Robert Consedine was a CAFCA member from 1993 until his death in 2022, aged 79. He was also a regular and generous donor over that period to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income. Furthermore, he was an Old Addingtonian, whereas I have only lived in Addington since 1982. I was surprised one day by Robert and his brother, Jim, grinning in my window.

They said that they were on a walking tour of the streets of their mid-20th Century childhood. Becky and I used to run into Robert at our local cafe in recent years. One time he said to me: "Don't you think it's significant that we're meeting at a place called Oddfellows?" Cheeky bugger. Rest in peace, Bob, and many thanks for your decades of support. Murray Horton.

At Robert's September 2022 funeral, his brother, Jim, said he recently asked Robert how he was coping with pain and Robert replied that his feet were giving him what-oh, "but it is nothing compared to the sore feet of the people who are trudging across hot sands in North Africa, escaping violence, corruption and poverty at home, in order to get to the Mediterranean and escape to a better life in Europe". Putting others before self is integral to the Consedine family. From an early age Robert and his siblings were taught to do this by a combination of family ethos and Catholic Church social teaching.

Daughter Bernadette records how her father was "born into a large Irish Catholic working-class family in Addington" (Christchurch). Robert's parents impressed the value of service to others on their five children and led this by example. Robert's father, James Langan (Lang), was a committed Catholic who in Robert's words, "spent much of his spare time feeding the poor, visiting Addington Jail and Sunnyside Hospital". Others comment that Lang, as a carpenter, also spent a considerable amount of spare time helping neighbours repair their homes and working on community facilities.

Confronting Governments

Robert got his love of music from his mother Alfreda Caroline (Freda) who came from a family with strong political ties in Ireland. Bernadette relates how a distant relative, "was part of a rural guerrilla group engaged in the struggle against the payment of tithes in Tipperary, Ireland". He ended up being deported to Australia's convict colony. Sometime later a branch of that Irish/Australian family migrated to New Zealand.

Robert and his siblings so imbibed and pracised that tradition of Irish Catholic justice that in 1983, Norman Jones, Invercargill's then National Member of Parliament, called the Consedines "a well known Marxist family". John Wilson in "Local Lives", his 2018 history of Addington, records how the Consedine family sued Jones and won.

It wasn't the only time the Consedines resorted to litigation. In 1981 when Robert was imprisoned in Addington Prison and on a hunger strike during the Springbok tour of NZ, the then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon suggested it wasn't a true hunger strike as Consedine was amongst those "nibbling", (presumably snacks). Robert successfully sued Muldoon.

After schooling in Addington and St Bedes (where Robert felt out of place amongst the pupils from higher income families), his high profile as a Catholic youth leader in Addington was recognised in employment as full-time President of the Christchurch Catholic Youth Movement, with its' strong social justice emphasis on "See, Judge, Act". This led in 1967 to Robert becoming the youngest NZ delegate to the worldwide Catholic Church's Third World Conference of the Laity at the Vatican in Rome.

In 1968, we find him in Chicago involved in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and a year later in 1969 with wife Trish (nee Byrne) in Liege, Belgium, at the World Assembly of Youth conference. Robert writes that most of the liberation movements in the world were present including the African National Congress, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army and the Zimbabwe liberation movement. This was a seminal moment for Robert as he realised the devastating effect that colonisation had had in so many countries. It led Robert to read widely on the effects of colonisation including in Ireland, the USA and his own Aotearoa.

Robert wrote in 2001: "Much of what I read and learned shocked me. It occured to me that much of what had happened to Māori as a result of colonisation paralleled what had happened to my ancestors in Ireland. Making this connection enabled me to understand that healing history involved connecting my own ancestral story with the journey of my country".

"It also enabled me to stand alongside Māori and honour their struggle, while considering what this history meant to me as a Pakeha New Zealander" ("Healing Our History", p156). After a short stint as manager of St Vincent de Paul's shop in Stanmore Road, Christchurch, Robert in 1970 became the Canterbury regional staff person for the secular aid agency Corso.

A Passion For Justice

The Christchurch Barbadoes Street Corso building also housed Catholic Overseas Aid and the first Trade Aid shop in a NZ-wide movement founded by Vi and Richard Cottrell. Robert became a foundation director of Trade Aid but resigned when Trade Aid sales eventually topped $100,000, saying the movement had become too corporate!

Now allied strongly with Catholic Overseas Aid and in concert with its' NZ Director, Father John Curnow*, Robert and John Curnow were asked in 1973 by PM Norman Kirk to undertake a United Nations sponsored visit to the refugee camps in the north of Bangladesh "to determine the best way for New Zealand to provide food and medical assistance for an estimated 75,000 Bihari refugees". *Murray Horton's obituary of John Curnow is in Watchdog 68, October 1991, Ed.

