gerritsen.

In reality, the deprivation of students flows directly from a funding model that blames schools, communities and students for low attendance rates, which are bound up with poor facilities and deep social problems. This model only multiplies the problems by punishing children.

A 2022 Deloitte report revealed that in 2020, students in the Northern Territory received only 78 percent of their estimated $29,831 per student required to provide minimum standards of education. That standard, set by the federal government’s “Gonski model,” is itself inadequate.

Deloitte is an active participant in the corporate world. It “provides audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and legal services” to the ruling elites. Its purpose is not to ameliorate social conditions, but to recommend options that “streamline” and improve “efficiency.”

Delloitte’s 2022 report was commissioned by the Northern Territory Department of Education in partnership with Charles Darwin University’s Northern Territory Institute to review “the use of Effective Enrolment in the School Resourcing Model.”

Nowhere does the report mention the squalid conditions suffered as a result of this attendance-based funding model. Deloitte’s only brief was to assist the Northern Territory government in “appropriately allocating” funds as “aligned to the [Education] Department’s strategic goals.”

Neither the federal nor the Northern Territory (NT) Labor governments have made any detailed outline as to how these issues will be addressed. NT Education Minister Eva Lawler essentially defended Labor’s record. She said “intensive work is currently under way to build stronger foundations for long-term improvement for Aboriginal students in the NT.”

Earlier this year, Lawler announced that a shift back to enrolment-based funding would be made “within five years.” The government is in no rush to replace the current system, nor is the Albanese federal Labor government. 

In July, Lawler said the territory government would use the attendance formula, which she referred to as “effective enrolment,” to distribute $40 million of funding that was announced earlier this year by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare last week admitted that Northern Territory schools receive “approximately 80 percent of their full and fair funding level” and “on average, public schools in the NT are the most underfunded schools in the country.”

Clare refused to criticise the proposed five-year delay in scrapping the attendance-based system. Instead, he said his office was “working with” Lawler's office to ensure funding would be distributed “based on the Gonski model.” 

Other statistics from the Northern Territory point to the fraud of the claims made by both the Yes and No campaigns in the Voice referendum that “billions” of dollars are being spent on indigenous programs, insinuating that funds are being wasted.

As 95 percent of the Northern Territory’s prison population was Aboriginal in 2019, 95 percent of the territory Labor government’s prisons budget was counted as indigenous expenditure. Former senior public servant Bob Beadman told the Australian that this was why the government reported “generous” indigenous expenditure.

European Union foreign ministers meet in Ukraine to escalate war with Russia

Alex Lantier

The foreign ministers of the European Union’s (EU) member countries met yesterday in Kiev for a summit to pledge continuing support to NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine.

Though the summit came after the bloody failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and amid mounting divisions in ruling circles over how to finance the war, leading EU governments signaled their intention to escalate war with Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, right, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell attend their press conference during the informal EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, October 2, 2023. [AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky]

“I am convening today the EU Foreign Ministers in Kyiv, for the first-ever meeting of all 27 Member States outside the EU,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on X/Twitter. Borrell added, “Ukraine’s future lies within the EU.” Borrell announced that the summit had agreed to spend a further €5 billion on the war.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba echoed Borrell’s remarks, tweeting, “Glad to welcome EU foreign ministers at the historic meeting in Ukraine… For the first time in history, outside current EU borders. But also within its future borders.”

With Ukraine’s army shattered, an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead and many more maimed, such statements amount to a reckless, open-ended pledge to escalate war with Russia, a nuclear-armed power. Before the EU summit, UK officials indicated that British troops could deploy directly to Ukraine, ostensibly to advise Ukrainian soldiers. Plans to announce EU military deployments to Ukraine are no doubt also at an advanced stage.

The EU has emerged as the top financier of the war, having given Kiev €84.8 billion, including €5.6 billion in arms, by the end of July 2023, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. This is on top of spending by individual European states, led by Germany (€20.87 billion), Britain (€13.77 billion), Norway (€7.45 billion), Poland (€4.27 billion), and the Netherlands (€4.08 billion). These figures include €17 billion in weaponry from Germany, €6.6 billion from Britain, €3.7 billion from Norway, €3 billion from Poland and €2.5 billion from the Netherlands.

In Kiev, German Defense Minister Annalena Baerbock called to further arm Ukraine. She said, “We must now further intensify all our efforts to prepare Ukraine for this winter. When I was here in September, I already made it clear that Ukraine needs a protective shield for winter… that consists of air defense but also generators and strengthening energy supply.”

