Australian General Strike

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Drain, Jackson and Scanion. They voted for the wage cutting 4½% pay deal!

knowing that more public spending cuts were on the way.

Almost three million workers struck against Australia's right wing Fraser government last Monday, paralysing the country in a 24 hour stoppage from midnight on Sunday.

Called by the Australian Coun cil of Trade Unions (ACTU) - the equivalent of the TUC in Britain -the strike was officially supported by all but three of Australia's 130 trade unions.

The official reason for the stoppage was the decision of Fraser's Liberal Party-National Country Party coalition (in effect a Tory government) to scrap the Medibank scheme for universal health care prepared by the Labour government last year, before Whitlam's administration was railroaded out in a rigged General Election called by the Governor General.

Fraser promised during the election campaign in November to keep Medibank, but now - along with many other cuts in public spending • he has effectively destroyed it.

The levy finance much higher than planned on wage-earners but lower on the ich and space is planned for a fl IUIishing "private sector" of the medical profession.

But the massive response to the strike call was not just about the health service. It showed the readiness of the Australian lat •OUT movement to take class action 1. to oust Fraser's reactionary gov ernment.

IMPOSED

Fraser was imposed in a snap General Election last December, manipulated by the Queen's representative as Governor General, former military intelligence officer, Sir John Kerr.

The strike is a huge blow at the efforts of ACTU chief Bob Hawke to reach an "agreement" with Fraser on limiting wage claims in return for tax concessions. It, shows that without the efforts of the trade union bureaucracy in holding action to a 24 hour protest stoppage, this anti-working class government could easily be toppled.