During the late 1970s, Corso was wracked by internal divisions and eventually openly attacked by Muldoon in the 1980s. By 1977 Robert had had enough and moved onto Christchurch-based Presbyterian Support Social Services and then Community Volunteers. It was in 1981 that Robert was imprisoned in Addington Prison for protesting the Springbok rugby tour of NZ.

It was during this two week sentence that he rubbed shoulders with many Māori inmates and was so devastated by their stories of personal and organisational discrimination that on release from prison he was determined to do something about this injustice. In essence, and as Robert later put it, he wanted to tackle "White Privilege".

Bernadette Consedine describes the change in direction as Robert turning from "an international desire to 'save the world' to a passion for wanting to make a difference in Aotearoa his home". So was born what eventually became Waitangi Associates, which Penguin Books described in "Healing Our History" (2001 & 2005) as an organisation "that uses a combination of innovative educational strategies to assist the people of New Zealand in learning about and creatively confronting our colonial history".

However, the journey to Trish and Robert establishing Waitangi Associates was a tortuous one. Initially Robert was unsure where their new knowledge would lead them. Others were already working hard on race relations in NZ, including the Auckland Committee on Racism (ACORD), New Perspectives on Race (NPR) established by Nga Tamatoa and the Polynesian Panther Party. The National Council of Churches Programme on Racism was also deeply involved.

Waitangi Associates' immediate predecessor was Project Waitangi which, in 1985, achieved Government funding for a five-year education programme that "would help Pakeha learn about the Treaty of Waitangi". A small office was set up in Wellington and groups were formed around the country. As a co-founder of Prolect Waitangi in Christchurch, Robert became part of a team leading Treaty workshops and networking with Māori and Pakeha interested in the Treaty. The main emphasis, however, was on the majority Pakeha population.

It was hard work as there was a lot of resistance from Pakeha (and still is!). Meanwhile, Robert was also thinking laterally as illustrated in his 1984 published book "New Zealand (1984) Ltd" with it's main focus being on the dangers of New Right economics (commonly referred to as Rogernomics here in NZ). It had a local application when Robert became one of the leaders in a community-led Northeast Christchurch energy protest action and the call for a national debate on the price of electricity relative to income.

Robert records how as time went on, members of Project Waitangi became divided over how the Treaty workshops should be run. He wrote: "The classic dilemma of the Left, the conflicting ideologies of feminists, Christians, Marxists and trade unionists came to the fore". Robert believed all were "valid strands of the whole". The challenge was to keep the focus on racism, colonial history and the failure by Governments to honour agreement with indigenous peoples ("Healing Our History" p 159).

After 1990, the National government withdrew all funding from Project Waitangi which made Robert redundant in Christchurch. So, together with Trish, he developed an alternative Treaty education programme based solidly on learnings by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. So emerged Waitangi Associates which functioned for over three decades and offered Treaty workshops to over 30,000 people. I personally experienced the effectiveness of such a workshop when managing Trade Aid Importers; we contracted a workshop from Waitangi Associates for our Christchurch-based staff.

The history of Waitangi Associates is told in "Healing Our History" (Penguin 2001 & 2005) co-authored by Robert and daughter Joanna. The book is dedicated to the memory of Trish & Robert's eldest daughter Suzanne who died tradgically in an accident in 1993 at Outward Bound. The book is also dedicated to the memory of Robert & Trish's great friend, colleague and mentor, Dr Irihapeti Merenia Ramsden, NZOM, and in honour also of the Consedines' "Irish ancestors and indigenous peoples in their centuries of struggle for justice".

In 2005 Robert was invited to stand on the list for the Māori Party in their inaugural election campaign. Bernadette remembers that Robert was number six on the list, (though later at his request dropped to No 11 to make sure he didn't get elected!), and with his co-conspirator Colin Doherty, and Colin's bus "Billy", they drove primarily around the North Island for three months to support the kaupapa.

Deeply Human, Deeply Spiritual

In latter years, and despite failing health, Robert also helped his brother, Jim, in the production and distribution of the progressive Catholic publication The Common Good, and supported him and others in the establishment of a local Parihaka education group. I personally greatly enjoyed the buoyancy, friendship and boundless dedication to justice of Robert Consedine. His influence surely lives on in the many lives he and Trish touched.

With assistance from Jim Consedine, Bernadette Consedine, Richard & Vi Cottrell, Lynn Jackson, Trish Murray and Rodney Routledge.

LUKE TRAINOR

- Murray Horton

Luke died, in Wellington, aged 85, in March 2022. He'd had a long illness and covid finished him off. I knew him in five different capacities. One, he was my lecturer and tutor when I was a student at the University of Canterbury, at the former Town Site (now the Arts Centre), in the early 1970s. He was one of a cohort of teachers who honed my love of history, one which I still practise to this day, in publications such as Watchdog.

