“TOGETHER WE have made history today”, Adam Bandt declared, as he became the first Green to win a lower house seat in a general election. The surge to The Greens shows that, despite Gillard’s effort to race Abbott to the right, larger numbers than ever want a left-wing alternative.

By securing the support of Greens MP Adam Bandt and key ex-National independents Julia Gillard has held on to power—but only just. The fact that we have come so close to an Abbott government is a stark warning.

With independent MPs positioned to determine who forms the next government there has been all sorts of talk about the beginning of a different kind of politics in Canberra. But there is nothing progressive about a swing to the right that boosted the Liberal vote and produced a hung parliament that came within a few seats of making Tony Abbott prime minister.

Large swings to the Greens in the Northern Territory have shown the anger at the NT Intervention and its continuation by Labor. But they are also evidence of the impact of the campaign against the Intervention—which continued to build through the election period.

BOTH JULIA Gillard and Tony Abbot went to the election with proposals to extend offshore processing—to East Timor (Gillard) or Nauru (Abbott).

Hawke and Keating’s Accord agreement was designed to hold back wages and conditions and weakened union power, argues Feiyi Zhang

The workers’ rebellion in the Eastern European state of Hungary in 1956 shows how real socialism is possible, argues Clare Fester