The summit came amid signs of mounting divisions in European ruling circles over the financing and planning of the war. The foreign ministers of Hungary and Poland did not attend the Kiev summit, after Warsaw announced last week that it would send no new arms shipments to Ukraine.

At the Kiev summit, the leading EU imperialist powers were intent on signaling that they will allow no climbdown in participation in the war. They replied in particular to Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, who said that “fatigue from this conflict, fatigue from the completely absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime, will grow in various countries, including the United States.”

At a press conference in Kiev, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna pledged French support for war on Russia. Colonna called the Kiev summit “a demonstration of our resolute and lasting support for Ukraine, until it can win. It is also a message to Russia that it should not count on our weariness. We will be there for a long time to come.”

Borrell added, “The EU remains united in its support to Ukraine… I don’t see any member state folding on their engagement.”

EU officials stressed their close collaboration with Washington on the war. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said the EU must arm Ukraine “to support Ukraine, but also to send a strong trans-Atlantic signal that what’s going on on our own soil is something we have to take on a great responsibility for.”

The EU was founded in 1992, the year after the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union, as a free-market, pro-austerity economic bloc. NATO’s war with Russia is accelerating its emergence as a military alliance asserting European imperialist interests on the world stage. This has gone hand-in-hand with the rehabilitation of neo-fascist parties and the emergence of police-state regimes in Europe that violently repress strikes and protests against the austerity measures and wage freezes that serve to finance war spending.

The political and class character of this war was exposed last week, when the Canadian parliament unanimously applauded Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian ex-member of the Nazi Waffen-SS, as a Ukrainian patriot for fighting against the Soviet Union in World War II. The Waffen SS played a central role in the Holocaust of European Jewry, Hitler’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, and the repression of resistance to Nazi occupation in Europe.

This exposed the close ties between NATO and far-right Ukrainian forces, like the Right Sector militia that led the 2014 NATO-backed coup in Kiev that brought NATO’s current Ukrainian puppet regime to power. With other far-right militias, like the Azov Battalion, it now plays a central role inside the Kiev regime. Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian collaboration with Nazism, is regularly hailed by top Ukrainian officials.

The Canadian parliament’s politically-criminal applause for a Waffen-SS fighter also speaks to the character and political implications of the EU’s redefinition as a militarist bloc dedicated to war with Russia until total victory.

“The EU has changed. There is no turning back. We have turned out the lights behind us and there is basically only one way,” Danish EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager declared at a May 2023 EU summit in Brussels. Waging the Ukraine war, she continued, “is absolutely Europe’s top priority, and we will stay supportive of Ukraine until the war is won and Ukraine has been rebuilt, and become a member of the European Union.”

Commenting on Vestager’s remarks, the Guardian cited top advisors of Borrell who asserted that the Russian war overcame the conflicts between the European powers in the 20th century. “The European project was first and foremost intended to prevent a new conflict between France and Germany. It aimed to pacify intra-European relations through exchange and economic cooperation,” wrote Zaki Laïdi, a professor at Sciences-Politiques university in Paris.

Now, however, argued Nicole Gnesotto of the Jacques Delors Institute, war with Russia is overcoming conflicts inside Europe. “In one night, Russia killed all EU philosophy since 1956,” she said.

Claims that the EU will overcome historically-rooted contradictions of European capitalism via war with Russia testify to the reckless, fascistic moods seizing the ruling class. In reality, divisions are mounting in ruling circles across the continent, as was seen with the absence of Hungarian and Polish officials in Kiev. Moreover, it is notable that France, Italy and Spain, historically more oriented to imperialist conquest in Africa than in Eastern Europe, have spent less on Ukraine than their northern European allies (€1.69 billion, €1.29 billion and €900 million, respectively).

New Thai government seeks foreign investment

Ben McGrath & Robert Campion

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has spent his first weeks in office seeking to deepen Bangkok’s connections to foreign corporations, particularly in the US, and further open up the country as a cheap labour platform.

Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. [AP Photo/Richard Drew]

In his first overseas trip since taking office, Srettha travelled to New York for the recent UN General Assembly Meeting in New York, spruiking Thailand as a dependable hub for foreign investment. Speaking to reporters, Srettha stated, “It is a positive sign and a good starting point. It is the first step in telling the world that Thailand is open (to investment).”

Srettha, a wealthy real-estate tycoon with no prior experience in office, was approved as prime minister by a joint sitting of the national assembly in which the military-appointed Senate effectively holds a veto. His coalition government includes the two main political parties of the military.