Two, he was a member of, and regular big donor to CAFCA from 1992 until his death. Three, likewise, he was a member of, and regular big donor to, the Anti-Bases Campaign from 1996 until his death. Four, as a result of his membership of both CAFCA and ABC, Luke was a regular pledger for years, nearly until his death, to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account which exists to provide my income. He was also a regular very generous donor to that Account in the 1990s and 2000s. I am truly grateful for his financial support for my work over many years.

And five, from 1993, he was a member of the former Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa until it closed down in 2021, reflecting his keen interest in that country. He was a regular generous donor to PSNA's various appeals for things like NZ speaking tours by leading Philippine activists. Rest in peace, Luke.

ROGER MOODY

- Murray Horton

Roger Moody died, in London in June 2022, aged in his late 70s. He personified internationalism, as evidenced by the tributes that poured in from around the world. He was a good friend of, and a valued partner of, CAFCINZ/CAFCA for decades. He was the London-based global expert on Rio Tinto (owner of the Bluff smelter) and we worked with him on that subject and mining transnationals in general.

"In 1980 a group of global activists met in South Dakota, United States, and agreed to start a campaign to expose Comalco's parent company, RTZ, as an example of the 'single-minded greed' of multinational mining companies and the impact of the operations of such companies on indigenous people around the world (B Rosenberg, 1981)".

"This led to a coalition being formed with People Against Rio Tinto Zinc and its Subsidiaries (PARTiZANS) in London acting as an umbrella group. Members included several British groups concerned about Third World underdevelopment and two Australian Aboriginal Land Councils. CAFCINZ was invited to join the coalition and took part in a week of action against RTZ in May 1981. The global centre of the week of action was a conference and 'tribunal' held in London on the weekend of May 9-10 that critically examined the activities of RTZ".

"PARTiZANS flew CAFCINZ's Bill Rosenberg to London as one of four overseas speakers, joining Les Russell and Joyce Hall representing Aboriginal groups in Australia and Randy Sweetnam, representing a community of Indians and settlers in Labrador Canada (B Rosenberg, 1981). All overseas speakers had their fares paid for" (extract from PhD thesis, Joe Hendren, University of Auckland, 2022, "Assessing The Impact Of National Political Civil Society Organisations In New Zealand: A Case Study Of The Campaign Against Foreign Control Of Aotearoa [CAFCA]").

NZ Speaking Tour

I stayed with Roger and his brother Pete in their highly idiosyncratic north London home in 1984 (in the course of a highly memorable three-month journey around Europe by rail). In 1990 CAFCA organised a two-week long NZ speaking tour for him, accompanied by me (in Christchurch he stayed at my home). The highlight was a rip-snorting public meeting in the mining town of Waihi. He is the only overseas speaker CAFCA has ever toured here.

Here's a tiny snippet from my report on his tour. "In CAFCA's experience (and that of all who have met him) only Owen Wilkes has demonstrated a comparable encyclopaedic grasp of his subject. He could speak for hours, without notes, on any aspect of mining and related development issues. He never gave the same speech twice ...We worked him at an exhausting pace, but he never complained. Amidst the frenzy, he managed to go for regular swims, play the piano, smoke cigars and drink Guinness" (Watchdog 66, March 1991)

That same March 1991 Watchdog contained Roger's detailed and vividly descriptive report on his NZ tour. "That Saturday is the highlight of the tour - a public meeting in Waihi... About one hundred and fifty people turn up... Moody gives, according to a report in the Waihi Leader, a 'command performance' covering the entire globe and putting the Martha Hill and Cypress (Waitekauri) mines in perspective".

"He also trounces the bunch of local miners; but only one of these dares to show his colours. His performance - bold though it is - rebounds completely against him, leaving the field open to local people to carry the day (one man dramatically pulling off his gold ring, thrusting it in the face of the opposition and demanding: 'Would you leave town if we all gave you these?' Heady stuff)".

"The mining lobby, outflanked and out-argued, makes two drastic errors: the first is to state that no mining company can ever guarantee safety from tailings dams collapses, and the second to dub Horton and Moody 'outsiders'. Ripe! - coming as it does from a group which represents two US companies and various Australian interests".

Not all the Coromandel excitement was at that Waihi public meeting. The night before was vividly etched into Roger's memory. To quote further from his report: "That night, (at Mark Tugendhaft's house in the Coromandel bush) despite exhaustion, am awakened by a massive gunshot next to my earhole. Mark's dog goes wild, I shoot out of bed, go to the landing (the house is on a hillside, overlooking a meandering stream), to see a miners' stalking party in the bushes, replete with shotgun and torch. They are coming to get me, even before the Waihi bloodbath. Fortunately, my host is at hand - or is he? Mark is, in fact, nowhere to be seen".

