Mark Aarons | |
---|---|
Born | 25 December 1951 71) Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia | (age
Occupation | Journalist |
Parent(s) | Laurie Aarons, Carole Arkistall |
Mark Aarons (born 25 December 1951) is an Australian journalist and author. He was a political adviser to New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.
Aarons was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, but he was brought up in Sydney. He was educated at Fairfield Boys High School and North Sydney Boys High School. He is the son of the late Laurie Aarons, former secretary of the Communist Party of Australia. Aarons was also a member of the Communist Party of Australia from 1969 to 1978, and a Young Communist organiser in 1977. [1]
Aarons' activism started at North Sydney Boys High School in the mid-1960s, especially in organising students to protest the Vietnam War. His 1986 ABC radio documentary series Nazis in Australia prompted the Bob Hawke government's inquiry into war criminals and formation of Special Investigations Unit. [2] [3]
Aarons contends that right-wing authoritarian regimes and dictatorships backed by Western powers committed atrocities and mass killings that rival the Communist world, citing examples such as the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 and the killings associated with Operation Condor throughout South America. [4]
The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been in a steady decline since its peak in 1945. Like most communist parties in the west, the party was heavily involved in the labour movement and the trade unions. Its membership, popularity and influence grew significantly during most of the interwar period before reaching its climax in 1945, where the party achieved a membership of slightly above 22,000 members. Although the party did not achieve a federal MP, Fred Paterson was elected to the Parliament of Queensland at the 1944 state election. He won re-election in 1947 before the seat was abolished. The party also held office in over a dozen local government areas across New South Wales and Queensland.
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