John Howard celebrated ten years in power last night at the Westin Hotel, and we were there to tell him no one is celebrating these ten years, except the rich and powerful. Workers, students, refugees, gays, women, Muslims and many more have been attacked, terrorized, discriminated against, and systematically neglected under Howard’s reign of Australian capitalism.

Under Howard’s grip of capitalism, he has made the bosses very happy. He has wound back worker’s rights to make sure the bosses can squeeze every bit of profit out of the workers of this country. Students have seen their funding cut year after year, and their unions destroyed in order to attempt to destroy a fundamental part of the opposition to his government.

And every minority in this country has been demonised and persecuted in order to divert attention away from Howard’s attacks on workers and students. Racism, sexism and homophobia are necessary parts of the capitalist system in order to keep making a profit. And John Howard has been a master of maintaining this system and that is why the past ten years have been so bad.

Howard, government, capitalism, politics, minorities