"Murray is flat out in his own dreamscape and can only groan in response to my 'What the fuck is going on?' I reach for a non-existent weapon... To die at the hands of CRA (Conzinc Riotinto of Australia), laid out on hand-hewn timber, my life ebbing into a crystal-clear stream... what could be more satisfying? Of course, it is not to be".

"Our gun-ho host has, in fact, shot himself a possum, the dog has wet his pants in anticipation of the prey, and the craven figure swishing through the bushes is none other than Mark, trying to find his nocturnal sacrifice". The two of us had a great time together in our two weeks on the road. "Murray is a gem and half. I've never known anyone talk like he does". 1990 was the last time I saw Roger.

In 1991 PARTiZANS and CAFCA co-published (and CAFCA put $1,000 into) Roger's book "Plunder" on Rio Tinto. He wrote many books and several of them were reviewed in Watchdog over a period of decades. To give the two most recent examples: Jeremy Agar reviewed "The Risks We Run" in Watchdog 111 (April 2006) and "Rocks And Hard Places: The Globalization Of Mining" in 115 (August 2007).

Roger was a great fan of CAFCA. After his NZ tour, he wrote to say it had been one of the best fortnights of his life. When we invited members to send us their comments to mark Watchdog's 100th issue, in 2002, Roger wrote: "There are few journals I always read - let alone from cover to cover. Watchdog is at the top of the list. It's a model of clarity in politics, integrity in its analysis, absence of bullshit and - that indispensable additive - good humour. Roger Moody, London".

Brotherly Love

Roger absolutely doted on his older brother Pete, who had Down's Syndrome. I saw that for myself when I stayed with the two of them in their London home. When I toured NZ with Roger in 1990, he would regularly ring Pete and start the conversation: "Is it Guinness today?" Pete measured time by whether it was a Guinness day or not. In 1986 Roger and Pete co-authored a remarkable book entitled "Half Left: The Challenges Of Growing Up 'Not Quite Normal'". I reviewed it in Watchdog 58, January 1988. It's worth reprinting.

"No, this book has little to do with foreign control. It has a lot to do with the politics of mental health. It sheds light on the life of one of our most valued international contacts and it is an extraordinary book in its own right. In 1984 I was privileged to spend time with Roger and Pete in their extraordinary north London home, a house that completely defines the phrase 'organised chaos'".

"Roger is a political contact from years ago and a fascinating person in his own right. Peter is 'intellectually handicapped', 'subnormal', a 'mongol', and all those other derogatory words. I was intrigued by the relationship between these brothers, a relationship based on trust and mutual love and when I learned this book was out, I jumped at the chance to learn more".

"Unlike other works on aspects of mental health, it is not by an academic expert. Nor is it by one 'normal' brother about his 'subnormal' sibling. They both wrote it. It does not treat Pete with the cutesy pie preciousness of calling him a 'special person'. He's an adult human being (nearly 50), warts and all. He approaches life with boxing gloves, not kid gloves. When told not to worry about someone taunting him, he replies: 'I'm not worried, I'll tell him to fuck off'".

"I well remember Pete with his extraordinary routines involving his watch, transistor, talcum powder and his encyclopaedias of movies. He is an expert on horror movies and many of the self-titled photo captions of him are headed 'Frankenstein and his Bride', etc. Pete has a finely tuned sense of humour. Roger is an internationally known political activist, but the book's title is nothing to do with politics. 'Are you all right, Pete? No, I'm half left'".

"Pete's extraordinary 'illuminated manuscripts' are reproduced and there are lengthy entries from his voluminous diaries. They all include detailed descriptions of what particular booze he drank that day. Guinness is his favourite - indeed, my copy is inscribed 'Love from Guinness Pete'. There are some extremely funny lines, intentional or not. Pete, the vegetarian: 'I'm not eating hens. They're made from animals'".

Roger Was The Compleat Englishman

One story will suffice. He was so considerate of the feelings of their dog Sadie (whom I met) that he would go to extraordinary lengths not to alert her that he was about to go away on one of his very frequent overseas trips, because he knew that would upset her. He told me that he packed for one trip to the US in the dark, for that reason. The result was that when he got there, he discovered that he didn't have a spare pair of trousers. Although I hadn't heard from, or of, him for many years, we continued sending him the online Watchdog and other CAFCA material until just a few months before his 2022 death, when his e-mail address stopped working. He was one of a kind. Rest in peace, old mate. Have a Guinness with Pete for us.

