Rod Pickette
Rod Pickette is the Policy Executive Officer at Maritime Union of Australia, Canberra.
Education
Rod Pickette was a student in the Economics and Politics Depts. at University of Sydney in the 1970s.
Kevin Cook connection
Kevin Cook was taking an active role in NSW political life, becoming involved in the Labor Party's Aboriginal Affairs Policy Committee, with Bob Bellear, Rod Pickette and Meredith Burgmann.
Cook also played an integral role at this time in founding the Trade Union Committee on Aboriginal Rights (TUCAR), based initially at Tranby, which provided a point of connection between Aboriginal political activists and campaigns with the union movement.
Cook worked alongside unionists such as Meredith Burgmann of the Union of Academic Staff, Rod Pickette of the Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees Association, and Sergio Zorino of the Federated Engine Drivers’ and Fireman’s Association.
Soon TUCAR was meeting at the NSW Trades and Labor Council and was playing an active role in ‘informing unions about Aboriginal goals and seeking union support for Aboriginal campaigns.’
Cook later recalled the significance of TUCAR’s meetings:
‘… when TUCAR [was] meeting at Tranby, the students would be involved because they’d see white people coming into the organisation, sitting down and they could sit there with them. And they could see that the white people weren’t leading the discussions. At the TUCAR meetings, the Aboriginal people would lead the discussions and the trade union movement would back them. That’s what we asked them to do.’[1]
Chile demo
On 11 September 1974, demonstrations against the repression in Chile took place as scheduled in several locations in Australia.
In Sydney, a statement supporting the demonstration and demanding an open platform at LAN Chile was endorsed by Peter McGregor, Mike Matterson and Dorothy Coates of the Sydney Anarchist Group; Bob Gould; NSW MLA George Petersen; Henry Mayer, a professor at Sydney University; David Scott (AMWU member); T. Parnell (Hurstville Resident Action Group); Peter Tieman, Rod Pickette, Brian Dale (YLA members); the Spartacist League; and a number of individuals.
Also approached were the Healyite Socialist Labour League (SLL); the Glebe-Balmain branch of the CPA; the Newcastle Young Communists; the Pablo-Pabloite Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (RMT); and Jim Baird and Senator Arthur Gietzelt, two of the scheduled CSCP speakers.
The SWL and CL refused to support the statement. The Glebe-Balmain CPA pleaded unclarity on the events, after the intervention of Denis Freney against an open platform. Baird explicitly rejected an open platform. Gietzelt professed his "sympathy" but refused to do anything on grounds of expediency. Also chickening out was the RMT, because they did not want to be identified with the issue during the "crucial" Leichhardt Council election -campaign then in progress.[2]