In his government’s first policy statement released on September 11, Srettha placed emphasis on the economy and boosting GDP growth. This inevitably means imposing austerity on workers and farmers. Thailand’s economy is expected to grow by only 2.8 percent this year, less than expected due to weak exports, and by a modest 3.2 percent next year.

Srettha stated last week that he expected Tesla, Microsoft, and Google to invest at least $5 billion in Thailand. “Tesla would be looking into an Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility, Microsoft and Google are looking at data centers,” he said. Thailand is the fourth-largest auto assembly centre in Asia producing between 1.5 and 2 million cars each year.

Srettha, who is also the finance minister, spoke with Elon Musk to discuss the EV industry offering incentives to EV and battery makers. Tesla plans to ramp up vehicle production to 20 million vehicles per year by 2030, and is exploring options for several new “gigafactories,” capable of producing at least 0.5 million cars a year.

Srettha’s appeals to big business make clear where Pheu Thai Party’s real interests lie, despite the new government’s claims of being “for the people” and addressing poverty. While the government has stated that it will raise the minimum wage to at least 400 baht ($US11) per day, to attract investment it will no doubt be driven to create the business-friendly conditions. The minimum wage promise has already received pushback from big business and even from within Srettha’s own cabinet.

At the UN General Assembly, Srettha extolled the virtues of “human rights, human dignity and freedoms,” yet a 4-year prison sentence was just handed down to human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa who in the 2020 pro-democracy protests called for reforming the monarchy—supposedly a breach of the country’s draconian lese majeste law. Hundreds more protesters face similar charges, aimed at maintaining the monarchy which has been the political linchpin of bourgeois rule in Thailand.

The big business agenda of the Thai government demonstrates the interconnectedness of the economic struggles that the international working class faces. The expansion of the EV industry in Thailand will no doubt have an impact on the jobs of autoworkers in a country that has branded itself as the “Detroit of Asia.” Thailand is competing with other countries, such as Indonesia, that are similarly looking to attract EV investment, which ultimately means a race to the bottom for workers in all countries.

At an economic forum dubbed “Next Chapter Thailand” on Friday, Srettha pledged to make it easier for companies to exploit foreign workers in Thailand. Whilst introducing a debt moratorium of three years for struggling farmers, Srettha stated it would not guarantee the prices of farm produce, such as rice, short of a devastating disaster that damaged and destroyed crops. More than 90 percent of Thai farmer households are indebted at an average of 450,000 baht and are caught in a vicious debt cycle.

Regarding the ongoing tensions between the US and China, Srettha stated Thailand would be continuing its neutral stance, as was the case with the previous military government. He was careful not to mention the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine at the UN General Assembly in New York, instead promoting the illusion that increased international economic ties were the path towards peaceful relations.

China is a significant factor in Thailand’s economy. Bilateral trade reached $US107 billion in 2022. Bilateral trade between Thailand and the US was $US65 billion last year, making it Thailand’s second-largest trading partner after China.

Thailand is also courting further Chinese investment into EV production which already amounts to $US1.44 billion since 2020 from companies such as BYD and Great Wall Motor.

The US and its allies, however, are undoubtedly putting pressure on Bangkok to align more closely with Washington as it intensifies its war drive against Beijing. This includes Germany, which is refusing to sell Bangkok a submarine engine for a vessel that would be constructed in China.

Srettha briefly met with US President Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and emphasized the longstanding trade relationship between the two countries. The prime minister stated that he expects to hold a meeting with Biden in November during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in San Francisco.

The US and Thailand historically have had close military ties. The two countries are formal military allies. During the Vietnam war, the US used bases in Thailand to launch airstrikes. The US and Thailand hold annual Cobra Gold military exercises, some of the largest multilateral war games in the region.

Immediately after the appointment of Srettha as PM, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent his congratulations, declaring Washington would work closely with Bangkok advancing......“a free and open, connected, peaceful, and resilient Indo-Pacific region.”

In reality, the US is intensifying its military build-up and confrontation with China throughout the Pacific and is no doubt seeking to incorporate bases in northern Thailand into its war planning.

Srettha is planning to visit China from October 16 to 19 to “tighten the relationship and increase cooperation in investment,” according to a government spokesperson.

British government prepares to send troops into the war against Russia

Andre Damon

British soldiers attend a military exercise 'Iron Sword 2014' near Vilnius, Lithuania. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

On Saturday, British Defense Minister Grant Shapps raised the prospect of deploying UK troops directly into Ukraine, nominally to serve as trainers for Ukrainian forces.