ROGER MOODY (1940s - June 2022)

- Andy Whitmore

Co-Chair of London Mining Network, with thanks for text from Richard Solly & Stuart Kirsch

Our dear friend, colleague and mining activist of many decades Roger Moody (known to Indian colleagues as Raja Modi) passed away on 6 June 2022. He died, apparently peacefully, in his flat in Islington, London. Eternally rumpled, usually attired in the tattered campaign t-shirt that was his daily uniform, Roger was perpetually juggling different papers and projects.

He was improbably essential to so many of the initiatives countering the problems caused by the mining industry and a legendary inspiration for how communities can respond to it. One of Roger's endearing, if frustrating, characteristics, was his unwillingness to reveal his age. So, respecting that, we'll only say he was born in Bristol at some time in the mid-1940s.

For many years, Roger cared for his older brother Peter, who had Down's Syndrome. Peter, who died in 1998, made a useful contribution to Roger's activism, particularly by defusing tense conversations with humour. Roger and Peter wrote a book about their life together, called "Half Left" (Peter would usually reply to the question "are you all right, Pete?" with the quip "no, I'm half left").

Roger actively promoted the rights and welfare of people with Down's Syndrome, and much of his passion for solidarity with those who are different from expected social norms sprang from his love and respect for his older brother. Roger's love of all life also led him to embrace veganism long before it became fashionable.

Roger was a Co-Editor of the British pacifist magazine Peace News in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Increasingly his work turned towards the abuses that were emanating from London as a centre for mining finance, including work to highlight the sanctions-busting associated with RTZ's (Rio Tinto Zinc, now just Rio Tinto) Rossing mine in what would become Namibia. He gradually morphed into a full-time mining researcher and activist, crucial to the process of building global alliances in the struggle to hold transnational mining companies accountable for the social and ecological consequences of their activities.

PARTiZANS, Minewatch, Et Al

Along with his friend Jan Roberts, Roger set up CIMRA (Colonialism and Indigenous Minorities Research and Action) to stimulate support for indigenous land rights struggles across the world. At the suggestion of Indigenous activists in 1978, those involved in CIMRA set up PARTiZANS (People Against Rio Tinto Zinc and its Subsidiaries) to work against the Anglo-Australian mining company RTZ for its multiple violations of indigenous rights.

PARTiZANS has remained a loose political collective over the years, and pioneered the technique of community representatives or their proxies attending company AGMs as "dissident shareholders" to raise issues of concern. In a particularly successful AGM, protestors managed to storm the stage, dislodging the company's Board and subsequently holding their own "alternative AGM".

Roger then helped to found the London-based Minewatch Collective in 1990, the global Mines and Communities network in 2001, and the London Mining Network (LMN) in 2007. Roger was instrumental in organising the first international meeting on Mining and Indigenous Peoples which took place in London in 1996.

It was through PARTiZANS, and particularly Minewatch, that many of us UK activists started working on mining-related solidarity, and had the pleasure to work with - and be mentored by - Roger. There are many memories of working out of the house that Roger lived in, buried deep in books and files, photocopying mining magazines to mail to partners across the world. The house always had visitors passing through, sometimes people who just needed somewhere to stay but often activists visiting from all over the world, to access the contents of the book shelves and Roger's brain.

Roger wrote many articles and books, including "Plunder!" (a history of RTZ to 1991), "The Gulliver File" (an encyclopaedic mapping of the inter-connected relationships between mining companies), "The Indigenous Voice" (a compendium of indigenous wisdom) and "Rocks And Hard Places" (an essential primer on the mining industry, why it is worthy of opposition and who is involved in that). Several copies of "Rocks And Hard Places" were spotted for sale at one of the most Establishment institutions around, the World Bank bookshop in Washington, DC. Even his ideological opponents saw the value in knowing his work.

Roger has had a formative influence on many people in many places and is credited with having brought people together into activist groups, taught people about mining, even being the catalyst for marriages. The vast affection in which he is held is clear from the tributes that were received from researchers and activists around the world, including India, Indonesia, Colombia, Ghana, Mongolia, Chile, Brazil, Serbia and the US.

He had a particular fondness for both India (especially the tribal region of Bihar) and Indonesia, and tried to travel to both as frequently as he could. In India his work with local activists laid the foundation for the Mines, Minerals and People national alliance. Roger was a compelling speaker, a zippy and indefatigable writer (and author of numerous books), and an indispensable source of wisdom and motivation in our collective endeavour.

He was unconventional in so many ways, with a general sense of mischief, and an irrepressible sense of humour, particularly where it came to the very British art of punning. He had a raft of aliases that he operated under, including Nostromo Research, Digby Knight and - once when corresponding with Rio Tinto - he chose to use the name of his pet dog, Ms Sadie Whippet.

