~ Australian labor
against the war
in Vietnam

With 4,500 men in Vietnam, the
majority conscripts, Australian
opposition to the war is taking on
mass proportions. This week Phyl-
lis Clarke interviewed for the
Tribune Mavis Robertson, mem-
ber of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of Australia
on the position of the trade unions
and the Labor Party in the anti-
war movement. Mrs. Robertson
has been visiting Canada for the
last week.

What bas been the reaction
to conscripts going to Vietnam?

This has been the thing’ that
has been a turning point in the
~ anti-Vietnam movement. I think
it’s important to understand that
there have been Australians in
Wetnam for quite a long time.
The foreign policy that has led
to the conscripts going into
Vietnam has existed for more
than a decade of which the
ANZUS and SEATO treaties
were part of the preparation.

Even when the volunteer
troops went in the first place
there wasn’t all that much re-
action. Then conscription was
introduced and there was a great
furor although at that time the
government wouldn't say that
the conscripts were going to
Vietnam. They merely said that
_ the conscripts would be brought
in for two years and they would
be eligible to serve anywhere
in the world.

It was only when conscripts
were actually being sent to Viet-
nam that the movement began
to take on mass proportion.

What are the main groups
that are now fighting against
sending more Australians to
Vietnam and bringing back those
that are there?

Well, there is a proliferation
of new organizations and then
many traditional organizations.
Of the new ones, there is an
Organization of women called

"September 9, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4

SOS, Save Our Sons, which is
self-explanatory. It includes wo-
men of the most diverse political
opinions including women who
normally vote for the govern-
ment parties and some of them
whose husbands are actually
officials of the government. They
are in this organization because
they don’t want to see their own
boys involved in a war which
has divided the country and
where there is no clear united
view that it is in any way in the
interests of Australia.

Then there is a youth move-
ment, called the Youth—Cam-
paign Against .Conscription and
these are the young people who
do all kinds of political activity
including burning their~ draft
cards and who are now involved
in defense of themselves and
their friends who are being
brought to trial for burning their
draft cards or for refusing ser-
vice.

Then there is the peace move-
ment in general and a most im-
portant part of the anti-Vietnam
movement is the trade unions.
The trade unions were the archi-
tects of the anti-conscription
movement in the First World
War and they maintain this po-
sition.

Many of them of course take
a very strong view about the
Vietnam war, the causes of the
Vietnam war and carry on edu-
cational work about the nature
of American intervention.

Then the two political parties

which take up a position of op-
position to conscription and
opposition to the Vietnam war
are the labor party and the Com-
munist party. The position of the
CP is a clear one; opposition to
the position of American imper-
ialism. It supports the position
of the NLF and the socialist
state in North Vietnam.

The Labor Party’s position is
an interesting and a somewhat
complicated one. The Labor Par-
ty for many years had a similar
position to the government on
foreign policy and was totally
for the American alliance. At
the time when the Americans
began to bomb North Vietnam
the Labor Party gave sympathe-
tic understanding but the posi-
tion of the Labor Party has been
one of tremendous discussion
and upheaval and thinking over
the Vietnam isue. In the first
place the Labor Party had every
member of the opposition voting
against the conscription bill and
then of total opposition to the
involvement of the conscripts in
Vietnam and when the first con-
script was killed in Vietnam the
Labor Party announced that it
would, when and if returned to
office, withdraw the conscripts.

This idea was later evolved
into a policy which went to the
Labor Party conferences earlier
this year and is now Labor Party
policy for the elections that will

POR SS SEA aa 2 me NE

take place at the end of the year.

They speak of the war in Viet-
nam as a dirty war, an unwinna-
ble war and they no longer have
a position of support in-any way
for this war, although they still
make some allowances for the
American alliance and their de-
sire to maintain a position with
the Americans. Actually they
are moving all the time into re-
thinking questions of foreign
policy and they even raise now
that such things as that the
SEATO pact should be rewritten
and become a kind of a cultural
aid organization.

But within the Labor Party,
of course, there is not one view.
The Labor Party represents a
variety. of trends of social de-
mocracy and there are extreme
right wing pressures. of which
the recent resignation of one
member of the Labor Party in
Parliament is an example.

Could you tell us something
about the type of activity that

trade unions are involved in, in
relation to the war in Vietnam? ~

You find trade unions in all
‘of the big demonstrations. Many
of the trade unions issue their
own leaflets advertising demon-
strations, informing their mem-
bers and educating the public in
general, about what are the is-
sues in Vietnam.