“Particularly in the west of the country, I think the opportunity now is to bring more things ‘in country,’” he told The Telegraph. 

“I think there will be a move to get more training and production in the country,” Shapps added. He also raised the prospect of the direct involvement of the Royal Navy in combat operations against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, declaring, “Britain is a naval nation so we can help.”

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak effectively confirmed Shapps’s assertions, saying, “What the defence secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine.”

A warning must be made: If plans to deploy NATO troops to Ukraine are being publicly discussed, it is because the decision has already been made, by a political and military cabal working in secret. They might initially be termed “advisers,” “consultants,” or “guards,” but the strategy is obvious: British “advisers” and “trainers” will be killed in Ukraine, and the Sunak government will use this fact as a pretext for further escalation.

The US-NATO war against Russia is being waged without public support. The NATO governments are engaged in a conspiracy to escalate the conflict behind the backs of the population. Publicly, they declare that they are not at war with Russia and that they intend to strictly limit their involvement in the conflict. Privately, they are contriving to escalate the conflict to a full-scale war between nuclear-armed powers.

Time and time again, the NATO governments have categorically asserted that there are “red lines” they will not cross, and then proceeded to cross them. First it was sending long-range missiles. Then tanks. Then advanced fighter jets. Each time, the public was categorically told these actions would not be done, only to be informed months later that the NATO governments were carrying them out.

Just two weeks ago, the World Socialist Web Site asked, “Now that NATO weapons are being used for strikes inside Russia, how much more room does the United States have to escalate? The next step is the deployment of US and NATO troops.”

The statements by Shapps and Sunak followed an article in Foreign Affairs last month titled, “Why America Should Send Military Advisers to Ukraine,” which declared that “Washington should, therefore, lift the strict restrictions on the number of US government personnel allowed in Ukraine and begin stationing military advisers within the country and across its defense apparatus.”

Hundreds of active-duty NATO troops are already in Ukraine, along with thousands of ex-NATO military members serving as mercenaries. In November, the Pentagon confirmed that “small teams” of active-duty military personnel are in a “variety of locations” in the country. Leaked Pentagon documents from earlier this year show that nearly 100 NATO special forces, including 50 from the UK, plus 100 other US government staff are in Ukraine.

NATO is planning not only to increase the troop presence inside Ukraine, but also for the direct involvement of NATO troops in a shooting war against Russia.

This reality arises not just from the statements of Shapps or Sunak, but from the military logic of the situation. The US and NATO have staked their credibility on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. In January, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley stated that the goals of the United States are to “liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine” and “liberate the occupied areas.” Last April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “We want to see Russia weakened.” That same month, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Ben Hodges asserted that the goal of NATO in the conflict is “breaking the back” of Russia.

The NATO powers have failed in all of these aims. The Ukrainian offensive, built up for months in the US media as a decisive turning point in the war akin to the invasion of Normandy during World War II, has produced a bloody disaster. In an article entitled “Ukraine Faces a Long War. A Change of Course Is Needed,” the Economist wrote,

“The counter-offensive… is not working… Ukraine has liberated less than 0.25% of the territory that Russia occupied in June. The 1,000-km front line has barely shifted…. Ukraine’s soldiers are exhausted; many of its finest have been killed. Despite conscription, it lacks the manpower to sustain a permanent large-scale counter-offensive. It needs to husband resources, and to change the game.”

With Ukraine running out of cannon fodder in the conflict with Russia, the only way to “change the game” is for NATO forces, up to now providing the weapons, intelligence, logistics, and command structures for the Ukrainian army, to intervene directly in the conflict.

The open talk of sending troops to Ukraine followed speeches at the United Nations last month by US President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, all condemning any peaceful settlement of the war. Biden declared, “Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory, and Ukraine’s children.”

This was followed by Zelensky’s appearance at the Canadian Parliament, in which all of Canada’s MPs, as well as ambassadors from leading NATO countries, took part in a standing ovation for a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi war criminal.

The same week, the US confirmed that Abrams battle tanks had already arrived in Ukraine, and US news reports revealed that the White House had already agreed to send ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine. Just two days after Biden spoke, Ukraine, using NATO intelligence and NATO weapons, carried out a strike on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet that led to the deaths of dozens of high-ranking military personnel.

The First and Second World Wars killed tens of millions of people in Europe. Entire generations of young people were wiped out on the battlefields. Now, the European governments, working alongside Washington, are conspiring to inflame a new world war that threatens to kill tens of millions more.