As our American colleague Stuart Kirsch notes "he will be remembered by all of us for a great many things, but let me add one more, about which Roger and I would joke from time to time: if you look up the word codswallop ('ideas, statements or beliefs that you think are silly or not true') in the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest entry is appropriately linked to Roger's name, as he was most definitely the sort of fellow to call out codswallop when he saw it".

It is also true to say that Roger could be difficult to work with, and sometimes adopted contrarian positions almost as a way of testing people's commitment to their own views. Nonetheless, his massive influence in the creation of networks of activists against mining injustice across the world, and his personal influence on so many of us, is a tribute to his dedication to the cause. The shadow of his activism is vast, inspiring so many of us to work on mining issues. I suspect many younger activists are not aware of the role he had as a key initiator of the global tidal wave of anti-extractivist action. He created the space that many of us later occupied.

Life Of Activism

In more recent years, Roger had been less politically active. Declining health after what appeared at the time to be a stroke (though Roger, characteristically, refused medical assistance or diagnosis) left him unable to maintain his former level of activity or complete some of the projects that he had hoped to carry out (including a retrospective of lessons learned from the experiences of PARTiZANS).

Roger died as he lived, in financial debt. He never cared for money, and - despite being in constant financial difficulties because of his choice of lifestyle - would always give what little money he had to anyone he felt needed it. His friends clubbed together to ensure he was buried near to his cherished brother Pete in a green burial ground in Wrabness, to the east of London. It was an informal and moving funeral, although in typically Roger fashion was logistically challenged.

It turned out to be one of the hottest days in the UK's 2022 summer heatwave. The event was badly delayed as trains were running so late with the tracks buckling in the heat. Roger would have laughed approvingly. Two trees will mark their graves as the area is gradually returned to woodland. The movements and political organisations he has inspired will also continue to organically grow as a testament to his life of activism.

TERRY STUART

- Murray Horton

Terry Stuart became the South Island Secretary of the Seafarers' Union in 1972 (a position he held until the union closed its Lyttelton office in 1999 and Terry lost his job). From the start, the South Island office of the union was a generous supporter of CAFCINZ/CAFCA, donating hundreds of dollars over the years. Not just money either - twice, in the 90s, I travelled from Lyttelton to Wellington and back on a cargo ship, free of charge, courtesy of the union (once was with Becky and a friend of ours).

They were memorable trips - huge seas; dining with the captain; and being accused by the crew's cook - who had a beer in one hand and a big knife in the other - of being "a fucking academic planted on the ship by the union to spy on us but I'm not afraid of the fucking union" (all I wanted was breakfast, which I eventually got).

CAFCA and the union shared campaigns. In the 80s, we opposed the export of Buller coal; their angle was that they wanted jobs for New Zealand seafarers. A handful of CAFCA members travelled to Lyttelton to picket a coal carrier; a small army of seafarers poured out of the former British pub, and suddenly we had a crowd big enough to warrant a photo in the Press. Terry Stuart invited me to join him in his inspection of the ship - the captain, lounging in his cabin in his underwear and enjoying a Sunday whisky, was highly startled when we joined the party.

We supported the union when it fought deregulation of coastal shipping, joining pickets in ports. When the former TranzRail tried to smash the union on the Cook Strait ferries in the mid 90s, CAFCA joined midwinter dawn pickets at Christchurch Railway Station. We supported the union in the 90s when its assets were seized (including the Lyttelton office) in yet another attempt to smash it.

The Seafarers was a fighting union, holding pickets and waging campaigns for literally years at a time. Its' members and officials (including Terry Stuart) were arrested en masse in the course of these battles. They practised direct action (in the first few years of this century, the Seafarers Union became part of the Maritime Union of NZ. CAFCA remains on good terms with MUNZ). I never knew Terry personally, and lost contact with him after his more than a quarter of a century as a union official (he went back to sea briefly, then worked as a night watchman until he retired).

But, throughout those long years, I knew him as a good bloke, a good militant working class leader and a very good friend to CAFCA. Safe travels on your last voyage, Terry. For the full story of our (and my) relationship with the Seafarers' Union, see my obituary of Dave Morgan, the union's veteran national leader (and Terry Stuart's predecessor in the Lyttelton office), in Watchdog 153 (April 2020).

KEN DOUGLAS

- Murray Horton

I have no intention of writing a full obituary of Douglas, because he's not worth it. Jeremy Agar reviewed David Grant's biography of him, "Man For All Seasons", in Watchdog 125 (December 2010), so I refer you to that. When Douglas was a national leader of the pro-Soviet Socialist Unity Party (SUP), I actively opposed what he stood for.

