Introduction - A Turbulent Decade: Social Protest Movement and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975

The Conference, 'Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975', was held in Sydney on September 22-23, 2001. It took place eleven days after Muslim militants crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York and into the Pentagon, and nine days after the Australian government, in consultation with the United States government, invoked relevant provisions of the ANZUS treaty equating an attack on the US as an attack on Australia's peace and safety. Australia was heading for military involvement in a war against the hapless, impoverished nation of Mghanistan - a war that US President George W. Bush ominously termed 'the first wa~ of the twenty-first century', as he pointed the finger at Islamic militant Osama bin Laden and made war against terrorism the focus of his Administration.