A very large number of trade
unions donated money and had
full page advertisements in the
daily newspapers taking issue
with the government on aspects
of its policy, and in particular
about the use of the conscripts.
The trade unions organized spe
cial meetings. a=

There have been trade union
teach-ins which have been quite
interesting developments because
the trade unions stood aside
when the teach-ins began and
they. were very largely directed
to students. Several trade unions
now have held such forms of
teach-in. In the railway work-
shop over a series of days at
lunch time the trade unions on

the job held sort of a running

teach-in, as it were. There were
speakers of various views on
different days including some
very reactionary speakers who
the workers heard out but it
was a very important education-
al forum because they were able
to compare the various view-

points both of those in favor of ~

involvement in the Vietnam war
and those who opposed it.

The trade unions have given a
very large amount of support to
the young people who have been
arrested in demonstrations and
have provided funds and legal
aid to many of the young people
who have sought -to fight the
conscription bill either as con-
scientious objectors or as draft
card burners or now as actually
refusing service.

The first boy who has come
up for trial is a young teacher
and the defense organization
received the assistance of the
teachers’ federation, teachers’
union.

There is one very interesting
case about trade union activity
and that’s the case of the Sea-
men’s Union. To give the back-
ground of this: the government
was faced with a rising opposi-
tion to the involvement of the
conscripts in war and the Gallup
Polls were showing that there
were about 60 percent of the
people opposed to the use of the
conscripts.

In my view, the government
was seeking some kind of diver-

_ difficulties of democracy, :
problem of the electoral districts

sion to take the heat off itself
and so it announced that those
Australian soldiers who were in
Vietnam were short of comforts,
they didn’t have enough tobacco,

beer and these sorts of things, —

and there were not enough naval

ships to take these things and —
so they were arranging for two —

of the ships of the National
Shipping Lines. Now the Sea-

men’s Union -is probably the -

most militant union in Australia.

Its general secretary is a Com-

munist, and many of its elected
leaders are Communists. The

union has taken a very definite
and strong stand in opposition —
to the U.S. imperialist war in

Vietnam.

I think the government assum-
ed that the Seamen’s Union
would refuse to man-the ships

and they would then be able to

enter into: a witch-hunt and

throw around all those favorite —

words. about patriotism and
traitors and so on. So the Sea-
men’s Union didn’t accommodate

the government. It instead ar-—
ranged ‘special stop work meet-

ings in every port of Australia

on one particular day. Questions —

were discussed very fully and

‘they decided first of all that

they were opposed to the aggres-
sion in Vietnam but they were
not opposed to the Australian
soldiers, many of whom, had
volunteered for the army long
before Vietnam had come onto
the agenda and many of whom

_ were conscripts and had had no

say in whether or not ‘they
would go there. :

Their opposition was directed

against the government’s policy

and not to the soldiers. They —

didn’t want to see the soldiers

left without comforts, on the —
other hand they didn’t want to

be tricked into sending war ma-

terials into Vietnam. They also —

decided that as this was a mat-

ter of going into a war zone that —

every one who went onto thes@
ships would go as a volunteer.

Before the ships went there were

demonstrations on the: dockside
with the seamen themselves
taking part, the crew, other sea-
men, other trade unionists, pe0-
ple from the peace movement.

’ The ships sailed out of Sydney
Harbor and into the harbors 1" —

Vietnam with great slogans
along the side saying that these
ships were peace ships. They

took those things which were
comforts for the troops. I un
derstand that when they were
in Vietnam they went out of
their way to speak with the Aus-
tralian soldiers.

The official position of the
Australian Council

in Vietnam.

What chance has the Labor

Party got in the coming elec-
tion?

I think they have quite a rea-
sonable chance. There are some

which tend to favor the govern-
ment party. It rather depends,
I think, on whether the govern-
ment can maintain some control
over a downward swinging econ-

omy in the next few months and
also how many casualties there

are in Vietnam in the coming
period. There was an enormous
reaction when the first conscript
was killed and there have been
many more casualties since and
all of this will have some effect

on whether the Labor Party will

come back into office.

inspected the cargoes and only

of Trade -
Unions is one of opposition t0
the use of conscripts and Aus- —
tralian involvement in the wat —

the =