Having visited both the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in the 1970s, I had no doubt that he had backed the wrong side in the bitter ideological divide which split the Second World (remember the Second World? I should add that since Communist China has regressed to being Capitalist China, proving that one party dictatorships and capitalism are a perfect match, my opinion of that country has changed drastically).

And as for the former SUP's domestic policy, which was to dampen down any popular movement that threatened the electoral chances of the Labour Party (which it saw as the best hope for workers), the less said the better. It exemplified all the worst characteristics of the trade union bureaucracy. CAFCA had only the most passing acquaintance with the SUP.

But it wasn't his leadership of the SUP that soured me on Douglas (by contrast, CAFCA developed a positive working relationship with Bill Andersen, who had been Douglas' fellow SUP national leader. You can read Paul Watson's obituary of Bill in Watchdog 108 (April 2005).

Betrayed Workers

No, it was something else that did it for me - and a huge number of others. A decision that had huge negative consequences and continues to do so to this day. Douglas' biographer David Grant wrote his Stuff obituary (1/10/22, "Ken Douglas - From 'Red Hot Commo' To The Corporate Boardroom")

Grant's obituary opens: "After the new National government, on May 15, 1991, passed the iniquitous Employment Contracts Act that emasculated the rights of trade unionists, thousands of blue-collar workers screamed foul and demanded that the Council of Trade Unions, led by its President, 'Red' Ken Douglas, call for an immediate general strike".

"Peter Galt, a Lyttelton-based seaman and union official, spoke for many when he wrote: 'The big man came to Christchurch to address the Town Hall full of workers. He said no, we haven't got the power to take on the Government. The whole meeting was against him, screaming 'Strike, strike, strike!' Nobody could believe it. Here was this red-hot commo; we thought he'd push it through for us. He didn't. Ah Jesus; it was the saddest day of my life'. These men were not alone. Many other epithets - traitor, scab, chicken-shit coward, class collaborator - were flung his way at the mere mention of his name".

As a rank-and-file Christchurch railway worker I was one of the thousands in the Christchurch Town Hall that day in 1991 - and I'm happy to add my name to those flinging the above-mentioned epithets at Douglas. The sell-out by him and the rest of the then leadership of the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) was one of monumental proportions, and one which still reverberates to this day (as for me, I was made redundant within months, after 14 years as a railway worker).

Douglas and co rolled over and allowed the destruction of the trade union movement and the massive disadvantaging of all New Zealand workers, whether unionised or not. Hard won pay and conditions were lost that have never been recovered; the nature of work became low paid, contractualised, casualised and precarious. The percentage of workers in unions plummeted. And unions have never been legally allowed to venture back into the world of "political" industrial action, even if they wanted to.

If you want a stark contrast, read my obituary of Terry Stuart (above) or my obituaries of veteran Seafarers' Union national leader, Dave Morgan (Watchdog 153, April 2020) and of the Trade Union Federation (TUF), made up of unions which briefly split from Douglas' CTU (Watchdog 96, April 2001).

Douglas peddled a "realistic" message of "partnership" between unions, employers and the State. The ruling class ignored that and took it as the signal to successfully wage class war on workers and unions. No wonder they feted Douglas with directorships and honours. The Douglas years represented the absolute nadir of NZ unionism in recent decades.

But fortunately, things have improved since then (for example, see Bill Rosenberg's obituary of CTU President Helen Kelly in Watchdog 144 (May 2017). And as for Douglas' claim that "we haven't got the power to take on the Government", that's bullshit. Just consider another 1990s' all-out attack on workers and unions, namely that on Australian waterside workers.

The unions involved fought back hard against both the bosses and the Tory government, and they won at least a partial victory (unlike the Douglas CTU's unconditional surrender). There's an old working-class slogan - if you don't fight, you lose. In the 2000s Douglas had gastric bypass surgery to shrink his stomach and lost a huge amount of weight. He needn't have bothered. He was gutless long before that.

THE QUEEN

- Murray Horton

There is irony in the unintentional coincidence that the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa was held on the same day (September 26) as the holiday announced to commemorate the Queen, the embodiment of the oldest form of foreign control of this country. In our defence, we had booked the date months before and would not have chosen it if we'd known it was going to be a holiday and a long weekend.

The fact of the matter is that CAFCA has devoted little or no time to ever discussing, let alone campaigning about, the monarchy (you'll find precious few mentions of the Queen in Watchdog over the decades). It seems so glaringly obvious to us that it's a nonsense that Aotearoa's Head of State should be a foreign monarch on the other side of the world, some faded relic of empire.

My Dear Old Mum lived on a diet of the Australian Woman's Weekly and the New Zealand Woman's Weekly, the covers of which always seemed to feature either the Queen or the Queen Mother (wearing one of her hideous hydrangea hats). As a primary schoolkid in first Wellington and then Christchurch, I was among thousands compelled to line up and wave at various members of the Royal Family as they swept by.

By the time I was a teenager and had learnt to think for myself, I parted company with all that old imperialist bullshit. I'm old enough to remember when "God Save The Queen" was our national anthem. It used to be played before the pictures in the picture theatre (what we now call the movies in the cinema) and you were expected to stand up for it. This, in itself, became a political battlefield - I was one of the many who regularly refused to stand (I had issues with both God and Queen). Eventually, NZ got its own national anthem (still featuring God), and it is never played at the movies.

In 1970, when I was a leading light in the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM), Prince Charles visited Christchurch and hosted a garden party at Mona Vale to which "youth representatives" were invited. PYM wasn't, so we announced we would protest at it. We launched a hare-brained scheme to build a raft (a section of assembled fence was pinched from a building site for the purpose) and float it down the Avon, through Mona Vale during the garden party.

From memory, we discussed pelting the toffs and their flunkeys with something (pies?). The raft never happened and we later learned that the place was swarming with cops, grills were placed to stop any vessels passing under the bridge giving access to Mona Vale, and that security men wearing thigh waders were ready to plunge into the river to thwart any aquatic protesters.

As it turned out, it rained on the day and PYM called off its scheduled march. And didn't we get arseholes for that, from both the media and our ideological rivals on the Left (PYM did later get the satisfaction of pelting toffs with something - eggs - namely, senior military officers and local dignitaries and their wives and hangers on, in all their finery, at a Christchurch social function to mark the arrival of a new warship, during the Vietnam War. And very satisfying it was, too).

The Imperialist Horror Behind The Pomp & Ceremony

I've never had that colonial fascination with the monarchy. I don't recall ever having had to swear allegiance to the Queen (Becky had to, including to her "Heirs and Successors", when she became an NZ citizen in the 90s). I've spent time in London, and although I made a point of visiting Karl Marx's grave, I never went near Buckingham Palace. I couldn't even tell you where it is in London.

But I did visit York Cathedral and there witnessed the full horror of what lies behind the "pomp and ceremony" so much on display during the global orgy of forelock tugging that accompanied the Queen's 2022 funeral. York Cathedral boasted a whole collection of regimental flags marking the imperial wars of Mother England, including one for the "Māori Wars" (I must have put a curse on the place. Later that same year - 1984 - it was hit by lightning and severely damaged by fire. Perhaps there is a God after all).

Apologists say that the British Empire wasn't so bad - think about the English language, sense of humour, cricket and railways, all of which I agree are Good Things. They tend not to mention slavery, centuries of war, oppression, exploitation, dispossession, mass murder and theft on a global scale. The British Royal Family sits at the top of that particular dung heap.

As for the Queen as a person, I found things to admire (this is common among people who oppose the monarchy but not necessarily the individual monarch). Her reign was so long that this is the first time I've ever done an obituary for a UK/NZ Head of State. Her longevity was extraordinary. Mind you, if I was pushing 100 and the only thing to look forward to was that buffoon Boris Johnson coming to see me every week, I think I'd turn up my toes also.

I respected her for her lifelong adherence to duty and service, which are admirable qualities (although I draw the line at her "sacrifices" which were posthumously lauded. Come on. What bloody sacrifices did the world's richest woman ever have to make?). But duty and service to what exactly? The preservation of the ancien regime, a truly archaic system of government, the very antithesis of democracy.

Meddling In Politics

And don't be fooled by claims that the monarchy plays no role in actual politics via its local Governors General. I lived in Sydney in 1975 when the Governor General fired Gough Whitlam's elected Labor government, effectively conducting a bloodless coup (see my obituaries of Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, his Liberal successor as Prime Minister, in Watchdog 138, April 2015).

The Royal Family was hands on in that disgraceful affair, as detailed in "The Palace Letters" by Jenny Hocking (reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Watchdog 156, April 2021) Those letters - which the powers that be in both the UK and Australia fought tooth and nail to keep secret - were between the Governor General and the likes of Prince Charles, who backed the decision to fire Whitlam.

And don't think that this vice regal political interference was a one off from 50 years ago. In 2022 it was revealed that the immediate past Australian PM, the unlamented Scott Morrison, had secretly and quite improperly appointed himself to a number of Cabinet portfolios during the pandemic. Not even his Cabinet Ministers knew about it, let alone the Australian people.

Who was his essential collaborator in this major attack on democracy? The Governor General, who signed it off and swore Morrison in. So, fair enough, let the Poms make their own decision about their system of government. That's their business. But why should it also be imposed on us? My Victorian-era grandmother always referred to England as Home (although she never went there). Well, it's time to leave Home.